May 23, 2007, 7:59 PM CT

Follow the 'green' brick road?

Scientists have observed that bricks made from fly ash--fine ash particles captured as waste by coal-fired power plants--may be even safer than predicted. Instead of leaching minute amounts of mercury as some scientists had predicted, the bricks apparently do the reverse, pulling minute amounts of the toxic metal out of ambient air.

Each year, roughly 25 million tons of fly ash from coal-fired power plants are recycled, generally as additives in building materials such as concrete, but 45 million tons go to waste. Fly ash bricks both find a use for some of that waste and counter the environmental impact from the manufacture of standard bricks.

"Manufacturing clay brick requires kilns fired to high temperatures," said Henry Liu, a longtime National Science Foundation (NSF) awardee and the president of Freight Pipeline Company (FPC), which developed the bricks. "That wastes energy, pollutes air and generates greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming. In contrast, fly ash bricks are manufactured at room temperature. They conserve energy, cost less to manufacture, and don't contribute to air pollution or global warming".

Once colored and shaped, the FPC bricks are similar to their clay counterparts, both in appearance and in meeting or exceeding construction-material standards......... Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source

Mon, 21 May 2007 15:04:14 GMT

Hot Tips For Quality Link Building

Link building proves to be a never ending topic for search engine optimization experts. In fact, the talks about link building have not subsided since 2003. The talks are heightened when the need to discuss how link building could boost Google's PageRank emerged. The discussion did not mellow a bit when the strategies in fighting for positioning with specific keywords became a hot issue.

Remember that search engines play crucial role in your web search rankings. In link building, here are the parameters that you need to consider:

1. Search engines put great weight on links that came from related websites.
2. The spiders also consider the page rank (at least PR3) of websites involved in link building.
3. Never let your website get listed on a Free for All (FFA) links page.
4. Keep away from websites associated to gambling or porn.

If you desire top search engine rankings, you should really take the time and effort to do link building the right way. Posted by: noel      Read more     Source

May 17, 2007, 7:32 PM CT

Challenging Findings In Jfk Assassination

Scientists at Texas A&M University are combining statistics and chemistry to shoot holes in traditional bullet-lead analysis techniques and the accuracy of so-called "expert" testimony specifically, calling into question critical evidence that has long supported the theory of a lone gunman in the 1963 assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy.

In challenging the evidence for the lone-gunman theory, Cliff Spiegelman, professor of statistics at Texas A&M and an expert in bullet-lead analysis, recently teamed with former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent and forensic scientist William A. Tobin of Forensic Engineering International in Virginia and William D. James, a research chemist with the Texas A&M Center for Chemical Characterization and Analysis (CCCA). Together, they conducted a chemical and forensic analysis of bullets reportedly derived from the same batch as those used by suspected assassin Lee Harvey Oswald to gun down Kennedy on that fateful day at Dealey Plaza.

Their findings, which show that evidence used to rule out a second assassin is fundamentally flawed, will be published in a forthcoming edition of "Annals of Applied Statistics." The paper currently is available online at http://www.imstat.org/aoas/next_issue.html........ Posted by: Tom      Read more         Source

May 17, 2007, 7:19 PM CT

Oak Ridge High Flux Isotope reactor back on line

The research reactor at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory is back in action and better than ever. After $70 million in renovations and more than a year of meticulous system checks, ORNL's High Flux Isotope Reactor was restarted this week, taken to 10 percent power, and reached its peak power of 85 megawatts Wednesday.

"The restart has gone well," said Kelly Beierschmitt, HFIR executive director. "This reactor's design is rigorous and robust. Its performance has been stellar from both an operational and a safety perspective.

"We still have work to do, but we are extremely pleased with our progress so far."

Built in 1966, HFIR is internationally known as a neutron source for materials studies and isotope production. The reactor returns with a suite of new experiment instruments, beam lines to channel neutrons, a new beryllium reflector, and other upgrades.

In October, powerful refrigeration systems were added to cool the reactor's neutron beams to minus 425 degrees Fahrenheit. The intense cold slows the neutrons and lengthens their wavelength, allowing researchers to study "soft" materials such as proteins and polymers and to analyze materials with certain magnetic properties.

The restart marks HFIR's 408th cycle. Each cycle represents about 25 days, the time it takes for the reactor to use up its uranium fuel......... Posted by: Tom      Read more         Source

May 17, 2007, 5:32 AM CT

Testing the taser on human subjects

There has been some controversy regarding the use of the Taser in controlling subjects in police custody, including reports of deaths. In a paper to be presented at the 2007 Society for Academic Emergency Medicine (SAEM) Annual Meeting, preliminary results of Taser exposure on healthy subjects will show that no short-term effects were observed.

Human volunteers from law enforcement agreed to receive a single, 5 second exposure from a Taser X26, a model reported to be used by more than 30% of police agencies in the United States. Cardiovascular and blood parameters were measured before exposure and for 60 minutes afterwards. Systolic and diastolic blood pressures, heart rate, calcium, sodium, potassium, bicarbonate and lactate levels and blood pH were measured in 32 subjects. Systolic blood pressure decreased after the Taser due to a likely heightened anxiety before the test. Other measures changed slightly, but there were no clinically significant or lasting changes in the subjects noted during the one-hour observation period.

As per the author, Gary Vilke, MD, Professor of Clinical Medicine,.

Director, Clinical Research for Emergency Medicine, University of California, San Diego Medical Center, Evaluating in-custody deaths following use of a Taser is a process that requires looking at the totality of the event. It is like putting a puzzle together. The data from this study help shape another piece of the puzzle by looking at the physiological effects of a single Taser activation in human subjects......... Posted by: Tom      Read more         Source

Tue, 15 May 2007 05:56:06 GMT

MySpace Introduces 'Take Down Stay Down'

MySpace earlier launched groundbreaking software designed to prevent users from reposting unauthorized copyright content.

In a press release, the social networking website divulged:
Take Down Stay Down-, an innovative new feature for copyright holders that prevents users from re-posting video content in the MySpace community after that content has been removed at the request of the copyright owner. MySpace is the first internet company to launch this type of sophisticated content protection feature, which it is offering to all copyright owners free of charge.

"MySpace is pleased to be the first website to implement a more effective solution to this challenging problem. This is a ground-breaking and unprecedented benefit for copyright owners that re-enforces MySpace's position as the leader in copyright protection on the internet," said Michael Angus, EVP and General Counsel for Fox Interactive Media.

How does it work?
When a content owner informs MySpace that a user has improperly posted its content onto MySpace Videos, not only is the video promptly removed by MySpace, but MySpace also creates a digital fingerprint of the video content and adds it to its copyright filter, which is based on industry-leading Audible Magic technology. If any user tries to upload the same content that has been removed, the filter will recognize the digital fingerprint and block the content from being uploaded. Posted by: noel      Read more     Source

Tue, 15 May 2007 05:54:11 GMT

Google Algorithm and the Confusion

Indeed, the number one online business killer is for your website not to be found on the first page of Google. The search engine giant accounts for about 50% of web search traffic. According to comScore data, in February 2007, Google sites garnered 47.5% of the U.S. search market, with Yahoo! coming in second place at a distant 28.1%.

Earlier, MSNBC's Jon Rognerud, wrote an article titled The No. 1 SEO Tip. The article said: "Google contains more than 100 algorithms that make it the world's most popular search engine. One of those is PageRank, a complex voting system I'll cover in a future article. Another important secret, which has been around for a while, but not utilized by most webmasters, is latent semantic indexing."

Ooopss. Something is wrong. And you could have noticed it too. Google has only 1 algorithm but with hundreds of constantly changing components. SEO enthusiasts should be wary about this fact. Also, it should be noted that not all search engines are utilizing latent semantic indexing. Posted by: noel      Read more     Source

Tue, 15 May 2007 05:49:34 GMT

German Steelmaker Chooses US Site for New Steel Plant

German steelmaker ThyssenKrupp has announced on Friday it will construct a new $4.19 billion steel plant in Alabama, which has attracted other German companies, including DaimlerChrysler in recent years. The firm, one of the world’s largest steelmakers, also reported that its second-quarter net profit fell 44 percent due to a multimillion-dollar fine levied by the European Union. The Duesseldorf-based company, whose products range from automotive parts and elevators to slabs of steel, earned €244 million in the January-March period, compared with €441 million a year earlier. The construction of the steel plant would also mark the one of the largest industrial investments in the USA by a foreign corporation in several years.

The board of ThyssenKrupp, meeting in Dsseldorf, Germany, has selected the site for the steel plant that will provide 29,000 construction jobs and 2,700 permanent factory jobs when it starts operating in 2010. The firm had taken the final decision after considering 67 locations in 20 states and the company has pointed the decision to sites in Alabama and Louisiana. Both states have enticed the steelmaker with incentives worth about $300 million for new roads, tax breaks, workers training and site preparation.

However, for Alabama, engaging the massive ThyssenKrupp deal would top almost 15 years of success attracting foreign companies such as Mercedes-Benz, Airbus and Hyundai. ThyssenKrupp conducted extensive due diligence and negotiations to choose a location for the construction of a new facility in the US.

In an official communiqu, Bob Soulliere, president and CEO of ThyssenKrupp Steel and Stainless USA, said, ‘factors in selecting Alabama included ‘logistical considerations of the company’s supply chain from Brazil to our projected customers; operating costs such as electricity and labor; and site specific capital expenditures.’ The plant will have annual capacity of 4.1 million metric tons of carbon steel end products.

ThyssenKrupp had also amplified its planned investment from $2.9 billion as it has planned to produce more steel at the new plant. The company in its statement said, ‘Higher capacities and extended plant configurations were shown to be feasible and economic’. The plant, which will produce flat carbon steel and stainless steel, will have the capacity to produce up to 5.2 million metric tons of steel a year. More than half of that will be made from steel slabs shipped from the company’s mill in Brazil.

The company has further said that it wanted to ‘substantially expand’ its stainless steel business in North America, and that the Alabama project was ‘a central element of ThyssenKrupp Stainless’ growth strategy.’Image


Read Posted by: Balendu      Read more     Source

Tue, 15 May 2007 05:47:32 GMT

Find a Job and Make Some Friends

The first online social networking site for people who are uLayoffspace.com is a place where the unemployed can get together and network to help them find jobs that they want.

Chat with other unemployed people to share ideas about how to go about finding the job of your dreams. Keep a blog telling about how your job search is going and what you're looking for in a job. Meet recruiters and career coaches that can help you on your way.

Be careful what you post on your Layoffspace site though. Employers will be looking through your site before they hire you. They're looking for reasons why they should hire you or not hire you. If you have good information on your site about you then you have a better chance of getting a good job. If you post anything negative it could cost you. Posted by: Linda Roeder      Read more     Source

Tue, 15 May 2007 05:44:31 GMT

Should He Be Expelled for This?

A student from Iowa Western Community College was expelled for making a comment on his blog that was considered by the college to be a threat to the school. His comment said that some of the people in the dormitory "need to be shot."

In light of what happened recently at Virginia Tech the school is taking this comment very seriously and expelled him without even talking to him about it.

Some people scream when they're angry, some go for long walks. Some people say or write things in anger that they would never act on, they do this to relieve their anger. A lot of people blog about things going on in their day and like to add their thoughts to the facts of the blogs. That's what this young man says he was doing.

Harmless? or Dangerous?

Was Iowa Western Community College justified in expelling him? Or should they consider other alternatives?

Read the whole story. Posted by: Linda Roeder      Read more     Source