Education ? Change in taxing aims to equalize funding between rich and poor areas of the state.
A bill aimed at making school funding more equal across Utah earned committee approval Wednesday despite concerns that it could mean higher property taxes in most school districts.
SB81 seeks to address what many have said is an ongoing problem in Utah education: Some school districts aren?t able to spend as much money on students as others, despite higher local property tax rates, simply because they?re in poorer areas of the state. Utah schools are funded largely through income tax, which is already distributed equally per student across the state, but property taxes also make up part of the school funding pie.
The bill aims to help fix the disparity in property tax funding by essentially collecting more property tax revenue over time at the state level while potentially decreasing the amount collected at the district level.
SB81 would freeze a state property tax rate ? known as the basic rate ? that normally decreases as property values rise. That would mean more money collected by the state, and then equally distributed to schools, as property values rose over time. Meanwhile, school districts would be required to lower one of their local property tax rates by the same amount to keep taxpayers from paying more money overall.
School districts would, however, be allowed to hold truth-in-taxation hearings to keep their local property taxes steady if they felt the need.
"Over time, this will, in fact, significantly improve equity of revenue per student," bill sponsor Sen. Aaron Osmond, R-South Jordan, told committee members Wednesday.
Sen. Howard Stephenson, R-Draper, who has been pushing for equalization measures for years, also applauded the approach. He said the current system is unfair because it leads to a district like Park City spending more than $10,000 per student while a district like Nebo spends less than $6,000, despite a much higher local property tax rate than Park City.
"This begins to correct that," Stephenson said. "Slowly, over decades, we will see this huge disparity start to close and we will say we as a legislature care as much about kids in Tintic [district] as we do about kids in Park City."
But Sen. Patricia Jones, D-Holladay, said the bill would inevitably lead to most districts having to raise or hold steady their local property taxes to make up for the otherwise automatic decrease in local taxes in the bill.
"I can?t imagine a school district being so flush with money they?re not going to need to replace those funds," Jones said.
story continues below
Tim Leffel, representing business administrators and superintendents across the state, noted that the bill would likely mean truth-in-taxation hearings in 25 of the state?s 41 school districts next school year. Leffel, who is finance director in the Davis District, said districts shouldn?t have to hold truth-in-taxation hearings just to maintain the amount of local taxes they now already collect.
Unless they held hearings to keep their local property tax rates steady, those 25 districts could lose, overall, from $30 in the Wayne District to $162,000 in Park City.
The Senate Education Committee approved the bill 5-1 on Wednesday and it now heads to the Senate floor.
Copyright 2013 The Salt Lake Tribune. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
One great thing about being a car guy with a TV show and a website is that I hear from lots of people who want to sell me cars. Most are Ford Granadas?those really rare ones with the fake hubcaps?but every now and then something interesting comes my way.
Take the 1962 Daimler SP250 I'm currently restoring. The original owner, a man named William Brzozowski, lived in Baltimore and never garaged the car. It sat outside in the snow and the rain for 40 years. Bob Brzozowski,? William's nephew, inherited the car when his uncle died. He ?wanted to restore it but didn't have the room at his place in upstate New York, or the ?money. He contacted me, we talked a lot, and I offered a very fair price, considering that the car hadn't run in 10 years and would need pretty much everything. Buying a vehicle sight unseen is a cardinal sin for car enthusiasts, so you can consider? me the president of the More Money Than Brains Car Club. But this SP250 intrigued me: It had wire wheels and a removable hardtop, both rare accessories.
When I was growing up in Massachusetts, everybody had a four-door Ford or Chevy. I remember going to the local bowling alley and seeing a red SP250 and thinking, what a weird-?looking car. It had tiny fins, bug-eye headlights, and an oval grille that earned it the nickname the Angry Catfish. But it had a peppy little 140-hp 2.5-liter Hemi V-8 engine that was designed by Edward Turner, the famous BSA motor?cycle engineer.
When the car first appeared in the U.S. in 1959, at the New York Auto Show, it was called the Daimler Dart. But Dodge was already using that name, so Daimler quickly swapped in the much snappier SP250. At a time when most English sports cars had drafty side curtains, the SP250 had roll-up windows. Even better, it weighed only about 2200 pounds, had four-wheel disc brakes, and could top out at almost 125 mph. But sales were never good: Just 2848 SP250s were made, in three series, before they were discontinued in 1964. About 500 of them ended up in the U.S., so they're rare.
After buying the car, I had it shipped from upstate New York to my Big Dog Garage in Southern California, where the first thing we did was check for bugs. Here's why: When I was in high school, I had a Hudson Hornet that I let sit outside all winter. That spring, when it wouldn't start, I got under the dashboard to try to find out why and was immediately stung by a bunch of bees. I got some bug spray and doused the entire vehicle. A week later, I slid under the car and a garden snake landed on my chest, which scared the hell out of me. Luckily, the SP250 was filled only with spiders and ants. So we covered it in plastic, fumigated it with cans of Raid, and let it sit for three weeks.
Like I said, the car didn't run, but that was fine with me. If you have to restore the engine and wiring anyway, why pay for the fact that it's working? A running car might cost $10,000 more than something that hasn't been ?started in 25 years.
The good news was that the car itself was in pretty good condition. There was one little issue with the frame, where it had been backed into something, but the fiberglass body was fine. And there wasn't any rust.
Whenever you take a car apart, it's essential to photograph every piece as you go along. If you don't meticulously document a car with pictures when you start a restoration, you'll never be able to put it back together. At my garage, we shoot pictures of everything and store them in the computer. In the old days, you had to run down to the photo mart and wait for your pictures to be developed. That was a pain in the neck. Now you can take thousands of images, and it doesn't cost anything. So there's no excuse not to catalog.
But you don't take everything apart all at once. You just want to disassemble whatever you're working on first. The nice thing about body-on-frame cars like the SP250 is that it's easier to handle each section separately. With the exception of the hood, the trunk, and the doors, the fiberglass body comes off as one piece, so somebody else can work on it while you're working on the frame.
Once we start the restoration, the first thing we like to do is to get the vehicle back on four wheels. Before we start working on the engine or the transmission, we restore the chassis. Then we can roll it around the garage if we need to move it. As of this writing, we've straightened and powder-coated the frame. It's always helpful to have the original factory manuals, if you can find them, but this car is pretty straightforward. A lot of the worn-out parts are universal British components, stuff that you'd find in a Triumph TR3 or an Austin-Healey. The only thing that really makes the SP250 unique is that little V-8. And I can't wait to get my hands dirty taking that apart.
We've also carefully sanded, primed, and repainted the body. It was red, but we did it over in blue. Most SP250s that I've seen are either green or red, so I wanted something that really stood out. Stitch Corp., my upholsterer, has already measured the interior for new seats and carpeting. Whenever they finish installing their work, we'll mount the body on the frame and complete the wiring and plumbing.
We also plan to make a few improvements: bigger front disc brakes, rack-and-pinion steering, a T5 transmission, and radial tires. We can always change it back to standard, but it will drive and stop a lot better with these upgrades. We'll breathe on the engine a little, too, with higher compression, lightweight pistons, a hot cam if we can find one, electronic ignition, and maybe bigger carburetors.
People ask me if there's a timetable for completion. Look, a car restoration is not like some Stalin-era five-year wheat plan. When it's done, it's done. A lot depends on how long it takes us to find all the missing stuff. But in the meantime, it's a lot of fun to see a dusty, bug-ridden hulk coming back to life. And when the job is complete, Bob Brzozowski is going to come out to California to go for a ride with me. I think he'll be pleased.
Los Medanos College/Brentwood Center located in Pittsburg/Brentwood, California is accepting applications for a full-time, tenure track
Business Assistant Professor.
ANNUAL SALARY RANGE
(FIRST YEAR FACULTY)
$54,576 to $82,128 depending on education and experience Note: A collective bargaining agreement exists and membership in United Faculty
or payment of a service fee is required.
EMPLOYMENT BEGINS Fall 2013 (mid-August)
BENEFITS Membership in State Teachers Retirement System (STRS) District-paid benefits (employee contributes 6%) for employee and
dependents/domestic partners include:
Medical (Health Net or Kaiser) insurance including chiropractic
Dental and vision
Flexible spending (125)
plan
Life and long-term disability insurance
Employee assistance program
Deferred compensation (403b and 457)
Sabbatical Leave
DESCRIPTION OF POSITION
Los Medanos College is seeking a full-time tenure track professor in Business Administration to begin in August 2013. The successful
applicants will be well qualified to teach business courses such as Introduction to Business, Accounting, Business Law, Personal Finance,
and Small Business Management.
This assignment will include teaching both day and evening Business classes and it may include an assignment at the college's Brentwood
Center and online classes. The teaching assignment will be approximately 15-20 lecture and lab hours a week for two semesters totaling 35
weeks a year. The weekly teaching schedule provides for some flexibility based on when the classes are scheduled. Summer teaching
opportunities may be available for additional compensation in addition to the standard fall and spring semester teaching assignments.
DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
1. Provide course instruction and assessment in accordance with established course learning outcomes and assessment criteria. 2. Inform
students concerning course requirements, evaluation procedures and attendance requirements. 3. Maintain necessary attendance and
scholastic records and submit them according to published deadlines. 4. Prepare and grade course assignments and examinations. 5. Post
and maintain regular office hours in accordance with prevailing policy. 6. Participate in faculty discussion of curriculum,
teaching-learning techniques and teaching materials. 7. Participate in department, division and college-wide committees. 8. Develop
and revise course materials as necessary to maintain state-of-the art teaching and learning. 9. Foster a positive working
environment, demonstrate positive communication skills within the college community as well as a respect for the dignity of each
individual. 10. Participate in professional development activities. 11. Maintain current knowledge in the subject and in effective
teaching/learning strategies. 12. Provide guidance and support to adjunct faculty in the department. 13. In cooperation with the LMC
counselors, establish academic and educational plans for the Business department students based upon a clear progression of Business courses
leading to a certificate or an Associate of Science degree. 14. Communicate information about employment opportunities to
students. 15. Work collegially with the dean, faculty and staff in the program and the college.
MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS
The applicant must possess one of the following qualifications:
1. Master's degree in business, business administration, business management, accounting, finance, marketing, or business education; OR
2. Bachelor's degree in either of the above AND master's degree in economics, personnel management, public administration, or JD or
LL.B. degree; OR 3. Bachelor's degree in economics with a business emphasis AND master's degree in personnel management, public
administration, or JD or LL.B. degree; OR 4. The equivalent. (If you believe that you meet the minimum qualifications via equivalency,
please fill out the equivalency petition form in the application packet.) 5. A valid California community college instructor credential
authorizing full-time instruction in business
DESIRABLE QUALIFICATIONS
The college is seeking applicants who exhibit the highest level of professional excellence and dedication as evidenced by: 1.
Demonstrated commitment to student learning and demonstrated commitment to promoting the success of all students in an open-access learning
environment; 2. Demonstrated sensitivity to and ability to motivate and teach community college students of diverse racial, ethnic
backgrounds, cultures, preparation, learning styles, and/or abilities/disabilities; 3. Commitment to professional growth and development,
to innovation and improvement of teaching, and to assuming faculty responsibilities beyond the classroom in a shared governance
environment; 4. Demonstrated work experience in management, marketing, finance, small business management, entrepreneurship, or
international business; 5. Experience in using educational technology for in-class and/or online teaching; 6. Experience in advancing
student learning, student assessment, and curriculum development; 7. Current industry contacts to further develop the program advisory
board and establish student internships.
SELECTION PROCEDURE
1. Applications will be screened to insure the applicant meets the minimum qualifications as stated in the job announcement. 2. A
committee will screen the Supplemental Job Information Questionnaire and rate the applicant on desirable qualifications. 3. Those
candidates who meet the minimum qualifications and possess the highest rating of desired job-related qualifications will be invited to the
college at their own expense for an interview and teaching demonstration. Interviews are tentatively scheduled for the week of April 15-19,
2013. Such an interview is a prerequisite to employment. 4. After completion of the above three steps, up to five (5) applicants will be
invited to return for an interview with the College President or designee. Final interviews are tentatively scheduled for the week of April
29 - May 3, 2013. 5. The College President will make the final recommendation to the Governing Board of the Contra Costa Community
College District.
COMPLETE APPLICATION PACKET
MUST BE RECEIVED BY: Last day to apply: March 29, 2013 by 4:00 p.m. Office of Instruction Los Medanos College 2700 East Leland
Road Pittsburg, CA 94565 (925) 439-2181 x3272
NO FAXED OR E-MAILED MATERIALS WILL BE ACCEPTED.
A complete application packet consists of: * Contra Costa Community College District Application for Employment
- Academic [Applications, supplemental job information questionnaires, and information may be obtained at www.4cd.edu, "Career Opportunities," or by calling (925) 439-2181 ext 3272.] * Supplemental
Questionnaire Answers * Resume * Copy of college transcript(s) for screening
purposes * Equivalency form (found at the end of the employment application) and supporting documentation (if
qualifying under #4 of Minimum Qualifications) The submission of a complete application packet by the deadline is the responsibility of
the applicant. Incomplete or late packets will not be accepted.
GENERAL INFORMATION Los Medanos College, opened in 1974, is the newest campus of the Contra Costa Community College District, which also
includes Contra Costa College in San Pablo and Diablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill. The college serves students primarily from the
rapidly-growing eastern portion of the county. Los Medanos College is fully accredited, offering a transferable general education program
and a variety of quality career and technical education programs. The college serves approximately 10,000 day and evening students.
Additional information: www.losmedanos.edu
The Contra Costa Community College
District is a Drug-Free work place. The District verifies that all new employees are either U.S. citizens or aliens authorized to work in
the U.S., in conformance with the 1986 Immigration and Control Act. Potential employees should be aware that smoking is prohibited in many
areas of the District facilities.
THE CONTRA COSTA COMMUNITY COLLEGE DISTRICT IS AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER In conformance with the Americans with Disabilities Act,
requests for reasonable accommodation may be made to: Director of Business Services (925) 439-2181 ext 3206
To view full job description and apply, visit: http://www.4cd.edu/career/fulltime_faculty/Business Assistant Professor.pdf
AMSTERDAM (AP) ? The Dutch capital is known for boozy stag nights and pot-smoking tourists. But for what could be the nation's party of the decade ? the abdication of Queen Beatrix and accession to the throne of her son Willem-Alexander ? Amsterdam wants to keep things low key.
Mayor Eberhard van der Laan said Wednesday he "wants a party, but at the same time sober" for the April 30 inauguration.
He's not suggesting alcohol-free festivities, but he wants to keep the cost in check as the nation tightens its belt to recover from an economic buffeting caused by the European debt crisis.
Van der Laan is even seeking sponsors to help pick up the estimated ?7 million ($9 million) tab for the royal bash.
And in an attempt to prevent the capital clogging up with visitors keen to get a glimpse of their outgoing queen and new king, Van der Laan had some advice about the best vantage point.
"If you want to get a really good view, maybe the best place is watching on television," he said.
The day in Amsterdam will start with Beatrix signing abdication papers in the royal palace on central Dam Square. The inauguration of Willem-Alexander will then take place next door in the 15th century New Church.
In the early evening, the new King Willem-Alexander and his Argentine-born wife Maxima will take a boat trip around the city's Ij waterway.
The Ij was chosen over a trip around the city's famed 400-year old ring of canals because it is easier to control crowds along the river banks than in the maze of narrow side streets that link the canals.
And there will be no giant firework show to crown the day's festivities ? Van der Laan said it wouldn't be dark enough when the royals finish their boat trip.
For those in the city who don't want to head to the water's edge, the huge public square behind the Rijksmuseum will be turned into an "Orange Square" where revelers can watch events unfold on giant screens.
Feb. 26, 2013 ? Firefighters put their lives on the line in some of the most dangerous conditions on Earth. One of their greatest challenges, however, is seeing through thick veils of smoke and walls of flame to find people in need of rescue. A team of Italian researchers has developed a new imaging technique that uses infrared (IR) digital holography to peer through chaotic conflagrations and capture potentially lifesaving and otherwise hidden details.
The team describes its breakthrough results and their applications in a paper published February 26 in the Optical Society's (OSA) open-access journal Optics Express.
Firefighters can see through smoke using current IR camera technology. However, such instruments are blinded by the intense infrared radiation emitted by flames, which overwhelm the sensitive detectors and limit their use in the field. By employing a specialized lens-free technique, the researchers have created a system that is able to cope with the flood of radiation from an environment filled with flames as well as smoke.
"IR cameras cannot 'see' objects or humans behind flames because of the need for a zoom lens that concentrates the rays on the sensor to form the image," says Pietro Ferraro of the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR) Istituto Nazionale di Ottica in Italy. By eliminating the need for the zoom lens, the new technique avoids this drawback.
"It became clear to us that we had in our hands a technology that could be exploited by emergency responders and firefighters at a fire scene to see through smoke without being blinded by flames, a limitation of existing technology," Ferraro says. "Perhaps most importantly, we demonstrated for the first time that a holographic recording of a live person can be achieved even while the body is moving."
Holography is a means of producing a 3-D image of an object. To create a hologram, such as those typically seen on credit cards, a laser beam is split into two (an object beam and a reference beam). The object beam is shone onto the object being imaged. When the reflected object beam and the reference beam are recombined, they create an interference pattern that encodes the 3-D image.
In the researchers' new imaging system, a beam of infrared laser light is widely dispersed throughout a room. Unlike visible light, which cannot penetrate thick smoke and flames, the IR rays pass through largely unhindered. The IR light does, however, reflect off of any objects or people in the room, and the information carried by this reflected light is recorded by a holographic imager. It is then decoded to reveal the objects beyond the smoke and flames. The result is a live, 3-D movie of the room and its contents.
The next step in moving this technology to the field is to develop a portable tripod-based system that houses both the laser source and the IR camera. The systems may also be suitable for fixed installation inside buildings or tunnels. In addition, the team is exploring other applications, most notably in the biomedical field for non-destructive testing of large aerospace composite structures.
"Besides life-saving applications in fire and rescue, the potential to record dynamic scenes of a human body could have a variety of other biomedical uses including studying or monitoring breathing, cardiac beat detection and analysis, or measurement of body deformation due to various stresses during exercise," Ferraro says. "We are excited to further develop this technology and realize its application for saving and improving human life."
Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:
Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:
Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Optical Society of America.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
M. Locatelli, E. Pugliese, M. Paturzo, V. Bianco, A. Finizio, A. Pelagotti, P. Poggi, L. Miccio, R. Meucci, P. Ferraro. Imaging live humans through smoke and flames using far-infrared digital holography. Optics Express, 2013; 21 (5): 5379 DOI: 10.1364/OE.21.005379
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
26 February 2013Last updated at 11:39 ETBy Jason PalmerScience and technology reporter, BBC News
Researchers have demonstrated a flat, "stretchy" battery that can be pulled to three times its size without a loss in performance.
While flexible and stretchable electronics have been on the rise, powering them with equally stretchy energy sources has been problematic.
The new idea in Nature Communications uses small "islands" of energy-storing materials dotted on a stretchy polymer.
The study also suggests the batteries can be recharged wirelessly.
In a sense, the battery is a latecomer to the push toward flexible, stretchable electronics. A number of applications have been envisioned for flexible devices, from implantable health monitors to roll-up displays.
But consumer products that fit the bendy, stretchy description are still very few - in part, because there have been no equally stretchy, rechargeable power sources for them.
"Batteries are particularly challenging because, unlike electronics, it's difficult to scale down their dimensions without significantly reducing performance," said senior author of the study John Rogers of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
S for stretch
"We have explored various methods, ranging from radio frequency energy harvesting to solar power," he told BBC News.
In recent years, Prof Rogers worked with colleagues at Northwestern University, focusing on stretchy electronics of various sorts made using what they termed a "pop-up" architecture. The idea uses tiny, widely spaced tiny circuit elements embedded within a stretchy polymer and connected with wires that "popped up" as the polymer was stretched.
But batteries do not lend themselves to this idea; traditionally they are much larger than other circuit elements. They could be made from smaller elements wired together, but to create a small battery with sufficient power, the elements must be spaced more closely than those of the pop-up circuits.
The team's new idea was to use "serpentine" connections - wires that loop back on themselves in a repeating S shape, with that string of loops itself looped into an S shape.
Stretching out the polymer in which the tiny solar cells were embedded first stretches out the larger S; as it is stretched further, the smaller turns straighten - but do not become taut, even as the polymer was stretched to three times its normal size.
The team says the stretchy battery can be charged "inductively" - that is, wirelessly over a short distance. Prof Rogers said that the uses for such batteries and the stretchy circuits they power were myriad.
"The most important applications will be those that involve devices integrated with the outside of the body, on the skin, for health, wellness and performance monitoring," he explained.
However, the prototype batteries described in the paper were only run through 20 charge/discharge cycles, and Prof Rogers said that "additional development efforts to improve the lifetime will be required for commercialisation".
PS reported a 4Q12 net profit of Bt1.25bn, up by 270% YoY and 25% QoQ. The result was in line with our model, but 9% above the street number, due to higher revenue and lower SG&A expenses than assumed by the street.
The firm announced an FY12 DPS of Bt0.50, as expected (a 1.5% yield). XD on March 12; payment on May 17.
Results highlights
PS was the worst affected by the 4Q11 flooding of the ResDev stocks we cover. As such, the strong YoY earnings growth for 4Q12 was flattered to some extent by the low base comparison. Nevertheless, housing revenue jumped 79% YoY to Bt8.4bn, the firm's best top-line since 4Q09, while the SG&A/sales ratio dropped 8.4% YoY to 11.2%. Housing GM declined by 2.8% YoY to 32.3% in 4Q12. On a QoQ basis, earnings growth was led by housing revenue, which rose 16%, and a lower SG&A/sales ratio fall of 4.5%. However, housing GM fell from 34.1% in 3Q12 to 32.3% in 4Q12. The balance sheet strengthened?the net gearing ratio dipped from 0.90x at end-Sept to 0.84x at YE12 (the lowest leverage since YE10).
Outlook
We expect 1Q13 net profit to post YoY growth but a QoQ decline. Low-rise revenue will dominate the top-line for the quarter. PS will start transferring Plum Nawamin (Bt632m; 91percent sold) and Condolette Light (Bt650m; 81percent sold) in March 2013. Management guides that the NMs for the two condos are strong at 16.3percent for Plum and 17.2percent for Condolette.
What's changed?
We maintain our projection unchanged. Revenue visibility is clear?the presales backlog at end-Jan 2013 secured 78% of our FY13 forecast. Low-rise presales were strong in January at Bt1.7bn, far above the monthly low-rise presales for 1Q12 of Bt1bn. Our FY13 model is 9% ahead of the consensus. Proof of a low-rise presales recovery should prompt a consensus earnings forecast upgrade.
Recommendation
Our BUY rating stands with a YE13 target price upgrade to Bt38 (from Bt31.50), as we have re-rated our PER peg to 15x from 12.5x (1.7SDs above its FY06-12 mean). PS trades at cheap FY13 PEG of 0.3x (0.6x for the sector). The scope for a valuation re-rating is wide open, as the stock previously traded at a PER of 17.8x (2SDs above its mean) in 2010. This year, PS will resume strong presales growth of 21% and revenue expansion of 26%. Profitability ratios will improve with high condo NM (an 18.3% mean) to be realized in FY13. Besides, low-rise margin should improve this year, as PS offered price promotions last year in order to clear inventory following the 4Q11 flooding.
New fabrication technique could provide breakthrough for solar energy systemsPublic release date: 27-Feb-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Colin Poitras colin.poitras@uconn.edu 860-486-4656 University of Connecticut
Atomic layer deposition process could greatly improve efficiency of solar rectenna arrays
A novel fabrication technique developed by a University of Connecticut engineering professor could provide the breakthrough technology scientists have been looking for to vastly improve the efficiency of today's solar energy systems.
For years, scientists have studied the potential benefits of a new branch of solar energy technology that relies on nanosized antenna arrays theoretically capable of harvesting more than 70 percent of the sun's electromagnetic radiation and simultaneously converting it into usable electric power.
But while nanosized antennas that also serve as rectifiers have shown promise in theory, scientists have lacked the technology required to construct and test them. The fabrication process is immensely challenging. The nano-antennas known as "rectennas" because of their ability to both absorb and rectify solar energy from alternating current to direct current must be capable of operating at the speed of visible light and be built in such a way that their core pair of electrodes is a mere 1 or 2 nanometers apart, a distance of approximately one millionth of a millimeter, or 30,000 times smaller than the diameter of human hair.
The potential breakthrough lies in a novel fabrication process called selective area atomic layer deposition (ALD) that was developed by Brian Willis, an associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at the University of Connecticut and the former director of UConn's Chemical Engineering Program.
It is through atomic layer deposition that scientists believe they can finally fabricate a working rectenna device. In a rectenna device, one of the two interior electrodes must have a sharp tip, similar to the point of a triangle. The secret is getting the tip of that electrode within one or two nanometers of the opposite electrode, something similar to holding the point of a needle to the plane of a wall. Before the advent of ALD, existing lithographic fabrication techniques had been unable to create such a small space within a working electrical diode. Using sophisticated electronic equipment such as electron guns, the closest scientists could get was about 10 times the required separation. Through atomic layer deposition, Willis has shown he is able to precisely coat the tip of the rectenna with layers of individual copper atoms until a gap of about 1.5 nanometers is achieved. The process is self-limiting and stops at 1.5 nanometer separation.
The size of the gap is critical because it creates an ultra-fast tunnel junction between the rectenna's two electrodes, allowing a maximum transfer of electricity. The nanosized gap gives energized electrons on the rectenna just enough time to tunnel to the opposite electrode before their electrical current reverses and they try to go back. The triangular tip of the rectenna makes it hard for the electrons to reverse direction, thus capturing the energy and rectifying it to a unidirectional current.
Impressively, the rectennas, because of their extremely small and fast tunnel diodes, are capable of converting solar radiation in the infrared region through the extremely fast and short wavelengths of visible light something that has never been accomplished before. Silicon solar panels, by comparison, have a single band gap which, loosely speaking, allows the panel to convert electromagnetic radiation efficiently at only one small portion of the solar spectrum. The rectenna devices don't rely on a band gap and may be tuned to harvest light over the whole solar spectrum, creating maximum efficiency.
Willis and a team of scientists from Penn State Altoona along with SciTech Associates Holdings Inc., a private research and development company based in State College, Pa., recently received a $650,000, three-year grant from the National Science Foundation to fabricate rectennas and search for ways to maximize their performance.
"This new technology could get us over the hump and make solar energy cost-competitive with fossil fuels," says Willis. "This is brand new technology, a whole new train of thought."
The Penn State Altoona research team which has been exploring the theoretical side of rectennas for more than a decade is led by physics professor Darin Zimmerman, with fellow physics professors Gary Weisel and Brock Weiss serving as co-investigators. The collaboration also includes Penn State emeritus physics professors Paul Cutler and Nicholas Miskovsky, who are principal members of Scitech Associates.
"The solar power conversion device under development by this collaboration of two universities and an industry subcontractor has the potential to revolutionize green solar power technology by increasing efficiencies, reducing costs, and providing new economic opportunities," Zimmerman says.
"Until the advent of selective atomic layer deposition (ALD), it has not been possible to fabricate practical and reproducible rectenna arrays that can harness solar energy from the infrared through the visible," says Zimmerman. "ALD is a vitally important processing step, making the creation of these devices possible. Ultimately, the fabrication, characterization, and modeling of the proposed rectenna arrays will lead to increased understanding of the physical processes underlying these devices, with the promise of greatly increasing the efficiency of solar power conversion technology."
The atomic layer deposition process is favored by science and industry because it is simple, easily reproducible, and scalable for mass production. Willis says the chemical process is particularly applicable for precise, homogenous coatings for nanostructures, nanowires, nanotubes, and for use in the next generation of high-performing semi-conductors and transistors.
The method being used to fabricate rectennas also can be applied to other areas, including enhancing current photovoltaics (the conversion of photo energy to electrical energy), thermoelectrics, infrared sensing and imaging, and chemical sensors.
Over the next year, Willis and his collaborators in Pennsylvania plan to build prototype rectennas and begin testing their efficiency.
"To capture the visible light frequencies, the rectenna have to get smaller than anything we've ever made before, so we're really pushing the limits of what we can do," says Willis. "And the tunnel junctions have to operate at the speed of visible light, so we're pushing down to these really high speeds to the point where the question becomes 'Can these devices really function at this level?' Theoretically we know it is possible, but we won't know for sure until we make and test this device."
###
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
New fabrication technique could provide breakthrough for solar energy systemsPublic release date: 27-Feb-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Colin Poitras colin.poitras@uconn.edu 860-486-4656 University of Connecticut
Atomic layer deposition process could greatly improve efficiency of solar rectenna arrays
A novel fabrication technique developed by a University of Connecticut engineering professor could provide the breakthrough technology scientists have been looking for to vastly improve the efficiency of today's solar energy systems.
For years, scientists have studied the potential benefits of a new branch of solar energy technology that relies on nanosized antenna arrays theoretically capable of harvesting more than 70 percent of the sun's electromagnetic radiation and simultaneously converting it into usable electric power.
But while nanosized antennas that also serve as rectifiers have shown promise in theory, scientists have lacked the technology required to construct and test them. The fabrication process is immensely challenging. The nano-antennas known as "rectennas" because of their ability to both absorb and rectify solar energy from alternating current to direct current must be capable of operating at the speed of visible light and be built in such a way that their core pair of electrodes is a mere 1 or 2 nanometers apart, a distance of approximately one millionth of a millimeter, or 30,000 times smaller than the diameter of human hair.
The potential breakthrough lies in a novel fabrication process called selective area atomic layer deposition (ALD) that was developed by Brian Willis, an associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at the University of Connecticut and the former director of UConn's Chemical Engineering Program.
It is through atomic layer deposition that scientists believe they can finally fabricate a working rectenna device. In a rectenna device, one of the two interior electrodes must have a sharp tip, similar to the point of a triangle. The secret is getting the tip of that electrode within one or two nanometers of the opposite electrode, something similar to holding the point of a needle to the plane of a wall. Before the advent of ALD, existing lithographic fabrication techniques had been unable to create such a small space within a working electrical diode. Using sophisticated electronic equipment such as electron guns, the closest scientists could get was about 10 times the required separation. Through atomic layer deposition, Willis has shown he is able to precisely coat the tip of the rectenna with layers of individual copper atoms until a gap of about 1.5 nanometers is achieved. The process is self-limiting and stops at 1.5 nanometer separation.
The size of the gap is critical because it creates an ultra-fast tunnel junction between the rectenna's two electrodes, allowing a maximum transfer of electricity. The nanosized gap gives energized electrons on the rectenna just enough time to tunnel to the opposite electrode before their electrical current reverses and they try to go back. The triangular tip of the rectenna makes it hard for the electrons to reverse direction, thus capturing the energy and rectifying it to a unidirectional current.
Impressively, the rectennas, because of their extremely small and fast tunnel diodes, are capable of converting solar radiation in the infrared region through the extremely fast and short wavelengths of visible light something that has never been accomplished before. Silicon solar panels, by comparison, have a single band gap which, loosely speaking, allows the panel to convert electromagnetic radiation efficiently at only one small portion of the solar spectrum. The rectenna devices don't rely on a band gap and may be tuned to harvest light over the whole solar spectrum, creating maximum efficiency.
Willis and a team of scientists from Penn State Altoona along with SciTech Associates Holdings Inc., a private research and development company based in State College, Pa., recently received a $650,000, three-year grant from the National Science Foundation to fabricate rectennas and search for ways to maximize their performance.
"This new technology could get us over the hump and make solar energy cost-competitive with fossil fuels," says Willis. "This is brand new technology, a whole new train of thought."
The Penn State Altoona research team which has been exploring the theoretical side of rectennas for more than a decade is led by physics professor Darin Zimmerman, with fellow physics professors Gary Weisel and Brock Weiss serving as co-investigators. The collaboration also includes Penn State emeritus physics professors Paul Cutler and Nicholas Miskovsky, who are principal members of Scitech Associates.
"The solar power conversion device under development by this collaboration of two universities and an industry subcontractor has the potential to revolutionize green solar power technology by increasing efficiencies, reducing costs, and providing new economic opportunities," Zimmerman says.
"Until the advent of selective atomic layer deposition (ALD), it has not been possible to fabricate practical and reproducible rectenna arrays that can harness solar energy from the infrared through the visible," says Zimmerman. "ALD is a vitally important processing step, making the creation of these devices possible. Ultimately, the fabrication, characterization, and modeling of the proposed rectenna arrays will lead to increased understanding of the physical processes underlying these devices, with the promise of greatly increasing the efficiency of solar power conversion technology."
The atomic layer deposition process is favored by science and industry because it is simple, easily reproducible, and scalable for mass production. Willis says the chemical process is particularly applicable for precise, homogenous coatings for nanostructures, nanowires, nanotubes, and for use in the next generation of high-performing semi-conductors and transistors.
The method being used to fabricate rectennas also can be applied to other areas, including enhancing current photovoltaics (the conversion of photo energy to electrical energy), thermoelectrics, infrared sensing and imaging, and chemical sensors.
Over the next year, Willis and his collaborators in Pennsylvania plan to build prototype rectennas and begin testing their efficiency.
"To capture the visible light frequencies, the rectenna have to get smaller than anything we've ever made before, so we're really pushing the limits of what we can do," says Willis. "And the tunnel junctions have to operate at the speed of visible light, so we're pushing down to these really high speeds to the point where the question becomes 'Can these devices really function at this level?' Theoretically we know it is possible, but we won't know for sure until we make and test this device."
###
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
LUXOR, Egypt (AP) ? A hot air balloon flying over Egypt's ancient city of Luxor caught fire and crashed into a sugar cane field on Tuesday, killing at least 18 foreign tourists, a security official said.
It was one of the worst accidents involving tourists in Egypt and likely to push the key tourism industry deeper into recession.
The casualties included French, British, Belgian, Hungarian, Japanese nationals and nine tourists from Hong Kong, Luxor Governor Ezzat Saad told reporters.
Three survivors of the crash ? two British tourists and one Egyptian ? were taken to a local hospital.
According to the Egyptian security official, the balloon carrying at least 20 tourists was flying over Luxor when it caught fire, which triggered an explosion in its gas canister, then plunged at least 300 meters (1,000 feet) from the sky.
It crashed into a sugar cane field outside al-Dhabaa village just west of Luxor, 510 kilometers (320 miles) south of Cairo, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.
Bodies of the dead tourists were scattered across the field around the remnants of the balloon. An Associated Press reporter at the crash site counted eight bodies as they were put into body bags and taken away. The security official said all 18 bodies have been recovered.
The official said foul play has been ruled out. He also said initial reports of 19 dead were revised to 18 as confusion is common in the aftermath of such accidents.
Egypt's civil aviation minister, Wael el-Maadawi, flew to Luxor to lead the investigation into the crash.
The head of Japan Travel Bureau's Egypt branch, Atsushi Imaeda, confirmed that four Japanese died in the crash. He said two were a couple in their 60s from Tokyo. Details on the other two were not immediately available.
In Hong Kong, a travel agency said nine of the tourists that were aboard the balloon were natives of the semiautonomous Chinese city. There was a "very big chance that all nine have perished," said Raymond Ng, a spokesman for the agency. The nine, he said, included five women and four men from three families.
They were traveling with six other Hong Kong residents on a 10-day tour of Egypt.
Ng said an escort of the nine tourists watched the balloon from the ground catching fire around 7 a.m. and plunging to the ground two minutes later.
In Britain, tour operator Thomas Cook confirmed that two British tourists were dead and two were in hospital.
"What happened in Luxor this morning is a terrible tragedy and the thoughts of everyone in Thomas Cook are with our guests, their family and friends," said Peter Fankhauser, CEO of Thomas Cook UK & Continental Europe.
"We have a very experienced team in resort with the two guests in the local hospital, and we're providing our full support to the family and friends of the deceased at this difficult time," he said.
In Paris, a diplomatic official said French tourists were among those involved in the accident, but would give no details on how many, or whether French citizens were among those killed.
Speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to be publicly named according to government policy, the official said French authorities were working with their Egyptian counterparts to clarify what happened. French media reports said two French tourists were among the dead but the official wouldn't confirm that.
Hot air ballooning, usually at sunrise over the famed Karnak and Luxor temples as well as the Valley of the Kings, is a popular pastime for tourists visiting the area.
The site of the accident has seen past crashes. In 2009, 16 tourists were injured when their balloon struck a cellphone transmission tower. A year earlier, seven tourists were injured in a similar crash.
Egypt's tourism industry has been decimated since the 18-day uprising in 2011 against autocrat leader Hosni Mubarak and the political turmoil that followed and continues to this day.
Luxor's hotels are currently about 25 percent full in what is supposed to be the peak of the winter season.
Scared off by the political turmoil and tenuous security that has followed the uprising, the number of tourists coming to Egypt fell to 9.8 million in 2011 from 14.7 million the year before, and revenues plunged 30 percent to $8.8 billion.
Poverty swelled at the country's fastest rate in Luxor, which is highly dependent on visitors to its monumental temples and the tombs of King Tutankhamun and other pharaohs. In 2011, 39 percent of its population lived on less than $1 a day, compared to 18 percent in 2009, according to government figures.
___
Associated Press writers Kelvin Chan in Hong Kong, Jill Lawless in London and Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to this report.
(Reuters) - A federal judge on Monday ordered former Goldman Sachs Group Inc director Rajat Gupta to reimburse $6.22 million to help the Wall Street bank cover its legal expenses related to his criminal insider trading case.
Goldman had sought to recover $6.91 million, and U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff in Manhattan said the bank had proved it was entitled to 90 percent of what it requested.
Gupta, 64, is appealing his June 15, 2012 conviction and two-year prison term for feeding confidential information he had learned at Goldman board meetings to Raj Rajaratnam, the Galleon Group hedge fund manager and former billionaire.
Rajaratnam has been a central figure in a multi-year U.S. government crackdown on insider trading. Gupta is a former global managing director of the consulting firm McKinsey & Co, and is the highest corporate executive convicted in the probe.
Jurors found Gupta guilty of leaks during the second half of 2008, including news related to a crucial $5 billion investment in Goldman by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc
at the height of the global financial crisis.
Goldman had sought to recover fees it had paid its law firm Sullivan & Cromwell in connection with Gupta's criminal case and related matters. It cited the federal Mandatory Victims Restitution Act, which requires restitution in some fraud cases.
Gupta opposed restitution but Rakoff, who presided over the criminal trial, said nearly all of what Goldman sought was a "necessary, direct, and foreseeable result of the investigation and prosecution of Gupta's offense of conviction."
Rakoff said Goldman could also recover legal costs linked to a related U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission civil case against Gupta, and to the criminal case against Rajaratnam.
He said Gupta's opposition to the latter "ignores the glaring fact" that he had been convicted of conspiring with Rajaratnam to commit securities fraud.
But the judge said Goldman did not deserve all it sought.
Rakoff said some entries in the "voluminous" 542 pages of billing records he reviewed did not qualify because they involved depositions in civil cases that followed the criminal conviction.
And Rakoff said Goldman on "a few occasions" assigned too many lawyers to the case - "perhaps perfectly appropriate on the assumption that Goldman Sachs wished to spare no expense on a matter of great importance to it," but more than reasonably necessary under the law.
Goldman spokesman Michael DuVally said: "We are pleased that the court ordered Mr. Gupta to pay restitution."
Richard Davis, a lawyer for Gupta, said his client plans to appeal.
Rajaratnam is separately appealing his criminal conviction and 11-year prison term, saying FBI wiretap evidence should not have been admitted by U.S. District Judge Richard Holwell at his 2011 trial. Holwell is now in private practice.
The case is U.S. v. Gupta, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 11-cr-00907.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Leslie Gevirtz)
You can never carry too many backup charging cables, and since you probably never leave home without your wallet, the ChargeCard is the perfect accessory for battery-sucking smartphones. It's only slightly thicker than a credit card, and lets you leech power from any available USB port. More »
The internet is full of hundreds of social networks, most are unique niche markets but overall there are four major social networks that I believe every business should consider using.
The internet may be a big place but there are four social media companies that stand out above the rest for customer service and online marketing, each has a specific flavour and in most cases, each should be used in some way by your company
Facebook
With roughly a hundred trillion billion users (ok I don?t think it?s quite that many but it?s really huge) ?Facebook is the white whale of online marketing. It has a special business focussed section called Facebook Pages which is similar to the regular Facebook for users but allows businesses,?celebrities?etc. to create business specific profiles with everything from hours of operation to custom apps.
The Facebook page allows businesses to have Followers (or Fans) which works much like a one directional friendship in the regular user to user version of Facebook.
When should a company use Facebook? I would say all?businesses?should have a Facebook Page for their company, regardless of market since there?s an excellent chance that your employees, business contacts, and customers also have a Facebook profile.
How often should you update Facebook? This depends a lot on the type of content your Facebook profile displays but highlighting interesting sales, blog posts, employment?opportunities, etc. with your Facebook is a great use of the service. Remember, Facebook is about people and not advertising, if you have a fun video about your company to share this is a great forum for it.
http://facebook.com
Twitter
Twitter is a social media service designed for short bursts of communications, limited to 140 characters per message. It?s well indexed and provides a quick resource for finding answers quickly.
Relationships on Twitter are called Follows and work one direction at a time,?because?of this it?s possible for people to follow your business without your business following them back and is perfect for companies looking for?disseminate?information to a large audience but is?somewhat?limited since many Twitter messages will get lost in the sea of other Twitter messages.
When should a company use Twitter??All businesses should at least maintain a Twitter profile, and most should actively monitor their Twitter account for enquires the same way the use email (called Direct Messages in Twitter terms). Twitter increases in value dramatically when you?re sharing items that are likely to be shared by people with similar interests.
How often should you update Twitter??The nature of Twitter is one of rapid information, while it depends greatly on the company and the nature of a business on Twitter I would recommend business owners plan to monitor Twitter on an ongoing basis, reply to customers hourly throughout a work day, and post unique interesting content daily if they hope to see a return on their investment. Interesting posts, jobs, events, local news, etc are all great Twitter content.
http://twitter.com
Pinterest
The Pinterest social media platform is all about sharing images from websites, as such it is ideal for unique businesses such as catering, wedding planning, tourism, small retail, etc. to generate interest in products and services but doesn?t?accommodate?corporate messages well.
When should a company use Pinterest??If your business creates beautiful, unique product that would appeal to the visually focussed then Pinterest might be right for you. Remember, Pinterest is focussed on a consumer level market, so if you?re selling benefit plans it might not be right for you!
How often should you update Pinterest??Whenever you?re contributing something visually striking to the world, or have found some eye candy to share with your friends.
http://pinterest.com
Linkedin
Of the big four, Linkedin is the most corporate of all of them. It?s primary focus is business, as such your Connections (similar to Friends on Facebook) are business?colleagues, suppliers, and customers more often than people you?d play hockey with.
The site is great for finding skilled staff, researching prospective hires, building business networks, and promoting yourself into a business community.
When should a company use Linkedin??If your business is focussed on commercial growth, and business-to-business marketing more than consumer level marketing, Linkedin is the best for reaching your business peers and finding new suppliers, staff, and client research.
How often should you update?Linkedin??Linkedin should be updated regularly, to reflect large projects and employment status changes, to list job postings, mergers etc.
This Metal Gear Rising Revengeance money cheat will show you how to collect quick cash by taking advantage of an infinite money glitch in the PS3 & Xbox 360 versions of the hack ?n slash game.
Below we show you step-by-step how to get infinite BP!
Index of Metal Gear Rising Revengeance Guides:
Essentially it?s a Infinite BP Farming Cheat. Here we show you how to easily farm BP in Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, which is the game?s currency. You can do this exploit at anytime in the game, but what?s shown is the best chapter to do it in.
Here is a video guide showing you how to do the Metal Gear Rising Revengeance money cheat.
Here are the steps to take for the money cheat:
Step 1: Start chapter ?File R-01: Coup D?etat?
Step 2: Once in the level, head over to the ferris wheel, then turn left, run forward and jump up the concrete building to find a BP chest on the roof.
Step 3: Next you?ll exit the chapter by pressing the Select/Back button on your controller, select Courtney and save the game. After that press the Start button to ?Restart Checkpoint?.
Step 4: As a result Raiden will be placed back into the level right in front of the same ferris wheel near the BP chest that you can now open anew!
Step 5: You can keep doing this over and over until you have enough BP spending money.
Credit for the discovery goes to Deathmule.
If you have any more Metal Gear Rising Revengeance money cheats or tips, leave a comment and we?ll add it to this guide with credit to you.
About the author
By Ferry Groenendijk: He is the founder and editor of Video Games Blogger. He loved gaming from the moment he got a Nintendo with Super Mario Bros. on his 8th birthday. Learn more about him here and connect with him on Twitter, Facebook and at Google+.
Uh oh, I didn't make it clear, my fault. The doors have removable screens and windows with little aluminum frames held in by thumb screws. Problem is, I don't have any replacements, so I have some doors with screens but no windows for winter, and a couple of doors with windows and no screens in summer.
What I need is the aluminum framed screen or window, not to have someone replace the screens.
I don't want to spend the money to replace the doors with new ones as in a few years I'm going to have new wooden screen doors made that match the tired originals that I found in the garage
British explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes strikes a pose onboard the polar vessel S.A. Agulhas just before last month's departure from Cape Town, South Africa. Fiennes has had to abandon his plan for an Antarctic crossing.
By Andrea Thompson LiveScience
Seasoned adventurer Sir Ranulph Fiennes has had to quit his attempt to be the first person to cross the South Pole on skis during the brutal Antarctic winter.
Fiennes, who has abundant experience in harsh environments, will be evacuated from the coldest continent after developing a case of frostbite, according to a blog post on the website of the expedition, called The Coldest Journey. Fiennes and his team made the decision to have him evacuated while it was still possible before the beginning of the formidable winter, with its near-permanent darkness and temperatures as low as minus 130 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 90 degrees Celsius).
"This decision has not been taken lightly and it is, naturally, a huge disappointment to Fiennes and his colleagues," the post said.
Fiennes will be driven by Ski-Doo, a type of snowmobile, some 40 miles (70 kilometers) from his team's current location to Belgium's Princess Elisabeth Station, located near the coast of East Antarctica, according to the blog post. From there, he will make his way by plane to Cape Town, South Africa.
LIMA Project
A map of the route that British explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes and his team were hoping to take across Antarctica.
The evacuation plan is currently being hampered by a blizzard at the team's location.
Once Fiennes is evacuated, the rest of the team has elected to carry on with the journey. They are still slated to begin their crossing on the originally planned date of March 21. The full crossing route will take them from Princess Elisabeth through the interior of the continent to the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station (named for the two explorers that raced to be the first to the South Pole), then over the Transantarctic Mountains onto the Ross Ice Shelf and to the United States' McMurdo Station, situated on the shore of the Ross Sea. In total, the trek will cover more than 2,000 miles (3,200 km) and take six months.
Fiennes has gone on previous Antarctic and Arctic excursions, climbed to the summit of Mount Everest and run seven marathons in seven days on seven continents, according to his expedition biography.
Reach Andrea Thompson at athompson@techmedianetwork.com and follow her on Twitter @AndreaTOAPand on Pinterest. Follow OurAmazingPlanet on Twitter @OAPlanet. We're also on Facebook and Google+.
[unable to retrieve full-text content]Colleagues often look around my classroom and assume that they cannot integrate technology in their programming to the extend that I have because they don't have enough computers. However, the computers that they ...
The talk in Hollywood has gone beyond the single efforts of ?Argo? and ?Lincoln? to an evaluation of the careers of their directors, Ben Affleck and Steven Spielberg.
By Gloria Goodale,?Staff writer / February 24, 2013
A worker adjusts the positioning of an Oscar statue on the red carpet during preparations for the 85th Academy Awards in Hollywood, California.
Lucas Jackson/REUTERS
Enlarge
During the countdown to the Oscars, the behind-the-scenes narratives arising about the nominees and earlier winners in the awards season are watched closely. And sometimes, they have as much impact on who takes home statuettes as the films themselves.
Click Here for your FREE 30 DAYS of The Christian Science Monitor Weekly Digital Edition
Nearly every year, there are ?the snubbed,? the ?comeback kids,? the ?dark horses,? and sentimental favorites, among other familiar archetypes.
?This is an industry of storytellers,? points out Matt McDaniel, the Los Angeles-based managing editor of Yahoo! Movies. Spinning stories ?is what everyone here does.?
This year, much of the talk has centered on the ?Lincoln?-?Argo? face-off ? which most critics think are the top two contenders for Best Picture. As is often the case, the discussions have gone beyond the single efforts to an evaluation of entire careers.
2013?s most passionately pitied ?snub? ? in case you have been reading about Oscar Pistorius in South Africa instead of the Oscars ? is ?Argo? director Ben Affleck. After he collected Golden Globes for both director and best film, the town issued a collective gasp when he was passed over for directing in the Academy Award nominations.
Everyone assumed Mr. Affleck would be a shoo-in for Best Director, says Stephen Brown, a marketing professional in Atlanta. ?He made an outstanding movie, plus he overcame a challenging decade of paparazzi and bad-movie-fueled malaise,? he says via e-mail. Hollywood generally loves to reward talent it discovered when young, he says, pointing to Affleck?s 1998 Oscar for ?Good Will Hunting.?
The industry particularly likes the comeback story, Mr. Brown says, adding that in this case, because of the shoo-in assumption and the subsequent snub, many academy voters are seeing a Best Picture Oscar for ?Argo.?
But voters do not like to be told what to do, says University of Nebraska film professor Wheeler Winston Dixon, who has many former students in Hollywood. Efforts to sway votes have become particularly aggressive ? a phenomenon that seriously ratcheted up in 1999 when producer Harvey Weinstein reportedly shelled out more than $15 million in support of ?Shakespeare in Love.?
The academy has since cracked down on splashy spending, banning swanky screening soirees for the roughly 5,800 academy members who vote.
Voting for this year?s Oscars closed Tuesday night. Steven Spielberg, director of ?Lincoln,? was reported to have sent handwritten notes to voters, while a commemorative DVD of ?Argo? was delivered to academy members.
Although he leans toward ?Argo? winning Best Picture, Professor Dixon says ?Lincoln? has a good chance, ?because of this pushback? against influence peddling.
Mr. Spielberg himself has been in Affleck?s position, notes Dixon, pointing to the ?Jaws? Best Picture nod in 1976, when the director was not nominated. ?A lot of people said, who do they think directed the film, the shark?? Dixon quips.
Spielberg?s own narrative can work for and against him, points out Lester Friedman, film professor and chair of the media and society department at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, N.Y. His work redefined filmmaking. After ?Jaws,? studios began to focus on the ?blockbuster,? films costing $100 million and more. This has significantly reduced the money left for smaller, more-independent projects, Professor Friedman notes.
Yet Spielberg has also made a career of serious, historical pictures such as ?Schindler?s List? and ?Saving Private Ryan.? He received Oscars for both films.
While some may feel that ?Lincoln? belongs in that pantheon, Friedman suggests that the tale of the 16th president?s struggle to pass the 13th Amendment ?should be remembered as one of his good, but not great films.?
Click Here for your FREE 30 DAYS of The Christian Science Monitor Weekly Digital Edition
Specifically, it harbored the RedKit browser exploit kit, which triggers?drive-by downloads?of malware onto vulnerable computers.
The hack was one of a trio of security breaches yesterday, as the Aspen Institute think tank and the customer-support specialist Zendesk disclosed hacker intrusions into their networks.
NBC's problems arose when the head of Dutch security firm Fox-IT?tweeted his observations?about NBC.com, followed quickly by a posting on the?HitmanPro blog?run by the Dutch anti-virus firm SurfRight.
"There were two exploit links on the NBC website. The first one was on the main default (entry) page. And the second one was located on hxxp://www.nbc.com/assets/core/js/s_wrapper.js," said the HitmanPro blog. "It serves both Java (CVE-2013-0422) and PDF exploits. The exploit drops the Citadel Trojan, which is used for banking fraud and cyberespionage."
The?Java exploit?referred to, which affects Macs, Windows PCs and Linux boxes alike, was responsible for the recently announced hacks into Apple's, Facebook's and Twitter's employee networks.
[Why and How to Disable Java on Your Computer]
The HitmanPro posting noted that RedKit was also installing the ZeroAccess malware, which "moderates an affected user's Internet experience by modifying search results, and generates pay-per-click advertising revenue for its controllers," as well an unknown form of malware.
Stand-alone NBC TV network sites, such as those for "Late Night With Jimmy Fallon" and one featuring "Tonight Show" host Jay Leno's collection of vintage cars, were also said to be compromised.
An NBC spokeswoman?confirmed the hacks to Bloomberg News. All the affected sites were cleaned and back up Friday morning.
(The NBCNews.com website, with which TechNewsDaily has a professional relationship, was not affected.)
Copyright 2013?TechNewsDaily, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Whenever you take a car apart, it's essential to photograph every piece as you go along. If you don't meticulously document a car with pictures when you start a restoration, you'll never be able to put it back together. At my garage, we shoot pictures of everything and store them in the computer. In the old days, you had to run down to the photo mart and wait for your pictures to be developed. That was a pain in the neck. Now you can take thousands of images, and it doesn't cost anything. So there's no excuse not to catalog. 
![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](http://www.eurekalert.org/images/back2e.gif){kind=small}
Public release date: 27-Feb-2013
Share ] 
By Ferry Groenendijk: He is the founder and editor of Video Games Blogger. He loved gaming from the moment he got a Nintendo with Super Mario Bros. on his 8th birthday. Learn more about him here and connect with him on Twitter, Facebook and at Google+.
