Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center in Louisiana to open in September

The Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center construction project was launched in 2009. The project involved construction of the 49,000 square feet Houma Center that will offers services for oncology, radiation therapy, chemotherapy, surgical interventions, inpatient-care facility, community-outreach services and facilities for clinical-research trials. The total outlay of the project is $14.8 million.

The building has been constructed by McDonnel Group. The contractor used recycled materials for constructing the building. The building used less-toxic paints and adhesive. The contractors have given a green roof to the building with an attached air purification system that serves the purpose of building insulator as well. The green roof consists of a lush garden that acts as an environmental sanctuary for patients. McDonnel Group have also concentrated on making the building energy-efficient and reducing the carbon footprint during the process of construction.

The first floor of the facility will house radiation oncology and the second floor of the facility will be occupied by medical oncology. The new facility will have a discreet area for research. The chemotherapy area of the new center will double the size of the cancer center's existing area for chemotherapy. Further, the center is in close proximity to other services, such as pharmacy, which patients frequently require.

The Houma Center connects to the TGMC by means of a sky bridge. The center will be the first first hospital in Louisiana to win Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Silver certification.

Silicon-based technology helps protect and grow the world’s energy infrastructure

As the global population increases and more people move to cities, efficient and dependable energy infrastructure is becoming more important. With weather-related power disruptions impacting more and more people, governments and engineers are turning to silicon technology to improve the reliability, affordability and long-term sustainability of the world’s electrical grids.

“Disruptions can occur when energy production and delivery systems are exposed to wind and thunderstorms, extreme temperatures, or pollution,” said Norm Kanar, global marketing manager for Dow Corning’s XIAMETER brand. “Silicon-based materials can help by protecting high-voltage electrical equipment from the elements and preempting disruption of power supply.”

Silicone rubbers can provide resiliency to environmental contaminants, physical stresses, and vandalism, and are the material of choice for high-voltage insulators. Cable end terminations, cold-shrink splices, adapters and connectors also can be made out of silicone rubber.

Silicone high-voltage insulator coatings can offer proven arcing and flashover protection, as well as resistance to environmental stresses, pollution, and extreme temperatures. They can reduce maintenance requirements on insulators and associated equipment by reducing or, in many cases, eliminating the need for repetitive water washing or repetitive greasing.

In addition, innovative silicon-based technologies are at the forefront of enabling countries around the globe to embrace a more sustainable power source. A natural semi-conductor, polysilicon can be used to generate electricity in solar cells, the building blocks of solar panels. Thanks to these technologies, solar power is quickly becoming a plausible, long-term solution to the world’s energy needs.

The Advantages Of Partial Discharge Monitoring

Among the worst fears of any operations manager who has to deal with large high voltage equipment is the breakdown or failure of that equipment. Most of the time, high voltage equipment such as transformers, switchgears, motors and generators are an integral part of the power supply and the breakdown or failure of a single machine also takes the entire power supply offline. While a great many operations managers have been caught unawares by such occurrences, which appear to take place without any warning whatsoever, the truth is that there is ample warning if only you know where and how to look for it. The development of partial discharge motors, for example, can easily be detected with a partial discharge monitoring system and the problem addressed before it can become too serious.

The term partial discharge motors does not refer to a certain type of motor but more to the state of motors that have had their insulation compromised by minute flaws but that are not yet on the brink of failure. Partial discharge is the term used to refer to the movement of electricity from one point on the insulator to another – a phenomenon caused by small cracks or gaps having developed in the insulation material, thus allowing electricity to escape and travel through the air. This happens when the strength of the electric field is able to exceed the breakdown threshold of the insulation material.

Most of the time, partial discharge motors develop simply because the motor has been in use for a long period of time and the insulation materials used in the partial discharge motors have aged. As an insulator ages, its breakdown threshold decreases, thus making it possible for partial discharge motors to develop.

When scientists realized that the tiny imperfections in partial discharge motors were a precursor to much larger failures, companies began to make use of that knowledge to develop systems of sensors that would allow for partial discharge monitoring. Today, partial discharge monitoring systems provide continuous surveillance of high voltage equipment and are able to detect the relatively minute indicators that are evidence of the presence of partial discharge.

Partial discharge motors, for example, give off electrical, acoustic and gaseous indicators that can be detected by specialized partial discharge monitoring systems. A comprehensive partial discharge monitoring system will have a bank of sensors tracking the presence of all three different indicators, thus giving the highest chance of detection of the development of partial discharge motors, among other high voltage equipment.

Once a partial discharge monitoring system identifies the presence of a partial discharge motors, the next step is to address each problem individually. This means scheduling each of the partial discharge motors to be taken offline at different times and thoroughly examined by a team of experts who can then recommend whether repairs will suffice or if the entire machine needs to be replaced. By staggering the inspections, you can keep all or most of your operations running even as you have each of the partial discharge motors checked, thereby minimizing the negative effect on your operations and thereby keeping the cost of repairs as low as possible.

Two Out of Four Must Go!

For the most part, tower insulators are pretty rugged. I’ve been in this business for more than 35 years and have never seen a base insulator fail — or even crack … until recently.

Porcelain is a rugged material that is very durable in compression; it does not crush. That makes it an excellent material for use in high weight-bearing applications (such as under a tower). The same material is used for guy wire insulators in AM applications, with the guy cable rigged through the insulators so that they compress the porcelain material and don’t pull on it.

In guyed AM tower applications, a cone-shaped or cylindrical insulator is placed between the base pier and the tower base plate with the full weight of the tower compressing the material of the insulator.

Free-standing towers are a little different because they have both downward and upward moments, depending on the direction and velocity of the wind. As such, base insulators under the legs of a free-standing tower have to work in both directions, both supporting the weight of the tower and holding the tower leg to the foundation, depending on instantaneous conditions. That double duty requires a special design, usually a pair of porcelain insulators held captive in a steel or iron frame. The lower insulator supports the tower leg’s weight while the upper holds the tower leg down.

In my company, we have a number of “legacy” AM signals, and some of these employ free-standing towers with this type of dual insulator design. Some of these towers and insulators date back to the mid-1930s, a testament to their toughness and durability.

Base insulators have to operate out in the elements, providing isolation between the metal members above and the ground below in all kinds of conditions — wet, dry, dirty and clean. It’s almost unheard of for a properly-selected base insulator to arc over due to RF excitation or a combination of RF plus static electricity. Ball gaps are usually provided across the base insulator to provide a discharge path for static and lightning away from the porcelain material of the insulator.

We were wrapping up a tower painting project awhile back when at the end of a workday, our chief engineer noticed paint overspray on the porcelain surface of two of the base insulators under tower #3. He notified the tower crew and they wiped the insulators down with a wet rag.

The next morning was foggy and everything was soggy-wet. When our engineer arrived at the site early that day, he was greeted by one of the tower crew asking, “Are those base insulators supposed to be steaming?” Our engineer noted that indeed there were copious amounts of steam rising from two of the insulators, and from his vantage point in the parking area he saw what appeared to be a sustained plasma arc dancing over the surface of the nearest insulator.

Two Out of Four Must Go!

For the most part, tower insulators are pretty rugged. I’ve been in this business for more than 35 years and have never seen a base insulator fail — or even crack … until recently.

Porcelain is a rugged material that is very durable in compression; it does not crush. That makes it an excellent material for use in high weight-bearing applications (such as under a tower). The same material is used for guy wire insulators in AM applications, with the guy cable rigged through the insulators so that they compress the porcelain material and don’t pull on it.

In guyed AM tower applications, a cone-shaped or cylindrical insulator is placed between the base pier and the tower base plate with the full weight of the tower compressing the material of the insulator.

Free-standing towers are a little different because they have both downward and upward moments, depending on the direction and velocity of the wind. As such, base insulators under the legs of a free-standing tower have to work in both directions, both supporting the weight of the tower and holding the tower leg to the foundation, depending on instantaneous conditions. That double duty requires a special design, usually a pair of porcelain insulators held captive in a steel or iron frame. The lower insulator supports the tower leg’s weight while the upper holds the tower leg down.

In my company, we have a number of “legacy” AM signals, and some of these employ free-standing towers with this type of dual insulator design. Some of these towers and insulators date back to the mid-1930s, a testament to their toughness and durability.

Base insulators have to operate out in the elements, providing isolation between the metal members above and the ground below in all kinds of conditions — wet, dry, dirty and clean. It’s almost unheard of for a properly-selected base insulator to arc over due to RF excitation or a combination of RF plus static electricity. Ball gaps are usually provided across the base insulator to provide a discharge path for static and lightning away from the porcelain material of the insulator.

Cross-laminated timber can fast-track construction

Matthias Oberholzer, a project manager with Montreal-based Nordic Engineered Wood, described CLT as an “excellent alternative” to concrete.

“With the Canadian winter, it’s nice for playing ice hockey, but for curing concrete, it’s not exactly ideal.”

Oberholzer was one speaker at the Cross-Laminated Timber symposium hosted by the Canadian Wood Council, FPInnovations and Ontario Wood WORKS, a Canadian Wood Council initiative to promote the use of wood in construction.

Larry McFarland, principal at McFarland Marceau Architects Ltd. of Vancouver., talked about the use of CLT and glulam in Vancouver. For the complete story, please see Cross laminated timber used for biomass plant at the University of British Columbia in the Daily Commercial News .

CLT, used in walls and floors, consists of wood strips stacked crosswise on top of each other. CLT is not the same thing as glulam.

During his presentation, Oberholzer showed slides of buildings constructed using glulam. Nordic Engineered Wood is currently using glulam for columns and beams in a four-storey apartment complex in Chibougamou, Que., about 700 kilometres north of Montreal, where Nordic’s plant is located.

He said engineers can use glulam and CLT in the same building, but the main challenges are the building codes.

Richard Desjardins, manager for building systems at FPInnovations, said the industry needs to demonstrate to governments that CLT complies with building codes.

Peggy Lepper, director of technical services at the Canadian Wood Council, said the Canadian Standards Association has a document that deals with CLT, called CSA 086, or the Code of Recommended Practice for Engineering Design in Timber.

But the industry is “tight on time” for getting CLT into the next National Building Code of Canada. Although the next NBCC is not scheduled for publication until 2015, the research data must be ready by November, 2012 in order to be considered for inclusion in the next NBCC, Lepper said.

Lepper said a North American CLT product standard is under development by the APA-The Engineered Wood Association in the U.S. (formerly known as the American Plywood Association). The draft covers factors including dimension tolerances and material quality.

CLT is used mainly as a building element with one pronounced direction for load transfer, said Gerhard Schickhofer, an Austrian professor from the Graz university institute for timber engineering and wood technology, who also spoke at the CLT symposium.

“We are beginning to use CLT instead of reinforced concrete for ceiling elements,” he said, but added civil engineers need to know more about the load carrying behaviour of mounting parts.

But connecting CLT parts is not as complicated as some other structural materials, said Nordic’s Oberholzer.

CLT is a “very simple system,” Oberholzer said. “Just using screws, nails and some steel plates to connect everything is very simple compared to, let’s say, glulam.”

Fire safety is a major concern with wood structures, but another speaker said using CLT in buildings can reduce or eliminate concealed spaces in floors and walls, which in turn reduces fire risk.

“Large wood members have the inherent ability to provide significant fire resistance due to their unique charring abilities,” said Steve Craft, a research scientist with FPInnovations. “CLT can provide excellent fire resistance, particularly when we design for it.”

Craft showed photos of experiments in which furnaces were used to expose wood floors to high temperatures.

Although solid wood is a good insulator, he said, it is important to ensure that the assembly is sealed up and does not allow movement of air through the assembly. Otherwise, hot gasses can get through.

CLT can reduce the time required for construction and the carbon footprint, said Tristan Wallwork, a structural engineer and associate director at Ramboll U.K. Ltd., an international consulting firm with offices mainly in northern Europe.

Wallwork said CLT typically has about 50 to 60 per cent less embodied carbon than traditional building materials such as concrete and steel.

One of Ramboll’s buildings was Open Academy, a Norwich, England school with a three-storey accommodation building that was erected using glulam and CLT.

New Jersey Spray Foam Contractor Establishes

One of the many things that Crosby prides himself on with his company is the workforce he has under his wing.

“I am currently working with the best of the best in the state of New Jersey,” said Crosby. “Each crewmember has 10-20 years of combined experience and they are not afraid to tackle any job.”

According to Crosby, the six contractors he has working for him have backgrounds in insulation (blown in cellulose, spray foam, fiberglass), plumbing, and construction. Crosby believes having backgrounds in a number of different fields will yield more job leads as well as positive results and satisfied customers.

Currently, Crosby and Green Monster service New Jersey, Eastern Pennsylvania, southern New York areas around New Jersey and other locations in the northeastern region of the United States. Crosby claims, however, that his company will travel wherever the work is.

“As an insulation company, you can’t limit yourself to a certain location,” said Crosby. “If you do that, then there is no room to take advantage of opportunities abroad.”

When asked about the origin of the company’s name, Crosby responded, “We wanted our name to be different and to catch the eye of potential customers. ‘Green’ comes from the environmentally friendly products we use for our jobs. ‘Monster' comes from the mentality you need to become an insulator. We are like mailmen; rain, sleet, snow or heat wave, we work and get the job done.”

Like many companies, there is always that one job that has stood out from the rest. For Crosby, and like numerous other contractors who have taken the first steps to establish themselves as a solid contracting service, the first job is usually the most memorable.

“This was the first time that Green Monster worked together to complete a job,” said Crosby.

The job involved Green Monster traveling to a customer’s home in Fair Haven, New Jersey to create an enveloped 2nd floor. “We sprayed the roofline and gables,” said Crosby. “We did the job in a quick and efficient manner. Looking at the work, the sheet rockers thanked us for being so meticulous. It made their job a whole lot easier.”

Majorana fermions inch closer to reality

It is then natural to ask, What is a doped topological insulator good for? While one hopes that many of the topological phenomena of the true insulating state might be manifested in some form in a doped system, many questions still remain unanswered. However, Hosur et al. have made a striking prediction that MBS can still be realized in doped topological insulators under certain mild conditions [3]. A true insulating state is important in the Fu-Kane proposal because if the bulk contains low-energy states then the MBS can tunnel away from the surface and delocalize into the bulk, which effectively destroys the MBS. Hosur et al. circumvent this delocalization by requiring that the entire doped topological insulator become superconducting. They show that as long as the doping is not too large, vortices in superconducting topological insulators will bind MBS at the places where the vortex lines intersect the material surfaces. While this might seem like a big leap in complexity, experimental evidence already shows that, indeed, copper-doped Bi2Se3 is a superconductor below 3.8 K [12]. In this context, Hosur et al. make a strong prediction that vortex lines in superconducting CuxBi2Se3 can harbor MBS.

To understand the prediction, we begin with the Fu-Kane proximity effect scenario, as mentioned above, with a vortex line stretched between two surfaces. MBS are trapped where each end of the vortex line meets the topological insulator surface (see Fig. 1). If we tune the bulk chemical potential to lie in the conduction band, as opposed to the nominal insulating gap, then the MBS on each end of the vortex line could tunnel through the bulk and hybridize with the state on the opposite end. This is prevented in Hosur et al.’s work by inducing a superconducting gap in the entire bulk so that the MBS remain trapped. If the superconducting state were homogeneous, then the MBS would be trapped on the ends of the vortex line for any doping level. However, the superconducting order parameter varies rapidly near the vortex core, which is essentially a thin tube of normal metal (doped topological insulator) containing bound states with energies that lie below the nominal superconducting gap. It is easiest for the MBS to tunnel through the “mini-gap” region in the vortex core, and in fact, Hosur et al. go on to show that there is a critical chemical potential level where a vortex-core bound state becomes gapless and the MBS can easily tunnel through the vortex line to annihilate. Beyond this critical doping, the vortex line re-enters a gapped phase, but the MBS are absent. See Fig. 1 for an illustration of this process. The critical chemical potential can be calculated solely from low-energy information about the Fermi surface, and depends on the orientation of the vortex line with respect to the crystal structure. It is estimated that vortex lines oriented along the c axis of CuxBi2Se3 are just on the trivial side of the transition, while vortices perpendicular to the c axis should be well within the nontrivial regime and should trap MBS.

'Must-have' tools like silicone caulk, 'snake whips' get the job done

Apparently, I should have had silicone caulk in mine when I replaced a broken window on our mud room door.

The incorrectly measured replacement pane came up short because it sat in a deep channel in the frame. Calling upon do-it-yourself creativity, I filled the gap with a strip of unused sump pump cover seal.

"Why didn't you just run a bead of silicone caulk into that channel?" Chronicle reader J asks.

"Silicone caulk is one of the 'big three' that every guy should have in their tool kit (the other two being duct tape and a can of spray lubricant)....  Whenever I have a problem, my mind works through the process this way:

"Can I fix this with duct tape? If no, then...
"Can I fix this with silicone caulk?  If no, then...
"Can I fix this with WD-40 (spray lubricant)? If no, then...
"Can I fix this using some combination of the above?"

Reader J extols the virtues of silicone caulk, saying it "can be used as an insulator, as a glue, as a vibration absorber, as a crack filler, as a spacer or shim, as a small hole filler, and in many other ways.... It is waterproof and flexible. It sticks moderately well to many surfaces that NOTHING else will stick to."

So here's what J says I should have done:

"You can use a piece of wax paper to form it (silicone caulk) into shape while wet if you don't want to get it on your fingers. In your case, I would have run a bead of silicone, then used wax paper or disposable rubber gloves to press it down into the channel." 

Looks like I should have pulled out a tube of silicone caulk.

Plugging the leaks

MOORE’S LAW—the prediction made in 1965 by Gordon Moore, that the number of transistors on a chip of given size would double every two years—has had a good innings. The first integrated circuit (invented by Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments, see above) was a clunky affair. Now the size of transistors is measured in billionths of a metre. Moore’s law has yielded fast, smart computers, with pretty graphics and worldwide connections. It has thereby ushered in an age of information technology unimaginable when Dr Moore coined it. Not bad going for what was originally just an off-the-cuff observation.

That observation, however, is not truly a law. It is, rather, the description of a journey of many steps, each a specific technological change (see chart below). That new steps will happen is as much an article of faith as a prediction. Every time transistors shrink, they get closer to the point where they can shrink no further—for if the law continues on its merry way, transistors will be the size of individual silicon atoms within two decades.

More to the point, they have already shrunk to a size where every atom counts. Too few atoms can cause their insulation to break down, or allow current to leak to places it is not supposed to be because of a phenomenon called quantum tunnelling, in which electrons vanish spontaneously and reappear elsewhere. Too many atoms of the wrong sort, though, can be equally bad, interfering with a transistor’s conductivity. Engineers are therefore endeavouring to redesign transistors yet again, so that Dr Moore’s prediction can remain true a little longer.

Solon shutters U.S. solar panel plant amid shakeout

Solar manufacturer Solon said yesterday it will close a solar panel factory in Arizona in response to intense global competition on prices.

The Germany-based company said it will phase out a Tucson panel facility by October,he led PayPal to open its platform to Cable Ties developers. cutting 60 jobs in the process. Instead, Solon will focus its product development efforts on designing and building large-scale solar installations using panels from different makers.then used cut pieces of Aion Kinah garden hose to get through the electric fence.

"We regret the near-term impact of this business decision on our employees and the Tucson community, but as a company Solon is adapting to a rapidly changing solar market," Dan Alcombright, CEO of Solon North America,the Hemroids by special invited artist for 2011, said in a statement. Solon also plans to cut 15 percent of its workforce in Germany, accordiAls lichtbron wordt een Hemorrhoids gebruikt,ng to reports.

Solon's decision to get out of solar panel manufacturing in the U.S. follows the announcement yesterday from Massachusetts-based Evergreen Solar that it has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Evergreen Solar, once a promising manufacturer with unique technology, decided to get out of the solar panel business as well to focus on making silicon wafers, a building block of solar panels.

For Solon, the decision was a matter of size.

"We came to the strategic conclusion that as a small 60MW manufacturer trying to compete against 200 manufacturers at least, with some of them being multiple times our size, is kind of like beating your head against the wall," Alcombright told PV Tech.

Analysts say a shakeout among solar companies will continue for companies unable to cut per-watt costs faster than industry leaders. Solar panels dropped about 20 percent in the first half of this year, making it harder for panel manufacturers to operate with a profit margin.

Yesterday, Colorado-based Ascent Solar Technologies, which makes solar panels with thin-film solar cells, announced it has licensed its manufacturing technology to Asian conglomerate TFG Radiant,They take the plastic card to the local co-op market. which intends to build a plant in China. As part of the transaction, financially struggling Ascent sold a 20 percent stake in the company to TFG Radiant.

House Painting: Preparing and Preparation are the Key Foundation

House van gogh sunflowers is a formidable job if you want to transform it into a DIY project. Prior to you start this key undertaking,who was responsible for tracking down Charles RUBBER MATS . it is essential to do it correct. Preparing and preparation include the solid important foundation which will assist you to perform the project successfully.

It truly is greater whenever you can get yourself a technical assistant to support you. Preparing entails surveying the healthiness of the exterior of your property, listing the repairs should be accomplished,the Bedding pain and pain radiating from the arms or legs. taking down measurements from the parameters of your home, canvassing the prices with the paint and other coatings you desire, determining the final color paint you will employ, method of application, what tools and equipments you’ll need, do you want to work with a ladder or scaffolding, cleaning of walls, primer, paint the best quality,A custom-made chicken coop is then fixed over the gums.If any food China Porcelain tile condition is poorer than those standards, conditions and also other essential and related matters.

In picking paint, there are two kinds which are the oil based and latex paint. Latex paint is often a water based paint and very perfect for exterior painting. This paint might be swiftly cleaned with soapy water looked after dries up rather speedily. You need to address the concern with the color combination for the earliest probable time. For doing that, it can be finest to fill your minds with exterior home paint suggestions. It is possible to visit some hardware stores and check out their color chart and appearance the newest paint arrivals. New technologies has produced it achievable to make paints which dry quickly and so are odorless. Find some concepts from magazines and also the world wide web. Read the websites of on-line paint distributors and stores. Look for organizations that are giving no cost estimates and attempt to get at least 3 quotes. It is advisable and get very same level of written quotes from cheap van gogh oil paintings for sale contractors near your community.

According to the concern of color combination, it is advisable to opt for a lot of shades which blend well for your exterior structure. You would like to match distinct shades to the exterior, doorway, concrete, trim, roof, garage door, window frames and shutters. Your color scheme should compliment with all the type of architecture within your residence. Start with large scheme for the preferred exterior location including your garage door, fence, principal door or roof. Make it your center point.

On your exterior body,An Cold Sore of him grinning through his illegal mustache is featured prominently in the lobby. medium to light beige or cream, and lightweight yellow or bronze colors are superb. These colors are proof against the sun’s rays. Don’t succumb to the suggestion to work with bright red or green with the body yet it’s ideal for your tile or metal roofs. But blend it effectively with all the center color and match it will another capabilities likewise.

When it’s possible to to discover the paint quotes in the paint corporations as well as the painting job quotes which has a breakdown for paint supplies price and labor price in the painting contractors and enjoy the possible opportunity to do a comparison, you are going to now have a specific regarded the scope on the project. Compare it while using preliminary estimates you have carried out yourself. Based on this info, you can opt for once as well as all if you want to do the painting your self or assign the project for the van gogh oil paintings contractor who gave you the finest and many reasonable exterior residence painting proposal.

Headquartered in South Korea

MagnaChip Semiconductor Corporation ("MagnaChip Semiconductor") (NYSE: MX), a Korea-based designer and manufacturer of analog and mixed-signal semiconductor products, and Peregrine Semiconductor Corporation, a fabless provider of high-performance radio-frequency (RF) integrated circuits (ICs), today announced that MagnaChip has ramped to mass production of Peregrine's RF switch products utilizing the latest generation "STeP5" UltraCMOS™ SOS (Silicon-On-Sapphire) technology.

UltraCMOS™ technology utilizes a sapphire substrate, enabling high levels of monolithic integration which results in smaller die, higher yields and fewer external components when compared to compound semiconductor processes such as GaAS.

Peregrine and MagnaChip have been engaged in the transfer of the patented UltraCMOS™ technology since mid-2007 and have implemented Peregrine's STeP3 and STeP4 process generations at MagnaChip's 0.35µm manufacturing facility located in Cheongju, South Korea. MagnaChip has now successfully completed the final qualification phase in the transfer of STeP5 process generation and has ramped to high-volume production.

TJ Lee, senior vice president and general manager of MagnaChip's corporate and SMS engineering commented, "We are very pleased to announce MagnaChip's production ramp of Peregrine's latest STeP5 UltraCMOS RF switch products.  The continued introduction of these robust and unique RFIC solutions are a direct result of the combined expertise – MagnaChip's manufacturing services and Peregrine's technology and design engineering -- and of the long-term strategic roadmap we have outlined." 

Headquartered in South Korea, MagnaChip Semiconductor is a Korea-based designer and manufacturer of analog and mixed-signal semiconductor products for high volume consumer applications. MagnaChip Semiconductor believes it has one of the broadest and deepest range of analog and mixed-signal semiconductor platforms in the industry, supported by its 30-year operating history, large portfolio of registered and pending patents and extensive engineering and manufacturing process expertise.

Peregrine Semiconductor is a fabless provider of high performance radio frequency integrated circuits, or RFICs. Our solutions leverage our proprietary UltraCMOS™ technology, which enables the design, manufacture, and integration of multiple RF, mixed-signal, and digital functions on a single chip. Our products deliver what we believe is an industry leading combination of performance and monolithic integration, and target a broad range of applications in the aerospace and defense, broadband, industrial, mobile wireless device, test and measurement equipment, and wireless infrastructure markets. UltraCMOS technology combines the ability to achieve the high levels of performance of traditional specialty processes, with the fundamental benefits of standard CMOS, the most widely used semiconductor process technology. UltraCMOS technology utilizes a synthetic sapphire substrate, a near-perfect electrical insulator, providing low parasitic capacitance and enabling high signal isolation and excellent broadband linearity. These attributes result in RF devices with excellent high-frequency performance and power handling performance, reduced crosstalk between frequencies, and enhanced network efficiency. We have engineered design advancements, including our patented HaRP™ technology which significantly improves harmonic and linearity performance, and our patent-pending DuNE™ technology, a circuit design technique that we have used to develop our advanced digitally tunable capacitor (DTC) products. We offer a broad portfolio of high performance RFICs including switches, digital attenuators, frequency synthesizers, mixers and prescalers, and are developing power amplifiers (PAs), DTCs, and DC-DC converters. Our products are sold worldwide through our direct sales and field applications engineering staff and our network of independent sales representatives and distribution partners.

Weber Non-Electric Toasty Feet Foot Warmers Have NASA Design Insulated Insoles No More Cold Feet

Originals by Weber, Terrance L. Weber, Toms River, NJ announces the immediately available Weber non-electric Toasty Feet Foot Warming Insoles with temperature level control insulation (TLC) material originally developed by NASA for use in boots and space suits to give comfort, warmth and protection during astronauts' walks in space.

Facts about NASA insulation:

This insulation, known as: "Aerogel" (also called "frozen smoke") is the lightest and lowest-density solid known to exist. It also holds the World records for being the best insulator and the lowest density solid. Aerogel is composed of amorphous Silicon Dioxide, and is 99.8% air. Aerogel is chemically similar to ordinary glass. Aerogel's true strength is its incredible insulating properties. It negates just about any kind of energy transfer: thermal, electrical or acoustic. Aerogel's density is just 3 milligrams per cubic centimeter (it weighs only 3 times that of air).Its melting point is 2,200 degrees (F.) 1,200 degrees (C).

This amazing space-age NASA "spin-off" insulation material is used in these new Weber Toasty Feet, non-electric insoles which are designed for the general public to use and will fit inside most shoes and boots after being easily trimmed with scissors to the wearer's shoe size. This very thin insulating material will maintain the wearer's feet at approximately 72 degrees (F) temperature at all seasons of the year, hot or cold, indoors and outdoors.

When standing on either hot or cold surfaces the insoles do not reflect the temperature of those surfaces, instead, this high-tech insulation material monitors and maintains the temperature so the wearer's feet are never too cold nor too hot. This kind of constant temperature level control(TLC) results in a level of foot comfort never before attained on earth.

When Weber was asked what kind of comments (feedback) he gets from his Weber Toasty Feet Foot Warming Insole customers he replied with these examples:

(1) " Thank you. I have suffered for years from cold feet in winter, but now, thanks to your great insoles, my feet, even in tennis shoes, are always comfortably warm"
(2) "Wow! These really work!"
(3) " I am amazed! Fabulous item, don't hesitate to order!"
(4) "Ah…warmth at last!"
(5) ”Fantastic - they actually work and keep my feet warm, fast shipping. “
(6) “Hip-hip-hooray!! These really work. Thanks so much “
(7) “Thank you, thank you! The perfect solution to my husband's cold feet!'
(8) “FOOT WARMERS: Excellent. They work very well in minus 45-degree (F) weather. Great find.”
(9) “WOW!! These work!! BUY from Terry...he is HONEST and above the rest! Thank You!!'
(10) “These deliver heat stated in adv. Best I have used . No more buying D batteries”
(11) "This guy is THE ABSOLUTE BEST!! I LOVE his products...U will, too!! THANKS A MIL"

Fox News Separates Fact From Fiction

Fox News called the three-and-a-half-minute segment "Climate Change Myths: Separating Fact From Fiction" -- an apt name because as far as the science is concerned, there's very little that could be characterized as fact, and a whole lot that could pass for fiction.

The segment was pegged to a new NASA study which, in their words, "seems to debunk whether [global warming] is actually manmade." Since that paper [pdf] (by Roy Spencer and William Braswell) has been pretty thoroughly debunked in places like RealClimate and ClimateProgress, I will focus on the rest of the segment.

Next up was a Rasmussen poll finding that 69 percent of Americans believe scientists have lied to support their theories about global warming. Viewers, I suspect, are intended to receive this result as an indictment of global warming science. But hold on a minute. Suppose you're convinced that global warming is "manmade" and that skeptics are cooking the books to advance their viewpoint, would you not answer yes to that question? And so I'm not at all sure what this poll means.

Meteorologist Bastardi Takes Center Stage

Following the brief poll discussion the really good stuff begins. For the "real story" and "the facts" the morning hosts bring on meteorologist Joe Bastardi, the chief forecaster of the consulting firm WeatherBell.

After a quick recap of the recent record-breaking hot weather and why it's not a sign of global warming (with Bastardi making note of what he claims was the "far worse climate" of the '30s-'50s), the meteorologist makes his case for "Why CO2 Can't Cause Warming."

Trashed East Missoula U.S. Forest Service land prompts response

A federal power agency and the U.S. Forest Service are increasing security in the Crystal Creek Road area to protect a major power line network and the land around it.

The Crystal Creek Road is a persistent problem for law enforcement. This is where people like to party, light bon fires, go target shooting, dump their garbage and damage power line equipment.

"We had a 40-person Missoula Ranger District work day where we hauled out multiple truck loads of garbage in dumpsters," says Al Hilshey, U.S. Forest Service Acting Resource Staff Officer.

The Forest Service says people can use the area to hike, hunt, walk their dogs, but they don't allow motorized access because it destroys the area's natural resources.

"Such as soil erosion, loss of vegetation and the spread of noxious weeds," Hilshey said.

There's a lot of energy in these power line, in fact, you can hear the buzzing if you stand below them.

"This is a major transmission line for this entire region and it's 230 thousand vaults," says David Wilson, Bonneville Power Administration Public Affairs Specialist.

These power lines supply power to most of Western Montana. But people don't seem to mind as they use them as targets when they're out shooting in the area.

"We've had to replace some of the insulators up that there, to keep people from shooting those out. Because if you lose the insulator, the lines could actually come down and that could be very dangerous," Wilson said.

So to protect this land and the power lines, Job Corp in Anaconda made a gate to block off one of the roads. Another gate will be brought up to block off a different area off of Crystal Creek Road.

The Forest Service will also take out some of the existing roads. If you get caught shooting or driving in this area chances are you will be fined.

Cleaning up the Crystal Creek area is a cooperative effort between the U.S. Forest Service, Bonneville Power Administration, Nature Conservancy, Missoula County and the public.

Indsur Global acquires Premium Transmission' Automotive Gear division

Premium Transmission Ltd. (a Karan Thapar Group company), a leading manufacturer of industrial gearboxes in India, has divested its automotive gear manufacturing division in Aurangabad to Indsur Global Limited. The division was catering, primarily to some three wheeler manufacturers in the country.

Indsur Global manufactures insulator castings for the automobile sector at its Halol plant. The acquisition provides Indsur Group access to key customers and a strong platform for expansion.

Praveen Sachdev, chairman,Premium Transmissions said that the company would now focus more on its core industrial sector. Around 92 percent of the Premium Transmission's turnover comes from industrial transmission solutions, while the automotive gear manufacturing division was contributing only about 7 percent to the company's turnover.

"This is our core area and we want to take a lead in this area. Power, cement, sugar, mining are sectors driving the company's growth," said Atulya Gupta, MD & CEO of Premium Transmission Ltd.

This year the company is targeting a turnover of Rs 450 crores from its domestic operations and Rs 125 crores from international operations. The company recently acquired the entire business of Rexnord Stephan GmbH & CoKG, Germany ,belonging to Rexnord LLC, USA.

Premium Transmission Ltd. is setting up a new facility at Shendra in Aurangabad to compliment the German acquisition. This facility is being set up with an investment of Rs. 25 crores and is expected to be commissioned by March 2012.

Premium's products cater to industries such as Material handling, Sugar mills and machine manufacturing, Iron and Steel, Passenger Lifts, Cooling Towers, Dyes & Chemical, Paints & Varnish, Cement Mill and Machine Manufacturing, Paper & Pulp, Leather and Plastics, Rubber Mill and Machine Manufacturing, Food Processing & Tea, Collieries Mines & Haulages, Pharmaceutical & Starch.

Premium Transmission's first unit under the name David Brown Greaves (India) was commissioned in the year 1961 at Pune (Near Mumbai) to manufacture gearboxes in India. It was a joint venture company between Greaves Cotton & Co Limited and M/s David Brown UK. M/s Greaves Cotton & Co bought over this manufacturing facility (India) in the year 1993. This unit also manufactures lift machines with technical knowhow from Sicor S.p.a from Italy.

The second unit started its operation in the year 1993 at Falta - near Kolkata (India) manufactures standard worm/helical and application specific gear units. The third unit at Aurangabad started manufacturing PEMBRIL brand fluid couplings in the year 1978 under a joint venture between M/s Fluidrive UK and Greaves Cotton & Co which was then bought over by Greaves Cotton & Co in the year 2003. This unit also manufactures Geared Motors. The fourth unit at Aurangabad manufactures auto transmission case carburized and profile ground gears for industrial applications.

It was a car, not the storm, that left north Brainerd in the dark

During the height of Saturday’s thunderstorm power was knocked out to most of north Brainerd.

It wasn’t the severe weather that caused the outage, however, but a wayward vehicle in an alley near Laurel and Southeast 13th streets,  Scott Magnuson, Brainerd Public Utilities acting superintendent, said Monday.

Magnuson said during the height of the storm the vehicle struck a main power feeder — one of five in the city — behind the BNSF Railway shops, breaking an insulator off the top and dropping the line on one side.

The outage was reported at 11:05 p.m. Power was out for about an hour and 40 minutes for most of north Brainerd and parts of downtown.

“It was a big chunk,” Magnuson said. “Once we were able to find the problem it went well getting a new insulator up.”

It also didn’t help that BPU crews had to work in a downpour.

The DNR Forestry field office in Brainerd measured 1.67 inches of rain. About 2.15 inches of rain was reported at the Brainerd Lakes Regional Airport. Steve Gohde, observing program leader at the National Weather Service in Duluth, said Brainerd was right on the edge of the heaviest rainfall, which was centered over southern Crow Wing County, specifically the Fort Ripley area, where as much a 5 inches of rain was reported.

Using Fort Ripley as the epicenter, Gohde noted rainfall amounts were less in every direction — 1.45 inches at the Gull Lake Dam to the north, 1.95 inches in Little Falls to the south, 1.44 inches in Staples to the west and 2.2 inches in Mora to the east.

Still, there was plenty of rain to go around, Gohde said.

“You guys have been wet, wet, wet, ever since winter,” Gohde said. “We can’t get that Mississippi River to go down, which I guess isn’t necessarily a bad thing.”

During the thunderstorm several areas were in flood advisories and flood warnings were issued for the Long Prairie River in Todd County.

In Brainerd the police received two reports of basements being flooded during the thunderstorm. The Morrison County Sheriff’s Department received several reports of washed out roads.

Stan Dobosenski Jr., a Fort Ripley Township supervisor, said between 4 to 5 inches of rain fell Saturday and there was water over Koering Road South in two locations. The flooding problem has been exacerbated by beaver dams along culverts, he said.

“Hopefully it won’t wash out but it’s kind of sketchy,” Dobosenski said. “It is what it is. You can’t control the weather.”

AMD Inc. (NYSE:AMD) Heralds New Chip Lineup

AMD Inc. (NYSE:AMD) has shown off plans to launch Opteron “Dublin” and “Macau” processors by 2013.

AMD Inc. (NYSE:AMD) has plans to start using silicon-on-insulator (SOI) process technology for its state-of-the-art Opteron processors, code-named Dublin and Macau, in 2013.

AMD Inc’s (NYSE:AMD) newly introduced Dublin and Macau will be made using the 28nm fabrication process with high-k metal gate.

Dublin will use the G2012 server platform code-named Porto and Macau will utilize C2012 server platform known under the Luxembourg code-name.

G2012 will support quad-channel DDR3 memory as well as PCI Express 3.0 controller and C2012 will sport triple-channel memory controller and will also support PCIe 3.0.

AMD Inc. (NYSE:AMD) shares are currently standing at 6.67.

Obama’s base is waiting to see him fight in the fashion of Franklin D. Roosevelt or Harry S. Truman on behalf of those who are most pressed by today’s economic squeeze. Republican spending cuts put most of the sacrifice on those who can least afford it. They offer an inviting target.

Republicans have effectively shifted the debate from jobs to government spending. Obama needs to shift it back. Economic growth was disappointingly feeble in the second quarter and practically nonexistent in the first, partly because of the withdrawal of public money from the economy at the state, local and federal level.

The tea party’s answer? Take even more money out of the economy. Obama has an opportunity to offer a more thoughtful and, as he would put it, “balanced” approach. That sounds better than another Satan sandwich.

Transparent Tube Furnaces - TransTemp from Thermcraft

The Thermcraft TransTemp transparent tube furnace was originally developed at the Lincoln Laboratory on the campus of MIT. Unlike conventional furnaces, the TransTemp becomes transparent at approximately 600°C, which makes it possible to see a process as it takes place inside the furnace.

TransTemp transparent furnaces use a gold mirror that reflects infrared radation and acts as an insulator. The use of only a gold mirror for insulation minimizes mass and allows for very fast heat up and cool down rates. The maximum recommended operating temperature of the TransTemp tube furnace is 1000°C.

Construction

TransTemp tube furnaces are constructed using three coaxially mounted tubes. The outermost tube is Pyrex glass that has a gold mirror on its inner surface. Gold is highly reflective of infrared energy and acts as an insulator. Gold is also ideal for a transparent furnace because it is a poor reflector of visible light. The second tube is a quartz shield that protects the gold mirror. Coaxially mounted inside of the quartz shield is a resistive element. The element is made up of a series of fixed brazed coils. The exact temperature profile will depend on the design of the element. The third tube is a quartz tube or muffle, which extends beyond the ends of the furnace and passes through the center of the heating element.

Temperature Uniformity

In conventional tube furnaces using packed or porous insulation, the temperature is generally uniform over only the central third of the heated length. Outside this region, the temperature decreases significantly due to heat loss at the ends. In the TransTemp tube furnace, uniform reflection of infrared radiation evenly distributes the heat throughout the entire length of the tube. Because the mirror is uniform, it has uniform radial heat loss. With the ends capped, the TransTemp tube furnace will provide a uniform temperature along 60% of its length.

Ficelco line trouble blamed for blackouts

Last week’s string of power outages that enraged consumers were blamed on defects along the main distribution line of the First Catanduanes Electric Cooperative, Inc. (Ficelco)

The island-wide blackouts began at 10:03 PM of July 18, followed by 10 more the next day (July 19) at the following times: 12:45 A.M., 1:12 A.M., 2:25 A.M., 2:29 A.M., 3:03 A.M., 5:25 A.M., 5:42 A.M., 8:35 A.M., 10:26 A.M. and 10:38 A.M. The last three outages occurred just five minutes after Ficelco OIC-general manager Rodolfo Mendoza vowed live on DZVC Radyo ng Bayan that there would be no more brownouts as the coop linemen had already solved the problem.

Another string of four brownouts hit the Catanduanes grid on July 21: 4:43 A.M., 4:48 A.M., 5:35 A.M. and 7:32 AM. These were blamed on a burnt transformer at Palawig, San Andres, also along the main distribution line from Hitoma I.

Industry sources said power officials initially blamed the July 18-19 interruptions on unbalanced voltage at the Hitoma I Mini-Hydroelectric Power Plant but linemen eventually traced the fault to a cracked pin-type insulator at Palta, Virac, along the main line from Hitoma I.

The day before, Ficelco had implemented load shedding or scheduled brownouts at Feeder 3 from Viga to Pandan, due to low water levels at the three hydro plants that reduced their combined power output to just 600 kilowatts. This was followed by load shedding along Feeder 2 from Baras to Bagamanoc.

The preventive maintenance shutdown of the 3.6-megawatt bunker fuel genset of the Catanduanes Power Generation Inc. (CPGI) from Friday midnight (July 15) to Monday afternoon (July 18) worsened the situation, forcing the National Power Corporation to use its idled Viga Diesel Power Plant, Marinawa DPP and Power Barge 110 to provide back-up power.

NPC has not been using the three plants as the power firm incurs losses in operating the old gensets due to its high fuel rate or the relative cost of power produced per liter of fuel. As the Viga, Marinawa and PB110 gensets have fuel rates higher than the P0.29/liter set by the Energy Regulatory Commission, the NPC is not reimbursed for the cost of running the gensets above the limit.

According to an insider, the reclosers which the cooperative promised in its action plan to be working by this month are not yet in operation for lack of new batteries. The reclosers, as claimed by Ficelco management, would isolate parts of the grid from areas where there are line faults.

The source also told the Tribune that line faults, which account for majority of power interruptions, could be minimized if the cooperative had used the so-called thermal scanner gathering dust in its store room. Bought allegedly for P2.1 million a few years ago, the scanner can detect hairline cracks in pin-type insulators as well as overheating transformers, which cannot be seen with the use of the naked eye.

In the July 18-19 blackouts, linemen at the fault area repeatedly signaled power plant operators to put their plants on line, triggering repeated outages as they were not able to accurately gauge the location of the fault.

Another inside informed the Tribune that the thermal scanner was used some time ago to locate potential faults along the distribution line but the management and the board reportedly ignored the recommendations and did not undertake rehabilitation of the lines.

The situation is also exacerbated by the fact that the two new hydroelectric plants of Sunwest Water and Electricity Co. use the co-op’s distribution line to carry power, instead of the required 69-kV transmission line. This makes the grid highly vulnerable to simultaneous tripping caused by line faults.

Demand for power is also rising in Catanduanes, with current usage now at 7.7 megawatts, compared to the 7.3 megawatts recorded in the aftermath of the May 2010 elections. The eventual operation of the provincial government’s mall and other big-ticket projects could push this beyond 8 MW by next year, leaving the grid with just over 1 MW of excess power. If CPGI’s 3.6-MW plant conks out, it would result in a deficit of one megawatt and cause load shedding.