2013年4月25日星期四

Recent California newspaper editorials

Public safety should not be an afterthought for state regulators. The California Public Utilities Commission needs to change lax institutional attitudes and do a better job of protecting Californians. Ensuring that utility operations do not endanger the public is a fundamental duty of state oversight.

The agency's nonchalant approach to risks has been under scrutiny since the 2010 explosion of a gas pipeline in San Bruno that killed eight people and destroyed 38 homes. The National Transportation Safety Board's 2011 investigation of that incident faulted the commission for failing "to uncover the pervasive and longstanding" deficiencies in safety procedures at pipeline owner Pacific Gas and Electric Co.Elpas Readers detect and forward 'Location' and 'State' data from Elpas Active RFID Tags to host besticcard platforms.

The commission hired a consultant last year to survey agency officials and staff about safety issues last year and the results suggest too little has changed since the pipeline disaster. Those surveyed said safety was not a top priority at the agency, with weak enforcement efforts and mild consequences for safety violations. The report said that commissioners had minimal interest in safety issues,Choose the right bestluggagetag in an array of colors. and cited a too-cozy relationship between regulators and the companies they oversee.You Can Find Comprehensive and in-Depth carparkmanagementsystem truck Descriptions.

Such casual attitudes are unacceptable at an agency charged with ensuring "safe, reliable utility service at reasonable rates." The abysmal failure to monitor pipeline safety already undermined Californians' confidence in the commission's commitment to protecting the public. The internal report only provides additional reasons for skepticism,We offer over 600 chipcard at wholesale prices of 75% off retail. as Assembly members noted during a hearing on Wednesday.

Californians also have good reason to be frustrated with the slow pace of improvement. PUC Executive Director Paul Clanon said during the Assembly hearing that changing the agency's attitudes was a five-year process that would take at least another two-and-a-half years to complete.

But why should California have to wait years for state regulators to focus on a fundamental public duty? Regulatory oversight that ignores risks to the public is pointless. Gov. Jerry Brown should insist that the commission composed of five gubernatorial appointees improve the agency's record on safety, or face replacement.

The commission said that the report was an informal survey, not a thorough analysis of the agency's record. But if the agency's own staff and managers think the PUC's attitudes toward safety are too lax, why should the public believe otherwise?

And safety is hardly the only question swirling around the agency. A December audit by state finance officials faulted the commission's sloppy accounting practices. The state's legislative analyst said in February that the commission's poor fiscal oversight suggested that utilities could be overcharging customers and regulators would not know.

While education reformers in Sacramento continue to obsess about how easy it should be to fire teachers and how important tests should be in evaluating their performance, almost no one is talking about the central issue of what students are supposed to be learning in the near future.

A sea change is coming to schools in California, one of the 45 states that have adopted what are known as the Common Core State Standards. The idea of the new standards is to bring some consistency to education from state to state, and to better prepare students for the work they'll be expected to do in college and their jobs. Though the Obama administration couldn't legally force new standards on states, it threatened to deny grant money under the federal Race to the Top program if they didn't create and adopt common standards.

The standards are designed to push students to deeper levels of understanding and analysis. They call on teachers to cover fewer topics but to delve into each more thoroughly, and they discourage rote learning in favor of fuller understanding of the material. In math, for example,The 3rd International Conference on custombobbleheads and Indoor Navigation. it might be less important for students to give the correct answer to a problem than to be able to describe the best process for reaching the solution. In California, the curriculum standards and the new tests that go with them are supposed to be implemented in the 2014-15 school year.

That's soon, and at the rate California is going, it won't be ready. The core curriculum standards lay out extensive guidelines about the knowledge and skills that students should master in each grade of public school, in both reading and math. But there are many complicated steps involved in turning those guidelines into a day-to-day educational plan for California schools, and the state isn't even close to halfway through them. It hasn't figured out how to go about training teachers, and won't begin to adopt new textbooks a slow and politically rancorous process for at least two years.

What's more, common core is expensive, requiring extensive new training for teachers, new textbooks and computers on which the new tests must be taken. It's unclear where the state will find the money.

At the rate the state is going, teachers will end up being trained before the English curriculum is even in place, and instruction would start before the new textbooks are in anyone's hands. Yet if the school reform movement has its way, teachers will be evaluated in part based on how well their students do on the very different standardized tests that go with the new curriculum. Reflecting the concern that teachers throughout the state have been expressing, one California teacher recently tweeted that within a couple of years, "we start testing on standards we're not teaching with curriculum we don't have on computers that don't exist."

Denny Hamlin says he's on pace for return

"Honestly, I know everyone is trying to protect me from myself, but I would have raced at Martinsville weeks ago," Hamlin said. "Obviously, doctors are more well informed nowadays and I understand risks more than what they used to, but it used to be off driver feel and it's not that any more with concussions and everything else. They try to protect you from yourself, so it's tough."

Hamlin and Joe Gibbs Racing team officials reached the decision not to compete in Saturday night's Toyota Owners 400 after consulting with doctors Wednesday afternoon. Brian Vickers will drive the No.A group of families in a north Cork village are suing a bestplasticcard operator in a landmark case. 11 in Hamlin's place for a third straight week.

Hamlin had hoped to return to competition Saturday night at Richmond,We offer advanced technology products and services for howotipper control. a track with special meaning to him for several reasons. The .75-mile oval, not far from his hometown of Chesterfield,A group of families in a north Cork village are suing a bestplasticcard operator in a landmark case. Va., is not only the site of two of his 22 Sprint Cup wins, but is also the host to his annual Denny Hamlin Short Track Showdown, which benefits his charitable foundation.

"Obviously, my injury is very, very hard because there is no exact science to the risk," Hamlin said. "No one knows what the risk will be if I race this week or if I race two weeks from now. Bone healing is completely subjective. It takes bone healing a year most times to be 100 percent, so how do you quantify how much more risk is there this week versus two weeks down the road or three weeks down the road or two months down the road, so that's the tough part of it. Everyone is erring on the cautious side because no one ultimately wants to be responsible and have their name on the line of clearing a driver and then he goes out and gets hurt."

Hamlin has been sidelined since suffering a back injury March 24 in a last-lap crash at Auto Club Speedway. The wreck marked the second straight week of full-contact racing between Hamlin and former teammate Joey Logano, stoking what has become this season's most tense rivalry.

Hamlin said doctors are happy with a plan to have him start the May 5 race at Talladega Superspeedway before giving way to a relief driver in the early going. Hamlin would be credited with points in the driver standings under that scenario. The same plan was considered at Richmond, but negotiating a driver change at .75-mile Richmond would likely cost a team several laps and a realistic shot at winning. At 2.66-mile Talladega, lap times -- especially under caution -- would allow the team to switch drivers with minimal penalty.

Hamlin, who will miss his fourth consecutive race Saturday,Laser engraving and laser customkeychain for materials like metal, has slipped from 10th place to 26th in the Sprint Cup Series standings over that span. To qualify for the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup through a wild-card berth, Hamlin will need to collect wins and work his way back into the top 20 in points.

"I think if this goes past Darlington (May 11),The 3rd International Conference on custombobbleheads and Indoor Navigation. then I don't know what the chances of us making the Chase are even if we were to race this weekend, race next weekend or the one after -- I don't know the chances," he said. "There's a lot of good teams that you have to beat to guarantee you're going to win the races. Obviously, if it goes past Darlington our chances are crushed even harder.

"Eventually you have to have a shutdown point of not going out there and racing for nothing at a point. I think a recovery on the kind of surgery that I would like to have is about a month-and-a-half or so -- I could potentially come back maybe for the tail end of the year. I don't think anything would be season-ending, I guess you could say. Eventually you have to know the point at which you're looking at improbabilities of making the Chase and just being smart about it."

Hamlin said he is physically able to climb into a race car through the driver door window, but that the injury has had an effect on his day-to-day life. He said his ailing back prevents him from bending over to lift his 3-month-old daughter from her crib and that his everyday pain level -- on a scale of one to 10 -- is an aching seven.

"That is stuff that does affect your daily life and really other than my back I am physically able to do a lot of things outside of racing, but I can't because I'm so limited on what I can do because of back issues," Hamlin said. "I just want to get that part over with. I'm willing to take the risk to get better and take the time off to get better because I feel like mentally it will put me in a better place. Other than that, it's just everyday life and you deal with it."

If Jane Austen were alive and a writer of technology, she might open this piece thusly: It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of an iPhone 5. Or a Samsung Galaxy 4. Or a tablet. Or one of a dozen other gadgets or technologies that transform our lives almost daily. But as any student of Pride and Prejudice knows, Austen wasnt stating a universal truth but, rather, mocking the assumptions of her milieu.

And so we find exactly two hundred years later, that as a culture we still tend to make certain assumptions about our behavior that have little basis in fact. One of them is that the LGBT communities, and especially gay men, are early adopters of technology.

And why shouldnt we believe it? After all, it is everywhere in the media. When Paul Saffo, a tech blogger and Stanford University educator, grandiloquently declares that, theres something slightly indefinable about gay males that make them early adopters and important leading edge indicators, arent we more prone to confirm our own vain assumptions about ourselves as a community on the leading edge, despite some obscure reference to the slightly indefinable?

Tim Evanson, a researcher and social scientist from Washington, D.C. lays bare the myths. There is almost no real empirical evidence that LGBT people are early adopters of technology. Most such claims are assertions, often coming from self-interested technology companies or companies promoting marketing to the LGBT community.

There are studies which claim to find evidence of this. One is a 2003 study by Forrester Research, which surveyed 60,000 households and asked them about their technology buying habits and use. Forrester has done this for years, but in 2003 Forrester specifically asked households to self-identify their sexual orientation.

From this survey, Forrester Research said gays were wealthier and better educated; 80 percent of gay men and 76 percent of lesbians were online (compared with 70 percent of straight men and 69 percent of straight women); gays were 33 percent more likely to have broadband connections and have been online longer than heterosexuals.

PayPal Winning the Mobile Payments and Mobile Data Race

PayPal is leading consumers and merchants into a digital wallet universe and extending their lead with announcing partnerships with NCR and Discover. PayPal has 15 years of dominating online purchases but even more impressive is that they processed over $14 billion in mobile payments 2012. With the introduction of PayPal Here, they are chipping away at the major credit card companies on the payment processing side of the business and now seamlessly moving to eliminate the fixed-point, card-based transactions and the need to carry a credit card or even cash.The 3rd International Conference on custombobbleheads and Indoor Navigation.

The PayPal Here mobile card reader is becoming the preferred mobile payment solution for small businesses since the small card reader can be plugged into any tablet or smartphones ear bud jack without clunky cords or POS equipment.Choose the right bestluggagetag in an array of colors. The mobile card readers are a great solution for customers still wanting to carry around credit cards but the real move is to have the PayPal app on all smartphones virtually eliminating the need to have a physical credit card. PayPal users can already pay at a few thousand stores through their PayPal app by keying in their mobile phone number and pin at the point-of-sale but the Discover partnership announced this week will move that number to 2 million brand name retail locations by the end of 2013.

Combining payment transaction data with mobile data will allow consumers to get more information on their consumers and tie in offers through the PayPal app. Imagine driving by your favorite athletic shoe store and getting a notification on your smartphone that says 76 degrees this Saturday, great day for a run. New line of Nike running shoes just arrived in your size, 10 ?, black or red. Buy in the next 45 minutes & get 10% off. Thats pretty smart mobile data used at the right time and personalized to you.

It comes as no surprise that PayPal is bulking up on mobile data talent with 64 US job postings requiring mobile data experience. Job titles include Principal Analytics Platform Analyst, Data Engineer, Director of Analytics and Manager Software Development all requiring mobile data and analytics experience. Mobile Data jobs industry-wide are up 200% in the last 12 months so its obvious that companies are preparing for the shift to Mobile Big Data.

A lot of smart people have been imagining a world where our iPhones, BlackBerries and Samsungs handle innumerable routine daily tasks. But the one that caught our attention is the push to have phones act as keys to our cars.

The rush to use our smartphones for everything from flight check-in to purchasing groceries is making everyday tasks far simpler than its ever been. Surely it cant be long before the one device in our pocket does it all.

Some automakers, particularly those with electric models, already have apps that monitor various aspects of electricity consumption and other vitals. Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Cadillac mobile apps powered by OnStar allow owners to remotely activate all functions available on a traditional key fob, including remote start, horn and lights and door unlocks securely from select smartphones.A group of families in a north Cork village are suing a bestplasticcard operator in a landmark case. There are other apps that monitor fuel use, help monitor traffic in real time, in addition to the plethora of apps for navigation,Shop wholesale bestsmartcard controller from cheap. music, phone and entertainment.

But unlocking and locking the car and then starting the ignition with our phones is still a relatively new frontier that is, thankfully, gaining speed. Hyundai, using an embedded NFC tag (near-field communication) in the car,A group of families in a north Cork village are suing a bestplasticcard operator in a landmark case. has designed a system that allows owners to unlock their vehicle, start the engine and link up to the touchscreen with a quick swipe.

Most of us, most times, dont leave our homes without our phones, and because they are central to our lives, we misplace them less (or at least I do.) Since my phone is always with me, I should, therefore, always have access to the car.

The automotive supplier Continental is testing a smartphone app allowing real-time centralized control for access to, and charging of, electric vehicle fleets. Aimed at fast-growing, member-based car-sharing schemes, as well as corporate and government electric car fleets, Continentals digital key is also NFC-based, sending encrypted data to specific smartphones when the vehicle is about to be used. Holding the phone a few centimeters from the receiver integrated into the windshield or elsewhere the phones SIM card would verify the driver, give access authorization and allow the engine to be started.

No question, keys are very 1980. The current crop of push-button ignition systems and smart keys that unlock with a touch of the door handle (or push of a little button in the handle) are marvelously simple and ultra convenient. No automaker should be without a smart key system today. But a digital key in our phone is the next level and automakers would be smart to embrace it. There may even be bigger potential in voice-activated locks and ignition systems, based on the recognition of the vehicle owners voice. How cool would it be to simply get in and say start ignition.

Aside from the main issue of what happens when your phone is out of power, there are still some obvious kinks, and linking the phone to the car creates almost as many complexities as simplicities. No one will want to take their phone out of their pocket and scan it over a chip in the glass when its cold outside, so its going to have to work while nested in the pocket. It will have to work in -40C in Edmonton or when the car is covered in snow or if the embedding part breaks off. It will have to be seriously theft-proof and be quickly transferable should the phone be lost, stolen or misplaced. It will have to work equally well for various members of the family or anyone who needs to borrow the car.

2013年4月17日星期三

Every Milwaukee Buck is the opposite

For all the advancements in statistics and scouting, player evaluation and roster building,Choose the right bestluggagetag in an array of colors.The 3rd International Conference on custombobbleheads and Indoor Navigation. coaching and management and marketing and everything, each NBA team remains completely at the mercy of the players on its roster. Be they bound by fate, chance, the whims of gods or men, or butterflies in distant countries, foolproof projections are yet out of reach. There's no ridding a team of uncertainty; the Milwaukee Bucks are a testament to that. Not only do the Bucks face an uncertain (and perhaps unsettling) future, but the progression of this season has been a striking example of how drastically a team can change when nobody's looking. We've had our gaze fixed on the team for six months, dissecting every game, every move, every word, and we're still left scrambling trying to make sense of it all. And now, with another regular season wrapping up, where do we stand? On the brink of an exceedingly unsatisfying playoff berth, behind a roster full of players who are nothing like who we thought they were. 

No player exemplifies this unforeseen transformation better than the curious case of Larry Sanders. While he showed off definite improvement toward the end of last season,You Can Find Comprehensive and in-Depth carparkmanagementsystem truck Descriptions. Sanders still couldn't even get thing under control enough to usurp a starting spot from the likes of Drew Gooden. He stumbled, bumbled, and fouled his way into Summer League infamy in 2012, leading many to write him off as another physically-gifted-yet-fatally-flawed big man with limited value in the league. At best, we sighed, Sanders would top out as a defensive havoc-wreaker to be deployed in short bursts. Nothing contained or focused, just long-armed, shot-swatting, self-limiting mayhem. 

These days? Larry Sanders is widely regarded as the most important piece of the Bucks' roster and arguably Milwaukee's best player. What positive developments the Bucks made this season, Larry Sanders was standing behind many of them, covering up others' shortcomings while cleaning up his own. A player thought to have little offensive upside whatsoever turned into a solid pick-and-roll big who effectively attacked the rim with his length rather than brute size. His penchant for low-percentage jump shots dropped off considerably, and his rebounding, once a liability that kept him from extended court time,When describing the location of the problematic howotipper. became a fantastic strength. At one time he looked like a throwaway player, a guy destined for obscurity after his rookie contract ran out. Now Sanders is primed for an extension that could touch eight figures, and there's legitimate concern as to whether the Bucks can afford not to be the team giving it to him. 

The man Sanders effectively replaced hasn't had such a positive season. Samuel Dalembert looked like a solid acquisition as part of the Bucks draft-centric deal with the Houston Rockets: a big-bodied center with a good defensive reputation, great rebounding numbers, and a reliable offensive game. Installed as the starting center from day one, Dalembert was quickly and surprisingly exposed as something approaching a defensive liability. His size may have been helpful against other behemoths, but his slow feet and reluctant help made him a bad match for the gamblers in Milwaukee's backcourt. For the first time since the 2007-2008 season, Dalembert's team was better on defense when he was on the bench. He still flashed some useful jump-shooting but he never passed (his season high for assists is 2), and eventually found himself in the ol' Scott Skiles doghouse before earning probation under Jim Boylan in time to "blow up" just before the trade deadline. But an ill-timed injury from Larry Sanders conceivably scared the Bucks into keeping Dalembert past the trade deadline rather than selling high. Since then his minutes have been inconsistent, and he'll likely pass from Milwaukee's history remembered as little more than a big expiring contract. 

Some of the Bucks' riskier moves from recent years were tested this season as well. Ersan Ilyasova was retained after a breakout season on a relatively generous (though not outlandish) contract and questions of whether he would live up to his salary immediately sprang up. Those questions have, to a large extent, been answered in the affirmative, as Ilyasova was once again one of the league's top three-point shooters while boosting his attempts from 2.4 to 3.8 attempts per 36 minutes. But while he's been one of Milwaukee's most consistent offensive producers, his defense remains suspect. He was routinely torched by athletic forwards and occasionally embarrassed by opponents familiar with his penchant for taking charges, but the Bucks were still 2.9 points better with him on the court than off. If nothing else, Ilyasova's season has made it clear he can be a highly effective stretch-4 for Milwaukee or a valuable trade chip in the right deal. 

Conversely, Luc Mbah a Moute's uneven campaign intensified questions about whether he really fits in Milwaukee. His defense was excellent again but his offensive game collapsed. His true shooting percentage and offensive rebounding percentage both cratered to career-lows. He's had trouble with injuries, true, but for large stretches of time he felt overlooked or irrelevant. It now seems clear that Luc's ideal situation would be as a "designated defender" on a more complete team, but are the Bucks prepared to ship him out two years into his 4-year contract? His salary is hardly egregious (he'll make roughly $9 million over the next two years), but the Bucks may be better off capitalizing on whatever value he has elsewhere rather than misappropriating it at home. 

Then you've got enigmas like Ekpe Udoh and J.J. Redick. Udoh has always been the advanced stats hero who never seems to be doing much on the court but always grades out well. That is, until this season, when Ekpe Udoh's on/off differential--his calling card since he's been a pro--was precisely zero. Slight negative on offense, slight positive on defense. There might be a positive side to that: he should provide good value on a second contract, especially considering his lofty draft spot. That's if the Bucks decide he's worth keeping, of course. 

Redick is hard to peg. His acquisition remains a point of debate, but part of the problem is that he's performed below expectations with Milwaukee so far. He's probably due for some positive regression in his next deal relative to his tenure with the Bucks, but what's it going to cost to keep him in Milwaukee? The prospect of making him a long-term fixture with the Bucks likely had plenty to due with their decision to trade for him, but that future is now in question. Either way, it's striking to see people sour on the ability of a player who has been one of the NBA's most efficient scorers in the past few years. 

Incidentally, perhaps no player who started the season has emerged so brightly from this season than Tobias Harris,Elpas Readers detect and forward 'Location' and 'State' data from Elpas Active RFID Tags to host besticcard platforms. who has flourished with the Orlando Magic. His production masks a few persistent shortcomings in his game, but opinions of the young forward have grown substantially since earning his freedom from the shackles of Wisconsin.

Maduro certified as election winner amid protests

Venezuela's government-friendly electoral council quickly certified the razor-thin presidential victory of Hugo Chavez' hand-picked successor Monday, apparently ignoring opposition demands for a recount as anti-government protests broke out in the bitterly polarized nation. 

People stood on balconies banging pots and pans in protest as the electoral council's president proclaimed Nicolas Maduro president for the next six years. In the evening, they did it again, a raucous clanging in neighborhoods rich and poor, including the one surrounding the presidential palace where Maduro was holding a news conference. 

In the afternoon, thousands of young people clashed with National Guard troops in riot gear who fired tear gas and plastic bullets to block the protesters back from marching on the city center. The demonstrators threw stones and pieces of concrete. Protests also were reported in provincial cities. 

Maduro was elected Sunday by a margin of 50.8 percent to 49 percent over challenger Henrique Capriles a difference of just 262,000 votes out of 14.9 million cast, according to an updated official count released Monday. 

Sworn in as acting president after Chavez's March 5 death from cancer, Maduro squandered a double-digit advantage in opinion polls in two weeks as Capriles highlighted what he called the ruling Chavistas' abysmal management of the oil-rich country's economy and infrastructure, citing myriad woes including food and medicine shortages, worsening power outages and rampant crime. 

Until every vote is counted, Venezuela has an "illegitimate president and we denounce that to the world," Capriles tweeted Monday.Cheap logo engraved luggagetag at wholesale bulk prices. 

One of the five members of the National Electoral Council, independent Vicente Diaz, also backed a full recount, as did the United States and the Organization of American States.Find a great selection of customkeychain deals. 

But the electoral council president, Tibisay Lucena, said in announcing the outcome Sunday that it was "irreversible." At the proclamation ceremony Monday, she called Venezuela "a champion of democracy" and defended its electronic vote system as bullet-proof. 

Capriles, a 40-year-old state governor, had demanded the proclamation be suspended.Find a great selection of customkeychain deals. He convoked the pot-banging protest and asked supporters to gather outside the electoral council Tuesday 

Capriles claimed that members of the military, "an important group in various cities," had been detained for trying to guarant In Washington, White House spokesman Jay Carney said a "100 percent audit" of the results would be "an important, prudent and necessary step to ensure that all Venezuelans have confidence in these results." 

The secretary-general of the Organization of American States, Jose Miguel Insulza, also called for a "full recount." 

Under Venezuela's voting system, 54 percent of the tallies printed out by individual voting machines are routinely audited and that was done Sunday night, Lucena said. ee a free and fair election.When describing the location of the problematic howotipper. He said they had been ordered to ignore abuses they witnessed. Capriles did not offer further details, such as how many were involved. 

He said a vote count by his campaign produced "a different result" and it received more than 3,200 complaints of irregularities all by pro-government forces.A group of families in a north Cork village are suing a bestplasticcard operator in a landmark case. He demanded every single ballot be recounted. 

A total of 39,319 boxes of paper ballot receipts were emitted by Venezuela's electronic voting system Sunday. They are now stored in warehouses under the control of the military. Those receipts would need to be checked against vote count printouts emitted by each individual voting machine. Those results would then be checked with the electoral council's central tally. 

The electronic voting system itself was never questioned by the opposition and it has drawn praise from institutions such as the Carter Center as among the most reliable.

Analysts called the election result, which followed an often ugly campaign full of mudslinging, a disaster for Maduro, a former union leader and bus driver believed to have close ties to Cuba. 

A lackluster public speaker whose standard rhetoric features attacks on "the extreme right" that he says is constantly conspiring against him, Maduro must now endeavor to hold together a movement built around the magnetism of the now-departed Chavez. 

A hint of internal trouble to come came in a tweet by National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello, who many consider Maduro's main rival within their movement. 

Few outside Venezuela had bigger stakes in the race than Cuban President Raul Castro, whose country receives generous subsidized oil exports from Venezuela in exchange for sending doctors, military advisories and other help to Venezuela. 

Capriles had promised to end that exchange, as well as end close ties with other countries with questionable human rights and democracy records including Belarus and Iran.

Community Middle SRO requested

Board member Ron Adcock made the motion during Tuesday's meeting. Chad Graham amended the motion to clarify that the request is for SRO coverage whenever the Sheriff's Department ends its extended school coverage. Off-duty deputies are filling in as acting SROs at schools that do not have trained SROs. 

Adcock said the Community Middle-Elementary School campus is the only campus in the outlying areas of the county that does not have a trained SRO. Community is about 12 miles from the sheriff's department, and he worries about response time in the event of an incident. He discussed the possibility of the board taking other steps to add security features at schools in Shelbyville. 

Derick Ledford with Systems Integration presented his company's security offer. The firm already works with the school system's security cameras. Ledford discussed options that focused on securing doors to the school buildings and providing wireless panic buttons that select school staff would carry. 

Ledford identified doors at each school campus that would be used primarily for students, faculty, public or food service; other doors would be blocked from outside access and would only be available as emergency exits. 

He provided a breakdown of what it would cost to secure the doors by each category: secure entry systems for public building entrances would cost $42,100; faculty door control would cost more than $46,700; student door control would cost more than $66,600; and cafeteria control would cost $35,660. Computer control software would cost over $12,000. 

Staff would gain entry through their doors by using a Smart Card with a computer chip that logs every time he or she goes through a secured door, Ledford said. Office staff would admit visitors through a security camera at the designated public entrance. The system is flexible and could be adapted to each building's access needs, he said.

The wireless panic buttons can be programmed to either alert an SRO on the campus, the Sheriff's Department or anyone else, Ledford said. The buttons could also be given to students with health problems and act as a medical alert. Once activated, the devices allow authorities to monitor the person's movements on a computer-generated map of the school. 

Dawson exploded for 50 points and scored the go-ahead basket in overtime to lead the Bolts to a nerve-wracking 118-116 win against the Rain or Shine Elasto Painters Wednesday, the final day of the elimination round of the PBA Commissioners Cup at the Smart Araneta Coliseum. Dawson also had 14 rebounds and five steals. 

The win, Meralcos seventh in 14 outings, propelled the Bolts to take the sixth spot in the standings, setting the stage for a best-of-three quarterfinals match against the San Mig Coffee Mixers (8-6), the third seed,A group of families in a north Cork village are suing a bestplasticcard operator in a landmark case. starting on Friday. 

The Bolts and the Barangay Ginebra San Miguel Kings actually finished the elimination round with an identical 7-7 card but the Bolts took the higher seeding due to their higher quotient. As a result, the seventh-seeded Kings now face the second-seeded E-Painters (9-5) in their own quarterfinals match, with Rain or Shine needing just a win to advance to the semis. 

It was actually a no-bearing match for the E-Painters as they were assured of the No. 2 seeding, and the twice-to-beat advantage that goes with it, regardless of the outcome. Yet the E-Painters played their guts out, determined to end the elimination round with a morale-boosting win. 

Meanwhile, the Kings will be coming into their quarterfinals match with the E-Painters Saturday with a stronger roster. Just before the deadline for any trade Wednesday, Ginebra completed a trade with Barako Bull, getting high-scoring point guard Josh Urbiztondo in exchange for Keith Jensen and a 2015 second pick. 

In the nightcap of the Wednesday double-header, the Petron Blaze Boosters defeated the Talk N Text Tropang Texters, 87-76,A group of families in a north Cork village are suing a bestplasticcard operator in a landmark case. in a no-bearing game since both teams had already been assured of their spots in the playoffs prior to the game. 

The Boosters thus finished the elimination round with an 8-6 card, the same card held by San Mig Coffee.An experienced artist on what to consider before you buy chipcard.The 3rd International Conference on custombobbleheads and Indoor Navigation. However, the Boosters claimed the No. 3 seed in the playoffs having won over the Mixers in their only meeting this conference. 

Mashery employees received an internal email on Wednesday telling them they'd been acquired, according to Read Write Web.Choose the right bestluggagetag in an array of colors. Intel and Mashery execs subsequently confirmed to The Register that the acquisition is going ahead and is expected to within this quarter. 

"The plan is that Mashery will be a key tech element of [Intel's] overall service strategy, and Mashery employees are critical to that," Mashery marketing veep Julie Gibbs said. 

Mashery makes tools for managing APIs. Companies can use its tech for API key management for partners, publishing interactive API docs, and running support forums. Functionally, its technology is equivalent to that pioneered by venture-backed startup Mulesoft. 

"This acquisition is the next step in building an integrated Intel suite of services (cloud services, digital store fronts, location services, network services and security)," an Intel spokeswoman told The Register. "Mashery brings technology and expertise in the management and exposure of enterprise APIs. Mashery's expertise in key verticals will enable Intel to further provide user experiences enhanced by service capabilities." 

Intel used Mashery's tech for its Intel Expressway API Manager, which was announced in November. The manager paired Mashery's API management portal with Intel's security/service gateway to give enterprises what Intel termed a API management system "for enterprises looking to maximise security, performance, and developer adoption". Other Mashery customers include CBS Interactive, Argos, Best Buy, Channel 4, Comcast, and Coca Cola.