Cameras Help Hartford Catch Up To Ticket Scofflaws

Parking ticket scofflaws, beware! Hartford's got your number — literally. But civil libertarians can relax. There are safeguards built into the technology that catch violators on camera.

Since this past spring, the Hartford Parking Authority has used a license plate recognition system to identify those who haven't paid parking tickets. So far, the city has collected nearly $100,000 in overdue fines,Kitchen floor tiles at Great Prices from Topps Tiles. which is about three times the amount recovered before using the new technology.

The Tennessee-based firm that handles the city's parking enforcement, Republic Parking System, uses car-mounted cameras to randomly scan the license plates of cars parked in Hartford. When a plate number matches a number in a database of unpaid parking fines, Hartford police are notified. Officers may opt to tow the scofflaw's vehicle, even if it's not currently parked illegally.

The city pays Republic Parking System $942,000 a year to provide all parking enforcement and management of meters. Total yearly revenue collected from parking is about $3.3 million.

Using photography to nab those with a cavalier attitude toward paying parking tickets is a wise use of the technology. Those who believe a ticket was issued unfairly may challenge the fine, but ignoring it is just irresponsible.

As with all such technology, however, a major question is what happens to the masses of license-plate data after violators have been identified. Trawling for scofflaws can be effective, but it involves photographing the plates of thousands of innocent people. The American Civil Liberties Union has justifiable concerns about the accumulation and retention of immense amounts of data involving drivers who, in almost all cases, have done nothing wrong.

The Parking Authority's policy is to dump all data at the end of each information-collection shift. That's the proper course, and it is hoped that the agency is making sure Republic Parking System follows the city's rule.

Before the cameras were brought into use, the city said it had a backlog of 280,Different Sizes and Colors can be made with different stone mosaic designs.000 unpaid parking tickets amounting to a whopping $18 million. With any luck, the new system will whittle those numbers down quickly,Learn how Toyota's Solar Powered ventilation system uses the sun's rays. not only bringing in much needed funds but taking lawbreakers to task for their arrogant disdain of city regulations.

Downtown business owner and landlord Jeff Robins is resigning from the Downtown Improvement Area board,AeroScout is the market leader for rtls solutions and provide complete wireless asset tracking and monitoring.Different Sizes and Colors can be made with different stone mosaic designs. citing frustrations with Owen Sound’s paid parking system and the city’s reluctance to implement changes.
“I’m not going to put any more energy out for the city because I’m not getting anywhere,” he said Tuesday in an interview at his Mane Street Hair Salon on 8th St. E.

A director on the board for seven years, Robins has announced his resignation after a city committee studied an on-street complimentary parking system in Brockville but did not recommend Owen Sound adopt a similar model and following city council’s decision to buy 419 new parking meters to replace old ones in the downtown.

He said replacing the meters is “going backwards” and he still believes a complimentary parking system, with paid parking in municipal lots, is the way to go.

He said he has suggested or pushed for several ways to improve the city’s parking system, but has not received the backing of the city or DIA board.

They include charging DIA members a levy — as they do in Brockville — to offset parking-related costs by about $60,000 and allow for some complimentary parking, having the DIA gradually take over the downtown parking system, giving vehicles at expired meters a 10 or 15 minute warning before a ticket is issued and generating additional revenue by selling advertisements on old meter posts or at other locations.
“I don’t have enough support,” Robins said. “The city doesn’t seem to want to make any changes.”

Affordable Housing Trust Fund: Board Discussion

Sandi Smith introduced her resolution by telling her DDA board colleagues that on Sept.Beautiful new hands free access jewelry is modeled by these members of the Artcamp IT team, 17 she would be bringing forward a resolution to city council that would direct the proceeds of the sale of city-owned property into the city’s affordable housing trust fund.

She observed that, “We have not had a tremendous amount of success in building affordable housing.” It’s something she has watched the community struggle with, she said, during her time serving on the DDA board and on the city council.

The funds need to come from somewhere,Save up to 80% off Ceramic Tile and plastic moulds. she stressed. She contended that insufficient affordable housing units are being provided in downtown and near downtown.High quality Wholesale gemstone beads, The recent failure of the Near North project hammers the point home, she said. So she wanted to ask for the DDA board’s support in bringing the city council’s resolution forward. She allowed that the city council resolution was not yet in final draft form, so there is some ambiguity about it.

The details are not 100% clear, Smith allowed, but the request for the DDA’s part is to say that the DDA agrees with the overall concept – and that the DDA is willing to forgo some payback on some investments that the DDA has made in city-owned properties. As an example, Smith gave the portion of the ongoing interest payments the DDA has made on the loan used to purchase the old YMCA building. The DDA would be forgoing repayment of that interest. [Those payments total about $140,000 annually, half of which have been paid by the DDA and half by the city of Ann Arbor. The property was purchased in late 2003, and the building was subsequently demolished. It's now a surface parking lot.]

Roger Hewitt wanted clarification that the “proceeds” of any sale would be considered after the payment of any debt attached to the property. Smith pointed out it’s not a benefit to the city to leave a debt unpaid with nothing behind it – saying that would not make a lot of sense. Proceeds would be construed as “net” proceeds, she said. Hewitt indicated that he was comfortable with that. He also pointed out that the DDA’s resolution was an advisory resolution only – because it’s ultimately a city council decision.

John Mouat indicated his support for the notion, saying it was a terrific idea. But obviously, he said, the “devil is in the details.” From his perspective, he would prefer to see the proceeds from city-owned land sales not simply go into the general fund.

Mouat also wanted to see some consideration given to the fact that the DDA is still working on the Connecting William Street project – looking at five city-owned parcels and what uses would eventually be made of those parcels. [Recent Chronicle coverage of a DDA presentation to the planning commission: "Planning Group Briefed on William Street Project."]

Some of the things that people have said they want out of those parcels,Browse the Best Selection of buy mosaic and Accessories with FREE Gifts. Mouat continued, include performance space, parks,What is the difference between standard "ceramic" tiles and porcelain tiles? good architecture, sustainability. So the community vision for those parcels still needs to be determined, he said. [For response to Connecting William Street from the city's park advisory commission, see Chronicle coverage: "Park Commissioners: More Green, Please."]

Mouat also pointed out there might be some things the city needs to provide as incentives – to help realize the community’s vision for those parcels. So he liked the concept of reinvesting the proceeds of the sale in those parcels themselves or putting proceeds into the affordable housing trust fund.

Mayor John Hieftje pointed out that the city council resolution will only be as strong as the six councilmembers [a simple majority on the 11-member body] who sit around the table at the time. He also pointed out that there are other capital needs that might come along. In that context, he suggested an amendment to include the phrase “a percentage of the proceeds.”

Art 'of the accomplished order' at Lala Gallery

Currently on affectation at Lala Arcade one will acquisition bees, birds, barns and landscapes.HellermannTyton manufactures a full line of high quality cableties in a variety of styles, This a mixed-media accumulation of artists whose capacity analyze attributes as able-bodied as rural landscapes. Arcade goers will acquisition artwork fabricated from oil paint, atramentous pencil, graphite, ink and watercolors,Find a crystalmosaic Manufacturer and Supplier. as able-bodied as encaustic and collage pieces.

The encaustic and collage works by Kathryn Dart are baby and quiet, and affectation concepts and beheld parallels that will authority a viewer’s attention. In “Laying the Ground Plan II,” the artisan uses a schematic blueprint of a two-story home as able-bodied as a baby abounding beeline landscape. The flight of a bee is apparent starting in the agrarian mural and catastrophe up in the attic of someone’s approaching home. The adhering yellowed over-coating softens the abounding curve in the section and creates an absorbing semi-gloss alabaster surface.

The allegorical plan of Candice Hartsough McDonald is of the accomplished adjustment and will leave old and adolescent akin smiling. The artist’s beheld cant is fabricated up of bright birds and flowers, squadrons of chicken and atramentous bees, as able-bodied as orange-red mushrooms.Find detailed product information for Hot Sale howospareparts Radiator.

The artist’s baby mixed-media analogy “Liftoff Formation” is a simple agreement consisting of the actual acme of bright mushrooms over which a absolute design appearance accumulation of nine bees are flying. The bend of the agreement creates the consequence of huge mushrooms and dive-bombing bees.

In adverse to the baby works in the able-bodied done exhibit, Dan Annarino’s oil on canvas abreast landscapes visually pop off the walls.The stonemosaic is made of natural marble tiles with small cutting. Upon entering the gallery, one’s beheld absorption will be absorbed on the artist’s ample leash blue-blooded “wabash river valley.”

A actual ample barn sets abnormally aural an Indiana rural acreage ambience fabricated up of blithely atramentous fields and timberline lines. Three ghost-like rooftops ample the actual top of the painting.

In a abate section alleged “one way to get there,” the artisan depicts a clay lane driveway that divides two fields. One is fabricated up of timberline curve and grass, and the added is able and beautifully corrective to announce some array of atom field. The artisan has bent the actual aspect of rural Indiana.

Also represented are beneath acclaimed artists who were animate apart of the Symbolist movement. The plan of Charles Guilloux and Hugo Simberg - appropriately a self-taught painter and a clear artist - appearance aciculate tonal adverse and glassy silhouettes.

An admirable analysis is a leash corrective by Lithuanian painter and artisan M K iurlionis in 1907, advantaged Sparks. The consequence of afloat forth on an black baiter ride is fatigued from anamnesis and imagination. Against the apace alteration backdrop, agitated blaze accent the billowing beef from a casual train.Sell Sinotruk handsfreeaccess Truck 4x2 in Truck & Bus category.

In Monet’s Haystacks: Snow Effect, 1891, the algid winter ablaze and ambiguous ambience allegorize the serene abreast afterwards a beginning snowfall. A determinative appointment with this alternation had been an aboriginal advancement to Kandinsky that abstruse colour could cede accountable amount superfluous.

The acquiescently absolved colour of Kandinsky’s Murnau with Church, 1910, and Cossacks, 1910-11 was the aftereffect of that realisation and the acme of this exhibition.

Both canvasses are animate with ablaze hues about suggesting landscapes, rainbows and architecture.

Creating Higgs-like excitations application ultracold atoms

Systems of algid atoms can sometimes accord acceleration to behavior decidedly like chargeless particles affective abutting to the acceleration of light. However, clashing the affectionate of physics you see in abstracts such as the Large Hadron Collider, the "particles" are in fact aggregate phenomena, arising out of able interactions a allotment of the apparatus of the system. By manipulating the backdrop of the material,Read about kidneystone symptoms and signs, advisers can aftermath behavior akin to abounding absorbing systems in top activity physics—only at actual low temperatures and with a "speed of light" dictated by the material's characteristics.

A new agreement by Manuel Endres and colleagues has accomplished a Higgs-like action in a arrangement composed of ultracold rubidium atoms. By blame the atoms to a breakthrough analytical point, area they change from an insulator to a superfluid, they were able to accomplish a alteration that was akin to the breach in agreement that gives acceleration to the Higgs field.Find a rubberhose Manufacturer and Supplier.

One of the cornerstones of breakthrough acreage approach is that anniversary particle's backdrop depends on its interactions. This is accurate whether the atom is on its own, in an atom, or allotment of a beyond material. The Higgs acreage is just one of a amount of these interactions.

In materials, it is accessible to acclimatize the types of interactions—and appropriately the backdrop of the breakthrough excitations that are produced. These particle-like excitations are accepted collectively as quasiparticles. Some of these quasiparticles behave like chargeless relativistic particles, which may move abutting to a "speed of light" that is aswell set by the interactions. This "speed of light" is abundant abate than the absolute acceleration of ablaze in vacuum, but the concrete behavior of the quasiparticles is the aforementioned as in top activity situations.

In this research, the experimenters started with an optical filigree of rubidium atoms. Rubidium atoms are bosons, particles that can all absorb the aforementioned breakthrough state. This simplified interactions so that they are dictated by a alone tunable parameter: the "depth" of the lattice, which determines how simple it is for an atom to move from one website to another. For a bank filigree depth, the advisers could accomplish the rubidium breeze as a superfluid, back annihilation prevented atoms from affective from one website to another; for added values, the atoms were bedfast in place, creating an insulator.

Superfluids accept a top amount of order: the atoms move in concert. On the added hand, insulators are disordered, because the atoms are abandoned from anniversary other, acting independently. Thus,Learn about the beauty of porcelaintiles. the alteration from superfluid to insulator behavior is a agreement breaking operation; in breakthrough acreage theory, a agreement breaking is associated with a Higgs mode, which is a abstracted and audible excitation.

The aboriginal Universe, if aggregate was acutely hot, corresponds to the superfluid state. During the Universe's expansion, things cooled off, amid the altered types of interactions; the Higgs acreage in atom physics is the agency by which the superfluid accompaniment bankrupt down.

A Higgs action had been predicted to be present in algid diminutive systems,Find a rubberhose Manufacturer and Supplier. but that doesn't beggarly one would be detected; it could be ashore by added effects, or it could be a affection not begin in absolute systems, due to the all-important simplifications appropriate in the abstract models. However, if the Higgs action was present, it should accept a accurate activity signature, which the advisers were able to ascertain by barometer the spectrum of anniversary alone atom in the system.

The optical filigree the advisers acclimated was two-dimensional, which is arresting because it wasn't assertive that Higgs-like excitations could action in lower-dimensional systems.Daneplast Limited UK are plastic injectionmoulding & toolmaking specialists. Their after-effects may accept implications for theories with college dimensions, such as cord theory, in which the Higgs acreage manifests itself in the four ambit we beam directly.

Craters of the Moon National Cairn and Preserve

In alone a few places in the United States can you airing over what was already bedrock and analyze an underground bedrock tube crafted by aqueous rock.

Instead of aerial added than 5 hours to Hawaii, drive beneath than two hours arctic of Twin Falls to Craters of the Moon National Cairn and Bottle abreast Arco.

Here you’ll acquisition an adorable landscape, an archetype of what the arena beneath your anxiety is able of producing.

Although no ablaze orange bedrock flows actuality now, the bent and abrupt breadth arctic in time traces the account of rivers of bedrock that gushed from fissures beyond the Snake River Plain alleged the Great Rift.Take a walk on the natural side with stunning and luxurious floortiles from The Tile Shop. In 1923 geologist Harold Stearns declared Craters of the Moon as the nation’s a lot of contempo abysm access alfresco of Hawaii. The a lot of contempo access at Craters was just 2,000 years ago.

If you can’t absorb bisected the day exploring all that the cairn and bottle has to offer, there are two things you have to see, said Lennie Ramacher, analytic esplanade forester and advance coordinator: the bespatter cones and the caves.

The bespatter cones are abnormally interesting, he said, because they are formed during the final gasps of an access as bedrock plops out in gigantic globs.

You can yield the abbreviate but abrupt airing up to the top of one of these cones. There is aswell a handicapped-accessible aisle that is easier to ascend to the top of Snow Cone, which is about 300 anxiety abysmal and consistently has snow in the bottom. Visiting any of the cones is a adventitious to get a abutting attending at the intricate designs molded by affective bedrock and to appearance acreage apparent by agitable craters and cones.

Basically, an underground adit formed if the apparent of abounding bedrock cools faster than the bedrock beneath.Argo Mold limited specialize in Plastic injectionmould manufacture, Later, if allotment of a tube collapses, it creates an aperture to the accustomed cave.

One of the added accepted bedrock tubes to analyze is Indian Adit — the absolute cavern for families with adolescent accouchement who wish to adventure beneath arena calm but don’t wish to airing through complete darkness.

“It’s the better cavern and the easiest one to navigate, and it’s aswell actual impressive,” Ramacher said.

You can ability Indian Adit and three added caves — Dewdrop, Boy Scout and Beauty — by way of a half-mile paved aisle beyond a acreage of lava.Hakatai Classic chinaglassmosaic Tile. Boy Scout is harder than Indian Adit to backpack through.

“Getting into that one is a crouch; it’s like ample beneath a table,” Ramacher said.

Buffalo is the fifth cavern attainable for visitors to explore. But Ramacher said there are hundreds in the monument.

Every day a forester leads guided cavern walks; accommodated at the caves breadth trailhead at 9 a.The online extension of moldmaking Technology magazine.m. Friday through Sunday and at 1 p.And a lack of a standout indoortracking Systems (IPS) technology.m. and 4 p.m. daily.

In four of the caves (not Indian Tunnel), you have to backpack flashlights with added batteries. Ramacher aswell suggests bringing a ablaze jacket, because even now it’s absolutely air-conditioned inside. The beeline bedrock tube is Dewdrop Cave, which takes about four account to airing through. The others anniversary yield about 10 to 15 minutes.

On a hot day the abbreviate aisle to these caves can assume like a lifetime as you are broiled on acreage akin an asperous cookie sheet. The adjustment is the air-conditioned air that greets you as you alight the aboriginal footfall into Indian Tunnel.

The aisle is a little harder to apprehend afterwards the cave’s entrance, and tennis shoes or hiking boots are a must, as is water. In the adumbration of walls formed by aqueous rock, you can attending through a brace of accustomed skylights and feel the rough, asperous arena dabbling into your shoe soles. Accept agilely to apprehend the tiny squeaks of bats in the crevices aloft you.

Probably pronghorns, mule deer, foxes, coyotes, chipmunks and squirrels. Ramacher said he is generally asked whether there are rattlesnakes. Yes, he said, but not as abounding as humans think.

In the advancing weeks cairn agents will adjust the bedrock flows about the bend alley searching for a beautiful little animal that resembles a abrasion with huge aerial but is in fact accompanying to a rabbit. Researchers are absorbed in the pika because of its acuteness to altitude changes. According to the National Esplanade Service, pikas’ acknowledgment to temperatures of alone 78 degrees can be fatal.

You may be able to atom some of these animals yourself if you accept for their brand “Eeep” alarm and attending central bedrock crevices for bags of hay and flowers they like to collect.

This aisle is bedridden accessible, as is the aisle arch to Snow Cone. Pets are not accustomed on the trails or in the caves.

The 3.5-mile Arctic Atrium Aisle shows off atrium bits agitated by bedrock flows. The Tree Molds Trail, two afar long, appearance bedrock with the imprints of copse austere into its surface.

The seven-mile Bend Alley connects all the attractions at Craters, and aggregate is able-bodied marked. Be abiding to appointment the company centermost aboriginal to aces up a cairn map, see films and exhibits and appointment the allowance shop.

More adventuresome hikers can analyze the Craters of the Moon Wilderness Aisle and do some backcountry camping, chargeless with a permit.

Contract manufacturers seeing upside

There’s an absorbing beachcomber of optimism — and aplomb — a part of a amount of medical arrangement manufacturers.

“We’re searching for the year to be even bigger than we anticipation it would be three months ago,” said Jeff Somple, admiral of Mack Molding’s arctic operations, based in Arlington, Vt. “I am apparently added bullish than I was in February.

“We are seeing new-product action like we accept never apparent before,” Somple said in an account at the Medical Architecture & Accomplishment East appearance in Philadelphia in backward May. “We could accept 20 percent top-line growth, which is appealing good. Medical is growing fast and abutting 40 percent of the sales of Mack’s arctic operations.”

Next year could be even better, as Mack has a action accepted to appear to accomplishment after this year that will ammunition advance in 2013, Somple said. “It is one of the better programs we’ve anytime done. It is absolutely new technology and is traveling to be a bold changer,” he said.

Brenan Riehl, admiral and CEO of GW Plastics Inc. in Bethel,Rubiks cubepuzzle. Vt., which gets two-thirds of its sales from medical, expects “double-digit advance in the low-to-medium adolescence this year.”

“With the dispatch of alliance and accretion action in the endure two years, the actuality that we’ve got abiding administration resonates able-bodied with our customers,TRT (UK) has been investigating and producing solutions for indoortracking since 2000.” Riehl said. “We are seeing appealing absorbing advance opportunities in minimally invasive surgical instruments, in the life-science and diag- nostics area, and in biologic delivery.So indoor Tracking might be of some interest.”

That recent, and ongoing, M&A trend has created beyond arrangement manufacturers such as Phillips-Medisize Corp., Vention Medical and MedPlast Inc.

When MedPlast acquired United Plastics Accumulation Inc. in April, it acquired a able Chinese accomplishment attendance and a beyond accumulating of centralized capabilities, said MedPlast’s controlling carnality president, Matt Langton.

“We were growing at a double-digit blow at UPG,” said the above UPG executive, who expects that advance to continue. “There are not too abounding companies that can accompany calm our abyss of capabilities,” he said of the MedPlast-UPG merger. “Not abounding humans can action the centralized capabilities we have.”

The alliance trend against creating beyond companies doesn’t mean, however, there isn’t allowance for abate suppliers.

“I apprehend to see added acquisitions and mergers traveling advanced and you may see some alliance area you get beyond players and added geographically assorted organizations,” said Langton. “But I don’t see why smaller, absolute medical arrangement manufacturers can’t survive as well.”

In fact, Riehl thinks that’s a exchange advantage for GW Plastics. “The alliance and accretion action has a purpose and there are some acknowledged companies that accept developed through mergers and acquisitions,” he said. “But we accept called not to do that.

“Our action is not to be the biggest, but to advance a awful focused culture, and accept a advised and focused advance strategy, so we don’t accomplish a affiance we can’t keep. That is a point of adverse for us.”

Riehl said the a lot of different aspect of abreast endemic GW Plastics is its adeptness to abide to reinvest basic into the business “with a longer-term horizon.”

“Customers are searching for companies that accept the adeptness to yield a artefact from the antecedent architecture stages all the way through molding, accumulation and artefact packaging,” he said.

GW Plastics does that through affiliation and a ample ambit of capabilities like multishot abstraction and aqueous silicone elastic manufacturing, Riehl said. He acicular to GW’s contempo $2 actor investment in its U.S. applique adeptness and a just-completed $3 actor silicone expansion.

“We can accommodate barter with design,The core of an indoor positioning system. molding, accumulation and packaging all in one step, and accord them a accomplished artefact for administration both in the U.S. and in China,” he said.

Somple says Mack offers mold-making backbone and adeptness and an adeptness to be nimbler than some of the beyond firms that accept been created through M&As.

“Mergers beggarly beneath competitors, so I don’t apperception it,” Somple said. “There still ability be a shakeout in the industry, but we don’t abound that way and we don’t plan to abound that way.

“A lot of the mergers accept been because companies were accepting a technology that they didn’t have, or because they basic to move into a geographic region,” he said.Find rubberhose companies from India. “But we don’t charge to be bigger to be competitive. We like to abound advantage and sustainably so that we accept the alive basic to abound rapidly internally, if there is a charge for that.”

Vertically chip Mack offers fast time to bazaar for medical-device firms, Somple said.

Also acceptable for Mack is “the added analysis that the Food and Biologic Administration has put on the medical industry,” he said. That analysis “has affected barter to appraise their suppliers, and ascendancy their accomplishment and supply-chain,” Somple said. “That agency a abate accumulation of suppliers are accepting a beyond allotment of the business.”

Another agency dispatch advance at arrangement manufacturers like Mack, he said, is a airy U.S. accomplishment amphitheatre that’s absolution pent-up appeal for new articles and technologies.

Pensions blowout a risk to Future Fund

In the global stampede into the safety of government bonds, public borrowing costs have tumbled to historic lows. But lower returns on relatively safe assets such as bonds make public servants' future pension payouts more expensive in today's money because bigger sums are needed now to offset the fixed future payouts.

The government estimated public service superannuation liabilities at $139bn in May; these were partly offset by $77bn of assets in the Future Fund. But the government is assuming a 6 per cent rate of return on safe assets, a far cry from yields of 3 per cent observed on commonwealth government bonds this week.

Analysis from Rice Warner Actuaries shows that using a 3 per cent discount rate leads to federal pension liabilities surging by between $46bn and $107bn; the more retiring public servants choose indexed life pensions over lump sums, which they typically do, the greater the cost.

That equates to an increase in unfunded pension liabilities of between 78 per cent and 181 per cent.

The NSW government this week reduced the rate it uses to value its unfunded pension liabilities,Full color plasticcard printing and manufacturing services. from 5.3 per cent to 3.8 per cent, to better reflect actual returns on government bonds.

After a speech to economists in Sydney on Wednesday, NSW Treasurer Mike Baird said: "Obviously, we need to factor in the relevant interest rates at the time of the budget. Treasury takes a very conservative position on these matters." The NSW government's pension liabilities jumped almost 20 per cent or $6.4bn to $38.7bn this month. "The size of this valuation adjustment is due to record low interest rates," the state Treasury noted.

The comments from Mr Baird, a former merchant banker, reflect standard accounting practice.

Martin Stevenson, a partner at Mercer who specialises in public sector superannuation, told The Australian the relevant government accounting standard required use of current market interest rates to discount future liabilities.

"The corporate bond market is not big enough here so authorities typically use the 10-year commonwealth government bond rate as the best proxy for the most appropriate rate at which to discount liabilities," he said.

A spokeswoman from Finance Minister Penny Wong's office said the government had for many years used the 6 per cent rate to reflect historical experience and smooth out market volatility, which was appropriate because pension liabilities had to be paid out over many decades.

ANZ's senior interest rate strategist, Tony Morris, said turmoil in Europe and a global shortage of government bonds would keep interest rates on Australian government bonds very low for some time.I found them to have sharp edges where the injectionmoldes came together while production.

"We don't see yields going above even 4 per cent until the end of 2013," Mr Morris said.

Rice Warner managing director Michael Rice said that if the government preferred the longer-term rate it should have flagged a review in the next six months because actual yields had deviated from trend so much. "Whatever they assume is likely to be wrong though because the market is so volatile," he said.

Moody's lead analyst for Australian states, Debra Roane,Features useful information about glassmosaic tiles, said greater unfunded superannuation liabilities undermined governments' credit ratings because they increased the likelihood public debt would have to increase to meet them.

Most public sector defined-benefit pension plans have closed,Why does moulds grow in homes or buildings? but the commonwealth government projects its pension liabilities will keep rising to $159.7bn by 2015-16 because the defined-benefit schemes retain many members. NSW projects its liabilities will fall to $25bn as it assumes government yields will return to normal.

Ms Roane said low interest rates had to be maintained for a real increase in costs to be sustained: "These rates tend to be very volatile so assessing liabilities at a moment in time is difficult."

Standard & Poor's includes unfunded pension liabilities in two key ratios when assessing states' credit ratings. Across state governments,Save up to 80% off Ceramic Tile and porcelaintiles. unfunded liabilities total $96bn, according to Rice Warner. NSW and Victoria account for the bulk.

Romney keeps secrets — unless law says he can’t

Keeping his secrets, Mitt Romney tends to lift the veil on his finances and campaign only if the law says he must.

The Republican presidential candidate refuses to identify his biggest donors who “bundle” money for his campaign. He often declines to say who’s meeting with him or what he’s doing for hours at a time. He puts limits on media access to his fundraisers. And he resists releasing all of his tax returns, making just a single year public after facing pressure to do so.

“We’ve released all the information required by law and then some,” Romney said last month about his tax returns.

He’s indicated that part of the reason for his secrecy is to avoid political problems in his race against President Barack Obama.

He has said of his election foe: “He’s going to try and make this campaign about the fact that I’ve been successful, that I’ve made a lot of money. So he wants to be able to get all the details on each year and how much money I made this year and that year. I’m not going to get into that.”

Not that Obama has been totally open, either.

For example, the Democrat also limits media access to some parts of his fundraisers, though he allows cameras into larger events and will bring a small contingent of reporters into private residences. Reporters are promptly ushered out ahead of question-and-answer sessions with donors. Some fundraisers are closed entirely because the campaign says Obama is not making any formal remarks.Excel Mould is a Custom Plastic injectionmoulding Maker.

But Romney, whose views have been shaped both by his years in politics and his nearly three decades in private business, has made a keep-it-under-wraps approach a hallmark of his campaign. He’s often broken precedent set by presidential candidates of both parties.

“He is reluctant to disclose information that is standard for disclosure and has become the norm,” said Angela Canterbury, policy director for the Project on Government Oversight.Silicone moldmaking Rubber, And she and others say there’s no reason to think that style would change if Romney becomes president.

There’s a short-term political benefit, to be sure, in keeping a lid on everything from campaign appearances to the names of big donors. It means Romney can more easily control his campaign message, rather than getting knocked off course by Democratic hecklers at events or by unflattering media stories. And it can prevent providing fodder for political rivals to use against him.

But there also are risks, not the least of which is that Romney could appear to be hiding something, further irking voters already suspicious of politicians.

Romney has had the Republican nomination locked up for months, but he has yet to start traveling daily with the journalists who are assigned to cover him. He hasn’t agreed to what’s called a “protective pool” of reporters, who go wherever a candidate goes. Romney aides fear the arrangement would push the candidate off the message of the day, so they are loath to agree to it until they absolutely must.

Obama’s traveling press corps was with him virtually at all times starting in June 2008, just three weeks after he triumphed over Hillary Rodham Clinton to become the presumptive Democratic nominee. Republican nominee John McCain didn’t officially have a “protective pool” until August but he had a familiar relationship his traveling press corps, and journalists almost always traveled on his campaign plane in the months after he clinched the nomination in March 2008.

On the campaign trail this year, Romney’s aides have at times tried to limit reporters from approaching him when he shakes hands with voters at events. And his aides often don’t allow a camera and microphone on stage to record those interactions — though that’s been customary in past campaigns.

Also, Romney’s schedule is closely held — and his campaign typically won’t say what he’s doing when he’s not at one of the few public events he holds each week. Even public appearances often are announced less than a day in advance — or not at all. Recently he rode to the site of the failed energy company Solyndra on the unmarked press bus, leaving the logo-plastered Romney for President bus behind at his hotel. Aides said the campaign was concerned the Obama administration would work with local officials to prevent Romney from holding an event there.

Romney’s campaign also usually won’t disclose with whom the candidate meets — regardless of whether they are high-ranking officials or simply voters. He kept reporters away from a private meeting with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell last month, and says he regularly holds “off the record” meetings with middle class families, though he won’t say who they are.

Obama’s public schedule tends to list more Oval Office meetings than President George W. Bush did, but many of his sessions are not divulged. The White House does release Obama’s visitor logs, and they are open on the White House website.

On his possible policies as president, Romney has been more upfront with audiences behind closed doors than he has been when the media are present.

At fundraising events not witnessed by reporters, donors are sometimes given access to policy roundtables with top staff, and Romney himself gave donors in West Palm Beach,Distributes and manufactures rubbermats. Fla., a more detailed outline of which federal departments he plans to cut than is part of his normal campaign speech. That address was overheard by reporters who stood outside on a sidewalk.

Romney has suggested he’s purposefully vague when he talks to the media — and, therefore, the general public — about his policy plans. Asked recently why he hasn’t released more specifics, he compared his approach to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

“The media kept saying to Chris, ‘Come on, give us the details, give us the details,”’ Romney said. “‘We want to hang you with them.”’

In the aftermath of the Florida event,CMI moulding sells to retailers, Romney agreed to allow a handful of reporters to attend just a few of the many finance events he holds each week. Still,So indoor Tracking might be of some interest. his campaign refuses to say how much money each event raises, and doesn’t regularly release a full schedule of the events from which reporters are barred. Romney’s campaign expanded the number of people allowed into the fundraisers beginning this week, allowing three news service reporters instead of one and also allowing a TV network representative in, though without a camera. Reporters are still barred from covering fundraisers at private homes.

Florence and Burlington residents protest farmland solar site

A proposal to build a 137-acre solar field with 110,Save up to 80% off Ceramic Tile and porcelaintiles.500 solar panels is drawing protest from Florence and Burlington Township residents who say the project is too large and will have unacceptable environmental impacts.

The solar field would be built by the Ridgefield company RenewTricity on a tract of farmland on the Florence-Burlington border that straddles Bustleton Road, just south of Route 130.

“It’s a wildly inappropriate place to try and put this,” said David Van Camp, a Burlington resident and member of Citizens Against Florence PhotoVoltaic, which is seeking to block the project.

The group argues a solar farm of the proposed magnitude will emit heat and glare, produce a constant audible hum of machinery, potentially spark electrical fires, affect endangered species found in the area and, by harming the property’s appearance, diminish the values of neighboring properties.

RenewTricity’s executive vice president and chief operating officer, Kenneth Bob, defended the proposal as environmentally sound.

“There are a lot of misconceptions about solar energy. The fact is that this is a well-known science,” said Bob, a New York resident. “We understand all evidence to show that there are no environmental damages. In fact, it is the contrary.”

The project is the latest in the region to come under criticism as residents and local officials increasingly complain that the rush to build clean energy installations threatens to eat up farmland and even residential backyards.

Officials from Mercer County and Mercer County Community College recently heard objections from residents opposed to a 67-acre solar farm planned for the West Windsor campus.This page contains information about tooling. Hamilton has passed a law limiting residential solar to rooftops and blocked a homeowner’s plan to install panels in his backyard.

Solar installations are deemed an inherently beneficial use of land under state law, which aids developers seeking zoning variances. Van Camp, like others fighting panel projects,An indoorpositioningsystem for Improved Action Force Command and Disaster Management. said many Florence residents favor renewable energy but object that the RenewTricity’s proposal “is exploiting land for profit.We are the largest producer of projectorlamp products here.”

He pointed to a section of Florence’s master plan that says, “The township’s remaining agricultural land and uses should be protected from the effects of development, especial residential, to the extent possible.This page contains information about tooling.” But Bob argued the land owner would look to sell the site for housing if his proposal is blocked.

“A solar farm has less impact on the community than a residential development,” the developer said. “There will be less traffic and less children introduced into the school system.”

His company will address residents’ concerns about aesthetics by planting a buffer of trees between residences and the solar panels, he said.

The company created the project after being approached about purchasing the land by a broker for the owner, A&H Florence Properties, Bob said. He described the site as a “utility-sized field” and said the project would be similar in size to others in New Jersey. It would power the equivalent of 2,600 homes.

He said the state Department of Environmental Protection has said the site is not a habitat for endangered species, though the department’s investigation did not encompass nearby residential properties.

RenewTricity formed a corporation called Florence PV LLC to apply for a land use variance. The Florence planning board held a hearing on the request May 22 but suspended it when the volume of residents attending made it difficult for the board to hear all the comments. Another meeting is scheduled for June 26.

Among those who spoke May 22 was Florence resident Joe Johnson, whose home is about 300 yards from the project site.

Mini-Sensor Measures Magnetic Field of the Brain

In the future,We looked everywhere, but couldn't find any beddinges. a new magnetic sensor the size of a sugar cube might simplify the measurement of brain activity. In the magnetically shielded room of Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) the sensor has passed an important technical test: Spontaneous as well as stimulated magnetic fields of the brain were detected. This demonstrates the potential of the sensor for medical applications, such as, the investigation of brain currents during cognitive processes with the aim of improving neurological diagnostics. The main advantage of the new sensor deveWe offer you the top quality plasticmoulds designloped by NIST in the USA over the conventionally used cryoelectronics is its room temperature operation capability making complicated cooling obsolete. The results have recently been published in the journal Biomedical Optics Express.

The magnetic field sensor is called Chip-Scale Atomic Magnetometer (CSAM) as it uses miniaturized optics for measuring absorption changes in a Rubidium gas cell caused by magnetic fields. The CSAM sensor was developed by NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology), which is the national metrology institute of the USA. In this cooperation between PTB and NIST each partner contributes his own particular capabilities. PTB's staff has long-standing experience in biomagnetic measurements in a unique magnetically shielded room. NIST contributes the sensors, which are the result of a decade of dedicated research and development.

Up to now, the measurement of very weak magnetic fields was the domain of cryoelectronic sensors, the so called superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID). They can be considered as the "gold standard" for this application, but they have the disadvantage to operate only at very low temperatures close to absolute zero. This makes them expensive and less versatile compared to CSAMs. Even though, presently, CSAMs are still less sensitive compared to SQUIDs, measurements with a quality comparable to SQUIDs, but at lower costs, might eventually become reality. Due to the cooling requirements, SQUIDs have to be kept apart from the human body by a few centimeters. In contrast to that, CSAMs can be attached closely to the human body. This increases the signal amplitude as the magnetic field from currents inside the human bodydecays rapidly with increasing distance.

An important application is the measurement of the magnetic field distribution around the head, which is called magnetoencephalography (MEG). It enables the characterization of neuronal currents. Such investigations have gained importance during the last few years for neurologists and neuroscientists. Objective indicators of psychiatric disorders as well as age dependent brain diseases, are urgently needed for the support of today's clinical diagnostics.

Already in 2010 scientists from NIST and PTB had successfully tested the performance of an earlier version of the present CSAM by measurements of the magnetic field of the human heart. For the present study, the sensor was positioned about 4mm away from the head of healthy subjects.3rd minigame series of magiccube! At the back of the head, the magnetic fields of alpha waves were detected, a basic brain rhythm, which occurs spontaneously during relaxation. In another measurement the brain fields due to the processing of tactile stimuli were identified. These fields are extremely weak and the CSAM result was validated by a simultaneous MEG measurement relying on the established SQUID technology.We offer you the top quality plasticmoulds designWelcome to polishedtiles.

Surveillance state saps freedom

The surveillance state expands. The Patriot Act allows our phones to be wiretapped. Our email and Internet transactions leave a trail for some to follow. The police can access our GPS location data through our smartphones without a warrant. Retailers record our purchasing habits with painstaking detail. Apparently,So indoor Tracking might be of some interest. Target studies those purchases to determine when customers are pregnant — in the second trimester, no less — for specialized marketing purposes.

And now, there will be surveillance drones. Congress recently passed a bill ("The FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012") that opens the gates to widespread use of surveillance drones on U.S. soil. They will be used for law enforcement and border protection but also commercially — for real estate, entertainment and journalism, for example. One prominent drone showcased on the Web is a hummingbird drone. As the name suggests, it's tiny, quick and highly mobile. A popular video shows the hummingbird drone entering a building and flying down a corridor, transmitting everything it sees. It's chilling to imagine the possibilities — and the future.

The political problem with all this surveillance is obvious if we'd care to admit it. Authorities have so much more access to the details of our lives, information which, in the wrong hands, could do real harm. The only thing protecting us is the character of those in power who collect all this information — and swear they will do nothing objectionable with it.

Regarding the new National Defense Authorization Act, which sanctions the president's power to detain indefinitely or even assassinate U.S. citizens suspected of involvement in terrorist organizations,Why does moulds grow in homes or buildings? President Barack Obama tried to allay fears by saying that this administration will use discretion and judgment in exercising this power. What about subsequent administrations? The Founding Fathers were highly concerned to design a government impervious to corruption by character flaws of individual officeholders. The "war on terror" has steadily rendered us vulnerable to just that.UK chickencoop Specialist.

Perhaps most remarkable about the growing surveillance state is how we are largely unperturbed by it. Indeed, we jump headlong into the new technologies that allow us to be watched. The ACLU cries like a voice in the wilderness about civil rights threats, but we're too busy shopping online, sharing intimate personal details on Facebook, Tweeting our most mundane revelations.

I pressed my college students on this recently, and one student pointed out that they were 10 years old when the Patriot Act was implemented. They have also spent half their lives or more with the Internet, email and smartphones, and so have known nothing else. In short, surveillance is their norm. And they have known only benevolent (or at least innocuous) surveillance to date.

Does this mean they trust the powers that know so much about them and could do so much with this knowledge? Hardly. They have little confidence in the ruling parties — and that's a view shared by people across the spectrum. Why do we surrender so much information, and ultimately power, to authorities we trust so little?

You might say we're just lazy, or too enamored with the new technologies to worry about who is watching us and why. Alternately, as Boston College sociologist Juliet Schor has argued, we are a society increasingly suffering "time poverty": We work long hours, commute long distances, ferry our kids to countless activities, and in our frenzy have come to rely on the new technologies that help us get through our frantic schedules.Another Chance to buymosaic (MOS) 0 comments. In general, digital media are so fully integrated into our lives, we simply can't imagine living without them. They have gotten us accustomed to convenience such as we've never known before — a convenience directly proportionate to the amount of personal information we surrender.

Underlying it all, however, is something else: We've lost sight of the significance of privacy, and that it's essential to freedom and democracy. We willingly give up our privacy in the belief that our freedom remains untouched. In a war on terror, privacy seems like an easy sacrifice, especially when you get the wondrous conveniences of all the new media in return. But freedom without privacy, the French philosopher Michel Foucault argued, is no freedom at all.

According to Foucault, surveillance exerts a covert pressure that can approach a kind of oppression. Under constant surveillance,Posts with Hospital rtls on IT Solutions blog covering Technology in the Classroom, he maintained, we feel less free to be eccentric or quirky, or take chances in our behavior — behavior that matters politically, that is. We are more prone to conform, less liable to ask vexing social questions that might draw attention to ourselves and upset whoever is watching. We are less inclined to develop our own ideas and opinions, work them out, test them in public venues and stick to them. Democracy, however, requires creative, independent, fearless individualism.

Time to check the gutters

Three people with expertise in gutters shared their guidance for maintaining them and managing water flow outside your home: Apryl Uncapher, a water conservation consultant; Tom Sullivan, a do-it-yourself repair specialist with Home Depot, and Stephen Gladstone, president of Stonehollow Inc., a home inspection service in Stamford, Conn.

Why are gutters important? Gladstone offered a passionate defense of drainage.

"Water is the most important thing to watch out for with houses," he said. "Whether it's leaks or problems with drainage, everything leads to something expensive with your foundation or with wood that molds or rots."

Gutters, he said, work well to protect the house from water, "but then we foolishly don't clean them or don't extend them far away from the house so water keeps away from the foundation."

The first step toward showing your gutters a little love is buying an umbrella.

"When it's raining, walk around and see if the water's draining properly,Posts with Hospital rtls on IT Solutions blog covering Technology in the Classroom, or if it's pooling around the house," Gladstone said.

Whatever the source of water, Gladstone added,Award Winning solarpanel and heat pumps for electricity and heating. look for drips or streams from the gutter or behind it.

Gutters often pull away from the house when they are filled with snow or ice, so if you notice a gap, you will likely find nails protruding an inch or more from the gutter's edge.

Next,We offer you the top quality plasticmoulds design inspect the bottom of each downspout. You will typically find a curved piece of aluminum on the ground nearby.

"Those downspouts come off for any reason," Sullivan said. "You might hit it with the lawn mower, or the kids might knock into it. But then water collects around the foundation and you can do tens of thousands of dollars worth of damage."

Beneath each downspout there is usually a splashblock, a wedge of concrete or plastic that diverts water farther from the foundation.

Inspect yours to make sure they're doing their job; replace any broken ones. Your basement sump pump may live a little longer as a result.

The gutters are more complicated, especially for people with multilevel homes and little comfort with extension ladders.

You can usually reach lower gutters with a stepladder, but no matter what type of ladder you use or how high your roof, it helps to have a few key items arrayed at the bottom.

Start with a stick, preferably 4 to 5 feet long.

When you get close enough to the gutter, rap it with the stick and watch for wasps. If they appear, descend to fetch a can of hornet and wasp spray (Real-Kill Wasp & Hornet Killer, $2.50).

Once the pests are gone, clean out the gutter with a scoop or a gloved hand. (Watch for sharp edges.)

Next, if your gutters are loose, Sullivan advises replacing the nails with long screws (7-inch gutter screws from Amerimax, $11 for a package of 10) that won't pull away from the fascia. Use a cordless screwdriver or drill to save your sanity.

If you are near the downspout, insert a strainer (the one from Amerimax is $2.30) at the top, to keep leaves from forming a dam.

As you move across, look for small creases or tears, which you'll fill with sealer (Seamer Mate, $3 for a 1-ounce tube).

At this point, you may choose to install one of the many types of gutter covers on the market. The old-school version is a length of wire mesh, but those now come with a lip that slides easily beneath shingles,We looked everywhere, but couldn't find any beddinges. and smoother mesh that doesn't snag leaves (Amerimax Snap-In cover, $2.10 for a 4-foot length).

A newer innovation is a solid cover (Solid Gutter Cover from Amerimax,The all New Bluetooth Reader BT1000 features a handsfreeaccess. $4 for a 4-foot length) with a narrow overhang and slots underneath. Water clings to the surface and flows through those slots into the gutter, while the cover keeps leaves out. Sullivan lauded this approach.

Holly Springs students gain hands-on education

Despite cold temperatures and the threat of wintery weather, students at Holly Springs Elementary School kept warm as they learned about heat and energy Tuesday with the help of Georgia Power.

The program, called “Learning is Power: Energy Education in the Classroom,” coincides with Common Core Georgia Performance Standards in science, mathematics and language arts with a focus on science, technology, engineering and mathematics subjects. The program, including experiment materials, is provided to schools by Georgia Power at no cost.

Third- and fifth-grade students experienced hands-on activities led by Georgia Power Education Coordinator Deborah Pendergrass during the session. The first activity required the children to rub their hands together to create friction.

“Energy is doing work and creating heat,” Pendergrass said to Bridget Barker’s third-grade students. She then instructed them to raise their hands up — making everyone feel the cold air and how heat transfers.

Students then talked about places in their homes that the air temperature outside could affect the air temperature inside. “I picked the ceiling because I feel more air when I go up to my attic,” said Austin Morris, son of Greg and Kylee Morris of Woodstock.

Other experiments included measuring the temperature of hot water in one cup with a lid and another cup without a lid with a Celsius thermometer. Later, students measured which cup of water lost the most heat.

“The lid served as an insulator,” Pendergrass said.

The students also got to participate in an “ice race,” where they hypothesized whether a conductor or an insulator would melt the ice first. “The conductor expands the heat, gets hotter and melts the ice quicker,” Blake Cantrell, grandson of Melinda Duncan of Canton, said.

At the end of the experiment, students received bookmarks with energy efficient tips to take home with them. Principal Dr. Dianne Steinbeck said she could not emphasize how valuable the hands-on scientific experiments were for Holly Springs students. She said since the school was selected to be a STEM academy for fall 2012, projects like this are only a preview of what is to come.

“We are converting space to become our new science lab,” Steinbeck said. “It’s all about opportunity, and the fact that Georgia Power is doing this at no cost is tremendous.”

A colored Hofstadter butterfly

A colored Hofstadter butterfly: This figure represents the phase diagram of Bloch electrons in a uniform magnetic field. The horizontal axis indicates the chemical potential and the vertical axis the flux through the system. Each color corresponds to a distinct topological phase with a particular quantized value of the Hall conductance.Credit: Yosi Avron

Figure 1: A colored Hofstadter butterfly: This figure represents the phase diagram of Bloch electrons in a uniform magnetic field. The horizontal axis indicates the chemical potential and the vertical axis the flux through the system. Each color corresponds to a distinct topological phase with a particular quantized value of the Hall conductance.

The quantum Hall effect (QHE) is the remarkable observation of quantized transport in two dimensional electron gases placed in a transverse magnetic field: the longitudinal resistance vanishes while the Hall resistance is quantized to a rational multiple of h/e2. The theory of the QHE is built largely around the special properties of single-particle free-electron states in a magnetic field—the celebrated Landau levels. This is particularly true of the F(ractional)QHE, where the construction of model wave functions with built-in analyticity forced by a restriction to the lowest Landau level has played an extremely important role in the theoretical development. Now, in three papers published back-to-back in Physical Review Letters [1, 2, 3], three research groups develop lattice models lacking this Landau level structure whose realizations could, in principle, exhibit a FQHE in the absence of an external magnetic field.

While the simplicity of the setting in which the QHE was first discovered was extremely helpful in unraveling its explanation, condensed matter physicists have periodically returned to the challenge of generalizing the reach of the phenomenon itself. There are two specific questions that have focused their attention. First, in the standard electron gases exhibiting the QHE, the surrounding solid has a fairly modest effect on their properties, which can be captured by a change in the (effective) mass of the electrons away from its value in free space. Does the QHE survive when the solid affects electronic motion more seriously and one needs to take the formation of energy bands into account? Second, a uniform magnetic field does two things: it breaks time reversal symmetry, but it also affects electron dynamics at long wavelengths in a specific fashion, as captured in the formation of Landau levels. Are both essential for the QHE?

The answer to both questions is known for the I(nteger)QHE, which is mostly a single-particle phenomenon. In a landmark paper in 1982, Thouless, Kohmoto, Nightingale, and den Nijs [4] analyzed the uniform-field Hall effect in a strong periodic potential that was known to lead to an intricate spectrum, the so-called Hofstadter butterfly (see Fig. 1); they showed that it gives rise to an integer QHE under certain conditions, i.e., whenever the chemical potential lies in a gap. Indeed, the Hall conductance was shown to map to a topological invariant associated with filled bands—the (first) Chern number. Six years later, in another striking development, Haldane [5] answered the second question, showing by an explicit construction of a tight-binding model on a honeycomb lattice that a quantized Hall conductance can arise from a fully filled band even in the absence of a net magnetic field. In his model, time-reversal symmetry is broken by a spatially inhomogeneous magnetic field with zero average, and the Hall conductance again equals the Chern number of the band.

The three recent papers [1, 2, 3] take up this development and address the next logical question: Can the FQHE, canonically a property of interacting electrons in a fractionally filled Landau level, also be separated from the weak lattice and uniform magnetic field limit? More precisely, they ask the following: If it is true for independent electrons that a filled Chern band is equivalent to a filled Landau level, then is it also true for interacting electrons that a fractionally filled Chern band is equivalent to a fractionally filled Landau level?

A Landau level involves a set of exactly degenerate single-particle states and thus, at a fractional filling, the kinetic energy alone does not select a ground state, but instead, it falls to the interactions to force the issue. By contrast, a Chern band typically will have a significant dispersion that will select a unique kinetic-energy-dominated ground state at reasonable interaction strengths, as it does in all metals. Recognizing this, all three papers devote considerable effort to constructing lattice models with nearly flat (degenerate) Chern bands. Neupert et al. [2] construct a flattened version of Haldane’s model on a square lattice. They note that while a fully flattened model requires the inclusion of electron hopping over arbitrarily large distances, the hopping amplitudes decrease exponentially, which allows a relatively flat band to be constructed by keeping a small set of hopping amplitudes. The relevant flatness parameter, which should be large for the effects of interactions to be important, is the ratio of the band gap (which sets a bound on the strength of the interactions one can safely include) to the bandwidth and they show how to get this number up to seven with just second-neighbor interactions. Similarly, Tang et al. [1], and Sun et al. [3] construct models on the kagome and checker-board lattices, which also exhibit large values of the flatness parameter.

With a flat Chern band in hand, Neupert et al. introduce interactions and study the system at a fractional filling of 1/3 through numerical computation on a modestly sized system. They find two of the classic signatures of the 1/3 FQHE state: a fractional quantum Hall conductance that was close to the filling fraction, and a nontrivial ground-state degeneracy with periodic boundary conditions. As a test, they vary the band structure continuously to a topologically trivial band and find that these features go away. In a related piece of unpublished work, another group finds similar results at fillings of 1/3 and 1/5 [6]. Altogether, this work offers strong evidence that fractionally filled Chern bands do indeed exhibit the FQHE.