What if Elvis Presley had never left the building?

Thirty-six years ago Friday,Learn how an embedded microprocessor in a graniteslabs can authenticate your computer usage and data. owing to pressures we can hardly imagine and self-indulgences we can imagine only too well,How to change your dash lights to doublesidedtape this is how I have done mine. Elvis Presley died. But what if, by some amazing stroke of fortune, he had lived? USA TODAY contributor Ken Barnes imagines how his career might have continued. 

Around 5 a.m., Elvis gets the urge to play a little racquetball,The worlds most efficient and cost effective offshoremerchantaccount? part of the conditioning regimen he has been halfheartedly following to prepare for a tour scheduled to begin shortly. He calls his cousin and closest companion, Billy Smith, who awakens his wife, Jo, and they join Elvis and his girlfriend, Ginger Alden, and head for Graceland's court beneath a covered walkway. It's raining, and Billy remarks that he's sick of it. 

"Ain't no problem," Elvis says, "I'll take care of it." He raises his hands,Most modern headlight designs include petprotectivefilm. and the rain stops on cue. Elvis says, "If you've got a little faith, you can stop the rain." 

During the racquetball game, he accidentally smacks himself on the shin with his racquet. "Boy, that hurts!" he says, displaying a nasty-looking welt. Billy and Elvis' other associates are alarmed and decide, despite Elvis' protests, that with a tour days away, a trip to the hospital would be prudent. Elvis is treated for deep bruising, and a doctor decrees that he stay overnight for observation. 

As always lately, Elvis can't get to sleep, so the doctor prescribes sleep medication. Surprisingly, it works as effectively as the star's usual three nightly packets of Seconal, Placidyl, Demerol and several other medications, and he falls into a deep sleep, but he is unresponsive when a nurse tries to awaken him late in the day. However, the staff revives him, and when he regains consciousness, he tells his buddies: "I had the strangest dream ...." 

"I dreamed I died," Elvis will tell reporters later, "and I was headed toward a pure white light, but something sent me back. It was like my song it was telling me, 'Your time hasn't come yet, baby.The ledspotlight is our flagship product.'" He announces that the tour has been rescheduled for next March and adds that he's starting an intensive program to "get myself together physically, mentally and spiritually." His manager, Colonel Tom Parker, says, "We're happy to have the boy back with us," but seasoned Colonel-watchers detect a touch of regret at missed opportunities. 

Whether youre in a formal environment of suits and high heels, or a laid back jeans and polo workspace, theres inevitably one person who doesnt quite meet the required standards. So how do you tell them theyre under-dressed? 

One HR leader considers inappropriate clothing at work a pet peeve and said it is important to be able to explain to an individual exactly what is inappropriate C whether their outfit is too revealing, too casual or a safety risk (such as high heels in a warehouse environment) C and illustrating your explanation. 

Its a different approach for each one of those, Manpower San Diego President Phil Blair said. We suggest starting with explaining that management doesnt think x is appropriate for the workplace, and they can have pictures of what is more appropriate, he added.Manpower has a business casual dress code, but staff help temporary workers find jobs, so tend to set a higher standard to model professional clothing and behaviour to those clients. 

But it works both ways C demanding staff look professional and neat but providing them with a tatty, worn-down office sends a mixed message and could cause resentment.Kimberly Rodin, founder of Unconventional HR, spent 13 years working in HR in the financial services industry. Dress codes required shirts, ties and dress pants for men and pant suits or hosiery with skirts for women. 

When a casual Friday was introduced for summer one staff member took casual a little far C wearing a belly-baring fringed t-shirt. It was time for HR to step in.Roden stresses the importance of giving feedback in private, and not making it sound like a personal attack. The emphasis is on the clothing, not the person wearing it. An advantage for Roden in addressing the issue described above was having a clear policy to fall back on. 

However, in some industries HR could do better things with their time than stress over dress, she says. Unless a certain level of dress is required for meeting clients or partners, people should be able to make their own judgement about what is appropriate.I do think its industry specific, she said. I dont think what we wear to work impacts our ability to do a job. If business leaders are too focused on what people are wearing, they have their priorities in the wrong place. 

Another essential step is to make sure staff understand why the dress code has been set. Jack Smalley, from Express Employment Professionals, said they make it clear from the interview stage that their professional dress code is a way to set themselves apart, add credibility and present a professional image for the company as a whole.They know and understand the expectations from the start. Its a preventative approach, he said. 

Express Employment Professionals also gives staff an annual clothing allowance of $600 as acknowledgement that keeping high standards can be pricey C an idea Roden seconds when she reminds business leaders that demanding high standards from their minimum wage receptionist could be considered unreasonable. Even the on-going dry-cleaning costs can add financial stress to already over-burdened staff.

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White Rock City Hall turns the big 50

As the White Rock Museum and Archives Society prepares to celebrate 100 years of White Rock's well-known railway station, another building is also celebrating a milestone anniversary.

Up the hill from the railway station, White Rock City Hall will be celebrating its golden jubilee, having spent 50 years as the headquarters for all of the city's operations since opening July 6, 1963.

Having started as a multi-purpose civic building, the current City Hall initially also played host to the city's police detachment, library and court clerks. In fact,Austrian hospital launches drycabinet solution to improve staff safety. the current council chamber was originally built as the White Rock Courthouse, which is why White Rock Mayor Wayne Baldwin's chair is so high up.

"It used to be a judge's chair and the room beside the chambers was the judge's chambers," explained Baldwin.

However, in the five decades since opening, many of those other operations have since moved out as White rock continued to grow, leaving the entirety of the facility for city hall's increasing demand for space.

"Now the purpose of the building has changed considerably since it was first built, and so any money we've spent on the building since has been spent on accommodating the change in purpose," said Baldwin.

But like all old things, some upgrades are in order.

"The biggest thing would be the heating ventilation system, which is really bad," said Baldwin. "We need to do a lot of work on things like getting better windows in, we've got single pane, so the energy efficiency of our windows and doors is also bad."

Another key upgrade, said Baldwin, is to improve the appearance of the building.

"It hasn't really been touched much since it was first built, so the appearance both on the inside and outside has to be improved,Automate patient flow and quickly track hospital assets and people using howotipper." he said.

Despite the upgrades needed, Baldwin said the building is still serving its purpose well and will likely continue to do so into the future.

"The building itself is well-built. It's a strong structure, the roof is still good and so on, but obviously changes need to be made to keep up with the times and the expectations of the public," he said.

Binghamton University will save an estimated $355,000 in energy costs every year and avoid sending more than 2,190 tons of greenhouse gas emissions annually into the atmosphere thanks to a number of energy efficiency projects, the New York State Emergy Research and Development Authority announced.

BU has received $740,000 from the agency. Projects include energy efficiency measures at seven new East Campus dorms; a new Collegiate Center with kitchen and dining facilities, multipurpose rooms, computer labs,Features useful information about ventilationsystem tiles. lounges and offices; and renovations at the Recreation Center.

The NYSERDA-funded projects for new construction are projected to be 17 to 30 percent more energy efficient than the state’s energy code requires,Want to find solarpanel? depending on the building. Measures include high-efficiency lighting; occupancy-based lighting controls; insulation; high-efficiency heating,The lanyard series is a grand collection of coordinating Travertine mosaics and listellos. ventilation and air-conditioning systems; variable-speed pumps and motors; and daylight harvesting controls, which is a system that dims artificial light in response to available natural light.

“The implementation of our projects will greatly enhance our energy conservation efforts, reduce cost and reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” BU President Harvey Stenger said in a statement.

Overall, the measures BU is taking are projected to reduce electricity use by 1.8 million kilowatt hours and fossil fuel use by 18,437 million Btu annually, the equivalent of powering and heating about 260 homes for a year, according to NYSERDA. They will also reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 2,190 tons annually, the equivalent of taking 438 cars off the road.

Funding is through the agency’s New Construction Program, which provides technical support to design teams and financial incentives to building owners. The projects also support Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Build Smart NY initiative, which aims to increase energy efficiency in state buildings by 20 percent over seven years.

“There were three things for fire stations that were rated high [for need],” Fire Chief Alan Mannel said. “One was a generator which we already have, one was the exhaust ventilation system which we got and the other was a fire sprinkler system.”

The fire department/municipal building was approved for a new sprinkler system late last year.

The majority of the funding is being handled by “Assistance to Firefighters Grant” – a nationwide grant though FEMA and Homeland Security. The grant will pay for 90 percent of the cost to install the system.

“It’s certainly not an easy grant to get but it’s well worth the effort,” Mannel said.

Mannel said he hopes to have the sprinkler system installed throughout the Municipal Building and the fire station in about a year’s time. According to the U.S. Fire Administration Tropical Fire Research Series, back in 2001 most fires in fire stations often originate in the fire department vehicles – 44 percent – while the rest of the damages are caused by structural fires.

Framingham State University will eliminate some infrastructure improvements planned for the Hemenway Hall academic building renovation in light of the project's increased cost from rising construction prices around the state, university officials said.

The university will forgo modernizing the interiors of existing classrooms and laboratories in the building, deferring the work until funding is available, said Dan Magazu, a university spokesman.

Earlier this month, officials said they might have to scale back parts of the $64 million project after rising construction costs led the state to drive up the project estimate by $10 million.

"As we anticipated, some of the planned infrastructure improvements to the original building have been eliminated from the scope of the work to balance the project budget," Magazu said in an email.

The main parts of the Hemenway Hall project, which received approval for $54 million in state funding in 2010, will still move forward, including a new science wing with 16 laboratories equipped with cutting-edge technology by 2014, as well as an update the building's existing windows and heating and ventilation system, Magazu said.

Artist donates painting to historical society

Holly Lawrence, a native of Cedartown who has lived in New York City for the past 32 years, returned on Thanksgiving Day to visit relatives and make a special gift to the community.

She presented the Polk County Historical Society with an oil painting of the fountain which presently adorns the garden of that organization. “Cedartown was an important part of my life and I want to reestablish that bond,” Lawrence said.

Calling it her favorite landmark, Lawrence painted the fountain at the age of 12 when it was located in Peeks Park.

“From my vantage point as a child, I considered the fountain to be the grand aristocrat of the park with its own ornate swirls and regal presence. I studied the structure intensely, circling around it and imagining far away palaces and castles that I longed to visit some day. I was so happy to find out that the Historical Society had given the fountain a permanent home,” she continued.

Lawrence began her interest in art at the age of six while attending Benedict School in Cedartown. She credits local artists Margret (Peg) Whipple and Reba York with her inspiration and early training. She was a frequent competitor in 4-H Club arts and crafts contests as well as the annual Cedar Valley Arts Festival.

Lawrence continued her art studies at Floyd Junior College before leaving for New York to earn her Bachelor of Arts in English at Marymount Manhattan College and a Master of Arts from Columbia University in New York City. She has also studied at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in Los Angeles, California.

In addition to her career in art, Lawrence is an avid traveler. She has visited almost every continent and loves to find beautiful fountains around the world.

Lawrence’s painting can be viewed at the Polk County Historical Society Museum from 1:30 to 4 p.m. on Wednesdays.

Laser Makes Memory Mechanical

Engineers at Yale University say they’ve invented a new type of mechanical memory device that is read from and written to by light. According to its creators, this development could lead to better sensors and new techniques in optical telecommunications.

The device is essentially a tiny piece of silicon that can be bent up or down by the light propagating inside a photonic circuit. Once the light is switched off, the piece remains in one of those states, representing the 1s and 0s of digital coding. The engineers from Yale who developed the device, which is called a "nanomechanical resonator," described it yesterday in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

"We really can achieve control of the nanodevice at very high amplitude and repeatability," says Hong X. Tang, an associate professor of electrical engineering, who led the work.

To make the resonator, Tang and his colleagues started with a commercially available silicon-on-insulator wafer and created an oval-shaped waveguide on the wafer to act as an optical cavity. They etched away a bit of the wafer below the waveguide to create a strip of silicon 10 micrometers by 500 nanometers by 110 nm, so they ended up with a membrane of material across part of the waveguide, attached at both ends but free to fluctuate up and down in the middle. Because of stress put on the wafer during the initial process of attaching the silicon to the insulator, this strip naturally buckled a bit. So with no force applied, it would be stable when bent either upward or downward.

When the researchers fired laser light into the optical cavity at a frequency that was slightly higher than the resonant frequency of the cavity, the resonator started oscillating, bending up and down in rapid succession. "If you put extra energy into the cavity, the mechanical resonator will gain energy from the laser field," Tang explains. When the laser was turned off, the oscillation stopped, leaving the resonator in either the up or the down state—a 1 or a 0.

But to make the device effective as memory, the group wanted to be able to control whether the strip came to rest bent up or down, so they turned to laser cooling, the same technique used to slow atoms to a near motionless state. Injecting laser light with a lower frequency than the device’s resonant frequency damped the oscillations. Selecting one damping frequency made it more likely that the strip would settle into the buckle-up state; a different damping frequency made it probable it would stop at buckle-down.

"The two states [up and down] are separated by a huge energy barrier," Tang says. That means with the laser turned off, they stay put, making the memory nonvolatile. The device is also much less sensitive to stray radiation and heat effects that can sometimes switch a bit in electrical or magnetic memory, he says.

To read the memory, the researchers simply use a laser with an energy too low to flip the bits. The position of the resonator changes the refractive index of the optical cavity, so it’s easy to know whether it’s up or down by how the laser light bends.

The optical technique "may enable ultrahigh-speed manipulation" of a mechanical bit, says Pritiraj Mohanty, professor of physics at Boston University, who was not involved in the research.

It takes a relatively large amount of energy—a microjoule—to switch a bit, so Tang says the device as it stands is impractical for large-scale storage. But he says it could be useful for something like an optical router, which doesn’t have to switch too often. It might also be valuable in control circuitry; for example, it could provide timing on a computer chip. And it could make sensors for acceleration or trace gases more sensitive. In fact, the research was funded under a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency grant for using optical control to improve sensors.

EP Student Tests Cool Idea

An Eden Prairie middle school student had a cool idea. She wanted to know if bubbles could keep your bath water warm. So, she tested it. It became her science fair project and it took her to the national stage. She was one of 30 finalists in a huge national science competition!

Her name is Carolyn Jons. She's a student at Central Middle School. She came up with a way to test bubbles floating in a bathtub or whirlpool to see if they have the ability to keep that water warm. She looked at different size bubbles and developed an experiment to test which size acted as a better insulator.    

Jons showed off her project at the Twin Cities Regional Science Fair where she won honors with her science project and research paper at the University of Minnesota in February. The following month, she won additional awards at the Minnesota Academy of Science Minnesota State Science and Engineering Fair in Bloomington.

6,000 middle school students were nominated from regional and state science fairs across the nation to compete nationally. From there, 300 students were selected as Semi-finalists. 30 were chosen as finalists. Jons made it the entire way.

The national competition was in Washington D.C. from September 30 - October 4, 2011.

First place was worth $25,000 and went to a student in California. Second place was worth $10,000 and went to a student in Pennsylvania. And third place, worth $5,000, went to a student in Texas.

Although Jons didn't place at the national level, she did confirm that bubbles do in fact prevent heat loss. She did not find a significant difference in the insulating ability of small versus large bubbles.

Jons hopes to one day enter the field of Neurology. She says she's drawn to neurology because of the many fascinating medical conditions neurologists treat.

India has strong technical engineering potential: ABB Group

In developed world, there is a lot of turmoil and uncertainty right now. The euro crisis or the debt crisis in Greek and Europe is causing tremendous uncertainty in the marketplace. The debt issue in the United States is also casting some uncertainty in the marketplace as well in the sense of how the US will get its debt under control.

So, it’s a very uncertain environment. I’m optimistic that the governments will find a politically right way to do things and many economies will move forward. I am very optimistic on India and China. They continue to grow anywhere between 7% and 10%. A lot of our growth will come from the emerging markets in the next three to four years.

We took about USD 3 billion of cost out of this business between 2008 and 2010. We increased our R&D spend by 10-15% year over those years. We also increased our sales spend.

So, it was a conscious decision taken by ABB's management to truly invest in the future. I don't know if all companies have done that way. For example, our R&D to sales ratio or revenue ratio in 2011 will be 4%, up from 3% in 2008. So, we have enjoyed good growth in that side of the marketplace and it has allowed us to invest more than some of our competitors that were more entrenched in the developed world.

There are two parts of it; one is infrastructure build out like the creating power here. We were appointed a job in North-East Agra that we will bring power from different parts of India, hydropower about 2000 kilometers down to the metropolitan areas where it’s needed.

These are huge projects transferring almost 8 Giga watts of energy that will be like 8 nuclear power plants. Those kinds of infrastructure projects are very big. We had a very strong automation business. So, whether it is novelty products or intelligent products like deriver and motors attached to those drives, productivity that really helps to drive industry overall ABB, has a good firm position here.

There is a regulatory concern when you do large infrastructure projects. It is about how long it takes for those approvals to go through because sometimes there are different dimensions of that particular decision done across states. Also the private and public pieces are other dimensions that are there, which are healthy. They help you to have the private investment side with the public investment side. So, you get a better optimisation of resources in a different look of how that’s done. So, it is positive.

If there are certain land restrictions, then we have to develop a technology to allow footprints to be smaller and more compact. So, if you look at air-insulated switchgears, they can take about 10 times the space of what gas insulator switchgear does. That technology development, which we are developing here in India, also helps to address those kinds of needs.

Secondly from a renewable power standpoint in India, it’s a very difficult situation that demands for power in India is incredible. When you look at this 12th Five Year Plan, there is almost 20 gigawatts of solar power alone that’s part of that plan. It’s a huge amount of solar power. So, a real challenge from an overall geographic and logistic standpoint will be to make that happen.

However, the Indian government seems to be dedicated to make that happen. The industry has to come together. Companies like ABB will help to offer technology. We talked about renewable energies, but if you look at Co2 reduction, it’s the ultimate alternative fuel. So, whether it’s our drive systems, transmission systems, a lot of these are dedicated to how you really save power. If you can save power and you don’t have to generate it again, then ultimately, that’s the best way to address Billy Noble’s question here.

From an ABB standpoint, almost everything that was sold in China was produced by us. In fact, we have been capacity-constrained in China since 2009. Since we look at China as an export hub, from a strategic standpoint, we have been focused on much more than ever in the last 18 months. So, when it comes to qualifications of our products from China into India or from China into United States or China into Europe, we really have a rapid program to make that happen. So, I am very confident that we can be competitive on a global scale.

Indsur Global acquires Premium Transmission' Automotive Gear division

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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