When portions of a roof need a cover up, often I see the not so great cover up - when roof patches don't work.
This is a five year old house.? The roofing shingle is a very durable, architectural shingle.? It's a good roof.
However, the gutter guy didn't quite know how to handle this architectural detail!
He ran the gutter to where he thought it would capture water from the roof above, and then attempted the great cover up for the rest.
The cover up is a piece of white sheet metal.
It is glued in place on the left side with a gallon of some very fine caulking.
It does not cover everything it needs to cover.? THERE ARE GAPS EVERYWHERE!
Water obviously gets behind it.
Because of the angle of the sun the roof sheathing reveals that it is sagging badly underneath.
Likely it is rotting, and rotting badly.
Unfortunately, from inside the attic this section of sheathing is not visible.
It will have to be investigated from outside by a roofer.? It is very high, and the ground slopes down at this point.
The photo is taken from a hill behind the house, with a telephoto lens!?
Hard to see in the photo above, on the right side of that roof edge is a piece of sheet metal.
Unknown how it is attached, it is full of holes and certainly not water tight.
This is a very high location and I bet it was thought that nobody would see this.? It is clearly visible with my 20x binoculars (with image stabilizer) and the sun's angle helped.
My recommendation:? it is important that all aspects of a roof be looked at.? Sometimes the sun gives its assistance!? But no matter what, especially when very high, and when what is obviously a problem reveals itself, the only option is further review by a professional.? And that gutter arrangement needs improvement too!
?
?
Jay Markanich Real Estate Inspections, LLC??
Based in Bristow, serving all of Northern Virginia
New Deal on Russian Military Base in Tajikistan Faces Delay
Novinite - Saturday 29th September, 2012
A new agreement on Russia's military base in Tajikistan may take up to nine months to complete despite earlier reports that the deal is near clinched, the commander of the Russian Ground Forces ...
Turkey Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan sat at the table for TANAP project
Turkish Press - Saturday 29th September, 2012
Top ranking representatives from Turkey, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and the European Union sat at the table yesterday to discuss adding Turkmenistan, reportedly the holder of world's fourth ...
New Kazakhstan Cathedral Pays Tribute to Victims of Communism
EWTN - Saturday 29th September, 2012
Auxiliary Bishop of the Diocese of Karaganda on Beauty, Art and Silent EvangelizationBy Paul De MaeyerROME, SEPT. 13, 2012 (Zenit.org).- Last Sunday, the cathedral of the Diocese of Karaganda, in ...
Tajik Base Deal to Be Signed By July ? General
RIA Novosti - Saturday 29th September, 2012
MOSCOW, September 29 (RIA Novosti) - Reaching a new agreement on Russia's military base in Tajikistan may take up to nine months despite earlier reports that the deal is near clinched, the ...
Russia expects deal to extend its military presence in Tajikistan in 2013
Canada.com - Saturday 29th September, 2012
MOSCOW - A top Russian general says Moscow will secure a deal to extend Russian military presence in the Central Asian nation of Tajikistan by the first half of 2013. Central Asian nations are ...
Russia Deal to Keep Troops in Tajikistan in 2013
ABC News - Saturday 29th September, 2012
A top Russian general says Moscow will secure a deal to extend Russian military presence in the Central Asian nation of Tajikistan by the first half of 2013. Central Asian nations are ...
Russia in WTO ready or not
Asia Times - Saturday 29th September, 2012
By Claire Bigg Vladimir Appakov has been running a successful vegetable business in Tatarstan for more than two decades. So successful, in fact, that he is widely known in this central Russian ...
Ucell ? the most visited mount at ICTExpo 2012 exhibition
UZ Report - Saturday 29th September, 2012
FE LLC "COSCOM", providing mobile services under Ucell trade mark, the General sponsor of ICT Week 2012, summarizes participation in the most large-scale and important event in information ...
Siberia placed to be the new Middle East
Asia Times - Saturday 29th September, 2012
originates from a volatile region with a lion's share of the supply passing through narrow waterways that could easily be sealed off to tankers. More than any other market factors, it is ...
Salafists challenge Kazakh future
Asia Times - Saturday 29th September, 2012
Salafists challenge Kazakh future By Jacob Zenn Kazakhstan has experienced a rise in militant activity carried out by Salafist groups on its territory and periphery since late 2011. The ...
Expert United States in Central Asia have the system work with the intellectual and political elites
General Sources - Saturday 29th September, 2012
Head of the Center for social and political research ';strategy'; Gulmira Ileuova. Illustration: guljan.org United States, expert assessments, took the tactically winning position in ...
Foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Israel met in New York
News.Az - Saturday 29th September, 2012
Minister of Foreign Affairs Elmar Mammadyarov of Azerbaijan met with his Israeli counterpart Avigdor Liberman on 28 September on the sidelines of the 67th Session of the UN General Assembly. The ...
NEW YORK (AP) ? Former New York Times publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, who led the newspaper to new levels of influence and profit amid some of the most significant moments in 20th-century journalism, died Saturday. He was 86.
Sulzberger, who went by the nickname "Punch" and served with the Marine Corps in World War II and Korea before joining the Times staff as a reporter, died at his home in Southampton, N.Y., after a long illness, his family announced.
During his three-decade-long tenure, the newspaper won 31 Pulitzer prizes, published the Pentagon Papers and won a libel case victory in New York Times vs. Sullivan that established important First Amendment protections for the press.
"Punch, the old Marine captain who never backed down from a fight, was an absolutely fierce defender of the freedom of the press," his son, and current Times publisher, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., said in a statement. He said his father's refusal to back down in the paper's free-speech battles "helped to expand access to critical information and to prevent government censorship and intimidation."
In an era of declining newspaper readership, the Times' weekday circulation climbed from 714,000 when Sulzberger became publisher in 1963 to 1.1 million upon his retirement as publisher in 1992. Over the same period, the annual revenues of the Times' corporate parent rose from $100 million to $1.7 billion.
"Above all, he took the quality of the product up to an entirely new level," the late Katharine Graham, chairwoman of The Washington Post Co., said at the time Sulzberger relinquished the publisher's title. When she died in 2001, he returned the praise, saying she "used her intelligence, her courage and her wit to transform the landscape of American journalism."
Sulzberger was the only grandson of Adolph S. Ochs (pronounced ox), the son of Bavarian immigrants who took over the Times in 1896 and built it into the nation's most influential newspaper. The family retains a controlling interest to this day, holding a separate block of Class B shares that have more powerful voting rights than the company's publicly traded shares.
Power was thrust on Sulzberger at the age of 37 after the sudden death of his brother-in-law in 1963. He had been in the Times executive suite for eight years in a role he later described as "vice president in charge of nothing."
But Sulzberger directed the Times' evolution from an encyclopedic paper of record to a more reader-friendly product that reached into the suburbs and across the nation.
During his tenure, the Times started a national edition, bought its first color presses, and introduced popular as well as lucrative new sections covering topics such as science, food and entertainment.
A key figure in the transformation was A.M. Rosenthal, executive editor from 1977 to 1986. Rosenthal, who died in 2006, called Sulzberger "probably the best publisher in modern American history."
Sulzberger also improved the paper's bottom line, pulling it and its parent company out of a tailspin in the mid-1970s and lifting both to unprecedented profitability a decade later.
In 1992, Sulzberger relinquished the publisher's job to his 40-year-old son, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., but remained chairman of The New York Times Co.
Sulzberger retired as chairman and chief executive of the company in 1997. His son then was named chairman. Sulzberger stayed on the Times Co. board of directors until 2002.
Significant free-press and free-speech precedents were established during Sulzberger's years as publisher, most notably the Times vs. Sullivan case. It resulted in a landmark 1964 Supreme Court ruling that shielded the press from libel lawsuits by public officials unless they could prove actual malice.
In 1971 the Times led the First Amendment fight to keep the government from suppressing the Pentagon Papers, a series of classified reports on the Vietnam War. Asked by a reporter who at the Times made the decision to publish the papers, Sulzberger gestured toward his chest and silently mouthed, "me."
Sulzberger read the more than 7,000 pages of the Pentagon Papers before deciding to publish them. After Sulzberger read the papers, he was asked what he thought. "Oh, I would think about 20 years to life," he responded.
But in a landmark decision, the U.S. Supreme Court eventually sided with the Times and The Washington Post, which had begun publishing the papers a few days after the Times.
Gay Talese, who worked at the Times as a reporter when Sulzberger took over and chronicled the paper's history in his book "The Kingdom and the Power," called him "a brilliant publisher. He far exceeded the achievements of his father in both making the paper better and more profitable at a time when papers are not as good as they used to be."
In their book "The Trust," a history of the Ochs-Sulzberger family and its stewardship of the paper, Susan E. Tifft and Alex S. Jones cited Sulzberger's "common sense and unerring instincts."
In an interview in 1990 with New York magazine, Sulzberger was typically candid about the paper's readership.
"We're not New York's hometown newspaper," he said. "We're read on Park Avenue, but we don't do well in Chinatown or the east Bronx. We have to approach journalism differently than, say, the Sarasota Herald Tribune, where you try to blanket the community."
In the mid-1980s Sulzberger authorized the building of a $450 million color printing and distribution plant across the Hudson River in Edison, N.J., part of a plan to get all printing out of cramped facilities in the Times building in Manhattan.
Sulzberger was born in New York City on Feb. 5, 1926, the only son of Arthur Hays Sulzberger and his wife, Iphigene Ochs Sulzberger, Adolph's only child. One of his three sisters was named Judy, and from early on he was known as "Punch," from the puppet characters Punch and Judy.
Sulzberger's grandfather led the paper until his death in 1935, when he was followed by Sulzberger's father, who remained at the helm until he retired in 1961.
Meanwhile, Arthur served in the Marines during World War II and, briefly, in Korea. He later observed, in a typically self-deprecating remark, that "My family didn't worry about me for a minute. They knew that if I got shot in the head it wouldn't do any harm."
Except for a year at The Milwaukee Journal, 1953-54, the younger Sulzberger spent his entire career at the family paper. He joined after graduating from Columbia College in 1951. He worked in European bureaus for a time and was back in New York by 1955, but found he had little to do.
Sulzberger had not been expected to assume power at the paper for years. His father passed control to Orvil E. Dryfoos, his oldest daughter's husband, in 1961. But two years later Dryfoos died suddenly of heart disease at 50. Punch Sulzberger's parents named him publisher, the fourth family member to hold the title.
"We had all hoped that Punch would have many years more training before having to take over," said his mother, Iphigene. Sulzberger relied on senior editors and managers for advice, and quickly developed a reputation as a solid leader.
At various times, Sulzberger was a director or chairman of the Newspaper Advertising Bureau, American Newspaper Publishers Association and American Press Institute. He was a director of The Associated Press from 1975 to 1984.
Sulzberger married Barbara Grant in 1948, and the couple had two children, Arthur Jr. and Karen. After a divorce in 1956, Sulzberger married Carol Fox. The couple had a daughter, Cynthia, and Sulzberger adopted Fox's daughter from a previous marriage, Cathy.
Carol Sulzberger died in 1995. The following year, Sulzberger married Allison Cowles, the widow of William H. Cowles 3rd, who was the president and publisher of The Spokesman-Review and Spokane Chronicle of Spokane, Wash.
As affiliate marketing matures, newer threats and challenges also evolve. However, the opportunities are still bountiful, and with the right approach a merchant can still succeed marketing their brand and business through a well-built affiliate program.
Today's guest is Todd Crawford, a recognizable affiliate marketing veteran, co-founder of Impact Radius, and former VP of sales and business development at Digital River's oneNetworkDirect.
In 1998 Todd also contributed to the founding team at Commission Junction, where he later served as Vice President for more than seven years.
What are the major challenges with which you see affiliate managers struggle?
Balancing time between revenue generating activities and administrative activities.? I think many people get bogged down with the day-to-day administrative tasks and don?t focus enough energy on the revenue generating part of the job.? The key takeaway is creating as many efficiencies as possible to minimize the time required for day-to-day stuff so you free up more time to develop incremental revenue opportunities.
What do you view as the main affiliate program growth opportunities?
The affiliate channel is often kept separate from other media and ad distribution channels because of the performance pricing.? There?s a significant opportunity to pull other distribution channels into the performance category because of the improvements in tracking and reporting. For example, a lot of companies offering distribution with mobile or through remarketing are willing to do so on a performance-basis. I think there?s a lot of room for growth and expansion with media partners that historically were bucketed in the display or search channels.
In April 2012 an Illinois Circuit Court Judge ruled the affiliate nexus tax unconstitutional. However, more and more states are considering going the route of the "affiliate tax". Is there a good solution to this snowballing affiliate nexus tax situation?
The only real solution is a national Internet sales tax or some kind of tax that applies equally to all advertisers regardless of the media type that drove the conversion.
How can affiliate networks help merchants to continue working in the states with the affiliate nexus tax legislation?
I am not sure that affiliate networks or any other third-party can help solve nexus issues.? Technology cannot solve nexus issues.? The advertiser is responsible for interpreting and complying with any and all applicable tax laws.? It has been my experience that advertisers rely on their legal counsel or CFO for this advice. Beware of technologies that tell you they can solve nexus issues.
What about the "Do Not Track" legislation? Is affiliate marketing industry in danger here? And does Impact Radius have relevant solutions?
I am confident that privacy and marketing can co-exist peacefully.? Eventually, websites will not be able to generate revenue if consumers opt out of monetization of content.? I believe these sites will restrict access to visitors that do not wish to be tracked.? Consumers will have a choice - visit our site and allow us to make money or do not access our content.? In the end, I think most consumers will understand this? trade off? as fair and reasonable and doesn?t compromise their person information or security.
What are the top 3 things that affiliate managers (and merchants) should be looking at while choosing an affiliate network?
Yes, I am really looking forward to participating on this panel.? The first distinction I would like to make is that Impact Radius is a technology provider, not a network - this puts us in a unique position to help advertisers and agencies better manage their top relationships - from both a cost perspective and an incremental revenue perspective.? The first thing to look for when selecting any technology vendor is how will it solve your problems or allow you to meet your revenue objectives? When choosing a network, you need to know how the technology will support your needs and objectives.?
The second consideration is cost.? Networks typically charge a fee based on the success of your program - the bigger it gets, the more you pay.? If you or your agency are doing all the work of growing the program, does this pricing model make sense for your business?? The third consideration is do you even need a network to attract and manage partners? Most advertisers see 90%+ of their volume coming from a handful of top partners. These top partners are generally well known in the industry and easy to contact and recruit - especially if you are a medium to large brand.
Over the next 4 years Forrester predicts a steady growth for affiliate marketing. What are the top 3 areas of opportunity for affiliates these days?
Content -- Developing unique content that attracts repeat visitors is the single most valuable asset any publisher can invest in.
Mobile -- I believe in a few more years mobile will surpass online - so the sooner you get there, the sooner you will be successful.
Media -- Utilizing more accurate and flexible tools to enable and measure more media channels to increase traffic to your site(s). Do not rely solely on search (paid or organic) for your livelihood.? Diversification into other media channels reduces your dependence on one channel for the majority of your traffic.? If you?re not already testing social, retargeting, email, etc. - it?s time to start!
If you were to leave affiliate managers with just one advice today, what would it be?
Communicate the value of your channel (and your contribution) to internal teams throughout the week, month, quarter and year.? Utilize every metric available to you to understand how your channel compares and interacts with other marketing efforts and educate your company on what you?ve learned.
WARSAW (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of protesters marched through the Polish capital on Saturday, the start of an opposition drive to capitalize on the spluttering economy and try to loosen Prime Minister Donald Tusk's grip on power.
Poland's economy, the biggest in central Europe, has grown robustly even while its neighbors slipped into recession, handing Tusk high levels of support and leaving his opponents struggling to win credibility with voters.
Economic growth is expected to slow to just above 2 percent next year. That is healthy by the standards of most European countries but a jarring deceleration for Poles used to two decades of uninterrupted growth.
Jaroslaw Kaczynski, leader of the opposition Law and Justice Party, said ordinary Poles were no longer prepared to give Tusk's government, in its second term, the benefit of the doubt.
"These huge crowds mean strength. They mean that Poland has awakened. More and more Poles will be awakening. The cup of evil has overflowed. We Poles, we Polish patriots say 'no'," Kaczynski told protesters in Warsaw's Castle Square.
"Tusk will probably stand up and say he is the leader for difficult times. Do you want such a leader?" he said. "Honest businessmen and the working masses do not want that."
People close to the government say the downturn could prove the biggest political test yet for Tusk. He has established a reputation for steady and competent stewardship in a part of Europe more familiar with mercurial leaders.
Nevertheless, analysts and diplomats say the opposition is unable to exploit the slowdown because, while it has a strong base among the most devout of Poland's Catholics, it is too hard-line to win over voters in the middle ground.
It is against abortion, gay marriage and in vitro fertilization. That stance is in line with the teachings of the Catholic church, which is still powerful in Poland. But surveys show it does not resonate with young, urban middle classes.
Saturday's demonstration was the biggest in several months. Protesters, some of them clutching rosaries and portraits of the Virgin Mary, knelt on the tarmac in Warsaw's Three Crosses Square as a priest said mass before the march.
Banners demanded more generous terms for pensioners and a broadcast license for a television station run by a conservative Catholic cleric who opposes the government.
One grey-bearded protester, who gave his name as Wojciech, said the Communist cabal which used to rule Poland before the fall of the Berlin Wall had been replaced by another elite, this one preaching free market economics.
"Unemployment is so high," he said, holding up one end of a Law and Justice banner. "Under Communism you could get hit by a truncheon, and now the truncheon is the economy."
Tusk's government does not face re-election for another three years. The latest opinion polls show the prime minister's Civic Platform party still has a significant lead over the opposition, though the gap has narrowed. (Additional reporting by Patrycja Sikora; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)
DEAR ABBY: My husband and I just got some shocking news. His father -- age 81 -- is leaving his wife of 60 years! Mom is not entirely self-sufficient and seems dependent on him.Dad found himself a younger woman -- a "chick" of 70. He has announced that he still has sexual needs and wants to enjoy the rest of his life. My husband thinks it will be a short-term fling and he'll return to Mom, but she says she won't be taking him back. (Who knows how she'll feel later?)My problem is, no matter what happens between them, I'm having a hard time even considering forgiving him for his selfishness. ...
NSF adds 3 years, $12 million to ISU-based Center for Biorenewable ChemicalsPublic release date: 27-Sep-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Brent Shanks bshanks@iastate.edu 515-294-1895 Iowa State University
AMES, Iowa Engineers and scientists are working together in new ways to invent catalysts that lead to industrial chemicals from biorenewable resources. Industrial partnerships are expanding. Startup companies are launching. A myriad of education partnerships are reaching teachers and students. And an international reputation is growing.
They're all steps the National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering Research Center for Biorenewable Chemicals based at Iowa State University has made over its initial four years. That progress has led to the NSF augmenting the center (known as CBiRC, "See-burk") with three additional years and $12 million.
That brings the total federal investment in the center through the NSF's Engineering Research Center program up to $30.5 million over eight years. The center can still be renewed for an additional two years, potentially bringing the NSF's total support to 10 years and $34.9 million. After 10 years, CBiRC will transition to a self-supporting research center. In addition to the center's base funding, it has so far garnered more than $14 million in other support.
"In four years we've certainly come together as a center and we have a shared vision across all the researchers," said Brent Shanks, the center's director and the Mike and Jean Steffenson Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Iowa State. "We are accomplishing what the NSF wanted interdisciplinary research."
The center's vision is to transform the industrial chemical industry a $400 billion-a-year business in the United States from one based on petroleum to one based on biorenewable resources. To do that, the center has asked researchers who study chemical or biological catalysts to start working together to develop new and sustainable technologies that produce the industrial chemicals used in everything from building materials to personal-care products.
Basil Nikolau, the center's deputy director and the Frances M. Craig Professor of Biochemistry, Biophysics and Molecular Biology at Iowa State, said the center's interdisciplinary approach is attracting the attention of industry.
"We are making progress and a measure of that is the companies that have joined us," Nikolau said. "We're setting a new paradigm for this research. We're doing basic research that companies are buying into."
When the center was established, it had six industrial partners. The center now has 27 (including Ashland, Chevron Phillips Chemical Co., DuPont, Grain Processing Corp., Michelin Americas Research Co., and POET) and is discussing additional partnerships. The center is also spinning off four companies in Iowa and three from partner institutions. The Iowa startups include Glucan Biorenewables LLC, originally established by Shanks; Peter Keeling, the center's industrial collaboration and innovation consultant; and James Dumesic, the Steenbock Professor and Michel Boudart Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The center has also attracted attention from funding agencies and the science media:
Earlier this year, Nikolau, Keeling and Shivani Garg a graduate student in biochemistry, biophysics and molecular biology won an Innovation Corps grant from the NSF. The grant will support their work to develop bio-based chemical feedstocks.
And, the CBiRC way combining chemical and biological technologies to produce biorenewable chemicals was recently featured in Chemical & Engineering News. The story by Mitch Jacoby notes that "coupling chemical and biological processing offers advantages over either one on its own."
In addition to those developments, the leaders of the center's three research thrusts said they're seeing many signs of technical progress:
Thrust one, new biocatalysts for pathway engineering
Joseph Noel professor and director of the Jack H. Skirball Center for Chemical Biology and Proteomics at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, Calif., and an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute based in Chevy Chase, Md. said the program has identified pyrones as molecules for the center's testbed research across disciplines. He said researchers have developed protein engineering techniques to improve the production of biorenewable molecules from sugar by common baker's yeast. Chemical catalysts then convert the molecules to commodity chemicals. Noel said the research program has also successfully integrated high school and undergraduate students in its laboratories.
Thrust two, microbial metabolic engineering
Jackie Shanks, the Manley Hoppe Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Iowa State, said researchers have used E. coli to produce carboxylic acids at the highest level reported to date. Carboxylic acids can be used to produce many industrial chemicals. She said researchers have also improved E. coli's ability to resist the toxicity of the acids.
Thrust three, chemical catalyst design
Robert Davis, the Earnest Jackson Oglesby Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, said researchers have made significant progress converting pyrones from research thrusts one and two to high-value chemicals. He said researchers have also developed technologies that convert carboxylic acids to alpha olefins that are used to make detergents and other chemicals.
Brent Shanks said the center has established several education initiatives, including a graduate minor in biorenewable chemicals at Iowa State, research internships at the center's European partners, a summer research program for undergraduates, research experiences and workshops for school teachers and a program that places graduate students in middle school science classrooms.
All in all, Shanks said the center's work is getting noticed and its researchers are taking calls from industry, technical conferences and the biorenewable research community.
"It is our driving goal," he said, "to be considered the place in the world to do biorenewable chemicals."
###
The NSF Engineering Research Center for Biorenewable Chemicals is based at Iowa State and is working with academic partners at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego; the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor; Rice University in Houston; the University of California, Irvine; Penn State University in University Park; the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque; the University of Virginia in Charlottesville; and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. International partners are the Fritz-Haber-Institute of the Max-Planck-Society in Berlin, Germany; the Technical University of Denmark in Lyngby; the Eindhoven University of Technology in Eindhoven, the Netherlands; and the Abo Akademi University in Turku, Finland. The center is also developing pre-college programs with Des Moines Public Schools.
Contacts:
Brent Shanks, National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center for Biorenewable Chemicals (CBiRC); Chemical and Biological Engineering, 515-294-1895, bshanks@iastate.edu
Basil Nikolau, CBiRC; Biochemistry, Biophysics and Molecular Biology, 515-294-9423, dimmas@iastate.edu
Robert Davis, CBiRC; University of Virginia, 434-924-6284, rjd4f@virginia.edu
Joseph Noel, CBiRC; Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Salk Institute for Biological Studies, 858-453-4100 ext. 1442, noel@salk.edu
Jackie Shanks, CBiRC; Chemical and Biological Engineering, 515-294-4828, jshanks@iastate.edu
Mike Krapfl, News Service, 515-294-4917, mkrapfl@iastate.edu
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
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NSF adds 3 years, $12 million to ISU-based Center for Biorenewable ChemicalsPublic release date: 27-Sep-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Brent Shanks bshanks@iastate.edu 515-294-1895 Iowa State University
AMES, Iowa Engineers and scientists are working together in new ways to invent catalysts that lead to industrial chemicals from biorenewable resources. Industrial partnerships are expanding. Startup companies are launching. A myriad of education partnerships are reaching teachers and students. And an international reputation is growing.
They're all steps the National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering Research Center for Biorenewable Chemicals based at Iowa State University has made over its initial four years. That progress has led to the NSF augmenting the center (known as CBiRC, "See-burk") with three additional years and $12 million.
That brings the total federal investment in the center through the NSF's Engineering Research Center program up to $30.5 million over eight years. The center can still be renewed for an additional two years, potentially bringing the NSF's total support to 10 years and $34.9 million. After 10 years, CBiRC will transition to a self-supporting research center. In addition to the center's base funding, it has so far garnered more than $14 million in other support.
"In four years we've certainly come together as a center and we have a shared vision across all the researchers," said Brent Shanks, the center's director and the Mike and Jean Steffenson Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Iowa State. "We are accomplishing what the NSF wanted interdisciplinary research."
The center's vision is to transform the industrial chemical industry a $400 billion-a-year business in the United States from one based on petroleum to one based on biorenewable resources. To do that, the center has asked researchers who study chemical or biological catalysts to start working together to develop new and sustainable technologies that produce the industrial chemicals used in everything from building materials to personal-care products.
Basil Nikolau, the center's deputy director and the Frances M. Craig Professor of Biochemistry, Biophysics and Molecular Biology at Iowa State, said the center's interdisciplinary approach is attracting the attention of industry.
"We are making progress and a measure of that is the companies that have joined us," Nikolau said. "We're setting a new paradigm for this research. We're doing basic research that companies are buying into."
When the center was established, it had six industrial partners. The center now has 27 (including Ashland, Chevron Phillips Chemical Co., DuPont, Grain Processing Corp., Michelin Americas Research Co., and POET) and is discussing additional partnerships. The center is also spinning off four companies in Iowa and three from partner institutions. The Iowa startups include Glucan Biorenewables LLC, originally established by Shanks; Peter Keeling, the center's industrial collaboration and innovation consultant; and James Dumesic, the Steenbock Professor and Michel Boudart Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The center has also attracted attention from funding agencies and the science media:
Earlier this year, Nikolau, Keeling and Shivani Garg a graduate student in biochemistry, biophysics and molecular biology won an Innovation Corps grant from the NSF. The grant will support their work to develop bio-based chemical feedstocks.
And, the CBiRC way combining chemical and biological technologies to produce biorenewable chemicals was recently featured in Chemical & Engineering News. The story by Mitch Jacoby notes that "coupling chemical and biological processing offers advantages over either one on its own."
In addition to those developments, the leaders of the center's three research thrusts said they're seeing many signs of technical progress:
Thrust one, new biocatalysts for pathway engineering
Joseph Noel professor and director of the Jack H. Skirball Center for Chemical Biology and Proteomics at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, Calif., and an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute based in Chevy Chase, Md. said the program has identified pyrones as molecules for the center's testbed research across disciplines. He said researchers have developed protein engineering techniques to improve the production of biorenewable molecules from sugar by common baker's yeast. Chemical catalysts then convert the molecules to commodity chemicals. Noel said the research program has also successfully integrated high school and undergraduate students in its laboratories.
Thrust two, microbial metabolic engineering
Jackie Shanks, the Manley Hoppe Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Iowa State, said researchers have used E. coli to produce carboxylic acids at the highest level reported to date. Carboxylic acids can be used to produce many industrial chemicals. She said researchers have also improved E. coli's ability to resist the toxicity of the acids.
Thrust three, chemical catalyst design
Robert Davis, the Earnest Jackson Oglesby Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, said researchers have made significant progress converting pyrones from research thrusts one and two to high-value chemicals. He said researchers have also developed technologies that convert carboxylic acids to alpha olefins that are used to make detergents and other chemicals.
Brent Shanks said the center has established several education initiatives, including a graduate minor in biorenewable chemicals at Iowa State, research internships at the center's European partners, a summer research program for undergraduates, research experiences and workshops for school teachers and a program that places graduate students in middle school science classrooms.
All in all, Shanks said the center's work is getting noticed and its researchers are taking calls from industry, technical conferences and the biorenewable research community.
"It is our driving goal," he said, "to be considered the place in the world to do biorenewable chemicals."
###
The NSF Engineering Research Center for Biorenewable Chemicals is based at Iowa State and is working with academic partners at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego; the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor; Rice University in Houston; the University of California, Irvine; Penn State University in University Park; the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque; the University of Virginia in Charlottesville; and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. International partners are the Fritz-Haber-Institute of the Max-Planck-Society in Berlin, Germany; the Technical University of Denmark in Lyngby; the Eindhoven University of Technology in Eindhoven, the Netherlands; and the Abo Akademi University in Turku, Finland. The center is also developing pre-college programs with Des Moines Public Schools.
Contacts:
Brent Shanks, National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center for Biorenewable Chemicals (CBiRC); Chemical and Biological Engineering, 515-294-1895, bshanks@iastate.edu
Basil Nikolau, CBiRC; Biochemistry, Biophysics and Molecular Biology, 515-294-9423, dimmas@iastate.edu
Robert Davis, CBiRC; University of Virginia, 434-924-6284, rjd4f@virginia.edu
Joseph Noel, CBiRC; Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Salk Institute for Biological Studies, 858-453-4100 ext. 1442, noel@salk.edu
Jackie Shanks, CBiRC; Chemical and Biological Engineering, 515-294-4828, jshanks@iastate.edu
Mike Krapfl, News Service, 515-294-4917, mkrapfl@iastate.edu
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GENEVA ? The County Board soon could decide whether to put in writing an intention to collect more in property taxes next year ? and whether to leave it to newly elected board members to reduce that amount come spring.
Tuesday, the County Board Finance and Budget Committee recommended the full County Board approve a budget that calls for the county to increase its property tax levy by 3 percent, the maximum amount allowed by law this year.
Should such a tax levy increase ultimately be approved, it could increase the tax bill owed by county taxpayers owning a house with an assessed value of about $250,000 about $5 to $12 next year, with an average increase of about $7 a year, according to county finance officials.
However, while the budget, which must be enacted by November, would state the county?s spending and taxing intentions, the actual tax levy on which that budget is based will not be acted upon until spring.
So, members of the Finance Committee said they believe the current County Board should leave it to the next County Board ? which will be seated after the November elections ? to decide whether to leave the property tax levy alone or scale it back.
Finance Committee Chairman Jim Mitchell, R-North Aurora, said the next County Board will know more about the county?s financial footing than the current board does.
He noted the County Board is still waiting to learn how much Kane County will have collected in sales taxes and its portion of the state income tax.
?It means that [the County Board] will actually know what you?re levying for,? Mitchell told the committee.
Other committee members also backed the levy increase.
?All we?re doing is setting a budget,? said board member Cathy Hurlbut, R-Elgin. ?We can?t ask for more than what we budget.?
The levy increase will not be needed to fund raises for county employees, committee members said.
Instead, the Finance Committee backed a proposal to use the county?s general contingency fund to pay for a 2 percent increase for most of the county?s nonunion, nonelected employees and for raises specifically for the county?s assistant state?s attorneys and public defenders.
In all, those raises would total about $1.06 million that would come from money the county already has on hand, Mitchell said.
While stressing the levy increase will not be used to pay for raises, committee members did not state why the levy increase might be needed.
Mitchell said that will be discussed by the full County Board when it takes up the matter, perhaps as soon as Oct. 9.
That lack of specificity caused at least one committee member, Christina Castro, D-Elgin, to question the need to increase the levy at all.
?When I talk to constituents, they say they can?t even take another $5,? Castro said. ?I?m OK with using the money out of contingency to pay for these raises, but I?m totally opposed to raising the levy.?
There are 13 hours, 57 minutes remaining to comment on this story.
BEIRUT (Reuters) - More than 300 people were killed in Syria on Wednesday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, in one of the bloodiest days in the 18-month uprising against President Bashar al-Assad.
World leaders meeting at the United Nations have expressed concern at the continuing violence in Syria but are deadlocked over their response to the conflict, which the Observatory says has claimed 30,000 lives since March 2011.
The British-based organization, which monitors violence in Syria through a network of activists, said in a report released on Thursday that 55 people were killed in rural areas around Damascus. They included at least 40 who appeared to have been shot in cold blood in the town of al-Dhiyabia, southeast of the capital.
Other activists have put the death toll in al-Dhiyabia as high as 107, blaming Assad's security forces for what they said was a massacre. Video published by activists showed rows of bloodied corpses wrapped in blankets. The victims shown on camera appeared to be male, from 20-year-olds to elderly men.
The Observatory also said 14 people were killed in a rebel bomb attack on a military command centre in Damascus and in an ensuing prolonged gunbattle between rebels and security forces.
Violence in Syria has deepened as the fight against Assad has became more militarized and the president has responded with increasing use of force - including regular air strikes and bombardments against rebel areas.
In the first nine months of the conflict, the United Nations human rights chief said around 5,000 people had been killed. U.N. officials have given up trying to monitor the violence but the Observatory's figures suggest five times as many people have been killed in the second nine-month period.
The Centre for Documentation of Violations in Syria, which is linked to the grassroots anti-Assad Local Coordination Committees, puts the overall death toll at 27,318.
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Scientists in Japan think they've finally created the elusive element 113, one of the missing items on the periodic table of elements.
Element 113 is an atom with 113 protons in its nucleus ? a type of matter that must be created inside a laboratory because it is not found naturally on Earth. Heavier and heavier synthetic elements have been created over the years, with the most massive one being element 118, temporarily named ununoctium.
But element 113 has been stubbornly hard to create. After years of trying, researchers at the RIKEN Nishina Center for Accelerator-Based Science in Japan said Wednesday they finally did so. On Aug. 12, the unstable element was formed and quickly decayed, leaving the team with data to cite as proof of the accomplishment.
"For over nine years, we have been searching for data conclusively identifying element 113, and now that at last we have it, it feels like a great weight has been lifted from our shoulders," Kosuke Morita, leader of the research group, said in a statement. [ Graphic: Nature's Tiniest Particles Explained ]
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If confirmed, the achievement will mark the first time Japan has discovered a new element, and should make Japan the first Asian country with naming rights to a member of the periodic table. Until now, only scientists in the United States, Russia and Germany have had that chance.
"I would like to thank all the researchers and staff involved in this momentous result, who persevered with the belief that one day 113 would be ours," Morita said. "For our next challenge, we look to the uncharted territory of element 119 and beyond."
Scientists are continually trying to create bigger and bigger atoms, both for the joy of discovery and for the knowledge these new elements can offer about how atoms work.
Most things in the universe are made of very simple elements, such as hydrogen (which has one proton), carbon (six) and oxygen (eight). For each proton, atoms generally have roughly the same number of neutrons and electrons. Yet the more protons and neutrons that are packed into an atom's nucleus, the more unstable the atom can become. Scientists wonder if there is a limit to how large atoms can be.
The first synthetic element was created in 1940, and so far 20 different elements have been made. All of these are unstable and last only seconds, at most, before breaking apart into smaller elements.
To synthesize element 113, Morita and his team collided zinc nuclei (with 30 protons each) into a thin layer of bismuth (which contains 83 protons). When 113 was created, it quickly decayed by shedding alpha particles, which consist of two protons and two neutrons each. This process happened six times, turning element 113 into element 111, then 109, 107, 105, 103 and finally, element 101, Mendelevium (also a synthetic element).
Morita's group seemed to create element 113 in experiments conducted in 2004 and 2005, but the complete decay chain was not observed, so the discovery couldn't be confirmed. Now that this specific pattern resulting in Mendelevium has been seen, the scientists say it "provides unambiguous proof that element 113 is the origin of the chain."
Follow Clara Moskowitz on Twitter @ClaraMoskowitz? or LiveScience @livescience. We're also on Facebook? and Google+.
NEW YORK (AP) ? The furor over the work of replacement officials reached a fevered pitch during Week 3 in the NFL, especially Monday night when Seattle beat Green Bay on a desperation pass that many thought was an interception.
Seahawks receiver Golden Tate was awarded a touchdown on the final play after a scrum on the ground in the end zone. Packers safety M.D. Jennings appeared to catch the ball against his body, with Tate getting his arm around the ball.
After a few seconds, one official indicated a stoppage of play, but another signaled touchdown for a conclusion former NFL coach Jon Gruden, working the game on TV, called "tragic" and "comical."
Tate clearly shoved cornerback Sam Shields to the ground on the play, but as Gruden noted, offensive pass interference almost never is called on desperation passes.
"Very hard to swallow," Packers coach Mike McCarthy said. "I have never seen anything like that in my time in football."
One day after New England coach Bill Belichick was confused about a decisive field goal he thought was off-target and Detroit's Jim Schwartz couldn't understand a 27-yard penalty walk-off for unnecessary roughness, things had gotten even more chaotic.
"These games are a joke," Hall of Fame quarterback Troy Aikman tweeted.
McCarthy was measured in his postgame remarks.
"Most unusual football game I have been a part of," he said. "I know it's been a wild weekend in the NFL and I guess we are part of it."
Packers guard T.J. Lang was even more emphatic, tweeting that the Packers were robbed "by the refs. Thanks NFL."
In Sunday night's Ravens-Patriots game, shoving matches followed even insignificant plays. One TV analyst called it the substitute-teacher syndrome: See how much you can get away with before the real thing returns.
"Nature says for us that we're going to go out there and push the limit regardless," Vikings linebacker Chad Greenway said. "If they're calling a game tight, if they're calling a game loose, it's going to be pushed to the limit. You are pushing it to the brink. If things are going to be called easier, and in some situations I feel like they've been less lenient, too, you've just got to play and see how (it's being called)."
If you can figure it out.
Broncos coach John Fox was fined $30,000 Monday and defensive coordinator Jack Del Rio $25,000 for verbal abuse of the officials during a Monday night game against Atlanta on Sept. 17.
More fines are likely for Belichick and Redskins offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan, and perhaps for others.
Fox and Del Rio were hit for their sideline histrionics, particularly when Fox was told he couldn't challenge a call of 12 men on the field ? he was correct that he could challenge, although replays showed the Broncos were guilty.
Before grabbing the arm of an official, Belichick wanted to know why Justin Tucker's field goal was called good in Baltimore's 31-30 victory Sunday night. He couldn't tell from his angle on the sideline, he said.
"So when the game was over, I went out and I was really looking for an explanation from the officials as to whether the play was under review," he said, "and I did try to get the official's attention as he was coming off the field to ask that, but I really wasn't able to do that."
Most confusing was the mark-off for a Lions penalty in overtime at Tennessee. Officials wound up penalizing Detroit from its 44-yard line rather than from the original line of scrimmage, the Titans 44.
Soon after, Rob Bironas kicked a go-ahead field goal.
Schwartz noted that the alternate official who helps the replacements with administrating penalties was on the Detroit sideline.
"We said, 'You're enforcing it from the wrong spot.' He was adamant that they weren't doing so," Schwartz said. "At that point, we just needed to play."
They didn't play well enough to avoid losing 44-41, and Titans coach Mike Munchak wasn't apologizing for how his team won.
"I don't feel any guilt," Munchak said. "For us, really the obvious answer is there's nothing we can do about who's officiating games. It's the same for everybody, so go out and don't get caught up in all that."
The league and the officials' union met Sunday without reaching any agreement on ending the lockout that began in June. The players' union also called on the 32 team owners to end the lockout because it is compromising the integrity of the game.
While most of the coaches are being careful what they say about the replacements, the players and broadcasters are less inhibited.
"Unfortunately, I feel like that it's like changing an intersection from a stop sign to a red light," Browns kicker Phil Dawson said. "You have to have so many car wrecks before they deem that intersection to be dangerous enough ? and we're heading that way. Someone's going to lose a game, if it hasn't already happened, to get both sides to a pressure point to get a deal done. It's sad."
Certainly not holding back on the criticism are some of the NFL's broadcast partners. Analyst Cris Collinsworth was forthright in his evaluation of the officiating problems Sunday night, as were Mike Tirico and Jon Gruden during last Monday night's flag-fest in Atlanta.
"We don't want to talk about the officials, trust us," ESPN's Tirico said. "But it's affecting the game. When we meet with teams and coordinators, frustration boils out into limited on-the-record statements. Off the record, what guys are saying ? it's a nightmare. It is impacting the game.
"It hasn't burned a team to cost them a playoff spot yet. But you should go back and watch the film. There are so many little things that players are getting away with that is absolutely impacting the game to the detriment of the product."
Yet some players aren't completely down on the performances of the replacements.
Patriots receiver Deion Branch noted all the controversy about officiating throughout the league.
"But I think the bigger picture is that we've all got to understand that, hey, they're making those calls on both sides of the ball," Branch said. "Us as players, we need to remove ourselves from what the refs are doing and just go out and play our game."
Rams defensive end Chris Long offered, apparently with no sarcasm, that the game "hasn't changed at all with the replacement officials because officials don't care about defensive linemen, replacement or first-tier officials."
Then he admitted taking the regular officials for granted.
"The NFL could really use them back," Long said.
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Sports Writers Howard Ulman, Rachel Cohen, Tom Withers, R.B. Fallstrom, Joseph White, Noah Trister, Jon Krawczynski and Teresa M. Walker contributed to this story.
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Online: http://pro32.ap.org/poll and http://twitter.com/AP_NFL
However, the gutter guy didn't quite know how to handle this architectural detail!
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Public release date: 27-Sep-2012
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