Tips for an Energy Efficient Household - Swagbucks TV

Tips for an Energy Efficient Household - Swagbucks TV

Recycling Electronics Responsibly - Swagbucks TV

I am grateful that everyone is recycling.

Protecting the Future from Genocide | Teaching Tolerance

After the Holocaust, Elie Wiesel eloquently stated “never again.” Since he first uttered this compelling sentiment, genocides have erupted across the world—from Guatemala to Cambodia.

April was chosen as Genocide Prevention Month since the Holocaust, Rwandan, Bosnian, Armenian and Cambodian genocides are commemorated during this time. The commemoration began in April 2009 and combined genocide remembrance with prevention.

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Protecting the Future from Genocide | Teaching Tolerance

One week until CNN Black In America 4, Silicon Valley – Everything changes after this or does it? #blackinamerica | SocialWayne.com by Wayne Sutton

We’re exactly one week away from CNN’s Black In America 4, Silicon Valley – The New Promised Land hosted by Soledad O’Brien that airs Sunday, November 13, 8pm EST. There’s a lot of hype around the document with all of the back and forth race/diversity talk that I’m still disappointed about. Out of the eight entrepreneurs in the house I think I’m the last one to see one of the pre-screenings but that will change this week as I’ll be in Detroit with Hajj Flemmings on a few panels for pre-screenings and BrandCampU.

One week until CNN Black In America 4, Silicon Valley – Everything changes after this or does it? #blackinamerica | SocialWayne.com by Wayne Sutton

One week until CNN Black In America 4, Silicon Valley – Everything changes after this or does it? #blackinamerica | SocialWayne.com by Wayne Sutton

We’re exactly one week away from CNN’s Black In America 4, Silicon Valley – The New Promised Land hosted by Soledad O’Brien that airs Sunday, November 13, 8pm EST. There’s a lot of hype around the document with all of the back and forth race/diversity talk that I’m still disappointed about. Out of the eight entrepreneurs in the house I think I’m the last one to see one of the pre-screenings but that will change this week as I’ll be in Detroit with Hajj Flemmings on a few panels for pre-screenings and BrandCampU.

One week until CNN Black In America 4, Silicon Valley – Everything changes after this or does it? #blackinamerica | SocialWayne.com by Wayne Sutton

Beat Bad Financial Habits to Boost Savings - Yahoo! Finance

Break bad habits: The science of habit change
Does it really take just 21 days to change a habit? Experts say it's not that simple.
"Breaking bad habits successfully depends on your readiness to act," says Heidi Beckman, clinical health psychologist at the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics and speaker on financial behavior change.
John Ulzheimer, president of consumer education at SmartCredit.com, agrees. "If it was easy, we'd all have big savings accounts, and none of us would have credit card debt," he says.
Beckman says habits change more quickly when you're in the action stage versus the ambivalence or preparation stages that come before. To catapult yourself into action, she recommends using this three-step approach daily.

1. Create a positive picture in your mind of the result you want, and act as if the bad habit is gone. Use a negative picture of the current stressful result of the bad habit to push yourself further toward action.
2. Identify and focus on your positive financial habits, as proof you can do things the right way.
3. Create simple rules to fall back on when tempted, such as: "Don't browse shopping websites until all my bills are paid this month."

Break bad habits: Resist impulse buying

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Beat Bad Financial Habits to Boost Savings - Yahoo! Finance

Global Information Exchange Network | Worldwide Info Forum

Europe on Brink of Another Financial Crisis



BREAKING NEWS:  Europe is in the eye of an economic cyclone, with a fresh storm about to hit vulnerable countries, the former chancellor Alistair Darling has warned.

"I think we're in a lull in Europe at the moment. It's rather like going through cyclones. You get in the middle and you think, great. And then you forget the other side of it."

Mr. Darling faced a backlash from Gordon Brown's Downing Street when he warned in an interview in August 2008 that Britain was on the brink of the worst economic storm since the 1930s. Yet within weeks he was proved right by the collapse of Lehman Brothers, and within months the country plunged into recession, from which it is still struggling to recover.  ➠ ➠ Read more here...

Global Information Exchange Network | Worldwide Info Forum

THE SECRET OF CHINA’S MIRACLE ECONOMY | Worldwide Info Forum | Global Information Exchange Network

THE GOVERNMENT OWNS THE BANKS RATHER THAN THE REVERSE

Ellen Brown, August 17th, 2009

“The banks -- hard to believe in a time when we’re facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created -- are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. They frankly own the place." said U.S. Senator Dick Durbin, Democratic Party Whip, April 30, 2009

While the U.S. spends trillions of dollars to bail out its banking system, leaving its economy to languish, China is being called a “miracle economy” that has decoupled from the rest of the world. As the rest of the world sinks into the worst recession since the 1930s, China has maintained a phenomenal 8% annual growth rate. Those are the reports, but commentators are dubious. They ask how that growth is possible, when other countries relying heavily on exports have suffered major downturns and remain in the doldrums. 

Economist Richard Wolff skeptically observes:

We now have a situation in the world where we have a global capitalist crisis. Everywhere, consumption is down. Everywhere, people are buying fewer goods, including goods from China. How is it possible that in that society, so dependent on the world economy, they could now have an explosive growth? Their stock market is now 100 percent higher than at its low -- nothing remotely like that hardly anywhere in the world, certainly not in the United States or Europe. How is that possible? In order to believe what the Chinese are saying, you would have to agree that in a matter of months, at most a year, no more, they have been able to transform their economy from an export-based powerhouse to a domestically focused industrial engine. Nowhere in the world has that ever taken less than decades.”

How can China’s stimulus plan be working so well, when ours is barely working at all? The answer may be simple: China has not let its banking system run roughshod over its productive economy. Chinese banks work for the people rather than the reverse. So says Samah El-Shahat, a presenter for Al Jazeera English who has a doctorate in economics from the University of London.  ...

THE SECRET OF CHINA’S MIRACLE ECONOMY | Worldwide Info Forum | Global Information Exchange Network

Summer jobs that make a difference. | Fund for the Public Interest

Summer jobs that make a difference.

We need people like you—lots of people like you—to go out in communities around the country and help make change happen.
If you’re good with people and feel passionately about the environment and human rights, you’ll make money working with the Fund. If you relish the idea of working with social, like-minded people, you’ll make great friends. And if you give it your best effort every day, you’ll make a tangible difference on some of the most critical issues of our time. Not a bad way to spend your valuable time and energy. We also have immediate positions available!

Summer jobs that make a difference. | Fund for the Public Interest

Sensing when the brain is under pressure - MIT News Office

Brain tumors and head trauma, including concussions, can elevate pressure inside the skull, potentially crushing brain tissue or cutting off the brain’s blood supply. Monitoring pressure in the brains of such patients could help doctors determine the best treatment, but the procedure is so invasive — it requires drilling a hole through the skull — that it is done only in the most severely injured patients. 

That may change with the development of a new technique that is much less risky. The method, described in the April 11 issue of Science Translational Medicine, could allow doctors to measure brain pressure in patients who have suffered head injuries that are milder, but would benefit from close monitoring. 

Developed by researchers in MIT’s Research Laboratory of Electronics (RLE), the new technique is based on a computer model of how blood flows through the brain. Using that model, the researchers can calculate brain pressure from two less invasive measurements: arterial blood pressure and an ultrasound measurement of the velocity of blood flow through the brain. 

With this approach, changes in brain pressure can be monitored over time, alerting doctors to problems that might build up slowly.

Under pressure

Pressure in the brain, also known as intracranial pressure (ICP), can rise due to the presence of excessive fluid (blood or cerebrospinal fluid), a brain tumor or swelling of the brain. 

To measure this pressure, neurosurgeons drill a hole in the skull and insert a catheter into the brain tissue or a fluid-filled cavity in the brain. In all but the most critically ill patients, the risk of infection or damage to the brain outweighs the benefits of this procedure, says study co-author George Verghese, the Henry Ellis Warren Professor of Electrical Engineering at MIT.

“There’s a much larger patient population for whom physicians would like this measurement, but the invasiveness stops them from obtaining it,” says Verghese, whose lab focuses on using computer models of human physiology to interpret patient data.

In his PhD thesis, Faisal Kashif, who is now a postdoc in Verghese’s lab and the lead author on the paper, developed a computer model that relates arterial blood pressure and blood flow through the brain to pressure in the brain. The flow of blood through the brain is caused by the difference in pressure between the blood entering the brain and pressure inside the brain (ICP). Therefore, using Kashif’s model, ICP can be calculated from the flow and the pressure of blood entering the brain. 

The pressure of blood entering the brain is not directly measurable, so the MIT team used radial arterial pressure, taken by inserting a catheter at the wrist, as a proxy for that measurement. They then used their model of blood flow to compensate for the difference in location. 

Peripheral arterial pressure can also be measured continuously and noninvasively by using a finger cuff similar to the arm cuff commonly used to measure blood pressure. The researchers are now investigating whether data obtained this way is accurate enough to use in their model. 

Validation

The researchers verified the accuracy of their technique using data collected several years ago by collaborator Marek Czosnyka at Cambridge University in the U.K., from patients with traumatic brain injury. This was one of the few data sets that included all the measurements they needed, along with the proper time stamps. Czosnyka sent the data on radial arterial blood pressure and ultrasound blood flow velocity to the MIT team, which then ran the numbers through their model and came up with an estimated ICP. They then sent that back to Czosnyka for comparison.

Their results were slightly less accurate than those obtained with the best invasive procedures, but comparable to other invasive procedures that are still in clinical use, and to some less invasive techniques that have been tried.

“It’s a holy grail of clinical neurosurgery to find a noninvasive way to measure pressure,” says James Holsapple, chief of neurosurgery at Boston Medical Center. “It would be a big step if we could get our hands on something reliable.”

The new MIT approach shows promise, Holsapple says, adding that an important next step is to incorporate the technology into a system that would be easy for hospital staff to use and could record data over many hours or days.

The MIT team, along with co-author Vera Novak of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) in Boston, is now collaborating with doctors at BIDMC to test their approach on patients in the neurosurgical intensive care unit. 

“It’s still at the validation stage. To convince people that this works, you need to build up more [data] than we currently have,” Verghese says. “Our hope is that once it’s been validated on additional sorts of patients, where you’re able to show that you can match what the invasive measurement is, people will have confidence in starting to apply it to patients who are currently not getting monitored. That’s where we see the big potential.”

Thomas Heldt, a research scientist in RLE and senior author of the paper, says that once the data collection and model are well-established, the team hopes to test different patient populations — such as athletes with concussions, or soldiers who have experienced explosions — to come up with ways to determine the extent of injury and when it is not yet safe for an athlete or soldier to return to the field.

Another potential application is monitoring astronauts during and after long space flights. NASA has observed signs of elevated ICP in some of these astronauts, and is now seeking new ways to measure it.


Sensing when the brain is under pressure - MIT News Office

A new dimension for solar energy - MIT News Office

Intensive research around the world has focused on improving the performance of solar photovoltaic cells and bringing down their cost. But very little attention has been paid to the best ways of arranging those cells, which are typically placed flat on a rooftop or other surface, or sometimes attached to motorized structures that keep the cells pointed toward the sun as it crosses the sky.

Now, a team of MIT researchers has come up with a very different approach: building cubes or towers that extend the solar cells upward in three-dimensional configurations. Amazingly, the results from the structures they’ve tested show power output ranging from double to more than 20 times that of fixed flat panels with the same base area. 

The biggest boosts in power were seen in the situations where improvements are most needed: in locations far from the equator, in winter months and on cloudier days. The new findings, based on both computer modeling and outdoor testing of real modules,have been published in the journal Energy and Environmental Science.

“I think this concept could become an important part of the future of photovoltaics,” says the paper’s senior author, Jeffrey Grossman, the Carl Richard Soderberg Career Development Associate Professor of Power Engineering at MIT.

The MIT team initially used a computer algorithm to explore an enormous variety of possible configurations, and developed analytic software that can test any given configuration under a whole range of latitudes, seasons and weather. Then, to confirm their model’s predictions, they built and tested three different arrangements of solar cells on the roof of an MIT laboratory building for several weeks.

While the cost of a given amount of energy generated by such 3-D modules exceeds that of ordinary flat panels, the expense is partially balanced by a much higher energy output for a given footprint, as well as much more uniform power output over the course of a day, over the seasons of the year, and in the face of blockage from clouds or shadows. These improvements make power output more predictable and uniform, which could make integration with the power grid easier than with conventional systems, the authors say.

The basic physical reason for the improvement in power output — and for the more uniform output over time — is that the 3-D structures’ vertical surfaces can collect much more sunlight during mornings, evenings and winters, when the sun is closer to the horizon, says co-author Marco Bernardi, a graduate student in MIT’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering (DMSE).

The time is ripe for such an innovation, Grossman adds, because solar cells have become less expensive than accompanying support structures, wiring and installation. As the cost of the cells themselves continues to decline more quickly than these other costs, they say, the advantages of 3-D systems will grow accordingly.

“Even 10 years ago, this idea wouldn’t have been economically justified because the modules cost so much,” Grossman says. But now, he adds, “the cost for silicon cells is a fraction of the total cost, a trend that will continue downward in the near future.” Currently, up to 65 percent of the cost of photovoltaic (PV) energy is associated with installation, permission for use of land and other components besides the cells themselves.

Although computer modeling by Grossman and his colleagues showed that the biggest advantage would come from complex shapes — such as a cube where each face is dimpled inward — these would be difficult to manufacture, says co-author Nicola Ferralis, a research scientist in DMSE. The algorithms can also be used to optimize and simplify shapes with little loss of energy. It turns out the difference in power output between such optimized shapes and a simpler cube is only about 10 to 15 percent — a difference that is dwarfed by the greatly improved performance of 3-D shapes in general, he says. The team analyzed both simpler cubic and more complex accordion-like shapes in their rooftop experimental tests.

At first, the researchers were distressed when almost two weeks went by without a clear, sunny day for their tests. But then, looking at the data, they realized they had learned important lessons from the cloudy days, which showed a huge improvement in power output over conventional flat panels. 

For an accordion-like tower — the tallest structure the team tested — the idea was to simulate a tower that “you could ship flat, and then could unfold at the site,” Grossman says. Such a tower could be installed in a parking lot to provide a charging station for electric vehicles, he says.

So far, the team has modeled individual 3-D modules. A next step is to study a collection of such towers, accounting for the shadows that one tower would cast on others at different times of day. In general, 3-D shapes could have a big advantage in any location where space is limited, such as flat-rooftop installations or in urban environments, they say. Such shapes could also be used in larger-scale applications, such as solar farms, once shading effects between towers are carefully minimized.

A few other efforts — including even a middle-school science-fair project last year — have attempted 3-D arrangements of solar cells. But, Grossman says, “our study is different in nature, since it is the first to approach the problem with a systematic and predictive analysis.” 

David Gracias, an associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at Johns Hopkins University who was not involved in this research, says that Grossman and his team “have demonstrated theoretical and proof-of-concept evidence that 3-D photovoltaic elements could provide significant benefits in terms of capturing light at different angles. The challenge, however, is to mass produce these elements in a cost-effective manner.”



A new dimension for solar energy - MIT News Office

The 5 Dumbest Things You Can Do If You Have Too Much Debt | How Life Works

Last Updated: 4/09/2012 17:52 PST

 

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The 5 Dumbest Things You Can Do If You Have Too Much Debt

If you’re struggling with too much debt you’re not alone.  It seems as if the whole nation has a borrowing hangover.  For years, credit was easy and many people became overextended.  But, we now live in an era of austerity and it’s time to get our affairs in order.

The five strategies you may want to avoid:

The first advice of experts in the field is to be sure you don't make your situation worse by making common mistakes.  In particular try to avoid:

• Paying only the minimum payment on your debt, as this will result in the amount you owe actually growing, and your problems will only become worse.
• Relying on friends and family, as this can damage relationships with the most important people in your life.
• Unscrupulous credit counselors that demand cash upfront, or high fees for help they promise, but don't deliver.
• Using new high-interest loans to pay off lower interest rate loans--while it may be easier to just have one payment, it will actually increase the amount you have to pay back.
• Declaring bankruptcy--this can have permanent and severe consequences on your financial future; avoid if you can, especially when debt settlement may work for you...

Debt Settlement

For many people, working with a debt settlement company can actually be a great solution.  You’ve probably heard a lot of advertising for these services recently, but what exactly do they do?

Debt settlement is the process of negotiating with creditors to get them to forgive a big portion of your unsecured debt. Unsecured debt includes credit cards and medical bills, but does not include mortgages, auto loans, student debt and taxes.  Why would a credit card company do this?  Well, it’s not out of the generosity of their heart.  They have made the financial calculations and determined they are better off knowing for certain that they’ll get paid something, rather than not knowing at all if they will get paid anything.

Settlement companies work with individual consumers to determine a reasonable monthly amount that they can afford to pay against their debt load.  The individual makes the affordable payment every month into a special-purpose account, and, as these funds accumulate, the settlement company reaches out to creditors to negotiate a full and final actual settlement amount that they will take.  The debt settlement company only charges a fee after they have achieved a satisfactory settlement for you.

Typically, these companies have excellent relationships with creditors and are negotiating on behalf of thousands of people every day.  The amount of savings they can obtain for consumers can be significant.

While each situation is different, it’s not uncommon for debt settlement companies to negotiate reductions of as much as 50 percent of the outstanding amount, and help get their customer debt free in just a few years.

There are a many debt-settlement agencies, so how do you find a legitimate and trustworthy company to work with?  One great way to start is by visiting Elite Financial Services.  They offer a free, no-obligation consultation to evaluate your options.  Then, if you chose to proceed, they will develop a plan that meets your specific needs and negotiate it on your behalf with your credit card companies.  Elite Financial Services is fully compliant with all FTC rules and they charge no fees until a settlement has been reached.

The 5 Dumbest Things You Can Do If You Have Too Much Debt | How Life Works

15 things to know before retirement

How high is your financial IQ when it comes to important retirement topics? MetLife's Mature Market Institute has quizzed pre-retirees three times (2003, 2008 and 2011) on these topics.

The good news is that Americans have become more aware of the big factors that will shape the quality of their retirement -- longevity, spending needs, Social Security and health care. This sensitivity has clearly been boosted because of the difficult economic times of the past several years.

15 things to know before retirement

TRAFFIC CONTROL IS KEY

 By charging more for peak hour deliveries and pick ups at the port, typically between 3 am and 6 pm. Between 6 pm and 3 am, there’s no fee, providing an incentive to companies to schedule their traffic for later hours.

Port of LA and Long Beach Shows How Traffic Control is Key to Reducing Air Pollution

THE FUTURE OF WATER

WATER IS A VERY UNDERRATED COMMODITY.
People just take hour showers, and waste water everyday.

We should make a conscious effort to save water whenever possible.
If we are to save the PLANET,
WE MUST CONSERVE WATER.

INSTEAD OF FINDING OUT WHAT THE ROCKS ARE DOING ON MARS, NASA AND SCIENTIST'S NEED TO FIGURE OUT, HOW TO TURN RAINWATER AND OCEANWATER, INTO DRINKING WATER.

I MEAN WHAT'S SO HARD ABOUT IT?

LIVE from OG11: Shifting Tides – The Future Water in the Face of Unpredictable Supply, Population Growth, and Climate Change

MY CRYSTALS PAGE

https://www.pinterest.com/lsbrilliance77/crystals/

Grammar Tips for College Students: Common Mistakes That Make You Look Bad - Distance Education.org

Grammar Tips for College Students: Common Mistakes That Make You Look Bad - Distance Education.org