Batteries and Titanium the Focus of New Funding at Dalhousie University

The Automotive Partnership Canada (APC) initiative has provided funding to projects at Dalhousie that will "build a better battery" and create ways for Titanium to be more cost-effective and in turn see increased use in the automotive industry, reducing vehicle weight and improving fuel economy. Dalhousie University received over $6 million for two research projects.

Dr. Jeff Dahn has received $4.1 million to advance the performance of lithium-ion batteries. His research centres on developing long-lasting Lithium-ion batteries, which are rechargeable and that can store around twice the energy of traditional batteries. Dr. Stephen Corbin has been granted $2.2 million to develop less expensive titanium parts for vehicles. Replacing steel with titanium alternatives reduces the weight of a vehicle by 50 percent, thus decreasing the costs of production of vehicles. These projects will be supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) and the National Research Council of Canada (NRC).

Key Points:

• Jeff Dahn's project will seek to find ways to improve the life of lithium-ion batteries. These batteries, when used for cars, must meet more stringent requirements than those for portable electronics. They must last for 10 years, sustain over 3,000 charge/discharge cycles and withstand extremes of temperature. Batteries for grid energy storage and medical devices have similar requirements. A major goal of Dahn's project is to rapidly identify those cell chemistries and operating ranges that give optimum battery cycle and calendar life. The funding will help enable the creation of three state-of-the-art labs to further Dahn's work.
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• A suite of advanced diagonistic equipment is being added to the existing battery R+D capacity at Dalhousie to aid in the rapid development of long-lived, low-cost, high-energy Li-ion batteries for Automotive, Medical and Grid Energy Applications. The partners come from non-competing sectors so collaboration can occur: 3M is a Battery materials maker; Magna makes automotive Li-ion Batteries; Medtronic makes and uses Li-ion batteries for medical applications; GM makes electrified vehicles and NS Power is an electric utility interested in battery storage.
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• The cornerstone of the application is the first Ultra High Precision Battery Charger in the world capable of measuring the difference between the charge stored and delivered by Li-ion batteries of any size to a precision of 10 parts per million. Lithium-ion batteries would last forever if this difference is exactly zero, so accurately detecting and minimizing this difference, by making changes to battery chemistry, will lead the way to batteries that will last decades.
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• Engineering professor Steve Corbin is looking into ways to develop a more cost effective Titanium. Titanium (Ti) is as strong as many steels yet 45% lighter. It can be used to make exhaust systems, engine valves and other automotive parts that will last a vehicle?s lifetime. A team of researchers from Dalhousie, Queen's and the University of Waterloo, in partnership with two Ontario companies: Wescast Industries of Brantford and Kingston Process Metallurgy (KPM) aim to develop made-in-Canada technologies capable of producing Ti parts at a reduced cost. Reducing the cost of Ti will allow its increased use in the automotive industry, reducing vehicle weight and improving fuel economy.
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• APC is a five-year $145 million federal initiative launched in 2009 that supports collaborative research and development (R&D) activities of benefit to the entire Canadian automotive industry. It is a partnership among five federal research and granting organizations within the portfolio of Industry Canada: Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), National Research Council (NRC), Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI), Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), and Canada Excellence Research Chairs program. A key guiding principle of APC is that all projects (or programs of research) to be funded within this initiative must be driven by industry needs and must have active industrial participation and collaboration. In addition to the APC funding, the Nova Scotia Research and Innovation Trust (NSRIT) will be providing $1,825,526 funding for Dr. Dahn's project.

Source: http://www.labmanager.com/?articles.view/articleNo/7195/article/Batteries-and-Titanium-the-Focus-of-New-Funding-at-Dalhousie-University

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How Streamlining Business Technology Can Increase Productivity ...

When most people think about streamlining in the manufacturing industry, their thoughts turn to equipment and staffing rather than business technology. Sometimes, though, adjusting internal processes on the office end can translate to increased productivity for every aspect of the business.

American Cast Iron Pipe Company (ACIPCO) discovered this when they detected an internal slowdown, and Innovative Architects showed them how the Microsoft.Net Framework could help.

Like many companies in the manufacturing industry, ACIPCO maintains a large and ever-changing intranet and knowledge base for employees at every level. Previously, the IT department oversaw maintenance of this content. They were responsible for receiving new or updated documents, editing them and loading them onto the company?s intranet.

Because several individuals were handling these duties with no unifying framework, it was difficult for the IT staff to detect duplicate content or even establish a naming convention for files. The result was a confusing system with a server full of documents that were misnamed, outdated and very challenging to navigate.

Maintaining this system was also incredibly time-consuming for members of the IT department. Hours that they could have spent making improvements to the office infrastructure were instead devoted to editing, formatting and uploading documents created by users in other departments.

Innovative Architects Helped ACIPCO Find the Right Business Technology Solutions

When Innovative Architects took a look at ACIPCO?s situation, the Microsoft.Net suite of applications seemed to offer the obvious solution. Rather than funneling every piece of documentation through the IT department, employees with knowledge to contribute could instead be empowered to update the intranet themselves, and this could even be accomplished without intensive computer training.

Today, ACIPCO employees can access templates and create documents in Microsoft Office, then share them on the company?s intranet via Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Office SharePoint server and the Microsoft.Net Framework. Not only has this opened up the IT department to focus on other aspects of business technology, but it has also created an organized platform where documents are easy to find and kept up-to-date by those in relevant departments, who better understand each individual piece of documentation.

When thinking about increasing productivity in the manufacturing industry, internal content management may not be the first upgrade that comes to mind, but the ripple effect of an updated IT infrastructure reaches every corner of any business. With the IT department freed up to perform IT tasks and the remaining departments empowered to share their knowledge and information, increased productivity is the inevitable result.

If you think your company could benefit from a more streamlined infrastructure, contact Microsoft business technology consultants at Innovative Architects today to learn how we can help.

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Tagged as: manufacturing solutions, Microsoft .NET framework, SharePoint, system integration

Source: http://www.blog.innovativearchitects.com/microsoft-business-solutions/how-streamlining-business-technology-can-increase-productivity.htm

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Car Insurance ? A Necessary Precaution | Articles of car, motor, auto ...

Many drivers in America simply take for granted the fact that they have car insurance; in fact, it is usually required for all automobiles on the road to have one of two types of insurance: liability or full coverage. Liability car insurance is the coverage that only protects the other driver and their property in the case of an accident. Full coverage will protect the other auto and your own as well. Although insurance requirements may vary from state to state, many people must have full coverage if they are still making payments on a vehicle, and can only get liability if it is paid for.

There are many types of scenarios that would render auto insurance necessary. Of course, an automobile accident is the primary reason you should have car insurance. The cost of a buying a new replacement vehicle is usually very pricey, and not many people can afford to run right out and buy a new car if they get theirs damaged in an accident. Fortunately, often full coverage will provide the cost of replacing the damaged vehicle. Liability will not have this option. In addition, liability will not cover the cost of replacing a vehicle if you hit a tree or deer.

It is not only ill advised and often expensive, but, in some states, actually illegal to drive without insurance. If you are caught without insurance, you can face a hefty fine or even jail time. Since car insurance is so very necessary, you need to find insurance that you can afford. Often you will have a deductable and a monthly payment. The deductable is the amount that you must pay in the case of damage to the vehicle, before insurance will cover the rest. The monthly payments are to cover the premiums of having the vehicle insured and will vary widely.

Typically, car insurance will be much more costly for drivers with a bad driving history, those who are male, and those who are under the age of 25. In these cases, the premiums are likely to be fairly steep, and you may need to shop around for a low monthly payment. However, if you have none of these issues, you may be able to get a lowered deductable, which means insurance will cover more, and you may also be able to get points for being a good driver, and thus have lower monthly payments. Always get a quote before you sign any papers.

Tags: auto insurance, car insurance, car insurance tips, motor insurance, vehicle insurance

Source: http://articles-of-insurance.com/car-motor-auto-automobile-vehicle-motorbike-bike-boat-insurance/car-insurance-a-necessary-precaution/

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Oprah Winfrey's OWN network axes 'The Rosie Show'

FILE - In this April 13, 2008 file photo, comedian Rosie O'Donnell arrives at Comedy Central's "Night of Too Many Stars" special, benefiting autism education at The Beacon Theatre in New York. (AP Photo/Peter Kramer, file)

FILE - In this April 13, 2008 file photo, comedian Rosie O'Donnell arrives at Comedy Central's "Night of Too Many Stars" special, benefiting autism education at The Beacon Theatre in New York. (AP Photo/Peter Kramer, file)

NEW YORK (AP) ? Oprah Winfrey's OWN network is pulling the curtain on "The Rosie Show" after five months on the air.

The show premiered in October to about 500,000 viewers but lost about half that audience within days of its debut.

Recently, it changed the format from taping before a studio audience to a one-on-one interview setting with celebrities such as Kathy Griffin, Chelsea Handler and former Illinois first lady Patti Blagojevich.

In a statement released by OWN, Winfrey thanked O'Donnell. She called O'Donnell "an incredible partner" who worked to put on the best show "every single day."

O'Donnell also was quoted as saying she loved working with Winfrey and in Chicago and "wished" the show had better ratings.

The final episode will air March 30.

___

Online:

http://www.oprah.com/rosie/rosie.html

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-03-16-People-Rosie%20O'Donnell/id-7781c444deaf418eb40250753724f3e8

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residential care home, residential care - Learn management with ...

Elder care is a result of proper management. You can't complete this responsibility without an appropriate plan. You need to include or think about lots of things like elder's routine, habits, medications etc. There is a specific term which is used for elder care management that is Geriatric care management. This term gives a perfect definition to the elder's care. According to this elder care management is a process of planning and coordinating care of the elderly. These plans are also effective for the elder's, who are physically and mentally not fit. Through these you can provide them long term and independent care. The term geriatrics came from the Greek.

Residential care homes say that these management plans are executed by Geriatric care managers, they are aware with the issues regarding management plan. To make them good and efficient managers include members of family, friends and social care providers. In residential care homes you can find a staff which work according to your connivance. They give you best services according to your health requirement. Residential care homes bring care for elders or senior citizens and oversight of a living facility in the home like environment. There are so many care homes are available but in these homes, caregivers rent out rooms to elders, who take care of them. Staff of these care Homes gives every possible support to the elders like they cook for them, help them in daily routine, take care about their medicines, doctor's appointment etc.

Geriatric manager involve his own knowledge regarding health even if he have any kind of doubt, then he include psychologist and skilled doctors in it. Managers also give advice about public and private resources, funding throughout the care. These managers also assist families, if their elderly are suffering from diseases like Alzheimer, dementia, Parkinson disease. Dementia is a disease, which affects your elder's memory. Dementia is a loss of brain function that occurs with certain diseases. It affects memory, thinking, language, judgment, and behavior. The rate of death due to this disease is very fast, patient will die within two to ten years.

In other words geriatric take care about elder's health. It aims to promote health by preventing and treating diseases and disabilities in older adults. Geriatrician doesn't defined age for the patient. At any stage of life you can take their help. This is the decision of individual patient, whether they want them or not. Geriatricians distinguish between diseases and the effects of normal ageing.

Author loves to write articles on various informational topics and this topic is based on residential care homes

Keywords: Care home, care homes, residential care home, residential care home uk, residential care homes, residential care homes UK

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Possible new human species unearthed in China

Scientists in China have found what may be a new species of human. Fossils show a group of people with similarities to and differences from modern humans.

Mysterious fossils of what may be a previously unknown type of human have been uncovered in caves in China, ones that possess a highly unusual mix of bygone and modern human features, scientists reveal.

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Surprisingly, the fossils are only between 11,500 and 14,500 years old. That means they would have shared the landscape with modern humans when China's earliest farmers were first appearing.

"These new fossils might be of a previously unknown species, one that survived until the very end of the ice age around 11,000 years ago," said researcher Darren Curnoe, a palaeoanthropologist at the University of New South Wales in Australia.

"Alternatively, they might represent a very early and previously unknown migration of modern humans out of Africa, a population who may not have contributed genetically to living people," Curnoe added.

The skeletons

At least three fossil specimens were uncovered in 1989 by miners quarrying limestone at Maludong or Red Deer Cave near the city of Mengzi in southwest China. They remained unstudied until 2008. The scientists are calling them the "Red Deer Cave People," because they cooked extinct red deer in their namesake cave. [Photos of the Red Deer Cave People]

"They clearly had a taste for venison, with evidence they cooked these large deer in the cave," Curnoe said.

Carbon dating, a technique that estimates the radioactive decay of carbon in samples of charcoal found with the fossils helped establish their age. The charcoal also showed they knew how to use fire. Stone artifacts found at the Maludong site also suggest they were toolmakers.

A Chinese geologist found a fourth partial skeleton, which looks very similar to the Maludong fossils, in a cave near the village of Longlin in southwest China in 1979 while prospecting the area for oil. It stayed encased in a block of rock neglected in the basement of an archaeological research institute until 2009, when the international team of scientists rediscovered the fossils.

"In 2009, when I was in China working with co-author Professor Ji Xueping, he showed me the block of rock that contained the skull," Curnoe recalled. "After picking my own jaw up from the floor, we decided we had to make the remains a priority of our research."

Jutting jaws and flaring cheeks

The Stone Age fossils are unusual mosaics of modern and archaic human anatomical features, as well as previously unseen characteristics. This makes them difficult to classify as either a new species or an unusual type of modern human.

For instance, the Red Deer Cave people had long, broad and tall frontal lobes like modern humans. These brain lobes are located immediately behind the forehead, and are linked with personality and behavior.

However, the Red Deer Cave people differ from modernHomo sapiens in their prominent brow ridges, thick skull bones, flat upper faces with a broad nose, jutting jaws that lack a humanlike chin, brains moderate in size by ice age human standards, large molar teeth, and primitively short parietal lobes ? brain lobes at the top of the head associated with sensory data. "These are primitive features seen in our ancestors hundreds of thousands of years ago," Curnoe said. [Learn About the Human Skeleton]

Unique features of the Red Deer Cave people seen neither in modern nor known archaic lineages of humans include a strongly curved forehead bone, very broad nose and eye sockets, and very flat cheeks that flare widely to the sides to make space for large chewing muscles. In addition, the place where the lower jaw forms a joint with the base of the skull is unusually wide and deep.

All in all, the Red Deer Cave people are the youngest population to be found anywhere in the world whose anatomy does not comfortably fit within the range of modern humans, whether they be modern humans from 150 or 150,000 years ago, the researchers noted.

"In short, they're anatomically unique among all members of the human evolutionary tree," Curnoe told LiveScience.

Mysterious population in Asia

The Red Deer Cave people lived in China at the end of the ice age. "They survived the final and one of the worst cold episodes, known as the Last Glacial Maximum, which ended around 20,000 years ago," Curnoe said.

"The period around 15,000 to 11,000 years ago when they thrived in southwest China is known as the Pleistocene-Holocene transition, and it saw a shift to climates and ecological communities the same as those of today," Curnoe added. "It also saw the demise of the megafaunain most places, including a giant deer that was exploited by the Red Deer Cave people and recovered in large numbers from the Maludong site."

"This time also saw a major shift in the behavior of modern humans in southern China, who began to make pottery for food storage and to gather wild rice ? this marks some of the first steps towards full-blown farming," Curnoe said. "The Red Deer Cave people were sharing the landscape with these early pre-farming communities, but we have no idea yet how they may have interacted or whether they competed for resources." [10 Things That?Make Humans Special]

Although modern-day Asia contains more than half of the world's population, researchers still know little about humans there after our ancestors settled Eurasia about 70,000 years ago, Curnoe said. No human fossils less than 100,000 years old had been found in mainland East Asia that resembled anything other than anatomically modern humans until now. These new findings are fossil evidence that this region may not have been devoid of our evolutionary cousins.

"The discovery of the Red Deer Cave People opens the next chapter in the latest stage of the human evolutionary story, the Asian chapter," Curnoe said. "It's a story that's just beginning to be told."

Defining a human

A key reason the scientists have not yet decided how to classify the Red Deer People scientifically has to do with one of the major ongoing questions for scientists investigating human evolution ? "the lack of a satisfactory biological definition of our own species, Homo sapiens," Curnoe said. "We still don't have one that most of us agree upon."

"I think the evidence is slightly weighted towards the Red Deer Cave people representing a new evolutionary line," Curnoe said. "First, their skulls are anatomically unique ? they look very different to all modern humans, whether alive today or in Africa 150,000 years ago. And second, the very fact they persisted until almost 11,000 years ago when we know that very modern-looking people lived at the same time immediately to the east and south suggests they must have been isolated from them. We might infer from this isolation that they either didn't interbreed or did so in a limited way."

Recent findings suggest that other, different evolutionary lines may have also lived in the region, such as the "hobbit" or Homo floresiensis on the island of Flores in Indonesia.

"This paints an amazing picture of diversity, one we had no clue about until this last decade," Curnoe said.

The Red Deer Cave people might possibly even be related to a mysterious branch of humanity known as the Denisovans only discovered in the past two years, whose DNA suggests they were neither like us nor Neanderthals.

"It is certainly possible that the Red Deer Cave people (represent) ?an interbreeding event between modern humans and some other population like the Denisovans," Curnoe said.

Ultimately, to see how closely or distantly related the Red Deer Cave people are to modern humans or even the Denisovans, the scientists want to extract and test DNA from the fossils. "We've had one attempt already, but without success," Curnoe said. "We'll just have to wait and see if we're successful in our future work."

The scientists detailed their findings online March 14 in the journal PLoS ONE.

Follow LiveScience for the latest in science news and discoveries on Twitter @livescience?and on Facebook.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/4YavHHEZ5xM/Possible-new-human-species-unearthed-in-China

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Washington's fledgling health-insurance exchange moves ahead ...

OLYMPIA ? Washington state moved closer this week to opening its own online marketplace for consumers to shop for health insurance.

As a part of President Barack Obama's sweeping health-care reform law, states are mandated to adopt by 2014 state-run insurance marketplaces ? called exchanges ? or allow the federal government to run one for them.

Each exchange will include a range of coverage and price choices for individual and small-group health insurance plans.

Washington's exchange will essentially be a public-private partnership designed to give consumers an easy way to compare the benefits of various plans, said Richard Onizuka, the assistant director of the Health Care Policy Division of the state Health Care Authority. It will be developed and implemented by a board of nine officials from health agencies, the medical industry and other sectors appointed by Gov. Chris Gregoire and two non-voting members.

"The intent is that it will be one place for (consumers) to go," Onizuka said. "There are still a lot of operational things that need to be built."

Along with the website, the exchange will perform several functions. It will certify qualified health plans based on federal standards, provide information for consumers about their eligibility for Medicaid and other health programs, and operate a hotline for consumers. It will also run "navigator" programs, systems set up to inform people and assist them in purchasing the best health plan for them.

The exchange will offer several categories of plans. Platinum, the highest-coverage option, will pay for 90 percent of the costs to cover a list of benefits the government considers essential, such as emergency care. Bronze, a lower-coverage option, will pay for 60 percent of the costs. Silver and gold plans will fall between the two. The "essential benefits" covered in each plan include access to prescription drugs, mental health care, hospitalization and maternity care.

Under the new system, catastrophic plans will be offered solely inside the exchange. These plans are only available for low-income consumers age 30 or younger, and they offer a low coverage level.

States have the option to devise their own lists of "essential benefits." Starting Dec. 15 and continued for each following year, the Insurance Commissioner must turn in a list of state-mandated benefits to the Legislature.

Under the new system, insurance providers will be able to sell plans outside the exchange if they so choose. Concern recently arose at the Insurance Commissioner's Office over the possibility that providers would opt to offer cheaper plans outside the exchange without providing more expensive and options.

"There was a push to only offer bronze-level plans outside the market," said Stephanie Marquis, a spokeswoman for the Insurance Commissioner's Office. Doing so would allow providers to cover only the young and healthy as opposed to riskier consumers.

This was specifically addressed in a bill that passed the Legislature earlier this month to establish rules for the exchange, Marquis said. The rules ensured that carriers who offer bronze plans must also offer silver and gold plans.

"We are very pleased with the bill that passed, especially with the marketplace rules," she said. "We wanted a level playing field."

The insurance industry has shown a lukewarm reaction to the exchange. Some praise it as a reform that will usher more fairness and transparency into the insurance market. But Brian Berg, a member of the Life and Health Advisory for the Insurance Commissioner's Office and co-vice president and secretary of Floyd Watkins & Associates, a Vancouver insurance firm, joins many in his belief that the exchange will complicate the health-care system.

"The insurance companies are basically going to be in a situation in which they have to accept any kind of risk," he said. "From a premium standpoint and from a risk standpoint, it's going to do nothing but drive up rates."

Upwards of 30 million Americans are projected to use the new insurance exchanges. States are supposed to decide whether to run their own exchanges by the end of the year, but the Obama administration announced Monday that it would allow them to open their exchanges one year late.

-- Justin Runquist

Source: http://www.oregonlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2012/03/washingtons_fledgling_health_i.html

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