BP announced the $30 million tourism grants in April. While the agreement for the $30 million doesn't prevent Florida from pursuing any claims against BP or others, officials there decided a week later not to join other Gulf states in a lawsuit against Transocean, the owner of the Deepwater Horizon rig at the heart of the spill.
Florida's tourism spending spree isn't the first time that BP money has allowed government officials to snag items from their wish lists.
Separately, BP had already poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the four Gulf states in the months after the oil spill — with few strings attached. The Associated Press documented earlier this year how some of the $754 million given to local governments had been spent on tasers, SUVS and pick-up trucks, rock concerts, an iPad and other items with no direct connection to the oil spill.
In all, BP has given $150 million to Alabama, Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi for tourism promotion since the oil spill, with the Sunshine State getting the lion's share — $62 million.
In the case of the more-recent payout, Florida Panhandle counties have allocated more than $23 million of the $30 million through September, with $13.5 million used on for television, digital, radio and print advertising. The counties have also spent millions on a variety of attention-grabbing gimmicks, The Associated Press found through public records requests and interviews.
Some wonder whether the most extravagant promotions — such as Panama City Beach's $1 million Christmas display — are worth it.
"It wasn't all that busy out here last weekend," Charles Walsingham, a beachside merchant near the display, said a few days after the Christmas lights were turned on and the ice rink opened in early December. "There weren't that many people over there skating and that is a lot of money to spend."
The seven counties spent $2.5 million on promotions alone.
In Pensacola, the BP money paid for $30,000 worth of sports towels and another $30,000 worth of fleece blankets given out at local sporting events. In neighboring Perdido Key, officials spent $300,000 on American Express gift cards for overnight visitors. They also purchased $12,500 worth of BP gas cards for tourists who present receipts showing they've stayed in the area, essentially putting BP funds back into the company's pocket.
Alison Davenport, chair of the Perdido Key Chamber and Visitors Center, said the goal is to get tourists driving to the area next spring. "We had no hesitation in choosing BP gas cards over any others since BP's grant money has made the incentivized travel promotion possible," she said.
Okaloosa County, home to Destin and Fort Walton Beach, is giving away a trip to the Super Bowl and tickets to the BCS championship football game to drive traffic to its Facebook page. South Walton Beach also is giving away BCS tickets on Facebook.
2011年12月29日 星期四
2011年12月28日 星期三
Grote Expands Line of SuperNova NexGen LED Lamps Across Several Categories
Grote Industries has announced the expansion of its SuperNova NexGen LED lamp offering, with the introduction of its new integrated flange 4-inch stop/tail/turn and dual-system back-up lamps.
The new lamps feature a one-piece integrated flange design that mounts directly to the surface of a vehicle, eliminating the need for accessory mounting brackets or grommets, the company says. The lighting systems come with a cushioning gasket seal that keeps water and debris from getting behind the lamp while functioning as a shock absorbing mechanism. The design also incorporates a robust, hermetic lens-to-housing seal that resists moisture intrusion that would result in component corrosion.
"The integrated flange design is the most versatile and cost-effective addition to the premium SuperNova NexGen LED product family to date," said Randy Staggs, Grote's business development manager for signal lighting. "OEMs will benefit from improved assembly efficiency, while fleets and other end-users will incur simplified repair and replacement requirements."
Grote's SuperNova line is recognized for its high performance and the lamps are designed to be extremely durable. Each lamp is designed with an environmental encapsulant potting that cradles the lamp's solid-state circuit board and protects it from moisture and vibration.
The lamps' innovative optical lens design reduces theft potential by intentionally resembling incandescent versions, but their performance on the road is nothing like their incandescent predecessors, according to the company. Grote's SuperNova NexGen LEDs illuminate 200 milliseconds faster than incandescent bulbs, the company says, which provides a safety benefit to the driver of the following vehicle, amounting to more than a full car length of extra stopping distance at 65 mph.
Both the flanged four-inch stop/tail/turn and flanged dual-system back-up lamps are available with hard-shell and male-pin termination options, which allow them to make use of existing pigtails for installation flexibility and cost-effective retrofitting.
The flanged 4-inch stop/tail/turn lamps and flanged dual-system back-up lamps have durable acrylic lenses and housings composed of hard-coated polycarbonate material. As new members of the SuperNova NexGen product line, both lamps carry Grote's exclusive 10-year warranty.
According to court paperwork released Wednesday, Gregg Pfeifer began stalking and harassing his ex-girlfriend as well as her family at their home in July.
The victims filed a restraining order against Pfeifer the same month.
Police found that since then, Pfeifer has harassed the victims through phone calls, text messages, email and driving by their home.
"He would call her a 100 times a day and text her 100 times a day," said Dotti Hetzel, whose daughter was stalked.
Police say this led the victims to change their phone numbers, cancel their Facebook and email accounts as well as install a $2,000 surveillance camera system.
The new lamps feature a one-piece integrated flange design that mounts directly to the surface of a vehicle, eliminating the need for accessory mounting brackets or grommets, the company says. The lighting systems come with a cushioning gasket seal that keeps water and debris from getting behind the lamp while functioning as a shock absorbing mechanism. The design also incorporates a robust, hermetic lens-to-housing seal that resists moisture intrusion that would result in component corrosion.
"The integrated flange design is the most versatile and cost-effective addition to the premium SuperNova NexGen LED product family to date," said Randy Staggs, Grote's business development manager for signal lighting. "OEMs will benefit from improved assembly efficiency, while fleets and other end-users will incur simplified repair and replacement requirements."
Grote's SuperNova line is recognized for its high performance and the lamps are designed to be extremely durable. Each lamp is designed with an environmental encapsulant potting that cradles the lamp's solid-state circuit board and protects it from moisture and vibration.
The lamps' innovative optical lens design reduces theft potential by intentionally resembling incandescent versions, but their performance on the road is nothing like their incandescent predecessors, according to the company. Grote's SuperNova NexGen LEDs illuminate 200 milliseconds faster than incandescent bulbs, the company says, which provides a safety benefit to the driver of the following vehicle, amounting to more than a full car length of extra stopping distance at 65 mph.
Both the flanged four-inch stop/tail/turn and flanged dual-system back-up lamps are available with hard-shell and male-pin termination options, which allow them to make use of existing pigtails for installation flexibility and cost-effective retrofitting.
The flanged 4-inch stop/tail/turn lamps and flanged dual-system back-up lamps have durable acrylic lenses and housings composed of hard-coated polycarbonate material. As new members of the SuperNova NexGen product line, both lamps carry Grote's exclusive 10-year warranty.
According to court paperwork released Wednesday, Gregg Pfeifer began stalking and harassing his ex-girlfriend as well as her family at their home in July.
The victims filed a restraining order against Pfeifer the same month.
Police found that since then, Pfeifer has harassed the victims through phone calls, text messages, email and driving by their home.
"He would call her a 100 times a day and text her 100 times a day," said Dotti Hetzel, whose daughter was stalked.
Police say this led the victims to change their phone numbers, cancel their Facebook and email accounts as well as install a $2,000 surveillance camera system.
2011年12月27日 星期二
City Considers Adding Lights To Southwest Bike Path
The Southwest Bike Path in Madison is a popular trail for recreation and commuters. The question for the city and nearby residents is: What happens when the sun goes down? It's a question with different answers, depending on who is asked.
City officials are proposing LED lights for a portion of the bike trail. The finances for this 4-mile project are included in Mayor Paul Soglin's 2012 capital budget, but it's a proposal not sitting well with some along the trail.
"What I want to know is, tell me what this is going to cost me," said David Friedman, who lives in the area. "Tell me what this is going to cost for upkeep. What are we going to do for lighting it?"
Some along the trail are new lights would destroy the path's evening view.
"The night sky is spectacular," said Nancy Washburn, "We, of course, living in the city, only get to see a little piece of it. But I'd like to preserve what we've got."
"A quality bike path would almost always be lit," said District 10 Alder Brian Solomon. "It just makes sense. It's just like lighting our road corridors."
Solomon hopes to shed positive light on the $250,000 project.
"I've had a large number of people e-mailing me, calling me," said Solomon. "People I've seen on the path saying they would use it a lot more frequently, especially in the seasons we don't have much light out, if it were lit."
Solomon said the LED lights would shine straight down on the path, minimizing spillover to nearby homes. The key is convincing homeowners like Friedman.
"I put 47 trees in to shade my house from everybody. I really don't want more lights in the back," said Friedman.
As Solomon hears more from path patrons, several sunsets remain before a final decision.
"It's not necessarily about the city versus the neighbors," said Solomon. "It's about finding a solution that works for both. And I do think we could do that if we work at it."
Solomon said he's meeting with city staff in January, looking for more ideas and feedback from the community. Ideally, the 20-foot light poles would go up in the summer of 2012. But Solomon said he's willing to hold off until 2013 if there's more to discuss with nearby residents.
City officials are proposing LED lights for a portion of the bike trail. The finances for this 4-mile project are included in Mayor Paul Soglin's 2012 capital budget, but it's a proposal not sitting well with some along the trail.
"What I want to know is, tell me what this is going to cost me," said David Friedman, who lives in the area. "Tell me what this is going to cost for upkeep. What are we going to do for lighting it?"
Some along the trail are new lights would destroy the path's evening view.
"The night sky is spectacular," said Nancy Washburn, "We, of course, living in the city, only get to see a little piece of it. But I'd like to preserve what we've got."
"A quality bike path would almost always be lit," said District 10 Alder Brian Solomon. "It just makes sense. It's just like lighting our road corridors."
Solomon hopes to shed positive light on the $250,000 project.
"I've had a large number of people e-mailing me, calling me," said Solomon. "People I've seen on the path saying they would use it a lot more frequently, especially in the seasons we don't have much light out, if it were lit."
Solomon said the LED lights would shine straight down on the path, minimizing spillover to nearby homes. The key is convincing homeowners like Friedman.
"I put 47 trees in to shade my house from everybody. I really don't want more lights in the back," said Friedman.
As Solomon hears more from path patrons, several sunsets remain before a final decision.
"It's not necessarily about the city versus the neighbors," said Solomon. "It's about finding a solution that works for both. And I do think we could do that if we work at it."
Solomon said he's meeting with city staff in January, looking for more ideas and feedback from the community. Ideally, the 20-foot light poles would go up in the summer of 2012. But Solomon said he's willing to hold off until 2013 if there's more to discuss with nearby residents.
2011年12月26日 星期一
EPB fiber optics help local businesses grow
Cloud computing company Claris Networks is based in Knoxville but is expanding in Chattanooga because of the city's unique fiber optic network.
"We actually see Chattanooga as our largest growth potential," Claris Network Vice President Dave Sagraves said.
At the beginning of the year, Claris had two employees who worked out of a small, single room in a building on Main Street.
Now the business has eight employees working out of an office at The Freight Depot at 1200 Market Street.
"If Knoxville had what Chattanooga has, we'd be investing all those resources in Knoxville. This is the best market for our business to grow," Sagraves said.
Claris provides local businesses "cloud services," which means they host, manage and maintain computer networks for businesses.
The business relies heavily on speedy Internet access and predicts future growth for the Chattanooga business, Sagraves said.
"We are still on the acquisition trail and we expect that we will have between 50 and 100 percent growth from an employee standpoint," he said.
The high speed Internet has benefited other businesses, such as social media start up LifeKraze and Global Green Lighting.
"We switched over after a lot of spotty hours, days and weeks from our previous supplier," Michelle Warren, with LifeKraze, said. "We have had great consistency through EPB."
Global Green Lighting President Don Lepard said the high-speed fiber optic Internet is essential to his business.
"EPB has been my inspiration from day one," he said.
Global Green Lighting develops low-energy lighting control systems, which use the same technology EPB uses with its Smart Meter technology, Lepard said.
The company recently beat out national competition and won a bid to put the lights up across Chattanooga and is currently in the process of generating a contract for the project with the city.
Global Green Lighting has already replaced about 350 street and post lights on the North Shore's Coolidge Park, Frazier Avenue, and on the Walnut Street Bridge, he also said.
An operator can control the lights — which use smart grid and fiber optic technology — via the Internet from up to 35 miles away.
And the company is expanding it's physical presence by taking over the rest of the building and will be making more hires in the next year.
He hopes to grow to 250 employees before the company finishes the project with the city, and he said he expects he will book jobs with other local municipalities, whose leaders have seen what the company has done with lighting in Chattanooga and want that for their city.
"We actually see Chattanooga as our largest growth potential," Claris Network Vice President Dave Sagraves said.
At the beginning of the year, Claris had two employees who worked out of a small, single room in a building on Main Street.
Now the business has eight employees working out of an office at The Freight Depot at 1200 Market Street.
"If Knoxville had what Chattanooga has, we'd be investing all those resources in Knoxville. This is the best market for our business to grow," Sagraves said.
Claris provides local businesses "cloud services," which means they host, manage and maintain computer networks for businesses.
The business relies heavily on speedy Internet access and predicts future growth for the Chattanooga business, Sagraves said.
"We are still on the acquisition trail and we expect that we will have between 50 and 100 percent growth from an employee standpoint," he said.
The high speed Internet has benefited other businesses, such as social media start up LifeKraze and Global Green Lighting.
"We switched over after a lot of spotty hours, days and weeks from our previous supplier," Michelle Warren, with LifeKraze, said. "We have had great consistency through EPB."
Global Green Lighting President Don Lepard said the high-speed fiber optic Internet is essential to his business.
"EPB has been my inspiration from day one," he said.
Global Green Lighting develops low-energy lighting control systems, which use the same technology EPB uses with its Smart Meter technology, Lepard said.
The company recently beat out national competition and won a bid to put the lights up across Chattanooga and is currently in the process of generating a contract for the project with the city.
Global Green Lighting has already replaced about 350 street and post lights on the North Shore's Coolidge Park, Frazier Avenue, and on the Walnut Street Bridge, he also said.
An operator can control the lights — which use smart grid and fiber optic technology — via the Internet from up to 35 miles away.
And the company is expanding it's physical presence by taking over the rest of the building and will be making more hires in the next year.
He hopes to grow to 250 employees before the company finishes the project with the city, and he said he expects he will book jobs with other local municipalities, whose leaders have seen what the company has done with lighting in Chattanooga and want that for their city.
2011年12月25日 星期日
Gardener: How to choose winter-gardening light system
Lots of folks bring their gardens inside over the winter months. All kinds of delicate perennials, tropicals, citrus, and even herbs and salad greens, not to mention countless new seed starts, can wait out the cold indoors if they have the right conditions.
The most important condition is light. By understanding how plants use light, and the many lighting options available today, you can put together a lighting system that's right for the plants you want to grow indoors -- or at least sustain -- until they are able to venture outside again. Things to consider:
Bright sunshine contains the full spectrum of light wavelengths from red through yellow and green to blue and violet. Plants use all of these wavelengths for photosynthesis, but red and blue are two of the most important. The blue spectrum promotes vegetative growth so young plants build robust, full foliage. The red wavelengths promote flowers and fruits.
All plants need light to thrive, but some plants can get by on lower intensities than others. Native tropicals, shade-loving forest plants and houseplants like ivy and philodendron don't need as much light as Mediterranean succulents or desert cactuses. Flowering plants of all kinds, such as orchids and gardenias, generally need brighter light to flower and produce fruit.
No matter how much light they use to grow, plants need a rest now and then, to accomplish their other functions of metabolism. Plants' preferences for light to dark are divided into short-day, long-day and day-neutral.
Short-day plants thrive on less than 12 hours of light in a 24-hour period. Most will also need to have a stretch of even shorter days to signal them to set buds and flower. Azaleas, chrysanthemums, poinsettia and Christmas cactus are short-day plants.
Long-day plants need 14 to 18 hours of light per day. Vegetables and most garden plants are long day, and get pale and stretched when they don't get enough light.
Day-neutral plants like geraniums, coleus and foliage plants are happy with eight to 12 hours of light throughout the year.
Kinds of grow lights. There are many kinds of artificial lights that will support plants indoors, from ordinary bulbs and tubes to super-efficient LED lights. Most are available in multiple color spectrums.
Fluorescent tubes put out three to four times the light of incandescent bulbs for the same energy. Their color frequencies run from reds to blues, so you can mix and match to suit your preferences. Full-spectrum or sunlight fluorescents are great for all plants and for starting plants from seeds. They're often even marketed as grow lights.
The newest technology for grow lights uses Light Emitting Diodes. LEDs are extremely energy efficient; they average 50,000 hours of useful operation, and generate very little heat, making them safe for plants and people. You'll spend a good bit more upfront but you can expect to save 40 percent to 75 percent on your energy costs.
Regardless of which kind of lighting system you use, rotate your plants one or more times each week to balance the amount of light each plant receives. Replace fluorescent tubes when the ends start to blacken to keep adequate light levels for your plants. Keep the plants far enough away from the light to prevent burning yet close enough to maximize the exposure these supplemental sources provide.
The most important condition is light. By understanding how plants use light, and the many lighting options available today, you can put together a lighting system that's right for the plants you want to grow indoors -- or at least sustain -- until they are able to venture outside again. Things to consider:
Bright sunshine contains the full spectrum of light wavelengths from red through yellow and green to blue and violet. Plants use all of these wavelengths for photosynthesis, but red and blue are two of the most important. The blue spectrum promotes vegetative growth so young plants build robust, full foliage. The red wavelengths promote flowers and fruits.
All plants need light to thrive, but some plants can get by on lower intensities than others. Native tropicals, shade-loving forest plants and houseplants like ivy and philodendron don't need as much light as Mediterranean succulents or desert cactuses. Flowering plants of all kinds, such as orchids and gardenias, generally need brighter light to flower and produce fruit.
No matter how much light they use to grow, plants need a rest now and then, to accomplish their other functions of metabolism. Plants' preferences for light to dark are divided into short-day, long-day and day-neutral.
Short-day plants thrive on less than 12 hours of light in a 24-hour period. Most will also need to have a stretch of even shorter days to signal them to set buds and flower. Azaleas, chrysanthemums, poinsettia and Christmas cactus are short-day plants.
Long-day plants need 14 to 18 hours of light per day. Vegetables and most garden plants are long day, and get pale and stretched when they don't get enough light.
Day-neutral plants like geraniums, coleus and foliage plants are happy with eight to 12 hours of light throughout the year.
Kinds of grow lights. There are many kinds of artificial lights that will support plants indoors, from ordinary bulbs and tubes to super-efficient LED lights. Most are available in multiple color spectrums.
Fluorescent tubes put out three to four times the light of incandescent bulbs for the same energy. Their color frequencies run from reds to blues, so you can mix and match to suit your preferences. Full-spectrum or sunlight fluorescents are great for all plants and for starting plants from seeds. They're often even marketed as grow lights.
The newest technology for grow lights uses Light Emitting Diodes. LEDs are extremely energy efficient; they average 50,000 hours of useful operation, and generate very little heat, making them safe for plants and people. You'll spend a good bit more upfront but you can expect to save 40 percent to 75 percent on your energy costs.
Regardless of which kind of lighting system you use, rotate your plants one or more times each week to balance the amount of light each plant receives. Replace fluorescent tubes when the ends start to blacken to keep adequate light levels for your plants. Keep the plants far enough away from the light to prevent burning yet close enough to maximize the exposure these supplemental sources provide.
2011年12月22日 星期四
Philips goLITE BLU Energy Light Review
You don't have to have been diagnosed with Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) to come down with the winter blues, or indeed to require some help waking up in the morning or keeping momentum during the day. Philips reckons it has the answer in the shape of the goLITE BLU HF3330/HF3332, a portable light lamp that promises to wake you up refreshed, buoy you during the day, and even help you say goodbye to jetlag. Ambitious claims from a box of LEDs: check out the full SlashGear review after the cut.
A 14 x 14 x 2.5 cm white plastic box, the goLITE BLU is fronted by a pair of panels: a sizable blue LED array on top, and a smaller, blue-backlit touchscreen underneath showing time, light settings and battery status. The only physical control is a power button on the right side; on the left is a socket for the included AC power adapter. Philips also throws in a set of international plug adapters.
A notch on the lower rear panel holds a metal rod, which can be slotted into a hole to prop the goLITE BLU up. Magnets keep the rod in place in both, and there's a faux-leather slip case for transporting the whole thing. Unfortunately there's only one possible angle at which you can stand the light unit at, rather than an adjustable base.
Setup is straightforward. Tapping the bell button sets the alarm, using the plus and minus buttons to adjust the time; the stopwatch icon sets the length of time the light is on for. Alarms can be either an audible tone or the LED lights, or a combination of both, while anything from 1 minute to an hour – in minute increments – can be set as the duration.
As well as waking up to light, you can trigger an impromptu session manually. Pressing the power button once turns on the touchscreen, and a second press turns on the LEDs; you can adjust the intensity – in 25-percent increments – and the length of time the goLITE BLU is on for.
A temporary pause in a session can be added by pressing the power button briefly, or turning the intensity down to zero, though if you leave it paused and running on battery power for over five minutes, the goLITE BLU will automatically power off.
Philips recommends 15 to 30 minutes of time in front of the light each day, initially starting off at 50-percent brightness and increasing if you don't notice a difference after a week. Rather than sitting directly in front of the LEDs, basking in their glow as you might a tanning lamp, Philips advises putting it off to one side so that it shines tangentially onto your face.
That, along with the limited angle options from the stand, can make finding the best position tricky, though it's easier if you're working at a desk at the time.
Instant results aren't promised, but the idea is that if you invest several weeks you can gain more energy, alleviate your mood or even help bypass jetlag. Using the goLITE BLU in the morning, when you first wake up, is supposed to make it easier to get out of bed, while a quick session in the middle of the day can, so Philips says, top up your energy levels when you more normally might be flagging.
A 14 x 14 x 2.5 cm white plastic box, the goLITE BLU is fronted by a pair of panels: a sizable blue LED array on top, and a smaller, blue-backlit touchscreen underneath showing time, light settings and battery status. The only physical control is a power button on the right side; on the left is a socket for the included AC power adapter. Philips also throws in a set of international plug adapters.
A notch on the lower rear panel holds a metal rod, which can be slotted into a hole to prop the goLITE BLU up. Magnets keep the rod in place in both, and there's a faux-leather slip case for transporting the whole thing. Unfortunately there's only one possible angle at which you can stand the light unit at, rather than an adjustable base.
Setup is straightforward. Tapping the bell button sets the alarm, using the plus and minus buttons to adjust the time; the stopwatch icon sets the length of time the light is on for. Alarms can be either an audible tone or the LED lights, or a combination of both, while anything from 1 minute to an hour – in minute increments – can be set as the duration.
As well as waking up to light, you can trigger an impromptu session manually. Pressing the power button once turns on the touchscreen, and a second press turns on the LEDs; you can adjust the intensity – in 25-percent increments – and the length of time the goLITE BLU is on for.
A temporary pause in a session can be added by pressing the power button briefly, or turning the intensity down to zero, though if you leave it paused and running on battery power for over five minutes, the goLITE BLU will automatically power off.
Philips recommends 15 to 30 minutes of time in front of the light each day, initially starting off at 50-percent brightness and increasing if you don't notice a difference after a week. Rather than sitting directly in front of the LEDs, basking in their glow as you might a tanning lamp, Philips advises putting it off to one side so that it shines tangentially onto your face.
That, along with the limited angle options from the stand, can make finding the best position tricky, though it's easier if you're working at a desk at the time.
Instant results aren't promised, but the idea is that if you invest several weeks you can gain more energy, alleviate your mood or even help bypass jetlag. Using the goLITE BLU in the morning, when you first wake up, is supposed to make it easier to get out of bed, while a quick session in the middle of the day can, so Philips says, top up your energy levels when you more normally might be flagging.
2011年12月21日 星期三
Strides made at second meeting on Melnea Cass Blvd. design
The Boston Transportation Department (BTD) held its second public meeting on the redesign of Melnea Cass Boulevard to create a more pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly street while still accommodating car, truck and public transit traffic.
The BTD is the lead agency among a group of city and state agencies involved in the improvement project, to be funded by $600,000 in City of Boston funds and $7.5 million in federal earmarks and state funding. A team of consultants with expertise in transportation engineering, bicycle planning and landscape architecture has been engaged to help with the planning.
The BTD and the outside consultants for the project learned from this mistake, said BTD Senior Transportation Planner Patrick Hoey.
"We've set the reset button tonight, and we're going to get a fresh start," Hoey said. "We did our homework. We're going to put Melnea Cass Boulevard in its historical context this time."
Melnea Cass Boulevard was built in 1981 on one of the bulldozed paths. Running from Tremont Street near Ruggles Station to the Mass Turnpike Connector at Mass. Ave., today the boulevard is widely seen as a highway within the city, with fast-moving traffic and dangerous street crossings.
Now, the city wants to redesign the street with a new "complete streets" approach that emphasizes sustainability and a more pedestrian-centered approach.
After the slide presentation, attendees were divided into small groups — something that was on the agenda in the first meeting, but didn't come to pass — to brainstorm on improvement ideas. In one group, led by Keri Pyke, director of transportation planning at Howard/Stein-Hudson Associates and the Melnea Cass project's lead design consultant, attendees had a variety of suggestions.
"We're going to have to change the lighting," said one participant named Dan, pointing out how forbidding the area feels after dark for pedestrians.
"I appreciate bicycles," said one woman, "but for women with children, bicycle paths are not a priority. I want convenient access to public transit and a well-lit walkway."
State Rep. Byron Rushing, assigned to this group, said a dedicated lane for buses is needed, no matter what else comes into the design.
Group members agreed that traffic needs to be calmed with stoplights or prominent speed limit signs, and that crosswalks need to be improved or shortened.
Pyke asked what group members thought about adding on-street parking. This is a difficult issue, with some people feeling that businesses along the boulevard will depend on convenient parking, while others predicting problems with double-parking.
At the meeting's close, the design team gathered up the flip chart sheets full of ideas. The consultants clearly have their work cut out for them to create a cohesive design plan that melds the larger transit considerations with the public input. Discussions will continue after the holidays, with the next public meeting likely to be in late January or early February.
The BTD is the lead agency among a group of city and state agencies involved in the improvement project, to be funded by $600,000 in City of Boston funds and $7.5 million in federal earmarks and state funding. A team of consultants with expertise in transportation engineering, bicycle planning and landscape architecture has been engaged to help with the planning.
The BTD and the outside consultants for the project learned from this mistake, said BTD Senior Transportation Planner Patrick Hoey.
"We've set the reset button tonight, and we're going to get a fresh start," Hoey said. "We did our homework. We're going to put Melnea Cass Boulevard in its historical context this time."
Melnea Cass Boulevard was built in 1981 on one of the bulldozed paths. Running from Tremont Street near Ruggles Station to the Mass Turnpike Connector at Mass. Ave., today the boulevard is widely seen as a highway within the city, with fast-moving traffic and dangerous street crossings.
Now, the city wants to redesign the street with a new "complete streets" approach that emphasizes sustainability and a more pedestrian-centered approach.
After the slide presentation, attendees were divided into small groups — something that was on the agenda in the first meeting, but didn't come to pass — to brainstorm on improvement ideas. In one group, led by Keri Pyke, director of transportation planning at Howard/Stein-Hudson Associates and the Melnea Cass project's lead design consultant, attendees had a variety of suggestions.
"We're going to have to change the lighting," said one participant named Dan, pointing out how forbidding the area feels after dark for pedestrians.
"I appreciate bicycles," said one woman, "but for women with children, bicycle paths are not a priority. I want convenient access to public transit and a well-lit walkway."
State Rep. Byron Rushing, assigned to this group, said a dedicated lane for buses is needed, no matter what else comes into the design.
Group members agreed that traffic needs to be calmed with stoplights or prominent speed limit signs, and that crosswalks need to be improved or shortened.
Pyke asked what group members thought about adding on-street parking. This is a difficult issue, with some people feeling that businesses along the boulevard will depend on convenient parking, while others predicting problems with double-parking.
At the meeting's close, the design team gathered up the flip chart sheets full of ideas. The consultants clearly have their work cut out for them to create a cohesive design plan that melds the larger transit considerations with the public input. Discussions will continue after the holidays, with the next public meeting likely to be in late January or early February.
2011年12月15日 星期四
'Magic Vista' in Arnold neighborhood
This holiday season, the Mago Vista community in Arnold should consider renaming itself "Magic Vista."
At a bend in the road at 425 Century Vista Drive, near Spriggs Court, there is a wondrous animated display of Christmas lights on the lawn of David Nibeck's house.
A tall inflatable Santa and a lit Nativity scene are set upon the grass. On the path near the split-level house, a wooden Ferris wheel whirls. Plush Christmas bears and other stuffed toys sit silently in the wooden bucket seats, illuminated with neon lights.
High on the front facade, a scoreboard ticks down the days, hours, minutes and seconds until Christmas Day.
But, that's not what draws people from the neighborhood and across the Broadneck Peninsula to see the house.
As a song plays through the outdoor speakers on the darkened lawn, a light flickers. Then, more begin to glow. Shapes appear to leap and tumble through the air.
Colors cross-fade, dim, twinkle and change rapidly. Small pine trees jump in place, and suddenly vaporize. Candy canes dance merrily.
"He's the Clark Griswold of Mago Vista," said neighbor Christie Barrett.
She's referring to the Chevy Chase character in the 1989 movie "Christmas Vacation," who envelops his house with strings of incandescent Christmas lights.
"My family likes to sit out front in our car and listen to the music," Barrett said. "Plus, I sneak by on my way home from work."
Some people hang out to watch the entire 30-minute show.
Inside, Nibeck and his three sons watch from the dining table in the front window. And smile.
Mason, the oldest at 16, is a junior at Broadneck High School. The 13-year-old twins are eighth-graders at Severn River Middle. Adam's the one with the buzz cut; Nicholas sports the Beiber look.
The display has more than 10,000 lights, most of which are LED bulbs. There are 64 channels, each controlled by a Light-O-Rama computer program that turns the illumination on and off and provides dramatic effects.
There are a dozen songs in the light show, most of them Christmas classics.
"Each song is specifically programmed for the lights," Nibeck said. "Each minute of music takes three hours to program. It takes me about 10 hours per song."
He broadcasts the songs through outdoor speakers nightly from 6 to 8 p.m. From 6 to 10 p.m. the transmission can also be heard via a radio. The show is nightly through Jan. 2. A sign advises passers-by where to tune in.
The light show almost put his lights out the first year.
"The energy usage when the bulbs were all incandescent was incredible," Nibeck said. "We quickly ran out of power in our house. We were tripping the circuit breakers." He soon switched to LED lights.
It takes Nibeck four weekends to set up the displays.
"He takes holiday decorating to a whole new level," said Amy McCarthy, who operates a licensed day-care center blocks away. "We go by every year.
At a bend in the road at 425 Century Vista Drive, near Spriggs Court, there is a wondrous animated display of Christmas lights on the lawn of David Nibeck's house.
A tall inflatable Santa and a lit Nativity scene are set upon the grass. On the path near the split-level house, a wooden Ferris wheel whirls. Plush Christmas bears and other stuffed toys sit silently in the wooden bucket seats, illuminated with neon lights.
High on the front facade, a scoreboard ticks down the days, hours, minutes and seconds until Christmas Day.
But, that's not what draws people from the neighborhood and across the Broadneck Peninsula to see the house.
As a song plays through the outdoor speakers on the darkened lawn, a light flickers. Then, more begin to glow. Shapes appear to leap and tumble through the air.
Colors cross-fade, dim, twinkle and change rapidly. Small pine trees jump in place, and suddenly vaporize. Candy canes dance merrily.
"He's the Clark Griswold of Mago Vista," said neighbor Christie Barrett.
She's referring to the Chevy Chase character in the 1989 movie "Christmas Vacation," who envelops his house with strings of incandescent Christmas lights.
"My family likes to sit out front in our car and listen to the music," Barrett said. "Plus, I sneak by on my way home from work."
Some people hang out to watch the entire 30-minute show.
Inside, Nibeck and his three sons watch from the dining table in the front window. And smile.
Mason, the oldest at 16, is a junior at Broadneck High School. The 13-year-old twins are eighth-graders at Severn River Middle. Adam's the one with the buzz cut; Nicholas sports the Beiber look.
The display has more than 10,000 lights, most of which are LED bulbs. There are 64 channels, each controlled by a Light-O-Rama computer program that turns the illumination on and off and provides dramatic effects.
There are a dozen songs in the light show, most of them Christmas classics.
"Each song is specifically programmed for the lights," Nibeck said. "Each minute of music takes three hours to program. It takes me about 10 hours per song."
He broadcasts the songs through outdoor speakers nightly from 6 to 8 p.m. From 6 to 10 p.m. the transmission can also be heard via a radio. The show is nightly through Jan. 2. A sign advises passers-by where to tune in.
The light show almost put his lights out the first year.
"The energy usage when the bulbs were all incandescent was incredible," Nibeck said. "We quickly ran out of power in our house. We were tripping the circuit breakers." He soon switched to LED lights.
It takes Nibeck four weekends to set up the displays.
"He takes holiday decorating to a whole new level," said Amy McCarthy, who operates a licensed day-care center blocks away. "We go by every year.
2011年12月13日 星期二
A 1,000-watt smile for less
Earlier this year, Rocky Mountain Power (RMP) requested a very large rate hike from the Wyoming Public Service Commission (PSC). Key businesses and every municipality in Natrona County lined up in opposition to the rate hike; the issues were largely reliability of service, dependability and, of course, costs.
Concessions were made on all sides (listen up Washington). And while the PSC didn't give RMP everything they requested, the cost of electricity in Wyoming went up somewhat significantly; there were frowns all around.
Richard Walje, President of RMP, said in a Casper Journal guest column last April that "annual increases in electricity prices are likely for the next decade." The 2012 hike request was announced on Dec 9. The new rate hike is smaller than last year's request and for different reasons.
It would add about $6 to the average monthly bill or about $72 per year. Projected over 10 years, the average electric customer should plan for an additional $60 per month, $720 per year, over what they're paying today for their household electricity.
It's no secret that energy costs are going up. In fact, the cost of energy has become a significant part of everyone's expenses. Not limited to vehicle fuel, home heating and lights, today we seem to consume energy 24/7, awake or asleep. I'm amazed how many charging and "on" lights I see in my house when the lights go off for the night.
So what can we consumers do beyond planning to pay for rising costs? The answer may be simple: figure out how to use less energy. Beyond the simple equation of use less-pay less, part of the reason energy costs go up is to generate or find more energy to meet higher demands. RMP said that's what this year's rate hike is for - generation.
It seems counter-intuitive for a company to encourage consumers to use less, but that's what Jeff Hymas, a media relations expert at RMP, said the company is doing. Hymas said that consumers' most expensive energy is when new generation facilities have to be built. So Hymas said RMP is encouraging consumers to use less electricity to avoid that scenario. And he said it can be easy.
I made some small changes at my house that seem to make Jeff's point. I replaced nine 65-watt bulbs (585 watts) in some recessed can lights with 14-watt compact fluorescent soft-white bulbs (126 watts). That's a 459-watt saving for me. And the light generated is virtually the same color and intensity.
Using LED Christmas tree lights was even more dramatic; from well over 200 watts to about 10 watts. And while the LED lights are brighter, they're also substantially cooler, making them safer on my real tree.
I'm happy about these possibilities. For one, I stand a chance of affording future electric bills. And if I can pay less today and possibly avoid a rate hike tomorrow, maybe I can turn on my 1,000-watt smile again.
Concessions were made on all sides (listen up Washington). And while the PSC didn't give RMP everything they requested, the cost of electricity in Wyoming went up somewhat significantly; there were frowns all around.
Richard Walje, President of RMP, said in a Casper Journal guest column last April that "annual increases in electricity prices are likely for the next decade." The 2012 hike request was announced on Dec 9. The new rate hike is smaller than last year's request and for different reasons.
It would add about $6 to the average monthly bill or about $72 per year. Projected over 10 years, the average electric customer should plan for an additional $60 per month, $720 per year, over what they're paying today for their household electricity.
It's no secret that energy costs are going up. In fact, the cost of energy has become a significant part of everyone's expenses. Not limited to vehicle fuel, home heating and lights, today we seem to consume energy 24/7, awake or asleep. I'm amazed how many charging and "on" lights I see in my house when the lights go off for the night.
So what can we consumers do beyond planning to pay for rising costs? The answer may be simple: figure out how to use less energy. Beyond the simple equation of use less-pay less, part of the reason energy costs go up is to generate or find more energy to meet higher demands. RMP said that's what this year's rate hike is for - generation.
It seems counter-intuitive for a company to encourage consumers to use less, but that's what Jeff Hymas, a media relations expert at RMP, said the company is doing. Hymas said that consumers' most expensive energy is when new generation facilities have to be built. So Hymas said RMP is encouraging consumers to use less electricity to avoid that scenario. And he said it can be easy.
I made some small changes at my house that seem to make Jeff's point. I replaced nine 65-watt bulbs (585 watts) in some recessed can lights with 14-watt compact fluorescent soft-white bulbs (126 watts). That's a 459-watt saving for me. And the light generated is virtually the same color and intensity.
Using LED Christmas tree lights was even more dramatic; from well over 200 watts to about 10 watts. And while the LED lights are brighter, they're also substantially cooler, making them safer on my real tree.
I'm happy about these possibilities. For one, I stand a chance of affording future electric bills. And if I can pay less today and possibly avoid a rate hike tomorrow, maybe I can turn on my 1,000-watt smile again.
2011年12月12日 星期一
Daily Online News
Lighting and visuals rental company HSL supplied lighting equipment, LED video screens and crew to the recent UK leg of the Chase & Status No More Idols tour, where Neil Carson's high energy lighting was much appreciated.
Carson has worked for Chase & Status for the last two years. The band shares the same management team as Pendulum, another artist to whom HSL provides lighting.
However, this is the first time Carson has used HSL to supply both lighting and video - a process likely to happen increasing frequently following a recent major investment in Martin EC10 and EC20 LED screen product. "It makes things very straightforward dealing with one source for all these elements," says Carson.
The Chase & Status project was managed for HSL by Mike Oates, who says: "We always enjoy working with Neil. He has great imagination and flare and the Chase & Status show is exciting, atmospheric and a great fusion of lighting and video."
Carson designed the screen architecture - based on a central upstage block of EC10 in the middle, about 6m wide and 2.5 deep - flanked by three columns of EC20 at 5m, 4m and 3m high respectively, which added real depth and three-dimensionality to the stage. The modular design allowed it to be easily - and practically - reduced to fit into smaller venues, whilst ensuring aesthetic continuity.
Their video content is created by The Light Surgeons. In addition to animations and raw, edgy ambient sequences, on this leg of the tour it featured special footage of all the Chase & Status vocalists, who appeared onscreen for their songs - and sometimes onstage for real.
If you're wondering how much this has cost them, the McManus' said they've saved on electricity by switching to LED lights.
"We didn't have to replace a lot of lights because they last longer and use less energy," Pennington said.
The family said they try to be courteous to neighbors my making sure the display doesn't twinkle all night.
Playback was stored on an AI media server, triggered by timecode from the band at the start of the track. Carson could tweak parameters like the screen intensity from his Chamsys MagicQ 100 lighting desk to match the space and the variable daily configuration of the lighting rig.
HSL supplied 24 Clay Paky Sharpies - also a new addition to their hire stock. They were joined by 24 GLP Impression Zooms, which, like the Sharpies, were dotted all over the towers. They are among Carson's current favourite LED washes and were joined by 18 x 2-cell moles and 12 Atomic strobes.
On the deck were six Martin MAC 3K profiles, strung out along the back wall, used for powerful back lighting effects and highly effective silhouetting of the band. On boom stands upstage of the band were six i-Pix BB4 LED wash lights, six 2-cell Moles and six Atomic strobes.
Carson has worked for Chase & Status for the last two years. The band shares the same management team as Pendulum, another artist to whom HSL provides lighting.
However, this is the first time Carson has used HSL to supply both lighting and video - a process likely to happen increasing frequently following a recent major investment in Martin EC10 and EC20 LED screen product. "It makes things very straightforward dealing with one source for all these elements," says Carson.
The Chase & Status project was managed for HSL by Mike Oates, who says: "We always enjoy working with Neil. He has great imagination and flare and the Chase & Status show is exciting, atmospheric and a great fusion of lighting and video."
Carson designed the screen architecture - based on a central upstage block of EC10 in the middle, about 6m wide and 2.5 deep - flanked by three columns of EC20 at 5m, 4m and 3m high respectively, which added real depth and three-dimensionality to the stage. The modular design allowed it to be easily - and practically - reduced to fit into smaller venues, whilst ensuring aesthetic continuity.
Their video content is created by The Light Surgeons. In addition to animations and raw, edgy ambient sequences, on this leg of the tour it featured special footage of all the Chase & Status vocalists, who appeared onscreen for their songs - and sometimes onstage for real.
If you're wondering how much this has cost them, the McManus' said they've saved on electricity by switching to LED lights.
"We didn't have to replace a lot of lights because they last longer and use less energy," Pennington said.
The family said they try to be courteous to neighbors my making sure the display doesn't twinkle all night.
Playback was stored on an AI media server, triggered by timecode from the band at the start of the track. Carson could tweak parameters like the screen intensity from his Chamsys MagicQ 100 lighting desk to match the space and the variable daily configuration of the lighting rig.
HSL supplied 24 Clay Paky Sharpies - also a new addition to their hire stock. They were joined by 24 GLP Impression Zooms, which, like the Sharpies, were dotted all over the towers. They are among Carson's current favourite LED washes and were joined by 18 x 2-cell moles and 12 Atomic strobes.
On the deck were six Martin MAC 3K profiles, strung out along the back wall, used for powerful back lighting effects and highly effective silhouetting of the band. On boom stands upstage of the band were six i-Pix BB4 LED wash lights, six 2-cell Moles and six Atomic strobes.
2011年12月11日 星期日
Forget 3D, here comes the QD TV
Researchers have developed a new form of light-emitting crystals, known as quantum dots, which can be used to produce ultra-thin televisions.
The tiny crystals, which are 100,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair, can be printed onto flexible plastic sheets to produce a paper-thin display that can be easily carried around, or even onto wallpaper to create giant room-size screens.
The scientists hope the first quantum dot televisions – like current flat-screen TVs, but with improved colour and thinner displays – will be available in shops by the end of next year. A flexible version is expected to take at least three years to reach the market.
Michael Edelman, chief executive of Nanoco, a spin out company set up by the scientists behind the technology at Manchester University, said: "We are working with some major Asian electronics companies. The first products we are expecting to come to market using quantum dots will be the next generation of flat-screen televisions.
"Something else we are looking at is reels of wallpaper or curtains made out of a material that has quantum dots printed on it. You can imagine displaying scenes of the sun rising over a beach as you wake up in the morning."
Although Mr Edelman was unable to reveal which companies Nanoco are working with due to commercial agreements, it is believed that electronics giants Sony, Sharp, Samsung and LG are all working on quantum dot television technology.
Most televisions now produced have a liquid-crystal display (LCD) lit by light-emitting diodes (LED), with the screen two to three inches thick. Replacing the LEDs with quantum dots could reduce the thickness.
Shortages of rare earth elements needed in these displays have driven up production costs, driving electronics firms to look for new ways of making them. Quantum dots are made from cheaper semi-conducting materials that emit light when energised by electricity or ultraviolet light.
By changing the size of the crystals, the researchers found they can manipulate the colour of light they produce.
Placing quantum dots on top of regular LEDs can also help to produce a more natural coloured light and Nanoco working to produce new types of energy efficient light bulbs. They also hope to produce solar powered displays using quantum dots.
Professor Paul O'Brien, an inorganic materials chemist at the University of Manchester who helped top develop the quantum dot technology, said: "By altering the size of the crystals we are able to change the colour they produce.
"It is rather like when you twang a ruler on a desk and the noise changes, the same is happening with the light produced by the quantum dots.
"As the colours are very bright and need little energy it has generated huge excitement in the electronics industry – the quality of display they can produce will be far superior to LCD televisions."
The tiny crystals, which are 100,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair, can be printed onto flexible plastic sheets to produce a paper-thin display that can be easily carried around, or even onto wallpaper to create giant room-size screens.
The scientists hope the first quantum dot televisions – like current flat-screen TVs, but with improved colour and thinner displays – will be available in shops by the end of next year. A flexible version is expected to take at least three years to reach the market.
Michael Edelman, chief executive of Nanoco, a spin out company set up by the scientists behind the technology at Manchester University, said: "We are working with some major Asian electronics companies. The first products we are expecting to come to market using quantum dots will be the next generation of flat-screen televisions.
"Something else we are looking at is reels of wallpaper or curtains made out of a material that has quantum dots printed on it. You can imagine displaying scenes of the sun rising over a beach as you wake up in the morning."
Although Mr Edelman was unable to reveal which companies Nanoco are working with due to commercial agreements, it is believed that electronics giants Sony, Sharp, Samsung and LG are all working on quantum dot television technology.
Most televisions now produced have a liquid-crystal display (LCD) lit by light-emitting diodes (LED), with the screen two to three inches thick. Replacing the LEDs with quantum dots could reduce the thickness.
Shortages of rare earth elements needed in these displays have driven up production costs, driving electronics firms to look for new ways of making them. Quantum dots are made from cheaper semi-conducting materials that emit light when energised by electricity or ultraviolet light.
By changing the size of the crystals, the researchers found they can manipulate the colour of light they produce.
Placing quantum dots on top of regular LEDs can also help to produce a more natural coloured light and Nanoco working to produce new types of energy efficient light bulbs. They also hope to produce solar powered displays using quantum dots.
Professor Paul O'Brien, an inorganic materials chemist at the University of Manchester who helped top develop the quantum dot technology, said: "By altering the size of the crystals we are able to change the colour they produce.
"It is rather like when you twang a ruler on a desk and the noise changes, the same is happening with the light produced by the quantum dots.
"As the colours are very bright and need little energy it has generated huge excitement in the electronics industry – the quality of display they can produce will be far superior to LCD televisions."
2011年12月8日 星期四
45 Degrees moves into new downtown location
Employees, customers and other local business owners joined Jeff Anderson, owner of 45 Degrees at a Nov. 29 Greater Stillwater Chamber of Commerce ribbon-cutting ceremony for downtown Stillwater retailer.
Formerly a few doors down on Main Street, 45 Degrees has just moved to a beautiful and newly renovated space that is 25 percent larger than their old space. Warm, inviting and full of natural light, the new space will actually use a quarter of the energy of their smaller store due to LED lighting they installed from Able Energy Co.
The move allows 45 Degrees an opportunity to better serve their customers by carrying a larger variety of high end, quality clothing and gear for the outdoor enthusiast. They offer footwear for all ages, as well as gear, gadgets and clothing for your next adventure or for enjoying the outdoors in any climate. 45 Degrees also offers snowshoe and cross country ski rentals and will be offering kayak rentals next spring.
Rubicon Technology, a vertically integrated producer of sapphire substrate wafers and products for the optical, RFIC, LED, semiconductor markets, has celebrated the first anniversary of its future-generation sapphire growth plant situated in Batavia, Illinois.
Sapphire crystals manufactured from the facility spanning 135,000. are converted into sapphire ingots and then into large diameter sapphire wafers for producing products including automotive lighting, tablets and smart phones, netbooks, laptops, HDTVs and LED-based lighting.
Rubicon Technology produces large sapphire crystals at its Batavia facility using proprietary, tailor-made furnaces that imitate the natural organic sapphire formation process. These crystals are then processed into large diameter wafers in the company's cutting and polishing plant located in Penang, Malaysia.
Rubicon Technology has so far delivered over 200,000 6" sapphire wafers to the RFIC and LED markets. In LED manufacturing, the transformation to large diameter wafers has been initiated at the LED production level. Various major LED chip producers have declared proposals to shift to large diameter wafers in the fiscal period 2011-2012.
The cost and process benefits of large diameter sapphire wafers help the LED industry to cut down costs and prices of LED.
The President and Chief Executive Officer at Rubicon Technology, Raja Parvez stated that with the company's proprietary crystal growth process, the Batavia facility has been constantly delivering superior-quality, high-yield sapphires and is key to the company's dominance in offering high-yield, superior-quality, large-diameter sapphire wafers to the LED market.
Formerly a few doors down on Main Street, 45 Degrees has just moved to a beautiful and newly renovated space that is 25 percent larger than their old space. Warm, inviting and full of natural light, the new space will actually use a quarter of the energy of their smaller store due to LED lighting they installed from Able Energy Co.
The move allows 45 Degrees an opportunity to better serve their customers by carrying a larger variety of high end, quality clothing and gear for the outdoor enthusiast. They offer footwear for all ages, as well as gear, gadgets and clothing for your next adventure or for enjoying the outdoors in any climate. 45 Degrees also offers snowshoe and cross country ski rentals and will be offering kayak rentals next spring.
Rubicon Technology, a vertically integrated producer of sapphire substrate wafers and products for the optical, RFIC, LED, semiconductor markets, has celebrated the first anniversary of its future-generation sapphire growth plant situated in Batavia, Illinois.
Sapphire crystals manufactured from the facility spanning 135,000. are converted into sapphire ingots and then into large diameter sapphire wafers for producing products including automotive lighting, tablets and smart phones, netbooks, laptops, HDTVs and LED-based lighting.
Rubicon Technology produces large sapphire crystals at its Batavia facility using proprietary, tailor-made furnaces that imitate the natural organic sapphire formation process. These crystals are then processed into large diameter wafers in the company's cutting and polishing plant located in Penang, Malaysia.
Rubicon Technology has so far delivered over 200,000 6" sapphire wafers to the RFIC and LED markets. In LED manufacturing, the transformation to large diameter wafers has been initiated at the LED production level. Various major LED chip producers have declared proposals to shift to large diameter wafers in the fiscal period 2011-2012.
The cost and process benefits of large diameter sapphire wafers help the LED industry to cut down costs and prices of LED.
The President and Chief Executive Officer at Rubicon Technology, Raja Parvez stated that with the company's proprietary crystal growth process, the Batavia facility has been constantly delivering superior-quality, high-yield sapphires and is key to the company's dominance in offering high-yield, superior-quality, large-diameter sapphire wafers to the LED market.
2011年12月7日 星期三
Fire brings down 56-foot Christmas tree at Lucena park
The Quezon provincial government's 56-foot-tall Christmas tree festooned with coconut husks and multi-colored lights at the Perez Park here caught fire late Tuesday afternoon. Ironically, combustible coconut husks were used to symbolize the province's efforts to revive the ailing coconut industry.
A provincial official said the fire occurred at around 5:20 p.m. just as early evening park visitors were starting to arrive at the provincial capitol grounds to take photos of the giant Christmas tree.
"The one in charge of the Christmas tree put on the switch for the lights to accommodate the request of park visitors when suddenly it caught fire as soon as it was switched on," Rowell Radovan, chief of the province general services office, said in an interview Wednesday morning.No one was hurt, he added.
Citing an initial investigation report by firemen, Radovan said the fire was caused by a short circuit triggered by wet wires connecting the 300 sets of "outdoor Christmas lights" after a heavy rain.
"Apparently, there was a short circuit in the connection. But it was an accident," Radovan said.
Radovan said strong winds also contributed to the fire which, according to witnesses, lasted only for about five minutes as firemen quickly put it the fire out before it could spread to several tents put up around the tree for what was to be a three-day Christmas bazaar and trade fair.
The traditional switching-on of Temple Square's multitude of Christmas lights happens Friday night, Nov. 25, at Temple Square and the adjoining campus of the Church Office Building.
Church officials said the lights go on automatically a bit after dusk, which is at 5:03 p.m. on Friday. There is no set time for the lights to switch on.
Meanwhile at the Gallivan Plaza, 239 S. Main St., the Downtown Alliance will throw its "Lights On!" celebration on Friday night.
The festivities start at 4:45 with the One Voice children's choir, as well as elves on stilts, and free cookies courtesy of Harmon's grocery stores.
"The fire happened very fast," Radovan said. Only the frames made from coconut lumber were left standing.
The giant holiday display, with a Nativity scene at its base, was first opened to the public last Monday evening, which coincided with the start of the three-day Christmas bazaar and trade fair.
Radovan said the Christmas display was a "labor of love" by provincial officials and employees, coconut farmers and the Philippine Coconut Authority.
"Some of our employees volunteered to help in the construction. The farmers helped in dehusking and grating the coconut meat prior to its adornment. The PCA donated the coconuts," Radovan said.He added: "The giant coconut Christmas tree symbolized our common aspirations to rehabilitate the ailing coconut industry."He also said that most of the Christmas lights were donations from businessmen, civic groups, employees and provincial officials.
Radovan said he will immediately meet with all concerned provincial offices for the design and construction of a new Christmas tree.
"As soon as the cleaning of the debris is finished, we will immediately start erecting the new one. But it will no longer be adorned with coconuts. Maybe, just a steel pole and wires," he said.
A provincial official said the fire occurred at around 5:20 p.m. just as early evening park visitors were starting to arrive at the provincial capitol grounds to take photos of the giant Christmas tree.
"The one in charge of the Christmas tree put on the switch for the lights to accommodate the request of park visitors when suddenly it caught fire as soon as it was switched on," Rowell Radovan, chief of the province general services office, said in an interview Wednesday morning.No one was hurt, he added.
Citing an initial investigation report by firemen, Radovan said the fire was caused by a short circuit triggered by wet wires connecting the 300 sets of "outdoor Christmas lights" after a heavy rain.
"Apparently, there was a short circuit in the connection. But it was an accident," Radovan said.
Radovan said strong winds also contributed to the fire which, according to witnesses, lasted only for about five minutes as firemen quickly put it the fire out before it could spread to several tents put up around the tree for what was to be a three-day Christmas bazaar and trade fair.
The traditional switching-on of Temple Square's multitude of Christmas lights happens Friday night, Nov. 25, at Temple Square and the adjoining campus of the Church Office Building.
Church officials said the lights go on automatically a bit after dusk, which is at 5:03 p.m. on Friday. There is no set time for the lights to switch on.
Meanwhile at the Gallivan Plaza, 239 S. Main St., the Downtown Alliance will throw its "Lights On!" celebration on Friday night.
The festivities start at 4:45 with the One Voice children's choir, as well as elves on stilts, and free cookies courtesy of Harmon's grocery stores.
"The fire happened very fast," Radovan said. Only the frames made from coconut lumber were left standing.
The giant holiday display, with a Nativity scene at its base, was first opened to the public last Monday evening, which coincided with the start of the three-day Christmas bazaar and trade fair.
Radovan said the Christmas display was a "labor of love" by provincial officials and employees, coconut farmers and the Philippine Coconut Authority.
"Some of our employees volunteered to help in the construction. The farmers helped in dehusking and grating the coconut meat prior to its adornment. The PCA donated the coconuts," Radovan said.He added: "The giant coconut Christmas tree symbolized our common aspirations to rehabilitate the ailing coconut industry."He also said that most of the Christmas lights were donations from businessmen, civic groups, employees and provincial officials.
Radovan said he will immediately meet with all concerned provincial offices for the design and construction of a new Christmas tree.
"As soon as the cleaning of the debris is finished, we will immediately start erecting the new one. But it will no longer be adorned with coconuts. Maybe, just a steel pole and wires," he said.
2011年12月6日 星期二
Try these easy ways to cut your energy bill
Energy-efficient improvements not only make your home more comfortable but they can yield long-term financial rewards and reduce the amount of carbon dioxide released into the air. Here are a few tips on small changes you can start making today:
Turn off your lights. Be mindful about shutting lights off when you leave a room. If you have a forgetful family member or roommate, paste reminders on the switch plates or consider installing motion-detector switches. Also, replace your bulbs with CFL or LED lights.
Install Energy Star ceiling fans in the rooms you use most often. They'll help keep you cool in summer while your AC works less or not at all. In winter, switch them to turn clockwise to circulate the warm air rising up to the ceiling back down into the room.
The refrigerator is one of the biggest energy users in your home, especially if it was made before 1993. Clean the coils on your fridge every six months to keep it running efficiently and take up unused space inside the fridge with jugs of water, which hold in the cold better.
Use a programmable thermostat. Nearly half of U.S. homes already have a programmable thermostat. Dig out that owner's manual and learn how to use yours to maximize the efficiency of your heating and cooling systems. Program your thermostat to turn itself down or off when you're sleeping or at work or school.
Using your dishwasher instead of washing dishes by hand can save water in some cases. But if you let the dry cycle run, you're wasting energy and money. Skip the drying cycle and let your dishes air-dry. Newer, more effective dishwashers allow you to skip the step of pre-rinsing your dishes before you load them in the dishwasher.
Upgrade your appliances because appliances use 20 percent of the energy in the average U.S. home. When it's time to buy new appliances, look for the most efficient Energy Star model you can find.
Eliminate phantom loads. Many electronics suck energy even when they're turned off, such as that little clock on your microwave when it's not in use. Unplug your electronics or plug them into a power strip and switch it to off to save on phantom loads.
Plug air leaks around doors and windows with caulk and weather stripping. Also consider putting up insulating curtains or installing storm windows to further cut down on heat loss in winter. Get a home energy audit to help pinpoint your biggest energy losses in the home.
Washing clothes in cold water gets them just as clean as hot and cuts your washer's energy use in half. Drying your clothes on an outdoor clothesline or indoor rack can save around $100 in energy costs every year. Water and energy use are intertwined, producing energy uses water and providing clean drinking water requires energy. Take steps to conserve water everywhere in your home.
When you are ready to replace your hot water heater, consider switching to an on-demand or tankless system. These units heat water when you need it, rather than constantly heating a tank of water to be ready for use. Also, turn you water heater down by 10 degrees.
Turn off your lights. Be mindful about shutting lights off when you leave a room. If you have a forgetful family member or roommate, paste reminders on the switch plates or consider installing motion-detector switches. Also, replace your bulbs with CFL or LED lights.
Install Energy Star ceiling fans in the rooms you use most often. They'll help keep you cool in summer while your AC works less or not at all. In winter, switch them to turn clockwise to circulate the warm air rising up to the ceiling back down into the room.
The refrigerator is one of the biggest energy users in your home, especially if it was made before 1993. Clean the coils on your fridge every six months to keep it running efficiently and take up unused space inside the fridge with jugs of water, which hold in the cold better.
Use a programmable thermostat. Nearly half of U.S. homes already have a programmable thermostat. Dig out that owner's manual and learn how to use yours to maximize the efficiency of your heating and cooling systems. Program your thermostat to turn itself down or off when you're sleeping or at work or school.
Using your dishwasher instead of washing dishes by hand can save water in some cases. But if you let the dry cycle run, you're wasting energy and money. Skip the drying cycle and let your dishes air-dry. Newer, more effective dishwashers allow you to skip the step of pre-rinsing your dishes before you load them in the dishwasher.
Upgrade your appliances because appliances use 20 percent of the energy in the average U.S. home. When it's time to buy new appliances, look for the most efficient Energy Star model you can find.
Eliminate phantom loads. Many electronics suck energy even when they're turned off, such as that little clock on your microwave when it's not in use. Unplug your electronics or plug them into a power strip and switch it to off to save on phantom loads.
Plug air leaks around doors and windows with caulk and weather stripping. Also consider putting up insulating curtains or installing storm windows to further cut down on heat loss in winter. Get a home energy audit to help pinpoint your biggest energy losses in the home.
Washing clothes in cold water gets them just as clean as hot and cuts your washer's energy use in half. Drying your clothes on an outdoor clothesline or indoor rack can save around $100 in energy costs every year. Water and energy use are intertwined, producing energy uses water and providing clean drinking water requires energy. Take steps to conserve water everywhere in your home.
When you are ready to replace your hot water heater, consider switching to an on-demand or tankless system. These units heat water when you need it, rather than constantly heating a tank of water to be ready for use. Also, turn you water heater down by 10 degrees.
2011年12月5日 星期一
Lighting Niagara Falls has long, colorful history
You can't take a boat ride into the roar and spray of Niagara Falls in the winter, but this time of year offers a different spectacle: Nighttime illumination of the falls in a changing array of colors — red, white, blue, purple, orange, amber and green.
In spring and summer, the colored lights shine for just three hours, but with less daylight in winter, curtains of color wash over the falls each night for up to seven hours.
Crowds gather along the sidewalk and railing on Niagara Parkway to see the show as mist rises from the falls and basin in front of them; others watch from the windows of hotels and restaurants on the Canadian side.
The display starts with patriotic themes — red, white and blue for the American Falls, red and white for the horseshoe-shaped Canadian Falls — and frequently includes colors to honor a cause. When Niagara Falls hosted the first wedding following New York's legalization of same-sex marriage in July, Mayor Paul Dyster arranged for a rainbow of colors, the symbol of gay pride. On Nov. 16, the falls were lit by white light for 15-minute stretches for lung cancer awareness, a request made by Christine Dwyer, who founded a group called Make Some Noise for Lung Cancer Awareness after losing her best friend to the disease.
"I think it validates us a bit," said Dwyer, of Becket, Mass. She said supporters sent her emails after the lighting saying, "I heard about this, I'm in tears, I'm so grateful."
"I never get tired of it," Gordon, 80, said one night in November, the start of his busy season, when fewer daylight hours mean longer nights to light.
The best views come on crisp winter nights, Gordon said, when the mist is transformed to sparkling ice crystals that catch the soft colors.
For the past year, Gordon and Mann have used a relatively new technology to control the lights — computerized touch screens. But the history of Niagara's illumination goes back more than 150 years. The falls were lit for the first time at 10 p.m. on Sept. 14, 1860, when 200 lights like those used to signal for help at sea were put in place for a visit from the Prince of Wales. Electricity was first used in 1879. An Illumination Tower, still used today, was built in 1899.
Colors appeared in 1907 when gelatin films were included in a 36-light system near the base of the gorge designed by General Electric Co. of Schenectady. Workers, including Peter Gordon's father, were paid $3 a night to change the gels when a foreman shouted cues.
The Niagara Falls Illumination Board, a cross-border body established in 1925, has kept the lights on most nights since with a few exceptions. They were turned off during World War II, for example, to conserve power.
But then there's that million-dollar view. After changing the lights' colors on the touchscreen, the controller can see the result 15 seconds later by looking out the windows or stepping through a door to a platform outside where the lights are mounted.
On the face of the waterfalls, colors fade to white as the next colored gel covers the spotlight and a new hue spills with the water over the falls. With each color change, it's as if someone has dumped dye into the river above as it careens over the edge to the rocks below.
The 4,000-watt spotlights burn with a combined brilliance of 8.2 billion candles, about what NASA used to light the runway for night space shuttle landings. Gordon staggers the lights to avoid repeating color combinations, changing them as often as every five minutes to keep things fresh for tourists milling across the street below.
In spring and summer, the colored lights shine for just three hours, but with less daylight in winter, curtains of color wash over the falls each night for up to seven hours.
Crowds gather along the sidewalk and railing on Niagara Parkway to see the show as mist rises from the falls and basin in front of them; others watch from the windows of hotels and restaurants on the Canadian side.
The display starts with patriotic themes — red, white and blue for the American Falls, red and white for the horseshoe-shaped Canadian Falls — and frequently includes colors to honor a cause. When Niagara Falls hosted the first wedding following New York's legalization of same-sex marriage in July, Mayor Paul Dyster arranged for a rainbow of colors, the symbol of gay pride. On Nov. 16, the falls were lit by white light for 15-minute stretches for lung cancer awareness, a request made by Christine Dwyer, who founded a group called Make Some Noise for Lung Cancer Awareness after losing her best friend to the disease.
"I think it validates us a bit," said Dwyer, of Becket, Mass. She said supporters sent her emails after the lighting saying, "I heard about this, I'm in tears, I'm so grateful."
"I never get tired of it," Gordon, 80, said one night in November, the start of his busy season, when fewer daylight hours mean longer nights to light.
The best views come on crisp winter nights, Gordon said, when the mist is transformed to sparkling ice crystals that catch the soft colors.
For the past year, Gordon and Mann have used a relatively new technology to control the lights — computerized touch screens. But the history of Niagara's illumination goes back more than 150 years. The falls were lit for the first time at 10 p.m. on Sept. 14, 1860, when 200 lights like those used to signal for help at sea were put in place for a visit from the Prince of Wales. Electricity was first used in 1879. An Illumination Tower, still used today, was built in 1899.
Colors appeared in 1907 when gelatin films were included in a 36-light system near the base of the gorge designed by General Electric Co. of Schenectady. Workers, including Peter Gordon's father, were paid $3 a night to change the gels when a foreman shouted cues.
The Niagara Falls Illumination Board, a cross-border body established in 1925, has kept the lights on most nights since with a few exceptions. They were turned off during World War II, for example, to conserve power.
But then there's that million-dollar view. After changing the lights' colors on the touchscreen, the controller can see the result 15 seconds later by looking out the windows or stepping through a door to a platform outside where the lights are mounted.
On the face of the waterfalls, colors fade to white as the next colored gel covers the spotlight and a new hue spills with the water over the falls. With each color change, it's as if someone has dumped dye into the river above as it careens over the edge to the rocks below.
The 4,000-watt spotlights burn with a combined brilliance of 8.2 billion candles, about what NASA used to light the runway for night space shuttle landings. Gordon staggers the lights to avoid repeating color combinations, changing them as often as every five minutes to keep things fresh for tourists milling across the street below.
2011年12月4日 星期日
Firefighters urge residents to stay safe this holiday season
Holiday decorations make things merry and bright, and local firefighters hope to help families stay safe so they can enjoy them this season.
He said people can keep their live trees safe by cutting a few inches off the bottom of the trunk to ensure the tree gets enough water.
"Squeeze the needles in your hand, and if they come off, it's too dry," he said. "And, don't use candles around a tree."
Jack Spurgeon, assistant fire chief in Bristol, Tenn., said live Christmas trees shouldn't be too near a heat source.
He also said people shouldn't put tree branches into a fireplace or woodstove, as that creates a danger of flying sparks and embers.
"And, don't throw wrapping paper in the fireplace," he said, for the same reason.
Both fire officials suggest that people have their chimneys inspected by a professional before lighting the first roaring fire of the season.
"The only thing a [homeowner] can do is look at the firebox to make sure [ there are] no loose mortars, but as far as seeing up the flue, there are professionals that can do that," Spurgeon said.
Lights are also potential dangers and should be inspected before installed, Spurgeon said.
"Check the wiring for any frayed wires," he said. "Any kink areas will generate a lot of heat buildup. And if you pile the lights up as you're stringing them, and they're on, that will generate a lot of heat."
Bolling said consumers should look for UL-approved light sets, as they've been tested for risk of fire and electric shock. He said LED lights are safer because they're usually not as hot as older light sets.
"When you use the lights, don't leave them on when you're not home," he said. "And as for extension cords, don't overburden them and make sure you're home when using it."
There is a spike in fires this time of year, Bolling said, mostly because people are turning their heat on for the first time in months.
"People turn the knob down [in their wall heaters] thinking it's off – they're not off," he said. "Every year in the first cold snap we'll find the wall heater will turn on and ignite something [people have set] in front of it. People need to keep a 3 foot clearance around heating systems."
Spurgeon said there are more kitchen fires during this time of year, too – from Thanksgiving to New Year's – because food is a big part of the season and people are likely to cook for families that visit.
Both stressed the importance of smoke and carbon-monoxide detectors.
Bolling said carbon monoxide can leak into homes when appliances that burn fossil fuels – gas heaters, wood stoves, gas furnaces – burn incompletely.
"It's colorless and odorless," he said. "You won't know it's there. Often there are flu-like symptoms, if you feel bad and move into fresh air and it goes away, you've got a problem."
Carbon monoxide is also a problem in garages attached to homes, he said. Those want to start the car so it can war up should move it outside the garage, he added.
He said people can keep their live trees safe by cutting a few inches off the bottom of the trunk to ensure the tree gets enough water.
"Squeeze the needles in your hand, and if they come off, it's too dry," he said. "And, don't use candles around a tree."
Jack Spurgeon, assistant fire chief in Bristol, Tenn., said live Christmas trees shouldn't be too near a heat source.
He also said people shouldn't put tree branches into a fireplace or woodstove, as that creates a danger of flying sparks and embers.
"And, don't throw wrapping paper in the fireplace," he said, for the same reason.
Both fire officials suggest that people have their chimneys inspected by a professional before lighting the first roaring fire of the season.
"The only thing a [homeowner] can do is look at the firebox to make sure [ there are] no loose mortars, but as far as seeing up the flue, there are professionals that can do that," Spurgeon said.
Lights are also potential dangers and should be inspected before installed, Spurgeon said.
"Check the wiring for any frayed wires," he said. "Any kink areas will generate a lot of heat buildup. And if you pile the lights up as you're stringing them, and they're on, that will generate a lot of heat."
Bolling said consumers should look for UL-approved light sets, as they've been tested for risk of fire and electric shock. He said LED lights are safer because they're usually not as hot as older light sets.
"When you use the lights, don't leave them on when you're not home," he said. "And as for extension cords, don't overburden them and make sure you're home when using it."
There is a spike in fires this time of year, Bolling said, mostly because people are turning their heat on for the first time in months.
"People turn the knob down [in their wall heaters] thinking it's off – they're not off," he said. "Every year in the first cold snap we'll find the wall heater will turn on and ignite something [people have set] in front of it. People need to keep a 3 foot clearance around heating systems."
Spurgeon said there are more kitchen fires during this time of year, too – from Thanksgiving to New Year's – because food is a big part of the season and people are likely to cook for families that visit.
Both stressed the importance of smoke and carbon-monoxide detectors.
Bolling said carbon monoxide can leak into homes when appliances that burn fossil fuels – gas heaters, wood stoves, gas furnaces – burn incompletely.
"It's colorless and odorless," he said. "You won't know it's there. Often there are flu-like symptoms, if you feel bad and move into fresh air and it goes away, you've got a problem."
Carbon monoxide is also a problem in garages attached to homes, he said. Those want to start the car so it can war up should move it outside the garage, he added.
2011年12月1日 星期四
Light up!
Dust off your Santa statues, make sure all the batteries in your electric holiday trinkets are good to go and be sure to plug in your lights to see if they're all working and blinking.
And if you've always wanted to decorate your home on the outside in the spirt of the Christmas season, go ahead. Chances are small that you'll see your festive actions on your December electric bill.
"Bigger things that affect the bills in December have to do with electric heating. A lot of people in town plug in strip heaters to supplement their gas for instance," Bob Stevenson, general manager at the Hannibal Board of Public Works, said. "That probably has a way bigger effect on electric bills than the lights."
However, unless you decorate like Clark Griswald (from National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation) or John Freiling of rural Hannibal, you will see a spike in your electric bill.
Freiling, who does technical work for the James O'Donnell Funeral Home, sets up a half-mile home display along Carrs Lane each Christmas season. It's run entirely by computer and he has his own FM station for drivers to listen to as they pass by.
"In my case, it definitely goes up," Freiling said. "We put up almost half a million lights, so our bill goes up from an average $250 to almost $1,000."
And even though Freiling's many illuminated displays, trails of messages and candy canes raises his electric bill, he said it's an increase he said he doesn't mind at all.
Stevenson said those getting into the holiday spirit shouldn't worry about their own bills when it comes to decorating outside.
"A hundred-watt strand of lights will burn for about 10 hours for nine cents. If you had 100 of those strands around your house — which would be a lot — it'd be $9 an hour," Stevenson said. "A hundred watts for an hour is 9/10 of a cent. So if you had 10 of those strands, you'd have 1000 watts. It's really pretty cheap."
It's also the choice of Christmas lights that can result in different energy usage numbers.
"The way to go nowadays is LED," Freiling said. "They use about 10 percent of a regular light bulb. Your miniature light bulbs would be next and then the worst offenders are the C-7s and the C-9s. A C-9 is the old fashioned outdoor type of light and a C-7's kind of the old fashioned indoor.
"The LEDs are much better. They don't fade, the light they generate is pure light and it actually generates that color of light. They last for a long time and there's filament in them, so if you drop the bulb it's not going to hurt it."
And if you've always wanted to decorate your home on the outside in the spirt of the Christmas season, go ahead. Chances are small that you'll see your festive actions on your December electric bill.
"Bigger things that affect the bills in December have to do with electric heating. A lot of people in town plug in strip heaters to supplement their gas for instance," Bob Stevenson, general manager at the Hannibal Board of Public Works, said. "That probably has a way bigger effect on electric bills than the lights."
However, unless you decorate like Clark Griswald (from National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation) or John Freiling of rural Hannibal, you will see a spike in your electric bill.
Freiling, who does technical work for the James O'Donnell Funeral Home, sets up a half-mile home display along Carrs Lane each Christmas season. It's run entirely by computer and he has his own FM station for drivers to listen to as they pass by.
"In my case, it definitely goes up," Freiling said. "We put up almost half a million lights, so our bill goes up from an average $250 to almost $1,000."
And even though Freiling's many illuminated displays, trails of messages and candy canes raises his electric bill, he said it's an increase he said he doesn't mind at all.
Stevenson said those getting into the holiday spirit shouldn't worry about their own bills when it comes to decorating outside.
"A hundred-watt strand of lights will burn for about 10 hours for nine cents. If you had 100 of those strands around your house — which would be a lot — it'd be $9 an hour," Stevenson said. "A hundred watts for an hour is 9/10 of a cent. So if you had 10 of those strands, you'd have 1000 watts. It's really pretty cheap."
It's also the choice of Christmas lights that can result in different energy usage numbers.
"The way to go nowadays is LED," Freiling said. "They use about 10 percent of a regular light bulb. Your miniature light bulbs would be next and then the worst offenders are the C-7s and the C-9s. A C-9 is the old fashioned outdoor type of light and a C-7's kind of the old fashioned indoor.
"The LEDs are much better. They don't fade, the light they generate is pure light and it actually generates that color of light. They last for a long time and there's filament in them, so if you drop the bulb it's not going to hurt it."
2011年11月30日 星期三
EMPORIA KME PUMPER PRESS RELEASE
The Emporia Volunteer Fire Dept. serves the City of Emporia as well as the majority of rural Greensville County Virginia. The city is located at the crossroads of southeastern Virginia with U.S. Highway 58 passing thru the locality from the east and west and I-95 / U.S. 301 from the north and south. The volunteer fire department provides both fire suppression and extrication services for these major thoroughfares as well as the remainder of the city and county as well as mutual aid areas in neighboring Southampton, Sussex, and Brunswick counties.
To better serve this mission, the department has recently taken delivery of a new KME pumper tanker apparatus has some unique features to make the job easier for the volunteers. The KME Predator Panther Long Four Door custom cab and chassis drive train consist of a Cummins ISL 450 horsepower engine and an Allison EVS4000 series automatic transmission with heavy duty 1810 series drive line system.
The KME cab which is third party tested and certified to the latest ECE integrity and crash standards, is designed to be the safest and highest tested cab in the fire industry to date. The seating provides for six firefighters with five SCBA seats and body fender compartments for up to eleven spare air cylinders.
The pumping system consist of a Waterous Model CSU 2250 GPM pump that is U.L. certified at 1750 GPM for years of use. To provide intake water to the pump, there is a 6" intake on each side as well as at the front bumper area. For maximizing the flow from the on board 1250 gallon water tank, there is a 4" high capacity tank to pump piping with electrically controlled Akron 4" ball valve.
Multiple front bumper, side, and rear discharges are provided as well as three vertically stacked 2" speedlays with pull-out hose packing trays for ease of reloading. An Akron "Apollo Hi-Riser" deck gun is provided on the top side deck gun piping with a compliment of automatic and straight bore tip nozzles and a portable ground base.
The apparatus has a 1250 gallon water tank as well as a 40 gallon Class-A foam tank and a Class-B foam tank system. The foam tanks will supply the Foam Pro Model 3012 high capacity A/B electronic injection foam system with foam concentrates from permitting the unit to have five preconnect discharges foam or water capable for general firefighting as well as on Class B hydrocarbon and polar solvent fuels.
A high output warning system is provided on the unit for ultimate protection while responding and while on the scene. The Whelen LED upper and lower light bar system as well as an LED Rota-Ray light on the cab grille area provide maximum low current draw lighting. As for audible alerting equipment, there is a Whelen electronic siren, Federal Q2B mechanical siren and Hadley "Emergency" air horns.
For enhanced scene illumination, there are two Fire Research Evolution 150 watt LED 12 volt "brow" lights mounted on the front roof area of the cab, a 9000 watt Wilburt light tower mounted on the cab roof, and four 1500 watt semi-recessed flood lights in the sides of the primary hose bed. For remote electrical operations, there is a Hannay 200 foot electric rewind booster reel with junction box. The A.C. lighting on the vehicle is powered by way of a Harrison 15,000 watt hydraulic generator system.
To better serve this mission, the department has recently taken delivery of a new KME pumper tanker apparatus has some unique features to make the job easier for the volunteers. The KME Predator Panther Long Four Door custom cab and chassis drive train consist of a Cummins ISL 450 horsepower engine and an Allison EVS4000 series automatic transmission with heavy duty 1810 series drive line system.
The KME cab which is third party tested and certified to the latest ECE integrity and crash standards, is designed to be the safest and highest tested cab in the fire industry to date. The seating provides for six firefighters with five SCBA seats and body fender compartments for up to eleven spare air cylinders.
The pumping system consist of a Waterous Model CSU 2250 GPM pump that is U.L. certified at 1750 GPM for years of use. To provide intake water to the pump, there is a 6" intake on each side as well as at the front bumper area. For maximizing the flow from the on board 1250 gallon water tank, there is a 4" high capacity tank to pump piping with electrically controlled Akron 4" ball valve.
Multiple front bumper, side, and rear discharges are provided as well as three vertically stacked 2" speedlays with pull-out hose packing trays for ease of reloading. An Akron "Apollo Hi-Riser" deck gun is provided on the top side deck gun piping with a compliment of automatic and straight bore tip nozzles and a portable ground base.
The apparatus has a 1250 gallon water tank as well as a 40 gallon Class-A foam tank and a Class-B foam tank system. The foam tanks will supply the Foam Pro Model 3012 high capacity A/B electronic injection foam system with foam concentrates from permitting the unit to have five preconnect discharges foam or water capable for general firefighting as well as on Class B hydrocarbon and polar solvent fuels.
A high output warning system is provided on the unit for ultimate protection while responding and while on the scene. The Whelen LED upper and lower light bar system as well as an LED Rota-Ray light on the cab grille area provide maximum low current draw lighting. As for audible alerting equipment, there is a Whelen electronic siren, Federal Q2B mechanical siren and Hadley "Emergency" air horns.
For enhanced scene illumination, there are two Fire Research Evolution 150 watt LED 12 volt "brow" lights mounted on the front roof area of the cab, a 9000 watt Wilburt light tower mounted on the cab roof, and four 1500 watt semi-recessed flood lights in the sides of the primary hose bed. For remote electrical operations, there is a Hannay 200 foot electric rewind booster reel with junction box. The A.C. lighting on the vehicle is powered by way of a Harrison 15,000 watt hydraulic generator system.
2011年11月29日 星期二
Potentially disruptive AC-LEDs
Novel AC-LED products have the potential to complicate the driver market. In its purest form, the AC-LED eliminates the driver, using the diode features of the LED to replace conventional diodes. Other designs use some basic components to limit the current, but sparingly. If highly successful, the AC-LED could make some LED lighting products – such as replacement bulbs – more competitive and greatly expand the LED-lighting market. Such a move could be good for both the LED industry and the end users, but would displace potential driver sales for those products.
However, we expect that AC-LEDs will have an impact only in certain product segments. In replacement bulbs, the pressure to innovate is so high that the AC-LED is just one of several novel solutions, and there is no room for older, less-innovative designs. Consequently, there are plenty of opportunities for everyone.
The high-voltage LED (HV-LED) is another buzz word but it will have minimal impact on the driver market. LED-based products commonly use long strings of LEDs in series. Until recently, the LEDs have been packaged in discrete packages and assembled together in the luminaire or lamp.
An HV-LED integrates the LED string onto the same chip or within the same package, gaining some advantages for the customer. It means little to the driver design, other than the usual considerations for the LED load that impacts every product design.
Estimates for IC pricing also complicate the forecast. It's obvious that IC prices decline over time as volumes increase and margins shrink. What's not as clear is the effect on the average price of changes in the product mix.
New products can appear at much higher prices than more-mature products in the same category, but can earn the difference via savings in component count or improved LED performance. The new products may be priced higher because they use a larger chip that takes up more wafer area, because they use a more expensive foundry process, or simply because they deliver more value, and can earn greater margin for the chip supplier.
Temporary oversupply or shortages of products within the supply chain – such as driver ICs, LEDs, or the end products – also create fluctuations in prices. We ignore these short-term fluctuations; in our studies we focus on the underlying medium-term trends in demand and technology.
LEDs are relatively uniform and easy to understand – compared to drivers. As one supplier said, explaining drivers requires a deep dive, but few customers have the patience or expertise to listen for very long. Yet, with some patience, LED drivers can be appreciated as a critical partner to LEDs, which garner so much attention.
Tom Hausken is Director of the Components Practice at Strategies Unlimited, a market research firm based in Mountain View, California. The company's most recent market-research report on LED Driver ICs was published in June 2011.
However, we expect that AC-LEDs will have an impact only in certain product segments. In replacement bulbs, the pressure to innovate is so high that the AC-LED is just one of several novel solutions, and there is no room for older, less-innovative designs. Consequently, there are plenty of opportunities for everyone.
The high-voltage LED (HV-LED) is another buzz word but it will have minimal impact on the driver market. LED-based products commonly use long strings of LEDs in series. Until recently, the LEDs have been packaged in discrete packages and assembled together in the luminaire or lamp.
An HV-LED integrates the LED string onto the same chip or within the same package, gaining some advantages for the customer. It means little to the driver design, other than the usual considerations for the LED load that impacts every product design.
Estimates for IC pricing also complicate the forecast. It's obvious that IC prices decline over time as volumes increase and margins shrink. What's not as clear is the effect on the average price of changes in the product mix.
New products can appear at much higher prices than more-mature products in the same category, but can earn the difference via savings in component count or improved LED performance. The new products may be priced higher because they use a larger chip that takes up more wafer area, because they use a more expensive foundry process, or simply because they deliver more value, and can earn greater margin for the chip supplier.
Temporary oversupply or shortages of products within the supply chain – such as driver ICs, LEDs, or the end products – also create fluctuations in prices. We ignore these short-term fluctuations; in our studies we focus on the underlying medium-term trends in demand and technology.
LEDs are relatively uniform and easy to understand – compared to drivers. As one supplier said, explaining drivers requires a deep dive, but few customers have the patience or expertise to listen for very long. Yet, with some patience, LED drivers can be appreciated as a critical partner to LEDs, which garner so much attention.
Tom Hausken is Director of the Components Practice at Strategies Unlimited, a market research firm based in Mountain View, California. The company's most recent market-research report on LED Driver ICs was published in June 2011.
2011年11月28日 星期一
What's So "Smart" About a Smart Home?
One of the biggest challenges in our country is to conserve our energy supply. Energy, usually starting in the form of natural gas or other fossil fuels, is burned or converted to electricity to supply heating, cooling, illumination, and other household conveniences.
It is estimated that an average home wastes about 30% of the energy used for heating and cooling due to poor household insulation. The U. S. Department of Energy estimates an annual cost of about $1,900 per household in lost energy savings. And that doesn't count the energy we use for lighting, appliances, computers, video games, and many other things we might take for granted.
So, what have the designers of SmartHome Cleveland done to address these and other environmental challenges? They have incorporated a variety of technologies to reduce this home's heating and cooling demands to about 10% of that required by the average home, and they have reduced the need for primary energy consumption to about 30% of that used in the average home. Let's take a closer look at some of these technologies and the strategies to employ them.
The first design principle was to create an air-tight system of super insulation. This involved installing an insulated concrete foundation and walls one foot thick that use a combination of synthetic foams and natural cellulose. High-performance triple-pane windows seal in the heat and keep out the cold. Even the joists and beams in the house's construction were insulated to prevent conduction of the home's heat to the outside. Even the little bit of heat that would normally escape to the outside is channeled back into the incoming air.
Large windows with a southern exposure are used to allow the sun's heat energy into the home during the winter. Instead of a furnace, the SmartHome uses the sun's heat energy and a small, ductless, air-source heat pump to provide winter heating. The inside-outside air exchange in the house is rated at about 0.6 changes per hour.
A typical home exchanges its internal air supply with the outside about 3 to 6 times per hour. By comparison, a drafty, poorly-insulated home might be exchanging its complete air system with the outside as much as 20 times per hour! In northeast Ohio, with winters averaging about 30 degrees Fahrenheit, you can calculate that you might have to heat a poorly insulated house 33 times for every 1 time in the SmartHome!
A solar panel array and a storage/conversion system provide the home's electricity. Enough electricity is generated to power the heating-cooling-ventilation system and the energy-efficient appliances and LED lighting. The large southern windows also provide a special kind of directional shading. In the summer, when the sun is higher in the sky and more heat energy is concentrated in the northern hemisphere, the shading reflects the sun's rays back toward the outside. The heat pump, insulated walls, and roof also help to maintain a comfortable summer temperature.
Outside the house, the roof, a rain garden, and pervious pavement channels up to 500 gallons of rain water and storm runoff to a storage cistern and irrigation system. This reduces the demand on the city sewer system and provides recycled water used to keep the shade trees, lawn, and garden plants healthy during the hot Ohio summer.
It is estimated that an average home wastes about 30% of the energy used for heating and cooling due to poor household insulation. The U. S. Department of Energy estimates an annual cost of about $1,900 per household in lost energy savings. And that doesn't count the energy we use for lighting, appliances, computers, video games, and many other things we might take for granted.
So, what have the designers of SmartHome Cleveland done to address these and other environmental challenges? They have incorporated a variety of technologies to reduce this home's heating and cooling demands to about 10% of that required by the average home, and they have reduced the need for primary energy consumption to about 30% of that used in the average home. Let's take a closer look at some of these technologies and the strategies to employ them.
The first design principle was to create an air-tight system of super insulation. This involved installing an insulated concrete foundation and walls one foot thick that use a combination of synthetic foams and natural cellulose. High-performance triple-pane windows seal in the heat and keep out the cold. Even the joists and beams in the house's construction were insulated to prevent conduction of the home's heat to the outside. Even the little bit of heat that would normally escape to the outside is channeled back into the incoming air.
Large windows with a southern exposure are used to allow the sun's heat energy into the home during the winter. Instead of a furnace, the SmartHome uses the sun's heat energy and a small, ductless, air-source heat pump to provide winter heating. The inside-outside air exchange in the house is rated at about 0.6 changes per hour.
A typical home exchanges its internal air supply with the outside about 3 to 6 times per hour. By comparison, a drafty, poorly-insulated home might be exchanging its complete air system with the outside as much as 20 times per hour! In northeast Ohio, with winters averaging about 30 degrees Fahrenheit, you can calculate that you might have to heat a poorly insulated house 33 times for every 1 time in the SmartHome!
A solar panel array and a storage/conversion system provide the home's electricity. Enough electricity is generated to power the heating-cooling-ventilation system and the energy-efficient appliances and LED lighting. The large southern windows also provide a special kind of directional shading. In the summer, when the sun is higher in the sky and more heat energy is concentrated in the northern hemisphere, the shading reflects the sun's rays back toward the outside. The heat pump, insulated walls, and roof also help to maintain a comfortable summer temperature.
Outside the house, the roof, a rain garden, and pervious pavement channels up to 500 gallons of rain water and storm runoff to a storage cistern and irrigation system. This reduces the demand on the city sewer system and provides recycled water used to keep the shade trees, lawn, and garden plants healthy during the hot Ohio summer.
2011年11月27日 星期日
Paying for a little holiday cheer: Christmas Decor will do the job
Slippery shingles may provide the best rationalization ever for using the services of a company like Christmas Decor, which puts up lights for homeowners and businesses eager to brighten up the holiday season. It can be dangerous up on the house top.
"There are plenty of customers [who] have us just for the roof lights," said Alex Wettach, sales manager and designer for the Gibsonia operation that has had crews out daily for weeks now putting up lights and wreaths on homes in the Pittsburgh region.
But even the ranks of homeowners who want more done have grown since the franchise operation launched five years ago as a seasonal fill-in for E.L.F. Entertainment, a 15-year-old business that helps with school field days, manages inflatables for the Pittsburgh Pirates and sets up photo booths at parties.
The Christmas Decor franchise expects to decorate about 150 homes across the area this season, up from about 50 homes the first year, said Laura Rodavich, vice president of sales and marketing.
Still, she said, such a niche business can be a valuable sideline for seasonal businesses that need revenue during the holiday season. To make it work, she said, businesses probably need to cultivate neighborhoods where decorating is the norm. In addition, she suggested, scaled pricing might make the service affordable for homeowners who might be attracted to the convenience and the time savings.
Or perhaps offering services like, say, being willing to do just the roof and bringing along a 40-foot ladder.
"They come out in all types of weather," said Denise Brown, whose Collier home backing up on the Nevillewood golf course was swarmed recently by a team of guys wearing dark blue hoodies with "Decor Team" on the back. The decorating crew had draped a 20-foot-plus door in greenery and were busily wrapping white light strands around trees.
This is the third or fourth year that Christmas Decor has done the Browns' house. The homeowners hadn't used a service before. "We look forward to it every year," said Ms. Brown, who added that she loves the look of the lights at night.
Business has grown pretty steadily every year, said Ms. Rodavich, even through the depths of the recession. "Some people did cut back, while others went forward," she said.
The company that sells the franchises was started in the 1980s by a Lubbock, Texas, landscaper who didn't have enough business between October and January. It began franchising in the mid-1990s and now claims to have more than 350 franchisees.
Although its materials claim a franchise can be set up for about $5,000, costs seem likely to add up. The Gibsonia franchise owned by Maury Frankel, which also has a 3-year-old sibling, Nite Decor, doing year-round landscape lighting, buys LED lights for each customer's house and then stores them during the off-season in labeled bins. After three years, the materials are all replaced to reduce issues with wear and tear.
If a customer decides to do something different after a year or two -- try colorful lights, for example -- the company buys the needed strands.
That doesn't seem to happen very often.
One Christmas movie has left an indelible impression on many Americans. In "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation," the father sets up a gaudy display of lights. The effect is dumbfounding and, as the Wikipedia summary puts it, causes a power drain at the local nuclear power plant.
"There are plenty of customers [who] have us just for the roof lights," said Alex Wettach, sales manager and designer for the Gibsonia operation that has had crews out daily for weeks now putting up lights and wreaths on homes in the Pittsburgh region.
But even the ranks of homeowners who want more done have grown since the franchise operation launched five years ago as a seasonal fill-in for E.L.F. Entertainment, a 15-year-old business that helps with school field days, manages inflatables for the Pittsburgh Pirates and sets up photo booths at parties.
The Christmas Decor franchise expects to decorate about 150 homes across the area this season, up from about 50 homes the first year, said Laura Rodavich, vice president of sales and marketing.
Still, she said, such a niche business can be a valuable sideline for seasonal businesses that need revenue during the holiday season. To make it work, she said, businesses probably need to cultivate neighborhoods where decorating is the norm. In addition, she suggested, scaled pricing might make the service affordable for homeowners who might be attracted to the convenience and the time savings.
Or perhaps offering services like, say, being willing to do just the roof and bringing along a 40-foot ladder.
"They come out in all types of weather," said Denise Brown, whose Collier home backing up on the Nevillewood golf course was swarmed recently by a team of guys wearing dark blue hoodies with "Decor Team" on the back. The decorating crew had draped a 20-foot-plus door in greenery and were busily wrapping white light strands around trees.
This is the third or fourth year that Christmas Decor has done the Browns' house. The homeowners hadn't used a service before. "We look forward to it every year," said Ms. Brown, who added that she loves the look of the lights at night.
Business has grown pretty steadily every year, said Ms. Rodavich, even through the depths of the recession. "Some people did cut back, while others went forward," she said.
The company that sells the franchises was started in the 1980s by a Lubbock, Texas, landscaper who didn't have enough business between October and January. It began franchising in the mid-1990s and now claims to have more than 350 franchisees.
Although its materials claim a franchise can be set up for about $5,000, costs seem likely to add up. The Gibsonia franchise owned by Maury Frankel, which also has a 3-year-old sibling, Nite Decor, doing year-round landscape lighting, buys LED lights for each customer's house and then stores them during the off-season in labeled bins. After three years, the materials are all replaced to reduce issues with wear and tear.
If a customer decides to do something different after a year or two -- try colorful lights, for example -- the company buys the needed strands.
That doesn't seem to happen very often.
One Christmas movie has left an indelible impression on many Americans. In "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation," the father sets up a gaudy display of lights. The effect is dumbfounding and, as the Wikipedia summary puts it, causes a power drain at the local nuclear power plant.
2011年11月24日 星期四
Energy Efficient Lighting for Commercial Markets
For more than 130 years, the world has relied on variations of incandescent and gas-discharge lamps to illuminate commercial buildings. With the rise of the general-illumination white LED lighting only a few years ago, the lighting industry is experiencing its first revolutionary change since the commercialization of the fluorescent lamp in the 1930s.
As the semiconductor and software industries converge on the traditional lighting world, Pike Research expects that the lighting industry will see more change in the next five years than in the previous 50. By the end of our 10-year outlook, LED solid state lighting will not only capture over 50% of the global market, but the extraordinary lifetimes of these lamps will drive a steady decline in the commercial lamp market despite a steadily growing base of new buildings and access to electricity in emerging countries.
Today's market includes a flurry of start-ups and global giants spending the vast majority of their development resources on putting the LED payback period on par with that of fluorescent. Not only are LED costs projected to decline rapidly, but each year those projections are accelerated; an indication that the rate of change continues to be underestimated.
But for at least the next several years, LEDs are out of reach for the general illumination market and are seeing early success in niche markets and applications. For the mass energy efficiency market, the most influential market drivers are energy codes, rebates and incentives, all of which raise the minimum standards and effectively pare out the least efficient - such as incandescent lamps.
On the cutting edge of efficiency, certifications such as the USGBC's LEED, publicly funded projects, and those supported by conservationists are raising the bar on high standards and pulling energy code requirements up in the process.
This Pike Research report describes the key factors that are influencing the market for energy efficient lighting around the world: trends in energy codes, rebate and subsidy programs, sustainability/green certifications, raw material supply issues, geopolitical influences in developing and developed nations, and more.
The report describes the influence of industry structure, key applications, and the many technology issues involved in the decision to specify various lighting technologies. Comprehensive unit and dollar forecasts are presented through 2021, segmented by application, lamp type/LED, luminaires, and geographic region.
As the semiconductor and software industries converge on the traditional lighting world, Pike Research expects that the lighting industry will see more change in the next five years than in the previous 50. By the end of our 10-year outlook, LED solid state lighting will not only capture over 50% of the global market, but the extraordinary lifetimes of these lamps will drive a steady decline in the commercial lamp market despite a steadily growing base of new buildings and access to electricity in emerging countries.
Today's market includes a flurry of start-ups and global giants spending the vast majority of their development resources on putting the LED payback period on par with that of fluorescent. Not only are LED costs projected to decline rapidly, but each year those projections are accelerated; an indication that the rate of change continues to be underestimated.
But for at least the next several years, LEDs are out of reach for the general illumination market and are seeing early success in niche markets and applications. For the mass energy efficiency market, the most influential market drivers are energy codes, rebates and incentives, all of which raise the minimum standards and effectively pare out the least efficient - such as incandescent lamps.
On the cutting edge of efficiency, certifications such as the USGBC's LEED, publicly funded projects, and those supported by conservationists are raising the bar on high standards and pulling energy code requirements up in the process.
This Pike Research report describes the key factors that are influencing the market for energy efficient lighting around the world: trends in energy codes, rebate and subsidy programs, sustainability/green certifications, raw material supply issues, geopolitical influences in developing and developed nations, and more.
The report describes the influence of industry structure, key applications, and the many technology issues involved in the decision to specify various lighting technologies. Comprehensive unit and dollar forecasts are presented through 2021, segmented by application, lamp type/LED, luminaires, and geographic region.
2011年11月23日 星期三
Lyme Regis: Get into the Christmas spirit at lights switch-on
ORGANISERS are encouraging the Lyme Regis community to get into the Christmas spirit for the big lights switch-on this Satur-day.
The annual lantern parade through Broad Street and the lighting up of the town's tree will kick off the festive period.
In the following weeks leading up to Christmas, every Friday will be late night shopping to encourage residents to support their local businesses and bring in people from elsewhere to shop in the town.
Events start at 3pm on Saturday with a free lantern-making workshop for children at the Baptist Church.
All the entries – made at home or at the workshop – will be judged in nine categories at 4.30pm, with the Starlight Cup awarded to the best entry from the workshop and the Lymelight Cup going to the best overall entry.
The Lyme Regis Majorettes will lead the lantern parade from the Baptist Church at 5.15pm, and Father Christmas (Dave Causley) will be going via fire engine.
Town Mayor Sally Holman and Christmas Lights Committee chairman Barbara Austin will turn on the lights at the Shambles, Broad Street, at 5.30pm.
Mrs Austin said: "It should be a good evening and I hope for good weather.
"It's a good start to Christmas and I hope people will turn out and support us.
"Although times are hard at the moment, hopefully it will put people in the Christmas spirit."
She also praised the traders who have contributed to the display.
The initiative has been backed by a 2,000 Business Support Grant from West Dorset District Council, and Lyme Regis Town Council decided the money should be spent in this way.
A remaining 1,000 will help promote Lyme as a cruise ship destination.
Town councillor Rikey Austin, vice-chairman of the tourism and advertising sub-committee and owner of Alice's Bear Shop in Broad Street, is one of the lead organisers.
She said: "With the wonderful energy and ideas coming from our local businesses and an unbeatable setting we think we're at the beginning of a Christmas tradition that will grow and grow."
Events adding to the festive atmosphere will include hot chestnuts for sale, carol singing, a ‘Spot the Reindeer' competition in show windows, performers from the Marine Theatre entertaining in the streets, and appearances from Father Christmas.
Traders will be decorating their shops and the best dressed window will be chosen by Town Mayor Sally Holman and win 100, to be judged on Friday December 23.
LYME Regis Museum will be hosting a big lights switch-on of its own this Saturday.
A new lighting system has been installed and everyone is invited to see the museum's exhibits in a new light, with mulled wine and mince pies, from 6pm following the town's switch-on.
The annual lantern parade through Broad Street and the lighting up of the town's tree will kick off the festive period.
In the following weeks leading up to Christmas, every Friday will be late night shopping to encourage residents to support their local businesses and bring in people from elsewhere to shop in the town.
Events start at 3pm on Saturday with a free lantern-making workshop for children at the Baptist Church.
All the entries – made at home or at the workshop – will be judged in nine categories at 4.30pm, with the Starlight Cup awarded to the best entry from the workshop and the Lymelight Cup going to the best overall entry.
The Lyme Regis Majorettes will lead the lantern parade from the Baptist Church at 5.15pm, and Father Christmas (Dave Causley) will be going via fire engine.
Town Mayor Sally Holman and Christmas Lights Committee chairman Barbara Austin will turn on the lights at the Shambles, Broad Street, at 5.30pm.
Mrs Austin said: "It should be a good evening and I hope for good weather.
"It's a good start to Christmas and I hope people will turn out and support us.
"Although times are hard at the moment, hopefully it will put people in the Christmas spirit."
She also praised the traders who have contributed to the display.
The initiative has been backed by a 2,000 Business Support Grant from West Dorset District Council, and Lyme Regis Town Council decided the money should be spent in this way.
A remaining 1,000 will help promote Lyme as a cruise ship destination.
Town councillor Rikey Austin, vice-chairman of the tourism and advertising sub-committee and owner of Alice's Bear Shop in Broad Street, is one of the lead organisers.
She said: "With the wonderful energy and ideas coming from our local businesses and an unbeatable setting we think we're at the beginning of a Christmas tradition that will grow and grow."
Events adding to the festive atmosphere will include hot chestnuts for sale, carol singing, a ‘Spot the Reindeer' competition in show windows, performers from the Marine Theatre entertaining in the streets, and appearances from Father Christmas.
Traders will be decorating their shops and the best dressed window will be chosen by Town Mayor Sally Holman and win 100, to be judged on Friday December 23.
LYME Regis Museum will be hosting a big lights switch-on of its own this Saturday.
A new lighting system has been installed and everyone is invited to see the museum's exhibits in a new light, with mulled wine and mince pies, from 6pm following the town's switch-on.
2011年11月22日 星期二
Starry Nights Returning to Shelby Farms
Memphis, Tn - First Tennessee Starry Nights returns to Shelby Farms Park in 2011 with new features designed to create a memorable holiday experience for the whole family.
The event will run from November 25 - December 30, and will feature dozens of enormous holiday displays illuminated with more than a million environmentally friendly LED lights.
This year, visitors can see the show in a whole new light with horse-drawn Starry Carriage Rides and Starry Hayrides. The Parks Woodland Discovery Playground has been transformed into the shows newest exhibit and the home of the magical Mistletoe Village. And for the first time, tickets are available for pre-purchase online!
ACTIVITIES FOR KIDS AT THE MISTLETOE VILLAGE
Kids and families can have portraits made with Santa at the Mistletoe Village, sponsored by Boyle Investments. With fire pits for roasting smores, munchies and hot cocoa at the Holiday Cafe, live performances by carolers, choirs and bands, new park merchandise and collectibles for sale and fun features like the Harrahs Gingerbread Corner, the Mistletoe Village has something for everyone.
On Saturdays and Sundays in December from 1pm-5pm, children can decorate gingerbread people at Harrahs Gingerbread Corner in the Mistletoe Market ($8 per child to decorate a gingerbread person, limit one per child per day). He's best known for his 2006 creation of the worlds largest gingerbread house, which was an astounding 67 feet tall (free to attend, $8 per child to decorate, limit one per child per day).
GET A DISCOUNT ON THEME NIGHTS
Tacky Holiday Sweater Night, Biker Night, and Decorate You Car Night are a few of the fun Theme Nights SFPC has added to the event, giving visitors a chance to have some fun and earn a discount on their car tickets at the same time. A full list of theme nights is available on the event website. Discounts apply only to standard $20 car tickets and must be taken at the gate the night of the show (discounts cannot be taken on pre-purchased tickets).
RUN, WALK, BIKE NIGHTS
Monday evenings in December are reserved and designated for non-vehicular use like bicycling, walking, and other features for Run, Walk, Bike nights.
SOUNDS OF STARRY NIGHTS
Starry Nights will once again have a musical soundtrack, featuring local musicians coordinated by Dean Deyo of Memphis Music Foundation. Visitors can tune into a special radio station once they enter the Park to hear holiday music.
EVENT DATES AND HOURS
Starry Nights will open at Shelby Farms Park the day after Thanksgiving, November 25, and will run each evening until December 30, open from 6-9pm Sunday through Thursday and 6-10pm Friday and Saturday. The Mistletoe Village will be open each night during show hours, plus 1pm-5pm on Saturday and Sunday. Carriage Rides and Hayrides are available Sunday-Thursday only.
The event will run from November 25 - December 30, and will feature dozens of enormous holiday displays illuminated with more than a million environmentally friendly LED lights.
This year, visitors can see the show in a whole new light with horse-drawn Starry Carriage Rides and Starry Hayrides. The Parks Woodland Discovery Playground has been transformed into the shows newest exhibit and the home of the magical Mistletoe Village. And for the first time, tickets are available for pre-purchase online!
ACTIVITIES FOR KIDS AT THE MISTLETOE VILLAGE
Kids and families can have portraits made with Santa at the Mistletoe Village, sponsored by Boyle Investments. With fire pits for roasting smores, munchies and hot cocoa at the Holiday Cafe, live performances by carolers, choirs and bands, new park merchandise and collectibles for sale and fun features like the Harrahs Gingerbread Corner, the Mistletoe Village has something for everyone.
On Saturdays and Sundays in December from 1pm-5pm, children can decorate gingerbread people at Harrahs Gingerbread Corner in the Mistletoe Market ($8 per child to decorate a gingerbread person, limit one per child per day). He's best known for his 2006 creation of the worlds largest gingerbread house, which was an astounding 67 feet tall (free to attend, $8 per child to decorate, limit one per child per day).
GET A DISCOUNT ON THEME NIGHTS
Tacky Holiday Sweater Night, Biker Night, and Decorate You Car Night are a few of the fun Theme Nights SFPC has added to the event, giving visitors a chance to have some fun and earn a discount on their car tickets at the same time. A full list of theme nights is available on the event website. Discounts apply only to standard $20 car tickets and must be taken at the gate the night of the show (discounts cannot be taken on pre-purchased tickets).
RUN, WALK, BIKE NIGHTS
Monday evenings in December are reserved and designated for non-vehicular use like bicycling, walking, and other features for Run, Walk, Bike nights.
SOUNDS OF STARRY NIGHTS
Starry Nights will once again have a musical soundtrack, featuring local musicians coordinated by Dean Deyo of Memphis Music Foundation. Visitors can tune into a special radio station once they enter the Park to hear holiday music.
EVENT DATES AND HOURS
Starry Nights will open at Shelby Farms Park the day after Thanksgiving, November 25, and will run each evening until December 30, open from 6-9pm Sunday through Thursday and 6-10pm Friday and Saturday. The Mistletoe Village will be open each night during show hours, plus 1pm-5pm on Saturday and Sunday. Carriage Rides and Hayrides are available Sunday-Thursday only.
2011年11月21日 星期一
2013 Volkswagen CC: Mid-Size Luxury Sedan Debuts At 2011 Los Angeles Auto Show
Now that the 2013 Volkswagen CC mid-size luxury sedan has officially made its debut at the 2011 Los Angeles Auto Show, we're pleased to note that the actual four-door coupe looks even better up close and personal.
MotorAuthority was all over the scene at the show, and the live photos from the floor show off the latest iteration of the CC.
Since we previewed the new CC a bit earlier, here we'll just pass along some of the specifics gleaned from its auto show debut.
The front and rear body sections of the CC have been reworked with the twin goals of making them look more elegant and yet muscular. Of note in the front grille are the three chrome bars that bear a styling resemblance to the Passat.
Seating for five – As befitting a mid-size luxury family car, the interior of the new CC has been modified to seat five passengers. This is accomplished by way of a bench seat in the rear, instead of two individual bucket seats. VR6 models sport engineered ebony trim, replacing the Zebrano trim in other CCs.
More standard features – Added standard features include Bi-Xenon headlights, LED taillights, LED license-plate illumination and bigger side-sill flares. Optional on CC Sport and standard on all other CC models are LED daytime running lights and the Adaptive Front Lighting system that turns up the beams by 15 degrees for increased visibility around corners. New standard features for the 2013 CC include front head restraints that adjust fore-and-aft and up-and-down. Also new is remote latching for the rear seatback. Both sections of the split seatback can be easily unlatched by using levers mounted under the rear shelf on the right and left sides of the trunk.
2.0T Sport Plus – Slotting above the base 2.0T Sport, the 2.0T Sport Plus adds Bi-Xenon headlights with LED daytime running lights and Adaptive Front Lighting system, new 18-inch Mallory wheels with all-season 235/40 tires and the RNS 315 navigation system
Power for all --2.0T models comes from a 200-horsepower 2.0-liter turbocharged and direct-injected TSI four-cylinder engine.
V6 Lux – Another new model in the CC lineup, the V6 Lux is powered by a 280-horsepower 3.6-liter VR6 engine paired with a six-speed DRG dual-clutch automatic transmission and front-wheel drive. Other standard features in V6 Lux include a rearview camera, headlight-washing system with heated nozzles, the RNS 510 navigation system with 6.5-inch touchscreen, leather seating surfaces, ventilated front seats, memory seating and mirrors, "Interlagos" 18-inch wheels, and engineered ebony trim.
Available in six models: 2.0T Sport, 2.0T Sport Plus, 2.0T R-Line, 2.0T Lux, V6 Lux, and VR6 4Motion Executive, the 2013 Volkswagen CC will go on sale in the spring of 2012. All 2.0T models and the V6 Lux are front-wheel drive. Only the VR6 4Motion Executive is all-wheel drive.
MotorAuthority was all over the scene at the show, and the live photos from the floor show off the latest iteration of the CC.
Since we previewed the new CC a bit earlier, here we'll just pass along some of the specifics gleaned from its auto show debut.
The front and rear body sections of the CC have been reworked with the twin goals of making them look more elegant and yet muscular. Of note in the front grille are the three chrome bars that bear a styling resemblance to the Passat.
Seating for five – As befitting a mid-size luxury family car, the interior of the new CC has been modified to seat five passengers. This is accomplished by way of a bench seat in the rear, instead of two individual bucket seats. VR6 models sport engineered ebony trim, replacing the Zebrano trim in other CCs.
More standard features – Added standard features include Bi-Xenon headlights, LED taillights, LED license-plate illumination and bigger side-sill flares. Optional on CC Sport and standard on all other CC models are LED daytime running lights and the Adaptive Front Lighting system that turns up the beams by 15 degrees for increased visibility around corners. New standard features for the 2013 CC include front head restraints that adjust fore-and-aft and up-and-down. Also new is remote latching for the rear seatback. Both sections of the split seatback can be easily unlatched by using levers mounted under the rear shelf on the right and left sides of the trunk.
2.0T Sport Plus – Slotting above the base 2.0T Sport, the 2.0T Sport Plus adds Bi-Xenon headlights with LED daytime running lights and Adaptive Front Lighting system, new 18-inch Mallory wheels with all-season 235/40 tires and the RNS 315 navigation system
Power for all --2.0T models comes from a 200-horsepower 2.0-liter turbocharged and direct-injected TSI four-cylinder engine.
V6 Lux – Another new model in the CC lineup, the V6 Lux is powered by a 280-horsepower 3.6-liter VR6 engine paired with a six-speed DRG dual-clutch automatic transmission and front-wheel drive. Other standard features in V6 Lux include a rearview camera, headlight-washing system with heated nozzles, the RNS 510 navigation system with 6.5-inch touchscreen, leather seating surfaces, ventilated front seats, memory seating and mirrors, "Interlagos" 18-inch wheels, and engineered ebony trim.
Available in six models: 2.0T Sport, 2.0T Sport Plus, 2.0T R-Line, 2.0T Lux, V6 Lux, and VR6 4Motion Executive, the 2013 Volkswagen CC will go on sale in the spring of 2012. All 2.0T models and the V6 Lux are front-wheel drive. Only the VR6 4Motion Executive is all-wheel drive.
2011年11月20日 星期日
Raleigh 2012 bikes: steel Clubman breaks cover
Our recent invitation to the Hillingdon racing circuit to see the Raleigh 2012 carbon road bikes bought to light that they were planning to offer in the UK a selection from the very interesting steel-based niche machines developed for the US market. One in particular, the Clubman which our Dave only saw as images and a spec list really caught his eye inclined as he is to bashing off the odd hilly Century on finely-wrought steel. This week Raleigh came good on their promise to show us the first one that arrived.
It seems odd that the company celebrating next year their foundation in Nottingham in 1887 should be focusing attention on America but that's been the apparent priority these last few years as they've clawed back a place for themselves in the world's largest bike market and upon which the strength of the brand is necessarily based.
The fact that Raleigh's heritage is partly based on what the Americans used to call "English Racers" isn't doing them any harm at all now that road bikes, 'Gran Fondo' rides and commuting to work are back on the Stateside agenda.
In what might be called 'carbon racing' they're as up against it as any company in that scary field where balancing the tightrope of low weight, competitive price, sufficient strength and the dreaded lateral stiffness/vertical compliance is the stuff of a bike company product manager's nightmares.
In the area where customers are looking for something else - certain undefinable aspects filed under 'character' - as well as extremely measurable features like price, longer-term performance and the ability to be repaired by a blacksmith up a track in the Gironde, the Raleigh folks can call on in-house memory; they haven't had to reinvent the wheel, as it where.
Despite the tradional-handling geometry, the modish sloping top tube will please bike shops used to sizing customers on mountain bikes and help riders with a comfortable, slightly raised front end. In short, Clubman looks like it should be great for everything except actual racing, heavy touring or traversing muddy fields. If you're the sort that plans on riding 5,000 - 10,000 road miles next year, mostly commuting with longer weekend rides, you'd likely have a very satisfactory year on a Clubman and just need to change the chain, cassette, tyres and brake blocks ready for another year.
OK, the Reynolds 520 cro-mo tubing isn't the lightest but neither are the fitted Vittoria 25mm tyres and Brooks Swift saddle; this is about going faster for longer and in comfort. The important thing is that the whole package comes in under the grand at 950 and we guarantee that if you bought this as a first proper road bike and later graduated to some flighty seducer for big rides, you could still be happily doing most of your daily mileage on this Clubman years later.
Up-to-date components like Shimano's latest 2x10-speed Tiagra transmission with a 50/34 crankset and 12-30 cassette will surely be appreciated for their deft shiftability, spares availability and interchangeability in the long run; that's a lot of abilities. Older touches to complement that saddle are traditional metal mudguards and looped stainless 'guard stays although we're less certain about how practical those painted 'guards are but, hey, they're going to look good in the showroom to match that neatly-finished frame.
It seems odd that the company celebrating next year their foundation in Nottingham in 1887 should be focusing attention on America but that's been the apparent priority these last few years as they've clawed back a place for themselves in the world's largest bike market and upon which the strength of the brand is necessarily based.
The fact that Raleigh's heritage is partly based on what the Americans used to call "English Racers" isn't doing them any harm at all now that road bikes, 'Gran Fondo' rides and commuting to work are back on the Stateside agenda.
In what might be called 'carbon racing' they're as up against it as any company in that scary field where balancing the tightrope of low weight, competitive price, sufficient strength and the dreaded lateral stiffness/vertical compliance is the stuff of a bike company product manager's nightmares.
In the area where customers are looking for something else - certain undefinable aspects filed under 'character' - as well as extremely measurable features like price, longer-term performance and the ability to be repaired by a blacksmith up a track in the Gironde, the Raleigh folks can call on in-house memory; they haven't had to reinvent the wheel, as it where.
Despite the tradional-handling geometry, the modish sloping top tube will please bike shops used to sizing customers on mountain bikes and help riders with a comfortable, slightly raised front end. In short, Clubman looks like it should be great for everything except actual racing, heavy touring or traversing muddy fields. If you're the sort that plans on riding 5,000 - 10,000 road miles next year, mostly commuting with longer weekend rides, you'd likely have a very satisfactory year on a Clubman and just need to change the chain, cassette, tyres and brake blocks ready for another year.
OK, the Reynolds 520 cro-mo tubing isn't the lightest but neither are the fitted Vittoria 25mm tyres and Brooks Swift saddle; this is about going faster for longer and in comfort. The important thing is that the whole package comes in under the grand at 950 and we guarantee that if you bought this as a first proper road bike and later graduated to some flighty seducer for big rides, you could still be happily doing most of your daily mileage on this Clubman years later.
Up-to-date components like Shimano's latest 2x10-speed Tiagra transmission with a 50/34 crankset and 12-30 cassette will surely be appreciated for their deft shiftability, spares availability and interchangeability in the long run; that's a lot of abilities. Older touches to complement that saddle are traditional metal mudguards and looped stainless 'guard stays although we're less certain about how practical those painted 'guards are but, hey, they're going to look good in the showroom to match that neatly-finished frame.
2011年11月17日 星期四
Paul Wilson, NXP Semiconductors
Wilson discussed some of the hardware components that intelligent lights require and the importance of power control and efficiency in a successful intelligent-lighting network:
"Lighting represents one of the world's greatest opportunities for significant energy savings, as up to 25% of home-energy usage is from lighting. We all know the energy-savings potential of LED lighting in replacing the existing base of incandescent lights. We estimate that another 30% of savings can be gathered by applying [and combining] these LED lights with intelligent lighting: Use light when you really need light. With smart controls, you can do dimming, scenes, profiles, adjustments, monitoring, [and] preventive maintenance. [In addition] intelligent lighting enables participation in utilities' demand-response programs, resulting in reduced tariffs.
"Some of the key elements of an intelligent-lighting network are the switches, sensors, controllers, and the wirelessly enabled smart lamps themselves. If you want to have access to them through smartphones, tablets, and other Internet-connected devices, then you need to have some sort of gateway. I'll talk a little about what's going on inside that wirelessly enabled smart lamp because there is a price to pay in terms of power when you're putting all this smart technology inside a light bulb.
"One of the gotchas in smart lighting is now that you have the smart power supply, it must be constantly on and drawing power. Even when the switch is in the off position, the light must be listening for controller signals. Fortunately, intelligent light bulbs, which are often centrally positioned in every room, can make ideal network routers, but they do draw continuous amounts of power even when off, so standby power can impact system power efficiency.
"Standby power can vary dramatically based on power-supply topology. For example, a low-cost linear supply can consume as much as 3W; in a 13W LED you'll negate the power savings of using an LED lamp, so that's not a really smart way of doing it. … A better choice is a buck topology with about 10 mW of standby power. State of the art for a radio transceiver for the wireless portion is about 17 mA of current. The networking stack you choose has an impact, as well. David [Ewing] mentioned 6LoWPAN. I think the key is to get the code size small and then keep the RF-transceiver- and microcontroller-power needs as low as possible. Using a ‘mostly asleep' duty-cycle design where the transceiver and microcontroller don't have to be constantly on also helps cut down on standby power.
"As an example of how real this issue is, a 10W bulb on for four hours a day uses 40 Whr a day. If the standby power for the device is 1W ... it will consume about 20 Whr a day; 33% of the power is consumed in standby. At 100 mW, it falls to 2 Whr, or just 5% of the electricity bill at 100 mW standby power; NXP demonstrated at LightFair last May its 6LoWPAN chip set operating with a duty cycle of about 10% on and listening for control signals, resulting in a standby power of about 30 mW and reducing standby power to negligible amounts.
"Dimming control becomes much simpler when designing for smart lighting networks. Currently, LED lamps must be able to dim with existing TRIAC [triode-alternating-current] phase-cut dimmers, and including this circuitry in an LED lamp costs about 50 cents. In an intelligent-lighting system, users control dimming from a tablet, a smartphone, or a wireless device. Eliminating the TRIAC-dimmable circuitry will help offset the cost of including wireless circuitry and intelligence in LED lamps.
"Lighting represents one of the world's greatest opportunities for significant energy savings, as up to 25% of home-energy usage is from lighting. We all know the energy-savings potential of LED lighting in replacing the existing base of incandescent lights. We estimate that another 30% of savings can be gathered by applying [and combining] these LED lights with intelligent lighting: Use light when you really need light. With smart controls, you can do dimming, scenes, profiles, adjustments, monitoring, [and] preventive maintenance. [In addition] intelligent lighting enables participation in utilities' demand-response programs, resulting in reduced tariffs.
"Some of the key elements of an intelligent-lighting network are the switches, sensors, controllers, and the wirelessly enabled smart lamps themselves. If you want to have access to them through smartphones, tablets, and other Internet-connected devices, then you need to have some sort of gateway. I'll talk a little about what's going on inside that wirelessly enabled smart lamp because there is a price to pay in terms of power when you're putting all this smart technology inside a light bulb.
"One of the gotchas in smart lighting is now that you have the smart power supply, it must be constantly on and drawing power. Even when the switch is in the off position, the light must be listening for controller signals. Fortunately, intelligent light bulbs, which are often centrally positioned in every room, can make ideal network routers, but they do draw continuous amounts of power even when off, so standby power can impact system power efficiency.
"Standby power can vary dramatically based on power-supply topology. For example, a low-cost linear supply can consume as much as 3W; in a 13W LED you'll negate the power savings of using an LED lamp, so that's not a really smart way of doing it. … A better choice is a buck topology with about 10 mW of standby power. State of the art for a radio transceiver for the wireless portion is about 17 mA of current. The networking stack you choose has an impact, as well. David [Ewing] mentioned 6LoWPAN. I think the key is to get the code size small and then keep the RF-transceiver- and microcontroller-power needs as low as possible. Using a ‘mostly asleep' duty-cycle design where the transceiver and microcontroller don't have to be constantly on also helps cut down on standby power.
"As an example of how real this issue is, a 10W bulb on for four hours a day uses 40 Whr a day. If the standby power for the device is 1W ... it will consume about 20 Whr a day; 33% of the power is consumed in standby. At 100 mW, it falls to 2 Whr, or just 5% of the electricity bill at 100 mW standby power; NXP demonstrated at LightFair last May its 6LoWPAN chip set operating with a duty cycle of about 10% on and listening for control signals, resulting in a standby power of about 30 mW and reducing standby power to negligible amounts.
"Dimming control becomes much simpler when designing for smart lighting networks. Currently, LED lamps must be able to dim with existing TRIAC [triode-alternating-current] phase-cut dimmers, and including this circuitry in an LED lamp costs about 50 cents. In an intelligent-lighting system, users control dimming from a tablet, a smartphone, or a wireless device. Eliminating the TRIAC-dimmable circuitry will help offset the cost of including wireless circuitry and intelligence in LED lamps.
2011年11月16日 星期三
Airport saves tax dollars with ramp light changes
When Bear Valley Electric started its bulb replacement program for area businesses, the Big Bear Airport District researched which lights at the airport could benefit from the program. Utility costs are the third-highest expenditure at the airport. One of the places identified were the ramp lights, according to Pete Gwaltney, airport general manager. "Were there ways we could do something with the ramp lights?" Gwaltney asked. He instructed staff to find the answer.
Ramp lights illuminate the perimeter of the airport where airplanes are parked. They sit high on poles to provide safety and security to the area. The task was to replace the existing bulbs with money-saving LED bulbs. But it wasn't a simple matter of changing them out. New fixtures were needed.
A total of 26 lights were given new fixtures and new LED bulbs at a cost of $26,000. The project was completed Nov. 1. Gwaltney said Bear Valley Electric estimates the LED bulbs will cut the cost of running those lights in half. "We will see a return in our investment in 18 months," Gwaltney said.
A local company, Ludecke Electric, was contracted to do the work. "We were very pleased with the work," Gwaltney said. The contractor gave the airport a 10 percent discount from the original estimate because the fixtures were easy to replace, Gwaltney said.
More lights will be changed to use LED bulbs in other areas of the airport. Gwaltney said under the general maintenance program, the security lights on the hangars will be replaced. "That part may be spring before we finish," Gwaltney said.
Actual savings will be calculated through the next several months. "We will be tracking our savings," Gwaltney said.
During the Nov. 9 airport district board meeting, board member Gary Steube said the LED ramp light replacement was the only thing of note reported on in the meeting. "It's a tremendous savings," Steube said about the project. "
The LED ramp light update was given during the general manager's report. The board also discussed fellow board member Gloria Greene's signs promoting a community room at the airport but decided no action was necessary as Greene said she was removing the signs. The board also spent more than an hour approving minutes from three past meetings.
Board member Chuck Knight requested that Greene's behavior during the October meeting be placed on the agenda for the next meeting. He wants the board to censure Greene for what he believes is inappropriate behavior. Greene argued with board president Julie Smith after the October meeting.
Greene apologized, explaining she got caught up in the moment.
Knight's request to censure Greene was rejected by a majority of the board. Steube, Greene and board member Steven Baker opposed the request. "I'd really like to get it all behind us," Steube said. "I'd like to see us move on."
Greene's request to hire a neutral investigator to research Baker's comments regarding Gwaltney's performance was also rejected when it did not receive consensus. Smith, Steube and Knight opposed the item.
Ramp lights illuminate the perimeter of the airport where airplanes are parked. They sit high on poles to provide safety and security to the area. The task was to replace the existing bulbs with money-saving LED bulbs. But it wasn't a simple matter of changing them out. New fixtures were needed.
A total of 26 lights were given new fixtures and new LED bulbs at a cost of $26,000. The project was completed Nov. 1. Gwaltney said Bear Valley Electric estimates the LED bulbs will cut the cost of running those lights in half. "We will see a return in our investment in 18 months," Gwaltney said.
A local company, Ludecke Electric, was contracted to do the work. "We were very pleased with the work," Gwaltney said. The contractor gave the airport a 10 percent discount from the original estimate because the fixtures were easy to replace, Gwaltney said.
More lights will be changed to use LED bulbs in other areas of the airport. Gwaltney said under the general maintenance program, the security lights on the hangars will be replaced. "That part may be spring before we finish," Gwaltney said.
Actual savings will be calculated through the next several months. "We will be tracking our savings," Gwaltney said.
During the Nov. 9 airport district board meeting, board member Gary Steube said the LED ramp light replacement was the only thing of note reported on in the meeting. "It's a tremendous savings," Steube said about the project. "
The LED ramp light update was given during the general manager's report. The board also discussed fellow board member Gloria Greene's signs promoting a community room at the airport but decided no action was necessary as Greene said she was removing the signs. The board also spent more than an hour approving minutes from three past meetings.
Board member Chuck Knight requested that Greene's behavior during the October meeting be placed on the agenda for the next meeting. He wants the board to censure Greene for what he believes is inappropriate behavior. Greene argued with board president Julie Smith after the October meeting.
Greene apologized, explaining she got caught up in the moment.
Knight's request to censure Greene was rejected by a majority of the board. Steube, Greene and board member Steven Baker opposed the request. "I'd really like to get it all behind us," Steube said. "I'd like to see us move on."
Greene's request to hire a neutral investigator to research Baker's comments regarding Gwaltney's performance was also rejected when it did not receive consensus. Smith, Steube and Knight opposed the item.
2011年11月15日 星期二
MaxLite's Full Cutoff LED Wall Packs Included in DLC Qualified Products List
MaxLite, a provider of LED fluorescent energy efficient lighting products, has announced that its full cutoff LED Wall Packs have received the DesignLights Consortium (DLC) certification and have now been included in the Qualified Products List.
The DLC is a collaboration formed by the regional energy efficiency organizations and utility companies for increasing the awareness of efficient lighting for commercial purposes.
MaxLite's full cutoff Wall Packs are designed as alternatives to conventional fluorescent and HID fixtures. They are energy efficient and maintenance free. They are an effective alternative to fluorescent, metal halide, high and low pressure sodium, and induction lighting fixtures. The Wall Packs avoid cave-like appearances and provide a uniform and wide beam.
The cutoff Wall Packs provide a maximum brightness of up to 4200 lm and have a life of around 13 years or 50,000 h. They require low maintenance and provide higher energy savings, which allows achievement of ROI within two years. The lights can operate from 120 to 277 V.
The packs have a polyester coated, one-piece, cast aluminium, heavy-duty housing for protection from corrosion and rust. They have shatterproof glass and are sealed to prevent bugs and dust. The integral LED driver is Class 2 and is UL-listed. The LED module in the Wall Pack has an aluminium heat sink for thermal management. It also has directional settings.
The full cutoff, which uses 20 W has a color temperature of 5000K and delivers 1400 lm. It can replace metal halide fixtures up to 100 W. The 30 W cutoff can replace 150 W fixtures, while the 40 W can be used as a replacement for 175 W and the 70 W full cutoff Wall Pack can be used as a replacement for 250 W metal halide lamp.
The Wall Packs are offered in a textured white finish and a dark bronze finish. The lights are suitable for outdoor lighting and can be used for illuminating universities, schools, hospitals, public spaces, commercial buildings and hotels.
LUX Bar and LUX Dome serve as lighting in corporate offices, suites, guest rooms, lobbies, modern chain lodging, and back-of-house offices, luxury and boutique hotels furnishing guests with warm, clear and bright light for work and reading. With the latest advancements in solid-state lighting technology, LUX LED Task Lights are energy-efficient with enduring brightness of LEDs providing 250 lm and pleasant white (4000 K) light for up to 50,000 h of continuous illumination. The LUX Dome is coloured flat black, chartreuse green, turquoise and brushed nickel whereas LUX Bar is of a latest aluminum finish available in both independent and clamp-on version.
The product will substitute both incandescent lights and fluorescent (CFL) lights, with LUX line providing architectural designers a trendy, energy-efficient lighting alternative says Roger Edgar, President and CEO of Mighty Bright. Transformation from energy-consuming incandescent lighting and harmful fluorescent lighting to powerful LED task lights results in dynamic applications with superior features .
The DLC is a collaboration formed by the regional energy efficiency organizations and utility companies for increasing the awareness of efficient lighting for commercial purposes.
MaxLite's full cutoff Wall Packs are designed as alternatives to conventional fluorescent and HID fixtures. They are energy efficient and maintenance free. They are an effective alternative to fluorescent, metal halide, high and low pressure sodium, and induction lighting fixtures. The Wall Packs avoid cave-like appearances and provide a uniform and wide beam.
The cutoff Wall Packs provide a maximum brightness of up to 4200 lm and have a life of around 13 years or 50,000 h. They require low maintenance and provide higher energy savings, which allows achievement of ROI within two years. The lights can operate from 120 to 277 V.
The packs have a polyester coated, one-piece, cast aluminium, heavy-duty housing for protection from corrosion and rust. They have shatterproof glass and are sealed to prevent bugs and dust. The integral LED driver is Class 2 and is UL-listed. The LED module in the Wall Pack has an aluminium heat sink for thermal management. It also has directional settings.
The full cutoff, which uses 20 W has a color temperature of 5000K and delivers 1400 lm. It can replace metal halide fixtures up to 100 W. The 30 W cutoff can replace 150 W fixtures, while the 40 W can be used as a replacement for 175 W and the 70 W full cutoff Wall Pack can be used as a replacement for 250 W metal halide lamp.
The Wall Packs are offered in a textured white finish and a dark bronze finish. The lights are suitable for outdoor lighting and can be used for illuminating universities, schools, hospitals, public spaces, commercial buildings and hotels.
LUX Bar and LUX Dome serve as lighting in corporate offices, suites, guest rooms, lobbies, modern chain lodging, and back-of-house offices, luxury and boutique hotels furnishing guests with warm, clear and bright light for work and reading. With the latest advancements in solid-state lighting technology, LUX LED Task Lights are energy-efficient with enduring brightness of LEDs providing 250 lm and pleasant white (4000 K) light for up to 50,000 h of continuous illumination. The LUX Dome is coloured flat black, chartreuse green, turquoise and brushed nickel whereas LUX Bar is of a latest aluminum finish available in both independent and clamp-on version.
The product will substitute both incandescent lights and fluorescent (CFL) lights, with LUX line providing architectural designers a trendy, energy-efficient lighting alternative says Roger Edgar, President and CEO of Mighty Bright. Transformation from energy-consuming incandescent lighting and harmful fluorescent lighting to powerful LED task lights results in dynamic applications with superior features .
2011年11月14日 星期一
Flexible OLEDs - The state of play
Were we not promised super-thin bendable, flexible and rollable organic LED (OLED) displays?
Phones like Samsung's Galaxy and HTC's Desire have shown us that the rigid versions can deliver stunning images. So where are those flexies?
It turns out that they are also here, at least in proof-of-concept form, and they could even be on the shelves next year.
Sony has shown flexible OLED displays at the Society for Information Display conference more than once in the past few years, and Samsung has demonstrated flexible displays and said it will have products on the market in 2014, with rumours suggesting the Samsung is bringing this forward to 2012.
This said, significant hurdles remain in all four parts of a flexible OLED display: active matrix, substrate, OLED and barrier layers.
Like LCDs, a video-speed OLED display needs a matrix of drive transistors, thin-film transistors (TFTs), and flexible OLED displays will need flexible transistors.
Because OLED is a current-driven technology its transistors have to switch a non-trivial current, compared with LCD TFTs that are only required to change the voltage on what is essentially a capacitor.
Dr Jan Genoe is head of the Polymer and Molecular Electronics (PME) group at Belgian research lab Imec. His group works with the Netherlands' lab TNO on backplanes for rollable AMOLED displays at their Holst Centre in Eindhoven.
Both teams have been in the European Flame (flexible organic active matrix OLED displays for nomadic applications) project.
"Our main goal is transistors on flexible foil for making backplanes for OLED and other flexible displays," he told Electronics Weekly. "Our focus is truly rollable displays that can be rolled to 7mm diameter 10,000 times."
For LCDs on glass, amorphous silicon TFTs have been the order of the day or, for better quality displays, higher mobility polycrystalline transistors made by lasering amorphous silicon.
However, as far as anyone can tell, amorphous silicon has reached its slightly-disappointing full potential and will not be good enough for -current-driven displays.
The higher-mobility polycrystalline materials also have limitations in current-driven technologies because different crystals have different characteristics leading to variations between neighbouring transistors. With LCDs, this will show up as a slight difference in pixel speed, which is irrelevant. "One really crucial thing for displays is uniformity because eyes are very sensitive to slight differences," said Genoe. "Voltage-driven displays are very forgiving of transistor-to-transistor variations. In a current-driven display you will see the small differences."
So OLEDs need materials with higher mobility than amorphous silicon, and better uniformity than polycrystalline silicon.
"Our main focus is organic or oxide transistors on plastic foil," said Genoe, "and nowadays there is a shift to oxide transistors."
Oxide transistors are from a class of devices made from compounds that include metal and a non-metal atoms like oxygen. Copper oxide transistors are one of the earliest examples.
Phones like Samsung's Galaxy and HTC's Desire have shown us that the rigid versions can deliver stunning images. So where are those flexies?
It turns out that they are also here, at least in proof-of-concept form, and they could even be on the shelves next year.
Sony has shown flexible OLED displays at the Society for Information Display conference more than once in the past few years, and Samsung has demonstrated flexible displays and said it will have products on the market in 2014, with rumours suggesting the Samsung is bringing this forward to 2012.
This said, significant hurdles remain in all four parts of a flexible OLED display: active matrix, substrate, OLED and barrier layers.
Like LCDs, a video-speed OLED display needs a matrix of drive transistors, thin-film transistors (TFTs), and flexible OLED displays will need flexible transistors.
Because OLED is a current-driven technology its transistors have to switch a non-trivial current, compared with LCD TFTs that are only required to change the voltage on what is essentially a capacitor.
Dr Jan Genoe is head of the Polymer and Molecular Electronics (PME) group at Belgian research lab Imec. His group works with the Netherlands' lab TNO on backplanes for rollable AMOLED displays at their Holst Centre in Eindhoven.
Both teams have been in the European Flame (flexible organic active matrix OLED displays for nomadic applications) project.
"Our main goal is transistors on flexible foil for making backplanes for OLED and other flexible displays," he told Electronics Weekly. "Our focus is truly rollable displays that can be rolled to 7mm diameter 10,000 times."
For LCDs on glass, amorphous silicon TFTs have been the order of the day or, for better quality displays, higher mobility polycrystalline transistors made by lasering amorphous silicon.
However, as far as anyone can tell, amorphous silicon has reached its slightly-disappointing full potential and will not be good enough for -current-driven displays.
The higher-mobility polycrystalline materials also have limitations in current-driven technologies because different crystals have different characteristics leading to variations between neighbouring transistors. With LCDs, this will show up as a slight difference in pixel speed, which is irrelevant. "One really crucial thing for displays is uniformity because eyes are very sensitive to slight differences," said Genoe. "Voltage-driven displays are very forgiving of transistor-to-transistor variations. In a current-driven display you will see the small differences."
So OLEDs need materials with higher mobility than amorphous silicon, and better uniformity than polycrystalline silicon.
"Our main focus is organic or oxide transistors on plastic foil," said Genoe, "and nowadays there is a shift to oxide transistors."
Oxide transistors are from a class of devices made from compounds that include metal and a non-metal atoms like oxygen. Copper oxide transistors are one of the earliest examples.
2011年11月13日 星期日
School district to study energy-saving measures
A host of money- and energy-saving capital improvement projects will be up for approval at an upcoming Delaware city school board meeting.
Larry Davis, director of facilities and transportation, on Nov. 7 described to the board projects he expects can lower the district’s energy costs by $226,500 annually. The projects include insulation replacement in 11 district buildings, as well as lighting improvements in nine buildings.
“Every one of the schools is affected first of all by lighting,” Davis said. “(One of) the things that we can do to conserve electrical energy (is work on) the lighting going through our buildings.”
Davis has seen the district through the conversion from incandescent bulbs to fluorescent lights and is now transitioning the district to newer, more efficient lighting. “It’s just a normal progression,” he said. “$115,000 of our annual savings is going to come strictly out of lighting.”
Additional savings could be achieved by replacing the boilers at Hayes High School, which were installed when the school was built in the 1960s, Davis said.
“They’re still in there as we speak right now,” he said. “We’ve done a pretty good job of maintaining them, but it also runs up our operating costs.”
Also at Hayes, Davis said, the district can install a water reclamation system that will allow non-potable water to be used for the building’s air-conditioning condensers.
“We have to constantly run … potable, good water in the tower,” Davis said.
The final costs of the improvements have yet to be calculated. Davis said he would have more concrete figures to present to the board at its next meeting, a work session scheduled for 5:30 p.m. Nov. 28.
Also at the meeting, Superintendent Paul Craft announced the district was awarded two Soar Awards for High Progress from Battelle for Kids.
The first is the most-improved award. “The district itself is being identified as among the top five of all (135) participating Soar districts,” Craft said.
In addition, Hayes High School is receiving an award for its improving student test scores.
The awards will be presented at a ceremony Nov. 14 at the Greater Columbus Area Convention Center.
Larry Davis, director of facilities and transportation, on Nov. 7 described to the board projects he expects can lower the district’s energy costs by $226,500 annually. The projects include insulation replacement in 11 district buildings, as well as lighting improvements in nine buildings.
“Every one of the schools is affected first of all by lighting,” Davis said. “(One of) the things that we can do to conserve electrical energy (is work on) the lighting going through our buildings.”
Davis has seen the district through the conversion from incandescent bulbs to fluorescent lights and is now transitioning the district to newer, more efficient lighting. “It’s just a normal progression,” he said. “$115,000 of our annual savings is going to come strictly out of lighting.”
Additional savings could be achieved by replacing the boilers at Hayes High School, which were installed when the school was built in the 1960s, Davis said.
“They’re still in there as we speak right now,” he said. “We’ve done a pretty good job of maintaining them, but it also runs up our operating costs.”
Also at Hayes, Davis said, the district can install a water reclamation system that will allow non-potable water to be used for the building’s air-conditioning condensers.
“We have to constantly run … potable, good water in the tower,” Davis said.
The final costs of the improvements have yet to be calculated. Davis said he would have more concrete figures to present to the board at its next meeting, a work session scheduled for 5:30 p.m. Nov. 28.
Also at the meeting, Superintendent Paul Craft announced the district was awarded two Soar Awards for High Progress from Battelle for Kids.
The first is the most-improved award. “The district itself is being identified as among the top five of all (135) participating Soar districts,” Craft said.
In addition, Hayes High School is receiving an award for its improving student test scores.
The awards will be presented at a ceremony Nov. 14 at the Greater Columbus Area Convention Center.
2011年11月10日 星期四
DJs light up the night
As the crowd screams for more, the combination of the fresh beats and neon lights pumps up the crowd to dance all night.
Auburn Underground Projx and Facecandi Lighting Productions presented a dubstep concert hosting various disc jockeys at Bourbon Street Bar Saturday.
Lighting and special effects at any show can act as "visual glue" that binds the audience with the performer beyond just the music alone, said Richard Mueller, co-owner of Facecandi Lighting Productions and a local DJ with the stage name Soulecta.
While running his company and working as a DJ, Mueller said he has learned how lighting affects the crowd.
"The energy at a dubstep event is faster, thus the lighting system effects would be slightly more intense in delivery of visuals," Mueller said.
Lighting experts are performers in their own right, said Lee Bradberry, local DJ and member of the AUProjx crew in Auburn.
Bradberry said the lighting expersts put thought into how they are interjection the DJ into their creative procees.
"A lot of effects you see are programmed beforehand, but they do have manual control, and that's where things get exciting," Bradbetty said.
Other DJs agree that lighting is a critical factor in any concert. Max Moksol, a DJ in Auburn by the name of Crude Carter, said lighting and special effects are important during a show.
"I feel like the lighting can carry a party to the next level," Moksol said. "It adds something special to the environment that just isn't there in a dark room."
Jason Webster, an Auburn DJ by the name of Djason, said the light show must be balanced, however.
"There's only so much a DJ can do," Webster said. "(Lighting) gives good pop to the show, but it can't be too bright. Too much lighting distracts people."
Facecandi Lighting uses multi-colored lighting to attract the audience to the performances.
"In the deeper psyche of things, different colors could perhaps have a common effect to all, but everyone has their preferences, and we have the tools to accommodate," Mueller said.
Bradberry said he works closely with Facecandi when setting up lighting for one of his shows.
"They are open to suggestions of all kinds and have even asked for input on how I want to be lighted," Bradberry said.
While the same general lighting effects are used at every show, each artist has a favorite part of the performance.
"My favorite part is the last hour of any show because that has given everyone all night to get into the show," Webster said. "In that last hour, you get everyone so pumped that they don't want to leave."
While Webster's favorite section of a show is always the same, Moskol said his favorite changes every time.
Auburn Underground Projx and Facecandi Lighting Productions presented a dubstep concert hosting various disc jockeys at Bourbon Street Bar Saturday.
Lighting and special effects at any show can act as "visual glue" that binds the audience with the performer beyond just the music alone, said Richard Mueller, co-owner of Facecandi Lighting Productions and a local DJ with the stage name Soulecta.
While running his company and working as a DJ, Mueller said he has learned how lighting affects the crowd.
"The energy at a dubstep event is faster, thus the lighting system effects would be slightly more intense in delivery of visuals," Mueller said.
Lighting experts are performers in their own right, said Lee Bradberry, local DJ and member of the AUProjx crew in Auburn.
Bradberry said the lighting expersts put thought into how they are interjection the DJ into their creative procees.
"A lot of effects you see are programmed beforehand, but they do have manual control, and that's where things get exciting," Bradbetty said.
Other DJs agree that lighting is a critical factor in any concert. Max Moksol, a DJ in Auburn by the name of Crude Carter, said lighting and special effects are important during a show.
"I feel like the lighting can carry a party to the next level," Moksol said. "It adds something special to the environment that just isn't there in a dark room."
Jason Webster, an Auburn DJ by the name of Djason, said the light show must be balanced, however.
"There's only so much a DJ can do," Webster said. "(Lighting) gives good pop to the show, but it can't be too bright. Too much lighting distracts people."
Facecandi Lighting uses multi-colored lighting to attract the audience to the performances.
"In the deeper psyche of things, different colors could perhaps have a common effect to all, but everyone has their preferences, and we have the tools to accommodate," Mueller said.
Bradberry said he works closely with Facecandi when setting up lighting for one of his shows.
"They are open to suggestions of all kinds and have even asked for input on how I want to be lighted," Bradberry said.
While the same general lighting effects are used at every show, each artist has a favorite part of the performance.
"My favorite part is the last hour of any show because that has given everyone all night to get into the show," Webster said. "In that last hour, you get everyone so pumped that they don't want to leave."
While Webster's favorite section of a show is always the same, Moskol said his favorite changes every time.
2011年11月9日 星期三
Hubbell Lighting Illuminates New Home for Rhode Island Public Transportation Authority
Designed by the Rhode Island-based architectural firm of Robinson Green Beretta (RGB) and Boston-headquartered Architectural Engineers, Inc (AEI), the new $34 million transit operations facility in Providence, RI began construction in 2008 and was completed in 2010.
Intended to consolidate operations previously spread out in several buildings, the overall RIPTA design and build objective was to create a facility to house RIPTA operations for at least the next 80 years, said John Racine, RGB's project architect. In addition to housing administrative offices, the 140,000 sq. ft. building provides space for total bus maintenance tasks, now to be conducted under one roof.
The result of the two-year plus construction project is a state-of-the-art building in terms of maintenance, electronics, and security, and one that reflects the traditional look of New England architecture. Examples of the facility's high design include a white membrane roof to effectively dissipate heat build-up; moisture barriers that provide as much drainage as possible; the largest installation of heavy-duty street pavers in New England; a parking deck on the roof, also unusual for New England architecture; and high efficiency lighting systems both inside and outside the building.
Extensive tests of light fixtures employing metal halide, fluorescent and LED light sources were conducted prior to final luminaire selection, according to David Walkenstein, a senior electrical engineer at AEI who developed the electrical plan, including the lighting design. The exhaustive tests covered life-cycle studies, distribution patterns and overall costs, he said.
With studies completed and evaluated, eight of the 21 iconic brands manufactured by Hubbell Lighting were chosen to illuminate the new RIPTA building. Architectural Area Lighting's Providence series (the name is coincidental to the project location) with decorative cast bases make up most of the roof parking deck and site lighting. Hubbell Outdoor flood lights and Spaulding Laredo wall packs are employed around the building perimeter. Spaulding Cimarron rectilinear fixtures and Hubbell Industrial class 1 explosion-proof fixtures are used at the fueling station. Topping off the site, Kim Lighting in-grade fixtures illuminate the flag and flagpole.
The areas inside the building are divided into bus parking/storage, maintenance garage, wash bays, fueling, and administration, and feature 4 and 6- lamp T8 fluorescent industrial high bay lighting fixtures from Columbia Lighting. Considering life-cycle costs, including initial cost, power consumption and periodic maintenance for 300 fixtures, plus about 30+ UL wet location luminaries in the wash bays, these were the best solution noted Walkenstein.
The interior corridors are lit with Prescolite low brightness compact fluorescent down lights, and administration offices use Columbia Lighting's Stratus Series indirect/direct center basket light fixtures. Back of the house areas, file copy rooms, and maintenance closets and storage are lit with 100+ of Columbia Lighting's corridor and shallow wrap around fluorescent fixtures.
Completing the lighting of RIPTA's new home, Walkenstein integrated life safety egress path lighting into Prescolite down lights using Dual-Lite integral emergency battery backup and supplemented with Dual-Lite explosion-proof units in hazardous storage areas.
Intended to consolidate operations previously spread out in several buildings, the overall RIPTA design and build objective was to create a facility to house RIPTA operations for at least the next 80 years, said John Racine, RGB's project architect. In addition to housing administrative offices, the 140,000 sq. ft. building provides space for total bus maintenance tasks, now to be conducted under one roof.
The result of the two-year plus construction project is a state-of-the-art building in terms of maintenance, electronics, and security, and one that reflects the traditional look of New England architecture. Examples of the facility's high design include a white membrane roof to effectively dissipate heat build-up; moisture barriers that provide as much drainage as possible; the largest installation of heavy-duty street pavers in New England; a parking deck on the roof, also unusual for New England architecture; and high efficiency lighting systems both inside and outside the building.
Extensive tests of light fixtures employing metal halide, fluorescent and LED light sources were conducted prior to final luminaire selection, according to David Walkenstein, a senior electrical engineer at AEI who developed the electrical plan, including the lighting design. The exhaustive tests covered life-cycle studies, distribution patterns and overall costs, he said.
With studies completed and evaluated, eight of the 21 iconic brands manufactured by Hubbell Lighting were chosen to illuminate the new RIPTA building. Architectural Area Lighting's Providence series (the name is coincidental to the project location) with decorative cast bases make up most of the roof parking deck and site lighting. Hubbell Outdoor flood lights and Spaulding Laredo wall packs are employed around the building perimeter. Spaulding Cimarron rectilinear fixtures and Hubbell Industrial class 1 explosion-proof fixtures are used at the fueling station. Topping off the site, Kim Lighting in-grade fixtures illuminate the flag and flagpole.
The areas inside the building are divided into bus parking/storage, maintenance garage, wash bays, fueling, and administration, and feature 4 and 6- lamp T8 fluorescent industrial high bay lighting fixtures from Columbia Lighting. Considering life-cycle costs, including initial cost, power consumption and periodic maintenance for 300 fixtures, plus about 30+ UL wet location luminaries in the wash bays, these were the best solution noted Walkenstein.
The interior corridors are lit with Prescolite low brightness compact fluorescent down lights, and administration offices use Columbia Lighting's Stratus Series indirect/direct center basket light fixtures. Back of the house areas, file copy rooms, and maintenance closets and storage are lit with 100+ of Columbia Lighting's corridor and shallow wrap around fluorescent fixtures.
Completing the lighting of RIPTA's new home, Walkenstein integrated life safety egress path lighting into Prescolite down lights using Dual-Lite integral emergency battery backup and supplemented with Dual-Lite explosion-proof units in hazardous storage areas.
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