State of the Union 2012: Politics and Policy

On January 25 ? the day after President Obama delivered his State of the Union address before a polarized Congress ? Brookings hosted a discussion exploring how the president?s speech could impact critical policy challenges facing the nation during this contentious presidential election year. The first panel, moderated by Senior Fellow Thomas Mann, examined a range of domestic and global issues; participants included Karen Dynan, Martin Indyk, Eswar Prasad and Robert Puentes.

The panelists agreed the president's speech focused on domestic economic policy, and specifically on proposals to spur sustainable economic growth. Karen Dynan said the speech offered a laundry list of policy options, but that it lacked a clear narrative on how to "address our labor market problems in the short term and our budget deficit in the long term."

Thomas Mann noted the political challenges of deficit reduction. "Leading with his chin on a broad plan for deficit reduction in the face of Republican tax proposals that would dramatically cut taxes would set him up politically to lose the election," Mann said.

To achieve the president?s goals on exports, manufacturing, infrastructure and energy, Robert Puentes cited the need to harness energy at the state and metropolitan levels. "We need to go to the heart of the American economy?the states and metros?to capture their innovation and momentum," said Puentes.

Addressing global economic and trade issues, Eswar Prasad said the president?s speech made very clear the U.S. will not tolerate unfair competition from other countries, with China being the primary competitor. "It?s going to be important to be very tough on China," said Prasad.

Martin Indyk said President Obama was tough and clear on Iran, but that the United States is in a very tense and dangerous period. "In an extreme scenario, the president could well order a military strike," Indyk said. "In order to try to prevent that from happening, the president is focused on trying to get the international community behind these very strong, crippling sanctions."

During the second panel, William Galston, Elisabeth Jacobs and Pietro Nivola put the speech into the context of the 2012 election and examined how growing mistrust of government may shape the presidential campaign.

"The President eloquently invoked the ideology of fairness, solidarity, collective action and common purpose," said William Galston. "But given the pervasive mistrust of government today, it?s unclear what will happen when these themes run up against the individualist and libertarian values espoused by many independent voters."

This event was live tweeted using the hashtag #BISOTU.

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SpaceX's Dragon berthed on the ISS to complete historic arrival ...

May 25th, 2012 by Chris Bergin

SpaceX?s Dragon is now through the opening stages of being berthed on the International Space Station (ISS), after the spacecraft was captured by the Space Station Remote Manipulator System (SSRMS) on Friday. The effort to fully install Dragon to the ISS will continue throughout the day, although the major elements of the historic milestone have now been completed.

Dragon?s Big Day:

The first private spacecraft to visit the ISS had already completed the the C2 objectives of the combined C2/C3 mission by early Friday, already a great achievement for what is only Dragon?s second journey into space.

The big test for the C2 portion of the test flight involved a fly under of the ISS to test a number of critical systems that are required for the berthing attempt, as Dragon completed a lap around the Station on what has been described as a racetrack. (Over 300mb of Dragon flyunder Hi Res Images ? the entire image dump from the ISS ? available in L2 ? LINK)

Coming out of far field phasing, Dragon fly just over 10km under the ISS, a distance that allowed for a test of the UHF communication system between the orbital outpost and the commercial spacecraft via the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) Ultra High Frequency (UHF) Communication Unit (CUCU).

The test ? also including checkouts of the?Light Detection And Ranging (LIDAR) hardware and GPS ? was a success, marked by the ISS crew managing to command a strobe light on the Dragon, showing they had the ability to communicate with the spacecraft.

?SpaceX and ISS Communication check ? COTS UHF Communications Unit (CUCU) bidirectional communication was established successfully at ~ 10.4 km range during SpaceX Dragon Fly Under demo was successful. The Crew performed Strobe light ON command via Crew Command Panel (CCP),? noted Status Update information via L2 ? (LINK).

?Crew used Laser Instrument Distance and Range (LIDAR) to determine the Dragon range (2780 meters) once Dragon crossed the R-Bar. Crew powered off the Dragon Strobe light via CCP at the end of Fly By demo. Dragon navigational system also functioned successfully.?

The ISS? Space Integrated GPS/Inertial Navigation Unit (SIGI), one of two GPS units required for Dragon?s Relative GPS (RGPS) navigation, also worked without issue, following some late evaluations ahead of the mission to ensure the availability after requirements to Removed & Replace (R&R) one of the units after data showed the old unit was in a degraded state.

?The ISS Space Integrated Global Positioning System/ Inertial Navigation System (SIGI)s were configured for 12-channel mode during the SpaceX Dragon Fly Under Demo,? added the notes. ?The SIGIs regularly tracked 8 or 9 satellites between ISS and Dragon. Both ISS SIGIs are back in 6-channel mode and outputting attitude updates.?

A minor issue relating to the berthing attempt was observed on Thursday, as ISS crewmember Don Petitt called down to note one of the Robotic Work Station (RWS) monitors in the Cupola was failing to display information.

Options existed to move to the Lab?s RWS for the berthing attempt, or replace one of the lab monitors in the Cupola. However, the monitor was fixed via troubleshooting.

?Cupola Robotic Work Station (RWS) Monitor 1 Failure: After ground powered-up the Cupola RWS, crew entered the Cupola and found Monitor 1 to have no video or data, just some horizontal red and white lines near the middle of the screen indicating a sync problem. The crew cycled power via UOP1 in the Cupola and the monitor was recovered,? added the Status update.

?All 3 Cupola monitors have been confirmed functional, and are expected to remain powered through SpX-D capture and berthing. Initial indications are that this is a video sync initialization issue that could only occur at powerup (i.e., should not occur once a monitor is powered and receiving a good sync signal), so no issues are expected for capture or berthing.?

Click here for other Dragon News Articles:?http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/tag/dragon/

The Node 2 Nadir (N2N) Common Berthing Mechanism (CBM) Loss of Communication (LOC) Anomaly was also discussed. However, this was also recovered, deemed to be in an acceptable condition, resulting in the ISS being ?ready to support SpaceX berthing?.

For the next big milestone, berthing,?Dragon was put through a series finite manuevers, mainly to ensure the safety of the orbital outpost ? and its crew ? as the vehicle enters the safety zone surrounding the Station.

First up for Dragon was a repeat of the first part of Flight Day 3?s racetrack profile, as the spacecraft once again catches up to the Station via the Hight Adjustment (HA) and Co-Elliptical (CE) burn, bringing Dragon 2.5 km below ISS. A Go/No-Go was then performed for the HA3/CE2 burn pair bringing Dragon to 1.2 km below ISS.

The HA3/CE3 burn pair, using RGPS and configured with the ISS? own GPS system, were then conducted, followed by the HA4 (Ai) burn, taking Dragon inside the corridor where the crew begins to monitor the spacecraft?s approach. With ?Tally-Ho? on the Dragon for the second time in this mission ? this time with its?strobe light clearly visible -? the spacecraft then into the business end of it?s rendezvous operations.

This resulted in Dragon arriving ? and holding at ? 250 meters from the Station, where checks of Dragon?s LIDAR system were conducted, a key element of hardware that has a heritage of testing via the Space Shuttle Discovery during her STS-133 mission. A retreat was called to test the abort capability, prior to moving forward again to a 235m hold point.

With hold and retreat demos being conducted, yet more Go/No Go polling were conducted by controllers at the Johnson Space Center (JSC) Flight Control Room (FCR) and at SpaceX?s Mission Control in California.

Dragon was then commanded to 200 meters from Station, to allow for better data from the Thermal Imagers on the spacecraft. This was followed by another additional hold point of 150 meters, inside the ?keep out sphere?.

Next, Dragon was given a ?Go? to approach to 30 meters distance from the Station where it will automatically hold. Controllers noted that the Thermal Imagers will continue to be evaluated during the approach.?However, another hold was called ? this time by SpaceX ? in order to reconfigure the LIDAR system to a different mode.

A retreat to 70 meters was then called by SpaceX, who are continuing to take a ?close look? at the LIDAR data.

The problem was deemed to be via ?stray reflections? from the JAXA JEM module?s External Platform (EP) impacting on the LIDAR. The teams decided to narrow the view range of the LIDAR to remove the reflections from the field of view.

This allowed for a ?Go? is given to make the full trip to 30 meters from Station, ahead of Dragon entering the critical phase of approaching the ISS, proceeding from 30m to the Capture Point at 10 meters out, where Dragon automatically held. The ISS? robotic assets ? already translated to the pre-capture position -?were then prepared to move towards the Dragon from the Cupola RWS.

This came after the final Go/No Go poll was performed for Capture, as the crew is informed of the postive decision from the ground.

Upon receiving the ?Go for Capture? call from Houston, the ISS crew armed the SSRMS capture command and begin tracking the vehicle through the camera on the Latching End Effector (LEE) of the SSRMS, noted an overview presentation (L2 ? Link).

With the ISS? thrusters inhibited and Dragon confirmed to be in free drift, the arm?s LEE will be maneuvered over the Grapple Fixture (GF) pin on Dragon to trigger the capture sequence ahead of pre-berthing maneuvers.

With the addition of several holds into the timeline, capture was confirmed later than expected, at 13:56 GMT.

The Dragon, now secured by the SSRMS, was carefully translated to the pre-install set-up position, 3.5 meters away from the Station?s module, allowing the crew to take camcorder footage of the vehicle through the Node 2 windows. This footage will then be downlinked to the ground for engineers to evaluate the condition of the Dragon spacecraft.

The SSRMS was then maneuvered Dragon to the second pre-install position, at a distance of 1.5 meters out. Desats were inhibited prior to the maneuver of the Dragon into Common Berthing Module (CBM) interface to begin the securing of the spacecraft to the ISS.

A ?Go? at this point was marked by all four Ready To Latch (RTL) indicators providing confirmation on the RWS panel.

As has been seen with other arrivals ? and indeed new additions to the Station itself ? Dragon was then put through first stage capture tasks, allowing the SSRMS to go limp, ahead of second stage capture, officially marking Dragon?s berthing with the ISS at 11:02 Central Time, in turn allowing the SSRMS to release and translate to its return position.

While leak checks are conducted between the ISS and Dragon ? required ahead of hatch opening ? the SSRMS was safed, ahead of another job to complete, this time picking up the Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator (SPDM) ? otherwise known as Dextre ? who will also greet the new member of the ISS resupply family. This opeeration won?t be conducted today due being two hours down on the timeline.

The plan involving Dextre relates to performing a survey of the Dragon trunk using SPDM at the end of the SSRMS, after the big arm retrieves its Canadian cousin from the Mobile Base System at Work Station 5 (WS5).

Dragon?s trunk will be surveyed using Dextre?s own LEE and Camera Light Pan Tilt Assembly (CLPAs), under the control of MCC-Houston. This task will allow for teams on the ground to assess viewing and lighting conditions to aid in operations planning for future trunk cargo extraction/insertion operations that will play a resupply role during future missions.

Once the survey has been completed, the SSRMS will return Dextre to the MBS, which will then carry the robot back to Work Station 2 (WS2).

This article will be updated throughout the major events of Flight Day 4.

(Images: NASA, CSA, SpaceX and via L2?s SpaceX Dragon C2+ Mission Special Section ? Containing presentations, videos, images,?interactive high level updates and more,?with additional images via NASA, SpaceX).?

(Click here: http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/l2/?- to view how you can support NSF and access the best space flight content on the entire internet).

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Tags: Dextre, Dragon, ISS, SpaceX, SSRMS

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Bobby Womack Declared Cancer-Free | Music News | Rolling Stone

Bobby Womack performs at the Burswood Dome in Perth, Australia.

Matt Jelonek/WireImage

Soul legend Bobby Womack announced this morning on Facebook that he has successfully undergone surgery for suspected colon cancer. "A tumor was removed last night which turned out to be cancer free," reads the message to his fans.

Womack's doctors believed that he was suffering from colon cancer after the singer was hospitalized for pneumonia earlier this year. News of Womack's illness went public after his friend Bootsy Collins told his fans on Facebook in March.

Womack is about to release a new album, The Bravest Man in the Universe, on June 12th. The disc was co-produced by Gorillaz and Blur mastermind Damon Albarn along with XL label boss Richard Russell. Womack previously worked with Albarn on two tracks on the Gorillaz's 2010 album Plastic Beach, including the hit single "Stylo."

To read the new issue of Rolling Stone online, plus the entire RS archive: Click Here

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Advantages of Higher Education! - College Articles - EzineMark

B.Ed in Punjab - A Higher education is the best possible way to make sure a higher earning power after graduation.There are a variety of other factors as to why you should go to higher education.College lifestyle also provides one with useful relationships and sources including to the variety of alternatives available after finishing higher education.Colleges provide skills and knowledge for higher learning. Higher education provides opportunity to meet new people.College play an important role in identifying the future of every person.Higher education can build self-confidence of a person.

Advantages of higher education?

-Improved Lifestyle Skill's
Lifestyle skills are very helpful to handle personal problems in human life.Higher Level eduction provide a platform to face the problems in human daily life.

-Increase Knowledge
Higher education helps in to increase the knowledge in every field.

-Decision-Making
Decision-making helps to achieve the desired goal in the life.Decision making helps in to take right decision at right time to achieve the desired goal in the life.

Higher education improve the lifestyle skills of the people.It provides the opportunity to meet new friends in the socity.College education can increase the knowledge in different fields.Higher Level eduction provide a platform to face the problems in human daily life.It also help in decision making.Decision making helps in to take right decision at right time to achieve the desired goal in the life.

A Look at the Aryans group of Colleges:-
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The 20 acre university is located near Chandigarh in a rich natural and a pollution free atmosphere. Aryans Group of Colleges provides various programs like MBA, BBA, B.Tech, BCA, B.Ed etc. All courses are approved by AICTE, PU (Punjab University)and PTU Punjab Technical University Jalandhar.Aryans group of colleges provdes these courses in punjab or chandigarh.Aryans group of colleges is the one of most fastest growing college in the field of professional courses such as IT,Management etc.

Aryans group of colleges offers undergraduate and graduate programs in IT, Business Management etc.These professional course tool provides the right ways in choosing the right degree course.Aryans gruop of colleges also provide degree courses in B.Tech,polytechnic diploma.
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Pay Per Click Ad Campgains- Spend Less Earn More ~ Your ...

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What is "Pay-Per Click"? "Pay-Per Click", is an easy to understand advertising strategy. There are around 300 million searches at major search engines everyday. This causes 80% of internet traffic. Placing your websites on these search engines is very important in reaching as many potential customers as possible. But in order to be seen and clicked most frequently, your website should be viewed at the top most of the search list. Most people only reach up to the third page of a search engine so the lower your rank, the lesser the chance you will be clicked. In "Pay-Per Click" advertising, you pay to be always visible on the internet. You select keywords or key phrases about your website, and the highest bidder ranks the best. There is no upfront cost. You only pay after a visitor clicks your link. This is why it is called "Pay-Per Click".

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Everyday millions of people around the world click on Pay-Per Click Advertising Campaign. With the booming internet industry and the ever growing online business, an ad of virtually anybody on the planet can be seen on the internet anywhere in the world.

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The "Pay-Per Click" advertising campaign is the premier growth area in online marketing. Last year, an estimated $741.2 million was spent on "Pay-Per Click" advertising. The usual search engine optimization can take weeks or even months to produce results. "Pay-Per Click" advertising can attract customers at an instant. Why? Because, this cutting edge ad campaign can be placed on any website and can be viewed by potential online customers, anywhere, anytime and all the time. The only challenge is placing the ads on proper websites that will attract possible customers for a specific product or services.

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"Pay-Per Click" advertising campaign attracts the right consumers at the shortest possible time. This is the most cost effective way of marketing products or services. You can also monitor the customers who visit your site, what they are looking for and what they are buying. With the right creativity on using the right search-phrases, we can direct the right people who are willing to do business with us.

"Pay-Per Click" advertising can easily be managed 24 hours per day and 7 days a week through the internet. This allows you improve the campaign strategy by effectively responding to the activities of both customers and competitors.

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So what are you waiting for? "Pay-Per Click" now and let your business take the fast route to success.


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Movie Review: What to Expect When You're Expecting | The Mama ...

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by Guest Contributor Kristen Ryan

When I first saw the ?What to Expect When You?re Expecting? movie, I thought I was in for a chick flick with more girly bits than the gyno?s office. So wrong! I attended a press screening solo and found myself wishing I?d brought my husband, father of two, along. I wasn?t just lonely, and goodness knows I don?t share popcorn well, so why bring a guy?? Because Chris Rock and the ?Dudes? Group? did their part to make the movie hilarious. (Read more after the jump)With their toy-laden strollers and proudly worn Baby Bjorns, the Dads nearly steal the show. My man (and any other father or father-to-be) would?ve thoroughly enjoyed it.

Though only two of the five actresses (Jennifer Lopez and Elizabeth Banks) are moms, the other three donned incredibly realistic prosthetic bellies and assumed the role of ?mother? very well. Each mom?s experience was different, just like in real life, and I had to dig through my purse ? past the Hot Wheels and raisin boxes ? and find a tissue when Lopez held her baby for the first time. You were warned!

See the movie. Bring along your baby daddy. Just don?t share a bathroom mirror with the glamorous Brooklyn Decker like I did. I swear I looked like Spongebob Square Pants standing next to her.

Writer was invited to a celebrity studded screening in NYC.

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Physicists set new record for graphene solar cell efficiency

ScienceDaily (May 24, 2012) ? Doping may be a no-no for athletes, but researchers in the University of Florida's physics department say it was key in getting unprecedented power conversion efficiency from a new graphene solar cell created in their lab.

Graphene solar cells are one of industry's great hopes for cheaper, durable solar power cells in the future. But previous attempts to use graphene, a single-atom-thick honeycomb lattice of carbon atoms, in solar cells have only managed power conversion efficiencies ranging up to 2.9 percent. The UF team was able to achieve a record breaking 8.6 percent efficiency with their device by chemically treating, or doping, the graphene with trifluoromethanesulfonyl-amide, or TFSA. Their results are published in the current online edition of Nano Letters.

"The dopant makes the graphene film more conductive and increases the electric field potential inside the cell," said Xiaochang Miao, a graduate student in the physics department. That makes it more efficient at converting sunlight into electricity. And unlike other dopants that have been tried in the past, TFSA is stable -- its effects are long lasting.

The solar cell that Miao and her co-workers created in the lab looks like a 5-mm-square window framed in gold. The window, a wafer of silicon coated with a monolayer of graphene, is where the magic happens.

Graphene and silicon, when they come together, form what is called a Schottky junction -- a one-way street for electrons that when illuminated with light, acts as the power conversion zone for an entire class of solar cells. Schottky junctions are commonly formed by layering a metal on top of a semiconductor. But researchers at the UF Nanoscience Institute for Medical and Engineering Technologies discovered in 2011 that graphene, a semi-metal, made a suitable substitute for metal in creating the junction.

"Graphene, unlike conventional metals, is transparent and flexible, so it has great potential to be an important component in the kind of solar cells we hope to see incorporated into building exteriors and other materials in the future," said Arthur Hebard, distinguished professor of physics at UF and co-author on the paper. "Showing that its power-converting capabilities can be enhanced by such a simple, inexpensive treatment bodes well for its future."

The researchers said that if graphene solar cells reach 10 percent power conversion efficiency they could be a contender in the market place, if production costs are kept low enough.

The prototype solar cell created in the UF lab was built on a rigid base of silicon, which is not considered an economical material for mass production. But Hebard said that he sees real possibilities for combining the use of doped graphene with less expensive, more flexible substrates like the polymer sheets currently under development in research laboratories around the world.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Florida, via Newswise. The original article was written by Donna Hesterman.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.


Journal Reference:

  1. Xiaochang Miao, Sefaattin Tongay, Maureen K. Petterson, Kara Berke, Andrew G. Rinzler, Bill R. Appleton, Arthur F. Hebard. High Efficiency Graphene Solar Cells by Chemical Doping. Nano Letters, 2012; : 120510124852005 DOI: 10.1021/nl204414u

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

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