WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. financial regulators proposed requiring lenders to accept private flood insurance on Friday as part of rules needed to implement a 2012 law that revamps a federal flood insurance program.
The Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act called for changes to a government-run program that allowed many homeowners to buy subsidized flood insurance, after lawmakers decided the program's costs had become unsustainable.
Five agencies, including the U.S. Federal Reserve and the Farm Credit Administration, issued proposals to implement portions of the law.
They called for lenders to put in escrow all flood insurance payments and fees for loans secured by residential real estate and said lenders could charge for force-placed insurance if borrowers let their own flood insurance lapse.
Flood insurance has been a thorny problem for U.S. officials. Private insurance companies often do not offer it, so the federal program, run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, allowed homeowners to buy government-backed insurance if their communities adopted floodplain management ordinances and set minimum construction standards.
The 2012 law, which was passed before "superstorm" Sandy devastated much of the U.S. east coast, attempted to cut the program's costs by making changes to flood insurance, flood hazard mapping and the floodplain management.
Some lawmakers since have said the changes could unfairly cause flood insurance premiums to spike.
The financial regulators said their proposals apply only to the portions of the law that fall under their jurisdiction. The proposal will be available for public comment until December 10.
(Reporting by Emily Stephenson; Editing by L Gevirtz)
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ? Bay Area Rapid Transit managers and union leaders returned to the bargaining table Sunday in hopes of heading off a strike that would create traffic nightmares for San Francisco area commuters for the second time in a month.
Representatives from BART management and the agency's two largest employee unions negotiated for about 14 hours Saturday and resumed bargaining Sunday morning as a midnight deadline loomed.
Big differences remain on key issues including wages, pensions, worker safety and health care costs, but the parties expressed some optimism that an agreement could be reached to avert a strike planned for Monday.
"The parties made some important but incremental moves yesterday, and I hope to get to a deal," Josie Mooney, chief negotiator for the Service Employees International Union 1021, said Sunday before heading into negotiations. "If the parties work very hard, then it's certainly possible in the amount of time we have left."
"There was definitely movement from both sides," BART chief negotiator Thomas Hock said as he left negotiations late Saturday night. "Hopefully, if we keep moving, we will get to a proposal that both sides can agree to."
BART's two largest unions issued a 72-hour notice Thursday that employees would walk off the job if they didn't reach agreement on a new contract by midnight Sunday.
Bay Area agencies are preparing ways to get commuters to work if there's a strike, but officials say there's no way to make up for the BART system, which carries about 400,000 riders a day.
"BART really is the backbone of the transit network. No other transit agency has the ability to absorb BART's capacity if there's a disruption," said John Goodwin, spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Commission.
If there's a BART strike, transit agencies are planning to add bus and ferry service, keep carpool lanes open all day and even give away coffee gift cards to encourage drivers to pick up riders. They're also encouraging workers to avoid peak traffic hours or telecommute if possible.
When BART workers shut down train service for four days in early July, roadways were packed and commuters waited in long lines for buses and ferries. The unions agreed to call off that strike and extend their contracts until Sunday while negotiations continued.
A strike this week could lead to more gridlock than last month's strike, which came around the Fourth of July holiday when many workers were on vacation.
Bay Area and state officials have been pressuring BART managers and union leaders to reach an agreement this weekend, saying a strike would create financial hardship for working families and hurt the region's economy.
Ah, the wonderful world of wireless carriers. You can almost guarantee that if one makes a move, the others will soonfollow. We're still hoping that AT&T and Verizon will succumb to peer pressure and resume offering unlimited data plans, but until that day comes, you can look forward to lots of fine tuning of their tiered share plans. The latest move comes from Verizon, which has introduced its lowest cost offering yet: a 500MB shared plan that runs $40 per month. This rings in at $10 less than its 1GB shared data plan, but when combined with a single smartphone, you're looking at paying $80 per month for unlimited talk, text and 500MB of data that's subject to overage fees. Compare this to AT&T, which just announced a 300MB share plan that costs $70 once bundled with a smartphone. Either way, this presents a cheaper option for some, but it won't be fun keeping such a close eye on the meager data allotment.
Update: This article previously drew a comparison that was based on the price of a feature phone at Verizon, which costs $30 per month. We've updated the article to reflect Verizon's $40 monthly charge for smartphones.
The Next Generation Science Standards sparked intense debate at a public hearing last week of the Kentucky state board of education, with opponents using highly charged language to criticize them, according to the Courier-Journal newspaper of Louisville. The main lines of critique were aimed at how the standards handle the issues of evolution and climate change. Among the fiery adjectives leveled? "Fascist" and "atheistic."
Meanwhile, supporters said the education changes are critical to help Kentucky keep educational pace with other states and allow students to be amply prepared for college and careers, the newspaper said.
The state board of education appears to agree with the supporters, since it voted unanimously in early June to adopt the standards. However, state officials have cautioned that the recent vote is not the final word. Beyond the public hearing, the standards also are subject to review by legislative committees, which could lead to changes to the standards before they are finally adopted. And as I reported recently, the chairman of the education committee in the Kentucky House of Representatives is no fan of the new standards. In fact, he penned a sharp critique that was published in the Courier-Journal, focused primarily on evolution and climate change.
I should note, by the way, that Kentucky's current science standards include a strong emphasis on teaching students about evolution. Here's one excerpt:
In a quick scan, I found only a passing reference in the existing state standards, however, to climate change.
Kentucky is one of the 26 lead state partners that helped craft the Next Generation Science Standards in collaboration with several national organizations. All the lead states have agreed to give serious consideration to adoption. So far, beyond Kentucky, four states have stepped forward to adopt the standards: Rhode Island, Kansas, Maryland, and Vermont.
This month, the Delaware education agency will hold a series of public hearings to discuss the standards.
In Florida, where state officials have previously signaled strong interest in adopting the standards (though it's not a lead state), the verdict is out. For one, last month, the vice chairman of the state board of education seemed to signal his skepticism with the common science standards, citing a recent review by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, and argued that the state should look elsewhere for guidance.
"The long-awaited Next Generation standards also received a C, which is a surprising disappointment," said board member John Padget during a board meeting in June. "Sometime soon, within the next two years, Florida has to raise its science standards. ... When the time is right, I will advocate for the adoption of either California's or D.C.'s standards, or a combination of the two. This approach will save time, money, and energy, and we won't be reinventing the wheel." (Both California and the District of Columbia were given an 'A' grade by Fordham.)
It's worth noting, however, that by the time Florida might adopt the California standards, those standards probably won't be in place anymore in California. That's because California also is one of the lead states that helped to develop the standards. It's expected to vote on them later this year. Although they may well face some opposition, early signs suggest they will likely win adoption.
Back to Florida, one other matter that could complicate things is the political bombshell that dropped today when state Commissioner Tony Bennett announced his resignation. The action comes following a series of news stories about steps Bennett took while Indiana's K-12 chief last year to boost the grade of a charter school run by a political donor by tweaking the state's A-F accountability system.
JOHANNESBURG: Estee Lauder plans to expand its presence in sub-Saharan Africa by rolling out its $1 billion brands, Clinique and MAC, to tap into strong demand for luxury cosmetics among the region's middle class, a company executive said on Wednesday.
The high-end cosmetics company will introduce Clinique, its second biggest brand with sales over $1 billion, in Nigeria this year and in Mozambique in the near future, Sue Fox, Estee Lauder's managing director for sub-Saharan Africa, told Reuters in an interview.
It launched MAC makeup in Nigeria's largest city Lagos in February after being "inundated" with requests and will be opening another store there within weeks, Fox said.
"There's massive interest from the consumers there in international brands," she said. "We're very excited about the potential of MAC in Nigeria. That's led us to pursue a strategy with MAC that will ensure that we're able to bring the brand to consumers in other markets."
The company has earmarked a second new market for MAC, its third biggest brand, this year and another two or three in 2014, adding to new partner stores in Botswana and Zambia.
It is also about to enter Cote d'Ivoire for the first time with fragrances, currently its biggest category in Africa. Estee Lauder's partners in designer fragrances include Tom Ford, Michael Kors Holdings Ltd and Coach Inc.
Fox said Estee Lauder views sub-Saharan Africa as "a long-term build," citing its youthful population, brisk economic growth and urbanisation. The region, with the exception of South Africa, is its newest market.
"The potential of Africa, we believe, is extremely positive and we wouldn't be entering unless we believe that there was long term sustainable growth," she said.
"Our target consumer is the emerging middle class, the established middle class and that affluent African consumer who's probably extremely well travelled and very brand savvy."
However, the main hurdle to the company's growth in Africa is the lack of retail infrastructure outside South Africa.
"We would probably be going a lot faster if there was the availability of retail space," Fox said. "The concept of department stores doesn't really exist outside of South Africa. I think there are great opportunities for retailers and for mall developers in sub-Saharan Africa. Brands want to be there."
Estee Lauder is focusing on cities with the biggest growth potential, said Fox, and has identified key locations such as Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt in Nigeria, as well as the capitals of Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique and Angola.
In this article, [I will explain why you should seriously consider internationalizing your domain name,] teach you some basic terms so that you can understand how to choose the jurisdiction of your domain name (as well as make sure that your personal or business information is not leaked out into the public domain) [and tell you how to do it. Read on!]
So writes Kyle Gonzales in edited excerpts from his original article* as posted on internationalman.com under the title How to Safely Internationalize your Domain Name.
[The following article is presented by? Lorimer Wilson, editor of www.FinancialArticleSummariesToday.com and www.munKNEE.com and the FREEMarket Intelligence Report newsletter (sample here ? register here) and may have been edited ([ ]), abridged (?) and/or reformatted (some sub-titles and bold/italics emphases) for the sake of clarity and brevity to ensure a fast and easy read. This paragraph must be included in any article re-posting to avoid copyright infringement.]
Gonzales goes on to say in further edited (and in some cases paraphrased) excerpts:
Purchasing the domain name for your international internet business is an important step, one which will help support your brand and identify your business to your customers. Much attention is paid to the first part of the domain name, because it is generally assumed that the domain name will end in .com.
This is a terrible mistake.
The bad news: Where you register your domain name may land you in jail. The US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agency has used the fact that a US-based company acts as the administrator for all .com domains to claim jurisdiction over all websites ending in .com, regardless of where the actual website is located.
The good news: In the same manner in which you can internationalize your business incorporation or your financial accounts, you can also internationalize your domain names ? and it?s easy. Just choose a domain name that resides in a non-US jurisdiction by picking a different ending component, or TLD, for your domain name. For example, choosing to use a domain name that ends in .co instead of .com offshores the jurisdiction for your domain name from the United States to Colombia.
Let?s?start with explanations about?some basic terms:
TLD ? Top-Level Domain
A TLD is the part of the domain at the end of the domain name. .com, .net, .org, .co, .ca, and .jp are all examples of TLDs. Each TLD is managed by an organization, whether it?s a government or commercial entity. There are two main types of TLDs that most people will use and purchase for their own use, generic TLDs and country code TLDs.
gTLD ? Generic Top-Level Domain
This is the type of TLD that most people are familiar with. Examples of gTLDs are .com, .net, .org, and .biz. The two most common gTLDs, .com and .net, are managed by Verisign, a US-based company and thus fall under US jurisdiction.
Not all gTLDs are managed by US entities, however. Afilias, an Irish limited company based in Dublin, operates the registries for the .info, .asia, and .mobi gTLDs. Though you need to be careful. Afilias bought RegistryPro, the registrar for the .pro gTLD, but left the jurisdiction for the registry in the US.
ccTLD ? Country Code Top-Level Domain
This is a TLD which has been assigned to a country. There is one ccTLD for every country in the world. ccTLDs are usually maintained by a company or organization which is located within that country. There are a few exceptions. For example, the registries for .tv (Tuvalu) and .cc (Cocos Islands) are managed by companies owned by Verisign. Anyone using a .tv or .cc domain for their website has put their website under the jurisdiction of the US government. A list of all ccTLDs can be found here.
Domain Privacy
Under normal circumstances, when you register a domain name, they ask for:
full name
organization or business
address
phone number
email address
This information is essentially public record, and is easily accessible by anyone. By adding domain privacy, this information is placed in ?escrow? and is no longer part of the public record. Unfortunately, not every TLD registry supports domain privacy. This is important for you to check when you choose your domain.
Domain privacy is also marketed using the terms ?WHOIS Privacy,? ?Contact Privacy,? ?Protected Registration,? ?WHOISGuard,? or ?Private Registration.?
The Best Jurisdictions for Your Domain Name
For people who are looking to purchase a domain name for their international business, I recommend using the following ccTLDs. They have a number of favorable traits in common:
All of these ccTLDs are administered by registrars located in the country the ccTLD is assigned to.
Any person or organization can register a domain name using these ccTLDs.
Any domain name registered using one of these ccTLDs can enable domain privacy.
Registration and transfers for domains using one of these ccTLDs is as quick and easy as it is for a .com domain name.
Domain names using these ccTLDs are not immediately associated with the countries they are tied to, giving you a lot of flexibility in naming.
Colombia (.co)
The .co ccTLD is administered by .CO Internet S.A.S., a Colombian company located in Bogota. .co Internet has been very aggressive in marketing the .co ccTLD. The .co ccTLD is attractive based on its similarity to .com. Think about using ?example.co? instead of ?example.com? when purchasing your domain.
Montenegro (.me)
The .me ccTLD is administered by doMEn, d.o.o., a Montenegrin company based in Podgorica. doMEn has also been aggressive in marketing their ccTLD. You can get creative with your naming here. An example: using ?atruestoryabout.me? instead of ?atruestoryaboutme.com?. This site can help you get some ideas: Words ending in ?me.?
Belize (.bz)
The .bz ccTLD is administered by University Management Ltd., a Belizean company based in Belize City. University Management Ltd. has tried to increase awareness and use of the .bz ccTLD by people worldwide, often based on its similarity to the .biz gTLD. An example: using ?kingofgold.bz? instead of ?kingofgold.biz.?
Why not Switzerland (.ch)?
Switzerland is a great place to plant many different internationalization flags. But registering domain names is not one of them. The reason is that the Swiss ccTLD registrar, Switch, does not allow for domain privacy. If you register a .ch domain, your contact information becomes publicly available. Japan Registry Services, the Japanese ccTLD registrar for .jp also has this limitation.
Be Creative and Diversify
Now that you have the knowledge, go have some fun with your domain name search. Be creative and different, while getting your domain outside of the U.S. and EU jurisdictions.
With a little work you can get a more interesting domain name for your web presence while adding another layer of international diversification.
[Editor?s Note: The author?s views and conclusions in the above article are unaltered and no personal comments have been included to maintain the integrity of the original post. Furthermore, the views, conclusions and any recommendations offered in this article are not to be construed as an endorsement of such by the editor.]
*http://www.internationalman.com/78-global-perspectives/977-how-to-safely-internationalize-your-domain-name?(? Casey Research, LLC; Sign-up here to get the free?IM Communiqu? delivered to your inbox; Kyle Gonzales? firm,?JumpShip Services, offers ?multi-flagged? and offshore internet solutions that offer enhanced security, privacy, and peace of mind for your digital communications.)
Related Articles:
1. Internationalize Your Internet Setup to Prevent NSA from Spying on Your Personal & Business Information ? Here?s How
2 Comments
The overreach of the ?War on Terror? and heavy-handed copyright laws lend the cover for any US agency to monitor and control your Internet activity. These, and myriad other laws, mean that your personal/business website can be seized at the drop of a hat under the flimsiest of pretexts. Fortunately, it is relatively easy and cheap to move your digital presence across borders where it can dwell in friendlier jurisdictions. Read More ?
A laborer is seen working in a textile factory in Huaibei, in north China's Anhui province on July 24, 2013. China's manufacturing activity contracted to a 11-month low in July.
Photo by STR/AFP/Getty Images
During the last few years, a lot of hype has been heaped on the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa). With their large populations and rapid growth, these countries, so the argument goes, will soon become some of the largest economies in the world?and, in the case of China, the largest of all by as early as 2020. But the BRICS, as well as many other emerging-market economies?have recently experienced a sharp economic slowdown. So, is the honeymoon over?
Brazil?s GDP grew by only 1 percent last year, and may not grow by more than 2 percent this year, with its potential growth barely above 3 percent. Russia?s economy may grow by barely 2 percent this year, with potential growth also at around 3 percent, despite oil prices being around $100 a barrel. India had a couple of years of strong growth recently (11.2 percent in 2010 and 7.7 percent in 2011) but slowed to 4 percent in 2012. China?s economy grew by 10 percent per year for the last three decades, but slowed to 7.8 percent last year and risks a hard landing. And South Africa grew by only 2.5 percent last year and may not grow faster than 2 percent this year.
Many other previously fast-growing emerging-market economies?for example, Turkey, Argentina, Poland, Hungary, and many in Central and Eastern Europe?are experiencing a similar slowdown. So, what is ailing the BRICS and other emerging markets?
First, most emerging-market economies were overheating in 2010-2011, with growth above potential and inflation rising and exceeding targets. Many of them thus tightened monetary policy in 2011, with consequences for growth in 2012 that have carried over into this year.
Second, the idea that emerging-market economies could fully decouple from economic weakness in advanced economies was far-fetched: recession in the eurozone, near-recession in the United Kingdom and Japan in 2011-2012, and slow economic growth in the United States were always likely to affect emerging-market performance negatively?via trade, financial links, and investor confidence. For example, the ongoing eurozone downturn has hurt Turkey and emerging-market economies in Central and Eastern Europe, owing to trade links.
Third, most BRICS and a few other emerging markets have moved toward a variant of state capitalism. This implies a slowdown in reforms that increase the private sector?s productivity and economic share, together with a greater economic role for state-owned enterprises (and for state-owned banks in the allocation of credit and savings), as well as resource nationalism, trade protectionism, import-substitution industrialization policies, and imposition of capital controls.
This approach may have worked at earlier stages of development and when the global financial crisis caused private spending to fall; but it is now distorting economic activity and depressing potential growth. Indeed, China?s slowdown reflects an economic model that is, as former Premier Wen Jiabao put it, ?unstable, unbalanced, uncoordinated, and unsustainable,? and that now is adversely affecting growth in emerging Asia and in commodity-exporting emerging markets from Asia to Latin America and Africa. The risk that China will experience a hard landing in the next two years may further hurt many emerging economies.
Fourth, the commodity super-cycle that helped Brazil, Russia, South Africa, and many other commodity-exporting emerging markets may be over. Indeed, a boom would be difficult to sustain, given China?s slowdown, higher investment in energy-saving technologies, less emphasis on capital- and resource-oriented growth models around the world, and the delayed increase in supply that high prices induced.
?The fifth, and most recent, factor is the U.S. Federal Reserve?s signals that it might end its policy of quantitative easing earlier than expected, and its hints of an eventual exit from zero interest rates, both of which have caused turbulence in emerging economies? financial markets. Even before the Fed?s signals, emerging-market equities and commodities had underperformed this year, owing to China?s slowdown. Since then, emerging-market currencies and fixed-income securities (government and corporate bonds) have taken a hit. The era of cheap or zero-interest money that led to a wall of liquidity chasing high yields and assets?equities, bonds, currencies, and commodities? in emerging markets is drawing to a close.
Finally, while many emerging-market economies tend to run current-account surpluses, a growing number of them?including Turkey, South Africa, Brazil, and India?are running deficits. And these deficits are now being financed in riskier ways: more debt than equity; more short-term debt than long-term debt; more foreign-currency debt than local-currency debt; and more financing from fickle cross-border interbank flows.
These countries share other weaknesses as well: excessive fiscal deficits, above-target inflation, and stability risk (reflected not only in the recent political turmoil in Brazil and Turkey, but also in South Africa?s labor strife and India?s political and electoral uncertainties). The need to finance the external deficit and to avoid excessive depreciation (and even higher inflation) calls for raising policy rates or keeping them on hold at high levels. But monetary tightening would weaken already-slow growth. Thus, emerging economies with large twin deficits and other macroeconomic fragilities may experience further downward pressure on their financial markets and growth rates.
These factors explain why growth in most BRICS and many other emerging markets has slowed sharply. Some factors are cyclical, but others?state capitalism, the risk of a hard landing in China, the end of the commodity super-cycle?are more structural. Thus, many emerging markets? growth rates in the next decade may be lower than in the last?as may the outsize returns that investors realized from these economies? financial assets (currencies, equities, bonds, and commodities).
Of course, some of the better-managed emerging-market economies will continue to experience rapid growth and asset outperformance. But many of the BRICS, along with some other emerging economies, may hit a thick wall, with growth and financial markets taking a serious beating.
TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Gunmen killed a lawyer and prominent Libyan political activist in the eastern city of Benghazi on Friday, a security official and residents said.
The attack appeared to be the first against an activist in the city although security forces have been frequently targeted.
Lawyer Abdelsalam al-Mosmary was killed after he left a mosque to make his way home.
"He was coming out of Friday prayers when he was shot," Benghazi security spokesman Mohammed al-Hijazy said. "It seems it may have been the work of a sniper because he was shot in the heart."
Appearing regularly on television, Mosmary would voice his discontent over the presence of armed militias on Libya's streets as well as his opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood.
"This has never happened before, this a first in Benghazi," said Kais al-Bakshishi, a political activist.
Benghazi is where the uprising against Muammar Gaddafi began in February 2011 but is now a hot spot for violence, with numerous attacks on security forces.
Libya's weak central government is struggling to assert its authority over armed groups which helped topple Gaddafi but have yet to lay down their weapons. Islamist militants have also come to the fore.
In September, the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans were killed in an attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi.
(Reporting by Ghaith Shennib and Feras Bosalum; Writing by Marie-Louise Gumuchian; Editing by Angus MacSwanj)
I was just asking, can I install android x86 on xbox original? I know you can install linux. I just found it on the side of the road and plug it up and it worked fine. So if i can't, what other OS's can I install
The Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History will finally have a Tyrannosaurus rex to call its own, thanks to the Army Corps of Engineers.?
By Eoin O'Carroll,?Staff / July 1, 2013
A bronze cast of the Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton known as the Wankel T.rex, stands in front of the Museum of the Rockies at Montana State University in Bozeman, Mont., in 2001. The Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History is acquiring its first full Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton for display in a new dinosaur hall.
Museum of the Rockies/AP
Enlarge
The Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., easily ranks among the most celebrated collections of interesting stuff.?The world's most-visited museum of its kind, it is home to more than 126 million specimens of plants, animals, rocks, and human cultural artifacts.
Click Here for your FREE 30 DAYS of The Christian Science Monitor Weekly Digital Edition
But amid all the museum's curios ? the meteorites, the butterflies, the mummies, the tarantulas, and that huge whale suspended from the ceiling ? there is one glaring omission: No Tyrannosaurus rex.
This is about to change. In October, a 66 million-year-old, 38-foot-long, 7-ton, 85-percent-complete skeleton of the Cretaceous period's apex predator is set to arrive at the nation's capital.?
Unearthed in 1988 in a wildlife refuge by Montana rancher Kathy Wankel, the so-called "Wankel T. Rex," was at the time of its discovery the largest and most complete Tyrannosaurus rex?skeleton ever found.
The Wankel T. Rex was discovered on federal land, so it is property of the Army Corps of Engineers. Since 1990, it has been on display at the Museum of the Rockies, which now has a second T. rex skeleton that is set to go on display next year. The Corps of Engineers is lending the Wankel T. Rex to the Smithsonian for 50 years.
The Wankel T. Rex is scheduled to go on temporary display?on October 16 ? National Fossil Day. After that, the museum's dinosaur hall will close for a major renovation. When it reopens in 2019, the skeleton will be the hall's centerpiece.
?If you've ever stood next to a real T. rex skull, you'll realize what a breathtaking thing it is: four feet long, with teeth the size of bananas,? Kirk Johnson, the museum's director and a paleontologist told Smithsonian Magazine. ?It is the most terrifying carnivore that's ever lived on the planet. And it really makes you ponder what life would have been like with these things prowling the North American landscape.?
WATCH: Wylie Dufresne, David Chang, Mario Batali & More Need YOU To Fund The Museum Of Food & Drink Kickstarter
Ever wanted to watch the industrial process of making rice into puffed rice cereal as it happened in the early 1900s? What if we told you it was really violent and scary-looking? Well, Dave Arnold is finally taking his brainchild spawned in 2005 to Kickstarter for a real (mobile) launch.
The idea for the Museum of Food and Drink has been around for awhile, but now that Arnold and friends have this scary, super rare rice-puffer machine, they want to take it on a pop-up museum tour through New York (and beyond!) to demonstrate how your favorite college wake-and-bake foods were made. They just need a few spare funds first.
The ultimate goal is to build an interactive, brick-and-mortar Museum of Food and Drink, which looks awesome in the mockups, and in the Kickstarter video below, Anita Lo, Brooks Headley, David Chang, Wylie Dufresne, and Mario Batali all jump on board to show their support for the project. You can check out the Museum?s Kickstarter campaign here.
LONDON, United Kingdom ? BoF sat down with Bec Astley Clarke only days after she was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE)?by Queen Elizabeth II for doing what was once considered impossible ? building a fully fledged luxury brand on the Internet ? and doing it with a distinctly British combination of elegance and irreverence.
Over the last seven years, Ms Astley Clarke has turned what began as a multi-brand e-tailer, selling jewellery by other designers, into a small but rapidly expanding modern British luxury brand, designing and distributing its own fine and contemporary jewellery collections, which currently account for about 70 percent of the overall business, both online and off. Astley Clarke declined to disclose exact sales figures ? annual revenues are still under ?10 million (about $15 million at current rates) ? but the business has grown by over 45 percent since last year, with sales of ?core? own-label Astley Clarke collections growing at 200 percent, year on year.
In recent months, the company has hired a professional managing director, Scott Thomson, and is ?full steam ahead? with plans to expand the business offline and internationally, in the US, Europe and China.
BoF spoke to Bec Astley Clarke, a rare fashion-tech founder whose background spans both fashion and technology, to discuss the genesis of Astley Clarke, building a luxury brand online, growing a multi-channel business, bringing in a professional chief executive and the ?just do it? attitude she inherited from her Everest-climbing father.
BoF: I hear you?ve just been awarded an MBE by the Queen for services to the jewellery industry. What did that mean to you?
BAC: Britishness is a core tenet of brand. The bits of Britishness that we celebrate are London and design and creativity and a very sort of international outlook. We have a very British tone of voice, which celebrates British wit ? so, sort of Blackadder meets Monty Python meets luxury jewellery!
We are a young brand. We?re a pretty irreverent brand. And we?re an outsider in the jewellery industry. We?re not really part of the establishment. We have an amazing picture of the Queen wearing dark sunglasses in our office next door. That?s more us.But the recognition feels really lovely. Everyone has worked so hard for the last seven years.
BoF: I?d like to go back to the very beginning. What were you doing before Astley Clarke?
BAC: My career pre-Astley Clarke was in e-commerce, online and a bit of fashion. I left university and worked with a French agency that did all the buying in London, Paris and Milan for Bergdorf?s and Lane Crawford. But I wanted to get into the nuts and bolts of business, so I joined Anderson Consulting and worked on tech projects, which were quite boring, but did give me great grounding. I worked for a number of Internet companies, then ended up at Tesco.com where I was head of online strategy.
BoF: Most fashion-tech founders come from either a fashion background or a technology background. Very few have done both.
BAC: I?ve definitely done both and it was sort of part luck and part design. I knew I wanted to start a business and I knew it had to be in e-commerce, because that?s what it?s really about from a business perspective, and I really managed to learn the bits of the puzzle: a bit of fashion, a bit of tech, a bit of commercial, a bit of operational.
BoF: Why luxury jewellery? What was the opportunity you saw?
BAC: Luxury brands, and jewellery brands in particular, were very slow to start online. And it was a really interesting business, with beautiful products. And the more I looked into it, there were a few different areas that seemed to be completely lacking in the market, online or off. One of them was design. Another one was preciousness. And the third one was colour.
A large proportion of the market, in the UK, was either Bond Street or high street. And they basically sell silver and diamonds. And it?s all very generic ? a little diamond on a little chain. That sort of struck me as odd. And the more I looked into it, I saw that men, who were once the primary purchasers of jewellery [for women], weren?t that interested in the design of women?s products, but that women were buying more and more jewellery for themselves ? you buy your Louboutin shoes, you buy your amazing handbag, you?re going to buy jewellery for yourself and you?re going to want something beautifully designed.
Then, there was the whole idea of preciousness. We have a mantra in the office: ?Go precious every day.? This is a ?5,000 pair of earrings [gestures] and most people will put them in a drawer and wear them when they go to the opera or something. And we?re like, ?No, you can wear them with jeans!? It doesn?t have to be a special occasion to pull out your jewellery. As a brand, that?s what we believe. Additionally, there were not many brands that celebrated colour. I have a personal love of coloured gemstones and I saw a real opportunity there.
So, I think there is an opportunity for a brand to try and own that space, somewhere between Bond Street and the high street, embracing all the things established jewellery brands aren?t doing: design, colour and educating people about preciousness.
BoF: So you?d identified a market opportunity. But, of course, being a founder comes with enormous pressure and expectations. It?s a personal journey, as well as a professional one. On a personal level, what convinced you to take the plunge?
BAC: I was pretty fed up with working for other people and, also, I wanted to build something. You don?t get the opportunity to actually make something that often and when you work in big organisations, you?re sort of a cog in this big chain, you don?t see the beginning and you don?t see the end.
I also come from sort of a weird family: people that all just went off and did their own thing. My dad was on the first British expedition to climb Mount Everest and my grandfather was a geneticist who discovered the cure for Rhesus negative in babies. And my mom was a doctor and psychiatrist before most women did that type of thing. Whenever I?ve said to my dad, ?Oh what do you think I should do?? even if there are a hundred million risks involved, he always said, ?You?ve got to do it, you?ve just got to do it.?
A guy called Mark Esiri ? who?s on our board of directors and was one of our initial investors ? has his own venture capital fund and, at the time, he said: ?Come and work for me, you?ll see lots of businesses and if you get an idea while you?re here and if we like it, we?ll back it.? And they did. It was like an unofficial entrepreneur-in-residence scheme.
BoF: Astley Clarke launched as a multi-brand e-tailer, selling jewellery by other designers. When did you first realise that you were actually building your own brand?
BAC: Quite early on we had our own jewellery collections but we sort of kept them under the radar. Initially, they were very plain, pearl studs or an easy amethyst necklace. Remember, I?m not a jewellery designer. But soon we realised that actually 70 percent of our search traffic was based on people typing in keywords like ?Astley Clarke.? It wasn?t like Net-a-Porter, where people were searching for brand names, like Gucci or whatever. They were searching for ?Astley Clarke.? So that made me think we?re quite good at this brand building thing.
In fact, we were quite good at two things. One was PR, looking after the press and educating the press about the market and fine jewellery. And the other was building this luxury experience on the website. And having interesting content and the right tone of voice and fantastic customer service. We made a big point of always having the telephone number on the homepage of the website and we actively welcomed people calling and interacting with the business. People seemed to engage with the brand. They liked the name, they liked the emails, they liked the tone of voice, they liked the products.
So we hired a creative director, Lorna Watson. She came from Faberg?. She?d worked across fine jewellery and more contemporary jewellery and we set about designing and making our own collections. And from day one it flew. And that sort of gave us a bit more confidence and we said, ?Ok, let?s put a little bit more behind this.? As of last year, it?s actually 70 percent of sales. I remember there was a board meeting where everyone was like, ?You?re a brand, you?re a brand.? So we said, let?s really give this the due attention it deserves. And, of course, commercially it made sense.
BoF: Unlike most offline brands, you launch new collections every week. Why this rhythm?
BAC: I think it?s a really interesting one because fine jewellers, they put their product out for the year and that?s it. But as an online business, we?ve had to run launches differently because we?ve got to keep interest and we?ve got to have people coming back. There is something about giving people newness.
For many people, jewellery purchases are associated with their engagement ring, or anniversary, or birthday. And we want our customers to see jewellery more in line with how they see other fashion items, like a new dress or a new pair of shoes.
BoF: Some say that, more than any other factor, product is the key to a successful e-commerce business. Tell me about the Astley Clarke product. What makes it special?
BAC: Our design handwriting. And our use of noble metals and coloured gemstones. But we are a young brand, so our handwriting is quite soft in the mould still. We have these pillars that run though [our designs] and that are evolving all the time. Collectability and stackability are key elements.
BoF: Why did you decide to start selling offline, first at Harrods, then at Liberty and Selfridges?
BAC: Initially it wasn?t strategic. It just happened. They came to us. As did Harvey Nichols. But ultimately, I think you?ve got to let people shop in the way they want to shop ? as a brand, we?ve got to be where customers are expecting to find us. And as a marketing tool, it?s been very valuable to have our brand in front of potential customers that don?t necessarily know us.
BoF: Do you see Astley Clarke stores?
BAC: I see an Astley Clarke store, yes. I think we will have a flagship store at some point in the future. Offline is there to welcome our customers who want to shop that way and, more than anything else, introduce people to the brand. The core of our business will always be e-commerce, but we?d like to have a flagship store in the next 18 months. Mayfair and the West End is where we would most likely be. But I don?t think we need to be on Bond Street.
BoF: What about international expansion?
BAC: We?re in the middle of looking at this as well. We?ve got the US website. And I think the East Coast of America is where most of our international customers are. And Europe. And I think China. We probably have to do web first. It?s the lowest cost entry mechanism. And then we have our engine there, set up and ready. Then we?d look at wholesale accounts and then we?d look at press launch. We probably need to do Japan. We definitely need to do Hong Kong before mainland China in terms of a physical presence.
BoF: A couple months ago, you brought in a professional managing director, Scott Thomson. How did you know it was time?
BAC: We felt, ?Ok, we?ve opened three concessions in Harrods, Selfridges, we have a US website, it?s all going really well.? But let?s really get behind it. Let?s get behind it internationally. Let?s get behind it offline. I don?t think we really have offline retailing experience, or wholesaling experience. He does. His story?s quite interesting actually. He started with a lady called Marcia Kilgore, who owned Bliss, a beauty brand that was sold to LVMH. And then she started this brand FitFlop ? you know the sandals that make you thin? Apparently, they?ve got something that tones your legs. But it went from zero to ?150 million in turnover through a big internationalisation, through big wholesale. And so we really wanted to have that expertise in house.
We?ve got to be a multi-channel brand in the places that people want to shop. And for me it was quite easy to see that I don?t have enough offline retailing or wholesaling experience to do this by myself. And I think having someone frees me up to do the bits that I?m good at ? and not the bits that I?m not good at. Operational efficiency is not my strong point. But tone of voice and brand messaging and working with our creative director are much more my strengths.
BoF: You have attracted a number of impressive investors. How did you go about choosing your investors? Other than financial backing, what have they brought to the table?
BAC: I have been good at finding good investors who bring more than just money to the table and I?m so delighted with the people that we?ve got on board. When things are good, or when things are bad, we?ve had nothing but support from them.
Mark Esiri was our first investor. And when he came on board, he brought some other people with him. Then, my ex-Tesco people invested. [At Tesco] I did a deal with a guy ? we bought his online dieting company called e-Diets and he made loads of money. So when I rang him up and said I?m setting up [Astley Clarke], he invested. And Robin and Saul Klein I had done this deal with and they invested. Then Index [Ventures] got in touch, which opened up a whole new family of people. More recently Carmen [Busquets], who came via a lady called Mimma Viglezio, a former communications director at Gucci Group who has been great, helping us with PR, helping us with product.
It?s a really nice bunch, because we have these hardcore e-commerce tech guys who know nothing about products, but they approach it from a conversion rate, traffic, stop doing affiliates, start doing this, all of that good old fashioned e-commerce stuff. And then we have people like Carmen and Mimma, who understand products and who understand brands. I think e-commerce and platforms was the differentiator ten years ago or five years ago. But now anyone can have a website. There?s no barrier to entry. But not everyone can have a brand.
BoF: Looking into the future, where do you see Astley Clarke in five years time?
BAC: We?ve got a slide: it?s a map of the world. We want to be a global luxury jewellery brand. In a similar sort of vein to what Mulberry did for handbags, I think we want to be that sort of size business, a ?200 million turnover business with some multi-currency and multi-language websites, with concession locations or wholesale locations across the world, and probably one or two flagships. I mean we have in our business plan a London one, which is a definite, and possibly one on the East Coast of America. But we?re not a store rollout business. We?re an e-commerce business using offline to build our brand.
Corporate accounting may not sound like a domain that intersects neatly with environmental metrics. While this disjuncture has been historically true, it may be undergoing a 180-degree change.
The Dow Chemical Co. and other corporate decision-makers are looking at environmental metrics as important for incorporating into corporate accounting and spreadsheets. Advocates argue that this work would provide a more complete and accurate picture of the investments and flows of natural resource inputs, as well as goods and revenues from a company over time.
This more comprehensive picture of the business realities is contingent upon introduction of new metrics of how mutually dependent business, built infrastructure and natural systems are functioning today and in the future. Once the analytical approaches are developed in the coming years, this work may well become the norm for business.
In many ways, this shift is what futurist Peter Schwartz would dub an "inevitable surprise." Dave Batker of Earth Economics asserts that we are at a fundamental inflection point in how we track and measure economic and financial "well-being" and flows. In their book "What's the Economy for Anyway?" he and co-author John de Graaf assert:
"We're not in the 20th century anymore. ... The climate is changing, with potentially disastrous consequences. Useful water is less available, while floods are increasingly prolific. Unlike in the 1930s, when roads and indoor plumbing were scarce [in the U.S. and Europe] and forests, water and wetlands were abundant, now roads [in many parts of the world] are abundant and natural systems and their services, such as flood protection, are increasingly scarce and more valuable. Yet neither our economy nor our measures of economic progress reflect these realities."
We need significant changes in what is measured and managed by both the private and public sector alike.
Dow now is trying to identify a pathway forward that can be operationalized in corporate accounting. The company and The Nature Conservancy announced a collaboration in January 2011 to help Dow and other companies recognize, value and incorporate nature into global business goals, decisions and strategies.
Forest image by Stephane Bidouze via Shutterstock.
NEW YORK (AP) ? Two 11-year-old actresses who have played orphans and been understudies in the Broadway revival of "Annie" have been picked to permanently take over from Lilla Crawford in the title role, a step up that has left them beaming.
Taylor Richardson and Sadie Sink, both natural redheads, will share the role of the stage's most famous redhead beginning July 30. Crawford's last performance will be July 28.
"It's very exciting," said Sadie, who has played Annie before but not on Broadway. "It is a big step from an orphan to the title role." That's a sentiment that her smiling co-star agrees with: "Definitely."
Taylor, an actress from Richmond, Va., and Sadie, originally from Houston, have both understudied the role of Annie, and both have gone on as the orphan Duffy. "Annie" is their Broadway debuts.
"There's a big difference between going on for one of the orphans and going on for Annie," said Taylor, who has played Annie about 80 times so far. "There's more songs, more dancing, more time being onstage that you have to be prepared for. So I guess you have to work extra-hard when you go on as Annie."
Based on the beloved comic strip that debuted in 1924, the musical is the heartwarming tale of the Depression-era orphan girl who finds happiness with a grouchy millionaire and a lovable dog.
Producers have decided that each girl will play Annie for four of the eight-shows each week. The girl not playing the title role will go on as Duffy, the biggest of the orphans who memorably stomps on Miss Hannigan's foot in Act 2.
Sadie has previously been in productions of "The Miracle Worker" and "The Secret Garden." Taylor was in a regional production of "Honk!" Both played Susan Waverly in "Irving Berlin's White Christmas" when they were 8.
Both adore musical theater and harbor dreams of one day playing either Elphaba in "Wicked" or Christine in "The Phantom of the Opera." They eat dinner together and go out for fun. When they were offered the part, they had to keep it a secret, but each would knowingly smile to each other.
Taylor has a particular tie to the part of Annie: Her grandfather was adopted by parents looking for a child with red hair. "I thought that was really cool that I had that connection once I found out," she said.
The mothers of both girls ? neither who have red hair ? are bursting with pride but shy away from taking credit for producing singing, dancing and acting prodigies.
"There are definitely some people in both sides of our family that are musically gifted and talented. I am not," said Tiffany Richardson, Taylor's mom, with a laugh. "It skipped me and went to her. I'm OK with that."
Though clearly talented, Sadie is not the first in her family to be on Broadway. One of her three older brothers, Mitchell, played a part in "Elf" this winter ? the reason Sadie came to New York. Sadie also has a younger sister with curly red hair who likes to sing.
"The red hair and the talent? I don't know," said Lori Sink, Sadie's mother.
Tiffany Richardson has already seen her daughter take center stage on Broadway as Annie, and said she and Sadie's mother will soon have a special bond. "I can't wait to share that feeling with Lori because it really is a special feeling," she said.
"Annie" first opened on Broadway in 1977 and ran for almost six years, fueled by songs including "It's the Hard-Knock Life" and "Tomorrow." A film version was released in 1982 with Aileen Quinn playing the star and a TV version came out in 1999 starring Alicia Morton.
The musical, which features music by Charles Strouse, lyrics by Martin Charnin and book by Thomas Meehan, is directed by three-time Tony winner James Lapine and choreographed by Tony winner Andy Blankenbuehler.
Crawford, who has been in the show since its first preview in October, will have played the role close to 300 times. Other actresses who have had their start in "Annie" include Sarah Jessica Parker, Molly Ringwald and Sutton Foster.
In other "Annie" news, Anthony Warlow, who has been playing Oliver Warbucks since the show began, has extended his contract with the production through Dec. 8. Faith Prince begins playing Miss Hannigan on July 19.
___
Online:
http://www.AnnieTheMusical.com
___
Mark Kennedy can be reached at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits
June 28, 2013 ? The comic-book hero Superman uses his X-ray vision to spot bad guys lurking behind walls and other objects. Now we could all have X-ray vision, thanks to researchers at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.
Researchers have long attempted to build a device capable of seeing people through walls. However, previous efforts to develop such a system have involved the use of expensive and bulky radar technology that uses a part of the electromagnetic spectrum only available to the military.
Now a system being developed by Dina Katabi, a professor in MIT's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and her graduate student Fadel Adib, could give all of us the ability to spot people in different rooms using low-cost Wi-Fi technology. "We wanted to create a device that is low-power, portable and simple enough for anyone to use, to give people the ability to see through walls and closed doors," Katabi says.
The system, called "Wi-Vi," is based on a concept similar to radar and sonar imaging. But in contrast to radar and sonar, it transmits a low-power Wi-Fi signal and uses its reflections to track moving humans. It can do so even if the humans are in closed rooms or hiding behind a wall.
As a Wi-Fi signal is transmitted at a wall, a portion of the signal penetrates through it, reflecting off any humans on the other side. However, only a tiny fraction of the signal makes it through to the other room, with the rest being reflected by the wall, or by other objects. "So we had to come up with a technology that could cancel out all these other reflections, and keep only those from the moving human body," Katabi says.
Motion detector
To do this, the system uses two transmit antennas and a single receiver. The two antennas transmit almost identical signals, except that the signal from the second receiver is the inverse of the first. As a result, the two signals interfere with each other in such a way as to cancel each other out. Since any static objects that the signals hit -- including the wall -- create identical reflections, they too are cancelled out by this nulling effect.
In this way, only those reflections that change between the two signals, such as those from a moving object, arrive back at the receiver, Adib says. "So, if the person moves behind the wall, all reflections from static objects are cancelled out, and the only thing registered by the device is the moving human."
Once the system has cancelled out all of the reflections from static objects, it can then concentrate on tracking the person as he or she moves around the room. Most previous attempts to track moving targets through walls have done so using an array of spaced antennas, which each capture the signal reflected off a person moving through the environment. But this would be too expensive and bulky for use in a handheld device.
So instead Wi-Vi uses just one receiver. As the person moves through the room, his or her distance from the receiver changes, meaning the time it takes for the reflected signal to make its way back to the receiver changes too. The system then uses this information to calculate where the person is at any one time.
Possible uses in disaster recovery, personal safety, gaming
Wi-Vi, being presented at the Sigcomm conference in Hong Kong in August, could be used to help search-and-rescue teams to find survivors trapped in rubble after an earthquake, say, or to allow police officers to identify the number and movement of criminals within a building to avoid walking into an ambush.
It could also be used as a personal safety device, Katabi says: "If you are walking at night and you have the feeling that someone is following you, then you could use it to check if there is someone behind the fence or behind a corner."
The device can also detect gestures or movements by a person standing behind a wall, such as a wave of the arm, Katabi says. This would allow it to be used as a gesture-based interface for controlling lighting or appliances within the home, such as turning off the lights in another room with a wave of the arm.
Venkat Padmanabhan, a principal researcher at Microsoft Research, says the possibility of using Wi-Vi as a gesture-based interface that does not require a line of sight between the user and the device itself is perhaps its most interesting application of all. "Such an interface could alter the face of gaming," he says.
Unlike today's interactive gaming devices, where users must stay in front of the console and its camera at all times, users could still interact with the system while in another room, for example. This could open up the possibility of more complex and interesting games, Katabi says.
'Shields to Maximum, Mr. Scott'Public release date: 27-Jun-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Faith Singer-Villalobos faith@tacc.utexas.edu 512-232-5771 University of Texas at Austin, Texas Advanced Computing Center
Researchers use TACC supercomputers to simulate orbital debris impacts on spacecraft and fragment impacts on body armor
We know it's out there, debris from 50 years of space exploration aluminum, steel, nylon, even liquid sodium from Russian satellites orbiting around the Earth and posing a danger to manned and unmanned spacecraft.
According to NASA, there are more than 21,000 pieces of 'space junk' roughly the size of a baseball (larger than 10 centimeters) in orbit, and about 500,000 pieces that are golf ball-sized (between one to 10 centimeters).
Sure, space is big, but when a piece of space junk strikes a spacecraft, the collision occurs at a velocity of 5 to 15 kilometers per secondroughly ten times faster than a speeding bullet!
"If a spacecraft is hit by orbital debris it may damage the thermal protection system," said Eric Fahrenthold, professor of mechanical engineering at The University of Texas at Austin, who studies impact dynamics both experimentally and through numerical simulations.
"Even if the impact is not on the main heat shield, it may still adversely affect the spacecraft. The thermal researchers take the results of impact research and assess the effect of a certain impact crater depth and volume on the survivability of a spacecraft during reentry," Fahrenthold said.
Only some of the collisions that may occur in low earth orbit can be reproduced in the laboratory. To determine the potential impact of fast-moving orbital debris on spacecraft and to assist NASA in the design of shielding that can withstand hypervelocity impacts Fahrenthold and his team developed a numerical algorithm that simulates the shock physics of orbital debris particles striking the layers of Kevlar, metal, and fiberglass that makes up a space vehicle's outer defenses.
Supercomputers enable researchers to investigate physical phenomenon that cannot be duplicated in the laboratory, either because they are too large, small, dangerous or in this case, too fast to reproduce with current testing technology.
Running hundreds of simulations on the Ranger, Lonestar and Stampede supercomputers at the Texas Advanced Computing Center, Fahrenthold and his students have assisted NASA in the development of ballistic limit curves that predict whether a shield will be perforated when hit by a projectile of a given size and speed. NASA uses ballistic limit curves in the design and risk analysis of current and future spacecraft.
Results from some of his group's impact dynamics research were presented at the April 2013 American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics' (AIAA) meeting, and have recently been published in the journals Smart Materials and Structures and International Journal for Numerical Methods in Engineering. In the paper presented at the AIAA conference, they showed in detail how different characteristics of a hypervelocity collision, such as the speed, impact angle, and size of the debris, could affect the depth of the cavity produced in ceramic tile thermal protection systems.
The development of these models is not just a shot in the dark. Fahrenthold's simulations have been tested exhaustively against real-world experiments conducted by NASA, which uses light gas guns to launch 'centimeter' size projectiles at speeds up to 10 kilometers per second. The simulations are evaluated in this speed regime to insure that they accurately capture the dynamics of hypervelocity impacts.
Validated simulation methods can then be used to estimate impact damage at velocities outside the experimental range, and also to investigate detailed physics that may be difficult to capture using flash x-ray images of experiments.
The simulation framework that Fahrenthold and his team developed employs a hybrid modeling approach that captures both the fragmentation of the projectiles their tendency to break into small shards that need to be caught and the shock response of the target, which is subjected to severe thermal and mechanical loads.
"We validate our method in the velocity regime where experiments can be performed, then we run simulations at higher velocities, to estimate what we think will happen at higher velocities," Fahrenthold explained. "There are certain things you can do in simulation and certain things you can do in experiment. When they work together, that's a big advantage for the design engineer."
Back on land, Fahrenthold and graduate student Moss Shimek extended this hybrid method in order to study the impact of projectiles on body armor materials in research supported by the Office of Naval Research. The numerical technique originally developed to study impacts on spacecraft worked well for a completely different application at lower velocities, in part because some of the same materials used on spacecraft for orbital debris protection, such as Kevlar, are also used in body armor.
According to Fahrenthold, this method offers a fundamentally new way of simulating fabric impacts, which have been modeled with conventional finite element methods for more than 20 years. The model parameters used in the simulation, such as the material's strength, flexibility, and thermal properties, are provided by experimentalists. The supercomputer simulations then replicate the physics of projectile impact and yarn fracture, and capture the complex interaction of the multiple layers of a fabric protection system some fragments getting caught in the mesh of yarns, others breaking through the layers and perforating the barrier.
"Using a hybrid technique for fabric modeling works well," Fahrenthold said. "When the fabric barrier is hit at very high velocities, as in spacecraft shielding, it's a shock-type impact and the thermal properties are important as well as the mechanical ones."
Moss Shimek's dissertation research added a new wrinkle to the fabric model by representing the various weaves used in the manufacture of Kevlar and ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (another leading protective material) barriers, including harness-satin, basket, and twill weaves. Each weave type has advantages and disadvantages when used in body armor designed to protect military and police personnel. Layering the different weaves, many believe, can provide improved protection.
Fahrenthold and Shimek (currently a post-doctoral research associate at Los Alamos National Laboratory) explored the performance of various weave types using both experiments and simulations. In the November 2012 issue of the AIAA Journal, Shimek and Fahrenthold showed that in some cases the weave type of the fabric material can greatly influence fabric barrier performance.
"Currently body armor normally uses the plain weave, but research has shown that different weaves that are more flexible might be better, for example in extremity protection," Shimek said.
Shimek and Fahrenthold used the same numerical method employed for the NASA simulations to model a series of experiments on layered Kevlar materials, showing that their simulation results were within 15 percent of the experimental outcomes.
"Future body armor designs may vary the weave type through a Kevlar stack," Shimek said. "Maybe one weave type is better at dealing with small fragments, while others perform better for larger fragments. Our results suggest that you can use simulation to assist the designer in developing a fragment barrier which can capitalize on those differences."
What can researchers learn about the layer-to-layer impact response of a fabric barrier through simulation? Can body armor be improved by varying the weave type of the many layers in a typical fabric barrier? Can simulation assist the design engineer in developing orbital debris shields that better protect spacecraft? The range of engineering design questions is endless, and computer simulations can play an important role in the 'faster, better, cheaper' development of improved impact protection systems.
"We are trying to make fundamental improvements in numerical algorithms, and validate those algorithms against experiment," Fahrenthold concluded. "This can provide improved tools for engineering design, and allow simulation-based research to contribute in areas where experiments are very difficult to do or very expensive."
###
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
'Shields to Maximum, Mr. Scott'Public release date: 27-Jun-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Faith Singer-Villalobos faith@tacc.utexas.edu 512-232-5771 University of Texas at Austin, Texas Advanced Computing Center
Researchers use TACC supercomputers to simulate orbital debris impacts on spacecraft and fragment impacts on body armor
We know it's out there, debris from 50 years of space exploration aluminum, steel, nylon, even liquid sodium from Russian satellites orbiting around the Earth and posing a danger to manned and unmanned spacecraft.
According to NASA, there are more than 21,000 pieces of 'space junk' roughly the size of a baseball (larger than 10 centimeters) in orbit, and about 500,000 pieces that are golf ball-sized (between one to 10 centimeters).
Sure, space is big, but when a piece of space junk strikes a spacecraft, the collision occurs at a velocity of 5 to 15 kilometers per secondroughly ten times faster than a speeding bullet!
"If a spacecraft is hit by orbital debris it may damage the thermal protection system," said Eric Fahrenthold, professor of mechanical engineering at The University of Texas at Austin, who studies impact dynamics both experimentally and through numerical simulations.
"Even if the impact is not on the main heat shield, it may still adversely affect the spacecraft. The thermal researchers take the results of impact research and assess the effect of a certain impact crater depth and volume on the survivability of a spacecraft during reentry," Fahrenthold said.
Only some of the collisions that may occur in low earth orbit can be reproduced in the laboratory. To determine the potential impact of fast-moving orbital debris on spacecraft and to assist NASA in the design of shielding that can withstand hypervelocity impacts Fahrenthold and his team developed a numerical algorithm that simulates the shock physics of orbital debris particles striking the layers of Kevlar, metal, and fiberglass that makes up a space vehicle's outer defenses.
Supercomputers enable researchers to investigate physical phenomenon that cannot be duplicated in the laboratory, either because they are too large, small, dangerous or in this case, too fast to reproduce with current testing technology.
Running hundreds of simulations on the Ranger, Lonestar and Stampede supercomputers at the Texas Advanced Computing Center, Fahrenthold and his students have assisted NASA in the development of ballistic limit curves that predict whether a shield will be perforated when hit by a projectile of a given size and speed. NASA uses ballistic limit curves in the design and risk analysis of current and future spacecraft.
Results from some of his group's impact dynamics research were presented at the April 2013 American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics' (AIAA) meeting, and have recently been published in the journals Smart Materials and Structures and International Journal for Numerical Methods in Engineering. In the paper presented at the AIAA conference, they showed in detail how different characteristics of a hypervelocity collision, such as the speed, impact angle, and size of the debris, could affect the depth of the cavity produced in ceramic tile thermal protection systems.
The development of these models is not just a shot in the dark. Fahrenthold's simulations have been tested exhaustively against real-world experiments conducted by NASA, which uses light gas guns to launch 'centimeter' size projectiles at speeds up to 10 kilometers per second. The simulations are evaluated in this speed regime to insure that they accurately capture the dynamics of hypervelocity impacts.
Validated simulation methods can then be used to estimate impact damage at velocities outside the experimental range, and also to investigate detailed physics that may be difficult to capture using flash x-ray images of experiments.
The simulation framework that Fahrenthold and his team developed employs a hybrid modeling approach that captures both the fragmentation of the projectiles their tendency to break into small shards that need to be caught and the shock response of the target, which is subjected to severe thermal and mechanical loads.
"We validate our method in the velocity regime where experiments can be performed, then we run simulations at higher velocities, to estimate what we think will happen at higher velocities," Fahrenthold explained. "There are certain things you can do in simulation and certain things you can do in experiment. When they work together, that's a big advantage for the design engineer."
Back on land, Fahrenthold and graduate student Moss Shimek extended this hybrid method in order to study the impact of projectiles on body armor materials in research supported by the Office of Naval Research. The numerical technique originally developed to study impacts on spacecraft worked well for a completely different application at lower velocities, in part because some of the same materials used on spacecraft for orbital debris protection, such as Kevlar, are also used in body armor.
According to Fahrenthold, this method offers a fundamentally new way of simulating fabric impacts, which have been modeled with conventional finite element methods for more than 20 years. The model parameters used in the simulation, such as the material's strength, flexibility, and thermal properties, are provided by experimentalists. The supercomputer simulations then replicate the physics of projectile impact and yarn fracture, and capture the complex interaction of the multiple layers of a fabric protection system some fragments getting caught in the mesh of yarns, others breaking through the layers and perforating the barrier.
"Using a hybrid technique for fabric modeling works well," Fahrenthold said. "When the fabric barrier is hit at very high velocities, as in spacecraft shielding, it's a shock-type impact and the thermal properties are important as well as the mechanical ones."
Moss Shimek's dissertation research added a new wrinkle to the fabric model by representing the various weaves used in the manufacture of Kevlar and ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (another leading protective material) barriers, including harness-satin, basket, and twill weaves. Each weave type has advantages and disadvantages when used in body armor designed to protect military and police personnel. Layering the different weaves, many believe, can provide improved protection.
Fahrenthold and Shimek (currently a post-doctoral research associate at Los Alamos National Laboratory) explored the performance of various weave types using both experiments and simulations. In the November 2012 issue of the AIAA Journal, Shimek and Fahrenthold showed that in some cases the weave type of the fabric material can greatly influence fabric barrier performance.
"Currently body armor normally uses the plain weave, but research has shown that different weaves that are more flexible might be better, for example in extremity protection," Shimek said.
Shimek and Fahrenthold used the same numerical method employed for the NASA simulations to model a series of experiments on layered Kevlar materials, showing that their simulation results were within 15 percent of the experimental outcomes.
"Future body armor designs may vary the weave type through a Kevlar stack," Shimek said. "Maybe one weave type is better at dealing with small fragments, while others perform better for larger fragments. Our results suggest that you can use simulation to assist the designer in developing a fragment barrier which can capitalize on those differences."
What can researchers learn about the layer-to-layer impact response of a fabric barrier through simulation? Can body armor be improved by varying the weave type of the many layers in a typical fabric barrier? Can simulation assist the design engineer in developing orbital debris shields that better protect spacecraft? The range of engineering design questions is endless, and computer simulations can play an important role in the 'faster, better, cheaper' development of improved impact protection systems.
"We are trying to make fundamental improvements in numerical algorithms, and validate those algorithms against experiment," Fahrenthold concluded. "This can provide improved tools for engineering design, and allow simulation-based research to contribute in areas where experiments are very difficult to do or very expensive."
###
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
your domain name,] teach you some basic terms so that you can understand how to choose the jurisdiction of your domain name (as well as make sure that your personal or business information is not leaked out into the public domain) [and tell you how to do it. Read on!]
A laborer is seen working in a textile factory in Huaibei, in north China's Anhui province on July 24, 2013. China's manufacturing activity contracted to a 11-month low in July.
![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](http://www.eurekalert.org/images/back2e.gif){kind=small}
Public release date: 27-Jun-2013
Share ]