Meet Phylicia Rashad - Director of August Wilson #39;s Fences
Watch Phylicia Rashad speak about the first time she met August Wilson and about how she connects with the characters in "Fences."
By: Long Wharf Theatre
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Meet Phylicia Rashad - Director of August Wilson's Fences - Video
A 22-mile stretch of fences along both sides of Interstate 280 in San Mateo County would prevent dangerous and costly collisions between deer and cars, a UC-Davis study concludes.
The two-year, $322,415 study was funded by the California Department of Transportation and conducted by the University of California Davis Road Ecology Center.
Every year about 40 to 50 deer are hit by vehicles on Interstate 280, said Fraser Shilling, the center's co-director and author of the study. The section of highway between Millbrae and Woodside has more animal accidents than others because of its proximity to the county's open spaces, including Crystal Springs Reservoir.
"You've got some significant wildlife habitat right next to where people are driving 70 to 80 miles per hour," Shilling said Tuesday.
In September 2011, a few months before the study was launched, 27-year-old Santa Clara University assistant professor Daniel Strickland died after he hit a deer, stopped his car and was slammed into by another vehicle.
Even when drivers manage to avoid hitting deer and other animals that cross the highway, they're put in a perilous situation by having to swerve in traffic, Shilling said.
Caltrans is reviewing the recommendations in the UC-Davis study and has not "formally endorsed or rejected any of the proposals," Bob Haus, a department spokesman, wrote in an email Tuesday.
A deer fence should be about 8 feet tall to be effective, according to the study. It would cost about $100,000 per mile to construct, for a total of about $4 million, Shilling said. The cost could be lowered if some existing fences are heightened.
Although highway undercrossings can provide safe passage to deer and other wildlife, they need to be as free from humans as possible. And fences still would be needed nearby to prevent animals from accessing the road, the report states.
The study identified three main wildlife-vehicle collision hot spots -- a mile stretch between Hillcrest Boulevard and one mile south of Trousdale Drive, the Bunker Hill Drive crossing, and a half-mile span north of Farm Hill Boulevard.
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Study calls for 22-mile stretch of fences on I-280 to prevent deer crashes
General Electric Company
Imagination at work
General Electric, or GE, is an American multinational conglomerate corporation incorporated in Schenectady, New York and headquartered in Fairfield, Connecticut, United States.[1][3] The company operates through four segments: Energy, Technology Infrastructure, Capital Finance and Consumer and Industrial.[4][5]
In 2011, GE ranked among the Fortune 500 as the 26th-largest firm in the U.S. by gross revenue,[6] as well as the 14th most profitable.[7] However, the company is currently listed the 4th-largest in the world among the Forbes Global 2000, further metrics being taken into account.[8] Other rankings for 2011/2012 include No. 7 company for leaders (Fortune), No. 5 best global brand (Interbrand), No. 63 green company (Newsweek), No. 15 most admired company (Fortune), and No. 19 most innovative company (Fast Company).[9]
Before 1889, Thomas Edison had business interests in many electricity-related companies: Edison Lamp Company, a lamp manufacturer in East Newark, New Jersey; Edison Machine Works, a manufacturer of dynamos and large electric motors in Schenectady, New York; Bergmann & Company, a manufacturer of electric lighting fixtures, sockets, and other electric lighting devices; and Edison Electric Light Company, the patent-holding company and the financial arm backed by J.P. Morgan and the Vanderbilt family for Edison's lighting experiments.[10] In 1889, Drexel, Morgan & Co., a company founded by J.P. Morgan and Anthony J. Drexel, financed Edisons research and helped merge those companies under one corporation to form Edison General Electric Company which was incorporated in New York on April 24, 1889. The new company also acquired Sprague Electric Railway & Motor Company in the same year.[11][12]
At about the same time, Charles Coffin, leading Thomson-Houston Electric Company, acquired a number of competitors and gained access to their key patents.
General Electric was formed by the 1892 merger of Edison General Electric Company of Schenectady, New York and Thomson-Houston Electric Company of Lynn, Massachusetts with the help of Drexel, Morgan & Co.[12] Both plants continue to operate under the GE banner to this day.[13] The company was incorporated in New York, with the Schenectady plant used as headquarters for many years thereafter. Around the same time, General Electric's Canadian counterpart, Canadian General Electric, was formed.
In 1896, General Electric was one of the original 12 companies listed on the newly formed Dow Jones Industrial Average. After 117 years, it is the only one of the original companies still listed on the Dow index, although it has not been on the index continuously.[14]
In 1911 General Electric absorbed the National Electric Lamp Association (NELA) into its lighting business. GE established its lighting division headquarters at Nela Park in East Cleveland, Ohio. Nela Park is still the headquarters for GE's lighting business.
The Radio Corporation of America (RCA) was founded by GE in 1919 to further international radio. GE used RCA as its retail arm for radio sales from 1919, when GE began production, until separation on 1930.[15] RCA would quickly grow into an industrial giant of its own.
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General Electric - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Bitumen" redirects here. For naturally occurring bituminous sands used for petroleum production, see Oil sands. Note: The terms bitumen and asphalt are mostly interchangeable, except where asphalt is used as an abbreviation for asphalt concrete. This article uses "asphalt/bitumen" where either term is acceptable.
Asphalt US i// or UK //,[1][2] also known as bitumen / /,[3][4] is a sticky, black and highly viscous liquid or semi-solid form of petroleum. It may be found in natural deposits or may be a refined product; it is a substance classed as a pitch. Until the 20th century, the term asphaltum was also used.[5]
The primary use of asphalt/bitumen is in road construction, where it is used as the glue or binder mixed with aggregate particles to create asphalt concrete. Its other main uses are for bituminous waterproofing products, including production of roofing felt and for sealing flat roofs.
The terms asphalt and bitumen are often used interchangeably to mean both natural and manufactured forms of the substance. In American English, asphalt (or asphalt cement) is the carefully refined residue from the distillation process of selected crude oils. Outside the United States, the product is often called bitumen. Geological terminology often prefers the term bitumen. Common usage often refers to various forms of asphalt/bitumen as "tar", such as at the La Brea Tar Pits. Another term, mostly archaic, refers to asphalt/bitumen as "pitch". The pitch used in this mixture is sometimes found in natural deposits but usually made by the distillation of crude oil.
Naturally occurring asphalt/bitumen is sometimes specified by the term "crude bitumen". Its viscosity is similar to that of cold molasses[6][7] while the material obtained from the fractional distillation of crude oil [boiling at 525C (977F)] is sometimes referred to as "refined bitumen".
The word asphalt is derived from the late Middle English, in turn from French asphalte, based on Late Latin asphalton, asphaltum, which is the latinisation of the Greek (sphaltos, sphalton), a word meaning "asphalt/bitumen/pitch",[8] which perhaps derives from - "without" and , (sfall), "make fall".[9] Note that in French, the term asphalte is used for naturally occurring bitumen-soaked limestone deposits, and for specialised manufactured products with fewer voids or greater bitumen content than the "asphaltic concrete" used to pave roads. It is a significant fact that the first use of asphalt by the ancients was in the nature of a cement for securing or joining together various objects, and it thus seems likely that the name itself was expressive of this application. Specifically Herodotus mentioned that bitumen was brought to Babylon to build its gigantic fortification wall.[10] From the Greek, the word passed into late Latin, and thence into French (asphalte) and English ("asphaltum" and "asphalt").
The expression "bitumen" originated in the Sanskrit, where we find the words jatu, meaning "pitch," and jatu-krit, meaning "pitch creating", "pitch producing" (referring to coniferous or resinous trees). The Latin equivalent is claimed by some to be originally gwitu-men (pertaining to pitch), and by others, pixtumens (exuding or bubbling pitch), which was subsequently shortened to bitumen, thence passing via French into English. From the same root is derived the Anglo Saxon word cwidu (mastix), the German word Kitt (cement or mastic) and the old Norse word kvada.[11]
Neither of the terms asphalt or bitumen should be confused with tar or coal tars.
In British English, the word 'asphalt' is used to refer to a mixture of mineral aggregate and asphalt/bitumen (also called tarmac in common parlance). The earlier word 'asphaltum' is now archaic and not commonly used. In American English, 'asphalt' is equivalent to the British 'bitumen'. However, 'asphalt' is also commonly used as a shortened form of 'asphalt concrete' (therefore equivalent to the British 'asphalt' or 'tarmac'). In Australian English, bitumen is often used as the generic term for road surfaces. In Canadian English, the word bitumen is used to refer to the vast Canadian deposits of extremely heavy crude oil,[12] while asphalt is used for the oil refinery product used to pave roads and manufacture roof shingles and various waterproofing products. Diluted bitumen (diluted with naphtha to make it flow in pipelines) is known as dilbit in the Canadian petroleum industry, while bitumen "upgraded" to synthetic crude oil is known as syncrude and syncrude blended with bitumen as synbit.[13] Bitumen is still the preferred geological term for naturally occurring deposits of the solid or semi-solid form of petroleum. Bituminous rock is a form of sandstone impregnated with bitumen. The tar sands of Alberta, Canada are a similar material.
The substance is completely soluble in carbon disulfide, and composed primarily of a mixture of highly condensed polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons; it is most commonly modelled as a colloid, with asphaltenes as the dispersed phase and maltenes as the continuous phase (though there is some disagreement amongst chemists regarding its structure). One writer stated although a "considerable amount of work has been done on the composition of asphalt, it is exceedingly difficult to separate individual hydrocarbon in pure form",[14] and "it is almost impossible to separate and identify all the different molecules of asphalt, because the number of molecules with different chemical structure is extremely large".[15]
Asphalt concrete is a composite material commonly used in construction projects such as road surfaces, parking lots, and airports. Asphalt concrete consists of asphalt (used as a binder) mixed with mineral aggregate and then laid down in layers and compacted. Asphalt concrete was refined and enhanced to its current state by Belgian inventor and U.S. immigrant Edward de Smedt.[2] It is increasingly being used as the core of embankment dams.[3]
It is commonly called simply asphalt,[4]blacktop, or paving (particularly in North America). The terms "asphalt (or asphaltic) concrete", "bituminous asphalt concrete", and "bituminous mixture" are typically used only in engineering and construction documents and literature. The abbreviation "AC" is sometimes used for "asphalt concrete" but can also denote "asphalt content" or "asphalt cement", referring to the liquid asphalt portion of a bituminous mixture.
Asphalt concrete pavements are often called just "asphalt" by laypersons who tend to associate the term "concrete" with Portland cement concrete only. The engineering definition of concrete is any composite material composed of mineral aggregate glued together with a binder, whether that binder is Portland cement, asphalt or even epoxy.
Mixing of asphalt and aggregate is accomplished in one of several ways:
Asphalt concrete pavementsespecially those at airfieldsare sometimes called tarmac for historical reasons, although they do not contain tar and are not constructed using the macadam process.
A variety of specialty asphalt concrete mixtures have been developed to meet specific needs, such as stone-matrix asphalt, which is designed to ensure a very strong wearing surface, or porous asphalt pavements, which are permeable and allow water to drain through the pavement for controlling stormwater.
Asphalt concrete has different performance characteristics in terms of surface durability, tire wear, braking efficiency and roadway noise. The appropriate asphalt performance characteristic is obtained by the traffic level amount in categories A,B,C,D,E, and friction coarse (FC-5). Asphalt concrete generates less roadway noise than Portland cement concrete surfacing, and is typically less noisy than chip seal surfaces.[6][7]
Tire noise effects are amplified at higher operating speeds. Noise is generated through the conversion of kinetic energy to sound waves. The idea that highway design could be influenced by acoustical engineering considerations including selection of surface paving types arose in the early 1970s.[8][9]
Asphalt deterioration can include crocodile cracking, potholes, upheaval, raveling, bleeding, rutting, shoving, stripping, and grade depressions. In cold climates, freezing of the groundwater underneath can crack asphalt even in one winter (by frost heaving). Filling the cracks with bitumen can temporarily fix the cracks, but only proper construction, i.e. compaction and drainage, can slow this process.
Factors that cause asphalt concrete to deteriorate over time mostly fall into one of three categories: construction quality, environmental factors and traffic loads. Often, damage results from combinations of factors in all three categories.
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Asphalt concrete - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Research Finds Unintended Consequences of Reflective Pavements
Addressing the urban heat island effect (UHI) is a growing concern for many municipalities, but a new report from Arizona State University (ASU), "Unintended Consequences: A Research Synthesis Examining the Use of Reflective Pavements to Mitigate the Urban Heat Island Effect," calls into question many common assumptions about the ability of reflective pavements to mitigate UHI.
Reflective surfaces redirect solar energy and for this reason high-albedo, reflective, or "cool" roofs have been suggested as an important tool for UHI mitigation. However, efforts to apply the same principle to pavements overlook the complexities of urban geography and how ground-level reflections interact with pedestrians, vehicles, and the built environment.
"We cannot assume that reflective pavements will behave the same as reflective roofs. When energy is reflected from a ground surface, it doesn't return directly to the sky. It reflects back at buildings and pedestrians. Heat concentration in urban areas is a multifaceted problem; it requires a solution that looks at more than just one mitigation strategy," said Heather Dylla, Ph.D., Director of Sustainable Engineering for the National Asphalt Association (NAPA).
A copy of the report can be downloaded from the ASU National Center for SMART Innovations website at http://ncesmart.asu.edu/news/unintended-consequences.
The National Asphalt Pavement Association (NAPA) today (Sept. 11, 2013) presented Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) with the Asphalt Legislator of the Year Award for her bipartisan leadership in crafting the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21).
Caterpillar 385C Freimuth Abbruch Bagger Abrissarbeiten Sachsenburg demolition excavator
Caterpillar 385C von Bodo Freimuth Abbruch bei Abrissarbeiten an der Sachsenburg in Hamburg Teil 22 (Oktober 2013) Caterpillar 385C of Bodo Freimuth demolish...
By: DreamDockTV
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Caterpillar 385C Freimuth Abbruch Bagger Abrissarbeiten Sachsenburg demolition excavator - Video
(WJBK) -
Demolition in Detroit is no laughing matter - thousands of abandoned homes and buildings need to be knocked down, but the city's inability to remove the blighted housing stock has made it a laughingstock to some.
John Robinson moved next door to a house that was already burned out and abandoned, but he figured everything would be okay because the city of Detroit had been paid to demolish it, per a notice Robinson spotted on the front door of the abandoned house.
Unfortunately, Detroit officials say there wasn't enough money to do the job and told Fox 2's M.L. Elrick in July they'd try to find a way to get it knocked down still. Five months later - still no avail - and M.L. goes looking for answers.
VIDEO: Click on the video player above to watch M.L.'s report, or read the story below _____________
ELRICK: Hey, David Bell. M.L. Elrick, Fox 2. Did you ever hear the story about the house that got paid to be knocked down, but never got knocked down?
BELL: I'm not sure what you're talking about.
By day Dave Bell runs the city's demolition program. By night he's been known to do a little standup comedy.
But there's nothing funny about this story -- even though it's a farce.
ROBINSON: We were really blessed to be able to find this home. Then you look over here.
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Elrick investigates city's demolition program after house should have been knocked down months ago
We cant interfere in court cases, and its up to the Spanish authorities to provide clarity on the legal uncertainty facing many British homeowners in Spain.
We meet and lobby the Spanish authorities at all levels and we will continue to do so.
He said the Foreign Office was aware of three British-owned properties that have been demolished because they were deemed illegal, one in 2008 and two this year.
The Spanish government was accused last month of pushing illegally built homes to British buyers.
Spain has approximately three million homes standing empty due to the property crash in 2007. Up to a third of these properties may have been built illegally due to corruption in the construction industry and town halls.
A British couple, John and Jan Brooks, had their dream villa bulldozed in October despite a court ruling that they were innocent victims of a corruption scandal.
The Foreign Office has produced a guide on how Britons can avoid being ripped off when buying a property in Spain.
Continued here:
Demolition of British-owned homes in Spain a 'substantial problem'
Dec. 18, 2013, 10 p.m.
A new demolition date for the stack has been set for early next year after the NSW planning department signed off on Port Kembla Copper's plans to bring it down.
A new demolition date for the stack has been set for early next year after the NSW planning department signed off on Port Kembla Copper's plans to bring it down.
PKC boss Ian Wilson announced on Wednesdaythe 198-metre chimney would fall on February 20, more than five months later than originally planned.
The Illawarra landmark's September removal was cancelled at the last minute due to community fears about remaining asbestos levels in the chimney, as well as air pollution and other risks associated with the demolition and evacuation plans.
GALLERY: Port Kembla stack in the frame
A revised proposal has now been approved by Planning NSW, after it was reviewed by a working group made up of the Environment Protection Authority, WorkCover, NSW Police and Wollongong City Council.
An independent industry expert had also verified the plans, NSW Planning said.
"Public submissions received during the exhibition were also carefully considered by the department and the working group and the plans were found to be comprehensive and appropriate - with public safety the paramount consideration," the department said.
Mr Wilson yesterday welcomed the green light, saying he hoped it would allay community fears and allow his company to finish off the project to clear the stack site.
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Port Kembla stack's finally coming down
