Dennis and Mary Frances Westfall of Hilton, NY were on a segment of the History Channel show American Pickers. On the show it looks as if the hosts Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz just happened on the Westfall family. In fact, the Westfall family was contacted by the producers of the show in advance. The Westfall home and garage was packed with all kinds of antiques. The TV crew ended up filming for 11 hours last August but the segment was only about 20 minutes long on TV.
Frank and Mike ended up buying a watchmaker?s kit, a steel toy fire truck, a meerschaum pipe shaped like a skull, Beatles bobble heads, a visor for old model VW autos and an advertising piece for a Rolling Stones record; all of which they be reselling at their shops.
Kabam, a midcore game developer that staged a stunning new chapter on mobile platforms, is out bragging about its expected revenues for the coming year. The company said it ended 2012 with gross revenue of $180 million, up 70 percent from the year before. Gross revenue is bookings, so it doesn’t account for the 30 percent platform cut that a provider like Apple, Google or Facebook would take. Kabam didn’t reveal its margins, except to say that the company was profitable (which I honestly hope should be the case for any mature freemium gaming company). Kabam was a pioneer in midcore freemium gaming on Facebook. Unlike Zynga, they didn’t focus on reaching the largest audience possible or the stereotypical 35-year-old female casual gamer. Instead, they cultivated a smaller player base (usually more male) that spent more on average to play. As Facebook became a more challenging environment, they pivoted to mobile like many other game developers did. That mobile business, which includes extensions of their Kingdoms of Camelot franchise, is now a more-than $100 million business. Another tidbit the company shared was that it was valued at at least $500 million during a May 2011 round of funding that raised $75 million for the company. It also said the recent strategic investment from Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. was secondary, with the investors purchasing shares from earlier investors. On top of that, it says it has $45 million in cash in the bank. So why reveal all this? Kabam says it’s to “establish who’s leading.” But we occasionally see companies do this from time to time as positioning ahead of a sale or additional investment. Seattle’s PopCap actively talked about a potential IPO for months before EA turned around and bought the company for up to $1.3 billion including earnouts. The thing is that Kabam has raised at least $125 million. That’s substantially more than what other midcore developers like Kixeye, which has $19 million in funding, have raised. That just means the bar for an exit, whether that’s through a sale or through a public offering, is much higher. Kabam has mentioned an IPO in the past as a possibility, depending on what’s right for the company. But given how Zynga performed through 2012, it would be hard to imagine that public market investors have the appetite for another freemium gaming IPO. Zynga is valued at
Washington (CNN) ? A bipartisan group of senators plans to announce Monday an agreement on reforming the nation?s immigration system, which President Barack Obama has called a priority in his second term in office.
The eight lawmakers? proposal includes provisions for a path to citizenship for immigrants already living in the United States, and guest worker and employment verification systems.
The proposal in the Senate and Obama?s trip Tuesday to Las Vegas, where he?ll press for immigration reform, signal the largest movement in years for major reforms to the county?s immigration system.
Aides say the president?s Tuesday remarks will touch on the blueprint he?s detailed in the past: improving border security, cracking down on employers who hire undocumented workers, and creating a pathway to ?earned? citizenship for undocumented immigrants.
Those align closely with what the eight senators laid out in a framework of their legislation, though specific details have yet to be hammered out.
According to the framework obtained by CNN, the lawmakers will push four ?legislative pillars? containing mainly broad stroke measures:
?A ?tough but fair? path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants already living in the United States, and bolstering the nation?s border security.
?Overhauling the country?s legal immigration system, including attaching green cards to advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering, or math from U.S. universities.
?Establishing an employment verification system that holds employers accountable for hiring undocumented workers.
?Creating a guest worker program for positions that Americans are either unable or unwilling to fill.
The senators behind the plan are Democrats Chuck Schumer of New York, Dick Durbin of Illinois, Robert Menendez of New Jersey, and Michael Bennet of Colorado and Republicans John McCain of Arizona, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Marco Rubio of Florida, and Jeff Flake of Arizona.
On Sunday, Menendez told ABC?s ?This Week? that the time was right for pushing major immigration reform through the Senate.
?First of all, Americans support it in poll after poll,? he said. ?Secondly, Latino voters expect it. Thirdly, Democrats want it. And fourth, Republicans need it.?
Though many activists were unhappy with Obama for failing to tackle the issue in his first term, he won 71% of the Latino vote in November against Republican challenger Mitt Romney ? who had said he would drive undocumented workers to ?self-deportation? by making conditions so harsh for them that they left the United States.
November?s poor showing among Latinos has led to soul-searching for the GOP, which hopes to make gains among the growing voting bloc in coming years.
McCain, a veteran of failed attempts to address the issue during the George W. Bush administration, said the group of senators? proposal isn?t ?that much different from what we tried to do in 2007.?
This time, ?There is a new, I think, appreciation on both sides of the aisle ? including maybe more importantly on the Republican side of the aisle ? that we have to enact a comprehensive immigration reform bill,? said McCain, the party?s 2008 presidential nominee.
?We are losing dramatically the Hispanic vote, which we think should be ours, for a variety of reasons, and we?ve got to understand that,? McCain added.
Ahead of his Las Vegas trip, the president met behind closed doors Friday with members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and vowed to ?move the debate forward,? and warned that there was ?no excuse for stalling or delay,? the White House said in a statement.
Rep. Xavier Becerra , D-California, who was at the meeting said that Obama had indicated that immigration reform ?is his top legislative priority.?
Jan. 28, 2013 ? Varying magnetic fields and temperature conditions help to elucidate smart materials' transitory magnetic disorder
Novel, smart materials like shape memory alloys very often display so-called glass-like magnetism. Other smart materials with similar properties include those which, when exposed to a magnetic field, change their electrical resistance, known as manganites, or change their temperature, known as magnetocaloric materials. Kaustav Mukherjee and his colleagues from the Consortium for Scientific Research Indore in India studied a key stage in the formation of such a magnetic glass material, called Pr0.5 Ca0.5 Mn0.975 Al0.025 O3, in a paper about to be published in The European Physical Journal B.
They focused on the stage where 'water to ice' style transformation -- referred to as first-order magnetic transformation -- is arrested upon cooling. This is a phenomenon dubbed kinetic arrest, corresponding to a temperature where the material undergoes a transition from a magnetic to a non-magnetic state, with the two phases competing with each other.
Glass-like magnetic materials display fragile magnetic properties. They draw their name from the similarity to the fragility observed in conventional, chemical glass. If a magnetic field is applied while the sample is cooled to what is referred to as its transition temperature, magnetisation of the sample increases and the material becomes magnetic. However, the magnetisation continues to increase further with time, even if the magnetic field and temperature remain constant.
The authors performed bulk measurements of magnetisation on powder samples of Pr0.5 Ca0.5 Mn0.975 Al0.025 O3, at the transition point between magnetic and non-magnetic states. To do so, they simultaneously varied both the magnetic field and the temperature of the sample. They observed the formation of the kinetic arrest band and showed that it is inversely correlated with states reached at extremes of temperature described at supercooling and superheating bands. They then established that the kinetic arrested state is different from the supercooled state.
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Journal Reference:
Kaustav Mukherjee, Kranti Kumar, Alok Banerjee, Praveen Chaddah. On the correlation between supercooling, superheating and kinetic arrest in a magnetic glass Pr0.5Ca0.5Mn0.975Al0.025O3. The European Physical Journal B, 2013; 86 (1) DOI: 10.1140/epjb/e2012-30748-y
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Cities affect temperatures for thousands of milesPublic release date: 27-Jan-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: David Hosansky hosansky@ucar.edu 303-497-8611 National Center for Atmospheric Research/University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
BOULDER Even if you live more than 1,000 miles from the nearest large city, it could be affecting your weather.
In a new study that shows the extent to which human activities are influencing the atmosphere, scientists have concluded that the heat generated by everyday activities in metropolitan areas alters the character of the jet stream and other major atmospheric systems. This affects temperatures across thousands of miles, significantly warming some areas and cooling others, according to the study in Nature Climate Change.
The extra "waste heat" generated from buildings, cars, and other sources in major Northern Hemisphere urban areas causes winter warming across large areas of northern North American and northern Asia. Temperatures in some remote areas increase by as much as 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit), according to the research by scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego; Florida State University; and the National Center for Atmospheric Research.
At the same time, the changes to atmospheric circulation caused by the waste heat cool areas of Europe by as much as 1 degree C (1.8 degrees F), with much of the temperature decrease occurring in the fall.
The net effect on global mean temperatures is nearly negligiblean average increase worldwide of just 0.01 degrees C (about 0.02 degrees F). This is because the total human-produced waste heat is only about 0.3 percent of the heat transported across higher latitudes by atmospheric and oceanic circulations.
However, the noticeable impact on regional temperatures may explain why some regions are experiencing more winter warming than projected by climate computer models, the researchers conclude. They suggest that models be adjusted to take the influence of waste heat into account.
"The burning of fossil fuel not only emits greenhouse gases but also directly affects temperatures because of heat that escapes from sources like buildings and cars," says NCAR scientist Aixue Hu, a co-author of the study. "Although much of this waste heat is concentrated in large cities, it can change atmospheric patterns in a way that raises or lowers temperatures across considerable distances."
The researchers stressed that the effect of waste heat is distinct from the so-called urban heat island effect. Such islands are mainly a function of the heat collected and re-radiated by pavement, buildings, and other urban features, whereas the new study examines the heat produced directly through transportation, heating and cooling units, and other activities.
The study, "Energy consumption and the unexplained winter warming over northern Asia and North America" appears this Sunday. It was funded by the National Science Foundation, NCAR's sponsor, as well as the Department of Energy and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Hu, along with lead author Guang Zhang of Scripps and Ming Cai of Florida State University, analyzed the energy consumption from heating buildings to powering vehicles that generates waste heat release. The world's total energy consumption in 2006 was equivalent to a constant-use rate of 16 terawatts (one terawatt, or TW, equals 1 trillion watts). Of that, an average rate of 6.7 TW was consumed in 86 metropolitan areas in the Northern Hemisphere.
Using a computer model of the atmosphere, the authors found that the influence of this waste heat can widen the jet stream.
"What we found is that energy use from multiple urban areas collectively can warm the atmosphere remotely, thousands of miles away from the energy consumption regions," Zhang says. "This is accomplished through atmospheric circulation change."
The release of waste heat is different from energy that is naturally distributed in the atmosphere, the researchers noted. The largest source of heat, solar energy, warms Earth's surface and atmospheric circulations redistribute that energy from one region to another. Human energy consumption distributes energy that had lain dormant and sequestered for millions of years, mostly in the form of oil or coal.
Though the amount of human-generated energy is a small portion of that transported by nature, it is highly concentrated in urban areas. In the Northern Hemisphere, many of those urban areas lie directly under major atmospheric troughs and jet streams.
"The world's most populated and energy-intensive metropolitan areas are along the east and west coasts of the North American and Eurasian continents, underneath the most prominent atmospheric circulation troughs and ridges," Cai says. "The release of this concentrated waste energy causes the noticeable interruption to the normal atmospheric circulation systems above, leading to remote surface temperature changes far away from the regions where waste heat is generated."
###
The University Corporation for Atmospheric Research manages the National Center for Atmospheric Research under sponsorship by the National Science Foundation. Any opinions, findings and conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
About the article:
Title: Energy consumption and the unexplained winter warming over northern Asia and North America
Authors: Ghang J. Zhang, Ming Cai, and Aixue Hu
Publication: Nature Climate Change, Jan. 27, 2013
On the Web:
For news releases, images, and more -
www.ucar.edu/atmosnews
Additional contacts:
Zhenya Gallon, NCAR/UCAR Media Relations
303-497-8607
zhenya@ucar.edu
Guang Zhang, Scripps Research Meteorologist
gzhang@mail.ucsd.edu
858-534-7535
Ming Cai, FSU Professor, Department of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Science
mcai@fsu.edu
850-645-1551
[ | 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.
Cities affect temperatures for thousands of milesPublic release date: 27-Jan-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: David Hosansky hosansky@ucar.edu 303-497-8611 National Center for Atmospheric Research/University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
BOULDER Even if you live more than 1,000 miles from the nearest large city, it could be affecting your weather.
In a new study that shows the extent to which human activities are influencing the atmosphere, scientists have concluded that the heat generated by everyday activities in metropolitan areas alters the character of the jet stream and other major atmospheric systems. This affects temperatures across thousands of miles, significantly warming some areas and cooling others, according to the study in Nature Climate Change.
The extra "waste heat" generated from buildings, cars, and other sources in major Northern Hemisphere urban areas causes winter warming across large areas of northern North American and northern Asia. Temperatures in some remote areas increase by as much as 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit), according to the research by scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego; Florida State University; and the National Center for Atmospheric Research.
At the same time, the changes to atmospheric circulation caused by the waste heat cool areas of Europe by as much as 1 degree C (1.8 degrees F), with much of the temperature decrease occurring in the fall.
The net effect on global mean temperatures is nearly negligiblean average increase worldwide of just 0.01 degrees C (about 0.02 degrees F). This is because the total human-produced waste heat is only about 0.3 percent of the heat transported across higher latitudes by atmospheric and oceanic circulations.
However, the noticeable impact on regional temperatures may explain why some regions are experiencing more winter warming than projected by climate computer models, the researchers conclude. They suggest that models be adjusted to take the influence of waste heat into account.
"The burning of fossil fuel not only emits greenhouse gases but also directly affects temperatures because of heat that escapes from sources like buildings and cars," says NCAR scientist Aixue Hu, a co-author of the study. "Although much of this waste heat is concentrated in large cities, it can change atmospheric patterns in a way that raises or lowers temperatures across considerable distances."
The researchers stressed that the effect of waste heat is distinct from the so-called urban heat island effect. Such islands are mainly a function of the heat collected and re-radiated by pavement, buildings, and other urban features, whereas the new study examines the heat produced directly through transportation, heating and cooling units, and other activities.
The study, "Energy consumption and the unexplained winter warming over northern Asia and North America" appears this Sunday. It was funded by the National Science Foundation, NCAR's sponsor, as well as the Department of Energy and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Hu, along with lead author Guang Zhang of Scripps and Ming Cai of Florida State University, analyzed the energy consumption from heating buildings to powering vehicles that generates waste heat release. The world's total energy consumption in 2006 was equivalent to a constant-use rate of 16 terawatts (one terawatt, or TW, equals 1 trillion watts). Of that, an average rate of 6.7 TW was consumed in 86 metropolitan areas in the Northern Hemisphere.
Using a computer model of the atmosphere, the authors found that the influence of this waste heat can widen the jet stream.
"What we found is that energy use from multiple urban areas collectively can warm the atmosphere remotely, thousands of miles away from the energy consumption regions," Zhang says. "This is accomplished through atmospheric circulation change."
The release of waste heat is different from energy that is naturally distributed in the atmosphere, the researchers noted. The largest source of heat, solar energy, warms Earth's surface and atmospheric circulations redistribute that energy from one region to another. Human energy consumption distributes energy that had lain dormant and sequestered for millions of years, mostly in the form of oil or coal.
Though the amount of human-generated energy is a small portion of that transported by nature, it is highly concentrated in urban areas. In the Northern Hemisphere, many of those urban areas lie directly under major atmospheric troughs and jet streams.
"The world's most populated and energy-intensive metropolitan areas are along the east and west coasts of the North American and Eurasian continents, underneath the most prominent atmospheric circulation troughs and ridges," Cai says. "The release of this concentrated waste energy causes the noticeable interruption to the normal atmospheric circulation systems above, leading to remote surface temperature changes far away from the regions where waste heat is generated."
###
The University Corporation for Atmospheric Research manages the National Center for Atmospheric Research under sponsorship by the National Science Foundation. Any opinions, findings and conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
About the article:
Title: Energy consumption and the unexplained winter warming over northern Asia and North America
Authors: Ghang J. Zhang, Ming Cai, and Aixue Hu
Publication: Nature Climate Change, Jan. 27, 2013
On the Web:
For news releases, images, and more -
www.ucar.edu/atmosnews
Additional contacts:
Zhenya Gallon, NCAR/UCAR Media Relations
303-497-8607
zhenya@ucar.edu
Guang Zhang, Scripps Research Meteorologist
gzhang@mail.ucsd.edu
858-534-7535
Ming Cai, FSU Professor, Department of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Science
mcai@fsu.edu
850-645-1551
[ | 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.
A look at the how states are putting in place President Barack Obama's health care law, including health insurance exchanges and expansion of Medicaid coverage, along with the number of people in each state who don't have health insurance:
STATE
EXCHANGE OPTION
MEDICAID OPTION
UNINSURED RESIDENTS
Alabama
Federal exchange
Not expanding
696,000
Alaska
Federal exchange
Decision pending
128,000
Arizona
Federal exchange
Expanding
1,306,000
Arkansas
Federal-state partnership
Decision pending-x
545,000
California
State exchange
Expanding
7,471,000
Colorado
State exchange
Expanding
817,000
Connecticut
State exchange
Expanding
391,000
Delaware
Federal-state partnership
Expanding
115,000
Washington, D.C.
State exchange
Expanding
65,000
Florida
Decision pending
Decision pending
3,952,000
Georgia
Federal exchange
Not expanding
1,992,000
Hawaii
State exchange
Expanding
102,000
Idaho
State exchange
Decision pending
239,000
Illinois
Federal-state partnership
Expanding
1,795,000
Indiana
Federal exchange
Decision pending
856,000
Iowa
Federal-state partnership
Decision pending
292,000
Kansas
Federal exchange
Decision pending
361,000
Kentucky
State exchange
Decision pending
727,000
Louisiana
Federal exchange
Not expanding
811,000
Maine
Federal exchange
Not expanding
146,000
Maryland
State exchange
Expanding
734,000
Massachusetts
State exchange
Expanding
215,000
Michigan
Federal-state partnership
Decision pending
1,336,000
Minnesota
State exchange
Expanding
453,000
Mississippi
Decision pending
Not expanding
530,000
Missouri
Federal exchange
Decision pending-x
780,000
Montana
Decision pending
Decision pending-x
179,000
Nebraska
Federal exchange
Decision pending
226,000
Nevada
State exchange
Expanding
555,000
New Hampshire
Decision pending
Decision pending
136,000
New Jersey
Federal exchange
Decision pending
1,334,000
New Mexico
State exchange
Expanding
506,000
New York
State exchange
Expanding
2,780,000
North Carolina
Federal-state partnership
Decision pending
1,583,000
North Dakota
Decision pending
Decision pending-x
74,000
Ohio
Federal-state partnership
Decision pending
1,578,000
Oklahoma
Federal exchange
Not expanding
597,000
Oregon
State exchange
Expanding
678,000
Pennsylvania
Federal exchange
Decision pending
1,319,000
Rhode Island
State exchange
Expanding
122,000
South Carolina
Federal exchange
Not expanding
754,000
South Dakota
Federal-state partnership
Not expanding
108,000
Tennessee
Federal exchange
Decision pending
982,000
Texas
Federal exchange
Not expanding
6,654,000
Utah
State exchange
Decision pending
424,000
Vermont
State exchange
Expanding
61,000
Virginia
Federal exchange
Not expanding
1,023,000
Washington
State exchange
Expanding
812,000
West Virginia
Federal-state partnership
Decision pending
266,000
Wisconsin
Federal exchange
Decision pending
562,000
Wyoming
Federal exchange
Not expanding
84,000
x-governor supports; legislature must approve
Sources: Associated Press Research, U.S. Health and Human Services Department and the Urban Institute.
Kabam, a midcore game developer that staged a stunning new chapter on mobile platforms, is out bragging about its expected revenues for the coming year. The company said it ended 2012 with gross revenue of $180 million, up 70 percent from the year before. Gross revenue is bookings, so it doesn’t account for the 30 percent platform cut that a provider like Apple, Google or Facebook would take. Kabam didn’t reveal its margins, except to say that the company was profitable (which I honestly hope should be the case for any mature freemium gaming company). Kabam was a pioneer in midcore freemium gaming on Facebook. Unlike Zynga, they didn’t focus on reaching the largest audience possible or the stereotypical 35-year-old female casual gamer. Instead, they cultivated a smaller player base (usually more male) that spent more on average to play. As Facebook became a more challenging environment, they pivoted to mobile like many other game developers did. That mobile business, which includes extensions of their Kingdoms of Camelot franchise, is now a more-than $100 million business. Another tidbit the company shared was that it was valued at at least $500 million during a May 2011 round of funding that raised $75 million for the company. It also said the recent strategic investment from Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. was secondary, with the investors purchasing shares from earlier investors. On top of that, it says it has $45 million in cash in the bank. So why reveal all this? Kabam says it’s to “establish who’s leading.” But we occasionally see companies do this from time to time as positioning ahead of a sale or additional investment. Seattle’s PopCap actively talked about a potential IPO for months before EA turned around and bought the company for up to $1.3 billion including earnouts. The thing is that Kabam has raised at least $125 million. That’s substantially more than what other midcore developers like Kixeye, which has $19 million in funding, have raised. That just means the bar for an exit, whether that’s through a sale or through a public offering, is much higher. Kabam has mentioned an IPO in the past as a possibility, depending on what’s right for the company. But given how Zynga performed through 2012, it would be hard to imagine that public market investors have the appetite for another freemium gaming IPO. Zynga is valued at![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](http://www.eurekalert.org/images/back2e.gif){kind=small}
Public release date: 27-Jan-2013
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