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Snohomish County Career Fair - September 10
The Herald of Everett, Washington
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Darvish, Rangers shut down Mariners 7-0

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By Ryan Divish
The News Tribune
ARLINGTON, Texas — No offense to Teaxs Rangers rookie pitcher Nick Tepesch, but the Seattle Mariners will be glad to see him on the mound today.
It’s not a knock on Tepesch’s pitching skills, which are pretty good. It’s not the fact he will be making just the third major league start of his career.
No, the Mariners just need a break from facing dominating strikeout machines.
For the third consecutive game, Seattle had to endure facing a tough starting pitcher that can make hitters swing and miss. And for the third straight game, the Mariners did a lot swinging and missing.
Seattle hitters struck out 10 times Friday against Rangers starter Yu Darvish and couldn’t scratch out a run in a 7-0 loss to Texas at the Ballpark at Arlington. Darvish threw seven scoreless innings, giving up three hits and walking just three hitters.
It was the third consecutive game where the opposing starting pitcher has struck out at least 10 Mariners.
To be fair to the Mariners (7-11), as anemic as their offense may appear this season, Friday’s game and the two before it came against three of the best strikeout pitchers in baseball. Detroit’s Max Scherzer, who struck out 12 in eight innings on Wednesday, averaged 11.078 strikeouts per nine innings last season — highest in baseball. The Tigers’ Justin Verlander, who struck out 12 hitters in seven innings Thursday, was third in the AL at 9.025 strikes per nine innings. Darvish was second behind Scherzer at 10.396 strikeouts per nine innings last season.
Given the pitchers Seattle has been facing, those 34 combined strikeouts might be somewhat understandable to some, but not to Mariners manager Eric Wedge.
“We have faced good pitchers, but we are a lot better than that,” he said. “We have got to do a better job with two strikes. There’s certain things we need to do better prior to that to create damage, but speaking on the strikeouts, we need to do a better job. We are capable and we should be better than that.”
Kyle Seager couldn’t disagree with his manager.
“Yeah, that’s three pretty good arms and that’s what they do, but that’s on us,” Seager said. “We obviously need to do a better job of putting the ball in play.”
What’s frustrating for Wedge is that the Mariners’ penchant for striking out isn’t limited to just the past three games. Seattle has struck out 148 times this season; second most in the American League behind Houston, which has 158.
So, how do they get better with two strikes?
“Just protecting the plate and being disciplined at the same time,” Wedge said. “That’s why it’s so tough to hit — it’s one of the many reasons. One, you are up there not to take strike three. But, two, you are up there not to chase (pitches), too. It’s having better discipline and pitch recognition.”
The Mariners have traditionally done pretty well against Darvish. They beat him in his last start at Safeco Field, but it wasn’t happening on Friday. Walks have plagued him before, but Friday he surrendered just three.
“I thought he pitched a little bit different today, and was better today than he was the last time,” Wedge said. “You saw all the breaking balls the last time, but he used his fastball more effectively tonight.”
Seager, who had the Mariners’ only extra base hit in the game — a third-inning double — noticed the difference.
“Last time, he didn’t throw too many fastballs, but today he got ahead with it more,” Seager said. “You get in there, you’ll see multiple kinds of pitches and they are all good pitches. You end up having to look for location more than necessarily looking for a certain kind of pitch. He threw the ball well tonight.”
Even with Darvish dominating, the Mariners weren’t completely out of it early. Starter Joe Saunders kept the game within reach for the first four innings. Although Texas put runners on in each one of those innings inning, Saudners only gave up one run on a second-inning solo homer to Jeff Baker.
Everything fell apart in the fifth inning. With one out, the Rangers loaded the bases on a Lance Berkman single, a walk to Adrian Beltre and another single from Nelson Cruz.
Saunders tried to go inside to A.J. Pierzynski and made a decent pitch in on Pierzynski’s hands. But Pierzynski managed to flare a two-RBI blooper into shallow left field.
“He stayed inside the ball really well and found a hole behind shortstop,” Saunders said. “You make a pitch and that’s all you can do.”
Saunders walked Jeff Baker and then another run scored on a groundout to short. Craig Gentry then delivered another big blow, lining a sharp ball out to left field. Raul Ibanez charged the drive, but his spike got caught in the outfield grass, tripping him as he was about to field the ball. It rolled past him to the wall, allowing two runs to score and Gentry to reach third on what was ruled a triple.
“It was one of the weird innings where you make a pitch and they find a hole,” Saunders said. “You have to tell yourself to keep making pitches, keep hitting spots. But it just snowballed on us. And I couldn’t get out of it.”
Wedge replaced Saunders with Hector Noesi, who promptly gave up an RBI double to Ian Kinsler. The run was charged to Saunders. It was the only hit given up by Noesi, who retired 13 consecutive hitters after that and saved the Mariners bullpen.
“That was big,” Wedge said. “Hector really stepped up for us. We’ve been pushing those guys in the pen and for us to be able to give them a night off like that, that’s why we brought Hector up here.”
Story tags » Mariners

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Snohomish County Career Fair - September 10
The Herald of Everett, Washington
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Lynnwood beats Moses Lake to take third

Royals' defense clamps down late to bring home best finish in school history by girls basketball team

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By Aaron Swaney
Herald Writer
  • Lynnwood's Mikayla Pivec goes up for a shot during Saturday's game against Moses Lake. Pivec had 15 points and 19 rebounds in the win.

    Photo courtesy Scott Williams

    Lynnwood's Mikayla Pivec goes up for a shot during Saturday's game against Moses Lake. Pivec had 15 points and 19 rebounds in the win.

  • Lynnwood senior guard Jasmin Edwards drives to the hoop during Saturday's game against Moses Lake. Edwards had a game-high 18 points for the Royals.

    Photo courtesy Scott Williams

    Lynnwood senior guard Jasmin Edwards drives to the hoop during Saturday's game against Moses Lake. Edwards had a game-high 18 points for the Royals.

TACOMA — They fell short of achieving their ultimate goal of a state basketball championship this season, but the Lynnwood Royals still made history on Saturday.
A day after losing a hard-fought semifinal game to Gonzaga Prep, Lynnwood rebounded to beat Moses Lake 48-38 in the 4A girls state tournament and earn a third-place trophy, the best finish for a girls basketball team in the school's history.
"We have made history in the sense that this is the best girls basketball team Lynnwood has produced," Royals head coach Everett Edwards said. "I'm am so proud of our team. We did want to win it all, we had hoped for it. But things didn't go that way and it was a good life experience for our girls to face adversity and heartbreak yesterday and to have to come through and play today and get a win."
The victory was extra special for Edwards, who watched as his oldest daughter, senior Jasmin Edwards, hoisted the trophy alongside fellow seniors Grace Douglas and Hannah Valavala after the game.
"We've had a lot of challenges at Lynnwood and this senior group really was the one that changed the culture for girls basketball here," coach Edwards said of the trio.
Jasmin Edwards was instrumental in the team's victory. Despite nursing a sore wrist from an injury she suffered the night before, the point guard scored 18 points and hit a key 3-point shot that tied the score late in third quarter. She also had three steals to spearhead the Royals' defense in her final basketball game in a Lynnwood jersey.
"We've come up so short, but just to end this season on a win, just makes it such a better moment because the last three we've ended on a loss," Jasmin Edwards said. "Just being with this team and making it to state and getting third — which is still a great spot to get — it's really good."
The usually up-tempo, offensive-minded Royals had to change their style a bit to beat Moses Lake. Stuck in a grind-it-out defensive battle, the Royals clamped down on defense in the second half to overcome a 34-28 deficit midway through the third quarter.
"(Moses Lake) packed in the key really tight," Everett Edwards said. "I think we had 10 points after the first quarter and that's not our style of play. We can play up-tempo where we score 70 points or we can win games when it's down in the 30- to 40-point range. Usually our defense keeps us in it."
Trailing by six with 3:49 to play in the third quarter, Edwards called a timeout and switched up his defense to focus on Moses Lake stars Jessie Loera and McKenna Walker, who combined to score 22 points. The adjustment worked. Lynnwood held the Chiefs scoreless for the rest of the quarter and surrendered just four points the rest of the way. The Royals outscored Moses Lake 20-4 from that point to win the game.
"We mixed in a little triangle-and-two and diamond-and-one (zone defenses)," Edwards said of the defensive adjustment. "(Loera) and (Walker) were good players and it was a situation where we wanted to take them away and make other players beat us. It almost seemed like that rattled them a little bit. It seemed like they were shooting their shots from a little bit further out and that allowed us to get out in transition and make some plays."
After the timeout, Dani Hayes made a 3-pointer from the left corner and Edwards added another after a steal by Hayes to tie the score at 34. After an Edwards' steal, Mikayla Pivec grabbed two offensive rebounds and was fouled while trying to put-back the second. She made one of two free throws to give Lynnwood its first lead since the first quarter.
The Royals built that lead to eights with 2:35 to play in the game when Jasmin Edwards made a driving layin as the shot clock buzzer sounded. With its offense finally in gear, Lynnwood's defense continued its domination, holding Moses Lake to just four points in the quarter to secure the victory.
"I think we just made it clear that this is going to be our last time playing together, our last half, our last quarter," Jasmin Edwards said. "We all kind of stepped up and made the adjustments we had to. We just didn't let them get the shots that they did previously. We just kind of toughened up, I guess."
Although the Royals will be losing starters Jasmin Edwards and Douglas to graduation, the future is bright for the Lynnwood girls basketball team. It returns guard Jordyn Edwards and posts Mikayla Pivec, Monty Cooper and Kelsey Rogers next year. Pivec finished Saturday's game with 15 points and 19 rebounds.At Tacoma Dome
Lynnwood 10 10 17 11 — 48
Moses Lake 8 14 12 4 — 38
Lynnwood—Jasmin Edwards 18, Monty Cooper 2, Grace Douglas 3, Mikayla Pivec 15, Kelsey Rogers 5, Jordyn Edwards 0, Amina Donahoe 0, Dani Hayes 5, Madison Eyer 0, Sarah Grant 0, Chelsea Tuiasasopo-Campbell 0, Hannah Valavala 0. Moses Lake—Alysha Overland 1, Madison Tudor 0, Santana Anderson 0, Stephanie Overland 2, Hailee Bishop 0, Jessie Loera 10, McKenna Walker 12, Selina Koon 0, Emily Olson 5, Avery Clark 4, Carina Lefave 0, Kaitlyn Stevens 4. 3-point goals—Jasmin Edwards, Douglas, Hayes, Loera 2, Walker, Olson. Records—Lynnwood 24-2 overall.
Story tags » Lynnwood High SchoolHigh School Basketball

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Snohomish County Career Fair - September 10
The Herald of Everett, Washington
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Lake Stevens QB Eason says 'everything fit perfectly' at Georgia

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Jacob Eason didn't plan to make a college commitment when he arrived at the University of Georgia last weekend.
But after touring the campus and talking with the school's football coaches, the Lake Stevens quarterback couldn't envision playing anywhere else.
Over the weekend, Eason, considered one of the top QBs in the nation in the Class of 2016, made a verbal commitment to play for the Bulldogs.
The commitment is non-binding. Eason can't officially sign an NCAA letter of intent until February of 2016.
“I really didn't have any intention of committing on my way down there,” he said. “I was going to go check out a few schools and make my decision a little later. But I went to Georgia and everything fit perfectly. I love the school, the area, the coaches and the academics. I figured, ‘Why wait?' I didn't want to lose the spot.”
Eason's visit to Geogia was part of a trip through The Deep South with his mother, father and sister that included unofficial visits to Alabama, Florida State and, finally, Athens, Georgia.
“I had high expectations going into Athens,” Eason said. “Everything was awesome. I love it down there.”
The Georgia coaches, including offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Mike Bobo, were some of the first to recruit Eason. Their dedication and commitment played a large part in his decision to commit early.
“They've always been the school,” Eason said. “The coaches have been the most involved. Coach Bobo came all the way up to Washington to watch me throw twice. That's more than any other school and that's a four-and-a-half-hour flight. That's a lot of commitment.”
Among the other schools Eason considered were Washington, Notre Dame and Stanford.
As a sophomore last season, Eason threw for 2,941 yards and 23 touchdowns, quickly earning himself a name among those who follow college recruiting. The website 247Sports lists him as the No. 1 recruit for the state of Washington in the Class of 2016 and No. 14 in the country. rates the 6-foot-5, 205-pound Eason as the nation's top pocket passer in the Class of 2016.
Lake Stevens head coach Tom Tri said he wasn't surprised Eason committed to Georgia.
“I just want him to go to the right fit and have a chance to be successful and get a good education and have a chance to play on Saturdays,” Tri said. “I know they've been recruiting him very hard and have been very, very interested.”
Eason's commitment over the weekend set social media ablaze, with several blogs and Georgia fans tweeting that Eason is the Bulldogs' biggest recruiting catch since quarterback Matthew Stafford. Stafford played three seasons at Georgia before entering the NFL draft. The Detroit Lions made him the No.1 pick in the 2009 draft.
Eason enjoyed the comparison.
“That is cool,” he said. “We were down there in the film room and coach Bobo and the coaching staff were showing us some video (of Stafford). We're a similar playing style, both strong pocket guys with big arms. It's awesome being compared to Matthew Stafford. He was a first-round draft pick and that's what I would love to do.”
Along with Eason, Georgia got another top commit last weekend in Ben Cleveland, the No. 3 offensive tackle in the Class of 2016, according to 247Sports. Eason and Cleveland met at a camp in Baltimore and became fast friends. Eason plans on rooming with Cleveland, who lives in north Georgia, when the two join the Bulldogs in 2016.
“I feel comfortable now getting a big guy like that protecting my blindslide,” Eason said. “... We lived thousands of miles apart but we're great friends. Now we're going to be going to school together. It should be fun.”
With his commitment out of the way, Eason is eager to get started on his junior season.
“Now I can just go back to Lake Stevens and focus on the high school season,” he said. “The future is taken care of. I can focus on high school and winning a state championship with my team.”

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To the editor: How do you thank hundreds of people for making special memories for one young man? One thank you at a time would take days, so I am pleased that we can use your paper to try and say......

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Guest column/John Minor worked to bring history alive

June 23, 2013
By MICHAEL ISLA , The Herald-Star

John Minor, history teacher, is retiring this year from his nearly 45-year teaching career. His influence can be felt by the reverence his students have for him and his considerable contribution to educating our youth. This perspective is from one of his former students.

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By DAVE GOSSETT AND PAUL GIANNAMORE - Staff writers (, , The Herald-Star

STEUBENVILLE - Tom Abernethy, the man with the smooth voice that gently wakened thousands of radio listeners for 40 years with music and information, died Saturday after a long fight against cancer.

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Anti Aging Herbs

Picture of Young Looking Couple

Anti-Aging Herbs To Look & Feel Younger

If you would like to look and feel a little younger, there are some herbs that just may help you do that.

Some herbs have the ability to slow aging or at least reduce the effects of aging. There are herbs that can boost energy, make the skin and hair look younger and even improve memory. These are all important benefits for those of us over the age of 30 or 40.

Not only can herbs make you look younger, they can also make you feel younger. Imagine having your energy and stamina back like in your younger days. Think of all the things you could do again. Oh, what fun it is to be young!

Here are just some of the herbs you can use to age better as you reach your golden years. These are the most popular herbs and very easy to obtain in health stores or online. Let this be a start to your research. The Internet is a great source of information about herbs and herbal supplements for anti-aging.

Korean or American ginseng is very beneficial for people wanting to stay young as long as possible. This herb can reduce inflammation, increase mental and physical energy, reduce stress and it’s effects, help make the skin better looking and noticeably boost the immune system.

Gotu Kola

A native to India, Gotu Kola helps restore the skin and heal scars and blemishes. It is also good for memory.

A herb widely used in China, Jiaogulan (Gynostemma) increases the production of the antioxidant Superoxide Dismutase. This keeps the body and skin looking young. It China, this herb is called “the longevity herb”.

St. John’s Wort

This herb, besides relieving depression and anxiety, can also help to repair skin conditions, making the skin look younger. St. John’s Wort is good for insomnia, so you’ll get a more refreshing sleep and look and feel better each day.

Reishi Mushroom

A native to China and Japan, Reishi is said to promote long life and happiness. It may do this by lowering high blood pressure and boosting the body’s immune system.

Red Clover

Red Clover exhibits estrogen-like effects in the body and can help to keep wrinkles away and make the skin look beautiful again.

Found in the Himalayan mountains, Shilajit is a type of mineral paste found in cracks on the face of rocks. It improves libido and the immune system. It also has mental enhancing effects.

The berries of the Schizandra, if eaten every day, are said to make one’s skin radiant and beautiful. The berries also help to strengthen the body and mind. Used externally, Schizandra berries can make the hands soft and smooth.

Colostrum is a great immunity booster but it provides more benefits than just that. Research has recently shown that colostrum also helps slow down the aging process.

Deer Antler Velvet

The main ingredient that really enhances the anti-aging capacity of the deer velvet is the presence of IGF-1. IGF-1 raises the production of growth hormones in the pituitary gland. IGF-1 decreases wrinkles, increases your energy levels and makes you look and feel younger.

There are many other benefits of taking herbal supplements. These are just a few to get you started in the right direction.

Recommended Supplements

GenF20 Plus – Multiple herbs, amino acids and nutrients to make you look & feel younger.

Omega Daily – A source of Omega-3 more potent than fish oil. Keeps your body and brain young.

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Hue u13213 Corduroy Leggings Reviews

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rating Size: M

I LOVE THESE!!! could wear them every day! Great with tall boots, heels... I simply love them. Aimchick from Middletown, CT
  • Height: Average Height (5'4"-5'8")
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rating Size: L

Looks and feels nice, adjust to body nicely, bought a second pair Lizzette
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© 2015 Andra Group, LP - Sunday, August 30, 2015 (A1).


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Account AccessAccounts & ServicesLoansHome LoansBusinessMembershipInformation Center

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e-Branch Home Banking is a FREE service that allows you to access your accounts 24 hours per day, 7 days a week from your personal computer at home or work. By clicking on e-Branch Home Banking under ACCOUNT ACCESS, you are able to log in and check balances, transfer funds, make loan payments and much more. Short of providing cash through a port in your computer, the services available through e-Branch Home Banking are extensive. All you need to access e-Branch is a computer with internet capabilities and your M.A.R.S. access code. Through sophisticated firewall and encryption technologies, you access and use e-Branch Home Banking knowing that your transactions are secure.

Sign-Up and Log-On:
You access Home Banking at the credit union's home page (www.hfcuvt.com) under ACCOUNT ACCESS, then click e-Branch Home Banking. You will be directed to a log-on screen where they will enter your member number, M.A.R.S. access code, and accept the EFT agreement. You must have previously activated your M.A.R.S. access code for e-Branch Home Banking access. If you have not done this previously, call M.A.R.S. at 800.374.8469 to activate your account. At this point, your free access to the world of Home Banking has begun.

e-Branch gives you access to:

Account Balances:

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  • Share Balance - As of a date for a particular share.Shows current and available.
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  • Share Balance as of a date - As of a date for a particular share.Shows current and available.
  • Loan Balance - As of a date for a particular share. Shows current and available.

  • Share History
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  • Download History for Quicken or Money - Downloads a file for import to your Quicken or Money program.

Recent Activity:
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How to Make a Flower Piñata

A luxurious and fragrant update to the traditional piñata, the sophisticated color palette and whimsical flare of this party decor will be the star at your next fiesta.

DIY Flower Pinatas

By: Kristin Guy

Materials Needed:

  • 1 eight-inch floral foam sphere
  • 36 wooden florist picks
  • 6 colorful party hats
  • colorful rolls of crepe paper or ribbon
  • scissors
  • pen or marker
  • packaging tape
  • rope
  • 60-70 roses or silk flowers
  • garbage bag or vinyl tablecloth

Pull Apart Party Hats

Pull apart party hats, removing the tabs and string with scissors.

Cut Party Hat

Waterproof Paper Hats

To slightly waterproof the paper hats, align the bottom with packaging tape, folding to cover both front and back of the hats (this step can be skipped if using silk flowers).

Create Streamers

To create streamers, fold 2 to 3 feet of crepe paper into fourths, and cut lengthwise. If using ribbon, cut several 2- to 3-foot streamers.

Cute Crepe Paper

Attach Streamers

For five of the cones, secure streamers on the inside of the hats using tape (image 1). For the sixth cone, secure a long piece of rope (image 2), which will be used to hang the finished piñata.

Form Into Cones

Wrap the party hats back into cone shapes, overlapping the sides and making them slightly longer than the original hats. With a marker, place four dots on equal sides of the cones.

Attach Florist Picks

Opening the cones back up, tightly tape wooden florist picks on top of the dots with sharp sides pointing down. Wrap cones back together and secure the seam with packaging tape. Set aside.

Secure Seam

Soak Florist Foam

Soak florist foam for 10-15 minutes in a sink full of water and let drain slightly to remove excess moisture (this step can be skipped if using silk flowers).

Attach Rope

Waterproof your work surface with garbage bags or a vinyl tablecloth, and securely wrap the florist foam with rope to create a cradle to support its weight for hanging.

Tie Twine Around Foam Sphere

Attach Cones

Attach all five cones on each side of the foam orb (image 1), attaching the top cone with rope as hanging support (image 2). Set the bottom cone aside until the end of the project.

Cut Flower Stems

Cut flower stems to 3 inches long at an angle to easily attach into foam. Other floral varietals may require additional wooden picks to assist in piercing the foam.

Cut Flower Stem

Add Flowers and Last Cone

Tightly pack flowers one at a time around the foam until completely covered, adding the bottom cone and final flowers after the piñata is hanging in place (images 1 and 2).

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Classroom Activities: EarthViewer

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Classroom Activities: EarthViewer

EarthViewer was designed as an interactive learning tool. Download the PDF linked in the right hand column for some ideas on how to use the app in your class, or click on the EarthViewer link to find out more about the app.

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Art August, 31 2009

Sylvia Ji “Nectar”

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Californian artist Sylvia Ji’s first UK showing “Nectar” presents a new series of works on wood panel. Her focus on themes of lust and love through nameless faces combined with spiritual and mystic symbolism.

“Nectar” opens on September 3, 2009, at StolenSpace 91 Brick Lane, London. The exhibition will run until September 27, 2009.

Further example of Ji’s painting after the jump.


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Sneakers June, 14 2010

Vans Fall 2010 Classic Pack Preview

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For Fall 2010 Vans offers a four pair Classic Pack, consisting of two suede Chukka Boots and two canvas/suede Old Skools in traditional color schemes. Scheduled for an early July drop at top Vans accounts. (fng)


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Art & Design December, 7 2013

11Ravens Stealth Premier Table Tennis Table

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Premier design and manufacturing company of the finest custom-made table tennis tables, 11Ravens presents their newest elite limited edition Stealth table. Inspired by the Nighthawk stealth bomber, the Stealth is constructed using high-grade jet aircraft aluminum accented with carbon fiber. Valued at $70,000 USD, each table will be personally numbered and signed by the artist himself, Bernard Semerdjian. Only five of this elite limited edition table will be produced. If you’re interested in making a purchase, please visit 11Ravens for more information.


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George Tseng

University of Pittsburgh, USA

George Tseng was born in Taiwan, in 1975. He received his B.S. degree and M.S. degree in mathematics from the National Taiwan University, Taiwan. He received his Ph.D. degree in biostatistics from the Harvard School of Public Health in 2003. Since then, he has been in the Department of Biostatistics at the University of Pittsburgh. He was an Assistant Professor in 2003–2009 and has been an Associate Professor since 2009. Dr. Tseng’s major research interests are in statistical genomics and statistical data mining of high-throughput genomic data. Specifically, he has published papers in microarray preprocessing and modeling, cluster analysis, machine learning, missing value imputation, dimension reduction, high-dimensional data visualization, genomic meta-analysis, and integrative analysis. He is an Associate Editor of BMC Medical Genomics (2010–2013) and is a Member of the International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB), the American Statistical Association (ASA), and the International Chinese Statistical Association (ICSA).

Biography Updated on 16 August 2011

Scholarly Contributions [Data Provided by scopus]


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ISRN Computer Graphics

Volume 2012 (2012), Article ID 936315, 8 pages

Research Article

A Novel GPU-Based Deformation Pipeline

Division of Information Systems, School of Computer Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Nanyang Avenue, Singapore 639798

Received 17 August 2011; Accepted 24 September 2011

Academic Editor: C.-M. Wang

Copyright © 2012 Muhammad Mobeen Movania and Lin Feng. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

We present a new deformation pipeline that is independent of the integration solver used and allows fast rendering of deformable soft bodies on the GPU. The proposed method exploits the transform feedback mechanism of the modern GPU to bypass the CPU read-back, thus, reusing the modified positions and/or velocities of the deformable object in a single pass in real time. The whole process is being carried out on the GPU. Prior approaches have resorted to CPU read-back along with the GPGPU mechanism. In contrast, our approach does not require these steps thus saving the GPU bandwidth for other tasks. We describe our algorithm along with implementation details on the modern GPU and finally conclude with a look at the experimental results. We show how easy it is to integrate any existing integration solver into the proposed pipeline by implementing explicit Euler integration in the vertex shader on the GPU.

1. Introduction

Physically based deformation is an actively sought out area of research. Real-time deformations of 3D volumes as well as polygonal objects have been used in the modeling of real-time surgery simulators in the past with approaches such as FEM-based models [1, 2], ray deflectors [3, 4], mass spring models [5, 6], and chain mail algorithm [7]. In this paper, we limit our discussion to the mass spring models since they are among physically based methods of deformation. This restriction is for convenience only and it is easy to apply the proposed ideas to any of the existing deformation methods cited earlier since all of the models follow the same physical laws. How they follow the laws is subjective. Our main contribution is the development of a new pipeline on the GPU using the transform feedback mechanism for physically based deformation that is independent of the integration solver and the deformation method used.

Prior approaches are based on the GPGPU approach that requires rendering of positions and velocities into separate offscreen buffers using multiple passes. Moreover, these approaches are using the fragment pipeline only which results in an imbalanced utilization of the programmable graphics pipeline. In contrast, our approach performs the deformation calculation in the vertex shader in a single pass. In addition, the fragment shader may be utilized for other rendering tasks, for example, volume rendering of the deformed elements. Since the transform feedback mechanism allows points to be deformed directly on the GPU without a CPU transfer, this saves the GPU bandwidth significantly, preventing the stalls which might have taken place due to the CPU-GPU transfer. Utilizing the proposed pipeline, we can obtain a much more concise implementation as we will see using the cloth simulation as an example.

2. Previous Work

Deformable models allow us to portray the accurate real world behavior of a 3D object be it a polygonal geometry or a 3D volume. Without these models, the 3D world would seem characterless. In the case of the surgical simulators, this realism is particularly important since this dynamic behavior adds to the visual cues which play a significant role during the surgical training. There has been a considerable amount of research on physical deformable models in computer graphics. Rather than listing out all of the approaches one by one, we refer the readers to the following survey [8].

Numerous deformation models have been proposed. One such model, the ray deflectors method [3, 4], involves bending of viewing rays using translate, rotate, scale, and discontinuous operators for deformation. It should be noted that the operators are limited to spheres only; thus, it is difficult to approximate more complex topologies without a very large number of spheres of varying radii. This in turn requires significant resources which makes this method non-real time.

With the introduction of the 3D texture mapping capability in hardware, new and innovative uses of texture memory were proposed. This includes applications ranging from volumetric renderers to volume deformers. Typically, this approach [9, 10] converts the volume into a collection of tetrahedra. Following this conversion, the volume deformation is applied in either model space or volume space using an affine matrix. Along with the transformation matrix, several constraints are also imposed [10] to maintain continuity. Unfortunately, this model requires considerable additional processing time during conversion of the volume into its tetrahedral representation. Moreover, continuity constraints have to be met in order to avoid cracks between the tetrahedra during deformation. To circumvent this problem, the skeleton trees method [11] was proposed that uses the skeleton representation of the data to aid as bones for deformation. The same disadvantage as in the texture mapping approach is that the extraction of the skeleton representation requires considerable amount of preprocessing time which is dependent on the dataset resolution.

Similar to the requirement of the intermediate representation for the 3D texture mapping and the skeleton trees approach, the displacement-driven model [12] generates deformations by extracting a high-resolution triangular surface mesh. It constructs a deformed node index table (DNIT) to model the deformation propagation driven by the displacement at a surface contact point (SCP). Surface nodes that undergo deformation are added to the current DNIT according to the triangular mesh topology. It sounds promising for real-time deformation, but this approach is limited to modeling of isotropic elastic deformations only.

The deformations are not just restricted to the spatial domain. One frequency domain approach, the scheduled Fourier method [13], uses the Fourier transforms of the volume to morph from one volume to another. Similarly, the wavelet-based morphing method [14] uses the wavelet domain by first decomposing the volume into a set of frequency bands. These bands are then smoothly interpolated and finally the morphed output is generated from the smoothly interpolated bands. In both of the frequency domain approaches, high frequencies may be introduced during the interpolation step which results in a sequential crystallization of the data. This unfortunately restricts the application of the method.

The quest for real-time deformation led to the development of a new breed of fast algorithms that includes the 3D chain mail algorithm [7]. It approximates the deformation by linking elements as chain rings. The deforming elements only propagate deformation to their immediate neighbors; hence this method of deformation is very fast. However, the deformation is restricted using several constraints and, notably, the underlying model for deformation is not physically based.

With the advent of the GPU, its immense computational power has been used to extend and enhance the deformation models such as those for tetrahedral [2] and multigrid FEM [1]. Noticeably, mass-spring models have been studied heavily for deformable body simulations [5, 6] as well as for surgical simulations [15, 16]. Two of these approaches in [12, 17] try to conserve volume during deformation. The approach in [12] uses special support springs to represent the inner matter of a volumetric object that aids in volume conservation. Unfortunately, a significantly large number of support springs are needed to create realistic deformations. A different approach in [17] uses the Bulk Modulus to restore volume by applying volumetric stresses using circumcenter alignment method. Like the texture mapping algorithm, this method also requires extraction of tetrahedral elements for deformation propagation which adds significant preprocessing time.

The GPU-based approaches in [15, 18, 19] have resorted to the general-purpose GPU, or GPGPU, techniques for evaluating the position and/or velocity integration on the fragment shader. This involves rendering a screen-sized quad with the appropriate textures setup and then the fragment shader is invoked to solve the integration for each fragment. The output from the fragment shader is written to another texture. The GPGPU approaches require algorithms to be moulded considerably so that it is easier to apply GPGPU techniques to them. As demonstrated in [15], such compliance could be achieved by rearranging the dataset in a flat layout. In addition, conforming an algorithm to the GPGPU design requires ample skill and experience, while some GPU-based algorithms can be empowered by GPGPU programming paradigms like CUDA and OpenCL. In fact, implementation with a CUDA kernel does not necessarily accelerate a process, and it depends a lot on the algorithm at hand and how the memory access patterns are in the GPU pipeline.

Largely due to the generality of the mass spring models in physically based modeling, we are also especially interested in its application. We propose a new strategy on the GPU using the transform feedback mechanism for physically based deformation that is independent of the integration solver and its numerical integration schemes. In the following sections, we demonstrate the implementation of the explicit Euler integration scheme to show how the new pipeline is formed. We will also describe how to incorporate other numerical integration schemes in the proposed pipeline. Experimental results will be presented and the performance will be compared with prior work on the GPU.

3. Mathematical Modelling

From the point of view of mathematical modeling, there is a strong overlap among the physical deformable models specifically between the FEM-based model and the mass spring model. An elastic model is based on a 3D mesh of virtual masses which are linked to their neighbors using massless springs in three ways [20]:(1)structural springs that link the node to its immediate neighbor in -, - and -axes only,(2)shear springs that connect the remaining neighbors including all of the diagonal links, (3)flexion springs that are structural springs connected to the nodes one node away.

Each of these springs is constrained by a different force; that is, under pure stress, shear springs are constrained, under pure compression/traction stress (i.e., stretching), only structural springs are constrained, and under pure flexion stresses (i.e., bending), only flexion springs are constrained. All of the connections act as linear springs which bring the voxel mesh towards equilibrium.

Each node is associated with a set of physical properties including mass ( ), position ( ), velocity ( ), and acceleration ( ). At any point in time, the system is governed by the following second order ODE: where is the damping coefficient, is the th spring force, and is the external force which may be due to the user’s intervention, wind, or gravity force or collision force due to collision of the object with other objects. The spring force can be defined as where is the spring’s stiffness, is the resting length of the spring, is the spring’s position, and is the position of its neighbor.

The system in (1) may be solved using any of the numerical integration schemes for, for example, explicit Euler integration, implicit Euler integration, midpoint method (2nd-order Runge Kutta), Verlet integration, or 4th-order Runge Kutta method. Whatever method we use, the acceleration ( ) may be calculated using Newton’s second law of motion: If the explicit Euler integration [6, 20] is used, the velocity ( ) and position ( ) are updated separately using the following equations: In the case of the Verlet integration, there is no need to calculate and store velocity ( ) since the new position ( ) is obtained from the current and the previous position, using the following numerical operations: For this to work, both the current and the previous positions are needed. When the implicit Euler integration is used, the new position is given as Note that in (7), the new velocity is used immediately to obtain the new position whereas in (5), the old velocity is used.

In the case of the midpoint Euler method (2nd-order Runge Kutta), the new velocity and the new position are given as Note that in (8), both the acceleration and the velocity are evaluated at the midpoint between and , that is, . Likewise, Verlet integration may be refined by evaluating the acceleration ( ) and the previous position at the midpoint as follows: Finally, for the 4th-order Runge Kutta method, the new velocities are first obtained using the following set of operations: The new positions are then obtained by the following set of operations: In an iterative algorithm, setting of the time step value is critical. For stability, Courant condition should be met; that is, must be inversely proportional to the square root of elasticity ( ) [1, 19].

4. The Transform Feedback Pipeline

Prior algorithms like in [15, 18, 19] have resorted to the GPGPU-based techniques for evaluating the position and/or velocity integration on the fragment shader. This involves rendering a screen-sized quad with the appropriate textures setup and then the fragment shader is invoked to solve the integration for each fragment. The output from the fragment shader is written to another texture. On the contrary, we adopt a different approach in this paper (see Figure 1). We implement the mass spring deformation by using the transform feedback mechanism of the modern GPU. This mechanism allows us to push as many vertices as the GPU may handle for deformation.

Figure 1: Proposed deformation pipeline using transform feedback.

To understand how the different steps of the algorithm work, for the rest of this discussion, we will be discussing the steps needed to implement the explicit Euler integration as an example. We do the integration calculation on the vertex shader. Then, using transform feedback, we direct the new positions and velocities to a set of vertex array objects (VAOs).

We have two VAOs for updating the physics and two more VAOs for rendering of the resulting positions. Referring to Figure 2 for the following, each VAO stores a set of vertex buffer objects (VBOs) for position and velocity. An additional VBO is required to store the connection information. The connection VBO is also bound to the texture buffer target so that the connectivity information could be fetched in the vertex shader on demand. The usage flags for the position and velocity VBOs are set as dynamic (GL_DYNAMIC_COPY in OpenGL) since the data will be dynamically modified using the shaders. This gives an additional hint to the GPU so that it may put the buffers in the fastest accessible memory.

Figure 2: The VAO and VBO setup for transform feedback: the blue solid rectangles show the attributes written to a VAO; the red dotted rectangles show the attributes being read simultaneously from another VAO.

The application pushes a set of positions (each element is a float4 with in the first three components and mass in the fourth component), velocities (each element is a float3), and one connection texture buffer object (each element is an ivec4) to the GPU. The connection texture buffer object stores the neighborhood information for each mass so that the neighbor’s position could be retrieved. The reason we use a set of VBOs for positions and velocities is so that we may use the ping pong strategy to read from a set of position/velocity while we write to another set using the transform feedback approach since we may not write to a transform feedback attribute when we are reading from it.

The vertex shader receives the positions, velocities, and connections as input attributes. The damping coefficient ( ) and the spring stiffness ( ) are given as shader uniforms. The vertex shader calculates the acceleration by running a loop through all of the neighbors. For fixed masses, a special sentinel value (−1) is used. Thus, if the current position’s component is −1, the point is fixed. In the loop, the neighbor’s position and its resting length are obtained. These values are then used to obtain the current spring’s force . This force is added along with the external forces such as wind or gravity. This loop continues for all neighbors. Once the external force is calculated, the acceleration is obtained. Finally, the acceleration is used to get the new velocity. This in turn allows us to obtain the new position.

The new positions then applied certain constraints like the positivity constraint to prevent the masses from falling under the ground plane. The positivity constraint is given as where is the component of the position assuming that the -axis is the world up axis. Likewise, other constraints like collision of the mass with an arbitrary polygon may be implemented very easily in the vertex shader. For instance, we consider a constraint on collision of the masses with a sphere. Assuming that we have a sphere having a center ( ) and a radius , we have a mass at position ( ) and it is transformed to a new position ( ). The collision constraint is given as

5. Implementation and Performance Assessment

We have implemented the proposed pipeline using the GLSL shading language. Setting up of the VAOs and VBOs for transform feedback is described in the previous section. For instant rendering of the deformed objects, we require a pair of VAOs for updating the position and velocity.

Referring to Figure 3, for each rendering cycle, we swap between the two buffers to alternate the read/write pathways. Before the transform feedback could proceed, we need to bind the update VAOs to the current render device so that the appropriate buffer objects can be set up for writing data to. Once the update VAO is bound, we bind the appropriate VBOs for reading the current positions and velocities to the current transform feedback buffer base (by issuing a call to glBindBufferBase OpenGL function). The rasterizer is disabled to prevent the execution of the rest of the programmable pipeline. The draw point call is issued to allow writing vertices to the VBO. The transform feedback is then disabled. The amount of primitives transformed could be queried by issuing a query. Following the transform feedback, the rasterizer is enabled and then the points are drawn. This time, the render VAOs are bound. This renders the deformed points on screen.

Figure 3: The transform feedback data flow for the update and render cycle.

This process is repeated until the difference between the current and the previous position of the mass is below a threshold. The threshold value is dependent on the simulation accuracy required. In practice, a value of 0.001 is found to be a good compromise. A recent extension GL_ARB_transform_feedback2 in the core OpenGL 4.0 has eased the transform feedback along with the handling of its buffer object/s. It provides specific states that allow transform feedback to store references to the VBO. The extension also adds some functions that allow rendering of primitives without the need to query the number of primitives written through the transform feedback.

We have applied the new deformation pipeline on a Dell Precision T7500 workstation (Windows 7 64-bit) with a 2.27 GHz Intel Xeon CPU with 4 GB of RAM. The machine is equipped with a Quadro FX 5800 GPU card with 4096 MB of dedicated video memory. The output resolution for all of the experiments is pixels.

For comparisons of performance, we rendered a deforming grid of points ranging from the size of grid points to grid points, on both CPU and GPU, as shown in Figure 4. In the experiment, the user arbitrarily picks up a point and moves the point in 3D space. The grid deforms accordingly to bring the grid mesh towards equilibrium. The explicit Euler integration was used as the integration solver for this experiment. Execution time was recorded for both deforming operations and rendering of the updated grid points for a single frame.

Figure 4: Real-time rendering of deformation of a grid of masses using explicit Euler integration using transform feedback.

For fair comparisons, we optimized the CPU code by utilizing the OpenMP (column Optimized CPU (b) in Table 1 and column CPU (a) in Table 2). The force accumulation and the spring constraint phase is greatly aided by the OpenMP pragma to accelerate the code by issuing parallel threads. This helps to reduce the execution time for rendering a single frame as shown in Table 1. In addition, an unoptimized CUDA version using global memory (column GPU-CUDA-UOP (b) in Table 2) and an optimized CUDA version using the shared memory (column GPU-CUDA-OP (c) in Table 2) are also implemented (using the same integration scheme and the grid sizes) followed by our transform feedback-based code (column GPU-TF (d) in Table 2). The performance of the four programs is summarized in Table 2. The CUDA versions were tested with different execution configurations, and after various experiments, we found the execution configuration of threads per block to perform best on our hardware.

Table 1: Comparison of unoptimized and optimized CPU code.
Table 2: Comparison of execution performance.

As expected, for small grid sizes, even the optimized CPU implementation can also catch up with the requirement of real-time rendering. However, as the grid size increases, the amount of calculations increases which drops the performance of CPU program sharply. The drops in performance for the three versions of GPU implementation also vary. Our proposed GPU program using transform feedback is about 2 to 3 times faster as compared to a naive CUDA implementation (see column GPU-CUDA-UOP (b)). The main reason for the slowdown of the naive CUDA program seems to be due to the noncoalesce memory accesses needed to obtain the neighbour node positions making the kernel memory bound. Another reason may be the OpenGL interop that is needed to copy the data to/from the CUDA device from/to the OpenGL API. Since memory read is the most expensive operation and our proposed pipeline using transform feedback reads directly from the GPU memory, we attain significant speedup as compared to a naive CUDA implementation. However, this memory access overhead becomes significant for large grid sizes (compare column GPU-TF (d) to column GPU-CUDA-OP (b) for large grid size). This is where the versatility of CUDA comes into play since using shared memory and careful memory access patterns, many sequential memory transactions could be coalesced into a single transaction. This feature is unfortunately not available through OpenGL and transform feedback. Thus, an optimized CUDA code using the shared memory performs better for larger grid sizes due to the greater flexibility of memory access provided in CUDA.

To assess the effectiveness of the transform feedback for different integration solvers, we conducted another experiment. We compared the performance of the discussed integration schemes, namely, explicit Euler, implicit Euler, Verlet integration, and midpoint Euler (2nd order Runge Kutta) and 4th order Runge Kutta methods on the proposed GPU pipeline. Table 3 shows the time measured for a single frame including deformation updates and rendering for the same set of grid configurations as were used for the previous experiment.

Table 3: Performance of different integration schemes.

As can be seen, the overall performances of these integration solvers are close to each other in the transform feedback pipeline. This ensures the stability and scalability of the new algorithm in applications. The Verlet integration has reduced memory requirement (no velocity storage required) and performs well; it is also stable, with an approximation error on the order of . From the point of view of stability, the 4th-order Runge Kutta method is found to be the best whereas the explicit Euler method is the worst. Thanks to the flexibility of the proposed pipeline, we have enjoyed minimal efforts to add support for all of the integration schemes.

6. Conclusion

We have presented a novel GPU-based deformation pipeline. Our approach is based on the mechanism of transform feedback available in the new-generation GPUs. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first ever proposal of a pipeline that is using transform feedback for deformation entirely on the GPU. We are confident on the results obtained from the algorithm and would like to expand the model to address specific areas like biomedical modeling and simulation [21, 22].

As expected, when comparing our implementation to an optimized CUDA implementation, the performance of the CUDA implementation is better. We can think of two reasons for this; the first is the ability in CUDA to write to any memory region directly (the scattered writes) and the second is the ability in CUDA to control the shared memory the efficient use of which may allow contiguous memory accesses. This feature is unfortunately unavailable in shader APIs and so clearly the performance suffers specially in case of larger resolutions.

To circumvent such a performance loss, we may use a CUDA kernel to do scattered writes, alongside a GLSL shader. This way CUDA may be used for scattered data writes as well as for processing the more computationally demanding steps. This hybrid scheme however requires a more rigorous treatment and that will possibly be a future research topic.

This work is partially supported by a research grant from the Institute of Media Innovation, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

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ISRN Analytical Chemistry
Volume 2013 (2013), Article ID 861851, 7 pages
Research Article

Spectrophotometric Determination of Bromhexine HCl in Pure and Pharmaceutical Forms

1Department of Chemistry, Jawaharlal Nehru Technology University, Hyderabad 500085, India
2Department of Chemistry, Nizam College, Hyderabad 500001, India

Received 8 June 2013; Accepted 3 July 2013

Academic Editors: E. Billiot, S. Göktürk, and D. Patra

Copyright © 2013 K. Susmitha et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Five spectrophotometric methods for determination of bromhexine HCl have been developed, validated, and applied for the assay of the drug in pharmaceuticals. Methods A, B, and C are based on ion-pair complexation of drug, in acidic buffers, with triphenylmethane dyes, namely, bromothymol blue (BTB), bromophenol blue (BPB), and bromocresol green (BCG). The complexes are extracted into chloroform, and absorbance is measured at around 415 nm as function of concentration of the drug. The stoichiometry of the complex is found to be 1 : 1 in each case. Method D depends upon charge-transfer complexation of neutralized drug with iodine which produces iodide ion whose absorbance at 366 nm is measured as function of concentration of the drug. This complex too has 1 : 1 composition as determined by Job’s method. Method E is developed on the basis of oxidation of the drug with alkaline KMnO4 which generates green-colored manganate ion with 610 nm. As the intensity of green color increased with increasing time kinetics of the reaction is followed, and calibration curves are constructed by using initial rate and fixed time methods. Excellent recovery studies with high accuracy and precision indicate that the methods can be successfully used in industries for the assay of drug in pure form and pharmaceuticals.


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    The story follows a team of players, consisting of a con-man, a con-woman, an illusionist, a explosives expert, a professional hacker and a disguise master who plan to rob gold worth 100 crores, from a moving train. During the process they are double crossed by some of their own team members

  • Love you Mr Kalakaar(2011) pDVDRip

    Sahil, an artist who draws cartoons. He falls in love with Amrita Rao, the daughter of a businessman, for whom Tusshar had deigned a mascot. Her father decided to hire Tusshar as the MD of his company for three months. He has to earn profits in those three months in order to marry his daughter. Company politics come into play and Tusshar falls short of his goals. But eventually his dream of becoming a cartoon strip-writer is realized when a newspaper decides to publish his cartoon "Office Space" in their newspaper.

  • I am(2011) pDVDRip

    It consists of four short films: "Omar", "Afia", "Abhimanyu", and "Megha". Each film shares the common theme of fear and each is also based on real life stories. The film was financed by donations from more than 400 different people around the world, many of whom donated through social networking sites like Facebook. There are 4 stories but the characters are interwoven with each story Abhimanyu is based child abuse, Omar on gay rights, Megha about Kashmiri Pandits and Afia on sperm donation.

  • Dum Maro Dum (2011) pDVDRip

    The movie is about different lives in Goa. Every one linked with drugs or love.

  • Thank You (2011) pDVDRip

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  • F.A.L.T.U (2011) pDVDRip

    Faltu is a story about a group of friends that are considered a total waste. The cherry on the cake being that they take pride in the fact. These hard-working back-benchers are hardly seen working.

  • I am Kalam (2010) DVDRip

    I am Kalam" - the film is the story of Chhotu s hunger for education, something which he cannot aspire to have because of his family s poverty-stricken status.

  • Game (2011) pDVDRip

    Anupam Kher may be the owner of an entire island in Greece, but the billionaire isn’t exactly a happy man. Why? Because despite his billions, he hasn’t been able to save one of his daughters from the usual fate that befalls hapless young girls, nor is he able to buy the affections of his second daughter who hates him for abandoning them. But before he can avenge his misfortune and punish the people responsible for it, he is done away with. Who did it?

  • Patiala House (2011) pDVDRip

    A second-generation Sikh in London gives up his dream to save his father's reputation until he meets a girl who gives him the strength to stand up for what he believes. This cross-generation drama is about second chances.

  • Anjaana Anjaani (2010) DVDRip

    The story of two strangers on an odyssey of discovery -- down a path that is ridden with the exquisite pain and joy of falling in love, only they don't realize it. [...]

  • Crook (2010) DVDRip

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    Watch one of the best quiz show hosted by none other then star of the Millennium Amitabh Bacchan [...]

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  • Lafangey Parindey DVDRip Watch Online

    Pinky Palkar (Deepika Padukone) is an aspiring skater who dreams of making it big through a television show. Her dreams go awry when One-Shot-Nandu (Neil Nitin Mukesh), a fighter who pummels his opponents in the ring blindfolded, knocks her down in a freak car accident turning her blind. Despite her handicap, Pinky is determined to participate in the show. As a remorse, Nandu teaches her to "see" through her blindness. In return, she teaches him to skate; [...]

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Sunday, September 11, 2011

ZNMD (2011) DVDRip Watch Online

New DVDRip Link Posted :)

DVDRip Link


text:
WI spinners hold the key against Oz

West Indies' Ravi Rampaul successfully appeals for the wicket of New Zealand's Rob Nicol (R) during their Twenty20 World Cup Super 8 cricket match in Pallekele. Reuters/Dinuka Liyanawatte

It's time for a clash between Caribbean Calypso and Aussie regimentation, and if both teams play to their potential, it should be a cracker of a competition. In T20, it's never easy to predict a winner and when two balanced teams face-off in a knock-out situation, there is more to it than just strength on paper.

The West Indies must have had an eye on the Pakistan-Australia match and the team management would have observed how the Aussies got strangulated by an overdose of quality spin. The scenario in mind, the West Indies will look to Narine, Badree and Samuels to be the key in this crucial match.

The Australia-Pakistan match has also brought to the fore that if you can make early inroads into the Aussie innings, you have a chance of taking them by the horns. That is why David Hussey is so important in the middle order. He has loads of experience of playing in the sub-continent against good spinners and knows how to build an innings on wearing pitches. He can also be used as a spinner and his bowling can come handy.

The Aussie team management may think of using Matthew Wade higher up the order. It's packed at the top but Wade, at seven, is struggling to come to terms. In T20, it benefits to throw something at the opponent for which they may not be ready. Hafeez did that by bowling the spinners till the 18th over and Australia didn't have an answer.

Shane Watson's form will be crucial. He has had a good tournament with both bat and ball. The Aussies might think it was good that Watson had an off-day with the bat the other day and will come out better against the Caribbeans.

360 Corporate Relations
The writer is a former India skipper

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text:
iconimg Sunday, August 30, 2015

HT Correspondent , Hindustan Times
Jalandhar, July 20, 2013
Even as the state's industrialists are battling long power cuts and plan to start an agitation by forming a united front, the Punjab State Power Corporation Ltd plans to install five more power sub-stations of 20 MVA each in the city at an investment of Rs. 170 crore. However, industrialists are unsure of the move will actually work or will turn out to another empty promise.

"It is very difficult to run an industry without power for four days. Workers are leaving for their states as they cannot survive o by working only three day's week. We are in acute difficulty," president of Federation of the Jalandhar Traders and Industrialists' Association, Gursharan Singh said.

However, PSPCL is confident that its plan will work and that the mismatch between power supply and demand will be bridged, after the sub-stations come on-stream.

"We have already identified five areas, where the power load is very high on the existing sub-stations, as per a survey by Larsen & Toubro (L&T). The company has also been given the contract to set up the sub-stations," PSPCL engineer-in-chief (north) SS Sarna told HT.

Sarna added that the sub-stations would be set up at the Leather Complex, Babrik Chowk, Gadai Pur, Industrial Area and Industrial Estate.

"All the five power sub-stations would be set under Restructured Accelerated Power Development Reform Programme (RAPDRP) of the PSPCL."

"The company has been instructed to complete new sub-station within two years."

He added that the new stations would reduce power loads on the existing sub-station by 70%. On problems faced by the industrialists, especially those who own Induction Furnace Units, due to the four-day power cuts a week, the engineer-in-chief added that it was imperative to keep some sort of balance between demand and supply.


text:
iconimg Sunday, August 30, 2015

Chetan Chauhan, Hindustan Times
ERSAMMA/GANJAM, October 17, 2013
 People living on Odisha coastline could broadly be divided into two categories: those who had survived 1999 super cyclone and were prepared for Phailin, and those who were facing the fury of a cyclone for the first time. In Ganjam district, considered to be the epicentre of Phailin, people had to be forcibly evacuated from their homes. Unaware of the disaster a cyclone could wreck, people resisted the government's evacuation drive in this area.

However, 200 km towards its east in Jagatsinghpur district, ground zero of the 1999 super cyclone, people abandoned their homes even before the officials swung into action.

“We know what a cyclone can do,” said Dinu Bandhu Behera of Jagatsinghpur’s Saili village, who lost his parents and a sister in the 1999 super cyclone which claimed over 10,000 lives.

“I was swept away by water for three km. I survived by holding on to a tree. I stayed on the tree for almost a day before a helicopter spotted me and I was rescued,” he said with tears streaming down his face.

Every home in the affected regions of the district has a story of pain, horror and bravado. And when the first message about another cyclone of similar or higher intensity was flashed, they knew what to do.

The villagers collected adequate ration with utensils for community cooking and shifted to cyclone shelters built after the 1999 disaster. Arrangements were also made to ensure they had enough clean water, medicines and bedding to cope with a longer duration cyclone. Fortunately, Phailin’s impact was much less than anticipated.

Prashant Sahoo of Dahi Bada, one of the worst affected villages during the 1999 cyclone, said the entire village had shifted to the shelter much before Phailin was supposed to hit Ganjam district, about 200 km away. “The local officials arrived when we were shifting some essentials to the cyclone shelter,” said Jasyajit Mandol of the neighbouring Paroda village.

This preparedness was lacking in Ganjam district, where the local administration had to forcefully evict people from their homes and keep them in shelters. “Many people were not willing to shift to the cyclone shelters. We forcibly pulled them out of their homes, sent them in a vehicle and kept them in a shelter,” said BB Rao, a constable in Marine police station in Arjapalli area of Ganjam district.

People in Ganjam had not experienced anything like Phailin before. The 1999 super cyclone was concentrated in the eastern side of Odisha and Ganjam had witnessed storm with little flooding. October 12 night was fiercer with waves up to 10-15 meters but the pre-cyclone evacuation by the local administration ensured that many lives were saved.


text:
iconimg Sunday, August 30, 2015

Agence France-Presse
Kandahar, Afghanistan, November 10, 2013
A packed timetable of lessons and football keeps boys at the Sheikh Zayed orphanage in southern Afghanistan occupied every minute of the day – one way to stop them dwelling on the tragedies that brought them there.

When they do sit still for a rare moment of reflection, they tell of fathers killed by the Taliban or in Nato air raids, legs blown off by discarded rockets and families torn apart by war.

In contrast to their grim stories, the boys appear to embrace life surrounded by friends their own age, sleeping 16 to a dormitory and rising before dawn to start a daily routine of prayers, classes and raucous kick-about games.

"We get up at 4.30am to pray, then breakfast, then lessons and playing all day," said Hamidullah, 17, who has been at the orphanage outside Kandahar city for two years.

"We have a rest after lunch and in the evenings we chat, read or do extra work. The teaching is very tough to help us get good exam results. We do all subjects – maths, Pashto, English, religious studies and computers."

Afghan orphans play football in the yard of the Shiekh Zayed orphanage in Kandahar. (AFP Photo)

Hamidullah says his uncle brought him to the orphanage after his father was killed in Ghazni province by a Taliban roadside bomb.

"My father was a police commander and there was an IED (improvised explosive device) on the way that he was travelling. It exploded and killed him," he said calmly.

Many Afghan families are so poor that when a father dies, widows are unable to care for sons who instead end up working, begging or are taken one of the country's few orphanages.

"I telephone my family once a week to speak to my three sisters and brother," Hamidullah said. "I miss them, but the life here is good."

A packed timetable of lessons and football keeps boys at the Shiekh Zayed orphanage in southern Afghanistan occupied every minute of the day – one way to deter them from dwelling on the tragedies that brought them there. (AFP Photo)

'The best day is Friday when we go on a picnic'
The all-boys orphanage, funded by the UAE royal family, runs a demanding regime with students encouraged to aspire to successful careers despite their troubled backgrounds.

There is no television or Internet, and entertainment is restricted to the occasional film shown on a projector.

Classrooms are full to bursting with pupils squashed onto wooden benches, and teachers expect complete attention from the boys. Poor results can mean being thrown out of the orphanage.

"I want to be a doctor," said Mujahid, 13. "We do get given a lot of work, but the best day is Friday when we go on a picnic or to the bazaar."

An Afghan orphan sits on his bed while studying at the Shiekh Zayed orphanage in Kandahar. (AFP Photo)

Mujahid's father was killed outside their home in Uruzgan province by a NATO air bombardment four years ago.

"He was working in the fields during the day when he was killed," he said, reluctant to recall more details of that day. "I go home for holidays in the summer."

Among the most ambitious students is Sayad Wali, 14, who walks on two artificial legs.

He wants to work in television or radio, and admits with a grin to loving Afghan pop music despite the teachers' stern disapproval.

"I was feeding animals in my village when someone was carrying a RPG (rocket propelled grenade) out of a mosque where it had been left," Wali, from volatile Zhari district in Kandahar province, said.

"The man bumped the rocket on a tree and it exploded. My nephew died and I was taken by ISAF (the NATO force) to their Kandahar hospital for treatment."

Wali, whose father died of natural causes, lost both his lower legs and one knee, but he walks well despite suffering bad skin abrasions during the summer heat.

Now he wants to press ahead with his lessons.

"I hope to go to university and do television work one day," he said.

About 220 orphans, aged between seven and 20, board full-time at the school, with other orphans and local boys pouring in by the day for the two shifts of lessons.

An Afghan teacher writes on a whiteboard as he teaches English to orphans at the Shiekh Zayed orphanage in Kandahar. (AFP Photo)

All wear white skull caps and plain shalwar kameez robes – brown for the morning shift and blue for the afternoon.

Lunch of rice, meat and dal is served from huge steel pots to noisy queues of pupils carrying steel trays, and afterwards desert is a single apple.

"We are full beyond capacity," said director Mohammed Shafiq. "There are only a few other small orphanages around, and we have to turn many candidates away."

"The boys we look after often come from sad families, so we try to provide a happier environment."

"We want to teach them to be an example to society, to show that education is something to care about, and to help them develop into complete human beings."

The bitter world of revenge killings, blood feuds and insurgent warfare in the Pashtun heartlands of Afghanistan is kept safely outside the orphanage's gates.

But Shafiq knows his pupils face many difficulties and dangerous temptations once they leave – including the risk of recruitment by the Taliban.

Even with the education the orphanage provides, the future for the boys is not certain. Some go on to university, become teachers or take low-level government jobs, but many others struggle to find regular work.

"We have a responsibility to teach them and guide them," Shafiq said. "Afterwards they must choose how to live their lives."


text:
iconimg Sunday, August 30, 2015

HT Correspondent
chandigarh, March 14, 2014
 Congress sitting MLA from Sohna, Dharambir Singh, resigned from the Congress and joined BJP on Friday.

Haryana Congress president Ashok Tanwar has also served a show-cause notice on him for indulging in anti-party activities on Wednesday. Dharambir had on Sunday organised a rally in Bhiwani where he publicly criticised the Congress-led government in Haryana and also announced his resignation from the post of chief parliamentary secretary.


text:
Rajkummar Rao is flooded with film offers

  • PTI
  • |
  • Updated: May 07, 2014 15:05 IST

Rajkummar Rao was bitten by the acting bug while doing theatre in school. He sure is taking the right steps to make a dent with his performance.

Actor Rajkummar Rao has been receiving lot of film offers after bagging the National Award. Recently, he was nominated for a National Award for the best actor category for Shahid, which is a biographical film on the life of lawyer and human rights activist Shahid Azmi, who was shot dead in 2010. Rao portrayed the role of the slain lawyer.

“I am getting lot of offers (after wining the award). Otherwise, I have not changed. And I’d like to remain like this. I am glad that I am getting to work with many people,” says the 29-year-old.

Having started his career with Dibakar Banerjee’s anthology Love Sex aur Dhokha’ (LSD), Rao has always made an impact on the audience’s mind with his powerful performances. He has garnered praises for his acting prowess in films such as Kai Po Che, Shahid and Queen.       He has again teamed up with Mehta for his next.

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text:
'Many projects affected due to land acquisition problems'

Last in news for building India’s longest railway bridge -- the 4.6-km-long bridge involving the construction of the Vallarpadam-Idapally new line in Kerala -- the Rail Vikas Nigam Limited (RVNL) is bracing up to start execution works on major projects including the construction of the prestigious Rishikesh-Karanprayag rail link. Corporation Managing Director Satish Agnihotri spoke to Srinand Jha on upcoming schemes and related issues. Excerpts:
The corporation’s turnover has shown a dip (down to R1,444 crore in 2010-11 from Rs 1,749 crores the previous year. Why?

As 2012 approached, a number of projects being executed by the RVNL were nearing completion. As a result, the order books were nearly depleted and the expenditure on these projects was lower. Progress in respect of some other projects was affected due to problems associated with land acquisition. Five major projects with an estimated cost of R5,350 crore could not take off due to delay in the sanction of the second Asian Development Bank (ADB) loan. However, despite the decline in the turnover, the company has been able to maintain and in fact improve upon its overall financial performance due to increase in income from interest and dividend.

Besides projects for the extension of the Kolkata Metro, what are the other major projects on the RVNL plate for next fiscal?

Four major projects involving the construction of 66km of Metro line were transferred to the RVNL in March 2010. These projects are likely to cost Rs 10,000 crore. Another high-value contract being implemented by the RVNL is the the construction of the Rishikesh-Karanprayag rail link at an estimated cost of Rs 4,500 crore.

Besides, there is ongoing work on the 81 projects transferred to the RVNL by the Railways for execution. These include 41 projects of the strengthening of the Golden Quadrilateral and Diagonals, 33 projects of port connectivity and corridors to hinterland and three projects for the construction of bridges and workshops.
The Kolkata Metro extension project has reportedly been delayed because of land acquisition problems involving the defence ministry. Progress on its execution is also reported to be slow. Please comment.

This is not true. The RVNL has worked at a fast pace to execute these projects. Contracts for two stretches have been awarded and work has begun.
Contract work for the third — the Joka-BBD Bagh project — was also awarded in December 2010. Tenders for the Dum Dum airport-New Garia project have also been invited. Issues of land acquisition are being sorted out.

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text:
Switching a home loan can be tricky

In August, it was private lenders such as ICICI Bank Ltd, Axis Bank Ltd and Yes Bank Ltd which hiked their base rates. Then around a month later, just before the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) was set to announce the monetary policy review, State Bank of India increased its base rate thus affecting home loan rates as well.

RBI in its review increased the repo rate, the rate at which banks borrow from the central bank for the short term, by 25 basis points (bps).

Housing finance companies, too, have increased home loan rates in the recent past. Though it is too early to say whether all banks and other home loan providers will increase rates soon, but they may follow suit.

This may be the time when a lot of existing home loan customers may think of switching to other lenders to lower their equated monthly installment (EMI) outgo.

However, this may not be prudent or easy as thought to be. There are a lot of factors that one must consider before making such a move.

“There are various costs involved in switching and one must calculate the total outgo in the long term before taking a decision,” said Ranjeet S Mudholkar, vice-chairman and CEO Financial Planning Standards Board India. Here’s a rundown of all such scenarios and factors.

Costs involved

Usually, when banks increase their home loan rates the EMI does not shoot up. Instead, banks increase the tenure of the loan repayment keeping the EMI constant. However, the principal component in the EMI goes down and the interest component increases.

The number of installments will depend on the outstanding principal amount and interest is charged on this amount.

“The bank will give you various combinations of repayment and a small increase in principal repayment may bring down the tenure of the loan and the small amount will not pinch you much,” said B Srinivasan, a Bangalore-based financial planner.

As per RBI direction, though there are no pre-payment or foreclosure charge levied if you are on a floating rate loan, it may be charged if you are on a fixed rate. Also, the new lender may charge an upfront processing fee as well. All these need to be factored into the calculation as well.

Lastly, different banks have different margins of disbursing loans. For instance, one bank may give 80% of the cost of the property as loan whereas another may give at 90%.

So if you were with the lender giving 90% loan amount and want to move to the lender giving 80% of the property value, you will be required to pay the differential from your pocket. You may have paid some part of the loan already, but remember since you pay more interest during the start of the loan period the principal outstanding will be almost the same. Unavailability of funds at that point may save you from making the switch.

Possibility of new bank hiking its rate

It may not turn out to be a great idea if you switch to a new lender and the new lender subsequently hikes rates as well.

Though this may not be an easy thing to gauge but one should wait for the rate hike cycle to finish before taking such a decision. Banks which have stable rates are the ones one should look for.

There are various resources available on the Internet where one can see the trend of loan rates of a particular lender. This will give you an idea about the stability of bank rate change behaviour.

Acceptance by bank

Though you may identify a new lender and approach to switch, you may be denied on various grounds. Say for an under-construction project, if it is not approved by the new lender it will not allow you to switch.

Moreover, even if the project has got approval but is delayed due to any reason the lender may refuse to accept your proposal to switch the loan. Also, the new lender will look at your repayment behaviour with the earlier lender and if you have been erratic with payments, you may fail to secure a fresh loan.

A bank may also not accept your proposal if major part of the loan is already repaid because it may not make business sense for the new lender.

Keep in mind

Remember that it is important to keep in mind that a major part of the repayment should go as principal repayment.

“From the taxation angle, exemption is available only for Rs. 1.50 lakh of interest repayment. So rather than paying more of interest one should repay more of principal amount,” said Srinivasan.

Also if it is a marginal change then it may not make sense to move because there is a lot of paperwork and time involved.

Additionally, one bank may have a ripple effect on other banks. So, you may move to another bank and it may increase rates soon after. It is said that one must not run after uncertainty by leaving the certain.

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text:
Bihar SHO, 7 others get death for 2002 fake encounter

A Bihar police officer was sentenced to death on Tuesday for killing three teenaged students in a fake encounter 12 years ago in Patna’s posh Ashiana Nagar locality.

According to the final charge sheet, the station house officer (SHO) had shot them dead with his service revolver following a dispute over payment of Rs 2 telephone bill.

The court had pronounced the SHO of Shastrinagar police station, Shams-e- Alam, and seven others guilty of murdering the students on December 28, 2002 and reserved the judgment.

The victims included Vikas Ranjan, a student of electronics (honours) at AN College, Patna, Prashant Singh, who had been selected for a diving course in the Indian Navy and had just returned to Patna from Delhi to get police verification done, and Himanshu Yadav, who was to join a government department on compassionate grounds following the death of his father.

The counsel for the SHO, Surya Prakash Singh said that he would not go in for appeal before the Patna high court.

“We had demanded death sentence for the policemen who had shot innocent students. Barely few hours before the encounter, the same SHO had issued a character certificate to Himanshu and Prashant,” said Jagdish Prasad Gupta, father of slain Vikas.

After massive uproar over the incident in 2002, the case had been handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation, which subsequently found out after an inquiry that the encounter was a fake one.

The CBI submitted the charge sheet in January 2003 itself.

In the charge sheet filed on March 29, 2003, CBI had said the boys, who were lying unconscious on the market floor, were shot dead by Alam.

The chargesheet said after killing the three youths, Alam asked constable Arun Kumar Singh to flash a message on wireless that an encounter was going on at the Sammelan Market in West-Central Patna.

Alam was also accused of planting two country made pistols and ammunition at the place of occurrence in a bid to show these items as “recovery”.

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