The Lifetime network has cancelled “America?s Most Wanted”, which has brought home over 50 missing children and landed over 1,000 fugitives to justice all over the world. The show, hosted by John Walsh, was picked up by Lifetime in December 2011. There is hope “America’s Most Wanted” will be picked up by another network. TV ...
MIAMI - Standing in front of a giant cargo crane at the port of Miami Friday, President Obama promoted his plan to encourage private sector investment in infrastructure to increase job creation in the United States.
"There are few more important things we can do to create jobs right now and strengthen our economy over the long haul than rebuilding the infrastructure that powers our businesses and our economy - our roads, our bridges, our schools and our ports like this one," President Obama said.
"There's work to be done," Obama added. "There are workers who are ready to do it. Let's prove to the world there is no better place to do business than right here in the United States of America, and let's get started rebuilding America."
The president outlined his infrastructure spending plan, called the "Rebuild America Partnership," which consists of three components - the creation of a $10 billion national infrastructure bank, the establishment of new "America Fast Forward Bonds" for infrastructure investment, and the expansion of funding for the TIGER and TIFFIA infrastructure programs.
"Let's rebuild this country we love. Let's make sure we're staying on the cutting edge. Let's make sure we've always got the best ports. Let's make sure we've got the best airports. Let's make sure we've got the best rail lines. Let's make sure we've got the best roads. Let's make sure we've got the best schools," he said. "We're going to push on this issue each and every day and make sure we get the middle class going again."
As he pushed for creating more jobs through infrastructure investment in America, the president stood in front of a crane manufactured by a Chinese company called ZPMC.
Before he delivered his speech, the president toured a tunnel project at the port of Miami, which is undergoing a $2 billion renovation funded by government and private money.
"Breaking ground on more projects like this tunnel that I just saw means more good construction jobs that can't be outsourced," Obama said. "They have to be done right here in America and they end up getting people good pay and good opportunities to raise their family."
Alan Krueger, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, said the program will total $21 billion but vowed that it would not increase the deficit. Details of the costs of the program will be outlined in the president's budget, which will be presented on April 10.
"They will not increase the deficit by a dime because they are paid for in our budget," Krueger told reporters aboard Air Force One Friday.
PARIS (AP) ? Authorities say a man has been arrested overnight for allegedly breaking into Paris' Museum of Natural History and cutting off a tusk from a centuries-old elephant skeleton with a chainsaw.
A police official said a neighbor of the Left Bank museum alerted authorities after hearing the sawing sound at around 3 a.m. Saturday.
The suspect, about 20 years old, had the tusk in his possession when police arrested him soon afterward outside the museum. Paris prosecutors' office spokeswoman Agnes Thibault-Lecuivre said the motive of the suspect wasn't immediately clear.
Museum official Jacques Cuisin told BFM-TV that the skeleton, which was draped under a plastic covering Saturday, belonged to an elephant that Portugal's king gave to French King Louis XIV in the late 17th century. Cuisin said it can be repaired.
BEIRUT (AP) ? Syrian rebels pushed into a strategic neighborhood in the northern city of Aleppo after days of heavy clashes, seizing control of at least part of the hilltop district and killing a pro-government cleric captured in the fighting, activists and state media said Saturday.
There were conflicting reports about the scale of the advance into the Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood by rebel forces battling to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad. But the gains marked the biggest shift in the front lines in the embattled city in months.
Aleppo, Syria's largest city and a former commercial hub, has been a key battleground in the country's civil war since rebels launched an offensive there in July, seizing several districts before the fighting largely settled into a bloody stalemate.
The Aleppo Media Center opposition group and Aleppo-based activist Mohammed Saeed said rebels seized full control of Sheikh Maqsoud late Friday.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, however, said rebels took only the eastern part of the neighborhood, and reported heavy fighting there Saturday.
Syria's state news agency SANA said government troops "eliminated scores of terrorists" in other parts of Aleppo mainly in the neighborhoods of Sheikh Said, Masaken Hanano and Bustan al-Bacha. SANA did not mention the fighting in Sheikh Maqsoud.
Sheikh Maqsoud, which is predominantly inhabited by minority Kurds, is located on a hill on the northern edge of the city. The neighborhood used to be known as "Our Lady's Mountain" and is considered one of the most strategic locations in the city because it overlooks much of Aleppo.
Activists predicted that regime forces would launch counterattacks to try to retake the area because if rebels keep holding Sheikh Maqsoud it will be easy for them to target regime-held areas with mortar shells.
The media center and the Observatory both reported that residents were fleeing the neighborhood to safer areas. The media center said regime tanks around the neighborhood were shelling the area.
An amateur video showed about two dozen gunmen standing in front of a building owned by the Syrian government. In the video, one of the gunmen claims that rebels and their "Kurdish brothers liberated Sheikh Maqsoud of Assad's criminal gangs and shabiha" or pro-government militiamen.
The video appeared genuine and corresponded to other reporting that The Associated Press did on events depicted in the footage.
Saeed, the Aleppo-based activist, said several rebel groups, including Kurdish gunmen, took control of the neighborhood after launching an attack, titled "Kurdish Fraternity," on Thursday. He said that on Saturday fighting intensified on the eastern edge of the area around an army post known as Awamid.
The Observatory said rebels captured a pro-government Sunni Muslim cleric in the fighting, killed him and then paraded his body through the neighborhood.
State-run Al-Ikhbariya TV identified the cleric as Hassan Seifeddine. It said he was beheaded and his head was placed on the minaret of Al-Hassan Mosque where he used to lead the prayers.
The SANA state news said Seifeddine's body was "mutilated" after the "assassination."
The reports of the mutilation of the cleric's body could not be independently confirmed.
The killing of Seifeddine comes nearly 10 days after a suicide bomber blew himself up inside a mosque in the heart of the Syrian capital, Damascus, killing top Sunni preacher Sheik Mohammad Said Ramadan al-Buti as he was giving a sermon. The March 21 blast killed 48 others and wounded dozens.
Al-Buti, like Seifeddine, was a strong supporter of the Assad regime, which is dominated by members of the president's minority Alawite sect, an off-shoot of Shiite Islam. The opposition is made up of mostly Sunnis, who are the majority among Syrians.
Extremists have been playing a larger role among the rebel groups. They include the Islamic Jabhat al-Nusra, a powerful offshoot of al-Qaida in Iraq, which has claimed responsibility for most of the deadliest suicide bombings against regime and military facilities and, as a result, has gained popularity among some rebels.
A photograph recently posted online by activists showed Seifeddine, who was in his late 50s and had a white beard. A banner posted over the picture said: "A wanted agent." Another referred to him as wanted by the rebels and read: "An agent of Syria's ruling gang and wanted by the Free Syrian Army."
Aleppo-based Sunni cleric Abdul-Qadir Shehabi told state-run TV that Seifeddine's son was kidnapped months ago. Shehabi also lashed out at the rebels, saying they "mutilated" Seifeddine's body.
"Is this the freedom that they talk about? This is the freedom of Satan," Shehabi said, referring to rebels who say they are fighting Assad's regime because it is authoritarian.
Rami Abdul-Rahman, who heads the Observatory, said Seifeddine's name had been put on an opposition "death list."
"He was the imam of a mosque. He was not armed when he was killed," Abdul-Rahman said. "We cannot close our eyes when the opposition violates human rights."
Abdul-Rahman said that although Sheikh Maqsoud is predominantly Kurdish, the eastern areas where much of the fighting occurred are inhabited by pro-regime Sunni Muslims known as the "Mardilis." Many of them came to Aleppo decades ago from Turkey's southeastern province of Mardin. He said Seifeddine was one of them.
Elsewhere in Syria, activists reported violence in areas of the southern province of Daraa, the suburbs of Damascus and the northern regions of Idlib and Raqqa. The Observatory said the heaviest clashes were in Raqqa and Sheikh Maqsoud.
Abdul-Rahman said the fighting in Sheikh Maqsoud killed 14 pro-government gunmen, seven rebels, 10 civilians and Seifeddine.
The Observatory said rebels were fighting a fierce battle around an army post known as the Camp in the oil-rich eastern province of Deir el-Zour, which borders Iraq.
In Damascus, residents said power was cut on Saturday in some neighborhoods. Al-Ikhbariya TV quoted Minister of Electricity Imad Khamis as saying the network suffered a technical problem that would be fixed in 24 hours. Damascus has witnessed repeated cuts in recent months.
Also on Saturday, SWR, a regional broadcaster for Germany's ARD public television network, said that one of its reporters was shot on Friday in Aleppo. SWR said the reporter, Joerg Armbruster, 65, had emergency surgery in a Syrian hospital and then was taken to the Turkish border in an ambulance on Saturday. He was to be flown to Germany for further treatment when his condition improves.
A convicted rapist who for decades has been on the run from the law was captured by police this week.
According to The Boston Globe, 52-year-old Gary Irving has been on the Massachusetts State Police Most Wanted list for the past 34 years, since a fateful day in 1979 when the convicted serial rapist fled from his Massachusetts home.
Irving, who was found guilty in Norfolk County, Mass., of raping three young women, including a 16-year-old girl, was arrested Wednesday in his home in Gorham, Maine.
Reuters reports that Irving had been sentenced to life in prison in 1979, but that he had fled after the judge in his case chose to delay his sentence by two days to allow him to make arrangements before his prison term started.
For decades, Massachusetts State Police have been searching for the fugitive. Norfolk County District Attorney Michael Morrissey said that law enforcement officers had previously followed leads across New England and several states, including Georgia, Colorado and Florida, in search of Irving.
In the interim, Irving has been living under the name Gregg Irving. He has been married for 29 years and has two children, according to Boston's WCVB.com.
Reports the Boston Globe, Irving and his wife were about to tuck their granddaughter into bed Wednesday night, when police showed up at the couple's home. Irving's wife has since said that she had "no knowledge of his true identity."
An 18-year-old female neighbor of Irving's said that she was shocked to learn of his real identity.
?It actually kind of freaks me out because I never shut my shades,? Alyssa Lurvey told the Boston Globe. ?We don?t lock our door. I don?t know what I would do if he decided to walk in one day, come up to my room. That?s really, really scary.?
Police say they found numerous guns at Irving's home. He will face federal charges for illegal firearms possession, Reuters reports.
You already know that as a web designer or a web developer you need passive income.?However, making money online might seem like some unrealistic fantasy: sure, maybe those ?4-hour work week? folks can chill in Thailand while the money is rolling in, but what about everybody else?
This is why I decided to show you what web designers CAN and DO to make passive income online.
How can web designers make passive income online?
Web designers who want to create streams of passive income are in a very good situation right now. Most businesses nowadays either have strong online presences or are completely virtual. What does this have to do with passive income?
It means that web designers and web developers who want to earn passive income have plenty of opportunities to do so:
E-books:? the supply of e-books has not yet matched the demand. Every day there are thousands of new people reading e-books on their portable devices, and many of these people want to learn web design and web development, something that you can teach them.
Online courses: many people are looking for instructional e-books, but the other half of these people prefer a more interactive setting. Online course providers like TeamTreeHouse and Udemy are the leading examples of this, but you can start your own course as well, just setup a simple blog and host your videos for premium memberships.
Apps: the amount of people using smartphones and tablets is steadily increasing, and there?s always a huge demand for new and unique applications that will either help or entertain the user.
Software As A Service (SaaS): more and more companies and individuals are using services to help manage their payroll, team management, storage, and the like. These services require monthly fees and are mostly automatic. Imagine developing an online system and offer it for $5 a month. Imagine how much can you earn passively using this method?
WordPress themes: thousands of people start their own blog daily, and many of these people use WordPress as their CMS. Just check ThemeForest.net and see for yourself how much WordPress theme authors make.
WP plugins: under WordPress? terms of use, plugins should be open source, and therefore free. There?s a workaround here. Offer a free edition and an extended edition that you can charge for.
PSD templates: There?s never too many PSD templates available out there. Developers in a hurry will grab any template that closely resembles their perfect template, tweak it a little, and use it for their clients. No need to hire a web designer!
Making money while you sleep is not something that only exists in the alternative universe of unicorns and rainbows. You, as a web designer or a web developer, can create streams of passive income for yourself, assuming that you are willing to put in ?all the time and energy required to pull it off. It?s not easy, but it?s also definitely possible.
7 web designers who successfully make money online?
There are plenty of web designers and web developers who are already taking advantage of opportunities in front of them:
1. Jacob Cass Explains How He Built A Successful Web Design Blog
Jacob Cass is a multidisciplinary designer and art director who has worked the all kinds of clients, including the likes of Disney, Jerry Seinfeld, Red Bull, Nike and VitaminWater. He currently works as an interactive art director/designer at a NYC agency, Ammirati, while also freelancing under his business and blog Just Creative. He also runs Logo of the Day, a logo gallery website dedicated to showcasing the best logo designs around the world, and Logo Designer Blog, a blog dedicated to branding and identity design.
In this interview, Jacob Cass answers the following questions:
What role did Jacob?s blogging success play in his web design career?
How Jacob managed to build such a popular blog and a massive social media following?
How does Jacob earn money with Just Creative?
You can read the interview?here.
2. How Sacha Greif ?earned $15,000+ with an e-book he wrote in 3 weeks.
Sacha Greif is a web designer who specializes in user interfaces for web and mobile apps. He has worked with clients such as Hipmunk, Le Monde, MileWise and UNESCO. Sacha runs his own start-up, Folyo and has released his own e-book, which was very well received. He also runs his own web design blog.
In this interview, Sacha explains the following:
How Sacha come up with the idea for his e-book ?Step by step UI design??
How he decided the appropriate price for this particular product?
How Sacha managed to get the link to his landing page on the front page of Hacker News?
You can read the interview here.
3. Chris Spooner on his blogging success
Chris Spooner is a graphic and web designer from the UK who runs two popular design blogs Blog.SpoonGraphics and Line25.
In this interview:
Why did Chris decide to start his own web design blog in the first place?
How does he come up with ideas for blog posts and what does his writing process look like?
How does Chris earn money with his blogs?
You can read the interview here.
4. How Ruben Gamez turned BidSketch into a successful online business
Ruben Gamez is the solo founder of?Bidsketch?, an online proposal software website for web designers.
In this interview:
Why did Ruben decide to build Bidsketch in the first place?
How did he manage to turn his side project into a successful ?business while ?having a full time job?
How did Ruben know when it was the right time to quit his job and start working on his business full-time?
You can read the interview here.
5. Jarrod Drysdale explains how he ?made more than $38 000 with his e-book
Jarrod Drysdale is a web designer who runs his own blog at Studio Fellow. During his career as a designer, Jarrod has worked with tech startups, movie studios, financial companies and consumer brands. He also wrote an e-book for startup founders ?Bootstrapping Design?.
In this interview:
What was the biggest lesson that Jarrod learned from his failed startup?
How did he test his idea before starting to write an e-book to make sure people actually wanted it?
What is the main reason why Jarrod?s launch was so successful?
You can read the ?interview here.
6. Jacob Gube on the explosive growth of Six Revisions
Jacob Gube is the founder of Six Revisions, one of the most popular and fastest growing web design blogs on the Internet. He?s also a web designer and web developer who specializes in front-end development and PHP development.
In this interview:
How did Jacob turn Six Revisions into one of the fastest growing web design blogs on the internet without any prior experience in online marketing?
How does he manage the logistics of running a high traffic blog with an international team of writers?
What is the main reason for the explosive growth of Six Revisions?
You can read the interview here.
7. How a teenager built a profitable web design blog in one year.
Stelian Subotin is a web designer and a writer.
In this article:
Why did he decide to start his own web design blog when he was only 16?
How did he manage to go from zero to 650 000 unique monthly visitors in one year?
How did he monetize his blog and how much did he earn from it?
You can read the article here.
FAQ about Passive Income
I?m a single 20-something freelance web designer/web developer. I?ve read the ?4-hour work week?. It all sounds very appealing: I?d love to be able to travel the world without having to worry about money too much. Is it really possible for someone like me to create streams of passive income that would make this dream come true?
Yes.
You don?t need that much money to pull that off. With $2000-3000/month you can easily travel through most places in Eastern Europe, Asia, South America, and Africa. That?s of course assuming that you?re fine with traveling on a lower-end budget (no ?5-star hotels).
I?d say that your best bet is probably SaaS because it?s recurring income (as opposed to one-time purchases such as e-books or video courses).
It might take longer than you think to get to that $2000-3000/month level, though.
I have a full-time job, family, and a mortgage. I don?t want to quit my job and?backpack?through Southeast Asia. ?I want extra income to create a better life for my family. Is making money online a good option for me?
Yes, if you are willing to put in the time and energy required to create and maintain streams of passive income, which might be demanding when combined with your other obligations.
I?d even say that passive income is necessary to people who have serious financial obligations (kids, car payments, health insurance, mortgage, etc.).
You don?t want the livelihood of your family to depend on a single source of income: your job. We all saw how well that worked out for thousands of people back in 2008, didn?t we?
In my opinion, passive income is more about financial security, than it is about the ?location independent lifestyle.
How much time does it take to create a reliable source of passive income?
It depends.
You can start making a little amount of money straight away by creating WP plugins and selling PSD templates.
You will need a lot more time and knowledge if you want to make money with e-books, apps, video courses, SaaS, etc.
I?d say that it will probably take longer than you think. Don?t quit ?your job just yet.
How much time does it take to maintain a source of passive income?
It depends on what kind of system of passive income you have set up.
In general, once the system is up and running, you should be able to maintain it by spending a few hours a week or so on it, especially if you outsource many tasks related to it.
Keep in mind that often if you don?t spend time on marketing your product/service the stream of passive income dries up over time, though.
Do you need to have a blog in order to make money online?
No.
You need to find a real pain that people are experiencing right now and offer a solution that they are willing to pay for.
I?d even say that I think that blogging is often overrated for the wrong reasons. It is indeed a good way to build your personal brand and accelerate your web design career. It isn?t the easiest way to make money online though, it requires a lot of resources and time.
I?d say that if making as much money as possible is your primary goal you might be better off by creating a video course or SaaS.
Attention: making passive income online is not as easy as it might look!
Okay, so I don?t like giving people rose tinted glasses, then watching them fail, therefore I?ll be blunt with you:
Bad news: Making money online is HARD. It requires a massive time and energy investment over an extended period of time. Please don?t even start if you are not willing to face this harsh reality.
Good news: You can achieve similar results much faster than most people in these interviews. In order to do that, you need to commit to learning online marketing, which will help you avoid wasting time on all the silly mistakes that beginners make. It?s much easier to get the results you want when you know what you are doing.
The world of online marketing can be very confusing, though. You are bombarded with conflicting advice from different gurus. How do you know which people are legitimate experts and which are just con artists? That?s the problem: you don?t.
This is the reason why I?ve compiled the list of my favorite online marketing resources:
?7 websites that will help you learn online marketing from scratch?
Entrepreneurship is not easy. I?m not going to sugarcoat this: it might take you months or even years until you get your first business off the ground. Time will pass anyway, though. Why not put it to a good use?
Web hosting giant Rackspace is acquiring Web app error tracking startup Exceptional Cloud Services and its subsidiaries to enhance its toolset for developers deploying and managing applications in the cloud. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Optical microscopes are limited by a phenomenon known as the diffraction barrier, wherein the microscope can't differentiate two objects separated by less than half the wavelength of light used—roughly 200 nm on average for the visible spectrum. But by combining powerful optics and cutting-edge rendering algorithms, GE's new DeltaVision OMX Blaze is bringing this hidden realm's drama to light. More »
This comes out every year: Forbes? team valuations and the breakdown of who?s making money, who?s losing money and all that jazz.
You?ll not be surprised to see that the Yankees are the most valuable, the Rays the least. Still, the Rays? value increased from year-to-year by 40% and they cleared $10 million. ?Owning a baseball team is like printing money, really.
For most teams anyway. Forbes claims that six teams in baseball lost money last year: the Angels, Rangers, Marlins, Blue Jays, Mets and Tigers. Of course all those numbers have to be taken with a grain of salt given what we know about the books of Major League Baseball teams: virtually nothing. And we know that many teams pay their owners various fess and things for amorphous reasons and unknown tasks, all of which negatively impacts the team?s bottom line while clearly not harming the owners a bit. ?Ask Jeff Loria how that works.
It?s a nice snapshot, but not much more. There just isn?t enough data out there for anyone to check these numbers and the only people in a position to correct them ? the owners themselves ? wouldn?t dare reveal what they really make or lose.
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
Even graphene has weak spotsPublic release date: 28-Mar-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: David Ruth david@rice.edu 713-348-6327 Rice University
Rice, Tsinghua theorists find junctions in polycrystalline graphene sap strength of super material
HOUSTON (March 28, 2013) Graphene, the single-atom-thick form of carbon, has become famous for its extraordinary strength. But less-than-perfect sheets of the material show unexpected weakness, according to researchers at Rice University in Houston and Tsinghua University in Beijing.
The kryptonite to this Superman of materials is in the form of a seven-atom ring that inevitably occurs at the junctions of grain boundaries in graphene, where the regular array of hexagonal units is interrupted. At these points, under tension, polycrystalline graphene has about half the strength of pristine samples of the material.
Calculations by the Rice team of theoretical physicist Boris Yakobson and his colleagues in China were reported this month in the American Chemical Society journal Nano Letters. They could be important to materials scientists using graphene in applications where its intrinsic strength is a key feature, like composite materials and stretchable or flexible electronics.
Graphene sheets grown in a lab, often via chemical vapor deposition, are almost never perfect arrays of hexagons, Yakobson said. Domains of graphene that start to grow on a substrate are not necessarily lined up with each other, and when these islands merge, they look like quilts, with patterns going in every direction.
The lines in polycrystalline sheets are called grain boundaries, and the atoms at these boundaries are occasionally forced to change the way they bond by the unbreakable rules of topology. Most common of the "defects" in graphene formation studied by Yakobson's group are adjacent five- and seven-atom rings that are a little weaker than the hexagons around them.
The team calculated that the particular seven-atom rings found at junctions of three islands are the weakest points, where cracks are most likely to form. These are the end points of grain boundaries between the islands and are ongoing trouble spots, the researchers found.
"In the past, people studying what happens at the grain boundary looked at it as an infinite line," Yakobson said. "It's simpler that way, computationally and conceptually, because they could just look at a single segment and have it represent the whole."
But in the real world, he said, "these lines form a network. Graphene is usually a quilt made from many pieces. I thought we should test the junctions."
They determined through molecular dynamics simulation and "good old mathematical analysis" that in a graphene quilt, the grain boundaries act like levers that amplify the tension (through a dislocation pileup) and concentrate it at the defect either where the three domains meet or where a grain boundary between two domains ends. "The details are complicated but, basically, the longer the lever, the greater the amplification on the weakest point," Yakobson said. "The force is concentrated there, and that's where it starts breaking."
"Force on these junctions starts the cracks, and they propagate like cracks in a windshield," said Vasilii Artyukhov, a postdoctoral researcher at Rice and co-author of the paper. "In metals, cracks stop eventually because they become blunt as they propagate. But in brittle materials, that doesn't happen. And graphene is a brittle material, so a crack might go a really long way."
Yakobson said that conceptually, the calculations show what metallurgists recognize as the Hall-Petch Effect, a measure of the strength of crystalline materials with similar grain boundaries. "It's one of the pillars of large-scale material mechanics," he said. "For graphene, we call this a pseudo Hall-Petch, because the effect is very similar even though the mechanism is very different.
"Any defect, of course, does something to the material," Yakobson said. "But this finding is important because you cannot avoid the effect in polycrystalline graphene. It's also ironic, because polycrystals are often considered when larger domains are needed. We show that as it gets larger, it gets weaker.
"If you need a patch of graphene for mechanical performance, you'd better go for perfect monocrystals or graphene with rather small domains that reduce the stress concentration."
###
Co-authors of the paper are graduate student Zhigong Song and his adviser, Zhiping Xu, an associate professor of engineering mechanics at Tsinghua. Xu is a former researcher in Yakobson's group at Rice. Yakobson is Rice's Karl F. Hasselmann Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and professor of chemistry.
The Air Force Office of Scientific Research and the National Science Foundation supported the work at Rice. The National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Tsinghua University Initiative Scientific Research Program and Tsinghua National Laboratory for Information Science and Technology of China supported the work at Tsinghua.
David Ruth
Mike Williams
713-348-6728 mikewilliams@rice.edu
Read the abstract at: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/nl400542n.
This news release can be found online at: http://news.rice.edu/2013/03/28/even-graphene-has-weak-spots/.
Follow Rice News and Media Relations via Twitter @RiceUNews.
Graphic for download: http://news.rice.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/0328_GRAPHENE-web.jpg
New work by theorists at Rice and Tsinghua universities shows defects in polycrystalline forms of graphene will sap its strength. The illustration from a simulation at left shows a junction of grain boundaries where three domains of graphene meet with a strained bond in the center. At right, the calculated stress buildup at the tip of a finite-length grain boundary. (Credit: Vasilii Artyukhov/Rice University)
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Even graphene has weak spotsPublic release date: 28-Mar-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: David Ruth david@rice.edu 713-348-6327 Rice University
Rice, Tsinghua theorists find junctions in polycrystalline graphene sap strength of super material
HOUSTON (March 28, 2013) Graphene, the single-atom-thick form of carbon, has become famous for its extraordinary strength. But less-than-perfect sheets of the material show unexpected weakness, according to researchers at Rice University in Houston and Tsinghua University in Beijing.
The kryptonite to this Superman of materials is in the form of a seven-atom ring that inevitably occurs at the junctions of grain boundaries in graphene, where the regular array of hexagonal units is interrupted. At these points, under tension, polycrystalline graphene has about half the strength of pristine samples of the material.
Calculations by the Rice team of theoretical physicist Boris Yakobson and his colleagues in China were reported this month in the American Chemical Society journal Nano Letters. They could be important to materials scientists using graphene in applications where its intrinsic strength is a key feature, like composite materials and stretchable or flexible electronics.
Graphene sheets grown in a lab, often via chemical vapor deposition, are almost never perfect arrays of hexagons, Yakobson said. Domains of graphene that start to grow on a substrate are not necessarily lined up with each other, and when these islands merge, they look like quilts, with patterns going in every direction.
The lines in polycrystalline sheets are called grain boundaries, and the atoms at these boundaries are occasionally forced to change the way they bond by the unbreakable rules of topology. Most common of the "defects" in graphene formation studied by Yakobson's group are adjacent five- and seven-atom rings that are a little weaker than the hexagons around them.
The team calculated that the particular seven-atom rings found at junctions of three islands are the weakest points, where cracks are most likely to form. These are the end points of grain boundaries between the islands and are ongoing trouble spots, the researchers found.
"In the past, people studying what happens at the grain boundary looked at it as an infinite line," Yakobson said. "It's simpler that way, computationally and conceptually, because they could just look at a single segment and have it represent the whole."
But in the real world, he said, "these lines form a network. Graphene is usually a quilt made from many pieces. I thought we should test the junctions."
They determined through molecular dynamics simulation and "good old mathematical analysis" that in a graphene quilt, the grain boundaries act like levers that amplify the tension (through a dislocation pileup) and concentrate it at the defect either where the three domains meet or where a grain boundary between two domains ends. "The details are complicated but, basically, the longer the lever, the greater the amplification on the weakest point," Yakobson said. "The force is concentrated there, and that's where it starts breaking."
"Force on these junctions starts the cracks, and they propagate like cracks in a windshield," said Vasilii Artyukhov, a postdoctoral researcher at Rice and co-author of the paper. "In metals, cracks stop eventually because they become blunt as they propagate. But in brittle materials, that doesn't happen. And graphene is a brittle material, so a crack might go a really long way."
Yakobson said that conceptually, the calculations show what metallurgists recognize as the Hall-Petch Effect, a measure of the strength of crystalline materials with similar grain boundaries. "It's one of the pillars of large-scale material mechanics," he said. "For graphene, we call this a pseudo Hall-Petch, because the effect is very similar even though the mechanism is very different.
"Any defect, of course, does something to the material," Yakobson said. "But this finding is important because you cannot avoid the effect in polycrystalline graphene. It's also ironic, because polycrystals are often considered when larger domains are needed. We show that as it gets larger, it gets weaker.
"If you need a patch of graphene for mechanical performance, you'd better go for perfect monocrystals or graphene with rather small domains that reduce the stress concentration."
###
Co-authors of the paper are graduate student Zhigong Song and his adviser, Zhiping Xu, an associate professor of engineering mechanics at Tsinghua. Xu is a former researcher in Yakobson's group at Rice. Yakobson is Rice's Karl F. Hasselmann Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and professor of chemistry.
The Air Force Office of Scientific Research and the National Science Foundation supported the work at Rice. The National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Tsinghua University Initiative Scientific Research Program and Tsinghua National Laboratory for Information Science and Technology of China supported the work at Tsinghua.
David Ruth
Mike Williams
713-348-6728 mikewilliams@rice.edu
Read the abstract at: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/nl400542n.
This news release can be found online at: http://news.rice.edu/2013/03/28/even-graphene-has-weak-spots/.
Follow Rice News and Media Relations via Twitter @RiceUNews.
Graphic for download: http://news.rice.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/0328_GRAPHENE-web.jpg
New work by theorists at Rice and Tsinghua universities shows defects in polycrystalline forms of graphene will sap its strength. The illustration from a simulation at left shows a junction of grain boundaries where three domains of graphene meet with a strained bond in the center. At right, the calculated stress buildup at the tip of a finite-length grain boundary. (Credit: Vasilii Artyukhov/Rice University)
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Blue is to Windows as Gemini is to Office. Any questions? Well, that's unfortunate -- we don't have a ton of answers. What we do know, courtesy of some top-notch ZDNet reporting, is that Microsoft's next Office release is codenamed "Gemini," and that it could be making its way to your desktop by the end of this year. The site quotes a potential fall ship date, at least for the first release, which is set to include new versions of Excel, OneNote, PowerPoint and Word. Rumor has it that the next version will be somewhat platform-independent, and will rely heavily on the Office 365 subscription concept. Beyond that, there isn't really much to share, but you're welcome to hit up our source link for a few more (minor) details.
Mar 26 (Reuters) - Leading money winners on the 2013 PGATour on Monday (U.S. unless stated): 1. Tiger Woods $3,787,600 2. Brandt Snedeker $2,859,920 3. Matt Kuchar $2,154,500 4. Steve Stricker $1,820,000 5. Phil Mickelson $1,650,260 6. Hunter Mahan $1,553,965 7. John Merrick $1,343,514 8. Dustin Johnson $1,330,507 9. Russell Henley $1,313,280 10. Kevin Streelman $1,310,343 11. Keegan Bradley $1,274,593 12. Charles Howell III $1,256,373 13. Michael Thompson $1,254,669 14. Brian Gay $1,171,721 15. Justin Rose $1,155,550 16. Jason Day $1,115,565 17. Chris Kirk $1,097,053 18. ...
Sochi, Russia - host city of the 2014 Olympic Winter Games
By Gennady Fyodorov, Reuters
SOCHI, Russia - While Moscow digs itself out of a huge snow storm that hit the Russian capital in the last few days, organizers of the Winter Olympics are worried a lack of white powder could become a problem next February.
Unseasonably warm temperatures this winter in Sochi have forced local organizers to store some 450,000 cubic meters of snow in the nearby Caucasus Mountains that surround this sub-tropical Black Sea resort.
"We've prepared seven separate areas for snow storage high up in the mountains," Sergei Bachin, general director of Roza Khutor, a ski resort in Krasnaya Polyana that will host Alpine skiing, snowboarding and freestyle Olympic competition, told Reuters.
"I want to assure all the competitors that there won't be any shortage of snow next February even if we encounter even warmer temperatures next year," he said.
"We're storing such huge amounts of snow just in case."
The snow will be covered with a "special thermo seal", to protect it from melting during the summer, Bachin said.
"We expect that about 140,000 (cubic meters) will melt away but we'll still have more than 300,000 cubic meters of snow available for next year," he predicted, saying the storage will cost his company an extra $11 million.
Nevertheless, Sochi 2014 chief Dmitry Chernyshenko has stated on several occasions that the weather has become a bigger problem for the organizers, who are frantically trying to finish all the construction projects on time, than security or the infrastructure.
Mikhail Mordasov / AFP - Getty Images
The Winter Olympics arrive in Sochi on Feb. 7, 2014. A look at how the Russian city is shaping up for its moment in the spotlight.
Bachin, however, assured that Krasnaya Polyana, once a sleepy mountain village, about 70 kilometers from central Sochi, would be ready to host all the outdoor Olympic events next February rain or shine.
"Of the 76 Olympic test events scheduled in Krasnaya Polyana this winter a great majority had been completed and only a handful have been called off because of bad weather," he said.
"I think we've passed the test as the last major event of the season was held this weekend in nearby Laura complex."
Usually, Krasnaya Polyana has the opposite problem - too much snow and the risk of avalanches, Bachin said.
"This was a very odd winter. Even locals don't remember when was the last time they had such warm days in the mountains. It's highly unlikely we'll see the same kind of weather next year," he added.
Reuters contributed to this report.
Related:?
'Exploitative, abusive': Activists slam conditions for workers at Olympic site
How do you say 'volunteer' in Russian? Sochi 2014 Olympics introduces a new concept
More Sochi coverage from NBC Olympics
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It can be hard to start to work on personal development. Chances are there are many things you?d like to improve about yourself, so where should you start? The following paragraphs will give you the direction you need to achieve the personal development you have always wanted. The following advice can help you prepare yourself to succeed.
Create a fund specifically for emergencies. It appears as though every time something unexpected happens, we charge more to our credit cards. If you save a couple of dollars each week, before long you will have an emergency fund. This fund will help you stay out of debt if you have to face an emergency.
When your body feels in tip-top shape, your mind will feel better as well. Be sure to get plenty of exercise and nourishment. It?s important to give attention to building both a strong, healthy body and a healthy frame of mind.
Never underestimate the power of humility. Compared to the immense universe we are really very small. No one knows everything, and everyone has more to learn from others. Remember this and stay open for new chances to learn. If you?re open-minded, you?ll begin learning more from people.
Take a trip with a buddy to the movie theater as a method of conquering anxiety. Doing this will allow you to get out, and be social. However, you don?t have to be so social that you are uncomfortable. It will also help you learn to feel comfortable and secure around large groups of people.
You should try to find and read books that tell you about self improvement. A good book can provide you with the information that you need to get started on your journey toward a new you. Books on the topic of self improvement can be poorly written. To avoid this, make sure you read books that have been reviewed well.
One aspect of self improvement is becoming a leader. Although there are many different definitions of leadership, the most common being ?influence?. Carefully assess your own thoughts on leadership. What events have you been most impacted by in your life? How have these events shaped your life? How do you make yourself an important part of a team? If you explore the possible answers to these inquiries, you will become more capable of functioning effectively in a team setting.
Decide what you value most in life and stick with it. Make reaching your goals one of the most important aspects of your life.
Talking to a counselor or a religious leader can help you relieve stress. These people have experience dealing with many of the issues you may be facing, and many are licensed to do so. Their job is to listen to you and your concerns and help you gain a new outlook on your situation. Expressing your problems to a professional is a great way to make yourself feel better and healthier.
Organize your life. Not only will being organized make you feel accomplished, but it will also boost your confidence. Doing this will also relieve you of the stress you felt when things were disorderly. You can stay calm knowing that everything has a place where it belongs.
Be prepared to list your ideas wherever you are. You could for instance carry a small notebook with you, or use an app on your phone. Make detailed notes, and later, when you have the chance and are feeling creative, take your ideas further.
You might gain a new sense of happiness by taking on a moderate amount of risk. Many people get stuck in a zone that is comfortable so they do not risk failure or rejection, but the true risk is the loss of opportunities for personal growth. It takes bravery to take risks, and bravery can be vital in building yourself the kind of life you really want.
As you can see, self improvement is simpler than it looks. By breaking your personal development process into small, manageable goals, you?ll find yourself closer to your goals by the end of every day. You?ll be able to practice what you?re seeking to adopt as habit, and you?ll increase your own morale to continue. These tips are only a springboard, it?s up to you to build a better life.
Popular author of our website would like to ask you my comrades online to learn more about informative and revealing studies on Ultrasound Technician Salary Range with this topic too on California ultrasound technician schools? http://abouttechniciansalary.com/
A man passes a sprayed entrance of a store that buys gold which reads in Greek " thieves" in capital Nicosia, Cyprus, Monday, March 25, 2013. Cyprus secured what its politicians described as a ?painful? solution to avert imminent bankruptcy, agreeing early Monday to slash its oversize banking sector and make large account holders take losses to help pay to secure a last-minute euro10 billion (US$13 billion) bailout. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)
A man passes a sprayed entrance of a store that buys gold which reads in Greek " thieves" in capital Nicosia, Cyprus, Monday, March 25, 2013. Cyprus secured what its politicians described as a ?painful? solution to avert imminent bankruptcy, agreeing early Monday to slash its oversize banking sector and make large account holders take losses to help pay to secure a last-minute euro10 billion (US$13 billion) bailout. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)
NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) ? Banks across Cyprus remain locked Tuesday after financial authorities extended the country's bank closure, fearing worried depositors will rush to drain their accounts. The shut-down is hammering businesses, which have been without access to their funds for more than a week.
All but two of the country's largest lenders had been due to reopen Tuesday, after being shut since March 16 while politicians figured out how to raise the funds necessary for Cyprus to qualify for an international bailout. Under the deal for a 10 billion euro ($12.94 billion) rescue clinched in Brussels early Monday, Cyprus agreed to slash its oversized banking sector and inflict hefty losses on large depositors in troubled banks.
After initially saying most financial institutions would reopen Tuesday, the country's Central Bank made a surprise reversal just before midnight, announcing all banks would remain closed until Thursday.
ATMs have been operating throughout the closure, but many have quickly run out of money. A daily withdrawal limit of 100 euros has been imposed on ATMs of the two largest lenders, Bank of Cyprus and Laiki. An increasing number of businesses have stopped accepting credit or check payments, insisting on cash only.
The bank closures have hammered businesses, who have found themselves unable to pay suppliers or fulfill orders. The retail market is sharply down too, shop owners say, with customers unwilling to spend on anything but the basics while they have limited access to cash.
"The continuation of this uncertainty is pushing the economy deeper into recession, some businesses could possibly lose their clients, but we're hopeful once this situation is sorted out, the market can rebound quickly," said Michalis Pilikos, head of the Cyprus Employers and Industrialists Federation.
Scores of angry students from a left-wing student union gathered outside Parliament, screaming "People, fight back, they're sucking your blood."
Under the new Cyprus bailout plan, the bulk of the funds will be raised by forcing losses on accounts of more than 100,000 euros in the country's second- largest lender, Laiki, with the remainder coming from tax increases and privatizations.
The bank will be dissolved immediately into a so-called bad bank containing its uninsured deposits and toxic assets, with the guaranteed deposits being transferred to the nation's biggest lender, Bank of Cyprus.
Deposits at Bank of Cyprus above 100,000 euros will be frozen until it becomes clear whether or to what extent they will also be forced to take losses. Those funds will eventually be converted into bank shares.
It's not yet clear how severe the losses will be to Laiki's large bank deposit holders, but the euro finance ministers noted the restructure expected to yield 4.2 billion euros overall. Analysts have estimated investors might lose up to 40 percent of their money.
DUNCAN ? Recreational use of the Duncan lakes is greatly diminishing as a result of drought conditions.
?I think the drought has had a significant impact on recreation at the lakes,? Scott Vaughn, Public Works director, said. And if significant rainfall doesn?t soon occur, the recreational activity will be further affected.
As things begin to warm up in the area, traffic at the lakes usually picks up. Vaughn isn?t sure there will be much more traffic, except on holiday weekends, including Memorial Day, the Fourth of July and Labor Day.
The impact of the drought has been reoccurring for about two years. Vaughn said rain is the only way to alleviate the drought impact at the four Duncan lakes.
Last year, no swimming was allowed at Clear Creek Lake because of blue-green algae, which was a direct result of the drought.
This year, boating may one of several recreational activities to be impacted by the drought, especially at Clear Creek Lake. Vaughn said that lake has been impacted by the drought more than the other lakes.
?It could be problematic for boating at the lake,? Vaughn said. It may still be possible for people to use boats at Duncan, Fuqua and Humphreys lakes, but Clear Creek Lake is the most popular lake for water skiing. Clear Creek Lake is the biggest concern when it comes to lake recreation, since it is down, Vaughn said.
Despite the drought impact on the lakes, Spring Break turned out to have an influx in campers. Vaughn said there are certain times when an increase in lake activity will increase. Spring Break is one instance, and spring and summer holidays marks others.
Vaughn said the lakes will probably be used less this year because of the drought. He hopes Duncan receives some precipitation to work toward filling the lakes.
It takes three days of rain to begin refilling lakes. The first day wets the ground. The second day fills creeks and ponds. The third day begins refilling the lakes.
?We need to just keep praying for rain,? Vaughn said.
SAN DIEGO (AP) ? Former Navy corpsman Joel Booth says he has found a way to keep saving lives on the battleground since he had his leg amputated due to a blast in Afghanistan.
Booth joined a group of amputee actors who role-play in realistic war re-enactments for the military to train its troops before they are deployed.
Booth suffers from post-traumatic stress but says the experience of writhing on the ground as Hollywood-style gunfire erupts at the San Diego film studio has given him a kind of peace because he is helping troops prepare so they know how to react when facing war's horrors.
The 24-year-old sailor is the first combat veteran hired by Strategic Operations. The company has been creating the scenarios for the military for more than a decade.
Facebook and Weather Underground are teaming up to tell you the the forecast for public pages and events you're planning to attend.
By Leslie Meredith,?TechNewsDaily / March 21, 2013
Facebook, with a little help from Weather Underground, has begun unrolling its new weather feature. You'll soon know the forecast for any event you might attend, or for any public place you're planning to visit.
Michael Dalde / Reuters / File
Enlarge
Few things are worse than being caught without a hoodie or an umbrella if the weather at a get-together takes a turn for the worse. Facebook today (March 21) added a handy weather forecast to a number of spots across its massive platform.
Click Here for your FREE 30 DAYS of The Christian Science Monitor Weekly Digital Edition
Facebook events will now include a weather?forecast if the event is 10 days away or less. Public pages, such as those for local parks and far-flung cities, will also include the weather. The new information will be included on both Web-based and mobile versions of Facebook.
Weather information is provided by Weather Underground. Each single-line entry will include a general forecast as well as the high and low temperatures for the day.
It's a small update for Facebook, but adding automatic weather updates to event pages could be a big help to users. Further, people can use the search bar to find weather for a particular location by typing in "Weather for New York City," for instance. This information is provided by?Bing .
Facebook has begun rolling out its weather feature, so watch for it the next time you plan or RSVP to an event.
Copyright 2013 TechNewsDaily, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) ? In an embarrassing twist to a coordinated cyberattack on six major South Korean companies this week, investigators said Friday they wrongly identified a Chinese Internet Protocol address as the source.
A joint team of government and private experts still maintains that hackers abroad were likely to blame, and many analysts suspect North Korea. But the error raises questions about investigators' ability to track down the source of an attack that shut down 32,000 computers Wednesday and exposed big Internet security holes in one of the world's most wired, tech-savvy countries.
South Korean investigators said Thursday that a malicious code that spread through the server of one of the hackers' targets, Nonghyup Bank, was traced to an IP address in China. Even then it was clear that the attack could have originated elsewhere because hackers can easily manipulate such data.
But the state-run Korea Communications Commission said Friday that the IP address actually belonged to a computer at the bank. The IP address was used only for the company's internal network and happened to be identical to a public Chinese address.
"We were careless in our efforts to double-check and triple-check," KCC official Lee Seung-won told reporters. He blamed the error on investigators' rush to give the public details on the search for a culprit.
Yonhap news agency, in an analysis Friday, called the blunder "ridiculous" and said the announcement is certain to undermine government credibility.
Yonhap criticized officials for failing to dispel public anxiety in a country where people's lives are closely interwoven with services provided by media and financial institutions.
An initial assumption that the attack came from abroad may have made investigators jump to conclusions, said Lee Kyung-ho, a cybersecurity expert at Seoul's Korea University.
"They rushed," he said. "They should've investigated by checking the facts step by step."
The investigation will take weeks. Investigators have said the attacks appeared to come from "a single organization" and suspect the hackers were from outside the country. Lee Seung-won, the KCC official, discounted the possibility that the attack could have come from within South Korea, but he didn't elaborate.
Lee Kyung-ho and many other South Korean experts suspect North Korea is behind the attack on broadcasters YTN, MBC and KBS, as well as Nonghyup and two other banks.
While there are many possible explanations, he said, including a homegrown hacker, the culprits are most likely to be North Koreans angry over ongoing U.S.-South Korean military drills. Lee said Pyongyang is well aware that an attack on financial institutions and media companies would create lots of publicity and turmoil in South Korea's vibrantly capitalistic society.
North Korea has issued many threats against the South and the U.S. in recent days, but by Friday it had yet to mention the South Korean computer crashes in state-run media.
South Korean officials say they have no proof of Pyongyang's involvement. The country is preparing to deal with more possible attacks, presidential spokesman Yoon Chang-jung told reporters earlier Friday. He didn't elaborate.
Determining who's behind a digital attack is often difficult, but North Korea is a leading suspect for several reasons.
It has unleashed a torrent of threats against Seoul and Washington since punishing U.N. sanctions were imposed for Pyongyang's Feb. 12 nuclear test. It calls ongoing routine U.S.-South Korean military drills a threat to its existence. Pyongyang also threatened revenge after blaming Seoul and Washington for a separate Internet shutdown that disrupted its own network last week.
Seoul alleges six previous cyberattacks by North Korea on South Korean targets since 2009.
Wednesday's cyberattack did not affect South Korea's government, military or infrastructure, and there were no initial reports that customers' bank records were compromised. But it disabled cash machines and disrupted commerce.
All three of the banks that were hit were back online and operating regularly Friday. It could be next week before the broadcasters' systems have fully recovered, though they said their programming was never affected.
The Lifetime network has cancelled “America?s Most Wanted”, which has brought home over 50 missing children and landed over 1,000 fugitives to justice all over the world. The show, hosted by John Walsh, was picked up by Lifetime in December 2011. There is hope “America’s Most Wanted” will be picked up by another network. TV ...
Web hosting giant Rackspace is acquiring Web app error tracking startup 
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Public release date: 28-Mar-2013
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