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Source: http://www.facebook.com/thecolumbian/posts/10151755610586506
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Friday, 2 August 2013
Thursday, 1 August 2013
Natick seeking member for Golf Course Oversight Committee
The town administrator is looking for someone to fill a vacancy on the Golf Course Oversight Committee.
The committee monitors the operation and financing of the municipal golf course and advises the town administrator and Board of Selectmen.
Anyone interested in serving on the committee should notify the Town Administrator in writing at 13 East Central St., Natick, MA??01760 by?Aug. 19.
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Friday, 26 July 2013
Eastern Ontario Baseball
PORT HOPE?-?
You can?t judge the Port Hope River Rats bantam team on its win-loss record this Eastern Ontario Baseball Association season.
Instead, the progress the club is making tells a far better story.
Port Hope was 2-18 through 20 EOBA league games, but have won a couple tournament games as well.
There almost was a River Rats entry at the bantam level this summer though. There weren?t enough players to field a team initially so peewee players (as there is no Port Hope team at that level this year) were allowed to try out. The club also recruited some house league, including some from Cobourg, who had never played rep baseball before.
?It?s pretty diverse,? coach Steve Beckett said of his lineup. ?You?ve got some kids playing with kids who are three years older.?
Team members are Owen Bailey, Matt Ward, Tyler Vivian, Dawson Baker, Cameron Enns, John Spotton, Sam Knott, Colyn Swan-Savoy, Keagan Decker, Jakob Brown, Matt Beckett, Brodie Majdell and Cameron Desormeaux.
Port Hope is competing in the EOBA?s major Bantam loop, despite having only a couple of players who fit into that age group. But with those players, the River Rats are unable to drop down to the minor bantam level.
You also have to consider the fact that the River Rats are part of a ?B? centre playing against ?A? and ?AA? opponents.
?It?s been a big challenge,? coach Beckett said, adding it was a ?real challenge to get all the players on the same page, but it?s starting to happen.?
Earlier this month, the River Rats defeated the league-leading Clarington Orioles 17-9.
Then, this past Saturday at Town Park in Port Hope, the River Rats staged a huge comeback before time expired against the visiting third-place Brockville Bunnies.
Port Hope trailed 7-1 in the third inning before rallying, including three runs in their final at-bat, to win 10-9. The River Rats had to win in the bottom of the eighth, rather than the ninth, as they were facing the game being called due to the time limit. A double by John Spotten drove home the winning run.
?It was very rewarding to see them do that,? Beckett said. ?We have great ball players, we just hadn?t seen them pull it together that way as a group.?
Beckett said an early-season activity for the River Rats was a roadside cleanup that consisted of 44 km of roads in Ward 2 Port Hope.
?It was a great bonding experience for the boys,? he remarked.
As for on the field, Beckett believes the pre-game warm-up is key to success and he is pleased to have assistance from Rob Majdell ?who spends a significant amount of time with my players before every game and practice teaching them proper warm-up, throwing and running techniques.?
Having lost pitchers from last year who didn?t return, the River Rats have been required this season to develop a new pitching staff with a collection of players who hadn?t pitched much previously.
Meanwhile, the club has also been offensively challenged, although showed great progress in the wins over Clarington and Brockville.
?Even with the minor defensive errors during these games, the boys have figured out how to keep their heads in the game and apply what they?ve learned and overcome (deficits),? Beckett said.
Beckett said his club is building towards the Ontario Baseball Association bantam ?B? championship tournament Labour Day weekend in Woodstock when they?ll finally face teams of an equal classification.
?Playing in the current EOBA loop has been tough this year, but thankfully I have the support of the parents who understand what we're up against,? Beckett remarked. ?However I believe that if we take what we've learned from these higher calibre teams and apply and execute these principles, we'll be in good shape for the OBA?s.
?We just want to make sure everyone is contributing and enjoying themselves,? the coach added.
jeff.gard@sunmedia.ca
Source: http://www.northumberlandtoday.com/2013/07/24/eastern-ontario-baseball
Thursday, 25 July 2013
Iran offers India $1 bln sovereign guarantee for oil shipments
NEW DELHI |
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Iran has offered to underwrite insurance for its vessels to keep oil exports to India flowing, after New Delhi asked for assurances to help halt a fall in shipments.
Letters seen by Reuters show Iran is offering sovereign guarantees of up to $1 billion per incident to back its ships sailing to India, its second biggest oil customer after China.
India's crude imports from Iran have been hit by insurance problems triggered by western sanctions, falling by 59.4 percent in June, and the state guarantee could keep oil revenues flowing.
In letters seen by Reuters from Iran's industries, mines and trade minister Mehdi Ghazanfari and Oil Minister Rostam Ghasemi told India that liabilities of $50 million to $1 billion are covered by "sovereign guarantee and government special fund".
The two ministers said Iran's finance minister will issue a final letter on the sovereign guarantee in due course.
India abides by United Nations sanctions on Iran but does not follow U.S. and European Union measures which are aimed at choking off funds to a nuclear programme which the West says is a drive to achieve a weapons capability.
With limited options available, India had sought sovereign guarantees for the Kish and Moallem protection and indemnity (P&I) clubs that insure Iranian vessels against personal injury and environment clean up claims.
European Union sanctions on insurance from a year ago bar members of International Group of P&I - who account for the majority of cover for the tanker market - from covering Iranian shipments. U.S. sanctions from July 2013 forced foreign container shipping lines to shun business with Tehran.
New Delhi had given a temporary approval to the two clubs but wanted Iran's backing longer term.
India will take a call on extending long-term approval for the two clubs by end-September.
The biggest potential drawback for vessels insured by Iranian companies, even with a sovereign guarantee, is that they may struggle to pay claims outside Iran because Western sanctions prevent banks from channelling cash out of the country, shipping and insurance officials say.
For liabilities up to $50 million, a consortium of Iranian insurers led by the Central Insurance of Iran (CII) will provide the bulk of the cover, the letters said.
Kish, Moallem and CII have been blacklisted under the U.S. sanctions.
Ghazanfari also said in the letter that a similar guarantee is available for the Qeshm International Trust Alliance P&I Club. This company has not featured so far in the list of insurance clubs approved by India.
(Editing by William Hardy)
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Wednesday, 24 July 2013
Being In The Minority Can Cost You And Your Company
The racial wage gap in the United States ? the gap in salary between whites and blacks with similar levels of education and experience ? is shaped by geography, according to new social science research.
The next time you are in an office cafeteria, notice who sits next to whom at lunch.
Jose Pelaez/CorbisThe next time you are in an office cafeteria, notice who sits next to whom at lunch.
Jose Pelaez/CorbisThe larger the city, the larger the racial wage gap, according to researchers Elizabeth Ananat, Shihe Fu and Stephen L. Ross, whose findings were recently published by the National Bureau of Esconomic Research.
"The average racial gap in metropolitan areas of around 1 million people ? and you can think of a place like Tulsa, Okla. ? is about 20 percent smaller than the gap in the nation's largest metro areas of Chicago, L.A. and New York," Ananat says.
Ananat's research suggests that the racial gap is not directly the result of prejudice or, at least, prejudice conventionally defined. Rather, it has to do with patterns of social interactions that are shaped by race ? and a phenomenon that economists call spillovers.
Economists have long noted that multiple companies in an industry often congregate in an area ? think of movie companies in Hollywood or investment bankers on Wall Street ? and observed that these firms become more profitable. Indeed, this may be one reason why an up-and-coming tech company would want to locate in Silicon Valley, rather than in Tennessee, where costs are far cheaper.
But why do companies that congregate become more profitable? It has to do, Ananat says, with the fact that when a number of companies involved in similar work are concentrated in one area, they effectively create an ecosystem where ideas and refinements can spread easily from one company to the next, and increase productivity overall.
"It's stuff in the ether ? you know, these tips that get communicated," Ananat says. "For any given job, it's going to be specific to that job. That's why they are so hard to identify and so valuable. We say, 'Oh, you're not doing that quite right. Do it just this way instead.' "
What does all of this have to do with the racial wage gap? Much of this valuable information that gets transmitted and shared in the ecosystem happens in informal or social settings ? over lunch, or a beer after work, or even at church on Sunday. Those social settings tend to be segregated, with whites tending to spend time with whites and blacks with blacks. (The next time you are in an office cafeteria, notice who sits next to whom at lunch.) In a world where ethnic groups cluster together, those in the minority are less likely to share and benefit from spillover effects in the ecosystem and are therefore less likely to learn early on about important company developments or technological innovations.
"People of the same race are much more likely to have conversations where they share ideas," she says. "The fact is you just talk more about everything with people who you feel more comfortable with than with people you feel less comfortable with. And we know that one of the big predictors of who you feel comfortable with is whether you are of the same ethnicity."
Ananat explains the findings with a hypothetical example: "Say there are 1,000 black engineers in Silicon Valley, compared to 20 in Topeka, and there are 10,000 total engineers in Silicon Valley, compared to 500 in Topeka. Then blacks make up 10 percent of engineers in Silicon Valley, compared to 4 percent in Topeka."
"A black engineer in Silicon Valley has 980 more black engineers to get spillovers from than does a black engineer in Topeka," she writes in an email. "Meanwhile, a white engineer in Silicon Valley has 8,500 more white engineers to benefit from than a white engineer in Topeka. Thus, while both white and black engineers' wages will be higher in Silicon Valley than in Topeka, the white engineer's wages will increase more than the black engineer's do ? in effect, the white engineer is living in a much bigger city (of engineers) than the black engineer is, if only people within one's own race matter for urban spillovers."
Obviously, in the real world, social encounters are not totally segregated and other factors ? including out-and-out prejudice ? could play a role. But what seems to be happening, Ananat says, is that minority groups often miss out on the valuable tips and mentoring that make these ecosystems so productive and profitable. The same thing happens with other ethnic minorities, and even with whites ? when they are in a minority.
Companies that want to take full advantage of spillover effects would do well to find ways to encourage employees to share information, set up mentoring programs and generally encourage employees to connect informally and socially, Ananat says.
Social scientists, she adds, have long talked about the value of "code-switchers" ? people adept at talking across differences and who relate well to those from other groups. Companies with more code-switchers are likely to spread the wealth of spillover effects more equitably.
Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2013/07/24/204898755/wage-gap-research?ft=1&f=1007
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Watch the Fiery Crash After Southwest's Landing Gear Collapse
This has not been a great month for commercial airlines
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Tuesday, 23 July 2013
Dolphins May Have Individual Names
Click here to listen to this podcast
Many animals use sounds to convey information. [Sound of wolf? howl] Humans use particular vocal labels for objects and for people. We call these words, and names. A few creatures, such as parrots and dolphins, can learn specific vocal labels. And wild dolphins are known to have particular, individual signature whistles. Scientists at Scotland?s St. Andrews University wanted to know: can these whistles be used as labels? The researchers analyzed sounds from dolphins off Scotland?s east coast, and extracted these signature whistles. [Dolphin whistle sound] Then they altered the sounds so the calls wouldn?t sound exactly like the originating dolphin. [Altered dolphin whistle]They played those sounds back to the dolphins, along with whistles from dolphins familiar to the animals and whistles from strangers. When the dolphins heard their own signature whistle [Altered dolphin whistle] they routinely responded with that same sound. [Dolphin whistle sound] That reaction only happened twice when they heard sounds from their pals and not at all when they heard the alien dolphin. The research is in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. [Stephanie L. King and Vincent M. Janik, Bottlenose dolphins can use learned vocal labels to address each other] The researchers think dolphin signature whistles serve as self-identification, and maybe even as a label for addressing each other?just like a name. ?Cynthia Graber [The above text is a transcript of this podcast.] [Dolphin sounds courtesy of Stephanie L. King and Vincent M. Janik, Saint Andrews University] Follow Scientific American on Twitter @SciAm and @SciamBlogs. Visit ScientificAmerican.com for the latest in science, health and technology news.
? 2013 ScientificAmerican.com. All rights reserved.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/dolphins-may-individual-names-202208525.html
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