Author: Admin

Saturday, January 26, 2008

Investigators examining the wreck of British Airways Flight 38, a Boeing 777 that crash landed short of the runway at London’s Heathrow Airport in the first hull loss of a 777, are examining the aircraft’s fuel system as a possible factor in the crash. No-one was killed as the scheduled flight from Beijing, China lost power during final approach on January 17.

136 passengers and 16 crew were on board when power was lost to the two Rolls-Royce engines about two miles from the runway, at a height of 600 feet. Autopilot and autothrottle were engaged at the time, the latter having just commanded an increase of thrust to the engines when power was lost. Co-pilot John Coward, in control at the time, was subsequently praised for being able to glide the disabled plane to within 1,000 feet of the runway, clearing a number of houses along the way.

Subsequent investigation has revealed that not only did the engines not fail simultaneously, but neither failed completely, contradicting initial belief. A preliminary report by the United Kingdom’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Branch (AAIB) stated that after the autothrottle commanded more thrust “The engines both initially responded but after about 3 seconds the thrust of the right engine reduced. Some eight seconds later the thrust reduced on the left engine to a similar level… Both engines continued to produce thrust at an engine speed above flight idle, but less than the commanded thrust.” This situation prevailed until impact.

On Wednesday the AAIB stated that they were examining “All possible scenarios that could explain the thrust reduction and continued lack of response of the engines.” However, it also went on to specifically mention attention to the jet’s fuel system, saying “This work includes a detailed analysis and examination of the complete fuel-flow path from the aircraft tanks to the engine-fuel nozzles.” The AAIB also ruled out the plane having completely run out of fuel, stating that there was “adequate fuel” in the tanks when the plane crashed. In addition to the fuel required to get to the target destination or emergency alternative airport – whichever is further – aircraft typically carry between thirty and forty-five minutes worth of extra fuel as a safety margin.

Possible scenarios being examined include fuel contamination, coming either from fuel taken on at Beijing or leakage from an unknown source. In particular, a heavy contaminant at the bottom of the tanks would explain a lack of earlier problems on the flight, as the fuel levels would only have become low in the final stages of the trip. Another possibility is that a central part of the fuel system developed a leak, reducing the amount of fuel available to the engines.

It is known that, according to the AAIB, “the autothrottle and engine-control commands were performing as expected prior to, and after, the reduction in thrust,” suggesting that all software in the aircraft was functioning correctly and rendering a software failure unlikely, although this possibility also remains under investigation.

Friday, September 15, 2006

A 35-year old woman, Venus Critchfield of Philipippi, West Virginia, United States was convicted of child abuse and sentenced to two to six years in prison.

Critchfield was accused of beating her stepchildren with boards, and using hooks and ropes to secure them and force them to stand for long periods of time. Critchfield also forced the children to continuously eat food and drink, and then eat their own vomit. Her stepson, now aged 17, described the abuse in court.

Circuit Judge Alan D. Moats called this the worst case he has seen in 30 years. “You have never been a mother. You are the antithesis of everything that is a mother.” Moats said in court.

The abuse involved all six of Critchfield’s children, however only some were willing to testify against her.

Critchfield pleaded guilty and was convicted of two counts of child abuse, with injury. The charges pertained to abuse committed from January 2001 until January 2002. She was sentenced to the maximum possible term.

State welfare services had removed the children, now 11-16 years old, from the Critchfields’ care in previous cases.

Jenning Brian Critchfield, the father, is currently serving a 3-15 year sentence for abuse.

Sunday, November 25, 2007

Despite the hopes of many University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW) students, The Onion was not named after their student center. “People always ask questions about where the name The Onion came from,” said President Sean Mills in an interview with David Shankbone, “and when I recently asked Tim Keck, who was one of the founders, he told me the name—I’ve never heard this story about ‘see you at the un-yun’—he said it was literally that his Uncle said he should call it The Onion when he saw him and Chris Johnson eating an onion sandwich. They had literally just cut up the onion and put it on bread.” According to Editorial Manager Chet Clem, their food budget was so low when they started the paper that they were down to white bread and onions.

Long before The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, Heck and Johnson envisioned a publication that would parody the news—and news reporting—when they were students at UW in 1988. Since its inception, The Onion has become a veritable news parody empire, with a print edition, a website that drew 5,000,000 unique visitors in the month of October, personal ads, a 24 hour news network, podcasts, and a recently launched world atlas called Our Dumb World. Al Gore and General Tommy Franks casually rattle off their favorite headlines (Gore’s was when The Onion reported he and Tipper were having the best sex of their lives after his 2000 Electoral College defeat). Many of their writers have gone on to wield great influence on Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert‘s news parody shows.

And we are sorry to break the news to all you amateur headline writers: your submissions do not even get read.

Below is David Shankbone’s interview with Chet Clem and Sean Mills about the news empire that has become The Onion.

Sunday, July 4, 2010

Russia’s Internal Affairs Ministry’s Department for Own Safety says it will begin a “check” on Russian Militsiya lieutenant colonel Artem Kuznetsov, who is publicly accused by a group of American lawyers of illegitimately imprisoning and then torturing Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky to death. Later, head of Investigating Committee of the Prosecution Office Alexander Bastrykin said he will “personally check” the course of investigation into actions by Kuznetsov and his coworkers. In 2007 and 2008, Magnitsky worked in Russia for American investment fund company Hermitage Capital Management and was involved in the disclosure of a large-scale corruption among several top law enforcement officials in Moscow.

Lawyers concerned with the death of Magnitsky, which occurred in Butyrka prison on November 16 of last year, started the bilingual website russian-untouchables.com, where they presented evidence of Artem Kuznetsov’s alleged efforts to cloak the crimes. As reported by the website’s authors, Kuznetsov was a key player in a US$230 million theft from the Russian government and then successfully brought criminal charges against everyone who reported his theft.

The central part of website material is a ten-minute video providing a summary of the case. Its main point is the fact that multiple large-scale luxury buyings registered to members of Kuznetsov’s family; they are not comparable to official income of all of these persons. It is emphasized in the video that Kuznetsov’s official monthly income is $850 per month (in roubles), and to gain all the assets found to be connected with him he would have to work for 322 years. The video was released in the middle of last week, and gained enormous popularity within Russian blogosphere, and drew attention of some mass media.

One of the American lawyers, Jamison Firestone, states at the website that last month he directed several petitions to check the sources of Kuznetsov’s family wealth to Russian authorities: the President of Russia, Prosecutor General Yury Chaika, Department for Own Safety and Department for Preventing Corruption and Other Crimes of Interior Ministry. News website Lenta.ru states that addresses were directed on May, 21, but there were no replies since then.

Magnitsky’s case has received international attention for several months. In April 2010 US Senator Ben Cardin proposed the cancellation of US visas to 60 Russian officials allegedly connected with Magnitsky’s death. He directed an appeal to US State Secretary Hillary Clinton.

There has been no decision on it yet, but last Tuesday Clinton urged Russia to bring officials responsible for the death of Magnitsky to justice, The Daily Telegraph says. She told the US-Russia “Civil Society to Civil Society” summit in Washington that the Obama administration is “deeply concerned about the safety of journalists and human rights activists in Russia”. In the meantime Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev were meeting last week during Medvedev’s visit to US.

Magnitsky’s advocates emphasize that Kuznetsov, since committing his crimes, was promoted in service; previously, he was working for the Department of Tax Crimes of the Central Internal Affairs Directorate of Moscow, and at the start of 2010 began to work in Department for Economic Safety of the Interior Ministry. Recently there were many cases when civil groups and private persons publicly reported alleged large-scale corruption crimes within top Russian authorities, with some evidence provided.

A compilation of brief news reports for Monday, February 5, 2007.

Sunday, August 21, 2005

A robotic system at Stanford Medical Center was used to perform a laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery successfully with a theoretically similar rate of complications to that seen in standard operations. However, as there were only 10 people in the experimental group (and another 10 in the control group), this is not a statistically significant sample.

If this surgical procedure is as successful in large-scale studies, it may lead the way for the use of robotic surgery in even more delicate procedures, such as heart surgery. Note that this is not a fully automated system, as a human doctor controls the operation via remote control. Laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery is a treatment for obesity.

There were concerns that doctors, in the future, might only be trained in the remote control procedure. Ronald G. Latimer, M.D., of Santa Barbara, CA, warned “The fact that surgeons may have to open the patient or might actually need to revert to standard laparoscopic techniques demands that this basic training be a requirement before a robot is purchased. Robots do malfunction, so a backup system is imperative. We should not be seduced to buy this instrument to train surgeons if they are not able to do the primary operations themselves.”

There are precedents for just such a problem occurring. A previous “new technology”, the electrocardiogram (ECG), has lead to a lack of basic education on the older technology, the stethoscope. As a result, many heart conditions now go undiagnosed, especially in children and others who rarely undergo an ECG procedure.

A view of the Leonard Zakim bridge from the construction site. The warehouses at right will be replaced by a five-acre park within two years. The elevated roadway in the foreground is the John F. Gilmore Bridge.

Wednesday, March 23, 2005

Cambridge, Massachusetts —Construction of two condominium buildings and a five-acre park began on March 21, in East Cambridge, Massachusetts. The buildings and park are part of the 45-acre Northpoint development, which will take 15 years and more than $2bn to complete, according to the Boston Globe. The buildings, designated as “Building S” and “Building T” by the planners of the project, Spaulding & Slye Colliers, have been designed by local architectural firm Childs Bertman Tseckares and Architects Alliance from Toronto. Buildings S and T are the first of an eventual 20 buildings planned at the site.

The development will fill what used to be a railroad yard for the Guilford Rail System, a subsidiary of Guilford Transportation Industries. According to Hoovers.com, Guilford is controlled by Timothy Mellon, heir to the Mellon banking fortune. Guilford Rail Systems has its headquarters in North Billerica and owns 1600 miles of railroad throughout New England. The tracks in the Northpoint plot have been removed, though Boston subway’s Lechmere station remains within walking distance of the site, along with parts of Boston and Cambridge. The site is bordered by Route 93 on its eastern side, Monsignor O’Brien Highway to the west, and the Gilmore Bridge to the south.

The landscape architecture of the park is provided by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, a landscape architecture firm on Concord Avenue in Cambridge. The firm’s principal teaches in Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. MVVA is also completing the landscape for Harvard’s Northwest Science Building.