Author: Admin

Sunday, January 13, 2013

The United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ordered a review Friday into the design and manufacture of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, following five incidents in five days involving the aircraft and two Japanese airlines.

On Monday, an electrical fire broke out aboard a Japan Airlines 787 at Boston’s Logan International Airport, when a battery pack which powers the auxiliary power unit, for when the plane is on the ground, caught fire. The fire was discovered by maintenance workers after passengers and crew disembarked following their flight from Tokyo’s Narita Airport.

The next day, a separate Japan Airlines 787, also at Logan International Airport, heading to Tokyo, suffered a fuel leak that spilled around 40 gallons, which was spotted by the crew of the aircraft taxiing behind them. “That Japan Air may know it, but they’ve got fuel or something spilling out the outboard left wing. Quite a bit,” said the pilot of aircraft behind them on local air traffic control frequencies.

Wednesday, in Japan, an All Nippon Airways 787, the launch customer for the aircraft, cancelled a flight after a brake problem was reported.

Earlier Friday, two All Nippon Airways suffered separate incidents in Japan. An oil leak was noticed in the engine after one aircraft had landed in Miyazaki, coming from Tokyo’s Haneda Airport. Another flight, flying between Haneda Airport and Matsuyama said the pilot’s side window in the cockpit suffered a crack.

The FAA in a statement said “In light of a series of recent events, the FAA will conduct a comprehensive review of the Boeing 787 critical systems, including the design, manufacture and assembly.” Further adding, “The purpose of the review is to validate the work conducted during the certification process and further ensure that the aircraft meets the FAA’s high level of safety.”

According to the statement, “The review will also examine how the electrical and mechanical systems interact with each other.” The Boeing 787 relies more on electrical, as opposed to mechanical, systems than past aircraft from the manufacturer including having electronics operate hydraulic pumps and using electric brakes. Large portions of the plane’s structure use lightweight carbon fiber composite instead of more traditional metal airframe.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said, “The safety of the traveling public is our top priority […] This review will help us look at the root causes and do everything we can to safeguard against similar events in the future.”

“We are confident that the aircraft is safe. But we need to have a complete understanding of what is happening,” said newly sworn-in FAA Administrator Michael P. Huerta. “We are conducting the review to further ensure that the aircraft meets our high safety standards.”

Boeing released a statement saying, “[The company] is confident in the design and performance of the 787. It is a safe and efficient airplane. The airplane has logged 50,000 hours of flight and there are more than 150 flights occurring daily.”

Sunday, January 27, 2008

Viktor Schreckengost, the father of industrial design and creator of the Jazz Bowl, an iconic piece of Jazz Age art designed for Eleanor Roosevelt during his association with Cowan Pottery died yesterday. He was 101.

Schreckengost was born on June 26, 1906 in Sebring, Ohio, United States.

Schreckengost’s peers included the far more famous designers Raymond Loewy and Norman Bel Geddes.

In 2000, the Cleveland Museum of Art curated the first ever retrospective of Schreckengost’s work. Stunning in scope, the exhibition included sculpture, pottery, dinnerware, drawings, and paintings.

Monday, January 1, 2007File:Bruselj euro slovenia.jpg

On January 1 2007, Slovenia officially joined the Eurozone and adopted the euro as its new official currency. At the same time, Slovenian euro coins, which were available as a “starter kit” from December 15, became legal tender everywhere in the Eurozone.

A period of dual circulation, when both the former currency, the tolar and the euro will be accepted, will only last until January 14. All banks are going to exchange tolars into euros at the official rate of 239.64 SIT per 1 EUR at no commission until March 1, 2007. After that date it will be possible to exchange tolar banknotes (unlimited) and coins (until 2016) only at the Bank of Slovenia.

Most ATMs already dispense euro banknotes with the rest to follow in the following days. Commercial banks automatically converted all tolar accounts into euros and online banking systems will be accessible to their users again on January 3. Even though January 1 and 2 are non-working days in Slovenia, many banks will be opened from 10:00 to 14:00 on both days, available only for one service: exchanging tolars to euros and larger euro banknotes into smaller units.

Saturday, December 1, 2007

Another blast shook the Ukrainian coal mine Zasyadko in Donetsk, where over 100 miners died in a methane blast in November. According to the United Press International news agency, 52 miners were injured. The ITAR TASS news agency reports also that most of them suffered carbon monoxide poisoning and were taken to an occupational diseases treatment clinic, while seven were hospitalised at the central hospital of the Donetsk region.

Marina Nikitina, a local officer of the Ukrainian’s industrial safety agency Gosgorpromnadzor, informed the press that all of the 385 miners who were underground when the explosion occurred, have been already evacuated. According to her, the blast took place at 5.55 a.m. EET (UTC+2) in an isolated part of the collery at the deep of 1078 metres, where 63 people were working. A Ukrainian TV channel Kanal 5 reports the disaster has been caused by a methane blast. It informs also that Vitalij Shevchenko, the mine’s general engineer, has been ousted from his post by the Ukrainian mining supervision.

It is the second explosion in two weeks that happened in the pit. The November 18 blast is regarded among the Ukrainian media as the worst coal-mining disaster in Ukraine’s post-Soviet history.

Today’s blast is a part of deadly series of accidents in the Ukrainian coal mining industry; in the Donetsk region alone about 200 people have died this year.

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Sunday, May 29, 2005

Brazil —Denunciations of political corruption threaten the Brazilian government. The most recent case involves a deputy of the political party PTB (who supports the government of the Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva) in a scandal of the services of post office.

Lula’s government representatives said that they will investigate all the denunciations and affirmed that the government is a victim of political enemies.

Friday, July 23, 2021

On Thursday, a grand jury indicted Bryan Anthony Rhoden on fifteen counts related to a triple homicide at the Pinetree Country Club on July 3, in Cobb County, Georgia, in the United States.

The charges include three counts of malice murder, two of kidnapping with bodily injury, five of felony murder, three of aggravated assault, one of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony and one of interfering with evidence. Rhoden’s bond hearing is set for July 29. Cobb County police chief Tim Cox alleged Rhoden to be the sole shooter.

The victims were Eugene Siller, 46, of Georgia, the club’s head of golf and professional golf player; Henry Valdez, 46, of California; and Paul Pierson, 76, of Kansas. All three had been fatally shot. .

The indictment alleged Siller was shot after he stumbled upon Rhoden with the bodies of Valdez and Pierson. It further alleged, Rhoden bound the two earlier with duct tape and fatally shot them, and that he then persuaded another person to have picked up the gun involved, leading to the charge of tampering with evidence.

Rhoden was arrested in Chamblee and was said to have connections to Atlanta.

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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.

Friday, June 1, 2007

A former mailman who proposed to paint the town hall pink, turn the local town square into a nudist pool, and to plant a marijuana field in the local park has been elected to the Reus, Spain town council.

Ariel Santamaria promised to show up to the town’s council meetings dressed up as Elvis Presley if he was elected and kept his word at the town’s first meeting on Thursday.

Before being elected, Santamaria who is a member of the Reus Independent Coordination, had also promised the town’s 100,000 residents that he would install a GPS system at the police department that would allow officers to track people who are smoking marijuana and provide them with a light if they need one.

An unnamed media consultant who works for Santamaria set up a website for his campaign and followed Santamaria wherever he went, dressed as a pirate.