Business ecosystem – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Starting in the early 1990s, James F. Moore originated the strategic planning concept of a business ecosystem, now widely adopted in the high tech community. The basic definition comes from Moore's book, The Death of Competition: Leadership and Strategy in the Age of Business Ecosystems.[1]

The concept first appeared in Moore's May/June 1993 Harvard Business Review article, titled "Predators and Prey: A New Ecology of Competition", and won the McKinsey Award for article of the year.[2]

Moore defined "business ecosystem" as:

An economic community supported by a foundation of interacting organizations and individualsthe organisms of the business world. The economic community produces goods and services of value to customers, who are themselves members of the ecosystem. The member organisms also include suppliers, lead producers, competitors, and other stakeholders. Over time, they coevolve their capabilities and roles, and tend to align themselves with the directions set by one or more central companies. Those companies holding leadership roles may change over time, but the function of ecosystem leader is valued by the community because it enables members to move toward shared visions to align their investments, and to find mutually supportive roles.[3]

Moore used several ecological metaphors, suggesting that the firm is embedded in a (business) environment, that it needs to coevolve with other companies, and that the particular niche a business occupies is challenged by newly arriving species.[4] This meant that companies need to become proactive in developing mutually beneficial ("symbiotic") relationships with customers, suppliers, and even competitors.

Using ecological metaphors to describe business structure and operations is increasingly common especially within the field of information technology (IT). For example, J. Bradford DeLong, a professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley, has written that "business ecosystems" describe the pattern of launching new technologies that has emerged from Silicon Valley.[5][6] He defines business ecology as a more productive set of processes for developing and commercializing new technologies that is characterized by the rapid prototyping, short product-development cycles, early test marketing, options-based compensation, venture funding, early corporate independence.[7] DeLong also has expressed that the new way is likely to endure because it's a better business ecology than the legendarily lugubrious model refined at Xerox Parca more productive set of processes for rapidly developing and commercializing new technologies.[8]

Mangrove Software,[9] The Montague Institute,[10] Kenneth L. Kraemer, director of the University of California, Irvines Center for Research on Information Technology and Organizations[11] and Stephen Abram, Vice President of Micromedia, Ltd.,[12] Tom Gruber, co-founder and CTO of Intraspect Software,[13] Vinod K. Dar, Managing Director of Dar & Company,[14] have all advocated this approach.

Gruber explains that over a century ago, Ford Motors did well using methods of mass production, an assembly line, and insourcing. However, Ford began to outsource its production [w]hen the ecology evolved. Gruber (n.d.) has stated that such evolution in the ecology of the business world is punctuated now and then by radical changes in the environment and that globalization and the Internet are the equivalents of large-scale climate change. Globalization is eliminating the traditional advantages of the large corporation: access to capital, access to markets, and economies of scale.[13]

The application service provider (ASP) industry is moving toward relationship networks and focusing on core competencies. According to the gospel of Cisco Systems, companies inclined to exist together within an ecosystem facilitate the imminence of Internet-based application delivery.[15]

Books also use natural systems metaphors without discussing the interfaces between human business and biological ecosystems.[16]

Another work defines business ecology as a new field for sustainable organizational management and design, one that is based on the principle that organizations, as living organisms, are most successful when their development and behavior are aligned with their core purpose and values what we call social DNA.[17]

The need for companies to attend to ecological health is indicated by the following: Business ecology is based on the elegant structure and principles of natural systems. It recognizes that to develop healthy business ecosystems, leaders and their organizations must see themselves, and their environments, through an ecological lens.[18]

Some environmentalists have used "business ecosystems" as a way to talk about environmental issues as they relate to business rather than as a metaphor to describe the increasing complexity of relationships among companies. According to Townsend, business ecology is the study of the reciprocal relationship between business and organisms and their environments. The goal of this "business ecology" is sustainability through the complete ecological synchronization and integration of a business with the sites that it inhabits, uses, and affects.[19]

Other environmentalists believe that the ecosystem metaphor is just a way for business to appear 'Green'. For example, in the book 'The Unity of Nature', published in 2002 by Imperial College Press, Alan Marshall shows that the metaphor is used to make out that somehow business operates using natural principles which should be left to run without interference (by governments).

The Cooperative Bank, established in the United Kingdom in 1872, launched its National Centre for Business Ecology in 1995. This Centre promotes itself as a low cost, high quality environmental advisory service to small and medium-sized UK businesses.[20] The bank reports that in keeping with its Ecological Mission Statement, it will not invest in businesses that focus on fossil fuel extraction, the manufacture of harmful chemicals, or the non-sustainable use of natural resources.[20] Yet, exactly what business ecology means to the bank and how it differs from current approaches to greening business are unclear.

Kinetix advertises that it provides sustainable business solutions to companies by working with them on strategy, design, and project management. Located beneath its name on the companys web site are the words business ecology, which the company defines as the effective use of material, social and financial resources the key to sustainability.[21] The company cites pollution, climate change, the need for corporate transparency, and the 2001 economic downturn as creating a market opportunity that is being met by firms involved in renewable energy, working toward creating zero waste, attending to product life cycles, and using the triple bottom line in their accounting practices. In its online brochure, the company has explained that it offers resource audits, workshops for organizational change, environmental management systems, and other services .[21]

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Eugenics – Rotten.com

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rotten > Library > Medicine > Eugenics Eugenics means selective breeding -- not in the sense that you are individually selective regarding persons with whom you breed, but rather that someone else is pulling the strings in order to get a specific result. Eugenics techniques are used all over the world, every day, for all manner of God's creatures, but if you try using them on humans, people get very upset.

The theory behind eugenics is simple: When good people bone good people, good babies with good genes result. The trouble comes when trying to apply eugenics in an organized way to society, with the biggest problem being that someone has to decide who the "good people" are. Anyone who concludes that he or she is qualified to make this determination is generally the last person in the world who should have such power.

Early human civilizations had no special qualms about killing children who were sick or deformed, although they were not likely thinking about the genetic repercussions of doing so. The concept of selective breeding to enhance certain traits reaches back to prehistoric times, about 10,000 years ago, at least as far as animals are concerned. "Eugenics" is the word for a social mandate to impose selective breeding on a human population for the presumed good of all mankind, with the operative word being "presumed."

The idea appears to have first been extended to humans by Plato, of all people, who recommended in his Republic that the ruling class should be carefully maintained by a secret program of selective breeding in which seemingly random orgies would be staged in order to breed desirable qualities. Strangely, this program tends to be left out of high school history books.

The actual word "eugenics" was invented by Francis Galton, a British scientist who was distantly related to Charles Darwin. In addition to studying the weather and analyzing fingerprints, Galton was deeply interested in how intelligence and talent passed from generation to generation. He invented the word "eugenics" to describe how he believed his insights should be employed -- a social program designed to engineer racial superiority through coerced optimized breeding.

Galton believed people should be bred for success just like cattle. That is not a rhetorical flourish -- Galton literally argued that people should be bred in the same manner as cattle, racehorses and dogs.

Darwin himself did not endorse his cousin's views, although he conceded that there was a certain logic in the view that natural selection was no longer working to improve the human species:

Although some of Galton's observations on social mating and inheritance were scientifically inspired, the overall thrust of his musings on genetics tended toward an aggressive defense of colonial-style racism, with much discussion of Britons -- and especially upper-crust British nobility -- as the master race, best suited to govern the "lower races," especially people of (any) color. (The fallacy of this view is painfully obvious.)

Building on Galton's ideas, a small group of intellectuals seized on the idea of eugenics and began working to promote the idea to governments and other cultural institutions. They succeeded in winning support from such luminaries as a young Winston Churchill who served as vice president of the First International Congress of Eugenics in 1912, and the Catholic Church. The esteemed elders of the Church had no beef with using eugenics to stamp out "undesirable" traits and prevent race-mixing, although they did object to the use of contraception. The 1914 edition of the Catholic Encyclopedia explained their position:

In the wake of World War II and the Holocaust, Western civilization conveniently edited the history books to obscure the fact that the eugenics movement had been quite popular all around the world. Although the modern mind would love to lump the responsibility for the horrors of eugenics onto the Third Reich, the movement originally garnered substantial momentum in the United States in the early 20th century.

America had already had its fair share of racial troubles, from the genocide of the continent's original inhabitants to longstanding laws against interracial marriage to the "single drop" rule. A number of factors fed racial discontent in the U.S. as the 20th century began -- the emancipation of blacks, a flood of immigration, the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan and an economic depression.

The American eugenics movement took on steam with the discovery of genetic coding and the rise of such revolutionary figures as Margaret Sanger, a nurse who has been lionized by history and the abortion rights movement as an early advocate of contraception education.

Sanger was a screaming racist and a founding member of the Eugenics Society of America. Among other things, she advocated the sterilization of the mentally and physically disabled and endorsed the use of birth control to suppress what she saw as the tendency of the lower classes and "inferior races" to breed like rabbits. Later, she apparently reformed her views (although a substantial amount of controversy endures on this topic).

Sanger was hardly alone in her views. During the first 40 years of the 20th century, Americans embarked on a eugenics program that was in many ways as ambitious in scope as any of Adolf Hitler's wet dream. In 1921, then-vice president and future president Calvin Coolidge wrote an anti-immigration rant for Good Housekeeping Magazine in which he bemoaned the mix of good Nordic (i.e., white) stock with "inferior" races:

Later, as president, Coolidge signed the Immigration Restriction Act of 1924 -- which targeted dirty Italians and those dirty, dirty Jews -- declaring that "America must remain American!" The law clamped lid on the good old "melting pot", but then that was mostly a myth to begin with.

Other prominent American supporters of eugenics included Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone, biologist Charles Davenport, steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh and coprologist Dr. John Harvey Kellogg. Several U.S. states instituted a variety of eugenics-inspired laws -- including bans on mixed-race marriage and the first laws in history to compel the sterilization of the "unfit" or disabled.

Many of these laws remained on the books for decades. Virginia's forced sterilization law was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in an opinion written by Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., now remembered by history as one of the greatest legal minds of the 20th century. Holmes not only upheld the compulsory sterilization law; he complained that it was not broad enough.

But, it is said, however it might be if this reasoning were applied generally, it fails when it is confined to the small number who are in the institutions named and is not applied to the multitudes outside.

At least 60,000 people were involuntarily sterilized for the greater good of eugenics in the United States, and that number is almost certainly a whitewash of a substantially more depressing reality. The figure also fails to include the effects of a wide array of secretive medical experiments conducted under the auspices of the U.S. government, such as feeding radioactive mush to the mentally disabled.

The man perhaps most responsible for the success and influence of the American eugenics movement was also unintentionally responsible for its eventual fall from grace. Oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller financed hundreds of thousands of dollars of research through his "philanthropic" foundations, and the inflation-adjusted equivalent of millions of dollars given directly to Germany's budding Nazi pursuit of a master race, including funds that indirectly helped underwrite the playscape of Josef Mengele.

Although America had incubated the eugenics movement, Germany mechanized it to levels of efficiency never seen before (and hopefully never to be seen again). The Germans decided that their nation had to restore its pure blonde, blue-eyed Aryan heritage by purging foreign bloodlines, particularly Jews.

Putting aside the ensuing carnage for the moment, this concept is hilariously, ludicrously wrong. The mythopoetic blue-eyed ideal human race that dominated the Nazi imagination was itself a bastardization of the genuine Aryan stock, brought about by race-mixing. The original Aryans were Semites from Iran, more closely related to Jews than to Scandanavians.

After absorbing the rhetoric of American eugenicists and the money of American "philanthropists," the Germans began an institutionalized eugenics program after Hitler took power in 1933. Initially, the program was directly based on U.S. eugenics laws. First, they mandated sterilization for anyone with an inherited condition such as congenital blindness or deafness, most forms of mental illness and alcoholism. This program prompted the New England Medical Journal to gush: "Germany is perhaps the most progressive nation in restricting fecundity among the unfit."

American eugenicists were proud of inspiring Germany's program, while American government officials eyed Hitler's progress with envy. Many wrote that Germany's efforts would be the seed of a worldwide movement and looked forward to the day when America's leaders would follow the Nazi example.

Although the earlier efforts had largely concerned themselves with overt "unfitness", the subtext of Jewish inferiority and other racial hate had continued to play out at every level of German society. It didn't take long for this aspect of the Nazi agenda became clearer.

In 1935, the Nazis passed a law requiring couples to receive "racial hygiene" counseling before marriage, including answering questions about whether they had any Jewish blood. The government cranked out propaganda films intended to discourage race mixing. Jews and Gypsies were the biggest targets, and blacks, Slavs and gays were all designated "unfit" by the Reich.

As we all know (well, most of us), the Germans quickly determined that sterilization was a slow process, and that genocide went much faster. Although the Holocaust was arguably carried out in the name of eugenics, the scope of what happened next far exceeded anything Galton probably envisioned and is best discussed elsewhere. By the end of World War II, suffice it to say, the excesses of the Nazi regime had crushed most of the momentum that the eugenicists had built during the preceding 40 years.

Amazingly, the world's shock and horror at the depravities of the Nazi extermination machine failed to completely derail the eugenics movement. It lingered through the late 1960s and even into the '70s, but in a much quieter mode. By the early 1980s, forced sterilizations and anti-miscegenation laws had become a thing of the past.

In part, the disenchantment with eugenics came about due to the fatal flaw with the concept, that of the self-appointed arbiter of what is a desirable trait and what is not. As civil rights and racial equality rose in prominence, the eugenicists began to slink off into the woodwork.

The word is still bandied about, often by religious conservatives who believe that abortion rights and family planning programs are camouflaged eugenics programs. However, nearly everyone advancing this argument is anti-abortion first, and anti-eugenics second.

As genetic science became more sophisticated in the 1990s, some scientists also began to tiptoe around the notion of controlled breeding again, although no one is suggesting such a plan be imposed by the government any more. Instead, researchers cautiously note that certain conditions -- such as Autism and specifically Asperger's Syndrome -- are extremely heritable among certain types of parents, with the gentle hint that maybe engineers shouldn't marry other engineers. (The fact that Asperger's may be part of a forward step in human evolution is quietly underplayed in such discussions.)

Fortunately, perhaps, there is little foreseeable use for the concept of controlled breeding, sterilization of "undesirables" and anti-miscegenation laws. The idea of manipulating the human animal through selective breeding is obsolete.

Future zealots who wish to "improve" the human race according to their own master plan will use the tools of genetic engineering to accomplish their goals. Why mess around with people's sex lives when you can just inject them with an RNA retrovirus and magically remove all the undesirable qualities from their DNA? No muss, no fuss, no Nuremberg Tribunal!

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9 Common Misconceptions About Physics – futurism.com

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Yoda once said while teaching the young Luke Skywalker that: You must unlearn what you have learned. As much as it is a science fiction movie, this also makes sense in the real world, especially when learningphysics. Unlikeevery other science field, physics is different in the sense that we kind of have our own ideas about it even before we learn it inthe classroom. We know that everything that goes up must come back down; that gravity prevents us from flying and that things can be moved if we push them hard enough.The problem is, someof these ideas are wrong.

1.) Everything that moves, will eventually come to a stop. Rest is the natural state of all objects

Of all physics misconceptions, this is the most common. Even the great philosopher Aristotle, included itinto his most important contribution to the field, his famousLaws of Motion. But now we know it is wrong because Newtons First Law of Motion tells us thateverything at rest will stay at rest, and everything in motion will stay in motion, unless acted upon by an external force.

The first statement seems reasonable enough, but the second partis alittle bit murky. The reason this confusion persists boils down to the fact that weare unable toidentify the force that stops all motion, which is friction. Friction is a force that acts between two objects that are in contact and are moving relative to each other. When we roll a ball, it stops because of the frictional force acting between it and the floor.

2.)A continuous force is needed for continuous motion

This misconception is a direct consequence of the first one. While this is true, if you are, for example, pushing a grocery cart in a supermarket, again this is only because there is friction involved. The force you apply to keep an object moving is only to counteract the frictional force. If you were to throw a rock on outer space, it would travel with a constant velocity forever, unless it hits something, of course. This is because space is mostly empty (it has trace elements of gas and dust throughout), and there would not be any frictional force acting on that rock.

3.) An object is hard to push because it is heavy

This is one of the mostcommon misconceptions because its something we see andfeel everyday. While a heavy object is really hard to push, it is not because of its weight, but because of its inertia or mass. Inertia is an objects resistance to change in motion. It is important to note that inertia isresistance to change motion rather than just motion itself. When, I was a kid, I imagined that it would be easy to carry and push massive objects when in outer space, but not surprisingly, my younger self was wrong.,

With that said Since these objects still have mass despite beingweightless, this mass represents the objects inertia.

WATCH: The Difference Between Mass and Weight:

4.)Planets revolve around the sun because they are pushed by gravity

We have to remember that gravity the weakest of the four fundamental forces is an attractive force. The reason why planets revolve around the Sun can be chalked up to the fact thatthe planets were already spinningwithin the protoplanetary disk encircling a young Sun. Gravity merelykeeps the planets in orbit around the Sun, but it isnt necessarily the one thingpushing the planetsalong theirorbital plane.

How Objects Fall (via CNX)

5.)Heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones

This misconception is already debunked long ago by Galileo on his experiment when he dropped two objects with different masses on the Leaning Tower of Pisa. He has shown on that experiment that objects move downward with the same acceleration.

Again, theproblem comes from not being able to identify another force that is involved, which is air resistance. All objects moving through air, and hence, all falling objects, experience air resistance. This force is proportional to the area of the object in the direction of motion. Usually, this force is negligible, but for light objects withweight comparable to the air resistance, like a feather it will have a big effect. This is ultimately confirmed by the famous hammer and feather drop experiment on the moon.

6.) There is no gravity in outer space

There is gravity in outer space, it is just weaker than what we experience here on Earth. Astronauts that are orbiting the Earth dont experience gravity because they are free-falling (yes, you read that right).All satellites, including the moon and the planets, are in a constant state offreefall.

They just also have a tangential velocity with their free fall, that is why they dont crash to what they are orbiting. When something is in free fall, it becomes weightless. This is why Kate Upton can do a photo shoot in zero gravity here on Earth. The plane that they are riding in actually went into free fall to do that.

7.)Planets move in circular orbits around the Sun

Planets actually move in elliptical orbits around the sun(with the Sunbeingthe focus of the ellipse). This is actually the first of Keplers Three Laws of Planetary Motion, which deals withprecisely howplanets orbit the Sun.

One misconception deals with our seasons. Some mightwrongly come to the conclusion that Earths proximity to the Sun dictates the seasons (summer iswhen Earth is closestto the Sun and winter is when its farther away), but thats not entirely true.In reality, our seasons are caused by the tilt of Earths axis.

8.)Gravity is a force of attraction between 2 objects with mass

This is a concept that has been accepted by the scientific community for a very long time, thanks to one of the greatest physicists of all time, Sir Isaac Newton. But, as another physicist came by the name of Albert Einstein, this view was proven to be wrong. Einstein showed through the use of complex mathematics that gravity is not a force per se, but a consequence of thecurvature of spacetime. Einstein discovered that massive objects bend the spacetime around it, and we perceive of this bending of spacetime as a force.

For the Newtonian view of gravity, light would not be affected by gravity, because it does not have mass. But for Einsteins General Relativity, light will also be affected by gravity, and that is confirmed specifically by an experiment led by Sir Arthur Eddington. They measured the real and apparent positions of stars behind the sun during a total solar eclipse. The difference between these measurements was exactly predicted by Einsteins General Relativity.

Still, Newtons idea of gravity is being taught in schools because it is a good approximation of gravity. It only fails when large forces are involved (large masses and/or small distances, for instance), like withMercuryand itsorbit around the Sun.

9.) Electrons orbit around the nucleus like planets orbiting the Sun

Electrons reside in shells inside the atom. They exist as a standing wave of probability in these shells. This is because of Heisenbergs uncertainty principle, which states that: you cannot predict with 100% accuracy both the position and the momentum of an electron. Bohrs model puts the electron in discrete orbits around the nucleus, with a constant speed (which violates this law).

This is discovered by Youngs Double Slit Experiment. This experiment consists of firing a beam of electrons in two very small slits, and looking at the resulting pattern at the back of the slit. Instead of seeing two slits in the back, like what you would expect if an electron is a particle, Thomas Young saw a diffraction pattern, which would only happen if the electron is a wave.

Hopefully, this article helped shed some light on topics that pertain to physics that are shrouded in confusion.

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9 Common Misconceptions About Physics - futurism.com

Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) – NASA Mars rover

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What's^New?

Loss of Carbon in Martian Atmosphere Explained

NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover Heads Toward Active Dunes

Upgrade Helps NASA Study Mineral Veins on Mars

Curiosity Self-Portrait at 'Big Sky' Drilling Site

Curiosity Confirms Ancient Lakes on Mars

Curiosity's Drill Hole and Location are Picture Perfect

Recent^Videos

50 Years of Mars Exploration

Curiosity Rover Report: Three Years on Mars - 08/03/2015

Fun

Send a Postcard to Curiosity - 08/06/2013

Mars in The Palm of Your Hands

Curiosity's Mission

Learn About The Rover

Landing On Mars

Ask Dr. C

Have you ever wondered why Mars is red?

Curiosity

NEW: Curiosity Updates from Science Team Members

Where is Curiosity?

See the Latest Raw Images - 07/16/2014

Follow Curiosity's Journey

Curiosity Scientific Data

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Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) - NASA Mars rover

NASA – History Home

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Since its inception in 1958, NASA has accomplished many great scientific and technological feats in air and space. NASA technology also has been adapted for many nonaerospace uses by the private sector. NASA remains a leading force in scientific research and in stimulating public interest in aerospace exploration, as well as science and technology in general. Perhaps more importantly, our exploration of space has taught us to view Earth, ourselves, and the universe in a new way. While the tremendous technical and scientific accomplishments of NASA demonstrate vividly that humans can achieve previously inconceivable feats, we also are humbled by the realization that Earth is just a tiny "blue marble" in the cosmos. Check out our "Thinking About NASA History" folder online as an introduction to how history can help you.

HISTORY AT NASA HEADQUARTERS: An article by former NASA Chief Historian Roger Launius on the accomplishments of the NASA History Division.

UPCOMING NEW CONFERENCE AND RELATED PUBLICATION The NACA Centenary: A Symposium on 100 Years of Aerospace Research and Development Tuesday, March 3 Wednesday, March 4, 2015 Moving Beyond Earth Gallery, National Air and Space Museum, Independence Avenue, Washington DC For more details, please see the NACA Symposium site for information.

The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics: An Annotated Bibliography, Monographs in Aerospace History, No. 55, 2014. (NASA SP-2014-4555).

NASA HISTORY FELLOWSHIPS: American Historical Association History of Science Society (HSS) Fellowship in the History of Space Science NASA Fellowship in the History of Space Technology OTHER NASA FELLOWSHIPS AND GRANTS

NASA HISTORY NEWS & NOTES NEWSLETTER: Download our latest (Third Quarter 2015) newsletter or click here for previous newsletters.

NASA HISTORY OFFICE ANNUAL REPORT: For our Year in Review annual report, click here

NASA HISTORY ON FACEBOOK: Catch up with NASA History on our Facebook page. Sign Up today

NASA HISTORY ON TWITTER: Get short, timely messages from the NASA History Office. Twitter is a rich source of instantly updated information. It's easy to stay updated on an incredibly wide variety of topics. Join today and follow @NASAhistory:

Steve Garber, NASA History Web Curator Site design by NASA HQ Printing & Design For further information email mailto:histinfo@hq.nasa.gov Privacy Statement

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NASA - History Home

NASA – IMAGE Science Center

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IMAGE is launched from VandenbergAFB

On 18December 2005, after 5.8years of successful operations, IMAGE's telemetry signals were not received during a routine pass. Currently, IMAGE has not responded to commands and a press release on this unfortunate event has been issued. The IMAGE mission was designed as a two-year mission but has exceeded all its scientific goals and has produced a fire hose of stunning images of the previously invisible region of space in the inner magnetosphere.

The Final Report of the IMAGE Failure Review Board has now been released. The most likely explanation of the failure was the result of an induced "instant trip" of the Solid Sate Power Controller (SSPC) supplying power to the transponder. Other possible, but very unlikely causes, could not be eliminated, however. The report as well as the full presentation of the review board presented on 04April 2006 is available on the Mission Publications page.

The IMAGE spacecraft was launched from VandenbergAFB on 25March 2000, at 20:34:43UT. IMAGE was the first satellite mission dedicated to imaging the Earth's magnetosphere, the region of space controlled by the Earth's magnetic field and containing extremely tenuous plasmas of both solar and terrestrial origin. Invisible to standard astronomical observing techniques, these populations of ions and electrons have traditionally been studied by means of localized measurements with charged particle detectors, magnetometers, and electric field instruments. Instead of such insitu measurements, IMAGE employed a variety of imaging techniques to "see the invisible" and to produce the first comprehensive global images of the plasma populations in the inner magnetosphere. With these images, space scientists were able to observe, in a way never before possible, the large-scale dynamics of the magnetosphere and the interactions among its constituent plasma populations.

IMAGE used neutral atom, ultraviolet, and radio imaging techniques to:

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NASA - IMAGE Science Center

Interactive Weather Satellite Imagery Viewers from … – NASA

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Select a weather satellite image map to view data from that sensor GOES East - CONUS 1 km Visible Infrared Water Vapor GOES East - North Hemisphere Visible Infrared Water Vapor GOES East - Caribbean and West Atlantic Hurricane Region Visible Infrared Water Vapor GOES East - Full Disk Visible Infrared Water Vapor GOES West - Pacific Ocean 1 km Visible Infrared Water Vapor GOES West - Full Disk Visible Infrared Water Vapor Global Geostationary Weather Satellite Composite Global Infrared Mosaic Where are sites with weather satellite imagery? Obtain GOES data by anonymous ftp Where are the weather satellites located? Use NASA's J-Track utility to find out. GOES weather satellite imagery courtesy of the Earth Science Office at NASA Marshall Space Flight in Huntsville, Alabama. The global composite satellite maps are courtesy of the NCEP Aviation Weather Center in Kansas City, Missouri. Infrared Processes Group Earth Science Office

Responsible Official: Dr. James L. Smoot (James.L.Smoot@nasa.gov) Page Curator: Paul J. Meyer (paul.meyer@nasa.gov)

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Interactive Weather Satellite Imagery Viewers from ... - NASA

Home – One Stop Shopping Initiative – NASA OEID LaunchPad

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NASA OSSI Online Career Week

The NASA OSSI Online Career Week will connect you with NASA, STEM employers and top graduate programs nationwide. Engage with representatives from all 10 NASA centers to learn about internship, scholarship, and fellowship opportunities available at NASA. Interact with recruiters from top STEM employers, and explore internship and job opportunities in the private sector. Learn about highly ranked STEM graduate programs and network with admissions officers from the comfort of your home, dorm, smartphone or tablet. Register for one or all events and launch your career today!

Starting on February 9, you will be able to research participating organizations and explore opportunities listed. Complete your profile, and prepare a few questions for the centers, companies or graduate programs you are interested in. During the live events, you will engage in one-on-one text-based conversations directly with a recruiter or admissions officer at those organizations. You can share your background, experience, resume and ask questions. Maximize your time in the event by getting in line to chat with representatives from more than one center, company or university at a time.

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Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar – Home

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Qatar Foundation is promoting long-term, sustainable development in Qatar, in education, research, entrepreneurship, and health and social affairs. Its flagship project is Education City in Doha.

The state health-care provider for Qatar, Hamad Medical Corporation manages five internationally accredited hospitals. It is working with WCMC-Q in medical education, patient care and biomedical research.

Aspetar is the first specialised Orthopaedic and Sports Medicine Hospital in the Gulf region.

The National Health Authority plans and oversees Qatar's national health policy and regulatory framework, and monitors and evaluates health care services. A main focus in 2008 is the enhancement of primary care.

NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital is one the most comprehensive university hospitals in the world, with leading specialists in every field of medicine.

Qatar Foundation's Sidra Medical and Research Center, set to open in Education City in 2012, will be a premier facility for health care and clinical research, and a partner of WCMC-Q.

The Methodist Hospital System in Houston, Texas | Houston hospital that is a leader in heart care, orthopedics, organ transplant, cancer treatment, neurology and neurosurgery, cancer.

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Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar - Home

NSL Aerospace PMA/FAA Approved Aerospace Products

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58th Annual ACPC Begins Tomorrow Friday, September 12, 2014

Tomorrow marks the beginning of the 58th Annual ACPC (Air Carriers Purchasing Conference)!

The mission of ACPC is to bring together buyers and sellers of aviation related goods and services and offer a fair and level environment to network in various business and social agendas.

Held in Washington, D.C. this year, we're looking forward to attending our 8th ACPC.

NSL Aerospace Receives Nadcap Merit Status for Sealants

Nadcap recognizes NSL Aerospace for its superior performance and commitment to continual improvement in aerospace quality.

NSL Aerospace announces that it has been awarded Nadcap Merit status for sealants.

We are pleased to announce our Nadcap accreditation with Merit status. It not only shows our commitment to producing quality product but also to maintaining high quality standards that ensure our customers receive the service and satisfaction they deserve. We are proud to share this achievement with our customers and the industry.

NSL Aerospace has held Nadcap accreditation since 2002. Having demonstrated their ongoing commitment to quality by satisfying customer requirements and industry specifications, the Nadcap Task Group has determined that NSL Aerospace has earned special recognition. This means that, instead of having their next Nadcap audit in twelve months, NSL Aerospace has been granted an accreditation that lasts until July 31, 2015.

Achieving Nadcap accreditation is not easy: it is one of the ways in which the aerospace industry identifies those who excel at manufacturing quality product through superior special processes. Companies such as NSL Aerospace go above and beyond achieving Nadcap accreditation to obtain Merit status and they should be justifiably proud of it, said Joe Pinto, Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at the Performance Review Institute. Benefitting from a less frequent audit schedule reduces audit costs and associated pressures and demonstrates the trust that the aerospace industry has in NSL Aerospace based on their past performance in Nadcap audits. PRI is proud to support continual improvement in the aerospace industry by helping companies such as NSL Aerospace be successful and we look forward to continuing to assist the industry moving forward.

About the Company NSL Aerospace in Magnolia, TX provides custom packaging and distribution of adhesives and sealants for the aerospace and aviation markets and has the first FAA PMA approved sealants and silicones in the industry. For more information, please contact Jim Carney at (800) 527-0011 or jcarney@nslaerospace.com.

We have been working for several months to get our new and improved website available for your viewing pleasure! It is still a work in progress. We will be constantly making changes to make the website more user friendly.

Thank you for your patience.

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NSL Aerospace PMA/FAA Approved Aerospace Products

Space Station – NASA Blogs

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The current space station configuration has two Soyuz crew spacecraft and two Progress resupply ships docked at the orbital laboratory. View the station overview page.

Crews and cargo shipments will be coming and going at the International Space Station during a busy December in space. Two resupply ships will arrive, one cargo craft will leave and an Expedition 45 trio will head home before an Expedition 46 trio replaces it.

Commander Scott Kelly teamed up with Flight Engineer Kjell Lindgren for more robotics training before the Dec. 3 launch and Dec. 6 arrival of the Orbital ATK Cygnus cargo craft. When Cygnus arrives it will be captured with the Canadarm2 robotic arm and berthed to the Unity module.

Meanwhile, Lindgren along with Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui and Soyuz Commander Oleg Kononenko are preparing for their Dec. 11 landing. On the ground in Russia, their Expedition 46 replacements Soyuz Commander Yuri Malenchenko and Flight Engineers Timothy Kopra and Timothy Peake are counting down to their Dec. 15 launch. A docked Progress 61 resupply ship will fire its engines Wednesday raising the stations orbit to accommodate the mid-December crew swap.

The Cygnus cargo craft is in Florida at the Kennedy Space Center being processed before its early December launch atop an Atlas V rocket. Russias Progress 60 (60P) cargo craft will undock from the Pirs docking compartment Dec. 19. A new Progress 62 resupply ship will replace the 60P when it arrives at Pirs Dec. 23.

The next cargo mission to the International Space Station is set to launch Dec. 3 at 5:55 p.m. EST. The Orbital ATK Cygnus commercial cargo craft will arrive Dec. 6 when it will be grappled with the Canadarm2 and berthed to the Unity module.

Commander Scott Kelly joined Flight Engineers Kjell Lindgren and Kimiya Yui and trained for Cygnus arrival. They used computer training software and practiced the rendezvous and grapple techniques they will use while operating the Canadarm2 from inside the cupola.

The crew was back at work Monday conducting more science to benefit life on Earth and astronauts in space. They explored a variety of subjects including human research, botany and physics.

Kelly looked at working with touch-based technologies, explored liquid crystals and tended plants. His One-Year crewmate Mikhail Kornienko downlinked earthquake data captured on the orbital lab and stowed trash inside a Russian resupply ship.

Cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko researched veins in the lower extremities of crew members and performed a vision test. Flight Engineer Sergey Volkov participated in Crew Medical Officer training and photographed the condition of the Soyuz TMA-18M spacecraft windows.

Yui researched intracranial pressure caused by microgravity potentially affecting an astronauts vision. He also began a 24-hour data take while attached to an electrocardiogram. Lindgren studied new exercise techniques using gear that measures respiratory and cardiovascular functions.

Russian spacecraft are seen docked to the International Space Station as it orbits over the Earth during the day. Credit: NASA TV

The six-member Expedition 45 crew continued exploring more life science Thursday.

Commander Scott Kelly, who is comparing his space-borne body with his ground-based twin brother and ex-astronaut Mark Kelly, collected and stored blood and urine samples for the ongoing Twins study. Flight Engineer Kjell Lindgren explored using a joystick that transmits sensitive vibrations to control a rover on the ground from a spacecraft. Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui studied the atrophy of skeletal muscle cells caused by the lack of gravity while living in space.

Kelly and Yui later partnered up to install and route cables in the U.S. Destiny lab module. Those cables will standardize and increase the efficiency of video, audio and telemetry data links with future crew and cargo vehicles docking to the station.

In the Russian segment of the orbital laboratory, cosmonaut Sergey Volkov studied the depletion of calcium in a crew members bones. He then joined Oleg Kononenko to research acoustic methods for detecting micrometeoroid impacts on the station. Kononenko also got together with One-Year crew member Mikhail Kornienko to explore microgravitys effects on the human cardiovascular and respiratory system.

At about 2:14 a.m. Central time this morning, a Potential Fire Alarm sensor was triggered aboard the International Space Station and was traced to the European Modular Cultivation System (EMCS) experiment in Express Rack 3 in the Columbus module. The experiment is enclosed and no smoke or fire was detected. Sensors indicated a slight rise in carbon monoxide inside EMCS, while background readings in all surrounding areas remained normal. The crew was never in any danger and the event only lasted a few minutes. As a precautionary measure, Express Rack 3 was temporarily powered down. The rack has since been repowered with the exception of EMCS. There was no impact to station science.

Cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko is pictured with photography gear floating in front of him.

The Expedition 45 crew is continuing more biomedical and psychological research today. Ground controllers are also remotely operating the Canadarm2 robotic arm for a video scan of Russian solar arrays.

Flight Engineers Kjell Lindgren and Kimiya Yui were back at work Wednesday with more Ocular Health science conducting eye scans and cardiac exams. Lindgren also worked on gear that fuels combustion science experiments while Yui talked to his Japanese support team and cleaned inside the Kibo laboratory module.

Commander Scott Kelly collected and stowed a urine sample for the Twins study then participated in research that explores how international space crews operate under stress. Kelly also replaced Trace Contaminant Control System gear inside the Tranquility module.

Cosmonaut Sergey Volkov explored the effect of micro-vibrations in the Russian segment of the station. He also explored the relationship between a crew and Mission Control during a long term spaceflight. One-Year crew member Mikhail Kornienko studied chemical reactions in Earths upper atmosphere. He, Volkov and cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko also worked on Russian cleaning and maintenance tasks.

One-Year crew members Mikhail Kornienko and Scott Kelly talk to reporters on Earth Tuesday morning. Credit: NASA TV

The Expedition 45 crew kicked off Tuesday with a wide variety of science exploring how living in space affects humans. The orbital laboratory residents also worked on U.S. and Russian spacewalking gear.

Astronauts Scott Kelly, Kjell Lindgren and Kimiya Yui participated throughout the day on Ocular Health studies. The trio subjected themselves to eye exams so scientists can understand microgravitys effect on crew vision.

The three veteran International Space Station cosmonauts conducted their set of Russian space research and lab maintenance activities. One-Year crew member Mikhail Kornienko studied space digestion while Flight Engineer Oleg Kononenko explored how international crews work together on long duration missions. Sergey Volkov, a three-time station resident, worked on repairs inside the Zvezda service module.

Kelly and Lindgren were back inside the U.S. Quest airlock putting away tools and cleaning up after a pair of spacewalks in October and November. Volkov and Kononenko were in the Russian segment checking Orlan spacesuits for leaks ahead of a planned spacewalk in 2016.

Paris, France is seen from the International Space Station in this photograph from 2005. View Flickr image

The six-member Expedition 45 crew paused for a minute of silence today in tribute to the victims of Fridays terrorist attacks in Paris. Flight Engineer Kjell Lindgren bowed his head in the middle of experiment work while Commander Scott Kelly said the crew was shocked and saddened by the events.

Engineers continued to troubleshoot station systems after 1 of the 8 station power channels went down last Friday. There were no impacts to crew activities, the station maintained orbital control and communications remained in good condition. Ground teams are discussing future repair plans and are currently able to manage the power balance for the foreseeable future.

The orbital residents kicked off Monday with the Veggie botany experiment as NASA learns to grow food in space. There were more vision and blood pressure checks helping scientists understand microgravitys effects on vision. As usual, the crew also continued the upkeep of the orbital laboratory with some plumbing work, battery replacements and cleaning duties.

The Soyuz TMA-17M spacecraft is seen docked to the International Space Station.

The Expedition 45 crew is wrapping up the work week on biomedical science and Cygnus mission preparations. The orbital residents also worked maintenance throughout the numerous modules inside the International Space Station.

Flight Engineers Kjell Lindgren and Kimiya Yui, who both have been in space over 100 days, checked their vision and blood pressure for the long-running Ocular Health study. Yui then worked on experiment hardware inside Japans Kibo lab module. Lindgren explored growing food in space for the Veggie botany experiment.

Commander Scott Kelly continued installing gear to prepare for the early December arrival of the Orbital ATK Cygnus cargo craft. He also worked on station maintenance tasks and cleaned his crew quarters.

On the Russian side of the orbital lab, One-Year crew member Mikhail Kornienko explored human digestion in space and sampled the stations atmosphere and surfaces for microbes. Veteran cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Sergey Volkov worked in the Zvezda service module to replace a battery and repair overhead sheets. Volkov is the newest Expedition 45 crew member having been in space 70 days.

Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui (left) and NASA astronaut Kjell Lindgren celebrated 100 days in space on Oct. 30.

A trio of astronauts are still cleaning up after last weeks spacewalk outside the International Space Station. The cosmonauts are working on their suite of advanced space science and maintenance tasks. Also, the crew is preparing for the launch of the next Orbital ATK commercial cargo mission targeted for Dec. 3.

Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui joined NASA astronauts Scott Kelly and Kjell Lindgren for the post-spacewalk cleanup work in the U.S. Quest airlock. The team stowed their spacewalk tools and hardware and scrubbed cooling loops in the U.S. spacesuits.

Kelly and Yui also partnered together to ready the station for the arrival of the Orbital ATK Cygnus cargo craft. The duo reviewed installation procedures for the Nitrogen Oxygen Recharge System scheduled to be delivered aboard the Cygnus.

In the Russian segment of the station, three veteran cosmonauts were busy researching a wide variety of subjects and working on Russian station systems. Oleg Kononenko looked at how microgravity affects a crew members spacecraft piloting skills. Sergey Volkov explored how vibrations on the station affect experiment results. One-Year crew member Mikhail Kornienko stowed gear inside an outgoing Progress craft for disposal.

The Expedition 45 crew gathers inside the Destiny laboratory to celebrate the 15th anniversary of continuous human presence aboard the International Space Station.

NASA astronauts Scott Kelly and Kjell Lindgren cleaned up the International Space Stations Quest airlock over the weekend after completing two spacewalks over nine days. The rest of the Expedition 45 crew started the work week with a series of ongoing science experiments to improve life on Earth and for future crews.

One-Year crew member Mikhail Kornienko explored his fine motor skills and studied cardiac bioelectric activity at rest. Cosmonaut Sergey Volkov researched remotely controlling a rover on Earth from the station and worked with fellow cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko on maintenance inside the Zvezda service module. Kononenko also researched the electromagnetic state of the space station and the Earths ionosphere.

Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui who assisted Kelly and Lindgren during their two spacewalks took some time off and relaxed Monday with the duo. However, the trio had their daily workouts and collected blood samples for stowage in a science freezer. Kelly also joined Kornienko for interviews with ABCs The View and ITV News.

Astronauts Scott Kelly and Kjell Lindgren translate along the port truss structure back to the Quest airlock after completing cooling system servicing work. Credit: NASA TV

NASA astronauts Scott Kelly and Kjell Lindgren ended their spacewalk at 2:10 p.m. EST with the repressurization of the U.S. Quest airlock. The astronauts restored the port truss (P6) ammonia cooling system to its original configuration, the main task for todays spacewalk. They also returned ammonia to the desired levels in both the prime and back-up systems.

In a minor departure from the planned tasks, the astronauts ran out of time to cinch and cover a spare radiator known as the Trailing Thermal Control Radiator. The radiator, which Lindgren retracted earlier in the spacewalk, was fully redeployed and locked into place in a dormant state.

The radiator had been deployed during a November 2012 spacewalk by astronauts Sunita Williams and Aki Hoshide as they tried to isolate a leak in the truss cooling supply by re-plumbing the system to the backup radiator. The leak persisted and was subsequently traced to a different component that was replaced during a spacewalk in May 2013.

The 7 hour and 48 minute spacewalk was the second for both astronauts, and the 190th in support of assembly and maintenance of the orbiting laboratory. Crew members have now spent a total of 1,192 hours and 4 minutes working outside the orbital laboratory.

Stay up-to-date on the latest ISS news at: http://www.nasa.gov/station

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Space Flight – Capabilities | SNC | Sierra Nevada Corporation

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Sierra Nevada Corporation's Space Systems, with four product lines, provides a depth and breadth of experience unmatched in the aerospace industry. Our capabilities range from spacecraft actuators that power the Mars rovers, to hybrid rocket technologies that powered the first commercial astronaut to space, and from microsatellites controlled by the Internet to Dream Chaser, a winged and piloted orbital commercial spacecraft.

Learn more about SNC's Space Systems at http://www.SNCSpace.com

SNC Statement in Response to Inquiries Regarding Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo Incident

The Spacecraft Systems capability provides small satellites to meet commercial, civil, and military mission requirements using common bus structures and components that are rapidly customized as needed for different mission applications.

The Propulsion Systems capability offers safe, green, reliable and low-cost propulsion solutions for space vehicles, satellites and small to medium launch vehicle propulsion systems.

The Space Exploration Systems capability is leading an effort to create a low-cost, safe commercial crew transportation service to and from low Earth orbit, including the International Space Station (ISS).

The Space Technologies capability supplies critical components to such important national security programs as Advanced EHF, Mobile User Objective System, Space-Based InfraRed System, and commercial imagery systems (GeoEye, Ikonos, Worldview).

For more information about SNC Space Systems products and capabilities, please contact:

Sierra Nevada Corporation's Space Systems 1722 Boxelder Street, Suite 102 Louisville, CO 80027 Office: (303) 530-1925 Toll Free: (888) 530-1926 Fax: (303) 530-2401 Email: Space Systems

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FAQ | The Seasteading Institute

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Piracy gets a lot of reports in the press and is featured in movies, but its a relatively rare phenomenon when compared to land-based crime. According to the State of Maritime Piracy 2013 Report published by Oceans Beyond Piracy (OBP), a project of theOne Earth Future Foundation, a privately funded non-profit organization:

In East Africa, Somali pirates attacked 23 vessels in 2013, of which 4 were successful.

In the Gulf of Guinea off Western Africa, 100 vessels were attacked, with 56 successful.

In the entire Indian Ocean, 145 suspicious approaches, were reported with 8 exchanging fire.

Dryad Maritime Intelligence, a maritime operations company, confirms that no vessel has ever been hijacked with an armed security team on board. Seacurus, a marine insurance broker willing to pay kidnapping ransoms, says they cut insurance costs by up to 75 percent if ships employ private armed guards. Roughly two-thirds of ships carry private armed security personnel.

Pirates typically lurk offshore of unstable regions in the world, such as the Horn of Africa, the Gulf of Guinea, or between the 17,500 islands of Indonesia. Much has been made of the live global piracy map provided by the Commercial Crime Services, showing all piracy and armed robbery incidents reported in a year. But it doesnt look as bad as the Spotcrime maps of the major city where the Seasteading Institute is located. These reveal scattered crime, mostly concentrated in bad neighborhoods, with a small percentage involving violence. When a global piracy map covering two-thirds of the earths surface cant accumulate as many incidents as Spotcrime maps of American cities, we know were in relatively safe territory.

If danger within Pakistan, Iran, Yemen, and Somalia doesnt make us fear all land everywhere, then danger off their coasts shouldnt cause us to fear all oceans everywhere.

There are larger organized criminal groups involved in piracy that capture entire ships and their goods (often worth tens of millions of dollars). These groups have even been known to use forged documents to obtain a new load of cargo from legitimate shippers, and then steal it. It is worth noting that these groups specifically target container ships. This is not at all surprising, given that container ships only have a few crew and vast amounts of nicely boxed cargo. A cruise ship has fewer marketable goods, and many more people to handle. A cruise ship might have 100 times more passengers and crew per dollar of movable cargo than a container ship. A simple cost/benefit analysis suggests why pirates tend to focus on the latter.

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FAQ | The Seasteading Institute

Cyborg Anthropology

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Humans are surrounded by built objects and networks. So profoundly are humans altering their biological and physical landscapes that some have openly suggested that the proper object of anthropological study should be cyborgs rather than humans, for, as Donna Haraway says, "we are all cyborgs now".

Cyborg Anthropology takes the view that most of modern human life is a product of both human and non-human objects.

How we interact with machines and technology in many ways defines who we are. Cyborg Anthropology is a framework for understanding the effects of objects and technology on humans and culture. This site is designed to be a resource for those tools.

Anthropology, the study of humans, has traditionally concentrated on discovering the process of evolution through which the human came to be (physical anthropology), or on understanding the beliefs, languages, and behaviors of past or present human groups (archaeology, linguistics, cultural anthropology).

This site currently has 984 articles for you to browse and read.

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Falk recommended for appointment as Chair of … – Medicine

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Apart from a two-year research fellowship at the University of Minnesota, Falk has been associated with the UNC School of Medicine for more than 40 years as a medical student, resident and valued faculty member. He joined the faculty in 1984 and currently serves as Allan Brewster Distinguished Professor, chief, Division of Nephrology, director, Center for Transplant Care, and director, UNC Kidney Center.

As Chair of the Department of Medicine, Falk will be charged with managing the largest unit of the School of Medicine while continuing and strengthening its national reputation for high level research funding and rigorous educational training.

Falk will report directly to Dean Roper as Dean and CEO, and on a day-to-day basis will report to Wesley Burks, MD, Executive Dean of the School of Medicine. Falk will lead a team of Vice Chairs that includes Vice Chair Andrew Greganti, MD who has served as Chair in an interim role since late last year Janet Rubin, MD, Vice Chair for Research; Janet Hadar, Vice Chair for Clinical Integration; and Lee Berkowitz, MD, Vice Chair for Education. Bruce Wicks, MHA, will continue to serve the Department as Associate Chair for Administration

Falk will oversee the recruitment and development of the departments faculty, residents, students and staff. He will also work closely with other leaders from the School of Medicine and UNC Health Care System in strategic planning and program development efforts.

Falk is a national leader in the field of nephrology, serving as President of the American Society of Nephrology, the largest kidney professional society, in 2012. His additional clinical and research specialties include vasculitis and autoimmune disorders.

Along with Charles Jennette, MD, Falk established the Glomerular Disease Collaborative Network which has greatly enhanced communication and research collaborations between community nephrology offices and the UNC School of Medicine. To date, approximately 1,000 physicians from more than 400 clinics throughout the state and region have participated.

His work has also focused on outreach efforts to improve the prevention and care for kidney disease among the people of North Carolina. He established the UNC Kidney Education and Outreach Program with the purpose of screening for kidney disease and hypertension across the state and educating the public about these conditions. Today, in addition to providing educational materials and lab testing in mobile units, the program encourages everyone to ask Hey Doc, how are my kidneys, during each trip to the doctor. This slogan has appeared across television advertising campaigns and billboards around the state.

In April, Falk was recognized with the Distinguished Medical Faculty Award with one colleague calling him a quadruple threat in reference to his achievements as a clinician, teacher, researcher and administrator.

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Falk recommended for appointment as Chair of ... - Medicine

Virginia Board of Medicine

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Announcements

Click here for Information on Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Learn more about how to fill out death certificates, your final act of patient care, at the following link.

Virginia Department of Health training on Death Certification.

The Governor has signed legislation (SB1235 & HB1445) that authorizes a practitioner of medicine or osteopathy licensed by the Board of Medicine in the course of his professional practice to issue a written certification for the use of cannabidiol oil or THC-A oil for treatment or to alleviate the symptoms of a patients intractable epilepsy. Here is the link to the certification form that must be completed by the physician.

The 2014 Session of the General Assembly passed SB294 that establishes a requirement for all prescribers that treat humans to be registered with the Prescription Monitoring Program (PMP) upon application for or renewal of licensure beginning July 1, 2015. DHP is working to integrate this registration into the re-licensure process. The bill also has a requirement for prescribers of benzodiazepines and opiates to check the PMP at the initiation of treatment. You may wish to go ahead and sign up for the PMP now rather than waiting until next year. You can read the bill by clicking here.

Regulations became effective on February 13, 2015 for the voluntary registration of surgical technologists and surgical assistants. Click here to view these regulations. The law passed by the 2014 General Assembly provided those with experience as a surgical technologist or surgical assistant the opportunity to register without holding one of the required credentials or having completed a training program. The date by which an individual with experience needed to register was July 1, 2015. Click here to view the law concerning surgical technologists. Click here to view the law regarding surgical assistants. Again, registration is voluntary, not mandatory. Registration is not necessary to practice as a surgical technologist or a surgical assistant.

The Virginia Board of Medicine has teamed up with VeriDoc, Inc. to provide immediate verifications of licensure for our physicians and physician assistants to other state medical boards.

If you need a verification of your Virginia MD, DO, PA, Resident, or University Limited license sent to another state medical board, go to http://www.veridoc.org and follow the instructions to create and send an immediate verification. The fee charged by VeriDoc is $10.00.

If you need to have a verification of licensure sent to any entity other than a state medical board, or if your license type is not included above, please send your request along with a check or money order in the amount of $10 payable to the Treasurer of Virginia, to:

Virginia Board of Medicine 9960 Mayland Drive, Suite 300 Henrico, VA 23233

Extension of renewal requirements for deployed military and spouses Virginia law allows active duty service people or their spouses who are deployed outside the U.S. to have an extension of time for any requirement or fee pertaining to renewal until 60 days after the persons return from deployment.The extension cannot last beyond 5 years past the expiration date for the license.For more information, please read attached policy and contact the applicable licensing specialist for your profession.

Public Health Information Important Public Health Information from the Department of Health

Download the available forms and applications from the Board.

Continuing Education Forms can be found here.

View the list of Professions regulated by the Board.

Laws and Regulations Governing the Board of Medicine

View the calendar of upcoming Board meetings and minutes from past Board meetings.

View the current Members of the Board

Read the latest Board newsletters.

View and download the list of available guidance documents. These documents provide information or guidance to the public to interpret or implement statutes or the agency's rules or regulations.

The Virginia Department of Planning & Budget has designed a Regulatory Town Hall for anyone interested in the proposal of regulations or meetings of regulatory boards.

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Overview | UH Aerospace Engineering

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Welcome to Aerospace Engineering at the University of Houston! The Houston area is nationally and internationally recognized for the strength of its aerospace related activity due to the presence of NASA Johnson Space Center and the multiple aerospace-related industry and companies in the area. The Aerospace Engineering Program at UH provides graduate education in aerospace engineering to those interested to acquire advanced knowledge, conduct research and pursue advanced careers in the field. This is an interdisciplinary program taught by faculty in the Mechanical Engineering Department with assistance from other colleges and departments. It offers the Master of Science (M.S.) degree (with a thesis of non-thesis option).

Areas of coursework and research concentration include:

However, to expand their knowledge base, students in the program can attend elective courses in other areas, such as, Mathematics, Space Physics, Computer Science, Telecommunications, Human Factors, Systems Engineering, and others. Thesis and dissertation topics span as wide area of aerospace engineering, including, modeling and simulation of aerospace systems, structural dynamics and vibration isolation, system health monitoring, space automation and control, heat transfer and thermo-fluid systems, materials for aeronautical and space applications, aerodynamics, and others.

The graduate program in Aerospace Engineering at the University of Houston is an interdisciplinary program in which the Master of Science (M.S) degree is offered. This program is designed for those with undergraduate engineering and science degrees who wish to further their education for a career in the aerospace field. The program is administered by the Cullen College of Engineering and is taught primarily by faculty from Mechanical Engineering with assistance from Electrical and Industrial Engineering.

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Posted in NSA

Fourth Amendment – National Constitution Center

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The Fourth Amendment

Imagine youre driving a car, and a police officer spots you and pulls you over for speeding. He orders you out of the car. Maybe he wants to place you under arrest. Or maybe he wants to search your car for evidence of a crime. Can the officer do that?

The Fourth Amendment is the part of the Constitution that gives the answer. According to the Fourth Amendment, the people have a right to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures. This right limits the power of the police to seize and search people, their property, and their homes.

The Fourth Amendment has been debated frequently during the last several years, as police and intelligence agencies in the United States have engaged in a number of controversial activities. The federal government has conducted bulk collection of Americans telephone and Internet connections as part of the War on Terror. Many municipal police forces have engaged in aggressive use of stop and frisk. There have been a number of highly-publicized police-citizen encounters in which the police ended up shooting a civilian. There is also concern about the use of aerial surveillance, whether by piloted aircraft or drones.

The application of the Fourth Amendment to all these activities would have surprised those who drafted it, and not only because they could not imagine the modern technologies like the Internet and drones. They also were not familiar with organized police forces like we have today. Policing in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries was a responsibility of the citizenry, which participated in night watches. Other than that, there was only a loose collection of sheriffs and constables, who lacked the tools to maintain order as the police do today.

The primary concerns of the generation that ratified the Fourth Amendment were general warrants and writs of assistance. Famous incidents on both sides of the Atlantic gave rise to placing the Fourth Amendment in the Constitution. In Britain, the Crown employed general warrants to go after political enemies, leading to the famous decisions in Wilkes v. Wood (1763) and Entick v. Carrington (1765). General warrants allowed the Crowns messengers to search without any cause to believe someone had committed an offense. In those cases the judges decided that such warrants violated English common law. In the colonies the Crown used the writs of assistancelike general warrants, but often unbounded by time restraintsto search for goods on which taxes had not been paid. James Otis challenged the writs in a Boston court; though he lost, some such as John Adams attribute this legal battle as the spark that led to the Revolution. Both controversies led to the famous notion that a persons home is their castle, not easily invaded by the government.

Today the Fourth Amendment is understood as placing restraints on the government any time it detains (seizes) or searches a person or property. The Fourth Amendment also provides that no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized. The idea is that to avoid the evils of general warrants, each search or seizure should be cleared in advance by a judge, and that to get a warrant the government must show probable causea certain level of suspicion of criminal activityto justify the search or seizure.

To the extent that a warrant is required in theory before police can search, there are so many exceptions that in practice warrants rarely are obtained. Police can search automobiles without warrants, they can detain people on the street without them, and they can always search or seize in an emergency without going to a judge.

The way that the Fourth Amendment most commonly is put into practice is in criminal proceedings. The Supreme Court decided in the mid-twentieth century that if the police seize evidence as part of an illegal search, the evidence cannot be admitted into court. This is called the exclusionary rule. It is controversial because in most cases evidence is being tossed out even though it shows the person is guilty and, as a result of the police conduct, they might avoid conviction. The criminal is to go free because the constable has blundered, declared Benjamin Cardozo (a famous judge and ultimately Supreme Court justice). But, responded another Supreme Court justice, Louis Brandeis, If the government becomes the lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for the law.

One of the difficult questions today is what constitutes a search? If the police standing in Times Square in New York watched a person planting a bomb in plain daylight, we would not think they needed a warrant or any cause. But what about installing closed circuit TV cameras on poles, or flying drones over backyards, or gathering evidence that you have given to a third party such as an Internet provider or a banker?

Another hard question is when a search is acceptable when the government has no suspicion that a person has done something wrong. Lest the answer seem to be never, think of airport security. Surely it is okay for the government to screen people getting on airplanes, yet the idea is as much to deter people from bringing weapons as it is to catch themthere is no cause, probable or otherwise, to think anyone has done anything wrong. This is the same sort of issue with bulk data collection, and possibly with gathering biometric information.

What should be clear by now is that advancing technology and the many threats that face society add up to a brew in which the Fourth Amendment will continue to play a central role.

In the Supreme Courts decisions interpreting the Fourth Amendment, there are a lot of cross-cutting arguments.

The biggest challenge ahead for the Fourth Amendment is how it should apply to computers and the Internet.

What the Fourth Amendment Fundamentally Requires by Barry Friedman

In the Supreme Courts decisions interpreting the Fourth Amendment, there are a lot of cross-cutting arguments.

For example, sometimes the Justices say that there is a strong preference for government agents to obtain warrants, and that searches without warrants are presumptively invalid. At other times they say warrants are unnecessary, and the only requirement is that searches be reasonable. At times the Justices say probable cause is required to support a search; at others they say probable cause is not an irreducible minimum.

This is your Fourth Amendment. It describes [t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures. It is important for each American to focus on some basics and decideseparate and apart from what the Justices saywhat this vital amendment means.

People say that the Fourth Amendment protects privacy, but that trivializes it. In this world you give up a lot of privacy, whether you wish to or not. Internet cookies, or data stored in web browsers, are just one example. But the Internet companies are not going to come take you away. The government might. What the Fourth Amendment protects is the right of the people to be secure. The Fourth Amendment is the means of keeping the government out of our lives and our property unless it has good justification.

In evaluating how the Fourth Amendment should be interpreted, it is essential to bear in mind the vast changes in policing since the time it was ratified. Whereas policing once was reactive, tasked with identifying and catching criminals, today it has become proactive and is based in deterrence. Before, policing was mostly based on suspicion, it was aimed at people for whom there was cause to believe they had violated or were about to violate the law. Today, policing is aimed at all of usfrom red light cameras to bulk data collection by intelligence agencies to airport security.

There are some basic principles that should govern searches and seizures.

First, no member of the Executive branch should be permitted to intervene in our lives without the say-so of at least one other branch. This is fundamental, and all the more important when that Executive actor engages in surveillance of the citizenry and can use force and coercion against them.

Second, a central purpose of the Fourth Amendment is preventing arbitrary or unjustified intrusions into the lives and property of citizens.

In light of these basic principles, certain interpretations of the Fourth Amendment follow:

No search or seizure is reasonable if it is not based on either legislative authorization or pursuant to rules that have some form of democratic say in their making. The police can write rulesall other agencies of executive government dobut absent a critical need for secrecy those rules should be public and responsive to public wishes.

Second, warrants are to be preferred. Policing agencies are mission-oriented. We want them to bethey have a vital role protecting public safety. But because they are mission-oriented, warrants should be obtained in advance of searching whenever possible so that a neutral judge can assess the need to intrude on peoples lives.

Third, we should distinguish between searches aimed at suspects and those aimed at society in general. When there is a particular suspect, the protections of a warrant and probable cause apply. But those protections make no sense when we are all the target of policing. In the latter instance the most important protection is that policing not discriminate among us. For example, at airport security all must be screened the same unless and until there is suspicioncause to single someone out.

Finally, often todays policing singles out a particular group. Examples include profiling (based on race, religion, or something else) or subjecting only workers in some agencies to drug tests. When policing is group-based, the proper clause of the Constitution to govern is the Equal Protection Clause. When discriminatory searching or seizing occurs, the government should have to prove two things: that the group it is selecting for unfavorable treatment truly is more likely to contain people worthy of the governments attention, and that the incidence of problematic behavior is sufficiently great in that group to justify burdening everyone. Otherwise, the government should go back to either searching individuals based on suspicion, or search us all.

The Future of the Fourth Amendment by Orin Kerr

The biggest challenge ahead for the Fourth Amendment is how it should apply to computers and the Internet.

The Fourth Amendment was written over two hundred years ago. But todays crimes often involve computers and the Internet, requiring the police to collect digital evidence and analyze it to solve crimes.

The major question is, how much power should the police have to collect this data? What is an unreasonable search and seizure on the Internet?

Consider the example of a Facebook account. If you log in to Facebook, your use of the account sends a tremendous amount of information to Facebook. Facebook keeps records of everything. What you post, what messages you send, what pictures you like, even what pages you view. Facebook gets it all, and it keeps records of everything you do. Now imagine that the police come to Facebook and want records of a particular user. The police think the suspect used Facebook to commit the crime or shared evidence of the crime using the site. Maybe the suspect was cyberstalking and harassing a victim on Facebook. Or maybe the suspect is a drug dealer who was exchanging messages with another drug dealer planning a future crime. Or perhaps the suspect committed a burglary, and he posted pictures of the burglary for all of his Facebook friends to see.

Heres the hard question: What limits does the Fourth Amendment impose on the government getting access to the account records? For example, is it a Fourth Amendment search or seizure for the government to get what a person posted on his Facebook wall for all of his friends to see? Is it a search or seizure to get the messages that the suspect sent? How about records of what page the suspect viewed? And if it is a search or seizure, how much can the government seize with a warrant? Can the government get access to all of the account records? Only some of the account records?

The courts have only begun to answer these questions, and it will be up to future courts to figure out what the Fourth Amendment requires. As more people spend much of their lives online, the stakes of answering these questions correctly becomes higher and higher.

In my view, courts should try to answer these questions by translating the traditional protections of the Fourth Amendment from the physical world to the networked world. In the physical world, the Fourth Amendment strikes a balance. The government is free to do many things without constitutional oversight. The police can watch people in the public street or watch a suspect in a public place. They can follow a car as it drives down the street. On the other hand, the police need cause to stop people, and they need a warrant to enter private places like private homes.

The goal for interpreting the Fourth Amendment should be to strike that same balance in the online setting. Just like in the physical world, the police should be able to collect some evidence without restriction to ensure that they can investigate crimes. And just like in the physical world, there should be limits on what the government can do to ensure that the police do not infringe upon important civil liberties.

A second important area is the future of the exclusionary rule, the rule that evidence unconstitutionally obtained cannot be used in court. The history of the exclusionary rule is a history of change. In the 1960s and 1970s, the Supreme Court dramatically expanded the exclusionary rule. Since the 1980s, however, the Supreme Court has cut back on when the exclusionary rule applies.

The major disagreement is over whether and how the exclusionary rule should apply when the police violate the Fourth Amendment, but do so in good faith, such as when the law is unclear or the violation is only technical. In the last decade, a majority of the Justices have expanded the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule. A central question is whether the good faith exception will continue to expand, and if so, how far.

In the Supreme Courts decisions interpreting the Fourth Amendment, there are a lot of cross-cutting arguments.

The biggest challenge ahead for the Fourth Amendment is how it should apply to computers and the Internet.

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Fourth Amendment - National Constitution Center

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