Archive for March, 2023

Live 8 concerts around the world to “End Poverty Now”

Posted by: Adminin Uncategorized
30
Mar

Saturday, July 2, 2005

The Live 8 Concert in Rome, Italy

Massive music concerts took place around the planet under the Live 8 banner in an effort to put pressure on the leaders of the eight richest countries in the world to end global poverty.

All concerts were timed to take place between noon and 10pm local time, with over a million people expected to attend concerts in Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the US, Canada, South Africa and Russia. The events were broadcast to a potential audience of five and a half billion people world-wide.

The largest concert was in the US in Philadelphia where, over the course of 7 hours, hundreds of thousands of people gathered to watch Stevie Wonder, Kanye West, Destiny’s Child, Dave Matthews Band, and Black Eyed Peas among others. Philadelphia native Will Smith both performed and was the opening presenter. Peak attendance, the maximum amount of people believed to be watching Live 8 on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway at a given time, is estimated to have been between 600,000 and 800,000.

In Hyde Park in London, 205,000 people watched acts including Elton John, Madonna, Coldplay, Robbie Williams and Pink Floyd. The concert was opened by Sir Paul McCartney and U2 playing Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band – the first time the song has ever been performed live by a Beatle. It ended at 11.58pm with all of the acts coming on stage to sing one last time.

Bill Gates – founder of Microsoft and the richest man in the world (owning $46.5 billion) – appeared on the London stage to discuss the challenges facing the world, before introducing Dido. Later, Kofi Annan, the Secretary-General of the UN addressed the audience, thanking them for their support.

However, the first concert to open – in Japan – only drew 10,000 spectators, disappointing many.

The concerts follow on 20 years after the Live Aid concert organised by Bob Geldof, which was created to raise money for famine victims in Ethopia.

By contrast, the aim of Live 8 – also organised by Geldof – is not fund-raising but instead to apply pressure to the leaders of the G8 to end world poverty, which claims the lives of 50,000 every day.

The Live 8 organisers are urging the G8 to:

  1. Double the aid sent to the world’s poorest countries,
  2. Fully cancel their debts,
  3. Change the trade laws so that they can build their own future.

The Finance Ministers of the G8 agreed a plan last month to cancel the debt of 18 of the poorest countries to the IMF, the World Bank and the African Development Fund, but are requiring other countries to end political and financial corruption before they become elegible for debt relief.

On Thursday the President of the United States, George W. Bush, announced that the US will double US aid to Africa by 2010 – increasing to $8.6 billion a year. Bob Geldof welcomed the news, saying “This is the first time we have heard this sort of language.

“This is very, very positive indeed.”

Retrieved from “https://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=Live_8_concerts_around_the_world_to_%22End_Poverty_Now%22&oldid=4712182”

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Logo of the Health Services Union

Members of Australia’s Health Services Union (HSU) will go on strike in Victoria next week in a dispute over stalled wage and career structure negotiations. Over 5000 physiotherapists, speech pathologists and radiation therapists will walk off the job next week, effectively closing the state’s 68 largest health services.

The strike will force the closure of intensive care units and emergency departments across the state.

It is feared the strike could continue into Easter.

National secretary of the HSU, Kathy Jackson said admissions would be crippled, while intensive care patients would have to be evacuated to New South Wales, Tasmania and South Australia as hospitals will not be able to perform tests or administer treatment.

“When an ambulance shows up you can’t admit a patient without an X-ray being available, you can’t intubate them and you can’t operate on them,” she said.

“If something goes wrong in an ICU you need to be able to X-ray, use nuclear medicine or any diagnostic procedure,” said Ms Jackson.

Ms Jackson said the HSU offered arbitration last year, but the state government refused. “They’re not interested in settling disputes, they hope that we are just going to go away.”

“We’re not going away, we’ve gone back and balloted the whole public health workforce in Victoria, those ballots were successful, 97 percent approval rating,” she said.

The HSU is urging the government to commence serious negotiations to resolve the dispute before industrial action commenced.

The government has offered the union a 3.25 per cent pay increase, in line with other public sector workers but the union has demanded more, but stopped short of specifying a figure.

Victorian Premier John Brumby said the claim would be settled according to the government’s wages policy. “The Government is always willing and wanting to sit down and negotiate with the relevant organisations . . . we have a wages policy based around an increase of 3.25 per cent and, above that, productivity offset,” he told parliament.

The union claims it is also arguing against a lack of career structure, which has caused many professionals to leave the health service. Ms Jackson said wages and career structures in Victoria were behind other states.

Victorian Opposition Leader Ted Baillieu said he was not in support of the proposed strike and called on the government to meet with unions. “There could not be a more serious threat to our health system than has been announced today.”

“We now have to do whatever is possible to stop this strike from proceeding,” he said.

The opposition leader will meet with the union at 11:30 AM today.

Victorian Hospitals Industry Association industrial relations services manager Simon Chant said hospitals were looking at the possible impact and warned that patients may have to be evacuated interstate if the strike goes ahead.

Retrieved from “https://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=Australian_health_workers_to_close_intensive_care_units_in_Victoria_next_week&oldid=4360153”

U.S. Congress passes CAFTA with 2 vote House margin

Posted by: Adminin Uncategorized
29
Mar

Thursday, July 28, 2005

The U.S. House of Representatives approved the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) early morning Thursday, with a narrow vote of 217 in favor, 215 against. Voting was held open for an hour, 45 minutes past the House’s 15-minute voting rule as the President along with other supporters lobbied into the night.

The vote was so close, if one House member changed a “Yea” vote to a “Nay” vote, CAFTA would have failed in a 216-216 tie.

In tallying the votes, 25 Republicans, mostly from Midwest Corn Belt and Rust Belt states and the Southeast United States’s textile industrial belt, broke party line to vote against the measure. Two Republicans were present, but refused to vote.

The Democrats presented a more united front. All but 15 Democrats present voted against the treaty. Independent House members, who usually vote with the Democrats also voted against the measure.

Supporters of the measure include President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez. Opponents included most House Democrats.

The trade agreement already passed the Senate in June. President Bush has said he will sign it into law.

DR-CAFTA encompasses the following components:

  • Services: all public services are to be open to private investment.
  • Investment: governments promise to grant ironclad guarantees to foreign investment.
  • Government procurement: All government purchases must be open to transnational bids.
  • Market access: governments pledge to reduce and eventually to eliminate tariffs and other measures that protect domestic products.
  • Agriculture: duty-free import and elimination of subsidies]] on agricultural products.
  • Intellectual property rights: privatization of and monopoly over technological know-how.
  • Anti-dumping]] rules, subsidies and countervailing rights: governments commit to phase out protectionist barriers in all sectors.
  • Competition policy: the dismantling of national monopolies.
  • Dispute resolution: the right of transnationals to sue countries in private international courts.
  • Environmental protection: the enforcement of environmental laws and improvement of the environment.
  • Labor standards: the enforcement of the International Labour Organization’s core labor standards.
  • Transparency: the reduction of government corruption.
  • Test-Data Exclusivity for pharmaceutical corporations
Retrieved from “https://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=U.S._Congress_passes_CAFTA_with_2_vote_House_margin&oldid=4670709”

By Real Estate Advisor

In one of the latest analysis of relocation trends of the people in the United States, it has been found that Americans continue to move towards western and southeast states.

According to migration trend analysis by United Van Lines, America’s largest mover, Americans continue to gravitate toward the West and Southeast and away from the Northeast and Midwest. The company has been tracking moving trends since 1977 and has about 30 percent of the market for moving household goods. The recent analysis is based on an extended study of 227,254 moves handled by United Van Lines in 2006. The analysis looked at both inbound and outbound moves in the states.

North Carolina emerged as the top state with the highest inbound migration. Of the total volume of moves in the state in 2006, 64 percent were those that were heading into the state. Oregon was at second position with 62.5 percent of moves that were heading into the state. South Carolina followed next with 60.6 percent of inbound moves in 2006. Rounding out the top five states that had the highest inbound migration were Nevada and Idaho with 59.9 percent and 59.3 percent inbound moves respectively.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBNVZsCKN5A[/youtube]

It is not surprising that out of the top 10 states with inbound migration, 8 were from the Southeast or West. The District of Columbia and South Dakota with an inbound migration of 57.9 percent and 55.9 percent respectively, were the two exceptions that made it into the top ten list dominated by Western and Southeastern states.

Even California, one of the few Western states with moves leaving the state, had the lowest percentage of outbound migration in four years at 52.4 percent.

States that had the highest percentage of outbound moves in the country were all from Eastern and Midwestern regions. An exception was Louisiana, which is yet to recover from the effects of Hurricane Katrina, with the 7th highest outbound migration at 56.4 percent. Michigan and North Dakota had the maximum number of outbound migration with 66 percent of moves outbound. Missouri had 51.8 percent of moves that were outbound. In Kansas, 50.5 percent of moves were inbound.

Although the results do not through light on the reasons for the migration patterns, United Van Lines’ study assumes significance for real estate firms and other financial institutions.

If you are considering relocating to another state, be sure to seek out the services of a local real estate agent to guide you through the process of buying or renting a home or condo in your new destination.

About the Author:

San Diego CondosRancho Bernardo HomesPoway Real Estate

Source:

isnare.com

Permanent Link:

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Tuesday, July 14, 2009

The Sydney Opera House where Sir Edward conducted the opening public performance Image: Mfield, Matthew Field.

British conductor Sir Edward Downes and his wife Joan took their lives at a Swiss assisted suicide clinic on Friday, July 10, 2009, according to a statement from their family. Lady Downes, 74, was afflicted with terminal cancer, and Sir Edward, 85, was nearly blind with increasing hearing difficulties. These disabilities had forced him to give up conducting. Having no religious beliefs, the couple decided against holding a funeral.

The statement read, “After 54 happy years together, they decided to end their own lives rather than continue to struggle with serious health problems. They died peacefully, and under circumstances of their own choosing, with the help of the Swiss organisation, Dignitas, in Zurich.”

Many who knew the couple as friends said that Sir Edward was not terminally ill, but wanted to die with his wife, who he had been with for more than 50 years.

Sir Edward Downes’s children, in an interview with The London Evening Standard, said they escorted their parents to Zurich, and on that Friday, they watched in tears as their parents consumed “a small quantity of clear liquid,” and then proceeded to lie down together, holding hands.

“Within a couple of minutes they were asleep, and died within 10 minutes,” said their 41 year old son, Caractacus Downes.

Sir Edward was well respected in the operatic and orchestral worlds and was particularly noted for his performances of British and Russian music and of Verdi, conducting 25 of the composer’s 28 operas. He had a long association with the Royal Opera House, where he conducted for more than 50 seasons in succession. This did not stop him from refusing to conduct a series of performances of Verdi’s Nabucco there as he was “out of sympathy” with the adventurous production. His approach to conducting was similarly conservative. He wrote “The duty of a conductor should be to present… a faithful and accurate account of the composer’s music as he wrote it, disregarding any subsequent ‘interpretations’, ‘meanings’, or political agendas that may have been attached to it by others.”

It was on Friday, 28 September, 1973, that Sir Edward conducted the opening public performance at the Sydney Opera House, a staging of Prokofiev’s War and Peace by Opera Australia, of which he was musical director. Downes also served as chief conductor of the Netherlands Radio Orchestra and principal conductor of the BBC Philharmonic.

The family reported that Lady Downes “started her career as a ballet dancer and subsequently worked as a choreographer and TV producer, before dedicating the last years of her life to working as our father’s personal assistant.”

The Metropolitan Police have announced that Greenwich CID are investigating the circumstances of the couple’s deaths. Assisting a suicide is illegal in the United Kingdom.

Over 100 people who wished to die have made the journey from Britain to Switzerland to take advantage of the clinical services that Dignitas offers. British police have investigated many of the resulting deaths, but no family member has yet been prosecuted for helping relatives negotiate with Dignitas and travel to Switzerland. Debbie Purdy, a woman with multiple sclerosis, attempted last year to obtain a ruling from the English High Court that family members would not be prosecuted for helping someone use the service, and in particular that her husband would not be charged should she decide to use Dignitas in future. The court refused as it believed that such clarification is the responsibility of parliament and not the judiciary.

Last week the House of Lords rejected a proposal by former Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer to allow people to help someone with a terminal illness travel to a country where assisted suicide is legal.

Retrieved from “https://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=British_conductor_Edward_Downes_and_wife_die_in_double_assisted_suicide&oldid=4460675”

Chunichi Dragons win the 2007 Konami Cup

Posted by: Adminin Uncategorized
24
Mar

Monday, November 12, 2007

In the final of the Konami Cup 2007, Chunichi Dragons battled SK Wyverns again, many Japanese spectators hoped for Dragons to take revenge on Wyverns and win the championship. This was really a intensive match with starting pitchers George Kenneth Rayborn from SK versus Daisuke Yamai.

Even though Byung-kyu Lee hit a 2 runs HR to expand the difference by the 5-2 leading. But Jin-young Lee also hit a 2 runs HR to tie the score with 5-5 at the bottom of 8th.

The key innings took place at the 9th inning, Hirokazu Ibata (Dragons) hit a key run back to make their team lead with 6-5. Finally, the relief pitcher Hitoki Iwase successfully shut down SK’s offense and tied the score to the end to win the champion.

With the winning hit at this game, and 4 hits with 7 RBIs in the Konami Cup Asia Series 2007, Hirokazu Ibata was finally chosen to be the MVP.

After this game, Chunichi Dragons coach Hiromitsu Ochiai remarked: “Even though we ever lose to SK Wyverns, but participants in this year proved their actual strength more than last year. In this game, after we led with 6-5, Hitoki Iwase told me he want to pitch at the bottom of 9th inning, then I accepted, he promised his wish and finally helped us win the champion. I’ll not forget the contributions by Ibata and Iwase.”

Retrieved from “https://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=Chunichi_Dragons_win_the_2007_Konami_Cup&oldid=665659”

Aviation History, Part Iii

Posted by: Adminin Helicopter
23
Mar

Airships have been proposed as a potential cheap alternative to surface rocket launches for achieving Earth orbit. JP Aerospace has proposed the Airship to Orbit project, which intends to float a multi-stage airship up to mesospheric altitudes of 55 km (180,000 ft) and then use ion propulsion to accelerate to orbital speed. At these heights, air resistance would not be a significant problem for achieving such speeds. The company has not yet built any of the three stages.

NASA has proposed the High Altitude Venus Operational Concept, which comprises a series of five missions including manned missions to the atmosphere of Venus in airships. Pressures on the surface of the planet are too high for human habitation, but at a specific altitude the pressure is equal to that found on Earth and this makes Venus a potential target for human colonization.

The advantage of airships over airplanes is that static lift sufficient for flight is generated by the lifting gas and requires no engine power. This was an immense advantage before the middle of World War I and remained an advantage for long-distance or long-duration operations until World War II. Modern concepts for high-altitude airships include photovoltaic cells to reduce the need to land to refuel, thus they can remain in the air until consumables expire.

The disadvantages are that an airship has a very large reference area and comparatively large drag coefficient, thus a larger drag force compared to that of airplanes and even helicopters. Given the large frontal area and wetted surface of an airship, a practical limit is reached around 130–160 kilometers per hour (80–100 mph). Thus airships are used where speed is not critical.

The lift capability of an airship is equal to the buoyant force minus the weight of the airship. This assumes standard air-temperature and pressure conditions. Corrections are usually made for water vapor and impurity of lifting gas, as well as a percentage of inflation of the gas cells at liftoff. Based on specific lift (lifting force per unit volume of gas), the greatest static lift is provided by hydrogen (11.15 N/m3 or 71 lbf/1000 cu ft) with helium (10.37 N/m3 or 66 lbf/1000 cu ft) a close second. At 6.13 N/m3 (39 lbf/1000 cu ft), steam is a distant third. Other cheap gases, such as methane, carbon monoxide, ammonia and natural gas have even less lifting capacity and are flammable, toxic, corrosive, or all three (neon is even more costly than helium, with less lifting capacity). Operational considerations such as whether the lift gas can be economically vented and produced in flight for control of buoyancy (as with hydrogen) or even produced as a byproduct of propulsion (as with steam) affect the practical choice of lift gas in airship designs.

In addition to the static lift, an airship can obtain a certain amount of dynamic lift from its engines. Dynamic lift in past airships has been about 10% of the static lift. Dynamic lift allows an airship to “take off heavy” from a runway similar to fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft. However, this requires additional weight in engines, fuel and landing gear, negating some of the static lift capacity.

The altitude at which an airship can fly largely depends on how much lifting gas it can lose due to expansion before stasis is reached. The ultimate altitude record for a rigid airship was set in 1917 by the L-55 under the command of Hans-Kurt Flemming when he forced the airship to 7,300 m (24,000 ft) attempting to cross France after the “Silent Raid” on London. The L-55 lost lift during the descent to lower altitudes over Germany and crashed due to loss of lift. While such waste of gas was necessary for the survival of airships in the later years of World War I, it was impractical for commercial operations or operations of helium-filled military airships. The highest flight made by a hydrogen-filled passenger airship was 1,700 m (5,500 ft) on the Graf Zeppelin’s around-the-world flight. The practical limit for rigid airships was about 900 m (3,000 ft), and for pressure airships around 2,400 m (8,000 ft).

Modern airships use dynamic helium volume. At sea-level altitude, helium takes up only a small part of the hull, while the rest is filled with air. As the airship ascends, the helium inflates with reduced outer pressure, and the air is pushed out and released from the downward valve. This allows an airship to reach any altitude with balanced inner and outer pressure if the buoyancy is enough. Some civil aerostats could reach 100,000 ft (30,000 m) without explosion due to overloaded inner pressure.

The greatest disadvantage of the airship is size, which is essential to increasing performance. As for size increases, the problems of ground handling increase geometrically. As the German Navy changed from the P class of 1915 with a volume of over 31,000 m3 (1,100,000 cu ft) to the larger Q class of 1916, the R class of 1917, and finally the W class of 1918, at almost 62,000 m3 (2,200,000 cu ft) ground handling problems reduced the number of days the Zeppelins were able to make patrol flights. This availability declined from 34% in 1915, to 24.3% in 1916 and finally 17.5% in 1918.

So long as the power-to-weight ratios of aircraft engines remained low and specific fuel consumption high, the airship had an edge for long-range or -duration operations. As those figures changed, the balance shifted rapidly in the airplane’s favor. By mid-1917, the airship could no longer survive in a combat situation where the threat was airplanes. By the late 1930s, the airship barely had an advantage over the airplane on intercontinental over-water flights, and that advantage had vanished by the end of World War II.

This is in face-to-face tactical situations. Currently, a High-altitude airship project is planned to survey hundreds of kilometers as their operation radius, often much farther than the normal engagement range of a military airplane. For example, a radar mounted on a vessel platform 30 m (100 ft) high has radio horizon at 20 km (12 mi) range, while a radar at 18,000 m (59,000 ft) altitude has radio horizon at 480 km (300 mi) range. This is significantly important for detecting low-flying cruise missiles or fighter-bombers.

The most commonly used lifting gas, helium, is inert so presents no fire risk. Modern airships have a natural buoyancy and special design that offers a virtually zero catastrophic failure mode. A series of vulnerability tests were done by the UK Defence Evaluation and Research Agency DERA on a Skyship 600. Since the internal gas pressure was maintained at only 1–2% above the surrounding air pressure, the vehicle proved highly tolerant to physical damage or to attack by small-arms fire or missiles. Several hundred high-velocity bullets were fired through the hull, and even two hours later the vehicle would have been able to return to base. Ordnance passed through the envelope without causing critical helium loss. In all instances of light armament fire evaluated under both test and live conditions, the airship was able to complete its mission and return to base.

High-altitude platform station

High-altitude platform station (short: HAPS) is – according to Article 1.66A of the International Telecommunication Unions (ITU) ITU Radio Regulations (RR) – defined as “a station on an object at an altitude of 20 to 50 km and at a specified, nominal, fixed point relative to the Earth”.

Each station shall be classified by the service in which it operates permanently or temporarily.

A HAP can be a manned or unmanned airplane, a balloon, or an airship. All require electrical power to keep themselves and their payload functional. While current HAPS are powered by batteries or engines, mission time is limited by the need for recharging/refueling. Therefore, alternative means are being considered for the future. Solar cells are one of the best options currently being used under trial for HAPS (Helios, Lindstrand HALE).

Whether an airship or an airplane, a major challenge is the ability of the HAP to maintain station keeping in the face of winds. An operating altitude between 17 and 22 km is chosen because in most regions of the world this represents a layer of relatively mild wind and turbulence above the jet stream. Although the wind profile may vary considerably with latitude and with the season, a form similar to that shown will usually obtain. This altitude (> 17 km) is also above commercial air-traffic heights, which would otherwise prove a potentially prohibitive constraint.

Since HAPS operate at much lower altitudes than satellites, it is possible to cover a small region much more effectively. Lower altitude also means much lower telecommunications link budget (hence lower power consumption) and smaller round-trip delay compared to satellites. Furthermore, deploying a satellite requires significant time and monetary resources, in terms of development and launch. HAPS, on the other hand, are comparatively less expensive and are rapidly deployable. Another major difference is that a satellite, once launched, cannot be landed for maintenance, while HAPS can.

One of latest uses of HAPS has been for radiocommunication service. Research on HAPS is being actively carried largely in Europe, where scientists are considering them as a platform to deliver high-speed connectivity to users, over areas of up to 400 km. It has gained significant interest because HAPS will be able to deliver bandwidth and capacity similar to a broadband wireless access network (such as WiMAX) while providing a coverage area similar to that of a satellite.

High-altitude airships can improve the military’s ability to communicate in remote areas such as those in Afghanistan, where mountainous terrain frequently interferes with communications signals.

One of the best examples of a high-altitude platform used for surveillance and security is Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk UAV used by the US Air Force. It has a service ceiling of 20 km and can stay in the air for continuous 36 hours. It carries a highly sophisticated sensor system including radar, optical, and infrared images. It is powered by a turbofan engine and is able to deliver digital sensor data in real-time to a ground station.

Another future use that is currently being investigated is monitoring of a particular area or region for activities such as flood detection, seismic monitoring, remote sensing and disaster management.

Perhaps the most common use of high-altitude platforms is for environment/weather monitoring. Numerous experiments are conducted through high-altitude balloons mounted with scientific equipment, which is used to measure environmental changes or to keep track of the weather. Recently, NASA in partnership with The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), has started using Global Hawk UAV to study Earth’s atmosphere.

Due to the height, more than 90% of atmospheric matter is below the high-altitude platform. This reduces atmospheric drag for starting rockets. “As a rough estimate, a rocket that reaches an altitude of 20 km when launched from the ground will reach 100 km if launched at an altitude of 20 km from a balloon.” Such a platform has been proposed to allow the usage of (long) mass drivers for launching goods or humans into orbit.

The United States Department of Defense Missile Defense Agency contracted Lockheed Martin to construct a High-Altitude Airship (HAA) to enhance its Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS).

An unmanned lighter-than-air vehicle, the HAA was proposed to operate at a height of above 60,000 feet (18,000 m) in a quasi-geostationary position to deliver persistent orbital station keeping as a surveillance aircraft platform, telecommunications relay, or a weather observer. They originally proposed to launch their HAA in 2008. The airship would be in the air for up to one month at a time and was intended to survey a 600-mile (970 km) diameter of land. It was to use solar cells to provide its power and would be unmanned during its flight. The production concept would be 500 feet (150 m) long and 150 feet (46 m) in diameter. To minimize weight. it was to be composed of high strength fabrics and use lightweight propulsion technologies.

A subscale demonstrator unit for this project, the “High Altitude Long Endurance-Demonstrator” (HALE-D), was built by Lockheed Martin and launched on a test flight on July 27, 2011, to demonstrate key technologies critical to the development of unmanned airships. The airship was supposed to reach an altitude of 60,000 feet (18,000 m), but a problem with the helium levels occurred at 32,000 feet (9,800 m) which prevented it from reaching its target altitude, and the flight was terminated. It descended and landed at a speed of about 20 feet per second in a heavily forested area in Pennsylvania. Two days after the landing, before the vehicle was recovered from the crash site, the vehicle was destroyed by fire.

A stratospheric airship is a powered airship designed to fly at very high altitudes 30,000 to 70,000 feet (9.1 to 21.3 kilometers). Most designs are remote-operated aircraft/unmanned aerial vehicles (ROA/UAV). To date, none of these designs have received approval from the FAA to fly in U.S. airspace.

Stratospheric airship efforts are being developed in at least five countries.

The first stratospheric powered airship flight took place in 1969, reaching 70,000 feet (21 km) for 2 hours with a 5 pounds (2.3 kilograms) payload. On December 4, 2005, a team led by Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), sponsored by the Army Space and Missile Defense Command (ASMDC), successfully demonstrated powered flight of the HiSentinel stratospheric airship at an altitude of 74,000 feet (23 km). Japan and South Korea are also planning to deploy HAAs. South Korea has been conducting flight tests for several years with a vehicle from Worldwide Aeros.

The Integrated Sensor is Structure (ISIS) was a program managed by the United States Air Force (USAF) Research Laboratory to research the feasibility of using an unmanned airship as a high-altitude aerial reconnaissance and surveillance platform. It is sometimes called Integrated Sensor is the Structure, as a fundamental innovation was the use of the airship structure as the sensing component of a state-of-the-art radar system.

In 2006, contracts were awarded to Raytheon for the development of a large-area, light, Active electronically scanned array antenna which could be bonded to the structure of a blimp, Northrop Grumman for antenna development, and Lockheed Martin for the development of the airship. As proposed, the 450-foot (140 m)-long surveillance airship could be launched from the US and stationed for up to 10 years at an altitude of 65,000 feet (20,000 m), observing the movement of vehicles, aircraft, and people below. At that altitude, the airship would be beyond the range of most surface-to-air and air-to-air missiles. The airship would be filled with helium and powered, at least in part, by solar-powered hydrogen fuel cells.

On March 12, 2009, the USAF announced that it had budgeted $400 million for work on ISIS. In April 2009, DARPA awarded a $399.9 million contract to Lockheed Martin as the systems integrator and Raytheon as the radar developer for phase three of the project: the construction of a one-third scale model, which would remain in the air for up to a year. The ultimate goal was to provide radar capable of delivering persistent, wide-area surveillance tracking and engagement of air targets within a 600-kilometer area and ground targets within a 300-mile (480 km) area, according to DARPA. The model blimp was to have radar coverage of about 7,176 square yards (6,000 square meters) and be tested at an altitude of 6 miles (9.7 km) above the ground. The contract initially awarded $100 million to the two companies, with the rest to follow in phases, with a completion date of March 2013.

As of 2012, the development of the airframe had been delayed to focus on “radar risk reduction”. The United States Department of Defense ended the program in 2015. $471 million had been spent from 2007 through 2012.

Mystery airships or phantom airships are a class of unidentified flying objects best known from a series of newspaper reports originating in the western United States and spreading east during late 1896 and early 1897. According to researcher Jerome Clark, airship sightings were reported worldwide during the 1880s and 1890s. Mystery airship reports are seen as a cultural predecessor to modern claims of extraterrestrial-piloted flying saucer-style UFOs. Typical airship reports involved unidentified lights, but more detailed accounts reported ships comparable to a dirigible. Reports of the alleged crewmen and pilots usually described them as human-looking, although sometimes the crew claimed to be from Mars. It was popularly believed that the mystery airships were the product of some inventor of genius who was not ready to make knowledge of his creation public. For example, Thomas Edison was so widely speculated to be the mind behind the alleged airships that in 1897 he “was forced to issue a strongly worded statement” denying his responsibility.

It has been frequently argued that mystery airships are unlikely to represent test flights of real human-manufactured dirigibles as no record of successful sustained or long-range airship flights are known from the period and “it would have been impossible, not to mention irrational, to keep such a thing secret.” To the contrary, however, there were, in fact, several functional airships manufactured before the 1896–97 reports (e.g., Solomon Andrews made successful test flights of his “Aereon” in 1863), but their capabilities were far more limited than the mystery airships. Reece and others note that contemporary American newspapers of the “yellow journalism” era were more likely to print manufactured stories and hoaxes than modern news sources, and editors of the late 1800s often would have expected the reader to understand that such stories were phony. Most journalists of the period did not seem to take the airship reports very seriously, as after the major 1896-97 have concluded, the subject quickly fell from public consciousness. The airship stories received further attention only after the 1896-97 newspaper reports were largely rediscovered in the mid-1960s and UFO investigators suggested the airships might represent earlier precursors to post-World War II UFO sightings.

The best-known of the mystery airship waves began in California in 1896. Afterward, reports and accounts of similar airships came from other areas, generally moving eastward across the country. Some accounts during this wave of airship reports claim that occupants were visible on some airships, and encounters with the pilots were reported as well. These occupants often appeared to be human, though their behavior, mannerisms, and clothing were sometimes reported to be unusual. Sometimes the apparent humans claimed to be from the planet Mars.

Historian Mike Dash described and summarized the 1896–1897 series of airship sightings, writing:

Not only were [the mystery airships] bigger, faster and more robust than anything then produced by the aviators of the world; they seemed to be able to fly enormous distances, and some were equipped with giant wings… The 1896–1897 airship wave is probably the best investigated of all historical anomalies. The files of almost 1,500 newspapers from across the United States have been combed for reports, an astonishing feat of research. The general conclusion of investigators was that a considerable number of the simpler sightings were misidentification of planets and stars and a large number of the more complex the result of hoaxes and practical jokes. A small residuum remains perplexing.

The Sacramento Bee and the San Francisco Call reported the first sighting on November 18, 1896. Witnesses reported a light moving slowly over Sacramento on the evening of November 17 at an estimated 1,000-foot elevation. Some witnesses said they could see a dark shape behind the light. A witness named R.L. Lowery reported that he heard a voice from the craft issuing commands to increase elevation in order to avoid hitting a church steeple. Lowery added, “in what was no doubt meant as a wink to the reader” that he believed the apparent captain to be referring to the tower of a local brewery, as there were no churches nearby. Lowery further described the craft as being powered by two men exerting themselves on bicycle pedals. Above the pedaling men seemed to be a passenger compartment, which lay under the main body of the dirigible. A light was mounted on the front end of the airship. Some witnesses reported the sound of singing as the craft passed overhead.

The November 19, 1896, edition of the Stockton, California, Daily Mail featured one of the earliest accounts of an alleged alien craft sighting. Colonel H.G. Shaw claimed that while driving his buggy through the countryside near Stockton, he came across what appeared to be a landed spacecraft. Shaw described it as having a metallic surface which was completely featureless apart from a rudder and pointed ends. He estimated a diameter of 25 feet and said the vessel was around 150 feet in total length. Three slender, 7-foot-tall (2.1 m), apparent extraterrestrials were said to approach from the craft while “emitting a strange warbling noise.” The beings reportedly examined Shaw’s buggy and then tried to physically force him to accompany them back to the airship. The aliens were said to give up after realizing they lacked the physical strength to force Shaw onto the ship. They supposedly fled back to their ship, which lifted off the ground and sped out of sight. Shaw believed that the beings were Martians sent to kidnap an earthling for unknowable but potentially nefarious purposes. This has been seen by some as an early attempt at alien abduction; it is apparently the first published account of explicitly extraterrestrial beings attempting to kidnap humans into their spacecraft.

The mystery light reappeared over Sacramento the evening of November 21. It was also seen over Folsom, San Francisco, Oakland, Modesto, Manteca, Sebastopol and several other cities later that same evening and was reportedly viewed by hundreds of witnesses.

One witness from Arkansas – allegedly a former state senator Harris – was supposedly told by an airship pilot (during the tensions leading up to the Spanish–American War) that the craft was bound for Cuba, to use its “Hotchkiss gun” to “kill Spaniards”.

In one account from Texas, three men reported an encounter with an airship and with “five peculiarly dressed men” who asserted that they were descendants of the lost tribes of Israel, and had learned English from the 1553 North Pole expedition led by Hugh Willoughby.

On February 2, 1897, the Omaha Bee reported an airship sighting over Hastings, Nebraska, the previous day.

An article in the Albion Weekly News reported that two witnesses saw an airship crash just inches from where they were standing. The airship suddenly disappeared, with a man standing where the vessel had been. The airship pilot showed the men a small device that supposedly enabled him to shrink the airship small enough to store the vessel in his pocket. A rival newspaper, the Wilsonville Review, playfully claimed that its own editor was an additional witness to the incident and that he heard the pilot say “Waiver eht rof ebircsbus!” The phrase he allegedly heard is “subscribe for the Review” spelled backward.

On April 10, 1897, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch published a story reporting that one W.H. Hopkins encountered a grounded airship about 20 feet in length and 8 feet in diameter near the outskirts of Springfield, Missouri. The vehicle was apparently propelled by three large propellers and crewed by a beautiful, nude woman and a bearded man, also nude. Hopkins attempted with some difficulty to communicate with the crew in order to ascertain their origins. Eventually, they understood what Hopkins was asking of them and they both pointed to the sky and “uttered something that sounded like the word Mars.”

On April 16, 1897, a story published by the Table Rock Argus claimed that a group of “anonymous but reliable” witnesses had seen an airship sailing overhead. The craft had many passengers. The witnesses claimed that among these passengers were a woman tied to a chair, a woman attending her, and a man with a pistol guarding their apparent prisoner. Before the witnesses thought to contact the authorities, the airship was already gone.

An account from Aurora, Texas, related to the Dallas Morning News on April 19, 1897, reported that a couple of days before, an airship had smashed into a windmill – later determined to be a sump pump – belonging to a Judge Proctor, then crashed. The occupant was dead and mangled, but the story reported that presumed pilot was clearly “not an inhabitant of this world.” Strange “hieroglyphic” figures were seen on the wreckage, which resembled “a mixture of aluminum and silver … it must have weighed several tons.” In the 20th century, unusual metallic material recovered from the presumed crash site was shown to contain a percentage of aluminum and iron admixed. The story ended by noting that the pilot was given a “Christian burial” in the town cemetery.In 1973, MUFON investigators discovered the alleged stone marker used in this burial. Their metal detectors indicated a quantity of foreign material might remain buried there. However, they were not permitted to exhume, and when they returned several years later, the headstone – and whatever metallic material had lain beneath it – was gone.

An account by Alexander Hamilton of Leroy, Kansas, supposedly occurred about April 19, 1897, and was published in the Yates Center Farmer’s Advocate of April 23. Hamilton, his son and a tenant witnessed an airship hovering over his cattle pen. Upon closer examination, the witnesses realized that a red “cable” from the airship had lassoed a heifer, but had also become entangled in the pen’s fence. After trying unsuccessfully to free the heifer, Hamilton cut loose a portion of the fence, then “stood in amazement to see the ship, cow and all rise slowly and sail off.” Some have suggested this was the earliest report of cattle mutilation. In 1982, however, UFO researcher Jerome Clark debunked this story and confirmed via interviews and Hamilton’s own affidavit that the story was a successful attempt to win a Liar’s Club competition to create the most outlandish tall tale.

There was a series of mystery airship sightings in 1909 in New England, New Zealand, and various European locations. Later reports came from the United Kingdom in 1912 and 1913. However, by this time airship technology was well advanced (Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin had been flying his massive passenger-carrying airships for nearly a decade by then), making the prospect that these may have been small, private airships rather than evidence of extraterrestrial visitation or newspaper hoaxes more reasonable.

Wallace Tillinghast, a Massachusetts businessman, gained notoriety for claims he was responsible for the 1909 wave due to an airship he had built, but his claims were never substantiated.

Jerome Clark writes, “One curious feature of the post-1887 airship waves was the failure of each to stick in the historical memory. Although 1909, for example, brought a flood of sightings worldwide and attendant discussion and speculation, contemporary accounts do not allude to the hugely publicized events of little more than a decade earlier.”

Clark writes that any attempt to “uncover the truth about the late 19th-century airship scare comes up against some unhappy realities: newspaper coverage was unreliable; no independent investigators (‘airship oologists’) spoke directly with alleged witnesses or attempted to verify or debunk their testimony; and, with a single unsatisfactory exception, no eyewitness was ever interviewed even in the 1950s, when some were presumably still living.”

The “single unsatisfactory exception” Clark cites is a former San Francisco Chronicle employee interviewed via telephone by Edward J. Ruppelt in 1952. Ruppelt wrote that the man “had been a copy boy…and remembered the incident, but time had canceled out the details. He did tell me that he, the editor of the paper, and the news staff had seen ‘the ship’, as he referred to the UFO. His story, even though it was fifty-six years old, smacked of others I’d heard when he said that no one at the newspaper ever told anyone what they had seen; they didn’t want people to think they were ‘crazy’.”

Jacobs notes, “Most arguments against the airship idea came from individuals who assumed that the witnesses did not see what they claimed to see. This is the crucial link between the 1896–97 phenomenon and the modern unidentified flying object phenomenon beginning in 1947. It also was central to the debate over whether unidentified flying objects constituted a unique phenomenon.”

In 2009, American author J. Allan Danelek wrote a book entitled The Great Airship of 1897 in which he made the case that the mystery airship was the work of an unknown individual, possibly funded by a wealthy investor from San Francisco, to build an airship prototype as a test vehicle for a later series of larger, passenger-carrying airships. In the work, Danelek demonstrates how the craft might have been built using materials and technologies available in 1896 (including speculative line drawings and technical details). The ship, Danelek proposes, was built in secret to safeguard its design from patent infringement as well as to protect investors in case of failure. Noting that the flights were initially seen over California and only later over the Midwest, he speculates that the inventor was making a series of short test flights, moving from west to east and following the main railway lines for logistical support, and that it was these experimental flights that formed the basis for many – though not all – of the newspaper accounts from the era. Danelek also notes that the reports ended abruptly in mid-April 1897, suggesting that the craft may have met with disaster, effectively ending the venture and permitting the sightings to fall into the realm of mythology.

During the 1896–97 wave, there were many attempts to explain the airship sightings, including suggestions of hoaxes, pranks, publicity stunts and hallucinations. One man suggested the airships were swarms of lightning beetles misidentified by observers.

Jacobs believes that many airship tales originated with “enterprising reporters perpetrating journalistic hoaxes.” He notes that many of these accounts “are easy to identify because of their tongue-in-cheek tone, and accent on the sensational.” Furthermore, in many such newspaper hoaxes, the author makes his intent obvious “by saying – in the last line – that he was writing from an insane asylum (or something to that effect).”

Some argued that the airship reports were genuine accounts. Steerable airships had been publicly flown in the U.S. since the Aereon in 1863, and numerous inventors were working on airship and aircraft designs (the idea that a secretive inventor might have developed a viable craft with advanced capabilities was the focus of Jules Verne’s 1886 novel Robur the Conqueror). In fact, two French army officers and engineers, Arthur Krebs and Charles Renard, had successfully flown in an electric-powered airship called La France as early as 1885, making no fewer than seven successful flights in the craft over an eleven-month period. Also during the 1896–97 period, David Schwarz built an aluminum-skinned airship in Germany that successfully flew over Tempelhof Field before being irreparably damaged during a hard landing. Both events clearly demonstrated that the technology to build a practical airship existed during the period in question, though if reports of the capabilities of the California and Midwest airship sighted in 1896–97 are true, it would have been considerably more advanced than any airship built up to that time.

Several individuals, including Lyman Gilmore and Charles Dellschau, were later identified as possible candidates for being involved in the design and construction of the airships, although little evidence was found in support of these ideas.

References

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Aversa, R., R.V. Petrescu, B. Akash, R.B. Bucinell and J.M. Corchado et al., 2017b. Kinematics and forces to a new model forging manipulator. Am. J. Applied Sci., 14: 60-80.

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Aversa, R., D. Parcesepe, R.V.V. Petrescu, F. Berto and G. Chen et al., 2017d. Process ability of bulk metallic glasses. Am. J. Applied Sci., 14: 294-301.

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Aversa, R., F.I.T. Petrescu, R.V. Petrescu and A. Apicella, 2016a. Biomimetic FEA bone modeling for customized hybrid biological prostheses development. Am. J. Applied Sci., 13: 1060-1067. DOI: 10.3844/ajassp.2016.1060.1067

Aversa, R., D. Parcesepe, R.V. Petrescu, G. Chen and F.I.T. Petrescu et al., 2016b. Glassy amorphous metal injection molded induced morphological defects. Am. J. Applied Sci., 13: 1476-1482.

Aversa, R., R.V. Petrescu, F.I.T. Petrescu and A. Apicella, 2016c. Smart-factory: Optimization and process control of composite centrifuged pipes. Am. J. Applied Sci., 13: 1330-1341.

Aversa, R., F. Tamburrino, R.V. Petrescu, F.I.T. Petrescu and M. Artur et al., 2016d. Biomechanically inspired shape memory effect machines driven by muscle like acting NiTi alloys. Am. J. Applied Sci., 13: 1264-1271.

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Aversa, R., V. Perrotta, R.V. Petrescu, C. Misiano and F.I.T. Petrescu et al., 2016g. From structural colors to super-hydrophobicity and achromatic transparent protective coatings: Ion plating plasma assisted TiO2 and SiO2 Nano-film deposition. Am. J. Eng. Applied Sci., 9: 1037-1045.

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Mirsayar, M.M., V.A. Joneidi, R.V.V. Petrescu, F.I.T. Petrescu and F. Berto, 2017 Extended MTSN criterion for fracture analysis of soda lime glass. Eng. Fracture Mechanics 178: 50-59. DOI: 10.1016/j.engfracmech.2017.04.018

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Petrescu, F.I., Petrescu, R.V., 2016b Dynamic Cinematic to a Structure 2R, GEINTEC-GESTAO INOVACAO E TECNOLOGIAS, 6(2):3143-3154.

Petrescu, F.I., Petrescu, R.V., 2014a Cam Gears Dynamics in the Classic Distribution, Independent Journal of Management & Production, 5(1):166-185.

Petrescu, F.I., Petrescu, R.V., 2014b High Efficiency Gears Synthesis by Avoid the Interferences, Independent Journal of Management & Production, 5(2):275-298.

Petrescu, F.I., Petrescu R.V., 2014c Gear Design, ENGEVISTA, 16(4):313-328.

Petrescu, F.I., Petrescu, R.V., 2014d Balancing Otto Engines, International Review of Mechanical Engineering 8(3):473-480.

Petrescu, F.I., Petrescu, R.V., 2014e Machine Equations to the Classical Distribution, International Review of Mechanical Engineering 8(2):309-316.

Petrescu, F.I., Petrescu, R.V., 2014f Forces of Internal Combustion Heat Engines, International Review on Modelling and Simulations 7(1):206-212.

Petrescu, F.I., Petrescu, R.V., 2014g Determination of the Yield of Internal Combustion Thermal Engines, International Review of Mechanical Engineering 8(1):62-67.

Petrescu, F.I., Petrescu, R.V., 2014h Cam Dynamic Synthesis, Al-Khwarizmi Engineering Journal, 10(1):1-23.

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Petrescu, F.I., Petrescu, R.V., 2011b Trenuri planetare, Create Space publisher, USA, December 2011, ISBN 978-1-4680-3041-9, 204 pages, Romanian version.

Petrescu, F.I., Petrescu, R.V., 2011c Gear Solutions, Create Space publisher, USA, November 2011, ISBN 978-1-4679-8764-6, 72 pages, English version.

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Petrescu, FIT., 2015b Machine Motion Equations at the Internal Combustion Heat Engines, American Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences, 8(1):127-137. DOI: 10.3844/ajeassp.2015.127.137

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Petrescu, F.I., 2008. Theoretical and applied contributions about the dynamic of planar mechanisms with superior joints. PhD Thesis, Bucharest Polytechnic University.

Petrescu, FIT.; Calautit, JK.; Mirsayar, M.; Marinkovic, D.; 2015 Structural Dynamics of the Distribution Mechanism with Rocking Tappet with Roll, American Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences, 8(4):589-601. DOI: 10.3844/ajeassp.2015.589.601

Petrescu, FIT.; Calautit, JK.; 2016 About Nano Fusion and Dynamic Fusion, American Journal of Applied Sciences, 13(3):261-266.

Petrescu, R.V.V., R. Aversa, A. Apicella, F. Berto and S. Li et al., 2016a. Ecosphere protection through green energy. Am. J. Applied Sci., 13: 1027-1032. DOI: 10.3844/ajassp.2016.1027.1032

Petrescu, F.I.T., A. Apicella, R.V.V. Petrescu, S.P. Kozaitis and R.B. Bucinell et al., 2016b. Environmental protection through nuclear energy. Am. J. Applied Sci., 13: 941-946.

Petrescu, F.I., Petrescu R.V., 2017 Velocities and accelerations at the 3R robots, ENGEVISTA 19(1):202-216.

Petrescu, RV., Petrescu, FIT., Aversa, R., Apicella, A., 2017 Nano Energy, Engevista, 19(2):267-292.

Petrescu, RV., Aversa, R., Apicella, A., Petrescu, FIT., 2017 ENERGIA VERDE PARA PROTEGER O MEIO AMBIENTE, Geintec, 7(1):3722-3743.

Aversa, R., Petrescu, RV., Apicella, A., Petrescu, FIT., 2017 Under Water, OnLine Journal of Biological Sciences, 17(2): 70-87.

Aversa, R., Petrescu, RV., Apicella, A., Petrescu, Fit., 2017 Nano-Diamond Hybrid Materials for Structural Biomedical Application, American Journal of Biochemistry and Biotechnology, 13(1): 34-41.

Syed, J., Dharrab, AA., Zafa, MS., Khand, E., Aversa, R., Petrescu, RV., Apicella, A., Petrescu, FIT., 2017 Influence of Curing Light Type and Staining Medium on the Discoloring Stability of Dental Restorative Composite, American Journal of Biochemistry and Biotechnology 13(1): 42-50.

Aversa, R., Petrescu, RV., Akash, B., Bucinell, R., Corchado, J., Berto, F., Mirsayar, MM., Chen, G., Li, S., Apicella, A., Petrescu, FIT., 2017 Kinematics and Forces to a New Model Forging Manipulator, American Journal of Applied Sciences 14(1):60-80.

Aversa, R., Petrescu, RV., Apicella, A., Petrescu, FIT., Calautit, JK., Mirsayar, MM., Bucinell, R., Berto, F., Akash, B., 2017 Something about the V Engines Design, American Journal of Applied Sciences 14(1):34-52.

Aversa, R., Parcesepe, D., Petrescu, RV., Berto, F., Chen, G., Petrescu, FIT., Tamburrino, F., Apicella, A., 2017 Processability of Bulk Metallic Glasses, American Journal of Applied Sciences 14(2): 294-301.

Petrescu, RV., Aversa, R., Akash, B., Bucinell, R., Corchado, J., Berto, F., Mirsayar, MM., Calautit, JK., Apicella, A., Petrescu, FIT., 2017 Yield at Thermal Engines Internal Combustion, American Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences 10(1): 243-251.

Petrescu, RV., Aversa, R., Akash, B., Bucinell, R., Corchado, J., Berto, F., Mirsayar, MM., Apicella, A., Petrescu, FIT., 2017 Velocities and Accelerations at the 3R Mechatronic Systems, American Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences 10(1): 252-263.

Berto, F., Gagani, A., Petrescu, RV., Petrescu, FIT., 2017 A Review of the Fatigue Strength of Load Carrying Shear Welded Joints, American Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences 10(1):1-12.

Petrescu, RV., Aversa, R., Akash, B., Bucinell, R., Corchado, J., Berto, F., Mirsayar, MM., Apicella, A., Petrescu, FIT., 2017 Anthropomorphic Solid Structures n-R Kinematics, American Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences 10(1): 279-291.

Aversa, R., Petrescu, RV., Akash, B., Bucinell, R., Corchado, J., Berto, F., Mirsayar, MM., Chen, G., Li, S., Apicella, A., Petrescu, FIT., 2017 Something about the Balancing of Thermal Motors, American Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences 10(1):200-217.

Petrescu, RV., Aversa, R., Akash, B., Bucinell, R., Corchado, J., Berto, F., Mirsayar, MM., Apicella, A., Petrescu, FIT., 2017 Inverse Kinematics at the Anthropomorphic Robots, by a Trigonometric Method, American Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences, 10(2): 394-411.

Petrescu, RV., Aversa, R., Akash, B., Bucinell, R., Corchado, J., Berto, F., Mirsayar, MM., Calautit, JK., Apicella, A., Petrescu, FIT., 2017 Forces at Internal Combustion Engines, American Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences, 10(2): 382-393.

Petrescu, RV., Aversa, R., Akash, B., Bucinell, R., Corchado, J., Berto, F., Mirsayar, MM., Apicella, A., Petrescu, FIT., 2017 Gears-Part I, American Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences, 10(2): 457-472.

Petrescu, RV., Aversa, R., Akash, B., Bucinell, R., Corchado, J., Berto, F., Mirsayar, MM., Apicella, A., Petrescu, FIT., 2017 Gears-Part II, American Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences, 10(2): 473-483.

Petrescu, RV., Aversa, R., Akash, B., Bucinell, R., Corchado, J., Berto, F., Mirsayar, MM., Apicella, A., Petrescu, FIT., 2017 Cam-Gears Forces, Velocities, Powers and Efficiency, American Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences, 10(2): 491-505.

Aversa, R., Petrescu, RV., Apicella, A., Petrescu, FIT., 2017 A Dynamic Model for Gears, American Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences, 10(2): 484-490.

Petrescu, RV., Aversa, R., Akash, B., Bucinell, R., Corchado, J., Berto, F., Mirsayar, MM., Kosaitis, S., Abu-Lebdeh, T., Apicella, A., Petrescu, FIT., 2017 Dynamics of Mechanisms with Cams Illustrated in the Classical Distribution, American Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences, 10(2): 551-567.

Petrescu, RV., Aversa, R., Akash, B., Bucinell, R., Corchado, J., Berto, F., Mirsayar, MM., Kosaitis, S., Abu-Lebdeh, T., Apicella, A., Petrescu, FIT., 2017 Testing by Non-Destructive Control, American Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences, 10(2): 568-583.

Petrescu, RV., Aversa, R., Li, S., Mirsayar, MM., Bucinell, R., Kosaitis, S., Abu-Lebdeh, T., Apicella, A., Petrescu, FIT., 2017 Electron Dimensions, American Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences, 10(2): 584-602.

Petrescu, RV., Aversa, R., Kozaitis, S., Apicella, A., Petrescu, FIT., 2017 Deuteron Dimensions, American Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences, 10(3).

Petrescu RV., Aversa R., Apicella A., Petrescu FIT., 2017 Transportation Engineering, American Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences, 10(3).

Petrescu RV., Aversa R., Kozaitis S., Apicella A., Petrescu FIT., 2017 Some Proposed Solutions to Achieve Nuclear Fusion, American Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences, 10(3).

Petrescu RV., Aversa R., Kozaitis S., Apicella A., Petrescu FIT., 2017 Some Basic Reactions in Nuclear Fusion, American Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences, 10(3).

Petrescu, Relly Victoria; Aversa, Raffaella; Akash, Bilal; Bucinell, Ronald; Corchado, Juan; Berto, Filippo; Mirsayar, MirMilad; Apicella, Antonio; Petrescu, Florian Ion Tiberiu; 2017a Modern Propulsions for Aerospace-A Review, Journal of Aircraft and Spacecraft Technology, 1(1).

Petrescu, Relly Victoria; Aversa, Raffaella; Akash, Bilal; Bucinell, Ronald; Corchado, Juan; Berto, Filippo; Mirsayar, MirMilad; Apicella, Antonio; Petrescu, Florian Ion Tiberiu; 2017b Modern Propulsions for Aerospace-Part II, Journal of Aircraft and Spacecraft Technology, 1(1).

Petrescu, Relly Victoria; Aversa, Raffaella; Akash, Bilal; Bucinell, Ronald; Corchado, Juan; Berto, Filippo; Mirsayar, MirMilad; Apicella, Antonio; Petrescu, Florian Ion Tiberiu; 2017c History of Aviation-A Short Review, Journal of Aircraft and Spacecraft Technology, 1(1).

Petrescu, Relly Victoria; Aversa, Raffaella; Akash, Bilal; Bucinell, Ronald; Corchado, Juan; Berto, Filippo; Mirsayar, MirMilad; Apicella, Antonio; Petrescu, Florian Ion Tiberiu; 2017d Lockheed Martin-A Short Review, Journal of Aircraft and Spacecraft Technology, 1(1).

Petrescu, Relly Victoria; Aversa, Raffaella; Akash, Bilal; Corchado, Juan; Berto, Filippo; Mirsayar, MirMilad; Apicella, Antonio; Petrescu, Florian Ion Tiberiu; 2017e Our Universe, Journal of Aircraft and Spacecraft Technology, 1(1).

Petrescu, Relly Victoria; Aversa, Raffaella; Akash, Bilal; Corchado, Juan; Berto, Filippo; Mirsayar, MirMilad; Apicella, Antonio; Petrescu, Florian Ion Tiberiu; 2017f What is a UFO?, Journal of Aircraft and Spacecraft Technology, 1(1).

Petrescu, RV., Aversa, R., Akash, B., Corchado, J., Berto, F., Mirsayar, MM., Apicella, A., Petrescu, FIT., 2017 About Bell Helicopter FCX-001 Concept Aircraft-A Short Review, Journal of Aircraft and Spacecraft Technology, 1(1).

Petrescu, RV., Aversa, R., Akash, B., Corchado, J., Berto, F., Mirsayar, MM., Apicella, A., Petrescu, FIT., 2017 Home at Airbus, Journal of Aircraft and Spacecraft Technology, 1(1).

Petrescu, RV., Aversa, R., Akash, B., Corchado, J., Berto, F., Mirsayar, MM., Kozaitis, S., Abu-Lebdeh, T., Apicella, A., Petrescu, FIT., 2017 Airlander, Journal of Aircraft and Spacecraft Technology, 1(1).

Petrescu, RV., Aversa, R., Akash, B., Corchado, J., Berto, F., Apicella, A., Petrescu, FIT., 2017 When Boeing is Dreaming – a Review, Journal of Aircraft and Spacecraft Technology, 1(1).

History of aviation, From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_aviation

History of ballooning, From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_ballooning

Airship, From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airship

High-altitude platform station, From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-altitude_platform_station

Integrated Sensor is Structure, From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_Sensor_is_Structure

Mystery airship, From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_airship

Petrescu RVV., Petrescu FIT., July 28, 2017 Seaplane, Part I, Articles Factory. Retrieved from: http://www.articlesfactory.com/articles/technology/seaplane-part-i.html

Petrescu RVV., Petrescu FIT., July 28, 2017 Seaplane, Part II, Articles Factory. Retrieved from: http://www.articlesfactory.com/articles/technology/seaplane-part-ii.html

Petrescu RVV., Petrescu FIT., July 28, 2017 Seaplane, Part III, Articles Factory. Retrieved from: http://www.articlesfactory.com/articles/technology/seaplane-part-iii.html

Petrescu RVV., Petrescu FIT., July 28, 2017 Seaplane, Part IV, Articles Factory. Retrieved from: http://www.articlesfactory.com/articles/technology/seaplane-part-iv.html

Petrescu RVV., Petrescu FIT., July 28, 2017 Seaplane, Part V, Articles Factory. Retrieved from: http://www.articlesfactory.com/articles/technology/seaplane-part-v.html

Petrescu RVV., Petrescu FIT., July 28, 2017 Aircraft Carriers, Articles Factory. Retrieved from: http://www.articlesfactory.com/articles/technology/aircraft-carriers.html

Petrescu RVV., Petrescu FIT., July 28, 2017 The Battle of MIDWAY, Articles Factory. Retrieved from: http://www.articlesfactory.com/articles/technology/the-battle-of-midway.html

Petrescu RVV., Petrescu FIT., July 24, 2017 Ships STOVL, Articles Factory. Retrieved from: http://www.articlesfactory.com/articles/technology/ships-stovl.html

Petrescu RVV., Petrescu FIT., July 24, 2017 Invisible Aircraft, Articles Factory. Retrieved from: http://www.articlesfactory.com/articles/technology/invisible-aircraft.html

Petrescu RVV., Petrescu FIT., July 24, 2017 Planes which have made History, Part I, Articles Factory. Retrieved from: http://www.articlesfactory.com/articles/technology/planes-which-have-made-history-part-i.html

Petrescu RVV., Petrescu FIT., July 24, 2017 Planes which have made History, Part II, Articles Factory. Retrieved from: http://www.articlesfactory.com/articles/technology/planes-which-have-made-history-part-ii.html

Petrescu RVV., Petrescu FIT., July 20, 2017 About Helicopters, Articles Factory. Retrieved from: http://www.articlesfactory.com/articles/technology/about-helicopters.html

Petrescu RVV., Petrescu FIT., July 20, 2017 Flight memories, Articles Factory. Retrieved from: http://www.articlesfactory.com/articles/technology/flight-memories.html

Petrescu RVV., Petrescu FIT., July 20, 2017 Special Aircraft, Articles Factory. Retrieved from: http://www.articlesfactory.com/articles/technology/special-aircraft.html

Petrescu RVV., Petrescu FIT., July 6, 2017 About the Airlander, Articles Factory. Retrieved from: http://www.articlesfactory.com/articles/technology/about-the-airlander.html

Petrescu RVV., Petrescu FIT., July 28, 2017 NACA and NASA, Part I, Articles Factory. Retrieved from: http://www.articlesfactory.com/articles/technology/naca-and-nasa-part-i.html

Petrescu RVV., Petrescu FIT., July 28, 2017 NACA and NASA, Part II, Articles Factory. Retrieved from: http://www.articlesfactory.com/articles/technology/naca-and-nasa-part-ii.html

Petrescu RVV., Petrescu FIT., July 28, 2017 NACA and NASA, Part III, Articles Factory. Retrieved from: http://www.articlesfactory.com/articles/technology/naca-and-nasa-part-iii.html

Petrescu RVV., Petrescu FIT., July 28, 2017 NACA and NASA, Part IV, Articles Factory. Retrieved from: http://www.articlesfactory.com/articles/technology/naca-and-nasa-part-iv.html

Petrescu RVV., Petrescu FIT., July 28, 2017 NACA and NASA, Part V, Articles Factory. Retrieved from: http://www.articlesfactory.com/articles/technology/naca-and-nasa-part-v.html

Petrescu RVV., Petrescu FIT., July 28, 2017 NACA and NASA, Part VI, Articles Factory. Retrieved from: http://www.articlesfactory.com/articles/technology/naca-and-nasa-part-vi.html

Petrescu RVV., Petrescu FIT., July 28, 2017 NACA and NASA, Part VII, Articles Factory. Retrieved from: http://www.articlesfactory.com/articles/technology/naca-and-nasa-part-vii.html

Petrescu RVV., Petrescu FIT., July 28, 2017 NACA and NASA, Part VIII, Articles Factory. Retrieved from: http://www.articlesfactory.com/articles/technology/naca-and-nasa-part-viii.html

Petrescu RVV., Petrescu FIT., July 28, 2017 NACA and NASA, Part IX, Articles Factory. Retrieved from: http://www.articlesfactory.com/articles/technology/naca-and-nasa-part-ix.html

Petrescu RVV., Petrescu FIT., July 28, 2017 NACA and NASA, Part X, Articles Factory. Retrieved from: http://www.articlesfactory.com/articles/technology/naca-and-nasa-part-x.html

Petrescu RVV., Petrescu FIT., July 28, 2017 NACA and NASA, Part XI, Articles Factory. Retrieved from: http://www.articlesfactory.com/articles/technology/naca-and-nasa-part-xi.html

Petrescu RVV., Petrescu FIT., July 28, 2017 NACA and NASA, Part XII, Articles Factory. Retrieved from: http://www.articlesfactory.com/articles/technology/naca-and-nasa-part-xii.html

Petrescu RVV., Petrescu FIT., July 28, 2017 Nano Energy, Articles Factory. Retrieved from: http://www.articlesfactory.com/articles/technology/nano-energy.html

Petrescu RVV., Petrescu FIT., July 28, 2017 Glassy Amorphous Metal Injection, Articles Factory. Retrieved from: http://www.articlesfactory.com/articles/technology/glassy-amorphous-metal-injection.html

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Crossing guard killed by truck in Glasgow, Scotland

Posted by: Adminin Uncategorized
22
Mar

Friday, January 15, 2010

An elderly woman who was a crossing guard or a “lollipop lady” has been killed in an accident involving a truck in Glasgow, Scotland. The woman has been identified as 59-year-old Catherine Gibson, who came from the Dennistoun district of Glasgow. At around 0850 GMT on Thursday, Gibson was assisting children in crossing a road as part of her job near St. Anne’s Primary School, located in the east side of the city. Gibson was suddenly struck by a truck and dragged underneath the wheels of the vehicle. The children being assisted witnessed the entire collision.

After the accident occurred, Gibson was transported to a hospital but died shortly afterwards. The truck driver, who is aged 64, was not injured in the crash. The vehicle itself was taken away from the scene of the accident at approximately 1200 GMT on the same day. A person working in a garage near where the accident occurred said: “There were children waiting to cross the road and they were all screaming and crying. They all ran back from where the accident had happened. She was found face down and it looked as though the lorry had driven over her shoulder. She was alive when she was found but died a short time later. It was horrific and the kids will probably need counselling.

“It could have been a case of the driver not being able to see her because the vehicle is quite high as he caught her on the passenger side. It’s not clear whether she gave him enough time to stop or whether the driver has failed to stop. It was snowing as well so that could have been a factor.”

Louise Jarvie is the head teacher of St. Anne’s Primary School. “Our thoughts and condolences are with the family at this very sad time,” she said in reference to the incident. “Support and counselling for pupils and staff will be available to anyone who needs it.”

Retrieved from “https://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=Crossing_guard_killed_by_truck_in_Glasgow,_Scotland&oldid=1566286”

Michael Moore’s new film ‘Sicko’ leaked via P2P

Posted by: Adminin Uncategorized
21
Mar

Thursday, June 14, 2007

Publicity poster for the movie

A number of reports confirm that Michael Moore’s forthcoming documentary has been leaked onto Peer-to-peer networks. This is the second pre-release leak in a month of a film from Lionsgate Studios.

The movie, SiCKO contrasts the U.S. healthcare system with that of several other countries and includes a trip to Cuba for which Moore is being investigated. The investigation by the Office of Foreign Assets Control within the United States Department of the Treasury is looking into whether Moore has violated United States embargo against Cuba, which has been in effect since 1962 and codified in 1992.

Moore has, according to agency reports, stored a copy of the original film in Canada as a result of the Federal investigation by the Treasury department. His concern is that an attempt may be made to confiscate the section of the film shot in Cuba.

According to Associated Press, David Boies, attorney for Michael Moore, believes the targeting of Moore for his unauthorised trip to Cuba may be the result of the criticism of the current administration in such films as Fahrenheit 9/11.

Tuesday Moore was seen at two pre-release screenings of the movie in Sacramento, California. His audiences were a group of politicians and a number of nurses, each attending their own screening.

The movie opens with a cold statistic that approximately 45 million Americans are without healthcare insurance. It continues by giving examples of people with healthcare insurance who have been denied all or part of their treatment for technical reasons. As well as getting thousands of responses from people who had problems with their insurance he received information from people working inside Health maintenance organizations and ex-employees who claim the system is set up to provide the minimum care and the maximum profit to the company.

The segment of the film that triggered the Federal investigation is his trip to Cuba with a number of people who relate their experiences with healthcare. Among these are several volunteer workers who worked at ground zero following the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center. These people claim to have been refused aid from the fund set up for 9/11 workers and were thus unable to afford their required treatment. After an attempt to obtain treatment at Guantanamo Bay detention facility – which Moore described as the only place on U.S. soil where there is “socialised medicine” – they seek out a hospital in Havana. All are checked and treated free of charge. One woman discovers that an inhaler for her respiratory problems costs approximately five cents in Cuba compared to 120 dollars in the U.S.

Health insurance companies, speaking through their trade group America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), are critical of the film, which calls for healthcare similar to that of Canada, France, or the UK. “We need a uniquely American solution in which the public and private sectors work together to make sure that everyone has high-quality, affordable healthcare,” said Karen Ignagni, president of AHIP, on Wednesday.

The film is scheduled for wide release in the U.S. and Canada on June 29, 2007.

Retrieved from “https://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=Michael_Moore%27s_new_film_%27Sicko%27_leaked_via_P2P&oldid=922028”

46 illegal Afghan immigrants suffocate in truck in Pakistan

Posted by: Adminin Uncategorized
16
Mar

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

 Correction — Nov 1, 2013 The article below claims each passenger paid 4000 to 8000 USD. Each paid 30,000 Rupees, equivilent at the time to about US$375. 
Map of Quetta, Pakistan near the Afghanistan border.

The bodies of 46 Afghan illegal immigrants who suffocated to death in a container truck Saturday near Quetta, Pakistan, returned home Tuesday.

The Edhi Foundation placed the victim’s bodies into coffins to transport them back to Chaman. Funeral prayers were said before victims left Quetta hospital. “We are taking these dead bodies to Spin Boldak and later these will be flown to Kabul by helicopter. We are thankful to Pakistan government for every help,” said Afghan consul general Daud Mohsini.

Afghan officials received the bodies from The Edhi ambulances and Pakistan police escorts at the Pak-Afghan border Bab-e-Dosti (Friendship Gate). Security was high and traffic was backed up at the border crossing. The bodies were taken to Kandahar then to Kabul before they were laid to rest in their home towns.

Hamid Karzai, President of Afghanistan dispatched aircraft to Pakistan to bring home the 46 victims. Poor weather grounded the planes, and the bodies were driven back across the border.

Pakistan police found a locked truck packed with approximately 111 Afghan illegal immigrants around 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of Quetta on Saturday. The driver had fled the scene where 62 people were initially pronounced dead. Police said that from the strong smell emanating from the truck, the victims may have died days before they were discovered.

45 other people were found unconscious and taken directly to the hospital. At hospital two more migrants died. “The death toll is 46,” said Ghulam Dastagir, a police official.

Hamid Karzai, President of Afghanistan.

Wazir Khan Nasir, a senior police official said, “We have been able to talk to some of the people, who were trapped in the container. They were all Afghans in the container and the container was going to Iran, When the condition of people inside the container deteriorated, the driver fled, leaving the container.”

Survivors have reported that a human smuggling racket locked 64 Kabul residents and 37 Spin Boldak residents in the truck container Friday afternoon. The truck’s air conditioning unit stopped working causing the locked passengers to cry out for help which was unheeded by the truck’s driver, and they fell unconscious. However, the loud ruckus caused by the trapped people inside did alert police and local residents to their plight.

The trip had cost each illegal immigrant US$4,000 to 8,000 for the trip. Gul Zameen, a survivor said, “We are all poor and wanted to find jobs in Quetta and Iran.”

The survivors have been charged under the Foreigners Act and some have been detained. Karzai has ordered an investigation and “demanded people avoid dangerous illegal migration and not be deceived by smugglers.” “We’ll go to Pakistan and talk to the survivors to find out what had exactly happened. The culprits will be brought to justice,” said Moheeddin Baluch head of the investigating delegation.

Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) is also investigating. Five suspects believed to be involved in running the human smuggling racket have been arrested.

Retrieved from “https://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=46_illegal_Afghan_immigrants_suffocate_in_truck_in_Pakistan&oldid=4634837”