Author: Serkadis

An elementary school librarian and a UIC lecturer were charged after a raid Friday night uncovered an elaborate marijuana growing operation with an estimated street value of $234,000 in home on Chicago’s South Side.

Heidi Keller, 47, and Adrian Ortiz, 45, are accused of running a drug operation based in Chicago’s South Deering neighborhood. Keller and Ortiz were arrested at the Bridgeport home where they live.

Cook County sheriff’s police officers spent three months investigating the couple, who purchased a home at 10003 S. Exchange Ave. in October. They said it was an investment property, but police found no evidence it was being used for anything other than a marijuana-growing operation.

When officers entered the front door to the single-family home, they were greeted by the smell of marijuana. In the basement, they found eight irrigation tables with 186 marijuana plants, the sheriff’s office said.

A lighting system with high-wattage lamps were set to a timer, ensuring each of the plants was exposed to a sufficient amount of lighting. High-flowing water pumps were also set up to irrigate the plants.

Keller told investigators she is a librarian at Haines Elementary, 247 W. 23rd Place in Chicago. Ortiz identified himself as a lecturer in English at the University of Illinois at Chicago, the sheriff’s office said.

Bail for Keller was set at $20,000 Monday and bail for Ortiz was set at $30,000.

Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services

Two Glenwood men have been charged with allegedly operating a “mobile meth lab” out of their rental home and a minivan.

Kevin Halter, 51, was arrested while driving the minivan from his home Friday night.

His roommate, George Wagner 56, was arrested later that night at their home, where more drugs and lab equipment were seized, according to a Cook County sheriff’s office release.

Bail was set at $75,000 for Halter on Sunday, while bail for Wagner was set at $50,000, the release said. Both men remained at the Cook County Jail on Monday.

County officers and federal agents spent the weekend going through their rental home in the 0-100 block of East Main Street before turning it over to the owners who were notified it must be decontaminated before it can be rented out again.

Methamphetamine is made with a mixture of household chemicals and over-the-counter drugs, the release said. It is considered to be highly addictive and can be extremely volatile when mixed.

Halter was pulled over about a block from his home. (more…)

As we ponder the future shape of the US yield curve — a curve that allows banks to mint free money by borrowing short and lending to the government — we present you with this fascinating chart out of Greece courtesy of Morgan Stanley.

As you can see, Greek banks devoured bonds as the Greek 10Y/3M yield curve steepened.

Of course, if Greece goes bust, all of these long-dated bond purchases will prove to have been poisonous.

Just something for our banks to consider.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• If You Thought The Yield Curve Was Steep Now, Then You Haven’t Seen Anything Yet
• Forget Europe And China, All Eyes Are Turning To Crumbling Treasuries
• The One Chart That Scares Richard Russell And Screams Higher Interest Rates

Sharon Callais didn’t like to draw attention to herself.

Whether it was as a teacher in Lisle Unit District 202 or as a longtime Lisle Public Library board member, those mourning her death this week say she was a modest and quiet woman with great intelligence and a dry wit.

Callais, 63, died Feb. 18 at her Lisle home. She is survived by her husband, Charles, and two daughters.

Funeral services were held over the weekend.

“Sharon was really amazing,” said Rhonda Snelson, public relations and programming director at Lisle Public Library where Callais was a board member since 1990. “She was on the board almost 20 years. She was so modest and self-effacing we hardly noticed her. She was so intelligent, positive and good-humored. (It’s) a loss we probably haven’t realized the magnitude of — a terrible loss to the library — and to the community.”

Callais was born in Chicago, grew up in the city and taught for a time in Chicago Public Schools. She moved with her husband to Lisle in 1972 where she was a member of St. Margaret Mary Catholic Church in Naperville.

She was appointed to the Lisle Library Board in August of 1990 and elected for the first time in April 1991. She’s been serving on the board ever since.

“She was an outstanding board member,” library Director Bill Strecker said Monday. Callais was quiet, he said, but not afraid to make her opinions known. And like many her knew her, he was aware of her very dry wit.

“Sometimes it took a second or two before you realized she was kidding,” he said.

Callais also taught at several levels in Lisle Unit District 202, most recently teaching computers skills to first- and second-graders at Tate Woods School and to third- through fifth-graders at Schiesher School.

Judy Bauman, LRC director at Tate Woods, said Callais worked at the school for three years and clearly enjoyed spending time with the children.

“She would be very quiet and then say something dry that was so funny,” she said.

Bauman said her last conversation with Callais involved an assignment she wasn’t sure Callais would have time to tackle.

Callais would hear none of it.

“‘No,’” she told Bauman, “is not in my vocabulary.”

• Daily Herald correspondent Joan Broz contributed to this report.

Read the original article on DailyHerald.com.

Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services

An Oak Brook man was sentenced today to 4.5 years in prison for an investment scam that bilked those who trusted him out of $89,000.

Dion H. Welton, 47, received the punishment after pleading guilty Jan. 21 to theft and forgery charges.

Welton admitted being behind a scheme in which he persuaded six investors to buy stock in a defunct company he once owned that state licensing officials had dissolved for prior violations.

Prosecutor Diane Michalak said Welton used the would-be investors’ money for his own personal expenses without investing a dime.

“These are people he knew in some way, shape or form who trusted him,” Michalak said. “He was dating one of the victims, who had custody of her son. She was a single parent when he bilked her of $42,000. She indicated she was financially devastated and lost her home, car and savings as a result.”

Welton faced a possible term of probation or up to seven years in prison. He is eligible for parole after serving half the prison term.

DuPage Circuit Judge Daniel Guerin also ordered Welton begin to pay $89,000 in restitution upon his release.

Welton has prior convictions for deceptive practices in 1993 and 1995, the later of which involved a $30,000 scam.

Read the original article on DailyHerald.com.

Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services

In making a couple of court appearances today in Chicago, Robert Maday gave up any opportunity to attempt another escape – during status hearings, anyway.

Maday, the convicted bank robber who made headlines in September with a 26-hour escape and crime spree across the Northwest suburbs, had appearances in U.S. District Court for status hearings in his 2008 bank robberies and the violation of parole in committing those crimes. Both were continued 60 days until April 20.

Maday appeared in an orange jumpsuit guarded by three U.S. marshals and shackled at the wrists and ankles. He is jailed at the federal Metropolitan Correctional Center about three blocks from the courtroom in the Dirksen Federal Building.

His attorney, Anthony Sassan, asked that Maday be allowed to waive his right to appear at the next hearings, saying, “He’d prefer not to be brought over here for every status hearing.”

The request was granted, and Maday will not have to make the manacled trip to the Dirksen Building in April.

Read the original article on DailyHerald.com.

Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services

Filed under: Government/Legal, Recalls, Safety, Toyota

While the real cause of the Toyota unintended acceleration issues are still under investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), one news outlet is reporting that they know what’s behind it. ABC News tracked down one David Gilbert, an automotive technology professor at Southern Illinois University, who says he knows exactly what it is. According to Gilbert, it’s an electronic design flaw in Toyota’s ‘Fail Safe’ system.

Gilbert says the flaw “prevents the car’s onboard computer from detecting and stopping certain short circuits that can trigger sudden speed surges.” ABC News adds, “he can recreate a short circuit in the electronic throttles of Toyotas that can create a surge of acceleration but can’t be detected by Toyota’s electronic sensors.”

Because the computers won’t record an error code in this situation, Gilbert told ABC, “they can’t activate the ‘fail safe’ system designed to shut down the power and put the car in the ‘limp home’ mode.”

John Hanson, a Toyota executive, answered reporters today by saying an electronic cause of the sudden acceleration issues was “extremely unlikely” and that “no actual evidence has been produced” to the contrary.

This report has led safety advocate Sean Kane, of Safety Research & Strategies, to bolster his claims that the electronics are the real culprit. Kane is set to testify before the House Commerce Committee on the Toyota issue on Tuesday. “The system is fallible, in fact, it’s got some really troubling design strategies that are employed by Toyota that appear to be outside the norm. And their system clearly has design strategy that has a very slim margin of safety.”

And it looks like the House might agree with them. The New York Times is now reporting that leading Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee said Monday that they were disturbed by the fact that, “Toyota had dismissed the notion that computer issues could be at fault for sticking accelerator pedals, relied on a flawed study to draw that conclusion and then made misleading statements on the repairs it said would fix the problem.” We’ll get you the results of the hearings as they come in tomorrow. Thanks to everyone for the tips!

[Sources: ABC News, New York Times | Image: ABC News]

ABC News: Expert says electronic design flaw to blame in runaway Toyota models originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 22 Feb 2010 17:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Acura’s stride to become a Tier 1 luxury brand came to a halt when the brand decided to cancel its rear-wheel-drive platform and V8 dreams last year. The brand’s executives have now told dealers that they have a new plan, which will rely heavily on hybrids – a plan they believe will help them move upmarket.

Last month, an anonymous Acura dealer confirmed that a hybrid version of the TSX is planned for 2011 and that two other hybrid models are to follow.

Click here to get prices on the 2010 Acura TSX.

Until hybrids arrive, which could take a year or longer, Acura is providing dealers with incentives and has increased marketing funds.

Honda’s luxury brand is also planning a small car below the TSX (most likely a successor to the RSX) to compete with the likes of the BMW 1-Series, Audi A3 and the Volvo C30. The vehicle is also expected to help decrease the brand’s average fuel-economy levels to meet CAFE regulations. Acura must reach 37.5 mpg by 2016 to avoid paying fines.

– By: Omar Rana

Source: Automotive News (Subscription Required)

It’s no secret that tons of people are pretty damn upset with NBC’s decisions to tape delay pretty much everything at the Olympics, in an era when everyone is used to real-time info. On top of that, most people recognize that it’s not hard to simply go online to unauthorized sources to watch streams of the Olympics live. GigaOm’s NewTeeVee put up a post over the weekend that explains how to view such unauthorized streams, and the site even titled the post: “Pirating the 2010 Winter Olympics.” Given that this is all rather obvious, it shouldn’t be a problem, right?

But, thanks to some screwed up court decisions that have forced secondary liability into copyright law, using an “inducement” standard, it’s not hard to see how NBC could make a case against GigaOm for “inducing infringement,” and therefore being liable for copyright infringement, potentially leading to a complete shutdown. Now, I hope that NBC Universal is smart enough not to take on this sort of fight, because it would backfire massively — but, then again, we’re talking about a company whose chief lawyer, Rick Cotton, is proud of how difficult NBC makes it to watch the Olympics, and believes that stomping out “piracy” is the key to saving the American farm.

So would NBC have a case? Well, compare what’s written in the NewTeeVee article — which (even with some disclaimers) explains exactly how to get unauthorized Olympics streams with the decision against Gary Fung in the IsoHunt case. In that case, the judge found inducement by Fung for statements that seemed a lot more innocuous than anything in the NTV article.

Now, GigaOm might have a fair use defense, in claiming that it’s reporting, but a judge might challenge that, given the nature of the post itself — and, certainly, we’ve been told over and over again by copyright holders (incorrecly, but… you know…) that fair use is not a right, just a defense.

Obviously, I think that GigaOm should be free to explain to people how unauthorized access to the Olympics works — and I’m hoping that NBC Universal isn’t so myopic as to go after the site for this post — but in a world where secondary liability on third parties is “the law,” posting anything like what NewTeeVee posted suddenly becomes a potential liability. This is yet another reason why we should be quite concerned with ACTA’s intent to lock in this kind of problematic secondary liability on third parties.

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Huntsman has won a joint Materialica finalist certificate with the Holst Centre in the surface and technology category for a new material using Araldite® Highly Flexible Composite, HFC, and the integration of an Organic Light Emitting Device, OLED, which opens up an enormous range of new generation lighting and signage design opportunities.

OLEDs are paper-thin, flexible and lightweight devices consuming up to 70% less energy compared to conventional light sources and making these the prime candidate for the next generation of lighting.

However, there has been one critical step to overcome: OLEDs are sensitive to moisture and even to oxygen and have to be protected from these in order to maintain a long lifetime. Therefore the success of OLEDs as a mass market product for general lighting and display hinges on the device encapsulation technology.

Huntsman is at the forefront of OLED encapsulation development. It is a member of the “Fast2Light consortium”, sponsored by the 7th framework programme of the EU. This consortium develops large area deposition processes for fabricating cost effective, roll-to-roll light emitting polymer OLED foils. In this collaboration, Huntsman is developing a new OLED barrier material that will significantly prolong the lifetime of OLEDs .

By integrating OLEDs into composite parts and combining the advantages of flexible, durable composites with the properties of thin, flexible, large surface OLEDs, new possibilities for designers and engineers are created and will be implemented in commercial products soon. Composites from now on can have additional functions.

Corporate logos, brand names or warning signs can be displayed; for example on the spoiler of a sports car or motorbike. Interior designers can add light sources onto flat carbon surfaces; for example on furniture; aerospace or on car interiors. And for the creative sports designer, he can add safety features as well as fashion light sources to items such as skis, snowboards and yachts.

When one considers the functionality, ergonomics and safety benefits of the combination of the two new technologies – Araldite® HFC and Flexible Light Emitting Foil – the list of possible applications is endless.

The Delta Mec 75 and Delta Mec 80 containers are specifically functional for foodstuff storage and transport. They are injection molded in non-toxic material for food. The walls and the base are perforated, the handles are open, and the structure, with vertical walls, maximizes the internal volume. Stackable 4 to 4 on a pallet 1000×1200 mm, they are particularly used in automated systems for storage and transport in cold cuts and cheese factories, and generally in the food sector.

Hochiki America Corporation is pleased to announce the addition of the “Denver” door enclosure cover option to the model FireNET “FN-4127” product line.

This alternate build of the FireNET™ 4127 control panel is equipped with a Plexiglass window to meet the requirements of major cities including the City of Denver. Access level 2 is enabled as soon as the outer door of the enclosure is opened (CAT 30 Key).

For additional information on this or any other product, please contact the customer service department at 714-522-2246 or visit us on the web at www.hochiki.com

Universal was yesterday: Specialization benefits the customer

GEA PHE Systems has revamped its copper brazed range of plate heat exchangers and is now pursuing a clear segmentation strategy for its product lines. This is being initiated with the GBH range, designed for pressures of up to 45 bars at 150 °C and intended specifically for use in high-performance refrigeration engineering. In addition to the top model GEA PHE Systems is now augmenting the successful GB Series with two further model ranges: The GBS range as standard version (for applications of up to 30 bars at +/-200 °C) and the economy model GBE (up to 16 bars) for heating engineering applications. This means that GEA PHE Systems can now offer the largest range of brazed plate heat exchanger models in the world.

At the same time the number of finely staged design sizes was considerably expanded to 32 variants. As technological market leader GEA PHE Systems offers the largest product range of PHEs for just about every application on an international basis.

The new plate heat exchangers (PHEs) are certified to PED (CE) and feature improved circuit design to increase the scope of possible applications. The heat exchanger segmentation by GEA PHE Systems implements the demands of its customers placed on the various PHE model ranges. This targeted optimisation results in a noticeable reduction in costs.

The new GBH series is available in eleven, and the GBS series in 21 design sizes, with a maximum flow rate of 160 m3/h with the top-of-the-range model GBS 1000. The GBE economy range can be supplied in four design sizes. The number of plates varies between 50 and 360 depending on the model. Optimised plate embossing means that heat transfer efficiency has been increased even further. Special steel grade AISI 316/1.4401 is used in the manufacture of the plates.

As in all larger brazed PHEs from GEA PHE Systems the new GB models are also fitted with the patented Safety Chamber™. This absorbs any overloading caused by fluctuations in pressure and temperature exerted on the first brazing points in the nozzle area, thus preventing any internal leakage. When PHEs are used as evaporators GEA PHE Systems’ own Full-Flow-System™ guarantees an optimum continuous flow around the nozzles to prevent any freezing of the flow channels. This guarantees operational reliability in your processes.

The technical specifications together with the high pressure and temperature limits allow the GBE, GBS and GBH Series to be used for a wide range of applications in refrigeration plants, in heat pumps in process cooling, and in domestic and solar engineering.

The Thermobond II manual heat sealer from Porvair Sciences Ltd. has been designed to seal polypropylene collection plates, PCR plates, microplates and deep well blocks with a specially prepared pierceable film or foil. Sealing plates prevents sample evaporation and leakage during storage and transportation.

The Thermobond II applies heat through the surface of the film, creating a fine ‘melt’ of the coating to the plate being sealed. No adhesives are used. High sample integrity is maintained as no heat is transferred to the sample during sealing. After sealing, the plate seal can be pierced and the liquid easily pipetted out.

The Thermobond II incorporates an ergonomically designed reciprocating handle to minimise repetitive strain injury (RSI) risk while creating a reproducible, high integrity seal every time. The plane parallel action of the reciprocating handle ensures even sealing across the plate preventing sample evaporation or leakage during storage and transportation. A digital timer and temperature display further enhance the ease of reproducibly sealing microplates. The Thermobond II combines ruggedness and ease of use with a smart industrial design.

Established in 1992, Porvair Sciences Ltd. expertise in microplate technology and manufacturing covers scientific fields including Life Sciences, Drug Discovery, Combinatorial Chemistry, Solid Phase Extraction, Protein Purification, High Throughput Screening, Proteomics and Genomics. Porvair Sciences Ltd. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Porvair plc.

For further information on the Thermobond II manual heat sealer please contact Porvair Sciences Ltd. on telephone +44-1372-824290 or email [email protected].

RITMO S.P.A. presents “BASIC 250”, the new butt welding machine for pipes and joints in HDPE, PP, PB, PVDF.

The “BASIC 250” is distinguished by the excellent quality – price ratio, while maintaining reliability, precision and ease of use, along with RITMO’s standards. With the “BASIC 250”, RITMO makes its machines and work philosophy available to everyone!

“BASIC 250” is able to weld fittings such as elbows, tees, Y-branches and flange necks without any additional equipment by simply fixing the clamps’ drag bar.

“BASIC 250” includes:
• Machine Body with 4 clamps and 2 hydraulic cylinders with fast non-drip couplings;
• SMARTLock inserts
• Extractable Heating plate with DIGITAL DRAGON, high – precision electronic thermo-regulator;
• Extractable milling cutter, with safety micro-switch;
• Electro-hydraulic gearcase, with a clamp opening and closing lever;
• Hydraulic hoses with non – drip quick couplings.

Standard set includes adapters, from Ø 75 to 225 mm.
Available on request: tool for flange necks.

Working range – 75 ÷ 250 mm
Power supply – 230 VAC 50/60 Hz
Total absorbed power – 3500 W
Working temperature – 180 ÷ 280°C
Weight only body machines – 54 Kg

Ritmo S.p.A.
Via A. Volta, 7 35037 Bresseo di Teolo (PD) ITALY
Ph. + 39 049 9901888 Fax: +39 049 9901993 www.ritmo.it – [email protected]

The AC600 Series of Ductless Chemical Workstations are designed to provide a low-cost solution for operator protection from toxic vapors, gases, fumes and particulate.

View AirClean® Systems products and talk with our qualified technical sales specialists at :

* Pittcon 2010
Feb 28 – Mar 5
Orlando, FL
www.pittcon.org