SHANGHAI, Jan. 29, 2013 /PRNewswire/ — The China Clean Expo (CCE) 2013, organised by Shanghai UBM Sinoexpo International Exhibition Co. Ltd., will be held on 1-3 April 2013 at the Shanghai World Expo Exhibition this year. The exhibition provides an excellent platform for Indoor Environment Quality (IEQ) product manufacturers and dealers to showcase their latest air purification products and technologies. Dozens of well-known domestic air purification companies like Shanghai Rongyuan Environmental Tech, Guangzhou Health Way, and more will be attending this annual event.

The developments in urbanisation and industrialisation have worsened air quality in China and across the world. Environmental protection is certainly essential, and it is a long term battle. How to maintain the best air quality possible has become one of people’s greatest concerns. Air purifiers can maximise air filtration and purification including PM2.5, respirable particulate matter, toxic gases, odours and other hazardous substances, and thus rapidly enhance indoor air quality for our physical and mental health. Hence, air purifiers are in high demand in the marketplace.

Air pollution has afflicted China for a long time, and unfortunately traffic has been crippled on expressways and at airports, while hundreds of flights have been cancelled due to thick fog and smog. The cause of the thick fog and smog in Beijing and other major cities in China is the pollution from industrial coal and automobile emissions. During this “smog” period, air purifier sales in North China have jumped more than tenfold. Many well-known air purifier manufacturers took this opportunity to introduce their latest plasma air purifiers to the market and achieved strong sales. The heavy air pollution in China has prompted the boom in indoor environment purification products and China‘s IEQ industry.

The introduction and development of air purifiers in China started relatively late, and there are a number of problems in this burgeoning industry. In an attempt to help the IEQ industry’s development, the CCE organiser is creating a series of onsite activities related to this topic in conjunction with the Shanghai Indoor Contamination Control Industry Association. These include the “2013 Fourth Shanghai International Indoor Environmental Purification Technology Forum,” which will introduce the latest treatment methods for improving indoor air, the first “Air Purifier Design Competition,” free PM2.5 testing and more to let the visitors know more about indoor environmental purification technology, as well as air purifiers, their importance and necessity.

The exhibition visitor online pre-registration system is now open. Pre-registration visitors can enjoy VIP Prestige quick access to the exhibition, as well as make purchases using the exhibitor special offers and more, plus a chance to win free accommodation in Shanghai.

For more information about the show, please visit www.chinacleanexpo.com.

About China Clean Expo

The China Clean Expo (CCE), launched in 2002, is the most professional cleaning exhibition in China and one of the biggest of its kind in Asia, showcasing the latest products and most innovative technologies in the industry. In addition to the participation of the world’s premium brands, the CCE also features a series of on-site activities including the CCE Awards, conferences and demonstrations, while gathering together the elite from the international cleaning community and forging the perfect platform to help facilitate world class trading, networking and educational opportunities in one of the world’s fastest growing cleaning industry markets.

Resource:

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/thick-fog-and-smog-have-settled-over-north-china-presenting-an-opportunity-for-developing-the-ieq-industry-188799951.html

FIRST, the bad news: Dubrovnik is no longer anyone’s best-kept secret. Some 17 years after the end of Croatia’s war of independence, the city’s medieval walled Old Town is gridlocked with tourists during the summer. Yet go in the fall and you’ll quickly see what the fuss is about. Jutting out on a peninsular chunk of the Dalmatian coastline, the former Republic of Ragusa is a Venetian Gothic marvel. Columned porticoes and loggias rim marble-paved Renaissance squares buffed to a sheen by centuries of foot traffic. Yes, many businesses unabashedly cater to cruise ship passengers and other mainstream tourists, but there are plenty of creative local standouts.

A powerful committee of the UC system’s faculty senate recently voted to suspend its review of the Anderson School of Management’s plan and raised questions about the proposal’s budget, its effect on educational quality and affordability for students, and possible undue influence by donors. The panel also said that current UC rules for starting self-supporting programs would not allow such a change for a pre-existing, full-time master’s degree in business administration.

UC officials said it was unclear what the next step would be. Some said UC President Mark G. Yudof could in theory still approve the funding change but that he was unlikely to do so without faculty support.

UCLA leaders have said the proposed change is the best way for the program to thrive in an era of state budget cuts and would allow it to become more innovative. But critics described it as a move toward privatization of public higher education.

Those divisions were evident in June when UCLA’s faculty senate leadership voted 53 to 46, with three abstentions, in favor of the change.

In a letter last week, the systemwide Coordinating Committee on Graduate Affairs said it voted 10 to 0, with the UCLA representative abstaining, to stop considering the plan and urged UC officials to come up with new rules on how existing programs that receive state funds might become self-supporting.

“Ad hoc consideration of individual conversion proposals does not serve the interests of the university or the people of California,” said the letter written by committee chairwoman Rachael Goodhue, a UC Davis professor.

Current criteria call for, among other things, self-supporting programs to serve nontraditional students, such as those attending part time. But the 720 students in the full-time Anderson MBA program “have exactly the sort of age and experience that is normal and traditional,” said the committee’s letter to Anderson Dean Judy Olian.

Allison Holmes, an Anderson school spokeswoman and assistant dean, said Tuesday that the school was looking at the implications of the committee ruling and that it was too soon for a response. Steve Montiel, a UC system spokesman, said Yudof also needed time to study the committee’s decision and to consult with other UC officials before deciding what to do.

Original: http://www.latimes.com

The study by a Rand Corp. economist found that more than 190,000 students nationwide had left a private school for a charter by the end of the 2008 school year, the most recent year for which data was available.

And charter schools have exploded in number since that time. The Los Angeles Unified School District has more charters, 193, than any system in the country.

FOR THE RECORD:
Charter schools: An Aug. 28 article in the LATExtra section about a study of the effects of charter schools on public and private school enrollment referred to Richard Buddin as a Rand Corp. economist. While the study identified him as such, Buddin’s affiliation with Rand ended Jan. 31 and Rand had no role in Buddin’s study. The article also said there are 193 charter schools within the Los Angeles Unified School District. There are 186.

This student migration is especially apparent in large urban areas, where charters are drawing 32% of their elementary grade enrollment from private schools, study author Richard Buddin said. The percentage for middle schools is 23%, and 15% for high schools

Charters are free, independently managed public schools that are exempt from some rules governing traditional schools. Most are not unionized.

About 10% of students nationwide attend private schools — a number that is dropping.

Between 2000 and 2010, for example, the number of students enrolled in Catholic schools declined by 20%, according to church educators. In the final five years covered by Buddin’s study, which looked at data from 2000 through June 2008, more than one-fourth of the students who left Catholic schools enrolled in nearby charters.

The transfer of students from private schools to charters has increased public-funding obligations by $1.8 billion, said analyst Adam B. Schaeffer of the libertarian Cato Institute’s Center for Educational Freedom. Cato paid for the study.

“On average, charter schools may marginally improve the public education system. But in the process they are wreaking havoc on private education …driving some schools entirely out of business,” Schaeffer said.

“For too long, charters have been seen as all positive,” he added. “This reports highlights that there are trade-offs.”

Buddin, who is not affiliated with Cato, was circumspect in interpreting the numbers. He noted, for example, that an influx of politically sophisticated private school families might generate support for increased public school funding.

The study’s findings were no surprise to L.A. Unified school board member Steve Zimmer.

“Parents of means have always had choice when it comes to schools,” he said. “The difference is that with the charter movement, they don’t have to pay for it.”

Most charter students in fact come from traditional public schools. One consequence of that, Zimmer said, has been teacher layoffs within the district. It also has meant less money coming into L.A. Unified, leaving the district with fewer resources to serve its most needy students.

But charter advocates countered that the growth of those organizations was a testament to their academic success and popularity with families, and that the movement should be nurtured and emulated.

“We think we are bolstering the public school system by creating new options within it and showing that it can be reinvented in ways to better serve parents and communities,” said Jed Wallace, chief executive of the California Charter Schools Assn.

Origin: http://www.latimes.com

Senate’s costly bottle bill amendment will raise the cost of groceries, threaten thousands of jobs and hit Massachusetts families for $22 million with hidden tax

BOSTON, July 25, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Real Recycling for Massachusetts – an organization of citizens, businesses, trade organizations and unions – today warned Bay State consumers about a hidden tax that was attached to legislation designed to generate economic development and job creation.

Last week, the Massachusetts Senate voted to slip in the hidden tax – an expansion of the bottle bill that will add five cents to a variety of beverages such as iced tea, water, sports drinks and juices – to their version of the ‘jobs bill’ slated to pass by the end of this legislative session.  The move comes just a little over a month after the Senate voted to reject the same proposal.  Last month the Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy also rejected bottle bill expansion, which is projected to have virtually no positive impact on recycling rates.

“It’s unbelievable that with so many Massachusetts families still struggling to make ends meet, the Senate would tack on a job-killing amendment that is nothing more than another tax,” said Chris Flynn, President of the Massachusetts Food Association and a member of Real Recycling for Massachusetts.  “Nothing has changed in a month.  Bottle bill expansion is not only bad for consumers and businesses, but it is bad for jobs and has absolutely no place in a bill aimed at creating them.” 

The proceeds from bottle bill expansion – which is estimated to cost Massachusetts families $22 million a year in bottle deposits – is not slated for recycling efforts, but instead will go directly to the state’s general fund.  In addition, it will raise the price of groceries by as much as $116 million a year, while costing retailers, grocers and beverage companies an estimated $58 million annually in additional operating costs.  It will also negatively impact 3,700 high quality beverage industry jobs throughout the Commonwealth.

“A new tax that will raise the cost of groceries and put thousands of jobs at risk is the last thing Massachusetts needs, and that it would be included in a bill aimed at helping families that are struggling to make ends meet is truly puzzling,” said Flynn. “In addition to burdening taxpayers and businesses, bottle bill expansion would have virtually no positive impact on the environment.  Massachusetts needs to increase recycling, but the only thing significantly increased by bottle bill expansion is the amount that Massachusetts families are being taxed.”

The existing bottle bill charges an extra five cents for beer and soda products and was passed 30 years ago before Massachusetts adopted widespread curbside and other recycling programs.  The expanded bottle bill continues to focus on a narrow portion of the waste stream, and it is estimated to increase the state’s recycling rate by only 0.12 percent.

As an alternative to the bottle bill, Real Recycling for Massachusetts advocates for expanded recycling through measures that are more effective and less burdensome, including expanding curbside pickup, making it easier to recycle on-the-go, making recycling accessible in more public places such as parks and arenas, and supporting comprehensive litter prevention programs. 

Last month, the Massachusetts Beverage Association and the Massachusetts Food Association announced the Massachusetts Recycling Challenge, a comprehensive two-year initiative aimed at increasing recycling in communities throughout the Commonwealth. This program is designed to enhance residential recycling programs, while also increasing the presence of ‘on-the-go’ receptacles to encourage recycling in public places.

“Our industry is committed to playing a leading role in increasing recycling, and we believe that initiatives like these can make a positive and sustained impact in the Commonwealth,” said Flynn.  “The consensus is clear: when voters have the full information about the bottle bill, more than 60 percent are against its expansion.  We believe strongly that the right path forward includes comprehensive programs that target the entire waste stream, not counting bottles and cans at the expense of hardworking Massachusetts residents.”

Real Recycling for Massachusetts is a growing coalition of concerned citizens, businesses, and organizations, including the Massachusetts Food Association, Massachusetts Beverage Association, Retailers Association of Massachusetts, Poland Spring Bottling Company, Polar Beverages, Shaw’s, Stop and Shop, Kappy’s Liquors, Tedeschi Food Shops, Inc., Massachusetts Package Stores Association, the New England Convenience Store Association, National Federation of Independent Business, the International Bottled Water Association, and unions including Local 513 RWDSU/UFCW – representing drivers and plant workers – and Local 1271 IAW/AW – representing beverage container machinists.

Originally written and published: http://www.prnewswire.com

Three flights operated by European low-cost carrier Ryanair declared fuel-related “mayday” emergencies before safely landing on the same day last month, the Sunday Independent of Ireland reports.

All three flights were approaching Spain’s Valencia airport after being diverted from Madrid because of thunderstorms. Flight time between the airport’s is about an hour, according to the Independent.

MORE DETAILS:  Three Ryanair mayday calls go out on same day (Sunday Independent)

Ryanair confirmed the maydays to the newspaper.

“Due to thunderstorms over Madrid on Thursday (July 26), Spanish ATC (air traffic control) instructed Ryanair aircraft to divert to Valencia where they were placed in a hold pattern,” Ryanair spokesman Stephen McNamara says in a statement to the Independent. “Sometime later the aircraft advised ATC that they would not have sufficient fuel reserves to return to Madrid and were permitted to land in Valencia. All aircraft landed normally. Ryanair sincerely apologises to the passengers affected by these diversions, which were due to adverse weather.”

Two of the mayday calls came within a three-minute window.

The Independent notes the July 26 mayday calls came as Ryanair has pushed an efficiency campaign in which it has encouraged pilots not to fly with more fuel than is need to safely complete a route.

The newspaper writes:

At least two memorandums were sent to Ryanair pilots detailing the company’s concern about what was described as “excess fuel explanations” — a description of the reasons flight commanders have to give if they take on extra fuel over the recommended minimum fuel load.

Airlines can recommend minimum fuel loads for flights, but it’s ultimately the pilot’s decision about whether the flight should fly with more than the required minimum. The Ryanair memos cited by the Independent include language from the carrier urging pilots against “unreasonable excuses” for carrying substantially more fuel than the the recommended minimums.

Resource:

http://travel.usatoday.com

“Julia was pressing the button, waiting,” said Jody Cukier Siegler. “I could see her blond hair dancing between the branches of the eucalyptus tree. The bus driver motioned. I see the blond hair leave the branches. The bus goes through the light, and I hear Julia being hit.”

About 7:20 a.m. on Feb. 26, 2010, the Harvard-Westlake Middle School eighth-grader stepped into the crosswalk on Sunset Boulevard at Cliffwood Avenue, against a red light, to catch her eastbound school bus. The side mirror of a passing SUV clipped her, spinning her to the ground. A car driven by a Palisades Charter High School student ran over her. An ambulance took her to Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, where she died.

In the 21/2 years since, Jody Siegler, 54, has worked doggedly in an effort to improve school bus stop safety. Far from sequestering herself in grief, the former film marketing executive immediately dived into a new role as advocate. It is a role that has often proved frustrating.

No individual or entity was reprimanded or cited in the accident — not the school, not the private school bus company, not the bus driver, not either of the two motorists. The Los Angeles Police Department deemed it a horrible, heart-wrenching accident.

“There was no sanction — just for me and my family,” Siegler said. At a memorial service at University Synagogue days after the accident, Jody Siegler explained it this way: “God must have blinked.”

Julia was an avid dancer and ceramist who loved the color purple. Purple is the color of the giant bows tied around trees at a memorial at Sunset and Cliffwood where friends have left flowers, teddy bears and purple-painted stones adorned with hearts and written memories.

Impelled by unstoppable grief, Siegler has delved into a thicket of school bus safety regulations and laws. She has enlisted elected officials to join her cause. She has pushed for greater oversight by the California Highway Patrol and urged bus and school officials to consider changing procedures.

She has worked with three Harvard-Westlake students who witnessed the accident from the bus and have raised thousands of dollars in Julia’s name to cut down the view-obscuring eucalyptus, lengthen the crossing signal and create a bus safety video they plan to show this fall to new Harvard-Westlake students.

She speaks to anyone who will listen about bus stop visibility and overgrown vegetation on Sunset. She has joined the board of Archer School for Girls, a private school on Sunset Boulevard that has embraced the “Slow Down for Julia” campaign.

In her daughter’s name, she has donated a collection of vintage Weil of California dinnerware to the American Museum of Ceramic Art in Pomona. She has written poetry.

There has been progress, but not nearly enough to satisfy Siegler, whose energy snack of choice is black licorice. In March, Atlantic Express, the bus operator that contracts with Harvard-Westlake, asked a CHP officer to review 30 of the company’s Sunset bus stops, and the CHP said it was working with the bus company. In addition, John Amato, vice president of Harvard-Westlake, said the school would encourage Atlantic Express to consider using a residential circle off the busy boulevard as a drop-off and pickup location. “We’re going to take a very close look at that,” he said.

Last year, Siegler and her husband, Scott, a veteran entertainment executive, sold their Brentwood house near where their daughter died and moved to Marina del Rey. Scott Siegler, who has grieved more privately, has urged his wife to move on. She can’t. “I’m on a mission,” she said.

Reminders repeatedly salt the wound. Last May, a few days after Mother’s Day, a Harvard-Westlake “Dear Parents” email landed in her in-box. “At this time of year,” it opened, “we offer help in planning your child’s 2012-13 school transportation.” Jeanne Huybrechts, the head of school, called Siegler to apologize. Amato, who lost his son to cancer, described the lapse as a “horrible, unfortunate mistake.”

It sometimes seems that Siegler’s efforts bring more anguish than satisfaction. She frets that Harvard-Westlake has not taken steps she considers substantive to improve bus safety.

Still, moments of joy mingle with the ceaseless heartache. A young neighbor used his bar mitzvah proceeds to pay for installation of electronic speed signs near the fateful intersection. Last month, Siegler traveled to a charity golf tournament in Pebble Beach to watch one of Julia’s friends compete. He wore custom purple-and-black golf shoes, stitched with R.I.P. J.C.S.

Along her thorny path, Siegler has managed to impress many young people who have taken on her passion and are still pushing for changes. Said one, Eli Kogan, 18, of the bus safety campaign: “Jody is the strongest woman I know.”

Source: http://www.latimes.com

A few years ago, I was at a book festival in downtown Minneapolis with my mom, and we were looking at a table of secondhand books. I found one called “Europe on Five Dollars a Day” that I thought was particularly absurd and hilarious. I bought it for 10 cents, initially out of ironic hilarity, a cheap conversation piece. I showed it to my mom, who thought that I’d bought it for her because she had used that guidebook in 1957. She also mentioned that she had all the letters that she and my father had exchanged while she was on that trip. I hadn’t heard about the book or the letters before.

How did the idea of your book take shape?

At first I was interested in the personal history, but as I started to look at my mother’s letters and the book, I got really intrigued by the broader social history of tourism — how things had changed, how they hadn’t changed. I wondered if I could go back to Europe with these materials and see how far I could get.

Did you use Frommer’s book to plan your trips [two weeks in 2008 and six weeks in 2009]?

I tried to use the guidebook as much as possible. Obviously, things like the train tables are going to be out of date. I wasn’t going to take a ship across, as he recommended. I made some concessions to modernity. But for the most part, that was my primary planning manual in terms of day-to-day activities and where I was going to stay, what I was going to do and where I was going to eat. When I got lost, I would rely on serendipity to be my guide.

How did people react to the book?

I usually got looks of confusion or incredulity. But there were times when I showed the book and someone said, “Oh, I remember this.” A prime example was at the Hotel Texas in Rome. The clerk’s eyes lit up. He pulled out a brochure from that era with quotes from all kinds of publications. The quotes from “Europe on Five Dollars a Day” talked about what a magnificent, grand place this was, yet still very affordable. Now the hotel is an example of deteriorated grandeur. It’s a shadow of its former self. But the clerk was more than happy to reminisce about the past.

Could you find anything close to $5 (about $37 today)?

There was a hostel in Vienna that Frommer describes as a fourth-class category. You can read between the lines. The gist of it is: If you’re really desperate, this is the place of last resort. I stayed at that same hostel and it was still affordable. I think it was about 25 euros [about $31] a day. The conditions were about the same, too. It was sort of miserable.

Resource: http://www.washingtonpost.com

Arthur Levine compares testing students once a year to having a car GPS update its position once an hour instead of constantly. In the GPS part, he forgets the driver and assumes he ignores road and street signs. In the student part, he forgets the teacher, assuming she has no idea of what her pupils have learned.

Any competent teacher knows how her students are progressing throughout the year. Standardized testing cannot determine this; only a teacher is in a position to make this assessment.

Levine says the emphasis in public education has moved from teaching to learning; it should move to educating, as only then can a child’s full potential be realized.

Laurie Pane

Burbank

Before the age of electronics, teachers assessed student learning several ways. They used not only tests, homework and “fun” classroom activities but also closely observed classroom behavior such as blank facial expressions, head scratching and grimacing. Such observations informed strategies for individual remediation.

Of course, those were the days of smaller classroom sizes, administrators who were free to supervise and mentor, and parents who were allies in the learning process.

Gloria Meyer

Sherman Oaks

Levine writes: “We are testing students to find out if they have learned the material. If they have, they go forward. If not, they repeat it.” If only it were that simple.

When May comes, we give students expensive standardized tests to determine their progress, a separate set of tests to evaluate their teachers and schools, and in many cases high school students take additional tests to determine their academic futures. And in most cases, the tests have no effect on whether a student must repeat a class.

Tests that don’t count waste time and money, whether they are administered annually or more frequently.

And the programmed learning Levine advocates is hardly new; I was doing it in the 1960s when I was in middle school.

Norman H. Green

Los Angeles

Origin: http://www.latimes.com