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Joe Parlett Location Portraiture 757.894.3857

Welcome to the

winter addition of A&V. In this issue, we will take a look at some of the en-ergy initiatives that are taking place, especially new energy Hubs insti-tuted by the Obama Ad-ministration. The status of Stripers and Menhaden are re-ported, and in our own disturbed way, we will explore our favorite mo-ments in art, industry and film, including those that have left us with Iconic and Precisionist Moments, including our trusty old pal, Ko-dachrome.

About the Cover: Cape Charles in December, taken from the tires, just below the rocks...

A reptile about 16 inches long with bumpy, khaki-colored skin and is very often mis-taken for an iguana. The tuatara — whose name comes from the Maori language and means “peaks on the back” — is not an iguana, and is un like any other reptile alive to-day. A living fossil The tuatara is in some ways a so-called living fossil, due to its basic skeletal layout and skull shape, which is almost identical to that of tuatara fossils dating back hundreds of millions of years, (well before the dominant rise of the dinosaurs). The tuatara‖s teeth are very much like those found in dinosaurs, pushing out directly from the jawbone, and without tooth sockets and periodontal ligaments.

Yet don‖t think of the tuatara as a vagrant from Triassic Park the tuatara has what may be the fast evolving DNA yet found in a vertebrate genome.

It‖s racing sequences are limited to so-called neutral regions of the tuatara‖s DNA, affecting filler codes, rather than the molecular blueprints. Research has yet to deter-mine what the hypermutability is all about, but according to David M. Lambert of Griffith University, in Brisbane, Australia, who has authored a study on the tuatara, “the processes that govern skeletal morphology are decoupled from the biological processes that govern changes in DNA.”

“Their biology is quite distinctive,” said Charles Daugherty of Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand. “They have a unique type of hemoglobin and their en-zymes are set to function at lower temperatures than in most reptiles.” Because of this ability to regulate their temperature, tuataras can be nocternal, and even when the weather is just above freezing, said Dr. Daugherty, “at temperatures at which most reptiles couldn‖t survive.”

Tuataras don‖t reach sexual maturity until age 15 to 20. A female needs two or three years to grow a clutch of eggs internally, and takes another seven or eight months after mating before she finally lays. Then the eggs incubate in the ground for yet another year before a finger-size baby tuataras hatch. “If these were plants, most lizards would be like weeds, and the tuatara like a sequoia,” said Dr. Daugherty. The tuatara is found only on actively monitored islands away from the New Zealand mainland, protected from mammals like rats, pigs or stoats “We know there are females that are still reproducing in their 80s,” said Dr. Daugherty. At the Southland Museum and Art Gallery in Invercargill, New Zealand, a captive male tuatara named Henry, a local ce-lebrity that had been nasty and unruly for decades until a malignancy was removed from his genitals, mated with an 80-year-old female named Mildred, and last year became a first-time father — at the age of 111.

As the air and water continues to cool around the Chesapeake Bay, many anglers are be-ginning to gear up for Striper season. The tournaments and contests that take place during the early winter are in sharp contrast to the fishing moratoriums that were in place in 1984. In the time since, the rockfish stock has expanded, especially in the over 18” category. This rebound, however, has created a false sense of security about their future. A five-year study by the Chesapeake Bay Ecological Foundation (CBEF) has measured increased malnutrition and disease in rockfish, and has determined the cause to be ecological depletion (insufficient prey for predators) of forage species, mainly bay anchovy and ages 0-1 menhaden. Since 2004, the CBEF, with assistance from East Carolina University, examined over 7,000 striped bass for the study.

The Chesapeake Bay is regarded as a near perfect place for striped bass to reproduce and grow (it is the principal spawning and nursery area). Yet, within the last few years, the Chesa-peake Bay striped bass have shown signs of stress—length-at-age and weight-at-length have decreased, natural mortality rates have risen and a significant rise in the percentage that have mycobacterial infections. The CBEF report states that this deterioration coincides with the severe declines in forage species populations.

The CBEF study also found an interesting shift in Rockfish migratory behaviors. Stripers over 28”, mainly females that have historically come down from the New England coast to winter in the bay, are now staying until the spring spawning. This migratory shift in feeding patterns suggests that these stripers are hanging around longer due to the ecological depletion of their normal winter-feeding grounds. The result is that the normally migrating stock is now competing with resident rockfish for sub-adult menhaden (studies of resident striped bass greater than 16” show that menhaden make up over 75% of their diet).

The competition for a depleted stock of menhaden extends beyond the striper fish-ery. The Omega Protein menhaden purse seine reduction fishery (largest on the At-lantic coast), competes with striped bass and many other predators for declining num-bers of ages 1+ menhaden. According to the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Com-mission (ASMFC) assessment, the coastal menhaden stock has declined, since 1979, to a historic low of 72%. The aggressive nature of the reduction fishery and its industrial scale vacuuming of menhaden has marginalized the remaining population, leaving only a skeleton crew of robust breeder fish (age 4+). According to Ken Hinman, president of the National Coalition for Marine Conservation, the reduction fishery harvests almost two-thirds of adults, some before they spawn and most before they are able to spawn a second time.

For years, menhaden conservation groups have been fighting an uphill battle against industry lobbying groups with very deep pockets. Yet, groups like the Menhaden Coa-lition (including the Coastal Conservation Association, Northampton County Anglers and Greenpeace) have begun to turn the tide. Responding to mounting concern about the declining menhaden population in the Chesapeake Bay, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC), which is responsible for the management of striped bass and menhaden, has agreed to revisit the metrics and harvest cap in order to more effectively manage the stock. Omega Protein, preparing to battle new Maxi-mum Spawning Potential (MSP) reference points and management measures, has hired additional fishery scientists apparently for refuting the need for changes in the fishery management plan.

In this economic climate, the debate of jobs vs. fish usually favors jobs. In this case, however, I believe those 280 jobs are not worth the cost of collapsing such a vital fish-ery. More than likely, those jobs will be lost anyway as there is no economic necessity for the reduction fishery—there are many other sources for the industrial products currently created using menhaden. There is no way of really knowing what Omega‖s 5-10-15 year plan is, yet I would hazard to guess that menhaden do not play a big part in it. They will be fished until they collapse, and Reedville will be left watching Omega‖s taillights recede into the horizon.

As citizens of the Bay, we are concerned that such a precipitous reduction in the menhaden forage base threatens both the Atlantic and Chesapeake Bay eco-systems, whose fish, bird and mammal populations require a healthy population. Menhaden cannot satisfy the appetite of an industrial scale commercial fishery and continue to fulfill its natural role as prey. Fishery management practices historically have given precedence to maximum harvest over the health of the ecosystem. Menhaden com-prise Virginia‖s largest fishery, and as such, it is time for the Commonwealth to as-sume an active stewardship role by providing more funding for the research, protec-tion and management of menhaden, one of the Bay‖s most precious resources.

President Obama has committed to doubling America's investment in science - and to pursue transformative breakthroughs in technology that can help us meet our energy and climate challenges. He has tasked Energy Secretary Steven Chu with developing a broad-based research strategy to harness America's innovation machine to make the discoveries we need. As part of this strategy, the Department of Energy has launched three Energy Innovation Hubs. Modeled in part after the Department's successful Bioenergy Research Centers, the Hubs will help advance highly promising areas of energy science and engineering from the early stage of research to the point where the technology can be handed off to the private sector. In other words, this work will ultimately lead to new clean energy solutions and new jobs for America's families. Each Hub will foster unique, cross-disciplinary collaborations by bringing together leading scientists to focus on a high priority technology. The Hubs will tackle three of the most im-portant energy challenges we face: 1.How can we derive fuels directly from sunlight in an efficient and economical way? 2.How can we design, construct and retrofit commercial and residential buildings that are vastly more energy efficient than today's buildings? 3.How can we use modeling and simulation technologies to make significant leaps forward in nuclear reactor design and engineering? The proposed Energy Innovation Hubs will be major multidisciplinary, multi-investigator, multi-institutional integrated research centers. The Hubs are modeled after the forceful centralized scientific management characteristics of the Manhattan Project (e.g., Los Ala-mos and the Metallurgical Laboratory at the University of Chicago), Lincoln Lab at MIT that developed radar, and AT&T Bell Laboratories that developed the transistor, and on the three $25 million-per-year DOE Bioenergy Research Centers (BRCs) established by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science in 2007.

The Hubs will bring together top researchers from academia, industry and the government laboratories with expertise that spans multiple scientific and engineering disciplines under the leadership of a dynamic scientist-manager. These teams will orchestrate an integrated, multidisciplinary systems approach to overcoming critical technological barriers to trans-formative advances in energy technology. The Hubs will advance U.S. global leadership in the emerging green economy and are focused in areas that have exceptional potential to reduce our dependence on imported oil and greenhouse gas emissions.

Energy Efficient Building Systems The April 14, 2010, Energy Efficient Building Systems Regional Innovation Cluster Initia-tive: Funding Opportunity Announcement Information Session II Webcast is now posted. Please click"How to Apply" on the upper left portion of this page. The links are in the ta-ble under Information Session II. The goal of this funding opportunity is to support an E-RIC that will accomplish the fol-lowing objectives: •Develop and demonstrate sustainable and efficient models for attaining national strategic objectives, with a focus on (i) developing, expanding, and commercializing innovative en-ergy efficient building systems technologies, designs, and best practices for national and international distribution and (ii) reducing the carbon footprint of the United States; •Create and retain Good Jobs (as defined in the FOA); •Eliminate gaps between the supply and demand for skilled workers in the E-RIC through training and education; •Increase regional gross domestic product (GDP); •Promote innovation in science and technology generally and, with respect to the Hub, promote energy effi-cient building sys-tems, designs and best practices; and •Enhance the eco-nomic, technologi-cal, and commercial competitiveness of the United States on the global stage.

Modeling & Simulation for Nuclear Reactors On May 28, 2010, the Department of Energy announced the selection of a team led by Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) to run the Nuclear Energy Modeling and Simulation En-ergy Innovation Hub. You can read the release here: www.energy.gov/news/9011.htm The Nuclear Energy Innovation Hub will be located at the ORNL site near Oak Ridge, Ten-nessee. In addition to ORNL, the members of the team are: Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), Palo Alto, California Idaho National Laboratory, Idaho Falls, Idaho Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge Massachusetts North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, New Mexico Tennessee Valley Authority, Knoxville, Tennessee University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan Westinghouse Electric Company, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

For the last 100 years, the rising level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been fairly well documented, yet there is another, lesser known consequence of rising CO2—ocean acidification. The world's oceans absorb nearly 25% of the carbon dioxide emitted by in-dustrial and natural sources, and this absorption is profoundly changing ocean chemistry, making the water more acidic and harmful to marine life. In Virginia, our coastal and ocean economy, including tourism, fishing and aquaculture, accounts for more than $2 billion each year. Protecting our oceans not only preserves an essential element of our natural heritage – it protects jobs and revenue. Ocean acidifica-tion also adds another challenge to fisheries that are already stressed by poor water qual-ity. Because acidic water interferes with the formation of shells and coral skeletons, contin-ued ocean acidification could impact the recovery of the struggling Bay oyster and clam populations. The Virginia Aquaculture industry is responsible for thousands of jobs across the state, and for millions in revenue. Despite upward trends in both seed clams and oys-ters, the in-dustry contin-ues to strug-gle with wa-ter quality issues. Ocean Acidification, when added to an already marginal wa-ter quality index, could have devas-tating impacts on jobs and revenue. Small crea-tures, such as phytoplank-ton, that form the base of the marine food chain, could also be affected by ocean acidification. These smaller creatures form the foundation for the Atlantic Menha-den diet. This fishery is already stressed by commercial fishing, and a disruption in their food cycle could have profound impacts on larger prey species such as Striped Bass and Osprey.

Ocean Acidification: The Other Greenhouse Effect

Last March, at the Naro Theater in Norfolk, The Natural Resources Defense Council pre-sented a new documentary, Acid Test, which outlines the potential impacts of ocean acidifi-cation on fish and shellfish. This is a good first step in building awareness of ocean acidifica-tion, and highlights the need to cut carbon emissions to solve this “other carbon problem.”

Additionally, there is need for far more research into ocean acidification. Agencies such as NOAA are mandated by the Coral Reef Conservation Act, the Magnuson-Stevens Act, and the Endangered Species Act to respond to ecosystem threats, yet they need more comprehensive and precise data. This cannot happen without a substantial effort from the public and private sectors. For some time now, many of us who live, work and fish on Virginia's coastal waters, have committed to doing what we can to clean up the Bay and reduce our impact to the marine and estuarine environment. Common sense and sound engineering dictates that real at-tempts to curb the amounts of greenhouse emissions pouring into the atmosphere are criti-cal, and a major part in the process of reducing ocean acidification and helping protect Vir-ginia‖s coastal and ocean economy.

Walmart Unveils Global Sustain-able Agriculture Goals WM will buy more from small and mid-sized farmers around the world; reduce food waste; and sustainably source key agricultural products Press Release, from Food and Water Watch Walmart has launched its new global commitment to sustainable agriculture that will help small and medium sized farmers expand their businesses, get more income for their products, and reduce the environmental impact of farming, while strengthening local economies and providing customers around the world with long-term access to afford-able, high-quality, fresh food. “More than 1 billion people around the world rely on farming and hundreds of millions of them live on less than $2 a day,” said Mike Duke, Walmart president and CEO. “Globally, with a booming population, food production must increase roughly 70 per-cent to feed 9 billion people in 2050.” Duke continued, “Through sustainable agriculture, Walmart is uniquely positioned to make a positive difference in food production -- for farmers, communities and custom-ers. Our efforts will help increase farmer incomes, lead to more efficient use of pesti-cides, fertilizer and water, and provide fresher produce for our customers.” Walmart‖s sustainable agriculture strategy is divided into three broad areas, each con-taining specific supporting goals to help the company track and report its progress. Support farmers and their communities More than a billion people rely on agriculture for subsistence. By the end of 2015 in emerging markets, Walmart will help many small and mid-sized farmers gain access to markets by: •selling $1 billion in food sourced from 1 million small and medium farmers; •providing training to 1 million farmers and farm workers in such areas as crop selection and sustainable farming practices -- the company expects half of those trained to be women; and •increasing the income of the small and medium farmers it sources from by 10 to 15 percent. •In the U.S., Walmart will double its sale of locally sourced produce and increase its pur-chase of select U.S. crops.

Produce more food with fewer resources and less waste. Walmart has one of the world‖s largest food supply chains and is committed to reducing and optimizing the resources required to produce that food and driving more transparency into its supply chain. For the first time Walmart will ask suppliers about the water, energy, fertilizer and pesticide they use per unit of food produced. The goals include: •accelerating the agricultural focus of the Sustainability Index, beginning with a Sustainable Produce Assessment for top producers in its Global Food Sourcing network in 2011; •investing more than $1 billion in its global fresh supply chain in the next five years; and, •reducing food waste in its emerging market stores and clubs by 15 percent and by 10 per-cent in stores and clubs in its other markets by the end of 2015. Sustainably source key agriculture products Farming practices are having unintended side effects, from deforestation of the world‖s rainforests to increasing greenhouse gas emissions. Walmart will focus on two of the major contributors to global deforestation, palm oil and beef production. •Require sustainably sourced palm oil for all Walmart private brand products globally by the end of 2015. Sourcing sustainable palm oil for our U.K. and U.S. private brand prod-ucts alone will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 5 million metric tons by the end of 2015. •Expand the already existing practice of Walmart Brazil of only sourcing beef that does not contribute to the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest to all of our companies world-wide by the end of 2015. It is estimated that 60 percent of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon is related to cattle ranching expansion. To help reach these goals, Walmart‖s global markets have also established country specific commitments. For example: •In India, source 50 percent of its fresh produce through its Direct Farm Program; •In China, upgrade 15 percent of Direct Farm products from Green to Organic certified; •In Japan, reduce in-store produce waste by 35 percent and increase the number of pro-duce farmers it sources from directly from 15,000 to 17,000; and •In Canada, purchase 30 percent of the produce assortment locally on an annual basis. In the U.S., Walmart‖s Heritage Agriculture program will help the company double the sale of locally grown food. The program focuses on sourcing produce from states and re-gions with long histories of agricultural production. Three of Walmart‖s largest Heritage Agriculture programs are in the I-95 corridor along the East coast, the Delta region in the South and the Mid-America region of the Midwest. Sourcing examples include tomatoes, blueberries and broccoli in the I-95 corridor, peaches, cucumbers and strawberries in the Delta region and potatoes, onions and apples in the Mid-American program. Walmart consulted with a number of suppliers, universities and non-government organiza-tions to develop these goals, including World Wildlife Fund, Conservation International, Rainforest Alliance, The Nature Conservancy, the Field to Market Alliance and Environ-mental Defense Fund. Visit walmartstores.com for a full list of Walmart‖s global Sustain-able Agriculture commitments. associates worldwide.

Gestural computing: ever since a be-gloved Tom Cruise blew everyone's minds in Mi-nority Report, interface dorks have been trying hard to bring it into the real world. But here's the problem: who actually wants to spend their whole workday wildly waving their arms around? Well, musicians and dancers just might. That's the idea behind Toscanini, a gestural com-puter interface named after the famously gesticulative Italian conductor. And here's the best part: unlike those room-sized setups you've seen on TED talks, To-scanini fits a ramen-noodle-sized budget. The free software runs on Texas Instruments' "Wireless Watch Development Tool" -- an accelerometer-equipped, programmable sports watch that costs just $50. So what the hell does it do? Basically, it provides a bridge between your movements and digital instruments like synthesizers and keyboards -- or anything else you can control from your computer through a MIDI connection. Think of it like Microsoft Kinect, but for making weird performance art instead of playing Xbox. "Currently it acts like a MIDI keyboard, except you can control the knobs with your movements," says Lindsey Mysse, who co-created Toscanini during a 24-hour hacking con-test. "But it doesn't have to make music. It can control a mouse. You just put it on your wrist and make something happen."

Gestural computing: Toscanini

Over the past five years Kristi Morgansen, a University of Washington assistant profes-sor of aeronautics and astronautics, has built three Robofish that communicate with one another underwater. Recently at the International Federation of Automatic Control's Workshop on Navigation, Guidance and Control of Underwater Vehicles she presented results showing that the robots had success-fully completed their first major test. The robots were pro-grammed to either all swim in one direction or all swim in different directions, basic tasks that can provide the building blocks for co-ordinated group move-ment. "Underwater robots don't need oxygen. The only reason they come up to the surface right now is for com-munication," Morgansen said. Her robots do not need to come to the surface until their task is complete. In the future, ocean-going robots could cooperatively track moving targets underwater, such as groups of whales or spreading plumes of pollution, or explore caves, underneath ice-covered waters, or in dangerous environments where surfacing might not be possi-ble. Schools of robots would be able to work together to do things that one could not do alone, such as tracking large herds of animals or mapping expanses of pollution that can grow and change shape. The Robofish, which are roughly the size of a 10-pound salmon, look a bit like fish be-cause they use fins rather than propellers. The fins make them potentially more maneu-verable and are thought to create lower drag than propeller-driven vehicles. But while other research groups are building fishlike robots, what's novel with this sys-tem is that the robotic fish can communicate wirelessly underwater. Again, Morgansen

ROBOFISH GO TO SCHOOL

"In schooling and herding animals, you can get much more efficient maneuvers and smoother behaviors than what we can do in engineering right now," Morgansen explained. "The idea of these experiments (with schools of live fish) is to ask, 'How are they doing it?' and see if we can come up with some ideas." The team trained some live fish to respond to a stimulus by swimming to the feeding area. The scientists discovered that even when less than a third of the fish were trained, the whole school swam to the feeding area on cue. "The fish that have a strong idea tend to dominate over those that don't," Morgansen said. "That has implications for what will happen in a group of vehicles. Can one vehicle make the rest of the group do something just based on its behavior?"

Story Source: The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by Science Daily staff) from materials provided by University of Washington. MLA University of Washington (2008, June 9). School Of Robofish Communicate With Each Other In Underwater Robot Teams. Science Daily. Retrieved December 17, 2010, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2008/06/080606105454.htm

As we grapple with Climate change, the argument of whether or not human activity is causing the damage tends to muddy the waters, and removes focus from the actual problem. Inherently, our use of energy is largely a bulk driven process, that tends not to offer a pipe to the best engineering processes. Realizing this, the Obama administration has created Energy Frontier Research Centers, meant to tackle our leading energy engi-neering issues--transforming the way we generate, supply, transmit, store, and use energy will be one of the defining challenges for America and the globe in the 21st century. “At its heart, the challenge is a scientific one. Important as they are, incremental ad-vances in current energy technologies will not be sufficient. History has demonstrated that radically new technologies arise from disruptive advances at the science frontiers. The Energy Frontier Research Centers program aims to accelerate such transformative discovery, combining the talents and creativity of our national scientific workforce with a powerful new generation of tools for penetrating, understanding, and manipulating matter on the atomic and molecular scales.” In August 2009, the Office of Basic Energy Sciences in the U.S. Department of Energy‖s Office of Science established 46 Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRCs). These Cen-ters involve universities, national laboratories, nonprofit organizations, and for-profit firms, singly or in partnerships, and were selected by scientific peer review and funded at $2-5 million per year for a 5-year initial award period. These integrated, multi-investigator Centers will conduct fundamental research focusing on one or more of sev-eral “grand challenges” recently identified in major strategic planning efforts by the sci-entific community. The purpose of these Centers will be to integrate the talents and ex-pertise of leading scientists in a setting designed to accelerate research toward meeting our critical energy challenges. The EFRCs will harness the most basic and advanced dis-covery research in a concerted effort to establish the scientific foundation for a funda-mentally new U.S. energy economy. The outcome will decisively enhance U.S. energy security and protect the global environment in the century ahead.

Use-inspired basic energy research in the areas of advanced nuclear systems, catalysis, clean and effi-cient combustion, electric energy storage, geological sequestration of CO2, materials in extreme envi-ronments, hydrogen science, bio-fuels, solar energy utilization, solid state lighting, and superconductiv-ity is required to create advanced energy technologies for the 21st century.

Changhao Jiang, Research Scientist at Facebook , explains on his Face-book Blog….

Site speed is one of the most critical company goals for Facebook. In 2009, Facebook became twice as fast. Several key innovations from made this possible, mainly a method called BigPipe.

Network time represents how long a user is waiting while data is transmitted between their computer and Facebook. We can't completely control network time since some users are on slower connections than others, but we can reduce the number of bytes required to load a page; fewer bytes means less network time. The 5 main contributors to network time are bytes of cookies, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and images.

Generation time captures how long it takes from when our webserver receives a request from the user to the time it sends back a response. This metric measures the efficiency of our code

itself and also our webserver, caching, database, and network hard-ware. Reducing generation time is totally under our control and is accomplished through cleaner, faster code and constantly improv-ing our backend architectures.

Render time measures how much time the user's web browser needs to process a response from Facebook and display the resul-tant web page. Like network time, we are somewhat constrained here by the performance and behavior of the various browsers but much is still under our control. The less we send back to the user, the faster the browser can display results, so minimizing bytes of HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and images also helps with render time.

Another simple way to reduce render time is to execute as little JavaScript as possible before showing the page to the user.

BigPipe is a fundamental redesign of the dynamic web page serving system. The general idea is to decompose web pages into small chunks called pagelets, and pipeline them through several execution stages inside web servers and browsers. This is similar to the pipelining performed by most modern microprocessors: multiple instructions are pipelined through different execu-tion units of the processor to achieve the best performance. Although BigPipe is a fundamen-tal redesign of the existing web serving process, it does not require changing existing web browsers or servers; it is implemented entirely in PHP and JavaScript.

To understand BigPipe, it's helpful to take a look at the problems with the existing dy-namic web page serving system, which dates back to the early days of the World Wide Web and has not changed much since then. Modern websites have become dramatically more dynamic and interactive than 10 years ago, and the traditional page serving model has not kept up with the speed requirements of today's Internet. In the traditional model, the life cycle of a user request is the following:

1. Browser sends an HTTP request to web server. 2. Web server parses the request, pulls data from storage tier then formulates an

HTML 3. document and sends it to the client in an HTTP response. 4. HTTP response is transferred over the Internet to browser. 5. Browser parses the response from web server, constructs a DOM tree representa-

tion of the 6. HTML document, and downloads CSS and JavaScript resources referenced by the

document. 7. After downloading CSS resources, browser parses them and applies them to the

DOM tree. 8. After downloading JavaScript resources, browser parses and executes them.

The traditional model is very inefficient for modern web sites, because a lot of the op-erations in the system are se-quential and can‖t be over-lapped with each other. Some optimization techniques such as delaying JavaScript downloading, parallelizing re-source downloading etc. have been widely adopted in the web community to overcome some of the limitations. How-ever, very few of these optimi-zations touch the bottleneck caused by the web server and browser executing sequen-tially. When the web server is busy generating a page, the browser is idle and wasting its cycles doing nothing. When web server finishes generating the page and sends it to the browser, the browser becomes the performance bottleneck and the web server cannot help any more. By overlapping the web server‖s generation time with the browser‖s rendering time, we can not only re-duce the end-to-end latency but also make the initial response of the web page visible to the user much earlier, thereby significantly reducing user perceived latency.

How BigPipe Works To exploit the parallelism between web server and browser, BigPipe first breaks web pages into multiple chunks called pagelets. Just as a pipelining microprocessor divides an instruction‖s life cycle into multiple stages (such as “instruction fetch”, “instruction de-code”, “execution”, “register write back” etc.), BigPipe breaks the page generation proc-ess into several stages:

-Request parsing: web server parses and sanity checks the HTTP request. -Data fetching: web server fetches data from storage tier. -Markup generation: web server generates HTML markup for the response. -Network transport: the response is transferred from web server to browser. -CSS downloading: browser downloads CSS required by the page. -DOM tree construction and CSS styling: browser constructs DOM tree of the docu-ment, and then applies CSS rules on it. -JavaScript downloading: browser downloads JavaScript resources referenced by the page. -JavaScript execution: browser executes JavaScript code of the page.

The end result of this highly parallel system is that several pagelets are executed simul-taneously in different stages. For example, the browser can be downloading CSS re-sources for three pagelets while rendering the content for another pagelet, and mean-while the server is still generating the response for yet another pagelet. From the user‖s perspective, the page is rendered progressively. The initial page content becomes visible much earlier, which dramatically improves user perceived latency of the page. To see the difference for yourself, you can try the following links: Traditional Model and Big Pipe. The first link renders the page in the traditional single flush model. The second link renders the page in BigPipe‖s pipeline model. The difference between the two pages‖ load times will be much more significant if your browser version is old, your net-work speed is slow, and your browser cache is not warmed. It is worth noting that BigPipe was inspired by pipelining microprocessors. However, there are some differences between the pipelining performed by them. For example, although most stages in BigPipe can only operate on one pagelet at a time, some stages such as CSS downloading and JavaScript downloading can operate on multiple pagelets si-multaneously, which is simi-lar to super-scalar micro-processors. Another im-portant differ-ence is that in BigPipe, we have imple-mented a ―barrier‖ con-cept bor-rowed from parallel pro-gramming, where all pagelets have to finish a particular stage, e.g. pagelet displaying stage, before any one of them can proceed further to download JavaScript and execute them. Changhao Jiang is a Research Scientist at Facebook who enjoys making the site faster in innovative ways. The Facebook Office id featured above.

United States Leads Push for Strong Measures to Pro-tect Sharks and Sea Turtles ICCAT Takes More Steps for Bluefin Tuna Conserva-tion

The 17th special meeting of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) ended today with suc-cesses in some important areas and room for improvement in others. The United States met many of its important objectives this year, in-cluding the adoption of measures to address the bycatch of endangered sea turtles, conservation measures for shortfin mako sharks, a recom-mendation on scientific observer programs, and continued progress toward a more robust compliance system. In adopting these measures, ICCAT was acting in accordance with scien-tific advice and building on many

steps already taken by American fishermen. The United States also successfully main-tained its 2010 quota level for North Atlantic swordfish, a fully rebuilt stock that is im-portant for U.S. commercial and recreational fisheries from New England to Florida. The United States was disappointed that in other areas ICCAT did not fully act in accor-dance with the scientific advice of the ICCAT scientific body. For example, nations only agreed to minor quota reductions for bluefin tuna fisheries, and didn‖t take the precau-tionary steps necessary to accelerate stock growth. The levels of catch approved in the eastern and western stocks are expected to support some improvement in the eastern and western stocks, although the United States had hoped to reduce catch levels to im-prove the health of the resource for the long-term benefit of U.S. fishermen. U.S. fisher-men have sacrificed significantly to begin the rebuilding of this stock. The United States believes that it is important that ICCAT act to ensure that future fishing does not result in overfishing that undoes these successes.

“The United States pushed hard for parties to adopt science-based management meas-ures for bluefin tuna and other species, applying a precautionary approach where needed and taking into account impacts to the ecosystem,” said Jane Lubchenco, Ph.D., the U.S. under secretary for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator. “While we met with mixed success at this meeting, we will continue to push for sustainable management

to support the long-term stability of jobs associated with the recrea-tional and commercial fishing in-dustries.” The quota for the western Atlan-tic stock (which the U.S. fishes on) was reduced from 1,800 metric tons to 1,750 metric tons. “The United States succeeded in protecting the gains in conserva-tion we achieved last year while making significant progress in other areas,” said Russell F. Smith, III, deputy assistant secretary for international fisheries, who led the U.S. negotiating team, along with Ellen Peel, U.S. recreational fisher-ies commissioner, and Randi Parks Thomas, U.S. commercial industry commissioner. ICCAT members adopted a U.S. proposal, co-sponsored by ten other countries, to reduce the im-pact of ICCAT fisheries on sea

turtles through more responsible fishing practices and mandate reporting of interactions with sea turtles in ICCAT fisheries. Parties also agreed to prohibit retention of the oce-anic whitetip shark, a species considered to be highly vulnerable to fishing pressure. Re-tention of hammerhead sharks that are caught in association with ICCAT fisheries will also be prohibited, with a limited exception for developing coastal states that retain ham-merheads for food. Conservation measures for bigeye tuna, blue marlin and white marlin were extended through next year. Finally, the parties agreed to develop an improved system for tracking Atlantic bluefin tuna to combat illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing. An electronic system will re-quire detailed documentation of bluefin tuna beginning at the point of landing, and fol-lowing the product through international trade. This will enable verification in near real-time and reduce the burden on the seafood industry that is associated with a paper-based system.

Fence on the Beach: Cape Charles By Wayne Creed

Mad Men Era Advertisements: Van Heusen

American Rock and Roll at Kelly’s...

AMERICAN HONEY

DWAYNE’S PHOTO SERVICE OF PARSANS, KANSAS DE-VELOPED THE LAST ROLL OF KODACHROME FILM ON DEC 10th….HERE’S A LOOK AT SOME ICONIC IMAGES CAPTURED ON OUR FAVOR-ITE FILM….BY KODAK

Jill Clayburgh April 30, 1944 – November 5, 2010

Clayburgh in An Unmarried Woman

Top, “Portnoy‖s Complaint” and above “ An Unmarried Woman”

Leslie Nielsen 11 February 1926 – 28 November 2010

Blake Edwards July 26, 1922 – December 15, 2010

Edward‖s Days of Wine and Roses

Breakfast at Tiffany‖s

Edward‖s The Pink Panther...

Lynn Redgrave

1943 –2010

Tony Curtis

June 3, 1925 – September 29, 2010

Curtis in “The Defiant Ones”

“Houdini” and “The Boston Strangler”

Curtis in “Some Like It Hot”

ICONIC MOMENTS Tony Curtis with Janet Leigh and Marilyn

Creed-ence to the Importance of Being Earnest: Scrooge to Stooge

Local Theater notes and talk…. What has been your most memorable role at the Palace Theater? To be honest, they have all been memorable; I even played a Christmas tree once. Cer-tainly, being able to play Scrooge in a Christmas Carol, and Nathaniel Savage in Peace of Eden for Mrs. Cardano was a great honor—performing Daddy Warbucks in Annie with great talents like Christina Hardy and Ashley Glennon, and all the orphans, is something I will always cherish. How did you get started in acting? I grew up in New Haven, where I was able to see many shows that ran ―test‖ engagements before having their Broadway debuts. Many Saturdays, my grandmother would take us to early Mass, and then to a matinee. Live theater has a way of pulling you in and never let-ting go. My first actual role was when I played Abe Lincoln in my Cub Scout troop‖s an-nual play. I only had one line, only I can‖t remember what it was! I began my collegiate career as a Drama major, before opting for Communications and Radio TV and film at James Madison, yet I always remained active on the stage. I was lucky enough to spend a semester in London, where the academic concentration was theater—we were required to attend two productions per week. Over the semester, we took in West End shows from Shaftsbury to the National Theatre. What do you do when not acting? I work as a software engineer focusing mainly on web, mobile and social technologies for DoD clients. I currently work with the Navy in Norfolk. What are you enjoying most about being involved in the Importance of being earnest? The script is very demanding, yet it is written so brilliantly, you want to push yourself to live up to it. The cast for this play is wonderful and talented, and despite the heavy lifting that Oscar Wilde requires, everyone has pulled together as a team, and been a joy to work with. How do you handle the paparazzi and the autograph hounds? I really don‖t have that problem myself. I‖m usually the one chasing the cameras, begging for any bit of attention I can get. My kids are the ones who have that worry. My daughter Rachel is already a Palace Theater veteran, and after her role as the Wicked Witch in Oz, she has collected several devoted fans. My son Joey is also building an impressive resume, playing Tiny Tim, the Little Drummer Boy and an even an Oompa Loompa.

Precisionism Moments Representational canvases depicting sharply defined forms, such as urban skylines; the industrial landscape of factories and smokestacks, buildings, and machinery; and country landscapes with grain elevators and barns or empty desert and sky. The scenes are always devoid of people or signs of human activity.

Pittsburgh Elsie Driggs

Chimney and Water Tower Charles DeMuth

Machinery Charles DeMuth

Figure No 5 Peter DeMuth

Water Charles Steeler

Harvey Lawrence Pekar October 8, 1939 – July 12, 2010

Tatts: Eminem & Tommy Lee

Cocktail display, the Italian

Pavilion, 1939 World’s Fair,

Flushing Meadows New York.

Until Next Time, Cheers!!!!