For the first time in over two centuries of its history, the nation’s largest lender State Bank of India, which had reported 5.73 per cent of its assets as bad loans in the December quarter, is going all out to stem the rot by offloading around Rs. 5,000 crore of its Rs. 67,799 crore dud assets to ARCs before the end of the month.
Mitsubishi Estate Co. (8802),Japan’s biggest developer by market value, will rebuild a Tokyoresidential complex where it stopped selling apartments that went for as much as 350 million yen ($3.4 million) after finding defects.
Unprecedented natural gas reserves in Europe, record global grain output and the threat of mutual economic calamity from oil sanctions are cushioning commodity prices even as the Ukraine-Russia conflict spurs a gold rally.
While U.K. gas prices, a European benchmark, rose 5.1 percent since the crisis began at the end of
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. kicked off the process for what may be the biggest U.S. initial public offering in two years after struggling to persuade Hong Kong regulators to approve its proposed governance structure.
Singapore’s home sales rose in February as developers marketed new projects, a government report showed.
Home sales climbed 1.7 percent to 724 units last month compared with 712 in the same period a year ago, according to data from the Urban Redevelopment Authority released today. Sales climbed 28 percent from January, the data showed.
The U.S. plans to hand over control of the system for assigning website addresses to a non-government entity, an Obama administration official said.
The nonprofit Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is being asked to convene interested groups from around the world to
Fiat SpA (F) is adding 800 employees in Sterling Heights,Michigan, to support production of the redesigned Chrysler 200, reviving a factory that was almost shuttered following the U.S. automaker’s 2009 bankruptcy.
Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc. (C) and Credit Suisse Group AG (CSGN) were among 16 of the world’s biggest banks sued by the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. for allegedly manipulating the London interbank offered rate from 2007 to 2011.
Utah, USA -- For decades, solar has been like the Rodney Dangerfield of renewable energy. Rarely has it received the respect it has deserved. But by all accounts, 2013 was a watershed year in that respect. In Q3 alone, 930 megawatts of PV were installed in the United States — and in the last two and a half years, total global PV capacity grew from 50 gigawatts to over 100. Sure, 2013 saw its share of failures and disappointments. But according to some of the best and brightest minds in the solar industry, the coming year may play itself out as the dividing line between past and future.
This article is part of our Renewable Energy World January/February Annual Outlook Issue for 2014, which is out NOW. The issue includes our Global Directory of Suppliers. If you are not already a subscriber, CLICK HERE to subscribe!
As the search for the missing Malaysian jetliner shifts to the vast expanses of the Indian Ocean, the hunt for an Air France (AF)plane that vanished over the Atlantic in 2009 provides some sobering lessons.
Wreckage from the French jet took two years to locate on the seabed even though debris was found floating five days after the plane
Get ready — there is a revolution in residential solar going on. From financing models, solar leases, community (group buy) to owners of multi-unit housing complexes potentially becoming independent power producers, there is a changing of the business model guard. Think of it, the world may be a major storage innovation away from disconnecting from the utility grid. Do not kid yourself, there will be utility pushback but there will also be utility participation in the vein of, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.
Utilities deliver both active (or real) power and reactive (or imaginary) power along their distribution lines. Real power does the actual work when you flip on a light switch. Certain energy loads, such as motors and refrigerators, include energy storage elements that periodically need to reverse the direction of energy flow. This electric power from stored electromagnetic energy, which returns to the source in each cycle, is known as reactive power. Utilities care about reactive power because, even though it does no work at the point of consumption, it is needed to maintain voltage to deliver active power. Do you remember the largest blackout in U.S. history that surged through the Northeast in 2003? The cause for this, and several other major blackouts, can largely be attributed to a severe shortage of reactive power, which failed to maintain voltage along major power routes.
You may have heard of extreme preppers. These are people who spend a large portion of their time preparing themselves, their homes and their families for what they believe is an inevitable disaster resulting from an economic meltdown, the spread of a deadly virus, climate change or another catastrophic event. And hey, you never know, in the end these preppers may be the heroes of our time.
But have you heard about extreme not-in-my-backyard-ists? You probably haven’t because this isn’t a real phenomenon. At least not yet. But we’re here to tell you that there are some pretty good examples out there of folks who seem to be willing to go to any extreme to stop a renewable energy project from coming about.
With that in mind and in the interest of educating developers about what some people might say about their projects, here are a few examples. Feel free to list your own NIMBY cases in comment section below.
Solar is So Ugly
Two weeks ago, Rocky Mountain Institute, HOMER Energy, and CohnReznick Think Energy released "The Economics of Grid Defection," which assesses when and where distributed solar-plus-battery systems could reach economic parity with the electric grid, creating the possibility for defection of utility customers.
Warsaw and Frankfurt -- German Chancellor Angela Merkel's campaign to limit climate change with an energy system based on renewable sources is cutting into profits of companies that still provide 57 percent of the power that keeps Europe's biggest economy humming.
Solar power station in Wilpena, Australia
In Australia the Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme (SRES) was put in place to encourage businesses and individuals to purchase and install air source heat pumps, solar water heaters, wind- and hydro systems and more. This forms part of Australia's Renewable Energy Target, whereby the Australian Government has committed to delivering 20 percent of its electricity supply from renewable sources by 2020 in order to contribute to the development of climate change solutions, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change.
Small-scale Technology Certificates
Coal India officers called off their three-day strike midway on Friday after receiving assurances from its chairman on pay-related demands, a union leader said, ensuring little impact on production that peaks in March.
The state-owned company, the world's No. 1 coal miner that accounts for about 80% of India's output, frequently falls short of its output target due to employee strikes, delays in getting approvals to expand
(Reuters) - Coal India(COAL.NS) officers called off their three-day strike midway on Friday after receiving assurances from its chairman on pay-related demands, a union leader said, ensuring little impact on production that peaks in March.
Henry Ford Health System
The study, published online before print in Stroke, the journal of the American Heart Association, was the first ever to show that the peptide AcSDKP provides neurological protection when administered one to four hours after the onset of an ischemic stroke.
This type of stroke occurs when an artery to the brain is blocked by a blood clot, cutting off oxygen and killing brain tissue with crippling or fatal results.
“Stroke is a leading cause of death and disability worldwide,” said Li Zhang, M.D., a researcher at Henry Ford and lead author of the study. “Our data showed that treatment of acute stroke with AcSDKP alone or in combination with tPA substantially reduced neurovascular damage and improved neurological outcome.”
Commonly called a “clot-buster,” tPA, or tissue plasminogen activator, is the only FDA-approved treatment for acute stroke.
However, tPA must be given shortly after the onset of stroke to provide the best results. It also has the potential to cause a brain hemorrhage.
The Henry Ford study found that this narrow “therapeutic window” is extended for up to four hours after stroke and the therapeutic benefit of tPA is amplified when tPA is combined with AcSDKP. Further, the researchers discovered that AcSDKP alone is an effective treatment if given up to one hour after the brain attack.
The researchers tested the actions of both substances on laboratory rats in which acute stroke had been induced. It was already known that the peptide AcSDKP provides anti-inflammatory effects and helps protect the heart when used to treat a variety of cardiovascular diseases. The Henry Ford scientists reasoned that the peptide may have similar neurological benefits.
Significantly, they found that AcSDKP can readily cross the so-called “blood brain barrier” that blocks other neuroprotective substances.
A battery of behavioral tests was given to the lab rats both before and after stroke was induced to measure the effects of AcSDKP administered alone one hour after onset and combined with tPA four hours after stroke.
Besides finding that both methods “robustly” decreased neurological damage associated with stroke, they did so without increasing the incidence of brain hemorrhage or the formation of additional blood clots.
“With the increased use of clot-busting therapy in patients with acute stroke, both the safety and effectiveness of the combined treatment shown in our study should encourage the development of clinical trials of AcSDKP with tPA,” Dr. Zhang says.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140311151949.htm
NEW DELHI: The S&P BSE Sensex plunged as much as 160 points in trade on Friday, led by losses in ICICI BankBSE -2.36 %, L&T, Axis BankBSE -2.45 %, ITCBSE -0.54 % and HDFCBSE -1.24 %.
Tracking the momentum, the 50-share Nifty index slipped below its crucial psychological level of 6450 levels in trade, weighed down by losses in banks, realty, capital goods and metal stocks.
The researchers found that oral lithium salicylate produced steady lithium levels up to 48 hours in rats without the toxic spike associated with the rapid absorption of current FDA-approved lithium carbonate. They concluded that lithium salicylate could be more effective than lithium carbonate, yet without accompanying risks of toxicity, a potentially important development in the next generation of lithium therapeutics.
Their study results appeared in a recent issue of RSC Advances, the journal of the Royal Society of Chemistry.
While it's been long known that human empathy can extend to family, friends, strangers and even other species, it has been unknown until now whether nonhumans are similarly broad in their empathic responses. To answer this question, Campbell and de Waal used contagious yawning as a measure of involuntary empathy. According to Campbell, "Copying the facial expressions of others helps us to adopt and understand their current state."
The researchers found chimpanzees showed contagious yawning to familiar chimpanzees, familiar humans, and unfamiliar humans, but not to unfamiliar chimpanzees or an unfamiliar species (gelada baboons). "That humans known and unknown elicited empathy similarly to group members, and more than unknown chimpanzees, shows flexibility in engagement," says Campbell. "We can use this information to try to influence this flexible response in order to increase empathy toward unfamiliar chimpanzees, and we hope we will be able to apply such knowledge to humans as well," Campbell continues.
Throughout the course of their lives, about one percent of the population suffers from bipolar disorder, also known as manic-depressive disorder. The patients undergo a veritable rollercoaster of emotions: During extreme shifts, they experience manic phases with delusions of grandeur, increased drive and a decreased need for sleep as well as depressive episodes with a severely depressed mood to the point of suicidal thoughts. The causes of the disease are not yet fully understood, however in addition to psychosocial triggers, genetic factors play a large role. "There is no one gene that has a significant effect on the development of bipolar disorder," says Prof. Dr. Markus M. Nöthen, Director of the Institute of Human Genetics of the University of Bonn Hospital. "Many different genes are evidently involved and these genes work together with environmental factors in a complex way."
New Hampshire, USA -- NextEra Energy has received local approval for the initial phase of one of the biggest solar photovoltaic (PV) projects in the U.S. development pipeline.
People can now help build solar energy projects in a brand new way. RE-volv, a nonprofit based in San Francisco, has developed a revolving fund to finance solar projects for community centers that raises up-front costs by crowdfunding donations.
RE-volv just finished its second solar energy project, a 22-kW installation at the Kehilla Community Synagogue in Oakland. Its first project, completed in June, was a 10-kW system at the Shawl-Anderson Dance Center in Berkeley. RE-volv works with community-serving nonprofits and cooperatives.
We’ve seen a number of crowdfunding solar models arise in the last three years, which is a great development for the industry. It gives people the ability to put their dollars directly into driving solar energy at the community level, either to earn a return or as a donation.
