Career Development

More on Tornadoes in Florida

seo.team — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 12:18:51 +0000

All Floridians know that lightning is to Florida as tornado is to Texas. Few realize though that Florida too is a tornado state, ranking fourth behind Oklahoma, Kansas, and Texas on the list of the ten states most visited by tornadoes in the period 1950-2009.

With more than 3,100 tornadoes having slammed into the state since 1950, Floridians are best served if they were as informed of tornadoes as they are of lightning—or as well prepared with their storm battens as they are with their home wiring, thanks to the Sunshine State’s large pool of contractors with a Florida professional engineer license or an electrician CE training.

Tornadoes, like hurricanes and earthquakes, are principally (and popularly) characterized by their severity. Beginning in 1971, tornadoes were rated using a measure invented by T. Theodore Fujita, the F Scale. In 2007, the National Weather Service revised the F Scale to better reflect wind speeds and their corresponding extent of damage. The new rating system, known as the Enhanced Fujita scale, rates a top three-second wind gust. According to the National Weather Service (NOAA):

EF-0 (65 mph to 85 mph). Strips off some roof surfaces, damages gutters or siding, breaks tree branches, uproots shallow-rooted trees.
EF-1 (86 mph to 110 mph). Severely damages roofs, flips mobile homes, breaks windows.
EF-2 (111 mph to 135 mph). Completely blows off roofs of well-constructed houses, displaces foundations of frame houses, uproots large trees, lifts cars off the ground.
EF-3 (136 mph to 165 mph). Destroys well-constructed houses, severely damages large buildings such as malls, lifts heavy cars, carries away structures with weak foundations.
EF-4 (166 mph to 200 mph). Levels houses, throws around cars.
EF-5 (more than 200 mph). Carries away well-constructed houses, turns cars into missiles, badly damages steel-reinforced concrete, deforms structures of high-rise buildings.

Tornadoes in Florida

seo.team — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 12:18:24 +0000

Florida is the lightning capital of the United States (and for a time, of the whole planet), a dubious distinction that has made Florida homeowners a persnickety lot when it comes to home wiring—and has made contractors with a Florida professional engineer license or a Florida electrician training a much-sought-after breed.

Although lightning may be the primary cause of weather-related deaths in Florida (10 fatalities plus 40 injuries on average annually), other severe-weather phenomena threaten the Sunshine State every year. The weather condition that precipitates lightning often also spawns another killer from the blue in Florida—tornadoes.

A tornado is a furiously rotating column of air extending from a thunderstorm to the ground with speeds ranging from 65 mph to 200 mph, but sometimes exceeding 250 mph. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) estimates that tornadoes across the country, including Florida, cause some 80 deaths and over 1,500 injuries each year.

Although most tornadoes in Florida form over water (called waterspouts), they can migrate to land and wreak considerable damage.

Following are some terms to know that can help you prepare for a tornado:

Severe thunderstorm. A thunderstorm that is likely to produce a tornado under the right conditions; it has winds of at least 58 mph, just below the wind-speed threshold of a tornado.
Severe thunderstorm watch. As its name suggests, tells you when and where a severe thunderstorm is expected to appear.
Severe thunderstorm warning. Severe thunderstorm weather has been spotted by radar—imminent danger for those in the path of the storm.
Tornado watch. Tornadoes might occur in your area.
Tornado warning. A tornado has been visually sighted or spotted by radar.

Low-Cost Home-Repair Tips and Winning More Clients

seo.team — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 10:48:36 +0000

There’s one thing that real estate agents always seem to overlook after making a sale: that homeowners need good advice on the upkeep of their new purchase. Most real estate agents—from Pennsylvania agents to professionals holding South Carolina real estate continuing education—are unaware or unmindful that helping their clients in this way pays dividends by way of lead generation.

In an article for money.cnn.com, Josh Garskof offered the following low-cost maintenance tips that agents can share with their clients.

Exterior paint. According to architect Karen Sweeney, director of facilities for two Frank Lloyd Wright buildings in Chicago, the principal cause of exterior paint deterioration is the landscaping—not the elements—around it. Overgrown foundation plantings scrape off paint in time, letting in moisture, fungi, and insects onto the finish. Paring and pruning branches so they’re a foot away from the paint goes a long, long away in preserving the paint and the house owner’s wallet.

Roofing. Not many know that a roof can weather and be damaged from the outside as well as from the inside. The culprit? Trapped heat in the attic can cause the interior temperature to rise 35° to 55°F higher than the outside temperature, roasting and damaging the roof from below. The solution: Add ventilation to the attic by installing high and low attic vents.

Hardwood floors. Refinishing a worn-out floor costs a lot of money. Besides, sanding floorboards “makes them a little thinner, bouncier, and creakier,” according to Sweeney. There’s no getting around refinishing, but the house owner certainly can minimize damage to the floor during the process. To do that, a professional floor guy should be contracted to “screen” or sand away most of the old finish — without touching the wood — and to apply a new protective polyurethane coat thereafter.

Improving Markets for First Half of 2012

seo.team — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 10:47:43 +0000

The list of improving housing markets continues to lengthen. The latest compilation recently released by the National Association of Home Builders/First American Improving Markets Index (NAHB/IMI) lists 84 metro areas for July. The list’s major criterion was sustained improvement in the last half year in housing permits, employment, and house prices.

Among the places included are small metros like Florence and Greenville in South Carolina—good news for agents already holding South Carolina real estate continuing education—and big ones like Austin and Houston, Texas.

“The geographic diversity and growing number of metros on the latest IMI help spotlight the improvements we have begun to see in terms of home prices and job market conditions across certain parts of this country, which in turn are spurring more demand for new homes,” remarked NAHB chairman Barry Rutenberg.

According to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), pending home sales increased in May: 13.3 percent over May 2011 and equaling the best pace in the last two years. A 3-percent rise is expected for the national median home price this year.

Meanwhile, the regions all trended positively in pending home sales: the West jumped by 14.5 percent; the Midwest rose 6.3 percent; the Northeast grew 4.8 percent; and the South bumped up 1.1 percent.

“The housing market is clearly superior this year compared with the past four years,” stated Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist in an interview for realtytimes.com. “The latest increase in home contract signings marks 13 consecutive months of year-over-year gains. Actual closings for existing-home sales have been notably higher since the beginning of the year and we’re on track to see a 9 to 10 percent improvement in total sales for 2012.”

ISO Technical Report on Toxicological Tests for Nano-objects

seo.team — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 10:26:48 +0000

Nano-objects maybe the smallest useful objects around, but they have a big presence—and every day that presence, in the form of nanotechnology, seems to be getting bigger.

Nanotechnology in its varied forms is expected to be a prime economic driver in this century. It has many applications and even more benefits: new materials that are lighter, stronger, and cheaper than the ones in use now; more efficient energy sources; faster, more powerful electronic products, enhanced medical diagnosis; and more potent but safer drugs.

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has recognized this and developed guidelines in the field of nanotechnology. It recently published a technical report to help those conducting toxicological tests on nano-objects. The report follows the tradition of practicability, usefulness, and relevance set by such standards as ISO 14001 (and its ISO 14001 training component), a very popular standard used in many industries all over the globe.

ISO technical report ISO/TR 13014:2012 (Nanotechnologies – Guidance on physicochemical characterization of engineered nanoscale materials for toxicologic assessment) was designed to help health experts to understand and deal with the physicochemical characteristics of nano-objects before performing toxicological tests on them.

“By understanding the chemical and physical characteristics of nano-objects, we are working to decrease toxicity of materials and promote the development of safer alternatives,” said Dr. Richard Pleus, leader of the ISO team that developed ISO/TC 13014. “The work done in this document has a fundamental importance in toxicology, as it tells scientists the material being tested needs to be understood: What does it look like? What is it made of? How does it interact with the surrounding environment?”

New ISO Standard for Microbe-free Cosmetics

seo.team — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 10:26:01 +0000

It was a long time coming, but with cosmetics companies going hard for the hearts, minds, and complexion of not just women the world over, but also men, it was just a matter of time. And now it’s finally here: an ISO standard for cosmetics. Specifically, an ISO standard to help evaluate the antimicrobial properties of cosmetic products.

ISO 11930:2012 (Cosmetics – Microbiology – Evaluation of the antimicrobial protection of a cosmetic product) sets important guideposts in testing the efficacy of a cosmetic product in safeguarding consumers. It hews to the tradition of usefulness, practicability, and relevance set by such popular standards as ISO 14001 (and its ISO 14001 training component).

“The use of cosmetics is as global as the industry,” stated Andrée Cremieux, project leader of the team that developed ISO 11930. “Harmonized global guidance is necessary to ensure tests of cosmetics are carried out reliably around the world, and that results from different laboratories are comparable.

“ISO 11930 outlines a procedure for evaluating the overall preservation of a cosmetic product including a preservation efficacy test, as well as evaluation criteria. The standard will share best practice around the world, making companies more efficient, bringing down barriers to trade and reassuring consumers that the products they use are safe.”

ISO says ISO 11930 should be employed in accordance with another standard—ISO 29621:2010 (Guidelines for the risk assessment and identification of microbiologically low-risk products) which helps identify products that are at risk of microbial contamination.

FDA to Sequence Foodborne Bacteria’s Genomes

seo.team — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 10:25:15 +0000

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is harnessing the expertise of the University of California, Davis to sequence the genomes of 100,000 types and subtypes of deadly foodborne bacteria to help the agency corral contamination outbreaks, such as the multistate Listeria contamination last year that killed 25 and sickened over a hundred.

The announcement is good news to the public, food advocates, as well as conscientious restaurant owners who employ workers with food handler certification or food safety certification training, who all have relied on traditional, low-tech measures to help prevent and contain foodborne-illness outbreaks.

Also being recruited into the effort are the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Agilent Technologies Inc., a chemical analysis/engineering company based in Santa Clara, Calif. Once the genetic sequencing is completed, the results will be posted in a public database maintained by the National Institutes of Health’s National Center for Biotechnology Information.

“Right now, we spend a lot of time after an outbreak trying to figure out what country is it from, and how is it spreading,” said Dr. Steven Musser, director of the FDA’s office of regulatory science for food safety. He noted that the initiative is similar to the DNA information maintained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for investigating crimes.

“If we had this genetic sequence already, we could know immediately that the salmonella probably came from India, and we could have responded much more quickly,” Dr. Musser pointed out, referring to this year’s salmonella outbreak in tuna, which came from a plant in India. Lacking a genetic database for pathogens, FDA instead took almost two months to confirm that sushi was the culprit.

According to the FDA, the new database has the potential to slash the typical public-health response time in foodborne illness outbreaks to days instead of weeks.

Frustration Follows Food-Safety Reform Delay

seo.team — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 10:24:03 +0000

With the water boiling and the ingredients all diced and ready to go into the pot, the stew should have been ready by now—but it is not. Last year President Obama signed into law a bill to overhaul food safety in the United States, a sweeping food-policy change not seen in 70 years. But not much has happened since then—to the great frustration of the public, food advocates, as well as conscientious restaurant owners who have on their staff workers with food handler certification or food safety certification training.

The Food Safety Modernization Act updates the basic way the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) carries out its role: from an agency that responds to incidents of contaminated or adulterated food to one that stops contamination or adulteration from manifesting in the first place. The act empowers the agency to compel food recalls and to employ additional food-safety inspectors. Despite bipartisan endorsement in Congress and near universal support from the public health groups and the food industry, implementation of the new law has gotten stuck in procedural muck.

Regulations implementing the law have not been approved, the upshot of lack of major action by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which is still evaluating the rules’ effectiveness and alignment with administration policies. The regulations have been with OMB for seven months, four months past its deadline.

OMB spokeswoman Moira Mack explained that public-safety rules require extensive review, which, she said, is exactly what OMB is doing. “The administration is working as expeditiously as possible to implement this legislation we fought so hard for. When it comes to rules with this degree of importance and complexity, it is critical that we get it right.”

OSHA Seeks Nominations For Members To Serve On Federal Advisory Council on Occupational Safety and Health

seo.team — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 11:22:10 +0000

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) recently announced that it is now accepting nominations for six new members to serve on the 16-member Federal Advisory Council on Occupational Safety and Health (FACOSH), which advises the Secretary of Labor on issues concerning the occupational safety and health of federal employees.

FACOSH also extends help to the Secretary and OSHA with their programs and initiatives to minimize the number and seriousness of injuries and illnesses in the federal workforce, as well as encourages each federal executive branch department and agency to carry out effective occupational safety and health programs.

Although OSHA training—for instance, OSHA 10 hour training and OSHA 30—is now a pre-employment requirement by many employers, many workers continue to be unnecessarily exposed to avoidable worksite hazards because of employer ignorance, negligence, or plain disregard of basic health and safety standards.

The nominations, according to OSHA, are limited to three labor organization representatives and three federal agency management representatives. Each member will have a term of no more than three years.

OSHA stated that nominations may be submitted via the Federal eRulemaking Portal at www.regulations.gov, or by mail or fax. All nominations must be submitted by September 4, 2012.

The Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 mandates that employers are responsible for providing safe and healthful workplaces for their workers. OSHA ensures that these conditions are met by setting and enforcing standards, and providing training, education and assistance to organizations, employers, and employees.

OSHA Slates Training Event for Federal Worker Safety

seo.team — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 11:20:45 +0000

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is keeping the federal agency staff responsible for keeping federal workers healthy and safe on its toes. The OSHA Training Institute (OTI) and OSHA’s Office of Federal Agency Programs have slated a series of training seminars this July that would put safety programs of federal workplaces on a par with those of the private sector.

Fifty-three federal worker deaths in fiscal 2010 and 30,000 federal workers’ compensation claims backdrop the event, lending not just relevance to the seminars but also some urgency. The training event is designed to give federal managers a leg up in putting in place and managing their injury-and-illness-prevention programs.

OSHA training, such as OSHA 10 hour training and OSHA 30, is now required by many employers as a requisite for employment, but many workers are still exposed to worksite hazards because of employer negligence, ignorance, or plain disregard of basic safety protocols.

The three-day event—to be held from July 31 to August 2, 2012 at the OSHA Training Institute, 2020 South Arlington Heights Rd., Arlington Heights, IL.—comprises daily seminars on hazard communication, ergonomics issues, indoor air quality, and workplace violence, among other topics.

According to OSHA, government-agency personnel who will attend the training courses are exempt from tuition and other fees. Federal government contractors and private sector attendees, however, are required to pay tuition.

Registration for the event is open until July 24, 2012. Students can access registration forms, course descriptions and other details at www.osha.gov/dep/fap/fedweek_fy12.html.