The Plastic Injection Moulding Process

Preparing the Mould

Feeding the polymer resin (pellets) down to the auger (screw) is a large open-bottomed container. An electric (or hydraulic) motor is responsible for turning the auger inside a heated cylinder which feeds the pellets up through the grooves of the auger. A gate before the mould cavity restricts the flow of the melt into the mould and limits backflow. The pressure created by pushing the forward through the grooves up to the gate also produces heat on the inside of the cylinder which helps to melt the polymer and prepare it for injection into the mould.

Injection of Polymer Melt Into the Mould

As the auger moves forward it injects polymer melt into the mould at high pressure (typically 10,000 - 30,000 psi), holds it, and adds more melt to ensure the contraction due to cooling and solidification does not leave gaps in the final product. Eventually the gate solidifies and isolates the mould from the injection cylinder.

Cooling the Mould

Moulds are typically air or water cooled. Sometimes small holes are bored into the mould that allow a cooling liquid (such as water) to be circulated. Injection mould cooling consumes about 85% of the cycle time for the entire process.

Unloading / Demoulding

After solidification, the clamp holding the two halves of the mould together closed is opened allowing the part to be removed. The injection moulding process can then be repeated.

Injection Molding - How Plastic is Molded

Written by: Linda Moore

Plastic has, quite literally, become the cornerstone of our society. We make so many things from plastic that it is hard to imagine what our lives would be like if it was never invented. With so many of our everyday products being made of plastic, it is easy to understand why plastic injection molding is such a huge industry.

Approximately 30% of all plastic products are produced using an injection molding process. Of this 30%, a large amount of these products are produced by using custom injection molding technology. Six steps are involved in the injection molding process, after the prototype has been made and approved.

The first step to the injection molding process is the clamping of the mold. This clamping unit is one of three standard parts of the injection machine. They are the mold, the clamping unit and the injection unit. The clamp is what actually holds the mold while the melted plastic is being injected, the mold is held under pressure while the injected plastic is cooling.

Next is the actual injection of the melted plastic. The plastic usually begins this process as pellets that are put into a large hopper. The pellets are then fed to a cylinder; here they are heated until they become molten plastic that is easily forced into the mold. The plastic stays in the mold, where it is being clamped under pressure until it cools.

The next couple of steps consist of the dwelling phase, which is basically making sure that all of the cavities of the mold are filled with the melted plastic. After the dwelling phase, the cooling process begins and continues until the plastic becomes solid inside the form. Finally, the mold is opened and the newly formed plastic part is ejected from its mold. The part is cleaned of any extra plastic from the mold.

As with any process, there are advantages and disadvantages associated with plastic injection molding. The advantages outweigh the disadvantages for most companies; they include being able to keep up high levels of production, being able to replicate a high tolerance level in the products being produced, and lower costs for labor as the bulk of the work is done by machine. Plastic injection molding also has the added benefit of lower scrap costs because the mold is so precisely made.

However, the disadvantages can be a deal breaker for smaller companies that would like to utilize plastic injection molding as a way to produce parts. These disadvantages are, that they equipment needed is expensive, therefore, increasing operating costs.

Thankfully, for these smaller companies, there are businesses that specialize in custom plastic injection molding. They will make a mock up mold to the exact specifications, run it through the complete process and present the completed piece along with an estimate to complete the job to the customer.

Article Source: http://www.dailynewarticles.com

------
Linda Moore writes on a variety of subjects including home ownership, travel, personal enrichment, plastic injection molding and replacement auto glass.

PC Hit 'Minecraft' Comes to Android

Unless you've been living in a cave, you've probably heard of Minecraft, Notch's addictive first-person adventure/construction game that's something like computer Legos. It's an indie sensation for Windows and Linux PCs, as well as Macs, and the videos of people building everything from the Taj Mahal to the Starship Enterprise are all over YouTube.

Well, now it's coming to a portable game console made by Sony! But it isn't the PlayStation Portable, or even the upcoming Vita. No, it's the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play, the fabled "PlayStation Phone." And while it's on the Android Market right now, according to Droid Gamers, it'll be an Xperia Play exclusive for a little while.

Why the Xperia Play, and not the PlayStation Portable or Nintendo DS?

Well, first off Minecraft is a game that kinda requires a touch screen, or at least a point-and-click interface. So that basically rules the PSP out. And Nintendo requires a huge up-front investment to write games for even the DSiWare catalog, plus the original DS probably isn't powerful enough to handle a demanding game like Minecraft.

"Minecraft 3D" would be fun, but the Nintendo 3DS isn't selling too well, and for the first time Nintendo's future in handheld gaming just may be in question. So that basically rules out all of today's handheld game consoles.

OK, so why not the iPhone and iPod Touch then?

Minecraft is, in fact, coming to iOS, according to Duncan Geere of Wired Magazine. But I can think of two reasons why it might've come to Android first.

One, Minecraft is written in Java. Android primarily uses Java for game development. It's possible that Notch may have had to port it to C or C++ for performance reasons, which would negate this argument, but it's worth mentioning either way.

And two, unlike the iPhone the Android world has a smartphone with hardware controls: The aforementioned Xperia Play. More than that, it's not just a PSP Go style smartphone, it's the first PlayStation Certified phone, a designation implying that there will be more of them. By putting in extra work now, Notch ensures compatibility with future PlayStation phones, and maybe preferred placement for Minecraft on them.

The upshot

If the Vita somehow adds support for PlayStation phone games -- a move that would be awesome, but hasn't been mentioned or hinted at yet -- we just might see Minecraft on other Sony consoles as well. Until then, PlayStation phone owners have another cool title to play with, that they can get on the Android Market right now. And Android and iPhone users have something big to look forward to.

US says Legionnaires cases triple over decade

ATLANTA (AP) — Cases of Legionnaires' disease have tripled in the last decade, U.S. health officials said Thursday, but the risk of dying from it is lower because of more effective treatment.

Legionnaires most often strikes the elderly and can cause deadly pneumonia. The germ spreads through mist or vapor from contaminated water or air conditioning systems.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports 3,522 cases in 2009, the most since Legionnaires was first identified in 1976. There were only 1,110 cases in 2000. CDC officials think the increase may be partly because there are more old people.

To be sure, Legionnaires remains uncommon. Just 8 percent of its victims died in the last decade, compared to 20 percent in the 1980s and 1990s. But it still kills hundreds of Americans each year. Despite the low case count, experts believe the disease sickens and even hospitalizes thousands every year whose cases aren't reported.

The increase in cases is worrisome, said study co-author Dr. Lee Hampton, a CDC epidemiologist. "We need to minimize the risk of people dying from this," he said.

The disease got its name from an outbreak at a Philadelphia convention of the American Legion in 1976 when more than 200 people were sickened and 34 died. The outbreak drew intense media coverage, and months later health investigators fingered the bacterial cause. The germ apparently had spread through the convention hotel's air-conditioning system.

Early signs of the disease can include high fever, chills and a cough. Fortunately, some of the drugs most commonly used against pneumonia are first-line treatments against Legionnaires.

Cases of the disease held relatively steady in the 1980s-90s, but rose since 2000.

The CDC relies on doctors, hospitals and state health departments to report cases when they occur, and agency officials believe the national case count is an underestimate.

Social Media Expands to New Roles in Finance

Social media has matured into the enterprise in the last 12 months, say two top guns at Autonomy, a search, analysis and marketing company.

Andrew Joiner, co-CEO of Autonomy Promote -- a business unit that spans multi-channel approaches to customers and George Tziahanas, vice president of compliance at Autonomy, joined in a conversation about how its technology is being used to promote financial services and serve customers.

Social media has to be done carefully to avoid running into problems with regulators.

On the marketing side, research analysts can use all the friends they can find, according to Joiner .

An investment bank with star research analysts can use social media to promote them.

“Social media is a wonderful broadcast medium if you can maintain quality. Firms want to embrace the network effect to publish research and to have their research analysts have friends.”

Autonomy Promote’s innovative technologies make it possible to understand customers by drawing on everything from transaction history to cross channel interactions, user-generated content, customer and community behavior and third-party content to deliver content which is relevant content to each individual visitor, according to the company.

This new approach to marketing extracts the meaning from every interaction a firm has  with customers - even "unstructured" formats like web pages, social networks, phone call recordings and video. This permits taking strategic actions based on a deep understanding of customers, competitors, and markets.

Investment banks can also monitor social networks to create profitable trading ideas. Some hedge funds are creating portfolios of concepts across news sources like Twitter and other social media looking for early indications of personnel departures, management shakeups and changes in factory news to see if they can incorporate the information for an algorithmic perspective.

Tziahanas, who works the compliance side of social media, said that as banks are starting their foray into social media the lawyers and compliance officers are very aggressive because they are scared of the new communications tools. As a result, they are relying on canned messaging, which sort of defeats the point of social media.

At a New York bank, lawyers decided Tweets were mass advertising, so any Tweet required approval before it went out. Another used Twitter contacts to direct customers into another channel like email or private Twitter messages where they can be more open and communicative.

They see more action on the lower end of financial services, such as retail banking and retail brokerage as more involved in using social media.

Autonomy makes compliance easier by scanning outbound Twitter or Facebook postings much the way it performs compliance on email looking for potential compliance problems.

“Capturing interactions is something we have already been doing,” said Tziahanas. More than 400 million messages pass through its supervision and filter technology every month.

“The underlying technology is our ability to access and understand unstructured information,” he added. “We have a platform we can deploy against any number of sources to see patterns of what people are saying. We look for certain types of patterns such as harassment, suitability or front running -- a little bit of everything and we do it at massive scale.”

In an Autonomy whitepaper, “Social Media and the Shifting Information Compliance Landscape,” Tziahanas and Eric Crespolini, vice president of eDiscovery Technologies at Autonomy, cite three areas of compliance which organizations should look at: scope of discovery in social media, potential privacy and freedom of expression issues and specific regulatory requirements while warning that “...social media issues are not clear-cut and will require solutions that are flexible and can address sometimes contradictory requirements.”

When it comes to maintaining records as required by SEC regulations, it isn’t clear who can have access to Facebook records or who owns them. The whitepaper notes that Facebook has successfully fought subpoenas for discovery. Federal privacy rules for electronic communications provide strong protection for individuals and create risks for organizations that try to capture and monitor their employees’ use of social media since that may violate state or federal privacy laws. Employers who try to discipline staff for comments on Facebook can run into Federal laws, especially if the employees are union members and come under the National Labor Relations Act. Just because employees are using social media during company time does not necessarily justify monitoring what they communicating, the authors add.

Capturing content, including comments posted on a Facebook wall, can open a company to risks, they say. “...enterprises should be extremely cautious in purposely gathering non-business-related content, as capturing private and personal information may impose new obligations and create new risks to the firm.”

Hmm, that seems to contradict what they said in the interview about using Autonomy to capture all sorts of information about customers for improved sales potential.

They suggest separating business and private identities for social media to minimize the capture of personal or private information.

Autonomy can also check inbound messages because there’s nothing quite like solving a customer problem to create an opportunity for cross-selling or up-selling. The software works across channels, just the way customers do, but not always the way banks think of interacting with customers. Using Autonomy, a bank can apply the same policies to phone calls, web visits, email or a Facebook message.

“Customer interactions from the financial institution’s perspective will become more multi-channel,” said Joiner. “Customers don’t care how they reach you because they think of it as talking to the entity. You will increasingly see fragmented customer interactions and financial services firms will want platforms to engage with customers wherever they are. Social media will become an accepted communication channel because it is where your friends are and where your customers are. Firms that embrace it will be at a competitive advantage.”

Chord Guitar Maher Zain - Insya Allah

intro
G C Ab C Bb C Ab G

C                       F
Everytime you feel like you cannot go on
    Bb
You feel so lost
G
That your so alone
        C
All you see is night
    F
And darkness all around
    A
You feel so helpless
          G
You can’t see which way to go
         Bb                   F
Don’t despair and never loose hope
        Bb                    G
Cause Allah is always by your side
        C
Insha Allah
        Ab
Insha Allah
        Bb
Insha Allah
                 G
you’ll find your way
2X

C                F
Everytime you commit one more mistake
    Bb
You feel you can’t repent
    G
And that its way too late
        C                    F
Your’re so confused, wrong decisions you have made
Bb                       G
Haunt your mind and your heart is full of shame

         Bb                   F
Don’t despair and never loose hope
        Bb                    G
Cause Allah is always by your side
        C
Insha Allah
        Ab
Insha Allah
        Bb
Insha Allah
                 G
you’ll find your way
2X

C Ab C Ab C Ab F G

          Eb
Turn to Allah
     C              
He’s never far away
         G
Put your trust in Him
                     Bb
Raise your hands and pray
         Eb
OOO Ya Allah
                     C
Guide my steps don’t let me go astray
           G                           Bb
You’re the only one that showed me the way,
              Eb
Showed me the way
              C
Showed me the way
               G   C
Showed me the way

        D
Insha Allah
        Bb
Insha Allah
        C
Insha Allah
                 A
you’ll find your way  

you can download the music in here

Methods of physical education

a. Models of teaching physical education is a complete package that includes aspects of planning, implementation and evaluation / asesemen. Describe the physical education teaching model that you are fully familiar with the benefits and or drawbacks?

Characteristics of Teaching and Learning (PBM) EffectiveTeaching physical education in particular can be viewed as art and science (art and science). As an art, teaching should be seen as a process that requires intuition, creativity, improviasi, and expression of the teacher. This means that teachers have the freedom in taking decisions and actions during the learning process can be justified in accordance with the views of life and ethics laws. So the teacher should not always be glued and tied to a formula of science teaching.Teaching can be called science if it meets the following characteristics: 
• Have a predictor power and control over student learning achievement (Gage, 1978 at Brucher 1991).
• Can be systematically evaluated and can be broken down into a series of activities that can be mastered (Siedentop, 1976). 
• Contain an understanding of human behavior, changing behavior, learning design, delivery and management (Siedentop, 1976).
• Closely related to the principle of learning such as readiness, motivation, training, feedback, and progress seta sequence (Siedentop, 1976).
• possibility to assess the teaching of scientific angle (Siedentop, 1976).Siedentop's opinion (in Bucher, 1988:550) instruction can and should be studied in terms of scientific theory to develop a theory of teaching. Although the process to form a theory of teaching physical education is a long journey, but an attempt to understand about the teaching process is the direction to go, during the "body of knowledge" about teaching has not been established, or during the teaching tends to be art, then the behavior of teachers in teaching will be attractive to a review by the observer's behavior at all times.From the literature obtained a picture of a model of teaching physical education. The last few years developed various models of teaching physical education and applied successfully in the field.Some of the teaching model was presented by Siedentop, mand, and Taggart (1986) as follows:
• Teaching direct / order (Direct Instruction) 
• Teaching assignment / post (Task / teaching station)
• Teaching in pairs of groups (Reciprocal / group teaching) 
• Teaching the contract system (Personalyzed System of Instruction (PSI) / Mastery Teaching)
• Contingency Management (Contingensi Management)One spectrum of other teaching models are also presented Mosston (1996). Mosston model is based on the assumption that the decision on the process and product of teaching should shift from teacher-centered teaching to focus on children, the students are bound to be students are free (active). Mosston classify teaching model based on the results of analysis of who makes the decisions. The classification model of teaching is as follows.

 Over the last two decades of teaching physical education to reflect the approach has been successfully implemented in some countries like America and Australia. The results of research on teaching indicates that there are three things that are important points to be noted that effective teaching of physical education in the sense that students will have the skills to move higher with a positive attitude toward physical activity. Thirdly it includes: (1) Students need proper training and sufficient practice, (2) Exercise such practices should provide an opportunity success rate (rate of success) is high, and (3) Environment needs to be structured in such a way as to foster learning climate conducive.

b. Learning sports and sports in children (primary school age) should be insightful present and future! However, the implementation of learning programs and sports penjas to achieve insight into the present and the future should be integrated! How does your concept of learning about sports to achieve insight into the present and future in an integrated manner.

In sports conditioning program is the training in physical form as a basis to support the achievement in every sport drilled. Conditioning program is a program implemented during the preparation of general and special purpose other than to establish a physical basis, also to overcome the injury during practice or in training. Conditions and Physical Education (Education) Primary Schools Sports at the moment:
• Time = 3 x 45 minutes / week
• Facilities - infrastructure is very limited
• Curriculum and Physical Education (Learning) Sports at the moment is more oriented to the Sports Kecabangan, among others: - Tend to individual and tend to refer to achievement - Sports achievements expensive in terms of: facilities and infrastructure are costly, time, need a long training period.
• Sports kecabangan / achievements should be an option and held as extra-curricular activities. Expectations of physical education and sport in the future for the primary school level:
• Repositioning: the need to think over what and Physical Education (Learning) Sport (age) SD intra-curricular, sports need to be returned on the basis of the position function is: - Use of Sport / Physical Activity as a medium of education - The use of sports as a training tool to maintain and improve the degree of dynamic sound to the conditions of today's students plenary Prosperous and debriefing the child to become an elite athlete and qualified human resources for the future. 
 • Reorientation: think again toward coaching olahrga for Elementary Students Sports as a curricular programs need to be revisited, among others: - Relevance to the needs of students / students - The expected benefits - The real conditions of schooling (ration how many hours per week and that means working paper available)
• Re-actualizing: think again whether exercise in elementary real needs are in accordance 
 • Revitalization: think again how to implement and promote the implementation of sports in elementary school to achieve the objectives of the present and future 
 • Quality Officer The success of the mission at the field level is largely determined by the quality of the officer (in this case sports teacher) as well as its understanding of the meaning of learning in the Primary School Sports. Sincerity and earnestness in the service, as well as creativity and innovation in the learning exercise in children (aged) SD will largely determine the success of his mission.  
• Needs Physical Education and (Education) Sport (age) Elementary School and at the Pondok Pesantren should be perceived as the needs and enjoyment by students / students, so they will feel aggrieved when subjects Sports abolished. 
 • Sports achievements Sports prestatif kecabangan nature should also be developed but as extra-curricular materials, as an option to channel the talents and interests of students / students about something sports branch.  

c. Whether the objectives of physical education and sport in fostering a child for the future? Explain.

Physical education has different goals than physical training as well as achievements in sports. Goal-directed physical education as a whole (multilateral) as well as general education purposes.

Physical education is part of general education. He is one of the subsystems of education. Physical education can be defined as an educational process that aims to achieve educational goals through physical movement. Has become a common fact that physical education as a common fact that physical education as a substance having a meaningful role of education to develop human qualities Indonesia.

As applied in the Republic of Indonesia Act. No. II of 1989 on National Education System of the purpose of education including physical education in Indonesia is a human development is complete Indonesian man who is faithful and devoted to God Almighty and the virtuous, knowledge and skills, physical and spiritual health, a stable personality and self and a sense of civic responsibility and nationality.

If you ask the teacher about what exercise objectives to be achieved? The answer may vary. Ideally, the answer is terjabar such as the following points:

1. Personal Development

• optimal physical growth

• Healthy physical, mental, social, and spiritual

• Freshness of optimal physical

• Smart

• Creative and innovative

• Skilled in motion and solve problems

• Honest, discipline, confidence, and responsibility

2. Relationships Between Personal and Environmental

• Respect for others

• Mutual cooperation

• Flexible (adaptable)

• Communicative the ideas (concepts) and thinking

• Ethics (Polite Courtesy)

3. National resilience

• Love homeland

• Pancasila Democracy

• Loyal to Pancasila and the 1945

How Can Fly Helicopters?

Jet engines

Jet engines (Gas-Turbine) used for producing power and not just to drive the rotor or turbine. If you've heard the term turbo engine, this machine is the basis of jet engines. This machine takes power from the combustion and release of mechanical energy that can rotate the rotor or turbine. Turbine blades shaped to place the conversion of thermal expansion of burning fuel into thrust power, and take little energy to drive the turbines of the power thrust that is used to compress the air in front of the machine.

Helicopters (almost every case these machines are used) using jet engines to generate power that will move the rotor. Engine helicopters like the UH-1 Huey, the Bell Jet Ranger, and AH-64 Apache is a derivative of the engine gas turbine engines. Some small or old helicopter using reciprocating engines (Piston) as a source of energy, but the modern helicopter gas turbine engine wear. These machines are used because they are lightweight, powerful, and works well. These machines are not as reciprocating engines are too many moving parts, so the probability of engine damage is smaller.

Let's see how jet engines work. Jet engines work based on four principles: "Go, Press, Fuel and Explosion". The figure below illustrates a cross section of gas turbine engines.

The front of the engine is the compressor is the air intake and "Press" so it makes more congestion and better air for combustion. Air into the compressor through the compressor blades shaped like a miniature airplane wings. This compressor works like a large fan that sucks air into the engine. Between rows of compressor blades, stationary blades are commonly called "stator". Stator is useful to change the direction of air flow and helps the process of compression. As shown in the figure, the area that can be met on a smaller air compressor closer to the fuel mixing section (diffuser). The air then flows into the diffuser, then into the combustion section. In that section the air will be mixed with fuel and ignited to trigger chemical reactions that can generate power. The explosion combustion air and fuel mixture produces a thermal expansion that passed through the turbine so that the thrust producing power that can move turbines. This engine produces enough thrust to drive the compressor, so that the generated power is continuous. But in the real design will have a much more complicated than this example, and this theory is used to represent the working process of a jet engine.

 

How is energy obtained from the engine transmitted to the rotor?

Power is transmitted from the engine using a gearbox that converts power from the engine and sent to the transmission. In the transmission of engine speed (RPM) is reduced from thousands of rounds per second to hundreds of revolutions per second. With this reduction increases the torque and rotation dipelankan in order to achieve the desired rotation to the rotor system. Controlling transmission power which is channeled to the rotor.

Gearbox gear arranged on the machine a little less power to drive components such as oil pumps, generators and fuel control of the machine itself.

Mac OS Surpasses Linux as Primary Software Development Environment in North America

The Mac operating systems has surpassed Linux in popularity as a development environment in North America according to the recently released Evans Data North American Development survey.

Santa Cruz, CA (PRWEB) August 09, 2011

The Mac operating systems has surpassed Linux in popularity as a development environment in North America according to the recently released Evans Data North American Development survey. Although Windows remains overwhelmingly the most popular operating system for development with over 80% of developers using it, Linux has slipped to third place with only 5.6 percent using it as their primary development platform, while 7.9 percent now use Mac OS.

"Apple has made tremendous strides in the last few years with innovative products and technologies," said Janel Garvin, CEO of Evans Data Corp. "So it’s quite reasonable to see developers adopting the Mac and its OS as a development environment. Windows firmly remains king, but developers are obviously attracted to Apple’s devices, while at the same time Linux has lost some of its luster after years of only single digit adoption.”

Mac OS has not, however, displaced Linux as a development target. Still more than twice as many developers primarily target Linux as do Mac.

Other highlights from this comprehensive survey of over 400 professional software developers in North America, conducted June 2011 include:

•     Developers believe Mobile and Cloud development will increase the most in importance over the next three years, followed distantly by open source and plug-in architecture. The DevOps phenomenon will be least important.
•      Adobe’s BlazeDS is being well received in North America with over a third of developers using or expecting to use this.
•      Almost half (47.3%) of North American developers use or expect to use Java ME.

The Evans Data North American Development survey is conducted bi-annually and is part of the Global Development Survey series. It explores a wide range of development topics including language and platform adoption, mobile development, cloud development, SOA, Database development and other technology adoption.

See complete Table of Contents for the latest edition here:

http://evansdata.com/reports/viewRelease.php?reportID=1

About Evans Data Corporation

Evans Data Corporation provides regularly updated IT industry market intelligence based on in-depth surveys of the global developer population. Evans' syndicated research includes surveys focused on developers in a wide variety of subjects.

Copyright 2011 Evans Data Corporation. All other company names, products and services mentioned in this document are the trademarks and property of their respective owners.

Obama sets sights on rural America to talk jobs

WASHINGTON (AP) — Trading Washington's hot house for states critical to his re-election prospects, President Barack Obama is headed to the Midwest after a summer of discontent over a protracted debt showdown with Republicans and the downgrade in the nation's credit rating.

Obama's bus tour, his first as president, begins Monday and will take him to prairie communities in Minnesota and through Iowa and Illinois, with stops in the farmland and rural towns that launched his first White House bid.

The former Illinois senator is expected to tell audiences that he agrees with their frustrations about a dysfunctional federal government.

"What we've seen in Washington the last few months has been the worst kind of partisanship, the worst kind of gridlock — and that gridlock has undermined public confidence and impeded our efforts to take the steps we need for our economy," Obama said Thursday in Michigan. "It's made things worse instead of better."

Obama won a clean sweep in 2008 of Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois and Michigan, a region that has supported Democratic presidential candidates since 2000, except for President George W. Bush's narrow victory in Iowa in 2004.

But Obama's standing in these states, like elsewhere, has grown precarious as the economy has slumped.

Republican governors are now in charge in three of those five states and Obama's approval rating, as measured by Gallup, is hovering around 50 percent in most of the region.

"We got a president who got a decrease in the credit rating of our nation, and that's because our president simply doesn't understand how to lead and how to grow an economy," Republican hopeful Mitt Romney said in Thursday's Iowa debate.

Romney and his GOP rivals blamed Obama for the growth of the federal deficit and the credit downgrade by Standard and Poor's, the first in the nation's history.

The GOP race intensified with Texas Gov. Rick Perry's entry Saturday. When Obama arrives at a town hall meeting in Decorah, Iowa, on Monday afternoon, Perry intends to meet with voters in eastern Iowa, about 100 miles away.

Nationally, Obama's approval rating is comparable to President Ronald Reagan's ratings in August 1983. But recent Gallup polls found that Obama's approval rating was hovering between 44 percent and 49 percent in 10 states closely watched by his political advisers. Those states include Iowa, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Florida.

Obama's standing with independents, who helped him win in traditionally Republican states such as Indiana and North Carolina, has fallen, too.

"The country is in an unbelievably angry mood," said Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg.

Most presidents like to get away from the nations' capital, and this excursion couldn't come at a better time.

As a candidate, Obama said he would tame Washington's gridlock. Yet it was political paralysis that scuttled his quest for a "grand bargain" with congressional Republicans on increasing the country's borrowing limit and forced him to agree to smaller spending cuts without higher taxes on the rich, as he demanded.

Days later, Standard & Poor's downgraded the U.S. credit rating and stocks on Wall Street plummeted, undermining confidence in an economic turnaround. The Federal Reserve said Tuesday that economic growth had been "considerably slower" than expected this year and outlined a glum forecast.

Obama will have a tough sales job on the road. Unemployment is high, foreclosures are rampant and Wall Street is jittery.

While considered official White House travel, the bus tour will put Obama in campaign-like settings with small-business owners and workers in rural areas.

If 2008 was about hope and change, 2012 may be about hard-knuckle politics. Behind the scenes, Obama advisers are planning to draw sharp contrasts with some of the leading Republicans.

Yet Obama also finds himself under pressure from the left to generate jobs and raise taxes on the wealthy.

Most Democrats, said MoveOn.org's Justin Ruben, "have not been offering a clear prescription for actually getting the economy moving."

Obama told workers in Michigan that he plans to roll out more economic plans "that will help businesses hire and put people back to work." That's an approach Democrats hope will set the tone for next year's election in the Midwest and beyond.

500,000 lassa fever cases each year in west Africa: (WHO)

An estimated 500,000 people in west Africa are infected with lassa fever every year, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said Wednesday, amid calls for more money to be spent on preventing its spread.

"The disease remains an epidemic in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Nigeria with evidence of its presence in Ghana, Ivory Coast and Mali," the WHO's representative in Sierra Leone, Dr Wondimagegnehu Anemu told delegates at a conference on infectious diseases.

Anemu said he hoped the four-day meeting "will create an opportunity to examine the potential impact of the epidemic in the region and the world."

Sierra Leone's Health Minister Zainab Bangura said that eradicating the rodent that carries the virus was "almost impossible."

Instead he argued that countries "should embark on adequate measures to prevent the spread of the disease and all available resources should be spent on those access that promote good health as well as personal and environmental hygiene."

The acute viral haemorrhagic fever causes some 5,000 deaths annually in west Africa, according to World Health Organisation figures.

Robo roaches dance to Gaga, not born this way

Is your knee-jerk reaction to cockroaches, "Kill them with fire!" or anything similar? You are not alone. But it's a given that some people won't share your roachy woes, and you can't find a better example than the group of high school kids in Cooper Union's summer internship program. The young interns experimented on 15 imported Central American roaches as part of their neuroscience research.

Copper Union physics professor, Robert Uglesich, says the students removed part of the cockroaches' antennae and replaced them with wires. The result? Robo roaches that can receive signals from a toy controller. Anyone else envisioning an army of robo bugs? But it doesn't end there — the roaches can also receive other stimuli such as music. And what else should cyborg cockroaches dance to other than Lady Gaga? The interns tested it out, and as expected, the Gaga tune translated into electric signals, making the roaches do a twitchy dance.

The point of all their experimentation is to design a way of communication with the brain that can be used to replace or restore lost brain function in humans. Think prosthetics that could alleviate health problems related to the human brain. And that's only one of the possible applications that could come out of the study. Outside of the scholarly scheme of things, the students seem to have developed genuine fondness for the roaches — they even named one of them Sir Walter Raleigh II.

Maher Zain - Sepanjang Hidup

Intro: Am G F E

Am                     G
aku bersyukur kau di sini kasih
F                    E
di kalbuku mengiringi dan padamu ingin ku sampaikan
Am                                  G
kau cahaya hati dulu ku palingkan diri dari cinta
F
hingga kau hadir ubah segalanya
E
oh inilah janjiku kepadamu

Chorus:


Am
sepanjang hidup bersamamu
G
kesetiaanku tulus untukmu
F                 E
hingga akhir waktu kaulah cintaku cintaku
Am
sepanjang hidup seiring waktu
G
aku bersyukur atas hadirmu
F              E
kini dan selamanya aku milikmu

Am                       G
yakini hatiku kau anugerah Sang Maha Rahim
F
semoga Allah berkahi kita
E
kekasih penguat jiwaku berdoa

Am
kau dan aku di Jannah
G
ku temukan kekuatanku di sisimu
F
kau hadir sempurnakan seluruh hidupku
E
oh inilah janjiku kepadamu

chorus:
Am
sepanjang hidup bersamamu
G
kesetiaanku tulus untukmu
F                 E
hingga akhir waktu kaulah cintaku cintaku
Am
sepanjang hidup seiring waktu
G
aku bersyukur atas hadirmu
F              E
kini dan selamanya aku milikmu

Dm        Am
yakini hatiku bersamamu
G             F            Dm
ku sadari inilah cinta (inilah cinta)
Am           G
tiada ragu dengarkanlah
E
kidung cintaku yang abadi

int: Am G F E

chorus:
Am
sepanjang hidup bersamamu
G
kesetiaanku tulus untukmu
F                 E
hingga akhir waktu kaulah cintaku cintaku
Am
sepanjang hidup seiring waktu
G
aku bersyukur atas hadirmu
F              E
kini dan selamanya aku milikmu
Am
yakini hatiku

You can download it in here