Open staircases can be a focal point in the home. In most cases, they're in the center of the home or visible from the front entry way. Painting stairs can add style to home design and modernize an already beautiful feature.

The Climate Trail is a "good, realistic, and sobering" free game about the post-apocalyptic world we face if we continue our current path.

New Program to Premier Oct. 13 on The CW Philly

Travel guide made by locals focuses on Kamakura and Enoshima, two small towns located one hour from Tokyo and the venue for the sailing competitions for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, helps visitors to explore Zen and samurai culture, local life, and more.

Attorney John Demas represented Carol and Ken, who were injured in a bicycle collision accident on the American River Bike Trail, resulting in a verdict of $10.2 Million.

Lightweight, Portable and Compact the Meditation-T and the FlooringKnee-T device are affordable solutions to knee strain problems.

It's Turtle Splash time again in Melbourne, Florida, to raise funds and awareness for individuals with disabilities.

Having a wide spectrum of clients from the ICO days, to corporate solutions on smart ledger technologies, Blockchain App Factory has now come up with the most comprehensive approach to Security Token Offerings.

G2Crowd's Winter 2019 Report recognizes InsureSign as the No. 1 ranked e-signature software for usability, results and customer support

Smith attributes a consistent and comprehensive financial planning process to his ongoing success.

The complaint alleges that Caliper contracts with labor brokers to staff construction projects with labor.

The Ministry of Commerce and Industry (MoCI) on Thursday signed contracts with 14 companies in Qatar to raise the country's strategic stock of essential commodities including rice, wheat, frozen red meat, and long-life milk.

Deputy Mayor of Odessa Pavel Vugelman: "Best people of the world come to Odessa, share their experiences, educate our youth and pass on the centuries-old wisdom of the Jewish people."

Oklahoma City-based author, Darlene Franklin is a true prototype of the literary world with her 68 published books and her 2020 goal for #75. That she did this mainly from an assisted living facility isn't even the most impressive part of this story.

Chino Valley Ranchers organic, pasture raised eggs were recently featured in an Instagram post by Health Enthusiast and Yoga Teacher

Chino Valley Ranchers organic, pasture raised eggs were recently featured in an Instagram post by Social Media Influencer @everything_but_the_bagel.

Chino Valley Ranchers organic, pasture raised eggs were recently featured in an Instagram post by Social Media Influencer Shannon Fong on her profile @traderjoesobsessed.

According to southern California manufacturer and mainstay, Rainforest Nutrition, the Rainforest and its untouched wonders have provided natural, raw materials that have served a multitude of purposes for centuries.

Female-driven comedy stars Taylor Nichols of "PEN15" and HBO's "Perry Mason"

Ashton Whiteley economists say BoE will hike interest rates once or twice a year as long as UK wage growth recovery continues.

Rolands Petersons, member of the board of CPM Trading SIA, April 24, 2018, 12:10

WebCE is excited to announce a new interactive training program, EXCEED, is joining its family of education products.

Revenue Storm Honored to Be on Prestigious List

Dozens of convention appearances, free merchandise and cross-country theatrical screenings of classic horror films in 2020!

Muralist Invites George Strait Fans to Visit Fort Worth Design District to See Tribute to King of Country Music

Birdsong offers eight thousand unique, engaging content experiences, including video chat, music, classic tv shows, videos, travel, and fun brain fitness exercises and memory games.

Now This Nashville Recording Artist Releases a New Single "Cumberland Falls" and Hopes She Can Survive a Pandemic by Bringing Her Projects to Life from Home

End Game Ep

The Parallel Reel Payout Trailer from BHS, Inc. is a turnkey solution for electrical contractors that simplifies cable pulls at the job site.

Item by Item (IBI) – www.itembyitem.co - announced today the release of Microsoft Dynamics 365 (D365) Commerce online training curriculum.

The 2019 Tri-State Grain Growers Convention is soon to kick off in Spokane, Wash., Nov. 13-16 at the Davenport Grand Hotel.

Recently Northwest Fisheries Enhancement Saved over 400,000 Rainbow Trout from Regulators During a Downturn in Markets from COVID-19

The move will help Southwest save cash at a time when U.S. airlines collectively burn more than $10 billion a month. Last month, rival United Airlines agreed to sell and lease back 22 planes to aircraft investor Bank of China Aviation. United, however, did not specify the size of the deal.

Trellising tomatoes using the tomato hook and tomato clips Please check out this video I made on Trellising tomato plants. If you are growing indeterminate or vine tomatoes, they will have to be supported due to their tall growing nature. Trellising tomato plants is done either by a stick or a twine. Twine is the […]

D. Miller & Associates, PLLC hosted the third annual motorcycle ride to raise money for those affected by traumatic brain injury.

For more than forty years Jan Gehl has helped to transform urban environments around the world based on his research into the ways people actually use — or could use — the spaces where they live and work.

In Cities For People (Washington : Island Press, 2010), his revolutionary new book, Gehl presents his latest work creating (or recreating) cityscapes on a human scale. He clearly explains the methods and tools he uses to reconfigure unworkable cityscapes into the landscapes he believes they should be: cities for people.

Taking into account changing demographics and changing lifestyles, Gehl explains how to develop cities that are lively, safe, sustainable, and healthy.

The book is extensively illustrated with over 700 photos and drawings of examples from Gehl’s work around the globe. Jan Gehl is based in Copenhagen.

Intelligent Transportation Systems, or ITS, integrates different computing, control, and communication technologies to help monitor and manage traffic management that helps reduce congestion while saving lives, time, and money.

While mobility and safety are the primary objectives of any good transportation system, security has also become an equally important consideration in their design and operation.

This new work, Transportation Infrastructure Security Utilizing Intelligent Transportation Systems (Hoboken, NJ : Wiley, 2008), provides a comprehensive treatment of techniques to leverage ITS in support of security and safety for surface transportation infrastructure.

Through the book's multidisciplinary approach, readers gain a comprehensive introduction to the diverse aspects of transportation infrastructure security as well as how ITS can reduce risks and be protected from threats with such topics as computer systems, risk analysis, and multi-modal transportation systems.

This book, which will serve as a textbook and guide, provides:

• Current ITS approaches to security issues such as freight security, disaster and evacuation response, HAZMAT incidents, rail security, and ITS Wide Area Alerts
• Guidance on the development of a regional transportation security plan
• Securing ITS itself and privacy issues involved in any collection and use of personally identifiable tracking data
• Exercises, question-and-answer sections, and other helpful review tools for the reader

Filling a gap in the practical application of security, this book offers both students and transportation professionals valuable insights into the new security challenges encountered and how to manage these challenges with the use of computerized transportation systems.

Railways are an environmentally friendly means of transport well suited to modern society.

However, noise and vibration are key obstacles to further development of the railway networks for high-speed intercity traffic, for freight and for suburban metros and light-rail.

Railway Noise And Vibration: Mechanisms, Modelling And Means Of Control (Amsterdam : Elsevier, 2009) brings together coverage of the theory of railway noise and vibration with practical applications of noise control technology at source to solve noise and vibration problems from railways.

Each source of noise and vibration is described in a systematic way: rolling noise, curve squeal, bridge noise, aerodynamic noise, ground vibration and ground-borne noise, and vehicle interior noise.

This work also discusses in full the theoretical background and practical workings of railway noise, including the latest research findings, and forms an extended case study in the application of noise control techniques.

Author David Thompson is Professor of Railway Noise and Vibration at the Institute of Sound and Vibration Research, University of Southampton (U.K.).

The need for effective public transport is greater than ever in the 21st century. With countries like China and India moving towards mass-automobility, we face the prospects of an environmental and urban health disaster unless alternatives are found--it is time to move beyond the automobile age.

But while public transport has worked well in the dense cores of some big cities, the problem is that most residents of developed countries now live in dispersed suburbs and smaller cities and towns. These places usually have little or no public transport, and most transport commentators have given up on the task of changing this: it all seems too hard.

Transport For Suburbia: Beyond The Automobile Age (London: Earthscan, 2010) argues that the secret of European-style public transport lies in a generalizable model of network planning that has worked in places as diverse as rural Switzerland, the Brazilian city of Curitiba and the Canadian cities of Toronto and Vancouver. It shows how this model can be adapted to suburban, exurban and even rural areas to provide a genuine alternative to the car, and outlines the governance, funding and service planning policies that underpin the success of the world's best public transport systems.

Getting To Know ArcGIS Desktop (Redlands, Calif.: ESRI Press, 2010) introduces principles of GIS as it teaches the mechanics of using ESRI’s leading technology.

Key concepts are combined with detailed illustrations and step-by-step exercises to acquaint readers with the building blocks of ArcGIS Desktop including ArcMap, for displaying and querying maps, ArcCatalog, for organizing geographic data, and ModelBuilder, for diagramming and processing solutions to complex spatial analysis problems.

Its broad scope, simple style, and practical orientation make this book an ideal classroom text and an excellent resource for those learning GIS on their own.

The factors affecting the economic viability of high speed rail lines include the level of expected riders, costs, and public benefits, which are influenced by a line's corridor and service characteristics.

High speed rail tends to attract riders in dense, highly populated corridors, especially when there is congestion on existing transportation modes.

Characteristics of the proposed service are also key considerations, as high speed rail attracts riders where it compares favorably to travel alternatives with regard to door-to-door trip times, prices, frequency of service, reliability and safety.

In High Speed Passenger Rail: Viability, Challenges And Federal Role (New York: Nova Science Publishers, 2010), a strategic vision for high speed rail is offered, particularly in relation to the role that high speed rail can play in the national transportation system, clearly identifying potential objectives and goals for high speed rail systems and the roles that federal and other stakeholders should play in achieving each objective and goal.

The recently enacted Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008 will likely increase the federal role in the development of high speed rail, as will the newly enacted American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

This book consists of public documents which have been located, gathered, combined, reformatted, and enhanced with a subject index, selectively edited and bound to provide easy access.

In 1920, as its population began to explode, Los Angeles was a largely pastoral city of bungalows and palm trees. Thirty years later, choked with smog and traffic, the city had become synonymous with urban sprawl and unplanned growth.

Yet Los Angeles was anything but unplanned, as Jeremiah B.C. Axelrod reveals in this compelling, visually oriented history of the metropolis during its formative years. In a deft mix of cultural and intellectual history that brilliantly illuminates the profound relationship between imagination and place, Inventing Autopia: Dreams And Visions Of The Modern Metropolis In Jazz Age Los Angeles (Berkeley: University Of California Press, 2009) shows how the clash of irreconcilable utopian visions and dreams resulted in the invention of an unforeseen new form of urbanism--sprawling, illegible, fractured--that would reshape not only Southern California but much of the nation in the years to come.

At 401 pages, it could seem like a daunting read, but those interested in Los Angeles history, urbanization, or the rise of the automobile will find this enjoyable. It's a great compliment to the Metro Library's historic transit and transportation studies collection. Many of these documents, which date back to 1911, have been digitized and are available on our website in full-text PDF.

Axelrod focuses on the 1920s when Los Angeles was growing at a fast clip. As we noted back in July, the number of automobile registrations in Los Angeles County quadrupled between 1914 and 1922 - making it very clear that the city's embrace of the auto would set the stage for decades of congestion and other issues.

Going back further in history is another equally seminal story about transportation in the West. Acclaimed historian Walter R. Borneman has written a dazzling account of the battle to build the first transportation system across America.

Rival Rails: The Race To Build America's Greatest Transcontinental Railroad (New York: Random House, 2010) is an action-packed epic of how an empire was born—and the remarkable men who made it happen.

After the completion of the first transcontinental railroad in 1869, the rest of the country was up for grabs, and the race was on. The prize: a better, shorter, less snowy route through the corridors of the American Southwest, linking Los Angeles to Chicago.

Borneman lays out in compelling detail the sectional rivalries, contested routes, political posturing, and ambitious business dealings that unfolded as an increasing number of lines pushed their way across the country.

The author brings to life the legendary business geniuses and so-called robber barons who made millions and fought the elements—and one another—to move America, including:

William Jackson Palmer, whose leadership of the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad relied on innovative narrow gauge trains that could climb steeper grades and take tighter curves;

Collis P. Huntington of the Central Pacific and Southern Pacific lines, a magnate insatiably obsessed with trains—and who was not above bribing congressmen to satisfy his passion;

Edward Payson Ripley, visionary president of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe, whose fiscal conservatism and smarts brought the industry back from the brink; and

Jay Gould, ultrasecretive, strong-armer and one-man powerhouse.

In addition, Borneman captures the herculean efforts required to construct these roads—the laborers who did the back-breaking work, boring tunnels through mountains and throwing bridges across unruly rivers, the brakemen who ran atop moving cars, the tracklayers crushed and killed by runaway trains.

From backroom deals in Washington, D.C., to armed robberies of trains in the wild deserts, from glorified cattle cars to streamliners and Super Chiefs, all the great incidents and innovations of a mighty American era are re-created with unprecedented power in this new work destined to be a classic.

Turning now to urban planning, author Patrick Condon discusses transportation, housing equity, job distribution, economic development, and ecological systems issues and synthesizes his knowledge and research into a simple-to-understand set of urban design rules that can, if followed, help save the planet.

Seven Rules For Sustainable Communities: Design Strategies For The Post Carbon World (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2010) clearly connects the form of our cities to their ecological, economic, and social consequences. This book takes on a wide range of complex and contentious issues and distills them down to convincing and practical solutions.

Of particular importance is how city form affects the production of planet-warming greenhouse gases. The author explains this relationship in an accessible way, and goes on to show how conforming to seven simple rules for community design could literally do a world of good. Each chapter in the book explains one rule in depth, adding a wealth of research to support each claim. If widely used, Condon argues, these rules would lead to a much more livable world for future generations—a world that is not unlike the better parts of our own.

In Last Exit: Privatization And Deregulation Of The U.S. Transportation System (Washington, D.C.: Brookings, 2010), Clifford Winston reminds us that transportation services and infrastructure in the United States were originally introduced by private firms.

The case for subsequent public ownership and management of the system was weak, in his view, and here he assesses the case for privatization and deregulation to greatly improve Americans satisfaction with their transportation systems. How can this be done?

Writing in the New York Times, Harvard University economics professor Edward L. Glaeser points out that:

Because the public sector controls almost all roads, airports and urban transit, we see the downsides of public control on a daily basis, but we don’t experience the social costs that could accompany privatization. A private airport operator might try to exploit its monopoly power over a particular market or cut costs in a way that increases the probability of very costly, but rare, disaster.

The complexity and risks of switching to private provision means that Mr. Winston is wise to call for experimentation rather than wholesale privatization. An incremental process of trying things out will provide information and build public support.

Yet many of Mr. Winston’s recommendations are incremental and can be done without privatization or much risk.

The book covers privatization and deregulation of roads, airports, air traffic control, mass transit, intercity buses and railway networks.

The recent selection of a route alignment for the Westside Subway Extension, as well as the release of the Wilshire Boulevard Bus Rapid Transit final environmental impact report started us thinking about something we read aways back regarding Wilshire Boulevard.

It was in Kevin Roderick's Wilshire Boulevard: Grand Concourse Of Los Angeles (Santa Monica: Angel City Press, 2005). The author briefly mentions (on page 20):

"New subdivisions around the periphery of Los Angeles were not unusual in the mid-1890s, but the Wilshires had grander ambitions. Across the center of their land, they promised to grade a generous, one-hundred-twenty-foot-wide graveled boulevard.

It would stretch just four blocks between the two parks, but the brothers believed that even a short stub of remarkable avenue would attract lot buyers.

To spur sales, they lobbied to encircle the tract with special streetcar lines, but insisted that the city council forbid the laying of tracks - forever - on their boulevard."

Forbid the laying of tracks?

Forever?

Really?

We had to determine if this had actually been codified, and turned to the City of Los Angeles Municipal Code to investigate.

Sure enough, we discovered in SEC. 62.129. PUBLIC BOULEVARDS - USE OF:

That the following regulations shall apply to those certain streets in this City, known as Wilshire Boulevard, from Park View Avenue to the west City limits; Adams Street from Grand Avenue to Hoover Street; Boyle Avenue from Whittier Boulevard to First Street; Alvarado Street from Seventh Street to Hoover Street; and Occidental Boulevard from First Street to Sixth Street; which have been heretofore dedicated as open, public boulevards:

(a) No railroad or pipe line franchise shall ever be granted, and no railroad track or pipe line shall ever be laid or constructed, except water pipes, sewers, gas mains and conduits for telephone and electric wires, for service of the property fronting on said boulevards and house connections and connections of water, sewers, and gas pipe lines, or conduits for telephone and electric wires on intersecting streets.

The early developers of Wilshire were successful in banishing rail lines from the Boulevard forever. Despite having the greatest urban rail system in the world in its heyday, no streetcars ever rumbled down Los Angeles' grandest street.

This 1925 Kelker DeLeuw City/County Comprehensive Rapid Transit Plan Urban Map shows nothing on Wilshire - cross-town streetcars were designated for Pico Boulevard, 3rd Street, and Hollywood Boulevard.

A 1938 Los Angeles Railway map depicts cross-town streetcars on several east-west lines: 3rd Street (R), 10th Street / Olympic Boulevard (L), Pico "Street" (P), Washington Boulevard (W), and Jefferson Boulevard (J). Only motor coaches served Wilshire Boulevard.

Wilshire still became the city's grandest boulevard despite its lack of "rapid transit" - or perhaps because of it - and Rodericks' book is a fascinating account of Los Angeles' iconic boulevard and how one street can influence such a large city.

We can't know how the street or city would have developed had streetcars run along it, but Wilshire Boulevard never got stuck with overhead transit either.

We might be thankful we didn't end up with a Wilshire monorail, as one proposal depicted the intersection of Wilshire & Fairfax here.

Meanwhile, this Saturday marks the annual Great Los Angeles Walk, which goes back to its roots this year.

The day-long trek will take participants 15.6 miles along the entire length of Wilshire Boulevard, from Pershing Square downtown to its west end at the Pacific Ocean in Santa Monica.

The L.A. Conservancy has a wonderful interactive website that helps visitors create their own customized tours of Wilshire Boulevard's past and present.

Oil On The Brain: Petroleum's Long, Strange Trip To Your Tank is a smart, surprisingly funny account of the oil industry — the people, economies, and pipelines that bring us petroleum, brilliantly illuminating a world we encounter every day.

Americans buy ten thousand gallons of gasoline a second, without giving it much of a thought. Where does all this gas come from?

Author Lisa Margonelli’s desire to learn took her on a one-hundred thousand mile journey from her local gas station to oil fields half a world away.

In search of the truth behind the myths, she wriggled her way into some of the most off-limits places on earth: the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the New York Mercantile Exchange’s crude oil market, oil fields from Venezuela, to Texas, to Chad, and even an Iranian oil platform where the United States fought a forgotten one-day battle.

In a story by turns surreal and alarming, Margonelli meets lonely workers on a Texas drilling rig, an oil analyst who almost gave birth on the NYMEX trading floor, Chadian villagers who are said to wander the oil fields in the guise of lions, a Nigerian warlord who changed the world price of oil with a single cell phone call, and Shanghai bureaucrats who dream of creating a new Detroit.

Deftly piecing together the mammoth economy of oil, Margonelli finds a series of stark warning signs for American drivers. Rave reviews for Oil On The Brain include:

“If you drive a car, you must read this book.” —Mary Roach, author of Stiff

“By giving voice to the people who are the links in the global oil chain, Margonelli invites us to leapfrog all the rhetoric, dry statistics, and dire pronouncements about oil in order to truly understand it.” —Fast Company

“Hugely enjoyable, compulsively readable, and brilliantly reported.” —Po Bronson, author of What Should I Do with My Life?

The PBS Newshour conducted an extensive interview with the author, which can be found here.

Transport Geographies: Mobilities, Flows And Spaces brings together a formidable range of expert insight to introduce the key ideas, concepts and themes of transport geography.

Using an issues-based, qualitative approach, the contributors feature a wide range of case-study material.

This work explores the relationship between transport geography and wider geographical concerns, as well as connections to other areas of study -- economics, engineering, environmental studies, political science, psychology, spatial planning, sociology and transport studies.

The book highlights the role of transport geography in globalization, and its interplay with economic, social and environmental geographies at a range of spatial scales. It reviews contemporary policy and the role transport geographers can play in policy debates.

Both empirically informed and theoretically robust, this compelling text shows the significance of transport in terms of the needs and demands of future travel.

Growing south from the plaza where the city of Los Angeles was founded as a tiny pueblo in 1781, the area now known as downtown L.A. was first developed in the late 1800s as a residential neighborhood, complete with churches and schools.

As the population surged at the turn of the 20th century, the downtown area was transformed into a busy business and entertainment center of shops, banks, hotels, and theaters.

The explosion of the postcard craze in the early 1900s coincided with this period of downtown's tremendous growth toward a formidable metropolis.

Early Downtown Los Angeles is a collection of vintage postcard images offers a glimpse into the changing city through the 1940s. Transportation is afforded its own chapter.

It includes rarely seen images of La Grande Station, the passenger terminal constructed by the Santa Fe Railroad in 1893. Santa Fe and Southern Pacific's competitive rail pricing fueled the real estate boom and unprecedented population growth throughout the region in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Early interior images of Union Station, Angels Flight, and other rail lines are of particular topical interest.

New funding round follows a successful Reg D round

The new framework uses contrastive learning to improve image analysis in unlabeled datasets.

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected everything, and building predictions during this time is difficult. Data science teams need to update their models to prepare for the recovery, and know how to properly train 2020 data models to learn from the coronavirus anomaly.

A growing consensus of researchers contend that new algorithms are needed to transform narrow AI to AGI. Brain Simulator II is free software for new algorithm development targeted at AGI that you can experiment with and participate in its development.

Jeff Stibel, president of Web.com.

Whitney Johnson, founding partner of Rose Park Advisors.

Shawn Achor, CEO of Aspirant and author of "The Happiness Advantage."