Law puts a halt on selling youth dirt bikes and ATVs

A new law is putting the brakes on youth dirt bikes and ATV’s. Lawmakers say the lead content in parts of off-road machines is too high and dangerous for children.

Dealerships filled with the newest in off-road vehicles are missing one big seller.

Jason Johnson/U Motors: “We can't sell a machine for a child 12 or under, currently.” Mike Hennebry/Wheels Inc: “Well, I kind of feel short changed on the whole situation.”

This comes after a temporary national ban on any ATV or dirt bike designed for children 12 and younger because some parts contain lead levels greater than 600 parts per million. And it has sellers fuming; one local company is losing 50 thousand dollars a year in sales.

Jason: “If there were a part on the machine that had lead, is the child going to eat the part off the machine? We don't think that that is normal.”

Until they get the OK to sell them again, dealerships in the F-M are either keeping their youth bikes on display or are wiping them off the floor completely.

And this ban is not only affecting sales, it could also hurt ridership. Kids could get on bigger, used bikes that aren't as suitable for them or not get into the sports at all.

Mike: “If you have a six year old and you want to introduce him to dirt biking, you'd have absolutely nothing to offer them at this point.”

Jason: “It's something I've enjoyed with my family and hope to pass on to my son, but now I don't know when or if that can happen.”

And the news may get worse for dealers, sales managers say they don't know if they'll be reimbursed by the manufacturers if the bikes are recalled.

Some youth bike manufacturers are getting around the law. Polaris has already sent out a new handbook for some of its vehicles, including new stickers that say no one, 12 and under, can operate this vehicle, allowing the dealers to sell the ATV.

Heavy Machinery Material Handling

Handling of heavy machinery is a task that requires specially designed equipment. Heavy machinery like pneumatic conveyors, milling machines and drill jigs are used in places like farms, docks and construction sites. It is difficult to transport this equipment from one place to another. This is when the powerful material handling machines like tractors, bulldozers, trucks and trailers are used.

The equipment used for handling heavy machinery varies, depending upon the location. Industrial trucks and tractors are used to handle heavy machinery and move material around warehouses, storage yards, factories, or construction sites. A typical industrial truck, often called a forklift, uses a hydraulic lifting mechanism and forks to move large and heavy objects. Industrial tractors are also available to pull trailers loaded with material, goods, or equipment within factories and warehouses or around outdoor storage areas.

Ship loading and unloading equipment, conveyors and hoists are used at docks. Specialized material-handling equipment such as shipping tank unloading equipment is also used in docks, to gauge or sample shipping tanks and test them for leaks.

Other heavy machinery handling equipment includes conveyors and mine cars that are widely used in mines.

Prior to taking a decision about the material handling equipment to be used, it is important to take into account the general characteristics of the equipment. One should then attempt to determine which equipment is best suited for the required heavy machinery to be handled.

It is advisable to consult the dealers before purchasing or leasing such expensive equipment. Several companies provide material handling solutions for heavy machinery through their websites. Online Business to Business (B2B) platforms that allow buyers to interact with several manufacturers and equipment leasing companies are an excellent option to find the best prices for the purchase or leasing of heavy machinery material handling equipment.

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Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jennifer_Bailey

Light goes out on pioneer machine

The pioneering Synchrotron Radiation Source (SRS) based at the Daresbury Laboratory in Warrington, UK, will be switched off on Monday.

The machine, which probed the structure of materials down to the molecular and atomic level, developed the technology now used in some 60 centres worldwide.

Its X-ray science has been behind new drugs and electronics, and was used in Nobel-winning research on cell energy.

UK synchrotron studies have now moved to the Diamond centre in Oxfordshire.

Daresbury's future is envisioned as an innovation super-centre, where scientific ideas can better make the leap to business.

"Though the SRS has gone, Daresbury Laboratory is growing," said Professor Colin Whitehouse from the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), which runs the facility.

"It is part of a burgeoning national Science and Innovation Campus and the home of the Cockcroft Institute, a national centre for Accelerator Science and Technology, amongst other world-class research facilities."

Synchrotrons are essentially giant X-ray machines. Their brilliant, high-energy light is produced by electrons travelling in a ring at near-light-speed.

As the particles turn through a course of magnets, they lose energy in the form of X-rays which are then focused down beamlines to target samples positioned at experimental stations.

The light is so intense, it can probe just about any material, revealing the precise positions of its atoms and the arrangement of its molecules.

Future science

Over the past 28 years, synchrotron light has supported cutting-edge research in physics, chemistry and materials science, opening up many new areas of research in fields such as medicine, geological and environmental studies, structural genomics and archaeology.

Since it was opened, the SRS has helped develop new medicines by studying the atomic structure of proteins; it has enabled the production of new materials for use in electronics and clothing; and it has led to the development of new detergents - to list just a few of its achievements.

Perhaps the SRS's biggest moment came when it was used by Sir John Walker to map the structure of an important enzyme that catalyses adenosine triphosphate (ATP) - the molecule that carries the chemical energy that operates the body.

The research earned Sir John the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1997.

Diamond was built in the South, to the dismay of Daresbury staff

The decision to site the new Diamond Light Source in the south of England rather than at Daresbury led to a huge political row in the late 1990s.

The North West of England felt that the role played by Daresbury in developing synchrotron science meant it should have been given the "third generation" machine.

Instead, the £300m-plus facility was put on the Chilton-Harwell science campus, the home of the ISIS neutron source, another type of machine that can probe matter at the microscopic level.

Daresbury will be involved in developing the technology for so-called "fourth generation" light sources.

These machines will use X-ray lasers to probe matter on time-dependent scales, allowing researchers to see, for example, the moment bonds are broken and made in a chemical reaction.

Europe, as a bloc, is committed to building one such machine at the moment, at the DESY (Deutsches Elektronen Synchrotron) centre in Hamburg. It will be called the X-ray Free-Electron Laser (XFEL).

KLA-Tencor Profit Drops 48%; Fewer Orders Predicted (Update2)

July 31 (Bloomberg) -- KLA-Tencor Corp., the second-largest U.S. maker of semiconductor equipment, posted a 48 percent drop in fourth-quarter profit after orders from memory-chip makers slowed.

Net income fell to $76 million, or 43 cents a share, the company said today in a statement. Sales declined 20 percent to $590.7 million in the period ended June 30, while orders decreased about 15 percent from the previous period.

Orders probably will plunge another 15 percent this quarter, Chief Executive Officer Rick Wallace said on a conference call. Global spending on chip equipment may decline by more than a fifth this year as the U.S. economic slump worsens and excess supply drives prices down, according to researcher Gartner Inc.

``In the final weeks of the quarter, we experienced a further slowdown in orders,'' said Wallace, 48. ``The outlook for near-term recovery is muted.''

The San Jose, California-based company fell 19 cents to $37.40 in extended trading after closing at $37.59 on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The shares have declined 22 percent this year.

Fourth-quarter net income last year was $147.3 million, or 75 cents a share. KLA-Tencor forecast that profit would amount to 32 cents to 36 cents this quarter, on sales of $510 million to $525 million. That compared with analysts' average projection of profit of 53 cents on revenue of $559.4 million.

Memory `Weak'

``Memory is weak, and it's going to be weak again in September,'' said Patrick Ho, an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus & Co. in Dallas. ``It could be better in December, but it's hard to tell.'' He recommends buying KLA shares and doesn't own any.

Excluding reorganization costs and other expenses, fourth- quarter profit was 60 cents, beating the 57-cent average of estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Wallace called the results a ``strong performance'' amid an industrywide decline in orders from makers of memory chips.

KLA-Tencor's machines test whether each stage in the semiconductor-manufacturing process is completed successfully. The company is cutting costs to improve productivity as it faces increasing competition from Applied Materials Inc., the world's largest maker of machinery used to make computer chips. That may prompt further price cuts, Ho said.

``When you have a large, well-capitalized competitor that comes into your marketplace like Applied Materials, it can put a lot more pricing pressure on you,'' Ho said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Whitney Kisling in Washington at wkisling@bloomberg.net