Engineering Helps

This is the VOA Special English Education Report.

We continue our series of reports about how foreign students can attend a college or university in the United States. Our subject this week is government rules and requirements for entering the United States to study.

Every foreign student who has been accepted to study in this country must have a legal document called a visa from the United States government. A visa permits a foreign citizen to travel to the United States and request permission to enter the country. The rules for getting a visa can be found on the State Department Web site. The address is unitedstatesvisas dot g-o-v. United States visas is all one word. Another State Department Web site for students from other countries is educationusa dot g-o-v.

If you are requesting a visa for the first time, you may have to appear at the American Embassy in your country to talk to an official. Each student should communicate with the Embassy to find out if such an interview is needed and when it can take place.

It is important to apply for the visa early. State Department officials say national security is the most important issue in deciding if a person will be permitted to enter the United States. Officials must find out if a student is on any list of people with possible links to terrorists.

Embassies can not issue a visa more than 90 days before the start of the educational program in the United States. If you are a student studying in the United States for the first time, you will not be permitted to enter the country more than thirty days before the start of your classes.

Foreign students accepted at an American school will receive a document called a Certificate of Eligibility. The State Department says each student must enter the country using the certificate provided by the school he or she will be attending. It is a violation of the law to enter the country on one school’s certificate but attend another school.

You are permitted to stay in the United States on a student visa for the length of your period of study. That means you can stay as long as you are a full-time student. Your college or university will provide the government with reports about your education as long as you continue to study there. We will have more information about that next week.

Our Foreign Student Series is online, at voaspecialenglish dot com.

And that’s the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Nancy Steinbach. I’m Mario Ritter.

Chinese people always appreciate the purposes and principles of Olympic ideal, support the efforts of Olympic Games to promote world peace. The Chinese Government and people are doing our the utmost/best to prepare for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, and shooting at the pageant with advocating Olympic ideal, sparkpluging world peace and enhancing the relationships among the world. Olympic spirit are gonna spread again in orient cultural ancient China. The government and people of China have always admired the purposes and principles of the Olympic spirit and supported the efforts made by the Olympics in promoting world peace. The Chinese government and people are doing our utmost in preparation for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. It is our hope to make it a grand gathering that will carry forward the Olympic spirit, promote world peace and enhance the friendship among people of the world, so that the Olympic spirit will flourish once again, this time in China, an oriental country with an ancient civilization.

Unlike traditional residential real estate mortgages, real estate investment financing is way more creative and offers more options than you think. The golden rule in real estate investment is OPM (Other People? Money).

I have enough money; shouldn? I buy my real estate investment for cash? No, I absolutely advice against investing large sums of cash into a single real estate investment. There are two reasons why not. First, you give away most of your profits by not leveraging your real estate investment. Second, it is far too risky to put every egg into one basket.

Let me explain the leverage issue for a moment. I will give you an example of a $100,000 investment property that typically increases its value (appreciates) by 7% average a year. Maybe more, maybe less depending where you live. Paying all cash for this property will yield in a 7% appreciation profit plus the net profit from renting the place. Now you?e looking at roughly 15% of returns.

If you?e conservative with your investments you might be satisfied with this kind of a return. These days you might get equal or better returns with other conservative investments minus the hassle of being a landlord. But you don? mind being a landlord, because you understand and utilize the leveraging method with financing your real estate investment.

With the example above you will make roughly $15,000 a year in profits from your investment. Now let? take a closer look at what leveraging can do for you. Today a typical real estate investor can get financing as high as 95% - 97% of the purchase price. Occasionally 100% financing is available as well. But this would be totally unfair in this example to compare this with all cash purchasing.

15% return sounds like a lot, but wait till you see this. Let? assume that the rental income will cover all your expenses including the mortgage payments. Taking the same example from before your net return would be the 7% appreciation profits of your property. This would translate into a $7,000 a year profit. With a 95% financing in place you would get $7,000 return on $5,000 (your 5% down payment) invested. This is a whopping 140% return on investment.

With the same $100,000 you can go out there and get 20 investment properties, finance 95% of it and make an amazing $140,000 profit a year. This beats the projected $15,000 profits with an all cash transaction any day.

Of course you will have a lot of trouble to get financing for 20 properties in a single year. Typically 5-6 new rental property mortgages are the maximum lenders will allow these days. This is the signal to get creative with your financing structures.

In this case sellers financing would be your key to achieve your goal of maximum leverage of your investment dollars. Despite the message from all these late night infomercials, seller financing is harder to get than they want you to make believe it is.

It all depends on the seller? ability to offer seller financing and the seller? motivation. Only about 1 out of 20 properties for sale are able to get seller financing. That means that there? no mortgage balance on the property. From this narrow selection the seller must be motivated to sell under these conditions. This could be tax reasons, time constraints, personal reasons and many more.

As you can see this translates into a lot of work to achieve your goals. But let me tell you one thing. This separates the tire kicker real estate investors from the real go-getters. Wouldn? you agree that a little bit of hard work and determination is well worth it to build a real estate empire?

I think it is well worth the trouble and hard work. At the end of the day you keep building your real estate investment portfolio and sooner than later you will be able to cash in.

Sincerely,
Peter Dobler

Since 1990, there has been tremendous growth in the use of computers by students. While in 1990, the average number of hours a student spent on the computer was about one hour per week, this number grew to nearly four hours per week by 1995, and to approximately 20 hours per week by the year 2000.

This significant growth in the use of computers by students in the 1990’s can be attributed to several factors, including widespread usage, lower prices, and technological and social developments. Nowadays, computers are widely used by students for word processing, book keeping, multimedia presentations, and access to the Internet for both research and communications. Additionally, since 1990, due to competition and technological advances, computer hardware and software prices, as well as Internet usage charges have dropped significantly. Finally, technological developments and changes in social habits in the 1990’s have played a major role in this tremendous growth in the use of computers. Today’s society relies heavily on computers for immediate access to the news and for entertainment, including, listening to music, watching movies and sport events, and playing computer games.

While computers are of great assistance to the students, and therefore, are indispensable tools, they also pose some challenges. The biggest challenge that many students face is discipline in the use of this powerful device. That is, students need to have the discipline of not allowing themselves to be lured by the entertaining aspects of this wonderful tool-aspects that can result in addiction to computer games or viewing of undesirable material on the Internet. That is to say, students need to use this powerful tool with great wisdom!

With the rapid development of society, almost everyone wants to be educated.  However,  many people hold an erroneous:view towards education. They think, probably most parents do, that through education, they will, or their children will; turn out to be either prominent scholars or rich merchants. TO them, education Suggests merely fame or riches.
The aim of education, in my understanding, is set upon deeper and more important mental accomplishments andmoral culture. When we study at school or at the university, we are certainly aiming at a profound learning of various subjects, for that is one of the essential things and a fundamental indispensable for building up our future career. Equally important is the moral education which we must receive’either at school or at the university, for building*toUr character.
On the other hand, education does not simply mean “going to school.”We cannot consider ourselves well-educated and superior just because we are the fortunate ones who can go somewhere to study, thus looking down upon those who cannot get such golden chances as ours. It is a truth universally known that that a doctor is different from a blacksmith is not because the former has received higher education and the latter has not.
To conclude my essay, I would like to quote an old saying “Learn whatever it may be, whenever you can,and you will, “and this, I think, is the true meaning of education.

Computers

One of the greatest advancements in modern technology has been the invention of computers. Computers are changing the way people live and work. They are already widely used in industry, business and in academic institutions.

With the popularization of science and technology, computers have found an increasingly wide application in all fields. A computer can do a lot of work. It is capable of doing extremely complicated work in all fields of learning. It can solve the most complex mathematics problems. Computers are able to store large amounts of information, which can be recalled rapidly at any time.

The truth of the matter, however, is that any new technology has a “dark”side. The problems caused by the use of computers are quite different. For example, assembly lines will be a slow process to retain workers to build and operate new equipment. Nevertheless, the dark side of the computer shouldn’t mean that we should abandon the use of computers.

Technology only can make the real work cheaper, faster, and less tedious. It cannot solve problems.

E-business is reshaping industry landscape for the coming decades. Currently, e-business is in its infant stage as it is mainly treated as a secondary channel for business activities. And most importantly, Internet nowadays is most used for posting information and it becomes a collection of information and media for advertising.

To put internet into full play, this situation must be changed as soon as possible! The real value of Internet lies in its powerful communication, information exchange and processing functions.

E-marketing

The most fundamental change internet could bring about is to change the traditional way of marketing. At present, typical marketers are manufacturers or suppliers. Though marketing concept starts from customer need, most of marketing practices in real world apply “push” strategy by supply side, i.e., suppliers by all means to persuade their potential customers to buy their products. In marketing courses, ads aired by manufacturers are usually seen as “pull” which attract consumers to flood into their selling outlets to buy their heavily advertised goods. But if you scrutinize it, you will find it is still a “push” imposed on consumers by goods makers.

Why manufacturers adopt “push” strategy? “Profit” from getting an order is the driving force, which makes customer satisfaction an empty promise. With profit in mind, manufacturers are rare really volunteer to serve their clients wholehearted.

So if we don’t eliminate “push” behavior, marketing concept will never be realized! To achieve it, there are two important premises:

-           The development of social productivity makes oversupply an economic reality. If supply does not meet social demand, consumers do not have full freedom to shop for the best goods to meet their needs, so producers are in a stronger position to impose their offers to their clients. In an oversupply economy, buyers are endowed with the power to look for the best supplier, or problem-solver to meet their need and demand. The power shift from supplier to buyer lays the foundation for the change in marketing practice.

-           But only with the advent of Internet, such change could really happen. Traditionally, buyers are scattered geographically and each buyer’s purchase make up a meager part of a supplier’s total output. While powerful Internet could bring all geographically scattered buyers together which make the power scale favorable to the buyer side.

These two premises are ready in current economic condition. It implies that only those who represent demand side will prevail. But who may represent demand side and become qualified marketer? As individual buyer, esp. consumer is weak compared with suppliers, suppliers play the role of marketer wield their power to manipulate consumers, which goes against the spirit of marketing concept. The answer hinges on who can carry out marketing spirit which reflects the economic reality of new economic condition. This task is likely to be fulfilled by independent e-procurement consulting firms who collect individual buyer’s opinion and work for demand side to search for qualified suppliers for them.

E-business

Derived of and apart from power shift, Internet could lead to revolutionary change in goods distribution way which result in substantial cost cutting for goods circulation. Currently, the mark-ups when goods undergo different level of distribution system could range from 50%-1000% or even higher. With e-business, we estimate to pull it down to 10-100%, depends on types of goods. This is a huge saving for the whole economy. Esp. when human being are facing environmental protection pressure, the saving in logistics cost and reduced waste of resources save our future.

In e-business, buyers find their representatives to seek advice on qualified suppliers or brands. For important and business purchase, sales professionals from suppliers as well as the buyer are informed of by e-procurement consulting firm about the purchase plan.  Well informed buyer-seller relationship saves much effort as well as money on grueling and unwelcome sales prospecting work in traditional sales career. When the transaction process finished, goods delivered from plant to buyer’s site directly. For simple and consumer purchase, after receiving advised bid list from consultant, buyer may contact suppliers and ink the deal online, depends on what type of goods, consumer may receive product at home or pick up goods at the nearest supermarket (play the role of logistic center here) by showing the order.

Future economy

On the threshold of e-business, future business world will be real market-oriented because most of production is based on orders from clients. R&D and new product development are conducted via cooperation among all participants from manufacturer, consulting firm, and utmost customer or account. Goods are no longer being rerouted again and again from manufacturer to users. So social efficiency is greatly improved and energy consumption reduced, so is the total cost of goods reduced.

Written by intcitizen: http://intcitizen.bokee.com/tb.b?diaryId=15708345

So long a time that I hadn’t writern English blogs, let alone read some English materials. SInce I went to the newspaper office last month for learning some things, I had decided to write blogs in Chinese. As a matter of fact, I tried to do it. Because so many friends asked for me to write something that they could understand. However, I still persisted in.That’s why the rate of my blogs-reading was low all the time. But I had never care about it. The only perpose of writing in English was to record my feelings and moods which I did not want other people knew. Those Chinese articls were just some insipid things that included few emotions.
For example, the situation of doing practice reporting these days or just some travelings. As a matter of fact, when I wrote in Chinese, I couldn’t write it as free as in English. I had to consider its fluence and meaning, the most important was I was not able to express my ideas completely and directly. But it’s different in English. It’s unnecessary think more of those things, just wrtie under the condition to use the write senteces and expressions. It’s absolutely ok to write my own thoughts without worrying about being understood by other persons.

written by huteng

A few readers recently asked when someone would release the list of last-year’s best-selling cars. The answer, it seems, is now. MSN Autos tracked down the top 10 best-sellers of 2006 using data from Automotive News, and there are few surprises. The Ford F-150 still tops the list, and the Chevy Silverado comes in second despite a 6.7% downturn in overall truck sales last year. The full list including total sales is below.1. Ford F-Series (796,039)
2. Chevrolet Silverado (636,069)
3. Toyota Camry (448,445)
4. Dodge Ram (364,177)
5. Honda Accord (354,441)
6. Honda Civic (316,638)
7. Chevrolet Impala (289,868)
8. Toyota Corolla (272,327)
9. Nissan Altima (232,457)
10. Chevrolet Cobalt (211,449)

the news from MSN Autos.

Newswise — What do San Francisco and Kentucky have in common? A love of opera, of course. It is this love of opera that became the impetus of a new collaboration between the San Francisco Opera (SFO) Merola Program and University of Kentucky Opera Theatre (UKOT), which joined forces to bring to the stage a new work, “The Hotel Casablanca,” by composer Thomas Pasatieri. The new comedic opera, which follows a wealthy Texan couple in their attempts to ”toughen up” a nephew visiting from New York in 1948, is the product of a rare collaborative effort between a large metropolitan opera company and a university opera program.

Based on Georges Feydeau’s classic play “A Flea in Her Ear,” known for its choreographed chaos, “The Hotel Casablanca” takes audiences to Texas’ mythical Double-T Ranch and the seedy Hotel Casablanca with its similar raucous cast of characters. Composed by the prolific composer Pasatieri, the comedic opera is packed with an assortment of eccentric guests and the rich Texan couple, who can’t accept the wimpy 25-year-old New Yorker nephew who landed at their door. In a story teeming with misinformation, faulty assumptions, sexual innuendo and delicate egos, it is not surprising that characters erupt with jealousy, vengeance, and passionate responses, all voiced through the opera’s high-volume singing performances.

The opportunity for UKOT to work with a prestigious metropolitan opera company and a master composer and librettist of a new opera has been exciting for UK students and faculty alike. “When I learned that Pasatieri was looking for a university to partner with on the premiere of his new opera “The Hotel Casablanca,” I was thrilled,” said Everett McCorvey, director of UKOT. “I knew of him through his numerous art song compositions and work in the film industry.”

McCorvey made his interest in partnering known immediately to Pasatieri and SFO. In less than a week of conversations, UKOT had signed on as a partner in the innovative project and started to work on bringing the composer’s new opera to the stage. “The Hotel Casablanca” marks the first time UKOT has partnered with a major opera to co-produce a multi-city world premiere in two states.

The opera, which began its multi-city world premiere in August in San Francisco, is being performed this month in Lexington, Ky., by two casts of nine principal singers and an orchestra of 25 students from the UK School of Music. Taking part in this premiere is a tremendous real world experience for the UK opera students who are performing the new work. The students have enjoyed meeting and working with SFO, a leading metropolitan opera company in their future career field. Likewise, the UK cast has been excited with the unique opportunity to collaborate with and learn from a living composer as they craft his production for the stage.

Directing all the premiere performances is Richard Kagey. Kagey also designed the opera’s set, which was constructed by faculty and staff at UK. Conducting for the opera’s Lexington performances is John Nardolillo, music director and conductor of UK Symphony Orchestra. Rounding out the crew for “The Hotel Casablanca” is costumer Kirsty McLean, a visiting artist in residence at UK from England’s Art Institute at Bournemouth.

Even though the last premiere performance of “The Hotel Casablanca” will draw to an end on the Lexington Opera House stage this month, UKOT will continue to reap the rewards of their collaboration for years to come. The university opera program will work on the opera’s CD for Albany Records, which will be available for worldwide distribution in the coming months, and UKOT will also be home to “The Hotel Casablanca” set and costumes, which will be made available to opera companies interested in presenting the new opera in the future.