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Senate Democrats Will Force Vote on Sanctions of Deripaska Firms
Laura Litvan, Bloomberg News
Steven Mnuchin Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg , Bloomberg
(Bloomberg) -- U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer says he will force a vote next week on a measure to block the Treasury Department's plans to lift sanctions on three Russian companies linked to oligarch Oleg Deripaska, who is reported to be under scrutiny by Special Counsel Robert Mueller in his probe of Moscow interference in the 2016 presidential election.
Schumer's move comes amid a backlash from Democratic lawmakers suspicious of the Trump administration's motives, and is aimed at forcing Republicans who control the Senate to take a side in the matter.
"After consultation with the relevant committee ranking members and my colleagues, I have concluded that the Treasury department's proposal is flawed and fails to sufficiently limit Oleg Deripaska's control and influence of these companies, and the Senate should move to block this misguided effort by the Trump Administration and keep these sanctions in place," Schumer said in a statement. He added that it wouldn't be appropriate to lift the sanctions while Mueller's probe continues.
Schumer's move would draw upon a provision in a 2017 sanctions law that lets him force a full vote in the Senate disapproving of sanctions relief within 30 days after it was allowed, but his success is not assured.
Democrats have just 47 seats in the Senate, so some Republican support would be needed. A full 60 votes are needed to prevent opponents from blocking a final vote, and a simple majority of 51 votes in the GOP-controlled chamber is needed to bring it up and to approve it in a final vote. Also, the House also must act by a strict Jan. 17 deadline for sanctions to be retained.
Democrats are concerned that the administration is easing pressure on Deripaska, an ally of Vladimir Putin, from sanctions intended to punish the Russian leader for interfering in the 2016 election. Democratic Representative Richard Neal, who heads the House Ways & Means Committee, wrote to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin Thursday requesting a 28-day extension of a deadline for Congress to consider blocking the delisting.
Mnuchin got backing Friday from the European Union, with ambassadors from the U.K., France, Germany and the European Union among those who signed a joint letter to Schumer and House Foreign Affairs Chairman Eliot Engel saying that lifting the sanctions would "safeguard" more than 75,000 workers across the EU's aluminum industry.
Mnuchin on Thursday briefed House lawmakers on Capitol Hill on his Dec. 19 announcement that he would delist United Co. Rusal, En+ Group Plc and a third company, EuroSibEnergo JSC. Lawmakers emerged from the meeting dissatisfied with Mnuchin's explanation, with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi saying it was "one of the worst" performances she has seen from the Trump administration.
--With assistance from Saleha Mohsin and Daniel Flatley.
To contact the reporter on this story: Laura Litvan in Washington at llitvan@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Joe Sobczyk at jsobczyk@bloomberg.net, John McCluskey, Jake Lloyd-Smith


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← TRAUMAFESSIONS :: Reader Andrew on House by the Cemetery Ten Great Horror Romances →
TRAUMAFESSIONS :: Reader Walt on Mister Rogers' Neighborhood
January 31st, 2008 by aunt john · 7 Comments
There is probably not a child alive in the United States that hasn't been "touched" by MR. ROGERS' NEIGHBORHOOD. Maybe you couldn't wait for the trolley to whisk you to the Neighborhood of Make Believe, got excited over Mr. Rogers tour of the local denizens, or maybe it was the "shoe toss" that gave you a thrill. For all the good memories you had from the show, let me dredge up some repressed horrors that you may have forgotten, but still haunt me and my wife years later.
The most nightmare-producing images from the show was when Lady Elaine Fairchilde was on screen. Did FRED ROGERS purposely pick a puppet design to scare children into his submission? Her phallic red nose, alcoholic-red cheeks, her creepy CHYNA-like man-pretending-to-be-a-woman voice, and an overall look that seems Fred pulled her out of the trash. If I was a child in IT, my fear would manifest itself as this puppet.
The next horror-vision on my tour of The Neighborhood is the amazing limping Chef Brockett. I know it's not a politically correct thing to say, he had a physical disability, but hell, this guy gave me the creeps as a kid. He would be cooking and then all of a sudden lunge towards Mr. Rogers, scaring the crap out of me. I had to keep telling myself, it was only a limp, he does not want to eat Fred's brains. While searching for information on DON BROCKETT, I found an eerie link to my fears. Did you know that he was the "Friendly Psychopath in Cell" in THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS AND played a zombie, not only in GEORGE ROMERO's 1985 classic DAY OF THE DEAD but in the 1990 remake of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD by TOM SAVINI? Who knew that the chef with a perfect zombie gate had such ties to horror greats?
The last one almost made me crazy. When I was really young, I had the Mr. Rogers' "long playing" record. It included the regular songs that everyone knew, but I also remember a song where Fred warns his young listeners that they can't marry their mothers. Now, I don't quite recall fighting the Oedipal complex as a child, but if I had an inkling to want to kill my dad and run away with my mom, Mr. Rogers was there to help.
No one I knew could remember this song, leaving me to look like some crazed lunatic, babbling something about Fred Rogers and my mother. But thanks to that series of tubes called "The Internets," I was able to find this song and play it; confirming that I wasn't nuts (Thanks to a blog called Dr. Forrest's Cheese Factory). The song is available on-line, so you can be as appalled as I have been. While this song did not appear to damage me in any way when I was young, the memories of it as an adult has.
I'm sure there are other horrific memories from MR. ROGERS' NEIGHBORHOOD (remember the rumor about him being a trained sniper? Look it up on Snopes)… but these are the few that scarred me. And speedy delivery to y'all.
EARLIER: Walt discusses the unsolved, possibly GHOULIES-induced death of his childhood Cockatiel.
Tags: Traumafessions
1 dhshoops // Feb 1, 2008 at 1:05 pm
Great call on Lady Elaine…in fact much of "The Land of Make Believe" had a very creepy vibe!!!
2 VicarOfVHS // Feb 4, 2008 at 12:34 pm
Lady Elaine kind of reminds me of Madame. Does anyone else remember that articulated sleeve of evil?
3 James Newman // Feb 6, 2008 at 6:22 am
Agreed 100%. This thing was pure evil, and still gives me goosebumps.
Plus, VicarofVHS is absolutely right! I think these two demons are definitely related. LOL
J.N.
http://www.james-newman.com
4 incognitovixen // Jul 14, 2008 at 9:20 am
I hated Lady Elaine. Most of my childhood fears revolved around creepy dolls. Mr. Punch, anyone? I swear his one line in the movie Dolls had to have been spoken by the same person who did Lady Elaine's voice.
5 Kurt Komoda // Jul 19, 2011 at 4:58 pm
I can't believe that the terrifying "Lady" Elaine isn't the mascot for Kindertrauma. It's almost as if she was purposely designed as this horrific demon baby-eater, but at the last moment, Fred Rogers said, "No! Let's make her a good character!" They did, but there was only so much pure evil that could be drained from something forged by a billion screaming nightmares.
6 ScrewedUpTeen // Jan 2, 2017 at 4:21 pm
I always thought Elaine was a crazy grandma who killed her children.
7 Brian Katcher // Feb 4, 2019 at 9:36 pm
You guys realize Lady Elaine is married now, right? In the follow up show, Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood, she married a musician and has a kid.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Vascular Endothelium in Health and Disease
Vascular Endothelium in Health and Disease pp 51-57 | Cite as
Role of Hemodynamic Factors in Atherogenesis
Takeshi Karino
Toshihisa Asakura
Shoji Mabuchi
Clinical and postmortem studies indicate that atherosclerotic lesions on the vessel wall develop not randomly, and not everywhere in the circulation, but at particular localized sites in the arterial tree such as bifurcations, T-junctions, and curved segments of arteries where the blood flow is disturbed and formation of eddies is likely to occur. Thus, to elucidate the possible connection between blood flow and the localized genesis and development of atherosclerosis, a considerable amount of work has been carried out in recent years.1,2 Theoretically, through the development of computational techniques, it has now become possible to simulate the blood flow through various channels, but the analysis is still limited to only those vessels having oversimplified geometries. Experimentally, due to the difficulties in visualizing the detailed flow patterns in vivo, most of the flow studies have been conducted in vitro using various models of arteries3–5 and arterial molds.6–8 However, even with the high quality casting and molding techniques available today, it is still not easy to precisely duplicate the complex geometry of the vessel lumen encountered in various regions of the circulation.
Wall Shear Stress Left Anterior Descend Recirculation Zone Pulsatile Flow Curve Segment
H.L. Goldsmith and T. Karino, Mechanically induced thromboemboli, in "Quantitative Cardio vascular Studies — Clinical and Research Applications of Engineering Principles," N.H.C. Hwang, D.R. Gross and D.J. Patel, eds., University Park Press, Baltimore, (1978).Google Scholar
G. Schettler, R. Nerem, H. Schmid-Schönbein, H. Mori and C. Diehm, eds., "Fluid Dynamics as a Localizing Factor for Atherosclerosis," Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg (1983).Google Scholar
B.K. Bharadvaj, R.F. Mabon and D.P. Giddens, Steady flow in a model of the human carotid bifurcation, Part I — flow visualization, J. Biomechanics 15:349 (1982).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
T. Fukushima and T. Azuma, The horseshoe vortex: A secondary flow generated in arteries with stenosis, bifurcation and branchings, Biorheology 19:143 (1982).PubMedGoogle Scholar
R. Rayman, R.G. Kratky and M.R. Roach, Steady flow visualization in a rigid canine aortic cast, Biomechanics 18:863 (1985).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
S. Moravec and D. Liepsch, Flow visualization in a model of a three-dimensional human artery with Newtonian and non-Newtonian fluids. Part I, Biorheology 20:745 (1983).PubMedGoogle Scholar
O.J. Deters, F.F. Mark, C.B. Bargeron, M.H. Friedman and G.M. Hutchins, Comparison of steadyand pulsatile flow near the ventral and dorsal walls of casts of human aortic bifurcations, ASME J. Biomechanical Engineering 106:79 (1984).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
F.J. Walburn, H.N. Sabbah and P.D. Stein, Flow visualization in a mold of an atherosclerotic human abdominal aorta, ASME J. Biomechanical Engineering 103:168 (1981).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
T. Karino and M. Motomiya, Flow visualization in isolated transparent natural blood vessels, Biorheology 20:119 (1983).PubMedGoogle Scholar
T. Karino and M. Motomiya, Flow through a venous valve and its implication in thrombus formation. Thrombosis Research 36:245 (1984).PubMedCrossRefGoogle Scholar
M. Motomiya and T. Karino, Flow patterns in the human carotid artery bifurcation. Stroke 15:50 (1984).PubMedCrossRefGoogle Scholar
M.R. Roach, The effects of bifurcations and stenoses on arterial disease, in "Cardiovascular Flow Dynamics and Measurements," N.H.C. Hwang and N.A. Normann, eds.. University Park Press, Baltimore, pp. 489–539 (1977).Google Scholar
M.R. Roach, J.F. Cornhill and J. Fletcher, A quantitative study of the development of sudanophiliclesions in the aorta of rabbits fed a low-cholesterol diet for up to six months, Atherosclerosis 29:259 (1978).PubMedCrossRefGoogle Scholar
M.R. Roach, and J. Fletcher, Alterations in distribution of sudanophilic lesions in rabbits after cessation of a cholesterol-rich diet, Atherosclerosis 32:1 (1979).PubMedCrossRefGoogle Scholar
M.R. Roach, S. Scott and G.G. Ferguson, The homodynamic importance of the geometry of bifurcations in the Circle of Willis (glass model studies),Stroke 3:255 (1972).PubMedCrossRefGoogle Scholar
T. Karino, H.H.M. Kwong and H.L. Goldsmith, Particle flow behavior in models of branching vessels: I, vortices in 90° T-junctions, Biorheology 16:231 (1979).PubMedGoogle Scholar
T. Karino and H.L. Goldsmith, Particle flow behavior in models of branching vessels: II, effects of branching angle and diameter ratio on flow patterns,Biorheology 22:87 (1985).PubMedGoogle Scholar
J.T. Flaherty, J.E. Pierce, V.J. Ferrans, D.J. Patel, W.K. Tucker and D.L. Fry, Endothelial nuclear patterns in the canine arterial tree with particular reference to hemodynamic events, Circ. Res. 30:23 (1972).PubMedCrossRefGoogle Scholar
C.F. Dewey, S.R. Bussolari, M.A. Gimbrone and P.F. Davies, The dynamic response of vascularendothelial cells to fluid shear stress, J. Biomech. Eng. 103:177 (1981).PubMedCrossRefGoogle Scholar
M.A. Reidy and D.E. Bowyer, Scanning electron microscopy of arteries. Atherosclerosis 26:181 (1977).PubMedCrossRefGoogle Scholar
M.J. Levesque, D. Liepsch, S. Moravec and R.M. Nerem, Correlation of endothelial cell shape and wall shear stress in a stenosed dog aorta. Atherosclerosis 6:220 (1986)Google Scholar
1.McGill University Medical ClinicMontreal General HospitalMontrealCanada
Karino T., Asakura T., Mabuchi S. (1988) Role of Hemodynamic Factors in Atherogenesis. In: Chien S. (eds) Vascular Endothelium in Health and Disease. Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology, vol 242. Springer, Boston, MA
DOI https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-8935-4_7


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Asus ZenFone Max Plus (M1) Price Revealed
By Jagmeet Singh | Updated: 9 January 2018 10:22 IST
Asus ZenFone Max Plus (M1) will go on sale in US
The smartphone will be available starting February at $229
It was debuted in Russia in last November
Months after being spotted in Russia, the price of the Asus ZenFone Max Plus (M1) has now been revealed. The smartphone, which was first formally listed in Russia, is now arriving in the US in 3GB RAM and 32GB onboard storage configuration with a price tag of $229 (approximately Rs. 14,500). It will go on sale in February in two colour options, namely Azure Silver and Deepsea Black.
Asus on Monday showcased the ZenFone Max Plus (M1) at the ongoing CES 2018 in Las Vegas. The Taiwanese manufacturer also claimed that it has already sold over five million units of its ZenFone Max series, which comprises the original ZenFone Max, ZenFone 3 Max, ZenFone 4 Max, and the ZenFone 4 Max Pro. Moreover, the lineup has now received the ZenFone Max Plus (M1) as the newest model.
As spotted in Russia back in November, the Android 7.0 Nougat-based Asus ZenFone Max Plus (M1) runs the company's proprietary ZenUI 4.0 with a face detection feature called Face Unlock and comes with dual-SIM (Nano) support. The smartphone features a 5.7-inch IPS display with full-HD+ (1080x2160 pixels) resolution and 18:9 aspect ratio. It is powered by a MediaTek MT6750T processor, coupled with 2GB or 3GB RAM options. The smartphone has a dual camera setup on the back with a 16-megapixel image sensor and f/2.0 aperture lens, equipped with PDAF, and an 8-megapixel image sensor along with a 120-degree wide-angle, six-element lens. Further, there are PixelMaster 4.0 camera modes, including auto, HDR, Pro, Beauty, and Super Resolution. An 8-megapixel camera sensor is featured on the front with an f/2.0 aperture lens.
Asus has provided two storage options - 16GB and 32GB, alongside a dedicated microSD card support (up to 256GB). The price of the 16GB storage variant is not known for now. The ZenFone Max Plus (M1) has connectivity options such as 4G LTE, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, A-GPS, and Micro-USB. It also comes with a fingerprint scanner and packs a 4130mAh battery that is claimed to deliver up to 26 hours of talk time on a 3G network. Besides, there is Asus' PowerMaster that is touted to increase its battery life by two times, withstanding up to 500 cycles of full discharge.
ProcessorMediaTek MT6750
Front Camera8-megapixel
Rear Camera16-megapixel
Storage16GB
OSAndroid 7.0
Asus ZenFone Max Plus (M1) With 5.7-Inch 18:9 Display Launched
More Asus mobilesAsus mobiles price in India
Further reading: Asus ZenFone Max Plus M1 price, Asus ZenFone Max Plus M1 specifications, Asus ZenFone Max Plus M1, Asus, Android, Mobiles, CES, CES 2018
Google's Smart Displays Take on Amazon's Echo Show, Speakers With Tablet-Like Screens
GoPro Says Open to Sale but Not Actively Pursuing
Redmi Note 6 Pro vs Motorola One Power vs Asus ZenFone Max Pro M1 vs Nokia 6.1 Plus
Redmi Note 6 Pro vs Asus ZenFone Max Pro M1 vs Realme 2 Pro vs Nokia 6.1 Plus: Price, Specifications Compared
Nokia 3.1 Plus vs Redmi 6 Pro vs ZenFone Max Pro M1: Price, Specifications Compared
Motorola One Power vs Redmi Note 5 Pro vs Nokia 6.1 Plus vs Asus ZenFone Max Pro M1: Price in India, Specifications Compared
Samsung Galaxy Note 10 Lite भारत में हुआ लॉन्च


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package edu.duke.cabig.catrip.gui.common;

import edu.duke.cabig.catrip.gui.simplegui.CDEComboboxBean;
import java.util.Comparator;

/**
 *
 * @author Sanjeev Agarwal
 */
public class CDEComboboxBeanComparator  implements Comparator {

    /** Creates a new instance of CDEComboboxBeanComparator */
    public CDEComboboxBeanComparator() {
    }

    /** String based comparison. String value is : Class_CDE+Attribute_CDE */
    public int compare(Object cBean1, Object cBean2) {
        return ((CDEComboboxBean)cBean1).toString().compareTo( ((CDEComboboxBean)cBean2).toString() );
    }

}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


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You are at:Home » Featured » The Last Line of Defense
The Last Line of Defense
By BJournal Admin on September 15, 2022 Featured
Bristol-based USAntibiotics is the only domestic producer of antibiotics. Will the U.S. Government be among its customers?
Photo by Dave Ongie
By Dave Ongie
Richard L. Jackson recalls the decision he was weighing as he sat on an airplane traveling from Tri-Cities Airport back to Atlanta.
Jackson, chairman and CEO of Jackson Healthcare, had spent part of his weekend taking a whirlwind tour of an antibiotics factory in Bristol, Tennessee, after being urged to do so by a trustee he knew. When he arrived at the facility, Jackson was greeted by a handful of workers, whom he described as "salt of the earth, hard-working and very passionate about what they do and how they save lives."
The previous company had walked away from the facility after filing for bankruptcy, leaving a group of dedicated employees to wrap things up and maintain the plant in hopes somebody would come in and save it. They wrapped machines in plastic and made sure everything was sealed. They constantly monitored samples that needed to be tested for stability and made sure the air conditioning and electricity were on.
Those things were important since the facility needed to be kept at an appropriate level of temperature and humidity in order to remain in compliance. What is more amazing is the workers stayed the course even though they knew they'd be doing so without being paid for several weeks of work.
The reason they did so is simple. They knew that if the plant fell out of compliance, the odds of it ever restarting production would grow much longer. In short, they were the last line of defense between us and a world where the United States would not have the capability of producing its own antibiotics.
"I've been in healthcare over 43 years," Jackson told the Business Journal last month. "When I found out this is something that could be shut down and the United States would not have the ability to make its own antibiotics, I was shocked. I would have thought I would have known that, but I haven't talked to a person in healthcare that knew that fact."
So as his plane cruised back toward Atlanta, Jackson had a business decision to make. On its face, the decision was a simple one. The Chinese have a stranglehold on the generic medication market. There is no way Jackson Healthcare was going to become rich by getting into domestic antibiotic production, and in fact, the risks of buying the plant far outweighed any financial gain. However, there was one intangible Jackson couldn't let go.
"When I was coming back, I was just sitting there going, 'I don't know if I could live with myself knowing I could have saved the last plant in the United States, to have the ability and not do it.' It was a little bit of an emotional business decision along with hopefully a little bit of patriotism," he said. "We put it in the category of what I'm calling 'venture philanthropy' and saying we've got to give a college try and subsidize this so it can at least stay in business."
And with that, USAntibiotics was born.
Amoxicillin, which is produced at USAntibiotics, is a critical drug because it is the No. 1 prescribed antibiotic in the U.S. each year and among the top 20 medications prescribed annually. Additionally, it is recognized as one of the best treatments for anthrax in the event of a terrorist attack.
As recently as 2008, every dose of Amoxil and Augmentin was produced in the United States, but the writing was already on the wall.
Richard L. Jackson, chairman and CEO of Jackson Healthcare.
By 2007, only 13 percent of pharmaceutical plants mentioned in generic drug applications to the FDA were located in the United States. Meanwhile, 43 percent were in China and 39 percent were in India, and Jackson said that was all part of the plan.
"This was planned by China," he said. "Their government is subsidizing their (active pharmaceutical ingredients) and their manufacturing to be the lowest provider so that everybody is buying from them. You have to give it to them. They've done it in multiple areas."
China first entered the pharmaceutical arena during the 1980s when the government invested heavily in penicillin fermenters. The Chinese government heavily subsidized penicillin producers, allowing them to disrupt prices around the world and begin driving Western producers from the market. In 2004, Bristol-Myers Squibb announced plans to close its factory in East Syracuse, New York, the last plant in the country still manufacturing the active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) used to make penicillin.
China's chokehold on the generic pharmaceutical market doesn't end with antibiotics. In fact, APIs for thousands of generic medications are made in China, as are many of the generic medications themselves.
The first key to understanding the current landscape is to acknowledge the difference between the branded medication market and the generic market.
Developing a branded drug that receives FDA approval and makes it to market can generate hundreds of billions of dollars. For that reason, Johnson & Johnson spent $82.6 billion on research and development in 2020, and that money came out of their net revenues generated by other branded drugs. According to the Congressional Budget Office, pharmaceutical companies have devoted approximately 19 percent of their net revenues to R&D over the past two decades, outpacing even the tech industry's R&D spending during that time.
When a successful branded drug hits the market, it has a patent that generally lasts 20 years. When that patent runs out, the active ingredient of the name-brand drug hits the generic market where competition instantly causes the price to plummet roughly 80 to 85 percent overnight.
Jackson said producing generic medications is a cut-throat business where three major distributors look for the lowest prices they can find in order to maximize their profit margins.
"They take their pound of flesh, and since it's almost a monopoly, they beat down the prices as much as possible," Jackson said. "You're competing against China. They're going to buy it for the lowest amount, and then they're going to pass that on and create a margin."
Of course, American-made generic medications hardly stand a chance in this marketplace, which explains why USAntibiotics is such an anomaly. Everything from labor costs to regulation prevents most Western countries from competing with China and India.
For Jackson Healthcare Chairman and CEO Richard L. Jackson, the decision to purchase a 400,000-square-foot facility with the capability of producing 100 percent of the United States' Amoxicillin was an exercise in "venture philanthropy."
Staring Down the Barrel
When the late Ross Perot discussed the North American Free Trade Agreement during his 1992 presidential campaign, he described the giant sucking sound of manufacturing jobs leaving the United States.
But when all of our API production capability and generic medication manufacturing facilities swiftly relocated to the Far East, they all vanished without a sound. Congresswoman Diana Harshbarger recalled conversations she had with her elected officials over the course of two decades while she was running her family pharmacy, and she said pleas to repatriate our API production to the United States largely fell on deaf ears.
"China does not have to drop a bomb," Harshbarger said. "All they would need to do is cut off our supply of APIs and finished pharmaceutical goods."
Jackson said this realization hit home in a big way when the Trump administration was in the midst of heated trade negotiations with China back in 2017. During the course of his research into buying the plant in Bristol, Jackson talked to a person who happened to be in the room during those negotiations.
Jackson recounted the story of how the Chinese delegation sat back patiently as the U.S. delegation made demands designed to shrink the trade deficit that existed between the two nations.
"The Chinese basically said you can do whatever you want, but you can't win a war with us," Jackson said. "We make 100 percent of your antibiotics. At that time, that was true. That was a clear threat, and guess what? The Trump administration didn't know that either."
If that wasn't a big enough wake-up call, the supply chain issues that have plagued our country during the COVID-19 pandemic have certainly added urgency to conversations about repatriating the supply chain.
"What COVID brought out was the frailties of our supply chain and how reliant we are," Jackson said. "I don't think people even knew we're so reliant on so many foreign products."
With that said, Jackson said the importance of producing critical generic drugs like antibiotics in the United States is finally on the radar screen in Washington, and Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn told the Business Journal as much during a recent phone interview.
"It is so essential that we return this manufacturing of pharmaceuticals and active pharmaceutical ingredients to the United States," she said. "We have seen what happens when you can't have what you need in a timely manner."
Jackson certainly took note of Washington's action when it came to repatriating the production of semiconductors. The CHIPS and Science Act offers tax breaks and hundreds of millions of dollars of funding for domestic research, development, manufacturing and supply chain security for companies that produce semiconductors in the United States.
Now Jackson is hoping the U.S. Government will attack the production of critical drugs with a fraction of that zeal.
"Just like with the Ukraine, we just can't be looking down the barrel negotiating with China," Jackson said. "When China is about to join Russia in a close relationship, it makes this even more urgent than it was when we bought (the plant)."
'Failure is Not an Option'
Last August of 2021, leaders from Jackson Healthcare were joined by Harshbarger, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee and other dignitaries for a ribbon cutting at the USAntibiotics facility in Bristol.
That announcement of the reopening of the only antibiotic production facility in the United States was certainly noteworthy, but once the ribbon was cut and the news cycle rolled over, the real work began for USAntibiotics President Patrick Cashman and his team.
Almost a full year after that ribbon-cutting ceremony, Cashman sat in his office preparing to produce the first batch of antibiotics for distribution. Knock on wood, he says, they'll hit the market this month.
Patrick Cashman, President of USAntibiotics
"It's been full of ups and downs," Cashman said of his first year on the job. "There are a lot of challenges in taking the plant back up to full production again. We have to make sure it's thoroughly clean and sanitary. There is a lot of detail work, a lot of very important protocols to follow."
A year may seem like a long time, but it could have been longer if not for Jackson Healthcare, the employees who took care of the facility and Harshbarger's efforts in Washington.
"Congresswoman Harshbarger has been a true friend and ally to this facility," Cashman said. "We deeply appreciate her efforts. We're designated as a critical infrastructure as part of homeland security. She really stepped up and helped move that through the system to get the appropriate approvals."
If the Bristol plant had fallen out of compliance during the bankruptcy proceedings and lost its critical infrastructure designation, the facility would have essentially been dead in the water. According to Jackson's estimates, it would take 5 to 7 years and $400 million to start from scratch given the red tape and regulations.
As it was, Jackson Healthcare invested $16 million to get the facility back up and running. A walk through the massive 400,000 square-foot facility the day before production began showed the potential of the operation as well as how far the facility has to go to get back to peak production.
You can spot scores of empty desks and cubicles scattered throughout the facility. Several production lines sit idle, a reminder of the days when over 400 people worked three shifts to churn out all of the Amoxicillin-based antibiotics needed for not only the United States, but also several foreign countries.
While USAntibiotics has spent the past year clearing regulatory hurdles, Jackson and Cashman are both well aware of the lack of oversight when it comes to APIs produced overseas, particularly in China and India.
"The FDA can come in with no notice any day," Jackson said of USAntibiotics. "You have to give three to six months advance notice in China, and if they've got any problems, they're going to clean it up before they get there. We can't really monitor what they're doing overseas. They can here."
The APIs used at USAntibiotics are not produced onsite, but they do come from suppliers in Europe that have to clear similar quality thresholds to the ones American companies must adhere to. As he walks through a facility capable of producing 2.2 billion antibiotic tablets each year, Cashman knows there is a major problem facing the country that can be solved by the plant he presides over.
"It's something we as a nation really have to address because we're not in a good place from a medication supply/security situation," he said. "Many medications are made overseas. As a nation, we need to decide and take action to ensure we have adequate supplies of critical medications."
Cashman is fond of saying, "Failure is not an option." But success will depend on a pending decision in Washington D.C.
A USAntibiotics employee inspects the first bottles of Amoxicillin produced for market since Jackson Healthcare purchased the Bristol-based plant last year. Photo by Dave Ongie
On Cashman's desk sits a copy of a proposal that has been sent to the United States government.
Around the time USAntibiotics was created last August, the federal government reached out with requests for information asking if the facility was capable of producing a 1- to 2-year stockpile of amoxicillin. USAntibiotics responded quickly with its proposal, but hasn't heard anything yet.
"The government buys for the VA, the Department of Defense and the strategic stockpile, which is the biggest one," Jackson said, adding that the government pays around $3 per bottle for amoxicillin that is stockpiled for national emergencies.
Right now, it is unclear where the federal government is purchasing its amoxicillin, but Harshbarger expects some if not all of it is coming from China or India, at least indirectly.
"There are several efforts to cut through red tape and encourage domestic production of antibiotics," she said. "We have to address this situation as soon as possible. Our domestic companies can produce higher quality medicine in a cleaner and safer environment than what is currently coming from China. For this reason, we should prioritize purchasing from domestic suppliers like Jackson Healthcare."
USAntibioitcs is open, and for now that is a victory. But in order for the facility to thrive and return to the days of full production, Jackson said the United States government must commit to buying its amoxicillin from USAntibiotics for the price it is currently paying for antibiotics being produced overseas.
Jackson can see where it looks hypocritical to be against the federal government picking winners and losers in the private sector, something he says happened in the recent CHIPS and Science Act, and then petition the federal government to make USAntibiotics its exclusive supplier of amoxicillin.
For Jackson, the distinction is that he's not asking for a government subsidy.
"In our case, we're just asking them what they're already buying," Jackson said. "They can pay the exact same amount to us and not buy it overseas, and this is a solved issue. With that kind of volume, we can create synergy and create lower expenses, because we know that volume is coming in.
When the first batch of antibiotics rolled off the line and was boxed up on Aug. 26, it was headed to a private-sector generic market dominated by cheap Chinese product. That is the route that landed the plant's previous owner in bankruptcy after losing millions of dollars year after year.
"We would love to see more of the pharmaceuticals manufactured in the United States," Blackburn said. "We'd love to see those as a preferred item. Repatriating this manufacturing is going to be essential for us."
For now, the ball is in the federal government's court. If the government sees fit to hand that ball back to USAntibiotics, Jackson is confident the Bristol-based facility will be able to take that ball and run with it.
"We're not asking for a big subsidy from the government," Jackson said. "We're just saying, 'Whatever you're buying now, buy it for the same price, but just buy it from America.'
"Our mission is really to be the 100 percent supplier for the United States, because we can do it."
Download the September Edition here.


Pipeline, the Kansas City-based organization that runs a fellowship program for Midwestern entrepreneurs, announced its 2018 class and annual awards at its Innovators gala on Thursday.
The entrepreneurs, chosen through a months-long application process, will participate in one-year training program that involves intensive quarterly modules. They will also have access to Pipeline's national network of mentors, partners and past participants.
The 2017 class marked the 11th to graduate the Pipeline program.
In October, the organization announced that the Kansas City-based Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation was extending its support of Pipeline with a matching grant worth up to almost $2.1 million over four years.


Brief history: Since the board of Mitcham Common Conservators was formed in 1891 it has consisted of a number of representatives from the local authorities that exist in the area. These have been Vestries, municipal Boroughs/Districts and latterly the London Boroughs.
The connections between the London Borough of Croydon and the Mitcham Common Conservators therefore have a long historical context. This is particularly important as Mitcham Common shares a common border with the London borough of Croydon and is used extensively by Croydon residents.
Aim of the organisation: The aim of Mitcham Common Conservators is manage the Common to protect and improve it and ensure that the public have free access to it. They endeavour to widen the public interest and understanding of the Common.
Additional information: The Mitcham Common Conservators have been managing the Common since 1891. Prior to that time there had been considerable unrest amongst local people at level of gravel extraction and turf removal which they regarded as the plundering of the Common's resources. At the forefront of this opposition was George Parker Bidder QC, who lobbied for the Common to be protected. Eventually this led to the Metropolitan Commons (Mitcham) Act 1891, which empowered the Conservators to manage the Common and make byelaws to protect it.


the KlezmerShack: Choral Concert in the Jewish and Christian traditions "Psalms"
Choral Concert in the Jewish and Christian traditions "Psalms"
The first CD produced by AMJ - the Friends of Jewish Music - is the live recording from the remarkable concert given on March 11th 2001 at the Geneva Conservatory, Switzerland.
These three choirs, representing the Jewish and Christian traditions, interpret each their own repertoire, but also twice join together to perform works by Salomone Rossi. The programme includes great liturgical works from the jewish and christian traditions, and compositions from Salomone Rossi; George Malcolm; Zolt�n Kod�ly; Bernard Reichel; Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy.
A deeply moving occasion, where the spirit of tolerance and spiritual communion are transmuted into music.


text:
This example illustrates the basic concept of data caching using Salesforce.

### Caching

The very basic concept of caching consists of temporary storing a result of some operations, in our use case it is caching fetched data from Salesforce. The example illustrates caching when we ask for a data once again, the result is returned directly from cache instead of making a new call to Salesforce.

### Prerequisites

This document describes the details of the example within Anypoint Studio. Where appropriate, the XML configuration is provided.

This document assumes that you are familiar with Mule runtime and the [About Anypoint Studio](https://docs.mulesoft.com/anypoint-studio/v/7.2/). Further, this example assumes that you have a basic understanding of [Flow and Subflow Components
](https://docs.mulesoft.com/mule4-user-guide/v/4.1/flow-component) and [Global Elements](https://docs.mulesoft.com/mule4-user-guide/v/4.1/global-elements).

### Example Use Case

In this example, the Salesforce querying operation is encapsulated within cache scope component. Firstly the query to Salesforce is performed to fetch Contacts, next calls to Salesforce are avoided and data are returned from cache and result is printed. When the cache is used check the Anypoint Studio console while running the example.

### Set Up and Run the Example

Complete the following procedure to create, then run this example in your own instance of Anypoint Studio. Skip ahead to the next section if you prefer to simply examine this example.

1. Open the Example project in Anypoint Studio. *Do not run the application*.
1. Log in to your Salesforce account. From your account menu (your account is labeled with your name), select **Setup**.
1. In the left navigation bar, under the **Personal Setup** heading, click to expand the **My Personal Information** folder.
1. Click **Reset My Security Token**. Salesforce resets the token and emails you the new one.
1. Access the email that Salesforce sent and copy the new token onto your local clipboard.
1. In your application in Studio, click the **Global Elements** tab.
1. Double-click the Salesforce global element to open its **Global Element Properties** panel. In the **Security Token** field, paste the new Salesforce token you copied from the email. Alternatively, configure the global element in the XML Editor.
1. Change the contents of the **Username** and **Password** fields to your account-specific values, then click **OK** to save your changes.
1. In the **Package Explorer**, right-click the connect-with-salesforce project name, then select **Run As > Mule Application**. Studio runs the application on the embedded server.
1. In your browser, access **http://localhost:8081/** and the Contacts are displayed in browser in JSON format.
2. Go back to Anypoint Studio and click the console view and search for a log similar to this one:

		INFO  2018-02-01 14:44:56,781 [[MuleRuntime].cpuLight.02: [cache-scope-with-salesforce-contacts].cache-scope-with-salesforce-contactsFlow.CPU_LITE @7f8feb5] [event: 0-16100290-0756-11e8-b986-f85971bd4f61] org.mule.runtime.core.internal.processor.LoggerMessageProcessor: Querying Salesforce (not from Cache)
3. Switch to your browser and access **http://localhost:8081/** again.
4. In Anypoint Studio console search for logs to check the caching is performed. The log message, which inform you about performed call **Querying Salesforce (not from Cache)** is not in console logs.
5. The Contacts are displayed in JSON format in browser and returned from cache.
1. Stop the Mule application by clicking the square, red terminate button in the **Console**.

### How it Works

Using a single flow, this application queries Salesforce CRM for contacts and prints them in browser. From the console log you can simply check when caching is performed and you are able to play with it and experiment.

**Salesforce Connector** performs a query in your Salesforce Account: to get *Id, FirstName, LastName, Email, Phone*  attributes of Contact objects with limit set to 200 records. To keep the example simple, the caching is illustrated via logs in console and Contacts are displayed in JSON format in a browser .

### Documentation

Studio includes a feature that enables you to easily export all the documentation you have recorded for your project. Whenever you want to share your project with others outside the Studio environment, you can export the project's documentation to print, email or share online. Studio's auto-generated documentation includes:

- A visual diagram of the flows in your application
- The XML configuration which corresponds to each flow in your application
- The text you entered in the Notes tab of any building block in your flow

Follow [the procedure](http://www.mulesoft.org/documentation/display/current/Importing+and+Exporting+in+Studio#ImportingandExportinginStudio-ExportingStudioDocumentation) to export auto-generated Studio documentation.

### See Also

- For more information on the Salesforce Connector, see [Connectors and Modules (for Mule 4)](Connectors and Modules (for Mule 4)).
- For more information on Batch processing, see [Batch processing](http://www.mulesoft.org/documentation/display/current/Batch+Processing+Reference).