Michael Jarvis (202)720-8998
Michael.jarvis@ams.usda.gov
Billy Cox (202) 720-8998
Billy.cox@ams.usda.gov
Washington, May 14, 2010 -- Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced that USDA had completed tough new food safety standards for ground beef purchased by the Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) for Federal food and nutrition assistance programs including school lunches.
“The health of our school children is a top priority at USDA, and today we are moving ahead quickly with plans announced earlier this year to ensure that food provided to nutrition programs is as safe and nutritious as possible,” Vilsack said. “The new standards announced today ensure our purchases are in line with major private-sector buyers of ground beef and are part of our continued effort to employ the best scientific knowledge to increase the safety of our nutritional programs.”
This past February, Vilsack announced a series of initiatives to improve the safety of food purchased for school lunch and nutrition assistance programs, and standards announced today marks the completion of one of those initiatives. The standards are the result of a joint review by the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) and Agricultural Research Service (ARS) that has been ongoing since the February announcement.
The new requirements will be applicable to AMS ground beef contracts awarded on or after July 1, 2010.
In addition to continuing a zero tolerance for E. coli O157:H7 and Salmonella, the new AMS standards will: (1) tighten microbiological testing protocols; (2) tighten the microbiological upper specification and critical limits; (3) increase microbiological sampling frequency for finished products to every 15 minutes; and, (4) institute additional rejection criteria for source trimmings used to manufacture AMS purchased ground beef. AMS will also consider any vendor classified by FSIS as having a long term poor safety record as an ineligible vendor until a complete cause-and-effect analysis is completed.
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has begun its review of AMS ground beef purchase requirements. NAS brings together experts in all areas of science to provide an independent review of the program. The review is focused on three major areas: 1) a thorough evaluation of the scientific validity of current technical requirements and methods; 2) to benchmark those processes and methods against recognized industry leading programs, which supply product directly to consumers through retail sales or food service operations; and 3) provide recommendations to AMS on how to perform future periodic evaluations against industry recognized best practices.
USDA is an equal opportunity provider, employer and lender. To file a complaint of discrimination, write: USDA, Director, Office of Civil Rights, 1400 Independence Ave., S.W., Washington, D.C. 20250-9410 or call (800) 795-3272 (voice), or (202) 720-6382 (TDD).
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Monday, April 12, 2010
VERMONT STATE PARKS GOING SOLAR, CREATING JOBS
$600,000 to be invested in Solar Energy Systems
GRAND ISLE – The Douglas Administration announced today that Vermont State Parks are going solar as part of the state’s strategy to fight back against the recession, create jobs and grow the economy.
The Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation is planning to install solar hot water systems at its toilet buildings and bathhouses in state park campgrounds statewide. The Department has designated $600,000 for these solar hot water conversions.
“The potential to tap renewable energy in more locations throughout the park system is a high priority for my administration,” said Governor Jim Douglas. “This project puts people to work, helps the state parks save money and is another small smart step in addressing climate change.”
As part of the 2010 capital bill, the Legislature approved the funds specifically for energy efficiency and alternative energy systems in the parks.
Vermont State Parks has a 20-year history of using alternative energy, including solar heated hot water showers at Little River, Molly Stark and Smugglers Notch State Parks, as well as a unique water system at Underhill State Park that is powered by photo voltaic panels.
FPR is seeking proposals and will contract with one or more firms or individuals who can coordinate and oversee the installation of these solar hot water systems. A request for proposals and submission requirements can be found online at www.vermontbidsystem.com.
GRAND ISLE – The Douglas Administration announced today that Vermont State Parks are going solar as part of the state’s strategy to fight back against the recession, create jobs and grow the economy.
The Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation is planning to install solar hot water systems at its toilet buildings and bathhouses in state park campgrounds statewide. The Department has designated $600,000 for these solar hot water conversions.
“The potential to tap renewable energy in more locations throughout the park system is a high priority for my administration,” said Governor Jim Douglas. “This project puts people to work, helps the state parks save money and is another small smart step in addressing climate change.”
As part of the 2010 capital bill, the Legislature approved the funds specifically for energy efficiency and alternative energy systems in the parks.
Vermont State Parks has a 20-year history of using alternative energy, including solar heated hot water showers at Little River, Molly Stark and Smugglers Notch State Parks, as well as a unique water system at Underhill State Park that is powered by photo voltaic panels.
FPR is seeking proposals and will contract with one or more firms or individuals who can coordinate and oversee the installation of these solar hot water systems. A request for proposals and submission requirements can be found online at www.vermontbidsystem.com.
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Push Mobile Media™ Launches New Mobile Publishing Platform That Delivers Enterprise Content to the Mobile Workforce
Engage, educate and gather real-time feedback from the Mobile Workforce via campaigns viewable on iPhone, Blackberry, Windows Media, Android and any other device.
Boise, ID (PRWEB) November 10, 2009 -- Push Mobile Media has launched an innovative mobile content publishing platform designed around the enterprise mobile workforce. This easy-to-use platform lets enterprise managers publish custom mobile content to the sales organization and other enterprise work groups, measuring critical user feedback from the mobile audience in real-time. Engaging, managing and building trust within the growing mobile workforce requires a strategy. Push Mobile Media, found online at www.PushMobileMedia.com, provides an enterprise-grade solution that any manager can use to deploy employee and client surveys, mobile training sessions and new marketing initiatives - key elements of a successful mobile workforce management strategy. According to the most recent forecast by the market intelligence and advisory services firm IDC, the worldwide mobile worker population will grow from 756.6 million (reported in 2006) to over 1 billion by 2011. This accounts for over 30% of the workforce. In the US and Canada, the use of internet-ready mobile devices specific to the enterprise will grow at a rate of 54%, with 82 million units shipped by 2011. The United States has the highest percentage of mobile workers - 68% in 2006 with an estimated 73% by 2011.
"Today, creating urgency and building trust within the mobile workforce is a tough job for any enterprise manager. Delivering company news and information, and generating feedback from the mobile workforce, is a critical and a competitive business strategy. Using familiar online tools, enterprise managers can instantly publish mobile content that includes text, articles, images and video and provides instant feedback through several user polling and mobile quizzing options. It's perfect for the sales manager and training managers who need to 'push and pull' data from their mobile audience. By being able to deliver enterprise news, product updates and mobile training with content retention programs, it's now up to the management team to develop mobile strategies that go far beyond simple email and text messaging", stated David Clemons, CEO and Founder of Push Mobile Media. The mobile platform provides a simple, step-by-step interface that requires little if any training. Users can employ either a "Theme " style of content layout or a more advanced "Custom mobiPage" campaign using our simple drag and drop page layout tools. Each mobile campaign or mobile learning program has multiple content options, letting your audience "Read it, Watch it, and Feed it back ". Several core components of the platform enable a "push and pull" mobile strategy for the enterprise: MobiFeedTM, MobiSearchTM and MobiShoutTM each working in concert to deliver instant mobile content and to receive and measure feedback in real-time: mobiFeed ™- Effectively call attention to and increase feedback from your campaigns via a fully customizable widget that can be placed on any website in just minutes mobiShout™ - Quickly collect user responses and opinions and measure campaign ROI in real-time with robust polling, analytics and reporting tools mobiSearch™ - Provide your mobile sales and tech support employees with secure, searchable video libraries accessible on all mobile devices and operating systems, including the iPhone, Blackberry, Nokia, Windows Mobile and Android. The Push Mobile Media platform is designed so that anyone in the organization can easily and quickly create branded mobile campaigns featuring text, images, audio, video and polling forms. Administrators are provided a simple user interface with step-by-step instructions to design, create, test and send branded campaigns to their specific mobile audience - with no programming skills required. The system makes use of SMS communication, secure email delivery and/or mobile internet. By using simple online tools and customizable widgets, companies now have a low-cost, highly effective mobile strategy for urgent business and training initiatives that harnesses the kind of immediacy frequently lost in email or voicemail. About Push Mobile Media - Developed specifically for the needs of the mobile enterprise workforce, the Push Mobile Media platform lets managers create engaging educational programs and marketing initiatives delivered to any mobile device. Backed by real-time feedback tracking and robust analytics reporting, this easy to use web-based service saves time and costs associated with mobile communications, content production and distribution for the internal and external mobile workforce. Learn more at www.PushMobileMedia.com
Boise, ID (PRWEB) November 10, 2009 -- Push Mobile Media has launched an innovative mobile content publishing platform designed around the enterprise mobile workforce. This easy-to-use platform lets enterprise managers publish custom mobile content to the sales organization and other enterprise work groups, measuring critical user feedback from the mobile audience in real-time. Engaging, managing and building trust within the growing mobile workforce requires a strategy. Push Mobile Media, found online at www.PushMobileMedia.com, provides an enterprise-grade solution that any manager can use to deploy employee and client surveys, mobile training sessions and new marketing initiatives - key elements of a successful mobile workforce management strategy. According to the most recent forecast by the market intelligence and advisory services firm IDC, the worldwide mobile worker population will grow from 756.6 million (reported in 2006) to over 1 billion by 2011. This accounts for over 30% of the workforce. In the US and Canada, the use of internet-ready mobile devices specific to the enterprise will grow at a rate of 54%, with 82 million units shipped by 2011. The United States has the highest percentage of mobile workers - 68% in 2006 with an estimated 73% by 2011.
"Today, creating urgency and building trust within the mobile workforce is a tough job for any enterprise manager. Delivering company news and information, and generating feedback from the mobile workforce, is a critical and a competitive business strategy. Using familiar online tools, enterprise managers can instantly publish mobile content that includes text, articles, images and video and provides instant feedback through several user polling and mobile quizzing options. It's perfect for the sales manager and training managers who need to 'push and pull' data from their mobile audience. By being able to deliver enterprise news, product updates and mobile training with content retention programs, it's now up to the management team to develop mobile strategies that go far beyond simple email and text messaging", stated David Clemons, CEO and Founder of Push Mobile Media. The mobile platform provides a simple, step-by-step interface that requires little if any training. Users can employ either a "Theme " style of content layout or a more advanced "Custom mobiPage" campaign using our simple drag and drop page layout tools. Each mobile campaign or mobile learning program has multiple content options, letting your audience "Read it, Watch it, and Feed it back ". Several core components of the platform enable a "push and pull" mobile strategy for the enterprise: MobiFeedTM, MobiSearchTM and MobiShoutTM each working in concert to deliver instant mobile content and to receive and measure feedback in real-time: mobiFeed ™- Effectively call attention to and increase feedback from your campaigns via a fully customizable widget that can be placed on any website in just minutes mobiShout™ - Quickly collect user responses and opinions and measure campaign ROI in real-time with robust polling, analytics and reporting tools mobiSearch™ - Provide your mobile sales and tech support employees with secure, searchable video libraries accessible on all mobile devices and operating systems, including the iPhone, Blackberry, Nokia, Windows Mobile and Android. The Push Mobile Media platform is designed so that anyone in the organization can easily and quickly create branded mobile campaigns featuring text, images, audio, video and polling forms. Administrators are provided a simple user interface with step-by-step instructions to design, create, test and send branded campaigns to their specific mobile audience - with no programming skills required. The system makes use of SMS communication, secure email delivery and/or mobile internet. By using simple online tools and customizable widgets, companies now have a low-cost, highly effective mobile strategy for urgent business and training initiatives that harnesses the kind of immediacy frequently lost in email or voicemail. About Push Mobile Media - Developed specifically for the needs of the mobile enterprise workforce, the Push Mobile Media platform lets managers create engaging educational programs and marketing initiatives delivered to any mobile device. Backed by real-time feedback tracking and robust analytics reporting, this easy to use web-based service saves time and costs associated with mobile communications, content production and distribution for the internal and external mobile workforce. Learn more at www.PushMobileMedia.com
Omnitrol Networks Releases Retail Shop-Floor Inventory Tracking Solution for Apparel
Retail shop-floor solution offers a quick ROI with real-time inventory tracking metrics enabling retail operators to substantially reduce costs while increasing revenue in apparel sales.
(PRWEB) November 10, 2009 -- Omnitrol Networks, a pioneer in delivering automated and predictive real-time operational visibility in logistics, food-chain and apparel manufacturing markets, announced today that they will be delivering their valued solution for real-time intelligence in retail shop-floor operations. The real-time, item-level inventory solution utilizes Omnitrol’s unique federated services architecture to create an integrated intelligent retail-distribution network. The retail shop-floor inventory visibility solution will be sold through Omnitrol’s channel and integration partners. When questioned as to “why now?”, Omnitrol’s response was to outline the current issues with slow RFID adoption in the retail industry. However, with their proven solutions, Omnitrol felt that the retail market is now ready to accept RFID as a legitimate technology to enhance business performance in day-to-day shop-floor operations, including global traceability. In a retail industry study conducted by the University of Arkansas, 80% of lost sales days are from out-of-stocks, which current processes take seven to nine days to correct, and cost the industry upwards of $93 billion per year. Omnitrol Network’s low cost, simple, pre-integrated, plug-and-forget Retail Inventory Tracking solution is proven to not only reduce stock outs and increase sales, but also reduce the labor costs associated with inventory taking while improving stock, promotion and sales analysis. The solution provides daily inventory in minutes for a retail store with multiple zones or multiple locations. It can even scale to provide end-to-end global tracking from manufacturers. Inventory and velocity reports are available through secure web-portals in real-time between trading partners. The Omnitrol solution allows retailers to configure inventory movement and stock-out rules to automatically send alerts and notifications to management and partners without any manual intervention. ABI Research's RFID practice director Michael J. Liard explains, “RFID’s use in the apparel sector represents the greatest near-term opportunity for business improvements and fewest impediments to growth in the retail industry. A quick, demonstrable ROI and key business metrics for adoption have been clearly established and the results of nearly all evaluations conducted have been compelling. As a result, market activity is brisk and promising, especially among early-adopter specialty apparel retailers.” “We are very excited to release this solution to our channels and system integration partners which will help accelerate the deployment of real-time intelligent edge solutions with quick ROI. We are now taking our inside-out visibility strategy to the retail industry,” says David Orain, VP of Marketing at Omnitrol Networks. “The Omnitrol solution can be deployed in days without any impact to existing systems or processes. Our solution extends real-time inventory visibility seamlessly to existing operations at the lowest total cost of ownership in the industry," added Orain. About Omnitrol Networks
Omnitrol Networks is the industry's first end-to-end solution delivering real-time collaborative supply-chain. Using predictive analytics directly from shop-floor operations, the OMNITROL solution enables real-time operational and supply intelligence in the aerospace & defense, food, retail and logistics markets. The OMNITROL solution automates real-time visibility into operations through digital sensors, RF and Wi-Fi technologies. Omnitrol Networks Inc. is a privately held company with corporate headquarters in Santa Clara, California, USA. Additional information about Omnitrol Networks’ products and services are available at www.omnitrol.com.
(PRWEB) November 10, 2009 -- Omnitrol Networks, a pioneer in delivering automated and predictive real-time operational visibility in logistics, food-chain and apparel manufacturing markets, announced today that they will be delivering their valued solution for real-time intelligence in retail shop-floor operations. The real-time, item-level inventory solution utilizes Omnitrol’s unique federated services architecture to create an integrated intelligent retail-distribution network. The retail shop-floor inventory visibility solution will be sold through Omnitrol’s channel and integration partners. When questioned as to “why now?”, Omnitrol’s response was to outline the current issues with slow RFID adoption in the retail industry. However, with their proven solutions, Omnitrol felt that the retail market is now ready to accept RFID as a legitimate technology to enhance business performance in day-to-day shop-floor operations, including global traceability. In a retail industry study conducted by the University of Arkansas, 80% of lost sales days are from out-of-stocks, which current processes take seven to nine days to correct, and cost the industry upwards of $93 billion per year. Omnitrol Network’s low cost, simple, pre-integrated, plug-and-forget Retail Inventory Tracking solution is proven to not only reduce stock outs and increase sales, but also reduce the labor costs associated with inventory taking while improving stock, promotion and sales analysis. The solution provides daily inventory in minutes for a retail store with multiple zones or multiple locations. It can even scale to provide end-to-end global tracking from manufacturers. Inventory and velocity reports are available through secure web-portals in real-time between trading partners. The Omnitrol solution allows retailers to configure inventory movement and stock-out rules to automatically send alerts and notifications to management and partners without any manual intervention. ABI Research's RFID practice director Michael J. Liard explains, “RFID’s use in the apparel sector represents the greatest near-term opportunity for business improvements and fewest impediments to growth in the retail industry. A quick, demonstrable ROI and key business metrics for adoption have been clearly established and the results of nearly all evaluations conducted have been compelling. As a result, market activity is brisk and promising, especially among early-adopter specialty apparel retailers.” “We are very excited to release this solution to our channels and system integration partners which will help accelerate the deployment of real-time intelligent edge solutions with quick ROI. We are now taking our inside-out visibility strategy to the retail industry,” says David Orain, VP of Marketing at Omnitrol Networks. “The Omnitrol solution can be deployed in days without any impact to existing systems or processes. Our solution extends real-time inventory visibility seamlessly to existing operations at the lowest total cost of ownership in the industry," added Orain. About Omnitrol Networks
Omnitrol Networks is the industry's first end-to-end solution delivering real-time collaborative supply-chain. Using predictive analytics directly from shop-floor operations, the OMNITROL solution enables real-time operational and supply intelligence in the aerospace & defense, food, retail and logistics markets. The OMNITROL solution automates real-time visibility into operations through digital sensors, RF and Wi-Fi technologies. Omnitrol Networks Inc. is a privately held company with corporate headquarters in Santa Clara, California, USA. Additional information about Omnitrol Networks’ products and services are available at www.omnitrol.com.
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