HARROGATE, Tenn./EWORLDWIRE/Sep. 17, 2007 --- Mound Technologies, Inc., a Heartland (OTCBB: HTLJ) subsidiary, has been awarded contracts totaling $2,590,000 during the month of June. The sales include two large school buildings in Ohio and a mezzanine for Honda at its new manufacturing facility in Greensburg, Indiana. Mound Technologies, Inc. continues to extend its backlog while building on the success of the last two years' business.
Heartland, Inc. is excited about the turnaround at the Mound Technologies, Inc. subsidiary. When originally purchased in late 2003, Mound had sales of less than $5 million and was not profitable. Significant restructuring and successful redirection of the remaining employees have produced positive results.
Heartland is now looking to add additional capacity to the metal fabricating segment of their business. Evaluation of possible acquisitions is now taking place with a focus on midwestern and southern businesses.
Sunday, September 23, 2007
PolyU “head-hunters” share results of SizeChina.com
The world’s first database storing 3D head and face measurements of ethnic Chinese has come into use, after 18 months of dedicated efforts by pioneering researchers of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU)’s School of Design (SD).
According to Mr Roger Ball, Director of "SizeChina.com" project and Assistant Professor of SD, industrial designers around the world have been longing for such ergonomic data because many existing consumer products are designed for Caucasians, and as a result they do not fit Chinese people properly.
"Understanding human size and shape is the cornerstone for designing successful consumer products because every product relies on accurate fitting. Designers, engineers and architects need sophisticated digital data on head and face shapes to design the next generation of best-selling products. How well a product fits us is the most important part of any successful design," he added.
In compiling the anthropometric data, Mr Ball and his team has visited six mainland cities, including Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Lanzhou, Chongqing, Beijing and Shenyang. Working in collaboration with local universities and enterprises, they have subsequently collected the head forms of more than 2,000 volunteers, aged from 18 to 70, using a 360-degree rotary non-contact head and face scanners.
With the completion of the first phase of this project, PolyU researchers have come up with five standard head forms of ethnic Chinese after analyzing massive data with statistical tools. These results will prove to be extremely useful for industrial designer in creating the next generation of perfect-fitting consumer products for Chinese.
According to Mr Roger Ball, Director of "SizeChina.com" project and Assistant Professor of SD, industrial designers around the world have been longing for such ergonomic data because many existing consumer products are designed for Caucasians, and as a result they do not fit Chinese people properly.
"Understanding human size and shape is the cornerstone for designing successful consumer products because every product relies on accurate fitting. Designers, engineers and architects need sophisticated digital data on head and face shapes to design the next generation of best-selling products. How well a product fits us is the most important part of any successful design," he added.
In compiling the anthropometric data, Mr Ball and his team has visited six mainland cities, including Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Lanzhou, Chongqing, Beijing and Shenyang. Working in collaboration with local universities and enterprises, they have subsequently collected the head forms of more than 2,000 volunteers, aged from 18 to 70, using a 360-degree rotary non-contact head and face scanners.
With the completion of the first phase of this project, PolyU researchers have come up with five standard head forms of ethnic Chinese after analyzing massive data with statistical tools. These results will prove to be extremely useful for industrial designer in creating the next generation of perfect-fitting consumer products for Chinese.
Haponés - The Early 20th Century Japanese Community of Baguio
The UP Asian Center and the UP Jorge B. Vargas Museum & Filipiniana Research Center opens Haponés: The Early 20th Century Japanese Community of Baguio at the Edge Gallery on 20 November 2007 at 5pm. Based primarily on the recently published book, Japanese Pioneers in the Northern Philippine Highlands (Filipino Japanese Foundation of Northern Luzon, Inc., 2004), this exhibition of approximately 60 photographs of Baguio's vibrant Japanese community illuminates a portion of Philippine, Japanese, and American colonial history that has come close to being forgotten.
In the early years of the 20th century, American government installations in the Philippines were important work sites for Japanese migrant laborers. In northern Luzon, the most ambitious of these colonial projects resulted in the creation of Baguio and its development into the country's most famous tourist destination. The Japanese pioneers joined Filipinos, Americans, and Chinese who flocked to this highland zone in the early 1900s in search of gold, commerce, and wage work. The building of a highway (the "Benguet Road," later called the Kennon Road) to connect the proposed urban center to the Manila Railroad employed over a thousand Japanese men; they made up almost a quarter of the road's total work force that included men from 46 nationalities. Among the Japanese were numerous skilled carpenters, masons, and gardeners, merchants, and building contractors who went to live in the Baguio-Benguet region upon the completion of the road in 1905.
In the 1920s and 1930s, Japanese retail businesses as well as agricultural, construction, and trucking enterprises flourished in a prosperous city. Images of early 1900s Baguio landscapes document the city's growth into a premier vacation resort in Asia. Photographs of work places and family groups depict Japanese culture, society, and work in the American colonial hill station. In all, they portray the migrant community's full engagement in northern Luzon economic and civic life. Because of the great toll on Filipino life and society in the Second World War, most of the stories told in these pictures came to be shared only within small groups of Japanese-Filipino descendants. Most changed their names and identities in the face of violent anti-Japanese feelings during and after the war. Few of the community's elders, the pioneers' children, now remain.
In the early years of the 20th century, American government installations in the Philippines were important work sites for Japanese migrant laborers. In northern Luzon, the most ambitious of these colonial projects resulted in the creation of Baguio and its development into the country's most famous tourist destination. The Japanese pioneers joined Filipinos, Americans, and Chinese who flocked to this highland zone in the early 1900s in search of gold, commerce, and wage work. The building of a highway (the "Benguet Road," later called the Kennon Road) to connect the proposed urban center to the Manila Railroad employed over a thousand Japanese men; they made up almost a quarter of the road's total work force that included men from 46 nationalities. Among the Japanese were numerous skilled carpenters, masons, and gardeners, merchants, and building contractors who went to live in the Baguio-Benguet region upon the completion of the road in 1905.
In the 1920s and 1930s, Japanese retail businesses as well as agricultural, construction, and trucking enterprises flourished in a prosperous city. Images of early 1900s Baguio landscapes document the city's growth into a premier vacation resort in Asia. Photographs of work places and family groups depict Japanese culture, society, and work in the American colonial hill station. In all, they portray the migrant community's full engagement in northern Luzon economic and civic life. Because of the great toll on Filipino life and society in the Second World War, most of the stories told in these pictures came to be shared only within small groups of Japanese-Filipino descendants. Most changed their names and identities in the face of violent anti-Japanese feelings during and after the war. Few of the community's elders, the pioneers' children, now remain.
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