TEKARBON has recently moved their office to Irwindale, California, for further expansion. Being 100% online in the past few years, TEKARBON opens additional option for local customers. The move allows local customers to save shipping cost on large items such carbon fiber convertible CSL trunks and diffusers for E46, which happen to be their one of the top-selling items. TEKARBON

“We expect that the real estate closing will take place in the next week. probably in the next seven business days,” said Chief Financial Officer of Applejack Art Partners, Gordon Black.

The building is expected to be sold to WCW inc. – a new York mattress firm currently based in Hoosick Falls.

President of WCW inc., Jeff Wilkinson, said they hope to finalize the deal as soon as possible.

“We’re prepared for a closing as soon as we can make one happen,” Wilkinson said. “The timing involved in putting this all together has been difficult, but most everything is lined up for a closing right now and the hope is to close sometime by the end of next week.”

According to Applejack’s attorney, Jennifer Emens-Butler, the real estate will be sold to WCW inc. for $3 million. according to previous reports, Emens-Butler said the Applejack property was assessed in 2009 for $3.5 million.

WCW inc. is currently using about 50,000 square feet of the building primarily to perform manufacturing functions, Wilkinson said.

While Wilkinson said it was difficult to say when they might have all their operations moved into the building, there are plans to move other components of it into the building soon.

“The next building we’ll move will be our foam fabrication building and that we will move hopefully sometime within the next two to three weeks,” said Wilkinson. “Then we have our sewing plant that needs to be moved and I don’t know when we will move that currently. There’s not a date set for that.”WCW inc. announced plans to move its operations to Manchester in August. the company employs about 100 people, with some working at a call center in Bennington.

Prior to Applejack moving into the building – which they purchased in December of 2006 – it was left unoccupied for a period of time after Moore Wallace Computers left.

With Applejack Art Partners on the verge of liquidation, economic development officer Pauline Moore said having someone buy and occupy the building was advantageous.

“This [time] it’s really great that there won’t be a period where the building won’t be unoccupied,” she said.

McGaw Graphics – a company originally acquired by Applejack in 2009 – also currently operates out of the Applejack building. however, Black said that McGaw’s administrative offices would be relocating to the East Dorset Industrial Center on Route 7A. some of the operations will remain in the Applejack building though.

In a hearing on the disclosure statement on Monday, Emens-Butler said the judge addressed two minor issues – one of them being the timing of the sale of Applejack Art Partners assets to the United Kingdom based company Protocol Management Solutions, Ltd.

Emens-Butler said they are hoping to confirm the liquidation plan sometime in late December, which would finalize the deal.

“The confirmed plan would allow the liquidation by selling substantially all of its (Applejack’s) assets to Protocol for the credit bid and selling the excluded assets at auction,” wrote Emens-Butler in an e-mail. “The proceeds will be distributed and Applejack will no longer exist.”

The distribution of the proceeds would take place following both the sale of the building and the sale of Applejack’s assets. in the e-mail, Emens-Butler said the sale of Applejack’s assets to Protocol would take place immediately upon confirmation of the plan barring any objections. the excluded assets sale, she said, would be subject to the auctioneer’s schedule.

When Applejack goes out of business, the question then becomes what happens to the 75 jobs at the company. in a telephone interview on Tuesday, Black said that while he was unsure of how many, he acknowledged there would be some job loss.

“It would be great if everybody could maintain a job in some way. Our goal is to try to take care of everybody,” said Black. “We don’t want to see anybody unemployed, but we have to face the reality of the situation. It’s going to be difficult.”

Applejack filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last July and in December Protocol Management Solutions, Ltd. – a company that deals in telecommunications and other software consultancy and supply, according to the company’s Web site – purchased the company’s $1.7 million debt that was owed to Berkshire Bank.

According to previous reports, Emens- Butler said her understanding was that Protocol Management Solutions was going to buy continuing licensing agreements and pending contracts.

She added that the plan at one time was to have McGaw Graphics purchase Applejack Art Partners, but McGaw opted not to place a bid. McGaw and Applejack are both partially owned by Jack Appelman, who also owns Applejack Real Estate Partners, which in turn owns a number of commercial properties in the Bennington/Manchester area.

The plan was filed on May 23 with United States Bankruptcy Court in Burlington.

Applejack Art Partners was a company that bought licensing agreements from artists to sell reproductions. Black said that the company is still in operation on a small scale, but that they will cease to exist once a sale occurs.

Are we approaching the final Kodak moment? Following last week's torrid time for shares of Eastman Kodak – they fell 54 per cent to 78 cents a share – the firm felt obliged to issue a statement denying it is filing for bankruptcy as the BBC reports here.

Some of the bankruptcy speculation came about because Eastman Kodak is aiming to sell many of its patents valued at around £3bn, but potential buyers are concerned that the firm may be technically insolvent. This could then mean that the patent deals represent a 'fraudulent conveyance', which would mean that creditors of a subsequently insolvent business, could sue to try and get more money from the deals.

Economic Times reports that one way to avoid legal difficulties over patents would be for Eastman Kodak to file for bankruptcy. News also broke last week that the firm had hired consultancy Jones Daley, which among other things, specialises in bankruptcy strategies.  This spooked the markets further though there was some recovery this morning.

The credit markets and agencies are similarly bearish. as the Economic Times reports, credit default swaps on the firm's debt now stand at 66.5 per cent a huge premium. Kodak's debt is rated CCC by Standard & Poor's and Caa2 by Moody's Investors Service. the ratings are the eighth levels below investment grade.

Last week, some investors were urging to firm to sell itself. The Economic Times reports that Investment Partners which owns some Kodak convertible bonds and about 220,000 shares, has written to the board suggesting a sale.  a spokesman for Kodak has however dismissed talk of the bankruptcy. Gerard Meuchner said: "as we sit here today, the company has no intention of filing, and there is no change in our strategy to monetize our intellectual property. We're not concerned about fraudulent conveyance in regards to the sale of our IP portfolio."

Last week in Amateur Photographer Kodak also had to refute claims by analyst Chris Green at the Davies Murphy Group, who suggested the firm was in danger of becoming obsolete. However, whether it survives or not, the former photographic and film giant, is viewed a salutary tale about how not to adapt to changing circumstances.

In Forbes magazine, David da Silvo identifies two key distractions in the firm's history. In the 1980s, it bought Sterling Drugs – a drug company which did at least have a lead in diagnostic imaging technology, and rather bizarrely made a move into the battery market before being fought off by Eveready and Duracell. It sold out of both drugs and batteries having lost money, but it was less that and more the fact it was a huge distraction just as it should have been competing in emerging digital photography market according to da Silvio. he writes: "the problem Kodak would face in all of these new ventures is that it was too late to own any facet of the market. Whether fighting for territory in the printer or digital camera markets, it was always perilously behind well established players. the investment required to ramp up in those markets generated a debt load that outpaced the company's ability to generate revenue, and that cycle can continue for only so long." he hopes other established US brands are learning the lesson.

On International Business Times David Zielenziger lists five reasons why it would be a shame to lose Kodak one of which at least is for reasons of patriotism. First, he writes: "Japanese rivals — like Fuji (film); Canon, Nikon and Olympus (cameras); and Panasonic and Sony (consumer electronics) — are ubiquitous in all kinds of imaging. to be sure, they have great technologies and sales abilities, but those are all things they learned from Kodak. If Kodak does seek bankruptcy and then asks Lazard for help in selling off units, these companies would be first in line to pick up the valuable pieces."

Second – "It would prove that even a perception of value was wrong. Several years ago, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, the private equity giant that may be best known for masterminding the RJRNabisco buyout, bought into Kodak and won two seats on the board. obviously, KKR wouldn't have risked its cash for no reason."

Finally here is a rather brilliant slide show from Chris Sandstrom of the Royal Institute of Technology assessing the decline although interestingly he is not sure it could have behaved much differently in facing the digital threat. 

Sign up for our free email newsletter here.

MANATEE COUNTY – About 70 students, including some who were previously expelled from schools and some with arrest records, will be transferred into Manatee County alternative schools after the School Board Monday night canceled the district’s contract with Richard Milburn Academy charter school.

Facts IN OTHER ACTION

In other Manatee School District news:• Problems continue to plague the district’s new $700,000 computer system for grades and attendance.The system, called Focus, on Monday could not handle the volume of teachers entering student grades on a day when school is out and roughly 2,700 teachers are required to record grades for report cards.District officials sent out an emergency note extending the deadline for grades to be entered until Thursday. it also ordered elementary school teachers to wait until Wednesday afternoon before using the system.Teachers complained earlier in the year that Focus often crashes or freezes and that grades that they enter are lost.

The vote, which effectively closes the Bradenton school, came after an investigation found the school awarded students credits and diplomas they had not earned.

The majority of the students will be assigned to Horizons Academy, the school where students arrested on charges of violent crimes or students thought to be a risk to other children are sent. Some Milburn students will be transferred to Central High School, an alternative school for students who struggle academically in traditional high schools.

“Some of the kids, just because they’re so behind in their credits, would not fit into a traditional school,” said Verdya Bradley, district associate director of innovative programs.

Manatee school officials recommended the closure of Milburn after an investigation found that only 26 of 54 students who graduated in June had met district graduation requirements.

Children at the school were sometimes excused from assignments and tests, and the grading system was amended so that F grades did not drag down student grade-point averages, the report states.

The academy, a charter school since about 1999, tries to turnaround troubled and struggling students. it has smaller class sizes than traditional schools and offers flexible schedules for students juggling outside jobs or caring for children.

Some of its students are adults over 18 working toward high school diplomas.

Those students will be allowed to enroll at Manatee Technical Institute, where adults and high school students take classes in job skills like web design, car maintenance and cosmetology.

Milburn employed six teachers and three administrators, according to Donna Eldridge, vice president of Richard Milburn Academy’s high school division in Virginia. Their last day of work will be Monday.

School staff are preparing an inventory of all equipment at the school, located on 17th Avenue West in Bradenton.

More than 3,500 students attend other Richard Milburn Academies in Florida and Texas. The U.S Department of Education awarded the school parent company a $1.5 million grant in September to open six new schools in Texas.

“There were students who otherwise would have not have been in school and would not have received their diplomas,” Eldridge said. “To me, that is the most important piece of what Richard Milburn has done in Bradenton.”

X-ray synchrotron microtomographic 3D rendering of the upper dentition of a young specimen of Heliophobius. Image: PNAS, doi:10.1073/pnas.1109615108

(PhysOrg.com) — Sharks are capable of continually growing new teeth. as the teeth age, they fall out and new ones move forward similar to that of a tooth conveyor belt. Humans, and most mammals, on the other hand are only given two sets of teeth and must make them last. however, researchers have found there are exceptions to this rule and a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that the silvery mole rat is one of the exceptions.

It was first noted by Stuart Landry back in 1957 that these moles had more molars than the average rodent, but it was never investigated further. that is until Helder Gomes Rodrigues from the University of Lyon began this current study.

For this study, Rodrigues looked at the skeletal remains of some 55 mole rats and discovered that the molars at the back of these rodent’s jaws seem to move forward. as they move forward, they erupt upward and are worn down through normal wear and tear. By the time a molar reaches the front molar row, they have been completely eroded and seem to be absorbed back into the jawbone.

The only other mammals with this similar ability to make more teeth are three different manatee species and a pygmy-rock wallaby. however, the mole rat seems to be the only one that has the set-up where the teeth move forward and upward. The other mammals have molars that sprout up, move to the front and fall out, similar to human baby teeth.

While it is believed that the manatee and wallaby have evolved to replace teeth due to the hard elements in their diet, the mole rat feeds on soft tubers and plants. Rodrigues believes that an explanation for this evolution to replacing molars in the mole rat may have something to do with digging rather than eating. While they primarily dig with their front incisors, they grind things with their molars and swallow abrasive dust. however this is still just a theory and the real reason behind this evolution of multiple molars still remains a mystery.

More information: Continuous dental replacement in a hyper-chisel tooth digging rodent, PNAS, Published online before print October 10, 2011, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1109615108

Abstract Contrary to their reptilian ancestors, which had numerous dental generations, mammals are known to usually develop only two generations of teeth. however, a few mammal species have acquired the ability to continuously replace their dentition by the constant addition of supernumerary teeth moving secondarily toward the front of the jaw. The resulting treadmill-like replacement is thus horizontal, and differs completely from the vertical dental succession of other mammals and their extinct relatives. despite the developmental implications and prospects regarding the origin of supernumerary teeth, this striking innovation remains poorly documented. Here we report another case of continuous dental replacement in an African rodent, Heliophobius argenteocinereus, which combines this dental system with the progressive eruption of high-crowned teeth. The escalator-like mechanism of Heliophobius constitutes an original adaptation to hyper-chisel tooth digging involving high dental wear. Comparisons between Heliophobius and the few mammals that convergently acquired continuous dental replacement reveal that shared inherited traits, including dental mesial drift, delayed eruption, and supernumerary molars, comprise essential prerequisites to setting up this dental mechanism. Interestingly, these dental traits are present to a lesser extent in humans but are absent in mouse, the usual biological model. Consequently, Heliophobius represents a suitable model to investigate the molecular processes leading to the development of supernumerary teeth in mammals, and the accurate description of these processes could be a significant advance for further applications in humans, such as the regeneration of dental tissues.