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Wayne Fiander spoke about a need to shift from property taxes to income taxes as the principal source of municipal revenue at a Sydney and Area Chamber of Commerce luncheon meeting on Monday.
The provincial chamber has joined forces with the left-leaning Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives-Nova Scotia and the right-wing Atlantic Institute for Market Studies in an awareness campaign on the issue of property tax reform.
“When we did our report, which was released last October, we found that in a revenue system based on the value of property, there’s no connection to someone’s ability to pay and the demands they place on the system or the benefits they receive from it,” he said. “When I made my presentation (on Monday), I gave an example on Lynch Drive, just off Kings Road (in Sydney River), and went to viewpoint.ca, and within a minute found two neighbouring properties on the street with a 160 per cent difference in assessment.
“I’m pretty sure those two homeowners get the same service, but there’s a vast discrepancy (in their assessments). But it’s not just here — you could go to any town, village, rural area or city (in the province) and you would find vast differences in their assessments and therefore vast differences in what people are paying.”
Fiander said the CBRM has the highest commercial tax rate in the entire Atlantic region, with its businesses paying two-and-a-half times the tax rate of a homeowner. He believes this is a significant barrier to economic growth and the situation will only change for the better when the province finally steps in and takes a serious look at alternatives to the property-based tax system.
“While it’s not working for business, we also found it’s not working for municipalities,” he said. “But it’s not the municipality’s fault and it’s not the province’s fault — we are where we are because we’ve always had this system.”
Fiander said he’s had positive responses to his message from municipal officials as well as the provincial government. And though he doesn’t expect to see anything happen this year, he believes the awareness campaign is starting to open some eyes.
“Everywhere I’ve gone, everyone agrees this system has to change. It’s not working for anyone.”
Victoria County Warden Bruce Morrison is familiar with the property tax reform touted by Fiander and his allies, but says his county would need more information before it would consider changing the status quo.
I’m not sure it’s a viable option for small counties like us,” he said.
“There’s just too many questions at this point. We haven’t received enough information and we haven’t been contacted by (Fiander’s) group to provide us with information.”
Richmond County CAO Warren Olsen would also like to learn more details of the provincial’s chamber’s plan.
“I don’t necessarily agree that (the provincial chamber’s plan) is the fairest way,” he said. “I’m not saying that we shouldn’t have a discussion about the property tax system, but I think throwing the baby out with the bathwater is not necessarily the right answer.”
According to Olsen, one of the most misunderstood concepts of provincial taxation is that while many people think the provincial cap on property taxes helps the unfortunate, he believes the tax cap “shifts the tax burden to the lower-income people.”
“My fear is that with an income tax system, although in theory it might work, I’m not so convinced that it will work in practice,” he said.
“We have population decline. How do we ensure that we have enough basic revenue to meet the basic services that we need to deliver to our residents?
“I think it’s exciting that people want to have this conversation, but I just don’t know if that whole process has been well thought out.”
CBRM Mayor Cecil Clarke was unavailable for comment while Port Hawkesbury Mayor Billy Joe MacLean is on vacation and could not be reached for comment.
Calls to Inverness County Warden Duart MacAulay were not returned by press time.
Fiander thinks the next move is up to the provincial government, and he believes they’ve already taken their first tentative steps down the path to property tax reform.
“The province, two years ago, started what’s called a fiscal review committee, where they review the municipal revenue, the municipal expenses and regulations that hinder municipalities,” he said.
“They are already in place as the group between the province and the (Union of Nova Scotia Municipalities) and the association of municipal administrators and they would be the logical third party to have a serious look at it.” | <urn:uuid:56e000d8-6bd4-4b1f-9959-4f195144922f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.capebretonpost.com/News/Local/2013-03-04/article-3192656/Chamber-leads-charge-for-tax-reform/1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96296 | 1,062 | 1.726563 | 2 |
From Juniors to CFL, Calvin Johnson's Non-Catch Was a Catch
The Detroit Free Press did a great job of rounding up comments from the Canadian Football League, Arena Football League, Lingerie League, college officials and even the Western Suburban Junior Football League (where I was once a player on the Plymouth Steelers). Officials from all those leagues said that under their rules, Johnson caught the ball.
Some of the quotes from the Free Press:
"Our on-field official hopefully would have called it a touchdown," said Tom Higgins, the CFL's director of officiating.
"In college football, yes, that's a touchdown," said Mike Kavulich, a college official.
"At our level, that's a catch," said Mark Uyl, assistant director of the Michigan High School Athletic Association who oversees officiating.
"Yes it would have been a TD in our league, and it would have been a TD in every other league in the United States," said Leonard Isaac, rules chairman for the Western Suburban Junior Football League in Michigan.
"It would have indeed been a catch in our game," said Jerry B. Kurz, Arena Football League commissioner.
"Yes, in the LFL, that would constitute a catch and touchdown," said Stephon McMillen, Lingerie Football League media director.
The only league that says it would go along with what the NFL did is the United Football League, which follows the same convoluted rules about possession that the NFL follows. It's time for the NFL to clarify the rules and the UFL to follow suit, so that across North America every football fan knows that a catch is a catch. | <urn:uuid:cc3ab8c1-805e-4e04-8fc3-1cadee5dd1f8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aolnews.com/2010/09/14/from-juniors-to-cfl-calvin-johnsons-non-catch-was-a-catch/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979572 | 345 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Daisy's Daring Rescue: A Hearing Dog Steers a Deaf Woman Clear of Danger
A Close Call
Dawn Cirrito, 46, was on vacation in Las Vegas with her husband, Vince, when she was seized with a craving for independence. Completely deaf and mostly wheelchair-bound, Dawn was tired of relying so heavily on her husband. With plans to eat dinner at a restaurant across the street from their hotel, Dawn asked, "Can I go alone and meet you there?"
Vince didn't like the idea. She read his lips: "Too dangerous."
"But there are crosswalks and lights!" Dawn countered. "And I have Daisy!" Daisy, a 2-year-old mixed breed with big pudding eyes, wagged her tail. It was true: As a hearing service dog, she knew how to paw, nudge, jump on or lick her owner to attention anytime she heard a sound she was trained for -- a ringing phone, for instance -- or a sound that seemed odd, like breaking glass. Since her arrival two months prior, Daisy had given Vince peace of mind that Dawn could be safely left alone. Still, he worried. Alerting Dawn to whistling teapots was not the same as shepherding her through eight lanes of traffic.
Giving in -- 26 years of marriage had taught him when to fold -- he watched nervously from the hotel valet area as Dawn wheeled out from the curb. Then, halfway across four lanes, Daisy froze. The traffic light turned from green to yellow; cars and trucks were about to start moving toward them. "There was nothing I could do but watch and pray," Vince, a retired Marine, recalls. "Yelling wouldn't help and I couldn't possibly run to them in time."
At first when Daisy refused to budge, "I really started to panic," Dawn said. She couldn't see any reason why Daisy had stopped in the street. Then she remembered the fundamental rule of partnering with a hearing dog. "The main way a hearing dog helps is to get your attention if something is unusual, so you have to learn to look at your dog, feel your dog, and listen to your dog," she says. "I had to trust that Daisy knew something I didn't." On faith, Dawn rolled back to the curb she'd started from. Immediately, a police squad car barreled through the spot she'd just vacated. She hadn't been able to see the vehicle hurtling toward her because of a truck in the turning lane.
"I started to cry," recalls Dawn. "If she hadn't alerted me to danger, we could have both been hit."
SAVE EVEN MORE! Say “Yes” to Ladies' Home Journal® Magazine today and get a second year for HALF PRICE - 2 full years (22 issues) for just $15. You also get our new Ladies' Home Journal® Family Favorites Cookbook ABSOLUTELY FREE! | <urn:uuid:92bbec0f-8707-49f9-b99a-10b3e8a89ccb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lhj.com/relationships/family/pets/daisys-daring-rescue-a-hearing-dog-steers-a-deaf-woman-clear-of-danger/?page=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984905 | 611 | 1.765625 | 2 |
My mom was giving one of her friends a tour of our "summer villa" in Tagaytay, when they got to this yet to be finished area of the house. Mom wants this particular spot to kind of look like a greenhouse. So she says to her friend, "etong part na to gusto ko magkaroon ng greenhouse effect (I want this part to have a greenhouse effect)". I laughed, and they both looked at me, a bit puzzled as to what was so funny. So I had to explain to them that the greenhouse effect refers to how greenhouse gases heat up the earth, and that what she simply meant to say was that she wanted this part of the house to look like a greenhouse. Ofcourse explaining why something is funny really takes all the funny out of it, but I thought I'd take the opportunity to educate my mom on one of today's most pressing environmental issues. Then she says to me, "bakit? nagkaintindihan naman kame ha." I replied, "well yeah, but smart people would have laughed". "Tarantado ka ha," she said. | <urn:uuid:9480f1b8-0f8d-410a-8afa-cc5210983af9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://allergyboy.blogspot.com/2007/05/greenhouse-gases-are-all-rage-these.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984155 | 235 | 1.5 | 2 |
GROUNDS FOR DIVORCE IN SOUTH AFRICA
Dissolution of marriage and grounds of divorce
A marriage may be dissolved by a court by a decree of divorce and the only grounds on which such a decree may be granted in terms of the South African Divorce Act are
- the irretrievable break-down of the marriage as contemplated in section 4;
- the mental illness or the continuous unconsciousness, as contemplated in section 5, of a party to the marriage.
Irretrievable break-down of marriage as ground of divorce
A court may grant a decree of divorce on the ground of the irretrievable break-down of a marriage if it is satisfied that the marriage relationship between the parties to the marriage has reached such a state of disintegration that there is no reasonable prospect of the restoration of a normal marriage relationship between them.
Section 4 (2) of the Divorce Act lays down three circumstances which a Court may accept as evidence of irretrievable breakdown of a marriage and these are that:-
- the parties have not lived together as husband and wife for a continuous period of at least one year immediately prior to the date of the institution of the divorce action.
- the Defendant has committed adultery and that the Plaintiff finds it irreconcilable with a continued marriage relationship
- the Defendant has in terms of a sentence of a Court been declared a habitual criminal and is undergoing imprisonment as a result of such sentence.
This does not mean however that:- the man and wife have to live in separate buildings but in the past our Courts have been unwilling to (even on a undisputed basis), hear the case if the parties are still living in the same house on the date of the application. There must be a reasonable explanation, but even then some judges have refused to grant a decree of divorce.
If the Plaintiff is a party to an adulterous relationship it may be proof of a real break-down of the marriage. If irretrievable breakdown has been proved, the court still has discretion to refuse the divorce.
In terms of section 4(3) of the Divorce Act the Court still has discretion not to grant a divorce order but postpone the proceedings sine die or even dismiss the claim if it appears to the Court that there is a reasonable possibility that the parties may become reconciled through marriage counselling, treatment or reflection. The Summons also usually contains the averment that further marriage counselling and/or treatment will not lead to any reconciliation. This evidence must also be tendered to the Court even on an unopposed basis.
The Court must therefore be satisfied that the marriage has really irretrievably broken down and that there is no possibility of the continuation of a normal marriage, before a final divorce order will be granted.
The court may postpone the proceedings in order that the parties may attempt reconciliation if it appears to the court that there is a reasonable possibility that the parties may become reconciled through marriage counselling, treatment or reflection.
Where the parties live together again after the issue of Summons, it does not necessarily end the underlying cause of the action. If the reconciliation after a few months is seemingly unsuccessful, they can proceed on the same Summons. Where a divorce action which is not defended is postponed in order to afford the parties an opportunity to attempt reconciliation, the court may direct that the action be tried de novo, on the date of resumption thereof, by any other magistrate/ judge of the court concerned in terms of section 4(4) of the Divorce Act.
A customary marriage may be dissolved only on account of an irretrievable breakdown in the marriage and only if the High, Family or Divorce Court is satisfied that the marriage relationship between the parties has reached such a state of disintegration that there is no reasonable prospect of the restoration of a normal marriage relationship between them.
Mental illness or continuous unconsciousness as grounds of divorce:
A court may grant a decree of divorce on the ground of the mental illness of the defendant if it is satisfied that the defendant, in terms of the Mental
Health Act 18 of 1973; has been admitted as a patient to an institution in terms of a reception order; is being detained as a State patient at an institution or other place specified by the Minister of Correctional Services; or is being detained as a mentally ill convicted prisoner at an institution.
A divorce order may also be granted if such defendant has also for a continuous period of at least two years immediately prior to the institution of the divorce action, not been discharged unconditionally as such a patient,
State patient or mentally ill prisoner; and the court has heard evidence of at least two psychiatrists, of whom one shall have been appointed by the court, that the defendant is mentally ill and that there is no reasonable prospect that he will be cured of his mental illness.
A court may grant a decree of divorce on the ground that the defendant is by reason of a physical disorder in a state of continuous unconsciousness, if it is satisfied that the defendant’s unconsciousness has lasted for a continuous period of at least six months immediately prior to the institution of the divorce action; and after having heard the evidence of at least two medical practitioners, of whom one shall be a neurologist or a neurosurgeon appointed by the court, that there is no reasonable prospect that the defendant will regain consciousness.
The court may appoint a legal practitioner to represent the defendant at proceedings under this section and order the plaintiff to pay the costs of such representation.
The court may make any order it may deem fit with regard to the furnishing of security by the plaintiff in respect of any patrimonial benefits to which the defendant may be entitled by reason of the dissolution of the marriage.
For the purposes of this section the expressions ‘institution’, ‘mental illness’, ‘patient’, ‘State patient’ and ‘reception order’ shall bear the meaning assigned to them in the Mental Health Act, 1973.
The circumstances under which a court may grant a divorce order on the basis of mental illness or continuous unconsciousness is as follows:-
- In the case of mental illness the Defendant must have been admitted, in terms of the Mental Health Act, 1973 (Act No 18 of 1973), as a patient to an institution in terms of a reception order, for a period of at least two years and in any case two psychiatrists (one appointed by the Court) must satisfy the Court that there is no reasonable prospect that he will be cured of his mental illness.
- In the case of unconsciousness the Court will only grant the order if the Defendant was unconscious for a continuous period of at least six months immediately prior to the institution of the action and also after hearing the evidence of two medical practitioners of whom one shall be a neurologist or a neuro-surgeon appointed by the Court who must declare that there is no reasonable prospect that the Defendant will regain consciousness.
In such cases a curator ad litem must be appointed to protect the interests of the Defendant (patient) and to assist the Court.
Bertus Preller is a Divorce and Family Law Attorney in Cape Town and has more than 20 years experience in most sectors of the law and 13 years as a practicing attorney. He specializes in Family law and Divorce Law at Abrahams and Gross Attorneys Inc. in Cape Town. Bertus is also the Family Law expert on Health24.com and on the expert panel of Law24.com and is frequently quoted on Family Law issues in newspapers such as the Sunday Times and Business Times. His areas of expertise are Divorce Law, Family Law, Divorce Mediation, Parenting Plans, Parental Responsibilities and Rights, Custody (care and contact) of children, same sex marriages, unmarried fathers rights, domestic violence matters, international divorce law, digital rights, media law and criminal law. | <urn:uuid:78e30831-5663-4fec-a5f3-0e4bca24af04> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://divorceattorneys.wordpress.com/2011/05/29/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959707 | 1,623 | 1.664063 | 2 |
The two words I am are the name of God. As Dr. Wayne W. Dyer explains, “I discovered while reading James Twyman’s book The Moses Code that the sounds you will be hearing in this CD were the result of some intense research to reproduce the exact sounds associated with the name of God found in the Old Testament, translated from the original Hebrew as I am that I am.
“It turns out that specific numbers can be assigned to letters. And the tuning-fork sounds you'll be meditating to are the exact sounds ascribed to the letters that comprise the Divine name of God. This has been called the most powerful meditation tool in the history of the world. I encourage you to become open to the idea that these sounds, when accompanied by your own I am mantra, can and will provide you with the ability to live a wishes fulfilled life.” | <urn:uuid:96443776-f122-4c3d-803f-d66dc9a8fa0d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.americanpoems.com/store/1052-1000-1401937640-I_AM_Wishes_Fulfilled_Meditation.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95902 | 183 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Last year, I made a poor attempt at describing what Father's Day meant to me. And predictably like always, my mind drifts back to a more gentle, uncomplicated time.
You may ask, what are the fathers like in Smock? They are quiet. Reserved. Reluctant to accept any accolades bestowed upon them on this or any other day. And if you walked up to most of them saying "Happy Father's Day", you might get a smile or a wink and that's about it.
Most of the fathers in Smock on a day like today pause to remember their fathers. Those guys who left an entire country and along with it, relatives, friends and a way of life. They came here, many would say, to make a better life for their own sons and daughters. Boy, did they ever. And how.
But they don't expect to have a whole day set aside for making such a big sacrifice. I think that the only thing that they do expect is that we, their kids and grandkids, just do well. Just be happy. And they don't even expect a simple thank you. The thanks is in the doing, just like it was for many of them.
Our fathers came from places and towns that we had to practice to correctly pronounce. They had brothers and sisters that they will never again see this side of heaven. And mothers and fathers who broke their backs to save up enough for a one-way fare on a steamship to America.
And so what did they do when they arrived in places like Smock? They had little crib sheets that had small phonetic phrases such as "Hi boss, you have verk for me?" The boss was usually either a pit boss in the coal mines or a labor gang supervisor at the steel mill in Clairton. And their future bosses would respond favorably and send them out to do some of the most back breaking, lung destroying, ear shattering work, all for about a dollar and change per day.
They managed to save money from that meager wage to buy half a house with a paper thin wall so that you could sit up at night and hear what gossip is going on or who is getting their young buttocks fanned for not behaving well in church that morning.
The term "wait until your father gets home" took on a frightening and all too real meaning back in Smock. We feared Dad in a certain manner, but we respected him. And when, after a few Iron City beers, he would begin telling stories of the "old country", we sat there and were riveted to hear this same guy who was usually quiet create vivid images of friends, family and even fun in this foreign land where class and status meant nothing. A place where butchering a chicken or a pig would have made the front page.
Our fathers were like icebergs; you only saw the 10% that was above the water line. But their upbringing, values and faith ran deep. And for most, those admirable values fortunately trickled down.
So for Andy and John and Fred and Teddy and Joe and Mike and Ed and Tom, Happy Father's Day and thanks for being just who you are.
Since words on Father's Day don't come easy from a Smock kid, just remember that we owe you more than you will ever know. | <urn:uuid:129d563b-7fe2-4bfc-afa9-463356d948aa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bobpegritz.blogspot.jp/2009/06/fathers-day-revisited.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984377 | 682 | 1.8125 | 2 |
The government is doing a lousy job helping distressed homeowners. And according to John Dugan, the Comptroller of the Currency, the little that’s been done has had surprisingly little effect. Nearly 36 percent of homeowners holding mortgages whose terms were adjusted to give them more leeway defaulted on payments within three months, and almost 53 percent were behind on payments by six months.
What’s going on? It’s hard to know for sure, because the homeowners who have qualified for help so far were supposed to have been fairly good credit risks to begin with. My guess is the worsening economy is making it harder for just about all homeowners to pay their mortgages, and those who were teetering on the edge months ago — although perhaps good credit risks before that time — are now way under water. Two of the biggest culprits: Layoffs and fewer working hours. With far less money coming in, more and more people have to choose between paying their mortgages and trying to keep up with larger and larger credit card debt. They’re trying to manage both while paying the medical bills and the food bills and energy bills, and they can’t make it.
It wouldn’t surprise me if many of these Americans were starting to look at the size of the bailouts of Wall Street and the bailout of the Big Three — at the executives, well-paid professional employees, upscale creditors and shareholders, and even well-paid blue-collar workers, who are the major beneficiaries of this federal largesse — and conclude that a fundamental principle of fairness is being violated.
These Americans aren’t revolutionaries. To the contrary, they’re deeply conservative. They’ve worked hard, but their hard work hasn’t paid off. Some have tried to save, only to see their savings disappear. They’re worried about the future and about their kids’ futures. They never expected anything like this.
This is the angry soil in which populist backlashes can take root.
by Robert Reich
Robert B. Reich is Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton.
This article first appeared on Robert Reich’s Blog. Republished with permission
Articles by Robert Reich:
- If They’re Too Big To Fail, They’re Too Big Period
- The Fed and Authoritarian Capitalism
- The Heart of the Economic Mess | <urn:uuid:1025f9a1-0b62-4349-8a66-679f2ffe6a33> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.laprogressive.com/are-we-courting-a-populist-backlash/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975792 | 520 | 1.835938 | 2 |
South Bend, Washington – The Pacific County Emergency Management Agency (PCEMA) office was advised by the National Weather Service (NWS) in Portland that the Willapa River will exceed flood stage at approximately 7:00 p.m. and is forecasted to crest at 22’ around 10:00 p.m. this evening.
Heckard Road is currently closed due to water over the road. Residents are cautioned to watch for water over roadways and other road closures through the night. Please observe all road closures and refrain from driving through flood waters.
The NWS has issued the following for the south Washington coast:
· A flood warning is in effect through Friday morning
· A high wind warning remains in effect until midnight tonight
· A high surf advisory remains in effect until 4:00 a.m. Friday
· A coastal flood advisory for tidal overflow remains in effect until 6:00 p.m. this evening
For the most up to date weather information from the NWS please visit http://www.weather.gov/portland
. This page brings up all advisories, watches, and warnings for the southwest Washington area. | <urn:uuid:8ac74bbe-dccf-45dc-8d98-4b693e7e590a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://kbkw.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=1180 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957182 | 236 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Creating a Web-centric newsroom
Now that we’ve shared a few our our ideas, let’s see yours! With the above video in mind, put the information into action. In the upcoming weeks:
Week 1: Plan a brainstorming session. It can be in your newsroom or on a camping trip or at an editor’s house. Make it fun and have lots of food. Make a list of all of the best ideas for how you can better implement the Web in your newsroom. It’s important that everyone is involved in the process.
Specifically, figure out how to (1) Start a Web-first workflow for all articles to be posted in a 24-hour news cycle, and (2) Generate Web-specific content like videos, slideshows and Twitter/Facebook/SMS updates. You can start a staff blog this week and write your first post about the ideas you brainstormed.
Week 2: Help every editor and reporter set up Google alerts for their section or beat as well as create a Twitter account to reach out to readers. At every budget meeting, require an aspect of every article pitch be based on feedback from readers on the Web. Start to build a strong community with your audience online and make sure it’s a two-way dialogue.
If you already have a Twitter account, this can be the week when you set up a system for publishing your editorial calendar for public feedback.
Weeks 3-6: Get out of the habit of updating your site once a day after the newspaper is printing. This is a huge step, so you’ll have to start slow. During this week, try not to post your articles online at 10 p.m. See how early you can post everything (and subsequently tweet the headlines), then figure out how your staff needs to shift roles to have a continuous flow of news throughout the day. This could mean changing the hours of your copy editors, changing deadlines for reporters and training everyone how to use the CMS.
Week 6-9: Really take control of live and breaking coverage. This can be as simple as posting event recaps (e.g. sports games, debates, concerts) online within a few hours after they’re over, because that’s when people will be looking. During those same events, post pictures and tweets that your readers will be interested in, and make sure to keep an eye on feedback from your users too.
Do they have questions? “Is #46 on the bench?” “How many people are at the concert?” Answer those questions. For breaking news like fires, robberies or protests, post as much information as you can as soon as you can. If it’s incomplete, that’s OK — but be accurate. Post updates as you go. Be sure to tweet the information too.
Week 9-12: After your staff starts to get comfortable with the Web, take on a big project like creating a system for an open editorial calendar, a continually updated news wiki or an iPhone app for readers on the go. All of your projects will feed on the other skills you’ve acquired: covering breaking news, thinking Web-first and encouraging community involvement.
Last but not least, report back! Let your peers know how your experiment went and what lessons you learned. | <urn:uuid:4e72c8aa-bcae-4138-bf00-fa11ca5cef50> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.copress.org/2009/08/26/creating-a-web-centric-newsroom/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933506 | 695 | 1.59375 | 2 |
In my previous post, I gave you an overview of the 250 acres that comprise New York City’s magnificent botanical garden. In this post, I’ll get more specific.
For starters, check out this dusty miller (jacobaea maritima) in topiary form. We figured they must dig it up and overwinter it in one of the conservatories.
Everyone loved this hydrangea macrophylla “Frau Reiko.” The flowers are much pinker in person, but still delicate enough to marry well in almost any garden.
While we’re on the subject, here’s another hydrangea that caught my eye.
And finally, this oakleaf, in full bloom. Gorgeous in the dappled light.
I know it’s probably not my place to question this, but a bed of heuchera in a hot location in full sun? You can’t tell from the photo, but the plants looked unhappy and their leaves were beginning to crisp up.
On a happier note, there were many plantings of Japanese iris, and they were at their peak.
I will leave you with a photo of a stunning allee of huge tulip poplars – among my favorite trees.
In the next installment: the rose garden
This entry was posted in Uncategorized
. Bookmark the permalink | <urn:uuid:9109fe01-fa02-45f3-999d-7b39eb161f39> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://diggingri.com/2012/06/21/the-new-york-botanical-garden-ii/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938583 | 295 | 1.648438 | 2 |
In 1998, when I resigned my Montgomery County Public Schools job, I went to work for the American Institutes of Research. When at AIR, we hired Crecilla Cohen Scott to work on a testing contract AIR held with the School District of Philadelphia. Crecilla was one of the smartest young researchers I had ever come across. She always had an uncanny instinct for asking great questions, and she could crunch numbers with the best of them. Since 1998, we have remained friends and colleagues.
Departing AIR in 2000, Crecilla took her skills to the U.S. Census Bureau. After working there for several years, she went into business for herself, establishing Infinity Research in 2007. Infinity is a women-owned research social-science company. The company also is certified as a small disadvantaged business. Infinity is based in Bowie. Crecilla is African American.
Like all research firms, Infinity survives by bidding on what we in the industry call requests for proposals (RFPs). Coming from both government and non-government entities, RFPs are a lifeline to business contracts, and they are the difference between staying profitable—surviving—and going out of business. For the most part, governments are extremely open and transparent when it comes to contracts, RFPs, and the bidding process. This openness—when it is consistently present—aids the “little guy,” including small businesses like Infinity.
Probably once a week, Crecilla and I talk shop. When we can partner, we partner—I personally believe in sharing the pie with the little guy. For example, several years ago, I used Infinity to help put workers on the ground so Prince George’s County Public Schools could restructure its database for the homeless students the district serves. And so I thought it was worthwhile to ask Crecilla a few questions about why being open and transparent is critical to small businesses and their ability to remain profitable. My questions and her answers (gathered via email and over a face-to-face lunch) appear below.
Question: In your opinion, as a small business, why is an open RFP process so critical to staying afloat?
Answer: An open RFP process is essential to small businesses because it provides an opportunity for us to showcase our capabilities, competitively bid on work, and increase awareness of our products and services. An open and transparent rfp process opens up the market and helps to level the playing field. Without an open and transparent process, many small businesses find it difficult to compete and generate sufficient revenue to remain profitable.
Question: Recession or not, it is my experience this region continues to spend money on research contracts. For a small research firm, what are some of your biggest challenges when trying to obtain contracts?
Answer: Our biggest challenge is establishing a professional relationship with decision-makers and building trust. Larger companies have the advantage of name recognition and long-established working relationships with government agencies. When decisionmakers are unfamiliar with a smaller company’s work, it is
particularly challenging to establish trust. We have several clients that have
provided repeat business, but in the beginning, there was a lot of work that
went into establishing the relationship. We definitely benefit from and rely on
partnerships with larger companies to build our portfolio—it adds to our
credibility and helps build trust.
Question: Do you have any horror stories about bidding on contracts in this region? Perhaps a situation where it looked like an agency wanted a small business, especially one owned by a minority, but then at the last moment, the contract was awarded to someone else?
Answer: Once, we were asked to bid on a project that had the potential to generate significant revenue. We were awarded a very small contract to develop a high-level “blue print” (or Phase I) of the larger project. After delivering the “blue print,” we thought we would be a natural fit to be awarded the larger contract (or Phase II). As it turns out, the agency decided to go with a large company to execute the work that we designed.
Question: Just thinking out loud here, if you could sit with government officials and give them advice on how to making the bidding process work better to the advantage of small businesses, what are some suggestions you’d offer?
Answer: I would suggest that officials take the time to reflect on the value that small businesses bring not only to each project, but also to the U.S. economy. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, small businesses employ half of all (private sector) employees, generate 65 percent of new jobs, and pay 44 percent of U.S. private payroll. We are an important part of the U.S. economy. It is
critically important to understand that small businesses have the ability to
provide quality products and services. Given the opportunity, I would suggest that officials reduce the paperwork required to submit responses to RFPs. A simplified, on-line submission process would be more efficient and it would reduce the number of hours needed to competitively bid on projects. Also, I would suggest that officials increase the incentives to larger companies to partner with small
businesses. Sometimes, the “piece of the pie” is so small, we wonder if we will
make it another year. | <urn:uuid:4c37c8b4-633d-4b64-a7bd-951301642710> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://rockville.patch.com/blog_posts/helping-the-little-guy-why-an-open-bid-process-helps-small-businesses | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970384 | 1,101 | 1.578125 | 2 |
GENEVA - Agence France-Presse
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov speaks during a press conference at the United Nations' offices in Geneva on June 30, 2012, after a ministerial-level meeting of world powers on Syria. AFP photo
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Saturday said any power transition in Syria would be decided by Syrians and that no party should be excluded from the process.
"How exactly the work on a transition to a new stage is conducted will be decided by the Syrians themselves," he said, adding that Russia
had convinced other world powers that it would be "unacceptable" to exclude any party.
World powers agreed Saturday to a plan for a transition in Syria that could include current regime members, but Washington made it clear that it did not see any role for President Bashar al-Assad in the unity government.
Lavrov admitted that Assad had made mistakes in the conflict, but said the Syrian leader was open to advice.
"Of course, the Syrian authorities often react disproportionately and in an inadequate manner.
"Yes, he makes a tremendous amount of mistakes, but still -- President Assad accepts advice. I am not sure if that is the case with the opposition," he said.
A long-time Syria ally, Russia
is loathe to cast Assad aside, even as relations between Moscow and Damascus have cooled.
minister warned against attempts by the West to put the Syria transition plan agreed in Geneva to the UN Security Council, thereby paving the way to possible sanctions or military action in case of non-compliance.
"Before applying Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, we must do everything to implement Annan's plan on the basis of existing resolutions," he said.
Any adoption of the plan under Chapter 7 is "is unacceptable to us if only for the reason that today's meeting does not have the authority to decide what happens on the UN Security Council," he warned.
In a separate briefing, US
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the deal should be endorsed by the Security Council.
"We should endorse this plan in the Security Council, we should endorse it with real consequences, including Chapter 7 sanctions if it is not implemented," she said. | <urn:uuid:f0293416-401f-4968-8ed8-1a524bc20c39> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/transition-plan-to-be-decided-by-all-syrian-parties-russia.aspx?pageID=238&nID=24447&NewsCatID=359 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964456 | 445 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Seek and ye shall find.
That’s the theory behind the still-debated benefits of digging through Big Data to uncover new, overlooked, or forgotten paths to greater profits and greater understanding.
Big Data, however, is here to stay (and get bigger). And search is what we do to find and extract useful nuggets and diamonds and nickels and dimes of information.
O’Reilly Media recently has published three new, enlightening books focused on the processes, application, and management of search: Enterprise Search by Martin White, Mastering Search Analytics by Brent Chaters, and Search Patterns by Peter Morville and Jeffery Callender.
Here are short looks at each.
Start with this book if you’re just beginning to explore what focused search efforts and search technology may be able to do for your company.
The book’s key goal is “to help business managers , and the IT teams supporting them, understand why effective enterprise-wide search is essential in any organization, and how to go about the process of meeting user requirements.”
You may think, So what’s the big deal? Just put somebody in a cubicle and pay them to use Google, Bing, and a few other search engines to find stuff.
Search involves much more than that. Even small businesses now have large quantities of potentially profitable information stored internally in documents, emails, spreadsheets and other formats. And large corporations are awash in data that can be mined for trends, warnings, new opportunities, new product or service ideas, and new market possibilities, to name just a few.
The goal of Enterprise Search is to help you set up a managed search environment that benefits your business but also enables employees to use search technology to help them do their jobs more efficiently and productively.
Yet, putting search technology within every worker’s reach is not the complete answer, author Martin White emphasizes.
“The reason for the well-documented lack of satisfaction with a search application,” he writes, “is that organizations invest in technology but not staff with the expertise and experience to gain the best possible return on the investment….”
Enterprise Search explains how to determine your firm’s search needs and how to create an effective search support team that can meet the needs of employees, management, and customers.
Curiously, White waits until his final chapter to list 12 “critical success factors” for getting the most from enterprise-wide search capabilities.
Perhaps, in a future edition, this important list will be positioned closer to the front of the book.
This in-depth and well-illustrated guide details how a unified, focused search strategy can generate greater traffic for your website, increase conversion rates, and bring in more revenue.
Brent Chaters explains how to use search engine optimization (SEO) and paid search as part of an effective, comprehensive approach.
Key to Chaters’ strategy is the importance of bringing together the efforts and expertise of both the SEO specialists and the Search Engine Marketing (SEM) specialists — two groups that often battle each other for supremacy within corporate settings.
“A well-defined search program should utilize both SEO and SEM tactics to provide maximum coverage and exposure to the right person at the right time, to maximize your revenue,” Chaters contends. “I do not believe that SEO and SEM should be optimized from each other; in fact, there should be open sharing and examination of your overall search strategy.”
His book is aimed at three audiences: “the search specialist, the marketer, and the executive”–particularly executives who are in charge of search campaigns and search teams.
If you are a search specialist, the author expects that “you understand the basics of SEO, SEM, and site search (meaning you understand how to set up a paid search campaign, you understand that organic search cannot be bought, and you understand how your site search operates and works.)”
“Search applications demand an obsessive attention to detail,” the two authors of this fine book point out. “Simple, fast, and relevant don’t come easy.”
Indeed, they add, “Search is not a solved problem,” but remains, instead, “a wicked problem of terrific consequence. As the choice of first resort for many users and tasks, search is the defining element of the user experience. It changes the way we find everything…it shapes how we learn and what we believe. It informs and influences our decisions and, and it flows into every noon and cranny….Search is among the biggest, baddest, most disruptive innovations around. It’s a source of entrepreneurial insight, competitive advantage, and impossible wealth.”
They emphasize: “Unfortunately, it’s also the source of endless frustration. Search is the worst usability problem on the Web….We find too many results or too few, and most regular folks don’t know where to search, or how….business goals are disrupted by failures in findability…[and] “Mobile search is a mess.”
Colorfully illustrated and well-written, Search Patterns is centered around major aspects in the design of user interfaces for search and discovery. It is aimed at “designers, information architects, students, entrepreneurs, and anyone who cares about the future of search.”
It covers the key bases, “from precision, recall, and relevance to autosuggestion and faceted navigation.” It looks at how search may be reshaped in the future. And, very importantly, it also joins the growing calls for collaboration across disciplines and “tearing down walls to make search better….”
– Si Dunn | <urn:uuid:a8d52434-5e87-400a-b390-8fa5a5b28f40> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sagecreek.wordpress.com/tag/search-engine-optimization/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9369 | 1,196 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Another way of thinking of publishers is not as companies that decide your fate as an author, but rather as companies that offer the authors they've chosen to work with a comprehensive package of services.
Here are the basic services traditional publishers provide for an author, why these services matter, and how this is (and isn't) changing:
Editing and Copyediting:
While the myth that editors don't edit is alive and well, the truth is that books are edited and copyedited at traditional publishers (please please please know the difference between editing and copyediting). This affords a certain degree of quality control. Now, sure, we've all spotted typos in books, which infect us temporarily with disproportionate outrage and a jolt of smugness. It happens. But all you have to do is read this blog on a regular basis to see the horrorshow of typos that results from text published without copyediting.
Editors and copyeditors (yes, still), provide professional editorial expertise that improve books. I'm sure you've heard they don't edit and copyedit anymore. It's not true.
Cover, trim size, interior design, illustrations/photographs, font choice, paper choice, etc. The best-designed books are works of art.
Printing and Distribution:
Once the books are actually produced, someone has to get them into bookstores and e-bookstores. Traditionally this has been the irreplaceable service offered by publishers. Not only would they make the books, they would draw upon their reputation, sales teams, and infrastructure to get print books into bookstores in large numbers.
Even in the e-book era distribution still matters. There are new e-book vendors cropping up every day, and publishers have the scale to sell their e-books in as many venues as possible while dealing with all of the accompanying electronic conversion headaches.
Publicity and Marketing:
At minimum publishers get their books sent out for review and do some basic advertising. When a publisher turns on the publicity and marketing fire hose for their biggest books, they will manage book tours, author appearances, giveaways, major advertising campaigns, co-op, and much more. Publicity and marketing aren't everything, but they can provide a major boost.
Patronage (i.e. an advance):
While debut novelists almost always have to figure out how to write a novel on their own time and dime, publishers nevertheless offer nonfiction authors and previously published novelists money in advance of writing the actual books, which both rewards authors before their book actually comes out and theoretically supports them as they're writing it. Obviously the degree of support this affords the author depends on the amount of the advance, but money up front that the author doesn't have to pay back even if the book tanks ain't nothin' to sneeze at.
Aside from all the tangible services publishers offer authors, there is one intangible element: cachet. There is something to be said for the selectivity and track record publishers have demonstrated and for the endorsement they still lend to traditionally published books. While the name of the publisher on the spine of a book doesn't matter to everyone, it does still matter to many bookstores and readers.
Now then. The key element in all of this that is changing is, of course, printing and distribution. In an e-book era, it is no longer be necessary to have extensive physical infrastructure in order to make a book available, and when it comes to e-book distribution publishers are no longer the only game in town. Authors can either deal directly with Amazon, Apple, etc. or work with third-party digital distribution services.
But that just covers one element of the book-making process. Every other basic element that goes into a successful book is still pretty much the same. Books may be edited on Microsoft Word instead of with colored pencil, but you still need editing. Your marketing may be more Twitter-based than newspaper-based, but you still need marketing.
Thus, an author dealing directly with an e-book distributor has to figure out how to handle patronage, editorial, quality control, design, marketing and publicity, and must possess (or build) cachet. They'll have to either tackle all of this themselves, or farm some or all of it out to contractors and must possess the financial and time-consumption wherewithal to do it.
For some authors (most recently Seth Godin), the flexibility, control, and greater back-end revenue afforded by self-publication is worth it. Other authors may feel that they don't want to be bothered with the nuts and bolts of figuring out their own copyediting, cover design, interior design, marketing, and may still want the imprimatur of a publisher.
Personally I think this is the reason why publishers aren't going to disappear even in an era where they no longer possess a virtual monopoly in distribution. Many authors don't want to be bothered with the nuts and bolts of book-making so they can focus on writing and marketing and their day jobs, and are willing to part with revenue on the back end in order to have these tasks handled by seasoned experts.
What is inevitably changing, though, is that authors will have a choice: handle it all themselves, contract some elements out, or go with a publisher offering a comprehensive package of services. | <urn:uuid:a98c737f-7d65-403f-9b1c-dc0226f26e99> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.nathanbransford.com/2010/08/package-of-services-publishers-provide.html?showComment=1282690500526 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965633 | 1,109 | 1.609375 | 2 |
ROBIN HAY, Richland
On Feb. 12, Pasco voters will have the opportunity to approve a bond to build three new elementary schools.
Robinson Elementary was the last school to open in Pasco in 2005. Since then, Pasco has enrolled more than 2,983 new elementary and middle school students. The impact of that enrollment has been absorbed into the schools to date through creative use of space and additional portable classrooms.
However, the current space is full and room for portables is minimal. Every school in Pasco is overcrowded, some more so than others. At McGee Elementary, nearly as many students are housed outside of the building in portable classrooms as inside the brick and mortar structure. McGee was built for 500 students, but now 920 students attend.
Those students receive a quality education, but the building cannot continue to support more students. Now is the time to build schools! Interest rated are low and the state has set aside matching money to lower the burden on local taxpayers. Pasco cares for kids. Support Pasco students by voting yes. | <urn:uuid:e2d96f81-5e45-4554-89ff-96cd7322c821> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tri-cityherald.com/2013/01/09/2229563/pasco-school-bond-yes.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973541 | 220 | 1.625 | 2 |
If any man's work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved(sozo- delivered, made whole,protected), yet so as through fire.
I agree, the whole creation has been "redeemed"(purchased) by the blood of Jesus
For it was the Father's good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven. (Col 1:19-20)
My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He Himself is the propitiation(conciliatory offering) for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world. (1Jn 2:1-2)
As in Adam all die so also in Christ shall all be made alive- but each in His own order.
For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. (Rom 8:19-21)
He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth.
The whole creation was redeemed(purchased) by a propitiation(conciliatory offering-the blood of the cross) that secured the reconcilation of all things, and the whole creation is being "saved"(delivered, healed, made whole) into it in an administration suitable to the fulness of times(each in its own order) through the gathering into one of all things in Christ - that God may be all in all.
Behold, I am making all things new!
And every created thing which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all things in them, I heard saying, "To Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever." | <urn:uuid:35ce6ca8-2028-4dbc-802f-acaf072f206c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tentmaker.org/forum/*-ur-ministry-in-foreign-lands/the-lord's-work-in-the-province-of-quebec-canada/msg104327/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959164 | 525 | 1.773438 | 2 |
Coloring your hair is simple and very easy. However, doing it properly and having a good hair coloring job is a bit tricky. Before giving into your desire, here are some things you should know before you color your hair:
- There are many different shades of color based on the reflection of the color. According to the scale, black is a 1 because it doesn’t reflect much light. On the other hand, blonde is a 10 because of its high reflection of light. Most of the hair colors available go by this system. The higher the number means the lighter the color.
- Before you color your hair, remember that permanent hair color alters the hair chemically and cannot be undone. Going back to your original hair color or changing to another hair color is possible but it is very expensive aside from being damaging to the hair.
- Semi-permanent hair color can only darken the hair color and doesn’t change the hair much. It is best for covering grey hair but it fades quickly so it should be done regularly to keep the same color. This is less complicated and can be done at home but it is important to learn the proper way and only make use of good quality hair coloring kits. Before you color your hair with semi-permanent hair coloring, make sure to do your research. Read and follow the instructions very carefully!
- Lightening dark hair is very complicated and considerably risky so do-it-yourself kits are not advisable. This process should be left to professionals in order to prevent undesirable result. When hair color is lightened, undertones (usually yellow or red) are produced. The dilemma occurs when the two colors mix and the result is orange hair. This is why this process should only be done by professionals. If you’re really decided and plan to do it at home, make sure to do ample research and test on a strand first so you can determine the result.
- To stress, do an extensive research or ask someone who is experienced in the specific process that you’re planning before you color your hair. Be very patient and control your impulse. If you can’t afford to go to a professional, look for other alternatives like practiced friends.
Coloring your tresses by yourself sounds easy, but a detrimental effect can be long-lasting. You should learn everything you can because this will determine if you will end up with a great hair color that compliments your pretty face or end up looking like a clown. | <urn:uuid:29003f82-1f09-45d8-a0bb-bef2761f0cfc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thebeautyinsiders.com/5-important-reminders-before-you-color-your-hair.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94395 | 507 | 1.8125 | 2 |
(PDF 273 KB)
Struggle and strife may be part and parcel of life, but Cecilia Smith* seemed to be getting more than her fair share. The Caucasian infant was referred to our pediatric ophthalmology clinic when she was four months old for a complete ophthalmic examination to determine her visual potential after a complicated neonatal hospital course.
Cecilia was a full-term baby who born by cesarean section after failure of labor to progress. At birth, weighed 3,044 g and had normal and 5-minute Apgar scores of 9 and Initially, Cecilia did well and was transferred to the newborn nursery. While there, she became hypothermic temperatures to 35.6 degrees Celsius and was hypoglycemic with blood sugars as low as 24 mg/dl. She transferred to the NICU, where endocrinology team was consulted evaluate her hypoglycemia. Labs drawn to evaluate for panhypopituitarism. These revealed low cortisol (2.0 µg/dl). All other pituitary hormone levels were normal. Sepsis also a concern for the cause of her hypoglycemia, but all blood cultures negative. She was started on hydrocortisone and her blood sugars stabilized, as did her temperature. During hospital stay, an MRI of her brain obtained (Fig. 1).
We Get a Look
When she was seen in our clinic, Cecilia was noted to have roving eye movements, and she was unable to fixate on or follow a target. Pupillary exam was normal, with no evidence of an afferent pupillary defect. Ocular motility exam was grossly normal, but she was noted to have a horizontal, wandering nystagmus. Anterior segment exam was unremarkable. Dilated fundus exam revealed optic nerve hypoplasia in both eyes, but the fundi were otherwise normal. A review of the lab work done in the hospital revealed normal thyroid studies, excluding hypothyroidism as a cause of her optic nerve hypoplasia.
What’s Your Diagnosis?
|Sagittal MRI. We noted thin optic nerves and chiasm, as well as hypoplasia of the pituitary gland. |
Based on the clinical evidence of optic nerve hypoplasia and hypopituitarism (low adrenocorticotropic hormone leading to low cortisol) along with MRI evidence of a small pituitary gland, optic nerves and a thin chiasm, a diagnosis of septo-optic dysplasia (de Morsier’s syndrome) was made.
Cecilia’s parents were counseled on the future likelihood of significant visual impairment. Unfortunately, no therapeutic interventions were available to offer them.
A Twist to the Story
Cecilia has been followed in our clinic since her first visit with us at age 4 months. At that initial visit, her only pituitary abnormality was low ACTH. She subsequently developed hypothyroidism, but not in the manner that would be expected for her disease. Her family history revealed that Cecilia’s father had an autosomal dominant disorder—multiple endocrine neoplasia (MEN) type 2a—as did several of her cousins. Cecilia was tested and found to be positive for the c-RET proto- oncogene, indicating that she also had the disease. Pediatric surgeons discussed with the family the need for prophylactic thyroidectomy, as the risk of medullary thyroid carcinoma is very high in these patients. Thyroidectomy was performed when Cecilia was 3 years old, and she was started on levothyroxine sodium (Synthroid) postoperatively.
Cecilia is now 8 years old and was recently diagnosed with growth hormone deficiency. The pediatric endocrinology team recommended growth hormone supplementation, but Cecilia’s parents declined the treatment. Her visual acuity is stable at 20/400 in both eyes, which is consistent with her optic nerve hypoplasia and nystagmus.
Septo-optic dysplasia (SOD) is a group of disorders characterized by some combination of: (a) optic nerve hypoplasia, (b) pituitary hypoplasia and (c) absence of the septum pellucidum and/or corpus callosum. It is a rare disorder, with a reported incidence of 1 per 10,000 births.1
Patients with SOD may present with ocular abnormalities, such as nystagmus, strabismus or poor visual acuity.2 Because of pituitary involvement, patients may present with endocrine abnormalities, ranging from a single hormone deficiency to panhypopituitarism. Growth hormone deficiency is the most common endocrinopathy seen in SOD.1 Patients may also have neurological abnormalities, ranging from epilepsy to mental retardation.2
The etiology of SOD remains unclear, although both genetic and environmental causes have been suggested. Recent studies have shown that mutations in the HESX1 homeobox gene may play a role in the pathogenesis of SOD.1,3 Others have speculated that viral infections or vascular insults during pregnancy may lead to SOD. Because of the heterogeneity of clinical presentations, radiologic findings of SOD are equally widespread. Brain MRI may show hypoplasia of the optic nerves, optic chiasm, septum pellucidum, corpus callosum and/or pituitary gland.
Patients may need regular follow-up with an ophthalmologist, an endocrinologist and a neurologist.2,4
Multiple endocrine neoplasia (MEN) is a group of disorders characterized by tumors in various endocrine glands. MEN type 1 involves the pancreas, parathyroid and pituitary glands. MEN type 2 is associated with medullary thyroid carcinoma and pheochromocytoma, plus parathyroid tumors in MEN 2a and mucosal neuromas in MEN 2b. These rare disorders have an estimated prevalence of 1 in 20,000 to 40,000 people.5 They are inherited in an autosomal dominant fashion with high penetrance.6 MEN 1 is associated with mutations in the MEN 1 gene on chromosome 11, while MEN 2 is related to mutations in the c-RET proto-oncogene on chromosome 10.7 Management of MEN consists of genetic testing and appropriate tumor screening based on the disease subtype. Again, the approach is interdisciplinary, involving endocrinologists, surgeons and geneticists. Of note, MEN 2 patients often undergo prophylactic thyroidectomy during childhood, since 95 percent of patients with untreated MEN 2 develop medullary thyroid carcinoma over their lifetime.5
Currently, there is no literature regarding a connection between SOD and MEN. Patients with either of these disorders will require interdisciplinary management. * Patient name is fictitious.
___________________________ Dr. Oltmanns is a resident, Ms. Siegel is a third-year medical student and Dr. Khuddus is an assistant professor of ophthalmology. All are at the University of Florida at Gainesville.
1 Kelberman, D. and M. T. Dattani. Horm Res
2 Campbell, C. L. Optometry
3 Polizzi, A. et al. Pediatr Neurol
4 Riedl, S. W. et al. Horm Res
5 Callender, G. G. et al. Surg Clin North Am
6 Stratakis, C. A. and D. W. Ball J Pediatr Endocrinol Metab
7 Thakker, R. V. Horm Res | <urn:uuid:0305a94e-cc43-4247-9df7-611c9a714908> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aao.org/aao/publications/eyenet/200905/am_rounds.cfm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948055 | 1,590 | 1.742188 | 2 |
The credit crunch began a year ago. At that time, the blog was very much in a minority when worrying that it might turn into something big enough to impact 'the real economy'. A year later, it is fascinating to review the crunch's impact so far, and how people's attitudes have changed:
• Banks have so far lost $493bn in subprime loans, and raised only $337bn in new capital. US banks have lost $250bn and raised $177bn; European banks have lost $221bn and raised $160bn. A year ago, Ben Bernanke of the US Fed said total losses would be no more than $100bn. Now, the IMF forecasts they will be at least $1000bn.
• A year ago, Chuck Prince, then CEO of CitiGroup, famously dismissed the crisis, saying 'we are still dancing'. On Friday, Sir Fred Goodwin, CEO of RBS, the UK's 2nd largest bank, said 'we are nearer the beginning than the end of this crisis'
• Wal-Mart and Tesco get full marks for calling it right from the start. The blog noted Wal-Mart saying last August that 'consumers continue to be challenged financially', whilst Tesco's commercial director said clearly 'coming down the road is a tougher time'.
• In this context, the latest comment from the Head of Wal-Mart's US operations is very worrying. He told investors last week that 'we know consumers are spending more cautiously, and we continue to see a pronounced pay-check cycle at the end of the month'.
Reviewing the past year, the Financial Times notes that the financial world is moving back to 'old fashioned banking' where there is a 'welcome premium on know-how and experience'. More generally, it concludes, 'grey hair and good advice matter once again'. | <urn:uuid:d4ebe684-350d-418e-ad2b-5bea1a7066ac> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.icis.com/blogs/chemicals-and-the-economy/2008/08/grey-hair-and-good-advice-matt.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946664 | 378 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Geocaching is a high-tech treasure hunting game played throughout the world by adventure seekers equipped with GPS devices. The basic idea is to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, outdoors and then share your experiences online. Geocaching is enjoyed by people from all age groups, with a strong sense of community and support for the environment.
Geocaching.com Home Page Here!
What a better way to get out and enjoy nature than searching for cache's in places you have never been, great family fun for all ages and outdoor experience levels, and it is good exercise to boot!
Trail Explorers Outpost offers some of the little things for your Geocaching adventure. We will be adding more items in the future, such as ammo can kits customized for your hides, larger cache containers, geocaching logs, Geocoins and other gear for your caching adventure. | <urn:uuid:1cceb0a9-97ff-44a9-af26-1b62dc471632> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.trailexplorers.com/geocache-gear-c-53.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946434 | 181 | 1.5 | 2 |
The pattern of “church shopping” has become tragically common within American Christianity, with many people visiting church after church without ever making a commitment to congregational life and responsibility. This concept of Christianity is antithetical to that of the New Testament. Suzanne Hadley knows this, and her article published recently at Boundless offers an antidote to the “church shopping” phenomenon. In “Designer Church,” Hadley takes readers back to the New Testament church where, she reminds, “there wasn’t much choosing going on.” Indeed, “The New Testament says a lot about the early church, but you don’t read about style or preference being considerations for attending. Instead of a ‘What can my church do for me?’ perspective, we find the opposite attitude: ‘What are my responsibilities to the church?’” She also insists that the early church was rightly concerned with the primacy of sound doctrine. Today, she expains, “Many people prefer attending a church where the messages are comfortable and the pastor sticks to ‘safe’ topics that don’t offend. But Scripture is clear that one of the church’s top priorities should be to preach the truth and protect itself from the poison of false teachings.” Sadly, sound doctrine is just not much of a concern to many church shoppers. Suzanne Hadley’s article deserves a wide circulation. Her conclusion is a resounding refutation of a consumerist mentality. “True self-expression will take place only as I seek to reflect Christ in every area of my life and commit to investing in a community of believers. Christ’s body is not something to be molded into my image. It’s a place where I can be molded into His. I want Christ’s body to be more than an accessory -— I want it to be my heart.” Pass this article to someone who needs it.
Are You Shopping for a Designer Church?
May 3, 2005
Words From the Fire: Hearing the Voice of God in the 10 Commandments
If God has spoken, then the highest human aspiration must be to hear what the Creator has said. God has indeed spoken, through the Ten Commandments, and Al Mohler explores this revelation of God and the implications for His people. The promise is to hear, to obey, and to live. These “Ten Words” tell us who God is and what His people should look like. | <urn:uuid:7d9820df-ca0d-4eed-a435-1ad6399b5d7e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.albertmohler.com/2005/05/03/are-you-shopping-for-a-designer-church/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961026 | 518 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Technovica Lab is a space to explore ideas about the intersections of technology, innovation and news, and, (with some hard work and luck) bring the best ideas to fruition.
Its principal author is Saleem Khan, a Toronto-based independent journalist focused on innovation. Saleem is the founder and program director of the Innovate News initiative, a founding director of the Canadian Journalists Education Foundation, an adviser and steering committee member at the University of Toronto ThingTank Lab, and an inaugural inductee of the Knight Mozilla News Lab.
The Innovate News initiative gathers senior business executives, managers and working journalists, designers, technologists, academics and others to explore and overcome the challenges that confront journalism, and foster a culture of journalism innovation today and tomorrow. The first Innovate News conference was held at the MaRS Centre in Toronto in 2010.
The Canadian Journalists’ Education Foundation is a federally registered charity that advances and promotes public understanding of journalism’s role in Canadian society and the world, and the public’s right to information.
The ThingTank Lab is an open community ideation lab aimed at experimenting and creating prototypes of next-generation, digitally enabled physical and pervasive media, commonly referenced as “the Internet of things.”
The Knight Mozilla News Lab is a part of the Knight Mozilla News Technology Challenge, a partnership that aims to harness open Web innovation for journalism.
Saleem previously launched, managed, edited and reported for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s (CBC) technology news service, was news and global technology editor for Metro International, the world’s largest international newspaper; and held various editor roles at Toronto Star newspapers.
Saleem is a past director of the John H. McDonald Journalism Foundation, and served as chairman and director of the Canadian Association of Journalists for a decade. Under his tenure, the CAJ went from its worst times to its greatest successes in advocacy, education, membership growth and financial stability since it was founded in 1978. | <urn:uuid:90656105-7aba-4087-ab7e-f3a0d5be17ba> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://technovica.com/lab/about/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940894 | 406 | 1.773438 | 2 |
Professor Kirk Ormand and students at the Temple of Apollo in Delphi (Jan. 2006)
Study of the classics has been a standard element of higher education since the foundation of the first degree-granting university in Bologna, Italy, in 1088. At Oberlin, we are committed to the study of ancient Greek and Roman language, literature, culture, and history. Through a variety of courses, we seek to investigate the hallmarks of classical Greece and Rome, to understand the role of these ancient cultures in the formation of the modern West.
If you plan to engage in research and teaching at the university or college level in such fields as classics, classical archeology, comparative literature, ancient religion, or ancient Western history, the classics major at Oberlin provides an excellent preparation.
We offer a minor in Greek or Latin and courses toward completion of three separate majors:
- Classical civilization
- Latin language and literature
- Greek language and literature
We have placed graduates in top-tier master’s and PhD degree programs at the University of California at Berkeley, Brown University, University of Chicago, University of Michigan, Oxford University, and Stanford University, among others. Many pre-law and premed majors also choose this field of study. Students of the classics have also launched successful careers in social work, publishing, library science, and field anthropology.
The South porch of the Erechtheum in Athens
We offer courses in classical civilization that cover literature, history and society, as well as Greek and Roman contributions to philosophy, religion, and government. No knowledge of Greek or Latin is required for these courses. Rather, we have designed these classes to provide a broad background for students interested in all areas of literary, humanistic, and historical study.
A series of courses in Greek and Latin language and literature develops a deeper understanding of the works of ancient Greece and Rome and enables students to make independent judgments about ancient society through the study of source documents in their original languages. Acquisition of the languages is a prerequisite for advanced work, however, many students begin at Oberlin with neither Latin nor Greek. We provide basic courses in the languages to enable you to approach significant material as soon as possible. Advanced seminars aim at close study of one or two ancient authors.
You will have opportunities to learn from visiting scholars through the Charles Beebe Martin Classical Lectures, an annual lecture series that ranks among the most distinguished in the field of classics in the United States. Professor of Greek Simon Goldhill of Cambridge University served as the Martin lecturer for 2009-10.
Oberlin sponsors the national John J. Winkler Memorial Prize, awarded annually to the best undergraduate and graduate essay in any risky or marginal field of classical study. The cash award honors the former classics scholar, teacher, and political activist who died of AIDS in 1990. The Winkler Prize recognizes unconventional and innovative work that has not yet proven itself in traditional venues. Each year’s graduate student winner gives the Winkler Memorial Lecture at Oberlin, providing opportunities for our students to hear the most innovative work in the field, and to learn first hand about top graduate programs in classics.
Outside the classroom, you can hone your language and research skills by visiting the Mudd Learning and Library Center Special Collections to peruse Byzantine manuscripts or Greek papyri. The Allen Memorial Art Museum, one of the top five college art museums in the nation, has a small but significant collection of ancient Greek and Roman art, as well as an outstanding set of works from the Renaissance and later periods that reflect the classical tradition.
We highly recommend study abroad as part of our curriculum. Oberlin College is a participating member of the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies in Rome, which offers undergraduates opportunities to study ancient history and archaeology, Greek and Latin literature, and ancient art. We also cooperate with the Instituto Internazionale di Studi Classici di Orvieto and the College Year in Athens programs. We are a participating institution in the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, allowing Oberlin students to apply for their outstanding summer program in archaeology. You may also take part in the Sangro Valley Project, an archaeological field school directed by Oberlin and Oxford University (UK).
Winter term in Greece
This past WT (2013) Professor Kirk Ormand took 18 Oberlin students to Greece for a 16-day tour of archaeological sites and museums. You can visit the tumblr (blog) of our trip here.
In the spring of 2009, a few of our enterprising majors liberated the bust of Homer, our unofficial departmental mascot, for a journey around the Oberlin campus. View a photojournal of his local odyssey. | <urn:uuid:57b77ce0-1121-4163-99ff-952b26d36c3d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://new.oberlin.edu/arts-and-sciences/departments/classics/index.dot | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931911 | 961 | 1.820313 | 2 |
1 a seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him:
2 And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying,
3 a are the b: for theirs is the c of heaven.
4 Blessed are they that a: for they shall be b.
5 Blessed are the a: for they shall inherit the b.
6 Blessed are they which do a and thirst after b: for they shall be filled.
7 Blessed are the a: for they shall obtain mercy.
8 Blessed are the a in b: for they shall c God.
9 Blessed are the a: for they shall be called the b of God.
10 Blessed are they which are a for b sake: for c is the kingdom of heaven.
11 Blessed are ye, when men shall a you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of b against you falsely, c.
12 a, and be exceeding glad: for great is your b in heaven: for so c they the prophets which were before you.
13 ¶Ye are the a of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.
14 Ye are the a of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.
15 Neither do men light a a, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.
16 Let your a so shine before men, that they may see your good b, and c your Father which is in heaven.
17 ¶Think not that I am come to a the b, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.
18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the a, till all be b.
19 a therefore shall b one of these least commandments, and shall c men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and d them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
20 For I say unto you, That except your a shall exceed the righteousness of the b and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.
21 ¶Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou a not b; and whosoever shall kill shall be c danger of the judgment:
22 But I say unto you, That whosoever is a with his brother b shall be c danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, d, shall be e danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.
23 Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee;
24 Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be a to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.
25 a with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison.
26 Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid a.
27 ¶Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit a:
28 But I say unto you, That whosoever a on a b to c her hath committed d with her already in his heart.
29 And if thy right eye a, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into b.
30 And if thy right a offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into b.
31 It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of a:
32 But I say unto you, That whosoever shall a his b, saving for the cause of c, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.
33 ¶Again, ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, Thou shalt not a, but shalt b unto the Lord thine c:
34 But I say unto you, a not at all; neither by heaven; for it is God’s b:
35 Nor by the earth; for it is his a: neither by Jerusalem; for it is the b of the great King.
36 Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black.
37 But let your a be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh b.
38 ¶Ye have heard that it hath been said, An a for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth:
39 But I say unto you, That ye resist not a: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right b, c to him the other also.
40 And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also.
41 And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain.
42 a to him that asketh thee, and from him that would b of thee turn not thou away.
43 ¶Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt a thy b, and hate thine enemy.
44 But I say unto you, a your b, c them that d you, do e to them that f you, and g for them which despitefully use you, and h you;
45 That ye a the b of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth c on the just and on the unjust.
46 For if ye a them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?
47 And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so?
48 a ye therefore b, even as your c which is in heaven is d. | <urn:uuid:9af62ea3-630d-4a05-b334-10a4ea70623f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lds.org/scriptures/nt/matt/5.8?lang=eng | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961827 | 1,399 | 1.804688 | 2 |
"I am not alone," he said. "I feel better because all these people are here with me and supporting us."
As pressure builds on miners to end strikes that are slowly paralyzing South Africa's critically important mining industry, they are finding strength in numbers, in rousing speeches of union leaders and a fiery outcast from the ruling party, even in a sense of righteousness that recalls the old struggle against apartheid. Above all, they are inspired by the story of Marikana, where last month platinum miners got a pay raise of up to 22 percent in an agreement that settled an illegal strike whose level of violence shocked the nation.
At the Gold Fields KDC West mine in Carletonville, thousands of miners on strike since last month now face eviction from their hostels, the kind of action that might throw their lives into unprecedented turmoil. Many who spoke to The Associated Press said they would have nowhere to go in the event of eviction but that they had gathered so much steam that the only thing that could silence them now is a capitulation to their demand: a monthly wage of 12,500 rand ($1,500), three times what most of them currently get.
A striking miner who
Many miners are bitter that the gold and platinum they dig up enriches others while they barely get by, often living in settlements with no running water or electricity. Some miners in Carletonville seemed angry and on the edge of violence, brandishing sticks, glowering toward passing motorists, even asking aloud whether they had become "dogs" in their own country.
The current unrest in the mining industry caught fire in August when platinum miners at Lonmin's Marikana operations northwest of Johannesburg staged a wildcat strike that led to police killing 34 miners on Aug. 16 and wounding more than 70 others in a blaze of gunfire as officers tried to disperse strikers, many of whom were armed with machetes and spears. The Marikana incident is now the subject of an official inquiry.
About 80,000 miners, or 16 percent of the total mining workforce, are striking across South Africa, according to Lesiba Seshoka of the National Union of Mineworkers. In the weeks since the Marikana strike was resolved, unrest has affected several gold and platinum mines and weakened South Africa's image as an investment destination. The strikes have hit AngloGold Ashanti, a top gold producer in South Africa, and Anglo American Platinum, whose operations have been brought to a standstill by the strike, is the world's largest producer of platinum. The labor unrest has even spread to the nation's truckers.
Willie Jacobsz, a senior vice president at Gold Fields, said the company gave miners a pay raise of up to 10 percent in July and that responding to their "illegal" demands" now would send the wrong message.
"We are not negotiating with the strikers," he said, "because we do not reward unlawful striking."
Jacobsz said the miners were up for eviction because they had turned their hostels into factories for making weapons such as petrol bombs.
Like Gold Fields, AngloGold Ashanti's Vaal River operations have been badly hit by a strike over wages, with more than 20,000 workers there getting the support of influential trade unions in demanding a monthly salary of 16,000 rand ($1,900). In the town of Orkney, hundreds of miners marched Wednesday to the nearest offices of AngloGold Ashanti, chanting "Amandla," a Zulu slogan denoting people power that was used in the long anti-apartheid struggle, while some pumped their fists into the air.
"Down with monkey salaries, down," said Buti Manamela, the president of the Young Communist League. "Divided we fall, united we stand. ... We can never achieve Nelson Mandela's rainbow nation if we are unequal in terms of wages."
For the miners, the idea that unity might bring a measure of success in wage demands, as happened in Marikana, is motivating those who otherwise would have given up by now. Many face the prospect of hunger if the strike is unresolved, and without a regular salary they will be unable to pay rent for their lodgings. But they feel that their demands have a better chance of getting met in the immediate aftermath of the Marikana incident.
This week the Congress of South African Trade Unions, or COSATU, and the National Union of Mineworkers said in a joint statement that the Marikana deal, however good, set a bad precedent by undermining what they called "collective bargaining."
COSATU and NUM have seen their authority eroded by the uncontrolled spread of illegal strikes. An Anglican priest helped negotiate the Marikana deal and many miners bypassed unions by selecting their own representatives to deal with management.
"Lonmin should have known that getting wage negotiations to be facilitated by the churches and allowing everybody, no matter their legal status, to play a role in the negotiations will create precedents that they will not be willing to repeat anywhere else," said the statement from COSATU and NUM.
Bishop Joe Seoka, the Anglican priest mediated the Marikana deal, told The Associated Press Thursday that threatening strikers with eviction "is not the way to go." Even though the fact that some miners are carrying out copy-cat strikes of the Marikana unrest is now a problem, with trust and mutual respect the Marikana agreement can be replicated at other mines where workers are on strike, the cleric said, adding that striking miners are often angry "because they have been let down by so many people."
"The first thing to do in this situation is to try and calm people down," he said.
For striking gold miners in Orkney, Marikana looms large and remains a source of inspiration.
J.R. Sefudi, who works at AngloGold Ashanti, vowed: "We are not going back on this." | <urn:uuid:b779c30c-9fcf-45e8-9f56-8c78ba1dac0a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.publicopiniononline.com/nationalnews/ci_21698440/striking-safrican-miners-find-strength-numbers | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967571 | 1,225 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Among forensic psychologists, child custody evaluators face the highest rate of licensure board complaints. The courts request their help in the most acrimonious parenting disputes, and it is easy to get caught in the crossfire. Even though 99 percent of all board complaints are ultimately dismissed, defending oneself is stressful, time-consuming, and expensive.
Over the past 20 years, aggrieved parents have deluged psychology licensure boards with frivolous, manipulative and mean-spirited complaints. Fearing that the onslaught would discourage professionals from agreeing to assist courts in high-conflict parenting cases, legislatures in many U.S. states have increased statutory protections. In the past decade, Florida and West Virginia passed immunity statutes for court-appointed evaluators. Colorado went even further, barring licensing board complaints over child custody evaluations, requiring that complainants instead take their claims back to the original trial court.
But legislation being proposed in California would turn in the opposite direction, dismantling quasi-judicial immunity protections for evaluators and other neutral professionals who assist the courts in parenting disputes. The current version of the proposed Assembly Bill 2475, heading to the state Assembly's Judiciary Committee on May 4, would add the following section (43.94) to California’s Civil Code:
"The doctrine of judicial immunity or quasi judicial immunity shall not apply to exonerate any private third party appointed by the court in an advisory capacity based on his or her professional expertise, who provides a report or findings to the Court in a proceeding under the Family Code, with the intention that the Court act in one way or another based on such report or findings, from liability for acts performed within the scope of his or her appointment in violation of laws, rules of court, or professional standards. This section shall apply to private individuals such as special masters, minor's counsel, investigators, therapists, evaluators, receivers, bankruptcy trustees, experts, factfinders, and other persons specifically appointed by the courts in an advisory capacity based on their professional training or expertise."I was initially suspicious that perhaps the "Men's Rights Movement" had a hand, as this increasingly powerful international lobby is making a concerted effort to reform child custody laws to favor men, and especially men accused of abusing their partners and children. Men's rights advocates claim that a feminist-run court system systematically violates men's civil rights, that a large proportion of abuse allegations are false, and that men "are victims of an unrecognized epidemic of violence at the hands of abusive wives," as reported in an expose in Slate. On the legal front, Respecting Accuracy in Domestic Abuse Reporting (RADAR) claims credit for blocking four federal domestic-violence bills, among them an international expansion of the Violence Against Women Act, according to the Slate report. Extrajudicially, movement members go so far as to applaud acts of violence perceived as retaliation against the feminist status quo.
But Assemblyman James Beall, the sponsor of AB 2475, does not appear allied with this regressive movement. Rather, he bils himself as a progressive Democrat who fights for the rights of children, families, the poor, and the disabled. Previously, he sponsored legislation (AB 612) to ban the use of Parental Alienation Syndrome -- a favorite of the father's rights movement -- from family courts.
NOTE: After I wrote this post, I did a bit more research on AB 612, and realized it was even more extreme than his new proposal. It would have allowed parents to sue any expert witness who relied upon "an unproven, unscientific theory." This would have included not only Parental Alienation Syndrome, its ostensible target, but a gamut of other evidence. After all, not much in any field of science is completely proven and uncontested. Luckily, that bill was defeated, perhaps explaining this new attempt. -- May 8, 2010
As it turns out, AB 2475 is supported by opponents of the men's rights movement, including an organization called the Protective Parents Association. This group lobbies on behalf of mothers who say the courts impede their efforts to protect their children by giving joint or sole custody to abusive fathers. "[T]he court responds to women attempting to protect their children from an abusive father with a knee-jerk reaction, assigning gender-biased labels to women to minimize or ignore the abuse in a reckless disregard of the safety of the child," writes association director Karen Anderson. By gender-biased labels, she is referring, no doubt, to Parental Alienation Syndrome.
So, AB 2475 may turn out to be a case of failure to anticipate unintended consequences. As readers know, politicians often propose a law in a knee-jerk response to a high-profile event, tweaking existing mechanisms without adequate anticipation of potential future deployments. Ironically, the bill could open the floodgates for attacks on neutral evaluators by the very same angry men with money who most often invoke the pseudoscientific construct of Parental Alienation Syndrome in custody cases.
When I telephoned Assemblyman Beall's office today to get more background, a staff member was cagey about the bill's impetus and minimized its intended scope, saying it was meant to only apply to mediators and not to child custody evaluators. Clearly, the current language belies this claim. So far I have been unable to turn up any specific case or cases that prompted this bill. Rather, it may be a misguided effort to stop evaluators from using the construct of Parental Alienation Syndrome against mothers in custody cases.
By way of background, various types of immunity for professionals involved in the legal system have a long history. Judicial immunity (immunity for judges) was implemented on public policy grounds in England all the way back in the 17th century. Similarly, witness immunity enjoys a long history, based on the principle of encouraging people to testify honestly and without fear of reprisal. Prosecutors performing their job duties are protected by qualified immunity, while psychologists and teachers enjoy statutory immunity when the law requires them to report child abuse.
Under the construct of quasi-judicial immunity, courts across the United States have repeatedly held that court-appointed experts must have some protection from intimidation in order to feel confident and free to make neutral and independent findings. As Karl Kirkland and colleagues point out in an enlightening review, this bolsters both the integrity of the judicial process and public welfare more generally.
This does not mean evaluators can say or do whatever they want. Immunity is never absolute, nor should it be. But forensic evaluators actually face enhanced scrutiny and risk as compared with other clinicians due to the adversarial nature of legal cases. As Greenberg and colleagues point out in another excellent review (reference at bottom), errors that might go unnoticed or be addressed constructively in therapy are much more likely to be exposed through the adversary process; the opinions of forensic experts must stand up to intense scrutiny and vigorous cross-examination.
But it seems an error to allow parties whose goal is often to subvert the legal process (for example by getting an evaluator removed from a case) to drive honest, hard-working, and experienced professionals away from child custody work through unfounded harassment. Consider the data. California logged the most licensing board complaints over child custody evaluations of any U.S. state during the 1990s. Yet according to Kirkland et al's review, of all of those 1,660 complaints, only a single one -- that's right, ONE -- led to a formal finding against the psychologist.
I will try to stay on top of this issue as it develops, and keep readers posted. Please feel free to post a comment if you learn of any updates, or if you know more about the impetus for this legislation.
For a good expose of the men's rights movement, see the Slate article by Kathyrn Jones, Men's Rights Groups Have Become Frighteningly Effective: They’re changing custody rights and domestic violence laws. In researching the issue of immunity for expert witnesses, I also consulted the following excellent sources (none, unfortunately, accessible online):
- Quasi-Judicial Immunity for Forensic Mental Health Professionals in Court-Appointed Roles, by Karl Kirkland, Kale E. Kirkland, Glen D. King, and Guy J. Renfro, Journal of Child Custody (2006)
- Lessons for Forensic Practice Drawn from the Law of Malpractice, by Stuart Greenberg, Daniel Shuman, Stephen Feldman, Collin Middleton, and Charles Patrick Ewing. In: Forensic Psychology: Emerging Topics and Expanding Roles (2007)
- A Comprehensive Guide to Child Custody Evaluations: Mental Health and Legal Perspectives by Joanna Bunker Rohrbaugh (2007)
- Clinician's Guide to Child Custody Evaluations, 3rd Edition, by Marc J. Ackerman (2006) | <urn:uuid:b4a8abd5-12f9-4be5-ad93-9a766117ea0a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://forensicpsychologist.blogspot.com/2010/04/calif-custody-evaluators-facing-lost.html?showComment=1272500851192 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947303 | 1,814 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Camden council wants more questions about cyclist awareness
By poppy_smith | Sunday, September 02, 2012, 08:28
Camden council is lobbying the Department for Transport (DfT) to change its driving theory test to include more questions on cyclist awareness.
Over recent years there has been an increase in the number of cyclists and unfortunately an increase in cyclist fatalities, and the Council wants more emphasis on cycle awareness in the driver theory and practical driving test.
Councillor Phil Jones, Cabinet Member for Sustainability, said: "We are committed to improving conditions for cyclists and this is reflected in our policies, where cyclists are prioritised above other road users. This means that the safety of pedestrians and cyclists are our first consideration."
"We cannot do this alone which is why we are calling on DfT to support us. We do not feel that the current driver theory test includes enough questions on cycle awareness. We are urging DfT to change the test so that each time a random test it generated, it features several cyclist awareness questions. We would also like instructors to question the candidate on cyclists' behaviour as part of the practical test."
The Council already has several cycle safety measures including 20mph zones, HGV driver training, free Bikeability and urban cycling skills training for adults and children, as well as awareness campaigns for drivers and cyclists.
HGV related cycle casualties have been targeted through awareness campaigns such as the 'look out' viral video, and working in partnership with businesses and academic institutions to offer free training for both drivers and cyclists. | <urn:uuid:a013c1dc-5b57-4b27-ba5a-1b44418b7e4a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.camdenpeople.co.uk/Camden-council-wants-questions-cyclist-awareness/story-16808861-detail/story.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972636 | 319 | 1.671875 | 2 |
The state Land Use Commission has adopted a decision and order denying a state land use reclassification for the proposed 68-lot Kahoma affordable housing project in West Maui.
The panel took the action Thursday at the Airport Conference Center near the Honolulu International Airport.
The commission's official denial follows a Dec. 5 vote on Maui when project developer West Maui Land Co. received four votes in favor of the project, two short of the six required for a needed land reclassification of 16.7 acres from agricultural to urban.
The panel's vote came despite the project having the support of the county Department of Planning and the state Office of Planning. Opposition came from interveners Michele Lincoln, a Lahaina resident who lives near the project site, and Routh Bolomet of Oahu. They maintained that the vacant land mauka of Honoapiilani Highway and adjacent to the Kahoma Stream flood control channel should remain in its agricultural designation and stay as an open area.
In 2011, the Maui County Council approved the Kahoma project as a fast-track affordable housing development. The homes would have been sold to families with incomes up to 160 percent of median income.
West Maui Land officials have said that they would likely file a motion for reconsideration with the Land Use Commission. So far, the developers have spent $600,000 for environmental studies, fees, attorneys and consultants. | <urn:uuid:b85fd6b2-68ff-4c3d-9008-f4f908ee7b83> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mauinews.com/page/content.detail/id/568840/LUC-denies-Kahoma-reclassification.html?nav=10 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945858 | 287 | 1.75 | 2 |
Stephen Twigg warns against 'quick buck' school profit
Published: 31st May 2012 07:55:00
Introducing profit-making into state schools in England risks attracting firms looking for a "quick buck", says Labour's Stephen Twigg.
The shadow education secretary says he was shocked that Education Secretary Michael Gove appeared to be considering free schools being run for profit.
Mr Gove had told the Leveson Inquiry on Tuesday that he had an "open mind" on such profit making in the future.
But Mr Twigg says such a change "risks the abuse of public resources".
Labour's education spokesman is to warn against profit-making in state schools in a speech to head teachers in London, later on Thursday.
"There are real risks attached to the profit-making experiment," he is set to tell a conference about education standards in London.
If there is an operating surplus, that should be invested back into educating our children rather than paying a dividend to shareholders”
"It risks attracting people to our education system simply who wish to make a quick buck.
"It risks the abuse of public resources at a time when it is even more important that we ensure that every penny of taxpayers' money is spent wisely."
Mr Twigg says he has just returned from Sweden, one of the inspirations for free schools - state-funded schools set up by charities or community groups.
But unlike in England, free schools in Sweden can be run for profit - and Mr Twigg will tell head teachers that this is raising concerns.
"One of the biggest is that it allows companies to run a free school for a period of time and then sell it on at a profit," says Mr Twigg.
"I don't believe that the profit-making motive is what will improve educational outcomes in schools in our country.
"If there is an operating surplus, that should be invested back into educating our children rather than paying a dividend to shareholders."
There are some of my colleagues in the coalition who are very sceptical of the benefits of profit. I have an open mind”
Mr Twigg will tell head teachers that Michael Gove had given his "strongest hint that he could allow companies to make a profit from running schools".
This followed an exchange at the Leveson Inquiry, when Mr Gove was asked about the prospect of free schools being run for profit.
Mr Gove had said that "the free-school movement can thrive without profit".
When he was further pressed whether it would be desirable to generate a profit, Mr Gove said: "There are some of my colleagues in the coalition who are very sceptical of the benefits of profit. I have an open mind."
The education secretary was then asked about the "aspiration" that a second-term Conservative-led government would allow free schools to be run for profit.
Mr Gove replied: "It's my belief that we could move to that situation," adding: "But I think at the moment it's important to recognise that the free-schools movement is succeeding without that element, and I think we should cross that bridge when we come to it."
At present, free schools cannot be run for profit - but the trusts that run them can buy management services from profit-making firms.
There have been criticisms from teachers' unions about the blurring of this boundary.
The NASUWT criticised the £21m contract awarded to a profit-making Swedish company for managing a free school in Suffolk.
A Department for Education spokeswoman said: "This government has no plans to allow free schools or academies to make profit.
"Any income earned by the charitable trust must be reinvested to improve and advance education for pupils."
Harvard CitationBBC News, 2012. Stephen Twigg warns against 'quick buck' school profit. [Online] (Updated 31 May 2012)
Available at: http://www.manchesterwired.co.uk/news.php/1431978-Stephen-Twigg-warns-against-quick-buck-school-profit [Accessed 19th June 2013]
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People living in London's East Ham are more likely to be the victims of identity fraud than anyone else in the UK, figures suggest. ... | <urn:uuid:6e90aa53-9bb2-42a1-8de7-f06133c217c6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.manchesterwired.co.uk/news.php/1431978-Stephen-Twigg-warns-against-quick-buck-school-profit | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970347 | 1,357 | 1.648438 | 2 |
On Tuesday May 17 The Times ran a cartoon editorial by Mike Thompson of the Detroit Free Press that seems to suggest that the violence in Afghanistan is solely the result of the American military presence.
Let's review the history: it was Afghanistan that supported, protected, and encouraged the terrorists that committed the 9/11 atrocities. It was this same legitimate government (Taliban) that was engaged in a civil war to completely destroy anyone and everyone who did not embrace their specific radical ideals of Islam. This included thousands of their own people.
They subjugated their women and treated them little better than livestock. They forbid women to seek education or even leave the house without a man in tow.
They destroyed educational institutions, cultural icons, and ravaged irreplaceable items of antiquity. Their soldiers hide behind women and children, cut off people's heads for the merest infraction, and consider any non-Muslim worthy only of death.
The Taliban, as near as I can tell, never built one single building, created any infrastructure, or even cared about its own people's welfare. It was all about power and religious supremacy. And we are the ones who brought the violence? | <urn:uuid:4c6bb7f8-5a68-4440-a070-0202bf7c48c6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fortmorgantimes.com/ci_18095455 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974665 | 236 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Sail America conference makes inclusion a top priority as the sport tries to fight off its elitist tag
Players in the sailing industry not only are discussing ways to make sailing more accessible to boaters, but they’re also trying to dispel the notion that sailing is an exclusive sport.
Those were among the prevalent themes at the Sail America Conference June 24-26 in Newport, R.I.
Ross Kilborn, CEO of Yachting Australia — that country’s US Sailing equivalent — said at the event that a quarter-million-dollar study, funded in part by the Australian government, showed that people saw sailing as the “most exclusive and inaccessible” of all 96 sports surveyed. “The top line is we’ve got a pretty attractive sport. Most Australians are interested in it, most Australians would like to have a crack at it, but we do such a bad job communicating it they think they haven’t got a chance at it.”
One of the study’s major findings was that the word “yachting” turns off consumers, so the Australian group is changing its name to Sail Australia. The study also showed that a late starting age was a deterrent to creating lifelong sailors, Kilborn says. “It’s about creating a lifetime association with the sport as much as it is getting them in as participants,” he says. “The good news is young moms had some of the highest interest in sailing, and many yacht clubs have missed out on that high interest.”
It’s imperative to “bridge the gap between generations,” Rod Johnstone, co-founder of Rhode Island-based J/Boats, said during an interactive breakout session designed to brainstorm ideas for attracting more people to sailing. Targeting young children and their parents through mentorship programs would introduce more families to the sailing lifestyle, he says.
The time commitment in sailing events also was listed as a deterrent because children have many activities in which they want to participate.
Cost was cited as the No. 1 barrier to sailing in the 140-page study, Kilborn says. Carl Blackwell, who heads Discover Boating’s social media initiative, says affordability continues to be the point that creates the most discussion. “Consumers now believe boating can improve their lives,” he says. “We’re creating the awareness of the value of the boating lifestyle, and the reality is the industry needs to manage the cost of the boating lifestyle.”
Reducing entry costs was a major theme of the conference.
The club scene
The consulting firm Gemba made recommendations to increase sailing’s presence in Australia, and many of them were touched on during the interactive workshops designed to grow sailing in the United States. Making yacht clubs more inclusive was the No. 1 recommendation. “If you heard some of the responses from some of the focus groups’ experience when they went into a yacht club, I’d be embarrassed to admit some of the comments,” Kilborn says. “The key issue was if you want to increase participation in the sport, you’ve got to work with yacht clubs. I’m sure we all have knowledge of ‘Members Only’ signs or ‘No Entry’ signs.”
One of the recommendations unique to sailing involved the focus on racing. “Twilight sailing,” or non-competitive sailing, was mentioned by several who said the competitive aspect is a turnoff to some who would rather sail socially.
Diversity, a topic that has been gaining traction throughout the marine industry, also was discussed. “We need to change the industry mindset to appreciate and understand diversity as the enormous business opportunity it is,” while also making sure to do that carefully, Blackwell says.
Boater education is important to keeping newcomers in the sport, Blackwell says. Research shows that many new boat owners buy “driveway to driveway,” as opposed to from dealers, and that they aren’t likely to stay in boating because they don’t have the community and support they need, he says.
Discover Boating, the National Marine Manufacturers Association and the American Boating Council have made it a priority to step up their lobbying efforts. “We need to capture key relationships with decision-makers to create an effective industrywide recreational boating advocacy network,” Blackwell says. “We have to make sure that the government stands out of our way in our effort to grow boating.”
America’s Cup organizers are trying to reach the “Taco Bell demographic” in their continuing effort to grow sailing. Bob Billingham, Cup infrastructure manager, and Iain Murray, regatta director and chief executive of America’s Cup Race Management, told attendees that the Cup is partnering with Red Bull to launch a youth series. “America’s Cup has been closed to too many people for too long,” Murray said at the conference. “The response we’ve had to this has blown through the roof.”
The series will be for 12 to 15 crews between the ages of 18-1/2 and 19-1/2, and the first race will be held in 2013 between the Louis Vuitton Cup and the America’s Cup finals in San Francisco. The best sailors in the world will coach the young sailors, Murray says.
Red Bull has committed to a long-term sponsorship of the youth series, Murray says.
The business side
Other major themes of the conference focused on business owners and managers creating an environment among employees that would ensure the best customer care. Keynote speaker and business consultant John Spence challenged owners to improve themselves and their businesses each day, providing a survey for them to fill out about their own performance.
Nancy Ansheles, owner of Catalyst & Co., led a workshop on effective office communication. Tom Knighten, founder of the Recreational Powerboating Association, led sessions on using hands-on training and education as effective marketing tools in competitive and challenging environments. Dean Brenner, president of The Latimer Group, provided an update on the U.S. Olympic sailing program and a workshop on reinventing organizations.
Organizers were pleased with the turnout and feedback at the conference. “It was our most successful conference yet. There was quite a bit of substance,” says Josh Adams, president of Sail America. “The seminar team that organized the content did a good job delivering talent, value and speakers, and also subject matter.
“One of the things I liked most about the conference from an industry point of view was the attendees represented a range of industry categories,” Adams says. “We had builders, dealers, equipment manufacturers, charter companies, insurance companies, media and others. I think that’s a good sign that Sail America’s serving a diverse cross-section of the industry.”
This article originally appeared in the September 2012 issue. | <urn:uuid:f7dcd10b-4ea5-4f07-ac1a-fd4543f18df4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tradeonlytoday.com/home/521611-can-sailing-shed-its-blueblood-image | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975022 | 1,467 | 1.539063 | 2 |
January 3: Billboard Magazine highlighted USAID’s work to launch a public awareness campaign for the famine in the Horn of Africa. Specifically, the magazine praised USAID’s partnership with MTV to not only “forward the facts,” but auction off items to benefit families in East Africa.
January 2: Over the weekend, Forbes India published a transcript of an interview with USAID Administrator Dr. Rajiv Shah. The interview discusses Feed theFuture and the budget, and took place during Administrator Shah’s trip to India earlier in the month.
December 24: Voice of America reports that the U.S. continues to support the Republic of South Sudan. New efforts are under way to help establish a viable government and lay the groundwork for economic growth. USAID/South Sudan Mission Director Kevin Mullally was quoted, stating that “As the country takes the leadership in its development, we are committed to supporting them in trying to achieve their vision.”
December 22: NPR interviewed Alex Thier, Director of USAID’s Office of Afghanistan and Pakistan, to discuss a promising new survey showing that medical care in Afghanistan has improved dramatically over the past decade.
December 20: USAID’s Chief Innovation Officer, Maura O’Neill, published a post in The Huffington Post’s Impact Blog. In the piece, O’Neill discusses India’s innovative approach to development. She also highlights USAID’s new partnership with the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), one of the largest microfinance organizations in India. The partnership aims to identify and develop cost-effective aid programs that will benefit India as well as the rest of the world. | <urn:uuid:9fbbd459-7825-4385-a410-953c26066a7f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.usaid.gov/2012/01/usaid-in-the-news-33/comment-page-1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93831 | 354 | 1.648438 | 2 |
From 2001 to 2004, Noorderlicht has asked five internationally acclaimed photographers to sketch an image of the city of Groningen. The assignments all had the same theme: the 'undercurrent' of the city. Anders Petersen, Antoine d'Agata, Ken Schles, John Davies en Adrienne van Eekelen were asked to look for those facets of the city that form the character of Groningen but are at the same time so common that even the inhabitants hardly notice them. In other words, we asked them to be strangers in a city we think we know.
The photographers form a select group. Originating from The Netherlands, France, United States, Sweden and Great Britain, they have received numerous awards for their methods and accomplishments. Noorderlicht offered them free reign in choosing their subjects and locations.
The result: Promised Land. A book and an exhibition about Groningen and its people. But not like any tourist brochure. A book about the streets and the light, the travellers and the distance, the walls and the people, the views and the darkness, the little secrets and the big mysteries, the life on stage and in the wings.
The book Promised Land contains an introduction by Jacques Wallage, Mayor of Groningen as well as contributions by local writers Tommy Wieringa, Gerrit Krol, Peter Middendorp, Ruben Van Gogh and city poet Bart FM Droog.With further essays by the photographers themselves and by Frits Gierstberg (Nederlands Fotomuseum Rotterdam, on the work of Adrienne van Eekelen) and architect Jurjen van der Meer (Groningen, on the images of John Davies). | <urn:uuid:4f142c26-9001-480a-b66d-7ec08082cb48> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.noorderlicht.com/en/photogallery/promised-land/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939268 | 356 | 1.5625 | 2 |
State Senator Mary Lazich (R-New Berlin) represents parts of four counties: Milwaukee, Waukesha, Racine, and Walworth. Her Senate District 28 includes New Berlin, Franklin, Greendale, Hales Corners, Muskego, Waterford, Big Bend, the town of Vernon and parts of Greenfield, East Troy, and Mukwonago. Senator Lazich has been in the Legislature for more than a decade. She considers herself a tireless crusader for lower taxes, reduced spending and smaller government.
The November 2, 2010, statewide ballot in
The details make this issue fascinating. Voters will decide whether the state sales tax in
Proponents say the lower sales tax will increase commerce, create more private sector jobs, and will allow residents to keep more of their own money. Opponents say the tax cut will create a bigger hole in the state’s deficit.
The question will be interesting to watch Election Day given the current mood of voters. The ballot measure reads:
“Do you approve of a law summarized below, on which no vote was taken by the Senate or the House of Representatives before May 4, 2010?
This proposed law would reduce the state sales and use tax rates (which were 6.25 percent as of September 2009) to 3 percent as of Jan. 1, 2011. It would make the same reduction in the rate used to determine the amount to be deposited with the state Commissioner of Revenue by non-resident building contractors as security for the payment of sales and use tax on tangible personal property used in carrying out their contracts.
The proposed law provides that if the 3 percent rates would not produce enough revenues to satisfy any lawful pledge of sales and use tax revenues in connection with any bond, note, or other contractual obligation, then the rates would instead be reduced to the lowest level allowed by law.
The proposed law would not affect the collection of moneys due the Commonwealth for sales, storage, use or other consumption of tangible personal property or services occurring before Jan. 1, 2011.
The proposed law states that if any of its parts were declared invalid, the other parts would stay in effect.
A YES VOTE would reduce the state sales and use tax rates to 3 percent.
A NO VOTE would make no change in the state sales and use tax rates.” | <urn:uuid:8b1d15d3-d6ce-4011-a81c-2868c385b417> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.newberlinnow.com/blogs/communityblogs/105880418.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953479 | 480 | 1.695313 | 2 |
4G Wireless Networks: Opportunities and Challenges
Source: Cornell University
With the major wireless service providers planning to start deployment of 4G wireless networks by mid 2010, research and industry communities are racing against time to find solutions for some of the prominent still open issues in 4G networks. The growing interest in 4G networks is driven by the set of new services will be made available for the first time such as accessing the Internet anytime from anywhere, global roaming, and wider support for multimedia applications. In this paper describe some of the key opportunities will be made available by 4G networks, present key challenges and point to some proposed solutions. | <urn:uuid:a3e9cf51-d6b8-4209-8ed0-bd95f96e56db> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.techrepublic.com/whitepapers/4g-wireless-networks-opportunities-and-challenges/2885541 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936562 | 128 | 1.585938 | 2 |
In 1985, Partnerships With Industry began providing job training, placement and support services for adults with developmental disabilities in North County. It was a bold departure from the sheltered workshop kind of environment typical of the times.
This month, the nonprofit agency celebrates its 20th anniversary. It has swelled from a handful of clients and companies to 650 clients and more than 350 companies with impressive stature – University of California San Diego, University of San Diego, the cities of Vista and Coronado, Westin hotels, Vons supermarkets, Home Depot and Qualcomm, to name a few.
The process of hooking up a client, as they are called, with an employer is relatively straightforward. Clients and their families are referred to PWI by the San Diego Regional Center and the California Department of Rehabilitation. Clients range in age from 18 to their 60s and typically work about five hours a day in group settings and contract service areas, although it can vary.
The clients' families pay nothing for the PWI service. PWI contracts with a business or government to provide a certain service at a certain rate. Clients are paid by PWI for their productivity.
PWI also provides insurance and a job coach to supervise the clients at all times on the job.
"When it works out, it works out very well," said Mark Berger, president and CEO of PWI.
One of the things PWI does very well is provide business opportunities and keep jobs in San Diego, Berger says. More than once he has heard the story of a local company taking an assembly job out of San Diego to China, and the quality control problems rise 50 percent. Then that company begins exploring the possibility of working again with PWI.
"We need the public to know these are people first. They are not just people with a disability," Berger said. "They pay taxes. They vote. They get that satisfaction from being able to say, 'I go every day to my job at a movie theater' or 'I work at Qualcomm.' "
To learn more about Partnerships With Industry, call (619) 681-1999 or visit www.pwiworks.org.
– CAROLINE DIPPING | <urn:uuid:dc08c029-7308-41bb-a34b-949e81ef79d3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.utsandiego.com/uniontrib/20051112/news_1c12pwiside.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96238 | 453 | 1.625 | 2 |
Baltimore - a city made famous worldwide by HBO dramas like The Wire and The Corner for its ruthless illegal drug trade, unscrupulous police practices, corrupt politicians and failing public school system - is a city of great contrast and promise. In the midst of the despair, there are many men and women who are standing firm and taking action to fight the maladies that plague the lives of so many in this great city.
This latest article is a continuation of an on-going series that spotlights Baltimoreans who are making a difference to positively impact the lives of others.
Baltimore's Best: Dontae Winslow
"You neva be a trumpet playa ... neva be a rapper, producer, composer ... ya nothing ... you'll neva make it here ... that's what the teachers said; they counted me for dead."- Dontae Winslow from The Life Album
A native Baltimorean and music prodigy, Dontae Winslow is a Johns Hopkins' Peabody Graduate, the 2012 Young Maestro Award recipient, a loving husband, compassionate father and one of Baltimore's best. Winslow, who is scheduled to perform this Friday (9/28) at the Baltimore Book Festival, is featured on the cover of the latest issue of The Johns Hopkins Magazine.
I had the distinct honor of interviewing Dontae Winslow about his latest musical accomplishments.
Lynn Pinder: Who is Dontae Winslow, and what is your connection to Baltimore?
Dontae Winslow: I am a trumpeter, composer, music producer, educator, husband, and father - who was raised in [Baltimore and is a product of] the Baltimore City Public School System.
LP: What is The Young Maestro Award, and how is it connected to you?
DW: The Young Maestro Award is a rarely given certificate of achievement from the Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University. I am the 2012 recipient of The Young Maestro Award. [The award is in recognition] of my songwriting, compositions, and recording accolades in contemporary music.
LP: What life accomplishments are you extremely proud/blessed to have completed?
DW: I am extremely proud to have scored my first major feature film, In the Hive, by iconic Director/Actor, Robert Townsend. I am blessed to have an amazing wife of twelve years, Mashica Winslow, and a healthy, happy six-year old son, Jedi. I am proud to have a family band, WinslowDynasty, and a new CD, The Life Album which features my new sound, new trumpet, and new band - highlighting the talents of both my wife and son.
I feel honored to have won the fellowship to attend The Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz at The University of Southern California. I was one of six people selected from thousands of auditions world-wide by legendary judges Herbie Hancock, Terence Blanchard, and Ron Carter. I am also amazed that I won first place in the John Lennon International Songwriting Competition for the song, I Love School.
LP: What steps did you take to prepare for a career in the musical arts?
DW: Seeing the greatness demonstrated by trumpeters like Miles Davis, Clifford Brown, Lee Morgan, and Maurice Andre, I was inspired to take my instrument seriously. I began private lesson instruction at the Baltimore School for the Arts TWIGS Program in the eighth grade. During my high school years at the Baltimore School for the Arts, it was my mother's unfortunate struggle with drug addiction that gave me the impetus to forsake all other activities and to try hard to succeed in music.
LP: What has been your greatest challenge as a musician?
DW: The greatest challenge has been getting my music to a mainstream of consumers without [the benefits] of radio play, PR power firms, or major label financial backing.
LP: What has been your greatest joy as a musician?
DW: My greatest joy is performing with my wife on stage with my band, full Symphony Orchestra or Jazz Big Band.
LP: What impact have you made on the lives of young people in Baltimore?
DW: I taught music for three years at the Gilmor Edison Elementary school, and I formed an amazing choir, The Gilmor Choir. [We] recorded a CD to inspire kids to attend college and toured the city performing in nursing homes, high schools, and other elementary schools. I was also awarded the opportunity [to take the children] to perform in Nashville, Tennessee - opening for The Black Eyed Peas.
LP: What inspired you to create a line of trumpets?
DW: I had many struggles as a young kid playing the trumpet - from embouchure changes recommended by teachers and playing instruments that required too much air to playing high notes. I found that having a smaller frame body, I needed a trumpet that would play more efficiently. I also wanted a trumpet to have [produce] a sound that was more conducive to the line of work I was most fond of doing - R&B, Soul, Hip-Hop, and Jazz music.
LP: What advice would you offer to aspiring musicians?
DW: I would offer [aspiring musicians] the advice of consistent practice and preparation [in order for them] to succeed as musicians. One needs versatility and proper instruction from sensitive, yet knowledgeable professionals on a given field of interest. Prayer and hard work will always lead to great results.
Dontae Winslow is scheduled to perform at the Baltimore Book Festival on Friday, September 28th 6:30 p.m. His new CD, The Life Album, is available for sale on iTunes and Cdbaby.com. [Supporters can] follow Dontae Winslow on Twitter @winslowdynasty or visit www.winslowdynasty.com. | <urn:uuid:079f293e-4e54-4dfb-be60-92e1ade05fe3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.examiner.com/article/baltimore-s-best-dontae-winslow-defines-greatness | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959294 | 1,198 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Temple Mount Sifting Project
By Dr. Ron Beals, Volunteer
January 6, 2009 Jerusalem Israel
While many people consider Monday a “blue day” this past one (yesterday) was utterly tremendous. It was a very cool (30° F) morning as I set out for the Temple Mount Sifting Project. This project is located in Emek Tzurim. This area is better known to many by the New Testament Name of the Valley of Jehosephat. It is located between Mount Scopus and the Mount of Olives.
Since we were expecting guests at the site I decided to walk to the local supermarket to get some bourekas to have with our “morning tea.” The aroma in the market bakery was totally overwhelming but I restrained myself and finally boarded bus 19 to the Hebrew University where I would begin the mile long walk down the hill to the work site.
O arrival, I deposited my treasures in the office and saw Dr. Gabby Barkay, Dr. Kay Prag (an English archeologist with special experience in Israeli and Jerusalem exploration) and Dr. Scott Stripling a volunteer at the site who teaches archeology at a Sugarland, TX school. Dr. Barkay is the Professor of Archeology at both the Bar Ilan and Hebrew Universities. He is well known in international circles for his archeological work as well as for being the director of this reclamation project.
Dr. Prag was here to investigate the work that is being done. They were soon joined by Zachi Zweig, one of the primary investigators and the major instigator of this project. He has done extensive investigation on Temple Mount archeology.
Ater their tour through the project we all took a break for tea and were treated to a two hour discussion and commentary on the archeological endeavors in Israel, in Jerusalem and specifically what had been done near the Temple Mount. The names of notables like Robinson, Robert Hamilton, Kathleen Kenyon and others were flying around like “old friends.”
As the discussion continued Dr. Prag was extolling the great work that Dr. Barkay and Zachi Zweig were doing. Then Dr. Barkay made a comment that was absolutely astonishing.
It seems that all the extensive work that has been done has been in the vicinity of Jerusalem’s Temple Mount. But there have never been any real archeological digs on the Temple Mount itself or dealing with artifacts from the Temple Mount.
There are many academic flaws with this project since the materials have been removed by the Islamic Wakf and are not located at the original site. Yet, the work of this project is the first evaluation of materials and artifacts directly from the Temple Mount and therefore of extraordinary importance.
For centuries after the destruction of the Temple, either foreign rulers or the Islamic Wakf have forbidden any work on the mount itself. In addition they have never allowed access to the site or to anything underground.
Now, for the very first time, this project is sifting, finding and evaluating artifacts that were excavated from the Temple Mount by the Moslem Wakf and deposited in a Jerusalem valley. There were no archeologists to oversee these activities nor was there any assessment of the damage that this destruction was doing to the Temple Mount and it’s history.
To me this was a stunning revelation. I have read Biblical Archeology Review and other information about the Temple and the Temple Mount. But I had never realized or thought about the fact that at no time had anyone been allowed the opportunity to actually explore the site itself or look at the artifacts that were there. It seems ironic that the most significant place for Judaism and Christianity has never had the opportunity to be scientifically and archeologically scrutinized by experts.
What is perhaps even more ironic is that this project has and is being funded almost exclusively by private donations. However because of the current state of economics and the world political situation, the funding has almost “dried up.”
During the past few months the funding for this has been dramatically reduced and they have had to terminate a large number of the staff. They have continued this project mainly with volunteers and a skeleton staff. Last year at this time there were usually about six or more staff members working diligently daily. Now there are usually two to three members.
One of the truly wonderful aspects of this project has been the educational component. There is a small area designated for groups to come to visit. Frequently both school and tour groups come to where they can experience the artifacts that have been removed from the very “House of God” from Solomon’s and Herod’s times.
School groups are actually being taught the validity of the Biblical account and that this land and particularly this Temple Mount was existent and is their heritage. They also have the opportunity to experience the project by helping sift through buckets of dirt and rocks and find real artifacts. The response is dramatic.
It is my hope that some may find this work important enough to help support these efforts. For those who would like to see more about what they have done go to:
Ronald D. Beals, MD
IN ISRAEL: 12A Mendele, Jerusalem, 050-881-4136
IN US: East Texas Biblical Prophecy Forum
9030 Old Hickory Rd.Tyler, TX 75703, 903-561-6274 | <urn:uuid:afa5e999-75d4-42b8-af11-938d53e9ed4c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://templemount.wordpress.com/category/visitors/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982763 | 1,113 | 1.5 | 2 |
"Tonight, here, in the glow and wonder of the Flame, we can all aspire to be Olympian. From whatever continent you have come we welcome you to Canada, a country with a generous heart. We love that you are here."
John Furlong, VANOC CEO
Opening the Vancouver 2010 Olympics
Major events of all kinds, especially sport events, are becoming a major element in the competitive arsenal of cities and and their economic development and tourism offices. Major events bring people to the city, provide attractions for residents, and ensure that the city's name is profiled in the national and international media. But they also can involve major infrastructure investment in facilities and amenities, some of which might have limited post-event utility. This article discusses some of the pros and cons of event hosting as an economic strategy and suggests some useful decision-making guidelines.
This has been a bumper year for major event hosting in Canada. In Vancouver, the 2010 Winter Olympics provided both a spectacle of sport that enchanted the nation as well as a haul of medals, including those all-important hockey golds. More recently, the decision of the Pan American Games Federation to confer the right to host the 2015 Pan American Games on Toronto and the Golden Horseshoe communities will ensure a continuing stream of economic activity as the region readies for the event. This will involve the construction of new facilities and the hosting of many lead-up events. Even Hamilton, which was the Canadian bid city for the 2010 Commonwealth Games, can take some solace from the last-minute efforts of Delhi, India to prepare for those Games, which likely overshadowed the later successes of the event.
Event Costs and Benefits
Major events, whether they be sport events, cultural festivals, or events such as the Junos or the East Coast Music Awards, bring significant economic benefits to the cities and regions in which they are hosted.
As was the case in Vancouver with the Winter Olympics, there is significant capital expenditure on new and improved facilities, which are generally funded from the public dollar, as well as investment by the private sector, such as to provide additional hotel rooms and other tourist-related capacity. In addition, the construction of other public infrastructure may well be brought forward in time; the new highway to Whistler and the new light rapid transit from the airport to downtown Vancouver are cases in point.
Major events also have significant operating expenditures. Some event organizing committees may well be run by volunteers, but even a modest triathlon or community festival can involve road closures, extra police time, and the renting of a wide range of facilities and equipment. But of course this is also the stuff of economic development in as much as it keeps businesses operating and workers employed.
This economic development also includes significant participation from private sector entrepreneurs. This might be major international firms that offer ticketing services, IT support (ranging from athlete accreditation to race timing), or security, but it also includes a myriad of small businesses offering hot dogs and merchandise. It can also include innovative relationships and contracting with social agencies. The medal winners’ bouquets at the Winter Olympics were prepared by students of Just Beginnings Flowers, a social enterprise that provides training, work experience, and job placement services for people in the community who face barriers to employment.
Many major events are justified on the basis of tourism and visitor expenditures. There is no question that major events, such as the Grey Cup, or even a community event, such as an airshow or equestrian competition, do draw people to the host community, often in large numbers. However, crowds at the event can often disguise the fact that there are few out-of-towners and that most of the spectators are local people. True economic impact comes when money flows into the local economy that would not have otherwise done so. Therefore money spent by local people to buy tickets or beer at a hockey game does not count.
On the economic side of the ledger, successful events would: i) involve a minimum of capital expenditure, using existing facilities wherever possible; ii) leverage volunteer resources to the maximum; and iii) attract the maximum number of spectators and participants from out of town. Thus, events such as the Boston Marathon, which attract thousands of participants and their families, use the existing roads and parkways, and are supervised by thousands of volunteers, are in many ways the perfect events. Throw in some good marketing, ensure that people stay for a week instead of just the weekend, and make it happen every year, and you have a great economic engine for the city.
Major events also bring many other benefits that can have significant impacts on economic development, albeit not directly financial. For instance, the facilities constructed for a sport event will be available for many years after, enriching the quality of life in the city and region, and thus enhancing its attractiveness to new migrants and footloose entrepreneurs. The city of Kelowna, for example, has invested heavily in sport facilities and cultural amenities that are used for events and has built a reputation as a great place to move to.
Building a sense of community and building community capacity is another benefit that flows from hosting major events. All those volunteers in the blue jackets who were trumpeted as the hallmark of Vancouver's community so thoroughly enjoyed their experience that many have moved on to volunteering in other sectors and for other events.
Innovation in major event hosting has proceeded very rapidly in recent years, as the variety of information technologies have been adopted by event organizers. In reality, this has changed almost every aspect of the event from the standard prevailing ten years ago. Registration is now online, accreditation is computerized, timing systems are to the thousandth of a second, and results appear instantaneously at both the venue and across the world. Yet there are many aspects of the event process that can still be refined. For example, at Yates, Thorn & Associates, we are working with ProGrid, a Canadian decision-support software firm, to develop an event assessment and selection support tool to assist cities in strategically selecting events to bid on. As described by ProGrid's CEO, Fraser Barnes, the software, “generates visual comparisons of all the proposals to allow strong proposals to be identified, weak proposals eliminated or improved, and to facilitate discussion and final decisions. In addition, the evaluation methodology and software improves objectivity and transparency, and builds corporate memory of past decisions."
However, perhaps the strongest non-financial benefit that can flow from hosting major events is the international profile and visibility that is provided by television and other media coverage. It is impossible to put a value in dollar terms on this media coverage, but there is no question that the images of Vancouver in February have contributed significantly to its international image as a vibrant economic community with a high quality of life. Indeed looking back at other Olympic cities such as Barcelona, Salt Lake City, and Sydney, all have established themselves as world cities through the hosting of this major event.
Increasingly, the ability to spin this media image also provides the opportunity to present the city in the most positive light. The focus on the environment and sustainability has required that every large event these days have both an environmental and social agenda, which become as important as the economic agenda in positioning the city and its event.
So for cities contemplating using major events as part of the economic development strategy, what is important and what are the potential pitfalls?
A key guideline must be to choose events carefully. All too often, decisions about which events to bid on are not made strategically. Rather, decisions are made in response to short-term pressures, which are frequently political. In many cases, the analysis measures whether the event will be good for the city economically. If the decisions are made by politicians, the analysis may evaluate whether there is a favorable political climate to be created. In Canada, every year, there are likely in excess of 200,000 sports events and many more cultural and other events. Therefore, when considering one event, the choice is not “Should we or shouldn't we?” Rather, the decision makers should ask: “Is this event better than all the other ones out there that we could be bidding for?” This kind of analysis requires some strategic thinking, an organized process to review potential events, and the collaboration of all the various agencies who will be involved in the bidding and hosting process.
Cities should also be aware of the pitfalls that can be associated with major event bidding and hosting. Some of these pitfalls are as follows:
Thinking that any spending is economic impact: The key question to ask is whether the event in question will bring participants or spectators from out of town to spend money in the host city. Events that rely on large numbers of local participants or spectators can be great for building a sense of community or providing recreational opportunities for local people, but they generate very little economic impact.
Building white elephants: Many major events require that the host community build facilities that serve a very high level of activity. Examples include an aquatic centre that meets international hosting standards for swimming, or a facility for sliding sports, such as bobsled and luge, as was the case for the Vancouver Olympics. The likelihood of these kinds of facilities being extensively used by local residents after the event is minimal. In contrast, a four-plex for softball or slow pitch can be used for major sports events but also will be extensively used by local residents.
Focusing on a single event rather than a stream of events: Some of the facilities noted above may indeed be worth investing in if they are able to host many different events over a long period of time. A major gymnasium with seating for 1,000 or 2,000 people can be the host facility for upwards of 20 different sports, all of which have national and international championships, often for a wide variety of age groups and genders. Building such a facility for one event makes no sense, but with strategic planning and collaboration between local, provincial, and national sport organizations, the economic impact from a number of events would easily outweigh the construction cost.
Not knowing the objectives and not building collaborative partnerships: Major events, whether sport, cultural, or any other, require collaboration between a large number of different organizations. For example, an event my require collaboration between the city, facility operators such as universities, local hotel and tourism agencies, and community organizations such as sports or cultural groups. All these agencies have different objectives when it comes to hosting major events, and it is essential that these objectives are understood, articulated, and framed into a strategic plan. Once this is done, it is easy to choose the right events because they are simply the ones that meet the shared set of objectives.
Hosting major events has been a successful strategy for a wide range of cities around the world. Barcelona in Spain used the 1992 Olympics to put itself on the stage as a world-class city. Vancouver did the same in 1986 with its Expo, and reinforced this in 2010 with the Winter Olympics. On a smaller scale, towns like Kamloops, British Columbia and Sherbrooke, Quebec, have both used sport tourism and sport events as the lead for their overall tourism and community development. However one thing links these cities: they all had a clear strategy that they have followed closely over many years. | <urn:uuid:176293ac-ad04-4b72-8fa1-2790b9c14a5b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://timreview.ca/article/393 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966781 | 2,296 | 1.695313 | 2 |
The real un-Americans
There are un-Americans among us. They don't share our values, yet they control the most powerful offices in the land. We must rid ourselves of this fifth-column menace.
That's pretty much the Republican and Tea Party line these days. When a right-wing talk show host interviewing Sharron Angle, now the Republican senatorial candidate in Nevada, told her last year that "we have domestic enemies" and that some of them worked within "the walls of the Senate and the Congress," Angle chirped up, "I think you're right."
The Tea Partyers aren't wrong about the growing influence of un-Americans in high places. They've just misidentified who those un-Americans are.
As the right-wingers see it, even President Obama's more conventional ideas have no place or precedent in the American experience. Ending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, Dinesh D'Souza reasons in his summa idiotica currently on the cover of Forbes magazine, cannot be explained within the confines of American political thought. However, he writes, "if Obama shares his father's anticolonial crusade, that would explain why he wants people who are already paying close to 50% of their income to pay even more."
I'd like to see D'Souza explain why the highest tax brackets during the presidency of Dwight Eisenhower took 90 percent of people's incomes.
This ascription of all things Obama to alien ideologies and religions -- he's a Muslim, a European socialist, an anti-colonial African Marxist -- has a basis not in empirical fact, of course, but in political logic. It speaks, in powerful metaphoric terms, to that large group of white Americans who see their country slipping away. With each passing year, America grows less white, less powerful and less prosperous, at least from the perspective of all but the rich. There's no correlation between the demographic change and our economic slump, but millions of Americans believe and fear that there is. And for many of those millions, Obama has become the object of their fear and rage that their America is being lost.
In fact, a good deal of American prosperity is being lost, but if there are homegrown agents of this decline, they're not in the administration.
Consider the debate in Congress about whether to impose tariffs on Chinese imports if China continues to depress the value of its currency. Roughly 150 House members, including 45 Republicans, have authored a bill to do just that, and the Ways and Means Committee will take up the bill on Friday. Unions and some domestic manufacturers support the bill. But a large number of American businesses, in a campaign coordinated by the U.S.-China Business Council, oppose it.
Now, there's nothing un-American in opposing the legislation as such -- far from it. Support for and opposition to tariffs are both as American as apple pie. The question here is whether the 220 corporations that belong to the council -- household names such as Coca-Cola, Bank of America, Ford, GM, Wal-Mart, Intel, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, J.P. Morgan Chase, Chevron, Exxon Mobil and Boeing -- are already so deeply invested in China as manufacturers, marketers or retailers that buy goods there to sell them here that their interests are more closely aligned with China's than with America's. Revaluing China's currency would be helpful to domestic U.S. manufacturers, their employees and the communities where those employees live and work, but America's largest companies have long since ceased to be domestic.
Given the explosive growth of the Chinese economy, it's a safe bet that every major U.S. corporation will devote greater resources to building, buying and selling there. But China, unlike the Obama administration, truly is guided by an ideology alien to most Americans -- Leninism -- and wields far greater control over what U.S. corporations can and can't do there than the U.S. government does over what corporations can and can't do here. Our leading companies' economic interests, and those of their Chinese hosts, whom they cross at their peril, are increasing likely to pit them against proposals that diminish China's edge, however obtained, in global competition.
As the Tea Partyers contend, there are un-Americans among us. They hold some of the most powerful offices in the land. | <urn:uuid:4a4b1d7b-c44e-4ec2-9f87-3db472db7eb4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/22/AR2010092205315.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970523 | 896 | 1.601563 | 2 |
CORK Bibliography: The Elderly
108 citations. January 2011 to present
Prepared: September 2012
Aalto M; Alho H; Halme JT; Seppa K. The Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) and its derivatives in screening for heavy drinking among the elderly. International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry 26(9): 881-885, 2011. (20 refs.)Objective: The performance of the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) in screening for heavy drinking among the elderly has been unsatisfactory. The aim of the present study was to determine whether tailoring the cut point improves the performance of the AUDIT and its derivatives in this age group. Methods: From a stratified random sample of 804 Finns aged 65-74 years, 517 subjects (64.3%) completed the AUDIT and the Timeline Follow-back (TLFB) interview regarding alcohol consumption. A subject was defined as a heavy drinker if consumption of >= 8 drinks (approx. 12 g) on average in a week or >= 4 drinks at least in 1 day during the prior 28 days was reported. Combinations in which both sensitivity and specificity are >= 0.8 were defined as optimal. The elderly specific AUDIT-3 is a modification in which the binge drinking threshold is >= 4 drinks. Results: Based on the TLFB, 118 subjects (22.8%) were heavy drinkers. The areas under receiving operating characteristics curves (AUROCs) were equivalent (>= 0.898) for all questionnaires. When using the standard cut point of >= 8 for the AUDIT, the sensitivity was 0.48. Lowering the cut point to >= 5 led to both a sensitivity and specificity over 0.85. The optimal cut point of the AUDIT-C was >= 4. The AUDIT-QF, AUDIT-3 and elderly specific AUDIT-3 did not provide optimal combinations of sensitivity and specificity with any cut point. Conclusions: The AUDIT and AUDIT-C are accurate in screening for heavy drinking among the elderly if the cut points are tailored to this age group.
Copyright 2011, Wiley-Blackwell
[Anon]. Study finds different opioids offer variable safety in older adults with noncancer pain. (editorial). Formulary 46(2): 64-64, 2011. (2 refs.)
Azermai M; Elseviers M; Petrovic M; Van Bortel L; Stichele RV. Geriatric drug utilisation of psychotropics in Belgian nursing homes. Human Psychopharmacology: Clinical and Experimental 26(1): 12-20, 2011. (34 refs.)Objective: To determine the prevalence of psychotropic drug use in Belgian nursing homes, in relation to residents' and institutional characteristics. Methods: The PHEBE project (Prescribing in Homes for the Elderly in Belgium, 2005) was a cross-sectional study, investigating drug use in 76 nursing homes. Psychotropics were categorised into antidepressants, antipsychotics, benzodiazepines and anti-dementia drugs using the ATC classification. Results: Residents' mean age (n = 1730) was 85 (SD: 8) years and 78% were female. The overall prevalence of psychotropic drug use among nursing home residents was 79%. Benzodiazepines were used by 54% and antipsychotics by 33% of all residents. Residents received a higher number of antipsychotics (p < 0.001) but fewer antidepressants (and other medicines) with increasing severity of dementia. Antidepressants were prescribed in 40% of which 2/3 was indicated for depression and 1/3 for insomnia. Anti-dementia drugs were used by 8%. Institutional characteristics showed no relationship with psychotropic drug use, except for a lower use when medication was dispensed by a hospital pharmacist (p = 0.001). Conclusion: As in other European countries, the prevalence of psychotropic utilisation in Belgian nursing homes is exceedingly high, with excessive duplicate use. Guidelines, education and clinical practice recommendations focusing on initiation, reassessment and withdrawal of psychotropic therapy, are needed.
Copyright 2011, Wiley-Blackwell
Bazin F; Noize P; Dartigues JF; Ritchie KA; Tavernier B; Moore N et al. Engagement in leisure activities and benzodiazepine use in a French community-dwelling elderly population. International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry 27(7): 716-721, 2012. (34 refs.)Objective The prevalence of benzodiazepine use among community-dwelling older persons varies between 10% and 30%. The aim of this study was to explore the association between leisure activities and the use of benzodiazepine among older persons living at home. Methods: The study population included 4,848 persons, aged 65 years and over, living in either of two French cities. Information was collected from a questionnaire administered to the respondents by trained psychologists during face-to-face interviews at home and from a self-administered questionnaire. Baseline examination included socio-demographic characteristics, drug use and leisure activities. We classified as benzodiazepine users subjects who reported use of at least one benzodiazepine during the month preceding the interview. The association between the use of benzodiazepine and leisure activities was assessed by logistic regression adjusted on known potential confounders. Results: More than 18% of participants reported use of at least one benzodiazepine. The adjusted odds ratio (OR) of benzodiazepine use associated with no or lower participation versus participation in the following activities were as follows: OR = 1.31 (95% confidence interval (CI): 1.09 to 1.58) for mental activity; OR = 1.50 (CI: 1.12 to 2.03) for physical activity; OR = 1.28 (CI: 1.05 to 1.55) for productive activity and OR = 0.82 (CI: 0.69 to 0.97) for recreational activity. Conclusion: Low engagement in stimulating activities and high engagement in sedentary activities were associated with recent benzodiazepine use.
Copyright 2012, Wiley-Blackwell
Blazer DG; Wu LT. Patterns of tobacco use and tobacco-related psychiatric morbidity and substance use among middle-aged and older adults in the United States. Aging & Mental Health 16(3): 296-304, 2012. (36 refs.)Objectives: To examine prevalence of tobacco use and identify psychiatric symptoms and substance use correlates of tobacco use comparing adults 50-64 years of age with those 65+ years of age (N=10, 891). Methods: Data were from the 2008-2009 US National Surveys on Drug Use and Health. Results: Past-year tobacco use was one-half as frequent among adults aged 65+ years (14.1%) compared to adults aged 50-64 years (30.2%); the latter group surpassed the former in rates of cigarette smoking (24.8% vs. 10.6%), daily cigarette smoking (16.5% vs. 7.1%), cigar smoking (7.4% vs. 2.3%), and smokeless tobacco use (2.5% vs. 1.7%). Increased odds of cigarette smoking were noted among men, whites, African Americans, and those who had less education, had lower income, were not currently married, or were binge drinkers or illicit/non-medical drug users. In controlled analyses, odds ratio in those 65+ years of age who had smoked during the past year was 2.2 for binge drinking and 3.5 for illicit or non-medical drug use. Odds ratio of binge drinking among those 65+ years of age for cigar smokers during the past year was 3.1. Past-year cigarette smoking was not associated with reports of symptoms of depression or anxiety in the 65+ age group. Conclusions: Tobacco use is less prevalent among adults 65+ years of age yet continues to be strongly associated with binge drinking and illicit or non-medical drug use. Preventive efforts to decrease these substance use problems should include programs to decrease tobacco use.
Copyright 2012, Taylor & Francis
Bobo JK; Greek AA. Increasing and decreasing alcohol use trajectories among older women in the U.S. across a 10-year interval. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 8(8): 3263-3276, 2011. (40 refs.)Older women who routinely drink alcohol may experience health benefits, but they are also at risk for adverse effects. Despite the importance of their drinking patterns, few studies have analyzed longitudinal data on changes in drinking among community-based samples of women ages 50 and older. Reported here are findings from a semi-parametric group-based model that used data from 4,439 randomly sampled U. S. women who enrolled in the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and completed >= 3 biannual alcohol assessments during 1998-2008. The best-fitting model based on the drinks per day data had four trajectories labeled as "Increasing Drinkers" (5.3% of sample), "Decreasing Drinkers" (5.9%), "Stable Drinkers" (24.2%), and "Non/Infrequent Drinkers" (64.6%). Using group assignments generated by the trajectory model, one adjusted logistic regression analysis contrasted the groups with low alcohol intake in 1998 (Increasing Drinkers and Non/Infrequent Drinkers). In this model, baseline education, physical activity, cigarette smoking, and binge drinking were significant factors. Another analysis compared the groups with higher intake in 1998 (Decreasing Drinkers versus Stable Drinkers). In this comparison, baseline depression, cigarette smoking, binge drinking, and retirement status were significant. Findings underscore the need to periodically counsel all older women on the risks and benefits of alcohol use.
Copyright 2011, MDPI AG
Brook JS; Zhang CS; Brook DW; Koppel J; Whiteman M. Psychosocial predictors of nicotine dependence among women during their mid-sixties. American Journal on Addictions 21(4): 302-312, 2012. (56 refs.)Although there is considerable research demonstrating the prospective association between earlier maladaptive personal attributes and later nicotine dependence, there is less work on the psychosocial mediators of this relationship. Maladaptive personal attributes appear in the form of depression, anxiety, and interpersonal sensitivity. This study was designed to assess the prospective relationship between earlier maladaptive personal attributes (mean age = 40) and later nicotine dependence ((X) over bar age = 65.2) within an understudied female community sample. The participants were given self-administered questionnaires. The results supported a model by which earlier maladaptive personal attributes predicted later nicotine dependence through several indirect pathways. In addition to cigarette smoking, several domains mediated the relation of earlier maladaptive personal attributes and later nicotine dependence. These domains included internal factors (ie, later maladaptive personal attributes), interpersonal factors (ie, marital/partner conflict), later contextual factors (ie, family financial difficulty). Our multidimensional longitudinal findings have important implications for the prevention and treatment of nicotine dependence. The results identify earlier and later significant psychosocial risk factors to be targeted, and suggest the timing of interventions to reduce or eliminate nicotine dependence.
Copyright 2012, Wiley-Blackwell
Bryant AN; Kim G. Racial/ethnic differences in prevalence and correlates of binge drinking among older adults. Aging & Mental Health 16(2): 208-217, 2012. (22 refs.)Objectives: This study examines how the prevalence and correlates of binge drinking among older adults vary by race/ethnicity. Methods: Drawn from the 2007 California Health Interview Survey, adults aged 60 and older (n = 18, 772) were selected. Binge drinking was measured dichotomously based on whether individuals reported consuming five or more drinks in a single day (four or more for females) in the previous year. Prevalence rates for binge drinking in the past year were calculated by race/ethnicity. A hierarchical logistic regression analysis was conducted using binge drinking in the past year as the dependent variable. Results: Significant racial/ethnic differences were found in prevalence rates: the presence of binge drinking was most common among non-Hispanic Whites (11.9%), followed by Latinos (10.8%), American Indian/Alaska Natives (9.8%), Blacks (8.0%), and Asians (4.2%). Being a current smoker was found to be the strongest predictor of binge drinking and significant main effects were also found for being Black, being Asian, younger age, being male, being unemployed, having a higher poverty threshold, having better self-rated health, and having more psychological distress. Significant interactions between race/ethnicity and age, sex, employment status, educational attainment, smoking status, and self-rated health were found. These findings indicate that certain correlates of binge drinking vary significantly by race/ethnicity among older adults. Conclusions: Apparent racial/ethnic differences existed in the prevalence and correlates of binge drinking among older adults. Identification of more racial/ethnic specific predictors may be important for the development of racial/ethnic appropriate intervention programs.
Copyright 2012, Taylor & Francis
Caputo F; Vignoli T; Leggio L; Addolorato G; Zoli G; Bernardi M. Alcohol use disorders in the elderly: A brief overview from epidemiology to treatment options. (review). Experimental Gerontology 47(6): 411-416, 2012. (41 refs.)Alcohol-use-disorders (AUDs) afflict 1-3% of elderly subjects. The CAGE, SMAST-G, and AUDIT are the most common and validated questionnaires used to identify AUDs in the elderly, and some laboratory markers of alcohol abuse (AST, GGT, MCV, and CDT) may also be helpful. In particular, the sensitivity of MCV or GGT in detecting alcohol misuse is higher in older than in younger populations. The incidence of medical and neurological complications during alcohol withdrawal syndrome in elderly alcoholics is higher than in younger alcoholics. Chronic alcohol abuse is associated with tissue damage to several organs. Namely, an increased level of blood pressure is more frequent in the elderly than in younger adults, and a greater vulnerability to the onset of alcoholic liver disease, and an increasing risk of breast cancer in menopausal women have been described. In addition, the prevalence of dementia in elderly alcoholics is almost 5 times higher than in non-alcoholic elderly individuals, approximately 25% of elderly patients with dementia also present AUDs, and almost 20% of individuals aged 65 and over with a diagnosis of depression have a co-occurring AUD. Moreover, prevention of drinking relapse in older alcoholics is, in some cases, better than in younger patients; indeed, more than 20% of treated elderly alcohol-dependent patients remain abstinent after 4 years. Considering that the incidence of AUDs in the elderly is fairly high, and AUDs in the elderly are still underestimated, more studies in the fields of epidemiology, prevention and pharmacological and psychotherapeutic treatment of AUDs in the elderly are warranted.
Copyright 2012, Elsevier Science
Center for Behavioral Health Statistics and Quality, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. The NSDUH Report: Illicit Drug Use among Older Adults. (September 1, 2011). Rockville MD: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration, 2011. (9 refs.)Illicit drug use generally declines as individuals move through young adulthood into middle adulthood and maturity, but research has shown that the baby-boom generation (persons born between 1946 and 1964) has relatively higher drug use rates than previous generations. It has been predicted that, as the baby boom generation ages, past year marijuana use will almost triple between 1999/2001 and 2020 among persons aged 50 or older. Nonmedical use of prescription-type drugs also has been identified as a concern for this population. Although use of illicit drugs is problematic for individuals of all ages, it may be of particular concern for older adults because they experience physiological, psychological, and social changes that place them at greater risk of harm from illicit drug use. An estimated 4.8 million adults aged 50 or older, or 5.2% of adults in that age range, had used an illicit drug in the past year. Marijuana use was more common than nonmedical use of prescription-type drugs among adults aged 50 to 59 (5.9 vs. 3.6%), while nonmedical use of prescription-type drugs was as common as use of marijuana among adults aged 60 or older (1.2 vs. 1.1%). Marijuana use was more common than nonmedical use of prescription-type drugs among males aged 50 or older (4.7 vs. 2.5 percent); rates of marijuana use and nonmedical use of prescription-type drugs were similar among females aged 50 or older (1.9 and 2.1%, respectively)
Center for Behavioral Health Statistics and Quality, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. The DAWN Report: Emergency Department Visits Involving Adverse Reactions to Medications among Older Adults. (February 24, 2011). Rockville MD: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration, 2011. (7 refs.)In 2008, an estimated 1,111,686 emergency department (ED) visits were made by adults aged 50 or older for adverse reactions to pharmaceuticals or other types of medications. More than half of these visits (61.5%) were made by adults aged 65 or older. Central nervous system (CNS) drugs (e.g., pain relievers and drugs used to treat anxiety and insomnia) were involved in almost one fourth (24.3%) of ED visits for adverse drug reactions among older adults. Nearly two thirds of older adults who visited the ED for adverse drug reactions were treated and released (64.2 percent), and nearly one third were admitted to the hospital (32.9%). As adults age, they experience increased health problems, have more medical visits, and take an increasing number of medications (pharmaceuticals and over-the-counter [OTC] medications) compared with younger persons. Because of physiological changes (e.g., decreased kidney and liver function) and because adults aged 50 or older (hereafter referred to as older adults) often take multiple medications, they are at higher risk of experiencing an adverse reaction
Chang CS; Chang YF; Liu PY; Chen CY; Tsai YS; Wu CH. Smoking, habitual tea drinking and metabolic syndrome in elderly men living in rural community: The Tianliao Old People (TOP) Study 02. PLoS ONE 7(6): e-article 38874, 2012. (55 refs.)The literature shows an inconsistent relationship between lifestyle behaviors and metabolic syndrome (MetS), especially in the elderly. We designed this study to investigate the interrelationships among cigarette smoking, tea drinking and MetS, and to verify the factors associated with MetS in elderly males dwelling in rural community. In July 2010, with a whole community sampling method, 414 male subjects aged over 65 dwelling in Tianliao township were randomly sampled. The response rate was 60.8%. Each subject completed the structured questionnaires including sociodemographic characteristics, habitual behaviors (including cigarette smoking and tea drinking habits) and medical history. After an overnight fast, the laboratory and anthropometric data were obtained. MetS was confirmed according to the criteria defined by the modified NCEP ATP III for the male Chinese population. Subjects were split into either non-MetS or MetS groups for further analysis. Of the 361 subjects with complete data, 132 (36.6%) elderly men were classified as having MetS. Using binary logistic regression, body mass index, serum uric acid, high sensitivity C-reactive protein, HOMA index, current smokers (OR = 2.72, 95%CI: 1.03 similar to 7.19), total smoking amount > = 30 (OR = 2.78, 95%CI: 1.31 similar to 5.90) and more than 20 cigarettes daily (OR = 2.54, 95%CI: 1.24 similar to 5.18) were positively associated with MetS. Current un- or partial fermented tea drinker (OR = 0.42, 95%CI: 0.22 similar to 0.84), tea drinking habit for 1-9 years (OR = 0.36, 95% CI: 0.15 similar to 0.90) and more than 240cc daily (OR = 0.35, 95%CI: 0.17 similar to 0.72) were negatively associated with MetS. In conclusion, this study suggests that smoking habit was positively associated with MetS, but tea drinking habit was negatively associated with MetS in elderly men dwelling in rural community.
Copyright 2012, Public Library of Science
Chang CM; Chen MJ; Tsai CY; Ho LH; Hsieh HL; Chau YL et al. Medical conditions and medications as risk factors of falls in the inpatient older people: A case-control study. International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry 26(6): 602-607, 2011. (35 refs.)Objective: The majority of inpatient falls are older people who have various medical conditions and are on several medications. The purpose of this study was to examine the association between medical conditions and medications and falls in older people in hospital. Method: Using a case-control design, we selected older people (aged 65 or over) who were reported to the Taiwan Patient-Safety Reporting System for the fall incidents in a large academic hospital in 2006 (n = 165). They were individually (1:1) matched for gender, age, and period of hospitalization with the control non-faller group. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regressions were used to compare the cases and controls to examine the association of medical conditions and medication exposure within 24 h before the falls. Results: Bivariate analyses showed that older people with cancer, or exposure medications such as zolpidem, benzodiazepines, narcotics, and antihistamines were significantly more likely to have falls during hospitalization. After controlling for cancer, zolpidem, narcotics, and antihistamine, we found benzodiazepine (Odds ratio (OR) = 2.26, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.21-4.23) and benzodiazepine doses >= 1 mg/day in diazepam equivalents (OR 2.14, 95% CI = 1.04-4.39) were still significantly associated with the falls of older people in the hospital. Conclusions: Strategies to prevent falls in older people in hospital should include minimizing the use of zolpidem, benzodiazepine, narcotics, and antihistamines, especially in cancer patients.
Copyright 2011, Wiley-Blackwell
Chang YP; Wray LO; Sessanna L; Peng HL. Use of prescription opioid medication among community-dwelling older adults with noncancer chronic pain. Journal of Addictions Nursing 22(1-2): 19-24, 2011. (30 refs.)Research exploring the use of prescription opioid medications among community-dwelling older adults is lacking within the current body of health related literature. Previous studies on prescription opioid use have focused on misuse among young and middle-aged adults. The purpose of this pilot study was to: (1) describe older adults' patterns of adherence to their prescription opioid medication regimens and their reasons for these medication use patterns; and (2) examine the associations between adherence of prescription opioids, pain intensity, and pain interference on daily activity. This study utilized a cross-sectional design. Twenty-one participants aged 65 years and older with non-cancer chronic pain were recruited for this study. Findings: revealed that almost half of the study participants reported taking less prescription opioids than prescribed, with 2 participants taking more than the recommended dose. There was no significant association between prescription opioid medication adherence and pain intensity. Participants with lower medication adherence reported greater pain interference with sleep (r =.595; P < .05). It is imperative that clinicians initiate discussion with older adult clients who are prescribed opioid medications in order to evaluate their patients' adherence and the effectiveness of the medication.
Copyright 2011, Informa Healthcare
Cherniack EP. Ergogenic dietary aids for the elderly. (review). Nutrition 28(3): 225-229, 2012. (68 refs.)Ergogenic dietary aids might be useful adjunctive therapy to enhance the effects of exercise in the elderly, who lose physical function with age. Many such aids have been tested in athletes and untrained younger persons in laboratory and athletic performance settings, with positive results, although not all studies have demonstrated benefit. Some substances have been tested in the elderly, including creatine, caffeine, beta-hydroxy-beta-methylbutyrate, ubiquinone, and carnitine. The published medical evidence for the use of these substances is considered in this review article. All studies have involved a few subjects for a short period. Studies of creatine alone or together with exercise in old persons have yielded mixed results. These studies have confirmed that creatine in older individuals, as in younger individuals, can increase the short-term capacity to perform quick, repeated episodes of intense activity. An investigation of caffeine has suggested that in older as in younger individuals, caffeine increases endurance but may not improve other parameters of exercise capacity. Evidence has implied beta-hydroxy-beta-methylbutyrate can increase the ability to perform certain short-term activities requiring strength, but not others. Carnitine has been reported to decrease fatigue and increase endurance in older persons. An investigation of ubiquinone has shown no benefit. Further testing has involved the combinations of agents, such as creatine and caffeine, and combinations of beta-hydroxy-beta-methylbutyrate, showing some small improvements in physical function. Future research with these and potentially other combinations over a longer duration will be needed to establish the safety and efficacy of ergogenic dietary aids.
Copyright 2012, Elsevier Science
Choi NG; DiNitto DM. Drinking, smoking, and psychological distress in middle and late life. Aging & Mental Health 15(6): 720-731, 2011. (75 refs.)A limited number of studies have examined the co-occurrence of alcohol use and smoking and their mental health effects in middle and late life. In this study, using the 2008 National Survey of Drug Use and Health, the characteristics of individuals aged 50 and older who abstained from both substances, who used both substances, and who used one or the other substance were examined. Then, the main and interaction effects of drinking and smoking on psychological distress were analyzed. Findings show that smoker-nondrinkers are the most disadvantaged group in terms of sociodemographic and health characteristics, while drinker-nonsmokers are the most advantaged group. When sociodemographic, health, and other factors were controlled, no direct effects of drinking or interaction effect of drinking and smoking were detected for either gender. However, heavy smoking (6+ cigarettes on a typical smoking day) was significantly associated with an elevated level of psychological distress among women. The findings highlight the vulnerability of heavy smoking middle-aged and older women. These women are the most psychologically distressed and may need interventions designed to help them quit smoking, reduce or quit drinking, and alleviate psychological distress.
Copyright 2011, Taylor & Francis
Chou KL; Liang K; Mackenzie CS. Binge drinking and axis I psychiatric disorders in community-dwelling middle-aged and older adults: Results from the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC). Journal of Clinical Psychiatry 72(5): 640-647, 2011. (60 refs.)Objective: The aims of this study were to document the sociodemographic correlates of binge drinking in middle-aged and older adults and to test the association of binge drinking with the occurrence of DSM-IV mood, anxiety, and alcohol use disorders; smoking; and the use of illicit drugs independently of sociodemographic variables and lifetime diagnosis of the disorder in question. Method: We conducted secondary data analyses based on a subsample of a 3-year prospective, population-based study, the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions, which consisted of a nationally representative sample of 13,489 American community-dwelling adults aged 50 years and above, interviewed in both 2001-2002 and 2004-2005. This survey assessed the occurrence of 11 DSM-IV mood, anxiety, and alcohol use disorders; nicotine dependence; and the use of illicit drugs during the 3-year follow-up period by using the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism's Alcohol Use Disorder and Associated Disabilities Interview Schedule-DSM-IV Version. Results: We found that, among persons aged 50 years and above, 15.6% of men and 5.7% of women reported binge drinking in the year prior to baseline assessment in 2001-2002. After adjustment was made for covariates, both men who were occasional binge drinkers and men who were frequent binge drinkers were significantly more likely than current male drinkers without binge drinking to have alcohol abuse disorder (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] = 2.90 [95% CI, 1.82-4.62] and AOR = 5.68 [95% CI, 3.79-8.51], respectively) and alcohol dependence disorder (AOR = 3.69 [95% CI, 1.75-7.75] and AOR = 9.21 [95% CI, 5.59-15.18], respectively). Similarly, after adjustment was made for covariates, both women who were occasional binge drinkers and women who were frequent binge drinkers were significantly more likely than current female drinkers without binge drinking to have alcohol abuse disorder (AOR = 4.43 [95% CI, 1.85-10.60] and AOR = 3.49 [95% CI, 1.64-7.43], respectively) and alcohol dependence disorder (AOR = 5.20 [95% CI, 1.56-17.33] and AOR = 19.47 [95% CI, 7.59-49.98], respectively). In addition, in female subjects, occasional binge drinking was associated with an increased risk of panic disorder without agoraphobia (AOR = 2.23; 95% CI, 1.01-4.91) and post-traumatic stress disorder (AOR = 2.67; 95% CI, 1.05-6.84). Conclusions: Binge drinking is strongly associated with a higher risk of alcohol use disorder in middle-aged and older adults in the United States. Results provide valuable information on the risks associated with binge drinking and suggest targets for prevention strategies for mental health in middle and old age.
Copyright 2011, Physicians Postgraduate Press
Chou KL; Mackenzie CS; Liang K; Sareen J. Three-year incidence and predictors of first-onset of dsm-iv mood, anxiety, and substance use disorders in older adults: Results from wave 2 of the national epidemiologyogic survey on alcohol and related conditions. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry 72(2): 144-155, 2011. (90 refs.)Objective: The aim of this study was to determine the incidence rates of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM-IV) mood disorders, anxiety disorders, and substance use disorders in older adults and to identify sociodemographic, psychopathological, health-related, and stress-related predictors of onset of these disorders. Method: A nationally representative sample of 8,012 community-dwelling adults aged 60 and above was interviewed twice over a period of 3 years, in 2000-2001 and 2004-2005. First incidence of mood, anxiety, and substance use disorders was assessed over a period of 3 years using the Alcohol Use Disorder and Associated Disabilities Interview Schedule DSM-IV Version. Results: The 3-year incidence rates of DSM-IV mood, anxiety, and substance use disorders were highest for nicotine dependence (3.38%) and major depressive disorder ([MDD] 3.28%) and lowest for drug use disorder (0.29%) and bipolar II disorder (0.34%). Incidence rates were significantly greater among older women for MDD (99% CI, 1.22-3.13) and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD; 99% CI, 1.20-4.26) and greater among older men for nicotine dependence and alcohol abuse and dependence. Posttraumatic stress disorder predicted incidence of MDD, bipolar I disorder, panic disorder, specific phobia, and GAD, while Cluster B personality disorders predicted incident MDD, bipolar I and II disorders, panic disorder, social phobia, GAD, nicotine dependence, and alcohol dependence. Poor self-rated health increased the risk for the onset of MDD, whereas obesity decreased the incidence of nicotine dependence. Conclusions: Information about disorders that are highly incident in late life and risk factors for the onset of psychiatric disorders among older adults are important for effective early intervention and prevention initiatives.
Copyright 2011, Physicians Postgraduate Press
Cohen-Mansfield J; Kivity Y. The relationships among health behaviors in older persons. Journal of Aging and Health 23(5): 822-842, 2011. (60 refs.)Objective: To examine the relationships among health behaviors in older persons and whether they form related groups of behaviors. Method: Health behaviors (physical activity, alcohol use, nutrition, weight stability, and smoking) were analyzed using factor analysis in two representative samples of two cohorts of Israeli older persons aged 75 to 94. Data collection was conducted during 1989-1992 for the first cohort (N = 1,200) and during 2000-2002 for the second (N = 421). Results: Four factors of health behaviors were found mostly unrelated: (a) physical activity and weight stability, (b) alcohol use, (c) smoking, and (d) nutrition. Discussion: The analysis enables identification of underlying health-behavior dimensions in an understudied population. Furthermore, the findings have important implications for health-promotion policy, indicating that prevention and health-promotion programs for older persons should target each health behavior, and not assume that the practice of any health behavior implies a healthy overall lifestyle in this population.
Copyright 2011, Sage Publications
Corley J; Jia XL; Brett CE; Gow AJ; Starr JM; Kyle JAM et al. Alcohol intake and cognitive abilities in old age: The Lothian Birth Cohort 1936 study. Neuropsychology 25(2): 166-175, 2011. (58 refs.)Objective: Moderate alcohol consumption has been associated with better cognitive performance in late adulthood, possibly by improving vascular health. Few studies have examined the potentially confounding roles of prior cognitive ability and social class in this relationship. Method: Participants were 922 healthy adults about 70 years old in the Lothian Birth Cohort 1936 study, for whom there are IQ data from age 11. Alcohol consumption was obtained by self-report questionnaire. Cognitive outcome measures included general cognitive ability, speed of information processing, memory, and verbal ability. Results: Moderate to substantial drinking (> 2 units/day) was associated with better performance on cognitive tests than low-level drinking (<= 2 units/day) or nondrinking in men and women. After adjusting for childhood IQ and adult social class, most of these associations were removed or substantially attenuated. After full adjustment, a small, positive association remained between overall alcohol intake and memory (women and men) and verbal ability (women only). Women's overall alcohol intake was derived almost exclusively from wine. In men, effects differed according to beverage type: wine and sherry port consumption was associated with better verbal ability, but beer was associated with a poorer verbal ability and spirits intake was associated with better memory. Conclusions: Prior intelligence and socioeconomic status influence both amount and type of alcohol intake and may partly explain the link between alcohol intake and improved cognitive performance at age 70. Alcohol consumption was found to make a small, independent contribution to memory performance and verbal ability, but these findings' clinical significance is uncertain.
Copyright 2011, American Psychological Association
Cropley V; Croft R; Silber B; Neale C; Scholey A; Stough C; Schmitt J. Does coffee enriched with chlorogenic acids improve mood and cognition after acute administration in healthy elderly? A pilot study. Psychopharmacology 219(3): 737-749, 2012. (57 refs.)Caffeine exerts positive effects on cognitive and behavioral processes, especially in sub-optimal conditions when arousal is low. Apart from caffeine, coffee contains other compounds including the phenolic compounds ferulic acid, caffeic acid, and the chlorogenic acids, which have purported antioxidant properties. The chlorogenic acids are the most abundant family of compounds found in coffee, yet their effects on cognition and mood have not been investigated. This study aims to ascertain whether a coffee rich in chlorogenic acid modulates brain function. The present pilot study examined the acute effects of decaffeinated coffee with regular chlorogenic acid content and decaffeinated coffee with high chlorogenic acid content on mood and cognitive processes, as measured by behavioral tasks and event-related potentials (ERPs). Performance and ERP responses to a battery of cognitive tasks were recorded at baseline and following the equivalent of three cups of coffee in a randomized, double-blind, crossover study of 39 healthy older participants. Compared with the decaffeinated coffee with regular chlorogenic acid and placebo, caffeinated coffee showed a robust positive effect on higher-level mood and attention processes. To a lesser extent, the decaffeinated coffee high in chlorogenic acid also improved some mood and behavioral measures, relative to regular decaffeinated coffee. Our pilot results suggest that non-caffeine compounds in coffee such as the chlorogenic acids may be capable of exerting some acute behavioral effects, thus warranting further investigation.
Copyright 2012, Springer
Culberson JW; Ticker RL; Burnett J; Marcus MT; Pickens SL; Dyer CB. Prescription medication use among self neglecting elderly. Journal of Addictions Nursing 22(1-2): 63-68, 2011. (22 refs.)The elderly use approximately one-third of the prescription medication in the United States, often for problems such as chronic pain, insomnia, and anxiety. This study will describe the use of prescription medication, specifically drugs of abuse such as benzodiazepines and opioid analgesics, in a sample of community dwelling elderly referred to Texas Adult Protective Services for self-neglect. We hypothesize that self-neglecting behavior may result in increased use of prescription drugs with known abuse potential. Self-neglecting elders (n = 100) were matched with community controls and interviewed by geriatric nurse-practitioners in their homes. Benzodiazepine use among self neglecting elderly was four-fold that of matched controls, (OR = 4.2, 95%% CI = 0.9-20.4), and the use of opioid analgesics slightly higher among self-neglecting elders, (OR = 1.1, 95%% CI = 0.5-2.4). Self-neglecters were significantly less likely to be taking non-opioid pain medications such as acetaminophen (p < .011) and gabapentin (p < .02). Self-neglecting elders using benzodiazepines were less likely to be female (OR =.81, 95%% CI, 0.2-3.6), live alone (OR =.94, 95%% CI, 0.2-4.0), report pain (OR =0.2, 95%% CI, 0.1-2.0), or depression (OR =.66, 95%% CI, 0.1-3.2). Those using opioid analgesics were less likely to be female, (OR =0.6, 95%% CI, 0.2-1.9), however, more likely to live alone (OR =1.7, 95%% CI, 0.6-1.9), report pain (OR =1.5, 95%% CI, 0.5-4.5), or depression (OR =3.2, 95%% CI, 1.1-4.9). Self-neglecting elders demonstrate a unique pattern of prescription drug use. Further studies are required to determine if self-neglecting behavior in the elderly increases the prescription of benzodiazepine and opiate drugs.
Copyright 2011, Informa Healthcare
Dassanayake T; Michie P; Carter G; Jones A. Effects of benzodiazepines, antidepressants and opioids on driving: A systematic review and meta-analysis of epidemiological and experimental evidence. (review). Drug Safety 34(2): 125-156, 2011. (102 refs.)Background: Many individuals in the community are prescribed psychoactive drugs with sedative effects. These drugs may affect their daily functions, of which automobile driving is a major component. Objective: To examine the association of three classes of commonly used psychoactive drugs (viz. benzodiazepines and newer non-benzodiazepine hypnotics, antidepressants and opioids) with (i) the risk of traffic accidents (as indexed by epidemiological indicators of risk); and (ii) driving performance (as indexed by experimental measures of driving performance). Methods: A literature search for material published in the English language between January 1966 and January 2010 in PubMed and EMBASE databases was combined with a search for other relevant material referenced in the retrieved articles. Retrieved articles were systematically reviewed, carrying out meta-analyses where possible. Twenty-one epidemiological studies (13 case-control and 8 cohort studies) fulfilled the inclusion criteria by estimating the accident risk associated with drug exposure (ascertained by blood/urine analysis or prescription records). Sixty-nine experimental studies fulfilled the inclusion criteria by testing actual or simulated driving performance after administering a single dose or multiple doses. Results: Two meta-analyses showed that benzodiazepines are associated with a 60% (for case-control studies: pooled odds ratio [OR] 1.59; 95% CI 1.10, 2.31) to 80% (for cohort studies: pooled incidence rate ratio 1.81; 95% CI 1.35, 2.43) increase in the risk of traffic accidents and a 40% (pooled OR 1.41; 95% CI 1.03, 1.94) increase in 'accident responsibility'. Co-ingestion of benzodiazepines and alcohol was associated with a 7.7-fold increase in the accident risk (pooled OR 7.69; 95% CI 4.33, 13.65). Subgroup analysis of case-control studies showed a lower benzodiazepine-associated accident risk in elderly (>65 years of age) drivers (pooled OR 1.13; 95% CI 0.97, 1.31) than in drivers <65 years of age (pooled OR 2.21; 95% CI 1.31, 3.73), a result consistent with age-stratified risk differences reported in cohort studies. Anxiolytics, taken in single or multiple doses during the daytime, impaired driving performance independent of their half-lives. With hypnotics, converging evidence from experimental and epidemiological studies indicates that diazepam, flurazepam, flunitrazepam, nitrazepam and the short half-life non-benzodiazepine hypnotic zopiclone significantly impair driving, at least during the first 2-4 weeks of treatment. The accident risk was higher in the elderly (>65 years of age) who use tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs); however, the evidence for an association of antidepressants with accident risk in younger drivers was equivocal. Sedative but not non-sedative antidepressants were found to cause short-term impairment of several measures of driving performance. Limited epidemiological research reported that opioids may be associated with increased accident risk in the first few weeks of treatment. Conclusions: Benzodiazepine use was associated with a significant increase in the risk of traffic accidents and responsibility of drivers for accidents. The association was more pronounced in the younger drivers. The accident risk was markedly increased by co-ingestion of alcohol. Driving impairment was generally related to plasma half-lives of hypnotics, but with notable exceptions. Anxiolytics, with daytime dosing, impaired driving independent of their half-lives. TCAs appeared to be associated with increased accident risk, at least in the elderly, and caused short-term impairment in driving performance. Opioid users may be at a higher risk of traffic accidents; however, experimental evidence is limited on their effects on driving.
Copyright 2011, Adis International
Desplenter F; Caenen C; Meelberghs J; Hartikainen S; Sulkava R; Bell JS. Change in psychotropic drug use among community-dwelling people aged 75 years and older in Finland: Repeated cross-sectional population studies. International Psychogeriatrics 23(8): 1278-1284, 2011. (29 refs.)Background: Older people are at high risk of experiencing psychotropic-related adverse drug events. The objective of this study was to compare and contrast the use of psychotropic drugs among community-dwelling people aged >= 75 years in 1998 and 2004. Methods: Comparable random samples of people aged >= 75 years were extracted from the population register in Kuopio, Finland, in 1998 (n = 700) and 2003 (n = 1000). In 1998 and 2004, 523 and 700 community-dwelling people respectively participated in nurse interviews, during which demographic, diagnostic and drug use data were elicited. Logistic regression was used to compute unadjusted and adjusted odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for the prevalence of psychotropic drug use in 2004 compared to 1998. Results: The unadjusted prevalence of total psychotropic (37.3% and 38.4%, OR 1.05; 95% CI 0.83-1.33), anxiolytic, hypnotic and sedative (29.6% and 31.3%, OR 1.08, 95% CI 0.85-1.38), and antidepressant (10.7% and 11.9%, OR 1.12, 95% CI 0.78-1.61) use were similar in 1998 and 2004. There was a decrease in the unadjusted prevalence of antipsychotic use (9.2% and 5.7%, OR 0.60; 95% CI 0.39-0.93). After adjusting for socioeconomic and health status differences, there was an increase in the prevalence of total psychotropic (adjusted OR 1.31, 95% CI 1.01-1.70) and antidepressant (OR 1.59, 95% CI 1.06-2.40) use. Conclusion: The unadjusted prevalence of psychotropic drug use remained stable between 1998 and 2004. However, in adjusted analyses there was a small increase in the prevalence of any psychotropic drug use and antidepressant use specifically.
Copyright 2011, Cambridge University Press
DiNitto DM; Choi NG. Marijuana use among older adults in the USA: User characteristics, patterns of use, and implications for intervention. International Psychogeriatrics 23(5): 732- 741, 2011. (21 refs.)Background: Epidemiology studies show that the number of older adults using marijuana is increasing. This study aimed to determine the correlates and patterns of marijuana use among older adults that might help health and social service providers better assist this group. Methods: Data are from the 2008 National Survey on Drug Use and Health conducted by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration in the U.S.A. The sample consisted of 5,325 adults aged 50 years and older. Results: Of the sample, 2.8% were past-year marijuana users. Of them, 23% had used marijuana on at least half the days of the year. Past-year users were more likely to be younger (50-64 years old), black, and not married, and they had significantly higher psychological distress scores, but they did not rate their health as poorer than others in the sample, nor did they attribute many problems, including psychological problems, as being related to their marijuana use. Nevertheless, past-year users present a high-risk profile because, in addition to frequent marijuana use, they also are more likely to smoke cigarettes, engage in binge drinking, and use other illicit drugs. Conclusions: Health and social service providers should be alert to the small number of routine marijuana users among the younger members of the older adult population, especially those suffering significant psychological distress, so that these individuals can be encouraged to utilize services that will help alleviate this distress and promote a healthier lifestyle and increase general well being.
Copyright 2011, Cambridge University Press
Du F; Qiukui H; Birong D; Changquan H; Hongmei W; Yanling Z et al. Association of osteoporotic fracture with smoking, alcohol consumption, tea consumption and exercise among Chinese nonagenarians/centenarians. Journal of Nutrition, Health & Aging 15(5): 327-331, 2011. (37 refs.)To observe the association of osteoporotic fracture with habits of smoking, alcohol consumption, tea consumption and exercise among very old people. A cross sectional study conducted in Dujiangyan Sichuan China. 703 unrelated Chinese nonagenarians and centenarians (67.7(1% women, mean age 93.48 years) resident in Dujiangyan. Medical history of osteoporosis and the statement of fracture and habits (current and former) of smoking, alcohol consumption, tea consumption and exercise were collected. In women, subjects with current or former habit of alcohol consumption had significantly higher prevalence osteoporotic fracture than those without this habit; but subjects with former habit of exercise had significantly lower prevalence osteoporotic fracture than those without tills habit. However, in men, there was no significant difference in prevalence of these habits between subjects with and without osteoporotic fracture. After adjust for age, gender, sleep habits educational levels, religion habits and temperament, we found that former habit of alcohol consumption had a significant odds ratio (OR=2.473 95% CI (1.074, 5.526)) for osteoporotic fracture. In summary, among nonagenarians and centenarians, among habits (current and former) of smoking, alcohol consumption, tea consumption and exercise, there seems to be significant association of osteoporotic fracture only with current or former habits of alcohol consumption, former habit of exercise. The habit of alcohol consumption might be associated with a greater risk of osteoporotic fracture, but the former habit of exercise might be associated with a lower risk of osteoporotic fracture.
Copyright 2011, Springer
Duffy SA; Kilbourne AM; Austin KL; Dalack GW; Woltmann EM; Waxmonsky J et al. Risk of smoking and receipt of cessation services among Veterans with mental disorders. Psychiatric Services 63(4): 325-332, 2012. (60 refs.)Objective: The purpose of this study was to determine rates of smoking and receipt of provider recommendations to quit smoking among patients with mental disorders treated in U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) treatment settings. Methods: The authors conducted a secondary analysis of the yearly, cross-sectional 2007 Veterans Health Administration Outpatient Survey of Healthcare Experiences of Patients (N=224,193). Logistic regression was used to determine the independent association of mental health diagnosis and the dependent variables of smoking and receipt of provider recommendations to quit smoking. Results: Patients with mental disorders had greater odds of smoking, compared with those without mental disorders (p<.05). Those with various mental disorders reported similar rates of receiving services (more than 60% to 80% reported receiving selected services), compared with those without these disorders, except that those with schizophrenia had more than 30% lower odds of receiving advice to quit smoking from their physicians (p<.05). Moreover, those who had co-occurring posttraumatic stress disorder or substance use disorders had significantly greater odds of reporting that they received advice to quit, recommendations for medications, and physician discussions of quitting methods, compared with those without these disorders (p<.05). Older patients, male patients, members of ethnic minority groups, those who were unmarried, those who were disabled or unemployed, and those living in rural areas had lower odds of receiving selected services (p<.05). Conclusions: The majority of patients with mental disorders served by the VA reported receiving cessation services, yet their smoking rates remained high, and selected groups were at risk for receiving fewer cessation services, suggesting the continued need to disseminate cessation services.
Copyright 2012, American Psychiatric Association
Durai UNB; Chopra MP; Coakley E; Llorente MD; Kirchner JE; Cook JM et al. Exposure to trauma and posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms in older veterans attending primary care: Comorbid conditions and self-rated health status. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society 59(6): 1087-1092, 2011. (30 refs.)OBJECTIVES: Assess the prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptomatology and its association with health characteristics in a geriatric primary care population. DESIGN: Cross-sectional screening assessments during a multisite trial for the treatment of depression, anxiety, and at-risk drinking. SETTING: Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)-based primary care clinics across the United States. PARTICIPANTS: Seventeen thousand two hundred five veterans aged 65 and older. MEASUREMENTS: Sociodemographic information, the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12), questions about death wishes and suicidal ideation, quantity and frequency of alcohol use, smoking, exposure to traumatic events, and PTSD symptom clusters. RESULTS: Twelve percent (2,041/17,205) of participants screened endorsed PTSD symptoms. Veterans with PTSD symptoms from some (partial PTSD) or each (PTSD all clusters) of the symptom clusters were significantly more likely to report poor general health, currently smoke, be divorced, report little or no social support, and have a higher prevalence of mental distress, death wishes, and suicidal ideation than those with no trauma history or those with trauma but no symptoms. Group differences were most pronounced for mental distress and least for at-risk drinking. Presence of PTSD all clusters was associated with poorer outcomes on all of the above-mentioned health characteristics than partial PTSD. CONCLUSION: PTSD symptoms are common in a substantial minority of older veterans in primary care, and careful inquiry about these symptoms is important for comprehensive assessment in geriatric populations.
Copyright 2011, Wiley-Blackwell
Fahmy V; Hatch SL; Hotopf M; Stewart R. Prevalences of illicit drug use in people aged 50 years and over from two surveys. Age and Ageing 41(4): 553-556, 2012. (15 refs.)Objectives: to quantify illicit drug use in people aged 50 years and over in England and inner London and to compare this between 50 and 64 and 65+ age groups. Methods: primary analyses used data from the 2007 Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey (APMS) and the 2008-10 South East London Community Health (SELCoH) Survey. Secondary analyses included additional data on 50-64 year olds from the 1993, 2000 and 2007 APMS, and on 65-74 year olds from the 2000 and 2007 APMS. Results: cannabis was the drug most commonly used in all samples. Prevalences of use within the last 12 months in 50-64 and 65+ age groups were 1.8 and 0.4%, respectively, in England and 9.0 and 1.1%, respectively, in inner London. Prevalences of use at any time previously were 11.4, 1.7, 42.8 and 9.4%, respectively. Lifetime cannabis, amphetamine, cocaine and LSD use in 50-64 year olds had increased approximately tenfold in England from 1993. Lifetime and 12-month trends in tranquilisers were relatively stable. Conclusions: use of some illicit drugs, particularly cannabis, has increased rapidly in mid- and late-life.
Copyright 2012, Oxford University Press
Ferri CP; West R; Moriyama TS; Acosta D; Guerra M; Huang YQ et al. Tobacco use and dementia: Evidence from the 1066 dementia population-based surveys in Latin America, China and India. International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry 26(11): 1177-1185, 2011. (32 refs.)Objectives: To assess the association between tobacco consumption and dementia using the same methodology in seven developing countries, testing the specific hypotheses that higher exposure to tobacco is associated with a higher prevalence of dementia, that the association is limited to smoked tobacco and is stronger for vascular dementia compared to Alzheimer's disease. Methods: Cross-sectional surveys conducted on individuals aged 65+. A total of 15,022 residents in specified catchment areas were assessed face-to-face using a standardised protocol, which included dementia diagnosis and detailed information on past and current tobacco consumption, and on important potential confounders of this association. Results: A high proportion of participants were never smokers (52% in Dominican Republic to 83% in Peru), most of those who ever used tobacco in China and India were still smoking at age 65 and above (80% and 84%, respectively). There was a positive association between history of tobacco smoke exposure (pack years up to age 50) and dementia (pooled PR = 1.003; 95% CI 1.001-1.005), Alzheimer's disease (pooled PR = 1.007; 95% CI, 1.003-1.011) and Vascular Dementia (pooled PR = 1.003; 95% CI = 1.001-1.005). These associations were attenuated but remained significant if exposure after the age of 50 was included. In India there was no association between smokeless tobacco and dementia. Conclusions: Dementia in developing countries appears to be positively associated with history of tobacco smoking but not smokeless tobacco use. Selective quitting in later life may bias estimation of associations.
Copyright 2011, Wiley-Blackwell
Foottit J; Anderson D. Associations between perception of wellness and health-related quality of life, comorbidities, modifiable lifestyle factors and demographics in older Australians. Australasian Journal on Ageing 31(1): 22-27, 2012. (20 refs.)Aim: The associations between perceived wellness and health-related quality of life, comorbidities and modifiable lifestyle factors in older adults were explored. Methods: Self-administered questionnaires including the Perceived Wellness Survey and the 36-Item Short Form of the Medical Outcomes Study version two were distributed to 328 community-living adults aged 65 years and over. Results: Results showed positive associations between perception of wellness and health-related quality of life. General health (r(249) = 0.66, P < 0.01), vitality (r(249) = 0.59, P < 0.01) and mental health (r(249) = 0.52, P < 0.01) had the strongest association with perceived wellness; and social functioning (r(249) = 0.3, P < 0.01) and pain (r(249) = 0.36, P < 0.01) the lowest. Perceived wellness was influenced by hearing, mobility, memory, chronic disease, exercise, gambling and single status. Conclusion: The study identified that perceived wellness in older adults is a multidimensional construct.
Copyright 2012, Wiley-Blackwell
Fortes C; Mastroeni S; Alessandra S; Lindau J; Farchi S; Franco F. The combination of depressive symptoms and smoking shorten life expectancy among the aged. International Psychogeriatrics 24(4): 624-630, 2012. (35 refs.)Background: Depression is a potential risk factor for mortality among the aged and it is also associated with other chronic diseases and unhealthy lifestyles that may also affect mortality. The purpose of this study was to investigate the association between depressive symptoms and mortality, controlling for health, nutritional status, and life-style factors. Methods: A cohort of elderly people (N = 167) was followed-up for ten years. Information on sociodemographic characteristics, medical history, smoking, and alcohol consumption was collected. The primary outcome was all-cause mortality; the secondary outcome was cancer-specific mortality. The Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS-15) was used to assess depression. Using a multivariable Cox proportional hazards regression, we examined the association between depressive symptoms and mortality. Results: Elderly people with depression (scoring above the depression cut-off of 7) had a 53% increased risk of mortality (relative risk (RR) 1.53; 95%CI: 1.05-2.24) compared to non-depressed subjects. The combination of depressive symptoms with smoking was associated with a particularly higher risk of mortality (RR: 2.61; 95%CI: 1.28-5.31), after controlling for potential confounders. Conclusions: Depressive symptoms are associated with a significantly increased risk of all-cause mortality. The combination of depressive symptoms and smoking shorten life expectancy among the aged.
Copyright 2012, Cambridge University Press
Garcia-Gollarte F; Baleriola-Julvez J; Ferrero-Lopez I; Cruz-Jentoft AJ. Inappropriate drug prescription at nursing home admission. Journal of The American Medical Directors Association 13(1): 83.e9, 2012. (62 refs.)Background: Inappropriate prescriptions are common in older people admitted to nursing homes. Commonly used instruments to detect potential inappropriate prescriptions have limitations that have precluded wide use, and new instruments are needed. Objective: The goal of this study was to determine the value of the Screening Tool of Older Person's potentially inappropriate Prescriptions/Screening Tool to Alert doctors to the Right, ie appropriate, indicated Treatment (STOPP-START) criteria and the Australian criteria to detect potentially inappropriate drug prescriptions in older people on admission to nursing home care. Methods: Cross-sectional study of 100 consecutive patients (mean age 84.7 +/- 7.5 years, 80% women) admitted to 6 assisted living nursing homes, with systematic review of prescriptions used at the time of nursing home admission using the STOPP-START and the Australian criteria looking for potentially inappropriate drug treatments. Results: Using the STOPP criteria, 79% of the subjects showed at least one potentially inappropriate prescription. Omissions of potentially appropriate drugs were found by the START criteria in 74% of them. The Australian criteria detected at least one potential problem in 95% of the sample. The number of subjects with 2 or more problems detected was highest using the Australian criteria (72%). The most frequent potentially inappropriately used drugs detected were proton-pump inhibitors, benzodiazepines, antipsychotic drugs, and anticholinergic drugs; many cases of duplicate medications and drug interactions were also detected. Underuse of statins and aspirin in patients with high cardiovascular risk, and of calcium and vitamin D in osteoporosis was also frequent. Conclusions: A high number of potentially inappropriate drug prescriptions can be detected at the time of admission to nursing home care by the use of systematic instruments. Both STOPP-START criteria and the Australian criteria performed well in this setting. The impact of this detection on health outcomes and costs should be assessed before they can be widely recommended.
Copyright 2012, American Medical Directors Association,
Gillum RF; Kwagyan J; Obisesan TO. Smoking, cognitive function and mortality in a US national cohort study. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 8(9): 3628-3636, 2011. (12 refs.)Previous studies report that low levels cognitive function and history of smoking are associated with increased mortality risk. Elderly smokers may have increased risk of dementia, but risk in former smokers is unclear. We tested the hypotheses that the harmful effect of impaired cognitive function as related to mortality is greater in persons smoking at baseline than in others. Further, we used serum cotinine levels to assess recall bias of smoking history by cognitive function level. Data were analyzed from a longitudinal mortality follow-up study of 4,916 American men and women aged 60 years and over, examined in 1988-1994 with complete data followed an average 8.5 years. Measurements at baseline included smoking history, a short index of cognitive function (SICF), serum cotinine and socio-demographics. Death during follow-up occurred in 1,919 persons. In proportional hazards regression analysis, a significant interaction of current smoking with cognitive function was not found; but there was a significant age-smoking interaction. After adjusting for confounding by age or multiple variables, current smoking associated with over 2-fold increased mortality (hazards ratio and 95% confidence limits current versus never smoking 2.13, 1.75-2.59) and SICF with 32% reduction in mortality; top versus bottom SICF stratum 0.68, 0.53-0.88). Serum cotinine data revealed substantial recall bias of smoking history in persons with cognitive impairment. However analyses correcting for this bias did not alter the main conclusions: In a nationwide cohort of older Americans, analyses demonstrated a lower risk of death independent of confounders among those with high SICF scores and never smokers, without a significant interaction of the two.
Copyright 2011, MDPI AG
Gisev N; Hartikainen S; Chen TF; Korhonen M; Bell JS. Mortality associated with benzodiazepines and benzodiazepine-related drugs among community-dwelling older people in Finland: A population-based retrospective cohort study. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry 56(6): 377-381, 2011. (19 refs.)Objective: To investigate the association between the use of benzodiazepines (BDZs) and BDZ-related drugs and mortality among community-dwelling people aged 65 years and older in Finland. Method: This was a population-based retrospective cohort study. Records of all reimbursed drugs purchased by all 2224 residents of Leppavirta, Finland, aged 65 years and older in 2000 were extracted from the Finnish National Prescription Register. Diagnostic data were extracted from the Special Reimbursement Register. All-cause mortality was assessed after 9 years using national registers. Cox proportional hazards models were used to compute unadjusted and adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals for mortality among prevalent users of BDZs and BDZ-related drugs in 2000 (n = 325), compared with nonusers of BDZs and BDZ-related drugs between 2000 and 2008 (n = 1520). Results: BDZs and BDZ-related drugs were used by 325 out of the 2224 residents (14.6%) in 2000. The 9-year mortality was 50.2% among BDZ and BDZ-related drug users in 2000 and 36.3% among BDZ and BDZ-related drug nonusers between 2000 and 2008 (HR 1.53; 95% Cl 1.28 to 1.82). After adjusting for baseline age, sex, antipsychotic drug use, and diagnostic confounders, the HR was 1.01 (95% Cl 0.84 to 1.21). Conclusions: Use of BDZs and BDZ-related drugs was associated with an increased mortality hazard in unadjusted analyses. However, after adjusting for age, sex, antipsychotic drug use, and diagnostic confounders, the use of BDZs and BDZ-related drugs was not associated with excess mortality.
Copyright 2011, Canadian Psychiatric Association
Grella CE; Lovinger K. Gender differences in physical and mental health outcomes among an aging cohort of individuals with a history of heroin dependence. Addictive Behaviors 37(3): 306-312, 2012. (59 refs.)Background: This paper examines the health status and functioning of an aging cohort of individuals with a history of heroin dependence with a focus on gender differences. Method: Study subjects were originally sampled from methadone maintenance clinics in California in the 1970s and completed follow-up interviews in 2005-09. Out of the original study sample (N=914), 343 participants (44.3% female) were interviewed (70.6% of those not deceased). Bivariate analyses examined gender differences in participants' overall health status and physical and mental health problems. Scores on SF-36 scales were compared with general population norms by gender and age, as well as between participants in the study sample who did and did not report past-year drug use. Results: Average age of the study sample was 58.3 (SD=4.9) years for males and 55.0 (SD=4.1) years for females. There were no significant gender differences in past-year drug use (38% of sample) or injection drug use (19%). Women reported significantly more chronic health problems and psychological distress compared with men, and overall poorer health and functioning compared with general population norms. Men under 65 had poorer physical health and social functioning compared with population norms. Men in the study sample reporting past-year substance use had poorer physical functioning, but less bodily pain, than non-users, whereas women with past-year substance use had poorer mental health than other women. Conclusion: Individuals with a history of heroin dependence have poorer health and functioning than their counterparts in the general population. At a younger age, women reported poorer overall health status and more chronic health and mental health problems than men. Study findings may inform interventions for this population, particularly related to gender-specific treatment needs.
Copyright 2012, Elsevier Science
Gross AL; Rebok GW; Ford DE; Chu AY; Gallo JJ; Liang KY et al. Alcohol consumption and domain-specific cognitive function in older adults: Longitudinal data from the Johns Hopkins Precursors Study. Journals of Gerontology. Series B, Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences 66(1): 39-47, 2011. (68 refs.)Objectives. The association of alcohol consumption with performance in different cognitive domains has not been well studied. Methods. The Johns Hopkins Precursors Study was used to examine associations between prospectively collected in about alcohol consumption ascertained on multiple occasions starting at age 55 years on average with domain-specific cognition at age 72 years. Cognitive variables measured phonemic and semantic fluency, attention, verbal memory, and global cognition. Results. Controlling for age, hypertension, smoking status, sex, and other cognitive variables, higher average weekly quantity and frequency of alcohol consumed in midlife were associated with lower phonemic fluency. There were no associations with four other measures of cognitive function. With respect to frequency of alcohol intake, phonemic fluency was significantly better among those who drank three to four alcoholic beverages per week as compared with daily or almost daily drinkers. A measure of global cognition was not associated with alcohol intake at any point over the follow-up. Discussion. Results suggest that higher alcohol consumption in midlife may impair some components of executive function in late life.
Copyright 2011, Oxford University Press
Haasum Y; Fastbom J; Johnell K. Institutionalization as a risk factor for inappropriate drug use in the elderly: A Swedish nationwide register-based study. Annals of Pharmacotherapy 46(3): 339-346, 2012. (46 refs.)Background: Few studies have investigated institutionalization as a potential risk factor for potentially inappropriate drug use (PIDU). Sweden now has unique possibilities for comparisons of drug use in large populations of institutionalized and home-dwelling elderly through linkage of the Swedish Prescribed Drug Register (SPDR) with the Swedish Social Services Register. Objective: To compare PIDU in institutionalized versus home-dwelling elderly persons in Sweden. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional retrospective study of 1,260,843 home-dwelling and 86,721 institutionalized elderly individuals. We analyzed data on age, sex, and dispensed drugs for individuals aged 65 years or older registered in the SPDR from July to September 2008. Data on type of housing were retrieved from the Social Services Register. The main outcome measures of PIDU were use of anticholinergic drugs, long-acting benzodiazepines, concurrent use of 3 or more psychotropics, and potentially serious drug-drug interactions (DDIs). Results: Thirty percent of the institutionalized and 12% of the home-dwelling elderly were exposed to PIDU. Living in an institution was strongly associated with overall PIDU (OR 2.36; 95% Cl 2.29 to 2.44), use of anticholinergic drugs (OR 2.58; 95% Cl 2.48 to 2.68), long-acting benzodiazepines (OR 1.50; 95% Cl 1.41 to 1.60), and concurrent use of 3 or more psychotropics (OR 7.26; 95% Cl 6.96 to 7.59), after controlling for age, sex, and number of drugs (used as proxy for comorbidity). However, institutionalization was associated with a lower probability of potentially serious DDIs (OR 0.60; 95% Cl 0.55 to 0.65). Conclusions: Our results indicate that institutionalization is a potential risk factor for PIDU. This implies that more cautious prescribing is warranted in institutions, where the frailest and most vulnerable elderly individuals reside. Reseaarch is needed to identify underlying risk factors for PIDU within these settings.
Copyright 2012, Harvey Whitney Books
Heather N; Paton J; Ashton H. Predictors of response to brief intervention in general practice against long-term benzodiazepine use. Addiction Research & Theory 19(6): 519-527, 2011. (41 refs.)Aims: To predict the response of mostly elderly patients to brief intervention against long-term benzodiazepine (BZD) use delivered in general medical practice from variables measured at baseline in a randomised controlled trial. Method: Logistic regression was used to identify predictors of a complete cessation of BZD intake or a 'clinically significant reduction' by a half or more from baseline to 6 months follow-up among 183 patients who received a brief intervention. Candidate predictor variables were: (i) stage of change (ii) level of BZD dependence (iii) whether BZDs were prescribed by the patient's usual general practitioner (GP) or by another medical practitioner; (iv) baseline BZD dosage; (v) type of BZD and (vi) gender. Results: Both cessation and reduction were predicted by who prescribed BZDs, with patients whose medication was prescribed by their usual GP more likely to show a positive response to brief intervention than those whose medication was prescribed by another medical practitioner. Stage of change was a significant predictor of a reduction in BZD use, with patients in the Contemplation stage nearly three times more likely, and those in the Action stage over eight times more likely, to achieve a clinically significant reduction than those in the Precontemplation stage. Conclusions: Patients receiving prescriptions from their usual GP are more likely to cease or reduce BZD intake than those receiving prescriptions from another medical practitioner. In managing patients with long-term use of BZDs, general medical practitioners should consider recording the patient's stage of change and tailoring their intervention on that basis.
Copyright 2011, Informa Healthcare
Hill KD; Wee R. Psychotropic drug-induced falls in older people: A review of interventions aimed at reducing the problem. (review). Drugs & Aging 29(1): 15-30, 2012. (112 refs.)Falls are a common health problem for older people, and psychotropic medications have been identified as an important independent fall risk factor. The objective of this paper was to review the literature relating to the effect of psychotropic medications on falls in older people, with a particular focus on evidence supporting minimization of their use to reduce risk of falls. A literature search identified 18 randomized trials meeting the inclusion criteria for the review of effectiveness of psychotropic medication withdrawal studies, including four with falls outcomes. One of these, which targeted reduced psychotropic medication use in the community, reported a 66% reduction in falls, while the other studies demonstrated some success in reducing psychotropic medication use but with mixed effects on falls. Other randomized trials evaluated various approaches to reducing psychotropic medications generally or specific classes of psychotropic medications (e.g. benzodiazepines), but did not report fall-related outcomes. Overall, these studies reported moderate success in reducing psychotropic medication use, and a number reported no or limited worsening of key outcomes such as sleep quality or behavioural difficulties associated with withdrawal of psychotropic medication use. Reduced prescription of psychotropic medications (e.g. seeking non-pharmacological alternatives to their use in place of prescription in the first place or, for those patients for whom these medications are deemed necessary, regular monitoring and efforts to cease use or wean off use over time) needs to be a strong focus in clinical practice for three reasons. Firstly, psychotropic medications are commonly prescribed for older people, both in the community and especially in the residential care setting, and their effectiveness in a number of clinical groups has been questioned. Secondly, there is strong evidence of an association between substantially increased risk of falls and use of a number of psychotropic medications, including benzodiazepines (particularly, the long-acting agents), antidepressants and antipsychotic drugs. Finally, the largest effect of any randomized trial of falls prevention to date was achieved with a single intervention consisting of weaning psychotropic drug users off their medications.
Copyright 2012, Adis International
Holahan CK; Holahan CJ; Powers DA; Hayes RB; Marti CN; Ockene JK. Depressive symptoms and smoking in middle-aged and older women. Nicotine & Tobacco Research 13(8): 722-731, 2011. (72 refs.)Introduction: Smoking research and intervention efforts have neglected older women. Depressive symptoms, which are common in middle-aged and older women, are related to the maintenance of adult smoking. Methods: This study investigated the relation of a composite measure of current depressive symptoms, derived from a short form of the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale, and history of depressive symptoms, derived from two items from the Diagnostic Interview Schedule, to smoking outcomes in the Women's Health Initiative Observational Study (N = 90,627). Participants were postmenopausal with an average age of 63.6 years at baseline. Participants were recruited from urban, suburban, and rural areas surrounding 40 clinical centers in the United States. Analyses controlled for age, educational level, and ethnicity. Results: In multinomial logistic regression analyses, depressive symptoms were related cross-sectionally to current light (odds ratio [OR] = 1.19, 95% CI = 1.14-1.23) and heavier (OR = 1.28, 95% CI = 1.23-1.32) smoking at baseline compared with nonsmokers. In prospective multiple logistic regression analyses, baseline depressive symptoms were negatively predictive of smoking cessation at a 1-year follow-up (OR = .85, 95% CI = 0.770.93) and at participants' final assessments in the study (OR = .92, 95% CI = 0.85-0.98). Light smokers had more than 2 times higher odds of smoking cessation than did heavier smokers. Conclusions: The present findings demonstrate a consistent link between depressive symptoms and negative smoking-related behaviors among middle-aged and older women at both light and heavier smoking levels.
Copyright 2011, Oxford University Press
Huang AR; Mallet L; Rochefort CM; Eguale T; Buckeridge DL; Tamblyn R. Medication-related falls in the elderly causative factors and preventive strategies. (review). Drugs & Aging 29(5): 359-376, 2012. (136 refs.)People are living to older age. Falls constitute a leading cause of injuries, hospitalization and deaths among the elderly. Older people fall more often for a variety of reasons: alterations in physiology and physical functioning, and the use (and misuse) of medications needed to manage their multiple conditions. Pharmacological factors that place the elderly at greater risk of drug-related side effects include changes in body composition, serum albumin, total body water, and hepatic and renal functioning. Drug use is one of the most modifiable risk factors for falls and falls-related injuries. Fall-risk increasing drugs (FRIDs) include drugs for cardiovascular diseases (such as digoxin, type la anti-arrhythmics and diuretics), benzodiazepines, antidepressants, antiepileptics, antipsychotics, antiparkinsonian drugs, opioids and urological spasmolytics. Psychotropic and benzodiazepine drug use is most consistently associated with falls. Despite the promise of a more favourable side-effect profile, evidence shows that atypical antipsychotic medications and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor antidepressants do not reduce the risk of falls and hip fractures. Despite multiple efforts with regards to managing medication-associated falls, there is no clear evidence for an effective intervention. Stopping or lowering the dose of psychotropic drugs and benzodiazepines does work, but ensuring a patient remains off these drugs is a challenge. Computer-assisted alerts coupled with electronic prescribing tools are a promising approach to lowering the risk of falls as the use of information technologies expands within healthcare.
Copyright 2012, Adis International
Ilomaki J; Bell JS; Kauhanen J; Enlund H. Heavy drinking and use of sedative or anxiolytic drugs among aging men: An 11-year follow-Up of the FinDrink Study. Annals of Pharmacotherapy 45(10): 1240-1247, 2011. (49 refs.)BACKGROUND: Most studies on heavy drinking and sedative/anxiolytic drug use have been cross-sectional, and evidence for a possible temporal association is lacking. OBJECTIVE: To prospectively investigate whether heavy drinking predicts initiation, continuation, or discontinuation of sedative/anxiolytic drugs at 4 and 11 years and, conversely, whether sedative/anxiolytic drug use predicts heavy drinking. METHOD: This was a longitudinal population-based study conducted in Kuopio, Finland. An age-stratified random sample of 1516 men aged 42, 48, 54, and 60 years received a structured clinical examination at baseline (August 1986-December 1989). Follow-up clinical examinations were conducted at 4 (n = 1038) and 11 (n = 854) years. Multinomial logistic regression was used to compute odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals for the association between sedative/anxiolytic drug use and initiation, continuation, and discontinuation of heavy drinking (>= 14 drinks/wk). The reverse association between heavy drinking and sedative/anxiolytic drug use was also investigated. Regression models were adjusted for age, working status, smoking, and depressive symptoms. RESULTS: At baseline 12.9% (134/1038) of participants were heavy drinkers and 4.0% (41/1030) used sedative/anxiolytic drugs. In multivariate analyses, baseline heavy drinking predicted initiation of sedative/anxiolytic drug use at 4 years (OR 2.96; 95% CI 1.23 to 7.15). Conversely, baseline sedative/anxiolytic drug use predicted continuation of heavy drinking at 11 years in unadjusted analysis (OR 3.30; 95% CI 1.19 to 8.44). However, the association was not statistically significant in adjusted analyses (OR 2.69; 95% CI 0.86 to 8.44). CONCLUSIONS: The main finding of this study was the association between heavy drinking and subsequent initiation of sedative/anxiolytic drugs that was not fully explained by baseline depressive symptoms. This may inform strategies to optimize the use of sedative/anxiolytic drugs, and assist in the early identification of patients at risk of heavy drinking. Clinicians should consider a patient's alcohol consumption prior to prescribing or dispensing sedative/anxiolytic drugs. Clinicians should also monitor patients prescribed sedative/anxiolytic drugs for subsequent heavy drinking.
Copyright 2011, Harvey Whitney Books CO
Immonen S; Valvanne J; Pitkala KH. Older adults' own reasoning for their alcohol consumption. International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry 26(11): 1169-1176, 2011. (51 refs.)Objective: The aim of the study was to investigate what the older adults themselves consider to be the reasons for their alcohol consumption. Methods: The data were collected with a postal questionnaire from a random sample of 2100 elderly people (>= 65 years) living in the medium-sized city of Espoo, Finland. The response rate was 71.6% from the community-dwelling sample. Altogether 868 persons responded that they use alcohol. Of them, 831 gave reasons for their drinking. We defined "at-risk users'' as consuming >7 drinks per week, or >= 5 drinks on a typical drinking day, or using >= 3 drinks several times per week. Results: Main reasons given for alcohol consumption were "having fun or celebration'' (58.7%), "for social reasons'' (54.2%), "using alcohol for medicinal purposes'' (20.1%), and "with meals'' (13.8%). Younger age groups reported more often than the older age groups that they use alcohol for "having fun or celebration'' and "for social reasons.'' The older age groups used more often "alcohol for medicinal purposes''. Men used alcohol more often than women "as pastime'' or "as sauna drink''. Those defined as "at-risk users'' reported using alcohol because of "meaningless life,'' for "relieving depression,'' "relieving anxiety,'' and "relieving loneliness.'' Conclusions: Older adults have diverse alcohol consumption habits like people in other age groups. The oldest olds reported that they use alcohol for medicinal purposes. The "at-risk users'' admit they use alcohol because of meaningless life, and relieving depression, anxiety, and loneliness.
Copyright 2011, Wiley-Blackwell
Immonen S; Valvanne J; Pitkala KH. Prevalence of at-risk drinking among older adults and associated sociodemographic and health-related factors. Journal of Nutrition, Health & Aging 15(9): 789-794, 2011. (38 refs.)Recognition of alcohol-related health problems in the elderly is challenging. Alcohol use also tends to be a hidden issue. The aim of this study was to examine the prevalence and at-risk drinking patterns in community-dwelling older adults and their associations with socio-demographic and health-related factors. The data were collected with a postal questionnaire from a random sample of 2100 elderly people (a parts per thousand yen 65 years) living in the medium-sized city of Espoo, Finland. The response rate was 71.6% from the community dwelling sample. We defined the amount of at-risk drinking as 1) consuming > 7 drinks per week or 2) > 5 drinks on a typical drinking day or 3) using > 3 drinks several times per week. of the respondents, 8.2% (N=114) were at-risk drinkers. At-risk drinking was associated with younger age and male sex, higher level of education, good income, living with a spouse, and current smoking. In addition, good functioning was associated with at-risk drinking. Although frequency and quantity of alcohol consumption declined with age, of our respondents nearly one-fifth of men aged 71-80 years and one-tenth of men aged 81-90 years could be classified as at-risk drinkers. At-risk drinkers had comorbidities and multiple medications as often as non-risk group. A significantly larger proportion of the at-risk drinking group relative to the non-risk group admitted falling or injuring themselves (5.3% vs. 0.7%) or forgotten to take their medications because of the use of alcohol. At-risk drinking is prevalent among older adults, particularly among males, despite prevalent comorbidities and multiple medications. At-risk drinking is associated with adverse events such as a tendency for injuries.
Copyright 2011, Springer France
Jafri AB. Aging and toxins. Clinics in Geriatric Medicine 27(4): 609+, 2011. (111 refs.)This article addresses physiologic organ system and cellular mechanisms of common toxic exposure in the elderly population. Air pollution, tobacco, alcohol, heat, cold, water pollution, medications, herbals, radiation, and other chemicals are discussed.
Copyright 2011, W B Saunders
Jeong HG; Kim TH; Lee JJ; Lee SB; Park JH; Huh Y et al. Impact of alcohol use on mortality in the elderly: Results from the Korean Longitudinal Study on Health and Aging. Drug and Alcohol Dependence 121(1-2): 133-139, 2012. (62 refs.)Background: To examine the effects of problematic drinking, amount of alcohol use and binge drinking on all-cause mortality in the elderly. Methods: We investigated 45-month all-cause mortality of 997 randomly sampled community-dwelling elderly Koreans aged 65 years or older who participated in the Korean Longitudinal Study on Health and Aging. Problematic drinking was defined as having alcohol use disorders according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition criteria or having 8 or higher of the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test. Light drinking was defined as drinking 7 alcoholic drinks or less, and heavy drinking as having 14 alcoholic drinks more per week during past 12 months. Binge drinking was defined as having 6 or more drinks on a single occasion at least monthly. Results: One hundred and thirteen participants (11.3%) died during the 45-month follow-up period. Heavy drinking (>14 alcoholic drinks per week) increased the all-cause mortality risk when in association with problematic drinking (hazard ratio [HR] = 2.604,95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.221-5.553, p = 0.012) or binge drinking (HR = 2.823,95% Cl = 1.259-6.328,p = 0.013). Light drinking (<= 7 alcoholic drinks per week) was associated with decreased all-cause mortality (HR = 0.114, 95% Cl = 0.015-0.833, p = 0.032). Conclusions: Problematic drinking is associated with increased all-cause mortality in elderly Koreas, particularly when it is heavy and/or combined with binge drinking.
Copyright 2012, Elsevier Science
Jessup MA; Dibble SL. Unmet mental health and substance abuse treatment needs of sexual minority elders. Journal of Homosexuality 59(5): 656-674, 2012. (44 refs.)In a survey exploring the reliability and validity of a screening tool, we explored the substance abuse and mental health issues among 371 elders; 74 were sexual minorities. Analyses by age group indicated that elders 55-64 years had significantly more problems with substance abuse, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts compared to those 65 and older. Bisexuals reported significantly greater problems with depression, anxiety, and suicidality than either heterosexual or lesbian or gay elders. Mental health and substance abuse treatment utilization was low among all elders with problems. Implications for assessment, access to care, and group-specific services delivery are discussed.
Copyright 2012, Taylor & Francis
Jogerst GJ; Daly JM; Galloway LJ; Zheng SM; Xu YH. Substance abuse associated with elder abuse in the United States. American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse 38(1): 63-69, 2012. (30 refs.)Background: Substance abuse by either victim or perpetrator has long been associated with violence and abuse. Sparse research is available regarding elder abuse and its association with substance abuse. Objective: The objective of this study was to evaluate the association of state-reported domestic elder abuse with regional levels of substance abuse. Methods: Census demographic and elder abuse data were sorted into substate regions to align with the substance use treatment-planning regions for 2269 US counties. From the 2269 US counties there were 229 substate regions in which there were 213,444 investigations of abuse. For the other Ns (reports and substantiations) there were fewer counties and regions. See first sentence of data analyses and first sentence of results. Results: Elder abuse report rates ranged from .03 to .41% (80 regions), investigation rates .001 to .34% (229 regions), and substantiation rates 0 to .22% (184 regions). Elder abuse investigations and substantiations were associated with various forms of substance abuse. Higher investigation rates were significantly associated with a higher rate of any illicit drug use in the past month, a lower median household income, lower proportion of the population graduated high school, and higher population of Hispanics. Higher substantiation rates were significantly associated with higher rate of illicit drug use in the past month and higher population of Hispanics. Conclusion: It may be worthwhile for administrators of violence programs to pay particular attention to substance abuse among their clients and in their community's environment, especially if older persons are involved. Scientific Significance: Measures of documented elder abuse at the county level are minimal. To be able to associate substance abuse with elder abuse is a significant finding, realizing that the substance abuse can be by the victim or the perpetrator of elder abuse.
Copyright 2012, Informa HealthCare
Kahan M; Wilson L; Mailis-Gagnon A; Srivastava A. Canadian guideline for safe and effective use of opioids for chronic noncancer pain. Clinical summary for family physicians. Part 2: special populations. (review). Canadian Family Physician 57(11): 1269-1276, 2011. (66 refs.)Objective: To provide family physicians with a practical clinical summary of opioid prescribing for specific populations based on recommendations from the Canadian Guideline for Safe and Effective Use of Opioids for Chronic Non-Cancer Pain. Quality of evidence: Researchers for the guideline conducted a systematic review of the literature, focusing on reviews of the effectiveness and safety of opioids in specific populations. Main message: Family physicians can minimize the risks of overdose, sedation, misuse, and addiction through the use of strategies tailored to the age and health status of patients. For patients at high risk of addiction, opioids should be reserved for well-defined nociceptive or neuropathic pain conditions that have not responded to first-line treatments. Opioids should be titrated slowly, with frequent dispensing and close monitoring for signs of misuse. Suspected opioid addiction is managed with structured opioid therapy, methadone or buprenorphine treatment, or abstinence-based treatment. Patients with mood and anxiety disorders tend to have a blunted analgesic response to opioids, are at higher risk of misuse, and are often taking sedating drugs that interact adversely with opioids. Precautions similar to those for other high-risk patients should be employed. The opioid should be tapered if the patient's pain remains severe despite an adequate trial of opioid therapy. In the elderly, sedation, falls, and overdose can be minimized through lower initial doses, slower titration, benzodiazepine tapering, and careful patient education. For pregnant women taking daily opioid therapy, the opioids should be slowly tapered and discontinued. If this is not possible, they should be tapered to the lowest effective dose. Opioid-dependent pregnant women should receive methadone treatment. Adolescents are at high risk of opioid overdose, misuse, and addiction. Patients with adolescents living at home should store their opioid medication safely. Adolescents rarely require long-term opioid therapy. Conclusion: Family physicians must take into consideration the patient's age, psychiatric status, level of risk of addiction, and other factors when prescribing opioids for chronic pain.
Copyright 2011, College of Family Physicians, Canada
Khan R; Chatton A; Thorens G; Achab S; Nallet A; Broers B et al. Validation of the French version of the Alcohol, Smoking and Substance Involvement Screening Test (ASSIST) in the elderly. Substance Abuse Treatment, Prevention and Policy 7: e-article 14, 2012. (22 refs.)Background: Substance use disorders seem to be an under considered health problem amongst the elderly. The Alcohol, Smoking and Substance Involvement Screening Test (ASSIST), was developed by the World Health Organization to detect substance use disorders. The present study evaluates the psychometric properties of the French version of ASSIST in a sample of elderly people attending geriatric outpatient facilities (primary care or psychiatric facilities). Methods: One hundred persons older than 65 years were recruited from clients attending a geriatric policlinic day care centre and from geriatric psychiatric facilities. Measures included ASSIST, Addiction Severity Index (ASI), Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI-Plus), Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT), Revised Fagerstrom Tolerance Questionnaire-Smoking (RTQ) and MiniMental State(MMS). Results: Concurrent validity was established with significant correlations between ASSIST scores, scores from ASI, AUDIT, RTQ, and significantly higher ASSIST scores for patients with a MINI-Plus diagnosis of abuse or dependence. The ASSIST questionnaire was found to have high internal consistency for the total substance involvement along with specific substance involvement as assessed by Cronbach's alpha, ranging from 0.66, to 0.89. Conclusions: The findings demonstrate that ASSIST is a valid screening test for identifying substance use disorders in elderly.
Copyright 2012, Biomed Central
Kilbourne BJ; Cummings SM; Levine R. Alcohol diagnoses among older Tennessee Medicare beneficiaries: Race and gender differences. International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry 27(5): 483-490, 2012. (45 refs.)Background: These analyses bolster a sparse body of research focusing on the rate of alcohol disorders among older adults, particularly race and gender subgroups. Methods: We based the study on cross-sectional data from all Medicare billed physician/patient encounters. Analyses of these data included cross-tabulations, difference of means tests, and difference of proportions tests, logistic regression and multinomial logistic regression. These analyses were based Medicare billing records from physician/patient encounters in Tennessee. Data included Tennessee Medicare billings beneficiaries enrolled in Medicare Part B, who saw a physician at least once in 2000. Patients with billings containing ICD-9 codes: 303 (alcohol abuse), 305 (alcohol dependence), 291 (alcohol psychosis), or 571.1-571.3 (alcohol-related liver disease including cirrhosis of the liver) as to primary diagnosis were considered alcohol-disordered. Results: Analyses reveal the overall rate of alcohol disorders, subgroup variation in rates and differences in pattern of specific disorders. Merely 0.04% of Tennessee Medicare beneficiaries were diagnosed with any type of alcoholism, a rate much lower than those reported in previous studies. Rates of alcohol disorders varied across groups, with significantly higher rates for Black men. The type alcohol disorder also varied across groups. Conclusions: Many encounters with the medical system result in missed opportunities to identify and treat alcohol disorders, a significant risk factor among older adults. Alcoholism both triggers and exacerbates many chronic conditions among older adults. The earlier in the disease trajectory the more of these conditions could be prevented or more efficiently managed, resulting in substantial savings in health care costs.
Copyright 2012, Wiley-Blackwell
Kim JW; Lee DY; Lee BC; Jung MH; Kim H; Choi YS et al. Alcohol and cognition in the elderly: A review. (review). Psychiatry Investigation 9(1): 8-16, 2012. (123 refs.)Consumption of large amounts of alcohol is known to have negative effects, but consumption in smaller amounts may be protective. The effect of alcohol may be greater in the elderly than in younger adults, particularly with regard to cognition. However, the drinking pattern that will provide optimal protection against dementia and cognitive decline in the elderly has not been systematically investigated. The present paper is a critical review of research on the effect of alcohol on cognitive function and dementia in the elderly. Studies published from 1971 to 2011 related to alcohol and cognition in the elderly were reviewed using a PubMed search. Alcohol may have both a neurotoxic and neuroprotective effect. Longitudinal and brain imaging studies in the elderly show that excessive alcohol consumption may increase the risk of cognitive dysfunction and dementia, but low to moderate alcohol intake may protect against cognitive decline and dementia and provide cardiovascular benefits. Evidence suggesting that low to moderate alcohol consumption in the elderly protects against cognitive decline and dementia exists; however, because of varying methodology and a lack of standardized definitions, these findings should be interpreted with caution. It is important to conduct more, well-designed studies to identify the alcohol drinking pattern that will optimally protect the elderly against cognitive decline and dementia.
Copyright 2012, Korean Neuropsychiatric Association
Kleykamp BA; Heishman SJ. The older smoker. (commentary). Journal of the American Medical Association 306(8): 876-877, 2011. (10 refs.)The number of persons in the United States 65 and older is projected to double between 2010 and 2050. Clinicians should consider that older smokers will be an increasing portion of the patient population, and that these smokers might require modification of treatment for smoking cessation. Age-related differences are discussed which might be anticipated to impact the efficacy of pharmacotherapy. The author highlights the absence of research on how age-related differences may impact smoking-related outcomes. It is noted that the Affordable Care Act allows individuals not diagnosed with a tobacco-related disease to receive tobacco-cessation counseling, however research is needed to determine whether treatments effective in younger smokers are also effective with older smokers.
Copyright 2011, American Medical Association
Li Y; Jensen GA. Effects of drinking on hospital stays and emergency room visits among older adults. Journal of Aging and Health 24(1): 67-91, 2012. (34 refs.)Objective: To evaluate whether alcohol drinking influences emergency room (ER) visits or hospital admissions among adults aged 65 and older. Method: Data from two independent national surveys are used to estimate multivariate logit models that quantify the relationship between drinking and ER visits and hospital admissions. The authors distinguish between ER visits linked to a hospital admission for that individual and ER visits not linked to an admission. Results: The authors find no significant effects of alcohol consumption on either ER visits or hospital admissions among older adults. These findings occur in both data sets, and for both men and women. Distinguishing between different types of ER visits makes no difference. Discussion: Analysis of two large and nationally representative data sets suggests that among older adults drinking alcohol, or even heavily drinking alcohol, does not raise or lower the risk of a hospital admission or the risk of an ER visit.
Copyright 2012, Sage Publications
Liew HP. Trajectories of alcohol consumption among the elderly widowed population: A semi-parametric, group-based modeling approach. Advances In Life Course Research 16(3): 124-131, 2011. (41 refs.)Even though research on the use, misuse, and abuse of alcohol among the elderly has burgeoned in recent decades (see reviews by Johnson, 2000; Kirchner et al., 2007; Patterson & Jeste, 1999), only a few empirical studies have explored the post-bereavement alcohol consumption trajectories among the elderly widowed population. To fill this research gap, this study aims to examine the temporal processes underlying the relationship between widowhood and subsequent drinking behaviors among the elderly widowed population and to examine the potential predictors of these trajectories. The empirical work of this study is based on longitudinal data from the 1992 to 2008 Health and Retirement Study (HRS). A semi-parametric mixture model (SPMM) is used to estimate the distinctive trajectories of post-bereavement alcohol consumption. Results reveal that the type of drinking trajectory that characterize the post-bereavement drinking behavior of an individual is largely dependent upon the characteristics of the individuals (e.g. gender), the health conditions and health behavior of deceased spouse, pre-bereavement alcohol consumption, and depression. Another important finding is that bereaved men seem to have greater difficulty overcoming the transitional burden associated with widowhood.
Copyright 2011, Elsevier Science
Lin JC; Guerrieri JG; Moore AA. Drinking patterns and the development of functional limitations in older adults: Llongitudinal analyses of the Health and Retirement Survey. Journal of Aging and Health 23(5): 806-821, 2011. (37 refs.)Objective: To examine whether consistent low-risk drinking is associated with lower risk of developing functional limitations among older adults. Method: Data were obtained from five waves of the Health and Retirement Study. Function was assessed by questions measuring four physical abilities and five instrumental activities of daily living. Five different drinking patterns were determined using data over two consecutive survey periods. Results: Over the follow-up periods, 38.6% of older adults developed functional limitations. Consistent low-risk drinkers had lower odds of developing functional limitations compared with consistent abstainers, and the effect of consistent low-risk drinking was greater among those aged 50 to 64 years compared with those aged >= 65 years. Other drinking patterns were not associated with lower odds of incident functional limitation. Discussion: Consistent low-risk drinking was associated with lower odds of developing functional limitations, and this association was greater among older middle-aged adults aged 50 to 64 years.
Copyright 2011, Sage Publications
Lin JC; Karno MP; Grella CE; Warda U; Liao DH; Hu PF et al. Alcohol, tobacco, and nonmedical drug use disorders in us adults aged 65 years and older: Data From the 2001-2002 National Epidemiologic Survey of Alcohol and Related Conditions. American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry 19(3): 292-299, 2011. (48 refs.)Objectives: To examine the prevalence, sociodemographic, and health-related correlates of substance use disorders, including alcohol, tobacco, and nonmedical drug use among adults aged 65 years and older. Design: The 2001-2002 National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions, a cross-sectional survey of a population-based sample. Setting: The United States. Participants: Eight thousand two hundred five adults aged 65 years and older. Measurements: Prevalence of lifetime and past 12-month Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, determined alcohol, tobacco, and nonmedical drug use disorders. Results: Prevalence of any substance use disorder was 21.1% during the lifetime and 5.4% in the past 12 months. Lifetime and past 12-month alcohol use disorders were 16.1% and 1.5%; tobacco use disorders were 8.7% and 4.0%; and nonmedical drug use disorders were 0.6% and 0.2%, respectively. Younger age was associated with greater odds of any lifetime or past 12-month substance use disorders. Men and those who were divorced or separated had greater odds of both lifetime alcohol and tobacco use disorders. Very good or excellent self-rated health was associated with lower odds of lifetime and past 12-month tobacco use disorders. Younger age and being divorced or separated were associated with greater odds of lifetime nonmedical drug use disorder. Conclusions: More than one in five older adults ever had a substance use disorder, and more than 1 in 20 had a disorder in the past 12 months, primarily involving alcohol or tobacco. Older adults have increased comorbidities and use of medications, which can increase risks associated with substance use.
Copyright 2011, Lippincott, Williams & Wilkins
Lin WC; Zhang JY; Leung GY; Clark RE. Chronic physical conditions in older adults with mental illness and/or substance use disorders. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society 59(10): 1913-1921, 2011. (30 refs.)OBJECTIVES: To examine the association between mental illness and chronic physical conditions in older adults and investigate whether co-occurring substance use disorders (SUDs) are associated with greater risk of chronic physical conditions beyond mental illness alone. DESIGN: A retrospective cross-sectional study. SETTING: Medicare and Medicaid programs in Massachusetts. PARTICIPANTS: Massachusetts Medicare and Medicaid members aged 65 and older as of January 1, 2005 (N = 679,182). MEASUREMENTS: Diagnoses recorded on Medicare and Medicaid claims were used to identify mental illness, SUDs, and 15 selected chronic physical conditions. RESULTS: Community-dwelling older adults with mental illness or SUDs had higher adjusted risk for 14 of the 15 selected chronic physical conditions than those without these disorders; the only exception was eye diseases. Moreover, those with co-occurring SUDs and mental illness had the highest adjusted risk for 11 of these chronic conditions. For residents of long-term care facilities, mental illness and SUDs were only moderately associated with the risk of chronic physical conditions. CONCLUSION: Community-dwelling older adults with mental illness or SUDs, particularly when they co-occurred, had substantially greater medical comorbidity than those without these disorders. For residents of long-term care facilities, the generally uniformly high medical comorbidity may have moderated this relationship, although their high prevalence of mental illness and SUDs signified greater healthcare needs. These findings strongly suggest the imminent need for integrating general medical care, mental health services, and addiction health services for older adults with mental illness or SUDs.
Copyright 2011, Wiley-Blackwell
Lin WC; Zhang JY; Leung GY; Clark RE. Twelve-month diagnosed prevalence of behavioral health disorders among elderly Medicare and Medicaid members. American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry 19(11): 970-979, 2011. (37 refs.)Objectives: We examined the 12-month diagnosed prevalence of behavioral health disorders (BHDs) and dementia among elderly Medicare and Medicaid members in Massachusetts by primary payment source group (dual eligible, Medicare only, and Medicaid only) and age group (65-74 years, 75-84 years, and 85 years and older). Design: A retrospective cross-sectional study. Setting: Medicare and Medicaid programs. Participants: Massachusetts Medicare or Medicaid enrollees age 65 and older as of January 1, 2005, (N = 679,182). Measurements: International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification diagnosis codes recorded on Medicare and Medicaid claims were used to identify the BHDs. Results: The 12-month diagnosed prevalence was 19.4% for any BHD and 11.2% for dementia. The most common BHDs by disease category were major depression (severe mental illness [SMI]), other depression (other mental illness [OMI]), and alcohol abuse or dependence (subtance use disorder [SUD]). Dual eligibles had a considerably higher diagnosed prevalence of any BHD (38.8%), compared with 16.1% in the Medicare only group. The 12-month diagnosed prevalence of SMI, OMI, and dementia was higher in the older-age groups. Co-occurring SUD was higher for younger dual eligibiles. Dementia and mental illness co-occurred at much higher rates for dual eligibles than for either of the single-insurance groups. This combination increased with age in all three groups. Conclusions: The 12-month prevalence of BHDs and dementia among elderly dual eligibles was disproportionately higher than other elderly Medicare or Medicaid members. However, access barriers to behavioral health services for this vulnerable population could be significant because Medicare and Medicaid payment limitations resulted in financial disincentives for providing these services.
Copyright 2011, Lippincott, Williams & Wilkins
Lo AHY; Pachana NA; Byrne GJ; Sachdev PS. A review of tobacco, alcohol, adiposity, and activity as predictors of cognitive change. (review). Clinical Gerontologist 35(2): 148-194, 2012. (78 refs.)The global population is now aging rapidly, and cognitive impairment and dementia will be associated with increased disease burden worldwide. Recent research efforts have been directed at identifying risk and protective factors in both middle and late life in order to identify potential preventive interventions. Evidence from recent reviews indicates that modifiable risk factors such as tobacco smoking, alcohol consumption, adiposity, and activities have significant impacts on cognitive function and dementia. However, it is not clear how these risk factors might influence within-person cognitive changes or rates of cognitive decline. We searched Medline and PsycINFO for prospective studies examining the effects of baseline and within-person changes in drinking, smoking, activity level, and adiposity on either cognitive functioning or cognitive changes. Because of the heterogeneity in methodology, a narrative review was used to summarize the findings. Forty-nine studies were found to be relevant to the current review-10 on smoking, 5 on adiposity, 12 on drinking, and 22 on activity level. This review found that smoking in general increased the rate of memory decline but not decline in language or visuospatial reasoning abilities. No consistent relationship between adiposity and change in global cognitive functioning could be found, regardless of whether adiposity was measured in mid-life or late life. Moderate alcohol consumption was shown to slow down decline in global cognitive functioning but not in specific domains. Finally, an active lifestyle physically, cognitively, and socially appeared to offer the most promise of slowing decline in global cognitive functioning, memory, and perceptual speed. Intervention programs targeted at modifying these lifestyle factors may have the potential of improving physical, mental, and cognitive health of our aging population, as well as enhancing overall quality of life.
Copyright 2012, Taylor & Francis
Martin F; Lichtenberg PA; Templin TN. A longitudinal study: Casino gambling attitudes, motivations, and gambling patterns among urban elders. Journal of Gambling Studies 27(2): 287-297, 2011. (34 refs.)Guided by self-determination theory, the main purpose of this study was to explore demographic characteristics, attitudes toward casinos, and self-reported intrinsic and extrinsic reasons for casino gambling by urban elders. The study hypothesized that individuals would more frequently report intrinsic motivations for casino gambling (e.g., entertainment, enjoyment) rather than extrinsic motivation (e.g., financial gain). This longitudinal sample included 247 urban elders older who were 60 years and older and who had participated in surveys in 2002 and 2004. The initial survey consisted of (a) demographic items, (b) five items to measure attitudes toward casino gambling, (c) questions inquiring about motivations for casino gambling, and (d) questions about gambling frequency. The follow-up survey was an expanded questionnaire which still included these items. The sample consisted of the 247 participants, over 200 of whom were African-Americans, 188 were female, and 98 of the participants had a post graduate education. About half were widowed, and the sample generally reported a low income. The results supported the theoretical perspective underlying the project. The hypothesis that more participants would endorse intrinsic motivations for casino gambling rather than extrinsic motivations was supported. The implications of these findings represent for social workers, gambling counselors and health care services providers an important step toward understanding the attitudes, behaviors, and motivational factors involved in casino gambling among older adults.
Copyright 2011, Springer
Mezuk B; Bohnert ASB; Ratliff S; Zivin K. Job strain, depressive symptoms, and drinking behavior among older adults: Results: from the health and retirement study. Journals of Gerontology. Series B, Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences 66(4): 426-434, 2011. (56 refs.)Objective. To examine the relationship between job strain and two indicators of mental health, depression and alcohol misuse, among currently employed older adults. Method. Data come from the 2004 and 2006 waves of the Health and Retirement Study (N = 2,902). Multivariable logistic regression modeling was used to determine the association between job strain, indicated by the imbalance of job stress and job satisfaction, with depression and alcohol misuse. Results. High job strain (indicated by high job stress combined with low job satisfaction) was associated with elevated depressive symptoms (odds ratio [OR] = 2.98, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.99-4.45) relative to low job strain after adjusting for sociodemographic characteristics, labor force status, and occupation. High job stress combined with high job satisfaction (OR = 1.93) and low job stress combined with low job satisfaction (OR = 1.94) were also associated with depressive symptoms to a lesser degree. Job strain was unrelated to either moderate or heavy drinking. These associations did not vary by gender or age. Discussion. Job strain is associated with elevated depressive symptoms among older workers. In contrast to results from investigations of younger workers, job strain was unrelated to alcohol misuse. These findings can inform the development and implementation of workplace health promotion programs that reflect the mental health needs of the aging workforce.
Copyright 2011, Oxford University Press
Moore AA; Blow FC; Hoffing M; Welgreen S; Davis JW; Lin JC et al. Primary care-based intervention to reduce at-risk drinking in older adults: a randomized controlled trial. Addiction 106(1): 111-120, 2011. (36 refs.)Aims: To examine whether a multi-faceted intervention among older at-risk drinking primary care patients reduced at-risk drinking and alcohol consumption at 3 and 12 months. Design: Randomized controlled trial. Setting: Three primary care sites in southern California. Participants: Six hundred and thirty-one adults aged >= 55 years who were at-risk drinkers identified by the Comorbidity Alcohol Risk Evaluation Tool (CARET) were assigned randomly between October 2004 and April 2007 during an office visit to receive a booklet on healthy behaviors or an intervention including a personalized report, booklet on alcohol and aging, drinking diary, advice from the primary care provider and telephone counseling from a health educator at 2, 4 and 8 weeks. Measurements: The primary outcome was the proportion of participants meeting at-risk criteria, and secondary outcomes were number of drinks in past 7 days, heavy drinking (four or more drinks in a day) in the past 7 days and risk score. Findings: At 3 months, relative to controls, fewer intervention group participants were at-risk drinkers [odds ratio (OR) 0.41; 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.22-0.75]; they reported drinking fewer drinks in the past 7 days [rate ratio (RR) 0.79; 95% CI 0.70-0.90], less heavy drinking (OR 0.46; 95% CI 0.22-0.99) and had lower risk scores (RR 0.77 95% CI 0.63-0.94). At 12 months, only the difference in number of drinks remained statistically significant (RR 0.87; 95% CI 0.76-0.99). Conclusions: A multi-faceted intervention among older at-risk drinkers in primary care does not reduce the proportions of at-risk or heavy drinkers, but does reduce amount of drinking at 12 months.
Copyright 2011, Society for the Study of Addiction to Alcohol and Other Drugs
Morgan ML; Brosi WA; Brosi MW. Restorying older adults' narratives about self and substance abuse. American Journal of Family Therapy 39(5): 444-455, 2011. (31 refs.)Substance abuse affects millions of adults each year, of whom one in five are older adults. Given pervasive stereotypes about later life and the ways in which older persons internalize such messages, dealing with and using previous work on substance abuse, the social breakdown syndrome, and narrative therapy, we describe the importance of and ways for marriage and family therapists to work with older persons facing the compounding experiences of ageism and substance abuse. The purpose of this study was to: 1) identify the prevalence of substance abuse among those 65 and older; 2) document and emphasize the unique challenges of addressing this issue among those 65 and older; and 3) provide an application of the narrative approach to working with older persons presenting with substance abuse.
Copyright 2011, Taylor & Francis
Moy I; Crome P; Crome I; Fisher M. Systematic and narrative review of treatment for older people with substance problems. (review). European Geriatric Medicine 2(4): 212-236, 2011. (47 refs.)Purpose: Substance misuse among older people is a growing concern. Treatment outcomes are perceived to be poor. The aim of the study was to examine the evidence for effective treatment for older substance misusers. Methods: PubMedicine, The Cochrane Library, Medline, Project CORK, and EMBASE were searched up to January 2007. Trials were included if participants were over the age of 50, sample size was sufficient, follow-up was undertaken, baseline and outcome measures were reported, the design was randomised controlled (RCT), controlled without randomisation or non-experimental descriptive, and pharmacological or psychological treatments for alcohol, nicotine, prescription medications or illicit drugs were investigated. Sixteen papers met inclusion criteria. Results: Most studies were carried out in the USA. Sample sizes ranged from 24 to 3622 (mean = 704) with follow-up from 1 month to 5 years (mean = 18 months). Eight randomised controlled trials and eight descriptive studies, covering alcohol with or without drug misuse (n = 11); methadone maintenance (n = 1), prescription drugs (n = 1), smoking (n = 3) were examined systematically. All had baseline and outcome measures, which varied across studies. Outcome depended on self-report in 11 out of 16 studies: most did not utilise biological measures or other corroboration. A range of psychological treatment interventions was tested. Older people do respond to treatment, do not achieve worse outcomes than younger counterparts, and sometimes do even better. Conclusions: This is the first systematic review on this topic. These preliminary results show an optimistic picture, which provides a foundation for further research to determine the most appropriate treatments for this group.
Copyright 2011, European Union Geriatric Medicine Society
Nadkarni A; Acosta D; Rodriguez G; Prince M; Ferri CP. The psychological impact of heavy drinking among the elderly on their co-residents: The 10/66 group population based survey in the Dominican Republic. Drug and Alcohol Dependence 114(1): 82-86, 2011. (41 refs.)Background: There is very limited literature on alcohol use among the elderly and little is known about the impact it has on family and caregivers, especially in low and middle income countries. Aim: To estimate the independent effect of heavy alcohol use among the elderly on the psychological health of their co-residents. Methods: This is a secondary analysis using data from the comprehensive cross-sectional survey of the 10/66 dementia research group population-based research programme in the Dominican Republic. The characteristics of the elderly participants as well as the co-residents were described. The independent association of heavy drinking among the participants with psychological morbidity in their co-residents was estimated. Different models were generated to rule out potential mediating effects of disability and behavioural symptoms. Results: Prevalence of heavy alcohol use in the elderly in Dominican Republic was 10.6%. There was a statistically significant independent effect of heavy alcohol use by the elderly on their co-residents mental health (PR = 1.47; 95% CI 1.07-2.01) which was not accounted by disability (Sobel-Goodman test, p = 0.15). Severity of psychological and behavioural symptoms partially (29.1% of the total effect) explained this association (Sobel-Goodman mediation test, p = 0.006). Conclusions: Health services for the elderly in low and middle income countries will have to be configured around detection of alcohol problems among the elderly as well as offering appropriate support to their co-residents.
Copyright 2011, Elsevier Science
Naughton C; Drennan J; Lyons I; Lafferty A; Treacy M; Phelan A et al. Elder abuse and neglect in Ireland: results from a national prevalence survey. Age and Ageing 41(1): 98-103, 2012. (27 refs.)Objective: to measure the 12-month prevalence of elder abuse and neglect in community-dwelling older people in Ireland and examine the risk profile of people who experienced mistreatment and that of the perpetrators. Design: cross-sectional general population survey. Setting: community. Participants: people aged 65 years or older living in the community. Methods: information was collected in face-to-face interviews on abuse types, socioeconomic, health, and social support characteristics of the population. Data were examined using descriptive statistics and logistic regression, odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) are presented. Results: the prevalence of elder abuse and neglect was 2.2% (95% CI: 1.41-2.94) in the previous 12 months. The frequency of mistreatment type was financial 1.3%, psychological 1.2%, physical abuse 0.5%, neglect 0.3%, and sexual abuse 0.05%. In the univariate analysis lower income OR 2.39 (95% CI: 1.01-5.69), impaired physical health OR 3.41 (95% CI: 1.74-6.65), mental health OR 6.33 (95% CI: 3.33-12.0), and poor social support OR 4.91 (95% CI: 2.1-11.5) were associated with a higher risk of mistreatment but only social support and mental health remained independent predictors. Among perpetrators adult children (50%) were most frequently identified. Unemployment (50%) and addiction (20%) were characteristics of this group.
Copyright 2012, Oxford University Press
Nebes RD; Pollock BG; Halligan EM; Houck P; Saxton JA. Cognitive slowing associated with elevated serum anticholinergic activity in older individuals is decreased by caffeine use. American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry 19(2): 169-175, 2011. (32 refs.)Objectives: This study examined whether some of the age-associated decrements in basic cognitive resources (information-processing speed and working memory) result from anticholinergic medication use (as measured by serum anticholinergic activity [SAA]) and whether such decrements are lessened by caffeine. Design: Cross-sectional observational study. Setting: University medical center. Participants: One hundred fifty-two normal-elderly community volunteers. Measurements: Two tests each of information-processing speed and of working memory were administered, and blood samples were drawn before and after cognitive testing to determine serum levels of anticholinergic activity and of paraxanthine-a caffeine metabolite. Results: Elevated SAA was associated with a significant but modest slowing in information-processing time but only in those individuals who had low levels of serum paraxanthine. SAA did not correlate with performance on tests of working memory. Conclusions: These results suggest that anticholinergic medications are a relatively minor contributor to the decrements in basic processing resources commonly found in studies of normal aging.
Copyright 2011, Lippincott, Willams & Wilkins
Nelson R. Cannabis use in long-term care: An emerging issue for nurses. (editorial). American Journal of Nursing 111(4): 19- 20, 2011. (0 refs.)
Norderyd O; Henriksen BM; Jansson H. Periodontal disease in Norwegian old-age pensioners. Gerodontology 29(1): 4-8, 2012. (21 refs.)Purpose: To identify factors of importance for periodontal health and disease on an old-age Norwegian population. Materials and methods: From a random sample of 1152 urban and rural elderly Norwegians, aged 67 years or older, 582 individuals were agreed to participate in the study. After exclusion of edentulous individuals, 394 individuals were remained. A standardised clinical examination was performed by the same examiner. In conjunction with the clinical examination, a questionnaire was filled out regarding demographic and social status, educational level, tobacco habits and general condition. Results: In the examined population, 33% of the subjects had periodontal disease. Out of those, 12% had severe periodontitis, that is, 3 periodontal pockets 6 mm. All variables were tested separately in a logistic regression model with periodontal pockets 6 mm and above, as the outcome variable. After univariate testing the following variables were included in a multivariate logistic regression model: daily smoking, higher plaque score, rural living and lower education. Only daily smoking remained significantly correlated to periodontal disease in the multivariate model. Conclusions: This study has shown a prevalence of periodontal disease in 33% of the study population. Out of those approximately 12% had more severe periodontitis. Daily tobacco use was the only factor significantly correlated to presence of periodontal disease.
Copyright 2012, Wiley-Blackwell
Ong MK; Xu HY; Zhang LL; Azocar F; Ettner SL. Effect of Medicare Part D benzodiazepine exclusion on psychotropic use in benzodiazepine users. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society 60(7): 1292-1297, 2012. (18 refs.)Objectives: To evaluate the effect of the Medicare benzodiazepine coverage exclusion on psychotropic use of benzodiazepine users. Design: Prepost design with concurrent control group. Setting General community. Participants Intervention and comparison cohorts of individuals drawn from the same insurer who were prescribed benzodiazepines through the end of 2005. Intervention participants (n = 19,339) were elderly adults from a large, national Medicare Advantage plan subject to benzodiazepine exclusion as a result of the Medicare Modernization Act (MMA). Comparison participants (n = 3,488) were near-elderly individuals enrolled in a managed care plan not subject to the MMA benzodiazepine exclusion. Measurements: Any psychotropic drug use and expenditures. Results: In the intervention cohort, benzodiazepine use and expenditures significantly declined from 100% and $134 in 2005 to 74.8% and $59, respectively, in 2007. Nonbenzodiazepine psychotropic drug use and expenditures significantly increased from 35.8% and $163 in 2005 to 39.5% and $207, respectively, in 2007. In the comparison cohort, benzodiazepine use and expenditures also significantly declined from 100% and $173 in 2005 to 57.5% and $105, respectively, in 2007, but nonbenzodiazepine psychotropic drug use and expenditures significantly declined from 55.4% and $647 in 2005 to 45.1% and $572, respectively, in 2007. Changes in antidepressant and anxiolytic use were the primary cause of changes in nonbenzodiazepine psychotropic drugs in both cohorts. Conclusion: Use of benzodiazepines continued in elderly adults despite negative financial incentives, possibly because of the low costs of such medications. Although some substitution occurred with antidepressants and anxiolytics, the magnitude of this increase did not fully offset the reduction in benzodiazepine use.
Copyright 2012, Wiley-Blackwell
Orsitto G; Turi V; Venezia A; Fulvio F; Manca C. Relation of secondhand smoking to mild cognitive impairment in older inpatients. Scientific World Journal : e-article 726948, 2012. (29 refs.)Up to now, controversy still exists regarding the role of secondhand smoking (SHS) in developing cognitive impairment. This study aimed to evaluate the prevalence of SHS in hospitalized older patients with cognitive deficit, particularly in those with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Smoking history was classified into four groups: never smokers, former-active smokers/no SHS, active smokers, and secondhand smokers, and cognitive function into three levels: normal cognition (C), MCI, and dementia. A total of 933 older subjects with diagnoses of MCI (n - 98), dementia (n - 124), or C (n - 711) were enrolled in this cross-sectional study. As expected, patients with dementia had significantly higher frequency of former-active smokers than cognitively normal. Moreover, patients with MCI showed a significantly higher frequency of active and secondhand smokers than patients with dementia or normal cognition. A smoking history is very frequent in older patients with dementia. Patients with MCI had even higher rate of exposure to active or secondhand smoking.
Copyright 2012, Hindawi Publishing Corporation
Parsons C; Johnston S; Mathie E; Baron N; Machen I; Amador S et al. Potentially inappropriate prescribing in older people with dementia in care homes: A retrospective analysis. Drugs & Aging 29(2): 143-155, 2012. (74 refs.)Background: Older people in general and care home residents in particular are at high risk of suboptimal or inappropriate prescribing. To date, research into potentially inappropriate prescribing (PIP) has not focused on care home residents and/or has not utilized the recently developed and validated Screening Tool of Older Persons' potentially inappropriate Prescriptions (STOPP) criteria. Objective: The aim of this study was to estimate the prevalence of PIP in older people with dementia living in six residential care homes in England, using the STOPP criteria. Methods: A retrospective analysis was conducted using medication data collected for older people with dementia in six residential care homes in England who participated in the prospective, longitudinal EVIDEM - End of Life (EoL) study. Of the 133 residents recruited to the study, medication administration records were available for and reviewed at two timepoints (approximately 16 weeks apart) for 119 residents and 110 residents, respectively. The prevalence of PIP at these timepoints was determined using 31 of the 65 STOPP criteria applicable when there is no access to residents' medical records. Results: At the first timepoint, 68 potentially inappropriate medications (PIMs) were identified. Fifty-five residents (46.2%) were prescribed one or more PIM(s), eleven (9.2%) were prescribed two or more PIMs and two (1.7%) were prescribed three PIMs. Thirteen of the 31 STOPP criteria utilized in this study (41.9%) were used to identify PIP. Long-term (i.e. >1 month) neuroleptics (antipsychotics) were the most frequently prescribed PIMs (n = 25; 21.0%), followed by non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) for >3 months, proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) at maximum therapeutic dosage for >8 weeks, tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs) in patients with dementia and long-term (i.e. >1 month), long-acting benzodiazepines. At the second timepoint, 57 PIMs were identified; 45 residents (40.9%) were prescribed one or more PIM(s) and 10 (9.1%) were prescribed two or more PIMs, but only one resident (0.9%) was prescribed three PIMs. Of the 31 STOPP criteria utilized in this study, ten (32.3%) were used to identify PIP. Long-term (i.e. >1 month) antipsychotics were again the most frequently prescribed PIMs (n = 21; 19.1%), followed by PPIs at maximum therapeutic dosage for >8 weeks, NSAIDS for >3 months and TCAs in patients with dementia. A significant correlation was found at both timepoints between the number of medicines prescribed and occurrence of PIP. Conclusions: This study found that over two-fifths of older people with dementia residing in six residential care homes in England were prescribed at least one PIM at each timepoint. Long-term (i.e. >1 month) antipsychotics, NSAID use for >3 months and PPI use at maximum therapeutic dosage for >8 weeks were the most prevalent PIMs. Regular medication review that targets, but is not limited to, these medications is required to reduce PIP in the residential care home setting. The STOPP criteria represent a useful tool to facilitate such review in this patient population.
Copyright 2012, Adis International
Payne M; Gething M; Moore AA; Reid MC. Primary care providers' perspectives on psychoactive medication disorders in older adults. American Journal of Geriatric Pharmacotherapy 9(3): 164-172, 2011. (29 refs.)Background: Compared with younger adults, older adults consume a disproportionate percentage of pain and sleep medications. Some studies have reported that psychoactive medication misuse and abuse in older populations is a significant problem. Objectives: The aim of this study was to understand the perspective of primary care providers (PCPs) regarding the extent and clinical presentations of misuse and abuse of psychoactive medications in older patients and to explore PCPs' perceived barriers to identifying affected individuals. Methods: Seventeen physicians and 5 nurse practitioners from 2 ambulatory care practices serving older adults in New York City participated in this study. Six focus group discussions were audiotaped and transcribed. Two raters coded transcripts to identify recurring themes. Qualitative analysis software was employed for data coding and sorting purposes. Results: Although PCPs indicated that only a small percentage of older patients were actively misusing or abusing their psychoactive medications (average estimate given by providers, 8%), they felt that these patients placed significant time burdens on them. Perceived risk factors included psychiatric disorders, previous substance abuse history, and cognitive impairment, but many PCPs found it impossible to predict which patients were at increased risk. PCPs identified multiple barriers to identifying affected patients, including lack of communication (between provider and patient, provider and patients' caregivers, and between different providers), nonspecific symptoms, and the lack of a clear definition of misuse and abuse. Conclusions: The lack of a clear definition, absence of well-defined risk factors, and ambiguous clinical manifestations of psychoactive medication misuse and abuse present substantial barriers to diagnosis. A standard, age-appropriate definition could help PCPs establish a diagnosis, clarify what constitutes appropriate psychoactive medication use, define the extent of the problem, and pave the way for the development of effective screening and diagnostic tools.
Copyright 2011, Elsevier Science
Peisah C; Chan DKY; McKay R; Kurrle SE; Reutens SG. Practical guidelines for the acute emergency sedation of the severely agitated older patient. Internal Medicine Journal 41(9): 651-657, 2011. (31 refs.)The vulnerability of older people to serious underlying medical illness and adverse effects of psychotropics means that the safe and effective treatment of severe agitation can be lifesaving, the primary management goals being to create a safe environment for the patient and others, and to facilitate assessment and treatment. We review the literature on acute sedation and provide practical guidelines for the management of this problem addressing a range of issues, including aetiology, assessment, pharmacological and non-pharmacological strategies, restraint and consent. The assessment of the agitated older patient must include concurrent assessment of the likely aetiology of, the risks posed by, and the risks/benefits of management options for, the agitation. A range of environmental modifications and non-pharmacological strategies might be implemented to maximize the safety of the patient and others. Physical restraints should only be considered after appropriate assessment and trial of alternative management and if the risk of restraint is less than the risk of the behaviour. Limited evidence supports a range of pharmacological options from traditional antipsychotics to atypical antipsychotics and benzodiazepines. It is advised to start low and go slow, using small increments of dose increase. Medical staff are frequently called to sedate agitated older patients in hospital settings, often after hours, with limited access to relevant medical information and history. Safe and effective management necessitates adequate assessment of the aetiology of the agitation, exhausting all non-pharmacological strategies, and resorting to pharmacological and/or physical restraint only when necessary, judiciously and for a short-term period, with frequent review and the obtaining of consent as soon as possible.
Copyright 2011, Wiley-Blackwell
Peron EP; Gray SL; Hanlon JT. Medication use and functional status decline in older adults: A narrative review. (review). American Journal of Geriatric Pharmacotherapy 9(6): 378-391, 2011. (97 refs.)Background: Functional status is the cornerstone of geriatric care and serves as an indicator of general well-being. A decline in function can increase health care use, worsen quality of life, threaten independence, and increase the risk of mortality. One of several risk factors for decline in functional status is medication use. Objective: Our aim was to critically review published articles that have examined the relationship between medication use and functional status decline in the elderly. Methods: The MEDLINE and EMBASE databases were searched for English-language articles published from January 1986 to June 2011. Search terms included aged, humans, drug utilization, polypharmacy, inappropriate prescribing, anticholinergics, psychotropics, antihypertensives, drug burden index, functional status, function change or decline, activities of daily living, gait, mobility limitation, and disability. A manual search of the reference lists of the identified articles and the authors' article files, book chapters, and recent reviews was conducted to retrieve additional publications. Only articles that used rigorous observational or interventional designs were included. Cross-sectional studies and case series were excluded from this review. Results: Nineteen studies met the inclusion criteria. Five studies addressed the impact of suboptimal prescribing on function, 3 of which found an increased risk of worse function in community-dwelling subjects receiving polypharmacy. Three of the 4 studies that assessed benzodiazepine use and functional status decline found a statistically significant association. One cohort study identified no relationship between antidepressant use and functional status, whereas a randomized trial found that amitriptyline, but not desipramine or paroxetine, impaired certain measures of gait. Two studies found that increasing anticholinergic burden was associated with worse functional status. In a study of hospitalized rehabilitation patients, users of hypnotics/anxiolytics (e.g., phenobarbital, zolpidem) had lower relative functional Independence Measure motor gains than nonusers. Use of multiple central nervous system (CNS) drugs (using different definitions) was linked to greater declines in self-reported mobility and Short Physical Performance Battery (SPPB) scores in 2 community-based studies. Another study of nursing home patients did not report a significant decrease in SPPB scores in those taking multiple CNS drugs. Finally, 2 studies found mixed effects between antihypertensive use and functional status in the elderly. Conclusions: Benzodiazepines and anticholinergics have been consistently associated with impairments in functional status in the elderly. The relationships between suboptimal prescribing, antidepressants, and antihypertensives and functional status decline were mixed. Further research using established measures and methods is needed to better describe the impact of medication use on functional status in older adults.
Copyright 2011, Elsevier Science
Preville M; Vasiliadis HM; Bosse C; Dionne PA; Voyer P; Brassard J. Pattern of psychotropic drug use among older adults having a depression or an anxiety disorder: Results from the longitudinal ESA Study. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry 56(6): 348-357, 2011. (48 refs.)Objective: To document the use of psychotropic drugs in Quebec older adult population with a depressive or anxiety disorder. Method: Data from the Enquete sur la Sante des Nines (ESA) study conducted between 2005 and 2008 using a representative sample (n = 1869) of community-dwelling adults aged 65 years and older were used to examine the use of psychotropic drugs in the Quebec older adult population. Results: Our results indicate that only 46.9% of the older adults with a diagnosis of depression or anxiety during the 24-month period studied according to the Regie de l'assurance maladie du Quebec (RAMQ) register used antidepressants (AD) for 400 days (12.9 months) on average during this period. Also, 59% of the RAMQ's mental health disorder patients used a mean daily dose of 5 mg of a diazepam equivalent for 338 days (10.9 months) on average during the same period. However, 10.0% of the older adults without any symptoms (ESA) at T1 and at T2 and any RAMQ depression and anxiety diagnosis between T0 and T2 were AD users during the 24-month period studied. They represent 26.2% of the AD users and consumed them for 494 days (15.9 months) on average during the 24-month period studied. Finally, the number of days of AD and benzodiazepine use was not associated with partial or total remission. Conclusions: This result questions the population effectiveness of these drugs in this population.
Copyright 2011, Canadian Psychiatric Association
Rapoport MJ; Zagorski B; Seitz D; Herrmann N; Molnar F; Redelmeier DA. At-fault motor vehicle crash risk in elderly patients treated with antidepressants. American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry 19(12): 998-1006, 2011. (44 refs.)Objective: To assess whether antidepressant treatment is associated with a temporary increase in the risk of a motor vehicle crash among older adults. Design: Population-based case-only time-to-event analysis. Setting and Subjects: Data from transportation and healthcare databases for adults age 65 and older in Ontario, Canada, between January 1, 2000, and October 31, 2007. Consecutive adults who had a motor vehicle crash anytime following their 66th birthday. Measurements: The primary exposure variable was treatment with antidepressant medication, and the primary outcome measure was a motor vehicle crash. Results: A total of 159,678 individuals had a crash during the study, of whom 7,393 (5%) received an antidepressant in the month prior to the crash. The hazard ratio (HR) of crash associated with second-generation antidepressants was 1.10 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.07-1.13, chi(2) = 41.77, df = 1, p < 0.0001), adjusted for gender, license suspensions, and other medications, but the risk for first-generation antidepressants was not significant. The increased risk was restricted to those who were also concurrently prescribed a benzodiazepine (adjusted HR: 1.23, 95% CI: 1.17-1.28, chi(2) = 85.28, df = 1, p < 0.0001) or a strong anticholinergic medication (adjusted HR: 1.63, 95% CI: 1.57-1.69, chi(2) = 627.31, df = 1, p < 0.0001), and was confined to crashes where the patient was at fault. The increased risk was apparent for the first 3-4 months following initiation of an antidepressant and returned to baseline thereafter. Conclusions: Prescriptions for second-generation antidepressants in older adults are associated with a modest increased risk of motor vehicle crashes, when combined with other medications that can impair cognition.
Copyright 2011, Lippincott, Williams & Wilkins
Ricci NA; Francisco CO; Rebelatto MN; Rebelatto JR. Influence of history of smoking on the physical capacity of older people. Archives of Gerontology and Geriatrics 52(1): 79-83, 2011. (38 refs.)Among the elderly, smoking is related to death and it contributes to disability associated with chronic diseases. This study aims to verify the influence of a history of smoking on the physical capacity of elderly people, and its relationship with the gender. Elderly people beginning to practice physical activity reported questions about their smoking history and underwent a physical evaluation, consisted by hemodynamic data (blood pressure, heart rate and maximum oxygen consumption), body mass index (BMI), muscular strength, flexibility and balance. Mann-Whitney test and Spearman's test was used to data analysis. The sample consisted of 127 subjects, among whom 26.8% were ex-smokers. There were a higher number of nonsmoking women (p < 0.001) than others, and women smoked fewer packets per day (p = 0.047). Among the women, those ex-smokers were younger and more flexible in comparison with those nonsmokers (p < 0.05). Among the men, the ex-smokers were older and walked more slowly than nonsmokers (p < 0.05). There was a correlation between the BMI and duration of smoking time. Smoking cessation benefits the elderly, since the physical variables showed no long-term harm associated with the history of smoking when compared with those of elderly without this habit.
Copyright 2011, Elsevier Science
Rikala M; Korhonen MJ; Sulkava R; Hartikainen S. Psychotropic drug use in community-dwelling elderly people: Characteristics of persistent and incident users. European Journal of Clinical Pharmacology 67(7): 731-739, 2011. (42 refs.)The aim of this prospective cohort study was to analyze psychotropic drug use in community-dwelling elderly people over a 3-year period and characterize those individuals most susceptible to persistent and incident use. Data on demographics, health status, cognition, functional capacity and drug use were gathered by interviews at baseline (2004) and in three follow-ups (2005-2007) in a population-based sample of 700 community-dwelling people aged 75 years and older. Characteristics associated with persistent and incident use were identified using Cox proportional-hazards regression. At baseline, 38% (n = 269) of the participants used psychotropic drugs. Of these, 60% (n = 162) reported use in all three follow-ups, whereas 22% (n = 59) discontinued use. Among the baseline users of antipsychotics (n = 40), antidepressants (n = 83) and benzodiazepines (n = 219), respectively, 43, 51 and 55% reported use in all three follow-ups. The characteristics associated with persistent use of psychotropic drugs included concomitant use of psychotropic drugs, regular use of psychotropic drugs, increasing age and good self-rated health. Among the baseline nonusers of psychotropic drugs (n = 431), 20% (n = 88) initiated use during the follow-up. Incident use of psychotropic drugs was associated with increasing Geriatric Depression Scale scores, a Mini-Mental State Examination score 24 and less, 6 or more visits to physician, moderate/poor self-rated health and moderate/poor life satisfaction. Psychotropic drugs, benzodiazepines in particular, are frequently used for extended periods in community-dwelling people aged 75 years. Individuals with multiple psychotropic drugs and a regular pattern of use are most susceptible to persistent use. Characteristics associated with incident use include depressive symptoms, cognitive decline and poor general health.
Copyright 2011, Springer
Rosen D; Hunsaker A; Albert SM; Cornelius JR; Reynolds CF. Characteristics and consequences of heroin use among older adults in the United States: A review of the literature, treatment implications, and recommendations for further research. (review). Addictive Behaviors 36(4): 279-285, 2011. (46 refs.)This review reports on the results of a comprehensive literature search of studies examining the physical and mental health characteristics of older adults in the United States who use heroin. Multiple databases were searched for papers meeting the inclusion criteria of heroin users who were age 50 years or older. A total of 14 articles covering 9 different studies met the review inclusion criteria. All of the studies were convenience samples, and seven of the nine studies (77.8%) were entirely drawn from substance abuse treatment programs, primarily methadone maintenance programs. Findings from the qualitative studies suggest that the marginalization of older heroin users was a predominant experience that impacted the intent to seek treatment as well as treatment retention. While articles reported high levels of physical and psychological/ psychiatric comorbidities with substance misuse, research on heroin use and methadone treatment among older adults is scant and the quantitative findings are inconsistent. The articles reviewed in this study demonstrate that the needs of this population will be significant, yet the development of appropriate interventions and treatment for older adult heroin users will be contingent on empirical research that adequately describes mental and physical health problems.
Copyright 2011, Elsevier Science
Rossat A; Fantino B; Bongue B; Colvez A; Nitenberg C; Annweiler C et al. Association between benzodiazepines and recurrent falls: A cross-sectional elderly population-based study. Journal of Nutrition, Health & Aging 15(1): 72-77, 2011. (31 refs.)Background: While the association between benzodiazepines (BZD) and single fall is long-known, the association between BZD and recurrent falls has been few studied. Objective: The aims of this study were 1) to examine whether BZD were associated with recurrent falls while taking into account the effect of potential confounders, and 2) to determine whether there was an interaction in terms of risk of falls between BZD and balance impairment in a community-dwelling population-based adults aged 65 and older. Study design: Cross-sectional. Setting: Three health centers in North-East of France. Population: 7643 community-dwelling volunteers aged 65 and older. Outcome measures: The use of BZD, the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) score, the Clock Drawing Test (CDT), the One Leg Balance (OLB) test, the Five Times Sit-To-Stand test (FTSS), and a history of falls were recorded. Subjects were separated into 4 groups based on the number of falls: 0, 1, 2 and >= 3 falls. Results: Among the 1456 (19.2%) fallers, 994 (13.0%) were single fallers and 462 (6.1%) were recurrent fallers (i.e., > 2 falls). The number of falls increased significantly with age (Incident Rate Ratio (IRR) = 1.04, P < 0.001), female gender (IRR = 2.24, P < 0.001), the use of benzodiazepine (IRR = 1.65 P < 0.001) and especially while subjects used bromazepam (IRR = 1.44, P = 0.006), clobazam (IRR = 3.01, P = 0.014) and prazepam (IRR = 2.29, P < 0.001). A low MMSE score (IRR = 0.96, P < 0.001), an impaired CDT (IRR = 0.91, P < 0.001), and a bad performance at OLB and FTSS (respectively IRR = 1.85, P < 0.001 and IRR = 1.26, P < 0.001) were related to the recurrence of falls. After adjustment only the advance in age (IRR = 1.02, P < 0.001), female gender (IRR = 2.15, P < 0.001), clobazam (IRR = 2.54, P = 0.04), prazepam (IRR = 1.63, P = 0.03) and OLB (IRR = 1.55, P < 0.001) were still significantly related to the number of falls. Conclusion: The current study shows that the age, the female gender, the use of clobazam or prazepam and a low score at OLB are related to the recurrence of falls.
Copyright 2011, Springer
Rostron BL; Wilmoth JR. Estimating the effect of smoking on slowdowns in mortality declines in developed countries. Demography 48(2): 461- 479, 2011. (28 refs.)Declines in mortality rates for females at older ages in some developed countries, including the United States, have slowed in recent decades even as decreases have steadily continued in some other countries. This study presents a modified version of the indirect Peto-Lopez method, which uses lung cancer mortality rates as a proxy for smoking exposure, to analyze this trend. The modified method estimates smoking-attributable mortality for more-specific age groups than does the Peto-Lopez method. An adjustment factor is also introduced to account for low mortality in the indirect method's study population. These modifications are shown to be useful specifically in the estimation of deaths attributable to smoking for females at older ages, and in the estimation of smoking-attributable mortality more generally. In a comparison made between the United States and France with the modified method, smoking is found to be responsible for approximately one-half the difference in life expectancy for females at age 65.
Copyright 2011, Springer
Rothrauff TC; Abraham AJ; Bride BE; Roman PM. Substance abuse treatment for older adults in private centers. Substance Abuse 32(1): 7-15, 2011. (20 refs.)By 2020, an estimated 4.4 million older adults will require substance abuse treatment compared to 1.7 million in 2000-01. This study examined the availability of special services for older adults, adoption of recommended treatment approaches, and organizational characteristics of centers that offer special services. Data were collected via face-to-face interviews with administrators and/or clinical directors from a nationally representative sample of 346 private treatment centers participating in the 2006-07 National Treatment Center Study. Results indicated that only 18% provided special services for older adults; age-specific recommendations were generally adopted; more older adult-specialty centers offered prescription drug addiction treatment, primary medical care, and housing assistance. The proportion of patients with Medicare payment predicted availability of special services. As more older adults will seek help with a myriad of substance use disorders (SUDs) over the next decade, treatment centers need to get ready for a plethora of challenges as well as unique opportunities for growth.
Copyright 2011, Taylor & Francis
Saari TI; Ihmsen H; Neuvonen PJ; Olkkola KT; Schwilden H. Oxycodone clearance is markedly reduced with advancing age: A population pharmacokinetic study. British Journal of Anaesthesia 108(3): 491-498, 2012. (26 refs.)Oxycodone is a -opioid receptor agonist, the global use of which has increased vigorously during the past decade. The pharmacokinetic data of oxycodone available for elderly are limited, and there appear to be only little data on the population pharmacokinetics of oxycodone. We analysed 1272 plasma oxycodone samples of 77 individuals (range of age 1989 yr) with non-linear mixed effect modelling. Inter- and intra-individual variability of the model was estimated for clearances and distribution volumes. The effect of covariates was studied with simulations. Data were best described with a two-compartment linear model. Lean body mass and age were found to be significant covariates for elimination clearance and the volume of the central compartment. The population estimates of elimination clearance, volume of the central compartment, and the volume of distribution at steady state for a reference individual (male 35 yr, 70 kg, 170 cm) were 51.0 litre h(1), 134, and 258 litres, respectively. The elimination half-life of oxycodone showed an age-dependent increase. The context-sensitive half-time at steady state increased from 3.8 to 4.6 h between the age of 25 and 85 yr, respectively. Simulations of repetitive bolus dosing showed a 20 increase in oxycodone concentration in the elderly. Age was found to be a significant covariate for oxycodone pharmacokinetics. In elderly patients, dosing should therefore be reduced and carefully titrated to avoid considerable accumulation of oxycodone and potentially hazardous side-effects.
Copyright 2012, Oxford University Press
Sachs-Ericsson N; Collins N; Schmidt B; Zvolensky M. Older adults and smoking: Characteristics, nicotine dependence and prevalence of DSM-IV 12-month disorders. Aging & Mental Health 15(1): 132-141, 2011. (46 refs.)Objectives: There are few studies investigating the characteristics of older smokers. Research on younger adults has determined that (1) the diagnostic and statistical manual (DSM) diagnosis of nicotine dependence (ND) excludes a sizable portion of the smoking population, and (2) younger smokers have high rates of comorbid DSM disorders. In this study, we sought to replicate these results in an older population. Method: Based on a large representative sample, we examined the smoking patterns in adults aged 50 and over (N = 2139). We describe the characteristics of the current smokers (n = 410). We identified differences in smoking characteristics and prevalence rates of DSM-IV 12-month diagnoses by smoking severity. Results: Most smokers did not meet the criteria for DSM 12-month ND. Older smokers identified as having ND were first diagnosed at a relatively older age. Smokers with ND differed from smokers without a diagnosis in several ways: they smoked more; they had more symptoms of ND and had substantially higher rates of comorbid DSM 12-month disorders. Nonetheless, there were a number of older smokers with dependency symptoms who continue to smoke throughout their lifetimes, but never meet the criteria for ND. Conclusion: Smokers without ND are most likely to have a mood disorder whereas those smokers with ND are most likely to have an anxiety or substance use disorder. Smokers without ND still have relatively high rates of dependency symptoms. Given the late onset of ND, smoking dependence may be a progressive disorder. High rates of psychiatric disorders may interfere with smoking cessation.
Copyright 2011, Taylor & Francis
Salonika M; Salminen M; Vahlberg T; Aarnio P; Kivela SL. Withdrawal of psychotropic drugs decreases the risk of falls requiring treatment. Archives of Gerontology and Geriatrics 54(1): 160-167, 2012. (34 refs.)This non-randomized, controlled trial assessed the effects of ceasing fall-risk-increasing drugs (FRIDs) (psychotropics or opiates or potent anticholinergics) on the risk of falls requiring medical treatment as a sub-analysis of a randomized, controlled multifactorial fall prevention. The population in this 12-month study consisted of 528 community-dwelling subjects aged 65 years or older with a history of at least one fall. The subjects were divided retrospectively into three groups according to the use of any FRID, any psychotropic drug, and benzodiazepine or related drug (BZD/BZDRD). The subjects in the intervention group (IG) ceasing the drug use were compared with the subjects in IG and the control group (CG) not ceasing the use of the corresponding type of drugs during the intervention period. Falls were recorded from medical records. For the year after the 12-month intervention the relative risk ratio (with 95% confidence intervals = CI) for controls in CG compared with the withdrawal group in IG was 8.26 (1.07-63.73) among the users of psychotropics and 8.11 (1.03-63.60) among the users of BZDs/BZDRDs. Withdrawal of psychotropics, especially BZDs/BZDRDs may have played an important role by lowering the risk of falls requiring medical treatment during the year after the 12-month multifactorial intervention.
Copyright 2012, Elsevier Science
Schinka JA; Schinka KC; Casey RJ; Kasprow W; Bossarte RM. Suicidal behavior in a national sample of older homeless veterans. American Journal of Public Health 102(Supplement 1): S147-S153, 2012. (24 refs.)Objectives. We examined self-reported suicidal behavior of older homeless veterans to establish frequencies and predictors of recent suicidal behaviors, and their impact on transitional housing interventions. Methods. We analyzed the records of a national sample of 10 111 veterans who participated in a transition housing program over a 6-year period, ending in 2008. Results. Approximately 12% of homeless veterans reported suicidal ideation before program admission; 3% reported a suicide attempt in the 30 days before program admission. Older homeless veterans exhibiting suicidal behavior had histories of high rates of psychiatric disorders and substance abuse. Regression analyses showed that self-report of depression was the primary correlate of suicidal behavior. Suicidal behavior before program entry did not predict intervention outcomes, such as program completion, housing outcome, and employment. Conclusions. Suicidal behavior was prevalent in older homeless veterans and was associated with a history of psychiatric disorder and substance abuse. Self-reported depression was associated with these behaviors at the time of housing intervention. Despite the association with poor mental health history, suicidal behavior in older homeless veterans did not impact outcomes of transitional housing interventions.
Copyright 2012, American Public Health Association
Sharp L; Vacha-Haase T. Physician attitudes regarding alcohol use screening in older adult patients. Journal of Applied Gerontology 30(2): 226-240, 2011. (32 refs.)Alcohol use among older adults (65+) is thought to be one of the fastest growing health problems in the country. Although proper assessment and diagnosis is crucial in addressing problem drinking in this population, research suggests that physicians are not adequately screening their older adult patients for alcohol use. The present study examined the relationship between family physicians' attitudes and perceptions and their screening prevalence with their new and existing older adult patients collected and analyzed in 2007. Results indicated that physicians in the study reported screening 73% of their new patients on intake and 44% of their existing patients. Family physicians with more positive perceptions of their alcohol-management skills with older adults performed more screening with their new and existing older adult patients. Year of medical school graduation was related to screening but only with new patients.
Copyright 2011, Sage Publication
Shaw BA; Agahi N; Krause N. Are changes in financial strain associated with changes in alcohol use and smoking among older adults? Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs 72(6): 917-925, 2011. (35 refs.)Objective: This study aimed to assess whether changes in levels of financial strain are associated with changes in alcohol use and smoking among older adults. Method: Multilevel analyses were conducted using longitudinal data from a randomly selected national sample of older adults (N= 2,352; 60% female). The data were collected in six waves during the period of 1992-2006. We estimated associations between within-person changes in levels of financial strain and the odds of engaging in heavy drinking and smoking, while also testing for the moderating effects of gender, education, and age. Results: A direct association was observed between changes in levels of financial strain and the odds of heavy drinking, particularly among elderly men (odds ratio [OR] = 1.31) and those with low levels of education (OR = 1.27). A direct association between changes in levels of financial strain and the odds of smoking was also evident, particularly among the young-old (i.e., age 65 at baseline; OR = 1.44). Conclusions: Exposure to financial strain places some groups of older adults at increased risk for unhealthy drinking and smoking. If the current global financial crisis leads to increases in experiences of financial strain among older adults, alcohol and smoking problems can also be expected to increase in this population.
Copyright 2011, Alcohol Research Documentation
Simons LA; Simons J; Friedlander Y; McCallum J. Predictors of long-term mortality in the elderly: the Dubbo Study. Internal Medicine Journal 41(7): 555-560, 2011. (31 refs.)Background: This study examines the predictors of long-term all-causes mortality (ACM) in Australian senior citizens. Methods: We have analysed ACM in a cohort of 2805 citizens, 1233 men and 1572 women aged >= 60 years, first examined in 1988 and followed for 20 years. Hazard ratios and 95% confidence intervals for ACM were obtained from Cox models employing conventional predictors. Results: Over 20 years 66% of men (815/1233) and 53% of women (833/1572) died. Constant proportional hazard over the 20 years was demonstrated for all predictors, indicating similar relative hazard of ACM during long-term or short-term follow up. There was significant prediction of ACM by current smoking (hazard ratio 1.96, 95% confidence interval 1.57-2.43 in men; 1.67, 1.32-2.10 in women), high blood pressure (1.37, 1.03-1.81; 1.41, 1.07-1.86), diabetes (1.46, 1.17-1.82; 1.83, 1.43-2.34), impaired peak expiratory flow (1.39, 1.15-1.69; 1.80, 1.47-2.21), coronary heart disease at study entry in men (1.33, 1.13-1.57), physical disability (1.38, 1.13-1.68; 1.45, 1.17-1.79) and alcohol intake (0.82, 0.69-0.97; 0.77, 0.66-0.8(respectively). ACM was not significantly predicted by standard lipid parameters. Over the 20-year period smoking was associated with reduced survival of 41 months in men and 25 months in women, hypertension with reduced survival of 20 and 17 months, and diabetes with reduced survival of 24 and 30 months respectively. Conclusions: The findings confirm the contribution of cigarette smoking, hypertension and diabetes to ACM in senior citizens, conditions that are potentially amenable to intervention.
Copyright 2011, Wiley-Blackwell
Sinforiani E; Zucchella C; Pasotti C; Casoni F; Bini P; Costa A. The effects of alcohol on cognition in the elderly: From protection to neurodegeneration. (review). Functional Neurology 26(2): 103-106, 2011. (50 refs.)The effects of chronic alcohol abuse on cognition are well known. Memory and executive functions appear to be the cognitive domains primarily impaired, and prefrontal and frontal damage is reported on neuroimaging studies both at micro- and macrostructural levels. Abstinence can partially reverse these alterations through mechanisms of neuroplasticity. Alcohol acts in a dose-dependent fashion, and a light-to-moderate consumption indeed has protective effects on cardiovascular risk factors and promotes anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidative processes. In the elderly on such a regimen, several epidemiological studies have reported a decreased risk of both coronary and cerebrovascular disease and of dementia. However, because of data heterogeneity and the presence of several confounding variables, further studies are needed to clarify these findings. In addition, the complexity of alcohol neurobiology (interaction of alcohol effects with genetic predisposition and environmental factors) and the occurrence of age-related changes should also be taken into account. As dementia, stroke and cardiovascular disease are the leading causes of mortality in older people in developed countries, a better knowledge of the mechanisms underlying the effects of alcohol intake may be helpful from the perspective not only of medical management but also of social health policy.
Copyright 2011, C I C-Edizioni INT SRL
Skliros EA; Papadodima SA; Sotiropoulos A; Xipnitos C; Kollias A; Spiliopoulou CA. Relationship between alcohol consumption and control of hypertension among elderly Greeks. The Nemea Primary Care Study. Hellenic Journal of Cardiology 53(1): 26-32, 2012. (34 refs.)Background: The aim of this study was to evaluate the significance of alcohol intake in relation to blood pressure control in treated subjects and to determine if there is a causative link between alcohol and inadequate control of hypertension. Methods: Our study population comprised 637 elderly individuals who reside in Nemea and in four other villages located in Corinthia, Peloponnesus, of which 615 were included in the analysis. The average age was 73.5 +/- 6.15 years. A special epidemiological questionnaire was completed by each participant and the blood pressure (BP) was measured according to a predefined protocol. Odds ratios were calculated and adjusted for potential confounders. Results: The overall prevalence of hypertension was 69.1%, 70.7% in men and 67.0% in women. In total, 11% of the hypertensives were not aware of having hypertension. Of those who were aware of having hypertension 91.0% were being treated. Among treated hypertensives 49.1% had systolic BP<140 mmHg and diastolic BP<90 mmHg. Only heavy drinking (>300 g/week) was found to be related with hypertension control. Conclusions: Our study showed that the level of control among the elderly, in a Greek population, is positively associated with alcohol intake only for heavy drinking. The role of alcohol consumption in hypertension in the elderly needs further investigation.
Copyright 2012, Hellenic Cardiological Society
Smith ML; Colwell B; Ahn S; Ory MG. Factors associated with tobacco smoking practices among middle-aged and older women in Texas. Journal of Women & Aging 24(1): 3-22, 2012. (60 refs.)This study examines middle-aged and older women's smoking practices and identifies factors associated with tobacco use and cessation in this population. Data of 593 women were analyzed from a seven-county random household sample in Texas. Sequential multinomial logistic regression compared associations with having never smoked, having quit smoking, and currently smoking. Compared to smokers, never smokers and past smokers were significantly more likely to be older, more educated, of better general health, and report past-year physician visits and fewer depressive symptoms. Mental health and smoking are interrelated, indicating the need for addressing depression in smoking-cessation efforts for aging women.
Copyright 2012, Taylor & Francis
Spanemberg L; Nogueira EL; da Silva CTB; Dargel AA; Menezes FS; Neto AC. High prevalence and prescription of benzodiazepines for elderly: Data from psychiatric consultation to patients from an emergency room of a general hospital. General Hospital Psychiatry 33(1): 45-50, 2011. (33 refs.)Objectives: The aim of this study is to compare the use and prescription of psychotropic drugs, with emphasis on benzodiazepines, in elderly and non-elderly patients who are assisted at the emergency room by a psychiatric consultation of a university teaching hospital. Method: This is a cross-sectional study. We analyzed all records of psychiatric consultation in an emergency room of a general hospital from March 2009 until March 2010. Sociodemographic and clinical variables were compared between the group of elderly and non-elderly in two cutoff points (>= 60 and >= 65 years), with emphasis on the use and prescription of benzodiazepines. Results: Five hundred seventy-five records were found with 71 elderly and 504 nonelderly for the first cutoff point and 51 elderly and 524 nonelderly in the second. Differences between groups were found in all sociodemographic variables (gender, marital status, education, current occupational status). Elderly patients treated at emergency rooms used more psychotropic drugs, particularly antidepressants and benzodiazepines, than non-elderly. About 25% of the patients received benzodiazepine treatment in the emergency setting, and there was no statistical difference between age groups. Conclusion: There is a wide prevalence of benzodiazepine use among elderly patients in a psychiatric emergency service. Despite the recommendations for its judicious use, benzodiazepines were the most commonly used drug by psychiatrists on duty, regardless of patient's age. These results call for caution in prescribing these drugs and require alternatives to the treatment of psychiatric disorders in the elderly.
Copyright 2011, Elsevier Science
Taipale HT; Bell JS; Gnjidic D; Sulkava R; Hartikainen S. Sedative load among community-dwelling people aged 75 years or older: Association with balance and mobility. Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology 32(2): 218-224, 2012. (58 refs.)Drugs with sedative properties are frequently used among older people. Sedative load is a measure of the cumulative effect of taking multiple drugs with sedative properties. The objective of this study was to investigate the association between sedative load and balance and mobility. A random sample of 1000 people 75 years or older was invited to participate. Seven hundred community-dwelling participants (mean age, 81.3 years; 69% women) were included in the present study. Demographic, diagnostic, and drug use data were elicited during nurse interviews in 2004. Balance and mobility were tested by physiotherapists. Sedative load was calculated using a previously published model for each participant by summing the sedative ratings of primary sedatives (rating 2) and drugs with sedation as a prominent adverse effect (rating 1). Analyses of covariance and logistic regression analyses were used to assess the association between sedative load and balance and mobility. Of the 700 participants, 21% (n = 147) had a sedative load of 1-2, and 8% (n = 58) had sedative load of 3 or greater. After adjusting for covariates, exposure to higher sedative load ranges was associated with slower walking speed (P = 0.0003), longer time to perform Timed Up and Go test (P = 0.005), and lower scores on Berg Balance Scale (P = 0.005), but not with self-reported ability to walk 400 m. In conclusion, having a higher sedative load was associated with impaired balance and mobility among community-dwelling older people. Clinicians should remain cognizant of this association and regularly reevaluate drug therapy prescribed to older people.
Copyright 2012, Lippinocott, Williams & Wilkins
Tait RJ; French DJ; Burns R; Anstey KJ. Alcohol use and depression from middle age to the oldest old: Gender is more important than age. International Psychogeriatrics 24(8, special issue): 1275-1283, 2012. (30 refs.)Background: Alcohol use disorders are associated with other mental health disorders in young adults, but there are few data on alcohol use and mental health outcomes in older adults, particularly the oldest old. This study examines the relationship between alcohol consumption and depressive symptoms. Methods: Data were collected from the Dynamic Analyses to Optimise Ageing (DYNOPTA) project, which has pooled nine Australian longitudinal studies. Alcohol consumption was classified using standard drinks (10 g alcohol)/day as: abstinent, low risk (<0-<= 2 standard drinks), long-term risk (>2-<= 4) and short-term risk (>4). Probable depression was classified from harmonized scores on various standard instruments (e.g. Centre for Epidemiological Studies Depression scale). Results: Overall, 39,104 (86%) participants contributed data. Alcohol classification at baseline showed 7,526 abstinent, 28,112 low risk, 2,271 long-term risk, and 1,195 short-term risk participants. Age ranged from 45 to 103 year (median 60). Using generalized estimating equations (GEE), there were significant gender by alcohol and gender by age interactions, so the analysis was split by gender. Among males, the abstinent and short-term risk groups had increased likelihood of depression: in females the abstinent, long- and short-term risk groups had increased odds of depression. Increased odds of depression was also associated with former and current smoking, younger age-group, not being partnered, leaving school before age 15 and increasing levels of health-impaired walking, dressing, or bathing. Conclusion: The impact of alcohol use differs by gender, nevertheless those using higher levels of alcohol or who smoke should be screened for depression and may benefit from interventions.
Copyright 2012, Cambridge University Press
Tian XB; Tang Z; Jiang JM; Fang XH; Wu XG; Han W et al. Effects of smoking and smoking cessation on life expectancy in an elderly population in Beijing, China, 1992-2000: An 8-year follow-up study. Journal of Epidemiology 21(5): 376-384, 2011. (29 refs.)Background: We assessed the effects of smoking and smoking cessation on life expectancy and active life expectancy among persons aged 55 years or older in Beijing. Methods: This study included 1593 men and 1664 women who participated in the Beijing Longitudinal Study of Aging, which commenced in 1992 and had 4 survey waves up to year 2000. An abridged life table was used to estimate life expectancy, in which age-specific mortality and age-specific disability rates were adjusted by using a discrete-time hazard model to control confounders. Results: The mean ages (SD) for men and women were 70.1 (9.25) and 70.2 (8.72) years, respectively; mortality and disability rates during follow-up were 34.7% and 8.0%, respectively. In both sexes, never smokers had the highest life expectancy and active life expectancy across ages, as compared with current and former smokers. Current heavy smokers had a shorter life expectancy and a shorter active life expectancy than light smokers. Among former smokers, male long-term quitters had a longer life expectancy and longer active life expectancy than short-term quitters, but this was not the case in women. Conclusions: Older adults remain at higher risk of mortality and morbidity from smoking and can expect to live a longer and healthier life after smoking cessation.
Copyright 2011, Japan Epidemiological Association
Towers A; Stephens C; Dulin P; Kostick M; Noone J; Alpass F. Estimating older hazardous and binge drinking prevalence using AUDIT-C and AUDIT-3 thresholds specific to older adults. Drug and Alcohol Dependence 117(2-3): 211-218, 2011. (51 refs.)Background: This study aimed to provide hazardous and binge drinking prevalence, odds and risk attributable to specific demographic correlates in community dwelling older adults using both the standard and new older-specific AUDIT-C thresholds. Methods: Hazardous drinking was assessed using the AUDIT-C in a cross-sectional postal survey of 6662 New Zealanders aged 55-70 years old (m = 60.94, SD = 4.70) randomly selected from the New Zealand Electoral Roll. Prevalence data is presented for whole sample and stratified by key demographic correlates using standard and older-specific threshold scores on the AUDIT-C. Hazardous drinking prevalence using the standard AUDIT-C threshold was 56.01%, as compared to 42.28% and 50.20% under two older-specific thresholds. Results: Being younger, male, and wealthy were consistent drinking predictors across thresholds but the older-specific thresholds substantially altered the prevalence and risk for females, Asians, and poorer people. Past-month binge prevalence of 18.18% was considerably lower than the past-year prevalence of 33.51%, but change from past-month to past-year binge threshold had no significant effect on the demographic composition of binge drinkers. The standard AUDIT-C threshold over-estimates hazardous drinking prevalence in older adults by up to 33%, but even the most conservative rates in this study are cause for concern regarding the level of drinking by older people in New Zealand. Conclusion: Older hazardous drinkers are predominantly younger, wealthier, white, partnered males, whichever threshold is used, but binge drinkers are more likely to be rural, Maori, and lack tertiary education. Further efforts are needed to determine factors underpinning hazardous drinking, especially in older Maori.
Copyright 2011, Elsevier Science
Voyer P; Preville M; Martin LS; Roussel ME; Beland SG; Berbiche D. Factors associated with self-rated benzodiazepine addiction among community-dwelling seniors. Journal of Addictions Nursing 22(1-2): 46-56, 2011. (57 refs.)Long-term use of benzodiazepines carries considerable personal consequences such as memory loss and functional impairment. In addition, use over time may bring about dependence and habituation thus leading older persons to believe they cannotdiscontinue the drug and to experience withdrawal symptoms should its use suddenly cease. The frequency of such negative consequences remains unclear. The purpose of this study is to determine the prevalence of self-rated addiction among older persons and its associated factors. Face-to-face computer-assisted interviews were conducted in the homes of 2,785 persons aged 65 years and over, randomly selected from across the Province of Quebec, Canada. Of the 707 users of benzodiazepines, 43%% considered themselves addicted. They were more likely to be 75 years or over, to suffer from panic disorder, to believe that health professionals are ready and available to discuss emotional problems with them, and to be less than satisfied with their social relationships. This study showed that a large proportion of benzodiazepine users rated themselves as addicted. These findings indicate that it is important for nurses to screen older adults living in the community to identify those who continue to use benzodiazepine beyond the recommended therapeutic time frame, perceive themselves to be dependent, and could potentially benefit from participation in a withdrawal program.
Copyright 2011, Informa Healthcare
Wastesson JW; Parker MG; Fastbom J; Thorslund M; Johnell K. Drug use in centenarians compared with nonagenarians and octogenarians in Sweden: A nationwide register-based study. Age and Ageing 41(2): 218-224, 2012. (32 refs.)Background: The number of centenarians increases rapidly. Yet, little is known about their health and use of medications. Objective: to investigate pharmacological drug use in community-dwelling and institutionalised centenarians compared with nonagenarians and octogenarians. Methods: we analysed data on dispensed drugs for centenarians (n = 1,672), nonagenarians (n = 76,584) and octogenarians (n = 383,878) from the Swedish Prescribed Drug Register, record-linked to the Swedish Social Services Register. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to analyse whether age was associated with use of drugs, after adjustment for sex, living situation and co-morbidity. Results: In the adjusted analysis, centenarians were more likely to use analgesics, hypnotics/sedatives and anxiolytics, but less likely to use antidepressants than nonagenarians and octogenarians. Moreover, centenarians were more likely to use high-ceiling diuretics, but less likely to use beta-blockers and ACE-inhibitors. Conclusions: Centenarians high use of analgesics, hypnotics/sedatives and anxiolytics either reflects a palliative approach to drug treatment in centenarians or that pain and mental health problems increase into extreme old age. Also, centenarians do not seem to be prescribed cardiovascular drug therapy according to guidelines to the same extent as nonagenarians and octogenarians. Whether this reflects an age or cohort effect should be evaluated in longitudinal studies.
Copyright 2012, Oxford University Press
Weuve J; Tchetgen EJT; Glymour MM; Beck TL; Aggarwal NT; Wilson RS et al. Accounting for bias due to selective attrition: The example of smoking and cognitive decline. Epidemiology 23(1): 119-128, 2012. (58 refs.)Background: Selective attrition may introduce bias into analyses of the determinants of cognitive decline. This is a concern especially for risk factors, such as smoking, that strongly influence mortality and dropout. Using inverse-probability-of-attrition weights, we examined the influence of selective attrition on the estimated association of current smoking (vs. never smoking) with cognitive decline. Methods: Chicago Health and Aging Project participants (n = 3713), aged 65-109 years, who were current smokers or never-smokers, underwent cognitive assessments up to 5 times at 3-year interval. We used pooled logistic regression to fit predictive models of attrition due to death or study dropout across the follow-up waves. With these models, we computed inverse-probability-of-attrition weights for each observation. We fit unweighted and weighted, multivariable-adjusted generalized-estimating-equation models, contrasting rates of change in cognitive scores in current versus never-smokers. Estimates are expressed as rates of change in z score per decade. Results: During the 12 years of follow-up, smokers had higher mortality than never-smokers (hazard ratio = 1.93 [95% confidence interval = 1.67 to 2.23]). Higher previous cognitive score was associated with increased likelihood of survival and continued participation. In unweighted analyses, current smokers' cognitive scores declined 0.11 standard units per decade more rapidly than never-smokers' (95% CI = -0.20 to -0.02). Weighting to account for attrition yielded estimates that were 56% to 86% larger, with smokers' estimated 10-year rate of decline up to 0.20 units faster than never-smokers' (95% CI = -0.36 to -0.04). Conclusions: Estimates of smoking's effects on cognitive decline may be underestimated due to differential attrition. Analyses that weight for the inverse probability of attrition help compensate for this attrition.
Copyright 2012, Lippincott, Williams & Wilkins
Wiemeyer J; Kliem A. Serious games in prevention and rehabilitation: A new panacea for elderly people? (review). European Review of Aging and Physical Activity 9(1): 41-50, 2012. (80 refs.)Digital games cannot only be used for fun and entertainment. The term "serious games" (SG) denotes digital games serving serious purposes like education, training, advertising, research and health. Recently, a new generation of games has emerged involving whole-body movements. Compared to traditional interventions, these games may help elderly people to improve their health by enhancing physical fitness and coordinative abilities by combining increased motivation, game experience like fun and game flow and training. Serious games, particularly adventure and shooter games, already play an important role in health education, prevention and rehabilitation, e.g. to enhance health-related physical activity, improve sensory-motor coordination, prevent asthma, change nutrition behaviour and alleviate diabetes and prevent smoking or HIV. In this paper, the impact of SG on prevention and rehabilitation is discussed. Three criteria are applied. Beyond effectivity and efficiency, the additional benefits of serious games can be described and explained by different models including social, psychological, physiological and sensory-motor factors. The quality of study serves as a third criterion. Despite first promising results, there are only few high-quality studies. Adequate content, game interfaces, sustainability and appropriate settings are critical factors for the success of SG. In this regard, (sport) science can help to develop and evaluate SG and test appropriate settings that ensure sustainable use of serious games.
Copyright 2012, Springer Heidelberg
Wilkinson C; Allsop S; Chikritzhs T. Alcohol pouring practices among 65- to 74-year-olds in Western Australia. Drug and Alcohol Review 30(2): 200-206, 2011. (34 refs.)Introduction and Aims. Alcohol pouring practices have relevance to the validity of self-reported alcohol consumption. However, little research has focused on older populations nor investigated relationships between volumes poured and participants' estimations of beverages in terms of Australian standard drinks. The aim of this study was to address these issues. Design and Methods. Interviews were conducted (in participants' homes) with 844 current drinkers, aged 65-74 years, from Perth, Western Australia. Participants: poured their 'usual' serving of alcohol into their 'usual' drinking vessel and were asked questions regarding the volumes poured. Results. Older men poured drinks that were 32% larger than a standard drink (10 g of ethanol). The comparable figure for older women was 16%. However, over 25% of all men and 20% of all women indicated they would not record (in a self-report assessment of consumption) the amount poured as one standard drink. Despite participants making corrections, men and women still underestimated amounts poured (men by 23% and women by 16%). Discussion and Conclusions. As with younger populations, older people pour drinks that are, on average, larger than standard drinks. To increase the accuracy of self-reported consumption, it is recommended that researchers consider pouring practices and people's perceptions of alcohol volumes poured in relation to a standard drink. Further research on this issue may reduce the discrepancy between self-reported levels of consumption and national per capita alcohol sales.
Copyright 2011, Wiley-Blackwell
Wray LO; Mavandadi S; Klaus JR; Tew JD; Oslin DW; Sweet RA. The association between mental health and cognitive screening scores in older veterans. American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry 20(3): 215-227, 2012. (51 refs.)Objectives: To examine overall cognitive screening results and the relationship between cognitive screen score and sociodemographic characteristics, reason for referral, and clinical outcomes of older veterans referred by primary care for a behavioral health assessment. Design: Cross-sectional, naturalistic study. Setting: Primary care clinics affiliated with two VA Medical Centers. Participants: The sample included 4,325 older veterans referred to the Behavioral Health Laboratory who completed an initial mental health/substance abuse assessment. Veterans were categorized into the following three groups on the basis of cognitive status: within normal limits, possible cognitive impairment, and possible dementia. Measurements: Sociodemographic and clinical data on reason for referral, cognitive functioning (i.e., Blessed Orientation-Memory-Concentration test), and behavioral health assessment outcomes were extracted from patients' medical records. Data were analyzed using multiple linear and logistic regressions. Results: Results of cognitive screenings indicated that the majority of the sample was within normal limits (62.5%), with 25.8%, 8.1%, and 3.6% of patients evidencing possible cognitive impairment, possible dementia, and Blessed Orientation-Memory-Concentration scores of 17 or more, respectively. With regard to reason for referral, patients with greater cognitive impairment were more likely to be identified by the antidepressant case finder than patients with less impairment. Increased age, non-white ethnicity, self-perceived inadequate finances, major depressive disorder, and symptoms of psychosis were associated with greater cognitive impairment. Conclusions: Findings highlight the importance of evaluating cognitive status in older adults who are referred for a behavioral health assessment and/or receive a new mental health/substance abuse diagnosis. Doing so has the potential to improve recognition and treatment of cognitive impairment and dementia, thereby improving quality of care for many older adults.
Copyright 2012, Lippincott, Williams & Wilkins
Wu LT; Blazer DG. Illicit and nonmedical drug use among older adults: A review. (review). Journal of Aging and Health 23(3): 481-504, 2011. (54 refs.)Objective: Substance abuse among older adults is a looming public health concern. The number of Americans aged 50+ years with a substance use disorder is projected to double from 2.8 million in 2002-2006 to 5.7 million in 2020. The authors provide a review of epidemiological findings for this understudied area of research by focusing on illicit drug use disorders and nonmedical use of prescription drugs among adults aged 50+ years. Method: MEDLINE and PsychInfo were searched using keywords drug use, drug abuse, drug misuse, substance use disorder, and prescription drug abuse. Using the related-articles link, additional articles were screened for inclusion. This review included articles published between 1990 and 2010. Result: Results from multiple sources indicated a much higher rate of illicit drug use and nonmedical use of prescription drugs and drug-related treatment admissions for persons 50 to 64 years of age compared with adults 65+ years of age. Rates of treatment admissions involving primary use of illicit and misuse of prescription drugs have increased, while rates involving primary use of alcohol only have decreased. Alcohol, opioids/heroin, and cocaine were more likely than other substances to be associated with treatment use. Limited research data suggested the effectiveness of treatments, especially for women. Furthermore, older adults appeared to be less likely than younger adults to perceive substance use as problematic or to use treatment services. Discussion: There is robust evidence showing that an increased number of older adults will need substance abuse care in the coming decades. Increasing demands on the substance abuse treatment system will require expansion of treatment facilities and development of effective service programs to address emerging needs of the aging drug-using population.
Copyright 2011, Sage Publication
Zhang XZ; Kahende J; Fan AZ; Barker L; Thompson TJ; Mokdad AH et al. Smoking and visual impairment among older adults with age-related eye diseases. Preventing Chronic Disease 8(4): A84, 2011. (34 refs.)Introduction: Tobacco use is the leading preventable cause of death in the United States. Visual impairment, a common cause of disability in the United States, is associated with shorter life expectancy and lower quality of life. The relationship between smoking and visual impairment is not clearly understood. We assessed the association between smoking and visual impairment among older adults with age-related eye diseases. Methods: We analyzed Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System data from 2005 through 2008 on older adults with age-related eye diseases (cataract, glaucoma, age-related macular degeneration, and diabetic retinopathy; age >= 50 y, N = 36,522). Visual impairment was defined by self-reported difficulty in recognizing a friend across the street or difficulty in reading print or numbers. Current smokers were respondents who reported having smoked at least 100 cigarettes ever and still smoked at the time of interview. Former smokers were respondents who reported having ever smoked at least 100 cigarettes but currently did not smoke. We used multivariate logistic regressions to examine the association and to adjust for potential confounders. Results: Among respondents with age-related eye diseases, the estimated prevalence of visual impairment was higher among current smokers (48%) than among former smokers (41%, P < .05) and respondents who had never smoked (42%, P < .05). After adjustment for age, sex, race/ethnicity, education, and general health status, current smokers with age-related eye diseases were more likely to have visual impairment than respondents with age-related eye diseases who had never smoked (odds ratio, 1.16, P < .05). Furthermore, respondents with cataract who were current smokers were more likely to have visual impairment than respondents with cataract who had never smoked (predictive margin, 44% vs 40%, P =.03), and the same was true for respondents with age-related macular degeneration (65% of current smokers vs 57% of never smokers, P = .02). This association did not hold true among respondents with glaucoma or diabetic retinopathy. Conclusion: Smoking is linked to self-reported visual impairment among older adults with age-related eye diseases, particularly cataract and age-related macular degeneration. Longitudinal evaluation is needed to assess smoking cessation's effect on vision preservation.
Copyright 2011, Centers for Disease Control | <urn:uuid:66430555-f85c-46fe-b465-fd86bd683d7f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.projectcork.org/bibliographies/data/Bibliography_Elderly.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933541 | 41,616 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Turkey is sending missile batteries and army vehicles to the border with Syria. (File photo)
Turkey has deployed military units along its border with Syria whose Army is engaged in intense fighting with insurgents as tensions in the region escalate.
On Saturday, the Turkish army deployed artillery and anti-aircraft missiles near a Syrian border post in the province of al-Raqa, which is being disputed between security forces and insurgents in fierce clashes.
The deployment is reportedly in an area where the Turkish media say artillery fire from Syria landed last week, causing panic among local residents.
Turkey has conducted a number of troop deployments in recent months along its 911-km border with Syria, where rebels are fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad.
Ankara is accused of supplying insurgents fighting against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad with military and communication equipment.
Turkey, along with Saudi Arabia and Qatar, has also set up a secret base near its border with Syria to send military supplies to anti-Syria groups.
Syria has been the scene of violence by armed groups since March 2011. The violence has claimed the lives of hundreds of people, including many security forces.
Damascus says outlaws, saboteurs, and armed terrorists are the driving factor behind the unrest and deadly violence while the opposition accuses the security forces of being behind the killings. | <urn:uuid:ba0c8760-faa0-478b-85f2-f7f379d0d566> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.presstv.com/detail/2012/09/22/263042/turkey-sends-artillery-to-syria-border/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96945 | 273 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Windows 7 (or Vista) on Mac(7 posts)
Just installing Windows on a platform like an Intel-based Mac is quite easy but you need to keep the following in mind:
For doing a Dual-Boot:
You will need the Mac OS X version 10.5 "Leopard" operating system installed to run Microsoft Windows. Should you have an operating system lower then version 10.5 you cannot run Microsoft Windows either not very well or it's not even possible.
This is because version 10.4 was the first to support the Apple-Intel architecture with support for Unified EFI (UEFI) without any support for the older system BIOS standard used on all Intel IBM-compatible PCs that have come out since 1981.
Windows Vista 64-bit SP1 is the first Microsoft Windows operating system to support UEFI and is a big part of the reason for replacing the older NT Boot Load (NTLDR) with more flexible Windows Boot Manager (bootmgr) system with Windows Vista RTM.
Due to unavoidable delays* the support was not finished in Windows Vista SP1 64-bit edition to allow booting Windows from the hard drive with hardware supporting EUFI.
The support should be in Windows 7 and I would assume Windows Vista SP2 but data on that is hard to find because Microsoft is very silent on released information about what Windows Vista SP2 and Windows 7 will support.
OS X 10.5 updates the Mac computer's firmware to include a very small subset of support for system BIOS technology to allow any Operating System that supports system BIOS technology to boot on a Mac.
For the sake of marketing Apple just called this support "Boot Camp" as otherwise calling it "BIOS system compatibility for UEFI on the Intel-Mac arch plus a Graphic User Interface to make using it very easy" is both way to long and it wouldn't make any sinse to the average user who wants to run Microsoft Windows on their Intel-Mac.
There are many more minor issues that OS X solves with it's Boot Camp software that I don't even have time to get into.
The short of it is be sure to have at least OS X 10.5 installed and all the recent updates for Boot Camp installed or you could easily run into "Dual-Boot Hell" which you are really just Dueling Windows attempting to install and run it :D
For Virtual Methods like "VMWare Fusion" or "Parallels" they work quite well but you need to keep the following in mind:
1. They require a Intel Mac with fairly good processer and a good amount of RAM.
Any Intel Mac you buy today will meet that description but some models like the current Mac Mini will run those programs slower then you may want.
2. They both have a good sized cost to them:
They each cost $79.99 but they have 30-day trials you can download and I can say from using the VMware and Parrellels products for Microsoft Windows that it is so much nicer then dual booting that it's worth the relativly small price to avoid all the problems the dual-booting can bring but if you only need to run Windows every once in a while and you have OS X 10.5 or higher with the latest version of Boot Camp then you should go for it as from what I have read, it works quite well for the times when you wouldn't mind rebooting into Windows to run a Windows only program.
Since it's on topic, and I don't think HTG will mind too much since he linked to a couple o them from Lifehacker, I think/hope these will help - they're all painfully detailed.
This topic has been closed to new replies. Please create a new topic instead. | <urn:uuid:b65d2c35-dd18-4fe1-b1a7-c27df3c5ee05> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/topic/windows-7-or-vista-on-mac | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94826 | 772 | 1.625 | 2 |
We performed a site update on April 16, 2013. Please let the admin know if you User_talk:Admin#APRIL_16.2C_2013 encounter any issues. All updates have been performed.
From BR Bullpen
The Pittsburgh Keystones were members of the first black baseball league, the League of Colored Baseball Clubs in 1887, but the league only lasted a week. In 1922 another team from Pittsburgh, PA used the name when playing in the Negro National League and went 16-21. 1B Jess Barbour led the club with a .391 mark. | <urn:uuid:93a788b8-66fb-45b7-9369-5d908c97dc8f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Pittsburgh%20Keystones | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94837 | 120 | 1.804688 | 2 |
In a rapidly changing, increasingly technological world, companies are finding it more important to change the way they invest their man-hours and expand their facilities. Bollinger Shipyards has aggressively expanded its physical facilities over the past few years, but realized expansion of the facilities without a thorough revamp of its internal communications systems would be foolish and costly, in the long run.
The company employs 1,800 and is comprised of eight shipyards in Southern Louisiana. The most distant offices are still within 120 miles of each other.
Until recently, the shipyards were using several different software systems to produce financial and operational information. In addition, several manual processes and mechanisms were used in estimating, scheduling, purchasing and accounting. To compare or consolidate the information, countless manual hours were expended collecting and merging the information from different software and databases.
Attempts had been made in the past to implement software that all the yards would share, but the attempts were not been successful due to software limitation and the inability of the company to perform the necessary changes required to implement such a system.
To facilitate its strategy of aligning management and resources along lines of business as opposed to geography, Bollinger turned
to Arthur Andersen, one of the country's premier management consultancies, and Oracle, one of the world's leading software system manufacturers.
Building on the concept of taking a more centralized view of providing services, management and support to all of the company's businesses, the company planned to connect all its locations via a T-1 based Wide Area Network (WAN) and then implement an Enterprise Resource Planning System (ERP), a system using one database and several software application modules to automate all of a company's key operational and financial processes.
Prior to the purchase of Oracle ERP applications software, the company embarked on an extensive selection process designed to match the company's needs and requirements for a comprehensive system to the functionality of individual ERP systems. Due to the time constraints involved prior to the company's Y2K deadlines, the company hired Arthur Andersen LLP as a consultant to assist in the selection and implementation process.
Once the system was selected, the question of cost came next. And although the cost of implementing the Oracle system was steep (estimated $2.5 million), the cost of not having the system was potentially even greater. According to the company, the cost of implementing the system became more justifiable with the realization of an anticipated annual savings (both direct and indirect) of between $750,000 and $1 million, with purchasing and material handling leading the pack at an estimated annual savings of $600,000 per year.
The full suite of products installed include Manufacturing, Projects, Project Manufacturing, Purchasing, Inventory, HR/Payroll, Financials and MRP. The package is designed to enable the company to have all its information under one database/suite of products and shared throughout all of the divisions. In addition, Oracle's software is browser-based and designed to operate over the Internet, which will reduce maintenance costs of the system. All updates, upgrades, system changes, maintenance and end user changes are made locally on the centralized server.
Once fully operational, the efficiencies and cost savings will be plentiful. The cost to produce and process P.O.'s, pick lists, requisitions, invoices, A/P checks, payroll, HR requests and other functions will decrease substantially. Project managers will have more accurate and timely information to make crucial real-time decisions on the shop floor. Estimators will have more task-level information and history to assist them in projecting the cost of building vessels.
Schedulers and shop floor managers will have automated maps of material and manpower requirements, increasing labor efficiency. Inventory will be more accurate and visible throughout the system. Finally, purchasing will have the advantage of a master parts list encompassing all of the company's divisions, which will facilitate the company's centralized purchasing initiative and allow Bollinger to capitalize on the buying power of its combined divisions. | <urn:uuid:6e527177-dd22-4fba-8f2f-4dac9ca9a1a1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.marinelink.com/news/article/revamped-software-systems-results-in-substantial-savings/320181.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955959 | 813 | 1.507813 | 2 |
What word best describes the current state of the communications industry? Renewal? Rejuvenation? Revival? Clearly, this once-stolid industry is now trying to rebound amidst a tough economic environment after a cycle marked by growth and turmoil.
Led by technological change and unprecedented market valuations, our industry witnessed extreme market exuberance during the late nineties. By the turn of the century, as the dotcom bubble burst, the industry went through a phase marred by shrinkage, bankruptcies and layoffs.
Following a period of correction, now segments such as wireless, broadband and enterprise networks break new technological grounds, regulators wrestle with rules for a digital world, customers demand more, and investors demand performance rather than promises!
Experts and analysts still engage in fierce debates. Will the rollout of next generation smart-phones and their bandwidth intensive applications crash wireless networks? Does Wall Street's focus on earnings derail your long-term strategy? How do you monetize content and advertising at social networking sites? And the list goes on.
Adding to the muddle are hordes of pundits making predictions and forecasts that are as reliable as your future revealed by a fortune cookie. Wasn't the Internet in everyone's blind spot? And how many analysts expected complex mathematical algorithms from Google to revolutionize an advertising world that historically relied on creativity and art rather than science.
At Learning Orbit, we don't claim to know all the answers. But we can certainly discern myths from realities. By sharing our insights, we flex your mind and corporate thinking. Our perspectives catalyze your sound judgment as you chart your own course. Think of us as your "reality check" for business strategy, competitive scenarios, and marketing! | <urn:uuid:c1382130-5c63-4dae-b7de-63c9bd1a52fe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.learningorbit.com/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933561 | 343 | 1.75 | 2 |
Vladimir Putin signs anti-US adoptions bill
- From: AP
- December 28, 2012
RUSSIAN President Vladimir Putin signed a bill banning Americans from adopting Russian children, making the legislation official less than 24 hours after his office received it from Parliament.
The bill has angered Americans and Russians who argue it victimises children to make a political point, cutting off a route out of frequently dismal orphanages for thousands of children. The Russian-language hashtag "PutinEatsKids" was trending on Twitter just minutes after Mr Putin signed it.
UNICEF estimates that there are about 740,000 children not in parental custody in Russia while about 18,000 Russians are on the waiting list to adopt a child.
The law also blocks dozens of Russian children now in the process of being adopted by American families from leaving the country. The US is the biggest destination for adopted Russian children - more than 60,000 of them have been taken in by Americans over the past two decades.
The measure is retaliation for an American law that calls for sanctions against Russian officials deemed human rights violators. The US State Department has said it regrets Russian Parliament's decision to pass the bill, arguing it would prevent many children from growing up in families.
Children's rights ombudsman Pavel Astakhov says that 46 children who were about to be adopted in the US would remain in Russia if the bill comes into effect.
Mr Putin has said that US authorities routinely let Americans suspected of violence toward Russian adoptees go unpunished.
The passage of the bill followed weeks of a hysterical media campaign on Kremlin-controlled television that lambasts American adoptive parents and adoption agencies that allegedly bribe their way into getting Russian children.
A few lawmakers claimed that some Russian children were adopted by Americans only to be used for organ transplants and become sex toys or cannon fodder for the US Army.
A spokesman with Russia's dominant Orthodox Church said that the children adopted by foreigners and raised outside the church will not "enter God's kingdom."
national top stories
Steve Lewis and Lanai Scarr FINANCE Minister Penny Wong has told Meet the Press that MPs need to travel - but that individuals had to explain why.
THE FEDERAL coalition is facing mounting pressure from Liberal states to increase the GST rate after NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell this morning called for a review.
Paul Lampathakis GINA Rinehart and fellow billionaire Andrew Forrest shared in more than $100,000 worth of taxpayer-funded handouts in their companies under Royalties for Regions last year. | <urn:uuid:05fd0986-7f78-4da0-9451-6e9fe1a8aa0f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mobile.news.com.au/breaking-news/world/vladimir-putin-signs-anti-us-adoptions-bill/story-e6frfkui-1226544835006 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966961 | 522 | 1.6875 | 2 |
RFID Student ID Cards
Tue November 27, 2012
Court Case Involving Student From Northside ISD May Allow Tracked Students To Opt-out
Update (Nov. 28, 2012): Court hearing has been moved to Federal Court - date to be determined.
A dispute between the Northside Independent School District and a John Jay High School student who refused to wear a tracking ID could be settled in court on Wednesday.
The case could set a precedent on whether or not students at Northside ISD can be forced to wear the tracking ID badges the district uses to locate students and take attendance. The program is called the 'Student Locator Project' and is planned for other NISD schools if it proves successful.
Andrea Hernandez attends Jay’s Science Magnet and is basing her refusal to wear the ID on religious grounds. Her attorney, John Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute – a civil liberties organization – claims her constitutional rights are being violated.
"They’re (the Hernandez family) evangelical Christians and there are millions of evangelical Christians across the country that feel that any kind of tracking device like this is the so called 'mark of the beast' which means they would be forced to worship a false god," Whitehead said.
Whitehead said Hernandez was denied library and cafeteria services and some extracurricular activities for refusing to use the ID. Northside ISD spokesman Pascual Gonzalez said the district instead offered her an ID without the tracking chip.
"Both the student and her father refused that and for that reason she received a letter reassigning her back to her home campus," Gonzalez said.
In response to the relocation, Whitehead obtained a restraining order and Hernandez is being allowed to remain at Jay without having to wear the ID until the court decision.
"What we’re hoping to establish here is the right of students like Andrea who have strong religious views or privacy issues with these chips that they would be able to opt out of the program," Whitehead added.
The Rutherford Institute said they plan to appeal should they lose the case. | <urn:uuid:72b757c4-3b76-4a1d-bc6f-4b3f0e24aaea> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tpr.org/post/court-case-involving-student-northside-isd-may-allow-tracked-students-opt-out?ft=1&f=164739220,165155362,165236613,166028924,166115251,166225617,166271475,166674266,167248001,167260687,167289876,167474056,167527713,167534254,168173536 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965051 | 425 | 1.609375 | 2 |
"a strong client base attracted to the set by its competitive fees." (Chambers and Partners)
The jurisprudence on Information Law is growing all the time, as the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and Environmental Information Regulations 2004 require greater transparency as to information and decision-making by public bodies, and impose often significant obligations on them in responding to information requests, and in record-keeping and the management of information. At the same time, the importance of data protection requirements has increasingly been recognised, in the wake of well-publicised losses of personal data by public authorities, the introduction of monetary penalties for serious breaches of the Data Protection Act 1998, and the increased need for data sharing as public bodies move to joint working and common provision of services. The requirements of these regimes can often seem to be in conflict, and the complexity of the exemptions applicable in some cases, and the speed of the law’s evolution in this area, call for specialist advice or representation - informed by an understanding of the wider framework within which local authorities operate - which Cornerstone Barristers can provide. | <urn:uuid:7d7de7ac-0e86-4b9c-9c44-b39754a27149> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cornerstonebarristers.com/practice-areas/information-law/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950685 | 220 | 1.6875 | 2 |
What could be more fun than playing with puppies and kitties all day long? And what could be more rewarding than helping pets and their ...
Jeffrey Vogl, DVM
Ask the VeterinarianE-mail
April 25, 2013
I still hear the same dog myths today that I remember hearing as a child. Call them myths, ol' wives' tails, folklore or superstitions, but they are not true and in fact may be just bad advice. They have been passed down from the Great and Powerful OZ and, even still, reside in the gospel of digital Dr. Google. There is no doubt that you will shudder and balk at the blasphemy against hundreds of years of “proof” that these fallacies are fact. It will rock the very core of your dog knowledge that you have rooted and passed on to all others who seek your mentoring and advice because you are….. “Dog Person”! If these “facts” as you know them are false, what else in this world can be true? Next thing you are going to tell me is that Lassie wasn’t a real show about saving the life of little Timmy every week and, worse yet, Lassie was a boy dog!
March 14, 2013
Even if you could define “smartest” I am not sure you would get a consensus on which is the smartest breed of dog. Does smartest mean problem solving, learning, obeying commands, or dog IQ testing? (Yes there is an IQ test for dogs). Some dogs are street smart and some are book smart just like people.
January 15, 2013
I used to buy into the fact that since humans have opposing thumbs, lack a prehensile tail, and make and use tools that we were somehow superior in intelligence to our pets. Yet the longer I practice and the more I witness, I become more skeptical about how all this works. I have been watching dogs outsmart their owners since I began practicing almost three decades ago. Sometimes it is so subtle, our clients don’t even know. Other times it’s blatant, conniving manipulation of humans.
November 28, 2012
I signed another sympathy card last week for the family of a wonderful female golden retriever that died from mammary adenocarcinoma (breast cancer). This type of cancer would most certainly have been prevented if she had been spayed at an appropriate age earlier in her life. Every time this happens it reinforces my belief in spaying and neutering. I routinely inform our clients that it is not a matter of “if” but a matter of “when” and “what” hormone dependent disease we will deal with in their pets’ later years if they are not spayed or neutered. The lifespan of spayed and neutered pets statistically are a year longer due to the list of diseases that can no longer afflict your pet.
October 4, 2012
In the movie Cast Away, Tom Hanks is a Fedex employee who survives a plane crash and finds himself stranded alone on a deserted island. After years he has learned how to survive and “make fire”. At one point during this nail biter, he develops an abscessed tooth. The pain becomes so unbearable that he resorts to using the blade from a found ice skate to knock the infected tooth out of his mouth. It still makes me queasy just imagining that scene.
August 7, 2012
One of our clients came in to our office with one of his “kids” last week because it was ADR (ain’t doin right). His dogs are very much his “kids” and live a wonderful life. We see many dogs and cats every day that ADR. Oftentimes, our clients just can’t put their finger on what is wrong, as in this instance with this 11-year-old female Cocker... We kept her for the morning to check her over and just a few blood tests later, we knew we were in trouble. Her liver enzymes were elevated, her liver size had decreased and the texture on ultrasound was not normal. A specific liver function test proved that her liver was in advanced stages of failing.
June 27, 2012
Due to the very nature of our line of work in veterinary medicine, we are exposed to pain and suffering many times every day in our furry friends. From trauma, elective surgery, non-elective surgery, tumors, fractures, periodontal disease, abdominal pain and osteoarthritis, we are continually trying to prevent, alleviate or just plain manage all these types of painful situations. Just like children, our pets are helpless when it comes to pain management and rely on us to be there for them.
May 7, 2012
I think I am old enough now that I can use the phrase, “You remember the good old days.” If you listen to the “older than me timers” you could feed your dog scraps, bones, pork or anything else lying around. They wouldn’t get sick and still live forever. And that’s a long time. I am not sure how true all this is, but I still hear it said by many of our charming senior clients. These days, we get several calls about vomiting or diarrhea patients every single day. Our patients compared to the past seem to have a much more “sensitive constitution,” as my grandma would have said.
March 20, 2012
One of my favorite movies, Never Cry Wolf, where a naive researcher studies the impact a pack of wolves has on the caribou herd, exemplifies exactly how relationships with our domesticated dogs should go in our homes. In one scene the alpha wolf of the pack urinates on the intruding human's tent in the arctic tundra, sending him a message of whose turf this is. To respond to this indignation the researcher returns the favor, marking the wolves’ den. In the real wild this would be seen as quite a challenge and likely a fight would ensue to determine who the real alpha is. Rarely in the wild do these fights take place because of the wonderful social order in a pack of wolves.
January 31, 2012
Hackles raise, pupils dilate, body position changes to a more erect stance, ears perk up, facial twitches begin, and low growling can be heard from people on both sides of this issue. There is such a huge divide between both arenas; it becomes difficult to see answers. As with everything, there are radicals in both groups and always will be. Like my high school chemistry professor Mr. Zetterholm, I would suggest we throw out the best and the worst scores and concentrate on the average, the grey area and use a more common sense approach. It just seems that rarely are the extremes the answer to anything.
December 16, 2011
With all the comments and questions I received about what everyone was feeding their dogs and cats, I couldn’t help but continue my rant about marketing to all of us pet owners and how we buy into it. Even as veterinarians (as if we should know better) we succumb to the glitz and glamour of marketing by these billion-dollar corporations. Witness this at our numerous conferences and the huge booths and displays by prescription diet and OTC diet companies who successfully bribe us with pens, key chains and candy.
November 8, 2011
Hardly a day goes by at my office without a client asking us what is the best food for my dog or cat, because everyone knows most of the pet foods are terrible. They have things like grain, BHA, by-products of some sort, preservatives, and who knows what else. Why I have even been told by clients that most of these foods cause cancer, weaken their immune system, cause skin disease; have ground up tires, soybean oil, tocopherol, and many acids like lactic, phosphoric and citric. I was horrified to learn that all these pet food companies were trying to harm our beloved pets. It would make sense then that all of the diseases I deal with every day are caused by the very food we use to try to keep them healthy. Could that mean that unscrupulous veterinarians would recommend these toxic foods, to cause diseases and increase their bottom line? What a horrible conspiracy.
October 3, 2011
Sounds like a country western song, but that’s what all of us were greeted with at the Martin Luther King Jr. Recreation Center Sunday October 2nd. It was South Bend’s first Community Pet Day, put together by South Bend Animal Care and Control, CARE of South Bend and a host of other organizations. Veterinarians from Kryder Veterinary Clinic, Western Veterinary Clinic and our office, University Park Veterinary Hospital, along with several technicians, assistants and other wonderful volunteers all offered to give a few hours of our time to what seemed like a good cause. Little did we know.
September 6, 2011
You can feel it in the air. It’s just a bit cooler in the mornings, a little less humid. Cicadas are buzzing, grackles are bunching up, football is in the air and at our office the excitement of another cuterebra season is upon us and in full swing. Don’t you love it. You can just hear it in our staff’s voices: “Is it one?” “Can you wait so I can see too?” “What time is Mr. Larvuh coming in with Lumpy, his yorkie?” “Can I stay over lunch to help?”
August 3, 2011
It’s been more than 15 years, but I can still see our beautiful yellow English Labrador retriever Jake running through the field behind our hospital, on a mission he knew all too well. Our daughter barely able to walk, had put Jake in a “ sit stay,” then stumbled her way through all the brush into the middle of the field to hide his “dummy.” Several minutes would pass as Jake quivered with excitement, waiting for his master to return from her foray. She would walk up to him, (he faced away from the field so he could not see her path) whispering and petting him as his excitement grew to be unbearable. Then came the screamed “release”! Like a machine, he cast left to right and back, on perfect 45s, across acres of goldenrod. Seemingly miraculously, within seconds he returned, tail up, head held high, very proud, with the dummy in his mouth. He was the perfect breed of dog…..for that.
July 6, 2011
Q: I have father and son cocker spaniels, both born in my house and used to being together. The father is 12 years old though, so I know the time will come when he will leave us. Since the younger (age 7) has always been around his dad, when that passing does occur, do dogs go through a "grieving" process, or experience separation anxiety at having lost such a constant presence?
June 19, 2011
Last week we squeezed in a client who wanted a second opinion on their new kitten, “Goobers.” Mrs. Panicking had found out the day before that her newly adopted kitten from the shelter had a “very serious” condition and she needed to know if he was going to make it. She was thinking of returning the kitten she had already fallen in love with and, to make matters worse, she herself had started to become ill with the same symptoms.
June 6, 2011
Q: Dr. Vogl, your last column was about tick season. I'm worried about my dog and Lyme Disease. Should I be?
May 22, 2011
I have always prescribed to the notion that the world’s varieties of creatures are woven into webs of balance, necessity and purpose. Even the ones that make you go yuuuuck. It just seems however, that try as I might, a few of these I just can’t figure out their place in the scheme of things. Such is the case with that slower than a sloth, creepy, crawly, disease-carrying arachnid we call a tick. The absolute only positive relationship I have ever heard is with Diceros bicornis (black rhino) and his friends of Africa and the nitpicking tickbird that rides his back. This wonderful symbiotic relationship allows the parasite eating tickbird a ride with a free meal and the rhino, Lubriderm-like skin.
May 4, 2011
What do you get when you mix the smells of unwashed, musty, old athletic socks, dead fish, and moldy limburger cheese (because the fresh stuff smells so much better)?
April 24, 2011
With the Easter season here, the phone call that we are sure to get will go something like this: “Excuse me Dr. Vogl, but Mrs. Kottentayle is on the phone and their Beagle ‘Peter’ just ate a few of those foil wrapped chocolate eggs, wrapper and all.”
April 13, 2011
Q: If my cat has had one bout with toxicity from ingesting onions, is she at greater risk if she ever eats them again? After all, aren't onions natural?
April 5, 2011
“No, no, no, fatty tumors have nothing to do with your dog’s weight,” I reply to my client with her 8-year-old, yellow Labrador retriever. Lipomas, (pronounced lie-poe’-muss) also known as “fatty tumors,” are common in many older dogs, especially retrievers. Every day in our practice we recheck one or find a new one. Lipomas are sneaky by nature; they seem to show up for no apparent reason (much like the fat on us). Usually our clients will say that they just noticed this new lump even though they pet their dog all the time. Groomers will often find these lumps too.
March 30, 2011
Q: Dr. Vogl, what questions should I get answers to about adopting a dog from a rescue group/humane shelter? I mean, seriously, I just want to look.
March 24, 2011
Q: Dr. Vogl, are dog parks safe? I worry that other dogs that go there might not be up-to-date on vaccinations? | <urn:uuid:21407b56-1a51-4329-8540-e1d42a1f8945> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wsbt.com/topic/wsbttv-jeffrey-vogl-dvm-20110324,0,1264760.columnist | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974197 | 3,028 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Sen. Susan Collins has agreed to help Habitat for Humanity of Waldo County celebrate World Habitat Day. The Senator will be at the local affiliate’s current construction site at 84 Old County Road in Searsport on Friday, Oct. 5, at 10 a.m.
Sen. Collins will help highlight the need for safe, decent and affordable housing and the priority it needs to be in the United States and around the world. She is also expected to address the change that is needed in systems, policies and attitudes that lead to poverty housing and the need for grassroots action to make that happen.
The theme for this year’s World Habitat Day is “Many Homes, One Community,” which is meant to call attention to the pivotal role housing plays in a neighborhood.
Habitat for Humanity of Waldo County was founded four years ago. The first partner family moved into its new home on Christmas Eve 2010.
Construction on the affiliate’s second home in Searsport started in September. Volunteers to help with the construction can go to www.habitatofwaldocounty.org and fill out the volunteer registration form or call 557-6071 and leave your name, contact information and skills. | <urn:uuid:7495c368-913a-42d0-b792-e75f4bde6dbb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bangordailynews.com/community/sen-collins-to-visit-searsport/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946667 | 253 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Volume , Number 0
There are no articles.Commentary
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Congress Privatizes the Net
Microradio Broadcasting Aguascalientes of the …
Pulp Non Fiction: The Ecologist …
Death to the MIA
Bootstraps Literacy And Racist Schooling …
Bombing A La Mode
Interview with Martxedn Espada
Mark k. Anderson
Editorial: What Lies Ahead
Anatomy of a Victory
The Oscar Wilde Fad
"New Global Architecture" Poses Questions …
title("Fraud In Oakland's Garbage Sweatshop")
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Microradio Broadcasting Aguascalientes of the Airwaves
Excerpted from notes prepared for a presentation given at the "Festival of Resistance" organized by the NY Zapatistas, 10/12/98.
"Where there is even a pretense of democracy," writes Noam Chomsky, "communications are at its heart." Given the present state of our society, however, it's no surprise that we find communications not at the heart of a vibrant democracy, but rather in the grip of an oppressive and contradictory system of mass control. Nowhere is this more evident than in the community struggle for access to the airwaves, and the corporate/ government campaign to crush it.
To begin building a better world, we must first achieve democracy--the process by which whole communities may meaningfully participate in decision making. And to make intelligent, well formed decisions, we must be able to receive, produce, debate, and share information openly and freely. It is for this reason that a public access media system is a non-negotiable demand in the struggle for democratic society.
The problem is neoliberalism--the unrelenting forces that shape society according to the conditions most favorable to business. Almost every aspect of our lives--our work, food, housing, education, and culture is dominated, in one form or another, by the pro-business mission of neoliberalism. In our present age, business is defined by massive corporations. Since Reagan, neoliberal influence on law has been to permit corporations to merge into new monolithic entities that control more economic and political power than many of the earth's countries. Indeed, commercial corporations, not nation states, are emerging as the new global superpowers-and their mission is to make the most possible amount of money in the shortest possible time.
Nowhere have U.S. citizens lost greater control of its public sphere than in the government's management of the airwaves. To study the history of radio policy in this country is to study the movement of neoliberalism: how business interests gradually gain control over a priceless public resource without benefiting civil society. Radio was introduced to the Western world by Guglielmo Marconi in 1895. By 1907 interest in the technology had reached the general population, and by 1912 hundreds of pioneers began broadcasting in the United States. In August of that year Congress passed the Radio Act of 1912 which required all broadcasters to first acquire a license. Under the Radio Act of 1912, noncommercial radio flourished. Tens of thousands of individuals took to the airwaves. By the 1920s, noncommercial stations outnumbered commercial stations by a ratio of two-to-one. To cope with the explosion of interest, Congress passed the Radio Act of 1927, thereby creating the Federal Radio Commission, prototype of today's FCC. The purpose of the FRC was to regulate the airwaves "in the public interest, convenience, and necessity."
From 1927 onward, however, the federal government began interpreting its mandate to serve "public interest" in ways utterly inconsistent with that of other branches of government. In the case of libraries, schools, parks, and highways, for example, regulating in the "public interest" means preserving those spaces from the presence of business. In the case of the airwaves, this interpretation has been reversed, but not without resistance. As Robert W. McChesney points out, "Between 1928 and 1935, some elements of American society actively opposed the emerging commercial set-up and attempted to have a significant portion of the ether set aside for noncommercial and nonprofit utilization."
"Declaring that the 'public interest, convenience and necessity' was better served by 'general pubic service'," writes microradio lawyer Robert Perry, " (i.e., commercial) stations than by 'special interest' and 'propaganda' (ie, non-commercial) stations, the FRC gave noncommercial stations fewer hours than commercial stations. The FRC also limited broadcast radio licenses to three-month terms, effectively requiring noncommercial stations to expend their limited financial resources fending off license renewal challenges from commercial stations every three months." The FRC's pro-business interpretation of "public interest" served to privatize the airwaves: noncommercial radio virtually disappeared between 1927 and 1934, shrinking to barely 2 percent of all radio airtime by 1934.
The passage of the Federal Communications Act of 1934 maintained the democratic language of the 1927 Act; regulation of the airwaves would be carried out to serve the "public interest, convenience and necessity," and what was once the FRC then became the FCC. In the 64 years years since its inception, the FCC did take several steps to fulfill its mandate and attempt to serve civil society. To the benefit of commercialism, however, each of these steps has long since been eliminated. At a glance:
1. Genuine democracy requires an informed public that has access to a diverse range of controversial and contrasting views. Thus, in 1949 the FCC adopted the Fairness Doctrine, requiring radio stations to provide reasonable coverage of opposing views on issues of relevance to the community. During the Reagan years, the Fairness Doctrine was eliminated.
2. Genuine democracy requires media that reflect the cultural diversity and local issues that characterize a community. Thus, the FCC required that 8 percent of AM radio air time and 6 percent of FM radio airtime be dedicated to public affairs programming that was nonentertainment oriented. As a condition of license renewal, the FCC also required that stations actually study the communities to which they were broadcasting in order to access the needs of the people living there. During the Reagan years, these requirements were all eliminated.
3. Genuine democracy is based on broad public participation, a condition made possible not by political representation, but by direct public access. Beginning in 1948, the FCC permitted public access to the airwaves by issuing "Class D" low power broadcasting licenses to community groups, colleges, and churches. As a result, noncommercial radio flourished for the first time since the 1920s. In 1978, under pressure from an ambitious National Public Radio organization that hoped to consolidate audiences, the FCC enacted a ban on all broadcasting under 100 watts, with no cases of waivers granted to this day.
The general drift toward complete corporate control of the airwaves reached a new extreme with the passage of the Telecommunications Reform Act of 1996. A defining feature of the act has been to tolerate a higher limit of media outlets--radio and TV stations--that any one corporation can own. It also eases the restrictions preventing these huge media conglomerates from merging into one another, creating huge monolithic powers. As microradio scholar Larry Soley observes, "almost 4,000 or nearly 40 percent, of the nation's roughly 10,300 commercial radio stations have been traded in deals collectively worth $32 billion, with the largest radio station group owners being the most aggressive purchasers. The ten largest group owners today control 1,134 commercial radio stations, up from 652 prior to passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The Dallas investment firm, Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst Inc., is the group leader, with over 400 stations, followed by CBS with 175 stations. According to Broadcast Investment Analysts, there are nearly 15 percent fewer radio station owners than there were prior to the passage of the act. Two group owners, CBS and Chancellor Media, today have nearly 53 percent of radio listeners in the top 10 markets, with CBS having 27 percent and Chancellor having 25.2 percent. CBS holds nearly 50 percent of the news talk listening audience in those markets." And on and on. Corporations get the licenses, controlling both access and content. Any lingering obligation to serve "public interest" is completely paved over. Media corporations are not in business to make democracy possible, but rather to capture the largest possible audience whose attention they then sell like scrap metal for advertising.
This scenario and the policies that protect it provide a clear portrait of the neoliberal agenda: maintaining the face of a democratic society while enacting laws and policies, enforced by government, that decrease the public arena, redefine citizenship in terms of consumerism, and provide unfettered conditions for corporations to evolve with the rights of individuals and the power of nation states. In the resulting free-for-all of corporate mergers, "the public interest" is duly served with a variety of entertainment options, while the spectrum of political and social information reaching public awareness narrows to the point of meaninglessness. The notion of a public discussion pursuing any real increase in social welfare, freedom, or self determination is thus unthinkable in a neoliberal system, impossible because there are no longer any public venues through which to express such thoughts. In such a climate, it then becomes understandable why it is legal to purchase a fully assembled Uzi machine gun in this country, but it's not legal to purchase a fully assembled low-watt radio transmitter.
"In the current media environment," says Robert Perry, "speech is merely another commodity to be bought and sold, valued primarily for it's revenue potential." The resulting black out on local issues, core political speech, and cultural diversity has not been without serious repercussions: over the past five years, a national movement has been mushrooming in opposition to corporate control of communications. This is a movement made up of hundreds of community groups who operate unlicensed clandestine radio stations in much the same spirit that Rosa Parks sat in the front of the bus: to resist and challenge a dehumanizing and unconstitutional system.
Networks of Alternative Communication
Everywhere that oppressive restrictions become institutionalized by either government or business, there one finds resistance, underground networks, and liberation struggles. Among grassroots groups, the thousands of volunteer movement activists who make up overlapping democracy struggles, there is a growing consensus to use our precious few resources working on alternatives to corporate media, rather than attempting to revolutionize the system head-on. "Media wealth is too concentrated, too solidified, and too integrated into the corporate-government elite to make social change within the existing system possible," says Project Censored Director, Peter Phillips.
Realizing that under neoliberalism, civil society will continue to be denied the kinds of information and access that make participatory democracy possible, the Zapatistas have proposed the formation of an "intercontinental network of alternative communication" as a way of sharing movement news, organizing, and celebrating the art and culture of resistance. In his video message to the Freeing the Media gathering that took place in New York City two years ago, Subcommandante Marcos said, "In August 1996, we called for the creation of a network of independent media, a network of information... We need this network not only as a tool for our social movements, but for our lives: this is a project of life, of humanity, humanity which has a right to critical and truthful information."
Alongside the invaluable on-line activism now proliferating via the Internet, the growing network of microradio broadcasters is emerging as an energetic force in building viable, community-oriented alternatives to the neoliberal media. Around the country, hundreds of communities are creating small aguascalientes, centers of civil resistance, by operating low-watt radio stations where they can express their cultures, their languages, and their politics with complete freedom-and in complete opposition to corporate control of the public airwaves.
On October 4 and 5 hundreds of microradio activists gathered in Washington, DC for a national conference on movement strategies and to protest against the Federal communications policy and the corporate forces that pressure it. Over the weekend, microradio activists sent a team of lobbyists to meet with representatives on Capitol Hill, launched a new DC station (Radio Libre), staged a panel at the Freedom Forum that was broadcast to 86 countries, and conducted dozens of interviews with the mainstream press, resulting in coverage in the Washington Post, NPR, MSNBC and many others. The weekend culminated with a massive march and puppet parade from Dupont Circle to FCC headquarters, and then on to the headquarters of the National Association of Broadcasters-the pro-industry group that most intensely pressures the FCC to eliminate microbroadcasting. DC cops on motorcycles blocked intersections and stopped traffic so that marchers could parade with three huge Bread and Puppet Theater puppets showing FCC Chair "Kennardio" in the likeness of Pinnochio being controlled by a bigger puppet, a TV headed monster--The NAB, which, in turn, was being puppeteered by an even larger, more heinous looking beast: the corporate media monolith. The march came to a head when microbroadcasters overpowered NAB agents (attempting to keep marchers off headquarters' property), hauled the NAB flag down from the top of a high pole, and rose up in its place a pirate radio flag. The action filled the air with cheers of joy, and resulted in two arrests.
Microradio In the Courtroom
Until now, the FCC have done everything possible to avoid having the constitutionality of their regulations questioned. For more than two years, the micropower radio movement was watching the case of Stephen Dunifer and Free Radio Berkeley, hoping that Judge Claudia Wilken would consider the FCC's ban unconstitutional and rule in favor of the broadcasters. But on Tuesday, June 16, Stephen Dunifer emailed networks across the Internet. Dunifer's message read: "We just received notification that Federal judge Claudia Wilken has granted the FCC motion for summary judgement for a permanent injunction against myself and all others acting in concert with me." Two days later Dunifer's station, Free Radio Berkeley, was off the air.
Judge Wilken did not shut down Dunifer because his constitutional challenges were overruled. In fact, throughout Judge Wilken's 20 page decision, she manages to completely avoid answering the constitutional questions that Dunifer raises as his defense. Instead, Judge Wilken based her ruling on a technical Catch 22: that Dunifer never applied for a license.
Dunifer's attorneys are contesting Judge Wilken's decision. On Monday, June 29 they filed a Motion to Alter Judgement and requested a hearing for August 7. Their motion argues that Wilken was in error, and the logic of applying for a license and a waiver as prerequisites to challenging the constitutionality of the FCC's microradio ban is like demanding that Rosa Parks ask for a waiver to sit on the front of the bus.
Dunifer was not granted a hearing on August 7, 1998. Judge Wilken said that she did not require oral presentations in order to determine if she would amend her judgement. Whether or not she does, public unrest over the ban on microradio will continue to mount until some form of community access to the airwaves has been realized. Dunifer's civil disobedience has ignited a mass movement. As a result of his activism, communities all over America are claiming a seat in the front of the airwaves, challenging the injustice of the FCC's licensing scheme. The FCC has shut down 250 stations in the past 10 months, but new stations keep emerging.
Steal This Radio, NYC
With the presence of several underground stations, and the support of activist groups like the New York Free Media Alliance, Paper Tiger Television, and the Center for Constitutional Rights, NYC has become an active front in the free media struggle. At the center of the local resistance is Steal This Radio, a 20-watt station that has been broadcasting at 88.7 FM for three years on the Lower East Side.
In March 1998, Steal This Radio was visited by Judah Mansbach, a notorious FCC agent responsible for shutting down countless microstations. Following Mansbach's visit, STR decided to temporarily go off the air until the station was able to strike first against the FCC with a full-scale legal/media assault. That action began on April 15, 1998, when Steal This Radio held a demonstration and press conference at the site where George Washington took oath as first President of the United States (directly across from the New York Stock Exchange.) That afternoon, Steal This Radio's lawyers initiated the lawsuit by submitting formal papers in Federal court.
Steal this Radio's case is called Free Speech vs the FCC, and is represented by Robert Perry (independent) and Barbara Olshansky (Center For Constitutional Rights). Their legal offensive establishes that the airwaves are a public forum, and as such, are a venue where free speech should be protected by the Constitution. The FCC's condition that broadcasters take to the airwaves at 100 watts or more is one which involves an investment of hundreds of thousands of dollars-resources no community group has at its disposal. STR's case also argues that the FCC's procedure for raiding stations and seizing equipment is illegal even under the FCC's own statute, the Communications Act of 1934. "In other words," says Perry, "it's the FCC that is breaking the law."
Outside the courtroom, microbroadcasters are also using channels opened by the FCC themselves to alter regulation. There are presently several petitions before the FCC which seek to open the airwaves to varying degrees of public access. Two of these petitions are meaningless tokens: RM-9208 proposes low power license of one watt or less, which basically means shouting distance, and RM-9246 proposes "Event Broadcast Stations" to provide temporary stations access to the airwaves.
The third petition, RM-9242, proposes the creation of three new classes of low power stations, one of up to 50 watts, one 50 watts to 3 kilowatts, and a third for the creation of temporary stations. In order to insure that these stations are a true organ of community, the petition proposes that license holders live within a 50 mile radius of the station and that no licensee would be permitted to own more than 3 stations nationwide. In this petition, micropower stations are called "secondary service stations" and are designated "to those types of of broadcasters who do not wish to conform to a more structured and/ or regulated form of broadcasting." Good as this may sound, even this petition is seriously flawed. J. Rodger Skinner proposes this license as being deferential to commercial interests: "the licensee must vacate the channel," writes Skinner, "if a full-power station becomes short spaced...due to an antenna site move or power increase, or application by a...primary service applicant." Skinner's idea here is not to create sovereign community stations, but rather to provide a temporary slot for folks who are planning to "upgrade" to a "full-power" station.
Even though these are the only three petitions that the FCC have formally presented for public comments, new regulations are by no means constrained by these three petitions alone. Thanks to the National Lawyers Guild Committee for Democratic Communications (CDC) a proposal that genuinely expresses a non-commercial, self-determined, public interest orientation has been crafted. The CDC are free media activist lawyers who've been fighting with microbroadcasters ever since Mbanna Kantako gave them a call back in 1989. Their mission is to focus "on the rights of all peoples to have a worldwide system of media and communications based upon the principle of cultural and informational self-determination." As an alternative to the three petitions which the FCC presented for public commentary, the CDC propose, and have won wide support for, new regulation that would permit:
1. Non-commercial service
2. Only one station per owner
3. Local ownership, no absentee owners
4. That stations shall be locally programmed. However recorded materials such as music, poetry, documentaries, features, etc. may be used. Sharing of program materials and resources among micro and community stations is strongly encouraged.
5. That owners be individuals, unincorporated associations, or non profit organizations. For non-profit corporations, partnerships, joint ventures, or other organizations may not be owners.
6. That stations may be established on any unused frequency within the FM broadcast band down to 87.5. Second adjacent channel would the closest spacing allowed.
7. That maximum power shall be 50 watts urban and 100 watts rural. In the event of interference due to power level, a station shall have the option to reduce power to remedy the situation or be shut down.
8. That a microstation shall fill out a simple registration form, and send one copy with an appropriate registration fee to the FCC, and a second copy to the voluntary body setup by the micropower broadcast community to oversee the micro power stations.
9. That equipment shall meet a basic technical criteria in respect to stability, filtering, modulation control, etc.
10. That registration shall be valid for four years.
11. That there shall be no specific public service requirements imposed by the FCC. 12. That problems, whether technical or otherwise, shall be first referred to the local or regional voluntary micropower organization for technical assistance or voluntary mediation. The FCC shall be the forum of last resort.
13. That when television broadcast stations go digital, leaving Channel 6 free, it shall be allocated as an extension to the bottom of the FM band strictly for low power community FM service. Radio receivers manufactured or entering the country after that allocation must meet this band extension.
14. That microbroadcasting of special events (demonstrations, protests, rallies, festivals, concerts, etc) do not need to be registered, but are encouraged to meet all technical specifications.
15.That micro stations licensed during the present analog system of broadcasting shall be permitted to renew their licenses during and through the transition to digital broadcasting.
16. That amnesty shall be granted for microbroadcasters who suffered government seizure of property and fines.
Intense and sustained pressure from microbroadcasters' civil disobedience strategies, lawsuits, and media campaigns are clearly impacting the FCC. Confirmation of this came in the aftermath of the October protests, when high level officials at the agency met with CDC attorney Peter Franck to discuss technical issues involved in lifting the ban. According to Franck, by the end of December 1998 we can expect the FCC to either put forth a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) that proposes new regulation legalizing some form of low power broadcasting or to put forth a Notice of Inquiry (NOI) asking for public comments on specific technical and policy issues involved in setting up a new low power radio system. In either scenario, microbroadcasters will continue to insist that any new regulation opening access to the spectrum be access that is preserved through radio's inevitable transition to digital.
Few people are optimistic about any initial proposals coming from the FCC. Cynics anticipate the Commission trying to diffuse the movement by permitting a 10 watt or less license, a pathetic gesture that 99 percent of microbroadcasters will vehemently reject. Others anticipate chair Kennard to act primarily in the interests of minority entrepreneur. "Given Kennard's orientation toward minority enterprise," says Franck, "the risk is that the FCC will simply set up a lower tier of small commercial stations onto the FM band." It's up to the movement to keep the pressure on until a genuinely progressive non-commercial NPRM is presented.
"Until our free speech is permitted over the airways at up to 100 watts, we will continue to fight, to organize, to attack the FCC in the courts and in the media, and engage in civil disobedience by starting as many new stations as possible, " said Pete tri Dish, an indefatigable free radio activist and one of the key organizers of recent conferences in Washington DC and Philadelphia. In the winter of 1998 Pete tri Dish and friends from Philly's Radio Mutiny launched a major "start your own station" micro radio tour, presenting free workshops to dozens of east coast communities. A follow-up tour is being planned for February 1999.
Building a Microradio Empowerment Coalition
A key lesson to be learned from the Zapatistas is their mission "not to usurp power, but to exercise it." As a movement, we must now organize and fund a Microradio Empowerment Coalition that coordinates a national legalization campaign, building working alliances with non-profit groups committed to placing democratic communications at the heart of our society. As a long term goal, the Coalition could strive to create local Media Empowerment Centers that, like the Aguascalientes in Chiapas, serve as regional resource points for activism and organizing.
A concrete example of such work is seen in the accomplishments of UNPLUG, the successful, well funded campaign waged by a handful of full-time organizers committed to forcing corporations out of another public space: the school system. UNPLUG serves as a front in the struggle against an aggressive corporate campaign to use public school children as a captive audience for corporate advertising. UNPLUG worked with community groups around the country who were repulsed by the commercial infiltration of the school system, and won victory after victory, expelling Channel One from classrooms. We need to study the work done by groups like UNPLUG, and organize Empowerment Centers that serve to combat corporate infiltration of public spaces, starting with the airwaves. Essentially, the purpose of the Coalition would be to better coordinate the work already being done by microradio activists, and to expand it.
Short term activities would include:
Developing a viable proposal for a low power broadcasting system
Forming alliances with progressive public interest groups, non-profit organizations, and foundations
Creating regional, self regulation mechanisms for microbroadcasting
Distributing reliable and inexpensive transmitters & equipment
Media Coordination, i.e, booking spokespeople in the mainstream
Offering free workshops and trainings on starting non-commercial community stations
Providing a legal/technical referral service
Establishing a free media speakers bureau
Creating databases for use by activists
Producing a web page, newsletter, public service announcements, audiocassettes, public fora, and conferences Long term activities might include:
Creating public production libraries where media equipment can be borrowed by the public, and where people can receive free training.
Initiate legislation for a "Grazing Tax" for commercial media. Ranchers who use public lands pay one, corporations who use public airwaves do not, and should. Funds raised could help support nonprofit media as well as public production libraries.
Beautify Community Act forced all advertising off Federal highways. The Beautify Community Act would help communities reclaim public space by forcing billboard landlords to give over all signs in residential areas for community messages and art two months out of every twelve.
Microbroadcasting and Revolution
As a counteroffensive to this degrading assault on our everyday lives, the most effective use of our resources may not be to engage the neoliberal media system head-on, but to concentrate on building sustainable venues and alternative networks. For those with computers, the Internet provides immediate possibilities for entering such a network, possibilities being realized through the efforts of groups like Tao Communications in Toronto, and others elsewhere. For those without access, for those who cannot read, for those with little resources, for those who struggle, micropower radio is a powerful weapon, a source, an invitation, a resistance, a connection.
Like Rosa Parks, we are not willing to wait for court cases or petition results to sit in the front of the airwaves. Like the Zapatistas, we will continue to organize, continue to agitate, continue to seek one another out at meetings, over the airwaves and in the streets until we have won the freedom and the resources to realize genuine democracy, a necessary victory, but not an end, in the struggle to build a better world.
Aguascalientes literally means "hot water." In the Zapatista democracy struggle, Aguascalientes refers to the civilian cultural resistance centers that serve surrounding communities by providing a space for political meetings, cultural events, dialogue and "encuentros" with civil society, as well as being places that contain schools, women's cooperatives and health clinics.
The first Aguascalientes was destroyed by federal troops after they occupied the township of Guadelupe Tepeyac, on February 5, 1995. In 1994, it was the site of the Democratic National Convention where 6,000 people from Mexico and all over the world gathered to meet with the Zapatistas and dialogue about the possibility of building an international movement of resistance "for humanity and against neoliberalism."
For information about holding a free Radio Mutiny workshop in your area, contact: petetridish
hotmail.com or call 215. 474. 6459.
Greg Ruggiero is a plaintiff in the case Free Speech vs The FCC. He is an editor at Seven Stories Press, and a co-founder of the New York Free Media Alliance. | <urn:uuid:cee5dacf-3d2e-43dd-a987-443279b53775> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.zcommunications.org/microradio-broadcasting-aguascalientes-of-the-airwaves-by-greg-ruggiero | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941258 | 6,067 | 1.695313 | 2 |
This happy little flower always makes me smile. The blue stars seem to sparkle as the gardening season begins.
In 1999, I planted 30 Glory-of-the-Snow bulbs on top of some tulip bulbs.
The tulip bulbs were planted 6 to 8 inches deep. I filled the planting hole with soil up to 3 inches from the top, added the Glory-of-the-Snow bulbs then added the rest of the soil on top. Over the years, the tiny bulbs have multiplied. They also moved around the front garden with transplants and new plants.
After blooming, the leaves fade away and the bulb goes dormant for the summer – to burst into blue abundance next spring.
I wish I had a hundred more. | <urn:uuid:684ca071-0d2b-42a4-8c01-5d61925eef2d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bethlehem-pa-gardening.blogspot.com/2011/04/glory-of-snow.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941088 | 152 | 1.695313 | 2 |
(CNN) -- French ministers grappled Wednesday with the issue of same-sex marriage and adoption rights as the Cabinet approved a draft bill in the face of fierce resistance from the Roman Catholic Church and social conservatives.
Extending the right to marry and adopt to same-sex couples was one of President Francois Hollande's electoral pledges in campaigning this year.
The bill is expected to go before the National Assembly and Senate in January, and is likely to be voted on in February or March. If passed, it would mark the biggest step forward for French gay rights advocates in more than a decade.
The office of Dominique Bertinotti, minister for family affairs in Hollande's Socialist government, confirmed the bill had been presented to and approved by ministers Wednesday morning.
An opinion poll released Wednesday by polling group Ifop and Le Monde newspaper found 65% of those surveyed support equal marriage rights for same-sex couples -- a clear majority of the population.
However, opinion on the question of adoption rights for same-sex couples is split almost down the middle, with 52% in favor, according to the Ifop-Le Monde survey conducted October 29-31.
Cardinal Andre Vingt-Trois, the archbishop of Paris, voiced his opposition to the proposed legislation at a meeting of French bishops in Lourdes over the weekend.
Opening up marriage to same-sex couples "would be a transformation of marriage that would affect everyone," he said.
At the same time, failing to recognize gender difference within marriage and the family would be a "deceit" that would rock the foundations of society and lead to discrimination between children, he said.
Other religious groups in France, including Muslims, Jews and Buddhists, have also expressed their concern over the draft bill, and more than 100 lawmakers are against the legislation, according to CNN affiliate BFM-TV. Hundreds of mayors around the country have also voiced their opposition to the bill.
However, it has won wide backing from gay rights advocates.
The French gay, lesbian and transgender rights group Inter-LGBT said the law, if passed, "would be a major advance for our country in terms of equality of rights."
Lawmakers have a "unique opportunity" to put an end to outdated discrimination, the group said in an online statement. "The law must allow all couples to unite themselves as they wish and must protect all families, without discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation or gender identity," it said.
The group has called for supporters to rally in front of the National Assembly in Paris on Wednesday evening.
Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault has said the proposed changes are a matter of justice and equality that reflect the evolving nature of society.
Other divisive questions such as whether same-sex couples should have the right to free reproductive assistance, and the rights of same-sex couples who aren't married to adopt will be tackled in a "complementary law" on the family, he said, allowing further debate on the issue.
A law legalizing civil unions was introduced in 1999 in France under a previous Socialist government.
Known in France as the PACS (pacte civil de solidarite), the civil union agreement can be entered into by gay or straight couples and confers many but not all of the rights of marriage.
In elections in the United States on Tuesday, the states of Maine and Maryland became the first to approve same-sex marriage through a popular vote in referendums on the question.
Thirty-eight U.S. states have passed bans on marriages between people of the same gender, mostly by amending their constitutions to define marriage as the union between a man and a woman. In those states where same-sex couples had previously won the right to marry, it was because of action by legislators or judges.
CNN's Dheepthi Namasivayam contributed to this report. | <urn:uuid:472a0248-9a8a-4893-a41c-95694b1e87a3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://edition.cnn.com/2012/11/07/world/europe/france-marriage-rights/index.html?hpt=ieu_c2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970533 | 799 | 1.773438 | 2 |
Let’s assume that you have come into the possession of the basic accouterments to start fly-fishing: rod, reel, line, backing, leader, tippet and some flies (aka “stuff”).
Let’s further assume you have participated in some basic form of “how to fly-fish” instruction. This instruction most likely came from a book, video or well-intentioned friend. But, somewhere in all the stuff and instruction, the skills to catch fish was lost.
Well, being a self-appointed fly-fishing consultant, I am going to help you in your quest to catch fish.
I believe after learning a basic cast there are three areas that need to be mastered to make you a successful fly fisherman. They are, in order of importance: presentation, line management and fly selection.
Presentation is more than just casting your fly onto the water. You have to be able to put the fly where the fish are, and do it in a manner that will trick them into eating your fly. If it were that simple, all the fish in all the lakes and rivers would have been caught a long time ago.
To practice your presentation, I suggest you start on a grassy area casting at paper plates. When you can hit the plate 10 out of 10 times, replace the plate with a cup. It can be a large cup, just smaller than the plate.
After the large cup is easy to hit, go to a smaller cup. Now, practice this presentation at different distances. Once various distances are easy practice with wind as part of the exercise – not just a gentle breeze from behind you; find West Texas-style wind from all directions.
Now move to a stream. Cast to rocks, fallen leaves, anything that will give you a target. You will be amazed how being in a stream will make it harder to achieve the perfect presentation.
Line management is next. It’s one thing to bounce a fly off your target; now you need to know how to make it behave like a real bug. Mending and having the right amount of line out are paramount. Simply put, a mend keeps the line from dragging the fly through the water so fast no fish with half a brain will be fooled. Even if you’re casting to a really stupid fish, the fly will be moving too fast to be caught.
The amount of line you have stripped off the reel is also important. If you have 40 feet of line wrapped around your legs as you attempt a 20-foot cast, it ain’t gonna work. Be sure you have only enough line out to make the cast. It is embarrassing to make the presentation, mend the line just right, then miss the set on a 20-inch trout, simply because you have too much line in the water.
Now, how do you know the correct fly to select? This is a tough question.
Ask any 10 guides and you will get 10 well-thought-out reasons to pick a certain fly. There also are books about how to pick the correct fly. I think the best one on the market is Dave Whitelock’s, A Guide to Aquatic Trout Foods. It is 210 pages long, and goes into such detail it can be confusing. I have read his book, underlined some of the suggestions and spent more time than my wife thought was necessary trying out various ideas presented in the book.
To keep you in good graces at home I have simplified the formula to just two variables: size and then color. I am a firm believer that first you need to match a fly to the size of the bugs around the water. Then to close the deal, match your flies color to what you’re seeing. Try those three steps and see if your fish count doesn’t improve. If it doesn’t, I’ll be happy to refer you to another consultant.
Reach Don Oliver at firstname.lastname@example.org. | <urn:uuid:0af32e8b-d0de-4cec-aa7d-6683c70b78e7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.durangoherald.com/article/20120706/COLUMNISTS15/707069987/-1/Sports05 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956812 | 831 | 1.78125 | 2 |
Hugo Schwyzer is a history and gender studies professor at Pasadena City College in Pasadena, CA. He was circumcised in 2005 at age 37.
I wasn’t circumcised because my father felt it wasn’t medically necessary. He was born in Europe and wasn’t circumcised, and I think fathers have an almost primal urge for their sons to look like them. I was teased about my penis as a kid, but by high school it had mostly stopped. The bigger problems started when I become sexually active. Sometimes when I would have sex, the foreskin would tear. I had to go to the hospital once in my twenties, and the doctor recommended circumcision. I was horrified. It seemed like the classic example of the remedy being worse than the problem. And by that point I was proud of my uncircumcised penis. A few women thought it was weird, but in general I got positive feedback. I decided it was one of those defining features that no one should want to get rid of, like Cindy Crawford’s mole.
My mind started to change for a number of reasons. For one, the foreskin tearing didn’t get better, and I started to develop scar tissue. But the bigger issue was that I was in a relationship with the woman (at that time, she was my fiancée) who would go on to become my wife. Before her, I’d had something of a promiscuous past. I wanted to feel as if I was starting over sexually. No matter how many people I’d been with, she would be the only woman to see me like this.
Of course I was apprehensive about the surgery. I read some horror stories about surgical mistakes, that there would be a loss of sensation, the sex wouldn’t be as good, the healing process could be agonizing. But then I contacted a couple guys who had been circumcised as adults, largely because they were converting to Judaism, and I heard good things from them. The hardest part was the anesthesia: They take a needle and make a circle all around the base of the penis. That hurt. And then there is a tiny pinprick right around the head of the penis, but after that, the surgery is painless. It is an outpatient procedure: I was in and out of there in less than two hours. The first night was very painful, but 800 milligrams of ibuprofen got me through it, and after that I didn’t take anything. It was just sore.
Obviously the No. 1 question is, what’s sex like? One thing that’s different is that I always used to beg out of oral sex. Even from women who were very good at it. It was too much sensation, too intense. After the circumcision, oral sex became a whole lot easier; the pain was gone but the pleasure remained. Plus there are other little things that I used to take for granted. I’d been sexually active for twenty years—from when I was 17 until I was circumcised at 37—which is a long time to acclimate yourself: This is how I do it, this is how my body works. I hadn’t realized how many compromises I’d made, just little shifts of flesh, to feel comfortable. The things that I can do now are totally different. When I’m with my wife, I don’t have to have that moment of, Uh oh, is this going to hurt? That is an enormous relief. There haven’t been any complications either. You hear stories about men who turn into premature ejaculators or have difficulty ejaculating. Neither of those things turned out to be true. My wife says she doesn’t notice any difference.
If I were to have a son, I don’t see why I wouldn’t have him circumcised, given the potential benefits, in terms of cleanliness and what we’re finding about HIV and STDs. As I see it, there really are very few negatives. After my procedure I did feel a twinge of loss when I thought about my father—that I was different from him now. He died in 2006, but he knew about the surgery, and was a little perplexed by it. He gave me that look of Why on Earth would you want to do that? But my dad was a good liberal dad—do what you want to do. For me, circumcision made sense on every level: medically, sexually, and emotionally. I have never regretted it for a single day. | <urn:uuid:0e77d75f-7597-4c50-aff5-49ba49ccef23> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://nymag.com/health/features/60133/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.990566 | 945 | 1.65625 | 2 |
This past Friday night, my daughter and I went back in time. Well, not really, and certainly not like the characters in my books, but in a figurative sense, with help from the residents and volunteers of the St. Anne’s Hill Historic Society.
Every year since 1986, the group has conducted a tour of homes in their historic Dayton neighborhood. It includes a walking tour of the area, led by tour guides in capes and top hats. Most of the homes are from the Victorian era or the early 20th century, and are lavishly decorated. The homeowners were friendly and enthusiastic, and happy to tell their homes’ stories and answer visitors’ questions. All who were asked, permitted us to take photos inside as well.
Our tour started at 5PM, when it was getting dark, so none of the photos I took turned out well. So most of the photos shown are from the St. Anne’s Hill website, which features a very cool online tour. The 2011 “Dickens of a Christmas” Tour started at the 48 High Street Gallery, which is home to the Dayton Society of Painters and Sculptors.
St. Anne’s Hill was one of the first neighborhoods plotted outside of the immediate downtown area, by Daniel Cooper, one of the early city planners, in the early nineteenth century (sources vary on exactly when this happened). The first reference to the area as “St. Anne’s Hill” appeared in newspaper ads for a greenhouse in the early 1830s. Where the name came from remains unknown.
A Swedish botanist named Eugene Dutoit built the first residence, a farmhouse, on his 111-acre farm and orchard on the north side of Fifth Street. The original house still stands at 222 Dutoit Street.
One of the first homes we visited was called “the Dragon House.” Located at 629 McLain, the turn-of-the-century Victorian house was called such because it once had a metal dragon figure mounted above the porch (if I recall the story correctly). The homeowner still has the dragon, stashed away in the basement waiting to be restored. What was really cool, was the address numbers were formed of dragons! Unfortunately, my photo didn’t turn out, and they’re too small to see in this one. The interior of the home sports some amazing woodwork, that reminded me of the interiors of the Piatt Castles. It was also full of beautiful, restored antique furniture. My daughter says she wants to buy the Dragon House. I told her she’d better win the lottery LOL. However, there was a flyer lying on the newel post that stated the owner is planning to put it up for sale this spring.
The majority of the neighborhood was built by craftsmen and industrialists. When the original Dutoit farm was split up and developed, much of the houses were smaller, simpler homes for working-class families. With original construction dates ranging from the 1830s to the 1960s (just a few of those!), there’s a lot of diversity in the architecture, yet it all goes together.
It was interesting to see how some of the homes were decorated, furnished, and remodeled inside, particularly the three smaller homes we visited on Henry Street. These had very contemporary-styled decor, or an eclectic mix of antique and modern furnishings. All of the kitchens and bathrooms (that we saw) had been updated, and some were very modern. My daughter was drooling at the claw-footed bathtubs in some of the homes.
The tour concluded at the Bossler Mansion, where servers in Victorian garb served coffee and homemade bread pudding. This Second Empire-style home was built in 1869 by Marcus Bossler, a builder and stone worker, who lost the home a few years later in order to avoid bankruptcy caused by another project. The mansion was later divided into thirteen apartments, several of which were still occupied when Lee Smithson, the current owner, purchased the house in 1980. Mr. Smithson spent the next five years overseeing a complete restoration, doing much of the work himself. An accomplished chemist retired from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Mr. Smithson is also a foodie, and has catered numerous weddings and other events at the Bossler Mansion. He resides in the third floor, and even allowed visitors into his personal space. This included the cupola, from which we could see a dramatic view of the city – probably one of the best around!
If you live in the area and are interested in history, the St. Anne’s Hill Christmas tour is a must-see. I’d like to go again, preferably during daylight hours so I can get a better view of the homes’ exteriors and maybe some decent photos. The $20 tour admission was money well spent, and will go toward the Historic Society’s continued work in preserving their neighborhood.
If you’re in the Dayton area, have you ever toured St. Anne’s Hill? I’ve done my own driving tours before, as one of my books’ main characters lives there (in 1905, on a fictitious street). Walking the neighborhood and talking with the residents adds a whole new perspective! If you don’t live in the area, does your town offer something similar, and have you taken advantage of the opportunity?
More at the My Town Monday blog | <urn:uuid:3a1611b8-ef2b-41d4-8c0b-f905f55dc547> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.jenpowell.com/tags/st-annes-hill/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979421 | 1,136 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Need to have Aid With Affiliate Advertising and marketing? Take a look at These Ideas!
Once you determine to enter into affiliate marketing and advertising, you might wonder exactly where to begin, as you’ll find so many factors to consider when picking techniques that can work for the business. The suggestions in this article can provide you with what you need to know to become a productive affiliate marketer.
A terrific affiliate marketing technique will be to get your self interviewed by other marketers. People tend to assume that whoever is getting interviewed for something is an specialist in that certain realm. This is a great way to add credibility to your affiliates, that is a certain way to increase targeted traffic on your internet site.
Write articles in regards to the items or services you happen to be promoting and incorporate your affiliate links in them then create back links towards the articles. This can be a good affiliate advertising strategy because the back links will help your articles to acquire a higher ranking on search engine results pages which means you may get a lot more organic, targeted targeted traffic for your affiliate links.
Niche affiliate advertising is all about concentration. You do not wish to diversify your item or your target audience too much. You are operating really closely with the law of supply and demand inside a given demographic. Be cautious not to water down your item, service or message. Nor should you attempt to spread it too thin.
If you want to produce a profit by means of affiliate links, you must construct a decent level of traffic for your website. It really is fantastic should you can convert 10% of the readers into purchasers, but if only 100 people check out your website per day you won’t be making much of an income.
Creating a list of email addresses for prospective clients is an essential portion of any excellent affiliate marketing technique. It is not straightforward, although; web surfers are extremely leery of turning over their address. One method to assuage fears is to supply some thing of value in exchange for e-mail addresses. The reward need not be great, but it really should be genuine.
Watch for vendors offering high commissions for their items. Digital items tend to have a lot larger commissions than physical products. Your goal should be a minimum of a 40-50% commission on items that are digital downloads. If you’re operating with physical items, check into competitors to see if the commission rate getting offered is in line with similar goods.
Diversify your links without having overloading. Don’t depend on just one particular affiliate item, regardless of how nicely it does. Items can often adjust, and you need to have a lot more than a single point going. By the exact same token, though, don’t clutter your site with a dazzling array of affiliate links — remain focused and offer a nicely curated selection of links to items that complement each other in some way. Preserve your site’s message focused, and don’t dilute or disillusion your readership by throwing too several random affiliate links at them.
As you have seen, affiliate advertising and marketing has various techniques, but it all shares exactly the same target which can be to help sell your items and services. All it needs is some investigation, hard work, and simple expertise to choose what can function effectively for promoting your business to grow to be a profitable affiliate marketer. | <urn:uuid:f4863439-2b2a-45aa-b3af-ee20d9bf1997> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://championseoconsulting.com/blog/2012/07/need-to-have-aid-with-affiliate-advertising-and-marketing-take-a-look-at-these-ideas/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949909 | 688 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Each tile on Start is connected to a person, app, website, folder, playlist, or whatever else is important to you. Pin as many tiles to Start as you like and move them around so it's just the way you want it.
This isn't the usual wall of static icons: Tiles animate with the latest information. Status updates, weather forecasts, Tweets, and more—you'll see live updates before you even open a single app.
Your photos, websites, that funny video you just saw: Pretty much anything you're looking at, you can share with others. Instantly. There's no need to interrupt what you're doing, copy what you want to share, open another app, and paste it in. Just swipe in from the right and tap or click Share to immediately send it in email or post it to Facebook.
Windows is perfect for PCs with touchscreens, those that have a mouse and keyboard, and those with both. Whatever kind of PC you choose, you'll discover fast and fluid ways to switch between apps, move things around, and move smoothly from one place to another.
Pinch and stretch to zoom in and out. Get a global view of everything that's on your screen, and slide back and forth to find what you're looking for.
Swipe in from the left to switch between recently used apps.
Swipe in from the right to get back to Start and to other things you do often, like searching, sharing, and changing your settings.
Swipe in from the bottom to see navigation controls for any app you're in.
You can easily do all these things with a mouse, too.
Upgrade your current PC to Windows 8 right now.
Explore a new generation of tablets and computers.
Our guide to getting started with Windows 8 and Windows RT.
Fun ways to personalize your new PC. | <urn:uuid:55fd0de8-79e5-4068-9080-f86d4d678b0a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://windows.microsoft.com/en-PH/windows-8/new-look | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960169 | 385 | 1.5 | 2 |
Hon. Benjamin L. Cardin, Chairman
Hon. Alcee L. Hastings, Co-Chairman
For Immediate Release
September 23, 2009
COMMISSIONERS INTRODUCE SENATE ENERGY TRANSPARENCY BILL
WASHINGTON—Energy companies would have to publicly disclose what they pay for oil, gas and minerals from U.S. and foreign governments under a bipartisan bill introduced today in the U.S. Senate by Senator Benjamin L. Cardin (D-MD), Chairman of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, and Senator Dick Lugar (R-IN).
The bill aims to reverse the “resource curse” where countries rich in natural resources and rampant with corruption can hide the financial benefits they gain from energy companies and use the revenue to further finance corruption rather than invest in their people. Commissioner Senator Roger Wicker (R-MS) and Senator Charles E. Schumer (D-NY) are original cosponsors of the bill.
The Energy Security Through Transparency (ESTT) Act:
• Requires companies listed on U.S. stock exchanges to disclose in their regular SEC filings their extractive payments to foreign governments for oil, gas and mining;
• Expresses the Sense of Congress that the Administration should undertake to become an ‘implementing country’ of the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (we are currently a ‘supporting’ country);
• Encourages the President to work with members of the G-8, G-20, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation to promote similar disclosure through their exchanges and jurisdictions;
• Commits the Department of Interior to disclosing extractive payments received for resources derived from federal lands.
The legislation builds on the Helsinki Commission’s work to promote transparency in the extractive industries.
“This legislation puts human rights front and center in the global energy discussion,” said Cardin. “The transparency measures in this bill will empower people to fight corruption and hold their governments accountable. Greater transparency will lead to greater stability in countries that benefit from their natural resources and will lessen volatility in the global energy market.”
“History shows that oil, gas reserves and minerals frequently can be a bane, not a blessing, for poor countries, leading to corruption, wasteful spending, military adventurism, and instability. Too often, oil money intended for a nation's poor lines the pockets of the rich, or is squandered on showcase projects instead of productive investments,” Lugar said. “When financial markets see stable economic growth and political organization in resource rich countries, supplies are more reliable and risk premiums factored into process at the gas pump are diminished. Information is critical to maintaining healthy economies and healthy political systems.”
“Good governance and transparency are important cornerstones of political stability,” Wicker said. “Our support for these principles through this legislation strengthens international efforts to combat the resource curse, while at the same time benefitting our national and economic security by promoting greater energy stability.”
"Energy is one of most valuable commodities and boosting the transparency of deals between energy companies and foreign countries will help make sure crooked, unstable governments don’t horde windfalls while their citizens suffer from the effects of poverty and corruption,” said Schumer. “The best way to help the people of these nations is to start right here at home, requiring companies registered with the SEC to disclose these energy deals and ensuring that Americans don't paying higher energy prices to finance corruption in other countries.”
Media Contact: Neil Simon
# # #
United States of America | <urn:uuid:2def9f41-a207-4e94-83a5-5e603f23c64a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://csce.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=ContentRecords.ViewDetail&ContentRecord_id=807&Region_id=0&Issue_id=0&ContentType=P&ContentRecordType=P&CFID=26966285&CFTOKEN=41932119 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932913 | 756 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Sao Paulo, Brazil - There's a case to be made that no country has lived through as much radical and fundamental positive change in the past 10 years as Brazil.
There has also been an evolution - of sorts - in what Brazilians want and need out of their president.
A decade ago Brazil was a country looking for a charismatic, larger-than-life figure who would lift millions from poverty, take the country to new economic heights, and rattle the cages of the world to take notice of the South American giant.
In that sense, former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva delivered beyond anybody's wildest imaginations. He was the right person, at the right time, in the right job.
But today, the country seems to be in a different place. Major advances are being made in the battle against poverty and Brazil no longer needs a cheerleader-president. Brazilians now seem more interested in an administrator-president to make sure their house is in order, and the fundamentals are in place as they sober up from the wild party of the Lula years.
That desire explains much of current President Dilma Rousseff's success, if the polls are to be believed.
But next year will be a test for Brazil. The 2014 World Cup will be held in June and July, and just 84 days after the final in Rio de Janeiro, the country will hold presidential elections.
Unofficial campaigning has already begun, and there are arguably five key people to watch in next year's crucial vote.
Polls indicate her personal approval ratings are in the mid to high 70s, while the percentage of Brazilians who approve of the job she is doing as president hovers in the high 50s to mid 60s.
For the head of state of Latin America's largest democracy, those numbers are rock solid by any estimation. If the election were held today, she would win easily, and it's conceivable she would gain on the 56 percent of the vote she received in 2010.
Rousseff has lost no support with her working class base, and there are indications her no-nonsense management style has appealed to a portion of people in the middle class who didn't vote for her the first time around. There are, of course, problems in Brazil - the economy is struggling to regain speed, and there are persistent political corruption, infrastructure, and public primary education issues - but the majority of Brazilians seems to believe Rousseff is tackling these problems with determination. That is her image within Brazil, and it has stuck. Rousseff wins no awards for style, but she's already won over many of Brazilians with her substance.
|Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff is seen as a competent administrator but many believe she lacks charisma [Reuters]
Strengths: She has fostered an image as a clean political operator unafraid to dump buckets of chlorine into the corrupt waters that are historically associated with politics in Brasilia. When she wants to, she can give a meaningful and powerful speech - like she did in 2011 when she was the first women to give the opening address at the UN General Assembly. It was arguably her best speech as president.
She's also privileged to have the power of the Workers Party (PT) at her disposal. The PT has the ability to flip a switch and mobilise tens of millions of supporters on her behalf. Politics in Brazil - especially at the presidential level - is a game of jockeying for political alliances with rival parties, and the Workers Party has it mastered.
Weaknesses: She still doesn't inspire deep passions within a lot of her base. In other stops as president, she often fails to connect with even her most ardent supporters. On the left, there are a fair amount of interest groups who feel she has not done enough to maintain Lula's more progressive political posturing of Brazil. There are also those who say she's been too much of a compromiser, and too sympathetic to big business.
The chance she will run for re-election? 95 percent. It would take a major, unexpected event for her not to run.
The youthful senator has been groomed to be president and has family connections to the country's political class. He is the grandson of Tancredo Neves, the first elected president after the fall of the military dictatorship in 1985. The elder Neves died of health complications before taking office.
Aecio Neves' home state of Minas Gerais, where he served as a popular governor for more than 7 years, is second only to Sao Paulo in terms of importance in presidential elections. One out of every ten votes cast for president is from a voter in Minas Gerais, about 15 million voters in all.
The state capital, Belo Horizonte, is Brazil's third largest capital and the state itself is the country's third wealthiest. But Minas, where Neves has a powerful political operation, is also diverse and considered a “swing state”.
Conventional wisdom is that becoming president of Brazil requires a strong showing in Minas Gerais, and it's likely Neves already has that part of the election in the bag. In 2006 he garnered 77 percent of the vote when he ran for re-election as governor. Rousseff, on the other hand, easily won Minas Gerais with 58 percent in 2010. If it comes down to Rousseff and Neves, Minas Gerais will be a hard-fought political battleground like no other in Brazil's recent history.
|Aecio Neves, 52, was a popular former governor of Minas Gerais state, one of the Brazil's most populous regions [Reuters]
Strengths: Neves' youth (he's 52) and charisma could position him as a fresh face for Brazil.
He also has a record to run on, known for his inventive "management shock" governance strategy meant to make government run more efficiently. Neves has also emerged in recent years as a national political figure, and a leader of the powerful PSDB - Brazil's largest opposition party. The man is a legitimate political heavyweight who is about to get his first shot at a title.
Weaknesses: His party, the PSDB, is a strength, but also a weakness right now. They're deeply fractured between the new, emerging wing of the party that Neves represents, and the old guard, led by Jose Serra, a twice defeated presidential candidate.
The party has furthermore failed to articulate a credible vision to counter the Workers Party/Lula/Rousseff model that resonates with the masses. Neves also has a reputation as being somewhat of a playboy who likes fast cars and jetting around the social scene with Brazilian supermodels. In 2011 he was pulled over by police in a posh neighborhood of Rio for driving with an expired driver's license. Fairly minor episodes could make party elders wonder whether his political messages could be overshadowed by his private life. For his part, in the past couple years he's toned it down considerably and kept his private life out of the news.
Chances he'll run: About 90 percent - he's the PSBD's best hope right now, and it's naturally his turn in the spotlight (He sat out the 2010 race so as not be a distraction from his party's candidate, Serra). It's unlikely the Serra wing of the party will be able to provide a strong enough alternative next year. It's Neves' party now, and he's closely aligning himself with Fernando Henrique Cardoso, his party's elder statesmen and the last politician to have beaten Lula in an election.
Silva is probably the hottest political commodity in Brazil at this moment. The senator, former environmental minister under Lula, and world-renowned Amazon activist brings an air of authenticity to the political scene. And she's also tried and tested: She startled the political establishment when she garnered 19.6 million votes in the first round of voting in the 2010 presidential election despite running a shoestring campaign in the underfunded Green Party.
This past weekend she launched a new political party with a focus on grassroots involvement (no campaign contributions from tobacco, firearms, or alcoholic beverage companies, she says). Silva is a favorite among many in Brazil's leftist inteligenicia class of artists, actors and filmmakers.
|Marina Silva won more than 19 million votes when she ran for the Green Party ion the last election [Reuters]
Strengths: From a purely political standpoint, she can personally connect with working class workers better than anybody in Brazil not named Lula. She is also strongly Evangelical, a growing political force in Brazil that makes up nearly 22 percent of the population. But most importantly, she has proven she can almost single handedly mobilise a national movement like she did in 2010 to garner millions of votes - far more than most people predicted. That is a rare political ability. Anybody who dismisses her does so at their own risk.
Weaknesses: Her new political party will struggle to put together the network needed to compete in the game of national political alliances in 2014. She's also a candidate strong in speaking about inequality and environment issues, but weak when the focus shifts to the minutiae of economics, a serious weakness for someone hoping to lead the world's sixth largest economy. She is not shy about talking about how her faith interconnects with her views on government, a likely turnoff to secular or non-Evangelical voters. The general consensus is that she likely will struggle to get 19 million votes this time around. She has proven doubters wrong in the past, but can she do it again?
Chances she'll run: About 85 percent.
The two-term governor of the northeast Brazilian state of Pernambuco has become a media darling of sorts, being profiled in everything from glossy Brazilian newsweeklies to the Economist magazine as a rising political star. He's popular back in his home state (population 9 million), and is seen as a cut-throat and savvy political operator. He has deep alliances that date back more than a decade on the political left, but has also fostered friendships on the right as well. He takes credit for much of the economic prosperity his state has seen in recent years.
Strengths: He's fresh and different on the national political stage, and he has potential crossover appeal on the political right and left. He has aroused the curiosity of the centre-right, who see him as someone who can perhaps beat the left at their own game. His home state, Pernambuco, is a Lula/Rousseff stronghold, so he is one of the few national candidates who has the potential to cut deep into Rousseff's base.
Campos was re-elected governor in 2010 with 82 percent of the vote. Rousseff, in contrast, won Pernambuco state in 2010 with 75 percent of the vote. He's proven he can get attention from a Brazilian media looking for a new political storyline, given the unusually high media coverage he's been generating in Brazil.
Weaknesses: The current phenomenon of Campos has some similarities to the campaign of Texas Governor Rick Perry during the 2011 Republican primary in the US.
Just like Perry, Campos is seen as a dominate local political figure with a potential wider, national appeal. But Perry could never break out, and he crashed and burned badly on the national stage quite fast.
Campos has to prove he is something more than a regional political star, and avoid the same fate as Perry. Campos' biggest challenge will be matching the high expectations that have been set. Despite all media attention, most Brazilians simply don't know much about the guy. And his iron-fist leadership in his home state, where there is almost no political dissent, likely won't play well at the national level where he'll be under much more scrutiny than he has been to date.
Chances he'll run: About 30 percent. He says he'll decide later this year. He's keeping all his doors open right now. It seems that if he doesn't think he can gain enough votes to get into a second round runoff, he'll probably sit it out and aim for 2018. If he does run and pose a serious challenge Rousseff, the Workers Party machine will unload on him, and it will be tough to survive politically.
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva
He is arguably the most popular political figure in Brazilian politics ever. He oversaw the country during historic growth, and record levels of poverty reduction. Lula is fully recovered from cancer treatment, and he's back on the political stage. No politician in the country even comes close to his power of persuasion.
Strengths: Lula can single-handedly deliver tens of millions of votes to his chosen candidate. It's that simple. And Rousseff remains his president now just as much as in 2010.
|Former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is arguably the most popular figures in Brazil's political history [GALLO/GETTY]
Weaknesses: 2014 will be a test of his staying power. In the last 3 presidential election cycles, he's come out victorious against the PSDB - his main rival party. But how long can the glow of Lula's presidency last - and more importantly, will it rub off on his political protégés?
Chances he'll run: The constitution says he can run again for a third term (just not consecutive). Conspiracy theorists long speculated Rousseff was just his place holder until he could return to the presidency in 2014. Lula himself has left the door (slightly) open, and I suspect that if there was a major rupture in Rousseff's administration that threatened a second term, he would step in and run to avoid the opposition from gaining power.
But the chances of this now seem miniscule, probably around 5 percent. But since politics is the man's life and he's proven to be better than anybody at it, don't expect him to fade quietly off into the sunset. He'll play political king maker as long as he wants to.
As for Rousseff, any objective look at the mood of the Brazilian electorate and the state of play of presidential politics can only double back to a simple conclusion: As it stands right now, most Brazilians seem to think she is the right person.
It's up to Neves, Marina Silva, and maybe Campos and others to try to convince the nation they're wrong. There's still plenty of time. But they have a very steep hill to climb.
Follow Gabriel Elizondo on Twitter: @elizondogabriel | <urn:uuid:868b64af-d6c3-4f0f-b343-bac88f276521> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/02/201322210495670277.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978782 | 3,027 | 1.710938 | 2 |
There is no doubt that the state of Texas Child Protective Services has some serious problems. The state agents raided a peaceful community of a known religion and kidnapped all the children. It must have been like a scene from over a hundred years ago as children were kidnapped to work in servitude or sold off as orphans. At issue is just who owns those children?
Child Protective Services issued a statement: “Child Protective Services has one duty — to protect children. When we see evidence that children have been sexually abused and remain at risk of further abuse, we will act.” It seems, like the witch-hunts of early pioneers this includes the anonymous tipster. Even worse is the state cannot even provide the tape of the anonymous call that convinced them to kidnap hundreds of children from their mothers. The states claim to ownership of children cannot supersede the parents without proper procedure prior to action. Innocent until proven is established criteria in America.
Many witnessed the incredibly distressed mothers whose children were being ripped from their bosoms from their arms while gun wielding thugs stood by to insure they complied with “rule of law.” What kind of law allows armed thug agents of the government to kidnap children under false and unverified innuendos? What has become of the rights of people in America?
The end for these poor people has not been seen as the state still has hundreds of children separated by hundreds of miles from brothers, sisters, fathers and mothers. Illegal acts by the state whose authority supersedes the parents in all cases – guilty until proven innocent.
The children will not be united today or tomorrow, as the state must try to hold onto some vestige of principle where it has none. Its legal obligations for the damage done to families will cost the state billions of dollars and every day they hold those children will be to extort a ransom to avoid financial responsibility for their illegal acts. If the courts allowed the rumor of an anonymous call to be presented as just cause to steal the children and break up hundreds of families there will be fear throughout the land. These agencies can steal your children from you on an anonymous tip that they don’t even have to have recorded! A fabricated tip! Certainly this is back to Salem witch times.
The state of Texas is holding these children longer to contemplate what to do and has not the humanity to return what is not theirs. The state of Texas as well as all states in the Union must reel in these agencies and take the power away from them. Parents first not the state. Who owns your children? The state thinks they do. They provide the conditions and you must meet them. If they decide you are guilty you will lose your children but given a way to prove you are innocent. Does this sound American to you?
The UN has tried to do the same things. Take away your right to bring your child up the way you like. These people want to keep the children from television and violent film, music and the horrible environments in public schools. The searchers, the fights, the violence. The state of Texas wants McDonald eating fatties watching the latest commercials and buying into men’s makeup and little girl sluts looking to Paris Hilton or the latest Disney teen stripped naked as an object and lifestyle to admire.
American was once freedom. Freedom to live the way you want if you were harming no one. Where you were innocent until proven guilty. Where you could not be arrested and held without cause. The land of the free and the home of the brave can no longer brag of any of these things. Now they have also lost their children to a state who can do what they want. No amount of restitution can undo the damage to these hundreds of children. They will bear the scars from the state of Texas for generations. | <urn:uuid:f147f6da-0273-4350-9c77-7889e911f206> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ricksiegel.com/web2/node/87 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972122 | 770 | 1.625 | 2 |
Strikes Targeted Two Houses and a Vehicle
US drones launched a number of missile attacks against the South Waziristan Agency of Pakistan overnight, killing at least 21 people and wounding an unknown number of others. The strikes destroyed two homes and a religious school in the tribal area as well as a vehicle.
The victims of the attacks were unknown but Pakistani officials say they believe that foreigners were among the slain in the attack on the vehicle. The US, as usual, did not offer any comment on the attacks.
The strikes come just days after a separate attack on South Waziristan which officials say they believe killed Ilyas Kashmiri, a militant faction leader they blame for the 2008 Mumbai attack. It is the second time Kashmiri was “confirmed” killed in a US drone attack, the previous being in September of 2009.
Pakistan’s government had been demanding the end to the US drone strikes over rising evidence that most of the people being killed were just random tribesmen. The news of Kashmiri’s latest death appears to have stalled those concerns, at least for the time being. The deaths of militant leaders in Waziristan have a notorious history of being temporary, however, and if he reemerges it will likely renew concerns about the program.
Last 5 posts by Jason Ditz
- Al-Qaeda's Oil: Syrian Islamists Seize Fields - May 19th, 2013
- Israel Demands French TV Retract 2000 Report on Gaza Child's Killing - May 19th, 2013
- Netanyahu Threatens More Attacks on Syria - May 19th, 2013
- Karzai Heads to India to Seek More Military Aid - May 19th, 2013
- Taliban Kill 10 Police as Latest Surge of Afghan Violence Continues - May 19th, 2013 | <urn:uuid:e07ad7e1-f9c4-4347-bab4-d9d51368a7e6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.antiwar.com/2011/06/06/us-drones-pound-pakistan-killing-at-least-21/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967358 | 364 | 1.601563 | 2 |
One week ago, Entertainment Weekly reported that Disney was poised to break yet another color barrier in princess land with the unveiling of Sofia, the first Hispanic member of the royal House of Mouse. (Jasmine, the first Arabic princess, won over hearts as early as 1992, but the first black Disney princess, Tiana from The Princess and the Frog, came just three years ago.) Except Sofia — making her debut in Sofia the First: Once Upon a Princess on the Disney Channel and Disney Junior on November 18 — may not be nearly as trailblazing as Disney at first hoped. There's her relatively fair complexion and her blue eyes, as critics have pointed out, and the fact that she's being voiced by Ariel Winter, the (yes, Caucasian) young star from ABC's Modern Family. "They've done such a good job in the past when they've introduced Native American, African-American and Asian princesses," a spokeswoman for the National Council of La Raza tells the Houston Chronicle, "but now they're sort of scrambling." The show's executive producer insisted that "she is Latina," though a co-executive producer quickly backpedalled by calling her a "mixed-heritage princess," explaining that her mother — the noticeably darker-skinned Queen Miranda — is from the enchanted kingdom of Galdiz, inspired by real world Spain. So, technically she's Hispanic, we guess. | <urn:uuid:7eaf9edf-c693-48cc-8b19-2080860debe4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.vulture.com/2012/10/disneys-latina-princess-not-latina-enough.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973613 | 288 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Many plastic surgery options are becoming less invasive procedures with a much shorter recovery time than previously required. in fact, many surgical procedures now require several small incisions instead of large incisions that require a large amount of recovery time along with significant scarring. Using lasers, small scopes, and other small instruments, these small incisions are all that the surgeon needs to enter the body and correct the problems.
Types of Plastic Surgery
Various plastic surgery procedures can improve facial features or various parts of the body. For those with some facial aging, a neck lift, forehead lift, mid-face lift, eyelid surgery, or chin surgery can return facial features to a previously youthful appearance.
Others who want to see improvement in their silhouette can opt for liposuction to remove fatty areas, breast enlargements or reduction to change the shape and size of the breasts, and a tummy tuck to remove extra fat in the abdominal area.
Most of these procedures can be completed with minimally invasive techniques. They typically require about two weeks of recovery time, baring complications like infection or other issues.
Skin Care Solutions and Non-Surgical Procedures
Are you trying to get rid of fine lines and wrinkles, unwanted facial or body hair, or even skin damage caused by the sun? there are many products – both over-the-counter and prescription – as well as cosmetic procedures which are non-surgical and can be completed in just an hour or two. Most of these procedures require very little recovery time.
Aging skin can benefit from products that moisturize and contain ingredients like vitamin C that help prevent damage done by oxygen radicals. in fact, one of the very best ways to avoid aging skin is to consistently moisturize and protect your skin with sunscreen. your doctor can recommend a wide variety of products that can both help reduce aging that’s already occurred as well as prevent further aging.
When you’d like to rejuvenate your tired-looking skin, a chemical peel or microdermabrasion treatment may be just the trick there are many products that can be used at home, or you may opt to have the procedure done at your local spa or doctor’s office. according to those who’ve had the procedure done before, you’ll enjoy instantly smoother, softer, and healthier-looking skin. Another option is laser rejuvenation.
If you’re struggling with fine lines, collagen injections may be the perfect solution. This safe procedure can often be performed during you lunch hour and you can head right back to work afterwards. You may have to take some extra care not to rub your face as the collagen settles, but for the most part, there are few recovery instructions.
Finally, if you’re dealing with unwanted hair on your face or other parts of your body, laser hair removal is a great choice. You’ll be glad to no longer have to constantly shave, pluck, or wax the hair away. Laser hair removal is typically a permanent solution
With so many recent non-invasive plastic surgery and other procedures for improving the appearance, there’s no excuse to struggle with unwanted lines, wrinkles, or hair | <urn:uuid:42ba49dd-3750-4fe7-8bd2-945c958147c9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://plastic-surgery-costs.com/tag/recovery-time/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956002 | 650 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Washington, DC, April 1 — CBS News has obtained exclusive video footage calling into question the claims by ClimateProgress blogger Joseph Romm that running a car on hydrogen is not practical.
Dr. Romm, a physicist and taxidermist, first became a minor celebrity in the tight-knit energy policy community when he reversed his pro-hydrogen-car position from the 1990s with the publication of The Hype about Hydrogen: Fact and Fiction in the Race to Save the Climate, which claimed to “prove” that hydrogen-powered cars are decades away.
As the video shows (warning, not suitable for children under 13), Dr. Romm has been driving a car that runs on hydrogen for years. In fact, the fuel Romm uses contains more hydrogen per gallon than the same volume of liquid hydrogen!
Jeremy Rifkin, hydrogen enthusiast and president of the Foundation on Economic and Energy Trends (FEET), said, “This confirms what we suspected all along. Hydrogen denier — I think he prefers the term “delayer”– Romm was just cashing in with a contrarian book. I’m sure he raked in literally hundreds of dollars spouting his nonsense.”
At a hastily-assembled news conference, Dr. Romm said, “Yes, it’s true. My car turns hydrogen into energy that powers the wheels. But … but it also runs on carbon. The engine burns gasoline, a hydro-carbon, and….” The croud began to jeer, at which point Romm brushed away a few tears and said, “So I made a mistake. That happens. It proves I’m human, which you know, for some people, is a revelation.”
Island Press has agreed to remove the book from the three remainder stores still carrying it. | <urn:uuid:8c5bcc40-1f5b-434d-b8f2-b13c37c2fd13> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thinkprogress.org/climate/issue/?m=20090401&mobile=nc | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954102 | 386 | 1.695313 | 2 |
|Red or White Christmas in Iceland?|
|Written by Iceland Review|
|Monday, 19 December 2011 18:00|
It is unclear whether Icelanders will enjoy a white Christmas this year or whether Christmas will be red, or snowless. “There will probably mostly be sleet or snowfall,” said meteorologist Einar Magnús Einarsson at the Icelandic Meteorological Office.
White Christmas in Akureyri in 2009. Photo by ESA.
Einar stated that the weather is expected to be changeable throughout this week and windier than it has been so far this month, ruv.is reports.
Today conditions are dangerously slippery in many parts of the country, the West Fjords, northeast and east Iceland. In the south and west roads are also completely or partially icy and in some places covered in snow.
Snowfall and windy conditions were predicted in the west today but little precipitation in the east. The temperatures are expected to drop to 0 to -7°C (32-19°F) tonight, with the frostiest conditions forecast for the northeastern countryside.
|Last Updated on Tuesday, 20 December 2011 12:26| | <urn:uuid:fab07e6c-f71f-4c60-9038-49a1cd9e0fe5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://icelandpulse.com/icelandreview/6584-red-or-white-christmas-in-iceland | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943722 | 245 | 1.78125 | 2 |
According to the Nielsen Company, about 54% of homes in the U.S. had three or more television sets in 2009. I hate to admit it, but I’m average – I have three. However, any burglar would have laughed himself silly at the “electronics” in my house. Last fall I had four VERY old CRT TVs. They all worked, but needed an analog-to-digital converter box. I do hate to get rid of something that still works, and you can’t even give those away any more. I finally recycled the (at least) 30-yr-old 13” TV at NREL’s responsible electronics recycling day in December – it hadn’t been used in years anyway. A few days after the recycling event (of course), the main TV died (a 26” one purchased in 1994 – ONLY 17 years old). For the last few years, for some reason when the power to the set went out, the power cable would quit working. I’d buy a new $14 cable, and the TV would start working again – until the next time the power to the set was disconnected. When I went away for Thanksgiving last fall, I made it a point NOT to turn off the surge protector for the main TV—the few cents it would cost to operate while I was away was lots cheaper than a new power cable—but it quit working shortly after I got home, and this time the “quick fix” didn’t work.
One more down, ready for the next responsible electronics recycling day in April, leaving me with an (unknown age, but very old) 19” set with one connector for the antenna (that’s all – no hookups for the DVD player or games or anything else) gathering dust in the guest room, and a 24-year-old 20” TV that I also can’t hook anything except an antenna to and that the sound is going out on—a recent development—so it’s definitely a candidate for replacement and recycling.
So it’s finally (past) time for a new TV. In starting my research, a leading consumer reporting magazine lists (among other statistics) the annual cost of electricity various models/brands of TVs use; the range is about $13–$18 per year for a 32” flat screen TV. Hmm. Time to get out the power meter and see what the old TVs are using. I put the power meter on the 19” and left it attached for a week. It used a little over $0.26 for the week—almost $14 a year—or at the lower end of the new flat screens. But it doesn’t DO anything other than play current, over-the-air TV, and it does need the converter box, which I didn’t meter.
Super Bowl week! Not that I’m a football fan, but I am a fan of the sales. I bought not one, but two new TVs – ENERGY STAR® models, of course. In reading the product specs, the smaller one should cost about $5.45 for electricity for a year, or about 60% less than my oldest TV, and the bigger one should cost about $9 a year, a 36% savings, for a combined energy use of just slightly over what ONE old TV used. An added benefit is that they are both digital TVs and I no longer need converter boxes – more energy saved. And they are LIGHT! The new 22” flat screen only weighs 9 pounds, and the new 32” only weighs 22 pounds! Guess I’ll even save energy toting them up the stairs too. | <urn:uuid:5238eb32-63ff-452f-ad2d-33e074877a00> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://energy.gov/energysaver/articles/tv-or-not-tv | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964877 | 774 | 1.632813 | 2 |
US 6538180 B1
Pea seeds, produced from peas of the rug3rug3 genotype, substantially lacking plastidial phosphoglucomutase activity which have higher sucrose levels at the end of the vining period and may be vined over and extended period compared to conventional vining varieties are provided. Polynucleootides encoding pea plastidial phosphoglucomutase useful for altering the sucrose and starch content of plants, particularly peas, are also disclosed.
1. A process for extending harvest window of a pea plant and/or increasing sucrose content of a pea plant, or part thereof, comprising reducing plastidial phosphoglucomutase (PGM(p)) activity in said pea plant, or part thereof.
2. The process of
3. The process of
4. The process of
5. An isolated polynucleotide sequence encoding the amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NO:4 or encoding an amino acid sequence with at least 95% sequence homology with the amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NO:4.
6. A vector comprising the polynucleotide of
This application is the national phase of international application PCT/EP97/03613 filed Jul. 3, 1997 which designated the U.S. and claims priority to Great Britain application 9702653.8, filed Feb. 10, 1997 and Great Britain application 9615103.0, filed Jul. 18, 1996 and U.S. provisional application No. 60/021,410, filed Jul. 9, 1996.
This invention relates to plants, and particularly concerns peas (Pisum sativum L.), products derived therefrom and methods for genetically altering them, particularly for affecting the sucrose and starch content.
Peas are an important crop plant, producing products used for human and animal consumption. The seeds of the pea plant can be harvested either in a dry mature form or in an immature state, with the precise stage of maturity varying according to the end use. Within each of these two categories there are a number of specialized uses and markets. The dry mature seed is used extensively as animal feed, directly as human food and as an ingredient of a variety of prepared foods. Those harvested in an immature form are used directly as a fresh vegetable or are processed by being canned, dehydrated or frozen. Peas harvested by machine at an immature stage for quick freezing are referred to in the art as vining peas.
Conventional cross-breeding methods have been used to develop new varieties and cultivars in order to satisfy different local or national requirements or niche markets. They include varieties with different colour, texture, sugar and starch contents, and size of seed.
The pea is also a useful experimental organism, and the pea is well characterised with many known variants.
Characterised mutants cover the whole spectrum of plant development, morphology and physiology. Some mutants may have had characters which were desirable to man to improve the pea crop and as such have been selected for.
The ‘Rugosus’ Loci
The r and rb Loci
Mendel, in his classic studies of genetics showed that the wrinkled-seeded phenotype of the r (rugosus) mutant is a recessive trait which fitted his newly formulated laws of inheritance. The r mutant became a popular tool for geneticists both classical and modern and is now well characterised. The terms rr, Rr and RR have been used to describe the homozygous recessive, heterozygous and homozygous dominant genotypes, respectively, with the rr genotype leading to the mature seeds being wrinkled in appearance (hence rugosus, which is the Latin word for wrinkled) The presence of the dominant allele (R) causes the mature seeds to be smooth. The original mutation is believed to have arisen spontaneously at the beginning of the seventeenth century. The seeds of the r mutant contain a lower proportion of starch than the wild-type (about 30% dry weight as opposed to about 50%), with the starch composition being altered to contain a higher proportion of amylose and smaller proportion of amylopectin (with about 70% of dry weight of the starch of mutant seeds being amylose as opposed to 38% of the wild-type starch). The effect of the mutation in the r gene has been shown to be caused by reduced activity of one of the branching enzyme isoforms (SBE1). The gene has been cloned and sequenced, and a 0.8 kb transposon-like insertion has been found to be present in the mutant gene.
A second recessive rugosus locus termed rb has also been characterised. Mutants homozygous recessive at this locus have a wrinkled-seeded phenotype similar to that of rr plants, although the amount of starch and its composition differs in that starch comprises about 36% of the dry eight of the seed, about 23% of which is amylose. The rb mutation has been found to result in reduced activity in the enzyme ADP glucose pyrophosphorylase. Purification of the enzyme and western-blotting experiments have revealed the absence of one of the four polypeptide subunits present in the wild-type enzyme. Manipulation by reduction or suppression of the activity of ADP-glucose pyrophosphorylase (ADPG-PPase) to give an increased level of sucrose in the plant has been described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,498,831 (Burgess et al).
New Rugosus Loci
A mutagenesis programme was carried out by Wang et al, as described in Plant Breeding 105, 311-320 (1990) “An Analysis of Seed Development in Pisum sativum. XIII The Chemical Induction of Storage Product Mutants”. The programme employed chemical mutagenesis using ethyl methanesulphonate (EMS) or N-methyl-N-nitrosourea (MNU). Peas have been shown to be susceptible to mutation by chemical agents and these particular mutagens are likely to cause point mutations by alkylation. Twenty thousand phenotypically round genetically wild type (RR) seeds were treated with either of the above chemicals, these being termed M1 (mutagenised) seed. M1 seed gave rise to M1 plants bearing M2 seed. M2 seed gave rise to M2 plants bearing M3 seed. M3 seeds were analysed for storage product content.
Seeds which appeared wrinkled selected from the M3 generation had a wide range of starch content, from 0-60% as a proportion of the dry weight of the mature seed. Within the starch of these seeds, the amylose content ranged from 0-80%. The lipid and protein contents of the M3 seeds also appeared to be more varied than had been previously observed in peas, with a lipid content from 1-8% of the dry weight and a protein range of 24-48%, the latter showing a higher maxima than the existing variation of between 24 and 41%. The conclusion from the initial analyses of the M3 seeds was that new rugosus mutants had been induced and that it was likely that some would be mutants affecting starch biosynthesis.
The new mutant lines were each designated by a ‘SIM’ number (SIM=Seed: Induced Mutant). Preliminary allelism tests to the r and rb loci revealed that some of the SIM lines were not allelic to either of these loci and therefore were probably mutants affecting other enzymes in the starch pathway. Other lines were found to be allelic to r or rb and therefore these lines represent new mutant alleles of these loci (see Wang and Hedley, Seed Science Research (1991) 1, 3-14, “Seed Development in peas: knowing your three “r's” (or four of five)”). More detailed complementation analyses involving a complete diallel cross between 24 of the SIM lines and lines with rr and rbrb genotypes placed the mutants into five groups, two of which contained the original rugosus mutants (see Hedley and Wang, Aspects of Applied Biology 27 (1991) Production and protection of legumes, 205-209, “Adding value to the pea crop by genetically manipulating the storage product composition of the seed”). Recently, grouping of the SIM lines has been completed and the three new rugosus loci have been assigned the gene symbols rug3, rug4 and rug5 in accordance with the Pisum Genetics Association (see Wang and Hedley, 1993, Pisum Genetics 25, 64-70, “Seed Mutants in Pisum”). The five complementation groups are shown in Table 1.
Preliminary analysis of the storage product content of the SIM lines showed that those belonging to the rug3 group had a dramatically reduced starch content in the mature seed by comparison to wild-type, round-seeded lines. The mutants in this group appeared to have between 1 and 20% starch as a proportion of the dry weight of the mature seed, compared with about 55% in round seeds (see Wang and Hedley, 1991 referred to above). In addition, these lines seemed to show a complete absence of amylose from the starch that was present. Such a phenotype had never been observed previously in pea.
The SIM lines belonging to the rug3 complementation group have been assingned gene symbols as shown in Table 2 (Wang and Hedley, 1993 referred to above).
Peas of the rug3rug3 genotype (which are referred to herein as rug3 peas for simplicity) are of scientific and potential commercial interest because of the low levels of starches of unusual nature, and also because of their high protein and lipid contents. See, for example, Hedley and Wang, Aspects of Applied Biology 27 (1991) 205-209, Hedley and Wang, Agro-Food Industry Hi-Tech (January/February 1993) 14-17, Farmers Weekly, Apr. 19, 1991, 54-57.
The present invention is based on the unexpected discovery that rug3 peas produce seeds that at the end of the vining period have higher sucrose levels than those of conventional vining pea varieties thus are particularly suitable for human consumption.
Pea seeds intended for vining should combine sweetness and acceptable texture. It has been found that rug3 peas produce seeds that maintain the combination of acceptably high levels of sucrose with suitably low levels of starch over a considerably longer period of time than known pea varieties. Thus, rug3 peas seeds may suitably be vined at a stage of maturity which for conventional pea varieties would be considered too advanced for freezing and suitable only for canning. This is of commercial interest as the period of suitability for vining, generally referred to as the harvest window, is therefore extended.
The rug3 mutation has been found by the present inventors to be associated with a substantial reduction in the activity of the enzyme plastidial phosphoglucomutase (PGM(p)). PGM(p) activity has been found to be reduced to 10% or less of the activity levels in conventional pea lines, and in the extreme case PGM(p) activity is substantially completely lacking.
The significance of a lack of PGM(p) activity is that in the plastid, the interconversion of glucose-1-phosphate and glucose-6-phosphate cannot occur. The importance of this reaction in the synthesis of starch is that glucose-1-phosphate is the substrate for the committed pathway of starch synthesis. It is thought that in pea, glucose-1-phosphate cannot be transported into the plastids (Hill and Smith, Planta 185, 91, 1991; Borchert et al, Plant Physiology 101, 303-312, 1993) and that the production of glucose-1-phosphate in the plastids is dependent on PGM(p) activity. Without a supply of glucose-1-phosphate, the synthesis of starch cannot take place. Sugar and starch metabolism are known to be related in plants and by altering the levels of an enzyme involved in the starch synthesis pathway, it may be possible to alter the level of sugar in the plant.
The cDNA sequence encoding the pea phophoglucomutase (PGM) enzyme has been cloned from immature pea embryos and has been found to exhibit considerable regions of homology throughout the gene with known cDNA PGM sequences cloned from other species. Further, genetic segregation analysis has shown that the rug3 mutation maps very closely to, or on top of, the PGM(p) gene, providing evidence that the mutation affects the PGM(p) gene. By suppressing or reducing PGM expression in pea plants or other plants, the sucrose content of the plant may be increased.
In one aspect, the present invention provides pea seeds having a sucrose content of greater than 6% by weight of the total weight of the seed as harvested at a tenderometer reading exceeding 120 tenderometer units.
Preferably, the sucrose content in the peas seeds according to the invention is greater than 7% by weight of the total weight of the seed.
Peas with the rug3 phenotype can provide seeds having such a sucrose content which is significantly higher that the sucrose content of any conventional vining pea grown under equivalent conditions at the given state of maturity.
The stage of maturity appropriate for vining, can be estimated in a number of different ways, including the following:
1) By reference to the state of pod development. A skilled pea grower can determine relatively accurately by feeling a pea pod and seeds the state of maturity of the seeds and hence readiness for harvesting.
2) By reference to the number of days after flowering, having regard to weather conditions, particularly temperature. The stage of full flower is assessed by scoring the maturity of each flower on the first four flowering nodes. Once the full flower stage is reached, the harvest date can be approximately predicted in terms of average heat unit days from flowering to harvest having regard to the variety in question and its sowing date.
3) By reference to readings obtained with an instrument known as a tenderometer, which measures the tenderness of pea seeds in a way defined as an industry standard as determined by the independent body in the United Kingdom, Camden and Chorley Wood Food and Drink Research Association. For seeds for processing a tenderometer measurement in the range 95-120 tenderometer units is the accepted industry standard, with seeds for freezing preferably having a tenderometer measurement in the lower part of this range, as these are the most tender. With the current commercial varieties this is achieved by early harvesting, for which there is a yield penalty.
Due to the lack of starch the rug3 varieties may not give tenderometer readings that are exactly the same as those of conventional varieties, but indications from preliminary trials are that similar readings are obtained, implying that the tenderometer does not measure starch directly.
Sucrose and starch levels of seeds can be determined using known analytical techniques, including ion chromatography and spectrophotometric techniques.
In another aspect, the invention provides pea seeds wherein the ratio of sucrose content to starch content in the seed at vining is greater than 2.
Preferably, the ratio of sucrose to starch in pea seeds according to the invention at vining is greater than 5, more preferably greater than 10.
Mature dry seeds of rug3 peas also have a higher ratio of sucrose content to starch content compared to seeds of conventional pea lines. Conveniently this ratio is greater than 0.6, preferably greater than 1, especially greater than 2.
The ratio of sucrose content to starch content in the seed provides a useful indication of the deterioration in palatability of the seed for human consumption during maturation and hence its suitability for harvesting over an extended period. Conveniently, the ratio of sucrose content to starch content in pea seeds according to the invention remains above 0.6 during maturation from vining stage to mature dry form.
In order to maximise the yield of seed on vining, it is desirable to have as large a harvest window as possible. With conventional vining pea plants, seeds have a tenderometer reading within the critical range of 95-120 tenderometer units and sufficient sweetness appropriate for processing for only a very short time, in the order of ½ day in hot weather conditions to 2 days in cold weather. After this period the seeds are unacceptably tough and the sucrose content decreases to an extent where the seeds are not sweet enough. This very small harvest window presents serious practical difficulties in vining seeds on a commercial scale and, in practice, results in a substantial proportion of the crop being lost due to inability to vine in time. A discussion of production and harvesting of vining peas is given in Arthey D. 1985. Vining peas; processing and marketing. In Hebblethwaite P D, Heath M C, Dawkins T C K, eds. The pea crop. London: Butterworths, 433-440. The time of harvesting of the crop coincides with a point before the onset of rapid starch synthesis. Once harvested, a crop kept at ambient temperature must be processed rapidly, generally within three hours to prevent the occurrence of off flavours. Rug3 mutant peas are found to have a significantly larger harvest window, in the range of 1 day in hot conditions and 5 to 6 days in cold weather.
The invention thus provides a pea plant having an extended harvest window compared with conventional pea varieties.
There is further provided a method of extending the harvest window of a pea plant comprising growing a plant from a seed according to the invention.
The invention provides in a further aspect polynucleotides having the sequence of pea plastidial PGM (SEQ ID No. 3) shown in FIG. 1 or a functional equivalent thereof. Typically the polynucleotide is provided substantially free from other DNAs and RNAs with which the polynucleotide is naturally associated.
It will be appreciated that functionally equivalent nucleotide sequences are intended to include those sequences exhibiting at least 60% nucleotide homology, preferably at least 8%, more preferably at least 90% homology with the nucleotide sequence of FIG. 1. Such equivalent sequences are able to hybridise under standard laboratory conditions (e.g. Sambrook et al, Molecular Cloning: A Laboratory Manual, 2nd Edition, hereinafter “Sambrook”) with the complement of the sequence shown in FIG. 1.
In addition, functionally equivalent sequences include those which are antisense equivalents of the sequence of nucleotides of FIG. 1. Such antisense equivalents are therefore able to hybridise with the sequence shown in FIG. 1 and are preferably able to interfere with expression of the sense sequence at the DNA and/or mRNA level.
Preferably the nucleotide sequence of the invention is comprised within a vector, suitably an expression vector adapted to promote transcription of the sequence in appropriate host cells. The selection of suitable vectors and methods of their preparation are well known to those skilled in the art and are described, for example, in Sambrook.
Transformation techniques for introducing the nucleotide sequence of the invention into host cells are well known to those skilled in the art and include such techniques as microinjection, high velocity, ballistic penetration and agrobacterium mediated transformation.
Conveniently, the nucleotide sequence of the invention may be introduced into the plant in such a manner as to effect reduction or suppression of PGM expression by sense or antisense suppression. Methods for achieving sense or antisense suppression are well known in the art. Conventionally, the nucleotide sequence to be introduced is operably linked to a promoter which allows transcription of the nucleotide sequence. Suitable promoters are known in the art and may be inducible, constitutive or tissue-specific, for example.
Introduction into the plant of a sequence according to the invention in the antisense orientation relative to the promoter will result in a reduction of the levels of expression. Sense suppression, wherein the presence of additional sense sequences inhibits the expression of the native gene is also well documented in plants (for example, see Matzke & Matzke, 1995 Plant Physicol, 107, 679-685). Antisense methods are thought to operate via the production of antisense mRNA which hybridises to the sense mRNA, preventing its translation into functional polypeptide. The exact mechanism of sense suppression is unclear but it too requires homology between the introduced sequence and the target gene. In the case of both antisense and sense suppression, neither a full length nucleotide sequence nor a “native” sequence is essential. Fragments of nucleotide sequence of various sizes may be functional in altering PGM levels and may be determined by those skilled in the art using comparatively simple trial and error.
Plants, particularly pea plants, having substantially reduced PGM(p) activity or substantially lacking PGM(p) activity are provided.
The invention also provides a method of altering one or more characteristics of a plant, or part thereof, particularly a pea plant, comprising altering the plant to reduce the PGM(p) activity in the plant. Suitably, the harvest window may be extended or the sucrose content increased.
The plant into which the sequence is introduced is preferably a commercially significant plant in which PGM performs a role and which is amenable to plant transformation techniques. Examples include carrot, tomato, peppers.
It will be appreciated that the method of extending the harvest window is of particular benefit when applied to pea plants in view of the particular practical difficulties attendent upon their short harvest window. The method may suitable be applied to any other plant where extending the harvest window is desirable, for example, green beans.
The invention also includes within its scope roots, seeds, fruit and other plant products of the plants of the invention.
Pea plants in accordance with the invention may be produced by producing a plant with the genotype rug3rug3.
The mutant pea SIM lines 1, 32, 41, 42 and 43 produced by the mutagenesis programme of Wang et al described above have this characteristic. However, these pea lines are not of generally acceptable agronomic character for commercial use, in terms of characteristics such as disease resistance, seed size, texture, plant height etc. For commercial use, new lines or varieties can be produced that are of acceptable agronomic character and include the rug3 mutation.
These can be produced by a conventional plant breeding approach, e.g. by crossing suitable SIM line plants with commercially acceptable varieties of which there are a large number, e.g. Novella, Bikini etc. Suitable plant breeding techniques are well known to those skilled in the art.
Another approach is to undertake a mutagenesis programme following the procedure of Wang et al as discussed above (as described in Plant Breeding 105, 311-320 (1990)) starting with a suitable commercial variety of pea plant (rather than a round seeded pea as Wang et al did) and to produce a rug3 mutant of the commercial variety. The desired mutants can be identified by testing starch levels in the seed or other plant parts.
An alternative approach is to use recombinant DNA technology to produce transformed plants in which PGM(p) gene expression is down regulated or inactivated at least in the developing pea seeds. Suitable techniques are known to those skilled in the art, e.g. as discussed in Davies et al Plant Cell Reports 12, 180-183 (1993). A review of the subject is given by D R Davies and P M Mullineau in Chapter 10 (Tissue Culture and Transformation) in Peas: Genetics, Molecular Biology and Biotechnology edited by R Casey and D R Davies, published by CAB International, 1993. See also U.S. Pat. No. 5,498,831, the content of which is incorporated herein by reference.
Suitable methods by which PGM gene expression may be down regulated or inactivated specifically in the developing pea seed include:
1) Tissue and temporal-specific down regulation of the PGM gene in developing peas via antisense or sense suppression technologies. This may be achieved by genetically transforming wild type Rug3Rug3 peas with transgene constructs comprising a pea seed-specific promoter (which mimics as closely as possible the seed expression profile of the native PGM gene) fused to parts of the coding region of the pea PGM gene in sense and antisense configurations. This is illustrated in FIG. 2.
Various sub-fragments of the pea PGM cDNA may be fused downstream of a pea seed specific promoter in both sense and antisense orientations. The promoter to be used will be chosen on the basis of being the one which most closely mimics, in activity, the expression pattern of native PGM within the developing pea. Such promoters may be derived from members of the vicillin gene family, the leghaemoglobin gene family, the phaseolin gene family, the USP (unidentified seed protein) gene or other suitable genes. A suitable 3′ terminator/polyadenylation region (e.g. the nopaline synthase polyadenylation sequence) will also be fused downstream of the PGM sequences. These constructs will be built into the T-DNA region of a suitable Agrobacterium binary vector such as Bin19, pGPTV or a suitable RS76 derivative. If not already present, the BAR selectable marker gene encoding resistance to phophinothricin, or a suitable alternative, will also be introduced in the T-DNA. The constructs will be transformed into defined pea lines using standard pea transformation procedures, e.g. as developed at the John Innes Centre, Norwich. Transformants will be screened for the presence of single-low copy T-DNA insertions and the expression of the native PGM gene will be assayed at the RNA level and at the expressed protein level. Those displaying significantly reduced levels of PGM RNA and PGM protein or protein activity specifically within the developing pea will be taken for further analyses as candidates for the desired result.
2) Tissue and temporal-specific partial complimentation of rug3 material. In this case a full-length PGM cDNA clone (from pea, spinach or other available sources) will be fused to a promoter which specifies expression in a range of relevant tissues (leaves, stems, etc) but not the pertinent tissues of the developing pea seed (see FIG. 3). This will give rise to plants which retain the rug3 phenotype within the pea seed, but will be effectively wild type in other plant tissues. This means the other tissues such as stems, leaves etc are of normal sweetness and so are no more susceptible to predation than conventional plants.
The coding region of the PGM gene from pea, spinach or is another suitable source will be fused downstream of a promoter sequence which gives rise to no activity in developing pea seeds, but as close as possible to wild-type activity in other parts of the plant. A suitable polyadenylation/terminator sequence may be fused downstream of the PGM coding sequence. The gene construct may be built within the T-DNA of a suitable Agrobacterium transformation vector as described above. The transgene construct may be transformed into rug3 or rug3 derived material using standard methods as described above, but optimised for use with the rug3 material. Transformants with single to low copy number T-DNA integrations will be identified. Expression of the PGM transgenes may be assayed at the RNA level and for presence/absence of PGM protein or activity. Those lines in which PGM remains absent in the seed, but is present in other plant parts may be taken for further as candidates for the desired result.
The invention will be further described, by way of illustration, in the following detailed description and with reference to the accompanying Figures in which:
FIG. 1 shows the nucleotide sequence and deduced amino acid sequence for the pea PGM(p) cDNA clone (SEQ ID Nos. 3 and 4).
FIG. 2 illustrates schematically gene constructions for seed-specific down-regulation of PGM(p) activity; and
FIG. 3 illustrates schematically gene construction for partial complementation of rug3.
FIG. 4 is a series of graphs showing changes in (a) seed fresh weight, (b) seed dry weight, (c) sucrose content of the seed, with time (number of days after flowering) for the rug3arug3a line (squares) and its wild-type near isoline (circles);
FIG. 5 is a series of graphs showing changes in (a) seed fresh weight, (b) seed dry weight, (c) sucrose content of the seed, with time (number of days after flowering) for the rug3brug3b line (squares) and its wild-type near isoline (circles);
FIG. 6 shows the pathway of starch synthesis in pea embryos, indicating activities affected by the mutations at the rugosus loci (r, rb and rug3);
FIG. 7 is a diagrammatic representation of the method by which plastidial PGM activity was assayed. The values shown are the actual results from one pair of experiments. Calculations of the plastidial PGM activities were carried out as described. ADPGP=ADP glucose pyrophosphorylase. PGM=phosphoglucomutase. PFP=phosphate dependent fructose-6-phosphate 1-phosphotransferase;
FIG. 8 illustrates starch gel electrophoresis, comprising:
A) Zymogram showing PGM activity from (p) purified plastids from ca. 300 mg wild-type embryos, (m) extract from leaves of a rug3brug3b mutant plant, (wt) extract from wild-type leaves. The lower (less anodal) band in track (p) was enhanced relative to the upper band indicating that the lower band corresponds to the activity of plastidial PGM. The faint band present in track (m) lower (less anodal) than the major (arrowed) band was only seen in this experiment and may have been an artifact. The large arrow shows the direction of migration (towards the anode).
B) Zymogram comparing extracts from (wt) wild-type and (m) rug3brug3b mutant leaves. The electrophoresis of this gel was continued for a longer period than that shown in (A) and clearly showed the absence of the less anodal, plastidial PGM band in the mutant (m) track.
C) The reactions involved in the staining of the zymograms for PGM activity. MTT=2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (thiazoyl blue);
FIG. 9 is a graph of relative sugar levels versus tenderometer readings, illustrating change in sugar content of peas with maturity. The diamonds represent the rug3 lines and the squares, the lines from the same crosses of similar agronomic performance that did not inherit the rug3 character. The dotted lines join samples taken from the same line at different maturities.
A series of investigations were carried out on rug3 mutant peas resulting from the mutagenesis program of Wang et al described above.
Comparisons between plants of the genotype rug3rug3 and wild-type, round-seeded plants have been made. Experiments involving such comparisons have utilised near-isogenic pea lines, largely differing only with respect to the rug3 locus. These near-isolines were obtained by selfing and reselecting lines heterozygous at the rug3 locus for six generations. By this method, each wrinkled seeded (rug3rug3) line had its own corresponding round-seeded (Rug3Rug3 or ++) line.
Seeds of each of the rug3rug3 lines together with seeds near-isogenic to each line except for alleles at the rug3 locus were grown in the glasshouse. Glasshouses were maintained in a 15/10° C. day/night cycle with a minimum photoperiod of 16 hours. Several sowings were carried out in order to provide a continual supply of fresh leaf and embryo material and as necessary, plants were grown outdoors for the purpose of germination and growth trials. BC1 plants and F1 and F2 plants resulting from the crosses mentioned above were glasshouse grown.
For the purpose of comparing rug3rug3 plants with their wild-type near-isogenic partners throughout development, plants were randomised and grown in a controlled environment room (Weiss Technik, Reiskirchen, Germany) in John Innes No. 1 compost with 30% chick-grit. Plants were illuminated for 16 hours per day at an intensity of approximately 300 μE at plant level (HQI lamps; Wotan Powerstars, Osram, Wembley, UK) and the temperature maintained at 15° C. during the light period and 10° C. in the dark. The relative humidity was 75%.
Controlled Environment Experiments
The production of flowers on plants grown in controlled environment rooms was carefully monitored and the developmental stage corresponding to one day post-anthesis was deemed to be that time at which the outer petals of the flower had opened and were roughly perpendicular to the inner petals. At this stage, flowers were tagged and the date recorded. Flowers from the same node were removed. When three pods had begun to develop on a plant, the apex was removed in order to prevent further upward growth and as side shoots appeared on the plants, they too were removed. The three pods therefore were the only ones allowed to develop and in this way, competition for nutrients between pods was reduced.
For all developmental studies, pods were sampled at ten time points between 15 and 45 days after anthesis. After removal, pods and seeds were kept on ice and processed according to the specific experiment. In all cases, the three seeds most central in the pods were those sampled.
After harvesting pods at specific time points, the three seeds from each pod were weighed. The embryo was dissected from the testa and, after blotting away any liquid endosperm, the embryo and testa were weighed separately, both fresh and after freeze-drying.
Measurements of Sucrose Content of Seeds
Whole seeds were harvested throughout development and fresh weights recorded. The weights of the seeds ranged from approximately 20 mg to 600 mg from both wild-type and rug3rug3 plants. The seeds were freeze-dried and soluble sugars extracted by boiling in 5 ml 80% v/v ethanol followed by grinding to a fine paste. After pelleting the solids by centrifugation at 2000 g for 10 minutes, the supernatant was removed and evaporated to dryness. More 80% ethanol was added to the pellet and the process was repeated twice more. The supernatants from each stage were pooled and evaporated to dryness to leave a final pellet containing all of the soluble sugars. Extracts were analysed by ion chromatography under the following conditions:
Chromatograph: Dionex 4000i (BIO LC) I,d. (10 μm).
Column: Guard; CarboPac PA1 50 mm×4 mm Main; CarboPac PA1 250 mm×4 mm i,d. (10 μm).
Column temp. 25° C.
Injection vol. 25 μl
Mobile phase: 150 mM NaOH isocratic (continually degassed with He) at a flow of 1 ml/min.
Detector: Pulsed Amperometric (PAD), with gold working electrode and silver reference.
Detector settings: Range; 3 KnA
Applied Potentials; E1:+0.05V.(480 ms) E2:+0.60V.(120 ms) E3:−0.60V.(60 ms)
Assay of Enzyme Activities From Crude Extracts of Pea Embryos
Preparation of Crude Extracts
For measurement of total enzyme activities, 2 embryos (200-300 mg fresh weight) were extracted in 5-10 volumes of ice cold buffer containing 50 mM Mops (pH 7.2), 10% (v/v) ethanediol, 2 mM DTT. The embryos were ground with a pestle and mortar followed by an all glass homogeniser, and homogenates centrifuged at 10000 g at 4° C. for 10 minutes. The resulting supernatants, henceforth referred to as crude extracts, were placed on ice and assayed immediately.
All spectrophotometric assays were carried out in Iml disposable plastic cuvettes at 25° C. and monitored using a Phillips PU 8800 spectrophotometer. Each reaction mixture is given below, with the reference from which they were modified given in parentheses. All coupling enzymes in the reactions were supplied by Boehringer Mannheim.
ADPglucose pyrophosphorylase (EC 126.96.36.199; Hill and Smith, Planta 185, 91, 1991)
The assay was carried out in 80 mM Hepes (pH 7.9 buffer containing 1.5 mM sodium pyrophosphate, 5 mM MgCl2, 0.8 mM NAD, 2 mM ADPglucose, 5 units of glucose 6-phosphate dehydrogenase (NAD-linked, from Leuconostoc mesenteroides), 2 of units phosphoglucomutase and 10 to 50 μl of crude extract. All components of the reaction mixture except for sodium pyrophosphate were combined in a 1 ml disposable cuvette and the reaction monitored spectrophotometrically at 340 nm. When a steady basal reaction rate was achieved, the sodium pyrophosphate was added to the reaction mixture, the cuvette returned to the spectrophotometer and the assay reaction rate determined.
UDPglucose pyrophosphorylase (EC 188.8.131.52; Smith et al, Plant Physiology 89, 1279-1284, 1989)
The assay was carried out in 80 mM Bicine (pH 8.6) buffer containing 1.5 mM sodium pyrophosphate, 1 mM MgCl2, 0.8 mM NAD, 0.8 mM UDP glucose, 10 units of glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (NAD-linked, from Leuconostoc mesenteroides), 4 units of phosphoglucomutase and 10 to 50 μl of a two-fold dilution of crude extract. The basal and assay reaction rates were determined as for ADPglucose pyrophosphorylase except that the reaction was initiated with UDPglucose.
Phosphoglucomutase (EC 184.108.40.206; Foster and Smith, Planta 190, 17-24, 1993)
The assay was carried out in 50 mM Bicine (pH 8.5) buffer containing 0.8 mM NAD, 1 mM MgCl2, 6 mM glucose 1-phosphate, 2 units of glucose 6-phosphate dehydrogenase (NAD-linked, from Leuconostoc mesenteroides) and 10 to 50 μl of crude extract. The basal and assay reaction rates were determined as for ADPglucose pyrophosphorylase except that the reaction was initiated with glucose-1-phosphate.
Radiometric Assay for ADPglucose Soluble Starch Synthase
This assay, modified from Smith et al Plant Physiology 89, 1279-1284 (1989) contained in 200 μl 100 mM Bicine (pH 8.5), 5 mM EDTA, 25 mM potassium acetate, 10 mM DTT, 1 mM ADPglucose, amylopectin (5 mg ml−1), 0.23 KBq ADP[U-14C] glucose and 20 μl of crude extract. The reaction was initiated with the crude extract and incubated at 25° C. for precisely 10 minutes after which time the reaction was stopped by boiling for 1 minute. Glucose polymer was precipitated with 3 ml 75% methanol, 1% KCl (v/v). Blanks were included which had been incubated at 100° C. immediately after addition of the crude extract. Radioactivity incorporated into glucose polymer was determined by liquid scintillation spectrometry using Optiphase HiSafe II scintillant (LKB Scintillation Products, Loughborough, England) in a LKB 1219 Rackbeta scintillation counter.
Assays of Amyloplast Enzyme Activities
Isolation of amyloplasts was carried out by a method adapted from Hill and Smith, Planta 185,91 (1991), Smith et al. Planta 180, 517-523 (1990) and Denyer and Smith, Planta 173, 172-182 (1988).
Extraction medium (medium A) was prepared according to Hill and Smith (1991) referred to above and contained 500 mM sorbitol, 20 mM Hepes (pH 7.4), 10 mM KCl, ImM MgCl2, ImM EDTA, 5 mM DTT, 10% (v/v) ethanediol, 1% (w/v) BSA. Approximately 5 g of embryos of individual masses around 200 mg from either rug3 mutant plants or their equivalent wild-type isoline were chopped with razor blades in medium A. The extract was removed and replaced with fresh medium 3-4 times giving a known total volume of extract (15-20 ml). The extract was filtered through two layers of Miracloth (Chicopee Mills, N.J., USA) into 30 ml Corex tubes (Corning glass works) on ice and 1 ml removed for assaying total enzyme activity. The remaining filtrate was centrifuged in a slow speed centrifuge at approximately 30 g. The resulting supernatant was retained for assay, the pellet was resuspended in 10 ml of medium A and centrifuged as before. The final pellet containing washed amyloplasts was resuspended in 0.5 ml medium A. Complete lysis of intact amyloplasts in each fraction was achieved by vortexing for 30 seconds followed by vigorous expulsion through a hypodermic syringe needle. Extracts from all fractions were centrifuged at 10000 g for 10 minutes to remove solids.
Enzyme Assays of Amyloplast Preparations
After the isolation of amyloplasts as described above, phosphoglucomutase activity and marker enzyme activity for amyloplasts and cytosol were assayed in all fractions.
Marker enzyme activities were activities normally associated with specific compartments of the plant cell. For the amyloplasts, the marker enzymes were ADPglucose pyrophosphorylase and glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH; EC 220.127.116.11), and for the cytosol, pyrophosphate-dependent fructose-6-phosphate 1-phosphotransferase (PFP; EC 18.104.22.168) and alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH; BC 22.214.171.124).
ADPglucose pyrophosphorylase activity was assayed as in crude embryo extracts except that crude extract was replaced in the assay mixture by the appropriate fraction from the amyloplast preparation.
The assay for GAPDH activity was modified from Wu and Racker, The Journal of Biological Chemistry 234, 1029-1035 (1958) and contained in 1 ml: 80 mM Mops (pH 7.4), 9 mM MgCl2, 3 mM ATP, 0.2 mM NADPH, 5 mM 3-phosphoglyceric acid (3-PGA), 2.5 of units 3-phosphoglycerate kinase and 10-50 μl of the appropriate fraction resulting from the amyloplast preparation. The reaction was initiated with 3-PGA and monitored spectrophotometrically at 340 nm.
PFP was assayed by a method modified from Smith, Planta 166, 264-270 (1985). The assay contained in 1: 70 mM Mops (pH 7.5), 1.5 mM MgCl2, 10 mM fructose-6-phosphate, 1.5 mM sodium pyrophosphate, 0.015 mM fructose-2,6-bisphosphate, 0.18 mM NADH, 10 units of triose phosphate isomerase, 0.1 unit of aldolase, 1 unit of glycerol-3-phosphate dehydrogenase and 50 μl of the appropriate fraction resulting from the amyloplast preparation. The reaction was initiated with sodium pyrophosphate and monitored spectrophotometrically at 340 nm.
The assay for ADH activity contained in 1 ml: 75 mM glycylglycine (pH 9.0), 100 mM ethanol, 0.8 mM NAD and 10-50 μl of the appropriate fraction from the amyloplast preparation. The reaction was initiated with ethanol and monitored spectrophotometrically at 340 nm.
Phosphoglucomutase activity was assayed as in crude embryo extracts except that crude extract was replaced in the assay mixture by the appropriate fraction from the amyloplast preparation.
The proportions of phosphoglucomutase activity attributable to the cytosol and plastids were calculated using the following equations:
where P is plastidial PGM activity, C is cytosolic PGM activity and T is total PGM activity in an embryo extract; and
where Mc is cytosolic marker activity, Mp is plastidial marker activity and Pa is the PGM activity assayed in the plastid fraction resulting from the isolation described above, i.e.
Substituting the values for Mc, MP and Pa obtained from the assays into the equation and solving equations (1) and (2) simultaneously gives the values for P and C.
Starch Gel Electrophoresis
Buffers for starch gel electrophoresis were prepared according to Selander et al, Biochemical polymorphism and systematics in the genus Peromyscus. I. Variation in the old-field mouse (Peromyscus polionotus). University of Texas Publications 7103, 49-90. (1971). The electrode buffer was lithium-borate, pH 8.1 (0.03M lithium hydroxide, 0.19M boric acid). The gel buffer was comprised of 1 part electrode buffer and 9 parts tris-citrate buffer, pH 8.4 (0.05M tris, 0.008M citric acid). Extraction buffer consisted of 0.05M Tris-HCl, pH 8, 2 mM DTT.
Starch gels were prepared by suspending 11.25 g potato starch (hydrolysed for electrophoresis; Sigma-Aldrich company, Dorset, England) in 150 ml gel buffer. The suspension was heated in a 250 ml side-arm flask with stirring until the mixture boiled and became transparent. At this point, the flask was sealed with a rubber bung and the gel de-gassed by attaching a vacuum line to the side arm of the flask. The gel was then poured immediately into a former and covered loosely. After becoming solid at room temperature, the gel was then cooled overnight to 4° C.
Samples for electrophoresis were prepared by grinding leaves and embryos from wild-type and rug3rug3 plants in a minimum amount of extraction buffer so that a thick slurry was produced. The extract was then allowed to soak into filter paper wicks (Whatman No.182) for approximately 10 minutes at 4° C. When fully impregnated, the wicks were inserted into a slit made 2 cm from the cathodal edge of the gel.
Electrophoresis of the starch gel was carried out at 300v and 4° C. The surface of the gel was covered with a sheet of polythene and in some experiments additional cooling was provided as suggested by Przybylska et al, Genetica Polonica 30, 120-138 (1989) by placing a bag of ice on top of the polythene sheet. After approximately 30 minutes, the current was switched off and the paper wicks were removed from the gel. Electrophoresis was then continued for a further 6 hours. After this period, gels were removed from the electrophoresis apparatus and laid on a flat surface. Horizontal slices were made through the gel using a taught 0.008″ diameter guitar string. Slicing in this way was necessary to remove the top surface of the starch gel which formed a skin which did not have the matrix properties of the centre of the gel. Internal slices from the gel were laid in a shallow dish and staining solution poured over the surface.
Staining for PGM activity was achieved by a method adapted from Thorpe et al, Procedures for the detection of isozymes of Rapeseed by starch gel electrophoresis. Department of crop science technical bulletin Agriculture Canada. (1987). The stain consisted of 50 ml 0.1M Tris-Histidine buffer (pH8; 0.1M tris titrated to correct pH with histidine-HCl) containing 100 mg MgCl2, 120 mg glucose-1-phosphate, 10 mg NADP, 20 mg thiazoyl blue (MTT), a trace of 8-dimethylamino-2,3-benzophenoxazine (Meldola's blue) and 50 units of glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (from Leuconostoc mesenteroides).
The starch gel was immersed in stain for 60 minutes at 37° C. in darkness. Violet bands of enzyme activity were easily visible after this time.
Analysis of Sugars in Developing Seeds
To analyse the sugar content of rug3rug3 and wild-type seeds throughout development, plants were grown under controlled conditions as described above. rug3arug3a seeds and their corresponding wild-type isoline were used in these experiments. Pea seeds were harvested to give 10 or 11 time points in the range between 15 and 45 days after anthesis. For each time point, two pods were harvested and three seeds analysed from each pod. The measurements recorded for each time point were the fresh and dry weights of the seeds.
FIGS. 4 and 5 shows the data represented as means for each time point with standard errors for the two near-isogenic pairs investigated. In the rug3arug3a mutant and wild-type near-isoline, the absolute levels of sucrose in the seed are not significantly different until approximately 30 DAF.
After this time, significant differences exist as the mutant seeds continue to accumulate sucrose until 45 DAF, whilst the wild-type seeds showed a decrease in the sucrose content from 30 DAF onwards. At 45 DAF, the value for the mutant seed falls to a level not significantly different to that of the wild-type. In the rug3brug3b mutant and the corresponding near-isogenic wild-type seeds significant differences in the sucrose content of the seeds do not occur until after approximately 35 DAF. The mutant seeds continued to accumulate sucrose until 40 DAF when a decline in the content was observed, whilst in the wild-type seeds, the sucrose content fell between 35 DAF and 40 DAF. An unexpected increase in the sucrose content of the wild-type seeds was observed after 40 DAF, however, this growth curve of this wild-type line was unusual at around the 40 DAF time point and may reflect problems which occurred with the growth of these plants. The errors associated with measurements made on the seeds of this line in this experiment are greater than those of the other lines and this is probably also attributable to growing problems.
A feature of the pattern of sucrose accumulation of both mutant lines was the rapid decline in the sucrose content of the seeds towards the end of development, such that differences in sucrose content between wild-type and mutant seeds became less significant. The fresh and dry weight curves also shown in FIGS. 4 and 5 (a and b) serve to demonstrate that the seeds of all lines investigated have not begun to dry off at the 45 DAF stage and it is therefore possible that the values for sucrose content would again diverge after this time, giving rise to differences in sucrose content of mature wild-type and rug3rug3 seeds. These values are 7% and 3% of the dry weight of mutant and wild-type seeds respectively and cannot merely be accounted for by differences in seed final dry weights. That is to say that they reflect an increased absolute quantity of sucrose in rug3rug3 seeds.
Measurement of Enzyme Specific Activities in Developing Embryos
The r and rb mutants in pea both affect enzymes in the starch biosynthetic pathway as shown in FIG. 6 and, as a result of the consequent reduction in starch content, lead to wrinkling of the mature seed. By direct analogy to these mutants, the most likely effect of the rug3 mutation would seem also to be on the activity of an enzyme in this pathway. This does not mean however that the enzyme or enzymes need to be affected directly, the mutation may produce changes in regulatory mechanisms of the pathway. Additional evidence for rug3 affecting starch biosynthetic enzymes comes from the existing starchless mutants of other is plants. In these cases the mutations are known to affect the activity of either ADPglucose pyrophosphorylase or plastidial phosphoglucomutase.
The activities of the enzymes of the starch biosynthetic pathway have been assayed, therefore, in extracts from both rug3 mutant embryos and their near-isogenic wild-type equivalents. Embryos were analysed from rug3rug3 plants representing the extremes of the allelic series in terms of starch content of the mature seeds, i.e. those bearing the rug3a and rug3b alleles. For the purposes of making these measurements, embryos were harvested at between 200 and 300 mg fresh weight, which is a developmental stage when starch synthesis would be expected to be occurring at a rapid rate, and hence at a stage when the enzymes of the pathway should be most active (Smith et al, Plant Physiology 107, 673-678, 1989). The enzymes chosen for assay in the first instance were: UDPglucose pyrophosphorylase, phosphoglucomutase (PGM; total activity), phosphoglucomutase (plastidal isoform; PGM(p), ADPglucose pyrophosphorylase and starch synthase. These enzymes were chosen to be assayed for the following reasons. Firstly, they are the main enzymes involved in starch synthesis. Secondly, they catalyse reactions which (as far as is known) cannot be carried out via alternative routes. The activity of some of them is known to be affected in starch mutants of pea and other plants. Finally they can be assayed by established techniques. The major omission from this round of experiments was the measurement of the glucose-6-phosphate (G-6-P) translocator which is responsible for the movement of G-6-P from the cytosol into the amyloplasts. The assay of this activity is not straightforward and it was considered that measurements could be carried out at a later date should it prove necessary. In addition, since the rug3 mutations cause absence of starch from the leaves, and the substrates for starch synthesis are likely to be able to enter the leaf chloroplasts via different routes since they do not possess a G-6-P translocator, then it would seem unlikely that the primary effect of the mutation was on this molecule. Because of the severe effects of the rug3 mutation on starch synthesis, the aim of the investigations of enzyme specific activities was to identify activities which were severely reduced and could therefore account for the near-starchless phenotype of rug3rug3 plants.
The results of the assays of the aforementioned enzymes are shown in the following Table 3. The results of the assays of wild-type embryos, near isogenic to each of the rug3 mutant embryos used are comparable to those reported elsewhere (Smith et al, 1989 referred to above; Foster and Smith, Planta 190, 17-24, 1993). The single measurements obtained for the activity of starch synthase was due to the nature and cost of the radiometric assay involved. The initial data that was obtained clearly showed the presence of the activity of this enzyme in extracts from rug3 mutant embryos and hence the assay was not repeated. Differences in the apparent activity of starch synthase in the wild-type and mutant embryos may have been due to the embryos being of a different developmental stage despite similar fresh weights as discussed below. Alternatively, they may reflect real differences, possibly caused by up-regulation of the enzyme production in the rug3 embryos as a result of altered flux through the pathway.
Results of the assays of enzyme activities from crude extracts and plastid preparations from 200-300 mg embryos. Units of enzyme activity shown are μmol−1 min−1 g−1 fresh weight except for the activity of plastidial PGM which was calculated as a percentage of the total PGM activity. Figures are means of five assays from separate extracts+standard errors. ND=no activity detected.
Only one of the enzymes assayed was severely reduced in the extracts from rug3rug3 embryos and this was the plastidial isoform of phosphoglucomutase. No activity was attributed to the plastidial isoform of this enzyme from the rug3rug3 embryos even though substantial amounts of total PGM activity were present. The method by which the activity of the plastidial isoform of this enzyme was assessed was to purify plastids, and measure the amounts of marker enzymes for the plastids (ADPglucose pyrophosphorylase) and the cytosolic fraction (PFP or ADH), as described above. These enzymes were assayed along with PGM in all fractions obtained from the purification i.e. the plastid fraction, the total extract and the remainder left after removal of intact plastids. The presence of the plastid marker in the plastid fraction coupled with the absence of the cytosolic marker would indicate that pure plastids had been obtained. The recovery of the plastidial marker enzyme and the actual amount of contaminating cytosolic marker could be used to assess the yield and purity of the plastids. Assays of PGM were only carried out on extracts where a substantial proportion of the plastidial marker enzyme was recovered in the plastid fraction and hence the yield of plastids was high. Obviously the mechanical forces used in the extraction procedure would result in large numbers of the plastids being broken but 10% of the plastidial marker activity could be routinely recovered in the plastid traction. This recovery value was in agreement with that of Foster and Smith Planta 190, 17-24 (1993), who estimated the proportion of PGM activity which was attributable to the plastids of pea embryos to be approximately 20%. The diagram shown in FIG. 7 shows the method by which the PGM(p) activity was assessed and the actual recovery and assay results for one pair of experiments carried out concurrently. Fuller results of more extensive tests are given in Table 4.
Enzyme specific activities measured in fractions resulting from plastid preparation. Activities shown are μmol min−1g−1 fresh weight or precentages±standard errors for two independent preparations. * represents the precentage activity assumed to be present in the plastids for the cytosolic and plastidial marker enzymes. † represents the activities of phosphoglucomutase in the plastids calculated as described above.
Numerous repetitions of the measurement of plastidial PGM could not reveal any activity of this-enzyme in rug3brug3b embryos. In addition, no activity could be detected in the embryos of rug3arug3a plants using this technique, despite the accumulation of small amounts of starch in the seeds of this mutant. This perhaps suggests that the assay was not sensitive enough to detect small amounts of PGM(p) activity which may be present in rug3arug3a embryos.
The enzyme activities of all of the enzymes in the pathway of starch biosynthesis which were assayed except for PGM(p) showed little difference between rug3rug3 and wild-type embryos. The limited number of repetitions of the measurements meant that, with the exception of PGM(p) activity, these differences were not significant with 95% confidence limits (for UDPGPP, t=3.0, P>0.05; for ADPGPP. t=1.47, P>0.2; for PGM[total], t=0.26, P>0.5). It also must be considered that to cause the near-starchless phenotype of rug3rug3 seeds, a particular enzyme activity would have to be dramatically reduced in the starch synthesising tissues and this was only the case for PGM(p). Mutants at the rb locus have been shown to have a ten-fold decrease in the activity of ADPglucose pyrophosphorylase relative to the wild-type in 200-300 mg embryos and despite this, rbrb seeds contain 32% starch at maturity. As mentioned with reference to the single measurements of starch synthase above, differences in enzyme activities measured here may be attributable to the fact that rug3rug3 and wild-type embryos grew differently. Hence, although of approximately the same fresh weight, the increased water uptake in the mutant meant that the wild-type and mutant embryos were at different developmental stages. Further, it has been shown that a rug3rug3 embryo is likely to have a lower dry weight for a given fresh weight than a wild-type embryo. When these experiments were carried out, the growth data linking fresh and dry weight through development was not available for the rug3rug3 plants and therefore equal fresh weights were used as an estimate of equivalence in developmental stage between wild-type and mutant. It is possible that real differences do exist in the activities of some of the important enzymes of the pathway. These might be accounted for by regulation of their activity through alterations to substrate concentrations in the mutant embryos. One such candidate for this type of regulation is ADPglucose pyrophosphorylase which, in the experiments reported here, had consistently higher activities in extracts from mutant embryos than from wild-type embryos. The substrate for this enzyme (G-1-P) would be practically absent from rug3rug3 plastids without the activity of PGM(p) and perhaps this results in up-regulation of the activity of the enzyme.
Overall, these experiments gave an indication that the activity of plastidial PGM was severely reduced in rug3rug3 embryos. The indirect method by which this enzyme is assayed, i.e. involving a calculation of the proportion of activity attributable to the plastids, prompted the need for other lines of evidence to support the initial findings.
Starch Gel Electrophoresis
The technique of starch gel electrophoresis has been used to separate isoforms of phosphoglucomutase (and many other enzymes) from pea for the purposes of genetic (isozyme) mapping (Weeden, The Journal of Heredity 75, 365-370, 1984 and 78, 153-159, 1987). The technique separates enzymes on the basis of charge and size and can reveal electrophoretic variance for the same enzyme between different plant lines. Crosses can be carried out between peas showing variation of this nature for a particular enzyme and the F2 population analysed for the isozyme patterns which will correspond either to chat of one of the parents or to a combination of both parental patterns in the case of a heterozygote. The visualisation of enzymes on gels is carried out by means of a coupled reaction which takes place in the gel to yield a coloured product. FIG. 8C shows the reaction involved. The extensive use of this technique in pea meant that information was available regarding the migration of PGM isoforms on these gels (Przybylska et al, 1989 referred to above).
For practical reasons, namely obtaining extracts with sufficient concentrations of enzyme activity, leaves were used to provide samples for electrophoresis. This was not considered to be a problem as the rug3 mutation was known to affect the leaves, and in pea only two loci encoding the isoforms of phosphoglucomutase (one cytosolic and one plastidial) have been reported (Weeder and Marx, The Journal of Heredity 75, 365-370, 1984; Weeden et al, The Journal of Heredity 75, 411-412, 1984; and Przybylska et al, 1989 referred to above) The methods of starch gel electrophoresis presented several practical problems. Firstly, as the method has largely been superseded by isoelectric focusing using acrylamide gels for the purposes of genetic mapping, purpose built electrophoresis equipment was not available. Hence, equipment designed for the electrophoresis of nucleic acids in agarose gels was modified for the purpose. Problems also arose with the staining of the gels. Initially, no bands of enzyme activity could be seen on the gels when they were stained by the method of (Thorpe et al, 1987 referred to above). A method of N. F. Weeden was eventually employed. Przybylska et al (1989) referred to above reported that a migration of 10 cm of the front was necessary to separate the isoforms of PGM from pea in a 6% gel. This was also taken into consideration in later experiments.
FIG. 8B shows the results of a zymogram loaded with extracts from rug3brug3b leaves and the relevant wild-type isoline. The result appeared to confirm the absence of one isoform of PGM in the rug3rug3 extract. Results from Przybylska et al (1989) referred to above using the same buffer system as employed in these experiments (Lithium borate/triscitrate) report that the more anodal isoform of PGM in pea is the plastidial form, i.e. this form will migrate further towards the anode in these conditions. In the zymograms shown in FIG. 8 it is the anodal form which is absent from the rug3rug3 extract. An attempt was made to demonstrate that the anodal band was caused by PGM activity in the plastids. The method which had been used for the measurement of specific activities in plastids was used on a larger scale to attempt to isolate a sufficiently large extract from plastids from wild-type embryos to load onto a starch gel. The zymogram shown in FIG. 8A is the result of this experiment. It can be seen that the anodal band has been enhanced relevant to the cathodal band in the same track for the purified plastid sample. However, a smear was present more anodal than the plastidial PGM band. This could be due to starch in the plastid extract interfering with the matrix of the gel, or possibly components of the amyloplast isolation medium affecting the migration.
The results of the starch gel experiments along with the measurements of enzyme specific activities gave strong evidence that in rug3rug3 plants, the activity of the enzyme plastidial phosphoglucomutase was reduced to a level not detectable by these methods. Using leaves from rug3arug3a plants as the starting material for starch gel electrophoresis, no activity of the plastidial isoform of PGM could be seen after staining. A small amount of PGM(p) activity must have been present in this tissue to account for the small amount of starch synthesised in rug3arug3a embryos. However, it is likely that this residual activity was at an extremely low level as the embryos only accumulated approximately 20% of the starch of the wild type by the end of development. The activity of PGM(p) in these embryos may be so low that the methods used here are not sensitive enough to detect it. Also worthy of note is the fact that the activity of PGM on the whole is likely to be lower in leaf tissue than in embryos which are rapidly synthesising starch.
The rug3 mutant SIM lines used in the above work, while useful for experimental purposes, are not suitable for commercial use. A breeding programme was therefore undertaken to produce pea plants of agronomically acceptable character, with the rug3 mutation. Details are as follows:
1. The first crossing was undertaken early in 1993 between the five rug3rug3 SIM lines and two normal (Rug3Rug3 or ++) varieties as parents; Harrier, a Unilever bred registered variety, and Novella a leading commercial variety.
2. The crosses were carried out as a half diallel (i.e. each of the SIM lines onto each of the two varieties, without concern over which was used as the male or female).
3. The (F1) seed from the crossed flowers was harvested and F1 plants grown in insect proof glasshouses. The plants were allowed to self and the F2 seed collected during 1993.
4. The seed was sorted into wrinkled (rug3rug3-, -rr, or rug3rug3rr) (-indicates either dominant wild type or heterozygote) or round (containing at least one dominant copy of Rug3 and R). The wrinkled seed were sown in the field in spring 1994, supported by wires, and standard pedigree selection of F2 plants was done.
5. During August 1994 five F3 seed were taken from each of those plants selected from the above as having acceptable agronomic characters.
6. The F3 seed was checked for starch content. This was done by drilling a small quantity of dust from a cotyledon of each seed, and testing for starch by the addition of iodine solution. In this way the wrinkled but starchy rrRug3Rug3 lines should be rejected but the test on large numbers was imprecise and some miscategorisation probably occurred. The putative rug3rug3 lines were put into four very approximate groups (<1, <5, <10 and 10+% starch) by comparisons of the colour density with the SIM standards.
7. The remaining 765 F3 seed, all now known to be probable rug3rug3 and potentially acceptable agronomically were sown in insect proof glasshouses in October 1994.
8. When ripe, four F4 seed were taken from each of the surviving F3 plants, and sown in a large pot in the same glasshouse.
9. When ripe (May 1995) as many seed as possible up to 100 were taken from each pot and sown as a square meter F5 plot in the field.
10. The standard method of assessing maturity by tenderometer is not applicable to small plots. Hence at a date decided by the experience of the breeder, looking at and feeling the fullness of the pods, small samples were taken for the sugar analysis.
11. The samples were frozen to −18 degrees C., and sugar content was analysed by a modified Hexakinase/Glucose-6-Phosphate dehydrogenase hexose analytical technique, details of which are given below.
12. On the basis of these tests and agronomic assessment, 45 lines were selected for development, these covering a range of increased sweetness levels. The dry seed of these lines was harvested in August 1995.
13. Fifty seed of each selected line were grown up in New Zealand.
14. In March 1996 the multiplied seed (F7, but a mixture of F4 derived lines) was returned to the UK, added to the remnant F6 seed from the 1995 plots, and sown as two plots of 6.75 sq m. One plot is being harvested in July 1996 for vining and freezing, with the other being left to dry seed harvest to produce further seed to be used for larger scale trials.
The lines were checked for starch and sugar content (using the methods outlined below) at vining harvest and when dry harvested. In some cases, vining harvests were made at two maturity levels. The dry starch analysis gave the largest range of values and clearly separates the lines with and without homozygous rug3.
FIG. 9 shows clearly that in ++ or Rug3Rug3 pea varieties, sugar levels decrease with increasing tenderometer readings, while with the rug3 derived lines the decrease is much slower and high sugar levels are maintained even at high tenderometer readings.
These results can also be demonstrated by looking at the change in ratio of sucrose content:starch content with maturity. The results are shown in the following Table 5.
It can clearly be seen that in ++ or Rug3Rug3 pea varieties the ratio of sucrose content:starch content decreases much more rapidly with maturity than for the rug3 derived lines. The ratio for ++ peas at vining harvest is typically lower than for the mutant lines derived according to the invention and this difference becomes much more marked at dry seed harvest maturity. Thus, at dry seed harvest, the ratio of sucrose to starch in the rug3 lines remains higher than 0.6 in all cases whereas for the control varieties, the highest ratio recorded is only 0.26.
The results suggest that the rug3 lines are likely to exhibit increased sweetness for a given starch content at all stages of maturity compared to conventional varieties, at vining harvest and particularly at the mature dry seed stage. This has the effect of extending the range of time over which the peas can suitably be vined, thereby providing an important commercial advantage.
Analysis of the seed starch at dry seed harvest provides a convenient way of identifying those lines having the rug3 character which will give rise to plants producing peas having a high sucrose content at vining.
Analysis of Sugars in Peas
The quality of frozen peas is defined by tenderness and sweetness, which are associated since both are strongly affected by maturity. The ‘tenderometer’ is used commercially to gauge the maturity of peas and so suitability for harvest. Alcohol insoluble solid (AIS) content (measured either directly or by near infrared reflectance (NIR)) is used to assess tenderness in the laboratory.
The method described here is a direct, precise method of measuring the actual sugars in peas, and in practice it is only worthwhile to measure sucrose as this is by far the dominant sugar and, as the sweetest, is primarily responsible for the sweetness of the pea.
Kinematica Microtron or similar homogeniser
Volumetric flasks (250 ml)
Spectrophotometer (UV/Visible, set a 340 nm)
1 cm UV type disposable cuvettes (to hold approximately 3 ml),
Microcentrifuge tubes and microcentrifuge
Preparation of Solutions
2.b.1) 2M and 5M Sodium Hydroxide Dissolve 8.0 g sodium hydroxide in water and make to 100 ml to give a 2M solution or 20.0 g sodium hydroxide in water and make to 100 ml to give a 5M solution. Cool be more making to volume.
2.b.2) Citrate Buffer (0.32M; pH 4.6)
Dissolve 6.9 g citric acid and 9.1 g trisodium citrate in about 150 ml water, adjust the pH to 4.6 with 2M sodium hydroxide (2.b.1) and make to 200 ml with water.
Dissolve 10 mg fructosidase in 2 ml citrate buffer (2.b.2). This is stable for at least a week in the refrigerator.
2.b.4) Triethanolamine Buffer (0.75M, pH 7.6)
Dissolve 14.0 g triethanolmine hydrochloride and 0.25 g magnesium sulphate in about 80 ml water, adjust the pH to 7.6 with 5M sodium hydroxide (2.b.1) and make to 100 ml. This buffer is stable for at least 4 weeks in the refrigerator.
Dissolve 60 mg NADP in 6 ml water. This is stable for at least 4 weeks in the refrigerator.
Dissolve 300 mg ATP and 300 mg sodium hydrogen carbonate in 6 ml water. This is stable for at least 4 weeks in the refrigerator.
2.b.7) Hexokinase/glucose6-phosphate dehydrogenase (HK/G6PDH)
Use the suspension supplied by Boehringer (Catalogue number 127 825) undiluted.
These are not required as concentrations can be calculated from absorption coefficients—see Section 6).
Turn the hotplate on. Weigh 25 g of fresh or frozen peas and place in a large homogeniser beaker. Add about 150 ml water and homogenise for 60 seconds at ¾ speed (Kinematica Microtron). Pour the homogenate into a 250 ml beaker, rinse the homogeniser beaker a couple of times and add the washings to the homogenate. Bring the homogenate to the boil on a hotplate to kill all the enzymes, extract the sugars and coagulate the proteins. Then cool the homogenate in a sink of water and pour into a 250 ml volumetric flask. Rinse the beaker until it is clean, adding the rinsings to the volumetric flask. Make the flask to volume.
Allow the sediment in the volumetric flask to settle for about 30 minutes and take off some of the supernatant. Place this in microcentrifuge tube(s) and centrifuge at 10,000 rpm for 5 minutes. To measure sucrose a further dilution is required. Take 2 ml or 5 ml of the spun supernatant and make to 10 ml or 25 ml respectively with water.
5.b) Measurement of Sugar
Turn on the spectrophotometer and set the wavelength to 340 nm with both the deuterium and visible lamps switched on.
Pipette the following solutions as detailed in Table 6 into a disposable UV cuvette and read the OD against the water blank.
The sample solution must not contain more that 150 μg sucrose per cuvette. If this is the case make a further dilution.
342.30=molecular weight of sucrose
6.3=absorption coefficient of NADPH at 340 nm
25 g peas are made to 250 ml, 2 ml of homogenate are made to 10 ml=10×5=50×dilution, or the equivalent of extracting 25 g of peas in 1250 ml.
So 1.326×Absorbance×50=Sucrose per g of peals, fresh weight.
180.16=molecular weight of glucose
6.3=absorption coefficient of NADph at 340 nm
×50=mg per g of peas, fresh weight.
So 0.698×Absorbance×50=glucose per g of peas, fresh weight.
NOTE: The glucose concentration is low and need not usually be measured. However, to be strictly correct, the sucrose measurement will be sucrose + glucose and so to get a true sucrose measurement, measure both and subtract glucose from sucrose.
Homogenise 25 g peas in 150 ml water for 60 seconds Boil the homogenate
Make to 250 ml
Centrifuge and dilute the supernatant×5
Add sample buffer and fructosidase to cuvette, mix and incubate for 15 minutes
Add buffer, water, NADP and ATP to cuvette, mix and read absorbance after 3 minutes=A1
Add HK/G6PDH, mix and read absorbance after completion of reaction (10 to 15 minutes)=A2
Calculate % sucrose and % glucose
Cloning of the Pea PGM(R) cDNA Gene and Genetic Segregation Analysis
A. Materials and Methods
1. Preparation of cDNA Library
RNA was isolated from immature pea embryos (Pisum sativum Var. Novella) weighing 200 mg. Isolation was carried out using the Quickprep mRNA Purification Kit (Pharmacia). First and second strand cDNA was synthesised using the Superscript II cloning kit (GIBCO-BRL) with first strand cDNA being primed by oligo(dT). cDNA ends were blunt-end ligated to EcoRI adapters and excess adapters removed through Sephacry1-300 columns (Pharmacia). The inserts were ligated into a Lambda ZAP II vector and packaged using the Gigapack III packaging extracts (both Stratagene). A portion of the library was plated, 24,000 pfu, with an average insert size of 1.5 Kbp and largest PCR amplifiable insert of 3 Kbp. Filters (Hybond N+) were lifted from plates and uv-fixed prior to hybridisation.
2. Amplification of PGM Gene Fragment
Degenerate primers (5′-ACIGCIWSICAYAAYCC (SEQ ID No. 1) & 5′-CKRTCICCRTCICCRTCRAAIGC (SEQ ID No. 2)) were synthesised, based on regions of conserved amino acid sequence in known PGM genes from E. coli, yeast, rabbit, rat and human. PCR amplification of cDNA (Novella) using standard conditions (25 μl reaction mixture containing; 0.2 mM DNTP, 0. 3 μM each oligonucleotide primer, 10 mM Tris pH 8.3, 50 mM KCl, 1.5 mM MgCl2 and 0.5 units Taq DNA Polymerase, Advanced Biotechnologies) and a standard PCR cycle with anneal temperature of 44° (Phillips et al, Theor Appl Gene 88:845-851, 1994) yielded a fragment of the expected size (500 bp). This was cloned using the pT7Blue T vector kit (Novagen) and end-sequenced. This confirmed considerable homology with known PGM sequences.
3. Library Screening
The PCR product (above) was labelled with 32P (Feinberg & Vogelstein, Anal Biochem 132:6-13, 1983) and hybridised to library filters at 65° overnight. The filters were washed at high stringency (0.1×SSC at 65°) and exposed to X-ray film at −70°. Positive plaques were purified and PCR amplified to ascertain insert size.
4. Genetic Segregation Analysis
Segregating populations were constructed through crossing the conventional Rug3 vining cultivar (Harrier) with the rug3 Sim line 43 and generation of F2 (population A) and F4 (population B) lines. Plants were phenotyped through a combination of visual inspection of their seed (Rug3=wrinkled, rug3 -super-wrinkled) and iodine staining of leaf tissue. DNA from segregating populations was isolated (Dellaporta et al, Plant Mol Biol Rep. 1:19-21, 1983), restricted with EcoRI and electrophoresed through it 1% agarose prior to capillary blotting (Sambrook et al, 1989). The insert from the longest cDNA library clone was labelled with 32p and used as a probe.
1. Cloning of the Pea Plastidial Phosphoglucomutase cDNA Gene
A DNA sequence comparison was made between previously reported PGM genes from the species described below. Two regions of high conservation were identified and used to design degenerate oligonucleotide PCR primers. Amplification of pea cDNA resulted in generation of a DNA fragment of the expected size. A cDNA library was constructed and this PCR product used as a probe. A total of 38 positive plaques were identified. The largest insert size was 2.2 kb, corresponding to the expected coding capacity predicted from other cloned PGM genes and also the size of the mRNA transcript on Northerns. The DNA sequence of this clone was determined (FIG. 1). The amino acid sequence of the largest open reading frame minus the putative transit peptide domain was compared with that of other cloned PGM genes using the standard computer program DNAStar (DNAStar Inc, Madison, USA) and the results shown in table 7. This shows considerable regions of homology throughout the gene. Highest homology is found with the sequence from the ice plant (Mesembryantlemum crystallinum), followed by that from Agrobacterium tumefaciens, then mammalian and yeast genes and finally to Escherichia coli and Xanthomonas. However the Pea cDNA reported here has an extension of approximately 65 amino acids at the N terminal end, suggesting a role as a transit peptide for import into plastids. Supportive evidence for this role comes from the high content of serine residues found in many such transit peptides.
2. Genetic Segregation Analysis
Populations segregating for the rug 3 “super-wrinkled” phenotype were tested for linkage between the pPGM gene and the rug3 phenotype. Table 8 shows the results for two such populations.
In population A, the segregation of wild type and rug3 “super-wrinkled” plants did not differ significantly from a 3:1 segregation ratio as expected for a recessive gene inherited in a classically Mendelian fashion. In all cases the ruq3 plants were homozygous for the RFLP allele derived from the rug3 parental plant. A similar observation was found in population B.
This data demonstrates that the rug3 mutation maps very closely to, or on top of, the pPGM gene.
Citations de brevets
Citations hors brevets | <urn:uuid:09b9f7ff-3404-4002-98a9-5f95f0c6f4ed> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.google.fr/patents/US6538180 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944002 | 18,211 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Former First Lady Laura Bush awarded the Kansas City Public Library the 2008 National Medal for Museum and Library Service, the nation's highest honor for museums and libraries, at a White House ceremony on October 7, 2008.
Each year, the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), in coordination with the White House, presents the National Medal to five museums and five libraries that have helped make their communities better places to live. Each winning institution also receives a $10,000 award.
The Kansas City Public Library received the award for its Books to Go project, which delivers books monthly to more than 7,000 preschool-aged children through Head Start programs and other similar venues; its extensive menu of monthly special events featuring presentations by historians, novelists, economists, and journalists; and its kid-friendly Once Upon a Time exhibit and related programming that took place in winter 2008.
The Kansas City Public Library strives to serve its community by promoting reading, bringing together community cultures, and bridging the digital divide, and in so doing, has created an ideal place for Kansas City residents to gather, work, play, and learn.
“The Kansas City Public Library is honored to be selected as a National Medal library by the Institute,” said Crosby Kemper III, director of the Kansas City Public Library. “This recognition reinforces our vision and commitment to inspire our patrons and the community to the highest level of aspiration in knowledge, personal development, and preservation of our heritage.”
“It was my great honor to nominate the Kansas City Public Library for this award,” said U.S. Representative Emanuel Cleaver, II (D-Mo). “Through their efforts they have let loose imaginations, inspired change and become a cornerstone around which our entire community gathers. A city can only be as good as its public libraries, and we all take pride that ours is among America’s very best. My sincere congratulations to Crosby Kemper, all his staff, volunteers and supporters.”.
“By its example, the Kansas City Public Library shows us the kind of influence and impact that libraries can have on community life. Through its innovative programs and active partnerships, the Library addresses the urgent and changing needs of the community it serves,” said Anne-Imelda M. Radice, former IMLS Director.
The National Medal awards are made every year by IMLS, the primary source of federal funding for museums and libraries. This is the second year that IMLS has awarded medals to 10 institutions. In previous years, the National Medal was known as the National Award for Museum and Library Service and was awarded to three museums and three libraries.
The other winners of the 2008 National Medal for Museum and Library Service include The Buffalo Bill Historical Center, Cody, WY; The Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, PA; The General Lew Wallace Study and Museum, Crawfordsville, IN; The Jane Stern Dorado Community Library, Inc., Dorado, PR; The Lower East Side Tenement Museum, New York, NY; The Miami-Dade Public Library System, Miami, FL ; The Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, FL; The Skidompha Library, Damariscotta, ME; and The Skokie Public Library, Skokie, IL
The Institute of Museum and Library Services is the primary source of federal support for the nation’s 122,000 libraries and 17,500 museums. The Institute's mission is to create strong libraries and museums that connect people to information and ideas. The Institute works at the national level and in coordination with state and local organizations to sustain heritage, culture, and knowledge; enhance learning and innovation; and support professional development. To learn more about the Institute, please visit www.imls.gov . | <urn:uuid:48eab054-56b7-4213-8130-6534eb76fb07> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kclibrary.org/print/14789 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952869 | 778 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Puzzles are among the most popular games that people download on their mobile devices: searches for favorite puzzle games occur as often as searches for any other type of downloadable game. Puzzles are fun and arguably addictive, and can also be useful for testing a person’s problem solving skills. They are also recommended for people for logic (reasoning) strengthening, pattern recognition, sequence solving, strategy and word completion.
The iPhone is one of the most popular mobile devices on the market. The iTunes store makes it easy for iPhone owners to download puzzles as well as thousands of other games. Below are five popular puzzles, each of which challenges players in different ways.
This is the same game that people find so addictive on the Internet. Although Bejeweled Blitz is largely a game of luck, it also tests your focus. The object is to match as many gems as you can in one minute. The iPhone app connects to a browser version of the game with Facebook, allowing you to compete against your friends and view scores on a cross-platform leader board.
Scribblenauts Remix is a puzzle game that challenges your creativity. Players write any word that they want, modify it with an adjective, and bring that object to life in order to solve puzzles. Although this is an action-packed game, it’s a thinking person’s game as well. Scribble Speak, which simplifies the game by allowing players to say the words rather than type them, is exclusive to iPhone 4S.
Sudoku is the same Japanese puzzle game that is available in puzzle books and newspapers. The object is to put the numbers 1-9 into a grid of cells; no row or column can have the same number more than once, which makes this game very challenging. This app has four different skill levels, multiple color schemes and approximately 700 puzzles. Additionally, there are different puzzle styles, including standard, symmetrical and patterned.
W.E.L.D.E.R. Words received the iPhone Game of the Week Award, and it was also designated the top iPad Game of 2011. This word game challenges you to create words and gain points by using gems and gold tiles. The rules are simple: the more words you create, the more rewards you earn. Special reverse, jump swaps and group make it possible for players to clear broken tiles and create more words. With multiplier tiles, you earn even more points. Phones that use the iOS 5 operating system have a built-in dictionary, which you can consult for help.
Unblock Me is a free puzzle game that challenges you to slide blocks out of the way so you can get the red block off of the board. It comes as a 400-puzzle pack in the beginner level; however, there are 200 more unique puzzles as part of the intermediate and advanced levels.
People are always drawn to video games. The games that are available as apps for cell phones offer challenges to users that range from sheer luck to creativity, logic and the ability to come up with words. Some are also interactive in that they are entwined with social media networks, as is the case with Bejeweled. If you are a puzzle lover, then these five top iPhone games are definitely worth investigating. Have fun! | <urn:uuid:786caec2-fa3c-43de-9149-145a56ccdbac> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ipwngames.com/2012/04 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966557 | 667 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Some people eat cows. Some people eat cats. Some people eat dugongs. Some people eat dogs. Some people eat horses. Some people eat herrings. Some people eat sheep. Some people eat snails. Some people eat turnips. Some people eat tuna. Some people eat wildebeeste. Some people eat whales.
Some people even eat people, although there's not a lot of them these days and it would be entirely wrong to criticise those few who do if enjoying a bit of long pig is an integral part of their cultural identity.
Indeed, you could argue that more people should eat people and that we should encourage the practice, not least because it would likely mean fewer people eating whales.
There wouldn't be many among us keen to marinate Moby after we'd had Ahab as an appetiser. "Oh, that's very kind of you but I'm absolutely full. He was delicious."
It's easy to imagine Sea Shepherd's founder, Paul Watson, endorsing such an approach. His commitment to the great cetaceans is unequivocal. He'd sooner harpoon the captain than the whale. Mr Watson doesn't believe whales should be part of our food chain.
They may well be the scourge of krill ("Look out! Thar she blows!") and definitely partial to a plankton salad, but that does not mean they should be eaten by unfeeling folk in Japan, Norway, Iceland, or Elsewhere. (A great place to visit, by the by.)
Every year, Mr Watson sails south into stormy seas, the better to bother the whaling Japanese. Ramming, jamming, boarding and badgering, his crews go about their missionary work with unbridled fervour. Ships sink, Aussies (three this week) invade the enemy's vessel - as welcome as our apples in their supermarkets - and, generally, everyone has a fine old time taking the moral high ground. (Which is quite difficult at sea.)
As a food-producing nation, we should be thankful Mr Watson isn't worried about little lambs and such. If he was, we'd have Sheep Shepherd Land Rovers patrolling Outer Roa, liberating flocks from stock trucks and abattoirs. Masked activists would raid kennels, hijacking heading dogs or slipping sedatives into their Tux. No burger would be safe, no lamb shank secure.
Sadly, the problem with sheep - and cows too, for that matter - is that they're not interesting enough. Sheep just baa. Cows just moo. Both of them, bovines and ovines, just stand still and chew. They don't roam the globe, singing mysterious songs. You can't buy a new-age CD of sheep bleats or cow moos. And if you could, you wouldn't play it. You'd give it to somebody you don't like for Christmas.
But whales do sing. Well, in fact, they probably don't. The notion of whale songs is probably anthropomorphic. Nevertheless, you can buy CDs crammed full of what we imagine are the Blue's greatest hits, not to mention the Sperm's and Minky's. These melodies have given whales a new place in our consciousness; no longer a source of corsets and candles but rather of inspiration. In our minds, they've become teddy bears of a kind, large, for sure, but also cute and cuddly and beyond our predation.
Except, the experts say we can eat a few. And we should believe them. Experts are expert. They know more than we do. Experts are the higher primates of information. If they say we cause global warming, for instance, we must believe them. The Green Party certainly does.
And if they say we can eat a few whales without endangering the species, we should believe that too. The Green Party certainly ... ummm. Y'pays your expert and y'takes your choice, it seems.
Yet, in this case, the experts come from the International Whaling Commission, which represents all factions in this vexed debate. And even those delegates with whale songs on their iPods have approved the commission's quotas.
We should understand this. We have quotas for all sorts of fish - none of which sing. But we still catch them and eat them and no Sea Shepherds seek to stop us. We can't really pick and choose in this matter. If we have quotas, decided by experts, there's no reason why the Japanese, Norwegians and others shouldn't have them too.
Ohh, yes there is, you say. Pain. Whales suffer. But so does any living thing that's killed, be it a whale, a cow, a shark, or a sheep - and, possibly, a weed as well. We don't know how a weed feels when it's torn from the garden. Vegetarianism is just elitism with a fork, snobbery on a plate. It presumes it's all right to eat the lower orders of living things, like carrots and kumara, because they don't go anywhere or do anything, just sit in the ground, like Hindu mystics with leaves, being oblivious to everything.
Unless they're not. Maybe vegetables sing too and we just haven't heard them. Perhaps the people who eat carrots and cows and chickens and celery and ducks and deer and sheep and salads and tuna and turnips should stop condemning the people who eat whales and put a little humble pie on their own menus.By Jim Hopkins Email Jim | <urn:uuid:af4e08bb-bf67-4d51-acdb-4fe98cdea0bb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nzherald.co.nz/jim-hopkins/news/article.cfm?c_id=1502884&objectid=10778300 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971025 | 1,151 | 1.828125 | 2 |
The Oberlin Evangelist.
July 21, 1847
CONDITIONS OF PREVAILING PRAYER C
(3rd of 3 Sermons)
Sermon by Prof. Finney.
Reported by The Editor.
"Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss that ye may consume it upon your lusts." James 4:3
In a former discourse on this text, I mentioned, among other conditions of prevailing prayer, that confession should be made to those whom our sins have injured, and also to God. It is most plain that all sins should be confessed to God, that we may obtain forgiveness and be reconciled to him; else how can we have communion of soul with him? And who can for a moment doubt that our confessions should not omit those of our fellow beings whom we have injured?
In the next place I remark that restitution should be made to God and to man.
To man we should make restitution in the sense of undoing as far as possible the wrong we have done, and repairing and making good all the evil. If we have impeached character wrongfully, we must recall and undo it. If we have injured another even by mistake, we are bound, if the mistake come to our knowledge, to set it right,--else we are criminal in allowing it to remain uncorrected. If the injury done by us to our neighbor affect his property, we must make restitution.
But I wish to call your attention more especially to the restitution which we are to make to God. And in respect to this, I do not mean to imply that we can make good our wrongs against God in the sense of really restoring that which we have withheld or taken away; but we can render to him whatever yet remains. The time yet to be given us we can devote to him, although the past has gone beyond recall. Our talents and influence and wealth, yet to be used, we may freely and fully use for God; and manifestly, so much as this, God and reason require of us, and it were vain for us to hope to be accepted in prayer unless we seriously intend to render all the future to God.
Let us look more closely into this subject. How many of you have been robbing God,--robbing him for a long time, and on a large scale? Let us see.
We all belong to God. We are his property in the highest possible sense. He brought us into being, gave us all we have, and made us all we are; so that He is our rightful owner in a far higher sense than that in which any man can own any thing whatever.
All we have and are, therefore, is due to God. If we withhold it, we are just so far forth guilty of robbing God. And all this robbery from God, we are unquestionably bound, as far as possible, to make up.
Do any of you still question whether men ever do truly rob God? Examine this point thoroughly. If any of you were to slip into a merchant's store and filch money from his drawer; you could not deny that the act is theft. You take, criminally, from your fellow-man what belongs to him and does not at all belong to yourself. Now can it be denied that, whenever by sin you withhold from God what is due to him, you as really rob God as any one can steal from a merchant's drawer? God owns all men and all their services in a far higher sense than that in which any merchant owns the money in his drawer. God rightfully claims the use of all your talents, wealth, and time for himself,--for his own glory and the good of his creatures. Just so far, therefore, as you use yourselves for yourselves, you as really rob God as if you appropriated to yourself any thing that belongs of right to your neighbor.
Stealing differs from robbery chiefly in this: the former is done secretly;--the later by violence, in spite of resistance, or, as the case may be, of remonstrance. If you go secretly, without the knowledge of the owner, and take what is his, you steal; if you take aught of his openly--by force--against his known will, you rob. These two crimes differ not essentially in spirit; either is considered a serious trespass upon the rights of a fellow-man. Robbery has usually this aggravation; viz. that it puts the owner in fear. But the case may be such that the owner may do all he wisely can to prevent being robbed, and yet you may rob him without exciting alarm and causing him the additional evil of fear. Even in this case, there might still be the essential ingredient of robbery; forcibly taking from another what is his and not yours.
Now how is it that we sin against God? The true answer is, we tear ourselves away from his service. We wrest our hearts by a species of moral violence away from the claims he lays upon us. He says--Ye shall serve me, and no other God but me. This is his first and great command; and verily, none can be greater than this. No claim can be stronger than God's upon us.
Still, it evermore leaves our will free, so that we can rebel and wrest ourselves away from the service of God, if we will do so. And what is this but real robbery?
Suppose it were possible for me to own a man. I know we all deny the possibility of this, our relations to each other as men being what they are; but for illustration it may be supposed that I have created a man and hence own him in as full a sense as God owns us all. Still he remains a free agent,--yet solemnly bound to serve me continually. But despite of my claims on him and of all I can wisely do to retain him in my service, he runs away; tears himself from my service. Is not this real robbery? Robbery too of a most absolute kind? He owed me every thing; he leaves me nothing.
So the sinner robs God. Availing himself of his free agency, he tears himself away from God, despite of all his rightful owner can do to enlist his affections, enforce his own claims, and retain his willing allegiance. This is robbery. It is not done secretly, like stealing, but openly, before the sun; and violently too, as in the case of real robbery. It is done despite of all God can wisely do to prevent it.
Hence all sin is robbery. It can never be any thing less than wresting from God what is rightfully his. It is therefore by no figure of speech that God calls this act robbery. Will a man rob God? "Yet ye have robbed me, even this whole nation." Sin is never any thing less than this,--a moral agent owned by the highest possible title, yet tearing himself away from his rightful owner, despite of all persuasions and of all claims.
Hence, if any man would prevail with God, he must bring back himself and all that remains not yet squandered and destroyed. Yes, let him come back saying--Here I am, Lord; I have played the fool and have erred exceedingly, I am ashamed that I have used up so much of thy time,--have consumed in sin so much of that strength of mind and body which is thine;--ashamed that I have employed these hands and this tongue and all these members of my body in serving myself and Satan, and have wrested them away from thy service: Lord, I have done most wickedly and meanly; thou seest that I am ashamed of myself, and I feel that I have wronged thee beyond expression.
So you should come before God. See that thief, coming back to confess and make restitution. Does he not feel a deep sense of shame and guilt? Now unless you are willing to come back and humbly confess and freely restore to God the full use of all that yet remains, how can you hope to be accepted?
You may well be thankful that God does not require of you that you restore all you have wrested from him and guiltily squandered; all your wasted time and health perhaps, and influence;--if He were to demand this, it would at once render your acceptance before him, and your salvation too, impossible. It would be forever impossible, on such a condition, that you should prevail in prayer.
Blessed be God, He does not demand this. He is willing to forgive all the past--but remember, only on the condition that you bring back all the rest--all that yet remains to be used of yourself and of the powers God has given or may yet give you.
So much as this God must require as a condition; and why should He not? Suppose you have robbed a man of all you can possibly get away from him; and you know that the facts are all known to him. Yet you come before him without a confession or a blush and ask him to receive you to his confidence and friendship. He turns upon you--Are not you the man who robbed me? Where is that money you took from me? You come to me as if you have never wronged me, and as if you had done nothing to forfeit my confidence and favor;--do you come and ask my friendship again? Monstrous!
Now would it be strange if God were, in a similar case, to repel an unhumbled sinner in the same way? Can the sinner who comes back to God with no heart to make any restitution, or any consecration of himself to God, expect to be accepted? Nothing can be more unreasonable.
It is indeed nothing less than infinite goodness that God can forgive trespasses so great, so enormous as ours have been;--O what a spectacle of loving-kindness is this! Suppose a man had stolen from you ten thousand pounds, and having squandered it all, should be thrown in his rags and beggary at your door. There you see him wasted and wan, hungry and filthy, penniless and wretched; and your heart is touched with compassion. You freely forgive all. You take him up; you weep over his miseries; you wash him, clothe him, and make him welcome to your house and to all the comforts you can bestow upon him. How would all the world admire your conduct as generous and noble in the very highest degree!
But O, the loving-kindness of God in welcoming to his bosom the penitent, returning sinner! How it must look in the eyes of angels! They see the prodigal returning, and hear him welcomed openly to the bosom of Jehovah's family. They see him coming along, wan, haggard, guilty, ashamed, in tattered and filthy robes, and downcast mien--nothing attractive in his appearance; he does not look as if he ever was a son, so terribly has sin defaced the lineaments of sonship; but he comes, and they witness the scene that follows. The Father spies him from afar, and rushes forth to meet him. He owns him as a son; falls upon his neck, pours out tears of gladness at his return, orders the best robe and the fatted calf, and fills his mansion with all the testimonies of rejoicing.
Angels see this--and O, with what emotions of wonder and delight! What a spectacle must this be to the whole universe--to see God coming forth thus to meet the returning penitent! To see that He not only comes forth to take notice of him, but to answer his requests and enter into such communion with him, and such relations, that this once apostate sinner may now ask what he will and it shall be done unto him.
I have sometimes thought that if I had been present when Joseph made himself known to his brethren, I should have been utterly overwhelmed. I can never read the account of that scene without weeping.
I might say the same of the story of the prodigal son. Who can read it without tears of sympathy? O, to have seen it with one's own eyes--to have been there, to have seen the son approaching, pale and trembling;--the father rushing forth to meet him with such irrepressible tenderness and compassion;--such a spectacle would be too much to endure!
And now let me ask--What if the intelligent universe might see the great God receiving to his bosom a returning, penitent sinner. O, what an interest must such a scene create throughout all heaven! But just such scenes are transpiring in heaven continually. We are definitely told there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repents. Surely all heaven must be one perpetual glow of excitement--such manifestations are ever going forward there of infinite compassion towards sinners returning from their evil ways.
Yet be it evermore remembered,--no sinner can find a welcome before the face of God unless he returns most deeply penitent. Ah! you do not know God at all if you suppose He can receive you without the most thorough penitence and the most ample restitution. You must bring back all that remains unwasted and unsquandered. You must look it all over most carefully and honestly, and say--Here, Lord, is the pitiful remnant--the small amount left: all the rest I have basely and most unprofitably wasted and used up in my course of sin and rebellion. Thou seest how much I have squandered, and how very little is left to be devoted now to thy service. O! what an unprofitable servant I have been; and how miserably unprofitable have I made myself for all the rest of my life.
It were well for every hearer to go minutely into this subject. Estimate and see how many years of your life have gone, never to be recalled. Some of these young people have more years remaining, according to the common laws of life, than we who are farther advanced in years. Yet even you have sad occasion to say--Alas, how many of the best years of my life are thrown away, yes, worse than thrown into the sea; for in fact they have been given to the service of the devil. How many suits of clothing worn out in the ways of sin and the work of Satan. How many tons of provisions--food for man, provided under the bounty of a gracious Providence--have I used up in my career of rebellion against my Maker and Father! O, if it were all now to rise up before me and enter with me into judgment--if each day's daily bread, used up in sin, were to appear in testimony against me; what a scene must the solemn reckoning be!
Let each sinner look this ground all over, and think of the position he must occupy before an abused yet most gracious God, and then say--How can you expect to prevail with God if you do not bring back with a most penitent and devoted heart, all that remains yet to you of years and of strength for God.
How much more, if more be possible, is this true of those who are advanced in years. How fearfully have we wasted our substance and our days in vain! How then shall we hope to conciliate the favor of God and prevail with him in prayer, unless we bring back all that remains to us, and consecrate it a whole offering to the Lord our God?
We must pass now to another condition of prevailing prayer; namely, that we be reconciled to our brother.
On this subject you will at once recollect the explicit instructions of our Lord; "If thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee; leave there thy gift before the alter, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift."
This passage states very distinctly one important condition of acceptable prayer, and shows that all men are not at all times in a fit state to pray. They may be in a state in which they have no right to pray at all. If they were to come before the Lord's altar in this state, He would bid them suspend their offering of prayer, go back at once, and be reconciled to their brother.
It is important for men to understand that they should approach God in prayer only when they have a right to pray. Others seem entirely to misconceive the relations of prayer to God and to themselves, and think that their prayers are a great favor to God. They seem to suppose that they lay the Lord under great obligations to themselves by their prayers, and if they have made many prayers, and long, they think it quite hard if the Lord does not acknowledge his obligation to them, and grant them a speedy answer. Indeed, they seem almost ready to fall into a quarrel with God if He does not answer their prayers.
I knew one man who on one occasion prayed all night. Morning came, but no answer from God. For this he was so angry with God, that he was tempted to cut his own throat. Indeed, so excited were his feelings and so sharp was this temptation, that he threw away his knife the better to resist it. This shows how absurdly men feel and think on this subject.
Suppose you owed a man a thousand dollars, and should take it into your head to discharge the debt by begging him to release and forgive it. You renew your prayer every time you see him, and if he is at any distance you send him a begging letter by every mail. Now inasmuch as you have done your part as you suppose, you fall into a passion if he won't do his and freely relinquish your debt. Would not this be on your part sufficiently absurd, sufficiently ridiculous and wrong?
So with the sinner and God. Many seem to suppose that God ought to forgive. They will have it that He is under obligation to them to pardon and put away from his sight all their sins the moment they choose to say.
Now God has indeed promised on certain conditions to forgive; and the conditions being fulfilled, He certainly will fulfil his promise; yet never because it is claimed as a matter of justice or right. His promises all pertain to an economy of mercy and not of strict justice.
When men pray aright, God will hear and answer; but if they pray as a mere duty, or pray to make it a demand on the score of justice, they fundamentally mistake the very idea of prayer.
But I must return to the point under consideration.
Sometimes we have no right to pray. "When thou bringest thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee, leave there thy gift, and go, first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift." The meaning of this precept seems to be plain. If you are conscious of having wronged your brother, go at once and undo that wrong. If you know that he has any good reason for having aught against you, go and remove that reason as far as lies in your power to do so. Else how can you come before God to ask favors of Him?
Here it is important to understand certain cases which though they may seem, yet do not really come under the spirit of this rule. Another man may suppose himself to have been injured by me, yet I may be entirely conscientious in feeling that I have done no otherwise than right towards him, and still I may be utterly unable to remove from his mind the impression that I have wronged him. In this case, I am by no means cut off from the privilege of prayer.
Thus it often happens when I preach against backsliders that they feel exceedingly hurt and think I have wronged them unpardonably; whereas I may have been only honest and faithful to my Master and to their own souls. In such a case I am not to be debarred the privileges of prayer in consequence of their feelings towards me. It were indeed most absurd that this should shut me away from the mercy-seat. If I am conscious of having done no wrong, the Lord will draw me near to himself. In such a case as this I can make no confession of wrong-doing.
But the case contemplated by our Lord is one which I know I have done wrong to my neighbor. Knowing this, I have no right to come before God to pray until I have made restitution and satisfaction.
Sometimes professors of religion have come to me and asked, Why are we not heard and answered? We pray a great deal, yet the Lord does not answer our prayers.
Indeed, I have asked them--Do you not recollect many times when in the act of prayer you have been reminded of having injured a brother, and yet you did not go to him and make restitution, or even confession? Yes, many have said; I can recollect such cases; but I passed them over, and did not trouble myself with them, I do not know that I thought much about the necessity of making confession and restitution, at all events I know I soon forgot those thoughts of having wronged my neighbor.
You did, indeed; but God did not forget. He remembered your dishonesty and your neglect, or perhaps contempt of one of his plainly taught conditions of acceptable prayer, and he could not hear you. Until you had gone and become reconciled to your brother, what have you to do with praying? Your God says to you--Why do you come here before me to lie to my very face, pretending to be honest and upright towards your fellow-beings, when you know you have wronged them, and have never made confession and restitution?
In my labors as an Evangelist, I have sometimes fallen into a community who were most of them in this horrible state. Perhaps they had sent for me to come among them saying that they were all ready and ripe for a revival, and thus constrained me to go. On coming among them I have found the very opposite to be the fact. I would preach to the impenitent; many would be convicted; and awful solemnity would prevail; but no conversions. Then I would turn to the church and beg them to pray, and soon the fact would come out that they had no fellowship with each other and no mutual confidence; almost every brother and sister had hard feelings towards each other; many knew they had wronged their brethren and had never made confession or restitution; some had not even spoken kindly to one another for months; in short it was a state of real war; and how could the Dove of Peace abide there? and how could a righteous God hear their prayers? He could do no such thing till they repented in dust and ashes, and put away these abominable iniquities from before his face.
It often happens that professors of religion are exceedingly careless in respect to the conditions of prevailing prayer. What! Christian men and women in such a state that they will not speak to each other! In such relations to each other that they are ready to injure one another in the worst way--ready to mangle and rend each other's characters! Away with it! It is an offence to God! It is an utter abomination in his sight! He loathes the prayers and the professed worship of such men, as he loathes idolatry itself.
Now although cases as outrageous as those I have described, do not occur very frequently, yet many cases do occur which involve substantially the same principle. In respect to all such, let it be known that God is infinitely honest, and so long as he is so, he will not hold communion and fellowship with one who is dishonest. He expects us to be honest and truthful, willing ever to obey him, and ever anxious to meet all the conditions of acceptable prayer. Until this is the case with us, He cannot and will not hear us, however much and long we pray. Why should he? "Thou requirest truth in the inward parts," said the Psalmist of his God, as if fully aware that entire sincerity of heart, and of course uprightness of life towards others, is an unalterable condition of acceptance before God. It is amazing to see how much insincerity there often is among professed Christians, both in their mutual relations to each other, and also in the relations to God.
Again, we ought always to have an honest and good reason for praying and for asking for the specific things we pray for. It should be remembered that God is infinitely reasonable, and therefore does nothing without a reason. Therefore in all prayer you should always have a reason or reasons that will commend themselves to God as a valid ground for his hearing and answering your prayers.
You can have a rational confidence that God will hear you only when you know what your reasons are for praying and have good grounds to suppose they are such as will commend themselves to an infinitely wise and righteous God.
Beloved, are you in the habit of giving your attention sufficiently to this point? When you pray, do you ask for your own reasons? Do you enquire; Now have I such reasons for this prayer as God can sympathize with--such as I can suppose will have weight with his mind?
Surely this is an all-important enquiry. God will not hear us unless He sees that we have such reasons as will satisfy his own infinite intelligence--such reasons that He can wisely act in view of them;--such that He will not be ashamed to have the universe know that on such grounds He answered our prayers. They must be such that he will not be ashamed of them himself. For we should evermore consider that all God's doings are one day to be perfectly known. It will yet be known why he answered every acceptable prayer, and why he refused to answer each one that was not acceptable.
Hence if we are to offer prayer, or to do any thing else in which we expect God to sympathize with us, we ought to have good and sufficient reasons for what we ask or do.
You can not help seeing this at your first glance at the subject. Your prayer must not be selfish but benevolent--else how can God hear it? Will he lend himself to patronize and befriend your selfishness?
Suppose a man asks for the Holy Spirit to guide him in any work; or suppose he ask for that Spirit to sanctify himself or his friends. Let him be always able to give a good reason for what he asks. Is his ultimate reason a selfish one--for example, that he may become more distinguished in the world, or may prosecute some favorite scheme for himself and his own glory or his own selfish good? Let him know that the Lord has no sympathy with such reasons for prayer.
Thus a child comes before its parent, and says, Do give me this or that favor. Your reason, my child, says the parent;--give me your reason; what do you want it for?
So God says to us, his children;--your reason, my child; what is your reason? You ask, it may be, for an education; why do you want an education? You say, Lord furnish me the means to pay my tuition bills and by board bills and my clothing bills, for I want to get an education. Your reason, my child, the Lord will answer; your reason; for what end to you want to get an education? You must be able to give a good reason. If you want these things you ask for, only that you may consume them upon your lusts; if your object be to climb up to some higher post among men, or to get your living with less toil, or with more respectability, small ground have you to expect that the Lord will sympathize with any such reasons. But if your reasons be good: if they are such that God will not be ashamed to recognize them as his own reasons for acting, then you will find him infinitely ready to hear and to answer. O, he will bow his ear with infinite grace and compassion.
Your hope of success in prayer therefore should not lie in the amount, but in the quality of your prayers. If you have been in the habit of praying without regard to the reasons why you ask, you have probably been in the habit of mocking God. Unless you have an errand when you come before the Lord, it is mocking to come and ask for any thing. There should always be something which you need. Now, therefore, ask yourself,--Why do I want this thing which I ask of God? Do I need it? For what end do I need it?
A woman of my acquaintance was praying for the conversion of an impenitent husband. She said, "it would be so much more pleasant for me to have him go to meeting with me, and to have him think and feel as I do." When she was asked--Is your heart broken because your husband abuses God, because he dishonors Jesus Christ, she replied, she never had thought of that--never; her husband had troubled and grieved her, she knew; but she had not once thought of his having abused and provoked the great and holy God.
How infinitely different must that woman's state of mind become before the Lord can hear and answer her prayer! Can she expect an answer so long as she takes only a selfish view of the case? No, never until she can say, O my God, my heart is full of bleeding and grief because my husband dishonors thee; my soul is in agony because he scorns the dying blood and the perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
So when parents urge their requests for the salvation of their children, let them know that if they sympathize with God, he will sympathize with them. If they are chiefly distressed because their children do not love and serve their own God and Savior, the Lord will most assuredly enter into the deep sympathies of their hearts, and will delight to answer their requests. So of the wife when she prays for her husband, so universally when friend prays for friend. The great God seems to say evermore--"If you sympathize with me, I sympathize with you." He is a being of infinite sympathies, and never can fail to reciprocate the holy feelings of his creatures. Let the humblest subject in his universe feel sincere regard for the honor and glory of God and the well being of his kingdom, and how suddenly is it reciprocated by the Infinite Father of all! Let one of all the myriads of his creatures in earth or heaven be zealous for God, then assuredly will God be zealous for him, and will find means to fulfil his promise,--"Them that honor me I will honor." But if you will not feel for him and will not take his part, it is vain for you to ask or expect that he will feel for you and take your part.
It is indeed a blessed consideration that when we go out of ourselves and merge our interest in the interests of God and of his kingdom, then he gathers himself all round about us, throws his banner of love over us, and draws our hearts into inexpressible nearness of communion with himself. Then the Eternal God becomes our own God, and underneath us are his almighty arms. Then whoever should "touch us, would touch the apple of his eye." There can be no love more watchful, more strong, more tender, than that borne by the God of infinite love towards his affectionate, trustful children. He would move heaven and earth if need be, to hear prayer offered in such a spirit.
O for a heart to immerse and bathe ourselves, as it were, in the sympathies of Jehovah--to yield up really our whole hearts to him, until our deepest and most perfect emotions should gush and flow out only in perfect harmony with his will, and we should be swallowed up in God, knowing no will but his, and no feelings but in sympathy with his. Then wave after wave of blessings would roll over us, and God would delight to let the universe see how intensely he is pleased with such a spirit in his creatures. O then you would need only put yourself in an attitude to be blessed and you could not fail of receiving all you could ask that could be really a good to your soul and to God's kingdom. Almost before you should call, He would answer and while you were yet speaking he would hear. Opening wide your soul in large expectation and strong faith before God, you might take a large blessing, even "until there should not be room enough to receive it."
Copyright (c)1999, 2000. Gospel Truth Ministries
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When we founded Persea Books in 1975, our goal was to discover and nurture tomorrow's enduring literary writers. We believed that educators would be crucial partners in this--and we were right. From the very beginning, our best literary books--poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and anthologies--have been bestsellers in middle school through graduate school classrooms. They have been added to collections in public and academic libraries, and they have become standard volumes in other important educational organizations from literacy to ESL, from foster care to adoption.
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Montross remembers those lost
By Nathaniel Cline
Editor’s note: See video for this story on front page.
The community of Newtown, Connecticut continues to mourn after a shooter claimed 27 lives at Sandy Hook Elementary School. The tragedy impacted the nation and compelled a town more than 300 miles away to show its support.
On Dec. 21 outside the town of Montross, a memorial walk in partnership with Walk 27 was held to pay tribute to the victims before Christmas.
Brittany Johnson, Jami Dove and Rachael Schultz helped coordinate the event after seeing the global initiative on the Internet to walk in remembrance of those lives lost.
“My son is seven and so he was the same age as some of those victims,” said Schultz. “It was very important to us, so I came back to work, we started talking about it, went to Tom [Collins] [employer and owner of Northern Neck Chevrolet] and he said ‘Let’s do it.’”
From the Northern Neck Chevrolet dealership to the A.T. Johnson Museum and back, the walkers covered about 2.6 miles. This came shortly before they blew bubbles in remembrance of those lives as they also showed support with nametags of the students that are deceased.
“I think it turned out great,” said Dove. “It was an awesome outpouring from the community. We took flyers out to the businesses and tried to get support for Sandy Hook and show them that we are thinking about them and they are in our prayers.”
The coordinators said they are thankful for the support from local businesses and media outlets. An estimated 75 walkers were in attendance for the event that started at 9:30 a.m.
“I have a two year old and he’s not even in school yet, but it really hit home for us,” said Johnson. “I think all around the world someone has been affected by this and we just thought it was a good way to get together and walk as a whole versus separately on this day.” | <urn:uuid:557baa6d-63e4-4561-89a4-6c21049be596> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.westmorelandnews.net/?p=4687 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980547 | 440 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Interview with Art Historian, Jennifer Doyle
(The audience at Sin-a-matic in Los Angeles, c. 1994. Photographer unknown.)
I first encountered Jennifer Doyle’s work through her essay “Queer Wallpaper,” written for a survey textbook on contemporary art. Meant as a pedagogical primer on queer theory and queer politics in art, the essay was personal, affecting, and for what felt to be most important at the time, it conveyed what it might mean to write about visual art with an actual affinity and care for writing itself.
So when her newest book Hold It Against Me: Emotion and Difficulty in Contemporary Art was announced, I followed the release date assiduously, eager to see how Doyle weighed in on “controversial” art (usually performance) by figures like Carrie Mae Weems, David Wojnarowicz, Nao Bustamante, Franko B, and Ron Athey. The book follows up on theories of affect and emotion that have gained large amounts of currency in the humanities, but resolutely sticks to a pedagogical, writerly, and accessible style of criticism meant to complement and expand the ‘difficult’ work on display.
I spoke with Doyle over a long Skype conversation, jumping to touch not only on the points in the book, but on her experience programming, attending, and writing about performance art in my hometown of Los Angeles. Doyle’s current book project is titled The Athletic Turn: Contemporary Art and the Sport Spectacle. – Joseph Henry
I. THE FLINCH MOMENT
THE BELIEVER: The emotional quality of art is never the same for any one person – one viewer could find an artwork difficult or challenging and another could be bored or unimpressed. How do you approach emotion as subject in Hold It Against Me?
JENNIFER DOYLE: One of the things I’ve been saying is that we’re so used to using emotion or feeling as a kind of synonym for the subjective–and I think people that work in art criticism know this well–but there’s a subjective dimension to any critical practice. I’ll start with that: it’s not necessarily that the emotion we encounter in or around works of art is so much more subjective than elsewhere so much as it is the case that we’re very particularly invested in emotion as the place upon which we encounter the subjective.
I’m interested in artists who work with that kind of head on, rather than say, represent emotion for us. Their work has a particular character that makes it impossible to understand it without thinking about the politics of emotion, or the politics of emotion as historically or politically conditioned. This kind of work sometimes forces a confrontation, too, with the politics of taste – I love the performance artist Franko B’s work. It can be mawkish, and that’s actually one of the things the work is about. You actually have to take on the sentiment, you have to take on the sticky and even kind of abject aspect of our own sentimentality, the narcissistic dimensions of romantic impulses, the attempt to actually make a work of art about love. I was interested in the difficulty of writing about it, of trying to figure that out.
I think I mention this somewhere in the introduction or in a note, but when I first started working on this project, people thought I was writing a project on Minimalism. They hear that word “difficulty,” and that’s what they think about. There is an emotional landscape around Minimalist sculpture, and I’m not going to say it’s easy to write about that. You have to work at appreciating it, and being able to appreciate it is a mark of a certain kind of sophistication. It’s Spartan. As critics we understand that economy of restraint and withholding - we are taught to appreciate Minimalism’s difficulty. Its difficulty has a cultural value. But in this book, I am writing about other forms of difficulty.
BLVR: When reading, I kept struggling to identify what would be the “difficult” aspect of any specific artwork. And, I think in the popular imagination, when people think of difficulty in performance art genres, they think of graphic bodily violence. But you seem to be expanding the whole idea of difficulty itself.
JD: Yes. I am working out from George Steiner’s writing on forms of poetic difficulty. Performance art is an interesting case because its difficulty is often simplified in certain kinds of criticism. Take artists like Ron Athey, a performance artist whose practice considers the proximity of pain and pleasure. But with a gesture like the cut or exposure to the wound, there’s an obvious form of difficulty that goes right back to something like Elaine Scarry’s book The Body in Pain, a basic and existential kind of problem around the body. But Athey’s work has a reputation. There’s a photographic practice around work like his, which is often the primary way through which people encounter it. We have language about the difficulty of their work, which to my mind, is determined by the difficulty of photographs of their work, by the difficulty of the idea and the image of their work. Another form of difficulty is crowded out by that image, by that idea.
You, for example, flinch at something that’s happening in a live experience of a performance. But that thing keeps happening, and you accommodate yourself to the fact that you are in a room in which this thing is happening. As an affect, that flinch is what Sylvan Tomkins described as a “transitional affect,” something like being startled. So when thinking about the difficulty of their work, there’s this very powerful transitional affect around their work in performance that has come to stand in for the performance as an event, as a whole experience, and this flattens out the experience of the work. With a live performance, in which you’re keeping company with a body that you imagine is uncomfortable if not in some kind of pain, or exposed or vulnerable, you don’t sit in that startled response, you actually get used to it. That’s actually what the work is about: the way in which we keep company with something, and even maintain and nurse it. That is what his audience is drawn to - that is, in fact, what can render that audience ecstatic.
BLVR: The works tend to focus on physical pain, oppression, violence, or death. What motivated your choice of objects, and how you would approach works that seek out to generative positive, affirmative emotions? The one piece that I would have loved to see in the book was Tracey Emin’s 1995 film Why I Never Became a Dancer. I was dying to see an analysis of that work - I felt there’s a different emotional valence there, perhaps of a hopeful quality, than the work you selected in Hold It Against Me.
JD: I’ve written a lot about Emin’s work so that’s why I don’t go there. And I do think Aliza Shvarts’s work with abortion (which I do write about) is more difficult. That said, I don’t think about the set of affects, emotions, and feelings that circulate around the works in Hold It Against Me as positive or negative, as affirmative or negative. There’s something about that either/or structure that I don’t think really captures this work.
One of the best comments I got about this project was from Lauren Berlant. She pointed out that implicit in my writing was that people take pleasure from this work. She asked that I make that more explicit. You can’t narrate what feels important or valuable about say, Carrie Mae Weems’s piece, From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried in terms of pleasure exactly. You can’t say that it’s negative or positive. That is, in fact, one of the ways that critics dismiss this work - by representing it as “merely” propaganda.
BLVR: “Reparative” would be the term that I would use instead of “affirmative.”
JD: Yes, I was a student of Eve Sedgwick’s, I was the indexer for the book Novel Gazing, for which she wrote “Paranoid and Reparative Reading,” it’s like that essay is tattooed on the back of my hand. It may be the case that in every single work in Hold It Against Me, the artist is not offering a paranoid reading, but is making a reparative attempt within a circumstance that would seem otherwise to demand a kind of paranoia. So you actually have both: a reparative gesture made in a situation demanding paranoia. The dialectical turn is a reparative one. It’s a reparative gesture made as a refusal of the universal or transhistorical claim. Some of what I discuss – work by James Luna, Carrie Mae Weems and David Wojnarowicz, for example – makes a strong critique of universalizing discourse, and of certain ways of practicing criticism and art history. But that is not where their work starts or stops. Sedgwick describes the practice of a “weak theory,” in contrast with “strong theory,” as smaller in scale and intimate, local. The performances and the works that I write about – their most interesting dimension to me tends to be a quite small, local turn that’s very sensitive and profound.
II. “YOU WANT TO WRITE LIKE BARTHES, BUT YOU CAN’T. YET.”
BLVR: Touching on your literary background, I’ve always associated your work with a kind of belletristic, almost confessional style. You’re very explicit in Hold It Against Me about writing for a general audience and writing pedagogically. Can you talk about what structures your approach to writing, both academically and in your other kinds of work?
JD: I would like to write in a way that lets readers feel like there’s room for them in the text. I think this is a reflection of my class politics; it’s not that I don’t appreciate difficult writing, nor do I think that something that is easy to read is necessarily better written than something that’s hard to read. But, it is the case that a lot of people spend a lot of time being made to feel stupid, especially in their own encounters with contemporary art. It’s bothersome – it’s something that thing I wish I could change, because it’s one thing to feel humbled. But it is another to be exiled from the conversation, to be identified as not the right reader by virtue of one’s lack of access to a pretty rarified set of terms. Maggie Nelson writes really wonderfully about how cruelty and certain kind of intelligence seem to go together and curl around each other.
In graduate school I wrote a no doubt ridiculous seminar paper for Toril Moi. We met to discuss the paper and she said –I think she gave me an A-, I’m not sure, she did not give me an A - she said: “You want to write like Barthes. But you can’t. Yet.” There was a long pause between each segment of that, and I felt so called-out, because it was completely true.
If I could write like anyone, the people I think of are the Roland Barthes of Lover’s Discourse, the Monique Wittig of The Straight Mind, the Audre Lorde of Sister/Outsider, and Theodor Adorno as we know him in Minima Moralia – that’s like the wildcard element. It’s a strange sort of cocktail. I read Adorno just because, I think with Adorno a lot. It’s preposterous for me to say that I want to write like Lorde or Adorno. But I want to write like the people who turn me out as a reader. They all have in common a capacity to make you feel them thinking in their writing. That’s a high art.
My job is to provide the context within which my writing will give the reader an experience that will help them to understand a work they might not understand otherwise. It is not to mark out the gap between their experience and the experience that’s required to understand the work, to say, “I, the author, have that experience and you, the reader, don’t.” I am perhaps inspired by some aspects of the very kinds of belletristic practices in art criticism, that say, the folks associated with the contemporary art journal, October, defined themselves against, and for really good reasons. But you know, why throw the baby out with the bathwater? By that I mean one can access the hard, historical ground of contemporary art through one’s writing - in the form of that writing. If critical theory in art history considers the politics of the form, why not consider that same question as it plays out in our own writing?
BLVR: It still feels like a hugely controversial aesthetic dynamic though. This discrepancy happens not only in what we would call academic platforms, but in seemingly “general audience” venues writing about art, too. There seems to be a contradiction where academic writing is taken to be not only bothersome and difficult for contemporary audiences, but the accepted critical standard at the same time.
JD: Yes, and depending on what you’re writing about. This is where my blogging is actually sort of like a funny contrast. If you did that to sports, people would just revolt: it is not ok to write really obscure sports criticism. People have no patience for it, no challenge for it – I don’t think that’s a good thing! I think there’s actually as much room for really difficult writing about sports. So much of sports discourse really just goes to oiling the machinery, by which I mean the sports world as a commercial enterprise. I may be in relation to sports where art critics were in relation to contemporary art in the 1970s. I may want to found like the Artforum or October for sports criticism. I’m kind of half-joking. I’m finding that as I turn to writing about sports as a scholar, my writing is becoming much more philosophical. Not dense, exactly, but abstract.
III. FEAR AND BLEEDING IN RIVERSIDE, CALIFORNIA
BLVR: I was thinking about your upcoming project on athletics and art, and the first thing that came to mind was Kevin Ware’s basketball accident, where he fractured his leg.
JD: Oh yeah, eugh!
BLVR: That’s it precisely, that dynamic of you cringing. You mention in Hold it Against Me that the violence in sports is naturalized within certain cultural contexts whereas the violence in art becomes controversial or shocking.
JD: Actually, there’s a great story behind this. I started producing sports writing totally independent of my writing about contemporary art. I was a fan, I was playing soccer, I got obsessed, I started a blog. It was a post-tenure project, I never expected that this would actually become the next book project, which of course it has.
But around that time, I collaborated on a project at UC Riverside with Ron Athey. About two months before the event, we had some difficulty with the institution –we basically got exiled from the art space in which the performance was supposed to happen.
This was in 2009. Riverside, California, for those who don’t know, is one of the epicenters in the collapse of the housing market. There was actually a clear solution to getting kicked out of the art space. I walked around the pedestrian mall in downtown Riverside and called the numbers on the signs of the empty storefronts, of which there were many – and there still are. With shockingly little effort, we managed to rent a big storefront space just two blocks down from the gallery that we were supposed to perform in.
I had to work directly with officials in our risk management office at the University of California, Riverside, because they’re the office that signs lease agreements. I called the chief risk management officer at the university. These are masters of the dark arts of university life. These are the people that actually control our lives.
I described the performance to him: “This is a very gay event, there will be nudity, there will be piercing and bleeding. And Ron is HIV-positive and has Hep C, as well.” And this is known, right. And then I explained the way the performance would unfold, and the protocols we would take, and how we we’re working with the space, and the precautions that we were taking, etc., etc.
BLVR: Which piece was this?
JD: Self-Obliteration Solo. In this piece, he’s on his hands and knees. It opens with him brushing a long, blonde wig. Then he sits up on his heels, flipping the hair over and then he proceeds to take the wig off and it’s this flinch moment definitely, where you realize it’s actually pinned to his scalp.
BLVR: No, I know the piece, I’m already reacting to it.
JD: There’s another chapter to it now, where he fists himself, but he hadn’t quite gotten there yet in the development of the work. Anyway, I just described the piece to the risk management guy, and he was not an art person, at all. And I was like, so this is what’s going to happen, and I explained, he’s been controversial in the past, there have been phobic reactions to his work, etc. So he says, ok I’ll have that paperwork for you at 4:30. I was like, what, why is it that easy? And he said, “Well all I need to know is what’s happening. My job is to manage the risk and to produce the right paperwork so that the university is protected.”
So I asked him, “How is this not a big deal?” And he said, “You’re not serving alcohol.” And then he said, “You know what I worry about, I worry about rock concerts that we have on campus, I worry about basketball games.” People get hurt at sporting events routinely, that’s the risk of playing a sport, that you might break a bone. And then he said, “People don’t get hurt at art events, even when it’s really weird.”
This is a place where affect is really important: there’s a feeling that we are risking something, a feeling that the artist is risking something, but that’s an idea, that’s a fear, that’s a thought – it’s not an actuarial reality. The fear is the controversy; what we fear is the phobic response that becomes the headline, that becomes a story, that leads to the university maybe getting less political support. It’s important to me, ethically, in terms of the kind of the material that I work on, to be willing to take on the public responsibility of not just being a defender of that work, but actually an advocate for it– to proactively support this kind of performance.
We had 150 people at the event – I think it’s one of the most well-attended art events that have happened in that area in terms of the kind of event that it was. There was not one complaint, not one complaint, and in fact I got a lot of very moving emails, particularly from gay men living in Riverside. Their emails went something like this: “Never in my life did I think something like that would happen in Riverside, and that it would be sponsored by the university, thank you.” Ron’s work feels like home to some of us, those emails spoke to that. That means the world to me – that someone felt recognized as a part of my university’s community, somebody who never thought that that would ever happen. Ron’s work has the capacity to do that, to actually make room for people who otherwise don’t feel that there is room for them in the world. So, yes, it is affirmative.
Joseph Henry is Assistant Editor at ARTINFO Canada and writes freelance on contemporary art. He’s published in venues such as The Los Angeles Review of Books, The New Inquiry, and esse and worked at institutions including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art. He lives and works in Montreal. | <urn:uuid:2a50b579-ea76-4d2b-9992-c3d0ee8636a8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://logger.believermag.com/page/4 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971436 | 4,415 | 1.546875 | 2 |
We all know that you can’t manage what you don’t measure.
Knowing what to measure, and how to do it isn’t always easy – and in Human Resources, just as in Operations, getting it wrong can lead to bad decisions. Setting performance measures can change people’s behaviour as they work towards the measures, and if the measures aren’t good, there can be unforeseen results: not always good ones. Let’s just not discuss the bankers rewarded for taking high-risk positions, leading to the current financial problems …
But measuring the right things is a far broader topic than just performance measures; it involves getting a proper handle on the ‘people’ data. If – for example – you don’t track the age profile of your staff, you may find that one year you lose a great deal of human capital and knowledge because many of your most experienced staff retire, with a consequent loss of expertise within the company. If you’d been fully aware of this risk, you could have set up flexible retirement schemes, or managed the succession planning process better, or come up with a scheme to capture the critical knowledge that those individuals had.
Infohrm are holding a conference in November to look at how to use data analysis and data-driven decision making to improve business outcomes. The keynote speakers include very senior staff from RBS, Metropolitan Police and the National Australia Bank (all people-driven businesses) as well as academics who specialise in strategic workforce planning and human resources. Other presenters will be there from Nokia, National Grid, Royal Mail, BAA, Deloitte, Allied Irish Bank and Unilever.
That’s a group of speakers with a lot of experience talking about their companies and how they measure, analyse and report on workforce data to meet consumer demands, control costs, drive business change and maximise stakeholder engagement. Should be very interesting … and it may be a cliché, but learning from the experience of others, particularly the giants in the field, might just get you a better view.
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- How to Avoid 6 Common Annual Report Mistakes - January 21, 2013 | <urn:uuid:08c27909-980d-4243-9c5c-aaa6f4a82ec0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.corporate-eye.com/main/how-the-giants-measure-manage-human-capital/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932436 | 509 | 1.632813 | 2 |
So far most jobs have been to do with poor medication advice
First off was the 82 year old lady with asthma who was using her preventer inhaler when having an asthma attack! Spent the best part of an hour on scene nebulising her and showing her how to use her reliever inhaler.
Same as the angina sufferers who are told to use their GTN spray before exertion. Went to a gent who told us he keeps collapsing in the shower after taking his spray. Educated him as to the vasodilatory effects of his medication and also that of warm water which kept dropping his blood pressure! He also commented that he uses his spray before going shopping around the supermarket aisles and he always felt dizzy!
Whilst out and about the city we,ve noticed a lot of women (young and not so young) wearing inappropriate clothing for the inclement weather we are having! I mean “thats not a skirt!…thats a wide belt!”
I think we should conduct a campaign of preventative medicine and hand out leaflets to these “nearly in the niff” women advocating the wearing of duffle coats, scarf, mittens (on string), woolly tights and a stout pair of brogues. But then again that would take all the fun out of “ogling” some pretty fit women! | <urn:uuid:53a3bfc0-866b-48eb-9e70-43244070b309> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://kingmagic.wordpress.com/2006/11/26/saturday-night-wide-belts/?like=1&_wpnonce=76232868d7 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982023 | 286 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Last month when Google bought Jaiku, people wondered why Google preferred the micro-blogging service to Twitter, which is much more popular. Jonathan Mulholland thinks that the answer lies in Jaiku's unique ability to combine micro-blogging with user's location.
"An integral part of the service is a client application for Symbian S60 platform mobile phones. The client uses location APIs within S60 devices to triangulate the handset (and the users) location based on nearby cellular network towers. The Jaiku client was in fact originally conceived as a 'status aware address book', and as such integrates into compatible S60 phones to the extent that it also shares the phones (and again the users) status availability ( - General, In Meeting, Outdoor etc)."
Because his mobile phone is able to broadcast the location automatically (even if it's not very precise), the user posts more than a message. The text can be connected to his location and create a list of preferences for each place you frequently visit.
"Google + Jaiku is not a million miles away from being able to push appropriate advertising to individuals based on their profile, their location and their availability. Imagine walking down the high street and having your mobile phone pop up with a Google notification telling you that Heroes DVD box sets were 20% off at HMV today, or that a new Indian restaurant had just opened in that part of town. (...) It seems obvious that Jaiku is destined to become an integral part of the Android platform over the next year," thinks Jonathan Mulholland.
Android includes an API for location-based services that allows "software to obtain the phone's current location. This includes location obtained from the Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite constellation, but it's not limited to that."
Google already offers local targeting for ads, but this could be much more useful when you're using a mobile phone. And if the ads are truly relevant and unintrusive (maybe as a part of a more complex service of local recommendations), people might actually like them.
ROM CHECK FAIL
2 hours ago | <urn:uuid:822655e8-37cd-433f-9906-6de3a56af6d8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2007/11/jaiku-android-and-googles-mobile-ads.html?showComment=1195593180000 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958088 | 430 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Should Hospitals Really Lock Away the Formula?
In a move that’s sure to add fuel to the great breast vs. formula debate, the New York City Health Department will soon launch a new breastfeeding initiative that will affect new mothers city-wide. Beginning Sept. 3, the voluntary “Latch On NYC” program will allow maternity hospitals to lock away infant formula for the better good of breastfeeding.
What exactly will this mean for new moms? To start, you won’t see promotions or advertisements for formula brands at your hospital. City officials hope that eliminating ads will let women decide which form of feeding is best for baby without being influenced by advertising. Those who choose the bottle route — whether due to personal preference or breastfeeding difficulties — will only be able to get formula after a nurse has properly signed the food out.
This isn’t the first step taken by health officials to make formula less prominent in hospitals. In 2007, hospitals started to ban formula from gift bags. Lanyards and mugs with formula brands’ logos were also prohibited. Today, 27 of the city’s 40 hospitals participate in the ban. Massachusetts health officials followed suit earlier this month after putting a stop to free formula giveaways throughout the state’s 49 hospitals.
The push away from the bottle was made by NYC Health Commissioner Thomas Farley after studying the benefits of breast milk. “Human breast milk is best for babies and mothers,” said Farley. “When babies receive supplementary formula…it can impede the establishment of an adequate milk supply and can undermine women’s confidence in breastfeeding.”
American Academy of Pediatrics agrees, recommending mothers breastfeed exclusively for their baby’s first six months and continuing to breastfeed for at least the first year. The Greater New York Hospital Association says that while ninety percent of NYC moms start breastfeeding immediately after giving birth, that number shrinks to thirty-one percent two months later.
Do you think banning free formula samples and locking away formula at hospitals can help promote breastfeeding? Or do you think these new rules are excessive?
Plus, more from The Bump: | <urn:uuid:c08c27cc-0e18-4af4-94f1-403aeba296f4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.thebump.com/2012/08/02/should-hospitals-really-lock-away-the-formula/?like=1&source=post_flair&_wpnonce=39170bc4ce | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941706 | 438 | 1.734375 | 2 |
It took seven hours of Internet backlash on Wednesday night for the Internet to convince CNN that an article it published needed to be removed. The article? A piece written by CNN’s Elizabeth Landau, based on unpublished research, saying that women’s voting choices are affected by their ovulation cycles. For a time, the story was featured on the CNN homepage.
CNN: How the media trivialize election / Do hormones drive women’s votes? twitter.com/msicism/status— Michael Sicinski (@msicism) October 24, 2012
Stories that engender big reactions, like this one, rarely disappear without a trace. The mushrooming coverage after the piece was taken down suggests CNN might have done more to either defend or apologize for their reporting in this case.
Here are the best bits from the piece:
The researchers found that during the fertile time of the month, when levels of the hormone estrogen are high, single women appeared more likely to vote for Obama and committed women appeared more likely to vote for Romney, by a margin of at least 20%.
When women are ovulating, they “feel sexier,” and therefore lean more toward liberal attitudes on abortion and marriage equality.
In the comments, which are still visible on the holding page, readers expressed shock and disappointment at the poor standards of CNN in publishing the article. Twitter also lit up with responses:
Actual CNN headline: “Do hormones drive women’s votes?” thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2012/10/24/do-— Jessica Valenti (@JessicaValenti) October 24, 2012
I’d comment on CNN’s stupid story on whether women’s hormones affect their votes, but I’m hormonally enraged & want to bitch-slap them.— Nina L. Diamond (@ninatypewriter) October 24, 2012
The author of the article, Elizabeth Landau, voiced some clarifications:
For the record, I was reporting on a study to be published in a peer-reviewed journal & included skepticism. I did not conduct the study.— Elizabeth Landau (@lizlandau) October 24, 2012
Plenty of sites weighed in, too. Bust started their blog with, simply, “WTF.” Over at The Cut, Kat Stoeffel counseled women, “Please do not share this “science” with the Republican lawmaker in your life. He might actually believe it.” Washington Post’s Alexandra Petri contributed a particularly barbed assessment that stated, “I would go on, but I have to go turn into a werewolf now. That is what women do, yes? It is so weird that we can hold jobs and own property.”
Despite the obvious comedic potential of a post like this, the furor has raised some useful points, many of which surfaced in a live chat hosted by Kelly McBride of Poynter on the issue of unpublishing and its alternatives.
“The biggest argument against unpublishing is that it has a destabilizing effect on the audience,” McBride said, “which will place less trust in other information that you publish. If stuff just disappears, without a thorough explanation, people get very suspicious. So ultimately it’s bad for democracy and citizen participation in the marketplace of ideas.”
She also said that when unpublishing does occur, it should come with a big apology and explanation. Instead, CNN is offering radio silence, which stops the company from getting caught in a back-and-forth with readers but also fails to be transparent about what went wrong. If the post had appeared on The Huffington Post or Gawker, readers might expect sensationalist headlines and patchy reporting. Instead, many were upset that “a trusted news-source” would post on an unpublished study with such a strong gender bias. | <urn:uuid:90fb424b-6bd4-417a-a128-dea86e593a12> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/cnn_says_women_vote_with_their.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962161 | 817 | 1.578125 | 2 |
This article is from the column For the Record, Cryonics, July
- Dear Dr. Bedford - Open Letter to the First Frozen Man
- Evaluation of the Condition of Dr. James Bedford After 24 Years of Cryonic Suspension
- Dr. Bedford Gets a New Suit
The First Suspension
by Mike Perry
The freezing of Dr. James Bedford in January 1967 was the first (albeit crude) cryonic suspension. It was a major milestone, but like many other such occurrences, it didn't happen in a vacuum. Here I'd like to summarize some events that led up to this turning-point, and briefly relate the event itself, as it was seen in the budding cryonics movement.
Early on, there had been optimism. Robert Ettinger wrote in The Prospect of Immortality, "My own guess is that most of us will be frozen by nondamaging methods . . ." It wasn't long though, before it was recognized that there would be problems in getting even one person frozen, despite the best efforts of a few dedicated individuals, and the fact that over 50 million people were dying each year. After two years of promoting the concept, Evan Cooper in December, 1964 fumed in exasperation, "Are we shouting in the abyss? How could 110 million go to their deaths without one, at least trying for a life in the future via freezing? Where is the individualism, scientific curiosity, and even eccentricity we hear so much about?"
To expedite matters, Cooper's Life Extension Society, in June 1965, offered to freeze the first person free: "The Life Extension Society now has primitive facilities for emergency short term freezing and storing our friend the large homeotherm (man). LES offers to freeze free of charge the first person desirous and in need of cryogenic suspension." (Despite the generous offer, however, LES would never freeze anybody.)
By this point, there had already been a tragic near-miss. Wilma Jean McLaughlin of Springfield, Ohio expired of heart and circulatory problems May 20, 1965. Ev Cooper filed a report the following day, from which the following is excerpted:
"The woman who almost became the first person frozen for a possible reanimation in the future died yesterday. The attempt to freeze her was abandoned. The reports on why the freezing was given up vary considerably according to the newspaper, newscast, or long distance call. However, the following are apparently some of the obstacles that developed.
"1. Though the husband was pro-freezing, some of the relatives and their minister were against it. The minister was reported to have been opposed because the operation was untested and the doctors could not assure him the experiment would succeed.
"2. The physician would not aid in the experiment, according to the N.Y. Herald Tribune.
"3. The hospital administration and trustees met in emergency session, according to reports, and refused to go along with certain procedures after death, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer and other press agencies.
"4. Leonard Gold of Juno, Inc., as reported in the Washington Post, said his company's `capsule' or insulated container wasn't available. His company had been caught off guard, he said, and only a prototype was in existence which was still being tested.
"5. The minister warned, according to the UPI and the Washington Post, that `the idea was new and laws had not been enacted to regulate the company involved.'
"6. The subject for freezing was unconscious and did not know anything about the plan according to most reports."
Another tragic near-miss occurred later in the year. Dandridge M. Cole was a brilliant scientist and technological forecaster who had received a pre-publication copy of Ettinger's book in 1963, and had been deeply impressed. His own most recent book, Beyond Tomorrow, had devoted several pages to the subject of suspended animation. He had expressed a wish to be frozen after death to several friends and relatives, and had had a long discussion on the subject with a close friend and colleague, Robert Prehoda. It was an unfortunate choice of a colleague. Prehoda was interested in cryobiology and wrote a book, Suspended Animation. He was, however, a determined opponent of cryonics, although he would later take part, reluctantly, in the Bedford freezing.
Cole was only 44 when, on Oct. 30, 1965, he suffered a fatal heart attack. After some delay a call was placed to Ettinger, who later would write, "I was consulted by long-distance telephone several hours after he died, but in the end the family did what was to be expected -- nothing." Discussing the matter in Suspended Animation, Prehoda managed to rationalize that "Rational counsel prevailed, and Dan was given a dignified burial."
A success of sorts finally did occur, however, on April 22, 1966. An elderly woman (never identified) who had been previously embalmed was straight-frozen, though only after a long interval of non-frozen storage. The freezing was by Cryocare Corporation in Phoenix, Arizona, and the woman appears to have come from the Los Angeles area. "Someone has been frozen at last!" Cooper jubilantly responded, but added a cautionary note:
"There is little or no thought that this first frozen pioneer will rise again in the 21st or 22nd century as considerable time elapsed between death and freezing. If the cooling and perfusion of the person with cryoprotective agents isn't begun immediately at death the memory which is believed a matter of fine molecular placement would soon disintegrate. As this first person was frozen long after death there is no known hope for re-establishing the original memory and thus the personality. Yet this imperfect beginning may be a step forward toward bringing an extended life to others via cryogenics."
(Within a few months the woman was removed from suspension. )
Finally, the big event occurred: the freezing of Dr. James Bedford January 12, 1967, in Glendale, a Los Angeles suburb. Bedford was a 73-year old retired psychology professor who had written several books on occupational counseling. "A SECOND PERSON HAS NOW BEEN FROZEN IN CALIFORNIA. REVIVAL A GOAL" was how Cooper broke the news in the January, 1967 issue of Freeze-Wait-Reanimate, from which the quotations that follow were taken. The freezing was carried out by affiliates of the newly-formed Cryonics Society of California: Robert Prehoda, author and cryobiological researcher; Dr. Dante Brunol, physician and biophysicist; and Robert Nelson, President of the Society. Also assisting was Bedford's physician, Dr. Renault Able. Several advances were outlined in Cooper's report:
"1. The time between death and beginning the cooling has been drastically reduced. This means there may be some hope for reanimation in the distant future when reanimation techniques have been perfected and a cure for cancer [the cause of death] has been found.
"2. This reduction in time was made possible by the person in danger of death making his wishes known, in locating a suitable place and a willing doctor. A nursing home was located in this instance. Nursing homes, the home of a doctor or nurse, or the patient's home are the most likely places for these pioneering freezings. In these homes only one or a few people need to be convinced of the worth and rationality of freezing. Whereas, in a large hospital the chain of acceptance is a long one. . . .
"3. Another advance is that this second person is reported to have been perfused with cryoprotective agents whereas the first person was embalmed. Is there a difference? Yes, perfusion at its best in a good hospital or clinic under careful scientific control can be quite a complicated procedure in comparison to embalming. The aim of perfusion is to extend that process to man which has been most successful in freezing, storing and reanimating micro-organisms, tissue and organs. Embalming fluids would be quite destructive to tissue in comparison to the protective acton of DMSO and glycerol."
Some details were exaggerated in the press:
"The newspaper reports in general gave an unemotional [account] of the freezing, but with some misunderstandings and exaggerations. The Los Angeles Herald Examiner, on the front page, stated 'an elderly man who died last night of cancer was placed in a state of deep freeze moments after death ...'. The Washington Post carried two additional statements of impossibilities: 'The body of the man was quick-frozen "virtually instantaneously" with his death Thursday, according to Robert Nelson . . .' and 'He said the body was quick- frozen and a mechanical heart machine was attached to the man's heart.'
"Obviously it wouldn't make any sense to quick-freeze a person and then attach a heart machine. Second, it is impossible by present means to quick-freeze a person. Experiments indicate that even the attempt to quick-freeze with present methods often leads to the rupture of organs. One needs to be quick in beginning the cooling and perfusion processes once the person has died, but the freezing should be rather slow."
Unfortunately, Nelson's fledgling cryonics operation would not prove viable; nine cryonics patients would be lost, some years later, in what became known as the Chatsworth disaster. (Happily, Bedford escaped by being transferred by relatives, only six days after the freezing, to another facility, Cryo-Care in Phoenix, from which he would continue a long and eventful journey across time.) But for the moment, the problems seemed mercifully small:
"In spite of technical difficulties and possible exaggerations the Los Angeles freezing does appear to be a great step forward. Bob Nelson, LES member and now forming the Cryonics Society of California, is to be congratulated for his organizing ability and for his willingness to face the press. Dr. Able is to be congratulated for his courage in taking part as well as the nursing home. Many others are to be congratulated for their help though they may not have obtained or desired publicity. The `patient', the cryonaut, who is reported to have volunteered is to be congratulated for his courage and foresight. And, also for his family who respected his rights and desires as an individual. With extreme good fortune we might be able to present our commendations in the distant future to this new type of pioneer Westerner who we hope is now in reasonably good cryogenic suspension."
One unidentified LES member had behind the scenes information, which Cooper condensed into a report:
"First, Robert Prehoda and Dr. Brunol are certainly to be congratulated for arranging and seeing the perfusion and freezing through. In fact if it were not for Prehoda the freezing might not, probably would not, have taken place, according to our observer.
"This is almost dumbfounding for Robert Prehoda presented the view in the August-September 1966 issue of this newsletter that to `freeze the dying or dead at the present time (is) totally unfeasible . . . When an organ as large as a human brain is perfused with DMSO and frozen to cryogenic temperatures, most of the cells are damaged beyond any conceptual means of future repair and restoration to original function.'
"Everyone is delighted that the freezing movement has been pushed a notch forward. It is a great service for those to follow. But if our facts are wrong, perhaps we could request of Bob Prehoda a note, article, or letter for our readers as to what actually happened as he saw it?
"But to continue our freezing and post freezing story . . . [i]t would seem that after the cooling and partial perfusion and perhaps while the body of this elderly gentleman was continuing its journey downward toward the cryogenic state, it was transported away from the nursing home and into Prehoda's garage. Eventually Prehoda's wife found out about the body in the station wagon in the garage and our reporter indicates that she got pretty hysterical. As we understand it the windows of the station wagon were soaped so no one could see in and the wagon was moved up the hill.
"Our observer gave up describing the scene in detail at that point saying it could only be described as hysterical and chaotic. He said that if he had [had] a camera it would have made the movie of the year.
"During this same period LES and Cryonics members [evidently, members of the Cryonics Society of California and the Cryonics Society of New York] flew into and descended upon Los Angeles attempting to get extra publicity and adding to the confusion. For all the confusion and `technical difficulties' the story has two happy endings. First and most important our frozen pioneer is reported to have been successfully spirited out of the state of California and into Ed Hope's Cryo-Care storage center in Phoenix where presumably he will be placed in a liquid nitrogen environment for his much longer journey through time. The second happy ending is that the activists and survivors are now being interviewed by Life Magazine." (The Life report appeared Feb. 3, but was suppressed because of the Apollo disaster and the burning of three astronauts, and only about 15% of the readership received copies, mainly in the Midwest and South.)
Finally, Ettinger contributed a letter in which, after generous congratulations, he offers some brief thoughts:
"In a general way [the freezing] followed the suggestions I made in the May, 1965 issue of Esquire. Dr. Able, the attending physician, was present at death, and at once applied artificial respiration and external heart massage to maintain circulation of oxygenated blood while the body was being cooled with ice. Later, Dr. Brunol, Mr. Prehoda and Mr. Nelson perfused the patient with DMSO solution [actually he was injected, not perfused], and he was then frozen with dry ice, later to be transferred to liquid nitrogen . . .
"Readers of the LES newsletter will probably be surprised to know that Mr. Prehoda provided such important help, in view of his expressed pessimism. He remains more pessimistic than most of us, and in fact says that at this date he still would not choose freezing for his own family, but it is greatly to his credit that he recognizes the possible validity of other viewpoints and is willing to help the optimists in practice. His chief concern remains to stimulate greater support for research, and we all agree on the importance of this.
"We have passed an important milestone, but this is only the beginning of the journey nevertheless. We are still desperately short of equipment and organization. (For example, I had to ship our Westinghouse Iron Heart to Los Angeles, and in general there was a large element of luck in the fact that clinical death occurred under conditions so favorable.) How much momentum this incident will gain us is by no means certain. Perhaps we can be excused a little mild self-congratulation, but it is primarily an occasion for a sober look at our mistakes and shortcomings."
1. Ettinger, Robert C.W. The Prospect of Immortality, Doubleday, 1964, p. 157.
2. Life Extension Society Newsletter, Dec. 1964, p.1.
3. Freeze-Wait-Reanimate, Jun. 1965, p.1.
4. Freeze-Wait-Reanimate, May 1965, p.10.
5. Prehoda, Robert W. Suspended Animation, Chilton, 1969, p.112.
6. Freeze-Wait-Reanimate, May 1966, p.1.
7. Freeze-Wait-Reanimate, Feb. 1967, p.4.
8. Freeze-Wait-Reanimate, Jan. 1967, pp.1,2,4,8.
9. Freeze-Wait-Reanimate, Feb. 1967, p.1. | <urn:uuid:f9205484-d9f4-4d06-b35e-37ae94aeda14> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.alcor.org/Library/html/BedfordSuspension.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975983 | 3,313 | 1.546875 | 2 |
A MySql database is set up where a user can input new row entries via a form. Each row has an id column which is auto-incremented by 1. Suppose a user enters a spam or nonsensical entry, and suppose that row generated gets an id# of 215. By the time admin catches it, rows are already at 300. Admin wants to delete row #215 from the db. Do the following rows keep their values, or does the row that was 216 become 215, and so forth? If not, is there a way to reassign the following rows so that there is not a gap for 215, therefore without breaking continuity in the numerical sequence of rows? | <urn:uuid:4b4bef10-6c17-41ce-8083-65267ad2944f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.webproworld.com/webmaster-forum/threads/26868-MySql-Increment-values-reassignable | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958215 | 137 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Zoo Atlanta bids bon voyage to Machi the gorilla
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Mother of Willie B.’s only son is headed to Knoxville after more than three decades in Atlanta
She’s a mother, grandmother and great-grandmother with family ties in Kentucky, Florida, North Carolina and the North Georgia mountains, and she may soon start a new branch of her family tree in Tennessee. Machi, a 36-year-old western lowland gorilla, will depart Zoo Atlanta on February 27 for a new home at the Knoxville Zoo.
Machi’s move is part of a breeding recommendation from the Association of Zoos and Aquariums’ (AZA) Gorilla Species Survival Plan (SSP), which oversees suggestions for breeding and placement of all gorillas living within collections at AZA-accredited zoos in North America. Participation in SSP programs helps to ensure that animal populations in zoological settings remain self-sustaining and genetically viable.
Born on March 1, 1976, at Emory University’s Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Machi has lived at Zoo Atlanta since 1988. She went on to become the companion of two of the Zoo’s most famous patriarchs – Willie B. and Ozzie – and is the mother of three offspring, including Willie B., Jr., the only son of the legendary late silverback.
Animal care professionals have worked for weeks on training Machi to prepare for her journey, which she will make by truck in a large, comfortable crate. Machi has progressed very well in learning to enter the crate voluntarily on request, and staff is confident that she’ll have a successful trip to her new zoo.
Just as Machi embarks on her next chapter, North America’s largest collection of gorillas will soon expand with a new arrival. Willie B.’s youngest daughter, Lulu, is expected to give birth between mid-March and mid-April; her half-sister Sukari is due in August.
Western lowland gorillas are critically endangered. Habitat loss and poaching are the primary threats to wild populations, which may have declined by as much as 95 percent in some parts of Africa over the past two decades. Zoo Atlanta is a national center of excellence for the care and study of gorillas, with more than 120 published research papers authored or co-authored by Zoo Atlanta staff. In 2011, Zoo Atlanta received the Association of Zoos and Aquariums’ Edward H. Bean Award for Scientific Achievement in recognition of its long-term commitment to the species. | <urn:uuid:b4cf5e68-97c6-44a8-990a-2afbf4e83b3e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.zooatlanta.org/home/article_content/bon_voyage_machi | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952798 | 540 | 1.734375 | 2 |
By Paul Eckert
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - North Korea's blood-curdling war threats are often dismissed as the kind of over-the-top rhetoric the world expects from the reclusive and eccentric leadership in Pyongyang, now in its third generation under Kim Jong-un.
But while the latest threat to launch a "pre-emptive nuclear strike" on the United States is believed by experts to be beyond North Korea's technical capacities, and would be suicidal, history shows there can be bite behind Pyongyang's bark.
"This kind of extreme rhetoric has not been unusual for this regime, unfortunately," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said on Thursday, adding the United States could defend itself and allies Japan and South Korea in any event.
Asked if the deterrence talk meant that Washington sensed more than bombast, she added, "You have to take a government at its word when it makes these kinds of threats."
Thursday's threat, issued as a statement from North's Foreign Ministry spokesman, came during U.S.-led efforts to pass new U.N. sanctions on North Korea in response to its most recent nuclear test. The Security Council later approved the sanctions.
When it comes to actions welcomed by the United States and its allies, taking Pyongyang at its word is nearly impossible. Twenty years of nuclear diplomacy is littered with broken pledges, dashed deals and a small but growing North Korean nuclear arsenal.
South Korea, likewise, has little to show for hundreds of millions of dollars of aid it sent northward after Seoul and Pyongyang signed a raft of bilateral agreements at their historic June 2001 leaders' summit.
But when it comes to threats of bad behavior, North Korea has a better record of delivering - beginning with the three nuclear tests it carried out in 2006, 2009 and last month in the face of strong international warnings to desist.
The 2009 and 2013 tests defied U.N. sanctions forbidding such tests.
NO 'SEA OF FIRE,' BUT DEADLY ATTACKS
Bruce Klingner, a retired North Korea analyst for the CIA, said Pyongyang, through its Korea Central News Agency mouthpiece, often repeated threats "which are bombastic and seem to indicate impending military attacks that then don't occur."
South Koreans and their financial markets long ago learned to shrug off North Korea's most infamous and lurid threat, to turn Seoul into a "sea of fire."
This week's pre-emptive nuclear attack rhetoric appeared intended to intimidate South Korea, the United States and China, said experts and a U.S. official.
"A lot of it is just their classical reaction to the fact that the international community increasingly is coming together and making it tougher for them to operate - that's the kind of acting out that we often see from North Korea," Glyn Davies, U.S. special representative for North Korea, told a Senate hearing on Thursday.
If the North's aim was to goad Washington back into nuclear talks, it misfired, said Matt Stumpf, Washington director of the Asia Society.
"If North Korea is using new threats to get the United States back to the negotiating table, it is missing how much opinion in Washington, Seoul, Tokyo and Beijing has changed through successive crises," Stumpf said. "This might have been a workable strategy in the past, but there will be little appetite to negotiate until North Korea shows it is committed to real change."
A U.S. Congressional Research Service study published after last month's nuclear test cited intelligence estimates that North Korea had enough separated plutonium for at least half a dozen nuclear weapons.
Carrying out the threat to attack the United States, is not possible, however, without warhead miniaturization, which, the report said, "would likely require additional nuclear and missile tests."
Klingner, now at the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank, warned that "we cannot easily dismiss North Korean threats, because they have often been carried out."
He cited the example of 2010, when after threats against South Korea and vilification of its then-president, Lee Myung-bak, North Korea lashed out in a pair of deadly attacks on a South Korean warship and an island, killing 50 people. North Korea denied responsibility for the ship's sinking.
"The conundrum has always been: Is a new North Korean threat one that will not be carried out, as frequently has been the case in the past, or is it a portent of upcoming action?" said Klingner.
(Editing by Warren Strobel and Peter Cooney) | <urn:uuid:ae9545a8-6c58-4bec-b525-412f8b5f8f32> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wixx.com/news/articles/2013/mar/08/analysis-behind-north-korea-bluster-a-record-of-troubling-actions/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959242 | 931 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Depending on each pet’s needs, owners should look for the best type of food available on the market. Royal Canin produces nourishment for kittens, mature individuals as well ageing cats, which might develop sensitivity to certain ingredients and therefore, require more care and attention. In order to make sure the pet leads a healthy lifestyle it is essential to provide it with the resources needed to maintain a strong immune system. Some products might contain ingredients, which can harm the animal, therefore reading the labels before purchasing the food will help you decide if it is good for the cat.
Royal Cat Fit 32 is aimed at felines with moderate activity levels. They should have access to outdoor spaces on a regular basis, as this product is not indicated for the pets, which spend the entire day sleeping. The reason is the amount of calories consumed by the cat, which would not be consumed if the feline does not run, play, and move around. As a result, the cat would gain weight in a short period and health problems are likely to occur in such cases. Ensuring that the pet leads a healthy lifestyle also refers to the type and quantity of nourishment administrated each day. The food should be based on natural ingredients only and contain elements such as protein, vitamins and minerals which keep the pet healthy and happy.
After the kitten has grown and become an adult, focusing on aspects such as the coat and skin is important because they also influence the health condition. Apart from grooming the fur on a regular basis, providing the cat with food, which contains nutrients, vitamins, and zinc, will help maintain both the skin and coat in an excellent condition. Royal Canin Skin Care is the best option for owners who wish to place special emphasis on the beauty of their pet.
Felines may prove to be extremely sophisticated and that leads to fussy appetites. Cat owners should be prepared to face this challenge and find the best products, which shall determine the pet to eat. Royal Canin Exigent aims to provide effective solutions to such problems and make cats enjoy each and every meal of the day. | <urn:uuid:ac147543-5451-4514-9e89-13c3a3a47280> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.belleverlasting.com/cat-food-options/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957467 | 423 | 1.78125 | 2 |
‘Amazon Tax’ fails to produce revenue for state
It’s been more than a year since the state’s so-called Amazon tax went into effect, requiring all online retailers to remit sales taxes to the state. But so far the state’s been unable to collect revenue from it.
Revenue Services Commissioner Kevin Sullivan said the tax has brought no appreciable revenue to the state’s coffers. Sullivan made the comments Thursday before the governor’s monthly commissioners meeting where his budget secretary gave a presentation on the state’s current $365 million budget shortfall. The gap was caused in large part by declining revenue.
So far, the Amazon tax has been about as effective as Sullivan predicted it would be in April 2011, when he wrote to budget Secretary Ben Barnes. At the time, the Office of Fiscal Analysis was projecting a $9.4 million revenue bump as a result of the tax. Sullivan told Barnes not to expect the added cash because the tax was not collectible.
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The Connecticut State Politics blog covers all the news from the seat of Connecticut's government and the state's elected leaders with original reporting from Journal Register Connecticut staff, links to stories from other media and blogs, press releases, statements and more.
Reports from Connecticut Group Editor Matt DeRienzo. | <urn:uuid:a3317547-8439-400b-9add-86ac879f5bc4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://registercitizen.com/articles/2012/11/18/news/doc50a856a1da1f8393453178.txt?viewmode=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94857 | 456 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Farmington — Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said Thursday he will ask the General Assembly to pass a Bioscience Innovation Act that would provide $200 million over 10 years to Connecticut’s bioscience industry.
Malloy made the announcement while breaking ground at The Jackson Laboratory’s future facility at the University of Connecticut Health Center.
“This investment in UCONN and with Jackson Labs is an important marker towards the future, but we need to do substantially more in the coming years if we are going to maximize the potential of the investments that we celebrate today,” Malloy said.
The facility will specialize in genomic medicine, which examines how genes induce disease and maintain health, said Edison Liu, president and CEO of The Jackson Laboratory. The goal is to personalize care based on a person’s genetic makeup and to find treatments for cancer and other illnesses. Liu said an ecosphere of diverse and interactive bioscience companies is needed to improve life spans and quality of life and to lower health care costs.
“We hope to be a catalyst for the formation of these networks and clusters,” Liu said. “We alone will not achieve the final goal.”
Future hubs for bioscience in Connecticut include New Haven, Farmington and Storrs, Malloy said.
“On the investment side within those industries ... certainly the Groton, New London area has great potential and actually has a major facility in Pfizer,” Malloy said. “We are working with them to make sure that those properties that they are not going to use any longer have a good shot of being put into this industry as well.”
The 20-year budget for the project is estimated to be $1.1 billion. It is projected to create 6,800 direct and indirect permanent jobs.
The legislature has approved $291 million and the company has agreed to raise $860 million from federal grants, philanthropy and its own revenue, according to the governor’s press release. Of the $291 million, $192 million is in loans that will be forgiven after the company creates 300 jobs in 10 years.
The other portion, $99 million, is in research grants over a 10-year period.
Liu said the facility would create 300 jobs for scientists and staff. The construction of the facility will provide additional jobs, Liu said, as will spin-off enterprises.
Malloy’s plan for developing Connecticut’s bioscience industry includes borrowing or selling bonds to raise $200 million over 10 years. In each of the first and second years, he hopes to raise $10 million; in the third and fourth years, $15 million; and in the fifth through 10th years, $25 million.
Investments in bioscience would be available for large and small businesses. Companies would be subjected to a “rigorous vetting process,” Malloy said.
Connecticut needs the bioscience investment fund because — although the state was initially a leader in bioscience — the industry has been shrinking in Connecticut, compared to the nation.
“Over the last 10 years, bioscience across the U.S. grew by 7 percent while in Connecticut it fell by 14 percent,” Malloy said. | <urn:uuid:c73958e2-6ca3-46ca-adab-15e44276d249> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.shorepublishing.com/article/20130117/NWS12/130119724/1070/NWS02 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955706 | 676 | 1.734375 | 2 |
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From II Kings 18-19
Hezekiah is described as a good king.. (18:3-7)
A. He sought to remove every influence of idolatry and sin and to turn the peopleís heart back to God.
Important Application-- What are you doing to remove sinís influence from your life? Your home?
What are you doing to turn peopleís hearts towards God?
Important Application # 2: -- Hezekiah is described as a great king because the Lord was with Him.
People need to see that the Lord is with you, but they will never see it if you donít follow God.
One of Hezekiahís great reforms was to stop paying tribute to the King of Assyria. This was during a period of time that many others were also rebelling against this evil Empire that had arisen.
I want you to see a Spiritual application to this story. Hezekiah moved into power and said ďWeíre not cooperating with this evil ruler anymore. Weíre going to find a way to be free from his bondage.Ē
Every once in awhile we come to a place in our lives where we tell God, ďGod, Iím not going to be in bondage to Satan anymore. Iím not going his direction! Iím not listening to his advice. Iím going to follow you.Ē
THE FIRST RESPONSE WE SEE TO THIS IS VICTORY!
The Scripture tells us ďand the Lord was with him and he was succesful in whatever he undertook.Ē
Whenever we have a renewed zeal for living for God we will experience a measure of success as we walk with God.
Hezekiah was smart enough to know, however, that just because he was winning some important victories and accomplishing great things with the help of God, the battle wasnít over. So he began preparing for the day when he would have to stand against Sennacherib. During this time he fortified watchtowers and cities. History also tells us that he dug a huge tunnel through over 1700 feet of solid rock.. No dynamite.. This tunnel brought water into the city so they could stand under a siege. That tunnel brings water into Jerusalem, even today.
YET... despite all of his hard labor and preparations, when Sennacherib started towards Jerusalem, he caved in.. he compromised... Look what he did--
II Kings 18:15-16 He compromised... He hoped the problem would go away. He tried to pay the evil King off. And he did it with the silver and gold from the temple.
Important Application # 3--Whenever we compromise with Satan, we are giving to Satan what belongs to God.
Illustrations: When we fail to spend time in prayer, we are giving time we committed to God to Satan.
When we indulge in sexual immorality we take our bodies that we have given to God and give control over to Satan.
When we take that temper which we have given to God and use it to hurt or
humiliate others we have given it to Satan.
Every compromise we make to do evil gives Satan something that we committed to God when we gave Him our heart and life.
But I want you to note something else here... Sennacherib didnít go home. Instead he marched on Jerusalem and surrounded the city. He demanded the immediate surrender. He sent His messenger to the gates and there they met Hezekiahís representatives.
Now as they make their demands, the representative of Hezekiah made a request.. (18:26)
He didnít want
- God Brings Purpose
- All Sermons on God Brings Purpose
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- PowerPoint Template on God Brings Purpose
- Scripture on God Brings Purpose
Join the discussion | <urn:uuid:4854226a-e3ab-4ffb-8496-b3cef0a02536> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sermoncentral.com/sermons/see-ya-later-sennecharib-david-wilson-sermon-on-god-brings-purpose-94554.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948831 | 876 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Does My Head Look Big In This?
By Randa Abdel-Fattah
Sixteen year old Amal Mohamed Nasrullah Abdel-Hakim is an Australian-Muslim-Palestinean who is a perfectly normal teenager growing up in Melbourne Australia. As if being a teenager isn't tough enough she makes the biggest decision of her life- to wear the Muslim head scarf called a hijab full time.
It hit me when I was power walking on the tread mill at home, watching a Friends rerun for the ninetieth time. It's that scene where Jennifer Aniston is dressed in a hideous bride'smaid's outfit at her ex's wedding. Everyone is making fun of her and she wants to run away and hide. Then she suddenly gets the guts to jump onstage and sing some song called "Copacabana," whatever that means. I'm telling you, this rush of absolute power and conviction surged through me. I pressed the emergency stop button and stood in my Adidas shorts and Winnie-the-Pooh T-Shirt, utterly captivated by that scene. It was like stepping out of one room, closing the door behind me, and stepping into another. One minute it was the last thing on my mind. The next minute this courage flowed through me and it just felt unbelievably right. I was ready to wear the hijab. That's right. Rachel from Friends inspired me. The sheikhs will be holding emergency conferences.
So starts Amal's emotional and spiritual journey.
I really enjoyed the first person narration of this story. I felt connected to Amal as she dealt with the effects of her choice to publicly wear her hijab. I also felt like I learned a lot of her culture, customs and practices. She was a strong, smart and funny. The situations and problems that she experienced felt real. I loved that she was so strong in her religious convictions but didn't come across preachy.
As Amal says in her story-"Putting on the hijab isn't the end of the story. It's just the beginning."
I encourage you to read Amal's story and take this journey with her.
I recommend this book for ages 12 and up. It is currently available for check out at the Salmon Public Library. | <urn:uuid:99b1d996-4c39-4bf1-9588-1c2c2fc2eedf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mugofmoxie.blogspot.com/2010/02/does-my-head-look-big-in-this.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974338 | 463 | 1.632813 | 2 |
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(Received by telephone 6.15 p.m.)
THE Prime Minister has just communicated to me the final text of the British reply to the Chancellor's communication. A few verbal changes have been made by the inner Cabinet in the initial text, but the general tenor is not altered.
I have the honour to transmit the following document to Your Excellency:
The Secretary of State again insists that no indiscretion should take place with regard to the contents of the document in question.
(1) His Majesty's Government have received the message conveyed to them from the German Chancellor by His Majesty's Ambassador in Berlin, and have considered it with the care which it demands.
They note the Chancellor's expression of his desire to make friendship the basis of the relations between Germany and the British Empire, and they fully share this desire. They believe with him that if a complete and lasting understanding between the two countries could be established it would bring untold blessings to both nations.
(2) The Chancellor's message deals with two groups of questions: those which are the matters now in dispute between Germany and Poland and those affecting the ultimate relations of Germany and Great Britain. In connexion with these last, His Majesty's Government observe that the German Chancellor has indicated certain proposals which, subject to one condition, he would be prepared to make to the British Government for a general understanding. These proposals are, of course, stated in a very general form and would require closer definition, but His Majesty's Government are fully prepared to take them, with some additions, as subjects for discussion, and they would be ready, if the differences between Germany and Poland are peacefully composed, to proceed so soon as practicable to such discussion with a sincere desire to reach an agreement.
(3) The condition which the German Chancellor lays down is that there must first be a settlement of the differences between Germany and Poland. As to that, His Majesty's Government entirely agree. Everything, however, turns upon the nature of the settlement and the method by which it is to be reached. On these points, the importance of which cannot be absent from the Chancellor's mind, his message is silent, and His Majesty's Government feel compelled to point out that an understanding upon both of these is essential to achieving further progress. The German Government will be aware that His Majesty's Government have obligations to Poland by which they are bound and which they intend to honour. They could not, for any advantage offered to Great Britain, acquiesce in a settlement which would put in jeopardy the independence of a State to whom they have given their guarantee.
(4) In the opinion of His Majesty's Government a reasonable solution of the differences between Germany and Poland could and should be effected by agreement between the two countries on lines which would include the safeguarding of Poland's essential interests, and they recall that in his speech of April 28 last the German Chancellor recognized the importance of these interests to Poland.
But, as was stated by the Prime Minister in his letter to the German Chancellor of August 22, His Majesty's Government consider it essential for the success of the discussions which would precede the agreement that it should be understood beforehand that any settlement arrived at would be guaranteed by other Powers. His Majesty's Government would be ready if desired to make their contribution to the effective operation of such a guarantee.
In the view of His Majesty's Government, it follows that the next step should be the initiation of direct discussions between the German and Polish Governments on a basis which would include the principles stated above, namely, the safeguarding of Poland's essential interests and the securing of the settlement by an international guarantee.
They have already received a definite assurance from the Polish Government that they are prepared to enter into discussions on this basis, and His Majesty's Government hope that the German Government would for their part also be willing to agree to this course.
If, as His Majesty's Government hope, such discussion led to an agreement the way would be open to the negotiation of that wider and more complete understanding between Great Britain and Germany which both countries desire.
(5) His Majesty's Government agree with the German Chancellor that one of the principal dangers in the German-Polish situation arises from the reports concerning the treatment of minorities. The present state of tension, with its concomitant frontier incidents, reports of maltreatment and inflammatory propaganda, is a constant danger to peace. It is manifestly a matter of the utmost urgency that all incidents of the kind should be promptly and rigidly suppressed and that unverified reports should not be allowed to circulate, in order that time may be afforded, without provocation on either side, for a full examination of the possibilities of a settlement. His Majesty's Government are confident that both the Governments concerned are fully alive to these considerations.
(6) His Majesty's Government have said enough to make their own attitude plain in the particular matters at issue between Germany and Poland. They trust that the German Chancellor will not think that, because His Majesty's Government are scrupulous concerning their obligations to Poland, they are not anxious to use all their influence to assist the achievement of a solution which may commend itself both to Germany and to Poland.
That such a settlement should be achieved seems to His Majesty's Government essential, not only for reasons directly arising in regard to the settlement itself, but also because of the wider considerations of which the German Chancellor has spoken with such conviction.
(7) It is unnecessary in the present reply to stress the advantage of a peaceful settlement over a decision to settle the questions at issue by force of arms. The results of a decision to use force have been clearly set out in the Prime Minister's letter to the Chancellor of August 22, and His Majesty's Government do not doubt that they are as fully recognized by the Chancellor as by themselves.
On the other hand, His Majesty's Government, noting with interest the German Chancellor's reference in the message, now under consideration to a limitation of armaments, believe that, if a peaceful settlement can be obtained, the assistance of the world could confidently be anticipated for practical measures to enable the transition from preparation for war to the normal activities of peaceful trade to be safely and smoothly effected.
(8) A just settlement of these questions between Germany and Poland may open the way to world peace. Failure to reach it would ruin the hopes of better understanding between Germany and Great Britain, would bring the two countries into conflict, and might well plunge the whole world into war. Such an outcome would be a calamity without parallel in history.
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|Nuremberg War Crimes Trial||20th Century Page||World War II Page| | <urn:uuid:9fc7e5af-21ea-40d4-a010-773e4cc96dab> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://avalon.law.yale.edu/wwii/ylbk277.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970624 | 1,390 | 1.507813 | 2 |
FAQ on Free Standing Emergency DepartmentFrequently Asked Questions
What is a free-standing emergency room?
A free-standing emergency room is open to the public 24 hours a day for the treatment of urgent and emergent medical conditions. Bon Secours St. Francis Watkins Centre emergency room is staffed with the same medical personnel and diagnostic equipment available in Bon Secours’ hospital-based emergency rooms. The primary difference is St. Francis Watkins Centre emergency room is not located on a hospital campus. No appointment is required to be seen at the facility. Should a patient need to be admitted to the hospital, an ambulance is on campus 24 hours a day to immediately transport a patient for direct admission.
How is St. Francis Watkins Centre different from an
urgent care center?
The emergency room at St. Francis Watkins Centre is open 24 hours per day, 365 days per year, whereas most urgent care centers are only open 8 to 16 hours per day. St. Francis Watkins Centre is also capable of treating all urgent and emergent medical conditions, including heart attacks, strokes, respiratory distress, head injuries, abdominal pain, dehydration, orthopedic injuries (fractures), sports injuries and lacerations (cuts requiring sutures). These conditions are beyond the scope of treatment for most urgent care centers.
How is St. Francis Watkins Centre different from a hospital-based emergency room?St. Francis Watkins Centre provides the same emergency treatment patients receive in our traditional hospital based emergency rooms. While the national average wait time to be treated in most hospital- based emergency rooms is four hours, patients in Bon Secours facilities will be immediately seen by a member of our clinical care team who will assess needs and begin care right away. As a free standing emergency department, St. Francis Watkins Centre uniquely provides a convenient, comfortable and welcoming atmosphere.
Am I required to pay for services prior to being treated?
Consistent with Bon Secours’ mission and the requirements of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (“EMTALA”), Bon Secours St. Francis Watkins Centre will treat all emergency room patients regardless of their ability to pay, including a medical screening examination and appropriate stabilizing treatment as required by EMTALA. Additionally, Bon Secours has various charity and self-pay options to assist those in financial need.
What insurance plans does St. Francis Watkins Centre accept?
Bon Secours St. Francis Watkins Centre is an extension of St. Francis Medical Center, and the Hospital accepts all private insurance carriers.
What am I required to pay?
Patients whose insurance plans treat the Watkins Centre services as in-network are required to pay the emergency room co-pay as designated by the insurance plan at the time of service. As with any visit to an emergency room, upon receipt of the explanation of benefits (EOB) from the insurance carrier, patients may also be required to pay a deductible or any co-insurance if it is determined to be patient responsibility by the insurance provider.
What if I have to be admitted to a hospital?
St. Francis Watkins Centre covers the cost of the ambulance transport from Watkins Centre to St. Francis Medical Center. Should a patient choose another hospital or need to be transferred to a higher level of care, the insurance company or the patient will be billed for the transport consistent with stabilization and transfer from any hospital Emergency Department. | <urn:uuid:3755bf40-8a34-4401-9463-bd70ec14fd58> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bonsecours.com/find-a-facility-st-francis-watkins-centre-faqs-on-free-standing-emergency-department.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936572 | 689 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Learn about obtaining a mentor or becoming one. Select a role below to learn more.
Why consider being a mentored student?
As a mentored student, you will have the opportunity to interact closely with and get advice from a Master Teacher in your content area who can:
- Answer your questions and reassure you of your career path
- Discuss teaching options
- Share insights about what's going on in the field—crucial information that can only come from an expert
- Give you firsthand information on working in a school environment, including the skills required and what a typical workday is like
- Provide feedback on coursework, projects and papers with an eye toward how relevant they are to conditions in the real world
What are the recommended traits for a mentored student?
- Enthusiasm for the field of teaching and a commitment to working in the field
- An interest in learning about the best career strategies
- Openness to suggestions and discussions and willingness to follow through with ideas provided
What are the roles and responsibilities of a mentored student?
- Share areas of interest and concerns with the mentor
- Interact regularly and in a respectful manner with the mentor and mentor assistant
- Discuss classes and projects or papers you have completed
- Discuss current projects or papers with the mentor
- Evaluate your short- and long-term career goals with the mentor and your plan for achieving them
What are the eligibility requirements?
Only students in their first or second semester of the MAT program may apply. Applicants will be selected based on their communication skills, motivation, drive and competency for graduate-level work.
How can someone apply to be a mentored student?
All student applicants must fill out an application that includes information about classes completed, current areas of interest, a CV and short- and long-term career goals.
Why consider being a mentor?
As a mentor, you will gain personal and professional satisfaction by helping shape a graduate student’s career. As a mentor you can:
- Help improve the teaching profession by training better prepared and more directed graduates
- Introduce and inspire new talent to your area of expertise
- Be among the first to participate in a new online mentoring model that has been introduced into other graduate programs across the country
- Gain recognition for yourself and your school through news releases issued by UMUC that can be posted on your Web site
You will also be given an orientation to the program and a mentor assistant who will assist you in your mentoring tasks and act as a liaison between you and students.
What are the recommended traits for a mentor?
- Desire to provide guidance and support to graduate students
- Ability to encourage new professionals to become more passionate about the field of teaching in their content area and develop a deeper understanding of it
- A good grasp of the current state of their specialty
- A perspective on how it might be changing in the short term
- Patience and enthusiasm for students who are starting or re-entering a graduate program
What are the roles and responsibilities of a mentor?
- Attend an orientation program
- Meet with the student you are mentoring at least three times each semester
What are the eligibility requirements?
Any master teacher, as identified by completion of a masters degree, a minimum of three years teaching in your chosen area and a recommendation from your principal, who teaches secondary school in one of the approved areas—biology, chemistry, computer science, earth/space science, English, history, math, physics and social studies—as well as affiliate educational professionals, such as media specialists, coordinator, assistant or full principal, who have a certification in one of the aforementioned areas may apply. You may be located anywhere in the world to participate, as long as you have the patience and a desire to help inspire and direct newcomers to the field.
How to apply to be a mentor?
Master teachers interested in serving as a mentor in this program can apply online. A confirmation e-mail will be sent once your application has been reviewed. | <urn:uuid:4bd75717-f77e-43a4-a5d0-932317318737> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.umuc.edu/matmentor/faq.cfm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951997 | 831 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Diagnostic Medical Sonography
Thinking of medical, dental, veterinary, or graduate school? Have you asked yourself what is needed to distinguish you from the rest of the applicants? We have the answer for you!
The Diagnostic Medical Sonography Program at RIT has assisted students to enter the world of medicine and dentistry. With the addition of a few courses and WITHOUT extending your stay at RIT, our program will prepare you for medical, dental, veterinary, or graduate school.
Graduates of the program have gone on to become physicians, dentists, chiropractors, veterinarians, etc.
What is needed to enter the medical/dental career fields? Most of these schools require students to complete basic science courses such as physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, and liberal arts including English and literature.
Upon examining the Diagnostic Medical Sonography (Ultrasound) Program curriculum, one will notice that all of these courses are required and taught. Your Bachelor of Science (BS) degree will not only provide you with the Premedical and Pre-dental requirements, but also will provide you with invaluable "hands-on" medical experience. This medical experience can be the tool to distinguish you from other applicants. In addition, the B.S. degree in Ultrasound will allow you to obtain a professional job with good pay while waiting to enroll in the dental, medical, or veterinary school of your choice.
Due to the complexity of the preparation for such careers, a premedical advisory committee will assist you in all aspects of the application process, interviewing, etc...
It is important to realize that the Diagnostic Medical Sonography program curriculum is not only developed to produce leaders in the field of Ultrasound, but also to produce well-educated, well-rounded and compassionate individuals who become active participants in their respective societies.
As you may know, good grades, medical experience, and a well-rounded education will be your key to enter the medical, dental, or veterinarian school of your choice.
For more information, please contact the
Program Director, Hamad Ghazle, email@example.com, (585) 475-2241. | <urn:uuid:cc18695c-2b8f-4d2b-bf73-bc40f881c71b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rit.edu/healthsciences/undergraduate-programs/diagnostic-medical-sonography/pre-medical-option | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943455 | 449 | 1.8125 | 2 |
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Bill to end postcode lottery for disabled people
A Bill to secure continuity of care and support for disabled people who relocate to another local authority is introduced today in the House of Lords.
Baroness Campbell’s Private Members’ ‘Social Care Portability Bill’ places duties on local authorities to work together to ensure that when disabled people move, they have equivalent care and support in place on arrival.
At present, every time a disabled person moves from one local authority to another, they have to negotiate a new care and support package. And with no guarantee that the same level of support will be available in the new location, this causes unnecessary hardship and delay.
Breach of human rights
National pan-disability organisation, Disability Rights UK, considers this to be a significant breach of basic human rights, depriving people of choice and control over their lives, denying them job and education opportunities or the chance to live closer to family or friends.
Ending the postcode lottery
Liz Sayce OBE, Chief Executive of Disability Rights UK, said:“1.6 million disabled people and their families should not have to suffer the misery of the bureaucracy and postcode lottery if they wish to move. We have heard from people who have had their support cut by half or who have been told that they cannot employ a personal assistant but should go in a residential home instead.
“Quite often someone will have a very good reason to move, be it for employment or education, or to live nearer family and friends. They should not be a victim of the often arbitrary process of obtaining a new care package that enables them to lead a full live. Employers will not keep a job open indefinitely nor won’t colleges delay the start of the academic year while a disabled person battles out their care package with the council. This is a huge waste of potential.
“Social care is in crisis and we urgently need a simpler legal framework and sustainable funding. Baroness Campbell’s Bill provides a practical solution that should form part of a wider package of social care reform. We call on the Government to support Baroness Campbell’s Bill and to give disabled people greater security of support when they move.”
Graham Faulkner, Chief Executive of Epilepsy Society said: “The root cause is the definition of someone’s place of ordinary residence – the means by which local authorities and Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) determine which authority has responsibility for financing care services for people living in their area. I support any move which allows funds to follow an individual so that they can choose where and how they want to live which ultimately must result in a better quality of life.” | <urn:uuid:62bfa5c3-dcd6-4dbe-ba33-3dcc985b16af> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.epilepsysociety.org.uk/WhatWeDo/News/Billtoendpostcodelottery | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954445 | 594 | 1.804688 | 2 |
From all that i have read so far, the belief of reincarnation in one form or another is one of the major beliefs of Wicca
Not that Scott Cunningham is THE authority on the subject, but he seems to be well respected here (plus, it’s the only reference I have handy at the moment
). In Wicca, A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner, he says the following:
“As in eastern religions, Wicca also embraces the doctrine of reincarnation. . .” But then goes on to say, “This isn’t something that should be believed. Through contemplation, meditation, and self-analysis, many come to the point where they accept reincarnation as fact.”
Later in the book he makes a very good case for reincarnation – in fact, he devotes an entire chapter to the subject - but again, he concludes with, “Until you’ve decided for yourself, you may wish to reflect upon and consider the doctrine of reincarnation.”
So, I guess reincarnation is a “major belief” of Wicca. But then, so is thinking for oneself. | <urn:uuid:cda2f782-f4f0-4835-a864-4f6ab9cc5048> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wicca.com/forums/index.php?topic=8045.0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952032 | 246 | 1.625 | 2 |
The thing about these so-called over-hyped trends, though, is that they really arent. In the build up to the Super Bowl, you will see exhaustive coverage of the Steelers and Packers, and, sure, theres way more hype than Id prefer, even as an expatriate Pittsburgher and rabid Steeler fan. But are those teams really over-hyped when theyre at the top of the NFL heap?
Similarly, cloud computing and mobile get more than their fair share of attention, but on the other hand, investment dollars are flowing into cloud and mobile companies; startups are popping up like weeds, and plenty of incumbents such as Microsoft, Cisco, Oracle and IBM (to name only a few), are betting big on these trends.
One thing much less hyped is that the cloud and mobile are intersecting in many, many places, giving rise to the Mobile Cloud.
How is the mobile cloud different from the cloud? Ask ten different tech experts and youll get ten different answers. Often, the term mobile cloud simply indicates the most common end point accessing a particular cloud, although as the mobile cloud evolves expect some subtle differences in regard to security, back-end infrastructure, app design, etc. to emerge.
Even though the mobile cloud is still in its infancy, here are five things IT should know about the mobile cloud in order to prepare for the future:
IT cant think about things on a node-by-node basis anymore. They must think of resources as aggregate services that they must make securely available to a number of devices, including phones and tablets, said David Link, CEO and co-founder of ScienceLogic, a provider of IT operations and cloud monitoring solutions.
If you walk around any decent-sized cubicle farm, youll find (assuming this isnt a backwards company blocking these things) plenty of people on Facebook, LinkdedIn and Twitter. Some of them will even be using them for work purposes.
In technophilic organizations, youll see people accessing social media and corporate apps from smart phones and tablets. Consumerization isnt something thats coming. Its something thats here.
The demand from employees for iPhones, Androids and tablets places tremendous pressure on IT. In my company, for instance, were getting pressure from our customers to build smartphone and tablet apps for our core applications, Link said. We must deliver functionality from the cloud and implement the support for multiple end devices into our applications. If we werent doing that, wed lose ground to our competitors.
IT has been slow to adjust these changes, so the prospect of a mobile cloud could seem downright horrifying.
However, while the mobile cloud should accelerate the consumerization of IT, this might not be such a bad thing. Done right, the mobile cloud could actually offer IT a path out of the chaos. The mobile cloud could simplify security and limit a number of end-user created headaches.
Apps are vetted. Email is cloud-based and should have some sort of virus and phishing protection behind it. Since the devices by definition roam outside the corporate walls, access control and identity enforcement should be standard. Moreover, enterprise apps accessed via handsets should prevent users from storing data locally, and, perhaps, could even disallow users from making certain types of changes to the data, depending on a number of factors. These factors include how you logged in, how robust your authentication mechanism was and even where exactly you are.
Using built-in GPS, it wouldnt be difficult to limit certain activities to certain places, such as the office, your home office or certain trusted places where you tend to do work like a specific airport lounge.
The invasion of mobile devices into the enterprise is forcing organizations to rethink how they calculate risk. Blanket policies blocking smartphones wont last. If your organization sticks with them, your most tech-savvy employees will find workarounds workarounds that are often less secure than letting IT figure out how to deliver secure mobile access in the first place.
There is risk with everything, said Custie Crampton, VP of Mobile Device Management Technology at Tangoe, a provider of telecom expense and mobile device management solutions. There are risks to opening applications to mobile devices, yet there are risks such as losing top-level talent or falling behind competitors to not embracing mobile devices.
One of the ways around the issues of security and control that make some businesses wary of cloud computing is to build a private cloud -- one that remains within the corporate firewall and is wholly controlled internally. Private clouds also increase the agility of IT an organization's IT infrastructure and make it easier to roll out new technology projects. Download this eBook to get the facts behind the private cloud and learn how your organization can get started. | <urn:uuid:8b1afc95-dae4-4812-bd2c-40d857f9375c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.datamation.com/netsys/article.php/3922856/Mobile-Cloud-Computing-5-Key-Trends.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949169 | 970 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Sandusky Speedway is a 1/2 paved oval located near Sandusky, Ohio. The track is building both asphalt and dirt kart tracks for their 2005 season.
New: 2004-12-29 Last Updated: 2005-04-03
The track was designed in 1948, leased to the Lake Erie Stock Coupe Racing Association, and built over the course of 2 years, with racing starting on May 14, 1950. After two years, the Decker family (who owned the property) broke the lease and started running the racing themselves, which included some NASCAR sanctioned races.
In 1955, the track was paved. The Decker family continued to operate the track through 1969, when they shut it down. Racing resumed 2 years later, and has continued ever since under various lease and ownership arrangments.
Sandusky Speedway Motor-Sports Park
614 West Perkins Ave
Sandusky, OH 44870
For information on how these aerial images work, Click Here.
Click Here for more detailed weather information.
You may also wish to try using the Yahoo! Search as it may produce current news items.
A map may be found Here on the official web site.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License. | <urn:uuid:7eedc7d3-eecc-4446-9959-7a8399393b27> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.na-motorsports.com/Tracks/OH/Sandusky.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950816 | 258 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Full disclosure. I have nothing more than a B.A. degree to my name, and 20 years of working with journalists, which in itself is a whole other realm when it comes to human resource management. But I am intrigued by a new degree program that is being offered by the University of Texas-El Paso along with Rare, a non-profit conservation organization based in Arlington, Va.
The degree in question is actually a Master’s Degree in Communication, with a conservation twist. As part of the two-year program, students must plan and mobilize social marketing campaigns in their local communities that have a specific conversation mission. The degree is run in conjunction with regional universities in Mexico, China, Indonesia and (most recently) Georgetown University in the United States. It is administered by the University of Texas-El Paso’s Department of Communication. This article from the Rare Web site goes into a whole lot more detail about the impact of the program.
Whether or not you are a career conservationist, like the early participants in this program, this sort of real-world, grassroots experience and education is definitely something you should be looking for in your company’s communications experts.
There are other sorts of degrees that could be useful to your company. My friend, who is an environmental expert, just got a job down in Florida with a building products company. Not exactly what she originally intended, but she takes pride in the fact that she has helped her employer avoid selling products or committing to raw materials that don’t have the proper environmental pedigree.
Memo to the human resources department: You might want to pass over that MBA in favor of interviewing the M.A. in environmental engineering or environmental studies. | <urn:uuid:6e454d19-e9ee-4395-893b-62ca3c2522e8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/business-brains/an-mba-is-so-pass-why-not-a-masters-degree-in-conservation/316 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955432 | 350 | 1.5 | 2 |
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