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Blindness is no barrier to children’s creativity
IT is a challenge presented to students across the country at this time of year – creating a special Christmas card to add that personal touch for friends and family.
For pupils at the Royal Blind School, however, the annual Christmas card competition has a far more important part to play.
Sales of the cards not only help bring in vital funds for Royal Blind, the charity which funds the school, but also help demonstrate that being blind or visually impaired is no barrier to creating a stunning work of art.
Art is one of the core subjects taught at the school run by charity Royal Blind – the organisation chosen for this year’s Evening News Christmas Appeal.
The campaign is aiming to raise as much as possible to help provide vital equipment and funding for the many services the charity provides.
Teacher Margaret Simpson admits that the question of what her students get from the subject is one which has been asked all too frequently in her near two decades at the school.
The 60-year-old teaches about 65 students split across the Craigmillar Park and Canaan Lane campuses, ranging in age from 10 to 18.
Mrs Simpson said students took a great deal away from art despite often not being able to see their own creations. Tactile substances like clay and papier mache are often chosen as the source material, with Mrs Simpson describing it as a learning process.
She said: “Young blind and visually impaired people are often not given the same artistic opportunities as their sighted peers.
“It is important to develop the capacity to invent, create, interpret and evaluate through art. Some pupils with a visual impairment may have incomplete concepts of the environment they inhabit and exploration through art, and the discussion it engenders can help them understand more about their world.”
Teaching things like perspective is amongst the greatest challenges.
“If you can’t see, you don’t necessarily know that things further away get smaller,” Mrs Simpson said.
The school’s annual Christmas Card competition has been running since 1996. Each student comes up with their own card design in class, with the reproductions sold in packs and proceeds going to Royal Blind. Past artworks have twice won the Edinburgh Fringe poster competition.
Mrs Simpson finds herself coming back to two students whose creativeness despite their disabilities has stuck with her.
She recalled: “We had a girl here who had lost the pathways to her brain and had no vision. Her drawings were like the drawings of a three-year-old and she didn’t know up or down.
“She couldn’t recognise you until you spoke, but she could see and she could tell colours very well. When she was given clay, her clay head was the most expressive piece of artwork I’ve ever seen. It was just phenomenal.”
One young male student equally defied Mrs Simpson’s early expectations during her first year at the school, having been asked to create a mosaic Christmas card.
She said: “He was entirely blind, but he was in a class with some pupils with sight. We kept saying ‘make sure that it’s colour side up’.
“At the end of the lesson I looked at his card and thought ‘how has he done this?’ There were none the wrong way up. It was because he could feel the difference between the rough side of the card and the shiny side that was printed.”
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Weather for Edinburgh
Tuesday 21 May 2013
Temperature: 7 C to 17 C
Wind Speed: 13 mph
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Temperature: 3 C to 12 C
Wind Speed: 23 mph
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Headhunters of Argaron
by Slawomir Rapala
Part 3 appears|
in this issue.
He leaned in to study the heads, and for a moment he had a fleeing feeling that the men would open their eyes. Then he felt an invisible hand gnawing hatefully at his throat and he backed away quickly, almost stumbling into N’Cton.
When the Shaori chief looked at them questioningly, the Murrundee told him of Aezubah’s suspicions. The Shaori listened carefully, then he led them outside of the hut in silence and, followed by the rest of the tribe, towards the village outskirts. Here he confessed grimly that the artist who prepared the Tha-kian heads did not perform the proper dance when he sewed the lips.
Though the mistake was quickly corrected, the spirits, driven by a hatred that only the dead know, escaped. The Shaori were all surprised that they never visited the village to seek revenge. Now he knew why, he said. They left to follow the white man. And he brought them back, the chief barked, eyeing Aezubah with anger.
They must leave immediately, he said, and his warriors again formed a solid wall behind him. Dozens of spears were raised and the sun reflected off their polished bone tips. The two visitors needed no further incentive and they quickly retraced their steps back to their horses, followed by the grim stares of the savage head-shrinkers and the rhythmic beating of the tribal drum.
Aezubah recalled all this as he lay in the middle of the Shaori settlement, perhaps a dozen paces away from the chief’s hut and as he continued to steal slowly towards it. Nothing stirred in the darkness that claimed the village on this night. No fires were lit, no voices were heard. No sentries were posted.
N’Cton was right, the white man thought and his lips stretched in a wide grin. They spent two days out in the steppes waiting for the Night of the Dead, as the Murrundee called it. It would come, N’Cton assured him after he gazed into the sky for a long time. Aezubah trusted his friend’s instincts and they waited.
When on the second day dusk came, N’Cton bid farewell to his white friend and rode off in the direction of his village, making sure to leave behind visible tracks. The Shaori would come looking for blood, he said, and he wanted them to see he took no part in Aezubah’s doings.
The white man watched his friend disappear behind the horizon as the sun set. Then he stripped off all clothes and weapons, fixed his belongings to the steed’s saddle and let it loose on the prairie, confident that the intelligent creature would not venture far. When the last rays of the sun disappeared, he rubbed ash into his body and blended into the night.
He was now perhaps six paces away from the chief’s hut and already he heard the wind rustle between the heads. Closing his eyes, Aezubah pictured them swaying in the breeze and brushing against one another, their eyes closed and mouths sewn shut. So many men bound to these fist-sized trophies, so many spirits chained. He would free them all tonight, he thought.
The Night of the Dead seldom came, he recalled N’Cton’s words, but when it did, boundaries were blurred between the realm of the living and that of the dead. Spirits left the plateaus where they roamed for eternity and crossed over with ease. Just the same, though, those bound to earth would find it easier to reach the outlying realms. Two dozen slaughtered soldiers traversed the world for a year, chained by the magic of the Shaori shaman, their strength fueled by their hatred for Aezubah, and tonight they would find peace.
The white man was already by the opening to the chief’s hut. He slowly lifted the hides and peered inside the pitch-black dwelling. Nothing stirred. The Shaori hid in their huts, cowering in fear. The shaman was locked in his wooden dwelling raised on stilts, smoking the pipe and waiting for the night to be over. His power meant nothing on the Night of the Dead. Any man who ventured outside was lost, for only the lost claimed the Black Steppes until morning.
Aezubah crept inside and lowered the hides behind him. He crouched in complete darkness and with his hand, he searched for the pouch that hung on his neck. A flint, some dried dung, and a few scrapes of leather soaked in animal fat. He held his breath and peered into the silent darkness.
A stir? A gust passed over his head and the gruesome trophies, invisible to his eyes, rustled again. He felt a shiver running dow n his back when in his mind he saw the tiny heads gathering above him like a swarm of insects. Swaying in the wind the dead men looked down on him with their unseeing eyes, forever sewn and bound by the spells of the Shaori sorcerer.
Aezubah shook his head and took a deep breath to clear his mind and chase the images away and. He struck the flint once and then again, but the spark failed to appear. Another stir over his head, another frantic look thrown over his shoulder, though the darkness was all-encompassing. Nothing. He hesitated before striking again because the silence was so terrible that he thought any sound would be heard for leagues.
But then he pushed his fears aside and struck hard, decisively. A faint light appeared and soon the hungry flames eagerly bit into the oil-soaked bit of leather. He raised the flame and studied the tiny heads looming over him, rocked by the steady breeze. Their cheeks brushed against one another, their long grass hair rustled. They watched him from beneath their half-closed eyes. Hundreds of them, unnaturally small but so well resembling the grim features of the dead warriors.
Aezbuah watched them mesmerized, until the flame burnt his fingers. He dropped it with a quiet oath and the hut was plunged into semi-darkness. He bent down to pick up the still burning piece, when he suddenly came face to face with his nemesis. Appearing out of the shadows before him it rushed forth with a terrible shriek.
He raised his arms instinctively to shield himself from the screaming face, its gaping eye-sockets and rows of sharp teeth, but the image passed through him without harm. Aezubah stumbled back and fell to the ground. Above him the shadows dispersed and a cloud of bluish mist appeared.
His hand frantically searched for the knife as he crept back, unable to tear his eyes away from the image. Within the mist faces appeared, blurry at first as if bound by the cloud like a veil. They slithered beneath, unable to cross over. Mouths opened to scream again, noses pressed against the terrible canvas and it reached down to him.
Another great shriek came and Aezubah cursed again, unable to find his weapon. Beads of cold sweat appeared on his forehead. He scrambled back in frantic fear until his back pressed against the wall of the hut and he had nowhere else to go. The terrible blue canvas now covered the whole ceiling and it looked as if it boiled, so much movement was beneath it, so many faces tried to penetrate through. The howling and the screaming grew. Hundreds of shrunken heads danced beneath the bluish appearance, swayed by the savage gusts of wind that now visited the hut.
Aezubah threw a quick glance at the piece of leather still burning some dozen paces away. He stretched his body forward in an attempt to reach it but fell too short. Scrambling forward, he almost clutched it, but then felt something pull him back with great strength. Twisting his body he glanced back and his eyes locked with a bluish apparition, a face twisted with rage.
Smoke trailed behind its transparent hair as it gnawed hatefully at his leg, its teeth locked over his ankle. Aezubah watched with horror as the head snarled and spat with rage, grunting in an effort to pierce its teeth through his skin. He shook it off instinctively, but it came back quickly.
Another one broke through the terrible canvas that now seemed to fill the whole hut. Howling and screaming they raced towards the white man who turned and desperately reached for the burning piece. Clutching it despite the pain, he sprang to his feet. Blindly he waved his free hand and felt it sink into a substance that was not yet flesh, but quickly turning solid. It pulled his arm hard and he had to jerk it away.
The flames burnt his hand as he ran toward the corner of the hut where he remembered the Tha-kian heads to be hung. More faces appeared. They passed him like large bluish insects, snarling hatefully and snapping their useless teeth. Even in death they hunted him. Hundreds of shrunken heads blocked his path, their sewn mouths stretched into sickening grins. He ran blindly through them, chased by apparitions and their terrible, hungry howls.
Quickly they were gathering strength, dressing themselves in flesh. They screamed his name. He waved his arms desperately when several passed him and cut deep gashes in his naked body. The wild swing tore one of the shrunken heads away from the ceiling and it grinned at him from the palm of his hand. The eyes were sewn shut but something moved beneath them, a spirit trying to break free.
Screaming in pain, Aezubah shoved the burning piece straight into its face. The flames swallowed it hungrily. Cries reached him from beneath the blue canvas. In its faint light he spotted the familiar faces of the Tha-kians, two dozen shrunken heads, of men seemingly sleeping peacefully.
“Curse you, devils!” he screamed and hurled the burning head towards them. It raced forward like a ball of fire, brushing aside other heads and leaving behind a trail of flames that quickly started devouring the macabre trophies. It hit the wall with a thud and at the same time, the images behind Aezubah howled in unison. Their cries were deafening and forced the man to his knees, clutching his ears. Pain, they screamed hatefully as they raced toward the growing wall of flames.
Aezubah scrambled beneath the howling faces toward the hut’s opening, out of the growing inferno. Smoke started filling his lungs and he felt the fire chasing him. He crept forward on all fours, without looking back. Behind him the flames quickly consumed the Tha-kian heads and others along with them.
The howling images raced through the fire, furiously throwing their unfleshed faces against the flames. They faded one by one, as did the blue canvas that stretched over the ceiling. It shrank quickly before the fire. By the time Aezubah reached the hut’s opening and hurled his body out of the inferno behind him, it was all but gone.
The white man crept forward, away from the burning hut, away from the flames. He halted a dozen paces away, breathing hard and glancing up towards the black sky. He bled from the gashes in his sides, his hand was covered in blisters from the fire, and his whole body was soaked in sweat. The ash he had rubbed into his skin had smeared all over his body. Glancing back toward the chief’s hut, he watched it burn and, along with it, the hundreds of the Shaori trophies, the two dozen Tha-kian heads amidst them.
Aezubah’s lips curled into a triumphant smile. He did not move until nothing was left of the hut but a pile of ash. Only then did he rise to his feet. Looking around, he saw dozens of Shaori warriors gathered behind him, weapons in hand. The darkness was slowly disappearing with the coming of the sun and he watched as they emerged out of the fading shadows, their giant chief in the midst of them.
They made no gesture and their features betrayed no emotion, though they had just watched all of their trophies burn. Their strength and source of magic was gone. The heads that had passed into their hands from generation to generation, a source of pride and power were destroyed. A white man stood naked and helpless in the middle of their village.
Aezubah’s legs swayed beneath him from fatigue. His hand reached for the sword instinctively, but no weapon hung on his waist. He sighed. Behind him, a pile of ash was all that remained of the head-shrinkers’ prized possessions. He studied them, but saw nothing behind their blank stares. They held weapons, but the spears and machetes pointed down, and the bows were not drawn.
The white man took a step in the direction of the steppes. The Shaori did not move. Their eyes followed him as he slowly made his way to the outskirts of their village, all the time keeping his eyes on them. But not one of the ebony warriors moved to strike. Only the chief followed him at a distance. When Aezubah passed the last of the huts, he called after him: “White man!”
Aezubah hesitated. Before him, the steppes opened up in all of their glory. Sun was just rising over the horizon and spreading its light over the scorched earth of the savage realm. He halted and turned to face the Shaori. “If you’re not looking to kill me, what do you want?” he asked wearily.
The Shaori chief stopped a few paces away from the white man. “You leave alive, stranger, because we don’t want to stain our weapons,” his voice was grim when he spoke. “Our weapons are pure. Your head will never adorn our huts.”
“What do you want from me?” Aezubah shook his head with impatience.
“Only to tell you never to return. You are not welcome here, white man. You reek of evil. You bring death.”
“The spirits are gone, can’t you see? I sent them back.”
“Yes, the spirits are gone. And our heads, too,” the Shaori nodded. “But you are here. And you are cursed.”
“No such thing,” Aezubah scoffed.
“I sensed it when you first came with the black man, the Murrundee, but I did not believe it then. Now I see it to be true.”
He slowly approached Aezubah until his broad chest almost touched his. “You are cursed,” he repeated. “Men hate you even from beyond the grave. You must leave.”
Aezubah shrugged and pushed the chief away with anger. Turning towards the open steppes, he started north, where he hoped to find his steed and belongings.
The chief’s haunting words reached him once more when he was already some distance away from the village: “You are cursed, white man. You are not welcome here.”
Aezbuah did not turn his head this time. The sun rose before him and climbed the sky, sending pleasant waves of warmth throughout his hurting body. The tall ebony warrior soon disappeared behind the horizon. Only his words remained.
Copyright © 2006 by Slawomir Rapala
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The Northern Advocate was launched in 1875 by George Edwin Alderton under the title Whangarei Comet and Northern Advertiser. In 1877 the title changed to the Northern Advocate and General Advertiser.
As the title suggests, the Advocate was set up to voice the concerns of Northlanders. Its stated purpose was to redress "the real criminal injustice the northern settlements laboured under from the legislature of the colony".
The Advocate quickly established itself. Initially it was issued weekly. It had 12 pages and carried a small section printed in Māori. It probably started daily publication in 1902 in response to the setting up of another newspaper in Whangarei, the Northern Chronicle.
The Advocate had various rivals over the years. In 1891 there was the Kamo and Hikurangi Gazette which probably only lasted a year. A potentially serious competitor emerged in 1902 - the Northern Chronicle. The publisher of this paper was Francis Mander. Mander, the father of the author Jane Mander, was a local MP and businessman. However before the Chronicle got established, Mander acquired the Advocate and closed the Chronicle. For a short time in the 1900s there were two daily newspapers in Whangarei besides the Advocate. These were the Whangarei County Press (1905-1908?) and the Northern Mail (1908-1914?). Whangarei could not support three newspapers and The Press closed down almost immediately. The Mail and the Advocate enjoyed a lively rivalry until 1914 when the owners of the Mail acquired the Advocate. The new owners formed the Northern Advocate Co. and closed the Mail.
The Advocate is still the daily newspaper in Whangarei.
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“The most important thing is to enjoy your life
~ to be happy ~
it's all that matters.”
― Audrey Hepburn
You have the right to be happy.
But what are your rights to happiness?
Here are 26 "Happiness Rights" you may not even realize you own. Too often, we deny ourselves these basic rights. And when we do, we take our own happiness away (others are not doing it to us; we are doing it to ourselves).
If you think others are stealing your happiness, think again. You may be doing it to yourself by the choices you are making. Let's look at what your Rights to Happiness are:
I have the right to....
1.) .... trust my own intuition over anyone else's. My truth comes to me through my life experiences. It is there to protect me.
2.)....change my mind as I learn more about my truth.
3.) ...create loving boundaries in my life. Self-love and self-trust come first before I can feel safe, and self-respect keeps the thoughts in my head positive.
4.) ....disengage from negative people who might impact my happiness. While I may not have the right to tell others what to do and control their lives, I have the right to feel an ethics or personality mismatch, disengage, and control the direction of my own life.
5.) ....disagree with another's criticism that I know not to be true, even if it is about me.
6.) ...find like-minded people who support my path.
7.) ...help others believe in themselves and help them see how amazing they are.
9.) ...say no and not have to explain why. "No, thank you" is a complete sentence.
10.) ...do a dance that may be different from how others dance, and still be doing exactly the right thing (even if they don't yet understand the dance).
11.)....disagree without having to prove why.
12.) ...be respected by those who surround me.
13.)....be different than others expect of me if I know it is the right path.
14.) ...privacy when I need it. This includes scheduled or impromptu time by myself without feeling guilt for the down time.
15.) ...explore things that ignite my soul, even if they may not excite someone who loves me. My life is my path, theirs is theirs ~ there are parts of us that may not intersect and that is okay.
16.) ...expect honesty.
17.) ... have confidence in myself even if others express otherwise.
18.) ...not enter every argument I am invited to.
19.) ....release feeling responsible for others' bad behavior.
20.) ...be completely unique.I don't have to look or act or agree with the crowd. I am a complete, individual "ME."
21.) ...expect honesty from those I trust.
22.) ...let others make their own mistakes. I can offer help or advice, but I cannot control. Ultimately, everyone must come to their own truth (which may even change over time).
23.) ...love myself. Because until we truly understand how to love ourselves, we cannot fully love another. There will be a desperate need to "fill in" what we feel we lack, and we'll search for other people to fill a gap within ourselves to complete what we already inherently own. You will seek externally what you already have internal potential to find.
24.) ....fulfill myself without expecting (or waiting for) someone else to do it for me.
25.) ...create. Because creation is an outer expression and physical manifestation of the soul.
26) ...have the maturity to realize that one size does not fit all. This includes opinions, and this includes ME fitting the opinion of what other want or think I should be. There will always be people wo disagree with who I am or what I may be doing, or who may not like me, and that is okay and does not make me less than what I am supposed to be. It just makes me different from them. Nobody or no-thing satisfies everyone. Not even chocolate. The world is made of many colors, and I am made of many unique colors.
Let's Let The Lenormand Summarize:
"What is the path to happiness?"
Above, Berenika Lenormand Vintage Oracle (Lilac Twilight)
What do these cards say,
and how can we condense all 26 Happiness Rights down to one?
"Truth to the self is found by being loyal to one's own heart,"
"To thine own heart be true."
For lessons and free podcasts on learning the Lenormand
Learn more about the secrets of reading tarot at our award-winning educational tarot podcast.
See a listing of all show topics HERE.
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Reduced Handling: Shared collections and changing processes in a customer-driven environment
Hamilton Public Library, ONGo to Website
Innovation Leader: Beth Hovius, Director of Public Service and Collection Development , email@example.com
Problem StatementWe were feeling the negative impact of our own success. We needed to find better ways to handle the volume of materials being handled, particularly holds, which account for 25% of the circulation and which requires double handling.
InnovationA combination of actions resulted in sustainable materials-handling without compromising service to customers.
- Shared collections introduced in late 2007 with the exception of Central Library non-fiction, and magazines. This reduced the volume of shipping by 30%.
- Staff empowerment: Front line staff was trained to weed by condition, and to remove excess copies, as demand decreased which also reduced shipping and handling.
- Holds process changes: Item goes to the next customer on the list at the same branch instead, of the next customer on the list elsewhere which reduced delivery by a further 25%.
- Technical Services triggers holds on new materials: Customers receive new materials faster, as delays incurred when shipped to a branch library are removed.
- Standardized labeling and shelving: The number of labels applied was reduced by75%, improving vendor delivery times and reducing costs. This also resulted in standardized shelving across the system.
- New Gondola Displays: Increased the turnover of the collection, and encouraged browsing.
- Mini-Sorter: This checks in and sorts returns into two categories- shelf-ready (for students to shelve directly) and exceptions which are handled by staff, as available, thus resolving complaints about delays in check in, and reducing staff materials handling.
- Customer-focused collections: We always thought we had this right; in retrospect we didn’t. Some branches increased by 40% (circulation) when these changes were made.
- Improved Collections = Increased Browsing: Our collections are better than ever and customers are returning to browsing the shelves. Holds, as a % of circulation is now remaining constant.
- Holds Policy: We were able to retain a generous holds policy permitting customers to place 50 holds, including for materials which are on the shelf.
- Reduced Delivery Costs: The latest tender for the Delivery contract saved $75,000 annually.
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A. ACCOUNTING CONCEPTS
The company follows mercantile system of accounting, recognising income
and expenditure on accrual basis, unless otherwise stated herein
after. The accounts are prepared on historical cost basis as a going
concern and are consistent with generally accepted accounting
B. FIXED ASSETS & DEPRECIATION
(i) Fixed Assets are stated at historical cost of acquisition or
construction plus other incidental expenses less depreciation.
(ii) Depreciation is provided on fixed assets on the Straight Line
Method at the rates prescribed in Schedule XIV of the Companies Act,
(iii) On additions/deletions the depreciation is charged on pro-rata
basis with reference to month of addition/deletions.
(iv) The company has on the basis of technical opinion treated all the
plant and machinery as continuous process plant.
Sale of SSP includes freight and subsidy, sale of Sulphuric Acid &
Oleums is net of excise duty, sales tax, rebate etc.
(i) Finished goods are valued at lower of cost or net realisable value.
(ii) Raw and packing materials are valued at cost.
(iii) Value of stock of Sulphur in pipeline and work in process of all
products is ignored for the purpose of inventory having regard to the
concept of the materiality and difficulty of quantifying such stocks
Investments are stated at cost.
F. MISCELLANEOUS EXPENDITURE WRITTEN OFF
(i) Preliminary expenses and public issue expenses are written off
equally over ten years.
(ii) The cost of catalysts is being amortised on the basis of their
useful life as technically assessed.
G. CONTINGENT LIABILITIES
These are not provided for but are disclosed by way of notes on
The Gratuity is payable on cash basis.
I. FOREIGN CURRENCY TRANSACTION
The Foreign Currency Loans from ICICI Ltd., was obtained under the
Exchange Risk Administration Scheme (ERAS), the liability thereof is
reflected at the exchange rates prevalent on the date of conversion
made at the time of payment by ICICI Ltd.,
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|
2008 was a difficult investing environment. With so much wealth lost during 2008, Larry N. Grogan takes a look at the challenge of rebuilding and suggests way to begin the recovery process. He reviews a short period of investment history and discusses specific strategies for you to implement that may help solidify your portfolio for the future.
Larry N. Grogan is President of Grogan Advisory Services. Serving AIChE since 2004, Grogan Advisory Services is an independent financial services firm focusing on planning to strategically guide their clients through life stages. Grogan Advisory Services offers complete financial planning, asset management, insurance, analytical portfolio analysis, and consultation.
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Since the onset of the credit crisis last summer, bank executives have continually said that credit markets will quickly return to normal.
Veteran bank consultant Bert Ely disagrees. In an exclusive interview with Moneynews, Ely said the credit crunch will probably last another year or two.
“All of us have been surprised by the severity of it, and the fact that it’s turning out to be longer than people thought was the case nine months or a year ago,” says Ely, president of Ely & Co. in Alexandria, Va.
“Housing prices in many markets still haven’t bottomed out,” Ely notes.
Meanwhile, the problems have spread far beyond the real estate market.
“There are a lot of consumer credit problems — credit cards, car loans, student loans — that haven’t fully worked themselves out,” Ely says.
“The sense is that we may have another year or two of working through this. It’s not that we will necessarily dive down further, just that it will be a long, bumpy road,” he says.
“It will be a slow recovery from the economic slowdown and all these credit problems.”
On the bright side, despite the takeover of IndyMac and the government's efforts to shore up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Ely doesn’t foresee a massive wave of bank failures, as occurred in recent financial crises.
“The problems are nowhere near as severe as in the 1980s and early ‘90s. We’re not going to see anywhere near the number of bank failures as those periods.”
Rather, he says, “We’re seeing the inevitable consequences of the credit correction in the economy, particularly on the consumer side, with regard to home mortgages, credit card loans and the like.”
And what accounts for the rosier scenario this time around?
“One of the reasons why the banking industry is so much stronger than 20 years ago is that banks have been under pressure to raise a lot more capital,” Ely says. “So they have the cushion to absorb losses and not be crippled by a decrease in earnings.”
Regulators should push banks even further on this score to prevent failures, he says.
“One thing I hope happens a lot more this time than in the past is that regulators do what Congress told them and basically lean on weak banks to raise capital or be acquired by a stronger bank before they become insolvent and have to be closed by the FDIC.”
Ely offers implicit support for the Treasury Department’s attempt to gain the authority to invest in and lend to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. But he would prefer they close down in time.
“In the short term, to keep the housing and mortgage market going, they need to stay in business,” Ely says. “They just need to operate in a much safer manner and smaller scale than in the past.”
But that is only a temporary fix.
“I think we don’t need Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and hope that eventually they get put out of business,” Ely says.
© 2013 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
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Despite the high winds recorded from Superstorm Sandy, wind damage from the storm was “surprisingly minor,” a report from reinsurance broker Willis Re says.
Willis Re, a subsidiary of Willis Group Holdings, issued its Hurricane Damage Survey report last week saying the storm had estimated sustained winds of 80 mph when it made landfall near Atlantic City, N.J., at 8 p.m. on Oct. 29.
The storm “became complex when interacting with another weather system to the west, creating a large superstorm.”
- SANDY NEWS: Nov. 12, 2012 Bethpage Turkey Drive Has New Goals
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- SANDY NEWS: Nov. 12, 2012 Christian Community CU Gives $10,000
During a four day period, representatives from Willis Re’s Catastrophe Management Services made assessments, and said a significant portion of the damage was the result of storm surge.
“In general, the direct damage to properties due to the wind component of the storm was none to minor in the survey areas,” the report says.
“Damage to buildings from tree fall was widely observed in all areas,” the report adds.
In a statement, Prasad Gunturi, senior vice president at Willis Re, says he “was surprised to see” the limited damage from wind. “However, moderate to minor wind damage was observed in a few highly localized areas. This pattern is a clear sign of the complex nature of Superstorm Sandy’s wind field.”
The team made its assessment visiting devastated areas along the New Jersey shore; Staten Island, Coney Island and Rockaway Beach, N.Y. Further assessments are planned for Hoboken, N.J., and Manhattan.
Another reinsurance broker, Guy Carpenter, a subsidiary of Marsh & McLennan Companies, issued a report examining the structure of Sandy and touching on the issue of hurricane deductibles.
Several insurance departments, including New Jersey and New York, have told insurers not to impose hurricane deductibles because the storm was not classified as a hurricane when it made landfall.
According to the Guy Carpenter report, the storm’s core functioned like a hurricane, drawing energy from the Gulf Stream, but the outer portions mixed with arctic air from Canada, forming the deadly storm.
“Even without Sandy moving into the area, weather models showed that a typical Nor’easter world have formed,” says the report.
The combination of the two systems produced a number of records that includes:
- Storm surge level at Battery Park on the south tip of Manhattan topped out nearly 4 feet higher than the previous record set by Hurricane Donna in 1960.
- Central pressure of Sandy at landfall in Atlantic City, N.J. was the lowest pressure measured anywhere in the Eastern U.S. north of Cape Hatteras, N.C. The previous record was set by the “Long Island Express” hurricane of 1938. Sandy’s central pressure at the time of landfall was equivalent to a Category 3 hurricane.
- The storm was the second largest Atlantic tropical cyclone with tropical storm force winds extending out 580 miles from the center, about the size of Texas.
Touching on hurricane deductibles, Guy Carpenter notes that the National Weather Service says the storm “completed post-tropical transition as of 7 p.m. EDT, about an hour prior to landfall. However, the National Hurricane Center continued to issue advisors up to 11 p.m. despite the fact responsibility for issuing the warnings shifted to the National Weather Service when it was no longer officially a hurricane.
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Most pre-schools function as providing care-givers for toddlers and
pre-schoolers to keep them occupied during the day. Most of these rely
upon toys, play and some craft activities to keep the children busy.
Learning Tracks seeks to differentiate from the masses in two ways.
Emphasis on Learning:
are extremely formative years for young children where children should
be allowed to learn at their own pace. It requires a non-regimented
model to introduce them to learn the basics of language, science and
numbers, while making it playful for the children. Challenging the
children to perform to their abilities, without overstretching them
makes them easier to control and behave. It also takes the pressure off
the school system when these children join. Programs such as Phonics
help the children read before they are ready for kindergarten.
A fair number of pre-schools suffer from being disorganized and that
reflects on the attitude of the children. The children are often
boisterous and noisy.
Learning Tracks aims to provide the right curriculum to make the
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That ye make careful copy and preservation of this proclamation, posting it in a prominent part of your room and observing zealously the precepts herein set forth.
This document not to be removed under the penalty of the law.
This sophomore proclamation, or one similar to it, is the beginning - the Alpha of a college alphabet whose Omega is compromised in the succinct term, "hazing." That unique method of developing a proper humility in the obstreperous freshman has come in these later days to mean something less related to the Spanish Inquisition than of yore, having been frowned out of its former severity.
In girls' colleges, it has never been the "rough-house" process once so gleefully indulged in by their brother institutions; but even its harmless friskiness, as carried out in these abodes of Minerva, is well calculated to reduce to a becoming cranial dent in that inflated bump of vanity assumed by all "sophs" to adorn all "freshies."
Though hazing is not openly countenanced in any of the leading colleges for women, the official eye of the august body irreverently known as "the Fac." may be permitted to blink dignifiedly at certain traditions of punishment for the violation of certain rules by the freshmen.
These rules change every year, but are made in turn by the members of the sophomore class - so the poor, down-trodden worm of a freshman so merrily persecuted this year grins and bears her woes, knowing that next term her turn will come - the worm will turn - from ch[r]ysalis to butterfly, from tormented to tormentor.
So she has a whole year to think up new and original ways of "getting even" - and marvelous are the results thereof in the way of startling rules and the punishments for the breaking of the same. No thought of malice enters into these merry and mischievous laws. It is part of the game to get all the fun possible out of it without losing temper. "Laissez faire" is the motto.
But that is a long tether - one can play fair and still have plenty of latitude for tormenting her fellow-creatures.
At Vassar, the rules are made by all the upper classmen, but are merely tacitly understood. For instance, no freshman is supposed to be so stupid as to enter an elevator before a senior, wear pink and gray, go driving minus the usual chaperon, [sic] or go to New York or the theatre without permission. To be sure, some of these restrictions are supposed to hold the upper-class girls also, with the difference that the senior or junior may dare, while the "freshy" does not dare to transgress.
At Wellesley, the violation of the traditions is merely punished by unpopularity - except one, which is as unalterable as the laws of the Medes and Persians, the rule which accords only to seniors the wearing of the college seal pin. Not hazing, but mobbing, would probably be the fate swift and sure to descend upon the culprit who would be so brazen and sacrilegious as to smash this rule.
A copy of a Barnard College "soph. proc.," the result of some dozens of sophomoric heads being put together in the cause of "freshy etiquette," reads as follows:
This poster was done in red ink on a blank background, with a grewsome [sic] skull and cross-bones traced beneath them, and hung in the freshman study. Special stress was laid on the first statute of this stringent law. "Pigtails don't dignify these classic halls," was the dictum, and any frisky young thing who appeared in that youthful coiffeur became at once the center of a merry "ribbon rush."
But the cap-and-gown question causes more scuffles than any other. This arises from a difference of opinion between the faculty and the upper-class girls - the former granting the envied robes of wisdom to all alike, and the latter cherishing a rooted aversion to seeing the first-year students wearing those badges of dignity.
These are the crimes in the college category. Now for some of the expiation which the rebellious criminal is compelled to undergo. Most of the penalties inflicted are quite harmless, serving in the end a good purpose by strengthening class spirit and wearing away to a fine polish those little crudities of girl nature which are often apparent in "bread-and-butter misses."
First of all, the young transgressor comes under censorship by sly disregard of the laws, then later by flagrant and open disregard of them. She breaks first one then another of the sacred rules, till something must be done to arrest her downward career. Her way of transgression must be made hard. And it is.
She may have been the president or even valedictorian of her class in the "Prep. school," perhaps captain of the basket-ball team, stroke of the crew or tennis champion. She therefore comes to her Alma Mater "wearing her blushing honors thick upon her," and crowned with the doubtful laurel of flattery bestowed by admiring relatives and friends. Naturally, she is perking her dainty head into the view of all who wish to look and "wonder how one small head could carry all she knew."
She soon comes under the eager, watchful eye of the judiciary board of censors, alias the sophomore class. They remark to each other under the tassels of their mortar-boards that they "just ache to tell that 'freshy' that her halo isn't on straight." she must be taught that a mere, no-account freshman is nothing but a bit of verdure, unseasoned, on trial only, an object of suspicion, a menace to peace and happiness - in short, a thing to be suppressed. So they proceed at once to suppress her.
She may be promenading sedately along a sequestered walk in the campus some fine morning, book in hand, wearing her usual air of conscious superiority, complicated with a frown born of Greek verbs, when from behind the ambush of a lilac bush the brigands will pounce upon her.
They abduct her in the most approved Helen Stone style, and, being able-bodied and athletic, they convey her by main force, kicking and struggling, before the solemn tribunal of judges.
This stern body of moralists sits in state upon the throned dais of a garden bench in the cloistered rear of the "gym." They are guarded on either hand by dignified halberdiers, standing soldier-like at attention, and holding rigidly upright their trusty spears, consisting of a garden rake and shovel or hoe.
Into this awful presence the recalcitrant, blindfolded and gasping, is borne by the stalwart brigands. Sentries are posted on the outlook lest any prowling member of the "Fac." be lurking in the vicinity, to pounce upon the secret tribunal and cause a stay of proceedings, or even a hasty and unceremonious adjournment sine die over the garden wall.
"Prisoner at the bar, stand up!" The order from the judge's bench is not all superfluous, as the prisoner, in frantic endeavors to free herself, has resorted to the often employed feminine stratagem of sitting flat on the ground and refusing to budge. Some muscle-play on the part of her captors saves her from adding contempt of court to her other heinous offenses.
"Guilty or not guilty of the charges herein set forth?" comes in sepulchral tones from the dais. There is no answer, for the remarkably good reason that four pink, brigand-fingers are firmly closed over the culprit's lips.
"It is a known tenet of the Ptolemaic law that silence gives consent," announces the second judge, in sonorous accents. "You are found guilty by your own confession, then, of the following charges."
Whereupon Judge Number Three adjusts an imaginary pince-nez upon a particularly pug-nose, and reads aloud - not too loud, remembering the prowling tendencies of the Fac. - from an invisible document, a long array of charges, beginning with "unseemly behavior in twice donning the robes of state," and ending with the appalling one of "eating caramels in the presence of a soph. without offering her one."
The ensuing hush is rudely cracked, not to say broken, by a gurgling snicker from one of the halberdiers. Her dimples are quickly frowned down, however, into their former English-butler impassivity.
"You are remanded for punishment to the fullest extent of the law," is the unanimous verdict of the tribunal, recited in unison and deep, dark voices.
"Down on thy Chi-knees, craven, and plead for mercy!" is the next command. The plea is heard in haughty and unrelenting silence, and the prisoner is placed in the custody of the halberdiers, while the "court-marshals," as they are facetiously called, throw dice to decide upon the kind and number of penalties to be incurred by the unfortunate. Thus no charge of undue influence can be brought - the prisoner's fate is left entirely to Fate.
Then follow orgies of initiation which compel the laughter of even the grave and reverend judges. The criminal is condemned first to that ancient and time-mellowed ceremony known as "riding the goat" - only in this instance that much-abused, mythical animal is quite unique in the fauna of any known country, having the appearance of two very camel-esque white humps decorating the greensward. The "goat" is also given to "bucking," which would put a Montana cayuse to the blush - and which is quite incomprehensible to its puzzled rider till, the bandage being graciously removed from her eyes, she sees her steed resolve itself into its component parts - two flushed, tousled, giggling sophs. on all-fours with a sheet over them.
Her next performance is the compulsory climbing of the oak tree by the garden wall. If she be nimble or Western-bred, this is an easy expiation of her sins, but if she hail from Boston - "Beantown on the Charles," they impertinently call it - her natural timidity is bolstered up by the effectual "backing" of her tormentors, assisted greatly therein by the big garden rake.
The third act is styled, to her great mystification, the "Degree of the Shining Light," till her instruments of action are placed in her reluctant hands. They are the "Materia lumina belonging to the graceful craft of shoe-blackery." in the grandiloquent words of the judges, and she is not permitted to rest an instant till all the boots, little and big, in the crowd have been "shined," inspected and approved.
After this, the events come thick and fast - she "stands pat," quoting again the naughty phrase of the sophs., while a merry game of leap-frog goes on over her. Should the swishing skirt of the last "frog" catch unaccountably somewhere on her person and tumble her over, the fun receives an added impetus.
She is then considered ready for the "water cure," the same being administered through the unhappy medium of a long spoon and a funnel, as she lies prostrate upon the grass, securely held by the enemy. When the pan of water is empty and her persecutors' enjoyment at the full, she is released on condition that she carry to and from class the united piles of study-books belonging to those present, that day and for one week thereafter.
The judges, each in turn, propound the not-to-be-broken laws to her with many solemn injunctions never again to shatter those sacred statutes - and she departs, laden with heavy literature provided for the occasion, slightly cross, greatly dishevelled, and entirely cured of her "bumptiousness."
"which is a consummation devoutly to be wished - to quote from that famous Persian poet, O-mark-I-am It," again to employ the archaic phraseology of that learned personage, the sophomore judge.
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HTML 5 is a broad specification with dozens of distinct changes from HTML 4. Get a comprehensive breakdown of the HTML 5 layout elements.
by Kurt Cagle
Jul 6, 2009
Page 3 of 3
There aren't a large number of deprecated elements in HTML 5, but there are a few. Here are the ones that emerged in the earliest days of the web and in general are better handled by more specific content:
<applet>: The <applet> tag appeared at a time when Java was widely predicted to be the next major client language. It has long since been made obsolete by other developments. The <applet> tag is deprecated in HTML 5, and in general, people should make use of the <object> or <embed> tags instead to accomplish the same things.
<acronym>: The acronym tag was originally intended to encode acronyms for identification, but it was too similar to the shorter <abbr> tag, which should be used instead.
<dir>: This was originally used to create a directory listing assuming static content, but has become obsolete because of new elements. Use <ul> instead.
<frame>, <frameset>, and <noframes>: The frame is officially dead. This bane of web designers, SEO specialists, programmers, and security experts has now been officially expunged from the HTML language. If you have to use embedded content, use the <iframe> element instead. Most of the needs for frames generally could be accomplished via AJAX or related local client/server interactions as well.
<isindex>: This holdover from the archeo-HTML era was so obscure that I had to look it up. The <isindex> element creates a single-line text input control. Use <input type="text"> instead.
<basefont>,<big>, <blink>, <center>, <font>, <s>, <spacer>, <strike>, <tt>, and <u>: CSS has made all of these obsolete (it's made <b> and <i> obsolete too, of course, but these are too heavily embedded in the design psyche to ever fully remove). In general, if you need these, use a <span> with @style or (better) @class attribute instead.
In addition to these obsolete elements, a few obsolete attributes also have been deprecated:
@name: Used on elements, this should be replaced with the @id attribute. So #idname will now point to the <a> element with an @id of "idname" rather than an @name of "idname."
@alink, @background, @bgcolor, @link, @text, @vlink: These controlled the color (or background image in the case of @background) for the body element or any contained content within the body. All of these now have CSS analogs, which should be used accordingly in HTML 5.
Given the prevalence of HTML generators (of varying ages) out there, these likely will take a while to fade away. However, the message in nearly all cases is clear: CSS is the presentation layer for HTML and should be treated accordingly.
Towards a Document Language
When HTML was first introduced in 1991, the language was very much geared towards its original purpose: creating citation abstractions for scientific documents. The 3.0 and 4.0 releases have left that original purpose behind, but a significant amount of current development has made HTML almost too genericnothing but <div> and <span> elementsand as a consequence it is losing much of the structure that provides at least the foundation of document structure. While HTML 5 includes significant concessions to the AJAX revolution, one of its more fundamental goals is to make the language an appropriate document language. While time will tell whether the changes being introduced now succeed in achieving that goal, they are certainly a good, productive start.
The next piece in this series will focus on the forms content and data-binding model associated with HTML 5, including many of the new input elements, list and table data-binding facilities, and DOM support for the same.
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Support an environmentally sustainable lifestyle and the World Wildlife Fund with these fun and educational games from Terra!
2011 is the International Year or Forests. Declared by the United Nations General Assembly, the aim of this is to conserve and raise awareness on sustainable management and development of all types of forests in the world. It is vitally important for us to do our best to help protect and rebuild the world's forest. Now, you can do so by buying FSC certified products like these great games! The wood in these toys is certified by the Forest Stewardship Council. This is the most trusted symbol for responsibly managed forests and signifies compliance with the highest social and environmental standards.
Enjoy learning about and supporting the protection of the endangered species represented in these Wildlife Conservation Collection games while simultaneously promoting the conservation and protection of forests worldwide. Approximately 5% from the sale of this product will be donated to support WWF's global conservation efforts.
The red crowned crane is a symbol of luck. You'll need it as you try to pile up the most sticks in this test of nerve and steady hands!
This pick-up sticks set will transport you to Amur-Heilong: home to Amur tigers and Amur leopards, musk deer and brown bears, and of course the red crowned crane. Like each game in the Wildlife Conservation Collection, the habitat featured in the design is under threat and action is needed to protect it.
- Produced from 100% FSC certified wood from well managed forests
- Recommended age: 6+
- Number of players: 2-4
- 1 Wood storage case
- Dimensions: 7.625 x 1.625 x 1.625 inches
- 50 bamboo sticks
- 1 black
- 12 red
- 12 blue
- 12 orange
- 13 green
- Dimensions: 7.125 x .125 x .125 inches
- Includes retail packaging
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NCWIT AND CISCO SYSTEMS LAUNCH NATIONWIDE INITIATIVE TO ADDRESS GENDER GAP IN IT
New Program Offers Students, Parents and Educators Valuable Online Learning Tools
Cisco Systems, Inc., today announced it is joining forces with the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) to increase awareness of education and career opportunities for girls and women in science, technology, math and engineering. The initiative introduces a comprehensive digital library (http://www.ncwit.org/cisco) designed to give students, parents and educators the tools to learn more about careers in high-tech fields and the importance of girls' participation.
The U.S. Department of Labor predicts that more than two million professional technology-related jobs will be added to the US workforce by 2012. But according to recent research from the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA), an industry trade group, the percentage of women in the American information technology (IT) workforce has declined by 18.5 percent in the last eight years, with women now representing barely one-quarter of IT workers.
To address this trend, the initiative provides students, parents and educators with a variety of resources for encouraging young women to excel in math, computing and technology. The initiative's website houses a wealth of information for students about interesting careers in technology and details about local technology clubs, programs and summer camps for girls.
This initiative is part of a larger Cisco program focused on increasing females' access to IT training and career opportunities, beginning with the Cisco Networking Academy Program. Through Cisco's WAN (Women Action Network), and Girls Get IT initiative, Cisco is working with Networking Academies worldwide to collect and disseminate information on best practice recruitment and retention strategies to increase female participation in computer science as well as other related IT degree programs and careers.
"Cisco Systems is proud to support an educational initiative that fosters mentoring and reaches out to inspire young women nationwide to meet the enormous demand for qualified technology professionals - occupations that rank among the highest paying and fastest growing," said Jayshree Ullal, Senior Vice President, Data Center, Switching and Security Technology group at Cisco. "Through our relationship with NCWIT, we are taking action to address a national concern by providing parents, educators and young girls the tools to ignite an interest and passion in professional fields that they may not have been exposed to before."
"We're eager to bring awareness to a national level and help provide the much needed resources and guidance to get girls excited about technology," said Lucy Sanders, chief executive officer of NCWIT.
Cisco and NCWIT are working in collaboration with several industry organizations on the initiative, including Educational Development Center, the Information Technology Association of America, the Stanford University Office of Science Outreach and Junior Achievement.
About Cisco Systems
Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO) is the worldwide leader in networking for the Internet. Information about Cisco can be found at http://www.cisco.com. For ongoing news, please go to http://newsroom.cisco.com.
About the National Center for Women & Information Technology
The National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) is a growing coalition of over 65 respected corporations, academic institutions, government agencies, and non-profits working aggressively to increase women's participation in information technology (IT.) NCWIT believes that women's participation is a compelling issue of innovation, competitiveness, and workforce sustainability. Its goal is professional IT workforce parity in 20 years, and its work will connect efforts along the entire pipeline from K-12 and higher education through industry and academic careers. To find out more, please visit http://www.ncwit.org.
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Sunday, November 1, 2009
They were seen in the Wei-Kun bridge area of Tianjin. People called the San Tsuen newspaper said they saw two white spot oval-shaped spots in the northern sky moving from East to West. Many people traveling in the area now stop and watch the sky wondering what will appear next.
Residents of the Leningrad region witnessed an unusual phenomena: on the balcony homes came an unidentified flying object. Eyewitnesses immediately filmed a shining UFO in the sky with their cell phone. The people still tell talk about the "miracle".
The witnesses confessed that previously they were sceptical about the reality of UFOs. But they are now ready to reconsider their view. If you were in the vicinity of the UFO and managed to film it, send your videos to us.
UFO Wormholes Open Over Moscow, Russia and Romania - Disclosure is Imminent! These remind me of the rings seen in some of UFOLibrary's previous videos. A pattern is forming. Disclosure is imminent whether the government like it or not.
Source: RT News
The space rock, estimated by NASA to be just 5-10m wide, detonated about 20km above the earth on October 8 over South Sulawesi, a rugged mountain province in western Indonesia, New Scientist magazine reports.
Locals in the town of Bone in the north of the province said they saw a fireball and heard a huge explosion while amateur video footage shows a trail of smoke typical of an exploding asteroid.
NASA estimated the force from the explosion was equivalent to 50,000 tons of TNT, making it one of the largest ever recorded asteroid explosions.
Dr Nick Lomb, curator of astronomy at Sydney Observatory, told ninemsn the asteroid went unnoticed because it was so small but that chunks of the rock may still have made it to the ground.
"It's very hard to find small asteroids — the main emphasis is to find big one which are 1km or more in diameter because they're the ones that cause global catastrophe," Dr Lomb said.
"But bits of this rock could have survived and somebody might be able to actually search for it ... it is extremely useful scientifically."
Dr Lomb said the asteroid exploded at such a high altitude because of the huge amounts of heated air piling in front of it.
If the asteroid exploded a few kilometres closer to earth, "you would be very unlucky to be in the blast area," he said.
Dr Lomb said the rock could have easily slipped by even if it was 100m-wide because the southern hemisphere is not closely watched for asteroids.
"Asteroids 100m-wide asteroids could destroy a city and if it's coming from the southern part of the sky, there's a good chance it would come in undiscovered," he said.
"There's only one small [asteroid watch] project at Coonabarabran in NSW which receives only a little bit of funding from NASA ... it's a single handed effort."
The report from NASA on the October 8 explosion said a "fireball event of this magnitude" occurs about once every two to 12 years.
Clarkson has been a member of MUFON, the Mutual UFO Network since 1987. MUFON is the oldest and largest UFO investigative organization in the United States. He currently serves MUFON as chief UFO investigator for Washington State.
Andy Dowe, who lives in Tilney St Lawrence, watched four lights over the Wisbech area for more than an hour on Friday night.
He said his mother, who also lives in the village, saw them as well, as did some friends from Walpole St Andrew.
Andy, who works in Wisbech, said his son first spotted the lights at 8.15pm.
"The lights hovered and moved in the sky," Andy recalled, "often looking as though they would collide with each other. They would stop and either go what appeared to be up or down. Then they would return and chase each other around.
"They were white lights and sometimes appeared cigar shaped but other times resembled the shape of an upturned saucer. Sometimes the lights would appear as just two moving slowly, then zipping across the sky and being joined by more."
Andy added that later that night, the lights appeared over towards the March area before disappearing.
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PORTLAND, Maine — Maine high schools are plastered with promotions for junk foods despite a state law that prohibits marketing unhealthy snacks and drinks on public school grounds, according to a new study.
Posters and signs for junk foods appeared in 85 percent of 20 Maine high schools examined by the study led by Michele Polacsek, an associate professor of public health at the University of New England. Schools violating the law had an average of nearly a dozen of the promotions, with many of the ads springing up far beyond the cafeteria doors, the study found.
“We were not surprised to find that most of the state’s high schools marketed unhealthy foods and drinks where those items are sold and consumed, but we were very surprised to learn that so many schools still promote unhealthy fare in teachers’ lounges and near athletic areas, including gyms and sports fields,” Polacsek said in a press release.
The marketing appeared on walls, vending machines, scoreboards, coolers and inside yearbooks, among other spots. Coke and Pepsi products topped the list of the most commonly advertised junk foods.
To bring schools into compliance with the law, the Maine Beverage Association, working with the Maine Principal’s Association, replaced more than 150 signs at more than 50 schools, according to Newell Augur, executive director of the beverage group.
The study appears in the March-April edition of the journal Public Health Reports. It was funded in part by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation through its national Healthy Eating Research program.
Researchers visited the high schools in 2010 to conduct the study, which was the first to assess schools’ compliance with the law.
Since 1985, federal law has prohibited the sale of “foods of minimal nutritional value” during public school mealtimes. Maine expanded its law to include junk foods sold anytime during the schoolday, and in 2007 became the first state to outlaw brand-specific marketing of unhealthy foods at schools.
The federal standard defines unhealthy foods as those with less than 5 percent of the recommended daily intake of eight key nutrients. Soda, hard candies, cookies and gum fall into the category.
Maine’s law makes exceptions for foods sold to the public at events held on school property outside school hours, as well as for culinary arts programs.
Schools participating in the study overwhelmingly supported limiting students’ exposure to ads for unhealthy foods, but the majority wanted more help to meet the law’s requirements. Many administrators didn’t even know about the ban.
The Maine Department of Education had a different take on schools’ compliance with the law. The department reviews nutrition programs at each of the state’s 639 public schools every five years, including checking for food product advertising in cafeterias and common spaces, according to David Connerty-Marin, a spokesman for the Education Department.
“Our experience is schools are pretty good about it, and when something comes up, it’s inadvertent,” he said.
Connerty-Marin said he had not reviewed the UNE study.
The Maine Public Health Association called on the Education Department and the beverage industry to support schools in eliminating soda ads, particularly on scoreboards.
“Given the high rate of overweight and obesity experienced by Maine children and the link between marketing of foods to children and unhealthy diets, advertisement of unhealthy food and beverages should not be present in our schools,” said MPHA board president Lisa Harvey-McPherson.
Polacsek agreed that limiting marketing of unhealthy foods was crucial to making schools healthier.
“During the schoolday, kids are a captive audience, and they shouldn’t be bombarded with ads for junk foods,” she said in the release.
The results of the study were released Wednesday at the Physical Activity and Nutrition Summit 2012 in Augusta.
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Before I moved to the Twin Cities, I heard about Minnehaha Falls through friends. They described it as a giant waterfall in the middle of the city, and I had a weird image in my head of an oasis-like park surrounded by skyscrapers.
That’s not quite accurate, but it is kind of an oasis from city life where Twin Citians can feel like they are exploring nature without having to go very far.
After almost eight years here, I’ve been many times, but it was only as we explored this past weekend that I really wondered about the park’s history.
It all started with a poem written by a man who’d never even seen the falls, but he still managed to make people curious about a far off land with wondrous waterfalls and fascinating cultures. It so happens that Longfellow wasn’t terribly accurate in his portrayal of the Ojibwa, but it’s all part of the story now. We are still sorting fact from lore around here. Did you know that “Minnehaha” does not actually mean “laughing water”?
This slideshow from the Minnesota Historical Society has a century’s worth of photos from Minnehaha Park.
For us, last weekend was the perfect time to explore our park. We climbed stairs, crossed bridges, left the path, and waded into the water. Just the right amount of nature for this city girl.
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Deadly E. Coli Outbreak in Europe
At least 18 people have died and more than 1,700 have been sickened in Germany from an outbreak of a new strain of E. coli.
The source of the outbreak remains unknown, but health officials are warning against eating some raw vegetables until the outbreak can be traced. The strain is causing a high number of kidney failures, making it one of the deadliest E. coli outbreaks ever.
Cell Phones Possibly Carcinogenic
Radiation emitted by cell phones is “possibly carcinogenic” and could be associated with some increased risk for brain cancer, a World Health Organization panel of experts declared this week.
The group categorized mobile devices in the carcinogenic category 2B, similar to chemicals like DDT and engine exhaust. But the experts stressed that a direct link is still not clear and more study is needed.
Rate of New HIV Infections Dropping
The global rate of new HIV infections each year dropped 25 percent from 2001 to 2009, according to new data from UNAIDS.
But more than 34 million people around the world still have HIV and about 9 million people in low- and middle-income countries who need antiretroviral therapy are not receiving it. Sunday marks the 30th anniversary of the first reported case of HIV.
Vatican Rejects Condoms for HIV Prevention
At a Vatican-hosted AIDS conference this week, Catholic authorities sharply criticized condoms as an ineffective HIV prevention that encourages immoral behavior.
HIV advocates had hoped the Church might signal that use of condoms could be justified in certain situations to prevent transmission of the disease, and UNAIDS head Michel Sidibe praised the pope for opening new dialogue on the issue. The Church instead focused on promising new research showing HIV treatment can be highly effective for prevention.
Bahrain Doctors’ Fate Uncertain
Bahraini police fired rubber bullets at protesters Friday, just two days after a state of emergency first declared during anti-government protests in March was lifted Wednesday.
The fallout from the earlier protests continues for the 47 medical workers the government will put on trial for charges including cooperating with protestors and denying some patients care—charges that some humanitarian groups refute. Reuters reports some medical workers have also been fired or forced to close their practices in the aftermath of the protests.
At a weekend HIV/AIDS conference at the Vatican, the Catholic Church stood firm on its stance against the use of condoms to protect against the transmission of HIV. Ray Suarez and the NewsHour’s Global Health Unit report from Rome.
*The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation provided funding for this project.
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“Sometimes I wish that I was the weather, you’d bring me up in conversation forever. And when it rained, I’d be the talk of the day.” ~John Mayer
Let it be (B)eautiful: I find it really adorable when a person includes their significant other in conversation even when they are not around. Instead of saying “On rainy days I usually like to stay home and watch re-runs of ‘The King of Queens’ – they would say ‘On rainy days Joe and I like to stay home and watch re-runs’..” It shows a true partnership and pride in your relationship.
Let it be (A)uthentic: It is important that we learn to understand where others are coming from and why they feel the way they do as long as they have a valid argument to back it up. BAD girls don’t support an argument made just for argument’s sake. If someone is trying to combat you just so they can TRY and prove you wrong then you need to let them know it’s not happening. If you genuinely can’t see where someone is coming from because they have no substantial claim or evidence then its up to you to stand your ground. Tell them their argument is not valid and to prove it, provide examples, etc. They will most likely fail at this and guess what? You win!
Let it be (D)etermined to Last: If you haven’t done so already then you need to learn to C O M P R O M I S E. It’s essential for all relationships, but most importantly a male/female relationship. Clearly a guy and a girl will want to do diff things. So yes, you may want to watch BGC on Tuesday nights and he may want to watch Supercars- work it out so that you both can be happy. Rotate weeks as to who gets to watch their show first and who hast to catch a re-run.
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Positive and Negative Symptoms of Psychosis
Psychosis manifests itself in a variety of ways and affects an individual's thoughts, feelings, and behaviours. In addition, the symptoms of psychosis are frequently separated into "positive" or thoughts and feelings that are "added on" to how a person ususally thinks and feels and "negative" categories, or things that are "taken away" such as motivation.
I. Confused Thinking
Thoughts become confused and seem to either speed up or slow down. The individual experiencing psychosis may have difficulties concentrating, following instructions or conversations, and remembering things.
II. Changed Feelings
Individuals with psychosis may feel strange and cut-off from the rest of the world. They may experience mood swings and feel unusually excited or depressed. Their emotions frequently appear dampened and it is difficult for other others to tell if they are feeling - or simply showing - less emotion.
III. "Positive" Symptoms
These symptoms are referred to as "positive" because they are viewed as an excess or distortion of the individual's normal functioning. They include:
Delusions are false beliefs that are firmly held. They are distinguished from strongly held beliefs by the degree of conviction with which the belief is held despite contradictory evidence. They are generally organized around one or more of the following themes:
- Persecutory. Most common. Belief that one is being followed, tormented, or subjected to ridicule.
- Referential. Also common. Belief that certain gestures, comments, songs, or other environmental cues are specifically directed toward oneself. Grandiose. Belief that one has special abilities or "powers."
- Religious. Delusions have religious themes (e.g., receiving orders from God)
- Somatic. Belief that something unusual is occurring in or on one's body, despite medical evidence to the contrary.
- Loss of Control over Mind or Body. Belief that one's thoughts or body are being controlled by forces or by other individuals. Belief that thoughts are broadcast so others can hear them. A belief that thoughts are being taken out of one's head or are somehow inserted into one's brain. Delusions are considered "bizarre" if they are clearly implausible and are not derived from ordinary life experiences. For example, believing that one's internal organs have been replaced by someone else's without surgery would be considered a bizarre delusion while the belief that one is being followed by the police would be considered non-bizarre.
Hallucinations involve seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling, or tasting something that is not actually there. Auditory hallucinations are the most common. They are usually experienced as voices that are perceived as distinct from the individual's own thoughts.
C. Disorganized Speech
The speech of individuals with psychosis may be disorganized in a variety of ways: Loose Associations. The person frequently moves from one topic to the next with minimal connection between topics.
- Tangentiality. The person frequently moves from one topic to the next with no apparent connection between topics.
- Incoherence. The person's speech is so disorganized as to not be understandable. Since mildly disorganized speech is common and nonspecific, the symptom must be severe enough to substantially impair effective communication to be considered indicative of psychosis.
D. Disorganized Behaviour
The behaviour of individuals with psychosis also may be disorganized, often due to difficulties with goal-oriented behaviour:
- Difficulties performing activities of daily living (e.g., cooking, maintaining hygiene).
- Marked dishevelment or unusual or inappropriate dress.
- Inappropriate sexual behaviour.
- Unpredictable and untriggered agitation.
- Inappropriate affect (e.g., laughing while describing a personal tragedy).
- Catatonic behaviour.
I. "Negative" Symptoms.
Negative symptoms appear to reflect a decrease in or loss of normal functions. They are difficult to evaluate because they occur on a continuum with normality, are nonspecific, and may be due to a variety of other factors (e.g., medication side-effects, mood disorder). They include:
- Restrictions in the range and intensity of emotional expression.
- Restrictions in the fluency and productivity of thought and speech.
- Restrictions in the initiation of goal-directed behaviour.
Top of Page
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New technologies under development can be used to help locate firefighters in burning buildings and determine whether they are in distress.
When firefighters enter a burning building, the risk of injury and worse comes in myriad forms. In addition to being at risk from heat, smoke, and structural failures, firefighters are under constant threat of becoming lost in structures—not only disoriented but also off the radar with their commanders, who are unaware of their whereabouts and unable to communicate via radio through heavy building walls and facades.
Another serious threat, less well known but not surprising given the nature of their work, is that close to half of all on-duty firefighter deaths result from heart attacks, with roughly three-quarters of them occurring on-scene, according to U.S. Fire Administration and Harvard University research.
Now the private sector, academia, and the federal government are collaborating to integrate two emerging technologies—non-GPS location tracking and wireless physiological sensors—to both follow first responders and spot physical warning signs in real time.
For faculty at Massachusetts’ Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), the issue hits close to home. Six city firefighters died in the December 1999 Worcester Cold Storage Warehouse fire after they became disoriented in the smoke-filled structure and their air supplies ran out. The tragedy spawned a research initiative at WPI aimed at developing precision indoor location tracking technology.
GPS does not meet this need for two primary reasons: reception and accuracy. GPS receivers must acquire signals from four satellites to produce an ideal fix, which is difficult to impossible inside most buildings. Even when it can be achieved, GPS accuracy is good only to within a few meters, and that is not even sufficient for determining which floor of a building a firefighter is on.
To find an alternative, WPI developed a system based on traditional radio signals transmitted from small units attached to firefighters’ turnout gear. Simple triangulation, however, would not work, because most radio signals that do make it out of a building have bounced off interior walls. “This ‘house of mirrors’ effect is what makes the numbers you get so unreliable,” says Dave Cyganski, who is developing the technology with fellow WPI faculty members.
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Climate Monitor Online combines regular updates of climate and meteorological data with commentaries from the worlds press and media. Monthly weather summaries (from 1998-present) for the world and visualizations of times series for the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), Southern Oscillation Index (SOI), global and hemispheric temperatures, and Jenkinson (Lamb) weather types are provided. This site connects with a newswatch that has the latest reported meteorological issues, as well as links to many other weather sites.
This description of a site outside SERC has not been vetted by SERC staff and may be incomplete or incorrect. If you
have information we can use to flesh out or correct this record let us know.
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Electing where to send a rover on the diverse landscape of Mars is no easy task. With a lot at stake, two sides of the Mars team--scientists and engineers--have been lobbying for the best candidate landing site for the Mars Science Laboratory rover.
Scientists have been poring over data from Mars orbiters. They have searched for sites that are most likely to help us understand Mars' ability to support life in the past. In September 2008, the scientists narrowed their favorites to seven.
Meanwhile, engineers have been studying the safety of each landing site. They scoped out dangerous rocks and hills to understand how well the rover can drive over each terrain. Then, they produced their own "party's" picks.
In November, the scientists and engineers united in a "caucus" to choose their favorite four sites (labeled in white). In Spring 2009, they can jointly make a recommendation to NASA for the final vote.
More About Each Proposed Site:
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One of the Boy Scouts of America's largest groups, the Great Salt Lake Council, wanted to delay the vote on allowing gay members and that's what it got Wednesday.
The national organization announced last week that it was considering removing the ban against gay members, prompting officials nationwide to weigh in on the issue, including President Barack Obama, who supports lifting the ban.
The Boy Scouts national board has gathered at its headquarters in Irving, Texas, where, in a surprise announcement, it said it would delay a vote on its current ban of gay youth and adults until its next meeting in May.
The LDS Church sponsors 99 percent of the 5,000 Scout troops in the Salt Lake City area, according to local officials.
Kay Godfrey, spokesman for the Great Salt Lake Council, did not return a call seeking comment Wednesday and through a secretary referred the media to the national Boy Scouts. Still, Godfrey did speak on a morning radio show, RadioWest on KUER 90.1 with host Doug Fabrizio.
"We're encouraged by the decision of the national executive board to delay this vote," Godfrey said on the show. "We want to be engaged in this conversation and be a part of the decision-making process. ...We were caught totally off guard with regards to this issue."
However, Godfrey said the LDS Church was "consulted, prior to this group assembling to deal with this resolution. I don't know the nature of the conversation, I was not privy to that."
Radio host Fabrizio asked Godfrey why the Boy Scouts excludes gay people.
"I'm not in a position to discuss that particular topic," Godfrey said. "My concern is the institutions who serve us. Some of those institutions feel very strongly about the membership standards of scouting. My concern is if you start to chip away at the foundation of scouting ... then some of these faith-based sponsors are going to say, 'this is not what we have in mind' ... and then they could drop scouting."
The top three Boy Scouts sponsors are the LDS Church, United Methodist Church and the Catholic Church.
The national Boy Scouts office sent out a written statement.
"After careful consideration and extensive dialogue within the scouting family, along with comments from those outside the organization, the volunteer officers of the Boy Scouts of America's National Executive Board concluded that due to the complexity of this issue, the organization needs time for a more deliberate review of its membership policy," it said in the statement.
LDS Church officials agreed with the delay Wednesday but cautioned they were not taking sides.
"The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is carefully assessing the consequences of this policy change on the Church's program to build and strengthen young men, but it has not commented on it and a decision will not be made until we have assessed all of the implications," it said in a statement. "We caution others not to speculate about our position or to assume that individual Latter-day Saints inside or outside the scouting movement speak for the Church. Neither has the Church launched any campaign either to effect or prevent a policy change."
Even if the national Boy Scouts reversed its current ban, and then allowed gay members, local religious and civic groups could still decide for themselves whether to continue excluding gay people.
Kendall Wilcox of Salt Lake City is an openly gay member of the LDS Church who became an Eagle Scout as a teen.
Wilcox said it's ironic the LDS Church is more progressive on this issue than the Boy Scouts: "Kids should be able to come out to their bishops and encouraged to go into Scouts."
Mitch Mayne, of San Francisco, is an openly gay priesthood leader who serves in the Bay Ward, and was also a scout as a youth.
"Ever since Mormonsandgays.org, I think the [LDS Church's] message is be more loving, be more inclusive and be more kind," said Mayne, who grew up in Idaho. "I was more bullied in Scouting than in school. And the [Boy Scout] leaders were complicit, or actually participated, in that bullying."
Mayne said the Boy Scouts excluding gay people is counter to their ideals: "In Scouts, we're supposed to learn how to be better people and what I learned was how to lie and be dishonest."
Boy Scouts' top sponsors
1. LDS Church, 420,977 youths in 37,882 units.
2. United Methodist Church, 371,491 youths in 11,078 units.
3. Catholic Church, 283,642 youths in 8,570 units.
4. Parent-teacher groups, other than PTAs, 153,214 youths in 3,712 units.
5. Presbyterian Church, 127,931 youths in 3,663 units.
Source: 2011 Boy Scouts of America Local Council Index .
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Lucy's Last Hurrah
That winter there were two snowstorms. The first one was expected. Born in Florida and galvanized by the damp winds of the Pennsylvania mountains, it was strong as a wildcat by the time it reached upstate New York. The YMCA closed early and so did the library. The mayor declared a state of emergency, which it was. There were three head-on collisions on Route 19 and a teenager froze to death after falling into one of the gorges on the north end of town. Hank Stevens, who owned Hank's Diner, couldn't get out of his driveway and had to stay at home with his children. ("No," he said all afternoon. "Daddy cannot go outside and build a fort. Daddy doesn't own snow pants.")
Hank called Bill Kane, who made the soups and burgers at the diner, and told him to stay home. Bill had already assumed Hank would close the diner early because as far as he was concerned his boss was a lazy man who looked for excuses to lose money. But he went to the diner anyway, because it was nicer than his own apartment, and called his ex-girlfriend Trish to see if she needed help shoveling or with anything, really. But when a man answered the phone, Bill hung up and went next door to Lucy's Tavern — which was never closed because Rita, the bartender, lived upstairs — and got blind drunk instead.
The second storm blew in from nowhere a few weeks later, and no one, not even the weather girl on Channel 7, saw it coming. The day started out clear, but by noon the air was heavy and raw, and by four o'clock the sky had turned steel gray. By five, as Hank Stevens, Bill Kane, and the other regulars filed into Lucy's Tavern for happy hour, the snow began to fall.
At seven-thirty, Lucy Beech, the founder of Lucy's Tavern, was awakened from the dream state she'd been in and out of for several days. She heard the windows rattling and saw the snowflakes whirling like madmen. She listened to the wind howling and it sounded familiar, like the melancholy cries of the wolves that used to greet her on the one hundred acres of woodland where she grew up in Alaska. That sound always made her feel at home, and now it seemed as if it was beckoning her, saying get up, come outside, come see this miraculous storm.
Lucy was eighty-two and her bones were tired, but she got out of bed and walked outside wearing only her nightgown and no shoes. Snow hit her face. Cold hurt her teeth. The fierce, bitter wind reminded her of the storms of her youth, and she sat down on a snowbank and waited.
Lucy's obituary appeared several days later next to the police monitor, which reported three DWIs, one burglary, and an arrest of a woman whose cat was "defecating in an annoying manner" on her neighbor's front porch. The obituary was short, as Lucy would have liked it, but it was written by her cousin who lived in Topeka and didn't know her very well. It hardly mentioned the tavern Lucy established, or how — because Lucy loved live music and dancing and understood people who liked longing more than they did love — it became the center of the community.
It didn't talk about Lucy's late partner Suzanne, who died a month before Lucy and was buried in the garden by a slender birch. (Like many women in that town, and perhaps the world over, Lucy fell in love with a handsome woman after years of loving men.) Instead it mentioned Lucy's fine hand at embroidery, her moral upbringing, and her decent sense of community service.
In its own way, the bar Lucy built did service the community. The place itself was nothing special — a narrow room on the first floor of a brick building that had once been an apothecary. It had hardwood floors and mullioned windows, and when Lucy bought it, the floor-to-ceiling apothecary shelves and cabinets were still there, flanking a long beveled mirror and facing a wooden counter, which Lucy decided would make a good bar. She was in her twenties then, an Alaskan fisherwoman with proud cheekbones and long dark hair that she wore in two shiny braids. Rumor had it that she had been so skilled at fishing that she'd once taught an orphaned bear cub to hunt salmon. But she'd given that up to come east with her boyfriend, a noisy, failed actor who wanted to start a dance hall. They bought the storefront next to Hank's Diner, and because it was mostly Lucy who paid for it they called it Lucy's.
Some people said the bar was cursed because Lucy's boyfriend left town with a milliner six months later, leaving Lucy heartbroken and alone, miles away from the Northern lights and the midnight sun and all the things she used to love. But Lucy, who stayed in upstate New York — a place known for its brutal winters and triumphant springs — laughed at this. After all, even salmon swam upstream to spawn. Heartache, to her, coursed through everything — which was as it should be, since people needed it to make them kind.
Over the years Lucy built her bar into an open front parlor full of music and drinking, where bad behavior within reason was perfectly acceptable. She knew how to use both the gun and the baseball bat she kept under the bar by the cash register and she didn't judge her patrons as long as they paid their bills. Although once or twice she may have offered her opinion. "You know, Martin, most of us learn in grade school that saying things like 'I'm so lonely' doesn't impress women," she might have said. And when Hank Stevens sat at the bar saying things about his wife like "You wouldn't complain about the smoke at a strip club the way she does," she might have responded with, "I would if I was seven months pregnant." To her, the bar was like a good wedding, where love, sex, hope, and grief were just in the air and everyone who breathed it in was drunk not just on booze but the smoky haze around them.
So, cursed or not, Lucy's Tavern was the place most people in town came to lick their wounds or someone else's, or to give in to the night and see what would happen. Lucy grew older and her body thickened. Her once nimble feet grew arthritic and gnarled as the roots of the poplars that lined the streets in the center of town. But her skin, which rarely saw the light of day, stayed youthful and high colored even as her dark braids turned gray, then white. The bar aged too — the hardwood floors became seasoned and polished from dancing and fighting. The mirror grew mottled and reflected a softer, more flattering image of the people it faced. Eventually a gallery of stuffed birds — a crow, a turkey, a proud kingfisher — that Lucy's partner Suzanne, an ornithologist, had collected appeared at the top of the bar.
By the time that second snowstorm hit, Lucy had long since turned the bar over to her bartender, Rita. So none of her regulars knew she was quietly freezing to death that night, as they drifted in for happy hour and stayed out until dawn, taking shelter from the snow and the wind that shook the buildings.
Later, when they were at the bar toasting Lucy's life, the regulars said she was in that wind, mingling with the smell of wood smoke and pine. They said she swept over the graveyards and apple orchards, on to Main Street, past the old brick row houses. They said they felt her make her way by Hank's Diner, then by her bar, where she rode in on the icy air that came off of people's jackets and lingered in the clouds of smoke and perfume. She might have been struck, as she often had been when she was running the place herself, by the rough and beautiful ways people carried their loneliness. She might have breathed into the air, touched a cheek. It's all right, she might have said. The heart is right to cry. Oh, darlings, enjoy the night. She might have considered staying, at least until daybreak, but the wind picked up again and pulled her back into the storm.
The morning after the storm, the sun came out and the sky turned a brilliant blue.
"No," Hank Stevens said to his children. "Daddy does not want to go outside. Daddy is going to make a ham sandwich, and then he is going to lie down."
"This fucking town," Bill Kane said, looking at his snow-covered driveway. "No wonder people kill themselves here every winter."
It was Harlin Wilder, delivering Meals on Wheels as part of his community service, who found Lucy in her front yard in her nightgown, stiff and blue and dead, her face tilted upward, her hands tucked neatly beneath her thighs, as if she were waiting for something wonderful to happen.
Copyright © 2007 by Rebecca Barry
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<urn:uuid:db639320-b6c2-422e-af9f-99d1587ad924>
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/npr/12574423/excerpt-later-at-the-bar
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|
en
| 0.990469
| 1,911
| 1.617188
| 2
|
The Land Acquisition Section secured the site for a memorial in honor of the victims of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building bombing in Oklahoma City. On October 9, 1997, President Clinton signed legislation to create the Oklahoma City National Memorial, which opened its doors on April 19th 2000, the fifth anniversary of the bombing. The site is managed by the National Park Service in partnership with other private organizations, including the Oklahoma City National Memorial Foundation and the Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism.
Oklahoma City National Memorial website
Did you know? An American Elm on the north side of the Memorial survived the blast of the bombings despite many of its branches being ripped off. While many people thought the tree would not survive, it began to bloom again a year after the bombing. Known today as the Survivor Tree, the tree has become an emblem of the National Memorial.
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://www.justice.gov/enrd/4839.htm
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en
| 0.959101
| 173
| 2.90625
| 3
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Kyocera has launched a new concept of mobile phone, dubbed the speakerless phone. The Urbano Progresso was launched in Japan and uses Smart Sonic Receiver tissue-conducting technology to transmit sound through vibrations when placed next to your ear.
This groundbreaking technology is a result of Kyocera's teaming up with Japanese carrier KDDI. Kyocera says that the phone is better adapted to loud urban environments, and can be easily heard through headphones, hats or ear protectors.
The phone runs Android 4.0 and has a 4-inch display, along with an 8 megapixel camera. It is water and shock resistant and supports standard Japanese features such as touch payments and infrared connections and mobile TV broadcasts.
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<urn:uuid:8cb136d7-af73-43f0-8e64-cd4bd3a291ff>
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://is-guide.com/news/kyocera_launches_speakerless_phone-8934.aspx
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en
| 0.957587
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| 2
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By Greg Borzo, UChicago News
An excerpt: That the new study of virtues has come to embrace a systematic,
organized body of knowledge was evident at the third annual conference
of the New Science of Virtues project at the University of Chicago,
March 14-16, 2012.
“The rigorous scientific method can be applied to the study of
virtues, embracing both empirical and theoretical approaches,” said Jean
Bethke Elshtain, head of the project and professor of social and
political ethics at the University. “In addition, it lends itself to a
rare degree of multidisciplinary research.” Indeed, the project engaged
philosophers, economists, psychologists, neurobiologists, theologians,
physicians, political scientists, historians and other specialists
The project was funded by a $4.2 million grant from the John
Templeton Foundation, which supports discovery in fields that engage
life’s biggest questions.
“We came to the University of Chicago and said, ‘Help us find the
best talent to explore how the study of virtues fits into academic
discourse and research,’ and Arete put together this project, engaging
scholars from around the country,” said Barnaby Marsh, executive vice
president of strategic initiatives for the Foundation.
Read the article.
Photo: Beth Rooney.
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<urn:uuid:351a3499-c3e9-4585-bca5-b5694c801e37>
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://scienceofvirtues.org/blogs/news/archive/2012/06/08/unraveling-virtues.aspx
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en
| 0.905765
| 290
| 1.851563
| 2
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Community participation group interventions for children and adolescents with neurodevelopmental disabilities : A systematic review ; and, Community participation for girls and women living with Rett syndrome
Date of Award
Bachelor of Science (Occupational Therapy) Honours
School of Exercise and Health Science
Computing, Health and Science
Dr Sonya Girdler
Ms Katherin Bathgate
Dr Jenny Downs
Community participation group interventions for children and adolescents with neurodevelopment disabilities : A systematic review
Objective: To describe the effectiveness of community integration interventions on community participation, self-esteem and quality of life for children and adolescents with a neurodevelopment intellectual disability.
Method: Electronic searches of five databases and manual searches of reference lists were conducted. Community integration interventions which targeted friendship development, recreation participation, quality of life and self-esteem were included.
Results: Thirteen studies were included in this review. A variety of study designs and interventions were used. Following interventions, all but one study reported significantly increased friendships, five reported increased recreation participation and one reported increased quality of life and self-esteem. Methodological quality of the studies ranged from adequate to strong.
Conclusions: Community integration interventions appear to be effective in supporting the successful inclusion of children and adolescents with neurodevelopment intellectual disabilities. Future interventions should consider the impact of several factors, such as impairment, personal and environmental factors, in facilitating community participation.
Community participation for girls and women living with Rett syndrome
Purpose: To describe the relationship between impairment, personal and environmental factors, and community participation for Australian girls and women with Rett syndrome
Methods: Data was collected from the 2009 follow-up questionnaire completed by families participating in the Australian Rett Syndrome Database (n = 214). Univariate and multivariate logistic regression were used to analyse relationships between impairment, personal and environmental factors and participation.
Results: In.2009, the mean age was 17.6 years (SD = 7.95, range three to 34 years) with 114 (53.3%) girls still at school and 100 (46.7%) women post school. Frequency of activities was influenced by levels of walking, community support and maternal education. For girls living at home, participation in activities was associated with greater functional independence, higher levels of maternal education and better family income. Participation in recreational (90.1 %), physical/skill-based (67.6%) and/or social (70.3%) activities were commonly reported by families, whilst self-improvement (17.6%) activities were less reported. Younger girls participated in activities mainly with family members and older girls more frequently participated with carers.
Conclusion: Participation for girls and women with Rett syndrome could be enhanced by stronger community support. Future studies should use both qualitative and quantitative methodologies to determine the level of satisfaction and enjoyment experienced by girls and women in community activities.
Andrews, Jaimi, "Community participation group interventions for children and adolescents with neurodevelopmental disabilities : A systematic review ; and, Community participation for girls and women living with Rett syndrome" (2012). Theses : Honours. Paper 45.
Available for download on Wednesday, November 11, 2015
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://ro.ecu.edu.au/theses_hons/45/
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en
| 0.941048
| 645
| 2.28125
| 2
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Thana Bhaun, a small town in Muzaffar Nagar district of the Indian state of Utter Pradesh, is Shaukat Thanvi’s ancestral hometown. It is this place, Thana, which has given many people their last name: Thanvi. Though his father, Munshi Siddiq Ahmed, had settled in Lucknow, Shaukat Thanvi was born in Bandraban, Mathura district, UP, on February 2, 1904.
Shaukat Thanvi was an essayist, columnist, novelist, short story writer, broadcaster, playwright, sketch-writer and poet but, in essence, he was a humorist and in almost all his writings an unmistakable streak of humour can always be traced.
Shaukat Thanvi had little formal schooling but in 1928 he joined Hamdam, an Urdu daily brought out from Lucknow by Syed Habib Jalib. Later he worked for other newspapers and magazines such as Avadh Akhbar, Haq, Kainaat and Sarpunch. In 1938, he decided to launch his own newspaper, Toofan, but had to close it down before long.
After the establishment of a radio station in Lucknow in 1938, Shaukat Thanvi was offered the job of broadcasting humorous talks on radio which he accepted. He also wrote many plays. In 1939, Shaukat joined radio as a writer and broadcaster and had to quit journalism.
On the suggestion of Syed Imtiaz Ali Taj, Shaukat Thanvi joined Lahore’s Pancholi Art Pictures as a story and song writer in 1943. Shaukat worked there for about a year. By then, he had established himself as a humorist and his satirical piece Saudeshi Rail, or Native Train, had become highly popular. Saudeshi Rail is an imaginative account of the fate of the railways once the movement for the independence of India has succeeded. The piece envisions a newly independent country run by inefficient and negligent officials, resulting in a comedy of errors and total chaos. It was his sarcastic way to remind the countrymen that, in view of our abysmal managerial skills and work ethics, we did not deserve independence and if the foreign rulers left we would be left at the mercy of those who could not run even a train properly let alone the entire country.
Despite its satire and lively style, from a nationalistic point of view this could be seen as an anti-independence piece trying to undermine the independence movement that was running at full throttle during the Second World War. Many even used to refer to the piece as reasoning against independence. But from the point of view of the colonial masters, it was a masterpiece and supported their side of the argument. The information department sent the translated version of the piece to the governors and the viceroy.
The government had established a strong publicity department for war propaganda. Shaukat Thanvi was offered a job in the department which he accepted. He joined Pancholi again in 1946 as the war had ended but political turmoil stopped the work on its movies. After independence, Pancholi closed down and he joined Radio Pakistan in Lahore.
Shaukat Thanvi was a prolific writer and penned some sixty books which include collections of short stories and humorous essays, plays and novels. He was also a poet and Guharistan is a collection of his poetry published early in his career.
It is worth noting that Shaukat Thanvi’s name has been associated with a stigma. It remained a mystery for long as to who the real writer of the lewd novels appearing with the pen-name of Vahi Vahanvi as author was. Though many unscrupulous publishers and writers subsequently used this name to mint money by bringing out such fiction, it is generally believed that Naseem Anhonvi and Shaukat Thanvi began it all. This claim has been substantiated by some researchers and scholars and Dr Saeed Murtaza Zaidi, for instance, has given details in his doctoral dissertation on Shaukat Thanvi, published by Maghrabi Pakistan Urdu Academy, Lahore.
In 1957, Shaukat Thanvi joined Jang, Karachi, and wrote a humour column called Vaghaira vaghaira. When Jang launched its Rawalpindi edition in 1959, Shaukat Sahib was posted there. He received Tamgha-i-Imtiaz in March 1963. He was ill and his health deteriorated there. He died on May 4, 1963 and was buried in Miani Sahib Graveyard.
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en
| 0.986381
| 940
| 2.125
| 2
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Storm-hit US states declare emergencies
States of emergency have now been declared in four states and the US capital after violent storms cut a swathe through the east of the country.
Thirteen deaths have been linked to the sudden storms, which, packing hurricane-strength winds, uprooted trees and downed power lines.
Amid an intense heatwave, three million people were left without power.
Power companies are warning that some may not have electricity restored for up to a week.
Officials have warned that the heatwave - compounded by the loss of air conditioning due to power outages - could threaten the very young, old and sick.
In Bradley county, eastern Tennessee, the high temperature has been blamed for the deaths of two brothers, age three and five, who were playing outside in 105F (40.6C) heat, Reuters news agency reports.'Dangerous'
Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, Ohio and the District of Columbia have all now declared states of emergency.
Virginia Gov Bob McDonnell said the state - where six people died from the storms - had had its largest non-hurricane power outage in history.
"This is a very dangerous situation," he said, according to Associated Press.
Maryland Gov Martin O'Malley said the storms had been even more challenging than a hurricane, because unlike hurricanes they began without warning.
In Illinois, officials transferred 78 maximum-security inmates from a prison in Dixon after it suffered storm-related damage. Prisoners remaining in the Dixon jail were locked down - confined to their cells - while generators provided power.
According to a local newspaper, the transfer has prompted union officials to question plans to close correctional facilities amid already overcrowded conditions.
The storm damage also caused online disruption, with Netflix, Instagram and Pinterest services temporarily disabled.
Meanwhile, utility companies said they were working around the clock to repair damage which some described as catastrophic.
"We do understand the hardship that this brings, especially with the heat as intense at is. We will be working around the clock until we get the last customer on," said Myra Oppel, a spokeswoman for the utility Pepco, which serves Washington and its suburbs.
The National Weather Service has warned of more possible thunderstorms, saying it has three areas of particular concern: the northern Rockies, the mid-Mississippi River to Ohio Valleys and portions of the Mid-Atlantic into the Southeast, particularly the eastern Carolinas.
"The primary threats will be large hail and damaging winds; however, an isolated tornado can not be ruled out across southern Minnesota and Wisconsin as well as northern Iowa and Illinois," it said.
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en
| 0.973103
| 537
| 2.109375
| 2
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Housing as a Right
The homelessness crisis in the United
States is an indicator of violations of internationally
recognized human rights, including the human right to adequate housing. Various international treaties and
declarations maintain that housing is a human right and can serve as a powerful
tool for advocates in the U.S. It can reframe public debate, craft and
support legislative proposals, supplement legal claims in court, advocate in international
forums, and support community organizing efforts.
This fact sheet outlines the issues, the outlook, and what
local advocates can do in promoting the human right to housing.
As homelessness and the affordable housing crisis grow in
advocates can use human rights arguments as another tool to find solutions.
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http://www.nlchp.org/view_report.cfm?id=124
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en
| 0.913627
| 149
| 3.140625
| 3
|
Kerala's unique houseboats, also known as Kettuvalloms helps the tourist in discovering the enchanting backwaters and lively villages of Kerala on a cruise. Apart from excellent outlook, these houseboats are eco-friendly, as it is made of bamboo poles, coconut fiber, ropes, bamboo mats, carpets etc.
Nowadays houseboats are used for leisure trips, but in olden days, these Kettuvalloms were used for commercial purposes. The original Kettuvalloms were used to carry rice and spices from Kuttanad to the Kochi port. But due to the large influx of modern transport facilities, these houseboats In Kerala revived themselves as a luxurious entity.
The Houseboats of Kerala are giant country crafts, measuring up to 80 feet in length. Once they ruled the backwaters. But in recent times, the kettuvalloms have been replaced by modern modes of transport, relegating them to neglect and decay. It takes great skill to construct these giant Houseboats by tying huge planks of jack wood together. Curiously enough, not a single nail is used in their making . There used to be an entire clan of artisans who were involved in kettuvallom construction. Today, an innovative holiday idea has restored these majestic representatives of a unique culture and with them their makers.
Houseboats are one of the main attractions in Kerala backwater tourism. The houseboats are provided with all modern amenities, open sit out, sunbath deck, spacious living area, kitchen, bath attached bedrooms with T.V, DVD and other entertainment. The guests will have a choice of traditional Kerala menu served on board for breakfast, lunch and dinner. All these facilities enables the guest to feel at home away from home.
Check in time: 11:30 am checkout time:9:30 am (One day trip 22 hours with food)
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<urn:uuid:33fa919b-78b8-4b9e-9100-1f7a3dfd04ff>
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http://www.hiliyaresort.com/houseboats.html
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en
| 0.95861
| 385
| 1.96875
| 2
|
He stated: “We have had computers in schools for 30 years – why are we still dragging teachers in?” After posing this question, he outlined three ways that he sees how computers are used in education today and the authors of those viewpoints.
Alfred Bork – The System view: “Teachers are stupid and the job they do is scripted. Computers can replace teachers with drill and practice and as dispensers of knowledge.”
Tom Snyder – The Teacher view: “The classroom is a theatre and the teacher the director. Computers empower these teachers, as it is they who are in control.”
Seymour Papert – The Learner view: “Computers are for learners, it is the learner who has control over the device.”
Who has control of these devices in your school?
In a nutshell Gary reasoned that computers are a tool that should be used with the learner at the centre. It is the learner who should be constructing things and using it to solve problems. He was quick to point out however, that a student centred classroom will always have the learner at its centre, with or without technology.
This started me thinking. What could I do? What changes could I make in my classroom? Before I’d even left the breakfast I was planning.
Gary again – “We need the students to be at the centre of the process, producing, not consuming. We need them to be engaged in work which has the potential for originality. Only by doing that will they be making memories. It is the memories that will stand the test of time.”
So, once the dreaded NAPLAN season is over, I am going to hold a ‘project day’, or maybe a ‘problem solving day’, the name is not quite clear yet. On that day I will pose a variety of problems and then provide the materials to solve those problems. In order to link this somehow to my program, I will have to think of problems that are relevant to Antarctica or the early exploration of gold. How do we build a bridge that allows the penguins to escape the ice-chasm or something along those lines.
The point though, and where the technology will come in to this, is when a student uses a camera to document their thinking, that thinking becomes visible. We need to give them a problem, that is solvable. It is no good asking them to save the world they are too young for that. Let them create, make and do, to solve the problem. Gary showed wonderful examples using lego robotics, sadly I don’t have access to lego robotics, but I do have recycle bins. As they film themselves talking about how they solved the problems, they are documenting their thinking thus making it visible for reflection and questioning.
Gary – “We need to focus on less in order for them to end up learning more.”
I am at #ACEC2010. I am a teacher and a learner. I am inspired already. Oh and the cocktail food was pretty good too!
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<urn:uuid:886623a6-e4e4-46c2-96f1-831a1b23fb32>
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://www.classroomchronicles.net/2010/04/06/acec2010-day-1/
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en
| 0.973904
| 648
| 2.703125
| 3
|
Hungarian students protest education reforms
BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) -- Hungarian high school and university students went ahead Wednesday with protests against changes in the education system despite the government's acceptance of some of their demands.
In Budapest, the capital, several thousand students gathered outside the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, dissatisfied with the concessions announced by the government. Calling their protest the "Winter Rose Student Revolution," they later marched downtown and threw rose petals into the Danube River.
Government spokesman Andras Giro-Szasz said that the Cabinet had decided to drop plans greatly cutting the number of state-sponsored scholarships and will guarantee at least 55,000 full scholarships next year, the same number as this year. He added that spending on higher education would increase by at least 24 billion forints ($110 million) in 2013.
Students, however, also oppose signing a contract requiring them to work in Hungary for several years after graduation if they accept studying at the state's expense. They are also calling for comprehensive reforms to the education system, claim the current changes were planned haphazardly and want the government to consult with them before implementing any more reforms.
Several student protests over the past two weeks -- in Budapest and cities around the country -- seemingly changed Prime Minister Viktor Orban's mind about his intentions to make higher education in Hungary become practically self-funding in coming years.
Orban was a student leader in the late 1980s, when Hungary was still under communist rule, and his Fidesz party was formed in a university dormitory in 1988.
More recently, however, Fidesz has accentuated its conservative policies and has made ensuring that pension payments keep pace with inflation one of its top priorities.
Students braving near-freezing temperatures outside the Academy of Sciences said they were frustrated by the confusion caused by the government's decision to make sweeping changes just weeks before the deadline for university applications for the 2013 school year.
"Instead of tying us here, they should build a country which no one wants to leave," said high school student Antal Molnar. "The government needs to quickly understand that the road it is on is unacceptable to us."
Molnar said his father had escaped to Mexico during communism and brought his family back to Hungary in 2002 "believing Viktor Orban's dream of that time -- that Hungary is our home and we must succeed here."
Students also called for the resignation of Education State Secretary Rozsa Hoffmann and vowed to continue their protests until all of their demands are met.
(Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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| 0.980788
| 531
| 2.03125
| 2
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Here is an interesting/odd problem that has arisen while trying to setup a large buffer of memory allocated by a kernel driver to be remapped into user space. The driver is for a CCD camera that is DMA and Interrupt driven system and I am able to get good consistant images using "memcpy_tofs()". What I would like to do is to have a large buffer that can be remapped to user space so that the data can be transferred via the network while the CCD is reading out. The camera DMAs a line at a time(1712 bytes) to a kmalloc'ed buffer of 2048 bytes and is copied into the remappable buffer when the problem occurs. Using two different methods I have come up with some really strange results.
When I readout a full frame(~1.3MB of integers), if the data is realatively uniform there is no problem. But if the data is not uniform some of the lines will transfer fine but most will end up with zeros filling up some or all of the values in the line. This will happen no matter how many lines are readout at a time.
I am using the 2.0.33 kernel, initially with Matt Welsh's bigphysarea and recently using vmalloc and the example of remapping virtual memory example in Alessandro Rubini's "Linux Device Drivers". From what I have been able to determine the values are good until the copy from the DMA buffer into the remapped buffer.
I am also locking the application memory using the driver and using SCHED_FIFO for priority scheduling. The driver functions very well until I start trying to use the remapped memory.
Thanks In Advance, Brian W. Taylor
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://www.tldp.org/LDP/khg/HyperNews/get/khg/286.html
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s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
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12:25 returned from Jerusalem. Barnabas and Saul had been sent to Jerusalem by the church at Antioch, bringing material aid to the Christians there during the hard times occasioned by the recent famine (Acts 11:27-30). Whether they were with the believers praying for Peter in Mark’s home is not stated, but it is there they must have counseled with Mark and decided to take him back to Antioch with them.
12:25 John. John Mark was a nephew of Barnabas (although some say he was a cousin—Colossians 4:10) and evidently a close friend of Peter (the early church fathers said much of what Mark wrote in his gospel was obtained from Peter). He probably was a Levite, like his uncle (Acts 4:36) and thus well instructed in the Scriptures, as well as from a prosperous family.
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http://www.icr.org/bible/Acts/12/25/
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Filed under: Boomer's Health
Morton's neuroma is a painful condition that affects the ball of your foot, most commonly the area between your third and fourth toes. Morton's neuroma may feel as if you are standing on a pebble in your shoe or on a fold in your sock.
Morton's neuroma involves a thickening of the tissue around one of the nerves leading to your toes. In some cases, Morton's neuroma causes a sharp, burning pain in the ball of your foot. Your toes also may sting, burn or feel numb.
Morton's neuroma may occur in response to irritation, injury or pressure. Common treatments for Morton's neuroma include changing footwear or using arch supports. Sometimes corticosteroid injections or surgery may be necessary.
|Most Viewed||Most Emailed|
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://edition.cnn.com/HEALTH/library/mortons-neuroma/DS00468.html
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Here's a detailed explanation posted by MaG on an older thread:
There is an outside number in the square that is the same as the one on top.
That is the sum you are hitting for.
You have to enclose a set of numbers that will add to that.
Remember that you can also use the right number of a double digit as the end sum -
For example: you need to look for a set of numbers that will add up to 8.
You can look for a 4 and 4, or 3 + 3 + 2, or it can be 15 + 13.
After you have those set of numbers are enclosed in the square click the button at bottom right to enter that.
If correct, the enclosed numbers will disappear.
An alternative solution is to just click randomly around the box edges. It may take a little longer, but the end result will be the same.
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://www.gameboomers.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/864283/Re_Sherlock_Holmes_versus_Jack
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Strong Social Support Seems to Boost Breast Cancer Survival
Latest Cancer News
THURSDAY, Nov. 15 (HealthDay News) -- The quality of a breast cancer patient's personal relationships may be as important as the size of her social networks in predicting survival, researchers report.
The new study included more than 2,200 women who were diagnosed with early-stage, invasive breast cancer between 1997 and 2000. After an average of 11 years follow-up, 215 of the women had died from breast cancer and 410 had died from all causes.
At the start of the study, the women provided information about their personal relationships, which were characterized as socially isolated (small social network), moderately integrated or socially integrated (large social network).
A social network includes spouses or partners, female relatives, friends, religious and social connections, and links to the community through volunteering.
Women who were socially isolated were 34 percent more likely to die from breast cancer or other causes than women who were socially integrated, the Kaiser Permanente researchers found.
The investigators also discovered that levels of support within personal relationships were important risk factors for breast cancer death.
"Women with small networks and high levels of support were not at greater risk than those with large networks, but those with small networks and low levels of support were," study lead author Candyce Kroenke, a research scientist with the Kaiser Permanente Northern California Division of Research, said in a Kaiser news release.
Women with small social networks and low levels of support were 61 percent more likely to die from breast cancer and other causes than those with small social networks and greater levels of support, the study authors pointed out in the news release.
"We also found that when family relationships were less supportive, community and religious ties were critical to survival. This suggests that both the quality of relationships, rather than just the size of the network, matters to survival, and that community relationships matter when relationships with friends and family are less supportive," Kroenke added.
The study was published in the current issue of the journal Breast Cancer Research and Treatment.
While the study found an association between patients' social support networks and survival rates, it did not prove a cause-and-effect relationship.
-- Robert Preidt
Copyright © 2012 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
SOURCE: Kaiser Permanente, news release, Nov. 9, 2012
Get the latest health and medical information delivered direct to your inbox FREE!
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=165120
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Investigation of Mattayom 6 student's essay writing by using learning packages.
What I am gonna find out is how the learning packages help and support students develop and improve their essay writing?? The bottom line is I have no ideas how to create learning packages to enhance student's essay writing. On the other hand, I have in mind is I'm gonna provide my sampling the variation of types of essay and the strategic technique to tackle those types of essay.
Thank you in advance.
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://www.tefl.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=4381&view=unread
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CMFD (Community Media for Development) Productions has produced a radio drama that breaks the silence on violence and HIV/AIDS and Kaya FM's Central & Top 40 presenter, Mo G, has announced his on-going support for the 16 Days of Activism for No Violence against Women & Children.
Free radio drama available
The 13-part serial radio drama, 'Mahlabathe Speaks' highlights how HIV/AIDS and Gender Based Violence (GBV) are linked, in a way that is entertaining and understandable to its mostly rural target audiences. The drama is being aired across South Africa, with listening groups in four provinces - Eastern Cape; Northern Cape; KwaZulu-Natal and Free State, though the drama is free to air to any station.
The show uses edutainment to talk about the importance of eliminating gender based violence and the spread of HIV. The drama follows the story of Lerato, a young woman who is scared and running. A city girl, she finds herself in the middle of a rural village confronting new situations and ideas.
In South Africa, violence against women has reached epidemic proportions, one of the highest rates in countries collecting such data. It exists in millions of households, in every community, in every institution, in both public and private spaces.
"Sexual and Gender Based Violence (SGBV) cuts across race, class, ethnicity, religion and geographic location," says Nonhlanhla Sibanda of POWA. "This radio drama, supported by listening groups, community-based activities and media engagement, is being produced to encourage a deeper awareness and understanding of the intersections between GBV and HIV, get people talking, and encourage people to change their attitudes and actions."
Entertaining, easy to comprehend
The drama package also includes a guide for radio presenters to help them create stories and reports around the issues, host discussions, ask questions, and present accurate facts. As part of 16 days of activism activities, community radio stations will be broadcasting the drama, as well as inviting guests and listeners to discuss the rights issues it raises.
According to Cindy Dzanya, project coordinator from CMFD Productions, "The drama is entertaining and easy to comprehend; local languages were used to ensure the message reaches audiences in each of the target provinces."
The drama's core theme is about speaking out and talking about issues of gender violence and HIV and to come up with solutions and ideas for prevention and care. The drama's original theme music, produced by Daniel Walter for Sigauque Project, is also a call to women and girls to speak out. As the Mahlabathe Speaks tag line says, when women's voices are raised, things will never be the same again
Mo G's Kaya Central show will be crossing live to POWA's 'Light Up to Speak Out' candle lighting ceremony on Friday, 7 December, at 5pm at The Turbine Hall in Newtown. He will then head over to the event and check-in with more live crossings during Mapaseka Mokwele's Home show from 7pm.
As a husband and father, he is proud to be supporting POWA in this initiative and has committed his support to the organisation on an on-going basis. This is the first of many events and awareness raising platforms by which he aims to highlight the terrible scourge of violence against women and children.
Of his association to POWA, Mo G says, "The main reason I want to support POWA and the critical work they do is because at a very young age I saw my own mother being abused on a regular basis. This violence at home affected me at school where I would always get into fights with friends. While growing up, I always said to myself that I will never hit a woman and I never have. However, for me that's not enough and I am committed to reaching out to men across South Africa with this powerful message."
POWA is also excited about this new relationship. POWA's media officer, Nonku Khumalo explains, "The organisation is honoured to enter into an association with him, as well as with Kaya FM. We hope that through our partnership, we can influence more men to speak out against abuse and reach more women who need our assistance and support in this regard."
The ceremony is a symbolic event that invites all South Africans, men and women, to speak up about abuse wherever they see it. To join Kaya FM, Mo G and POWA at this event, email bookings to .
LEGAL DISCLAIMER: This Message Board accepts no liability of legal consequences that arise from the Message Boards (e.g. defamation, slander, or other such crimes). All posted messages are the sole property of their respective authors. The maintainer does retain the right to remove any message posts for whatever reasons. People that post messages to this forum are not to libel/slander nor in any other way depict a company, entity, individual(s), or service in a false light; should they do so, the legal consequences are theirs alone. Bizcommunity.com will disclose authors' IP addresses to authorities if compelled to do so by a court of law.
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http://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/59/86394.html
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Date of Award
Master of Science (MS)
Economics and Finance
The objective of Daniel Brilliant’s research is to explore the relationship between culture and economic prosperity in the former communist countries of Eastern Europe. Learning why some of these countries do better than others is of interest in discovering what causes a country’s economy to grow in general. Knowing the causes of economic growth helps in determining what policies, if any, can be adopted by a country to help promote economic growth. Some have theorized that government policies are at the heart of prosperity. Others have speculated that cultural factors play a large role in determining if such policies will be effective.
This study expands upon research performed in the development economics literature by adding data from countries which have been historically excluded. Earlier studies usually omitted these transitioning economies due to a lack of available data, but as time goes on data becomes more and more accessible. The major contribution of this paper in terms of data collection is the incorporation of measures used to gauge judicial power from the social sciences literature to fill gaps in the economics literature data.
The analysis suggests that certain cultural measures which are used in development economics literature are not significant contributors to the divergence in economic outcomes in Eastern Europe. In light of this, future research should look to other sources to understand what drives economic prosperity in Eastern Europe and perhaps in the world at large.
Brilliant, Daniel, "Cultural Compatibility: Economic Development in Eastern Europe" (2011). All Graduate Plan B and other Reports. Paper 95.
Copyright for this work is retained by the student.
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http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/gradreports/95/
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NAIROBI, Kenya — The Ethiopian government, one of America’s top allies in Africa, is forcing untrained civilians — including doctors, teachers, office clerks and employees of development programs financed by the World Bank and United Nations — to fight rebels in the desolate Ogaden region, according to Western officials, refugees and Ethiopian administrators who recently defected to avoid being conscripted.
Ethiopia has been struggling with the rebels for years. But with tens of thousands of its troops now enmeshed in a bloody insurgency in Somalia and many thousands more massing on the border for a possible war with Eritrea, the government seems to be relying on civilians to do more of its fighting in the Ogaden, a bone-dry chunk of territory where Ethiopian troops have been accused by human rights groups of widespread abuses.
In a recent report, government officials in the region called upon elders, traders, women and civil servants to form local “security committees” and mobilize their clans to destroy the rebels and their bases of support. The government says that the rebels are terrorists who have carried out assassinations and bombings, and that civilians have volunteered to fight them.
But by many accounts, the militias are hardly voluntary. One Western aid official said soldiers had barged into hospitals to draft recruits and threatened to jail health workers if they did not comply. In other cases, lists of names were posted on public bulletin boards, ordering government employees to report for duty, according to a current member of the regional parliament and two Ethiopian administrators who have fled the country. Many of those who refused were fired, jailed and in some cases tortured, the administrators and parliament member said.
The civilians are serving as guides, porters, translators and foot soldiers, and they are sent into the bush with little or no training to confront hardened guerrilla fighters. In the ensuing battles, many civil servants have recently been killed, according to accounts corroborated by Western officials and aid workers.
“Anybody who works for the government — teachers, doctors, clerks, administrators — has to join a militia,” said Hassan Abdi Hees, who worked as the head accountant in a government office in the Ogaden and is now seeking asylum in Kenya. “I left because I didn’t want to die.”
Several Western officials say they are alarmed about this new strategy, especially when the first signs may be emerging of a humanitarian crisis that aid officials predicted over the summer.
Earlier this year, the Ethiopian military sealed off largeswaths of the Ogaden to choke off support for the rebels, preventing much of the commercial traffic and emergency food aid from entering.
Western aid officials warned this could cause a famine. The military has since relaxed some restrictions, but a survey by the aid group Save the Children U.K. found that child malnutrition rates in some areas have soared past emergency thresholds and are now higher than in Darfur or Somalia, widely considered the two most pressing crises in Africa.
In late November, John Holmes, the most senior humanitarian official at the United Nations, came to the Ogaden to assess the situation. While there, he said, he heard reports of civilian militias being formed, and observed that it was increasingly difficult to find health workers, livestock workers and trained professionals to distribute much-needed aid in the region, which now faces a drought.
“There is not a catastrophe there, for the moment,” Mr. Holmes7 said. “But there is a lot of concern the Ogaden could become a serious humanitarian crisis.”
Ethiopian officials deny this.
“Many media and international organizations have been exaggerating the problems,” said Nur Abdi Mohammed, a government spokesman. “There is no food aid problem. There is no malnutrition problem.”
As for militias, Mr. Mohammed said, “what is happening is that the local tribes are forming to fight against the O.N.L.F.,” the Ogaden National Liberation Front, the main rebel group in the area.
“The people want to protect their livelihood,” Mr. Mohammed added.
According to the recent government report, which was published by regional authorities, rank-and-file civil servants are not the only ones called upon to fight the rebels. It also lists several employees who work for programs financed by international donors. They included a pastoralist development project that receives millions of dollars from the World Bank and the Ethiopian government’s AIDS prevention office, which is supported, in part, by the United Nations and The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. A second government document ordering civil servants to report for duty lists 10 employees from an AIDS office.
One government official said that his entire department, including white-collar professionals, clerks, watchmen and drivers, had been forced to go on reconnaissance patrols to hunt down the rebels. The official, who feared government reprisals if he were identified, said that the militia duty interrupted humanitarian programs supported by the United Nations and that several colleagues were killed while on patrol.
“We don’t know how to operate guns, but the government sent us to the front lines,” the official said.
Other civilians who served in the militias said they were not given camouflage, and even had to buy their own rifles.
“It’s terrifying,” said Ali Mahamoud, a Koranic teacher who said he was yanked out of Arabic class a few months ago and assigned to a militia. “You can’t see the rebels when they’re shooting at you. And the Ethiopians will kill you if you try to run.”
The rebels said the civilians were easy targets.
“They don’t know the bush,” said Daous, a commander for the Ogaden National Liberation Front.
Some of the region’s best-trained professionals have chosen to flee, including Sadik Mohammed Hajinur, a Sudanese-trained doctor who used to work at a rural hospital. He said that Ethiopian soldiers demanded that he recruit militia members from his clan and that when he refused, they beat him with rifle butts.
“I faced so many problems from the army,” said Dr. Sadik, who is now seeking asylum in Sweden.
Dr. Sadik and other refugees described the militia program as another example of the extremes to which the Ethiopian government will go to control the Ogaden region, which lies on the border of Somalia and is home to mostly ethnic Somalis, who speak a different language and have a different culture than the highland Ethiopians who rule the country.
Several United Nations officials and Western diplomats said they were discussing the militia program in private meetings, but contended they could not comment publicly for fear of provoking the ire of the Ethiopian government, resulting in a possible suspension of humanitarian efforts in the region.
“We are walking a very thin line, and we need to concentrate on saving lives right now,” a United Nations official said.
Ethiopian authorities have already expelled the Red Cross from the Ogaden, accusing aid workers of being spies.
The Bush administration considers Ethiopia its No. 1 ally in combating terrorism in the Horn of Africa, and the American government provides it with roughly $500 million in annual aid. Last winter, American commanders gave Ethiopia prized intelligence to oust an Islamic movement that had controlled much of Somalia.
But Human Rights Watch says it has documented dozens of cases of severe abuse by Ethiopian troops in the Ogaden, including gang rapes, burned villages and what it calls “demonstration killings,” like hangings and beheadings, meant to terrorize the population.
“This is a mini-Darfur,” said Steve Crawshaw, the United Nations advocacy director for Human Rights Watch.
The Ethiopian government’s response to such criticism is often one word: Eritrea. Ethiopian leaders have accused their tiny neighbor of arming insurgents in Somalia and the Ogaden. Eritrea denies this, but a United Nations report concluded that the country had indeed shipped planeloads of weapons into Somalia. Ethiopia also blames Eritrea for failing to compromise on the border issue, which has led to a major military buildup on both sides.
As for human rights, Ethiopia’s prime minister, Meles Zenawi, said at a recent news conference that “there have been no widespread human rights violations in the Ogaden, not only because we believe in the respect for human rights, but because we know how to fight the insurgency.”
But several soldiers who have recently defected said they had participated in brutal killings. Ahmed Mohammed, 24, said he was born in the Ogaden and served two years in the national army. In August, he said, his platoon was blockading a road and caught a truck trying to sneak through. The soldiers dragged the driver out and Mr. Ahmed said he watched his commander saw off the driver’s head with a 10-inch hunting knife.
“We left the body by the road,” said Mr. Ahmed, who is now a refugee in Kenya. His account could not be independently verified, but was consistent with those of other soldiers who had defected.
Mr. Mohammed, the government spokesman, dismissed the story, saying: “There is not a single soldier who is abusing human rights. The Ethiopian military is very disciplined and would not abuse its own people.”
Recent refugees said the military was trying to starve them out and the blockade had been like a noose on some parts of the region, cutting off food supplies.
In October, Save the Children U.K. surveyed more than 600 Ogadeni children and found that 21 percent were acutely malnourished, compared with United Nations surveys that found malnutrition rates of 19 percent in an area of Somalia and 13 percent in Darfur, Sudan. The United Nations considers 15 percent the emergency threshold.
“We’ve crossed the line into a humanitarian crisis,” said one Western diplomat who asked not to be identified because he was afraid of reprisals from the government.
Western officials said the Ethiopian government has begun to respond by loosening the restrictions on commercial traffic and food and allowing the United Nations to open field offices in the Ogaden. “There have been positive developments in the last three weeks,” said Marc Rubin, emergency director for Unicef in Ethiopia.
But there is a lot of catching up to do. The amount of emergency food that the United Nations World Food Program has dispatched to the Ogaden this year is a fraction of what it was last year, 19,475 tons compared with 155,249 tons .
Several refugees said they had been reduced to eating grass.
Habsa Ghaffir, who arrived at a camp in Kenya four weeks ago, said that after Ethiopian troops burned her fields and shot her husband, her 4-year-old son starved to death.
“I remember him saying to me, ‘Mom, bring me food, Mom, bring me tea, Mom bring me water,’” Ms. Habsa said.
But she had none.
“It is like they are trying to wipe us out,” she said, nervously snapping twigs between her fingers as she spoke outside her hut. “Even here, we’re not safe.”
United Nations officials said Ethiopian intelligence agents had infiltrated Kenya, and on Nov. 2, there was a mysterious attack that only added to these fears.
According to Kenyan police, masked men burst into an apartment building in a Nairobi slum and shot five Ethiopian refugees. Two died, along with a guard outside who was shot in the head.
Nothing was taken. Witnesses said the killers went straight to the Ethiopians’ room. The Ethiopian victims had been student leaders in their country, and the Kenyan police said some of them had previously asked for protection.
Kenyan police commander Joseph Maina Migwi said he could not say whether Ethiopian security agents were involved.
“But whoever did it,” he said, “were definitely paid professionals.”
Source: The New York Times
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://shilaabonews.com/mawduuc/?id=1
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So I'm making a Unit Converter which will be able to convert 43 different type of units (temperature, currency, volume, mass, length, speed) to any of the 43 types. But right now I'm a little unsure on how to proceed. I'm up to the part where the actual converting happens (doing this all using JFrames btw), and I'm not sure if I need to make 1849 if statements (43*43) for each possible combination of units, or if there's a simpler way. There must be a simpler way but I don't know it because I'm really a beginner at Java. So anyway, I would appreciate any ideas!
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http://www.javaprogrammingforums.com/java-theory-questions/10197-how-should-i-do.html
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Posts Tagged ‘viruses’
The Destruction of the Viruses was a fairly ambitious (but not very innovative) game written for the Infection theme. The player had to clean out the insides of a computer by killing all the viruses that resided there. The viruses could clone themselves, so it wasn’t always that easy.
It played like a top-down shooter, with FPS controls, and used OpenGL to draw a level that could be rotated around the player.
There were many good intentions, and much love for the number 5 (there being 5 levels, 5 enemy types, and 5 weapon types), yet the game failed badly. The biggest mistake was a bug which made some parts of the game framerate dependent, leaving it extremely hard if you had a low framerate (it played as intended at about 180 FPS). It’s hard to say how it would have fared without the bug, but as it were, it placed about 23th.
You can get the compo version, or its source, if you want to, but I really must urge you not to! Better to get the ‘made working dist’ released a few days after the deadline. Both of them are for Windows and OpenGL.
I have an even better version around somewhere, that I haven’t packaged and released yet. I’ll do that soon, and then I’ll include it here.
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http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/tag/viruses/
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Standards and regulations on how health information can be shared have improved, but patient information still needs protection.
A year after a federal advisory committee recommended how health information could be shared, the country has moved a long way to harmonizing standards and relaxing regulations that barred hospitals from promoting health IT, but it still needs to implement measures to protect patients information.
In October 2005, a commission on systemic interoperability laid out a series of recommendations for connecting the fragmented systems that hold Americans health information.
On Oct. 31, 2006, Scott Wallace, head of the now-disbanded commission, said that the government had acted on eight of the 14 recommendations.
However, it has not yet adopted recommendations that would prevent patients from being discriminated against because of the release of the information, even if the release itself was illegal.
Of areas where progress has been made, one of the most notable is the relaxation of anti-corruption rules that prevented hospitals from donating equipment and training to community physicians to help them adopt health IT.
Other achievements are a certification process for electronic health records and selection of technology standards to allow different systems to exchange information, according to a statement released Oct. 31 by the National Alliance for Health Information Technology, which Scott Wallace has led for several years.
However, HHS (Department of Health and Human Services) has not moved to find ways to prohibit discrimination based on data gathered through the unauthorized release of patients health information.
It also has not implemented criminal sanctions for privacy violations, even though a report this June from the NCVHS (National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics), a group that advises HHS, made the same recommendation, along with the advice that HIPAA (Health Insurance Privacy and Portability Act) be enforced.
HHS did commission a study examining how variations in states privacy laws might impede interoperable health IT.
A pdf from the alliance describing the commissions recommendations and the progress made for each is available here.Click here to read about how more communities are exchanging health information.
The commission was created in January 2005 to study how to make health information accessible across different health systems. Its members were appointed by Congress and President Bush, and the commission was set to be disbanded after making its recommendations.
While Wallace praised HHS for supporting health IT, he said progress in Congress was more limited. Several health IT bills that incorporated the Commissions recommendations have stalled.
"Congressional approval is mandatory for several key recommendations, including implementing a national standard for matching patients and their health records," he said.
Meanwhile, other measures to connect health information are moving ahead. The National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics Workgroup on National Information Infrastructure unanimously voted to approve a report outlining the basic criteria for networks that exchange health information.
In Nov. 2005, HHS awarded four contracts to develop prototypes of the NHIN (National Health Information Network), and NCVHS was charged with synthesizing the requirements identified by the contractors.
The NCVHS was not supposed to make architectural requirements, but to make sure that the networks are "wrapped in a privacy and security structure that warrants the trust of the individual whose information is exchanged."
In the end, NCVHS recommended a series of what it called "high-level requirements."
These included certification, authentication, authorization, person identification, location of health information, transport and content standards, data transactions, auditing and logging, time-sensitive data access, communications, and data storage.
For a pdf of a draft version of the report, click here.
Check out eWEEK.coms for the latest news, views and analysis of technologys impact on health care.
Monya Baker is co-editor of CIOInsight.com's Health Care Center. She has written for publications including the journal Nature Biotechnology, the Acumen Journal of Sciences and the American Medical Writers Association, among others, and has worked as a consultant with biotechnology companies. A former high school science teacher, Baker holds a bachelor's degree in biology from Carleton College and a master's of education from Harvard.
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Student Exhibition Juror Statement (06-07)
"A good exhibition is never the last word on its subject. Instead it should be an intelligently conceived and scrupulously realized interpretation of the works selected, one which acknowledges by its organization and installation that even the material on view - not to mention those things which might have been included but were not - may be seen from a variety of perspectives, and that this will sooner or later happen to the benefit of other possible understandings of the art in question. In short, good exhibitions have a definite but not definitive point of view..." -- Robert Storr, 2006
Storr wrote the above for a recent book of essays on exhibition practice published by the Philadelphia Exhibition Initiative. As this year's juror for the Skidmore student exhibition, I sought to act out what Storr proposes. How can I reveal my point of view in the exhibition (how could I not?) and in doing so create a proposal of sorts that reflects my taste and one possible arrangement in this particular space?
What might this exhibition look like with different objects?
How does it affect the artworks to be displayed as they are?
How does the display affect the meaning of each artwork?
I hope you take my presentation of these artworks as a challenge - to sort out the connections and combinations on view and then imagine your own.
Ian Berry, juror
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This December, plan a budget holiday overseas
Vacations are always attractive. The only drawback is the expense involved.
Snehal Prakash, a software professional, says she loves vacations. But she can’t decide whether or not to go on a vacation this winter, as several big expenses are coming her way. With two weeks left for December, she says she would have to “sell her kidneys" to be able to afford a vacation abroad next month. “It’s unlikely I could take an economical break," she says.
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It is better to take winter breaks in early December, as the end of the month accounts for Christmas and New Year and, therefore, prices are high. Though Prakash is late in getting a good deal, this may not be the case for all. Here are a few handy tips:
Early holiday bookings ensure one gets the best price and a hotel of one’s choice. Most tour agents and hoteliers throw in complimentary breakfasts and transfers for early birds. Ensure you ask for such value add-ons. “To get reasonable airfares and hotel packages, book at least 20 days in advance," says Karan Anand, head (relationships), Cox & Kings.
Bulk bookings also help cut costs. Madhav Pai, director (leisure travel, outbound), Thomas Cook India, says: “Bulk buying ensures the travel company is able to leverage troughs in pricing with its overseas suppliers, more so in a lean economic environment. Such superior pricing has been passed on to customers for the coming holiday season through special-value pricing." Bulk buying can cut travel costs 20-25 per cent.
Choosing an airline and a hotel
Low-cost airlines are integral to economical trips. With the global slowdown in tourism, this is the best time to leverage great deals. Low-cost or no-frills carriers are up to 25 per cent cheaper than full-service ones, say travel experts. Therefore, compare various hotel packages before zeroing in on one. Also, consider budget hotels, which typically offer rates 30 per cent cheaper than others. Cox & Kings’ Anand says choosing a hotel not located at the heart of a city may help avail of 20 per cent cheaper room rates.
If you have relatives in the city you plan to visit, stay with them. This is because accommodation accounts for a large portion of foreign trip expenses. One could also ask relatives in the holiday destination to make bookings, as this would help save on foreign exchange conversion costs. Typically, this helps one save 5-10 per cent. For instance, buying tickets from expedia.com would be cheaper than tickets from expedia.co.in (India website), as is the case with travelocity.com and travelocity.co.in.
Experts say, abroad, one has to pay various charges on air tickets such as transit costs, shifting date costs and fuel surcharges. They, however, add that these lead to only a minor difference in the prices of tickets.
A tour package, by its very nature, includes sightseeing tours, meals according to plans and airport transfers; everything is pre-arranged and pre-booked. And, you don’t miss important sightseeing destinations. In the case of group-travel packages, the prices may be lower.
However, many find such pre-arranged tours hectic, as one has to adhere to the plan of the tour operator/guide. This category of travellers may consider the FIT (free independent traveller) format, in which one has the choice and flexibility to choose sightseeing destinations. A FIT traveller can also choose the airline and the number of days he/she plans to spend at a particular destination. “In this case, travel expenses may rise 30 per cent, compared to a group holiday," says Anand.
Buying foreign exchange (forex) is another aspect of travel one has to consider carefully. Indian travellers can buy forex only from a Reserve Bank of India (RBI)-licensed company like Cox & Kings, and not from any foreign operator or portal. According to the Foreign Exchange Management Act, customers have to provide know-your-customer details and compliance documents for availing of this facility. One can take up to $10,000 (Rs 5.50 lakh) of forex a year for personal use.
Though one can buy forex in cash from an RBI-licensed company and pay as and when required, carrying much cash isn’t advisable; the good old travellers’ cheque is a good alternative. If bought from HDFC Bank, it costs one per cent of the rupee value of the travellers’ cheque. For transactions of up to $500, the bank charges 0.75 per cent of the rupee value of the cheque. There’s also the option of prepaid travel cards. These can be loaded in India and used abroad. In this case, forex conversion charges would be applicable at the rate prevalent on the day of conversion. One can also use a rupee credit or debit card. Here, too, forex conversion charges would apply.
Flexi foreign exchange cards, or multicurrency cards, are also popular. These are loaded with more than one currency and can be used across countries. For instance, a card used across Europe in the euro currency can be used in the UK in pounds and in the US in dollars. For these cards, various currency rates are frozen at the time of the purchase and, therefore, one doesn’t need to worry about exchange rate fluctuations.
Bankers say if one plans to travel in December, he/she should buy forex now. One may also choose to buy and accumulate forex when the conversion rate is favourable.
Each holiday season offers both domestic and international options. On the domestic front, this time, western and southern regions such as the Andamans, Kerala, Goa and Rajasthan seem to be the favourites. Among international destinations, Southeast Asian regions such as Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Mauritius, Sri Lanka and Hong Kong-Macau are expected to be top draws. Thomas Cook’s Pai says the Philippines is also emerging as a viable new destination. It is good value for money, he adds. Compared with the US and the UK, one could save 35-40 per cent on tickets to that country.
Vishal Suri, deputy chief operating officer (tour operating), Kuoni India, says travellers are opting for breaks to places where prices are reasonable. “For Indians, Southeast Asia has always been a popular destination. The ease of securing visas, proximity and bargain-shopping have attracted Indians to the Far East. These destinations offer an opportunity to enjoy a three- to four-day break without much hassle and planning. On the domestic front, weekend packages for destinations at drivable distances have gained popularity as last-minute getaways," he says.
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The latest Harry Potter novel, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" is due out soon.
Don't miss "Late Night with Harry Potter" at Milwaukee Public Library's Central Library from 9 p.m. to midnight Friday, July 20. The party celebrating the release of the book is presented by Chase Bank. For information, visit mpl.org.
If you're a big fan of Rowling's series and you've already reread the first six novels while waiting for the seventh, here are a few suggested books about wizardry and magic:
• JONATHAN STRANGE & MR. NORRELL by Susanna Clarke - Bloomsbury/Holtzbrinck, 2004
Harry Potter meets Jane Austen and William Makepeace Thackeray in this novel of "practical magicians" set during the early 19th century and Napoleonic Wars. Norrell is a scholar who, like other magicians of the time, has studied ancient writings on magic. Theoretical magic dominates the profession, but no one is capable of performing magic.
Norrell changes that by an impressive demonstration of practical magic - he brings the statues of York Minster to life and commands them to speak. Norrell, in spite of his reclusive nature, becomes the toast of London society overnight.
Against his better judgment, he takes on an apprentice magician, Jonathan Strange. Strange is the antithesis of Norrell - a society aristocrat, outgoing and intent on enlisting magic to stop Napoleon. Reluctantly, Norrell joins in, but there is a tension between the two that reinforces the main plot development of the novel - the entrapment of Strange's wife in the lands of faerie.
Clarke, in her debut novel, does a masterful job of interweaving a very complex depiction of the practice of magic with London politics and drawing room manners. This is a humorous, though often eerie, novel leavened with appearances by a number of historical figures. The character of the Duke of Wellington is particularly effective.
Clarke followed up this novel with a collection of stories, "The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories." These stories, originally a warm-up for her novel, show magic more often in a domestic setting, without the framework of the Napoleonic Wars - a bit like Austen meets Harry Potter.
• WHITE NIGHT: A NOVEL OF THE DRESDEN FILES by Jim Butcher - Roc, 2007
There's more than one wizard named Harry, but this one's Harry Dresden, and he practices wizardry in Chicago, not Hogwarts. This is the latest novel in the Dresden Files series, and it finds Harry dealing with chaos and evil magic both at home and on the job.
At home, Chicago's only professional wizard is coping with his vampire half-brother, Thomas. Out in the field, he finds someone is murdering other Chicago-area wizards, and, as newly-promoted Warden, it's his job to track down the killer.
With the help of his apprentice, Molly, and his dog, Mouse, he investigates the killings only to find his brother is the most likely suspect. This page-turning horror thriller is the ninth novel in the Dresden Files series, and is a good look at what a grown-up Harry Potter might find himself doing.
• BAD MAGIC by Stephan Zielinski - Tor/Tom Doherty Associates, 2004
The world is under constant threat from vampires, zombies (and zombie dogs), werewolves and other supernatural threats. The problem is most of us don't see them and aren't aware of them, because the human race has learned to keep its third eye firmly closed rather than let in knowledge of evil in all of its manifestations.
Luckily for all the potential victims, there's an organization willing to take on these ghouls. The heroes of this novel - a group of mages, alchemists and other magical types led by Al Rider - are based in Seattle, but they travel to San Francisco to take on a "vulture cult" that feeds on human misery and hopes to use it to resurrect their god.
Rider and his team are effectively portrayed as the less-than-ideally-coordinated bunch of eccentrics they are. They don't exactly use magic as we're used to seeing in the Harry Potter stories, but rather use "magickal technology," which is every bit as fun and not bogged down by techno-babble.
The novel is seasoned with a heavy dose of humor, but that doesn't detract from the horror and suspense of this surreal look at the everyday world.
• THE AMULET OF SAMARKAND by Jonathan Stroud - Hyperion Books for Children, 2003; THE GOLEM'S EYE,2004; and PTOLEMY'S GATE, 2006
These three novels in the Bartimaeus trilogy are usually shelved with the children's or young adult fiction, but if you're an adult fan of the Harry Potter series, you'll probably enjoy these, too.
In the world of the trilogy, set mainly in London, wizards are the ruling class, having the skills to do magic that ordinary people don't. There's also something of an alternate history of the British Empire behind the novels in which William Gladstone is revered as a great magician, for instance.
Doing magic is not as simple as waving a magic wand or reciting an incantation - it involves summoning a djinni (or an imp or demon) who is powerful enough to carry out your commands, but not so powerful you'll be overwhelmed by it. The djinni, then, becomes the slave of the magician for as long as it can be controlled or until the magician releases it.
Nathaniel is the precocious apprentice of a middle-ranking magician, Arthur Underwood, who treats him abominably, almost as badly as the Dursleys treat Harry Potter. Nathaniel schemes for revenge on his master, which involves using the Amulet of Samarkand to conjure up and control Bartimaeus, a very powerful djinni.
Fortunately for the reader, Bartimaeus is also powerfully funny - sarcastic and dismissive of mere mortals even though he is their servant. Nathaniel finds himself in the midst of political infighting in the magician-controlled government at the same time he learns about a resistance movement of non-magic commoners.
If you've run out of Harry Potter, give these a try.
Check out these books and more at the Bay View Library, 2566 S. Kinnickinnic Ave.
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Remember the historic home in Duvall Washington where a beaver dam washed out and flooded the home with mud and debris. Well the beavers rebuilt and the county thought that they could prevent a new washout by installing a “beaver deceiver” which was a noble effort but the wrong effort. Last night there was apparently ANOTHER washout and some 60 neighbors rushed in to pack sandbags around the damage.
DUVALL, Wash. — A dam built by beavers has broken for the second time this month and caused a mudslide in Duvall on Friday evening. About 60 people rushed to a Duvall neighborhood to help save a historic home, roads and a highway after neighbors noticed mud and water flowing towards a family’s 100-year-old house.
I wished at the time that they had taken a look at this instead.
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Icynene Insulation Shows PCBC That Castor Oil Is ‘Cool’
Icynene LD-R-50 — a climate-friendly, light-density spray foam insulation and air barrier that contributes to a healthier, quieter and more energy-efficient building — was named one of this year’s “Cool Products” at PCBC last week in San Francisco.
Now in its eighth year, PCBC’s Cool Products competitions highlight products that have an extra “cool” factor that makes builders and consumers take notice. Chosen from among hundreds of exhibitors, Icynene was one of four products to be singled out, winning in the “Contributes to a Healthier, Safer Living Environment” category.
The results were determined by a select panel of industry experts — including home builders, members of the media and architects.
Icynene is made of 100% natural castor oil, and its hydrofluorocarbon (HFC)-free formulation helps contractors insulate and air-seal in one step for superior energy conservation while minimizing their impact on the environment.
Among the cool qualities of the product:
- Castor oil is 100% naturally filtered with no chemical additives.
- The castor oil production process has low energy dependence.
- Castor crops are non-irrigated, saving scarce water supplies.
- Castor crops do not require pesticide or fungicide treatment.
- Castor beans are a rapidly renewable material that helped LD-R-50 become the first building product to receive the ICC-Evaluation Services SAVE (Sustainable Attributes Verification and Evaluation) designation for sustainability.
By using castor oil, Icynene LD-R-50 reduces the use of petroleum-based polyol. For every kilogram (2.2 pounds) of castor oil produced in place of polyol, there is a reduction of nearly 3.5 kilograms (7.7 pounds) of carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere, the manufacturer says.
Correctly using spray foam insulation can also help builders and remodelers earn points toward certification in the NAHB National Green Building Program rating systems.
Headquartered in Canada in Mississauga, Ontario, Icynene, Inc. is a member of the National Council of the Housing Industry — The Leading Suppliers of NAHB.
This feature is solely for educational and informational purposes. Nothing on this page should be construed as policy, an endorsement, warranty or guaranty by the National Association of Home Builders of the featured product or the product manufacturer. The National Association of Home Builders expressly disclaims any responsibility for any damages arising from the use, application or reliance on any information contained on this page.
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APS teacher faces judge on sex assault charges
(CNN) -- Ten years after the fall of Saddam Hussein, Iraq remains "enmeshed in a grim cycle of human rights abuses," Amnesty International said in a report Monday.
Copyright 2013 by CNN NewSource. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
In the wake of an alleged terrorist attack on one of its soldiers, Britain is forming a task force that will examine the forces behind extremist groups in the country, Prime Minister David Cameron's office announced Sunday.
The group, led by Cameron, ...
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Panagos Receives Emerson Award
November 24, 2006
Lindenwood University professor Rebecca Panagos was presented an Emerson Award for Excellence in Teaching in a ceremony on Sunday, November 19, at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Clayton.
Panagos, who is hearing impaired, was recognized for her work in the teacher education program at Lindenwood University, where she specializes in elementary reading programs and special education.
Panagos has a Ph.D. in special education from the University of Missouri—Columbia. She has been a professor at Lindenwood since 1996, prior to which she worked for 20 years at the Special School District of St. Louis as a school counselor, vocational evaluator/counselor and resource teacher. Panagos specializes in special education and elementary reading programs.
Dr. Rick Boyle, dean of the faculty, said that Panagos specializes in mentoring students seeking certification in special education and elementary education and that she is known throughout Missouri for her work in reading and special education.
“She is current and relevant and is known around the state as one of the most knowledgeable reading and special education teachers in Missouri,” Boyle said. “She is very deserving of the Emerson award. Dedication to her teaching and her students and the profession as a whole—she embodies all of that.”
Boyle said that Panagos’ hearing impairment makes her achievements and her day-to-day work all the more inspiring. Part of her work, he said, is to take her elementary reading methods program to schools, where part of the curriculum is to take the lessons immediately into class with elementary school students.
Press Release Contact:
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The drought continues to worsen across Iowa and the rest of the country. The latest report by the USDA found more than 90% of Iowa’s topsoil and 89% of the subsoil was either short or very short of moisture. This severe lack of water is now having an accelerated impact on the health of the crops.
The report finds less than 40% of corn and soybeans are now considered in good or excellent health. This will have a major impact on yields and, in fact, some corn might not survive the drought. It’s a dire situation that Iowa shares with much of the country. In fact, forget 1988, this is the largest drought the U.S. has experienced in nearly 60 years!
Long range models still indicate no change in this pattern either. Here in Iowa it will remain relatively dry and hot. That combination will put added stress on the crop and, as a result, added stress on farmers fearing what comes next.
Our next big indicator on the scope of this disaster will come in the form of the drought monitor update on Thursday. We’ll have more on that as information comes in.
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quote blackbeautyfan9819I don't know if this has already been said, but I'm going to clear it up right now:
People say that some snakes are poisonous, and some aren't. that is false. All snakes are poisonous. The reason they say that? It's because they do not understand that humans are immune to certain venom. Some snakes are venomous, and some aren't. Here are some pictures of venomous snakes:
I would also like to tell you how to spot venomous from non-venomous.
Venomous= Usually has vibrant colors, stripes, cat-like eyes, and has their fangs sticking out, ready to use.
Non-Venomous= oval/circle eyes, dull coloring, and a solid color.
There is not a definite way to tell venomous from non-venomous, but there are some signs above. Here are some pictures of non-venomous snakes:
quote SaulThat kinda sucks that there isn't an ani-venom. Luckily, I don't live where coral snakes are.Another wiki article edited by a retard.
There is Coral Snake FDA approved Antivenom, but due to the rarity of bites, they were not making a profit, so in 2003 they stopped making the vials.
The remaining vials will expire by the end of 2010.
So in 2011 there will be no anti-venom although, if the company makes it again, it will still be FDA approved.
quote tallteen86We have some millipedes at university. The room they are in absolutely stinks. I was having to feed them last week as wellApparently some millipedes can produce a foul stench though.
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Concentration Density Finder
The density of solutions is a function of ingredient concentration at a given temperature (here: 20 °C). What is the density of a 21 % hydrochloric acid solution? What is the molar concentration (molarity) of a sodium carbonate solution with a density of 1.09 g/cm3 at 20 °C? Questions like these play a decisive role in laboratory and production as well as in quality control. With our handy tool, such tasks can be solved easily and reliably. Simply select a solution, adjust the values for concentration, density, or molarity, and get immediate results – highly accurate thanks to automatic interpolation.
See for yourself: Concentration Density Finder
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(1) The Department of Health is designated as the state agency for:
(a) Administering or providing for maternal and child health services to provide periodic prenatal care for patients who are at low or medium risk of complications during pregnancy and to provide referrals to higher level medical facilities for those patients who develop medical conditions for which treatment is beyond the scope and capabilities of the county health departments. Maternal and child health services shall include encouragement of breastfeeding.
(b) Administering or providing for periodic medical examinations, nursing appraisals, and nutrition counseling for infant and child patients to assess developmental progress and general health conditions; administering or providing for treatment for health complications when such treatment is within the scope and capabilities of the county health departments or Children’s Medical Services. Nutrition counseling for newborn babies shall include encouragement of breastfeeding.
(c) Administering and providing for the expansion of the maternal and child health services to include pediatric primary care programs subject to the availability of moneys and the limitations established by the General Appropriations Act or chapter 216.
(d) Administering and providing for prenatal and infant health care delivery services through county health departments or subcontractors for the provision of the following enhanced services for medically and socially high-risk clients, subject to the availability of moneys and the limitations established by the General Appropriations Act or chapter 216:
1. Case finding or outreach.
2. Assessment of health, social, environmental, and behavioral risk factors.
3. Case management utilizing a service delivery plan.
4. Home visiting to support the delivery of and participation in prenatal and infant primary health care services.
5. Childbirth and parenting education, including encouragement of breastfeeding.
(e) The department shall establish in each county health department a Healthy Start Care Coordination Program in which a care coordinator is responsible for receiving screening reports and risk assessment reports from the Office of Vital Statistics; conducting assessments as part of a multidisciplinary team, where appropriate; providing technical assistance to the district prenatal and infant care coalitions; directing family outreach efforts; and coordinating the provision of services within and outside the department using the plan developed by the coalition. The care coordination process must include, at a minimum, family outreach workers and health paraprofessionals who will assist in providing the following enhanced services to pregnant women, infants, and their families that are determined to be at potential risk by the department’s screening instrument: case finding or outreach; assessment of health, social, environmental, and behavioral risk factors; case management utilizing the family support plan; home visiting to support the delivery of and participation in prenatal and infant primary care services; childbirth and parenting education, including encouragement of breastfeeding; counseling; and social services, as appropriate. Family outreach workers may include social work professionals or nurses with public health education and counseling experience. Paraprofessionals may include resource mothers and fathers, trained health aides, and parent educators. The care coordination program shall be developed in a coordinated, nonduplicative manner with the Developmental Evaluation and Intervention Program of Children’s Medical Services, using the local assessment findings and plans of the prenatal and infant care coalitions and the programs and services established in chapter 411, Pub. L. No. 99-457, and this chapter. 1. Families determined to be at potential risk based on the thresholds established in the department’s screening instrument must be notified by the department of the determination and recommendations for followup services. All Medicaid-eligible families shall receive Early Periodic Screening, Diagnosis and Treatment (EPSDT) Services of the Florida Medicaid Program to help ensure continuity of care. All other families identified at potential risk shall be directed to seek additional health care followup visits as provided under s. 627.6579. A family identified as a family at potential risk is eligible for enhanced services under the care coordination process within the resources allocated, if it is not already receiving services from the Developmental Evaluation and Intervention Program. The department shall adopt rules regulating the assignment of family outreach workers and paraprofessionals based on the thresholds established in the department’s risk assessment tool.
2. As part of the care coordination process, the department must ensure that subsequent screenings are conducted for those families identified as families at potential risk. Procedures for subsequent screenings of all infants and toddlers must be consistent with the established periodicity schedule and the level of risk. Screening programs must be conducted in accessible locations, such as child care centers, local schools, teenage pregnancy programs, community centers, and county health departments. Care coordination must also include initiatives to provide immunizations in accessible locations. Such initiatives must seek ways to ensure that children not currently being served by immunization efforts are reached.
3. The provision of services under this section must be consistent with the provisions and plans established under chapter 411, Pub. L. No. 99-457, and this chapter.
(f) Receiving the federal maternal and child health and preventive health services block grant funds.
(g) Receiving the federal funds for the “Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children,” or WIC, authorized by the Child Nutrition Act of 1966, as amended, and for administering the statewide WIC program.
(h) Designating facilities that provide maternity services or newborn infant care as “baby-friendly” when the facility has established a breastfeeding policy under s. 383.016.
(i) Receiving federal funds for children eligible for assistance through the portion of the federal Child and Adult Care Food Program for children, which is referred to as the Child Care Food Program, and for establishing and administering this program. The purpose of the Child Care Food Program is to provide nutritious meals and snacks for children in nonresidential day care. To ensure the quality and integrity of the program, the department shall develop standards and procedures that govern sponsoring organizations, day care homes, child care centers, and centers that operate outside school hours. Standards and procedures must address the following: participation criteria for sponsoring organizations, which may include administrative budgets, staffing requirements, requirements for experience in operating similar programs, operating hours and availability, bonding requirements, geographic coverage, and a required minimum number of homes or centers; procedures for investigating complaints and allegations of noncompliance; application and renewal requirements; audit requirements; meal pattern requirements; requirements for managing funds; participant eligibility for free and reduced-price meals; food storage and preparation; food service companies; reimbursements; use of commodities; administrative reviews and monitoring; training requirements; recordkeeping requirements; and criteria pertaining to imposing sanctions and penalties, including the denial, termination, and appeal of program eligibility.
(2) The Department of Health shall follow federal requirements and may adopt any rules necessary for the implementation of the maternal and child health care program, the WIC program, and the Child Care Food Program.
(a) The department may adopt rules that are necessary to administer the maternal and child health care program. The rules may include, but need not be limited to, requirements for client eligibility, program standards, service delivery, system responsibilities of county health departments and system assurance for healthy start coalitions, care coordination, enhanced services, quality assurance, and provider selection. The rules may also include provisions for the identification, screening, and intervention efforts by health care providers prior to and following the birth of a child and responsibilities for the interprogram coordination of prenatal and infant care coalitions.
(b) The department may adopt rules that are necessary to administer the statewide WIC program. The rules may include, but need not be limited to, criteria for grocers’ participation, client eligibility, contracts with local agencies for service delivery, and food purchases and penalties for program abuse.
(c) With respect to the Child Care Food Program, the department shall adopt rules that interpret and implement relevant federal regulations, including 7 C.F.R. part 226. The rules may address at least those program requirements and procedures identified in paragraph (1)(i).
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Free Download Purble Place for Windows XP and Play Purble Place
What is Purble Place
Purble Place is a bundle of three mini educational and fun games included with every Windows Vista edition and Windows 7 edition.
These three games included in Purble Place are Comfy Cakes, Purble Pairs, and Purble Shop.
These sub-games taking place in Purble Place will help children to improve their mind and remembering, learn colors, shapes, and patterns and solve simple problems in logical ways and methods like eliminations while they are entertaining and having fun with lovely Purble Place game characters.
Parents can encourage their children to play Purble Place in order to train children with skills in memory, model recognition and matching, logical thinking for a solution to problems.
For Windows 7 and Windows Vista owners the Vista Games, or Win7 games as well as Purble Place are ready to play on the other hand if you are working with Windows XP, you have to download Purble Place.
Actually Purble Place is as the name implies the place where the lovely Purbles live and play games :) I liked the term Purble. Purbles are sweet little game characters especially created for pre-school children. The Purble Place looks like a small green town.
Purble Place Vista Game on Windows 7
First of all, you can reach to Windows 7 Games by following the menu option selecting on the Start Menu of Windows 7: All Programs - Games.
Windows Vista user will also follow the same menu Start > All Programs > Games menu selections for Windows Vista games list which contains Purble Place.
If Windows Games are not installed and are not present on your Vista computer or on your Windows 7 PC, you can install all Windows games available with every Vista edition or Windows 7 edition by turning on the Games Windows feature from the Programs and Features management control menu.
Just go to Start, then Control Panel, and then open the Programs and Features screen on the left.
Drill down the list for the Games option. Click on the (+) sign to turn windows features on or off. You can install all the games default distributed and available with every Windows 7 edition by selecting all games.
Or you can only select the check mark beside the Purble Place to install or activate only this game on your Win7 computer Purble Place to install or activate only this game on your Windows 7 computer.
It is notable that Purble Place is designed and created for starting with Microsoft Windows Vista editions and later Windows 7 editions.
I'm sure that this lovely game will be one of the default Windows 8 games in the next generation operating system from Microsoft.
Please keep in mind that the above activation or installation method is valid only for Windows Vista or for Win7 and possible in Windows 8, but not for Windows XP.
But since the game Purble Place is very loved by children and desired to be available and downloadable for the Windows XP computers, programmers have developed the emulations of the new Vista games and the Vista systems to work on Windows XP.
Purble Place Download Links for Windows XP
Hello, here is a new Purble Place download link for Windows XP computers :
Vista Games for WinXP Part 1 (65.9 MB)
Vista Games for WinXP Part 2 (64.2 MB)
As an alternative download link for Vista games on WinXP, you can try the following link: VistaGames-LG.zip (128 MB)
Please note that the following game download links are not working any more. Use the above download link for the recent updated versions.
There are two download links where you can free download Purble Place and play Purble Place as well as the other new Vista games.
For the Purble Place free download link go to the following online resources and file share and download sites:
I have gathered these installation files and the Vista.Emulation.DLL file from the following blog owners.
It is interesting that both are sharing the same post :) and the download links for new games. Thanks both of them since Purble Place game is a new nice and lovely game which children are getting crazy to play.
Jonathan Wilson's Blog
Mr. Anderson's Blog
How to install, configure and run Purble Place and Vista Games on Windows XP
So, first of all you should download the emulated game installation packs from the shared download links.
Unzipping or unpacking the files using a WinZip or WinRAR program. After you have unzipped the files, run the Purble Place.exe file.
This will make an installation for Purble Place game at folder "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Purble Place" on your WinXP computer.
This will create Vista Games program menu on the Start menu. But before running the Purble Place on Windows XP computer there is still one more task to be completed.
This task or the last step before playing the Purble Place is copying the emulator dll named Vista.Emulation.dll into the system32 system folder which resides at C:\WINDOWS\system32 or C:\WINNT\system32
Now you are ready to play Purple Place or the other Windows 7 or Vista Games, Minesweeper, FreeCell, Hearts, Inkball, Shanghi, Solitaire, and the Spider Solitaire on your WinXP computer and have fun these new games.
How to Play Purble Place
When you start and run the Purble Place, a startup splash screen will welcome children players. The three games can be reached from this splash screen.
You can start the Purble Pairs by clicking on the school bus which will be activated when you move your mouse over.
Comfy Cakes game for children which is the most played game among all three can be started by clicking on the bakery in the middle of the screen.
As similar to other two child games, Purble Shop Vista game can be played by clicking on the store on the right of the splash screen of the Purble Place.
You can play any of these three games from this visual menu screen or use the menu on the top of the game screen.
Although we generally think that these games or the Purble Place is fun and educational for children, you can alter and increase the difficultly levels from beginner to difficult levels and make any of these Purble Place games challenging for parents also.
Especially, the Purble Shop with increased difficulty levels requires a high logic processing for solving the Purble Shop puzzles.
One of the Purble Place games first included in Windows Vista and later in Windows 7 is the Purble Pairs.
Purble Pairs is actually another software version of the classic memory game where players are trying to find matching pairs.
You just select a tile and click another to find the missing matching tile. If you make a pair, they are removed from the screen.
The aim of the Purble Pairs is to remove all the tiles from the screen by pairing all the tiles or the cards.
This is a very basic game with its concept and applications. But I found it very useful for a child's educational improvements.
Because you have to build a strategy to remember the cards you have opened earlier, and at least try not to re-open a card before its pair is opened on the board.
I know it is easy for you but believe me not for a 5 years old child.
Comfy Cakes cooking game is another children game included in Purble Place Windows 7 game pack.
I can easily say that Comfy Cakes is the favorite game for elementary-school aged children among all three Purble games.
Your child plays the role of a bakery Purble character whose purpose in the game is to complete the given orders correctly on a cake production line.
The orders for cakes are displayed on the screen for the player.
The bakery children are supposed to select the matching cake pan, batter and cake icing, etc. to make exactly the ordered cake to get points.
If you fail, an angry Chief Purble bakery will show up on the screen.
I believe that Purble Place Comfy Cakes bakery game is one of the favorite cooking games for girls.
Purble Shop is my favorite game among the Purble Place games. Although the Purble Shop just like the other Purble Place games looks like a child game you can turn it to a challenging mind game for yourself also.
Just like the other Purble Place games you can configure the difficulty level for the Purble Shop also. Actually the concept of the game Purble Shop is not new.
I remember I played it when I was a child. It was called Mastermind game. Then it was as finding the 5 stick with right colors and the right available places.
When the Mastermind concept is applied to Purble Shop for children to play, the purpose seems to guess the right colors of features (hair, nose, mouth, accessories, etc.) of a lovely Purble character.
And when you are finished the Purble game character that is hiding behind a curtain will surprise you.
When you make guesses about the characteristics of the Purble behind the curtain, you get clues about your guesses. For example, you find 2 of the features right with their colors right also. And one more cue, you find only 1 color but on a wrong feature. You have to eliminate among colors and features of the Purble and try to find out the correct ones.
So you try to find all the features with right colors to finish the round and figure out how the hidden Purble behind the curtain looks like using the clues gathering after each guess you do.
Last Note for Windows 7 Multi-Touch Screen users: If you are planning to buy a multi-touch PC (all-in-one PC) or to buy a touchscreen monitor for your Windows 7 system, then I believe kids will love playing Purble Place using their fingertips and touch gestures instead of using mouse controls.
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Literary Night Grows with Pleasantdale Community
School embraces reading culture
What do a rocket ship spacewalk, a book fairy and the gift of time all have in common? The answer is they are all part of the literary tapestry woven together by teachers, parents and volunteers to engage and inspire Pleasantdale Elementary School's students to read.
Last night more than 40 families gathered at the school for Literacy Night. With the school’s book fair as the backdrop, the evening was designed for students to demonstrate their literary ownership.
For the first portion of the evening, students were in classrooms grouped together by grade level for a story and craft. Incorporating Scholastic’s book fair theme of "Reading is Out of this World" preschoolers and kindergartners gathered together in one room for a reading of Claire Freedmans’ "Aliens Love Underpants" and James Christopher Carroll’s "The Boy and the Moon."
The school’s youngest readers were then asked to join their teachers on a spacewalk. After they huddled together on a mat, their teacher asked, "Do you like to use your imagination when you are going to sleep?" Then the mostly four and five year olds combined the stories with their imagination to work on space themed crafts.
Transitioning to the next portion of the evening, vice principal Nick Galante, dressed as a book fairy, along with student alien and fairy helpers, escorted students from the classrooms to the gymnasium where the book fair was open for business.
Inside, parents and children shopped together for books as well as participated in raffles which also benefited classrooms and teachers.
Principal Joanne Pollara said the night was a "group effort" and she was very happy with the turn out. "You can feel the energy," she said as students zoomed around their peers showing off selections they were eager to purchase.
The night itself is a way for the school to highlight how reading and literacy is part of its everyday culture.
PTA President Michelle Cadeau is part of the team running the school’s week long book fair. To kick off the event, Cadeau asked students and teachers to start off the first day of the book fair with five minutes of reading. She described the scene as "a sea of readers" and said she had "never seen everyone so quiet. It was amazing to see."
Barbara Krawiec, the school’s librarian, along with Stephanie Ross, the school’s reading specialist, are members of Pleasantdale’s Literacy committee. Krawiec described the school’s view on literacy as "authentic" and "a way of life." Fostering an environment where students have "a positive connection" to the written word is what Krawiec said is the drive behind her view on promoting literacy.
Ross agreed and said the night was about "empowering the students with a sense of responsibility as well as building a community. They see their teachers here. They see their parents here. They learn reading is pleasurable."
What Krawiec and Ross really want parents and children to see is that reading becomes associated with love.
"The gift of time spent reading together transfers that feeling of love and feeling safe to a love of learning to read. Parents are critical part of the process," said Ross
As evidenced by the exponential growth of literary night at the school — the first one last fall was attended by 12 families and more than 40 attended last night — promoting literacy and community is working at Pleasantdale.
One family even took two buses so they could attend the event. The school’s ESL teacher drove them home. "That was huge," said Ross.
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A galero (pl. galeri; L. galerum, pl. galera) in the Roman Catholic Church is a large, broad-brimmed tasseled hat worn by clergy. Over the centuries the galero was eventually limited in use to individual cardinals as a crown symbolizing the title of Prince of the Church. A cardinal is a senior ecclesiastical official usually a bishop, of the Catholic Church. A crown is the traditional Symbolic form of Headgear worn by a Monarch or by a Deity, for whom the crown traditionally represents power The red galero was first granted to cardinals by Pope Innocent IV in 1245 at the First Council of Lyon. Pope Innocent IV, born Sinibaldo Fieschi was Pope from June 28, 1243 to December 7, 1254. The First Council of Lyon ( Lyons I) was the Thirteenth Ecumenical Council, as numbered by the Roman Catholic Church, taking place in 1245. Tradition in the Archdiocese of Lyon is that the red color was inspired by the red hats of the canons of Lyon. A canon (from the Latin canonicus, itself derived from the Greek κανωνικος 'relating to a rule' is a priest who is a member of certain bodies of the According to Noonan, Pope Innocent wanted his favorites to be distinct and recognizable in the lengthy processions at the council.
When on 28 April 1285 at Girona, during the Aragonese Crusade, Jean Cholet crowned Charles of Valois with his galero and pronounced him King of Aragon, he earned Charles the nickname roi du chapeau ("king of the hat"). Events 1192 - Assassination of Conrad of Montferrat (Conrad I King of Jerusalem, in Tyre, two days after his title Girona ( Catalan: Girona ʒiˈɾonə Spanish: Gerona xeˈɾona is a city located in the northeast of Catalonia, Spain The Aragonese Crusade or Crusade of Aragón, a part of the larger War of the Sicilian Vespers, was declared by Pope Martin IV against the King of Aragón Jean Cholet (died 1292 was a French cardinal who was commissioned by Pope Martin IV to preach the Aragonese Crusade in 1283 Charles of Valois ( March 12, 1270 &ndash December 16, 1325) was the fourth son of Philip III of France and Isabella of Aragon This is a list of the rulers of Aragon, now a region of north-eastern Spain.
When creating a cardinal, the Pope used to crown the candidate with a scarlet galero in consistory, the practice giving rise to the phrase "receiving the red hat. History See also History of the Papacy Catholics recognize the Pope as a successor to Saint Peter, who Jesus named as the "shepherd" and Antiquity Originally the Latin word consistorium meant simply 'sitting together' just as the Greek syn(hedrion (of which the Biblical Sanhedrin " In 1969, a papal decree following the Second Vatican Council ended the use of the galero as an act of humbling the Church hierarchy. The Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, or Vatican II, was the twentieth century Ecumenical Council of the Roman Catholic Church. It was deemed that by removing such elaborate regalia, the people could better identify with their pastoral leaders. Today, only the scarlet zucchetto and biretta are placed over the heads of cardinals in consistory. The zucchetto (plural zucchetti, Italian for "small Gourd " also called pileolus, is a small skullcap worn by clerics The biretta is a square Cap with three or four ridges or peaks sometimes surmounted by a tuft traditionally worn by Roman Catholic clergy and some Anglican A few cardinals from eastern rites wear distinctive oriental headgear. However, some cardinals continue to obtain galeri privately so that the old ceremony of its suspension over their tombs may be observed.
When a cardinal dies, it is traditional that it be suspended over his tomb, where it remains until it is reduced to dust, symbolizing how all earthly glory is passing. In the United States, where only a few cathedrals have crypts, the galeri of past archbishops who were cardinals are suspended from the ceiling. Hence, St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York (where past archbishops are entombed beneath the sanctuary), Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago, Illinois, the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis in St. Louis, Missouri, the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles, California, and the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle in Washington, D.C. are five Cathedral churches in the United States that hang the galeri of past Cardinals from their ceilings. St Patrick's Cathedral is a decorated Neo-Gothic -style Catholic Cathedral in North America Holy Name Cathedral, formally the Cathedral of the Holy Name, is the seat of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago, one of the largest Roman Catholic Chicago (ʃɪˈkɑːgoʊ is the largest City by population in the state of Illinois and the American Midwest of the United States. Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis, commonly known as the Saint Louis Cathedral, or colloquially as the New Cathedral, in Saint Louis Missouri, was constructed The Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, also called the Los Angeles Cathedral, is a Cathedral church of the United States in Los Angeles Los Angeles (lɑˈsændʒələs los ˈaŋxeles in Spanish) is the largest City in the state of California and the American West The Cathedral of St Matthew the Apostle in Washington DC, most commonly known as St Washington DC ( formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, the District, or simply D The United States of America —commonly referred to as the
The galero (or "ecclesiastical hat") is still in use today in ecclesiastical heraldry as part of the achievement of the coat of arms of an armigerous Roman Catholic cleric. Ecclesiastical heraldry is the tradition of Heraldry developed by Christian Clergy. A coat of arms or armorial bearings (often just arms for short in European tradition is a design belonging to a particular person (or group of people The galero replaces the helmet and crest, because those were considered too warlike for the clerical state. A helmet is a form of Protective gear worn on the head to protect it from injuries a variation of the hat The word crest is often mistakenly applied to a Coat of arms. The color of the galero and number of tassels indicate the cleric's place in the hierarchy. Depiction in arms can vary greatly depending on the artist's style, but even when it looks like a cappello romano with tassels, in heraldry it is still considered a galero. A cappello romano (literally Roman hat) or saturno (because it is reminiscent of the ringed planet Saturn) is a hat with a wide circular brim and a rounded
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How the Challenger Disaster Changed My Life
The space shuttle Challenger exploded shortly after liftoff on January 28, 1986—twenty-five years ago today. The disaster took the lives of six astronauts and one schoolteacher, and shook NASA to its core. Like other televised national traumas, it burned itself into the memories of millions of people. I was just a spectator to the catastrophe, watching speechless and horrified along with everyone else as the video clips were played and replayed on television. But that day altered the direction of my life in unusually concrete ways, and I can’t let the anniversary pass without a bit of reflection.
In January 1986 I was a 19-year-old freshman at Harvard College. On the morning of January 28, I was working on an assignment in the computer room at the university’s science center, and a student who had just taken a seat at the terminal next to mine mentioned the accident. I didn’t believe him at first. But he seemed serious enough about the story to make me nervous.
This was years before the advent of the Web—I couldn’t simply log on and check the news. So I got up and literally ran back to my dorm room, where my roommates and I had a small color TV. I remember thinking, as I charged through Harvard Yard, that the story couldn’t possibly be true. Hadn’t the shuttle traveled safely into space dozens of times before? Didn’t the engineers at NASA know how to prevent such a disaster? But sure enough, when I turned on the TV, there were the images of the spaceship disintegrating against an azure sky, sending tendrils of smoke and flames in all directions.
Like many people that day, I spent hours watching the coverage unfold, culminating with President Reagan’s eloquent televised address. The horror of the event was immediate for me. It was awful to imagine what the seven crew members must have experienced as the shuttle broke up, and to realize what a huge setback the accident represented for the U.S. space program, which I had followed with zeal since I was old enough to watch TV.
But the disaster’s real influence settled in only over the next several months, as investigators such as physicist Richard Feynman worked out the chain of events that had led to the explosion. As it turned out, a rubber O-ring in one of the solid rocket boosters, stiffened by that morning’s cold weather, had failed, allowing flames to burst through, in turn causing the shuttle’s main fuel tank to explode. It was such a predictable and seemingly preventable problem that for the first time in my life I began to question NASA’s competence, and to understand just how important the human element in any large technological system can be. On a broader level, I began to look at all technological and scientific endeavors with a much more skeptical—-one might even say disillusioned—eye.
I had a work-study job that year doing data analysis for an X-ray astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Within weeks after the accident it was clear that the massive satellite that this astronomer had been helping to design, which had been scheduled to go into space aboard a shuttle, would be delayed for years while NASA retrenched. This was a big professional blow for him, and for many other scientists whose instruments could only get into space aboard the shuttle; it affected the whole mood at the center over the following months. This, in turn, contributed to my own growing disenchantment with the job and with my long-cherished idea of becoming an astronomer or astrophysicist. (I hasten to add that I wasn’t very good at math, which would have derailed my plans eventually anyway.)
By the end of my sophomore year, less than a year and a half after the Challenger disaster, I had decided to switch majors from physics and astronomy to the history of science. In this discipline, my professors encouraged me to think skeptically about ideas that I had previously accepted uncritically, such as “American know-how” and the inevitability of technological progress. Eventually I went on to graduate studies in the history of technology at MIT and wrote a doctoral thesis about the social and political effects of technological disasters. That, in turn, helped launch me on a career in science and technology journalism. (Though there were also plenty of other influences—such as my unexpected detour into campus journalism at the Harvard Independent, and a chance encounter with Carl Sagan. But that’s another story.)
For me, the Challenger disaster hit at the moment when I was perhaps most impressionable—when I was in the middle of defining my world-view and choosing my future. It taught me that the world was full of risks I hadn’t contemplated; that America was not invulnerable; that extravagant endeavours can go extravagantly wrong. These are all lessons that people slightly older than myself probably learned from Vietnam, Apollo 13, and Watergate—and we certainly relearned them as a nation when the Twin Towers fell on 9/11 and the shuttle Columbia broke up on re-entry in 2003. But for me, Challenger was the veil-lifting moment. And it’s all still symbolized in my mind by the iconic TV images of the exploding spacecraft, its twin boosters veering across the sky like ghostly fireworks.
This article is adapted from an essay I originally wrote for the book A Creative Guide to Exploring Your Life by Graham Gordon Ramsay and Holly Barlow Sweet (Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2009). Republished by permission.
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Well it’s been awhile since my last post but the Drama Department has been busy, busy, busy with non stop activities since christmas.
Last week seen all students at Knox Academy attend an assembly relating to the Holocaust. We had two students (from thr English Department) who went to Auschwitz last year and we wanted them to be able to reflect their time there and enable students to be aware of what they seen. The Drama Department, along with English, created a 30 mins assembly that really made the students think. It included an edited video of NBC’s ‘The Diary of Anne Frank’ put to Simple Plan’s song ‘Untitled’, personal accounts from the two Knox students, reflections from The Holocaust and the Rwandan Genocide, 3 poems, a power point presentation reflecting life in Europe before, during and after the Holocaust and the Knox String group playing the theme to Schnidler’s List.
The impact on the students was amazing, they sat completely silent taking everything in, respecting each piece. The power point was played during the String Group and when they had finished the images kept going for another 2 minutes and the wall of silence that hit you from the young people was so powerful. What was so rewarding was that although I ‘directed’ the order of the assembly this was very much student led with the ownership on them.
We are now about to have a de-brief session and start planning our event for next year. I would just like to thank all the staff and students involved for making this a rememorable experience.
American School link
Well we are now under way in our collaboration production with our school in the States. Students from the youth theatre have started to look at script writing skills and will begin their research into terrorism in the UK and after Easter will begin to create and write their pieces.
Across the pond they have began to look at their structure and the overall piece is to be staged in both schools in May – lasting roughly an hour.
All go! Keep looking for more details later
S1 students have now completed their dance/drama unit, creating some lovely work in connection with the Holocaust. Each student in S1 watched the acclaimed film ‘The Diary of Anne Frank – the whole story’ to gain insight into life during WW2 for Jews. They have now started a new unit of work on Bullying which has seen us actively discussing all sorts of bullying. They have now started to examine the story of ‘Wicked – the untold story of the witches of Oz’. By using a well known story (The Wizard of Oz) students will look at how there are two sides to every story and because of being different the ‘wicked’ witch of the west was bullied. We will then use the skills learnt in the unit to devise a docu-drama about bullying.
Over in S2 we have a new rota of students so we have just started Stage Combat. Using feedback from the students who completed the course before Christmas I have now changed the course slightly and these students will sit an acting assessment based on Stage Combat using skills learnt in improvisation, self-control, focus, stage combat, characterisation and status.
New York! New York!
The Drama department are taking 42 senior students to New York next February break (2009). They will spent a week in capital city of show business taking part in a Drama workshop with a Broadway performer, visiting some of the most iconic sites in the City, seeing two Broadway Shows and shopping! We are all excited and will be posting more about this later.
S6 Acting Company
As you may remember from a previous post; Knox Academy has an S6 Acting Company which produced ‘In Holland Stands a House’. Since then they have been focusing on skills and are now working towards a showcase evening which will see each student take part in a duologue; each scene will be linked by a cast member reflecting on her friends in the street where she once lived. Can anyone guess who? Yup! Mary Alice Young from Desperate Housewives will be telling the audience about what she can see. Audience members will see scenes from ‘Angels in America’, ‘Perfect Days’, ‘Bondagers’, ‘Medea’, ‘Sleeping Around’, ‘The Architect’ and all are linked by monologues from Desperate Housewives… as well as a trio from the musical ‘The Witches of Eastwick’. Should be an excellent evening of entertainment!
The Women of Lockerbie
On a personal level I am now directing Deborah Brevoort’s award winning Drama ‘The Women of Lockerbie’ with my own theatre company random ACT.
A mother from New Jersey roams the hills of Lockerbie Scotland, looking for her son’s remains which were lost in the crash of Pan Am 103. She meets the Women of Lockerbie, who are fighting the US Government to obtain the clothing of the victims found in the plane’s wreckage. The women, determined to convert an act of hatred into an act of love, want to wash the clothes of the dead and return them to the victim’s families. The Women of Lockerbie is loosely inspired by a true story, although the characters and situations in the play are purely fictional. Written in the structure of a Greek tragedy, it is a poetic drama about the triumph of love over hate.
We went to Lockerbie last sunday and visited the crash sites and was overwhelmed by what we saw and the kindness of the people who showed us round and spoke first hand of what happened that night. It was important for us as a theatre company to make sure that we do this play complete justice.
This is to be staged in April at the Scottish Storytelling centre. For more details click here
So as you can see it is all go… and i’ve not mentioned the admin, the report writing, the course options etc! I love teaching!
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we've talked about Ford's
EcoBoost turbocharged engines in the past, it pertained to
four-cylinder and six cylinder engines. Ford claims that its
four-cylinder EcoBoost engines give the power and performance of a
six-cylinder, while the six-cylinder EcoBoost engines give the power
and performance of an eight-cylinder engine.
we're assuming that Ford's new three-cylinder EcoBoost will give the
performance of a small four-cylinder engine. The new 1.0-liter
three-cylinder engine is expected to have CO2 emissions of less than
100g/km -- it is also said to generate around 120 hp.
to Ford, the EcoBoost three-cylinder engine would be a prime
candidate to replace the naturally aspirated 1.6-liter four-cylinder
engine in the upcoming
Fiesta. The 1.6-liter engine in the Fiesta generates 119 hp and
delivers fuel economy ratings of 30 mpg city and 40 mpg highway.
numbers generated by the 1.6-liter engine are already quite good
compared to its competition, but with the added cost and complexity
of using turbocharging technology, we'd hope that the EcoBoost
three-cylinder would be able to net at least another 5+ mpg in both
the city and on highway.
engineers have experimented with the idea of a three-cylinder engine
for the past twenty years, but felt the power that could be achieved
from such an engine configuration couldn't be made substantial enough
to offer a practical solution for smaller vehicles,” said Ford in a
press release. “That's
all changed with the advanced yet affordable Ford EcoBoost
the EcoBoost three-cylinder engine is the main news here, the engine
is featured with a futuristic design study from Ford: the Start
Concept. The Start Concept is merely a design exercise and has no
chance of seeing future production.
a team, we engaged in a philosophical discussion that yielded a
common vision. To create a beautiful object that spoke to us
emotionally as well as intellectually", explains Freeman Thomas,
design director. "The exterior design is simple with purposeful
proportions and refined surface language normally found on vehicles
in premium segments."
exterior of the Start Concept is definitely interesting, but
hopefully this design language won't filter down to future Ford
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Full immersion is required in order to build an accurate and comprehensive sense of cultural awareness. Not only has our group been welcomed and integraded within the community and lives of the people here in Northern Ireland, we have also become active members of the PIPS programmes organization. In just one week the group has met the founder, staff, and volunteer populations of PIPS, as well as attended their suicide prevention training program, and gained first-hand experience interacting with the client base (individuals and families touched by suicide). Through this experience, PIPS has asked the group to provide feedback on what we see within the organization. This is where full immersion is reached.
Today we conducted a focus group to begin exploring the question presented to us from PIPS: HOW DO WE BECOME SAFER? We utilized the concept of “mind mapping” to collectively brainstorm what was meant by the term SAFE. This process allowed us to identify and exhaust anything and everything that impacts the degree of safety experienced by PIPS. In addition, this exercise helps to pull a vast array of ideas from multiple people in order to gain a truly organic representation of the issue at hand: SAFETY.
The group then proceeded to identify who the “we” represented in the organization’s question, “how to we become safer?” Four main stakeholder groups were established: PIPS staff and volunteers, clients (individuals and families seeking help), the community at large, and outside investors (government and funding organizations). Our group was split up into smaller groups so that 2-3 people represented each stakeholder. The following questions were then posed and explored from each stakeholders perspective: 1) what hazards are you currently facing?, 2) how are these hazards harming you?, 3) what is currently being done to alleviate the harm caused?, and 4) what more can be done to reduce/minimize the harm associated with these hazards?
This exercise allowed the group to analyze how various populations are affected by the culture of Northern Ireland as well as the organizational culture of PIPS programmes. The opportunity to go, “back to basics” in terms of aligning the organization’s mission, vision, and goals with how they are actually operating was also explored in this exercise.
In sum, the fact that PIPS programmes has extended their arms to not only say welcome, but also to ask for our help is incredibly powerful. Full immersion requires a great deal of trust. The fact that we have begun to establish this trust with PIPS in just a week’s time speaks loudly. Loudly of the culture here in Northern Ireland, the culture within the PIPS organization, and dedication of us to building an all-encompassing foundation for cultural awareness.
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We see youre using a mobile device.
Would you like to try our mobile site: m.gsa.gov?
Historic Preservation - Technical Procedures
Preservation Tech Notes: Windows 5 Interior Metal Storm Windows
Preservation Tech Notes, National Park Service, Pad
Doors And Windows
Preservation Tech Notes: Windows 5 Interior Metal Storm Windows
PRESERVATION TECH NOTES: WINDOWS Number 5
INTERIOR METAL STORM WINDOWS
Laura A. Muckenfuss
Center for Architectural Conservation
Georgia Institute of Technology
Charles E. Fisher
Preservation Assistance Division
National Park Service
This standard includes the bulk of information contained in the
original Preservation Tech Notes developed by the National Park
Service and the Center for Architectural Conservation at Georgia
Tech. The Preservation Tech Notes are case studies of exemplary
projects designed to provide specific examples of sound
preservation techniques. To obtain a complete copy of The Window
publications, including figures and illustrations, please contact:
Historic Preservation Education Foundation
P.O. Box 77160
Washington, DC 20013-7160
The Window Handbook, jointly prepared by the National Park Service,
Preservation Assistance Division and the Center for Architectural
Conservation at Georgia Tech, also contains all of the Tech Notes
on Windows and is available for purchase from the Historic
Preservation Education Foundation for $32.00. The Window Workbook
is available for $49.00. The two publications together can be
purchased for $72.00.
OLD WATKINS NATIONAL BANK
The Old Watkins National Bank (now known as the Watkins Community
Museum) is an impressive example of Richardsonian Romanesque
architecture in Kansas. Built in 1887, the building is
individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places and
is owned by the Douglas County Historical Society.
The windows are a prominent feature of the building. The 102
windows, a majority of which are 5' wide by 10' high, are in twelve
sizes and five styles. Many have arched tops. The monumental
double-hung windows help to convey the grand qualities of the
original design both on the exterior and in the spacious interior.
Made of curly and burly pine, the windows are exquisitely trimmed
on the interior, and the distinctive natural wood grain is
especially pronounced in the jamb panels and interior shutters.
Unlike the more usual shutters which fold against the jamb, these
shutters slide vertically within multiple jamb tracks.
As with most building owners, the historical society was concerned
about energy usage and thermal comfort as well as the need to have
closely regulated environmental control to protect museum
collections. As part of an overall rehabilitation program, an
energy audit was initially performed by the local utility company.
Although the historic wood windows were well-constructed and not
seriously deteriorated, they were identified as a major contributor
to energy usage because of their number and large sizes. Single
glazing, lack of weather stripping and cracks around the window
frames all added to winter heat loss, summer heat gain and
appreciable air infiltration. As a result of the energy audit, the
project architect, James Williams AIA, investigated several storm
Use of exterior storm windows was initially explored both for
energy conservation purposes and as a way to extend the useful life
of the original windows. Unfortunately, the prices quoted for
exterior storm windows by local contractors were around $65,000,
nearly double the budgeted amount. In addition to the high cost of
exterior storm windows, one further problem with an exterior storm
application arose when it was discovered that the decorative terra-
cotta capitals adjacent to the upper level window openings returned
against the original frames. As a result, the proposed exterior
storm windows could not be easily installed in these locations
without cutting back or covering portions of the terra cotta.
The numerous problems with exterior storm windows encountered in
this project led to consideration of an interior storm system.
Here too, there were specific requirements:
1. The impressive interior woodwork around the windows could not
2. The new window unit could not alter the appearance of the
windows as viewed from the outside and the basic character of
the window needed to be preserved on the inside as well.
3. The storm window needed to have venting capability in case
condensation occurred between the storm unit and the original
sash to protect against damage to the original sill.
4. The windows needed to be less expensive than the exterior
5. The interior shutter system still used in various rooms for
sun control needed to remain operable.
6. The energy conservation objectives would have to be met.
In searching for an interior storm window that met both the
functional requirements and the concerns about visual qualities,
the architect chose a commercially available metal storm window
system. The storm window was designed to fit within the existing
wooden jamb, thus resulting in minimal damage to historic material.
The interior windows were nearly $20,000 cheaper to install than
the bids received for exterior storm windows. Of particular
significance, the storm sash were not readily visible from the
outside, and on the inside the thin bronze-finished frames blended
in well with the decorative finish and fine detailing of the
Selecting an interior storm window per se had certain inherent
advantages in this case over exterior applications: (1) no
obtrusive structural muntins were necessary because wind pressure
was not a major factor; (2) fabrication of the storm windows on the
first floor was significantly less expensive since the original
windows were squared-off at the head on the interior unlike the
arch shape found on the exterior; and (3) installation costs would
be appreciably lower since problems created by cutting back the
decorative terra cotta capitals on the exterior of the second floor
openings were avoided.
***STORM WINDOW DETAIL***
The thin aluminum storm window frame (7/8" wide, 1-1/2" deep) was
attached to a small new subframe by two pins that allowed the
windows to pivot open for cleaning and venting in case entrapped
condensation was ever a problem.
The subframe consisted of a 1/8" thick metal angle screwed to the
wood jamb, serving as a support and as a stop for the storm sash.
On the large windows, the metal angle was paired to form a
horizontal muntin, in line with the historic meeting rail, to
accommodate an upper and lower storm panel, both of which pivoted.
The frames were mounted in a location that provided a sufficiently
wide dead air space for energy conservation purposes, yet still
allowed the interior shutters to remain operable.
Mounted on pivot pins, the storm window relied on the pile weather
stripping which ran continuously along the edge of the frame to
serve as the seal between the metal subframe and the metal storm.
Neoprene weather stripping was also added to the surface of the
subframe to serve as a compression seal with the storm frame.
Clear silicone caulk between the wood jamb and the subframe
completed the seal.
***ASSEMBLY AND INSTALLATION***
The frames were custom-fitted to each opening and prefabricated by
a local glass dealer. For each of installation, the glazing was
not done at this time. At the site, the sash frames were
positioned in the existing jambs with the aid of a rolling
scaffold. A space of nearly 1-3/4" was provided between the
existing glass, which is in a very thick wood frame, and the back
of the storm glass; this space serves as a dead air pocket for
To mount the frames, holes were drilled and hardware attached for
the lock and pivot mechanisms; the storm frames were then attached
and the loose end of the hold-open arms were screwed to the metal
subframe. Once the glass was installed, the work was essentially
The storm window system chosen for the building fulfilled the
criteria established at the beginning of the project. Interior
storm windows were installed on 92 of the windows in 1981 at a cost
of $45,068 ($12.07 per square foot of opening), and an initial cost
savings of nearly $20,000 was realized over exterior storm
applications. A portion of the cost saving was attributed to the
fact that, as interior storm windows, they were installed by the
contractor during his slow winter months. The payback period for
the storm windows will be accurately determined only by in-place
performance. However, it would appear that the storm windows are
reducing the energy consumption by more than 40% - a figure that
exceeded the theoretical calculations. Long-term maintenance of
the storm windows is expected to be low because of the quality of
construction and because the windows will not be opened on a daily
Other benefits have resulted from this project cannot be directly
measured in dollars. Former hot and cold spots in the building
have been greatly reduced. Patron comfort has been noticeably
improved both thermally and from reduced street noise level.
In summary, the interior storm window solution not only provided
the owner with initial cost savings in installation, but it also
reduced fuel consumption, met all functional requirements, and
carefully addressed historic preservation concerns. The thin frame
storm window, set within the existing jamb and mounted so as to
pivot, was a sensitive solution which is also being used on other
projects involving rehabilitations of historically important
- Elizabeth M. Watkins Community Museum
(formerly the Old Watkins National Bank
1047 Massachusetts Street
PROJECT DATE: Winter 1981
- James Williams, AIA
123 West Eight
- Kennedy Glass, Inc. Contractor
P. O. Box 681
- Steve Jansen
Director, Watkins Community Museum
- Interior Storm Windows - Kawneer Company, Inc.
1105 North Front Street
- Total costs, including installation for the 92 storm windows
was $45,068, equaling $12.07 per square foot. Small storm
windows were up to four times as expensive per square foot as
the largest ones. Units were not installed on 6 attic and 4
END OF SECTION
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C.T. Su, director-general of the Tourism Bureau (a division of the Ministry of Transportation and Communications) was interviewed by TOPICS editor-in-chief Don Shapiro
TOPICS: What are Taiwan's special attractions as a tourist destination?
Su: We have fantastic tourism natural resources -- high mountains with gorges, beautiful streams, and forests. And there's a great variation in vegetation -- tropical, temperate, and even alpine -- and a wide number of animal and plant species. It's said that Taiwan has the second highest density in the world for the number of different species. All of that makes the island a very good place for eco-tourism.
As for the cultural aspects, we of course have the National Palace Museum, with 650,000 items in its collection, and both Chinese and very colorful aboriginal cultures. And lots of festivals -- people can come here to experience our traditional folk festivals or newly developed festivals for tourism purposes [such as the annual Food Festival].
This is not a big island -- and because of that size, it's very convenient to travel around. Most tourists spend four days/three nights or five days/four nights -- though of course you can stay longer to see more. There's a very convenient transportation network, which makes it easy to get around to see the natural beauty and the cultural attractions in a very short period of time. By car you can travel in three hours from the coastline up to mountains with a 3,000-meter elevation.
TOPICS: What are some of the main obstacles in promoting tourism here?
Su: Price is number one. Taiwan is seen as being an expensive place, and it is true that in the urban areas the hotel prices tend to be higher than in Hong Kong or Singapore. Of course, they are cheaper than in Japan. But the labor costs in Taiwan are high and the land cost is high, which gets reflected in the prices, so the price competitiveness is not so good as compared with neighboring countries such as Singapore, Hong Kong, China, or the Southeast Asian countries. That is our main problem in trying to attract foreign visitors, and one of the most challenging issues for us in promoting international tourism.
Another problem is that the service capability is insufficient. On the peak days in the peak seasons, because a very high proportion of the capacity is occupied by our domestic demand, sometimes we face a shortage of capacity available for international tourism. This is also a problem.
There is also an obstacle in that Taiwan is not an English-speaking society, so foreigners may face certain inconveniences in traveling on the island. Therefore, we are trying to improve the "visitor-friendliness" of our tourism environment.
TOPICS: The government has set a very ambitious goal of doubling the number of foreign tourists by 2008. How are you going about trying to reach that objective?
Su: Of course it is essential that we do more promotion, and therefore the government from now on will be giving us more budget for overseas promotion. And secondly, we have to design very price-attractive and product-attractive package tours for foreign visitors. There's been criticism that the travel products being offered are always the same old ones. Actually we can design more new products, but the travel agencies have been reluctant to promote them because they require more effort and more investment. So the Tourism Bureau is trying to work with them to help them promote those new packages.
We usually work with the outbound travel agencies in the overseas markets. If they come up with a new package, we may share the advertising cost with them to reduce their marketing burden. That is one of the strategies we are using now.
More advertising is needed to make people aware that Taiwan is not just an industrial country, but also a tourism destination -- to change Taiwan's image in the world.
TOPICS: Do you have a particular theme that you're planning to emphasize?
Su: Our logo for promoting Taiwan shows an outline of the island and the slogan "TAIWAN -- Touch Your Heart." We use this slogan because many visitors comment that the most unforgettable part of their trip to Taiwan was the hospitality and friendliness of the people. But more than that, we also want to emphasize that our natural beauty can touch your heart, our foods can touch your heart, and of course the art collections in the museum can also touch your heart. But we have to do more promotion and advertising to let people know that there is really something that can touch the tourists' hearts when they travel to Taiwan.
We hope the tourists will come to Taiwan to enjoy our very dramatic landscape with fantastic mountains, the gorges, our seashores, and our countryside, and so on -- and of course we hope people will realize that this is a paradise for gourmets. People can come to Taiwan to enjoy our Chinese and Taiwanese delicacies, as well as foreign foods. People who like good food will certainly find it here in abundance.
TOPICS: Could you provide some examples of the new travel products you mentioned? Su: These are being designed for particular markets. For example, for German people we may design products to enjoy nature -- our oceans, our mountains, our forests. And for Japanese we have different products: golf tours, very traditional tours for the elderly who like to go to Sun Moon Lake, Taroko Gorge, the Palace Museum, and so on. But because Taiwan was occupied by the Japanese for 50 years from 1898 to 1948, that left a lot of Japanese influence here. So we thought why not package this as a tour for Japanese who had some relation with Taiwan before -- those who lived here or their descendants? Some of them were born in Taiwan, but left when they were very young and always had the desire to revisit their place of birth or see the place where their parents worked.
And many Japanese young ladies like to come to Taiwan to experience a different cultural atmosphere. They like the night markets, they like to sample Taiwanese food, they even like to go to the fortunetellers to find out their fortune, and they like to go to Chiufen and Chinkuashih [towns in the hills of Taipei County] to see those very rustic places. Surprisingly they aren't so interested in going to Taroko Gorge to see the grand natural beauty there. They prefer to see those small places, and the normal life activities of the local people.
TOPICS: Is there anything aimed at the American market?
Su: Yes, for the American market we plan to promote our religious life. Some Americans would like to learn more about Buddhism and Taoism, our major religions. And religious development in Taiwan is quite special -- no other place in the world can compare. Some of the Buddhist masters in Taiwan are among the most influential in the world. [Under their leadership Buddhism in Taiwan has developed into an important force in this society, operating schools, universities, hospitals, relief organizations, and other charitable institutions].
And eco-tourism is another area we can develop -- not just for the Americans but for the Japanese. Within eco-tourism, bird-watching is one of the areas we want to focus on. Many birders come to Taiwan, and they've found that this is a paradise for bird-watching because you can see many species without having to travel a long distance or over difficult terrain. Earlier this year some Canadian birders were here and they said that during the four-day/three-night tour the highest record was spotting some 120 different species -- and more importantly they added new species to their record. So bird-watching is definitely one of the attractions we should promote.
TOPICS: Before you mentioned that one of the difficulties you face is that Taiwan isn't an English-speaking country. What are you doing to try to improve the English-language information and signage for foreign tourists?
Su: Actually the government has given an order to all relevant agencies to have signage in English versions ready by the end of this year -- all the road signs and the signage to the tourism spots, etc. It's being done. And also we want to add information centers with English- and Japanese-speaking personnel, and for the brochures and other printed materials we are trying our best to provide English versions.
Some of these centers are already there, but don't yet have the English-speaking information. And we plan to add more centers, especially at all the important transportation facilities, like airports, railway stations, and bus stations. By the end of this year, there will probably be more than ten new centers, and at the same time we want to upgrade the level of service at the existing service centers.
TOPICS: So many different government departments have responsibilities that impact on tourism -- including the highway bureau, forestry bureau, environmental protection agencies, and so on. How is coordination handled among all those departments?
Su: We have a committee in the Executive Yuan under the premier. The chairman is the premier, and the ministers from the various ministries are committee members. This is the coordination body for implementing those plans and projects relating to increasing our tourism numbers. Not all the issues will be discussed by this committee, but those that need coordination among higher-level officers will be discussed there.
It's been very effective -- especially for visa issues. Before we had that committee, we'd talk to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and request visa-free treatment for more countries, but always had difficulties. But now since we're aiming to double our tourism numbers and they know they should do something to help, when the issue is brought up in that committee, we get faster action.
TOPICS: What advice do you have for foreign residents of Taiwan who may be here for a few years for business reasons? How can they get more out of their stay?
Su: I would say that Taiwan is a country with a lot of natural and cultural treasures to be explored. I hope they can take their vacation in Taiwan and go to the countryside or the mountains to explore the beauty of the island. They should also try to join our local festivals to learn our folklore and understand the deeper meaning of the festivals. That'll make their life in Taiwan much more interesting.
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FORT WORTH -- In Fort Worth, a landmark cancer study got underway today.
At Plaza Medical Center, local residents underwent the first series of tests for the American Cancer Society's Cancer Prevention Study.
Researchers will use long-term data to better understand lifestyle, environmental, and genetic factors that cause or prevent cancer.
"We will follow them from the next 20 to 30 years," explained Jackie Bayly-Bryant of the American Cancer Society, "Capturing their lifestyle information, what they are doing, their behaviors, as well as their detailed family history. All of that works in combination to help us better understand cancer."
Men and women between the ages of 30 and 65 who have never been diagnosed with cancer are needed to participate in the study, which will enroll a diverse population of up to half a million people across the United States and Puerto Rico.
Enrollment will also take place at Medical City Dallas Wednesday from 1.p.m. to 6:30 p.m.
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Now coming into full spring green leaf, just in time for the Preakness and other May activities, are some 100 Norway maples which have been planted in the center strip of Northern Parkway from North Charles Street to Liberty Road.
This marks the end of the first phase of Beautiful Baltimore's tree-planting program. The next phase will be to plant similar traffic-hardy trees along the center strip of Northern Parkway from Bellona Avenue east to Walther Boulevard, just a couple of blocks west of Belair Road. (There is no center strip on Northern Parkway from North Charles Street to Bellona Avenue.)
The tree planting is another endeavor of Beautiful Baltimore, a non-profit volunteer organization that, over the last 20 years or so, has planted hundreds of thousands of daffodils in public areas throughout the city.
This year it was almost impossible not to notice the daffodil plantings massed in the center strips and along the sides of most of the arteries leading into the city.
These include the Baltimore-Washington Expressway, Hanover and Potee streets, Pulaski Highway, Loch Raven Boulevard, the crosstown Northern Parkway along its entire length, the Jones Falls Expressway, Mt. Royal Avenue and Martin Luther King Boulevard. Other plantings are in LaFayette and Union squares, in front of the Lyric Theatre, and along University Parkway above 40th street.
All were funded by donations from hundreds of people in the Baltimore area. Many of the trees have been planted as memorials to loved ones and friends, through specific donations to Beautiful Baltimore, Inc., and are so marked with a small plaque.
In addition to these activities, Beautiful Baltimore also conducts a garden contest during the summer in which nominations are made by neighborhood organizations and by individuals. The only requirement, other than that the garden add to the beauty of Baltimore, is that the garden can be readily seen from the street.
They do not necessarily have to be summer gardens. One Roland Park garden, on Edgevale Road, was an absolutely glorious display of mixed varieties of daffodils, covering well over half an acre. By summer they will all be gone, but the garden will be nominated for an award.
Another major project each spring is to take gardening into schools. Each year volunteers fill small plastic bags with sterile planting material and take them to schools where children are taught how to plant seeds. The project is so timed that the young plants, both vegetables and flowers, are ready to take home at the end of the school year.
All the activities of Beautiful Baltimore rely on donations from its many friends in the city and surrounding area, and on the volunteers who oversee and participate in the various programs. Anyone who wishes to donate money for trees or daffodils, or time to serve on the Beautiful Baltimore committee, may contact Mrs. John B. Thomas, 301 Oakdale Road, Baltimore, Md. 21210.
Geoffrey W. Fielding is a Baltimore writer.
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A drawing from Max Fleischer’s patent application for the rotoscope taken from The Fleischer Story by Leslie Cabarga.
In the 1930’s, the Fleischers used the rotoscope in several Betty Boop cartoons featuring the performer Cab Calloway. Calloway and his band provided the soundtrack for the cartoons, appearing in brief live action clips during the titles. Within the cartoons (Minnie the Moocher, Snow White, The Old Man of the Mountain), Calloway was photographed dancing and the animators rotoscoped the footage turning Calloway into a walrus, an old man, and other characters (Cabarga 63-69).
Later in the 1930’s, Disney used rotoscoping during the production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The studio was not experienced drawing and moving realistic human characters, so Marge Belcher (later known as Marge Champion after her marriage to Gower Champion) was photographed as Snow White under the direction of Ham Luske, the animator assigned to supervise the character (Barrier, Hollywood 194-95).
“It was only by using live action as a guide, or so Disney must have thought, that he could give to Snow White the consistency – what Marc Davis called the “unity of acting” – that was possible in a short cartoon when a single animator handled a character all the way through. Ham Luske, by directing the live action for Snow White, thus assumed control over the character greater than any he might have enjoyed if he had been only the lead animator” (Barrier, Hollywood 195).Another reason for the use of live footage was as a communication tool in production. David Hand, the supervising director of Snow White, said, “The value of live action is the working agreement between the animator and the director” (Barrier, Hollywood 215)
How much the animators used this footage seems to have varied. Grim Natwick, one of the animators assigned to the Snow White character, would often discard some number of rotoscoped drawings in a sequence before starting his own work. He remarked, “you always had to carry [the rotoscoping] further, and you always had to be very careful that you didn’t depend on the rotoscope” (Barrier, Hollywood 196). Some animators made it a point in later years to say that they used it as reference, but did not use it as the basis for their motion. Rotoscoping had the aroma of a cheat and animators wished to distance themselves from it. Art Babbitt was adamant about his work on the Queen in Snow White not being rotoscoped.
“You may have read that a lot of rotoscoping was done, but I have proof that I didn’t rotoscope my Queen. Live action was taken of an actress who acted out the parts. I studied the live action on a Moviola, got it firmly in my brain, then put it away and never touched it again” (Strzyz 83).The issue came down to who originated the character’s behaviour. Had the animators simply traced the live action, the behaviour would belong to the actor. The animator would be functioning as an assistant animator, altering the appearance of the original to make it resemble the character, but not altering the behaviour. While animators were willing to admit to the use of reference, they understood that rotoscoping usurped their control.
The Fleischers didn’t have any reservations about rotoscoping in their first feature Gulliver’s Travels. The character of Gulliver was blatantly rotoscoped. A comparison of the drawings with a photo of the actor, Sam Parker, shows a strong resemblance between the two (Cabarga 158).
Rotoscoping and filmed reference continued to be used for animated features. The scenes containing human characters in Disney’s Cinderella were shot completely in live action on a bare soundstage before the animation stage started. Cinderella was Disney’s first all-animated feature since Bambi in 1942 and the studio could not afford to exceed the budget or produce a flop. Live action reference was a way to try out visual storytelling and acting possibilities on the cheap before the expensive animation stage (Frank Thomas 330). Frank Thomas recalled,
“When all of the live film was spliced together, this was undeniably a strong base for proving the workability of the scenes before they were animated, but the inventiveness and special touches in the acting that had made our animation so popular were lacking” (330).Rotoscoping has even been used in stop-motion. For the clay-animated film Closed Mondays, directed by Bob Gardiner and Will Vinton, live action reference was shot of the main character, a drunk who stumbles into a museum (Furniss 175). It’s obvious when the character is in close-up that the facial expressions have been copied from live action.
Motion capture is the computer animation equivalent of rotoscoping. In the beginning, some systems hooked potentiometers to a body suit, so that when the actor moved, the potentiometers would measure the angles of the body’s joints. Newer systems rely on using multiple cameras shooting reference points on a performer’s clothing. Software takes the views from the cameras and is able to calculate the location of the reference point in space. This information is then used to drive the equivalent parts of a computer character (Serkis 36).
Recent examples of motion capture include the character of Gollum in The Lord of the Rings trilogy of films by Peter Jackson, the titular character of Jackson’s version of King Kong, and the character of Davy Jones in Pirates of the Caribbean II: Dead Man’s Chest. In these films, motion capture is used to place computer-generated characters in live action environments and interact with live actors.
Andy Serkis (left) wears a suit covered in markers. Cameras and software take the marker information and use it to drive the computer puppet of Gollum in The Two Towers. From http://www.xsens.com/images/paper/Gollum2.gif
Other recent films have taken a different approach. Robert Zemeckis’ The Polar Express and Monster House (the first as a director and the second as producer) have used motion capture to imitate the look of computer-animated features. Actors are motion captured and their performances drive caricatures of humans placed inside computer-generated environments. In Happy Feet, dancer Savion Glover was motion captured and his dancing was used for the penguin character Mumble (Sarah Kaufman 1).
Motion capture is a way for live action directors to make films that look like animation without utilizing the process. These directors are used to working in real time with actors.
“[Savion Glover] was fitted with a skintight suit covered with small reflectors. Cameras then captured the motion of the reflectors as Glover danced, and technicians applied the data to the image of Mumble. The result could be seen instantly -- instead of looking at his reflection in a mirror, the way a dancer might practice in a studio, Glover faced a computer screen as he danced, which showed what he looked like as Mumble. [Director George] Miller, also peering into a monitor, could speak to Glover through a headset to keep his performance in line with a penguin's range of motion” (Sarah Kaufman 1).As both rotoscoping and motion capture record motion that exists in real time, they are not animation, though they may be processed to look like animation. Both these systems utilize artists to take the results of the live action and alter it. In the case of rotoscoping, artists will trace the live action and turn it into drawings, whether they resemble the original live action or are transformed into a cartoon character. In the case of motion capture, the process of capturing the motion data is not perfect. Animators routinely have to clean up the data (Solomon, Penguins 1). In the case of Gollum, animators were also responsible for key-framing the facial animation, though only because the producers didn’t feel confident that they could solve technical problems in time to do facial capture before the film’s delivery date (Serkis 91). However, by the time that Serkis played King Kong for Jackson, the technology had advanced to the point where Serkis face was captured along with the larger body movements, though there are claims that only 25% of the facial animation is by Serkis and the rest is by animators (Rowley 1).
As the motion does not originate with animators, when animators work on rotoscope or motion capture results, they are, in effect, doing the jobs of assistant animators. They are cleaning up someone else’s motion. They may be using the expertise they gained as animators to finesse the live action source, but they are not responsible for doing more than polishing the performance.
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AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas put $3 billion on the table to prove it was serious about fighting cancer. But convincing scientists that's still the case will take more than money.
Hundreds of the nation's top cancer researchers will be looking for answers and reassurance this week from the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas. The agency's annual conference begins Wednesday in Austin.
The agency is the nation's second-biggest pot of cancer research dollars. But the agency is reeling amid high-profile resignations and accusations of political influence. Almost three dozen scientists, including a Nobel laureate, resigned just this month.
Nearly 900 scientists and agency stakeholders are expected to attend this week's conference. The keynote speaker is Dr. Brian Druker, the celebrated oncologist who developed the groundbreaking cancer drug Gleevec.
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What are the Shire and the Shire Society, and how did they come about?
“The Shire” was a term coined by Free State Project early movers and civil disobedience superactivists Russell and Kat Kanning on the NHFree.com Forum. The Shire is as much of an idea as it is a physical place. Generally, it physically means the area commonly known as New Hampshire and mentally it means a place for free minds anywhere.
Eventually, after having many government people and supporters of the violent monopoly explain that it’s okay to subject a human being to violence, because we’re all members of “society”, some people got fed up and decided to create an alternative society. The Shire Society is a society based in peace and consensual interaction between human beings.
Isn’t a society supposed to be a voluntary association of individuals? If so, then what the government people insist is a society, is in fact, not. It’s only a society if one gives consent. Did you consent to be part of the coercive government’s society? Even if you did consent, whether you were fully informed or not as to the implications of your decision, shouldn’t you be able to peacefully withdraw your consent? Just for the record, here’s the definition of “society” from Ballentine’s Law Dictionary, 3rd edition:
The community… The associates which one has. A voluntary association… organized and existing for the mutual benefit of its members
Eventually, it was time to grow the idea of The Shire into a new idea – the Shire Society. It is a voluntary association of people expressing their intention to leave any coercive “societies” and to explicitly join a society based on values that most sane humans live by – allowing their neighbors to be free and at peace.
To that end, the Shire Society Declaration was created in 2010 by a group of activists on the Free Keene Forum. The Declaration was originally inspired by grumpy old sci-fi author L. Neil Smith’s essay, “A New Covenant”. (You can buy L. Neil Smith books here.)
The idea was to create a document that one could sign, declaring one’s independence from the coercive society into which we all are born and brainwashed into by the society’s masters. It’s intention is to allow one to speak out and abolish the mental chains so we can join together and break the real-life chains that the people calling themselves government force upon us.
The Shire Society Declaration, when finalized online, was drawn up on beautiful hemp paper by Davi Barker and delivered in time for the 2010 Porcupine Freedom Festival, where it was signed publicly by a room full of excited people.
Thereafter, Sam Dodson and Meg McLain painstakingly repaired the tears made in the fragile paper during the signing ceremony and photographer “>James Schmill took some fine, high resolution photos of the documents. Here they are in high-resolution .PDF form: Shire Doc One.pdf :: Shire Doc Two.pdf
Originally the URL of this site pointed to a subforum of the Free Keene Forum, where many of these ideas were generated. That forum is open and should you wish to join the discussion there.
The Shire Society is always growing and starting new projects. Check “The Shire” tab at the top of this site to see what’s currently going on.
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Now-a-days there are so many sites are available that can help you in different ways. Some of them may be for just for Servicing purpose and some are working with business purpose. After creating the site it must be accessible by any person from anywhere, hence you must keep your site on web server so that it can be accessible from anywhere in this world.
A Web Hosting is a services that allows to make your site accessible via the World Wide Web. Web Hosts are the companies that provides space on Web server to put your web sites. Web hosts provides data center space and connectivity to the Internet for servers. Some of the web hosts provides 24 hours supports to their clients, They get fees as per their services they provides. Basically these fees depends on the plans of hosting that you choose. There are many types of web hosting available from different web hosts such as Linux hosting, windows hosting , VPS hosting and so on. They also provides to create your Emails, gives domain names services, Database supports etc. Can anybody suggest the best jobs in Web Hosting Company.
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Those wishing to draw some more inspiration from the Chinese, in addition to the centuries-old "Cheenavala" fishing nets that line the seacoast of this port town, may be in for some disappointment.
The organisers of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale art extravaganza, which started Wednesday 12/12/12, are still not sure if Ai Weiwei, the famed Chinese artist who designed the "Birds Nest" Beijing National Stadium for the 2008 Olympics, will make it to the three-month-long event.
He has been under house arrest ever since he took pot shots at the Chinese government in late October with a four-minute parody on YouTube based on the original Gangnam style musical of South Korean rapper PSY.
Ai's version went viral on the net, with close to a billion hits.
In the horse-trot parody, Ai has ridiculed China's otherwise overt moves to encourage creativity and artistic imagination, while also refusing to let go of its strict laws on censorship - something which apparently offended Beijing.
Three months ago, the curators of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale - Bose Krishnamachari and Riyas Komu - had met with Ai at a similar event at Gwangju in South Korea and had extended an invitation that was readily accepted.
Ai said he was looking forward to Kochi and wanted his work to draw inspiration from the excavations near Kochi since five years ago that have led to the discovery of the ancient pre-biblical seaport and urban town of Muziris.
The organisers of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale have in any case lined up a few video works of Ai to be shown during the three-month extravaganza - if that can serve as some consolation.
In September, it was announced that Ai, Indian photographer Dayanita Singh, South African artist Santu Mofokeng and French-German artist Romuald Karmakar would represent Germany at the Venice Biennale 2013.
Ai had in July 2011 accepted a post at a German art university.
(Arvind Padmanabhan can be contacted at firstname.lastname@example.org)
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Turning Inward? Or Fighting the Crisis with Further Opening? Evidence from the Nigerian Banking System
The unprecedented global economic crises which have afflicted the whole world over the past two years have their origins in the advanced industrial economies of the West. While African countries bear no responsibility for this crisis, they are suffering its worst effects. They have been hit with falling prices, especially those countries that trade in a few commodity exports, and reduced capital flows as foreign investors exit these markets to shore up their losses at home and the level of remittances fall as Africans who work abroad and send money home lose their jobs. Real GDP growth is now projected by the IMF to drop below 2 percent in 2009, down from an average of over 6 percent for the last few years. In light of the global crisis, the fear has been that African governments would introduce more protectionist policies as a response.
Date Published: 26 Oct 2009
Download E-Book: okpalaobieri.pdf (85 KB)
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STOCKTON - Quietly, politely, deferentially, Manjit Singh Uppal said, "This has been my home since 1973. As a little boy, it felt like a playground."
Uppal, 52 and a former temple president, lives in Lodi now. But Stockton Gurdwara Sahib is still home.
The temple, at the far end of South Grant Street, also is home to thousands of Sikhs on the West Coast. For them, it represents an almost-mystical place deserving of pilgrimage, reverence and historical study.
Stockton Sikhs are about to begin a three-week centennial celebration.
• Today: A Western-perspective conference on "The Sikh Journey in America," 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., Faye Spanos Concert Hall, University of the Pacific. Sixteen speakers from across the globe will cover such topics as the Punjabi-Mexican community; liberty, equality and fraternity; and the war against a king. Conference is in English. Free.
• Sunday: Opening day for an in-progress Sikh History Museum, Gurdwara Sahib, 1930 S. Grant St. The principal artifact will be the hand-cranked printing press used by the Ghadar Party from 1913 to 1948. More items are expected from India in the future.
• Sept. 30: An Eastern-perspective conference on "100 Years of Sikhs in America," 8:45 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., De Rosa Ballroom, University of the Pacific. Sixteen speakers, most from India, on topics such as the Ghadar Party and concepts of freedom. Conference is in Punjabi. Free.
• Oct. 13-14: A Community Centennial Celebration, Stockton Gurdwara Sahib, 1930 S. Grant St. The first day's program includes local and regional dignitaries, including government officials; the second day involves a traditional Sikh parade. Both days are free.
This fall, Stockton Gurdwara Sahib celebrates a century of history, some of it surprising:
» It is oldest temple in the United States; the birthplace of Sikhism in America.
» It has a direct link to Indian independence and was home to the Ghadar (Revolution) Party, which agitated for a free, independent and united India four decades before that status was achieved in 1950. Sikhs describe Stockton as "ground zero for India's independence struggle."
» America's first Punjabi-language newspaper was published by the Ghadar Party and financed by Stockton Sikhs.
» Bhagar Singh Thind, a civil rights pioneer and the first Sikh to serve in the U.S. Army (during World War I), was a member of Stockton Gurdwara.
» Starting in 1957, Democrat Dalip Singh Saund served three terms in the House of Representatives. He was the first Asian, Indian and Sikh elected to Congress. Before that, he was secretary of Stockton Gurdwara.
For many, the compound on South Grant - which will be renamed Sikh Temple Street on Jan. 1 - is hallowed ground.
Vancouver, B.C., also has a rich history of Sikhism, but not like Stockton's.
Harinder Randhawa, a 52-year-old hospital dietitian in Vancouver, was touring Gurdwara Sahib earlier this week on a visit to the United States.
"This is our temple," she said. "It's very historic. I feel so proud to walk where the first settlers walked.
"I can see here the fruit of their hard work and suffering and sacrifice. This is our heritage. I can go home and tell my people, 'I saw the history.' "
The Stockton Gurdwara has 5,000 Northern Californians who call it home, even though larger, more elaborate temples have been built in Yuba City, San Jose and El Sobrante.
"There are many reasons," said Bhajan Singh Bhinder, coordinator of the local centennial committee. "The pioneers came here; we had the first settlement; fighting for civil rights in America happened here. The freedom struggle for India began from here. This place is so unique. It deserves the attention it's getting."
Two years ago, organizers started digging more deeply into the temple's past. They discovered journals and ledger books from the early 20th century. College students have spent the summer painstakingly taking photographs of yellow and dog-eared pages written decades ago. They have worked out of a closet-sized room on the temple's back side. The original ledger books are kept inside a safe almost as large as the room itself.
"I wanted to help shape the Sikh identity in America," said 19-year-old volunteer Rajan Gill of Yuba City. The University of California, Davis, senior is a cousin of Lodi's Ricky Gill, who at 25 is running as a Republican for California's 9th Congressional District seat.
The Sikhs, a proud people, celebrate those kinds of relationships - alongside their 100 years of tolerance and faith in America.
"And this is the place where people come to see that," Bhinder said. "It is more important than ever that Americans go to each other's places of worship and homes and celebrations.
"That's the best way to be a united nation."
Beginning this weekend, the local Sikh community is hosting several weeks of activities acknowledging its rich heritage in Stockton.
It starts this morning with a first-of-its-kind conference - "The Sikh Journey in America" - inside the Faye Spanos Concert Hall at the University of the Pacific.
It culminates Oct. 14 with the second day of a two-day grand finale, complete with parade, food, booths and entertainment.
Organizers expect huge crowds from all over Northern California. They've worked hard to commemorate the past on a large scale.
After the academic events are over and the parade crowds have gone home, the Gurdwara Sahib and its members will still congregate on the sacred ground that has been theirs for 100 years.
"Only a few have been here longer than I have," Uppal said. "This is it for me. This is where I will die."
Contact reporter Kevin Parrish at (209) 546-8264 or firstname.lastname@example.org.
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Other Resources Stem
Science, Technology, Engineering and Math Resources
Look here for a list of all things STEM.
“STEMConnector™ is a nationwide collaboration of companies, nonprofit associations and professional societies, STEM-related research & policy organizations, and academic institutionsconcerned about the plight of STEM education in the United States. STEMConnector™ is designed to link “all things STEM” by constructing a comprehensive Web Site that provides connections to national, state and local STEM entities and their own content through a variety of search tools.” From http://www.stemconnector.org/about
NCWIT – National Center for Women & Technology
Look here for information about increasing the presence of women working in various technology careers.
“NCWIT is the National Center for Women & Information Technology, a 501(c)(3) coalition that works to increase diversity in IT and computing. NCWIT believes that greater diversity will create a larger and more competitive workforce, and promote the design of technology that is as broad and innovative as the population it serves. NCWIT focuses on improving diversity across the entire spectrum: K-12 through college education, and on to academic, corporate and entrepreneurial careers.” From http://www.ncwit.org/about.factsheet.html.
Look here for information about the web-based competition the United States Army has set up for 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th graders on STEM subjects.
“eCYBERMISSION is a web-based Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics competition for 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th grade teams. Your team will propose a solution to a real problem in your community and compete for Regional and National Awards.” Fromhttps://www.ecybermission.com/public/About/About_ECM.aspx.
NASA — The National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Look here for information for K-12 students on the website of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
“Since its inception in 1958, NASA has accomplished many great scientific and technological feats in air and space. NASA technology also has been adapted for many nonaerospace uses by the private sector. NASA remains a leading force in scientific research and in stimulating public interest in aerospace exploration, as well as science and technology in general. Perhaps more importantly, our exploration of space has taught us to view Earth, ourselves, and the universe in a new way. While the tremendous technical and scientific accomplishments of NASA demonstrate vividly that humans can achieve previously inconceivable feats, we also are humbled by the realization that Earth is just a tiny “blue marble” in the cosmos.” Fromhttp://history.nasa.gov/
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Why were you inspired to do this?
I have always been fascinated and touched by the massive efforts involved by the Allies in WWII. The battles of Dieppe and D-Day are significant events in our history and I wanted to pay my respects by seeing the beaches and towns for myself.
What were 3 things you did to make this happen?
Eurorail ticket from London Waterloo station to Calais, France was approximately US$250 return through www.raileurope.com. Most trains do not except bookings more than 2 months in advance. There is also a ferry but due to limited time scheduling it did not work for me.
The rental car from Calais for 3 days from National Car rental was approximately US$200 and can be picked up at the Calais train station. Suggest getting a good map or even better GPS. It’s about a 3 hour drive to Caen from Calais.
Our accommodation was a 15th century bed and breakfast in Argentan about an ½ hours drive from Caen and the D-Day beaches. I booked our accommodation through www.bonadresse.com for approximately US$125/night. Minimum 2 night stay.
How did you feel once you had accomplished this?
The drive through the countryside is interesting and there are many little towns that fly American, British and Canadian Flags. Every town in Normandy has a story and even the bed & breakfast we stayed at, an allied pilot was hidden from the Nazies. Our first stop was the War Museum in Caen, which is very good and gave us a proper perspective on the Normandy battles. We then focused on Juno beach where the Canadians landed and visited the Canadian Museum along the beach. It was hard to believe a battle took place on such a pretty beach with sailboats along the coastline. The next day we explored some of the towns along the coast and everywhere you go there are historic sites and far too many cemeteries!! On our way back to Calais we went to Dieppe where over 6,000 Infantrymen, predominantly Canadian, were involved in the raid and over 3,500 were killed, wounded or captured. As I stood on the beach I was saddened by the ill-fated attack that took so many Canadian and allied lives. As I toured the Canadian Cemetery I was shocked to see so many headstones for unknown solders, such was the savagery of the battle. As we left Normandy I was left with an overwhelming sense of loss. It’s a trip that I have thought of often and one I will never forget.
Additional notes and tips:
Leave plenty of time to explore the beaches. The beachfront area is quite long and takes time with traffic and the many little towns to navigate through.
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The Dom Post reports:
At least two secondary teachers are seriously assaulted by pupils every school day, a union survey shows.
The Post Primary Teachers Association says teachers are being punched, kicked, struck with objects, or verbally abused.
I share the concern over teacher safety. Some horrendous assaults have occurred on teachers.
However it would have been useful to not include verbal abuse under the definition of assault. Verbal abuse is also quite unacceptable, but I want to know what proportion of these ten assaults a week are physical, and verbal.
She insisted, however, that it was not a problem in every school.
Principals contacted by The Dominion Post said the majority of assaults were verbal but in a disturbing trend, the age of students responsible for serious assaults such as stabbings were getting younger.
I’d hate to see metal detectors in schools, like in the US, but I do despair at what one can do about these stabbings of teachers.
Education Minister Anne Tolley said while there was “no magic wand” to deal with violence in schools, the Government was taking it very seriously. It had given an extra $15m over two years that would help thousands of teachers receive extra training, including in effective classroom management.
This is well intentioned, but maybe the funding needs to go to detect unstable kids and make sure they get treatment.Tags: Education, PPTA
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This finger-shaped fruit is widely recognized as a source of potassium. While this is true, bananas are also a source of vitamin C and support your immune system. They also contain prebiotics and help maintain healthy bacteria in your gut. Prebiotics help improve the absorption of other nutrients (i.e. calcium) for added bone health benefits.
The legume that is used to make hummus is often forgotten as a quality source of carbohydrates. Chickpeas not only provide a generous 22g of carbs in one ½ cup, but also a whopping 6g of fiber and 7g of protein. Fiber helps to keep you feeling full, maintains steady blood sugar levels, and may reduce the risk of cardiovascular diseases.
More: Protein: How Much You Need and Other Facts
Perfect your nutrition to boost your performance. Sign up for a race near you.
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By Gary Bogue
Tuesday, October 16th, 2007 at 8:10 am in coyotes.
Take a look at this interesting note I got about CoyoteBytes:
I thought you might find this information and new Web site of interest. This project is currently operating in Southern California, but plans are under way to expand to our area. As a walker in the Lime Ridge Open Space (Walnut Creek) who enjoys regular coyote sightings, I am pleased to see solutions that allow us to amicably coexist. — Shelley Murdock, county director of UC Cooperative Extension
Here’s a little bit (byte?) from the press release Shelley sent me:
UC Web site helps homeowners avoid coyote problems.
A new Web site has been created by a University of California wildlife specialist to assist homeowners in preventing and solving conflicts with suburban coyotes.
http://www.coyotebytes.org/index.html provides information about coyotes in urban and suburban environments, giving specific management recommendations. Residents of Lost (OOPS, Freudian slip) Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties can also report coyote attacks or encounters via the site.
In the future, you’ll be able to view a map that shows where reported attacks occurred. UC scientists will compile and analyze this information to better define the scope of the coyote problem in these counties, and to improve their recommendations for preventing and solving future coyote conflicts.
CoyoteBytes provides information to homeowners, land managers, agency personnel, and others to help solve coyote-human conflicts, particularly in urban and suburban areas. The site also has coyote photos and short video clips in a photo gallery of suburban coyotes for you to see. You can also submit your own coyote photos and videos.
During 2007, this Web site is targeted toward Los Angeles, Orange, and San Diego Counties.
** It will be expanded to all of California at a future date. While the focus is down south, the coyote information that is NOW on the site is applicable to coyotes EVERYWHERE … so drop by and start reading!
With CoyoteBytes, you can:
** Learn about urban coyotes,
** Report a coyote encounter or incident,
** View a map of coyote incidents in your area,
** Find links to more information about coyotes
This Web site appears to have real possibilities for making it possible for humans and coyotes to live in the same area and get along with each other. That would be nice.
At the very least, there’s a LOT of fascinating information on CoyoteBytes about coyotes and how to enjoy them while protecting yourself, your kids and pets from any dangerous encounters. It’s pretty interesting.
Please check it out and let me know what you think: firstname.lastname@example.org /Gary
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President Bush on Monday night sought to reassure Americans, Iraqis and other nations that he has a plan to set Iraq on a track to stable self-rule, saying his goal was to make Iraq's people ''free, not to make them American.''
The United States, Mr. Bush said, will use a ''five-point plan'' to hand over authority in Iraq to an interim government on June 30, help establish security, continue rebuilding the country's infrastructure, encourage more international support and then move toward a national Iraqi election as early as next January. He did not announce the names of a new prime minister or other top Iraqi government officials, but promised that they would be released later this week by Lakhdar Brahimi, the United Nations special envoy to Iraq.
In a 33-minute address at the United States Army War College in the farmland of south-central Pennsylvania, the president said: ''I sent American troops to Iraq to defend our security, not to stay as an occupying power. I sent American troops to Iraq to make its people free, not to make them American. Iraqis will write their own history, and find their own way.'' [Excerpts, Page A14.]
Mr. Bush said an essential part of rebuilding Iraq would be the creation of a modern prison system. He pledged, if the new Iraqi government agrees, to destroy the Abu Ghraib prison, a longtime symbol of the cruelty of Saddam Hussein's rule and now notorious as the site of abuses of Iraqi prisoners by members of the American military.
In making the case for persevering in Iraq, the president reminded Americans that, in his view, Iraq remained ''the central front in the war on terror.''
Mr. Bush also held out little hope for a quick withdrawal of American soldiers, and said he would maintain troop levels of 138,000 ''as long as necessary.'' If American commanders on the ground needed more troops, Mr. Bush said, ''I will send them.''
Mr. Bush's speech, the first in a series of major addresses meant to shore up support for his Iraq policy before the June 30 deadline, was as much a political event as a policy address. It came in the wake of a poll by CBS News that showed Mr. Bush's approval ratings at a new low, with 41 percent approving of the job he is doing and 52 percent disapproving.
The president, who was apparently wearing makeup to cover abrasions on his chin from a fall from his mountain bike last weekend, seemed confident and calm throughout his remarks, which were interrupted periodically by applause. The biggest applause came when Mr. Bush said the United States would raze the Abu Ghraib prison.
His evening speech was scheduled for prime time, but the White House did not ask the broadcast networks to carry it live. Still, it was shown by the cable news channels, and by distributing early excerpts of his prepared text the White House ensured that his remarks were featured on evening news programs viewed by millions.
Recent opinion surveys have shown a serious erosion in support among Americans for Mr. Bush's foreign policy, with only 30 percent in the CBS News survey approving of the way he is handling Iraq. During the past several weeks rebel insurgencies, the beheading of an American, the assassination of an Iraqi leader backed by the United States and the raid on a onetime American friend, Ahmad Chalabi, have shaken American confidence in the venture in Iraq.
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Whether you have a new Raspberry Pi and are just figuring out what you can do with it or don't have your hands on one yet but want to get started learning more about programming and other computer science topics, the free Raspberry Pi Education Manual is a wonderful 172-page resource.
Provided by a team of UK teachers from Computing at School (CAS), the PDF manual is a beginner's guide to Scratch (an awesome visual programming environment), Python, the Linux command line, and more. You'll find experiments for creating games and animations—and in the process learn not just how to code with the Raspberry Pi, but the basics of computer science as well. People of all ages can use the manual to learn more.
If you're a Pi owner, you can download it from the Pi Store to your desktop or grab the PDF from the link below.
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Comparative Education invites readers to consider theory in comparative education, purposes of schooling, educational access and opportunity, education accountability and authority, teacher professionalism, and how globalization is impacting education. Taking an issues-based approach, it addresses current educational concerns both at home and abroad, and includes analytic frameworks that foster critical thinking and reinforce a systematic method for examination. Biographical sketches add human interest and side-by-side comparisons explore various countries' demographic attributes, geophysical and economic realities, and socio political factors. Because the book focuses on issues instead of countries, it reinforces how and why comparative education is relevant for educators in today’s global society.
|Pt. 1||Comparative Education and Underlying Assumptions About Education: The Comparative Approach||1|
|2||Theory in Comparative Education||27|
|Pt. 2||Education in International Context: A Comparative Approach Applied to Contemporary Educational Issues||59|
|3||Purposes of Schooling||61|
|4||Educational Access and Opportunity||107|
|5||Education Accountability and Authority||143|
|Pt. 3||Interpreting Educational Issues: Comparison and the Use of Analytic Frameworks||233|
|7||Applying Frameworks to Analyze Educational Issues||235|
|8||The Value of Comparative Education||252|
A major purpose of this book is to widen the field of comparative education's influence by articulating the relevance of comparative education to include a larger, practitioner-oriented audience. We believe that the comparative study of education fosters depth of reflection that is not only useful but also necessary for all people engaged in the educative task. At present, however, there are few introductory texts available that acquaint students with comparative education and that equip students with the skills of comparative inquiry to enable systematic exploration of key issues affecting educational policies, practices, and reforms at home and abroad.
Over the past 50 years, the field of comparative education has been moving in the direction of examining education-related issues as opposed to educational systems. This focus is a promising direction for the field, because not only does an issues-oriented approach encourage researchers to compare issues that are affecting education worldwide, but it also has relevancy and currency for in-service and preservice educators whose responsibilities are becoming increasingly challenging in light of diverse sociocultural, political, and economic factors shaping the educational landscape at large.
In light of globalization, the educational dilemmas that one society faces are often issues of importance in other nations as well. A primary benefit of comparative inquiry is that it causes educators, as well as their students, to widen their conceptual lenses to see how seemingly similar issues manifest themselves in diverse settings. Comparative perspective taking enables us to see the issues anew in our home contexts for thepurpose of informing our decision making on those issues.
This book, then, adopts an issues-oriented approach, emphasizing the comparative perspective. The rationale for a comparative examination of educational issues is to broaden students' views of education and the complex interplay of factors that influence it. The four issues explored here are purposes of schooling, educational access and opportunity, educator accountability and authority, and teacher professionalism. These issues continue to be at the center of public scrutiny and educational debate within and outside the United States. We examine each educational issue in the context of two different countries for purposes of comparison and contrast.
The eight countries and regions of study within this text comprise a diverse and broad set but should not be viewed as a representative sampling of all cultures or countries. Rather, the countries and regions selected highlight the complexity and tensions in education and how culture, politics, economics, and social values coalesce to shape ways in which educational issues are interpreted in various settings. A comparative approach, therefore, helps students identify similarities and differences by calling attention to certain aspects of the educational issue within unique national contexts. A benefit of such an approach is that it broadens the scope and context for the examination of education while exposing students to the current comparative literature. These goals are important to students as they sharpen analysis of and reflection on their own professional practice.
The text is divided into three parts. Part 1, titled "Comparative Education and Underlying Assumptions About Education: The Comparative Approach," consists of two chapters. In Chapter 1, "Comparative Education," we introduce students to the field of comparative education and the field's development and usefulness, and in Chapter 2, "Theory in Comparative Education," we discuss prevailing theoretical bases that comparative educators have used to interpret educational policies and practices.
In Part 2, titled "Education in International Context: A Comparative Approach Applied to Contemporary Educational Issues," we examine the four selected issues, each in relation to two different countries to foster comparative perspective taking. Chapter 3 undertakes the question of how diverse purposes of schooling shape educational curriculum in Hong Kong and Israel. In Chapter 4, we examine challenges to educational access and opportunity in Brazil and South Africa. In Chapter 5 we explore the changing relationship between education and the state and how this affects education accountability and authority in England and Germany. The focus of Chapter 6 is upon different orientations to the issue of teacher professionalism and the ways these perspectives affect teacher autonomy and professional development in Japan and the United States.
Part 3, titled "Interpreting Educational Issues: Comparison and the Use of Analytic Frameworks," consists of two chapters. In Chapter 7, "Applying Frameworks to Analyze Educational Issues," we encourage students to use frameworks, drawn from diverse disciplines, for systematic investigation and analysis of educational issues. The chapter provides a brief summary of the four frameworks discussed previously in the text. We place the frameworks in graphic organizers with questions to stimulate further thinking. Our purpose in this chapter is to suggest how the frameworks, whose usefulness is demonstrated throughout the entire text, are also effective in helping students consider issues in domestic and localized contexts. Instructors might want to use Chapter 7 earlier in the term to introduce students to each framework prior to their reading of the issue-oriented chapters and/or to generate student assignments. Finally, Chapter 8, "The Value of Comparative Education," summarizes benefits of comparative perspective taking and an issues orientation for the field. An innate feature of an issue is that there is a plurality of responses. Because multiple responses are possible for any given question or situation, answers to questions undertaken yield ambiguous responses. Teachers and teacher educators need to be able to recognize these ambiguities and become comfortable enough to move ahead in their practice.
To help students view these educational issues in their complexity and to aid in-depth reflection, we use specific analytic frameworks to study the educational issues and provide students with a systematic method for examination. The frameworks emerge from diverse disciplines and fields (e.g., political science, educational policy, sociology) and can be applied to other issues of interest to the reader in order to foster critical thinking-the suspension of judgment in order to draw on multiple perspectives. This leads to better understanding of factors affecting the educational issue or phenomenon being studied and to better informed educational reform efforts. The goal is for students to see that education can be better understood when viewed from multiple perspectives and disciplines.
Each chapter includes various pedagogical features, including focusing and closing questions. The "Focusing Questions" at the beginning of each chapter serve to identify the particular aspects of the issue to be addressed in the chapter, and the closing statements, termed "Sustaining Reflection," that appear at the end of each chapter serve as launching points for further reflection. The book's glossary identifies key terms and definitions that students using a comparative approach should be familiar with and that will aid their understanding of the issues presented.
The text also has a number of special features, including boldface terms and boxed features. In each chapter, key terms appear in boldface with their accompanying definitions. Biographical sketches of historical and contemporary comparative educators are featured throughout the text. These help to familiarize students with three international and three American comparative educators who have used international perspectives to guide domestic educational efforts, providing new perspectives on sometimes familiar individuals. "Points of Convergence," another boxed feature, appear in the issues chapters within Part 2 and provide readers with side-by-side comparisons of featured countries, with respect to such things as their demographic, geophysical, and sociopolitical factors.
In summary, this text seeks to (I) broaden the scope and context for examining educational issues through an international comparative approach; (2) increase understanding by examining underlying assumptions of education policies, practices, and reforms; (3) encourage multiple perspective taking by viewing educational issues in light of diverse cultural and historical contexts and through interdisciplinary lenses; and (4) employ specific analytic frameworks to "see" educational issues in new ways. The overall goal of these approaches and features is to foster comparative and critical thinking to better inform educational reform efforts.
We hope that professors, teacher practitioners, teacher educators, curriculum developers, and school administrators find that this book stimulates reflection and helps to inform their own personal and professional decision making.
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Skip to content
New research shows Indigenous prisoners in Queensland (Qld) are twice as likely to have alcohol-related problems than other inmates. A recent study found that more than half of all Qld Indigenous prisoners were drinking in a high risk or dependent way before entering jail.
Lead author of the study, senior researcher Stuart Kinner from Melbourne University, says this indicates that specific support programs are needed for Indigenous prisoners after they are released. Dr Kinner says alcohol risk factors are markedly different for Indigenous and non-Indigenous prisoners, and treatments needed to be tailored to suit both populations.
'We need to recognise all the contextual factors - the disadvantage, the mental illness, all the pressures that people - Indigenous and non-Indigenous face after their return to the community,' he said. 'What we need to do is start by recognising the one size fits all approach isn't going to be appropriate.
'It's not simply a matter of telling people that they can't drink alcohol - it's a matter of supporting people and providing trained Indigenous workers to support those people to address alcohol related problems.'
Source: ABC News (North Queensland)
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By definition, to abstract means to summarize, to edit, to simplify in order to make an image stronger, to show the essence of either a natural thing, a spiritual subject or an idea.
Realistic and Conceptual Art
Before there was realistic painting, there was no need to define works as abstract. No visual artist in any culture has jumped straight into realistic painting or sculpting, instead they all started out with geometric ornaments, linear forms and symbols, and the way their work developed, depended not only on their imagination, talent and social circumstances, but also on the materials and tools available.
Sophisticated materials like paper, textiles, metal, good clay, brushes and pigments, allowed the artists in China, Japan, India or Europe to develop elaborate techniques to create illusions of natural things or spiritual subjects. This style is labeled realistic or representative art.
In Africa and Oceania, the limitation of materials and destructive climatic conditions demanded a different approach. To communicate and give form to spiritual themes, the artists created symbols and idols that represented the ideas rather than describing the looks of things. Today, this approach is called conceptual art.
There is often no clear distinction between realism and conceptual art, and artists in different culturesand ages have used a mix of both approaches.
Although abstraction has always been an essential process in the creation of art, it was not until 100 years ago that the term “Abstract Art” was born.
At the turn of the last century, French artist Cézanne had come to the conclusion, that the way we see the world, reality, is in the eye of the beholder, different for everyone, and as a result, seeing is a creative process.
With this seemingly simple theory he opened up a whole new approach for artists: works of art ought to reveal the artist’s personal vision, his/her interpretation of nature or ideas, which can be very different from established conventions and traditions. Cézanne broke with the established theories of perspective, tilted his plates and tables, mixed foreground with background, and in his last works, he almost dissolved his subjects into patches of vivid colour.
Fired up by this new freedom, Gauguin, Matisse and Picasso followed his example of experimentation, but also looked at the art of other cultures for new ways of expressing their ideas. 100 years ago, Picasso shocked the Western world with “Les Demoiselles d’Avginon”, a painting that broke all accepted rules, and which was clearly inspired by African masks.
Together with fellow artist Braque, he then developed the style of cubism, which demonstrated how independent art was from nature: on canvas, the form of things could be shown from many different angles at the same time. In a cubist painting, a well-known object like a violin was broken up into bits and pieces, and arranged into a fascinating and complex decorative composition.
Also inspired by Cézanne, Russian artist Kandisnky declared in 1910 that the real nature of painting was dynamic brushstrokes of expressive colours on a flat surface, and did the first fully abstract painting. He published books about how colours can change our mood: the effect of forceful reds, uplifting yellows or soothing cool blues, and compared their influence on our soul with the effect of music.
One way or many?
Ever since, new styles have been invented in rapid succession, and each one of them gave rise to new attitudes about art, societies and our human condition.
Art history shows us the sequence of the many methods and approaches that have been conceived since humans started creating images. This evolution will continue, but not just on one front – each one of these styles presents a point of departure. They are more than just records of their time, they show the diversity and individuality of the human mind and soul.
For artists, each style is an open road and an invitation to continue the journey of discovery, to search and find a way to make thoughts, ideas and feelings visible.
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Postgraduate Certificate Program
The postgraduate certificate program has been developed to provide current knowledge and research experience in diverse fields of agricultural and environmental sciences. The program supplements existing opportunities for graduate study and differs primarily in its shorter duration and more focused nature.
The postgraduate certificate program currently is offered in the following areas. Additional programs are being developed and new programs can be designed to suit the needs of the applicant. Within each of these programs, students may focus on a specific subdiscipline.
- Agricultural and Resource Economics
- Agronomic and Rangeland Sciences
- Animal Science
- Aquatic Ecosystems, Aquaculture, and Fisheries
- International Agricultural Development
- Plant Pathology
- Postharvest Biology & Technology
- Vegetable Crops
- Weed Science
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Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge was established in 1946 as an overlay of a portion of the Big Mineral arm of Lake Texoma in north-central Texas. Consisting of about 12,000 acres, the refuge provides a variety of habitats for birds and wildlife.
Canada, snow, white-fronted, and Ross' geese along with pintail, mallard, gadwall and other ducks use refuge impoundments and fields as stop-over and wintering grounds. Just 75 miles north of Dallas where the Red River etches the boundary between Oklahoma and Texas, migratory birds by the thousands take up winter quarters or refuel for long journeys. Some species spend the entire winter 'loafing' on the refuge, including, Ross’s, Greater White-fronted and Canada Geese. At times, as many as 10,000 geese can be seen in one field. Ducks such as mallards, northern shovelers, green-winged teal, and northern pintail are commonly seen on refuge waters during fall and winter months.
Although they take top billing, birds are not the only attraction. Colorful wildflowers and prairie grasses provide seasonal food and shelter for wildlife. Butterflies, meadowlarks, and dragonflies flutter through the summer landscape. Bottomland hardwoods along the creeks attract a variety of wildlife including white-tailed deer, bobcats, river otters, turtles, and fox squirrels. Listen for the howl of coyotes at dusk.
Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge was established on lands originally purchased by the U.S. Department of Army Corps of Engineers (COE) for the Denison Dam Project-known today as Lake Texoma. Being located in the Central Flyway, one of four migratory bird “super highways”, was an important factor in deciding to create a refuge here. The refuge lies just on the Texas side of the Red River, which divides the Lone Star State from Oklahoma. This region is where the gently rolling blackland prairies meet the hilly terrain of the eastern cross timbers. Of the nearly 12,000 acres that make up the refuge, about 8,700 acres are uplands and the remaining 2,600 acres are wetlands. This diversity of habitat, actively managed by refuge staff, creates ideal conditions for a wide variety of wildlife and plants.
On national wildlife refuges, wildlife comes first. The establishment purpose of the Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge is to provide and manage habitat for migratory birds, wildlife, and plants native to this area, and to provide opportunity for outdoor recreation that is compatible. The refuge offers wildlife-dependent recreational opportunities, including wildlife observation and photography, fishing, hunting, and hiking, and educational programs.
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Choice Of Law By The Parties
In this era of globalization where a contract contains one or more foreign elements, the difficult and complicated question in proceeding that arises is that of ascertaining its applicable law. Such difficulty stems from the multiplicity and diversity of connecting factors and each of them may arise in a different jurisdiction for instance the place where the contract was made; the place of performance; the place of business of the parties; the place of payment; the currency of payment; domicile or nationality o the parties and so on. So to avoid this situation parties are granted with the freedom to select the law to govern their contract under the provisions of Rome convention. The inclusion of a choice of law clause is such an everyday matter in international contracts that its absence would be to ignore commercial realities.
Article 3 embodies the principle of “party autonomy”, giving the parties freedom to select the law, which is to govern the contract. Although very frequently the chosen law has some connection with the transaction, it often happens that commercial contracts contain a choice of law, which has no connection, or no apparent connection, with the transaction. The Rome convention allows the choice of the law, which has no connection with the contract. By Art 1(1) of the convention, its rules apply to contractual obligations “in any situation involving a choice between the laws of different countries”. And Article 3(1) states that the law chosen by the parties governs a contract. The combined effect of these articles is, however, that parties who are in one country, and whose transaction is connected only with that country, may choose the law of another country, and the courts of contracting states must, subject to mandatory rules, give effect to that choice. It is apparent from the Art. 3(3) that the convention contemplates that the choice of a foreign law may be made even if all the relevant elements are connected with one country only. This shows that there is no requirement that the chosen law has a connection with the transaction.The choice of the parties must be ‘express or demonstrated with reasonable certainty by the terms of the contract or the circumstances of the case’.
A choice of law is express when the contract contains a provision, which specifies the law, which it is to be governed*. Privy council in Vita Food Product Inc v Unus Shipping Co.Ltd. held that the parties were free to select any governing law they wished, irrespective of any connection with the contract, provided that the choice was bonafide, legal and not contrary to English public policy. Where the parties have identified the applicable law there is no difficulty in giving effect to the choice of the party. But where the parties selects the applicable law indirectly the effectiveness of the alleged choice depends on interpretation of the clause in question. In Companie Tunisienne de Navigation SA v Companie d’ Armament Maritime SA a contract was made in Paris between D, French Company and P, a Tunisian company, for the carriage of the consignment of oil. Parties adopted a charterparty, clause 13 of which provided that the charterparty was governed by the law of the flag of the vessel carrying on the goods. At the time of the conclusion of the contract the parties seemed to have assumed that D would be using its own ship, which flew the flag. Before performance of the contract a war broke out and relying on the French law as the governing law frustration of contract was alleged. The question before the court was whether clause 13 was an effective choice of French law, in view of the fact that forth first six voyages the defendant had employed ships flying five different flags. The court answered the question affirmatively and held that the parties have envisaged that D would use French vessels in performing the contract and it was reasonable to conclude that the parties had chosen French law as the governing law, even though the parties’ assumption at the time of the contracting were erroneous.
Choice Demonstrated With Reasonable Certainty
The convention does not require choice to be express in order to be effective. It is sufficient if a choice can be ‘demonstrated with reasonable certainty’ by the ‘terms of the contract or the circumstances’ of the case. Convention gives no such guidance as to how such an inference may be determined. However Guiliano Lagarde Report provides example for certain factors which may be of assistance to the court’s attempt to infer a choice of law. Such factors may be: a choice of jurisdiction or arbitration clause; previous dealings of the parties; a connected transaction; the use of a standard form and so forth. Thus in Gan Insurance Co Ltd v Tai Ping Insurance Co Ltd the judge said that the reinsurance contract was placed in London on the London market, the terms of the slip and the claims co-operation clause pointed to an implied choice of English law ‘demonstrated with reasonable certainty by the terms of the contract/the circumstances of the case’
Limitation On Choice
Ø Mandatory Rule
Every choice of law in a contract that is genuinely international inevitably avoids the operation of the laws of other connected system. Sometimes the evasion is not incidental but intentional i.e. the parties consciously choose one system in order to avoid another. Such evasions are controlled by the use of the concept of the mandatory rule. A mandatory rule is a rule of the law of the country, which cannot be derogated from by contract. The provision of Art 3(3) states that, where all the other elements relevant to the situation at the time of the choice are connected with one country only, a choice of a foreign law, whether or not accompanied by a foreign jurisdiction clause, will not prejudice the application of the mandatory rules of the solely connected system. The Rome convention 1980 applies only to contracts, which involve a choice between the laws of different countries, and the situation envisaged here is not such a case as, on the facts, all the connections are with a single country. What brings it within the Rome convention is the selection by the parties of a governing legal system which is factually unconnected with the contract.
Ø Overriding Statute
The second limitation applies whether the governing law is determined by choice under Article 3 or by the close connection test under Article 4.
Article 7(2) provides that is nothing in the Rome Convention is to restrict the application of the rule of the law of the forum in a situation where they are mandatory irrespective of the law otherwise applicable to the contract. This provision makes it clear that the effect of an express choice of foreign law may be nullified or limited by the terms of the statute of the forum e.g. English legislation. Where an overriding statute applies regardless of the governing law, the effect of an express choice by the parties of a foreign law to govern their contract is limited to the extent required by the statute.
Ø Consumer And Employment Contracts
The third and fourth limitation relates to the consumer and employment contract. Article5 (2) and 6(1) provides that a choice of law made by the parties does not have the effect of depriving an employee or consumer of the protection of certain mandatory rules, in case of consumer under the law of their habitual residence, and in the case of employees under the law which would be applicable in the absence of choice of law.
Ø Public Policy.
A choice of foreign law will not prevent the court from disregarding it if the application of rule of foreign law would be manifestly incompatible with public policy.
Splitting Of Applicable Law
The parties are free to select the law to govern the whole of their contract or a part of it only, or, indeed, to have a series of choices for different parts. A multifaceted international contract requiring performances in various countries might be one reason for the parties wishing to split up the whole into component parts or the parties might wish to select one law to interpret the contract and another to implement the terms so interpreted.
Variation Of Choice
The convention enable the parties at any time to alter the applicable law, whether they are revising an earlier choice, have discovered the benefits of choice after the contract is underway or have decided that they don’t wish to be subjected to the law, which the convention would impose on them. The new or revised choice may apply to the contract as a whole or to any severable part of it. While the convention permits changes to be made at any time, the effect of any agreement between the parties, which is made after the dispute has come to litigation, will depend on the attitude of the forum and its rules about amending pleadings. There are four potential dangers in respect of a change of applicable law: (a) the new law might contain requirement for formal validity not present under the prior law; (b) the right of third parties might be effected; (c) attempt might be made to avoid mandatory rules arising under the prior applicable law; and (d) under the newly chosen law, the contract might be invalid. Thus, no change in the applicable law can adversely affect the formal validity of the contract or operate to the prejudice of third party rights acquired under the former applicable law. The object of the qualification concerning formal validity is to avoid a situation whereby the agreement to vary the governing law may create doubts as to the validity of the contract during the period preceding the agreement between the parties; the preservation of third parties who have acquired rights is to protect the rights of third parties who have acquired rights under the contract during the period it was governed by a law which permits the acquisition of rights by third parties under a contract .
Reference And Incorporation
Under the Rome Convention, there is a clear distinction between reference to a foreign law as a choice of that law to govern the contract on the one hand and incorporation of some provisions of a foreign law as a term or terms of a contract on the other hand. The distinction between incorporation of foreign law and an express choice of the applicable law is seen most clearly if there is a change in the law between the time of making and contract and its performance. The applicable law is a living law and must be applied as it is when the contract is to be performed and not as it was when the contract was made. Thus legislation passed in the country of applicable law may have the effect of modifying or discharging the contractual obligation, e.g. by reducing the rate of interest or declaring a gold value clause invalid. On the other hand where a foreign statute is incorporated in a contract, although as a statute it may have been amended or repealed.
Based on the aforesaid analysis, it is submitted that though the convention allow the parties to make the choice of the law to govern their contract but the basic principle of the party autonomy is demonstrated by the convention when its provisions enables the parties at any time to alter the applicable law. Since absolute power corrupts absolutely, this choice of law and the variation of choice of law are subject to the limitations as the mandatory rules may serve many purposes. They may relate to socio economic policies of states, e.g. in the field of anti trust law or exchange control designed to protect the national economy or its currency. Or they may seek to regulate the content of private contract, requiring the inclusion of certain types of terms, or prohibiting exclusions or exemption clauses etc. they may be designed to protect the interest of those seen as economically weak such as workers (with rules as to health and safety at work and to safeguard from unfair dismissal) or consumers (with rules designed to help them in the dispute with suppliers of goods and services. the main argument against depecage or severability was that , it might be used to avoid mandatory rules. But the courts and Article 7 of the Rome convention has made it clear that the doctrine is only to be applied where severability does not lead to inconsistency. So a kind of balance is maintained.
A contact for the construction of a plant by a German company in Poland may provide for the application of English law or Swedish law, because the Polish party is not prepared to accept the application of German law and the German party is not prepared to accept the application of Polish law.
* Choice of non-national system of law (such as Sharia law) this choice does not constitute a choice of law for the purpose of the Article 3. Shamil Bank of Bharain EC v Beximco Pharmaceutical Ltd 1 WLR 1784
AC 572
Notwithstanding the use of the word ‘or’ in Art3 (1), an implied choice can be based on the combined effect of ‘the terms of the contract’ and ‘the circumstances of the case’: Aikens J in Marubeni hong kong and South China Ltd v Mangolian Government All ER (Comm.) 873 at 885
In Egon Oldendorff v Liberia Corpn 2 LR 64 the plaintiff, a German company, secured leave to serve a writ on the defendant, a Japanese company, on the basis that the contract was governed by English law, having regard to inclusion of a clause providing for arbitration in England.
‘A previous course of dealing between the parties under contracts containing an express choice of law may leave the court in no doubt that the contract in question is to be governed by the law previously chosen where the choice of law clause has been omitted in circumstances which do not indicate a deliberate change of policy by the parties’ .OJ 1980C282/17.
In Broken Hill ProperietryCo. Ltd v Xenakis 2 LR 304 where a contract between A and B contains an express choice of English law, it is implied the choice of English law where C undertook to guarantee the obligation of A.
In Amin Rasheed Shipping Corporation v Kuwait Insurance Co AC 50 the use of a Lloyd’s SG form of policy modeled on that contained in a schedule to the Marine Insurance Act 1906 persuaded the House of lords that English law was the impliedly chosen law by the parties.
IL Pr 729
Suppose parties who were Italian made a contract, to be performed in Italy and all other relevant contacts were with Italy. Suppose, further, that the parties chose German law and consented to the jurisdiction of the German courts. Article 3(3) requires the German court to apply the mandatory rules of Italian law. In such a situation, the probability is that he parties only chose German law to avoid such mandatory rules. While the law of Germany will be the governing law, it will only be applied to the extent that it does not violate the mandatory rules of Italian law.
In The Hollandia 1A.C. 565 a bill of lading contained an express choice of Dutch law and a submission to the exclusive jurisdiction of the Dutch Court . it was common ground that the Dutch Courts would have applied Dutch law, under which Hague Rule would have been applicable, with the consequence that the carrier’s limit of liability would have been lower than that under Hague- Visby Rules. It was held that the Hague Visby Rules Scheduled to the Carriage of Goods by Sea Act, 1971 applied so as to render the choice of dutch law and jurisdiction had the effect of lessening the liability of the carriers otherwise than as provided in Hague Visbu Rule.
Art 16. Privy council in Vita Food Product Inc v Unus Shipping Co.Ltd.AC 277
McLachlan (1990) 51 BYIL 311
Amin Rasheed Shipping Corporation v Kuwait Insurance Co AC 50. In this case there was evidence that the definition used in the Marine Insurance Act 1906, to which the standard Lloyd’s policy was scheduled, were used as a source of law in this sense by continental courts.
Rassano v Manufacturers Life Insurance Co. 2 Q.B. 352
Barcelo v Electrolytic Zinc Co. of Australia Ltd 919320 48 C.L.R. 391
R v International Trustee for the protection of Bondholders A/G A.C.
The author can be reached at: firstname.lastname@example.org 500
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It's really quite simple – the *Standard American Diet* (SAD) is responsible for most diseases. Simply put, we are eating ourselves into poor health, chronic disease and early death.
It just a few minutes, this clip will put everything into perspective. A few changes to your diet can mean the difference between health or sickness and even life or death.
This is not what the mainstream media / corporate controlled government health system will discuss. Why you ask? Well, as usual —– follow the money.
We are far more profitable sick. They cannot profit on healthy or dead people.
Every industry involved with health care, those big businesses, research and development, cancer for example, that keep taking your donations to find a cure which never comes. Big Pharma and their pill or serum for everything.
The Cause of Disease
Alkaline Sisters Food Chart
Acid Alkaline Food Chart
A list of Acid / Alkaline Forming Foods
PH Miracle Living
Another excellent article from Viewzone. Many important key facts to be found.
By Gary Vey
After writing several articles on reincarnation and enlightenment, many readers asked me why I never mentioned the significance of the pineal gland — a small structure about the size of a pea, located in the middle of the brain. For centuries this gland has been thought of by occultists and spititual masters as the "seat of the soul" — a phrase made popular by Descartes (1662 AD).
Descartes was obsessed with understanding who we are. He questioned everything — even the notion that we can know ourselves. He observed that the senses can be fooled, that most of what we think we know is really illusion and finally struggled with the possibility that our own identity as individuals was also not real. But in the end he concluded that if it was possible to doubt our own existence, there had to be some "thing" that was capable of experiencing this doubt.… Read the rest
(NaturalNews) It seems that these days more and more people in America suffer from depression, whether it is considered mild or severe. In fact, according to the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health, over 18 million people in America suffer from either Major Depressive Disorder or Dysthymic Disorder (mild but chronic depression) every year. Some people might simply attribute these numbers to the hectic lifestyle of many Americans and the daily stress they face, while others might believe that medical professionals are better at diagnosing the symptoms. However, considering the effects of the "Standard American Diet" (referred to as "SAD" for a reason), it's best not to dismiss diet's effect on one's mental state.
For one thing, a diet that consists of highly processed foods has been linked to depression. Some research has shown that an unhealthy diet lacking in fresh foods can increase one's risk for depression. A study conducted by the University College London suggested that a diet high in fruit, vegetables, and fish decreases a person's risk of depression.… Read the rest
(NaturalNews) The fact that modern mainstream medicine can`t fathom a
connection with microwaved foods to cancer is simple: Orthodox medicine
thinks nutrition and diet have nothing to do with disease. It`s focused
on germs and genes. Their intervention is based on man made drugs or
surgical procedures. Check out hospital food as a partial confirmation
of this philosophy.
Mainstream MDs may agree that direct contact
with microwave radiation causes health problems. But they can`t make the
cancer causing connection to the food from microwave ovens. Hans Hertel, the heroic Swiss researcher featured in this author`s Natural News article linking cancer to microwave cooking, clears the scientific fog formed by medical science`s half-witted declarations.
Normally cooked food
is heated from the outside in. This is the normal function of thermal
dynamics: heat transfers to cold. Although raw food advocates will
rightfully point out the heat destroying nutrients, especially enzymes,
normal cooking doesn`t create nearly as much damage as microwave cooking.
You probably know that microwave radiation heats from the inside out.… Read the rest
We spoke last
month about a divergence in energy — internal vs. external — which
continues on in the present month, deepening and becoming more plainly
evident. Last September there was a significant nexus or
choice point made which resulted in some noticeable change for many of
you. Many people found themselves feeling more fully aware of their
paths, or more fully aware of the interconnection that exists between
all life. It is not inaccurate to state that many people interpreted
that nexus energy as the creation of an “us vs. them” or “happy” world
vs. a “sad” one, because, in some ways, that has indeed been what has
been created and is now resulting in the continuing divergence we see
Many of you are creating
beginnings this month, or what feels like beginnings (but really are a
continuation of what you have built before this). Tangible evidence of
these beginnings can include:
- Physical moves
- Changes in vocation, job, or focus
internal experiences like visions, eruption of channeling abilities,
- Sudden and almost effortless realizations
of long-held patterns.
Please post and circulate
View Online at: http://www.disclosureproject.org/email-update-july-7-2010.shtml
World Puja Network Show –
July 9, 2010
World Puja Network Show – July 9, 2010
Conversations with Dr. Steven Greer
Show air times (US time zones):
11 am Pacific / 2
and 6 pm Pacific / 9 pm Eastern
Contact in the
Dr. Greer and assistant Linda Willitts will share the
many amazing experiences from the recent Crestone CO expedition in the
"Mysterious" San Luis Valley. CSETI groups have been going to Crestone
and Blanca Peak for 18 years and have had many amazing experiences with
interaction with ETs. Find out the most recent happenings.
Listen to the archived shows at:
* * *
Dr. Steven Greer – Public Lecture in England
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Pay at the door – for more information:
* * *
Ambassador to the Universe Training
September 5 – 11, 2010
Registration and details: http://www.CSETI.org/programs/Trainings.htm
* * *
Contact – Countdown to
3-Day Conference in Rio Rico,
You’re supposed to Love it All…… without attachment.
So not wanting any of it,
not needing any of it,
not having any of it,
Yet at the same time creating All of It!
But if you do not need, want or have any of it, what is the point of creating it?
So others can want, need or have it? Fat chance, because You is all there is.
Where does the fun of creation come from, if you aren’t allowed to enjoy it?
Or if you still haven figured out how to create what you shouldn’t want, need or have anyway?
And who decides that, if there is just Me? Am I just fighting myself here?
If it is just Me holding Me back, why am I such a sadist and a masochist at the same time? For the Fun of It?
Seems like I painted myself into a corner here……
No pessimism implied: I’m quite neutral in fact, just bored at having done all that needs to be done, being left with nothing to do but senseless 3D activities that we seem to have to do to avoid our 3D world from breaking down into chaos.… Read the rest
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WebMD Medical News
Laura J. Martin, MD
Sept 14, 2010 -- Popular osteoporosis drugs known as bisphosphonates may increase the risk of rare, but painful thigh bone fractures, and their labeling should be updated to reflect this increased risk. That's the conclusion of a 27-person international task force that was convened by the American Society of Bone and Mineral Research to study the link between these drugs and the unusual (also called atypical) femur fractures.
The panel conducted a thorough literature review (which included published and unpublished case studies) and identified 310 such fractures. Ninety four percent of people who sustained these fractures had taken bisphosphonates for more than five years.
The findings are published in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research. The FDA has been waiting for the report of the task force before making recommendations about bisphosphonates and the unusual fractures.
The bisphosphonate class of drugs includes Aclasta, Actonel, Aredia, Bondronat, Boniva, Didronel, Fosamax, Fosavance, Reclast, Skelid, and Zometa.
"We now believe there is a relationship between this class of drugs and this unusual thigh bone fracture, and that this relationship is stronger in patients who have taken these drugs for a longer time," says task force co-chair Elizabeth Shane, MD, professor of medicine at Columbia University in New York City.
"Still, these thigh fractures are unusual and uncommon, particularly when you view them in the context of more common osteoporosis fractures, such as rib, spine, and arm fractures," she says.
Unusual femur fractures actually comprise less than 1% of all hip and thigh fractures, and less than one-tenth of 1% of patients on these drugs have sustained a fracture like this, she says.
"These are uncommon fractures, but of course when you have one that doesn't matter because it is affecting you, and they can be devastating and are very serious," she tells WebMD.
"We don't want patients or doctors to be afraid to prescribe these drugs because they are worried about thigh fractures," she says. "Many, many more fractures are prevented by these drugs than are caused by them."
Taken by millions of people, bisphosphonates work by slowing the bone breakdown process. Bones are constantly breaking down and repairing themselves. The bone breakdown process quickens with advancing age, and if bone rebuilding can't keep up, bones may become brittle and more prone to fracture.
The task force has requested that labels for bisphosphonates now state that there is a risk for developing atypical femur fractures.
Knowing what to look out for is also important, she says. Symptoms may include pain in the thigh or groin, and this can be in both legs, she says. "If you have a fracture in one side, you need an X-ray on the other," Shane says.
Exactly how these drugs may increase the risk of these fractures while decreasing the risk of fractures at other sites is not fully understood yet. "There are several possible potential mechanisms," she says. The group is calling for more research to better understand the connection as well as a registry to track individuals who sustain their fractures while on the drugs.
"Many physicians in the world of osteoporosis have suspected this for a while," says Linda A. Russell, MD, an assistant professor of medicine at Weill Medical College of Cornell University and rheumatologist at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City. "We have seen these fractures at our hospital and orthopedic surgeons are starting to see them around the country."
Doctors should make sure they see their patients on these drugs at least once a year, and ask specifically if they are having thigh pain, she says. There is also promising research on markers of bone turnover which may help identify people who are at highest risk for these fractures, before they start exhibiting symptoms. Russell was not on the task force.
"Women treated with bisphosphonates or other anti-resorptive agents should be sure they need the medication," says Nancy Lane, MD, professor of medicine and director of the University of California, Davis Center for Healthy Aging in Sacramento, Calif., in an email. "If they only have low bone mass without other clinical risk factors for osteoporotic fractures, they should talk to their physicians about stopping the drug," she says.
"Many of the reports of these fractures have come from women who have been very physically active, so low impact exercise might be the most prudent kind if you are taking these medications," Lane says.
SOURCES:Elizabeth Shane, MD, professor of medicine, Columbia University.Linda A. Russell, MD, assistant professor, medicine, Weill Medical College of Cornell University; rheumatologist, Hospital for Special Surgery, New York City.Nancy Lane, MD, professor of medicine; director of the University of California, Davis Center for Healthy Aging, Sacramento, Calif.Shane, E. Journal of Bone and Mineral Research. 2010.
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My mother is always my shero
My mother passed away twenty months ago. I miss her every day of my life. When I am about to feel sad, I try to remember all the good things she had brought to my life to know that what I have become today is from my sweet little mother. Everyone called her Mamie, Mamie which she used to explain Mamy in Malagasy which means Sweet, Mon Amie in French which means My Friend, and Mummy in English which means Mother. Yes she was the Sweet Mother and above all your Friend. Most of people do not want to be friend with their mother because the mother is out of tune, because of many secrets you do not want to share to your mother. My mother was not like that. She was really close to us, her children and even everyone in our little neighborhood. She was always there ready to help and ready to give advices. I even believe that she was the shero of many people.
My mother taught me to be smart in class, to get high education, never to give up, to always move forward, to be happy. She also taught me never judge people cause of their race, origin, or social status. This remind me a little story of my childhood. I was with some school mates and on the way home we met our landress, an old woman with poor clothes and no sandals. I greeted her :"Manao ahoana, Tompoko?". Manao ahoana is for saying hello. You use Tompoko for a sign of respect to the person you talk to. So, all my friends asked if she was my relative. They were amazed why I wanted to respect "a landress". This is how many people behave. My mother taught me never to think like that. I respected the lady because she was older than me.
My mother taught me to be independant. Now that she is not here anymore, my siblings and I can manage our own lives. We know some of our friends who were completely lost cause of their mother's death. My mother taught us that everyone must leave one day. We always need to be ready and to face life because our life must go on.
My mother taught every little things I now use in my marriage. My husband can be always happy because the house is clean, the foods are good, the clothes are washed. I had a boyfriend before meeting my husband. She could feel that he was not a good guy. I never needed to tell her that he was cheating on me, and when he was really upset he even beat me. She could guess it. A good mother can know every thing. I was in love and did not want to hear anything. I only realized it when I woke up and met a new guy whom my mother really liked. I married this guy few months ago and my mother was not wrong, he is the sweetest caring husband I have ever met.
My mother taught me that "impossible" does not exist, to each problem, there is a solution. Now, I know how to manage each situation I have to face firmly and with courage.
Well, a lot to tell about what my mother brought to my life. I thank God for having given me my mother. Today, when people talk to me, they see my mother in me, in my face, in my smile, in my way of speaking, in my behavior. Yes, my mother will always be my shero. Thanks to Mamie, I am what I am today. And RIP Mommy.
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BOISE, Idaho — A bill that would allow Idaho ranchers to use powered parachutes, helicopters and live-bait traps to hunt problem wolves has died in the Senate.
Senators agreed Tuesday to send the controversial legislation back to the Resources and Environment Committee — a move that likely ends the bill’s chances this year.
Republican Sen. Jeff Siddoway of Terreton is a sheep rancher and the bill’s lead sponsor. Siddoway gave an impassioned speech defending his legislation and decrying the impact wolves are causing on livestock producers statewide.
But he also acknowledged how his bill could risk putting wolves back on the federal Endangered Species List, and he urged his colleagues to send it back to committee.
The legislation would let ranchers track and kill wolves for 36 hours after an attack.
Congrats to David James for his winning submission, 'Annabella smelling the Balsam.'
Share your experiences as part of EarthFix's Public Insight Network.
Join our Public Insight Network!
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If you or a family member has been affected by retinoblastoma and you would like to help raise awareness of retinoblastoma by telling your story to the media please let us know and we can make contact with the media on your behalf and advise you on what to expect.
If you are already in contact with the media, your contact may find our Notes to the Editor section useful as it outlines all the up-to-date facts on retinoblastoma.
Any media coverage Childhood Eye Cancer Trust (CHECT) members can help with is always greatly appreciated in our united effort to raise awareness of the signs and symptoms of retinoblastoma.
Here are some comments from some Childhood Eye Cancer Trust members who have worked with the media.
“I’d never done press work before and was really nervous to start with but the journalists I dealt with knew how important it was to get the message out there, which made me feel a lot more relaxed about the whole thing.
“Whether its TV or papers, they will edit everything so don’t worry if you fluff your words, they use the best bits and won’t make you look silly.
“The fact they are asking for your story is enough to know they have your best interests at heart.” – Katy Bishop
“I found sharing my experience very therapeutic as not only did I get to talk about what happened to my daughter and how it made me feel, but I also got a lot of comfort knowing hopefully it may help another family in the future.” – Richard Firth
A collection of facts and figures about retinoblastoma and treatment
A collection of press cuttings with past stories from CHECT and its members
Find out the latest published news featuring CHECT and its members
This page is for journalists and the media.
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Native to boggy areas of the eastern United States and Canada, the cinnamon fern is one of the earliest ferns to emerge in the spring. Young fronds are covered with white, woolly hair before they unfurl. When full grown, the waxy fronds are yellow-green and grow 24 to 36 inches tall and 6 to 8 inches wide. There are two distinctly different types of fronds—fertile and sterile.
The fertile frond resembles a cinnamon stick. It emerges first, and after releasing its spores it turns golden brown, withers, and lies on the ground through the summer.
The sterile fronds appear in late spring, stay green all summer, and turn brown with the first fall frost. This fern requires a slightly acid (pH 5.5 to 6.5) soil that is kept evenly moist. It spreads slowly, and because of its height, it is best used as a background plant.
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Palestinian security agents who have been detaining and allegedly torturing supporters of the Islamist organisation Hamas in the West Bank have been working closely with the CIA, the Guardian has learned.
Less than a year after Barack Obama signed an executive order that prohibited torture and provided for the lawful interrogation of detainees in US custody, evidence is emerging the CIA is co-operating with security agents whose continuing use of torture has been widely documented by human rights groups.
The relationship between the CIA and the two Palestinian agencies involved – Preventive Security Organisation (PSO) and General Intelligence Service (GI) – is said by some western diplomats and other officials in the region to be so close that the American agency appears to be supervising the Palestinians' work.
One senior western official said: "The [Central Intelligence] Agency consider them as their property, those two Palestinian services." A diplomatic source added that US influence over the agencies was so great they could be considered "an advanced arm of the war on terror".
While the CIA and the Palestinian Authority (PA) deny the US agency controls its Palestinian counterparts, neither denies that they interact closely in the West Bank. Details of that co-operation are emerging as some human rights organisations are beginning to question whether US intelligence agencies may be turning a blind eye to abusive interrogations conducted by other countries' intelligence agencies with whom they are working. According to the Palestinian watchdog al-Haq, human rights in the West Bank and Gaza have "gravely deteriorated due to the spreading violations committed by Palestinian actors" this year.
Most of those held without trial and allegedly tortured in the West Bank have been supporters of Hamas, which won the Palestinian elections in 2006 but is denounced as a terrorist organisation by the PA – which in turn is dominated by the rival Fatah political faction – and by the US and EU. In the Gaza Strip, where Hamas has been in control for more than two years, there have been reports of its forces detaining and torturing Fatah sympathisers in the same way.
Among the human rights organisations that have documented or complained about the mistreatment of detainees held by the PA in the West Bank are Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, al-Haq and the Israeli watchdog B'Tselem. Even the PA's human rights commission has expressed "deep concern" over the mistreatment of detainees.
The most common complaint is that detainees are severely beaten and subjected to a torture known as shabeh, during which they are shackled and forced to assume painful positions for long periods. There have also been reports of sleep deprivation, and of large numbers of detainees being crammed into small cells to prevent rest. Instead of being brought before civilian courts, almost all the detainees enter a system of military justice under which they need not be brought before a court for six months.
According to PA officials, between 400 and 500 Hamas sympathisers are held by the PSO and GI.
Some of the mistreatment has been so severe that at least three detainees have died in custody this year. The most recent was Haitham Amr, a 33-year-old nurse and Hamas supporter from Hebron who died four days after he was detained by GI officials last June. Extensive bruising around his kidneys suggested he had been beaten to death. Among those who died in GI custody last year was Majid al-Barghuti, 42, an imam at a village near Ramallah.
While there is no evidence that the CIA has been commissioning such mistreatment, human rights activists say it would end promptly if US pressure was brought to bear on the Palestinian authorities.
Shawan Jabarin, general director of al-Haq, said: "The Americans could stop it any time. All they would have to do is go to [prime minister] Salam Fayyad and tell him they were making it an issue.. Then they could deal with the specifics: they could tell him that detainees needed to be brought promptly before the courts."
A diplomat in the region said "at the very least" US intelligence officers were aware of the torture and not doing enough to stop it. He added: "There are a number of questions for the US administration: what is their objective, what are their rules of engagement? Do they train the GI and PSO according to the manual which was established by the previous administration, including water-boarding? Are they in control, or are they just witnessing?"
Sa'id Abu-Ali, the PA's interior minister, accepted detainees had been tortured and some had died, but said such abuses had not been official policy and steps were being taken to prevent them. He said such abuses "happen in every country in the world". Abu-Ali sought initially to deny the CIA was "deeply involved" with the two Palestinian intelligence agencies responsible for the torture of Hamas sympathisers, but then conceded that links did exist. "There is a connection, but there is no supervision by the Americans," he said. "It is solely a Palestinian affair. But the Americans help us."
The CIA does not deny working with the PSO and GI in the West Bank, although it will not say what use it has made of intelligence extracted during the interrogation of Hamas supporters. But it denies turning what one official described as "a Nelson's eye to abuse".
The CIA's spokesman, Paul Gimigliano, denied it played a supervisory role over the PSO or GI. "The notion that this agency somehow runs other intelligence services … is simply wrong," he said. "The CIA … only supports, and is interested in, lawful methods that produce sound intelligence."
Concern about detainee abuse is growing in the West Bank despite an effort by the international community to create Palestinian institutions that will guarantee greater security as a first step towards creating a Palestinian state. More than half of the PA's $2.8bn (£1.66bn) budget came from international donors last year; more than a quarter was swallowed up by the ministry of the interior and national security. Human Rights Watch and al-Haq have said that in raising the security capacity of the PA, donor countries have a responsibility to ensure it observes international human rights standards.
At the heart of the international effort is the creation of the Palestinian national security force, a 7,500-strong gendarmerie trained by US, British, Canadian and Turkish army officers under the command of a US general, Keith Dayton. Many Palestinians blame Dayton for the mistreatment of Hamas sympathisers, although the general's remit does not extend to either of the intelligence agencies responsible.
Some in Dayton's team are said to have been warned by senior CIA officers that they should not attempt to interfere in the work of the PSO or GI. Privately, some of them are said to fear that the mistreatment of detainees, and the anger this is arousing among the population, may undermine their mission. One source said: "I know that Dayton and his crew are very concerned about what is happening in those detention centres because they know it can jeopardise their work."
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Mon April 9, 2012
'When God Talks Back' To The Evangelical Community
Originally published on Mon April 9, 2012 11:00 am
While attending services and small group meetings at The Vineyard, an evangelical church with 600 branches across the country, anthropologist T.M. Luhrmann noticed that several members of the congregation said God had repeatedly spoken to them and that they had heard what God wanted them to do.
In When God Talks Back, which is based on an anthropological study she did at The Vineyard, Luhrmann examines the personal relationships people developed with God and explores how those relationships were cemented through the practice of prayer.
"The way I think about it as an anthropologist, I don't have the authority to pronounce on whether God is real or whether God is not real," she tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. "I don't feel like I have a horse in that race. I don't feel I have the authority to say whether God showed up to somebody or did not. I do think that if God speaks to someone, God speaks to the human mind. And I can say something about the social, cultural and psychological features of what that person is experiencing."
Talking Directly With God
Poll numbers show that more Americans are experiencing God through personal relationships. The Pew Foundation found that nearly a quarter of Americans are what they call "renewalist" Christians, which means they have an interactive sense of God's presence. Another study cited by Luhrmann found that 26 percent of all Americans say they have been given a direct revelation from God.
"I would go to churches that were not explicitly experientially oriented, and those were churches where people were telling me that I should be having coffee with God," she says. "So I think this style of encountering God has become much more a part of the American experience."
Luhrmann has hypothesized that people going to services and prayer groups at evangelical churches have trained their minds to perceive God's voice. In the prayer classes she attended, she observed people experiencing what she calls a new "theory of mind."
"They learn to experience some of their thoughts as not being thoughts from them, but thoughts from God that they hear inside their mind," she says. "They're also invited to pretend that God is present. I take that verb from C.S. Lewis — he has a chapter of Mere Christianity entitled 'Let's Pretend.' ... These folks were invited to put out a second cup of coffee for God, they prayed to go for a walk with God, to go on a date with God, to snuggle with God, to imagine that they are sitting on a bench in the park with God's arms around their shoulders and they're talking about their respective days."
These people are using their imaginations to create this conversation, says Luhrmann.
"They're using their own understanding of conversation — their own conversations and friends — and building this daydreamlike exchange, but they're seeking to represent God the way that God is represented in church," she says. "In this kind of church, unconditionally loving, always wise, always responsive, always there — and then they're trying to experience that God as talking back to them and to experience what God says as being really real, and not the creation of their own imaginations."
Understanding What God Says
In these classes, congregants were taught to discern thoughts coming from their imagination with thoughts that were coming directly from God, says Luhrmann.
"What I was fascinated by, was that when people would enter the church, they'd say, 'I don't know what people are talking about. God doesn't talk to me,' " she says. "And then they would try praying in this interactive, free-form imagination-rich kind of way, and after six months, they would start to say that they recognize God's voice the way they recognize their mom's voice on the phone."
Congregants in the prayer classes at The Vineyard are taught that they are unconditionally loved by God. Luhrmann says she saw prayer groups in which a group would pray over someone who felt inadequate in some respect and remind that person that God loved him or her unconditionally.
"People practice experiencing God as a therapist," she says. "They have a sense of God being wise and good and loving, and they talk to God in their minds and talk about their problems, and then they are seeking to experience themselves as seeing it from the perspective of a loving God who then reflects back on their anxieties and interprets them differently."
On Unconditional Love
Luhrmann says she was struck by stories she heard about the moment people concluded that God loved them unconditionally.
"I would be often sitting with people, and at some point in the interview they'd begin to cry, and when they cried, they would talk about the moment when they really got it that God loved them just as they were," she says. "And then it would be gone. It was hard for people to hang onto. And I thought that many people were able to carry around in themselves this sense of being loved."
Members of the church do not use the term "self-help," but they do tell congregants that they will feel happier and more confident if they accept God into their lives, says Luhrmann.
"If you read Rick Warren's Purpose Driven Life, it reads from one perspective very much like a cognitive behavioral therapy manual," she says. "He's trying to get you to see yourself from God's perspective. It starts with the statement that you are not an accident. And then, with each chapter, he is asking you to reconsider yourself, not from the perspective of your own limitations or your own failures, but from the sense that you are not properly understanding yourself as seen from the person who created you. And I actually think this really helps people."
This, of course, is a radically different philosophy from churches that preach about the wrath of God and eternal damnation. Lurhmann explains that the experientially oriented churches grew out of the social upheavals of the 1960s.
"Atheism became an allowable life identity, and there were many different ways to be spiritual," she says. "There were many different ways to be in the world, and Christianity then became a buyer's market. People chose if they were going to be Christian and what type of church they would join. And churches like The Vineyard see themselves as trying to offer a God that's quite different from the one who terrified poor James Joyce."
Luhrmann says she noticed that when people in The Vineyard prayer group concentrated on speaking to God, they attended more intensely to their own internal worlds.
"It becomes more alive, it feels more real, and occasionally it almost slipped over the edge of that boundary that separates the inner and outer, and they would hear God speak audibly or they would see something that somebody else wouldn't see," she says. "I don't think that has anything to do with ontology. If there is a God, God is choosing those moments when you have that unusual experience. But the psychological technique of prayer is independent of religion. It is a way of changing the inner experience of the person."
Luhrmann says her experiences working with the people at The Vineyard changed her own ways of looking at God.
"There's this amazing prayer by a Jesuit father that says 'Fall in love with God, stay in love with God, and it will change everything,' " she says. "I don't have this ontological commitment to this God that's kind of out there, but I do have the sense that I'm a little more able to allow myself to experience the good and the aliveness of the world, if that makes any sense."
On different thoughts people had at the evangelical church
"People didn't feel they had to save me at every opportunity. It is true that different people come with their own sense of what is required of a good Christian and what is required to be a good Christian with regards to homosexuality. There was actually a pretty wide range of opinion on that in the churches where I spent them — pretty wide range on evolution. In the Chicago church [I went to], somebody said, 'If God didn't want us to do stem-cell research, why did he make the scientists so darn smart?' Other people were really very committed to a Republican agenda and shocked when people seemed not to be. It's just hard to figure out where people are at. This is, I think, one of Robert Putnam's statistics, that 83 percent of evangelicals say that a good person not of their faith can go to heaven. And if you say 'suppose they're not Christian,' over 50 percent will say that that person can go to heaven. So I think there's a lot of variation."
On why she found herself moved to tears at church
"I found it immensely moving to commit to the sense that the world is good in the face of evidence to the contrary. I find it poignant that I saw people being able to make that commitment, and it didn't seem to me in talking to people that they were naive about the terrible things that happened in their lives and in the world. But they were asserting that this was nevertheless a wonderful place to be. It just wasn't just quite that way yet. And I don't know why I found that so moving, but I did. And I would say that I experienced God when I was at that church. What does that mean? I don't think I know. I don't think I can put words to that. I wouldn't call myself a Christian, but I did — through this practice of praying and thinking about the stories that were told in church. I love the Gospel of Mark because it's so ragged and contradictory, and Jesus is so intensely human and mysterious and paradoxical. I found it very moving. And I would have these moments of joy that I would call God. I'm not sure that the pastor would call that God."
On the spiritual shift in America since the 1960s
"American spirituality has shifted since the '60s toward a much more engaged, responsive, intimately experienced sense of the spiritual. Every church is different. Every person within a church has a somewhat different experience of God. But I thought this represented something really important about American spirituality."
On how she got interested in this topic
"I went to the home of one evangelical woman, and she told me that if I wanted to understand, I should have coffee with God. She had coffee with God all the time, she hung out with God, she chatted with God and talked with God as if he were a person. And I was blown away. I was so intrigued by what that meant and how she was able to do that."
On religion in her family
"My father's father was a Christian Scientist. My father became a doctor. My mother's father was a Baptist minister. She drifted away from the church. She still goes to church, it's still really important to her, but this belief commitment is a struggle for her. But she still goes to church. All three of my cousins are theologically very conservative Christians. I grew up in an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood. I was a Shabbos goy, which means that on Friday nights I would go over to people's houses and turn on and off the electrical switch so that they would have lights. So the perspective that I brought to this book was that I grew up knowing all these wise, good people who had different understandings of what was real. And that has always fascinated me ever since."
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Middle East 12:11 AM
Middle East 3:43 AM 5/24/2013
Middle East 12:15 AM 5/24/2013
Life Lessons with Judy Simon
Torah Tidbits Audio
Before making Aliyah to Israel, Tzvi Fishman was a Hollywood screenwriter. He has co-authored 4 books with Rabbi David Samson, based on the teachings of Rabbi Kook, Eretz Yisrael, Art of T'shuva, War and Peace, and Torat Eretz Yisrael.
Elul 14, 5770, 8/24/2010
A reader asks how is it possible that I can spend time searching through Google pictures and not take the opportunity to look at immodest photos of women as well. The truth is that dealing with this temptation is not an easy matter. No one is immune from the yetzer hara. I wish I could say that the thought alone revolts me, but I am not on that exalted level. Our Sages tell us that a Jew should not say “I don’t eat pork because I don’t like the taste.” Rather he should say, “Though pork is tasty, I don’t eat it because of the command of my Creator.”
Thus, to please G-d, and to keep my soul, and my house, as unblemished as I can, I try to keep away from girlie pictures. For safety, our computer has two anti-porn filters, and we keep it in a central place in the living room so everyone can see what’s on the screen.
This week’s Torah portion of “Ke-Teze” states:
“When thou goest out to encamp against thy enemies, thou shall keep away from every evil thing. If there be among you any man who is not pure by reason of a spilling of semen at night, then he shall go abroad out of the camp…. For the L-rd thy G-d walks in the midst of thy camp to deliver thee, and to give up thy enemies before thee; therefore thy camp shall be holy, that He sees no unclean thing in thee and turn away from thee” (Devarim, 10-15).
This warning does not only apply to the Jewish army, but also to any Jewish encampment, dormitory, office, or home. As our Sages have told us, nothing drives the Divine Presence away from the Jewish People as much as immodesty and sexual transgression.
Referring to the warning in the verse we have quoted above, “Thou shall keep away from every evil thing,” the Talmud teaches: “This means a man should not gaze upon an attractive woman, even an unmarried one; nor upon a married woman, even if she is ugly (Avodah Zara 20A). This is because, “A man shouldn’t have sexual thoughts in the day and come to seminal impurity at night” (Ibid, 20B).
This injunction applies to looking at photos of women on the Internet as well. This type of sordid behavior pollutes one’s soul and one’s house with a terrible pollution that drives Divine blessing away.
For those who maintain, “I can look at girlie pictures and nothing results from it,” this is not true. Firstly, it clearly violates the Torah commandment, “You shall not stray after hearts and after your eyes which lead you astray.”
Secondly, gazing at immodest images triggers an automatic, even if unconscious, sexual thought which pollutes the brain, the heart, and the soul.
Because of this automatic response, the spiritual component of the seminal seed is automatically released from the brain and travels along the spinal cord to the lower glands where it will be jettisoned in one way or another, whether through a willful spilling of semen, a “wet dream,” or when a person urinates. As our Sages have taught: “Whoever gazes at women will eventually come to transgression” (Nedarim20A). They also have warned: “The eye sees, the heart desires, and the body finishes the sin.”
If a husband has relations with his wife after having looked at pictures of women on the Internet, G-d forbid, this is clearly forbidden, and any child resulting from such a union will be spiritually, and possibly physically blemished, as well.
Furthermore, since a man’s brain and thought process is connected to the highest spiritual worlds, googling at Google ladies pollutes the Holy of Holies in the uppermost world, just like setting up an idol in the Holy Temple, adding to the destruction of Jerusalem and prolonging the exile.
Each immodest image a person looks at causes him to violate, “You shall keep away from everything evil,” so that at one Internet sitting a person can transgress hundreds of Torah prohibitions.
The evil results of looking at pictures of women on the Internet are too numerous to list here. In summary, our Sages have said that gazing lustfully at women is worse than the forbidden act itself, since when a man commits a sexual transgression with another person, if his soul is not totally darkened within him, he afterwards suffers a feeling of revulsion and remorse which leads him to thoughts of repentance. However, the person who obsessively gazes at women convinces himself that he is engaged in permissible behavior, and because his heart isn’t saddened over this, he doesn’t think to repent, and continues to commit hundreds of transgressions each day (See “Taharat HaKodesh,” 3:3).
As King Shlomo taught: “There is a generation that is pure in their own eyes, and is not washed from their filth” (Mishle, 30:13). Because they fancy themselves pure, and don’t understand how their eyes drag them into a terrible pollution and cut them off from everything holy, they don’t think to cleanse themselves from their filth. Thus, King Shlomo writes after this: “There is a generation, O how lofty are their eyes and how their eyelids are raised,” to go about in arrogance and contempt for the Torah, to allow their eyes to gaze upon whatever their hearts desire.
Studies suggest that up to seven out of ten Internet viewers (excluding INN surfers of course) spend a portion of each viewing session watching some porn. So for the health of you souls, and for the spiritual, moral, and physical health of your family, if you don’t yet have a trustworthy filter, download one now, let your wife be the only one who knows the code, and keep the monster in a central place in the house.
keep the monster in a central place in your home
Tags: Jewish World
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One of the most enduringly successful of the Old French personal names introduced into Britain by the Normans. It is of Germanic (Frankish) origin, derived from rīc ‘power’ + hard ‘strong, hardy’. It has enjoyed continuous popularity in England from the Conquest to the present day, influenced by the fact that it was borne by three kings of England, in particular Richard I (1157–99). He was king for only ten years (1189–99), most of which he spent in warfare abroad, taking part in the Third Crusade and costing the people of England considerable sums in taxes. Nevertheless, he achieved the status of a folk hero, and was never in England long enough to disappoint popular faith in his goodness and justice. He was also Duke of Aquitaine and Normandy and Count of Anjou, fiefs which he held at a time of maximum English expansion in France. His exploits as a leader of the Third Crusade earned him the nickname ‘Coeur de Lion’ or ‘Lionheart’ and a permanent place in popular imagination, in which he was even more firmly enshrined by Sir Walter Scott's novel Ivanhoe (1820).
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A new version of LoCoH in the R open-source statistical programming language is now available.
See http://locoh.cnr.berkeley.edu for details.
Version 2.1 of LoCoH for ArcView 3.x is now available for downloading.
LoCoH is an ArcView 3.x extension for estimating home range or a habitat utilization distribution of animals based on point data representing individual observations. This type of analysis is typically used to see which part of a habitat an individual animal, or group of individuals, use most often, based on observational sightings, radio telemtry, or data from GPS collars.
LoCoH is based on the k-NNCH (nearest-neighbor convex hull) method described in Getz and Wilmers (2004). The method creates a home range distribution by first looking at each point and identifying a user-specified number of nearest neighbors. Next, minimum-convex polygons (local hulls) are created for each point and its k nearest neighbors, where k is specified by the user. (Note: the paper by Getz and Wilmers creates local hulls from k-1 nearest neighbors, but the LoCoH software constructs hulls from each point and its k nearest neighbors.) These hulls are then sorted smallest to largest, and then added up (or merged together) one by one. When enough of the merged local hulls enclose 10% of the original points, the resulting polygon is saved as the "10th percentile isopleth". Because the hulls are merged smallest to largest, the 10th percentile isopleth also represents the 'densest' or most heavily used part of the habitat. Additional local hulls are then added until 20% of the original points are enclosed, which then becomes the 20th percentile isopleth. This continues until all of the points are enclosed. The last isopleth encloses all of the original points.
Compared to other methods for constructing home ranges (such as Minimum Convex Polygon and kernel methods), the k-NNCH method has several advantages that make it particularly well-suited for landscapes with 'sharp' features such as lakes, fences, or steep terrain. These type of landscape features often result in spatial distributions containing holes, sharp boundaries, corners, or corridors. In these cases, k-NNCH density isopleths have been shown to better approximate the true area represented by the data than kernel or alpha-hull methods. k-NNCH isopleth also have the property of converging to the true area represented by the data as the number of data points increases (Getz and Wilmers 2004), thus the method is particularly well suited when there is a lot of observational data (e.g., from a GPS collar).
The k-NNCH method is computationally simple which minimizes the number of parameters to set and makes it easy to use. The general sequence of steps for using the method is as follows:
The number of points to use for constructing local hulls must be between three (the smallest number of points needed to create a polygon) and the total number of points being analyzed. In practice, low values such as k=3 tend to result in a number of 'holes' or areas where the animal was not seen but is most likely to use. Larger values of k increase the total area of the isopleths, but values which are too large can result in local hulls that cut across areas where the animal was not observed and is unlikely to use.
There is no optimum value for k that will work for every dataset, because it depends on the spatial distribution of the points and the number of observations. Getz and Wilmers (2004) propose a "minimum covering of spurious holes" (MCSH) rule for selecting a value of k which results in local hulls that cover most areas that the animal is known to exist, but minimizes the number of areas where the animal is unlikely to be. This is illustrated in Figures 1-3.
LoCoH is available as an extension for ArcView 3.x. See the help file for instructions on installation and use.
LoCoH 2.1 for ArcView 3.x (534 Kb), Help file
ArcGIS 9.x users are encouraged to download and install the R version of LoCoH, which includes a toolbox that can be added to your ArcToolbox pane in ArcMap. See http://locoh.cnr.berkeley.edu/arctutorial for details.
If you have problems getting the ArcToolbox for the R version of LoCoH working, please see these trouble-shooting tips.
Archived below are ArcMap templates which contain VBA scripts to generate isopleths use the LoCoH method. But note:
LoCoH for ArcGIS 9 (ArcObjects version) (201 Kb), Help file
LoCoH for ArcGIS 8 (ArcObjects version). For installation instructions, see the help file for the ArcGIS 9 version.
Getz, W. and C. Wilmers. 2004. A local nearest-neighbor convex-hull construction of home ranges and utilization distributions. Ecography 27: 489-505. View PDF (1.13 Mb).
Development of LoCoH was made possible by support from the National Science Foundation (NSF/NIH EID Grant DEB-0090323).
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