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Cowes seafront in the 1950s. Picture courtesy of Cowes Heritage.
THE austerity of the post war years is the theme of the latest exhibition by Cowes Heritage, which will look at the town in the 1950s.
The choice was made in the wake of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee celebrations this year.
The exhibition opens to the public on Saturday and subjects highlighted include weddings, ship and boat building, shops, carnivals, farms, schools, and the railway.
Opening the exhibition will be guest of honour, Patricia Hillier, who as a 14 year old in 1953 twice reigned as a local queen — the first occasion when crowned May Queen at Northwood House and the second when she attended a coronation street party.
The party was in St Mary's Road, Cowes, where Mrs Hiller, nee Bishop, lived at the time. She now lives in Greenways, Northwood.
The exhibition will be open daily, 10 am to 4 pm, from Saturday 20 October to Sunday 11 November, at the Cowes Regatta Centre, Bath Road, Cowes. Admission is free.
Coinciding with the exhibition, Cowes Heritage is launching its latest book. Called 'The History of Cowes Shops', it provides a fascinating photographic insight into the sort of shops that formerly operated in the town. It costs £10.
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CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) - A West Virginia woman feared the world was ending as she watched a Sissonville gas explosion destroy her neighborhood.
Sue Bonham was the first witness at a Monday field hearing held by Senate Commerce Chairman Jay Rockefeller.
The West Virginia Democrat organized it after the Dec. 11 blast torched homes and damaged Interstate 77.
Bonham said a phone call kept her indoors just as the pipeline exploded. She's certain she otherwise would have died. Bonham described a deafening roar followed by walls of fire and suffocating heat.
Monday's hearing also features National Transportation Safety Board chair Deborah Hersman.
Before the hearing, Rockefeller criticized the U.S. Office of Management of Budget for slowing down potential safety rules meant to respond to the Sissonville explosion and similar accidents.
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has announced that the American auto maker Chrysler will recall almost 250,000 Dodge Ram trucks due to a break of the left tie rod ball stud which can occur. More specifically, Chrystler is recalling several lines of trucks manufactured between 2008-2011. .Truck owners can call the auto company at at 1-800-853-1403 for details regarding the recall process, schedule and inventory.
How do tie rod ball studs cause accidents?
A tie rod ball stud is an integral part of the steering and wheel mechanism in the vehicle
In the trucks discussed, this part may fracture which may cause instability in the front wheel when making tight turns with the vehicle. This clearly increases the risk of accident and or injury.
Product liability law
Individuals who have suffered losses or damages due to auto defects may be entitled to compensation. The investigation of these claims can be very complex in nature and may require expert analysis and testimony to establish cause. It is wise to speak to an auto defect attorney who can investigate any potential claim and pursue maximum benefits under the Florida law.
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April 21, 2010
Wednesday of the Third Week of Easter
John 6: 35-40
Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and anyone who comes to me I will never drive away; for I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. This is indeed the will of my Father, that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life; and I will raise them up on the last day."
Introductory Prayer: Lord, I believe that you are present here and now as I turn to you in prayer. I trust and have confidence in your desire to give me every grace I need to receive today. Thank you for your love, thank you for your immense generosity toward me. I give you my life and my love in return.
Petition: Lord, help me to have a deeper confidence and trust in you.
1. An Empty Hole the Size of Christ
“It’s like I had a big hole in my heart, and I couldn’t fill it with anything.” So exclaimed someone who recently came back to the sacraments after being away for many years. She was hungering and thirsting for Christ, and, thankfully, Christ didn’t permit anything else to fill the place in her heart where only he belonged. On re-encountering Christ—in his mercy in confession, in his nourishing grace in communion—she was able to experience the benefits promised by Christ himself: “Anyone who comes to me I will never drive away.” Every one of us invariably finds holes in our hearts, small or not so small. Only Christ belongs there. To welcome Christ back in our hearts, we must seek out his mercy and nourishing grace.
2. Why Do We Hesitate?
If what we need and what we truly long for is Christ, then what keeps us from going to him? Sometimes it is our pride, or spiritual laziness, or maybe superficiality in our spiritual life. But behind these reasons is often a fear that if we open ourselves to Christ, we will somehow lose out. Benedict XVI addressed this fear in his first homily as Pope: “Do not be afraid of Christ! He takes nothing away, and He gives you everything. When we give ourselves to Him, we receive a hundred-fold in return. Yes, open, open wide the doors to Christ - and you will find true life.” (Mass for the Inauguration of the Pontificate, April 24, 2005).
3. Can You Show Me to the Lost-and-Found?
These are words that Christ has never spoken—nor ever will. It is his Father’s will that Christ lose none of those entrusted to him. Christ never fails in his mission. Rather, in today’s reading he promises: “And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.” This is our guarantee that we will never be abandoned and left without his grace to support us. There will be no difficulty, obstacle, or temptation too great for him to help us overcome.
Conversation with Christ: Lord Jesus, I trust in you. Despite the real struggles and obstacles in my path now, I know that you are leading me towards you. You are the only one who can fill the depths of my heart. Somehow, mysteriously, each of these trials is part of making that a reality.
Resolution: When faced with any obstacle today—even if it is small—I will say a quick prayer entrusting the situation to Christ.
Join the new media evangelization. Your tax-deductible gift allows Catholic.net to build a culture of life in our nation and throughout the world. Please help us promote the Church's new evangelization by donating to Catholic.net right now. God bless you for your generosity.
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Tuesday, May 27, 2003
DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Writer Tuesday, May 27, 2003
(05-27) 11:44 PDT WASHINGTON (AP) --
President Bush said the $15 billion global AIDS bill he signed on Tuesday is the "moral duty" of the United States to act against a disease that has killed more than 20 million people worldwide.
"We believe in the value and dignity of every human life," Bush said, likening the AIDS initiative to U.S. relief and rebuilding efforts in Europe during World War II.
"We are the nation of the Marshall Plan, the Berlin airlift and the Peace Corps and now we are the nation of the emergency plan for AIDS relief," Bush said at the State Department, where representatives of 25 nations gathered for a ceremony at which he signed the five-year plan designed to help prevent and treat AIDS, especially in more than a dozen African and Caribbean nations.
If fully implemented, the legislation is supposed to prevent 7 million new infections, care for 10 million HIV-infected people and AIDS orphans and provide anti-retroviral therapy for 2 million.
Signing the bill gives Bush more leverage to press other wealthy nations to work harder against the killer disease as he prepares for a European summit. The president had urged Congress to get the bill to his desk before he traveled to the June 1-3 "Group of Eight" summit in Evian, France, where he is expected to use it to solicit other countries to contribute more to the cause.
The G-8 comprises the leaders of the world's seven richest countries -- the United States, Japan, Germany, France, Britain, Italy and Canada -- plus Russia.
"I will challenge our partners and our friends to follow our lead and to make a similar commitment made by the United States of America so we can save even more lives," Bush said of his trip to Europe. "I will remind them that time is not on our side."
Dr. Peter Piot, who directs a joint United Nations program on HIV/AIDS, praised the legislation, saying resources directed to scientifically proven interventions can dramatically reduce deaths, even where the epidemic is most severe.
"For the first time there is a concerted global effort to close the treatment gap that denies life-saving HIV medicines to 95 percent of the people living with AIDS around the world," Piot said.
But he said that even with the new U.S. money, spending is shy of the resources needed to address the problem.
"There is still a long way to go," Piot said. "AIDS will be defeated when responsibility for addressing it is fully shared -- with every nation working to meet the financial and leadership challenges presented by this global epidemic."
Said Jose Zuniga, president of the International Association of Physicians in AIDS Care: "Other wealthy nations -- specifically G-8 member nations -- must follow suit with similar funding increases."
The new AIDS package, which Congress completed last week, recommends that 55 percent of direct aid go to treatment programs, 20 percent to prevention, 15 percent to palliative care and 10 percent to children orphaned by the disease. It also would allow, but not require, the administration to contribute up to $1 billion in 2004 to the international Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
"This is a whole new day in the fight against this epidemic," said Mark Isaac, vice president of the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation. The foundation fights HIV and AIDS and other serious and life-threatening diseases affecting children.
To appease conservatives, the measure says one-third of the money going toward prevention be set aside for projects that promote abstinence -- an issue that was prominent in the final congressional debate. The bill says religious groups will not lose funding because they oppose certain preventive methods, such as condom distribution.
Supporters of the legislation said Uganda has been successful in lowering infection rates with its "ABC" program of "Abstinence, Be Faithful and Condom use when appropriate." Others say it is a mistake to focus on any one strategy when local customs vary widely.
"We were speaking to the first lady of Uganda the day the bill was being considered in the Senate," Isaac said. "And she was quite firm in saying that people in the countries most affected are the most knowledgeable about what kind of prevention works best locally. We need to give them a full range of options."
While the legislation nearly triples current U.S. contributions to AIDS programs, Congress still must approve actual spending levels in its annual budget appropriations process. The bill calls for spending $3 billion a year, but the administration is seeking only $1.7 billion in fiscal 2004, $2 billion if related programs for malaria and tuberculosis are included.
"The president moved with great speed, but now Congress has to move with the same speed and dispatch," Isaac said.
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Maritime Administration News Release
|News Release #:||DOT 176-10|
|Date:||Sep 20 2010|
|Contact:||Cheron Victoria Wicker|
U.S. Transportation Secretary LaHood Announces $7 Million in Grants to Jumpstart America’s Marine Highway Initiative
WASHINGTON – U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood today announced $7 million is being awarded to the Mississippi Department of Transportation, the Virginia Port Authority and the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway Development Authority to support the transportation of marine cargo between U.S. ports. The announcement comes just five weeks after unveiling the America’s Marine Highway program, a new initiative to move more cargo on U.S. waterways.
The money will help expand an existing marine highway operation in the Gulf of Mexico between Texas and Florida and one on the East Coast between Richmond and Hampton Roads in Virginia. The money will also help start an entirely new all-water service on the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway between Itawamba, Mississippi and the Port of Mobile, Alabama.
“These projects demonstrate how water transportation can help solve some of our toughest transportation challenges,” said Secretary LaHood. “Transporting goods by water will let us reduce congestion and greenhouse gas emissions.”
“This is a key opportunity to demonstrate the benefits and viability of moving freight on the water,” said David T. Matsuda, Maritime Administrator. “These grants will help a long overlooked means of transporting goods finally grow.”
Projects receiving grant funding are:
The Cross Gulf Container Expansion Project (Sponsored by: The Ports of Brownsville, Texas and Manatee, Florida). The Cross Gulf Container Expansion Project between Brownsville, Texas and Manatee, Florida along Marine Highway Corridor 10 is awarded $3.34 million to help modify two barges and purchase equipment that will result in diesel fuel savings of nearly 70,000 gallons per one-way trip, 2.7 million gallons each year and save 18 million miles annually.
The James River Container Expansion Project (Sponsored by: The Virginia Port Authority). The James River Container Expansion Project is awarded $1.1 million for the purchase of two barges on Marine Highway Corridor 64 that is already eliminating 6,000 trucks from local highways will remove gridlock from some of the 130,000 trucks traveling between the Hampton Roads container terminals and rail terminals. The existing container-on-barge service between Hampton Roads and Richmond, Virginia will grow to three sailings each week by increasing the frequency of service and starting a new inter-terminal barge shuttle between terminals in Hampton Roads.
The Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway Pilot Project (Sponsored by: The Port of Itawamba, Mississippi). The Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway Pilot Project on Marine Highway Corridor 65 is awarded $1.76 million to help purchase and modify nine barges for a new container transportation service on an all-water route between the Port of Itawamba, Mississippi on the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway and the Port of Mobile, Alabama eliminating more than 4,400 truck trips each year.
An additional $800,000 will be used to help further study potential marine highway concepts around the country.
West Coast Hub-Feeder and Golden State Marine Highway ($275,000): The West Coast Hub-Feeder concept proposes services along the U.S. West Coast between Southern California and the Pacific Northwest, including ports along the route. The Golden State Marine Highway Initiative proposes services along the California Coast and calling on thirteen ports between Crescent City and San Diego, California.
Illinois-Gulf Marine Highway Initiative ($275,000): This initiative proposes container-on-barge services between Peoria, Illinois and Gulf Coast seaports, creating a new container shipping option between these regions.
East Coast Marine Highway Initiative and New Jersey Marine Highway Platform ($250,000): The East Coast Marine Highway Initiative proposes to begin a coastal marine service paralleling Interstate 95 and serving areas including Port Canaveral, Florida; Baltimore, Maryland; and New Bedford, Massachusetts, and potentially other East Coast ports as the effort evolves. The New Jersey Marine Highway Platform proposes expansion of water transportation to help move the significant volumes of freight within New Jersey and along interstate routes between ports along the Eastern Seaboard as well.
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Webster Groves Teen Is South Korea Bound
Ellen Swicord will be immersed in the Korean language and culture during a six-week program for American high school students.
Ellen Swicord already knows some of the things she loves about South Korea, where she will live this summer.
“Korean chocolate is amazing and Korean ice cream is to die for,” she said.
The 17-year-old Webster Groves student will spend six weeks in South Korea, immersing herself in the language and the culture.
The senior-to-be at John Burroughs School in Ladue is traveling there as part of a State Department program aimed at promoting the study of languages not typically taught in American schools.
This is her second extended trip to South Korea.
Two years ago she spent three weeks there as a junior counselor at an English immersion camp for Korean students, the Camp Fulbright Junior Internship Program.
“I’m really excited,” Swicord said. “I’ll probably get more nervous as I get closer to it but since I’ve already been there I’m not as nervous about the food and other cultural things.”
Swicord was awarded a National Security Language Initiative for Youth scholarship. The program was launched by the U.S. government in 2006 to help create a cadre of young Americans skilled in international dialogue.
Program organizers say young people with experience in foreign languages and cultures are highly sought by universities, government agencies and businesses intent on competing effectively in the global economy.
The program sends hundreds of high school students each year to countries where Arabic, Hindi, Korean, Mandarin Chinese, Persian, Russian and Turkish are spoken. Swicord’s scholarship will pay all of the costs of her six-week trip.
She leaves later this month for an orientation at Columbia University in New York, then travels to Seoul with about 40 other American students.
Swicord, who has studied Mandarin Chinese for two years and Latin for five, knew no Korean before her first trip to that country. After daily classes there in the Camp Fulbright cultural exchange program, she had a bit more.
“I know phrases and words and I can generally understand the gist of what people are saying to me,” she said. But she said that after two weeks in Korea this summer, she will be expected to rely totally on Korean.
“After two weeks, no English,” she said.
Swicord’s mother is in awe of her daughter’s adventurous side.
“I’m just really excited for her,” Dorothy Swicord said. “I just think it’s really great for her to have a passion this early in life.”
Swicord said her interest in Asian cultures was sparked by the diverse group of friends she made at Burroughs. One friend’s family is Chinese; others are from families that are Korean, Indian and Ethiopian.
Last summer she traveled to China for a two-week program sponsored by the Confucius Institute at Webster University. Over spring break this year she traveled with Latin classmates to Rome and Naples.
Swicord said she hoped to study abroad in college and may major in international business and attend law school.
In Korea she expects to spend four or five hours each morning learning the language in classes at Sogang University. Afternoons will be spent learning about the culture through field trips and seminars on topics such as taekwondo, Korean drumming and cooking.
When she first went to Korea she was as unfamiliar with the food as she was with the language. But she has learned to love most of it (well, perhaps not seaweed soup for breakfast.)
“I do like the food,” Swicord said. “It takes a little getting used to because it’s super spicy.”
In St. Louis, she and her family frequent a Korean restaurant and market in St. Louis County.
Her favorite treat might be Korean ice cream – or potbingsu – which she described as vanilla frozen yogurt mixed with red beans and fruit and served on a bed of ice.
“It’s so good,” she said.
Just don’t feed her seaweed soup for breakfast.
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'Improve trade facilitation, regional connectivity'
8 October 2012
Experts on Friday urged the South Asian leaders to do away with non-tariff barriers, improve trade facilitation and develop roads and air connectivity among the member states to realize the goal of regional integration, something which is considered crucial to improve the lives of millions of poor residing in the region.
They also sought the SAARC leaders to create a Least Developed Countries (LDCs) Integration Fund in South Asia so as to empower relatively poor countries in the region to take advantage of the regional integration process.
Dr Bishwombher Pyakuryal, senior economist from Nepal and Dr Saman Kelegama of Institute of Policy Studies (IPS), Sri Lanka, among others, pushed for meaningful actions from the South Asian leaders while addressing a function organized to release a book Regional Economic Integration: Challenges for South Asia during turbulent times.
Commerce Secretary Lal Mani Joshi officially released the book, which was published by South Asia Watch on Trade, Economics and Environment (SAWTEE) and South Asia Center for Policy Studies (SACEPS), regional think tanks based in Kathmandu.
The book is a collection of revised and updated versions of the articles presented during the 3rd South Asia Economic Summit held in Kathmandu in December 2010. “It is a good reference material for policy makers, the academic community, the private sector and civil society organizations,” said Joshi.
Dr Posh Raj Pandey, executive chairman, SAWTEE viewed that despite the credibility gap, trust gap and capacity gap as well as divergent priorities of the countries, the gradual and steady progress in terms of integration should be taken in a positive light. “Our leaders and policy makers should build on the momentum gained, particularly in the past few months to move towards creating a viable regional economic entity in South Asia,” he stated.
« Return to news archives
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RISC vs. CISC: the Post-RISC Era
A historical approach to the debate
RISC and CISC, Side by Side?
By now, it should be apparent that the acronyms "RISC"
and "CISC" belie the fact that both design philosophies deal with much
more than just the simplicity or complexity of an instruction set. In the
table below, I summarize the information that I've presented so far, beginning
with each philosophy's general strategy for increasing performance and keeping
costs down. I hope you've seen enough by now to understand, however, that
any approach that affects price will affect performance, and vice versa, so my
division of RISC and CISC design strategies into "price" and
"performance" is somewhat arbitrary and artificial. In fact,
because the RISC and CISC design philosophies developed within a matrix defined
by the price and performance of the technologies we've discussed (VLSI,
compilers, memory/storage), the following summary of RISC and CISC strategies
and features should only be understood as a set of heuristics for helping you
organize and develop your own thoughts on the design decisions that CPU
architects make, and not as hard-and-fast rules or definitions for determining
exactly what does and does not constitute RISC and/or CISC .
Price: move complexity from software to hardware.
Performance: make tradeoffs in favor of decreased code
size, at the expense of a higher CPI.
Price: move complexity from hardware to software
Performance: make tradeoffs in favor of a lower CPI, at
the expense of increased code size.
- A large and varied instruction set that includes simple, fast
instructions for performing basic tasks, as well as complex,
multi-cycle instructions that correspond to statements in an HLL.
- Support for HLLs is done in hardware.
- Memory-to-memory addressing modes.
- A microcode control unit.
- Spend fewer transistors on registers.
- Simple, single-cycle instructions that perform only basic
functions. Assembler instructions correspond to microcode
instructions on a CISC machine.
- All HLL support is done in software.
- Simple addressing modes that allow only LOAD and STORE to access
memory. All operations are register-to-register.
- direct execution control unit.
- spend more transistors on multiple banks of registers.
- use pipelined execution to lower CPI.
A group at Michigan State University's Department of Computer
Science published an excellent paper called Beyond
RISC - The Post-RISC Architecture .
In this paper, they argue that today's RISC processors have departed from their
RISC roots to the point where they can no longer rightly be called RISC.
(I'll be drawing on a number of ideas from this paper to make my points, so
before writing me with corrections/questions/flames/etc., you should read their
paper for a full explanation and defense of some of the following assertions.)
The paper notes that since the first RISC designs started to appear in the 80's,
transistor counts have risen and architects have taken advantage of the
increased transistor resources in a number of ways.
- additional registers
- on-chip caches which are clocked as fast as the processor
- additional functional units for superscalar execution
- additional "non-RISC" (but fast) instructions
- on-chip support for floating-point operations
- increased pipeline depth
- branch prediction
To the above list, we should add
The first two items, additional registers and on-chip caches,
seem to be very much in line with traditional RISC thinking. I'll
therefore focus on a few of the other items in making my case.
As you can see from the above list, post-RISC architectures take
many of the RISC features as their basis (simple instructions, a large number of
registers, software support for HLLs, LOAD/STORE addressing) and either expand
on them or add wholly new features. The reason most post-RISC
architectures still get called "RISC" is because of those features
that they still share (or seem to share) with the first RISC machines.
It's interesting to note that the post-RISC architectures that get called CISC
are so called only because of the ISA that's visible to the programmer; implementation
is ignored almost entirely in the discussion.
Now lets look in more detail at the post-RISC features that were
added to RISC foundations to produce today's CPUs.
When the first RISC machines came out, Seymore Cray was the
only one really doing superscalar execution. One could argue that since
superscalar execution drastically lowers the average CPI, then it's keeping in
the spirit of RISC. Indeed, superscalar execution seems to be such an
essential and common component of all modern CPUs, that it doesn't quite seem
fair to single it out and call it "non-RISC." After all, whether
RISC or CISC, modern processors use this technique. Now, reread that last
sentence, because this is precisely the point. Superscalar execution is
included in today's processors not because it's part of a design philosophy
called "RISC," but because it enhances performance, and performance is
all that matters. Concerning all of the items in the above feature list,
the Michigan group notes,
"Thus, the current generation of
high performance processors bear little resemblance to the processors which
started the RISC revolution. Any instruction or feature which improves the
overall price/performance ratio is considered for inclusion."
Superscalar execution has added to the complexity of today's
processors--especially the ones that use scoreboarding techniques and special
algorithms to dynamically schedule parallel instruction execution on the fly
(which is almost all of them but the Alpha). Recall the comment from
Ditzel, which I quoted at the beginning of this paper, where he identifies
superscalar execution as one of the complexities that are impeding
performance gains in today's RISC machines.
Branch prediction is like superscalar execution in that it's one
of those things that just wasn't around in '81. Branch prediction is a
feature that adds complexity to the on-chip hardware, but it was included anyway
because it has been shown to increase performance. Once again, what
matters is performance and not principle.
Many would disagree that the addition of new instructions to an
ISA is a "non-RISC" tendency. "They" insist that the
number of instructions was never intended to be reduced, but rather it was only
the individual instructions themselves which were to be reduced in cycle time
and complexity. Invariably, the folks who protest this way are Mac users
who know that the G3 has more instructions than the PII, yet they still want to
insist that the G3 is a pure RISC chip (because RISC = Good) and the PII is a
pure CISC chip (because CISC = Bad). The following quote from Patterson should
put this to rest once and for all:
"A new computer design philosophy
evolved: Optimizing compilers could be used to compile "normal"
programming languages down to instructions that were as unencumbered as
microinstructions in a large virtual address space, and to make the
instruction cycle time as fast as the technology would allow. These machines
would have fewer instructions—a reduced set—and the remaining instructions
would generally execute in one cycle—reduced instructions—hence the name
reduced instruction set computers (RISCs)." [Patterson, RISCs, p. 11]
Current RISC architectures like the G3, MIPS, SPARC, etc., have
what the Michigan group calls a FISC (Fast Instruction Set Computer) ISA.
Any instructions, no matter how special-purpose and rarely-used, are included if
the cycle-time can be kept down. Thus the number of instructions is not
reduced in modern, post-RISC machines--only the cycle time.
On-chip floating-point and vector
In fact, with the addition of SIMD and floating-point execution
units, sometimes the cycle time isn't even really "reduced." Not
only do some SIMD and FP instructions take multiple cycles to complete, but
neither the on-chip SIMD unit nor the on-chip FP unit was around in the first
RISC machines. Like superscalar execution, this complex functionality was
added not because it fit in with some overarching RISC design principles, but
because it made the machine faster. And like superscalar execution, SIMD
and FP units are now common on both "RISC" and "CISC"
processors. Processors with these features, especially the SIMD unit,
would be better termed "post-RISC" than "RISC."
I also should mention here that the addition of FP and
especially SIMD units expands the instruction set greatly. One of the
reasons the G4 has such a huge number of instructions is because the SIMD unit
adds a whole raft of them.
OOO is one of the least RISC-like features that modern
processors have; it directly contradicts the RISC philosophy of moving
complexity from hardware to software. In a nutshell, a CPU with an OOO core uses
hardware to profile and aggressively optimize code by rearranging instructions
and executing them out of program order. This aggressive, on-the-fly
optimization adds immense amounts of complexity to the architecture,
increasing both pipeline depth and cycle time, and eating up transistor
Not only does OOO add complexity to the CPU's hardware, but it
simplifies the compiler's job. Instead of having the compiler reorder the
code and check for dependencies, the CPU does it. This idea of shifting
the burden of code optimization from the compiler to the hardware sounds like an
the exact opposite of an idea we've heard before. According to Ditzel,
this is a step in the wrong direction .
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Kalpi on the banks of River Yamuna was a strategically important place. Akbar, the Mughal emperor had one of his mints here. In ancient Hindu scriptures the city was called Kalpriya Nagari, and there is said to be a grand sun temple here in Kalpi which was built by Sri Krishna’s son Sambh
27 December,2012 |
Spirituality in India boasts a pallette of religions. Incidentally, the term ‘Hindu’ was used by the Arab traders to identify the people living east of the River Indus. Indus came to be known as Sindhu and the term Hindu was born. Uttar Pradesh, a state in the Indo-Gangetic plains had a flourishing trade, and became a political citadel as well. Many faiths and religions have mingled and coexisted in this land. Quite like the rest of India, there are thousands of holy places here, marked with the presence of sages, seers, devotees and mystics, bygone and present.
18 June,2010 |
The Jain temples in Khajuraho have thriving monasteries attached to them as well as regular daily worship. Our guide gave us some rice to offer inside the temples. He explained that rice is a symbol of abundance and nirvana.
16 March,2010 |
Enjoy the kaleidoscopic coming and going of families from cities and villages for bathing and worshipping here. Walk a little further up from Har ki Pauri to find almost vacant ghats behind the looming Lord Shiva statue on the highway to Rishikesh. Geese, gulls and a few black cormorants are great company here.
12 March,2010 |
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UNESCO - United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
UNESCO is short for United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
The Paris-based organisation is one of the 15 legally independent specialized agencies operating under the United Nations system.
UNESCO was established in London in November 1945 by 37 countries that were convinced that education and knowledge as well as knowledge about each other may prevent the outbreak of another war.
The guiding principle of UNESCO is enshrined in the preamble to its constitution: “Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed”.
By promoting international cooperation in the fields of education, science, culture and communication, UNESCO aims to contribute to eliminating poverty, building peace and security and promoting sustainable development and intercultural dialogue. Because the lessons learned from the experiences of the Second World War clearly show “that a peace based exclusively upon the political and economic arrangements of governments would not be a peace which could secure the unanimous, lasting and sincere support of the peoples of the world, and that the peace must therefore be founded, if it is not to fail, upon the intellectual and moral solidarity of mankind”.
Today UNESCO has 195 Members and 8 Associate Members. Since 2009, Irina Bokova from Bulgaria has headed the Organization as Director-General.
In its programmes UNESCO focuses in particular on two global priorities:
- Africa and
- gender equality
as well as on a number of overarching objectives including:
· attaining quality education for all and promoting lifelong learning,
· mobilizing science knowledge and policy for sustainable development,
· addressing emerging social and ethical challenges,
· fostering cultural diversity, intercultural dialogue and a culture of peace, and
· building inclusive knowledge societies.
Austria became a member of UNESCO on 13 August 1948. The Austrian membership contribution to UNESCO of USD 1.2 million (EUR 1.3 million) annually (as of 2011) equals 0.85% of the Organization’s regular budget.
At the UNESCO General Conference held on 2 November 2011 an overwhelming majority of Member States elected Austria to serve a four year term on the UNESCO Executive Board, the Organization’s supreme governing body composed of 58 members.
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Supplementation with Lees of Brown Rice Reduces Waist Circumference?
The Lees of brown rice are by-products of its fermentation in the process of making rice wine. Brown rice itself is an unrefined whole grain which is a rich source of dietary fiber, vitamins, minerals, and other constituents. Previous research suggests that intake of whole grains is associated with a lower risk of both diabetes and cardiovascular disease. In Asian studies, they’ve also found that substituting brown rice for white rice is also associated with a reduction in the risk of type 2 diabetes.
Researchers from Korea, studied the effects of supplementation with the lees of brown rice in patients with type 2 diabetes . The study itself randomized 30 patients to take either a mixed-grain product or a supplement prepared from the lees of brown rice for 12 weeks. Outcome measures for their study included body weight, waist circumference, body composition as well as lipid profiles and other measures.
How was the lees of brown rice supplement prepared?
An extract of the LB was produced by fermenting liquefied brown rice, followed by lyophilization to remove all water and alcohol…
How did the lees of brown rice supplement compare to the mixed-grain supplement?
Subjects assigned to the intervention group were instructed to ingest 40 g of the extracted LB with milk or water on a daily basis. Forty grams of LB provided 2.9 g/d of
dietary fiber and 670 kJ/d of energy. The subjects assigned to the placebo group ingested 45 g of an MG on a daily basis. The MG product used was composed of ground grains
containing barley (10%), white rice (40%), glutinous millet (30%), brown rice (10%), and black soybean (10%). This product provided 1.8 g/d of dietary fiber and 670 kJ/d of
The researchers found that consumption of the supplement containing lees of brown rice (LB) was associated with a greater increase in waist circumference than those who consumed the mixed-grain (MG)supplement. (LB: 87.9 ± 8.8 to 85.1 ± 9.0 cm; MG: 86.9 ± 8.8 to 86.0 ± 9.3 cm; P = .032)
As well, supplementation with LB also resulted in a greater reduction of aspartate transaminase and alanine transaminase (enzymes measured to determine liver function).
- aspartate transaminase (LB: 25.4 ± 8.5 to 21.0 ± 5.1 IU/mL; MG: 22.5 ± 5.3 to 22.4 ± 5.7 IU/mL; P = .044)
- alanine transaminase (LB: 28.6 ± 11.3 to 21.9 ± 8.2 IU/mL; MG: 24.4 ± 7.5 to 24.5 ± 9.9 IU/mL; P = .038)
No improvement in the cholesterol levels or lipid profile was demonstrated in the diabetes who consumed LB.
As well, LB-supplementation did not result in a reduction in body weight, BMI, or blood pressure.
Study author conclusions:
In conclusion, our results show that an extract of the LB reduces waist and hip circumferences in type 2 diabetic patients. We also observed that ingesting lees extract was associated with reduced secretion of an inflammatory cytokine (IL-6) and decreased ALT and AST levels. These data suggest that the LB may be useful in attenuating CVD risk in type 2 diabetic patients, and this appears to be explained, at least in part, by its favorable association with abdominal obesity, hepatic function, and inflammatory processes. Further study is required to evaluate the metabolic effects of the extract of the LB in type 2 diabetes.
- If you haven’t already, consider making the switch from white rice to brown rice.
- Previous research suggests that whole grain intake is inversely associated with abdominal visceral fat. In contrast, refined-grain intake is positively associated with abdominal visceral fat.
- Fiber from whole gains likely has health benefits beyond that from sources of fiber from refined grains.
- Kim TH, Kim EK, Lee MS, Lee HK, Hwang WS, Choe SJ, Kim TY, Han SJ, Kim HJ, Kim DJ, Lee KW. Intake of brown rice lees reduces waist circumference and improves metabolic parameters in type 2 diabetes. Nutr Res. 2011 Feb;31(2):131-8.
- McKeown NM, Troy LM, Jacques PF, Hoffmann U, O’Donnell CJ, Fox CS. Whole-and refined-grain intakes are differentially associated with abdominal visceral and subcutaneous adiposity in healthy adults:
the Framingham Heart Study. Am J Clin Nutr 2010;92(5):1165-71.
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Displaying the beauty and variety of America's most popular wildflowers, naming and locating each species, this most unusual volume is created for coloring. Redrawn from the original Smithsonian plates by well-known illustrator of children's books, Paul Kennedy, each of the 46 renderings is ready to be colored as realistically or as imaginatively as you choose. Paperback, 48 pages.
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The Haunted Monster Museum was built in a real authentic Victorian mansion high on a hill. One must actually take the path through the woods to get to it.
Built in 2002 the "Museum" is a remake of sorts of the original Monster Museum I started at Natural Bridge in 1982. Not only does this one contain subconscious fears like monsters under the stairs, closet monsters, and the ones living under beds, it's also haunted with the ghosts of dead criminals. If you need an explanation to all the madness you can always purchase the "Legend of Prof. Cline's Haunted Monster Museum" comic book after completing the tour, if you complete the tour. Look to make sure I've autographed the comic. I want everyone who purchases one to own something that might increase in value when I'm dead... hopefully a very long time from now.
"Cline might be the closest thing to a modern day Dr. Frankenstein"
- Washington and Lee's Rockbridge Report
Click for HTML images with names
Enchanted Castle Studios, L.L.C.
4942 S. Lee Highway | Natural Bridge, VA 24578 | Phone: (540) 291-2353
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Economy Takes White-Collar Workers to the Cleaners
In this economy, learning to pour concrete may be more useful than a college degree.
This raises the issue of the value we place on college, and on both white- and blue-collar professions in the Information Age, which has seen 2 bubbles and crashes.
The months since the collapse of Lehman Brothers have been disastrous for professionals, except those in the fields of health care and education. From August to April, there was an overall drop in employment of 4.3%. More significant, however, were the steep declines in highly skilled occupations: 9.3% in computer and math jobs, 10.3% in engineering and architecture occupations, and a whopping 11.5% in arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media occupations.
It's likely that many of these jobs will not return. Newspapers -- from the New York Times and USA Today down to small-town rags -- have made job cuts that are likely to be permanent; television networks are eliminating news divisions; architecture firms in major cities have lost their bread-and-butter corporate clients. The picture is equally grim for the financial industry, since so much of the employment growth in financial services over the past 20 years appears superfluous in hindsight.
Call it the New Risk: Saddled with excessive college debt, young professionals are looking into the abyss. Those just starting their careers, along with new college graduates, will do so without the prospect of the high-paying financial and consulting jobs that paid 6 figures and were relatively easy to come by when I graduated from Brown in 2005. I knew people who majored in art history and philosophy and went to work for Goldman Sachs (GS), JPMorgan (JPM), Morgan Stanley (MS) and other investment banks. It was bewildering. Their lack of knowledge and genuine interest in finance didn’t stop them from getting big salaries and bonuses.
To make matters worse, the cost of college has risen at twice the rate of inflation over the last 2 decades. Students borrowed $19 billion in private loans last year, from a bewildering array of sometimes usurious lenders. About two-thirds of new college graduates, or an estimated 1.8 million, have taken on student loans to pay ever-rising tuition and room and board costs. The average cumulative college debt among this group is about $22,500, according to FinAid.org, a website that specializes in financial aid.
The information on this website solely reflects the analysis of or opinion about the performance of securities and financial markets by the writers whose articles appear on the site. The views expressed by the writers are not necessarily the views of Minyanville Media, Inc. or members of its management. Nothing contained on the website is intended to constitute a recommendation or advice addressed to an individual investor or category of investors to purchase, sell or hold any security, or to take any action with respect to the prospective movement of the securities markets or to solicit the purchase or sale of any security. Any investment decisions must be made by the reader either individually or in consultation with his or her investment professional. Minyanville writers and staff may trade or hold positions in securities that are discussed in articles appearing on the website. Writers of articles are required to disclose whether they have a position in any stock or fund discussed in an article, but are not permitted to disclose the size or direction of the position. Nothing on this website is intended to solicit business of any kind for a writer's business or fund. Minyanville management and staff as well as contributing writers will not respond to emails or other communications requesting investment advice.
Copyright 2011 Minyanville Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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MAPLETON, Ore. -- The return of the rain and winter weather has river levels slowly rising in western Oregon, bringing back swift waters and debris flows as well.
The Coquille River at the coast is one-and-a-half feet above flood stage right now, which put Sturdivant Park completely under water. With the water levels still rising, more moderate flooding expected.
Another coastal river, the Siuslaw, saw significant flooding at this time of year. Businesses nearby the banks are taking extra precautions to prepare for a repeat this winter.
Last year Alpha Bit Cafe was flooded with water from the Siuslaw and they had to replace all of their carpeting.
"We have our big equipment on rollers now so we can move it to the front of the store if need be," said Cafe owner, Nick Cable. "But I haven't seen it get high enough to worry me yet."
Cable said that he uses the dock behind the Cafe to gauge how much of a risk the high water poses to his business.
"The ramp down to the dock hasn't leveled out yet ... that's usually a significant indicator that its going to be a problem for us." laughed Cable.
While the weather hitting the coast haven't pushed river levels over the banks, the heavy rains did cause a rock slide that pushed a boulder into Highway 101 Tuesday morning.
The National Weather Service expects to see up to 4 more inches of rain fall in parts of western Oregon between Tuesday and Wednesday.
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In an age when digital photography rules and people post their images online, how can we stop our photos from being stolen? We advise that all of the photos you post online include a copyright symbol, for example, your name. This won't prevent everyone from using your images without permission, but it will stop some people from doing it. The moment you create a photograph, the photograph is legally copyrighted in your name. So, why let strangers use your work or art without permission? Adding your name to your images demonstrates that you have a certain pride in your work, and projects your brand. You see brand names on everything these days, so why shouldn't your photos carry yours? Using ImageConverter Plus you won't have to work with each photo individually. Protect your copyright by watermarking all your images
with your company or your own name in batch mode.
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24 January 2013 Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos today, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon issued a call of action to the international community to solve the crises in Syria and Mali, stressing that the world must come together to end the ongoing violence in the two countries and ensure assistance is available to those in need.
“People and policies are connected like never before. We must pull together because we are tied together. From Syria and Mali today, to the foundations for peace and prosperity tomorrow, that is my call to action to you and to the world at this time,” Mr. Ban said in his special address to the Forum. “Let not our inaction today lead to harsh judgement tomorrow.”
Mr. Ban stressed that military confrontation is having an unprecedented toll for people in Syria, where more than 60,000 people have been killed and hundreds of thousands more have been displaced since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began in early 2011.
Recent months have witnessed an escalation in the conflict, which is now in its 23rd month and has left more than 4 million people in need of humanitarian assistance.
“However difficult this situation is, we must push for a political solution,” Mr. Ban said. “Seemingly intractable divides have been bridged in other conflicts and contexts. As long as there is a possibility to end this crisis through talks, that is what we must keep doing.”
Mr. Ban reiterated his full support for the diplomatic efforts of the Joint Special Representative of the UN and the League of Arab States, Lakhdar Brahimi to establish a political process, while underscoring that it will be essential for the Security Council “to overcome the deadlock, and find unity that will make meaningful action possible.”
Mr. Ban added that inaction would be a resignation to Syria's destruction and would be too costly -- and unacceptable. “That would be an abdication of our collective responsibility to protect. The world, and above all the Security Council, must uphold its responsibilities.”
Despite restricted access due to insecurity and limitation imposed by the Syrian Government, humanitarian agencies are feeding 1.5 million people and providing relief supplies to some 400,000. However, Mr. Ban stressed that this is not enough, and added that the humanitarian community needs $1.5 billion to continue carrying out its work over the next six months, representing the largest ever short-term appeal.
Regarding Mali, Mr. Ban warned that the crisis is deepening, with increasing reports of sexual violence, recruitment of child soldiers and reprisals against civilian Tuareg and Arab populations.
“The country is under grave threat from extremist armed insurgents,” Mr. Ban said. “A toxic mix of poverty, extreme climatic conditions, weak institutions, drug smuggling, and the easy availability of deadly weapons is causing profound misery and dangerous insecurity in and beyond Mali.”
Fighting between Government forces and Tuareg rebels broke out in the northern part of the country last January, after which radical Islamists seized control of the area. The renewed clashes in the North, as well as the proliferation of armed groups in the region, drought and political instability in the wake of a military coup d'état in March have uprooted hundreds of thousands of civilians over the course of 2012.
Mr. Ban reaffirmed the UN's commitment to support the West African country in security efforts as well as humanitarian and political assistance. Last week, a UN team arrived in the capital, Bamako, to assist in building a process that would address both military and political concerns.
However, Mr. Ban underlined that the events in Mali are affecting the entire Sahel region, where some 18 million people have been affected by food shortages and the threat of insecurity, and called on the international community to support all governments there.
“We cannot expect to address the issues in Mali unless we confront the challenges affecting the broader region,” he said. “The governments and people of the Sahel need our full support […] I urge all leaders to do their part in the collective response to Mali's plight, and I reiterate the UN's strong commitment to do ours.”
While in Davos, Mr. Ban also met with the Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ahmet Davutoglu, with whom he exchanged views on the crisis in Syria. He also met with the Prime Minister of Kenya, Raila Odinga, with whom he discussed preparations for the country's general election later this year, and the President of Guatemala, Otto Pérez Molina.
News Tracker: past stories on this issue
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LEM has introduced the CTSR family of current transducers for use in a range of safety-critical applications including solar installations. Two transducers in the new series measure AC or DC leakage nominal currents, from values as small as 300 and 600 mARMS, with spectral components up to 9.5 kHz. The residual or leakage currents that the CTSR family is designed to measure can arise in fault conditions in a number of industrial or power-generation scenarios. Examples include solar panels that are coupled to an earthed grid, or in failure modes such as a short circuits or earth faults. The connection of a solar panel to the grid raises safety concerns; if a fault occurs there is a potentially serious safety issue around any human contact with the system.
The CTSR family of transducers has been specifically designed to meet the latest safety standards that have been issued in respect of solar installations and inverters, namely VDE 0126-1-1, UL 1741, and IEC 60950-1. The devices are PCB mountable, lightweight (28g) components, with a 20.1 mm diameter aperture that easily accommodates multiple conductors. The residual-current capability measures the sum of all of the instantaneous currents flowing through the aperture, in single- or three-phase configurations. Conductors may be carrying primary currents of up to 30A/wire (AC or DC).
The CTSR 0.3-P and CTSR 0.6-P safely measure nominal currents of 300 and 600 mA respectively, to a maximum accuracy of 1.9% and 1.5% respectively at +25°C ambient temperature, without offset, providing an analogue output to trigger a safety system in the event of a high leakage current. They both provide a high overload capability up to 3300A (for a pulse duration of 100µs, and with risetime of 500 A/µs), as well as a very high level of insulation between primary and measurement circuits, thanks to long creepage and clearance distances (11 mm), coupled with a CTI (comparative tracking index) of 600V.
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Far out in the ocean, where the water is as blue as the prettiest cornflower, and as clear as crystal there lived a beautiful princess named Sara. Sara was very much like other princesses you may have met with one small exception – Sara was a mermaid!
Now, we must not imagine that there is nothing at the bottom of the sea but bare yellow sand. No, indeed; the most amazing flowers and plants grow there; colourful fish, both large and small, glide between the branches, as birds fly among the trees here upon land. In the deepest spot of all, stands the castle of the Sea King. Its walls are built of coral, the roof is formed of shells, that open and close as the water flows over them. Their appearance is very beautiful, for in each lies a glittering pearl.
Copyright © 1998-2013 DLTK's Sites - All Rights Reserved
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Louis Poulsen Pendant PH5
(including 20 % tax)
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The pendant is designed to hang low above a table while at the same time giving a moderate light to the surroundings. In Denmark you will see that approximately one in every two homes has a PH5 pendant. This is what PH wrote about this product: “After 33 years of more or less Christian behavior, I have converted to Islam - in my relation to the manufacturer of incandescent bulbs. For a whole lifetime I believed that consideration for the consumer and good sense would triumph but now I have become a fatalist. I accept fate and have, with Louis Poulsen’s permission, constructed a PH fixture in which you can put anything - glowworms, Christmas lights and 100 watt metal filament bulbs. A fluorescent tube would however be too long in its present shape!” The difference between this fixture and previous PH fixtures was that he no longer drew the vizier lines from the filament of the light source, but from the socket itself. The advantage was that the point the vizier lines now led to was a part of the fixture and not the actual center of the light source - as had previously been the case. Regardless of how the lamp was installed and no matter which incandescent bulb it was furnished with, the PH 5 was and is completely glare-free. Because the diameter of the top shade is 50 cm, this fixture is called a PH 5. The number “5” refers to 5 dm=50 cm. The PH 5 consists of three reflecting shades, a cone and two smaller colored shades (red and blue) designed to improve the light source’s color rendering properties. Red and blue was a natural choice because these two colors belong to the spectrum of which the human eye is least sensitive, and at the same time they weaken the yellow/green spectrum where the eye is most sensitive. In 1980 the construction of the PH 5 was altered due to the size of the incandescent lamps all becoming the same. Today it is also possible to get a PH 5 using a compact fluorescent light source, so PH was right - it could work.
**Leadtimes vary according to type of product and time of ordering. Some items are available from stock, others are made to order. If leadtimes are critical for you, please enquire before you place your order.
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Print version ISSN 0074-0276
Mem. Inst. Oswaldo Cruz vol.101 suppl.1 Rio de Janeiro Oct. 2006
Monica Ammon Fernandez1; Silvana Carvalho Thiengo
Departamento de Malacologia, Instituto Oswaldo Cruz-Fiocruz, Av. Brasil 4365, 21040-900 Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brasil
As well as malaria and yellow fever, schistosomiasis is one of the main endemic diseases associated to environments which suffered some impact related to the development of great economic projects, as for example the construction of hydroelectric power stations. Aiming to investigate the occurrence and distribution of freshwater snails of medical and veterinary importance in the area which suffered impact from the Manso hydroelectric power station a survey was performed during the period of 2002 to 2003 and revealed the occurrence of populations of Biomphalaria amazonica and Biomphalaria occidentalis. Studies on parasite-mollusc compatibility were undertaken using five B. amazonica colonies (Barão de Melgaço, Poconé, Santo Antônio do Leverger, and Chapada dos Guimarães, in the Manso and Casca rivers), and four B. occidentalis colonies (Cuiabá, Santo Antônio do Leverger, and Chapada dos Guimarães, in the Água Fria district and Casca river) were exposed to miracidia of Schistosoma mansoni. Of 257 snails of B. amazonica used, 17 became infected (infection index of 6.61%) and all specimens of B. occidentalis proved unsusceptible. According to the strains used, of the 158 snails exposed to BH miracidia, 6 became infected (3.79%); of the 44 exposed to SJ miracidia, 6 became infected (13.63%); and of the 55 snails of B. amazonica exposed to EC miracidia, 5 became infected (9.09%). These results point out the low possibility of introduction of schistosomiasis in those areas, but we believe it can not be discarded as due the presence of B. amazonica.
Key words: Biomphalaria amazonica - Biomphalaria occidentalis - susceptibility - Schistosoma mansoni - Manso Dam - Brazil
Water resources projects including man-made lakes resulting from damming of rivers cause ecological disturbances which vary in magnitude according to the size of the artificial lakes, their geographic location and the pre-existing ecological situation. Such disturbances affect the ecological balance existing between the biological system, including man, and the physical environment, and consequently may introduce certain health hazards that could affect his well-being (Farid 1975). It is impossible to predict accurately the changes that might occur and whether an environment suitable for a snail intermediate host of schistosomiasis will develop, however in countries where the infection is endemic it is prudent that investigations be realized, including studies involving parasite-mollusc compatibility. Although in Brazil such studies are still scarce, Fernandez and Thiengo (2002) demonstrated the possibility of Biomphalaria straminea (Dun-ker, 1848), found in the lake of Serra da Mesa hydroelectric power station, state of Goiás, to act as a vector of schistosomiasis in that area.
The Manso hydroelectric power station (APM Manso), located in the state of Mato Grosso (S 14º53'W55º48'), is supplied by two large rivers, Manso and Casca, covering an area of 427 km2 with maximal depth of about 80 m. Among the 21 environmental programs performed in the area that suffered impact from that dam, a survey of freshwater snails was realized for two years (2002-2003), aiming to investigate the occurrence and distribution of those species of medical and veterinary importance. Considering the presence of populations of Biomphalaria in the reservoir of APM Manso and in the surrounding municipalities (Chapada dos Guimarães and Nova Brasilândia) as well as the touristic importance of two of the most famous Brazilian environmental preservation areas in the vicinity, the Parque Nacional da Chapada dos Guimarães and the Pantanal Matogrossense, studies on parasite-mollusc compatibility were performed including five colonies of Biomphalaria amazonica Paraense, 1966 and four of Biomphalaria occidentalis Paraense, 1981.
The susceptibility experiments with a sample of B. amazonica from Careiro island, exposed to miracidia of two strains of Schistosoma mansoni Sambon, 1907 revealed a potential vector of that trematode (Corrêa & Paraense 1971). Further experiments with specimens from Porto Velho (Paraense & Corrêa 1985), showed a lower degree of compatibility between the studied population and the SJ strain, as compared with the control snails. However, these results pointed to the possibility of introduction of schistosomiasis mansoni into the Amazonian region, where this species is widespread. As for B. occidentalis, the results of experiments realized (Paraense & Corrêa 1982, Coimbra Jr & Engel 1982) revealed unsusceptibility of this species to strains of S. mansoni from the states of São Paulo and Pernambuco. These authors however pointed out the need of additional studies with other strains of the parasite.
A total of 257 specimens of B. amazonica were exposed to S. mansoni miracidia of the BH strain (158 snails), of the SJ strain (44 snails), and of the EC strain (55 snails). Of 222 B. occidentalis snails, 79 were exposed to the SJ strain and 143 to the BH strain. The snails, descendants of specimens obtained in the area of influence of the APM Manso, were individually exposed to five miracidia and three other populations were used as control: 240 specimens of Biomphalaria glabrata (Say, 1818) from Belo Horizonte, state of Minas Gerais, 265 specimens of Biomphalaria tenagophila (Orbigny, 1835) from São José dos Campos, state of São Paulo, and 234 especimens of B. straminea from Picos, state of Piauí. The strains were isolated as described by Fernandez (1997) and have been kept in sympatric snails and female Swiss albino mice.
The procedures for collecting feces of infected mice and for late exposure of snails to miracidia were those described by Paraense and Corrêa (1989), and the aquaria were kept at a room temperature of 24-26ºC throughout the experiment. Snails were observed daily and, if any specimen happened to die, it was dissected and examined for development stages of the schistosome. To characterize the duration of precercarial period and the infection index, the screening techniques used to detect the positive snails were those described by Paraense and Corrêa (1989). The specimens that survived for 60 days after exposure without shedding cercariae were fixed in Railliet-Henry's fluid, dissected and examined.
The infection index for B. amazonica varied widely according to the snail populations and the strains used, while all specimens of B. occidentalis proved unsusceptible to infection (Table). Of the 17 B. amazonica snails infected (infection index of 6.61%), only specimens of the Barão de Melgaço colony shedded cercariae and the duration of the precercarial period was 38 ± 0 days and 27.8 ± 6.26 days (mean and standard deviation) in the snails exposed BH and SJ strains, respectively. Developing sporocysts were present in one or more external organs (tentacles, mantle collar, head, and foot) in 10 specimens which died between 21 and 48 days post-exposure, and in one which was fixed and examined after the 60th day.
According to the strains used, the results were as follows: of the 158 B. amazonica exposed to BH miracidia, 6 became infected (3.79%); of the 44 snails exposed to SJ miracidia, 6 became infected (13.63%); and of the 55 snails exposed to EC miracidia, 5 became infected (9.09%). As to the controls, 85.41% of 240 B. glabrata snails (6-8 mm in shell diameter) from Belo Horizonte, 40% of 265 B. tenagophila snails (5-7 mm) from São José dos Campos, and 3.84% of 234 B. straminea snails (2.5-7 mm) from Picos, exposed to the BH, SJ, and EC S. mansoni strains, respectively, became infected. As the mortality in the precercarial period: for BH S. mansoni strain, the index was 4.58% and all showed no infection at dissection; for SJ S. mansoni strain, the mortality index was 7.16% and of these two showed sporocysts; and for EC S. mansoni strain, this index was 12.39% and only one of these showed sporocysts in the tissue.
Due to the difficulty to establish B. amazonica under laboratory conditions, few specimens from some colonies were exposed to S. mansoni in this study, similarly to Corrêa and Paraense (1971) who used born and reared in laboratory specimens for experimental infection. As for larger samples, the snails used for infection were captured in the field (Paraense & Corrêa 1985). The present data confirm and enlarge the observations of the above-mentioned authors, concerning the susceptibility of B. amazonica to the BH, SJ, and EC schistosome strains.
These results also corroborate Corrêa and Paraense (1971), who demonstrated that B. amazonica specimens died before beginning to release cercariae, showing developing sporocysts of the schistosome in the organs. These authors obtained six specimens releasing cercariae (26.08%) of the 23 infected, after experimental exposition of the 40 snails collected in the Negro river. In this paper, only Barão de Melgaço snails released cercariae (1 specimen exposed to the BH strain and 5 exposed to SJ strain), indicating that few snails survived the incubation period.
Concerning B. occidentalis the present data reinforced this species as refractory to the S. mansoni strains used. Paraense and Corrêa (1982) demonstrated unsusceptibility of B. occidentalis to infection with SJ S. mansoni strain, using 1582 specimens from ten localities of the states of Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, Paraná, and São Paulo. Similarly, Coimbra Jr. and Engel (1982) did not get infection in the two samples analyzed (Acre and Mato Grosso) after experimental exposition to the PE and SP S. mansoni strains; both strains were established in the Centro de Pesquisas René-Rachou, Minas Gerais: the first was isolated from Pernambuco and the second, similarly to SJ strain used in the present study, from the municipality of São José dos Campos.
The apparently low index of the compatibility B. amazonica and S. mansoni, as documented by high mortality index, may be due an adjustment between strains of the parasite and snails colonies. Considering all those aspects, we believe that although low, the possibility of introduction of schistosomiasis in the lake as well as in the surrounding municipalities of the APM Manso can not be discarded.
To Furnas Centrais Elétricas SA for the facilities provided during the field work, and Dr Lygia dos Reis Corrêa for supplying S. mansoni strains.
Coimbra Jr CEA, Engel LA 1982. Suscetibilidade de Biomphalaria occidentalis do Acre e Mato Grosso à infecção pelo Schistosoma mansoni e sua implicação na epidemiologia da esquistossomose na Amazônia Ocidental, Brasil. Acta Amazônica 12: 795-799. [ Links ]
Corrêa LR, Paraense WL 1971. Susceptibility of Biomphalaria amazonica to infection with two strains of Schistosoma mansoni. Rev Inst Med Trop São Paulo 13: 387-390. [ Links ]
Farid MA 1975. The Aswan High Dam development project. In NF Stanley, MP Alpers (eds), Man-made Lakes and Human Health, Academic Press, London, p. 89-102. [ Links ]
Fernandez MA 1997. Schistosoma mansoni infections in the first three months of life of sympatric intermediate hosts from Brazil. Mem Inst Oswaldo Cruz 92: 27-29. [ Links ]
Fernandez MA, Thiengo SC 2002. Susceptibility of Biomphalaria straminea (Dunker, 1848) from Serra da Mesa dam, Goiás, Brazil to infection with three strains of Schistosoma mansoni Sambon, 1907. Mem Inst Oswaldo Cruz 97 (Suppl. I): 59-60. [ Links ]
Paraense WL, Corrêa LR 1982. Unsusceptibility of Biomphalaria occidentalis to infection with a strain of Schistosoma mansoni. Mem Inst Oswaldo Cruz 77: 565-567. [ Links ]
Paraense WL, Corrêa LR 1985. Further experiments on susceptibility of Biomphalaria amazonica to Schistosoma mansoni. Mem Inst Oswaldo Cruz 80: 259-262. [ Links ]
Paraense WL, Corrêa LR 1989. A potential vector of Schistosoma mansoni in Uruguai. Mem Inst Oswaldo Cruz 84: 281-288. [ Links ]
Received 25 May 2006
Accepted 26 June 2006
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People & Ideas: Francis Schaeffer
A Presbyterian minister, maverick theologian and prolific author, Francis Schaeffer is credited with providing American evangelicals the intellectual framework that encouraged them to enter the political arena in the 1970s.
In 1955, Schaeffer and his wife, Edith, moved to Switzerland and founded L'Abri, meaning "shelter," a small community that served as a spiritual oasis for young people and philosophical wanderers. With his long hair, goatee, knickers and knee socks, he appeared the embodiment of the counterculture, a man equally at ease quoting the songs of Bob Dylan or passages from Scripture. He loved art -- music, painting and sculpture.
What Schaeffer disdained was secular humanism, the worldview that cast aside the core message of the Christian faith in favor of one devoid of Christian values. "Why has our society changed?" he asked. "The answer is clear -- the consensus of our society no longer rests upon a Christian basis, but upon a humanistic one. Humanism is man putting himself at the center of all things, rather than the creator God." The result, Schaeffer argued, was a society that had lost its moral foundation and threatened to shipwreck itself on the shoals of Western civilization.
Working with his son, Frank, Schaeffer produced and appeared on-camera in two film series: How Should We Then Live?: The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture and Whatever Happened to the Human Race?, a powerful indictment of abortion, euthanasia and indifference to life. In Washington, D.C., the series was screened by prominent politicians and opinion makers; churches across the country showed the series to their congregations. Thousands of evangelicals heard Schaeffer's message and became persuaded that they had a duty -- indeed, a moral obligation -- to set aside their long-standing aversion to politics and step into the political arena.
Among them was Jerry Falwell, pastor of the Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Va. Recruited by strategists from the Republican Party, Falwell set aside his reluctance to enter politics, and in 1979, he co-founded the Moral Majority. Buttressed by Schaeffer's thinking and philosophy, evangelicals marched to the polling booths and voted overwhelmingly for Ronald Reagan in 1980 and George W. Bush in 2004. While evangelicals did not achieve their ultimate goal of reforming American culture, they decisively and permanently changed the political and religious landscape of the country.
Schaeffer's life and work are detailed in a book written by his son, Frank, Crazy for God.
Published October 11, 2010
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05 March 2010
An enterprising student who is now supplying the dental market with inexpensive dental equipment has been named this year’s winner of the Spark Business Idea competition.
Fourth-year School of Dentistry student, David Stone set up UKLoupes less than a year ago to make available high quality and affordable dental loupes to dental students early in their training. Loupes are a form of magnifying lenses suspended on a glasses frame to improve vision and posture during procedures, such as dental surgery.
In just 11 months, David has been able to develop an innovative business supplying these magnifying loupes to a much wider healthcare market including post-graduate trainees, SHOs and surgical practitioners.
The annual Spark Business Idea competition is organised by Student Enterprise in partnership with Banco Santander and the Santander Universities scheme. It offers a £1,000 prize to the best business or business idea from a University student. This year, seven businesses were short listed.
Dave said: "Loupes are highly useful to members of the dental profession, but are not widely used due to prohibitive prices. UKLoupes has widened access to this equipment to many dental students and other healthcare professionals at affordable prices with no noticeable difference in quality.
"It means a great deal to have won the competition. The judges certainly didn’t hold back. The feedback I had and now the funding will help to take the business to the next stage. Our plans are to encourage other dental schools in nearby universities to consider using loupes, and we are also exploring the possibility of targeting jewellers, tattooists and for use in the electronics field."
Two runners-up were also awarded with £500 cash prizes. David Stribling, School of Computer Science, for his fast growing online gaming community Lasuni; and Beth Coslett, Cardiff Business School for her unique make-up artist company, The Mua Beauty Shop.
The finalists faced a judging panel who considered the application in terms of both the business idea and the ambition and drive of the person making the application. This year’s judges included Cardiff alumna and successful entrepreneur Abi Carter, who herself set up Forensic Resources Science Consultancy with the support of the University’s Student Enterprise; Jeremy Jones, Director of market research company Fulcrum Direct; Phill Mullins, Small Business Manager in the Cardiff Branch of Santander; and Gareth Evans Head of Business Development in the University’s Research and Commercial Development Division.
Gareth Evans, said: "My congratulations go to all the finalists. All business plans were a good standard and well thought out; the presentations were interesting and showed good potential for all seven businesses."
The University’s Student Enterprise service has helped many award-winning companies to get the start they need. Student Enterprise offers a wealth of expertise and mentoring, advice about potential funding, as well as business space for students looking to develop a business or social enterprise.
Green training Programme launches in Wales
Rise in type 2 diabetes amongst young
Uniting to solve the mystery of mental illness
Preventing blood poisoning
Enriching Student Life Awards
One of the world’s elite universities
Cardiff students launch clothing range
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Reaction from African-Americans to President Obama’s support for same-sex marriage continues to be mixed, with some black ministers across the country openly criticizing the president this past Sunday, and threatening to vote Republican, or not all, in November.
But from the pulpit of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, the Rev. Otis Moss III challenged that stance. He read an open letter to his congregation on same-sex marriage, and what the Bible teaches about Christian love. His letter targeted those in the black clergy and community who’ve decided this one issue alone will determine their support the second time around for the nation’s first African-American president.
Here is Moss’s letter:
Tell your brethren who are part of your ministerial coalition to “live their faith and not legislate their faith” for the Constitution is designed to protect the rights of all. We must learn to be more than a one-issue community and seek the beloved community where we may not all agree, but we all recognize the fingerprint of the Divine upon all of humanity.
There is no doubt people who are same-gender-loving who occupy prominent places in the body of Christ. For the clergy to hide from true dialogue with quick dismissive claims devised from poor biblical scholarship is as sinful as unthoughtful acceptance of a theological position. When we make biblical claims without sound interpretation we run the risk of adopting a doctrinal position of deep conviction but devoid of love. Deep faith may resonate in our position, but it is the ethic of love that forces us to prayerfully reexamine our position.
The question I believe we should pose to our congregations is, “Should all Americans have the same civil rights?” This is a radically different question than the one you raised with the ministers, “Does the church have the right to perform or not perform certain religious rites.” There is difference between rights and rites. We should never misconstrue rights designed to protect diverse individuals in a pluralistic society versus religious rites designed by faith communities to communicate a theological or doctrinal perspective. These two questions are answered in two fundamentally different arenas. One is answered in the arena of civic debate where the Constitution is the document of authority. The other is answered in the realm of ecclesiastical councils where theology, conscience and biblical mandates are the guiding ethos. I do not believe ecclesiastical councils are equipped to shape civic legislation nor are civic representatives equipped to shape religious rituals and doctrine.
The institution of marriage is not under attack as a result of the President’s words. Marriage was under attack years ago by men who viewed women as property and children as trophies of sexual prowess. Marriage is under attack by low wages, high incarceration, unfair tax policy, unemployment, and lack of education. Marriage is under attack by clergy who proclaim monogamy yet think nothing of stepping outside the bonds of marriage to have multiple affairs with “preaching groupies.” Same-gender couples did not cause the high divorce rate, but our adolescent views of relationships and our inability as a community to come to grips with the ethic of love and commitment did. We still confuse sex with love and romance with commitment.
My father, who is a veteran of the civil rights movement and retired pastor, eloquently stated the critical nature of this election when speaking to ministers this past week who claim they will pull support from the President as a result of his position. He stated, “Our Ancestors prayed for 389 years to place a person of color in the White House. They led over 200 slave revolts, fought in 11 wars, one being a civil war where over 600,000 people died. Our mothers fought and were killed for women’s suffrage, our grandparents were lynched for the civil rights bill of 1964 and the voting rights act of 1965…my father never had the opportunity to vote and I believe it is my sacred duty to pull the lever for every member of my family who was denied the right to vote. I will not allow narrow-minded ministers or regressive politicians the satisfaction of keeping me from my sacred right to vote to shape the future for my grandchildren.”
“The institution of marriage is not under attack as a result of the President’s words.”
Gay and lesbian citizens did not cause the economic crash, foreclosures, and attack upon health care. Poor underfunded schools were not created because people desire equal protection under the law. We have much work to do as a community, and to claim the President of the United States must hold your theological position is absurd. He is President of the United States of America not the President of the Baptist convention or Bishop of the Sanctified or Holiness Church. He is called to protect the rights of Jew and Gentile, male and female, young and old, Gay and straight, black and white, Atheist and Agnostic. It should be noted the President offered no legislation, or executive order, or present an argument before the Supreme Court. He simply stated his personal conviction.
If we dare steal away from the noise of this debate, we will realize as a church we are called to “Do justice, live mercy and walk humbly with God.” Gay people have never been the enemy; and when we use rhetoric to suggest they are the source of our problems we lie on God and cause tears to flow from the eyes of Christ.
I am not asking you to change your position, but I am stating we must stay in dialogue and not allow our own personal emotional prejudices or doctrines to prevent us from seeing the possibilities of a beloved community.
November is fast approaching, and the spirits of Ella Baker, Septima Clarke, Fannie Lou Hammer, Rosa Parks, A. Phillip Randolph, James Orange, Medgar Evers and Martin Luther, King Jr. stand in the balcony of heaven raising the question, “Will you do justice, live mercy and walk humbly with our God?” Emmitt Till and the four little girls who were assassinated in Alabama during worship did not die for a Sunday sermonic sound bite to show disdain for one group of God’s people. They were killed by an evil act enacted by men who believed in doctrine over love. We serve in ministry this day because of a man who believed in love over doctrine and died on a hill called Calvary in a dusty Palestinian community 2,000 years ago. Do not let the rhetoric of this debate keep you from the polls, my friend.
Asking you to imagine a beloved community, your brother and friend,
Otis Moss, III
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Census: Fewer Americans Lacked Health Insurance in 2011
Jointly released with the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center
HARRISBURG, PA (September 12, 2012) – New data released by the Census Bureau underscore the important contributions of the Affordable Care Act as the share of Americans without health insurance declined in 2011 for the first time in four years.
Overall, the percentage of Americans without health insurance dropped from 16.3 percent in 2010 to 15.7 percent in 2011, the largest annual improvement since 1999. The number of uninsured Americans declined from 50 million in 2010 to 48.6 million in 2011.
This gain in coverage was driven in part by an increase in the number of young adults who have health coverage. This appears to be largely the result of a provision in the Affordable Care Act allowing people under the age of 26 to stay on their parents’ private health insurance plans.
Public insurance programs including the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and Medicaid also helped maintain insurance coverage for children in 2011. A little-known provision of the Affordable Care Act requires states to maintain eligibility levels in these programs, helping to keep the rate of insurance among children and adults stable.
“For much of the last decade, the story has been that Americans have lost their health coverage. This year the story's changed,” said Sharon Ward, Director of the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center. “Because of policies, including the Affordable Care Act, we saw an increase in health coverage in 2011. Pennsylvania should keep that progress going by fully implementing the law, including taking advantage of the opportunity to close the Medicaid coverage gap.”
Census Bureau data also showed a rise in income inequality in 2011. U.S. median household incomes fell in 2011 by 1.5 percent. The share of income captured by the bottom 80 percent of households declined, while the top 1 percent of households saw their share of incomes rise by 6 percent.
The national poverty rate remained steady in 2011 but could have been worse were it not for unemployment insurance, which kept 2.3 million out of poverty, and Social Security, which kept 14.5 million seniors out of poverty. Census Bureau estimates suggest that counting the income from food stamps would reduce the number of Americans in poverty by 3.9 million, while counting the income from the Earned Income Tax Credit would reduce the number in poverty by 5.7 million.
Overall, the national poverty rate remained at 15 percent in 2011, with one in nearly seven Americans living below the poverty line.
“Unemployment benefits and Social Security kept millions of Americans out of poverty during the worst recession in two generations,” said Mark Price, Labor Economist for the Keystone Research Center. “They helped protect the middle class from losing it all.”
The Pennsylvania Story
In Pennsylvania, roughly one in eight Pennsylvanians under age 65 were uninsured in 2010-2011, essentially unchanged from 2008-09 but 2.1 percent higher than in 2006-07 and 3.7 percent higher than in 2000-01.
These state-level figures from the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey are preliminary and averaged over two years to improve their reliability. It is the only data available on state poverty and health insurance trends through 2011. On September 20, the Census Bureau will release more definitive 2011 data as part of the American Community Survey, which is a larger review.
Medicaid covered 16.2 percent of Pennsylvanians under age 65 in 2010-2011, essentially unchanged from 2008-09 but 3 percent higher than in 2006-07 and 6.8 percent higher than in 2000-01.
In 2010 and 2011, one out of every eight people in Pennsylvania, 12.4 percent, lived in poverty, up from 10.8 percent before the recession began in 2006-2007.
Continue Health Reform’s Progress
The positive impact of the Affordable Care Act’s young adult provision and the success of Medicaid and CHIP in providing coverage to children illustrate the critical importance of implementing the rest of the health care reform law, noted Ward.
This includes expanding the state’s Medicaid program, known as Medical Assistance, to more working adults who can’t afford to purchase private health insurance. This opportunity could bring $17 billion into the state’s economy to support additional health coverage to working adults. It’s up to state lawmakers to decide whether to extend coverage.
“By expanding Medical Assistance, Pennsylvania can further reduce the number of uninsured residents at a very low cost to the state while boosting the state’s economy,” Ward said. “It would be a mistake to let this opportunity pass.”
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Who will we choose �grandparent or grandchild? by the Plain Talk As this is being written, President George W. Bush is getting ready to give his State of the Union address.
He likely will focus on a range of issues, including Social Security reform.
There�s no doubt that if something isn�t done soon, Social Security will be in crisis. We hope, however, that the feds won�t start lengthy debate on this issue at the expense of much more pressing matters.
Like Medicare and Medicaid.
It was noted in last Saturday�s conversations between District 17 legislators and local citizens that a variety of elements � ranging from demographics to federal funding to the mere fact that better medical care is allowing us all to live longer � likely will someday force the state to make some difficult funding decisions.
To be precise: the number of school-aged children in South Dakota is declining. The ranks of middle-aged to elderly adults in the state is growing.
Which group do you suppose will eventually demand more of South Dakota�s financial resources? And where will the money come from?
This week, in a column in the Wall Street Journal, Bob Kerrey notes: �It is at this point in time that the demographic and monetary demands of the baby boom generation will become painfully apparent. The disinvestment in public infrastructure caused by the growth in Medicare and Medicaid will become even worse than it is today. And the nature of this crisis will be considerably more daunting than that faced squarely by Congress and the president in 1983.�
Medicaid growth is being driven by two main factors, both of which are beyond the control of states.
First, the consumer price index for health care has been increasing at two to three times that of the average consumer price index (CPI).
In fact, over the past 13 years, this health care index has increased about 4.5 percent per year.
Second, Medicaid�s caseload growth has increased 35 percent over the past four years. All major categories, including children, adults, seniors, and the blind and disabled, have shot up significantly in that same period.
�While it may be difficult to develop precise projections of the future growth of Medicaid, there are ominous signs on the horizon that the growth of Medicaid expenditures will accelerate,� according to Raymond C. Scheppach, executive director of the National Governors Association. �This will severely impact state budgets and force major cuts in other state programs, particularly education.�
It sounds like South Dakota will be in good company. Many states soon will be forced to make similar decisions, decisions that essentially force governors into the inevitable and unenviable choice of choosing between grandparent and grandchild.
Given that Medicaid is the only safety net available for many Americans, costs undoubtedly will soar over the next decade because of changing demographics and structural changes in the economy that will lead to a reduction in employer-paid health care, according to Scheppach. With its 28 categories of mandated eligibility and 21 optional categories, this 40-year-old state-administered health care program that was created for the nation�s neediest populations is out of sync with the rest of the health care system.
Very simply, Medicaid needs to be radically rethought and completely reformed. As it stands today, it is simply unsustainable.
Medicaid in the future cannot be the only safety net. If it is, more and more states will be forced to pull that net out from under our most vulnerable citizens.
The Vermillion Plain Talk editorials reflect the opinion of Plain Talk editor David Lias. You may contact him at email@example.com
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The GOSPEL TRUTH
REVIVALS OF RELIGION.
WILLIAM B. SPRAGUE, D. D.
PASTOR OF THE SECOND PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN ALBANY, N.Y.
NATURE OF A REVIVAL.
Isaiah xlv. 8. "Drop down, ye heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness; let the earth open, and let them bring forth salvation, and let righteousness spring up together."
DEFENCE OF REVIVALS.
Acts ii. 13. "Others, mocking, said, These men are full of new wine."
OBSTACLES TO REVIVALS.
1 Cor. ix. 12. "Lest we should hinder the gospel of Christ."
DIVINE AGENCY IN REVIVALS.
Hab. iii. 2. "O Lord, revive thy work."
GENERAL MEANS OF PRODUCING AND PROMOTING REVIVALS.
Phil. i. 27. "Striving together for the faith of the gospel."
TREATMENT DUE TO AWAKENED SINNERS.
Acts iii. 19. "Repent ye therefore, and be converted."
TREATMENT DUE TO YOUNG CONVERTS.
2 Cor. xiii. 5. "Prove your own selves."
EVILS TO BE AVOIDED IN CONNECTION WITH REVIVALS.
Rom. xiv. 16. "Let not then your good be evil spoken of."
RESULTS OF REVIVALS.
Rev. V. 13. "Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, for ever and ever."
The following Lectures were delivered during the preceding autumn and winter, to the Congregation with which the author is connected, in the ordinary course of his public ministrations. The grand object at which he has aimed has been to vindicate and advance the cause of genuine revivals of religion: and in doing this, he has endeavoured to distinguish between a genuine revival and a spurious excitement; to defend revivals against the cavils of their opposers; to show the causes which operate to prevent or retard them; to exhibit the agency of God, and the instrumentality of men, by which they are produced and sustained; to guide the inquiring sinner and establish the young convert; to guard against the abuses to which revivals are liable, and to anticipate the glorious results to which they must lead. In the hope that the Lectures may prove a seasonable offering to the American church, at an interesting and critical period, the author has concluded to send them forth through the press; and in doing this, it is a pleasure to him that he is complying with a request from the session and trustees of the Church of which he is Pastor, as well as acting in accordance with the wishes of several respected and beloved brethren in the ministry with whom he is more immediately associated.
In the Appendix the reader will find a series of Letters on the same subject, from a number of the most distinguished Clergymen of our country, and from six different religious denominations. The object in requesting these Letters has been twofold -- First, To obtain authentic history of our revivals, in which unhappily we have hitherto been greatly deficient -- And, Second, to ascertain the manner in which revivals have been conducted by men whose wisdom, experience, and standing in the church, must at least entitle their opinion to great consideration. It was originally the author's intention to have republished the well-known Letters of Dr. Beecher and Mr. Nettleton, written several years ago, in which the same general views which this volume inculcates, are defended with great zeal and ability. But upon examination he finds they are so much identified with the occasion in which they originated, that he thinks it best to omit them. He allows himself to hope, that whatever the decision of the public may be in respect to the Lectures, they will find in the Letters which follow much authentic and important information; and he doubts not that the testimony, on this momentous subject, of such a representation from our American church, will not only be gratefully received, but considerately and earnestly pondered. If the volume should, by the blessing of God, be instrumental, even in an humble degree, of promoting such revivals as those for which Edwards, and Dwight, and Nettleton, and a host of others, both among the living and the dead, have counted it an honour to labour, the best wish of the author of the Lectures, and no doubt of the writers of the Letters also, will be answered.
Albany, May 1, 1832.
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CHAPTER XV. HENRY AND HIS SONS
For England peace was now established. The insurrection was suppressed, the castles were in the king's hands, even the leaders of the revolted barons were soon reconciled with him. The age of Henry I returned, an age not so long in years as his, but yet long for any medieval state, of internal peace, of slow but sure upbuilding in public and private wealth, and, even more important, of the steady growth of law and institutions and of the clearness with which they were understood, an indispensable preparation for the great thirteenth century so soon to begin - the crisis of English constitutional history. For Henry personally there was no age of peace. England gave him no further trouble; but in his unruly southern dominions, and from his restless and discontented sons, the respite from rebellion was short, and it was filled with labours.
In 1175 the two kings crossed together to England, though the young king, who was still listening to the suggestions of France and who professed to be suspicious of his father's intentions, was with some difficulty persuaded to go. He also seems to have been troubled by his father's refusal to receive his homage at the same time with his brothers'; at any rate when he finally joined the king on April 1, he begged with tears for permission to do homage as a mark of his father's love, and Henry consented. At the end of the first week in May they crossed the channel for a longer stay in England than usual, of more than two years, and one that was crowded with work both political and administrative. The king's first act marks the new era of peace with the Church, his attendance at a council of the English Church held at London by Archbishop Richard of Canterbury; and his second was a pilgrimage with his son to the tomb of St. Thomas. Soon after the work of filling long-vacant sees and abbacies was begun. At the same time matters growing out of the insurrection received attention. William, Earl of Gloucester, was compelled to give up Bristol castle which he had kept until now. Those who had been opposed to the king were forbidden to come to court unless ordered to do so by him. The bearing of arms in England was prohibited by a temporary regulation, and the affairs of Wales were considered in a great council at Gloucester.
One of the few acts of severity which Henry permitted himself after the rebellion seems to have struck friend and foe alike, and suggests a situation of much interest to us which would be likely to give us a good deal of insight into the methods and ideas of the time if we understood it in detail. Unfortunately we are left with only a bare statement of the facts, with no explanation of the circumstances or of the motives of the king. Apparently at the Whitsuntide court held at Reading on the first day of June, Henry ordered the beginning of a series of prosecutions against high and low, churchmen and laymen alike, for violations of the forest laws committed during the war. At Nottingham, at the beginning of August, these prosecutions were carried further, and there the incident occurred which gives peculiar interest to the proceedings. Richard of Lucy, the king's faithful minister and justiciar, produced before the king his own writ ordering him to proclaim the suspension of the laws in regard to hunting and fishing during the war. This Richard testified that he had done as he was commanded, and that the defendants trusting to this writ had fearlessly taken the king's venison. We are simply told in addition that this writ and Richard's testimony had no effect against the king's will. It is impossible to doubt that this incident occurred or that such a writ had been sent to the justiciar, but it seems certain that some essential detail of the situation is omitted. To guess what it was is hardly worth while, and we can safely use the facts only as an illustration of the arbitrary power of the Norman and Angevin kings, which on the whole they certainly exercised for the general justice.
From Nottingham the two kings went on to York, where they were met by William of Scotland with the nobles and bishops of his kingdom, prepared to carry out the agreement which was made at Falaise when he was released from imprisonment. Whatever may have been true of earlier instances, the king of Scotland now clearly and beyond the possibility of controversy became the liege-man of the king of England for Scotland and all that pertained to it, and for Galloway as if it were a separate state. The homage was repeated to the young king, saving the allegiance due to the father. According to the English chroniclers all the free tenants of the kingdom of Scotland were also present and did homage in the same way to the two kings for their lands. Some were certainly there, though hardly all; but the statement shows that it was plainly intended to apply to Scotland the Norman law which had been in force in England from the time of the Conquest, by which every vassal became also the king's vassal with an allegiance paramount to all other feudal obligations. The bishops of Scotland as vassals also did homage, and as bishops they swore to be subject to the Church of England to the same extent as their predecessors had been and as they ought to be. The treaty of Falaise was again publicly read and confirmed anew by the seals of William and his brother David. There is nothing to show that King William did not enter into this relationship with every intention of being faithful to it, nor did he endeavour to free himself from it so long as Henry lived. The Norman influence in Scotland was strong and might easily increase. It is quite possible that a succession of kings of England who made that realm and its interests the primary objects of their policy might have created from this beginning a permanent connexion growing constantly closer, and have saved these two nations, related in so many ways, the almost civil wars of later years.
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By David L. Brown
Well, it’s finally official. We’ve been saying it for years here — that the world was passing Peak Oil and economic disaster would surely follow — but the wall of denial stood strong. Until now.
According to an article today on the website of the British paper The Independent, a noted energy economist says that “[t]he world is heading for a catastrophic energy crunch that could cripple a global economic recovery because most of the major oil fields in the world have passed their peak production.”
We’ve heard this before, so what is the significance of this particular iteration of a warning that has been issued by others? Well, Dr. Faith Birol is the chief economist for the International Energy Agency (IEA). And what is that? It is an intragovernmental organization established after the first oil shock in 1972 as an arm of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), a collaboration of 30 developed nations. Its mission was to evaluate and report on energy resources.
The trouble is that until recently the IEA was glossing over the emerging fact that the Oil Peak had arrived. As I wrote on November 4, 2007 in an essay titled “The View From Over the Mountain” (read it here), according to an independent energy agency “The message by the IEA, namely that business as usual will also be possible in future, sends a false signal to politicians, industry and consumers — not to forget the media.”
What a difference 20 months (and an economic collapse) can make. Now, according to the Independent article, Dr. Birol reports that
…the first detailed assessment of more than 800 oil fields in the world, covering three quarters of global reserves, has found that most of the biggest fields have already peaked and that the rate of decline in oil production is now running at nearly twice the pace as calculated just two years ago. On top of this, there is a problem of chronic under-investment by oil-producing countries, a feature that is set to result in an “oil crunch” within the next five years which will jeopardise any hope of a recovery from the present global economic recession, he said.
As Oliver Hardy used to say to Stan Laurel, “Well, that’s another fine mess you’ve gotten me into.” And there isn’t any excuse for the world economy to be blindsided by this. As we have discussed here for more than three years (and privately for decades), the situation we now face was clearly predicted a half century ago by economist M. King Hubbert. He accurately foresaw the peak of American domestic oil production with his famous (or perhaps infamous if you work for ExxonMobil or are the Oil Minister of Saudi Arabia) Hubbert Curve.
Here, reproduced from my essay of nearly two years ago is an updated version of that curve, as developed by the German-based Energy Watch Group (EWG), a self-described watchdog organization.
The graph shows petroleum production by source, and the red line indicates projected future demand for the precious substance. It is apparent that the demand is not very realistic, since it is going one way while supply is going the other way. Note that according to this graph, demand began to exceed supply in about 2006 or 2007. That fits well with the oil price spike last year, followed by the economic turmoil that has continued ever since. The growing gap between supply and demand must be closed in some way if the world economy is to continue on its course.
What are the options? Assuming that this graph correctly projects the true supply situation, there is nothing that can be done on the supply side. That means that either demand must come down, or some other adjustments be made to make up the difference. That’s why all the belated fuss about alternative energy — using wind, nuclear, geothermal, biofuels or whatever else can be set into motion.
But it’s too late, you see. Look at the graph. It takes upwards of 20 years to plan, approve and build a nuclear power plant. For wind power we would need to erect literally millions of generators and rebuild our power grid, a huge investment that cannot be accomplished overnight. Biofuels have already had an adverse effect on food prices and availability worldwide, and cannot be pushed far and fast without further disastrous effects.
We should have started 20 or 30 years ago — but we didn’t. Instead we kept importing more and more oil from unfriendly and potentially unstable nations. We kept on building gas guzzling SUVs and pickups used mostly to take kids to school or run to the store. We squandered energy as if it would always be plentiful and cheap. In other words, we ignored common sense and prudence as exemplified in the story of the grasshopper and the ant. And like the grasshopper, we (and I am referring here to the entire human race) are facing the cold winds of a fast-approaching winter with no practical plan to fill the petroleum supply-demand gap.
So, we don’t have time but what about money? If enough could be spent, surely we can build a new alternative energy infrastructure quickly? After all, during World War II the Alaska Highway was built in about eight months. Well, there is a problem with that, and it is that the world is essentially broke. Here in America we’re already spending money like drunken monkeys in a banana factory, and cranking up the presses to print more dollars. At the same time, tax revenues are plummeting just as the government is ramping up to provide elaborate social programs that we cannot afford. Our leaders are proposing a massive investment to limit global warming, and admittedly some of that will result in development of alternative energy. However, too much of the program would be aimed at longer-term proposals such as nuclear power, or to give-aways to energy companies in the form of carbon credits. That won’t solve the problem we face right now, and almost certainly will create new ones that cannot even be foreseen.
What are the other options? Well, necessity may be the mother of invention, but it is also the cruel arbiter of natural forces. If the gap cannot be filled from below, it must be closed by reduced demand. That can be achieved by a number of steps, including first and foremost strict conservation. It is not inconceivable that we will soon see gasoline rationing, something that will not go down well with consumers in America. Our way of life is bound for dramatic change, and there is no way to avoid it.
Emerging economies such as China and India will be caught in the no man’s land of attempted transition from peasant economies to industrialized states. It is clear, to me at least, that in a post-Oil Peak world those drives to mimic the Industrial Revolution of the West will be stillborn unless drastic changes are made in the direction of development.
Finally, let me return to the statements by the IEA economist who, it seems, is still reluctant to reveal the true seriousness of the problem. Despite the dismal statements quoted above, he pulled his punch by telling The Independent that “global [oil] production is likely to peak in about 10 years – at least a decade earlier than most governments had estimated.”
Um, he’s saying that Peak Oil won’t arrive until about 2019. That flies in the face of many other opinions, such as the data used to compile the graph above. How can one reconcile the opinion that Peak Oil is still a decade away with this statement from the Independent interview with Dr. Birol himself:
“In its first-ever assessment of the world’s major oil fields, the IEA concluded that the global energy system was at a crossroads and that consumption of oil was ‘patently unsustainable’, with expected demand far outstripping supply.”
Well, you can’t reconcile it, because there is zero basis to expect that oil production will continue to rise for another decade. According to many best estimates, including that of the EWG from several years ago as pictured in the graph above, the Oil Peak is here, or has already passed. We don’t have 10 years. We have already crossed over the mountain and are staring into the abyss. We can see plain evidence in the fact that the world economy is crashing around us. The two events — Peak Oil and shattered economies — are merely two aspects of the same thing, for those economies were unwisely built and sustained for far too long on a foundation of cheap and abundant oil, something that no longer exists and will never come again.
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The bill contains two items of interest to small firms. There’s a hiring tax credit, proposed by a Democrat, Charles Schumer, and a Republican, Orrin Hatch (and challenged by a You’re the Boss blogger, Jay Goltz, here). Any company that hires someone who has been unemployed for the preceding two months will not have to pay payroll taxes on that worker for 2010. If the worker stays on for more than one year, the company also gets a $1,000 tax credit. The Democrats estimate this part of the bill will cost $13 billion, but the provision is not restricted to small firms, so it’s unclear how much small firms will benefit from it.
With the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act measures that have been subsidizing Small Business Administration loan programs scheduled to conclude by the end of the month, the S.B.A. announced Tuesday that it was “finalizing plans for an orderly transition” back to loans with higher fees and lower guarantees.
The stimulus provisions raised the guarantee on many loans in the S.B.A.’s main program, the 7(a), to 90 percent from 75 percent, currently available to loans completed before Feb. 28. They also eliminated borrower fees for both 7(a) and 504 loans through September, provided money is still available.
President Obama’s incentives for small business to create jobs appear to be foundering at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. Those proposals — tax credits for hiring and investment and initiatives to spur lending to small firms — all face strong resistance, and not all of it comes from the Senate. Each chamber has embraced separate elements of the administration’s agenda, and, for the moment, none of those elements overlap.
In the Senate, a jobs bill drafted by the top Democrat and Republican of the Finance Committee that included some — though hardly all — of what the Obama administration wanted has been drastically pared back by Harry Reid, the majority leader. Reid’s runt jobs bill does include a hiring tax credit, proposed by Democrat Charles Schumer and Republican Orrin Hatch, though it is neither aimed at small business like the administration’s nor otherwise as tidy.* It also would extend the 2009 stimulus’s more generous expensing limits under Section 179, of the tax code, which allows a small business to immediately deduct certain kinds of property that would otherwise be depreciated over several years.
By mid-afternoon, Republicans seemed to have settled on their talking point in opposition to President Obama’s jobs plan, including the $30 billion loan package formally announced today. The new watchword: “uncertainty.”
At a Senate Finance Committee hearing today, Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine, the ranking Republican on the Small Business Committee, criticized the administration for proposing tax increases on the wealthy, and insisted that uncertainty over that, as well as about a potential new health care mandate and the economic climate generally, is what’s keeping small firms from hiring. “Certainty and confidence are essential ingredients that we need to strengthen the economy,” she said at the hearing, according to a statement released by her office.
This morning, as President Obama visits a small business in Baltimore to unveil a temporary tax credit to encourage the hiring of new employees, The Agenda would like to fill you in on the details. The initiative, which would require Congress’s assent, is more generous than earlier versions that have floated around Washington, and it’s tailored more specifically for small businesses.
Under the proposal (available here, with more details in this pdf), a firm that hires a new employee in 2010 would get up to a $5,000 credit against its income tax. Alternatively, a company that hands out raises above the inflation rate in 2010 would get an income tax credit equal to the additional Social Security taxes it would pay on the increase. Although effectively similar to a payroll tax holiday for an employer, as an income tax credit, the raise incentive would not actually reduce payments to the Social Security trust fund.
The tax credit would be available to employers on a quarterly basis, which, the White House says, would encourage early hiring. It would also be retroactive to the start of the year. And while any business could claim the credits, they would be capped at $500,000 for each business. The administration estimates that one million businesses will take advantage of the credit, according to a senior administration official who insisted on anonymity because he didn’t wish to pre-empt the president’s announcement, and the vast majority of them will be small companies.
Update | 11:05 p.m. to clarify Ping Fu’s comment about the speech.
Last night at President Obama’s State of the Union address, as we all know, “jobs” became “our No. 1 focus.” Mr. Obama then turned immediately to small business (“We should start where most new jobs do…”), and offered up a bunch of ideas that he’s offered up before: $30 billion in repaid bailout money to finance lending by community banks and tax credits and cuts to encourage hiring and investment and help businesses raise capital. He also pledged, for the first time, to double exports in the next five years.
Mr. Obama did more than make frequent mention of small business and entrepreneurs (15 times, to be precise) — he also invited five entrepreneurs to sit with the first lady, Michelle Obama, up in the gallery.
They were chosen for a variety of reasons. Don Karner was there because his Phoenix-based electric vehicle technology company won a $100 million stimulus grant to deploy battery-charging stations in 11 cities. Ping Fu, whom we wrote about last week, says she believes she was invited in part because she’s a woman who owns a growing business. Trevor Yager, who owns a public relations firm in Indianapolis, said he was chosen to represent the gay community.
One of the most misunderstood topics about entrepreneurship is job creation. The prevailing wisdom is that new businesses create jobs primarily because newly formed companies tend to grow over time.
This misperception comes from how people typically look at the data on new businesses. In general, observers look at the number of people employed at the average new firm and compare that to the number of people employed at the average firm that is, say, six years old.
If you do that for United States Census data on the employment of new establishments founded between 1977 and 2005, you will see that the average establishment in its first year employed 6.0 people and the average establishment in its sixth year employed 9.6 people. Because 9.6 is 60 percent higher than 6.0, most people conclude that the new businesses created jobs by growing.
It’s a nice story, but it’s not correct.
The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor is an effort by a consortium of academics around the world to survey a representative sample of the adult age population to study entrepreneurs.
One of the topics examined: growth expectations. The consortium’s researchers asked nascent (in the process of starting a business) and new (running a business less than 42 months old) entrepreneurs how many people they expected to employ several years in the future and found the responses highly skewed. Many entrepreneurs expected to generate no jobs or very few jobs, while a few expected to create a large number of jobs. As the author of one of the consortium’s reports explains, “Only some 7 percent of all start-up attempts expected to create 20 or more jobs.”
Job creation by small businesses is one of the most talked-about topics in entrepreneurship. But one aspect of this discussion has always bothered me. The Office of Advocacy of the Small Business Administration shows that small businesses, which they define as any business with fewer than 500 employees, account for 99.7 percent of all employer firms in this country. That’s such a large percentage of businesses that referring to small businesses as a single group obscures important differences among them.
Using the same data that Brian Headd of the S.B.A. used in the July SBA Advocate, I divided small businesses into three categories: “micro businesses,” with fewer than 10 employees; “small businesses,” with 10 to 49 employees, and “medium-size businesses,” with 50 to 499 employees.
The table below summarizes the Bureau of Labor Statistics data on net job creation from the third quarter of 1992 through the third quarter of 2008 for each of these groups of firms and large businesses.
Based on the interest in my post about estimates of entrepreneurial job creation, I would like to explain how I calculate these numbers. My analysis is debatable, but I will outline the assumptions behind my figures so you can decide for yourself.
There are four key assumptions to calculate the job creation numbers: (1) the amount of money it takes to motivate someone to begin the entrepreneurial process, (2) the percentage of people that begin the entrepreneurial process who create a business, (3) the percentage of newly created businesses that employ anyone (employer firms), and (4) the number of employees in the average new employer firm.
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Early Electrification of Buffalo: 1925 Residential Electric Bill
This is the conclusion of a 14 part article.
You may get a chuckle out of the first electric bill for the author's father (Harry Woodworth 1893-1970) for 2-wire 110-V 25-Hz service in the Riverside section of Buffalo in 1925.
Figure 14.1 The address side of the bill. Note Niagara Mohawk-National Grid predecessor ‘Buffalo General Electric Company’. The address is the Electric Building; the entrance was later changed from 33 Genesee St. to 535 Washington St.
Figure 14.2 The Billing Side. Net bill was 5 cents. Note there was no minimum amount and no taxes and that this bill was calculated and posted by hand. Current bills are printed on several sheets of paper with all calculations by computer, which enables all the detailed charges including taxes.
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"I looked around and saw pretty much every Spurs fans clapping along and joining in with it ... It's something we've really made our own, it's a collective term for our fans now. It's an accepted word for Spurs fans in the modern age."
Arrowsmith rejected the idea that Spurs fans' use of the term encourages anti-Semitism, saying that particular argument removes any responsibility from the abusers.
"It's a pretty weak argument," he said. "It's been compared to another argument which suggests if girls wear short skirts they're inviting bad things to happen to them.
"No Spurs fan goes to the game thinking 'if I chant the word Yid I'm going to incite some racial hatred'. No one goes to the game thinking they are going to get some racial abuse."
But British comedian and author David Baddiel disagrees.
"The idea that Spurs fans are reclaiming the Y-word and are entitled to because so many of them are Jewish is simply not true," said Baddiel, who is Jewish and a Chelsea fan, recently writing in the Daily Mail.
"There are only 250,000 Jews in Britain as a whole and I'd say about three or four per cent of Tottenham's crowd is Jewish.
"That means well over 90% of those chanting 'Yid Army' are not actually Jewish and that is just one of several reasons why it cannot be right."
As the FA investigate what happened on Sunday, academic Clifford Stott called for England's governing body to deliver a reasoned response.
"The authorities need to respond by empowering the majority of those fans who aren't abusing other supporters,"said Stott, who has advised governments and police forces internationally on crowd management policy and practice.
"If the lessons of the past are anything to go by, solutions reside in working with fans' grassroots organizations to respond constructively to any criminal action that occurred. The key message is that an indiscriminate response is counterproductive.
"Don't forget there is already sufficient legislation to deal with anti-Semitic or racist chanting at football grounds
"Where this has happened then clearly it must be condemned and if the evidence exists for criminal sanctions to follow.
"But a knee-jerk response can escalate the problem and it is important to keep what happened in perspective."
Without attempting to excuse the actions of West Ham's fans, Stott explained how a unique set of circumstances had combined to create Sunday's poisonous atmosphere.
"Those chants -- inexcusable as they are -- followed the news about what happened in Rome and what the Society of Black Lawyers has been saying about the illegitimacy of Spurs fans' expression of their identity.
"In 12 months I doubt if and when this fixture is played again that those chants would be repeated."
Meanwhile, Herbert wants football's European governing body UEFA to use its regulations to empower referees in future to prevent a repeat of the abusive incidents that recently occurred in Serbia involving England's Under-21 team as well as Rome and north London.
"We'd like to see a proactive stance on this, a vigorous approach, prosecute where possible, ban people from grounds and if incidents like that do happen, call a halt to the game.
"There is a UEFA rule which is never used where a referee can call off the game. That's the sort of initiative which has to happen.
"Do you want to watch a football game or do you want to listen to this abuse?"
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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en
| 0.966022
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Interactive Key to the Malesian Seed Plants
A project to expand the already successful Interactive Key to the Malesian Seed Plants so as to include further data, distribution information and generic characters for selected families.
One of the most difficult steps in plant identification is the recognition of plant families. At the same time, a good knowledge of the major plant families is assumed in the majority of taxonomic works published. Consequentially, key taxonomic works (including regional Floras) are difficult for non-experts to understand.
This project focuses on the provision of a user-friendly electronic identification aid (DELTA key) for the plants in South East Asia. The data on which the key is based is taken mainly from the successful works of Max van Balgooy (Malesian Seed Plants 1-3, Nationaal Herbarium Nederland) in Malesian plant recognition. Additional data was provided by Les Watson and Mike Dallwitz from the databases of the Interactive Key to Seed Plants of the World. Data from various genera was taken from published volumes of Flora Malesiana and the Flora of Thailand.
The first version was published on the Internet and in CD-ROM format in 2004 and a second version was published online in 2010. It covers all seed plant families of the Malesian and Indo-china region and is supported by c. 1,000 pictures and family portraits.
In the third version, we are aiming to enlarge the key by expanding the number of characters used (including the distribution for each genus). Furthermore, we would like to expand the usefulness of the key by going down further to genus level in some selected families.
The project, started in early 2002 (see UK Darwin Initiative Papuan Plant Diversity Project), is ongoing.
Project Partners and Collaborators
University of Oxford
Nationaal Herbarium Nederland, Leiden
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://www.kew.org/science-research-data/directory/projects/IntKeyMalesianSeedPl.htm
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en
| 0.922096
| 384
| 2.640625
| 3
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A List of 10 Top Charities
Children and Family
The mission: To eliminate the most dire problems—poverty, disease, illiteracy, and hunger—that children face in the United States and
Why it stands out: Few nonprofits are this comprehensive in their approach to Big Problems. Save the Children works to break the cycle of poverty by delivering direct assistance, like food and medicine. It also provides access to education and financial tools, such as savings programs that give families the opportunity to achieve greater stability. A recent World Bank study found that students who participated in the group’s early-education program in Mozambique were 24 percent more likely to enroll in primary school. As a result, the African nation is introducing preschools nationwide based on the charity’s model.
Your money at work: A $70 donation provides education to a girl in Afghanistan for one year, paying for a year’s worth of school fees, uniforms, books, and other supplies.
Most Popular Galleries
Far from boring, this go-to neutral can take any room to new stylish heights.
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://www.realsimple.com/work-life/money/list-charities-00100000090241/page6.html
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en
| 0.945443
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An extraordinary new novel of friendship by Kate DiCamillo, author of the celebrated debut novel BECAUSE OF WINN-DIXIE.
Walking through the misty Florida woods one morning, twelve-year-old Rob Horton is stunned to encounter a tiger—a real-life, very large tiger—pacing back and forth in a cage. What’s more, on the same extraordinary day, he meets Sistine Bailey, a girl who shows her feelings as readily as Rob hides his. As they learn to trust each other, and ultimately, to be friends, Rob and Sistine prove that some things—like memories, and heartache, and tigers—can’t be locked up forever.
About the Author
Kate DiCamillo says of THE TIGER RISING, "Rob Horton first showed
up in a short story I was writing. I finished the story, but apparently
Rob wasn’t finished with me. He hung around for weeks afterward, haunting the other stories I was working on. Finally, I said to him, ‘What in the world do you want?’ And he said, ‘I know where there’s
a tiger.’ Like Sistine, I said one word back to him, ‘Where?’ THE TIGER
RISING is how Rob Horton answered me."
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://www.bookpassage.com/book/9780763609115
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en
| 0.949149
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Tornado Myths Debunked
Share This Story
It’s tornado season and this year has been unusually active—more than 300 have touched down so far, with the latest in Joplin, Mo., this week. Tornadoes can strike with little warning and transform a landscape within a matter of minutes. And while their damage can be deadly, so can the confusing myths about tornadoes that continue to put people at risk.
Here are five commonly held misperceptions about twister safety.
Myth #1: Opening windows to equalize air pressure will help minimize damage.
Do not waste precious time trying to open windows if a tornado is on its way. Doing so may only let in violent winds and flying debris. Seek shelter immediately.
Myth #2: The southwest corner of a basement is the safest place to seek shelter.
This used to be the prevailing belief because many tornadoes travel from southwest to northeast. In reality, the soundness and design of your building determines the safest area. However, experts now agree that the best place to go during a tornado is the center part of your basement or the lowest level of a building. The idea is to get as far away as possible from exterior walls and windows.
Myth #3: Tornadoes never strike big cities.
Major cities such as Miami, Nashville and Oklahoma City have all been hit by tornadoes in the past few years. Although three out of four tornadoes in the world happen in the United States, tornadoes can strike anywhere and have been documented on every continent except Antarctica. If a tornado warning is issued in your area, take it seriously.
Myth #4: Tornadoes only occur in late spring.
A tornado may occur at any time of day, and on any day of the year. However, tornadoes are most likely to occur in the late afternoon to evening (between 3pm and 9pm) during the warmer months between spring and early summer, when warm, humid air is more likely to collide with cold, dry air.
Myth #5: You can outrace a tornado in your car.
It’s best to avoid your car for several reasons during a tornado storm. Tornadoes can move up to 70 mph or more and shift directions erratically and without warning. Some tornadoes move faster than cars, even when the road is clear and flat. Also, severe thunderstorms that produce tornadoes can also produce flooding, hail and strong winds in the area. If you’re caught outdoors when a tornado approaches, find the lowest point possible, lie face down in a ditch, ravine or other low area, and cover your head to protect it from flying debris.
Are you prepared for the next big storm? Sign up for Allstate’s weather alerts to stay in-the-know.
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SaaS brings software to the masses
Collaborative tools for SMEs
Unless you’ve been living in a cave even less well equipped for the modern age than Fred Flintstone’s, you will have noticed the buzz about something called cloud computing. It comes with a menagerie of buzzwords: software as a service (SaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), infrastructure on demand, hosted apps … We could go on.
The trouble with buzzwords is that they can buzz for quite a while before people begin to notice they haven’t agreed on exactly what they mean.
So, in the manner of a lepidopterist, let’s try to pin a few down for closer inspection.
SaaS is nothing new. It has been with us for 20 years, but it is only mainstream enough for business, according to Zane Freame, Office 365 practice lead atContent and Code. a UK Microsoft reseller.
He argues that with regard to the cloud, there are four technology models. The first, traditional IT, isn’t really cloud. The second, infrastructure as a service (IaaS), is where the business manages the apps, security, runtime and databases but outsources the hardware.
PaaS has the business managing the applications and runtime and outsourcing the rest. SaaS is where everything is managed by a service provider, and the only control the business has is through the application.
“Things like Facebook and Hotmail are SaaS, it’s just that we don’t think of them that way,” Freame notes.
Once we have established that we are all talking about the same thing, we can see that soon all but the smallest organisations will be running a mixture of applications and services on public and private clouds.
“As a concept, SaaS is not a hard sell. The consumerisation of technology means that people often have access to better smartphones and computers in their personal lives than at work. SaaS gives companies the opportunity to bring the latest and greatest apps to their organisation to meet the needs of their users,” Freame says.
Steve Marsh, marketing manager at Metalogix, a developer of Microsoft Sharepoint management software, argues that companies still need to be cautious: while SaaS is a layer in the cloud, it is not quite the same thing as cloud.
“As more people have started offering private clouds, the definitions of SaaS and cloud are becoming blurred,” he says.
“SaaS as a term existed long before cloud. Now you have public cloud, hybrid clouds, private clouds. And quite often you find that a private cloud is really just software as a service being marketed differently.”
Take SharePoint, for example, says Marsh. Imagine you have SharePoint on premise at the moment and you are looking to move to a private online version of SharePoint. Is that cloud or is it just SaaS?
James Griffin, director of product strategy at Outsourcery, a UK reseller, is not sure that it matters much.
What’s in a label?
“It is virtually impossible to draw a line between SaaS and cloud. Both are industry labels for IT and comms services,” he says.
He argues that the customer is not interested in the label. “When customers are looking to adopt cloud, vendor will talk to them in terms of SaaS, PaaS, IaaS. But what they want is their apps delivered with decent SLAs [service level agreements].”
Griffin concedes that the lack of consistent terminology can be confusing for a business looking into cloud for the first time, but adds that the confusion doesn’t seem to translate into an overly cautious approach. A large proportion of customers he speaks to want to put their most critical business stuff into the cloud: voice.
“Cutting out call costs makes a big difference. It is easy to demonstrate the business value and it has a clear ROI. It also makes it easier for companies to hire the right people, regardless of where they are based,” he says.
“People come into work and wonder why they can’t make video calls”
Griffin’s experience matches that of Microsoft UK’s tech evangelist Simon May, who told us that particularly for small companies, software that enables collaborative working – Microsoft's arsenal includes SharePoint and Lync – is driving cloud adoption. Companies are interested in new ways of working.
Which brings us back to Freame's point about familiarity. “People come into work and wonder why they can’t make video calls as easily as they can at home,” he says.
He has an anecdote: a friend’s child had been playing with an iPad and shortly after was presented with a magazine. Immediately he tried to make the pages “do things”.
“We have a generation who will be coming to work soon – the Millennials – who will expect screens to respond to their touch. This is going to be standard even in the workplace,” he says.
If he is right, the gap between work and home will become more pronounced. Sweating your IT systems to save cash when your employees are used to touch screens and video conferencing makes no sense.
For Freame, cloud technology and SaaS in particular gives companies the opportunity to keep up with their employees without having to spend vast fortunes on hardware and IT management. ®
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en
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If you think the streets around Penn Station are crowded with out-of-towners now, imagine how jammed they must have been in the 1940s.
Back then, this was the “Penn Zone,” according to this vintage postcard, a stretch of Midtown brimming with massive hotels and must-see sites for tourists.
Some are still here, of course, such as the Empire State Building and Macy’s (number 8). But the original Penn Station (2) bit the dust in 1963, and the Hotel McAlpin (4) is now called Herald Towers and is a rental apartment building.
Gimbel’s (10) and Sak’s 34th Street (9) are ghosts. The Hotel New Yorker (6) keeps packing them in, while the Hotel Martinique (3) endured a tortured history as a 1980s welfare hotel before reopening as a Radisson.
Tags: Gimbel's New York, Hotel Governor Clinton, Hotel Martinique, Hotel McAlpin, Hotel New Yorker, Macy's, New York in the 1940s, old Penn Station, Penn Station, Penn Station streets, Vintage NYC postcards, Welfare Hotels New York City
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Bid for 2.27 million sq km reserve proposed by New Zealand and United States will be revisited in July.
A breakdown in talks to stretch the world's biggest marine reserve over the unblemished Ross Sea may serve to get a better result for "the last ocean", says the former diplomat who once helped open the fishery now at the centre of the debate.
Stuart Prior, the former head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade's Antarctic Policy Unit, who now wants commercial fishing banned in the Ross Sea, saw cause for optimism in the failure of the 25-nation Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) to negotiate a reserve this week.
Opposition by some fishing nations meant the commission could not agree to a 2.27 million sq km reserve proposed by New Zealand and the United States, but the bid will be revisited at a special meeting in July.
Groups pushing to save what is considered one of the last healthy ocean eco-systems on the planet yesterday reacted with disappointment, but vowed to keep campaigning.
But Mr Prior told the Weekend Herald there was a risk that a last-minute compromise could have produced a weak deal that failed to address the key points surrounding the issue.
Global public awareness had also swelled in the lead-up to the conference - something he felt would fuel the political drive needed to secure a lasting solution.
"It might take a year or two but I'd agree that the eventual outcome will be positive."
Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully felt the reserve proposed by New Zealand and the US held "a good chance of eventually finding acceptance".
He was disappointed some countries had held out against agreement over reserve, but was pleased it would be looked at again.
"It is clear that we have considerable work to do before that meeting if the joint proposal is to get across the line, but New Zealand is now well placed to play a leadership role in advancing the proposal."
The environmental coalition Antarctic Ocean Alliance was analysing what hurdles had stalled the talks.
"Over the next few months we will have discussions with each other and we will certainly be talking to different countries involved and trying to understand what the problems are and how we can move forward," said the group's New Zealand spokesman, Geoff Keey.
Kiwi film-maker Peter Young, whose Ross Sea documentary The Last Ocean is being pitched to international film festivals, hoped the stalemate could result in a new proposal that would rule out any fishing.
"We see these talks going through into next year as an opportunity to maintain momentum of our campaign - and hopefully convince New Zealand to build a stronger case," he said.
I get the impression that a marine protected area for the Ross Sea will happen, it is just a matter of time. This will not lead to a total ban on fishing in the Ross Sea but it is a step in the right direction.
Professor Bryan Storey, Professor of Antarctic Studies and director of Gateway Antarctica, University of Canterbury.
It is heartening that an interim meeting will be held in July next year to try and reach resolution although it's actually a very short timeframe to further develop arguments and an ambitious target to reach consensus.
Dr Victoria Metcalf, Lecturer in Animal Genetics, Lincoln University
The failure to reach consensus reflect politics trumping science.
Associate-Professor Clive Evans, University of Auckland
Although we're devastated by CCAMLR failure to reach an agreement, we will use this difficult situation to create an opportunity to increase the phenomenal support around the world so we get a marine protected area for the entire Ross Sea next year.
Philippa Ross, great-great-great granddaughter of British naval officer Sir James Clark Ross, who discovered the sea in 1841.By Jamie Morton @Jamienzherald Email Jamie
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<urn:uuid:56e96542-d250-4734-9153-9ef83b44c7c6>
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://www.nzherald.co.nz/environment/news/article.cfm?c_id=39&objectid=10844811&ref=rss
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en
| 0.965267
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| 1.9375
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They really can’t help themselves. Here we have Jonathan Allen: Opinion: Climate change, Earth’s warming air make hurricanes more violent
Following Hurricane Sandy, The Times published several articles and op-eds suggesting that the storm and other extreme weather events are likely due to climate change. The most recent was by fellow physicist Rep. Rush Holt (“A new normal: Plan wisely against tempests to come,” Dec. 20). In it, he warned of more such onslaughts in the future.
While it would be difficult to prove that any specific weather event was irrefutably due to climate change, the extraordinary rise in extreme weather events is very difficult to explain without invoking the increased atmospheric heating, as a near-doubling of carbon dioxide enhances the Earth’s greenhouse effect.
So, he can’t prove it, but, he’ll still blame mankind. Strangely, Jonathan fails to tell us how he’s given up his fossil fueled lifestyle and gone “carbon neutral”. Furthermore, as I write again and again, if one is using the phrase “climate change”, they aren’t interested in science but in politics.
But, there is no “rise in extreme weather events.” There’s simply the weather. Some years will be worse then others for certain factors. And, with the rise of satellites, the spread of cameras, radar, the Internet, people, weather events will be more noticeable than 100 years ago. Just 50 years ago there were much fewer hurricanes named because they weren’t getting near land, and the only way to know would have been if a ship passed near or through one. Some years will have bad tornado outbreaks, some won’t. There is always something going on with the weather.
Fortunately the article provides a handy dandy visual of what world killing CO2 looks like
So, now water vapor is considered CO2 “smoke”.
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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| 0.955266
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I spent an hour or so playing with an implementation of Paul Graham's
anti-spam algorithm, described recently in A Plan for Spam.
I implemented two different tools, both in Perl: spamcalc takes two
sets of filenames, separated by "--"; the first set is a list of files
containing "good" email (you can have lots of email messages in a single
file, or one per file--but it only groks standard UNIX mailbox format,
with '^From ' delimiters). This script reads in and tokenizes (using
the same algorithm Paul describes) all the "good" messages, counting how
many times each appears, then does the same for bad messages. Then, it
does the weight calculation and constructs a DB file containing all the
valid (appeared enough times to count) tokens and their weights.
The second script, spamcheck, takes a single message, tokenizes it,
and computes the 15 most "interesting" tokens. It then applies Bayes
Rule and shows you the resulting probability that this mail is spam.
The implementation (barring any stupid coding errors on my part) is
identical to that described in the paper, including ignoring case, etc.
I then played around with it for a bit. The main problem I have is
that, as I suspect is the case with most people, I don't keep my old
spam. So, I had to dig hard to come up with some spam to test with, and
only managed to find 10 messages that I had received. So, I'm just
testing--who cares, right?
Next, I have a huge archive of every email I've ever sent (well,
since 1995 or so--the older stuff is on backup somewhere), but that's
not really what I want since I'm trying to test email others have sent
me: it seems likely to me that email I sent would give a different,
skewed statistical "look" from email I receive, and harm the filter.
However I also have a pretty large set of folders containing mail others
have sent me, so I used all of that for the "good" mail. I then ran
some test email, both spam and not-spam, through the filter.
Well, the results were disappointing: everything was categorized as
spam! Looking at the results shows why: there are about 5 instances of
the year ("2002") as a token in the test messages (in the headers,
etc.), and each one of those was labeled individually as very
interesting, and they all had a strong correlation to spam (.88 or so).
Why is this? Easy, once you think about it: my spam was all of very
recent vintage: today, actually. However, my good email was from
folders where a very large number of messages were from previous years.
So, the "2002" token appeared in all the spam messages, but a much
smaller percentage of the good messages, hence the year was treated as a
high-probability indicator of spam! Not good. Maybe if I had more spam
(even if it was all from 2002) there would be more interesting words
than the year and this wouldn't matter. Of course, older spam would
also solve this problem.
Then I decided to try to get more spam to test with, so I went
looking at archives of mailing lists, like the GNU lists, which I know
get lots of spam. I found 30-40 messages and saved them, and re-ran
spamcalc. Now when I tested messages, they were all categorized as
not spam! Again, checking the details shows why, and it's
related to mail headers: all the email to me contained headers that
showed my hostname, etc. All the spam I installed from the archives did
not. So, any tokens containing my host, etc. indicated a low
probability of spam... again, not good!
So, I changed my "good" list to be just my inbox, which does contain
some older messages but most of which are more recent, to solve the
first problem, and I included only the spam I'd actually received to
solve the second. This works better than the other two, but still I
don't have enough spam mail to get a really good filter yet. But, I've
started saving spam so maybe it won't be too much longer :).
In summary, if you want to use this algorithm be aware that for good
results it's best if both your good and spam sets of messages are of
similar vintage (not just due to the year, but other things in the
headers like different local hostnames, etc.), and that you use spam you
actually received rather than public archives of spam.
One way around this would be to enhance the algorithm to ignore some
kinds of tokens outright: maybe avoiding things that look like dates,
and maybe the first one or two (or some well-known set) of Received
headers (ones that will be in every message you receive anyway);
obviously now we're moving slightly away from a pure statistical
analysis and trying to inject some AI into the algorithm. Which kind of
goes against the whole idea.
Anyway, I thought it was an interesting experiment.
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Although Latinos strongly disapprove of President Obama’s immigration policies, which have brought high numbers of deportations, they would favor him by wide margins over a Republican candidate in the presidential race, according to a poll released on Wednesday by the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research group in Washington.
The Pew poll is the first to put numbers on the growing discontent among Latinos with Mr. Obama’s immigration policies, which have led to nearly 400,000 deportations in each of the last three years. According to the poll, 59 percent of Latinos disapprove of the deportations; only 27 percent approve.
Yet if the election were held now, the poll suggests, Mr. Obama would win a matchup with Mitt Romney: 68 percent of Latino voters said they favor Mr. Obama; only 23 percent favored the former Massachusetts governor. In a hypothetical contest with Rick Perry, the governor of Texas, Mr. Obama would win 69 percent to 23 percent.
The survey by the Pew Hispanic Center was taken largely in November, before the rise of the former House speaker, Newt Gingrich, in the primary polls. A separate poll in early November by a related group, the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, found that Hispanic voters favored Mr. Obama over Mr. Gingrich 61 percent to 36 percent.
Latinos are the fastest-growing minority group, and the number who have registered to vote has grown rapidly in several states that could prove crucial in the 2012 vote, including California, Texas, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico and Florida.
The Pew Hispanic poll offers some clues to why Mr. Obama’s immigration policy, which has been loudly criticized by many Latino organizations, has not done more to hurt his standing with Latino voters.
Among registered Latino voters, immigration is not a primary concern. For Latino voters, immigration is sixth in importance, the poll found.
Their top three issues are jobs, education and health care, the same issues identified as most important by Latino voters before the midterm elections in 2010 and the presidential vote in 2008, Pew pollsters found. On these issues, Latinos appear to trust Democrats more.
Almost all of the immigrants who were deported in 2010 – 97 percent – were Hispanic, according to Department of Homeland Security figures cited by Pew, a disproportionate number since about 81 percent of an estimated 11.2 million illegal immigrants in the United States are Hispanic.
But awareness of those numbers and the impact of the Obama administration’s deportations is higher among foreign-born Latinos than among those who are native-born American citizens – by 55 percent to 25 percent. The rate of registration among foreign-born Latinos is lower, since many may not be eligible to vote.
The Pew survey does not assess Latinos’ views of the Republican candidates’ positions on immigration issues. But it finds that Latinos overwhelmingly – by 91 percent– support legislation, known as the Dream Act, that would give legal status to illegal immigrants who are in college. And 84 percent of Latinos said those students should be allowed to pay state resident tuition rates at public colleges.
Mr. Romney has forcefully opposed both policies. Mr. Perry at first spoke out in support of a Texas law that allows in-state tuition rates for illegal immigrant students, but more recently he distanced himself from that position. In the Republican field, only Mr. Gingrich has supported a plan to open a path to legal status for some illegal immigrants.
The poll indicates there is still room for Republicans to maneuver. Mr. Obama’s overall approval has dropped sharply among Latinos in the last year – to 49 percent from 58 percent. And more than half, 56 percent, of Hispanics say they have not given much thought yet to the individual candidates in the race.
“As the election draws near and Latino voters become more informed about the devastating effect the president’s policies are having on their community, they will increasingly look more seriously at the Republican candidate,” said Alfonso Aguilar, executive director of the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles, a Republican group. “And the Republican candidate only needs to get 40 percent of the Latino vote to win the election.”
Mr. Obama’s job-approval rating took a sharp drop down to 49 percent, from 58 percent in 2010.
The nationwide poll was conducted Nov. 9 to Dec. 7 with 1,220 adults of Latino origin or descent. Interviews were conducted in English and Spanish using landlines and cellphones. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4 percentage points; it is larger for subgroups.
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I knew very little about Iceland and had no particular interest in seeing it until the idea of a family trip popped up during one of my early morning meditations. Go figure.
The idea occurred to me in late October; a month later, we were there. What we saw in our week of travels was fantastic. But learning more about Iceland was fascinating as well. Here's a rundown of Iceland factoids:
Climate: I packed for Antarctica. What I found was a climate not much colder than Washington DC's, although late November in Iceland was perhaps more like January here.
The Gulf Stream makes the climate there much milder than one would expect. The downside is that the milder Atlantic air mass collides with the colder arctic air mass, creating changeable, often windy conditions. DC is also known for changeable weather, and I lost two trees in a windstorm -- our "derecho" -- this past June.
The Iceland tourist bureau likes to point out that in January 2010 the daily average temperature in Reykjavik was 2 degrees Centigrade, contrasted with a -1C in New York and Berlin.
The spread between daily highs and lows isn't as great in Reykjavik. I just checked the Weather Channel and for this Wednesday, and the high/low spread for D.C. is predicted to be 47-30, while in Reykjavik it's 38-34. I noticed that for several days in the coming week the prediction calls for only a one degree change from high to low in Reykjavik.
Daylight: This feature wasn't the problem I'd expected. Although the official time for sunrise was close to 10:30 am, we had enough light by 10 to set off on our journeys each day. We wouldn't have wanted to leave any earlier: the hotels offered huge complimentary breakfasts, and our group ranged in age from one to 83. Darkness fell by 5pm, like here, so there was plenty of time for touring.
The Iceland tourist bureau boasts that Iceland has an average of 14.9 hours of daylight each day, more than most places in the world, and about two hours more than sunny Miami! Of course, Iceland gains more daylight in the summer -- with its famous midnight sun -- than it loses in winter.
On December 21, the winter solstice, the sun rises at 11:22 and sets at 15:30 -- about 4 hours of daylight. On June 21, the sun rises at 02:54 and doesn't set until 24:04, over 21 hours of daylight.
One of the many things that surprised me was that the sun didn't make the overhead daytime arc I'm used to. Instead, it stayed about 25 degrees above the horizon and slowly moved from East to West.
The Northern Lights: I've joked that this is a myth concocted by the tourist bureau since we saw nothing, and my friends the Montwielers (who did the same tour a few weeks earlier) said they might have seen a faint glow. Turns out, I now find, the brightest aurora borealis is usually seen in spring and autumn, not midwinter. Most frequently, it's visible from about 21:00 to 1:00 at night.
The aurora borealis is caused by electrically charged particles emitted by the sun interacting with the earth's magnetic field. Colliding with the upper atmosphere at great speeds, the particles cause the air to glow in the beautiful colors of the aurora.
Iceland is in the middle of the aurora zone where the phenomenon is most frequently seen. The tourist bureau says "some aurora can be seen on almost every clear night in Iceland when the sky is dark enough, but its intensity is extremely variable." Thus sayest the tourist bureau.
At most hotels, you can sign up at the reception desk to be called if the Lights make an appearance during the night. Our phones never rang.
Very little documentation exists about the early settlement of Iceland. The primary source is the Icelandic document, The Book of Settlements, which was probably written in the 12th century. It recounts how the first settlers were Vikings who had been blown off course and that the name Iceland was given by a Norwegian Viking.
Seems the Vikings often were blown off course. In open ships with one sail, they navigated mostly by the position of the sun and stars and the flight of seabirds. A Viking who was blown off course when trying to sail from Iceland to Greenland caught sight of a forested land but didn't attempt to land there. In the year 1000, Leif Ericson, having heard the report, went off to find this land. He discovered an area he named Vinland, a land of "mild climate, self sown wheat and grapes."
The Vikings landed there, with evidence of settlements in Newfoundland and around the Gulf of St. Lawrence. But after three years, hostile Indians drove them off.
DNA testing of today's Icelanders show that over 80 percent of the males show genetic links with Norsemen. But over 60 percent of the females have Celtic genes. The supposition is that the Vikings sailed from home as single men and then spent some time in Scotland and Ireland, where they married local women before journeying to Iceland.
Clean Air and Water and Eating Fish Pays Off
Icelanders have one of the highest life expectancy rates in the world. The drinking water is one of the purest in the world. The cold water from the tap is pure spring water without any additives, like chlorine. The hot water is of geothermal origins, making it excellent for bathing but not drinking. It's recommended that you let the cold water tap run for a while before tasting to ensure that no hot water is mixed in.
In general, air quality in Iceland is good . . . as long as volcanoes aren't erupting. There's typical vehicle pollution in Reykjavik, as in any city. The widespread use of studded tires, for reasons I don't fully understand, adds to the pollution. Both of the cars we rented had studded tires, which we appreciated on one particularly icy morning.
Iceland's food comes from local fisheries and from family farms, not industrial farms. The Icelander's diet, the website Food&Wine says, may be the secret to why "Icelanders are among the planet's healthiest, happiest people." The editors explain:
Iceland's geographic isolation—plus strict government environmental regulations—helps it produce some of the purest foods on the planet. Grass-fed cows with a lineage that goes back to the Norwegian herds brought by the Vikings in 874 AD make milk that's high in beta carotene, creating exceptional butter and cheese as well as the yogurt-like skyr. Family farms sell tender meat from lambs that have grazed in the mountains all summer on moss, scrub and wildflowers. Fish farmers raise arctic char without chemicals or antibiotics in eco-friendly saltwater tanks.Reykjavik
Iceland is sparsely populated, with only about 320,000 inhabitants. The only real urban area is the capital, Reykjavik, and its suburbs, where two-thirds of the population live. No one would have believed it 30 years ago, but today Reykjavik is viewed as "the capital of the North," an international arbiter of hipness, especially in music and nightlife.
One of the city's traditions now is the "Friday night pub crawl," as mobs of young people go from pub to pub. Many of the pubs feature live music. Since the final night of our tour was Friday in Reykjavik, Jessie, Dan and Colin made the scene, lasting until 2 or 3 o'clock, unlike the locals who party all night.
These wild nights are apparently confined to the weekends. During the rest of the week, it seems fairly subdued compared to London, Paris, or Berlin.
Reykjavik recently became the fifth city in the world to earn the title "UNESCO City of Literature," joining Edinburgh, Melbourne, Dublin, and -- ready? -- Iowa City. Go figure. Reykjavik is the first non-English-speaking city to receive the honor.
Icelanders, with Norwegians and Finns, buy and read the most books per capita. On average, Icelanders buy about nine books per year. This year, 1500 book titles will be published in Iceland, amazing in a county with only 320,000 people.
I spent some time in two multi-story book stores within a few blocks of each other in the center city. On the plane ride home, I read Voices by Arnaldur Indriðason, the Icelandic author whose crime novels are consistent best-sellers in Europe and -- lately -- the U.S.
Dining in Iceland
This seafood lover packed on four pounds during our week in Iceland. The lavish breakfast buffets were my downfall. The breads and jams were great. And how can you resist heaping salmon and pickled herring on your plate?
When out in the countryside, we had our suppers in the hotels. The meals were fine, and the gourmet evening buffet at the Laki Hotel, which I described in an earlier post, was superb.
I also described our first dinner in Iceland, the fun evening at the "Laundromat" restaurant. When we returned to Reykjavik at the end of the week, we had an absolutely terrific meal at the Fish Market, one of the city's most popular restaurants, and deservedly so. The chef and co-owner has her own TV program. The cooking is an inspired mix of Icelandic seafood and Asian spices. The Fish Market is the restaurant featured in the video that started this post.
At first glance, the menu's price seemed pretty steep. But then I remembered another thing I love about Icelanders -- they don't believe in tipping in restaurants or taxis! Unlike other places where a "service is included" charge of 15 percent is added to the bill, the price you see quoted for your menu choice is all you are billed for. Deducting 15 or 20 percent from the price listed made the bill seem much more reasonable.
Jessie and Dan and the kids opted for a pizza parlor that night. I'm sure Kaylee and Kenzie liked that much more than they would have the Fish Market.
But we all agreed on our favorite Icelandic food:
Pylsa -- Iceland's Hot Dog
This is the all-time favorite Icelandic fast food, called Iceland's national food. Bill Clinton is just one of many visiting dignitaries who have sampled the Icelandic hot dog.
The best place to buy one is at this small red and white stand near the harbor, only a few blocks from our hotel:
This stand has been in business for 60 years. The queue you see here gets much longer in the evenings, when patrons pour out of the pubs and clubs.
The sausages are a mix of pork, beef and lamb. Here's how the "world's most popular hot dog" was described in a recent Huffington Post blog:
The meat is sweet, salty and rich. Then there are the sauces. The first is a stripe of ketchup. The second is a special lightly spiced mustard the colour of tree bark. The third is remoulade. It's a mayonnaise that's been punched up with gherkins and capers.
But the real heroes are the onions. Their pairing of a sprinkle of some that have been crunchy fried with the prickle of others that are raw is a stroke of ingenuity.After hearing the rest of the family rave about these hot dogs, I finally found the stand on the way back to the hotel on our last day. It was the coldest and windiest day of the trip, and I ended up devouring my pylsa while huddled in the doorway of a nearby building.
The next day as we were loading up the cars to leave for the airport, the big debate was whether we had time to swing by the hot dog stand. Unfortunately, we ran out of time.
The story of my life these days -- so much to see and do, so little time.
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Actual headline from the Y Combinator Twitter feed that made me click through to the article:
Why did a Train Carrying Biofuel Cross the Border 24 Times and Never Unload? j.mp/12WJUbZ
— news.yc Popular (@newsycombinator) January 3, 2013
So why did the train cross the border 24 times and never unload? My first thought was “to get to the other side”. Turns out that was wrong.
I’ll spoil the riddle for you:
The cargo of the train was owned by Bioversal Trading Inc., or its US partner Verdero, depending on what stage of the trip it was at. The companies “made several million dollars importing and exporting the fuel to exploit a loophole in a U.S. green energy program.” Each time the loaded train crossed the border the cargo earned its owner a certain amount of Renewable Identification Numbers (RINs), which were awarded by the US EPA to “promote and track production and importation of renewable fuels such as ethanol and biodiesel.” The RINs were supposed to be retired each time the shipment passed the border, but due to a glitch not all of them were. This enabled Bioversal to accumulate over 12 million RINs from the 24 trips, worth between 50 cents and $1 each, which they can then sell on to oil companies that haven’t met the EPA’s renewable fuel requirements.
This was all perfectly legal, at least according to the companies involved. The US and Canadian governments are investigating, according to the article, so the “perfectly legal” part may be in dispute.
(Wouldn’t you have enjoyed being a fly in the cab of that train and listening to the crew talk as they went back and forth and back and forth and back and forth across the border?)
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Theme: REFLECTIONS ON THE MDGs AND PERSPECTIVES ON A NATIONAL HEALTH INSURANCE
In only five more years we will reach the target date for achieving the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). In the year 2000 a total of 189 countries agreed on targets to reduce poverty and improve health by 2015. How is South Africa faring in this ambitious challenge?
Download the SAHR 2010 from here
Health Systems Trusts (HST) much-acclaimed publication, the South African Health Review (SAHR), presents the opinions of experts in their respective fields as they assess the countrys progress towards the MDGs. The 2010 Health Review, the 14th since 1995, was launched in Pretoria on 8 December.
This years SAHR also explores the currently topical issue of Universal Health Coverage. A National Health Insurance scheme is envisaged as the mechanism to achieve this similarly ambitious, but necessary, goal. In the absence of an official policy document the authors use available information to debate the plans and illustrate various options. The Review contributes much to ensuring that the NHI debate does improve the countrys health system for all South Africans.
HSTs Chief Executive Officer, Jeanette Hunter said, The release of this years Review is timely in that it corresponds with the release of the World Health Report 2010, which deals with universal health coverage. The Director-General of the World Health Organization explains that, this is an argument for solidarity. In solidarity with the countrys health needs, we in HST are committed to improving the health system for all South Africans and have thus sought to provide a wide range of perspectives on universal coverage and on NHI so that we can develop a common understanding of where we need to go as a country and how we are going to get there.
The South African Health Review has rapidly become a flagship product that is widely read and quoted as an authoritative reference source. It provides a South African perspective on prevailing local and international public health issues. This edition again promises to be a useful resource for public health practitioners both nationally and locally as they grapple with the issues of the day.
With over 40 authors and 21 chapters, some of the highlights of this years Review relating to the achievement of the MDGs are as follows:
In MDG 5 (maternal health) it appears that South Africa is not on track to meet the goal, namely to decrease the maternal mortality ratio by 75%. A particular feature of maternal mortality in South Africa is that non-pregnancy-related infections, mainly HIV-related, are a significant cause of maternal deaths in South Africa.
MDG 4 deals with child mortality and the authors have found that after five successive years of increasing childhood mortality, the under-5 mortality rate (using 2007 data) appears to have levelling off at an estimated 62.1 deaths per 1000 live births. They caution, however, that poor data quality could be influencing the picture.
The Review has found that South Africans face challenges and obstacles in accessing comprehensive treatment, prevention and care for sexually transmitted infections, including HIV, and in sexual and reproductive health, family planning, pregnancy and delivery.
The intertwining of HIV and TB has seriously affected the countrys ability to make progress towards achieving the MDGs. The Review locates health and health outcomes within a broader socio-economic context and depicts the social gradient upon which health and illness are located. The average TB cure rate, for example, is 55% in the most deprived districts while it is 71% in the least deprived districts.
The latest World Health Report highlights the need to move towards universal coverage. In exploring options for introducing National Health Insurance, South Africa is in keeping with international trends.
The envisaged reform of the health system towards universal coverage of health services is necessary, albeit ambitious. The reform must be accompanied by improvements in the general management of the public health system. Changes could include increasing staffing at primary health care clinics, introducing task-shifting and improving the capacity of hospital managers.
The Review shows that there is neither doubt nor dispute that the South African health system is in need of significant reform. Private sector perspectives on national health insurance reflect the sectors willingness to engage in developing a NHI for the country. The theme is reiterated in a civil society contribution suggesting that a NHI policy that increases access to quality health care will be welcomed and supported. An issue in recent media debates, albeit in the absence of an official policy document, was the affordability of a universal system to the country. One commentator in the Review points out, however, that it is not the universality of a health system that makes it unaffordable but rather inappropriate design and inefficiencies. Another chapter considers the financial feasibility of implementing NHI in South Africa.
The Review has endeavoured to put together a compendium of arguments and counter-arguments on the NHI. As HSTs Chairman correctly reflects in the Foreword, for to listen only to the voices that affirm one viewpoint, is to deny the fundamental contradictions that exist in our society and, indeed, in our health system. Improved health care for all South Africans remains both a prerogative and a responsibility of every citizen of the country.
For more information contact:
031 266 9090 or 083 299 7129
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As an extension of her discussion begun here last week and piggy backing on Mizu's observations, Pat Kurz asked me to post the following while she awaits a reply from Mr. Briggs regarding making her own posts. ~Stephanie
I was basically raised by bigots. I’m not talking about my parents, particularly, although they contributed in their own way. I’m turning 52 this week, so I, too, like Mizu, read Dick and Jane, and I clearly remember the little pictures of the ethnic children in their ethnic costumes and clever little hats. The pictures of Jesus in the Methodist Church showed him with white skin. I remember wondering, when I was small, if the color on blackpeoples’ skin would rub off. My father once said of the Elks Club, of which he was a member, that it was restricted. I asked him what that meant. He explained that “restricted” meant that only white people could join the Elks. (He didn’t say “only white men.” I found that out later.) This confused me greatly, because our good friend, Mr. P, was a member. Mr. P was half French Canadian, half Maori. I remember him from neighborhood gatherings as an amazing man, with a friendly smile and a ready laugh and palms larger than my outspread hand, but definitely brown. When I mentioned to Dad that Mr. P was a member, he answered quickly, “Mr. P is white.”
There are some things a child’s mind can’t parse, and that sort of shut mine down. Years later, his daughter and my good friend and member of my Camp Fire Group, Patti , moved permanently from Kirkland to Hawai’i. She felt she blended in better there. She was tired of discrimination she experienced in Washington State, not exactly the state that pops into mind when the topic of discrimination comes up. It made me incredibly sad, but by that time I was an adult, and I had learned a bit more about discrimination.
As a Camp Fire Girl, I had an opportunity to help groups using Camp Sealth on Vashon Island. The Camp Fire office called me to help on a weekend, adding a curious codicil, the group was going to be from the Central District of Seattle. I naively agreed to help. I would be the only representative of Camp Fire there that weekend. When the group started to arrive, I realized why the office had emphasized the origin of the group. Everybody getting out of vans and station wagons was black, with the exception of one little girl of about eight, pale white with long, blond hair. The leader of the group, Mrs. Funderberg, was a warm, loving, ebullient black woman with huge cat glasses. She called everyone honey and kept the entire weekend rolling along rapidly. Some of the other women in the group were not quite so friendly. They gave me looks of highly polished, keenly honed cutting steel. They were clearly not happy that Camp Fire had sent this little white girl to be there with them. They let me know they did not need me there to “help” them manage the site. They assumed I knew nothing about their culture, even explaining grits and greens to me. For the most part, they were right; I did not know much about black culture back then, but I knew how to chow down on grits and greens.
In the middle of the second day, I found myself staring at the little white girl. She did not belong. It was jarring seeing her there. Then I helped out with a craft project. My own lily-white hand crossed my field of vision. ‘Oh man,’ I thought,’ that’s right! I also don’t match this group.’ Years later, when I was learning to be a teacher and attending endless seminars on endless sociological subjects relating to education, some pundit was expounding on the difficulty black children had in school seeing only images of white people in the books and posters. Someone sitting near me leaned over to mutter her skepticism. I immediately thought of my experience that weekend, literally losing part of my identity after only 24 hours. It did not seem far-fetched to me at all that young non-white children could easily feel not just diminished but disintegrated by the constant absence of faces similar to theirs.
I think most of us don’t think about what we ourselves look like, but we certainly see what is in front of our eyes. Mizu mentions the melting pot/salad comparison. Two of my colleagues used to do a demonstration, one with M & Ms and the other with lettuce, red onions, tomatoes, black olives and carrots. The students first chose the bowl containing M & Ms for their snack, until they saw what a bowl of melted M & Ms look like. The colors don’t blend prettily. The salad was beautiful and enticing from start to finish, each ingredient retains its own pungency, while contributing to a culinary experience. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The M&Ms are still chocolate and still yummy, but eventually, even the most dedicated chocoholic wants another flavor.
In Hilary Clinton’s speech on Saturday, she said we still have “barriers and biases out there, often unconscious” toward each other based on gender and race. I always read Larry Meeks in the Sunday paper. This week he discussed teaching his son how to DWB, Drive While Black. The fellow who wrote in to him described a car he once owned as being typical of a car black people would drive. (You pictured one, didn’t you?) One of my students thought good bumper sticker advice was “Friends don’t let friends drive while Asian.” Look at the hubbub about Barack and Michelle Obama doing an affectionate fist pound. “Is it a black thing?” the pundits wonder. The conscious stuff is easy to spot. Our political correctness notices and stops a lot of that. We all know not to do or say overtly discriminatory things, but it’s the unconscious attitudes, insidiously controlling our actions and reactions that are going to be difficult to change..” I submit that we are going to have to tackle the unconscious biases that shade out lives. Open communication, a national dialog about race is overdue.
Senator Clinton also pledged to help, “build an America that respects and embraces the potential of every last one of us.” That’s exactly what we need. That’s the America I’ve been told we have. “Anyone can grow up to be president,” they told us. How many of us really believe that’s true? When will we all echo Clinton’s contention that “there are no acceptable prejudices in the 21st Century?”
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The final death toll of the disaster in northeastern Japan is certain to run into the tens of thousands. The numbers are mind-boggling, though in the scale of human history, this will be far from a record-breaker. Some 26 quakes in recorded history have had death tolls larger than 50,000 and twice that number have killed more than 10,000. And not all have had their lethal effects amplified by a tsunami, which has wrought most of the devastation in this case.
Uncounted among the casualties so far, but having unquestionably sustained critical damage, is the already shaky confidence of the world in nuclear power. A quarter century on from Chernobyl, the word "nuclear" was being uttered with increasing frequency in debates about satisfying global energy needs on a planet threatened by anthropogenic climate change.
British scientist James Lovelock, famed for his Gaia hypothesis, which conceived of the earth and its inhabitants as a single organism, scandalised his followers in 2004 by pronouncing nuclear power "the only solution to global warming" and calling on environmentalists to drop their "wrongheaded objection" to it.
Discussion since has tentatively assumed that industry standards might have advanced far enough for us consider Chernobyl and Three Mile Island part of the historical record rather than reminders of present risk.
Fukushima has changed all that. All three of the crippled complex's nuclear plants have suffered partial meltdowns; worse may be to come. But it is important, both at this time and as the wider implications are discussed in the weeks and months ahead, to keep a sense of perspective.
Malfunctions at nuclear facilities quite properly cause alarm but such alarm takes root in the public imagination at least in part for spurious reasons: images of mushroom clouds and mad scientists spring to mind and the horror is magnified because the danger is unseen - of toxins invisibly spread on the wind and in rain.
Yet even in the gloomiest scenario, what happens at Fukushima will not kill one per cent of the numbers that are already confirmed or suspected dead. The wastelands that we see in heartbreaking television images may be eerily reminiscent of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, but they are not wrought by technology; forces as old as the planet are to blame.
A UN report compiled by 100 scientists has concluded that only 56 people died as a result of radiation leaks from Chernobyl; much worse has been damage to the mental health of those worrying about the effects.
Plainly there are lessons to be learned from what has happened and is still happening at Fukushima. Why the No 1 reactor, which was due for decommissioning last month, was re-permitted for another 10 years needs to be explained and the complex's maintenance schedules audited.
It is also quite proper to ask whether we should ever allow nuclear power stations to be built in earthquake-prone landscapes, of which Japan and New Zealand are prime examples. But this is not the time for a backlash against the very idea of nuclear energy. There is more of the planet to consider than a 30km-radius zone around Fukushima.
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On a clear September day on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, a 41-year old woman from Nanaimo threaded her anchor to rappel Reaching Out (5.10b), an 80-foot route on the main wall at Crest Creek Crags. The woman, an experienced climber, and her fiancé were using a rope with three markings: one to indicate the middle and two that were 30 feet from either end. All marks on the lime-green rope were black. As the woman began to descend, she rappelled off one rope end and dropped 50 feet to the ground, her head making first impact.
A witness in the nearby parking lot heard the woman scream, and the fiancé ran toward the parking lot, yelling for help. The witness grabbed a first-aid kit and followed the fiancé but by the time they arrived back on the scene, the woman had died. Witnesses believe that she mistook one of the 30-foot end-warning markings on the rope for the middle mark.
Given the fact that each marking was identical in color, it could be easy to mistake one of the markings 30 feet from the end for the middle mark. Unfortunately, such errors aren’t unheard of in the climbing world; witnesses speculated that the Needles pioneer Paul Duval made the same mistake when he died after rappelling off the short end of his rope in June (see Passages, Rock and Ice No. 172).
There are two issues: One, the climber may have relied solely on the rope markings to determine the middle, and two, no safety redundancies were applied to the system (e.g., knotting the rope ends or using a rappel backup).
Rappelling accounted for nearly 10 percent of reported fatal accidents in 2006, according to Accidents in North American Mountaineering. Only one other category, falls and slips on rock or ice, resulted in more. This incident—like every accident that involves rappelling off the rope ends—could have been prevented had the ends been knotted. There is a small risk that a knotted rope end will snag a crack or flake, but the effort to fix a snag hardly outweighs the benefit the knot provides. Further, this accident could’ve been prevented had the climber first asked her partner if the rope ends were touching down.
End warning marks, such as those on the rope used in this incident, are designed to do what their name suggests, but do not supplant other safety measures. Wherever possible, build redundancy into your rope systems. If you can’t visually confirm that both ends reach the ground, or the next station, tie the ends of the rope together and flake them through the anchor. This will insure that the ends will be even, and the knot will act as a back up. Further, know your gear. Products from different companies might be designed differently. Perhaps this climber did not realize that there were end markers as well as a middle mark. Not all ropes, belay devices and harnesses work the same—know the ins and outs of each piece of gear. Look over new ropes and familiarize yourself with the recommended applications, as well as the appearance. As ropes are used they develop discolorations and nicks that also must be monitored. Run the length of the rope through your hand often to tactilely check the integrity of the cord.
Middle-marked ropes are useful for quickly finding the middle of a line, as are bi-color or bi-pattern ones, but as soon as rope ends are trimmed (a common practice to lengthen the life of cords), these markings become obsolete. Regardless of rope markings, always knot your ends, a fool-proof backup worth the small amount of extra time, every time.
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Yerevan World Book Capital 2012 will unite experts and professional from the region and all over the world and will serve as an impetus to promote publishing and raise awareness that books can serve as a medium which encourages cultural, political, social and economic development.
The program of events anticipates the participation of national, regional and international institutions, as well as NGOs and relevant professionals in the sphere of writing and publishing.
The International organizations and structures in the field of publishing and printing, as well as journalists, authors and librarians, will play a pivotal role in advancing issues of copyright, freedom to publish, access to books, information and innovations.
It should be realized that the success of Yerevan World Book Capital 2012 rests on cooperation and collaboration with all the stakeholders in the book supply chain. Comprehending this reality, the organizing committee has already been actively consulting with relevant players and professionals. The diversity of the program of anticipated events will have a lasting impact on the publishing and printing industry by bringing professionals together where they can share experiences and learn about new innovations. The events that are directed for children and young people will foster the love of reading; libraries and librarians in the country will directly benefit from the program by learning about new methods and creating partnerships; bookstores and booksellers will be able to expand their stocks by learning about new literary publications of global significance and will be able to develop partnerships.
National associations play a significant role in Yerevan World Book Capital 2012: Writers Union of Armenia, National Association of Publishers of Armenia, Armenian Association for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries (AOKS), “Hayheghinak” Protection of Copyright NGO, National Academy of Sciences of Armenia, Journalists Union of Armenia, “Nor-Dar” Literary Union, “Girq” Foundation, the National Library of Armenia, Translators Union of Armenia.
The remarkable projects, promoting and fostering books and reading will center their focus and energy on children and young people, since books are a treasured wealth and they instill knowledge. The majority of programs will teach children not only about reading but will help them become potential writers, publishers, journalists and librarians of the future.
While having a very rich cultural and literary heritage, Armenia and Armenians were subject to persecution and restriction on their freedom to write and publish works of important significance even in their recent history.
The series of programs and events within the framework of Yerevan World Book Capital 2012 will help foster the concept of freedom of thought, speech and publishing; it will celebrate the early translators who made foreign literature accessible to the masses and underscore the eternity of the word.
Although nowadays human rights are still violated all over the world, developing nations have a critical stake in the pursuit of freedom and the protection of human rights. The preamble of the Florence Agreement on the Importation of Educational, Scientific and Cultural Materials (1950) states that the free exchange of ideas and knowledge and, in general, the widest possible dissemination of the diverse forms of self-expression used by civilizations are vitally important both for intellectual progress and international understanding, and consequently for the maintenance of world peace.
Yerevan World Book Capital City 2012 will focus on these fundamental rights by including a broad spectrum of stakeholders, legislators, governmental agencies, publishers, authors and the public. It is in this spirit and for this reason that Yerevan Book Capital City 2012 promises to be a catalyst for change in the region.
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Anybody have any idea what exactly Jesus was referring to when he was quoted as saying this?
What does βιάζεται refer to? Who were the βιασταί who ἥρπαζον the kingdom of heaven?
jaihare wrote:Anybody have any idea what exactly Jesus was referring to when he was quoted as saying this? What does βιάζεται refer to? Who were the βιασταί who ἥρπαζον the kingdom of heaven?
Furthermore, why did the prophets and the law (that is, the two prophetic portions of the Jewish Bible) prophesy until John? Does this imply that after John their prophecy ceased according to Jesus?
It appears as if there are variant translations of Luke 16:16 as well.
The international Standard Version offers this understanding
[/i]"The Law and the Prophets remain until John. Since then, the good news about the kingdom of God has been proclaimed, and everyone entering it is under attack.
Going back to the text in Matthew we see a couple possibilities.
The verb βιαζεται and the Noun βιαστα as a form could be understood two ways. The text can be understood as a middle or as a passive form.If it is Middle then we would most likely understand it as entering forcefully which seems to be you position. On the other hand we also see the passive which would suggest that they would suffer violence as they entered in.
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I have chosen a special Calendula as the subject for this week's 'Keepers' post. I grow several varieties, but a favorite for the past few years has been 'Pink Surprise.'
Of course, it is not really a true pink, but more of what I would describe as a blushed apricot. The center petals usually show more yellow, which makes for a very nice, soft effect. There can be quite a variation of tones from plant to plant, which adds an interesting element of surprise.
Calendula's are like sunshine in the garden! They bloom both early and late, and are prolific self-sowers. I bought one packet of 'Pink Surprise' seed 3 years ago and have been rewarded ever since with more seed than I could ever use! It has been one of my hottest items for seed trading on the Garden Web Seed Exchange forum.
"Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food, and medicine to the soul." ~Luther Burbank
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(By Bridget Freas) Steel is a highly cyclical sector that depends on strong economic growth to drive infrastructure spending as well as consumer demand for cars and appliances. 2009 was undoubtedly a disastrous year for the North American steel producers, but fundamentals started to turn the corner in 2010 and into the first half of 2011 as the supply chain thinned out, high input costs provided steel pricing support, and demand from the automotive, agriculture, and energy sectors picked up speed. However, the past year has undone much of this progress in earnings and this is painfully evident in steel company valuations. Indeed, the Market Vectors Steel ETF (SLX) has plummeted 40% since last July. Economic woes in China and Europe are the main culprits, as steel is a globally traded product whose selling prices and input costs are correlated all over the world.
The U.S. is a relative bright spot as demand continues to grow with the World Steel Association forecasting a 6% growth in consumption in 2012 and 2013. This compares to a 2012 expected contraction in Europe and very little growth in China, a big factor since the country consumes nearly half of all global steel produced. If we take out China, the world is still consuming about 10% less steel than it did in 2007. Considering the increasing investment in underdeveloped economies, infrastructure needs in the U.S., high oil prices, and population growth--global steel consumption needs are still growing even while they might suffer short-term lulls. In the meantime however, U.S. steel mills are feeling the pressure of slower growth elsewhere. Steel imports surged more than 30% for the first four months of 2012 before stabilizing through the summer as steel prices slumped to match weakness in Europe and China. Raw material prices remain high by historical standards, but we believe we are past the worst of the margin contraction from an input cost perspective and are starting to see some sustained relief. The price of coking coal has fallen some 20% year-to-date and although the price of iron ore has plummeted in the last week in what we think is a short-term blip, it has averaged about 30% below last year's peak for most of 2012. We see room for further cost relief in the next few years. However, we expect U.S. steel prices to continue to struggle until Europe and China regain their footing.
2012 is going to be another lackluster year for steel producers and near-term visibility is murky, but we believe market valuations significantly discount the long-term earnings power of several domestic-focused steel plays.
The largest of the domestic mini-mills, Nucor has a solid strategy, strong balance sheet, and is the safest play in North American steel in our view. Nucor's operational flexibility with a more variable cost structure and captive raw material sources help navigate a volatile demand environment and provide a hedge against the potential for higher scrap costs. While flat-rolled steel has seen the most demand recovery due to strength in the automotive and machinery sectors, Nucor still has considerable upside potential from its exposure to long products, which typically comprise 40% of sales and have less overcapacity risk. These products are more commonly used in the construction sectors, which have been anemic for nearly four years. While an eventual recovery might still be a couple years ahead, any signs of life there would be a bonus. With a conservative approach to financial leverage, Nucor has the strongest balance sheet in our steel coverage while also sporting one of the highest dividend yields among developed-economy steel companies.
Steel Dynamics (STLD)
Steel Dynamics tends to trade at a discount to its closest peer Nucor due to its smaller size and higher financial leverage but we feel that gap could have room to close. Progress in new products such as rail has mitigated the effects of the downturn and its innovative Mesabi Nugget project should remove a major earnings drag when it fully ramps with internally sourced iron ore concentrate in 2013. A more attractive long-term growth story given its smaller size and status as a relative newcomer to the U.S. steel sector also bodes well for the company. Steel Dynamics is the only U.S.-based steelmaker under our coverage to be profitable every quarter since the start of 2010, despite the continued depressing state of the construction markets, which in normal times make up roughly 40% of its business.
Reliance Steel & Aluminum (RS)
If you want exposure to stronger demand, without the downside risk of raw material price fluctuations, Reliance is one to watch as the largest domestic metal service center. The company's impressive history of making accretive acquisitions without putting its balance sheet in jeopardy could buoy the company during a struggling economy as we may see some previously unwilling sellers become more open to a sale. The company has been successful in building out new revenue streams through its acquisitions, particularly within pipe & tube and other specialty products. Also, as a distributor of steel, Reliance's operating cash flow is somewhat protected by the release of working capital should another downturn materialize.
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Self-assessment is a diagnostic tool that helps individuals to get to the right job, which best match their interests, strengths and even weaknesses. While confuse by limitless job types, this tool can be beneficial to the jobseeker to make the right choice, as per their personalities, education and training.
Before getting into a career, it is always a wise decision to take a self-assessment. This diagnostic tool is very much beneficial to get to know self. It helps the jobseeker to know their interests, strengths, weaknesses which ultimately guide the jobseeker to choose the right career path for him.
Self-assessment helps the jobseeker to make the right choice over career. As a career, matching the personality of the jobseeker is worthwhile. That actually helps a candidate to build up a successful career in life. When a candidate comes to know about his strengths & weaknesses, he becomes aware of the fact that in what types of jobs he will fit in. So, it is always better to go through self-assessment before step in for choosing the right career path.
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The rate for 30-year fixed mortgages dropped to 4.01% this week. That is the lowest figure on record. A current home buyer could save tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of dollars in interest over 30 years compared to when rates were 7% or 8%. But almost no one who might buy a house cares.
What better incentive to buy a home could there be than the financial advantage of a 4% mortgage rate offers? The benefits should offset any drop in home value if real estate continues to sell off over the next year or two. At some point, home prices should rebound so that the value of a house doubles over a three-decade period. It has worked that way for decades — at least back to the 1950s.
The home market is so badly damaged, and is likely to be so for many years, that possible buyers cannot be turned into believers. This is probably so even if mortgage rates were at zero. The most recent home sales, housing starts, housing permits and foreclosure data indicate that the depression in sales could continue for years. This is particularly true in markets where values have dropped 50% or more and where inventory could take years to clear at present sales rates.
The other major problem with the home market is the most obvious one. Nine percent of people are out of work, and many more employed persons fear for their jobs. Those things together take millions of potential buyers out of the markets.
It should be that prices and mortgage rates are perfectly aligned to restart the home market. That this has not happened is a sign that buyers may not enter the market in force any time soon, not until circumstances significantly change.
Douglas A. McIntyre
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Back before cars were commonplace, trains transported people across the Rocky Mountain West.
Today, these historic locomotives are among the favorite tourist attractions in Colorado — a state that has more scenic railroads than most others in the country, according to Royal Gorge Route Railroad owner Mark Greksa.
Why are scenic railroads so popular here? Leadville, Colorado & Southern Railroad manager Kristen Olsen says the trains give tourists a chance to connect with the past. "Taking a scenic train ride is the best way for people to interact with history directly," she says.
Colorado's trains enable railroad enthusiasts — from the experienced European traveler to the child going through a "Thomas
1. Georgetown Loop Railroad
Completed in 1884, this 3-foot, narrow- gauge railroad is one of the few active railroads in the world that loops over the top of itself without a tunnel or trestles. The 4 1/2-mile route runs 640 feet above the ground from Georgetown to Silver Plume.
Special events include a "Moonlight in the Mountains" dinner train, "Santa's Polar Adventure" train during the holidays, daily tours of the Lebanon Silver Mine, and the new "Around the World Wine Tour," which includes tastings and appetizers. Tickets are $16.50-$37.50. Open daily from May to October. 100 Mountain St., Silver Plume. 888-456-6777 or georgetownlooprr.com.
2. Leadville, Colorado & Southern Railroad
This pet-friendly train travels above the Arkansas River valley and through the San Isabel National Forest. At an elevation of 1,000 feet, passengers get a great view of Freemont Pass and the two highest peaks in Colorado, Mount Massive and Mount Elbert.
The ride includes a stop at a water tower and a chance to meet the engineer and see the caboose and engine. Manager Kristin Olsen says this summer the train also is offering three wildflower tours and a night ride that features a barbecue dinner. Tickets are $19.50-$35. Open daily from May 29 to Oct. 3. 326 E. Seventh St., Leadville. 866-386-3936 or leadville-train.com.
3. Pikes Peak Cog Railway
Where else can you climb to 14,115 feet above sea level without ever taking a step? Since 1891, the Pikes Peak Cog Railway has been taking passengers along its 14.9-mile route from the base of Pikes Peak to its summit. Up there, passengers can see bighorn sheep and yellow-bellied marmots, four states, and the historic gold camps of Cripple Creek and Victor, according to David Donatto, the railway's traffic manager.Tickets are $18-$33. Open year-round except for Thanksgiving and Christmas. 515 Ruxton Ave., Manitou Springs. 800-745-3773 or cograilway.com.
4. Cripple Creek & Victor Narrow Gauge Railroad
Hop aboard a century-old steam locomotive as it takes a 45-minute journey through Colorado's historic gold-mining district. The 4-mile track runs past the old Midland Terminal, over a reconstructed trestle, past old mines and terminates near the deserted Anaconda mining camp before returning to Cripple Creek. Tickets are $7.75-$12.25. Open daily from May 29 to Oct. 3. 520 East Carr Ave., Cripple Creek. 719-689-2640 or cripplecreekrailroad.com.
5. Royal Gorge Route Railroad
This 24-mile trip takes passengers through Royal Gorge canyon along the Arkansas River.
According to the Colorado Railroad Museum, it is the only company in Colorado with streamline trains and murder mystery dinner trains. The family-run railroad, which was established in 1880, also offers three-course dinners, five-course wine dinners and a Santa Express train during the holidays. Prices are $22-$47. With the exception of sporadic recent closures because of wildfire concerns, this train is open daily May 29 to Oct. 10 and on weekends from Oct. 16 through Dec. 31. Santa Fe Depot, 401 Water St., Cañon City. 888-724-5748 or royalgorgeroute.com.
6. Rio Grande Scenic Railroad
Established in 1878, this railroad offers five separate routes with one- to seven-hour rides including the trip from Alamosa to La Veta, which runs along the highest standard-gauge track in the country at 9,242 feet. Visitors can unleash their inner cowboy by hopping aboard the Festival Flyer, which includes the Roots and Boots bluegrass and country music summer concert series.
But kids love the Potato Valley Explorer because they each receive a Mr. Potato Head. Tickets are $10-$58. Open daily from Memorial Day to mid-October and on weekends from Nov. 1 to the following Memorial Day. 610 State Ave., Alamosa. 877-726-7245 or coloradotrain.com
7. Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad
Colorado shares what is known as America's longest and highest narrow-gauge scenic railroad with New Mexico. These historic locomotives chug over Cumbres Pass, which has an elevation of 10,015 feet, and through the Toltec Gorge. This railroad is no stranger to the limelight. Legendary cowboy entertainer Gene Autry owned Locomotive 463, which is on display at the depot in Antonito, and in 1989, it was featured in "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade." The company also offers such special trains as Cinder Bear Express, Wild West Train, Moonlight Dinner Train and the Sunset Train.
The weekend of Aug. 27-30, the railroad is celebrating the 40-year anniversary of the dual-state partnership with commemorative trains, tours and lectures. Because of recent fire damage, regular operations have been disrupted, so call for details. Tickets are $38-$87.50. Open daily from May 22 to Oct. 17. 5234 B U.S. 285, Antonito. 888-286-2737 or cumbrestoltec.com.
8. Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad
This railroad takes passengers on a two-and-a-half hour journey along the Animas River. The 3-foot, narrow-gauge track allows the train to make sharper curves alongside the 400-foot cliffs.
During the ride, passengers "can be dropped off at certain points to hike and fish at places they wouldn't have otherwise been able to get to," says Andrea Seid, the marketing manager. Tickets are $49-$169. Open daily from May 8 to Oct. 30. 479 Main Ave., Durango. 877-872-4607 or durangotrain.com.
Lynette Zilio: 303-954-1211 or email@example.com
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One of the most tiresome things about a long-term engagement with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the endless need to push back against those who insist on living in a more pleasurable but entirely fictive alternate reality. For many on both sides, the realities on the ground, or the legal and political facts, are simply too painful or disruptive to be acceptable. So they neurotically retreat into an alternate universe in which everything feels better.
There are innumerable examples of this on the Palestinian side, but among hard-core supporters of Israel, one of the most persistent imaginary realities is that there is no occupation and/or Israeli settlement activity is not prohibited by international law. Writing in the Jewish Journal, the reliably hawkish David Suissa has just engaged in an extended exercise in this kind of sophistry.
The reason this is such a persistent shibboleth of hawkish pro-Israel propaganda is that occupying powers are bound to abide by the extensive international law and treaty obligations delineating the rights and responsibilities that accrue to this status. And the problem is that so much of what Israel has been doing in the occupied Palestinian territories is in direct and undeniable contravention of international law.
Like so many before him, Suissa makes two manifestly false claims. First, he flatly denies the territories are occupied. Second, he asserts that Israel has "a legal right to settle in the West Bank." He urges Israel to find a good lawyer to make these claims. But no serious attorney is going to take on this case, because it can't possibly be maintained.
The fact that the territories seized by Israel in the 1967 war are occupied and that Israel is the occupying power is affirmed by a mountain of United Nations Security Council resolutions (the very body authorized by the U.N. Charter to make such determinations). These resolutions were all voted for or permitted, and sometimes drafted, by the United States.
They begin with Security Council Resolution 242 of November 22, 1967. 242 begins by “Emphasizing the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war," which means that Israel cannot claim to have acquired any territory in the 1967 war. This is a central pillar of the U.N. Charter itself. Second, 242 calls for the "Withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict."
So the very first Security Council resolution following the 1967 war clearly identifies the territories as occupied, and Israel as the occupying power. There followed a mountain of subsequent Security Council resolutions—all voted for or approved by the United States—which reiterate that the territories are occupied and Israel is the occupying power.
Of particular note is Security Council Resolution 476 (1980), which "Reaffirms the overriding necessity to end the prolonged occupation of Arab territories occupied by Israel since 1967, including Jerusalem." So the U.N. Security Council was thoughtful enough to clarify that not only is Israel the occupying power in all the territories conquered in 1967, and obliged to end its occupation of them, but also specified that this includes Jerusalem.
There are many other aspects of international law that affirm the occupation as a legal and political fact, including the advisory opinion issued by the International Court of Justice on the West Bank separation barrier. The bottom line is that it is a legal and political fact, not an opinion or subject of dispute, that the territories seized in 1967 are under occupation and Israel is the occupying power. One may have one's own opinions, but not one's own facts. And in the matter of law, we have competent authorities that serve as arbiters of international legal and political fact, including the Security Council and the ICJ. Indeed, no competent authority has ever challenged this idea, although biased individuals have tried to argue against it with any amount of spuriousness.
Having established that the territories are occupied, and that Israel is indeed the occupying power, there can be no question that settlement activity is strictly prohibited. The clearest prohibition comes from the Fourth Geneva Convention, Article 49, Paragraph 6, which reads: "The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies."
Some apologists for the settlement project have tried to argue that "transfer" in Paragraph 6 only refers to involuntary transfer, not voluntary settlement. This is clearly false. First, there are numerous other provisions in the Convention that prevent involuntary transfer of civilians. Second, the concurrent Red Cross commentary intended to serve as a contemporaneous explanation for the thinking informing each aspect of the Convention deals with Paragraph 6 at length.
This vital commentary demonstrates that Paragraph 6 was adopted to protect the human rights of the civilian population living under occupation, not civilian citizens of the occupying power: "It is intended to prevent a practice adopted during the Second World War by certain Powers, which transferred portions of their own population to occupied territory for political and racial reasons or in order, as they claimed, to colonize those territories. Such transfers worsened the economic situation of the native population and endangered their separate existence as a race."
As a further clarification, the commentary adds, "It should be noted, however, that in this paragraph the meaning of the words ‘transfer’ and ‘deport’ is rather different from that in which they are used in the other paragraphs of Article 49, since they do not refer to the movement of protected persons but to that of nationals of the occupying Power."
In other words, according to the Red Cross, which oversaw the drafting of the Convention, Article 49, Paragraph 6 is intended as a human rights protection for people living under foreign military occupation who have the right not to have their land colonized. This is precisely what Israel is doing, and as noted above, as an occupying power they are fully bound to respect all of the Fourth Geneva Convention, including Article 49, Paragraph 6. The settlement project is thus not only strictly prohibited, it is illegal because it is a direct violation of the human rights of Palestinians living under Israeli occupation.
From the outset of the occupation and the settlement project, the Israeli government has been aware of this. A top-secret memorandum from September 18, 1967 by T. Meron, a Legal Adviser to Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is blunt about the legal situation facing the prospect of settling the occupied territories.
Meron determined that, "The prohibition [against settlement activity in Article 49] therefore is categorical and not conditional upon the motives for the transfer or its objectives. Its purpose is to prevent settlement in occupied territory of citizens of the occupying state. If it is decided to go ahead with Jewish settlement in the administered territories, it seems to me vital, therefore, that settlement is carried out by military and not civilian entities. It is also important, in my view, that such settlement is in the framework of camps and is, on the face of it, of a temporary rather than permanent nature.”
So, from the outset, the Israeli government was fully aware that, at least from the point of view of international law and the unanimous consensus of all other governments, its settlement project was, by definition, illegal.
The final refuge that Suissa and many others, including some he cites, seek in trying to deny the legal and political fact of occupation and the prohibition against settlement activity and so much of the rest of what Israel has done in the occupied Palestinian territories, is to claim that there is no occupation because there was no clear sovereign in the territories in 1967. However, there is no aspect of international law that requires a clearly established prior sovereignty for a territory to be considered under military occupation. These arguments have never held any water in the Security Council, at the ICJ or any other international or multilateral legal or diplomatic body, or with any government outside of Israel.
Indeed, even the government of Israel itself is ambiguous about whether the territories are occupied or not. Sometimes it openly cites the ongoing occupation to justify military activities—such as some instances of the seizure of land for military purposes—or other measures that are, in fact, consistent with the rights of an occupying power under international law. But it simultaneously denies there is any occupation when it comes to settlement activity and other human rights abuses against Palestinians prohibited to occupying powers under international law.
Suissa insists there is no occupation but a "dispute." We hear this a lot from supporters of the occupation, settlements and annexation. But if there is a “dispute,” it is not between Israel and the Palestinians or the Arabs. It is between Israel and every single other government and international authority in the entire world.
It's a little bit like proclaiming that while everyone else observes the sky is obviously blue, I insist it is green, and therefore this somehow constitutes "a dispute." This is not a dispute. It is a willful and manipulative distortion of clearly established facts in a self-serving manner by an interested party that is trying to rationalize actions that are manifestly illegal. These actions—especially settlement activity in areas under military occupation—have been prohibited specifically because they are a gross human rights violation.
The experience of World War II demonstrated that peoples living under occupation must be protected from having their lands seized from them and colonized through force of arms. In the immediate aftermath of that terrible conflict, this was explicitly and categorically codified in the Fourth Geneva Convention, to which Israel is a signatory.
That's not an opinion. That's a legal and political fact.
Matthew Kalman broke the story of physicist Stephen Hawking’s boycott of Israel. Then Cambridge University tried to falsely deny it.
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Canada Officials ‘Knew of Plans to Dump Iron into Pacific’
Martin Lukacs, The Guardian
As controversy mounts over the Guardian's revelations that an American businessman conducted a massive ocean fertilization test, dumping around 100 tons of iron sulphate off Canada's coast, it has emerged the Canadian government may have known about the geoengineering scheme and not stopped it.
The news combined, with Canadian obstructionism in negotiations over geoengineering at a United Nations biodiversity meeting in Hyderabad, India, has angered international civil society groups, who have announced they are singling out Canada for a recognition of shame at the summit – the Dodo award for actions that harm biodiversity.
An aerial of the Haida Gwaii, British Columbia, Canada. Credit: Russ Heinl/Alamy
They are criticizing Canada for being one of "four horsemen of geoengineering," joining Britain, Australia and New Zealand in opposing southern countries' efforts to beef up the existing moratorium on technological fixes for global warming.
The chief executive of the company responsible for spawning the artificial 10,000 square kilometer plankton bloom in the Pacific Ocean has implicated several Canadian departments, but government officials are remaining silent about the nature of their involvement.
In an interview with Canadian radio, John Disney said: "I've been in touch with many departments within the federal ministry. All I'm saying is that everyone from the Canadian Revenue Agency down to the National Research Council and Department of Fisheries and Oceans and Environment Canada – these people, they've all known about this."
The Guardian has seen government correspondence which indicates that Environment Canada officers met with Disney's company in June and expressed their misgiving about any ocean fertilization going forward, but appear to not have taken further action.
After the huge experiment happened in July, Canadian government officials were anxious to find out if the company's boat flew under a Canadian flag and whether the iron was loaded in Canada.
A large number of Canadian personnel have been involved on the boat, the largest fishing vessel under Canadian registration in the province of British Columbia. Disney, who is also a non-native economic manager for the indigenous council in the Old Masset village in Haida Gwaii, told media that the iron was brought from Alberta.
Credit: flickr/Gord McKenna
Russ George, a colleague of Disney's, told the Guardian: "Canadian government people have been helping us. We've had workshops run where we've been taught how to use satellites resources by the Canadian space agency. [The government] is trying to 'cost-share' with us on certain aspects of the project. And we are expecting lots more support as we go forward."
Environment Canada officials refused to comment, saying "the matter is currently under investigation."
"To clear these serious allegations of complicity the Canadian government needs to speak out and account for these events," said Jim Thomas of the international technology watchdog ETC Group. "Officials need to condemn this dump as a breach of Canadian laws and take swift action against geoengineering: in Haida Gwaii that means initiating measures against Russ George and any Canadians involved, while in Hyderabad that means backing a global test ban."
Sources indicate that the Council of the Haida Nations, the political body that speaks for all Haida people, is passing a resolution that any future decision on such projects will have to be ruled on by the entire nation, rather than by one village.
The Haida Salmon Restoration Corporation was established by Old Masset village after they borrowed $2.5 milliion dollars from a Canadian credit union, which provided the loan despite flagging numerous concerns about George's credibility and his plans to try to win carbon credits for the project.
University of Victoria climate scientist Andrew Weaver told media that there are "profound implications" to dumping iron, and no guarantee that the ocean can be used as a carbon sink.
"They are not going to get a penny in carbon credits, because there's no evidence the carbon is going to stay where it is," he said.
Reprinted with permission from The Guardian
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Use Of Certain Therapies For Inflammatory Diseases Does Not Appear To Increase Risk Of ShinglesMain Category: Arthritis / Rheumatology
Article Date: 07 Mar 2013 - 2:00 PST
Use Of Certain Therapies For Inflammatory Diseases Does Not Appear To Increase Risk Of Shingles
|Patient / Public:|
Although patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) have a disproportionately higher incidence of herpes zoster (shingles), an analysis that included nearly 60,000 patients with RA and other inflammatory diseases found that those who initiated anti-tumor necrosis factor therapies were not at higher risk of herpes zoster compared with patients who initiated nonbiologic treatment regimens, according to a study appearing in the March 6 issue of JAMA.
"For patients with rheumatoid arthritis, the risk of herpes zoster is elevated an additional 2- to 3-fold. The contribution of widely used biologic immunosuppressive therapy to this increased risk is not well understood. These therapies, including tumor necrosis factor (TNF) antagonists, are commonly used to treat RA and a variety of other immune-mediated inflammatory diseases and have clearly been associated with an increased risk of tuberculosis and other opportunistic infections," according to background information in the article. "It is unclear whether anti-tumor necrosis factor (anti-TNF) therapy elevates herpes zoster risk."
Kevin L. Winthrop, M.D., M.P.H., of Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, Ore., and colleagues conducted a study to determine whether initiation of anti-TNF therapy compared with non-biologic comparators is associated with increased herpes zoster risk. The researchers identified new users of anti-TNF therapy among groups of patients with RA, inflammatory bowel disease, and psoriasis, psoriatic arthritis, or ankylosing spondylitis from 1998 through 2007 within a large U.S. multi-institutional collaboration. The authors compared herpes zoster incidence between new anti-TNF users (n = 33,324) and patients initiating nonbiologic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs) (n = 25,742) within each inflammatory disease cohort (last participant follow-up December 31, 2007).
Across all disease indications, there were 310 herpes zoster cases among anti-TNF and 160 among nonbiologic DMARD users. For patients with RA, the researchers found that adjusted incidence rates were similar between anti-TNF and nonbiologic DMARD initiators and comparable between all 3 anti-TNF therapies studied. Baseline use of corticosteroids of 10 mg/d or greater among all disease indications was associated with elevated risk compared with no baseline use.
After adjustment for various factors, no significant difference in herpes zoster rates was observed within any disease indication between patients initiating anti-TNF therapy and those initiating new DMARD regimens.
Within the RA group, herpes zoster risk was associated with increasing age, female sex, overall health status, and higher-dose corticosteroid use.
"In summary, among patients with RA and other select inflammatory diseases, those who initiated anti-TNF therapies were not at higher risk of herpes zoster compared with patients who initiated nonbiologic treatment regimens," the authors write.
Visit our arthritis / rheumatology section for the latest news on this subject.
22 May. 2013. <http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/257292.php>
Please note: If no author information is provided, the source is cited instead.
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You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘hanami’ tag.
It is spring again and the huge ornamental cherry tree which lives in my back yard is blooming (weeks earlier than it bloomed last year). Frequent readers know my fondness for both trees and flower gardens; and the Japanese cherry tree magnificently combines both things. It is a stately and elegant mid-sized tree of great vigor, which for one week (or less) is covered in clouds of gorgeous pale pink flowers. When it is fully in bloom, the tree is unrivaled in its beauty. Even the most lovely orchids and roses do not put on a display so simultaneously delicate and ostentatious.
Last year I wrote about the Hanami festival, which has steadily grown more important in Japanese society since its beginnings a thousand years ago during the Nara period. The flower appreciation festival now grips Japan as a national fervor which dominates the spring season and monopolizes the news. Hanami however is merely an outward expression of a much larger cultural concept, “Mono no aware” (物の哀れ) which translates approximately as “”the pathos of things” or “sensitivity to ephemera.”
Mono no aware involves a gentle wistful sadness for the impermanence of all things. The cherry blossoms come back year after year, yet childhood fades away before one even knows. Lovers with whom we dallied under the pink branches move out and drift away. The mayflies die. Our pets die. We die. Life runs by so quickly that we might as well be cherry blossoms ourselves, here for a beautiful fleeting moment before being shaken away into oblivion by some gust of wind or random happenstance. The idea of life’s beautiful brevity grows out of the flinty Buddhism for which Japan is famous and it gives rise to many famous tropes of Japanese culture (like the stoic samurai prepared to throw away his life in a lightning quick duel, or the suicidal lover, or the moth in the flame). There is an undercurrent of cupio dissolvi running through humankind and it seems particularly pronounced in the Japanese psyche.
However I like to imagine Mono no aware (and the cherry tree, and all trees, and all living things) less in terms of Japan’s Buddhism and more in terms of the animistic nature-based religions of East Asia like Shinto or Daoism. Look at the cherry blossoms more closely over many generations and you will see that they themselves change. Today’s blossoms are big showy gaudy things engineered by untold generations of nurserymen to appeal most directly to human taste. If you look long enough you will see that blossoms themselves are an innovation—a design leap by which plants appeal to animals to help out with the critical work of reproduction (and it works tremendously well! There is a cherry tree from Japan in my back yard in Brooklyn). The seasons themselves change, as demonstrated by this year’s unseasonable warmth (to say nothing of the warmth of the Eocene). The oceans rise and fall. Animals burgeon and fall into extinction. The world is made of clouds and storms and water rather than unchanging stone. In fact that metaphor doesn’t even hold up– geologists look at mountain faces and see the eons of erosion and shift with uncanny clarity. The stones themselves dance and shift and change as much as the fickle water (albeit so slowly that we can not clearly see them do so).
Year after year the blossoms come and go. It is beautiful and sad. But it would be sadder if they never opened up, or even sadder yet if, having bloomed, the pink petals never fell but hung forever as though in some fairy land. Change is a critical part of living things. Children grow up for a reason. Lovers quarrel and part because they did not belong together. The samurais and warriors and noblemen of yesteryear have been replaced by kinder smarter better people, and it is to be hoped that we will likewise be replaced. As you sit drinking beneath the flowers and the stars, don’t be overwhelmed by the fact that spring flashes by so fast. Be appreciative of the beauty and meaning you have today and start dreaming of how to make the next spring even better.
So, it’s been a while since I put up a garden post. The simple reason for this long omission is that I have moved (well also it was winter). I had a delightful spring garden planted which I had hoped to showcase here–but the vicissitudes of the world intervened. I have now moved from Park Slope (where no one who is not an investment banker can afford to dwell) to Ditmas Park, a diverse neighborhood of ramshackle Victorian mansions and elegant row houses. On this exodus, I took with me all of the plants that I could put in pots. Naturally, spring plants do not like this sort of rough handling so mortality was high. You should picture one of those cattle drives where, after great hardship and tremendous effort, only a few cattle are alive at the end. Um, except instead of rugged cowboys imagine me, and instead of shaggy longhorns picture tulips and daffodils [ed. Are you sure this metaphor holds up?]
Anyway, the happy conclusion of all this is that my new garden is much more beautiful than the old one was. The ground is rich and fertile and, best of all, some ingenious landscaper from long ago planted a variety of gorgeous trees. This forethought provides the subject for this post, for the new garden features a Japanese flowering cherry tree, the undisputed emperor of ornamental trees. The tree is old and huge. It looms high above the two story house and spreads across three (or maybe four) lawns.
Such trees are the central focus of spring festivities in Japan where “Hanami” festivals have involved viewing cherry blossoms and reflecting upon the nature of life (and drinking) since the Heian era. Initially such flower parties were attended only by the imperial family, but the trend of festivals for sakura viewing was soon picked up by the samurai nobility. The custom combined with the similar tradition of farmers who annually climbed up nearby mountains in springtime to have lunch under the blooming trees. Soon Hamami was adopted by all classes in Japan as a time of drinking and feasting under the sakura trees. Tokugawa Yoshimune, an eighteenth century shogun, arranged for the mass planting of cherry trees to encourage the tradition.
Today, the Hanami festival is the major annual spring festival in Japan. A “blossom forecast” is carefully watched as people prepare their parties. Then when the trees are blooming, the Japanese spread mats or tarps on the ground to drink and dine alfresco beneath the falling petals. Of course many people are more interested in eating (and, more particularly, drinking) then enjoying even the most beautiful flowering trees. They are mocked as being “hana yori dango” (more interested in dumplings then flowers) and their drunken antics and passed out bodies are a major component of hanami time in Japan.
As you can see in the photos, the cherry tree at my new place is not the only tree blossoming in the back yard. It is joined by a showy crabapple tree with deep pink buds and a flowering dogwood. All of these beautiful trees mean that I’m back to shade gardening and my roses are living out front by the bustling street.
I was bent on fully celebrating hanami with my friends. In the spirit of “hana yori dango” I had already thought out a menu of sake, dumplings, and grilled meats, but, due to a scheduling mischance, I will be on holiday in Los Angeles next week (which is a good problem to have). I have included photos of the initial blooms from my backyard but my roommate ensures me that the blossoms become even more fulsome as the whole tree morphs into a living pink cloud. I suppose it is fitting that I am going to miss this peak bloom as sakura blossoms are an ancient and enduring metaphor for the ephemeral nature of life’s joys. Indeed to the stoic Buddhist and Shinto faiths which have taken root in Japan, the blossoms are symbolic of the brevity, beauty, and fragile nature of life itself.
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Pesticide issues, rangeland and crop pests and a half-day symposium on cheatgrass management are among topics for weed management professionals at the Wyoming Weed Management Association (WWMA) meeting Jan 18-20 in Casper. Continue reading
Travelers from across the country and around the world visit Wyoming, and bedbug infestations could eventually reach here, said Sandra Frost, an educator with the University of Wyoming Cooperative Extension Service (UW CES) in Park County. Continue reading
New pet owners should be careful about where they buy their next puppies.
That was the message from the Wyoming State Veterinary Laboratory (WSVL) and the Wyoming Livestock Board as their members wrapped up an investigation of canine distemper in newly purchased puppies. Continue reading
Reclamation 101: Components of Successful Reclamation is 9 a.m.-3 p.m. at the EOC room in the basement of the Park County Courthouse. Lunch is free, and there is a $20 registration fee collected the morning of the workshop. The workshop is sponsored by the Wyoming Reclamation and Restoration Center (WRRC) in the University of Wyoming College of Agriculture and Natural Resources. Continue reading
Wyoming climate, soils and vegetation information will be presented in a six-hour University of Wyoming Cooperative Extension Service (UW CES) short course in Riverton. Continue reading
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Scientists studying cancer devote a great deal of attention to individual genes, boosting or suppressing their activity in the laboratory to tease out their respective roles in tumor formation. But a group in the Children's Hospital Informatics Program (CHIP) has been studying cancer in a more holistic way. By systematically comparing the genetic profiles of a broad range of cancers to genetic profiles seen during physiologic development, they've sorted cancers into three groups that exist along a continuum, reporting their findings in the July 2008 issue of Genome Biology.
"We're going for the big picture, trying to capture a tumor's macroscopic properties," says Kamila Naxerova, the report's first author and a graduate student working with CHIP director Isaac Kohane, MD, PhD.
They've found that one group of cancers has stem-cell-like and proliferative expression patterns similar to those that occur during early development, and tend to grow aggressively. The second group, with more indolent cancers, expresses many genes linked to inflammation, a pattern seen during late embryonic development. The third group falls somewhere in the middle.
Naxerova and colleagues were surprised at some of the cancers that wound up in the same category. For instance, both the lung cancer adenocarcinoma and Wilms' tumor, a type of pediatric kidney cancer, landed in the early developmental group. "It's not what I would have expected," says Naxerova, "since these tumors arise under very different circumstances and are associated with different DNA alterations."
The finding suggests that, as unlikely as it seems, drugs effective against lung cancer might work against kidney tumors in children. "Grouping cancers in this developmental context could provide a different therapeutic strategy," Naxerova says.
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Brief SummaryRead full entry
BiologyWithin its aquatic habitat, the African clawless otter searches for food with its dexterous hands, overturning rocks, churning up mud, and probing vegetation for crustaceans, molluscs, frogs, fish and water tortoises (4) (5). Once captured, the otter may float in the water whilst eating its prey, or take larger items ashore (4). Often this activity is undertaken solitary, but sometimes groups of up to eight African clawless otters may be seen, usually either a mother with her cubs, or a group of males (4). African clawless otters use a number of sites out of the water to rest and sleep. Often these may be situated amongst thick vegetation or amid rocks, but they may also dig underground dens that are up to three metres long and contain a grass-lined nest (4). This otter may breed at any time of the year, giving birth to a litter of one to three cubs after a gestation of 63 days. At just one year of age, the young African clawless otters are independent (4). African clawless otters leave a number of noticeable clues to their presence as they move about their habitat. The large, long, clawless footprints are unmistakable, and deposits of faeces and urine are often left as they travel as a means of communicating with other otters. The African clawless otter also emits a variety of whistles, huffs, growls and screams with which it communicates to other individuals (4).
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The New Science of Wisdom(05/10/2006)
Calling all baby boomers (and friends and family too). Are you worried about your memory? Scared of Senior Moments? Well, have we got a great news story for you. What if the brain doesn’t get worse with age – it gets better? When it comes to the ageing brain, the news from science has always been bad; grey matter shrinking from age 20, synapses slowing down. But for the first time, scientists are asking whether some brain functions improve with age. Their astonishing results should bring a grin to the face of everyone planning on getting older.
On Thursday 5th of October, Catalyst travels to New York to reveal how the older brain solves seemingly impossible problems in an instant. We also visit Los Angeles and discover that many brain processes actually get faster with age. And intrepid Generation X reporter Dr Jonica Newby goes head to head with Baby Boomer and Futurist Richard Neville in the cognitive assessment challenge – you’ll be surprised by whose brain does better at what.
It’s all part of a must watch special on the new Science of Wisdom.
Narration: Calling all Baby Boomers. Worried your memory is fading? Scared of senior moments? Well, have we got a good news story for you.
What if the brain doesn’t get worse with age, it gets better? That’s what we’re about to discover. As we investigate the astonishing new science of Wisdom.But first, lets meet our characters.
Think Baby Boomer, think futurist Richard Neville – the man who helped put the sex into the sixties with his outrageous Oz magazine. He’s bravely agreed to go head to head with me at the cognitive assessment lab.
Richard Neville: Are you feeling confident?
Dr Jonica Newby: Actually I’m feeling pretty nervous. He’s pretty smart!
Narration: And this is 83 year old Miriam, born New Yorker and former gadfly.
Miriam Wolson: I decided to have fun, and I went out all night, and then when I retired I really got frightened because I thought I was having Alzheimers, I couldn’t remember anything.
Narration: She was about to go through an amazing transformation. Finally, meet Dr Elkhonen Goldberg. He’s a neuroscientist. Which is why when he approached 60, he did what any New York psychologist would do – he went and got a brain scan, and took it to one of New York’s most famous neurologists, Dr John Caronna.
Professor Elkhonon Goldberg: So Dr Coronna – can you visualise a brain there?
Dr Jim Caronna: Well yes you have a brain on your MRI and it looks normal for your age. By that I mean it’s shrivelled and has a scar on it. The black parts are fluid filled spaces. With age as there’s atrophy the fluid filled cavities get larger relative to the substance of the brain.
Narration: But being a Baby Boomer, Dr Goldberg wasn’t going to take the news his brain was turning into a giant pretzel lying down. He thought - if the aging brain was so clapped out, how come so many great artists and leaders were over 50?
Professor Elkhonon Goldberg: Churchill became prime minister at the age of 65. Goethe completed his famous Dr Faustus while he was in his early eighties.
Narration: And he didn’t think it was just that they could afford better personal aides. Maybe they’d become wise – but where in the brain was wisdom? That’s when Dr Goldberg started thinking about patterns.
Dr Jonica Newby: I’m about to acquire a pattern, and we’re going to see what happens to that pattern inside my brain. So what do I do?
Professor Elkhonon Goldberg: So look at the screen, a geometric pattern will appear and you’ll choose one of the other two which is most similar to the target.
Narration: Pattern recognition is how our brain learns one thing about the world and then generalises it. Take riding a bicycle. It’s hard to begin with, but once mastered, your brain has a bicycle pattern it’s almost impossible to lose.
Dr Jonica Newby: OK you’ve got my results.
Professor Elkhonon Goldberg: Yes and let’s look at them. Look how at the beginning of the task the red spot is in the right hemisphere, towards the end of the task it migrates all the way to the left hemisphere.
Dr Jonica Newby: So the brain function actually switched during the task from using the right side of the brain to using the left part of the brain. That was quick.
Narration: Dr Goldberg now believes while the right brain deals with new tasks, the left brain stores the new patterns once they’re learned. So wisdom would lie in the left side of the brain.
Professor Elkhonon Goldberg: As we age ah, fewer and fewer situations remain totally new. And it’s precisely because the left hemisphere ah, is capable of accumulating this pattern of recognition devices that ah, older people are able to make these seemingly effortless ah, very sound decisions which are an important part of wisdom.
Narration: But it now appears pattern recognition isn’t the brain’s only source of wisdom. Here in Sydney, at the prestigious Brain Dynamics Centre, Dr Lea Williams has just assessed 1,000 brains across 30 cognitive tests with truly astonishing results. To find out what she’s discovered, we’re about to pit Generation X against the baby boomer brain.
Professor Lea Williams: Are you ready for your tests?
Narration: First up – a verbal fluency test.
Computer: “I now want you to say as many words as you can in one minute beginning with the letter ‘s’”.
Richard Neville: Snaky, snaky, specious, salacious.
Dr Jonica Newby: Stutter, stammer, stimulate.
Professor Lea Williams: Stop now. Good
Narration: Next, emotional cognition. This one sounds scary.
Computer: “Please observe the face on the screen carefully and then press the button that identifies the emotion”.
Richard Neville: Shit (bleep), oh, that was wrong, shit (Bleep).
Computer: “Stop now”
Narration: Finally, a brain speed test. We have to tap as fast as we can, but as soon as red appears, we stop. How quickly can we apply our brain’s brakes?
Professor Lea Williams: That’s the end of that one – how did you find it?
Dr Jonica Newby: I have a terrible feeling I’ve let my generation down (laughs).
Narration: Well, let’s find out.
Professor Lea Williams: Ready for the results? So if you remember, the first one you did was word generation. And you will be interested to see that the person with the most fluency in this case was actually Richard.
Richard Neville: Never mind.
Dr Jonica Newby: Laughs.
Narration: Next - emotional cognition. To my surprise, Richard is worse at recognising fear, but way better at recognising happiness. How come?
Professor Lea Williams: What it all boils down to is a better ability to actually regulate and control emotion. And that’s seen in this kind of shift towards less recognition of emotions like fear and a focus on happiness.
Narration: Despite the stereotype, Lea has found as we age, we get happier, less neurotic, and have more emotional control. This “emotional cognition” is vital for making good decisions in a social world.
Dr Jonica Newby: And the lucky last is speed of brain processing.
Richard Neville: Good luck - crossing of fingers.
Professor Lea Williams: So fewer errors in this case is better.
Narration: Richard made the least. That means, his brain was actually faster when it came to putting on the brakes.
Richard Neville: Gee I wish I was competitive, then I could gloat.
Dr Jonica Newby: So Richard was actually twice as good as me at inhibiting responses and inhibiting impulses. That’s extraordinary!
Narration: And so it is. Until now, it’s been generally assumed as the brain ages, all functions deteriorate. But Lea’s groundbreaking research shows verbal fluency, emotional cognition and impulse control continue to improve with age.
Professor Lea Williams: The thing that surprised me was how there really was quite a cluster of functions that got better. It wasn’t like it was just one isolated thing.
Narration: So how can a 60 year old’s shrivelled brain be so much better on some scores than mine?
To find out, I’ve crossed the world again, to Los Angeles, to meet another neuroscientist in search of wisdom.
Professor George Bartzokis: Okay, so we’re going to look at some brains now.
Narration: Dr George Bartzokis says in our obsession with declining grey matter, we’ve overlooked what’s happening to the white matter.
Professor George Bartzokis: This here is a 20 year old brain, you can see there’s not really that much white as you go to about thirty three you have more of this white in the frontal lobes.
Dr Jonica Newby: So the white matter keeps going on up until 50?
Professor George Bartzokis: Yeah, it’s actually expanding.
Narration: If grey matter is the brain’s computers, white matter is the internet cables connecting them. As we age, these cables are coated in more and more myelin – which speeds up brain conductance 100 fold – creating fast brain superhighways.
Professor George Bartzokis: Wisdom is having a really fast internet that’s on-line and with a huge band-width. That’s what comes with age.
Dr Jonica Newby: Wisdom is white matter.
Professor George Bartzokis: Wisdom is white matter; myelinated white matter.
Narration: So science has found three parts of wisdom – pattern recognition for thinking shortcuts, fluency and emotional control for better decision making, and high speed connections to what you know. But we’d be lying if we pretended there isn’t some bad news.
Professor Lea Williams: Memory for factual information does decline quite significantly.
Professor George Bartzokis: The white matter plateaus in your fifties but then you start declining. In your seventies it’s declined about to the same level as it was in your twenties so it’s going backwards.
Dr Jonica Newby: So in your seventies you’re the same as in your twenties.
Professor George Bartzokis: Exactly.
Dr Jonica Newby: That’s not so bad(laughs).
Narration: But baby boomers, you can’t take that one without a fight either. Listen to Miriam’s story – starting at the ripe old age of seventy.
Miriam Wolson: It was like frightening. You know, I couldn’t remember so many things, I couldn’t even remember my own phone number.
Narration: So Miriam got in touch with Dr Elkhonon Goldberg.
Professor Elkhonon Goldberg: Hello - ready to start exercising?
Narration: He recommended she join the latest New York Fitness craze he’d just started, the Cognitive Gym.
Professor Elkhonon Goldberg: The notion of a cognitive gym was prompted by another very important discovery made in neuroscience, namely that the brains ability to generate new nerve cells does not stop early in life. So the more vigorous our mental activities are, the more we stimulate new brain cells.
Miriam Wolson: Did I get it?
Professor Elkhonon Goldberg: Yes.
Narration: After a year of mental workouts, aged 77, Miriam decided to do something quite extraordinary. She went back to university to finish a degree she’d flunked out of in her youth.
Miriam Wolson: Well, when I was seventeen I was getting C’s and D’s and even F’s and then when I came back and was in my seventies, I was getting straight A’s.
Narration: So Baby Boomers – youth may be fading and memory too, but neuroscience has given you a gift, a real reason to embrace the Getting of Wisdom.
Richard Neville: I guess that we’ve always had in society this idea of elders, and in some society a reverence for elders. And so maybe that is acknowledgment of a universal truth. After all, what’s the point of living a long life and having a lot of experiences if you can’t draw from them?
Miriam Wolson & Dr Jonica Newby: Go cheers
- Reporter: Dr Jonica Newby
- Producer: Louise Heywood and Jonica Newby
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I think Kal-El is 40 nm
UPDATE: Adding comments regarding performance, memory bandwidth.
Nvidia Corp. has issued a whitepaper that uncovers performance of its forthcoming Tegra 3 “Kal El” system-on-chip for tablets and smartphones and shows off the benefits of a quad-core SoC with a low-power companion core over dual-core offerings from its rivals. Thanks to increased amount of cores, new graphics core and refined 40nm manufacturing process technology, Tegra 3 is clearly faster than current-generation offerings.
Despite of expectations, a number of mobile applications and benchmarks can already take advantage of four general-purpose cores. Nvidia utilized either synthetic benchmarks or artificially modeled use-cases (e.g., it used Chrome browser that is not available for ultra-mobile devices). Nonetheless, it is pretty clear that in case of heavy usage and demanding applications, such as games, the Kal-El may be rather unbeatable.
Linpack, a widely used CPU benchmark, gives an industry-standard measure of a system’s floating point computing power.
Results from the multithreaded Linpack benchmark show that quad-core Tegra “Kal-El” delivers almost 60% higher performance over an equivalent dual-core processor. Typically, LINPACK scales very well with the increase of the number of cores, but in this case performance may be limited by memory bandwidth.
Results from Coremark, a popular mobile CPU benchmark, are an indicator of performance for CPU intensive multimedia applications.
For instance, Coremark shows that quad-core Tegra delivers almost 2x the performance of dual-core SoCs based mobile processors and almost 4x the performance of single core SoCs.
According to Nvidia, Google Chrome web-browser, which is currently available only for Windows or Mac OS and which may eventually be released for Android, can take advantage of all four cores during tabbed browsing.
While it is clear that all four cores are utilize during tabbed web-browsing, Nvidia did not indicate whether it actually used Tegra 3 “Kal-El” or an x86 processor to show benefits of four general-purpose processing engines.
Photaf 3D Panorama is an Android application that enables users to automatically capture 3D panoramic photos and stitch together the captured images to be viewed immediately.
The heavy image processing involved in detecting edges and stitching together the images benefit greatly from the quad-core processing capabilities of Tegra 3 “Kal-El”: the SoC is approximately two times faster than its predecessor.
Without any surprises, a video transcoding app benefits greatly from the increased amount of cores.
Handbrake, a popular video transcoding application, delivers 60% faster transcoding on a quad-core Nvidia SoC compared to a dual-core Nvidia Kal-El-based system. What is unknown is how performance of quad-core Tegra 3 in this benchmark stacks up against hardware-accelerated transcoding.
Thanks to next-generation GeForce graphics core with twelve stream processors along with two additional general-purpose ARM cores, the next-generation SoC will offer very strong performance in gaming applications.
The graph shows the performance speedup that the Nvidia Tegra 3 “Kal-El: platform provides greater performance in the Glowball demo as well as in two video games over an equivalent dual-core Nvidia Tegra 2-based platform.
Unfortunately, Nvidia does not reveal any testbed configurations or methods. Given the fact that Nvidia used to show off Glowball demo on a tablet with 10.1" screen (which likely had 1280*800 resolution), it is highly likely that the company used a similar system. In case of 1280*800 resolution, the results are pretty encouraging as the quad-core SoC does not seem to be limited by memory bandwidth. However, if Nvidia lowered the resolution during testing in order to maximize the difference between dual-core and quad-core chips, real-world games on tablets with high-def screens will behave differently.
Finally, since next-generation Nvidia Tegra Kal-El is made using refined 40nm process technology and sports a number of power consumption optimizations, it manages to consume less amount of energy in certain use cases compared to existing current-generation offerings made using less advanced process technology.
Nvidia’s measurements show that Tegra “Kal-El” SoC consumes 2-3x less power than competing solutions when it is constrained to the same level of performance – each processor completing roughly 5000 of Coremark “work”. Even when Kal-El is run at a higher frequency, completing more than 2x the amount of Coremark “work”, it still consumes less power than dual core solutions. Naturally, in real-world cases applications will attempt to get all the performance the new SoC has to offer and will thus increase power consumption.
Nvidia’s performance benchmarks of Tegra 3 “Kal-El” clearly show that the next-generation system-on-chip will be able to provide 60% and higher performance when compared to current-generation SoCs for smartphones. In a number of cases, Tegra “Kal El” will also consume less power than Nvidia’s Tegra 2, which means better battery life for devices. What should be noted is that Tegra 3 "Kal-El" will not compete directly with existing Qualcomm Snapdragon QC8660 or OMAP4, but against next-gen SoCs that will also sport foru ARM cores, next-gen graphics and other advantages.
Nvidia also yet has to reveal more details about memory bandwidth of Tegra 3 "Kal El". Based on LINPACK score, there may be some constraints. Four ARM Cortex-A9 cores and a ULP GeForce with twelve stream processors will naturally require a lot of bandwidth, clearly more than Tegra 2's memory sub-system can provide (up to 5.3GB/s, LPDDR2 667MHz). In fact, just like in case of traditional PCs, small form-factor systems may soon feel the critical need for fast memory sub-system and Tegra 3 will be one of the first SoCs that may show this necessity.
Nvidia itself promises that the first Tegra 3-based products will hit the market this calendar year.
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Funding source No external funding.
Evidence-based treatments for female pattern hair loss: a summary of a Cochrane systematic review
Article first published online: 5 OCT 2012
© 2012 The Authors. BJD © 2012 British Association of Dermatologists
British Journal of Dermatology
Volume 167, Issue 5, pages 995–1010, November 2012
How to Cite
van Zuuren, E.J., Fedorowicz, Z. and Carter, B. (2012), Evidence-based treatments for female pattern hair loss: a summary of a Cochrane systematic review. British Journal of Dermatology, 167: 995–1010. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2133.2012.11166.x
Conflicts of interest None declared.
This paper is based on a Cochrane review (see http://www.CochraneLibrary.net for further information). Cochrane reviews are regularly updated as new evidence emerges and in response to comments and criticisms. The Cochrane Library should be consulted for the most recent version of this review.
- Issue published online: 29 OCT 2012
- Article first published online: 5 OCT 2012
- Accepted for publication 16 June 2012
Female pattern hair loss (FPHL) or androgenic alopecia is the most common type of hair loss affecting women with reduced hair density and can have a serious psychological impact. It is characterized by progressive replacement of slow cycling terminal hair follicles by miniaturized, rapidly cycling vellus hair follicles. The frontal hair line may or may not be preserved. The aim of this review was to assess the evidence for the effectiveness and safety of the treatments available for FPHL. Searches included: Cochrane Skin Group Specialised Register, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Clinical Trials in The Cochrane Library, MEDLINE, EMBASE, AMED, PsycINFO, LILACS and several ongoing trials registries (October 2011). Randomized controlled trials in women with FPHL were identified. Twenty-two trials, comprising 2349 participants, were included. A range of interventions was evaluated, with 10 studies examining varying concentrations of minoxidil. Pooled data from four studies indicated that a greater proportion of participants treated with minoxidil reported a moderate increase in their hair regrowth compared with placebo (relative risk 1·86, 95% confidence interval 1·42–2·43). There was no difference between the number of adverse events experienced in the twice daily minoxidil and the placebo intervention groups, except for a reported increase with minoxidil 5% twice daily. Single studies accounted for most of the other comparisons, which were assessed as either having high risk of bias and/or they did not address the prespecified outcomes for this review and provided limited evidence of either the effectiveness or safety of these interventions. Further well-designed, adequately powered randomized controlled trials investigating other treatment options are still required.
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Hadrian’s Wall World Heritage Site, the north west frontier of the Roman Empire, is set to shine as part of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Beacons being lit on Monday 4 June.
A collection of artefacts made by prisoners from the Channel Islands in World War II has gone on display in Jersey to mark the 70th anniversary of the Channel Island deportations, with the help of a Cambridge researcher.
Cross-breeding of dogs over thousands of years has made it extremely difficult to trace the ancient genetic roots of today’s pets, according to a new study led by Durham University.
Researchers from Tel Aviv University have recently discovered a collection of gold and silver jewelry, dated from around 1100 B.C., hidden in a vessel at the archaeological site of Tel Megiddo in the Jezreel Valley in northern Israel. One piece — a gold earring decorated with molded ibexes, or wild goats — is “without parallel,” they believe.
Large clusters of rock art spanning thousands of years but located at the same site may hold key to detecting massive cultural changes in prehistoric hunter-gatherers of the north.
Heritage, the natural landscape and Archaeology has never been more popular, but your chance to meet your ancestors is at risk.
New information has come to light recently from the cave of Sibudu, in South Africa. The remains of hearths were uncovered by a team of archaeologists led by Lyn Wadley, an honorary professor in the School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand. Aspects of the excavation results are discussed in a paper in the journal Quaternary International.
Dr. Wendy van Duivenvoorde (pictured), a lecturer in maritime archaeology, returned from the world’s fourth largest island last month with evidence of more than 40 inscriptions from Dutch sailing ships that once traversed the region en-route to South East Asia.
Danjiangkou reservoir is located in the northwest of Hubei province and southwest of Henan province at the headwaters area of the Middle Route of the South-to-North Water Transfer Project. In October, 2004, Scientists from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP), Chinese Academy of Sciences, conducted a survey around the margin of the reservoir that will later be submerged upon completing a new section of the dam, and found 367 lithic artifacts with handaxes and picks from 43 open-air sites, distributed upon different terraces along the Hanshui River and its tributary Danjiang River.
The wreck of the Lamartine, a 19th century schooner that hauled granite for construction of streets, sidewalks and buildings along the U.S. East Coast, has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the nation’s official list of cultural resources worthy of preservation. The wrecklies within NOAA’s Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary in Massachusetts Bay.
During a recent Gulf of Mexico expedition, NOAA, BOEM and partners discovered an historic wooden-hulled vessel which is believed to have sunk as long as 200 years ago.
A critical stage of an extraordinary multi-national archaeological research project took place at Dover Harbour on Saturday 12 May 2012, but unfortunately things didn’t quite go to plan.
Two studies led by scientists from the University of Pennsylvania and National Geographic’s Genographic Projectreveal new information about the migration patterns of the first humans to settle the Americas. The studies identify the historical relationships among various groups of Native American and First Nations peoples and present the first clear evidence of the genetic impact of the groups’ cultural practices.
HMS St Albans has spent five days in Iceland to pay her respects to those mariners who took part in the convoys to the Soviet Union when sailors braved air and U-boat attack to deliver crucial aid 70 years ago.
Unprecedented study relies on more than 1,500 years of tree-ring data and hundreds of years of fire-scar records gathered from Ponderosa Pine forests
Sulphur and iron compounds have now been found in shipwrecks both in the Baltic and off the west coast of Sweden. The group behind the results, presented in the Journal of Archaeological Science, includes scientists from the University of Gothenburg and Stockholm University.
Sixty volunteers helped out with a 10-day dig this past March and April on the Amana Society farmland just outside of South Amana. They came from as far away as Minneapolis and St. Louis, but also from much closer to home, including a retiree from the Office of the State Archaeologist (OSA) at the University of Iowa, which coordinated the dig.
The oldest agricultural settlement ever found on a Mediterranean island has been discovered in Cyprus by a team of French archaeologists involving CNRS, the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle (National Museum of Natural History), INRAP, EHESS and the University of Toulouse II-Le Mirail. Previously it was believed that, due to the island’s geographic isolation, the first Neolithic farming societies did not reach Cyprus until a thousand years after the birth of agriculture in the Middle East (ca. 9500 to 9400 BCE).
Anthropologists working in southern France have determined that a 1.5 metric ton block of engraved limestone constitutes the earliest evidence of wall art.
Students from Flinders University believe they have discovered the exact location of a Scottish sailing ship which sank in waters off Kangaroo Island more than 100 years ago.
Evidence that a Florentine merchant house financed the earliest English voyages to North America, has been published on-line in the academic journal Historical Research.
Coelacanths, an ancient group of fishes once thought to be long extinct, made headlines in 1938 when one of their modern relatives was caught off the coast of South Africa. Now coelacanths are making another splash and University of Alberta researchers are responsible.
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The Man Who Found Time: James Hutton and the Discovery of the Earths Antiquity by Jack Repcheck. Perseus, $26, 247 pages.
The Chapel Hill News
December 28, 2003
A Toast To Times Past
By Phillip Manning
A few days from now, boozy crowds will gather at midnight to sing Auld Lang Syne, Robert Burnss poignant song about days gone by. Burns penned the song in 1788 during the intellectual flowering known as the Scottish Enlightenment. Burns was part of a convivial group in Edinburgh whose writing and thinking produced the Enlightenment. One of the most original thinkers in that group, the man whose work would stimulate Charles Darwins ideas about evolution, was a well-to-do gentleman farmer named James Hutton. He discovered the immensity of our past, the days gone by that Burns wrote about so eloquently.
Jack Repcheck tells Huttons story in The Man Who Found Time (Perseus, $26). Hutton was born in Edinburgh in 1726. He was fascinated by science from a young age, but he trained as a lawyer and graduated as a physician. For reasons not at all clear, the city-born, city-bred Hutton decided at age 26 to become a farmer. For 13 years, he farmed, studied mineralogy and chemistry, and made occasional geologic excursions into the country with friends.
He also thought about erosion, the comings and goings of the soil and rocks around him. Hutton observed the erosion under his feet as the Scottish rains washed the soil from his farmlands. He realized that erosion of rock is necessary to form soil, but erosion also removes soil by washing it into the sea. Without a mechanism to restore [soil], writes Repcheck, the land would quickly become uninhabitable.
What that mechanism was may have occurred to Hutton as he built rock walls around his farm. The rocks available to him were sedimentary rocks, formed from soil compressed by the sea into layers of sediments, which over long periods of time formed sedimentary rocks. Hutton speculated that subterranean events later lifted the rocks above sea level, where they would erode into soil once again. The land we live on today, he concluded, is no more than ancient eroded soil made solid by the pressure of the sea. But this never-ending cycle of loss and regeneration required time, lots of time. When Hutton presented his ideas to the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1785, he stated his beliefs about the vastness of time explicitly, [W]ith respect to human observation, this world has neither a beginning nor an end.
These were fighting words to Christians. Numerous biblical chronologies had established the Earths age at about 6,000 years. The most famous of these was compiled by the Anglican bishop James Ussher, who counted the begats in the Bible and firmly established the date of creation as noon on October 23, 4004 B.C. So well accepted was this date that it was printed in the margin of Bibles.
Most geologists were equally convinced that the Earth was young. Only a few scientists had questioned Usshers young age for the Earth before Hutton dropped his bombshell. One of them, Georges Buffon, was pressured to recant his views because he implied that natural forces acting over a long time, not God, had created mountains and valleys. Because the young-Earth doctrine was so ingrained in the religious and scientific communities, Huttons ideas about an ancient Earth were either attacked or ignored. It would fall to a new generation of geologists to embrace and extend Huttons ideas.
Chief among the new breed was Charles Lyell. Lyell was a hands-on geologist, and during his extensive investigations he encountered lakes clearly modern by geological standards with limestone bottoms, which must have formed in the recent past. All geologic formations, Lyell concluded, were due to processes going on around us. And the same processes that operated today had operated in the deep past. This was Huttons idea repackaged as uniformitarianism, which became the foundation of modern geology. Lyell summarized his ideas in his book Principles of Geology, which became geologys defining text for the next 100 years.
Charles Darwin took Lyells book with him on the H.M.S. Beagle. What he saw confirmed Lyells (and Huttons) view of the world as dynamic and ancient, constantly but slowly changing over an immense period of time. Darwin extended Lyells uniformitarianism to include the living world, which helped him develop his theory of the evolution of species by natural selection.
Determining that the Earth is an ancient, changing planet enormously increased our understanding of it. Today, radioactive dating tells us the Earth is 4.5 billion years old. And that brings us back to Robert Burns. When you lift your glass at midnight on New Years Eve, drink a toast to Bruce, who wrote the song you will sing, and one to his Scottish compatriot James Hutton, the man who discovered the vastness of the days gone by that Burns captured so beautifully in song.
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Homewood Studios: You Do Not Have to Leave the Community to Find Great Art
by mick laBriola 8-12-10
Hidden deep within the confines of the often-stigmatized Northside of Minneapolis, there exists a gem of an oasis where an artist and community can find refuge. This building that once housed a Pickle Factory now flourishes as the Homewood Studios, artist workspace rentals and gallery/meeting space. As I stepped into this building at 2400 Plymouth Avenue North I was showered with a beautiful array of light emanating from the huge full panes of glass on the south wall. A feeling of clarity and well-being dominated my first impression of this colorful and vibrant Arts facility. And the gracious and devoted retiree owners, George and Beverly Roberts, greeted me with a comforting welcome not always common in the world of art-curating and facilitating in the greater Twin Cities.
George, originally from Chicago, and Bev, from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, have created an amazing confluence of art energy coalescing in this historic corner building once abandoned in the 80s, and now beautifully renovated. George was stationed in Germany in the Army where he met Bev who was in Special Services (USO); together they found commitment in a lifelong relationship.
George studied music as a trumpeter in his youth, and later became a Literature and Writing instructor. He first implemented his skills at Sheridan Elementary in Northeast Minneapolis, then pursued a 30-year career at North High School. Beverly worked at the Illusion Theater, the Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce, was a counselor for Business and School Partnerships and is a Master Gardener.
Together they set out to create a community project unlike any other in what might have been referred to as a remote or forbidden part of the Twin Cities. The building sat boarded and vacant for many years while criminal types dealt drugs and harassed passersby. It took courage, guts and tenacity to purchase the building, obtain a Conditional Use Permit, and work with the Northside Resident Redevelopment Council (NRRC). In addition the new owners lavished an intensive remodeling in 1998, with the grand opening on December of 1999.
Homewood Studios is a stunning example of fortitude and perseverance and pure Love of Art and community! Surprisingly located on the Northside, challenged for decades by racial generalizations, violence, gang and drug crimes, and a negative disposition by outsiders. Homewood Studios is not just an Artist facility, but is also a beacon of hope, creativity and empowerment in a part of town often viewed as downtrodden. And this experience has clearly set the standard for what is possible, and a current ongoing reality, in challenged and neglected neighborhoods. Northside artists are alive and well creating art and reshaping community; 65 % of the Artists at Homewood are Northside residents.
Current Artists implementing the Studios are George Roberts-Downstairs Press, Bill Jeter-visual artist and sculptor, Linda Maylish-painter and book artist, Mieko Yamazaki-oil painter, Kathleen Malecki, Jack Mader-photographer, Kristen Treuting, Milo Fine-musician ect.
In the words of George and Bev, “You do not have to leave the community to find great Art!” They have committed this space for Art, not for profit. Their motto: “For break even! Our facility is not an Art Center but a place where art and artists, friends and neighbors, students and teachers, children and adults can find and nurture themselves, where they might fulfill themselves and their community.”
photo by mick laBriola
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These films look specifically at ways in which school leaders and educators are testing and proving project-based models for a new, student-centered model of learning.
These films look specifically at ways in which school leaders and educators are ... (More)
Essential Learning at Hip Hop High, David "T.C." Ellis
David E. Ellis, the founder and director of the High School for Recording ... (More)
Designing Schools for 21st Century Learning, Randall Fielding
Randall Fielding, AIA, is the Chairman and Founding Partner of ... (More)
Online Learning for Disaffected Youth, Jean Johnson, Notschool.net
Jean Johnson has worked in the education field for 25 years ... (More)
Project-based Learning at High Tech High, Larry Rosenstock
Larry Rosenstock taught carpentry for eleven years, after law school ... (More)
An Introduction These films look specifically at ways in which school leaders and educators are ... (More)
An IntroductionThese films look specifically at ways in which school leaders and educators are testing and proving project-based models for a new, student-centered model of learning. This collection -- which includes profiles of school innovators David "T.C." Ellis, Jean Johnson, and Larry Rosenstock, as well as a profile of school architect Randall Fielding -- explores collaborative, creative, multi-disciplinary approaches to engaging students. Each leader has developed personalized, project-based approaches for students that encourage them to take ownership of the ways in which they learn and present what they know. Together, these films suggest just how much young people can achieve when their education is well aligned to their own natural interests.
Essential Learning at Hip Hop High, David "T.C." Ellis David E. Ellis, the founder and director of the High School for Recording ... (More)
Essential Learning at Hip Hop High, David "T.C." EllisDavid E. Ellis, the founder and director of the High School for Recording Arts (“Hip Hop High”), was born and raised in St. Paul Minnesota, and is a graduate of the St. Paul Open School. Mr. Ellis established himself in the music business in the mid-eighties as the first rap recording artist to release a record in Minnesota, the “Twin City Rap.” After a couple of independent record releases with regional success, he was recruited by Prince and Warner Brothers to record and produce records at Paisley Park. Eventually, Ellis started his own production company, Studio 4, where a number of young black artists who had dropped out of high school soon became a permanent presence. These young artists would ask Ellis questions about recording their music, copyrighting and publishing their work, reading and understanding a recording contract, and so on. Guiding them through the creative and business process of the recording industry, Ellis was struck by the way the youth naturally embraced academic subjects that supported their pursuit of music careers. With that realization, and after a two-year pilot program, the High School for Recording Arts was born. It received a charter from the Minnesota Department of Education and emerging as the only public school of its kind in the United States. At the High School for Recording Arts the classes are small. The education is tailored to students’ interests and needs, and guided by faculty advisors. But it’s the school’s respect for the hip hop back beat and poetry of today’s inner-city youth that make the High School for Recording Arts (HSRA) in Minnesota’s Twin Cities a model educational program for at-risk youth, grades 9-12. The High School for Recording Arts is a 501(c) 3 nonprofit corporation and remains the only recording arts school of its kind in the United States. Based on the small schools model concept, annual school enrollment averages 200 students; faculty and staff number about 30; the student/advisor ratio (HSRA teachers are called advisors) is 20 to 1. The school targets youth who have opted out of traditional schools in favor of a creative, non-traditional setting with an educational culture that better fits their learning styles and needs. HSRA students have the opportunity to (1) obtain a high school diploma while learning about the music/recording business and (2) create a professional, web-based digital portfolio that includes a résumé and college acceptance letter. Students are recruited through a variety of methods including public announcements, open house events, and HSRA student visits to area middle schools and through word of mouth and HSRA student referrals. To earn a high school diploma, HSRA students must master Minnesota’s content standards, complete all coursework required for graduation, accomplish the 12 HSRA validations of learning, and pass the state’s standardized assessments. David has recently been honored as an Oxford University Roundtable Fellow for his work with Studio 4/High School for Recording Arts. While at Oxford, David presented his work before leading educators from around the world to wide acclaim.
Designing Schools for 21st Century Learning, Randall Fielding Randall Fielding, AIA, is the Chairman and Founding Partner of ... (More)
Designing Schools for 21st Century Learning, Randall FieldingRandall Fielding, AIA, is the Chairman and Founding Partner of Fielding Nair International, LLC (FNI), an award-winning school planning and design firm with offices in Minneapolis, Tampa, Madison and Melbourne, Australia. The firm has consultations in 23 states around the U.S. and 26 countries. Randy oversees FNI’s primary mission to improve learning by serving as a world leader in the creation of new and renovated educational campuses that are in consonance with best practice and research. Fielding’s achievements have earned him more than a dozen design awards from the American Institute of Architects, The Council of Educational Facility Planners International (CEFPI), the American Association of School Administrators, and School Planning and Management Magazine. He is internationally recognized as an authority on innovative school design and received the CEFPI Planner of the Year Award in 2007 — the most prestigious honor of any individual in the field of educational design. He has been selected to serve as an architect, consultant, presenter and/or keynote speaker in Australia, Azerbaijan, Canada, Cayman Islands, Chile, Finland, Great Britain, India, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Portugal, Qatar, Singapore, The Czech Republic, The Netherlands, Sri Lanka, Spain, Switzerland, and the United States. One of Fielding’s “signatures” is his ability to come down off of the podium, sharing ideas with heads of state, educators, and children with equal passion. This spirit of sharing extends to two million people each year, through DesignShare.com, an online forum for innovative learning environments that Fielding founded in 1998. He continues to serve as DesignShare’s editorial director, but the focus of his work is to lead communities in the design of environmentally responsive campuses that foster personalized learning and strong connections to the community. Fielding’s design work leverages more than 500 case studies from 30 countries — the largest library of innovative school designs in the world. The interactive planning and design process pioneered by FNI is also grounded in a seminal book that Fielding co-authored with Prakash Nair, entitled The Language of School Design. The book establishes key learning modalities for success in the post-information society, and provides a series of design patterns to support these modalities. Randy uses the design patterns as a tool in evaluating existing and proposed facilities, and as a launching point for developing customized solutions for each individual community, campus, school or district that he works with. In addition to serving as a lead design architect, teamwork underpins all of Fielding’s work, which takes him around the world to collaborate with public and private institutions, educators, developers, and local architects. Whether it’s a high school near ground zero in New York City, a series of vocational schools for the tsunami-damaged areas of Sri Lanka, a school for at-risk students in Minneapolis, a K-12 campus in Indonesia, or a college preparatory school in Switzerland, he finds more commonalties in each community than differences.
Online Learning for Disaffected Youth, Jean Johnson, Notschool.net Jean Johnson has worked in the education field for 25 years ... (More)
Online Learning for Disaffected Youth, Jean Johnson, Notschool.netJean Johnson has worked in the education field for 25 years following a spell in industry. She began her teaching career in East London schools working with difficult and disaffected teenagers. In 1993 she began working with new technologies and was one of the first teachers to pilot the use of the internet in schools. She was part of the early developer group of schools for Oracle’s Think.com, contributing to the final design of the software. Since then she has been involved in a number of high profile on-line projects both in the UK and abroad, working with schools as far apart as Sweden, Finland, the USA, India, Japan and New Zealand. Projects have included Web for Schools, Learning in the New Millennium, Schools on Line and the Virtual Classroom. Her work within Europe was influential in developing a model for the use of the internet in schools in the European Union. In 1998 she was presented with an award as Teacher of the Year. Johnson went on to develop and lead the Notschool.net research project, working in the field of social inclusion for disadvantaged youth, focusing particularly in the creative and innovative use of multimedia to develop learning. In 2005, she formed TheCademy, a charity committed to inclusion with Notschool.net as its flagship project. Her team won the prestigious 2005 e-well being award for digital inclusion, Johnson has written a number of reports and papers, including extensive work on internet-based accreditation and content delivery models. Notschool helps kids explore what really interests them by constructing an online curriculum around those interests, consequently re-engaging them in learning. In partnership with the local school council, Notschool carefully guides its “researchers” back onto a path to graduation and eventually to college or university.
Project-based Learning at High Tech High, Larry Rosenstock Larry Rosenstock taught carpentry for eleven years, after law school ... (More)
Project-based Learning at High Tech High, Larry RosenstockLarry Rosenstock taught carpentry for eleven years, after law school, in urban high schools in Boston andCambridge. He served as staff attorney for two years at the Harvard Center for Law and Education, and was a lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education for five years. Rosenstock was principal of the Rindge School of Technical Arts, and of the Cambridge Rindge and Latin School. He directed the federal New Urban High School Project, was president of the Price Charitable Fund, and is the founding principal of High Tech High in San Diego. Rosenstock’s program, “CityWorks”, won the Ford Foundation Innovations in State and Local Government Award in 1992, and he is an Ashoka Fellow. High Tech High eliminates traditional boundaries between "technical" education (code for tracking low-income kids) and traditional college preparatory, liberal arts-style secondary education (typically provided to students from higher income backgrounds). In its place, High Tech High offers a highly stimulating educational environment that encourages students to immerse themselves in real-world career experiences. Instead of attending regular classroom lectures, taking tests, and turning in homework assignments, High Tech High students spend four years working primarily on individual and group projects that provide hands-on experiences, and are complemented by academic curricula. Students are assessed for their work in teams as well as individually. Nationally recognized as "the high school of the future," High Tech High serves as a public "learning lab" and hosts at least 1,000 visitors a year who are interested in learning about the model. Rosenstock introduces innovations at the staff management level, as well as in the architecture of the school. He has persuaded the State of California to pass new teacher certification legislation, and as a result, High Tech High can now recruit and hire teachers like physicists, mathematicians, and computer technologists from nontraditional backgrounds. These accomplished professionals join High Tech High because it is a place where they can continue to be creative and at the same time teach and give back. Perhaps Rosenstock’s greatest innovation is his vision for the curriculum. Prior to launching High Tech High, Rosenstock served for two years as the director of the New Urban High School project. This study involved a nationwide effort to find, describe, and design new models for America's high schools. Through this effort Rosenstock identified the core best practices from the highest-performing schools in some of the worst neighborhoods. Several core school-design principles emerged from this study, including: personalization–students learn better when teachers know them well; adult-world immersion, like internships and projects based in the community; and a common intellectual mission, by which every student receives an equal education without distinctions like "college prep" and "technical" (or vocational technical) preparation.
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Re: orion Hanukkah a civil holiday?
On Fri, 25 Dec 1998 RGmyrken@aol.com wrote:
> Marty Jaffee writes (in connection with my claim that Hanukkah is not a
> religious festival such that we would expect references to in in the scrolls):
> > What exactly distinguishes a "civil holiday' from a "religious festival"
> > in Second Temple Judaic culture?
> I would very much welcome discussion of this point by others perhaps more
> knowledgeable than myself. I believe that the festivals can be stratified
> with the three major Pilgrim Festivals at which attendance (within Judea) was
> mandatory ranking most important. The other biblical festivals (with the
> exception of Purim) rank under this as purely religious days on which work was
> forbidden and for which special sacrifices at Jerusalem's temple were
> legislated. The extra-Biblical festivals in the Temple Scroll and other
> Qumran scrolls possibly should be included among this last class, since they
> apparently had specific sacrifices associated with them.
> Below these were the days of joy listed in Megillat Ta'anit, including
> Purim, second Passover, Hanukkah, Nicanor's Day, etc., in which work was
> permitted but fasting was prohibited. These days were (as I understand them)
> less than holy, and given the almost purely national character of several of
> these days in M.T., I find this category to be civil rather than religious in
> their essential legal character vis a vis Torah and temple.
This is a helpful taxonomy of the warrants behind the various 2nd Temple
celebrations. But the distinction between "religious" and "civil" is not a
helpful way of interpreting your observations. Yom Kippur is not more
"religious" than Hanukkah--its observance is simply governed by different
procedures within a larger economy of obligations incumbent upon the
Nation. There are indeed "solemn convocations" (miqraei qodesh) and other
days that are almost carnivalistic in character (such as the Mishnah's
description of the 15 of Av as a kind of "Sadie Hawkins Day")--but the
distinction between "religious" and "civil" implies that ancient Judeans
recognized a sphere of political identity untainted by "Judaism" that
would permit one to celebrate a "civic" holiday without participating as
well in the larger "religious" community.
Certainly it seems to me that
one of the major Hasmonean achievements was to obliterate any possibility
of defining for Judeans a political/civic sphere unconnected to sacred
warrants. This would be particularly true of Hanukkah, with its close
associations with the political/religious institution of the Temple. Have
I got this all wrong? MJ
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Visitors to Edmonton International Airport were greeted this week with a breath of fresh air and what is likely the largest living wall installation in an airport. Green Over Grey’s latest project is a 1,420-square-foot vertical garden located on the main terminal. The project was made possible by the Stantec Architects, who provided space for a living wall in their design of the new airport. The triptych features a large center panel and two smaller panels on the 2nd level. The larger panel was inspired by high altitude cirrus cloud formations and the two smaller panels are based on famous Canadian paintings, Tree Forms by Emily Carr and Unnamed Abstract by Donald Flather.
No soil is used in the project, as the walls are completely hydroponic, and they are monitored closely to ensure that every part receives the right amount of water. The rigid waterproof eco-panels are made from post consumer food grade plastic (such as milk jugs, plastic bags, soda pop bottles, etc) and the moss mimicking rooting material is made from recycled fibres from the textile industry. Featuring 8000 individual plants from 32 different species, the installation is hard at work to remove indoor air pollutants and pump out fresh air. Most of the species are plants that NASA has proven substantially improve indoor air quality are included. Another benefit of the project is that it increases the humidity, which is a great bonus as the air in Edmonton is quite dry. Great job Green Over Grey!
Images © Green Over Grey
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Before you start an exercise program, consult your therapist and physician.
We would like to introduce you to some common fitness terms that will hopefully improve your knowledge of and interest in physical fitness.
Fitness - sound physically and mentally; AKA healthy
Repetitions (commonly called "reps") - the number of times one repeats a movement. For example, if you lift a weight with your arm 10 times, you have performed 10 repetitions.
Set(s) - a discrete number of repetitions. For example, if you lift a weight 10 times, rest, and lift the weight 10 times again, you have performed "two sets" of 10 repetitions.
Muscle - the contractile unit responsible for moving your bones.
Tendon - the non-contractile unit that transmits the force of the muscle to the bone. Tendons connect muscles to bones.
Ligament - the soft tissues that hold two or more bones together.
Cartilage - connective tissue that covers the ends of bones and acts as a cushion to absorb shock and a smooth surface to decrease friction between two or more bones in a moving joint.
Aerobic Exercise - The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) defines aerobic exercise as "any activity that uses large muscle groups, can be maintained continuously, and is rhythmic in nature." Aerobic means in the presence of oxygen. In other words, your body is burning its fuel (glucose) in the presence of oxygen. It is performed at less than 85% of your maximum heart rate. An aerobically fit individual can work longer, more vigorously and achieve a quicker recovery at the end of the aerobic session. Jogging, cycling, swimming, aerobics classes, and rowing are examples of aerobic exercise.
Anaerobic Exercise - working at higher than 85% of your maximum heart rate. It involves short bursts of exertion followed by periods of rest. Anaerobic mean in the absence of oxygen. In other words, it is the burning of glucose, by the body, without the use of oxygen. Weight training and sprinting are examples of anaerobic exercise.
Plyometrics - Exercises characterized by the application of a quick muscle stretch followed by rapid muscle shortening enabling muscle(s) to achieve maximal rates of force development. They are intended to improve reactive/explosive muscle performance.
Circuit Training - selected weight-training exercises performed one after another in an exercise sequence, usually using lighter weights and short periods of rest.
Flexibility - the total range of motion in a joint or joints.
Strength - a muscle(s) ability to generate force. It is usually measured with a one repetition maximum.
Resistance Training - the use of external force to build up the body's ability to exert muscular force. AKA - weight or strength training.
Endurance - the ability of muscle(s) to contract repeatedly and resist fatigue.
Core Strength - a multi-joint exercise, involving larger muscle groups such as the chest, back, hip/thigh, and shoulder muscles. Core exercises should receive priority because of their direct application to a sport.
Cross Training - the use of more than one type of exercise to achieve your training goals.
Periodization - according to the American College of Sports Medicine, periodized training is planned variation in the total amount of exercise performed in a given period of time (intensity and volume of exercise). All periodization terminology describes either a certain type of training, a certain portion of a training cycle, or a certain length of time within a training cycle.
Proprioception - the body's ability to sense where it is in space. For example, close your eyes and touch your nose. How were you able to move your finger to your nose without seeing it? Your body uses its sensory system in the joints and muscles to know where it is going. Balance and coordination both depend on your body's proprioceptive skills.
Pilates - a series of non-impact exercises designed by Joseph Pilates to develop strength, flexibility, and balance.
Bosu Ball - an exercise ball that's been cut in half with a platform on the bottom.
Exercise Ball - a large rubber ball 55 to 85+ centimeters in diameter used for strength, balance, and flexibility exercise. AKA therapy ball or Swiss ball.
Medicine Ball - weight balls (4-12 inches in diameter) used for resistance or plyometric training.
Dumbbell - Weights used for exercising consisting of a handle with either detachable metal plates or fixed weights at each end.
Barbell - Weight used for exercise, consisting of a rigid handle 5-7 feet long, with detachable metal plate that slide on and off the ends.
Maximum Heart Rate - the fastest your heart can beat. It is found by taking 220 and subtracting your age. (Max HR = 220 – age)
Target Heart Rate - your target heart rate is a range you exercise in and should be 60-85% of your maximum heart rate. - (220 – age) x 60% = bottom end of Target Heart Range - (220 – age) x 85% = top end of Target Heart Range - Exercise is considered aerobic if performed within this range.
Warm Up - a five to eight minute period of gradual exercise (involving the larger muscles of the body) to increase circulation and decrease joint stiffness, in preparation for exercise of a greater intensity.
The information in this medical library is intended for informational and educational purposes only and in no way should be taken to be the provision or practice of physical therapy, medical, or professional healthcare advice or services. The information should not be considered complete or exhaustive and should not be used for diagnostic or treatment purposes without first consulting with your physical therapist, occupational therapist, physician or other healthcare provider. The owners of this website accept no responsibility for the misuse of information contained within this website.
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Modern rock (also known as alternative rock or alternative) is a rock format commonly found on commercial radio; the format consists primarily of the alternative rock genre. Generally beginning with late 1970s punk but referring especially to rock music since the 1980s, the phrase "modern rock" is used to differentiate the music from classic rock, which focuses on music recorded in the 1960s through the early 1980s.
A few modern rock radio stations existed during the 1980s, such as KROQ-FM in Los Angeles, 91X (XETRA-FM) in San Diego, WLIR on Long Island and WFNX in Boston. Modern rock was solidified as a radio format in 1988 with Billboard's creation of the Modern Rock Tracks chart. The chart was based on weighted reports from college radio stations and commercial stations such as those listed above. The 1988 episode of the VH1 show I Love the '80s discussed INXS, The Cure, Morrissey, Depeche Mode, and Erasure as modern rock artists representative of that year. But it was the breakthrough success of the grunge band Nirvana in 1991 that resulted in a large number of American radio stations switching to the format. Modern rock is considered by some to be a specific genre of alternative rock.
The format has gone through two distinct periods with the dividing line being grunge rock of the early 1990s. Up until grunge went mainstream the format featured a wide variety up tempo danceable music from a diverse group of artists that were being played in rock discos and clubs. This was a legacy from New wave music and the Second British Invasion that immediately proceeded it. Out of the top 30 artists in the first modern rock chart only seven were American. Between 1992 and 1994 female and foreign and dance sounds had largely disappeared from the chart. While the chart still featured a variety of sounds it was largely guitar rock created by male Americans. By 1996 the Modern Rock chart was largely indistinguishable from the Album Rock chart and it was surveying what was then mainstream rock music.
See also
- Alternative rock (genre)
- Campus radio
- Nu metal
- Active rock - a mix of classic rock and modern rock, but trending closer to modern rock.
- Mainstream rock - a mix of classic rock and modern rock, but trending closer to classic rock.
References and Footnotes
- Simon, Clea (2000-08-21). "MEDIA; Is Modern Rock Radio Getting Old?". NYTimes.com. Retrieved 2007-09-27. "Modern, also called alternative..."
- ""Are We Mot New Wave Modern Pop at the Turn of the 1980s P. 65-69 ISBN 978-0-472-03470-3
- DeRogatis, Jim. Milk It!: Collected Musings on the Alternative Music Explosion of the 90's. Cambridge: Da Capo, 2003. Pg. 357, ISBN 0-306-81271-1 Pg. 287 The author criticizing the music of Third Eye Blind during an interview with the band's frontman.
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Bly Tunnel discussion dominates board meeting
Jennifer Mata, an ecologist with the Bureau of Land Management, made a slide presentation that outlined the history of the tunnel.
Following that, BLM field manager, Dayne Barron, opened the meeting to public comment. “All I can do is provide you with the best understanding of the documentation that we have at hand. But, we’ll try our best to answer questions.”
The issue of spring seepage into the tunnel quickly dominated the discussion. The question at hand was whether or not the water flowing through the pipe in the tunnel’s plug was spring water or Eagle Lake water.
Dr. Owen Bateson came forward with the results of water tests conducted by Lassen College chemist, Dr. Dan Anderson. “It really boils down to one fact,” said Bateson, explaining the generally acknowledged fact that the alkalinity of lake water was significantly higher than spring water.
Using what is called a litmus or pH test, Dr. Bateson indicated that Spring Creek water tested with a pH of 7.2 to 7.3. Eagle Lake water, taken from the inlet bay “just outside” the Bly Tunnel intake, tested at a pH of 8.9. Thus, their differing pH levels readily identify lake water and spring water.
Bateson declared the water exiting the pipe in the tunnel plug tested at a pH of 8.4, confirming “that is not spring water. That water is almost identical to Eagle Lake water,” he said.
“If there was spring water feeding the water coming out of the Bly Tunnel, then that spring water would have a pH somewhere near (that of) the spring water that’s coming out of the headwaters of Willow Creek and the other springs that feed Willow Creek.”
Bateson went on to summarize, “Water coming out of that pipe, gentlemen and ladies, is not from a spring. That is Eagle Lake water.”
Citing a decision made by the State Water Resources in 1962 that “it would best conserve the public interest to reject and deny all of subject applications” to Eagle Lake water, Bateson asked, “How can this water be adjudicated to the Murrer Ranch when it is Eagle Lake water?”
Addressing the board, Bateson said, “You need to do something about it now. We’re losing way too much water.”
Lastly, Bateson said his calculations indicate that over five feet of water depth has been lost from the lake over the years through the Bly Tunnel pipe.
“I would love to have five more feet of water in that lake right now. And, I think everybody else would, too,” he said, drawing applause from the audience.
Rudy Whitmer, a part-time Spalding resident, retired educator and avid fisherman who has made it his personal quest to investigate the Bly Tunnel issue, then came forward, opening his presentation by saying, “Let’s turn off the water valve this week. And then if you want to study it to death, go ahead … Let’s see what happens.”
Once again, the gallery erupted in applause.
“The problem is that this lake is dropping one quarter of an inch per day,” said Whitmer, who also pointed out that the lake level now stands at 5097 feet and added that a California Fish and Game department document indicated at the 5099-foot level, “the fisheries start to suffer tremendously.”
Whitmer said that the State Water Rights Board decision of 1962 indicated “all Eagle Lake water is required to remain in Eagle Lake for recreational, stock watering, and related uses, which beneficial uses are both pursuant to existing right and in the public interest; … and that it would best conserve the public interest to reject and deny all of subject applications.”
Bob Pyle, a Lassen County supervisor, injected a comment. “You’re getting into a lot of legal issues,” he said. “Evidently, they had a good reason to put a pipe in there” suggesting that it was to honor rights to tunnel water.
Bob Whitaker, a resident of Eagle Lake Estates then said, “It seems to me that someone has to volunteer to work out this apparent discrepancy … In any event, these dilemmas need to be solved. Whose responsibility is it to solve them?”
“That’s why we have an Eagle Lake board. A lot of these considerations go beyond the sole consideration of the BLM,” said Barron, in reply. “Before I would make any decision to totally shut down that pipe, I would have to have a solicitor opinion that there are no water rights.
“At the time we did the documentation to close the tunnel, the BLM was under the impression, based on the best knowledge they had at the time, that there was a water right to 10 cfs (cubic feet per second),” Barron said. “That’s why that eight inch pipe was put in, to accommodate that water right.”
Whitmer replied that BLM documents speak of “spring water,” not lake water.
Pyle again asked, “If the water right was only (for) spring water, why would they put the pipe in?”
Speaking to the public’s concerns, Barron said, “I can’t sit here today and tell you that it’s all spring water (or) that it’s all lake water. What I can tell you, what our documents tell us, the environmental analysis that was done at the time says that there is spring water that leaks into that tunnel and there is lake water that seeps through pyroclastic flows and fault lines. There’s a combination of both.”
At that point, a water user in Willow Creek, Daren Hagata, spoke up. “We’ve been the biggest losers,” he said of his fellow ranchers, noting that due to drought conditions, water flows into the Willow Creek Valley have dwindled to seven cfs, when they were originally set at 36 cfs. “Every spring in that valley fluctuates with the level of the lake — the higher the lake is, the more the water flows. … All of that water up there is connected volcanically to that lake.”
Hagata also revealed the tunnel was first plugged with sand “by the ranchers because we didn’t want the alkaline water … Believe me, we don’t want that dirty water on our fields.”
Further, Hagata pointed to the residents around the lake as major contributors to the declining lake level. “I think there’s a tremendous impact on the lake water from all the wells.”
Supervisor Pyle summed up, saying, “This board has no authority to shut that valve off. … And (even) if we did, I wouldn’t do it without a lot more information. You’d have one big legal court battle. This man (Hagata) has established water rights, sounds to me like. We’d have to determine there aren’t real water rights. And that would have to be done in a court of law.”
Barron then acknowledged that BLM has jurisdiction of the tunnel, but he would not act precipitously. “I would need my solicitors to tell me that it was okay to shut that off before I would. The best information that I have available to me is the documentation we did in preparation for closing the tunnel. It says there is a water right that we have to accommodate, and that’s why we put the pipe in it.
“I don’t want to see Eagle Lake water go down any more than anybody does. And I hope that nobody thinks that. But, we’re in a position where I’m not going to touch that valve until I have a solicitor opinion that says that it’s okay.”
Barron then went on to make a commitment. Noting that this issue may not be a high priority when seen in light of the attorneys’ caseload, he said, “Based on the concern that we have locally, I will make a request of our solicitor’s office to give me an opinion. That will be something we can go on.
“I’ll talk to my boss, and we’ll see if we can get some answers, based on the information we have and maybe a few things you can give us. As you know, water law is very complex.”
Lassen County provides vast opportunities for summer recreation
A professional wakeboarder performs a wild stunt on Emerson Lake in Susanville during last year’s Rock the Wake. This year the event will take place Saturday, June 22 and will feature more wakeboarders, more crazy stunts and one of the most impressive wakeboarding boats in existence. Lassen...Read More...
Renegades split with walk off win
Hunter Morris slides into second during the Susanville Renegades’ doubleheader against the Galena Silver Sox Saturday, June 8. The Renegades split with Galena, losing the first game, but winning the second. Photo by Maddie Musante June 17 — The Susanville Renegades baseball...Read More...
Major Division Red Sox win Tournament of Champions
The Major Division Red Sox defeated the Yankees Saturday, June 8 to win the Susanville Little League Tournament of Champions. The tournament is Susanville Little League’s end of the season tournament. The championship team and its coaches pose together with their trophies. The team is...Read More...
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Wilmington, North Carolina
January 22, 2010
Filed under Travel
Wilmington has been tied to the Cape Fear River since birth, which was in 1739, many years before the Revolutionary War. With its protected entry to the Atlantic, Wilmington was once a busy seaport. Ships unloaded niceties from Europe and slaves from Africa, and took on raw materials – especially timber.
The Brits had a special interest in a 10-million-acre forest near here with a 2,000-year-old stand of yellow pine. The wood was perfect for building the ships of the burgeoning British Navy in the mid-1700s.
“We pull timbers out of the river even today, still perfectly good that bear the king’s seal – King George II. The long-leaf pine is iron-hard – none better for building ships of war. All the timbers used to ild the Panama Canal came from here. You don’t hear of them rotting away.” Bob Jenkins was giving the prologue to one of his daily “Adventure Walking Tours” to a group of tourists seated in a kiosk on the riverfront.
Bob has lived and worked in Wilmington most of his 73 years. A retired interior decorator, Bob probably knows more about the homes in the oak-lined streets of Wilmington’s 230-block Historic District than any person alive. Indeed, he probably rearranged the interiors of many of them.
Bob, a bachelor, lived in the second-floor quarters above his shop here in the Historic District. He has studied the riverfront’s history and he has lived it during much of the last century. And he talks of it with passion and a stylish wit.
The Cape Fear is the only river in North Carolina that flows to the ocean. Slaves poled barges on the river loaded with produce, rice and tobacco from upriver plantations to be sold on the riverfront. Those same enslaved boatmen used their relative freedom of movement to smuggle their escaping brethren to ships offshore that would take them to freedom in the North.
Dredging the river, to make the port, changed its ecology. Moving with the tide, shifting sand reconfigures the bottom every six hours. The tide now reaches 35 miles up stream. So when having lunch in one of the many riverside restaurants, the river may be flowing in one direction when you sit down, and be flowing in the other direction when you get up to leave.
Few rivers get their names from where they cease to be; fewer if any, from the peninsulas they create.
Bob explained: “The cape, where the river empties into the ocean, was named centuries ago by fearful sea captains who were expressing their sentiments about the waters around it – sentiments that found their way on to navigational charts.
“The wide river made an inviting harbor, but shoals and sand bars made entering it treacherous. The wrecks of sailing ships – and steam ships too – now crowd the ocean bottom around the cape like beached driftwood.”
During World War II, German submarines would lie in wait off the Cape. They torpedoed several ships that joined their wooden-hulled ancestors on the bottom.
With Bob leading, we left the kiosk and walked to Market Street. Using his walking stick as a pointer, Bob said, “I used to live there. The reason these streets stay so inviting and safe is because the business people live above their shops. It’s a neighborhood with an unknown number of eyes watching what goes on. If someone comes out of a bar and causes a noise ruckus in the night, chances are he’ll be by the next day to apologize. This is the South, you know.”
Welcome to America’s Outback.
Bill’s e-mail address: email@example.com
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is greater than the sum of its parts. Gestalt theory tries to explain human processes with the concept which states, "what we are is more than what we're made of." For example, when we look at something, our eyes sample the light information, modulating neurons in the visual cortex. Some how, something in our cranial goo breaks down this information and makes sense of it. The output is greater (in information) than the input. But WTF does this have to do with exercise?
The people of a gym are the input, and together create a greater output. No matter the quality of the equipment, the size of the training area, the smell, the temperature, noise, fleas or rodents; the athlete can excel. The individuals at the gym are more important than anything one can buy or build. A dumbbell will not push you. A medicine ball will not praise your success or cheer you up on failure. In fact, failure is an option for a chinup bar, but not for the one holding the timer bitching at how slow you are.
I couldn't get to BJJ/wrestling today due to my work schedule so I called up The Dude and it was game on. As part of the plan each week is 2 minutes added to the workout. Whether we workout or not.
Today's workout was a simple fighters workout.
4 exercises x 2 rounds
2 minutes each + 1 minute break = 23 minutes of heart pounding death and destruction.
1. Jump rope fast
2. Box the bag until your knuckles bleed
3. Squat thrust + pushup, jump to a chinup bar and do a chin up
4. Kick/knee the shit out of the bag
No pics today of the devastation. This workout was seriously cardio intense. Muscle fatigue was not even an option, this was purely the cardiac pump controlling the action. The chest burning reminded me of my first no-gi BJJ tournament 4 years ago. After 5 minutes into a stalemate, we had a 3 minute overtime. During the very short 1 minute break, I distinctly remember the thought that the burning in my chest was due to lava pumping through my aorta. I slammed my mouthpiece onto the mat, and bitched at my coach I was gassed. He just glared at me... I picked it back up off the dirty mats, stuffed it into my even dirtier mouth and went back out for more. He won, only because I jumped guard during his takedown attempt and lost two points... It was at that point I knew fitness was just as important as technique and the first concepts of The Bat Dojo were born. I went home and wrote one thing down, "build some sort of workout, which will make my chest burn like it did today." Today's workout was just that.
I have a BPM chart below. One can clearly see the long mountain peaks of heavy heartrate work. Interestingly both of the jumprope segments exhibited a "U" shaped dip. We believe this was actually due to the screaming of The Dude telling me I was a pussy and to hurry the hell up. Amazingly, it worked.
It's also easy to see in the 2nd round of four exercises, the acceleration rate into the activities was much less aggressive than the prior round. Ideally, I want the leading edge to nearly slam straight up, much like the 1st exercise in the 1st round.
Recovery rates in during the breaks were averaging around 25 BPM +- 10 BPM deviation.
And the protein part of today's dinner :)
Dear Mark: Your Primal Cravings Questions Answered
19 hours ago
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CINCINNATI (AP) -- A federal judge has blocked a southwest Ohio university from enforcing restrictions on student political speech on campus, saying the policy violates free speech.
U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Black ruled Tuesday the University of Cincinnati violated the First Amendment by restricting student political speech to a certain area and requiring prior notification and permission. The judge asked the university to rewrite its policy.
The ruling will allow the school chapter of the Young Americans for Liberty to collect signatures on campus for a right-to-work cause. The group filed the lawsuit in February.
The 1851 Center for Constitutional Law helped with the lawsuit. Center executive director Maurice A. Thompson calls the preliminary injunction a victory.
University of Cincinnati spokeswoman M.B. Reilly says the university is reviewing its options.
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Genealogy Session To Offer Research in Regional Records
Those interested in discovering more about French or Native American branches in their family tree will have a chance to do so at a genealogy gathering Saturday, August 7, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the St. Ignace Middle School cafeteria.
Featuring an extensive “walking library” of genealogy records from the Mackinac Straits area, the event will provide an opportunity for people from across the area and the U.P. to exchange information and make new discoveries from the genealogy records that will be shared with the public.
“We have a huge collection of materials, and the chances of you finding something are pretty good,” said event organizer Cindy Leutz of Lansing, who added that an ancestry database on the Internet will also be available for use.
Ms. Leutz, who started the record-sharing gatherings 11 years ago, explained that many of the genealogy records in the region have been kept private by Catholic churches but are now becoming available for public use.
“Most of the time when you're dealing with English settlers, the records are in the courthouses, but that's not the case with the Native Americans or French that settled in Michigan. They're all in the churches, and it's imperative to get them,” she said.
Another reason that hunting down genealogy records in the Straits area is challenging, she said, is that after the War of 1812, the majority of Native Americans and French fled the region, scattering throughout Michigan and elsewhere in the Midwest.
“Anywhere there was a river, that's where they went,” she said. “It's been our goal to gather as many of these records as we can that pertain to where the Indians came and bring them all into one place so that people can research their own families.”
Theresa Weller of Lansing has been conducting research for a book on the Agatha Biddle band of Ojibwa Indians from Mackinac Island for the past three years, and she's hoping to interview some of the band's descendants at the gathering. Interestingly, the 67-member band, which has its roots in the 1800s, was almost all comprised of women, she said, which is what originally sparked her interest in the project.
“What we found is that there were only four men in this band, and that's very unusual for Ojibwa culture,” she said, adding that most of the women married French fur traders.
Ms. Leutz has discovered genealogies for all of the band members except two and said that, surprisingly enough, many of the women are descended from chiefs. She hopes to have the book completed next year.
Regardless of their ancestry, local families from northern Michigan will have a strong likelihood of making discoveries, Ms. Leutz said.
“We're familiar with most of the families from the area, and all of these people are related to each other in some way or another for the most part. There are a lot of people that come year after year [to the genealogy gathering] that are knowledgeable about local families, too,” she said.
Everyone is welcome to attend the session at the middle school. Admission is free.
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Did a bit of work on the page for four letter words.
Posted one year ago
Other notes for this Goal:
Pages To Do (11):
-Compost this page. Watch it deteriorate.
-Do a really ugly drawing (use a really ugly subject matter
-Make prints using an ink pad and cut vegetables.
-Sample various substances found in your home. Document what they are. Create color themes.
-Document a boring event in detail.
-Glue in a photo of yourself you dislike. Deface.
-Draw lines using abnormal writing utensils dipped in ink or paint. (sticks, spoon, twist ties, comb, etc.)
-Fill in this page when you are really angry.
-This page is a sign. What do you want it to say?
-Give away your favorite page.
-Doodle over the top of this page, and in the margins.
Pages In Progress (need more work before I'd call them "done") (9):
-Use this as a test page (for pens, paints, markers or art supplies)
-Place for your grocery lists (I like what someone else did for this one, saving receipts instead of making lists)
-Collect stamps off all your mail (Maybe do a bunch of postcrossing and save those stamps? I want this page to be stampier)
-Scribble wildly using borrowed pens (I could stand to borrow more pens)
-Glue random items here (again, I'd like to cover the page if possible)
-Draw lines with your pen or pencil. Lick your finger and smear the lines.
-Cover this page with white things
-Page for four-letter words.
I've created a non-stop line, and added some stains to the stain log.
I feel like I should mention that when I started working on this again, I had 20 pages to do and 6 in progress (I want to add more to them). I've now got 14 pages to do and 7 in progress (one of them moved), so that's where I am today. :)
I cleaned up the mess from Green making smoothies on the "Make a mess, clean it up" page. I don't know if that counts but it's now got avocado and peanut butter on it, so I'm calling it a win.
I glued dryer lint to the "collect your pocket lint" page.
I hid a secret message somewhere in the book and I REALLY WANT TO SAY WHERE because it's not that terribly exciting a message, but that would defeat the purpose of HIDING it, wouldn't it?
Finished the Throw Something page (threw hot wax at it, at Green's suggestion), Picked up the journal without using my hands (used feet and teeth), and added a whole bunch to the Cover with White Things page, including a little knitted pocket to stick things in. :)
On My List
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NCDC Marine Data Stars in Titanic Documentary
When researchers and filmmakers Scott Woodruff and Tim Maltin needed data for their documentary Titanic: Case Closed, they turned to NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) archive, which contains hundreds of millions of records stretching back as far as the mid-1700s. In particular, they sought out NCDC archivist, Eric Freeman, a Marine Operations Coordinator, whom they had collaborated with on a past project.
Freeman provided the researchers with 75 Greenwich Mean Noon (GMN) ship observation forms from April 1912 containing air and sea surface temperatures in the vicinity of the Titanic wreck site. This was the most significant source of data in the world that Maltin and his team could find in their quest to prove what really happened that tragic night in April 1912. In addition to the data, these documents also contained observer comments and sketches of sea ice that proved to be just as valuable. Some of these comments included ominous phrases such as “much refraction on the horizon.”
These comments and data established the framework for Matlin’s new theory that a mirage actually played a major role in the sinking of the Titanic. Observations recorded in the logbooks provided evidence of a strong thermal inversion in the area, which causes light to bend. This refraction would have made the horizon appear higher than normal, camouflaging the iceberg from view until it was too late. The temperature inversion would also have scrambled the Titanic’s Morse code signal and caused their distress rockets to appear lower in the sky to nearby ships, making the rescue effort exceedingly difficult.
Titanic: Case Closed brings to life the meteorological conditions of the night and explains Matlin’s theory in detail with vivid effects and dramatic first-hand accounts. The documentary features NCDC’s data while highlighting the center’s preservation efforts. Eric Freeman was personally interviewed for the documentary, and the crew even spent time filming in the NCDC archive. The 96-minute documentary aired on the National Geographic Channel and the Smithsonian Channel in April 2012, in line with the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic.
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Some basic details about Fatty liver pain
Fatty liver pain is a condition suffered as a result of Fatty Liver Illness (FLD). This condition is triggered by the build up of fat in the liver cells, which cause the liver to swell. Continue reading to dig deeper into the reasons, symptoms, medical diagnosis and therapy of this condition.
Fatty Liver Disease, additionally understood as FLD, is a medical condition of the liver in which huge triglyceride fat vacuoles accumulate in liver cells by means of steatosis, which describes irregular retention of lipids inside a cell. Nevertheless, a fascinating catch to pain happening due to fatty liver is that the liver, per se, can not trigger pain as there are no nerve endings in it !! Just what then causes the “pain” discussed in caption of this write-up? Let’s get to the roots of this mystery.
As far as medical diagnosis is concerned, this condition can easily be located only through a blood examination as the liver itself does not trigger any pain. Hence, it would certainly be wrong to state that your liver is paining. Nonetheless, the area surrounding the liver could feel pain if the liver swells up and rubs against the organs around it. Pain may additionally be felt if the liver ruptures and bleeds.
Stomach pain can easily vary from different undamaging conditions to extremely extreme life-threatening problems. If it is looked that there is an unexpected and incredibly serious abdominal pain it must be handled as a medical unexpected emergency. There ought to be little or no fat in a typical liver. For lots of individuals, carrying a little quantity fat in the liver results no problems. liver fat is the name supplied to a scenario in which you have a ton of fat in your liver. This fatty liver pain caused by the build-up of fats known as triglycerides.
Treatment of Fatty Liver Pain Disease
There is no particular treatment at this time for fatty liver illness. However, getting therapy for any type of underlying disease, such as diabetic issues, is crucial. And you can easily take other steps to improve your condition.
If you have alcoholic liver condition and you are a heavy drinker, giving up drinking is the most crucial thing you can do. Discover the support you have to be effective. With ALD, continued usage of liquor can easily cause enhanced condition, consisting of alcoholic hepatitis or cirrhosis. Even for those with NAFLD, nevertheless, preventing liquor may assist.
An exclusive Fatty Liver Pain Diet
That de-activates the ROOT source of fatty liver illness, permitting recognizable improvement, digestion health and easy weight loss. Featuring helpful weight reduction suggestions and great tasting ready-to-eat recipes.
Exact listing of natural herbs and nutrients you should take to dissolve away the fat and restore your liver to best health. You can easily find them at your closest health meals shop, or order them from one of the on-line companies detailed in the “Resources” section. Furthermore, just how to get them naturally in the meals you eat and you will get rid of fatty liver pain.
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More people have now signed up for suborbital flights aboard Richard Branson’s SpaceShipTwo than have ever been in space.
To date, 528 people have travelled in space. But over 529 soon to be astronauts have put down deposits to travel 68 miles above the Earth’s surface. There are reports that celebrities such as Ashton Kutcher, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Tom Hanks and Katy Perry have signed up.
Branson’s tickets to space cost $200K, but he is by no means the only player. Excalibur Almaz plans to take people on six month long journeys around the moon for the price of $155 million. In March, the FAA predicted that private space travel will become a billon-dollar industry within the next decade.
Will space become the new pit stop for the jet set?
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Dominique de Font Réaulx, the curator of a new exhibit at the Musée d'Orsay called Figures de l'intime (or for an English translation, Figures of Intimacy, through February 15), has been interviewed by Frédérique Fanchette (Bijoux de Famille, December 23) in Libération:
How did family photos come to be shown on the walls of a museum?The exhibit features about a hundred family photos from the 19th and early 20th centuries, some of famous people and others of total unknowns. (See my post on November 25, Nicéphore Niépce, for information about a similar exhibit now at the Bibliothèque nationale de France called Portraits/Visages.) Eleven photographs can be viewed on the museum's Web site, by Pierre Bonnard, Gabriel Loppé, Skomoroscky, Lewis Carroll, Achille Bonnuit, Émile Zola, and Charles Hugo.
The Musée d'Orsay's photographic collection, which we are trying to display bit by bit, contains some 50,000 prints. Among these images, we have a rather large group of family photos, gained through donations (often by heirs) or purchase. It's a somewhat skewed group, since most are photos of artists' families, but which covers a broad scope of 19th-century society, from the aristocracy down to the middle classes. With this exhibit, we intended to show the birth of the very narrow genre of the family photo. Its purpose is to validate the family model, but it does not reveal its true intimicacy, since death and sexuality are both blurred. Of course, they took photos of loved ones on their death beds, but they kept those images hidden. They did not show them in albums.
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About 1 out of 3 people with
lupus produce an
antibody that attacks certain blood-clotting factors,
which can cause the blood to clot easily.1 A person who has this antibody and has had blood clots is said to have antiphospholipid antibody syndrome. This
can lead to mild or severe blood-clotting complications, including:
A blood test can detect antiphospholipid antibodies. When diagnosed, the condition is usually treated with
anticoagulants. Pregnant women with antiphospholipid
antibody syndrome need to be closely monitored.
Crow MK (2012). Systemic lupus erythematosus. In L Goldman, A Schafer, eds., Goldman's Cecil Medicine, 24th ed., pp. 1697–1705. Philadelphia: Saunders.
How this information was developed to help you make better health decisions.
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"What do we want?"
"When do we want it?"
That was the chant that rang out this morning as the Eighth Annual Martin Luther King Jr. March for Peace and Celebration made its way through the streets of Lafayette, and all around Boulder County similar calls for peace and equality were echoed as residents celebrated Martin Luther King Day.
Planned by the Lafayette Youth Advisory Committee, hundreds gathered to march down South Public Road before gathering at Escuela Bilingue Pioneer.
"I think something like this spreads a sense of community," said Faun Gulland, a student at Boulder High and a member of the Lafayette Youth Advisory Committee. "Martin Luther King was obviously a very important person, and we want to spread word of his message even if he is no longer here."
While King may no longer be around, there was plenty of evidence at the march today that his call for peace is as relevant as ever. Among the sings depicting King and his famous "I Have a Dream" speech, there were also signs expressing views on current issues like gun control, one of the reasons Gulland said she felt the event was important.
"We want people to know if they have issues, they can come forward with them," Gulland said. "You have a voice."
Phillip Nordeck, a recent University of Colorado graduate, was also marching as part of his volunteer work with the I Have a Dream Foundation, which provides after-school activities for underprivileged children.
"Whenever I have time I think it's good to volunteer and help build strong community relations," Nordeck said.
A large number of those marching and leading the chants were younger students and children, something State Sen. Matt Jones said was one of the reasons this particular event was so important.
"This is all youth power," he said. "We're passing on the values of Martin Luther King to the next generation. Opportunity, dignity, peace."
Nii Armah Sowah, an adjunct professor of African dance and music at CU as well as the founder of the 1000 Voices Project, led the entire room in song as he talked about the importance of uniting their voices.
"If our voices are all in harmony, change is gonna happen," he said. "It isn't one person's journey, it is a relay. Every generation has the responsibility to carry the torch forward. The world will change because we all participate."
At Silver Creek High School in Longmont, invocations, exhortations, spirituals and challenges filled the afternoon, from the first step of the "Marade" at 1 p.m. to the last notes of "Lift Ev'ry Voice," sometimes referred to as the "black national anthem," two hours later. The event was sponsored by the Dr. King Committee and Longmont's Multicultural Action Committee.
Michele Snyder, who attended with her daughter and grandchildren, said she realized she was dating herself when she started to remember some of the television news clips from when she grew up in Michigan.
"I remember his speeches and what he stood for, and the day he was shot," she said, as she joined the march around the high school's parking lot. "The commitment. Everyone stood for something. They may have been afraid to voice it or show it, but they did it anyway. For a lot of people, that still holds true today."
Reporter Scott Rochat with the Longmont Times-Call contributed to this report.
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“Safer Barebacking” is in the grassroots, take-charge-of-your-own-life tradition pioneered by Michael Callen.
When Michael Callen, Richard Berkowitz and Dr. Joe Sonnabend wrote How to Have Sex in an Epidemic in 1983, they were viciously attacked. Critics charged that their information—and their invention of safer sex—encouraged gay male promiscuity and exposed an unattractive side of gay male culture. Today, few would argue that the booklet’s risk-reduction message saved many thousands of lives.
It’s instructive to remember this history when reading the highly controversial “Safer Barebacking Considerations” published in this issue of POZ. Written by 28-year-old prevention activist Michael Scarce, “Safer Barebacking” is as clear about risk as “How to Have Sex…” ever was: You can dramatically reduce your likelihood of infection with HIV and other STDs by using condoms, it says, but if you don’t use condoms, this list of measures can possibly help you reduce danger. Circulated at the National Lesbian and Gay Health Association and posted on the www.cruisingforsex.com website, “Safer Barebacking” comes out of a grassroots, Our Bodies, Ourselves tradition of taking charge of one’s own health—the very model pioneered by Callen. Both activists, lacking scientific proof and not willing to wait for unlikely studies, used common sense, personal experience and street wisdom as guides.
No one is suggesting there is anything “safe” about barebacking, especially for people with HIV. Above all, it poses enormous risks of acquiring a whole host of STDs and even reinfection with HIV. Yet when our editorial staff discussed with prevention experts our decision to publish “Safer Barebacking” we found enormous resistance. Don’t talk about “safer barebacking” because there’s no hard data that it works, they told us. Don’t talk about it because that will encourage people to bareback or because barebackers are beyond help. Sound familiar? These objections are similar to those made by critics of condom distribution in schools or needle exchange on the street.
As new as the barebacking buzzword, websites and parties may be, unprotected anal sex between gay men has been with us since the beginning of the epidemic, and so have shame, lies and silence about it. Most heterosexuals I know do not use condoms. Many same-serostatus gay male couples I know don’t, either. And just about everyone I know evaluates the risks with as much information as they can get their hands on before deciding what they will or won’t do, with or without a condom, with a potential partner. “Use a condom every time,” the mantra of traditional prevention, has never been a reality for many people.
My generation of gay men was defined by AIDS. We learned about condom use between visits to the hospital and the crematorium. We were immersed—for five, 10, 15 years—in the immediacy and urgency of the epidemic; safer sex became a holy grail.
This is not so for younger generations. Twentysomething gay prevention activists report that the last thing many of their peers want to hear about is HIV. They’re AIDS’d out. Many do not live by the condom code and—short of enduring the mass deaths my generation endured—they never will. To reach these men, activists in cities nationwide have worked to develop a new model—nonabsolutist, nonpanicked, nonjudgmental prevention that focuses on community building, sexual empowerment and harm reduction. Negotiated safety—such as “bareback” sex between two same-serostatus partners—is an essential aspect. A just-released Australian study shows that this strategy is far from 100 percent successful, but still an improvement on a one-size-fits-all, “just say no” approach.
The tragedy is that my generation of AIDS opinion leaders denies what these younger men say they need while holding tight to prevention dollars. For the most part—GMHC’s harm-reduction program is a rare exception—we’ve persisted in throwing money at increasingly ineffective campaigns designed for a different era. And we’ve forgotten that disapproval of barebackers’ behavior has no more relevance to how those funds should be spent than does the disapproval of homosexuality, teen sex or IV drug use.
It was easier to be honest—and effective—in prevention strategies 15 years ago because they were developed solely by the community most profoundly impacted. There were no AIDS bureaucrats or politicians, no government grants with “content restriction” strings attached. But grass-roots prevention is alive and kicking—if badly underfunded—and “Safer Barebacking Considerations” is one small part of it. “The next time you’re in a sex club and see unsafe sex, tap the top on the shoulder and hand him a condom,” Michael Callen once wrote. Michael Scarce would update that with: “And if he refuses the condom, hand him this harm-reduction list.” That’s the spirit in which POZ presents “The Boys Who Bareback.”
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WASHINGTON — Angry farmers, warning that the farm-debt crisis is bringing the rural economy to its knees, are calling up the memory of Thomas Jefferson in urging President Reagan to sign an emergency debt-relief bill.
Members of the American Agriculture Movement today tell stories of rural despair at a House Agriculture Committee hearing -- a contrast to the confrontations and snarled traffic of their tractor-cade six years ago.
As Agriculture Secretary John Block appeared before a Senate Appropriations panel, the farmers planned to gather in the cavernous lobby of the Hart Senate Office Building before streaming to senators` offices to lobby for debt relief and higher price supports.
The AAM kicked off a week of lobbying and protests with prayers and the singing of God Bless America at the Jefferson Memorial.
``We`re in the middle of a farm collapse,`` said Corky Jones of Brownville, Neb., AAM president. ``We`re seeing family farmers, Main Street businesses, agriculture banks and the entire rural economic system fall to its knees. And we`re simply not going to stay home and farm ourselves out of business.``
The farmers followed the footsteps of Midwest governors and state lawmakers who lobbied last week for farm-debt relief passed by the House and the Senate.
Monday`s highlight was a stem-winder by Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, who charged that Reagan`s ``Second American Revolution`` is a ``repeal of all that Thomas Jefferson fought for in the real American Revolution.``
Farmers stood on the steps of the Jefferson Memorial, holding state and American flags, crosses and signs that had such messages as: ``Why Chrysler and Not the Farmer?`` and ``We Cannot Continue to Substitute Debt for Fair Farm Prices.``
The House was expected to cast the final vote on the farm-debt-relief measure later today and send it to Reagan, who has threatened a veto.
One key provision would provide partial advance payment of price supports to give farmers quick cash for spring planting.
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The following HTML text is provided to enhance online
readability. Many aspects of typography translate only awkwardly to HTML.
Please use the page image
as the authoritative form to ensure accuracy.
The Future of Drug Safety: Promoting and Protecting the Health of the Public
part of FDA’s statutory purview. (Chapter 4 addresses this topic in greater detail.) Thus, premarket studies typically do not answer questions of great concern to health care providers, patients, and payers: Which drug in a class works work best for most patients? Which is the best first line of treatment? Which is most cost-effective?
By definition, premarket trials do not address the implications of expansive off-label use, that is, use for conditions in which the given compound was not studied (or not approved) in tests submitted to FDA (Beck and Azari, 1998). A recent study found that 21 percent of the 725 million prescriptions written in 2001 were for off-label uses (Boodman, 2006).
Pre-New Drug Application Submission Meeting
As trials are completed and analyzed, the sponsor meets with the review team to go over the impending NDA submission; it is in the sponsor’s and FDA’s interest to anticipate issues so that the NDA is complete when submitted. For example, a 2006 report indicated that when sponsors met with CDER staff before submitting an NDA, there was a greater likelihood that the drug was approved on the first cycle (FDA News, 2006b).
According to FDA documents, the discussions include development of strategies to manage known risks (CDER, 2005b). ODS/OSE staff sometimes participate in the meetings; it may be the first time that ODS/OSE staff become involved in the IND. (When OND is reviewing a supplemental NDA for new labeling or manufacturing, ODS/OSE may be active in reviewing available postmarket data on the approved indication.)
NEW DRUG APPLICATION
In the last couple of years, FDA has received 110–120 NDAs per year (FDA and CDER, 2005). The average size is 235 MB with 250 files, the equivalent of almost 400 volumes of 500 pages each, or about 200,000 pages (Henderson, 2006). Often, an NDA does not arrive all at once—FDA allows gradual submission for fast track5 studies (rolling review). Sponsors are also required to provide additional data that become available during the review process.
Data management is a critical task with a project of this size. Scientific reviewers need sophisticated knowledge of and access to programs for managing and analyzing the data. In addition, because sponsors have some
“Fast track is a process designed to facilitate the development, and expedite the review of drugs to treat serious diseases and fill an unmet medical need. The purpose is to get important new drugs to the patient earlier. Fast Track addresses a broad range of serious diseases” (FDA, 2006c).
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You could play hockey with a chop stick too. Maybe you'd do so to handicap a much less capable opponent? But it's a false analogy to the pneumatic - electric - (hydraulic) debate.
In applications with high cycle rates and high masses, pneumatic servos can be 25% the cost of a linear motor solution, and 30-50% of the cost of an electromechanical solution - while requiring less space.
For many applications that require a combination of controlled, rapid translation (12" in 100ms) coupled with a high force joining operation (think resistance welding, hot melt, etc.), servo pneumatics again has a similar big cost advantage.
Generally speaking, if you look into many of the positioning, general automation applications in packaging and similar industries, you can replace a linear electric axis with servo pneumatics with the benefit of 50% less installation cost, and a 50% increase in cycle rates.
I would compare moving a load with air to using a rubber bat to play baseball, or a rubber stick to play hockey. You could do it, but why would you? ("Because I can" is not a good reason.)
What are the selling points for such a system?
If the system is not exponentially less expensive to purchase and operate, I don't see the advantage. I doubt if the systems are much less expensive to purchase than a comparable electric solution, and I seriously doubt whether the operation cost is lower, when the cost of clean compressed air is factored in. Then have one incident where the dryer floods the air line with contamination and see what the cost of repair is.
For explosive environments I can concede that air is compelling. Otherwise, I don't get it, and I wouldn't design it in over an electric servo system.
For grippers, clamping cylinders, and a host of other short stroke, bang-bang actuators, I'm all for pneunatics. It is also great for certain counterbalancing systems. I just don't see it for positioning systems.
I/we mostly deal with hydraulics. Pneumatic servo control is a very small part of our business because there are usually better solution. However, we use pneumatics as a means of testing hydraulic algorithms. If one can control pneumatics the hydraulics and servo motors are even easier.
Here is an example of what can be done.
You may need to download the mp4 file before viewing depenind on your browser.
We have controlled pneumatics in some low pressure testing applicaitons.
Besides the energy lost in compressing and decompressing air the second problem is that feedback devices are still needed and the controller can't be a simple cheap PID controller. It takes some complicated math to do the control shown and this isn't cheap. For small jobs little linear motors are tough to beat.
It sounds as if you've had a frustrating experience with a poorly designed pneumatic servo system.
Modern, well designed systems are able to rapidly position heavy vertical loads without overshoot, without high levels of valve control activity, and to high levels of repeatability. The 0.005" accuracy you mentioned is readily achievable in many systems.
The last pneumatic positioner I worked on was in a vertical orientation, which created additional challenges for the actuator. The systems I have worked on used "magnetostrictive" position feedback ("Temposonics" would be one trade name). This feedback system is based upon timing pulses transmitted down a rod that get reflected back by a magnetic ring, or something like that. The time is converted to an analog output of some resolution. The resolution doesn't change as the length of the transducer gets longer, so the system resolution is typically affected by the transducer length.
The controls on this system were essentially analog in nature, comparing setpoints to the transducer position, and throttling air valves to try to keep the actuator in the correct position, and move it to new positions, etc.
The end result was less than what I would have desired (Fortunately I didn't pick the equipment, I was just called on to get it to work.). There was a tendency to overshoot significantly (large fractions of inches at least), especially when moving down. I don't know what the final position tolerance was, but it was not comparable to an electric servo actuator. It is also relatively noisy, due to the air valves constantly fighting with each other to try to position the load. I couldn't help but think that there would soon be a mechanical failure in the valves because of the frequency of the switching, etc.
Having worked with literally hundreds of servo systems of many different flavors, and a small number of pneumatic positioners (less than 10 probably), I would favor an electric solution unless there is some overwhelming reason to not use electric (explosive environment?).
Under ideal circumstances pneumatic positioners talk about 0.005" positioning resolution. That might be achievable under some circumstances, but if I were designing the system, I would be thinking a quarter of an inch and designing in energy absorbers and positive stops at the desired stopping points.
As a general substitution for this type of actuator, I would favor the belt drive style slides offered by a number of vendors. They offer high speed capability in a similar form factor, and the precision of a completely digitally controlled electric servo system.
Pneumatics is becoming an important component in the field of Mechatronics for efficiency and motion control precision. Festo is a leader in pneumatic based robotics with their gripper and arm products. I remember taking a Pneumatics class at community college back in the early 80s. I didn't see the importance of this class because of my fascination with electronics. I which more emphasis on system integration was discussed in class as it relates to Mechatronics, maybe I would have considered working for engineering companies like Festo who makes great and cool pneumatics based robots instead of just electronic/semiconductor jobs.
Chuck, Forgot the second part of your question. I don't think pneumatics is too costly. The precision limits are a reflection of the underlying technology, especially when compared to electromechanical solutions which can achieve very high precision, resolution and repeatable accuracy.
New versions of BASF's Ecovio line are both compostable and designed for either injection molding or thermoforming. These combinations are becoming more common for the single-use bioplastics used in food service and food packaging applications, but are still not widely available.
For industrial control applications, or even a simple assembly line, that machine can go almost 24/7 without a break. But what happens when the task is a little more complex? That’s where the “smart” machine would come in. The smart machine is one that has some simple (or complex in some cases) processing capability to be able to adapt to changing conditions. Such machines are suited for a host of applications, including automotive, aerospace, defense, medical, computers and electronics, telecommunications, consumer goods, and so on. This radio show will show what’s possible with smart machines, and what tradeoffs need to be made to implement such a solution.
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The long-awaited replacement for the second-generation Prius has finally been presented today in Detroit. Totally redesigned, the new model is 22% more powerful while consuming 7% less fuel.
With a combined fuel economy average of just 3.8 L/100 km, the 2010 Prius is said to have received improvements in order to boost winter performance, an important aspect for Canadian customers.
Under the hood, a 1.8-litre Atkinson-cycle engine works hand in hand with the electric motor to produce a combined 134 horsepower. The increase in displacement actually improves fuel economy on the highway, thanks to the greater low-rpm torque. The car rides on 15-inch wheels, although 17-inchers are optional.
A longer list of equipment is found in the new Prius, including eight airbags, traction and stability-control systems, a moonroof with solar panels that are used by the climate control system and park assist. Four driving modes are available, including an EV-Drive mode that allows driving on battery power alone for a kilometer and a half, and a Power mode for a sportier driving feel.
The sleek new Prius features a coefficient of drag of only 0.25, which also helps achieve the low fuel consumption figures. The car's body style remains a practical 5-door hatchback.
Pricing for the 2010 Prius will be available before its spring launch.
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Broadsides are fine art. Poets have been engaging fine artists’ print shops to make special editions of their work for centuries. It has almost been a secret thing. Underground. Off the record. I once saw a broadside, “Crucifix in a Death’s Hand” a magnificent poem about Los Angeles as seen from an airplane approaching the city surrounded by mountains, a work of great beauty by, of all people, Charles Bukowski….who always gave the impression to the public that he was a lower-class drunk, when all the time he aspired to a Shakespearean reputation among the elite. Oh, perhaps I am being unfair. Jealous? The person who owned that Bukowski printed poem most likely has realized great monetary rewards from his prescient purchase when the poet was just beginning to carouse about in a more public manner. I am selling some broadsides I have collected through the years from my contemporaries and now you can own one or more. Because the technology herein does not allow you to read the script, I have printed the poems for you. Enjoy. For fun, here is a license to publish a broadside with an illustration from the wonderful site, English Broadside Ballad Archive, published online by the University of California, Santa Barbara. Check it out.
John Hunter (In his own words: an excerpt from a column from Visual Dialog: the Quarterly Magazine of the Visual Arts. Copyright by Roberta Loach /All Rights Reserved 1977-78.)
“I shuffle from foot to foot and resolve that my lithos are going to be masterworks – right from the start! I’m going to ‘cram all of my life, and all of L.A. ‘ onto this cold, neutral stone….I make a tentative mark with a crayon. Is this really how Daumier did it? Is this how he started, eventually producing something like four thousand lithos, his daily lithograph for Le Charivari?
First Impressions. Tamarind does it right. Professionalism is written all over the place. Lozingot has earned the designation, “Master Lithographer.” He underwent an awesome training in Europe. His apprenticeship began at the age of thirteen. Today he’s part of a tiny international community of quintessential pros. He’d been printing for Chagall and Miro and Dubuffet before Tamarind hired him away.
The printer fellows and he are able to maintain a waste factor which is unbelievable. Quality control is so tight that when they pull twenty impressions from a stone or a zinc plate nearly all the images are identical and thus they constitute an edition. Based on its researches into paper, ink and technology, Tamarind could write the book on lithography as eventually it does.
A Master Lithographer is an ultimate artisan expert, as is a Tamarind Master printer (a graduate of the center’s apprenticeship program.) One of them, Jean Milant, who later is to found Cirrus Editions, arrives from the bakery with croissants,
Graphics began as inexpensive, portable imagery and a way for artists to circulate their ideas. The finest prints, I’m convinced, proceed from any periods brightest artists —whether or not they’re primarily printmakers. As an artist I dig lithography because it’s a painterly medium. As a collector I dig graphics, or multiple originals, because they’re so very democratic. Who among us can afford a Rembrandt or Picasso oil painting? Yet even I can afford graphic works by these artists.”
ROBERT DAVEY, Artist.
Born in San Francisco, Davy studied at the California School of Fine Arts and The Academy of Advertising Art . He was a member of a small class conducted by the world-famous watercolorist Dong Kingman. He also studied serigraph and oil technique with several other artists. He began to exhibit in 1945 and won many awards. His work has been in the San Francisco Museum of Art, The Society of Western Artists and the Monterey Peninsula Museum of Art. His work is in permanent collections at these and several other museums, and private collections. He had a special fondness for birds and animals which he endowed with human qualities in a whimsical, humorous fashion. He lived with wife, Shirley and his three children in Carmel from 1958 until his death. He was a president of the Carmel Art Association. His work is now in collections throughout the world.
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Thursday, October 7, 2010
By MEGAN ROZSA
Local school officials knew they had to make the money last when Lorain County Community College and the Lorain and Elyria school districts received federal stimulus funding through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
The school districts went to work figuring out ways to get the best bang for their buck.
All agree that the money did its job.
At LCCC, the funds have been used for three specific reasons: to help retrain displaced or laid off workers, to keep tuition the third lowest in the state and to provide financial aid to students who work part-time campus jobs.
The Worker Retraining Program was allocated $263,925 to continue providing training and education for eligible participants who were enrolled in short-term training classes.
“We were able to provide immediate training so people could quickly find meaningful employment again,” said Marcia Ballinger, an LCCC vice president. “These people don’t have two years to spend in school. They’ve got families to raise and so forth.”
To date, more than 600 students found jobs through a program called Make Your Layoff Payoff.
LCCC also received $4.5 million to keep student tuition low and to maintain other programs and services. These federal funds were used to replace money LCCC previously received from the state, so in effect, they were not additional new funds.
“This enabled us to keep tuition very affordable,” Ballinger said. “This year we had a 3 percent raise in tuition and we’re still the third lowest (community college tuition) in the state.”
Lastly, the college received $39,526 to enhance student financial aid which provides money for the Federal Work Study program. It provides part-time, on-campus employment to eligible students to help them meet their educational expenses.
Lorain City Schools had four pots of money to work with: Title 1, Early Childhood Special Education, Special Education and State Fiscal Stabilization Funds (SFSF). Each pot came with spending guidelines and the majority is used for staff.
“A lot of what we spend is on salaries,” Superintendent Cheryl Atkinson said. “This is a human resources business and it takes people to run it.”
The district received $3.2 million in Title 1 funds. Most pays salaries, but some has been used for supplies and other purchases. The goal of the money is to keep class sizes as close as possible to a ratio of one teacher per 25 students. These funds cannot be used at the high school level, Atkinson said.
Over two years, the district has used more than $4 million to keep kindergarten teachers, safety officers and media clerks/librarians with SFSF money. It comes to the district on an annual basis and Atkinson said there’s no way of knowing how much the district will get until it arrives.
Combined, the district received $2.39 million for school-age and preschool special education children. It pays for teacher salaries and benefits, professional teacher conferences, substitute teachers, contracts with Murray Ridge and supplies.
None of the district’s stimulus money could be used toward any type of construction or renovation.
Elyria’s school district has used $1.5 million to focus on raising the achievement scores of elementary students and to maintain as many elementary teachers as possible through Title 1 funding.
“We also implemented Progress Book, which is an online report card that parents can check daily,” said Ann Schloss, director of teaching and learning. “That’s huge for parent involvement and communication between teachers and parents and parents and students.”
The district got more than $2 million to help students with disabilities. Of that, 44 percent was spent to maintain and hire teachers, intervention specialists and related services staff for students who qualify for an extended school year, according to Dawn McCready, director of special education.
Another 42 percent went to a bullying prevention program in two targeted buildings, to training for teachers and paraprofessionals who work with students with autism, to sign language interpreters and personal nurses, McCready said. A small portion was used for transportation for field trips and teacher travel to educational conferences.
The Elyria district got $1.8 million for general fund operating expenses, said Treasurer Fred Stephens. “The money did what it was supposed to do,” Stephens said. “It had a good effect with us. Those folks (maintained teachers) would have been out on the streets without it. They’re the youngest, brightest ones we recruited. They’re our future.”
“We put a lot of time and effort into training them,” she said. “To lose them would have been a bad thing.”
Lorain, Elyria and LCCC school officials all agreed that the money was beneficial. They also understood that the money would only last for two years, so they all planned ahead and rationed the money.
In Lorain, Atkinson said, “We have to report the number of jobs we saved quarterly. So yes, I think it did what it was supposed to. It also allowed us to keep programming because we had people and the graduation rate to go up because we were able to provide extra support via staff.”
Elyria’s Stephens said, “We spent according to the guidelines with the knowledge that the money would be gone in two years. We’ve shaved over 200 staff in the last five years. We tried to help the general fund wherever possible.”
Schloss added, “Because we’ve been so fiscally responsible, it was easy to see how we should spend it.”
LCCC’s Ballinger said if not for the stimulus money, tuition could have skyrocketed.
“We were able to keep tuition affordable,” she said. “Without it, the state would have allowed a higher increase. This way, we were able to benefit 16,000 students.”
Ohio sixth in education stimulus funds received
Some schools on 'funding cliff' when stimulus ends
Stimulus dollar go to local Army Corps of Engineers projects
NEXT IN STIMULUS TRACKER SERIES:
Friday — Housing, especially programs that helped those in need of shelter.
Saturday — Energy programs, focusing on “green” projects.
Sunday — We’ll report back what you told us about the stimulus program and our coverage of it.
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The Last of the Bird People
This short but intriguing novel, written by a cultural historian, blurs the lines of genre to create a thought-provoking speculative tale. It is presented as archival evidence relating to the 1928 disappearance of an anthropologist, in the form of a deposition given by an eccentric old man. Jon Barking Fox claims to be the last of the Bird People, a mixed-race tribe who had lived in seclusion in the Swift River Valley of Massachusetts, isolated from modern civilization, until a public works project exposed them to outside threats. The missing anthropologist, known to the Bird People as Tracker, had offered to lead them to an equally secluded place (the Florida Everglades) where they could live unmolested and preserve their way of life. But despite Tracker’s attempts to bridge the gap between cultures, the modern world interfered with tragic results.
The Last of the Bird People is an unusual story that gives the reader a look at our world through the eyes of the past. Since it is written in the voice of Jon Barking Fox, you may need some time to engage with the writing style, but after that the pace keeps the pages turning. If you’re looking for something a little different, The Last of the Bird People may be an interesting choice.
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With her grandmother Anke Bialas explored the fields and forests of Germany and climbed the foothills of the Austrian Alps where women hand down from mother to daughter the secrets of herb lore.
Now a mum of 3 boys, she continues the family tradition of educating others on the health giving benefits of herbs. Anke lives in Brisbane, Australia from where she runs her Herbology website.
“Herbal medicine has been around almost as long as people have. It was a knowledge that was passed through the family, at times it was taught as was the case with priests but it was certainly always the first port of call for people who needed to treat their everyday ills. This knowledge has slowly been lost over the years. Be it that modern medicine persuaded us that there was another, better way or just that modern life and with it the separation of the generations was just not conducive to passing family secrets on to the kids.
I was very lucky. My paternal grandmother was familiar with the old ways. When I was a young girl she would take me with her to pick wild herbs, berries and fungi on the foothills of the Alps. She would always treat us with herbal teas when we stayed with her, and my father learned from her. He was interested in the old ways too and like her had the greenest thumbs. Unfortunately my mother wasn’t so much interested but even she had learned some very basic remedies from her own family. Everyone knows you can calm the nerves and the digestive system with a cup of Chamomile tea, right? Unlike my father and his mother, I did not inherit their green thumb. Actually I think I have the blackest thumbs in the world. I dream of the perfect herbal garden, modelled on some of the medieval medicinal garden designs, but alas, it will never happen if I am the one who has to do the gardening.
As you have probably figured out by now, I am from Europe originally – Germany to be specific. Germany is one of the few western countries where herbs are readily used by the medical profession. A lot of the official and respected research into herbal medicine originates from Germany as well. I have been in Australia sine the early 80’s. Since then I have witnessed a slow, but steady increase in interest regarding herbs. The establishment of farmer’s markets which are now so popular, the increasing varieties stocked by supermarkets and the surge of upmarket cooking programs have contributed to the use of herbs in the culinary repertoire of people like you and I Australia wide.
All of the above, my heritage, my passion and the evolution of herb usage in Australia added to the fact that my family is growing and I use herbal remedies to treat my partner, myself and my children has led to the conception of Herbology in 2008 and now also Herbology At Home.“
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Pets & Their Surprising Health Benefits
There’s only so much broccoli you can eat and soft drinks that you can’t. While diet and exercise play a gargantuan role in the state of our physical health, scientists and doctors are increasingly realizing just how important our mental health is and the impact it has on our physical.
So while more and more of us sift through the positive thinking and self help books looking for a cure, trying various yoga positions and learning how to meditate, an increasing number of people are finding – as humans have always done – that pets have a surprising number of health benefits. The research seems to back it up as well, as the following studies will show.
But wait, I don’t have a pet!
It’s very easy to dismiss such evidence by saying that you don’t have a pet. If you truly connect with the research and feel that pets are something you should have in your life, but for certain reasons can’t, try one of these three options.
1) Look after your friend’s pets: Everybody who has a cat or a dog will be more than grateful if you agree to look after them for a weekend so that they can get away. Even if you can’t do that, just offering to take the dog out for a stroll is a godsend to most people.
2) Become a pet sitter: Pet owners who are planning to go away on a longer vacation, and don’t have any friends who are able to look after their animals while they’re away, are increasingly using pet sitting websites to connect with people who are willing. While it may mean that you only look after pets for a couple of weeks of the year it could be the most relaxing few weeks of your year as well!
3) Get a fish: Most people, regardless of their circumstances are able to look after a fish, and although you can’t cuddle them, fish have been shown to have relaxing benefits as well.
Pets reduce blood pressure
Pet owners tend to have lower blood pressure than those that don’t according to recent studies. Scientists are still trying to work out whether this is due to the comfort they bring, or as Queen’s University in Belfast propose, because of the walking that’s involved with dogs, which has separately been proven to lower blood pressure.
Pets are good for the ageing
Pet owners tend to have a lower rate of diseases like Alzheimer’s than their non-pet-owning counterparts according to Lynette Hart, PhD, associate professor at the University of California at Davis School of Veterinary Medicine. The jury is still out on what the exact benefits are, but one insurance company, Midland Life, is known to ask patients over 75 if they have a pet, which has been said to reduce life insurance policy rates.
Pets can get you a date!
According to a study carried out by pet social networking site Kloof, there are five breeds of dogs that make both men and women who own them more desirable to date. Beagles, Poodles and Chihuahuas are good for attracting men, while Siberian Huskies and German Shepherds tend to attract women. Retrievers, both golden and Labrador, seem to work on both sexes.
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Obituary: Franklin Murphy
FRANKLIN MURPHY had the Midas touch: not the conventional gift of turning events or enterprises to material wealth, but the much richer, happier talent of turning humanity to undreamt-of gold - often, the two went together. Few people who came within the vast ambit of his influence - centred at the University of California at Los Angeles in the 1960s and at the Times Mirror newspaper group in Los Angeles thereafter, but spread through myriad academic and arts bodies in the United States - failed to benefit materially from it.
Murphy was born in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1916, the son and grandson of physicians. His mother was a concert pianist and one of his aunts a painter so that art, a well as medicine, was also an essential part of his life from the beginning. He went to the University of Kansas to study medicine, taking his degree in 1936. He then went to Germany on an exchange fellowship at the University of Gottingen. The collapse of academic freedom, faced with National Socialism, deeply distressed him, and he spent an unhappy winter. In the spring of 1937, he left Germany and crossed the Brenner Pass into Italy. The warmth, the buildings, the works of art and the landscape of northern Italy awoke a passion for the country in him that lasted the rest of his life.
He returned to the United States in 1937 and went to the University of Pennsylvania at Philadelphia to finish his medical studies, taking his MD in 1941. He continued there, doing research work on tropical medicine until he went into the army in 1944. In 1946, by now a decorated captain, he came home to Kansas, intending to become a practising physician. But he also became an instructor at the medical faculty at the University of Kansas at Laurence. The faculty was in some disorder, and the chancellor of the university set up a committee to report on it, choosing the young but obviously able Murphy as its chairman. That report, besides solving local problems, contained some novel proposals, notably that medical students should spend part of their time in direct service to the community. This had a revolutionary effect at a time when outlying districts were still without regular medical service; it was also an early example of Murphy's gift for solving two problems at once, in particular for making the needs of an institution serve those of a wider community.
In 1948 he became dean of the medical school. He was still only 32, and the next year he was named 'One of Ten Outstanding Young Men' by the US Junior Chamber of Commerce. Three years later, when the chancellorship of the university became vacant, Murphy was chosen. His reign at Kansas was happy but short. Only six years later he left to become Chancellor of the University of California at Los Angeles. He improved the campus at UCLA beyond measure, planting it with beautiful and unusual trees. He added 40 new buildings and saw the student body grow from 20,000 to 30,000, raising the university to 'major scholarly distinction in world-wide terms', the goal he set himself. He weathered the storm of student unrest in 1967, refusing to compromise academic freedom while drawing students into the 'advising process'.
In 1968 he left UCLA to become chairman and chief executive officer of the Los Angeles Times Mirror Group. He saw the company grow and expand into new fields, as publishing and the wider market of communications grew. It also became a base from which he could extend himself. In Los Angeles he was one of those who founded the Los Angeles County Museum of Art on its present site. He was also a trustee of the J. Paul Getty Trust, and chairman of its finance committee, and chairman of the Samuel Kress Foundation. He succeeded Paul Mellon as chairman of the trustees of the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC.
Besides all this, Murphy was on countless boards, commissions and institutions, educational, medical and other, where his common sense, creative genius and unerring eye for the right person for the job were valued. Among those who owe their present position to him are his successor as chancellor of UCLA, Charles Young, the Head of the Getty Trust, Harold Williams, the directors of the Getty Museum and National Gallery, John Walsh and Earl Powell, and his successor at Times Mirror, Robert Erburu. He received honours and decorations at home and abroad among them no less than 17 honorary doctorates.
This catalogue of distinction, however, gives no idea of the vitality and individuality of his character. He was no faceless committeeman, no eminence grise. There was nothing grey about him. Life to him, with him, was always full of colour. His door was open to anyone with a new idea, a hopeful enterprise. He would listen, utter a few warm words, make a short telephone call, and - lo, the job was done. He was a wonderful talker, as well as a good listener and no one who heard him will forget the liveliness, the pungent phrases, of his conversation. He was not a big man, but he seemed to fill any room, with his expressive features and the warmth and magnetism of his personality.
Perhaps the association that gave him most pleasure in life was his trusteeship of the Ahmanson Foundation, in Los Angeles. Its vast wealth made possible all sorts of local projects - including the Japan America Community Centre, Plaza de la Raza, the Hispanic cultural centre, and most recently, the Fowler Museum of UCLA, where his prescient purchase, long ago, of Sir Henry Wellcome's anthropological collections finally came to fruition. But to him the most important of all was the Ahmanson-Murphy Collection, of books from the Aldine Press and other early Italian printers in the Research Library Special Collections Department of UCLA. It was the tangible part of that vision of Italy, first formed in his twenties, which grew during many return visits, with his wife Judith, whom he married in 1940, and their friends Charles and Carmela Speroni. All those of us who were lucky enough to help him in its creation will never forget the warmth, passion and energy that inspired him, and, through him, us. As it happens, we were gathered at Florence, at a conference to commemorate the Quincentenary of Aldus, and in honour of Franklin Murphy, on the day he died.
The Ahmanson-Murphy Collection will be a permanent memorial to him, a man of the Renaissance, if ever there was. Next to the library at UCLA is another, the Franklin D. Murphy Memorial Sculpture Garden. It was Murphy who saw the opportunity in the availability of a major collection of modern sculpture and an unused patch of the UCLA campus. With some landscaping he created an island of tranquillity. His own bust is there; it is not a very good likeness (how difficult to catch those mobile, vital features), but it and the gardens round will keep alive the memory of one who did more good to the university, the city of Los Angeles, and a wider community to whom he gave his own humane vision, than anyone else in his time.
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This book brings together some of the world’s leading rabbis, scholars, and writers to interpret the Torah through a queer lens. Use these essays in your weekly parsha text study, as part of a class on contemporary interpretations of Torah, and to assist b’nei mitzvah students in preparing their own divrei Torah.
In the Jewish tradition, reading of the Torah follows a calendar cycle, with a specific portion assigned each week. These weekly portions, read aloud in synagogues around the world, have been subject to interpretation and commentary for centuries. Following on this ancient tradition, Torah Queeries brings together some of the world’s leading rabbis, scholars, and writers to interpret the Torah through a “bent lens”. With commentaries on the 54 weekly Torah portions and six major Jewish holidays, the concise yet substantive writings collected here open up stimulating new insights and highlight previously neglected perspectives.
This incredibly rich collection unites the voices of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and straight-allied writers, including some of the most central figures in contemporary American Judaism. All bring to the table unique methods of reading and interpreting that allow the Torah to speak to modern concerns of sexuality, identity, gender, and LGBT life. Torah Queeries offers cultural critique, social commentary, and a vision of community transformation, all done through biblical interpretation. Written to engage readers, draw them in, and, at times, provoke them, Torah Queeries examines topics as divergent as the Levitical sexual prohibitions, the experience of the Exodus, the rape of Dinah, the life of Joseph, and the ritual practices of the ancient Israelites. Most powerfully, the commentaries here chart a future of inclusion and social justice deeply rooted in the Jewish textual tradition.
A labor of intellectual rigor, social justice, and personal passions, Torah Queeries is an exciting and important contribution to the project of democratizing Jewish communities, and an essential guide to understanding the intersection of queerness and Jewishness.
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Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park is simply amazing. Miles of ancient old growth redwoods, Roosevelt elk grazing in meadows, and unfettered sandy beaches create a primeval setting. Nowhere else can one find such an extensive and continuous stand of old growth redwoods in pristine condition. This park offers a glimpse of what the entire north coast of California once looked like before logging. I’m glad conservationists existed in an era of extraction and destruction with the foresight and wherewithal to set aside such a glorious forest from ax and saw. Perhaps the most unique aspect of this park is a fern canyon with seven types of ferns draped over 50 foot walls creating a lush hanging garden. With 75 miles of trails to explore, Prairie Creek is a paradise for trail runners. The trails range from well groomed paths such as the Prairie Creek Trail and James Irvine Trail, to very technical and arduous single track including the Rhododendron Trail and West Ridge Trail. What all of the trails share is spectacular scenery, most of which is under towering old growth redwoods with a remarkably lush understory. I found it interesting that the Sequoia sempervirens along the far north coast appear to have a grayish bark versus the reddish brown bark common among the subspecies further south.
During our visit to the north coast, I was able to do three runs through the park and in the process I covered a good chunk of the trail network, which is split fairly evenly by the Newton B. Drury Scenic Parkway that runs the length of the park from south to north along Prairie Creek. Perhaps the best loop in the park, and arguably the best redwood hike in the world, is the Miner’s Ridge and James Irvine Loop, which passes through all facets of the park – prairies, old growth redwoods, beach, and the fern canyon. The loop is about 12 miles long and it’s a very runnable and enjoyable trail run (route on Strava) with under 1,700 ft of elevation gain, no steep climbs, and relatively non-technical compared to many of the other narrow and root-strewn trails in the park. Just before leaving the coastal area to enter fern canyon, we spotted a group of elk grazing on the prairie with ideal afternoon lighting. Fern Canyon is simply awesome and we were lucky to have the canyon all to ourselves. I look forward to returning in late spring when the ferns in the canyon are at their peak of green vibrancy.
The second run I did was around a 20 mile loop and included some of the trails on the eastern side of the parkway (route on Strava). Foothill Trail and Brown Creek Trail were both moderate while Rhodedendron Trail was challenging with narrow, technical single track and steep climbs. Next time I would like to run the entire length of the Rhododendron Trail, hopefully coinciding with peak Rhody blossoms. Crossing over the parkway to the westside, I ascended up to the West Ridge Trail and then down to the coast for a nice run along the coastal prairie with more elk sightings and two surprise waterfalls tumbling off the coastal bluffs in a very lush setting of moss and ferns. I finished the loop with another walk through fern canyon (this time with different lighting) and then the awesome James Irvine Trail back to the campground area in Elk Meadow. The third and final run in Prairie Creek included a run up and along West Ridge with a return via Prairie Creek (route on Strava). The West Ridge trail is technical and will keep your focus down on the trail instead of up at the redwoods, but nonetheless an amazing tour along the ridge and super fun for technical single track aficionados. The upper part of the Prairie Creek trail is more singletrack before opening up onto an improved gravel trail for the final couple miles back to the park headquarters. As a big fan of redwoods, it was a real treat to spend a couple days in Prairie Creek and I look forward to returning here for further explorations!
I had a great visit to Badger Pass at New Years so I was excited to return for a new objective – Ostrander Lake, Horse Ridge and Buena Vista Peak (see Glacier Point XC ski here and Dewey Point Snowshoe here). This is a fantastic route with stupendous views. The total mileage was 26.5 miles according to GPS (Strava route here, and first 4.2 miles here).
We stayed at Mariposa the night before and drove into the park with great anticipation as skies were clear and fresh snow coated the fir trees. We enjoyed a cup of coffee and breakfast snacks at the Badger Pass lodge before setting off down the Glacier Point Road at 8:30 a.m. I strapped on the microspikes for this four mile stretch which helped with traction while running. At the junction with the Bridalveil Creek trail, I switched to snowshoes and soon turned onto the Horizon Ridge trail. I was the first to travel this trail in several days, but the prior tracks were still easy to follow. While it was still only 10:00 a.m. the sun exposure on Horizon Ridge was already making it feel hot. Some sections of snow were getting thin, manifesting the warm nature of this ridge. As I ascended up Horizon Ridge proper, views of Yosemite opened up, including a fantastic and unique angle on Half Dome and Mount Starr King. I took photos from the top of Horizon Ridge and then descended to the junction of Bridalveil Creek trail (which I would descend). I continued up for 1.5 miles to the Ostrander Hut. I had passed a large group of skiers departing the hut and their turns in the powder were evident on the slopes above Ostrander Lake.
Continuing beyond Ostrander, the climbing became steeper on the final slopes approaching the summit of Horse Ridge. The breezes also began to pick up near the summit. Horse Ridge is a fascinating escarpment feature. It’s quite long and the ridge is a tale of two sides: the north side has a consistent cliff drop and steep open slopes below while the south side is gentle sloping with a forest of large trees. I enjoyed the panorama from Horse Ridge, including Half Dome, Tuolumne area peaks, the Clark Range, Buena Vista Crest, and even distant peaks like Mount Conness and Tower Peak. I gazed over at Buena Vista Peak as I checked my watch and figured I had enough time to at least attempt to reach Buena Vista so I set off down the south forested side of Horse Ridge. I soon found myself at a saddle between Horse Ridge and Buena Vista. It began to feel like true wilderness on this side of Horse Ridge since few people venture beyond Horse Ridge’s summit. I began climbing up the open slopes of Buena Vista with views opening up once again. The climbing was pretty straightforward until I reached the point where I had to access the northwest ridge of Buena Vista. Here the snow became step and icy for a small section and an ice axe would have been beneficial. A few steps later I was happy to be on the ridge snowshoing up the final part of the ridge to the summit. All in all, it took a little over an hour to go from Horse Ridge to Buena Vista Peak.
Buena Vista Peak is aptly named with a magnificent 360 degree view. The panorama also includes a impressive views of Gale Peak and Sing Peak on the southern border of the national park. In addition, there was a great vista of the high Sierra to the south including the evolution area of Mount Goddard and Mount Darwin. On the way down from Buena Vista, I went further down the northwest ridge before angling off which was an easier route and retraced my steps down to the saddle and then up to Horse Ridge, taking many photos along the way. On the way down from Horse Ridge, Half Dome was uniquely photogenic with a tongue of clouds surrounding its lower slopes. After some snacks at Ostrander Hut, I made my way down to the Bridalveil Creek trail. This route felt much longer than Horizon Ridge, partly because it is in fact 1.5 miles longer, and also because it’s quite monotonous meandering through the woods with not much to look at. I finally reached the Glacier Point Road and traded snowshoes for microspikes for the last 4.2 miles. I soon caught up to Erica and we traded photos before making the last push to the car. We both made it back to Badger Pass before dark with big smiles, extremely satisfied with the day’s adventure (Erica made it to Ostrander Hut for a 19.5 mile snowshoe).
I had a great memories of a climb of Winter Alta in 2011 so I was excited to come back and this time I ventured further to remote Moose Lake (see route on Strava here). The view from Winter Alta is simply outstanding. Overlooking Moose Lake and the Great Western Divide, it seems as if the entire range is at your feet. At around 10,500 feet in elevation, Moose Lake is one of the largest high alpine lakes in the region. Nestled in a shallow bench, the lake is well above tree line which provides an unobstructed view of a large portion of the Great Western Divide and Black Kaweah. The panorama of Moose Lake and all the peaks in the background is one of the greatest in all of the High Sierra. Complete photo album here.
This area is accessed via the Pear Lake ski hut and a marked winter trail from Wolverton. The path from Wolverton to the ski hut is challenging for a snowshoe hike with lots of elevation gain but well worth the efforts. The slopes near the hut are fairly popular with backcountry skiers, but I found few tracks beyond a couple hundred feet above the hut and no tracks beyond Winter Alta. Prior to summiting Winter Alta, I decided to continue further along the Tablelands to Moose Lake. The lake is about 850 feet below 11,328 foot Winter Alta which apparently deters most people from visiting. The snow conditions on this day oscillated between a stable crust and deep powder, but overall not bad for efficient progress. I made my way down some moderately sleep slopes and soon found myself walking across the tundra that is a frozen Moose Lake. I crossed the lake at its center and my poles hit a solid ice platform about a foot and half underneath the top of the powder. From the far end of the lake, I admired the view down the Middle Fork of the Kaweah River, the Kaweah Gap area, and the line of peaks that stretched as far as the eye could see.
I recrossed the lake at a different point and headed up for the summit of Winter Alta taking many photos and video clips along the way. Calm conditions on the summit provided an incentive to stick around and enjoy the scenery for a bit. Once I packed up, the descent went fast and I decided to come down through Pear Lake. After some moderately steep (but soft) slopes, I was on top of frozen Pear Lake, which is located in a rugged granite cirque beneath the Alta Peak massif. After some more photography and video, I headed down the slopes to the Pear Lake ski hut and started my return to Wolverton. This proved to be another fantastic snowshoe outing in Sequoia National Park! I look forward to coming back and exploring further along the Tablelands in the winter, perhaps all the way to Big Bird Peak for views down to Big Bird lake and closer views of the Great Western Divide.
Mount Silliman rises 11,188 feet with over 4,500 feet of vertical in a short distance from Lodgepole Visitor Center in Sequoia National Park. As its position is to the west of the main concentration of peaks along or near the Sierra Crest, the summit provides an amazing vantage of the range from the Yosmite high country all the way down to the end of the Great Western Divide. The view across Kings Canyon to the Palisades is particularly impressive, along with Mount Brewer and the line of peaks from Thunder Peak to Milestone Mountain.
In the summer, a use trail apparently leaves the Twin Lakes trail and provides relatively easy access up the drainage and to the peak. In the winter, however, no such trail exists. I started off at Lodgepole along a snowshoe track that was excellent for the first 2.0 miles as the trail slowly gained elevation. A (less defined snowshoe) track continued beyond the turnoff for Silliman Creek and I was optimistic somebody had kicked steps up to the summit or at least up the basin. No such luck. At a clearing in the trees at 8,200 ft, the tracks finished near a spot where a party had snow camped. It was all deep powder and trailblazing from here up another 3,000 feet to the summit. We had driven from the Bay Area that morning resulting in a start just after noon and it was fairly warm by this point (40s) so the snow was wet and heavy with resultant post-holing even with snowshoes. Each step was heavy and travel became exceptionally arduous until 10,000 feet when a thick crust on the snow supported my snowshoes. I made my way up to a sub-peak of Silliman with an amazing view down the Marble Fork of the Kaweah River and the Alta Peak massif that I would ascend the following day.
From the subpeak I made a quick descent down into Silliman Bowl and then climbed the final slopes up to Silliman’s summit. The southern foxtail pine forest near the top is one of the best I have seen with exquisite trunk formations and positioning. I enjoyed the 360 degree view from the top taking video and many photos before beginning my descent. Going downhill through the deep snow was a pleasure and it almost felt like jumping on pillow. I took many photos of Silliman Bowl and the high meadows. After entering the forest, the goal was to get back to Lodgepole before darkness and I was just able to make it in time. This is a fantastic snowshoe climb. If you’re prepared to break trail, you’ll be rewarded with awesome views and rugged scenery.
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Gigi Gaston was the prototypical 60s French pop star. Her life was full of the dramas which seem to plague only the rich and famous; her Gypsy family’s escape from Bulgaria, an affair with her stepbrother, her rise and fall up the pop charts, a marriage that ended in infidelity and murder.
In 1974 Normal Mailer wrote, “Could this Black Flower with a voice like Piaf have guessed that when she bloomed into a teenage singing idol for post-war European youth, and later became the Continental fashion icon and sexy French pin-up girl on the bedroom walls of the hippest kids, that the future would strangle her dreams of normalcy, like the protagonists in one her romantically fatalistic songs? No, of course not. Because the characters of Greek tragedies are always the last to know their fates.”
The only problem? She never existed! She's the brainchild of artist Josh Gosfield who invented her entire existence. The ephemera, the stories, the persona... all fictional.
*Gigi Gaston: The Black Flower will be on view October 22nd through November 25th, 2009. Steven Kasher Gallery is located at 521 W. 23rd St., New York, NY 10011.Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 11 to 6pm.
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