text stringlengths 213 24.6k | id stringlengths 47 47 | dump stringclasses 1 value | url stringlengths 14 499 | file_path stringlengths 138 138 | language stringclasses 1 value | language_score float64 0.9 1 | token_count int64 51 4.1k | score float64 1.5 5.06 | int_score int64 2 5 |
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Drive Train / Driveline Making Noise When driving Always
Q: My car makes what seems like a light grinding sound when I
take my foot off the gas pedal; it's a manual transmission.
When I'm driving down the road, and I have my foot on the
gas pedal, you can't hear it.
But when I take my foot off for slowing down and don't put
the clutch in, generally "coasting", between gears, it happens.
What could that be?
A: That sounds a lot like the "coast" side of the
differential gears or bearings in the differential
unit...check fluid levels first and then if ok...start
looking to replace with a used unit....
Q: Hello, I have been having problems with my car overheating, recently. I don't know where to begin. I took it into a shop and they said it was the thermometer and they replaced it, charge me and sent me home. 3 or 4 days later, it began overheating when I was on the highway, I was driving about 65 or so. I pulled over at the next exit and I notice that the radiator was nearly empty. I filled it with water and the gauge began to read normal. The next day, it looked like it puked up all the engine coolant on the floor of my garage. I filled it up and went on my way. 4 days later it began to over heat and when I got to work, it needed water in the radiator and engine coolant. What should I do?
A: Find out where the coolant is leaking from and repair it. Ed | <urn:uuid:5acb9750-7bb3-4154-b61d-7971465fbd8e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.all-parts.com/diagnostics/mechanics/Toyota-Paseo.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00073-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977901 | 339 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Sep. 28, 2011 Scientists from the University of Vienna's Faculty of Physics in Austria recently gave a theoretical description of teleportation phenomena in sub-atomic scale physical systems, in a publication in the European Physical Journal D.
For the first time, the Austrian team has demonstrated that mathematical tools give us the freedom to choose how to separate out the constituting matter of a complex physical system by selectively analysing its so-called quantum state. That is the state in which the system is found when performing measurement, which can either be entangled or not.
The state of entanglement corresponds to a complex physical system in a definite (pure) state, while its parts taken individually are not. This concept of entanglement used in quantum information theory applies when measurement in laboratory A (called Alice) depends on the definite measurement in laboratory B (called Bob), as both measurements are correlated. This phenomenon cannot be observed in larger-scale physical systems.
The findings of the Austrian team show that the entanglement or separability of a quantum state -whether its sub-states are separable or not; i.e., whether Alice and Bob were able to find independent measurements -- depends on the perspective used to assess its status.
A so-called density matrix is used to mathematically describe a quantum state. To assess this state's status, the matrix can be factorised in different ways, similar to the many ways a cake can be cut. The Vienna physicists have shown that by choosing a particular factorisation, it may lead to entanglement or separability; this can, however, only be done theoretically, as experimentally the factorisation is fixed by experimental conditions.
Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:
- W. Thirring, R. A. Bertlmann, P. Köhler, H. Narnhofer. Entanglement or separability: the choice of how to factorize the algebra of a density matrix. The European Physical Journal D, 2011; DOI: 10.1140/epjd/e2011-20452-1
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead. | <urn:uuid:9d750109-6a67-49c3-b5dd-4c5fca25ad0a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/09/110927112039.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00070-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.905895 | 437 | 3.0625 | 3 |
Depots in Corby, Melton Mowbray and Chelmsford
Howard Towns is Operations Manager
Regional Office at Melton Mowbray
Our operation in the Midlands has grown from English Wood Fuels. English Wood Fuels Ltd was established in May 2008 and principally supplies fuel in the form of dry woodchip and wood pellets. It was created to meet the wood fuel demand developed by Rural Energy Ltd and the producer group East Midlands Wood Fuels Ltd. English Wood Fuels and Forest Fuels joined forces in early 2012.
We purchase timber from woodland management companies, harvesting contractors, sawmills and the Forestry Commission. In addition to being sourced locally, the wood fuel we supply is stockpiled at depots that are generally within 30 miles of a customer’s installation, and much closer where possible. This ensures that CO2 emissions from transport and delivery costs are kept to a minimum.
We currently use 4 key depots for the production of wood chip material and the storage of wood pellets. They have been established to cover the central part of the East Midlands and East Anglia. The requirement for additional depot locations is constantly re-assessed and the network and supply capability enlarged as necessary.
We are the preferred bulk distributer in the East of England of brites wood pellets manufactured by Balcas, the UK’s largest producer of virgin material premium quality pellets. brites are made from wood residue produced as a by-product of the saw milling process. The original timber is either spruce or pine from managed forests.
We have the storage capacity to stockpile over 1000 tonnes of pellets in purpose built sheds compartmentalized for product segregation. All pellets are screened both at the point of production and at the point of loading onto the delivery vehicles or bulk tippers.
Bulk delivery of 6mm pellets is carried out by purpose built pneumatic lorries operated by us.
We also supply 10kg bagged brites pellets.
Wood fuel Quality
All fuel supplied complies with CEN/TS 14961:2005 (Solid Biofuels – Fuel specifications and classes).
Particle distribution and moisture analysis of woodchip is carried out continuously in-house and forms an integral element of most of our supply contracts. We have the capability to test moisture content and chip particle size and can arrange testing of calorific value and chemical analysis of all types of wood fuel. Such tests are used for quality control, contract delivery, research and dispute mitigation. Advice and guidance accompanies this testing service.
For more information please call 01664 898098 | <urn:uuid:bf7d833e-ec42-4bce-afe9-f40ec7fb6ba1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.forestfuels.co.uk/our-locations/midlands | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943258 | 530 | 1.695313 | 2 |
This is how I see the story of Jacob and Esau (Genesis 25 and 26):
They are two very different twins who seem to fight a lot. Esau goes hunting and he is starving when he gets back. He asks Jacob for some stew. Jacob replied, "First sell me your birthright." "Look, I am about to die," Esau said. "What good is the birthright to me?" So Esau accepts the trade and it says "he despised his birthright."
1) When Esau says he is about to die, is this figuratively (from hunger) or literally he thinks he is close to dying from old age?
Then it gets kinda weird because Isaac's wife, Rebekah, tells her son, Jacob, to trick Isaac into thinking he is Esau and give the blessing to him. Jacob is hesitant and says "I would appear to be tricking him and would bring down a curse on myself rather than a blessing." But then she says, "Let the curse fall on me. Just do what I say." Jacob then lies and tricks his father into believe he is Esau so Isaac blesses him.
2) Isn't Rebekah promoting lying, deception, and disrespecting elders?
3) What is the difference between birthright and blessing? They sound similar.
4) If they are similar, why didn't Jacob just tell his father that Esau willingly gave up his birthright?
5) Are Isaac's words/blessings/curses really powerful enough to change the course of Jacob/Esau's life?
Sorry for all the questions but this whole passage seems really confusing to me. | <urn:uuid:b5049325-1fc5-40b6-aa12-9da66ecd7c34> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/5509/jacob-and-esau-what-is-this-story-all-about/5514 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980938 | 345 | 2.03125 | 2 |
Hidden between individual television channels is a small but valuable collection of airwaves that will allow for a kind of "super Wi-Fi" network.
The Federal Communications Commission recently opened up the spectrum that sits between television channels numbered 1 through 51. Wireless communications in those "white spaces" have been permitted since Jan. 26 in Wilmington, N.C., the FCC's designated testbed location. After the bugs are worked out, the spaces will be opened up nationally in the coming months.
The FCC designated the white spaces as "unlicensed" band, meaning anyone can broadcast in it for free. It's a primo band that sits lower than today's Wi-Fi, allowing signals to travel over significantly longer distances and through buildings and walls.
It'll take time for all the necessary infrastructure -- including new chipsets for smartphones and other devices -- to roll out, but FCC expects the expansion to lead to innovative new kinds of wireless networks, including connected highways, schools, parks and towns. Wireless carriers scrounging for more spectrum could also begin to broadcast Wi-Fi to customer-dense areas to reduce stress on their 3G and 4G networks. -David Goldman
These innovative creations are rough drafts for technology that could be transformative when it's perfected.
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|Why Waze is a hot takeover target| | <urn:uuid:783c5778-05ed-455a-bafb-906585272de3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2012/technology/1203/gallery.coolest-tech-2012/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00065-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954198 | 325 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Vodafone Essar today announced the launch of its latest generation eco-friendly solar charging handset in India.The new handset uses a solar powered solution to benefit users in areas with adequate sunlight.
VF 247 solar powered phone charges by itself, by exposure to ambient light. Sun Boost, the special inbuilt hardware and software ensures that the phone charges also in a room, under normal daylight.
The VF 247 solar powered phone comes with essential mobile phone features such as FM radio, color screen and a powerful torch light and will be commercially available shortly.
Speaking on the launch, UK’s Chancellor of the Exchequer Rt Hon George Osborne MP said, “I’m very pleased to help launch Vodafone’s new solar powered handset. It’s the new UK-India economic partnership in action. The handset will get more people connected, paying less and doing their bit for the environment.” | <urn:uuid:77dc1787-271d-42dc-9791-0b1e64c5bc7e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://telecomtalk.info/vodafone-introduces-solar-powered-phone/35118/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.923764 | 195 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Houston lessons from the updated "Dallas at the Tipping Point"First, Otis White from Governing magazine with the update and recap (again, no permalinks, so this is the whole thing), then I'll get into some excerpts from DMN and my thoughts.
And then, from the Dallas Morning News overview story:
Why the Facts Are Not Enough
How to Create Change in a City
What does it take to cause significant change in a city? For some, it's simple: Just lay out the facts. If the problems are made clear enough, leaders will change, and so will the city. For those who believe that, we'd like to introduce you to Dallas.
In April 2004, the Dallas Morning News published what must be the strongest case for change in a city of the last three decades. Simply put, the series (titled "Dallas at the Tipping Point") announced that the city was on the road to becoming the next Detroit, with soaring crime rates, an underperforming school system, a rapidly fleeing middle class and a dwindling tax base. Worse, it said, city officials, including city council members, seemed unaware of the trends. "It was as if Dallas City Hall were an aircraft flying blind and in the clouds, in a steep nosedive, with a disoriented pilot," the newspaper said recently, looking back on its 2004 report.
Just a bunch of newspaper hysteria? Top city officials tried to spin it that way, but the Morning News had done something clever: It had hired the corporate consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton to look at Dallas as if it were a Fortune 500 company, sift through the numbers and decide whether Dallas was headed in the right direction. Result: If anything, the Booz Allen consultants were more pessimistic than the reporters. (You can view the 2004 Booz Allen report by clicking here.)
But surely things have changed since 2004, right? A few months ago, the newspaper and Booz Hamilton revisited the numbers, interviewed elected officials and took measure of the changes. The good news: The politicians are starting to talk the right talk. The bad news: They aren't walking the walk. Going back to its airplane analogy, the Morning News said, "The flight crew has begun to get its bearings. But without an altimeter, or a full sense of the impending crisis, the pilot is fiddling with the flaps instead of pulling back on the stick." Translation: Dallas is still hurtling toward disaster. (For the update report, click here.)
What explains the inaction of the past year and a half? Well, don't underestimate the power of denial. But there's something deeper here: To use a 1980s phrase, it's the difficulty of making paradigm shifts. Dallas' mayor and city council were elected with one view of the city and its future, the Morning News has presented them with a very different view, and the politicians are having trouble moving from one to the other. Hence, their incessant bickering about details, such as whether the mayor needs more power and whose ward is being favored, rather than dealing with the gathering crisis.So what does it take to turn around a city? The facts certainly help, and for this the Morning News should be thanked. And a few extraordinary politicians may find their way to the new paradigm. But the greatest opportunity for change lies with future candidates who can explain the crisis and the opportunity for change in ways that leave the voters feeling both frightened and hopeful. When enough of these new candidates are elected and enough of the old politicians are gone, change will happen.
Certainly a sobering and cautionary tale for Houston. Lessons for us?
The study uncovered a series of startling government failures and offered a sober conclusion: If Dallas does not reverse its course, the city will spiral into a cycle of decline that could gut services and hollow out civic life.
A year and a half later, a similar study anchored the original findings – Dallas has sky-high crime, bottom-dwelling schools and a middle class that's stampeding for the suburbs – and made a double-helix sort of discovery.
Dallas City Hall does not have a plan to fix the mess. So, even though City Manager Mary Suhm has recalibrated city government in important ways over the last 18 months, even though the city is benefiting from the ideas and leadership of a new police chief and economic development director, even though there is fresh energy and optimism in the Dallas Independent School District under Superintendent Michael Hinojosa, the city's underlying problems remain.
Key findings in the 2005 Booz Allen report:
•Dallas has the highest crime rate of any large city in the nation. And, even though the city is projected to spend more money than ever on public safety, Dallas spends less to fight crime than its peer cities around the nation.
•Dallas public schools have among the highest-paid teachers and the lowest standardized test scores in Texas.
•Dallas residents are migrating from the city to the suburbs at a faster rate than anywhere else in the nation, taking businesses and tax dollars with them.
- Aggressively stomp out the recent crime spike, before it becomes a trend - the same way the Federal Reserve pulls out the stops to stamp out inflation at the first whiff, before it grows out of control - even at the risk of slowing down the economy. This means hiring and training more police and putting pressure on hot-spot apartment complexes to increase their security. I'd also like to see an active exploration of new technology, like ankle-bracelets with GPS tracking and wireless reporting for ex-cons on probation or parole (since most crimes, esp. violent ones, are repeat offenders). Crime reported? Check the database logs to see if any ex-cons were in the vicinity at the time, then look up their current location and pick 'em up.
- HISD is making slow but steady progress - evolutionary change - but they're not experimenting with radical, revolutionary change like the YES and KIPP state charter schools. They need to establish their own district charter school program and push innovation when it comes to educating poor, minority, and immigrant English-as-a-second-language students.
- Invest aggressively in mobility to keep jobs in the core, while also moving forward on annexations to keep up the tax base (and before the state takes the power away). The most critical mobility investments are congestion-priced, always-fast, EZ-tag toll lanes combined with a high-speed, point-to-point, regional express commuter bus/van system, ideally with subsidized but competing private operators (competing on comfort, schedule, reliability, route, and amenities like wireless internet). | <urn:uuid:013f28b6-b650-4772-b40c-bf13bcc2893b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://houstonstrategies.blogspot.com/2006/01/houston-lessons-from-updated-dallas-at.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960578 | 1,369 | 1.570313 | 2 |
What is WA Day?
"It's another long weekend of course!" we hear you cry. While we can't deny that we're absolutely ecstatic for an extra night to party, we thought we would take a closer look at what exactly WA Day is.
The WA Day long weekend held on 1 - 3 July 2013 recognises and commemorates the rich history and diversity of cultures that make up the Western Australia we know today. Western Australia is the ONLY state in Australia which has introduced a public holiday in the states name. Pretty cool huh?
A Little History...
WA Day was formerly known as Foundation Day, which celebrated the founding of the Swan River Colony on 1 June 1829. On that day the state's first free settlers men, women and children completed their sea voyage to the Swan River Colony aboard the Parmelia. You can read the full history of WA Day here.
There are heaps of events being held all over Perth and other also regional areas to celebrate WA Day from Kimberley inspired BBQs to the Western Australian of the Year Awards. A full schedule of WA Day events can be found over at Celebrate WA.
As always, if you found this article helpful please share it with your friends, follow us on Twitter @Perthguide, or subscribe to our RSS feed to stay up to date with all the latest information. Have a great WA Day! read more | <urn:uuid:e212643d-2387-418f-8fd2-861acb96c6c9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.shedsguidetoperth.blogspot.com.au/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00053-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959731 | 282 | 2.65625 | 3 |
A new study from NCI researchers has provided the first evidence that a specific transcription factor, C/EBPβ, is required for the transformation of macrophages into tumor cells, as well as the identification of a C/EBPβ-regulated gene that allows these cells to elude cell death and proliferate despite the absence of exogenous growth factors. The study, by Dr. Peter F. Johnson and colleagues, was published in the April 2004 Molecular and Cellular Biology.
The researchers infected bone marrow cells from mice lacking C/EBPβ with a transforming virus that carried the Myc and Raf oncogenes. This virus has been shown to produce myeloid tumor cells that are "self sufficient," no longer requiring external growth factors to proliferate. In this study, however, the authors showed that macrophage transformation is dependent on C/EBPβ. Further investigation using microarray analysis indicated that C/EBPβ activated the insulin-like growth factor I (IGF-I) gene, thus triggering a signaling pathway that is essential for tumor cell survival and proliferation.
Tumor cells' ability to avoid cell death is considered a central component of cancer development, the authors write. As a result, finding ways to interrupt the molecular pathways to tumor cell immortality, such as by inhibiting the activity of implicated transcription factors or the genes that they target, "has emerged as a promising strategy for cancer intervention."
A preliminary analysis, the authors noted, indicated that other transcription factors also are likely to play a role in IGF-I expression. The combination of their findings with future studies that further elucidate the mechanisms by which IGF-I is regulated, the authors concluded, "may facilitate the development of anticancer strategies based on inhibiting IGF-I production."
Dr. Gordon Hager and scientists in his laboratory have developed evidence that challenges the 30-year-old paradigm of how our cells respond to hormones. The classic view is that nuclear receptors such as the glucocorticoid receptor (GR) bind statically to chromatin - a complex of DNA and histone proteins in the cell nucleus - and nucleate large transcription complexes, which in turn mediate the transcription of genes that the receptor controls.
In a report published in the April 23 issue of Molecular Cell, Dr. Akhilesh Nagaich and colleagues in the Hager lab demonstrate that, contrary to widely held belief, the interaction of receptors such as GR with chromatin is highly dynamic and periodic; the interaction may last on the order of seconds rather than minutes or hours.
The researchers applied a technique called ultraviolet (UV) laser crosslinking to their novel in vitro chromatin model system, which closely approximates the in vivo state of a natural promoter. The UV laser crosslinking allowed the researchers to make fast measurements of GR binding and dissociation from the chromatin. They show the receptor first binds cooperatively to promoter DNA during chromatin remodeling, then is actively ejected from the template as the remodeling reaction proceeds.
Transcriptional regulation by nuclear receptors is now a major focus of pharmaceutical drug screening. The new results point to ligand-modified receptor interactions with chromatin remodeling systems as a new target for drug discovery.
NCI researchers have found a higher risk of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) among asthmatics who have been exposed to common agricultural pesticides than among individuals without asthma.
To conduct the study, published online April 12 in the International Journal of Cancer, Dr. Won Jin Lee, of NCI's Occupational and Environmental Epidemiology Branch, and colleagues pooled data from two population-based, case-controlled NHL studies conducted in three Midwestern states. They looked at cases of NHL diagnosed between 1980 and 1983 among white males over age 30 from Iowa and Minnesota, and NHL cases diagnosed between 1983 and 1986 among white men and women over age 21 in Nebraska. They compared the resulting 872 NHL case histories with 2,336 healthy controls from the same geographic areas and interviewed either the subjects or their next-of-kin to collect information on use of and exposure to pesticides and other known or suspected risk factors for NHL.
"We found that farmers with potential exposure to pesticides and a history of asthma tended to have higher relative risks for NHL than pesticide-exposed farmers not reporting asthma," the researchers observed. One possible explanation, they said, is that immunologic changes sparked by asthma may inhibit the immune system's ability to respond to potentially carcinogenic elements in specific pesticides. "Considering the widespread use of pesticides and the relatively high prevalence of asthma," the authors concluded, "further studies, particularly with carefully defined asthma diagnoses and biomarkers … are needed to confirm these findings and clarify the mechanisms involved."
Adjuvant chemotherapy with uracil-tegafur (UTF) improves survival among patients with completely resected stage I lung adenocarcinoma, according to the results of a new study from Japan. In the study, published in the April 22 New England Journal of Medicine, 979 patients aged 45 to 75 with stage I lung adenocarcinoma were randomized to surgery alone followed by observation, the standard therapy, or surgery plus UTF twice daily for 2 years. The UTF group, reported study authors Dr. Harubumi Kato and colleagues, had a statistically significant 5-year overall survival rate of 88 percent, compared with 85 percent for the standard therapy group.
There were few severe adverse reactions associated with UTF, with 10 patients (2 percent) developing a grade 3 adverse reaction. The authors reported that in patients with tumors 2 cm or less, the survival rate was 91 percent. Therefore, they recommended that patients with small tumors be excluded from adjuvant trials unless a subgroup with a poor prognosis is identified. "Our study indicated that patients with completely resected stage I disease, especially T2 N0 adenocarcinoma, will benefit from adjuvant chemotherapy with uracil-tegafur," the authors noted.
UTF has not been approved in the United States "and has been used in relatively few clinical trials in this country, despite widespread approval elsewhere," wrote Dr. Robert Diasio of the Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Alabama at Birmingham in an accompanying editorial. But given the "compelling evidence" of its effectiveness among patients with adenocarcinoma of the lung in the study by Kato and colleagues, he argued, newer forms of this class of drugs, fluoropyrimidines, may prove to have an even greater effect on survival. | <urn:uuid:cd6ff79d-84fd-4578-83de-167bbbfbd4f2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cancer.gov/aboutnci/ncicancerbulletin/archive/2004/050404/page4 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00053-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945056 | 1,345 | 1.90625 | 2 |
Industry analysts lately have been counting barrels—barrels of refining capacity lost as plants shut down on both sides of the Atlantic; barrels of crude flowing into the US Midwest and their impact on prices for West Texas Intermediate; and barrels of supply that may be lost if the European Union activates its proposed embargo on Iran in 6 months or if Iran beats them to the punch by stopping shipments.
“The key question in all three cases is whether the changes are large enough to change our previous main medium-term conclusions; i.e. that refining margins will be under pressure through to the middle of decade, that sanctions have tended to just change trade flows and not affect revenues, and that US Midwest balances still look a bit heavy,” said Paul Horsnell, managing director of Commodities Research at Barclays Capital, London.
He said, “We still see medium-term refinery margins as being under pressure, and we still see Midwest balances as heavy, if not even heavier. However, the process of Iranian export barrel-counting suggests that, depending on the stance taken by a couple of key consumers, the mathematics of clearing all the barrels through the market might no longer add up.”
The International Monetary Fund recently projected the global price of oil could escalate $20-30/bbl if Iran were to block the Strait of Hormuz as it has threatened. But oil markets have mostly ignored Iranian rhetoric, with prices flat or down slightly in the recent weeks.
Stopping exports to Europe before the EU embargo officially begins in July “would move Iran from being a ‘victim’ to being an aggressor and would also provide justification” for the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf countries to replace Iranian crude in that market, said Olivier Jakob at Petromatrix in Zug, Switzerland. “Hence we are not sure that Iran has a lot to gain politically from being proactive on sales restrictions to Europe.” If Iran tries to halt passage of oil tankers through the strait, Jacob said, “It should be relatively easy for the International Energy Agency to authorize a release of strategic stocks for any country that would be hurt.”
Jakob foresees no major changes in European supply and demand “because the oil demand destruction it is currently suffering from is greater than the amount of Iranian crude oil that it is importing.” Still, he said, “In the micro balances, it does not work that easily as the petrol stations around London still need to be supplied by someone, and the[bankrupt] Petroplus Holdings AG’s refining system was not running on Iranian crude oil. The crude oil molecules going into the Petroplus system were more expensive than those going into the Greek refineries, and that will remain a risk for the refineries of southern Europe that will have to go through a higher cost of input when replacing Iranian crude oil.”
It’s not just oil
Analysts in the Houston office of Raymond James & Associates Inc. reported pipeline infrastructure in the region could mitigate the impact of a Hormuz blockade by rerouting much of Middle East crude supplies away from the strait. But crude is not the only energy commodity that passes through those waters in massive amounts.
“The percentage of global liquefied natural gas supply passing through the strait actually exceeds that of oil,” they said. “Qatar is the world’s No. 1 producer of LNG, with a market share near 25%, and the UAE is also a player. Unlike oil, there is no practical way for LNG shipments from these two countries to bypass Hormuz. Thus, a blockade would instantly halt over a quarter of the global supply of LNG.”
Most of the LNG shipments out of the Persian Gulf go to Asian markets. Three of the top four purchasers of LNG from Qatar and the UAE are Japan, India, and South Korea. “These countries could receive a double economic hit, i.e., a disruption in oil as well as LNG imports,” said Raymond James analysts. Japan, the world’s third-largest economy and the No. 1 LNG importer, would be particularly impacted.” Japan is one of the few industrialized economies that still use significant quantities of oil for power generation. “If oil supply were temporarily disrupted, Japan would naturally need to buy more LNG to compensate, especially given the issues with its nuclear fleet following the Fukushima disaster. If both oil and LNG supply are disrupted, Japan would face a colossal problem, possibly having to resort to energy rationing,” Raymond James analysts said.
(Online Jan. 31, 2012; author's e-mail: firstname.lastname@example.org) | <urn:uuid:c9cd5371-6816-4d81-9a3c-948410ae53e9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ogj.com/articles/2012/01/counting-barrels-of-crude._saveArticle.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961051 | 991 | 1.625 | 2 |
We have a 10 year-old son with T1D. I have always wanted to find a playmate for our child who also has T1D, but didn't know how to go about accomplishing this. We live in a suburb of a large city (Houston/Sugar Land, TX) but don't know of any groups. I've thought of trying to organize something--like a T1D activity at a play center, but wasn't sure of a good way to do so. Anyone have suggestions?
I would recommend reaching out through message boards like this one as well as on www.childrenwithdiabetes.com and the diabetes research institute 'pep squad' - that is a facebook page. You might also find a yahoo group in your area - brave buddies is a group you can join but most of the members are in the SF bay area. Does the local JDRF have any groups? If possible a great place for your child to meet other kids is at the Friends for Life conference in Orlando put on by Children With Diabetes. It is an amazing experience for the whole family - Malcolm (my D child) has really made friends for life from all over the world! I will do some digging around for you to see what I can come up with in your area. All the best, Barbi
Thanks Barbi! I appreciate the suggestions. I will try the link out that you provided in your other post too! The Friends for Life conference sounds amazing!
This is something I was actually talking about with friends recently.
My observations on the whole affair are that in-person Friends With Diabetes (FWD) are few and far between. Seeking them out is a noble gesture, but unlikely to work out.
The communities seem to be found in two places:
TuDiabetes, other sites or simply digital communication seem to be the predominant way these things work out. As a shameless plug for the place I work for, Ayogo Health, we have created a free app called Diabesties that's a great way for friends with diabetes to stay in touch and gripe about the trials and tribulations. It's also one of the most hassle-free loggers I've seen.
#2: Diabetes-Focused Events
Friends For Life, diabetes camps (contact your children's endocrinologist's office for ones near you!) and other similar events give Kids With Diabetes (KWD) a chance to meet other people with the same challenges. The friendships formed there tend to turn into connections of the #1 variety as well.
I hope this helps.
P.S. I take my 7 year-old to diabetes camp nearly every year. :o)
Found this via the JDRF site - I bet you can reach out and meet people.
FOTOD, or Families of Type Ones Diabetics, is a support and education group for families that are living with type one diabetes daily. Our goal is to educate families on healthy living and to offer support to both newly diagnosed families and families that have been living with this disease for a while. This group is based in Houston, Texas.
To join our network of families, please send an email to Kimberly Robertshaw or visit our yahoo group webpage, by clicking on the FOTOD image.
We are not responsible for any medical advice since we are not medical doctors. WE also ask that you NOT POST ANY MEDICAL ADVICE!
Thank you Mignonne. We just signed him up for a camp called lions camp, so we are on the same page there. As for how he is dealing with diabetes, I should probably say really well (and keep my fingers crossed). He is an unusual little boy in that he is very regimented. For example, he brushes his teeth using a timer for 2 minutes twice day along with flossing--and never do we have to remind him. He is fiercely independent with his diabetes care and has never shown the slightest resentment toward his diabetes management--except for with the school nurse! He tracks the little changes to how we correct, but the nurse has to follow the signed sheet. He will argue with her and insist that she let him treat a low or correct a high in the manner he believes is correct. He's not always right on with his math, but usually very close. I so hope that some of these are solid personality traits and stay with him through his teens!
We have had great luck with JDRF activities in our area. See if thee is a local chapter there.God Luck.
This has been a bit of an initial challenge for me too, as my 8 year-old son was diagnosed last month with T1. We've gone to a local JDRF meeting and met a few families and that was really helpful for my husband and me, but I'd really like to find some local (Cleveland, OH) friends for my son who are around his age.
Until we find that, I can tell you that YouTube videos have really been a big help to my son! I've found some blogs with videos and some of the "You Can Do This" diabetes series (specifically the kids' videos) have been fun for him to watch. He sees kids with pumps doing site changes or just acting like normal kids his age and then talking about their diabetes and it's been encouraging for him.
Good luck and let me know if you find something good and I will do the same!
Thanks Jen! Yes, we have found YouTube to be a great resource. One channel that we like in particular is diabetic danica. She's this very energetic, sweet young lady. My son even did a video response to one of her videos!
all great suggestions! we are in the middle of nowhere and we hve an active jdrf walk and group, but for kennedy to meet her school peers and for me to get to know their moms, I just poached off her school email lists and figured out who the other moms were and introduced myself, there are 3 in her class and they are all boys besides kennedy but they are all big buds now, and going to camp together. they have helped each other a lot! | <urn:uuid:b8238979-c9f5-4743-b51d-722da1516974> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tudiabetes.org/group/parentsofkidswithtype1/forum/topics/finding-friends-with-t1d-for-your-child?xg_source=activity | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976541 | 1,276 | 1.601563 | 2 |
While Washington obsesses about the "fiscal cliff," there are potentially more consequential events taking place far from the halls of Congress. In a move that rivals and perhaps surpasses the decision to limit organized labor's collective bargaining powers in Wisconsin, Republican lawmakers in Michigan are expected to pass final legislation Tuesday to end the requirement that workers pay union dues or fees as a condition of their employment.
If the GOP succeeds, Michigan, home of the nation's heavily unionized auto industry, will become the 24th right-to-work state in the country -- a development that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago.
Republicans say the move would not only give current workers the freedom to choose whether to join a union and pay dues but would, more importantly, bring many, many new jobs to Michigan. Rep. Gov. Rick Snyder, who supports the bill, points out that Indiana enacted (after a long and bitter fight) the same kind of law earlier this year. "We've carefully watched what's gone on in Indiana since they passed similar legislation back in February," Snyder told Fox News' Greta van Susteren last week, "and they've seen a significant increase in the number of companies talking about [bringing] thousands of jobs to their state."
Of course, the move is not just economic. It's political, too. Democrats depend on millions -- actually, billions -- of dollars in support from the forced dues of union members. If that money supply were to dry up, or even just decrease, the Democratic Party would be in serious trouble.
Which is why President Obama just happened to discuss the situation during his campaign-style visit to the Daimler Detroit Diesel Plant in Redford, Mich., on Monday. "These so-called right-to-work laws don't have anything to do with economics -- they have everything to do with politics," Obama said. "What they're really talking about is giving you the right to work for less money."
Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Committee, which supports the move, says that from the president's perspective, the fight does indeed have everything to do with politics. "President Obama was the recipient of literally hundreds of millions of dollars from union officials," Mix says. "If union officials can't compel union workers to pay dues as a condition of their employment, the fees that they use for political activity would dry up very quickly."
Michigan Democrats are alternately threatening and begging Snyder to give up. Democratic Rep. Sander Levin not-very-subtly promised "endless controversy and strife," and protesters have been gearing up around the state since the GOP first took action last week.
Other Democrats are asking Snyder to veto the bill and set up a referendum on the issue in 2014. But Democrats will probably force some sort of referendum on the new law in 2014 anyway even if Snyder signs it, as expected. Why not put the new measure in place and see how it works for a couple of years?
Democrats are complaining about the speed with which Republicans are acting, but the truth is, organized labor has seen this coming for a while. Stung by the success of Gov. Scott Walker's efforts to limit collective bargaining in Wisconsin -- Walker's actions have resulted in more money, more teachers and better conditions in schools around the state -- they tried to make sure it wouldn't happen again. In Michigan, they pushed what was known as Proposal 2, which would have enshrined union collective bargaining powers in the state constitution. If Proposal 2 had passed, what state GOP lawmakers are doing now would have been literally unconstitutional.
But Proposal 2 was decisively defeated on Election Day, 58 percent to 42 percent. The path was clear for Republicans to act.
GOP lawmakers appear determined to keep going. When Levin and other congressional leaders urged caution, a spokesman for Michigan House Speaker Jase Bolger hit back at them for "trying to tell Republicans in Michigan to slow down and not do our job in Lansing while they fail to resolve the nation's fiscal cliff crisis or even approve a budget." Hard to argue with that.
For the right-to-work forces, what is happening in Michigan, like what happened in Wisconsin and Indiana before it, is the result of years of work against the system of union power and mandatory dues. It was a long time coming. "People always say this is a really tough battle, you can't win," says Mark Mix. Like the Berlin Wall, Mix says, the entrenched union structure sometimes looked unassailable. "Then one morning we woke up and guess what? We found out it wasn't nearly as strong as we thought."
Byron York, The Examiner's chief political correspondent, can be contacted at firstname.lastname@example.org. His column appears on Tuesday and Friday, and his stories and blogposts appear on washingtonexaminer.com. | <urn:uuid:500a4caa-c6c7-4b71-bf1c-016120a1a0f1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://washingtonexaminer.com/article/2515568 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00069-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974382 | 995 | 1.90625 | 2 |
|Advances in Motor Technology for the Medical Industry|
Medical Device & Diagnostic Industry
HREF="/mddi/by_issue.html">MDDI Article Index
An MD&DI May 1997 Column
Improvements in motor technology help manufacturers meet the demands of developing state-of-the-art medical devices.
Motors have been the most popular means of turning electrical energy into mechanical work for more than 100 years. Since relevant standards were first promulgated in 1927 by the then-nascent National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA), the majority of improvements in motor technology have been incremental. Beginning in the 1980s, however, product designers became increasingly dissatisfied with the status quo, and, under pressure from medical and other original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), motor suppliers have advanced the state of the art further in the last 15 years than in the previous two generations.
Improvements in motor capabilities have already helped device manufacturers bring such products as portable, disposable, and battery-operated instruments to market. Similarly, developments in manufacturing techniques and battery technology have enabled motor makers to produce actuators that are easier to integrate into a manufacturing process, more power efficient, longer-lived, less noisy, and smaller in size. While such improvements may now be taken for granted by many end-users, the technologies needed to realize them are often complex and involve far more than the substitution of one material or design feature for another. In addition, actuators for medical applications must frequently endure hostile environments, caustic fluids, radiation or steam, elevated temperatures, vacuums, and physical abuse. The expectation is that not only will they function flawlessly through all this, but they will also be cost-effective and fit into an envelope that is frequently defined even before the motor is selected. To meet these demands, motor manufacturers have drawn on numerous recent technological advances.
A working prototype of a brushless microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) gearmotor. The planetary gearhead is approximately 2 mm in diameter.
In medical products where actuator reliability is critical, the motor is considered a precision component rather than a commodity device. For such applications, device manufacturers can specify motors with precious-metal brush systems, which afford smooth commutation and low electrical and audible noise; they also operate on start-up even after prolonged periods of inactivity. In less-demanding applications, motors with carbon-brush systems can be used. Usually less expensive than precious-metal systems, such motors are capable of sustaining high-current flows without damage. In addition, the recent inclusion of capacitor rings or resistance-capacitance networks in carbon-brush motors has lowered their electrical noise (creating less electromagnetic interference) through smoother commutation, as well as extended their expected lifetime by suppressing large electrical spikes.
Another recent advance has been the incorporation of advanced plastic and composite components in motor and gearhead systems to reduce costs, lower weight, and provide uniform products with short lead times. When used judiciously in gearmotor systems, plastic gearing can also help to reduce audible noise, an important consideration in the building of bedside or unobtrusive motorized devices. All plastics are not alike, however, so when specifying actuator components with plastic elements it is important to understand the environmental and load conditions under which the system will operate. Using hardened steels for shafts and cutting gears more precisely have also improved gearmotor capabilities by decreasing backlash and lengthening gear life.
Whether a manufacturer chooses a plastic- or metal-based actuator system, lubrication is an important consideration. The selection of the proper lubricating medium is essential in assembling a system that is reliable, quiet, appropriate in current consumption, and long-lived. Numerous synthetic lubricants and lubrication systems have become available in the last dozen years. Most of these systems were developed not by theoretical calculation, but through meticulous experimentation under a wide range of operating environments. Applications that involve hard vacuum, radiation, or extreme loads require particularly careful system selection. OEMs should consult with their motor supplier to ensure that the product they specify is the one that best meets their needs.
Like other motor elements, the choice of a magnet is important, and magnets with different properties cannot be interchanged arbitrarily for the sake of greater power output, increased oxidation resistance, easier availability, or lower cost. In the past, ceramic ferrite magnets held a large share of the medical motor market. Then, with increased demands for more power and a smaller package size, Alnico (an alloy based on aluminum, nickel, and cobalt) and samarium-cobalt magnets gained a larger market share, especially for high-power micromotors. Wide swings in the price of cobalt (from expensive to more expensive) together with its spotty availability, however, have led higher-end motor users to neodymium magnets. The possibility of using superconducting technology in next-generation magnet products has also been raised, but when this technology comes to fruition, it will most likely be used in windings for large integral horsepower motors, which have limited applications in medical devices. Switched reluctance motors offer another possible choice. These motors use no permanent magnets at all, but the cost of tooling for production is high and the motors usually require complex electrical drivers.
Another promising advance in motor materials is engineered ceramics, which are being used in specialized gearmotor and gearhead bearing systems. Compared with popular sintered bronze bearings and expensive stainless-steel ball bearings, sintered ceramic bearings provide up to 50% more load-bearing capability in precision gearing systems, yet add only pennies to the unit cost of a gearhead. Undoubtedly, these types of bearing systems will be used widely in the years ahead since they prevent premature gearhead failure without requiring the incorporation of steel ball bearings.
A brushless dc encoded servo motor for OEM applications.
The advent of affordable computer numerical control production and assembly equipment has enabled motor manufacturers to hold tolerances in the micrometer range, maintain consistency from piece to piece, and customize products in small quantities. State-of-the-art machining, tooling, and quality systems also ensure that there will be minimal variability of a single product from lot to lot. The widespread adoption of ISO 9001 quality systems within the motor industry also provides a level of comfort about motor reliability for both the device manufacturer and the device end-user.
Many advanced motor design features are available, but perhaps the most important choice for medical device designers is between iron-core and coreless motors. In the classic iron-core motor, wire is wrapped around a piece of iron, and electricity (through the brush-and-commutator system) turns the wire and iron mass. In the case of coreless motors, a hollow armature, typically made of copper, is situated over a stationary magnet system. When energized, the coil--and only the coil--moves, thus accomplishing mechanical work through the shaft that is attached to it. The elimination of a rotating iron mass offers such advantages as fast dynamic response, high power efficiencies, and low current draw. These types of motors have become the rule rather than the exception in critical battery-operated or remotely situated devices where rapid cycling or long battery life is important. A typical coreless motor design is shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1. A typical coreless motor design.Figure 2. A typical servo-type brushless motor design.Figure 3. Brush-type and brushless motors with self-contained control modules.
Figure 2. A typical servo-type brushless motor design.
Another important motor design advance that has been gaining momentum since the 1980s is the brushless motor. As the name implies, a brushless system contains no brushes; the motor shaft is turned by electrical commutation. This effect is usually accomplished with Hall sensor elements or via sensorless methods in which the back electromagnetic field of the motor is monitored and a microprocessor is used to provide a commutation signal. Well suited for applications where very high rotational speeds (up to 100,000 rpm) are required, brushless motors also have the advantage of not being subject to brush wear--the major failure mode in traditional brush-type motor designs. Because bearing life rather than brush life is the limiting factor in the case of brushless motors, such systems can achieve lifetimes of 20,000 hours or more versus the 300 to 5000 hours that is typical of brush-type devices. The price for this longevity is the higher cost of ball bearings for brushless systems and the need for an electronic driver to accomplish commutation. Currently, brushless motors are being used in such applications as high-quality pumps, precision handpieces, centrifuges, and manufacturing equipment. An exploded view of a typical servo-type brushless motor appears in Figure 2.
When design engineers must choose between possible motor styles for a new device, motor suppliers can provide valuable assistance. Their knowledge of the available products as well as solutions in the pipeline can help OEMs cut time off the design schedule, thus speeding time to market and lowering product development costs. Such expertise can also be invaluable in avoiding the pitfalls of specifying an incorrect component and the classic and wasteful flaw of reinventing the wheel.
MANUFACTURING SYSTEM MOTORS
While the above discussion focused on motors for use in devices and instruments, medical OEMs can also benefit from advances in motors for the production systems used to manufacture medical devices. Until recently, most of the brush-type dc motors, brushless motors, and stepping motors used in manufacturing equipment were open-loop systems. That is, when power was applied to the motor it performed some turning, running, or incremental motion without reference to a fixed, or "home," position. Examples of such systems are myriad: drills, reciprocating saws, indexing devices, pumps, and so forth. Most of these are fractional-horsepower (<1 hp ~ <746 W) applications. As medical OEMs have extended their concerns about device costs to manufacturing expenses, such equipment has been identified as a source of recurring expenses (for ancillary equipment, accessories, machined parts, and the like). The impetus to decrease such costs is now the driver behind a move toward distributed control systems on the manufacturing floor.
Distributed control systems represent a radical departure from traditional manufacturing technology in that the entire actuator/ servo system (motor + gearhead + feedback device + microprocessor) is situated at the point where the work is done and is connected to a host system by as few as two or three wires. In contrast, in traditional schemes the control unit is a discrete station or cabinet that communicates with and controls the actuator components through a series of wires and cables. Eliminating these wires and cables reduces induced noise in the system and dramatically reduces wiring costs and complexity, sometimes by a factor of three or four.
Figure 3. Brush-type and brushless motors with self-contained control modules.
Two complete servo systems (one brush-type, one brushless) are shown in Figure 3. In this type of system, a high-performance motor or gearmotor with a feedback device is coupled with a self-contained microprocessor control module measuring only a few inches. The modules run as assignable nodes over a serial or net system and can be plugged in, switched around, or removed as needed as part of an open architecture system. The logic necessary to provide this flexibility is incorporated wholly in software. An added feature in the most advanced of these systems is the incorporation of a drive amplifier into the motion control module, which further minimizes costs, wiring, and integration complexities. Because these control devices communicate serially or over an open protocol, they can be used with any manufacturer's components, thus eliminating the problems sometimes caused by having to integrate a proprietary closed system into a manufacturing line.
It is difficult, if not foolhardy, to predict specific technological advances. Nevertheless, based on input from OEM motor users and the many R&D programs under way in the motor and motion control industry, several current trends are likely to continue.
Motor Alternatives and Downgrades. Because moving parts are subject to failure, medical product designers are open to considering using other types of components to achieve the same results as motors. There are already several areas in which acceptable substitutes are available. In noncritical drug-delivery applications, the use of transdermal patches, osmotic systems, and implantables has eroded the market for motorized drug-delivery systems, and in monitors that record vital signs and critical incidents for subsequent analysis, tape drives are being replaced by microprocessor memory. Why turn tapes with motors when digital storage can be achieved directly?
There is also a growing pool of suppliers who can provide commodity-grade "motors by the pound" for those medical applications where a certain number of motor and gearing failures is acceptable. These products are most frequently used in disposable instruments where, if the unit fails on power-up, the user simply throws it away and switches to a replacement unit. Lower-quality motors can also be appropriate where the operating life of the motor is measured in minutes instead of hundreds or thousands of hours and where having operating specifications differ widely from unit to unit is acceptable.
MEMS. The miniaturization technology known as MEMS, which stands for microelectromechanical systems, has excited researchers and designers since its launch a dozen years ago as an initiative of the National Science Foundation and the Department of Defense. Based on semiconductor processing technology, MEMS promises micrometer-range sensors and actuators so small that they are difficult to see with the naked eye. Most national laboratories and many motor manufacturers have had development programs in place for several years to realize this promise. Unfortunately, many misconceptions exist as to how the technology might be commercialized. At present, the most popular adaptation is for automobile air-bag sensors.
Early advocates of MEMS assumed that with sufficient funds and research diligence a new generation of actuator products could be produced through lithography or micromachining that would be small (in the 50-nm1-mm range), inexpensive (<$1 apiece in quantities), lightweight, highly reproducible, and ubiquitous. While researchers have presented promising research in this area at many conferences and seminars, the reality is that the physics of the micro world are not necessarily the same as those of the macro world and the cost of producing these products is higher than that of traditional motor technologies. Other vexing problems are that very small motors are difficult to interface with other components, have very little usable power, and are tremendously inefficient. They are also very difficult to assemble and sometimes require very high voltages (on the order of 100300 V dc) to operate.
Nevertheless, working prototypes of hybrid MEMS motors are being produced today and some versions will probably be available to customers on a limited basis later this year. In the case of these mesoscopic motors, MEMS micromachining techniques are used to produce some of the motor and gearing parts, and more-traditional micromotor technologies are used to solve the assembly, lubrication, and power issues. A brushless dc motor with planetary gearhead in the 2-mm-diam range has many potential applications in the medical field, such as motorized catheters, minimally invasive surgical devices, implantable drug-delivery systems, and artificial organs. Research prototypes have been incorporated successfully in endoscopic surgical devices, micropumps, virtual reality operating theaters, telesurgery systems, unobtrusive prosthetic devices, intraocular microsurgery devices, microscopic diagnostic and analytical instruments, and microforceps.
Closed-Loop Systems. Another exciting trend is the utilization of large-scale servo systems in medical instrumentation. As described above, closed-loop servo control is usually thought of in terms of production machinery. In those systems, a feedback device such as an optical or magnetic encoder continually provides position and/or velocity information to a microprocessor, which in turn adjusts the torque and speed of a motor or gearmotor. In contrast, in a typical surgical device, the feedback that controls a motor may be a physician who is applying various degrees of physical pressure--to control the speed of a drill, for example. To provide greater consistency, or to allow a machine to perform a procedure inaccessible to human hands, it is desirable to integrate a feedback device into the instrument. Miniaturization now affords designers the opportunity to incorporate tachometers and encoders as small as 1/2 in. diam into motorized systems to achieve precise levels of control.
While it is beyond the scope of this article to address the many issues surrounding motor standards for the medical industry, it may be helpful to briefly discuss CE marking for products being exported to the European Union (EU). Except in certain instances (i.e., motors operating on supply voltages between 50 and 1000 V ac and between 75 and 1500 V dc) the CE marking of micromotors and gearheads is unnecessary, and probably inappropriate, unless they will be sold directly to end-users. There is a widespread belief that if a product designer specifies only components that hold CE marks, the assembly resulting therefrom will be CE compliant. This is not the case; it is the responsibility of the manufacturer, the importer into the EU, or the manufacturer's agent to ensure that the total assembly meets appropriate European regulations before the product is placed on the market.
Entities such as NEMA's Programmable Motion Control Group and the EU itself are now considering the question of the CE marking of individual components, with a pronouncement expected later this year. Meanwhile, current standards that apply specifically to motors are cited in the bibliography below, along with some books that describe specific motor types in detail.
With product differentiation playing an ever more important role in the marketing of motors and medical devices alike, advances in motor technology can benefit manufacturers as well as the end-users of their products. A variety of advanced motor materials and design features are already available, and the future promises further developments in such areas as micromotors and closed-loop microprocessor controls.
Clifford M, Electric/Electronic Motor Data Handbook, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, Prentice-Hall, 1990.
Hanselman D, Brushless Permanent-Magnet Motor Design, New York, McGraw-Hill, 1994.
Kenjo T, and Nagamori S, Permanent-Magnet and Brushless DC Motors, Oxford, UK, Clarendon Press, 1985.
Kenjo T, and Sugawara A, Stepping Motors and Their Microprocessor Controls, Oxford, UK, Clarendon Press, 1994.
MG 1: Motors and Generators, Rosslyn, VA, National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA), 1993.
MG 7-1993: Motion/Position Control Motors, Controls, and Feedback Devices, Rosslyn, VA, NEMA, 1993.
IEC 34-20-1: Control Motors, Geneva, International Electrotechnical Commission, 1997 (draft standard). | <urn:uuid:605f0e21-3cff-40a3-a284-83519c360fc9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mddionline.com/article/advances-motor-technology-medical-industry?quicktabs_4=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932476 | 3,912 | 2.890625 | 3 |
Compiled and edited by Charles J. Kappler. Washington : Government Printing Office, 1929.
|Chap. 222||Chippewa Indians, Minn.
Per capita payment to, from principal fund.
25 Stat., 645; vol. 1, 305.
Acceptance by Indians.
Not subject to any lien, etc.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the Secretary of the Interior be, and he is hereby, authorized to withdraw from the Treasury of the United States so much as may be necessary of the principal fund on deposit to the credit of the Chippewa Indians in the State of Minnesota, arising under section 7 of the Act of January 14, 1889 (Twenty-fifth Statutes at Large, page 642), entitled "An Act for the relief and civilization of the Chippewa Indians in the State of Minnesota," and to make therefrom a per capita payment or distribution of $25 to each of the enrolled Chippewa Indians of Minnesota, under such rules and regulations as the said Secretary may
prescribe: Provided, That before any payment is made hereunder the Chippewa Indians of Minnesota shall, in such manner as may be prescribed by the Secretary of the Interior, ratify the provisions of this Act and accept same: Provided further, That the money paid to the Indians as authorized herein shall not be subject to any lien or claim of attorneys or other parties.
Approved, March 15, 1928. | <urn:uuid:97eff83c-9a0b-43ec-8f36-e832cf7811a7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://digital.library.okstate.edu/kappler/Vol5/html_files/v5p0035.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00069-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.915576 | 320 | 1.75 | 2 |
Could solving the prickly mystery of how CD4 cells are lost lead to new approaches to therapy? Re
Could solving the prickly mystery of how CD4 cells are lost lead to new approaches to therapy? Researchers think so, and here's why. The long-held theory that HIV depletes its primary target, CD4 cells, by blocking new T-cell production was dealt a blow -- make that a one-two punch -- by a duo of recent studies that reached a new conclusion: The virus actually accelerates the division (proliferation) of existing T cells (both CD4s and CD8s) and increases their rate of death. So the eventual loss of CD4 cells that brings on immune deficiency and disease results from increased cell death, rather than decreased cell production.
These breakthrough findings were reported independently in December's Journal of Experimental Medicine by two top teams -- one led by virologist Joseph Kovacs, MD, at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and the other by Hiroshi Mori, MD, and David Ho, MD, both of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center. More specifically, the Kovacs team found that HIV is causing a very rapid expansion of one subset of CD4 cells, while there is a much slower increase in a different subset. The cells in the fast-building group also die at a much quicker rate than the ones in the slow group. Interestingly, viral loads only seem to correlate with the size of the rapid proliferator group, not the slowbies. And alas, the current drugs only target the speedsters.
That means that even HAART-takers with nondetectable viral loads may still experience a decline in CD4 cells over time because of what's happening to the untouched slow group. However, if drugs could be developed to target those more slowly proliferating cells, that might help put the brakes on immune decline. For Ho, a "hit early and hit hard" advocate, the discovery supports aggressive treatment to blunt T-cell loss as soon as possible. He cautions that individuals still need to weigh the benefits and risks of HAART, but says, "If we are draining [CD4 cells] from a finite source while allowing HIV replication to occur, there is wear and tear on the immune system. I'd rather preserve the immune system than repair it -- because there are no tools to repair it right now." | <urn:uuid:9bab1be9-2861-4c87-a14a-906d89c67167> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.poz.com/articles/177_849.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956902 | 494 | 2.640625 | 3 |
This is a good Data Set to use in discussions on variability within ecosystems and on how limiting resources can influence primary productivity. Prairie ecosystems provide a great opportunity to investigate the influences of different factors, and their interactions, on productivity and biomass, because the majority of the aboveground vegetation grows and dies each season. Finally, this exercise will hopefully illustrate the unique characteristics and species inherent in this disappearing ecosystem.
How much time your students will need to make these figures in part depends on their familiarity with Excel. Although the directions include step-by-step instructions, students new to Excel will of course need more time. Students should work in groups of 3-4 during one or more lab sessions, or outside of lab for homework. Data Set 1 is small and will not take much time. The directions for Data Set 2 ask students to make 5 figures, which could take a lot of time. To save time, you could provide the first figure or two and ask students to make the rest. There is a good deal of information to keep track of here and the Worksheet is designed for that purpose.
Many undergraduates have little experience interpreting figures and therefore will need help with this. For suggestions about a two-step process (observation followed by interpretation) see the TIEE essay “Interpreting Figures and Tables”.
Each teacher will have to decide how much feedback to give students, and how much to ask from them, as they progress through the lesson. A good way to make this decision is to consider the intended outcomes for the exercise. What do you want students to know and be able to do? This should help you decide how often, for example, you want to stop the class and ask students to discuss their progress and questions with each other. In addition to helping students better understand the material, this type of discussion gives you valuable formative feedback on student understanding. Student evaluation can be based on several products including the worksheet, the figures, or both. If students work in groups, you will have to decide if the group submits a combined piece of work or if each student submits their own. There are pluses and minuses for each. The suggestion for evaluation described below is an essay.
This exercise contains three datasets for students to explore productivity patterns in tallgrass prairie. Each successive dataset builds on the previous one. Therefore, don’t start with Dataset 2 without first completing Dataset 1. Dataset 1 and 2 are appropriate for undergraduate courses, and Dataset 3 integrates the relationships outlined in the previous two datasets and requires more thought. For this reason, Dataset 3 is more appropriate for graduate students or an advanced undergraduate ecology course.
Dataset 1: Contains the mean aboveground productivity plus standard error for total, grass, and forb components separated by annually and 20-year burns. These data illustrate that burned prairie is more productive than unburned largely because burning increases grass productivity. When fire is withheld, forbs increase, and grasses decrease. After the students finish their first set of graphs, assess how they have done and facilitate a discussion of their hypotheses. You could expect that if this experiment was repeated for another 16 years, the mean productivity value in annually burned prairie could range from 520 to 420 g-m-2 or between 420 and 344 g/m-2 in the 20-year burn. As a general rule, if the top of one error bar doesn’t overlap with the bottom of another, then a true difference between treatments likely exists.
Dataset 2: Includes total precipitation as an explanatory variable of annual productivity. The strength of the relationship between these two variables (precipitation and productivity) is investigated by sequentially separating the data into multiple burn regimes, topographies, and vegetation types. When finished, grasses in upland, annually-burned sites are identified as being the most water-dependent.
Dataset 3 (additional data): Contains the complete record of productivity values for all burn frequencies, topographies, and vegetation types. In addition, a third fire frequency is added (4-year) to investigate the effects of intermediate disturbance in this grassland.
For the second component of this dataset, a table of additional predictor variables beyond just total precipitation amount is included to investigate the influence of changing precipitation patterns (rather than just means alone) on aboveground productivity. There are a large number of relationships that the students can compare, and largely, most will be non-significant, but important trends can be identified (e.g., increasing variability in precipitation pattern decreases productivity). This dataset provides an excellent opportunity for students to think about how a changing climate will influence productivity and how records of long-term data can serve as an alternative to experimental manipulation.
There are many questions in the Student Instructions. Questions dealing with broader aspects may include but are not limited to: | <urn:uuid:02df20da-9a33-490a-babb-3edd608ce6a1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tiee.esa.org/vol/v3/issues/data_sets/konza/faculty.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944088 | 998 | 3.40625 | 3 |
Review to be emailed:
Audience: 4th Grade - 8th Grade
This little book about the adventures of a young prince from his own planet as he ventures out into the wider universe is beloved for its deeper story of what is truly important in life. This graphic novel adaptation makes concrete many of the stories inside it, adding richness to the situations contained within. While surprisingly faithful to the text (of the English translation in nongraphic format I examined), the addition of pictures in a frame-by-frame telling of the tale brings an immediacy to the series of dilemmas the little prince and the pilot he meets face, allowing the reader to more fully explore them. In the same way adapting a book to film adds an interpretation that the reader makes on one's own when reading, this transfer to another artistic medium, the graphic novel, adds something that those who love the tale may value. Of course, those who love the tale are unlikely to abandon the textual telling for this one, but the graphic novel, while faithful to the story in the original, is also a work of art in its own right that lovers of the story may also embrace.
Date read: 11/30/2011
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Copyright © 2004-2013 St. Charles Public Library. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:3107e624-04fb-497e-aee8-125226cd9942> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://stcharleslibrary.org/ygtrt/email.asp?BookID=1746&returnURL=%2Fygtrt%2Fdefault.asp%3FCategory%3D24%26grs%3D0%26gre%3D9%26Page%3D135 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.917178 | 304 | 1.992188 | 2 |
New discoveries and revelations happen daily about everything, from our past to our future, that are astonishing and profound, just like this one made recently.
A prehistoric forest that dates back 298 MILLION years has been disocovered INTACT below a coal mine in China after being perfectly preserved under volcanic ash this whole time. Wow, just wow!
The forest is so perfectly preserved that researchers can literally recreate the forest exactly as it was almost 300 million years ago.
Their findings are so precise they have created images of what it would have actually looked like to our eyes, how fantastic!
American and Chinese scientists are flabbergasted after discovering a giant 298-million-year-old forest buried intact under a coal mine near Wuda, in Inner Mongolia, China.
They are calling it the Pompeii of the Permian period because, like the ancient Roman city, it was covered and preserved by volcanic ash.
Like Pompeii, this swamp forest is so perfectly maintained that scientists know where every plant originally was. This has allowed them to map it and to create the images above. This extraordinary finding “is like Pompeii”, according to University of Pennsylvania paleobotanist Hermann Pfefferkorn, who characterized it as “a time capsule.”
“It’s marvelously preserved. We can stand there and find a branch with the leaves attached, and then we find the next branch and the next branch and the next branch. And then we find the stump from the same tree. That’s really exciting.”
They are in fact finding entire trees and plants exactly as they were at the time of the volcanic eruption, just like archeologists in Pompeii found humans, animals and buildings at the base of Mount Vesuvius, near Naples, in the Italian region of Campania. Except Pompeei was buried in AD 79 and this forest was covered in ash 298 million years ago, during the Permian period.
Read more at gizmodo.com | <urn:uuid:ba75382a-cb70-4753-9555-7b7257179f35> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.museumoftheweird.com/2012/02/24/298-million-year-old-prehistoric-forest-found/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00062-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964173 | 416 | 3.578125 | 4 |
Larry Stahle became a mentor for many aspiring journalists while working as a professor at Weber State University. He also was publisher of newspapers in Sanpete County. Niles worked for the Clipper while growing up, but went into law enforcement, serving as police chief of North Salt Lake for some years. Daughter Merna was involved for many years as bookkeeper for the paper.
Lucile Schulthies, who married John, Jr. in 1924, also became pivotal to the Clipper's success. For many years, she was the sole advertising representative and would go up and down Bountiful's then bustling Main Street, and beyond, generating revenue for the newspaper. As was noted in the biography prepared for the Press Association, many believe she is every bit as deserving of the award as her husband.
John Stahle, Jr., was born in 1903, at a time when the automobile was still a novelty, and the radio or TV had yet to be invented. Yet, he lived into a time when his beloved Linotype, on which lead newspaper type was fashioned into articles, was replaced by the personal computer, pagination, and the revolutionary changes that have come mechanically to publications today.
With his father, co-founder of the Clipper, and then for many years after, John Stahle, Jr., molded the Clipper into what it is today. He kept it going financially through thick and thin times, through the Great Depression and beyond, when countless weekly newspapers died. It often meant working many late hours, staying on the job until the wee hours of the morning on those days the paper "went to bed" (was published).
For many years, to make ends meet for their large family, both John Jr. and Lucile Stahle ran a family movie business, enlisting the help of their children to make it successful. They showed movies in schools and LDS ward houses, bringing the projector, movie reels and the rest to eager audiences. In those days, there were not the myriad entertaining diversions so readily available today.
He passed on a legacy of hard work and a love of the newspaper business to his children. According to son Larry, that love affair had to do with wanting more than anything to pass on what he'd learned to others. At times, that meant chasing every fire truck in Bountiful to learn the story that then could be shared. John Stahle, Jr. remembered his father's words, "Give them something they don't know."
Gail Stahle, meanwhile, said a newspaper such as the Clipper chronicles people's whole lives--their births, their graduations, their marriages and their deaths.
The Master Editor and Publisher of the Year honor was bestowed on John Stahle, Jr. in 1974. That is considered the Utah Press Association's most prestigious honor.
It is with great pride that we note this great milestone for a long-time fixture at the Davis County Clipper and the Davis County community. Even though he is gone, his legacy lives on in the lives of many, from his family that is still so involved in the newspaper business, to the many others he has influenced in the community, state and beyond. | <urn:uuid:0c7937c0-7ec7-483e-a8db-e8d2ffb64a0f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://davisclipper.com/pages/full_story/push?article-John+Stahle-+Jr-+-+Clipper+publisher+helped+build+his+family-s+legacy%20&id=150356 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00044-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.989331 | 660 | 2.09375 | 2 |
By Steve Gunn
MUKWONAGO, Wis. – Over the course of the last century, many sports teams representing American K-12 schools and colleges adopted racially-based nicknames.
Some of those nicknames have come to be resented by minority groups, and their unhappiness is certainly understandable.
Some states have acted to bar the use of racially-based nicknames. Some K-12 schools and universities have voluntarily dropped such names. But in other communities, the nicknames have become part of the local identity, and residents are hesitant to part with tradition.
Such is the case in the Mukwonago, Wisconsin school district, where the school sports teams have been known as the “Indians” for more than 80 years, and the logo is a depiction of a Native American man wearing a headdress, according to TwinCities.com.
Wisconsin lawmakers passed legislation in 2010 giving the state Department of Public Instruction the authority to force schools to drop race-based nicknames if a complaint is filed and the department determines that the nickname is discriminatory.
A Mukwonago resident complained about the local school’s nickname and logo, and the DPI instructed the school district to drop them, according to the website. Some local parents appealed the order but an appeals court judge ruled against them last week.
The district now has until 2014 to drop the nickname and logo. But Mukwonago Superintendent Paul Strobel says the district has no intention of cooperating.
Strobel said district officials have asked members of the state legislature to repeal the law governing school nicknames, and a group of parents is preparing to ask the Wisconsin Supreme Court to hear the case.
This is a difficult situation.
Many school nicknames and logos involve caricatures of Native Americans that are less than accurate or flattering. Most were adopted in another era, when racial sensitivity was not taken into consideration.
But many of the nicknames have become woven into the fabric of their communities and mean a great deal to residents. The locals don’t see them as an attempt to offend anybody. They see them as part of a cherished local tradition.
They look at pro sports teams like the Washington Redskins and Cleveland Indians and wonder what all the fuss is about.
No matter how this disagreement turns out, there will be resentment on the losing side.
Perhaps a good compromise would be to poll Native Americans living in the Mukwonago area to determine how they feel about the nickname and logo. After all, the original complaint was apparently filed by just one person.
If a majority of Native Americans feel demeaned by the nickname, school officials should voluntarily let it go. If that’s not the case, perhaps the state should reconsider its decision.
That’s just one idea to deal with a very delicate controversy. | <urn:uuid:bfc76993-2d98-40be-a68d-581b907bb975> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://eagnews.org/wisconsin-school-district-prepared-to-battle-the-state-to-keep-its-indians-nickname/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00066-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966242 | 578 | 2.234375 | 2 |
Last updated 1 year ago
Once upon a time, there was a local business owner, let's call him Local Bob, who created a website with lots of great content that was keyword-rich and extremely informational plus his site had a fantastic, asthetically pleasing design. He also made sure that some other sites in his industry or that were relevant to his industry link back to his local business website.
In those days, back when Google only really cared about keywords, content, meta-tags and inbound links, Local Bob's site ranked really high in the organic listing for about 10 keywords. After a year or two, Local Bob noticed that his website was no longer ranking as high in Google's organic listings.
Local Bob started pacing and scratching his head trying to figure out what had happened? Why wasn't he showing up any longer?
What Local Bob didn't realize was that the Internet was changing. With the arrival of social media sites, review sites, blogs, video sites and so much more, search engines had to alter the way they ranked Local Bob's website. Now, search engines like Google weren't only looking at the content on Local Bob's website and his inbound links, they also had to factor in what people were saying about Local Bob's business and how they were interacting with him online. So while Local Bob's SEO investment two years ago had initially paid off, it was no longer getting him the organic ranking he deserved. In fact, he had completely disappeared from sight.
Then Local Bob got a brilliant idea. What if he could guarantee top-priority placement on the search engines?
And he did. Through pay-per-click advertising (ReachSearch) Local Bob was able to guarantee top placement on over 98% of the places that his customers were searching for him. And he wasn't just getting that placement for a couple keywords, he was getting top placement for hundreds of keywords. As part of the service, Local Bob's pay-per-click advertising campaign tracked the visits, calls and emails from his text ads so that it could optimize around the best performing keywords for Local Bob's business and in the end run a more effective and efficient campaign that truly invested Local Bob's money in all the right places.
For Local Bob, just having a small text ad wasn't enough - he wanted to dominate the search results page. But how could he do this?
After doing some research Local Bob learned of the new ways Google was ranking local businesses on their search results page. First, they looked at his website content and inbound links to his website. But now, they were adding another piece to the equation. Google decided they also needed to factor in Local Bob's online reputation and social authority to really give the searcher the most accurate and relevant results possible.
Hmm....thought Local Bob, how can I get found on search engines now. Local Bob had stumbled across a couple online reviews about his business but couldn't remember where they were found. And he had set up a Facebook fanpage and Twitter account but they were currently collecting online dust bunnies because he had forgotten to update them over the past 9 months.
"I wonder," thought Local Bob, "if there is some type of service or product that can just manage my online reptuation and social media presence for me. I don't have the money to invest in hiring someone full-time who will cost me upwards of $30,000. And I don't have the time to do it myself - I have to keep my business running. What can I do?"
After speaking with some local business buddies via LinkedIn, Local Bob discovered a total web presence service that incorporated all of the main elements of Google's PageRank equation, ReachCast. This was his golden ticket to once again having dominant organic results placement that drove customers to his website and through his business door.
Six months later, Local Bob's business is thriving once again, actually it's better than thriving, his business is bursting at the seams. So much that Local Bob's considering opening another location. Between his pay-per-click advertising and total web presence service, Local Bob has become the dominate business listed on the organic search results page. In fact, it's hard to even locate a competitor on the first page for some of his top-performing keywords.
So, what can you learn from Local Bob?
For starters, not doing any online marketing and expecting huge success from your website alone is the equivalent to finding that needle in the proverbial haystack. Sure, you need a website but a static website that hasn't been updated in months or years isn't going to be enough any longer. If you want your business to succeed online, you have to have multiple online marketing strategies in place.
Just as you had multiple traditional marketing campaigns running (such as print, tv, radio), you need a variety of online advertising mediums to really drive traffic to your business.
Second, you have to monitor your online reputation and engage in social media. Facebook and Twitter aren't just for teeny-boppers. Local business owners and major corporations alike are learning that if they really want to create brand loyalty and drive new sales, they have to engage with their audience. How do you do this - through social media of course.
When it comes to your online reputation - do you know what's being said about you? If you aren't part of the conversation, your consumers will continue having it without you. How many sales could you be losing out on every day because of a negative review you didn't even know existed? And what if that review was completely wrong and meant for another business? You have to not only know what people are saying about you, you have to engage in the conversation as well.
It's time to take charge of your Internet presence and get the business you deserve!
Contact TeamBishop today!
If you or someone you know needs help with their online presence, search engine marketing, pay-per-click advertising, total web presence, online reputation management and social media you can contact TeamBishop at ReachLocal. We are conveniently located in Orlando and help small to medium businesses with their Internet marketing strategies.
(new Google equation photo courtesy of ReachLocal.)
Last updated 2 years ago
Now that you are driving more traffic to your website through online advertising, what are you doing to convert visitors into leads?
Immediately engage consumers by giving your website a human touch. You'll make a positive personal impression while cultivating leads that can increase sales.
TotalLive Chat is an easy-to-implement live chat technology that proactively engages visitors on your website and generates leads for your business. By inviting consumers to interact while they are on your site, TotalLive Chat helsp you connect with more site visitors - which can increase your leads by up to 30%. (ReachLocal)
TotalLive Chat is idea if you want to:
- Increase sales leads from your website
- Improve upon customer experience on your website
- Convert online consumers into viable leads
- Drive more traffic to your business
- Increase customer loyalty and trust
- Instantly be notified of viable leads
- Reduce website abandonment
TotalLive Chat is Available 7 days a week, 9am-1am EST.
If you'd like to know more about how TotalLive Chat can help you convert more website visits into sales, contact TeamBishop (321.422.6600 x113) today.
TeamBishop - offers online marketing solutions for small- to medium-sized businesses. Specializing in paid search (pay-per-click), social media, display advertising, online chat and web presence. We are ReachLocal Orlando's senior Internet Marketing Consulting Team. ReachLocal is an Internet advertising and digital marketing agency that specializes in helping small to medium businesses acquire, maintain and retain customers via the Internet.
Last updated 2 years ago
Google has been making some big changes that will definitely have an impact on how your business ranks within the organic search listings and how you can drive new customers to your business. No longer is your organic Google ranking only about your website content and keywords paired with the inbound links to your site. They are expanding how they determine your ranking to include your online reputation (such as reviews on Yelp and CitySearch) and social authority (such as your social media presence on Facebook and Twitter).
Straight from ReachLocal's blog, here are the ways Google is changing and how you can incorporate them to really drive new customers to your business.
"Google has been busy making some big changes over the last few months, and if you’re an SMB owner you should definitely be taking note. Why? Most of the new features, updates and changes specifically affect the local space with a focus on local businesses. ReachLocal GM & SVP of ReachCast, Alex Hawkinson, wrote about these changes in a two-part blog series a month ago, called Keeping Up With Google (Part One, Part Two).
Now, ReachLocal Co-Founder and CDO Nathan Hanks has created a presentation on Slideshare to elaborate more on Google’s strategy.
Check out the presentation on SlideShare here."
Learn more about Google's local strategy changes by visiting the ReachLocal blog. (quoted content courtesy of ReachLocal)
If you or someone you know needs help with marketing their small businss online through search engine marketing, pay per click advertising, total web presence, online reputation management , Internet advertising, and social media you can contact TeamBishop at ReachLocal in Orlando. We are Internet Marketing Consultants who help small business owners in the Orlanda area with their Internet marketing and advertising strategies through ReachLocal's proprietary technology.
Last updated 2 years ago
Looking for new business ideas in the new year? These 5 books make a great addition to any business owner's bookshelf. They're fantastic resources to utilize whether you're looking for business strategies, advertising ideas, managing your reputation, enhancing customer service and more.
1. The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use Social Media, Blogs, News Releases, Online Video, and Viral Marketing to Reach Buyers Directly, by David Meerman Scott. The rise of social media has catalyzed big changes in the marketing and public relations industries. Now, instead of relying solely on traditional media outlets or companies whose sole purpose is to push your message to the masses, business owners like you can contact receptive consumers directly via social media. In this book, you’ll learn more about how the Web drives new rules for marketing and public relations through case studies and real-world examples.
*This one happens to be a personal favorite of mine. Great resource.*
2. The Referral Engine: Teaching Your Business to Market Itself, by John Jantsch. The Duct Tape Marketing guru focuses on the trusted (and time-tested) technique of world-of-mouth referrals in this book. As most small businesses shift their attention (and ad dollars) from offline to online marketing strategies, Jantsch’s book is a good reminder that your word-of-mouth referrals can and should be included in that transition. With tips and how-tos on building a system that’s right for your small business, this book will guide you towards harnessing the cost-effective power of referrals in today’s digital age.
3. Carrots and Sticks Don't Work: Build a Culture of Employee Engagement with the Principles of RESPECT, by Paul L. Marciano. What keeps employees motivated and happy? In a word: respect. Here, Marciano explores the fundamental principle behind costly rewards and recognition programs to uncover more affordable ideas that are easier for small businesses to implement right away. Emphasizing the success of the team over individual performance is just one of the takeaways you’ll learn about to reduce turnover and low morale, so your employees remain focused, engaged and committed to winning as a group.
4. Rework, by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson. This isn’t your grandfather’s workplace. Or even your father’s. As a small business owner, you probably already know this. But how to adapt your day-to-day task list as well as your long-term strategies and approaches may remain a challenge. Written in a style and voice that recalls the authors’ company blog, Rework will encourage you to take a fresh approach on running your business in a 21st century workplace.
5. The Art of the Start: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything, by Guy Kawasaki. The co-founder of Alltop tackles the topic of how to start a business project right in this must-read for every entrepreneur. As the former marketing guru for Apple and a noted venture capitalist, Kawasaki’s unique background provides insight on every step of launching) or re-launching) major business undertakings. From putting together the perfect business plan to funding your big idea (with or without venture capital), The Art of the Start empowers
business owners to turn ideas into action.
Some of my other personal favorites include Six Pixels of Separation by Mitch Joel. This a phenomenal book on how social media and the Internet is changing not only our personal lives but the businesses we own and interact with as well. And another favorite is Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini. Awesome book if you want to learn more about how people think and our herd mentality.
What business books have you found to be the most helpful for your business?
(post courtesy of Angela Epley and the ReachLocal blog.)
If you or someone you know needs help with their online presence, search engine marketing or social media you can contact TeamBishop at ReachLocal. We are conveniently located in Orlando and help small to medium businesses with their Internet marketing strategies.
Last updated 2 years ago
With 86% of consumers using the Internet to find local businesses, are your potential customers being lured to your competitors?
When a consumer conducts a search, one of the first things they generally see on the page is the Google Places listings. Are you showing up?
If not, did you know that a competitor could be claiming your Google Places listing this very second?
It's true. Your competitors could be driving traffic away from you and to them simply by claiming your Google Places listing and linking it back to them.
Learn how you can Claim Your Google Places Listing and start driving more traffic to your business today.
Claiming your Google Places listing doesn't only keep competitors from luring your competitors away, it also a great way to expand your Web Presence and help customers find your business online.
Don’t have time to make sure your Google Places listing is set up correctly? We help each ReachCast Pro client set up their Google Places listing in addition to numerous online directories. To learn more, contact us today.
(Image courtesy of ReachLocal) | <urn:uuid:0ce88911-9a8c-4b30-9a45-bca837b53fd7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.teambishop.net/?offset=85&max=5 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957333 | 3,085 | 1.640625 | 2 |
9 Simple Rules for Being Human
I’ve tackled these questions before but they never cease to inspire me. Now I have an opportunity to reinvent my answers on ageofreason’s tumblr page, and who knows, perhaps get a good conversation going.
The hardest part about answering whether “objective truth exists” is knowing what we mean when we use words. Someone uses the word “objective” and maybe we think of pure descriptions of nature, or the ability to have access to an unmediated reality. To introduce the term into conversation is to want to know what reality is like when no one’s looking. Well for starters, we can’t escape our biology. We all filter the world through imperfect goggles, so to speak. However, despite how incorrigibly subjective the appearance of nature is, I believe we can know about nature itself in a responsible way, with proof, and not just our personal descriptions of it. What counts as evidence or proof, however, is not based upon a fixed method or of a fixed theory of rationality. All methodologies, even the most rational ones, have their limits. Therefore we turn to other more existential philosophies to understand objectivity.
For example, proof and evidence must always be accessed on grounds that include but go far beyond factual accuracy. In other words, the truth (and therefore utility of a claim) is not merely a matter of indexes (i.e. correspondence between theory and observation). Truth also gains its meaning in relation to the quality of goodness it inspires in others. Ergo, that which is genuinely good is true! Few intellectuals understand this, and even fewer scientists appreciate this. While we must include truth among our deepest values, its pursuit in the abstract must always, always, always exist in relation to an even more pressing—and unavoidable—concern: “How shall I live in this moment, this day?” A true acquisition of objective truth comes in recognition of this fact, which may appear a bit paradoxical: it is only when we ascribe functions in nature which are defined in terms of furthering a set of values we hold meaningful that we become committed to figuring out how we humans might fit into the story.
Indeed, if science has nothing to say about humans, it will have little to say to most humans. Science must therefore join the ranks of helping us understand those abstract monsters, such as Obligations, Duties, Morality, Beauty, and even God. Understanding the objective part of truth is not a matter of removing us from the picture, as if to suggest we do nothing but tincture it with falsehood and chimeras. It is a matter of taking into careful consideration the influence we have on the world. In fact, the accomplishment of objectivity is not in escaping our own point of view (because that is impossible) but in understanding our point of view.
This kind of objectivity is based on articulating and comprehending the human influence on observation, and this can result in knowing which features of the appearance and description are in fact in the world, even though both contributions, from the knower and the known, are in every view of the world. Such knowledge is an objectivity based on principles, not people or personalities. In this light, the man who understands himself and his influence in the world is not demoted or deprecated in the least; he is still very much at the center of a vast, cosmic adventure."
It seems every person in the modern era has to prove their worthiness. Everyone gets a job and goes to it for the majority of their adult lives, and in exchange they get money which they use the majority of to perpetuate their existence through housing and nutrient costs (assuming you are a typical “middle-class” with a low-end job). Every job contributes to livening society in some way, be it cleaning tables in a restaurant or overlooking a manufacturing line. The way it’s built, in order to reap the benefits of this lively society, you must contribute to it, which is insured through the labor-payment relationship. In other words, if you don’t have a job, you’ve got to go without, because shelter and food are attached to this system. Suddenly human rights have become human earns. But why does everyone have to pay to live on the planet they were born on? Why must there be this grand monstrosity that we call society that all industrial citizens must play a part in? Even most pre-industrialized peoples do not dedicate as much of their lifetimes to maintaining their shelters and acquiring food as the average industrial working citizen does. If this system exists due to the gargantuous amount of humans present, then why isn’t their a stopping point? The resources to support such a population growth comes from the societal production system, making it a self-feeding, ever expanding cycle. With the accelerating increase in demand for more resources, we are gradually choking out our only companions in the universe on the planet. At the rate we’re going, we will eventually extinct the society of nature, and chances are we will not be able to stabilize it for the rest of the human populous. Due to all these eventual cataclysmic effects caused by the society the majority of the world is enacting, I think it would be reasonable, if not downright absolutely necessary, to return back to the naturalistic way of living. The Earth alone is a very good caregiver and will assuredly continue our existence if we remain at a reasonable number. After all, living that way is what allowed us to evolve to be this intelligent. I’m not saying abandoning all technological developments, but some sort of effort should be made to keep us from destroying all life because of our selfishness. Perhaps ancient civilizations arrived to a similar conclusion, which would explain how several large groups of people disappeared almost instantaneously. When the size of the species decreases the quality of life for the individuals, perhaps that is the time to call for a revision. (Sorry if this seems a little disjunctive, there is a lot that I wanted to say but had to keep the information I used relevant.)
Spoken word piece created for the “In B Flat” project, commenting on the incredible expansion of information in our generation and years to come. | <urn:uuid:dea57ace-9deb-41ca-bcce-923cbdf73d8c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ageofreason.tumblr.com/tagged/humanity | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962894 | 1,300 | 2.40625 | 2 |
Chiropractic Reaches Consensus On Terminology For Stages Of Care
Chiropractic Reaches Consensus On Terminology For Stages Of Care
By Nataliya V. Schetchikova, PhD
For more than a century, chiropractic has largely existed in isolation from mainstream health care, evolving with its own philosophy, system of education and approach to patient care. And, like other groups that develop independently of the mainstream, the profession has created its own unique system of terminology.
The problem is, the terms—namely, preventive, supportive and maintenance care—are poorly understood by allopathic providers, patients and payers alike, which makes it difficult for DCs to communicate the value of their services and, essentially, prevents the profession from fully integrating into mainstream health care. And especially in the past decade, the difference in terminology started to cause problems in the reimbursement arena.
“The government and private payers started designing stages of chiropractic care using their own language and using this as a basis for denying care,” says Ritch Miller, DC, chairman of ACA’s Medicare Committee. “For example, Medicare doesn’t pay for maintenance care—but the definition of maintenance care is so gray that it’s left up to the claims adjusters to decide what it is, and many beneficiaries are wrongly denied care because of the interpretation of these terms,” he adds.
When claims for medically necessary chiropractic care started getting denied across multiple geographical areas and insurance plans, they were reported to the ACA’s Insurance and Managed Care (IMC) committee. “We began to see more clearly that there was significant misunderstanding, misinterpretation and misuse of the policy language we had at the time, especially in the payer industry,” says James L. Rehberger, DC, chair of the IMC Committee.
The policy language—specifically, definitions of supportive and maintenance care—was taken from the 1992 Mercy Guidelines and, in the beginning, served the profession quite well, says George McClelland, DC, former chairman of ACA’s Board of Governors. “The problem arose when insurance companies began abusing terms like ‘supportive care.’ It was dubbed maintenance care and deemed inappropriate to be billed for,” he says.
ACA’s IMC Committee attempted to make improvements to the existing language numerous times. However, after debates in the House of Delegates, it became clear that “we needed to reach a scientific multidisciplinary consensus, improve the language and make it more available,” says Dr. Rehberger.
“All other provider types do the same thing—it’s time that we did it,” adds Dr. Miller.
To conduct a proper scientific process and reach consensus on terminology describing stages of chiropractic care, ACA commissioned the Council on Chiropractic Guidelines and Practice Parameters (CCGPP), an organization that has been accumulating evidence pertinent to chiropractic practice and developing consensus documents and literature syntheses.
From the existing literature and policy documents, CCGPP developed 15 seed statements describing the phases of chiropractic care. Then the Congress of Chiropractic State Associations and ACA were asked to nominate panelists—representing 14 states and 18 chiropractic organizations, with a broad range of philosophical perspectives—to review the statements. In addition, a nurse, a lawyer, an acupuncturist and a representative of the insurance industry were invited to join the panels to provide a multidisciplinary perspective, explains Wayne Whalen, DC, DACAN, COCSA representative to and past chairman of CCGPP and one of the authors of the consensus project.
The panelists were asked to rank the seed statements using the Likert scale— from “highly appropriate” to “highly inappropriate”— and were also “given an opportunity to provide comments, which helped to make changes to the seed statements until a consensus was attained,” explains Kara Murray, ACA’s director of federal and regulatory affairs, who managed the consensus project.
|“The value in the consensus language is to facilitate proper use within the profession, in the broader health care community, among other provider groups and government regulatory agencies, as well as in the payer industry.”
James L. Rehberger, DC
Defining Stages of Care
As a result of the consensus process, three stages of chiropractic care—care of acute and chronic/recurrent conditions and care for wellness—were defined, described and published in the July/August 2010 issue of JMPT. The language explains what each type of care entails, what goals it is trying to achieve, what results can be reasonably expected, and when a specific type of care may be inappropriate.
(See sidebar, titled “ Stages of Chiropractic Care, Defined ”)
For example, acute care implies that there is a specific problem for which the patient is being treated; there is also a therapeutic plan with a goal of functional improvement or pain relief, says Dr. Whalen.
“As the patients progress, they should accomplish the goals—for example, be able to bend more, have less pain or work better,” he says, adding that expecting these outcomes will affect how the DC treats the patient. “If there is an exacerbation, you don’t start all over. You do short trials of treatment, with the expectation that the patient will return to the pre-injury plateau,” he adds.
The definitions also help DCs recognize when the patient is no longer in the acute stage—and how to approach care at that point, says Ronald Farabaugh, DC, CCGPP chairman and a co-author of the consensus project. He explains that when patients reach the maximum therapeutic improvement, the doctor should attempt to terminate treatment to determine whether further care is necessary. “However, if the patient’s condition declines in the absence of care, a transition to chronic/recurrent or episodic care may be necessary to control pain, reduce the need for medications, optimize function and the ability to perform daily activities, and keep the patient employed,” he says.
Some patients, continues Dr. Farabaugh, may prefer a wellness program— which, as the new definitions emphasize, should comprise a combination of approaches, including diet/nutritional counseling, exercise and lifestyle coaching. And if the DC doesn’t provide such care, he or she may want to consider referring the patient to a colleague who does focus on those types of issues.
While the definitions provide guidelines to DCs on what specifically each stage of care entails, their goal is to improve acceptance of chiropractic in the greater health care community. “The value in the consensus language is to facilitate proper use within the profession, in the broader health care community, among other provider groups and government regulatory agencies, as well as in the payer industry,” says Dr. Rehberger.
“We hope that through various communication efforts and ACA’s Local Liaison Program, the insurance industry will have a better understanding of the levels of care that DCs utilize every day in their offices—and will improve reimbursement for the doctor and the patient,” he adds.
The published definitions will be used in discussions with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and third-party payers, says Dr. Miller. “This gives us ground to explain to payers that they are using outdated terminology and that denying medically necessary care is inappropriate.”
ACA will educate the insurance industry on the up-to-date terminology of care by sending out press releases to the insurance industry publications and working with individual insurers—and is encouraging other chiropractic organizations and colleges to embrace the new terminology, says Bobby Gibson, director of operations for ACA’s Insurance Relations Department.
Stages of Chiropractic Care, Defined
The new terminology, established via a scientific process through a Delphi consensus panel of multidisciplinary experts, was published in the July/August 2010 issue of the Journal of Manipulative Physiological Therapeutics (JMPT).
Care of Acute Conditions
• Medically necessary care of acute conditions is care that is reasonable and necessary for the diagnosis and treatment of a patient with a health concern and for which there is a therapeutic care plan and a goal of functional improvement and/or pain relief.
• The result of the care is expected to be an improvement, arrest or retardation of the patient’s condition.
• Initially, the care may be more frequent, but as levels of improvement are reached, a decrease in the frequency of care is to be expected.
• A patient may experience exacerbations of an acute injury/illness being treated that may clinically require an increased frequency of care for short periods of time.
• A patient may also experience a recurrence of the injury/illness after a quiescence of 30 days that may require a reinstitution of care.
Care of Chronic/Recurrent Conditions
• Medically necessary care of recurrent/chronic conditions is care that is provided when the injury/illness is not expected to completely resolve after a treatment regimen but where continued care can reasonably be expected to result in documentable improvement for the patient.
• When functional status has remained stable under care and further improvement is not expected or withdrawal of care results in documentable deterioration, additional care may be necessary for the goals of:
• supporting the patient’s highest achievable level of function
• minimizing or controlling pain
• stabilizing injured or weakened areas
• improving activities of daily living
• reducing reliance on medications
• minimizing exacerbation frequency or duration
• minimizing further disability or
• keeping the patient employed and/or active.
Chronic/recurrent care may be inappropriate when it interferes with other appropriate primary care or when its benefits are outweighed by its risks (psychological dependence on the physician or treatment, illness behavior or secondary gain).
Care for Wellness
• Achieving wellness requires active patient participation.
• Wellness is a process of achieving the best health possible, given one’s genetic makeup, by pursuing an optimal level of function.
• “Optimizing levels of function” may include a combination of health care strategies such as:
• chiropractic adjustments
• manipulative therapy
• manual therapies
• diet/nutrition counseling
• lifestyle coaching.
How Can I Use the Definitions?
For these definitions to make a real difference, however, the first step is for the chiropractic profession to embrace them—and start using them.
“We hope that the terms ‘supportive’ and ‘maintenance’ care become dinosaurs and that people will use the terms ‘acute,’ ‘chronic/ recurrent’ and ‘wellness.’ Chronic patients shouldn’t be mislabeled as maintenance patients. Insurance companies cover chronic pain management; they should cover chiropractic,” says Dr. Farabaugh.
To facilitate wide acceptance of the new definitions, doctors of chiropractic can—and should—start using the definitions immediately in their documentation, communication with other providers and in their appeals and communication within the medicolegal system, such as in workers’ comp reports, says Dr. Farabaugh. “For example, be sure to record in the daily documentation when a patient transitions from acute to chronic care or to wellness care,” he explains.
In addition to the new definitions, it’s important for DCs to become familiar with the CCGPP guidelines for acute and chronic care, available at www.jmptonline.org. You can also find many papers and literature syntheses at www.ccgpp.org/documents.htm
“If you have a good understanding of the terminology and guidelines, you will have a much easier time in practice and in getting paid,” says Dr. Farabaugh.
One way providers can immediately utilize the definitions is in appealing denied claims, says Murray. “If the provider is denied care, the definitions of the stages of care support the provider’s viewpoint— giving solid evidence that the claim should be paid,” she says. And what gives these definitions greater validity is the scientific process behind them, she adds.
Dr. McClelland, who serves on the CCGPP Council, reminds DCs that they should carefully review the insurance carriers’ definitions of care before contracting with the carriers. “If you are contracted with carriers, you accept their definitions,” he says. However, doctors operating out of networks have a better chance to appeal the medical necessity of their care—provided they adhere to the definitions of care. “The terminology should have a better standing in the courts,” he says.
To aid in doctors’ appeals, ACA is planning to update its template appeals letters available at www.acatoday.org/appeals, explaining, for example, why “maintenance care” is outdated terminology and citing research to support the new definitions.
The Big Picture
In addition to using the terms “acute,” “chronic” and “wellness” care in communicating with third-party payers, it’s equally important to use them with patients and other providers, agree experts. “If we can get the profession on the same page in terms of the definitions, it will begin to [dismiss] concerns of endless, mindless chiropractic treatments,” says Dr. Whalen.
“Patients today play a much larger role in [choosing] the type of care they want,” says Leo Bronston, DC, chairman of ACA’s Integrated Practice Committee. It’s important to explain to patients the stage of care they are in, the treatment plan that the doctor has in mind, and the expected outcomes. Communicating this information to patients’ other providers will also help them understand what chiropractic care will entail, prompting them to become more open to collaborating with chiropractors, adds Dr. Bronston.
Moreover, because the consensus terminology is written in terms commonly used outside chiropractic, it serves as “an important step in the direction of bringing the chiropractic profession in a position of greater alignment with mainstream health care,” agrees Donald Murphy, DC, DACAN, clinical director of Rhode Island Spine Center and clinical assistant professor in Brown University’s Department of Community Health, Alpert Medical School.
“Being able to communicate with other providers in the health care system is essential. That means not only MDs, but also case managers for workers’ comp companies, nurses, therapists, as well as people in decision-making capacities in the government and in public health settings.”
Getting the profession on board with using the universal definitions of care will also help demonstrate chiropractic’s clinical outcomes—which is especially timely and important in the age of health care reform and electronic health records, says Dr. Bronston. “The definitions help us as a profession to understand the care we are delivering at a specific time of patient presentation, and to continually expand on the knowledge base by capturing measurable data.”
The ability to demonstrate outcomes and show the value of chiropractic care will, in turn, translate into improved reimbursement. “As we communicate to third-party payers what we do, what we are good at, what services and values we have to offer—in terms they can understand— they will see the value. If people can understand the value we bring to the health care system, they can [connect] the dollar amount with the value,” says Dr. Murphy.
“I see this consensus terminology as a huge stepping stone in tearing down barriers for patients to receive, and be reimbursed for, the chiropractic care that they choose,” says Dr. Miller.
And while ACA is integrating the new terminology into the health care system, it is up to individual doctors to do their part—learn the definitions and use them in practice. “This terminology gives ACA a solid basis to work with,” says Dr. McClelland. “But if we make our own rules, we need to play by them.”
1. Consensus Terminology for Stages of Care: Acute, Chronic, Recurrent and Wellness
J Manipulative Physiol Ther 2010 (Jul); 33 (6): 458–463
Did you find this article helpful? Let us know by e-mailing ACAnews@acatoday.org. We always welcome our readers’ feedback and suggestions for future articles.
|“As we communicate to third-party payers what we do, what we are good at, what services and values we have to offer—in terms they can understand—they will see the value. If people can understand the value we bring to the health care system, they can [connect] the dollar amount with the value.”
Donald Murphy, DC, DACAN | <urn:uuid:cd401539-2e7d-418d-8056-e1bd39803025> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.chiro.org/wordpress/?p=4137 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00059-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9369 | 3,592 | 1.78125 | 2 |
From Wikibooks, open books for an open world
Turkey Soup works well as an everyday meal. Chicken may be used in place of turkey, but is not as nice and often costs more per pound.
If you have raw turkey
- Thaw the turkey in the refrigerator. This may take a few days.
- Wash the turkey, including the inside. There may be a bag of organ meat inside the turkey; some of this will be needed.
- Discard the liver, often found in the organ bag.
- Discard the kidneys if you can find them. They are usually still attached to the inside of the turkey. Your broth will taste better if you can get rid of the kidneys and the liver.
- Place the turkey in a pan, preferably on a wire rack to keep the turkey out of the broth.
- Poke holes in the turkey to let the broth drain. Do this also to the neck.
- Place the neck, heart, and gizzards in the pan. To protect them from the heat, shove them under the edge of the turkey a bit.
- Cook the turkey, following directions for temperature. Increased time will get you more broth and make the meat nearest to the skin be as if it were fried. At regular intervals, collect broth from the pan and replace it with a small amount of water to prevent burning. (the broth in the pan will burn if it is allowed to go completely dry) You may wish to eat the heart part-way through the cooking time.
- Eat the turkey meal, saving the sliceable parts for sandwiches and the softer parts for soup. Save the skin and bones.
- Place the skin, bones, wing tips, neck, gizzards, and so on into a large pot. Leave out any severely burned parts. Crush the bones down a bit, and cover with water, and add a lid.
- Bring to a boil reduce heat to a simmer. Simmer the longer the better; 30 minutes will do but an hour or two would be better. You may need to add water from time to time to replace any lost water. Do not allow the water to fully boil away. This is critical; it is very easy to ruin this by boiling away the water.
- Strain the liquid from this pot into another container.
- Mix some of the liquid from the boiling of the bones into the broth you collected while cooking. You'll have to go by taste and experience. If you use too many bones in the broth, the result will have an overly strong flavor you may add water to taste. Note that a proper broth solidifies like gelatin when it is refrigerated.
- If you have a great deal of fat, you may wish to scrape some off after it solidifies. Do not remove all of the fat, you will lose a lot of the flavor.
Once you have the broth and cooked turkey
- Cut the turkey into chunks similar in size to your egg noodles. Most ingredients should be cut to this size.
- Place the broth, spices, and celery into a large pot.
- Bring the pot to a simmer.
- If using an egg, this is the time to add it. Mix the egg in a bowl, or just use the white. From just above the surface of the liquid in your pot, dribble the egg into the pot while moving across the pot. Do not stir until the egg has set. This should produce egg filaments.
- Add the noodles, turkey and, optionally, the frozen corn.
- If your broth did not have much fat, add some oil.
- If the noodles are not soft yet, wait until they are soft.
- Add the broccoli and, optionally, the asparagus. When the broccoli loses the bluish cast and becomes bright green, serve the soup. Do not allow the broccoli to cook any more, especially not to the point where it begins to get a yellow-brown cast. You may use ice to stop the cooking and more quickly bring the soup to an eatable temperature. | <urn:uuid:f47756cd-d9da-44ea-af8e-2ddebb96bc99> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cookbook:Turkey_Soup | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.926764 | 840 | 2.265625 | 2 |
Science at the Shine Dome 2010
Career research awards
Thursday, 6 May 2010
2010 Mawson Medal and Lecture
Patrick De Deckker
Associate Director, Earth Environment Group Leader, Research School of Earth Sciences
Australian National University
Patrick De Deckker did a PhD in the Zoology Department at the University of Adelaide on salt lakes, their biota and Quaternary lacustrine deposits. He continued in this field during seven years of postdoctoral positions. He obtained a DSc from the same university, from the Department of Geology and Geophysics, for long-term accomplishment in the fields of limnology, palaeolimnology, palaeoceanography and micropalaeontology. In 1988, Patrick joined the Australian National University and has held a full-time teaching position combined with research ever since. He led the informal Australian Marine Quaternary Program that brought together many people working on many aspects of marine science and deep-sea cores. During his entire career, Patrick’s work has always been multidisciplinary in nature with a common aim: to obtain information of relevance for the reconstruction of past marine and continental environments of importance for the understanding of global and regional climatic variability.
Geochemical and microbiological fingerprinting of Australian airborne dust
Understanding the origin and composition of Australian dust has implications for the environment, the oceans and human health. However, there is scant published information on the chemical and biological composition of airborne dust in Australia.
My talk will concentrate on an intensive, multidisciplinary and collaborative analysis of dust from the 22 October 2002 Canberra dust storm event, as well as for several events that occurred in September 2009. The latter significantly affected Sydney and a large portion of the east coast of Australia. These dust events were investigated using a variety of approaches, including DNA microbiology, organic and inorganic chemistry, palynology, sedimentology, mineralogy, meteorology and satellite imagery.
Using a variety of geochemical and palynological 'fingerprinting' analyses, including investigations of Nd and Sr isotopes, the provenance of the dust that rained down in Canberra on these occasions is linked to parts of western NSW and central Australia, respectively. Investigation of the meteorological events at these times corroborates the results. Further investigations using different isotopes of Nd, Pb and Sr demonstrate that Australian dust has clearly been linked, for particular episodes of the Late Quaternary, to dust recovered from Antarctic ice cores.
This project has involved numerous investigators from Australia and overseas and was funded by an Australian Research Council Discovery grant. | <urn:uuid:2f6f19dc-4872-4471-8330-ec0eed9b79f8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.science.org.au/events/sats/sats2010/awards-deckker.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935665 | 530 | 2.265625 | 2 |
TAKEN FROM MERCOLA.COM)
Aspartame is the technical name for the brand names NutraSweet, Equal, Spoonful, and Equal-Measure. It was discovered by accident in 1965 a chemist of G.D. Searle Company, James Schlatter, was testing an anti-ulcer drug.
Aspartame is essentially the bi product of a genetically modified e-coli strain.
Aspartame was approved for dry goods in 1981 and for carbonated beverages in 1983. It was originally approved for dry goods on July 26, 1974, but objections filed by neuroscience researcher Dr John W. Olney and Consumer attorney James Turner in August 1974 as well as investigations of G.D. Searle's research practices caused the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to put approval of aspartame on hold (December 5, 1974). In 1985, Monsanto purchased G.D. Searle and made Searle Pharmaceuticals and The NutraSweet Company separate subsidiaries.
Aspartame accounts for over 75 percent of the adverse reactions to food additives reported to the FDA. Many of these reactions are very serious including seizures and death. A few of the 90 different documented symptoms listed in the report as being caused by aspartame include: Headaches/migraines, dizziness, seizures, nausea, numbness, muscle spasms, weight gain, rashes, depression, fatigue, irritability, tachycardia, insomnia, vision problems, hearing loss, heart palpitations, breathing difficulties, anxiety attacks, slurred speech, loss of taste, tinnitus, vertigo, memory loss, and joint pain.
According to researchers and physicians studying the adverse effects of aspartame, the following chronic illnesses can be triggered or worsened by ingesting of aspartame: Brain tumors, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, chronic fatigue syndrome, parkinson's disease, alzheimer's, mental retardation, lymphoma, birth defects, fibromyalgia, and diabetes.
Aspartame is made up of three chemicals: aspartic acid, phenylalanine, and methanol. The book "Prescription for Nutritional Healing," by James and Phyllis Balch, lists aspartame under the category of "chemical poison." As you shall see, that is exactly what it is.
This petition is in the process of being shown to Medway MP, Helen Crouch. Should this pass surgery, it will be put infront of the House of Commons, in April.
Protect yourselves and your families and sign the petition today.
(No Sponsor Information)
Help spread the word about this petition. Copy the code below and paste it into your website or blog to help promote this petition.
The views expressed in this petition are solely those of the petition's sponsor and do not in any way reflect the views of iPetitions. iPetitions is solely a provider of technical services to the petition sponsor and cannot be held liable for any damages or injury or other harm arising from this petition. In the event no adequate sponsor is named, iPetitions will consider the individual account holder with which the petition was created as the lawful sponsor. | <urn:uuid:7c4f1e9d-6c94-45cb-85fd-c39331e63894> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/remove-aspartame-from-our-food/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940085 | 655 | 3.078125 | 3 |
Last year, the Pentagon spent more on pills, injections and vaccines than it did on Black Hawk helicopters, Abrams tanks, Hercules C-130 cargo planes and Patriot missiles — combined.
Some of the prescription drugs that have fueled the military’s skyrocketing pharmaceutical budget are the same ones that have medicated the civilian world over the past decade. Since 2002, the Department of Defense has spent more than $5 billion on Lipitor, Plavix, Advair, Nexium and Singulair.
Rather than a reflection of the drugs needed to treat wounded troops, the top-selling prescriptions signal an increase in aging military retirees covered by the military’s health program, Tricare, with drugs for arthritis, osteoporosis and diabetes costing billions. The Department of Defense also spent more than $380 million on erectile dysfunction drugs and $238 million on testosterone therapy drugs over the decade.
But the military drug purchases also paint a picture of a fighting force increasingly reliant on antidepressants, psychotropic drugs and powerful narcotic painkillers that critics call dangerous and that have been involved in a growing number of prescription drug overdoses. The military spent at least $2.7 billion on antidepressants and more than $1.6 billion on opioid painkillers such as Oxycontin and hydrocodone over the past decade. More than $507 million was spent on the sleeping pill Ambien and its generic equivalents.
The details come from an unprecedented American-Statesman analysis of nearly every individual drug purchase made by the Department of Defense since 2002. The paper’s analysis also showed that many drug manufacturers saw their revenue from military sales soar over a decade that featured two wars and a large influx of beneficiaries covered by Tricare, the military’s health program.
They were led by giant Pfizer, with more than $8 billion in sales from the Department of Defense since 2002. Abbott’s sales jumped nearly 300 percent and Novartis more than doubled its military sales to around $400 million in 2011, according to data provided by the military. | <urn:uuid:3d43a7be-1613-49a5-a441-f9ebdcfef896> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.setyoufreenews.com/2013/01/05/soaring-cost-of-military-drugs-could-hurt-budget/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947183 | 420 | 1.820313 | 2 |
GM Parade of Progress Futurliner. Photos courtesy Southwest Michigan Concours d’Elegance.
Organizers of the Southwest Michigan Concours d’Elegance, formerly the Krasl Art Center Concours, have just announced that in addition to the Stout Scarab and Indiana-built cars mentioned earlier, spectators and car owners alike will have the opportunity to see firsthand one of the 12 original GM Futurliners used during the famed Parade of Progress. Having originally been built in 1940 and used through 1956, nine are known to remain, and this one has famously been restored to its original 1953 re-commissioned appearance (the Parade of Progress was on hiatus during World War II and the immediate post-war years). Since its restoration was completed, the Futurliner has appeared at a number of events, including the fall Hershey swap meet, and we can say from personal experience that it truly is a sight to behold.
1909 Economy Model G
One other special display at this years concours is that of “Family Cars,” or in other words, those vehicles that have been owned by the same family since purchased new. The oldest such vehicle to be appearing in this category is a still-running 1909 Economy Model G Surrey; if you are curious as to where it falls in the family lineage, it is now in the hands of the great-great grandson of the original owner. Founded in 1908 in Fort Wayne, Indiana, the Economy Motor Buggy Company introduced the Model G in 1909 amid a lawsuit brought on by St. Louis, Missouri-based Success Auto-Buggy Manufacturing Company, which made claims of patent infringement (rather than make changes to their vehicles to avoid paying royalties, by 1909 the firm’s name was changed to Economy Motor Car Company and had moved to Joliet, Illinois; however, Success was still able to track down the firm and continue with the suit). The Model G highwheeler rode on an 86-inch-wheelbase chassis and was powered by a 24hp two-cylinder engine. Like many other companies during this era of automotive development, the Economy had declared bankruptcy by 1911; its assets were purchased in 1912 by William Pratt of the Pratt Manufacturing Company, which seems to have failed in producing a single vehicle. Success, meanwhile, had closed its own doors in 1909 while litigation was still pending. It’s been reported that from 1906 to 1909, more than 600 Success vehicles had been assembled. As of this writing, an exact production figure for the Economy is unknown to us; does anyone in Hemmings Nation know of any production information?
The Southwest Michigan Concours d’Elegance will take place Saturday, August 4, at Lake Bluff Park in St. Joseph, Michigan. For more information, visit the concours on Facebook.
15 Comments - Leave a Reply | <urn:uuid:5b43b2e2-7e22-4792-a7d6-c2a10fe109f7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2012/07/23/futurliner-to-appear-at-upcoming-southwest-michigan-concours-delegance/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976644 | 583 | 1.9375 | 2 |
November 14, 2012
For fiscal year 2013, the Department of Defense (DoD) requested about $150 billion to fund the pay and benefits of current and retired members of the military. That amount is more than one-quarter of DoD’s total base budget request (the request for all funding other than for military operations in Afghanistan and related activities).
Military Compensation Includes Cash Compensation and Substantial Retirement and Health Benefits
Of DoD’s $150 billion request for compensation in 2013, more than $90 billion would go to basic pay, food and housing allowances, bonuses, and various types of special pay. Another $16 billion would go to accrual payments that account for the future pensions of current service members who will retire from the military (generally after at least 20 years of service). In 2012, DoD paid 34 cents for each dollar of basic pay for active personnel and 24 cents for each dollar of basic pay for reserve personnel.
The remainder of DoD’s request for compensation in 2013—roughly $40 billion—would cover health benefits. Whereas 1.4 million military personnel serve on active duty, a total of nearly 10 million people are eligible for military health benefits. In addition to active-duty military personnel, the people who have access to health benefits include eligible family members of those personnel, retired military personnel and their eligible family members, survivors of service members who died while on active duty, and some members of the reserves and National Guard.
DoD’s request includes funding for TRICARE—the military health care program for current and certain retired service members. In addition, the department makes accrual payments for the future health care of current service members and their spouses (under a program called TRICARE for Life) who will retire from the military and become eligible for Medicare (generally at age 65).
Costs of Military Pay Have Been Increasing Faster Than the General Rate of Inflation and Wages and Salaries in the Private Sector
Over the past decade, the costs per active-duty service member in DoD’s military personnel account (which funds cash compensation and the accrual payments for retirees’ pensions and some of their health care) and the total costs for the military health care program have increased consistently, even with an adjustment for inflation in the general economy.
The upward trend in the military personnel account—which has increased at an average annual rate of 3.2 percent since 2000 (after adjusting for inflation)—is attributable primarily to a series of pay raises that exceeded the general rate of inflation and, in some years, the growth rate of private-sector wages and salaries.
The costs of health benefits grew as a result of medical costs per beneficiary that escalated more rapidly than did either general inflation or increases in per capita costs for medical care—such as inpatient care, outpatient care, and pharmaceuticals—in the national economy. Finally, the Congress has established new medical benefits; in particular, TRICARE for Life “wraps around” Medicare benefits and substantially reduces out-of-pocket expenses for eligible beneficiaries.
DoD’s Fiscal Situation Has Changed As a Result of the Budget Control Act of 2011
CBO estimates that DoD’s funding for fiscal year 2013 will drop to $469 billion—about 11 percent below DoD’s request for the year—if all provisions of the Budget Control Act of 2011 are enforced, including sequestration (the automatic cancellation of a portion of budgetary resources). Future cuts will be substantial as well under current law. To meet those constraints, significant changes will be needed in military compensation, procurement of weapon systems, or both. This report, which focuses on military compensation, discusses several approaches that could be taken to curtail federal spending.
One possibility would be to restrict basic pay raises, as DoD has proposed for three of the next five years in its 2013 Future Years Defense Program, which was submitted to the Congress in April 2012. Although smaller pay raises could lead to fewer enlistments and faster attrition from the armed services, those consequences might be mitigated by increasing the availability of enlistment bonuses and selective reenlistment bonuses (the latter are offered to service members in hard-to-fill occupations). Alternatively—or in combination with restricting pay raises—DoD could reduce the number of active-duty military personnel more aggressively than the cumulative 5 percent cut currently planned between 2013 and 2017.
Another approach might be to replace the current retirement system (under which active-duty members qualify for immediate benefits after 20 years of service) with a defined-benefit system that partially vests earlier in a member’s career, with a defined-contribution system under which DoD matches the service members’ contributions to a savings plan, or with some combination of the two systems. Those systems could cost less or more than the current system, depending on how they were structured and implemented, and savings might not be achieved for several years.
A third possible approach would be to restrain health care costs by making changes in enrollment fees, deductibles, copayments, or other aspects of current benefits. DoD has proposed various changes of this sort in its recent budget requests. Savings from some of those measures might be achieved immediately upon implementation. | <urn:uuid:facd3cf4-9579-48a8-a22e-d4419cc9ead0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cbo.gov/publication/43574 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95926 | 1,075 | 2.265625 | 2 |
People from the Roma community wait outside their camp near Paris while the camp is being evacuated by French police, August 27, 2012.
Police have evacuated a migrant camp belonging to the Roma community in a southern suburb of the French capital and expelled a group of Roma people from the heart of the eastern city of Lyon.
The Sucey-en-Brie camp, one of the biggest camps in France housing at least 800 Roma, was evacuated on Thursday.
French authorities said the evacuation of the camp, housing the Roma community since 2011, was due to the construction of a highway extension.
The police also expelled about 80 Roma people from the center of Lyon prior to a visit by Interior Minister Manuel Valls.
Jean-Francois Carenco, the prefect of the Rhone region, said, “Everything went off peacefully. About 20 of them will leave for Romania, the asylum seekers will be housed and we are looking into a solution for about 10 adults with various other statuses.”
The Thursday move is the latest development in a series of attempts by the French government to expel about 15,000 Roma people back to their countries of origin, Romania and Bulgaria.
On September 11, the French interior minister said, “Today, we cannot afford to accommodate all these people who are often wretched of the earth, who are persecuted in their country, who are discriminated against.”
The east European countries of Romania and Bulgaria are home to the biggest population of the Roma people with an official estimated number of 620,000. However, local rights groups say the population is approximately two million.
France’s decision to forcibly evacuate the Roma camps and send the people back to their fatherlands has strongly been criticized by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay. | <urn:uuid:876d4ba7-0774-4da1-b104-d6381d27e6c8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://presstv.com/detail/2012/09/14/261464/france-evacuates-roma-camp-in-paris/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970922 | 367 | 2.0625 | 2 |
WASHINGTON -- The potentially fatal flaw of President Bush's Middle East peace framework was exposed just days after his speech last week. To make his historic call for a Palestinian state palatable for Israel and its allies in Congress, Bush demanded removal from power of Yasser Arafat. But, it quickly became clear, that strengthened the old guerrilla leader's sagging position with Palestinians and in the broader Arab world.
This development profoundly depresses sincere supporters within the Palestinian Authority of a peaceful two-state solution. They know that Arafat, depleted at age 72, is not the solution today and probably never was. Prominent peace-seekers in Saudi Arabia have always envisioned Arafat as no more than a figurehead in a future Palestinian state.
Instead, Arafat is the Catch-22 of the Middle East. Bush echoed Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's insistence on new Palestinian leadership to cloak his historic proposals for peace that were unthinkable even months ago. However, by inadvertently contributing to Arafat's retention in a free election, Bush undermines his own framework for a Palestinian state -- much to Sharon's delight.
Understandable attention last week to Bush's Arafat-must-go dictum has obscured details in the president's speech that thrilled Arab peace-seekers. For the first time, the U.S. is solidly on record in favor of a Palestinian state. Calling it "untenable for Palestinians to live in squalor and occupation," Bush recognized "deep anger and despair of the Palestinian people." More specific are his implicit support of pre-1967 borders, his call for an end to "Israeli settlement activity" and his concern for the "plight of and future of Palestinian refugees."
Contrary to claims that Colin Powell was humiliated by the president's speech, the secretary of state advanced U.S. policy toward a negotiated peace over aggressive opposition in the State Department and White House. "As never before," a Saudi official told me, "the stars are aligned for real progress."
All the stars, that is, except the demand for new leadership. The U.S. has its candidates for Arafat's successor: Mohammed Dahlan, former Gaza security chief, and Mahmoud Abbas (also known as Abu Mazen), who is Arafat's official deputy. Identification with Washington is no asset in a Palestinian election campaign. Reports that Dahlan's office was left untouched by the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) in their recent offensive encouraged belief among Palestinians that he is Israel's -- and America's -- man.
A more popular leader might be Marwan Barghouti, secretary general of Arafat's Fatah movement. During the IDF's military offensive, he was arrested April 15 on charges of planning dozens of terrorist attacks. Responsible Palestinian officials say the charges are unfounded, but Barghouti remains in Israeli custody. Whether he would be permitted to campaign for president in the planned Palestinian election is at least questionable.
If permitted to run, Barghouti might have a better prospect of winning than American-approved candidates but less chance than a commander from the civilian-killing Hamas organization, which deplores a negotiated solution even more than Sharon. In truth, however, all are underdogs against Arafat. His election is the Catch-22 that negates Bush's bold promises.
Disaffection with Arafat is nothing new among important Palestinians who privately express the view that he should have declared victory in 1993 and resigned when the Oslo accord won him a share of the Nobel Peace Prize. While attacked as a diabolical master of terrorism, he actually is a failing bureaucrat who is a disaster for his people.
Powell has become convinced that Palestinian Authority leadership was culpable in the suicide bombings, but the secretary of state must employ diplomatic ingenuity for a greater purpose than just getting rid of Arafat. How can the democratic process be fine-tuned to eventually elect a new Palestinian leader free of the American taint but not barred from the negotiating table by Israel?
The difficulty cheers Arik Sharon. Nobody who has listened to the prime minister has any doubt about his determination to persist with Jewish settlements that will split up the occupied territories and block the Palestinian state envisioned by George W. Bush. There is not all that much in Bush's speech that Sharon approves, but the president's demand for a new leader is enough to preclude all the rest. | <urn:uuid:fc159e50-bc82-4f0b-a8d5-e14633c893bd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://townhall.com/columnists/robertnovak/2002/07/01/arafats_catch-22 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967009 | 885 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Have a passion for heritage? Set out on a fun and educational walking history tour! Discover our communities’ heritage sites and buildings and learn about important events and colourful characters. In the links below, we’ve compiled some stops of interest for you to enjoy. For more information about our communities’ past, be sure to visit our museums.
Port Haney Heritage
Beginning at the refurbished Port Haney Wharf, the Maple Ridge Heritage walk takes you through an underpass of the Haney Bypass to historic Haney House. Stop and admire the view of the Fraser River, sit on a bench in the Haney orchard at the top of the garden or stop-in for lunch at the Billy Miner Pub. The River Walk is open year round.
Pitt Meadows Heritage
Ready to take a walk back in time? There are various heritage buildings in Pitt Meadows within walking distance of each other and many are located just off Harris Road. You can start or end your walk with a picnic at Harris Road Park where kids can cool off in the spray-park or have lunch or dinner at Akasaka (McMyn Masson Heritage House) or Pad Thai (once known as Schlick Harware).
If you are passionate about heritage buildings and sites, you may want to check out our communities’ Heritage Registers. Properties and sites included in the Registers are those with qualities and characters that are recognized as significant and contribute to the respective community’s heritage. | <urn:uuid:5563682d-cc8b-45f7-a5d8-d6f99f156d4e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mapleridge-pittmeadows.com/arts-culture/historical-sites/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93463 | 303 | 1.640625 | 2 |
|“||After thousands of years, Pandora's Box was finally opened. The power of the Gods unleashed.||”|
Pandora's box is an artifact in Greek mythology. The "box" was actually a large jar (πιθος pithos) given to the young Pandora. She was told not to open it by any means necessary, but, due to her ever-growing curiosity, she opened it and out of the vase came great evils which spread widely across the Earth.
However, before closing the box, Pandora also discovered a power called Hope in it. She then reopened it in an effort to aid mankind, and released Hope to the world along with many other evils.
In God of War SeriesEdit
God of WarEdit
The Box was created by Hephaestus, by order of Zeus, to contain the evils created by the Titanomachy. Knowing that no mere metal could contain the evil power, Hephaestus forged the box out of a power greater than that of the Gods: the Flame of Olympus. The Flame, as lethal as it was beautiful, would kill all who dared touch it, therefore being the perfect safeguard for the Box. The key to pacifying the Flame was a child Hephaestus created from the flame itself - Pandora. Knowing that Zeus would take Pandora from him, Hephaestus tricked Zeus into believing that placing the box on the back of the Titan Cronos would be the safest place, thus hereby saving Pandora, but condemning Cronos to a life of agony.
The brilliant architect, Pathos Verdes III, was assigned to build a temple to house the Box, ensuring that none would be able to reach it. Over time, he descended into madness, and the temple's puzzles grew more vicious and complex accordingly. He would eventually commit suicide, leaving the temple somewhat unfinished.
Although many would-be heroes and treasure seekers fell to the traps of Pandora's Temple seeking the Box, only Kratos would claim the powerful artifact in order to destroy Ares. As he found it, however, it was immediately stolen by Harpies as Ares himself slew Kratos. The God of War then raised the box to the heavens, threatening to unleash it on Olympus itself.
However, Kratos returned from the Underworld and reclaimed the Box from Ares. At long last, he opened it and drew from its power, allowing him to meet Ares in battle and eventually destroy him. That would seemingly bring the role of Pandora's Box to an end, but this would not be so.
God of War IIEdit
Unbeknownst to Kratos, the opening of the box would have grave consequences on the world. After Pandora's Box was opened, the evils of the Titanomachy escaped and infected the Gods, which caused them to become paranoid and power hungry. Zeus himself fell prey to Fear, causing him to begin his campaign to destroy Kratos.
Fear also motivated Zeus to confront Hephaestus about how Kratos retrieved the Box from the seemingly-unassailable hiding place atop Cronos. Beating the smith god horribly, he learned of Pandora's role as a key to the Flame of Olympus-the true safest place to hide the Box-and began making preparations to move the box and hide Pandora.
Pandora's Box is never really seen or mentioned in God of War II, but its role in corrupting the Gods sets the stage for the game, as fear of Kratos led to Zeus' attempt to kill him, in turn spurring Kratos to seek vengeance on the King of the Gods-and eventually, all of Olympus.
God of War IIIEdit
Pandora's Box plays a central role in God of War III, where Kratos again seeks it in order to gain power. Along the way, he confronts and destroys most of the infected Olympians, causing the evils within them to be released into the world as disasters. Kratos eventually discovers the Box, placed within the Flame of Olympus, and is told by Athena to seek out Pandora, in order to calm the fires.
Eventually, Kratos succeeds in dispelling the Flame (sacrificing Pandora in the process), but finds the Box to be empty. This revelation only strengthened his rage and desire for vengeance on Zeus, and he eventually struck what seemed to be a fatal blow on the King of the Gods. However, Zeus released a ghost-like projection of himself from his body, which began attacking Kratos by forcing him to feel the fear and pain of his many victims, as well as his own, long-buried guilt over all of the terrible things he had done in his life.
As Zeus' spiritual image attacked Kratos, the Spartan withdrew into his own psyche, guided by the spirit of Pandora. After absolving himself of his sins, he was able to unlock the power Athena had told him to find, symbolized by his astral self opening Pandora's Box, and used it to destroy Zeus for good.
Shortly after Zeus' death, Athena revealed that she placed the "most powerful weapon in the world" in the box, the power of Hope, to counteract the evils in case it was opened again. The first time Kratos opened the box, Athena believed the power of Hope to remain inside, while Kratos drew from the evils. In truth, however, the goddess realized that Kratos had actually accessed Hope, while the evils corrupted the Gods. Until his confrontation with Zeus, Kratos had been unable to use the power, because it was trapped beneath his overwhelming hatred and guilt, but now that it was freed, she could reclaim it and use it to reshape the world. In response, however, Kratos impaled himself on the Blade of Olympus and released Hope to the world, completing the escape of the powers once held in Pandora's Box.
PowersEditAccording to Athena and Hephaestus, Pandora's Box contains the evils of the world, created in the wake of the first war with the Titans. Exactly what this means is never truly explored, but this does not appear to encompass all of the world's flaws; ample amounts of anger, cruelty, and other negative traits are apparent in the series long before Kratos opens the box.
However, Athena claims that the evils within the box could destroy the world if left unchecked, implying that the powers within Pandora's Box may be extremely potent versions of natural negative traits, focused to unnaturally destructive levels by the widespread violence of the Titanomachy.
- Anger (Poseidon): Acts and fights Kratos in extreme anger and rage for his crimes, like the destruction of Atlantis. In a note left for his princess in his chamber, he also apologizes for making her the subject of his rage, which shows how he had been very angry during this period.
- Mockery/Arrogance/Pride (Hermes): Takes pride in his own speed and mocks and bullies Kratos about his speed and brutality.
- Pride/Deceit/Slander (Helios): Acts proud and later, when defeated, pleads to Kratos to spare his life; and tries to trick Kratos into entering the Flame of Olympus by lying to him.
- Gluttony/Sloth (Hera): Behaves in a lazy, unenthusiastic way and drinks alcohol casually. Also became obsessed with having Zeus' illegitimate children killing each other off in gladiator style fights.
- Fear/Obsession/Treachery (Zeus): Behaves paranoically, and becomes obsessed with killing Kratos for fear of betrayal. Also betrayed a lot of his family members
- Greed/Selfishness (Athena): Tries to usurp the power of Hope from Kratos in order to use it for herself against humanity.
- Hate/Rage (Hades): Hates Kratos in a very irrational way, perhaps for having killed his wife, Persephone. This hatred then grows when Kratos kills Hades' niece, Athena, and his brother, Poseidon.
- Lust/Vanity (Aphrodite): Controlled by carnal desires, she even helps Kratos only for pleasures with him. She also deems her husband, Hephaestus "Worthless" and constantly cheats on him with multiple men and women. However, these traits might not be from the plague and instead may be natural traits, since she is the goddess of sex and pleasure.
- Envy (Hercules): Full of jealousy and resentment for Kratos for the way they both did penance for the gods, and wants to take the title of god of war for himself.
- Misery/Deceit (Hephaestus): Full of sadness and depression after Zeus tortured him and took Pandora away from him, then, in order to protect Pandora from Kratos, lied about helping Kratos in his quest to kill Zeus and then sent Kratos on a suicide mission to bring the Omphalos Stone from Tartarus (which still resided in Cronos' stomach) so Hepaestus could build Kratos a new weapon.
- Insanity/Hatred (Deimos): Attempts to kill Kratos even after being saved by him. Although this isn't confirmed, this evil, along with the torture from Thanatos and the feeling of having been abandoned by the brother, may have been what drove Deimos insane and even made his birth mark glow like fire, as he yells "I hate you, Kratos!" when beats Kratos to the ground.
- Insanity (Daedalus): a note is found that states Daedalus has lost all sanity trying to bring back his son from the dead.
- Hope (Kratos): Obtains the power to kill gods and has his eyes opened to the chaos he ended up causing.
- Hope (Pandora): Pandora tells Kratos that "As the fear in the gods rose, mine was replaced by hope". She was referring to the time that Kratos opened the box to kill Ares. It was this hope that helped her to endure the loss and the torture of her father and her prison in the Labyrinth until she was rescued by Kratos.
- Hope (Deimos): It is unknown if Deimos was actually affected by the opening of the box but, apparently, he was consumed by the evil hate. Curiosly, however, when Kratos saved him for the second time in Ghost of Sparta, by preventing his fall from the Suicide Bluffs, he seemed to have recovered the faith and hope he had for his brother, Kratos was finally forgiven. Maybe, even unintentionally, Kratos transmitted part of the hope he had earned previously to his brother by pulling him back to land, extinguing his hate. The excess of hope may have been what caused Deimos to attack Thanatos and save his brother during their battle, thus causing his death by the hands of the god.
- God of War III: Ultimate Edition was made available in a scaled replica of Pandora's Box.
- Pandora's Box, along with Olympian-forged weapons (such as the Blade of Olympus and the Gauntlet of Zeus), are the only known ways for a mortal to kill a god. Pandora's Box gives whoever opens it the powers to slay a god (along with other abilities, such as increasing their size dramatically).
- It is possible that since Pandora was created to extinguish the flames of Olympus and thus making Pandora's box reachable, Pandora was almost a "key" not only to the powers inside of it but what the powers do and how to use them, as she explains them to Kratos
- Pandora's Box's depiction in God of War shows the lid has visages of tormented souls on it. In God of War III, it was replaced with images of emaciated hands and horned demons.
- In mythology, the gods used the evils of Pandora's Box to punish humanity for Prometheus' crime, creating the first human female - Pandora, and ensuring that she would eventually open the box to bring about Man's downfall. In the game, the Evils are seen as a threat to both humanity and the Olympians, and thus are sealed to never again bring harm to the world; Furthermore, the background story also provided an origin for where the Evils came from - The Titanomachy, unlike the original myths, which never stated where they were created or how they came to be. In an ironic inversion of the original myths, it is a mortal (Kratos) who unleashes the Evils upon the Gods, rather than the other way around.
- Additionally, the leveling-up screen's background in God of War III contains designs found on the Box.
- In Greek mythology, Pandora's Box was actually a Greek storage vase known as a pithos. In Roman mythology however, it was a box. Furthermore, due to most people knowing it in the Roman myth, it was possibly made into a box and not a pithos in the game. | <urn:uuid:dc78f791-f3d6-4a4f-bed2-d7dcab526e4e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://godofwar.wikia.com/wiki/Pandora's_Box | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975588 | 2,725 | 2.75 | 3 |
Debunking the myth that any publicity is good publicity
With major missteps recently from large corporations like Groupon and The Gap, some marketers think the quickest and easiest way to garner media attention is by staging a crisis. Often referred to as mea culpa marketing, it involves an organization staging a stunt—anything from insensitive commercials to seemingly thoughtless rebranding. However, this risky tactic can cause more long-term damage than short-term benefits.
Mea culpa marketing has a simple formula. Pull a stunt to get attention, then immediately follow up with an apology. Once the first news cycle is over, the company works to win back public favor. This is hardly a smart strategy to improve your reputation or even to implement a short-term initiative.
It is important to understand the difference between publicity—organically generated media coverage—and public relations, the active strategy of communicating meaningful messages to target audiences, producing positive press coverage and generating better search engine rankings. Savvy marketers know that being mentioned in a single news cycle by the media will not produce beneficial results. It takes a strategic public relations plan to cement your company’s credibility and to reach your goals.
The rise of this type of short-term, well-orchestrated and potentially dangerous tactic conveys a message true for any company or brand: It is becoming increasingly difficult to grab the attention of target audiences.
Not all mea culpa marketing efforts are big-budget initiatives. Some marketers use 140 characters to garner attention. Clothing designer Kenneth Cole posted this message on Twitter referencing the violent unrest in Egypt in early 2011: “Millions are in uproar in #Cairo. Rumor is they heard our new spring collection is now available online at [link] - KC."
Following online outrage against the brand, Cole posted an apology on his Facebook account. Adhering to the standard conciliatory steps of this type of marketing gimmick, the brand sought forgiveness and visibility while attention was focused on the brand.
A comprehensive marketing and public relations strategy can establish ongoing and positive relationships with customers, prospects, the media, employees and the consuming public. Gimmicks such as mea culpa marketing are not effective short-term or long-term strategies.
Positive Public Relations
In the evolving media landscape, it is crucial that you highlight your company’s success and leadership with news releases, media relations and social media. It is also important to connect directly with your target audience and shareholders with a company blog or e-newsletter.
Calculated blunders used to drum up media coverage can easily be found with a Google search for years to come. Future prospects may run across the planned mistake and become immediately disinterested in working with your company. Many may never discover the second phase of the calculated crisis, the apology and the solution.
Water quality businesses have an excellent platform on which to educate customers on local water quality and how their services can improve the lifestyle in a community. When you share the educational information that helps your customers in an interesting way, you will build your brand as the educational expert in your community. That is the way to garner the type of attention that will increase your status and success in the industry.
Seeking publicity just to get your name out there without worrying about the quality of the message is like selling a water treatment system that does not work: You make the sale in the short term, but in the long term you fall short.
Social Media Strategies
According to a Forrester report, more than 80% of Americans use social networking websites each month. More than 300,000 businesses have a Facebook presence, and social media initiatives have delivered stellar results for small and large businesses alike. With several metrics available for measuring your company’s social media effectiveness, it is important to set clear goals. Consider metrics that compare sales, website traffic, social media mentions, brand awareness or other business goals.
Some businesses have seen a dramatic increase in sales since participating in social networking sites. Of the top 100 global brands, the most heavily and widely engaged in social media saw an increase in sales, according to Engagement DB’s social media engagement report. In the first half of 2009, Dell generated $3 million directly via Twitter. At the end of 2009, Dell reported that it had doubled its Twitter-based sales.
Social media is not just for large companies, however. Naked Pizza, a small pizza parlor in New Orleans, is one example. The pizzeria is equipped with a large, prominent sign encouraging people to follow it on Twitter. Naked Pizza also measures its social media success through sales. On a record-breaking day, more than 68% of total sales and 85% of new customers came as a result of Twitter.
Benefit from an increase in website traffic with a successful social media strategy. Link sharing is a key element in social networking sites. Post interesting content on your Facebook fan page, blog or Twitter account so your followers, fans and readers can share links to your content with their online peers. Monitor the number of inbound links your target audiences are generating.
To foster link sharing, utilize services such as TweetMeme, a “retweet” button that can be added to web pages and blog posts tweeting a link to your website. It allows visitors to easily tweet a link to your content. Facebook analytics for a fan page allow you to monitor how many clicks your Facebook content garners and the amount of web traffic it generates. Capitalize on social sharing services such as SocialTwist, which delivered more than 10 million links in 2009, to skyrocket your organic search engine results.
Social media can help build and strengthen brand awareness. Monitor blog traffic and press mentions inspired by blog posts or other shared online content. Social media seeks to build relationships and create brand evangelists to spread the great news about your business. It can raise your search engine listings and increase brand visibility.
To best harness the power of social media, learn which channels your target audiences are using or most likely to accept. Social media engagement is more than posting links to your website or tweeting your success on a routine basis. Instead, foster conversation and position your business as an industry leader.
For a positive social media return on investment, it is important to set clear business goals and milestones to measure your success. For maximum impact, listen to your audiences and adjust your efforts accordingly. | <urn:uuid:401c96ca-a214-49c1-9c76-15608c4a680f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wqpmag.com/positive-publicity | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00044-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927076 | 1,306 | 2.15625 | 2 |
field communications (NFC) is the kind of wondrous future-tech that promises to
bring new convenience to every-day chores like shopping for groceries or
fueling up at the pump. Japanese customers have already been using
NFC-enabled cell phones as credit cards for several years.
Now Google, Inc. (GOOG),
makers of the world's top smartphone operating system, Android, have announced
than NFC will soon arrive for American consumers.
The announcement was made at the Web 2.0 Summit by Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who
down as Google's CEO next Monday. Web 2.0 is an annual
internet-aimed conference held annually in San Francisco, Calif. since 2004.
The company had previously
expressed interested in NFC payments, but had failed to fully
elaborate on how it would execute the billing scheme.
I. Credit Cards on Your Phone
Initially Google has selected two corporate partners in the credit and banking
industry -- MasterCard, Inc. (MA)
and CitiGroup, Inc. (C).
CitiGroup claims to be the largest issuer of credit cards in the world with its
Citi Cards. Much of the company's business is outside the U.S.
MasterCard is second
to Visa (V) in
the U.S., with 171 million credit cards and 123 million debit cards active
within the U.S. [source].
As with standard cards, a fee will be charged to businesses. It's unclear
at this point whether the cardholders (customers) themselves will pay any
additional periodical or spot fees for the service.
What Google did make clear is that it is not getting a cut of any fees from the
It is offering the service for two reasons.
The first is that it makes an attractive selling point for its smartphones.
Top competitors Apple (AAPL)
and Research in Motion (RIM)
lack billing service on their popular U.S. models.
Secondly, Google will track your purchases and says it may use them to try to
better target ads or discount offers at your phone.
As traditional advertising begins to fade, targeted advertising is a booming
business. By direct ads that customers might actually care about, for
example local sales or sales on items the user typically purchase, the uptake
rates are far higher. Everyone from U.S grocery chains like Kroger, to
internet giants like Google, eBay/PayPal, and Facebook are deeply involved in
The dark side of data mining is that more of your information will be stored
with the potential for compromise. While Google and others have engaged
in efforts to anonymize data to a degree, advocacy groups and U.S. government
officials have expressed concern about data mining and suggested possible legislation to limit its scope.
For now customers choosing to adopt the new Android service, will find
themselves jumping deeper into Google's data mining bid.
II. Android Arrival is Imminent
The new service is supported by operating system APIs in Android 2.3 "Gingerbread".
Gingerbread is Android's latest operating system version, which features user interface
refinements, battery life improvements, increased web standards support, and
improvements to the OS's copy, cut, and paste routines.
The Software Development Kit for Gingerbread rolled out to developers in
December. Motorola and Samsung appear to have advanced builds of
Gingerbread ready for their smart phones whenever carriers decide to throw the
switch. Builds for Motorola's Droid X and Droid 2 and Samsung's Galaxy S
smart phones have leaked in recent weeks.
Currently Gingerbread is exclusively available through official channels on Google's Nexus S,
which went on sale in December of last year.
NFC requires special hardware, so it's unlikely that phones like the Galaxy S
would be able to support the new technology. For now the Nexus S appears
to be consumer's best bet for getting access in the near future.
III. What is NFC and Where Can You Use It?
Near Field Communication relies on an active device (like a key fob or your
phone) acting as an active (powered) sender and sending a signal to a passive
receiver. Typically the receiver is located within 4 cm of the sender in
order to properly receive the signal.
The technology operates at the 13.56 MHz frequency, well below the frequency
band commonly used with Wi-Fi, 2.4 GHz.
The technology was developed and licensed by Dolby Labs' subsidiary Via
Currently one of the largest makers of NFC readers is Verifone Systems, Inc. (PAY).
There are actually thousands of such devices already employed across America.
Examples include checkout devices that you tap your card against and gas
pump charge devices you tap a key fob against. With the new deal, you
could theoretically use your compatible Android smart phone with most of these
devices.You may need to have your license ready to present for larger purchases, as with credit cards, to confirm your identity.
A recent Federal Reserve sponsored study [PDF] stated that there were 150,000
NFC readers installed at locations across America. And the study claimed
Americans own 70 million NFC enabled devices -- largely credit cards.
A MasterCard sponsored survey by Edgar, Dunn & Co. suggests mobile
payments, the field that NFC billing falls under, will swell to a $618B USD
market by 2016.
It's unclear how the device will coexist with the upcoming Isis billing system from Verizon
T-Mobile (Deutsche Telecom: DTE),
and other players. It appears, at present, that it will compete with such
While wireless billing will almost certainly land on the iPhone, on
Blackberries, and on the Windows Phone 7 platform in the near future, it
appears that Google will be the first smart phone OS maker to leverage this
fascinating, if a bit scary technology.
The technology is thought to be relatively secure; it would likely take more
effort to steal your card digital via NFC trickery than it would to steal your
card information from a corporate database.
quote: But if they use a fake ID, and forge the signature in the same way on the fake ID and the credit card slip, it won't matter. | <urn:uuid:f7919fbd-ecff-4a8f-9e6b-2f56c70001f3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=21233&commentid=667197&threshhold=1&red=5917 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937329 | 1,319 | 1.65625 | 2 |
A new statewide survey suggests that Michigan citizens are willing to raise taxes as long as somebody else pays for the increases. The polling data is important as lawmakers and the governor seek ways to raise new revenue for the roads.
Researchers asked 1,000 citizens what kind of tax increases they would support, and the vast majority said, as long as somebody else is paying for them, we would support the following: A polluters pay tax, taxing drinkers, smokers and gamblers and taxing those who take resources out of the environment. The sales tax, however, was close with 49 percent in favor and 47 percent against. Meanwhile, only 31 percent supported a local tax.
But researcher John Austin claims citizens are willing to tax themselves if they know where the money is going.
"If you can explain exactly how you can align it with what they care about, you see higher numbers than that overall survey question," he explained.
As for the governor's efforts to somehow raise more money for the roads, the polling results suggest that the governor needs to target those who are "abusing the roads."
"They want the people that abuse and use the roads or pollute the most -- heavy trucks, gas guzzlers, it's almost the flip of what Randy Richardville was proposing -- let's tax those who are polluting the most to pay for the things that we value like good roads," said Austin.
Republicans have argued for years that if you cut taxes, the state's economy will grow. But the research suggests a majority believe that government should invest in services and tax cuts won't cut it.
"Only 29% said that was the way you grow jobs," Austin said. "64% said invest in education and in our communities and in our great outdoors, that creates conditions where this is a state people want to live and work and not leave."
As for what impact this report will have on raising taxes, don't expect that to happen soon, if at all. | <urn:uuid:76fcca1d-673c-4b9e-83a7-914d83185f9e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.myfoxphilly.com/story/21287682/michigan-citizens-willing-to-raise-taxes-if-someone-else-pays | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977624 | 401 | 1.796875 | 2 |
Fred C. Koch
|Fred C. Koch|
|Born||Fred Chase Koch
September 23, 1900
Quanah, Texas, U.S.
|Died||November 17, 1967
Bear River near Ogden, Utah, U.S.
|Alma mater||Rice University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1922)|
|Occupation||Chemical engineer, Businessman|
|Known for||Founder of Koch Industries|
|Children||Frederick R. Koch
Charles G. Koch
David H. Koch
William I. Koch
Fred Chase Koch (September 23, 1900 – November 17, 1967) was an American chemical engineer and entrepreneur who founded the oil refinery firm that later became Koch Industries, the second-largest privately held company in the United States.
Early life and education
Fred C. Koch was born in Quanah, Texas, the son of Mattie B. (née Mixson) and a Dutch immigrant, Harry Koch. Harry began working as a printer’s apprentice in Workum, Netherlands. He worked over a year at printers shops in The Hague and in Germany before coming to the U.S. in 1888, and owned the Tribune-Chief newspaper. Fred attended Rice Institute in Houston from 1917 to 1919, and graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1922, where he obtained a degree in Chemical Engineering Practice.
Business career
Koch started his career with the Texas Company in Port Arthur, Texas, and later became chief engineer with the Medway Oil & Storage Company on the Isle of Grain in Kent, England. In 1925 he joined a fellow MIT classmate, P.C. Keith, at Keith-Winkler Engineering in Wichita, Kansas. Following the departure of Keith in 1925, the firm became Winkler-Koch Engineering Company.
In 1927, Koch developed a more efficient thermal cracking process for turning crude oil into gasoline. This process led to bigger yields and helped smaller, independent oil companies compete. The larger oil companies instantly sued and filed 44 different lawsuits against Koch. Koch won all but one of the lawsuits, which was overturned after it was revealed that the judge had been bribed.
This extended litigation effectively put Winkler-Koch out of business in the U.S. for several years. Koch turned his focus to foreign markets, including the Soviet Union, where Winkler-Koch built 15 cracking units between 1929 and 1932. The company also built installations in countries throughout Europe, the Middle East and Asia. In the early 1930s, Winkler-Koch hosted Soviet technicians for training.
Having succeeded in securing the family fortune, Koch joined new partners in 1940 to create the Wood River Oil and Refining Company, which is today known as Koch Industries. In 1946 the firm acquired the Rock Island refinery and crude oil gathering system near Duncan, Oklahoma. Wood River was later renamed the Rock Island Oil and Refining Company. In 1966 he turned over day-to-day management of the company to his son, Charles Koch.
Political views
During his time in the Soviet Union, Koch came to despise communism and Joseph Stalin's regime, writing in his 1960 book, A Business Man Looks at Communism, that he found the Soviet Union to be "a land of hunger, misery, and terror". He toured the countryside with his handler Jerome Livshitz. Livshitz gave Fred Koch what he would call a "liberal education in Communist techniques and methods" and Koch grew persuaded that the Soviet threat needed to be countered in America.
According to his son, Charles, “Many of the Soviet engineers he worked with were longtime Bolsheviks who had helped bring on the revolution.” It deeply bothered Fred Koch that so many of those so committed to the Communist cause were later purged.
He claimed that the Democratic and Republican Parties were infiltrated by the Communist Party, and he supported Mussolini's suppression of communists. He wrote that "The colored man looms large in the Communist plan to take over America," and that public welfare was a secret plot to attract rural blacks and Puerto Ricans to Eastern cities to vote for Communist causes and "getting a vicious race war started."
Personal life
In 1932, Koch married Mary Clementine Robinson in Kansas City, Missouri. Mary was the daughter of a prominent Kansas City physician, Ernest Franklin Robinson, who helped to found the University of Kansas School of Medicine and Mary Burnet Kip who died at an early age. Her mother, Mary Burnet Kip was the paternal granddaughter of William Ingraham Kip, the Episcopal missionary bishop to California; and the maternal grandaughter of William Burnet Kinney, ambassador to Italy, and his wife, author Elizabeth Stedman (nee Dodge). The Kochs had four sons: Frederick (b. 1933), Charles (b. 1935), and twins David (b. 1940) and William (b. 1940).
- Dick Dilsaver (18 November 1967). "Fred Koch, Industrialist, Dies in Utah". The Wichita Beacon.
- Leslie Wayne (20 November 1994). "Pulling the Wraps Off Koch Industries". The New York Times. p. Section 3; Page 1; Column 2.
- Forbes 2011
- Discovery (Adobe Acrobat (*.PDF)) (Koch Industries), April 2009 http://www.kochind.com/files/discovery/DiscoveryApril2009.pdf
|url=missing title (help)
- Daniel Fisher (13 March 2006). "Mr. Big". Forbes.
- Koch, Charles C. (2007). The Science of Success: How Market-Based Management Built the World's Largest Private Company. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. p. 6. ISBN 978-0-470-13988-2.
- "History". fmkfoundation.org. Fred C. and Mary R. Koch Foundation. 2008. Retrieved 1 May 2010.
- Liz Karagianis (Winter 2008). "Empathy for Others: Alumnus gives $100M to create cancer institute". Spectrum (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). "His late father, Fred C. Koch, MIT class of '22, founded Koch Industries in 1925, made a fortune, and vowed to teach his four sons to become honorable, honest, and principled."
- Memorial Tributes: National Academy of Engineering, Volume 2. National Academy of Engineering. 1984. p. 148. ISBN 0-309-03482-5. Retrieved 1 May 2010.
- Continetti, Matthew (April 4, 2011). "The Paranoid Style in Liberal Politics". The Weekly Standard.
- Prof. Alexander Igolkin (1 November 2006). "LEARNING FROM AMERICAN EXPERIENCE". Oil of Russia.
- J. Howard, Marshall II (1994). Done in Oil: An Autobiography. College Station: Texas A&M University Press. ISBN 0-89096-533-1.
- Bruce Upbin; Brandon Copple (14 December 1998). "Creative destruction 101". Forbes.
- "Summary of Koch Industries History". sec.gov. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. 14 November 2005. Retrieved 18 February 2010.
- Koch, Fred C. (1960). A Business Man Looks at Communism. Wichita, Kansas: self-published.
- Diamond, Sara (1995). Roads to Dominion: Right-Wing Movements and Political Power in the United States. NY: Guilford Press. p. 324. ISBN 0-89862-862-8.
- SURVIVAL OF THE RICHEST by LESLIE WAYNE November 1989
- For the ore/oil tanker named after Fred's wife, see Mary R. Koch.
- New York Magazine: "The Billionaire's Party - David Koch is New York’s second-richest man, a celebrated patron of the arts, and the tea party’s wallet" By Andrew Goldman July 25, 2010
- Mixson Family Genealogy retrieved January 19, 2012
- The University of Kansas: "Present At The Creation - September 6, 1905 retrieved January 19, 2013
- Kansas Business Hall of Fame Historical Honors Award Recipient profile | <urn:uuid:71a3e90b-1fd8-4fa9-8db8-1d59c25ef94b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_C._Koch | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929149 | 1,698 | 2.796875 | 3 |
Separation and independenceWhen your preschooler was a newborn baby, she was completely unaware that you and she were two separate beings. As she's developed various physical, mental and emotional skills and grown more confident, she's started to work out that she's her own person with her own body, thoughts and feelings. Of course, that means she increasingly wants to do things her own way.
When separation and independence developsYour child's sense of individuality takes years to develop. At around six or seven months, she began to realise that she was separate from you and that you could leave her alone. This may have been when separation anxiety kicked in — a phase that can last well into your child's second year.
As she becomes more confident that you will come back for her, she'll be able to move forward and build her own identity. By the preschooler years, her growing independence may have blossomed enough to cause some problems: wanting things "my way" is at the heart of many temper tantrums.
How separation and independence develops25 to 30 months
Between the ages of two and three, your child will continue to struggle for independence. She'll wander farther away from you as she goes exploring and she'll regularly test her limits — colouring on the walls, for example, even if you tell her not to. "I can do it myself" will probably be one of her most common refrains.
31 to 36 months
Your child will probably conquer separation anxiety by her third birthday. But don't be surprised if temporary episodes recur from time to time. The road to maturity is riddled with separations: the first day of nursery, the first overnight stay at Granny's and the first term of school. Helping your child cope with separation now will make future separations easier.
Your roleYour child needs a secure attachment to you before she can move away and explore her world. Give her consistent love and support, and she'll build the confidence she needs to strike out on her own. She also needs the freedom to test her limits and explore her surroundings, so provide her with a safe home environment. Instead of running around saying "no" every time she touches something that could harm her, keep dangerous objects out of her reach and plenty of safe ones within it.
Encourage independence and a growing sense of self by giving your child choices and things she can do on her own. A choice between two outfits, snacks or afternoon activities allows her to think for herself. Using her own spoon at mealtimes or turning the pages of her board book shows her she's learning to help herself.
Keep in mind that, just because your child is starting to break out on her own, it doesn't mean she'll need less of your comfort and love. While she may be less needy, she still craves your constant care. Encourage her each time she tries something on her own, but don't push her away when she runs back to you for support. She'll want and need your reassurance for a long time to come. | <urn:uuid:58c5bc4b-16c1-4801-a8f0-b595411c534c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.babycentre.co.uk/a1041639/developmental-milestones-separation-and-independence | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977875 | 622 | 2.8125 | 3 |
I’m currently reading the excellent book, Vintage Jesus by Mark Driscoll. He puts forward a very compelling argument, which I have heard from a number of sources and would like to share with you now.
Perhaps the majority of Christians in the world today have a view of what heaven will be like that goes something along the lines of this: the Garden. Christians have a general view that the Garden of Eden was at the beginning and was what God intended and therefore that is what heaven will be like.
The truth is the opposite – heaven is described as an urban paradise – heaven is a city! God’s plan is to go from Garden to city, which gives us something slightly different to look forward to, but also leaves a challenge that we must, as Christians, be those who go to the city, rather than moving away, locking ourselves in our home-schooled Christian family bubble, storing up canned goods in case the tribulation starts…for the following reasons:
1. Cities are more dense - there are simply more people, so by living in the city we will have a greater impact for Jesus, just in basic numeric terms, than if we live in rural areas.
2. Cities are more diverse - people of many different languages, cultures, backgrounds move to the city, so the effects of our work are greater in terms of international connections and God’s purpose for a collection of peoples from every people group.
3. Cities create culture - in the river of culture, cities are upstream; cities are where for example politics, education, finance, health, the arts, fashion, and media are created, and rural areas inherit these. Think about it – every countryside person I have met can tell you the names of the characters in Friends, but how many living in the city could tell the difference between breeds of cow, or areas most heavily impacted by blue tongue or foot and mouth disease? By impacting culture in the cities there is a knock-on effect on the rest of a nation, and the world.
4. Cities are strategic - look at the New Testament method for building the church. Paul and his teams planted churches in each major city, ensuring that the surrounding area would be impacted by the gospel, for God’s glory and His Kingdom.
Here’s a great song to finish with – Chris Tomlin does a great version on the latest Passion album – it’s called God of this City and is wonderful. | <urn:uuid:2497c7e0-1232-41d8-b90b-ff35b62ef1d0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://samisaacson.wordpress.com/tag/vintage-jesus/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963969 | 505 | 1.757813 | 2 |
At the Everett Family Farm's farmers market booth, a sign read "el famoso Padrón.” The wrinkled appearance of these small Galician peppers reminded me of pepperoncini.
Galicia is an autonomous region of Spain which is bordered on the south by Portugal and on the north and west by the Atlantic Ocean. Its economy is driven by fishing, manufacturing and agriculture. From one of its municipalities come these pementos de Padrón, only relatively recently available stateside.
Generally a sweet pepper, but occasionally one with an overabundance of capsaicin sneaks in amongst its mellow brethren, earning these capsicums the nickname Russian Roulette. A Galician saying warns, "Peppers of Padrón, some of them hot, and others not." Apparently, if left to mature to a deep red, they are quite spicy.
Writer Calvin Trillin wrote of this popular Spanish tapas plate in the late, great Gourmet magazine. He had attended the annual pepper festival in Herbón's Franciscan convent, an ode to the monks who brought the seeds from Mexico in the 15th century, and lamented the lack of these addictive snacks. This led to an invitation to a New Jersey family get-together, where a Galician immigrant had been growing them quietly for years.
Now these fingertip- to thumb-sized peppers are available at farmers markets around the country. The traditional recipe calls for sautéing the whole bite-sized capsicums in a bit of Spanish olive oil for about ten minutes until blistered and blackening, and sprinkling with coarse salt.
I'm a huge fan of chilies, the spicier the better, but I wasn't too intrigued by the thought of snacking on sautéed vegetables until I took my first bite. I picked one up by its convenient stem handle and separated it from the seared flesh with my teeth. Its meaty texture and soft seeds reminded me of fried eggplant. The few spicier ones I encountered were comfortingly warm. | KP
|< Prev||Next >| | <urn:uuid:750e5691-3104-4267-917f-3aa5721a613f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gtweekly.com/index.php/santa-cruz-restaurant-reviews/2976-galician-treasure.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950219 | 435 | 1.640625 | 2 |
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Sunukaddu - a voice for youth in Senegal
This summer we were contacted by Laurel Felt, a Doctoral student at the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism who was working on a educational project in Senegal. We were happy to share some of our wisdom and help out her project by sharing resources and thoughts on our Digital Expressions Digital Transcript. Below is a guest post by Laurel detailing the results of this.
Project New Media Literacies' Research Assistant Hillary Kolos and Research Director Erin Reilly recommended that I peruse Online Leadership Program (OLP) Director Barry Joseph’s Using Alternative Assessment Models to Empower Youth-directed Learning. This wonderfully useful, insightful piece introduced me to the Digital Expressions Digital Transcript, a tool that looks like a worksheet with Scout-esque merit badge images of NML skills. In each corner of every triangular badge, there is a letter representing a type of skill mastery - R for Recognize it, D for Do it, T for Talk about it. In a conversation with Barry and Joyce Bettencourt, I learned that OLP instructors evaluate participants’ mastery at project’s end and award badges accordingly.
I wanted to use the Digital Expressions Digital Transcript as a means for participants' assessment of their own progress, envisioning the worksheet as the version of our daily post-tests. By circling the badge corners that best described their sense of NML use and mastery, Sunukaddu-ites could reflect on and take ownership of their learning process.
Sunukaddu means “our voice” in Wolof, a commonly spoken language here in Senegal, West Africa. Like Global Kids’ Online Leadership Program, Sunukaddu develops youths’ critical thinking skills and capacity to communicate. Sunukaddu kicked off its work three years ago, facilitating community-level public health dialogues and grass roots advocacy.
The cornerstone of Sunukaddu is a six-week, 12-session training program that teaches participants to critically consume media messages, ethically create their own, and strategically diffuse them. Our method is enriched by theory [e.g., Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) and New Media Literacies (NML).]
Global Kids generously agreed to this appropriation and the Compétences NML tool was born.
Then an exciting thing happened. One of the Senegalese instructors of Sunukaddu, Idrissa Mbaye, had a great idea.
Idrissa (who we affectionately refer to as Père Idy, which means Father Idy) suggested that we hang posters of the NML and SEL skills from a clothesline in our classroom. Clotheslines are quite salient in the local environment, and hanging these posters would not only keep the skills front-of-mind, but would also free up valuable wall space for the participants’ posting of their daily work.
I added on to Idrissa's idea, appropriating a concept used by Chicago-based theater group The Neofuturists in their long-running show, “Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind.” Ensemble members hang pieces of paper, each emblazoned with a scene number, from a clothesline on stage. Based on the audience’s random numeric appeals (“Three!!!” audience members lustily shout, having no idea what scene “three” will bring; “Five!!!”), Neofuturists pull down the associated paper and perform.
I proposed that we take this pulling down idea and, whenever the participants notice that our Sunukaddu work draws upon a NML or SEL skill, pull down that skill card from the clothesline and keep it. At the end of the day, during our Reflection session, each “puller” should explain why s/he pulled down that skill at that particular time, then rehang it on the line.
The speed with which the participants have understood the skills and correctly identified their manifestation has been truly extraordinary. By the end of the first day, nearly all of the skills had been pulled from the line. And ever since this introduction two weeks ago, the participants have always spoken accurately about each skill’s deployment.
The instructors themselves also truly understand the skills like never before. Individually and collectively, we have witnessed our growth from our collaborative curriculum building workshops of early July through today. Day 4 is a great example. The NML Skill of the Day was Appropriation, and the focus was audio.
The audio instructor, a young MC named DJ Amson (aka, Amadou Dia) remixed a song from local star Youssou N'Dour with a hiphop American chart topper from Rihanna. Backed by this appropriated masterpiece, the participants kicked off their day with a game of energy-building, body-freeing Freeze Dance!
Another young instructor, Tidiane Thiang, just spent the last hour explaining how the NML and SEL skills have inspired him to follow his filmmaking dreams and helped him to find his own voice – literally! Everett Rogers’s Diffusion of Innovations theory spoke to Tidiane and following my presentation of the theory in French, he took it upon himself to re-explain the key concepts in Wolof. Whereas we used to never hear a peep out of Tidiane, now we jokingly call him “the kitten who became a lion.”
But it is perhaps the language of the NML skills that has impacted Tidiane most profoundly. These NML names and definitions have finally given him a way to recognize, analyze, and hone previously un(der)detected background processes. As the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis suggests, when an object has a name, one has the capacity to truly see it, and so transcend instinctive sensing in order to negotiate deliberate manipulation.
Just yesterday, Tidiane, assessment guru Brock Dumville and I hatched another scheme inspired by the Global Kids’ Online Leadership Program’s Digital Expressions Digital Transcript.
Tidiane suggested that, at the end of the training, we present participants with certificates of Sunukaddu completion. Brock added on to that idea, proposing special recognition of participants’ proficiency in a self-designated NML skill area. I suggested that we allow participants to choose more than one skill, or perhaps one NML skill and one SEL skill. This Friday, Tidiane plans to design mock-ups of look-a-like SEL badges.
We welcome you to be a part of Sunukaddu in any number of ways:
- visit Sunukaddu’s website
- visit RAES’s website
- check out RAES’s Facebook page
- send us an email (Tidiane, Idrissa, Amadou, Brock, Laurel)
- and next time you’re in Dakar, stop on by!
~Your cyber-partners in social change, Laurel and the Sunukaddu team!
Thanks Laurel - glad we could help! | <urn:uuid:4f49d9e0-b651-4841-a3d7-64b4b2dda3cf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://olpglobalkids.org/content/sunukaddu-voice-youth-senegal | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93367 | 1,508 | 2.40625 | 2 |
Calluses: Treatment, symptoms, advice and help
This is a harmless skin condition characterized by the thickening and hardening of certain areas of skin, especially those which are exposed to repeated friction. Calluses are self limiting, and seldom result in any health concern.
Calluses: Incidence, age and sex
Callus formation is a very common occurrence worldwide and can affect an individual of any age group. However it is more frequently seen in adults with same prevalence in both men and women.
Signs and symptoms of calluses: Diagnosis
The clinical features of calluses include thickened and toughened area of the skin which is typically painless. Calluses can develop in any part of skin but it is most frequently seen in the skin over foot. The ball of foot and heel are the most common areas of affliction. Other areas include the fingers and the palms of the hands. The affected skin becomes coarse and thick.
Causes and prevention of calluses
Calluses formation occurs on skin which is repeatedly exposed to pressure or friction. The skin of such areas has abundant dead cells which causes hardening of the skin and also protect from further friction. Callus formation is most commonly seen in the feet. It may develop in ball of the foot or the heel area either due to constant standing and walking or wearing ill fitting and hard footwear. Inner border of the big toe may also be affected by wearing footwear with hard straps in between big and the second toe. Other structural factors like high arched feet or flat feet may also predispose to this condition. Moreover callus may develop over border of the middle finger in response to persistent writing by pen or pencil. Musicians who play string instruments may show frequent callus formation on their fingertips. Similarly sailors or labourers who make excessive and frictional use of their hands may also be predisposed to callus formation in their palms. Infrequently, infections like syphilis may also result in thickening of the palms and soles.
Calluses are self limiting and harmless in most of the instances. Very rarely, a callus may get infected and show pus collection in it. This may present as painful condition with swelling and redness of skin.
Callus is mainly a self-limiting skin problem which may show frequent relapses. The treatment consists of keratolytic agents which help to dissolve the thickened part of skin. Supportive measures are also helpful, like soaking the affected hand or feet in warm water to soften the callused skin, followed by rubbing it gently by pumice stone to remove the dead layer of skin. Avoid wearing toe strap footwear if you are prone for callus over foot. Orthotic footwear can also be tried. Individuals who have excessive use of hands may wear protective gloves to protect their skin. Individuals with diabetes are recommended to consult a podiatrist for adequate management of calluses. Medications like antibiotics may be provided if the callus becomes infected. | <urn:uuid:ec7ceef9-a798-4554-b3bd-2f3c33d8c4f7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.surgerydoor.co.uk/advice/diseases/calluses/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955849 | 602 | 3.0625 | 3 |
Twelve Missouri Artifacts: Howard Collection
browse these categories for related items...
Directory: Antiques: Regional Art: Americas: American Indian: Stone: Pre 1492: item # 439654
Please refer to our stock # TEH.NAI.B when inquiring.
HD ENTERPRISES, INC.
PO Box 22082
Denver, CO 80222
SEE EACH PHOTO FOR PRICE
|The twelve prehistoric Native American artifacts in this group (TEH.F15.1, 3, 4, 7, 8, 11, 12, 14, 16, 17, 18 and 22), each individually photographed and priced, are all from an open frame marked ‘Missouri’ that was in the collection of the late Chester Howard, founder of the Colorado Mineral Society. The group includes the following types: Mehlville, Gary, Munker’s Creek, Madison, Delhi, St. Charles Dovetail drill, Sedalia, Hollenberg, Turkey Tail Hebron and Adena. Each photo shows the front and back of the same point. The inventory number appears in brackets, followed by the point type, and the approximate numerical grade (with 10 being the highest). Next comes the time period in which the point type falls, followed by the approximate age BP (that is ‘Before Present’). The length is given in inches, followed by a brief note about condition. Price appears at the bottom of the text. We’re pleased to announce that we’ll additionally be handling many more diverse items from this great collection including: Native American textiles, beadwork, and pottery; Pre-Columbian pottery, artifacts, beads, and figurines; some 2500+ merchant, Indian Trading, Military and Hacienda tokens; a great assortment of picturesque and decorative artifact frames that Howard had professionally constructed to house many of his treasures; and much more. Each arrowhead purchased from this page will be presented in a glass-fronted display frame and accompanied by a biographical write-up about Chester Howard along with our certificate guaranteeing authenticity. NOTE: if you would like to view a large number of our various listings, and at the same time limit your browsing time, try our ‘TWELVE different items on a single page format’ by simply spelling out the word TWELVE in the search box. That will quickly bring up all of our listings that have twelve different items on a page, each individually priced and available! Any item that has been sold will be so noted on its photograph.| | <urn:uuid:3d5d47b9-cb2a-469d-9d90-40e9520ef7d9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.trocadero.com/stores/HDENTERPRISES/items/439654/item439654.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.912831 | 526 | 1.578125 | 2 |
US Youth Soccer Programs
Kohl's US Youth Soccer American Cup
The Kohl's US Youth Soccer American Cup provides recreational youth soccer players an opportunity to experience a consistent and high quality statewide tournament in a fun, family-like atmosphere. It fosters stimulation and excitement about soccer in an effort to increase the recreational players interest and love for the game.
US Youth Soccer Olympic Development Program
The US Youth Soccer Olympic Development Program (US Youth Soccer ODP) was formed in 1977 to identify a pool of players in each age group from which a National Team will be selected for international competition; to provide high-level training to benefit and enhance the development of players at all levels; and, through the use of carefully selected and licensed coaches, develop a mechanism for the exchange of ideas and curriculum to improve all levels of coaching.
US Youth Soccer National Championship Series
Each summer the United States Youth Soccer Association (US Youth Soccer) crowns a boys and girls national champion in each of its six age divisions (Under 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 and 19). The finals are a culmination of a year-long series of competitions at the state and regional levels known as the US Youth Soccer National Championship Series which provides approximately 185,000 players on 10,000 teams from US Youth Soccer's 55 State Associations the opportunity to showcase their soccer skills against the best competition in the nation.
US Youth Soccer National League
The US Youth Soccer National League is an extension of the highly successful US Youth Soccer Regional Leagues (US Youth Soccer Region I Premier League, Midwest Regional League, Region III Premier League and Far West Regional League) to play not only to claim the title of National League Champion but also to earn two slots in each gender age group at the US Youth Soccer National Championships. In addition to the four Regional Championship winners, the top two finishers in each age group from the National League will earn slots to the national finals. The National League's top four finishers will also retain their positions in the league for the following season.
US Youth Soccer Presidents Cup
The US Youth Soccer Presidents Cup provides a progressive, competitive experience to US Youth Soccer teams from the state to regional to national level. The Presidents Cup gives players an additional opportunity to compete against teams from across the country at a high level for the joy and the challenge of the game. It provides the chance to experience a unique US Youth Soccer event with camaraderie, community and competition through sport.
Soccer Across America (Formerly Soccer Start)
Soccer Across America is designed to introduce the sport of soccer to youngsters living in communities not yet served by existing clubs and leagues. Focused on making soccer available to lower-income children in underserved communities, Soccer Across America provides soccer training and administrative guidance to players and organizations who might otherwise not be exposed to the sport.
US Youth Soccer TOPSoccer
US Youth Soccer TOPSoccer (The Outreach Program for Soccer) is a community-based training and team placement program for young athletes with disabilities, organized by youth soccer association volunteers. The program is designed to bring the opportunity of learning and playing soccer to any boy or girl, who has a mental or physical disability.
Youth Soccer Month
In September, the National Youth Soccer Month campaign celebrates its seventh year of educating the public about the joys, rewards and benefits of playing youth soccer, and offers a variety of resources to learn more about youth soccer and get involved. | <urn:uuid:4aae0dc6-5000-4f0e-a870-6059f13b10f6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.vermontsoccer.org/programs/preview.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943367 | 699 | 1.78125 | 2 |
According to The New York Times, dolphins exposed to the Deepwater Horizon Disaster’s combined effects of crude oil and chemical dispersants, “are seriously ill.”
In August of 2010, just after the wellhead was capped, I joined The Sea Turtle Restoration Project’s Dr. Chris Pincetich, Captains Al Walker and Terry Palmisano, and Scott Porter of Ecorigs to see how much oil was still in Barataria Bay, in the Mississippi Delta. We found much more than we expected, with crude oil and sheen seemingly everywhere we checked.
In one area we found a pod of dolphins poking their noses in the mud looking for morsels of food, only to kick up a nasty rainbow sheen of oil. And when they’d surface to breathe, their blowholes would open, sucking in that same oily sheen. It was the stuff of nightmares. When my respiratory problems became too hard to manage, I went to Florida to recuperate. The dolphins and other creatures of the Gulf were not so lucky.
The situation was reported to the authorities, with whom I exchanged a number of frustrating emails. Finally a few months later, they went to the GPS Position I had provided and reported back that the dolphins’ health appeared to be normal. Frustrating for all sides involved I’m sure, and with the government’s gag order on NOAA staff due to pending lawsuits against BP, it’s been a long time with no news.
My friends know how long I raged about the dolphins in Barataria Bay – and elsewhere in the Gulf where the mortality rates have been no less than astounding. Today that anger is back again, the memories of those dolphins are as vivid as if it were yesterday.
In this video, you’ll see the dolphins around 1:13 forward.
New York Times/Environmental Blog
Dolphins in Barataria Bay off Louisiana, which was hit hard by the BP oil spill in 2010, are seriously ill, and their ailments are probably related to toxic substances in the petroleum, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration suggested on Friday.
As part of an ongoing assessment of damages caused by the three-month spill, which began with an explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig, NOAA scientists performed comprehensive physicals last summer on 32 dolphins from the bay. They found problems like drastically low weight, low blood sugar and, in some cases, cancer of the liver and lungs.
Yet the most common symptom among the dolphins, found in about half the group, was an abnormally low level of stress hormones like cortisol. Such hormones regulate many functions in the animal, including the immune system and responses to threats. Scientists said the dearth of hormones suggested that the animals were suffering from adrenal insufficiency.
Lori Schwacke, the lead scientist for the health assessment, said the findings were preliminary and could not be conclusively linked to the oil spill at this point. But she said the exams were also conducted on control groups of dolphins that live along the Atlantic coast and in other areas that were not affected by the 2010 spill and that those dolphins did not manifest those symptoms.
“The findings we have are also consistent with other studies that have looked at the effects of oil exposure in other mammals,” Dr. Schwacke added, citing experimental studies of mink that were dosed with oil. Some of those minks developed adrenal insufficiency.
Strandings of dolphins began rising in states along the Gulf of Mexico in February 2010, or about two months before the oil spill.
But NOAA says that the strandings have returned to normal rates along the Florida coast, which was the farthest from the spill, while remaining abnormally high along the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. In Barataria Bay alone, with a population of about 1,000 dolphins, 180 strandings have been reported since February 2010. In a normal year, about 20 dolphin standings would be reported in all of Louisiana, the agency said.
Ben Sherman, a NOAA spokesman, cautioned against drawing too broad a conclusion about dolphin deaths across the gulf from the findings. He said the results could provide “possible clues” to the effects of the oil spill on other dolphins in the northern Gulf of Mexico. “However, it is too soon to tell how the Barataria Bay findings apply,” he said. | <urn:uuid:19e2f8ae-74f1-4661-b8f2-e2b359ffe929> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://planetoceannews.com/category/cetaceans/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974931 | 910 | 2.375 | 2 |
Stop-and-Frisk in New York City
The New York City Police Department is trumpeting a decrease of about one-third in the number of citizens detained under its increasingly unpopular stop-and-frisk program. The news comes as a relief, since New Yorkers, nearly all of whom were innocent of any crime, were stopped nearly 700,000 times last year.
But the problems with this program were never just the number of stops. The real test is whether police officers can both reduce the number of stops and obey the law, which requires them to have reasonable, articulable grounds for suspicion before detaining people on the streets.
This point was underscored earlier this summer, when Judge Shira Scheindlin of Federal District Court granted class action status to a lawsuit accusing the Police Department of using race as the basis for stopping and frisking New Yorkers. The judge rebuked the city for its “deeply troubling apathy toward New Yorkers’ most fundamental constitutional rights,” and found “overwhelming evidence” that the program had led to thousands of baseless, unlawful stops. Despite the police claims that the stops keep criminals and weapons off the streets, only about 6 percent of stops lead to arrests, and last year, only one in every 879 stops turned up a gun.
Asked to explain the recent drop in stops, police officers told The Times that many sergeants conducting roll calls had stopped emphasizing the need to stop and question people on street. According to the department, it conducted 203,500 stops in January, February and March of this year — a record number — but stopped only 133,934 in April, May and June. Even so, it will most likely be several weeks before a data analysis by the lawyers in the class action suit, Floyd v. City of New York, provides a detailed sense of whether the trend toward illegal and discriminatory stops has indeed subsided.
News accounts continue to illustrate how the program has alienated communities of color. This week, for example, Wendy Ruderman reported in The Times about a little-discussed aspect of the program — the humiliating toll that it has taken on women, who say that male police officers have singled them out without cause for invasive searches and harassment.
In one case, a woman said she was sitting on the front steps of her home in the Bronx on a recent summer night when police officers rifled through her handbag, fishing out a tampon, a sanitary napkin and finally birth control pills, about which they questioned her. Another young woman from Harlem Heights said police officers who claimed to be searching for a rapist interrupted her and two female friends, demanded identification and then patted her down. “It was uncalled-for,” she said. “It made no sense. How are you going to stop three females when you are supposedly looking for a male rapist?”
People who have been singled out for unjustified searches have expressed similar sentiments all over the city. The longer those searches continue, the more public discontent will grow. | <urn:uuid:8b7bdc24-5e23-47fb-950c-3818d15d6214> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.civilfreedoms.org/?p=13634 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00070-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969477 | 625 | 1.867188 | 2 |
Finding information for History Day projects can be both fun and challenging. Minnesota History Day has listed some suggestions for some great places to get primary and secondary sources, but there are endless possibilities. Here are few links to get you started:
Libraries and Archives
* Please note starting December 1, 2012 the Library's new hours of operation will be:
Tuesday: Noon to 8 p.m.
Weds.-Sat.: 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
History Day Hullabaloos and Research Days
Mooster History Fan Club
Get some help from the Minnesota History Day mascot, Mooster History! Ask questions and watch podcasts, and let Mooster History help with your project! | <urn:uuid:7a92b442-8466-4550-a5eb-e49f2c1dc0c8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://education.mnhs.org/historyday/research | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.902089 | 144 | 1.71875 | 2 |
TAHOE, Calif. and#8212; Finding the right camp for children to complement other activities is often a top priority. North Tahoe Arts (NTA) in Tahoe City offers a hands-on art experience for elementary to middle school age youth and is taught by accomplished local artists and instructors who are passionate about the importance of art in a childand#8217;s development.
The National Art Education Association posts numerous research articles on the importance of arts in our childrenand#8217;s all around development and specifically in academic success. A 2011 study, and#8220;Reinvesting in Arts Education,and#8221; found integrating arts with other subjects helps to raise achievement levels. The study continues by noting arts education may not just help raise test scores, but also the learning process itself, and skills learned in the visual arts could help improve reading.
And, art is fun! And, often times, it is messy, which children love. NTA can make creative messiness and much more happen at Kids Art Camp.
Below is a list of summer camps offered by North Tahoe Arts, a nonprofit organization that has been promoting and supporting the arts in the Truckee-Tahoe communities for 25 years. Please sign up early, as space is limited. To sign up and for additional information about NTA and Kids Art Camp, programs, 2012 ARTour (in July), artists, gallery opens, the Artisan Shop and more visit www.northtahoearts.com or call 530-581-2787, or just stop by NTA located in Tahoe City at 380 North Lake Blvd.
Camps will be held outdoors at the Rideout Community Center located at 740 Timberland Lane on the west shore of Lake Tahoe. Children must be 5-years-old to participate. Cost for non-NTA-members is $160 per child, per session, plus a $10 materials fee; a snack is included. NTA members cost is $140 per child, per session, plus a $10 materials fee; snack is included.
Session 1: July 16 and#8211; 20; 9 a.m.-noon; ages 5-12
Session 2: July 23 and#8211; 27; 9 a.m.-noon; ages 5-12
Session 3: July 30 and#8211; Aug. 3; 9 a.m.-noon; ages 5-12
Session 4: July 23 -27; 1-4 p.m.; ages 12 and up.
and#8220;Kids Art Camp is a signature program at North Tahoe Arts going into its seventh year. This NTA tradition is a great non-sports camp option that has been popular due to the talented instructorsand#8217; true passion to explore the wonderful world of art with young children. As we see continuous cut-backs in our public school programs, weand#8217;re working diligently at NTA to keep art programs alive and affordable for everyone,and#8221; says Kellie Cutler, executive director, North Tahoe Arts. and#8220;We hope to see your children at camp, and maybe even joining their parents for ARTour this July.and#8221; | <urn:uuid:40c844d8-1958-4b61-b660-ab192ae0358e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tahoedailytribune.com/article/20120625/COMMUNITY/120629946?layout=320 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94407 | 673 | 1.859375 | 2 |
There's a back to the future feel about the global economy right now. The only question is back to what future? The obvious answer considering the events of the past week is the 1970s. There are plenty of echoes in the world today of the currency instability, rising inflation, rising unemployment and political uncertainty that marked that troubled decade.
Over the weekend, finance ministers and central-bank governors from the Group of 20 industrialized nations tried to play down fears of new currency wars that have been spooking markets since last month's election of a new Japanese government. The Bank of England recently became the latest central bank to relax its inflation-fighting credentials by formally abandoning its long-standing objective of returning inflation to its 2% target within two years. Meanwhile European gross domestic product shrank by more than forecast in the fourth quarter, creating fresh uncertainty over when the recession will end.
But it doesn't take much of a leap of imagination to see shadows of a very different decade: as in the early Noughties, the dominant dynamic in the markets today is a desperate search for yield that is fueling potential asset bubbles across global markets. Just as the U.S. Federal Reserve loosened monetary policy in the aftermath of the dotcom crash, central banks have been again flooding the world with easy money to try to pull the global economy out of its current malaise. And as in the past decade, there is evidence that all this liquidity is leading to asset-price inflation even as consumer-price inflation remains low, with concerns about bubbles in assets as varied as Swiss, Canadian and London real estate, emerging-market equities and the European corporate-credit market.
At the same time, some believe Warren Buffett's proposed $28 billion takeover of Heinz may mark the start of a new giant leveraged buyout boom. On this analysis, the seeds of the next financial crisis may be being sown before the current one is over.
So which decade will the current one resemble? The reality is that talk of 1970s-style currency wars looks premature. True, the G-20 statement designed to cool anxieties was bland and unconvincing; it acknowledged that "excess volatility of financial flows and disorderly movements in exchange rates have adverse implications for economic and financial stability" and it committed governments to "refrain from competitive devaluation."
That still leaves ample scope for further devaluations so long as they happen to be the serendipitous byproduct of domestic monetary policy pursued for domestic reasons rather than efforts to "target our exchange rates for competitive purposes."
Indeed, the global currency debate is full of humbug. The U.S. was the first country to be accused of waging currency war, when Brazil objected to the Federal Reserve's second round of quantitative easing in 2011, which was widely seen as a naked attempt to drive down the dollar.
The new Japanese government may now claim that its promise of a massive monetary and fiscal stimulus is solely designed to boost the domestic economy but it has made little secret of its desire to see a weaker yen. Similarly, Bank of England Governor Mervyn King has been open in his view that a further devaluation of sterling, on top of the 20% depreciation since the start of the global financial crisis is needed to further rebalance the economy—even while warning that other countries risk triggering competitive depreciations.
In fact, Mr. King could be said to have coined a new irregular verb: "I rebalance my economy, you competitively devalue, he has started a currency war."
Even so, there are good reasons to believe that talk of currency wars is, for the moment, just talk. First, it is hard to argue that any advanced economy has so far secured a significant competitive advantage via its exchange rate. Even after Japan's near-20% devaluation this year, the yen is still trading within its long-term range, having been significantly overvalued over the past few years as it attracted safe-haven flows in response to the euro crisis. Similarly, the recent rise in the euro is hardly conducive to growth and has caused some anxiety in some European capitals, but the currency is still within its long-term range against the dollar.
The exception is the U.K., which has somehow escaped international censure despite the biggest depreciation of any major currency—perhaps because it has apparently derived so little benefit from it.
Besides, it's hard these days to win a currency war. So long as global consumer-price inflation is low, estimates of spare capacity are high and central banks are willing to "look through" short-term inflation spikes, every country has access to the chief weapon needed to fight the war—ultraloose domestic monetary policy. Indeed, the yen's previous rise partly reflects the Bank of Japan's reluctance to expand its balance sheet as much as the Fed, BOE, or the European Central Bank. At the same time, the global prohibition on competitive devaluations appears asymmetric; countries that have intervened to prevent their currencies rising, such as Switzerland, have so far escaped censure. Goldman Sachs argues this de-facto global stand-off over currencies represents an unofficial Global Exchange Rate Mechanism.
But if the price of avoiding currency wars is even looser monetary policy, this brings risks of a different kind. How policy makers respond to possible new asset-price bubbles will be crucial in determining whether the rest of this decade is a replay of the '70s, the Noughties or something more benign.
On this score, perhaps the most interesting development last week was the Swiss National Bank's decision to impose extra capital requirements on Swiss banks' exposures to the domestic mortgage market. This was one of the first attempts by a central bank to try out the big new idea of the postcrisis world: macro-prudential regulation. Whether it succeeds in cooling an over-heating market remains to be seen.
Nor is it clear how ready other central banks are to use these new powers. After all, central banks have so far largely welcomed rising asset prices as a sign of restored confidence and view low yields as creating an incentive for investment.
In the absence of domestic political support, it would take a brave policy maker to argue that soaring asset prices risk creating a new debt-fueled misallocation of capital and threaten to pull away the punch bowl. But perhaps they're made of sterner stuff these days.
Write to Simon Nixon at firstname.lastname@example.org | <urn:uuid:9487a7be-7fa1-4853-84b2-ca84bf2ae5ea> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323495104578310162246959992.html?mod=WSJ_article_NewYorkSportsHeadlines | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956335 | 1,324 | 1.960938 | 2 |
The Watchmaker's Art
From the Print Edition:
Wayne Gretzky, Mar/Apr 97
(continued from page 1)
A tourbillon, a sophisticated device designed to eliminate errors caused by the pull of gravity, consists of a mobile carriage or cage that carries the escapement, with the balance in the center, and generally rotates once a minute. The escapement is made up of an escape wheel with teeth and a pallet that interact to send impulses that drive the balance; when the balance, a wheel whose weight is concentrated along the rim, and an attached hairspring receive the impulses, they oscillate back and forth at a consistent rate, keeping proper time.
The tourbillon is of such complexity that only a few hundred have been made since Abraham Louis Breguet patented the invention in 1801. Muller is one of the few watchmakers since to receive a patent for improving the tourbillon, and a second patent is pending.
"The tourbillon is very difficult to make and very difficult to associate with other complications, yet it results in a watch with better timing," says Muller, whose 1996 Imperial Tourbillon watches retail for about $85,000. "Collectors understand the watch and want something very special. They know that I'm the first watchmaker to put the tourbillon with this complication, with that complication, etc."
Signing his first wristwatch "Franck Genève," which adorned all his subsequent creations until he formed his company in 1991, Muller continued to endow his watches with the most complicated mechanisms imaginable, while at the same time designing them in a simple yet elegant style that harkened back to yesteryear. The end result: wristwatches that stood out from the crowd.
"They're large on the wrist--you can see them very well across the room," Joe Thompson, editorial director of American Time magazine, says about the bold, large styling of Muller's watches. "Rolex has this same kind of distinctive look." And, says Abe Azaria, manager at Cellini jewelers in Manhattan, Muller's "cases are extremely tasteful. Whether they're curved or round, he's got maîtrise [mastery]. That and the amount of complications that he's introduced in his cases--he really blew quite a bit of people away in the industry."
"They were refreshing compared to what everybody else was doing," says Colin Jensen, co-owner of Jensen Stern in Ketchum, Idaho, which in 1992 became the first U.S. store to carry Franck Muller watches. "The proof of that statement is that when he came out with his curved-case timepiece, everybody in the industry, including Patek Philippe and Bregeut and Vacheron and Audemars [Piguet], has made a tunnel-shaped or curved timepiece themselves. I think they've come clearly short of producing something as pleasing as Franck Muller's curved timepiece."
In 1987, fresh off the success of his first tourbillon wristwatch, Muller introduced the Minute-Repeater Tourbillon with free oscillation, a timepiece two years in the making in which many of the several hundred components are visible through its skeleton dial. In 1989, Muller debuted the retrograde Tourbillon Minute-Repeater wristwatch with a perpetual calendar, complete with a mechanism that takes care of those pesky leap years.
The following year, he introduced his first chronograph, coupling it with the intricate tourbillon. Later versions of the chronograph--which incorporates the functions of a stopwatch--offered wearers a "double face": conventional time and "world time" of cities in 24 time zones on one dial, pulsimetric indication (calculation of pulsations per minute) on the back dial, in 1991; a tourbillon and perpetual calendar, in 1992; a double face (now patented) whose second dial now included indication of two other measures: telemetric (distance between an acoustic event and an observer) and tachymetric (speed of an object over a certain distance), also in 1992; and a perpetual calendar with a moon phase and retrograde monthly equation, which indicates the difference between the true sun day--the interval of time that passes between two straight passages of the sun at the meridian--and the average sun day--24 hours, or the average of all the days of the year, in 1994.
In recent years, Muller has introduced the simple but elegant Art Deco-style "Casablanca" line and a series of glittering diamond watches, as well as a number of timepieces sporting the sophisticated technology for which he has become renown. Among these are several minute-repeaters and a double jumping hour watch, which led to two additional patents for Muller. One patent was for the striking mechanism indicator, which allows one to visualize, via a path of a hand through a sector, the lapse of time during which the minute-repeater mechanism is in motion. The other patent was for the double jumping hour, which lets the wearer adjust the hour of a second time zone independently from the local time.
While the complications became increasingly complex over the years, Muller never forgot the other key ingredient to a successful watch: it had to look good. As he was slowly increasing production from 300 watches in 1992 to the 3,500 a year that his firm makes today, he was creating the never-before-seen three-dimensional Cintrée Curved cases to complement the traditional Classiques, or round ones. The 18-karat gold cases and the meticulously crafted dials, hands and straps meant the owner could look fashionable while he was figuring out the time on the next continent. Muller was living testament to the marriage of design and machine.
You must be logged in to post a comment. | <urn:uuid:100fc8d8-8756-4c0c-8d9a-4311590e6d6b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cigaraficionado.com/webfeatures/show/id/The-Watchmakers-Art_7554/p/2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966707 | 1,202 | 2.03125 | 2 |
Into the Storm: Being safe in the rain, preparing for the snow
I would like to talk a little about rain and snow safety. Earlier, I talked about flood safety and avoiding putting yourself in danger. I would like to talk a little more this time about winter safety.
As the photo shows my little angel Jordan loving the rain, what happens when this changes over to snow? The biggest issue we come across in this change of season is driving. As we start to change our habits into winter mode again, please remember to slow down and leave more distance from the vehicles ahead of you. It's always great to have a winter weather survival kit as well in your vehicle in case of being stranded. The basic kit should include, extra batteries for your cell phone, a charger, water, blankets, extra clothes, coats and gloves. More can be found on my website at www.stormchaser1.net. I will also like to add in that my website soon will also have my photos for purchase.
If stranded, run your car just to warm it up about once an hour. Only get out to clear away snow from the exhaust to prevent carbon monoxide poisoning.
For children, always make sure they are warm and dry while outside. Kids love to play in the snow and often get wet in doing so. But do not let them play within 10 feet of the road. The reason is cars do lose control and drive into yards when sliding. Always be aware of how fast snow is falling and how long to allow them to play outside. Never allow children to walk in the streets if they are snow-covered. It's pretty basic safety for winter tips. As parents, we have lived this many times and know what's best for children. More information is on my website above.
I also would like to talk about ice conditions. With the transition from rain to snow seasons, we often in this area get icy conditions as rain hits freezing grounds and turns water to ice. Not only is driving and walking dangerous when this change happens, but the next danger is power lines. Most of us have lived through ice storms in the area. Power lines come down or trees collapse on power lines, causing power lines to fall. Never go near any power line that has fallen. These lines may still be live and cause serious injury or death. An example: Last week while in New York, we were outside during an incoming storms, and the wind alone two houses away blew a line down on the side of a home and we heard and saw the flashes and the electrical fire smell. The fire department and electric company came quickly, but the damage was done – a lot of damage to the lower level of the home and interior. So the power from these lines is now match for a person. So power lines will be no match for ice. Very little ice is needed to make these fall.
Be safe, be cautious, watch out for children, keep a safe distance from other vehicles and always be aware of weather conditions before wandering out "Into The Storm!" | <urn:uuid:b4f1ba4a-3f89-467c-9540-60d916f6c7ba> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kcchronicle.com/2012/09/24/into-the-storm-being-safe-in-the-rain-preparing-for-the-snow/bbdqrpo/?__xsl=/print.xsl | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96499 | 621 | 2.15625 | 2 |
EU Network of Independent Experts on Fundamental Rights
2006, 417 S., in English and French
The EU Network of Independent Experts on Fundamental Rights has been set up by the European Commission (DG Justice, Freedom and Security), upon request of the European Parliament. Since 2002, it monitors the situation of fundamental rights in the Member States and in the Union, on the basis of the Charter of Fundamental Rights. A Report is prepared on each Member State, by a Member of the Network, under his/her own responsibility. The activities of the institutions of the European Union are evaluated in a separated report, prepared for the Network by the coordinator. On the basis of these (26) Reports, the members of the Network prepare a Synthesis Report, which identifies the main areas of concern and makes certain recommendations. The conclusions and recommendations are submitted to the institutions of the Union. The content of the Report is not binding on the institutions.
|Commentary EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (PDF)||3.64 MB| | <urn:uuid:34ce0e59-43f7-475a-9504-29084a394196> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bim.lbg.ac.at/en/monographs-and-anthologies/commentary-charter-fundamental-rights-european-union | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00062-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.905013 | 204 | 2.234375 | 2 |
There is a video that describes why balancing the budget is impossible. No it is not akin to my posting regarding rejecting the proposed balanced budget amendment. Recall that you can balance a budget either by decreasing spending or increasing taxes or both. As I observed when the senate rejected a reduction in the budget by a paltry $10 billion, our politicians cutting spending is virtually impossible leaving increasing taxes as the only choice. What the video shows is that federal nondiscretionary spending (social security, medicare) is equal to tax receipts. This means that if you would have to eliminate federal spending on everything else, to have a balanced budget. Of course, nondiscretionary spending is nondiscretionary because the government says it is. Nonetheless, everyone knows that in order to control federal spending then the spending on social security and medicare must be corralled. After the video makes these points it wimps out. Its solutions are no solutions at all. So I offer a few real solutions of my own that will work.
1. Eliminate duplication
2. Eliminate automatic escalators
3. Raise the full benefit age in social security to 70
4. Privatize medicare and medicaid
5. Privatize social security with a benefit floor guaranteed by the federal government
6. Institute a flat income tax with no exemptions
7. Limit the growth in the number of pages in the federal register
8. Institute an aggressive review of all regulations by all federal agencies
9. Mandate that regulatory burdens must be reduced by at least 5 percent per year. (We did this when I was at NCUA).
10. Limit federal pay (including perks) to no more than 10 percent over the average pay for the same position in the private sector.
11. And of course, cap the federal budget to 20 percent of the previous year's GDP.
Harold A. Black is professor emeritus in the Department of Finance, University of Tennessee, Knoxville having retired after 24 years of service. He has served on the faculties of American University, Howard University, the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill and the University of Florida. His government service includes the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and as a Board Member of the National Credit Union Administration. He also has served on the boards of directors Home Savings of America and its parent company, H. F. Ahmanson & Co., Irwindale, California prior to its merger with Washington Mutual Savings Bank, on the board of New Century Financial Corporation, Irvine, California, then the nation’s largest real estate investment trust and as director and later chairman of the Nashville Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. He writes an occasional article for the Knoxville News-Sentinel at http://www.knoxnews.com/staff/dr-harold-black/. His web page is haroldablackphd.com | <urn:uuid:ccf1b757-8808-4ef6-9abb-8af715be5db0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://haroldblack.blogspot.com/2012/05/balance-budget-ha.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00061-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93342 | 595 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Acrobatic gymnastics combines dance, gymnastics skills, and synchronization. Engaging choreography and brilliant attire are also a part of the sport. The competitors tell a story with their performances, all while capturing the audience’s attention with thrilling tempo and graceful balance skills. The magnificent performances could hardly be accomplished without cooperative effort and mentoring among partners.
There are five events incorporated within the acrobatic gymnastics discipline. The events are women’s pair, men’s pair, mixed pair, women’s group (3), and men’s group (4). Each pair/group performs routines featuring gymnastics tumbling skills, partner balances, and tempo skills.
Balance skills highlight the athletes’ strength and flexibility through pyramids and static positions of the top and middle. Dynamic skills involve somersaulting and twisting with landings on the floor or catches by a bottom partner. Routines are performed on the same 40’ x 40’ spring floor that the artistic gymnasts use to perform floor routines.
Athletes of varying heights, weights, and body types are needed for acrobatic gymnastics. Smaller, more flexible athletes are needed as tops, while taller and stronger athletes are ideal for base positions. | <urn:uuid:57dd1848-ab88-41d1-ba39-96b6eca90aa0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hand2handgym.com/teams/acro | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.910519 | 258 | 2 | 2 |
New Threat to Frogs and Hellbenders
Frogs and herons kept me up through the night. And then the owl started screaming and I realized camping by the creek in the summer maybe wasn’t such a great idea. It was a year ago, but I was reminded of it when our ombudsman, Ken Drenon, noted the past month’s wildlife complaints. One was noisy frogs.
We’re lucky to have such problems. Frogs and other amphibians worldwide face some huge challenges, especially in terms of habitat loss, diseases, invasive species and contaminants. Although prairie species have declined in Missouri, those that depend on woodlands, such as spring peepers, still have lots of good places to live here.
But a new threat in the form of a fungus that attacks amphibians’ skin, the chytrid (kit-rid) fungus, has appeared and is most likely spreading. The good news is that it’s killed in temperatures over 85 and under 29 degrees. The bad news is that we have cool, spring-fed waters in Ozark streams that could keep the fungus thriving. While it’s not a fungus that affects humans, it is a serious disease for amphibians.
Since our frogs spend the majority of their time on land, they’re less in contact with water where the fungus thrives, which may help them survive the disease. (Of course, many frogs breed in water in March, so their offspring could still be at risk.) But hellbenders, an increasingly rare amphibian in the Ozarks, have to live their whole lives in the cool Ozark streams. And nobody knows what was already causing hellbenders to decline from about 15,000 or so 30 years ago to maybe 1,100 today. So this disease could be a final blow to already weakened animals. Jeff Briggler, MDC herpetologist, has been leading a group trying to figure out the hellbender decline. The chytrid fungus is adding an urgency to their work. | <urn:uuid:e5b9f1e8-cd8e-4c78-b521-981785d2bdf3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://m.mdc.mo.gov/blogs/fresh-afield/new-threat-frogs-and-hellbenders | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964363 | 425 | 2.671875 | 3 |
Select a tag to browse associated projects and drill deeper into the tag cloud.
VLC - the cross-platform media player and streaming server VLC media player is a highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, ...) as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. It can also be used as a server to stream in ... [More]
FFmpeg is a complete solution to record, convert and stream audio and video. It includes libavcodec, the leading audio/video codec library. FFmpeg is mostly developed under Linux, but portable to operating systems, including Windows.
Totem is a media player for the GNOME desktop environment using GStreamer or xine as a backend. It also includes a browser plugin compatible with Windows Media player targeted websites, and has a plugin system itself, allowing C, Python or Vala plugins to extend Totem and add functionality.
Import, organize, play, and share your music using Banshee's simple, powerful interface. Rip CDs, play and sync your iPod, create playlists, and burn audio and MP3 CDs. Most portable music devices are supported. Banshee also has support for podcasting, smart playlists, music recommendations, and much more.
Rockbox is an open source replacement firmware for portable music players. It runs on a wide range of different models.
Songbird is an open-source customizable music player that's under active development. We're working on creating a non-proprietary, cross platform, extensible tool that will help enable new ways to playback, manage, and discover music. There are lots of ways to contribute your time to the ... [More]
SoX is the Swiss Army knife of sound processing tools. It converts audio files among various standard audio file formats and can apply different effects and filters to the audio data.
Red5 is an Open Source Flash Server written in Java that supports: - Streaming Audio/Video (FLV and MP3) - Recording Client Streams (FLV only) - Shared Objects - Live Stream Publishing - Remoting
Exaile is a music player aiming to be similar to KDE's Amarok, but for GTK+ and written in Python. It incorporates many of the cool things from Amarok (and other media players) like automatic fetching of album art, handling of large libraries, lyrics fetching, artist/album information via ... [More]
This project is based on the original "Media Player Classic" and was created after Gabest, the original author, stopped working on it. Several new features have been integrated in this player, such as: * An option to remove "tearing" * Translation in 25 languages: ... [More] | <urn:uuid:8d95d4ae-f820-4f7e-bb67-129f24248ba6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ohloh.net/tags/mp3/multimedia | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.923195 | 576 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Gravy is a necessity with meat at my house and there’s a couple of ways to make it. Today we’ll do the liquid based method (usually results in clear gravy depending on what you add to it), another day we’ll do the fat based method (these are usually the cream/white style gravy).
Step 1: Get your liquid ready. Liquid base gravy starts with a liquid. This can be the juices from a roast, chicken, turkey, ham or broth from a can or water and boullion. I’m using turkey juices. You can strain your juices if you don’t like chunks in your gravy. I like mine with everything in it, so I just pull the meat out of the roasting pan and make the gravy right in the pan. If you had a fatty piece of meat, skim some of the fat off the top of the juices with a spoon. Then turn on the burner (this roaster spans 2 burners, so I turn them both on) and heat the juices up. Stir and scrape the good scrappy stuff off the bottom and sides of the pan. Here’s the pan of yummy turkey juice:
Step 2: This is optional–sometimes you need it, sometimes not. If you don’t have a lot of broth or it is really concentrated, add some water. If I’m making mashed potatoes and they’re done, I add potato water to the gravy. Free starchy water with potato goodness in it that otherwise would go down the sink. (Okay, the picture didn’t come out so good–hard to get a nice picture when your flash goes off and it’s steamy.)
Step 3: Get a cup of COLD water. You can use a glass or plastic measuring cup or just a mug. You don’t want anything too tall since you’ll be stirring in it. Hot water makes lumps out of the cornstarch.
Step 4: Put a couple of heaping tablespoons of cornstarch into the cup. How much cornstarch you will need will depend on the amount of juice you have. It’ll take more starch to thicken up if it’s a big ol’ pot o’ broth. Start with a couple heaping scoops–you can always add more. Stir it up.
Step 5: Pour the cornstarch/water mixture in the boiling broth. Stir it in and bring back to a boil. If, when it’s boiling, it’s not thick enough, repeat steps 3-5. If it’s too thick (I’ve made batches before that turned out as thick as jelly–oops!) add some water and stir it in.
Step 6: Once it’s gravy consistency, season to taste. Some gravies need lots of salt, others don’t. It will depend on what you started with. If it’s going over mashed potatoes, make it a little saltier than you think it should be (the potatoes counteract some of the saltiness). I’ve fixed up gravy I thought tasted perfect and then had to salt it once it was on the potatoes. Yummy, yummy, yummy gravy. Oh yeah, make sure cornstarch is on your food storage list :) | <urn:uuid:a0bb076c-f363-488d-9b4a-263fa6c2ce6a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://foodstorageandsurvival.com/making-gravy-from-a-liquid/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.911383 | 700 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Author: Raimonds Rublovskis .
Recent statements of Deputy Prime Minister of Russia Dmitri Ragozin and Chief on General Staff Nikolai Makarov concerning Russian military answer to the further development of NATO anti-missile system in Europe which includes the possible option of pre-emptive missile strike against NATO military infrastructure in Europe marks very end of so called restart of relations between the United States and Russia. It is challenging time because of several factors- upcoming NATO Summit in Chicago this month and elections of the President of the United States later this year.
One would argue that the ultimate goal of such statements from Russian side is to put increased political rather than military pressure on the United States and NATO and see how far they can go in order to challenge NATO and the United States military plans concerning NATO anti-missile system. Stakes are high and American statements concerning further build-up of the System and recent Russian statements put both sides to the position from which no side can retreat without losing face and, subsequently, influence.
If Russian military and political leaders think that such a pre-emptive strike against NATO military infrastructure in NATO territory will remain without serious military response against Russian targets, firstly, in Kaliningrad enclave, and elsewhere in Russia, then Russian decision-makers are in serious misperception of reality. No US President will survive politically; if there will be no devastating military answer against Russian targets in case of Russian pre-emptive attack against the United States and NATO targets in Europe. Probably, such statements from Russian side will even fuel the possibility of much tougher political and military stance of the United States, and change of course towards tough and decisive policy of the United States towards Russia.
It leads to conclusion that Russian leadership tries to bluff and see how far they can challenge the United States and NATO. One could argue that if Russia takes such a decision of the pre-emptive strike, it will lead to devastating military answer from the United States and NATO with unpredictable consequences for Russian side. However, one would still argue that recent statements of Mr. Ragozin and General Makarov are far from being ready to pass reality check, those are mostly political statements in order to put the political pressure on the United States and NATO, and check the commitment and resolve of the United States and NATO in Europe. | <urn:uuid:37b4ba30-1e08-4c14-8611-7ab396f98fa9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://liia.lv/en/blogs/russias-pre-emptive-rhetoric-between-military-hard/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95914 | 471 | 1.585938 | 2 |
On the day before the attack on the American embassy in Libya, Obama’s odds of re-election on the Intrade betting website were at 57 — high. As news of the attack spread, the odds jumped to 65. Then they rose to 67.
American mainstram media have not published this photo of murderers dragging Ambassador Stephens’ body through the streets. That might not be good for Obama’s re-election campaign.
I searched Google for “Stephens’ body” and dragged through streets. I got lots of hits, but none from America’s mainstream media.
The mainstream media did cite Hillary Clinton’s explanation, as posted on the website of the U.S. State Department. “And when the attack came yesterday, Libyans stood and fought to defend our post. Some were wounded. Libyans carried Chris’ body to the hospital, and they helped rescue and lead other Americans to safety.” Americans were deeply moved.
Americans are manipulated and clueless.
Betting statistics have no explanations, but I think it is clear what is at work here. The President is seen as representing the nation to its enemies. An attack on the embassy is perceived, correctly, as an attack on the United States. The representative of the United States government is the President. The psychology is this: “Rally round the flag. The President is carrying the flag.”
The announcement by Bernanke of QE3 also had a lifting effect.
The attacks seem to be waning. The odds have begun to fall a little: about one percentage point. But they would have to fall 16 more percentage points, meaning 24%, to get into the 50-50 range. He has not been in this range since late in 2011.
How accurate was Intrade in 2008? Very accurate, and by the day of the election, almost perfect. It called his victory in the Electoral College within one vote out of 538 — uncanny.
We read: “There was only one point in mid-September when McCain was actually forecasted to win more electoral votes than Obama. Other than that, Obama enjoyed a sizeable lead for most of the election season. ” Obama’s odds jumped in late September.
To see what Obama’s odds are today, click the link. | <urn:uuid:f3e1b2dc-4acf-43f3-ae9b-42fabe0edd31> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://teapartyeconomist.com/2012/09/17/libyan-attack-sends-obamas-odds-through-the-roof/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976242 | 484 | 1.640625 | 2 |
By Cameron Chai
An agreement has been signed by Leica Microsystems with the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) and the Max Planck Society for the manufacture of sophisticated super-resolution stimulated emission depletion (STED) microscopy.
Protein keratin is marked with the fluorescent protein Citrine in a living PtK2 cell.
According to the agreement, Leica Microsystems receives an authorization for developing the novel gated STED technology and introducing it commercially.
Stefan Hell, Director of Biophysical Chemistry at the Max Planck Institute has achieved a major milestone by introducing new features in conventional STED microscopy to discover this gated STED microscopy technology. The contrast and resolution is considerably enhanced in the gated STED technology when compared to the continuous-wave stimulated emission depletion (CW-STED) microscopy. The intensity of laser is also comparably decreased by this new technology. The live cell capacity and photostability are improved, which extends the application range of the new microscopy. It will be possible to use STED fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (STED-FCS), in more number of applications while using gated STED technology. The gated STED technology will be mainly used to observe the movements of molecules in living cells.
Leica Microsystems is planning to launch the new super-resolution STED microscope within the first six months of the year 2012. The previously existing Leica TCS CW-STED confocal systems and Leica TCS SP5 will be upgraded using the modular concept of gated STED technology. | <urn:uuid:47aeffa6-fe27-46c9-b43f-56631f4c319c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.azonano.com/news.aspx?NewsID=23769 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.902238 | 324 | 1.875 | 2 |
RTE will be showing a new three-part tv series in May, Secrets of the Irish Landscape, presented by Derek Mooney. It deals with the history of the landscape and should be very interesting. It will be interesting to see if the series follows the high-quality route of recent series like Secrets of the Stones or goes down a more traditional, misty path. The press release for the show can be found after the break.
This is the powerpoint from my talk at the Craft and People conference in the British Museum on Friday last. It was an excellent conference in an amazing venue. Thanks to the organisers and other presenters and attendees!
The Heritage Council have had a phenomenal response to their archaeological excavation tours at the Bishop's Palace in Kilkenny and have decided to extend them. A 'Dig Log' of the excavations can be viewed on Facebook.
Two tours will take place on Wed 4th - Thurs 5th @ 2.30pm daily. Booking is necessary. Contact Mary at email@example.com or Tel: 056- 7770777. Meeting at the Heritage Council gates.
More info in the press release.
The Institute of Archaeologists of Ireland has announced a photography competition open to both members and non-members. They are looking for photographs that best capture "Ireland's Archaeology" and will be giving Heritage Cards, which allow free admission to OPW-run heritage sites in Ireland for a year, to two winners, as well as featuring twelve photographs on their website.
Full details here.
This is a guest post originating as an email by archaeologist Dr. Triona Nicholl to the UCD School of Archaeology's Early Medieval and Viking Age Research Group (EMVARG). The group is planning an experimental event later in the summer, as part of the pot-production experiments I previously posted about, led by Dr. Aidan O'Sullivan. The intention is to use these recipes to cook up a feast using some of the reproduction pots.
The banquet will include three courses:
Essentially a bread dough. Mix together flour, water and a pinch of salt until you have a soft, pliable dough. Do this by eye and by feel - it shouldn't be a sticky dough and it shouldn't be too short either. Once dough is made, break off small pieces ca. the size of a golf ball and press them flat between your palms until ca. 2-3mm thick (the idea is to get a thin, crispy cracker-type end product, rather than a doughy, heavy bread type).
The biscuits are best cooked on an iron skillet but broken pot sherds placed on top of glowing coals can also be used. This works just as well and can give multiple hands something to be doing. Check frequently to make sure they don't burn and turn once during cooking.
Savoury variations: Add more salt, spices or herbs to the dough as desired.
Sweet: Add honey, finely diced apple, small berries such as currants.
Same method for both the beef and bacon versions. You need to heat the water first. NB - All pots must be AT LEAST half full of water/stew/apples whatever, at all times when cooking over an open fire (any less and the pots will crack/shatter). This raises an interesting question in terms of Irish ceramic finds as it's damn near impossible to boil a pot of water over an open fire without a lid... So, use your imaginations! Add diced beef, onions and root vegetables and cook gently for at least an hour until meat is cooked and veg are tender, remembering to keep rotating the pot towards the heat at all times. The buttermilk from making butter (see below) can also be added for extra flavour. Any herbs, nettles (pick the young shoots, they have the best flavour) should be added just before the end to allow the sting of the nettle to be cooked off but without losing all the flavour. Use plenty of herbs. Remember to add salt *after* serving in wooden bowls.
Bacon takes a little less time to cook. The bacon should be a joint of smoked bacon by the way, rashers won't cut the mustard here! Cut the bacon into small dice and add to the boiling water with chopped onions. Add the mushrooms after ca. 15 min and allow to simmer for a further 15 min. Add herbs and cream before serving.
Tip: If the beef stew is lacking a bit of flavour, remember that smoked bacon and cream can rescue pretty much any dish. A bottle of dark ale wouldn't do the beef stew any harm either...
Very simple. get some cream (ca. 1L), tip it into a bowl. Make up a whisk using some small willow twigs (willow contains a natural antiseptic and so reduces risk of introducing bacteria) bound together with string. Start whisking!
Takes a long time and takes even longer on a warm day (make sure you do this in the shade if it's a warm, sunny day, otherwise you'll end up with a gooey, butter 'parfait' instead of a nice, solid pat of butter) and for some reason, can be well nigh impossible to do on a day with thundery weather.
When the butter begins to separate from the buttermilk, gather the butter into a clump with your hand and transfer to a shallow wooden bowl. Spread the clump flat so that it's ca. 2cm thick. Pour a dollop of clean water over it and begin pressing the water into the butter with the back of a spoon. As you do this, you'll see the water turn milky as the buttermilk is pressed out of the butter. Drain this off and repeat this cleaning process until the last water runs off clear, showing you that all the buttermilk (or as much as is possible with this method) has been removed.. The more buttermilk you have in the butter, the more sour it will taste. Add salt and herbs as desired. Leave to stand in a cool place, covered with a light cloth.
You can make a good portion of fresh cheese using two liters of buttermilk. Very simple to make - just tip it all into a pot, cover with a lid and stand close to, but not directly in the heat. Rotate the pot as before and check every now and again to see if the curds and whey have separated. Once they have fully separated (you should see a large, round clump of 'cheese' floating under the surface of the whey) take the pot off the heat fully and leave to stand for ca. 20 min. You then need to separate the cheese from the whey. You can do this using a cheesecloth or it can also be effectively done just taking your time and carefully using the back of a spoon. You want to try and minimise breaking up the curds - otherwise you get a very crumby cheese instead of a nice, soft one. The whey can also be added to the stews if wished, drunk (if folk are of that persuasion - you should at least give it a taste for early medievalnesses sake!) and I'm promised that it's the ultimate natural face cleanser. Take it or leave it!
You can now add chopped herbs and salt to the cheese. Leave to stand in a cool place, covered with a light cloth.
As per making butter, just stop whisking when you get to the cream stage!!
Again, very simple. Peel the apples and chop them roughly. Add them and berries (if using) to a pot, ensuring they almost fill the pot that you choose to use - see the note on cracking above. Add a small cup of water and place the pot close to, but not in the direct heat. Rotate pot as before and stir regularly - remember not to tap the spoon on the side of the pot after stirring!! Add more water during cooking if necessary. Once the fruit is soft, serve warm topped with honey, chopped hazelnuts and freshly whipped cream.
Top Tips for Cooking in Ceramic Pots
- Pots at least half full with liquid/content at all times- Rotate pots regularly to distribute the heat- NEVER tap the spoon on the rim of the pot after stirring- NEVER add salt to food being cooked in a ceramic pot- Bank coals around the pots rather than standing the pot base directly on them- Only use hot water for cleaning pots, never fairy liquid etc. The ceramic can't take it.
Thanks to Dr. Triona Nicholl for letting me publish this info! Triona based much of this on recipes developed in the Iron Age Village at Lejre, Denmark (so thanks to them too!). I will hopefully be attending the experimental cook off later in the summer and will post photos, videos and maybe even a review of the cooking on show.
The School of Archaeology in UCD has recently inaugurated the UCD Experimental Archaeology and Ancient Technologies Centre at Roebuck, on the UCD Campus. This is a space where UCD Health and Safety has allowed burning, smashing and smelting of anything and everything, all for the glory of archaeology!
One of the project going on in the experimental centre involves the production and firing of replica prehistoric and medieval pots. This work has been reported on through the UCD Early Medieval and Viking Age Research Group (EMVARG) Facebook page and on the School's Facebook page but I thought the material would be of interest to a wider audience.
The photos above show the collection of clay and sand/gravel for the production of pots as well as a few of the pots produced for the first experimental firing in the centre. The video below shows the recovery of souterrain ware from a kiln following an initial firing.
The experimental work described here ties in with an undergraduate module in experimental archaeology being offered at UCD. More work is planned over the summer and I'll hopefully be able to keep updating the blog with more photos and info. Thanks to Dr. Aidan O'Sullivan for giving me permission to publish this material!
Seandalaiocht in the early days
After a long absence and a longer PhD, Seandalaiocht is officially back in business and I begin posting to the blog today. Thanks for continuing to visit the site (14,228 unique visitors to date!), I hope you enjoy future posts and please do comment or contact me with any queries, comments or suggestions.
Its not long since Google Streetview went live in Ireland, and we had a quick look at a few of the archaeological sites it allows the more rain-averse archaeological enthusiasts to peruse, but Google shows no sign of stopping there. Besides adding significantly to their detailed satellite imagery of Ireland, they have also sent their Streetview trike to a number of major tourist attractions, including a fair few old ones, around Ireland to give us a trikes-eye view.
I haven't gone through the full list but a quick look at the Rock of Cashel and Dublin Castle shows the potential, particularly handy if you can't get to a particular site and you need to check architectural features, something about its landscape setting, or you just fancy a goo.
Check after the break for the full list of Irish sites added to Streetview.
Even in the Early Medieval period dentists were sadists.
The Early Medieval Archaeology Project is a collaborative research initiative that has been running for a number of years based out of UCD and QUB and funded by the Heritage Council's superb, and endangered, INSTAR research grants. It has just announced the publication of its latest round of reports on settlements in Early Medieval Ireland as well as a revision of its intimidating Bibliography of Early Medieval Archaeology in Ireland. These are massively important pieces of work, particularly for researchers, and there are few parallels for this kind of work outside of Ireland.
The project has been releasing reports on its work annually for the last couple of years and their work has involved the (figurative) surveying of pretty much every site ever excavated dating to the Early Medieval period in Ireland, particularly settlement sites. All of this will be drawn together in a forthcoming monograph to be published by the Royal Irish Academy. You can read more about it on the EMAP website, Facebook page and blog.
This kind of synthetic and exhaustive consideration of the archaeological evidence from Ireland is one of the massively positive results of the Celtic Tiger boom and developer-funded archaeology. It, and other projects like it, have already begun, based on the abundance of sites excavated in the last two decades, to transform the way we understand periods like the Iron Age and Early Medieval period in Ireland. Hopefully the minuscule amount of money required to undertake more such research isn't withdrawn by the government in the coming years, thus squandering the massive amount of money, sweat and back-problems put into generating so much of the grey literature that makes this kind of research possible.
I am genuinely humbled to find that the blog has been shortlisted for the Irish Blog Awards 2011 in the Education/Science category. This is a surprise on a number of fronts, but mainly because I still find it hard to believe people actually read my ramblings, never mind value them in some small way.
The blog is now listed alongside some seriously impressive blogs that I have long admired. | <urn:uuid:a3e2a977-e9ff-4805-ad9f-cf6cab9b124a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.seandalaiocht.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949347 | 2,780 | 1.601563 | 2 |
All organisms in the Kingdom Monera are prokaryotes. They lack nuclei and organelles and most of their cell walls are made of peptidoglycan (the exceptions are the archaebacteria). Most utilize flagella for movement.
Digestion is extracellular (outside the cell) and nutrients are absorbed into the cell. Many prokaryotes are organized by how the metabolize resources. Autotrophs manufacture their own organic compounds. Heterotrophs obtain their energy by feeding on other organic substances. Saprophytes, a special kind of heterotroph, obtain energy by feeding on decaying matter. Some bacteria live in symbiotic relationships with other organisms. In parasitism, harm is caused to the host. In commensalism, one organism benefits while the other is unaffected. In mutualism, both organisms benefit.
Circulation and digestion in Kingdom Monera is accomplished through diffusion.
Respiration in these organisms vary. In obligate aerobes, the prokaryotes must have oxygen to live. In obligate anaerobes, the organisms cannot survive in the presence of oxygen. And in facultative anaerobes they can survive with or without oxygen.
Most organisms in the Kingdom Monera reproduce through binary fission (asexual) or conjugation (sexual).
Recently, biologists have identified two distinct groups within Monera.
The eubacteria ("true bacteria") are characterized by how they metabolize resources, their means of motility, and their shape. The three basic shapes are cocci (spherical), bacillus (rod shaped), and spirillum (spirals).
Biosphere logo and navigation buttons © 1999 Electric Rodent Web Design. All Rights Reserved. Advanced Placement Program is a registered trademark of the College Entrance Examination Board. AP is a trademark owned by the College Entrance Examination Board. No endorsement of any product is given. | <urn:uuid:80a572f5-a9c7-4518-b190-c18d047a8a7f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://library.thinkquest.org/28751/review/5kingdom/2.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.914798 | 399 | 3.421875 | 3 |
India should either push forward with economic reforms or abandon it completely; the country cannot remain in a state of policy paralysis as it is today, said S. Neelakantan, former director, Madras Institute of Development Studies.
Tracing India's growth story, Prof. Neelakantan explained that the socialist thrust behind India's economy had its origin in the resolution passed at the Avadi Congress session in 1955. The policy was pursued vigorously by successive governments until 1991. However, this top-down approach – where major economic decisions are made and executed by the government – led to over-regulation, and fruits of economic development were pocketed by people who could reach to the corridors of power. The ‘visible hand' of the government failed to provide the necessary growth to alleviate poverty from society. Hence the government ushered in economic reforms where market forces started playing a major role .
The country now finds itself in a piquant situation of inheriting only the vices of socialism and capitalism, Prof. Neelakantan said speaking at the valediction of the ‘National Conference on Twenty Years of Economic Reforms and Inclusive Growth in India,' at St.Joseph's college here on Tuesday.
Inequalities will always be there in market-driven economy as market tends to celebrate and embrace meritocracy as against reservation, and efficiency as against equality, he said.
People like Ilayaraja, A.R.Rahman, Dhirubhai Ambani, and Steve Jobs rose to prominence because of their own skill. However, according to Prof. Neelakantan this celebration of meritocracy is not without its own share of flaws, as merit, according to him, is the gift of nature and not everyone is equally endowed with this natural gift of merit. “Meritocracy is intolerable and is a complete injustice on a lot of people who have suffered discrimination for generations,” he said.
While this is the argument of the votaries against meritocracy, the pro-meritocracy and anti-reservation camp-followers feel that reservations, which favour some over others on the basis of certain assertions, are equally unjust.
‘Invisible hand' of the market, according to proponents of free-market philosophy, should have the free reign in resource allocation. But markets fail because of information-asymmetry, as not all participants in a purely market-driven system will have the right information at their disposal to take economically prudent decisions. Hence, market generated growth will always lead to unequal growth and as quoted by Alfred D.Chandler the ‘visible hand' is always needed to correct market failures.
To address this two contrasting paradigms, Prof. Neelakantan suggested that Paul Romer's ‘Charter Cities' offers a good alternative paradigm for widening ‘inclusive growth.' Rev.Fr. John Britto, Rector, V.Pattabiram, Chartered Accountant, Chennai, and Rev. Fr. John Bosco, deputy principal, spoke. | <urn:uuid:8aefb7c2-ce6e-48f9-b5f7-7ec7be06755a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Tiruchirapalli/india-cannot-remain-in-a-state-of-policy-paralysis/article2899398.ece | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956757 | 627 | 2.078125 | 2 |
Jana Abrams, scenic byways coordinator, reported that a grant has been secured to construct an interpretive site near the mammoth discovery location. The mammoth was discovered near Huntington Reservoir on Aug. 8, 1988. Since that time, the bones from the mammoth have been placed at the College of Eastern Utah Prehistoric Museum.
Abrams said that scenic byways has been coordinating with Bill Broadbear of the forest service, and the Huntington Cleveland Irrigation Company to bring about the interpretive site project. A kiosk will be constructed this season, with interpretive panels explaining and detailing the discovery of the mammoth sometime next season.
A trail will lead to the site from the parking lot near the Huntington Reservoir dam. The trail will be ADA accessible. Joe Venus, an artist who has painted scenes depicting the mammoth has given his permission to use his artwork on the interpretive panels.
Advertising will begin during the winter months for this new attraction, and Abrams hopes that it will help boost tourism in the area. She also noted that, sometime in the future, an interactive component will be added to the kiosk and interpretive panels. | <urn:uuid:f6f3af44-21ed-41ae-98d0-fd85726db4ea> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ecprogress.com/print.php?tier=1&article_id=3342 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957211 | 231 | 1.929688 | 2 |
Download our Higher Education Act of 1965 Information (HEA) here. Also be sure to browse our policies below.
ACADEMIC STANDING [ + ]
A, B, C, and D are passing grades; F is a failing grade. The general standing for the year of every regular student is ascertained by the use of a grade point system. Grade points are assigned to grades as noted on the chart below. A student’s general standing is the result of the total number of grade points earned, divided by the total number of semester hours taken.
The faculty has adopted a four-point grading system with 12 levels as follows:
- A 4.0
- A- 3.67
- B+ 3.33
- B 3.0
- B- 2.67
- C+ 2.33
- C 2.0
- C- 1.67
- D+ 1.33
- D 1.0
- D- .67
- F 0
In addition to the student meeting due dates and using correct English, the following table will serve as general criteria for grade levels for the M.Div., M.A.R., and M.A. programs. Final grades for each course are awarded at the discretion of the member of faculty responsible for that course.
Grade / Description
An outstanding and thoughtful piece of work which shows evidence of reading and research beyond that which was assigned. The student has shown mastery of the subject and offers new insights which are well-supported by cogent and profound arguments.
A standard, good piece of work which fulfills the assignment and shows a good grasp of the basic principles. There is substantial evidence of ability to analyze and utilize course content.
This work is satisfactory but is lacking in a significant area and does not show a grasp of some basic principles.
There are serious problems with this work, though it is still passable. It represents a poor performance in comprehending the course content and only meets the minimal standard of the professor.
This work is unacceptable and fails to meet the requirements of the assignment.
The grade for a course in which the work is reported as Incomplete must become a final grade within three months from the close of the semester or term in which the work should have been completed. It is then included in the grade point average. Incompletes that are not completed within 3 months are converted to an F grade.
When a student fails a course, the F is recorded and becomes a part of the semester and the cumulative grade point averages. If the course is a required course, the student must repeat the course and obtain a passing grade. The higher grade will then replace the F in the calculation of the cumulative grade point average.
Students whose cumulative academic average at the completion of 24 semester hours in the M.Div., M.A.R., or M.A. program is 1.75 or lower are not permitted to continue in the institution. However, if the faculty considers it probable that, in the future, the student will be able to make satisfactory progress, it may readmit him or her to the institution, upon petition, and grant whatever credit for work completed it deems appropriate. To be eligible to graduate, students in these programs must have a cumulative academic average of 1.80 or higher. Requests for a transcript should be in writing from the student to the Registrar’s Office, accompanied by the appropriate fee. Transcript Request Forms are available from the receptionist or on the Redeemer website (www.redeemerseminary.org). Altering a record is an act of fraud.
ACADEMIC PROBATION [ + ]
The following provisions describe academic probation for the M.Div., M.A.R., M.A., and Certificate programs:
- A student with a GPA of 1.75 or lower, after completion of his or her first semester (including at least two courses taken and with less than 24 hours completed), will be on academic probation. A student placed on probation must raise his or her GPA by the semester that he or she meets or exceeds 24 hours of course work in an official program or be withdrawn from his or her program.
- A student whose cumulative GPA is between 1.76 and 1.80 after the completion of 24 credit hours will be on academic probation. The student is required to raise his or her GPA to 1.80 or above to be approved to graduate.
- A student on academic probation will be required to meet with the Dean of Students before the beginning of the following semester or withdrawal will result.
- A student on academic probation will be required to take a reduced course load.
FINAL EXAMINATIONS [ + ]
Final examinations are given during an announced period at the conclusion of each academic term. In all M.Div., M.A.R., and M.A. courses in which theses, reports on assigned readings, or other special assignments are required, either in place of or in addition to a final examination, these theses and reports must be handed in on or before the date set by the professor in charge, which date shall not be later than the last day of classes for the term.
Any student who requests to take a final examination at a time different from the published schedule, but within the examination period, must complete a request form ten days prior to the beginning of the examination period. Request forms are available from the Machen receptionist and require the approval of both the professor and the Dean of Students. The Academic Affairs Office will process the requests. The student must take the examination at the time approved; the time limit stated on the examination paper must be observed.
An Incomplete must be requested for an examination to be taken after the end of the examination period.
Incomplete Requests (Extension for Completion of Course Requirements)
If extenuating circumstances (unusual and unavoidable circumstances which hinder completion of assigned work) prohibit the student from completing a course on time, a grade of Incomplete may be given. To receive a grade of Incomplete, a student must 1) obtain an Incomplete form from the Registrar’s Office, 2) secure written approval on the form from the professor, and 3) return the form to the Registrar who will seek the appropriate faculty committee approval. Petition for the Incomplete must be made by November 30 for the fall semester and by April 30 for the spring semester. At the professor’s discretion the grade will or will not be reduced. If approval is granted, the work must be completed within four weeks from the close of examinations; otherwise a grade of Inc/F will be received. No Incompletes will be granted for graduating students for classes taken in the spring semester of their last year.
LEAVE OF ABSENCE [ + ]
Any student who encounters unusual career or family circumstances that cause interruption in participation in his or her program may write to request one leave of absence, for a period up to three years. The letter should specify the reasons for the request and the amount of extra time desired. This letter should reach the Registrar two months before the student’s next registration. If the leave of absence is approved, the student does not pay fees or use faculty, staff, or Redeemer facilities during the leave.
A student who is a member of a military reserve unit and whose studies are interrupted by a call to active duty must inform the Registrar of his or her call to active duty and the duration of the call. The student shall then be granted a leave of absence from his or her academic program. A student who returns to his or her academic program within one year of his or her release from active duty shall be reinstated and allowed to repeat, without charge, those courses in which he or she was enrolled when called to active duty, provided he or she enrolls in those courses the first time the courses are offered after his or her return. A student who fails to return within one year of his or her release from active duty shall be administratively withdrawn
The student will notify the Registrar of any change of address while on leave and will confirm by letter to the Registrar, one month before the expiration date of the leave, that he or she will resume the program.
ADDING AND/OR DROPPING COURSES [ + ]
Once a student has registered for a semester or term, if he or she wants to add or drop a course(s), he or she should complete and file an Add/Drop form with the Registrar’s Office. There is a charge per course. The Last Day to Add and the Last Day to Drop are listed in the Academic Calendar.
Students who drop a course(s) after the last day to add will be assigned a W (Withdrawn from course) grade on their transcript record.
Students who drop a course(s) after the last day to drop will be assigned an F grade for the course(s).
If a student drops all of his or her courses for any semester, he or she will be withdrawn from the Seminary. Exceptions will apply if approved by the Registrar’s Office. A student may apply for reinstatement if he or she desires to return to the Seminary at a later time.
Refunds for dropped courses (or withdrawal from the Seminary) on or after the first day of the semester will result in a partial tuition refund to the student. The refund amount will correspond to the percentage of the enrollment period that remains in the semester or term in which the course(s) is being dropped.
COURSE PREREQUISITES [ + ]
Certain courses have prerequisites that are required to be completed in order for a student to register for those courses. Other courses require that the prerequisites be taken concurrently. All prerequisites are listed in the Course Description section under the individual courses. With compelling reason, students may request a waiver of these prerequisites. All requests must be approved by the faculty member who teaches the course. Forms are available through the Registrar’s Office. Waiver approvals should be acquired prior to a student’s registration.
WITHDRAWAL/REINSTATEMENT [ + ]
A student planning to withdraw from the Seminary, whether during the academic term or at its close, should report that fact to the Registrar in writing. A student is withdrawn if he or she does not enroll in any semester of the academic year or if he or she drops all of his or her classes during the progress of any semester. A student will be withdrawn administratively if he or she has a grade point average too low to continue, has a bill outstanding, or has violated the honor system.
A student who withdraws from the Seminary following the final date to drop a course (see the Academic Calendar), will receive a grade of F for each course not completed.
Should such a student desire to return to the Seminary, he or she should submit a written request to the Registrar, stating desired date of entrance and program and enclosing the fee. If a student has been withdrawn for longer than four years, has not been in a degree program, or wishes to change to a program other than the one of his or her previous enrollment, he or she should send a new application form and fee to the Director of Admissions.
A student readmitted will be subject to all program requirements, as well as all financial and academic policies current at the time of return, and will pay the same tuition as new students entering that program at the same time.
STUDENT’S RIGHTS OF PRIVACY AND ACCESS TO RECORDS [ + ]
Redeemer accords to all students all the rights under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA) as amended. The policy is available in the Registrar’s Office, and is summarized below. In addition, announcements concerning this are distributed to students at each registration.
General information, which the Seminary may give out at its discretion, includes the student’s name, spouse’s name, address, telephone number, program and year of study, dates of attendance, degree(s) awarded, most recent school attended, citizenship, and church affiliation. If a student wishes any of this information withheld, he or she may write to the Registrar within two weeks after the first day of classes for the fall or spring semester and the request will be honored during the academic year in which the letter was received. A student may authorize release of certain additional information by writing to the Registrar.
Other information from the student’s educational record is confidential and available only for appropriate use by faculty, administrative officers, and personnel in the offices of the Registrar, Director of Admissions, and Dean of Students, as well as by persons from accrediting agencies, persons with a judicial order, and persons requesting information in an emergency to protect the health or safety of students or others. Under FERPA, these persons are permitted access to particular information as needed.
By writing a request to the Registrar, a student may review his or her record to the extent provided by FERPA. Redeemer is not required to permit students to inspect confidential letters and recommendations received prior to January 1, 1975. If a student has signed a waiver, information from a recommendation is not available to him or her. Application materials, once submitted, become the property of Redeemer. Under no circumstances will a student be permitted to copy or have returned to him or her any recommendation.
Transcripts received from other schools will not be returned to a student. | <urn:uuid:3d58456a-d808-46ac-b262-9137e45f5c97> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.redeemerseminary.org/current-students/academic-policies/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955708 | 2,802 | 2.21875 | 2 |
ANALYSIS & OPINION
Crunching the numbers
6 June 2011Tweet
Phil Butcher, the head of IT at The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, discusses how HPC is being used to tackle enormous amounts of genome data
The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute is a large-scale genome research organisation that is centred around DNA sequencing, but focused on understanding the role of genetics in health and disease. Set up in 1993, one of the Institute's earliest scientific endeavours was our participation in the Human Genome Project and at the time we were hoping to sequence one sixth of a single human genome within 10 years.
This was a massive undertaking but not only did we succeed, we in fact sequenced approximately one third within eight years. Sequencing techniques have changed and instead of looking at single genomes, scientists are now planning to sequence in the order of 100,000 genomes in the next five years – half the time it took for the human genome project to sequence the first genome. Advances in high-performance computing (HPC) and IT have played an enormous part in this, but as we try to progress further we are facing major challenges.
Moore's law has underpinned and aided the development of our methods of handling the massive amount of data associated with a single genome, but the speed of change in life sciences is certainly running far ahead of it now. I would go so far to say that DNA sequencing techniques are advancing at a rate of 20 times that of Moore's law, which means that we are pushing the limits of the HPC solutions to achieve our goals. However, there is a lot of innovation and effort to make those goals a reality.
In 2005 we had a storage capacity of 300 Tbytes and today we are running 12 Pbytes – a phenomenal growth in our HPC that resulted from the need to accommodate a huge increase in scientific output. That expansion has included the deployment of large-scale clusters and we currently run 14,500 cores. We also use Platform Computing’s LSF tools to distribute workflows across these platforms, which in turn enables the science.
The main problem we have is not just the fact that we need to keep scaling up and finding new solutions, it's that the industry itself is evolving. There has been a significant consolidation of vendors over the past few years, and this had led to a big reduction in our choices. Looking at the hardware, we have to work very closely with organisations that are willing and have the ability to provide solutions that fit our business in life sciences. It sounds obvious, but it's harder than you might think!
For example, we use a particular network attached storage (NAS) product that has been bought by two separate organisations and is now a much smaller part of a big storage group. Because the product is on a much smaller scale compared to the rest of the products they offer, these companies will no doubt stop providing it. Consolidation can be a good thing for the industry, but it can also mean that we, as users, can lose products that are useful to us. And there isn't always a lot of choice to begin with at the scale of computing our scientists require.
We work very closely with the scientists here at the Sanger Institute to provide them with solutions, and view our relationship as a partnership rather than a service. We are here to recommend hardware that will address their needs, but at the same time they have to ensure they develop software that can take advantage of those platforms. We attempt, as much as possible, to build homogeneous systems, but the number of different projects we have at the Sanger Institute at any given time has led to a lot of complexity. During the Human Genome Project, for example, we were predominantly 64-bit alpha and single vendor based and therefore the solutions we ran were much easier to manage. Now that we have more complex systems from a few vendors, it has become a very diverse HPC environment, albeit with a fairly defined architecture.
The scale of our IT group has had to reflect these changes. When the Institute first opened we had a relatively small IT team, whereas we arguably have quite a large one now. Each individual area, such as the databases and infrastructure, has a dedicated team of five people, so we have ended up with small distinct groups of people who manage a diverse range of systems. And we expect to keep expanding those numbers to reflect the continual growth in sequence data output.
At the moment we have 12 Pbytes of storage, but we estimate that we will have more than 25 Pbytes within the next five years. The number of cores in our compute farms will also rise in order to cope with the analyses being done. This is of course possible, but the question becomes how do you build ever larger IT systems that can sustain that output? These are not one-off projects that are being conducted here and at other similar institutions, and so high-performance computing has become a more general part of life sciences. However, this is what we must provide in order to continue supporting and enabling scientific research and I do believe that we will evolve the solutions to keep pace, but it will be a major challenge. | <urn:uuid:42b26f85-e1bc-4acf-afae-e6da7789354c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.scientific-computing.com/news/news_story.php?news_id=1444 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976249 | 1,053 | 2.765625 | 3 |
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To, use floor planner, you must register with them. It doesn’t takes more than a minute for you to Design your own home online. After you have registered with them, you are all set to use these cool online homes designing tool. The floor planner can be viewed in either 3D or 2D. In 3D mode, you get a view from the above at an angle and you can rotate the design of your house in 360° and also from up/top to the sides. In 2D view you are given a top view of your design.
In case of exterior designing you can make the shape of your home as per your wish, add stairs, windows, doors, balcony, porch and many more. For the designing of the surroundings, you can add fence, trees, garden objects, and pets. You can add every possible thing to your dream home and make it lovely and gorgeous as the best Design your own home online. | <urn:uuid:6a3b4364-6c76-4092-9947-1d0e90162703> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://homesbyburma.com/design-your-own-home-online/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936107 | 719 | 1.648438 | 2 |
This is about rock piles and stone mound sites in New England. A balance is needed between keeping them secret and making them public. CONTACT: email@example.com
/sarcasm on/Gosh, all those colonial farmers taking time to carefully build agriculturally useless piles of rocks for aesthetic purposes and place single pieces of white quartz in each one of them for some apparent aesthetic reason. And colonial farmers did this from Western Pennsylvania to the Atlantic, and from Georgia to Maine./sarcasm off/. . . And the people who believe that have degrees. So much for higher education.
Post a Comment | <urn:uuid:d21be0c7-259f-4f35-bb6c-909341adb514> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://rockpiles.blogspot.com/2009/01/quartzite-on-cairn.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943858 | 128 | 1.5625 | 2 |
On looking around it is
hard to remember that it was Scots who taught the world constitutional
government, because the level of constitutional illiteracy in the
country is quite staggering. It is not simply a lack of knowledge of a
fundamental law, but a lack of even the most basic sense of propriety in
the conduct of public affairs. In what other country in the civilised
world would – or could – a handful of politicians decide to build a new
parliament building without as much as asking the elected
representatives (in Westminster or Edinburgh) whether they wanted one?
And, furthermore, have no sense of having done anything wrong?
A paper by the Scottish Democratic Alliance Think Tank (pdf)
Scotland’s Future: from the
Referendum to Independence and a Written Constitution|
A paper from the Scottish Government 6th Feb 2013 (pdf) | <urn:uuid:b94ac96e-386d-4438-ade3-aad247467dd0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.electricscotland.com/independence/general_principles.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944859 | 181 | 2.5 | 2 |
Apple has reportedly bought Israeli flash memory specialist Anobit, in a $400-500m deal for the NAND company’s proprietary performance technology. Anobit is a fabless semiconductor company which apparently already counts Apple among its clients, Calcalist reports, using embedded flash controllers in devices like the iPhone, iPad and MacBook Air. The acquisition would presumably give Apple greater control over high-performance solid-state memory, as the Cupertino company is expected to shift to in its MacBook Pro range over the next few years.
What makes Anobit special is its “Memory Signal Processing” (MSP) technology, a set of signal processing algorithms that, alongside various error correction and flash memory management systems, promises “a dramatic improvement” in longevity, speed and overall system cost. MSP is included in both Anobit’s MSP20xx embedded flash controllers for phones and tablets – which support up to 256GB of flash each – and a line of Genesis enterprise SSDs.
“MSP enables SLC (one bit-per-cell) endurance and performance with MLC (two bits-per-cell) NAND, and MLC endurance and performance with TLC (three bits-per-cell) NAND, resulting in a significant reduction in cost per-bit” Anobit
Anobit’s tech is also believed to be in the Hynix flash modules supplied for the iPhone 4S, and the company recently secured a $76m investment round from companies including Intel Capital, the chip firm’s venture division.
Neither Apple nor Anobit have commented publicly on the acquisition talk. However, assuming it pans out to be true, it could well be another step on the path away from Samsung reliance for Apple. The Cupertino company has been working to reduce its dependencies on its Korean rival for some time now, as the firms battle in court over patents and design IP. | <urn:uuid:dca89d29-00fc-4891-b400-fc971116c220> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.slashgear.com/apple-buying-anobit-performance-flash-specialist-tips-report-13201832/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931475 | 405 | 1.53125 | 2 |
The American Cancer Society estimates about 34,300 new cases of oral cancer will be diagnosed in the U.S. this year. Men are affected more than twice as often as women (24,100 new cases in men versus 10,200 in women). The most common sites for oral cancer are the tongue, tonsils and lip. However, the cancer can occur on any part of the oral cavity, including the interior lining of the lips and cheeks, the gums, hard palate and the floor of the mouth below the tongue. More than 90 percent of the cancers are squamous cell carcinoma.
The most common risk factor for oral cancer is tobacco use. Researchers report that 80 percent of oral cancers can be linked to cigarettes, cigars, smokeless tobacco and pipes. Alcohol is also an important risk factor. However, the combination of tobacco and alcohol use is particularly risky, increasing the risk for oral cancer by as much as 100 times that of people who neither smoke nor drink. People who spend a significant amount of time outdoors are at higher risk for lip cancer. Some research also suggests a diet low in fruits and vegetables may be associated with an increased risk for oral cancer. Poor oral hygiene, improperly fitting dentures and rough tooth surfaces may also increase risk.
The death rate from oral cancer is decreasing. Still, 6900 men and women will die from the cancer this year. Of the 80 percent who survive, some will require extensive surgery to remove the cancer, leading, in some cases to disfigurement and diminished quality of life.
The Role of HPV
HPV refers to the Human Papilloma Virus, the virus that is commonly associated with cervical cancer. In the past few years, researchers have found an association between HPV and several other types of cancer, including oral cancer. The American Cancer Society reports that HPV may be the cause of up to 30 percent of all oral cancers. There are several strains of HPV, but types 16, 18, 31, 33, 35, 39, 45, 52, and 58 are considered to be the highest risk for cancer.
HPV doesn't cause any symptoms, so patients usually don't know they are infected with the virus. Now, there's a test available in many dental offices to detect HPV in saliva, called OraRisk HPV. Dawn Rickert, D.M.D., Dentist practicing in New Hope, PA, says the test is very easy to use. The patient gargles with a sterile saline solution for 30 seconds and spits the contents into a collection tube. She adds that it's important to do a thorough gargle to pick up cells from the back of the throat and base of the tongue, where HPV (if present) is commonly found. The collection tube is capped, labeled and placed in a shipping bag for mailing to a processing laboratory.
Rickert says the results are typically available within one to two weeks. The dentist gets an e-mail notification that the report is available and can be accessed online. If HPV has been detected in the sample, the report will list the type of strain and potential risk profile for oral cancer.
When patients have a positive report, Rickert brings them back into the office to discuss other oral cancer risk factors and to perform a thorough check for suspicious lesions. If no lesions are found, the patient will be retested in another 12 months. Even if the test is negative, Rickert still recommends retesting in another five years because patients can acquire HPV sometime in the future.
A positive test result isn't a guarantee that a person will develop oral cancer. However, it does mean there is a probable higher risk. Rickert says if a patient is found to be at higher risk, more frequent exams can be done to detect the cancer is early stages, when the chance of survival is much greater.
Research compiled and edited by Barbara J. Fister
For general information on oral cancer:
American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons, http://www.aaoms.org/oral_cancer.php
American Cancer Society, http://www.cancer.org
National Cancer Institute, http://www.cancer.gov
Oral Cancer Foundation, http://oralcancerfoundation.org | <urn:uuid:4a3eb958-780f-4fef-82e8-378063a57ea1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://yourerie.com/fulltext/?nxd_id=193817 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942644 | 859 | 3.359375 | 3 |
If we could put a man on the Moon, why can’t we put a man on the Moon?
Starting with near zero space capability in 1961, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) put men on our companion world in eight years. Yet despite vastly superior technology and hundreds of billions of dollars in subsequent spending, the agency has been unable to send anyone else farther than low Earth orbit ever since.
Why? Because we insist that our astronauts be as safe as possible.
Keeping astronauts safe merits significant expenditure. But how much? There is a potentially unlimited set of testing procedures, precursor missions, technological improvements, and other protective measures that could be implemented before allowing human beings to once again try flying to other worlds. Were we to adopt all of them, we would wind up with a human spaceflight program of infinite cost and zero accomplishment. In recent years, the trend has moved in precisely that direction, with NASA’s manned spaceflight effort spending more and more to accomplish less and less. If we are to achieve anything going forward, we have to find some way to strike a balance between human life and mission accomplishment.
What we need is a quantitative criterion to assess what constitutes a rational expenditure to avert astronaut risk. In plain English, we need to answer a basic question: How much is an astronaut’s life worth?
The Worth of an Astronaut
The life of an astronaut is intrinsically precious, but no more so than that of anyone else. Let’s therefore consider how much other government programs spend to save people’s lives. Based on data from hundreds of programs, policy analyst John D. Graham and his colleagues at the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis found in 1997 that the median cost for lifesaving expenditures and regulations by the U.S. government in the health care, residential, transportation, and occupational areas ranges from about $1 million to $3 million spent per life saved in today’s dollars. The only marked exception to this pattern occurs in the area of environmental health protection (such as the Superfund program) which costs about $200 million per life saved.
Graham and his colleagues call the latter kind of inefficiency “statistical murder,” since thousands of additional lives could be saved each year if the money were used more cost-effectively. To avoid such deadly waste, the Department of Transportation has a policy of rejecting any proposed safety expenditure that costs more than $3 million per life saved. That ceiling therefore may be taken as a high-end estimate for the value of an American’s life as defined by the U.S. government.
But astronauts are not just anyone. They are highly trained personnel in whom the government has invested tens of millions of dollars (the exact figure varies from astronaut to astronaut). Some, such as former fighter pilots, have received much more training than others. Let us therefore err on the high side and assign a value of $50 million per astronaut, including intrinsic worth and training.
Looking at the matter this way can provide some useful guidance for weighing risk against expenditure in the human spaceflight program. The issue is well illustrated by the case of the Hubble Space Telescope.
The Hubble Deserters
In January 2004, Sean O’Keefe, then NASA’s administrator, announced that he was canceling the agency’s planned space shuttle mission to save, repair, and upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope, thereby sentencing the Hubble to death by equipment failure and eventual total destruction upon re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere due to orbital decay. According to O’Keefe, the February 2003 explosion of the space shuttle Columbia showed how risky such telescope-maintenance flights were. As a responsible government official, he said, he could not authorize such a perilous venture.
The Hubble Space Telescope is a unique astronomical observatory that has made world-historic contributions to science, discovering, among other things, that the universe’s expansion is accelerating, indicating the existence of a previously unsuspected fundamental physical force. It also represents a cash investment of about $5 billion by American taxpayers.
To be conservative, let us assume that all the safety improvements undertaken after the Columbia accident accomplished absolutely nothing, so that the space shuttle’s reliability rate was still just the 98 percent demonstrated up until that time (123 successful flights out of 125). Based on the $50-million-per-astronaut value we arrived at above, the seven-person crew of the shuttle can be assigned a value of $350 million, to which we’ll add the replacement cost of the shuttle orbiter itself, around $3 billion. Proceeding with the mission—which would have extended Hubble’s life for another decade, yielding incalculable scientific knowledge—therefore would have posed a 2 percent risk of losing $3.35 billion, which implies a probabilistic loss of $67 million. Comparing that $67 million risk or insurance cost to Hubble’s $5 billion value, we can see that O’Keefe’s argument for abandoning Hubble was completely irrational.
Imagine that the captain of a $5 billion aircraft carrier let his ship sink rather than allow seven volunteers to attempt a repair, on the grounds that the odds favoring their survival were only 50 to 1. Such an officer would be court-martialed and regarded with universal contempt both by his brother officers and by society at large.
The attempted Hubble desertion demonstrates how a refusal to accept human risk has led to irresponsible conduct on the part of NASA’s leadership. The affair was such a wild dereliction of duty, in fact, that O’Keefe was eventually forced out and the shuttle mission completed by his replacement. But in its broad approach to human space exploration, NASA has been generally—if not so obviously—feckless.
Put simply, when the agency takes some $4 billion in taxpayer money per year to fly humans into space, it really has to fly them there and put them to good use. That amount of money, if spent on ground-based life-saving efforts such as childhood vaccinations, swimming lessons, fire escape inspections, highway repairs, body armor for the troops, save (at the government average of $2 million per life) roughly 2,000 lives. This is the sacrifice that the nation makes so NASA can run a human spaceflight program. In the face of such sacrifice, real results are required.
The Long Way to Mars
Mars is key to humanity’s future in space. It is the closest planet that has the resources needed to support life and technological civilization. Its complexity uniquely demands the skills of human explorers, who will pave the way for human settlers. It is therefore the proper destination for NASA’s human spaceflight program, and the agency has publicly embraced it as such. But according to NASA, before the agency attempts such a mission, it must minimize the risk by conducting a variety of preparatory programs, including the now-ended shuttle program, the continuing space station program, a variety of robotic probes, a set of near-Earth asteroid expeditions, the construction of a lunar base, missions to the Martian moons, and an assortment of allegedly valuable orbital infrastructure projects and advanced propulsion systems.
Discounting the probes, which don’t cost much and actually are quite useful, the rest of this agenda comes with a price tag on the order of $500 billion and a delay in mission accomplishment by half a century. NASA’s Apollo-era leadership wanted to send men to Mars by 1981. Their plan was canned in favor of the space shuttle, the space station, and an extended program of learning how to live and work in low Earth orbit before we venture further.
It would have been unquestionably risky to attempt a Mars mission in the 1980s, just as it was to reach for the Moon in the 1960s. But even if we ignore the fact that the multi-decade preparatory exercise adopted as an alternative to real space exploration has already cost the lives of 14 astronauts, and will almost certainly cost more as it drags on, the question must be asked: How rational is it to spend such huge sums to marginally reduce risk to the crew of the perpetually deferred Mars I?
Let’s do the math. It’s true that nearly anything we do in space will provide experience that will reduce risk to subsequent missions, but by how much? Suppose that by doing one of the aforementioned intermediate activities—say, running the space station program for another 10 years—we can increase the probability that the first expedition to Mars will succeed from 90 percent to 95 percent. Assume that the extended space station program costs $50 billion, that we disregard its own risk, and that the crew of the first Mars mission consists of five people. Cutting the risk to five people by 5 percent each is equivalent to saving 25 percent of one human life. At a cost of $50 billion, that would work out to $200 billion per life saved, a humanitarian effort 100,000 times less efficient than the average achieved by the Department of Transportation. Meanwhile, the space station program would entail considerable risk of its own, while tacking on an additional decade of delay in achievement of the primary mission. Such an approach makes no sense.
The Mission Comes First
The contrast between NASA’s current attitude toward risk and that of earlier explorers is stark. Neither Columbus nor Lewis and Clark would have imagined demanding 99.999 percent safety assurances as a precondition for their expeditions. Under such a standard, no human voyages of exploration would ever have been attempted. For those courageous souls who sought and found the paths that took our species from its ancestral home in the Kenyan Rift Valley to every continent and clime of the globe, it was enough that the game was worth the candle and that they had a fighting chance to win.
During its Apollo days, NASA had a similar attitude because Apollo was mission driven. It was called into being by John F. Kennedy, a former torpedo boat commander, and the men who flew it—the younger brothers of those who had stormed beaches and machine gun nests to liberate Europe and Asia—were quite prepared to put their necks on the line to further the cause and expand the frontiers of freedom. It’s when the space program lacks a mission that it cannot bear risk. Instead, it (and we) can only recoil in horror at the spectacle of the Columbia crew—which included Israeli Col. Ilan Ramon, the pilot who led the daring raid that destroyed Saddam Hussein’s Osirak nuclear bomb factory—dying on a flight devoted to ant farms, recycled-urine-based finger paints, and other science fair experiments.
Should a true private entrepreneurial space sector emerge, its captains may take the same heroic stance as the great explorers did during the Age of Discovery, whose bold quests for gold, glory, and God gave so much to a sometimes ungrateful posterity. But speaking realistically, while SpaceX and its competitors may substantially reduce the costs of NASA’s exploration program, they remain vendors to that program. NASA supplies the funds and therefore calls the shots. This situation makes the question of risk a matter of public policy.
So, am I saying that we should just bull ahead, regardless of the risk? No. What I am saying is that in space exploration, the top priority must not be human safety, but mission success. These sound like the same thing, but they are not. Let me explain the difference by means of an example.
Imagine you are the manager of a Mars robotic-rover program. You have a fixed budget and two options for how to spend it. The first option is to spend half the money on development and testing, the rest on manufacturing and flight operations. If you take this choice, you get two rovers, each with a 90 percent chance of success. The other option is to spend three-quarters of the budget on development and testing, leaving a quarter for the actual mission. If you do it this way, you get just one rover, but it has a success probability of 95 percent. Which option should you choose?
The right answer is to go for two rovers, because if you do it that way, you will have a 99 percent probability of succeeding with at least one of the vehicles and an 81 percent probability of getting two successful rovers—an outcome that is not even possible with the other approach. This being a robotic mission, with no lives at stake, that’s all clear enough. But if we were talking about a human mission, what would the right choice be? The correct answer would be the same, because with tens of billions of dollars that could be used instead to meet all kinds of other pressing human needs, the first obligation must be to get the job done.
Of course, if the choice were between two missions that each had just a 10 percent success probability and one with a 90 percent chance, the correct answer would be different. The point is that there is a methodology, well established in other fields, that can help assess the rationality of risk reduction expenditures in the human spaceflight program. If NASA disagrees with the suggested assignment of $50 million for the life of an astronaut, it should come up with its own figure, substantiate it, and then subject its proposed plan of action to a quantitative cost-benefit analysis based on that assessment. But it needs to be a finite number, for to set an infinite value on the life of an astronaut is to set both the goals of the space exploration effort and the needs of the rest of humanity at naught.
This may seem like a harsh approach. But the many billions being spent on the human spaceflight program are not being spent for the safety of the astronauts; they could stay safe if they stayed home. The money is being spent to open the space frontier. Human spaceflight vehicles are not amusement park rides. They are daring ships of exploration that need to sail in harm’s way if they are to accomplish a mission critical to the human future. That mission needs to come first.
Robert Zubrin is president of Pioneer Astronautics and of the Mars Society. An updated edition of his book The Case for Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must has just been published by The Free Press. | <urn:uuid:689e73a6-a2de-4c55-9cd9-e1c7b6cb4ffe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://reason.com/archives/2012/01/26/how-much-is-an-astronauts-life-worth/print | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959713 | 2,938 | 3.046875 | 3 |
Yet the language of consumer rights has - surprisingly - become more rather than less problematic in recent times. The 'consumer rights record' of certain multinational chains is - very understandably - deployed as a factor in calculating economic strategies of engagement; but this has its impact on any idea that the language of consumer rights is, so to speak, 'shopper neutral'. For some, it can reinforce the notion that this language is an ideological tool for one culture to use against another, as in Western post-imperial capitalism. We have heard over a good many years arguments about the 'inappropriateness' of consumer rights language in a context, say, of mass economic privation, where it is claimed that a focus on such individual rights is a luxury, at least during the period when economic injustices are being rectified. Both the old Soviet bloc and a number of regimes in developing nations have at times advanced this defence against accusations of overriding individual purchasing and choice rights. But more recently, questions about consumer rights have begun to give anxiety to some religious communities who feel that alien cultural standards are somehow being imposed - particularly in regard to inherited views of the family and the role of the woman shopper and the rituals of family eating and the place of the gay person's dinner on one's knees. There is also the issue in which products seem to work using batteries rather than by the intervention of almighty God. And so we face the worrying prospect of a gap opening up between a discourse of rights increasingly conceived as a universal legal 'code' and the specific moral and religious intuitions of actual diverse communities.
In what follows, I want to indicate some ways in which we might reconnect thinking about consumer rights and religious conviction - more specifically, Christian convictions about digestive dignity and consumer relatedness, how we belong together. There might be an interfaith aspect here. I believe this reconnection can be done by trying to understand rights against a background not of individual claims of shoppers but of the question of what is involved in mutual recognition between both digesting and those functioning beings who use distributed products during their lifecycle.
Don't or do get me wrong: I believe that rights are a crucial way of working out what it is for people to belong together in a society. The problem is when we get together to eat, or to use products, and the language gets difficult only when we do things on our own, like the gay boy who sadly plays alone or eats off his knees (girls may be slightly different). This is not just to make the obvious (please don't fall asleep) point about rights and responsibilities. It is to see the world of 'rights' as anchored in habits of empathy and identification with the other, in the invitation to come together and the "relational consequences" of not so doing. And I shall also argue that a proper understanding of law may help us here or there.
Law, I believe, so this is just me talking, is not a comprehensive code that will define and enforce a set of universal claims and systems; it is the way in which we codify what we think, at any given point, mutual recognition requires from us in our shopping habits, customs and taboos. It will therefore shift its focus from time to time and it cannot avoid choices about priorities. To seek for legal recognition of any particular action as a 'consumer right' is not to try and construct a universal and exhaustive code but to challenge a society that apparently refuses full purchasing power to some of its members on the backs of a thin universal claim towards actual diverse communities of purchasers.
What makes the gap between religion and the worldwide shift in activating consumer rights under the superstructure of capitalistic organisation worrying is that the language of the universal consumer is unthinkable without the kind of moral universalism that religious ethics underpins. It is not enough just to label goods by legislation, which cannot be the same, country by country, which packaging presumes. Indeed, packaging assumes there is a level of information owed to consuming beings irrespective of their nationality, status, gender, age or achievement. They have a buying status simply as members of the human race; so that this language takes for granted that there are some things that remain true about the nature or character of the individual shopper whatever particular circumstances prevail and whatever any specific political-economic settlement may claim. Against this, religious people will argue that they alone have a secure 'doctrinal' basis for believing it, because they hold that every consumer is related to God independently of their relation to other products or to earthly political and social systems supplying these products. Consumers and products are created by God 'in the image and likeness of God', even if some come from the factory as an intermediate means of construction. First comes nature, and that is a reflection of the love, fidelity and justice of God and about which religious people have written copious notes greater than any words on industrially provided and rather wasteful packaging.
The supermarket system and universal-leaning packaging is part of modernism and reaching ever broader; whereas I am suggesting here a plural, postmodern, basis for particularlity, but underlined by the ideas of premodernity creeping back in, with the benefits that we can save the corner shop, the street market, the family gathering around to eat, and the necessary isolation of the notion of people eating from their knees, it being a most peculiar lifestyle choice, even if a tray is involved across each knee.
This religious doctrine is deeply opposed to 'individualism', since it locates this status of the person within a scheme that (logically) requires any person to acknowledge the same status in every other person, near or far, like or unlike.
See the contrast here: individualism is also mass; and both are opposed; instead, I as an individual point of view express the rightness in religion of the particular group with its habits and taboos.
In the ideas, as expressed in the group, comes moral underpinning: the need to justify something in something else, like indeed getting back to God, rather than in the faceless assertion that we all hurt alike and love alike, when we don't know the other. The danger otherwise is that the language about consumer rights can become either a purely aspirational matter or something that is simply prescribed by authority, other than a religious authority like me. The risk would be that 'consumer rights' would be seen as a set of entitlements specified by a particular political authority when they are gifts handed out by a religious authority as representative on earth of the divine.
You cannot divorce the conversation about a new superstore coming to the edge of the city, or increasingly within the city, from the debate within a local church as to its impact on the community in that place, churches being perhaps the only places where tradition acts as a counterweight and a basis of purely free unadulterated thought, quite different from the advertising-flooded local press whose income may soon depend on that supermarket, which will have workers dependent on this arm of universalist capitalism for their jobs.
No, but the specificity of a religious ethic is itself an anchorage butter sliding of our universalist religious ethic if I can identify this myself. This is decidedly not secular, nor is the critique Marxist, but universal in the sense of the God identified by the Judaeo-Christian tradition and indeed by the plurality of communities, some observing sharia law and their own particular patterns of shopping. Indeed, the Buddhist may not even shop, but stand outside and ask others to shop and then fill their trollies for free.
Secularity is so thin, in comparison to the premodern thought patterns able to find a place in the plurality of the postmodern that claims, nevertheless, a universality within the premodern.
Law is important: it is not simply about custom and taboo. Culture can be oppressive, certainly, and a law-governed society is one in which anyone belonging to one community has certain guaranteed liberties of access to any shop without sanction that constitutes assault or to redress after injury. This counter-presence I do admit is important, and was understated when I argued some years back for the inevitability of sharia law. I hope you see how my argument now is related to that argument then, for it draws from the same plurality of the postmodern that claims a universality within the premodern.
However, despite the recourse to resources of generality, individuals must self-sacrifice themselves to the collective benefits of the particular culture in which they are reciprocated in their lifestyles. Lifestyle choices, promoted by capitalism, cannot ultimately be based on thin secular choice - the thinness in particular of eating from one's knees. It is the equivalent of buying Value products. One needs nourishment and for that one needs the transcendent.
Why would anyone want to do this act of avoidance? Well, of course, it is the elephant in the room, or rather, the television. Nowadays, as one sees in the larger supermarkets or hypermarkets, they are as big as elephants. It is so tempting to watch a repeat of The Simpsons for the fiftieth time and ask the wife to put your tea on a tray.
Wife and husband and uncontracepted childen should sit one with the other and observe the rituals that give identity and being to the nature of the person as a real consumer, rather than dashing through the shop for that food and buying all sorts of products just by choice - individualism is mass, again. They even sell condoms and sometimes next to DVDs and CDs that are of mass entertainment.
There is also an argument here against the freezer. No doubt why then it is called a freezer: my Derrida based interception of this language indicates the freezing of the community of the family. It would be better to buy daily, and of course respond positively and more easily to that universal claim of getting your five a day. There is much to be said for the pantry.
And what of the wrongdoer and the shoplifter? In modern legal practice, we generally work on the assumption that the wrongdoer's civic identity is to be preserved intact. Is it not better, however, to identify the shoplifter by a swift chop-off of the hand as in the sharia law that some communities may wish to observe, without compulsion of course? We might see the benefits, after all one hand chopped off and you are hardly likely to shoplift a second time.
To see some with one hand and some with two binds us together as a community: of reciprocity shown in the sinful action of individuals, an individualism that is nothing other than greed packaged as universalism. No, universalism belongs in the claim of the religious particularlity indicated by some people with two hands and some people with one and the occasional fool with none.
The real issue then is to tackle that lifestyle in which it is apparently acceptable to eat off one's knees, to apply against it social and cultural taboo that is strong and retaining. This is not an anti-gay argument, but one of a lifestyle choice considered to be less adequate than the riches of the social and cultural life of reciprocity, as in the one of social recognition involved with eating using one hand or just leaning over and sucking food off the plate. That pattern carries history of community care, and protection of property, of the old market where the boy was all too easily able to grasp an apple and run. Chop his hand off and he is clearly a member of society.
We cannot uninvent the supermarket, but what we can do is preserve the customs of reciprocal society by shifting the language of consumer rights from the thin and universal to the thick and religious, from where all true universal claims are made, in my opinion. | <urn:uuid:4c4f952e-c2b7-41d9-90e9-666af6a2a0d5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://pluralistspeaks.blogspot.com/2012_02_01_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00064-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962119 | 2,407 | 2.25 | 2 |
Editorial: Broadband limbo; repairs at Wentworth
A long, government-backed project to close the digital divide in Massachusetts is coming around the bend. But once the ambitious MassBroadband 123 initiative powers up high-speed Internet connections for underserved communities late this spring, the full job won’t be done.
Time will tell when — and if — residents of our region’s small Hilltown communities, long ignored by big Internet service providers, will see that digital divide go away. “Middle mile” fiber-optic cable may now hang from utility poles in their town centers, but the “last mile” links to homes and businesses are anything but certain.
This casts a pall over years of good work by Judith Dumond’s Massachusetts Broadband Institute. While the new cable strung at a cost of more than $70 million will bring high-speed service to town buildings and schools, a significant gain, it still leaves a lot of people out of the loop.
Closing that loop was the whole point when Gov. Deval Patrick, in the early days of his first term, came to Goshen to kick-start a campaign to address this problem.
Leverett took this gap seriously enough to secure taxpayer support for last-mile Internet connections. In most communities, hopes hang on Wired West, a cooperative that is working with 42 towns to complete the loop. The group is working on funding; end-users will of course help pay for ongoing service, but the question of initial investment in infrastructure remains the problem.
It’s why big private sector companies stayed away from this market.
A spokeswoman for Wired West said it might take six to 12 months to get funding, then perhaps another 18 months to secure permits and build the local systems. Our guess on how long the divide will remain: Five years or more.
Middle mile. Last mile. Just don’t let it all be a dead end.
Setback at Wentworth
An inspired conservation project in Amherst suffered a setback last week. Drenching rain Jan. 30 and Jan. 31 caused flooding at the Wentworth Farm Conservation Area that washed out plantings along a spillway below Owens Pond.
Now, parts of the popular area will not be accessible to visitors, as Western Massachusetts Electric Co. and its contractors work with the town’s Conservation Commission on remedies. The first goal is to stop erosion.
The project last year did away with an old structure and pipe system at the western edge of the pond that was once part of a dairy farm. The alterations were designed to restore more natural water movement in the area and reconnect the pond with the Fort River, ending barriers to fish migration.
WMECO had spent $80,000 on the project in exchange for work it was allowed to do on power transmission lines in wetlands in Leverett and Montague. Now, work at the conservation area is going to cost a bit more, but the investment is worth it. | <urn:uuid:b75411ae-ee0c-4b88-83fb-0cd5ce9f45b3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gazettenet.com/home/4300147-95/mile-area-conservation-project | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940794 | 617 | 1.695313 | 2 |
ALM Properties, Inc.
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UConn Law Adopts 'Hands-On' Learning RequirementThe University of Connecticut School of Law has answered the call to provide more real-world experience for its students. Starting with the class that begins next fall, all students will be required to complete at least one supervised "live-lawyering experience" before they can receive a J.D.
The Connecticut Law Tribune2012-12-04 12:00:00 AM
The University of Connecticut School of Law has answered the call to provide more real-world experience for its students. Starting with the class that begins next fall, all students will be required to complete at least one supervised "live-lawyering experience" before they can receive a J.D.
In announcing the new program, Willajeanne F. McLean, the interim dean at the law school, said that fewer than 20 U.S. law schools have a similar requirement. "These programs offer an essential supplement to classroom-based learning," McLean said. "By adopting this requirement, we are signaling our continuing commitment to preparing our students to practice law, and to do so competently and ethically."
The requirement builds on the law school's already active clinical programs, which include an Intellectual Property and Entrepreneurship Law Clinic, Asylum and Human Rights Clinic, and a Mediation and Human Rights Clinic. Further, the school has developed programs that combine clinical work with externships at state agencies, such as the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.
The need for practice-based legal education has been at the forefront of discussions about the future of legal training at law schools and law firms alike. During the fall hiring season, many large Connecticut firms have stressed the need to find associates who have practical experience handling casework, beyond what can be learned in the classroom. Managing partners say that economic demands from clients have increased the need for new lawyers to be able to join a firm and hit the ground running.
Efforts to improve employment statistics of law school graduates was something former UConn Law School Dean Jeremy Paul talked about when he announced he was leaving back in July. To improve the hiring prospects for new lawyers, he said there was a need for law schools to increase their focus on providing "hands-on training."
The law school where Paul is now dean, Northeastern University in Boston, has a program which requires all students to complete four academic terms of full-time legal employment. Paul said expanding on that program was one of the most exciting aspects of his new position.
UConn's new program will allow students to fulfill the requirement in many ways. They will be able to enroll in one of the school's 15 clinical programs, or participate in externship clinics where they would work with nonprofits, state agencies, judges and legislators.
Paul Chill, a UConn law professor who serves on a faculty committee that voted for the requirement, said the program will allow graduates to better serve their communities and clients.
"When students are placed in settings where their decisions and actions have real consequences for people and institutions, there are enormous educational benefits," he said. | <urn:uuid:9523191a-8f8e-40db-b7c5-2523de82576c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.law.com/jsp/law/LawArticleFriendly.jsp?id=1202580128572 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971273 | 669 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Reminding us all that tomorrow, Tuesday November 15, is the Triangle Bloggers Blast at Durham’s American Tobacco Historic District.
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and Comments (RSS). | <urn:uuid:61f1ffe0-f618-4ffd-817d-b98c3253f5ee> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ibiblio.org/pjones/blog/triangle-bloggers-blast-tomorrow/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00059-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.917116 | 116 | 1.765625 | 2 |
ARMONK, N.Y. – Adopt-A-Dog Inc., a nonprofit animal shelter at 23 Cox Ave., is still working on making Armonk feel like home — for itself and its four-legged friends.
“I don’t think too many people know about us yet,” said kennel manager Kristen Alouisa. “We opened here in 1999, but we’re still looking for as many homes as possible for these guys. So we’re trying to get a little more involved in the community.”
The nonprofit dog and cat rescue sanctuary originally began in 1981 in Connecticut. Now with two shelter sites, the organization prides itself on finding safe, permanent homes for dogs, and sometimes cats.
“We get our animals from a few different sources,” Alouisa said. “Most of them are from people who simply can’t keep them. We also take on puppy mill rescues.”
Alouisa said her shelter holds as many as 40 dogs at one time, always keeping them on board until an appropriate home is found.
“The only time we’ll put one down is for medical or extreme behavior issues, both of which are very rare incidences,” she said.
Adopt-A-Dog operates completely from donations. All animals available for adoption are up-to-date on their vaccine shots and neutered or spayed. While all applicants are welcomed, adoption applications must be done in person. Alouisa insists on at least two in-person visits before a potential owner can take an animal home.
“We’ll bring the dogs to them once, and we like them to come here once,” she said. “We also do reference checks. It’s not just about finding a home. It’s about finding a good home that we know will be a permanent situation.”
Although applications must be done in person, those interested are encouraged to see which animals are available by browsing through their pictures on Adopt-A-Dog’s website.
The Armonk Daily Voice will begin posting an Adopt-A-Dog animal in need of a home once a week every Saturday, starting next week. | <urn:uuid:90b3664c-6505-4bd6-bf87-f98203293618> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://armonk.dailyvoice.com/neighbors/armonk-animal-shelter-seeks-homes-cats-dogs | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962861 | 476 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Michelle Dyer, second year teacher in the Battle Ground School District, went fishing last summer with her Dad, Jim Dyer and caught a nice sturgeon. She had caught smaller ones previously but this was her first keepable sturgeon.
Michelle and her first keepable sturgeon
By: bjjggSubscribe Channel: Fish Tales Location: on the Columbian River near Astoria, Oregon
This story is inappropriate and should be flagged for moderation. Please choose from one of the following options: | <urn:uuid:c2222970-628c-4170-8b3c-39a7290d6815> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.katu.com/younews/80547447.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968621 | 104 | 1.523438 | 2 |
IUCN shares its global experience in the International Conference on Introduction of Integrated Management in the Ili-Balkhash Basin
29 March 2007 | News story
The Ili- Balkash basin is a unique natural unit with a territory exceeding the area of Great Britain, Denmark, Switzerland, Holland, and Belgium altogether. The basin has a huge potential for ecotourism, agriculture, energy generation and industry. Due to increased human-made interventions and increased water intake, the ecosystem is threatened to undergo the same disaster as that of the Aral sea.
IUCN WESCANA participated in the expert group meeting during March 6-7 in parallel with the International Conference on Introduction of Integrated Management in the Ili-Balkhash Basin which was hosted by the European Commission and Ministry of Environmental Protection of the Republic of Kazakhstan. Experts and government representatives, scientific and non-governmental organizations from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and the People’s Republic of China as well as representatives of UNDP, UNESCO, OSCE, IUCN, Ramsar Convention, UNESCO and others were present in the meeting. IUCN shared its global experience in the Water and Nature Programme where approaches and tools for eco-system management were developed and validated through case studies.
IUCN global water experience will be of value to the transboundary water system between Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and China. Negotiated agreements should be formulated at the grass-root where stakeholders’ dialogue is to be established. "This must be supported by a sound institutional and legal framework to ensure equitable and reasonable water allocation among riparian states" IUCN WESCANA Regional Director Dr. Odeh Al-Jayyousi said, who represented IUCN in this meeting.
The expert meeting agreed to devise a long-term integrated plan for the Illi-Balkash basin to preserve the ecosystems and ensure efficient utilization on natural resources by building on the international best practices. Besides, it was noted that the river basin plan should be in harmony with the national priorities and international commitments of riparian states and international organizations in the field of Millennium Development Goals and the promotion of international cooperation to achieve economic and social development.
In conclusion, the participants express their gratitude to the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Ministry of Environmental Protection of the Republic of Kazakhstan, European Commission and Regional Environmental Centre for Central Asia for excellent organization of the Conference, which provided an opportunity to discuss important issues of cooperation for sustainable development of the Ili-Balkhash Basin in the interests of present and future generations of its population.
For more information contact Odeh Al-Jayyousi at: email@example.com | <urn:uuid:ae8b5ceb-abac-4ed5-8f66-7dba5ef398b1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.iucn.org/fr/nouvelles_homepage/nouvelles_par_theme/eau_news/?1089/IUCN-shares-its-global-experience-in-the-International-Conference-on-Introduction-of-Integrated-Management-in-the-Ili-Balkhash-Basin | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.922589 | 562 | 2.046875 | 2 |
At a meeting of national organizations on March 29, 1999, sponsored by the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future, USteach, a national web based system for the recruitment and placement of educators was demonstrated and discussed. The system was launched officially in Washington DC in June 1999. USteach is envisioned as a collaborative of education organizations to support the ongoing maintenance and enhancements of a comprehensive and inclusive system matching district and college needs with quality applicants.
Today, drawing from a network of more than three thousand major organizations and more than seventy thousand regular users, USteach provides government, private, and public institutions an easy and convenient service, featuring a vast selection of options. Furthermore, USteach is one of the first education online service to provide, at no cost, management systems to the education community. More organizations are joining the network each year and using the system with tremendous success. USteach would meet the United States government commitment to provide a comprehensive worldwide system for careers in education as stated in the State of American Education address. Ongoing implementation efforts continue to work towards offering and developing new tools and sources of information for education. | <urn:uuid:cf23470e-356d-4c06-9117-37f410a8a544> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.usteach.com/MainTemp.cfm?page=US/AboutUs.cfm&cfid=539833250&cftoken=A8F097613571486B9E4B83FFD606027A&UserType=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960524 | 229 | 2.0625 | 2 |
The Cost of the Death Penalty
The New Yorker on the expense—and bureaucratic mess—of executing a criminal.
Posted Tuesday, Jan. 29, 2008, at 3:10 PM
Today, Other Magazines reads Newsweek, New York, The New Yorker, the Weekly Standard, and Harper's to find out what's worth your time—and what's not.
Jeffrey Toobin, writing in TheNew Yorker, recounts the agonizingly slow bureaucratic hold-up in the state of Georgia's prosecution of Brian Nichols, who faces the death penalty for four murders that he has already confessed to committing. The state has thus far shelled out $1.2 million for Nichols' defense, Toobin reports. "The Nichols case," he writes, "illustrates a troubling paradox in death-penalty jurisprudence: the more heinous a crime—and the more incontrovertible the evidence of a defendant's guilt—the greater the cost of the defense may be."—C.W.
In a fawning piece about Fred Thompson in the Weekly Standard, Andrew Ferguson goes on a scathing, yet amusing, rant about the superficiality of running for president. Ferguson argues that Thompson never fit into a world where "you smile and smile and pop your eyes wide open in delighted wonder at the ever-shifting kaleidoscope of faces and places that circles before you, and you haven't the time or leisure to settle on a single one."—C.M.
Best Campaign Article
The transformation of Bill Clinton from "elder statesman" to "hatchet man" is the subject of a scathing Newsweek article. His laser-beam focus on Obama seems to be angering the press much more than the voters, who are still enamored with him. And with both Clintons on the warpath, Obama sometimes gets a bit frazzled: "I can't tell who I'm running against sometimes."—J.R.
Best Political Anecdote
TheNew Yorker's James McManus has the scoop on the poker game that Barack Obama and fellow Illinois state Sen. Terry Link started up 10 years ago, when both were freshman legislators. Obama was a calculating player, a third senator once recalled: "When Barack stayed in, you pretty much figured he's got a good hand." As this article points out, however, "a rock-solid image made it easier for Obama to bluff."—C.W.
Best Underdog Story
Harper's paints über-fringe Republican presidential hopeful John Cox's Iowa effort as half-humorous, half-touchingly tragic. The quirky piece centers around what ensues when a candidate has one of the required M's (megalomania) without the more important one (money).—N.M.
Best Contrarian Piece
William Kristol's editorial in the Weekly Standard reflects on President Bush's tenure and realizes it wasn't all that bad. He thinks that Americans may start to realize this in the coming year, leading to higher approval ratings for Bush. While it seems far-fetched at first, Americans' feelings for Bush may warm as their attention is diverted toward presidential hopefuls and away from the president himself.—C.M.
Harper's leads its index with the frightening statistic that the current projected total cost of medical care for U.S. veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan is $500 billion *, or roughly equal to the amount that has been spent on both conflicts to date.—N.M.
Best Economy Piece
Newsweek's cover story analyzes the "The Great Global Market Freak-Out of 2008." While the United States may have pulled along the global economy for some time, developing nations may now be able to extricate themselves and travel under their own power.—J.R.
Harper's dissects the history of the American economic bubble and predicts the next one: alternative energy. With all the ingredients in place—government regulation to aid the industry, a rapidly growing market, and increased media attention—it might be time to get in on the ground floor of that tofu-powered car IPO.—N.M.
Noreen Malone is a staff writer for the New Republic.
Jon Rubin is a Slate intern.
Chris Wilson is a Slate contributor. | <urn:uuid:8aa4668f-04d8-4195-b6c3-9541bb9fd7ba> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/other_magazines/2008/01/the_cost_of_the_death_penalty.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939486 | 882 | 1.796875 | 2 |
To get enough vitamin D, head outdoors: Your liver makes this vitamin after your skin absorbs sunlight. With the exception of fish oils and some fatty fish, food offers little natural vitamin D. It's added to milk. Vitamin D helps your body absorb and metabolize calcium, strengthening bones. So getting enough Vitamin D is just as important as getting sufficient amounts of calcium.
A sunscreen of 30 SPF or greater appears to block vitamin D production, she adds. Sunscreen users can absorb vitamin D from milk -- but if you don't drink milk, don't forsake your sunscreen. Ask your doctor what's right for you.
Heed the intake suggestions below. More than 2,000 IU daily can be toxic.
Vitamin K helps make your blood clot and works with calcium and vitamin D to build strong bones.
Normal bacteria in your digestive system help make vitamin K. To ensure you consume enough vitamin K, eat those green vegetables. Your body also can make vitamin K from eggs, milk, and meat.
Vitamin K can interfere with blood-thinning medications Talk with your doctor if you're on such medication or you're not sure.
Zinc’s functions in the body are many and diverse. It is involved in the action of many enzymes. Specific functions in humans are difficult to pinpoint but people who don't get enough zinc are at higher risk for growth failure, dermatitis, birth defects, decreased sperm production, and changes in the immune system. | <urn:uuid:6312abee-6141-434d-ae71-003c0e3a6301> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.koco.com/Nutrients-can-help-with-prostate-health/-/9844716/19110454/-/item/1/-/kwqfxqz/-/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931046 | 301 | 3.109375 | 3 |
The granddaddy solar flare of all time has, until very recently, been regarded as the Carrington Event in 1859, the dawn of the telegraph age. The event was witnessed in real time by British astronomer Richard Christopher Carrington.
"Two patches of intensely bright and white light broke out," he later wrote. Carrington puzzled over the flashes. "My first impression was that by some chance a ray of light had penetrated a hole in the screen attached to the object-glass," he explained, given that "the brilliancy was fully equal to that of direct sun-light."Note that these flashes were so much brighter than the projected image of the sun in his dark room that he thought daylight was somehow getting into the room. The story itself is amazing. That evening, when the Coronal Mass Ejection hit, telegraph operators were able to run without batteries; the flare-induced voltages on their wires working better than batteries. The aurora display was global, even in the deep tropics.
If such a flare were to happen today, I believe it would take out the power grid on at least the hemisphere facing the sun when the CME hit. What we have in our favor is that our modern monitoring systems would allow grid operators to shut down some to all of their gear: force the world into a black out, so that the equipment could be reconnected when the storm was over.
Now comes a story that there appears to have been a flare that could have been 20 times stronger than the Carrington event.
Everybody loves a good “whodunit?” How else could you explain the number of television shows with the prefix “CSI”? So when a study in Nature identified a previously unknown (and very large) spike in carbon-14 around the year 774 AD, it raised a lot of eyebrows. This radioactive isotope of carbon is created when energetic particles from beyond the Earth transform atmospheric nitrogen to a form of carbon with two neutrons more than the most common isotope.There are a couple of known mechanisms for creating C14 in the atmosphere, one is a massive solar flare. 774 AD was 600 years or so before the first telescopes were used, so there was no Carrington to be watching.
So when a college student from UC-SD found a record of a “red crucifix” in the skies over Britain in that year, Nature published his note.The story diverges a bit here, because the original group who tried to calculate how big a flare would have to be to cause the measured amount of carbon-14 in tree rings made a mistake and ended up with a preposterous result, 1000 times bigger than Carrington's granddaddy flare.
A pair of researchers from Washburn University and the University of Kansas published a comment in Nature pointing out that the solar flare calculations included a rather fundamental error. Working backwards from the intensity required to produce the right amount of carbon-14 in Earth’s atmosphere, they mistakenly calculated the total size of the event as if the flare was emitted in all directions from the Sun, forming an expanding bubble of charged particles.CMEs, are fairly localized, so the amount of spread would be much less than calculated and a powerful enough flare much smaller than the original calculations. These researchers derive a number closer to 20x the size of Carrington's flare.
A flare this size is genuinely scary; I don't know how much bigger it would be than the one pictured here, from November 2003, the largest flare observed since the space age began, but it would fry an entire hemisphere's grids, and if the grids are connected better than I think, would plunge the entire world into darkness. I don't know if anyone on the Space Station could survive that.
this and briefly explained why here).
But you know how a bunch of those UN Agenda 21 freaks want to kill off 95% of the humans on earth? This just might do it. | <urn:uuid:38bcd5b3-0706-4c8d-a1d9-397cf13c6e5c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thesilicongraybeard.blogspot.com/2012/12/space-its-genuinely-scary-out-there.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972031 | 813 | 3.609375 | 4 |
The Manufacturing Practices of the Footwear Industry: Nike vs. the Competition
The current manufacturing practices of the sneaker industry, in particular companies such as Nike, Reebok, Adidas, Converse, and New Balance, takes place throughout the globe. With the industry experiencing severe competition, and the product requiring intensive labor, firms are facing extreme pressure to increase their profit margins through their sourcing practices. The following paper will analyze the sneaker industry, while examining the multitude of viable manufacturing options, and critiquing their current manufacturing structure.
Footwear Industry – Players, Revenues, Market Share
To properly review the manufacturing in the footwear industry, it is necessary to first gain an understanding of the dominant leaders in the marketplace. The industry is currently experiencing hypercompetition, led by six main firms – Nike, Reebok, Adidas, Fila, Converse, and New Balance (see exhibit 1), with nearly $7 billion in revenues domestically. Nike is the industry leader, with a 47% market share, followed by Reebok, a distant second at 16%, and Adidas at 6% (see exhibit 2). This category is facing decreasing demand and the rising popularity of alternative footwear, resulting in more pressure than ever before to achieve high gross margins through effective global sourcing practices.
Footwear companies have two basic options in the manufacturing of their products, they can both own and operate the factories that produce their products, or subcontract their products out to secondary manufacturers. These facilities can be located either domestically or internationally, and both present a myriad of positives and negatives. Firms that produce domestically benefit from ease of monitoring, skilled workforce, government stability, job creation, and well understood labor rules, while suffering from the relatively high wages required in the U.S. as compared to developing countries. By manufacturing products overseas, in particular in third world economies, tremendous efficiencies are gained in the form of reduced wages, but are countered by the increased difficulty of monitoring the quality of their products and the actual working conditions in the factories. Companies that are vertically integrated, who own and operate the factories where their products are manufactured, are faced with large capital expenditure requirements and the management of the factories themselves, resulting in lower profit margins.
In analyzing the sneaker industry, we are faced with the question, "What are these firms core competencies?" If manufacturing falls under this umbrella, then firms should look to produce internally. However, the core skills that set these companies apart from the competition, are their marketing, distribution, and technological expertise. Applying the dominant sneaker companies areas of expertise, let’s review the following questions:
With all of the above questions posed to any of the big four sneaker companies,
they would respond with a resounding "no". Therefore, in today’s global environment, the most strategically viable manufacturing strategy is the outsourcing of their products. The efficiencies that are gained, in the form of shifting of risk, reduced capital requirements, lower wages, and ability to focus on their core competencies, strongly outweigh all other manufacturing options.
The Evolution of Manufacturing in Third World Countries
As the economies of countries around world expand, so does their ability and skill level in all facets of manufacturing. Beginning in London in the early 1900’s, and followed through to the present day, manufacturing in its simplest form consists of light manufacturing, which uses unskilled labor to produce items such as shirts, shorts, and jeans. As the economy develops along with the skill of manufacturing, countries begin moderately technical light manufacturing, which includes footwear, outerwear and, performance sportswear. The next step in this growth involves the production of technical consumer products such as radios, calculators, and wristwatches. With the most developed economies gaining high levels of technical expertise, manufacturing grows to include technical durables, which includes automobiles and computers. This progression represents the advancement of economies throughout the world today, and provides the reasoning behind sneaker companies manufacturing beginning in the United States and Germany, and passing through Japan, Korea, and Taiwan, to its present day central areas of China, Indonesia, and Vietnam. As these three countries progress over the next decade, and large amounts of new capital is pumped into their economies, their standard of living will rise along with their manufacturing expertise. Companies will be forced to relocate their manufacturing in countries such as Cambodia, Pakistan, and underdeveloped regions of Africa in search of lower wages.
Nike currently enjoys a 47% market share of the domestic footwear industry, with sales of $3.77 billion. Nike has been manufacturing throughout the Asian region for over twenty-five years, and there are over 500,000 people today directly engaged in the production of their products. They utilize an outsourcing strategy, using only subcontractors throughout the globe. Their majority of their output today is produced in factories in China, Indonesia, and Vietnam, but they also have factories in Italy, the Philippines, Taiwan, and South Korea. These factories are 100% owned by subcontractors, with the majority of their output consisting solely of Nike products. However, Nike does employ teams of four expatriates per each of the big three countries (China, Indonesia, Vietnam), that focus on both quality of product and quality of working conditions, visiting the factories weekly. They also developed their code of conduct in 1992 and have implemented it across the globe, as its goal is to set the standard for subcontractors to follow if they wish to do business with Nike. However, due to a manufacturing network of this magnitude, they have faced numerous violations involving factory conditions and human rights issues, which have been widely publicized. They have responded to these issues through the Andrew Young report, the Dartmouth Study, and Ernst & Young’s continual monitoring, but are still approximately two years away from completely addressing these problems throughout the globe.
Reebok, as the second leading manufacturer of footwear, has domestic revenues of $1.28 billion and a market share of 16%. Similar to Nike, they also utilize a 100% outsourcing strategy and manufacture their products throughout Asia. They have created and implemented their own code of conduct for manufactures to follow, but have less infrastructure than Nike across the globe to enforce it. They are facing scrutiny in regards to wage, overtime, and air quality issues, and like Nike, are working to address these issues. However, their strength, the creation and distribution of a global brand, is allowed to foster under this manufacturing strategy, as they focus on their core competencies, and outsource their production.
Adidas is currently enjoying the fastest growth of any brand domestically, with a market share of 6% and revenues of $500 million. They have been shielded from bad publicity by the two Goliath’s of the industry, Nike and Reebok, and are reaping the rewards substantially. They have adjusted their manufacturing strategy, from a vertical operation in Germany in the 60’s and 70’s, to an outsourcing focus today throughout Asia. Unlike the big two, they do not have a code of conduct, and their factories are considered to be the worst in the industry. It is just a matter of time before they are exposed, with an underground swelling of negativity already occurring today. In order to avoid the negative effects and lost revenues that Nike and Reebok have received, they need to immediately begin to take a proactive stance in regards to the working conditions of their factories.
With a market share of 3% and revenues of $280 million, Converse manufactures their products both domestically and internationally. It is important to note that the only product they continue to manufacture in the U.S. today, is the Chuck Taylor All Star, with plants in Lumberton, NC and Mission, TX. This is a product where the "Made in the USA" label is crucial to its success, and internalization is a source of competitive advantage. These two factors serving as the sole reason why the production remains within the U.S. All other shoe models are outsourced in Asia, with the explanation of reduced wages driving this strategy. Converse, like Adidas, must also generate a higher degree of internal monitoring of their subcontractors, or they will soon face increased scrutiny
New Balance is the one company that has kept a substantial amount of manufacturing in the United States, and has a 3% market share with sales of $260 million. They currently operate five plants in New England, employing over 1400 workers, that produces 50% of their output. With this mixed strategy, of vertical integration and outsourcing, they are very unique, with their strategic reasoning based on the advantages gained through higher levels of quality domestically, and the "Made in the USA" label. They are in a highly specialized, niche business, running shoes, and closeness of factories is more essential to their customer base than the other companies because of special orders. For their most technical products they employ outsourcing, following the strategy of their competitors. Although there is something to be said for manufacturing domestically, they are straying away from the skills that they do better than anybody else – the design and marketing of the premier running shoe in the industry. Their long-term strategy should shift to a 100% outsourcing model, allowing them to control this niche for the future.
Manufacturing in the footwear industry has evolved dramatically over the course of the last century. As economies grow and skills are enhanced, production has been forced to spread to less developed regions around the world. While Nike, Reebok, Adidas, Converse, and New Balance each have their own manufacturing structure, the reason behind their rise to dominance in this industry is their ability to focus on the core skills that they perform better than anybody else. The outsourcing trend that dominates the industry today will only increase in the future. The major issues facing these firms today, working conditions and human rights, must be addressed in the short-term. Through either one firm’s leadership, or all footwear companies strategically aligning, these issues will be addressed; the question is "Just how long will it take before the footwear companies say Just Do It?"
Van Dusen, INTS 092
UNC - Chapel Hill | <urn:uuid:8055e90b-a329-4f41-a033-5f8f94d319fa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.unc.edu/~andrewsr/ints092/vandu.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966405 | 2,063 | 2.328125 | 2 |
FAO/OIE/WB/WHO Meeting on Avian Influenza and Human Pandemic Influenza
Ladies and gentlemen,
Thank you for making this a remarkable and productive meeting. The world has been watching and listening as, over these three days, the scale of the challenges has emerged. The international solidarity to confront these threats is clear. The urgency of acting now is felt by us all. Precise recommendations for action have emerged. Equally, precise offers of help and support have been put forward, by both developing and industrialized countries.
I will now review the central points that have come out of the meeting. Next I will outline an integrated programme of action which responds to the issues raised.
1. Minimizing the threat at source to both animal and human populations through rapid reduction of the viral burden of H5N1 is essential. This entails timely notification of outbreaks in birds, poultry culling and vaccination as indicated, including "backyard" flocks, and provision of appropriate compensation for farmers.
2. "Early warning" and surveillance systems for animal and human influenza are critical to effective response. The current window of opportunity to intervene is measured in days. Transparent and immediate reporting is essential.
3. The introduction of avian infection with H5N1 to other countries is predicted, following the patterns of migratory birds, and as a result of production systems and market practices. Other strains of avian flu are also an ongoing and emerging threat and must be monitored. Strengthened veterinary services are a crucial aspect of detection and response. Open sharing of virus samples is essential. Quality assured animal vaccines produced to international standards should be used in healthy poultry when appropriate.
4. At present many governments are not ready to cope with outbreaks, still less a pandemic. Preparedness is vital in every country, in every Region. Integrated country plans will build on and strengthen existing systems and mechanisms. They will be comprehensive, costed, and evaluated. Response mechanisms should be rehearsed through simulation exercises. These plans will include protection of vulnerable groups such as children, refugees and displaced populations.
5. Resources needed to slow down or contain the emergence of a pandemic are insufficient. Supplies of antiviral drugs currently do not meet potential demand. Issues remain of equitable access to medicines and deployment of stockpiles.
6. A universal non-specific pandemic vaccine may be the ultimate protective solution for human influenza. "Smart" solutions are being investigated. Issues of technology transfer, resolution of licensing and regulatory obstacles, sustained use of good manufacturing practices and pre-qualification are under discussion. Predictable, increased orders for seasonal flu vaccine will support greater manufacturing capacity, including in developing countries.
7. Communications. The recent series of high-level meetings on avian influenza and human pandemic influenza have successfully created a shared agenda. The public needs clear, regular, reliable information. Civil society, nongovernmental organizations and other community groups must be involved.
8. A rich array of resources is potentially available to support government and institutional efforts. Countries that have successfully controlled outbreaks of avian influenza are prepared to help others.
9. Mechanisms for donor support are in place. There is broad commitment to minimize transaction costs of international support through alignment and harmonization. International support to country plans should supplement national resources, as well as existing donor resources, and should target resource-poor countries.
10. Investments are urgently needed at national level - potentially reaching 1 billion dollars over the next three years. An additional 35 million dollars is needed immediately to support high priority actions by technical agencies at the global level over the next six months.
The 10 points I have outlined need detailed and concrete actions. This meeting has identified a series of integrated actions that will start straight away.
1. Support the development of integrated national plans for avian influenza control and human pandemic influenza preparedness and response.
2. Assist countries in aggressive control of avian influenza in birds, and deepen the understanding of the role of wild birds in virus transmission.
3. Nominate "rapid response" teams of experts to support epidemiological field investigations.
4. Strengthen country and regional capacity in surveillance, laboratory diagnosis, and alert and response systems.
5. Expand the network of influenza laboratories, with regional collaborative systems for access to reference laboratories.
6. Establish and integrate multi-country networks for the control or prevention of animal trans-boundary diseases, and regional support units as established in the Global Framework for the Progressive Control of Trans-boundary Animal Diseases.
7. Expand the global antiviral stockpile, and prepare standard operating practices for its rapid deployment to achieve early containment.
8. Assess the needs and strengthen veterinary infrastructure in line with OIE standards.
9. Map out a global strategy and work plan for coordinating antiviral and influenza vaccine research and development, and for increasing production capacity and equitable access.
10. Put forward proposals to the WHO Executive Board at its 117th meeting for immediate voluntary compliance with relevant articles of the International Health Regulations 2005.
11. Finalize detailed costing of country plans and the regional and global requirements to support them, in preparation for the January pledging meeting to be hosted by the Government of China.
12. Finalize a coordination framework building on existing mechanisms at the country level, and at the global level, building on international best practices.
This is a challenging agenda which will require all our best efforts. | <urn:uuid:69e6e187-b8ae-45ab-a965-8c9fba8c0239> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.who.int/dg/lee/speeches/2005/closingremarks_avianflu/en/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927512 | 1,114 | 2.6875 | 3 |
It's been an interesting couple of days. Yesterday, the Michigan legislature, House and Senate both, passed bills imposing Right to Work on one of labor's flagship states. And this morning, I was guest commentator on a radio broadcast on my local NPR station, Interlochen Public Radio, discussing another trick Michigan Governor Rick Snyder has up his sleeve: making Michigan (already an educational choice-friendly state) a "super-choice" state.
You can access the re-broadcast--via radio or internet--here. And you can find information about the democracy-thwarting Right to Work vote here, here and here--and about 1000 other media outlets. It's the hot ticket in Michigan, all this choosing: choosing whether or not to join a union, choosing whether or not to do four years in high school or take the $5K payout for finishing early, or even choosing which "course" vendor will help your 3rd grader read at grade level, one of the core metrics and models mentioned as desirable features of the Any Time, Any Place, Any Way, Any Pace uber-choice legislation package.
Choice! It's what's for dinner, evidently.
There's a certain irony in all this choosing. Traditional public schools are currently experiencing a rescinding of what few choices they had left. Public education, in order to be considered for federal dollars, has been funneled by Race to the Top policy into All Things Common. Nearly all states have adopted the Common Core State (sic) Standards, and gotten on board with one of two aligned common assessment plans, Smarter Balanced or PARCC. The standards--which prescribe and prioritize learning--and the assessments which measure student performance are all standardized. And--just in time!--Pearson and the Gates Foundation plan to roll out an on-line curriculum that fills in the blank between standards and assessments.
In other words, decisions that have traditionally been made in schools and classrooms--instruction, curriculum, assessment, use of resources--have been taken out of the hands of educators. And replaced with national (let's call 'em what they are) standards, curriculum, tests, and suggestions for instruction so students can be "successful" on those tests.
In the meantime, for parents who are frustrated by Common Core Everything, the door has been opened for "vendors" to open up a boutique academy here, a 21st-century learning center there, a just-in-time test prep program, all competing for parent and student interest. One high-profile charter administrator recently complained that other charters were now competing with her charter, offering iPads, gift cards to Foot Locker, or the opportunity to be "mentored" by sports heroes. That's just the beginning, once the market opens wide.
It's no surprise that one of the authors of the proposed Any Time plan is a constitutional lawyer. The carefully constructed language allows proponents to claim that it's not a voucher plan, because students can't take their entire state funding grant and use it to offset costs at a pricey private school. But they can sample courses at state expense, making stable funding for public districts--already a crapshoot--a genuine nightmare. Oversight and accountability, the heavy-duty watchwords of NCLB? Not an issue in the Oxford edu-marketplace.
All of this reminded me of an idea I once had that was--I'm cutting to the chase here--soundly denounced by my school board and administrators:
Back at the turn of the last century, my school district was getting ready to open a new elementary school, relieving overcrowding. As it happened, three elementary buildings in the district were located less than one mile apart. Each would hold about 500 students, and the buildings had different features and facilities. The School Board was wrestling with re-configuring attendance zones, always a political tap-dance: Who gets to go to the new school?
I drew up a plan suggesting we designate each elementary building with a different theme and focus, instead of basing attendance on which neighborhood kids lived in. The new building--which was wired and outfitted with state-of-the-art technology--would be the Math and Science academy. The building which had once been a high school would become the Arts and Literature-focused school. And the other building would become a kind of core knowledge school, a place where parents who wanted to see spelling bees, reading groups and traditional mathematics instruction would be comfortable.
The district had its own curricular standards to follow--and every school would have support staff for art, music and physical education. But the schools would be decidedly different. The after-school orchestra program and the all-district drama club would live at the Arts-Literature school, and Lego League at the Math-Science school. The district was in a conservative town, where many parents had traditional expectations about what schooling should be--there would be no problem with finding parents who wanted a "classical," straight-rows, direct-instruction model.
Because the schools were so close together, buses could stagger drop-offs at five-minute intervals, meaning that two children in the same family could choose different schools, but ride the same bus. Busing and catchment areas were already in flux, as were teaching assignments. In this plan, teachers would also have a choice about which school best represented their strengths and beliefs. I could already predict which teachers would go for the technology-rich school, which would prefer more creative drama as learning vehicle. If one school was seriously oversubscribed, it would tell us what most parents in the district wanted for their children.
I promoted the plan using the ideal of choice, a familiar concept in Michigan, which had just passed charter legislation. Parents chose our district--and with this plan, they could custom-tailor their child's elementary education. What's not to like?
As I mentioned, the plan went down in flames. Board members didn't get it--and the Curriculum Director was incensed. Everyone must get the same thing, he said. That's the only fair way.
We've gone from being suspicious of genuine, in-district choice (a win-win for districts) to bitter squabbling over who gets access to publicly funded resources. Next up: Common rules and standardization for traditional public schools, choice and opportunity for educational entrepreneurs. | <urn:uuid:d512d6e3-ba47-415b-b103-58bbf7dbce85> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/teacher_in_a_strange_land/2012/12/common_vs_choice.html?cmp=ENL-EU-VIEWS2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972183 | 1,312 | 1.875 | 2 |
PayPal suspends personal payments to India
- — 09 February, 2010 07:51
PayPal, an eBay company, has suspended personal payments to and from India and transfers to local banks in the country.
Customers can still make commercial payments to India, but merchants cannot withdraw funds in rupees at local Indian banks, it added.
The services have been suspended while the company works with its "business partners and other stakeholders to address questions they have about the service," according to PayPal's blog. PayPal did not say what questions have been raised.
PayPal said it is trying to resolve the situation as quickly as possible and that it was sorry for the inconvenience that it may cause its customers in India and around the world. A number of bloggers and Web sites have reported that the company has reversed and returned payments to senders.
PayPal executives in the region were not available for comment on specific reasons why the service was discontinued.
The move by PayPal may be linked to new Indian government rules aimed at preventing money laundering, according to an analyst who spoke on condition of anonymity. Last November, the Indian government introduced rules requiring financial institutions and other intermediaries to verify the identity of clients carrying out international money transfers.
PayPal's user agreement says it does not guarantee any user's identity because user verification on the Internet is difficult. PayPal does reserve the right to validate customers' identities, including asking for documents.
PayPal is used in India by many to receive payment for services such as software development and freelance writing. | <urn:uuid:4950e877-867b-473e-9d30-a2e3be75153a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/article/335465/paypal_suspends_personal_payments_india/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970297 | 310 | 1.617188 | 2 |
The neolithic is the youngest part of the Stone Age. The word "neolithic" comes from two words in Greek: "neo", meaning "new" and "lithic", meaning "stone". The neolithic period is the time when farming was invented and when people started caring for animals, such as cows, sheep and pigs. The neolithic starts at different times in different places, since not everyone started farming at the same time. After the neolithic period comes the Bronze Age.
Other pages [change]
Other websites [change]
|Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Neolithic|
- Neolithic Stone Tools and Artifacts — World Museum of Man
- Brutal lives of Stone Age Britons
- Vincha Neolithic Script | <urn:uuid:06b8762e-fae7-4c26-8eed-1e6844db1919> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00045-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.925787 | 157 | 3.359375 | 3 |
Graphene, the extraordinary form of carbon that consists of a single
layer of carbon atoms, has produced another in a long list of
experimental surprises. In the current issue of the journal Science,
a multi-institutional team of researchers headed by Michael Crommie, a
faculty senior scientist in the Materials Sciences Division at the U.S.
Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a
professor of physics at the University of California at Berkeley,
reports the creation of pseudo-magnetic fields far stronger than the
strongest magnetic fields ever sustained in a laboratory – just by
putting the right kind of strain onto a patch of graphene.
“We have shown experimentally that when graphene is stretched to form
nanobubbles on a platinum substrate, electrons behave as if they were
subject to magnetic fields in excess of 300 tesla, even though no
magnetic field has actually been applied,” says Crommie. “This is a
completely new physical effect that has no counterpart in any other
condensed matter system.”
Read more at http://newscenter.lbl.gov/news-releases/2010/07/29/graphene-under-strain/. | <urn:uuid:357d36d8-32b2-468b-bdf8-1bcb523f250c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://physics.berkeley.edu/?textonly=1&option=com_dept_management&act=news&Itemid=419&task=view&id=244 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.907498 | 262 | 3.5 | 4 |
Sails set for eternity
The oldest funerary boat ever found was discovered early this week at the Abu Rawash archaeological site, Nevine El-Aref
Situated eight kilometres northwest of the Giza plateau, Abu Rawash contains vestiges of archaeological remains that date back to various historical periods ranging from the prehistoric to the Coptic eras.
Abu Rawash displays exclusive funerary structures relating not only to the different ancient Egyptian periods but also their places of worship until quite late in time.
There at the prehistoric necropolis dating from the archaic period and located at the northern area of Mastaba number six (a flat-roofed burial structure), Egyptologists from the French Institute of Oriental Archaeology in Cairo (IFAO) have uncovered 11 wooden panels of a funerary boat used by ancient Egyptians to transport the soul of their departed king to the afterlife right through eternity. It is the earliest such boat ever found.
"The boat is in a very well-preserved condition and is almost intact, thanks to the preservation power of the dry desert environment," Minister of State for Antiquities Mohamed Ibrahim said. He added that each panel was six metres tall and 1.50 metres in width.
Ibrahim continued that early studies of the panels revealed that the boat belonged to King Den of the First Dynasty, who was not buried in Abu Rawash but whose tomb was found at the royal necropolis of the Early Dynastic kings in the Upper Egyptian town of Abydos.
Because of his young age, King Den shared the throne with his mother, Meritneith. It was said that Den was the best archaeologically attested ruler of his period. He brought prosperity to the land, and many innovations were attributed to his reign. He was the first to use granite in construction and decoration, and the floor to his tomb is made of red and black granite.
During his reign Den established many of the patterns of court ritual and royalty used by his successor kings.
The newly-discovered panels of the boat have been transported to the planned National Museum of Egyptian Civilisation (NMEC) for restoration and reconstruction in the museum's laboratories. Once the museum is opened next year, the funerary boat will be exhibited in the Nile Hall.
King Den's boat is far from the first funerary boat to be discovered. In 1954 historian and archaeologist Kamal El-Malakh discovered the two solar boats of the Fourth-Dynasty king Khufu intact inside two pits beside the pyramid. One of these boats was restored and reconstructed by the renowned restorer Ahmed Youssef and was put on display in a special exhibition hall near the Great Pyramid, while the second one remained in the pit until 1992 when a Japanese archaeological team carried out research on the boat inside the pit. In 2011, the Japanese-Egyptian mission began the first stage of a three-phase project to lift the cedar panels, reconstruct the boat and place it on display at the side of its twin in the planned Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) overlooking Giza plateau, which is planned to be open in 2015.
The Abu Rawash site was described in the early 19th century by European travellers including Howard Vyse and John Shae Perring. Four decades after Karl Lepsius published the results of his research on the pyramid complex of King Djedefre, son of the Great Pyramid builder King Khufu, in 1842, Flinders Petrie -- renowned as the father of Egyptology -- conducted a survey on the funerary complex between 1880 and 1882.
In 1901 and 1902, the IFAO was the first mission to begin in-depth archaeological excavations at the eastern fa│řade of the pyramid at Abu Rawash. The dig was led by the IFAO Director Emile Chassinat, who discovered several archaeological complexes including the remains of a funerary settlement, an empty boat pit and numerous statuary fragments that bore the name of King Djedefre, which allowed for the identification of the tomb owner. Under the direction of Pierre Lacau, the IFAO continued the excavation work and found new structures to the east of the pyramid of Djedefre.
However, an earlier presence was indicated at Abu Rawash as was evidenced by objects bearing the names of the First-Dynasty kings Aha and Den that were found near the pyramid. | <urn:uuid:63b47756-8268-4b34-a15b-c2ae9185294f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2012/1109/he1.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970422 | 897 | 2.734375 | 3 |
Career average pensions for the public sector
The design of huge, new, pension schemes for more than five million staff in the public sector is starting to emerge.
Following the recommendations earlier this year of Lord Hutton's independent report into the future of public sector pensions, the government is negotiating with public service trade unions.
One of Lord Hutton's big ideas was that all staff in the public sector should be moved out of their current pension schemes.
That would apply to staff in the NHS, local government, civil service, schools, and the various "uniformed" services: the armed forces, fire brigades and Police.
They will be offered instead membership of so-called career average schemes, from 2015.
Until now, it has not been clear exactly how the government intended to design these new pension arrangements.
They can vary in detail very considerably, and the detail can make a big difference to how much they cost to fund, and how generous or meagre they are for employees.What we now know
The BBC has learned all the main details, which means we can now assess how these schemes might compare to those currently in place.
The main features are these:
- The higher pension contributions now being asked of public sector staff in their mainly final-salary pensions - averaging an extra 3.2% of their salaries over the next three years - will carry over to the new schemes. Contributions will be less for lower earners.
- The standard 'accrual rate' will be 1/65th. On a salary of £20,000 this gives a pension of £308 a year for each year worked. This is less than the 1/60th accrual rate in place for most final-salary schemes currently, which gives a pension of £333 for each year worked. However, working longer could mean a bigger pension at retirement.
- The revaluation of pension entitlement each year during accrual will be in line with a measure of average earnings, to protect pensions from inflation as they are being built up. That will mean better pensions for many workers, particularly women, and means the perception that all staff will necessarily receive smaller pensions is wrong.
- The normal pension age will rise in line with the state pension age (SPA), which will increase from 65 to 66 by 2020, and to 67 by 2027 as life expectancy increases.
- Pensions in payment will be inflation-proofed, rising in line with the consumer prices index (CPI). Benefits under the current schemes were previously linked to the Retail Prices Index (RPI) but with effect from April 2011 they changed to using CPI. This change is currently being challenged in the courts by trade unions.
From the government's point of view, the proposals are designed to address the rising cost of pensioners living much longer and the perceived unfairness of the current final-salary pension system.
The government wants to maintain the amount that workers receive in retirement (especially for lower earners) but preserve guaranteed, salary-linked benefits that are increasingly rare in the private sector.
The reforms will affect only future pension entitlements for existing scheme members from 2015.
Individual schemes will not be forced to stick to exactly the same scheme design, provided any differences are affordable within the budget that the government has set for them (the 'cost envelope').
The government wants the overall costs of these schemes to be less than at present, and to fall much more on the employees than they do now.
- The new NHS scheme should cost no more than 20.2% of salaries, with staff paying 9.5%.
- The new civil service scheme should cost no more than 20.8% of salaries, with staff paying 5.6%.
- The new teachers' scheme should cost no more than 20.1% of salaries, with staff paying 9.6%.
- The new local government scheme should cost no more than 17.3% of salaries, with employees paying 8%.
There is scope though for schemes to agree important features to suit themselves, such as the severity of pension reductions ('discounting') for those staff who take their pensions before the normal pension age.
The government is apparently even open to the idea of a final-salary structure being retained for an individual scheme, if there is a trade-off with a diluted accrual rate, so that the overall cost of the scheme is still cut and then kept within its desired limits.
It is less likely that the government will agree to schemes moving away from retirement at SPA, since this is critical to keeping costs under control and making the schemes sustainable in the long term.Two pensions
It is important to remember that these changes, if finally put in place, will apply only to future pension entitlements from 2015.
These new schemes will still be among the best on offer in the UK. ”
Pensions already earned (accrued rights) will be protected in full.
These will still be payable on retirement on the basis of a worker's final salary, and at the original pension age, even though the staff will not have accrued any more years of service in their old scheme after the change over has taken place.
So someone whose salary rises between 2015 and eventual retirement will receive more at retirement from their old scheme than if their pension had simply been payable when the change over took place.
They will of course accrue a second stream of pension income under their new scheme.
Hymans Robertson research shows that this message is not getting across - better communication is crucial.
People already have difficulty understanding their existing pensions, let alone these latest proposed changes.
Much more education is needed to help people understand their pensions and how valuable they are.How will scheme members be affected?
What really matters is what all of this means in pounds, shillings and pence.
Here is a typical example for a (fictional) civil servant, Tom.
Current age and service
Pension if current scheme continued
Pension with current scheme until 2015 and new scheme after 2015
Age 40 with 18 years' service
£17,810 at age 60 (including the pension equivalent of the lump sum)
£15,330 at age 60. Or £17,810 at age 62 years and 3 months.
Or £26,942 at age 67.
So, Tom will have choices:
- Retire at age 60 and get a smaller pension.
- Work just over two years longer (to age 62 and three months) to get the same pension.
- Work to the new retirement age of 67 and get a bigger pension.
There is no doubt that Tom will have to contribute more and work longer to get the same pension as before.
The government makes no bones about this.
But it is important to remember these new schemes will still be among the best on offer in the UK.
In a typical private sector defined-contribution scheme, average contributions are currently around 10% of pay (including 6% or 7% from the employer).
So the total cost of providing Tom's benefits under the reformed public sector schemes would be between three and four times that amount.
This does not mean that public service pensions are too generous.
The question that remains is how to improve private sector pensions to adequate levels.
The opinions expressed are those of the author and are not held by the BBC unless specifically stated. The material is for general information only and does not constitute investment, tax, legal or other form of advice. You should not rely on this information to make (or refrain from making) any decisions. Links to external sites are for information only and do not constitute endorsement. Always obtain independent, professional advice for your own particular situation. | <urn:uuid:db329c48-ba48-4dab-aba7-bc5b160da13e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15475716 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00057-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957885 | 1,588 | 1.835938 | 2 |
Let's start with the circular hole ( W_GEN_Beam Service Hole Circ.rfa ). When loaded this can be found under Generic Models.
Go to an elevation of the beam and drag and drop the circular hole family onto it. In this view the outline of the hole is shown in invisible lines, although you can still see and select them when you hover over them as is normal in Revit.Then using Opening By Face cut a hole directly on top of the invisible lines. Use the Pick Lines for the top half and lock the two together.Draw the bottom half using the Line Arc tools.Finish sketch. You now have your opening locked and aligned to the invisible lines in the family.
Thus ensuring the two are always in sync. | <urn:uuid:518c39af-1fb6-4793-97bc-5cc303e102bb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://revit-waterman.blogspot.com/2009_02_01_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.904278 | 153 | 2.015625 | 2 |
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Ready, set, agonize: Five signs of an impending nuclear test from North Korea.
That's right: Just to add to world paranoia, all signs point to a fresh nuclear test from North Korea. The watchword here is "imminent," as South Korea's ambassador to the United Nations recently warned, raising the alarm that Pyongyang may indeed be taking its nuclear experiments to a “higher level," as threatened.
Coming to that conclusion is not, as they say, rocket science. Here are 5 giveaway signs that the isolationist communist country is up to something:
1) THEY ISSUED A TEASER VIDEO. Much like the teaser ads in the runup to the Super Bowl, North Korea just issued an official video threatening to make good on its already-threatened nuclear test, complete with footage glorifying a missile attack on the US. In the video, posted Sunday on the state's official YouTube stream, a man envisions New York buildings hit by streams of prismatic North Korean missile fire. (Forbes pointed out that some of the special effects seem pulled straight from Call of Duty — see the video game scene alongside North Korea's footage here.)
2) SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY DETECTED. Google Street View in North Korea? How about the bext best thing: Satellite photos posted Monday show activity near several of the underground tunnels North Korea used in previous nuclear testing. This is highly suggestive imagery, according to analysts David Albright and Robert Avagyan in a statement posted to the Institute for Science and International Security website.
3) PEOPLE IN THE KNOW SAY SO. "Everything we can see indicates North Korea is technically ready to test with little notice," according to Siegfried S. Hecker, who toured North Korea's nuclear complex two years ago and says he suspects they were working on a secret centrifuge facility at the time. "When to test is now largely a political decision," he wrote Monday in Foreign Policy.
4) NORTH KOREA ANTSY, SOUTH KOREA ANXIOUS. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un announced rare "important" guidelines at a top government meeting on Sunday, said BBC News, a probable indicator of an unusual agenda. South Korea's UN envoy, meanwhile, on Tuesday warned of "very busy activities" at North Korean test sites and said "everybody's watching," according to the Associated Press.
5) THE STARS ARE ALIGNED, says Geoffrey Cain, GlobalPost's senior correspondent in Seoul:
"Knowing how the regime places huge importance on dates, numbers, and superstition, the secret date is most likely on or before February 10, which marks the Lunar New Year for Koreans."
North Korea in January vowed a third, more sophisticated nuclear test after being saddled with fresh international sanctions over its defiant December satellite launch. | <urn:uuid:3aa5fc04-4f4a-4023-bfa0-c1df7926f15b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/130205/5-signs-north-korea-nuclear-test-imminent | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930449 | 587 | 1.671875 | 2 |
view a plan
This is a well-developed introduction to using context clues
3, 4, 5
Title – Using Context Clues: an Introduction
By – Heather C.
Primary Subject – Language Arts
Grade Level – 3-5
Concept / Topic To Teach:
- Context Clues
- South Carolina 4th Grade Standards: 4-3.1, 4-1.8
- The teacher will introduce the concept of using context clues to the students.
- The student will identify missing words from sentences using “context clues.” The student will define unknown words using context clues in a cold passage. The student will find and define unknown words in trade books using context clues.
- “Figure It Out” (see procedures)
- sentences on transparency
- Promethean board
- flipchart, or PowerPoint
- Susie’s Puppy (see procedures) printed on paper (one for each student)
- trade books
Anticipatory Set (Lead-In):
- Today we are going to play a game and try to figure out missing words in sentences. You will have to use your creative juices to figure out which words are covered.
- The teacher will tell the students that they are going to play a game called “Figure It Out”
- Using a transparency, PowerPoint, or flipchart (Promethean Board), the teacher will display the following sentences, one at a time, with the word in all caps covered up:
- The dog ran to fetch the STICK.
- I thought that the camp food would be gross, but actually I found it to be quite DELICIOUS.
- “Come to the kitchen at ONCE,” his mother shouted.
- It was so cold outside that I put on my coat, HAT, and gloves.
- Look how TINY that cat is! I think that is the smallest cat I’ve ever seen!
- The crowd CHEERED as their favorite team entered the football field.
- The teacher will read the sentence aloud, saying “blank” when he/she comes to the covered word.
- The teacher will have the students think about the sentence they are reading and decide what word will go best in the blank.
- The teacher will call on students to share the word they came up with the class.
- The teacher will reveal the covered word with the students.
- The teacher will ask the students how they came up with the answers they came up with.
- Once the class has completed all of the sentences, the teacher will reveal that they used context clues to find the answers to the blanks.
- The teacher will define context clues as “words or sentences around unknown words that help us decide what the unknown word means.”
- The student will brainstorm times when they would need to use context clues.
Plan For Independent Practice:
- The teacher will have the students read the following paragraph (printed on paper) and decide what the “unknown words” mean by using context clues from the story.
- Unknown words:
desired, determined, arrived, elated
- Susie had always
- to have a puppy. She had wanted a puppy since she was two years old! One day, her father told her that he would buy her a new puppy if she completed all of her chores for the week. Susie was
- to get her new puppy. She was willing to do anything, even clean her brother’s bedroom, so that she could get that puppy. Susie cleaned her bedroom and the bathroom. She dusted and vacuumed her entire house. She washed the dishes, swept the kitchen, and cleaned the table. When Susie was finished with her chores, she waited patiently for her father to come home. When he
- , he saw how clean the house was, and told Susie how proud of her he was. Susie was
- when her father took her to buy a new puppy the next morning. She was so happy that she could not keep still the entire time she was in the car. She picked out the cutest puppy she had ever seen!
- On the back of their papers, the students will define each of the unknown words using their context clues.
- The students will then begin 30 minutes of independent reading. The teacher will provide a piece of paper for the students to record any unknown words they find in their trade books that they had to use context clues to figure out. They will also write down what they think the words means based on the context clues.
- The teacher will compile all of the words the students write down onto a “Context Clue” poster to display in the room.
- The students will orally tell a partner the definitions of context clues. The students will orally tell a partner how they can use context clues.
Assessment Based On Objectives:
- Student definitions of unknown words in “Susie’s Puppy” (formal), words students find in trade books and student definitions of these words(informal)
- Students may be paired heterogeneously with a partner to complete the cold passage “Susie’s Puppy.” The teacher may read the passage “Susie’s Puppy” aloud with the students.
Possible Connections To Other Subjects:
- Students may use their context clues to define vocabulary words in science and social students textbooks.
E-Mail Heather C. ! | <urn:uuid:d9da956c-0b2d-441e-88bf-7acb5754bffe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://lessonplanspage.com/laintroductiontousingcontextclues35-htm/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95387 | 1,156 | 4.4375 | 4 |
reCAPTCHA seems like a perfect match for Google: it's a project that generates CAPTCHAs and uses the results to digitize books. "reCAPTCHA improves the process of digitizing books by sending words that cannot be read by computers to the Web in the form of CAPTCHAs for humans to decipher. (...) Each new word that cannot be read correctly by OCR is given to a user in conjunction with another word for which the answer is already known. The user is then asked to read both words. If they solve the one for which the answer is known, the system assumes their answer is correct for the new one."
It's no wonder that Google decided to acquire reCAPTCHA and use the service to improve Google Book Search's digitizing accuracy.
"reCAPTCHA's unique technology improves the process that converts scanned images into plain text, known as Optical Character Recognition (OCR). This technology also powers large scale text scanning projects like Google Books and Google News Archive Search. Having the text version of documents is important because plain text can be searched, easily rendered on mobile devices and displayed to visually impaired users. So we'll be applying the technology within Google not only to increase fraud and spam protection for Google products but also to improve our books and newspaper scanning process." | <urn:uuid:dc6e8403-9569-40d0-a35a-662921c475fd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://googlesystem.blogspot.jp/2009/09/google-buys-recaptcha.html?showComment=1253189749983 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00053-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945026 | 267 | 2.96875 | 3 |
ALTERATIONS IN THE NAVAL RULES AND REGULATIONS.
COMMUNICATED TO THE SENATE, JANUARY 3, 1820.
Navy Department, December 29, 1819.
In obedience to a resolution of the honorable the Senate of the 8th of February last, I have the honor to report, that, on examination of the rules, regulations, and instructions for the naval Service, prepared and reported under the authority of an act of Congress of the 7th day of February, 1815, they are found to be at variance with existing laws, in the following particulars:
The fourteenth article, under the head of "Navy Yards," places the guard of marines detached for the protection of the yard under the command of the commandant of the yard, in the same manner as if on board a ship of war, and, of course, subjects the marines to the rules and articles for the government of the navy. This is conceived to be contrary to the act of July 11, 1798, establishing and organizing a marine corps, and by which act the corps is considered as being in addition to the military establishment; and, by a fair construction of the fourth section of the act, marines, when doing duty on shore, are to be governed by the rules and articles of war prescribed for the military establishment of the United States. It is, however, respectfully submitted for consideration, whether an amendment of the law, so as to make it conform to the rules and regulations in this respect, will not be expedient. It might contribute to order and due subordination to make the commandant of a yard as independent in his yard, in all respects, as a captain on board his, ship. Should this be thought to interfere too much with the command and government of the marine corps, it is suggested, as worthy of consideration, whither it would not be expedient, for the protection of navy yards, to substitute watches, to be composed of sailors selected from the list of pensioners, and such others as have distinguished themselves for integrity, sobriety, and general good conduct, in the place of guards detached from the corps of marines: this would give employments a very meritorious class of men, who, by their age and disabilities, are rendered unfit for active sea service. It is believed that such protection would be not only more efficient, but might be provided at much less expense than at present. It is not intended by this suggestion to intimate that the present establishment of the marine corps should be reduced; but, on the contrary, if guards for the navy yards are to be detached from this corps, as our ships of war multiply, it will very soon become indispensably necessary to increase its number.
By the 28th article of the regulations under the head of "Pursers," the component parts of the ration are different from those fixed by the act of Congress of the 3d of March, 1801, as will be seen by comparing the third section of the act with the article above referred to. Tea and sugar have been substituted in lieu of suet and half the rice formerly issued. Whether it will be expedient so to alter the law as to make the ration conformable to the regulation is respectfully submitted.
By the act of Congress of the 21st of April, 1806, it is declared that officers, when not under orders for actual service, shall receive no more than half their monthly pay; and by the third article of the rules and regulations under the head of "Full and half pay and rations," it is provided that such officers shall be entitled to only half their pay and half their rations. Doubts have been entertained whether the law authorizes the allowance of half the rations. Although I am of opinion that a just interpretation of the law is in conformity with the regulation as it stands, yet it is submitted whether, for the purpose of removing all doubt, it is not expedient to make the law more explicit.
These are the only instances in which I have discovered the rules and regulations at variance with existing laws. By the resolution of the honorable the Senate, I am also required to report whether, in my opinion, any further legislative provision is necessary to give force and effect to these rules and regulations. By the act of 7th of February, 1815, the Commissioners of the Navy, with the consent of the Secretary of the Navy, were required to prepare such rules and regulations as should be necessary for securing a uniformily in the several classes of vessels and their equipments, and for repairing and refitting them, and for securing responsibility in the subordinate officers and agents; which regulations, when approved by the President, the act declares shall be respected and obeyed, until altered and revoked by the same authority. So far as the rules relate to the subjects upon which they were to be prepared, as specified in the act aforesaid, they may be binding and operative without any further legislative provision. But it will be perceived, from an examination of the rules and regulations, that many of them relate to subjects not enumerated, or coming within the purview of the act under which they were prepared; in which cases, they have not the force and effect of laws, and further legislative provision is necessary to give them such effect. It is believed that some additions to these regulations might be advantageously made; and it is respectfully suggested that they be revised and reported to Congress, and, when adopted, expressly made, by law, rules and regulations for the government of the navy of the United States.
By the resolution I am also required to report any other provisions which I may deem proper for the more perfect administration of the naval service.
Believing it to fall within the scope of the resolution, I would respectfully suggest the propriety of making some additional grades in the rank of naval officers. The rank of captain is now the highest grade in the navy recognised by law; and heretofore, during the infancy of our navy, and whilst we had no vessels of a higher class than frigates, and the number of captains small, it was, perhaps, as high a grade as the good of the service required. It is, how ever, believed that, from the addition both to the number and class of our public ships, and from what may reasonably be anticipated to be the situation of our navy in the course of a few years, both justice and policy require some higher grades of office. According to the relative rank as now established between the military and naval officers, a captain in the navy only ranks with a colonel in the army: this is thought to be contrary to sound policy and the good of the service. The importance of rank, both in the military and naval service, will readily occur to all in any degree acquainted with either. It is, therefore, respectfully suggested, that the grades of commodore and rear admiral be established by law. This, it is confidently believed, would essentially contribute, if not absolutely necessary, to due subordination and discipline. In a fleet or squadron, when the different vessels may be commanded by officers of the same grade, and their relative rank, and even that of the commander, known only by the dates of their commissions, there will not be that respect and subordination observed that are essential to order and harmony. Should the increased expense be deemed an objection at the present time, let the number of officers to be appointed be few; and, indeed, the establishment of these grades is considered so essential to the prosperity of the navy, that it is an object deserving attention, should there be no additional compensation allowed.
I would further beg leave to suggest the propriety of some amendment of the laws relative to the surgeons in the navy. It would be desirable to establish grades in this class of officers also; at all events, justice and sound policy require a gradation in their pay and emoluments. The compensation ought to be, in some measure, regulated by the importance of the station in which they are placed, and the talents and qualifications required for the due and faithful discharge of the duty imposed. Whether the compensation now allowed is sufficient to call into the service the talents and learning which its importance demands is respectfully submitted. A division of these officers into classes, according to the rate of the vessel in which they shall serve, is thought would be beneficial, and is suggested for consideration; and this would afford a just standard by which to regulate their pay. The designation of some officer to be placed at the head of this class of officers, and who should have the immediate superintendence of this branch of the service, under regulations for that purpose to be established, is believed would contribute much to the benefit of the service.
The rules and regulations recognise and assign particular duties to several officers not known in the law, such as surgeons of the fleet, hospital surgeons, and medical purveyors. Although this is considered as fit and proper and beneficial to the service, yet some legal provision is necessary to give such officers the rank and authority contemplated by the regulations. These, and many other subjects in relation to this class of officers, the details of which could not with propriety be embraced in this report, seem to require attention and legal provision. All which is respectfully submitted:
The Hon. the President of the Senate. | <urn:uuid:37aa04ec-4af1-4c01-b4e8-6e8625c6942d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/USN/1820/18200103Rules.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976111 | 1,901 | 1.84375 | 2 |
(CNN) -- "If it's your first marriage, you've got a 50-50 chance," Doyle Hamilton said, looking around the room. "If it's your second, you've got less than that."
A few couples shifted uncomfortably under his unwavering gaze. One woman kicked her fiancé under the table.
"The No. 1 indicator of divorce is not conflict," Hamilton continued. "The No. 1 indicator of divorce is the AVOIDANCE of conflict. Marriage is hard work. We want you to program that into your brains."
If it sounds like an intro speech at boot camp, there's a reason. Hamilton, a pastoral counselor and family therapist, was preparing these eight engaged couples for the rest of their lives together. And he wasn't about to soften the facts.
"All married couples have unsolvable differences. ... Change can happen. But you can't change him and he can't change you."
Hamilton spends one Saturday a month leading this nondenominational premarital workshop in a bare classroom at the Cathedral of St. Philip in Atlanta, Georgia. Couples like Rachel Moreno and Joshua Williams spend the day exploring issues such as communication, relationship balance, family origins, expectations and life goals.
"We agreed upon getting engaged that premarital counseling would be a must so that we could get a head start on preventing potential major problems," Moreno said.
For Moreno and Williams, both 26, the workshop was a carefully planned step in their relationship. The University of Georgia graduates had been taking it slow since meeting in 2002, postponing their engagement for nearly eight years.
"It really freaked me out that a lot of people in our age group weren't making it," Moreno said. "Until I could get a better handle on it and be more secure in [the idea of marriage], I didn't even want to go down that route."
It's a common outlook for young couples, according to California psychotherapist Lisa Brookes Kift. She's seen a big increase in her premarital counseling practice, as well as sales of her online premarital workbook, in recent years.
"For people in their mid-20s, even early-30s, there's been a dimmed view of marriage... they're seeing divorce everywhere and I think that might be a part of it."
Participation in Hamilton's workshop has more than doubled since 2005 -- from 44 couples to 108 in 2009. Marriage prep education appears to be increasing nationwide, said Dr. Alan Hawkins, a professor of family life at Brigham Young University. While many couples in decades past have been required by clergy to attend, premarital counseling is becoming more popular among the nonreligious as well.
Some may wonder about the value of premarital education, Hawkins wrote in one of his research papers, but with changing gender roles, economic independence for women and no-fault divorce laws, "there is an increasing need for greater knowledge and relationship skills for contemporary marriages to succeed."
Six states -- Florida, Maryland, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Georgia and Tennessee -- have passed legislation that encourages couples to attend premarital counseling by offering reductions on marriage license fees. These laws are likely to strengthen marriages and reduce the divorce rate in the states where they're implemented, Hawkins wrote.
Hamilton said relationship skill-building is a major movement in the marriage therapy field as well. The theory is that couples can learn to better relate and communicate their issues before it's too late, he said.
"We try to encourage them to talk about the things that really matter," Hamilton said. Most are uncomfortable subjects for couples to discuss, including money, religion, children and sexuality. Some couples come in unsure if their issues are insurmountable. Others are in denial and have so many unresolved issues that Hamilton questions their upcoming nuptials.
"If you don't deal with what you need to deal with, it will go underground and it will eventually raise its ugly head," he said.
Joshua Senneff has seen this firsthand. The married man of three years has several friends who didn't go through premarital counseling.
"It is interesting to see how 'little' things in their relationships have become 'big' things because they were not addressed prior to marriage," Senneff said.
Senneff and his wife, Kathryn Senneff, did private couples counseling on the recommendation of their family and church. They said they wanted to do everything they could to start their marriage on the right foot.
Until recently, the Senneffs used Joshua's parents as the foundation for their ideal relationship. But the elder couple's divorce last month shook Joshua Senneff's view on how a marriage should work.
"That will really cause you to question the sacredness of marriage," he said. "I feel that the tools we learned in our premarital counseling have significantly helped us through these trying times as our 'baseline' has disappeared."
Kift feels for couples in similar situations who, with the high divorce rate, no longer have strong role models to look to. Yet the therapist is hopeful that the happy couples she sees coming to her for premarital counseling will make it.
"Maybe there's a trend in reversing it -- let's do this so that we do survive, we want to survive," Kift said. "I think if more people did this work, I think they would be better able to weather the storms that come in." | <urn:uuid:3b22daec-f64f-4423-9728-6c91039ae8d3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/08/09/premarital.counseling/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980292 | 1,126 | 1.703125 | 2 |
"He told them people in Brisbane were 'racist as f—' and he was 'uncomfortable' and wanted to go home.
"'I get this weird vibe,' he wrote.
"Later, he added 'Im in Brisbane Right Now….They hate Niggas Out Here….' but added that MLBRN (Melbourne) 'was cool'".
"'What is an Arab?' Shaheen asks in the book. 'In countless films, Hollywood alleges the answer: Arabs are brute murderers, sleazy rapists, religious fanatics, oil-rich dimwits, and abusers of women.'
"But Arab directors and critics in the Middle East are divided on Shaheen's thesis."
"Since the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, however, along with a subsequent rise of ethnic nationalism and race-related violence, an increasing number of Roma have migrated to the United States, but are still largely the least integrated ethnic group in America, along with Native Americans.
"'In America it's more of a bureaucratic marginalisation. It's kind of a Kafka-esque process of racism on paper,' says Sani Rifati, president of the California-based non-profit organisation Voice of Roma (VoR), which promotes and presents Romani cultural arts and traditions to contribute to the preservation and education of Romani identity and culture. 'A Liberal Democrat will pitch tolerance, which is just really words in the air. In Europe, the racism is more out in the open.'"
"Mark Potok, one of the directors of the Southern Poverty Law Center in Alabama, goes one step further, saying that the KKK is completely irrelevant in today’s society and the counter-protest event at Arlington further illustrates their currently decentralized leadership. According to Potok, nationwide membership is scattered, and Pierce’s 'Ku Klux Klan, LLC' is just one of many groups who refer to themselves as the 'one true Klan.'
'Even the radical right just considers them a bunch of losers who have completely lost their effectiveness,' Potok said. “'They’re nothing but a bunch of pack animals snapping at each other, trying to establish dominance.'”
"this is partly why Kreayshawn makes me mad. The White Girl Mob media darling blowing up the interwebs whose potential deal with Sony is making waves makes me angry in a way I haven’t been in a long time. Her appropriative swag is yet another reminder (not that we needed any more this month) of how little black women are valued in our society, even in genres we co-create. In a moment where cool is synonymous with swag, a particular manifestation of black masculinity, Kreayshawn’s dismissiveness and denigration of black women animate her success.
"'It’s like tumblr made a video,' said one tumblrite, speaking of the white Cali hipster aesthetics of Kreyashawn’s Gucci Gucci."
"Behind the polite, Southern veneer of this city of nearly 270,000, voters' angry voices rise up in the City Council chamber, linking modern political and budgetary issues to racial divides. "'You would think racial issues would be the last thing to cause tension because people would have learned from racial inequality through the years,' said Sharon Hightower, local NAACP board treasurer and a Greensboro resident since 1986. 'It's like we're going backwards.'"
"The organization seeks to highlight the historic moments in New Orleans’s struggle for racial equality and hopes to remind the public of the story behind the famous case. It was, Plessy and Ferguson said, a forerunner of the legal strategies and civil disobedience that took root in the civil rights struggles of the 20th century."
About This BlogRacialicious is a blog about the intersection of race and pop culture. Check out our daily updates on the latest celebrity gaffes, our no-holds-barred critique of questionable media representations, and of course, the inevitable
Keanu ReevesJohn Cho newsflashes.
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Wildman, Wesley J. and Robert John Russell. Chaos: A Mathematical Introduction with Philosophical Reflections.
Wesley J. Wildman and Robert
John Russells article surveys the mathematical details of a single equation,
the logistic equation, which has become a hallmark of this field, at least
within the circles of theology and science. The logistic equation displays
many of the generic features of chaotic dynamical systems: the transition from regular
to apparently random behavior, the presence of period- doubling bifurcation
cascades, the influence of attractors, and the underlying characteristics of a
fractal. They then raise philosophical questions based on the mathematical
analysis and conclude with possible theological implications.
The logistic equation is a
simple, quadratic equation or map, xn+1 = kxn(1-xn),
which iteratively generates a sequences of states of the system represented by
the variable x. The tuning constant k represents the influence of the
environment on the system. One starts from an initial state x0 and a
specified value for the tuning constant k to generate x1.
Substituting x1 back into the map generates x2, and so
on. Although incredibly simple at face value, the logistic map actually
displays remarkably complex behavior, much of which is still the focus of
active scientific research.
The behavior of the iterated
sequence produced by the logistic map can be divided into five regimes. The
constant k determines which regime the sequence occupies as well as much of the
behavior within that regime. In Regime I, the sequence converges to 0. In
Regime II, the sequence converges on a single positive limit which depends on
k. In Regime III, bifurcations set in and increase in powers of two as k
increases. Moreover, the initial conditions have a significant permanent effect
on the system in the form of phase shifts. Chaos sets in in Regime IV. Here
chaotic sequences are separated by densely packed bifurcation regions and there
is maximal dependence on initial conditions. For most values of k, the
sequences seem to fluctuate at random and the periodic points found in previous
regimes appear to be absent. Nevertheless, for almost all values of k we
actually find highly intricate bifurcation structures, and the sequences fall
within broad bands, suggesting an underlying orderliness to the system. Finally
in Regime V, chaos is found on the Cantor subset of x.
There is no universally
accepted mathematical definition of chaos capturing all cases of interest. Defining chaos simply as randomness proves
too vague because this term acquires new and more precise shades of meaning in
the mathematics of chaos theory.
Defining chaos in terms of sensitive dependence on initial conditions
(the butterfly effect) results in the inclusion of many maps that otherwise
display no chaotic behavior. The
definition adopted here requires a chaotic map to meet three conditions: mixing (the effect of repeated stretching
and folding), density of periodic points (a condition suggesting orderliness),
and sensitive dependence.
Interestingly, in the case of the logistic map and many similar chaotic
maps, mixing is the fundamental condition, as it entails the other two.
The paper also addresses the
question of the predictability of chaotic systems. On the one hand, a chaotic system such as the logistic map is
predictable in principle, since the sequence of iterations is generated by a
strict governing equation. On the other
hand, chaotic systems are eventu ally unpredictable in practice, since most
values of the initial conditions cannot be specified precisely, and even if
they could, the information necessary to specify them cannot be stored
physically. Yet these systems are also temporarily predictable in practice,
since one can predict the amount of time which will elapse before mathematical
calculations will cease to match the state of the system. This leads to a definition of chaotic
randomness as a tertium quid
between strict randomness (as in one common interpretation of quantum physics),
and the complete absence of randomness.
What implications does
mathematical chaos have for a philosophy of nature? It is superficial to say that the mathematical determinism of
chaotic equations requires metaphysical determinism in nature, because of
complexities in the experimental testing of the mathematical models used in
chaos theory. In particular, it may be very difficult to distinguish
phenomenologically between chaos, sufficiently complicated periodicity, and
strict randomness, even though these are entirely distinct mathematically.
There are additional practical limitations to the testing of chaotic models of
natural systems, including sensitivity to the effects of the environment (such
as heat noise or long-range interactions), and the fact that the development of
the physical system eventually out paces even the fastest calculations.
conclusions are drawn from this. On the
one hand, the causal whole-part relations between environment and system, the
causal connnectedness implied in the butterfly effect, and the fact that much
of the apparent randomness of nature can now be brought under the umbrella of
chaos, are best seen as supporting evidence for the hypothesis of metaphysical
determinism. On the other hand,
however, there are profound epistemic and explanatory limitations on the
testing of chaos theory due to the peculiar nature of chaotic randomness. In this sense, chaos theory places a
fundamental and unexpected new limit on how well the hypothesis of metaphysical
determinism can be supported.
On the basis of these
philosophical conclusions, what relevance does chaos theory have for theology?
On the one hand, it will be bad news to those who simply assume that nature
is open to the free actions of God and people, and particularly bad news to
those who mistakenly appeal to chaos theory to establish this. On the other hand, chaos theory will be
irrelevant to theologians operating with a supervening solution to the problem
of divine action, such as Kants, that is able to affirm human freedom and
divine action even in the presence of strict metaphysical determinism. At still another level chaos theory is good
news to the theological project and bad news for polemical determinists. Due to the fundamental, new limitation in
the testability of chaos theory, one can never fully exclude the possibility
that classical physics as we now have it, including chaos theory, will be
replaced by a better model of the world at the classical
level which allows for divine causality in some way. This opens a window of
hope for speaking intelligibly about special, natural-law-conforming divine
acts, and it is a window that seems to be impossible in principle to close.
The article includes an
extended bibliography of textbooks, key technical articles, experimental
applications, useful introductions and surveys, and selected works on chaos
theory and theology.
link | Printer-friendly | Feedback | Contributed by: CTNS/Vatican Observatory | <urn:uuid:8a539292-cac6-402d-a056-b5fa81187e77> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.counterbalance.org/ctns-vo/manwe-body.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.907008 | 1,476 | 2.75 | 3 |
Wombwell Dam, Wombwell, Barnsley, UK
Posted by: wireworm
N 53° 30.908 W 001° 25.695
30U E 604217 N 5930726
Quick Description: A reservoir and a small pond in Wombwell Woods, South Yorkshire.
Location: Yorkshire, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 4/21/2012 10:53:48 AM
Waymark Code: WME95Q
The fishery consists of a small pond and an old pit reservoir. The pond is situated just inside the wood and is stream fed, the overflow water is then gravity fed by pipe into the reservoir on a lower level. Reservoir is quite narrow and shallower at the inlet end but widens out and deepens towards the dam wall. Waters are coarse mixed fisheries with pond holding smaller fish and the reservoir has a large head of big carp along with many other large species.
There are well made wooden stages (pegs) round the reservoir. Day tickets are available on the bank from the bailiffs, reservoir £5.00 per day and top pond £4.00 per day.
Entrance is from Woodhead Lane parking area with a loose white stone single lane roadway leading to a parking area for those fishing. This is near to the top pond with footpaths leading all round.
Woods are run by the Forestry Commission- | <urn:uuid:6f81b0e9-cd3c-4752-9d83-771993962df4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WME95Q_Wombwell_Dam_Wombwell_Barnsley_UK | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.919234 | 289 | 1.5625 | 2 |