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Gov. Nathan Deal is asking the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to suspend the federal requirement to add ethanol to gasoline, joining livestock and poultry farmers and several other governors who’ve made similar requests because of the price of corn.
Most U.S. ethanol is produced from corn. And with the drought in the Midwest pushing corn prices up, poultry and livestock producers in Georgia and elsewhere are paying more to feed their animals.
When Congress mandated in 2005 that ethanol be blended into gas, it gave the EPA administrator power to waive the requirement if it caused severe economic harm. That’s the case Deal is making.
In a letter to EPA administrator Lisa Jackson, Deal points to a University of Georgia estimate that the state's poultry producers are already spending $1.4 million extra on feed every day. The governor said the resulting higher prices in stores will mean some Georgians can’t afford chicken anymore.
Georgia Poultry Federation president Mike Giles said the drought-induced high corn prices are unsustainable and only getting worse.
“The impact is severe already, and one of the reactions could be producing less chicken," Giles said. "The ripple effects that could have throughout the economy could be severe.”
“It is unsustainable to pay $9 for a bushel of corn for over a certain amount of time," said Tom Super, vice president of communications at the National Chicken Council. "And another negative effect would be the cost at the supermarket being passed onto consumers.”
Georgia is dependent on Midwest grain to feed poultry and other livestock. Deal is joining five other governors and dozens of members of Congress with his request. They hope suspending the ethanol fuel mandate will ease prices and provide more feed.
The EPA has 90 days to decide on the governors’ requests.
The poultry industry has a $20 billion economic impact on Georgia each year. The state is the nation’s top chicken producer. | <urn:uuid:d04e33ab-d570-4110-a488-179a22c3b9c4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gpb.org/news/2012/08/23/deal-asks-epa-to-pause-ethanol-mandate | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950046 | 395 | 2.0625 | 2 |
Recently, the Verdigris High School Robotics team won a series of regional tournaments to qualify for the FIRST Robotics state tournament. Students will compete March 1-2 at Southwestern Okla. State in Muskogee.
The team’s success comes in large part from the company sponsors who have helped fund the program since it began four years ago.
VHS teacher and team sponsor Tamra Olsen and husband Don Olson have worked to bring in engineers from LMI Aerospace, Port of Catoosa and CF Industries to help with funding.
“It can get expensive,” she said. “Without our sponsors and community involvement it would be hard to continue this type of program.”
Olson said the team relys heavily on corporations and student fundraisers.
Robotics is offered as a lab through the Physics class in which students receive a grade.
“They’ll usually stay to help out after the class is completed because they like it so much, said Olson.”
To earn a shot at nationals, the VHS robotics team will need to place first or second in the state tournament.
The FIRST Robotics national tournament is set for April in St. Louis. | <urn:uuid:aa75a84b-e4f5-49b8-a48f-216a673c468e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://claremoreprogress.com/local/x503847104/VHS-Robotics-team-gears-up-for-state-tournament/print | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959902 | 247 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Economy: The media machine that desperately wants Barack Obama re-elected has turned its focus on what it says are good unemployment numbers. The truth, though, is the job climate in America is miserable.
While the media and the administration portray the most recent jobs number — 8.3% unemployment — as good economic news, more sober minds understand what's really going on. The facts show a jobs slump that should not get an incumbent president re-elected.
Sure, the jobless rate is falling. But according to the Congressional Budget Office, we are going through the longest stretch of high unemployment since the Depression. The rate has been higher than 8% since February 2009, the month after Obama took office.
And, says the CBO, it is expected to stay above 8% through 2014.
Even worse for an administration straining to make the case that it deserves to be around for another four years is the real unemployment rate. It's not 8.3%, but closer to 15%, a figure that reflects those who "would like to work but have not searched for a job in the past four weeks as well as those who are working part time but would prefer full-time work," says the CBO.
Another White House problem comes from this in the CBO report: "The share of unemployed people looking for work for more than six months — referred to as the long-term unemployed — topped 40% in December 2009 for the first time since 1948, when such data began to be collected; it has remained above that level ever since."
The CBO data aren't isolated. Gallup reports that its unemployment rate based on weekly surveys stands at 9%, while underemployment is at a hefty 19%.
Also threatening Obama's re-election offensive is the nation's shrinking labor force (see chart). Many laid-off workers, frustrated by grim prospects, have stopped looking for jobs and are no longer in the labor pool.
That makes the jobless rate look better, as that number is a percentage of the labor force, not the overall national population. But those jobless Americans are real people who will cast real votes in November.
The trouble is fixing these facts in voters' minds. They need to know the full truth, not the half-truth the media and the White House feed them. | <urn:uuid:8d832cf9-d87d-43ab-81e9-d641e3ce283e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/021712-601660-obama-jobless-rate-threatens-re-election.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976 | 469 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Kaizen (Continuous Improvement) & Quality Circles
This forms part of the ‘Japanese’ approach to management, or ‘Lean Production’.
Kaizen , or ‘Continuous Improvement’ is a policy of constantly introducing small incremental changes in a business in order to improve quality and/or efficiency. This approach assumes that employees are the best people to identify room for improvement, since they see the processes in action all the time. A firm that uses this approach therefore has to have a culture that encourages and rewards employees for their contribution to the process.
Kaizen can operate at the level of an individual, or through Kaizen Groups or Quality Circles which are groups specifically brought together to identify potential improvements. This approach would also be compatible with Team working or Cell Production, as improvements could form an important part of the team’s aims.
Key features of Kaizen:
- Improvements are based on many, small changes rather than the radical changes that might arise from Research and Development
- As the ideas come from the workers themselves, they are less likely to be radically different, and therefore easier to implement
- Small improvements are less likely to require major capital investment than major process changes
- The ideas come from the talents of the existing workforce, as opposed to using R&D, consultants or equipment – any of which could be very expensive
- All employees should continually be seeking ways to improve their own performance
- It helps encourage workers to take ownership for their work, and can help reinforce team working, thereby improving worker motivation
As Kaizen is characterised by many, small improvements over time, it contrasts with the major leaps seen in industry when radical new technology or production methods have been introduced. Over the years, the sheer volume of Kaizen improvements can lead to major advances for a firm, but managers cannot afford to overlook the need for radical change from time to time. For example, many UK manufacturers and service companies have found it necessary to outsource processes to cheaper centres such as India and China – these changes would be unlikely to arise from Kaizen.
Whilst staff suggestions can help to enrich the work for many employees, Kaizen can be seen as an unrelenting process. Some firms set targets for individuals or for teams to come up with a minimum number of ideas in a period of time. Employees can find this to be an unwelcome pressure, as it becomes increasingly difficult to find further scope for improvement. Some firms, especially Japanese-owned, conduct quality improvement sessions in the workers’ own time, which can lead to resentment unless there is appropriate recognition and reward for suggestions.
For Kaizen to be effective there has to be a culture of trust between staff and managers, supported by a democratic structure and a Theory Y view of employees. Good two-way communications and a de-layered organisation would also support this approach. Nevertheless, some workers might see the demands as an extra burden rather than an opportunity and it can take time to embed Kaizen successfully into an organisation’s culture.
|Production & Operations Glossary - Key Terms|
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Company Registration Number: 04489574 | VAT Reg No 816865400 | <urn:uuid:1361b1c2-71ca-41a2-833b-5edc8b88575b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tutor2u.net/business/production/kaizen-quality-circles-continuous-improvement.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937781 | 698 | 2.203125 | 2 |
We write this letter to put an end to speculation, character attacks, and misinformation. Over the past few months an old issue concerning mandated state testing (HSPA- New Jersey High School Proficiency Assessment) in Hoboken High School has been brought to our attention. Apparently, the recent ranking of Hoboken High School among New Jersey High Schools in New Jersey Monthly prompted a forensic explanation and rationalization for various political groups-- each placing blame and taking credit for exposing and ending certain remediation practices and policies at Hoboken High. Late in the 2007-2008 school year, our first year in the district, we became aware of a practice in which students were identified for intense remediation and identified to receive extra instruction in order to help improve performance on the HSPA test. Data indicated that sometimes this intense remediation and course taking resulted in students not attaining the proper number of Carnegie units in a particular subject (usually in Mathematics or English as these were the subjects often in need of improvement) leading to being officially classified as a freshman or sophomore for two successive years—yet remaining with their initial cohort for all their other classes. In other words, no one was "left back" and all were eligible to graduate after 4 years and all either eventually took the HSPA test or the Special Review Assessment (SRA) now known as the Alternative High School Assessment required by the State of New Jersey.
What differed is when the test was taken, not if or whether the test was taken. This program existed only in the high school. Upon being made aware of this practice- and wanting to implement a new approach to remediation, we began a 12 month process to phase this practice out. Therefore, in March 2008 the top 50 percent of the identified remedial students were tested along with their junior year cohort and by the March 2009 test administration a year later, the so called "10r" remediation program was eliminated entirely. Like any remediation program, the policy had its advocates and critics as well as its successes and its challenges. Our decision to explain, discuss and ultimately end the remediation program and replace it with a more comprehensive full faculty instructional practices approach- including collaborative study groups and professional learning communities- was supported by the Board of Education and the district administration in March 2009. No one on the Board complained of the remediation program in place nor of the faculty program to replace it. That this remediation program apparently is being used as a political football (irresponsibly referred to as "cheating" at a recent public debate), years after its termination is unfortunate. It is our opinion that the children of the district would be best served by effectively and systemically addressing the current and ongoing challenges of high stakes testing, rankings, graduation rates, and critiques from state and federal reports in a comprehensive and thoughtful manner rather than combing the past for scapegoats and excuses. To that end, we wish them all the best.
Dr. Lorraine Cella
Hoboken High School Principal 2007-2010
Dr. Anthony Petrosino
Assistant to the Superintendent 2007-2009 | <urn:uuid:6cf094a9-2fcc-4ba4-9d1d-25691a2b6753> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hudsonreporter.com/pages/full_stories_home/push?article-No+one+%E2%80%98cheated%E2%80%99+on+state+test+scores%20&id=20784844 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970301 | 620 | 1.601563 | 2 |
There are two groups of
manatees found in the oceans waters. The Caribean manatee is found
in the Caribean Sea, along the northeasten coast of South America,
and the coastal waters of the southeastern United States. The African
manatee lives in rivers and in the coastal waters of western Africa.
They are basicly herbivores, eating plants that grow in deep waters or
plants that are found on the surface. The manatee grows to be about
10 to 13 feet and weighs about 3,500 pounds. A manatee can eat up
to 100 pounds of food a day. The manatee is a slow moving sea animal.
It is endangered because it is hunted for its hide, flesh, and oils.
Many have also been hit by passing motor boats because the manatee is so
slow. The manatee is being protected from hunting wherever it lives.
Animals | Plant Life | Shipwrecks | Underwater World Home | <urn:uuid:edbea7bf-d159-4276-8f65-99cc1c379885> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://library.thinkquest.org/5632/manatee.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955175 | 209 | 3.25 | 3 |
Hope this forum is still being used :)
After reading some of the other threads I went to the TV Tropes site and read the Mohrs' Scale of Sci-Fi Hardness article (link) which discusses how "hard" or "soft" particular sci-fi's are. Just thought that a discussion concering this would be interesting; how hard do people like their sci-fi, how hard do they make it, and do they put soft elements in a hard story, or vice-versa?
I'll start, with a shameless plug. My story MechKnight is set in a future-Europe patterned politically and socially after the Catholic Roman Empire and the Holy Roman Empire (a fairly soft element) without any nuclear fusion, time travel, bionics, widely and commonly used genetic engineering etc. (relatively hard) that nevertheless has weapons-grade lasers (a little soft) and 'mechs (pretty floppy, really . . .) I like to think it is harder than it is soft (mainly due to the fact that I have tried to explain technology at least in my head, and always give little nods to weapons and armor technology that is current. So, for example, anti-armor missiles are shaped charges, and the armor is reactive armor, spaced armor, and armor containing dilatant layers and so forth. The 'mechs are also driven rather than being controled by thought-waves or something.
I was intrigued by this notion - how hard do we like our sci-fi, and how hard do we write it? And can there be soft elements (generally speaking, less plausible ones) which are justified because of the "rule of cool" or because it is the central theme of the work? As an example from my own story, the softest element is the presence of the 'mechs despite all the problems that would cause. But that is the focus of the story - it is a tale about 'mechs in order to basically tell a story about quasi "knights" in a world with pseudo-modern morals and mores, rather than a quasi-mediaeval world.
Anyway, I'd welcome any comments or discussion!2/16/2009 #1
I try to base my SF hardness/softness based on one factor: Avoiding softness and ensuring hardness in my science should not get in the way of the story being entertaining.2/16/2009 #2
"Avoiding softness and ensuring hardness in my science should not get in the way of the story being entertaining."
I think that you have neatly encapsulated what I was trying to get across in a single sentence! (My excuse is I've been involved in some stupid flame war for most of the day which started because I was trying to be a nice guy, so I am distracted.)
A follow-up question, if you will; do we think that "soft" elements are often put in place for the purpose of telling an entertaining story? That is, do we have a "hard" universe in which the "soft" bits allow us to actually write a story rather than a reference book.2/16/2009 #3
I think a soft element arises because some element of the story or setting requires it. The quintessencial example of that would be FTL travel. It's a very soft "science" no matter what the setting is. You can't really justify it, only handwave it. But if you're going to travel outside of a single solar system, it's a necessity. Hardness is to assist suspension of disbelief; softness is to facilitate your story's ability to happen. Or to make things awesome. (Think about Jedi and lightsabers, hyperspace/Warp/any other FTL travel, and various substances and metals and such that act in impossible ways)2/16/2009 #4
I got most of my sci-fi knowledge from very, well, not necessarily soft sources, I guess it depends on how you define it, I've never heard of this scale before, but I learned from Douglass Adams, Doctor Who, (a bit of) Battle Star Galactica. I like my entertainment mixed with science, but my knowledge of science is limited so I don't pursue stuff too complicated for me to understand. A line I really like goes something along the lines of "at a certain level, there is no difference between science and magic" and I think to the everyday person that's true.3/12/2010 #5
I abide by The Rule Of Cool, which means that my works are pretty soft. You can almost gurantee that there will be Sufficiently Advanced Aliens in my stories.4/05/2011 #6
I am an old fashioned hard sci fi fan. There is a great deal of eminently laudable soft sci fi out there, but I love westerns in space. For me sci fi is about the ever expanding frontier and the cultures that develop when they are light years away form the mores of their parent cultures. It is the endless possibilities inherent in exploration, and all of the romance and danger of exploring the unknown. If I want magic I will read fantasy.10/06/2011 #7
@ Anna Cate: That's True! Arthur C. Clarke said that "Magic is just science we haven't discovered yet." that quote of his was also featured in the movie "Thor" which was released early last year. :)8/31/2012 #8
|Forum Moderators: Agathon|
|Membership Length: 2+ years 1 year 6+ months 1 month 2+ weeks new member| | <urn:uuid:9fb5b4b1-d666-44da-8d54-13e5fc3279a0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fictionpress.com/topic/148/888596/1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951974 | 1,164 | 1.601563 | 2 |
IREX Observes World Press Freedom Day
On World Press Freedom Day, May 3, IREX would like to recognize the thousands of journalists, media workers, and media outlets with whom we have the honor to work as friends and colleagues. Without their hard work, without the risks they take every day, and without their dedication and sacrifice, more citizens throughout the world would be deprived of the vital news and information they need to actively participate in the development of their neighborhoods, towns, countries, and regions.
Yet, media and journalists throughout the world continue to face serious challenges. First and foremost is the threat to journalists and media workers. In 2008, the Committee to Protect Journalists found that 41 journalists were killed in direct connection to their work. An additional 22 deaths of journalists in 2008 are under investigation by CPJ to determine the motives. Additionally, CPJ found 125 journalists imprisoned for the work in 2008, with on-line journalists comprising the highest percentage of those jailed for the first time. | <urn:uuid:0bb9ed78-7200-4ff0-abd0-b01abc5f5a0a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.irex.org/news/irex-observes-world-press-freedom-day | 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 | 0.968456 | 200 | 1.898438 | 2 |
Since 1942, Switzerland has been the only place in the world where non residents can go and legally find help to end their life.
But assisted suicide has become a hot topic for the Swiss government recently after a study showed more and more foreigners are travelling to the Alpine country to take their own lives with the help of private Swiss organizations.
Recently the Swiss Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf announced she is considering either restricting Switzerland's assisted suicide law in an attempt to cut what she called "death tourism."
"Today somebody can come to Switzerland and already the next day can have an assisted suicide through one of the so-called assisted suicide organizations. This should not be possible," she said.
"About one-third of the 400 people who came to Switzerland to die here in 2007 were foreigners from either Great Britain or Germany, where helping someone to kill themselves is almost always illegal," explains Bernatto Stadelmann, vice director of the Swiss Justice Ministry in Bern.
Switzerland, along with Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, are the only European countries where authorities will not prosecute those who assist terminally ill people with suicide. In the United States it is only legal in the state of Oregon.
The Swiss Penal Code condones assisting suicide for altruistic reasons and considers assisting to commit suicide a crime only if the motive is selfish.
Non-government groups in Switzerland offer assisted suicide programs, including organizations like Exit, Ex-international and Dignitas.
Exit is the largest right-to-die association in Switzerland with some 50,000 members according to its website, but only Dignitas, which has 2,000 members, welcomes foreigners. Dignitas helps patients from abroad to obtain a prescription for a lethal dose of pentobarbital, a sleeping potion.
Patients must ingest the drug themselves. Those too ill to drink can use a self-induced injection, or a tube through the stomach
Among the 100 Britons believed to have ended their lives with the help of Dignitas are famous conductor Edward Downes and his wife, Joan, and Daniel James, a 23-year-old who was paralyzed from the chest down after a rugby accident in March 2007.
James' parents issued a statement saying he had attempted to kill himself several times already.
"His death was an extremely said loss for the family, friends and those that care for him but no doubt a welcome relief from the 'prison' he felt his body had become and the day-to-day fear and loathing of his living existence, as a result of which he took his own life."
"This is the last way that the family wanted Dan's life to end, but he was, as those of you who know him are aware, an intelligent, strong-willed and some say determined young man," their statement reads.
James' parents added that their son, "an intelligent young man of sound mind" had never come to terms with his condition and was "not prepared to live what he felt was a second-class existence."
"We do not want to restrict the legal rights of our citizens, but we have realized that our country has become a favorite destination for "death tourism" and we are not the least bit interested in that. We also want to make sure that we are not opening for profit making facilities," the Swiss Justice Ministry said in a written statement following up on Widmer-Schlumpf's press conference. | <urn:uuid:c7ef04e9-5998-40b0-a92e-398d6091a509> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://abcnews.go.com/WN/Travel/switzerland-considers-tightening-assisted-suicide-laws/story?id=8948240 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98032 | 700 | 2.140625 | 2 |
Who Do You Think You Are: Season Two premieres on Friday, February 4, at 7 pm. on NBC.
The series follows a different well-known and popular celebrity each week as they trace their family trees. Each episode will reveal surprising, inspiring and sometimes tragic stories that are often linked to events in American and international history.
As each celebrity discovers†his or her†unknown relatives - most of whom overcame hard times - the show will take viewers back through world history to expose how the lives of everyone's collective ancestors have shaped our world today. | <urn:uuid:48b0fcee-7f4d-4da3-907f-b18c7d0ef48d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://gplgenealogy.blogspot.com/2011/01/who-do-you-think-you-are.html?showComment=1295934649773 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956644 | 113 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Household buying level at 111 percent of nation
Standards and Poors considers Rockford’s financial practices good under their Financial Management Assessment (FMA) methodology. “In our opinion the city’s overall debt burden is moderate at 4.3 percent of market value and $3,632 per capital,” read a credit report provided after a review of the city’s bond rating. “In our view, debt service carrying charges were a moderate 10 percent in fiscal 2010.”
The financial monitoring company reported that Rockford’s financial future is deemed stable and that the city will continue to make budget adjustments it deems necessary, despite continued decline in state-shared revenues and taxable value reductions. It noted that the city has been cutting expenditures to maintain reserves that “we consider very strong.”
Standards and Poors notes that Rockford residents “have strong income levels and benefit from employment opportunities throughout Kent County and the greater Grand Rapids area.” It said the city, population 5,502, has a median household effective buying income as strong as 111 percent of the national level. T The unemployment rate in Kent County in 2010 was 10.2 percent compared with the State of Michigan’s 12.5 percent. Although the city’s taxable value has decreased the last two years, but the market value of $84,688 is still considered very strong by Standard and Poors. “In our opinion the city’s tax base is diverse, with the ten leading taxpayers making up 23 percent of taxable value, although shoe manufacturer Wolverin World Wide Inc. makes up ten percent.”
The report noted the city expects an increase in state-shared revenue based on an increase in population, and is projecting break-even operations in the general fund for 2011. At the end of the fiscal year for 2010, (June 30) the city had an unreserved fund balance of $1.4 million (55 percent of expenditures), which Standards and Poors considers “very strong.” Fiscal 2012 budget shows a $75,000 surplus in the general fund and expects a $150,000 surplus because it did not budget for additional state-shared revenue. The city levies at 10.9 mils compared to the maximum allowed of 14.0311. “This translates to $620,000 in additional annual revenue the city could raise if city council approves. Management has no plans to raise the millage, however.”
City Manager Michael Young said the city has either lowered or maintained tax rates for the past nearly 20 years and is the third lowest in Kent County for municipalities that do not levy an income tax.
The AA rating reflects the city’s participation in the Kent County and greater Grand Rapids area; strong income levels and strong market value per capita; very strong reserve levels combined with revenue-raising flexibility (given that the city does not levy for property tax at its Headlee limit) and good financial management.
“The City Council and Management have made the necessary financial adjustments over the last several years to maintain the City’s strong financial position,” said Young. “These changes have been difficult, for instance cutting staffing by 20% or the recent wage concessions agreed to by our Police and Public Works Unions. However we will continue to make the changes required to meet the harsh financial realities we all face in this struggling Michigan economy. The rating review just published by Standard and Poors is great news for the City and its residents.” | <urn:uuid:8888f2d1-716f-46ca-aa7b-befc456e38a4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://rockfordsquire.com/2011/07/28/city-maintains-high-aa-bond-rating/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00045-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953232 | 728 | 1.820313 | 2 |
New Stroke Guidelines Stress Treatment Within One Hour of Arrival in ER
THURSDAY, Jan. 31 (HealthDay News) -- New guidelines on stroke care stress that getting clot-busting drugs and other treatments within one hour of arriving in the emergency room is crucial to minimizing brain damage and speeding recovery.
"We have incorporated a lot of learning and experience in the past five years in developing stroke systems of care," said guideline author Dr. Edward Jauch, director of the division of emergency medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina, in Charleston.
"It's not just a single person managing a stroke that makes a difference. It's creating a process that involves patients, people around patients, pre-hospital care and hospitals," he said. "When all these pieces are in place, the patient has the best chance for having a good outcome."
The new guidelines, from the American Stroke Association, were published online Jan. 31 and will appear in the March print issue of the journal Stroke.
The most common type of stroke, called an ischemic stroke, is caused by a blood clot in an artery in the brain. Ischemic strokes account for 90 percent of all strokes.
Once doctors determine that a patient is suffering a stroke, treatment usually begins with a brain scan to find the clot. A drug called tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) is then injected to break up the clot. To be most effective, tPA needs to be given within four and a half hours of the first appearance of symptoms, the experts said.
To get treatment within this narrow window of time, the new guidelines stress calling 911 and getting to the hospital by ambulance. Not only is an ambulance faster, but it also allows emergency-room doctors to prepare for the patient's arrival.
"If you arrive at a hospital by [ambulance], you get treated very differently than if you arrive in our lobby," Jauch said. Patients see a doctor faster, get a CT scan faster and get treated faster with treatments that are time-dependent, he explained.
"And you are more likely to go to the right hospital," he added, such as one with a stroke center.
Stroke centers offer specialized treatment for all types of stroke. In some cases, a patient will be taken to a comprehensive stroke center, which can provide even greater levels of care.
Advanced care may include using so-called stent retrievers, which are catheters that are threaded through the affected brain artery that expand the vessel, snag the clot and remove it. This is faster than tPA, but works only on the largest clots, Jauch explained.
When a hospital that specializes in stroke isn't nearby, patients can be treated in a community hospital under direction from a stroke expert via telemedicine, Jauch said. After initial treatment, a decision on whether to transfer the patient to a stroke center can be made, he said.
The guidelines also call for continued quality improvement through hospital committees that review and monitor stroke care.
"Time is brain," said Dr. Roger Bonomo, a neurologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.
People who need tPA aren't getting it because they get to the hospital too late for it to be used, he said. "Not enough people are calling 911 when they are having symptoms of a stroke," he added.
An easy way to remember the sudden signs of a stroke is the acronym F.A.S.T.:
Face drooping: Does one side of the face droop or is it numb?
Arm weakness: Is one arm weak or numb?
Speech difficulty: Is speech slurred, are you unable to speak or are you hard to understand?
Time to call 911: If you have any of these symptoms -- even if they go away -- call 911 and get to the hospital immediately.
For more information on stroke, visit the U.S. National Library of Medicine.
SOURCES: Edward Jauch, M.D., professor and director, division of emergency medicine, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston; Roger Bonomo, M.D., neurologist, Lenox Hill Hospital, New York City; March 2013 Stroke | <urn:uuid:def2f94f-1172-4561-b16e-2d5308a0f86c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.madisonriveroaks.com/health-education/6,673042 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950488 | 882 | 2.34375 | 2 |
Cat 5e VS Cat6
DB Space is your leading Source for ICT products and cabling in Windhoek Namibia.
DBspace loves technology and we love sharing informatiob about it. If you have any questions or need any advice please feel free to contact us.
Difference between Cat 5e and Cat6
Why do I need all the bandwidth of category 6? As far as I know, there is no application today that requires 200 MHz of bandwidth.
Bandwidth precedes data rates just as highways come before traffic. Doubling the bandwidth is like adding twice the number of lanes on a highway. The trends of the past and the predictions for the future indicate that data rates have been doubling every 18 months. Current applications running at 1 Gb/s are really pushing the limits of category 5e cabling. As streaming media applications such as video and multi-media become commonplace, the demands for faster data rates will increase and spawn new applications that will benefit from the higher bandwidth offered by category 6. This is exactly what happened in the early 90’s when the higher bandwidth of category 5 cabling compared to category 3 caused most LAN applications to choose the better media to allow simpler, cost effective, higher speed LAN applications, such as 100BASE-TX. Note: Bandwidth is defined as the highest frequency up to which positive power sum ACR (Attenuation to Crosstalk Ratio) is greater than zero.
What is the general difference between category 5e and category 6?
The general difference between category 5e and category 6 is in the transmission performance, and extension of the available bandwidth from 100 MHz for category 5e to 200 MHz for category 6. This includes better insertion loss, near end crosstalk (NEXT), return loss, and equal level far end crosstalk (ELFEXT). These improvements provide a higher signal-to-noise ratio, allowing higher reliability for current applications and higher data rates for future applications.
Will category 6 supersede category 5e?
Yes, analyst predictions and independent polls indicate that 80 to 90 per cent of all new installations will be cabled with category 6. The fact that category 6 link and channel requirements are backward compatible to category 5e makes it very easy for customers to choose category 6 and supersede category 5e in their networks. Applications that worked over category 5e will work over category 6.
What does category 6 do for my current network vs. category 5e?
Because of its improved transmission performance and superior immunity from external noise, systems operating over category 6 cabling will have fewer errors vs. category 5e for current applications. This means fewer re-transmissions of lost or corrupted data packets under certain conditions, which translates into higher reliability for category 6 networks compared to category 5e networks.
When should I recommend or install category 6 vs. category 5e?
From a future proofing perspective, it is always better to install the best cabling available. This is because it is so difficult to replace cabling inside walls, in ducts under floors and other difficult places to access. The rationale is that cabling will last at least 10 years and will support at least four to five generations of equipment during that time. If future equipment running at much higher data rates requires better cabling, it will be very expensive to pull out category 5e cabling at a later time to install category 6 cabling. So why not do it for a premium of about 20 per cent over category 5e on an installed basis?
What is the shortest link that the standard will allow?
There is no short length limit. The standard is intended to work for all lengths up to 100 meters. There is a guideline in ANSI/TIA/EIA-568-B.1 that says the consolidation point should be located at least 15 meters away from the telecommunications room to reduce the effect of connectors in close proximity. This recommendation is based upon worst-case performance calculations for short links with four mated connections in the channel.
What is a “tuned” system between cable and hardware? Is this really needed if product meets the standard?
The word “tuned” has been used by several manufacturers to describe products that deliver headroom to the category 6 standard. This is outside the scope of the category 6 standard. The component requirements of the standard have been carefully designed and analysed to assure channel compliance and electrical/ mechanical interoperability.
What is impedance matching between cable and hardware? Is this really needed if product meets the standard?
The standard has no impedance matching requirements. These are addressed by having return loss requirements for cables, connectors, and patch cords.
Is there a use for category 6 in the residential market?
Yes, category 6 will be very effective in the residential market to support higher Internet access speeds while facilitating the more stringent Class B EMC requirements (see also the entire FCC Rules and Regulations, Title 47, Part 15). The better balance of category 6 will make it easier to meet the residential EMC requirements compared to category 5e cabling. Also, the growth of streaming media applications to the home will increase the need for higher data rates which are supported more easily and efficiently by category 6 cabling.
Why wouldn’t I skip category 6 and go straight to optical fibre?
You can certainly do that but will find that a fiber system is still very expensive. Ultimately, economics drive customer decisions, and today optical fiber together with optical transceivers is about twice as expensive as an equivalent system built using category 6 and associated copper electronics. Installation of copper cabling is more craft-friendly and can be accomplished with simple tools and techniques. Additionally, copper cabling supports the emerging Data Terminal Equipment (DTE) power standard under development by IEEE (802.3af).
What is meant by the term "Electrically Balanced"?
A simple open wire circuit consisting of two wires is considered to be a uniform, balanced transmission line. A uniform transmission line is one which has substantially identical electrical properties throughout its length, while a balanced transmission line is one whose two conductors are electrically alike and symmetrical with respect to ground and other nearby conductors.* "Electrically balanced" relates to the physical geometry and the dielectric properties of a twisted pair of conductors. If two insulated conductors are physically identical to one another in diameter, concentricity, dielectric material and are uniformly twisted with equal length of conductor, then the pair is electrically balanced with respect to its surroundings. The degree of electrical balance depends on the design and manufacturing process. Category 6 cable requires a greater degree of precision in the manufacturing process. Likewise, a category 6 connector requires a more balanced circuit design. For balanced transmission, an equal voltage of opposite polarity is applied on each conductor of a pair. The electromagnetic fields created by one conductor cancel out the electromagnetic fields created by its "balanced" companion conductor, leading to very little radiation from the balanced twisted pair transmission line. The same concept applies to external noise that is induced on each conductor of a twisted pair. A noise signal from an external source, such as radiation from a radio transmitter antenna generates an equal voltage of the same polarity, or "common mode voltage," on each conductor of a pair. The difference in voltage between conductors of a pair from this radiated signal, the "differential voltage," is effectively zero. Since the desired signal on the pair is the differential signal, the interference does not affect balanced transmission. The degree of electrical balance is determined by measuring the "differential voltage" and comparing it to the "common mode voltage" expressed in decibels (dB). This measurement is called Longitudinal Conversion Loss "LCL" in the Category 6 standard.
Category 6 Cable Questions
What is the difference between enhanced category 5e cable rated for 400 MHz and category 6 cable rated for 250 MHz?
Category 5e requirements are specified up to 100 MHz. Cables can be tested up to any frequency that is supported by the test equipment, but such measurements are meaningless without the context of applications and cabling standards. The category 6 standard sets minimum requirements up to 250 MHz for cables, connecting hardware, patch cords, channels and permanent links, and therefore guarantees reasonable performance that can be utilized by applications.
Why did all category 6 cable used to have a spline, and now is offered without one?
Some category 6 cable designs have a spline (DB Space Molex Cable supplied with a spline) to increase the separation between pairs and also to maintain the pair geometry. This additional separation improves NEXT performance and allows category 6 compliance to be achieved. With advances in technology, manufacturers have found other ways of meeting category 6 requirements. The bottom line is the internal construction of the cable does not matter, so long as it meets all the transmission and physical requirements of category 6. The standard does not dictate any particular method of cable construction.
Is there a limitation on the size of bundles one can have with category 6? Can you have 200-300 and still pass category 6?
There is no limit imposed by the standards on the maximum number of category 6 cables in a bundle. This is a matter for the market and the industry to determine based on practical considerations. The DB Space Molex standard is 24 cables per bundle. It should be pointed out that after six or eight cables, the performance in any cable will not change significantly since the cables will be too far away to add any additional external (or alien) .
Category 6 Patch Cord Questions
Will contractors be able to make their own patch cords?
Category 6 patch cords are precision products, just like the cables and the connectors. They are best manufactured and tested in a controlled environment to ensure consistent, reliable performance. This will ensure interoperability and backward compatibility. All this supports patch cords as a factory-assembled product rather than a field-assembled product.
Do you have to use the manufacturer’s patch cords to get category 6 performance?
The category 6 standard has specifications for patch cords and connectors that are intended to assure interoperable category 6 performance. If manufacturers can demonstrate that each component meets the requirements in the standard, minimum category 6 performances will be achieved. However, manufacturers may also design their products to perform better than the minimum category 6 requirements and in these cases compatible patch cords and connectors may lead to performance above the minimum category 6 requirements.
Category 6 Connecting Hardware Questions
Are the connectors for category 5e and category 6 different? Why are they more expensive?
Although category 6 and category 5e connectors may look alike, category 6 connectors have much better transmission performance. For example, at 100 MHz, NEXT of a category 5e connector is 43 decibels (dB), while NEXT of a category 6 connector is 54 dB. This means that a cat6 connector couples about 1/12 of the power that a Cat5e connector couples from one pair to another pair. Conversely, one can say that a category 6 connector is 12 times less “noisy” compared to a category 5e connector. This vast improvement in performance was achieved with new technology, new processes, better materials and significant R&D resources, leading to higher costs for manufacturers.
What will happen if I mix and match different manufacturers' hardware together?
If the components are category 6 compliant, then you will be assured of category 6 performance.
If you enjoyed this article and would like to read even more on the subject please visit our blog | <urn:uuid:c0b8fd76-edbd-4d50-885f-85dbfbe38309> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dbspace.cc/cat5evscat6.html | 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 | 0.925554 | 2,347 | 2.0625 | 2 |
Scanned text contains errors.
to the disgrace of the Romans, deprived Antiochus the Great of his whole fleet. Vatinius, an unpopular personage, for whom it is to be presumed that Cascellius had no great liking, had been pelted with stones at a gladiatorial show, and consequently got a clause inserted in the edict of the aediles, " ne quis in arenam nisi pomum mitteret." About this time, the question was put to Cascellius, whether a nux pinea were a pomum, it being a legal doubt whether fruits with hard as well as with soft external rind, were included in the term. " Si in Vatinium missurus es, pomum est." (Quintil. vi. 3 ; Macrob. Saturn, ii. 6.)
Horace (Ars Poet. 371, 372) pays a compliment to the established legal reputation of Cascellius—
"———nee scit quantum Cascellius Aulus, Et tamen in pretio est."
The old scholiast on this passage remarks, that Gellius mentions Cascellius with praise, but this seems to be a mistake, unless the lost portions of Gellius should bear out the scholiast's assertion. He probably confounds the jurist with Caesellius Vindex, the grammarian^ who is frequently cited by Gellius. The name of the jurist is often corruptly spelt Caesellius, Ceselius, &c.
When an interdictum recuperandae possessionis was followed by an action on a sponsio, if the claimant were successful in recovering on the sponsio, he was entitled as a consequence to the restitution of possession by what was called the Cascellianum or secutorium judicium, (Gaius, iv. 166, 160.) It is likely that this judicium was devised by A. Cascellius.
Cicero (pro£albo,2Q^) and Val. Maximus (viii. 12, § 1) say, that Q. Mucius Scaevola, the augur, a most accomplished lawyer, when he was consulted concerning jus praediatoriwn, used to refer his clients to Furius and Cascellius, who, being themselves praediatores, and consequently personally interested in that part of the law, had made it their peculiar study. The quotations from our Cascellius in the Digest, do not point to praediatorian law. and a consideration of dates goes far to prove, that Cascellius praediator, was not our jurist, but perhaps his father. The old augur died when Cicero was very young, but our Cascellius might still have been his disciple.
(Amm. Marc. xxx. 6 ; Rutilius, Vitae JCtorum^ 36 ; Bertrandus, de Jurisp. ii. 19 ; Guil. Grotius, i. 10 ; Strauch. Vitae aliquot JCtorum, p. 62 ; Mena- gius, Amoen.Jur. c. 8 ; D'Arnaud, Vitae Scaevola- rum^ § 4, p. 14; Heineccius, Hist. Jur. Rom. §§ 190, 191 ; Edelmann, [Stockmann,] De Benedictis A. Cascellii, Lips. 1803 ; Bynkershoek, Praetermissa ad Pomponium, p. 57 ; Lagemans, de Aulo Cas- cellioJCto. Lug. Bat. 1823 ; Zimmern, JR. R. G. i. pp. 299, 300.) [J. T. G.]
CASPERIUS, a centurion who served under the praefect Caelius Pollio, and commanded the garrison of a stronghold called Gorneae in a. d. 52, during a war between the Armenians and Hibe-rians. Caelius Pollio acted the part of a traitor towards the Armenians, but found an honest opponent in Casperius, who endeavoured, though in vain, to induce the Hiberians to raise the siege. In A. d. 62 we find-him still serving as centurion
CASSANDANE (KcuroravSdvn), a Persian lady of the family of the Achaemenidae, daughter of Pharnaspes, who married Cyrus the Great, and became by him the mother of Cambyses. She died before her husband, who much lamented hex* loss, and ordered a general mourning in her honour. (Herod, ii. 1, iii. 2.) [E. E.j
CASSANDER (KdwavSpos). 1. King of Macedonia, and son of Antipater, was 35 years old before his father's death, if we may trust an incidental notice to that effect in Athenaeus, and must, therefore, have been born in or before b. c. 354. (Athen. i. p. 18, a.; Droysen, Gesch. der NacJi-folger Alexanders, p. 256.) His first appearance in history is on the occasion of his being sent from Macedonia to Alexander, then in Babylon, to defend his father against his accusers: here, according to Plutarch (Aleoe. 74), Cassander was so struck by the sight, to him new, of the Persian ceremonial of prostration, that he could not restrain his laughter, and the king, incensed at his rudeness, is said to have seized him by the hair and dashed his head against the Avail. Allowing for some exaggeration in this story, it is certain that he met with some treatment from Alexander which left on his mind an indelible impression of terror and hatred,—a feeling which perhaps nearly as much as ambition urged him afterwards to the destruction of the royal family. The story which ascribed Alexander's death to poison [see pp. 2019 320], spoke also of Cassander as the person who brought the deadly water to Babylon. With respect to the satrapy of Caria, which is said by Diodorus, Justin, and Curtius to have been given to Cassander among the arrangements of b. c. 323, the confusion between the names Cassander and Asander is pointed out in p. 379, a. (Comp. Diod. xviii. 68.) On Polysperchon's being appointed to succeed Antipater in the regency, Cassander was confirmed in the secondary dignity of Chiliarch (see Wess. ad Diod. xviii. 48 ; Pkilolog, Mus. i. 380),—an office which had previously been conferred on him by his father, that he might serve as a check on Antigonus, when (b. c. 321) the latter was entrusted by Antipater with the command of the forces against Eumenes. Being, however, dissatisfied with this arrangement, he strengthened himself by an alliance with Ptolemy Lagi and Antigonus, and entered into war with Polysperchon. For the operations of the contending parties at Athens in b. c. 318, see p. 125, b. The failure of Polysperchon at Megalopolis, in the same year, had the effect of bringing over most of the Greek states to Cassander, and Athens also surrendered to him, on condition that she should keep her city, territory, revenues, and ships, only continuing the ally of the conqueror, who should be allowed to retain Munychia till the end of the war. He at the same time settled the Athenian constitution by establishing 10 minae (half the sum that had been appointed by Antipater) as the qualification for the full rights of citizenship (see Bockh, Publ. Econ. of Athens, i. 7, iv. 3) ; and the union of clemency and energy which his general conduct exhibited, is said to have procured him many adherents. While, however, he was successfully advancing his cause in the south, intelli- | <urn:uuid:e2ac9da2-941b-4749-92fb-6613d1ad805e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ancientlibrary.com/smith-bio/0628.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966958 | 1,721 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Neil Armstrong, the Apollo 11 astronaut who became the first human being to set foot on another world, the moon, has died at age 82. When Armstrong set foot on the moon on July 20, 1969, he fulfilled the goal that had been set by President John F. Kennedy just eight years earlier. He radioed back to Earth the historic news of "one giant leap for mankind." Armstrong and fellow astronaut Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin spent nearly three hours walking on the moon, collecting samples, conducting experiments and taking photographs. In all, 12 Americans walked on the moon from 1969 to 1972.
In addition to several juvenile biographies see this book on Neil Armstrong in several Marin libraries. First man: the life of Neil A. Armstrong by James R. Hansen | <urn:uuid:e5a85943-84d1-458a-a546-3870080764bf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.marinlibrary.org/all-things-social-media/news/27790 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953304 | 154 | 3.203125 | 3 |
by Fred McMillin
for June 16, 1997
Do the Mendoza Cha-Cha
Prologue: Argentina's Mendoza province, about the size of the state of Illinois, contains 650,OOO acres of vineyards, which is over half of all the vineyards in South America...from Jan De Blij's "Wine Regions of the Southern Hemisphere"
The Rest of the Story: Spanish missionaries brought winemaking to Argentina over two centuries before they introduced it in California. In modern times, Argentina has ranked fifth in world wine production, behind only Spain, Italy, France and the former Soviet Union. So why haven't their wines been more prominent in the USA?...because the Argentinians drank 'em. Their per capita consumption has been the fourth highest in the world. In 1980 your typical Argentinian drank about 10 times more wine than his North American counterpart, and Mendoza made most of it.
Now things are changing. Domestic consumption is moderating and Argentina is turning to exports. But your USA buyer is a bit picky, so these South American wines are being upgraded. For example, in Mendoza internationally popular varieties like Chardonnay are replacing many acres of Criolla, the vine the missionaries introduced to both Argentina and the southwestern USA. You can check the progress for a very modest $7, if you try...
1995 Chardonnay, Mendoza, Argentina
Category: Recommended if you drink Chardonnays under $10
Postscript: Mendoza is at the same latitude as Morocco. So how do Mendoza vintners avoid flavor-destroying high temperatures? That's easy. The vineyards are 2,000 to 3,000 feet high, where a grape can keep its cool.
Read more articles by Fred McMillin in the eGGsf
Welcome to WineDay, the electronic Gourmet Guide's daily update. Monday through Thursday, WineDay presents a wine profile. Then on Fridays we present the Winery of the Week to take you through the weekend
Global Gourmet | FoodDay
Copyright © 1997—the electronic Gourmet Guide, Inc. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:7bc0e85f-025f-42ad-91f9-e2c62e024759> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.globalgourmet.com/food/wineday/wd0697/wd061697.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00066-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.92839 | 447 | 1.601563 | 2 |
An adaptation of a Charles Dickens' novel requires equally adept wordplay as found in these "Great Expectations" quotes. A period piece can draw on the power of its place in time, but it still needs actions and words to give the environment the passion that guides the power. See the perspective of characters entangled in themselves and each other in our selected quotes.
"I'd seen through it. I elected to grow up." The character of Finn waxes poetic, as he believes he has chosen adulthood over the fantasy of his youth. He speaks it as almost a gentle battle cry, that he has won his newfound reality by defeating his emotions, especially the emotion of love. Who hasn't thought they could surpass heartbreak by shrugging it off and allowing time to bring them through the pain? "Great Expectations" knows both joy and sorrow and refuses to give preference to one.
"I'm not going to tell the story the way it happened. I'm going to tell it the way I remember it." The utter truth of this "Great Expectations" line is one that should resound through all story telling. History is written through every pair of eyes and thus falls victim to the perspective and prejudice of each individual. This admittance of how the story will be told is jarring in every respect and yet gains the audience's confidence, as it becomes a shared bond between Finn and the viewers. "Great Expectations" is not just the story; the story telling also makes it a powerful drama.
- Matthew Langenfeld | <urn:uuid:f776ca24-5114-4284-badc-6a46ef149681> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.screenjunkies.com/movies/genres-movies/drama/great-expectations-quotes/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978945 | 311 | 2.71875 | 3 |
Finnish Museum of Natural History
The Finnish Museum of Natural History is an independent research institution functioning under the University of Helsinki. It is also one of the three central national museums in Finland and responsible for the national collections in its field.
The collections, which include botanical, zoological, geological and paleontological specimens from all over the world, serve research in the fields of biology and geology as well as educational purposes.
Address: Pohjoinen Rautatiekatu 13
Entrance 10/5 euros
The history of life has exercised the minds of people through millennia. Investigation of the history of life constantly brings new knowledge about past times.
A four-year research project MARZ (Magmatism in the Africa-Antarctica Rift Zone), funded by the Academy of Finland, was launched at the Geological museum in September 2011.
Third Finnish Breeding Bird Atlas (2006-2010) results published
New book about Elachistine moths (Csiro Publishing) | <urn:uuid:667f29d0-7a60-4611-8770-7a7f89c393b5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.luomus.fi/english/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.909309 | 205 | 2.6875 | 3 |
The UConn Sustainable Agriculture and Food Studies Program at the Institute at Palazzo Rucellai invites you to spend three months studying sustainable agriculture and food in Tuscany.
Cities and provinces such as Florence and Siena have become models of sustainable urban and rural development and landscape preservation. The historically close relationship between city and country, together with the deep-rooted Tuscan sense of proportion and harmony, space and time, respect for nature along with cutting edge technology, all shape and enrich contemporary sustainability research and debate, and hold invaluable lessons for all of us.
This program is designed for undergraduate students of agricultural sciences, economics and business administration, environmental studies, nutrition science, and students generally interested in food and sustainability studies. It further aims to provide students with a unique opportunity to develop global citizenship through awareness and understanding of cultural diversity abroad.
The Sustainable Agriculture and Food Studies Program is distinctive both for its
interdisciplinary and comparative approach to sustainable agriculture and food and its combination of in-class teaching, field work and study tours. A strategic alliance with the Agricultural Department of the University of Florence provides further opportunity to make use of the connected university farm facilities (Villa Montepaldi) with its structured educational programs.
You will have the opportunity to experience a particularly rich food culture with innovative approaches to issues of environmental and economic sustainability and quality oriented food production and nutrition. Strong focus will be placed on the issues of organic farming, sustainable agriculture, and the defense of bio-diversity. You will also learn about the characteristics of food production which are either uniquely characteristic of, or particularly prevalent in, Italy.
You will follow an interdisciplinary set of class lectures on Italian Food History, Environmental Economics, Sustainable Agriculture and the Mediterranean Diet. Courses, taught by UConn and international on-site faculty, will make full use of the culture of the city and the region. Although no prior study of the language is required, you will enroll in the appropriate level of the "Florence Experience" course (I,II,III,IV), in which you will learn Italian in the classroom and through direct contact with many aspects of Italian culture.
- HIST 3993: The History of Food, Agriculture and Sustainability in Italy (3 cr)
- ARE 4393: Environmental Economics: Sustainable Rural Development in Tuscany (3cr)
- AH 4095: The Mediterranean Diet (3 cr)
- INTD 1993: The Florence Experience: Intensive Italian Language Course (4 cr)
- ANTH 1093: Cultural Literacy Workshop (1 cr)
Study Tours and Field Work
As part of the Sustainable Agriculture and Food Studies Program you participate in a series of study tours, and field experiences, taking you out of the classroom and into direct contact with the people and places where food is made. You will have the opportunity to learn directly from Italian farmers and producers, processors, sales and marketing professionals and chefs. This innovative educational format is a key aspect in the learning experience provided by the program, during which theory and practice are synthesized into knowledge. Study tours and field experiences range from one to five days, and fall into two categories:
Food Product Study Tours and Field Experiences
focus on key Tuscan food items such as olive oil, wine, cheese or meat and give students, in smaller groups, the unique opportunity to get first-hand experiences from the farm to the fork. A concrete example: You will participate in the grape and olive harvests and you will become familiar with the opportunities and challenges of producing world-renowned wines and olive oils.
Food Culture Study Tours and Workshops
focus on the social, economic and cultural factors that have shaped food consumption practices and patterns in Tuscany and in Italy. The study tours and workshops will take full advantage of the rich Mediterranean cuisine and examine firsthand the profound role food plays in community, family, ethnicity, nutrition, health, and national identity. This will include visits to local markets and other on-site visits to provide a differentiated view of the cultural heritage of the Tuscan region as well as cooking lessons with local chefs to learn about the Mediterranean Diet. Program tutors are responsible for the planning of study trips, accompanying students and coordinating both learning and logistics.
You will find the Institute a warm and welcoming place, with an expert and accessible staff that always has time to answer a question or to help with a problem. There are two computer labs, a library, and a student lounge. You will be housed in double or triple rooms in furnished apartments shared with other program participants. The apartments have equipped kitchens and a washing machine.
The apartments are located in the center of town within walking distance of Palazzo Rucellai.
Along your way, you might stop at your favorite coffee bar for a cappuccino and a pastry, gaze into the shop windows at the artistically displayed goods, or marvel at major artistic, historical landmarks.
The little pleasures of Italian life, the espresso break, the gelato, buying fresh vegetables in mom and pop shops, and the Italian approach to time, become a natural part of the day. Weekly cultural activities in Florence include a gelato walk, organized soccer games, the Ferragamo shoe museum, the artisans' workshops, and the secret rooms Palazzo Vecchio. Optional day trips and to Siena, Pisa, Lucca and San Gimignano, offer new perspectives on other parts of Italy. A day trip to Chianti is the closing event of Orientation. | <urn:uuid:0b7c3b53-8e95-48aa-b488-f90d8c2a4758> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.palazzorucellai.org/(S(zt0zjmb52nfpqm55irx5te55))/Article.aspx?id=84&AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1 | 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 | 0.933295 | 1,128 | 2.046875 | 2 |
Keeping up with Jane Austen
- An Unsuitable Attachment by Barbara Pym
Macmillan, 256 pp, £6.95, February 1982, ISBN 0 333 32654 7
Barbara Pym’s posthumous novel, An Unsuitable Attachment, begins with an echo of Pride and Prejudice. Rupert Stonebird, an eligible bachelor, has just moved into a middle-class neighbourhood. Two of its women walk past his house to size him up. Perhaps he will make a suitable husband for the vicar’s wife’s sister, Penny, or perhaps for the faded librarian Ianthe Broome. The parish of St Basil, on the fringe of North Kensington in NW London, may not be classic Austen country, but the principal characters, all off-spring of deceased Anglican clergymen, might be the equivalents of Jane herself. Like any Austen novel, An Unsuitable Attachment makes a cluster of courtships an occasion to uncover the lives of genteel and near-genteel friends and neighbours.
As matchmaker in chief, the part of a Mrs Bennet or an Emma, Sophia Ainger the vicar’s wife does her best to manoeuvre Rupert Stone-bird into the arms of sister Penelope. Her expedients include a dinner party at the vicarage, the Christmas bazaar, an excursion to Rome after Easter for the parish stalwarts. Stonebird proves as impervious as his name, or rather begins to develop instead a low-key passion for Ianthe Broome, while Penny fails to get her man through too much stage-management and too much trying, rather in the style of Harriet Smith or Mary Bennet.
Sometimes the debt to Austen is verbal and explicit: ‘The day comes in the life of every single man living alone when he must give a dinner party.’ Minor characters are almost recognisable. Sister Dew, good-hearted parish helper, is the equivalent of Mrs Jennings or Miss Bates. The mean Lady (Muriel) Selvedge, who comes to open the Church bazaar and lunches en route near Victoria for 3s 9d, might be based on the entrepreneurial Lady Denham in Sanditon. Ianthe’s aunt, Bertha, married to the rector of a fashionable Mayfair parish, blends the hypochondria of Sanditon’s Diana Parker with the injudicious high living of Dr Grant in Mansfield Park.
‘Bertha’s health,’ says her husband Randolph regretfully,
‘wouldn’t have stood any district but W1 or SW1. Anything near the Harrow Road, or the canal, or Kensal Green cemetery had to be avoided at all costs. My particular cross is to be a “fashionable preacher”, as they say. Bertha is quite right when she says that somebody must minister to the rich.’
‘Of course,’ said Ianthe. ‘And you have some very nice people in your congregation,’ she added consolingly.
‘Yes, both my church wardens are titled men,’ said Randolph simply. He stood with the carving implements poised over the ruined saddle. ‘Let me give you some more mutton, my dear.’
‘No, thank you, uncle – I’ve had plenty.’
‘You aren’t a great meat-eater, are you, dear,’ said Bertha,‘so the approach of Lent won’t be so much of a hardship for you.’
Ianthe murmured noncommittally.
‘I have to eat meat, unfortunately – doctor’s orders,’ Bertha went on. ‘He has forbidden me to fast or even keep the days of abstinence. “You are not to think of making do with a collation on Ash Wednesday,” he said to me. “You must have a full meal with meat.” ’
The mystery then is why Miss Pym is not really like Miss Austen at all, why Austen readers could find her thoroughly disturbing.
Jane Austen and her contemporaries had a frank curiosity about one another’s personalities and lives which often at the time came under fire as vulgar prying. A passion for gossip at all levels made the early 19th century an age of biography, and flowed into other literary forms in abundance, taking over the novel of Scott, Dickens and Thackeray, the poetry of Browning. The same curiosity about people and their relationships, possessions and environment is an academic subject now, called social anthropology.
For the older reader and indeed the older critic, time has stood still as far as the literature of character is concerned. The 19th-century novel, according to this unreconstructed view, gives us something closer to life than any other art form; realism gives us reality and naturalism nature. It is precisely this kind of reader and this kind of critic who most firmly believes in Barbara Pym as a latterday Jane Austen, a novelist in the great 19th-century tradition involved in the transparent reproduction of familiar localised life. Which is odd, because Barbara Pym, far from being an old-style characteriser, seems bent on a reappraisal of technique that ends by making the familiar very strange.
In some Pym novels – Excellent Women, for example, and now An Unsuitable Attachment – the Anglican parish is invaded by a professional anthropologist: here it is the eligible bachelor himself, Rupert Stonebird. When the women of St Basil’s come to view him, Rupert reciprocates their interest, ‘for as an anthropologist he knew that men and women may observe each other as warily as wild animals hidden in long grass.’ The image is a joke, and perhaps the proposition too. Barbara Pym’s men, whether anthropologists, vicars or vets, don’t relate well to others and don’t notice detail; their professional status earns them cachet in the world of her novels, but their skills remain theoretical, and comically outstripped by the amateurish curiosity of women. Still, it seems significant that while Jane Austen led the life of a vicar’s daughter, Barbara Pym worked as Assistant Editor of the anthropological journal Africa. | <urn:uuid:f2aa18c8-0feb-442e-a4d0-48822b73b877> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lrb.co.uk/v04/n08/marilyn-butler/keeping-up-with-jane-austen | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955487 | 1,344 | 1.546875 | 2 |
White People Calling Kanye West Racist: A Collection
- Why me?
- Because everyone else is boring. And because you’re different.
Rakim Allah first stepped into the cipher of Hip-Hop in 1986 on the classic single “Eric B For President”. His low pitched, casual flow, splashed with the science of life from the perspective of a Five Percenter, captured the attention of the listener unlike any other MC in the history of the culture. Ra pioneered multiple-syllable rhymes and was able to make them easily understood, something that many artists have just begun to master in the new millennium. Even though the R’s lyrical approach maybe perceived as simple, it is a fact that there are die-hard rap critics who still have yet to decipher some of Ra’s bars. From storytelling (“Juice”, “Mahogany”) to dropping knowledge (“The Ghetto”, “Who Is God”) to just destroying toy rappers (“The Punisher”, “I Ain’t No Joke”), no one in the game has stepped up to the verbal ante like Rakim.
A boy sits reading in a bombed bookstore, London, 1940. | <urn:uuid:f906ee27-744f-4adb-9869-da76a36d5c50> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://njshady.tumblr.com/page/2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.92993 | 268 | 1.921875 | 2 |
Vacationers happier, but most not happier after a holiday
Redirect to publisher's version
(publisher's version.url.txt, 43 bytes)
The aim of this study was to obtain a greater insight into the association between vacations and happiness. We examined whether vacationers differ in happiness, compared to those not going on holiday, and if a holiday trip boosts post-trip happiness. These questions were addressed in a pre-test/post-test design study among 1,530 Dutch individuals. 974 vacationers answered questions about their happiness before and after a holiday trip. Vacationers reported a higher degree of pre-trip happiness, compared to non-vacationers, possibly because they are anticipating their holiday. Only a very relaxed holiday trip boosts vacationers' happiness further after return. Generally, there is no difference between vacationers' and non-vacationers' post-trip happiness. The findings are explained in the light of set-point theory, need theory and comparison theory. | <urn:uuid:be5f9f0b-9fea-4a81-af9f-ddab491ad28a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/19281/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00045-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956702 | 207 | 1.703125 | 2 |
19-Mar-2009 -- This Confluence was visited in late afternoon of 19 March 2009. We were on the way from Dirj to Ġāt taking a track parallel to the Algerian border.
The satellite picture promised a rocky surrounding, so we were not sure if access by car was possible. To our surprise the landscape was fine gravel instead. Bigger stones were just enough to build a small cairn at the spot.
Not far from there was a place where we found ball-shaped stones on the ground.
Continued at 27N 13E. | <urn:uuid:7bf98a19-b4bf-4b57-8262-90f7cc99c60e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://confluence.org/confluence.php?lat=27&lon=10 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985755 | 118 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Preprocessor macros in C, C++, and Objective C (introduced by
#define) have a syntax different from the main language—for
example, a macro declaration is not terminated by a semicolon, and if
it is more than a line long, line breaks in it must be escaped with
backslashes. CC Mode has some commands to manipulate these, see
Normally, the lines in a multi-line macro are indented relative to each other as though they were code. You can suppress this behavior by setting the following user option:
Because a macro can expand into anything at all, near where one is invoked CC Mode can only indent and fontify code heuristically. Sometimes it gets it wrong. Usually you should try to design your macros so that they ”look like ordinary code” when you invoke them. However, one situation is so common that CC Mode handles it specially: that is when certain macros needn't (or mustn't) be followed by a ‘;’. You need to configure CC Mode to handle these macros properly, see Macros with ;. | <urn:uuid:db796d82-06e5-4c30-ada6-c6ac8bb5669b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/ccmode/Custom-Macros.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936561 | 230 | 2.4375 | 2 |
Tough wing nut? Put away those pliers
Many jigs and fixtures have wing nuts for making adjustments without wrenches. But in my efforts to keep them secure, I often tighten them to the point where I can't loosen them. And over the years, I've broken a lot of wings off using pliers.
So I designed the "palm wrench," (Click on the link below to view), to give me more leverage. I slip the wrench over a stubborn wing nut or thumbscrew, rotate it until the wings catch in the grooves, and break the rascal loose. The center hole accommodates a bolt that may protrude through the wing nut and also makes a handy hole for hanging the palm wrench on perforated hardboard.
—Manny Davis, Sherman Oaks, Calif.
If you like this project, please check out more than 1,000 shop-proven paper and downloadable woodworking project plans in the WOOD Store. | <urn:uuid:ee4f82f2-2968-4ff5-8f1f-d56858a01120> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.woodmagazine.com/wood/printableStory.jsp?storyid=/templatedata/wood/story/data/1140561851859.xml&catref=wd157 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935256 | 198 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Reinhard Mohn Prize 2011
Voting has finished!
The winner of the first Reinhard Mohn Prize has been decided
In March 2011 some 11,600 German citizens were invited to choose the winner of the Reinhard Mohn Prize 2011 from the seven finalists.
In view of the theme of this year’s Reinhard Mohn Prize – Vitalizing democracy through participation – it was appropriate for the winner to be decided by ordinary citizens. A total of 11,600 citizens from all over Germany were invited to take part in the citizens’ jury for the Reinhard Mohn Prize 2011, the composition of this jury reflecting the full diversity of society. 81 percent of these (9,403) registered as jury members on the internet platform www.abstimmung-rmp2011.de and found out about the projects that had been nominated for the award. Almost three quarters (72 percent) of the members of the jury actively participated and cast their vote for one or more of the projects that had been nominated. The participants based their decision on detailed case studies and video portraits. The breakdown of the votes is shown in the table under Downloads.
The winner of the Reinhard Mohn Prize 2011 is: City and school development through the citizens’ budget in Recife, Brazil!
There are many comments from the citizens showing why they decided to choose this project:
- “What I found remarkable about this project is that citizens who would otherwise have no influence on policies and the use of budgets can participate and bring about actual changes in their city. This strengthens the self-confidence and dignity of these people and that is the aim of any fair policy.”
As a result, it is clear that the following points about political participation are particularly important to the citizens involved: direct co-determination, development of concrete solutions, the participation of all groups in society, focusing on areas where the need is greatest and a noticeable contribution to greater social justice.
- "In this project I was particularly impressed by the children’s citizen budget. This makes it possible for people to experience and learn about the basic principles of democracy from a very young age. Anyone growing up with that experience will naturally engage in democratic processes as an adult."
- "This project is based on people’s needs and is an opportunity for direct citizen participation. The fact that no financial framework is set out before developing the project makes it possible to develop future-oriented projects. Although the next stage is of course to check whether these are feasible, it doesn’t mean that we have to lose sight of the actual objective. I also think this is a good opportunity to learn how to deal with compromises and how to put these forward. This is an effective way to strengthen the attachment and responsibility that the citizens feel towards their city."
- "The level of the citizens’ budget is only specified retrospectively. This allows citizens to work on solutions based on real needs without being thwarted in their efforts from the start because there is no money available. Gearing the solutions to requirements in this way shows that the citizens and their needs are being taken seriously – the citizens, in turn, are able to take their government seriously."
- "This project enables participation from the bottom of society upwards and this is something truly exemplary. It makes it possible to include those who are socially disadvantaged. This is a very active way to promote the idea of participation, something which I think is extremely important in order to ensure long-term changes and social harmony. What I also think is important is that the participation processes are accessible to poorer sections of society. If citizens can experience at first hand how they can influence decisions about society this will help them to develop social responsibility."
The winner of the Reinhard Mohn Prize 2011 was honored at an awards ceremony on June 16, 2011 in Gütersloh. The awards speech was given by the German Chancellor, Dr. Angela Merkel.
We would like to thank everyone who took part in voting for the Reinhard Mohn Prize! | <urn:uuid:ef803c3a-8f70-4a24-b696-cd956738d2d6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bertelsmann-stiftung.de/cps/rde/xchg/SID-86D35C5F-1D6374A2/bst_engl/hs.xsl/101086_105537.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968875 | 824 | 1.90625 | 2 |
New Yorker Magazine Asks: ‘Can The President Use Drones On Journalists?’February 23, 2013
Source: New Yorker
In thinking about drones strikes and targeted killings, it can be instructive to picture them hitting people you know, either deliberately or as collateral damage. Doing so may not even be much of a stretch, nor should it be. (It’s already the case for people living in parts of Pakistan and Yemen.) Last week, I moderated a live chat on the ethics of drone warfare with Michael Walzer, the author of “Just and Unjust Wars”; Jeff McMahan, a professor of philosophy at Rutgers, who has also written about just-war theory; and The New Yorker’sJane Mayer, who is a master of the subject. The discussion took some interesting turns, touching on the idea of a secret committee that the President would be asked to check with before killing an American and the question of whether China would ever assert the right to call in a drone strike on a dissident living in San Francisco. After Walzer and McMahan suggested some criteria for strikes—criminality, risk of American lives—I asked them this:
Doesn’t a journalist working abroad who is about to release classified information about a war crime—thus committing a crime—that will provoke retribution or a break with allies—endangering Americans—fit this definition of a target?
Walzer didn’t initially think that it did. The danger to Americans, he said, had “to come directly not indirectly from the target before he can be a target.” McMahan had a different view:
If the release of classified information really would seriously endanger the lives of innocent people and the only way to prevent the release of the information was to kill the journalist, then the journalist would be liable to attack. But the evidential standards in such a case would be very high and would be unlikely to be satisfiable in practice.
“So Michael wouldn’t kill the journalist but Jeff just might…” I posted, and the chat moved on. But the question of the journalist is worth dwelling on, because it gets at some of the fundamental problems with the targeted-killing program. Who is “dangerous”? And who decides? A Justice Department white paper laying out the circumstances in which the President can kill Americans talks not only about Al Qaeda but also about “associated forces,” not clearly defined. Michael Crowley, of Time, pointed out that Jeh Johnson, the former Pentagon general counsel, has said that “Our enemy does not include anyone solely in the category of activist, journalist, or propagandist,” and I don’t mean to say that the current Administration has adopted the logic that it does, though that “solely” can do a lot of work. The vagueness could easily increase with the passage of time, as targeted killings shift from a policy to a precedent. The logical chain, as illustrated in our chat, can move very quickly. | <urn:uuid:96ffff31-2c6f-455c-acad-602300bd1b85> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.blacklistednews.com/New_Yorker_Magazine_Asks%3A_%E2%80%98Can_The_President_Use_Drones_On_Journalists%3F%E2%80%99/24396/0/38/38/Y/M.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95909 | 630 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Old certainties are being replaced by a tangle of choices and mind-numbing changes. The future overtakes every area of our lives with intense social change. Technology is leading us into cyberspace. Electronic media threaten to turn books into historical artifacts. Postmodernism is eroding the basic idea of truth. The political world oscillates between imperialism and tribalism. Spiritual hunger is growing -- but new generations reject Christian answers for alternative spiritualities.RetroFuture explores the bewildering complexity of life today and the responses it demands from us. How do we gain a foothold in this new cultural landscape? Where can we find the personal and social resources to outfit our journey into the future? How can we take with us the very best of past experience? Culture demands that we reroute. Survival demands that we reroot.No intelligent Christian leader can avoid these issues. And for those who want to understand how the new generations are receiving -- or rejecting -- the gospel, this book is essential reading. Vibrant and engaging, Gerard Kelly proves himself an insightful observer of postmodern culture and a compelling guide who dares to step forward to embrace the new and emerging opportunities for Christian life and witness. | <urn:uuid:88754afb-1a4e-408e-bc00-81a58efd7eab> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.friendsofbooks.com/store/retrofuture-book-206839.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.905397 | 241 | 1.585938 | 2 |
VTC-Enabled Instruction in Carter County, TN, Expands Learning at School, Between Schools and Around the World
As of 2012, the solution name became ENA Live.
When Lee Ruffin was approached to lead his district’s new credit-recovery program, he eagerly accepted. A band director for 30 years, Ruffin had just successfully completed a new music appreciation course and his administrators thought he might relish another new challenge.
“The program screamed for an administrator,” said Ruffin. “And I was screaming to get off the football field.”
Flooding by day, snowing by night, and mountainous all the time
The day ENA talked to Lee Ruffin, the distance learning coordinator for Carter County Public Schools (TN), his part of the state was experiencing flash flooding. That night, it had been forecast to snow, the year’s first hint of the 20 to 25 snow days that habitually come to the district. The caprices of weather affect most of us, but when combined with the caprices of geography, they can impinge on routines and plans even more. This northeastern Tennessee county is “spread out, mountainous and largely rural,” as Ruffin describes it. Even in good weather, the drive time between two of his high schools is 50 minutes.
If ever there was one, this was a district screaming for a distance-learning program.
Despite all the screaming, Carter County’s distance learning program originated rather more quietly than that. Eight years ago, the Niswonger Foundation, a non-profit whose mission is to create greater opportunity for students and communities in Northeast Tennessee through education, helped the district procure the Plato Learning online credit-recovery solution. When neighboring Cocke County Public Schools approached Carter County about jointly applying for a USDA (United State Department of Education) RUS (Rural Utilities Services) Distance Learning and Telemedicine grant, it seemed to make sense for Ruffin to take this project as well. Credit recovery over the Internet was not traditional learning, and neither would be instruction over video-teleconferencing equipment (VTC)—something the district had never tried.
“Our distance-learning program has grown organically,” explains Ruffin. “One thing just led to another.”
A VTC homerun
Since the RUS grant program exists to support highly rural and economically disadvantaged areas, Ruffin says the two districts “were sure we could hit a homerun.” They did. Awarded a $500,000 grant combined with $150,000 in matching funds from The Niswonger Foundation, the district equipped each of its four high schools with a dedicated distance-learning room complete with an H.323 video-teleconferencing system,
two 52-inch flat screens, high-definition camera, document camera and interactive whiteboard. With the RUS grant, the district also obtained three mobile units to be used in the elementary schools and the community at large and a content server to record and play all distance-learning sessions. Later, with a Perkins grant, the districts added four more mobile units to be used in the high schools and vocational school. The district has also secured other grants, one a $10,000 Race to the Top grant, to purchase content and training from CILC (Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration).
Today, Carter County is using all this video-teleconferencing equipment to deliver teaching, content and college credit to students that want and need it. Like many school districts, the demand for advanced and specialty courses outstrips Carter County’s ability—namely, budgetary ability—to supply the teachers to teach them. Their distance-learning program fills that gap perfectly. One district teacher accredited with East Tennessee State University teaches Calculus and Probability and Statistics as dual credits
(courses that satisfies both high school and college requirements) to all four of the district’s high schools. An instructor for nearby Northeastern State Community College teaches high-level English to all four high schools. With one high school without a French teacher, Carter County simply turns to an excellent French teacher in neighboring Johnson County to instruct two classes: one a regular-sized class, the other made up of two young men whose band class meets in the same period.
Instead, says Ruffin, “We found an available room and use one of our distance-learning carts to get to them.”
Sometimes, an occasion calls for even more creativity. For instance, explains Ruffin, “We had a really top-notch student get remanded to alternative learning. She didn’t want to miss her dual-enrollment classes so I set her up on video teleconferencing at the alternative school so she could attend her classes and not get behind.” It’s a perfect illustration of how video teleconferencing can transform situations that appear, at face value, to be learning losses into educationally profitable face time.
“When you have the technology, and are willing to use it, learning challenges become learning opportunities,” says Ruffin. Because these moments are oftentimes unpredictable, and because the price tag of the H.323 rooms prohibit easy scalability, the district will soon purchase ENA Video Connect licenses to supplement the investments they’ve already made. ENA Video Connect is cloud-based, multi-point solution whose only hardware requirements are a computer, a camera and a microphone/speaker.
When you have a couple of students that want to take a distance-learning course or when you have teachers and administrators that want to video chat, cloud-based video teleconferencing “really, really comes in handy,” says Ruffin.
So many possibilities, you just don’t know where you’ll end up
A few recent examples of Carter County Public Schools’ use of video teleconferencing:
- A Dinosaur of a Day. An elementary class studying dinosaurs took a virtual field trip (through the Center for Interactive and Collaborative Learning, or CILC for short, a partner of ENA’s that provides both video-teleconferencing professional development and content) to the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Alberta, Canada. The Tyrrell is one of the world’s foremost scientific museums on paleontological history. Following the field trip, a Carter County high school science class gave a Prezi presentation they prepared to the elementary school class via video teleconferencing.
- Snow Days Aren’t Slow Days. Remember the dual-enrollment Calculus classes? On snow days, the students can watch the day’s lecture, recorded by the teacher, from home via the Internet.
- Brushing Up on Dental Health. A high school health class virtually lectured on dental care and demonstrated how to brush and floss to elementary students.
- Kids Can Be So Dramatic. A second-grade class performed a play they had learned to a second-grade class at another school.
- Mission Possible. A computer teacher in an elementary school created a “Mission Impossible”-themed game for a class studying QR (Quick Response) codes. Ruffin recorded the instructions for the class which the students found at the content server, complete with the iconic theme music playing in the background.
- Dial-an-Expert. Ruffin simply can’t keep up with all the fascinating virtual field trips that district classes have taken. But he does recall that students have “met, talked to and had discussions with” Martha Washington (a reenactor at the Mount Vernon Estate), a dog sledder in Alaska (complete with virtual “mushing” via a sled-mounted camera), a Holocaust survivor, medical examiners performing autopsies, Santa Claus, a watershed ecologist and, for vocational students, professionals in landscaping, architecture, pharmacy, milk production and the textile industry.
- Math in a Pinch. A district math teacher recently had to be out of town and, in order for her students not to get behind, she taught three days of classes from her hotel room!
“Happy … means good teaching is going on”
As he enumerates these and other extraordinary trips his students have experienced through VTC, Ruffin’s excitement is evident. “This job is fun. I love electronics. This technology is like a big boy’s toys. I love going on these virtual field trips. I am a facilitator. My job is to keep my teachers and their students happy. If they’re happy, that
means good teaching is going on.” To ensure that everyone is happy, Ruffin has two 22-inch monitors on his desk. With one, he does his work. With the other, he keeps an eye on all of the district’s distance-learning classes as they happen. “If there’s a problem, I try to fix it before the teacher can even call me.”
He gives the Carter County Public Schools administration and Carter County School Board the ultimate credit for all of this VTC-inspired happiness, excitement and cost-effective collaboration. “Everyone in our administration and on our school board is so supportive. Even with great teachers and eager students, you still have to have people to help with distance learning. To set up the equipment. To proctor. That sort of thing. Our district has a lot of small schools with limited staff. Who does these kinds of things? Principals and assistant principals, that’s who. That’s what I call great support.”
Let’s take everyone forward
The benefits of VTC are clear, according to Ruffin. It leverages the teaching resources you already have and those that are nearby. It eliminates transportation costs in fuel, maintenance, drivers, lost time and risk. It makes collaboration instant, easy and therefore more frequent. But most of all, says Ruffin, it’s the newfound learning opportunities.
“So often, when educators talk about new learning strategies, it’s about bringing the bottom up,” says Ruffin. “And that is a very worthwhile aim. But sometimes it’s the upper level students that get left behind. That’s the real value of distance learning. With our awesome teachers and this technology, we can get all of our kids, but especially our ambitious kids, the classes and the college credit they need.”
For more information
ENA has everything you need for harnessing the educational power of video teleconferencing! For information about ENA Video Connect, a multi-point, cloud-based VTC solution that is secure, easy to use, inexpensive and works on any computer with connectivity, e-mail ENA Technical Product Manager Michael Pfannenstiel at firstname.lastname@example.org.
For information on virtual field trips, VTC professional development and other content from CILC, e-mail ENA Consortium Manager Kylie McGee at email@example.com. | <urn:uuid:c3b76fbd-e83c-42d5-8ec1-3f1472cd5684> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ena.com/solutions/videoconferencing/weatherproof-all-terrain-24x7x365-learning/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948329 | 2,318 | 2.21875 | 2 |
Trying to get fit for the beach this Summer? Stay away from these high-calorie foods! http://bit.ly/16DtLeM
Still workin’ for that bikini body? Here’s how to get killer abs! #5 is simple and works! http://bit.ly/123MIQT
33 Resistance band exercises you can do at home
Illustrations by Shannon Orcutt
Rock out with the band! Resistance bands are a great addition to any strength training routine or rehabilitation program and come in a variety of sizes, lengths, and strengths . This portable exercise equipment is also easily stored, making it perfect for home use, hotel workouts, or when you’re tight on space at the gym. Just like free weights, exercise bands come in a range of resistance levels, from highly stretchable to heavy-duty strength. The most common types of bands include tube bands with handles, loop bands (aka giant rubber bands), and therapy bands. (When in doubt, a fitness professional can help determine which band is right for you, depending on your fitness level and specific workout plan). For most exercises, try aiming for 8-25 reps for 2-3 sets per exercise. And don’t miss our sample workout suggested at the very end. Ready, set, streeetch!
For those who don’t like the vanilla form of pure protein like me.
No matter what your age, gender, or workout goal, protein is a vital nutrient important for overall health. Protein plays a number of different roles in the body: it repairs cells, builds and repairs muscles and bones, provides a source of energy, and controls many of the important processes in your body related to metabolism.
Looking for some inspiration to get off the couch? Here are some quotes to get you fired up! http://bit.ly/161P7Ct
Beach season starts now: 12 tips to getting that perfect bikini body by summer http://bit.ly/15MoUrq | <urn:uuid:7f340f83-4690-47ca-a2e3-049ec697aa26> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://allthickwomen.com/tagged/fitness | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.922498 | 416 | 1.585938 | 2 |
The Pemaco Superfund site is located on the banks of the Los Angeles River, in a mixed industrial and residential neighborhood in Maywood, California. The site was a former chemical blending facility that had contaminated the soils and groundwater underlying the site. The soils at the site were treated, and a ground water and soil vapor treatment system was installed to treat the remaining contamination.
EPA, the City of Maywood, the Trust for Public Land, and other stakeholders worked together to revitalize the Pemaco Superfund site. Eight parcels along the river in Maywood, including the four acres containing the Pemaco site, were chosen to be part of the Los Angeles River Greenway Project, a city-wide effort to establish parks along the River.
In May 2008, the Maywood Riverfront Park officially opened and offers soccer fields, playground equipment, handball courts, and basketball courts for area residents. This recreational park is one of only two such parks available for residents of the city. For more information please visit http://www.epa.gov/superfund/programs/recycle/pdf/pemaco10yr.pdf. | <urn:uuid:25ab5f79-e888-46c0-b368-282c996370c5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://epa.gov/superfund/accomp/news/pemaco.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00065-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962539 | 234 | 2.25 | 2 |
School carnivals, fall and Halloween festivals and church bazaars are on the near horizon, and with them come bake sales featuring all sorts of goodies, especially bar cookies that can be sold individually or in packages of multiples.
Bar cookies often save time-starved home cooks. The bar cookies are spread into a pan and do not have to be individually dropped onto baking sheets.
My late grandmother loved to bake and was awesome at it, but she disliked making cookies. She didn't have the patience. Baking cookies took too long, so I became her cookie baker. When my daughter was in school, I always volunteered for cookies. Holidays are not the holidays without baking cookies.
Today, home cooks do not have the time to bake dozens of cookies, but they can pop a pan or two of bar cookies into the oven. The bars usually take less than an hour from start to finish and offer a variety of flavors from citrusy fruit squares to chocolaty brownies to rice cereal treats to healthy snack bars.
The hardest part of these bar cookies is not overcooking them. Home cooks often check the bars' doneness with a cake tester or toothpick. If the center of the bars still seems too gooey, they pop them back into the oven. The result? Burned crusts or crispy bars that should have been moist in the middle.
My daughter does this with brownies and another friend with lemon squares. There are few things as disappointing to cooks and their eaters as crunchy brownies and burned bars.
Before starting a bar recipe, cooks should check to see if the bars are to be moist or to spring back at the touch. Some bars
should be the texture of ooey gooey butter cakes; others a crisp granola.
Keeping an eye on the bars is a must. Just because a recipe says 30 minutes cooking time does not mean 30 minutes in each individual home oven. My gas stove cooks about five minutes faster than recipes say, sometimes 10 minutes depending on how much I have used the oven that day. Remember, gas ovens cook on retained heat.
If fruit or gooey fillings are set on top, it is time to take them out of the oven. Overcooking will place the bars into the trash instead of onto a cookie platter.
In preparation for upcoming festivals, I thought I would share a few bar cookies from readers that are not run-of-the-bake-sale chocolate chip bars or brownies. These may make you the star of the bazaar.
Valerie Crane of Gulfport, Miss., uses a cake mix and marshmallows for the crust part of her gooey-chewy Payday bars. Crisp rice cereal, peanut butter chips and corn syrup are some of the topping ingredients. This bar cannot be checked with the toothpick method. Timing is everything with these bars.
Barbara Salloum, also of Gulfport, makes healthier oatmeal squares that are crispy, but still chewy. Marmalade, apple butter or jelly is used as the filling. Watch that these bars are not overcooked. The crust and topping can burn.
In the family cookbook, "From Our House to Your House," Peggy Ryland shares her chocolate peanut butter squares. These require no baking, but the topping is cooked in a double boiler. Perhaps an easier cookie for those who are bar-challenged. Graham crackers and crunchy peanut butter are in the cookie base. The topping is chocolate chips, butter, vanilla and pecans.
1 package yellow cake mix
1/3 cup softened margarine
3 cups miniature marshmallows
Heat oven to 350 degrees. In large bowl, combine cake mix, margarine and egg. Beat at low speed until crumbly. Press into bottom of ungreased 13-by-9-inch pan. Bake for 12 to 18 minutes or until light golden brown. Remove from oven and immediately sprinkle with marshmallows. Return to oven for 1 to 2 minutes or until marshmallows just being to pull. Cool while preparing topping.
2/3 cup corn syrup
1/4 cup margarine
2 teaspoons vanilla
12-ounce package peanut butter chips
2 cups crisp rice cereal
2 cups salted peanuts
In large saucepan, heat corn syrup, margarine, vanilla and chips, just until chips are melted and mixture is smooth, stirring constantly. Remove from heat; stir in cereal and nuts. Immediately spoon warm topping over marshmallows; spread to cover. Chill. Cut into bars. Makes 36 bars.
-- Recipe by Valerie Crane from "Tastes of Temple"
1- 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1- 1/2 cups rolled oats
1 tablespoon grated orange peel
1 cup brown sugar
1- 1/2 sticks butter
1 cup orange marmalade, strawberry preserves, apple butter or your favorite jam or jelly
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix flour, baking powder, salt, rolled oats, orange peel and sugar. Add butter, working it into flour mixture with fingers until it looks like coarse cornmeal. Press half the mixture into a well-buttered 8-inch square pan. Spread with jam then top with remaining butter-flour mixture.
Bake 40 minutes. Let cool, then cut into squares
-- Recipe by Barbara Salloum from "How to Be a Star (in your kitchen)"
CHOCOLATE PEANUT BUTTER SQUARES
2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1 cup butter, softened
1 pound confectioners' sugar
1 (16.3-ounce) jar crunchy peanut butter
Combine above ingredients and press mixture into a 9-by-13-inch pan.
2 (12-ounce) packs semi-sweet Hershey chocolate morsels
3 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup pecan pieces
Combine chocolate and butter in top of a double boiler. Bring water to a boil in bottom of double boiler; reduce heat to low and cook until chocolate melts. Add vanilla. Pour over base mix and top with pecan pieces.
-- Recipe by Peggy Ryland from "From Our House To Your House: Original Recipes from The Friendship House & Log House"
CHOCOLATE POUND CAKE
"I made a very good chocolate pound cake using the Grand Prize Pound Cake recipe from your Sept. 5 column, but using a box of a good dark chocolate cake mix instead of coconut or yellow," said Ed Walker of D'Iberville, Miss.
For those who may have missed this recipe, here it is with Walker's cake mix substitution.
GRAND PRIZE POUND CAKE
1 dark chocolate cake mix
1 cup sour cream
2/3 cup sugar
2/3 cup oil
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine cake mix and sugar with mixer. Add oil, sour cream, eggs and vanilla and beat 2 minutes. Pour batter into a greased and floured Bundt pan and bake for 45 minutes. Do not open the oven! Remove from oven to wire rack. Cool 10 minutes and remove from pan. May dust with confectioners' sugar. Makes 12-16 servings.
-- Submitted by Ed Walker
More on salsa
A reader requested recipes for good salsas, and Sheryl Miller of Palmetto shares her family's favorite.
1 apple (any type of sweet apple)
8 strawberries (more if you want)
Cut all fruit into small pieces and mix together. Serve with tortillas or cinnamon pita chips.
-- Submitted by Sheryl Miller
Still seeking these recipes
Readers are looking for a chocolate pound cake with a raspberry filling and gluten- and dairy-free recipes. Also, feel free to share your favorite bar cookie recipes or fall festival goodies. After all, 'tis getting to be the season.
Please send, contributions or requests for this column to Cook's Exchange, P.O. Box 4567, Biloxi, MS 39535-4567. If requesting a recipe, please include the name or briefly describe it and the ingredients. You can reach Andrea Yeager at 832-8568 or to email@example.com. | <urn:uuid:7408b9c7-8e8f-4b78-b648-df40aea84ea5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bradenton.com/2012/09/19/4205286/cook-up-some-bar-cookies-to-be.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.916633 | 1,732 | 1.773438 | 2 |
February 2013: Physics Graduate Students Study Motion in Mosh Pits
Physics is everywhere . . . including your local heavy metal concert. This is illustrated by a paper recently posted to arXiv by physics PhD students Jesse Silverberg and Matthew Bierbaum.
Silverberg, a student in Prof. Itai Cohen’s group, began wondering about the dynamics of mosh pits while attending a concert as an undergraduate student. When Silverberg took a statistical physics course with Prof. Jim Sethna, he had the opportunity to explore this behavior with Matt Bierbaum, a student in Sethna’s lab. In their free time Silverberg and Bierbaum have continued their research into this type of crowd behavior which was posted to arXiv on February 11.
After watching videos of mosh pits across at different concerts in several countries, Silverberg and Bierbaum found that the motions observed were like those of classical 2D gases. The moshers seemingly random collisions in a mosh pit or circle pit can be predicted by simple models.
This work joins other contributions to the study of collective motion whose applications include designing buildings that mitigate dangers presented by large groups fleeing emergencies. Using concert videos allowed the scientists to study realistic extreme behavior without asking volunteers to risk personal injury that could be incurred recreating the experience.
The article is quickly gaining exposure in the mainstream media. Prof. Itai Cohen’s page contains a complete list of all media coverage. Below find a link to the Cohen Group page as well as a few media highlights:
To read a summary of the students’ work or see all media coverage on Prof. Itai Cohen’s page, click here.
To read the full article, click here.
For additional coverage in:
MIT Technology Review
Radio Interview with Jesse Silverberg on WHCU’s Morning News Watch
Radio Interview with Jesse Silverberg on CBC’s As it Happens
The Huffington Post
The Cornell Chronicle | <urn:uuid:65302508-19fc-4ab5-84b6-d2d99dc18ca8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.physics.cornell.edu/2013/02/20/february-2013-physics-graduate-students-study-motion-in-mosh-pits/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927166 | 406 | 2.3125 | 2 |
State constitution (United States)
In the United States, each state has its own constitution.
Usually, they are longer than the 8,500-word federal Constitution and are more detailed regarding the day-to-day relationships between government and the people. The shortest is the Constitution of Vermont, adopted in 1793 and currently 8,295 words long. The longest is Alabama's sixth and current constitution, ratified in 1901, at 357,157 words long. Both the federal and state constitutions are organic texts: they are the fundamental blueprints for the legal and political organizations of the United States and the states, respectively.
The Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, part of the Bill of Rights, provides that "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." The Guarantee Clause of Article 4 of the Constitution states that "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government." These two provisions indicate states did not surrender their wide latitude to adopt a constitution, the fundamental documents of state law, when the U.S. Constitution was adopted.
Typically state constitutions address a wide array of issues deemed by the states to be of sufficient importance to be included in the constitution rather than in an ordinary statute. Often modeled after the federal Constitution, they outline the structure of the state government and typically establish a bill of rights, an executive branch headed by a governor (and often one or more other officials, such as a lieutenant governor and state attorney general), a state legislature, and state courts, including a state supreme court (a few states have two high courts, one for civil cases, the other for criminal cases). Additionally, many other provisions may be included. Many state constitutions, unlike the federal constitution, also begin with an invocation of God.
Many states have had several constitutions over the course of its history.
The organized territories of the United States also have constitutions or organic acts of their own, if they have an organized government through an Organic Act passed by the federal Congress. These constitutions are subject to congressional approval and oversight, which is not the case with state constitutions. If territories wish to enter the Union (that is, to attain statehood), they seek an enabling act from Congress and must draft an acceptable state constitution as a prerequisite to statehood.
List of constitutions
The following is a list of the current constitutions of the United States of America and its constituent political divisions. Each entry shows the original number of the current constitution, the official name of the current constitution, and the date on which the current constitution took effect.
Federal constitution
|No.||Official name||Date of effect||Notes|
|1st||Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union||March 1, 1781|||
|2nd||Constitution of the United States of America||March 4, 1789|
State constitutions
Note that constitutions of states that were independent prior to admission, and constitutions used by states while participating in the American Civil War are not counted.
Federal district charter
|No.||Official name||Date of effect||Notes|
|1st||Charter of the District of Columbia||December 24, 1973|
The District of Columbia (Washington City in the District of Columbia) has a charter similar to charters of major cities, instead of having a constitution like the states and territories. The District of Columbia Home Rule Act establishes the Council of the District of Columbia which governs the entire district and has certain devolved powers similar to those of major cities. Congress has full authority over the district and may amend the charter and any legislation enacted by the Council. Attempts at statehood for the District of Columbia have included the drafting of two constitutions in 1982 and 1987 respectively referring to the district as the State of New Columbia.
Territorial constitutions
- 1st Constitution of the Territory of American Samoa, July 1, 1967 (at Politics of American Samoa) The revised constitution was approved on June 2, 1967 by Stewart L. Udall, then U.S. Secretary of the Interior, under authority granted on June 29, 1951. It became effective on July 1, 1967.
- 1st Constitution of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, November 3, 1986. The Constitution was approved by the Congress of the United States by joint resolution approved March 24, 1976 (Public Law 94-241; 90 Stat. 263) and by a majority of the voters of American Samoa voting in the general election in 1966.
- 1st Constitution of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, July 25, 1952. It was ratified by Puerto Rico's electorate in a referendum on March 3, 1952, approved by the United States Congress and the President.
Organic acts
- The Territory of Guam does not have its own constitution, but operates under the Guam Organic Act of 1950 and other federal statutes.
- The United States Virgin Islands, an unincorporated organized territory, does not have its own constitution, instead operating under various federal statutes. See politics of the United States Virgin Islands.
- Despite its very different title, the United States Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, adopted on November 15, 1777, and ratified on March 1, 1781, was actually the first constitution of the United States of America. See Christian G. Fritz, American Sovereigns: The People and America's Constitutional Tradition Before the Civil War (Cambridge University Press, 2008) at p. 131 [ISBN 978-0-521-88188-3 (noting that "Madison, along with other Americans clearly understood" the Articles of Confederation "to be the first federal Constitution.")
- Excludes the constitutions of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi and the Republic of Hawaiʻi.
- The Wyandotte Constitution supplanted the rejected Topeka Constitution, Lecompton Constitution, and Leavenworth Constitution.
- Excludes the 1876 recodification of the Constitution of the State of Maine.
- The Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is currently the world's oldest written constitution that is still in effect.
- The first Constitution of the State of New Hampshire, adopted on January 5, 1776, was the first written constitution for an independent state in the New World and set the stage for the United States Declaration of Independence the following summer.
- Excludes the 1938 recodification of the Constitution of the State of New York.
- Excludes the 1968 recodification of the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
- Excludes the constitution of the Republic of Texas.
- Excludes the two constitutions of the Vermont Republic.
- [dead link]
- [dead link]
- Proclamation 4534--Constitution of the Northern Mariana Islands
- Hammons, Christopher W. (1999). Was James Madison wrong? Rethinking the American preference for short, framework-oriented constitutions. American Political Science Review. Dec. 1999.
- The appendices to this article contain substantial data on state constitutions.
|Find more about constitution at Wikipedia's sister projects|
|Definitions and translations from Wiktionary|
|Media from Commons|
|Learning resources from Wikiversity|
|News stories from Wikinews|
|Quotations from Wikiquote|
|Source texts from Wikisource|
|Textbooks from Wikibooks|
|Travel information from Wikivoyage|
- The Green Papers: Constitutions of the states
- The Green Papers: State constitutions, an explanation
- The Green Papers: Links to state constitutions
- Citings of Religious Influence in First State Constitutions | <urn:uuid:d4d3b778-6cc6-46ea-96f1-37e457bfb111> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_constitution_(United_States) | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00070-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.924105 | 1,604 | 4.0625 | 4 |
home > archive > 2002 > this article
Bush burned by climate report
By Henry Lamb
Despite a flurry of media reports to the contrary, the Bush administration's policy on climate change has not flip-flopped. The media frenzy followed the release of a U.S. Climate Assessment Report prepared for the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.
The massive report, the third submitted by the U.S., is required periodically from nations that ratified the Convention on Climate Change, even though the U.S. has withdrawn from the Kyoto Protocol. There is very little difference between this report, and previous reports issued by the Clinton/Gore administration.
Most of the individuals who prepared the report are hold-overs from the Clinton/Gore era, who are known proponents of the global warming theory. It is also widely known that some of Bush's high level appointments are also proponents of the theory, even though Bush, himself, has expressed strong reservations. Release of the report was not intended to be an announcement of a change in policy; it was simply compliance with treaty requirements.
It was the media, fanned by a few environmental extremists, that found statements in the report that differ from Bush's previous statements on global warming, and announced a 180-degree flip-flop on the issue.
Whether the inconsistent language in the report simply escaped the notice of White House reviewers, or was deliberately allowed, is, or should be, a major concern to George Bush. The flap arising from the report's release has been costly.
Conservative supporters are appalled by reports that Bush has flip-flopped on this important issue. Environmental extremists ridicule the administration for not imposing mandatory emissions reductions required by the Kyoto Protocol, after issuing a report that subscribes to the theory that human activity is causing global warming.
Yes, President Bush is preoccupied by a war on terrorism, continuing violence in Israel, and the threat of a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan. But someone in his administration should have a better handle on the information released to the world in the President's name.
The draft report was released more than a year ago for public comment. There was plenty of comment. The report's dire predictions were lambasted by scientists, and by others who challenged the scientific basis for the report's conclusions.
The release of this report does not signal a dramatic change in the President's global warming policy; it does, however, reveal an unacceptable failure by the President's advisors, who allowed the report to contain language that is inconsistent with the President's position and policy.
The President is walking on an extremely thin political high-wire on all environmental issues. On the one hand, environmental extremists charge that he is trying to roll-back the "gains" made during the Clinton/Gore administration. On the other hand, his conservative base charges that he has not moved decisively to undo the excessive restrictions imposed by his predecessors.
Public policies designed to appease everyone, satisfy no one. Bush's global warming policy, as ill-defined as it may be, rejects the unfounded, hyperbolic claims of catastrophic climate calamity. His policy recognizes that the climate is changing, as it has done throughout the history of the world. His policy favors voluntary action, and adaptive, free-market alternatives, instead of reactionary global government mandates.
This policy is expressed in the U.S. Climate Assessment Report to the U.N., but media coverage has ignored, or minimized this position, in order to exploit the inconsistent language which suggests a policy flip-flop. Mr. Bush must realize that there are hold-overs in his government who do not agree with his environmental policy, and some who are eager to see him replaced by a more environmentally-sensitive Democrat.
The American people, and the international community, deserve a statement of policy on climate change, and environmental issues, that is as clear as the Bush position on the International Criminal Court, global taxation, or on international terrorism.
Bush's popularity arises from the character on which his policy positions are founded, and the clarity with which they are expressed. Confusion on climate change, land and resource use, or any other social or environmental issues will only empower his opponents and discourage his supporters.
What America, and the world needs, is strong leadership, unaffected by media hype or extremists' propaganda. We have seen glimpses of that leadership, but screw-ups, such as the release of the Climate Report not only tarnish the President's image, but also create doubt and suspicions about his ability to control the people around him.
Mr. Bush, please fix this problem!
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© 1996-2013, Enter Stage Right and/or its creators. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:98d2faa0-2542-4209-820d-dd8e253c1a02> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://enterstageright.com/archive/articles/0602/0602bushwarming.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00067-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96733 | 969 | 2.109375 | 2 |
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4677 Towne Centre Rd / Suite 101 / Saginaw, Michigan 48604 / (989) 497-3117
National ThinkFirst Injury Prevention FoundationBrain and spinal cord injuries are the leading killer of young people, taking the lives of more than 22,000 children under the age of 20 each year. In order to address these distressing statistics, FNI sponsors ThinkFirst, an award winning public education effort targeting this high-risk age group. The mission of the National ThinkFirst Injury Prevention Foundation is to prevent brain, spinal cord and other traumatic injuries through the education of individuals, community leaders and the creators of public policy. FNI's ThinkFirst programs include ThinkFirst for Kids (2nd-4th grades), ThinkFirst for Teens (6th-12th grades), and Buckle Your Brain (a comprehensive helmet safety program).
The ProgramEach year in the United States over 800 bicyclists are killed and another 55,000 are injured. Of those injured, half are the result of bicycle falls or improperly sized bikes. Helmets worn correctly and consistently reduce the risk of bicycle related death and injury when a crash occurs. Helmets have been shown to reduce the risk of head injury by as much as 85% and the risk of brain injury by as much as 88%.
One of the programs that was developed in response to the survey information is called Buckle Your Brain.TM The mission of Buckle Your BrainTM is to help prevent brain and spinal cord injuries by educating the youth of our community about the critical functions of the brain and spinal cord, and by reinforcing helmet use and other good safety behaviors.
Implementation The Buckle Your BrainTM Program is presented by Injury Prevention Specialists who are dedicated to making people aware of the dire consequences that could occur when safety helmets are not worn. The program targets children from Kindergarten through grade five and addresses bicycle safety, proper helmet utilization, and the critical functions of the brain and spinal cord. The 60-minute educational presentation stresses the importance of wearing a safety helmet to protect the brain and ultimately save a LIFE. After a brief anatomy lesson, participants view a bicycle safety video. This is followed by a high energy interactive quiz which covers the rules of safe bike riding.
To reinforce the importance of wearing a helmet to protect the brain, educators use a watermelon to demonstrate to the students the risks of not wearing a helmet. The watermelon is dropped, both with and without a helmet. The helmeted melon is not damaged while the un-helmeted melon explodes, demonstrating the injuries they could sustain.
At the end of the presentation, each child is custom fitted with a bike helmet and read their "safety rights," promising to wear their helmet to protect their brain. The Buckle Your BrainTM program distributes thousands of free helmets each year at school assemblies and community events. Since 1998, FNI Injury Prevention Programs have educated over 30,000 students and distributed more than 10,000 bicycle helmets throughout the region. At the end of each Buckle Your BrainTM assembly, children are introduced to Caught Being Safe!TM.
Caught Being Safe!TM(CBS!) began as an idea to make helmet utilization attractive to children. When children have been "caught" wearing a helmet they are given a Caught Being Safe!™ sticker for their helmet and a free food coupon. To find children wearing helmets FNI teamed up with police officers, firefighters and ski patrol to reward young people who choose to wear helmets while bicycling, skateboarding, rollerblading, snow skiing or snow boarding.
Once the CBS! Team was in place, we were in need of local businesses to help with the program. Morley Companies designed and printed the first 10,000 CBS! stickers. McDonald's Restaurants Inc. recognized the association between the mission of Caught Being Safe!TM and their focus on children and healthy lifestyles and agreed to print 10,000 coupons for free ice cream cones. We now had our rewards to move forward with the program.
Recognizing an opportunity to foster good relations with children, the Michigan State Police (MSP) joined CBS!. They distributed stickers and coupons to 900 patrol cars in both the upper and lower peninsulas of Michigan. Due to the efforts of the MSP and McDonald's Restaurant Inc., Caught Being Safe!TM grew to become a statewide program. In what may be the largest bicycle helmet giveaway in Michigan, Field Neurosciences Institute, McDonald's Restaurants and the Michigan State Police are sponsoring "Safety Saturday" which involves distributing 7,500 free helmets throughout Michigan at selected McDonald's locations. To help keep the program growing, children who are "caught" wearing a helmet more than once will continue to receive stickers for their helmets. These children will be eligible for larger rewards by bringing their helmets to Field Neurosciences Institute community events scheduled throughout the year.
Caught Being Safe!TM has shown a significant increase in both helmet utilization and public awareness regarding the critical importance of wearing a bicycle helmet. This program has impacted not only children but adults as well. One local ski patrol has reported a 96% increase in their member's helmet usage after partnering with Caught Being Safe!TM.
For more information on how to replicate this program in your community call Kelli Jankens at 989-497-3114 or email her at email@example.com | <urn:uuid:c26548d2-cb3a-46b3-911c-4ad6353b7378> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fieldneurosciences.info/injury_prevention/index.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947054 | 1,109 | 2.671875 | 3 |
But this star, called HD 34989 (among other alphanumeric designations) is special. For one thing, it's massive, probably 10 times the mass of our Sun. It's also incredibly luminous, shining 15,000 times brighter than the Sun. Put that in the center of our solar system, and the global warming we're experiencing now would seem like the deep freeze. Happily, it's over a thousand light years away. | <urn:uuid:5ae9f5fc-99ae-4e9c-bcba-5c75d2b25166> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cheezburger.com/7121544704 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949114 | 91 | 1.929688 | 2 |
To obtain a Class 5 licence, you must:
There are also five steps to obtaining a Class 5 driver's licence:
1. Registering for the driving course
The first step is to register for the driving course at a driving school recognized by the Association québécoise du transport et des routes (AQTR - Web site in French only).
The passenger vehicle driving course is mandatory, and includes both theoretical and practical components.
If you are a new resident, you must call the SAAQ to make an appointment before registering for a driving course.
2. Getting a Class 5 learner's licence
The second step is to get a passenger vehicle (Class 5) learner's licence. Before going to an SAAQ service centre to get this licence, you are required to have passed Phase 1 of the driving course, which includes five theoretical modules, at a driving school recognized.
Read the procedure to follow to get a passenger vehicle (Class 5) learner's licence.
With a passenger vehicle (Class 5) learner's licence, you can access the road network under certain conditions.
3. Passing the knowledge test
The third step is passing the knowledge test. You can only take this test after holding a learner's licence for at least 10 months. You can make an appointment for the knowledge test online or by using the SAAQ's automated telephone service, where you will need to provide the file number that appears on your learner's licence.
Read the procedure to follow for the knowledge test.
If you fail, you must wait at least 28 days before retaking the knowledge test.
4. Passing the road test
Passing the road test is the fourth step. To take this test, which you are required to pass in order to get a probationary licence, you must have:
Read the procedure to follow for the road test to get a passenger vehicle (Class 5) probationary licence.
If you fail, you must wait at least 28 days before retaking the road test.
5. Probationary licence
Once you have passed the road test, you can get a probationary licence. This is the last step before getting your driver's licence.
The probationary licence is valid for 24 months. After the 24-month period has elapsed, you may get a Class 5 driver's licence. | <urn:uuid:97b6a4b7-fc8e-4119-b647-68773cf1da54> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.saaq.gouv.qc.ca/en/driver_licence/licence_passenger.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927064 | 487 | 1.960938 | 2 |
Prelude to treason
In February 1779 Joseph Reed, President of the Pennsylvania Executive Council, presented eight charges of misconduct against Brig. Gen. Benedict Arnold to the Continental Congress. Congress referred the charges to Gen. George Washington, who appointed a court-martial to hear the case. In January 1780 the court dismissed the most serious charges and recommended that Washington reprimand Arnold for two minor offenses. Arnold felt he had been falsely accused, and his bitterness helped lead him to his infamous betrayal of the American cause.
National Archives, Records of the Continental and Confederation Congresses | <urn:uuid:e084d34e-9cf7-431d-9f9c-ddc8154250d0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.digitalvaults.org/record/682.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962945 | 117 | 3.203125 | 3 |
Despite recent U.S. coyness on Russia's desired entry into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Germany's Defense Minister made his country's position clear today, possibly setting up a rift with the Clinton Administration's Partnership for Peace Program. "If Russia were to become a member of NATO, that would blow NATO apart," Volker Ruehe told a conference of German and American business leaders. Why the snub? Ruehe claimed it would be too difficult to integrate the Russians into the Western alliance, in part because they refuse to learn English, the accepted "common" language of NATO. His U.S. counterpart, Defense Secretary William Perry, hedged, saying Russia could get in line behind Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic -- a 5-year wait at least. | <urn:uuid:c320a070-048d-4238-9540-f5ddbd859e7b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1720,00.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972475 | 158 | 1.96875 | 2 |
By Shelley Grieshop
Christmas isn't looking too merry for the needy in Mercer County.
Area residents, as well as government agencies, dug deep into their pockets early this fall to aid hurricane victims down south, but the end result has left bare shelves at many local food pantries.
"Right now we're relying on what area people give us," says Pastor Kenny Baker, director of CALL Food Pantry in Celina.
West Ohio Food Bank in Lima, the local food pantries' main source of supplies, has significantly cut the number of items available to pantries and food kitchens across Ohio since Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast in late August. West Ohio is funded by several sources including the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Ohio Association of Second Harvest Foodbanks, who continue to help victims in the south .
"They're giving us less 'edible' items and items with less shelf life," says Baker, who also is a member of the board of trustees of the West Ohio Food Bank. The lack of supplies is visible; 10 boxes of cereal were all that remained on the metal shelving units this morning. Even jars of peanut butter -- a great source of protein and a favorite of youngsters -- were dwindling in number.
CALL received more than 1,600 donated items from various sources this month, Baker says. Although that may seem like a lot, one item can be as small as a bag of Ramon Noodles or a can of green beans.
The shortage problem escalated after the government raised the poverty level for the third time this year, Baker said. A family of four making less than $744 per week before taxes is now eligible for government assistance.
Although more people can receive aid such as food stamps, the action also has sent more families to food pantries where they verify that eligibility and expect help, Baker says.
"Our numbers (clients) are up 20 percent since the beginning of the year," he explains.
CALL, based in Celina for 27 years, is currently helping about 400 families each month, giving food and other items to approximately 1,400 adults and children. There also are smaller food pantries at OUR Home and the Native American Indian Center, both in Celina, and Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Coldwater.
Other areas across the state are in the same boat. Lay-offs, which haven't been the case locally, have steered many Dayton-area families to food pantries, according to a recent story in the Dayton Daily News.
Mercer County fortunately does not have that problem. The county boasted the lowest unemployment rate in the state in October at 3.7 percent and has consistently been on the low side most of the year.
Baker said donations from local churches, school groups, Scouts, as well as food distributors such as Boeckman and Gast in St. Henry, continue to arrive and he and his volunteer staff are grateful for that. But they fear it won't be enough to get them by this holiday season.
"We don't turn anyone in need away, but it's getting harder and harder to keep enough supplies on hand," Baker adds.
Anyone interested in donating to the food pantry can call 419-586-3574 or bring items to the office at 112 N. Main St. Office hours are 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and 9 a.m.-noon Saturdays. | <urn:uuid:4e4f4516-f57e-4aa9-9d59-fc89005362dd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dailystandard.com/date/2005/12/05/news/headline1.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974298 | 708 | 1.835938 | 2 |
"Nature Precedings is a place for researchers to share pre-publication research, unpublished manuscripts, presentations, posters, white papers, technical papers, supplementary findings, and other scientific documents. Submissions are screened by our professional curation team for relevance and quality, but are not subjected to peer review."
It seems you can just submit a paper and then people can vote on it, and discuss it. Most of the popular papers are about H5N1. I can see the usefulness of rapidly sharing some information, such as polymorphisms and possible antigens. Information sharing is key if an epidemic is ever to occur. And this type of information can probably get away with not having been peer reviewed. But when I perused the cancer section I noticed some strange papers. Take this one for example "metastasis as a faulty recapitulation of ontogeny". It reads more like an OP-ED than a review or paper. The premise is that transforming somatic cells with oncogene is like bringing back the cell to its original progenitor-like state. For example some lung cancer cells look like the embryonic cells that give rise to the alveolar epithelium. Well nothing new here. He author argues that these "progenitor-like" cells will behave like their embryonic counterparts and migrate in a similar fashion. Well nothing outlandish here either. He also argues that some of the metastases may implant in different organs and assume the identity of that organ and maybe remain unnoticed. While this is all somewhat interesting I doubt any of the ideas are novel enough to actually get published in one of the "real" nature journals. In fact that paper could have easily been published on a blog . Is this the future of science publishing? Is it a good thing? | <urn:uuid:56c55558-7a51-4507-9337-22e13ac29bb7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bayblab.blogspot.com/2007/08/nature-precedings.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945916 | 362 | 2.125 | 2 |
By Robert Frank
Last week, I posted about the richest U.S. states, as measured by the number of ultrahigh net-worth residents. The post generated a number of requests for more-precise data, since the ultrarich list was really just a list of the largest states. Many also wanted incomes.
Right on cue come fresh data from the U.S. Census. The data, gathered from 2005 through 2009, show the top 10 counties as ranked by median income.
The list follows below. But it reflects two interesting trends. First, high-income and high-education households are “clumping” into tighter and tighter geographies, according to a University of Maryland professor.
“The dispersion of income is larger than it’s ever been,” said Douglas Besharov, a professor at the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy told Bloomberg. “There used to be a much wider spread of incomes within geographic areas than there is now. There’s much more of a clumping together.”
The other trend is that the suburbs of Washington D.C. have replaced New York, California, Connecticut and New Jersey as home to the top-earning counties. Four of the highest earning areas in the U.S. are commuting towns to D.C., either in Virginia or Maryland.
Government, it seems, is catching up to finance and technology as the largest generators of high incomes.
Here is the list:
Top 10 U.S. Areas by Median Household Income (in 2009 inflation-adjusted dollars).
Falls Church city, Va. — $113,313
Loudoun County, Va. — $112,021
Fairfax County, Va. — $104,259
Hunterdon County, N.J. — $102,500
Howard County, Md. — $101,003
Los Alamos County, N.M. — $100,423
Douglas County, Colo. — $99,522
Morris County, N.J. — $96,316
Somerset County, N.J. — $96,233
Fairfax City, Va. — $96,232
Do you see any other trends in the list? | <urn:uuid:91b69523-972e-45a1-90c2-f2e0927afbd7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2010/12/20/the-10-top-earning-counties-in-america/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00054-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933665 | 473 | 2.21875 | 2 |
mattallen37 wrote:jdc2106 wrote:...there's always the possibility that a response comes to the module at exactly the same time as a signal is going out to the module, and to handle that, I think you would need hardware control (someone correct me if I'm wrong).
Without programming the serial handler on the Wifi module, yes, you would need HW flow control to totally eliminate collisions. Either that, or a full-duplex UART line between the NXT and the Wifi module.
Actually, I saw recently that it should be possible to re-program one of the ARM cores in the Wifi module used for the DIWIFI. Apparently it can be programmed to use UART, SPI, or I2C. That means that in theory, you could re-program it to only transmit a message upon receiving a request over RS485 (a master-slave relationship). That should totally eliminate the problem... at the cost of a new version of the DIWIFI (since the programming pins are not broken out on the current HW version).
I'm not quite sure, but I believe that the ARM core must also run a TCP/IP UDP/IP stack. It won't be an easy task to modify the firmware, unless the manufacturer actually provides the sources or binaries of that.
Also note, that the datasheet mentioned a firmware upgrade command. The firmware image will be downloaded via HTTP from a given URL. | <urn:uuid:bffa83f6-11a3-472e-aa83-0c5cbd42e4a5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://lejos.sourceforge.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=17993 | 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 | 0.936062 | 301 | 1.914063 | 2 |
Washington (CNN) –After months of being vague on exactly what federal programs they would slash in their quest to cut spending, House Republicans Wednesday released a list of some 70 specific cuts.
House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers is putting a wide range of agencies and programs on the chopping block, from environmental and energy spending, to job training and longtime GOP targets, like the arts.
"Make no mistake, these cuts are not low-hanging fruit. These cuts are real and will impact every District across the country – including my own," said Rogers in a statement.
The cuts will be part of the spending bill the House plans to vote on next week to keep the government running through the rest of this year. The current spending bill expires March 4th.
Some of the highlights on the GOP spending cut list: EPA , $1.6 billion; Job Training Programs, $2 billion; Community Health Centers, $1.3 billion; High Speed Rail, $1 billion; Family Planning, $327 million; National Institutes of Health, $1 billion; NASA, $374 million; IRS, $593 million.
A list of the proposed cuts can be found on the House Appropriations Committee Website.
A spokeswoman for Rogers tells CNN that this is intended to be "illustrative" of the full list of spending cuts they plan to unveil Thursday. That will include the outright elimination of some 60 federal programs.
Last week House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, announced cuts he is recommending for the rest of the year that would add up to $35 billion when compared with spending levels currently funding the
government. Ryan's proposed cuts would be $58 billion compared with spending recommended by President Obama for 2011.
Either way the cuts will fall far short of the $100 billion in cuts this year that House Republicans vowed in their so-called Pledge to America.
Conservative Republicans in both the House and the Senate have been pressuring House GOP leaders to keep that promise. House conservatives hope to offer amendments during debate next week for additional spending cuts.
Asked whether he would support these deeper cuts House Speaker John Boehner deflected the question, saying, "Let's let the House make that decision. It's not about my decision. It's not about anybody's else's decision,"
Boehner added, "All Members – Democrats and Republicans ought to have the chance to involve themselves in the process of legislating and let all members represent all Americans to develop how much cutting the American people really want."
One of the conservatives proposing more cuts, House Republican Jeff Flake who just joined the Appropriations Committee, opposed the overall levels set by the committee and said he plans to offer amendments to push for the full $100 billion that GOP leaders proposed to cut.
"We've got to get to $100 billion or we're not serious," Flake told reporters after the Appropriations committee meeting on Tuesday.
But a senior House GOP aide tells CNN they have looked into the possibility of slashing an additional $43 billion in spending, and determined it would likely mean "cutting salaries and expenses for federal agencies, which means people."
While this GOP aide said that the cuts they are already proposing will no doubt mean job losses, the goal is to "minimize" that and cutting tens of billions more "would mean taking away government jobs and putting them on unemployment rolls."
The GOP aide was speaking on condition of anonymity in order to talk freely about internal Republican deliberations. | <urn:uuid:02621299-6f9b-4f5e-9ce4-4224fd89ddc6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/02/09/house-republicans-release-first-specific-spending-cut-proposals/comment-page-2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00071-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960713 | 699 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Whether you're an executive with your own profile, or just know about it because your 14-year-old child spends hours tweaking their profile every day or two, you're probably well aware of MySpace.
Sign up once and Tom is your first friend. Search for others based on location, name, what year they graduated from your college or high school. You can friend (no longer befriend) actual friends, celebrities' official pages, celebrities' fan pages, bands that you love or want to get to know better, and even tag some SEO professionals.
Actually, you can friend any entity that has a MySpace profile, as long as you can find the official profile. For example, you can be counted amongst Wake Forest's friends, check your weight with Curves foods, catch up on the perfect pint of Guinness, and pick up the latest trailers from the new horror flick "Quarantine."
Then pimp out your profile, upload pictures, start a blog, and you're out there for the whole world to see.
MySpace can be dangerous. Stories have surfaced from Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan's personal, "private" photos being hacked and spread all over the Internet, to kids getting suspended from school, to colleges denying graduating high school seniors admission.
The good thing about MySpace is that anything you put up there can be seen by anyone. The bad thing is that anything you put up there can be seen by anyone.
High schools are scanning MySpace to see what's really going on in social circles. Colleges are scouring the Internet to see what their applicants are really like. And once you're all growed up? Prospective and current employers are checking you out, and they're starting with MySpace.
At the other end of the danger room are the same lurking questions that began and continue with chat rooms. The Internet offers some anonymity, and can harbor dangers for kids who aren't very Internet savvy or wise to the trappings of predators.
To avoid these problems, MySpace has taken steps to educate their users, putting out public service announcements to keep parents in the loop and partnering with other sites for the same reasons. One person's firsthand account of visiting MySpace offers a very positive experience.
But it's not all bad. Like most Web-based tools, especially social marketing tools, it's a double-edged sword.
While some schools eschew the idea of MySpace in the classroom, other curricula embrace social media. Oh, the humanity! Why? If you can pull the aptitude and savvy of students from what they like to do outside class into the classroom, it makes for a more interactive environment. Engaged students learn more and retain more of what they learn.
We mentioned that a foolish profile can cripple you at college application time. But a clean profile can do just the opposite. Instead of a blog, perhaps you post your unpublished essays and poetry and express interest in the arts and education. Some colleges are actively pursuing recruitment through social media like MySpace.
There's the good with the bad, and because people will take advantage of any media presented to them, we have to take them both together. The fact that there's so much good out there is a cause for celebration and time for all of us to embrace these opportunities as they emerge.
Want more information about these types of topics? Why not visit the International Society for Technology in Education MySpace page, grab a burrito, and get to learning.
Have you used MySpace for anything related to education? How has MySpace positively or negatively affected your life? We'd love to hear from you!
Join Ron and other search marketing experts for a Search Engine Marketing Training in Boston, November 6 at the Hilton Boston Back Bay. Not only will you walk away with the knowledge and skills to be a successful search engine marketer, you'll also jumpstart your career and enhance your professional know-how.
Early Bird Rates have been extended!
June 12-14, 2013: Join industry experts at SES Toronto for a crash course in the latest strategies in Online Marketing and Advertising.
Save $300 when you register by Thursday, May 23. | <urn:uuid:01eb29f6-c557-4c4f-bdb3-e286b7078372> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2048720/MySpace-for-Online-Learning-and-Marketing-Tools | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951325 | 853 | 2.15625 | 2 |
The Bartlett Family
Pictured: Helen Bartlett and her husband, Tony Bill, with their daughters, Daphne (left) and Maddie, and dog, Roxie (a Labradoodle). The family uses this 1954 Chrysler Town & Country station wagon as a produce stand at their local farmers' market, where they sell apples, green beans, cucumbers, tomatoes, squash, zinnias, and sunflowers grown in their garden.
Folk Art Living Room
Collecting Tip: Cull collections periodically, Helen advises. "Really look at what you have, and if something doesn't work, sell it or give it away."
Fresh Green Kitchen
Chest of Drawers
Collecting Tip: Pause before committing to a big item. "When you find something you like, move it away from its current environment — to a different table in a store, for instance — to get some perspective," says Helen. If it still holds its spell on you, then go for it!
Vintage Rug Beaters
"You put two or three on the wall, then you can't stop until you've displayed them all."
Collecting Tip: Buy only things you can truly use. "The enamelware I collect is functional," says Helen. "It's great to take a big pitcher to the garden for watering plants; the enamel is so lightweight that it's not too heavy, even when filled with water."
What Is It Worth? Tin Canisters
Painted containers from the 1930s and '40s usually came in sets ranging from small to large. Prices run $10 to $20 each.
What Is It Worth? Firkins
Covered wooden buckets once stored grains and spices. Today, they still function as containers and go for $350 to $1,000, depending on condition. | <urn:uuid:1988c331-0dcd-4fcb-9703-a6ff1a4a3803> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.countryliving.com/homes/house-tours/connecticut-farmhouse-0309?click=smart&kw=ist&src=smart&mag=CLG&link= | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9386 | 376 | 1.539063 | 2 |
The changing colours of Malaysia
I wonder if any of you notice this subtle change in Malaysia over the last couple of years. There is change in the making in the mindset of UMNO. I am not referring to their racial politics. I am not referring to the fading era of Mahathir. There is a physical change, the choice of ceremonial colours. It used to be green. The new colour is red. UMNO is turning red, even in their party uniforms and colour. Would this mean anything? China was red but turning more blue. The Americans were blue but turning a little red. The Islamic states were green and so was Malaysia. But Malaysia is turning red. Indonesia, the most populated Islamic country, has always been red. Malaysia has seen the passing away of the second generation of political leaders when Mahathir left. Badawi was the transition stage. Now we have Najib, Muhyiddin, Hamidi, Hishamuddin and several other new generation leaders in the driver's seat. Hamidi and Hishamuddin came from UMNO youth and cut their teeth as ultras, riding on the cause of championing Malay supremacy to power. No one can fault them for taking those stands when young and full of fire in their bellies. Have they matured while rising to their present positions and able to see the bigger picture, the longer term of socio economic development and progress for nation and all? Today's report concluded that they are fully behind Najib to work with Singapore for the good of both countries. Such developmental approach, a break from the berserk politicking mindset of the past, is a big step forward. If they are to pursue this earnestly, instead of wasting time politicking to score empty victories, the relationship between the two states will have a long way to go and both will benefit along the way. Between the two countries, there are more to learn and gain through cooperation and working together to better the livelihood of the people of the two states. For this to be true, to materialise, serious and conscientious effort must be made to change the whole psychic of the people both in the corridors of power and the kampong folks. Will Malaysia be able to transform itself into a vibrant economic power, or will it still stick to its kampong mentality, living in a fast pace modern world but led by leaders with attitudes and mindsets of medieval kampong chiefs? Is the changing of colours a sign of real change, deep seated change, or just cosmetics? | <urn:uuid:d5609816-f455-4922-8eb6-71197f7cc674> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mysingaporenews.blogspot.com/2009/06/changing-colours-of-malaysia.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00065-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96241 | 511 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Happy New Year! And welcome back from what we hope was a joyous and memorable Christmas break. Can you relate when we confide that it's a bit difficult for us to get re-engaged into the real world of responsibilities after the holidays? Or, are we the only two sluggards we know?
A new year always brings fresh resolutions and goals, so we want to suggest that you consider reviewing and reevaluating your goals for the rest of the school year. The overarching question to ask is: "Am I homeschooling responsibly?" We'd like to help you honestly assess how well you are managing your high school homeschooling responsibilities.
The word "responsibility" rightly carries with it the idea of being accountable to somebody or for something. Often accountability is viewed in a negative or discouraging way. But as we look at homeschooling responsibly, we want to emphasize the positives. You may discover ways you need to change or to do things differently, but if the end result improves your... | <urn:uuid:62ae31d7-9138-4c32-b8a4-2dacb99d4d19> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mache.org/category/tags/milestones | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962031 | 206 | 1.78125 | 2 |
Virtual Goods Worth More than Real News: Curmudgeon
I usually try to avoid making any statement involving the words "society," "values," or "priorities" -- nouns which are all so vague as to be almost meaningless. I also usually don't see any point in judging what other people do with their time or money, as long as they accord me the same indifference. But a recent realization has prompted me to (oh no, here it comes) question society's values and priorities.
Basically, it dawned on me that Americans will soon be spending more money on imaginary objects than the news. In fact, they already do. According to various estimates and forecasts, Americans spent $500 million on virtual goods in 2008, rising to $1 billion in 2009 and $1.6 billion this year. Fueled by the rise of social games like Farmville and Mafia Wars (and virtual worlds like Second Life, where sales continue to grow) U.S. spending on virtual goods may jump to $5 billion by 2014.
By contrast, as near as I can figure, U.S. spending on online subscriptions to newspapers was probably about $65 million in 2007 and $100 million in 2008; those are the estimated online subscription revenues generated by the Wall Street Journal Online, which is the only major newspaper publisher to succeed in charging for online content so far. Looking ahead, the Next Issue Media consortium projects online subscription revenues for newspapers and magazines rising to $3 billion by 2014 -- with perhaps half going to newspaper publishers.
To review, that means in 2014 Americans will be spending $1.5 billion on online newspaper subscriptions and $5 billion on imaginary objects. Maybe I find this ridiculous because I'm a reporter and my sympathies lie with the newspaper industry. I understand newspapers have their issues: critics accuse them of political bias (usually left wing) and their credibility hasn't been helped by scandals with journalists fabricating stories. However, Americans still appear to value newspaper reporting at some level, judging by Nielsen figures showing newspaper Web sites attracted 71.6 million unique visitors in the first quarter -- over a third of all U.S. Internet users. And according to Pew, 80% of all links in new media blogs and the like connect to sites maintained by newspapers and broadcast networks (which are also free).
At the same time, I understand that virtual goods -- while imaginary -- give people real pleasure as part of games and online worlds which are also entirely imaginary. I don't have anything against companies profiting from leisure activities; if you earn a living from online gaming, more power to you. And I know that sales of virtual goods can support worthy causes: it's pretty darn cool that Zynga raised $1.5 million for the Red Cross relief efforts in Haiti by selling special edition virtual goods.
But I can't change the fact that something about this situation still bugs me.
It wouldn't be quite so egregious, in my humble op-ed, if newspapers weren't in such a bad way. But the financial woes of the newspaper industry, and the consequent layoffs and newspaper closings, have received a lot of attention over the last couple years.
The advertising side of the business continues to look pretty grim: the latest forecasts from ZenithOptimedia and Magna have newspaper print ad revenues continuing to decline into the middle of this decade, as modest online ad revenues continue to stagnate (Internet ad revenues rose 4.3% in the first quarter to $730 million, per the Newspaper Association of America). Meanwhile print circulation revenues, temporarily buoyed by increased newsstand and home delivery prices, are imperiled by the long-term decline in print readership.
All of which explains the renewed focus on generating more revenue from online subscriptions. But newspapers will have a hard row to hoe, judging by the results of a survey of 2,404 American adults by Ipsos Mendelsohn and PHD last year, which found that 55.5% of respondents said they would be very unlikely to pay for online content from newspaper or magazine publishers, versus 16.5% who said they might pay. | <urn:uuid:87048eb4-20cd-49d5-bb1d-2accc240cd1d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/134574/virtual-goods-worth-more-than-real-news-curmudgeo.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00061-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967032 | 841 | 1.578125 | 2 |
If at anytime you would like more information than is provided in our Quick Report for SUMMIT YIC/AT RISK, feel free to order SUMMIT YIC/AT RISK Premium Report which further expands on the information already provided in the Quick Report and includes additional helpful measurements and statistics.
SUMMIT YIC/AT RISK
821 E 900 N, American Fork, UT 84003
Grades: 5-12 Type: Public Enrollment: 128 ALPINE SCHOOL DISTRICT
Some academic experts claim that there is nothing "extra" about it. Extracurricular activities allow students to explore their interests and cultivate their talents – arguably the most critical component to any educational environment. More than a way to explore individuality, extracurricular activities are a practical application of class room knowledge that ultimately helps students transfer from school into the "real world." | <urn:uuid:3a3e6b40-d780-4dcf-95f9-ede7bd2d7ec8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.schoolsk-12.com/Utah/American-Fork/SUMMITYICATRISK-Activities.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931364 | 176 | 1.632813 | 2 |
I just completed an adventure in massive amounts of trim on a dress for an 1812 event at Genesee Country Village & Museum in Mumford, NY. (I got to be a tourist vs. an exhibit!)
The inspiration was this 1815 fashion plate of a bathing dress. The pattern was an 1810 dress bodice from Cut of Women's Clothes & the bottom from Patterns of Fashion. It's a wrap dress.
I used 3 different trim techniques to create the dress, 2 with success.
The first, on the upper portion of the dress is Van Dyking, or Dagging. The techniques are the same... I think these are also called Lappets when they are made individually.
I did not make them individually because I'm not insane... though if you had limited fabric this would be the way to go!
First, cut your fabric double-wide & you can either sew on the fold side or on the open side if you want a tube as a finished edge. This is good if the trim will be on the outside of the fabric. That is what I did here. I use Prismacolor pencils to draw on the fabric as it washes out (most of the time). In this case, 1" triangles were sewn by machine on cotton twill.
Next, cut the excess off, to about 1/8" seam allowance, and then clip the inner corners so they turn (not shown). You may want to fray check close clips. If you don't clip the inner edges, the shape won't turn properly (ask me how I know that after I got the first one all turned - duh!).
If it's open, just turn it, if it's in a tube, turn it with a tube-turner or a string on a bodkin (dull needle).
I use the tube turner (you can buy one at JoAnn's or similar store).
Using the end of the tube turner (has a nice dull point), I poked the points of the van dyking out & wiggled things around until it was nice & flat.
This can be stitched on the outside, gathered a little, laid flat, sandwiched between seams, etc. In this case I used it on the front apron as a flat-felled seam & on the bodice front between the outside & the lining. I lightly gathered it for a nice stand-up row of trim that ended up looking like sunflower petals.
Tip: if your fabric is flimsy you may want to add a lightweight interfacing.
The second technique I tried was binding the edges with single fold bias tape. This did not work out & I ended up cutting it off, but you can see the potential here.
If I had finished it by hand I think I would have loved it, but I just can't stand machine stitched bias tape. Call me a stitch counter, but it just drives me nuts. Yet I don't mind machine top-stitching. Go figure!
The final technique I used was pinking. This ended up being an excellent choice for the finish on this dress.
On a single layer of fabric, draw the template on with colored pencil.
Tip: draw on the backside of the fabric just in case the pencil doesn't come off... so far it has, but there's always an exception...
Fray check the cutting line & let dry.
With pinking shears or a pinking punch (if you can find one, let me know where!), cut the shapes carefully. If you go over the lines, fray check again.
Tip: pinking shears are notoriously painful, I wear a knit winter glove when using them. It saves my hands & lets me use a little more force when necessary.
Here is the "finished" apron with 2 types of edging on it.
You can gather fairly heavily, depending on the type of fabric you use, but let the pinking & van dyking stand out on its own.
- Sew lace on the edge of the van dyking.
- Cut fancier shapes if you have the patience, it will mimic the 18th & 19th c. shapes better
- Find pinking shears that cut in different shapes from the modern "vvv" format.
- Budget for at least 4 bottles of fray check! (open a window). | <urn:uuid:5cd63f18-9ca6-4b34-b6e9-368ddfe4e104> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://artbeautyandwell-orderedchaos.blogspot.com/2011/06/van-dyke-trim-pinking.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00071-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948262 | 909 | 1.679688 | 2 |
The Center to Address Disparities in Children's Oral Health (CANDO)
CANDO is a multidisciplinary project that is designed around a community-based, participatory research approach for the purpose of promoting the idea that oral health is the gateway to overall physical health.
CANDO proposes to eliminate health disparities among low-income individuals and communities through the promulgation of sound research, evidence-based practices, and policy changes aimed at improving the health and well-being of the general public.
We are a multi-project research Center funded as a cooperative agreement by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR) (NIH/NIDCR U54DE019285).
CANDO II was awarded for the period September 24, 2008 to May 31, 2015.
CANDO I was funded September 29, 2001 and ended July 31, 2008
To understand, prevent, and reduce oral health disparities among young children
Preventing Early Childhood Caries (ECC)*
*ECC is tooth decay in young children, also known as "baby bottle tooth decay" or "nursing caries".
Our Research Mission:
• To identify cultural, environmental, workforce, behavioral, and biologic factors associated with health disparities among ethnic/racial groups in the very diverse California environment;
• To enhance our ability to target children likely to be at risk for dental caries;
• To provide successful interdisciplinary interventions to prevent disease and reduce oral health disparities.
Our Center Provides:
• Support for primarily patient and population-oriented research related to reducing oral health disparities in children;
• Core facilities to provide technical services and resources to Center-affiliated projects;
• An enriched environment for training future health-care professionals and scientists, especially those from underrepresented groups;
• Mechanisms to increase collaboration among investigators in Center-Supported projects, across health professions and affiliated collaborating public and private institutions on the west coast
Description of the Problem:
• 1993-94 California Oral Health Needs Assessment Survey found that the prevalence of ECC to be 14% among all preschool children, but 44% among Asians and 39% among Latino children from low income families enrolled in Head Start programs. (Pollick et al.)
• In a recent study of >2000 young children near the CA-Mexican border, the ECC prevalence was 58%. (Ramos-Gomez)
• Recent NHANES reports children 2-5 are the only age group with increasing rates of dental disease, with 28% of children experiencing dental caries.
CAN DO uses a multi-level conceptual model” to investigate and understand the problem of oral health disparities in young children from many perspectives including those of the child, family, community and environment, over time.
Fisher-Owens, et al, 2007, Pediatrics, 120(3), e510. | <urn:uuid:b8e70c13-cae3-4dfc-97d1-5dabc1553ef6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cando.ucsf.edu/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.926705 | 605 | 3.046875 | 3 |
San Francisco CA
Tovbot (www.Tovbot.com), an Atlanta-based personal robotics startup competing in the TechCrunch Disrupt Startup Battlefield, announced its plan to bring Shimi, a robotic musical companion, to the masses via Kickstarter, a crowdsourcing platform that helps creative projects come to life. Developed by a team of roboticists from Georgia Tech, IDC Herzliya and the MIT Media Lab, Shimi is an intelligent robot that serves as both a high-quality speaker system and dance partner.
Shimi, appropriately named after the “Shimmy” dance move, is more than an “appcessory,” he’s a robotic musical companion. Shimi loves to play and listen to music from a docked iPhone or iPod, then dance along with the beat and even create new, unique musical compositions. He also has the ability to react to humans, using advanced facial and speech recognition algorithms.
The Tovbot Kickstarter campaign will be used to transform the Shimi prototype into a product that can be mass manufactured and sold at an affordable price.
“Kickstarter is the perfect platform to introduce Shimi to its audience of early adopters who are looking for both practical and novelty innovations,” said Tovbot Co-Founder, Gil Weinberg. “We’re confident that Shimi will dance his way into everyone’s hearts as soon as they hear the sound he produces and see the moves he can make.”
First and foremost, Shimi functions as a high-quality speaker dock with an optimized shape designed for ideal sound reproduction. Beyond producing the ultimate in sound, Shimi uses your iPhone as its brain, making it your own personal robotic musical companion. Shimi not only knows and understands music, but also knows and understands what moves you.
Once the music starts, Shimi takes the stage. Five strategically placed motors allow Shimi to dance to the beat of any song, with a variety of dance moves that fit the specific song and genre. As your musical companion, Shimi always knows where you are in the room and points the speakers toward you. He also responds to your voice, your taps, your gestures, learns your musical preferences and even recommends new music for you.
“In a way, Shimi started out as an animated character. We worked to nail down his personality and then we transferred that into the robot,” said Guy Hoffman, Chief Technology Officer. “The result is that Shimi doesn’t just play your music, he actually listens to it and enjoys it as much as you do.”
To showcase the Shimi innovation, Tovbot was selected to participate in this week’s TechCrunch Disrupt event as a contender in the Startup Battlefield. Looking ahead, Shimi’s development team will continue to create new applications, including apps for gaming, education, music production, tele-presence and more.
Tovbot’s Shimi has a target availability of February 2013. Supporters can back the Kickstarter campaign immediately for just $149 to bring home their own Shimi robotic musical companion. Shimi was developed with support from the National Science Foundation, Georgia Tech, and IDC Herzliya. For more information on Tovbot or Shimi, visit www.Tovbot.com.
Tovbot was formed in 2012 by a group of robot researchers and entrepreneurs hailing from Georgia Tech, IDC in Israel, and MIT Media Lab. Our goal is to foster a new paradigm of personal robots - robots that don't just clean your floors or your pool, but also interact with you on a personal, almost human level. Our strategy is to combine exciting trends in technology – cloud computing, omnipresent networks, advanced smartphones – with our own hard-earned robotics knowhow to deliver the most advanced and compelling personal robotics products the world has ever seen. | <urn:uuid:c078a5e5-d927-40c2-89a7-e331df81f23d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tovbot.com/news/2/tovbot-launches-shimi-robot-kickstarter-campaign | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947259 | 806 | 1.679688 | 2 |
They say when a door shuts in your life, a window opens. Well, it seems like a door has just slammed in my face, and knocked me upside the head in the process. I guess I should not have jokingly complained about the inconvenience of working one night a week because it's come back to bite me on the rear. The childbirth classes I taught those nights are actually my favorite part of my job. They started out of a program I created to help empower women and families in the childbirth year. Many people don't realize how many choices they have in regards to their births, or their children. They don't know they can ask questions, make decisions, or trust themselves and their instincts. Originally, the project was funded through a grant, and then picked up by the public health department. Over the last five years, we've helped hundreds of families with education, encouragement and support. Last week, I learned we will be part of the budget cuts everyone is suffering from these days.
Times are hard, and lots of programs are being cut. It's hard to say that our program is more important than other programs, but I will say for sure that we do make a difference. People are more likely to make changes in their lives around the time of a babies birth. Women are more likely to quit smoking, drinking, and start eating well and getting healthy when they are having a baby. Why? Because it's not just about them anymore. It's about the baby. Even fathers and grandparents are more likely to improve their lifestyle when a new baby comes- for the baby. And when that baby starts their life in a healthier home, they are going to be a healthier person in the long run. Preventing problems is cheaper than treating them, and it starts in the home. First 5 has put out plenty of research on early brain development that backs up my maternal instinct which says bonding with babies is important.
I know I have seen the difference our program has made first hand. No, we didn't change the world, or the system, but we did support a lot of people in doing their best with their families. We've seen mothers as young as 14 decide to breastfeed even when it wasn't easy, and to continue their education. We've seen young father's make a commitment to support their child financially and emotionally. We've seen grandmother's decide they would help their grandchildren have a better life than they were able to give their children. And each one of these people matter.
I think the thing that set our program apart has been the personal touch. We connect with people and support them, not as experts talking down to them, but as peers who happen to have some expertise in the area of childbirth and breastfeeding. I am pretty confident that some of the positive changes we have seen happen have been because of a personal connection with the families. A brochure or poster or even human contact in a clinical setting just isn't the same.
So, while I'm bummed for myself, and the fact that my hours have been cut, therefore my pay will go down, and my favorite part of my job is gone, I am more concerned for the people who are having babies who are not going to make any personal connections because they are lost in a big system of impersonal agencies.
So, that's the door in my face. I am looking for the window. Perhaps it is in freeing up time to put into my children and other pursuits like writing, art, dance and music. Hopefully, the breeze will start blowing through the window soon, letting me know what direction to look into. | <urn:uuid:849fff87-4faa-4fe0-a5a7-b57664cece50> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://pamelajorrick.blogspot.com/2009_02_12_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984265 | 734 | 1.679688 | 2 |
July 11th, 2011
08:46 AM ET
Every weekday, a CNNHealth expert doctor answers a viewer question. On Mondays, it's pediatrician Dr. Jennifer Shu.
Asked by Nerisa from New York
Thanks for your question, and sorry to hear about your continuing discomfort. The short answer to your question is maybe, but probably not.
If you have a middle ear infection (otitis media) or sinus infection associated with your symptoms, then antibiotics may help. Your doctor can make the diagnosis and prescribe antibiotics if needed.
However, the scenario you describe sounds typical of a problem with the Eustachian tube, which connects the middle ear with the throat.
I consulted Dr. Aaron Rogers, an otolaryngologist in Atlanta, to provide more information about the symptoms you describe. He shares the following:
"The ear feeling clogged and the clicking during a cold or sinus infection are a result of the Eustachian tube, the ear's natural drainage tube, getting swollen shut - or, more commonly, partly shut.
"That swelling can give you a clicking or popping noise, a feeling of ear fullness, a mild earache or even a sense of disequilibrium (being off balance). The swelling can commonly last a couple of weeks. If the tube stays completely swollen for more than a couple of days, you could even begin to build up fluid behind the eardrum.
"In addition to colds, nasal allergies, sinus infections and even stomach acid reflux can cause the Eustachian tube swelling.
"A middle ear infection from infected fluid behind the eardrum will cause muffled hearing and usually severe pain. This is usually the end result of the Eustachian tube being swollen completely shut for several days.
"Usually, antibiotics are not needed for the sensation of fullness, clicking and mild pressure. In fact, for just plain Eustachian tube dysfunction (or ETD) without infection or allergies, we do not really have a proven medical treatment that is any better than just 'waiting it out.'
"If there are other signs of a lingering sinus infection or the beginnings of an ear infection, antibiotics may be helpful. Other medications such as prescription nasal sprays can at times help treat Eustachian tube dysfunction as well, especially if there is a lot of swelling in the nose from the remnants of a cold or allergies.
"Occasionally, some cold viruses can damage the hearing nerve and may mimic ETD. Other prescription medications may help if started quickly enough.
"Finally, try not to worry about the popping and clicking when you blow your nose - that is just the Eustachian tube trying to open up to get the ear aired out again. These symptoms will go away once the Eustachian tube is working properly.
"If your ear congestion is not clearing in about three to four weeks' time, then getting evaluated by your primary care doctor or an otolaryngologist may be helpful. If needed, hearing and ear pressure tests can be done to see if draining any fluid is needed or whether medications may help."
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About this blog
Get a behind-the-scenes look at the latest stories from CNN Chief Medical Correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Senior Medical Correspondent Elizabeth Cohen and the CNN Medical Unit producers. They'll share news and views on health and medical trends - info that will help you take better care of yourself and the people you love. | <urn:uuid:e3618469-73ab-4c5e-862f-a827e86b3185> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2011/07/11/my-ear-is-clogged-should-i-get-antibiotics/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928603 | 724 | 2.109375 | 2 |
- 18 July 2012
CTC’s policy co-ordinator Chris Peck explained CTC's desire for roads to be closed to cars on Sundays.
He told the Times ciclovías were “a really good way of sending out a clear message that streets should not just be for vehicles, and getting people active is a really important part of what we should be doing”.
He said that while some vehicle-free rides already take place in Britain, a regular event in big cities in the summer months would be “fantastic from a public health point of view”.
“It’s a very, very good idea, we would certainly like to see it happen,” he said. “But the streets should be more cycle-friendly at all times.”
You can read the article in full as it in not inside The Times paywall. | <urn:uuid:f9fe4a6b-bdce-4c53-8cab-3b11927a91cb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ctc.org.uk/media-coverage/18-july-2012-0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00076-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970167 | 188 | 1.742188 | 2 |
In April 1949, communist armies were preparing for a final assault on Nanjing, the Nationalists' capital up the Yangtze River from Shanghai. Contemptuous of the Chinese army's ability and still flush with victory from World War II, a British admiral, disregarding the danger, sent a frigate, H.M.S. Amethyst, on a regularly scheduled supply mission to the embassy. On April 20, about 240 km from the river mouth, a communist barrage hit the ship, wiping out half the crew, including thefatally wounded skipper.
Winston Churchill, then opposition leader, demanded that Prime Minister Clement Attlee dispatch a couple of aircraft carriers to chastise the communists. But cooler heads, conscious of the shifting power in China and the Hong Kong colony's vulnerability, prevailed. Attlee ordered negotiations, which got nowhere.
Enter Kerans. The embassy's assistant naval attachE had earlier commanded a frigate similar to the Amethyst. He made his way through the battle lines and assumed command of the ship and its 72 survivors. Over the next 14 weeks, in stifling, disease-ridden conditions, he endured the insults of the communist negotiators while secretly preparing for an escape. On the moonless night of July 30, Kerans ordered a midnight dash downriver. Under heavy fire, he steamed at 20 knots through hazardous waters without lights, adequate charts, compass, gyro or radar. Reaching the ocean, Kerans radioed London: "Have rejoined the fleet ... God save the King!"
The empire feted its new hero. The Escape of the Amethyst became a best-selling book and was made into a movie—The Yangtze Incident. But the applause—along with the empire's glory—soon faded. Kerans' remaining naval career was lackluster. After his retirement, he was elected to Parliament for one term and became known for sponsoring eccentric causes, including the legalization of female wrestling in pubs.
During two interviews in Britain for Asiaweek magazine in the late 1970s, Kerans told me his real mission in China. I undertook not to publish the info until I had official confirmation from the Admiralty, which was never forthcoming. But I have no reason to disbelieve Kerans. And more than a half-century after the activities he described, I see no need to remain silent.
Like Bond, Kerans was a secret agent—but the Chinese were not his immediate target. The Admiralty had sent him to spy on its American allies. London felt that Washington was withholding its plans for handling the imminent Nationalist collapse. Kerans' mission in January 1949: to find out what the Americans were doing on Taiwan. It had become increasingly clear that Washington was helping Chiang Kai-shek prepare a redoubt on the island but, possibly fearing that British intelligence was riddled with communist agents, the Americans would not share their full strategy.
Kerans embarked alone on what was ostensibly a seaside vacation. Swimming on Taiwan's west coast, he photographed U.S. transports disgorging massive supplies of military material. On the island's east coast, Nationalist authorities caught him in a forbidden zone and threw him into jail for a few days. Some discreet bribes restored his freedom. In the weeks before Amethyst put his name in the headlines, Kerans through his reports from Taiwan had prepared London for Washington's determined support of the Republic of China, a policy now in its 52nd year.
Read Farndale's short book for a taste of the story. But the full account has yet to be written. | <urn:uuid:69490fc1-a71a-4a2c-8235-e11bf6270a8f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,175148,00.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972566 | 732 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Google is blaming a hacker from China for tapping into hundreds of personal Gmail accounts across the globe.
Some U.S. government officials even fell victim to the scheme.
A representative from Google says the account hijackings were a result of stolen passwords.
The online search engine company suspects the hacker secretly installed malware on victims' computers when they responded to an email from a source they thought they could trust.
The hacker was reportedly attempting to monitor the victims' e-mails, and some users' forwarding settings were altered.
Google says it notified the victims and disrupted the campaign.
The company is urging users to beef up their online security.
Gmail's security systems were not compromised.
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Classic Pacman, Frogger, Asteroids and more.
Sell almost anything locally. | <urn:uuid:a074a318-7f2a-48bf-a44e-34edc4f5ab1c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wtvy.com/news/alabama/headlines/Gmail_Accounts_Hacked_in_Phishing_Scheme_123054193.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00059-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942467 | 196 | 1.9375 | 2 |
Court OKs teacher’s anti-creationist stance
The 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals dismissed a student’s lawsuit Aug. 10 against James Corbett, an advanced placement history teacher at Capistrano Valley High School in Mission Viejo, Calif. Sophomore Chad Farnan alleged that Corbett made hostile remarks about creationism and religion, thus violating the First Amendment’s mandate that government remain neutral in religious matters.
A three-judge panel ruled unanimously that Corbett was entitled to immunity. “We are aware of no prior case holding that a teacher violated the Establishment Clause by appearing critical of religion during class lectures, nor any case with sufficiently similar facts to give a teacher ‘fair warning’ that such conduct was unlawful,” Judge Raymond Fisher wrote for the court.
Among the comments Corbett made in a 2007 lecture, according to the transcript, was that “real” scientists try to disprove the theory of evolution. “Contrast that with creationists. They never try to disprove creationism. They’re all running around trying to prove it. That’s deduction. It’s not science. Scientifically, it’s nonsense.”
Corbett, a Foundation member, discussed the case and the hurdles that nonreligious teachers face in public schools in an Aug. 27 Freethought Radio interview: ffrf.org/news/radio/shows/.
Calif. DOT removes encroaching crosses
The state Department of Transportation removed three decades-old crosses from Inspiration Point just off California Highway 79 outside Julian in San Diego County, the Los Angeles Times reported Aug. 23. Workers put the crosses in storage and plan to relocate them two miles away at Hillside Community Church.
The DOT deemed them an improper encroachment on public property. They were also erected without proper permits. “Save Our Crosses” supporters objected to the move and claimed the church property affords less visibility.
Bible restricted at Idaho charter school
The 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals upheld on Aug. 15 a lower court’s dismissal of a lawsuit brought by Nampa Classical Academy, an Idaho state-funded charter school, and two of its teachers challenging the state’s Public Charter School Commission. The commission and state attorney general ruled that using religious texts like the bible as primary source documents in a public charter school classroom violated the Idaho Constitution.
The 9th Circuit held that the school, as a government entity, can’t sue the state, but that teachers had standing. But the court ruled that the curriculum is government speech, not teacher speech, and thus exempt from scrutiny under the First Amendment.
Pastor is probed for Texas recalls
District Attorney Jaime Esparza said he’s investigating if Rev. Tom Brown and Word of Life Church violated Texas and federal laws by working to recall Mayor John Cook and two council members for supporting domestic partner benefits, according to an Aug. 13 El Paso Times story.
“We’re getting more reports from more people that Tom Brown’s folks are hitting the houses of worship hard and directly asking them to permit them to circulate petitions at the churches, or have the churches circulate petitions,” Cook said in an email.
Brown also promotes his group, El Pasoans for Traditional Family Values, and the recalls at his Tom Brown Ministries website.
Indiana judge blocks city land transfer
Indiana U.S. District Judge Robert Miller Jr. on Sept. 7 blocked the city of South Bend’s $1.2 million expenditure to buy and demolish a commercial property and turn it over to St. Joseph’s Catholic High School to use for new athletic facilities.
FFRF Staff Attorney Patrick Elliott sent a letter of objection June 14 to South Bend’s Common Council, which voted 5-4 in August to approve the plan. FFRF followed up with an Action Alert to members June 23. The ACLU and Americans United and local residents sued in federal court.
In a 36-page ruling, Miller wrote that a reasonable observer would think “the city is endorsing St. Joseph’s High School, the local Catholic community, or the Diocese that operates the school.”
The South Bend Tribune reported Sept. 8 that city officials were mulling an appeal. Common Council Vice President Oliver Davis applauded the ruling. “I think everything starts from the drawing board. St. Joe will move forward. We’ll come together and figure out what’s best for the facility without the use of public dollars.”
The property was set to take place Sept. 15.
Davis said he favors the city lending its support through infrastructure and won’t back an appeal. “I think St. Joe can find someone else to buy it.”
Church baptism barred on Capitol grounds
The Washington state Department of General Administration denied a permit for Reality Church of Olympia to hold a baptism along with a barbecue on the Capitol grounds, the Olympian reported Aug. 14.
“We are approving their use of Heritage Park for the purpose of a picnic, a barbecue. We are denying their permit for the purpose of holding a baptism,” said agency spokesman Jim Erskine. Acting Director Jane Rushford referred to the state Constitution: “No public money or property shall be appropriated for or applied to any religious worship, exercise or instruction, or the support of any religious establishment.”
Air Force religious materials challenged
The U.S. Air Force’s use of Christian religious messages extends to training for ROTC cadets, CNN reported Aug. 9.
In a “core values” lesson, the Ten Commandments and Jesus’ “Sermon on the Mount” were used as ethical examples. Slides explained seven of the Ten Commandments. A USAF instructor uncomfortable with the training provided slides to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation.
The Air Force said headquarters officials didn’t know about the religious component of the ethics course. It’s been taught for almost 20 years by chaplains.
sJudge stops Colorado voucher program
U.S. District Court Judge Michael Martinez issued a permanent injunction Aug. 10 in Denver to block the Douglas County School District from enacting its voucher program until a constitutional challenge is resolved.
Martinez ruled in a 68-page opinion that the program “violates both financial and religious provisions set forth in the Colorado Constitution.” The “defendants have provided no legal authority supporting a limitation on the scope of the religious provisions of the Colorado Constitution and this court declines the invitation to craft one now,” he wrote.
The ACLU of Colorado, Americans United for Separation of Church and State and several residents had sued, alleging the pilot Choice Scholarship Program illegally gives tax money to private schools.
Douglas County’s program lets up to 500 students get up to $4,575 for private school tuition.
Religious theme park gets tax breaks
The city of Williamstown, Ky., will give a biblically themed amusement park a property tax discount of 75% for the next 30 years, the Lexington Herald-Leader reported Aug. 9.
The deal with Petersburg-based Ark Encounters LLC is on top of about $200,000 given to the company to locate there, along with 100 acres of reduced price land on the 800-acre site.
It gets better: The state has promised $40 million worth of sales tax rebates and a possible $11 million in improvements to the interstate near the park.
Orthodox Jews object to church voting
An attempt to move a New York polling place to St. Agatha’s Catholic Church in Brooklyn was denied due to objections by Orthodox Jews, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported Sept. 6.
Assemblyman Dov Hikind, an Orthodox Jew, intervened after residents were notified that their precinct was being moved from a public school to the church, which has large interior and exterior crosses. “Who knows how many Orthodox Jewish or other voters would have been disenfranchised by the Board of Elections’ decision to move these voters to a church?” Hikind said in a statement.
Because a new site wasn’t selected in time for an upcoming judicial primary, voters were allowed to cast a ballot at the Brooklyn Board of Elections by selecting the “Religious Scruples” box.
Commandments cases costly for counties
Pulaski County, Ky., will take out a loan to pay $231,662 to the ACLU of Kentucky for its share of court costs in a losing 11-year battle to post the Ten Commandments in the courthouse, the Lexington Herald-Leader reported Sept. 10.
Pulaski and McCreary counties owed the ACLU more than $460,000 in legal fees and interest. McCreary County hasn’t paid its share of the judgment.
Officials in both counties plan to solicit donations from groups like Focus on the Family and the Trinity Broadcasting Network. David Carr, a Christian broadcaster in Somerset, has been raising money on his King of Kings radio network. Pulaski County has received only about $20,000 so far in donations.
The case started in 1999 and made it to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2005. Not until this year did Commandments supporters decide to throw in the towel. Federal appeals court judges ruled adding other documents later to the Commandments displays was a sham to cover “blatantly religious” motives.
Wisconsin church graduations upheld 2-1
The 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Chicago ruled 2-1 on Sept. 9 that two Brookfield, Wis., high schools didn’t violate the Constitution by holding graduations at Elmbrook Church.
“There is no realistic endorsement of religion by the mere act of renting a building belonging to a religious group,” Judge Kenneth R. Ripple wrote for the majority.
The issue began in 2000, when Brookfield Central seniors voted to move graduation from the school’s “hot, crowded gymnasium” to the evangelical Christian church where Superintendent Matt Gibson was a member of the church. Brookfield East moved its ceremony there two years later.
Complaints flowed in quickly
Americans United for Separation of Church and State filed a federal lawsuit in 2009 on behalf of nine students and parents. Last spring, after the two schools held graduations at a new fieldhouse, the school district tried to moot the case but the appeals court refused.
Dissenting Judge Joel Flaum wrote, “The sheer religiosity of the space created a likelihood that high school students and their younger siblings would perceive a link between church and state. That is, the activity conveyed a message of endorsement. The only way for graduation attendees to avoid the dynamic is to leave the ceremony. That is a choice . . . [the Constitution] does not force students to make.”
Hindu joins Colorado Christian prayer caucus
Lawmakers announced Sept. 6 the formation of the Colorado Legislative Prayer Caucus. Its goal is to “uphold Judeo-Christian principles.” While the caucus is technically bipartisan, only two of its 27 members are Democrats. One is Hindu, Rep. Janak Joshi, R-Colorado Springs, the only Hindu in the Legislature. No caucus members are Jewish.
A press release said the group’s goals are to:
• Ensure that Christian beliefs have unfettered access in the marketplace of ideas.
• Reverse the dismantling of our nation’s Judeo-Christian foundation.
• Sustain and equip leaders to uphold Judeo-Christian principles in government.
• Communicate the constitutional truths that establish America’s freedom.
• Protect public expression of prayer and faith in God.
N. Carolina commission wants prayer appeal
The Forsyth County Board of Commissioners in Winston-Salem, N.C., voted 6-1 in August to challenge a federal appeals court ruling that barred it from opening meetings with sectarian prayer.
The board made its appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court contingent on conservative foundations continuing to pay its legal bills, including attorney’s fees if the county loses.
The county stopped prayers after a U.S. District Court judge ruled against the board last year. | <urn:uuid:11607129-297d-4470-b6a5-fc22395dd326> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ffrf.org/publications/freethought-today/item/13826-state-church-bulletin6 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950766 | 2,559 | 1.695313 | 2 |
PDI-9: Developing Leadership Skills and Capacity to Sustain Change (NSRC)
Date: Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Location: Boston, MA—Boston Convention and Exhibition Center; Room 204B
Recommended Pathway Sessions
National Science Resources Center
- What can leaders do to be more effective managers of projects?
- What skills do science eduation leaders need to build and sustain their science programs?
- How can leaders build powerful groups to lead reform?
- How can leaders engage community stakeholders to provide for sustainability?
Implementing and sustaining innovative science programs takes time and requires focused knowledge and skill. Capable, well informed leadership is critical. The NSRC’s LASER Center has planned a Professional Development Institute for leaders that will provide opportunities for active engagement, discussion and reflection. The focus of this session will be on the skills necessary to earn the respect and engagement of the people who work with you and for you. We will be exploring the ideas and practices that provide the most leverage in working within an organization. The skills that will be explored are necessary to continue science reform projects and keep them vibrant.
Participants will leave with new leadership skills and a conceptual framework for helping school districts build the local infrastructure or system to support an effective inquiry-centered science education program. School districts must develop leadership competence for choosing and implementing a curriculum, developing capacity for leading professional development, monitoring success of the program, providing the needed materials to teachers and students, garnering support from the community.
Follow–up sessions will provide the on-going professional learning that leaders need to as they move through a phased-in project in their own districts. The Institute sets the stage for the Thursday and Friday follow up sessions by introducing skills needed for effective leaders and providing the conceptual framework for helping school districts build the local infrastructure or system to support an effective inquiry-centered science education program.
This session is intended for leaders, at all levels, of science reform projects. Participants will benefit from reflecting about their own leadership abilities, interacting with other science reform leaders, and learning new strategies for becoming more effective.
For more information about the Institute, contact Arlene Elrod, Senior Program Officer, The Leadership and Assistance for Science Education Reform (LASER) Center, National Science Resources Center (NSRC), firstname.lastname@example.org, phone: 256-517-1786
The importance of capable leadership for successful implementation of an innovation is well documented. According to Century and Levy (2002), leadership, that can adapt and improve programs in response to the inevitable changes in school districts, is a key to sustainability. Moreover, leaders need skills to be be an effective facilitator of change. “Being an expert in new science curriculum is not the same as being an expert in the process of change”. (Fullan, 2002) Programs that are sustained have leaders at many levels who are strong advocates for the reform. Everyone who is engaged in a change process has a leadership role to play. Collaborative leadership has become increasingly important since there is a high probability that more than one person will be required to deliver all that is demanded by the complexities of change. (Hall, Hord, 2001)
NSRC has an extensive network of practitioners that will contribute to this program. These individuals have lived science education reform and have practical leadership knowledge that works. In addition, Sally Goetz Shuler will contribute to the session. She is the Executive Director of the National Science Resources Center (NSRC). She has held leadership roles in a district as a teacher, a curriculum developer and large scale inservice education programs for elementary, intermediate and high school teachers. Her work at NSRC includes developing leadership capacity in the United States and the world.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has provided major support for the NSRC’s LASER Center since the inception of the Center in 1998. The LASER Center is a science education implrmentation and dissemination center of a former initiative of the NSF’s Elementary, Secondary, and Informal Education Program. The NSF grant that made the LASER Center possible was matched by a combination of participant fees and contributions from corporations, private foundations, and science curriculum publishers. These contributors were: Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation, Inc.; Carolina Biological Supply Company; Delta Education; DuPont; Hewlett-Packard Company; The Lucent Technologies Foundation; Merck Institute for Science Education; and The Shell Exploration and Production Company. | <urn:uuid:ea22778f-fdf4-482b-a78f-fe3b1b3d0779> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nsta.org/pd/pdi/2008pdi09.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931224 | 919 | 2.90625 | 3 |
[Trax] sent in his writeup on this RF modem with built in 250mW amplifier. The original power of the RF transceiver was around 10mW, his final results after testing were nearly 250mW. He was able to to easily transmit data over 1000 meters using his test setup. He states that he was actually able to achieve this without an antenna on the receiving side. That’s pretty impressive performance. It’s also worth noting that he soldered all of the components in place using a home clothing iron and some soldering paste. That must have been fairly tedious. | <urn:uuid:428e3a2c-eff3-45cf-b717-37d58f5be54c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://hackaday.com/2009/04/02/rf-modem-250mw-amplifier/?like=1&source=post_flair&_wpnonce=b19f116cf4 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.989742 | 123 | 1.585938 | 2 |
May 21, 2013: Sri Satyadeva Kalyanam at Annavaram
May 22, 2013: Parasurama Dwadasi
May 23, 2013: Nrusimha Jayanthi
The 14th day of dark half of every month i.e. Krishna Chaturdasi is called Sivaratri. The one month in the month of Magha is known as Maha Sivaratri as it is the holiest of all.
When Lord Brahma and Lord Vishnu were disputing each other's greatness, a huge Linga of fire appeared suddenly between them and a voice from the void declared that, the one who would fid the extremities of this Linga would be considered as the greater one. Neither of them succeeded. Hence, they were obliged to accept the greatness of Lord Shiva, who had manifested as that pillar of light. This was the Origin of Shivalinga and Maha Sivaratri. According to another myth, Maha Sivaratri is the day on which Lord Shiva darken the poison when emerged out of the Milky Ocean thus saved the worlds from destruction. Another legend attributes to its being the day of marriage of Lord Shiva with Goddess Parvati.
Of all the major Hindu festivals, Maha Sivaratri is the only one wherein the austerity part, as signified by the word, "Vrata", is predominant. There is practically no festivity, revelry or gaiety in its observance, the whole thing being one of the all-enveloping solemnity. Thus is but natural since Lord Shiva is the God of ascetics, the very incarnation of reunion. The basic disciplines to be observed on this day are ahimsa, Satya, Brahmacharaya, Daya, Kshama and Anasuyata. Fasting is the foremost aspect of this vrata. Likewise, keeping awake throughout the night is a must. Worship Lord Shiva through out the night, bathing the Linga with Panchamrta, performance of Homa, recitation of Shiva Panchakashara mantra "Om Nama Shivaya" and prayer for forgiveness are the other aspects of the vrata.
May Lord Shiva shower His blessings on the entire human beings.
Maha Sivarathri is a national holiday across India.
Bramhotsavam and special Pooja will be conducted at the Temple of Srikalahastiswara Swamy Devasthanam, Srikalahasti , Chittor. The various events for the Bramhotsavams include Mahasivartri Nandi Seva and Lingobdhbhavam (at night), Rathothsavam followed by Teppothsavam (at night), Kalyanotsavam, Kailasigiri Pradakshinam and Pallkiseva
Those who are suffering from Kala sarpa dosha can perform pooja for Rahu and Ketu between 6am to 8.30pm on these days.
Charges for the Pooja - Rs.250
Special Rahu Ketu Pooja - Rs.500
Inside Temple - Rs.1000
The Devasthanam will provide Pooja materials. Devotees participating in this pooja can have Aseervachanam special Darshan and Prasadam. | <urn:uuid:7b68729f-d840-4d4b-9dd2-84fdc411bcf9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.astrologyforu.com/others/events/2006/maha-sivarathri-2006.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00057-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948036 | 698 | 2.46875 | 2 |
No one wants to touch it. Not Toyota, not NHTSA, not any politician. But the issue has to be raised. Driver error is most likely at the root of these sudden unintended acceleration incidents.
Unintended acceleration is not a new issue for the auto industry. It's been around for decades and complaints have been filed against virtually every automaker. Even more telling, it was around long before electronic throttle controls (ETC) ever showed up in cars.
But we've managed to work ourselves into a hysteria where everyone automatically assumes that ETC is the culprit. That's a dangerous assumption that will likely lead us down a dead-end path, and could prevent us from implementing a fairly easy design change that could cure most of these incidents.
While it is possible that "ghosts" in the electronics could be causing a problem, no one has been able to find them. Toyota has done exhaustive investigations into this. So has every other major automaker. So have all the suppliers that make these systems. Independent laboratories, universities, and government agencies have investigated it. But none of them have ever found the problem. Never. And it is my contention that they probably never will.
John McElroy is host of the TV program "Autoline Detroit" and daily web video "Autoline Daily". Every week he brings his unique insights as an auto industry insider to Autoblog readers.
Professor David Gilbert of Southern Illinois University did come up with a contrived way of re-wiring Toyotas to induce unintended acceleration. But Toyota successfully (in my opinion) debunked his wiring scheme as something that could never happen in the real world.
We saw the same hysteria back in the late 1980s when Audi was in the headlines for unintended acceleration. None of the people involved in incidents back then believed they had their foot on the gas pedal. In fact, they'd swear on a Bible that they had their foot on the brake. And, they insisted, the harder they pushed on the brake the faster the car went.
Many non-automotive experts tried to cook up explanations as to how there was some sort of gremlin that was causing the problem. None of them made any sense. NHTSA then conducted an exhaustive investigation at the time that dragged on for a couple of years. It finally concluded that the problem was nothing more than "pedal misapplication." That's its term for driver error.
There was something good that came out of all that. Audi came up with the idea of the shift-lock mechanism, which requires a driver to put his foot on the brake pedal before moving the shift-lever out of Park. That took care of most unintended acceleration cases, but not all of them.
The dirty little secret of unintended acceleration is that the overhwelming majority of people who experience it are elderly drivers, typically in their 60s and 70s. This has been true since about the time that the automatic transmission became available to the masses (that's right, there are virtually no cases of unintended acceleration involving cars with manual transmissions). In the past, whenever you read about some car driving through a storefront, or barreling down a sidewalk, it almost invariably involved an elderly driver. And the same is true today.
Some people ask me, "OK, how do you explain Toyota's higher incidence of sudden acceleration?" My answer is that Audi also had a higher incidence back in its day, but it still was an extremely rare event. In fact, from 1999 to 2009 Toyota's reported incidences of unintended acceleration were 0.009 incidents for every million cars it sold. Now that is an extraordinary low number.
The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and National Public Radio have all done statistical analyses of unintended acceleration, but their data are all over the map. It all depends on how you slice the numbers. Interestingly, they show that Ford has a higher number of reported incidents than Toyota does. But Toyota has a higher number of crashes.
And that brings us back to the drivers. Years ago Consumer Reports did a hatchet job on the Dodge Omni and Plymouth Horizon, saying they were more prone to spin out if you accelerated up to highway speeds, yanked the steering wheel 90 degrees, then let go of the wheel. It was a bogus test, but it did get me to research the issue. As I dug into the data I was astonished to find that Omnis were more prone to get into accidents (of any kind) than Horizons even though there were absolutely identical cars. When I asked Chrysler's safety expert what was going on he said, "That's easy to explain. Who drives a Dodge? A young male who drives more aggressively. They simply get in more accidents than the kind of people who buy Plymouths."
Could it be that the elderly people who buy Toyotas are simply more likely to get in crashes due to unintended acceleration? I don't know, but it's something that should be looked into. I think that investigating the demographics and psychographics of the people who encounter this problem would be very illuminating. Last week I got a call from an elderly gentleman who said he has Type II diabetes, which has left him with virtually no feeling in his feet and he often can't tell which pedal he's pushing on. That makes me wonder if any of these Toyota drivers have Type II diabetes.
If the powers that be would entertain the idea that driver error may be at the heart of this problem, we could start to do something about it. If people are unknowingly stepping on the wrong pedal, maybe all we need to do is add a bigger gap between the gas and the brake pedals. Maybe it should be a foot-long gap.
Unless or until we admit that the drivers could be at fault, history suggests we're never going to find the answer.
Airs every Sunday at 10:30AM on Detroit Public Television.
Autoline Detroit Podcast
Click here to subscribe in iTunes
Follow Autoline on Twitter for ongoing updates every day! | <urn:uuid:91fb4fd5-f70a-43a6-9158-144a2eeb14d1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.autoblog.com/2010/03/12/runaway-toyotas-what-about-driver-error/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00064-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976153 | 1,227 | 1.96875 | 2 |
National Library Week – April 8-14
Packed With Ways to Celebrate Your Love of Libraries
How can you celebrate libraries? Let us count the ways. We've compiled a quick list of ideas for you to do during National Library Week. We know it's still a month out, but there's no time like the present to start celebrating libraries!
1. Use the library! Help us get rockin' check-out and visitor statistics this week (and every week)!
2. Share the love – tell someone how much you value the library. Write a letter to the editor, tell an elected official, or just tell us; it will make us smile.
3. D.E.A.R. - Drop Everything and Read on April 12 from 3 - 5 pm in all our branches. We're celebrating Beverly Cleary's birthday and we want you to stop by your favorite library, drop everything, and read!
4. Library Snapshot Day - also on April 12. We're taking a one-day "snapshot" of books checked out, questions answered, and visits to the library. We'll share the information with the state library, who will compile statewide statistics so they can show off how important it is to have healthy, well-funded libraries. We're also taking photos that day, so comb your hair and show us your pearly whites.
5. Just shy of National Library Week, on Saturday, April 7, we're joining the Eastern WA Genealogical Society for a roll-out of the 1940 census. This is big news for genealogists and history buffs! See article, this issue, for info about this celebration.
6. "Like" us on Facebook and "share" us with your "friends."
7. We're planting a tree - join us! See article, this issue, for details.
8. Read a book that features libraries or librarians - see our book list in the Reader's Corner blog.
9. Get tickets for the ultimate library party, You Can't Do That in the Library! - a fabulous, rule-breaking extravaganza on Saturday, April 28.
10. Drop a buck (or two, or a check) into the donation box at the check-out desk to support the Spokane Public Library Foundation - their mission is to support the long-term health of the library.
That's a start. Take us up on at least one of these ideas; we know you won't regret it!
Library Board Bids Farewell to Judge Richard White
In March, we'll say goodbye to a dedicated member of the library's Board of Trustees. Judge Richard White, who retired last year from the Spokane County District Court, will also "retire" from the library Board when his term expires on March 31. We'll sincerely miss his commitment to the library and the city we all serve.
Judge White has served as a Trustee for the full 10 years allowed by state law. He credits his inspiration for doing so to two sources: Ron Miller, a longtime Board member and now Trustee Emeritus, and his own father, whose passion for libraries affected Judge White's youth in ways any child would understand. "When I was a kid, I'd get in more trouble if I didn't return a book on time than for breaking a window," he says. He also recalls the bookmobile visiting his neighborhood and stopping in front of his childhood home.
For Judge White, the pleasures and challenges of serving as Trustee can be two sides of the same coin. One of his favorite moments came amidst a grim episode: the 2010 controversy over whether to close the East Side branch. When the Board met at the neighboring community center to hear from citizens, Judge White recalls how much it pleased him to see the neighborhood's passionate support for the library. Thankfully, the branch remained open, but the event also highlights what Judge White calls a great challenge for Trustees: the impact of financial constraints on library customers--especially children, seniors, and others who benefit from having a library nearby.
Throughout his 10 years of service, Judge White maintained a strong commitment to ensuring the best possible library service for Spokane's citizens. We're sorry to see him go, but we're also grateful he served as long as he did. We'll work hard to continue living up to the standard of service he would expect.
If you are interested in becoming a member of the library's Board, you can get an application at the Mayor's office or from the City's website. For more information, please contact Catherine Gallaher at 625-6250.
Oh Yes, You Can!
It's that time of year again. Get your tickets for the Library Foundation's rule-breaking extravaganza now and you'll definitely have something to look forward to. Tickets are $55 per person, which gets you in to the Downtown Library after hours where we'll have music from 6 Foot Swing, food from David's Pizza and Famous Ed's and beer from River City Red Brewing.
This event, now in its sixth year, is made possible by Sterling Savings Bank (our leading underwriter) in addition to Global Credit Union as well as support from David's Pizza and Famous Ed's and River City Red Brewing. We're so grateful to them all!
For tickets and information see the Library Foundation's website or call Foundation Director Sandra Kernerman at 444-5318.
What Do Trees and Libraries Have in Common?
Well, probably lots of things but, in Spokane they have Nancy MacKerrow. Nancy loves both trees and libraries, and she's bringing these two passions together for a tree planting at the Shadle Library. This is not just any tree; it will be part of the Susie Forest. The Susie Forest was started by Nancy in 2003 to honor the memory of her daughter, Susie Stephens (1965-2002), who was killed by a bus while crossing with the light in a crosswalk in St. Louis. She was in St. Louis attending a conference on innovative transportation methods as one of the country's top advocates for pedestrian and bicycle safety. What does a mother do with that kind of grief?! Nancy retired from her job at the South Hill Library and started planting trees. There are now almost 300 trees worldwide that are part of the Susie Forest. When the Shadle Library found they needed a new tree, Nancy asked if it could be donated and become part of the Susie Forest. We responded with an enthusiastic, "yes!"
We want you to help us choose which kind of tree to plant. The City Arborist has chosen two trees that would be appropriate but the final decision is up to library customers. Stop by the Shadle Library (starting mid-March) to vote or do so on our Facebook page.
Be sure to also mark your calendars to join us for this special tree planting on Tuesday, April 10 at 9:30 a.m. outside the Shadle Library. The city arborist will be there to answer any questions you might have about trees (new and old) and Nancy will bring cookies to munch and treegrams you can fill out and hang in the new tree.
Pictured above, in another of the Susie Forest trees in Spokane, are some treegrams.
This is just one of the many cool things happening during National Library Week. Plan on stopping by!
We’re Gonna Party Like It's...1940!
What do you know about your family in 1940? Okay, maybe plenty, but now you can find out even more—at a party, no less! The Eastern Washington Genealogical Society and the library will co-sponsor a celebration of the public release of the 1940 census at the Society's regular meeting on Saturday, April 7 from noon-4 p.m. During those hours, you can stop by the Downtown Library's first floor meeting room, discover what the census reveals about your family, and even enjoy cake and beverages. Since the census hasn't been indexed yet, you'll need your family's 1940 residence address so the genealogy volunteers can find their enumeration district number. They can help you with this at the party, or in advance—just bring your family's 1940 address to the library's 3rd floor genealogy section any Tuesday before April 7. Join us and party like it's 1940!
For more information go to the
EWGS website at www.ewgsi.org.
Tax assistance is available at the Downtown Library! Check here to see if you're eligible for this free assistance.
Join us for A Night at the Opera on March 14 at 5:30 at the Downtown Library. Free, of course!
South Hill's Heart of Spirituality book discussion group continues in March with a discussion of Anne Lamott's Traveling Mercies on March 20 at 6:30.
Our WorkSource lab is open for those needing assistance with job
searches, resume preparation and other employment-related work.
We like you; do you like us? | <urn:uuid:7da99b6c-6d2c-4245-8946-d4c11b65cd99> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.spokanelibrary.org/index.php?page=viewnewsletter&id=52 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960257 | 1,861 | 1.65625 | 2 |
February and March, 1863, was a slow period in the Civil War. In the east, the Army of the Potomac waited for the mud to dry after January’s disastrous “mud march.” Besides, new commander Joe Hooker had to get his staff in place and make plans for the spring campaign.
In the West, Gen. Ulysses S. Grant was now the theater commander and he was concentrating on finding a way to attack Vicksburg.
And in Middle Tennessee, Gen. William Rosecrans and his Army of the Cumberland was doing his best McClellan imitation. It would be June before he began the Tullahoma Campaign that forced Gen. Braxton Bragg and his Army of Tennessee out of Chattanooga.
There were small skirmishes and rumors, as usual, but no big news, so Lecky Harper filled his paper with politics: More tirades against abolitionists being the cause of the war, attacks on administration policies, and many letters, purportedly from soldiers complaining about abolition becoming a war aim.
Under headlines that proclaimed “What the Soldiers Think of Lincoln’s Abolition Proclamation,” “The Soldiers are Patriots, but not Abolitionists!” and “The Soldiers are Sick and Tired of the War, and Wish to be Home!” Harper wrote in the Feb. 21 issue:
“We have before us a mass of Army Letters, received within the last few days, sufficient to fill several pages of the Banner — written from every division of the Army, and published in every section of the country. They all breathe the same spirit, and speak the same sentiments — eternal opposition to Lincoln’s infernal Abolition Proclamation, and undying hatred of the Abolition Party, and their diabolical schemes to destroy the Union. The soldiers are patriots and not abolitionists. They enlisted, not to free the Negroes of the South and to bring them to live here amongst us in a state of social and political equality, but to uphold the Union and the Constitution, maintain the laws and restore the Old Flag to every foot of American soil, where once it waved, in all its beauty and glory. These objects having been lost sight of by Lincoln and his party, and the war converted into an abolition war, for base and wicked party purposes, the soldiers feel they have been grossly deceived and outrageously betrayed. It is no wonder, therefore, that they write letters home, and utter denunciations and cursings “loud and deep” against the sectional and corrupt party that is now ruling and ruining this once prosperous and happy country.”
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Contact Chuck MartinEmail
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. | <urn:uuid:bd5eec29-f100-47a5-b378-bf07d30fc47f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mountvernonnews.com/local/13/03/15/article?id=9 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00066-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965517 | 636 | 2.546875 | 3 |
American Kennel ClubThe American Kennel Club (or A.K.C.) is one of the largest registries of purebred dog pedigrees in the U.S.A. Beyond maintaining their pedigree registry, it also promotes events for purebred dogs.
For a dog to be registered with the A.K.C., the dog's parents must be registered with the A.K.C. as the same breed, and the litter in which the dog is born must be registered with the A.K.C. Once these criteria are met, the dog can be registered as purebred by the A.K.C.
The registration only specifies that the dog is purely of one recognized breed -- it does not specify that the dog comes from healthy or show-quality blood lines. Neither is it a reflection on the quality of the breeder or how the puppy was raised.
Registration is only necessary for breeders (so they can sell registered puppies) or for purebred dog show participation (similar to the medieval requirement of royalty for jousting competitions).
A.K.C. is not the only registy of purebred dogs, but it is the one most Americans are familiar with. | <urn:uuid:8d1ad02e-459d-4a68-a12d-28a987a2838d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.encyclopedia4u.com/a/american-kennel-club.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00051-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928541 | 248 | 2 | 2 |
by Murray Rothbard, with an introduction from the editor
Ron Paul is doing well raising money and gaining attention for the cause of free-markets. In 2007 he raised more money in one day than any other political fund-raiser: over 6 million dollars, breaking his own record set a few months earlier of over 4 million dollars. One way he might be able to raise money and illustrate the fact that fractional reserve banking is fraudulent is if all his supporters took all their on-demand deposits out of the bank at the same time, and then gave some fraction of it to the campaign.
Ideally, this will lead to a run on the banks (as people learn that the banks do not actually have the money people have deposited on hand, but have lent it out, turning an on-demand deposit into a loan), fractional reserve banking will be exposed as fraudulent and Paul will become President. Read the rest of this entry | <urn:uuid:251c859e-6a60-47ef-89b7-1a84c1e4eac6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://capitalism.hk/tag/ron-paul/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969848 | 189 | 1.75 | 2 |
The Crime Writers Association (CWA), founded by John Creasey in 1953, bestows the Dagger Award annually, in various categories of crime writing. The winner (and the runner up in the Best Crime Novel category) receives a cash award and an ornamental dagger.
Eligible books must be published in the U.K. in English and submitted for consideration by a British publisher. A shortlist and winner are determined by a panel of judges that varies with the type of award. The judges for the Best Crime Novel category are all reviewers for British publications because they will have already read most of the 150 or more titles that are submitted each year. The Nonfiction category is judged by a panel with publishing and/or legal experience. The Thriller category is judged by a panel of agents, authors, booksellers and reviewers. The Historical category is judged by the most recent winner, as well as reviewers and historians. The First Crime Novel category is judged by a panel of previous winners.
Other categories awarded by the CWA include the Cartier Diamond Dagger lifetime achievement award, the Debut Dagger for unpublished works, and others.
- Shortlists prior to 2001 are unavailable.
- The John Creasey Memorial Award (otherwise known as the First Novel category) had no winner in 1993 and 1996, and two winners in 1995.
- Gold Dagger Award for Nonfiction had two winners in 1983 and 2004. It was awarded biennially from 2006 to 2010, and now appears to be an annual award again.
|? Event Calendar|
|Mid-year Dagger shortlist|
|Mid-year Dagger winners|
- 2012/10/19: Blog:Winners of the Fall 2012 CWA Daggers
- 2012/08/24: Blog:Shortlists for the Fall 2012 CWA Daggers
- 2011/10/08: Blog:Winners of the 2011 CWA Dagger Awards
- 2011/08/22: Blog:Shortlists for the CWA Dagger Awards | <urn:uuid:0819103c-e646-4509-b504-7ff31503312e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.awardannals.com/v/Award:Dagger_Award | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95545 | 411 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Improve your Live
Telecommunication is crucial tool for connecting people. This home appliance is significant appliance for sharing information to all over the world. This device is available in market since 1920s. This appliance has ability to transmit images and color. You can see what happen in all part of the world by watching television. Moreover, your family can easier get connect with this home appliance. In the living room, where all your family gathers, you can watch news from particular channel with your family.
In addition, you can watch movie or competition in television. You do not need to pay in high price by watching this competition or championship to the original host of competition but you can just turn on your television in your family room, for example, you want to watch football final that held in another country, if you do not have much money, you can turn on your television and find out which channel that show this football final championship.
Moreover, if you want to watch movie with your family, just turn on television and search the best channel that appropriate to watch by you and your family. By this condition television is essential home appliance to make your family gathering. | <urn:uuid:d4aa8079-bdda-4bfd-b18f-4105750577ca> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.jenniferanistongossip.com/tag/1920s | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972747 | 232 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Hello to Fronkpies and other contributing members to this thread,
I can understand your concern about your ability to learn a new instrument such as the piano; your feelings are very real to you. While it is true that children under, say, the age of 12 can acquire piano playing skills faster, YOU have a quality about yourself that overrides what they have. Do you know what that is??? It is DESIRE, MOTIVATION!
Seeing that I currently teach 63 piano students per week (I am a retired metallurgical & materials engineer from the steel industry), I can give you some insight into the road ahead of you.
First some words of encouragement: Nearly everyone on the planet believes he or she is too old to start learning piano. Even some parents of 6 year olds "regret" they haven't introduced their children to piano lessons at age 3! Seventeen is a fine age to begin learning the piano. After all, you have perhaps another 75 to 85 years ahead of you to perfect your craft!
I tell my adult beginning students the following: The human mind is an amazing thing, because parts of the brain can be taught new things to do at any age in one's life. Take, for example, stroke victims who (God forbid) may have lost the ability to speak, or walk, or write with pen on paper. The affected portion of the brain has ceased functioning in its normal way.
Physical therapy takes the form of three activities: 1) showing the patient how to correctly perform a given task; 2) repetition, repetition, and repetition; and 3) positive reinforcement for each gain, no matter how small or large.
Something happens when a stroke victim is administered the correct therapy -- a DIFFERENT part of the brain, usually one that was NEVER intended for a given new function, happens to acquire the function lost previously by the stroke in a different part of the brain! This can occur spontaneously, especially with help from the three steps described above.
Do you know what, Fronkpies? The IDENTICAL method applies to piano lessons, when administered by a competent teacher!!!! So remember this -- if a stroke victim can re-acquire the ability to speak, or walk, etc., by means of the brain re-configuring itself, then playing the piano is literally child's play!
Now, down to the basics of learning to play the piano: Your ability to play the guitar has already demonstrated that you are aware of musical notes, rhythm, and hopefully the ability to read music. I would go one step further -- it is actually EASIER to play a note on the piano than it is to hold down a guitar string at the correct fret, and simultaneously excite the correct string with the other hands! In other words: One note on piano = one use of one finger VERSUS one note on guitar = combined effort of pressing the string with one hand, with sufficient downward force, and simultaneously coordinate the other hand to pick the correct string!!
What you gain in ease of making beautiful tones on a piano is offset by the usual requirement to play both the melody and accompaniment on the piano at the same time. Restated: Guitar = relatively few notes played at one time but with fair degree of difficulty VERSUS Piano = easy to play individual notes, but you usually have to play many more notes at the same time!
On practicing the piano -- I highly recommend that you find an instructor who directs you to perform far more hands separate practice than most teachers of beginning students. The more practice you can get, hands separately (AS A BEGINNER), I believe the faster you will progress. I would also leave you with these bits of information regarding practice:
Once you find a passage that is difficult to play, you will most likely determine that only two or three notes are the problem, rather than the whole passage. By all means, do NOT waste time repeating the entire passage, when you can concentrate your corrective action on the few notes that need correcting!
It is also a good idea, especially for a beginning student, to be able to play at a hands-separate tempo that is FASTER than performance tempo. Then when you put the two hands together, you will have already worked out the fingering problems, and your brain will have become acclimated to playing the piece!
Enough of my rambling.
If you find this reply helpful, please feel free to ask questions on this subject. | <urn:uuid:2e3a89df-a8e2-495e-a89e-662440e7ee39> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pianosociety.com/new/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=1592 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00066-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959648 | 917 | 2.421875 | 2 |
Saccharum thunbergii Retz.
Agressively rhizomatous perennial, forming tufts of leaves from a scaly rhizome; culms 10-120 cm high, erect. Leaf-blades basal, flat (in Southeast Asia), 3-100 cm or more long, 2-20 mm wide, stiffly erect. Panicle spiciform, cylindrical, sometimes with the lowermost branches loose, 3-22 cm long, obscured in copious silky white hairs. Spikelets 2.2-6 mm long; stamens 2.
Fl. & Fr. Per.: April-June.
Type: Europe (LINN).
Distribution: Pakistan (Sind, Baluchistan, Punjab, N.W.F.P., Gilgit & Kashmir); throughout the Old World tropics, extending to the Mediterranean and the Middle East; also in Chile.
Sword Grass or Blady Grass (Australia) is a common weed of cultivation and flourishes in grassland which is subject to annual burning, flowering just before the fires begin. The seeds remain enclosed in the glumes and lemmas and, surrounded by the long silky hairs, are carried long distances by strong winds which often. blow at these times. The rhizomes are tenacious of life and new plants will regenerate from even a small fragment, making the grass extremely difficult to eradicate. The plant itself is excellent for thatching, can be made into paper, and is also relished by grazing animals after the annual fires when the young shoots appear. It is seldom eaten when old.
Three varieties of Imperata cylindrical are commonly recognised:
var. cylindrica. Leaf-blades rolled. Mediterranean and Middle East.
var. africana. Leaf-blades flat; spikelets 3-5.7 mm long (mean 4.5). Africa.
var. major. Leaf-blades flat; spikelets 2.5-43 mm long (mean 33). Tropical Asia and Australasia; also possibly parts of tropical East Africa.
Although the differences can be demonstrated statistically the varieties inter-grade so much that individual specimens are often unidentifiable; the hairiness of the node, on which reliance has sometimes been placed, is extremely unreliable as a means of identification. It seems best to ignore the varietal classification with the understanding that there is a number of imperfectly separable geographical variants. Pakistani material appears to be assignable to var. major although specimens grading into var. cylindrical are not uncommon. | <urn:uuid:4f3bd601-ecf1-4ea4-b5fb-60552d7d7272> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=5&taxon_id=200025558 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.905014 | 527 | 2.46875 | 2 |
Cambodia calls for UN buffer zone at Thai border
Cambodia's prime minister has called for a UN buffer zone in a disputed area on its border with Thailand.
Hun Sen made the appeal as Cambodian and Thai troops exchanged fire around the 11th-Century Preah Vihear temple for a fourth day.
At least five people were killed in clashes over the weekend and thousands of civilians have fled the area.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has called on both sides to "exercise maximum restraint".
It has been the most sustained fighting between the two neighbours in years.
The clashes have claimed the lives of two soldiers and a civilian from Cambodia, one Thai soldier and a Thai civilian - though the two countries' media have reported differing casualty figures.
Each country accuses the other of encroaching on its territory and of firing first.
The Cambodian government says a Thai bombardment has damaged a wing of the ancient temple - but Thai officials have reportedly rejected the claim.'Self-defence'
Mr Hun said on Monday that the confrontation was "threatening regional security".
Once again the temple of Preah Vihear has found itself in the middle of a nasty border squabble. Artillery, rocket and small-arms fire broke the peace on Monday morning - as well as an overnight ceasefire.
The Cambodian authorities say that Preah Vihear has been seriously damaged - and that a wing of it has collapsed. They've warned the UN's cultural body, Unesco, that the World Heritage site is under attack.
Thailand has denied that it's targeting the temple - and accused Cambodia of turning the religious monument into a military base.
Both sides have accused the other of opening fire first - and both have written to the UN Security Council. There, the approaches divide. Cambodia wants third-party intervention - while its larger neighbour insists the two countries should be able to work it out between themselves.
"We need the United Nations to send forces here and create a buffer zone to guarantee that there is no more fighting," he said during a university graduation ceremony in the capital, Phnom Penh.
"We will go to the UN Security Council whether you like it or not."
Mr Hun noted that Cambodia had contributed to UN missions in Africa, according to quotes on Xinhua.
He had already asked the UN Security Council to help stop what he called Thailand's "repeated acts of aggression" against his country, and asked for an emergency meeting of the Security Council.
Thailand sent its own letter to the Security Council to protest against "repeated and unprovoked armed attacks by Cambodian troops".
The Thai foreign ministry reiterated on Monday that Thai troops had acted in "self-defence".
"Thai troops had exercised maximum restraint and used force only as necessary, in a manner proportionate to the threat against them," a ministry statement said.
"Additionally, fire was directed only at military targets from where the attacks were launched by Cambodian troops."
The foreign ministry also said more than 6,000 Thais from the border area had been evacuated.Thai nationalists
At the UN, Mr Ban's office said he was "deeply concerned".
"The secretary-general appeals to both sides to put in place an effective arrangement for cessation of hostilities and to exercise maximum restraint," it said.
No injuries were reported after the latest, brief exchange of fire on Monday.
The International Court of Justice ruled in 1962 that the Preah Vihear temple belonged to Cambodia.
Thailand accepts Cambodia's sovereignty of Preah Vihear, however the land surrounding the temple is still disputed.
In 2008, Cambodia was awarded Unesco World Heritage status for the temple, which further angered Thailand.
The most recent tension was sparked last week, when a Cambodian court sentenced two members of a Thai nationalist movement to up to eight years in prison after finding them guilty of espionage.
The two were among seven Thai politicians and activists charged with illegal entry by Cambodia after crossing into a disputed border area in December.
The case has outraged Thai nationalists.
Members of the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), known as the "yellow-shirts", have been staging protests in Bangkok, urging the government to take a tougher line over the border issue. | <urn:uuid:9d393025-726c-43fd-820b-1735bf0eb6c9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12381052 | 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 | 0.973758 | 885 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Staffordshire Bull Terrier originated in England when blood sports (bear and bull baiting and then later dog fighting) were still popular. Descended from Mastiffs, the old Bulldog, and a small terrier, the dogs were known in the mid-1800s as Old Pit Bull Terriers. The dogs that were brought to the U.S. in the mid-1800s developed into taller, heavier-bodied dogs than those that remained in England.
The Staffordshire Bull Terrier stands 14 to 16 inches tall and weighs 24 to 38 pounds. These dogs are muscular, yet agile. The head is broad with a short foreface, with half-pricked ears, and round, medium-sized eyes. The body is compact, with a wide chest. The tail is of medium length and is not docked. The coat is short and smooth. Coat colors include red, fawn, black, blue, or brindle, with or without white markings. The coat is easy to maintain; it requires brushing once a week to keep it clean. The coat does shed, though, about once a year.
Staffordshire Bull Terrier is an active, athletic dog breed that needs vigorous daily exercise. They like to run, train in agility, or chase toys. Walks are great opportunities for socialization but are not enough exercise for a young, healthy Staffordshire Bull Terrier. All off-leash exercise should be within a fenced-in yard, as Staffords have a strong prey drive and many adult Staffordshire Bull Terriers are not good with strange dogs.
Training a Staffordshire Bull Terrier requires a balance of firmness (so that the owner can establish control) and leadership yet a light hand, as these dogs can be surprisingly sensitive. At the same time, they can be stubborn. Socialization and training should both begin in early puppyhood. The Staffordshire Bull Terrier does better when she is not left alone for too many hours each day. When bored and lonely, a Staffordshire Bull Terrier can be amazingly destructive when trying to amuse herself.
The Staffordshire Bull Terrier dog breed is good with children and will join in with the kids’ games. They can be aggressive to other dogs. Health concerns include hip dysplasia, eye defects, and cleft palate. | <urn:uuid:20ef6b96-f0e7-44cf-b860-5bb1915238ce> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dogbreedstandards.com/staffordshire-bull-terrier/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963375 | 474 | 2.953125 | 3 |
By Daniel Lustig, MD, and Lisa Philichi, ARNP, MultiCare Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital & Health Center
If your child is constipated, chances are it’s frustrating for both of you. Constipation—difficulty passing stool or a longer-than-normal time between bowel movements—is common in children and can sometimes be a cause for concern.
What is normal?
The frequency and consistency of bowel movements in infants and children depend upon age and diet, and an individual child’s patterns can vary widely. “Normal” for an infant could mean a bowel movement every time they eat or only once a week. An older child may go three times a day or once every three days.
When is it constipation?
Your child may be constipated if he or she has had less frequent bowel movements—or difficulty passing stool—for more than two weeks. It’s important to note that even children who go with normal frequency can still have symptoms of constipation. Small, hard or rocklike stools passed daily or very large, firm stools that clog the toilet once a week can both be signs of constipation.
Stool withholding—trying to keep from having a bowel movement—is also a clear indicator that your child is constipated. Infants may arch their back, tighten their buttocks and cry. Toddlers may rock back and forth while stiffening their buttocks and legs, arch their back and wriggle or fidget, squat, or get into other unusual positions. They may also hide in a corner or a special place.
Children withhold because they are afraid passing stool will hurt, and it can be a difficult habit to break. Unfortunately, repeated withholding can make the problem worse.
Young infants may appear constipated or in pain because they strain and get red-faced when they go. This is usually because the muscles used for defecating are still uncoordinated in infants less than 6 months old. A baby is unlikely to be constipated if he or she passes soft stools within a few minutes of straining.
How do I make it better?
Diet changes, illness, stress, toilet training, lack of exercise or unwillingness to stop playing for a bathroom break can all lead to constipation.
The good news is most children with constipation do not have an underlying medical problem. Treatments may include stool softening medications (oral or rectal) to make it easier for the child to go to the bathroom, dietary changes and behavior modification.
Parents should put any toilet training activities on hold until after their child’s constipation has been resolved.
In some cases, constipation can be a symptom of a more serious problem, such as hypothyroidism, Hirschsprung’s disease, celiac disease, spinal cord dysfunction or an adverse effect of some medications. So it’s a good idea to check with your pediatrician before starting any treatment.
Help for a going problem
The MultiCare Mary Bridge Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition Clinic has outpatient clinic locations in Tacoma, Gig Harbor, Covington, Olympia, Puyallup and Silverdale, offering close-to-home services.
Our team provides consultation to referring physicians and comprehensive care for children with a broad range of gastrointestinal, liver and nutritional problems, including:
- Abdominal pain
- Failure to thrive
- Inflammatory bowel disease
- Acute and chronic liver disease
Visit the North American Society for Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition website at www.naspghan.org for more information on gastrointestinal disorders. | <urn:uuid:5e0ee006-9b0b-4b48-8cc1-87c01b702898> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://hlmagazine.wordpress.com/category/health/kids-health/constipation/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930573 | 758 | 3.0625 | 3 |
Ready to use substitute lesson plans for a complete school day! As teachers we all know the truth. It is honestly easier to go ahead and drag yourself into school when sick or cancel the long over due appointment than it is to plan for a substitute during an emergency or planned absent. Substitute days are typically lost days. We try to come up with somewhat meaning instruction for someone else to complete with students. However, even the best substitute can����¯�¿�½������¯����¯�¿�½������¿����¯�¿�½������½t read your mind (or your plan book) and many times you end up re-teaching the content anyway. As a teacher, you have an enormous amount of work to do and content to cover and can����¯�¿�½������¯����¯�¿�½������¿����¯�¿�½������½t afford to miss any instructional days. In addition, those of you working as subs, have the daunting responsibility of reporting into a brand new job each day without the foggiest clue of what is in store for you. Your day becomes even more difficult when you are subbing for a foreign language class! These lesson plans were written for regular primary/elementary classrooms and substitute teachers.
Everything is written for you! All you need to do is program (this is an electronic copy ����¯�¿�½������¯����¯�¿�½������¿����¯�¿�½������½ so go ahead and type before printing) the class schedule, the class procedures sheet and the grade level lesson time periods for your specific classes so the sub knows when to do what, make class set of worksheet copies (if applicable), and then place the plans, copies and class rosters in a folder on your desk. That����¯�¿�½������¯����¯�¿�½������¿����¯�¿�½������½s it! You can keep the plans on your desk for an emergency situation or use them for a scheduled absence. The only other materials you need to make sure the sub and students have access to are everyday desk/tub items such as pencils, crayons, scissors, glue, writing paper, construction paper and a white board or chalkboard. So, treat yourself and allow someone else to do the planning for you! You can pick and choose which lessons to include in your substitute folder for the day. This third grade level kit contains: The programmable information sheets, programmable class schedule, worksheet masters to be copied (Great Lakes cause and effect worksheet, The Pantry Ghosts poetry analysis worksheet, Describe how to make an ice cream cone writing prompt worksheet, Writer����¯�¿�½������¯����¯�¿�½������¿����¯�¿�½������½s check list, Glyph worksheet, Glyph legend, and Drawing Stick Figures worksheet), 60-90 minute reading lesson (Poetry analysis and cause and effect), 45-55 minute math lesson (shoe glyph), 40-50 minute writing lesson (describe how to make an ice cream cone (using written format for high stakes tests), 30 minute spelling lesson (Spelling Detective Check game), 30 minute science lesson (Science Vocabulary Race game), 30 minute social studies lesson (Uhm! game), 30 minute art lesson (drawing stick figures using various lines), and 30 minute extension lesson (Backs to the Board game). The lessons are designed to be presented in a way consistent to the standard cycle of instruction. Kindergarten, First grade day 1, first grade day 2 second grade, and K-3 Spanish substitute lesson plans are also available on TpT.
This Work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License | <urn:uuid:cc13b6a9-0773-4bd3-95c8-5c78403fedc6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Third-Grade-Substitute-Emergency-Lesson-Plans-Ready-to-Use-Day-1-7757 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.924491 | 2,506 | 2.609375 | 3 |
Kasper.Just an emotion is not art, but when we put that emotion in a box, so that the observer has to think about it, and little by little, he will get a glimpse of what the creator wants to say, then it becomes beautifull.
Then art is enhanced and much more effective communication.
I think is it.
Dewey commented about the Greek notion of art. It's perhaps still current as when someone says, about for instance an economical car ,"this model is a work of art".Etc.So this is 'work of art' which is a way of praising something, but it's not these days a philosophical definition of what art is. | <urn:uuid:89f70c5a-3ce1-456b-a822-f72df1e9a41c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://onlinephilosophyclub.com/forums/search.php?author_id=15482&t=3060&sr=posts&sd=a | 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 | 0.981768 | 142 | 2.25 | 2 |
The threat of terrorism is never far from home. The bombing in Oklahoma City has become a symbol of the senseless taking of life that can erupt in any city, town or backwater in America. Federal buildings are not the only likely targets. The school bus could also find itself in the crosshairs. It is more visible and accessible than airliners, trains or government buildings. And it remains a symbol of this country's future. Who are the aggressors that we may face? While terrorists could plot to hijack a school bus, more likely it will be a troubled student, a disgruntled employee or former employee or an estranged spouse of an employee. The Fairfax County (Va.) Office of Transportation Services and the Fairfax County Police Department have been planning, training and practicing for hostage situations - just in case - for several years. Chances are slim that this will ever happen, but there are some basic survival tips that may help school bus drivers and attendants in the event of such an emergency. The following advice is offered to help school bus drivers survive a hostage situation and is intended to inform - not to cause unnecessary alarm or concern.
First, do no harm
Your main objective is to prevent anyone from getting hurt. Consider the consequences of your action or inaction before you cause additional risk for you or your passengers. In this case, patience is a virtue. This is easier to say than do, but remember that your passengers are looking to you for guidance. If you show patience, your passengers will be more prone to follow your lead. If you become hysterical, panic will spread. Know that 99 percent of hostage situations are resolved through negotiation. This process may take time, but time is on your side.
Maintain a calm exterior
Although you may be quaking inside, try not to show fear. Again, children are looking to your example. Know that police are very concerned for you and your passengers' safety, but they may purposely not ask how you are doing as this may serve to reinforce the hostage-taker's actions. Do not put yourself or passengers at additional risk by initiating aggressive actions. This is not the time to be a "hero," except in preventing harm to yourself and your passengers. This is not TV or the movies. The dangers are too real for you to take an unnecessary risk.
Stay in contact
Try to advise police and/or supervisors on your location and situation as soon as possible if the hostage-taker has not made contact. If the hostage-taker has already made contact, try to use special emergency radio codes. Also, try to keep the microphone "keyed open." This might allow a dispatcher to piece together what is happening. Be aware that many radios have what is called a "time-out timer." This feature will cause the radio to stop transmitting if the microphone button is depressed for long periods. This prevents a malfunctioning radio or a talkative driver from dominating a radio channel. Most radios with this feature are set to stop transmitting after about three minutes of continuous transmission. If your radio has this feature, you'll have to release and rekey the microphone every few minutes. This will help ensure that your transmission gets through.
How to help police
Try to help police see what is going on inside the bus or building where you are detained. Turning on interior lights, opening windows or opening a door can aid police in seeing what is happening inside. The pretense could be to let more air into the bus. The advantage is the police have a much better view and possible access to you. Also, unlatch or open the service door if possible. An unlatched door is easier for police to force open if necessary. Make a mental picture of the hostage-taker(s) and any weapons or other information that might help police. It is possible that some hostages may be released earlier than others as part of the negotiation process. Take note of any information that you can share with police if you are released before others. You may prefer to remain with your passengers, but you may not have the choice. | <urn:uuid:52bfd6c6-ccf2-4cc3-b25f-3e2eb7f2bdd0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.schoolbusfleet.com/Channel/School-Bus-Safety/Articles/1999/02/How-to-Survive-a-Hostage-Situation-on-Your-School-Bus.aspx | 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 | 0.95945 | 819 | 2.75 | 3 |
AHMEDABAD: Ramsinghbhai Jadav, 57, has thrown a challenge to anyone who can find a school more beautiful than Mandva Kendravati Primary School.
"If you find a school that is more beautiful, I will resign the next moment," said Jadav, principal of a government-run school, situated at Mandva village in Bhavnagar.
Jadav, who joined the school as an assistant teacher in 1983, has been instrumental in raising donations worth Rs 22 lakh from villagers, including industrialists from the village who have settled in Mumbai and Surat.
The school has a fountain, a garden and about 1,000 trees. There are two bird feeders (chabutra), which are frequented by white pigeons and other birds. Students celebrate their birthdays by bringing three kilograms of variety of seeds from home and feeding them to the birds. While the village faces the problem of water scarcity, Jadav ensured that the school never faces any such problem. The school has four huge underground tanks for collecting rainwater, which is used for various school activities.
All the 425 students in the school are given free uniforms, besides lunch and sweets once in two months. The school has a library, a computer centre, a projector worth Rs 1 lakh and an air-conditioned prayer hall that can accommodate 700 students.
"There is not a single child in the village who does not attend the school. Students from less privileged backgrounds are given clothes, bags, woolens while grocery is supplied to their homes to ensure they do not miss school due to financial reasons," said Jadav, who became the principal in 1992.
Jadav, who comes from a poor family, decided to contribute to education after he failed in class 8. "We faced tough times financially when I was young. Upon failing my class 8 examinations, my father told me that it was okay and that I must continue to appear for the exams till the time I get thorough. This inspired me to do something towards in the field of education," said Jadav, who was given the award for the best teacher by Gujarat government in 2003 and President's Award for Teachers in 2005.
Some time ago, a private school opened in Mandva but was eventually closed after no student attended the classes. Jadav has about 14 months of service before he retires.
"I will continue doing something for the school as I cannot imagine living without these students. I want to make the most of the opportunity to serve and enjoy the teaching profession," said Jadav. | <urn:uuid:ddc72d5f-46d5-4db6-af1c-458936ccb020> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-09-05/ahmedabad/33615122_1_private-school-president-s-award-assistant-teacher | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00070-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983064 | 529 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Bank of Japan sets 2-percent inflation target, 'open-ended' asset purchases
By Elaine Kurtenbach ,APTOKYO -- Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe declared a “monetary regime change” Tuesday as the central bank bowed to government pressure, setting a 2 percent inflation target aimed at helping the country emerge from its prolonged bout of deflation.
January 23, 2013, 12:01 am TWN
“This opens a passageway toward bold monetary easing,” Abe told reporters after the Bank of Japan (BOJ) and government jointly announced the inflation target and plans for “open-ended” central bank asset purchases similar to the strategy followed by the U.S. Federal Reserve to keep market interest rates low.
However, there was a caveat: The BOJ's new asset purchases won't start for a year. The yen strengthened against the dollar after the BOJ announcement though it is much weaker than it was before Abe's Liberal Democratic Party won a landslide election victory last month.
Abe began lobbying the central bank to ease monetary policy even before he took office in late December, saying more aggressive action was needed for the world's No. 3 economy to escape from years of falling prices that can dull consumer spending and business investment.
His campaign to influence the ostensibly independent central bank has met with criticism at home and abroad. Ahead of the BOJ's policy announcement, the president of Germany's strongly independent central bank, the Bundesbank, cited the Japanese government's pressure as an example of “alarming encroachments” on central banks' independence.
BOJ Gov. Masaaki Shirakawa vowed to achieve the inflation benchmark “as soon as possible,” in cooperation with the government. Some economists believe a moderate amount of inflation is grease that can make the wheels of the economy spin faster.
Whether the effort will succeed remains to be seen: the central bank has not achieved even its 1 percent inflation target, with price increases hovering below 0.5 percent for the past two years despite surges in energy costs.
The higher inflation target “would also have to be backed up by substantial policy measures to achieve it, otherwise the Bank of Japan might simply end up missing an inflation target of 2 percent rather than, at present, missing one of 1 percent,” Capital Economics said in a commentary Tuesday.
Abe wants fast results before an election for the upper house of Japan's parliament in July. His government is seeking to spur growth both through heavy government spending on public works and other projects and through monetary easing.
Still, popular magazines are already forecasting an “Abe bubble” in share and real estate prices, driven by the money being pumped into the economy through government spending and monetary easing.
Financial markets have rewarded Abe's campaign pledges with a rally in the benchmark Nikkei 225 stock index, which has gained nearly 22 percent in the past year, mostly in the past few months.
Meanwhile, the Japanese yen has weakened against other major currencies, relieving pressure on exporters whose competitiveness has been squeezed by a prolonged bout of “endaka,” or strong yen, in the past few years. | <urn:uuid:9b2b93a4-d5ee-4965-ab15-b7cac9151629> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.chinapost.com.tw/asia/japan/2013/01/23/368247/Bank-of.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960805 | 653 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Elayn Martin-Gay's developmental math textbooks and video resources are motivated by her firm belief that every student can succeed. Martin-Gay's focus on the student shapes her clear, accessible writing, inspires her constant pedagogical innovations, and contributes to the popularity and effectiveness of her video resources. This revision of Martin-Gay's algebra series continues her focus on students and what they need to be successful. Martin-Gay also strives to provide the highest level of instructor and adjunct support. Real Numbers, Algebraic Expressions, Equations, Graphs, Functions, Inequalities, Systems of Equations, Exponents, Polynomial Functions, Rational Equations, Rational Exponents, Radicals, Complex Numbers, Quadratic Equations, Exponential & Logorihmic Functions, Conic Sections, and Sequences and Series. For all readers interested in algebra, and for all readers interested in learning or revisiting essential skills in intermediate algebra through the use of lively, up-to-date applications.
Buyback (Sell directly to one of these merchants and get cash immediately)
|Currently there are no buyers interested in purchasing this book. While the book has no cash or trade value, you may consider donating it| | <urn:uuid:616b6edc-6f1f-41b9-a3a9-e9e7622a62bb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.campusbooks.com/books/sell.php?isbn=9780130087461 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00062-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.917398 | 251 | 2.234375 | 2 |
For more information on Brenda Milner and her groundbreaking research, watch this interview on Charlie Rose.
Brenda Milner, a pioneer of memory and language science, sat down with Carol A. Tavris at the 24th APS Annual Convention in the “Inside the Psychologist’s Studio” session.
This extraordinary 93-year old was described by Tavris as “one of our greatest psychological scientists.”
“Her life work has greatly expanded our understanding of the brain and particularly important areas of memory and language,” said Tavris.
Milner recounted how in 1959 she presented a paper with her mentor Wilder Penfield at the American Neurological Association in Chicago. Afterward, William Beecher Scoville contacted them to introduce a man named H.M. whose temporal lobe Scoville had removed in order to control his severe epilepsy but who had been left with anterograde amnesia.
The work Milner did with H.M. led to a deep understanding of the brain areas involved in memory functioning, Tavris said.
Milner’s more recent work focuses on neural processing of second language learning. She learned German at an early age, tutored by her musician father who undertook her early education.
“I’m so grateful to my parents that I was exposed to foreign languages very early,” she said. “It’s very good for the brain, as has been shown — with maybe only a tiny loss of vocabulary in your own language. It’s also tremendously rewarding socially.”
Milner attributed her excellent memory to good luck in her genes but also to the education she received. “I was taught to do what I want to do and to not be deterred. And I was really resolute.”
She had a final thought to impart to the students in the audience.
“Let me say, if you’re in the wrong career, don’t hesitate to change. I could be a mediocre math teacher in high school today.”
Leave a comment below and continue the conversation. | <urn:uuid:85932d9c-2d66-4d09-b23e-0095c95c040c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/publications/observer/2012/july-august-12/recalling-the-early-days-of-memory-science.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972796 | 442 | 2.84375 | 3 |
Máiread MaguireArticle Free Pass
Máiread Maguire, née Máiread Corrigan, also called (from 1981) Máiread Corrigan Maguire (born Jan. 27, 1944, Belfast, N.Ire.), Northern Irish peace activist who, with Betty Williams and Ciaran McKeown, founded the Peace People, a grassroots movement of both Roman Catholic and Protestant citizens dedicated to ending the sectarian strife in Northern Ireland. For their work, Maguire and Williams shared the 1976 Nobel Prize for Peace.
Although Maguire from a young age earned her living as a secretary, she also was from her youth a member of the Legion of Mary, a lay Catholic welfare organization, and through it she became deeply involved in voluntary social work among children and teenagers in various Catholic neighbourhoods of Belfast. She was stirred to act against the growing violence in Northern Ireland after witnessing in August 1976 an incident in which a car being driven by an Irish Republican Army (IRA) terrorist went out of control when the IRA man was shot by British troops. The car struck and killed three children of Maguire’s sister. Williams was also a witness. Within days each woman had publicly denounced the violence and called for mass opposition to it. Marches of Catholic and Protestant women, numbering in the thousands, were organized, and shortly afterward the Peace People was founded based on the conviction that genuine reconciliation and prevention of future violence were possible, primarily through the integration of schools, residential areas, and athletic clubs. The organization published a biweekly paper, Peace by Peace, and provided for families of prisoners a bus service to and from Belfast’s jails.
Although Williams broke away from the Peace People in 1980, Maguire remained an active member and later served as the group’s honorary president. In 2006 Maguire joined Williams and fellow Nobel Peace Prize winners Shirin Ebadi, Jody Williams, Wangari Maathai, and Rigoberta Menchú to found the Nobel Women’s Initiative. Maguire was also active in various Palestinian causes—notably efforts to end the Israeli government’s blockade of the Gaza Strip—and she was deported from Israel on several occasions.
What made you want to look up "Mairead Maguire"? Please share what surprised you most... | <urn:uuid:762c20f8-363c-45f1-9597-d34ab1d5053f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/138709/Mairead-Maguire | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00071-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976525 | 482 | 2.8125 | 3 |
'Our God's Brother' is apart from the typical track Zanussi follows in his films. In fact, this film is clearly a tribute to Pope Jean Paul II, the Polish Pope, who is the writer of the novel. I individually separate the film into two. First is the film itself. It is, in fact, not a film, but the camera witnessing a theatre play. Wilson acts like a theatre actor, and I have to admit he is better in theatre than in cinema, like all the other actors in the film. The camera just finds the best angles to witness this theatre play, and they are literally the best angles. Wilson is unequivocal in his role, the lights are really good, and the theatrical environment reanimated in the film is successful. But one point, it is not something new and different under the sun. If I were forced to make a choice, I'd choose Carlos Saura's 'Bloody Wedding',the camera witnessing film to Lorca's play, Antonio Gades and Christina Hoyos, two prominent flamenco dancers of Spain, acting in the film. Unlike this film, I have to say that, though the writer is the strongest figure of Christianity in the world, 'Our God's Brother' doesn't have a soul, but quite a reactionary idea instead. Here comes my second part: This film tells about the poverty. The poverty of masses is witnessed by a Polish painter, and his life dramatically changes. First he tries to help the poor by being a benefactor, but then he understands it helps increase poverty, not for it is not the way to save the poor, but for the poor are pleased to get with the benefits of being helped, so that they don't have the motivation to save themselves from poverty. At first, I thought I might have misunderstood the moral, but after having had the opportunity to talk to Zanussi, the director who is also a close friend to Pope, in Ankara Film Festival in Turkey, I was amazed by the fact that this is what the Pope thinks. This is politically reactionary, an idea which I supposed remained in the raw capitalism era, having been the dominant ideology. But it seems it is living with the basic institution of Christianity! In the film, the painter Adam 'Hard to Write Surname', a true character, finally convinces himself and the poor to become beggars to face the worst kind of poverty, thus suffering enough to become perfect Christians. I believe there is a way for human to become rich altogether via just share of the resources of this world, and I have the question if there is no way to punish the unjust richness in this world. Pope says no, but I will look for it.
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Was this review helpful to you? | <urn:uuid:48f246de-e5fa-4c42-aa37-85668c9065df> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119846/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978343 | 569 | 1.78125 | 2 |
It sounds archaic during an age of GPS-tracked trawlers and federal fishing quotas, yet a recent study found that community leadership, even among non-fisherman, was the key ingredient to stable, long-term fisheries both in developed or developing countries. Instead of offering government dictates of quotas (which will be ignored), communities need to decide for themselves that saving fish is in their interest.
“Community leaders weren’t just important,” said the Nature study's lead author Nicolás Gutiérrez in an interview with the magazine Solutions, “they were by far the most important attribute present in successful co-managed fisheries,” followed by individual or community quotas, social cohesion, and protected areas. The study also noted multiple management incentives contributed to success in protecting fishery resources.
The study examined 130 managed fisheries in 44 countries with a range of ecosystems and species. They exhibited a similar, simple pattern: strong community leadership was the necessary and common element for fisheries to survive from Chile's abalone industry to California's sea urchin fishery.
Southern California offered one of the best examples of community regulation succeeding where state regulation failed. During the 1970s, San Diego's unregulated and lucrative sea urchin industry boomed, then collapsed after the urchin population dropped 75 percent in the 1990s. State licensing restrictions did little to spur a recovery. Only after the fishing community itself agreed on harvest constraints did the urchin population rebound. Today, the urchin fishery ranks among the world’s most sustainable.
Yet there are signs of movement in the right direction. More than 200 co-managed fisheries exist worldwide from the billion-dollar Bering Sea pollack industry to local and artisanal groups. New approaches such as Blue Ventures, a biodiversity business which combines community-led social enterprise models with ecotourism, carbon finance conservation incentives and aquaculture, promise to help reverse the degradation of existing fisheries around the world.
Gutiérrez and the study's other authors think getting community leaders on board with saving fish is the only way to stop the destruction of the world's fish stocks, which supply 1 billion people with their primary source of protein. "Our study offers hope that co-management, the only realistic solution for the majority of the world’s fisheries, can solve many of the problems facing global fisheries."
[Image: Flickr user dawn's point of view] | <urn:uuid:5f92b6e0-7572-468e-a8fa-0766bf418e12> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fastcompany.com/1778762/how-save-fish-it-takes-village | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939379 | 499 | 3.1875 | 3 |
The man who is more well known as the alleged inventor of the game of baseball, than his exploits during the Civil War was born in Ballston Spa, New York on June 26, 1819. Although for years, Doubleday was credited with having invented baseball; this notion has since been refuted.
At the age of nineteen, in 1838, Abner entered the U.S. Military Academy, graduating in 1842, twenty-forth in his class. During the Mexican War, he served in the artillery under General Zachary Taylor. Before the Civil War, between 1847 and 1861, Doubleday served as a first lieutenant in the army, fought Indians in Texas, served in the Seminole Wars in Florida, and again in Atlantic Coast Ports.
When the war began, how a captain, he was station ed at Fort Sumter. It is Doubleday who is credited by most as the person who fired the first shot for the Union in the fort's defense. Soon Doubleday was promoted to major in the 17th Infantry, and by February 1862, was made a brigadier general. In this position he commanded a brigade under General Irvin McDowell and served at the Battle of Second Bull Run. At Gettysburg, Doubleday arrived on the field almost at the moment that Union General John F. Reynolds was killed. Stringing into action to replace him, he maintained the corps position, repulsing the Confederates. For this and the action that immediately followed, his previous nickname of "forty-eight hours Doubleday," was invalidated.
Although he served well and with distinction at Gettysburg, General George G. Meade still doubted his ability to command in an efficient manner, thus Meade placed General John Newton in command rather than retaining Doubleday in this position. Embarrassed and disgraced by this decision, Doubleday returned to his previous command, and after the Battle of Gettysburg ended, he returned to Washington, D.C. In Washington, he tried to exonerate himself from Meade's decision by writing the longest battle report of the Union army in Civil War history.
Never returning to command for the remainder of the war, he did stay in the regular army until 1873. Abner Doubleday died in Mendham, New Jersey on January 26, 1893.
Copyrightę John T. Marck. All Rights Reserved. This article and their accompanying pictures, photographs, and line art, may not be resold, reprinted, or redistributed for compensation of any kind without prior written permission from the author. | <urn:uuid:89d51219-fc6c-4fba-bd36-b0625675c498> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aboutfamouspeople.com/article1030.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978345 | 528 | 3.265625 | 3 |
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have not been interested in providing STD-related services and prefer to refer patients to the health department. Public health officials from Columbus are currently conducting outreach to physicians in private practice to involve them more fully in the diagnosis and reporting of STDs.
The West Central Health District programs collect fees from the Medicaid program for services. The staff is very concerned about changes that will occur with the implementation of Medicaid managed care and is looking for a niche in a managed care environment. The staff also expressed concern about the impact of block grants for HIV, STD, and TB and agreed that STDs are not a high priority in rural area. They are in the process of working with private providers to arrange a public/private partnership and have begun discussions with a local hospital. The director of the program has personally approached all the private sector providers in the area to arrange a public/private partnership.
The Emory/Grady Teen Services Program Atlanta, GA
The Emory/Grady Teen Services Program, a collaboration between Emory University and Grady Memorial Hospital, is a nationally acclaimed program that seeks to provide continuity of care for adolescents at risk for unintended pregnancy. The program has a school-based education component and a clinical component. The Teen Services Program has a formal agreement with the Atlanta Public Schools to provide 10 classroom periods of reproductive health education to all eighth-grade students, most of whom are from low-income families. The program educates 4,500 students each year through this agreement. "Postponing Sexual Involvement" is a component of the 10-hour outreach program in the Atlanta schools designed to help teens avoid early sexual involvement. Five sessions of the "Postponing Sexual Involvement" educational series are taught by Grade 11 and 12 students under the supervision of the hospital staff. The teen-led sessions are designed to help younger teens develop skills and resist social and peer pressures to begin sexual intercourse before they are able to take full responsibility for the consequences of their actions. The older youth also serve as role models, showing that they can be successful teenagers without being sexually involved. One session of the educational series is devoted exclusively to HIV infection and other STDs. The program emphasizes prevention of high-risk behaviors and STDs rather than providing detailed information on each STD.
Two special after-school family planning clinics (supported by Title X funds) are held at Grady Hospital each week. Nearly 1,200 sexually active female adolescents age 16 and younger are seen in these clinics annually. Once enrolled, adolescents continue to receive their care in these clinics until age 18 or graduation from high school. At Grady Hospital, each counselor sees patients from assigned schools who come for family planning services at least three or four times a year. Teen Services' nurses and counselors are assigned responsibility for | <urn:uuid:0103dd49-dd29-4309-87a2-d8a956a5ea7f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=5284&page=398 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958707 | 600 | 2.140625 | 2 |
The view of the unrest in the Arab world that’s presented in some of the media is remarkably far from reality. In a recent NPR program, the significance of Hosni Mubarak’s trial was discussed by several commentators:
After Egyptians toppled President Hosni Mubarak in February, many thought that their revolution, driven by peaceful, mass demonstrations, would be duplicated elsewhere in the Middle East with the same powerful results.
All too soon, they saw on their TV screens that would not be the case, as uprisings in Libya and Syria brought bloodshed and slaughter. That led to uncertainty and fear in Egypt, because many agree with activist Hossam al-Hamalawy, who says that Egypt’s revolution cannot fully succeed on its own.
“You cannot build a democracy in a country where you are surrounded by a sea or an ocean of dictatorships,” he said.
In the meantime, many who brought about Egypt’s revolution began to lose hope. They watched as the Supreme Military Council, which now holds power, cracked down on protesters and slowed down change, says Hossam Bahgat, the director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights.
“There were many days and weeks in which many of us felt our transition is being blocked by the interim forces,” he said.
But then Mubarak was put on trial, wheeled into the courtroom on a hospital bed, and put in a cage used for common criminals. It shocked Egypt and the wider Arab world, says Bahgat.
“Seeing Mubarak on trial will strengthen the popular demand for a democracy and dignity and full accountability,” he said. And, he added, it could also “further terrify these autocrats and once again deliver the message that their days in power are numbered” …
According to Fawaz Gerges, director of the Middle East Center at the London School of Economics, what is taking place across the Arab world is a genuine revolution.
“There is a new order in place. And I think there’s a rupture,” Gerges said. “The rupture that has to do with the mood and psychology of the Arab people. Citizens who are empowered, emboldened. They have rights as opposed to being subjects, ruled by their powerful leaders like Mubarak.”
The message in this is that there are two alternatives: the old order, represented by Mubarak, Qaddafi and Assad, and the new one, characterized by “democracy and dignity and full accountability” and “citizens who are empowered, emboldened. They have rights as opposed to being subjects.”
Of course there is another alternative: that is that these conservative dictatorships will be replaced by revolutionary Islamist regimes. This is precisely what happened in Iran in 1979.
Islamism is waxing strong in the Middle East today. Lebanon, a weak democracy, has been all but taken over by the Islamist Hizballah. In Turkey, formerly a secular democracy, the ruling Islamist AKP has systematically crushed its secular opposition in the military and the legal system, has deliberately wrecked its relationship with Israel, and is making noises about intervening in Syria (such intervention would be on behalf of Sunni Islamists, not democrats). In the Palestinian arena, only US dollars and IDF soldiers prevent the radical Islamist Hamas, which already controls Gaza, from getting control of all the territories.
Destabilizing forces are at work in Egypt, the largest Arabic-speaking nation in the Middle East:
Egyptian troops escorted by tanks entered the Sinai Peninsula region on Friday in an attempt to put an end to the anarchy that has erupted there since the fall of the Mubarak regime.
The aim of the operation was to halt Bedouin control of the northern Sinai area, which allows for the transfer of weapons to the Gaza Strip through underground tunnels…
In July, five people were killed when dozens of gunmen tried to storm a police station in al-Arish. The gunmen and hundreds more, reported to be Islamists, were wearing black and carrying black flags reading “There is no God but God.” Egypt’s military has detained 15 people suspected of involvement in clashes between gunmen and police in northern Sinai, including 10 Palestinians.
Following the attack flyers were distributed in the peninsula, threatening more attacks on police. The flyers were signed “Al-Qaida in Sinai.”
What’s coming in Egypt? Barry Rubin tells us that it’s the Muslim Brotherhood:
The West is still in denial about the Brotherhood’s role in Egypt. Many Egyptians are just becoming resigned to living in a country that’s increasingly Islamist, more Islamic-oriented, and perhaps even run by the Brotherhood. I don’t think the Brotherhood is about to take power in Egypt. I think it is about to become the single most powerful organization in Egypt and that it will play a central role in writing a new constitution and taking over institutions. More likely, within five years the Brotherhood will either be running Egypt or engaged in a very bloody battle to seize control over the state.
Democracy is not even one of the contenders, especially when you consider the fact that Egypt will soon be facing significant problems feeding its people.
In Syria, it appears that Assad and his regime understand that they are in a fight for their lives (literally). They are pulling out all of the stops, sending tanks against civilians, bombarding cities from naval vessels, etc. When the dust clears either Assad will remain (unlikely) or he will be replaced by those forces strong enough to take power. It’s not clear yet who this will be, but I think we can be sure it won’t be the Facebooking students. | <urn:uuid:f7c71549-095c-4f21-9b24-b4b77ded32ef> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://fresnozionism.org/2011/08/moty-udi-and-the-arab-spring/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97183 | 1,179 | 2.28125 | 2 |
MPH Core Courses
PHS 7010 - Fundamentals of Epidemiology
Introduces the field of epidemiology and the methods of epidemiologic research. Students learn how to interpret, critique, and conduct epidemiologic research, including formulating a research question, choosing a study design, collecting and analyzing data, controlling bias and confounding, and interpreting study results.
PHS 7000 - Introduction to Biostatistics
Covers the fundamentals of biostatistics including descriptive statistics, estimation, hypothesis testing, precision, sample size, correlation, problems with categorization of continuous variables, multiple comparison problems, and interpreting of statistical results.
PHS 7380 - Environmental Health: Principles and Practices
Examines interdisciplinary approaches to understanding, assessing, and controlling environmental factors that impact public health. Practical examples are used to help public health professionals understand how epidemiology, health surveillance, and exposure surveillance can be used to determine the potential for health problems that result from various environmental factors, and how monitoring and control techniques can reduce the impact of the environment on human health.
PHS 7610 - Health Promotion and Health Behavior
Explores multi-disciplinary fields that attempt to help individuals and communities prevent illness and maintain and improve health. These health promotion activities are accomplished through the development of a program and policies, and associated studies of these activities. Although we recognize that there are many factors that impact individuals and population health outcomes, this course will explore the social and behavioral aspects of health, as well as the relationship between health behavior and community, society and the environment.
PHS 7100 - Health Care Policy and Management
Focuses on the evolution of the American health care system from a health policy and values perspective, emphasizing the current health care system. Reviews the new Affordable Care Act and other legislative attempts to implement a health reforms and discusses current issues surrounding the financing and organization of the delivery of health care under various economic and political frameworks.
PHS 7470 - Management and Quality in Health Organizations
Provides a comprehensive overview and in-depth review of the history, evolution, theory, principles, major components and techniques of management for health care organizations, including public health. Topics covered will include organizational management, financial analyses and budgeting, principles and techniques for managing and leading teams, systems thinking, and theories and methods for managing a quality organization.
Introduces students to the MPH Cross-Cutting competencies…woven throughout case discussions and guest lectures from community public health leaders. Past guest lecturers have included leaders from the Thomas Jefferson Health District, Department of Health, Charlottesville Community Obesity Task Force, the Jefferson Area Board on Aging, and the Region Ten Community Service Board.
PHS 7050 - Public Health Law, Ethics, and Policy
Explores the legitimacy, design, and implementation of a variety of policies aiming to promote public health and reduce the social burden of disease and injury. Highlights the challenge posed by public health’s population-based perspective to traditional individual-centered, autonomy-driven approaches to bioethics and constitutional law. Other themes center on conflicts between public health and public morality and the relationship between public health and social justice. Illustrative topics include mandatory immunization, screening and reporting of infectious diseases, prevention of lead poisoning, food safety, prevention of firearm injuries, airbags and seat belts, mandatory drug testing, syringe exchange programs, tobacco regulation, and restrictions on alcohol and tobacco advertising.
PHS 7170 – Quantitative Data Analysis in Public Health
Introduces Public Health students to tools needed to utilize SAS for quantitative data analysis. | <urn:uuid:169341f2-de35-40d0-ad1d-1022edac694e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.medicine.virginia.edu/clinical/departments/phs/degree_programs/mph/corecourses-page | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00066-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.908141 | 724 | 2.046875 | 2 |
Socities worse off 'when they have God on their side'
September 27, 2005
Societies worse off 'when they have God on their side'
By Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent
RELIGIOUS belief can cause damage to a society, contributing towards high murder rates, abortion, sexual promiscuity and suicide, according to research published today.
According to the study, belief in and worship of God are not only unnecessary for a healthy society but may actually contribute to social problems.
The study counters the view of believers that religion is necessary to provide the moral and ethical foundations of a healthy society.
It compares the social peformance of relatively secular countries, such as Britain, with the US, where the majority believes in a creator rather than the theory of evolution. Many conservative evangelicals in the US consider Darwinism to be a social evil, believing that it inspires atheism and amorality.
Many liberal Christians and believers of other faiths hold that religious belief is socially beneficial, believing that it helps to lower rates of violent crime, murder, suicide, sexual promiscuity and abortion. The benefits of religious belief to a society have been described as its “spiritual capital”. But the study claims that the devotion of many in the US may actually contribute to its ills.
The paper, published in the Journal of Religion and Society, a US academic journal, reports: “Many Americans agree that their churchgoing nation is an exceptional, God-blessed, shining city on the hill that stands as an impressive example for an increasingly sceptical world.
“In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous democracies.
“The United States is almost always the most dysfunctional of the developing democracies, sometimes spectacularly so.”
Gregory Paul, the author of the study and a social scientist, used data from the International Social Survey Programme, Gallup and other research bodies to reach his conclusions.
He compared social indicators such as murder rates, abortion, suicide and teenage pregnancy.
The study concluded that the US was the world’s only prosperous democracy where murder rates were still high, and that the least devout nations were the least dysfunctional. Mr Paul said that rates of gonorrhoea in adolescents in the US were up to 300 times higher than in less devout democratic countries. The US also suffered from “ uniquely high” adolescent and adult syphilis infection rates, and adolescent abortion rates, the study suggested.
Mr Paul said: “The study shows that England, despite the social ills it has, is actually performing a good deal better than the USA in most indicators, even though it is now a much less religious nation than America.”
He said that the disparity was even greater when the US was compared with other countries, including France, Japan and the Scandinavian countries. These nations had been the most successful in reducing murder rates, early mortality, sexually transmitted diseases and abortion, he added.
Mr Paul delayed releasing the study until now because of Hurricane Katrina. He said that the evidence accumulated by a number of different studies suggested that religion might actually contribute to social ills. “I suspect that Europeans are increasingly repelled by the poor societal performance of the Christian states,” he added.
He said that most Western nations would become more religious only if the theory of evolution could be overturned and the existence of God scientifically proven. Likewise, the theory of evolution would not enjoy majority support in the US unless there was a marked decline in religious belief, Mr Paul said.
“The non-religious, proevolution democracies contradict the dictum that a society cannot enjoy good conditions unless most citizens ardently believe in a moral creator.
“The widely held fear that a Godless citizenry must experience societal disaster is therefore refuted.” | <urn:uuid:561b0833-1437-4935-aa6e-884e7ee57780> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.clubconspiracy.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1400&goto=nextnewest | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954392 | 809 | 1.921875 | 2 |
SARAJEVO / GENEVA (5 November 2012) – United Nations human rights expert Rashida Manjoo said that heightened domestic violence in Bosnia and Herzegovina is linked in many cases to the legacy of the war, and women and men suffering from Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and other war-related mental health problems as well as unemployment, poverty or addiction.
“As the government strives to assess and address the impact that the war had on men and how to ensure they do not place women at a higher risk of domestic violence, it should also recognize the experiences that women themselves faced during the war, and their entitlement to justice, reparations, and information and assistance on the missing and the disappeared,” said the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women at the end of her official mission* to the country.
“It is crucial for government authorities at all levels to recognize the existence of civilian women victims of rape and torture, regardless of their ethnic or religious backgrounds, and to ensure that they have equal access to remedies and services, regardless of their physical location within the country,” the expert stressed.
The Special Rapporteur urged the government “to ensure that the specific forms of sexual violence and the high prevalence rates experienced by women are adequately taken into consideration when implementing any initiatives to provide justice and effective remedies to victims,” while acknowledging the need to recognize the existence of male victims of war-time rape.
Ms. Manjoo welcomed official initiatives to adopt a Transitional Justice Strategy to ensure access to justice and reparation for all civilian victims of war, including survivors of sexual violence; a Law on the Rights of Victims of Torture and Civilian Victims of War, to ensure access for civilian victims of war to equal social benefits; and the development of the Programme for Improvement of the Status of Survivors of Conflict related Sexual Violence.
However, she noted, “a very relevant fear shared by interviewed survivors of war-time rape and torture is the fact that time continues to pass by with no justice being served. It is crucial to speed up efforts and achieve political solutions at State level,” the rights expert noted.”
In her view, transitional justice actions should ensure the public acknowledgment and memorialization of women victims, their access to compensation, including non-material damages, and their empowerment. “This is particularly important considering the country’s overall economic situation and how unemployment and poverty impact all people but women victims of violence in particular,” she underlined.
“I encourage the authorities of Bosnia and Herzegovina to speedily finalize the adoption of these legislative and programmatic initiatives, and call on the authorities of both the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republika Srpska to actively participate in their implementation,” Ms. Manjoo said.
The Special Rapporteur warned, nonetheless, that the success of such initiatives is hampered by the high levels of fragmentation in legislative standards and a lack of coherence among implementing authorities, which often results in the non-realization of women’s civil, political, social, economic, and cultural rights, and the lack of effective redress for women who have been victims of past and present violence.
“The full realization of women’s rights is impaired by the structure of the country’s political institutions and the fact that no State level authority has the jurisdiction to ensure the adequate implementation of the international human rights obligations adopted by the State,” she warned.
During her eight-day mission, Ms. Manjoo met with representatives of State level authorities; entity and cantonal level authorities of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina; entity and municipal level authorities of the Republika Srpska, as well as representatives of civil society organisations, UN agencies, and the donor community, including victims associations and service providers.
The Special Rapporteur will present a report with her final findings and recommendations the Human Rights Council in June 2013.
Ms. Rashida Manjoo (South Africa) was appointed Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences in June 2009 by the UN Human Rights Council. As Special Rapporteur, she is independent from any government or organization and serves in her individual capacity. Ms. Manjoo also holds a part-time position as a Professor in the Department of Public Law of the University of Cape Town. Learn more, visit: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/issues/women/rapporteur/index.htm
(*) Read the full end-of-mission statement: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=12742&LangID=E
UN Human Rights Country Page – Bosnia and Herzegovina: http://www.ohchr.org/en/countries/enacaregion/pages/baindex.aspx
Check the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/cedaw.htm
For more information and press inquiries, please contact:
In Sarajevo: Pavle Banjac (+387 33 563 823/ +387 65 524 589/ email@example.com), or Gabriela Guzmán (+41 79 444 4332 / firstname.lastname@example.org)
In Geneva: Thierry del Prado (+ 41 22 917 92 32 / email@example.com
For media inquiries related to other UN independent experts:
Xabier Celaya, UN Human Rights – Media Unit (+ 41 22 917 9383 / firstname.lastname@example.org)
UN Human Rights, follow us on social media:
Check the Universal Human Rights Index: http://uhri.ohchr.org/en | <urn:uuid:8c4185f3-f866-4a8e-a24f-7ec2c2d79bba> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ohchr.org/en/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=12747&LangID=E | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.905698 | 1,239 | 2.171875 | 2 |
Victories in the Pacific gives you the rare opportunity to follow in the footsteps of the men who fought and died for freedom in WW2.
The South Pacific is one of the world’s most beautiful tropical destinations. White sand, sunny days, and warm tropical nights await you.
Delve into the rich history of the Pacific War and learn more about the key battles in this bitter conflict and the men who fought there.
Victories in the Pacific is escorted by historian Mat McLachlan, a leading expert on the Pacific War. Mat knows the full story of both the Australian and American involvement in the New Guinea campaign, and will bring the history to life. Mat has personally designed this cruise itinerary. | <urn:uuid:49acdfb0-c822-45b7-a57f-fe18d637bc51> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pacificwarcruise.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948055 | 145 | 1.671875 | 2 |
WWII Vets Play Softball in Hiroshima
The games at an elementary school, where some 400 children were killed in the 1945 U.S. atomic bombing, was the second such event following one in December 2007 in Hawaii, organizers said.
The 28 Japanese players are from Tokyo and seven other prefectures, and the 18 American players from Washington, Florida and Hawaii, they said.
Their average age is more than 80 years old.
The U.S. team won in the Japan-U.S. match in the morning. The players played mixed in the afternoon.
Source & Full Story
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Questions not related to blog notes will not be answered here. Many thanks for your comprehension. | <urn:uuid:ca492704-6ea1-4bc3-b24e-6690f9e4f971> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://genealogyblog.geneanet.org/index.php/post/2009/04/WWII-Vets-Play-Softball-in-Hiroshima.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966996 | 201 | 2.1875 | 2 |
How embodied is metaphor processing?
What cognitive mechanisms do we engage in comprehending metaphorical language? One leading hypothesis (Narayanan, 1997; Gibbs, 2006) argues that we activate perceptual, motor, and affective systems to simulate figurative details. For instance, when we read 'Senator Jones is a dirty liar,' we might experience dirtiness visually (what someone looks like when dirty), haptically (what it feels like to be dirty), or using other perceptual, motor, or affective systems. Over the past decade, there has been a growing body of evidence testing this Embodied Metaphor Processing hypothesis. This seminar is a critical and up-to-date assessment of both this hypothesis and the current evidence for and against it, including behavioral experiments, computational models, and brain imaging.
This course is appropriate for graduate students and advanced undergraduates who have a background in experimental research on language. Course meetings will be structured around discussions of readings, and each student will conceive, design, implement, and collect pilot data from a research project pertaining to the course topic. | <urn:uuid:db3fc2ea-0d60-4bf7-9dca-09d78de07e33> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cogsci.ucsd.edu/~bkbergen/cogs238met/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.918731 | 219 | 2.265625 | 2 |
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While working as the technical director of WHEN TV in Syracuse, New York, Frank K. Spain envisioned a television station for his boyhood hometown of Tupelo, Mississippi. An electrical engineer, Spain had been a member of the engineering and development team for NBC in New York and Washington.
Upon petitioning the Federal Communications Commission for assignment of Channel 9 to Tupelo, the formidable task of making his dream a reality began in 1953.
At this early stage in television, the best commercial television equipment was extremely expensive and constructing your own television station was unheard of. But Spain faced this formidable task with determination and dedication. Throughout the construction period, his garage, backyard, and home basement in Syracuse literally became an electronics assembly facility. The antenna, transmitter, and cameras were designed and built from scratch.
In December, 1956, the Federal Communications Commission officially approved and assigned Channel 9 to Tupelo, Mississippi, followed by the grant of a construction permit for the then-named WTWV. All the equipment constructed over the previous three years was gathered and shipped to Tupelo and the job of assembling and building a workable television station began. The equipment's new home was an abandoned school located just north of Tupelo, which remains the station's operations headquarters to this day.
Frank Spain accepting a Gold Circle Emmy Award for Lifetime Achievement in Broadcasting in 2005.
On March 18, 1957, WTWV radiated its first live pictures to viewers in Northern Mississippi.
WTWV produced numerous firsts. WTWV was the first commercial television station in the state to devote its entire daily morning schedule to "educational programming" coordinated with the area's public school system. WTWV was the first television station in Mississippi to broadcast a live basketball game and it was the first station to broadcast a live telethon for an entire broadcasting day—raising money for cerebral palsy.
As the industry progressed and improved, so did WTWV. The change from black and white to color television was easily accomplished due to Spain's involvement with the development of color television for NBC several years earlier.
Along with an expanding and successful business came the public demand for an expanded coverage area. A new site was chosen for the transmitter and tower which not only put Columbus, Mississippi, within the city grade coverage but also resulted in one of the largest geographic coverage areas in the country.
A new 1590 foot tower and a new transmitter building were constructed near Woodland, Mississippi, some 40 miles away from the studio.
Having established this large regional influence and because Tupelo was the first city to purchase power from Tennessee Valley Authority, WTWV requested and was granted the new call letters of WTVA.
Today WTVA has an operation undreamed of in the 1950's with an expanded news department featuring some of the finest journalists in the nation and electronic news gathering utilizing satellite uplink and extensive portable microwave equipment.
The advances and changes in television systems today are amazing. In 2009, WTVA became the smallest market in the United States to offer high-definition (HD) programming, and was the first station in Mississippi to offer both local news coverage and commercial production in HD. WTVA continues to lead the way in bringing you higher-quality entertainment.
It's a tradition of excellence which will continue year after year.
For more information about Frank Spain,
including personal details and rare photos
of his life and legacy, please be sure to watch
the Tupelo Automobile Museum Welcome video.
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FCC Public Inspection File | <urn:uuid:4cfdceae-1be2-46aa-b923-723a84826809> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wtva.com/content/about/stationhistory/default.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00066-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933425 | 822 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Atmospheric Sciences & Global Change Division
Future Climate Scenarios: Getting a Better Look at the Big Picture
New approach to climate change could change how societies generate and use energy
Until now, scenarios were developed and applied sequentially in a linear causal chain that extended from the socioeconomic factors that influence greenhouse gas emissions to atmospheric and climate processes to impacts. Led by PNNL’s Dr. Richard Moss, the climate modeling, integrated assessment modeling, and climate impacts research communities have cooperated to devise an alternative ‘parallel’ approach for creating and using scenarios. The approach will shorten the time between the development of emissions scenarios and the use of the resulting climate scenarios in climate impacts research, as well as address the key information needs of users more effectively. Enlarge Image
Results: An international team of climate scientists including Pacific Northwest National Laboratory's Richard Moss, Jae Edmonds, Kathy Hibbard, Steve Smith, and Allison Thomson have designed a new approach to modeling the Earth's climate future. The approach is described in the journal Nature and will more tightly link analyses of greenhouse gas emissions, projections of the Earth's climate, impacts of climate change, and human decision-making. The new approach will influence the next international scientific assessment undertaken by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and provide a new framework for thousands of individual scientific studies on climate impacts and adaptation, climate modeling, and changes in the way societies generate and use energy.
"This is an open-ended approach that enables us to compare the environmental and socio-economic effects of different potential responses to climate change," said lead author Dr. Richard Moss, who performs climate change impacts research at PNNL's Joint Global Change Research Institute in College Park, Maryland. "This comparative evaluation is extremely important to determine the technical, policy, and economic requirements for reaching whatever society decides is a safe level of climate change. We hope to provide decision-makers with better tools to help people deal with a shifting climate."
Why it matters: Understanding the impacts and interactions of activities such as increasing energy efficiency and conservation, developing new renewable fuels to replace fossil-based fuels, and planning how land is used is crucial to better decision-making. An essential aspect of the new climate analysis process is the integration of different types of computer models and studies. This is possible because of the open-ended nature of the process and a new sequence for research: rather than treat each problem in a linear fashion, researchers will work to integrate the models to study interactions of human and natural influences on climate. Climate model and socioeconomic data will be available more rapidly to those modeling the potential impacts of climate change. Researchers will be better able to diagnose how different groups of models treat feedbacks—such as additional releases of greenhouse gases from ecosystems—that have the potential to further amplify climate change.
Methods: The process begins with four possible representative climate futures defined by ‘radiative forcing'—how much of the sun's energy the atmosphere retains (these are referred to as ‘representative concentration pathways', or RCPs). The climate futures represent a very broad range of potential future climate change and are intended to become standard scenarios for future generations of climate model experiments, thus promoting comparison of results over time as climate models themselves are improved. The RCPs were selected through an open, international process that included an IPCC expert meeting and open peer review by modeling groups. The RCPs will be used to initiate climate modeling and provide a general framework for development of socio-economic scenarios which will be paired with the climate model results and used to study climate change impacts, adaptation, and mitigation.
What's next: Many independent groups of scientists will use the RCPs in climate models. In addition to focusing on the usual century-long time scales typical for climate studies, one set of experiments will focus intensively on one pathway over the next few decades to provide better information on regional changes and extreme events, thus aiding decision-makers in planning adaptations to new, imminent conditions. This is possible because the pathways do not diverge significantly until 2035.
In parallel with development of climate scenarios, new socio-economic scenarios will be developed through an open process to explore important socio-economic uncertainties affecting both adaptation and mitigation. Development of the new scenarios relies on the observation that many different human futures could produce any particular forcing pathway or RCP. Integrated assessment modelers, such as those at PNNL's JGCRI, will research the implications of how different scenarios of population and economic growth, technology futures, and policies influence emissions of pollutants and activities that cause climate change. In addition, working with climate impacts researchers, they will study how different policies and conditions increase or decrease vulnerability to climate change. "We wanted to explore how environmental and social vulnerability would evolve and the resources needed to reduce the impacts of now unavoidable levels of climate change," said Moss.
Acknowledgments: PNNL is transforming the nation's ability to predict climate change and its impacts. This work was supported by the Department of Energy's Office of Science and many other funding agencies. The Joint Global Change Research Institute is a unique partnership formed in 2001 between the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the University of Maryland.
Reference: Moss RH, JA.Edmonds, K Hibbard, M Manning, SK Rose, DP van Vuuren, TR Carter, S Emori, M Kainuma, T Kram, G Meehl, J Mitchell, N Nakicenovic, K Riahi, SJ Smith, RJ.Stouffer, A Thomson, J Weyant, and T Wilbanks. 2010. "The Next Generation of Scenarios for Climate Change Research and Assessment." Nature, 463:747-DOI:10.1038/nature08823. | <urn:uuid:c7d32f46-5ce0-4609-a6cd-6a481953affb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pnl.gov/science/highlights/highlight.asp?id=741 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.917465 | 1,178 | 3.203125 | 3 |
Release Date: September 1, 2005
BUFFALO, N.Y. -- A reconnaissance team from University at Buffalo's Multidisciplinary Center for Earthquake Engineering Research (MCEER) will travel next week to Gulfport, Biloxi and other areas of Mississippi devastated by Hurricane Katrina to determine the specific causes behind the failures of large engineered structures, primarily commercial buildings.
The MCEER-funded structural engineers are interested in studying failures firsthand with the goal of applying their earthquake-engineering expertise to designing structures in the future that will better withstand all kinds of hazards, including hurricanes, earthquakes and even terrorist attacks.
"We want to find out where the weak links are in these buildings," said Gilberto Mosqueda, Ph.D., assistant professor of civil, structural and environmental engineering at UB, who will lead the team.
Jerome S. O'Connor, MCEER senior program manager for transportation research, will accompany Mosqueda, as will MCEER-affiliated engineers from other institutions.
"We want to know, specifically, what caused these buildings to fail," O'Connor noted. "Is it a design flaw, is it something we could improve?" he said.
MCEER plans to post on its Web site the team's daily findings, including images from its teams in the field, with the focus on damage to engineered structures.
"Our engineers want to look at the damage Katrina caused from a multi-hazard perspective," said Michel Bruneau, Ph.D., UB professor of civil, structural and environmental engineering and director of MCEER.
Bruneau noted that building codes in some jurisdictions fail to adopt design requirements that protect structures against extreme events like severe earthquakes or Category 4 or 5 hurricanes.
"Our approach here is to find solutions that can protect structures from a variety of hazards at one cost," said Bruneau, "as opposed to the current variety of solutions that exist for each separate hazard. We want to take an optimized approach."
According to Bruneau, loads on buildings caused by Category 1 or 2 hurricanes have limited correlations with loads on buildings caused by earthquakes.
"In those types of hurricanes, you see lots of damage to trailer parks and roofs of residential homes, for example, but you don't see significant damage to the engineered infrastructure, such as multi-story commercial buildings, such as large hospitals or hotels," he explained.
"But when you get wind speeds of the magnitudes that you see in Category 4 or 5 hurricanes, from 130 to 155 miles per hour or more, the damage to this infrastructure in some ways starts to become more similar," he said. "Now you are closer to the realm where an integrated design solution could be relevant for multiple hazards."
Mosqueda and colleagues on the structural-engineering team also will focus on hospitals in the region.
"In particular, we heard that Tulane University Hospital remained operational for a time after it was flooded," said Mosqueda. "How did they do it and what are the nonstructural components, such as life-saving medical equipment, that must be secured so that hospitals can continue to function even in a natural disaster? This is the kind of data that then can be applied to other disasters, such as earthquakes or terrorist attacks."
MCEER is planning to send additional reconnaissance teams to the areas hit by Katrina; they will focus on remote sensing for response and recovery, and on social science and policy implications of the disaster.
Founded in 1986, the Multidisciplinary Center for Earthquake Engineering Research headquartered at the University at Buffalo is a national center of excellence in advanced technology applications dedicated to reducing losses from earthquake and other hazards nationwide. One of three such centers in the nation established by the National Science Foundation, MCEER has been funded principally over the past 19 years with $68 million from NSF; $36 million from the State of New York and $26 million from the Federal Highway Administration. Additional support comes from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, other state governments, academic institutions, foreign governments and private industry.
The University at Buffalo is a premier research-intensive public university, the largest and most comprehensive campus in the State University of New York. | <urn:uuid:5afda277-a215-48d8-b84a-babed07a8ebf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.buffalo.edu/news/releases/2005/09/7471.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00055-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960028 | 856 | 2.046875 | 2 |
Artists & Educators,
a.r.t. (artists. rallying. together.) was created as a result of conversations I continued to have with local artists who had NO idea what was happening in our public schools regarding the arts. Budget cuts continued to chop the arts over & over. There are local musicians, painters, poets, etc. who are concerned about our diminishing arts programs for Milwaukee's youth.
Through local events, including book talks & benefit concerts, not only is awareness raised to the importance of the arts, but these events bring local artists & teachers together.
The arts (dance, music, drama, and visual art) allow students to not only express themselves, but the arts invite them to form a deeper understanding of their academics & their world. In addition, a.r.t. informs local educators & artists about arts advocacy at the local, statewide, and national levels.
Founder & Director of a.r.t. (artists. rallying. together.)
a.r.t. to bring together artists of all kinds to raise awareness for the importance of arts education in our schools.
a.r.t. to share & promote arts advocacy information from the local, state, and national levels with fellow artists, educators, and friends of the arts.
a.r.t. to expose students to the arts by helping fund local arts programs & educational organizations. | <urn:uuid:e624212b-a429-405e-9398-9ff5769ba044> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.artistsrallyingtogether.com/about.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00054-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953364 | 292 | 1.75 | 2 |
Owen Brown, an old man
wracked with guilt and living alone in the California hills, answers a
query from an historian who is writing about the life and times of Owen's
famous abolitionist father, John Brown. In an effort to release the demons
of his past so that he can die in peace, Owen casts back his memory to his
youth, and the days of the Kansas Wars which led up to the raid on
Harper's Ferry. As he begins describing his childhood in Ohio, in Western
Pennsylvania, and in the mountain village of North Elba, NY, Owen reveals
himself to be a deeply conflicted youth, one whose personality is totally
overshadowed by the dominating presence of his father. A tanner of hides
and an unsuccessful wholesaler of wool, John Brown is torn between his
yearnings for material success and his deeply passionate desire to rid the
United States of the scourge of slavery. Having taken an oath to God to
dedicate his life and the lives of his children to ending slavery, he
finds himself constantly thwarted by his ever-increasing debts due to a
series of disastrous business ventures. As he drags his family from
farmstead to farmstead in evasion of the debt collectors, he continues his
vital work on the Underground Railroad, escorting escaped slaves into
Canada. As his work brings him into contact with great abolitionists like
Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, and other figures from that era, Brown
finds his commitment to action over rhetoric growing ever more fervent.
But it is his son Owen--slowly maturing from a quiet, nervous young man
into a bloodthirsty warrior--who finally urges his father toward the path
of violence. This is the story of a rural family's wrenching
transformation from anti-slavery agitators into political terrorists, and
finally, tragically into martyrs.
Praise For Cloudsplitter
"Nobody who reads the first chapters of Cloudsplitter can
doubt that Banks has found his big subject. It is surely his best novel, a
furious, sprawling drama that commands attention like thunder heard from
just over the horizon." --Time
". . .a masterwork not only of white American fiction but of
another divided whole, American literature." --The New Yorker
"Massive, startlingly vivid, morally and intellectually
challenging. . . . --People
"Extraordinary. . . .Far surpassing Toni Morrison's works on this
subject, it is the most important novel about race published in America
since William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury." --Baltimore
1. How reliable a narrator is Owen Brown?
What parts of his narrative do you find circumspect?
2. Owen states that he does not believe in God, that for him, his
father was his God. Is this an apt analogy? If so, how would you
characterize his faith in his God?
3. With regard to the Kansas Wars, Owen writes, "It was no longer
clear to me: were we doing this for them, the Negroes; or were we simply
using them as an excuse to commit vile crimes against one another? Was our
true nature that of the man who sacrifices himself and others for his
principles; or was it that of the criminal?" What do you think, and
4. Owen claims, in his account of his life, to settle once and for all
the question of his father's sanity. Does he do so? Do you think his
father is sane or insane? Is Owen sane? What sort of criteria would you
use to differentiate moral conviction from insanity?
5. Owen writes of his father and the mountain, Tawanus: "I have
come over the years to associate the two, as if each, mountain and man,
were a portrait of the other and the two, reduced to their simplest
outlines, were a single, runic inscription which I must, before I die,
decipher, or I will not know the meaning of my own existence or its
worth." What might he mean by this? Why is the novel entitled Cloudsplitter?
6. In his Author's Note, Russell Banks makes it clear that Cloudsplitter
is a work of fiction, and not a version or interpretation of history.
Nevertheless, the novel contains much historical information. What is the
relationship between fiction and historical fact in Cloudsplitter?
Is "historical fiction" a deceptive distortion of history, or
does it add to our understanding of history? Of the present?
About the Author:
Russell Banks was born and raised in New
Hampshire. At age 27, he graduated from the University of North Carolina
and began teaching Freshman Composition. His first novel, Searching for
Survivors, was published at age 35 by Fiction Collective. After
thirteen works of fiction, including such acclaimed novels as Continental
Drift, Rule of the Bone, Affliction, and The Sweet
Hereafter (the latter two of which have been made into films), Banks
has now produced one of the most important bodies of work in contemporary
literature: Cloudsplitter. Ten years ago, he and his wife, the poet
Chase Twichell, bought a second home in Keene, NY, not far from John
Brown's grave. This proximity to a landscape that was so much a part of
John Brown's story partially led Banks to begin thinking about his
legendary neighbor, and he realized Brown's story had all the themes
"[he'd] been concerned with, some would say obsessed with, for 20
years--the relationships between parents and children, particularly
fathers and sons, and the interconnections between politics and religion
About Russell Banks | <urn:uuid:54b4d463-068a-406d-98b2-c2f036e9a3ae> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://harpercollins.com/author/authorExtra.aspx?isbn13=9780060930868&displayType=readingGuide | 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 | 0.970297 | 1,225 | 1.992188 | 2 |
A straw poll was taken on the OpenLayers mailing list in April 2010, and OpenLayers v3 development is taking place in git, with the central repository stored on GitHub. This means working with SVN and OpenLayers may become redundant. However as many OSGEO projects are stored in SVN with no current plans to move the same plugin and knowledge of working with SVN will still be useful.
For further details on working with SVN there is a free e-book “Version Control with Subversion” available at http://svnbook.red-bean.com/
Installing the Plugin
1. Open the Plugin Manager, by clicking on the green jigsaw piece in the toolbar below.
2. Right click and select Install in the plugin manager. A list of available plugins appears.
3. As you can see there are a couple of SubVersion related plugins available. Fortunately StackOverflow had a question titled SVN plugins for Eclipse – Subclipse vs. Subversive, which leant towards using Subclipse over Subversive. Life’s too short to dwell on possible advantages of using one over the other, so Subclipse it was.
4. Next follow a number of screens related to security certificates, and additional components. Other than selecting a couple of “Recommended” options I left the defaults.
6. The location of the OpenLayers trunk (the latest development version) can be found at http://svn.osgeo.org/openlayers/trunk/openlayers
8. After this you can create a new project location, and the plugin fetches all the latest files directly from the OpenLayers SVN server.
Using the Plugin
Now this is set up the fun can start! The reason I wished to go into the changes made to OpenLayers was that one of my unit tests was throwing an error after I have updated my OpenLayers 2.10 to the latest development version in OpenLayers. The error was:
exception: : object: wkt.replace is not a function
in ( [object Array]) at http://localhost/openlayers/lib/OpenLayers/Format/WKT.js line 59
You can see when files were last modified, and by whom, in the File explorer tab. The most powerful feature though is being able to compare the current files with any past version of OpenLayers. This can be done by right-clicking on a file, and selecting the “Compare With” option.
Now to diagnose my error, I looked to see if any changes had been made from the 2.10 version of OpenLayers(which my unit test passed) , with the current development version. Selecting the “Branch/Tag” option allows you to select a version (based on its tag). Version 2.10 is listed after 2.1 due to sorting by characters rather than numbers.
A comparison showed that the file and line had indeed been changed. A replace function had been added to the code to remove whitespace from the WKT string.
Upon further debugging it turned out the problem was my test had been passing an Array rather than a String, and as an Array object does not have a replace function is was correctly throwing an error. This served as a good reminder that unit tests can themselves have bugs.. | <urn:uuid:a70b4056-69a8-4e3c-943c-3434cddf339b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://geographika.co.uk/openlayers-and-versioning-in-aptana-studio | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935394 | 699 | 1.773438 | 2 |