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- Welcome to the Koala Ecology Group website
Welcome to the Koala Ecology Group website
The Koala Ecology Group (University of Queensland)
The Koala Ecology Group (KEG) is based in UQ’s School of Biological Sciences and examines a wide range of koala-related issues. Collectively, our research team has several decades experience with studying koalas throughout Australia. We aim to enhance koala conservation and management by improving our ecological understanding of this iconic Australian marsupial, to inform policy and on-the-ground decision-making.
Our research team is led by Dr William (Bill) Ellis, an expert koala ecologist who has been conducting field studies on koalas for more than two decades. Several years ago, Bill joined forces with Dr Sean FitzGibbon and Dr Robbie Wilson to form Queensland's leading koala ecology research team.
Currently, the KEG research team is involved in examinations of koala populations spread throughout Queensland. Major field sites include….
Opportunities exist to support several of our koala research projects…
Research Partners & Supporters
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What Is Design?
1. deliberate purposive planning
2. a mental project or scheme in which means to an end are laid down
3. a ) : an underlying scheme that governs functioning,
developing, or unfolding : pattern, motif
b) : a plan or protocol for carrying out or accomplishing something;
also :the process of preparing
4. the arrangement of elements or details in a product or work of art
5. the creative art of executing aesthetic or functional designs
We often give a great deal of thought to the design of our environment. We carefully consider our monetary and emotional investment in a place to call home. We personalize and outfit our living space, from furniture and finishes, to the everyday objects that surround us.
I believe Design doesn’t stop here. Every life choice is an opportunity. I invite you to explore and create design in your everyday. It takes time. Commitment. A thirst to find meaning in the monotonous. Slow down. Simplify. Edit. Create. Embrace failure. Seek out knowledge. Experience life with eyes wide open. One moment. One process at a time.
It is easy to become fractured from the processes of our choices and experiences. Life can move at an incredible rate. But, in the moments where there is conscious connection to the road that leads us to our destination, we can find Design. Design of our lives.
As I struggle with these life choices with my family, I will share some of my stories. I hope you will join me on the journey to create a life of beauty and meaning, creating connection, with the experiences of our everyday.
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Japanese duped in $2m ship purchase
New Atlantis, formerly Seifu Maru.
IN A stunt that may upset Tokyo, Sea Shepherd whaling activists have bought a $2 million Japanese government ship to turn against its whalers.
The 56-metre ship was purchased through a third-party US company from its berth next to the whaling fleet in Japan, the activists said.
Renamed New Atlantis and registered in Tuvalu, it was delivered by a Japanese crew to north Queensland, where they thought it was to be converted into a pleasure craft.
Throughout the sale, the Japanese government was unaware that it was doing business with Sea Shepherd, skipper Locky MacLean said on Monday.
Following a refit, the ship was reflagged to Australia and it is due in Hobart on Tuesday for unveiling ahead of the summer's Antarctic conflict, where the hardline activists will make their strongest bid yet to disrupt the whaling season.
Its New Atlantis disguise has been dropped and the vessel named Sam Simon, after the American founding producer of The Simpsons, an animal welfare advocate, who donated its purchase price.
Built as Seifu Maru in 1993 by IHI shipyard in Tokyo, the ice-strengthened vessel was operated by Japan Meteorological Agency's Maizuru observatory before being laid up in 2010 alongside the whaling fleet in Shimonoseki.
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Children, STDs & More
completely dis-easedI would like to know if a blood test is the only one needed to check for all STDs. Is it possible that there are other STDs that cannot be detected via blood?
Also, are there STDs that a man can carry without showing symptoms, and can still spread to his partner? How long can one of those diseases remain in the body before actually realizing that you contracted something?
Sam G., Point Lay, Alaska
Blood tests are used mostly for HIV and Hepatitis tests; other STD tests require urine or discharge samples. There are diseases such as Chlamydia and even HIV that both sexes can carry and spread, but do not necessarily show symptoms of themselves.
It is recommended to visit a doctor and get checked out every six months, and if you've had unprotected sex, more often than that. If you have a disease like Chlamydia and you wait too long, you could become sterile.
do your daily kegelsWhat is the benefit of doing kegel exercises if you are a guy? I know it makes you shoot further, but that doesn't serve any real purpose for me.
I have been doing them for the past month or so 3 times daily (first 3 seconds, then 5, now 10) at 30 reps. I just want to know what I should be looking for. Thanks and your site rocks!
You'll know that your kegel exercises have paid off when you're able to withhold your urine midway through going. That means that your muscle is very strong, which not only helps you "shoot further" as you so eloquently put it, it also helps you better control your orgasms. Use this to your complete advantage and keep on kegeling !
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The 3D art class is working on a quick wire exercise. They are using photos from a variety of social media (Instagram, Facebook, etc.) or from a portrait session in my class room. They are using line to create space. These wire portraits will be displayed side by side with their acetate line drawings. This preliminary activity will help them build the skills necessary for our next project that deals with creating volume using reed and tissue paper.
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Above: Table Land Blue Mountains, 1826, by Augustus Earle. This painting depicts the road and
country Charles Darwin travelled between Sydney and Bathurst. Courtesy National Museum of Australia
My 4 x great grandparents were farmers and cattle drovers in the central west of New South Wales in the mid-1800s. Between the present-day towns of Warren and Nevertire they built cattle yards to hold 2000 head, and bred draught and thoroughbred horses. But it is their occupation in the 1830s – one that allowed them to meet one of the most influential figures of the modern world no less – that I’d like to focus on for my Twigs of Yore Australia Day blog.
My 4 x great grandfather Tom Readford was a petty criminal in York, England. On Christmas Eve 1813 Tom and a friend stole four hides of leather, were caught, and handed a sentence of transportation for seven years. In the same year, and on the other side of the world, the first crossing of the Blue Mountains by white men was talking place – an area that was to be Tom’s new home two decades later.
Tom arrived in the colony in 1815, and a few years later married “cornstalk” (that is, she was born in the colony) Jemima Smith. Fast forward to 1833 and Tom and Jemima were landholders northwest of Sydney and employing two convict labourers. At a time when liquor licences were not required, Tom sold alcohol at a weatherboard dwelling call the Bathurst Traveller, but known locally as the Weatherboard Inn. The name Weatherboard was also given to the village that grew there; now this is the town of Wentworth Falls in the Blue Mountains. Pitt Park in Wentworth Falls today covers the site of the Weatherboard Inn. The inn was a popular stopover with people travelling between Sydney and Bathurst, and kept the couple, already parents to a large family, extremely busy. In 1835 a James Backhouse wrote that he’d had “an excellent meal of beef and bread with tea” at the inn, but the room had no glass in the windows and so a piercing cold wind blew through them.
Decades later Tom and Jemima’s son Edward wrote of his childhood at the inn, especially how he would show the local sights to visitors and unlike his father never became lost. Edward claimed that “people were arriving from all parts daily at my father’s house for the sole purpose of beholding this wonderful place”. Edward also told the story of meeting the soldier who shot the bushranger John Donohue: apparently the soldier spent considerable time at the Weatherboard as his barracks was just opposite. Edward described him as a very quiet Scotsman. Interestingly, Edward’s brother became notorious cattle thief Harry Readford (aka Captain Starlight), and his grandfather had been a highwayman in Ireland, but this seems not to have coloured his view of the man who had shot a bushranger as part of his job.
Above: A portrait of 31-year-old Charles Darwin by George Richmond in 1840.
Courtesy of the Darwin Heirlooms Trust, copyright English Heritage Photo Library.
Even more interesting is the fact that on January 17, 1836, after tethering his horse at the Weatherboard Inn, Charles Darwin walked to the Wentworth Falls along the wooded track (now known as Darwin’s Walk). On January 23 on his return from Bathurst to Sydney, Darwin stayed overnight at the Weatherboard Inn. And so my 4 x great grandparents waited on Darwin, served beef and bread to him and probably ensured his room was the “good bedroom” with glass in the windows!
Their occupation as innkeepers continued for many years: in 1837 the couple sold the inn to Abraham Joseph Levy, and they moved to the Woolpack Inn 25km closer to Sydney. Then in 1842 Tom obtained a licence for the Old Westwood Inn at Cunningham Creek, near present-day Ilford, 50km south of Mudgee.
Tom began life in Richmond, North Yorkshire, found home life and Richmond problematic, committed a minor crime and found himself flung to the other side of the world. But this new place allowed him to build up considerable wealth through leasing land, buying and selling property, running cattle and managing inns. And through his toil, he met the famous Mr Darwin.
When Tom died, it is not entirely ironic that he was buried in Richmond, not in North Yorkshire, but in New South Wales.
I would like to thank Barbara Hall and Neil Hall for their time and toil in researching the story of Tom and Jemima. More information on the Readford family can be found in One Family History: 220 Years in Australia (Irish Wattle, 2010).
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Madison, Dane County and surrounding towns ; being a history and guide to places of scenic beauty and historical note ... early intercourse of the settlers with the indians ... with a complete list of county supervisors and officers, and legislative members
Oregon, pp. 505-518 PDF (3.1 MB)
518 DANE COUNTY TOWNS -OREGON. Hayes, proprietor of the Oregon Hotel, opposite the depot. There are also two physicians, an insurance agent, three blacksmith shops, and a livery establish- mnent. The hardy pioneers who suffered all the privations and hardships attending the settlement of a new coun- try, and who have witnessed its gradual growth and development, now enjoy the fruits of their labor, as the well cultivated farms and comfortable homes attest their growing prosperity and happiness.
Based on date of publication, this material is presumed to be in the public domain.| Original materal owned by South Central Library System.| For information on re-use see: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/Copyright
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The new company would sell up to seven million cars a year, making it second only to Toyota in the global market.
Vauxhall employs more than 5,000 workers in the UK and there are fears their jobs may be at risk.
Fiat, which also owns Ferrari, is considering combining its car-making operations with GM’s European arm and its 20 per cent interest in manufacturer Chrysler.
This would create a car giant with around €80 billion (£71 billion) in annual revenues, the firm said.
Around 1,200 employees are based at Luton and 2,500 at Ellesmere Port with the rest at dealerships across the UK.
Vauxhall was originally founded in London in 1903. It has been wholly owned by the General Motors group since 1925 and responsible for around 20 per cent of its European revenues.
Fiat Multipla MPV won a host of awards for its practicality – comfortably seating six adults.
The problem with the Multipla was its controversial looks, but its 2004 facelift saw the Fiat go full circle, offering a more conservative design, but still maintaining the innovative six-seating profile.
Inside, the Fiat Multipla is a place of purpose. From the gear stick which is placed to the left of the steering wheel to the handbrake to the right of the driver’s seat, everything has been set out to accommodate the front row’s middle seat.
For a car with such a high roofline, the Fiat Multipla handles quite well.
Fiat’s new models fair better than ever in the reliability stakes.
It’s not an overly well specced car and is available in three trim levels – Dynamic Family, Dynamic Plus and Eleganza. All models get remote central locking, electric front windows, CD player and immobiliser.
The Fiat Multipla is a competent MPV which should be complimented on its innovative six-seat layout..
The Fiat Doblo MPV range is an excellent choice for cost-conscious motorists looking for a flexible and spacious vehicle.
It might be based on the Doblo van, but there’s not much evidence of its roots as a commercial vehicle. And in its 1.3 Multijet Family guise, the Doblo is the UK’s cheapest seven-seater.
The Doblo might not be conventionally attractive, but its utilitarian looks are appealing for some.
The interior is very functional, from the dashboard right through to the rear seats.
The Doblo is likely to be bought by those looking to lug large loads, with the occasional need to ferry up to seven people. The Active and Dynamic models have five seats, while the Family (tested here) adds a third row.
The Fiat Doblo handles surprisingly well, with responsive steering and limited body roll for what is basically a commercial vehicle.
The Doblo is available with a choice of a 1.4-litre petrol, a 1.3-litre diesel and two 1.9 diesels.
The Doblo is built of tough stuff, and it has to be, particularly in its van guises.
If you’re in the market for a bargain basement people and luggage mover which also happens to be a rather good steer, the Doblo is the MPV for you.
British buyers hunting for a family hatch are spoilt for choice. The Ford Focus and Vauxhall Astral dominate the market.
But then there’s the mighty VW Golf, Toyota’s newly-launched Auris and Honda’s sexy Civic to choose from, not to mention the Peugeot 307, Citroen C4, Seat Leon, Kia Cee’d, Dodge Caliber… need we go on?
Now Fiat has unveiled the Bravo to compete in an already crowded market – which can only be good news for the consumer.
The first thing you’d expect from a Fiat is for it to be a bit of a looker – and its no surprise the Italian company sees this as one of the Bravo’s strongest selling points.
Buyers can choose between three petrol engines, the 1.4-litre T-Jet 120bhp model, 1.4-litre T-Jet 150 bhp model and a 90bhp model due later in the year. Diesel fans can choose between a 120bhp and 150bhp 1.9-litre model.
The model achieved to a maximum five star rating following EuroNCAP safety tests.
Overall, Fiat has achieved considerable success in meeting their big aims with the Bravo – beauty, safety and performance.
And in terms of building on the good work begun with last year’s launch of the Grande Punto – the Bravo looks set to be a winner.
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Young couple exchange vows in Aleppo amid ongoing crisis
AFPALEPPO, Syria -- In the heart of Aleppo, besieged by Syrian troops for more than five weeks, a young couple who found love in a time of war exchange vows.
September 3, 2012, 11:38 am TWN
Bombs dropped in the distance, but for a moment, those attending the modest wedding ceremony in the Saif al-Dawla neighborhood of Syria's second city were able to forget about the bloody conflict.
The marriage was between rebel sniper Abu Khaled and Hanan, the nurse who treated his leg wound.
The 20-year-old remembers falling in love with Hanan “at first sight.”
“I saw her at the Coneta school first aid point. From first sight, I loved her. Then I got shot in my leg and she was cleaning my wounds everyday and, day by day, I know her better and love her more,” says Abu Khaled, his beard closely trimmed.
His account of the beginning of their love evokes a smile from his bride, who blushes under her make-up.
“When we met there was something in the air,” recalls the 23-year-old woman whose wedding attire amounted to a white scarf and her nursing blouse.
And when Hanan lost her brother in the bloody violence that has roiled Syria since March 2011, Abu Khaled began to support her.
“(Our love) became stronger when my brother was killed,” says the nurse sitting beside Abu Khaled, who wears a military jacket with many pockets.
“And he is a revolutionary sniper!” she adds, smiling again.
The bride and groom sat on big chairs, according to custom. Behind them, a large revolutionary flag hung on the wall.
They sliced a chocolate cake as activists waved signs that declared: “We love life, and are still here.”
A commander of the Free Syrian Army, patchwork of deserters and civilians who took up arms to fight the forces of President Bashar al-Assad, delivered a speech and the exchange of rings came under a rain of confetti.
The ceremony then moved outside, where tables covered with towering bowls of fruit were prepared.
Guests congratulated Hanan and Abu Khaled as activists encircled the newly weds and chanted slogans of the revolution against the Assad regime.
“Freedom, we want freedom!” they sang.
“No one can stop life. No one can stop people. No one can stop who goes with God,” joked one guest, a member of Abu Khaled's brigade who held a Kalashnikov assault rifle in his hands.
A few blocks away, columns of smoke rise from collapsed buildings as other parts of the city held by the outgunned rebels are struck by shelling from government forces.
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* This is my article two days ago in TV5's news portal,http://www.interaksyon.com/business/51944/fat-free-economics--why-the-peso-is-appreciating
There has been a number of rather positive news about the Philippine economy at the end of last year extending up to the New Year. Among the more prominent ones are the impressive growth in the stock market, the high third-quarter GDP growth, and the peso appreciation. The latter is often seen as an indicator of confidence in the local economy by investors abroad, whether institutional or individual.
They bring their foreign currencies into the Philippines for investment, tourism and recreation, support for families and friends here, and for various other reasons. These increase the demand for the Philippine peso relative to other currencies, at least temporarily, resulting in the peso appreciation. Here are some relevant numbers.
Among developed and emerging economies in Asia, only the South Korean won had a larger appreciation than the peso. The Indonesian rupiah, Japanese yen, Indian and Pakistan rupees even depreciated relative to the US dollar (see Table 1).
Source: The Economist, January 4th 2013, Trade, exchange rates, budget balances and interest rates
When the peso (or other currencies) appreciate relative to a major currency, many sectors benefit like importers, Filipinos who are travelling abroad, other foreign currency buyers. The prices of imported petroleum products can go down even if world prices have stabilized or slightly increased, benefitting the transportation, industrial and other sectors of the economy.
Some sectors though are worse off, like the families of the OFWs, exporters, and business process outsourcing (BPO) firms. There are winners and losers in every change in economic conditions. It is just a question of how much is the net gain or net loss for the whole economy.
What could be the main contributors to the peso and other Asian currencies’ appreciation or depreciation?
The most proximate explanation is the current account balance, which comprises exports less imports of goods and services (merchandise and non-merchandise trade, overseas remittances) and transfers. So countries that have negative or low balances tend to suffer currency depreciation.
Then there is capital account balance, or the net result in the inflows minus outflows of capital like foreign direct investments, stock market investments, and foreign debt less repayment. But there is sometimes a lag between the capital account balance and currency changes.
Another factor is the budget balance although the causality between this and currency movements is not very clear, more of a slight interrelationship. Nonetheless, countries that have persistently high budget deficits and high public debt are candidates for future fiscal and economic instability. Below are some numbers to crunch.
Source: same as Table 1
Short-term, three-month interest rates are included in the above table. With the exception of Hong Kong and Japan, countries that experienced currency depreciation or low appreciation – Vietnam, Indonesia, India and Pakistan – have high interest rates. The foreign exchange risk seems to have been “converted” into interest rate risk.
Hong Kong and Japan are able to escape this trend mainly because of their mature and stable credit markets. The bulk of Japan government debt, for instance, is not with foreign lenders but with Japanese nationals, so foreign currency risk from public debt is significantly reduced or limited.
The challenge for the Philippine economy is to limit those government-generated risks like persistent budget deficits and ever-rising public debt, and government business bureaucracies that limit and sometimes scare investment and entrepreneurship in some sectors of the economy.
As economic uncertainty in the US and Europe linger, many businesses and entrepreneurs there are looking for alternative economies where they can jump ship. The rise in stock market investments is a good indicator for the Philippines but that is insufficient given the high degree of poverty and unemployment in the country. This is despite the argument I made in an earlier column that some unemployment is voluntary and indicates “joblessness by choice” due to a high “reservation wage” among job seekers.
As economic optimism outpaces pessimism, the unemployment condition may not necessarily decline as more people raise their “reservation wage” in anticipation of better economic and business opportunities to come. What is important is that economic growth should remain high; the economic pie should continue to expand fast. Government policies that tend to discourage more entrepreneurship should be drastically cut or eliminated.
Fat-Free Econ 32: GDP Growth, Stockmarket and Rule of Law, December 01, 2012
Fat-Free Econ 33: Institutions and Why Governments Fail, December 09, 2012
Fat-Free Econ 34: Rise in Unemployment Rate Not Exactly Bad, December 20, 2012
Fat-Free Econ 35: World's 25 Largest Economies in 2012, January 02, 2012
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Arnold BAX (1883-1953)
Winter Legends (1929-30) [38:25]
Morning Song ‘Maytime in Sussex’ (1946) [7:11]
Saga Fragment (1932) [10:37]
Ashley Wass (piano)
Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra/James Judd
rec. The Lighthouse, Poole, 21 -22 June 2010. DDD
NAXOS 8.572597 [56:13]
In the early seventies I remember looking at the list of Arnold Bax’s compositions in Grove in the Mitchell Library in Glasgow: there seemed so many of them. I guess that I had heard a couple of pieces that had been released on the old Revolution label - I think they were The Tale the Pine-Trees Knew and the Viola Sonata. There were others available, but in those days I could not afford to buy everything I wanted. Besides, there were also albums of music by Led Zeppelin and Yes to buy! Yet, I had been hooked on Bax’s music: the sound-world had captured my imagination. Being a Scot, with Irish and English blood in my veins the music was designed to appeal to all those facets of my inherited character.
One thing is certain: as I looked at the listings of symphonies, piano pieces, tone poems and chamber music, I knew that I would never hear them all. None of my friends had heard of Bax: he was certainly not performed in the concert halls of Glasgow and Edinburgh. I imagined that these evocative titles such as The Garden of Fand, Tintagel, In the Faery Hills or Rosc-catha would remain closed scores, as it were, for the rest of my life.
Fast forward 35 years. Who would have believed that there would be at least two versions of each of the works presented on this CD? In the wider context virtually every major work by the composer would be available – including four cycles of the symphonies! Yet his music is rarely played in concert halls and recital rooms. This year’s Proms is a rare treat for Bax lovers, however the fact remains that most listeners engage with Arnold Bax by way of the iPod and the CD player rather than ‘live’.
The Manchester Guardian reviewer gave an excellent précis of Winter Legends, which may be derived from the programme notes: it is worth quoting. ‘There are three movements: The first is a gradual assembling and forging of various elements into a triumphant climax, the second, on the whole darker in tone, reaches a serene close, and the third, beginning starkly, comes to an end with the return of the sun after a long Northern Winter.’
It is not necessary to elaborate on this description and give a detailed analysis of Winter Legends. However, I think that it is essential to discuss three things: the work’s formal status, the extra-musical associations and the influences.
Firstly, is Winter Legends a symphony or a piano concerto? During the nineteen-twenties Bax had written his first three symphonies. Lewis Foreman has suggested that the composer had a bit of a stylistic crisis when it came to formulating his Fourth, which duly appeared in 1931. Almost as a preliminary to that great work he composed Winter Legends which has the formal characteristics of his symphonies which typically involved three movements with an epilogue. On the other hand, Andrew Burn notes that Bax did not view this present work or the earlier Symphonic Variations as being ‘conventional piano concertos’. In fact, the composer described Winter Legends as a ‘sinfonia concertante’. He told Adrian Boult that ‘the use of the piano was more akin to an important orchestral instrument’. To the listener, there is nothing simple or straightforward about the piano part: I guess it taxes the technique of the soloist to the extreme. However it not conceived in terms of mere technical display, nor is it a competition between piano and orchestra. There is a conversation between the two elements; however, it is more dialogue than dialectic. Bax regarded the formal construction of the piece as being too rhapsodic and ‘free’ to be a symphony as such but was probably content for it to be regarded as one if the listener or critic so chose.
Secondly, Andrew Burn has pointed out that Bax may or may not have had a ‘programme’ in mind when he composed this work, but he certainly never revealed what it might have been. In fact, Bax wrote in the programme notes for Winter Legends that the piece does not have ‘any communicable programme. The listener may associate what he hears with any heroic tale or tales of the North – of the far North, be it said. Some of these happenings may have taken place within the Arctic Circle.
‘Legends that once were told or sung
In many a smoky fireside nook
Of Iceland, in the ancient day
By wandering Saga-man or Scald.’
Bax concludes by suggesting that ‘there is nothing consciously Celtic about this work’.
Even the most cursory of hearings reveals a composition that is packed with musical adventures and covers a whole range of emotions – from ‘joy to sadness, triumph to despair, violence to peace and both love and hate’.
In fact, when I have listened to this piece, I have tended to see it as a major ‘love story’ especially written for the composer’s lover and muse, Harriet Cohen. Certainly a study of this relationship would suggest that Bax (and Cohen) would have traversed many of the emotions present in this work.
Thirdly, it would be easy to suggest that as there is ‘Northern’ colouring to this work, there must be some debt to Jean Sibelius. It is not quite as simple as that. There is little stylistic similarity to Sibelius. Bax has made use of an ‘intricate and closely woven polyphonic texture’ which is very different to the largely harmonic and homophonic writing of Sibelius. However there are similarities of ethos. The contemporary reviewer in The Manchester Guardian suggested that ‘the way in which ... the first movement is built up is strikingly analogous to many of Sibelius’s symphonic movements.’ Finally, furthering the idea of ethos rather than detail, it may be proposed that ‘there is more than a suggestion of the same master’s En Saga.’ Interestingly, the composer originally dedicated the work to the Finnish master but later changed it to Harriet Cohen.
When I first heard this work back in 1987, I considered that it rambled a little: I did not feel that it hung together properly. However after a number of ‘hearings’ the material seems to fall into place. Perhaps the problem was that there is such a huge range of emotion packed into what is a relatively short period (38 minutes).
I love this work in spite of a feeling that it is not quite equal in quality from the first to the last bar. There is a sense that there are pages of genius in Winter Legends that are set alongside music that is not quite so imaginative. Yet the overall impression is of a fine work that manages to hold the listener’s attention from beginning to end.
The first performance of Winter Legends took place at the Queen’s Hall on 10 February 1932 with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Adrian Boult. It was performed shortly afterwards in the United States with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Serge Koussevitsky. Harriet Cohen later made a radio studio recording of Winter Legends and this is available on Dutton CDBP 9751.
There is a danger that listeners may down-rate the Saga Fragment simply because it was not a new work, but a reheated piece ‘dished up’ from Bax’s catalogue of chamber music. In fact, they could make no greater error of judgement. As Brian Wilson writing in these pages suggests, ‘it sounds anything but cobbled together.’
The work came about as a result of a request by Harriet Cohen for a short ‘concerted’ piece for her forthcoming American tour in 1933. Bax orchestrated the [Piano] Quartet in One Movement (GP255) which had been written in 1922 at around the same time as he was composing his First Symphony. It was a time when the composer was dismayed by the developing civil war in his beloved Eire.
Lewis Foreman has noted that the original piano part has been rearranged a little with some octave doubling added. The work was orchestrated for relatively small forces - piano solo, trumpet, percussion and strings. The Saga Fragment’s first performance was at the Queen’s Hall with Constant Lambert on the rostrum.
The mood of the music is quite severe. Andrew Burn in the liner-notes of the present CD quotes Cohen writing in her autobiography that this is ‘a savage little work much admired by Bartok’. Bax himself is reputed to have said that Saga Fragment was ‘a rather tough pill’.
Once again Lewis Foreman well sums up the mood of this piece – ‘The composer appears torn between grim contemporary realities and an earlier, more romantic existence.’
Certainly, the piece opens with an aggressive, bristly staccato on the strings, and the piano, when it enters, strikes a sinister note. However this belligerence is not the full story. The composer is almost schizophrenic in his approach to the musical language with the middle section being wistful, reflective and possibly even optimistic in its mood. There is a ‘bardic’ magic in some of the quieter moments in this piece that looks towards the re-creation of an ideal world - most likely in Eire. At bottom, it is the violence pitted against the romance that makes or breaks this piece. Both soloist and orchestra rise to the challenge presented by such a wide range of moods presented in such a short space of time: the piece lasts just under eleven minutes.
No piece could be in such contrast to Saga Fragment than the Morning Song (Maytime in Sussex). Andrew Burn suggests two key factors leading to the composition of this ‘light’ but satisfying piece of music. Firstly, Bax had taken a weekend break from the London Blitz during 1940. He had headed for the Sussex Downs and stayed at the White Horse Inn at Storrington. He enjoyed the atmosphere of this village so much that he rented a room at the inn on an open-ended basis. In fact it became his main residence for most of the remainder of his life. The second event was his appointment as Master of the King’s Musick. Whether he was an appropriate or satisfactory incumbent of that sinecure is a matter of debate, however it did result in a short piece written to celebrate the 21st birthday of Princess Elizabeth. Harriet Cohen made a commercial recording of this work in February 1947 and then publicly performed it at one of Sir Robert Mayer’s children’s concerts. Sir Malcolm Sargent conducted the London Symphony Orchestra. Interestingly enough, neither the recording nor the premiere coincide with the Princess’s birthday which was on 21st April!
Morning Song has been given a wee bit of a hard time by critics, for example M.E.O. writing in the Gramophone has suggested that it ‘has moments of touchingly simple lyricism, but others of aimlessness and clod-hopping as well; it is minor stuff ...’
I personally think this is a lovely work. There is a freshness and a transparency about the music that suggests the composer, who was sixty-four at the time, was looking back to a simpler and happier life. This is not a literal depiction of the Sussex landscape so the ‘clod-hopping’ is disingenuous. Neither are there cows in the byre nor lambkins frisking. It is simply the reflection of a middle-aged man considering a fine landscape and a beautiful and intelligent woman who had just reached her (then) majority. It is optimistic, positive and downright gorgeous.
This new Naxos disc will be in direct competition with the 20 years plus recordings made by Chandos with Margaret Fingerhut and the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Bryden Thomson. I recall these discs (or vinyl records as they were then) coming out and the excitement of hearing these works for the first time. I enjoyed those performances then and until the present disc they were the only modern option. They remain benchmark recordings. However competition is good: Ashley Wass, the BSO and James Judd have given the Chandos and Dutton versions with Harriet Cohen, a run for their money. Naturally, all Arnold Bax enthusiasts will want to have the Wass/Judd/BSO recording in their libraries.
The liner-notes are comprehensive and well-written; the sound quality of the recording is excellent. Even the CD cover picture adds to the chilly aspect of some of this music.
One contemporary reviewer suggested that Arnold Bax’s ‘Northern’ or Scandinavian period was not quite as successful as his dealing with the fairies and leprechauns of Ireland. This is hyperbole. Winter Legends is a fine work that deserves its place in the symphonic and concerted literature of every orchestra. However this present CD gives three works that reflect three sides of the composer’s character, the wild landscapes of the North, and the often troubled, but magical realms of the West and the beauties of the South as seen in Sussex. Other music will need to be listened to for an appreciation of Bax’s Eastern (Russian) influences.
Naxos have given Chandos a run for their money.
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Doug Saunders’s first book, “Arrival City,” reads like a special issue of The Economist, that estimable weekly, in ways that are mostly good but sometimes not. You can envision its subtitle stamped in 18-point type on the magazine’s cover: “How the Largest Migration in History Is Reshaping Our World.”
He presents these fringe worlds not as fetid ghettos or pots of simmering radicalism. Instead, he argues, they are kilns of reverberating energy and optimism where the world’s rural downtrodden seek a foothold in the modern world. These people — losers to too many of us, though not to themselves or to those they left behind in small villages — wish to receive the developed world’s simplest yet most grace-filled benediction: a chance, through hard work, to enter the flowing middle class. We frustrate their desires at our economic, social and moral peril.
See on www.nytimes.com
- Related articles by Doug Saunders (off-site)
- Doug Saunders: Peak Oil? More like Peak Canada
- Doug Saunders: ‘Religious freedom’ sends the wrong message to the wrong people
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Our Top Stories
U.S. Department of Labor Celebrates 100 Years of Helping American Workers
March 04, 2013
03:01 PM EDT
Today, the U.S. Department of Labor is celebrating its centennial anniversary. For the past 100 years, the Department of Labor has worked to promote and advance the interests of families, workers, job seekers and retirees of the United States. While protecting the dignity of American workers, the Department has ensured workers have received safety protections and fair wages for their work. The Department of Labor is proud of its many important achievements, from providing the framework for the 40-hour work week to allowing parents to take leave for family emergencies. American workers have always been the backbone of our country and as another century stretches ahead, the Department remains committed to ensuring workers have more opportunities to build a better future.
- Watch this centennial video that tells the story of the Labor Department.
- Explore this interactive historical timeline that brings more detailed accounts of the Department’s challenges and achievements covering world wars to economic downturns.
- Read President Obama’s special proclamation to mark this important occasion
- View the DOL's special centennial web page.
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California dipped its toe into the cap-and-trade water and found it to be neither too hot nor too cold.
Air Resources Board chairwoman Mary D. Nichols proclaimed the first auction of carbon allowances to be a success. Numerous environmentalists who want cap and trade to succeed also praised it.
But in reality, the first live auction conducted last week and assessed this week was like taking a test drive in an alternative fuel vehicle. Maybe it will fit California's needs. Maybe it won't.
Nichols and others said the goal of cap and trade, in which polluters pay to offset their carbon emissions, is not to generate money for the state.
But by that one measure, the auction fell short. Gov. Jerry Brown and legislators had hoped to receive $500 million from cap and trade for this fiscal year. However, the first auction raised about $55 million for the general fund. Corporations and other entities that pollute paid only nine cents above the bare minimum $10 bid set by the Air Resources Board.
There will be two more auctions before the end of the fiscal year. But it's hard to imagine that the auctions will generate the full $500 million in the first year.
The more fundamental question is whether cap and trade will combat climate change. That, after all, is the point of Assembly Bill 32, the 2006 law that requires greenhouse gas reductions and the statute cited by the air board as giving it authority to create the cap-and-trade system. The answer to that is hazy.
California cannot reverse climate change on its own. If cap and trade is going to be effective, the state must find partners other than Quebec, its current partner.
Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber, a Democrat, praised California's cap-and-trade auction in a speech to the U.S. Green Building Council in San Francisco last week. But he offered no indication that his state might join in the experiment. Nor is Washington state rushing to sign up, even though Democrats are in control there, too.
President Barack Obama said at his postelection news conference that he intends to focus on climate change in his second term. But he offered no specifics, vowing merely to take the action of "having a conversation a wide-ranging conversation" to determine how to "make short-term progress." How's that for taking a bold stand?
Obama hastened to add that he won't take steps that risk damaging the economy. We'd count Obama as unlikely to push to create a national cap-and-trade system.
California's foray into cap and trade produced nothing bad, which is good. Slick energy traders didn't game the system. No one hoarded carbon allowances. Because the price was relatively low, the cost to individual corporations will not have been huge. All that may boost confidence in the system and give reason for other states to join in.
But the question remains: Did California's cap-and-trade auction help in any significant way reduce greenhouse gas? That's not clear.
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- Turn 2 Home
- Turn 2 Programs
- Jeter's Leaders
- Kids' Corner
For the past 12 years, the Turn 2 Foundation has supported Student Assistance Programs at both Portage and Kalamazoo Public Schools. The program seeks to decrease the number of substance-abuse cases within the school population, and community at large. Funds are focused on prevention programs and interventions that promote healthy students achieving academically in the school environment and community as well.
Portage Public School's Student Assistance Program (SAP) coordinators work with local high schools, community agencies, parents, and students. The programs, projects, and activities listed below are a part of SAP's continuing effort to enhance a unified base for the school, the home, and the community.
Drug & Violence Prevention Support
Motivational Speakers and Presentations
Classroom teachers invite speakers and arrange for presentations that match curriculum goals of preventing tobacco, alcohol and other substance abuse. Speakers often use personal experiences that provide engaging lessons. Speakers also talk about research statistics regarding student use and injuries caused by illegal or improper drug abuse or violence.
Asset Building Initiative/Focus On Safety Program
High school students act as mentors and role models to elementary aged students by instilling the importance of building healthy relationships to decrease high-risk behaviors. The mentors speak on specific child environments such as the playground and school bus. The program is new to the district and has already helped with the prevention of fights and bullying, inappropriate behaviors, and has benefited students who have felt lonely, scared, or teased.
Red Ribbon Week
Red Ribbon Week is a national drug/alcohol awareness week where students are encouraged to remain drug, alcohol and tobacco free. Signs are posted, information is disseminated, and red ribbons are worn throughout the week.
Student and faculty surveys are processed to determine a perceived level of substance abuse issues, violence and other school safety issues. The schools will look to their internal stakeholders to begin the process to make the school a safer environment.
Providing Support to Families
SAP is will continue to reach out to the community to educate parents on the dangers of substance abuse, services for treatment and intervention and problem-solving.
Substance Abuse Assessments
Community agencies provide parents and students with information on tobacco, alcohol, and other drug usage through implementing the Personality Inventory Assessment. The assessment requires a urine sample for testing under an intervention and prevention driven strategy.
Specific to Kalamazoo Public Schools, the Gatekeeper Program, which is presented at the middle and high school level, focuses on suicide prevention and also includes information on when and how to access help, as well as what the warning signs are for risky behaviors. Vital Link is a drug and alcohol awareness program provided to high-school students at both Kalamazoo and Portage Public Schools. The interactive and lively program shares practical information on what drugs and alcohol do to the body, including its detrimental effects on the brain and heart. Several students have mentioned, years after graduating, that Vital Link is something they vividly remember from their high-school experience. Tom Cleveland also provides a tobacco awareness program for Loy Norrix High School students that continue to receive wonderful reviews from students and staff.
Another tremendous benefit from the funds received has been the ability to pay for students' assessments when they are found with alcohol or drugs at school. The assessment provides valuable information for the family and school staff, which allows the student to return to school. Funds are used when a family does not have insurance and does not have the ability to pay. Monies have also gone toward emergency needs such as new gym shoes, gift cards for three unfortunate families who needed immediate clothing due to house fires and scholarships, etc. One scholarship helped a Kalamazoo Central High School student with an opportunity to participate in a medical program over the summer when the student lacked necessary monies to enroll.
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Well, as usually happens with “all things Apple” - delusions have supplanted reality. As Krugman points out, there’s some hope that the new iPhone will boost the U.S. economy.
He then goes on to explain how that vindicates the broken window “theory” (as he puts it).
The key point is that the optimism about the iPhone’s effects has nothing (or at any rate not much) to do with the presumed quality of the phone, and the ways in which it might make us happier or more productive. Instead, the immediate gains would come from the way the new phone would get people to junk their old phones and replace them.
In other words, if you believe that the iPhone really might give the economy a big boost, you have — whether you realize it or not — bought into a version of the “broken windows” theory, in which destroying some capital can actually be a good thing under depression conditions.
Well, the iPhone will NOT help the economy. It may help Apple stock, which - according to CNBC - is now “the economy.” (Because it’s somehow impossible to see the total market cap of all the Nasdaq 100 components without adding them all up manually, I can only guess AAPL is about 40% of it these days.)
Disposable consumer gadgets don’t help the economy. They may raise GDP. They may raise that one stock everyone in the country apparently owns. They may even let you take more artistic photos of your coffee. But they are bad news!
For starters, 51% of people buying Apple toys do so using credit. To me - a rational adult - this is incredible! In the “worst economic downturn since The Great Depression,” a huge portion of the population is willing to go further into debt to buy high-end designer telephones. That’s staggering.
More debt will not help us. More gadgets we don’t need won’t help us. More people on Twitter and Instagram won’t help us. A bigger trade deficit with the country that makes Apple products won’t help us.
Of course, that all assumes you’re grown-up enough to understand that consumer spending doesn’t drive the economy. There’s many out there (Krugman, chiefly) who want to pretend that if we all go out and buy new houses and cars and spend money we don’t have and can’t pay back - somehow everything will be fixed!
If reckless spending is good for the economy, then we should all thank American hero MC Hammer for showing us how to sacrifice and make the tough choices in life - like getting a swimming pool shaped a dollar sign.
Any idiot can buy stuff. It doesn’t “boost” the economy to burn money - and resources - on junk.
- dwangelo posted this
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Here are some facts published in Hospital Employee Health - March 2003:
- Death rates from influenza are rising with the aging of the U.S. population.
- According to the CDC, the virus now kills an average of 36,000 people a year.
- The virus can lead to dangerous complications in the elderly or immune-compromised.
- According to CDC, influenza is one of the major infectious disease causes of death in the country.
- CDC also notes that in a severe season deaths could be as high as 70,000 with 90% of those deaths occurring among people who are 65 years of age or older.
- Priority targets for vaccination include the elderly, chronically ill and health care workers.
- According to a national health survey, only about 38% of health care workers receive the flu vaccine.
The article recommendations include:
- Making the program accessible to employees.
- Continue to give vaccinations beyond October and November.
Become proactive. Now is the time to implement a strategy for vaccination!
The most common reason employees are not vaccinated stems from the common misconception that influenza can be acquired as a result. This of course is not possible! So, order your vaccine soon, and develop a strategy to encourage all employees and your elderly patients to get vaccinated
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The Great Recession stands out among previous recessions for its depth and scale, yet for Spain’s unemployment, the story has an eerily familiar feel. To follow Spain’s unemployment is to go on a “wild ride” (Blanchard et al. 1995, Bentolila and Jimeno 2006). Compare Spain with France; both share similar labour market institutions (employment protection legislation, unemployment benefits, wage bargaining, etc.) and exhibited almost identical unemployment rates, around 8%, just before the crisis. But while the French unemployment rate has only risen to 10% during the slump, Spanish unemployment has surged to 20% (Figure 1).
Figure 1. French and Spanish unemployment
France and Spain are among those European economies which most directly promoted temporary contracts in the past in order to achieve flexibility at the margin. However, temporary employment is much more important in Spain than in France. In Spain, historically, 33% of all employees are temporary, falling to 25.6% nowadays following the destruction of 1.44 million temporary jobs since autumn 2007. France meanwhile has only 15% temporary workers..
With this in mind, in recent research (Bentolila et al. 2010) we ask how much this difference in the portion of temporary workers can explain the different levels of unemployment during the Great Recession, once other potential determinants are considered – like the much higher weight of the construction industry sector in Spain.
Why are France and Spain so different?
Behind their apparently similar employment protection legislation (EPL) we detect two main differences often ignored in cross-country comparisons:
- Spain has a larger gap between the firing costs of workers with permanent and temporary contracts, and
- a much laxer regulation on the use of temporary contracts.
We find that the combination of these two differences, labelled as the “EPL gap” in what follows, could explain a sizeable fraction (45%) of the much higher rise of Spanish unemployment.
To explore this issue, we develop a model in which firms may hire under both permanent and temporary contracts.1 The latter can be transformed into permanent contracts at their expiration, the rest being terminated at little or no cost at all. By contrast, dismissal of permanent workers entails high severance pay and takes time due to advance notice periods and the settlement of legal disputes.
It is now well understood that facilitating the creation of temporary jobs leads to an ambiguous effect on unemployment since it increases both job creation and job destruction. However, one novel result that we highlight in our work is that, if the EPL gap is high enough, the increase in job destruction will dominate. The insight is that the higher this gap, the lower the proportion of temporary jobs that are transformed into permanent jobs, because the much larger firing costs for the latter induce employers to use temporary jobs in sequence, especially if restrictions on their use are mild, rather than converting them into long-term contracts. As a result, a higher EPL gap is likely to raise unemployment during downturns. This is precisely the case of Spain, a country which inherited rigid provisions from the industrial relations prevailing under Franco’s dictatorship, when jobs were highly protected in exchange for low wages and the absence of free collective bargaining. While the last two features disappeared upon the arrival of democracy in the late 1970s, the first one remained unchanged until 1984, when the use of temporary contracts with very low dismissal costs was extended to the hiring of employees performing regular activities.
Mind the EPL gap
According to the widely used OECD (2004) index of the strictness of EPL, which ranges from 0 to 6, the overall EPL score is 3.0 for France and 3.1 for Spain (where the US has the lowest value, 0.7, and Portugal and Turkey the highest, 4.3). Hence, Spain appears only slightly more regulated than France. However, there are good reasons to think that this average EPL index, based on legal regulations and not on their implementation, does not capture Spanish EPL satisfactorily. Indeed, de facto EPL of temporary jobs is much weaker in Spain than in France, whereas the opposite holds for EPL of permanent jobs.
Considering only red-tape firing costs generated by third agents, such as labour courts and labour authorities, which cannot be compensated for in wage bargaining (since they are not a transfer from the firm to the worker), we find that the gap between both types of contracts is 50% higher gap in Spain than in France.
Further, the use of temporary contracts is rather more limited in France than in Spain. In both countries they can only be used in specific cases (e.g., for temporary replacement, seasonal activities, training, etc.) and they may last up to 24 months. There are however, much fewer de facto restrictions in Spain; for instance, uncertain-completion jobs (e.g., in the construction industry) could lawfully last for an indeterminate period (until the June 2010 labour market reform).
The effects of the EPL gap on mismatch
Another dimension in which these two economies differed before the Great Recession was the much stronger Spanish dependence on the construction industry since the late 1990s (11.9% of GDP and 13.3% of employment in 2007, against 6.3% and 6.9% in France). We claim that this industrial specialisation in Spain is closely related to its strong dual labour market. In effect, as a result of Spain's higher inflation, real interest rates fell by 6 percentage points when the euro was introduced, against 1.5 percentage points in France. This fuelled a strong investment boom in the Spanish construction industry for at least two reasons.
- First, the very rigid permanent contracts in Spain would have been inadequate to specialise in more innovative industries, since higher labour flexibility is required to accommodate their larger risks (Saint-Paul 1997).
- Second, there was a large increase in the relative endowment of unskilled labour in Spain over that period. The higher availability of low-skilled jobs through very flexible contracts fostered a very high dropout rate from compulsory education (from 18% in 1987 to 32% in 1997) and subsequently to a huge inflow of low-skilled immigrants. Thus, most firms, especially the small and middle-sized ones, adopted technologies which where complementary with low-skilled labour. The outcome was a huge housing bubble.
The subsequent destruction of more than 35% of unskilled jobs in the Spanish construction industry as a result of the bursting of the bubble – together with very low interregional labour mobility induced by an underdeveloped rental market and job insecurity – has been a source of much greater mismatch in Spain than in France, via the slow reallocation process of workers from this rapid declining industry to other sectors. High mismatch is evident in the huge outward shift during in the Spanish Beveridge curve during the Great Recession (see Figure 2): there are now many more unemployed workers for each job vacancy.
Figure 2. Spanish Beveridge curve (1994-2010)
What if Spain had French legislation?
To quantify the impact of EPL on unemployment we find empirical counterparts for the parameters of the above-mentioned model to match a set of labour market variables in both countries – the unemployment rate, the share of temporary jobs, and the destruction rate of permanent jobs – both during the expansionary period (2005-2007) and during the Great Recession (2008-2009). The impact of the crisis is captured through an adverse aggregate productivity shock and greater mismatch. In line with the preceding discussion, we find that, while a negative aggregate shock (of about 10% in productivity) suffices to match French target variables during the slump, a reduction of about 40% in matching efficiency, on top of a similar aggregate shock to that in France, is required to match Spanish target variables in this period.
Once the model performs well in both periods, we run counterfactual simulations to address the issue of what would have been the increase in Spanish unemployment during the Great Recession had Spain adopted French EPL right before the slump started. Imputing the French-economy levels of the EPL gap to the Spanish economy yields a robust result: the unemployment rate would have increased by about 45% less than the observed rise, had Spain adopted the lower French EPL gap before the crisis (i.e., a rise of 4.1 percentage points in the unemployment rate rather than the 7.5 percentage point increase observed between 2005-07 and 2008-2009).
Finally, the dynamics indicate that, in the short run (during the first six months or so) the reduction in the unemployment rise would be lower (about 2 percentage points less) than in the longer run (after one and half year or so), since a reduction in the EPL gap exacerbates job destruction at the beginning of the recession by making lay-offs less expensive. However, this short-run effect is later offset by a much larger job creation, so that the differential in the unemployment increase achieves the above-mentioned 3.4 percentage points.
Recently there have been several policy initiatives in Europe defending the idea of eliminating the EPL gap through the introduction of a single labour contract (see Bentolila et al. 2010). All these proposals highlight the negative effects induced by the permanent-temporary contract divide. As a result, they all advocate the elimination of most temporary contracts and the introduction of a single labour contract with severance pay that is increasing with seniority in the job. We interpret our results as providing some support for these proposals.
Bentolila, S, T Boeri, and P Cahuc (2010), “Ending the Scourge of Dual Labour Markets in Europe”, VoxEU.org, 12 July.
Bentolila, S, P Cahuc, J Dolado, and T Le Barbanchon (2010), “Two-Tier Labor Markets in the Great Recession: France vs. Spain”, CEPR DP 8152.
Bentolila, S and JF Jimeno (2006), “Spanish Unemployment: The End of the Wild Ride?”, in M Werding (ed.), Structural Unemployment in Western Europe: Reasons and Remedies, MIT Press.
Blanchard, OJ et al. (1995), “Spanish Unemployment: Is There a Solution?”, CEPR Report.
Blanchard, OJ and A Landier (2002), “The Perverse Effects of Partial Labor Market Reform: Fixed Duration Contracts in France”, Economic Journal 112: 214-244.
Cahuc, P and F Postel-Vinay (2002), “Temporary Jobs, Employment Protection and Labor Market Performance”, Labor Economics, 9:63-91.
Mortensen, DT and CA Pissarides (1994), “Job Creation and Job Destruction in the Theory of Unemployment”, Review of Economic Studies, 61:397-415.
Saint-Paul, G (1997), “Is Labour Rigidity Harming Europe's Competitiveness? The Effect of Job Protection on the Pattern of Trade and Welfare”, European Economic Review, 41:499-506.
1 It is a search and matching model with endogenous job destruction à la Mortensen-Pissarides (1994) which extends the models of Blanchard and Landier (2002) and Cahuc and Postel-Vinay (2002).
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- Other names
- Where they are
- How many
- Linguistic family
The peoples of the Park recognize the interference of a multiplicity of spiritual beings in the lives of humans. There is a profusion of spirits, from the spirits of the plants, fish, furry animals, stars, objects, to the more important spirits, associated with the flutes that are prohibited to the women and with the female ritual of Yamuricumã. They are the spirits that cause most sicknesses, by appearing to humans in the forest, and it is these that help the shamans to cure them. The spirits are invisible, and only appear to the sick and to the shamans in trance.
The spirit beings are usually in all parts, except inside the village, where they appear only in extraordinary situations of sickness, shamanism and ritual. Their relation with humans occurs predominantly on an individual basis, in the basic form of sickness. They consider that all sicknesses are the result of a contact with the supernatural world, whether through the action of a witch or through the accidental encounter with a spirit.
In order to effect a cure, the shaman contacts the spirit that caused the sickness by means of a trance stimulated by the use of large cigars of tobacco. Generally, the cure is done by blowing smoke over the sick person, or by removing the witchcraft, or even by identifying the spirit that was induced by the witch to enter into the sick person’s body.
The shaman thus exercises control over the relations between the village and the supernatural world: he regulates the relations between men and the spirits that inhabit the waters and forest; through his diagnosis, the spirits that cause sickness are socialized by the ritual. The witch, in turn, represents the paradigm of the marginal being: he is the backdoor man, who invades the houses, who puts witchcraft on the gardens, who is transformed into an animal in the forest. In most cases, the principal witchcraft suspects are inhabitants of other villages or come from other ethnic groups.
In the Upper Xingu, the individual who has been cured then comes to be in debt to the spirit who caused /cured the sickness. He must then sponsor a ceremony in which he pays homage to the spirit through songs, dances, and body adornments. This ceremony is the moment when the domestic group distributes food to everyone in the village. The spirit is incarnated-represented by the community, and both are fed by the family of the sick person.
Thus, sickness cannot be understood as an absolute evil, or it is not only that. A large part of the ritual system of the Upper Xingu is driven by ideas connected to sickness, and the circuit of reciprocity activated by these ceremonies has a crucial role in the social dynamics of the villages, mediating the relations between individual and society (Viveiros de Castro 2002:81).
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By Sean Pendergast
By Sean Pendergast
By Jeff Balke
By Richard Connelly
By Jeff Balke
By Casey Michel
By Craig Hlavaty
By Jeff Balke
Married to a man with AIDS, Sally DeVito signed up for the 1997 AIDS bike ride from Boston to New York City. But as the date got closer, her husband got sicker, and she was afraid he'd die while she was gone. She went, deciding that it was more important for her to raise money so other AIDS patients could get the drugs that weren't working for her husband. He died three weeks after she got home.
"It felt like the exact, right place to be," she says.
And this year she's back on the bike, raising more than $4,300 in pledges for AIDS patients.
The Tanqueray Texas AIDS ride, which begins October 14, earns a lot of money from people like DeVito. But last year most of it didn't go to the sick people themselves, but rather to the Los Angeles-based Palotta Teamworks that organizes and runs the ride and four others like it elsewhere in the nation. But critics say this AIDS ride is actually taking donors for a ride.
In 1998 the Texas riders brought in $2.7 million in pledges, Tanqueray threw in $150,000, they sold a few T-shirts and bumped the total up to $2.87 million. Not a bad haul.
But only $400,000 went to AIDS charities. The rest went to the hot catered meals, mobile showers, staff salaries, office equipment and related expenses. Last year 43 AIDS organizations invested $5,000-a-share seed money to be beneficiaries -- less than half that number are returning this year.
"We trusted them, and we got screwed," says Byron Trott, executive director of the Gay and Lesbian Community Center in San Antonio.
Four of the nine Houston organizations dropped out this year. So did all ten groups in San Antonio and three out of five in Austin.
In San Antonio, the AIDS ride didn't market its ads to the Spanish-speaking community (a big segment of the city) and it didn't target the black community, says David Ewell, executive director of the San Antonio AIDS Foundation. Ewell would have been happy with a few Spanish words or phrases tossed in so Hispanics would know the ride welcomed them. Also last year, ride organizers stopped advertising in San Antonio, closed the Austin office and cut off the toll-free phone number, Ewell says.
"They didn't customize it. It could have been done in Muncie, Indiana," Trott says.
This isn't the first time the AIDS rides haven't brought the return they promised, or the first time they've been called racist. In Philadelphia, no black AIDS organizations were included until a month before the ride, when one was brought in as a beneficiary. The Pennsylvania attorney general's office forced Palotta Teamworks to pay $110,000 in penalties and restitution for improper registration and misrepresenting the amount of charitable proceeds.
"It was very disheartening from an ethical standpoint," says Charlotte Hale, executive director of Austin's Project Transitions. She says the ride should have kept expenses down so that money raised to fight AIDS actually goes for that purpose.
The National Charities Information Bureau recommends that fund-raising costs be less than 35 cents on the dollar, rather than the 85 cents of the last AIDS ride.
Cheryl Geoffrion, managing director for the ride, admits that the last return wasn't as good as expected. They always strive for 57 percent, she says. More money should go to the beneficiaries this year, Geoffrion says. They've made a few changes: The Austin and Hill Country leg has been dropped, reducing it a four-day, 350-mile ride from Houston to Dallas. And they've lowered the minimum pledge fee to $2,300 from last year's $2,700.
She's hoping all 1,285 registered riders show up. Last year only 702 of the 1,300 who signed up participated in the event. Since each rider had to shell out a $45 entry fee and raise at least $2,700 in pledges, the no-shows would have brought in a minimum of $1.64 million.
As it was, in 1998 each rider raised an average of $3,846 in donations, but only $570 of that amount went to the AIDS organizations. Overall expenses averaged more than $3,300 per rider. Staff salaries were the highest cost, coming in at $627,685, with riders' food and equipment a close second.
The 1998 ride ran into other problems. The first night it rained. Flash floods forced bicyclists off the road and into an overnight stay in Giddings's high school gym. The silver lining is that the next morning some of the riders went into the classrooms and talked about AIDS. Then the riders took up a $4,000 collection and donated it to the school.
Another night they went to Navasota's high school homecoming bonfire and mixed with students. They also camped in Calvert and invaded the Dairy Queen. The last day, they rode into downtown Dallas to a crowd of 8,000 people and a victory party.
"We couldn't purchase that kind of awareness dollarwise," Steen says.
Awareness is nice, but an AIDS patient needs the money, says David Smith, executive director of Austin's Interfaith Care Alliance. He compared the ride to standing between a rich guy and a person with AIDS. The rich guy gives you $1,000 and you turn to the AIDS patient and tell him he's only getting $150 of it, Smith says. "The person with AIDS is not going to think that's okay," he says.
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A gravestone in Albrightsville, Pennsylvania, tells the story of a man's unhappy end.
The text is brief and small in comparison to the illustration. It reads, "AQUILA A. HENNING, BORN JUNE 7, 1892, SHOT NOV. 24 1932. AN INNOCENT SOUL SENT TO ETERNITY." [Link]It was established in court that Aquila had shot at one-armed school teacher Harry Wilkinson, and then was gunned down by his intended victim's brother. The "not guilty" verdict didn't sit well with Aquila's widow, which might explain why his stone depicts an ambush.
The stone shows a man, Aquila, walking through the woods with his hunting rifle. In the background there are trees and bushes, and standing in those bushes is a man holding a pistol. The man has only one arm. Also seen in the bushes behind Aquila are six or seven faces peering out at him.Harry Wilkinson didn't care for the illustration. He filed a $50,000 lawsuit against the monument company for portraying him as a villain.
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Why working-class people vote conservative
by Jonathan Haidt
The Guardian (UK), June 5, 2012
Across the world, blue-collar voters ally themselves with the political right – even when it appears to be against their own interests. Is this because such parties often serve up a broader, more satisfying moral menu than the left?
Why on Earth would a working-class person ever vote for a conservative candidate? This question has obsessed the American left since Ronald Reagan first captured the votes of so many union members, farmers, urban Catholics and other relatively powerless people – the so-called "Reagan Democrats". Isn't the Republican party the party of big business? Don't the Democrats stand up for the little guy, and try to redistribute the wealth downwards?
Many commentators on the left have embraced some version of the duping hypothesis: the Republican party dupes people into voting against their economic interests by triggering outrage on cultural issues. "Vote for us and we'll protect the American flag!" say the Republicans. "We'll make English the official language of the United States! And most importantly, we'll prevent gay people from threatening your marriage when they … marry! Along the way we'll cut taxes on the rich, cut benefits for the poor, and allow industries to dump their waste into your drinking water, but never mind that. Only we can protect you from gay, Spanish-speaking flag-burners!"
One of the most robust findings in social psychology is that people find ways to believe whatever they want to believe. And the left really want to believe the duping hypothesis. It absolves them from blame and protects them from the need to look in the mirror or figure out what they stand for in the 21st century.
Here's a more painful but ultimately constructive diagnosis, from the point of view of moral psychology: politics at the national level is more like religion than it is like shopping. It's more about a moral vision that unifies a nation and calls it to greatness than it is about self-interest or specific policies. In most countries, the right tends to see that more clearly than the left. In America the Republicans did the hard work of drafting their moral vision in the 1970s, and Ronald Reagan was their eloquent spokesman. Patriotism, social order, strong families, personal responsibility (not government safety nets) and free enterprise. Those are values, not government programmes.
The Democrats, in contrast, have tried to win voters' hearts by promising to protect or expand programmes for elderly people, young people, students, poor people and the middle class. Vote for us and we'll use government to take care of everyone! But most Americans don't want to live in a nation based primarily on caring. That's what families are for.
One reason the left has such difficulty forging a lasting connection with voters is that the right has a built-in advantage – conservatives have a broader moral palate than the liberals (as we call leftists in the US). Think about it this way: our tongues have taste buds that are responsive to five classes of chemicals, which we perceive as sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and savoury. Sweetness is generally the most appealing of the five tastes, but when it comes to a serious meal, most people want more than that.
In the same way, you can think of the moral mind as being like a tongue that is sensitive to a variety of moral flavours. In my research with colleagues at YourMorals.org, we have identified six moral concerns as the best candidates for being the innate "taste buds" of the moral sense: care/harm, fairness/cheating, liberty/oppression, loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, and sanctity/degradation. Across many kinds of surveys, in the UK as well as in the USA, we find that people who self-identify as being on the left score higher on questions about care/harm. For example, how much would someone have to pay you to kick a dog in the head? Nobody wants to do this, but liberals say they would require more money than conservatives to cause harm to an innocent creature.
But on matters relating to group loyalty, respect for authority and sanctity (treating things as sacred and untouchable, not only in the context of religion), it sometimes seems that liberals lack the moral taste buds, or at least, their moral "cuisine" makes less use of them. For example, according to our data, if you want to hire someone to criticise your nation on a radio show in another nation (loyalty), give the finger to his boss (authority), or sign a piece of paper stating one's willingness to sell his soul (sanctity), you can save a lot of money by posting a sign: "Conservatives need not apply."
In America, it is these three moral foundations that underlie most of the "cultural" issues that, according to duping theorists, are used to distract voters from their self-interest. But are voters really voting against their self-interest when they vote for candidates who share their values? Loyalty, respect for authority and some degree of sanctification create a more binding social order that places some limits on individualism and egoism. As marriage rates plummet, and globalisation and rising diversity erodes the sense of common heritage within each nation, a lot of voters in many western nations find themselves hungering for conservative moral cuisine.
Despite being in the wake of a financial crisis that – if the duping theorists were correct – should have buried the cultural issues and pulled most voters to the left, we are finding in America and many European nations a stronger shift to the right. When people fear the collapse of their society, they want order and national greatness, not a more nurturing government.
Even on the two moral taste buds that both sides claim – fairness and liberty – the right can often outcook the left. The left typically thinks of equality as being central to fairness, and leftists are extremely sensitive about gross inequalities of outcome – particularly when they correspond along racial or ethnic lines. But the broader meaning of fairness is really proportionality – are people getting rewarded in proportion to the work they put into a common project? Equality of outcomes is only seen as fair by most people in the special case in which everyone has made equal contributions. The conservative media (such as the Daily Mail, or Fox News in the US) is much more sensitive to the presence of slackers and benefit cheats. They are very effective at stirring up outrage at the government for condoning cheating.
Similarly for liberty. Americans and Britons all love liberty, yet when liberty and care conflict, the left is more likely to choose care. This is the crux of the US's monumental battle over Obama's healthcare plan. Can the federal government compel some people to buy a product (health insurance) in order to make a plan work that extends care to 30 million other people? The derogatory term "nanny state" is rarely used against the right (pastygate being perhaps an exception). Conservatives are more cautious about infringing on individual liberties (eg of gun owners in the US and small businessmen) in order to protect vulnerable populations (such as children, animals and immigrants).
In sum, the left has a tendency to place caring for the weak, sick and vulnerable above all other moral concerns. It is admirable and necessary that some political party stands up for victims of injustice, racism or bad luck. But in focusing so much on the needy, the left often fails to address – and sometimes violates – other moral needs, hopes and concerns. When working-class people vote conservative, as most do in the US, they are not voting against their self-interest; they are voting for their moral interest. They are voting for the party that serves to them a more satisfying moral cuisine. The left in the UK and USA should think hard about their recipe for success in the 21st century.
Jonathan Haidt is a professor of psychology at New York University's Stern School of Business. He is the author of The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion. To take the survey described in this essay, visit www.yourmorals.org/express_welcome_sacredness.php
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http://www.gp-wa.us/index.php/resources/88-building-an-inclusive-society/150-why-working-class-people-vote-conservative
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Perspective is the fundamental historic difference between Western and Chinese painting. After the 13th Century, Western painting developed vanishing points in fixed perspective. Chinese painters, although aware of perspective, rejected the single-vanishing point method, instead producing landscapes with "parallel perspectives" in which the viewer travels within the painting.
The new Nanjing Museum of Art and Architecture is sited at the gateway to the Contemporary International Practical Exhibition of Architecture in the lush green landscape of the Pearl Spring near Nanjing, China. The museum explores the shifting viewpoints, layers of space, and expanses of mist and water, which characterize the deep alternating spatial mysteries of the composition of Chinese painting. The museum is formed by a "field" of parallel perspective spaces and garden walls in black rammed earth over which a light "figure" hovers. The straight passages on the ground level gradually turn into the winding passage of the figure above. The upper gallery, suspended high in the air, unwraps in a clockwise turning sequence and culminates at "in-position" viewing of the city of Nanjing in the distance. This visual axis creates a linkage back to the great Ming Dynasty capital city.
Limiting the colors of the museum to black and white connects it to the ancient ink paintings, but also gives a background to feature the colors and textures of the artwork to be exhibited. The walls are of blackened concrete which is formed in bamboo-lined formwork. The texture gives a relief of the cross joints of native bamboo. The upper gallery in double wall translucent membranes allows the shadows of steel support trusses a ghost-like exposure.
The 3000-square-meter museum's flexible exhibition spaces are complimented by a Tea House and curator's residence facing the south light and re-circulated water of the pond. Geothermal cooling and heating recycled and low embodied energy materials are part of the green building aims of the project.
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http://www.buildings.com/article-details/articleid/5719/title/holldesigned-museum-explores-chinese-art.aspx
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Rehabilitation Trends: Decreased Length of Stay and Mortality
Here is the paper's abstract:
Kenneth J. Ottenbacher, PhD, OTR; Pam M. Smith, DNS, RN; Sandra B. Illig, MS, RN; Richard T. Linn, PhD; Glenn V. Ostir, PhD; Carl V. Granger, MD. Trends in Length of Stay, Living Setting, Functional Outcome, and Mortality Following Medical Rehabilitation. JAMA. 2004; 292: 1687-1695.
Context. Changes in reimbursement have reduced length of stay (LOS) for patients receiving inpatient medical rehabilitation. The impact of decreased LOS on functional status, living setting, and mortality is not known.
Objective. To examine changes in LOS, functional status, living setting, and mortality in patients completing inpatient rehabilitation.
Design. Retrospective cohort study from 1994 through 2001 using information submitted to the Uniform Data System for Medical Rehabilitation.
Setting and Participants. Data were analyzed from 744 inpatient medical rehabilitation hospitals and centers located in 48 US states. A total of 148 807 patient records from 5 impairment groups (stroke, brain dysfunction, spinal cord dysfunction, other neurologic conditions, and orthopedic conditions) were examined. Patients’ mean age was 67.8 (SD, 15.8) years; the sample was 59% female and 81% non-Hispanic white.
Main Outcome Measures. Discharge setting, follow-up living setting, change in functional status, and mortality.
Results. Median LOS decreased from 20 to 12 days (P less than .001) from 1994 to 2001. The proportional decrease in median LOS was greatest (42%) for patients with orthopedic conditions. Mean days to follow-up remained constant from 89 in 1994 to 90 in 2001. Functional status was clinically stable, while efficiency (functional status change divided by LOS) increased significantly (P less than .001). Rates of discharge to home and living at home at follow-up remained stable, ranging from 81% to 93%. However, mortality at 80- to 180-day follow-up increased from less than 1% in 1994 to 4.7% in 2001.
Conclusions. Length of stay for inpatient rehabilitation decreased substantially from 1994 to 2001. Effectiveness as measured by change in functional status did not change clinically, and living setting did not change. Efficiency for functional outcomes improved but mortality at follow-up increased.
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PONTIO - Arts and Innovation in Bangor
Pontio will be a world class Arts and Innovation Centre set in the heart of Bangor.
Pontio will be a site for the creation of spectacular theatre productions, film, music, circus, dance and other innovative performing arts. The iconic building will build bridges between arts and sciences, the University and the local community, and Bangor and the wider world.
Construction will be completed in 2014. The project will create hundreds of jobs in North Wales, and develop a stream of new businesses and opportunities for existing companies in the region.
Pontio will develop ground breaking research and new technologies to change the way we live, and improve our health and environment. Its work will show how digital technologies alter our perception of our selves and our culture. It will provide outstanding facilities for students and transform the way we teach and learn.
As well as being a cultural beacon for the people of Wales and the Welsh language, Pontio will become a hub for the local community. Its light airy social spaces, leafy parks, relaxing cafes and fantastic outdoor amphitheatre will provide people of all ages with places to meet, greet, or be entertained.
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http://www.pontio.co.uk/what-is-pontio/overview.php.en?menu=2&catid=9855&subid=0
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If you want more visitors, first point them in the right direction.
That's the theory behind a new sign unveiled this week pointing the way to Bridge Pa wineries.
The brown tourism sign will make it easier for visitors using the Hawke's Bay expressway southern extension to find the winery cluster.
Hastings District Council and local wineries have funded the project, which will also see the internationally recognised grape symbol added to existing signs around the district.
It will be reviewed after three months to determine whether more signs should be rolled out around the region.
Sam Orton, chairman of Hawke's Bay Wine Country Tourism said other wineries clusters were keen for similar initiatives.
"We call ourselves 'Wine Country' but we don't make it as easy as we could for visitors to find our wineries," he said.
Hastings deputy mayor Cynthia Bowers said she was excited about the potential to promote the industry. The council was keen to support all Hastings businesses and open-minded to opportunities.
Another initiative, privately funded, will see signs established on State Highways as well.
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http://www.hawkesbaytoday.co.nz/news/bridge-pa-wineries-point-the-way/1034485/
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A collection of news and information related to John Quincy Adams published by this site and its partners.
Displaying items 1-3 of 3 » View all items
The Hartford CourantBarack Obama claims only that his legislative and foreign policy achievements in his first two years matched those of "any president — with the possible exceptions of Johnson, FDR and Lincoln" in "modern history." Some Obama enthusiasts are less...
Wood Pond PressTo the north and east of Portland, the coastline becomes more jagged, its fingers protruding like tentacles toward the sea between inlets, rivers and bays. This is the area where the "real" Maine starts. Poke down remote byways to Bailey Island, Popham...
Tags: George Washington, Edward Hopper, Motorcycle Trial, Adults, Neck
In any culture, the past and present swirl around each other, touching and, in some sense, changing the other. During the recently ended rebel war in Sierra Leone, as during the slave trade, people made desperate choices to protect themselves and their...
Aug 10, 2012 |Column| Hartford Courant
Sep 19, 2002 |Story| ctnow.com
Apr 3, 2005 |Story| Hartford Courant
Original site for John Quincy Adams topic gallery.
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I've never used dd before to copy disks. It's a unix tool that copies files bit by bit. Since hard disks on unix systems are just represented as files you can do exact copies of them with it. It's strength is really it's weakness. It copies all the data on the disk if you tell it to copy your harddrive. That means everything. Even data that is was on the disk before but was not written over. Unless you wipe the disk with a disk wiping program (writing zero's across it) the previous data (if there was any) is still there. Copying every bit means it takes a very long time. We are talking hours to copy a disk. But your copy is exact. Partition info, boot sector info, everything.
I wanted to copy everything off the disk and send it over the network. So we can do it with ssh. First zero out the non used space on the running disk to make compressing the image much eaiser. Using the command:
dd if=/dev/zero of=0bits bs=20M; rm 0bits
Then boot knoppix (or any other bootable linux distro like sysrescuecd) from the machine you want to image and give the command:
dd if=/dev/sda | gzip -1 - | ssh user@hostname dd of=image.gz
Assuming sda is your hard drive. This sends the local disks data to the remote machine. To restore the image boot knoppix on the machine to restore and pull the image that you created and dump it back with the command:
ssh user@hostname dd if=image.gz | gunzip -1 - | dd of=/dev/sda
This will usually take a few hours so be prepared. A good site that has some info on using ssh this way is here.
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Children twice as likely to suffer allergy if parent of same sex has it
Allergies such as asthma and eczema have long been known to be heredity but new research from the immunology department at Southampton General Hospital has gone one step further and discovered the inheritance is twice as likely to be passed between mother and daughter, father and son.
Professor Hasran Arshad and his team assessed 1,456 patients and found the risk of asthma in boys only increased if their fathers suffered from it, while mothers with asthma doubled the chances of their daughters suffering, but not their sons, reports the Independent.
The research also shows that maternal eczema is twice as likely to be passed on to daughters, with the same level of risk between fathers and sons.
Professor Arshad described the findings as “groundbreaking” since it would change the way they assessed a child’s risk of disease and could open the way to finding ways of preventing sex-specific disease.
© Immediate Media Company Ltd 2012. This website is owned and published by Immediate Media Company Limited. www.immediatemedia.co.uk
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BMW is pursuing goals to reduce the environmental footprint of its plant in Spartanburg, S.C. Sean Noonan, chief financial officer at the BMW Manufacturing Company and head of sustainability program planning, said in an interview Thursday that much of the heavy lifting had already been done and that further progress at the plant would be measured in smaller steps.
Mr. Noonan spoke Thursday in New York as part of the Investing in a Sustainable Future conference held by The Financial Times. He said the company had stated goals to lower consumption rates of energy and water per car produced, as well as emissions from the plant. “It’s a process of continuous improvement to achieve those targets,” he said. “We look at how much waste is coming out of each work station, and there’s competition to reduce it. We’re also looking at ways to avoid the waste in the first place.”
Mr. Noonan said it was difficult to translate how meeting those goals necessarily would translate into sales gained or lost. “You can’t really determine that,” he said. BMW was compelled to push for greater efficiency because “it’s our responsibility,” he added.
Mr. Noonan delivered a point-by-point summation of BMW’s sustainability efforts at Spartanburg, beginning with keeping the building cool. “It’s very hot and humid in South Carolina, so it’s been necessary to use air-conditioning in the plant,” he said. “That’s unusual to do in the European production environment, and it’s a significant factor in our energy use.” In an interview after his address, Mr. Noonan said a team of associates was able to reduce the cooling load by insulating the duct work and reducing the overall humidity in the plant, which made the environment feel cooler than it actually was.
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|Nov17-04, 07:09 PM||#1|
Why are orbitals called s, p, d, and f? I know how they work I was just wondering how did they get that specific abbreviation?
|Nov17-04, 07:27 PM||#2|
I asked this in chem. class also. I was wondering why it wasn't a, b, c, d, instead of s, p, d,.. My teacher said,"I don't know!"
**Although, she's not the brightest teacher** Not as an insult, just a opinion.
|Nov17-04, 08:38 PM||#3|
They stand for sharp, prinicpal, diffuse, and fundamental. They arise from an antiquated understanding of emission spectra. Spectroscopists didn't have a good idea of what was happening with the atoms themselves, so they tried to group the spectra they observed. When we got a better understanding of orbitals, the names stuck around.
|Nov20-04, 11:01 AM||#4|
Electrons are attracted to protons, but repell electrons. So, instead of all the electrons being bunched up right next to the nucleas, they orbit around the nucleas in shells. These shells can sometimes contain sub-shells. For example, the first shell contains only one sub-shell. As an electron gets further away from it's atom, it must have more "quantum energy." Electrons want to get as close to the nucleas as possible, but according to quantum physics, no to electrons can have the same "quantum energy." So, they orbit in shells. The electrons orbit in orbitals. The sub-shells have orbitals. For example, the 1 shell has an S orbital. Because it's an s orbital and it's the first shell it's labelled 1S. For 1-First shell-, S-S orbital. An S orbital has the shape of a sphere. An orbital wants to fill it's self. Alright, so why would the atom want to have 8 electrons in it's outer most shell, good question. The second shell has two sub-shells. One sub-shell has an S orbital, and the second has three P orbitals. The reason it has three is because they can arrange themselves according to X,Y,Z. Each orbital has only two electrons, because no two electrons can have the same "quantum energy." So, for the valence shell of an atom with two shells, one S orbital and three P orbitals. Two electrons an orbital adds to...8. Hydogen, on the other hand, only has one shell. So, to fill it's valence shell, it only needs two electrons. It already has one - Hydogen = one proton, one electron - so, it only needs to bond with one atom to fill itself. Carbon, on the other hand, has two shells, so it needs 8 to fill it's valence shell. So....
H C H Methane!!! CH4.
If you were to count it up everyone's filled. The carbon atom has 6 electrons. 2 in it's first shell, and 4 in it's valence shell. It needs 8 in it's valence shell. So, it shares one with hydrogen, and the hydrogen shares one of the carbons. This gives the carbon an extra electron, and the hydrogen it's desired two. The carbon, then, bonds with three more to add to 8.
HOH Water!!! H20. Oxygen has six valence electrons, meaning it needs 2 to gain, which it does with 2 hydrogen molecules.
O=O Oxygen!!! O2.
You're probably wondering, why is there an equals sign between the Oxygen molecules?
This indicated a double bond. Oxygen has six valence electrons, when it bonds with another oxygen, it gets 7. That's not the desired 8. So, it makes a double bond, and they share two electrons each. Which adds to 8.
O O Ozone!!! O3. Each one of these atoms share with each other, making 8.
That's covelant bonding!!!
This "quantum energy I told you about is somewhat true. What's really true is that there are four "quantum numbers" that cannot match.
The first is N.
N is the energy of an electron. For example, an electron in the first shell would have an N of 1. An electron in the second shell would have an N of 2. An electron in the third shell would have an N of 3.
N=1, means it's in the first shell.
The second is L. It's actually a greek cursive L kind of like this. l. Okay. This sign is the orbital. L = N - 1. That's the equasion. So, if N = 1, then, L = 0. 0 is an S orbital.
If N = 2, L can equal either 0 or 1. If it is 1, that's a P orbital. If N = 3, then that can be either 0,1 or 2. An S,P or...a D orbital.
Now, the third quantum number is M. It is the orientation of the orbitals, you know XYZ.
M can equal anything between -L and +L. For example if L is 1, then M can equal -1,0,1.
This is 3 different ways of arranging the P orbital.
Now the final one is Ms. For Spin. The spin of the electron can equal - 1/2 or 1/2.
Okay, so let's look at the possible arrangements of some electrons.
N L M Ms
1 0 0 -1/2
1 0 0 1/2 First shell, only can have two electrons.
2 0 0 -1/2
2 0 0 1/2
2 1 -1 -1/2
2 1 -1 1/2
2 1 0 -1/2
2 1 0 1/2
2 1 1 -1/2
2 1 1 1/2 Second shell, eight electrons, but none of them, nor the one's in the first shell have the same 4 quantum numbers.
HOPE YOU UNDERSTAND. IT TOOK ME A WHILE TO WRITE, I'D HATE TO LOSE IT AT THE LAST MOMENT, LIKE THE POWER SHUT DOWN OR SOMETHING. IF YOU UNDERSTAND THIS, YOU WILL UNDERSTAND THE REST.
HERE'S SOME SITES.
|Nov20-04, 03:54 PM||#5|
Thanks Dual Op Amp, but I think you missed the question. I think most know about quantum numbers and Wolfgang Pauli's exclusion principle and all of the quantum numbers and Heisenburg's Uncertainty Principle and... on and on,
We were just wondering what s,p,d,and all of the other letters stand for, which was answered by movies.
I think you would benefit most in your writings by starting a new thread and putting it in the "Chemistry" or "K-12" homework section as it's own topic.
Thank you, nonetheless,
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A letter of recommendation written in Latin, P.Ryl. 608, found its way into the exhibition since it is luckily glazed with the Latin contract of marriage P.Ryl. 612 (see Getting married in a multicultural society).
It was common in the Roman world to recommend friends or acquaintances in many occasions and for different reasons, a job, a deal or just because of travelling. Our letter was written for recommending an imperial slave, whose name is lost in a lacuna, to a Roman imperial procurator, Tiberius Claudius Hermeros.
…ius Celer to his Hermeros, greetings.
Allow me, sir, to commend to your notice …on, a slave of our lord the emperor, a member of my household and dear to me. He is most deserving of advancement and of your favour, and I do not disguise that any service you can render him in his career will be most welcome to me.
(Address on the verso)
To Tiberius Claudius Hermeros imperial procurator
Given in Panopolis by Celer the architect
The Latin text is available through papyri.info.
The letter has received the attention of many scholars. The handwriting has been defined as an example of a standard type of script in use in the Roman Empire at the end of the 1st and beginning of the 2nd century AD, and has been compared to those of some texts coming from other parts of the Empire, first of all the Roman fort of Vindolanda on the Hadrian wall. This confirms the view that Egypt was part of a wider world, and what we observe happening there is not confined to the life of that province, but give insights in the history and culture of the Roman Empire as whole. An elegant hand penned the letter with words separated by points, as it happened also in inscriptions, and marking some long syllables with accents. The Latin is elegant although at some extent formulaic, but this is connected with the nature of the text. The same hand has written some scribbles that we are unable to restore in the left margin of the letter.
The addressee was a very high status Roman citizen, a Tiberius Claudius Hermeros, imperial procurator (a Roman knight with administrative, financial duties in the provinces, appointed by the emperor), and the writer belonged to the Roman elite as well. The name is only partially preserved at the beginning: ‘…ius Celer’, but the address on the verso says his profession, that of architect. A hypothetical identification with the homonymous architect of Nero’s domus aurea has been proposed, but as a matter of fact we cannot be sure about the identity of any of the two correspondents.
If you want to know more about Roman letters of recommendation you can read H. Cotton, Documentary Letters of Recommendation in Latin from the Roman Empire (1981). Examples of this kind of letters came to us through the epistolary of many ancient authors from Cicero, to Pliny, and the late antique collections of Symmachus and Gregory the Great. Paul’s letter to Philemon in the New Testament could be read as a letter of recommendation, since in it the apostle recommends the man to forgive the slave Onesimos.
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Human Anatomy, Physiology, and Medicine. Anything human!
I've been hanging low for awhile, busy with life. I've not ventured on to this board before; so I'm just saying "hi" now.
I found the article posted by Cliff interesting, but, again, it raises as many questions as it answers. Wouldn't it mean that EVERYBODY who eats unwashed fruits and veggies that have been sprayed with this stuff would be infected with silicon producing viruses? Does having a preexisting bacterial infection (lyme, syphilis) cause one to produce these fibers (as a result of our bacteria becoming infected with this virus). How is it that we are able to infect others around us like our kids?
I should mention that I have no education in the sciences or any health-related field. I am completely dumbfounded as to how a virus could even produce silicon strands in my body. Perhaps someone who knows might explain? I'm also curious to see what types of studies were conducted to produce these results.
Yes, many questions.
Take Care all,
I can't be a volunteer as I work 55 hours a week and don't have a computer at home however, I would like to know if there is anyone that you have signed up from TN?
Ask the Walmart door greeter about me telling her about "their fiber optics and algorithims....and that God was going to get her..." have copies from NUSPA, 98....I don't think her Allah is the same as Yaweh.....and our God is THE awesome God.
Praying for a miracle....how about TB being passed on and that mutating? Mom was active prior to my birth....and wouldn't ya know....I fell for the "if it's from Israel, it must be God sent...." and bought BT for my garden.....yea, Mel, I hear ya.....
I still think that there are numerous avenues of research involved however, their prime one is monitoring and possibly changing the virus to bird flu or worse???? and it heading straight for the "biofilm" we are covered in, now. Is it possible to identify God's people through genetics?Boy....what a concept....now what is the CDC gonna say now.
BTW....anyone heading for an NFL game this weekend???? Boy would that divert our media, eh. Welcome back TT...I wanted to say, I am sorry I called you a chum....just angry at the world a lot... For what it's worth, I thank God for the lovely scientist who published this information....praying it will be the catalyst to end our absolute misery.
Hi and welcome Aherah!
hehehehe .........Great questions that will take them a couple of weeks to make up a lie for. (No, not referring to Cliff or Jan) but whoever the hell that's in charge. Probably Marge. And honey, he is in denial.
I will eagerly await there answer and can't wait for it. Now understand
you should not expect the truth, Hell, that's what the hell they have been hiding. But Ahera, You in the meantime would be great at writing up a plan that you would do with the information if you did know. Trust me, you really should. I can tell you this much.....photonic fusion is one way.
The others.....you would not believe me if I told you. I'm not gonna spill the beans on them. I give it two weeks or so and will wait to see if I have a noticed improvement in my health or not.
I have something on the syphalis for you and will see if I can find it or not. How can your family get this? Easy, your house is infected.
Maggie!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! oh thank God!!! Just now seeing your post. I was worried about you.....give us some more dirt.
Maggie, listen, if the aids w/ dementia does not get us, (you know, I did think this was the worst of the worst but it's starting to sound nice compared to what I think they really want to do.) Maggie, this is fact. They are already using something in the cloning that causes gene translocation but guess what to???? "Mental Retardation" Yeah, Isarael is nothing but that Weisman University where they create the GD plasmas at.
This is about ecomonics and landscape of the people.....who moves here/who moves there, TRADE, Project Muse, Satellites, Computers, Fiber optics, communications, blah, blah, and you know that global warming that the world is worried about. Hell, the US wants it b/c they are going to profit from it where our country is located. This is Darwinism but HERE IS THE ARGUEMENT.....................YEAH, THIS IS IT.....THEY ARE BITCHING ABOUT SINCE ALL THIS SYNTHETIC CRAP HAS BEEN CREATED. (NOTICE i SAID ALL OF IT, NOT JUST SYNTHETIC INSECTS, BUT THE WHOLE SHEBANG, DOES IS NOT COUNT AS ANOTHER kINDOM (WHATEVER YOU CALL IT). cant forget health care either. Total Gov't control/slaves is the proper word) THERE IS MORE BUT THIS WILL GIVE SOME A BIG JUMP INTO WHY......
BUT BACK TO Aids........yep, that looks good compared to the mental retardation they plan on giving us......then sending our asses off to mars.
Maggie, get your living will and also instructions notorized with what to do with your body when you pass. Mine? I have a court doc stating the two people that will indeed either perform my autopsy or will be in the room with whomever does it. Also, I have people that know to cut my legs open, arms and brain before I ever get to the Morg. Oh, yeah,. b/c let me tell you, yes, they have lied and taken bodies from places and told the families why the body was late arriving, etc. , and even our poor dead soldiers......can you believe this? I swear on my fathers grave that this is a fact. I do have the document.
Although tough, science and religion march hand in hand. We are a scientific animal and thus frustrated by nature. Religion is the filling of all ananswered questions. The less ignorant we become, the more "Science" seems the truth and the less "religion" prevails!!!!
Itza Fact Jack/////oh lil Marge, how you doing today? Hows the stocks? I 've been watching att and Bell for ya recently....hehehe AND how is the stock market? Can you make it appear to your advantage too.......Oh Yes, Mr. Bell was the nanotechies "Bomb" You all have done nothing but F-up the world!
But since your all into the theories, I know ya believe in Karma. Yep, you lil nano f-ers just wait to Hurricane Karma rips thru!!!!!
Talk at you later.....
i watched the video and there was no sound.
while the photography that you present, is indeed very important and I am very appreciative that at least SOMEONE is LOOKING,
it is rather daunting, having just that to look at.
I am not being ungreatful for what you are doing, but it would be so much more empowering if you add audio or text, through someone fluent in english, to describe exactly what we are seeing in each photo shot.
ie: .. here we see the quorum sensing in action in an early stage of development.. quorum sensing is .. (definition) etc..
something that has a real definitive explanation behind at least what you observe to be occuring within the footage.
thank you for your investigation.
reading on lymebusters .com someone has posted this link...
New Lab Findings Point To Silicone/Silica and High Density Polyethlyene Fibers
which i believe to be the most important piece of information relative to actual scientific study of morgellons fibers.
tamtam i highly suggest you read this if you havent already
apologies if it's already been posted here, just passing the word along.
here is a link to the report's paper in full
still the same DARPA beams...............
"Ion channels, a class of membrane proteins that control ion
transport across membranes,are involved in critical physiological functions such as generation of action potential in nervous tissue, regulation the heartbeat cadence, and muscle contraction. Ion-channel malfunction is responsible for many cardiac and neuronal diseases. Hence, ion channels are important drug targets.High-throughput methods are needed to screen compounds for activity against ionchannels and thereby identify new lead drug candidates. These studies can be carried outby embedding the ion channels into a BLM that is formed on an electrode. The electrode could measure changes in ion passage through a channel due to potential drug candidates.This approach requires the BLM to be separated from the electrode by a hydrophilicspacer layer, which serves as an ion reservoir. Tethered BLM (tBLM) architectures havebeen developed for this purpose; tBLMs are formed using block copolymers that consistof a hydrophilic oligomer (e.g., polyelthylene glycol) connected to a phospholipid. Theend of the hydrophilic oligomer opposite the lipid is bound to the electrode. Addition ofmore phospholipids results in the formation of a tBLM on a hydrophilic ion reservoir afew nm thick. The electrical properties of the tBLM and ion passage through the channelscan then be measured using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS).Novel methods are being developed to fabricate tBLM systems suitable for high-throughput studies. These systems will be used to rapidly characterize the properties of medically important membrane proteins and screen for compounds that modulate ion channel activity."
"A recent four-year urban field exposure with
stainless steel grades 304 and 316 presents median release concentrations of chromium, nickel and iron respectively. Laboratory exposures of the same grades with synthetic rainwater result in concentrations less than and during steady-state conditions of a single rain event (Paper I). It should be noted that the concentrations of chromium and nickel are significantly lower than WHO health recommendations for drinking water. The only recommendation given for iron is related to staining of laundry and drinking of well water .
"Electron Beam Lithography for the Fabrication of Nanopillars in Type II InAs/GaSb Superlattices for Multicolor Infrared Focal Plane Arrays"
# Shamma, David Ayman. "Network Arts: Defining Emotional Interaction in Media Arts and Information Retrieval"
# Woo, Leta Y., "Characterizing Fiber-Reinforced Composite Structures using AC-Impedance Spectroscopy (AC-IS)"
# Haes, Amanda Jo. "Localized Surface Plasmon Resonance Spectroscopy for Fundamental Studies of Nanoparticle Optics and Applications to Biosensors"
# Mendoza, Roberto, "Morphological and Topological Characterization of Coarsened Dendritic Microstructures"
# Segura, Tatiana, "Engineering Substrate-Mediated Gene Delivery: A Novel DNA Delivery Strategy"
# Sudbrack, Chantal, "Decomposition Behavior in Model Ni-Al-Cr-X Superalloys: Temporal Evolution and Compositional Pathways on a Nanoscale"
# Zhang, Zhan, "Atomic Scale X-ray Studies of the Electrical Double Layer Structure at the Rutile TiO2 (110) – Aqueous Interface"
# Kurth, Todd Lyndon, "Inter- and Intramolecular Electronic Interactions"
# Laspidou, Chrysi "Modeling Heterogeneous Biofilms Including Active Biomass, Inert Biomass and Extracellular Polymeric Substances"
http://www.er.doe.gov/sbir/awards_abstr ... ntents.htm
http://www.belmont.k12.ca.us/ralston/pr ... r%20VI.htm
Why did you abandon us? We were worried they shipped to off to Mars via the first stop at the Pandemic Room. I thought they might have taken all your copper wires and used them for energy or something. I think that is what they want to do to me.
And those purple worms, man, I'm allergic to the indigo dye. Well, if you were not at one of the space stations and you are okay, I'm glad. We missed both of you two.......
Hey, Has anyone heard of Kutrah? You should do some reading on that place......
Man, this crap is in a lot of products.......eh? Even on the EPA's website it says toxicity from ac parts, and I know for a fact about the car motor....what was in the Honda's????
I wonder if Lynne still reads here......I think she was hinting around with the vinegar......being even more spiteful by suggesting we put that crap on our bodies.........More than likely, she was referring to the vinegar computer filter . I hope it was fun for her......
Hmmmm.........Okay thru being a social insect for the night.......was feeling rather gregarious.....just like those lil wasp they modeled......
Oh Yeah.....................TAMTAM; IMPORTANT QUESTION.....I'M ASSUMING YOU KNOW HOW THEY BAN US FROM WEBSITES WHEN WE GET TO CLOSE FOR THEIR COMFORT ZONE......aka...."the truth", so I was wondering what you want us to do when we find this GM, quoram sensing thing......post it or not? I believe you TamTam......there is one out there. Please respond when you can.
Now that, befour, is one hell of an idea!
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Between the Covers: Inside Information
By Eunice Anderson
Before reading a book my ritual is to look at all of the information on the covers—book front, inside flaps on front & back covers, and the back of the cover. I like to read the short author biography and I check number of pages before I begin reading. These details whet my reading appetite but do not fulfill reading the book.
Writers know the importance of captivating a reader by the first sentence, paragraph, or chapter to keep them interested. Publishers on the other hand, work hard to attract readers to books: by the cover art, book title, layout and design. The old saying, “You can’t judge a book by its cover” is true but the cover can sometimes determine whether it gets selected by a reader.
Today there are a variety of ways to “read” a book: eReaders, iPad, iPod, tablets, MP3 players, computers, smart phones, CDs, paperback and hardback books. Considering the advancements in technology, this year’s theme, Between the Covers, has a whole new meaning. What has not changed is the pleasure derived when the reading begins.
Readers can expand their book enjoyment and interact with other readers through this review blog. If you are interested in knowing what other readers are saying about books, this is place to find it. Stop by this blogspot throughout the summer, we want to hear from you.
This summer, whatever your ritual, whatever covers attract your attention, whatever device or format suits your lifestyle, join in the adult summer reading program, get Between the Covers with the Pratt Library.
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Girard Miller is the Public Money columnist for GOVERNING and a senior strategist at the PFM Group.E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.org
New Jersey's ill-fated pension reform plan is history. As 2006 drew to a close, the governor and legislature, hoping to pay for property-tax reduction through pension plan reforms, failed to come to an agreement--much to the relief of thousands of state workers, unionized and otherwise, who marched on Trenton to make known their concerns about benefit adjustments.
Despite the stalemate in New Jersey, benefit issues will be front and center across the country, in states that have collective bargaining states as well as those that do not. With lower unemployment and renewed union strength at the polls, employees are in a strong bargaining position. At the same time, governments are even more aware of their fiscal position. Although their revenues have grown with the economy expanding, their costs and liabilities continue to grow faster. This sets the stage for high friction ahead.
One of the issues that surfaced in New Jersey and will most likely be an issue elsewhere is retirement age. The traditional retirement age is 65, and the Baby Boom generation is expected to outlive that age by 21 years. Many states and localities allow their employees to retire at 55 or less, which means those governments are looking at an extended actuarial payout period with fewer years to sock away the funding it requires.
Clearly, we need to adjust the normal retirement age for increased life expectancy. Then public employees and employers will both have more years to contribute to their retirement plans, thus increasing the plans' assets and reducing their liabilities.
Raising the retirement age is simply realistic. It won't solve all the problems of our retirement systems' finances, but it must become a cornerstone of public retirement system reform.
More Management & Labor Data in:
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Thursday, September 15, 2011
Gerard N. Magliocca
The Majority Leader of the Pennsylvania Senate wants to change the way that the state allocates its electoral votes in presidential elections. Instead of the typical "winner-take-all" approach, he would like to adopt the system used by Maine and Nebraska, where the winner of each congressional district gets the electoral vote of that district. If such a change were implemented, then it would probably shift about 10 electoral votes to the Republicans. No Republican has carried Pennsylvania since 1988 (George H.W. Bush), but the GOP always wins many congressional districts in the state. In a happy coincidence, both houses of the State Legislature are controlled by the Republicans. And the Governor is a Republican. So this change may well happen.
And the word out of Nebraska is that it is now considering a change to winner-take-all. The common thread: It, too, is run by Republicans. And Pres. Obama won the electoral vote in NE-2 in 2008.
Agreed. This is almost as bad as Massachusetts changing the law to prevent a Republican Governor from filing Senate vacancies, and then changing it back to allow a Democratic Governor to do the same.
Gerard:Now there is nothing wrong with changing the way that a state awards electoral votes. Moreover, there is a good argument that the Maine/Nebraska system is more equitable. The problem is that changing the rules when you know which party will benefit is not fair.
Say again? Any time you change election rules, one party is likely to gain over the other. Either the rule change is or is not equitable.
The Dems have no equitable basis to challenge the PA change from a first past the post system to a proportional system based upon congressional district because they have been championing this system in NE and ME and a similar plan to proportionally divide up electoral votes according to the national popular vote.
FWIW, I personally prefer the traditional first past the post system and the electoral college because it forces presidential candidates to pay attention to smaller states like my Colorado.
The GOP plan may be too clever by half. The plan is being considered not only in PA, but also in several midwest states, all of which Obama is currently losing on the way to a Carter-level wipeout. The GOP plan may give Obama a bit less than half of the EVs in these states.
If the electoral vote was proportional then sure it would be pretty fair, except for rounding errors, and if every state did it. but this isn't that. Then again at this late date what difference does it make who the president is beyond tone and style?
I suppose it depends about what you think about gerrymandering more generally. If you say, "Well, that is just a part of politics that has a long pedigree," then what Pennsylvania wants to do is fine. But if you think gerrymandering is a problem, then you would take the opposite view. I guess my view is that at a minimum we should not be expanding that practice to the Electoral College.
If the electoral votes were proportional to the amount of popular votes, that would be laudable. Having it linked to congressional districts, however, is an awful idea and anti-democratic (small d, this system would probably benefit the Democrats in my very gerrymandered state). The sooner we elect the President by nationwide popular vote, the better.
I am not at all sure that gerrymandering congressional districts necessarily translates into gerrymandering for the presidential race under the GOP plan as there is no direct correlation between the two types of races. There has been a great deal of ticket splitting between Congress and the President over the past generation.
It would be interesting to learn if the PA GOP legislature is taking both kinds of races into account in drawing their redistricting maps.
This appears to me to be a step away from gerrymandering, or anyway something similar to it. Granted, it's a step away taken at a time when it appears the gerrymandering analogue benefits the other party, but it's still a step in the right direction.
Maybe when the parties swap control it would be changed back. That would be an appropriate time to complain. Not now. They're doing the right thing, and not even for the wrong reason; The victim of an injustice is entitled to act to remedy it.
If it's about justice, divide the electoral votes proportional to the popular vote in the state. Making anything dependent upon congressional districts lets local interests block the will of the people entirely just by redrawing lines. We need less political gaming in the election process, not more.
Bart and Brett:
Actually, if you look at the maps you'll notice that Democrats are much more packed together than Republicans, in part because of the 1982 amendments to the voting rights act and in part because of a more urban tilt. There are very few Republican districts above 65%, and quite a few Democratic ones. The Maine-Nebraska plan, if it had been applied to every state, would have resulted in Republicans winning the electoral college while losing the popular vote in 1960, 1976, and 2000. The 1976 case is a particularly egregious case, since Carter won the national popular vote by 2 percentage points. I'd need to check the math, but I believe that in every election since the 1960's it would increase the number of electoral college votes going to the Republican.
This appears to me to be a step away from gerrymandering, or anyway something similar to it.
Uh, no. Under the current system, the partisan process by which district lines are drawn is completely irrelevant to the Presidential election process. This change would make those partisan gerrymanders extremely significant.
The Electoral College is at least defensible on the basis that states are sovereign units. But congressional districts are just arbitrary divisions created through a political process.
Michigan 1892 redux: presumably they think Obama will likely win the state, but not all the districts. See here. Maybe unfair, but clearly constitutional under McPherson.
I agree that the demographics of the Dem Party and current voting rights law makes it easier for the GOP to gerrymander. The Dems are primarily an urban party disproportionately made up of ethnic and racial minority groups. The GOP can then make urban and minority majority districts without engaging in really egregious map making while accomplishing the voting rights mandates to create racial electoral ghettos.
I'd like to add another variable to the mix. To the extent that proportional allocation of electoral votes would make third party or independent candidacies more effective, it would thereby increase the odds that no candidate gets a majority of the electoral votes. That would leave the election of the President up to the House of Representatives voting by unit rule.
The part about weakening the two party duopoly is a very, very good thing. But the part about unit rule in the House completely undoes that advantage. It's the exact opposite of proportionality.
What's the population of Maine and Nebraska? What's the pop. of PA? The result of the proposed change is the neutering of the PA vote. The odds of a republican winning the electoral college and losing the popular vote would go up, a lot.
No it would not be equitable, it would simply be legal.
the yukon has difficult accelerating especially in cold weather but recently would not accelerate at all till the point that the cat adapter 3 317 7485 truck would turn off completely. the code the that came up was p0300i have replaced catalytic converter, spark plugs, spark wires, distributor cap and rotor, and the camshaft position sensor with the replacement of these things i can drive it again at normal speeds but still hesitates on acceleration and must easy of the gas and than press down again to begin accelerating any advice would helpfuel pressure! the fuel pressure read 50pressure is LOW-only idea other than R&R pump is fuel filter and a recheck Suggestion only use a OEM pump. no second choice
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In my previous article on the College Board's possible changes to the SAT, I reported that College Board President David Coleman had hinted at changes to the writing and critical reading portions of the test, as well as overall updates to reflect the new Common Core standards. But in a recent email to College Board members, Mr. Coleman announced that the overhaul of the SAT would begin in earnest in the near future. While still light on specifics, the email noted:
"We will develop an assessment that mirrors the work that students will do in college so that they will practice the work they need to do to complete college. An improved SAT will strongly focus on the core knowledge and skills that evidence shows are most important to prepare students for the rigors of college and career. This is an ambitious endeavor, and one that will only succeed with the leadership of our Board of Trustees, the strong coordination of our councils and committees, and the full engagement of our membership."
Current high school students need not worry that the test will change overnight. The process will take several years to complete. The last major overhaul of the test took three years to implement, and I would expect at least that much time this time around, if not more. The College Board is only in the information gathering stage at this point, and it is far from rolling out actual test questions.
For more analysis, please read this article from Inside Higher Education.
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Atlanta has reinvented itself in the last 50 years as the "city too busy to hate." It has the nation's busiest airport; it's home to the headquarters of several global mega-brands, including Coca-Cola; and it's the hub of an emerging megapolis stretching to Charlotte.
But race still serves as the political backdrop in the state that gave rise to both Ty Cobb and Martin Luther King, Jr. Georgia's white voters gave Barack Obama the fourth lowest percentage of their vote in the nation, behind only Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi.
The map below from Electoral Geography shows Obama's share of the white vote per county. He received almost half in Atlanta, Athens, and Savannah. He did the worst in the Black Belt counties of the Coastal Plains.
He did decently in the northern mountains, home to Nathan Deal (a former Democrat). These counties never had many slaves, and, as JMart has noted, areas in the former Confederacy with fewer African Americans "still retain a healthy two-party system."
What does this all mean in today's Georgia primaries? Not much by itself -- it's dangerous to draw direct correlations, and South Carolina Republicans nominated a black House candidate last month -- but it's still one of the best geographical representations of Georgia's electorate.
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2007 NAICS Definition
Industries in the Repair and Maintenance subsector restore machinery, equipment, and other products to working order. These establishments also typically provide general or routine maintenance (i.e., servicing) on such products to ensure they work efficiently and to prevent breakdown and unnecessary repairs.
The NAICS structure for this subsector brings together most types of repair and maintenance establishments and categorizes them based on production processes (i.e., on the type of repair and maintenance activity performed, and the necessary skills, expertise, and processes that are found in different repair and maintenance establishments). This NAICS classification does not delineate between repair services provided to businesses versus those that serve households. Although some industries primarily serve either businesses or households, separation by class of customer is limited by the fact that many establishments serve both. Establishments repairing computers and consumer electronics products are two examples of such overlap.
The Repair and Maintenance subsector does not include all establishments that do repair and maintenance. For example, a substantial amount of repair is done by establishments that also manufacture machinery, equipment, and other goods. These establishments are included in the Manufacturing sector in NAICS. In addition, repair of transportation equipment is often provided by or based at transportation facilities, such as airports, seaports, and these activities are included in the Transportation and Warehousing sector. A particularly unique situation exists with repair of buildings. Plumbing, electrical installation and repair, painting and decorating, and other construction-related establishments are often involved in performing installation or other work on new construction as well as providing repair services on existing structures. While some specialize in repair, it is difficult to distinguish between the two types and all have been included in the Construction sector.
Excluded from this subsector are establishments primarily engaged in rebuilding or remanufacturing machinery and equipment. These are classified in Sector 31-33, Manufacturing. Also excluded are retail establishments that provide after-sale services and repair. These are classified in Sector 44-45, Retail Trade.
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There is a new tool from Oracle to make the process infinitesimally simpler - Migration Assistant for Unicode. It's a GUI tool that you can install on the client. A server side API (installed via a patch) does all the heavy lifting with the client GUI providing a great intuitive interface. You have the steps pretty much laid out for you. But the main strength of the tool is not that. There are two primary differentiators for the tool.
- When you do have a bad character, what can you really do? You can truncate the part of the data. But how do you know how much to truncate? If you truncate aggressively, you may shave off a chunk and lose valuable data; but be miserly and you risk having the bad data in place. This tool will show the data in a separate window allowing you to correct only the affected data; nothing less, nothing more.
- When users copy and paste data from some unicode compliant system to Oracle, e.g. from MS Word to a VARCHAR2 field in the database, the characters may look garbled; but given proper characterset they become meaningful. This tool allows you to see the data in many charactersets to identify which one was used to create it in the first place. After that it's a simple matter to reproduce that characters in the proper characterset.
With these two differentiators in place, the tool has great future. Check out everything on this tool at http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/database/globalization/dmu/overview/index-330958.html or just visit the booth at #OOW Demogrounds in Moscone South.
Oh, did I mention that the tool is free?
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State prosecutors are sending a strong message about the dangers of prescription drug abuse. The state's district attorneys introduced a new anti-drug campaign on Wednesday morning in Downtown Knoxville.
The campaign is called Deceptive Danger. It's designed to educate the public, particularly teenagers, about the dangers of prescription medication and synthetic drugs like bath salts.
The district attorneys say the campaign is an effort to fight rising drug abuse rates across the state.
"We've got a major problem. We think as prosecutors where we can help educate, where people know the dangers, they'll make the right choices," said District Attorney General Randy Nichols.
According to Nichols, the U.S. is losing more teens to overdose deaths than traffic accidents for the first time in history.
The Deceptive Danger campaign materials will be given to middle and high schools to help educate teens.
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Mon, Apr 5, 2010 -- 10:00 AM
InsectopediaDownload audio (MP3)
Michael Krasny talks with author and anthropologist Hugh Raffles about his book "Insectopedia," which explores the ties between human beings and insects. Raffles teaches anthropology at The New School and is also the author of "In Amazonia: A Natural History."
Host: Michael Krasny
- Hugh Raffles, anthropologist and author of "Insectopedia"
- About the book "Insectopedia" : at Amazon.com
Also, please note that your comments could be read on air. We may edit them for clarity or brevity, and we will use only your first name to identify you on the air.
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About the Building
UMass Lowell's Emerging Technologies and Innovation Center (ETIC)—an 84,000 square foot, $80 million dollar facility—is propelling the University's research facilities into the 21st Century. The state-of-the-art research and academic facility is a hub for developing advanced manufacturing and other technologies: preparing students for emerging job sectors, fostering industry partnerships and offering cutting-edge research in nanotechnology, nanomedicine, molecular biology, plastics engineering and optics, furthering fields such as life sciences, energy, national security, environmental protection and more. The ETIC brings together world-renowned and next-generation research leaders to develop solutions to complex scientific challenges presently facing society.
On Dec. 10, 2012, the University announced that ETIC has been named the Mark and Elisia Saab Emerging Technologies and Innovation Center in tribute to distinguished alumnus Mark Saab ’81 and his wife Elisia. The naming recognizes the Saabs for a new multimillion-dollar commitment to UMass Lowell that will make the couple the largest individual donors to the University.
Grand Opening Event
The research and academic facility celebrated its grand opening on October 11, 2012.
View photos and a live feed of the project with time lapse video.
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Leaders try to allay debt-crisis fears
BRUSSELS — European leaders sought today to convince fearful markets that the Greek debt crisis won’t spread to other countries and derail the continent’s wobbly shared currency and hesitant economic recovery.
France, Italy and Portugal approved their share of a €110 billion ($140 billion) bailout to keep Greece from imminent default as the 16 leaders from countries using the euro headed for an evening summit in Brussels.
Germany’s contribution awaited only a presidential signature, while Spain’s government approved its share by decree with formal parliamentary approval expected next week.
The meeting — initially called to sign off on the bailout and draw lessons for the future — faces the challenge of urgent crisis management, after the euro dropped to its lowest level in 14 months and bond markets dumped Greek debt.
EU leaders have insisted for days the Greek financial implosion was a unique combination of bad management, free spending and statistical cheating that doesn’t apply to any other eurozone nation, such as troubled Spain or Portugal. They said the bailout should contain the problem by giving Greece three years of support and preventing a default when it has to pay €8.5 billion in bonds coming due May 19.
Again Friday, European leaders were almost desperately trying to talk away the problems.
Agreement on rescue for Greece “will be a demonstration of Europe’s force, of solidarity,” French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said after a meeting with Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates. “We will protect Greece and reinforce the stability of the euro zone,” he said.
The markets have taken little heed. Stocks, Greek bonds and the euro plunged even after the head of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet, tersely underlined that “Portugal is not Greece. Spain is not Greece” on Thursday. The euro fell to $1.2520, its lowest in 14 months, but recovered to $1.2773 later.
Along with the eurozone meeting, the G-7 finance ministers will hold a teleconference Friday on the crisis, according to Japan’s finance minister.
And on top of the eurozone summit, key leaders like France’s Nicolas Sarkozy, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Trichet will huddle ahead of time seeking to a common strategy to soothe the markets.
After struggling to get ahead of the crisis for weeks, European governments are now underlining their determination to act by speeding approval of their contributions to the emergency loan package for Athens, hoping to contain the threat to their currency to just one country.
The consequences of failure could be dire. Many economists think Greece will eventually default anyway, which could lead to sharply higher borrowing costs for other indebted countries in Europe. Default, or market contagion to other countries could lead to panic, intimidating consumers from spending and making banks fearful to loan money to businesses and consumers.
In Germany, where bailing Greece out is unpopular, both houses of parliament approved the package Friday and sent it to President Horst Koehler for his signature. With Italy and France, that accounts for over two-thirds of the European part of the bailout package. The International Monetary Funds adds €30 billion on its own.
Even Germany stressed how precarious the situation had become for the whole of Europe.
“The situation is very serious and no one can say that we are already out of the woods with today’s decision,” Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said after parliament approved its €22.4 billion ($28.6 billion) slice of the package. “What is important now is that we must extinguish the fire so no brush fire spreads in Europe, and we must at the same time fight the cause of the fire.”
Portugal’s Parliament on Friday approved its share of the bailout — just over €2 billion — for Greece.
Even as Portugal readied to loan to Greece, its own interest rate gap, or spread, between Portuguese and benchmark German 10-year bonds, was ticking higher — a sign that debt fears were infecting market views of Lisbon’s situation.
On Friday it rose nine basis points, or 0.09 percentage point, which means Lisbon would have to pay almost 6.2 percent in interest to borrow on the markets — its highest rate since before joining the euro.
Greek lawmakers approved drastic austerity cuts Thursday worth about €30 billion ($38.18 billion) through 2012 — that will slash pensions and civil servants’ pay and further hike consumer taxes. The measures were a prerequisite needed to secure international rescue loans.
On Friday, Greek borrowing costs hit another record high and shares on the Athens stock exchange were lower amid losses in European markets and fears that Greece will have difficulty implementing its austerity plan. In Portugal, the spread between Portuguese and benchmark German 10-year bonds, meanwhile, ticked higher. On Friday it rose nine basis points, which means Lisbon would have to pay almost 6.2 percent in interest to borrow on the markets — its highest rate since 1997.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrials plunged 1,000 points in less than half an hour on fears that Greece’s debt problems could halt the global economic recovery. The Dow managed to recover two-thirds of its losses and close down 347 at 10,520. European stocks fell but recovered most of their losses by early afternoon Friday.
Fears of Greek default have undermined the euro, and while the current package should keep Greece from immediate bankruptcy, its long-term prospects are unclear. The country’s growth prospects are weak, and the population’s willingness to accept cutbacks may wane, leading some economists to predict an eventual debt restructuring somewhere down the road.
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Recently I had a chance to watch the video of a talk given by Jonathan Berger, given at the recently concluded Agile UX NYC 2012 Conference.
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When designing for the web, you can analyze usage data for your product and compare different interfaces in A/B tests. This is sometimes called “data-driven design”, but I prefer to think of it as data-informed design — the designer is still driving, not the data.
Sending out invitations for observing usability test sessions sounds easy. But to potential observers of your sessions, there are a lot of details they have to process in order to decide to add sessions to their over-crowded calendars.
Apps often need to pop up something over the main UI; common examples would be menus and dialogs. Unfortunately, while apps need popups, documents don’t, and until recently HTML was relentlessly document-focused. It’s frustratingly difficult to do a popup well in a contemporary web app, and so it’s not surprising to see so many apps [...]
Less than a year ago, Trent Walton published Content Choreography in which he lamented at some of the difficulties and limitations of responsive layouts.
This is a guide for binding your own sketchbooks. I offer it to you designers, developers, makers, and tinkerers out there who are looking for a way to physically connect to your practice of designing interfaces, or who maybe just want a fun and practical way to get your hands dirty.
In the new Mac OS X Lion operating system, there has been a noticeable change to the interface: the removal of the scrollbar. Users can adjust their settings to add scrollbars back in, but the fact that this option is even offered speaks volumes about the diminishing role of this once-indispensable interface element.
Four Seasons recently launched a massive overhaul of their website. E-consultancy readers everywhere immediately chipped in their critiques of the effectiveness of the $18m expenditure.
There’s a lot of crap going on in the world right now: terrorism, two major wars, and worldwide economic collapse. Let’s not forget the lack of movement on climate change and serious unrest in the Middle East and other places.
The secret to winning fans and pleasing customers might just be simplicity of design. We talked to a trio of user-experience pros about how they create intuitive (and highly successful) products.
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Objects and Classes in Visual Basic
An object is a combination of code and data that can be treated as a unit. An object can be a piece of an application, like a control or a form. An entire application can also be an object.
When you create an application in Visual Basic, you constantly work with objects. You can use objects provided by Visual Basic, such as controls, forms, and data access objects. You can also use objects from other applications within your Visual Basic application. You can even create your own objects and define additional properties and methods for them. Objects act like prefabricated building blocks for programs — they let you write a piece of code once and reuse it over and over.
This topic discusses objects in detail.
Each object in Visual Basic is defined by a class. A class describes the variables, properties, procedures, and events of an object. Objects are instances of classes; you can create as many objects you need once you have defined a class.
To understand the relationship between an object and its class, think of cookie cutters and cookies. The cookie cutter is the class. It defines the characteristics of each cookie, for example size and shape. The class is used to create objects. The objects are the cookies.
You must create an object before you can access its members.
To create an object from a class
Determine from which class you want to create an object.
Write a Dim Statement (Visual Basic) to create a variable to which you can assign a class instance. The variable should be of the type of the desired class.
Dim nextCustomer As customer
Add the New Operator (Visual Basic) keyword to initialize the variable to a new instance of the class.
Dim nextCustomer As New customer
You can now access the members of the class through the object variable.
nextCustomer.accountNumber = lastAccountNumber + 1
Whenever possible, you should declare the variable to be of the class type you intend to assign to it. This is called early binding. If you do not know the class type at compile time, you can invoke late binding by declaring the variable to be of the Object Data Type. However, late binding can make performance slower and limit access to the run-time object's members. For more information, see Object Variable Declaration (Visual Basic).
Objects newly created from a class are often identical to each other. Once they exist as individual objects, however, their variables and properties can be changed independently of the other instances. For example, if you add three check boxes to a form, each check box object is an instance of the CheckBox class. The individual CheckBox objects share a common set of characteristics and capabilities (properties, variables, procedures, and events) defined by the class. However, each has its own name, can be separately enabled and disabled, and can be placed in a different location on the form.
An object is an element of an application, representing an instance of a class. Fields, properties, methods, and events are the building blocks of objects and constitute their members.
warningLabel.Text = "Data not saved"
IntelliSense lists members of a class when you invoke its List Members option, for example when you type a period (.) as a member-access operator. If you type the period following the name of a variable declared as an instance of that class, IntelliSense lists all the instance members and none of the shared members. If you type the period following the class name itself, IntelliSense lists all the shared members and none of the instance members. For more information, see Using IntelliSense.
Fields and properties represent information stored in an object. You retrieve and set their values with assignment statements the same way you retrieve and set local variables in a procedure. The following example retrieves the Width property and sets the ForeColor property of a Label object.
Dim warningWidth As Integer = warningLabel.Width warningLabel.ForeColor = System.Drawing.Color.Red
Note that a field is also called a member variable.
Use property procedures when:
You need to control when and how a value is set or retrieved.
The property has a well-defined set of values that need to be validated.
Setting the value causes some perceptible change in the object's state, such as an IsVisible property.
Setting the property causes changes to other internal variables or to the values of other properties.
A set of steps must be performed before the property can be set or retrieved.
Use fields when:
The value is of a self-validating type. For example, an error or automatic data conversion occurs if a value other than True or False is assigned to a Boolean variable.
Any value in the range supported by the data type is valid. This is true of many properties of type Single or Double.
The property is a String data type, and there is no constraint on the size or value of the string.
For more information, see Property Procedures (Visual Basic).
Dim safetyTimer As New System.Windows.Forms.Timer safetyTimer.Start()
Note that a method is simply a procedure that is exposed by an object.
For more information, see Procedures in Visual Basic.
An event is an action recognized by an object, such as clicking the mouse or pressing a key, and for which you can write code to respond. Events can occur as a result of a user action or program code, or they can be caused by the system. Code that signals an event is said to raise the event, and code that responds to it is said to handle it.
You can also develop your own custom events to be raised by your objects and handled by other objects. For more information, see Events (Visual Basic).
When you create an object from a class, the result is an instance of that class. Members that are not declared with the Shared (Visual Basic) keyword are instance members, which belong strictly to that particular instance. An instance member in one instance is independent of the same member in another instance of the same class. An instance member variable, for example, can have different values in different instances.
Members declared with the Shared keyword are shared members, which belong to the class as a whole and not to any particular instance. A shared member exists only once, no matter how many instances of its class you create, or even if you create no instances. A shared member variable, for example, has only one value, which is available to all code that can access the class.
To access a nonshared member of an object
Make sure the object has been created from its class and assigned to an object variable.
Dim secondForm As New System.Windows.Forms.Form
In the statement that accesses the member, follow the object variable name with the member-access operator (.) and then the member name.
To access a shared member of an object
Follow the class name with the member-access operator (.) and then the member name. You should always access a Shared member of the object directly through the class name.
MsgBox("This computer is called " & Environment.MachineName)
If you have already created an object from the class, you can alternatively access a Shared member through the object's variable.
The main difference between classes and modules is that classes can be instantiated as objects while standard modules cannot. Because there is only one copy of a standard module's data, when one part of your program changes a public variable in a standard module, any other part of the program gets the same value if it then reads that variable. In contrast, object data exists separately for each instantiated object. Another difference is that unlike standard modules, classes can implement interfaces.
When the Shared modifier is applied to a class member, it is associated with the class itself instead of a particular instance of the class. The member is accessed directly by using the class name, the same way module members are accessed.
Classes and modules also use different scopes for their members. Members defined within a class are scoped within a specific instance of the class and exist only for the lifetime of the object. To access class members from outside a class, you must use fully qualified names in the format of Object.Member.
On the other hand, members declared within a module are publicly accessible by default, and can be accessed by any code that can access the module. This means that variables in a standard module are effectively global variables because they are visible from anywhere in your project, and they exist for the life of the program.
Objects let you declare variables and procedures once and then reuse them whenever needed. For example, if you want to add a spelling checker to an application you could define all the variables and support functions to provide spell-checking functionality. If you create your spelling checker as a class, you can then reuse it in other applications by adding a reference to the compiled assembly. Better yet, you may be able to save yourself some work by using a spelling checker class that someone else has already developed.
The .NET Framework provides many examples of components that are available for use. The following example uses the TimeZone class in the System namespace. TimeZone provides members that allow you to retrieve information about the time zone of the current computer system.
Public Sub examineTimeZone() Dim tz As System.TimeZone = System.TimeZone.CurrentTimeZone Dim s As String = "Current time zone is " s &= CStr(tz.GetUtcOffset(Now).Hours) & " hours and " s &= CStr(tz.GetUtcOffset(Now).Minutes) & " minutes " s &= "different from UTC (coordinated universal time)" s &= vbCrLf & "and is currently " If tz.IsDaylightSavingTime(Now) = False Then s &= "not " s &= "on ""summer time""." MsgBox(s) End Sub
Objects can be related to each other in several ways. The principal kinds of relationship are hierarchical and containment.
When classes are derived from more fundamental classes, they are said to have a hierarchical relationship. Class hierarchies are useful when describing items that are a subtype of a more general class.
To define a class is derived from an already existing class
Use a Class Statement (Visual Basic) to define a class from which to create the object you need.
Public Class reversibleButton
Be sure an End Class statement follows the last line of code in your class. By default, the integrated development environment (IDE) automatically generates an End Class when you enter a Class statement.
Follow the Class statement immediately with an Inherits Statement. Specify the class from which your new class derives.
Your new class inherits all the members defined by the base class.
Add the code for the additional members your derived class exposes. For example, you might add a reverseColors method, and your derived class might look as follows:
Public Class reversibleButton Inherits System.Windows.Forms.Button Public Sub reverseColors() Dim saveColor As System.Drawing.Color = Me.BackColor Me.BackColor = Me.ForeColor Me.ForeColor = saveColor End Sub End Class
If you create an object from the reversibleButton class, it can access all the members of the Button class, as well as the reverseColors method and any other new members you define on reversibleButton.
Derived classes inherit members from the class they are based on, allowing you to add complexity as you progress in a class hierarchy. For more information, see Inheritance Basics (Visual Basic).
Be sure the compiler can access the class from which you intend to derive your new class. This might mean fully qualifying its name, as in the preceding example, or identifying its namespace in an Imports Statement (.NET Namespace and Type). If the class is in a different project, you might need to add a reference to that project. For more information, see Managing Project References.
Another way that objects can be related is a containment relationship. Container objects logically encapsulate other objects. For example, the OperatingSystem object logically contains a Version object, which it returns through its Version property. Note that the container object does not physically contain any other object.
One particular type of object containment is represented by collections. Collections are groups of similar objects that can be enumerated. Visual Basic supports a specific syntax in the For Each...Next Statement (Visual Basic) that allows you to iterate through the items of a collection. Additionally, collections often allow you to use an Item to retrieve elements by their index or by associating them with a unique string. Collections can be easier to use than arrays because they allow you to add or remove items without using indexes. Because of their ease of use, collections are often used to store forms and controls.
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Pilot projects in cloud computing for research is a programme run jointly by EPSRC and JISC. We are funding a range of pilot projects to explore and develop new cloud computing technologies for research. This website introduces the projects and keeps you up to date with recent developments. You can use the menu on the right hand side to browse the project miniblogs.
There is currently a lot of interest in cloud computing, a combination of technologies that promise to make (research) infrastructure more flexible, easier to use and also cheaper. On the other hand, there are also concerns about issues such as privacy, ethics and security; the portability of tools and data to and from different cloud platforms; uncertainties in prediction of the cost of research activities; or the absence of software tools, methods and platforms for researchers to properly exploit the cloud.
Lessons learned through the eleven pilot projects funded under Cloud computing for research will help to better understand how the cloud can be used for research applications, what the barriers and limitations are and how those might be overcome.
On 26th September 2011, EPSRC and JISC have hosted a workshop in order to share the results of the pilot projects and the lessons learned, and to discuss best practice. This half-day workshop was part of the UK e-Science All Hands Meeting in York.
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Visiting U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday morning that the Israelis and the Palestinians have a joint responsibility to create an atmosphere and a reality in which the Palestinians are committed to Israel's security and Israel is committed to the Palestinians' quality of life.
Speaking at a joint press conference with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni in Jerusalem, Rice, who started Saturday a three-day shuttle visit to the Middle East in a bid to discuss practical ways to improve the lives of Palestinians, added that she expected both Israel and the Palestinians to carry out meaningful things in the economic and the security fields.
"I understand the security considerations and I would hope and I expect that we're going to be able to some things, or that Israel and the Palestinians together will be able to do some things, that are meaningful both for security and for economic viability," Rice told reporters.
During her second trip in a month to the Middle East, Rice planned to hold two trilateral meetings with Israeli and Palestinian leaders, according to local media.
On Sunday, Rice will meet with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. In addition, she will hold a trilateral meeting on Monday with Livni and former Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei.
Rice said earlier this month that neither Israel nor the Palestinians had done "nearly enough" to carry out the 2003 "Road Map" peace plan under which Israel is required to halt West Bank settlement activity and uproot settler outposts and the Palestinians to rein in militants.
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As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” 3 Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. 4 We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. 5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” 6 Having said these things, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man’s eyes with the mud 7 and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing.
Last week we addressed the issue of racial harmony and diversity and justice by offering eight biblical ways parents can help their children love people who are different from them. This week we address parents and the rest of us about how we can love those who are different from us, namely, don’t kill them.
Abortion and Disability
You may recall that I said last week that I would resist the urge to turn that sermon into a sermon about disabilities—even though racial differences and disability differences both tempt fallen human beings not to love, but to reject and exclude and belittle. This week I will not resist this urge. I am going to talk about abortion in relation to disability.
One of the great joys of my ministry has been to watch God raise up a “Disability Ministry” at Bethlehem, with Brenda Fischer as the Coordinator. I encourage you to go to the new hopeinGod.org website and read about it. So I am speaking into a situation at our church where children and young adults and older people are living—living!—with significant physical and mental handicaps.
The Daily Earthquake of Abortion
Let me set up the situation we are facing in America and how today’s text relates to it. There are about 3,000 abortions a day in the United States and about 130,000 a day worldwide. Which means that the horrific, gut-wrenching reality of Haiti’s earthquake on January 12 happens everyday in the abortion clinics of the world. And it is likely that if the dismemberment and bloodshed and helplessness of 130,000 dead babies a day received as much media coverage as the earthquake victims have—rightly have!—there would be the same outcry and outpouring of effort to end the slaughter and relieve the suffering.
Americans have been giving 1.6 million dollars an hour for Haiti Relief for the last ten days—a beautiful thing. I hope you are part of it. It is so unbelievably easy to give with phones and computers. But the funding and resistance to the suffering of the silent, hidden destruction of the unborn is not so easy. So the 3,000 babies who are crushed to death every day in America by the earthquake of abortion go largely unnoticed.
No Moral or Spiritual Reason
Most of these babies are killed between 10 and 14 weeks of gestation, when the situation is, as they say, “optimal” for the complete dismemberment and evacuation. The babies usually look something like this.
We have no reason to think that there is any morally or spiritually significant difference between this baby and a one-month-old outside the womb. All the differences are morally and spiritually negligible. If it is wrong to kill a newborn, it is wrong to kill this baby in the womb.
“Eugenics by Abortion”
The recent gains in prenatal testing have introduced the possibility to abort children with traits you don’t want in a child. So it is especially common in China to abort girls because of the coercive one-child rule. Most prochoice people in America think that’s odious.
One writer said something very telling that takes me where I am going. He said, “You don’t have to be a feminist to know that being a girl is not a birth defect.” Hmmm? There are several tragic assumptions in that statement. One of them is that, if there is a birth defect, then abortion would be advisable. That is, in fact, where we have come as a society. George F. Will calls it “eugenics by abortion.” Eugenics is infamous as “the science of improving a human population by controlled breeding to increase the occurrence of desirable heritable characteristics.”
So, for example, according to Dr. Brian Skotko, pediatric geneticist at Children’s Hospital in Boston, in a November 2009 article from ABC News, “An estimated 92 percent of all women who receive a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome choose to terminate their pregnancies.” This is true, even though, as Gary Bauer points out, there are many “waiting lists of couples ready to adopt children with Down syndrome.”
Eugenics with a Vengeance
This Friday the New York Times reported that “70 percent of Americans said they believe that women should be able to obtain a legal abortion if there is a strong chance of a serious defect in the baby.”
Wesley Smith wrote in the Weekly Standard in 2008,
With the development of prenatal genetic diagnosis, the drive toward eugenics has returned with a vengeance. Americans may heartily cheer participants in the Special Olympics, but we abort some 90 percent of all gestating infants diagnosed with genetic disabilities such as Down Syndrome, dwarfism, and spina bifida.
The Gospel for the Guilty
As a pastor, whose calling is to shepherd the flock of Bethlehem, by proclaiming the whole counsel of God in the Scriptures, I don’t feel a direct responsibility for what 70% of Americans think about the worth of children with disabilities. But I do feel a direct responsibility for what you believe about such children.
One estimate is that 70% of the women who get abortions in America are professing Christians. I know that many in this church have had abortions. And I don’t want you to feel overwhelmed by this message. The center of all we preach and believe is that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners (1 Timothy 1:15). The gospel of Jesus Christ is the best news in the world to women who are tempted to hate themselves for aborting a child. “For [your] sake God made Christ to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him [you] might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21).
God-Knit in the Womb
So my aim in this message is modest and, I think, explosive, if the church really took hold of it and lived it. The message is that God knits all the children together in their mothers’ wombs, and they are all—all of them of every degree of ability—conceived for the purpose of displaying the glory of God.
You knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. (Psalms 139:13–15)
How I would love to put in your hands today Krista Horning’s book, which Desiring God hopes to publish this March, about God’s great power and good purposes in the disabilities of the children of Bethlehem. It’s called Just the Way I Am. You will love it. Or you will hate it. One way to view this sermon is as an effort to get you to love it.
After Jesus’ Most Outlandish Claim
Let’s turn to John 9:1. Jesus had just said perhaps the most outlandish thing he ever said. He said in John 8:58, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” This was doubly outrageous. “Before Abraham was, I was,” would have been outrageous—a man claiming preexistence thousands of years ago. But what he said was, “Before Abraham was, I am.” He used the sacred name of God in Exodus 3:14, “I am who I am.” So he claimed to be God in the fullest sense.
They take up stones to stone him, but he goes out of the temple, and the next thing that happens is the encounter of a disabled man—a man who had been born disabled, blind. There is a connection between this man’s blindness and the reality that Jesus is God Almighty and the purpose of God in this man’s disability. Verses 1–3:
As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.”
A Wrong Deduction About Suffering
The disciples assume a direct correlation between a specific sin and the man’s disability. Either he sinned in the womb of his mother, or his parents sinned. Those are the two explanations the disciples can think of. This kind of thinking is not unlike the way Job’s three friends thought about suffering.
Jesus rejects both of them. He knows that suffering and sickness and disability and death are in the world because of sin (Romans 5:12–14; 8:18–25), but he rejects the explanation that specific disabilities correspond to specific sins.
Another Explanation: The Glory of God
Instead, he gives another explanation. The disciples were asking about the cause of this blindness. Jesus answers their question, but the answer he gives is not about the human who the blindness came from, but what it is leading to. In other words, Jesus says the cause of this disability is not past sin, but future effects.
Verse 3: Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.” The cause of this man’s blindness is that God intended to display his work in the man.
Jesus, Always Doing More Than We Think
What is that work? Be careful with your answer. Jesus is always doing more than you think. In verses 4–5, Jesus continues,
We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.
This signals that something more is going on here than merely healing the man’s physical eyes so that he can see natural light. Jesus calls attention to the fact that he is the light this man needs to see. “I am the light of the world.” Which many blind people see, and many seeing people are blind to. Verses 6–7:
Having said these things, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man’s eyes with the mud and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing.
Mere Physical Healing?
Yes, he came back seeing natural light. Is that enough? Is that what Jesus cares about most? Do you recall back in chapter 5 when Jesus healed the man who had been crippled for 38 years? The man stood up and walked. Was that the point—mere physical healing? Yes, I say “mere” in view the infinitely more important spiritual change needed.
So John 5:14 says, “Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, ‘See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.’” In other words, I healed you, yes. But I have tracked you down to make sure you know holiness is the main point. That’s the real healing. Go, sin no more.
The Ultimate Healing: Seeing Jesus’ Glory
Now here in chapter 9, Jesus does the same thing. Verses 35–38:
Jesus heard that they had cast him out [the man born blind], and having found him he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” He answered, “And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?” Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you.” He said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him.”
Now we see all the connections between, “Before Abraham was, I am,” and blindness and healing and Jesus as the light of the world. Seeing the glory of Jesus as God and worshiping him was the main point. Jesus is the light of the world. Jesus is the “I am” who was here before Abraham. The most important thing is that the man see the glory of Jesus and worship him. That is what he did. This was the ultimate healing.
God Has a Design in Every Disability
So when Jesus said in verse 3, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him,” this is the work of God—that the man see natural light and that the man see spiritual light. That the man be given natural eyes, and that he be given spiritual eyes. That he see the glory of this world, and the glory of its Maker, Jesus Christ. And worship him.
From this I conclude that in every disability, whether genetically from the womb, or circumstantially from an accident, or infectiously from a disease, God has a design, a purpose, for his own glory, and for the good of his people who love him and are called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28). Therefore, it is wrong to think that such children in the womb are unimportant, or without a unique, God-given worth in this world. And it is wrong to abort them—to kill them.
Answering Two Objections
Let me answer very briefly two objections. Someone might say, “But this blind man got his eyes and was able to benefit himself from the work of God. My child stayed blind.” Or someone may say, “My child never had the mental ability to process biblical truth about Jesus as the light of the world or wonder at ‘before Abraham was, I am.’”
That’s often true. And I don’t mean to say that the full scope of the work of God in the lives of the disabled always happens in this world. None of us is fully healed in this world. There will be a resurrection when Jesus “will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself” (Philippians 3:21).
And I don’t mean to say that in this world, the works of God will only benefit the one who has the disability. We can’t tell what is going in the mind and heart of many of the mentally disabled. Only God can. But the work of God through these disabilities in the lives of others—that is often the miracle. The works of faith and labors of love and steadfastness of hope are amazing works of God that put his all-satisfying glory on display in the lives of parents and brothers and sisters and friends and churches.
Design Even in Death
One other objection. Someone might say, “But these people all lived. Even Lazarus, though he died, lived again to bring glory to God (John 11:4, 40). So what about the disabled who die? Indeed what about any of us who die? Is dying the great triumph of the enemy?”
Or is death “swallowed up in victory?” Should we say, “Here the glory of God has ended?” Or should we say, “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:54–57)?
Is the death of the disabled meaningless? Or is this too appointed by God for the glory of his name?
Death for the Glory of God
The Gospel of John closes in chapter 21with Jesus speaking to Simon Peter about this.
“Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted [you were able bodied], but when you are old [and we could add, disabled], you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.” (This he said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God.) (John 21:18–19)
God had appointed for Peter a disability in the end and a death for the glory of God. So I stand by the conclusion from John 9. In every disability, whether genetically from the womb, or circumstantially from an accident, or infectiously from a disease, God has a design, a purpose, for his own glory and for the good of his people who love him and are called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28). Therefore, it is wrong to think that such children in the womb—or out of the womb, or in their doddering old age—are unimportant, or without a unique, God-given worth in this world.
Eugenics by abortion is an abomination to God. In the name of Christ, don’t do it. And if you have done it, there is an advocate, Jesus Christ the righteous one (1 John 2:1). “Everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name” (Acts 10:43).
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A large, industrial Northern state may be about to banish the word "evolution" from its science curriculum standards. Acting on a mandate from the state legislature, the Illinois Board of Education has developed new Learning Standards for a number of subjects, including science. Learning Standards are supposed to define appropriate content for meeting a number of goals, including the expectation that students will come to "Understand the fundamental concepts, principles, and interconnections of the life, physical, and earth/space sciences" (State Goal 12). Yet evolution, which has been listed as one of the major unifying concepts organizing the National Science Education Standards issued by the National Academy of Science, is never specifically mentioned in Goal 12 or anywhere else in Illinois' proposed learning standards.
NCSE members who contacted Board of Education staff learned that there had been no mention of evolution in the first public draft of the Standards, but revision teams added a reference in response to extensive public comment, as well as the recommendations of expert reviewers. However, according to a letter from the Superintendent of Education that was released with the final "Proposed Learning Standards", members of "an External Review Team consisting of parents, educators, business people, civic leaders, and representatives of family groups ... recommended... that no controversial content which was not included in the draft previously disseminated for public review would be included"... (italics in original). Goal 12, Standard A now reads, "Know and apply concepts that explain how living things function, adapt, and change."
As NCSE member David Bloomberg commented at the June 11 meeting of the Board, the vague wording of the standard can refer to individual or short term changes "like my blood pressure changing during the day." While "benchmarks" expanding upon the standards refer to evolutionary processes and supporting evidence, the fact is that the "e" word never appears. Teachers who use the most accurate term to describe what they are teaching are given no protection from parental complaints. Worse, the External Review Team's report says only that the state "could provide examples and support materials to assist local districts in deciding when, where, and how to teach these [omitted, "controversial"] subjects. Since evolution is one of the topics omitted from the revised "Draft Standards" before they were submitted as "Proposed Standards", districts that choose to teach it could be forced to rely on limited, local resources.
At press time, the Board of Education is again receiving comments from the public. It is impressive that there had been so much public support for evolution, and if there is more such support, the Board could decide to override the Review Team’s recommendations. If they do not, it is likely that evolution education will become a local option, and many Illinois students will be denied the opportunity to learn about the major theory unifiying biological knowledge.
In April 1997, the Institute for Human Origins (IHO), a not-for-profit paleoanthropology research institution located in Berkeley, CA, completed negotiations with Arizona State University to move to that university in July of 1997. NCSE Supporter Donald C Johanson will remain Director of the Institute, and senior staffers William H Kimbel and Kaye Reed will hold dual positions as Institute scientists and members of the ASU Department of Anthropology. Also moving to Arizona with IHO are geochronologist Robert Walker and paleoanthropologist Eric Meikle and support staff.
The move is viewed by both IHO and ASU as being to their mutual advantage: ASU receives a prestigious research institution and IHO receives partial financial stability and the many administrative and scholarly advantages of a university affiliation. Johanson and his staff were looking forward to mentoring graduate students.
Of particular interest to NCSE members, however, is the response of Arizona Regent Kurt Davis when asked to approve the University's association with IHO. Although voting to approve the arrangement, he added an amendment that ASU would "come back with a plan that would implement and examine the use of courses to offer alternative theories, as well." The ASU newspaper reported that, in a memorandum to other regents, Davis expressed concern that "we will expend tax dollars to continue research and create debate from only one perspective" (State Press, April 28, 1997). The Board of Regents voted unanimously to approve Davis' motion.
Letters to the editor in local Tempe papers varied from support to criticism of the regents' decision, some assuming it would require the teaching of creation "science" at ASU. As NCSE members know, "alternative theories to evolution" is a popular euphemism for creation science, but the wording of the resolution is vague. Reportedly, both the religious studies program and science departments are uninterested in presenting "alternatives to evolution". Administrators appear to be uncertain as to what to do about Davis' suggestions, which also raises questions regarding Regents' authority to determine curricula.
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For almost a decade, students have squatted a vacant university building in Frankfurt to protest against a lack of study time and affordable housing. Now, the squatters are faced with the threat of eviction.
"The Institute" looks just like any other dilapidated building. The walls are covered from top to bottom in graffiti and posters. Paint is flaking off the furniture.
It's been occupied for the past nine years. Yet if the squatters hadn't set up camp there all those years ago, the building - which once belonged to Frankfurt's Goethe University - would have been demolished, they say.
The building is the last occupied university institute in Germany's financial hub, the city of Frankfurt am Main.
This is the street where the urban housing struggles of the 1980s began. During that period, students occupied and lived in vacant buildings. They didn't pay rent, but they did save many properties from demolition.
Today, the last remaining squat is the Institute of Comparative Irrelevance. It's located in a chic residential quarter and is affectionately referred to as IVI by the squatters and their friends.
Theory, practice and parting
The building's witty and ironic name was born out of the student protests. Sarah Schneider, who asked not to be identified by her real name, was there when it all began.
"Back then, we fought against tuition fees and against the introduction of Bachelor and Master degrees," she said.
That was nine years ago in the winter semester of 2003/2004. During that time, the students occupied the empty houses at 130 Kettenhofweg – what used to be the Institute of English and American Studies at the Goethe University.
Since then, students have used the building for political events, feminist readings and parties.
An unrealized utopia
The activists view their project as a counterbalance to what they see as an overly authoritarian, regimented style of teaching at the university. They claim that the emphasis on achieving top grades is too heavy.
At IVI, activists are more interested in investigating how society functions and changes over time. They have consciously positioned themselves in the tradition of the famous Frankfurt School of Critical Theory, founded in the 1960s by Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer.
"It's also a way for us to discuss how one can resist certain developments and to explore how utopias could look," says Sarah Schneider.
Yet today's style of activism looks a lot different to before. At IVI today, squatters drink Coke while tapping away at their Apple Mac computers. Everyone emails, chats online, tweets and posts on Facebook.
But real estate companies and the new owner of the building aren't impressed. The Franconofurt AG is an enterprise which proclaims that it is "continually in search of profitable real estate objects."
The investors who bought the former institute in the chic suburb in March this year are interested in making a profit. Accordingly, they want to see the students evicted from the premises as soon as possible.
No fear of the law
Sarah Schneider recalls the first time the real estate company cut the electricity and water supply and removed the door. "They hoped that if they created adverse conditions then we would leave," Schneider said.
But they were wrong. The occupants continued with their political activities largely undeterred by the company's actions. "We just put in a new door," she said.
The squatters haven't been put off by a judicial ban or a fine of up to 250,000 euros ($320,000) either. At their meetings they discuss their next course of action. The most important thing for them is that IVI's activities continue - despite the ban.
The members of the group also continue to promote their events with flyers, emails and posters. Student Sapho Weingold firmly believes that the IVI has the right to remain in place.
"I think that when a university leaves a building empty for so long, then they shouldn't be surprised when people settle in and use the space," she said.
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Who’s Who Among Bucknell Panelists?
Jim Campbell’s works of art, as exemplified in “At the Threshold,” do not lend themselves to one specific interpretation or categorization. Instead, understanding of Campbell’s works can be derived from their interdisciplinary nature, which will be explored on March 20 during a panel discussion at 6 pm in the Samek Art Gallery.
So who’s who among the panelists?! What are their specializations and how do they relate to Campbell’s work in “At the Threshold?”
To begin, Samek Director and Curator Richard Rinehart specializes in new media art, which utilizes technology as a means of art production- i.e. computer graphics, computer animation, virtual reality, augmented reality, robotics, etc. While the praise and criticism of new media art is varied, the genre does pose important questions for consideration. For instance, how are these works to be preserved for future generations to study and will this genre survive the test of time or is it just a passing technology fad?
In contrast to Rinehart’s artistic approach, Maurice Aburdene (Bucknell professor of Electrical Engineering) will be presenting audience members with a more technical understanding of Campbell’s work. His research interests include but are not limited to computer modeling and simulation, digital signal processing, and electrical instrumentation and measurements.
The third and final panelist for this evening’s discussion will be Maria Balcells, a visiting professor of Philosophy from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Considering her interests of time and metaphysics, Balcells approach to Campbell’s work is going to be theoretically based.
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Surfing the wave created by the break down and falling of part of an iceberg is completly crazy because of the size of the wave created and the freezing temperatures of the water. It is highly dangerous and should not be attempted without proper preparation and equipment.
A glacier is a mass of ice which is formed by many layers of snow accumulated on its surface. Crushed under its own weight, snow expels air in the glacier and it forms into one big block of ice. The glaciers represent 98.5% of fresh water on the planet.
Surfing Typhoon’s in Japan is just sick! No human being should surf a cyclone or typhoon wave, it is just suicidal!
The release of heat in a mature tropical cyclone or typhoon may exceed 2×1019 watts. This equates to a 10 megatonnes thermonuclear bomb detonated every 20 minutes. Tropical cyclones in the open sea cause huge waves, heavy rain and strong winds. This disturbs navigation routes and sometimes sinking ship. However, the most devastating tropical cyclones occur when they strike the coast and enter the land. In this case, a tropical cyclone may cause enormous damage.
Extreme Surfing Wipeout Video Featured Breaks :: Pipeline, Backdoor, the Wedge, Mavericks, Teahupoo and Jaws Some bad wipeouts in this extreme video! You know those guys are in pain after the brutal beating! Watch the Extreme Surf Wipeout Video ::
Extreme Surfers on Extreme Waves and Extreme Wipe Outs (Accidents) Ultimate Surfer WipeOut Photos Gallery The most Intense, Crazy and Extreme Surfing Photos ever photographed. What is Surfing ? Surfing is a surface water sport in which the participant is carried along the face of a breaking wave, most commonly using a surfboard, although wave [...]
GIRLS SURFING PHOTOS A surfer girl is so sexy! Click on the thumbnail to enlarge photos Talented Surfing by Girls Girl Surfing Photos Girls surf as well as guys, but I don’t need to tell you, you already know. It’s the same with most other sports. Some people have not yet understood that! Even if [...]
SURF VIDEO & PHOTOS QUIKSILVER PRO FRANCE 2005 I made this video at the end of the Quiksilver Surf Competition : Pro France 2005 at Hossegor in South of France, Cote Basque. In Adobe Premiere, i created a sick photo slideshow with the best professional photos. It’s so well done you wouldn’t think they’re actually [...]
Surf and BodyBoard in Anglet La Barre Big Wave BodyBoard and Surf video in the South of France in Anglet near Biarritz. The beach is “La Barre” and i filmed the surfers during a big January 2006 swell. Music : ” No Waves Week ” by : Philippe Boudal and Arnaud Joakim ” Delly ” [...]
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Industrial production in the rich world collapsed during the crisis. By the time American manufacturing bottomed out in June last year, output was nearly 15% lower than in January 2008. Japan and the euro area saw even steeper declines, as did Brazil. But although growth slowed markedly in China and India, output there never fell below its level at the beginning of 2008. Despite recent growth, factories in America, the euro area and Japan still produce less than they did in January 2008. By contrast, China's output in August was more than a third higher than at the beginning of 2008. Although its industrial growth has also slowed in recent months, annual rates of growth remain well above 10%.
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Eight Healthy Reasons To Drink Beer
Allison Van Dusen, 03.17.08, 12:01 AM ET
Looking for a good excuse to tip back a beer?
You don't have to wait for St. Patrick's Day. That's because a decade's worth of health research shows that regular, moderate beer intake--one to two 12 ounce glasses per day for men and one for women--can be good for you, especially if you're facing some of the most common diseases related to aging.
Experts say wine tends to get most of the attention when it comes to the health benefits of alcohol primarily because of the French paradox, a reference to the relatively low rate of heart disease in France in spite of a diet high in saturated fat. The idea is that daily sips of Merlot make the difference.
But a number of studies are showing that moderate consumption of alcohol, including beer, can have similar heart healthy effects, including making men 30 to 35% less likely to have a heart attack than those who abstain.
"Wine is still on moral high ground," says Charlie Bamforth, chair and professor of the department of food science and technology at the University of California, Davis, "but beer deserves just the same acclamation."
Interest in the health effects of beer has been growing over the past eight to 10 years in tandem with a rise in the popularity of craft beers--usually defined as products of brewers who make fewer than 2 million barrels a year, says Nancy Tringali Piho, a spokeswoman for the National Beer Wholesalers Association.
Unlike many mass-produced beers, craft beers tend to be brewed with a particular focus on flavor, appearance and aroma. Their appeal has attracted an upscale audience that's curious about the beverage and how it compares with wine health-wise.
The news is good, particularly for baby boomers, many of whom are dealing with obesity and high blood pressure, a major risk factor for heart disease and stroke.
Alcohol, including beer, in moderation raises high-density lipoprotein or HDL, known as good cholesterol, says Dr. R. Curtis Ellison, chief of the section of preventive medicine and epidemiology and professor of medicine and public health at the Boston University School of Medicine. It also appears to have a favorable effect on the lining of blood vessels, making them less likely to form a clot or for a clot to rupture and plug an artery, and may help protect against Type 2 diabetes.
"People should realize that a little bit of alcohol on a regular basis decreases the risks of aging," says Ellison, who specializes in researching, among other things, the relationship between moderate alcohol consumption and chronic diseases.
And earlier this month researchers at the National Institutes of Health released a study showing that frequent drinking in moderation may protect men from death due to cardiovascular disease. Men who reported drinking 120 to 365 days a year had a 20% lower cardiovascular death rate than those who drank one to 36 days a year. Overdoing it, however, can have the opposite effect. Men who knocked back five or more drinks when they did indulge had a 30% greater risk for death via heart disease.
Beer may also give your brain a boost.
Adults over age 65 who drank one to six alcoholic beverages over the course of the week turned out to have a lower risk of dementia than non-drinkers or heavier drinkers, according to a 2003 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Likewise, a 2006 report that appeared in an American Heart Association journal showed that a drink or two a day might be linked to better cognitive function in women.
Consume With Caution
And Bamforth says he's not so sure that the growing selection of organic beers, those that don't contain sulfites, chemical preservatives and are made with mostly, if not all, organic ingredients, or beers flavored with antioxidant-laden super-fruits will have much of a health impact. It's the alcohol content, as well as vitamins and minerals, in beer that has proved to make a difference.
More important, he doesn't recommend that people think of beer as medicine. Beer is something to enjoy, he says. Just don't feel guilty about indulging.
"In moderation," Bamforth says, "it's part of a wholesome diet."
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- Get Involved
- Education & Events
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- About ACA
20/20 Toolbox: The Public Charity — Structuring Considerations
You may be interested in starting a charitable organization. Specifically, some of you may be interested in organizing a tax-exempt entity in addition to the for-profit camp that you already operate. The following should answer some basic questions about the planning and practical steps that you would follow to start your charity and to receive tax-exempt status. This is a broad overview, and we hope that it serves as an opening to further conversations about the charity that you envision founding.
- There Is a Difference Between Nonprofit and Tax-Exempt
While these terms are often used interchangeably, they are in fact very different.
- A nonprofit corporation is a corporate entity formed at the state level; the key distinction between a nonprofit entity and a for-profit entity is that a nonprofit entity is not formed to benefit shareholders or owners.
- Once a nonprofit is formed, it can then apply to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to be exempt from federal income tax (a taxexempt entity). There is generally a corresponding application process at the state level to become exempt for state tax purposes.
- Your Entity Must Be Charitable
Generally, to be a tax-exempt entity, your entity must have a charitable purpose. The IRS has recognized a number of purposes that are charitable, including education and promotion of health. If you have identified your charitable purpose, your organization is not necessarily required to develop direct programs; instead, your charity may choose to provide grants to other charitable organizations that pursue your chosen purpose.
- Distinction Between Private Foundation and Public Charity
While your organization may have a charitable purpose and be eligible for tax-exemption, there is an additional distinction between being a private foundation and public charity. Public charities generally derive their funding or support primarily from the general public, receiving grants from individuals, government, and private foundations. Although some public charities engage in grant-making activities, most conduct direct services or other tax-exempt activities. A private foundation, on the other hand, usually derives its principal fund from a single source, such as an individual, family, or corporation, and more often than not is a grant maker. The IRS rules and regulations differ based upon the organization being classified as a public charity or private foundation.
- Planning consideration: If one of the principal purposes of your organization is to grant scholarships, different rules likely govern based upon your organization’s status as a private foundation or public charity. There are specific guidelines that an organization must follow if granting scholarships, particularly if the organization is a private foundation related to a corporate entity (i.e., a for-profit camp).
- Choosing a Board of Directors Is Critical
Since your organization does not have shareholders like a for-profit entity, your board of directors will be instrumental in shaping the ultimate form of your organization’s charitable activities. Your board should include individuals with specialized professional experience. If you operate a for-profit camp, it is critical that your nonprofit and for-profit entities are operated separately. While it may be acceptable to have an overlap in individuals involved in both organizations, obtaining legal guidance in this area is necessary.
- Applications for Federal and State Tax Exemption
Once the governance structure is in place, the next step is to file for federal and state tax exemption with the IRS and appropriate state agency. The federal application is a comprehensive application that will require a detailed narrative of your organization’s proposed activities, a budget for the next three years, and detailed information regarding your organization.
- Operating a Charitable Organization
Charitable organizations are a part of a highly regulated industry with strict rules that are not intuitive. Areas of concern include, but are not limited to, state fundraising laws, lobbying activities, unrelated business income, and licensing agreements. It is very important for a public charity to have an experienced management team to recognize potential problems before they arise.
- “On Board with Camp,” by Ann Sheets, September/October 2012 Camping Magazine
- “Operating in Two Worlds: Tandem Structures in Social Enterprise,” by Ingrid Mittermaier and Joey Neugart, Adler & Colvin, retrieved from www.lawforchange.org/NewsBot.asp?MODE=VIEW&ID=4892
Rich Smikle’s practice includes litigation, general business, and advice to colleges and universities. He has worked with public and private colleges and universities and their boards, foundations, and administrations for over twenty years.
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How to Use
Reading 3: Effects of the Battle of Oriskany
The retreat of General St. Leger returned the Mohawk Valley to an uneasy peace which would not last for long. In late August, General Benedict Arnold offered to pardon any Tories who turned themselves in and joined the Rebels saying:
Whereas a certain Barry St. Leger a Brigadiergeneral in the services of the -------- George of Great Britain, at the head of a banditti of robbers, murderers, and traitors, composed of savages of America, and more savage Britons (among whom is noted Sir John Johnson, John Butler, and Daniel Claus) have lately appeared in the frontiers of this State, and have threatened ruin and destruction to all the inhabitants of the United States. They have also, by artifice and misrepresentation, induced many ignorant and unwary subjects of these states, to forfeit their allegiance to the same, and join them in their crimes, and parties of treachery and parricide.¹
Pierre Van Cortland, writing to New York Governor George Clinton on August 25, 1777, was confident that the British strategy to capture New York was failing:
I have great reason to believe that Genl: Burgoyne will soon follow the example of St. Leger, and my greatest fear is that he will be equally fortunate in getting off without a second drubbing, as the militia do not turn out with that alacrity which might be expected. A proper spirit on this occasion would enable us totally to destroy the enemy in the quarter, and secure peace and safety to this part of the country. The enemy are in our power, could the militia only be prevailed on to believe it.²
Van Cortland was correct that the British force led by General Burgoyne would not succeed; on October 17, 1777, after failing to break through the Rebel lines protecting Albany, and suffering from lack of supplies, General Burgoyne surrendered his entire army at Saratoga. General Howe never committed his full army to the third thrust up the Hudson Valley, but instead attacked Philadelphia.
New York was no longer threatened by three British armies, but it continued to suffer the trauma of civil war. Sir John Johnson and Joseph Brant returned to the Mohawk Valley with their Tory forces repeatedly, raiding and destroying villages, crops, and livestock, and massacring enemies and innocents alike. The Rebels retaliated on Tory strongholds, most notably when General Sullivan led his troops through western New York destroying everything in his wake. When the Oneidas requested that neutral Onondaga villages be spared, their pleas were ignored and they were destroyed along with villages aligned with the Tories.
In 1783, the Treaty of Paris ended the war between the United States and Great Britain. It was followed in 1784 by the Treaty of Fort Stanwix which ended the war between the United States and the Iroquois Confederacy. The ancestral lands of the Oneida and Tuscarora Nations were preserved and protected by the federal government under the terms of this treaty, in recognition of their support during the American Revolution. However, the Mohawks, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas were confined to a small reservation, punished for supporting the Tory cause.
Although New York was enjoying true peace again, Tories of European and American Indian heritage were faced with a difficult decision, either to remain in the new United States and accept its government or to leave the country. While some Tories chose to stay in the United States, many moved. Some went to the British and Caribbean Islands, but the vast majority moved to Canada and settled there on lands granted by Great Britain. Today there are still large numbers of Canadians of European and Native American extraction who can trace their ancestry to the United States and the Revolutionary War. Descendants from the tribes that made up the Iroquois Confederacy have worked for years to restore their lost unity and relight the Central Council Fire.
Questions for Reading 3
1. Find out about Benedict Arnold's career. Re-read his address to the Tories of New York. Does it help you to understand his character better? If so, how?
2. How do you think the people in central New York reacted to news of the Battle of Oriskany? Consider each of the following groups in your answer: German, Dutch, European-American Tories, American Indian Tories, American Indian Rebels.
3. How did the battle affect life in central New York for the remainder of the war?
4. What do you think was the significance of the Battle of Oriskany to central New York? To the outcome of the Revolutionary War? To the fate of the Iroquois Confederacy? To world history? Why?
5. Which groups benefited the most from the Rebel victory and American independence in the short term? Explain your answer.
6. Which groups benefited the most from the Rebel victory and American independence in the long run? Explain your answer.
Reading 3 was adapted from Barbara Graymont, The Iroquois in the American Revolution (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1972); Isabel T. Kelsay, Joseph Brant, 1743-1807: Man of Two Worlds (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1984); Philip Ranlet, The New York Loyalists (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1986); and W. Max Reid, The Mohawk Valley: Its Legends and its History, 1609-1780 (New York: G. P. Putnam's & Sons, 1901).¹ John Luzader, The Construction and Military History of Fort Stanwix (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1969) 52.
²Pierre Van Cortland to Gov. George Clinton, August 25, 1777, Public Papers of George Clinton (Albany: State of New York, 1900) 253-254.
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Almost 25 years after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine contaminated a large swathe of territory across Europe, several Eastern European countries are embarking on new and ambitious plans to construct new nuclear power plants. Ostensibly, the main reason for the development is a desire to end dependence on Russian oil and gas, supplies of which have been cut off periodically to Ukraine and Belarus in particular.
The new programs are costly and controversial, and although there is far more emphasis on safety than in the late Soviet period, a huge build-up of capacity in particular regions has residents fearful of the impact of an accident.
Ukraine currently has 15 reactors, which provide about 50% of its electricity. After the closure of Chernobyl in 2000, emphasis switched to the completion of new reactors—Khmelnytsky-2 and Rivne-4—in western Ukraine, though the largest nuclear plant in Europe is Enerhodar, near Zaporizhzhya on the Dnipro River, which has 6 Russian-manufactured water-pressured reactors (VVER), each of 1,000 megawatts (MW) capacity.
Three years ago, the Ukrainian government approved plans for the construction of twenty new reactors by 2030, including 11 new units and 9 to replace existing ones. The first two units to come on line will be Khmelnytsky 3 and 4 units by 2017, construction on which was halted when Ukraine imposed a moratorium on building new reactors in 1990. About 85% of the financing for these new units will come from a Russian loan.
At the same time, with the aid of the European Bank and a large donation from the European Commission, the International Chernobyl Shelter Fund is to construct a new cover for the destroyed fourth reactor at Chernobyl at a cost of around US$1 billion.
To the north, Belarus has also announced plans to build its first nuclear power plant, commencing with two Russian-made VVER-1000 reactors, which are anticipated to come into service in 2016 and 2018 respectively. President Alyaksandr Lukashenka has approved the plan, and the site selected is in Hrodna region, close to the border with Lithuania.
Lukashenka has angrily criticized Russia for raising the prices of imported gas and for its plans to build a transmission pipeline through the Baltic States, thereby depriving both Ukraine and Belarus of profits on gas supplied to Central and Western Europe.
The location of the Belarusian construction has raised concerns in Lithuania, as it is dangerously close to the capital Vilnius. However, Lithuania has similar problems. When it joined the European Union in 2004, it agreed to close its Ignalina station (two graphite-moderated 1,500 MW reactors) by the end of 2009. Ignalina has supplied electricity to several countries, including Belarus and Russia’s Kaliningrad region. Lithuania is now commissioning bids from European Union investors for a replacement station in the same location.
In 2008, Russia’s nuclear energy authority—Rosatom—revealed a new program to build a 1200 MW plant near Sovetsk in the Kaliningrad enclave by 2016. Once again the construction would be very close to Lithuania, this time to its northern border. Residents of Kaliningrad have questioned the need for the plant and a survey reveals that 26% oppose it and a further 43% are concerned about its safety.
Poland has long relied on its coal industry to supply its energy needs and abandoned plans to build a station at Zarnowiec in the 1980s. However, the Polish government energy industry has long focused on lignite coal, which poses an environmental hazard. Thus Warsaw has also announced plans to construct two nuclear reactors by 2020, with the abandoned Zarnowiec site discussed as a possible location.
The recovery of nuclear power in the area most affected by the world’s worst nuclear disaster is remarkable. Either these governments are seeking more economic independence or else they regard the atomic option as the least ecologically hazardous of energy industries.
However, the potential problems are huge. Other than Russia, none of the states has adequate storage sites for radioactive waste. Most lack domestic technology and expertise. Only Russia and Ukraine possess adequate supplies of uranium; and only Russia of the expanding countries manufactures nuclear reactors.
The biggest problem of all is lack of funding. Whereas Lithuania can anticipate financial support from the EU for its replacement station, Ukraine and Belarus must seek investment elsewhere. Paradoxically, they are reliant primarily on Russian loans and technology to develop an industry intended to reduce dependence on their troublesome neighbor.
Finally, some 7 million people inhabiting this part of Europe are living on lands affected by radiation from Chernobyl. The accident continues to raise health concerns and long-living radio-nuclides remain in the soil. Yet a massive nuclear energy expansion program is in place. It is reminiscent of the Soviet plans of the 1970s and 1980s, and equally unrealistic.
(First published in the EDMONTON JOURNAL, 13 October 2009)
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|
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Is Chiropractic Care Safe For Adults and Children?
Chiropractic care has been successful treating both adults and children. It is possible for children to receive chiropractic adjustments when they suffer from any dysfunction on the neck, back, or spine. Since young children or toddlers’ bodies are different from that of an adult, it is important to take on a specialized approach for them.
Chiropractic in Infants or Toddlers
Many infants or babies suffer trauma during their birth process. Therefore, parents must pay close attention to any misalignment on their neck or spine. Since they are unable to speak about how they feel or any pain they’re suffering from, study them when they are seated.
If they are constantly looking in the same direction, then this could ultimately lead to an irritation hence adjustments need to be done to provide relief for the baby. Aside from reducing the amount of discomfort that the baby suffers from, it also allow a wider range of motion in their neck area. Since the stability of a baby’s spine is crucial in their development, chiropractic adjustments are therefore necessary in establishing a normal pattern of motion.
Also I have observed that children who receive chiropractic treatment seem to be sick less often, have less ear infections and other long term health benefits.
Chiropractic in Kids/Children
In cases of older children, their engagement in sports or active routine could expose them to problems in their spine, neck, or back pain. Hence, it is no longer uncommon these days to find children being treated with chiropractic care. In other cases, those who suffer from migraine can be treated by conducting adjustments on the vertebrae to eliminate the frequency or reduce the amount of discomfort caused by the migraine.
Symptoms: Knowing When Your Child Needs Chiropractic Care
Unless it has reached a crucial stage or has become quite obvious, spinal problems in children are often difficult to identify. And yet, early detection from parents is crucial in order to ensure that your child is provided the medical care it needs to normalize bodily functions and free them of any discomfort associated with the condition. Below are common symptoms that could indicate a spinal dysfunction in your child:
• abnormal sleeping patterns
• misaligned shoulders
• limited mobility of the head or neck
• recurrence of ear infection
• constant headaches
• persistent colds
• for infants, difficulties in breastfeeding
A common cause for parents to seek chiropractic care for their young children is due to trauma suffered from an injury. When a child suffers from any physical injury, it could cause a misalignment on the spine. In some cases, no pain or injury are suffered right away but the problem is internal and it does not often manifest itself right away.
Is It Safe?
A gentle approach is used on children. As with adults too, children can undergo a painless procedure of chiropractic treatment.
A children chiropractor would begin with an assessment of a child’s health condition by asking the parent a series of questions. Or if the child is old enough, the doctor asks them for any specific complaints.
Following chiropractic treatment, children respond to the treatment much faster than most adults do. In fact, most only require a few sessions until the normal functions of the affected part are restored.
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|
This file contains the names, addresses, telephone number, membership, type, grade span, and number of schools of the public school districts in the 50 states, District of Columbia, five outlying areas, the Department of Defense and Bureau of Indian Affairs schools for school year 2009-10.
If you need additional information about the data records or definitions, please contact Patrick.Keaton.
The text files are comma delimited. They can be opened in MS Excel or imported into most other applications. The file layout and variables are described below.
|1||LEAID (Agency ID)|
|12||Lowest Grade Taught|
|13||Highest Grade Taught|
|14||Number of Schools|
Missing and Not Applicable Data
Missing values (where a value was expected, but none was measured) are represented as an "M" in alphanumeric fields and a "-1" in numeric fields. Non-applicable values (where a value was neither expected nor measured) are represented as an "N" in alphanumeric fields and a "-2" in numeric fields.
LEAID (Agency ID)
This field displays the 7 digit agency identification number. This number can be used to link the agency (district) to its schools on the school address file. The first 7 digits of the 12 digit school ID are the district ID, the last five are the school ID, put together, they make a 12 digit unique code for each school. The first 2 digits of the LEAID are the State FIPS code.
Enrollment (PK through Grade 12 Students)
Use this field (called Member in the Access file) to search for the total number of students enrolled in all grades at the agency level. The number represented in this field may differ from the total school membership reported in the school file for a given state. For example, a school may be operated directly by the state Board of Education, and not considered part of a local agency. There are also valid agency records that do not include students.
|Agency Code||Agency Type|
|1||local school district that is not a component of a supervisory union|
|2||local school district component of a supervisory union sharing a superintendent and administrative services with other local school districts|
|3||supervisory union administrative center, or a county superintendent serving the same purposes|
|4||regional education service agency or a county superintendent serving the same purposes|
|5||state-operated institution charged, at least in part, with providing elementary and/or secondary instruction or services to a special-needs population|
|6||federally operated institution charged, at least in part, with providing elementary and/or secondary instruction or services to a special-needs population|
|7||Charter Agency: All schools associated with the agency are charter schools|
|8||Other Education Agency: Agency providing elementary or secondary instruction or support services that does not fall within the definitions of agency types 1–7|
UG and 00 each occurs only in isolation from other codes. When one of these does occur, it is both the lowest and highest grade.
Number of Schools
The number of schools operating in the district.
|CCD Address Files|
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What is Railbanking?
Railbanking (as defined by the National Trails System Act, 16 USC 1247 (d)) is a voluntary agreement between a railroad company and a trail agency to use an out-of-service rail corridor as a trail until some railroad might need the corridor again for rail service. Because a railbanked corridor is not considered abandoned, it can be sold, leased or donated to a trail manager without reverting to adjacent landowners. The railbanking provisions of the National Trails System Act as adopted by Congress in 1983 have preserved 4,431 miles of rail corridors in 33 states that would otherwise have been abandoned.
Opponents of railbanking have unsuccessfully challenged the constitutionality of the railbanking provisions of the National Trails System Act in the United States Supreme Court and continue their efforts to stop implementation through onerous legislative restrictions on trail development introduced regularly in Congress. Rails-to-Trails Conservancy remains vigilant in monitoring legislative and legal assaults on railbanking and will continue to build support in favor of the railbanking statute in the future. The 4,431 miles of preserved rail corridor are a testament to the importance of the act.
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UK Pound Weakens on Soft Economic Recovery
The yen weakened against the euro as Japan considers expanding its quantitative easing program. The yen fell to 121.9 yen against the euro and to 89.08 yen per US dollar.
Japan is facing deflation pressures and the Finance Minister told policymakers that additional measures are needed to prevent a downward price spiral. Consumer prices fell in January by 1.3 percent. This represents 11 months of decline.
The euro weakened again to $1.3606 against the US dollar. Once again, it is the problems with Greece that are causing the euro to weaken beyond what was expected. Increasing pressure is being put on Greece to do more to resolve its budget deficit. Greece is in the unfortunate position of having the largest budget deficit among European Union members.
The euro has been pounded the last two months due to budget deficits among member nations.
The real concern though is the underlying problems that led to the large budget deficit. It will not benefit the EU to offer Greece a financial rescue package if little has been done to correct the policies that led to the deficit over the years.
There are clear signs that a financial package is being developed by the European Union that will involve 25 billion euros in aid to Greece. This is despite warnings from Germany that no aid would be given so apparently Germany has softened its stance to protect the euro.
But Greece is being asked to do more about reducing its budget deficit. The aid being considered can be used to finance debt, but the aid won’t be released until the EU sees a tough plan put in place by Greece to reduce the budget deficit. Greece is having problems establishing a reduction plan as government workers continue to hold strikes objecting to government spending reductions.
The euro rose against the UK pound to 89.73 pence per euro. The UK economy remains weak as policymakers consider expanding their program of quantitative easing.
British elections are to be held in June and the current government was hoping for better economic data by now. Sterling fell to a 9-month low when paired with the US dollar and reached US$1.5129. The pound also hit a 12-month low of 134.50 yen.
The Australian dollar advanced against to 89.77 US cents. The strengthening Aussie reflects an economy that is recovering at a faster pace than predicted. In addition, the US economy continues to falter with a Labor Department report due on Friday expected to show unemployment rising again leading once again to a weaker US dollar against the Aussie.
The central bank could raise the Australian benchmark interest rate as soon as tomorrow. Speculation is that the rate will go up by 25 basis points.
Chile’s peso rose to 522.75 pesos per US dollar. Chile’s peso weakened after the earthquake as copper mining operations were suspended. But copper revenues are expected to help the economy recover from the recession and will replace falling export revenues. Chile holds the honor of having the highest rated Latin American debt and a well managed economy. The peso is expected to continue advancing through 2010.
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|
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|
Trojan Condoms launched a provocative campaign on North American televisions on June 19, featuring a bar full of women and pigs. One pig, while in the mens bathroom, discovers a Trojan condom dispenser. As he walks back into the bar he evolves into an attractive human male, immediately attracting the attention of the woman who had previously been disturbed by his advances.
Click on the image below to play the video in YouTube
“Evolve is a wake-up call to change attitudes about using condoms and, on a larger scale, the way we think and talk about sexual health in this country,” said Jim Daniels, vice president of marketing for TROJAN®. “Other than abstinence, the best way people can prevent unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infection is to use a condom every time they have sex. Unfortunately, that’s just not happening today—single sexually-active Americans between the ages of 18 and 54 use them only about 25 percent of the time. We urgently need to foster healthier attitudes about sexual health and condom use.”
The campaign’s premise is simple but powerful: People who are sexually active should take steps to protect and respect each other, and using condoms is an important part of this approach.
“A change in behavior takes a change in attitude,” said Dr. Drew Pinsky, board-certified physician and host of the nationally syndicated radio program Loveline. “The Evolve campaign effectively argues that condoms are a positive symbol of respect for ourselves and our partner as well as a critical component of sexual health and enjoyment—and that not using condoms can bring a dangerous outcome to an otherwise special connection.”
The Evolve advertising campaign was created by the Kaplan Thaler Group, New York.
“We have to change the perception that carrying a condom for women or men is a sign they’re on the prowl and just want to have sex,” said Linda Kaplan Thaler, chief executive of the Kaplan Thaler Group. “It’s a sign of somebody being prepared — if the opportunity arises — to think about their own health and the health and safety of their partner.”
“The humor in the advertising spots is our way of getting consumers’ attention and opening up a serious conversation about sexually healthy lifestyles. Some people may be initially surprised by the imagery, but we’re really using the pigs as a metaphor for selfish behavior to call to attention a very important subject.”
Andrew Newman at NY Times on June 18 wrote that the campaign was running on a number of networks including ABC, NBC and nine cable networks, including MTV, Comedy Central and Adult Swim, but had been rejected by Fox and CBS.
The Trojan Evolve campaign is online at trojanevolve.com, including the TV ad, behind the scenes, the print advertisement, sexual health information, and links to helpful online resources.
Lyrics used in the Trojan Evolve commercial
I ask you for your number
Then I ask you for a dance
I ask you for a little kiss
Just a chance for some romance
But no matter what the question
I see the answer in your eyes
They’re saying baby, maybe
(ha!) when pigs fly…
I ain’t giving up that easy
No I ain’t going to quit
I take another look
at what I got ’cause honey
you have to admit
I know what it takes to
make your heart sink
Look again baby
I just got wings!
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Wildlife Site Request
Use the Wildlife Site Request button above to request a booking
Birmingham is fortunate in having a rich variety of natural open spaces, a large proportion of these are held in trust by the City Council. The health of this natural environment and the wildlife it contains is important to everyone and needs to be cherished and enjoyed by all, both now and in the future. The responsibility for making this happen lies with Birmingham Parks Ranger Service.
Nature conservation is an important part of our work and involves planning, practical management and advisory work. Rangers use a combination of skills and expertise including traditional countryside management techniques, and modern ecological techniques for surveying and monitoring habitats and wildlife. Much of the work is carried out by volunteers from businesses and community groups under supervision of the Ranger Service.
If you have a group visiting one of the sites you can arrange for a ranger to provide a guided walk and talk to gain the most out of your visit. Please access the online form by using the Request Wildlife Site Visit button above. For more information including charges for this service see the information below. Please also use this form to enquire about organising a practical volunteering activity in a wildlife site.
If you would like information about wildlife in Birmingham’s parks, country parks and nature reserves, please complete the online form using the Request Wildlife Information button.
If you have an enquiry about injured wildlife, please contact the RSPCA, Barnes Hill, Birmingham, B29 5UP - 0121 426 6777 for advice.
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This article was originally distributed via PRWeb. PRWeb, WorldNow and this Site make no warranties or representations in connection therewith.
SOURCE: Lab-Volt Systems
The College of New Jersey (TCNJ) and their Smart Electric Power System Laboratory (SEPS), a recent recipient of the National Science Foundations’ Major Research Initiative grant, is now fully operational and powered Lab-Volt Systems equipment.
Farmingdale, New Jersey (PRWEB) October 05, 2012
Funded by the National Science Foundation, the Smart Electric Power System (SEPS) Laboratory at The College of New Jersey is now fully operational as an academic and research lab. The new laboratory’s Lab-Volt equipment features advanced power engineering and renewable energy laboratory hardware thanks to NSF’s Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) initiative which recently granted TCNJ. The laboratory, under the direction of Dr. Anthony Deese, will physically emulate the structure and behavior of an electric power system, like that operated by PSEG and PECO.
Composed of “scaled” three-phase AC power supplies, transformers, transmission lines, and synchronous as well as induction machines, the academic research lab will allow TCNJ students and researchers the unique ability to manipulate the parameters and topology of a physical power system as well as observe the effect of their actions. This hardware, in addition to components associated with a “traditional” power system, will provide TCNJ students and researchers with access to emerging “smart grid” technologies including photovoltaic cells, wind turbines, NiMH battery storage, solid-state power electronic converters, and embedded data acquisition/actuation capability.
Lab-Volt, makers of the largest selection of hands-on technical training systems available to train technicians, engineers and researchers of the future, can meet the demands of many electronics labs or research objectives. The electromechanical systems’ custom configuration provides the ability to teach a vast range of information and technological skills required for the power electronics laboratory.
Lab-Volt is a global leader in the design and manufacture of hands-on training laboratories for public education, industry and the military. With corporate headquarters in Farmingdale, NJ, Lab-Volt is recognized as a world leader for high-quality, cost-effective instructional systems that integrate the latest technological advances with sound pedagogical practice, offering comprehensive, multimedia-rich, e-learning, blended learning, and custom learning solutions, as well as extensive, cutting-edge, hands-on and simulation training curriculum.
For the original version on PRWeb visit: http://www.prweb.com/releases/prweb2012/10/prweb9964781.htm
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75 million to flee climate change: report
A new report says climate change could produce 75 million refugees in the Asia Pacific region in the next 40 years.
It urges Australia to put new immigration measures in place to help with people movements, and to cut deeply into its own climate-changing greenhouse gas emissions.
The report, by aid agency Oxfam Australia and think-tank the Australia Institute, says the effects of climate change are already being felt in the region.
It says addressing the immigration question is vital, as is giving more financial assistance to the region targeted specifically at measures to help communities adapt.
The release of the report is timed to add to pressure on Australia over the issue when it chairs the Pacific Islands Forum leaders' meeting in the Queensland city of Cairns next week.
Climate change is expected to be a major issue for the regional leaders.
The Australia Institute's executive director, Richard Denniss, says the Rudd Government has failed to live up to promises it made to the Pacific before its election, going silent in particular on immigration.
"Some areas, some low-lying atolls, are already becoming impossible to inhabit and we do need to assist these people. We need to be talking to their governments about how we can help them move within their countries," Dr Denniss told Radio Australia's Pacific Beat program.
"But in time, we do need to discuss the very real possibility of some of these people having to move."
Oxfam Australia's executive director, Andrew Hewett, says the impact of climate change is already being seen in the Pacific.
"They're facing increasing food and water shortages, they're losing land, they're being forced from their homes, they're dealing with rising cases of malaria and they're facing much more intense weather patterns," Mr Hewett said.
He says Australia should be helping to build on work already being done by Pacific countries.
Australia has allocated $150 million to help with climate change in the Pacific.
The government says it is conducting research and already helping with local initiatives, such as building water tanks in Tuvalu.
The groups say at least double that amount will be required from Australia and they say tighter controls are needed to make sure the money is spent on adaptation-specific measures.
The groups also say that as the region's richest country and one of the world's biggest polluters, Australia has a responsibility to make deep cuts to its greenhouse gas emissions.
"Prevention is better than cure on this and step one is to demand tougher targets of ourselves and of other developed countries," Dr Denniss says.
The report has also called for a fixed percentage of Australia's planned carbon trading scheme to be allocated to the Pacific for climate change and for the Rudd government to fulfil an election promise to set up a Pacific Climate Change Alliance to strengthen the Pacific voice in international climate change talks.
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|
Brandman’s newest online program prepares students for the challenges of college.
Irvine, CA– July 3, 2012 – Brandman University, a part of the Chapman University System, is now accepting applications for its innovative online Associate of Arts (AA) degree program. With many distractions to detract from one’s schooling, online education has become increasingly popular due to its flexibility. And while Bachelor’s and graduate degree candidates may thrive on the flexibility that online programs offer, students who are new to college sometimes lack the maturity and discipline required for online education.
The announcement signifies a new direction for Brandman which has served non-traditional students and working adults since 1958. In recent years, the University has accepted only applicants with some college experience (12 credit units) under their belt. The new AA program in General Education is open to students with no previous college, as long as they have a high school diploma or GED, a verified cumulative high school GPA of 2.0, and English and Math competency determined by an admissions exam or successful completion of college-level English and Math courses.
The vast majority of students seeking the Associate of Arts or ‘AA’ degree through California’s community college system are not ready for the challenges ahead. And most will never achieve their goal. Critics blame an overcrowded public system burdened by underprepared college freshman who have limited access to advising and quality academic program planning. Research shows that it takes students entering college without proper preparation several terms longer, more credits, and more classes to complete their degrees—causing many to simply drop out (Bailey et al., 2010; California Budget Project; 2011) .
In response, Brandman, a private, non-profit institution accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC), designed an innovative AA program that includes the same strong support and advising services they offer to upper-level, online and on-ground students. With a graduation rate of nearly 70 percent and a student loan default rate of 2.3 percent, significantly lower than the national average of 8.8 percent, Brandman surpasses the outcomes of many universities, both traditional and non-traditional.
To further ensure that the new program is successful, Brandman University employed a 5-step curriculum process. The process is based on an intensive research-based review of educational literature, a competitive analysis and a demand analysis.
Jennifer Tucker Klein, Assistant Vice Chancellor of Research and Planning at Brandman said, “Across the state, we’ve seen a large number of students come into college underprepared for the rigor ahead. Standard measures like placement and diagnostic tests, in other words - ‘what we’ve always been doing’ - are no longer working. Instead, we meet students where they are, foster their academic growth through integrating applied skills within curriculum, then we naturally make the learning experience more meaningful and do so successfully.” Dr. Klein was one of 30 leading researchers invited by US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to participate in a Washington D.C. think tank that examined promising practices for improving college completion. Brandman applied key findings from that symposium to the new program. She continues, “No one starts college with the goal to drop out. We’ve set out to solve the problem and found that a combination of innovation and strong student support services is the key to success.”
For more information about Brandman University’s AA Program in General Education, call (800) 746-0379 or visit www.brandman.edu/associates.
About Brandman University
Brandman University is a private, non-profit institution accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC). Established in 1958 and a part of the Chapman University System, Brandman blends a legacy of academic excellence with progressive, innovative curriculum and strong support services designed for working professionals. The university serves more than 10,000 students annually in 50+ undergraduate, graduate, credential, and certificate programs in arts and sciences, business, education and health, offered both online and through 26 campuses in California and Washington. For more information, call (800) 746-0379 or visit www.brandman.edu. Find us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/BrandmanUniversity and Twitter www.twitter.com/BrandmanU
Grad Rates: www.brandman.edu/sources
Student loan default rate: http://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/default-rates-rise-federal-student-loans
Bailey, T., Jeong, D. W., & Cho, S.-W. (2010, March). Referral, enrollment, and completion in developmental education sequences in community colleges. Economics of Education Review, 29, 255–270.
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|
Fast thread-local storage for OpenGL drivers
gareth at nvidia.com
Sun Feb 23 20:44:10 CST 2003
Roland McGrath wrote:
> In glibc, we actually allocate some excess space in the thread-local
> storage area layout determined at startup time. This lets a dynamically
> loaded module use static TLS if its PT_TLS segment fits in the available
> surplus. (In sysdeps/generic/dl-tls.c, see TLS_STATIC_SURPLUS.) If there
> is insufficient space preallocated, then loading the module will fail. In
> fact, we put this feature there with GL in mind and can adjust the
> preallocated surplus for what is most useful in practice.
The last time we discussed this issue, I had the distinct impression that an
OpenGL library would essentially be forced into using one of the dynamic
access models (GD or LD) for __thread variables, hence requiring at least
one function call to access a thread-local variable. I also had the
distinct impression that the glibc maintainers were unwilling to modify
their implementation so that we could use the LE access model, which would
allow a 2 instruction thread-safe dispatcher among other things.
It looks like I was wrong, and you've gone and addressed all the concerns I
originally had with __thread variables. For that, I'm grateful.
> In fact, we put this feature there with GL in mind...
Did you inform the OpenGL vendors who were interested in this issue of this
fact? Have you documented it anywhere, particularly in Ulrich Drepper's
"ELF Handling For Thread-Local Storage" document? The current version of
this document clearly states that the Local Exec TLS model "can only be used
for code in the executable itself and to access variables in the executable
itself". Perhaps you can see why I was still under the impression that it
would not work for a dynamically loadable shared library.
Gareth Hughes (gareth at nvidia.com)
OpenGL Developer, NVIDIA Corporation
More information about the wine-devel
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Blog - The Hornet Hive
Read posts about WebHornet Website Builder and Content Management System (WCMS), new WebHornet Features, Web Design and Development, Tips and Tricks using WebHornet, Website Marketing and more.
Studies show that more than 97% of all information is now carried over the Internet. Therefore, if a prospect is inquiring about your company’s legitimacy or a resource for their needs, the web is how they begin their research.
Since the mid-1990s, the Internet and the World Wide Web (WWW) have influenced commerce in extraordinary ways. There are many features and functions that new small business websites should have:
The above are just a few examples of website functionality that can energize your small business if your website is regularly maintained, updated and expanded. Your website is the front door to your business and should be the tool that provides updated and consistent information; giving prospects and clients exactly what they are looking for.
Use your website as the primary place to display your company's publicly accessible content, images, videos and any other related digital assets. These assets can include White Papers, PowerPoint Presentations, Documents and Lead Capture Forms.
But why stop there? Your website can be more than a classic five-page online brochure. Information about your company’s products and services are just the beginning. Include audio, video, interactive menus and navigation. Your website can also require a login to allow certain user groups or members access to content specifically meant for them.
Basic examples of members and user groups may include:
The old ways of thinking about web sites are gone! ‘If my site looks good people will find it’ or ‘Build it and they will come’, we have all heard these sayings, but are they true in the Internet World?
No matter how elaborate and impressive your site may be, the main goal of most businesses is to be found by Search Engines. Today, you have an enormous opportunity to place your business online and in a leadership position for your segment of the market. This represents a unique option to make a strong first impression and an overall experience that is good for your visitors.
You can control how your website evolves, how it’s built, maintained and marketed, but you must develop a new approach, not just new priorities. Understanding the value and reason for incorporating appropriate links, keywords, tags and site map AS WELL AS adding engaging video content, and updating your home page with fresh content regularly AND maintaining a user-focused blog. Because the content of a website is the subject matter that attracts and keeps an audience, the arrangement of your content should closely follow your website’s purpose so your audience doesn’t get frustrated or lost. Prepare your content features so that they directly relate to your audience's activities, interests, and concerns. A good plan is to focus your content strategy on creation, delivery and management:
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The Building Blocks of Scouting
Scouting is based on life skills education, leadership development, citizenship, and values training. Its unique methods of program presentation are designed to help build youth with strong character who are physically fit and prepared to be good citizens.
The Boy Scouts of America provides recognition for Scout achievements. The
advancement program allows Scouts to progress from rank to rank.
Community Organizations and Scouting Councils
Scouting teaches skills that help youth develop into quality citizens.
Organizations that are interested in nurturing youth for the betterment
of the community will find Scouting to be a positive form of community
Scout-age boys experience dramatic physical and emotional growth. Scouting
offers them opportunities to channel much of that change into productive
endeavors and to find the answers to many of their questions.
Boy Scouts is a boy-led, boy-run organization, but the boys must be
trained to be leaders. One of the Scoutmaster's most important responsibilities...
The Order of the Arrow
The Order of the Arrow serves as Scouting's National Honor Society. More
than 176,000 members strong, the Order recognizes Scouts and Scouters who
best exemplify the Scout Oath and Law in their daily lives
Scouting provides many opportunities for young men ages 11 through 17 to
help plan and participate in rugged outdoor adventures. From day hikes to
camporees and summer camp, the troop plans activities that match the interests and abilities of the Scouts
The Patrol Method
Patrols are the building blocks of a Boy Scout troop. A patrol is a small
group of boys who are similar in age, development, and interests. Working
together as a team, patrol members share the responsibility for the patrol's
Scouting is a values-based program with its own code of conduct. The
Scout Oath and Law help instill the values of good conduct, respect for...
Scouts with Special Needs
The basic premise of Scouting for youth with special needs is that every
boy wants to participate fully and be respected like every other member of
the troop. While there are, by necessity, troops exclusively composed of
Scouts with disabilities, experience has shown that Scouting usually
succeeds best when every boy is part of a patrol in a regular troop
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Holiday lights can be recycled drop-off locations countywide
Most programs include an incentive for switching to energy-efficient LEDs
Scott Nash, the Bethesda resident who founded MOM's Organic Market in 1987, has not strung lights outside his home yet he wanted to savor every minute of Thanksgiving first but when he does, he will string up the LED lights he bought two years ago.
"LED lights are really great-looking with the bright colors," Nash said. "They look better and they're better for the environment."
MOM's, which prides itself for a collection of off-the-beaten path recycling efforts each year, started collecting used, broken, shredded and otherwise neglected holiday lights this year at each of its six stores in Maryland and Virginia.
The company will accept drop-offs from customers through Jan. 31, 2011, offering a 25 percent coupon for new LED lights at the customer service counter as a trade-in.
"I'm sure it's something we'll continue to do for years," Nash said. "We're all for getting rid of energy-hogging lights and looking at new opportunities."
Collections only started this week, but the Rockville store already had one box full for shipping Monday afternoon.
The lights will go to HolidayLEDs.com, an online retailer, which started a mail-in recycling program in 2007, months after it began operating.
"Our customers felt bad just throwing their old lights away," said Phillip Curtis, owner of the Jackson, Mich.-based company. "It may be great to switch to LED lights to save energy, but on the other hand, they were just sending something else to the landfill."
HolidayLEDs quickly partnered with OmniSource, a metal recycler, to create a new market for chopped-up Christmas lights. Customers mail their used strings to HolidayLEDs and the company takes them to OmniSource which runs the light bundles through a large commercial shredder. The resulting bits are separated into their usable parts: copper wire, PVC wire coating and plastic or glass bulb parts.
Because holiday light recycling is a relatively new phenomenon, hard numbers for participation are not available.
"We were the first ones to do it, as far as I know," Curtis said.
Since 2007, the company has recycled 30,000 pounds, with increased interest each year, he said.
The Recycling Association of Minnesota is trying to collect 200,000 pounds of used Christmas lights to recycle this winter.
National retailers such as Lowe's, Home Depot and CVS have started light-recycling programs, adding to the trend. The Lowe's store in Gaithersburg will accept lights through Christmas Eve.
Local light-recycling opportunities are being pushed by the Montgomery County Division of Solid Waste Services. "We have a goal to recycle 50 percent of all waste generated in Montgomery County, so we are always looking for ways to educate people on recycling," said Alan Pultyniewicz, the county's recycling manager.
Chaz Miller, president of the Maryland Recycling Network and director of state programs for the National Solid Wastes Management Association, said similar programs are starting to spring up around the state. Infinity Recycling in Chestertown will accept used holiday lights as part of their curbside recycling program this season. In Howard County, residents are being directed to MOM's and online retailers.
Miller said light recycling represents a shift in the industry toward more complex recycling processes.
"This is an attempt to recycle materials that have not been traditionally recycled. It represents a move toward niche recycling programs," he said.
"This is probably part of a larger movement of people trying to find more creative ways to recycle and always think in terms of whether something is recyclable," he said.
Nash said he didn't know how many lights might be collected at MOM's stores this season, but suspected Rockville and College Park would be heavily used sites based on the company's other programs. He hopes everyone will give their waste a second look during this season of giving.
"People still throw away too much stuff," he said. "They have all sorts of stuff in there that can be reused or repurposed. I've taken stuff out of people's trash, put it in my car and dropped it off at Goodwill."
Ways to recycle this holiday season
Real trees: The County will collect Christmas trees on regular recycling days from Dec. 27 through Feb. 4, 2011. Trees must be free of decorations and placed on the curb before 7 a.m. Trees in plastic bags will not be accepted. The trees will be composted or chipped for mulch.
Artificial trees: Look for a home through a local charitable organization or The Freecycle Network. If that doesn't work, artificial trees are accepted as bulk trash.
Wreaths and garland: If the greens can be separated from the wires, these can be bagged and bundled as yard waste. If not, they should go in the trash.
Wrapping paper: Foil paper or plastic-coated wrapping paper cannot be recycled by Montgomery County. Paper-only gift wrap can go in with the rest of the recycling.
Packing peanuts: Not eligible for the county recycling program. However, these local businesses will accept them for reuse: I Sold It On Ebay in Gaithersburg, and Pak Mail, Parcel Plus and PostNet in Rockville. For a complete listing, go to www.loosefillpackaging.com.
Batteries: Dry cell and alkaline batteries used in flashlights, toys, and appliances are no longer considered to be hazardous waste and can be tossed in the trash. Rechargeable batteries contain metals which are valuable, or which must be disposed of properly. Residents can drop them off at Shady Grove Solid Waste Transfer Station, 16101 Frederick Road, Derwood.
Turkey grease: Used oil from any holiday preparation can be swapped at the Vegetable Oil Exchange on the county's website, www.montgomerycountymd.gov.
Source: Montgomery County Division of Solid Waste Services
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Shows & Panels
- Accelerate and Streamline for Better Customer Service
- Ask the CIO
- The Big Data Dilemma
- Carrying On with Continuity of Operations
- Client Virtualization Solutions
- Data Protection in a Virtual World
- Expert Voices
- Federal Executive Forum
- Federal IT Challenge
- Federal Tech Talk
- Feds in the Cloud
- Health IT: A Policy Change Agent
- IT Innovation in the New Era of Government
- Making Dollars And Sense Out of Data Center Consolidation
- Navigating the Private Cloud
- One Step to the Cloud, Two Steps Toward Innovation
- Path to FDCCI Compliance
- Take Command of Your Mobility Initiative
Shows & Panels
Search Tags: computers
Forrester's David Johnson explains the steps you need to take to bring in Apple technology.
FederalNewsRadio's Tom Temin has been trying out Panasonic's Tough Book CF-19. After freezing together, falling together, and generally putting user and notebook through their paces, one winner emerges.
Recent GAO testimony highlights the need for more attention to how computers, electronics are recycled once they're too old for agency use.
Messaging, Web-surfing and online homework reinforce reading, communication and problem-solving skills. That is the conclusion of a six-year-long study that appears in the journal "Child Development."
About 95 percent of people who spend three or more hours a day at their computer are affected by computer vision syndrome.
Once upon a time, only computer geeks were smart enough to be cyber-criminals. Now, anyone with enough cash can become one.
Crooks are using inexpensive Wi-Fi finders to hone in on laptops that owners have stowed in lockers and cars, even in the trunks of cars.
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MT's second and last set of lectures in the West where he'd gotten his start as both a newspaper correspondent and a standup humorist was the result of a hastily arranged trip back to California in the spring, 1868. He was living in Washington, D.C, and far along in the manuscript of Innocents Abroad when he becane alarmed by reports that the San Francisco Alta, which had paid his expenses on the Quaker City pilgrimage, was planning to publish their own edition of his letters from the trip. To prevent that, and to get the Alta's formal permission to use the letters himself, he returned to the spot where he gave his first professional lecture two years earlier.
He returned as a local celebrity, mainly because his letters from abroad had been so widely read. On April 3 the Alta reported his arrival, and noted his plans to lecture in the city "in a few days." He had many friends (and a few enemies) among the press out west, and the papers gave him lots of publicity. The controversy about his satiric treatment of Christians and the Holy Land was one hook on which the stories were hung: MARK TWAIN AT CHURCH, published in the San Francisco Call on May 20, suggests even ministers kept his name before their audiences. If most of MT's audiences enjoyed the humor with which he treated "sacred" matters, the editor of The Marin County Journal was "sickened" by MT's success (as you can read for yourself among the PUBLICITY NOTICES below.
MT lectured 10 times during the last two weeks of April, in 8 cities and towns. Because he asked reporters not to publish any synopses of the talk, his exact text doesn't survive, but his "Lecture on Pilgrim Life" was derived from the one he'd given in Washington in early January. His first performance, at San Franciso's Platt's Hall, drew mixed reviews, but packed the house and (at $1 a ticket) earned him $1600. So many were turned away that he repeated the show the next night, and according to the reviewers was now at the top of his form. From San Francisco he went east, by train, stage coach, wagon and on foot, back over the snow-covered mountains to the mining towns of Nevada, renewing acquaintances and delighting audiences.
He also worked steadily at completing revisions for Innocents Abroad. Just before his return by steamer to the East, he gave one final lecture in San Francisco, titled "Venice: The Oldest of the Republics." Like "Pilgrim Life," it was taken from his book manuscript, but there is no record that he ever gave any version of it again. On the other hand, he was so happy with the success of "Pilgrim Life" that he immediately began making plans "to preach in the States all winter" (as he put it in a letter from May 12). That ambition led to his first eastern tour, in which "Pilgrim Life" became "The American Vandal Abroad." Curiously, he never returned to the West.
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18 March 2010 18:16:00
Sarracenia flower bud
I made a wonderful discovery today. The Sarracenia seed I sowed last autumn in a tray and left in my cold greenhouse, has germinated!!! And this despite the unbelievably cold temperatures we had.
Sarracenia (carnivorous pitcher plants from the Americas) require stratification to germinate. They also require pure peat and moisture and are strickly "tea total" - that means it's rain water only for them.
To tell the truth, I would not have tried such a fussy plant from seed but Gismo sent me some so I thouht I should at least try. Imagine my surprise and delight in seeing a smattering of tiny seeds in the tray this evening!
Siobhan, looks like you'll be getting some Sarracenia plants if you're still up for them : )
Speaking of Sarracenia, my mature ones are now sending up flowers, as per a previous journal entry and the photo opposite. They came through the winter in my cold greenhouse fine.
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Diversity and cross-cultural issues in Philippines
From Peace Corps Wiki
In fulfilling its mandate to share the face of America with host countries, the Peace Corps is making special efforts to see that all of America’s richness is reflected in the Volunteer corps. More Americans of color are serving in today’s Peace Corps than at any time in recent years. Differences in race, ethnic background, age, religion, and sexual orientation are expected and welcomed among our Volunteers. Part of the Peace Corps’ mission is to help dispel any notion that Americans are all of one origin or race and to establish that each of us is as thoroughly American as the other despite our many differences.
Our diversity helps us accomplish that goal. In other ways, however, it poses challenges. In the Philippines, as in other Peace Corps host countries, Volunteers’ behavior, lifestyle, background, and beliefs are judged in a cultural context very different from their own. Certain personal perspectives or characteristics commonly accepted in the United States may be quite uncommon, unacceptable, or even repressed in the Philippines.
Outside of Manila, residents of rural communities have had relatively little direct exposure to other cultures, races, religions, and lifestyles. What people view as typical American behavior or norms may be a misconception, such as the belief that all Americans are rich and have blond hair and blue eyes. The Filipino people are justly known for their generous hospitality to foreigners; however, members of the community in which you will live may display a range of reactions to cultural differences that you present.
To ease the transition and adapt to life in the Philippines, you may need to make some temporary, yet fundamental compromises in how you present yourself as an American and as an individual. For example, female trainees and Volunteers may not be able to exercise the independence available to them in the United States; political discussions need to be handled with great care; and some of your personal beliefs may best remain undisclosed. You will need to develop techniques and personal strategies for coping with these and other limitations. The Peace Corps staff will lead diversity and sensitivity discussions during pre-service training and will be on call to provide support, but the challenge ultimately will be your own.
Overview of Diversity in the Philippines
The Peace Corps staff in the Philippines recognizes the adjustment issues that come with diversity and will endeavor to provide support and guidance. During pre-service training, several sessions will be held to discuss diversity and coping mechanisms. We look forward to having male and female Volunteers from a variety of races, ethnic groups, ages, religions, and sexual orientations and hope that you will become part of a diverse group of Americans who take pride in supporting one another and demonstrating the richness of American culture.
What Might a Volunteer Face?
Possible Issues for Female Volunteers
Many American women find Filipino society chauvinistic. Men are allowed much greater freedom than women. For example, Filipinos expect female but not male Volunteers to travel with a companion. Because of depictions in the media, some Filipinos assume American women are promiscuous. Behavior by women that is considered normal in the United States— such as jogging in shorts or wearing a swimsuit to swim—may reinforce this stereotype, especially in rural areas, and may lead to sexual harassment. Female Volunteers should not wear short skirts, halter-tops, or other revealing clothing. In addition, some Filipinos may have a hard time understanding what a single woman is doing away from her family. Female Volunteers used to being independent may feel overprotected and may resent encouragement from Filipinos to get married. Despite these issues, the overwhelming majority of female Volunteers feel safe and happy in the Philippines.
Possible Issues for Volunteers of Color
African-American Volunteers may experience racist attitudes but are more likely to face great curiosity from Filipinos about everything from intimate habits to food preferences. All Volunteers can expect to be stared at, but African Americans may get more stares. African-American Volunteers may work or live with individuals who have no experience or understanding of black American culture. They may use offensive terms, although these are more likely to be used because of ignorance than because of malice.
Asian-American Volunteers may be identified more by their ethnic background than by their American citizenship. They may have to deal with Filipinos’ stereotypical views about other Asian cultures (e.g., all Chinese are rich traders). Mistaken for Filipinos, on the other hand, Asian-American Volunteers may be given less assistance than other Volunteers. People may expect an Asian American to speak their language and to know local customs. By the same token, by blending in, Asian Americans may not be stared at as often as other Volunteers are.
Possible Issues for Senior Volunteers
During training and at their sites, older Volunteers may face challenges solely due to age. Since the majority of Volunteers are in their 20s, they may work and live with individuals in the Peace Corps community who are not able to provide them with adequate personal support. Older Volunteers may find that younger Volunteers look to them for advice and support. While some seniors find this an enjoyable part of their Volunteer experience, others choose not to fill this role. In addition, difficult issues may arise if your host “parents” are even younger than your children at home.
There are also benefits to being an older Volunteer. For instance, older people are shown great respect in the Philippines. But while this will open many doors, senior Volunteers may also find that they are perceived as unapproachable by younger Filipino counterparts. Service in the Philippines may also be physically harder for senior Volunteers, who may, for instance, find riding in motorized, three-wheel bicycles, jeepneys, or minibuses uncomfortable or have difficulty hauling water and other supplies.
Possible Issues for Gay, Lesbian, or Bisexual Volunteers
It is not uncommon to encounter gay men (and to a lesser extent, gay women) in the Philippines. But Volunteers will find that an openly gay lifestyle is not acceptable in all sectors of Filipino society. Volunteers who are open about their sexual orientation in their community may limit their effectiveness as Volunteers. Gay, lesbian, and bisexual Volunteers need to know that there may or may not be support for their sexual orientation and that they may serve for two years without meeting another gay or bisexual Volunteer. Lesbians will have to deal with constant questions about boyfriends, marriage, and sex (as do all women). Wearing an “engagement ring” may help. Men and women of any orientation must deal with machismo: talk of conquest(s), girl watching, and dirty jokes.
Possible Religious Issues for Volunteers
The Philippines is the only country in Asia with a predominantly Christian population—more than 90 percent (about 80 percent of these are Roman Catholic). Of minority religious groups, about 8 percent are Muslim and 4 percent belong to the Philippine Independent Church—a nationalist Catholic Church. The Iglesia ni Kristo (Church of Christ) is the largest Protestant denomination with 4 percent, while Baptists, Methodists, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and other denominations make up about 2 percent. Although Volunteers are free to exercise their personal religious beliefs, they may not engage in religious proselytizing or other activities that are against the law or would impair their effectiveness as a Volunteer.
Possible Issues for Volunteers With Disabilities
The Peace Corps’ Office of Medical Services determined that you were physically and emotionally capable, with or without reasonable accommodations, of performing a full tour of Volunteer service in the Philippines without unreasonable risk to yourself or interruption of your service. Peace Corps/ Philippines staff will work with disabled Volunteers to make reasonable accommodations in training, housing, job sites, and other areas to enable them to serve safely and effectively.
Buildings in the Philippines generally are not suited for disabled people. Only a few hotels and other establishments are equipped with wheelchair ramps, although some movie houses in big cities now have toilets with big doors. These deficits are largely made up for by the sheer humanity of the people. When they see a disabled person, Filipinos behave perfectly naturally, without ingratiating themselves in an embarrassing way. And there is always someone around with a helping hand.
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Che Guevara and Historical ResponsibilityNovember 15, 2012 | | Print |
Vicente Morin Aguado
HAVANA TIMES — One can write both pros and cons in relation to Che, such a dramatic figure in world history.
He evidently failed in his objectives during his odysseys in the Congo and Bolivia, which in no way minimizes the boldness of his attack against apparently impregnable imperial windmills.
While some people mention the two hundred or so executed in the La Cabaña fortress after hardly two or three days of deliberations by judges, prosecutors and lawyers, I think of the murders of Che and his comrades in the area around La Higuera, where all it took were 24 hours and an OK by the CIA, without the least a semblance of a legal verdict.
I challenge those commentators with their “happy little keyboards” to raise at least one case of a relative, neighbor or friend who was executed at La Cabaña, along with arguments about how unfair it was.
A single case is worth a thousand empty words when it comes to the judgment of history.
I’m a Christian and I’m opposed to the death penalty, but I reject the irresponsibility that distances some writers from the intelligence of readers.
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A Story Told Before
Oliver Stone’s recycled leftist history of the United States
Nov 12, 2012, Vol. 18, No. 09 • By RONALD RADOSH
The truth is that Truman made concessions to the Russians on the border issue between Poland and Germany, even winning the praise of another of Stone’s favorites, former ambassador Joseph Davies, known for his pro-Soviet views. Truman left his meeting with Stalin at Potsdam hopeful that FDR’s grand bargain with the Soviets was continuing. As time passed, however, Secretary of State James Byrnes—a villain in the Stone series—soon saw the grave dangers that the expansion of Soviet power in Europe and northeast Asia posed to the United States. Stalin was set to exert pressure on the western part of Germany, hoping to move the entire country into the Soviet orbit. Again, it was Stalin’s expansionist ambitions that led Truman to change American policy and abandon hope that the wartime alliance could continue in the postwar world.
Stone allows no critical opinions by scholars who have studied the Soviet archives to disturb his rehash of Communist propaganda themes. His sainted Henry Wallace opposed the creation of NATO, advocated abandoning Berlin in response to the Soviet blockade, denounced the Marshall Plan for European reconstruction as “the martial plan,” and justified the 1948 Communist coup in Czechoslovakia as a measure to thwart a plot by fascist forces. Precisely the Kremlin line.
The film’s narrative mockingly presents viewers with Truman’s diary entry in which he said that Wallace “wants to disband our armed forces, give Russia our atomic secrets, and trust a bunch of adventurers in the Kremlin Politburo. I do not understand a ‘dreamer’ like that.” But many viewers, hearing these words, will deem them far more accurate than Stone’s attempt to discredit them.
There is one original aspect to what would otherwise be Stone’s mindless regurgitation of Stalin’s propaganda. Stone plays pop psychologist along the way, explaining that Truman talked tough to Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov because as a young boy, Truman had been ridiculed by his own father as a sissy, and now he had the chance to turn the tables.
Another event whose treatment reveals the shabby methods of Stone and his partner is Truman’s decision to drop the atomic bombs. Stone claims that Japan had already lost the war, that the Japanese military leaders were ready to accept a peace agreement, that major military figures including Dwight Eisenhower and Douglas MacArthur opposed the bombs’ use, that Truman reached the decision after ignoring the pleas of Nobel scientists, and that he did so to intimidate Russia and end the war against Japan before Russia could join it, as Stalin had agreed to do.
This is the thesis that Soviet agents and apologists like Carl Marzani, P. M.S. Blackett, and Dana F. Fleming laid out in the first years of the Cold War and which was revived (and lent legitimacy) 40 years ago by left-wing historian Gar Alperovitz. In the interim, however, major books and academic articles based on archival research in Japan and the United States—by Wilson D. Miscamble, Richard B. Frank, Robert James Maddox, Sadao Asada, and many others—have discredited the argument. But for Oliver Stone, there is only one truth, the “truth” that discredits the United States.
According to Stone, the dropping of the atomic bombs was criminal because the war was over, Japan defeated, and its leaders wanted peace. According to Stone, Truman lied when he said that American lives would have been lost in the invasion that would have been necessary if the bombs had not been dropped. His purpose in dropping the bombs was to show Stalin “that the United States would stop at nothing to impose its will.”
But as Richard B. Frank, author of the magisterial Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire, wrote in these pages in 2005:
All three of the critics’ central premises are wrong: The Japanese did not see their situation as catastrophically hopeless. They were not seeking to surrender, but pursuing a negotiated end to the war that preserved the old order in Japan, not just a figurehead emperor. Finally, . . . American leaders . . . understood . . . that “until the Japanese leaders realize that an invasion cannot be repelled, there is little likelihood that they will accept any peace terms satisfactory to the Allies.”
In those last lines, Frank quotes from a July 1945 U.S. analysis of military and diplomatic intercepts. He adds, “This cannot be improved upon as a succinct and accurate summary of the military and diplomatic realities of the summer of 1945.” As for Stone, having dispensed with the facts, he is pleased to depict Truman as a moral monster and “war criminal.”
In the last segment of the fourth episode of his film, Stone waxes ecstatic over what might have been had Henry Wallace’s third-party bid for the presidency in 1948 succeeded. The Cold War might have been halted; the United States and the Soviet Union might have cooperated to usher in a world at peace; and America might have fulfilled FDR’s dream of a second Bill of Rights guaranteeing to all freedom from want, moving America to join postwar Britain in building a social-democratic future.
But as Stone tells it, anti-Communist paranoia directed at Wallace and his Progressive army doomed that wonderful prospect. “The Red-baiting, the dismissive treatment of Wallace by the major newspapers, Truman’s move to the left on domestic issues, and a last-minute rush to Truman by Democratic voters” who feared a Republican victory “resulted in an electoral disaster for the Wallace campaign. American voters backed the candidate who had driven the nation down the path of empire, nuclear arms race, and global confrontation.”
In concluding with these words, Stone reveals how little he understands this period of our recent past. Wallace’s Progressive party was created and run by the American Communist party, and all of its leaders were secret members, including Wallace’s friend, chief adviser, and campaign manager C. B. “Beanie” Baldwin. Even the leftist journalist I. F. Stone understood this. He wrote, “The Communists have been the dominant influence in the Progressive party. . . . If it had not been for the Communists, there would have been no Progressive party.” Indeed, the PP’s chief counsel was another secret Communist, John Abt. When Wallace asked Baldwin about Abt, not suspecting that Baldwin himself was a Communist, Baldwin simply lied and told Wallace that Abt “was not a Communist.”
John Gates was the editor of the Worker in 1948 and a member of the Communist party’s Central Committee. He left the party in 1956. In 1972, he wrote that “the Communists did not merely endorse the decision of Wallace to form a third party. They were also most instrumental in influencing Wallace to make such a decision.” He added that Baldwin worked day and night to convince Wallace to run, doing so on the instructions of party leaders Eugene Dennis, Al Blumberg, and William Z. Foster. Wallace caved to the pressure.
There was only one reason the Communists created the Progressive party: Stalin had instructed Western parties to ready themselves for war with the United States, and he demanded that old coalitions be split—including alliances with the left-wing CIO unions—unless those in them favored and supported Stalin’s adventurist foreign policy and opposed the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan. Stone tells his viewers that Wallace had the support of true New Dealers like Eleanor Roosevelt. Stone never mentions that, as Wallace revealed himself to be a dupe of the Communists, Mrs. Roosevelt publicly rebuked him, correctly pointing out, “The American Communists will be the nucleus of Mr. Wallace’s third party.” Other anti-Communist liberal Democrats issued a public statement charging that Wallace had “lined up unashamedly with the forces of Soviet totalitarianism.”
No one put the truth about Wallace better than Dwight Macdonald, who wrote in his delightfully wicked 1948 exegesis Henry Wallace: The Man and the Myth that Wallaceland was “a region of perpetual fogs, caused by the warm winds of the liberal Gulf Stream coming in contact with the Soviet glacier.” In the 21st century, Oliver Stone still lives in that perpetual fog.
Ronald Radosh is an adjunct fellow at the Hudson Institute and a columnist for PJ Media. He is coauthor of The Rosenberg File.
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Inducted June 8, 2001
After lettering three years as an offensive lineman at Indiana University, where he never missed a game and served as team co-captain, Skoronski joined the Green Bay Packers in 1956. He played one season and then missed the next two while serving in the U. S. Air Force. Upon his return to the pros, Coach Vince Lombardi immediately inserted him as the team’s starting left tackle. The 6-foot-3-inch, 250-pounder filled the position for the next decade and was the offensive team captain. During Skoronski’s career, the Packers won five NFL championships and the first two Super Bowls ever played. After Green Bay won the first Super Bowl, he was named to the Pro Bowl squad. He has also been inducted into both the Indiana University Hall of Fame and the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame.
Unsung Hero of the Packer Dynasty
By Tom Tarapacki
As a rule, offensive linemen are the least appreciated players on a football team. They do battle in the gridiron trenches so that the quarterbacks and running backs can grab the headlines. Just about the only time a TV announcer will mention the name of an offensive lineman is when he’s called for a penalty. The only real form of positive recognition most offensive linemen receive is being named to the Pro Bowl. Unfortunately, Bob Skoronski not only played on the offensive line, but he was usually overshadowed by some of his better known linemates when it came to Pro Bowl voting. However, there can be no doubt that Skoronski was a key force on Vince Lombardi’s Green Bay Packer championship teams of the 1960s.
The grandson of Polish immigrants, Skoronski rose from his humble beginnings to become a very successful man in many ways. As teammate Jerry Kramer wrote in his book, Distant Replay, “Skoronski’s formidable energy and enthusiasm carried him, like so many others who played for Lombardi, from an impoverished childhood to remarkable success on the football field to equal success in the business world.”
Skoronski’s parents worked in a rubber plant in Connecticut, but they encouraged their children to attend college. Bob went to Indiana University on a football scholarship, along with his older brother. Bob could have attended Notre Dame, but would only go to a college that offered his brother a scholarship as well. Bob’s two younger brothers went to Harvard, and his sister earned a doctorate.
Bob earned a B.A. in marketing at IU and was also a force on the football field. The rugged offensive lineman was team co-captain, and never missed a game in college. As a senior he won a unique distinction for an offensive lineman, being named the Hoosiers’ Most Valuable Player. He played in the North-South All-Star Game in 1955 and the College All-Star Classic in 1956.
Despite his fine collegiate career, Green Bay didn’t draft Skoronski until the 5th round of the 1956 NFL draft. He played right tackle as a rookie, and then went into the military for two years. When he returned to Green Bay, Lombardi had taken over as head coach. Bob became the team’s left tackle, a position he filled for the next 10 seasons.
Lombardi helped turn around Green Bay’s fortunes by instilling the team with a new philosophy, demanding that the players make a whole-hearted commitment to winning. As offensive captain and a firm believer in Lombardi, Skoronski constantly reminded his teammates to approach their task with energy, pride and fierce determination.
During Skoronski’s tenure the Packers won five NFL titles, including the first two Super Bowls ever played. That success was made possible by a running game that was spearheaded by the near-perfection of Skoronski and his linemates. The Pack let the NFL in rushing years in 1961, ’62 and ’64.
The 6-foot-3-inch, 250-pound Skoronski was an outstanding tackle, but he never seemed to receive many individual accolades. “Ski’s blocking grades were always among the best on the team, but he never got the recognition or the honors so many of us received,” recalled Kramer, a linemate of Skoronski’s. Bob wasn’t named to the Pro Bowl until 1967, when a victory in Super Bowl I capped one of his most productive seasons.
When he retired from football in 1968 Bob ran Valley School Supply, a company he owned along with Packer teammates Willie Davis and Ron Kostelnik, and a couple of local businessmen. He attacked the new job with the same passion and commitment that he did with the Packers. “I didn’t think I could find anything nearly so exciting after football, but it was the thrill of victory all over again,” he said. “To me, the greatest thrill was seeing people who worked for me start a family, buy a home and begin raising and educating their children.”
Over the next 15 years Skoronski took Valley from a firm that employed 17 people and grossed a million dollars a year, to one that had more than 100 workers and an annual gross of over $16 million. Called a “super salesman, even when he was playing” by Kramer, Skoronski has been involved in a number of other successful business enterprises.
Skoronski also was devoted to his family, raising four children with his wife, Ruth Ann. One son was an All-Ivy League defensive tackle at Yale, another went to Miami of Ohio on a football scholarship, another played basketball at Indiana, and his daughter graduated from Indiana University.
Today, Bob is semi-retired, spending some time helping his sons but also doing a lot of hunting and fishing. He still enjoys getting together with his old teammates. “It was a great group of guys, a group with a high degree of intelligence, a group with a high degree of integrity that still stands,” he said.
Bob was inducted into the Packer Hall of Fame in 1976, and into the Indiana University Athletic Hall of Fame in 1982 as a charter member. He now enters the Polish-American Sports Hall of Fame as a member of the Class of 2000.
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As for first order, a full second-order calculation consists both of real parton emission terms and of vertex and propagator corrections. These modify the 3-jet and 2-jet cross sections. Although there was some initial confusion, everybody soon agreed on the size of the loop corrections [Ell81,Ver81,Fab82]. In analytic calculations, the procedure of eq. (), suitably expanded, can therefore be used unambiguously for a well-behaved variable.
For Monte Carlo event simulation, it is again necessary to impose some finite jet-resolution criterion. This means that four-parton events which fail the cuts should be reassigned either to the 3-jet or to the 2-jet event class. It is this area that caused quite a lot of confusion in the past [Kun81,Got82,Ali82,Zhu83,Gut84,Gut87,Kra88], and where full agreement does not exist. Most likely, agreement will never be reached, since there are indeed ambiguous points in the procedure, related to uncertainties on the theoretical side, as follows.
For the -cut case, any two partons with an invariant mass should be recombined into one. If the four-momenta are simply added, the sum will correspond to a parton with a positive mass, namely the original . The loop corrections are given in terms of final massless partons, however. In order to perform the (partial) cancellation between the four-parton real and the 3-parton virtual contributions, it is therefore necessary to get rid of the bothersome mass in the four-parton states. Several recombinations are used in practice, which go under names such as `E', `E0', `p' and `p0' [OPA91]. In the `E'-type schemes, the energy of a recombined parton is given by , and three-momenta may have to be adjusted accordingly. In the `p'-type schemes, on the other hand, three-momenta are added, , and then energies may have to be adjusted. These procedures result in different 3-jet topologies, and therefore in different second-order differential 3-jet cross sections.
Within each scheme, a number of lesser points remain to be dealt with, in particular what to do if a recombination of a nearby parton pair were to give an event with a non- flavour structure.
This code contains two alternative second-order 3-jet implementations, GKS and ERT(Zhu). The latter is the recommended one and default. Other parameterizations have also been made available that run together with JETSET 6 (but not adopted to the current program), see [Sjö89,Mag89].
The GKS option is based on the GKS [Gut84] calculation, where some of the original mistakes in FKSS [Fab82] have been corrected. The GKS formulae have the advantage of giving the second-order corrections in closed analytic form, as not-too-long functions of , , and the cut. However, it is today recognized, also by the authors, that important terms are still missing, and that the matrix elements should therefore not be taken too seriously. The option is thus kept mainly for backwards compatibility.
The ERT(Zhu) generator [Zhu83] is based on the ERT matrix elements
[Ell81], with a Monte Carlo recombination procedure suggested
by Kunszt [Kun81] and developed by Ali [Ali82]. It has
the merit of giving corrections in a convenient, parameterized form.
For practical applications, the main limitation is that the
corrections are only given for discrete values of the cut-off
parameter , namely = 0.01, 0.02, 0.03, 0.04, and 0.05.
At these values, the full second-order 3-jet cross section is
written in terms of the `ratio function' , defined by
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Today, as reported by Bloomberg, Apple has joined the cadre of technology companies publicly in favor of the legalization of gay marriage in the United States.
At stake here is a Supreme Court case that is bringing firms out of the woodwork to express their views. The specific group, which includes both Intel and Facebook according to the Bloomberg report, will argue that Proposition 8, a California law banning gay marriage, should be overturned.
Orrick Herrington Sutcliffe, the legal team representing the group, released the following snippet of argument: “No matter how welcoming the corporate culture, it cannot overcome the societal stigma institutionalized by Proposition 8 and similar laws.”
Technology companies stepping out in favor of gay marriage is not new. In fact, in January of last year, Microsoft made a similar argument in Washington state:
Marriage equality in Washington would put employers here on an equal footing with employers in the six other states that already recognize the committed relationships of same-sex couples – Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York and Vermont. This in turn will help us continue to compete for talent.
Its entry concerning the issue was entitled, bluntly: “Marriage Equality in Washington State Would Be Good for Business“ The Proposition 8 case, it should be noted, is seperate from the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, which is under separate legal challenge.
Other companies in the technology world that are said to be in favor of gay marriage include Zynga, eBay, Oracle, and NCR.
That this is coming to a head right now is perhaps not surprising, given that President Obama cased waves by publicly endorsing the practice last year, public opinion has swung in favor of the concept, and even prominent Republican’s have in recent days endorsed the idea. The sea change long sought after by proponents of gay marriage is underway.
This is not to say that technology companies are just now finding their way into the corral of supporting homosexual couples. Google, for example, has paid employees in gay relationships extra, to help compensate for their higher tax bills as they could not marry.
Top Image Credit: Ivan Bandura
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Southern Sudanese go to the polls
Jackson Joshua Jada walked up to a polling centre in the Kator district of Juba at 1 a.m. on 9 January to ensure he would be its first voter in Southern Sudan’s long-awaited referendum on self-determination.
The moment was a long time coming for Mr. Jada, who lost his father, brothers and other close relatives in the carnage of Sudan’s second civil war. The prospect of a seven-hour-long wait before the start of polling failed to faze him.
“I lost my family, and now I do not want to lose Southern Sudan,” said Mr. Jada, who left his wife and seven children behind in Khartoum to vote in the regional capital. “I will vote for freedom to fulfill my dream and the dream of my people.”
Amid joyous ululating and long queues, hundreds of thousands of registered voters descended on polling centres across Southern Sudan on the first day of balloting to have their say in the future of the impoverished region.
Only three of the 2,638 polling centres set up across Southern Sudan failed to open as scheduled on 9 January, which also marked the sixth anniversary of the signing of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement. By the end of the day, an estimated 20 per cent of the 3.7 million registered voters in the country’s 10 southern states had trooped to the polls, according to the Southern Sudan Referendum Commission (SSRC).
With six days of voting still remaining, there seemed little doubt that voter turnout would surpass the 60 per cent threshold established by the 2009 Southern Sudan Referendum Act to make the outcome legally binding. That translates to 2,359,533 votes.
“It is proceeding very, very smoothly,” said SSRC chairperson Mohammed Ibrahim Khalil on the third day of voting. “There doesn’t seem to be any fear of not reaching the 60 percent limit.”
The mood and levels of participation were quite different in the country’s 15 northern states, where over 116,000 southern residents had registered to vote.
Only one man stood outside a polling centre in the Morda district of Omdurman when it opened its doors at 8:15 a.m. on the first day of voting.
Sadiq Ibrahim was born in Khartoum and has never visited his family’s ancestral homeland in the Western Bahr El-Ghazal State county of Raga. But he still felt it was his duty to register his support for the continued unity of the country.
“Unity might still happen but with a new set of morals, ideas and opinions,” said 46-year-old Ibrahim. “I am optimistic.”
An estimated 14 per cent of registered voters in North Sudan went to polling centres on the first day of voting, according to SSRC member Paulino Wanawilla Unango.
The SSRC and its Juba-based bureau received high praise at home and abroad for spearheading preparations for the referendum and starting the vote on time.
“The commissioners, bureau members and their staffs have carried out their responsibilities under an extremely tight timetable in a politically sensitive environment,” said UNMIS Regional Coordinator David Gressly at a 6 January press conference. “Thanks to their efforts, the many skeptics who never thought Southern Sudan would be ready to hold its referendum (on schedule) were proven wrong.”
UNMIS and the United Nations Integrated Referendum and Electoral Division (UNIRED) provided vital logistical support and technical advice to the SSRC during the countdown to 9 January.
Nearly 340 UNIRED staff members worked closely with Sudanese referendum officials throughout the country. Domestic flights funded by the UN Development Programme’s Basket Fund delivered over 1.2 million kilograms of referendum materials in the south.
During a six-day period ending on 4 January, UNMIS aircraft transported over 29,000 kilograms of referendum materials to 50 remote drop-off points in the Southern Sudanese hinterland that were inaccessible by road.
UNMIS also opened 19 referenda support bases in nine southern states to facilitate assistance to the referendum process at the county level.
UN Police advisers serving with UNMIS provided referendum security training to approximately 17,600 members of the Southern Sudan Police Service and 4,500 officers with the Sudan Federal Police in the north.
The SSRC is expected to make a preliminary declaration of results on 2 February. If no legal appeals are filed, final official figures could be available as early as 7 February.
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AGRS-045. This production guide provides commercial fruit growers, extension educators, consultants, and others with information on fruit culture; orchard nutrition; spraying; pesticides; storage of tree fruit crops; and control of weeds, insects, diseases (including sharka, or plum pox virus), and mice. Hard copy version of this publication can be purchased for $25 +shipping and Handling.
AGRS-099. This 186-page guide, which replaces AGRS-60, Small-Scale Fruit Production, is a resource for people with one acre or less who wish to produce fruit on a small scale and who are not legally licensed to use pesticides. A Hard copy version of this publications can be purchased for $12 + shipping and handling
UJ255. This 12-page publication provides information on a few successful propagation methods that can be used on fruit trees. Wrapping and waxing, collecting scion wood, types of grafting or budding--bench grafting, cleft graft, bark and inlay grafts, budding, shield or T-budding, and chip budding--are discussed. Also included are photographs and a list of grafting supply resources.
Specialty Crop Innovations
2013 Progress and Future Directions for Retooling Mid-Atlantic Orchards with Innovative Technologies
If you have any questions or comments regarding the information in this report, please contact: Tara Baugher (email@example.com or 717-334-6271)
Pear maturity indices are not as reliable or consistent as those used for apples. The indices that are similar to those used on apples historically have not been as consistent for different years or orchards. The exception to this is firmness and possibly days after full bloom.
Many people mistakenly believe that fruit trees come true to name from seeds. In reality if you collect seed from a fruit grown on a plant these seeds will produce plants that will be a hybrid of two plants.
One of the most common questions is why trees fail to bear fruit or only have fruit every other year. This information was prepared to answer this question and to give you possible solutions to the problem.
The success of an orchard is only as good as the planning and site preparation that go into it.
Students, commercial growers, and homeowners would often like to learn about growing fruit. There are several sources of information depending upon the level of knowledge desired.
By Rob Crassweller, Jim Schupp, and Tara Baugher
Many factors influence orchard replant success and these can be divided into two very broad categories that include the economics and performance of the new orchard.
In some years, growers report a higher incidence of nectarine pox than usual, and in many cases, cool spring temperatures and above-normal rainfall in June are prevailing factors. The following is a review of what causes this physiological disorder and ways you can manage orchard conditions to reduce its occurrence.
Includes apple crown rot, apple scab, bitter rot, black rot, blue mold, brooks fruit spot, crown gall, crown and collar rot, mucor rot, fireblight, nectria twig blight, powdery mildew, rust diseases, union necrosis and decline, sooty blotch and flyspeck, and white rot.
Includes Prunus stem pitting, rusty spot on peach, bacteria spot, black knot of plum, brown rot, cherry leaf spot, cytospora canker, peach leaf curl, plum pockets, powdery mildew, rhizopus rot, and plum leaf spot.
Includes Fireblight of pear, Fabraea leaf and fruit spot, pear leaf spot, pear scab, and stony pit.
Factsheets of the common insect pests of fruit trees. Most factsheets include description and image of the pest, its life cycle, and monitoring & management information.
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Wasting away: Prozac loses promise as anorexia nervosa fighter.Psychiatrists often prescribe fluoxetine fluoxetine /flu·ox·e·tine/ (floo-ok´se-ten) a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor used as the hydrochloride salt in the treatment of depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, bulimia nervosa, and premenstrual dysphoric disorder. , or Prozac, to people suffering from the difficult-to-treat, potentially fatal condition known as anorexia nervosa. Yet the medication appears to provide no benefit in treating the eating disorder eat·ing disorder
Any of several patterns of severely disturbed eating behavior, especially anorexia nervosa and bulimia, seen mainly in female teenagers and young women. , a new investigation reports.
Symptoms of anorexia nervosa consist of a refusal to eat enough to maintain adequate body weight, intense fears of gaining weight, and disturbed thinking about food, weight, and body image. The predominantly female ailment often includes a denial of the seriousness of weight loss and refusal to participate in treatment.
In some cases, binge eating Binge eating
A pattern of eating marked by episodes of rapid consumption of large amounts of food; usually food that is high in calories.
Mentioned in: Anorexia Nervosa and purging occur periodically.
National surveys suggest that about 1 in 1,000 adults develops anorexia nervosa. A higher prevalence, 1 in 100, shows up among teenage girls and young women. The illness frequently occurs with mental ailments, such as depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder obsessive-compulsive disorder
Mental disorder in which an individual experiences obsessions or compulsions, either singly or together. An obsession is a persistent disturbing preoccupation with an unreasonable idea or feeling (such as of being contaminated through shaking , that respond to Prozac treatment. Clinicians had anticipated similar success in treating anorexia with the drug.
The new study, directed by psychiatrist B. Timothy Walsh of Columbia University, may dash that hope. "It makes more sense to focus on nutritional restoration and maintenance and the provision of good psychological treatment," Walsh says.
He and his colleagues present their findings in the June 14 Journal of the American Medical Association JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association is an international peer-reviewed general medical journal, published 48 times per year by the American Medical Association. JAMA is the most widely circulated medical journal in the world. .
The researchers studied 93 women, ages 16 to 45, treated for anorexia nervosa between January 2000 and May 2005. Nearly half of them had binged and purged. Participants had regained weight and maintained it at a healthy level for 2 weeks in hospital programs in New York or Toronto.
Walsh's team then randomly assigned 49 of the women to take physician-monitored doses of Prozac for a year. The rest received placebo pills. All patients attended weekly sessions of cognitive behavioral therapy cognitive behavioral therapy
A highly structured psychotherapeutic method used to alter distorted attitudes and problem behavior by identifying and replacing negative inaccurate thoughts and changing the rewards for behaviors. that focused on identifying and altering anorexia-related attitudes and habits.
Prozac displayed no advantage over placebos, the researchers say. In both groups, 57 percent of participants failed to complete treatment. For those who finished 1 year of treatment, 73 percent of the placebo group and 71 percent of the Prozac group maintained healthy weights and experienced no return of symptoms.
Taking dropouts into account, 51 percent of the placebo group and 49 percent of the Prozac group avoided relapses.
Psychiatrist Scott J. Crow of the University of Minnesota (body, education) University of Minnesota - The home of Gopher.
Address: Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. in Minneapolis counters the new results "important but disappointing." Research on the biology and treatment of anorexia nervosa needs to intensify, he asserts.
It's too early to close the door on Prozac treatment for anorexia nervosa, counters psychiatrist Walter H. Kaye of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) is a leading American healthcare provider and institution for medical research. It consistently ranks in US News and World Report's "Honor Roll" of the approximately 15 best hospitals in America. . In a 2001 study, he and his coworkers reported substantially better 1-year results for 16 anorexia nervosa patients randomly assigned to Prozac treatment, compared with 19 patients given placebos.
In Kaye's study, all participants received psychotherapy. Alack a·lack
Used to express sorrow, regret, or alarm: "'Las and fearful alack of prior bingeing and purging in the group might also have enhanced Prozac responses, he suggests.
"We clearly need more studies and innovative treatments," Kaye says.
Kaye is part of a team that's recruiting for a genetic study 400 families with two or more members diagnosed with anorexia nervosa.
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It is significant that house prices within the National Park remain high and therefore not affordable to many. However it is the intention of the National Park Authority to ensure tat affordable homes are built and thereby create new homes for local residents. In 1994 the Authority agreed that home building on new sites would be made available only to local people which resulted in property prices dropping by around a third. In support of this and in order to retain the natural beauty of the Park itself the Authority provides guidelines on designs and locations in which residential and business developments are allowed.
In addition to the above the National Park provides business development thereby supporting the local economy through it. Currently significant employment is provided by tourism, manufacturing, farming and quarrying. As an aside about 25% of the local population is self employed, which is twice the average compared with the rest of the country. It should not come as a surprise that tourism is the largest employer equating to almost a quarter of the available employment. However it is also noteworthy that the National Park has one of the lowest unemployment rates.
Exploring some of Britain’s most breathtaking natural scenery is a refreshing experience. With the sunshine beating down from a gloriously blue sky it is a little hard to imagine that global warming is changing the environment in which we live, at least not yet as far as the Peak District is concerned.
Accommodation in any of the National Parks of the United Kingdom is usually well served by assorted hotels located within the region and the Peak District is no different. Peak District hotels are well equipped, include all modem facilities and are usually located within walking distance of the spectacular scenery. However if staying at a Peak District hotel does not sound sufficiently natural then several caravan or camping sites are also available.
In order to enjoy your vacation in the Peak District to the full visitors are recommended to take advantage of the Ranger guided walks and events as these are designed to provide information and entertainment that will make your stay a memorable one.
In an arena of travel and vacations that is increasingly overcrowded by an attractive variety of options, the Peak District remains a stalwart of British beauty and serenity that undeniably offers its many thousands of annual visitors an opportunity to relax in a rural atmosphere that is seemingly disappearing. However the Peak District will, like many other National Parks hopefully retain its natural beauty and with that its wildlife and cultural heritage for many years to come in order that visitors may enjoy its many attractions.
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As I wrote earlier, there is a disreputable modern American Jewish tradition of attempting to use Jewish liturgy and especially the Passover seder as an excuse to promote non-Jewish political issues. When Arthur Waskow created his “Freedom Seder” to make the holiday about American civil rights rather than the Exodus one could at least say it was an attempt to use Judaism to promote a good cause rather than a bad one. Other such attempts to make Haggadahs about immigration, the Labor movement or any other left-wing cause are less defensible. And using Passover to play partisan politics is simply pathetic. But the anti-Zionist group Jewish Voices for Peace (JVP) has now gone completely beyond the pale with a new version of Passover in which Israel is transformed into Egypt and the Palestinians have become the Jews.
This Haggadah, which was brought to our attention by the Anti-Defamation League, isn’t merely an expression of dissent against the policies of the Israeli government about which Israelis and Americans may differ. By appropriating the symbolism of the Festival of Freedom to promote a cause whose purpose is to deny the Jewish people their rights and liberty, the group is committing an act of spiritual vandalism. Identifying Israel with Pharaoh and Egyptians is an effort at delegitimization that crosses the boundary from bad taste to anti-Semitic invective.
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Tell Me a Story Creative Story Cards by eeBoo
Item #: 21774
Storytelling isn't just fun for kids; it boosts creativity, communication skills, and literacy. These enchanting picture cards inspire kids to concoct silly, suspenseful, and remarkable tales. Each set includes 36 sturdy, laminated story cards, plus suggested activities. (Children can use them individually, parents can use them, or play groups can build stories together.) Great travel toy, too. For ages 3 and up.
See Product Details
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Soon after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake rocked Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on Jan. 12, the United States began mobilizing its relief effort for the small, impoverished Caribbean nation. Two days later, responding to a nationwide call for aid to Haiti, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced the deployment of urban search and rescue team New York Task Force 1 to help rescue victims. This New York City team, consisting of members of the police and fire departments, specializes in operations involving the collapse of heavy steel and concrete.
The team saved six lives including two children. Three victims were trapped beneath a collapsed grocery store, a middle-aged man was caught under the wreckage of a four-story building, and a young brother and sister were trapped under rubble for eight days. The children's father had been digging with a crowbar that whole time and passing water through a small opening to his children, miraculously keeping them alive. The eight-year-old boy, Kiki, and his ten-year-old sister, Sabrina, emerged extremely dehydrated but, "other than that, they looked like they were ready to play when they came out of the hole," Battalion Chief Joe Downey reported on the fire department's website.
As he was being pulled from the rubble, Kiki flashed a broad smile and raised his arms above his head in triumph as rescuers cheered. "It was the most incredible feeling," said Downey.
In situations such as this, speed is critical to saving as many lives as possible, and so this team mobilized shortly after the quake struck. But how are teams like New York Task Force 1 organized so rapidly, how do they carry out their operations, and who is responsible for their oversight and costs?
A National Network
New York Task Force One is managed by the city Office of Emergency Management. This team is one of 28 emergency response teams sponsored by the Federal Emergency Management Agency that are "strategically located throughout the United States" and "can be deployed within six hours of activation," according to the Office of Emergency Management website. In 1989, FEMA established the National Urban Search and Rescue Response System to assemble "local emergency services personnel into integrated disaster response task forces." This was expanded upon in 1991 in the Federal Response Plan, which sponsored the creation of such task forces around the country including New York's.
The federal government, not the city or the state, funds, trains and has the authority to activate these task forces in the event of disasters, natural or otherwise. "The team is funded by, coordinated and overseen by FEMA," said Seth Andrews, deputy press secretary for the Office of Emergency Management. But the city manages "communication between FEMA and the team" and "coordinating within the team itself." This, Andrews said, can include "everything from logistics for food [and] air transportation" to ensure that "team members can show up, pack up their things, load up their equipment and they can get to where they need to be."
The task force includes approximately 220 members from the police and fire departments that can be summoned for rescue operations. The state of New York has another task force, New York Task Force 2 based in the Albany area, but they were not activated for this crisis.
New York 1 can deploy either as a light task force of 34 people or a heavy task force of 80. Workers include emergency physicians, paramedics, structural engineers, hazardous materials technicians, heavy equipment operators, and specialists in canine units, as well as experts on communications, planning, and logistics.
"You do have some people that are there almost, in a sense, behind the scenes, that are helping to coordinate logistics, getting camp set up, things like that," said Andrews.
The Haiti Mission
For their mission in Haiti, the city's task force included 76 members of the police and fire departments and four canine units. They brought 20 tons of the latest technology and equipment including medical supplies and specialized rescue tools. The task force took microphones sensitive enough to detect human breathing, personal protection equipment, tents, power and ready-to-eat meals as well as listening devices, infrared cameras and motion detectors.
Four canines accompanied the team. "The canines that they traveled with are unique," Andrews said. "There are no other in the country of their kind. They are dual-trained meaning that these are regular patrol dogs so when they’re out here in the city they’re trained to apprehend criminals. But they're also cross-trained to be able to sniff out a human body that's still alive, they can detect a heartbeat."
New York Task Force 1 participates in exercises during the year as a unit and "within their respective agencies, they do extensive training on a day to day basis," according to Andrews. In November 2009, its members even participated in an exercise that tested the team’s response to a simulated earthquake.
The last time that the task force deployed was in 2008 for assistance after Hurricanes Ike and Gustav. Similar rescue teams have been utilized after catastrophes like the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 and the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Though most fire departments are capable of "performing rescues in light to medium-sized construction collapses," only the urban search and rescue task forces have all the equipment and techniques necessary to operate within the most dangerous conditions according to the Office of Emergency Management website.
Led by battalion Chief Joe Downey, New York's team flew into Haiti in C-17 cargo planes on Jan. 16, two days after they were activated and scheduled to depart. The delay was due to "bottlenecking in and around the Port-au-Prince airport," said Andrews. The airport there, he said, was "jam packed because they had only one air strip that was open at the time."
On the Ground
Upon landing, the task force divided into two groups with each working 12-hour shifts. They relied on local residents to direct them to where people were trapped. Team members usually have enough equipment to be self-sufficient for up to 72 hours and can be re-supplied beyond that mark so that they are not a drain on important local resources but in Haiti, the team had enough supplies to sustain themselves for a week.
In Haiti, the U.S. rescue teams worked under the U.S. Agency for International Development, the State Department organization leading the relief effort. Similar FEMA-sponsored teams, including the Los Angeles County Urban Search and Rescue Task Force and the Virginia Task Force 2 Urban Search and Rescue team have helped in the ravaged Haitian Capital, Port-au-Prince. The country was divided into a grid so that the 46 teams from around the world were responsible for a designated area. These teams have rescued 132 individuals, with 47 saved by U.S. task forces, according to the mayor’s office.
The New York team returned home Jan, 24 after spending a week helping victims of the earthquake. On Jan. 26, the members of New York Task Force 1 were awarded commendations at City Hall for all their rescue efforts and for saving the lives of six people buried under rubble in Port-au-Prince.
"We are glad to have the members of our Urban Search and Rescue Team, who worked on the front lines of the global rescue effort in Haiti, back home, safe and sound," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said at the ceremony. "There's an awful lot of work ahead in Haiti, and an awful lot of mourning, but today, we thought it was important to recognize the members of Task Force One, who've made us proud once again."
Bloomberg honored not only the human members of NY-TF1 but also its canines with four specially made edible keys to the city for its German shepherds. "Six survivors out of thousands lost may not seem significant, but I think it's fair to say, to the six people and their loved ones it really means everything," the mayor said.
Task force member Lieutenant Bill Redding paraphrased a Winston Churchill quote when speaking to DNAinfo about the team's work in Haiti. “To every person comes a time in their life when they're tapped on the shoulder and asked to do something unique and specific to their talents. What a shame if that moment finds them unprepared for what would've been their finest hour," Redding said. "This team was tapped on the shoulder and, in my vision, it was their finest hour to date."
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|<< Job 37 >>|
Elihu Proclaims God's Majesty
1At this my heart trembleth, and is moved out of its place.
2Hear ye attentively the terror of his voice, and the sound that cometh out of his mouth.
3He beholdeth under all the heavens, and his light is upon the ends of the earth.
4After it a noise shall roar, he shall thunder with the voice of his majesty, and shall not be found out, when his voice shall be heard.
5God shall thunder wonderfully with his voice, he that doth great and unsearchable things.
6He commandeth the snow to go down upon the earth, and the winter rain, and the shower of his strength.
7He sealeth up the hand of all men, that every one may know his works.
8Then the beast shall go into his covert, and shall abide in his den.
9Out of the inner parts shall a tempest come, and cold out of the north.
10When God bloweth there cometh frost, and again the waters are poured out abundantly.
11Corn desireth clouds, and the clouds spread their light :
12Which go round about, whithersoever the will of him that governeth them shall lead them, to whatsoever he shall command them upon the face of the whole earth :
13Whether in one tribe, or in his own land, or in what place soever of his mercy he shall command them to be found.
14Hearken to these things, Job : Stand, and consider the wondrous works of God.
15Dost thou know when God commanded the rains, to shew his light of his clouds?
16Knowest thou the great paths of the clouds, and the perfect knowledges?
17Are not thy garments hot, when the south wind blows upon the earth?
18Thou perhaps hast made the heavens with him, which are most strong, as if they were of molten brass.
19Shew us what we may say to him : for we are wrapped up in darkness.
20Who shall tell him the things I speak? even if a man shall speak, he shall be swallowed up.
21But now they see not the light : the air on a sudden shall be thickened into clouds, and the wind shall pass and drive them away.
22Cold cometh out of the north, and to God praise with fear.
23We cannot find him worthily : he is great in strength, and in judgment, and in justice, and he is ineffable.
24Therefore men shall fear him, and all that seem to themselves to be wise, shall not dare to behold him.
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What do an asteroid and a tsunami have in common? Plenty, it turns out.
It seems one of the toughest issues for politicians to address in a timely way is a natural hazard with potentially catastrophic consequences but whose risk of actually occurring is highly uncertain. For a moment, think about the tsunami that left about 230,000 people dead or missing around the Indian Ocean basin. Scientists there and abroad were aware of the tsunami risk. Even a rudimentary tsunami warning system, combined with effective public risk education, could have saved many lives. But faced with other pressing challenges — poverty, for one — the countries hardest hit by the disaster chose not to address the looming but uncertain tsunami risk.
Now consider the risk that an asteroid will strike Earth and kill perhaps hundreds of thousands of people — or worse. We know it has happened. We know it will happen again. And we've found some of the likeliest future perpetrators. One that has been in the news and on Astronomy.com quite a bit is 99942 Apophis, a 20-billion-kilogram hunk of space rock with a 1-in-45,000 risk of hitting Earth April 13, 2036 — mark your calendars down for a sick day — somewhere from Siberia to the west African coast. Likely hazard: devastating Pacific Rim tsunamis. Look out, California.
So, here we are faced with the uncertain risk of an event that could bring catastrophic tsunamis. Some concerned experts attending the meeting this week in San Francisco of the American Association for the Advancement of Science called for the United Nations to create a process by which the world's nations can decide when and whether to act when faced with an asteroid threat. We would have plenty of time to send a heavy spaceship, or "gravitational tractor," to perturb an asteroid's orbit slightly — just enough so that it misses Earth.
Or we could wait to see if the tsunami happens, although that didn't work very well for Indonesia in 2004. With the major near-Earth asteroid surveys locating more and more potentially dangerous space rocks, it's time for policymakers in the United States and Europe, who have done such a great job of assessing the asteroid threat, to pony up the money to fund a serious planetary-defense system.
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Brandon Wheeler and Dean Gundlach portray early settlers Abraham Powell and Caleb Rhodes.
The very first settlers of this area - ancient Native Americans - called the place "Blow Valley" because of all the wind and dust storms here.
Later, settlers of European descent had to contend with windborne storms of dried cow and horse manure. That was because 120 years ago, what passed for streets in ancient Price were open range. Fences were to keep livestock outside, not inside private property.
Those little-known bits of history are now public knowledge, at least for the public who attended the performances of "A City in Blow Valley" in the Price City Hall lobby over the weekend.
This was a readers' theatre production, meaning it had no set and no costumes for the actors, who read from scripts on music stands before an closely gathered small audience. And while the lobby of a city hall may see an odd choice of venue, consider that when eyes wandered from time to time, they fixed on the Fausett Mural on the walls. Many of the people and places in that big painting were part of the script.
The play was written by Martin Kelly, retired director of theatre at Valley City State University in Valley City, N. Dak. Kelly did the historical research and put it into dialogue.
John Behn directed the cast of 14 actors, some of whom played multiple roles of the historic figures.
The play was commissioned by the city as part of its ongoing centennial celebration.
The reading began with the story of the early Native Americans, then moved into the first white settlers. It detailed the coming of the railroad, the discovery of coal, establishment of businesses and churches, the the struggles of survival that eventually evolved into the city of Price today.
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The plain text editor for writers thread really got me looking at this software.
I have two similar needs.
One, as a writer, to outline, organise and write text (& some images)
Two, as an editor/re-organiser, to take someone else's text and remake it. One example of this would be taking a thesis and making a number of papers out of it.
There's quite a lot of ways of doing the first, but I hadn't found a good way of doing the second.
My idea was a two pane outliner/text editor with a hierarchical outline tree on the left and a text pane on the right. With the ability to see all the text from selected nodes together - either in the text pane or another. And the ability to re-order the tree using drag and drop. I was sure that there would be many programs that could do this - and maybe there are, but I haven't found them.
Ideally, the program would be no more complicated than this; other features aren't needed.
As far as I could see, the two pane outliners/editors all kept the notes separate and it is not possible to see bigger sections or the whole text document. Programs like Word and OneNote keep it all in one pane. I assume that it will be possible to make SQLnotes do this (but attempting that feels beyond me atm). I could make a prog like Liquid Story Blender do it - but it is a bit complex just for that (and I'm not familiar enough with it yet), and critically it does not do drag and drop.
It may well be my own ignorance of my software (let alone stuff I just downloaded to try) that has stopped me. I just installed Word2007 to go with OneNote2007, and I can see it is going to take quite a while to find my way around it; I still have 2003 on my machine, but it takes an age to load since I had 2007 too.
For the editing task, the simplest approach I have found is to open the text in something like Wordpad (Word if necessary), and then to cut and paste it into Keynote, creating the outline nodes & descriptors as necessary. Do the editing in Keynote, and use the export function to look at the whole document in Wordpad or whatever as often as I need to. Clunky, but it does seem capable of working and it is using software I know.
OneNote does give the capacity to select body text, which gives the ability to export just the text as I described above and the extra tag functionality etc might be useful. Harder to add separate node names/descriptors though because it is all within the same pane. OTOH, the body text can just be cut and pasted to another note, so no need to open a new document in another app. I may try this method first because I can see OneNote being particularly useful in document creation. Not as fast as Keynote though, but a lot more versatile; although the nodes and text are not so well linked. There is an extra 3 layer hierarchy available (notebook, section, page) which can be seen as a treeview with the plugin, but it is not much use in this context because selecting all the bodytext would be difficult.
Word (at least in its 2007 incarnation and with my limited knowledge of it) appears not to have the ability to select body text alone (would probably have to select all headings and delete them to see the text alone and then undo a bit to go back to status quo). I must admit that I am beginning to question the value of a word processor for a lot of everyday work. And I've never found them very effective for this type of task however much you use versions and subdocuments.
If anyone has better ideas of how to do this, or better software, I'd be glad to hear them.
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Tropical dry forests, in contrast to rainforest, have to survive a long dry season each year, so the predominantly deciduous trees shed their leaves to cope with it. Sunlight can then reach the ground, so the season that's bad for the trees is good for the forest floor. Though there's generally less biodiversity here than in a rainforest, there's more scope for ground-dwellers in the resulting thick undergrowth.
The tropical and subtropical dry broadleaf forest biome, also known as tropical dry forest, is located at tropical and subtropical latitudes. Though these forests occur in climates that are warm year-round, and may receive several hundred centimeters of rain per year, they have long dry seasons which last several months and vary with geographic location. These seasonal droughts have great impact on all living things in the forest.
Deciduous trees predominate in most of these forests, and during the drought a leafless period occurs, which varies with species type. Because trees lose moisture through their leaves, the shedding of leaves allows trees such as teak and mountain ebony to conserve water during dry periods. The newly bare trees open up the canopy layer, enabling sunlight to reach ground level and facilitate the growth of thick underbrush. Trees on moister sites and those with access to ground water tend to be evergreen. Infertile sites also tend to support evergreen trees. Three tropical dry broadleaf forest ecoregions, the East Deccan dry evergreen forests, the Sri Lanka dry-zone dry evergreen forests, and the Southeastern Indochina dry evergreen forests, are characterized by evergreen trees.
Though less biologically diverse than rainforests, tropical dry forests are home to a wide variety of wildlife including monkeys, deer, large cats, parrots, various rodents, and ground dwelling birds. Mammalian biomass tends to be higher in dry forests than in rain forests, especially in Asian and African dry forests. Many of these species display extraordinary adaptations to the difficult climate.
This biome is alternately known as the tropical bane forest biome or the tropical and subtropical deciduous forest biome. Locally some of these forests are also called monsoon forests, and they tend to merge into savannas.
Useful behaviours for this habitat
Ecozones where this habitat is found
Other Terrestrial habitats
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The infected web page used to distribute the malware was discovered in a number of Russian domains, wrote Karla Agregado, a fraud analyst with Trend Micro, in a recent company blog. A similar tactic emerged last month to infect Android phones with bogus copies of Angry Birds and Instagram.
When a visitor clicks the download button at the infected site, Agregado explained, a connection is made to another site that, without the guest's knowledge, sends a malicious APK file to the mobile web surfer's smartphone.
Once on the phone, the malware starts to secretly send text messages to premium numbers. This scam is a popular one among cyber criminals targeting Android phones. Symantec estimates in its most recent annual threat report that in 2011 some 18 percent of all mobile threats during the year involved premium SMS messages from infected phones.
"Malware that sends premium SMS text messages can pay the author $9.99 for each text and for victims not watching their phone bill could pay off the cyber criminal countless times," Symantec noted.
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Roger Waters, best known as the former bassist for Pink Floyd, is a force unto his own. A diverse and talented artist, Waters has spent his career slapping a bass, penning lyrics, belting out tunes and producing albums. From his Floyd past to his current solo status, Roger Waters tickets continue to be a hot commodity.
Born George Roger Waters in Great Bookham, Surrey, England, the future musical legend attended school in Cambridge with eventual band mate Syd Barrett. In late 1964 the first incarnation of Pink Floyd, then called the Tea Set, recorded its first demo. From 1965 to 84, the English rocker served as the bassist for one of the most widely recognized psychedelic era bands, Pink Floyd. Here Waters made his mark on the scene as a bass player, co-vocalist, songwriter and lyricist as well as occasional rhythm guitarist. Ranging from brutally clangy to verging on free-form jazz, Waters perfected his unique style and sound recognized in timeless capsules like “The Wall,” “The Dark Side of the Moon” and “Animals.”
In his solo career Waters produced three concept albums, one movie soundtrack and several singles. Working with legendary artist such as Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and David Sanborn, Waters continued his climb into legendary status. The 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall provided Waters with the opportunity to collaborate with more well known names in the music industry, thus staging one of the largest rock concerts of all time.
However successful Waters’ solo career has been it appears that he just couldn’t resist the pull of the classic tunes. In 2006 he launched a tour starting in Europe and ending in North America that drew from the Pink Floyd vaults. Lasting for almost three years, “The Dark Side of the Moon Live Tour” led off with a mix of Pink Floyd classics and Waters’ solo work, ending in the rehashing of “The Dark Side of the Moon” in its entirety. During this period Roger Waters tickets flew off the shelves. Waters’ shows always receive sweeping reviews and fans keep getting their minds blown over and over.
Similarly, Waters announced a new tour in 2010, once again going back to his Pink Floyd roots. “The Wall”, arguably Pink Floyd’s most famous album, will be performed from start to finish. No such task could be completed without some serious back up. The band lineup reflects a plethora of talent consisting of Roger Waters on Bass/Vox, Snowy White of Thin Lizzy and Dave Kilminster on guitar and California group Venice on backing vocals. The success Roger Water’s “The Wall” will no doubt reflect that of “The Dark Side of the Moon Live Tour.” Make sure to get your Roger Waters tickets today and be a part of live performance history.
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Open source video editing: what we have now and what we need
Posted by: Anonymous
on April 17, 2008 04:06 PM
What I pray for is Ardour extended to handle video and being stable and in every way efficient as Blender. Then I'll start pressing Vegas and Nuendo into the pits of oblivion. Why Ardour and not Cinelerra or Jahshaka? Because for years now we don't tend to use audio or video editors but media editors. And that means that software shouldn't care if I have audio in one, video in second and MIDI in third track. It should process it and mix it, not saying audio or video.
There is one more thing that is even more important. Anybody who spent some time working in professional studio knows that "main" software (be it Premiere, Nuendo, Jahshaka or whatever) is just a piece of what is needed to get the job done. Very often, that is the least expensive piece and the one that will not do that final touch that makes something great production. Plugins counts here! No matter how much money is invested in editor pro studio will most probably invest couple more thousands of euros in good VST's. And even if we get a great editor for Linux, we're still in chase for great LADSPA's. Ardour can be Nuendo's younger brother, but we need something to come at the place where Waves bundle, Ozone and Absinth were. Not to mention that video effects plugins for Linux are almost non-existant. At least, some VST wrapper would do the trick.
One more thing about professional studios using Linux.... (I know some will hate me for this one)... It IS important how things look like. Just take a look at pro software on Mac and Win. Yes, it looks great. There are two components of the look: usability (including efficiency) and niceness. Compare Sound Forge with Audacity. Work with both for a couple of days and SF will show as a tool that always puts needed icon under your pointer and has great shortcuts that makes you work fast as you think. At the same time Audacity, which do its sound job great, has those huge transport buttons like it is a kid's toy and takes ages to select and find function you need. And eye-candyness is important too. Doing anything creative asks for creative looking environment. That's why plugins that costs a lot looks like they came from the game not just system sliders and buttons. Beside personal feel while working, producer have clients and guests in the studio. And it all have to look spacey and expensive then! Funny thing is that we don't have a nice system that will make possible for community to develop the look of the software. We all know that most of the codemasters are not interested in making graphics. But there is a huge community of people who would be more than happy to give their share making graphics for the software. So, only thing we need is a good skinning system. It would be great to have something standardized and easily implemented in any new piece of software. or we have but I missed to notice?
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Early this year, Via introduced its Nano X2 processor, a dual-core implementation of its Isaiah architecture built on TSMC's 40-nm chip fabrication process. Today, Via is announcing a new product, the QuadCore processor, that combines a pair of Nano X2 chips on a single package to deliver a low-cost, low-power CPU whose position in the market is fairly distinctive.
We visited Via-Centaur's Austin, Texas offices yesterday, where we chatted with Centaur President and Founder Glenn Henry and Via VP of Marketing Richard Brown. We came away with some fresh details on the QuadCore processor and a better sense of Via's future plans as an intriguing third-place supplier of x86-compatible PC processors.
Initially, Via is introducing a single model of the QuadCore, the L4700, rated for 1.2GHz operation and a maximum thermal and power envelope (TDP) of 27.5W. This CPU has a front-side bus speed of 1333MHz and a total of 4MB of L2 cache. However, as with other recent PC processors, those specifications only tell a part of the story.
New on the QuadCore's feature list is something called Adaptive Overclocking, which isn't really overclocking in the void-your-warranty sense we've come to know and love. Instead, Adaptive Overclocking enables the CPU to range dynamically up to frequencies as high as 1.46GHz, provided there's sufficient thermal and power headroom available, much like Intel's Turbo Boost. Via indicates this possibility by listing the QuadCore's clock speed as "1.2+ GHz," just to keep folks guessing. Much like Intel's most recent incarnation of Turbo Boost in its Sandy Bridge chips, Adaptive Overclocking will allow the QuadCore push beyond the chip's specified TDP peak for short periods, provided system temperatures will allow it.
The QuadCore's dynamic frequency scheme is complicated by the fact that it involves two separate chips, each with dual cores. Dynamic power and frequency management happens on the chips themselves, using power consumption estimates provided by the VRMs, in concert with the operating system's P-state requests. The chips then coordinate, Henry told us, by talking over a "side channel" of wiring between them, built into the CPU's package. Each chip can range up in frequency independently of the other, provided there's headroom available between the two.
When the cores are idle—the vast majority of the time, in most systems—they will drop to lower frequencies and voltages, of course, and clock gating will kick in to save power. Via doesn't yet have power gating and separate voltage islands like we've seen in some Intel and AMD processors, however. Henry hinted those are likely to come in Via's next chip.
The rest of the inter-chip communication in a QuadCore processor happens via the front-side bus, just as it did in Intel's quad-core, Penryn-based Yorkfield CPUs, for instance. Because the QuadCore uses Via's "V4" front-side bus technology—which is very similar to Intel's FSB—and the same pinouts as prior Via CPUs, this new processor is instantly compatible with Via's existing chipset and motherboard infrastructure. Still, there's work yet to be done. Although today is the CPU's official unveiling and the building-block Nano X2 parts are already shipping, Via doesn't expect the QuadCore to enter production until the third quarter of this year, because the quad-core part requires additional qualification.
Once it arrives, Via expects the QuadCore to find its way into a range of products, from netbooks to low-cost desktops, small-form-factor PCs, and mini servers. However, we here in North America can probably expect to see the QuadCore arrive first in motherboards, probably of the Mini-ITX variety, aimed primarily at embedded systems and such. Outside of a few notable exceptions like the Samsung NC20, Via has had precious little success getting the Nano and its derivatives into consumer products here. The Nano has gained more traction in emerging markets like China and India—markets that are more price-sensitive and less brand-sensitive than ours. That may be where the QuadCore finds its footing, as well. Brown couldn't yet point to any upcoming notebooks or low-cost desktops destined for these shores with a QuadCore CPU inside.
If the QuadCore can't crack the consumer market here, that may be a shame, because it stands to occupy a spot in the x86 firmament not really served by any other CPU. The "Isaiah" core, you may recall, has a true out-of-order execution engine tuned to deliver decent per-clock performance at relatively low-power operation. In many ways, it may be most similar to the Bobcat core in AMD's "Brazos" APU, though with somewhat higher per-clock performance. The major difference, of course, is that the QuadCore has four cores, while Brazos and Intel's Atom platforms top out at two. With no higher-end CPU business to threaten, Via can offer a low-cost quad-core option with a promising performance story for a range of needs, from light-duty computing to multimedia playback and even some gaming.
The firm showed us selective results from its own internal benchmark bake-offs versus an AMD E-350 APU, and the QuadCore won by margins ranging from 5% in SysMark 2007 to 28% in CPUMark 99 and 100% in Cinebench R10. (The margin in Everest's AES encryption bench was 1871% in favor of the QuadCore, thanks to Isaiah's built-in encryption engine.) When paired up with a discrete GeForce graphics card, the QuadCore even took on one of the Internet's most enduring memes by churning out acceptable frame rates in a live demo of Crysis 2.
With a TDP of 27.5W, the first QuadCore isn't positioned exactly opposite Brazos (9-18W TDPs) or the netbook and desktop Atom variants (~13W) in terms of power consumption, but its power draw is still sufficiently low to fit into small notebooks (say, in the 12-13" range), all-in-one PCs, and other small form factors. Brazos' mark of 18W is really a more comfortable fit for netbooks and such, and Via plans to reach that TDP level with another, not-yet-announced variant of the QuadCore, likely running at 1GHz. That version will, obviously, be a more direct threat to AMD's baby Fusion APU.
Total platform power consumption is really a more important issue than CPU TDP alone, and the QuadCore doesn't have as many traditional chipset functions integrated into it—not a memory controller, graphics engine, or PCI Express—as the latest Atom or AMD's APUs. However, Henry was quick to point out that all of that functionality is there in a Via-based system, potentially in just two chips like the competition—or, in the case of the QuadCore, one chip and one dual-chip package—thanks to Via's single-chip core logic solution. That I/O chip's contribution to total power draw is relatively small, at around 4W. Also, crucially, chipset silicon typically is built on older process nodes, said Henry, so it's cheaper to manufacture. Locating graphics and the rest there keeps costs down, which is clearly a key to Via's strategy.
Chipset support may be something of an issue for the QuadCore. Via has two basic options right now, as Brown explained. There's a single-chip core logic offering, the VX900, with DirectX 9-class graphics and robust acceleration for H.264 video decoding, and there's the VN1000 dual-chip set with DX10.1 graphics and only partial H.264 decode acceleration. Neither is an ideal choice, obviously. A better answer is in the works in the form of new chipset with DX11-class graphics, but it's not ready yet. Furthermore, Adobe doesn't take advantage of Via's H.264 decode acceleration in its Flash video software, and that isn't likely to change any time soon.
On the plus side, H.264 playback is something of a binary it-will-or-it-won't type of performance question, and the QuadCore should have enough muscle to decode and play H.264 video streams without additional assistance, albeit at the likely expense of battery life versus dedicated hardware. Henry expressed confidence the Nano X2 would do fine, as well.
Our next steps, obviously, will have to include getting our hands on a QuadCore-equipped laptop or motherboard for some testing. We're intrigued to see how it stacks up against Atom and Brazos, and how well it handles a range of common computing tasks.
Via's next steps seem to be fairly evident, as well. Henry told us they're working on their next chip now, which will involve a true refresh of the Isaiah architecture, with improvements for efficiency and performance. He let slip that this next chip will be manufactured on a newer process node, 28 nanometers, with "more than two cores on a single die," but beyond that, he wasn't ready to divulge details just yet. The logical thing would be to put four cores on a chip, perhaps with an integrated memory controller and maybe even graphics, but we'll have to wait for official confirmation of those plans down the road.
96 comments — Last by Michael REMY at 9:22 AM on 06/06/11
|AMD's A10-6800K and A10-6700 'Richland' APUs reviewedDesktop quad-core takes a modest step forward||113|
|Haswell overclocked: the Core i7-4770K at 4.7GHzMoar power requires moar cooling||129|
|Intel's Core i7-4770K and 4950HQ 'Haswell' processors reviewedA revamped CPU architecture, better graphics, and a few surprises||318|
|AMD's A4-5000 'Kabini' APU reviewedMeet AMD's next foray into sub-$500 notebooks||166|
|The next Atom: Intel's Silvermont architecture revealedAll-new architecture shoots for superior single-threaded performance||147|
|IBM, GlobalFoundries, and Samsung offer a glimpse of chipmaking's futureThe Common Platform Alliance dishes up its hopes and plans||48|
|Review: Intel's Next Unit of ComputingA taste of the future—or maybe just a nifty little PC||117|
|AMD's FX-8350 processor reviewedPiledriver digs in||307|
|MSI's Z87-GD65 Gaming motherboard reviewed||23|
|Microsoft backtracks on Xbox One disc sharing, connection limitations||68|
|Here's about 10 minutes of Thief gameplay||7|
|LG says mass production of flexible displays will begin this year||33|
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|Asus mulling wearable devices||15|
|Nvidia to license Kepler GPU core to Android device makers||69|
|Refuted: BF4, other Frostbite 3 games to be 'optimized exclusively for AMD'||186|
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Urticaria (also known as hives) is a rash that is primarily a manifestation of an allergic reaction on the skin. One of commonest reasons for Urticaria is exposure to allergens. Peculiarly seen as clusters of raised, red wheals of varying sizes on the skin, this condition lasts for some time and then disappears without any trace. The condition is not life-threatening; however Angioedema is a severe variant and this condition may endanger life if not attended to promptly.
In a study involving homeopathic treatment of 60 Japanese patients with chronic skin diseases (including Urticaria), the holistic approach used in homeopathy was concluded as a useful strategy. Homeopathy can indeed be effectively used to treat Urticaria which otherwise tends to be a very elusive disease, especially in chronic cases. At Dr. Batra's, we have the proficiency and experience in treating this disease successfully for more than 35 years now. Go ahead and experience an Urticaria-free life!
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Even as cars evolve to need less-frequent care, maintenance and replacement costs can take a big bite out of your wallet. Don't worry, we're not going to try to teach you how to rebuild an engine or even dirty your hands — just how to make smart decisions that will keep you rolling for less.
Give regular fuel a try.
Even if your car says premium fuel recommended — or even required — few really need it. Most late-model cars can adjust to regular fuel because engines are now equipped with knock sensors, which adjust the engine's timing automatically when they detect detonation — the tell-tale 'pinging'. You may experience a slight decrease in power and fuel economy, but no damage to the engine. A key exception: If your car is turbo- or supercharged and specifies super, follow the manual. And for pete's sake, you're doing neither your car nor your wallet any favors by putting higher-grade gas in a car that calls for regular.
Don't change the oil more than you need to.
Sure, Uncle Marvin changed his oil every 3,000 miles and his Studebaker ran forever. But oils have evolved, and so have engines. Even Jiffy Lube's not running the "every 3,000 miles" pitch anymore. Stick to the manual's recommendations and refuse all entreaties from service managers and ad campaigns, especially ones for oil additives.
Note that your manual may tell you to follow your car's electronic oil-use sensors rather than go by a specific mileage. Don't get me wrong. Oil is your engine's lifeblood and it's critical to change it. But doing so more often than your vehicle's manufacturer recommends simply doesn't pay off.
Find a local mechanic you trust and show him your business.
Too many car owners flit from shop to shop, forking over fortunes on major repairs. Here's a better strategy: Identify a gas station owner or repair shop manager in your neighborhood you like, make sure he knows you are creating business for him, get to know him on a first-name basis and be friendly. It's amazing how a bond of trust like this can save you money. I work with someone whose trusty local gas station owner came to his house to jump-start his battery in an emergency, and charged him nothing.
Have you considered a warehouse store for your tires?
No, they won't make you buy a dozen at a time. Costco, Sam's Club and BJ's Wholesale Club all offer tires and will mount them for you, too. You'll be able to tap into your club's satisfaction guarantees on top of the warranties the tire makers offer, and note that the installation costs include services you'd often pay extra for elsewhere such as lifetime balancing, rotation and flat repair. It pays to do some looking ahead on your club's Web site to check availability — the clubs don't always keep inventory outside some relatively common sizes — but they can order you just about anything.
Know thy hybrid.
You go out to start up your hybrid and nothing happens. Don't fret. In addition to whatever exotic chemical composite hybrids have to run the drive system, they have a conventional 12-volt lead acid battery that powers the headlights, radio and dome lights that kids are so good at leaving on overnight. So see if it's just a jump start you need before you call for more serious help.
Prius owners — there IS a 12-volt battery in there — you just can't see it. Consult your owner's manual for how to jump start.
Keep the right parts dry.
I see this all the time in my neighborhood: Drivers come home and park the car in front of the garage door. Then when rain threatens, they run out to pull it inside lest their car get rained on. Or, when it gets dark, they pull the car in for the night.
Ouch! Here's what's wrong with that: Starting a cold engine is when the bulk of its wear occurs. That's in part because all the oil is sitting at the bottom, rather than distributed around the parts that move. But also, when your engine runs and doesn't get warm, the byproducts of combustion, including water, collect in the oil and can over time turn it into a noxious sludge that attacks the motor from the inside. On a longer trip, your car's engine gets hot and the water is boiled out of the oil and the engine — no worries there. So: avoid short trips when you can — especially the short and pointless ones.
You bought a car. You didn't marry the dealer.
Independent shops are fighting back against dealer marketing efforts that play on consumer fears of voiding a warranty. If you have your maintenance done on time with quality parts — and keep your paperwork — federal law is on your side if push comes to shove over a warranty claim. Check out the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act. If your dealer makes you happy by giving you a loaner car, fine. Enjoy it. But it's frequently the more expensive choice for basic servicing.
One reason often cited for taking a car to the dealership for maintenance work is that dealers — as representatives of car manufacturers — are more likely to see if there are any outstanding recalls on your car. But, you can do a lot of this research yourself, either by checking with your independent shop, or by looking up your car online in the government's safercar.org database.
Tire rotation? Don't spin your wheels.
Tire rotation is one of the least critical of maintenance issues. If you don't do it, your tires will wear out a bit more quickly, true. But here's a case where you can skimp. I wouldn't pay extra to have it done. If the car's already in the air for an inspection or other service, ask your friendly mechanic to put the wheels back on in different spots. Or, if you bought them at a warehouse store as we suggested, they'll take care of it.
Note also that more and more tires are directional — which makes rotation less feasible because the tires can only go on either the left or right side of the car. What's a directional tire? Look for a v-shaped tread pattern.
No ignoring the oil light.
Let's play this one safe. You see something come on about oil? Pull over as soon as you safely can and turn off the engine.
Sure, it's possible that the light has something to do with oil level or an oil-change interval, but in case it's the oil-pressure light, you need to act in minutes, if not seconds, to keep your engine from destruction.
Now that you're safely stopped, open up your owner's manual and look up "oil" to see what you're dealing with. Maybe it's just an oil change warning and you can keep going to your destination. But if it is the oil pressure, you could have a serious problem and will likely need a tow.
Content provided by Kiplinger's Personal Finance
Must-See on MSN
It is suggested that way for a reason. Look up compression engines and octane and see why there's different levels of octane in gas. Using the knock sensor to "failsafe" is crazy. If that system fails your engine "will" sustain catastrophic damage. And while it might run while in this Failsafe you will decrease gas mileage and possibly increase engine wear
1. Your vehicle's engine and fuel system were designed to run a particular fuel grade and doing otherwise is foolish at best. Higher octane fuel withstands higher temps before combustion, and if the combustion process starts before the pistons are in the right position, engine damage can occur. USE THE PROPER FUEL GRADE
2. The average oil change today is between $30 - $40 dollars. The average engine is between $4000 and $12,000. You do the math... Oil does a lot more than lubricate the engine, and any blogger that tells you to stretch them out to save a few bucks is an idiot. Engine oil is the PRIMARY cooling source for the engine, and excess heat is one of your engines greatest enemies. Also, engine oils have a large number of additives that break down over time. Some additives reduce harmful acids that form; some additives control oil foaming for diesel engines that when degraded, actually make the engine run poorly. These additives are critical in keeping the engine clean and properly lubricated. Today's engines are built to very tight tolerances to maximize performance and minimize harmful emissions, and this requires vigilant maintenance - including regular oil changes. Have you ever seen the sludge inside a Toyota 3.0 liter V-6 engine of any VW / Audi from not changing the oil enough? I have, and the owners of those cars were not happy.
3. Barney 408 - I guess you haven't had the pleasure of replacing the catalytic converters on you car have you? Your check engine light (MIL, or Malfunction Indicator Lamp is the proper term) is there for a reason. Can you drive the vehicle with it steady on? Yes you can. If it is flashing, it means there is an active misfire in the engine, and the author's octane reducing money saver - the knock sensor - is detecting one or more cylinders is not firing. But, what if there is an error for your engine running lean? Your engine's computer is trying to adjust the fuel ratio, but it cannot and thus turns the light on. What then?? Keep driving and ignore it? When your engine says it's lean, it is dumping as much fuel in as possible, and the o2 sensors are still reporting lean... This wastes fuel, and will kill your catalytic converters very quickly. I just replaced the converters on a Ford truck for a measly $4000 in parts. Ignore the MIL if you want...
These are just a few of the issues I've read in this article and user comments. My advise... find a mechanic you can trust, and follow his / her advise... and throw the factory service guide in the trash.
Some tire warranties require regular rotation; if your vehicle is out of alignment, it will definitely void that tire warranty. This brings me to another point about regular oil changes: the accompanying visual inspection is a perfect opportunity to catch minor things, like uneven tire wear, before they are a problem, especially if you always go to the same shop where they are familiar with your vehicle and will notice changes more readily.
1. This sort of article has appeared numerous times on msn.com. There was one instance in which there were two articles presented at the same time, one on how to save money on maintenance, and one on how to make your car last a long time. The first, like this one, said to not bother changing your oil every 3000 miles. The second said to never skimp on oil changes, and always change it every 3000 miles.
2. This is msn.com. The same place which runs articles telling you how to find love based on your horoscope. "For entertainment purposes only." Caveat Emptor, perhaps you should seek technical advise elsewhere.
where did the writer of this get so much misinformation on tire service.WIth the cost of tires going up you better find a real tire dealer you can trust and get a real opinion on rotation alignment air pressure and their importance to tire wear.A tire pro will inform you so you get your
moneys worth out of a set.It is to his benefit as well as yours.
Oil: Make sure you check the owners manual to be sure you buy the correct weight and viscosity. If the manual says 5W30, then use 5W30. If you go with synthetics make sure you use 100% synthetic not a blend of synthetic and regular oil. The blends are only as strong as their weakest link.
Tires: Make sure your tire retailer offers free rotation. Rotation does matter as front tires usually wear faster than the rear. Front to rear rotation is essential with directional tires. Most tire retailers will also check tire inflation when they rotate. Under inflated tiers are a major cause of tire wear and low fuel economy.
Also, make sure you look for a service facility that employs ASE certified technicians. ASE technicians must pass regular testing to maintain their certification. ASE certification is a very good thing.
It doesn't matter if you use a dealership or an independent: the best way to pick a mechanic is to ask you friends & neighbors who they trust, check their BBB rating, and then visit the shop yourself and meet them, see how they treat you. Base cost will probably be about the same either way, but if you develop a relationship with someone you trust, then you will end up getting the best value for your money.
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Skip to Main Content
In the engineering database system, multiple versions of a design, including engineering drawings, should be managed efficiently. Spatial data structures can manage spatial objects in a drawing efficiently. The paper proposes extended spatial data structures for efficient management of multiversion engineering drawings. The R-tree is adapted as a basic data structure. The efficient mechanism to manage the difference between drawings is introduced to the R-tree to eliminate redundant duplications and to reduce the amount of storage required for the data structure. Extended data structures of the R-tree, called MVR and MVR* trees, are developed and the performances of these trees are evaluated. A series of simulation tests shows that, compared with the basic R-tree, the amounts of storage required for the MVR and MVR* trees are reduced to 50% and 30%, respectively. The search efficiencies of the R, MVR, and MVR* trees are almost the same.
Date of Conference: 17-19 Sept. 2003
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Bottom Line: A simple age appropriate story with a happy ending becomes a full day's entertainment with the countless energetic animations and a week's worth of language arts lessons with the comprehensive teacher's resource guide.
If you would like to get a copy of Arthur's Birthday ($4.99 iPad/iPhone, $.99 in-app upgrade for French version) fresh from the Apple Store orchard, you may download it using this handy Smart Apps for Kids link:
Arthur is an aardvark who stars in an extended series of beginning readers by Marc Brown. He also has a long running PBS television show and dozens of DVDs based on the show and books. Wanderful's storybook is a mash up of the various incarnations in which Arthur can be found and the second app featuring this earnest boynimal. The app contains the complete text of the original book Arthur's Birthday which was first published in 1989. This means it's one of the few book apps that carries an Accelerated Reader rating and can be read for schools which participate in that program.
Marc Brown's books have vocabulary and themes appropriate for 5-8 year old early readers. The words per page are manageable, and the language employed is simple yet descriptive. Because the app is a faithful reproduction of the book, it preserves these valued characteristics and adds some delightful enhancements.
The settings menu gives an idea of all the technical options available. These are also described in a page for parents. Notable among them is a patience mode which requires children to wait for the narration to complete before exploring animations. Additional options include turning on hotspot identification, activating page turns by swiping and a bookmark setting. The ability to customize the reading experience is of particular importance since this book may be enjoyed by independent readers or those at the beginning stages of literacy.
The story is fully narrated in English and Spanish with word by word highlighting. Unlike most books, however, a large part of the text is dialogue and the lines are actually read by the characters in the story. Listening to this book is in many ways like watching an Arthur show on TV. The page is never static. After the text finishes, readers can explore the illustrations to uncover more animations and hear additional dialogue from the characters. They can also tap out individual words from the text to hear them spoken.
The story has a page index which along with the bookmark function allows it to be restarted where a child left off reading. There is also an ability to change languages midway through if desired. The book has around 750 words and 14 pages so with all the interactive elements to explore, it may take multiple sittings to complete. As if all this wasn't enough, Wanderful has also made available a classroom activities supplement. A preview of some pieces is included with the entire package being available through an in-app purchase. This is the first time I've seen an in-app add on used to market a non iOS feature. The material is very comprehensive and CCSS aligned so for teachers looking to incorporate more technology in their classes, this makes for a positive selling point.
The festive nature of the story kicks off right from the home screen when Arthur does a little jig after pointing out the read to me or let me play options. He is excited because it's time for his birthday and he has invitations for all his friends. Unfortunately he discovers that his party is planned for the same day as one of his schoolmates. Because Arthur is a kind and very well-mannered little aardvark, he solves this dilemma without any hurt feelings.
Whether your child reads the story first then goes back to play and discover or combines the two, there is a lot to see and do in this app. The first page alone has at least 20 hotspots. These include a dancing kettle, a teapot that flings a plate across the room complete with a big crash, a java jolt that wakes Arthur's dad Mr. Read right up, and talking jars. There's a nice balance of silly sounds, music and something as sweet as Arthur's mom giving the top of his head a nice big mwah.
Friends and family are a big part of the Arthur series. It's nice to see Arthur's whole family in the kitchen together at the beginning of the book and again preparing for the party. There are positive role models throughout the book and some subtle lessons on being a good friend and compromise. These themes and others can be more fully explored in the classroom activities packet that is available for $1.99. The app contains a link to a downloadable summary. For teachers that rely on leveled readers in their classroom, it's a very good investment. There are separate strands for pre-K, Kindergarten and ELL students and activities covering language arts, reading, writing, drama, math, art, music and social studies. The supplement includes printable sheets to share with an entire class and it outlines the common core standards covered by each lesson.
This app is one of the most polished productions I've reviewed. It's on par with Oceanhouse Media's popular Dr. Seuss apps and thus commands top dollar for a book app. The only thing I don't like about it is Arthur. I've never understood why he's an aardvark or why his sister has the unfortunate moniker D.W. Arthur's Barney factor notwithstanding, I would strongly recommend this app and the accompanying teacher guide for K-1 classes and especially ESE classes. The repetition, textual clues and ability to hear select words repeated make this an invaluable resource for struggling readers and those with language deficits.
Jill Goodman recently saw a real aardvark at Busch Gardens in lovely Tampa and fed some kangaroos. Who needs Disney? smartappsforkids.com was paid a priority-review fee to complete this review in an expedited manner.
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