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try to understand your feelings, explore new ways of dealing with your parents, and work hard to adjust to all the changes you have to face, you can make it.
- Remember to accept that the divorce is real, and things will not magically go back to how they once were.
- Remember that you are not to blame for your parents' problems.
- Remember to take a hard look at your emotions, and don't keep them bottled up.
- Remember to ask your parents questions, and tell them exactly what you want and need from them.
- And if you feel you need it, remember that you can talk to other people, like a teacher, counselor, trusted friend, or other kids who are also going through a divorce.
Here's some advice and stories about divorce from the IML mentors.
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1st Battalion - 214th Field Artillery
The 1st Battalion, 214th Field Artillery, was the first Reserve Component Battalion in the U.S. Army to Certify on the M109A6 Paladin Howitzer. The Field Artillery is the Army's Fire Support branch--the "King of Battle." Its leaders must destroy, neutralize or suppress the enemy by cannon, rocket or missile fire and integrate all supporting fires--Field Artillery, tactical air, Naval guns, Army aviation and mortars--into combined-arms operations. Field Artillerymen put "Steel on Target" in the right places, at the right time and in the right proportions to assure the success of maneuver commander's plan--a task that requires thorough understanding of maneuver and fire support doctrine, tactics and techniques.
The unit was organized from existing volunteer companies and mustered into Confederate service September-October 1861 as the 1st and 2nd Battalions, Georgia Cavalry. The unit consolidated on 20 January 1863 to form the 5th Georgia Cavalry Regiment. It surrendered on 26 April 1865 near Greensboro, NC, with the Army of Tennessee, commanded by General Joseph E. Johnston. It reorganized on 11 June 1875 in the Georgia Volunteers as the 1st Squadron, Cavalry. The unit expanded, reorganized, and was redesignated on 11 November 1889 as the 1st Regiment, Georgia Cavalry. It was redesignated on 26 December 1890 as the 5th Regiment, Georgia Cavalry; and on 12 January 1894 as the 1st Regiment, Cavalry.
It consolidated on 10 October 1899 with the 1st Battalion, Cavalry (organized on 15 January 1890), and the consolidated unit designated as the 1st Regiment, Cavalry. The Georgia Volunteers was redesignated on 21 December 1899 as the Georgia State Troops; it was redesignated on 1 October 1905 as the Georgia National Guard. The unit was reorganized and redesignated on 2 December 1907 as the 1st and 2nd Squadrons of Cavalry. The 1st Squadron (less Troop B) disbanded on 19 September 1910; Troop B was concurrently transferred to the 2nd Squadron. The 2nd Squadron was mustered into Federal service on 16 July 1916; it was drafted into Federal service on 5 August 1917.
The squadron was broken up between 18 September-20 October 1917 and its elements reorganized and were redesignated as elements of the 106th Field Signal Battalion, 106th Train Headquarters and Military Police, and Headquarters Troop, 31St Division. The 106th Field Signal Battalion was demobilized on 10 May 1919 at Camp Jackson, SC; the 106th Train Headquarters and Military Police demobilized on 14 January 1919 at Camp Gordon, GA; and Headquarters Troop, 31st Division, demobilized in October 1918 at Camp Mills, NY. The former 2nd Squadron reorganized and was Federally recognized on 6 March 1922 in the Georgia National Guard as the 1st Squadron, 108th Cavalry, with Headquarters at Hinesville. Headquarters, 108th Cavalry, was organized and Federally recognized on 10 November 1923 at Hinesville (2nd Squadron allotted to the Louisiana National Guard - separate lineage).
Headquarters and 1st Squadron, 108th Cavalry, converted and was redesignated on 12 October 1940 as the 101st Separate Battalion, Coast Artillery. It was inducted into Federal service on 10 February 1941 at home stations as the 101st Separate Coast Artillery Battalion. It was reorganized and redesignated on 15 May 1943 as the 101st Coast Artillery Battalion; on 15 June 1944 as the 101st Antiaircraft Artillery Automatic Weapons Battalion; on 15 September 1944 as the 101st Antiaircraft Artillery automatic weapons Battalion, Air Transportable. It inactivated on 28 December 1945 at Camp Stoneman, CA.
Redesignated on 11 October 1946 as the 101st Antiaircraft Artillery Gun Battalion, the unit was reorganized and Federally recognized on 17 June 1947 with Headquarters at Statesboro. It was ordered into active Federal service on 14 August 1950 at home Stations; and released on 13 April 1952 from active Federal service and reverted to state control. It was redesignated on 1 October 1953 as the 101st Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion.
The unit consolidated on 1 July 1959 with Headquarters, 214th Artillery Group, and the 250th and 950th Antiaircraft Artillery Battalions to form the 214th Artillery, a parent regiment under the Combat Arms Regimental System, to consist of the 1st, 2nd, and 4th Gun Battalions, the 3rd Automatic Weapons Battalion, and the 5th Detachment. It reorganized on 1 May 1962 to consist of the 1st Howitzer Battalion, the 3rd Automatic Weapons Battalion, and the 5th Detachment; on 16 April 1963 to consist of the 1st Battalion, an element of the 48th Armored Division; and on 1 January 1968 to consist of the 1st and 2nd Battalions. It was redesignated on 1 May 1972 as the 214th Field Artillery.
The unit was withdrawn on 1 June 1989 from the Combat Arms Regimental System and reorganized under the United States Army Regimental System.
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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Personal transfers consist of all current transfers in cash or in kind made or received by resident households to or from nonresident households. Personal transfers thus include all current transfers between resident and nonresident individuals. Compensation of employees refers to the income of border, seasonal, and other short-term workers who are employed in an economy where they are not resident and of residents employed by nonresident entities. Data are the sum of two items defined in the sixth edition of the IMF's Balance of Payments Manual: personal transfers and compensation of employees. Data are in current U.S. dollars.
World Bank staff estimates based on IMF balance of payments data.
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The mantra of member retention is “build, build, build relationships.” Conceptually, most health club leaders understand that engaging members by connecting on a personal or emotional level will positively affect member retention. But how do you train your team to cultivate relationships that delight your members and inspire loyalty?
Begin by articulating your expectations in terms of concrete behaviors. For team members who have a natural passion for people and service, building relationships may come easily. Others who do not have that innate wiring may find it more difficult to initiate meaningful member contact. By defining for your club what I call “standards of engagement,” you will convey with clarity baseline behaviors that increase the likelihood of positive interactions among team members.
In developing standards of engagement for our fitness team at ACAC Fitness and Wellness Centers, we considered common barriers to communicating and developing rapport. These barriers included busy signals, such as closed body language or physical barriers, anonymity, and perceived disinterest or distraction.
To overcome such obstacles, we developed the following list of objectives that encourage team members to move, interact and approach people as they supervise the fitness floor.
Move. Move continuously throughout the assigned area of coverage. Limit time at the fitness desk to three minutes unless assisting a member in person or over the phone. Ensure that only one fitness specialist is behind the desk at a time. Keep conversations with other team members to a minimum, no more than three minutes at a time. Look for and correct any misplaced items and unsightly messes, such as disorganized paper, towels that are left behind or equipment that is dirty.
Interact. Greet members by name. Offer to help members with their technique or progression of exercises. Initiate meaningful conversations with members about their workouts and their lives. Actively listen when interacting with members. Proactively seek to establish new relationships with members.
Approach. Smile, keep your head up and make eye contact with members. Adopt a face-to-face body position when speaking to members. Walk at a leisurely pace while scanning for members who may need assistance. Avoid crossing arms or placing hands on hips.
Once your expectations have been established and communicated, regular observation and follow-up are critical to recognize and reinforce strong performance and to identify areas for improvement. Our club’s fitness director schedules three team member observations per week, rating them on each of the above categories. Each department head also completes two evaluations per pay period. Collecting this information on an ongoing basis builds a body of data over time that is far more valuable than making generalizations based on isolated incidents on the fitness floor.
Members also contribute to the evaluation process. In addition to gathering informal feedback, we ask members to complete a short survey about their experience on the fitness floor. We encourage them to rate on a scale of 1 to 10 how well we delivered service on the fitness floor today. We also ask if a team member assisted them today and on a scale of 1 to 10, how friendly and approachable was the fitness team. Keeping this data collection and review process simple allows us to direct attention quickly to areas that may need it.
Implementing these standards of engagement is just one step, albeit an important one, toward creating a meaningful club experience for our members. By defining tangible, measurable behaviors that are aligned with our club’s vision, mission and purpose, we are in a better position to provide value and service. At the very least, we will improve our interactions and build rapport with our members.
More substantially, however, we expect to increase member satisfaction, inspire loyalty and earn the trust of our members, thereby keeping their business and winning their referrals.
Christine Thalwitz is director of communications and research at ACAC Fitness and Wellness Centers. She emphasizes that the difference between a complaint and an opportunity is our perception, attitude and response.
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By Patrick Kevin Day
3:24 PM CST, December 18, 2012
Let’s get one thing straight right away: Zombies aren’t real. The government knows it, the police know it and even so-called “zombie preppers,” the subject of Discovery Channel’s new special “Zombie Apocalypse,” premiering Tuesday night, know it. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t all taking steps to prepare for the onslaught anyway.
“Something is coming down the road,” says Shawn Beatty, a Missouri high school teacher and zombie prepper who appears in the special, stockpiling supplies and weapons. “I don’t think the Earth is supposed to have 12 billion people on it. Preparing for the zombie apocalypse is really preparing for almost everything. Earthquake. Flood. Zombie apocalypse.” The current population is actually around 7 billion, but Beatty’s precautions would seem justified based on a glance at the media.
In pop culture terms, zombies are having their moment in the sun. AMC’s “The Walking Dead” is grabbing record ratings and several zombie-themed movies are on the horizon, from the romantic comedy “Warm Bodies” to the Brad Pitt actioner “World War Z.” But unlike other fantasy monsters that have grabbed popular attention, such as those lovelorn, sparkly vampires, the zombie fad is having a disturbing ripple effect on the public consciousness.
There were the spate of cannibal attacks early this summer, which started with a man chewing another man’s face off on the MacArthur Causeway in Miami. Though a designer drug known as bath salts was initially believed to be a factor in the attack, that was eventually ruled out by the medical examiner and the ultimate cause of the cannibal attack remains unknown. This event and similarly disturbing incidents led the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to issue an official statement denying the existence of any virus or condition that would reanimate the dead or cause zombie-like symptoms.
This fall, the Department of Homeland Security issued a tongue-in-cheek alert urging people to prepare for the zombie apocalypse (actually, it was to encourage preparedness for any disaster). And on Halloween, a counterterrorism summit in San Diego, attended by hundreds of Marines, Navy special ops personnel, soldiers, police and firefighters ran a zombie disaster drill titled Zombie Apocalypse.
And Beatty, who recently moved from Wisconsin, where he was filmed for the special, to a new job teaching high school Japanese in Columbia, Mo., discovered when he arrived at his new school that a “Zombie Defense League” club already existed.
“I took control of it right away,” Beatty says. “We mostly play out zombie scenarios with Nerf guns, we read Max Brooks’ ‘Zombie Survival Guide.’ It’s fun and light-hearted, but I’m trying to get the Red Cross to come in and teach them some skills. Anything to keep them proactive.”
Is it any wonder that people like Beatty are getting ready for the worst?
“Increasingly we feel disconnected,” says Dr. Steven Scholzman, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and an avowed zombie fan. “All the technology in our lives put barriers in between us. It’s so darned impersonal. With aliens and vampires or whatever, there’s usually a personal side to it. They’re seducing you. Zombies could care less about me. It’s not about me, it’s about my guts.”
Scholzman, who last year published the novel “The Zombie Autopsies,” chronicling in graphic detail the causes and effects of a fictional zombie virus on the human body, has spent many hours playing intellectual exercises with himself and friends in the scientific community, speculating on how a zombie virus would actually work.
“Among our monster movie tropes, the zombie scenario, especially the slow, shambling zombies, lend themselves to neurobiological inquiries,” Scholzman says. “It makes the science a lot easier to apply.”
The most plausible scenario, according to Scholzman, is a mutated flu virus creating the symptoms we traditionally ascribe to zombies. However, he cautions, this isn’t an imminent fear, just a speculative what-if.
Beatty also views preparing for a zombie onslaught as a bit of a game. He comes up with a post-zombie plan and constantly revises it. That thinking has led him to have some handy rules of thumb in the event of a disaster. For instance, he recommends, avoid the supermarket and make a run on the local pet store; there’s still plenty of food and water there. And don’t the forget the nearest bookstore.
“Knowing how to fix an engine, especially if you’re not mechanically inclined, is a good book to have,” Beatty says. “No one is going to think to break down the door to Barnes & Noble when the zombies come.”
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Wait a Minute. Have a Minute? Train Your Dog
Whoa, just wait a minute. Hah! We expect our dogs to learn impulse control over natural canine behaviors; as humans we are a society on the move. I mean, who starts grinding teeth when held up in a super market check out line for 30 seconds? Both parents fielding full time jobs, kids and a family dog: wonder who falls through the cracks. Of dogs owner relinquished to shelters, some 47% of owners cite behavioral issues, according to JAVMA, Vol 227, No. 11, Dec.1 2005
Have a minute? Suzanne Clothier, as stated at the 2011 APDT conference, says we all do. This no-nonsense hero of mine makes real life dog training accessible for all. Hour long drills? Forget about it. Instead, focus on training in short “bursts” of 1 – 2 minute sessions. The real genius here lays in training time paired with your daily activities. Attention span is also much improved in short bursts of repetitions of behavior. So where is this magical real life time?
Well, the toast does not toast by magic. Make meaningful use of those real life moments. Do something while you wait instead of grinding your teeth. That`s bad for the molars anyhow. Far better that you should train the dog. When else do we routinely wait? I`ll get you started on some other “bursts” of potential training time: brewing coffee, commercials on T.V.,brushing teeth, running tub water for kids, folding the laundry and yes, even vacuuming. On the latter, I kid you not. I desensitized Doobie my puppy mill rescue to latter by, well, vacuuming, albeit very carefully to begin with.
I speak from experience in that yoga and training the dogs: not so much. Yoga mat appearing= conditioned swarm response by all three labbies. In fact, they seem convinced their job is pile on the mat. Often I have to wrestle them for it. Myself being supine overwhelms Talley with joy and makes me laugh resulting in more ridiculous behavior. The other two want snuggle time and crowd me. Actually, when I think of it, I have trained the labbies rather well to gather around at yoga time. It works for them!
Maybe the yoga part will work for you. (Actually the labs do eventually give up.) So wait a minute. Got a minute? Don`t let your own dog, in your harried hurried lifestyle, become a statistic. Find that minute and use it. Your dog will thank you for it, and so also will all the overcrowded shelters nationwide. Who do not have room for one… more… dog…..
Thanks to my pal Pauline, the gal who makes it all happen in the mornings around the kennel; main pic credit goes to her!
Leslie Fisher, Pat Miller Certified Trainer, CPDT-KA
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Anyone who's been watching the Libya hearings on Capitol Hill may have noticed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has a new look -- she's worn glasses in each of her public appearances since suffering illness last month.
The State Department said Friday, though, that the reason is the concussion she suffered.
After a senior department official laughed off the question on the eve of Wednesday's Benghazi hearings, suggesting to reporters that Clinton just feels like wearing the glasses, State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland formally addressed the issue on Friday during the daily briefing.
"Well, let me just say in response to lots of speculation, the secretary is going to be wearing the glasses instead of her contacts for some period of time because of lingering issues that stemmed from her concussion," Nuland said.
A New Jersey-based doctor of Optometry, Mike McAleese, reached out to Fox News by email when he noticed Clinton was wearing a Fresnel prism on her left lens during the day of testimony on Capitol Hill.
"These Fresnel prisms are press-on, and are quickly and inexpensively applied for use in treating visual field loss and/or diplopia (double vision)," McAleese wrote.
In a phone interview with Fox News, McAleese said double vision is a condition that can be temporary or permanent as it results from trauma to the head.
Clinton was released from New York Presbyterian Hospital early this month after receiving treatment for a blood clot that formed as a result of a concussion she suffered in December. She fell in her home after becoming exhausted and dehydrated by a stomach virus.
The illness forced Congress to reschedule her much anticipated testimony on Benghazi, which she completed this week while wearing her glasses.
Clinton's aides have been protective of her during her health scare, at times challenging reporters who asked questions about the timing of her illness and the fact that it coincided with previously scheduled testimony on Benghazi.
In early January her long-time spokesman, Philippe Reines, chastised journalists for reporting she had been released from the hospital, after cameras caught her walking out the front door with her daughter. Clinton, though, was in the process of checking out -- and left hours later.
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Five Ways to Feed Your Business’ Growth
For those of you who have also disregarded conventional wisdom and started your own retail business, Brooklyn Kitchen co-owner Harry Rosenblum has five tips for turning a simple store into a thriving business.
1. “Never underestimate the power of customer service, good or bad.”
Even if a customer doesn’t buy anything, they can walk into The Brooklyn Kitchen and ask Rosenblum, co-owner Taylor Erkkinen or one of the butchers for cooking advice. By serving as a school as well as a store, The Brooklyn Kitchen differentiates itself from retailers on the Internet.
2. “You can’t make every customer happy. You can’t let that get to you.”
When customer service is your business, an unhappy shopper can seem like a personal failure. Success in retail requires mental toughness, and the self confidence to move on past small failures.
3. “Don’t lose sight of the big picture. If you have a bad Saturday, look at the whole month.”
Having perspective prevents small business owners from losing their psychological edge. It also allows owners to tell whether trends are just insignificant short term anomalies, or market shifts that require attention.
4. “Always remember why you got into the business. You have to want to be there, and you have to believe in your products.”
The Brooklyn Kitchen can’t match the variety of products available online, so they select the best products for each price point. Through knowledge and enthusiasm, the employees earn the customer’s trust about those selections.
5. “I don’t have to take the boxes out anymore, but I still do. Sometimes the business becomes bigger than you, and you have to let that happen.”
No one will ever clean up the store, check the security or update the inventory more diligently than you. However, as the business grows, your time is better spent doing other jobs. Striking a balance between staying in the trenches and dealing with the big picture is vital to surviving as a small retailer.
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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Today In History: Eisenhower Signs Executive Order 10450
April 27th, 2008
Fifty-five years ago today, on April 27, 1953, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed Executive Order 10450, which mandated the firing of all federal employees who were determined to be guilty of “sexual perversion.” Over the next two decades, thousands of gays and lesbians would loose their jobs solely because of their sexual orientation.
This was the culmination of an anti-gay witch hunt which began three years earlier. In February of 1950, Undersecretary of State John Peurifoy, testifying before the US Senate Committee on Expenditures in the Executive Department, revealed that 91 employees “in the shady category” had resigned since 1947. Republican Senators took that admission to allege that President Harry Truman’s administration’s employment of “sexual deviants with police records” was recklessly endangering the country’s national security.
It just so happened that Joseph McCarthy was a member of that committee. He had just given give his famous Wheeling Speech a few weeks earlier, claiming to have “a list in my hand” of 205 communist employees at the State Department. The Homosexual Scare now joined the nascent Red Scare as twin threats to American liberties. By April, McCarthy pressured the Civil Service to begin rooting out gays and lesbians from federal offices. By June, he persuaded the Senate to authorize a full-range investigation of homosexuals “and other moral perverts” in the civil service. The Senate Appropriations Committee responded with a rushed report a few months later, saying “one homosexual can pollute an entire government office,” and “to pussyfoot or take half measures will allow some known perverts to remain in government.”
By the end of 1950, anti-homosexual hysteria was in full swing. The Republican Party’s national chairman sent a warning to 7,000 party members that, “Perhaps as dangerous as the actual Communists are the secret perverts who have infiltrated our government in recent years.” On Christmas Day of that year, Time magazine opined that all homosexuals should be fired from the federal government. The hysteria raged for the next three years as McCarthy presided over countless hearings on the imagined threat of homosexuals and communists in the government. Ironically, it would be McCarthy’s chief council, Roy Cohn, who would draw fire during the Army investigations of 1954 over rumors of his own homosexuality. (Cohn would later die of AIDS in 1986.) This played a small but key role in McCarthy’s eventual downfall.
Clamor over the twin menaces raged for the next three years, culminating in Eisenhower’s 1953 Executive Order which declared all homosexuals to be “security risks,” regardless of whether they were actually disloyal or not. It didn’t matter how low or innocuous their position was; their mere presence in a government office was deemed a threat. Following Eisenhower’s executive order, more than 640 federal employees would lose their job because of allegations of homosexuality over the next year and a half. Unknown numbers of others resigned quietly. State and local governments and government contractors followed suit, tossing countless more innocent Americans out of their jobs.
Unintended consequences are funny things though. In 1957, a young astronomer by the name of Dr. Franklin Kameny was fired from the Army Map service because of his homosexuality. After all of his court appeals were denied, he founded the Washington, D.C. Mattachine Society. He and Daughters of Billitis founder Barbara Gittings organized the first gay rights demonstrations in front of the White House, State Department and Philadelphia’s Independence Hall in 1965 to demand an end to the federal employment ban. This demand remained a key component of the whole gay rights movement from the 1950′s through the 1970′s. Much of today’s modern gay rights movement has its roots buried deep in the anti-gay and anti-red hysteria of the 1950′s and Executive order 10450.
The Civil Service ban on gays and lesbians would continue for the next two decades. In 1973, a federal judge ruled that a person’s sexual orientation alone could not be the sole reason for termination from federal employment. But even with that ruling, it wasn’t until July 3, 1975 when the Civil Service Commission finally announced that they would consider applications by gays and lesbians on a case by case basis.
Tom Brokaw: No Gays In His ’60′s
November 26th, 2007
Tom Brokaw’s new book, Boom! Voices of the Sixties is supposed to be a sweeping review of all of the highlights of that pivital decade for social change. Brokaw left virtually nothing untouched: civil rights, the war, feminism, the sexual revolution — all of it is right there in his exhastive review. Except for one thing: There are no gays in the Sixties.
No Stonewall, no protests in front of the White House or Independence Hall, no Civil Service expulsions, none of that is a part of Tom Brokaw’s “Sixties.” And that has 1960′s gay rights activist and icon Frank Kameny livid. Kameny, whose memorabilia was recently featured in a display at the Smithsonian Institution fired off a stirring rebuttal to Brokaw’s silence on a very important part of America in the 1960′s. Reminding Brokaw that “Gay is good” (Frank coined that phrase in 1968.) Kameny reminds Brokaw of the great sweep of history that Brokaw overlooked and demands an apology.
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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This report covers 2005, and provides an overview of the evolution of malware targeting platforms other than Windows. It includes information on trends; information based on statistics collected throughout 2005, and concludes with forecasts as to how malware for non-Windows platforms is likely to evolve in the near future.
Computing history and computer virology did not begin with Windows. Nor did they begin with DOS. The first computer virus, a worm which appeared in 1988, was written for Unix. However, computer virology only really started to evolve with the appearance of millions of machines running under DOS, and then under Windows. Malware evolution reflects the evolution of the computer industry as a whole: the popularity of a platform can be gauged by the number of viruses found in the wild which target the specific platform.
The leading platform is, of course, intel + Win32 (Win32 as a software platform, intel as a hardware platform). More specifically, 32 bit intel is currently the most widely targeted platform. However, the situation is likely to change in the near future as 64 bit platforms become more widely used. Indeed, several proof of concept viruses for Win64 have already been created.
However, where there’s a mainstream, there’s always an alternative. At one point in time, the main alternative to Windows was OS/2. Today, the alternatives are Linux, FreeBSD and other flavours of Unix. Linux, with its wide variety of implementations, is the undoubted leader. Slowly but surely Linux is being chosen over Windows not only for servers, but also for desktops. MacOS X’s start may also rise; since Apple has switched to intel processors, Macintosh is rapidly gaining popularity.
End user machines are the main target for malware attacks. Trojan programs such as Trojan-Spy, Trojan-Downloader and Trojan-Dropper make up the majority of malicious programs for Win32. In contrast to this, most malicious programs targeting systems running Linux are backdoors. These programs provide remote malicious users with full access to the compromised machine, which can then be used as a launch pad for attacks on other machines.
As soon as a platform starts becoming more popular, viruses and other malicious programs for this platform will begin to appear. Initially, such programs will be proof-of-concept (PoC); they are designed to show that it is possible to infect a machine in a particular way, and do not, as a rule, have a malicious payload. Firstly, information about a specific vulnerability in an operating system or an application will be made public. This information is then used to create exploits or backdoors which target the vulnerability. Of course, software developers issue patches for known vulnerabilities, but this results in virus writers searching for new methods and weak spots to attack. Overall, malware gains momentum in a snowball like fashion. This is what is currently happening with Win32; although this has not yet happened with malware for other platforms, the key phrase here is almost certainly ‘not yet’.
In spite of the relative peace enjoyed by non-Windows users, alternative platforms are also subject to attack by malicious programs. The following sections of this report cover certain features of alternative platforms and evolutionary trends.
The process of malicious code evolution has been described above in detail to enable better understanding and interpretation of the data presented below.
Information in this section covers the evolution of malware for unix type systems. The graph below shows that in comparison with 2004, there was a significant increase in all types of malicious program classified by Kaspersky Lab as MalWare.
The almost 100% increase on last year’s figures shows that virus writers are almost overwhelmingly targeting systems running Linux.
This is not at all surprising as Linux is the most popular Unix-type system. It should be mentioned that in spite of the fact that Linux functions on a variety of RISC platforms, binary files which differ from x86 occur very rarely. Under other RISC platforms, such as SPARC, it would be more common to encounter binary files for SunOS. As a rule, such samples are usually a collection of small utilities which are written and compiled for specific versions of an operating system, and designed to target a specific server; for example, a sniffer, backdoor, logcleaner, and kernel modules to mask the attacker’s actions - such a collection is called a rootkit. Rootkits are designed for an attack on a particular machine; such a specific attack is far harder to combat than a Trojan launched by a script kiddie.
The major difference between malware targeting Unix and malware targeting Win32 MalWare is the absence of packers. Packers are frequently used to hinder the detection and analysis of malicious programs. However, we have only seen UPX and a few modified versions used in Unix malware.
Overall, in terms of types of malicious code, the Unix picture mirrors that on the Win32 front. The number of viruses which infect files on the local disk is decreasing. Such viruses are usually created for research interest only, and do not have a malicious payload; however, viruses with buggy code may deliver an unintentional malicious payload in that they corrupt the file when injecting their code. There have been no epidemics caused by Unix viruses, and in general they are viewed as ‘collection’ viruses. Nevertheless, some Unix malware is interesting: one example is Virus.Linux.Grip, which uses the brain fuck interpreter to generate key codes. The codes are then used for TEA (Tiny Encryption Algorithm) encryption.
However, this is only really of interest to researchers, and has no practical application. Those who write such viruses are, perhaps, acting on the Linus Torvalds philosophy of ‘just for fun’.
Programs which are written in order to compromise servers, so that they can then be used as platforms for future attacks, are a different matter. There are many such programs, including backdoors, exploits, sniffers, flooders and other hacktools. The number of such programs is increasing exponentially with the popularity of Linux itself.
Last year, a number of worms for Linux were detected, including Net-Worm.Linux.Lupper and Net-Worm.Linux.Mare, a variation on the theme introduced by Lupper. Both these worms exploit the same vulnerability, and have similar propagation methods. One component which the worms included was the Tsumani backdoor. As the worm evolved (i.e. as new variants were created), new functionality was added. The most recently detected variant of Net-Worm.Linux.Mare downloaded an ircbot, which acted as a backdoor.
Another malware incident in the Linux world in 2005 occurred in September, when a Korean Mozilla distribution placed on a public server was found to be infected. The distribution contained binary files infected with Virus.Linux.Rst.
Rootkits are a hot topic for the media; however, in contrast to the extensive activity in the Win32 world, there has been no really new rootkits for Linux, simply variations on old themes.
As for other Unix platforms, the situation is even quieter. However, this is understandable; after all, other Unix platforms cannot compete either with Linux or Windows in terms of popularity.
The data presented below has been compiled from repeated analysis of the Kaspersky Lab antivirus databases at varying points in time. Some categories contain no data; this means that the Kaspersky Lab collection does not contain any malware targeting the designated platform from these families.
It’s well known that making predictions is a risky game, as anything can happen in the course of six months. However, we’re going to take that risk.
Above all, the era of 64 bit architecture is dawning; once such architecture is firmly entrenched on users’ machines, virus writers will react to this fact. There are of course complications here, such as the fact that binary code for AMD64 and for IA64 are different, and this means that separate versions will have to be compiled for each platform.
Apple gives even more scope for development and malware evolution; the move to intel processors may be revolutionary. The fact that Apple computers have excellent design, and that OS X could be called ‘Unix with a human face’ may make it a hit among PC users.
The OS X kernel is based on FreeBSD, and the experience and ideas applied to the creation of malware for FreeBSD may also be applied to create OS X malware. In addition to this, the operating system developers have also made errors. Over the past few weeks, we’ve seen two proof of concept worms for OS X, and these clearly illustrate errors in the system architecture. There has also been an exploit for the Safari web browser, which makes it possible to launch a script and execute commands on the user’s computer. It therefore seems clear that OS X may be fertile soil for security researchers.
Another rapidly developing arena is mobile devices. Here Linux is also offered as an alternative to Symbian and Windows Mobile. Many major manufacturers have either already developer, or planning to offer devices with Linux. The only thing that is needed to encourage the evolution of Linux mobile malware is a critical mass of users.
It may be that the development of some, as yet unknown or little used, technology will also act as a stimulus for malware evolution. Technologies and propagation methods which seem exotic today - - such as Bluetooth a few years ago - may shortly become industry standard for mobiles and PCs alike.
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50°39' / 26°52'
Editor and Designer,
Privately printed in Haifa, Israel, 1999
Scanning of text and graphics
sincere appreciation to Israel Zinman,
who is also the chairman of the Organization of Meziritsh Association,
for permission to put this material on the JewishGen web site.
JewishGen, Inc. makes no representations regarding the accuracy of
the translation. The reader may wish to refer to the original material
JewishGen is not responsible for inaccuracies or omissions in the original work and cannot rewrite or edit the text to correct inaccuracies and/or omissions.
Our mission is to produce a translation of the original work and we cannot verify the accuracy of statements or alter facts cited.
Steven Gershman, the son of Morris Gershman, a Holocaust survivor from Mezirich who passed away in 1996, is a personal friend of Israel Zinman , wrote the following: "Allowing this book to be placed on the Internet is the culmination of Mr. Zinman's many years of hard work trying to perpetuate the memory of those Jews from the town of Mezirich who were murdered by the Nazis. In my opinion, it is a living tribute to Israel Zinman, a truly incredible human being, a real 'mentsch'. Furthermore, this effort would not have been made possible without the invaluable assistance of Fred Apel, who scanned the book and photos without remuneration and on his own time. He is also a real 'mentsch'.
Mr. Gershman has informed me that there is a video cassette that accompanies
the book. For information, contact him at
Yizkor Book Project JewishGen Home Page
Copyright © 1999-2013 by JewishGen, Inc.
Updated 17 Jul 2009 by LA
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In this conversation among peers, local art conservators Patricia Ewer and David Marquis posed questions to Christa Haiml, another practicing conservator and educator who’s coming to the Walker this week (from Vienna) to give a lecture called “Restoring the Blue,” about Yves Klein’s painting materials and methods that will surely include the low-down on what [...]
In this conversation among peers, local art conservators Patricia Ewer and David Marquis posed questions to Christa Haiml, another practicing conservator and educator who’s coming to the Walker this week (from Vienna) to give a lecture called “Restoring the Blue,” about Yves Klein’s painting materials and methods that will surely include the low-down on what exactly makes International Klein Blue, International Klein Blue. The talk is one of several events happening as part of École de Klein (a series of public programs related to the exhibition Yves Klein: With the Void, Full Powers) this Thursday night; a drop-in monochrome-making workshop and improvisational dances in the Klein galleries by the local performance team, SuperGroup (just look for the folks clad head-to-toe in colorful monochromatic spandex bodysuits) help round off the evening. Click here for more details.
Christa Haiml, Photo by Anja Hitzenberger
Before executing the conservation treatment on the Yves Klein painting Blue Monochrome (1KB 42), one of the works included in the retrospective, Yves Klein: With the Void, Full Powers, you performed a very extensive technical analysis. Conservators, to the best of their abilities, routinely perform such analysis on any type of object they conserve. It is important to be completely familiar with all the materials and their degradation properties before executing a treatment. At the Menil Collection you had exceptional resources such as two individuals (Tom Learner and Kate Duffy) who did pigment analysis. How important do you feel it is for a conservator to have access to scientists or other specialists to aid in analysis?
During my fellowship at the Menil Collection I was fortunate to have access to scientists at other institutions (such as Tom Learner at the Getty Conservation Institute or Kate Duffy at the Williamstown Art Conservation Center) to perform analysis on paint samples.
There are certainly cases, where collaboration with conservation scientists is indispensable in order to identify the materials in a work of art and help devise an appropriate conservation treatment. However, it is not always necessary to take samples from works of art and at times it is not possible, for example when dealing with pristine monochromatic paint surfaces. Much information can also be gained by non-destructive methods such as visual examination under the microscope.
In a conservation reference you related how you were able to do some very important mock-ups (a model that closely imitates the painting and its technique) in preparation for your actual treatment. Mock-ups can be very time-consuming, were you on a tight deadline? Also how accurate do you feel your mock-ups were?
The fabrication of mock-ups can indeed be very time-consuming, but can be very helpful to gain a better understanding of an artist’s technique. Moreover mock-ups can be used to try out treatment options or experiment with different materials that cannot be tested on the original painting (which is often the case with the unforgiving surfaces of monochromatic paintings).
I was not on a deadline for this treatment. In my mock-ups, I was able to achieve a variety of different surface textures and hues. The surface of one of the mock-ups I made was accurate enough to be used as a tool in the restoration treatment.
View of Blue Monochromes in the exhibition Yves Klein: With the Void, Full Powers Photo by Cameron Wittig
Can you describe the techniques, materials and unique challenges of consolidating the blue pigment in Blue Mononchrome or other Klein paintings? With Blue Monochrome, do you feel the adhesion was significantly improved after consolidation? Were there any changes in color saturation after consolidation?
In the case of Blue Monochrome (1KB 42) I did not have to carry out a consolidation treatment. However, in general it is true that the consolidation of matte monochromatic surfaces presents a particular challenge for conservators. The paint layer in Yves Klein’s blue monochromes is underbound, i.e. it has little binding medium and densely packed, partly exposed pigment particles (that is, they are not surrounded by binding medium). When introducing a consolidant, one has to be extremely careful not to saturate the paint (which makes it appear darker) or change the gloss of the paint surface.
Do you consider your area of conservation expertise to be contemporary painting?
I was trained in the conservation and restoration of traditional easel paintings. After graduating, I had the opportunity to learn about modern and contemporary paintings during a two-year internship at the Guggenheim Museum in New York and a two and a half year fellowship at the Menil Collection in Houston. Currently, I teach in the program for conservation and restoration of modern and contemporary art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, but I also work in private practice where I carry out treatments on both, modern and contemporary as well as on traditional paintings.
Are there any overarching concerns you have with contemporary painting collections, not just in terms of actual treatment but collections care in general?
Many of the modern and contemporary paintings I treat in my private conservation studio suffered damages caused by careless handling or inadequate packing for transport.
Fingerprints on an unvarnished monochromatic paint surface or imprints of packing material on such a fragile surface can be irreversible damages. Preventive conservation (such as climate control and lighting), adequate handling, storage and packing would be some important aspects in the care of contemporary painting collections.
You teach in the program for Conservation and Restoration of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna; how does this modern and contemporary focus differ from traditional conservation training?
The conservation program at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna offers different areas of specialization: easel paintings and polychrome sculpture; wooden objects (including musical instruments); mural paintings and architectural surfaces; paper, books and archival materials. Students in the conservation of modern and contemporary art train in one of the above areas in their first and second year and specialize in modern and contemporary art starting from their third year. Training includes practical work on artworks ranging from contemporary paintings to three-dimensional objects, installations and time-based media. The curriculum encompasses lectures on modern materials, new methods of documentation, interviewing artists, ethical issues of dealing with living artists and artists’ intent.
Conservation training programs in the UK and a bit in the US have begun to suffer. In this economic climate universities worldwide feel they need to focus on programs that can pay for themselves. Conservation (like library programs in the late 1980’s) is a very time consuming discipline to teach and several universities are questioning their viability/sustainability; some programs have actually closed (Textile Conservation Center, University of Southampton – closed, and now taken up by the University of Glasgow; Royal College of Art/Victoria and Albert Museum Conservation Programme – closed). How do you feel about the training of future conservators? Do you feel there is less interest in this field in academic institutions in Europe? Does your program have a good number of applicants?
I cannot speak for other academic institutions in Europe, but I believe that at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna the number of applicants for the conservation program has remained relatively constant over the last few years. In fact, our program was fortunate to have been expanded with the implementation of a new area of specialization (the conservation of modern and contemporary art) five years ago.
Patricia Ewer is the principal of Textile Objects Conservation in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She is a conservation professional with over 30 years of experience in treating textiles, managing, developing and staffing conservation projects. She has held conservation positions at Historic Royal Palaces (U.K.), Midwest Art Conservation Center (Minneapolis, Minnesota), Biltmore House (Asheville, North Carolina), Textile Conservation Laboratory at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine (New York, New York), and The Textile Conservation Workshop (South Salem, New York). She has been a Professional Associate of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works since 1989. Ms Ewer was recently a presenter at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Tapestry Conservation Symposium (December 2009). She is co-editor with Frances Lennard of the recently published book Textile Conservation: Advances in Practice.
David Marquis, Senior Paintings Conservator
Mr. Marquis began with Midwest Art Conservation Center (MACC) in 1984. He has distinguished training and experience in the conservation of historic and contemporary paintings including the structural conservation of canvas and panel paintings, the authenticity and permanence of varnishes, and the mechanical behavior of paintings. Prior to joining MACC he was at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and also an instructor of Painting and Drawing at the University of Minnesota, School of Architecture. He holds a Master’s of Fine Arts Degree in Painting and Drawing and a Bachelor of Arts magna cum laude in Studio Arts from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. Mr. Marquis is a Professional Associate of The American Institute for Conservation of Historic & Artistic Works and a Member of the Midwest Regional Conservation Guild.
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It's been almost two months since employers began withholding Social Security taxes from workers at the rate of 6.2 percent of wages.
Workers in 2011 and 2012 had a little more money to spend thanks to the payroll tax holiday. But this two-percentage-point cut in the Social Security tax withheld from workers' paychecks expired on Dec. 31, 2012.
That, says a recent survey, is why we're seeing less consumer spending in early 2013.Tax Policy Center analysts estimate that the full 2013 payroll tax will mean an average loss of about $740 to every worker.
And a just-released poll commissioned by the National Retail Federation (NRF) found that almost three-quarters of surveyed consumers said that their spending and budgeting plans have been negatively affected by the return of the full 6.2 percent FICA payroll tax.
The reduction of the payroll tax rate to 4.2 percent always was planned as a temporary stimulus tool. Still, many thought that the tax cut would be continued for at least another year as part of the fiscal cliff bill. But when Congress finally OK'ed the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 on Jan. 1, the payroll tax cut was not included.
Early reports seemed to show that the return of the full payroll tax rate was negligible, as consumers kept up their shopping pace immediately after it expired. But those early reports, particularly numbers from the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC), were likely based on activity before people had received 2013 paychecks with more FICA tax taken out of them.
Michael Niemira, ICSC's chief economist, cautioned in an interview last month with the Washington Post that one month's numbers don't mean that shoppers are back to full health.
"The payroll tax is one of these things that accumulates," he said.
Retailers expecting fewer shoppers: That accumulation factor seems to be showing up in the NRF survey.
Of those greatly impacted by the loss of added income, nearly half (49.2 percent) plan to delay major purchases, such as a car, TV or furniture. Other notable findings:
- 45.7 percent say they will spend less overall.
- 35.6 percent will watch for sales more often.
- 33.5 percent will dine out less often.
- 24.5 percent will spend less on "little luxuries," such as trips to coffee shops, manicures and high-end cosmetic items.
And income levels also come into play as to how the return of the full payroll tax affects individuals.
Half of those surveyed who make less than $50,000 a year say they will spend less overall.
In this earnings group, 23.2 percent will spend less on groceries, compared to 16.7 percent of consumers who make more than $50,000 a year. Another 27.6 percent in the less-than-$50,000 earnings level say they will shop at discount stores more often, compared to 19.7 percent of adults making more than $50 grand.
Businesses worried: The NRF survey seems to underscore some corporate earnings worries.
Earlier this year, Family Dollar stores, one of the biggest dollar store chains in the country, announced that its end-of-2012 earnings fell short of analysts' projections. There was speculation that consumers were already cutting back in preparation for the payroll tax's return.
Now Wal-Mart, the world's biggest retailer, says its corporate earnings were hindered in part by the payroll tax increase.
Will the cumulative effect of the withholding tax continue through 2013? If so will Congress look at some other form of stimulus to get shoppers into stores? Maybe. But since there's no impending election, don't expect to see them jumping on this tax-break train as quickly.
How do you compare with the NRF survey participants? Has the return of the 6.2 percent withholding level affected your spending patterns? By a lot or just a little?
You also might find these items of interest:
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India in Transition
Suicide Seeds? Biotechnology Meets the Developmental State
On September 7, 2001, India’s then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee announced a national policy with the vision of “shaping biotechnology into a premier precision tool of the future for creation of wealth and ensuring social justice – especially for the welfare of the poor.” Biotechnology, in the aims of the policy, was to combat obdurate diseases and nutritional deficiencies, increase agricultural production, and protect the environment. Scientifically, these are all plausible – though distal and aspirational – claims.
Inevitably, the question that must be asked is: Why would a democratic, developmental state promote a technology characterized by globally-prominent Indian activists as 'suicidal' – destructive of farmers, agriculture and nature, the very constituencies it claimed to promote and protect?
To date, India’s primary experience with genetically engineered organisms is with Bt cotton. Gurcharan Das recently noted in a column in The Times of India: “India has doubled its production of cotton in the past five years. It crossed the US last year to become the world's second largest producer and is expected to overtake China in 2009 to become world's number one. India's cotton revolution is the subject of constant discussion at global agricultural forums, but in India almost no one has heard of it. Our media talks only about the suicides of cotton farmers. This is because environmental activists have been spreading disinformation and misleading the public. ”
Opponents of transgenics – strategically called “Genetically Modified Organisms” or “GMOs” -- reject these claims. More radically, transgenic seeds were framed first as “suicide seeds,” imbued with “terminator technology” that prevented saving or replanting of seeds. This bio-cultural abomination was attributed [falsely] to Monsanto, thus buttressing nationalist critiques of multinational corporations in a globalizing India. More darkly, new seeds were linked to widely reported waves of farmer suicides, as well as deaths of sheep and cattle. The public is understandably mystified by the numerous media reports that “Bt cotton has failed” when it is clear that more and more farmers and firms are taking it up.
The cognitive rift between these framings of Bt cotton – miracle seed or suicide seed – could not be wider.
Failure of opponents to block Bt cotton was not caused by Delhi or Monsanto, but by the agency of farmers recognizing their interests. Reciprocally, activists failed to listen to farmers, for reasons I have documented in explaining the failure of “Operation Cremate Monsanto.”
Globally, the battle over biotechnology is largely a contest of metropolitan middle classes engaged in proxy wars on the terrain of relatively poor farmers. Ironically, opposition to biotechnology in India has been largely an urban phenomenon, a creature of media and various websites. Opponents are backed by international NGOs and aid projects brokered through claims of indigenous authenticity. Reciprocally, middle-class proponents occupied positions within the state and formal-sector firms and organizations. Farmers were largely absent, though everyone speaks in their name.
Between these camps, even the most basic facts of biotechnology are contested, as one can see in a representative sample from English-language posts on India Together. A surprisingly large part of opposition failure is explained by its grounding – both materially and discursively – in a European narrative that is alien to India.
Where global discourse serves local mobilization especially badly is on issues of monopoly power and multinational control. There were no patents in India on Bt cotton technology, nor any terminators. Rather than monopoly and control, local competition with Mahyco-Monsanto is intense and extensive. Underground, technically illegal transgenic cotton was spreading before Monsanto sold a single seed in India. When Delhi declared these seeds illegal, in 2001, “cottage industry” production of new Bt hybrids ensued, especially in rural Gujarat. The irony is that the suicide seeds proved so robust that they sprouted and spread beyond the control of either Monsanto or Delhi.
Similar dynamics characterize other countries from Vietnam to Brazil. Regardless of urban discourses on biotechnology, farmers are taking initiatives: if transgenic seeds are either too expensive or bureaucratically restricted, they make, trade and save their own stealth seeds.
Stealth seeds thus defy European narratives of power in bio-property. Likewise, activists opposed to biotechnology misrecognize the dynamics of markets, despite intense scrutiny of neo-liberalism in contemporary India. The legal transgenic seed market is intensely competitive and prices have dropped significantly. Firms are continually crowding in with new seeds and farmers' choices continue to expand. Bt cotton now presents a smorgasbord of dozens of hybrids, some indigenous, some foreign – such as Nath Seeds in cooperation with a Chinese public sector firm – and some home-brewed by farmers for the gray market. Facing market discipline, why would farmers and firms take on a technology that was failing, or worse, fatal?
The most astonishing lapse in the opposition discourse – and one reason for its failure in rural India – is the deep cultural urban bias that treats 'peasants' as incapable of agency or rationality. Why would farmers plant suicide seeds year after year? Why could farmers not engage in the same opportunistic appropriation of intellectual property that characterizes other industries – software, pharmaceuticals, films, music, couture, among others – in cities around India and the world? As one Gujarati farmer told me in 2005, in English, “This is not rocket science.”
The world’s first hybrid cotton – Shankar 4 – was produced in Gujarat. In opposition to the radical difference implied by critiques of biotechnology, Devparna Roy has documented how Gujarati farmers have naturalized transgenics as a normal part of their risk-avoidance and revenue-making strategies. Even some organic cotton farmers in Gujarat saw no contradiction in planting Bt cotton; the technology enables plants to protect themselves from bollworms rather than depending on dangerous and expensive pesticides. There is a kind of poetic justice in the interaction of plant and pest: if you leave the plant alone, you live; if you attack the plant, you die.
But these are farmer choices. Why does the Indian State, under a supposedly neo-liberal dispensation, get involved with either promoting biotechnology or regulating seeds in the villages? At first blush, establishing a Department of Biotechnology in Delhi seems a throw-back to Nehruvian faith in science and planning.
One could argue that Nehruvian legacies die hard, but the reality is that all States at this historical juncture must make choices about biotechnology. International treaty norms cover transgenic organisms and bio-safety institutions. Global trade is being restructured around 'GMO-free' and biotechnology-dominant agricultures, essentially reproducing the European and American binary.
It is this global rift on genetic engineering – and the demand of farmers for the technology – that pressure the developmental state. Losing out in the global move to high-tech agriculture could disadvantage both farmers and nation-states in an egregiously rigged global economy. Moreover, given climate change, rapid and precise plant breeding may offer solutions otherwise unobtainable – to drought stress, for example. The worst-case scenario is exposure of Indian farmers to increased vulnerability without state of the art technology: an uneven growing field.
One hears the cliché in Delhi: ‘We missed the industrial revolution, we cannot miss the information revolution.’ Parallels to the global digital divide that widens the gap between advanced and lagging societies and classes are striking. Activists opposing biotechnology would be the last to forgo cell phones and computers – their compensation for small numbers is high technology wedded to cultural capital. Likewise, there is essentially no opposition to medical biotechnology. Human insulin has been produced via biotechnology since 1978 – culturally a step up from the alternative technology: scraping the innards of dead pigs and cows. Life-saving pharmaceuticals have drawn little protest compared to seeds, but genetic engineering increasingly goes into both.
In theory, developmental states succeed by rising above political squabbles, thereby achieving some autonomy from civil society, to promote the common interest over assertions of particular interests. The autonomy of India’s developmental state from civil society has marked biotechnology policy, with minor interruptions. The contrast to Africa and Southeast Asia is striking.
In becoming the sixteenth nation in the world to approve a transgenic crop for cultivation, in March 2002, India chose the American rather than European side of this technological divide. The Bt cotton story is one relative success in Indian agriculture – even in the face of illegal rigging, as determined by the WTO – of global cotton markets by the US.
India’s biotechnology story thus far has fortunately not depended on Delhi. Basic research in other countries aimed at making profits for commercial firms has been locally adapted to a daunting problem of cotton cultivation, with considerable success.
Indian farmers took to transgenic cottons for reasons consistent with international experience, tested on their own farms: higher profits from improved plant protection, lower pesticide costs and less poisoning of people, water and soils. Whatever the combination of factors involved in rural crisis, and tragedies of individual suicides, Bt cottons have lessened, not increased agrarian distress.
This development has not needed the developmental state; indeed, it was slowed by the regulatory state. Delhi has fallen far short of the broad aspirations implied by Mr. Vajpayee’s statement of vision. For those difficult but plausible outcomes to be realized, India will require a more active, creative and effective developmental state than we have seen so far.
Ronald J. Herring is Professor of Government at Cornell University and Team Co-leader and Faculty Fellow of the Institute for the Social Sciences 2006-09 theme project “Contentious Knowledge: Science, Social Science and Social Movements.”
India in Transition (IiT) is published by the Center for the Advanced Study of India (CASI) of the University of Pennsylvania. All viewpoints, positions, and conclusions expressed in IiT are solely those of the author(s) and not specifically those of CASI.
© 2007 Center for the Advanced Study of India and the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania. All rights reserved.
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| 0.939912
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On April 26, 2012, Professor John Brittain moderated the Doctors of the Dark Side documentary screening and discussion on UDC’s main campus. Psychology Students for Social Responsibility UDC Chapter presented in collaboration with UDC-DCSL and the UDC Department of Psychology, Counseling, and Human Development.
Doctors of the Dark Side is a film about the role of physicians and psychologists in the torturing of detainees in U.S. military prisons after 9/11. The documentary discusses the torture program through the stories of four detainees and the doctors involved in their torture.
After the documentary, Professor John Brittain moderated the panel which included Kristine A. Huskey, JD, Director of the Anti-Torture Program at Physicians for Human Rights, Stephen Xenakis, MD, a former Brigadier General for the U.S. Army, and Luisa Saffiotti, PhD, President of the Psychologists for Social Responsibility.
Approximately 75 people attended the event, over a third of which were guests to the campus and about half were students. Participants came from a wide variety of backgrounds including professionals and students in law, psychology, military, sociology, and writers.
Audience members asked several questions about the role of American culture in creating problems around the world; the negative impact of U.S. military on the people and communities where the U.S. is operating; and whether a Reconciliation and Forgiveness Commission might be possible and what it would like.
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<urn:uuid:9e943645-e174-4c1c-9263-e246b5730662>
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http://www.law.udc.edu/news/90861/Prof.-John-Brittain-at-Doctors-of-the-Dark-Side-Documentary-and-Discussion.htm
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If you’ve kept up with the new features to be included in OS X Mountain Lion when it makes its public debut this summer, you know about Gatekeeper, the new security system that prevents users from unintentionally installing malware. This new system basically keeps apps that weren’t downloaded from the Mac App Store or an “identified developer” outside of it from launching on users’ Macs, unless they change Mountain Lion’s default settings to allow them to.
This move by Apple puts increased emphasis on having OS X apps distributed more within the Mac App Store rather than through outside sources, even though it is being done in the name of security. To become an “identified developer” and avoid having Mountain Lion disable users’ ability to launch your apps, you’ll still have to register with Apple in order to receive a personalized certificate to sign your apps with. Apple will use this new certificate system to track developers who are spreading malware and disable their certificates in order to protect users.
Apple will be imposing these limitations (and your ability to change them) within System Preferences under Security & Privacy, in which you’ll be able to manage all of Gatekeeper’s settings. Within the “General” tab, you’ll see the following three options under the setting “Allow applications downloaded from”: Anywhere, Mac App Store, and Mac App Store and identified developers. The Anywhere option allows Mountain Lion to function like every previous version of OS X; if the app you’re trying to launch isn’t confirmed malware and you opt to allow it to open, it will. The Mac App Store option will only allow apps downloaded from the Mac App Store to launch, and the Mac App Store and identified developers (default) option allows apps from the Mac App Store and identified developers only.
Users on the default setting can bypass the Gatekeeper check (for now, at least, as Mountain Lion is only in developer preview and Apple can easily fix this) by right clicking the first unsigned third-party app they wish to launch and selecting “Open,” after which Gatekeeper will no longer have control over it.
Mountain Lion will also check with Apple’s servers on a daily basis for developer signatures that have been blacklisted due to malicious activity, and if a user attempts to launch an app with a blacklisted signature, it will not open. The good thing about the certificate system is that they are issued freely upon request and don’t impose any limitations on developers (other than, obviously, against malware). The certificates simply link developers to the apps that they create, and allow Gatekeeper to manage the ability of said apps to function in case they do contain any malware.
While I appreciate that Apple is doing more to fight against malware in OS X, I do wish they’d take a different approach. Telling users that they want them to only go through Apple’s approved channels for their software is a pretty scary move, as easy as it is to get around it. While the rest of Mountain Lion’s features have me pretty excited for this summer, this is one thing that’s got me a bit worried as well.
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Challenged? Together We Can!: 2013 Pyeongchang Special Olympics Pre-Games
Figure skaters dressed in brilliant costumes are waiting for their turns to practice before performing their program.
[Interview : Chien Shihyu, Taiwanese participant] "I've prepared something very, very beautiful and graceful.
These athletes flew from Taipei to take part in the Pre-Games for the 2013 Pyeongchang Special Olympics.
[Reporter : Song Ji-sun
email@example.com] "It does not take landing a triple axel to be on the ice here because each and every stroke means just as much for these skaters."
The scenes on the snow are not too different from those on the ice.
They may fall down, crash, or even drift outside the lines but they get right back up and take another turn to complete the race.
The Special Olympics differ from the Paralympic Games because it is a non-elite event for the intellectually challenged, such as those with autism or down syndrome while the Paralympics are a competitive event for the physically challenged.
But the spirit is alive and well among these athletes -- regardless of their mental or physical state.
[Interview : Mun Chang-hyeon, Korean participant] "I could've raced faster, but I'll definitely do better the next time."
Turns out his dash was more than enough to put him on the podium.
[Interview : Mun Chang-hyeon, Korean participant] "I'm so happy that I won. I think I won because I did not fall down."
And the initiative of these athletes brings about significant change to their families.
[Interview : Ryu Hee-soo, Mother of a participant] "Sports is definitely something all children with intellectual disabilities should try out.
It improves their social and learning skills noticeably and I've come to learn that there is something my son is really good at."
Song Ji-sun, Arirang News, Pyeongchang.
Reporter : firstname.lastname@example.org
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en
| 0.944439
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Workspheres examines the balance between work and life, and the important role designers play in devising effective solutions for our ever-changing work paradigms. The exhibition features six built concepts of work tools and environments designed by Naoto Fukasawa; Martí Guixé; Hella Jongerius; Lot/Ek Architects; the MIT Media Laboratory/John Maeda and Joe Paradiso; and a team made up of Jeff Reuschel and Ronna Alexander, Brian Alexander, Christopher Budd, Kevin Estrada,and Brad Paley. The concepts bring to life realistic visions of the near future and range in size and type from entire working environments to computer interfaces and personal accessories. The exhibition also presents a selection of prototypes already under development and available products that are designed with sensible and sensitive attention to the way we really want to work.
Organized by Paola Antonelli, Curator, and Sarah Robins, Research Assistant, Department of Architecture and Design. This exhibition is made possible by Haworth, Inc., Herman Miller Inc., Knoll, Inc., Steelcase Inc., and the Xerox Foundation. Additional generous support is provided by Peter Norton, Norton Family Foundation, The Norman and Rosita Winston Foundation, and The Junior Associates of The Museum of Modern Art.
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A great video introduction to Secular Humanism and Center for Inquiry
September 19, 2008
Use this link to watch the short (3 minutes) video featuring some of the great minds of our times, as they state why Center for Inquiry is valuable for those seeking a life based on reason, reality, ethics, and civil liberties.
The video makes a simply understood introduction to Secular Humanism. Now you don't have to explain it to your wondering friends-just give them this link. There are also good links on that page for people sign up to become supporters and also add their name to our news and events list and our Declaration for Science & Secularism.
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Reporting from Paris —
The French lower house of Parliament on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved a ban on wearing face-covering veils in a public place.
The legislation, part of an ongoing national debate on French identity, is expected to have no opposition in the Senate, which is due to vote on it in September. Once signed by President Nicolas Sarkozy, who has placed it high on his agenda, the ban would take effect next spring.
Though the ban would affect only an estimated 1,900 of the millions of Muslim women in France, Sarkozy has used an accelerated legislative process to get it passed. The vote in the National Assembly on Tuesday — 335 to 1, with 241 members abstaining — came just over a year after 65 parliamentarians called for a commission to investigate whether the veil undermined French values.
Those who declined to vote were members of the opposition Socialist, Communist and Green parties, who are against women wearing the full veil, but don't think legislation is the solution.
Green deputy Francois de Rugy accused the ruling party of "throwing oil on the fire" and "rekindling tensions strictly for electoral ends."
Justice Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said the action was a victory for democracy and French values: "Values of freedom against all the oppressions which try to humiliate individuals; values of equality between men and women, against those who push for inequality and injustice."
According to the legislation, covering one's face in a public place will be subject to a fine of about $185 or community service. Far stricter penalties are aimed at those who force others to wear the veil: about $38,000 or a year in prison, terms to be doubled if the wearer is a minor. Though the wording of the law is careful not to single out Muslims, it is widely seen as a move to clamp down on Islamic extremism.
Several exceptions are noted, such as masks for health reasons, sports, carnivals and festivals.
A year ago, Sarkozy said that the burka was "not welcome" in France and that it was "not a sign of religion but a sign of subservience." The comments provoked a public reaction that showed widespread support for a ban on both the burka, an enveloping outer garment, and the niqab, or face covering. Muslim groups, however, complained that such a ban would stigmatize all members of their religion.
Because of questions over the ban's constitutionality, the ruling Union for a Popular Movement party has agreed to send the eventual final version of the legislation to the Constitutional Council watchdog.
A further challenge could occur from the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France. Amnesty International has said the law "violates rights to freedom of expression and religion."
The vote Tuesday could set a precedent for other European countries. Britain, Spain and Belgium are considering similar legislation. Support for such a ban is far higher in Europe than in the U.S., where 28% of the public would approve it, according to a Pew Global Attitudes Project poll, compared with 82% in France and 62% in Britain.
Culliford is a special correspondent.
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http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jul/14/world/la-fg-france-veil-20100714
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en
| 0.963964
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Lithuanian Art Museum presents an extensive collection of Lithuanian and international art, based on a number of private collections and donations.
The Vilnius Picture Gallery (4 Didžioji), the main branch of the museum, is housed in the 17th century Chodkeviciai Palace. Reconstruction of the palace in the 19th century created a typical classicist façade and an authentic 19th century interior decor preserved to the present day. Alongside the permanent exhibition, the gallery features a display of medals, portrait miniatures, landscapes of the old Vilnius, portraits of famous residents of the city, etc. The permanent exhibition covers Lithuanian painting, sculpture and graphic art dating from the time between the 16th and 20th centuries. The painting collection mostly includes portraits of noblemen and clericals of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (16th - 18th centuries) and works from Lithuanian churches and monasteries. The collection of 19th century art consists of works by teachers and graduates of the Vilnius Art School. Alongside Lithuanian art, the gallery features works by Western European and Russian masters, from Lodovico Carracci, Bartholomaeus Spranger, Jan Fyt and Meindert Hobbema, to Vassily Perov and Isaac Levitan. The museum also owns a large collection of graphic art featuring works by Lithuanian, Western European and Japanese artists; a collection of 20th century Lithuanian painting and sculpture; a watercolour and pastel painting collection and a photograph collection dating from the second half of the 20th century to the present day. The gallery also hosts temporary exhibitions and concerts on a regular basis.
5 BokštoShare it:
Keywords: Vilnius, museum, gallery
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<urn:uuid:73fe27b2-b9f2-4645-ba1f-850ccd2522db>
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://www.anothertravelguide.com/eng/europe/lithuania/vilnius/destinations/culture/lithuanian_art_museum/
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en
| 0.939489
| 364
| 2.09375
| 2
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The Tirol line of the Habsburgs died out in 1665, but Maria Theresa helped the city retain its glory
by building more fabulous buildings. Tirol was ceded to Bavaria after Napoleon's conquest in 1805
and it remained so until 1814, when it was given back to Austria at the Congress of Vienna. After the
railway came through the Brenner pass in 1884, Innsbruck, shown at left in 1685, became a vital,
prosperous crossroads linking north and south as well as east and west.
Typical of how the results of the fallout from First World War still affect modern day is the story of
Tirol. Associated with music, flowers and happy peasants, the victorious Allies vindictively severed
South Tirol from her ancient Austrian cultural roots. There was no historical excuse for the spiteful
action, only the motive that Tirol was part of Austria's heart and sole since the days of the Romans.
The year 1248 is known as 'the year of Tirol's birth' because it was then that the counties around the
Brenner pass unified. Duke Friedrich IV built the castle Schloss Tirol at Meran, and Innsbruck
became the capital of all Tirol in 1429. Emperor Maximilian I turned the city into a vibrant, thriving
cultural and financial center in the 15th and 16th centuries. He built das Goldene Dachl, a
magnificent Renaissance building which is Innsbruck's most famous landmark.
As part of their move to prevent any future German or Austrian power, the Allies at Versailles
severed German speaking South Tirol from its historic and cultural roots in Austria. At the Treaty of
Saint-Germain of September 10, 1919, Italy was given the ethnic German territories south of the
Alpine watershed, including the southern part of the Austro-Hungarian County of Tirol. Some
150,000-200,000 Tirolese German citizens were therefore given to Italy to do with as she saw fit. At
the time of the annexation in 1919, the overwhelming majority of the population spoke German.
Italy formally annexed the territories on October 10, 1920 and one of the first orders of the Italian
military regime was to seal the border between South Tirol and Austria, the people forbidden to cross
the new frontier. This move tore family, friends, businesses and even church parishes in two. The
postal service and traditional trade were interrupted and censorship was introduced. On May 15,
1921 the Italian government, although retaining military and police control of the newly created
provincial council of the "Provincia di Venezia Tridentina", did allow the first free democratic
elections (the last the people would see until April 18, 1948!). The result was a resounding victory for
the Deutscher Verband (German Association), which won close to 90% of the votes and thus sent 4
deputies to Rome. The German-speaking population was largely able to go about their normal
business as usual during this short time, however.
However, on Sunday April 24, 1921, as the German population of Bozen participated in a traditional
parade honoring spring events, 280 out-of-province Italian fascists arrived by train and, joining forces
with 120 local fascists, proceeded to attack the procession with clubs, guns and grenades, injuring 50
people and killing a local artist. Nobody was ever brought to justice for the attack. This was an omen
of worse things to come. In October 1922, the Italian government rescinded all protection of
linguistic minorities and began an Italianization program which demanded the exclusive use of Italian
language in the public offices and the closure of most German schools. It also offered incentives for
immigrants from other Italian regions to relocate with the intention of diluting the German majority,
and with this goal in mind, a large industrial zone was soon opened in Bolzano to lure workers and
their families to the area from other parts of Italy. Public service jobs became an exclusive domain of
Italian speakers. As in other areas where the Allies artificially created new populations, the Italian
speaking population grew from 3% in 1910 to over 34%. There would be trouble in days to come.
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<urn:uuid:4f00001f-bc1b-46e5-af50-c294d5bc36d3>
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://exulanten.com/tirol.html
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en
| 0.967116
| 900
| 3.578125
| 4
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New Planets and a Larger Solar System
by Chris Frantz
News Flash (August 24, 2006)—
Pluto Demoted! Read All About It Here.
This article was first featured on August 19, 2006. The proposal described has since been rejected. Read about it here.
The International Astronomical Union (IAU) will be voting on an official definition of the word "planet" at their general assembly on Aug. 24, 2006. Celestial bodies must meet the following two conditions in order to be classified as planets: (1) The object must be in orbit around a star, while not being itself a star, and (2) The body must be massive enough for its own gravity to pull it into a nearly spherical shape, generally with a diameter greater than 497 mi (800 km). The IAU proposes to include the largest asteroid Ceres, Pluto's satellite Charon, and 2003 UB313 (just announced in July 2005 and nicknamed "Xena") as the newest planets in our solar system.
Mercury through Neptune would be described as "classical" planets; Ceres, Pluto, Charon, and 2003 UB313 have a "dwarf" description. A new category of planets, pluton (named, of course, after Pluto), is for planets that take longer than 200 years to complete an orbit around the Sun. These orbits also tend to be eccentric—far from being circular and and also have a greater orbital tilt ("inclination") than those of the classical planets.
Charon would lose its satellite classification and with Pluto would be considered a "double planet." A double planet is two bodies that have their common center of gravity ("barycenter") between them in space and not in the interior of either planet. The barycenter of the Moon and Earth is within the Earth, not in space.
More Planets to Come?
The IAU also has a dozen candidate planets awaiting future inclusion in the solar system. Future denizens of our system could include Sedna, Orcus, Quaoar, Varuna, Ixion—all found beyond Pluto; the asteroids Vesta, Pallas, and Hygiea; and four yet unnamed bodies (2003 EL61, 2005 FY9, 2002 TX300, and 2002 AW197).
Fact Monster™ Database, © 2007 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
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en
| 0.929953
| 487
| 3.578125
| 4
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West Indian Medical Journal
Print version ISSN 0043-3144
SEGUY, N et al. HIV and syphilis infection among gold and diamond miners - Guyana, 2004. West Indian med. j. [online]. 2008, vol.57, n.5, pp. 444-449. ISSN 0043-3144.
BACKGROUND: Guyana had an estimated HIV prevalence of 1.5% among pregnant women in 2006 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.1-1.9). However, a survey of miners in one mine found a 6.5% HIV prevalence in 2002. To determine whether Guyanese miners are at high risk for HIV infection we conducted a HIV and syphilis prevalence survey of miners in several mines. METHODS: Adult male consenting miners in 45 Guyanese mines were interviewed, counselled, tested for HIV and syphilis with rapid tests and provided onsite test results. The survey was cross-sectional and used a multi-stage cluster sampling design; population estimates were calculated using SUDAAN. RESULTS: Of 651 miners approached, 539 (83%) were interviewed and 509 (78%) tested. The estimated prevalence for HIV was 3.9% (CI = 2.1, 7.1) and for life-time syphilis exposure was 6.4% (CI = 4.5, 9.1). Fifty-four per cent (CI = 41.3, 66.7) of miners had casual sex during the preceding year, of whom 44.4% (CI = 34.3, 55.0) had always used condoms with these partners. CONCLUSION: The estimated HIV prevalence among Guyanese miners was higher than that of the general population. Targeted interventions including condom promotion are recommended to prevent further spread of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections among miners.
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| 0.942299
| 386
| 2.09375
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June 14, 2010
This week, our story comes to us from Stephenville, Newfoundland and Labrador. The author, Agnes Snook, is enrolled in literacy and math tutoring with Newfoundland and Labrador Laubach Literacy Council (NLLLC). Agnes took part in a Family Writing Contest with NLLLC, where families were invited to participate in a family story writing contest using a literacy theme. Her submitted story is included below.
It was years ago that I quit school. I only had grade 7. I had to quit school because my mom was sick. I had to do the housework, get water and wood. I felt very sad; hurt because I had to quit because I would like to get all of my grades. My mom only had grade 3. My brothers and sisters only had low grades. I found it hard in math, reading, spelling and history. So I was encouraged by my sister Sarah to take up tutoring. She encouraged me all the way. I felt happy she did. I am learning math, reading and crossword puzzles. I am doing good. I learned about the heart, brain, time and about dying. I started on February 27, 2009. My tutor is Patricia Woodrow. I have finished two books already. I am starting Challenger 5.
I enjoy it very much. I also would like to learn computers. I would like to teach someone else one day. I would like to graduate some day. My sons only had grade 7 or 8. Except for my daughter, she got her grade 12. I learned also about Babe Ruth, who was a baseball player. Also, I learned about Diamond Jim Brady, who at too much. He was born in 1856. He died in Atlantic City in 1917. The name of the story was The Hungry Eater. I learned about the ship of the desert which is a camel. I learned about the lungs, artery, and the small and large intestine. Also, I learned about the vein. Also (I learned) about digestion. Also, I learned where the camel stores the fat. It is in the hump on the camel’s back. Diamond Jim Brady went to the doctor and the doctor told him he had to cut down on his eating, if he wanted to live. Also, about the salesman who collected jewellery. He was known as the jewellery collector. I enjoy going to this program and am hoping to be continuing this program in the future.
[This story was taken with permission, from the Newfoundland and Labrador Laubach Literacy Council (NLLLC) website, under News.]
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| 0.990457
| 532
| 1.984375
| 2
|
In the days and weeks following the 9.0-magnitude earthquake and ensuing tsunami in Japan, the world was bombarded with disturbing images and video of overturned cars and boats, splintered homes and even leveled neighborhoods. But hearing the earthquake — from its initial blast to the series of the plate-slipping pops that follow — might provide a clearer picture of its power.
Thousands of seismometers are located in the region, making the March 11 event the best-recorded earthquake of all-time. Zhigang Peng, an associate professor at Georgia Tech’s School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, helped bring that data to life.
Peng converted the seismic waves into audio files so everyday folk could “hear” what the quake sounded like as it moved through the earth and around the globe. Peng’s research, which was supported in part by the National Science Foundation, was published in the March/April edition of Seismological Research Letters. Peng has made audio files of quakes in the past. But he saw the Tohoku-Oki earthquake as an opportunity to educate general audiences.
The measurement, which is in the animation above, was taken near the coastline of Japan between Fukushima and Tokyo. The initial roar that you hear is the 9.0 mainshock. The popping noises that immediately follow is the sound of the earth’s plates slipping dozens of meters into new positions, which triggered aftershocks. Some of these plates moved as much as 50 meters, Peng said. He has since updated the animation and slowed it down a bit to allow audiences to hear more clearly.
To be clear, the sound is not what folks at the epicenter of the quake heard, Peng explained to me today. In real time, the earthquake and aftershocks went on for hours. The clip above is only 37 seconds. Peng, and other collaborators in the United States and Japan, took the data and played it faster than true speed to increase the frequency to audible levels. The process also allows audiences to hear data recorded over minutes or hours in a matter of seconds.
The next clip is taken from measurements in California. While considerably quieter, that initial noise corresponds with the Japanese mainshock. The high-pitch continuous sound that follows — described as rainfall that turns on and off — represents induced tremor activity at the San Andreas Fault. Peng said the audio file was particularly interesting because it illustrated how earthquakes interact.
Photo: Takashi NAKANO via Flickr user Tex Texin, CC 2.0
More from the Collateral Damage series:
- The plastic legacy of Great East Japan tsunami debris
- Q&A: Hitoshi Abe on design lessons from the Great East Japan earthquake
- In post-Japan quake & tsunami era, Noah offers emergency shelter
- Fukushima’s Lesson: ‘Alternative’ nuclear, not ‘no’ nuclear
- Asian Super Grid: How Japan’s anti-nuclear plan could go nuclear
- A year after Fukushima, how life in Japan has changed
Related on SmartPlanet:
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Most Active Stories
Mon October 31, 2011
Steve Jobs And His Last Words
There's been plenty written about Steve Jobs since his death. But, yesterday, The New York Times published a eulogy delivered at a memorial service by his sister, the novelist Mona Simpson.
It's lovely to say the least and there are lots of little nuggets about Jobs and his relationship to his family and Jobs as a devotee of love and beauty. But the thing the Web is buzzing about today is what Simpson said were his last words:
Steve's final words, hours earlier, were monosyllables, repeated three times.
Before embarking, he'd looked at his sister Patty, then for a long time at his children, then at his life's partner, Laurene, and then over their shoulders past them.
Steve's final words were:
OH WOW. OH WOW. OH WOW.
As All Things D reports, it's only natural that words so dramatic would come from a man whose life "read like an epic novel."
What do they mean? Of course, we'll never know. But The Wall Street Jounal took on the question seriously.
It could be, they posit, just like his sister was saying — that Jobs was living "the artist's belief in the ideal" that there is still more beautiful in the future. There is always the God theory, which is being discussed. But the Journal finds an interesting historical parallel:
Inventor Thomas Edison's last words were close in spirit to Jobs's reported exit line.
According to various sources, including the book "Edison: Inventing the Century" by Neil Baldwin, hours before his death, Edison emerged from a coma, opened his eyes, looked upwards and said "It is very beautiful over there."
Which may be another way of saying "Oh wow."
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I think those characters represent the option key symbol set. You know how when you press Option and a letter (w/ or w/o a shift) you get a symbol?
Now do the reverse and find out what letters are pressed in conjuction with the Option key to get those symbols. That would be my best guess anyway. (Also note that symbols can be different. For example, option-shift-K gives while option-K gives ˚.)
I'm thinking that it has something to do with creating them on the keyboard, with the ASCII characters.. like option+P = the pi character, so the character is p. I haven't gotten far on this one, though.
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Published on April 8th, 2012 | by Surminga1
How Can You Increase Your Concentration Levels?
Top Tips On Increasing Your Concentration Levels
When looking to develop and grow your muscles, what do you do? Join a gym and start lifting some weight. But what can you do if you want to grow and better your concentration and mind? To be able to improve the concentration and focus in your mind, you definitely should be exercising your brain putting it to use often. Whether it be eating brain food or enjoying brain games, exercising your brain is every bit as important as exercising the body . Undergoing some brain exercises daily or several times a day could boost the way the brain works and build even better focus and concentration.
Over time we might lose the ability to focus or during periods where the brain might lack a sort of challenge, however brain exercises can improve concentration and focus even in older males and females.
Tips to Strengthening the brain improving concentration -
1. Do some brain games. Not only are brain games an enjoyable experience, but they should help boost your concentration and focus. Relying on your long-term memory and attempting to answer tough questions helps improve the brain. Taking only 15 minutes daily to play brain games may benefit you. A good example is using sudoku or solitaire either on your phone or PC.
2. Changing your daily schedule challenges your brains focus and concentration to complete something thats outside your area of expertise. This could easily tremendously strengthen your problem fixing capabilities.
Try Sudoku Puzzles and do math problems in your mind in your leisure time
3. Look for a training program that will assist you to focus better. Having the ability to dramatically increase your intelligence continually fascinated me. I was the child that could not focus, studied a lot but constantly forgot all the information, and I appeared to be the least intelligent individual inside my family.
4. Ingest foods that help your brain. Your brain is going to function at its best if provided with with nourishing meals. Proteins are good for the brain, and may appear in cheeses, meat products, fish, and milk. Complex carbohydrates are important too, and these carbohydrates derive from fruits, vegetables, and grains.The brain needs some fat, so do not stay away from all fats. It is recommended to primarily have good fats that can be found in healthy oils like olive oil or fish oils. They can also be found in nuts like pistachios, peanuts, and cashews. Try to avoid highly processed foods because they are likely to contain unhealthy fats.Have food products which includes omega-3s, for example trout, salmon, and tuna, which are oily fish.
5. Start a new hobby. Trying a new past time is another way to develop your interests and make use of your brain to discover something new. Being occupied and discovering new things stretch the way the brain thinks.
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Wear and repair parts
The following parts of a conveyor belt scale are subject to a need for service due to wear and tear and, possibly, repair or replacement: integrator, weigh bridge, load cells, and speed sensor proximity switch.
The integrator is prone to potential failure due to issues with seasonal lightning if not properly grounded during electrical installation of the belt scale. Additionally, with a long cable run (i.e., between a conveyor and a control room) there is the opportunity for noise from wire interference (from anything that uses or produces power) to be introduced into the signal wires and affect the accuracy/operation of the scale.
The weigh bridge has additional electronics including junction cards, load cells, and failure potential for frayed wiring due to neglect. Additionally, the belt scale installation can suffer from problems as a result of a need for shimming/alignment of the scale weigh bridge and/or the idlers both before and after the scale. Some conveyor belt scale manufacturers require the idlers before and after the scale idlers to be shimmed.
Load cells are the devices which receive the force transferred by the conveyor idler supported by the weigh bridge. The force is then converted to an electrical signal that can be received by the integrator, which processes the signal as a load on the conveyor belt scale. Typical load cell designs for conveyor belt scales include both “shear-beam” and “S-type” load cells similar to beam and platform scales. The capacity of the conveyor in tons per hour will determine the load rating of the load cells commonly in 100-pound, 250-pound, 750-pound, and 1-kilogram capacities. A weigh bridge will use either one or two load cells. A multiple idler scale system consisting of multiple weigh bridges can use up to a total of eight load cells.
Speed sensors utilize electronic proximity switches and wiring in addition to mechanical wheels and greaseable bearing sets. Due to the mechanical nature of the speed sensor design, a catastrophic failure of a proximity switch may also require the replacement of a cog or counting wheel, in addition to a new proximity switch, to complete a repair of the speed sensor.
It is best to contact a manufacturer or local scale service company with your specific issues and further questions for their review and expert recommendation. AM
Austin W. Amos has 16 years of experience in the weighing industry and currently holds the position of general manager at ConveyWeigh, LLC., a West Virginia-based manufacturer of conveyor belt scales, and is an appointed member of the West Virginia District Export Council.
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8th Sunday of Luke
The Gospel of Luke 10:25-37
At that time, a lawyer stood up to put Jesus to the test, saying, "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" He said to him, "What is written in the law? How do you read?" And he answered, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself." And he said to him, "You have answered right; do this, and you will live."
But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?" Jesus replied, "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him, and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was; and when he saw him, he had compassion, and went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine; then he set him on his own beast and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, 'Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.' Which of these three, do you think, proved neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?" He said, "The one who showed mercy on him." And Jesus said to him, "Go and do likewise."
Daily Readings via Email
Would you like to receive these daily readings via email? Sign up here.
The English Gospel text used is based on the Revised Standard Version from "The Holy and Sacred Gospel" by Holy Cross Press, Brookline, MA.
The Revised Standard Version of the Bible is copyrighted 1946, 1952, 1971, and 1973 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. and used by permission.
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Are there any family historians who aren’t addicted to cemeteries? While many people find them depressing or scary, we seem to relish browsing the stones, or when short of time, launching a search mission worthy of the military. For some reason my husband always finds “my” stones in any given cemetery, no matter how we divvy up the quadrants in the first instance.
But that’s all by the by. Today I wanted to highlight the amazing information that’s part and parcel of most outback cemeteries in Australia but in particular Winton in Outback Queensland, home of Waltzing Matilda (unless you come from Kynuna up the road which also lays claim to our most famous song).
We visited Winton cemetery again a few months ago en route to Brisbane as I wanted another look at my grandfather’s aunt’s grave. Agnes Mellick and her husband Elias Mellick owned a store in Winton for many years and are both buried in this cemetery.
However their gravestone comes with a warning: not only do they have two stones because the stonemason (or family) made a mistake with one, the second one is also incorrect. Elias’s obituary is in The Longreach Leader on 8 October 1926 as well as The Brisbane Courier, The Queenslander and The Rockhampton Morning Bulletin.Very strangely while his siblings get a mention by name, his wife and children do not.
Despite these vagaries the stones I’m attracted to are the ones that list the person’s birthplace. I often reflect on whether there are families left in the home country who wonder what happened to their son/brother/etc and if they wonder where they are buried. Well I guess there’s no one of the first generation left in most cases, but surely there must be some family researchers overseas who seek to find their lost family members in Australia, just as we do in reverse.
The tragedies of early Queensland pioneers are there for all to see: young men killed in riding accidents, innumerable infant deaths, people dying far from their homes and families, women dying incredibly young, often in childbirth.
Winton’s cemetery includes people born in all corners of the globe: France, Sweden, Russia, Denmark, Ireland, England, New Zealand, Switzerland, China, Jericho, Scotland, Norway, San Francisco, Germany, Poland, Columbia, Mexico, Malta, San Diego, South Africa.
The names and places can be obtained by ordering in the burial register on microfilm from the LDS church: 1363800 Winton Cemetery register (1890-1920) or 1364060 Item 4 is a transcription of these records. Alternatively if you’re visiting the Waltzing Matilda centre in Winton you can view the transcripts in the Museum. The registers may also tell you their age, occupation and cause of death (information varies depending on the time frame).
Winton Cemetery also has a very interesting War Graves section. Unfortunately by the time we got to that, the dust and dried grasses had got to me and I departed in fits of sneezes which lasted for hours. Such are the hazards for determined family historians.
By the way I would love to hear from any Mellick descendants who might come across this blog.
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This past February, the elementary Art teacher, Jenna Pallio, and I got together to plan an exhibit of 5th grade sculptures of people they admire. I suggested that we have students use Audacity to make audio recordings of their reasons for selecting their muse and turn them into QR codes that could be shared with parents and guests during the exhibit. Before the exhibit, information was sent to parents about downloading a QR reader app to their smart device. Most came prepared, but just in case, we put a desktop QR reader from QuickMark on our mini-Dells for students and those without a smart device.
I read Silvia Tolisano’s Langwitches blog post about QR codes and was inspired to try and integrate them into things we are doing at the American School of Milan. I’ve turned Kindergarten classes singing songs and children reading stories into QR codes. So easy and fun!
I’ve created my own document about how I made this process work for us. The background isn’t coming up perfectly right now, but I’ll work on that TOMORROW! Here is a link to the document just in case.
All of the site logos are used as links to those sites, so I hope that you’ll find it useful in learning to create QR codes to use in your classroom. And, of course, if you scan the QR code on the document, I made a ROUGH screencast of how I went about this process!
I’m thinking about creating a QR code scavenger hunt around the school, helping teachers make QR codes to provide information about classroom areas or materials, and in other ways that you share with me!! Have you used QR codes with elementary students? What have you done? Please share your stories!
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Anyone who has spent much time in Chicago knows the city has impressive civic and business leaders, talented and cultured people who creatively support charities and the arts. But they also play team ball.
One measure of that is the $25.6 million that the 2008 Obama campaign raised from metro Chicago. An even more meaningful measure is the $5 million that Hillary Clinton's campaign raised there -- a virtual shutout in a city where the Clintons once raised huge sums. The word obviously went out: You back Barack and you don't back Hillary.
He then asks the question that needs to be asked:
Needless to say, read the whole thing.
To some it may seem anomalous that Obama, who began his Chicago career as a Saul Alinsky-type community organizer, should have taken to the Chicago Way. But Alinsky's brand of community organizing is very Chicagocentric.
It assumes that there will always be a Machine that you can complain about and that if you make a big enough fuss it will have to respond. And that the Machine can always get more plunder from the private sector.
The problem with Obama's Chicago Way is that Chicago isn't America. The Chicago Way works locally because there is an America out there that ultimately pays for it. But who will pay for an America run the Chicago Way?
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cramps at 19 weeks pregnant need help!!!
hello my name is ashley and ive been having really bad cramps in the after non .every time i set down it gets worst plz help
Posted: 12/11/2012 by a BabyCenter Member
Sort by: best answers | most recent answers
1 - 1 of 2 answers
Cramping is normal in pregnancy because your uterus is stretching. Be sure to drink plenty of water, that usually helps me.posted 12/11/2012 by Daniella Recinos
Answer this question
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Anyone who believes that they should have been provided for in a will and has missed out, or has been left with something but believes it to be an unreasonably small amount, may be able to challenge the will.
These days it is not just immediate family members who may challenge a will; the list of potential claimants is extensive and essentially includes anyone who believes they can demonstrate that the deceased had a duty to provide for them. This means that in addition to direct family members, claimants may include ex spouses, people who have been wholly or partly dependent on the deceased, including housekeepers and neighbours and grandchildren of the deceased.
You will need a lawyer to apply – the process can be difficult and you should only entrust it to lawyers who you are satisfied have a track record of success in this area.
In order to succeed with an application it will be necessary to prove:
1. Your relationship to the deceased.
2. Why you believe you are entitled to a share or larger a share of the property.
3. Why you believe the will (or if there is no will, the law) does not provide well enough for you.
It is important to be aware that strict time limits apply to the making of applications – application must be made within six months of the grant of probate of the will, or if the deceased did not leave a will, within six months of the grant of letters of administration. If you are concerned that you have not been properly provided for in a will, it is most important that you contact a lawyer immediately.
Even though it is necessary to apply to the court before the time limit expires many cases do not actually go to hearing and can be resolved at mediation. Again, it is important that this process be entrusted only to experienced advisers, as once a matter is resolved, final orders will be agreed to and usually filed with the court.
Whether a matter settles at mediation or goes to a court hearing, the types of issues that are usually taken into account include:
· How changes to the will could affect other people in the will.
· The value of the estate.
· The ages of the surviving dependents.
· The relationship of the deceased to other dependents and the party bringing the
· The needs of other dependents and those of the applicant.
· The way the applicant acted towards the deceased and their relationship in general.
The material displayed on this page is intended free information only. If you have a legal problem, you should consult Nevett Ford Lawyers.
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The state of California, in response to the housing crisis, recently adopted AB 1866, a measure that aims to eliminate local discretionary review, the public discussion process and most existing development standards relating to the creation of in-law units in R-1 single-family neighborhoods. If implemented as intended by its backers, your neighbor will be able to create an in-law unit with no discretionary review or public hearing if the proposed unit does not exceed 30 percent of the main living area if attached to the main dwelling, and the total floor area of the proposed unit does not exceed 1200 square feet. Tandem parking and parking in otherwise deemed “setback areas” will be allowed. The only way to generally preclude such proposals for in-law units would be for the governing jurisdiction to make official findings that acknowledge that the relevant zoning ordinances “may limit housing opportunities of the region” and that “specific adverse impacts on the public health, safety, and welfare…justify…the ordinance.” To reject a specific in-law unit proposal, findings must be made that the proposed unit is not feasible based on site, topographical and fire and life safety issues for that site. No provision is made for “detriment” to neighbors.
There are advantages to this policy, including increased income and on-site companionship for elderly and/or financially-strapped homeowners; increased opportunity for extended families to live together; possible reduction in residences housing numerous unrelated adults and their automobiles; possible reduction in the need and authorization for large and costly housing developments with substantial city-wide impacts; dispersion of new housing units throughout the city, thereby minimizing and sharing negative impacts; and, in general, a serious increase in housing availability and affordability.
The negative aspects include: increased density in already-impacted neighborhoods, particularly with respect to automobiles; more bad feeling among neighbors; further detriment to neighborhood amenities such as light, air, appearance, etc.; and abandonment of Berkeley’s traditional democratic process with respect to development matters.
There are related issues that need to be considered as well. Parking is a limited resource and is usually the main “density” concern of Berkeley residents. If we can better manage our parking in a fair way, we can perhaps decrease objections to in-law units. In overparked residential permit parking (RPP) areas, in-law units could work only if RPPs are generally limited to a set maximum per address (say four), only to one registered vehicle per occupant (up to the four maximum) and only issued when there is an actual driver with an actual registered vehicle. In the less-impacted non-RPP residential areas, some reasonable limits would need to be imposed on the number of vehicles parked on the streets by all residential owners.
Also, no sane homeowner would admit the rent control board and more than minimal city regulations into their life and personal space. For in-law units to be viable, there would need to be an exemption from the purview of the city’s rent control machinery and only minimal other regulatory health and safety measures.
In addition, under current circumstances, there are hundreds if not thousands of single-family residences that house several unrelated adults, most of whom have automobiles that take up street space. There is apparently no regulation of these “households” (no business license tax for owner/landlords, no rent board registration and fee payment, and no health and safety inspections) and, most significantly, no enforcement of existing zoning code requirements for one off-street parking space per two boarders.
Competing needs and desires for land use are at the heart of Berkeley’s politics and disputes. Current regulations provide both a healthy democratic process and a serious impediment to change. If in-law units are to be increased, a way must be found to mitigate their negative effects and educate neighbors as to the more draconian alternatives being put forth by the affordable housing lobby.
Many Berkeleyans do not want big housing developments with big impacts, certainly not in their own neighborhoods. However, I believe that most Berkeleyans would like to be able to support more affordable housing.
Are in-law units the way to mesh these competing goals?
Perhaps a deal could be made whereby, over time, we could add a large part of the requisite new housing through in-law units scattered throughout the city at the same time that we decrease the number of housing units added in large-scale projects. The new in-law units would need to be embodied in an envelope that seriously addresses and mitigates legitimate concerns relating to neighborhood detriment, parking and rent control.
By Barbara Gilbert
(Barbara Gilbert, a 34-year Berkeley resident, was a legislative aide to former Berkeley Mayor Shirley Dean and has extensive public policy experience.)
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Let’s face it. Teenagers are probably more interested in texting their friends, going to a high school game, or hanging out at the mall than thinking about how to stay healthy. But the decisions they make today about a whole host of behaviors will make a big difference once they become adults. That is why it is important for teens to stay healthy now so they won’t be fighting certain chronic diseases when they get older.
“Healthy habits that start young will pay off in the long run,” says Clara Osuji, M.D., internal medicine physician on the medical staff at Cypress Fairbanks Medical Center Hospital. “Using tobacco at a young age, for example, can increase the risk for heart disease, cancer or stroke in adults. Just like studying for a test ahead of time can help you get a better grade, being healthy as a teenager can help you be a healthier adult.”
Dr. Osuji offers the following tips for teens on how to stay healthy:
- Don’t let peer pressure push you into using any kind of tobacco product, alcohol, drugs or sex.
- Exercise regularly and see your doctor for routine medical checkups.
- Always wear a seat belt when in a car and use protective gear as necessary when participating in sports activities.
- Do not drink and drive. Do not get into a car with someone who has been drinking.
- Eat a healthy diet that includes plenty of fruits, vegetables and lean meats. Try to limit sweets and high-fat foods.
- Talk to your parents, doctor or school counselor if you are feeling especially sad or depressed.
“It may be difficult or embarrassing to talk to someone about a health issue you are having, but as your doctor, physicians are there to listen to you and to help you get back to health. When it comes to your health, there is no such thing as a stupid question.” adds Dr. Osuji. “By making mindful lifestyle choices and getting the support they need, teens can safeguard their health so they can enjoy spending time with friends and family and leading successful lives as adults.”
For a referral to a physician who has expertise in caring for teenagers, call the free physician referral service at Cypress Fairbanks Medical Center Hospital at 800-681-2733 or visit www.cyfairhospital.com/physician.
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While some workers lacking paid sick leave can take time off without losing pay, many lose pay when they are out sick and cannot afford to take a single day off. This is particularly the case for young women. At an early stage in their careers, many younger women workers are living day to day and others juggle multiple jobs to make ends meet. With limited wealth and savings, a large debt from college or even a steady income, younger women often find themselves between a rock and a hard place when illness strikes. Younger women are often not in a position to take lower pay when sick, especially when medical expenses are involved.
While part-time and low-income workers’ concerns are widely discussed, the needs of younger workers are almost unheard of, as it is usually assumed that their health status—without the burdens of chronic health conditions and age—is excellent, and that they don’t yet have care giving responsibilities.
Data from the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), however, shows that young workers need paid sick days just like everyone else. In fact, of those private sector workers that reported having fair or poor health, 30 percent were 35 years or younger and a larger portion were young women (18 percent compared to 12 percent for young men). The same data show that a majority of young workers lack paid sick days; only 37 percent have paid sick days, compared to 58 percent of all workers.
Across the board, younger workers have limited access to paid sick days, no matter what they do for living, what their schedule looks like, or the size of the business they work for. For instance, whether young workers are employed in high-end jobs like legal occupations or in lower paying occupations like health support, data from the NHIS show that only one out of five workers with paid sick days in those occupations are between 18 and 35 years old.
For younger workers concentrated in traditionally low-income occupations or small businesses, the picture is even grimmer. Along with part-timers, these workers are most often afflicted, and women are overrepresented in this type of work arrangement. The outlook is especially challenging for young women with care giving responsibilities on top of lower earnings: paid sick days are even more essential for them to to stay afloat. For single mothers, usually with limited resources and often living in poverty, having paid sick days can make a big difference when medical problems arise.
Paid sick days are essential to all workers, but even more so to those with limited resources, including younger workers who are more vulnerable and have fewer resources than many of their older counterparts.
Claudia Williams is a Research Analyst with the Institute for Women’s Policy Research.
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What most omnivores don't realize is that vegetarians and vegans love to eat. Just because we value health, respect for animals and the environment doesn't mean we have given up good eating. And traveling while veggie, though not as hard as it once was, can still be a little frustrating — especially if you're a foodie.
, a company that combines travel throughout Asia with veggie and vegan eating adventures. About 75 percent of the tours are for vegans, the other 25 percent are for vegetarians. All meals are included in the tours, as well as “… accommodations, transportation, activities, and taxes, ensuring that travelers know beforehand exactly what their vacation costs — and the value of what they get for their money.”
Because the tour groups are generally smaller, stays are at local hotels along the travel route, not impersonal mega-chains. The company really stresses getting to know the culture of the country you visit on the tours, including the pretty and not-so-pretty sides of it. B&B's, beachside cabins, historical mansions, eco-accommodations and family run hotels are all part of the experience. Travel is equally varied, from boat to open-top jeep to rickshaw and bike.
And of course, there's lots of delicious eating along every route, whether that's in Malaysia, India, Laos, or any of the other destinations the group tours.
And not only does the group travel veggie-style, the organizers really put their money where their mouth is:
“In addition, an underlining commitment of VegVoyages is to actively support grassroots animal rights and social organizations that make a difference in the communities we travel to. Whether it is a hospital for local street animals, a rural village school, an orphanage, a refuge and rehabilitation center for abused and exploited animals or an organization that helps those with disabilities who otherwise could not afford it — when you join a VegVoyages adventure, you are helping to make a difference as part of the cost of everyone of our adventures goes directly to these groups and their causes.”
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|The Japanese operator of the Tepco Nuclear Plant faces compensation claims worth more than $38bn [GALLO/GETTY]
Several leading European electricity providers and nuclear power plant constructors now count as part of the collateral damage caused by the tsunami that destroyed the Japanese nuclear power plant of Fukushima last March.
In reference to the German government's decision to phase out nuclear power soon after the meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, Johannes Teyssen, CEO of E.ON, one of Germany's leading electricity providers and power plant operators, warned the public that the industry's balance sheet would be affected by "extraordinary costs caused by (these) market shifts and regulations".
Data tabulated by the Free University of Berlin suggests that each of the eight nuclear power plants, had they remained in operation, would have generated a net income of one million euros per day for E.ON and other providers.
Earlier this month, E.ON, along with Germany's three other leading electricity providers RWE, Vatenfall and EnBW, announced plans to slash 20,000 jobs, and braced themselves for losses amounting to billions of dollars.
E.ON predicted an unprecedented depreciation of the company's value by three billion euros ($3.9bn), and said it would be compelled to reduce its worldwide personnel by 11,000 in the coming months.
The three other companies also warned that a further 10,000 jobs would have to be sacrificed in 2012 to make up for operational losses, portending a mass exodus of skilled and semi-skilled labourers from the industry.
The state-owned French company AREVA, a specialist in the construction and management of nuclear power plants as well as a premier operator of uranium mines and nuclear waste facilities, also announced billion-dollar losses and substantial personnel cutbacks.
Back in November, AREVA reported losses of up to 1.6bn euros ($2.1bn) for 2011 and anticipated losses worth 2.4bn euros ($3.1bn) in the coming fiscal year.
|Read our complete coverage of the March 11, 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown
An AREVA spokesperson said that these losses were due to the company's unprofitable investments in uranium mines in countries like Namibia and South Africa.
The spokesperson also estimated that AREVA would invest an additional 150m euros ($196m) in the Olkiluoto Nuclear
Power Plant - a so-called third generation pressurised water reactor (European Pressurised Reactor or EPR) that has become virtually synonymous with the enormous economic risks associated with nuclear power.
AREVA started constructing the Finnish plant in 2005 with an estimated construction cost of 3bn euros ($3.92bn). However, delays and mismanagement could likely double the cost to some 6.6bn euros.
AREVA's other EPR project in Flamanville, France, began in December 2007 at an expected cost of 3.5bn euros ($4.57bn) and was scheduled for completion in 2012.
Last July, however, AREVA's partner Electricite de France (EdF) announced that estimated costs have exploded to 6bn euros ($7.84bn) and warned that completion of construction is delayed to 2016.
Additionally, AREVA's long-term and lucrative partnership with the German electronic giant Siemens came to end this year, when the latter terminated its nuclear energy business unit following the uproar over Fukushima.
While few of the corporations have publically acknowledged Fukushima as the major crack in the nuclear industry's foundation, experts like Stefan Schurig, director of the climate energy for the World Future Council, are convinced that "Fukushima was one of the last nails in the coffin for nuclear energy".
"The Japanese catastrophe confirmed existing doubts about the safety of nuclear energy", Schurig said. "It is only a matter of time before all countries phase out nuclear power."
Schurig pointed to the lingering tragedies of the Fukushima crisis, such as widespread contamination of the surrounding area with Caesium-137, irreversible oceanic pollution and food supplies made inedible by poisoned farmland, problems whose effects will be felt for many years to come.
"The whole region will be uninhabitable for years", Schurig said.
Many believe that last year's disaster in Japan had a more profound impact on the energy market than previous environmental disasters.
"The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, caused by the explosion at Deepwater Horizon in 2010, had no sensible (or lasting) effects on the use of fossil combustibles", Schurig said.
"But Fukushima put an end to the myth that highly industrialised countries like Japan could guarantee absolute safety and control over the production of nuclear energy", he pointed out.
In addition, he said, the catastrophe of Fukushima exposed nuclear power's hidden costs and potential shortfalls.
For instance, the Japanese operator of the nuclear power plant Tepco is currently weathering compensation claims totalling over 34bn euros ($44.4bn) for 2011 alone.
In contrast, renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, and biomass energy are considerably less expensive and will become ever more so with development of the technique, Schurig said.
As if to confirm Schurig's assertion, E.ON announced this month that, parallel to reducing its share of nuclear power, it would invest 7bn euros ($9.14bn) in renewable energy sources, particularly offshore wind turbine parks and thermo solar technology, over the next five years.
A version of this article was first published by Inter Press Service news agency.
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National African American Read-In, February 7
Over a million readers of all ages and ethnic groups across the United States are expected to participate in the twentieth annual African American Read-In. The Barbara Bush Library and the E.B.O.N.Y. organization will again join forces as offaicial co-sponsors of this event locally. The goal is to make the celebration of African Ameraican literacy a traditional part of Black History Month activities. On Sunday, February 7th, from 2:00pm--4:30 pm at the Barbara Bush Library and the Pearl Fincher Museum, activities are planned for adults, teens and children. Authors Dr. Josie Carr, Takasha Francis, and Fon James will be some of the featured guests. Come, discuss and hear excerpts from their works. The Pearl Fincher Museum of Fine Arts will have an exhibition on the Wilson Potters, an African American Enterprise in the 19th Century Texas. Tours of this exhibit will be conducted at 3:30 pm. Refreshments will be served and the authors' books will be on sale in the museum lobby following the tours.
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home I index I latest I glossary I introductions I e-mail I about this site
St Peter, North Barningham
the captions by hovering over the images, and click on them to
see them enlarged.
St Peter is in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust. Although only formally declared redundant in 1969, it had gradually fallen out of use during the course of the 20th century. The Palgrave family, most closely associated with the parish, died out in the 1730s, and the land was bought by the Felbrigg Estate. As Derek Palgrave's excellent guide book noted, by now there were only two inhabitants of North Barningham, and the church was nearly derelict, a state it was to endure until the 1890s. The restoration at this time made it safe and sound, but fortunately did not overwhemingly Victorianise it. But lack of use resulted in a decision in the late 1960s to demolish it, and plough the land under. Enter the redoubtable Billa Harrod and the Norfolk Churches Trust, who supported local people to save the building, and, over the course of the next two decades, to make it beautiful again. It became vested in the care of the CCT in 1976.
Perhaps it was because we were here on such a beautiful day, but I thought St Peter had one of the loveliest interiors that I had stepped into for ages and ages. The nave is rough and ready, the furnishings slightly ramshackle, the mottled pink of the walls a setting for memorials of jewel-like beauty, and of national importance.
The best and most famous of these is in the north aisle. It is to Sir Austin and Dame Elizabeth Palgrave, and dates from the 1630s. The tw remembered gaze out blankly in bust form from within alcoves. Sam Mortlock observed that he is bearded and vaguely quizzical; she will brook no nonsense, which is about right. A lion rampant roars beneath two of his fellow looking out, and whimsical cherubs bear the whole piece upwards.
On the floor beneath it are a Palgrave and wife from more than a century earlier, and the other side of the Reformation divide. Sir Henry and Dame Anne Palgrave stand gracefully, him in his armour, and her with a set of rosary beads. Beneath them, their seven children pray for their souls.
There are two more splendid memorials up in the chantry, also on the north wall. Margaret Pope was a Palgrave daughter who died in 1624. She kneels stiffly within a curtained chamber which is held open by two angels. There is a very similar memorial at Riddlesworth in south Norfolk, which came originally from Knettishall in Suffolk.
Further east is the earliest of these three great treasures, to John Palgrave who died in 1611. His tomb chest bears the figures of Justice, Labour and Peace, perhaps a reminder that he was a lawyer in the Inner Temple in London. Curiously, the three figures have been defaced - did some dull-headed puritan imagine them to be Saints?
There is a beautiful double piscina and sedilia on the south side of the chancel opposite the memorials. It is in the full flowering of the Decorated style, a reminder of how English art flourished in the years before the Black Death. It would be all downhill from there. A curiosity that probably comes from half a century later is the ornate wheel picked out in brick and flint in the nave floor. Was it perhaps a decorative feature to surround an earlier font? Or, as has been suggested, did it mark the entrance to a vault?
Simon Knott, April 2008
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links I small print I www.simonknott.co.uk I www.suffolkchurches.co.uk
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GOOGLE-EYE VIEW (Clockwise from top left): Google Earth image of Fenway Park, Google Street view of Yawkey Way, Google Mars, and Google Moon.
Hey geeks: all that online talk (nine billion Google hits and counting) notwithstanding, “Web 3.0” won’t be happening any time soon. And even if the anticipated advance to the next technological level was imminent, the growing consensus is that any blogger using that awful neologism should have his broadband connection yanked from the wall with extreme prejudice.
Regardless, just as it has every year of its existence, the Internet will change in 2008 — growing and evolving in its complexity and convenience, its reach and its risk. The most recent big leap, of course, came three or four years ago, with the introduction of new-generation Web services that facilitated interactivity and multimedia using wikis, podcasts, social networks, photo-sharing, online mapping, video/mp3 blogging, syndication, and more.
What can we expect next? There’s now nebulous chatter about another quantum advance of computing power. The looming evolution/revolution has been described in terms both practical (simply leveraging “Web 2.0” technology for newer, advanced service and content) and fantastical (an Internet, quoth the New York Times, that may learn to “reason in a human fashion”).
If you’re not quite ready to acclimate yourself to notions like the “Semantic Web,” the “Geospatial Web,” and the “3D Web,” fear not: it’s doubtful that such concepts — never mind an artificially intelligent Internet — will become widely used in the next calendar year. Here, however, are some guesses as to what you will be seeing come across your browser screen during the next 12 months.
I’ve been friended. I’ve been poked. I’ve had my Super Wall scrawled upon. I’ve been bitten by zombies and invited to bite others (thereby, presumably, turning them into zombies, as well). I’ve been invited to locate world capitals on a global map-quiz game, and to join something called “Six Degrees of Separation — the Experiment.” I’ve been notified when friends use the friend finder to become friends with people I’m not friends with. I’ve been notified when friends send messages to people I don’t know.
I’m exhausted. It’s enough that I’ve got two dozen blogs to check in with every day, and a Red Sox message board to load and re-load, and an online music-discussion group to take part in — never mind three e-mail accounts to check, and, uh, actual work to do. Now I’m supposed to hew chunks from my day to engage with this endless procession of worthless Facebook applications?
First, it was Friendster. I joined in 2003, diligently filled out my personal info, and uploaded what scant digital photos existed of me at the time. Then, several months later, after Friendster had fallen out of favor, I had to do it all over again at MySpace. Then, in late 2006, Facebook opened up. Once more into the breach.
My gripe with Facebook — besides the fact that it’s the third social-networking site I’ve felt compelled to join during the past four years — isn’t so much the people I barely know flooding my inbox with friend requests. In fact, that’s a small price to pay for a site that’s helped get me in touch with a few college friends I hadn’t seen in years.
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This is the idealization of a common toy, the Cartesian diver. It demonstrates Archimedes' Principle as well as the ideal gas law.
You have an external glass container filled with a liquid (blue). You can exert pressure on the liquid by pushing (via mouse-drag) on the plane on top of the spring.
In the liquid is an inner container, in which air is trapped (white). By pressing on the plate with the spring and increasing the pressure, the liquid is not compressed, but the trapped air is. Consequently the displaced volume of liquid changes, and the diver can be made to rise or sink.
Through variation of the spring force, you can achieve that the diver floats at a certain height. We have drawn in a yellow line, and you may want to attempt to have the diver float right at the yellow line.
If you are feeling competitive urges, we have also included a stop watch with which you can measure how long it take for you to get the diver to float right at the yellow line. The stop watch display the time in milliseconds and is automatically stopped when you reach the desired goal. Just press the "s" key to start the stop watch. Have fun.
© W. Bauer, 1999
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Winning Tactics Against Ice Devils
Fiendish Codex I discussed the horrid inhabitants of the Abyss: the demons. With the release of Fiendish Codex II: Tyrants of the Nine Hells, we look at the other side of pure evil: devils. Like demons, devils are insidious and vicious opponents, although their methods for bringing misery to the world are on polar extremes. For devils, tyranny and oppression are the tools for utter control. It's up to adventurers to stop this from happening!
Over the course of the next few installments, we'll examine some of the old favorites that can be found in the Monster Manual, including ways they fight, tactics that can be used against them, and new lore that applies to finding out more information on these terrible beings.
The gelugon, otherwise known as the ice devil, is a horrible, insectlike devil that looks like something out of a nightmare. Incredibly smart and tough, with a bevy of special abilities, ice devils are sure to make the lives of your characters miserable.
The Ice Devil's Role
Devils, Status, and Hierarchy
Regardless of which devil you're dealing with, you must always remember that they are the absolute epitome of both evil and law. For a devil, order and proper place of things aren't just abstract concepts -- they are built into the very fabric of their beings. Each devil knows exactly its place in the hellish pecking order and every one of them strives to improve their lot.
Adventurers should remember the rigid caste systems in which devils operate -- it may very well save their lives. Everything a devil does occurs because of specific orders given by a higher authority. Finding and eliminating a devil's superior (if possible) is one way of disrupting a devil's plan. Also, taking out a devil's inferiors that are out doing its bidding can muck up its plan, since devils are loathe to "request" reinforcements, which can be considered a sign of weakness.
As Fiendish Codex II points out, devils are particular about keeping records, which, if they fall into the hands of adventurers, can prove the weak link in disrupting a devil's insidious plans. Should PCs locate a devil's "base of operations," they may find notes, plans, and letters of intent (complete with fawning obsequiousness towards its superiors) that give insight into a devil's goals.
In short, injecting any sort of chaos into a devil's existence is a sure way to keep it on its toes (or hooves, tentacles, and so on) and lead to victory.
Ice devils serve as commanders and leaders for lesser devils. You are more likely to find an ice devil in the company of other devils, but if you do find one acting alone, know that it has a very specific goal in mind and will fight tooth and nail (or mandible and claw) to battle off interlopers. They are extremely focused in their intent, and they never deviate from the mission plan unless victory can be quick, efficient, and helpful in the long-term stratagem.
Fighting Ice Devils
Ice devils are cold (no pun intended), methodical fighters. They are experts at directing other devils in combat and have no compunctions about summoning other devils, even when things are not going poorly for them. It's best to ignore an ice devil's minions and focus directly on it -- mop up the rest later when it has been defeated. When fighting these devils, adventurers should keep several key points in mind:
- Special Abilities. Like most devils, ice devils are immune to fire and poison, have resistance to acid and cold 10, can see in darkness, have telepathy, and can summon other devils (in this case, either 2d10 lemures, 1d6 bearded devils, 2d4 bone devils, or another ice devil). Other than a good spell resistance, ice devils have no particular defense against electricity, so stocking up on wands of lightning bolt and scrolls of chain lightning is advised, as are shock or shocking burst weapons. Having good-aligned weapons is crucial, however, since ice devils can regenerate at an alarming rate -- only good-aligned weapons (and spells) bypass this effect.
- Fear aura. As a free action, an ice devil can create a 10-foot-radius fear aura. Assume that it will use this ability each and every time that it comes within range of an opponent -- if an opponent doesn't run, the ice devil assumes that its foe succeeded on her Will save. Make sure everyone in your group has buffed up their Will saves through the use of owl's wisdom, cloaks of resistance, remove fear, and the like. In fact, having scrolls of remove fear (dirt cheap at 25 gp) can be a handy way to make sure that you have enough to go around. Keeping as many members close to your paladin as possible is another way of resisting this effect, but bunching up has its risks as well.
- Moving reaaaallly slow. A successful hit by an ice devil's spear or tail induces numbing cold, similar to a slow spell. Obviously the best way to avoid this from happening is to stay out of melee combat with an ice devil, which means relying on ranged attacks and spells. However, between the ice devil's ability to fly and use greater teleport at will, this virtually guarantees that if it wants to get up close, it can.
- Baby, it's cold outside. An ice devil can use several ice-related spell-like abilities at will: cone of cold, ice storm, and wall of ice. Obviously, if you know you'll be facing an ice devil, stock up on spells and gear that prevent cold damage. Ice devils make extensive use of wall of ice to hedge in opponents, then pelt them mercilessly with ice storm and unholy aura. It's interesting to note that an ice devil is not immune to cold damage -- it simply has cold resistance 10. This means that casting your own cone of cold at an ice devil is just as likely to work as any other spell.
About the Author
Eric Cagle cut his teeth at Wizards of the Coast, but now lives the extravagant freelancer lifestyle. Look for his name on D&D, d20 Modern, and Star Wars books. Recent credits include d20 Apocalypse, Monster Manual IV, and the Tome of Corruption from Green Ronin Publishing. He is also a contributor to the Game Mechanics, Dragon Magazine, and this lovely website. Eric lives in Seattle where the coffee is dark and bitter like his goddesses.
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Army’s Approach to Drug Treatment Criticized
While more returning U.S. soldiers struggle with addiction to painkillers prescribed by Army doctors to treat their combat injuries, the U.S. Army’s approach to treating addicted soldiers is drawing increasing criticism, the Associated Press reported Jan. 21.
In the six years since the start of the war in Iraq, use of legal painkillers like Percocet, Vicodin, and OxyContin by injured troops has increased nearly 70 percent. Surveys reveal that more soldiers are struggling with prescription drug addiction and are seeking help from Army doctors and counselors.
But some critics say that the military system that historically relies on discipline as well as treatment is mishandling their charge. Barbara McDonald, a civilian social worker and Army drug abuse counselor, described the Army’s handling of the recent surge in prescription drug abuse as “a terrible problem,” calling the military’s approach a broken system, as likely to punish or denigrate troops as to treat their addictions.
A recent court martial and subsequent imprisonment of a soldier in Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, for illegally buying prescription drugs and selling the pills to eight other soldiers, along with allegations of misconduct and staffing shortages in the Army Substance Abuse Program (ASAP), induced Sen. Claire McCaskill, (D-Mo.) to ask the Secretary of the Army to investigate.
“Clearly, at Fort Leonard Wood and potentially across the military, they have not prioritized this as a health issue,” McCaskill said. “The culture has traditionally looked at this as a discipline issue.”
Army officials have defended their treatment approach, even while acknowledging treatment staffing shortages nationally; ASAP is 90 counselors short of required employment levels.
Chuck Ashbrook, who oversees ASAP prevention and education efforts at Fort Leonard Wood, said counselors pay close attention to links between substance abuse, post-traumatic stress disorder and combat injuries, noting that medical advances have allowed soldiers who might have returned from previous conflicts as casualties to survive with injuries that require stronger pain management.
Ashbrook also cited historical increases in drug dependency among soldiers during wartime. “We’ve always seen these kinds of problems,” Ashbrook said. “This is not unique.”
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Catholic News Service is a leading agency for religious news. Our mission is to report fully, fairly and freely on the involvement of the church in the world today. CNS staff members and stringers are professional journalists who adhere to ethical practices and standards of the trade.
Catholic News Service has a rich history of journalistic professionalism unmatched in the Catholic world. And it continues that tradition today by offering one-of-a-kind products and services.
CNS was founded by the U.S. bishops in 1920, but it was clear from the start that the bishops wanted it to be an authentic news agency. The founding director was Justin McGrath, a veteran journalist and managing editor of the San Francisco Examiner who also had worked at The New York Times and other dailies and was Washington bureau chief of the Hearst papers.
Bishop Philip R. McDevitt of Harrisburg, Pa., chairman of the bishops’ press department, summarized the news service’s philosophy in 1927. He said its main purpose was to provide Catholic newspaper editors with “full and accurate reports of happenings of interest to Catholics.”
Meeting the needs of those editors — the main subscribers to CNS — has been our chief goal. But through the years the news service’s expertise has also led it to develop other breakthrough products, such as Origins, the CNS Documentary Service that, since 1971, has been chronicling the history of the church through full texts of speeches, encyclicals and other documents.
The CNS Rome bureau covers the pope and the Vatican like none other. A CNS correspondent always accompanies the pope on trips outside of Italy as part of the pool of reporters on the papal plane.
Another jewel of CNS is its photos and graphics service, which, thanks in part to digital imaging and the impact of the Internet, has grown tremendously in the last decade.
In the Internet age, CNS is showing a new audience the accuracy that has always been its hallmark. But because CNS is not a public relations vehicle and is not subsidized by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, it must be financially self-sustaining.
CNS continues to call itself “authoritative and Catholic, but not official.” And according to a promotional brochure issued in the 1930s, the news service’s aim was simply to report on current Catholic thought and events, and not to be a “publicity bureau.”
The same holds true today.
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Snorkeling in Oahu.
Hawaii is a part of the United States. That’s what my AT&T rep quipped when I asked about iPhone coverage. So I’m covered here for phone and Internet access. And I’m more than covered when it comes to the problem of invasive species. If you think we have it bad in the Great Lakes with the Asian carp situation, think again. We have it easy compared to Hawaii, where invasive species threaten to blot out the eco-tourism economy like a dinosaur-scrubbing asteroid.
On the long flight here, my wife and I had to fill out an agricultural declaration form promising we wouldn’t bring in or take out plants, animals or any agricultural materials. Immediately, I was reminded of trips I’ve taken to foreign countries where similar forms had to be filled out. And I thought of my snide AT&T rep.
It turns out that Hawaii has a huge issue with invasive species, dwarfing our Asian carp problem by comparison (I suppose it depends on your perspective).
As noted by About.com:
“Despite the efforts of more than 20 state, federal, and private agencies, unwanted alien pests are entering Hawai’i at an alarming rate – about 2 million times more rapid than the natural rate. In 1993, the federal Office of Technology Assessment declared Hawaii’s alien pest species problem the worst in the nation.
“Hawaii’s evolutionary isolation from the continents, and its modern role as the commercial hub of the Pacific make these islands particularly vulnerable to destruction by alien pests. Gaps in current pest prevention systems and a lack of public awareness add further to this serious problem.”
Public awareness is right. Among tourists, and apparently some of the folks who live here. Hawaii is a beautiful place, but its isolation makes me wonder about a lot of things:
- Why isn’t there more recycling here? I haven’t seen a recycling container since I arrived. I can’t imagine they have a lot of extra room for landfilling trash.
- How much attention is being paid to the importance of maintaining the delicate ecology here and making sure visitors — and residents — don’t screw it up?
The wife and I went snorkeling on Tuesday. We saw dolphins and fish and one sea turtle and had a great time. But they fed hamburger buns to the fish. That’s a no-no, according to the Hawaii Ecotourism Association:
“Avoid feeding fish or other wildlife,” the HEA says in a Green Travel Tips guide.
“Feeding wildlife alters their natural behaviors and can upset the natural balance of the reef or the ocean environment.”
At least the folks aboard the boat we took out for snorkeling used a pre-installed anchor, so as not to damage the reef.
On the invasive species front, stinging Little Fire Ants from South America and birds known as Japanese White-Eyes are two poster children for the islands.
One more thing: I found out this morning that the Alliance for the Great Lakes is teaming up with musician Jack Johnson (who has a solar-powered studio in Hawaii) to raise funds to protect our freshwater seas.
The Alliance will get $1 for everyone who watches this video to the end. The Johnson Ohana Charitable Foundation also is matching dollar donations up to $2,500 until Oct. 15. See www.greatlakes.org/allatonce for details.
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Every individual loves himself and this is surely natural…practically everyone likes to have their piece of property (Aristotle, Politics, 1263b1-4)
Which are the arguments for the naturalness of self-love?
The Greek term for nature, physis, is unaffected by the modern belief that the natural features can be discovered by a process of analysis. For Greeks, a natural feature reflects the definite character of a thing, a regular pattern of origin and growth, surely not ones to be discovered through analysis, but rather by a synthetic view of the thing. Time to time, we have the opportunity to see the natural thing how it retreats from its confusing and spontaneous interaction with us for following its origin and course of growth. For modern time, if we take the natural beings as objects of analysis, then we are obliged to assume that the dead plants and animals are secondary means of revealing something that can be at best observed in the living exemplars. However, the modern analysis leaves away the conscience of that assumption when it considers itself in right to name the natural features of beings.
The ancient manner of grasping the natural characteristics of a being should function in the case of human self-love, too. Only time to time and in the moments when humans retreat in themselves, there is possible to evaluate the naturalness of self-love. For instance, though Aristotle uses the existence of elaborate language as an argument for human social character, there are moments of life when language retreats in the individual for expressing his singularity, sometimes through monologs, sometimes through linguistic constructions as philosophy and poetry. Awkwardly or wisely, man sinks by language into himself, as if he would confound with his lover.
There is always followed a pattern of retreating that we ever presuppose during the quotidian tendency of dragging others out for being agents of the social life, because our means of social interactions are conceived exactly for such purpose. For example, we would never love, persuade, placing into a social range or learn anyone without knowing which are his patterns of singularity that must be removed or diminished. The singularity of growing process and finally of death exposes what the permanent retreats just signalize.
Since every retreat is measured by the place left, in any social context we can remark the naturalness of self-love anyone possesses.
The piece of property Aristotle refers to is not by itself an argument for the naturalness of self-love, but its result. Any retreat marks an approach of individual singularity against the usual exposure in social contexts and the piece of property is the way of reentering in the society without leaving apart the natural self-love.
The individualism involved by possession of properties should not afraid more than the retreat for self-love without any external outcome, since such retreat means that the individual does not reenter in society. He posits the self-love against it. Therefore, if he retreats in his natural self-love, then all the others have to argue more for the naturalness of the social love and with the risk of expanding merely the artificial character of argumentation.
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Clean-up begins after Evan devastates Fiji
A state of natural disaster has been declared for parts of Fiji as the clean-up from Cyclone Evan begins.
Thousands of people took refuge in evacuation centres overnight, as the cyclone pounded northern Fiji, causing flooding and extensive damage. Roads were closed and power and water supplies were cut.
No fatalities were reported from the cyclone, which battered the western parts of Viti Levu for more than 12 hours on Monday.
A state of natural disaster was declared for the western and northern divisions by Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama on Tuesday, which was expected to be in place for 15 days, the Fiji Times reported.
Warnings were also issued to people living in the low-lying areas around the Rewa River in Fiji's central division, which burst its banks and was flooding some areas.
However, the weather had calmed down in other areas and the clean-up had begun.
Meanwhile, a search for 10 fishermen missing from four fishing boats after the cyclone struck Samoa late last week was called off on Tuesday morning.
A Royal New Zealand Air Force P3 Orion, a French Navy Guardian aircraft and the Samoan police have spent the past three days searching for the boats, but did not find any sign of the men.
Four people were known to have died in the cyclone, and about 5000 people had been displaced.
Damage to the main island of Upolu appears to be worse than from the 2009 earthquake and tsunami that killed 135 people.
New Zealand Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully on Tuesday said the government will make $NZ600,000 ($A484,887) immediately available to support relief and early recovery efforts in Samoa, including $NZ50,000 pledged on Saturday.
Five additional New Zealand Red Cross workers will also travel to Samoa to help, and Mr McCully said the government will also consider further requests to help Samoa's long-term reconstruction effort.
The government will make $NZ50,000 available immediately to Fiji, along with a $NZ170,000 contribution to the Fiji Red Cross.
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About Bruce Feiler
- On pages 18 through 19 Feiler writes, "He has no mother. He has no past. He has no personality. The man who will redefine the world appears suddenly, almost as an afterthought, with no trumpet fanfare, no fluttering doves
goes on to abandon his father at age seventy-five, leave his homeland, move o Canaan, travel to Egypt, father two sons change his name, cut off part of his penis, do the same for his teenager and newborn, exile his firs son, attempt to kill his second, fight a world war, buy some land, bury his wife, father another family, and die at one hundred-seventy-five." What appeals to you most about Abram/Abraham's life? What part(s) of his life are most difficult to understand or admire?
- Feiler writes on page 27, "God may have made humans in his image; we humans made Abraham in ours." Who do you think Abraham was? Discuss what it is that makes Abraham important to you.
- On pages 43 through 44, Feiler writes, "To be a descendant of Abraham is to
glance back at your native land, to peer ahead to your nameless destination, and to wonder, Do I have the courage to make the leap?" Describe Abraham's "Call." What does God ask of Abram? Have you ever had to make such a courageous leap? If so, describe your experience.
- Sheikh Abdul Rauf tells Feiler, "We should take Abraham's viewpoint toward the world. We should try to be Abrahamic in our being." (Page 46) Rabbi Belzer tells Feiler, "Abrahanism. He's saying it's okay not to be in your native land at all. He left his father's house, knowing his father would always be in his heart. I'll go someplace and try something new. I'll cast my lot with a portable god -- the God of everyone, everywhere." (Page 5) Father John tells Feiler, "The lesson of Abraham
is you have to be willing to risk it all. You have to give up everything for God
The bottom line is if you're too comfortable, or too secure, or too into having control, then you won't be willing to trust God." What is the Abrahamic viewpoint? How does one become "Abrahamic"?
- On pages 64 and 65 Carol Newsome tells Feiler, "The thing that has always struck me about this story ...is that the moral sympathy of the story seems to be with Hagar and Ishmael, even though the author knows that our primary identification has to be with Abraham, Sarah, and Issac.
It's astonishing. Rather than having simple identification, we're asked, in a sense to identify doubly." Describe Sarah and Hagar and each woman's relationship with Abraham. With whom do you most identify? Why?
- Feiler writes on page 75, "Perhaps the most striking feature of the story of Ishamael and Issac is its balance: Neither son is a pure victor, or a pure loser." How are Issac and Ishmael similar; how are they different? Which son do you find most compelling? Why?
- On page 99 Feiler writes, "Abraham's test [the binding of Issac] is so extraordinary
Issac is us." What feelings does the story of Abraham's binding of Issac evoke in you? Why do you think the story has such eternal appeal?
- Feiler writes on page 108, "All three monotheistic faiths force their adherents to confront the most unimaginable of human pains: losing a child. The binding, the crucifixion, and the dhabih -- often viewed as distinguishing the monotheistic faiths -- actually belie their shared origins." How is the binding of Issac interpreted by the three monotheistic faiths? Why do you think the sacrifice of a child is such a universal theme?
- In a conversation with Hanan Eschler on pages 133 and 134, Feiler records, "So as a practical matter, what you're saying is that you can read these various interpretations, enjoy them, but in the end you have to find your own meaning in the story." What does the story of Abraham mean to you?
- Describe how Judaism, Christianity and Islam created a new Abraham for their unique purposes.
- On page 148 Bishop Theophanes tells Feiler, "A hundred years from now, the serious people will be considered ecumenical. They will understand that Abraham belongs to all humanity." How is Abraham an ecumenical figure, one who belongs to all of humanity?
- Of all the people Feiler meets on his travels to uncover the story of Abraham, who do you think has the most persuasive argument about Abraham and what his life means? Why?
- Sheikh Abu Sneina tells Feiler on page 163, "For me, Abraham submitted himself to Allah. He did everything for God. I don't know if he's like me, but I would like to be like him." Would you like to be like Abraham? If so, how? If not, why not?
- At the end of his book, Feiler claims to have "found" Abraham. What does he mean by that? Describe the Abraham Feiler found on his journey.
- What would you say is Abraham's legacy to the world today?
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By Louis Charbonneau and Michelle Nichols
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N.-Arab League envoy on the Syrian crisis, Kofi Annan, urged the Security Council to overcome its deadlock and unify to support his efforts to end the violence that has brought Syria to the brink of civil war, U.N. diplomats said on Friday.
Addressing a closed-door meeting of the 15-nation council via video link, Annan said the tougher their message in support of his efforts to negotiate a ceasefire, the greater his chances of ending the fighting, council diplomats told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
"The stronger and more unified your message, the better chance we have of shifting the dynamics of the conflict," an envoy said, summarizing Annan's remarks.
Annan suggested that Damascus' response to his six-point peace proposal has been disappointing so far, but his team is still talking with the Syrian government, the diplomat said.
Annan is pushing for a ceasefire, the deployment of monitors and political dialogue between the government and opposition.
Annan also said in his message that unified pressure from the Security Council on Syria has succeeded in the past, such as when it pressed Damascus to withdraw forces from neighboring Lebanon, envoys said. That withdrawal was completed in 2005.
Russia and China have twice vetoed Security Council resolutions condemning the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for his year-long attempts to crush a pro-democracy rebellion. The United Nations says Assad's assault on protesters has killed more than 8,000 civilians.
Negotiations on a third draft resolution - this time written by the United States and calling for a ceasefire and humanitarian access for aid agencies - have stalled over disagreements about who in Syria should be the first to stop fighting and who is to blame for the conflict.
Speaking to reporters in Geneva after the briefing, Annan said: "I hope pretty soon that you will be hearing one voice from the council."
Syria's U.N. ambassador, Bashar Ja'afari, told reporters a technical team from Annan's office would arrive in Damascus on Sunday. Annan's spokesman, Ahmad Fawzi, said they would discuss the idea of deploying international monitors.
"Wait until Sunday and you will have good news," he said, adding that a "comprehensive political process" was under way.
British U.N. Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant, president of the Security Council this month, told reporters that "all members of the Security Council pledged their full support (for Annan) and agreed that a united message from the Security Council would help his mission."
He added that consultations on a draft resolution continued. These discussions include the permanent veto-wielding council members - Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States as well as Morocco, the sole Arab member.
"Mr Annan did say that he would welcome a firm and united statement by the Security Council for his mission and certainly consultations are beginning on what form that might take," said Lyall Grant.
Asked if Annan's briefing improved prospects for ending the council's deadlock on Syria, U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice told reporters: "I think it's way too soon to know."
So far there have been no signs that the impasse will end. Assad insists the Syrian opposition must stop fighting first, while the United States, Gulf Arabs and Europeans have demanded that Assad and his much stronger forces must make the first move. Russia wants both sides to stop shooting simultaneously.
Russia also wants both sides to share equal blame for the conflict, a position Western and Arab nations reject.
Russia and China have said they believe Western and Gulf Arab countries are seeking Libya-style regime change in Syria, which they oppose. Damascus has close ties to Moscow and hosts Russia's only warm-water naval port outside the former Soviet Union.
Annan and U.N. envoys have been reluctant to publicly discuss his peace proposals and Syria's response to them.
One diplomat said this week that Assad's government had put two more conditions on a ceasefire in addition to the opposition taking the first step: foreign countries must stop arming and funding the rebels. Syria has accused Saudi Arabia and Qatar of backing the opposition.
If the opposition lays down its arms, Assad has promised them an amnesty, the diplomat said.
(Additional reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Vicki Allen and Christopher Wilson)
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Orthodox births fuel population jump as number of poor rise; Reform, Conservative decrease. Can center hold?
Older, poorer, more Orthodox and more balkanized.
The findings of the first population survey of New York Jewry in a decade, confirming trends revealed years ago, show dramatic changes in a community that has grown larger, but significantly more polarized.
According to the new UJA-Federation of New York survey, “Jewish Community Study of New York: 2011,” Orthodox Jews, because of their high birthrate, now make up nearly one-third of the Jewish community of the five boroughs, Long Island and Westchester and a whopping 64 percent of its children. That growth helped to increase the Jewish population here by 9 percent over the last decade, to 1.54 million.
At the same time, 37 percent of Jews here define themselves as nondenominational or “Just Jewish,” a figure that has doubled since 1990. The Conservative and Reform movements each lost about 40,000 members over the decade. And multiracial or non-white families now make up 12 percent of the households in the area.
There has also been a marked growth here in the number of elderly Jews and poor Jews. Twenty percent of all people in Jewish households are poor today — with incomes under 150 percent of the federal poverty guidelines — compared to 15 percent in 2002. Hardest hit are Russian-speaking seniors who live alone (77 percent are poor) and chasidic Jews (45 percent of chasidic households are poor).
All of the growth on the so-called edges of the community — the Orthodox and the “Just Jewish” — has observers here wondering what’s become of the center or core, however romantic the notion of a “core” might be in a society where the social fabric has been fraying for generations, and definitions of Jewish identity are more fluid than ever.
Looking at the new data, a person close to the study admits, “We don’t know where the center is.”
And the center could be shifting politically, too. What has been a traditionally liberal Jewish community may now — based on the rising number of Orthodox, together with a big block of Russian speakers — be more attractive to conservative candidates and causes. Both groups tend to be more politically conservative than other types of Jews.
The survey found that Jews here now live in 16 percent of the homes in the city, Long Island and Westchester. More Jews live in the eight-county New York area than in the combined metropolitan areas of Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Washington, D.C. and San Francisco.
In addition, the rate of intermarriage among the non-Orthodox who married from 2006-2011 was found to have soared to 50 percent. And the survey confirmed the findings of other studies that afternoon Hebrew school programs have been virtually worthless when it comes to adult engagement.
The $1.7 million population study — the most extensive that has been conducted about every 10 years since 1980 by UJA-Federation of New York — was based on 5,993 telephone interviews conducted between Feb. 8 and July 10, 2011, with randomly selected Jewish households in the eight-county area. More than 20 percent of the interviews were conducted on cell phones. It has an accuracy of plus or minus 2 percent.
What is most remarkable about the survey is the significant ways in which the character of the community has changed. For instance, the makeup of the 694,000 households containing at least one Jewish member here has changed so that Jews now compose 87 percent of those households — a 2 percent increase over 2002. The percentage had shrunk from 1991 to 2002 largely because of intermarriage, but the increase in Orthodox households “offset the rising rate of intermarriage in the non-Orthodox population.”
The increased population here contrasts sharply with most Jewish communities in the U.S. and throughout the world except for Israel.
The growth is the first here since the 1950s, when the Jewish population hit a record 2.5 million. It comes not only from high Orthodox birthrates but also from increased longevity and a dramatic increase in the number of people who consider themselves “partially Jewish,” many the children of intermarriage. Two-thirds of the Jewish population lives in the city.
Those below the age of 25 accounted for 52 percent of the population increase; another 35 percent from those ages 75 and above. And with baby boomers ages 55 to 64 beginning to turn 65 this year, the study said “the next 10 years will witness a steady growth in the postretirement and well-elderly population, producing shifting demands for community services along with the expanded potential for communal engagement in the 65-74 age group.”
Alisa Kurshan, UJA-Federation’s senior vice president for strategic planning and organizational resources, said this “data is a point of departure for us; it will be our work moving forward.
“The diversity of our community reminds us yet again that there is no other community like the Jewish community of New York — from its size to its scope,” she said. “Every study provides data that is challenging. Our job is to figure out how to have the most significant impact on the community.”
John Ruskay, UJA-Federation’s executive vice president and CEO, said the findings of the survey raise “deep tissue issues that require thought and laser-like planning on how our precious resources can be used most effectively. … A demographic study does not lead immediately to programmatic implementation. It has to be understood, reviewed and tested to determine the best way [to approach issues]. It takes months going to one, two or three years to get this right.”
He pointed out that after the 2002 population survey highlighted the needs of the large Russian-speaking community here, “we convened the leadership of the Russian Jewish community, listened to them, conducted studies and developed a joint initiative with the Wexner Foundation to strengthen their leadership. This idea emerged years ago, but it took some time to determine the nature of the program and it is just being launched today. These things do not happen in a minute.”
The findings of the new survey appear to present even greater challenges to UJA-Federation because they highlight the fact that the high birthrate in the Orthodox community is especially high among two fervently Orthodox groups — the yeshivish and chasidic, known collectively as haredim. Their birthrate is at least three times that of non-Orthodox Jews, and they have a high rate of poverty that, when combined with their large and growing families, suggests that economic stress is likely in the future. On the other hand, notes the survey, they are “known to be self-segregated and relatively disconnected from the rest of the Jewish community.”
“The large number of poor haredim and the disconnect from the larger Jewish community suggest that perhaps not enough poor Jews access services offered by UJA-Federation of New York and its beneficiary agencies,” the survey said.
Most ominously, the survey pointed out that while demographers look for a birthrate of 2.1 births per woman to maintain a population at current levels, the estimated non-Orthodox birthrate of 1.3 falls in the negative growth category.
The Modern Orthodox estimated fertility rate is four times that number and is in the positive growth range. The haredim are experiencing explosive growth with households that have 12 times the number of children as non-Orthodox homes.
Jack Ukeles, president of Ukeles Associates, Inc., and a member of the survey team, said those figures present perhaps the toughest challenge — “increasing the number of kids people have.
“What is happening is that young non-Orthodox people marry later,” he said. “Most Orthodox marry in their 20s and non-Orthodox marry in their 30s, particularly their late 30s. If they marry in their late 30s, how much time have they for kids — not much. Unless there is a cultural shift, it is going to be very hard to increase the non-Orthodox household size.”
The declining non-Orthodox birthrate, the survey said, “underlay the decline in the numbers identifying with Conservative and Reform Judaism.”
Ukeles pointed out that the Conservative movement has lost almost half its membership here in the last 30 years. And the survey found that of those adults raised Conservative, just 46 percent remained Conservative — the lowest retention rate of all denominational groups.
In the 1981 population survey, 35 percent of New York-area Jewish households identified as Conservative, followed by 29 percent as Reform and 13 percent as Orthodox. Twenty years later, the Conservative figure slipped to 26 percent. In the latest survey, 32 percent of Jewish households here identified as Orthodox, 20 percent as Reform and 19 percent as Conservative.
Asked about the steady decline in Conservative and Reform identification, Ukeles said: “We know from focus groups and other conversations that young people do not like being labeled. Although they say they are Jewish, they do not consider themselves part of a denomination. So they show up at seders and light Chanukah candles and fast on Yom Kippur. … In 1950 people were saying Orthodoxy was finished and the Conservative movement was very strong. It’s very difficult to know how these trends are going to play out. I wouldn’t dream of predicting what things are going to look like in 20 or even 10 years.”
As could be expected, Jewish day school alumni who participated in the survey significantly outscored graduates of afternoon Hebrew schools (or supplemental schools) in terms of Jewish engagement. For instance, 32 percent of day school alumni scored very high on the index of Jewish involvement compared to 12 percent of those who attended Conservative afternoon Hebrew schools.
“Among the Reform-raised respondents, the differences in Jewish engagement between the supplemental school and no-school group are minimal, or nearly nonexistent,” the survey found.
Ukeles pointed out that there is “a very high correlation in many studies, including this one, between the level of adult Jewish engagement and the kinds of Jewish education people had when they were young. Those who had a day school education, an Israel experience or attended a Jewish summer camp are much more likely to be Jewishly engaged than those who just had a supplementary school education.
“The answer is not to close supplementary schools” but to improve them, he said. In recent years UJA-Federation has invested in efforts to improve congregational schools; Project Re-imagine and its successor Lomed, are working with scores of New York-area congregations to make their programs more engaging.
A survey this large and ambitious raises as many questions as it provides answers, Ukeles pointed out.
One of the most perplexing, he said, is why 26 percent of Jewish households earning $250,000 or more make philanthropic donations, but not to Jewish causes.
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An effervescent adaptation of Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds,” with a skinny plotline supplied by the art and new themes and verses added by the songwriter’s eldest daughter.
Sporting stubby dreadlocks and a broad smile in Brantley-Newton’s sunny scenes, a child with Marley’s iconic image on his shirt waltzes out to the playground. There, three songbirds (supervised by an alert cat) “perch on the swing set, / Whistling these words, / These harmonies sweet in the air. / Sometimes you just need to show you care…” as he kicks a soccer ball about with both old friends and a newly made one. Later, he makes a gooey mess in the kitchen, earns quick parental forgiveness (“Everyone can make a mistake they say”) and is sung to sleep by birds and parents alike. Being given just once each time rather than repeated as in the song, the chorus looks and (read or sung aloud) sounds choppy, but the new lyrics slip easily into the cadences of the old, and by the end, even the cat is dancing.
A sweet elaboration of the original’s reassuring message that “every little thing is gonna be all right.” (afterword) (Picture book. 4-8)
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The Phu My Nature reserve was planned as a part of the province’s conservation project funded by the International Crane Foundation (ICF).
The reserve can comprise three,270 hectares of Giang Thanh District—2,800 hectares of which can embody fields of Lepironia articulate (a wetland grass) in Phu My Commune.
Le Van Hong, chairman of Kien Giang Province Union of Friendship Organizations, said that ICF’s US$500,000 project has saved one,000 hectares of natural Lepironia articulate fields in Phu My and attracted variety of Sarus Cranes back to their natural habitat.
The Sarus Crane is that the longest of the flying birds and has been thought-about an iconic species of open wetlands. it’s listed as “vulnerable” by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.
The project began late 2004 and can continue till 2012.
The loss and degradation of wetlands threatens various species in Vietnam—a downside that has been compounded by serious chick loss caused by the illegal wildlife trade, consistent with ICF.
Lately, the organization claims that agricultural growth continues to play an increasingly massive role within the downside.
Vietnam currently has fifty eight nature reserves and eight UNESCO-recognized biosphere reserves.
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For decades, India’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh has been performing poorly on many socio-economic fronts. Leading amongst these are exceptionally high maternal and infant mortality rates. Often, pregnancy and child birth are accompanied by several avoidable complications and risks like disease, infection and even death. In the face of all this, and to combat such problems, CARE is implementing a project to help pregnant women in rural Uttar Pradesh gain access to information, resources and support groups. The project works on individual, household and community levels to promote practices which improve maternal and newborn wellbeing.
In many cases, the resistance to healthier practices can be attributed to numerous archaic and entrenched social beliefs held by the communities. These include the strong preference for a male child, which results in relatively less care for the female child. Another is the belief that heavy work during pregnancy ensures a smooth delivery. There are poor community practices during child birth and pregnancy and the key decision maker in such matters is not the woman, but the mother-in-law and husband. Women seldom have control over reproductive decisions and are unable to say “no”. A negative perception of government service providers and rampant class-based geographic and social exclusion, fuel the problem further.
An assessment of the above reasons made it clear that in order to promote safe and healthy practices among the pregnant women, it was supremely important to involve their family and gain their trust and support as well. To propel this holistic approach, the husbands of the pregnant women were invited to attend the routine “Women’s Meeting” held in a village in Barabanki district of Uttar Pradesh.
The meeting was a first of its kind, and saw the participation of 4 young couples, some pregnant women (without their spouses), an Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA), Anganwadi Workers (AWW), an Auxiliary Nurse Midwife (ANM) and some elders. The agenda was simple. It aimed to educate the group in a fun-filled and informal manner. Knowledge about the importance of iron tablets, and regular prenatal checkups was dispensed, followed by an interesting activity specifically for the couples. Several items, some crucial for child birth preparedness and others unnecessary, were placed in front of each couple and they had to select the ones that they would need for the birth of their child. I noticed that only the men made these selections and they ended up collecting some unneeded (and even harmful) things that were traditionally considered useful. The benefit of each necessary item was explained by the CARE staff present and when the activity was repeated, the men were able to make the correct selections.
Another game was played, one that a husband and wife usually play right after their marriage. A ring is hidden in a bowl of coloured water and the couple has to compete with one another to find it. While in that scenario, it is believed to playfully determine who will have more control in the marriage, in the meeting, it helped steer the discussion toward promoting equal decision making powers within the household. The participants enjoyed this, and it served as a good ice breaker. The men admitted that though they were unaware about the minute, yet crucial details related to pregnancy and child birth, they were grateful for an opportunity to learn about them. The presence of ASHAs, AWW and the ANM during the meeting helped in reinforcing that men should also seek counseling with the service provider during checkups.
I was impressed by the ease and confidence with which some sensitive topics were broached by the local CARE staff, and was pleased when the level of comfort was reciprocated by the young couples. The day’s activities were undoubtedly a learning experience for all. In the end, I was left with the realisation that though it would be years till substantial, measurable change would occur, thanks to Join My Village the seeds of change had been sowed in the minds of the young men and women who were present that day.
The Art of Our Scholarship Girls for Mother's Worldwide
Making the Impossible Possible
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The Purloined Sirloin
Why is meat the most shoplifted item in America?
Every supermarket detective—or "loss-prevention specialist," as many prefer to be called—has an offbeat meatlifting story to share. There's the one about the lady who seemingly defied the laws of physics by stuffing an entire HoneyBaked Ham in her purse, the man discovered with a trove of filet mignons in his Jockey shorts, or the meth addict who explained that his dealer, exhibiting an atypical benevolent streak, had agreed to accept prime rib in lieu of cash.
Yet most shoppers who use the five-finger discount in the meat aisle are neither so brazen nor so desperate. Carts brimming with groceries, they'll stealthily slide a single tenderloin or T-bone into a coat pocket, then hit the checkout line alongside their nonlarcenous peers. In this way, millions of pounds of beef, pork, and veal disappear from supermarket shelves each year. Meatlifting is a grave problem for food retailers: According to the Food Marketing Institute, meat was the most shoplifted item in America's grocery stores in 2005. (It barely edged out analgesics and was a few percentage points ahead of razor blades and baby formula.)
Meat's dubious triumph is due in part to a law enforcement crackdown on methamphetamine use. Meat used to be the shoplifting runner-up to health-and-beauty-care items, a category that includes cough medicines containing pseudoephedrine, a key ingredient in home-cooked meth. In 2003, for example, a quarter of shoplifted products were HBCs, while meat took second place at 16 percent. But states began passing laws that require stores to move medicines containing pseudoephedrine behind secure counters. That was enough to cut the pinching of HBCs, which fell by 11 percent between 2003 and 2005.
Supermarkets would love to do something similar with meat, reviving the compulsory interaction between shopper and butcher as in days of yore, but such an anti-meatlifting strategy wouldn't play well to the masses. Today's harried consumers want to zip through their food-shopping chores as quickly as possible—hence the proliferation of self-checkout lines and, more ominous for the Krogers and Piggly Wigglys of the world, online grocers. Shoppers would doubtless blanch at abandoning the self-service meat refrigerator in favor of once again taking a number and waiting for the attention of a white-coated butcher.
One compromise would be to place high-end meats behind a counter while keeping the ground beef and chicken thighs out in the aisle. Loss-prevention specialists note that a large number of meatlifting incidents, if not the majority, involve the pilfering of meats associated with luxury dining: rib-eyes, filet mignons, or lamb chops, among other treats. Stores have had particular problems with cuts bearing the Certified Angus Beef brand, which are often displayed near ostensibly less succulent offerings. With only enough money to purchase an ordinary chuck-eye roast, many otherwise ethical shoppers make a snap decision to lift the Angus instead. Store detectives speculate that these meatlifters feel entitled to have steak instead of hamburger on occasion, as a reward for their hard work; swiping an expensive bottle of dish soap doesn't provide the same sense of satisfaction. Though men and women shoplift in equal numbers, such aspirational meatlifters are most likely to be gainfully employed women between 35 and 54, according to a 2005 University of Florida study; men prefer to lift Tylenol or batteries, often for resale and often to support a drug or alcohol habit.
Though the behind-the-counter approach for Angus beef would certainly reduce meatlifting, it would also cut down on impulse purchases. And the happy reality is that for every shopper who decides to risk jail for a rib-eye, several more simply decide to splurge and shell out the extra few bucks for a choicer steak.
Wary about squelching impulse buys, supermarkets are instead looking for a technological deterrent to meatlifting. Mettler Toledo and Hobart, two of the nation's leading suppliers of meat-preparation equipment, have developed security-tag applicators that conceal the tag beneath the price label; walk out of the store with a purloined sirloin and an alarm will sound. To counteract more-sophisticated meatlifters who know enough to remove a steak's price label before attempting to flee, some stores are embedding security tags in the pads that soak up meat juice; try to remove the tag and you're liable to get bloody drippings all over your clothes.
Yet electronic solutions are too pricey for many smaller stores. And too often, staffers simply ignore the security alarms, especially if the suspected meatlifter is exiting with bags full of groceries; they just assume that a tag wasn't deactivated at checkout.
So, more innovation is required in the battle against meatlifting. Meat-sniffing dogs pop to mind, though some shoppers might object to having a Doberman nosing around their crotches in search of stolen steaks. But you know what they say about civil liberties in a time of crisis.
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International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), is an international criminal tribunal established by the United Nations to prosecute war crimes that took place during the conflict of the Belkans in 1990’s. The tribunal was established by the United Nations Security Council on May 25, 1993 as the first international war crimes tribunal since the Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals. The key objective of the ICTY is to try those individuals most responsible for appalling acts such as genocide, extermination, enslavement, deportation, imprisonment, torture, rape, persecutions on political-racial and religious grounds-and other inhumane acts. The ICTY has jurisdiction over natural persons extended to the territory of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, including land surface, airspace and territorial waters beginning on 1 January 1991. The ICTY has primacy over national courts and has convicted 160 individuals to date.
See Updated Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.
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We toss the word community around a lot in recruiting, but most of us do not have a very clear definition of what makes it different from a database or a talent pool.
A talent pool typically is a group of people who have been screened at least a little. They are people roughly qualified for a position or to work in an organization, but we really don’t have any relationship with them.
A talent pool is the equivalent of an annotated and sorted filing cabinet, but it only contains static and most likely out-of-date information about the potential candidate. They are hard to search and the data we have about a candidate rarely give us much insight into what a person is really like. And most talent pools do not allow the candidate to engage with the recruiter or others in the pool.
A community is entirely different. First of all it is two-way: both you and the candidate exchange information and both of you give and get. But a community also has several other distinguishing features:
Collaboration and Sharing
People in a community share information and often work together to solve problems or come up with new ideas. They are organic and alive with conversation and sharing of opinions and thoughts. True recruiting communities would include your employees as well as potential candidates talking about the organization, what it does, how it does it, and who does it. This give-and-take process is the best way to personalize the company and provide candidate with information about what is is like to work there. It saves you the need to tailor responses or have lots of facts at your fingertips – the employees and perhaps even other candidates will provide what you need.
Being part of something is also a key ingredient in a community. By being with others of similar interests and through sharing ideas, people come to feel part of the team. Good communities make recruiting much easier because candidates already feel like they know people and relate to them. When candidates actually get hired and start work, they have people to talk with that they already have met on line and have shared with.
No one is forced to join or stay in a community. Unlike a database, I can remove myself from the community and move on. Therefore, people who stay in a community and engage in conversation are most likely to have the same values as the people in the organization. This means that cultural compatibility is much higher and it become easy to spot those who aren’t really comfortable in the culture your organization has.
People are looking for authenticity from organizations and it is within communities that so much can be explained and made available. Employees may bring up issues and discuss how they were resolved while candidates may also contribute their ideas. Member of communities are much more likely to share their feelings and express their true opinions about issues. Potential employees feel that the organization is open and honest in its communication.
And finally, those in an active community are truly engaged and interested. Here is a statement from Richard Long, Deliotte New Zealand’s Manager of Talent Acquisition, about their recently developed Facebook community aimed at university students and graduates:
“Our strategy is to create dialogue and conversation with students and engage with them – all the while further developing the page with their feedback in mind – quite an organic process. All through our page we have given students the opportunity to tell us what they want to see and hear. The content of our page is provided by our own Deloitte Graduates and Summer Interns, and the fans themselves. My team really only administrates and develops the site to allow more conversation to happen between the fans and Deloitte Grads and Interns they are interested in hearing from. The result is we have built a community of students engaged with the Deloitte NZ brand, who are talking to us and have a sense of our culture and how we can support their career aspirations.”
This nicely sums up my major points and gives solid evidence that taking your social network to the next dimension – that of turning it into a true community of engaged and energetic people you can tap into whenever you have an opening – is the right way to go.
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FACT: “Republican candidates won 51.7% of all the votes cast for major-party candidates in the fourteen presidential elections from 1952 through 2004; Democratic Candidates captured 48.3%.”
The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age
by Larry M. Bartels
“[I recommend] Larry M. Bartels’s Unequal Democracy. Especially at this time every thoughtful American needs to learn as much as possible about the relationship of politics to economics.”
—Bill Clinton, Daily Beast
Using a vast swath of data spanning the past six decades, Unequal Democracy debunks many myths about politics in contemporary America, using the widening gap between the rich and the poor to shed disturbing light on the workings of American democracy. Larry Bartels shows the gap between the rich and poor has increased greatly under Republican administrations and decreased slightly under Democrats, leaving America grossly unequal. This is not simply the result of economic forces, but the product of broad-reaching policy choices in a political system dominated by partisan ideologies and the interests of the wealthy.
Bartels demonstrates that elected officials respond to the views of affluent constituents but ignore the views of poor people. He shows that Republican presidents in particular have consistently produced much less income growth for middle-class and working-poor families than for affluent families, greatly increasing inequality. He provides revealing case studies of key policy shifts contributing to inequality, including the massive Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 and the erosion of the minimum wage. Finally, he challenges conventional explanations for why many voters seem to vote against their own economic interests, contending that working-class voters have not been lured into the Republican camp by “values issues” like abortion and gay marriage, as commonly believed, but that Republican presidents have been remarkably successful in timing income growth to cater to short-sighted voters.
Unequal Democracy is social science at its very best. It provides a deep and searching analysis of the political causes and consequences of America’s growing income gap, and a sobering assessment of the capacity of the American political system to live up to its democratic ideals.
“Obama can connect with voters on the economy by using history as a guideline. He should start by reading Unequal Democracy, by Princeton academic Larry Bartels. The non-partisan and non-political Bartels points out devastatingly after an exhaustive study of Democratic and Republican presidents that the Democrats built a better economy and a more just society.”—James Carville, CNN
“Many Americans know that there are characteristic policy differences between the [Republican and Democratic] parties. But few are aware of two important facts about the post-World War II era, both of which are brilliantly delineated in a new book, Unequal Democracy, by Larry M. Bartels, a professor of political science at Princeton. Understanding them might help voters see what could be at stake, economically speaking, in November.”
—Alan Blinder, New York Times
Be sure to check in every Tuesday for a new tidbit from our great selection of politically-minded books.
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Obese White Women Shying Away From Colon Cancer Screening
WEDNESDAY, April 4 (HealthDay News) -- Obese white women are less likely than normal-weight white women or blacks of any weight or gender to seek potentially life-saving colon cancer screenings, according to a new study.
This reluctance is especially serious because obesity is associated with a higher risk for colon cancer and an increased risk of death from the disease, noted study leader Dr. Nisa Maruthur, an assistant professor in the general internal medicine division at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore.
"Being concerned about your weight usually is good, but here it appears to be keeping people from a test we know saves lives," Maruthur said in a Hopkins news release. "Obese white women may avoid screening because they feel stigmatized and embarrassed to disrobe for the tests."
Colonoscopy and fecal occult blood tests are two methods of colon cancer screening. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends that adults aged 50 to 75 undergo colonoscopy on a periodic basis, but only 20 percent of women and 24 percent of men over age 50 do so, the study authors pointed out in background information in the news release.
For the new study, the researchers reviewed the findings of 23 published studies that included information on body mass index (BMI) and colon cancer screening. BMI is a measurement that takes into account height and weight. A BMI between 18.5 and 24.9 is considered normal weight, between 25 and 29.9 is considered overweight and 30 or more is considered obese.
Overall, the Hopkins team found no link between higher BMI and lower rates of colon cancer screening. They did find such a link in obese white women, however.
Compared to normal-weight white women, those with a BMI between 30 and 34.9 were 13 percent less likely to be screened, and those with a BMI of 40 or higher were 27 percent less likely to be screened.
There was some indication that obese white men also are reluctant to undergo colon cancer screening, but further research is needed to confirm that data.
The study is published in the April 4 online issue of the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention.
Previous research by the same Johns Hopkins team found that obese white women are also less likely to seek mammography breast cancer screening and Pap smear screening for cervical cancer.
In addition to feeling reluctant to disrobe, another reason obese women may avoid the screening is because they may be dealing with other higher-priority health concerns, the researchers suggested.
The U.S. National Cancer Institute has more about colorectal cancer screening.
SOURCE: Johns Hopkins, news release, April 4, 2012Related Articles
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- Americans Still Making Unhealthy Choices: CDC
May 21, 2013
Learn More About Sharp
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Copyright ©2012 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
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Gaved, Mark; Collins, Trevor; Bartlett, Jessica; Davies, Sarah-Jane; Valentine, Chris; McCann, Lewis and Wright, Michelle
PDF (Version of Record)
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Download (91Kb) | Preview
|Google Scholar:||Look up in Google Scholar|
Field-based activities are regarded as essential to the development of a range of professional and personal skills for undergraduate students within geography, earth and environmental sciences. Students are taught investigative skills to enable them to interpret features within the landscape, establish technical skills such as sketching and the use of field equipment, and learn to collaborate with peers. Students enjoy field activities, and these improve deeper learning and understanding. However, due to issues such as cost and access some have little opportunity to participate in field-based studies. The ERA (Enabling Remote Activity) project is investigating how mobile and communication technologies might enhance field learning experiences for all participants. We identify two ways in which supporting technologies can enable greater participation and add value to existing fieldwork: remote access and collaborative groupwork.
In 2006 we enabled a single mobility impaired student to direct a remote geologist in the field, supporting remote access. A rapidly deployable, lightweight, battery powered wireless network was built (which we refer to as an ‘on-the fly network’) to enable the transmission of video, audio, and high resolution still images from the field to the student. In 2007 we supported three groups of volunteers undertaking remote collaboration, with half the participants in a university laboratory and the others in the field location. Each group was carrying out a separate specific geological investigation; graphic logging, paleontology, or mineralogy and paleocurrents. A network infrastructure supported communication and data transmission between the groups. Field and laboratory participants had their own distinct, significant roles and the trials explored how technology enhanced collaboration may be used to improve student learning.
ERA has tested highly mobile, easily configurable low cost network tools to explore how on-the-fly networking can support geology field studies at undergraduate level in remote locations. We have explored two differing configurations, developed through a collaborative design process undertaken between technology developers and course managers.
EVALUATION AND REFLECTION
A range of evaluation tools were used to enable analysis of the trials. Field journals were kept by all participants, which found ready acceptance with the geologists as an extension of their standard practice of keeping field notes. A wiki was used by the technical team to capture lessons learnt during the development and trial periods. Participants were gathered together for post-trial debrief sessions. In the second trial, participants’ responses were collected through written questionnaires and focus group discussions (audio recorded). Participants’ activities were also captured on video camera and this was analysed to capture critical incidents. Key findings underline the importance of co-designing technology and pedagogy, orchestration of multiple groups, on-site testing, and planning for graceful degradation of technologies and learning activities.
In 2008 we will be looking to move the system from a development prototype to a production model that could be could be replicated by geology departments across the UK without intensive technical support, and the proving of specific technical enhancements including VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) communication and the use of wireless digital cameras.
|Item Type:||Conference Item|
|Copyright Holders:||2008 The Authors|
|Academic Unit/Department:||Institute of Educational Technology
Knowledge Media Institute
Science > Environment, Earth and Ecosystems
Other Departments > Other Departments
|Interdisciplinary Research Centre:||Centre for Research in Computing (CRC)
Centre for Research in Education and Educational Technology (CREET)
Centre for Earth, Planetary, Space and Astronomical Research (CEPSAR)
|Depositing User:||Wendy Hunt|
|Date Deposited:||21 Aug 2009 15:26|
|Last Modified:||12 Feb 2013 01:57|
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Greece has become a byword for financial dysfunction, the example par excellence of what happens to a globally uncompetitive country when its inflated asset markets experience a destructive "correction."
South Korea and Taiwan, by contrast, are formidable players in the world economy, a result of their leadership in value-added technology. With combined foreign currency reserves of $700 billion between them and debt-to-GDP at a comfortable 40% in Korea and 34% in Taiwan, their national balance sheets are in very sound shape.
So it was striking to read last week that indexer MSCI had only now put Greece on review to possibly remove it from its "developed" country equity indexes and had decided against elevating South Korea and Taiwan from "emerging market" status.
In MSCI's defense, a country's economic development is only one criterion for its index rankings; also important are the size and liquidity of a country's stock market and the degree of accessibility to foreign investors. It is on those issues that South Korea and Taiwan have repeatedly failed to get the upgrade, even as they remain on review for it. And according to MSCI, the Greece review wasn't so much prompted by concerns about its debt crisis and potential departure from the euro zone, but by the repeated failure of Greek authorities to bring their country's equity-market regulations in line with other developed countries.
Nonetheless, such incongruous contrasts in country classifications, which are replicated throughout Wall Street and by all types of asset managers, have real-world implications. Although fewer institutions rigidly follow the weightings of international indexes such as MSCI's, they continue to have a significant influence on fund flows and on the internal structure of the investment industry. They also have a profound effect on currencies.
In essence, the nomenclature of international investment has a long way to go before it catches up to the realities of our rapidly changing global economy. The classifications around which portfolios are arranged and trading desks organized have never seemed more arbitrary than they do now, when the biggest threats investors face lie in "developed" European economies while the best hope for healthy, long-term growth resides in the "emerging" economies in Asia and Latin America.
Changes are under way. Bond investors started catching onto the idea of GDP-weighted indexes, for example, rather than the more common ones based on market capitalization, when they realized that the latter had the perverse effect of recommending higher asset allocations to countries with dangerously outsized debt loads, such as Greece or Argentina. But in investing, as with life itself, old habits die hard. There is still an awful amount of money invested according to outdated categorizations.
The integration--and now the potential disintegration--of the euro zone has made the task of classifying countries more complicated. Euro-zone member nations have the backing of a modern first-world central bank with extensive resources. If you assume that will always be the case--and until recently, it was a rare investor who imagined that a country might leave the zone--it becomes conceptually difficult to grant different classifications to different member nations.
But it is also likely that classifications such as "emerging market" or "developed economy" depend on criteria that are simply outdated or biased. Should securities regulations carry as much weight in these determinations as a country's productivity, technological advance and fiscal security?
There is also an insidious self-fulfilling element to all this. Once classified as an "emerging market," a country attracts different kinds of fund flows than those dedicated to "developed" nations. Emerging markets inherently draw risk-seeking, speculative investors who are prone to moving in rapidly when times are good but also more likely to flee at the first sign of danger. In a classic case of circularity, this reinforces the potential for capital flight and for market volatility, which are in turn defining features of emerging markets and their currencies.
Yet, as behind the curve as it is, a sea change is under way in how investors conceive of the risks across countries. Eventually, that will lead to more reclassifications into and out of the "emerging markets" and "developed country" categories and thus to shifts in capital flows in and out of certain currencies.
At some point, the South Korea won and Taiwan dollar will get a much-deserved boost from their countries' graduation to the developed country club.—Michael Casey is managing editor for the Americas at DJ FX Trader, a foreign-exchange news service from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal. His new book on the global financial system, "The Unfair Trade," was published this month. Write to Michael Casey at Michael.J.Casey@dowjones.com.
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Reviewed by Hunter L. (age 9)
In this book they go to Australia. When they were there, they had a tour guide named Tiki. They see a lot of wild animals like kangaroos, wombats, a Tasmanian devil, a platypus, a sugar glider, a koala, and a crocodile. A lesson to be learned in this book is to never try to outrun a dingo.
In this book a girl named Wanda took a pogo stick from the bus and bounced away with a mob of kangaroos. All of the other kids thought that she would get hurt. They tried to keep up with the mob of kangaroos in the Magic School Bus.
I liked this book because I like pogo sticks, kangaroos, and magic. I also like when they chase after Wanda. I like that the Magic School Bus can transform into different things. In this book, the bus turns into a jet.
My favorite part was when Tiki wrestled the kangaroo because I like wrestling. My other favorite part was when the Magic School Bus was chasing the mob of kangaroos and Wanda. I like chases.
My favorite character was Tiki because she wrestled a kangaroo. I also like Carlos who is also in Miss Frizzle's class. I like Carlos because he is brave.
I would recommend this book to first to sixth graders because this is a pretty easy and fun book. Kids who like fiction stories would like this book.
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The first time I tried to quilt a tree with branches, it was pretty much a failure…I don’t even have a picture to show. I’ve looked a little more closely at trees since those early days and I can represent a tree a bit better now.
You’ve seen the tree I created out of recycled sari yarn, right? That was easy because I just kept adding more ‘strings’ of yarn to get more texture and more branches.
Lately I’ve made a couple of fused applique trees and branches and those extra twigs and branches have been added during the quilting. The quilting does not have to be perfect, because you are only trying to give the impression of lots and lots of tiny branches and twigs. And from a distance, lots of random thread lines accomplish just that.
A closer look shows just how jerky and disjointed that quilting really is…which is what you need to convey that multi-branch look. The process is just to take random little side trips as you quilt along a branch. Don’t try to count them or balance them…just wander along your branches.
As you work on it, you might think your quilting is really out of control, but the unexpected little jerks and twists add a bit of realism.
Don’t worry about trying to create realism…all those tiny thread tracks add up to an overall tree branch picture. It’s actually a good place to practice if you haven’t done much free motion quilting, because the unexpected jumps that happen when you begin really only add to the twiggy effect!
Adding grass along a horizon line works in the same random way. Just move your quilt in irregular ups and downs across the horizon, mix straight and curved lines and don’t worry about how grass and weeds really grow! Our brains fill in the blanks!
Twigs and grass…random is better.
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Brian's Father cried for a long time. His tears were hot and filled with repressed feelings. He wondered what had happened to filial piety. He wondered what had happened to the commandment, "Obey your mother and father." Then, his ego dissolved almost completely. He cried more and more and more and then wondered who he was. He remembered his Father. He had hardly seen his face. He was always gone, somewhere. He had never known him, and before he knew it, his Father was dead. He cried some more and wondered what it meant to know someone. His son, he was someone else. He was gone to him, gone into the wind somewhere, past the mountains, and past the souls of women who flighted near the seas. His tears began almost to erase his face. He had failed his parents too. He had not passed the examination to enter Seoul National University. He could see the disappointment in his Father's face and then all those times that he did something that was disapproved by his Mother and Father, he could see their disappointment, their eyes almost closing. Now his son, but his son was really something else, a demon almost. What was he to do with him. Tears could not tell him. They could only drop below or release all these words or things he had seen or heard, faint echoes of something half-forgotten or vainly hidden. What could he do with Brian? Did Brian not understand that he was working with as few employees as possible so that Brian could go to the best colleges and become economically secure? Did Brian not understand that this was his way of showing his love toward Brian? Then he wondered, "Why could he not show it to Brian in a more direct way?" Why was he crying alone, showing his feelings to no one but himself and God? How Brian hurt him. How cruel he was. But did he know anything about Brian? Was Brian (nothing) nothingness to be filled by him. Was he an absolute and Brian a nothing? Father, he thought then he thought of all Fathers that he knew and his Father became all Fathers. Was he responsible for what Brian had become? Why? Teardrops roaded down his face and curved into the shadow over his upper neck. Impersonal love... was that all he was capable of feeling? He really wondered and then his thoughts popped, disappeared into holes of mind. He couldn't be anything else than what he was. It was time to work.
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Welcome to JRCNMT
Accrediting Nuclear Medicine Technology Programs Since 1969
The Joint Review Committee on Educational Programs in Nuclear Medicine Technology (JRCNMT) is the only programmatic accrediting agency recognized to accredit nuclear medicine technologist educational programs offered through traditional and distance education formats in the United States and its territories. The JRCNMT holds recognition from the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA).
The JRCNMT, with input from communities of interest, defines the standards for nuclear medicine technologist educational programs. The agency then uses those standards to conduct peer-review evaluations of programs seeking accreditation to ensure compliance with the standards. Programs that meet or exceed the standards are granted an accreditation status by the JRCNMT, providing public recognition and a basic assurance of the scope and quality of the professional program.
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How to be a Civil Servant
It is no accident that Whitehall officials are known as Mandarins. Their language is often as hard to understand as anything spoken in Beijing. This is the third of a series of documents will provide you with the basic writing skills you will need to get by and survive in Whitehall.
Lord Butler, former Head of the Civil Service, was asked to report, in 2004, on the role of the intelligence services in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. As might have been expected, Lord Butler's report offered a now all-too-rare glimpse of the former cabinet secretary's favourite language - traditional Mandarin.
The key to appreciating traditional Mandarin is understanding the often complex sentence structure. This allows exponents to leave readers with a clear sense of what is being said even though a literal analysis of the text would allow the author to deny ever having suggested such a thing.
A favoured technique is to place at the beginning of a sentence an avowed denial of everything that follows. A classic example of this comes in paragraph 597 with Lord Butler's observations on the way John Scarlett, chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee and next MI6 chief, strayed too far into political waters. In the original Mandarin this paragraph notes: "Without any implied criticism of the present or past chairmen ... we see a strong case for the post of chairman being held by someone with experience of dealing with ministers in a very senior role and who is demonstrably beyond influence and thus probably in his last post." Translated into modern English this might read: "The chairman of the JIC was clearly too junior, too inexperienced in the ways of ministers and too eager to toady to his political masters to secure his next job."
The report is similarly peppered with a number of other fine examples of the ancient dialect.
"While not arguing for a particular approach to the language of Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) assessments . . . we recommend the intelligence community review their conventions again to see if there would be advantage in refreshing them." Translation: "Only a moron would use language like that. The existing rules need to be overhauled."
"We do not suggest that there is - or should be - an ideal or unchangeable system of collective government, still less that procedures are in aggregate less effective now than in earlier times. However, we are concerned that the informality and circumscribed character of the government procedures . . . reduces the scope for informed collective political judgment." "The changes to the style of government instituted by Tony Blair helped cause this cock-up. Things were much better in my day."
"It may be worth considering the appointment of a distinguished scientist to undertake a part-time role as adviser to the cabinet office." "For God's sake, let's get someone who knows what he's talking about."
"The JIC, with commendable motives, took responsibility for the dossier." "In trying to help, the JIC really screwed up."
"Our review has shown the vital importance of effective scrutiny and validation of intelligence sources . . . We urge the chief of SIS to ensure that this task is properly resourced and organised to achieve that result." "It would be nice if MI6 took on a few people who know what they are doing."
But it is when Lord Butler raises the prospect of Mr Scarlett's being forced out of his new job - while making clear that he is calling for no such thing - that one sees the true subtleties of the dialect in the hands of a master. "We realise that our conclusions may provoke calls for Mr Scarlett to withdraw from his appointment as the next chief of SIS. We greatly hope he will not do so." "There is more than enough in this report to prompt calls for his resignation but don't try pinning it on me. And besides, as a former head of the civil service, I'm reluctant to draw too direct a link between error and accountability."
The above lesson first appeared in the Financial Times. Its author was Robert Shrimsley. Other lessons in this series may be found at www.civilservant.org.uk.
Click here to access other pages dealing with related subjects. And please help me keep this website up to date. Please do tell me if you have interesting new information, or if any of the links stop working. Thank you.
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Another type of sea salt from Hawaii, known as the black sea salt or Black Lava sea salt is colored by the lava deposits common in the area, making it black and somewhat glossy in appearance. With the addition of purified black lava for minerals and activated charcoal for color resulting in a slight sulfuric aroma, Lava sea salts provide an earthy flavor when used as a finishing salt. Since sea salts considered best as roasting salts will dissolve readily and typically loose their flavor after lengthy cooking, many are often used as finishing salts. However, Hawaiian sea salts are often used as both roasting and finishing salts for fish as well as poultry. It is common to apply a coating of salt on fish being steamed, preserving the flavor and moisture as it bakes. Then, a Black Lava sea salt adds a finishing touch to season and enhance the appearance of the presentation.
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Japan's traditional fascination with insects could help urbanized Westerners reimagine their relationship with nature.
Learn more >>
Check TV listings >>
Director Jessica Oreck explains how a history of Japan’s relationship with insects might change not only the way you think about bugs, but the way you think about life.
Read about her vision >>
Have you ever had an exotic pet? Do some creatures freak you out too much to keep in your home? Tell us about your creepy crawly, slimy, scaly, furry or feathered friends and what you've learned from them.
What’s bugging you >>
SUPPORT PROVIDED BY:
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- Historic Sites
Henry Ford’s Horseless Horse
April 1992 | Volume 43, Issue 2
Have you heard the story of the man who almost made a fortune in the soft-drink industry? He invented 6-Up.
All right, I know it’s a very old joke, but it illustrates a point: there are a lot more near-misses in capitalism than bull’s eyes. Many of these near-misses come about through simple bad timing or bad luck (RCA’s SelectaVision, for instance, blown out of the water by the VCR and laser disc). Others result from technological overreach (Howard Hughes’s Spruce Goose ).
But others happen because innovators fail to fully conceptualize the new technology they are dealing with and rely on models from the old technology they seek to replace. The first mechanical pencil sharpener was a Rube Goldbergian contraption that sought to imitate a human hand wielding a penknife. Not surprisingly it didn’t work very well.
Or consider Henry Ford’s Fordson tractor. While Ford no more invented the tractor than he invented the automobile, his Fordson tractor, like his Model T, revolutionized an industry, brought a powerful new technology within the reach of millions, changed an age-old way of life forever, and had vast economic consequences.
But while the Model T made Ford one of the richest men in the world, the Fordson tractor was, finally, a financial failure. The reason it failed, perhaps, was that Henry Ford hated farming and focused too much on simply replacing the horse and not enough on what the horse actually did for the farmer.
American agriculture, from its beginning, had been different from its European antecedents. In Europe land was expensive and labor cheap; in America it was exactly the reverse. Because of this reality, early American farmers often had a startling lack of interest in husbandry but were very receptive to laborsaving machinery.
At the time of the Revolution, farmers still had little in the way of equipment unknown to the Romans two thousand years earlier. It was reckoned that two men and a boy, using two or three horses or twice as many oxen, could plow only an acre or two a day.
But as early as 1788 Thomas Jefferson was working on the right mathematical curve for a plow to turn the earth with maximum efficiency (his equation, elegance itself on paper, was not successful in the field). Most farmers continued to use simple wooden plows, while the wealthier could afford cast-iron ones.
Then in 1819 Jethro Wood introduced cast-iron plows with replaceable parts, bringing them within reach of the average farmer. Two decades later John Deere introduced the steel plow, a great improvement on the cast- iron model and a capitalist bull’s eye of the first order. The John Deere Company used the motto “He gave to the world the steel plow” for well over a century (of course, as more than one farmer noted, “He may have given it to the world, but I had to buy mine!”).
There is much more to farming, to be sure, than plowing, and the Industrial Revolution also gave the farmer mechanical seed drillers, cultivators, reapers, and threshers. All this had a radical effect on productivity. In 1822 it had taken fifty to sixty man-hours to produce twenty bushels of wheat on an acre; by 1890 it took just eight to ten man-hours.
The number of “horse-hours,” however, had greatly increased, and by 1880 the number of horses and mules on American farms exceeded twelve million and was climbing quickly.
At that time the only alternative to the horse was steam. At first portable steam engines were employed on very large farms for threshing. In truth they were portable only in the sense that they were not permanently situated and could be moved, very slowly, by large teams of horses.
Somebody soon had the idea of using a steam engine’s own power to move it from farm to farm. It was exactly such an engine that the young Henry Ford encountered one day when riding in a wagon with his father. It was the first self-propelled device that Ford had ever seen, and he was wild with excitement as only a twelve-yearold boy can be.
“The engine had stopped,” Ford wrote half a century later, “to let us pass with our horses and I was off the wagon and talking to the engineer before my father … knew what I was up to.” The engineer cheerfully explained how everything worked and made a lifelong impression on Ford. Indeed, “from the time I saw that road engine … right forward to today, my great interest has been in making a machine that would travel roads.”
Steam, however, was not well adapted to farm use. Its energy output is low per unit of weight, and thus steam engines capable of doing farm work were very heavy and expensive. Very few farmers could afford to own steam engines, and many could not even afford to rent them.
With all of steam’s disadvantages, when the internal-combustion engine began to approach practicality, it was soon adapted to farm use. The first gasoline-powered traction engine (a phrase shortened by 1900 to “tractor”) was built by John Froelich in 1892, four years before Henry Ford built his first automobile. Froelich’s engine, like most early prototypes, didn’t work very well in the real world, and Froelich soon disappeared from history.
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Who They Are:
Working as a full-time farmer for seven years now, owner George Simonoff
has developed a love for animals. The original sector of Blackbird's
small-scale farmhouse, the homestead of the Graham family for which the
road is named, was built in 1872. WHAT THEY HAVE: A
variety of meats including pastured pork, pastured chicken, turkey, and
grass-fed lamb and beef. The farm sells Berkshire pork as well as its
own mixed-pork breed. "I have my own breeding stock on the farm, for
pigs especially, because it makes a huge difference in the quality of
the meat." TRY THIS: Pork shoulder
steak. "[It] is by far the tastiest part of the animal," Simonoff says.
Bacon and kielbasa, however, are the farm's best-sellers. Where to GET IT: Contact Simonoff directly via email (email@example.com).
Four Maples Farm
Who They Are: A few
years ago, Bradley Cramer was at a tipping point: go back to college or
try his hand in the real world. Then he read Joel Salatin's book You Can
Farm. "The book was empowering," he says. "It made it sound like if
you're willing to work hard and sacrifice, ... you can do something truly
meaningful and profitable." Salatin's teachings became a guidebook for
his family-operated farm. WHAT THEY HAVE: Organic pasture poultry TRY THIS: The farm offers one product: a whole roasting chicken. It sold about 500 last year. WHERE TO GET IT: Order by phone or email.
Goatfeathers Point Farm
Who They Are: Nathaniel
Point built the farmhouse in 1875 and the barn a year later. "The
railroad trailing through the area at the time would take the food to
the mills, which really helped the farm flourish," says proprietor Cindy
Bechter-Smith. WHAT THEY HAVE: Goat meat (including whole goat, cubed, ground, jerky or leg shank), pork, turkey, and chicken and eggs when available TRY THIS: Cubed
goat meat with the bone on the side. "We try to provide the meat like
how it is prepared at restaurants, which is cubed and cooked with the
bones so you get the extra flavor," Bechter-Smith says. Where To GET IT: For
$1, join the farm's Herd Share Program to order by phone or online.
Also available at special restaurant events, including at Fire Food
Miller Livestock Co.
WHO THEY ARE: Melissa and Aaron Miller, of Miller Livestock, have been farming since the mid-1980s and raising grass-fed beef without use of chemicals, fertilizers or pesticides for 12 years. WHAT THEY HAVE: Grass-fed beef and lamb, pastured pork, poultry and eggs. "We have worked very diligently over the past decade or so to get a mixture of forages that raise a very tender and good tasting beef," Melissa says. TRY THIS: "To get the best sense of flavor and texture, I would recommend trying the rib steak," she says. The most popular product, however, is the ground beef. Where to GET IT: Flying Fig, Fire Food & Drink, and Foster's Meats at the West Side Market
Shady Hill Farms
Who They Are: Ben Calkins, owner and operator of Shady Hill since 1983, has been raising sheep since he was a kid growing up in New York in the 1960s. WHAT THEY HAVE: Polled Dorset and Suffolk sheep, sheep for breeding or showing, lamb, gyro meat, sheepskins, 100 percent virgin wool blankets, scarves and more TRY THIS: Merguez, a popular and inexpensive spicy Algerian sausage Where to GET IT: Several farmers markets, including Shaker Square. Products are sold under the Great American Lamb Co. label.
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Dr. Vlahakes has been on the cardiac surgical staff of the MGH since 1986. His practice includes virtually all phases of adult cardiac surgery.
Translational research conducted relevant to mitral valve physiology and right heart failure.
Throughout the month of February, our doctors and specialists in the Massachusetts General Hospital Institute for Heart, Vascular and Stroke Care will be sharing their expertise on various heart conditions and offering prevention tips in recognition of American Heart Month. Roughly one in every four deaths in the U.S. each year is due to heart disease, making it the leading cause of death for Americans.
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Old fashion hobbies the past never dies; it continues to exist in the present in a new form. It might not be visible, but it still pervades the fabric of everyday life. The same holds true for old hobbies. They might have become obscure in the face of modern advancement, not extinct. Countless old fashioned hobbies continue to exist and flourish in the present day. These appealed to the individual’s imagination and have persisted to intrigue generation after generation of fans who continue to appreciate them. The modern technology has made them even more endearing to a diverse range of people around the world.
Old fashioned hobbies like model train building, cars, airplanes and blocks icon are still as popular throughout age groups. Model train building is one hobby, which is both intriguing and appealing. The builder gets to make real life models of a train which is complete replicas in every respect. These models are then painted and finished prior to being used on the modern rail tracks. While the essential nature of train building and car building has remained the same, there has been a change in the components. The car kits have become much more sophisticated in terms of the material used and the ultimate finesse achieved.
The building of model airplanes is another old fashioned hobby, which is similar to the others. Real scale models of various aircraft are made by enthusiast of all ages. In this hobby again, advancement of technology has widened the horizons considerably. The models may be capable of flying. Internally fitted combustion engine, propeller, ducted fans or electric machinery are used to power these planes. They are capable of being controlled from the ground. building blocks icon have been useful tools for imaginative powers. These are accompanied with tools to suit the style of building. The more modern range includes themes like space, robots and underwater diving.
These old hobbies have a timeless appeal, and they are still gripping the imagination of millions. The key to their appeal lies in the fact that they have been able to transform and reinvent themselves over the years. The model train running on small tracks is one memory which nearly every person will always carry. That is why old fashioned hobbies will always be around.
The time people spend on walking as a hobby and enjoying the environment they life in is a very old fashion hobby for many young or old .
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| 0.97155
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| 2.03125
| 2
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Your Immortal Brain with Dr. Joe Dispenza
Joe Dispenza, D.C., featured in "What the BLEEP Do We Know?!", asserts that we can rewire our brain to produce the changes we want in our lives. This engaging teaching presents new findings in quantum physics and neuroscience that indicate how our observations and thoughts shape reality. Learn about the importance of the frontal lobe in creating reality and its role in the rewiring process. 60 minutes.
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Home » Posts tagged 'economics'
Tag Archives: economics
“Words ought to be a little wild for they are the assaults of thought on the unthinking.”
When we confront a situation, our mind looks for a precedent among past actions without regard to whether a decision was made in emotional or unemotional circumstances. Which means we end up repeating our mistakes, even after we’ve cooled off.I said that Eduardo and I wondered if past emotions influence future actions, but, really, we worried about it. If we were right, and recklessly poor emotional decisions guide later “rational” moments, well, then, we’re not terribly sophisticated decision makers, are we?To test the idea, we needed to observe some emotional decisions. So we annoyed some people, by showing them a five-minute clip from the movie Life as a House, in which an arrogant boss fires an architect who proceeds to smash the firm’s models. We made other subjects happy, by showing them—what else?—a clip from the TV show Friends. (Eduardo’s previous research had established the emotional effects of these clips).Right after that, we had them play a classic economics game known as the ultimatum game, in which a “sender” (in this case, Eduardo and I) has $20 and offers a “receiver” (the movie watcher) a portion of the money. Some offers are fair (an even split) and some are unfair (you get $5, we get $15). The receiver can either accept or reject the offer. If he rejects it, both sides get nothing.Traditional economics predicts that people—as rational beings—will accept any offer of money rather than reject an offer and get zero. But behavioral economics shows that people often prefer to lose money in order to punish a person making an unfair offer.
Think back to your first years in graduate school. The most mathematically complex papers required a great deal of time and effort to read. The papers were written as if to a private club, and we felt proud when we successfully entered the club. Although I copied the style of these overly complex and often poorly written papers in my first few research attempts, I grew out of it quite quickly. I didn’t do so on my own. I was lucky to be surrounded by mature confident researchers at my first academic appointment. They taught me that if you are confident in your research you will write to include, not exclude. You will write to inform, not impress. It is with apologies to my research and writing mentors that I report the following events.
new economic geography has a kind of steampunk feel, so that the stories it tells seem more suited to the U.S. economy of 1900 than that of 2010. Well, China is an economic powerhouse, but it’s still quite poor; allowing for the vagaries of purchasing power parity estimates as well as GDP comparisons between very different eras, China today appears to have roughly the same level of per capita GDP as the United States at the beginning of the 20th century.And guess what? Chinese economic geography is highly reminiscent of the economic geography of advanced nations circa 1900 – and it fits gratifyingly well into the new economic geography framework.
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New Disability Regs Limit Slope of Mini Golf Holes, Require Businesses to Admit Mini Horses as Guide Animals
(CNSNews.com) – Although the Justice Department has extended the deadline for America’s hotels to comply with regulations regarding handicap access to swimming pools, new Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) guidelines are already being applied at miniature golf courses, driving ranges, amusement parks, shooting ranges and saunas.
Among the provisions in the "Revised ADA Standards for Accessible Design," which went into effect on March 15, is one requiring businesses to allow miniature horses on their premises as guide animals for the disabled. Another limits the height of slopes on miniature golf holes.
“The new standards, for the first time, include requirements for judicial facilities, detention and correctional facilities, and recreational facilities,” Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez said during a conference in Baltimore on June 7.
“We expect the implementation of these accessibility standards to open up doors for full participation in both the responsibilities, such as jury duty, and the benefits, such as playing at city parks, of civic life for people with disabilities,” he said.
The 2010 ADA standards for Accessible Design require that at least 50 percent of golf holes on miniature golf courses be “accessible” – with a ground space that is “48 inches minimum by 60 inches minimum with slopes not steeper than 1:48 at the start of play.”
Other regulations include:
Saunas – provision of accessible turning space and an accessible bench.
Shooting facilities – provision of accessible turning space “for each different type of firing position.”
Golf courses – “an accessible route to connect all accessible elements within the boundary.” An accessible route must also “connect golf car rental areas, bag drop areas, teeing grounds, putting greens, and weather shelters.”
Gyms – at least one of each type of exercise machine must be positioned for use by a person in a wheelchair.
Amusement parks – any new or altered ride must provide at least one seat for a person in a wheelchair.
A section of the guidelines regulating commercial facilities states that, “a public accommodation shall make reasonable modifications in policies, practices, or procedures to permit the use of a miniature horse by an individual with a disability if the miniature horse has been individually trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of the individual with a disability.”
A public accommodation is defined as “a private entity that owns, leases (or leases to), or operates a place of public accommodation.”
“Miniature horses were suggested by some commenters as viable alternatives to dogs for individuals with allergies, or for those whose religious beliefs preclude the use of dogs,” the rules state. Also mentioned as a reason to include the animals is the longer life span of miniature horses – providing approximately 25 years of service as opposed to seven years for dogs.
“Some individuals with disabilities have traveled by train and have flown commercially with their miniature horses,” the Justice Department notes.
“Similar to dogs, miniature horses can be trained through behavioral reinforcement to be ‘housebroken,’” it adds.
However, “Ponies and full-size horses are not covered.”
A business owner can deny admission to a miniature horse that is not housebroken, whose handler does not have sufficient control of the animal, or if the horse’s presence compromises “legitimate safety requirements.”
The miniature horse addition has come under the scrutiny of at least one member of Congress, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), who offered an amendment that passed the House, banning funding to implement the provision. Chaffetz penned an editorial last month in opposition to the rule entitled, “Horses in the Dining Room?”
Last month the Justice Department extended the deadline for the rule requiring permanent wheelchair access to recreational pools. Citing “significant concerns and misunderstandings among a substantial number of pool owners and operators,” the department issued a notice in the Federal Register extending compliance from March 15 to May 21 this year. The date has now been pushed back further, to January 31, 2013.
The regulation requires large pools – those with over 300 linear feet of pool wall – to have two accessible means of entry, and smaller pools to have one.
For existing pools, owners making structural alterations are obliged to remove architectural barriers “to the extent such compliance is readily achievable.”
“As I consider the department’s accomplishments to date, and our plans for the future, I continue to take my inspiration from people with disabilities and their families,” Perez said in Baltimore.
“These individuals express the harm of segregation and the value of integration more eloquently than any lawyer’s brief ever could. They are the heroes of this civil rights movement.”
A person with a disability is defined by the ADA as, “a person who has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities, a person who has a history or record of such an impairment, or a person who is perceived by others as having such an impairment.”
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There are more benefits to driving a solar charged vehicle than meets the eye. These vehicles are starting to look more and more like the vehicle of the future. While some may like the sheer look of them, others like them for their efficiency. And recent studies have shown these vehicles also play a role on our health. As technology for these vehicles improve, so will their travel distance. Currently these vehicles don’t go as far as gas fueled vehicles, but that is sure to change. EV stations are popping up all over the country at airports, malls, and even college campuses. This will likely start a trend for the rest of the world. The more places that become electric vehicle friendly the more popular they will become. The infographic does a great job of laying out the benefits that come with these vehicles. So the next time you go to buy a car, explore your options. Convert to solar charged driving today and do a good thing for your environment.
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Pen and ink stippling and hand-drawn lettering cobbled together in Seashore.
From A Descent into the Maelstrom by Edgar Allan Poe, 1841.
The edge of the whirl was represented by a broad belt of gleaming spray; but no particle of this slipped into the mouth of the terrific funnel, whose interior, as far as the eye could fathom it, was a smooth, shining, and jet-black wall of water, inclined to the horizon at an angle of some forty-five degrees, speeding dizzily round and round with a swaying and sweltering motion, and sending forth to the winds an appalling voice, half shriek, half roar, such as not even the mighty cataract of Niagara ever lifts up in its agony to Heaven.
I thought I would try to capture Poe somewhere between an incomprehensibly vast vortex of chaos and a more prosaic, Victorian world of decorative arts. The worlds are cancerous to each other, and only Poe was strong and insightful enough to attempt to bridge the gap.
An interesting side note here is that I was determined to avoid the standard props of a Poe portrait, namely the raven or the black cat. Nevertheless, the wallpaper pattern that I puzzled out ended up having very feline features. Funny how the brain works.
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Death of a Naturalist - Heaney
The first 200 words of this essay...
This poem is a fertile mixture of imagery, sounds and an impression created by nature on a person's mind. Heaney sensualises an outstanding feel of the physical wonders of nature. As he wanders along the pathways of salient discovery, Heaney's imagination bursts into life. This poem is actually very ironic, in its whole, as Heaney effectively carves a mountain out of a molehill of the episode about the frogs, a product of his enticing figments.
In the first section of 'Death of a Naturalist', the child is entuned with the nature around him and vivid images of him revelling in the sensual pleasures of life are abundant. Bubbles 'gargling' on stagnant water and the 'warm thick slobber' of frogspawn fascinated him. The imagery here indicates that Heaney feels pride in being able to be so close-up to nature and his immersion with nature, without, in anyway, being fastidious about it. Heaney is at this stage of life, innocent and gullible. He imagines the opposing impulses of the bluebottles, which weave a 'strong gauze of sound around the smell' (in connection with the delicacy of the bubbles). The omnipresence of the sounds, smell and thoughts (???) typifies a powerful imagination and
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""Asmaa, UAE. GCSE Student. Biology, Physics, Chemistry, Maths and English.
""John Plowright. Teacher. Repton School. Derbyshire.
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7th NZ Parliament
The 7th Parliament of New Zealand was in session April 25 to May 25, 2011. The membership was set by the April 25 parliamentary elections. This parliament witnessed the return of a single-party majority but also saw political re-alignment take place nearing its later stages.
Just prior to the parliamentary elections, the Red label Party was PTOed. The vast majority of its members flocked to the Free Texas which had renamed itself Stranka Srpskog Korpusa (SSK) following the influx of members. This gave the party a huge voter and for the first time since the "Aotearoa" times a party captured a single-party majority.
The Ranginui returned to Parliament in a strengthened position, having won two additional seats and became the second largest party in Parliament. It remained on good ties with the SSK and therefore was able to cooperate with it on various legislative proposals.
The third party to win representation was the Peace 'n' Prosperity Party (PnPP), which returned to Parliament after a one month hiatus. The party was no longer identified as an "opposition" party and instead had developed working relations with the SSK and Ranginui. It benefited in the May Presidential election when former CP Don KronoX joined the PnPP and was elected, with both Ranginui and SSK support.
The seventh Parliament brought about major changes in the NZ economy and military, thanks in large measure to the Argentina-New Zealand War which occupied much of its later stages. The Parliament supported the KronoX administration by cutting import taxes on food and weapons, by signing MPP's with leading ONE nations and purchasing defense systems for the Otago and later Canterbury regions. It did suffer membership in late May when some SSK members rejoined the RLP, after its former PP loader returned to take the helm.
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Economist is running a debate on this topic.
This house believes that restricting the growth of cities will improve quality of life.
Adam Roberts , South Asia chief of Economist is the moderator. Chetan Vaidya, director of the National Institute of Urban Affairs in India, opposes the motion. Paul James, director of the Global Cities Institute at RMIT University in Australia supports the motion.
Roberts says cities have increased manifold and quality of life is suffering:
Today, the world’s cities continue to draw millions to them, at a pace that would bewilder those who lived in industrialising Europe, or in southern Africa a hundred years ago. I now live in India, where emerging mega cities—Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore—are bursting with many millions of people, a great proportion of them recent arrivals, many living in unplanned areas and slums. In China, too, huge cities, especially along the eastern coast, have been erupting, swollen by millions of internal migrants.
Just over half the world’s population now call cities home, though for many a city means a slum. Soon some 500 cities around the world will have more than 1m people each. Within a couple of decades, says the UN, 5 billion people will live in cities, with the most rapid change coming in Asia and Africa. Urbanisation should bring great gains to human development: creating wealth, spurring innovation, encouraging freedom and improving education. But with for many—from Lagos to Nairobi to Mumbai—lacking sanitation or housing, without clean piped water, suffering from chronic pollution, the costs of rapid growth, at least in the short term, may be just too high.
The UN has suggested that air pollution in China (mostly in its cities) may cause the premature deaths of 400,000 people every year. Pollution is similarly deadly in India. Communicable diseases—such as cholera, AIDS, malaria, dengue—may be especially easy to pass on in the slums of big cities. And any increase in extreme weather (storms, floods and the like) and a rise in the level of the sea will affect those living on the coast in particular: note that many new mega cities are on or near a coast.
How then to balance the benefits of urbanisation against the costs? In our debate we need to get some things clear. Can the problems of fast-growing mega cities be tackled in the short term, or is it better to wait until everyone gets richer? Is it the job of national, local or city governments, or of residents, or even private companies to try? Is restricting the growth of cities a smart response? Is it even possible, at least in democracies where freedom of movement is not restricted? And whose quality of life should we care about: those inside the city walls only, or those left behind on the farms and villages? If slum dwellers—for all the filth—are wealthier and healthier than villagers, whose job is it to keep them out?
James says we should do something to improve quality of life:
He suggests that sprawling and bloated cities, mega cities with their slums, will be unable to give humans the best quality of life—a term that he helpfully offers to define as a life with “complex and rich relationships between people”. But he also concedes that it is easier to wish for restrictions on the size of cities than to achieve them. To make the case for restricting cities, however, we need to think about how restrictions might work. Some cities try to limit the increase of traffic, some limit building. In some countries alternative developments—new towns and cities built elsewhere, capitals that are shifted—are set up to draw people away from the mega cities. Are such attempts worthwhile?
He argues that cities bring great benefits to humans, and as for problems, it is far from clear how the growth of cities can be restricted. He calls instead for “well-managed” cities. I would encourage some explanation of what this could mean—might a well-managed city be precisely one in which unchecked growth is prevented? If authorities have the means to manage cities, could they not stop growth in the first place?
What do you think? James makes strong points but I would still be with Vaidya. I don’t think we can limit growth of cities and urbanisation is inevitable. Better to plan for it then run away from it.
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Town will pick up tree limbs
© Culpeper TimesFacing the aftermath of last week's snow storm, town residents have a way to dispose of fallen branches and tree debris left over from the heavy wet snow that damaged some trees.
The town's Public Works Department will pick up tree limbs and debris as part of regular trash day service. Limbs must be cut to a maximum of four feet long, tied in a bundle no larger than two feet in diameter and weighing no more than 50 lbs. The bundle must be bound with string or twine sufficient to permit the bundle to be lifted and placed into the garbage truck.
"After major tree-damaging storms, the town accepts debris and limbs with regular garbage pickup" Public Works Director Jim Hoy. "We encourage residents to cut and bundle limbs and set them curbside for pickup."
Town residents don't have to call the public works department for pickup. Trash crews will pick up the bundled debris on the day of regular garbage pickup.
"As an alternative, residents can haul the debris and limbs to one of the many local recycling companies that convert the limbs to mulch," said Hoy.
Town residents with questions may contact the Public Works Department at 825-0285.
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Incentives don't always translate to dollars for the Texas film industry
On April 23, things were looking good for the Texas film industry. After months of negotiations, marquee names from the creative arts and the political establishment gathered at Robert Rodriguez's Troublemaker Studios in East Austin to witness Gov. Rick Perry sign House Bill 873 – the latest version of the Texas Moving Image Industry Incentive Program. Perry told the assembled crowd, "With this legislation, we are strengthening our state's investment in a vital industry that not only shows off our state to the rest of the world, but also draws investment and creates jobs for Texans."
The Texas Film Commission in early November plans to approve its new rules based on the legislation. With applications for the new and improved grants already filed in expectation of receiving the money, Texas Film Commissioner Bob Hudgins finds himself in the enviable position of helming a program that may be perhaps too successful. With only $62 million in the program's budget for the next two years and a greater number of companies being attracted by more generous incentives, Hudgins said: "Unfortunately, what's going to prove up this time is that we need more money for the program. I fully expect to run out."
Previously, in Texas Film ...
The history of film incentives in Texas has been fraught with false starts. The trouble really started in 2002, when Louisiana established a film tax-credit program. New Mexico quickly followed suit, and by 2005 more than a dozen states offered similar programs – including, theoretically, Texas. With concerns about lost production dollars and talent drain as crews moved out of state for work, Dallas Sen. John Carona authored Senate Bill 1142, establishing the Texas Film Industry Incentive Program. The bill was intended to provide grants for film, TV, and commercial shoots. "Intended" is the right word: Though the legislature passed the bill, it never actually funded the program, so there was no money for grants.
In 2007, Austin state Rep. Dawnna Dukes picked up the torch and worked to pass HB 1634. The first big change was the name: Now it was the Moving Image Industry Incentive Program, adding "digital interactive media production" to the list of industries eligible for grants worth 5% of their project budgets. The legislature funded this version to the tune of $22 million. That was the good news. The bad news was that the terms were tighter than most states, with low grant caps, higher minimum qualifying budgets, and higher requirements for in-state staffing and shooting. The terms were so stiff and gave Hudgins' office so little leeway to negotiate with producers that applications fell short of the intended levels. Where it worked was in keeping existing productions, such as Prison Break, in the state. But when it came to attracting new productions, Texas Motion Picture Alliance President Don Stokes explained, "It was just not competitive enough to make people look at the other advantages the state can offer."
So in 2009, with other states already running various incentive programs and producers scarcely glancing at states without, it was back to the Texas Capitol for take three. After lengthy negotiations between studios and a financially skittish legislature, Dukes' HB 873 allowed more cash for a broader pool of applicants. More importantly, it upped the percentage available for film and TV and gave Hudgins the leeway to reform the rules if and when they are shown to be ineffective. Stokes said: "We've gone from 5 percent to 15 percent, plus extra in an underutilized area. We in effect tripled the incentive program."
The numbers are already, arguably, speaking for themselves and proving the program's worth as an economic driver. Since the Texas Film Commission started taking applications under HB 873 on April 23, it has already attracted well over half the value of production dollars that HB 1634 managed between June 2007 and April 2009. Since only $11 million out of the original $22 million had gone out in grants, there was even money left in the pool, so Hudgins' office was able to start allotting that old cash under the new rules before the end of the fiscal year. He explained, "Friday Night Lights was the one that put us over the top to seal the deal so that we didn't lose any money from the old program."
Hudgins had leftover cash from the 2008-2009 appropriations "because something wasn't working," he said. "We're not going to be having that problem this time." His office has been taking applications under the new rules and can start processing them once they're approved. If all the applications are awarded the maximum grant, then more than $17 million will be paid out. In return, the state will have attracted $138 million in production spending and added 1,180 full-time jobs.
Once Upon a Time in Austin
Hudgins' job is to get productions into the state. After that, it's up to the individual counties and municipalities to compete for those productions. The city of Austin has a vested interest in making sure that filmmakers get off the plane at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport and then stay inside the city limits. Says Vincent Kitch, the city's cultural arts program manager, "Our internal philosophy is to make it quicker and cheaper and easier to make movies in Austin."
Mostly, the city relies on the services of the Austin Film Commission, run by the Austin Convention & Visitors Bureau, to serve as a one-stop contact shop for content producers and moviemakers. What subsidies the city does provide are effectively stealthy, such as the 2008 council ordinance waiving rental fees on city property for qualifying projects or the Austin Film Commission's Now Playing card, where local vendors offer discounts to cast and crew. Gary Bond, the bureau's director of film marketing, said: "My motive in [the discount card] is mostly for the businesses who want to know, 'How do we get some of this film money?' They're actually getting it, whether it's barbershops or automobile dealers." And for local firms, he argues, it's a very focused publicity tool. He added: "You're dealing with a very narrow demographic of folks. It's not like sending coupons to a ZIP code."
The city's only real experience with a direct incentive so far is the 2007 economic development agreement City Council signed with NBC to bring the filming of Friday Night Lights to Austin (available at www.cityofaustin.org/redevelopment/downloads/FridayNightLightsCh380Eda.pdf). Much like the state reacting to the slow industry response to its grants, city staff experienced a learning curve when FNL ended up out of compliance with the agreement. The core problem was the 2007-2008 Writers Guild of America strike: The original deal with the city was for 21 episodes that year, but the strike resulted in the completion of only 15 episodes for season two. So, just as the state revisited its incentive rules, the city went back and reworked the deal. On Oct. 15, council dropped the episode requirement down to 12 and added a force majeure clause in the event of a talent strike. Rodney Gonzales, acting director for the city's Economic Growth and Redevelopment Services Office, explained: "That's a big benefit, because for season three they've filmed and completed 13 episodes, and for seasons four and five, our understanding is that they're going to record 13 episodes each. So council fully realizes the benefits that Friday Night Lights brings to the industry here in Austin."
But that doesn't mean all the contract glitches are fixed. There were other noncompliance issues, and while city staff expects that the new amendments will retroactively cover season one, the fact that NBC omitted the preagreed phrase, "Made in Austin, Texas, U.S.A.," from the credits means season two won't be eligible for the incentive cash. Kitch said, "They weren't willfully being noncompliant, but [the agreement] doesn't allow us to just say, 'Well, we understand.'"
The Studio System
Arguably the city's biggest indirect subsidy for media firms was the agreement to extend the Austin Studios lease to the Austin Film Society until 2042. Gonzales explained, "For a dollar a year, we get a lot of return." The general hope among the local film community was that the new incentive program would cause a flood of moviemakers to hit Austin. Unfortunately, that deluge has still to materialize. Catherine Parrington, the studios' director of operations, explained, "Thank God for Troublemaker Studios, because they're the ones keeping us busy." Rodriguez's production company completed the upcoming Machete on her soundstages, and now it's working there on his reboot of the Predator franchise, Predators. Beyond that, the books look pretty empty, making the controversial agreement to lease stage four to Soundcheck Austin, a music production and rehearsal space firm, seem even more fiscally wise (construction on Soundcheck's facilities in the Mueller development is scheduled for the end of the month, with a Jan. 1 completion date and a rehearsal booked for two weeks later). Even with a new regular tenant and the addition of the neighboring National Guard armory to the site in 2012 to boost the soundstage space, Parrington admits the lack of incentive-driven production is disappointing. She said, "We are getting calls, and they're good, but it's just not the level we were hoping for."
So what happened? Under HB 1634, Austin led the state in total production spending; the number of films, TV shows, and video games applying for grants; total grants; and total number of full- and part-time jobs created. Under HB 873, Austin has hosted four grant-eligible films that spent a total of $9 million, compared to five spending $42 million under the old program. And it's now Dallas leading the state in films, with seven projects spending $23 million. Yet Austin's total eligible spending across all categories in the six months since April is already at $74 million, compared to $106 million previously. So if the cash isn't in films, where is it?
Playing the Money Game
It's in video games. While the program is commonly still called film incentives, the moving image grants also cover digital media, and it's a growing component of the program. Last year under HB 1634, there were 33 qualifying applicants statewide, spending $58 million and getting $2 million in grants. Under HB 873, there have already been 19 applicants, investing a total of $62 million and receiving nearly $4 million from the state. (Game developers have an advantage over other applicants as employers. Out of the 1,662 jobs created by films, only 294 – fewer than one in five – were full-time positions; 564 out of the 572 jobs gaming created were full-time.) And who is the biggest beneficiary of that gaming cash? Austin, which attracted more than $43 million of that $62 million in applicant spending.
Tony Schum is director of economic development for the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce, and his job is to attract and promote tech firms, including gaming ones. The incentives are doing some of his job for him. When it comes to industry awareness of the program, Schum said: "They all know it. There is no faster communications network than talk among the game industry. This is a very powerful tool for us to prove to firms how committed the state of Texas is to helping develop gaming companies." Lawmakers cagey about the incentives could be won over by this industry sector, where full-time, long-term developer jobs can easily pay between $60,000 and $90,000 a year. He noted, "These are extremely good payroll numbers for the state of Texas, [and] the multiplier effect of having one of these jobs is extremely effective."
However, he added, "It's not so much a recruitment tool as a way to help firms grow within the state of Texas." Surprisingly, that could be helped by recent shake-ups in the local gaming community, like last year's closure of veteran development studio Midway Austin. With talented and experienced developers looking to establish start-ups and large creative and tech communities already present, Schum said, "All the right mixture of elements are here for us to promote gaming, and these incentives are really an accelerator."
For now, the latest iteration of the incentives is paying off in raw economic terms. On the national scene, Stokes explained, "I'm not going to tell you that we are the most competitive program, but I think that we're a realistic program." And there's a structural difference between Texas and states like Louisiana: "They were spending these incentives to create an industry that already exists in Texas. We're just trying to maintain that industry and stop people from leaving the state to find work."
The balancing act is to make sure that the grants aren't so big that they lose money, and some states are already scaling back. Michigan led the field with a 40% refundable tax credit on production expenses, but the Michigan Senate Fiscal Agency estimated that because of the overly generous terms, the state will end up subsidizing the program by $150 million in 2010. Over in Wisconsin this year, Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle advocated for completely ending the subsidies, but, after losing that fight with his Legislature, he instead settled for slicing the program through the state budget. Stokes said, "Our belief is that those programs are not sustainable because they're not a positive cash influx for the state." While he could never see the fiscal conservatives under the pink dome letting the Texas program have a negative fiscal impact, the reality is that it will still undergo oversight. So while filmmakers may want more, he said, "We're still going to have to prove to legislators that we're netting money and making jobs."
That's going to be vital in the next legislative session. The consensus is that, without federal stimulus dollars to backfill the budget, the state will be running a full-blown deficit in the next biennium. Dukes argued that budgetmakers will be looking for three things from state programs: "Performance, performance, performance. Any recommended legislative initiative that can prove itself will be of the greatest assistance in furthering that program, so I'm very pleased that the program is doing very, very well."
So Hudgins' first big job starts next summer, when the state starts collating data for budgetary recommendations. The fact that $17 million in grants has already won $138 million in production spending before the first check is signed is, he said, "a great thing, because we can go to the comptroller and say, 'Look what it provided.'"
However, if the current rate of grant applications keeps up, there is no way the $62 million budget will last until the next legislative session, and the state will be back where it was in 2005: with an unfunded incentive program. Hudgins said: "As soon as the faucet gets turned off, I expect our phones to go quiet, and that's the damning part of this. I keep warning people that's gonna happen." After that will come what he called "the unfortunate part: calculating how much production we lost because we didn't have enough money for the program."
Richard Whittaker, Fri., Jan. 28, 2011
Joe O'Connell, Fri., June 5, 2009
Richard Whittaker, Fri., June 5, 2009
Joe O'Connell, Fri., May 8, 2009
Joe O'Connell, Fri., Feb. 27, 2009
O. Henry Pun-Off at O. Henry Museum
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People Are the Real Mueller Story Through various media, we are subjected to stories of Mueller: the construction project. While that can be appreciated, Mueller's true ...
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This entry was posted on Saturday, March 17th, 2007 at 3:37 pm and is filed under FreeFloyd. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
On August 17th last year, I created an online petition that questioned the credibility of WADA doping protocols, the conduct of WADA boss Dick Pound, and the sloppy scientific method I assumed sometimes took place at the Chatenay-Malabry lab, the lab which tests the urine samples for the Tour de France.
WADA’s inconsistency is now famous; Pound’s public utterances have so often gone beyond the pail it’s almost normal; and sloppy lab work at Chatenay-Malabry is an assumption no longer.
Given there’s now significant doubt that one of the samples tested belongs to Floyd Landis, see Whose wee was it? on the bike trade news site I edit, perhaps it’s time for the petition to be revisited?
I created the petition for many reasons, one of which was the desire to see stage 17 of the 2006 Tour de France reinstalled as one of the best ever breakaway victories in this iconic race. Here’s a mash-up from the stage in question:
There have been 3559 signatures on the Floyd Landis petition, some of them high-profile. Petitions don’t change anything but this one attracted a few signers that didn’t seem to hang out at the blogs and forums that specialise in Floyd Landis reportage and comment.
For instance, one of the last signatures was from Zbigniew Darzynkiewicz, M.D., Ph.D. He added his (wonderfully Polish) name and placed this comment:
“Testosterone is anabolic drug (hormone). It takes days or weeks for testosterone or any other anabolic drug to have an effect in terms of build-up of muscle. Landis is accused of taking testosterone the day before the stage race. With such short time testosterone would have a negative effect on the athlete’s ability to perform because the energy (ATP) instead of going to power the muscle will go to synthesize protein. It is a scientific nonsense to claim that a shot of testosterone just before the stage race helped him to win. I am M.D. and scientist working in field of cell and molecular biology, and I amazed how much nonsense discussion on this topic is being carried out in media.”
Dr Darzynkiewicz is director of the Brander Cancer Research Institute at the New York Medical College and the Professor of Medicine and Pathology at the same College. He’s the editor/co-editor of five scientific journals and a member of the editorial board of eleven other scientific journals. His publications have been cited over 20,000 times in the scientific literature and 75 of his publications have been cited over 75 times.
Features of apoptotic cells measured by flow cytometry has been cited 1254 times.
And Dr Darzynkiewicz is just one of many scientists who have signed the petition in support of Landis. Read the petition text here.
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How Can We Help Our 12-Year-Old Learn to Like His School?
By Joe Connolly, Consulting Educator
I have one child, a son who is 12 years old. He was going to public school from K-5 and was doing well. Now we are sending him to a private school and he gets Cs and is failing Latin.
He cries to my husband and me all the time because he wants to be with his friends in the middle school where we live. I think he is not trying his hardest at school because he wants us to take him out and put him in the public school, but we tell him this private school is the best school for him, that it will prepare him for college. He hates us for doing this!
He has made a lot of new friends at his new school and still has his old friends that he still plays with. We argue with him every night to do his homework. He is just doing it to get by, he is not doing his best and we have to sit with him until he finishes his homework or he will just put anything down just to get it done. When his teachers email us to tell us his homework was done wrong or he didn't do it, we go nuts. Any advice for my husband and me? I know that he is the only child and is very spoiled but we took all his games and electronics away until he improves his schoolwork and until he shows us the respect he once had for us. What to do?
The jump from elementary school to middle school can be difficult for many children. The prospect of being the youngest person in school, surrounded by older and often times much more mature boys and girls, some of whom are already well into puberty, new teachers and administrators, perhaps using lockers for the first time, more demand on academics, an entire new social structure and many other changes can all lead to a great deal of anxiety. When you add in the tremendous anxiety of going to an entirely new, private school, it's no wonder your son is struggling with the change. Much of what you described sounds like pretty normal behavior.
Consider that your son is also likely in the beginning stages of adolescence. It is natural for him to begin his journey towards independence. Even though you know that sending him to this new school is the best thing for him, it can also be a threat to his natural instinct to want to make his own choices. There will be many times over the next six to eight years when he will push back on the decisions you make for him if he does not feel like he was a part of the decision process. You certainly need to pick your battles, while at the same time working on ways to include him in the decisions you will make for him.
In order to deal with your current situation, I would like to suggest a few things. Your first step should be a visit to the school counselor. Most private schools are allowed the luxury of employing full-time counselors. A middle-school counselor should be well versed in your particular situation.
The counselor will probably give you an academic plan to follow, which should help your son with his studies as well as getting his homework done on time and to the best of his ability. I would also make sure to include his teachers in the plan. And don't forget to allow your son some say in the academic plan. For instance, you might discuss various aspects of the process by which he will do his homework each night. Maybe you give him an opportunity to relax when he first gets home and perhaps an hour of play or rest before he starts his homework. The counselor could also provide you and your husband with some specific suggestions on how you both can cope with this situation.
A second suggestion that I have for you is to keep a close eye on your reactions. "Going nuts," as you described it, will rarely help you achieve the results you desire. It's OK to give your son very clear expectations and boundaries. When he does not meet the expectations, or pushes the boundaries, then you must act appropriately. Make sure he knows what the expectations and boundaries are, and also make sure he understand the consequences should he stray from the desired outcomes. Plan to hold many conversations with him about these important behaviors. He not only needs to understand them clearly, he also needs to be a part of the process when deciding what they are.
Lastly, look for many opportunities to praise him and reward him when he's doing a great job in his life. This doesn't mean that you should go out and buy him another game or electronic gadget. It does mean that you should look for small ways to show him that you appreciate his efforts. It could be a kind word: "You did a nice job on your homework tonight; thanks for making it easy for both of us," or a hug when he comes home with a good grade. These simple expressions are necessary to keep your relationship close as you both navigate the adolescent years. Taking things away, like electronics and games, can sometimes be a deterrent to misbehavior, but it is not enough to just punish him. You must balance the consequences with praise when it is earned.
The next six years will present you and your husband with some challenging times. Try to keep it all in perspective by realizing your son is beginning his journey towards independence. Help him get there by communicating at a level he can understand.
Advice from our experts is not a substitute for professional diagnosis or treatment from a health-care provider or learning expert familiar with your unique situation. We recommend consulting a qualified professional if you have concerns about your child's condition.
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Framework for Quality Professional Development for Practitioners Working with Adult English Language Learners
A Growing Immigrant Population
During the past 20 years, the immigrant population in the Unites States has been growing. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the foreign born represented 7.9% of the total U.S. population in 1990. A decade later they made up 11.1% of the total U.S. population, and as of 2007, they comprised 12.6% (Terrazas & Batalova, 2009). In 2005, immigrants comprised over 15% of the workforce (Migration Policy Institute, 2007a, 2007b). If current trends continue, the U.S. population will increase by 142 million individuals by 2050, and 82% of that increase will be due to immigration (Passel & Cohn, 2008).
These population increases have not been evenly distributed across states. Instead of settling in large, urban centers, as in the past, many immigrants are now settling in states with employment opportunities in construction, industry, and tourism (Singer & Wilson, 2006). As a result, many states are experiencing record increases in immigrant populations (Capps, Fix, & Passel, 2002; McHugh, Gelatt, & Fix, 2007). For example, from 2000 to 2005, 14 states (including Arkansas, Georgia, Utah, and the Carolinas) experienced an increase of 30% or more in foreign-born populations (Jensen, 2006; Kochhar, 2006). This increase is expected to continue.
In addition to increases in the adult English language learner population, there is also increased emphasis in programs on learner progress through and beyond adult education programs into work opportunities and academic programs of study (e.g., Burt & Mathews-Aydinli, 2007; Chisman & Crandall, 2007; Mathews-Aydinli, 2006). Thus there is a growing need for professional development that helps practitioners prepare adult learners to reach these goals.
A Need for High-Quality Adult Education Programs and Practitioners
According to the Workforce Investment Act (1998), national leadership activities, including professional development, need to be designed and implemented to improve and enhance the quality of adult education and literacy programs. Well-qualified teachers are the most important factor in improving student learning, raising student achievement, and helping students progress through programs (U.S. Department of Education, 2007, which is focused on K–12 teachers. See also Rivkin, Hanushek, & Kain, 2005; Rowan, Correnti, & Miller, 2005; Sanders & Rivers, 1996; Whitehurst, 2002). While many teachers are prepared to work effectively with adult immigrants, others, especially in states only recently experiencing increased adult English language learner enrollments, may not have extensive background in language teaching or experience with teaching adults learning English (Crandall, 1993, 2000; Crandall, Ingersoll, & Lopez, 2008; Schaetzel, Peyton, & Burt, 2007). In addition to teaching English as a second language, teachers need to help students understand cultural aspects of life in the United States, be prepared for additional responsibilities at work, and make smooth transitions to subsequent education (Haynes, 2005; McHugh, Gelatt, & Fix, 2007). For these reasons, professional development is necessary.
Teachers are not the only practitioners in need of professional development. Administrators who are designing and implementing programs for adult English language learners and volunteers working with this population also need professional development on topics such as second language acquisition, cultural differences, and English language teaching methods. A system for professional development that is responsive to the needs of all types of educational practitioners may enable them to meet the needs of adult English language learners more systematically, helping them to progress through National Reporting System (NRS) levels and transition to work and advanced education opportunities (Association of Adult Literacy Professional Developers, n.d.; Belzer, Drennon, & Smith, 2001; Brancato, 2003; Fullan, 2007).
The CAELA Network at the Center for Applied Linguistics has published three briefs for program managers. The briefs outline fundamental responsibilities of adult education administrators, describe components of typical programs serving this population, and include resources and tools that can facilitate successful administration of these components. They also provide research-based tools and strategies to use in supporting, supervising, and training teachers. The briefs include Observing and Providing Feedback to Teachers of Adults Learning English (Marshall & Young, 2009), Supporting and Supervising Teachers Working with Adults Learning English (Young, 2009), and Managing Programs for Adults Learning English (Rodríguez, Burt, Peyton, & Ueland, 2009).
The majority of adult education practitioners, including those working with English language learners, receive much of their preparation through inservice and on-the-job-training rather than through extensive preservice training (Smith & Gillespie, 2007). However, practitioners often work part time and are not consistently funded to participate in professional development activities (Crandall, Ingersoll, & Lopez, 2008; Schaetzel, Peyton, & Burt, 2007; Smith & Gillespie, 2007). Working to overcome these challenges, adult education programs and state agencies are designing professional development opportunities to increase practitioners’ knowledge and skills. This framework is designed to help guide the process of planning, implementing, and evaluating these opportunities.
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Myanmar: UN Rapporteur Announces Progress amid Causes for Concern
Tomas Ojea Quintana, UN Rapporteur on Human Rights, in a press conference, said the newly elected government has "surprised" the international community with "the speed and breadth of reforms", and now was the time to continue the process to achieve national reconciliation.
The U.N. human rights envoy pressed the Burmese government to allow international observers to monitor the April 1 by-election and to move quicker on ending human rights violations, at the end of his four-day visit on Sunday.
U.N. special rapporteur on human rights Tomas Ojea Quintana speaks at a press conference before his departure at the Rangoon International airport on Sunday, February 5, 2012. Photo: Mizzima
Tomas Ojea Quintana, in a press conference, said the newly elected government has “surprised” the international community with “the speed and breadth of reforms,” and now was the time to continue the process to achieve national reconciliation.
“My mission confirmed that a positive impact has been made,” Quintana said. “However, serious challenges remain and must be addressed. There is also a risk of backtracking on the progress achieved thus far.”
Quintana met with senior government ministers, political prisoners and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. He stressed that the April 1 by-election is “a key test” of the reform process.
He said officials of the Burmese Election Commission said the use of international observers “was under consideration.” Outside monitors for Burmese elections were rejected in 2010 and 1990, the last two elections.
In a wide-ranging press conference on Sunday, Quintana said he met with many high-level ministers, leaders of Parliament, peacemaking groups and former political prisoners, including Aung San Suu Kyi, the main opposition leader who is running for Parliament, and others.
“I also travelled to Kayin and Mon states where I met with the respective chief ministers and representatives of state government, as well as ethnic parties in state parliaments,” he said.
Of great importance, he said, has been the release of many prisoners of conscience, including a significant number in January, including many prominent figures.
“I stressed that they, and all people of Myanmar, should be allowed to play an active role in political and public life. In my meeting with released prisoners of conscience, I received a clear signal of their intention to engage constructively in the political process and their commitment to further democratic transition.”
He said his discussions with officials included human rights concerns, including continuing limitations on the freedoms of association and assembly, and of opinion and expression. He said he was “concerned by information received that some of those released were being monitored or followed. I therefore urge that any restrictions on their exercise and full enjoyment of human rights should immediately be removed.
“I also received allegations of continuing ill-treatment by prison officials and the continuing transfers of prisoners to prisons in remote areas, often without their prior notification and without proper notification of family members,” he said.
Quintana said he reiterated that the government should release all remaining prisoners of conscience without conditions and without delay.
“This is a central and necessary step towards national reconciliation and would greatly benefit Myanmar’s efforts towards democracy,” he said. He expressed concern at the number of remaining political prisoners, whose numbers are not accurately known. “A comprehensive and thorough investigation is needed to clarify records and determine accurate numbers,” he said.
He noted that many legislative reforms have occurred or are underway, including the adoption of the Labour Organizations Law and the Peaceful Demonstration and Gathering Law, as well as the amendment to the Political Party Registration Law.
“During my mission, I was informed that the process of drafting a revised Prisons Act, a new media law – the Printing Press and Publications Law, and a new social security law, among others, were currently underway,” he said. “At the same time, I note concerns regarding some of the provisions in the newly adopted legislation, particularly the Peaceful Demonstration and Gathering Law, and in draft laws, particularly the Printing Press and Publications Law.”
He said he was concerned about “a lack of clarity and progress” on reviewing and reforming laws affecting human rights, such as the State Protection Law, the Electronic Transactions Law and the Unlawful Associations Act.
“These laws impinge upon a broad range of human rights and have been used to convict prisoners of conscience,” he said. He said he was given assurances that the government “is taking serious and gradual steps to reform these laws.”
“The judiciary is also essential for Burma’s transition to democracy and should play an important role in ensuring checks and balances on the executive and the legislative,” he said. “I have previously expressed concerns regarding the judiciary, and I remain concerned with its lack of independence and impartiality.”
Of concern, he said, was that, “In my meeting with the chief justice and other justices of the Supreme Court, there was little acknowledgement of any challenges and gaps, and a lack of willingness to address my previous recommendations.”
He said he talked with members of the National Human Rights Commission for the first time since its establishment. Despite some preliminary work and actions by the commission, he said, “I am concerned that there are no indications as yet that the Commission is fully independent and effective in compliance with the Paris Principles. At present, it seems that the commission cannot fully guarantee human rights protection for all in Burma. I was informed that the commission’s draft rules of procedure were being examined by the judiciary, and were awaiting the approval of the Council of Ministers. This sends the wrong signal that the commission is not fully independent from the government.”
Quintana, who functions independently of the U.N., said he expressed concern about the fighting in ethnic areas, particularly in Kachin State. “I received continuing allegations of serious human rights violations committed during the conflict, including attacks against civilian populations, extrajudicial killings, sexual violence, internal displacement, land confiscations, the use of human shields, the recruitment of child soldiers, as well as forced labour and portering.”
He emphasized that he received reports of violations being committed by all parties to the conflict, and he called on the government to address these issues.
He said the plight of refugees must be addressed, calling for international humanitarian groups to be allowed access to refugees. “Delivery of humanitarian assistance under the United Nations umbrella cannot be linked to ongoing negotiations between the government and armed groups or be made conditional to the government’s assistance to people in non-government controlled areas,” he said.
More broadly, he said efforts towards finding a durable political solution to the ethnic conflict must be accelerated and are essential for broader national reconciliation.
A particularly sensitive problem, he said, is the issue of “justice and accountability measures, as well as measures to ensure access to the truth,” which are fundamental for Burma to move forward towards national reconciliation. It is “crucially important,” he said, that the government involve stakeholders, including victims of human rights violations, in order to get their advice and views on how and when to establish truth, justice and accountability measures.
“But I must stress that moving forward cannot ignore or whitewash what happened in the past,” he said. “ Thus, facing Myanmar’s own recent history and acknowledging the violations that people have suffered, will be necessary to ensure national reconciliation and to prevent future violations from occurring.”
Read the Full Statement of the UN HUman Rights Rapporteur to Myanmar
Photo Credit: Mizzima, AP
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How to Make Your Workout Routine Greener
by Jane Shin Park
"If you're driving to a faraway gym everyday to go running, then you need to re-evaluate if the commute is worth it or not. I like to take a break from the gym in the warmer months and use the outdoor environment around me as my gym: hiking, going for a run, etc. But if you're a gym freak, don't worry; it's all about baby steps. Make it a habit to turn off the individual television at treadmills and elliptical machines when you're finished (and turn off others if you see them on). Bring a reusable towel with you and skip using endless paper towels. Forget bottled water and carry filtered water in a reusable water bottle instead. If you're into yoga, look for natural rubber mats vs PVC-sticky ones; PVC is a non-renewable resource."
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Students: Take our free The Count of Monte Cristo quiz below, with 25 multiple choice questions that help you test your knowledge.
Determine which chapters, themes and styles you already know and what you need to study for your upcoming essay, midterm, or
final exam. Take the free quiz now!
Teachers: The BookRags Lesson Plan contains hundreds of test and quiz questions, including multiple choice,
short answer, and essay questions. Create your own quiz or test with our automatic test generator, or choose from our
ready-to-go chapter quizzes, midterm tests, and final exams. Don’t waste time reinventing the wheel, get the
Lesson Plan today!
Directions: Click on the correct answer.
Why does Albert wander away from Franz during the carnival? (from Chapter 28, The Prison Register, Chapter 29, The House of Morrel and Son, Chapter 30, The Fifth of September, Chapter 31, Italy: Sinbad the Sailor, Chapter 32, The Waking, Chapter 33, Roman Bandits, Chapter 34, The Colosseum, Chapter 35, La Mazzolata, and)
He sees a boy he thought he knew.
He wants to see a famous church.
He tries to follow a pretty woman.
He gets a headache.
Why does the Count decide to go to the ball Albert invites him to? (from Chapter 66, Matrimonial Plans, Chapter 67, At the Office of the King's Attorney, Chapter 68, A Summer Ball, Chapter 69, The Inquiry, Chapter 70, The Ball, and Chapter 71, Bread and Salt)
He hears Mercédès wants him to come.
He sees another chance to implicate Danglars.
He knows Madame Villefort will be there.
Haydée says she would like to see Fernand again.
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Patrick Buckland's interest in games started young; as a teenager he made games on the Apple II and a cartridge-based console. Now CEO of Stainless Games, developing Carmageddon: Reincarnation, Buckland relates ancestral lunacy, how P.E. teachers are Nazis, and his obsession with Apollo.
How are sports created in our own image? When the global game of soccer is digitally transformed into an international hit in FIFA, the ball finds itself caught between disparate communities, economies, and goals. James Dilks charts its journey from the western coast of Africa to the cables of the First World.
The Duck, Duck, Goose model of kids games emerges in the latest entry into The Global Games Project. James Dilks explains how a South American rodent provides the basis to a simple Brazillian amusement.
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Scientists have identified two new antibodies that appear to neutralise a wide range of HIV types, blocking their potential for infection. The findings, published today in the journal Science, could open up a new avenue for vaccine research based on neutralising antibodies, say the investigators.
A vaccine that could prevent HIV infection by priming the human body to produce antibodies that can neutralise, or block, HIV infection has proved very difficult to develop. Most antibodies produced against HIV fail to block infection because the virus mutates so rapidly. The only vaccine designed to protect against HIV through an antibody response to be tested in large clinical trials, AIDSVAX, failed to show a protective effect.
In order to develop an antibody-based vaccine, an international consortium of scientists has been searching for antibodies that act against proteins on the virus’s surface that seem less prone to mutate. In particular they have sought to identify antibodies that are effective against a broad range of HIV subtypes present in developing countries, where the need for an HIV vaccine is greatest.
Today’s findings, reported by the Scripps Institute, Theraclone Sciences, Monogram Biosciences and the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI), show that antibodies that target two sites on HIV’s envelope have a potent neutralising effect.
“Now we may have a better chance of designing a vaccine that will elicit such broadly neutralising antibodies, which we think are key to successful vaccine development,” said Professor Dennis Burton of the Scripps Institute in La Jolla, California.
The antibodies were identified after screening around 1800 samples from HIV-positive volunteers from IAVI-supported clinical research centres in seven sub-Saharan countries as well as from centres in Thailand, Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States.
The antibodies identified seem to have such a potent anti-HIV effect, say researchers, it is possible that broadly neutralising antibodies with such a specific effect could elicit protection against HIV infection at the modest antibody levels normally achieved after vaccination.
The next step is to design immunogens that can succesfully stimulate the development of these antibodies in animal and human studies. Meanwhile the research group members are optimistic that further screening will identify other broadly neutralising antibodies.
In part this is due to their discovery that previous efforts to identify broadly neutralising antibodies may have been methodologically flawed
In the past, researchers have sought broadly neutralising antibodies by testing whether antibodies from serum samples bind to soluble versions of gp120 and gp41.
However PG9 and PG16, the antibodies identified by the Scripps Institute and their collaborators, bind to soluble forms of the proteins very weakly, if at all.
The antibodies were detected only because a micro-neutralisation assay developed by Monogram Biosciences in partnership with IAVI measuring their ability to block HIV infection of target cells was run in parallel with the standard binding assays used for screening.
“If you think of it as a fishing expedition,” said Chris Petropoulos, chief scientific officer and vice president of virology research and development at Monogram Biosciences, “we and the rest of the field were previously using the wrong bait in the search for HIV-specific broadly neutralising antibodies.
"Together with colleagues at IAVI, we reasoned that the best approach to identifying antibodies with the most potent and broad neutralising activity was to screen directly for their ability to block HIV infection. To do this we developed a new, specialised test known as the micro-neutralisation assay, which has opened up new avenues for exploration of additional donors for similar antibodies.”
Once the researchers had ranked the top 10% of serum samples in terms of breadth of neutralization, they needed to isolate the actual broadly neutralising antibodies. This can be painstaking work. But Theraclone Sciences, a company that had been working outside the HIV field, had a relevant and unique high-throughput process that it adapted to HIV work with financing from IAVI’s Innovation Fund, which is co-funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The Theraclone team used a system designed to expose the entire repertoire of antibodies from a blood sample obtained from an HIV-infected individual. Antibodies with broadly neutralising potential were identified from this pool and traced to their corresponding antibody-forming cells. Using recombinant DNA technology, bNAb genes were then isolated from these cells to enable the production of unlimited quantities of the antibody clones for research.
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BlackBerry 10 - or BB10 as it's commonly called - is the company's new operating system. But how does it work, it is any good, and are there included elements that you'll pine for enough to switch over to the new system? Here we've outlined some of the more interesting aspects of BB10 before diving head first into a full review of the BlackBerry Z10 once we've spent a more significant period of time using it.
A new beginning
It's a new beginning, a new way of using your BlackBerry phone. That's a fairly accurate way of describing the first 24 hours of using BB10, although you'll soon start to notice a mish-mash of features from previous BlackBerry operating systems, and other operating systems too.
The main influence has been the BlackBerry PlayBook. BB10 has inherited gesture control from the PlayBook's OS, so there is no home button, for example, while the grid icon layout is like iOS and the opened apps panel akin to Android.
Gestures and swiping
Get ready to use your thumb, and use it a lot. Like the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet, BlackBerry 10 uses a lot of gestures: left, right, up and down swipes - each control how you can use the phone, each diving into a specific section within the keypad display, for example. Furthermore there is a inverted L-shaped move that will take you to the BlackBerry Hub no matter where you are within the OS.
If you like a Qwerty keyboard you'll have to opt for the Q10 (which is the BlackBerry Bold replacement), but we suspect most will want to try out the Z10 - the brand new all-touchscreen affair.
Like Windows Phone 8, the BB10 lock screen gives you a peek at what messages are waiting for you without revealing those messages in full.
The services you have signed in to will dictate what will be on show, but essentially if it's in the BlackBerry Hub then there will be an icon on the lock screen. That includes phone calls, email, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, text messages, BBM and Evernote messages.
The lock screen doesn't include any other details at the moment, such as weather forecasts or stock reports, but does feature a funky reveal that you'll have hours of fun playing with your finger. Not that this will add to your productivity of course.
The App grid is like any other application grid on any other OS out there. You can folder apps, you can re-arrange them, essentially manage them as you would with BB7, iOS or Android.
Downloading new apps from the BlackBerry World store adds them to the grid at the last spot and from here it's possible to move things around after the download. With multiple pages you can tap on a small icon at the bottom of the screen to zip over to the page in question without having to swipe through pages one by one as you do in Android devices.
The open apps page lists up to eight apps you have opened so you can see what is going on throughout. The apps themselves are suspended and are presented in a similar way to how BlackBerry does it on the PlayBook.
However, rather than swipe up from within the app window to close it there is a simple "x" in the bottom right-hand corner of each pane. The panes themselves look like widgets and, depending on how the developer has programmed the app, BlackBerry tells us that it's possible to have them update breaking stories or other details - effectively turning them into widgets. On the Z10 you'll see four on the page, with a further four visible once you scroll down.
BlackBerry users like their inbox. In particular a unified inbox with all messages present, regardless of where they are from - work, home, and so on - in one place. BlackBerry knows this and has created the BlackBerry Hub.
The rest of the phone is all about serving this area of the operating system and if you aren't interested in apps, or doing stuff on your phone other than getting your emails and status updates, you could probably get away with existing just within this bit - as many existing BlackBerry business users are known to do.
The idea is that all your messages are held in the Hub and you can break out into individual inboxes via the Hub navigation pane which is revealed by a further swipe to the right - see, we told you there was a lot of swiping.
The design and feel of the Hub is all very BlackBerry. It's clean, crisp and easy to use.
Understanding that people want to see when they have an appointment, rather than going into the separate Calendar app, users will be able to swipe down - like you do when you refresh an Android or iOS inbox - to reveal a mini calendar detailing that day's appointments.
It's in the Hub that Twitter and Facebook replies can be managed, along with BBMs, text messages, and anything else you have linked. If you're already a BB user and haven't gone elsewhere because you like the unified inbox, then you will be in heaven in BB10.
What shows the BlackBerry Hub's importance even more is that you can access it at any point, regardless of what you are doing, by performing an inverted L-shape gesture as we mentioned earlier. It makes the Hub the core centre point of the OS in many respects.
Powered by SwiftKey, the keyboard is one of the most important parts of the new touchscreen phone, especially when you are trying to convince all those owners of the Qwerty keyboard-laden BlackBerry Bold that you've got the best offering on the block.
Designed to look indentical to the new Qwerty keyboard of the Q10 (which itself is a modernisation of the Bold keyboard), the keyboard is not only well spaced out and easy to use, but BlackBerry has also made it predictive. There are two ways of benefiting from this: the first is that you just type as fast as you can and it learns your typing skills to auto-correct your mistakes, including any lack of hitting a spacebar; and, second, you can swipe up on the words that appear on the keyboard to save you typing them out in full.
Go to type "dot com" for example in the browser and a "com" word appears above the letter "c" for you to swipe up to.
How you embrace the keyboard is up to you. Some will love the predictive words, while others the auto-correcting keyboard. Yes, there is copy and paste, yes it works in virtually the same way as Android, and yes you will be able to type a lot quicker than you have in the past.
BlackBerry has done a lot to improve the browser and even on a standard 3G connection (via our Vodafone test unit), the speed was very impressive.
Taking cues from Windows Phone and its Internet Explorer, the address bar is now at the bottom of the page rather than the top and a swipe to the right brings up a contextualised menu system offering you further points to move on. A swipe to the left also reveals extra information (a la Firefox mobile browser) and it's here you can manage multiple tabs.
In speed performance the BlackBerry browser out-performed the iPhone 5 and Chrome browser on the SGS3 we've been testing it against, although we have to emphasise we are still testing it as we write this. It's a huge leap forward when compared to the state of the BlackBerry browser just a couple of years ago.
The BB10 browser still supports Adobe Flash, for those who still care, and that means you do still get to use services like BBC iPlayer without worrying that there isn't a dedicated app (the one in BB World is just a link to the website).
However we've struggled to get the browser to work with mobile sites, but that might be just a teething problem we are experiencing.
BBM and BBM Video
The BBM service will now add video calling into the mix, as it looks to expand beyond the text and recently added voice capabilities of the instant messaging service.
The new BBM Video feature is available to all BBM users and will let them use both front and rear-facing cameras on the new smartphones.
Unlike FaceTime on iOS, however, BBM Video will also allow users to share what is on the phone's screen directly with the other user. That's going to be handy if you are working on a project together or want to show somebody a presentation without actually sending it to them, or just want to get help tweaking your new device.
The company's new BlackBerry Balance feature allows users to separate work from pleasure within the phone. IT administrators will be able to block the feature or block the app from seeing classified documents on their users' phones, BlackBerry confirmed to Pocket-lint.
Core BlackBerry apps
There are a number of core base apps like a compass, the iconic BlackBerry alarm clock and stopwatch.
Our test Z10 phone was pre-installed with Box and Dropbox, although there isn’t any preferential treatment as you get with Samsung giving you 50GB of free storage for example. Apps like Docs to Go, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Weather are all present too, with confirmation at the launch of BlackBerry 10 that apps like Skype and WhatsApp are coming, so you can communicate with those users on other platforms too.
For those who like to get lost, there is a maps app that seems to work as described. Powered by the same company that also does the Verizon Navigation software in the US it will give turn-by-turn navigation, however it won't let you opt to walk. It's BlackBerry's way or the highway for now.
The good news however is that it doesn't seem intent on letting you get lost, nor does it struggle to find places in the same way that Apple's Maps does. We had no problem locating ourselves or getting directions to other places, however a lack of satellite view or anything other than a basic offering does come considerably short when up against Google maps on Android.
If you are a consumer then you are unlikely to ever see this part of the phone, but for big businesses it will be the one of the main reasons to go BlackBerry. The idea is that the phone earns itself a Jekyll and Hyde personality clearly separating work and pleasure. System Admins will be able to ensure you get access only to the apps and important stuff in work mode, while you can do what you pretty much like in pleasure mode.
In reality it should mean that you don't have to carry two phones with you all the time, while work will be safe in the knowledge that you aren't emailing company secrets to some random Gmail account.
Other bits and bobs
Importantly the phone's dialpad is decent and easy to use, although BlackBerry users will be annoyed they can no longer just start typing in a number or a name to get contacts' details up.
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OSU Extension Service
Oregon State University Extension connects Oregonians to research-based knowledge through on-the-ground expertise and education. In addition to faculty and specialists stationed in every county of the state, Extension oversees a corps of 14,000 trained volunteers, the equivalent of 800 full-time employees in service to Oregon.
We’re solving real problems for real people where they live and work
Statewide public service programs are the engines rebuilding Oregon’s economy. Knowledge grows from the ground up, from Extension to research and back again. OSU Extension translates and adapts research for practical local uses to support agriculture, forest and natural resources management, health, nutrition, family and 4-H youth programs, and community development.
Here’s how it works: OSU Extension faculty work with business people, growers, foresters, individuals, and community leaders. They see first-hand what’s needed in Oregon’s business sectors and communities. Extension experts consult with scientists in the Agricultural Experiment Station and Forest Research Laboratory, where they focus research on critical issues and timely results. Knowledge developed from that research is brought back to the community through Extension’s outreach and engagement.
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- Statuts association - Documents, récépissés
- Membres d'honneur
- "Hydro-aéronefs" et Flotteurs
- Baptèmes, aéro-clubs et écoles de formation
- Histoire de l'hydraviation
- Assoc. historiques Constructeurs répliques
- Modélisme et Simulation
- Protection aviaire Natura 2000 et ZPS
- Généralités sur la protection de l'environnement aviaire
- Mode d'emploi Natura 2000
- Répertoire des DREAL et zones Natura 2000, ZPS, ZNIEFF, RNR, ZICO, etc.
- Lutte contre le bruit
- Liens utiles
- Lexique - FAQ
- La presse parle de nous
- Archives évènements France Hydravion
- Anciennes Newsletters et Archives
- Petites annonces
- Plaquette d'information (provisoire) à télécharger
- Nous contacter
Etude sur le choix des fibres composites sur un hydravion
NOT ALL FIBERGLASS IS CREATED EQUAL
There is a reason that sailboats and yachts use polyester resin, and it's not just because it's a little less expensive. Epoxy resins take on considerable moisture (in the range of 4% to 6%). That moisture can cause blistering or, when frozen, can cause delaminating and cracking. If that isn't enough, when the moisture is heated by solar radiation, it severely reduces the allowable strength of the structure. It is called the hot wet condition and it comes from solar heating or exhaust from turbines over a wide area. Epoxy is not as fuel compatible, and requires special coatings or liners. Epoxy is also known for causing contact skin rashes. Once susceptible, a person can never work with epoxy again.
Vinyl ester resin is a hybrid resin with nearly the strength of epoxy, but without the disadvantages. It takes on virtually no moisture (less than 2%). It is compatible with all the fuels and requires no special treatment for the fuel tanks. There have been no recorded health problems in either the aviation or the much larger boating industry.
So, the main structural item remaining is the fiber.
KEVLAR is a high priced, hard-to-work-with fabric that is poor in compression. It is not recommended for amphibians unless you are concerned about bullets being shot at your plane.
CARBON FIBER is a high-priced, lightweight fabric. It has a very limited market and limited weaves. As a result, the weaves commonly used in aircraft are very coarse compared to those weaves available in E-glass. So, to acquire a smooth surface, much more filler is required for carbon fiber. That severely reduces the weight advantage.
THERE ARE MANY MORE DISADVANTAGES
Carbon fiber is not compatible with vinyl ester resin. It must be used with epoxy resin, which is not compatible with moisture, i.e., boating.
Carbon fiber requires sophisticated electronic inspection because defects are not visible due to the color.
Every bolt hole requires an isolated patch of E-glass to reduce catalytic corrosion between the carbon fiber and the bolts. The presence of moisture and salt make this even more serious.
Overly stressed carbon fiber will splinter, emitting many little spears that have been known to cause injuries.
Carbon fiber, when hit by lightning, will sustain much more damage than E-glass.
Finally, you cannot build in an antenna beneath carbon fiber as you can with E-glass. So, that beautiful bird just became a porcupine with antennas as quills.
E-GLASS OR S-GLASS
S-glass is about 15% stronger and stiffer than E-glass and costs almost twice the price. Like carbon, since its use is limited, there are few weaves available.
E-glass fabric is the most commonly used in the industry, and the most cost effective. For flying boats, it is the best for a water environment.
To a great extent, the resin and fiber criteria apply to all aircraft, not just amphibians, even though the moisture condition is greatly reduced with land planes.
SPECIFICALLY FOR SEAPLANES
All aircraft require attention to maintenance. All boats require attention to maintenance. With flying boats, you guessed it. In this case it is the worst of all worlds, especially if you enjoy the salt water environment.
WHAT DO YOU LOOK FOR?
Make sure that stainless steel hardware is available.
Are all aluminum parts annodized?
Are all the bolt holes annodized?
Are all the cables stainless steel?
Are all the nav and landing lights protected behind plexiglass?
Are the exhaust pipes stainless steel?
Are the wheels and brakes designed for salt water use? Some amphibs carry eight to 10 pounds of grease to protect wheel bearings and they only last 100 hours. The Seawind special design system has logged 740 hours between bearing replacement.
Autre article pour la revue "Experimental Aircraft".
CARBON/GRAPHITE VS. FIBERGLASS
We occasionally receive inquiries form potential customers about having their Seawind parts fabricated in carbon fiber/graphite due to the emphasis placed by the aerospace, military and high performance manufacturers. A recently published article by Martin Hollmann, comparing wet lay-up to prepregs, has brought a few more calls. Although Martin's article has placed some emphasis on his use of graphite prepregs and his comparative refers to non-vacuum bagged, wet lay-up of fiberglass, the carbon/graphite issue is most regularly addressed by our callers.
The Seawind, as with every other aircraft, is the result of compromises that the designers and engineers toiled over to attain their ultimate creation. The Seawind team correctly chose to apply a very strong, but economical approach to material selection. The materials and the fabricating processes now used for the Seawind are considered Advanced Composites.
Surface finishes are applied to reinforcing fibers to allow handling with minimum damage and to promote the fiber to matrix (resin) interfacial bond strength, water resistance and optical clarity. Since graphite is almost exclusively used for aerospace and military markets, where expensive epoxies are utilized, the manufacturer's finishes have been optimized for epoxy.
This is the reason that vinyl ester resin is not normally recommended for use with carbon fabrics. Exceptions would have to be tested and close attention to the Manufacturer's Certification should be specific regarding the applied finish.
It is very difficult to properly wet out graphite woven cloth because there is little change in appearance when resin is introduced. Since carbon is opaque even when completely wetted out, visual inspection for air inclusions is impossible. This makes inspection either very difficult or expensive (ultra-sonic equipment) and reject rates are unquestionably high. The danger is in what you can't see.
For that reason (and others related to aerospace requirements), the most common fabrication process for carbon parts is elevated temperature curing, performed with expensive epoxy prepregs.
To fabricate a graphite part, epoxy resin impregnated, graphite fabric reinforcements, core, peel-ply, breather ply (perforated sheet for resin control), and bleeder cloth (for excess resin and a vacuum path) are placed into or on a prepared mold, covered and sealed with a thin impervious sheet of plastic material, drawn down with vacuum, placed into an oven, and cured at high temperature (typically 250°-270°F) for several hours under precise controls. A standard for many years in the aerospace industry, this process presents many negative issues relating to cost, handling and quality control, making it practical only for the military, the aerospace industry and a few other specialized and high priced products (sporting goods, race cars, etc.).
After manufacture, shipping and storage of the prepregs in a frozen state also requires a high degree of quality control. The material has a limited storage life but, most importantly, a short out-life. This means that after bringing the material up to room temperature in sealed storage bags (to avoid moisture, one of prepreg's major problems), the clock starts ticking. After the required material is cut from the roll, it is returned to the freezer and the elapsed time is recorded. When either the out-life or storage life has been used up, the material is not suitable for use and then must be disposed of.
Carbon fiber has the highest specific stiffness of any commercially available fiber and very high strength in both tension and compression. It's impact strength, however, is lower than glass with particularly brittle characteristics being exhibited by high modulus fibers.
The graphite laminate tends to shatter, with very sharp, stiff needles and shards around damaged edges. The racing industry must provide crash "cages" of Kevlar to protect the drivers from dangerous pieces.
Like metals, graphite is opaque to radio signals. Antennas cannot be installed within the carbon skins so they must be attached outside, interrupting the smooth, flowing, composite surface and, of course, causing drag. Fuselage and wing skins of carbon are normally electrically grounded to each other with jumper wires, as are the control surfaces to the wing, so that the hinge bearings are not damaged if forced into service as electrical conductors.
Since carbon can be greatly affected by corrosion due to galvanic reaction, special care and time must be taken to insulate dissimilar metals e.g., aluminum, steel, brass, etc., from the carbon. This would involve placing a sacrificial piece of fiberglass between the graphite laminate and all metal hinges, brackets, tracks, etc., and dipping rivets, bolts screws, and bushings in primer resin before installation.
Surface finish of a prepreg is extremely porous. Epoxy resin has an affinity for moisture, as does the freezing and thawing process, and any moisture lay-up will produce water vapor (steam) under vacuum and elevated temperature, which is evident in the finished part as porosity, a rejection factor. The solvents used in the manufacturing (prepregging) process can also produce voids during cure. The predetermined resin quality is sufficient to wet-out the fibers but not to fill in the coarser graphite fabric weave patterns. That process is left for the builder to do — squeegee filler into the porous surface and sand. Then repeat the process for any remaining pinholes. Some of the weight savings is certainly lost with the addition of fillers.
Expensive honeycomb core materials and film adhesives, used to bond the core to the face sheets, require additional labor and associated expense. Any assembly of carbon prepreg parts must be accomplished with more expensive structural adhesives, compatible with the graphite/epoxy components. If the ribs, bulkheads, webs, etc. are attached or reinforced with a wet lay-up process, graphite fabric and epoxy must be used and, again, a good visual inspection will be impossible. Be careful — epoxies are toxic and could cause serious and lasting reactions.
Dry graphite fabric must be handled with more care than fiberglass. Fibers can break and loose particles can be inhaled. Also, cured carbon splinters will not work their way out of the skin as would glass or wood.
Hollmann stated that vinyl ester resins are most suited for water environments and that "aircraft such as the Seawind" are made of these resins for that reason. He points out that porous prepregs must be fuel proofed, coated with acceptable sealants or Derakane 411, or they will leak fuel. For corrosion resistance, of course, vinyl esters are the choice of the chemical industry. He stated that he has learned from experience that a wet lay-up of graphite does not make sense because the coarse weave has a high resin content and is so heavy that the advantages of the lighter and stronger graphite are not realized or offset by its higher cost. Hollmann shows that in-plane shear strength of graphite and fiberglass panels, when processed in a similar manner, are nearly identical (18,00 psi vs 17,500 psi). In the article, the fabricated wing skins Hollmann quoted on were $16,000 in prepreg material @ $53.33/lb and $2,100 in fiberglass @ $3.50/lb.
The bottom line for graphite vs. fiberglass is cost. Material costs, freezers, oven, additional processing, additional training, quality controls, rejection rates, etc., bring the price of graphite composite prepreg parts to prohibitive levels. Consider this especially when graphite is used in excess of, or adversely to, an aircraft design's requirements — or simply to give the aircraft an appearance of being more advanced…
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Members of the group ‘Muslims against Crusades’ burn a U.S. flag during an anti-U.S. rally, held close to the memorial ceremony to mark the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks at the Memorial Garden, adjacent to the U.S. Embassy, central London, Sunday Sept. 11, 2011. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)
Islamist demonstrators protest outside the US embassy in London on September 11, 2011 during a ceremony to mark the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the United States. Around 50 people brandished anti-US banners, chanted slogans and burnt a small piece of paper with a picture of the US flag on it. (AFP PHOTO / CARL COURT)
(Telegraph) — A group of Muslim protesters set fire to an American flag outside the US embassy in London during a minute’s silence to mark the moment that the first hijacked airliner hit the World Trade Center 10 years ago.
A number of radical Islamic groups including Muslims Against Crusades (MAC) gathered outside the embassy on the 10th anniversary of the attacks.
The group of around 100 men shouted “USA terrorists”, brandished anti-American placards and chanted through a loudhailer.
Several members of the Muslim groups made anti-American speeches following the flag burning. One said: “You will always face suffering, you will always face humiliation, unless you withdraw your troops from Muslim lands.”
We still have a few friends left over there.
A member of the English Defense League far-right group holds a U.S. flag, close to the memorial ceremony to mark the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks at the Memorial Garden, adjacent to the U.S. Embassy in central London, Sunday Sept. 11, 2011. Members of the EDL briefly briefly scuffled with police as they mounted a counter-demonstration to members of the group ‘Muslims against Crusades’ who gathered for an anti-U.S. rally. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)
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What Drives Retirement
The uncertainty over health insurance benefits may be the biggest determinant for faculty members delaying retirement, says Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Cornell University's Irving M. Ives professor of industrial and labor relations and director of the Cornell Higher Education Research Institute.
"Chief business officers must be in conversation with their benefits people to figure out whether the institution can afford its existing benefits packages, and if not, what changes can be made that do not adversely affect the institution's ability to attract and retain faculty members," says Ehrenberg. The importance of this conversation is underscored by the advent of recent accounting standards for both private and public universities that now require institutions to calculate the future liabilities for unfunded post-retirement benefit promises. Ehrenberg asserts that the particulars of what an institution offers do matter. "When mandatory retirement was still in effect, you still had faculty moving from institutions with low mandatory ages to those with higher age requirements," says Ehrenberg. "In the future, senior faculty may be looking more carefully not only at retirement benefits but also health insurance, and what an institution offers in that realm may actually have a significant effect on the institution's ability to attract and retain faculty."
Since 2000, only 45 percent of responding institutions reported no changes to their health-insurance benefits for both active and retired faculty members, according to the recently published Survey of Changes in Faculty Retirement Policies 2007 based on a study by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP). (See sidebar, "About the AAUP Survey.") Twenty-six percent reported equal reductions in benefits for both groups, and 8 percent reported reducing benefits for retired faculty more than benefits for active faculty. When asked about their future plans, most institutions indicated intentions to maintain retiree health insurance benefits at current levels, although 20 percent either did not respond to this question or indicated that they were unsure.
Survey enhancements. The survey, conducted in 2006, asked about the availability and cost of medical insurance and long-term health care options for retiring faculty members and their spouses and dependents—questions that were not asked in AAUP's inaugural survey in 2000. AAUP's Committee on Retirement initiated its first survey in 2000 to help address a lack of systematically collected information about faculty retirement at U.S. colleges and universities. The earlier survey focused on regular retirement programs for tenured faculty members, the prevalence and characteristics of retirement incentive and phased retirement programs, polices applicable to retired faculty, and perceptions regarding the end in 1994 of mandatory retirement for tenured faculty members.
Whereas a primary goal of the 2000 survey was to gauge whether and how institutions were changing retirement policies, the 2006 survey set out to explore how institutions might have changed their policies to deal with escalating health care costs and the aging of so many faculty members nationwide. As noted in AAUP's most recent study, the National Study of Postsecondary Faculty—a project of the National Center for Education Statistics—estimates that between 1988 and 2004, the average age of faculty increased from 47 to 50 years of age, with 54 as the average age of full-time tenured faculty members in 2004.
Need for more data. One conclusion of the 2006 survey is that much greater data collection and monitoring of faculty retirement policies and practices across higher education are needed to help institutions fully understand associated trends and financial and human resource impacts. According to the report's author, Valerie Martin Conley, associate professor of higher education and director of the Center for Higher Education at Ohio University, ongoing data collection should include data about specific subgroups of faculty such as mid-career faculty, faculty at four-year versus two-year institutions, and part-time faculty.
"One finding of this recent study is that part-time faculty are aging, too," says Conley. "We often tend to think about part-time faculty as younger faculty who are trying to get their foot in the door. In reality, part-time faculty are very diverse," says Conley. She thinks collecting more information about what various institutions make available to part-time faculty as far as incentives and phased retirement programs might also be useful.
According to the 2006 survey, since 2000, more than 38 percent of responding institutions report having offered tenured faculty one or more institutionwide, financial incentive retirement programs—most of which have originated from governing boards or administrations. This suggests that such buyouts have become an accepted practice within the mix of strategies employed by institutions to manage faculty retirements. For most institutions offering financial incentives, faculty were eligible to participate once they met a plan's requirements for age or years of service. As for the amount of incentives, most institutions reported providing one-time additional cash payments totaling less than nine months' salary and typically offered the incentive for a specified window of time.
"It's important for institutions to be aware of faculty receptivity to these kinds of incentives," says Conley. "One thing the data indicated, although it's difficult to tease out, is that institutions that offer incentives or buyouts have offered more than one, and faculty may learn to wait around for a better deal." Depending on an institution's specific strategy, phased retirement programs may provide a better mechanism for an institution to strategically manage the academic direction of the institution in terms of growing programs and shaping their programmatic mix, says Conley.
While the number of institutions offering phased retirement is on the rise, according to the 2006 survey, only 32 percent of responding institutions reported having a phased retirement program. Of those institutions, 67 percent required faculty members to secure administrative approval and 43 percent required faculty members to relinquish tenure to participate in a phased retirement program.
The two most frequently cited minimum ages for eligibility were ages 55 (42%) and 60 (27%). As for a maximum age at which faculty could continue participation, 44 percent reported ages 63, 64, or 65; 19 percent reported a maximum of age 70. As for how long faculty members could participate in a phased retirement program, most institutions specified a maximum number of years, with 35 percent capping length of participation at three years and 38 percent setting a maximum of five years.
Phased retirement programs also vary widely when it comes to additional incentives offered. For responding institutions that offer these programs, incentives included additional contributions to health insurance (78%), partial retirement benefits plus salary (56%), and extra salary (34%), among others.
Growing momentum. According to Conley, phased retirement as a strategy is gaining a foothold in the process to better manage faculty retirements. A plus for institutions is that it provides greater certainty about when retirements will occur. It also is an effective option for continuing to engage faculty and tap their knowledge and expertise, but there can be downsides, notes Conley. "Institutions have to set policies to make clear, for instance, the appropriate relationship between phased retirees and new faculty coming in who may want to move programs in a new direction."
Through its survey, AAUP's Committee on Retirement is tracking policies to better understand the criteria associated with these programs—what is being offered to whom and when. Much more research is needed, says Conley. She suggests that a future survey might collect more specific information about the benefits associated with phased retirement programs, including health insurance contributions.
Recruitment and Retention
Among the major findings of the 2006 survey is the percentages of responding institutions that indicate the high importance of recruiting new faculty (96%) and retaining current faculty (89%) compared to concerns about retiring older faculty. Only 19 percent reported the latter as "very important" despite an increasingly aging faculty population at most institutions.
What might the low concern about faculty retirement mean? "I think it could point to several conclusions," says Conley. "One is that there has been a lot of focus on recruitment and retention in recent years. I also wonder whether this is an indication that institutions have not traditionally assumed a strong role in retiring older faculty, perhaps because of legal constraints, and therefore don't view this as a priority," posits Conley.
Ehrenberg suggests that the low concern about retiring faculty may reflect the fact that institutions are currently focused foremost on finding replacement faculty. However, he believes that as the current swell of aging faculty are replaced during the next decade, institutions will turn greater attention to concerns related to retiring faculty, including health insurance. In fact, Ehrenberg views health insurance benefits as the biggest faculty retirement-related issue going forward for colleges and universities, and Conley agrees that changes to retiree health benefits have the potential to significantly impact faculty decisions about when to retire.
According to the 2006 study, at 82 percent of responding institutions, retired faculty members continue to be eligible for group health insurance. Among these institutions, 17 percent pay the full cost, 51 percent pay part of the cost, and 33 percent require the retiree to pay the entire cost. While faculty spouses continue to be eligible for group health insurance at 80 percent of responding institutions, more of the cost is paid by the retiree. For instance, among the 17 percent of institutions paying full medical insurance costs for retirees, only 3 percent pay the entire cost for spouses. Overall, individuals bear 100 percent responsibility for the cost of long-term care (96%), dental insurance (65%), vision coverage (62%), and survivors' benefits (54%).
"Whereas institutions are not able to reduce pensions for retirees, health insurance programs do allow for flexibility in terms of what institutions provide. Even within a collective bargaining environment, while there are some protections, there is no absolute protection," says Ehrenberg. He shortly will join the board of Emeriti Retirement Health Solutions, a nonprofit consortium established in 2003 with assistance from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in response to studies the foundation funded that identified retiree health insurance as a major issue for faculty members. Emeriti allows retired faculty members (and eligible staff) at member institutions to buy Medicare supplemental policies and also receive reimbursement of other out-of-pocket health care expenses on a tax-free basis through a comprehensive retiree health benefits program that includes national group purchasing of insurance. The consortium also offers a vehicle for individuals—and institutions on behalf of their employees—to contribute to tax-sheltered accounts to be used to pay for health insurance and other medical expenses once faculty and staff retire.
Overall shift. Ehrenberg asserts that this shift in concept—helping faculty think in terms of funding their future health insurance needs—in essence mirrors the overall shift taking place nationwide in moving from defined benefit to defined contribution retirement systems. Another important point, notes Ehrenberg, is this: If there is going to be a shift to these types of defined contribution health insurance programs, institutions have to spend time educating faculty on the importance of saving early not only for general retirement income but also for retiree health insurance coverage and out-of-pocket medical expenses not covered by Medicare through tax-deferred vehicles.
Karla Hignite, principal of KH Communication, Tacoma, Washington, is editor of NACUBO's HR Horizons; e-mail: firstname.lastname@example.org.
About the AAUP Survey
AAUP's Survey of Changes in Faculty Retirement Policies 2007 was co-sponsored by NACUBO and CUPA-HR, among other higher education associations. The TIAA-CREF Institute and the Cornell Higher Education Research Institute (CHERI) financed the survey. Data collection, which occurred in 2006, was conducted by Cornell's Survey Research Institute and includes a review of the retirement practices at 567 (369 public and 198 independent) institutions.
Valerie Martin Conley, associate professor of higher education and director of the Center for Higher Education at Ohio University, authored the report. She is also co-editor of "New Ways to Phase into Retirement: Options for Faculty and Institutions" in the winter 2005 issue of New Directions for Higher Education, and author of "Exploring Faculty Retirement Issues in Public 2-Year Institutions," in the Journal of Applied Research in the Community College, (2005, 13(1), 59-72), published by the National Community College Council for Research and Planning.
Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Cornell University's Irving M. Ives professor of industrial and labor relations and director of CHERI, wrote the report on the 2000 survey, of which the findings are summarized in "Career's End: A Survey of Faculty Retirement Policies," in the July-August 2001 issue of AAUP's Academe.
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I'm not sure if this is the right SE to ask this question, but it seems more I have a database of files that needs to be encrypted such that multiple people with different passwords/logins to this remote system can access the same files without entering a second set of credentials.
Specifically, I need to be able to support:
- multiple users accessing the 'plaintext' version of a single file that's been encrypted once
- revokation of a single user's rights (if they get fired, etc)
- allow a user who has forgotten their password to get a new password (ie, password resets)
- ideally, allow for remote searching/sorting of such encrypted files while minimizing the ability for an attacker to intercept credentials.
My knowledge of security is theoretical at best; I've done some dongle encodings (well aware that crackers will destroy the security given enough time), but this kind of distributed system is a bit beyond me.
My current idea is:
- have a certificate file that serves to decode the remotely encrypted files. This certificate is encrypted by the user's username/password.
- users log in remotely prior to trying to decrypt the certificate, so if they cannot log in (ie, they are no longer working there, whatever), then they can't get at the certificate. This is extremely weak, since they should be able to decrypt the certificate anyway if they're savvy.
- for remote searching/sorting of these files, do date range presorting of the files. This technique is only valuable because we do not expect more than 5-10 additions to the database per user per day (and even that is ridiculously prolific), so getting entries from the last three days, three weeks, etc, supports our most expected use case. Then decryption/searching/sorting of these files can be done locally.
- for password reassignments, they need to get another encrypted certificate with the new username/password. That means that someone else on the site (the administrator, or whomever) must have access to a plaintext version of the certificate to provide the user with a new certificate, which means that new passwords must be assigned by an administrator. Which I'm OK with.
This approach is bad for a few reasons:
- savvy users can decrypt their old certificate using their credentials and knowledge of the encryption/decryption routine. This is not too big of a deal, because they cannot access remote data anyway, since their logins will fail.
- remote searching/sorting will be painful.
- if everyone on the site loses their password, they lose all their data. I'm tending to think that if customers want this level of security, then they also want this kind of consequence.
So I ask this community — does this approach sound feasible? Is there a package or group of utilities I should be looking at for this (or some other, more improved) approach?
To be clear, this system will store encrypted data remotely, and the user will then access that data. I can make the user client be on any system, but the idea is that it will be a program that we give to the user to access the remote data. The server should never have plaintext data.
So, if the user is on Windows, then they will have a client, a certificate, and login credentials. The certificate would be encrypted with those credentials, so that it can be decrypted and used to read data from this remote system. I cannot change what OS the user will have.
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Yesterday, Sunday March 11, 2007, Jacques Chirac delivered his farewell speech to the French people. It is published (in French) in its entirety at La Tribune. The ponderous cliché-ridden discourse is mercifully short. In it he says that he would have liked to do more to shake up conservative habits and egos, but that he is proud of what he accomplished.
The French patriots are breathing a sigh of relief that he didn't do more, although he nearly managed to destroy his nation and his people. Of all the critiques I've read today, and they are all damning, this one by Catholic writer Bernard Antony is the most devastating. Antony, a devout Catholic with close ties to the Church, is founder of Chrétienté Solidarité (Christian Solidarity) and publisher of the journal Reconquête (Reconquista):
With his grandiloquent solemnity in the utterance of Masonic remarks that might have been made by a sub-prefect during the Third Republic, Jacques Chirac, true to himself in his constant and perfected mediocrity, offered no surprises. He was still faithful to his great capacity for lying without the slightest shame, and with the most accomplished disdain for any intelligent being that may remain among those Frenchmen impermeable to the media's hammering.
If ever there was a man who abetted and collaborated all his life with the worst extremisms, with the worst racisms, it is he, Jacques Chirac, who in half a century of political life never made one single gesture for the victims of communism and its hundred million dead, and its thousands of individuals from all nations who suffered enslaved in its empire since 1917. For in truth, communism had already exterminated long before Nazism, following its example, began its exterminations. It continued to exterminate in our own time in the Cambodian genocide, and it continues in China, Indochina and Cuba, to oppress and persecute.
Abortionist-in-chief, Jacques Chirac, by promulgating the Veil Law had only one hatred: that of the Christian roots of France and the values of the authentic culture of life; he never uttered one word evoking the endless atrocities committed by the Marxist-Leninist regimes. And so he was the accomplice of the worst and the longest-lasting extremism that the earth has ever known. To such a degree that even the astounding anti-Semitism of Marx and Stalin were not denounced by this professional hunter of anti-Semites. Nor did this would-be cowherd denounce the Marxist hatred of peasants that sent to their deaths 10 million Russian and Ukrainian peasants.
Jacques Chirac, the grandiloquent, was never politically or morally great. But in the art of lying, he was not mediocre: he was superb.
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