text stringlengths 213 24.6k | id stringlengths 47 47 | dump stringclasses 1
value | url stringlengths 14 499 | file_path stringlengths 138 138 | language stringclasses 1
value | language_score float64 0.9 1 | token_count int64 51 4.1k | score float64 1.5 5.06 | int_score int64 2 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
NUGRAHA, BHIMA ACYNTHIA (2007) KEPERCAYAAN DIRI PADA REMAJA PEMAIN BAND. Other thesis, University of Muhammadiyah Malang.
Download (59Kb) | Preview
Music is one tool to communicate that are universal, and can be enjoyed by all people from all walks of men, women, old, young, rich, poor and even music can be enjoyed together by people who come from different cultural and music is an easy way to communicate and express themselves. While this is indeed the players in the city of Malang band that tends to be dominated by the teens. Adolescence is expected to behave like an adult who is around him. In the transition period is what causes teens to feel awkward, lack of confidence in all their activities, especially in terms of music. Their efforts to increase self-confidence when on stage varies, there are a few of them doing positive things like activity play their instruments backstage. Those that do negative things like drinking alcohol or taking drugs as compensation to increase her confidence. The purpose of this research to know how the image of self confidence in young players and bands to know how or business teen band players to increase self-confidence. This research used descriptive survey approach and using quantitative methods as the primary method, whereby the use of quantitative methods are intended as a medium for the selection of subjects. While descriptive survey itself is the investigation conducted to obtain the facts from the existing symptoms and seek factual descriptions, either of social or political institutions of a group or a region. The results of this study was to describe the level of confidence bands as well as juvenile players know the efforts that made the band for teenage players can be confident on stage. The subjects in this study account for 50 youth band players in the city of Malang. Methods of data collection in this study using a questionnaire or a questionnaire. The results showed that overall the subjects tended to believe in themselves. There is the highest confidence in aspects of personal ability and experience with the amount of 100%. As for the positive efforts made subject to confidence on stage that is praying with the amount of 50% and there were also efforts made subject to negative yag confidence on stage that is drinking alcoholic beverages with the amount of 6%.
|Item Type:||Thesis (Other)|
|Subjects:||B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology|
|Divisions:||Faculty of Psychology > Department of Psychology|
|Depositing User:||Zainul Afandi|
|Date Deposited:||25 Jun 2012 10:13|
|Last Modified:||25 Jun 2012 10:13|
Actions (login required) | <urn:uuid:b8f2e614-d88a-4b84-8fd8-cbb56bcba4ea> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://eprints.umm.ac.id/9475/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940346 | 554 | 2.296875 | 2 |
APNewsBreak: GOP report questions detainee release (AP)
WASHINGTON – Facing domestic political pressures, the Bush and Obama administrations released or transferred 600 terror suspects deemed an acceptable threat from the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, only to face the challenge that 27 percent re-engaged in terrorist or insurgent activities, according to a report by Republicans on a House Armed Services subcommittee.
The report, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press, provides the GOP perspective on an issue that has divided Washington since the start of the Afghanistan war and the use of the Navy prison for those captured. And it split the White House and Congress last year over how to write rules on handling detainees.
The report comes as the Obama administration officials have acknowledged that they are considering whether to release several Afghan Taliban prisoners from Guantanamo and send them to a third country as an incentive to bring the Taliban to peace talks. The step is certain to create an uproar on Capitol Hill, especially among Republicans. The 93-page study is likely to be part of the GOP effort to influence the ongoing debate.
In a rare break on a committee that typically is bipartisan on defense issues, Democrats dissented from the report despite efforts to reconcile their differences.
The report from the Armed Services investigations panel cites testimony before the committee last year that 27 percent of former detainees “were confirmed or suspected to have been re-engaged in terrorist or insurgent activities,” up from 25 percent the previous year. Intelligence officials had indicated that the number would increase.
“The Bush and Obama administrations, reacting to domestic political pressures and a desire to earn goodwill abroad, sought to reduce the Guantanamo population by sending detainees elsewhere,” the report said. “Both administrations faced the persistent challenge of ensuring that the potential threat posed by each detainee had been aptly assessed before transfer or release, and that the countries that received the detainees had the capacity and willingness to handle them in a way that sufficiently recognized the dangers involved.
“Despite earnest and well-meaning efforts by officials in both administrations, the re-engagement rate suggests failures in one or both aspects of the process,” the report concluded.
The report recommended that the Defense Department, CIA and other intelligence agencies report to Congress on the factors that contribute to a former detainee re-engaging in terrorist activities. The committee also is seeking reports on the effectiveness of agreements with other countries.
As of Jan. 1, 779 individuals have been held at Guantanamo, 600 have left the installation, eight died there and 171 remain, the report said, citing the Defense Department.
The report noted that former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld held the view that the military should not be a jailer and there was a plan to get detainees out. President Barack Obama also had vowed to close Guantanamo, though he has met strong resistance in Congress.
Lawmakers repeatedly have added provisions to various bills blocking the government from transferring detainees from Guantanamo to the United States, or barring the construction of facilities domestically to house terror suspects.
Rep. Adam Smith of Washington state, the ranking Democrat on the committee, said the report failed to take into account “the national security gains of shutting down the facility at Guantanamo. That is a goal that the Bush administration sought to achieve, and it is rightly a goal of the Obama administration. I continue to believe that the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is a black eye for our nation abroad, serving as a powerful recruiting tool for terrorists. We have the ability to close the facility, and we should be working towards that end.” | <urn:uuid:76ac4c53-c359-4503-bfba-99bc047b9b1e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://trueblueconservative.com/2012/02/apnewsbreak-gop-report-questions-detainee-release-ap/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962691 | 732 | 1.75 | 2 |
Stolen iPhone ID Codes Came from App Developer, Not the FBI
The release of a batch of Apple iPhone ID codes, which were claimed to have been stolen from a laptop belonging to the FBI, probably came from a mobile app developer instead.
The FBI had already denied that it was the source of the ID codes, and also said that it does not routinely collect such information anyway.
Now, the US based app developer, BlueToad has confirmed that its systems were subjected to a computer hack last week, which resulted in the theft of the Apple codes - known as UDIDs.
BlueToad said that it never collects sensitive information, and as the UDIDs were simply a list of unique ID numbers with no associated information it is not expected that anyone could use them maliciously.
Upon Apple's recommendation several months ago, BlueToad modified its code base to discontinue the practice of reporting UDIDs. They have now also discontinued storing any UDID information sent to their servers by apps that have not yet been updated to the new code base.
The company confirmed that it is cooperating with the police in an investigation into the database hack.
The data was posted onto a hackers website by a group calling itself AntiSec.
On the web: BlueToad
Tags: [apple iphone] | <urn:uuid:7cf24268-99e3-4e9f-a296-622145de7d0d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cellular-news.com/story/56340.php?source=rss | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977025 | 267 | 1.539063 | 2 |
I recently sold a vibrant cotton skirt from the 1950s, and the label sent me searching for more information.
Then I watched a favorite movie from 1945, The Bells of St. Mary’s, and there she was! Martha Sleeper, born in 1910, started acting in films in 1924. The Bells was her last movie, after having a very busy film career in the 20s and 30s. In the 1940s, Sleeper appeared on Broadway.
|Image of the actress from The Bells of St. Mary’s|
If I were more involved in the world of vintage jewelry, I would no doubt have known of Martha Sleeper’s Bakelite, wood and metal creations, which she began making for herself in the 1930s. Others in Hollywood took note, and requested her work, and soon the actress had a major sideline profession.
|From the Milwaukee Sentinel 2/23/40|
|Attrib. Martha Sleeper Bakelite and wood poodle pin from deja-voodoo.com|
|Martha Sleeper matchsticks necklace and bracelet sold by Mod Bag on 1st dibs|
or her cotton shift dress from Belle à Coeur Treasure Trove Vintage:
I’ve certainly got my eye out for this multifaceted woman’s work now, whether on film, in Bakelite, or in brilliantly-colored cotton!
Sleeper in the 1960s, during the time she was designing clothing in Puerto Rico (photo from silenthollywood.com) | <urn:uuid:06748b6c-6527-4204-b8ae-008966e6fc6b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://denisebrain.blogspot.com/2012/03/martha-sleeper-creates.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968159 | 320 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Sirion was a river of Middle-earth in the First Age, the principal river of Beleriand. During most of its course it was the border between East and West Beleriand. Karen Wynn Fonstad estimates its length as 390 miles in her Atlas of Middle-earth.
The Sirion's source was at Eithel Sirion on the eastern side of the Ered Wethrin, which lay in between Ard-galen (later Anfauglith) and Mithrim and Hithlum. It was guarded by the tower of Barad Eithel.
Sirion flowed southwards along the border of the Ered Wethrin, passing through the Fen of Serech before entering the narrow steep-sided valley between the Ered Wethrin and the Echoriath named the Pass of Sirion. Sirion then continued south into Beleriand, with the Forest of Brethil to the west, and Dimbar and then Doriath to the east. After leaving Doriath at Aelin-uial (the Fens of Sirion) it plunged below ground in the Falls of Sirion at Andram (the Long Wall), where the ground fell steeply. Three leagues southwards the Sirion exited the underground caves at the Gates of Sirion. It then flowed southwards through Nan-Tathren until it reached the Bay of Balar, part of Belegaer, at the Mouths of Sirion.
In order from north to south, the principal tributaries of the Sirion were the Rivil, flowing from Dorthonion until it met Sirion in the Fen of Serech; the Mindeb, which had its source in Nan Dungortheb and the Ered Gorgoroth, the Teiglin, the Esgalduin of Doriath; the Aros flowing south from Dorthonion (and also containing the waters of the Celon from the Hills of Himring and Himlad) which met at Aelin-uial, and the Narog, which joined Sirion in Nan-Tathren.
Barad Eithel, at the source of the Sirion in the Ered Wethrin, was a chief fortress of Fingolfin and his son Fingon, probably guarding a pass into their realm of Mithrim. Further south, in the Pass of Sirion, lay Tol Sirion (see below). After the Coming of Men, the Edain of the House of Haleth made their home in the Forest of Brethil, and the Sindar ruled by Thingol lay secure within the Girdle of Melian in their realm of Doriath. At the outflow of Sirion into Belegaer, after the destruction of Eglarest and Brithombar, the Havens of Sirion were built by Círdan and his people.
The most important island in Sirion was Tol Sirion. The original Minas Tirith was built here by Finrod Felagund in the strategic location controlling the Pass of Sirion where it entered Beleriand between the Ered Wethrin and the Echoriath. Shortly after Dagor Bragollach it was captured by Sauron and the island became known as Tol-in-Gaurhoth. | <urn:uuid:b151d2c4-33e9-42c1-a3b1-6c745ba59e11> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tolkiengateway.net/w/index.php?title=Sirion&oldid=26845 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967154 | 685 | 3.0625 | 3 |
Your Child in the Balance
In a reader friendly approach chock full of stories, Your Child in the Balance teaches parents & professionals alike how to approach the decision to give psychiatric medicine to a child.
Your Child in the Balance: An Insider’s Guide for Parents to the Psychiatric Medicine Dilemma is currently available at Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com. The second edition, Your Child in the Balance: Solving the Psychiatric Medicine Dilemma will be available from WW Norton in the Spring/ 2012. See what people are saying below!
Your Child in the Balance is also available in Chinese.
"...The best resource I've run across on the use of psychiatric medications in children and adolescents is Dr. Kevin T. Kalikow's 'Your Child in the Balance'...sophisticated enough for clinicians but was written for parents; encourage parents to read it..."
- H. Steven Moffic, MD, Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine
Medical College of Wisconsin
Clinical Psychiatry News
....a wonderful book...a huge gift to moms and dads..."
- Gloria De Gaetano
Director of Parent Coaching Institute
“Your Child in the Balance is a superb and much-needed guide to the complex world of psychiatric medications for children. Dr. Kalikow delves deeply into a subject that is usually only superficially addressed. He discusses both the science and the psychology of medications, and gives parents both the knowledge and the guidance they need to make the right decisions. I could not recommend this book more highly. Truly a brilliant work.”
- Edward Hallowell, MD, Best Selling Author of Driven to Distraction
“Your Child in the Balance is a wonderful book. It provides parents with much needed, scientifically sound and wise advice on psychiatric medications for children and teenagers. It will help parents navigate the important decisions about what treatments are safe and effective for their children.”
- Harold S. Koplewicz, MD
President, Child Mind Institute and author of More than Moody
“Kalikow’s book provides the helping hand that most parents need…Your Child in the Balance is a thoughtful overview…The warmth and readability of this book makes Dr. Kalikow’s wisdom easy to absorb.”
- Judith Rapoport, MD
Author of The Boy Who Couldn’t Stop Washing
Chief, Child Psychiatry Branch, National Institute of Mental Health
“Dr. Kalikow has written a 'must read' book for parents, teachers and the therapists who work with children. Unlike the usual 'cookbook' or 'one size fits all' approach, he assumes that thoughtful, intelligent parents can use the numerous illustrative vignettes he provides to decide for themselves when psychiatric medication is the treatment of choice for any particular patient either alone or as an adjunct to other therapies, whether psychodynamic, behavioral, or family therapy. Never dogmatic nor patronizing, he asks…When should medication be considered, and for what condition? Has the medication been established as safe? What are the benefits and…side effects?…The book is replete with…clearly written explanations of brain function, and important research findings regarding the efficacy of psychotropic drugs. I plan to use [Your Child in the Balance] in teaching psychiatric residents and medical students and shall offer a copy to every parent who wonders whether his child is a candidate for medicine.” | <urn:uuid:626f688a-575f-47dc-bd3a-ca27c9cdfa1e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://yourchildinthebalance.com/order_your_child_in_the_balance.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.912118 | 710 | 1.859375 | 2 |
Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril
Those who read the symbol do so at their peril
It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray Preface)
The concept of metamorphosis has provided a rich vein of material for artists throughout history. Hundreds of artistic and literary works have benefited from characters gifted with shape altering abilities or who have been cursed to involuntarily change their form.
However, metamorphosis also plays a fundamental and critical role in the natural world.
Scientific works, dating back to Goethe, deal with the evolution of plants and animals in the natural world, as they journey through the various stages of their life cycle. Human beings are no different, as they too are born, gradually evolve into adulthood from the years of childhood until they finally proceed into elder years to their final individual metamorphosis, where their human form ceases and rejoins the earth.
This process of metamorphosis, which is a constant for all living organisms appears quite natural to us all - apart, perhaps, from when we contemplate our own personal fates or those of loved ones - as the natural process of ageing is visible all around us from our earliest days. These standard, rhythmic, life cycle metamorphoses are generally in marked contrast to the fantastic and often 'out of the world' metamorphic fantasies portrayed in many artistic works, particularly when they lie outside the natural and human sphere of influence.
We are now, though, living in a situation where the power of transforming nature and the processes of evolution in plants and other living organisms has become a mere component of human 'knowledge'. No longer is metamorphosis merely in the hands of aloof or remote Gods or an immutable fact of nature. Today, humans have uncovered the secret of metamorphic change and are using it to an ever greater extent. However, it would be hard to argue that we have used this newfound power to any greater benefit than that displayed by the capricious gods of yore.
Daydream Fiction, Nightmare Faction
Throughout Metamorphoses, Ovid (re)presents a fascinating range of transformations, many of which involve frightening alterations in the forms of humans, who have displeased the gods. The reader is confronted with the licentious wiles of Gods, who transform themselves into alternate forms to more conveniently seduce the objects of their affection. This power to transform themselves or humans, however, lies firmly in the hands of the Gods and is beyond the power of humans. In Kafka's Metamorphosis, we are introduced to the surreal world of Grigor Samsa who, upon awakening from a restless sleep, discovers he is no longer clothed in his human form but has apparently transformed into a 'beetle' or a 'bug' during the night. In Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, the eponymous 'hero' wishes he might stay forever young while his portrait ages in his stead. And indeed, the 'Narcissus', as Dorian is referred to by the painter Basil gets his desire, as his picture begins to age and suffer the sins of his mortal form.
Yet, no matter how gripping, convincing and well constructed these stories are, they are still works of fiction. Readers are free to vicariously live the narratives and 'be' the characters described in these texts, secure in the knowledge that they can safely break off their engagement with them, by simply closing their books and (re)opening their eyes to the world around.
Such an escape back to reality does not exist for the narrative of those portrayed in the documentary film, Battle's Poison Cloud, which investigates the use of Agent Orange in Việt Nam by the US forces and its consequences for the people who live there. From the outset the viewer is confronted with the nightmare of modern day metamorphosis as the camera coldly gazes at rows of jars of malformed foetuses and aborted babies swimming in formaldehyde. These deformed proto-humans, frozen forever in their moment of becoming, bear testament to the metamorphic power possessed by humans today.
Today there is no need for supernatural or magical explanations for these metamorphoses. They are the results of conscious actions by other humans, who dropped millions of gallons of the poisonous dioxin Agent Orange (1) from planes, onto the countryside of Việt Nam and the heads of its people, to strip away the abundant forests to better able to target the Vietnamese resistance. Indeed, this process itself, which consisted of first dropping napalm to kill the trees and vegetation, followed by Agent Orange to burn it and bulldozers to sweep what was left away, resulted in a veritable metamorphosis of the country's topology. What once had been a landscape covered with flourishing, luxuriant and abundant forests was turned into a severely scarred and barren earth.
During this period, the Vietnamese resistance was obliged to live and work for months and years at a time in underground tunnels, emerging only at night for reconnaissance missions, such as locating and mapping US bases. As Noam Chomsky observed when reviewing the 'Pentagon Papers' - Reasons of State – the Americans did not appear to even regards these Vietnamese as fully formed humans:
"the Vietnamese appear only marginally, and then only as items to be controlled by the American instituted regime, never capable of performing its assigned task; or as infrastructure to be rooted out;" though at times "there is occasional recognition that the creatures who inhabit Vietnam may be human, or at least animate."(2)
Perhaps this mentally projected metamorphism of the Vietnamese people into something other than the 'human', helped the Americans involved in the conflict justify their intervention in Việt Nam to themselves.
Despite the immense suffering endured by the Vietnamese during the war, not least during the chemical attacks, the most severe consequences of these actions have only come to light since the war. Although the Vietnamese tried to protect themselves from the showers of dioxin, by covering their faces with towels drenched in water or even their own urine, many were directly contaminated. Furthermore, the dioxins dropped took root in the land and waters around, from whence it was able enter into the life cycles of the plants, animals, fish and people in the future.
Of all the chemicals released in Việt Nam, it was the estimated 80 million litres of Agent Orange, used over a period of some 8 years from 1962-1970, which were to have the most devastating long-term consequences. Agent Orange was a 'man-made' dioxin, which was a thousand times more deadly than any poison to be found in nature. While it is difficult to obtain exact figures as to the exact toll of human victims of Agent Orange in Việt Nam, Vietnamese estimates in 2000 were that some 400,000 people had been killed or injured by this dioxin in the 1960s and that since then it had contributed to another 500,000 birth defects.
Where once the idea of 'unnatural' metamorphosis might have belonged firmly to the Gods of imagination striding majestically through the pages of Ovid's poetry, the apparent inability of a Kafkaesque Grigor Samsa to develop into anything else but a 'beetle' or for the Dorian Gray creation of Wilde to 'mystically' project his negative essence onto a portrait of himself, it has now entered everyday life. No longer do the standard and regular workings of natural metamorphoses exist alone. A whole new world of random and self-perpetuating transformations is now present; one created through the conscious actions of humans.
While we can avert our gaze from the sufferings of our fellow humans, as we might from those of the protagonists in the artistic works discussed, we know that the reality outside the immediate range of our mind and senses continues. No matter how much we wish it might not be so, we are also aware that our wish to 'un-remember' or put aside the reality depicted in BPC is hardly a valid one, as long as the lives of so many are plagued by uncontrollable metamorphoses, living nightmares from whence they are currently powerless to awake.
For more information on the devastating legacy of Agent Orange in Việt Nam, visit www.lenaldis.co.uk.
1. Agent Orange received its name from the colour of the barrels within which it was contained.
2. Chomsky, Noam; For Reasons of State (Pantheon Books, New York, 1973) p. 73. Further on an American advisor is quoted as stating 'Naturally we torture the Vietcong... The only way to combat these people who act like animals is to kill them." P 92 | <urn:uuid:c45233bd-cf2a-4f83-af63-e6a7c118fdae> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://politico.ie/justin-frewen/7365-life-imitates-art-part-i.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00053-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964182 | 1,802 | 2.515625 | 3 |
According to business process management (BPM) analyst Connie Moore of Forrester Research, BPM is perceived by process owners as a way to implement improvement initiatives including Six Sigma. BPM is a computer program that aids processes across different functions and applies to both people and systems.
The users of BPM see it as a process that is managing their work. However, the process affects several parts of an organization. Its basic functionality centers around efficiency and productivity, cutting down on time and cost. The starting point of a BPM implementation is important. Intelligent Enterprise Magazine reports:
To begin, look for projects that affect the company's revenue, are high cost or are associated with customer satisfaction. Processes that transcend company boundaries, involve extensive integration or constantly change involve much higher risk. Start with the highest-reward, lowest-risk process and then expand as you move up the learning curve.
Did you enjoy this post?
The comments to this entry are closed. | <urn:uuid:2e7d34d2-a8bc-49c7-a40a-999b6cb08cdb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sixsigmablog.org/2005/10/business_proces.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961116 | 197 | 2.296875 | 2 |
Océ Business Services Shares Tips to Help Businesses
Implement "Green" Document Management Practices
New York (July 14, 2008) - With recent industry surveys indicating that businesses want to be more environmentally responsible, Océ Business Services is sharing recommendations to help enterprises implement more eco-friendly practices across the document lifecycle (document creation through disposal). Océ has been ranked by the Black Book of Outsourcing as a Top 50 outsourcing vendor cited by clients for demonstrating the "highest green credentials."
Océ clients concerned about the environment, such as Bremer Financial Services, are acknowledging the company’s efforts. "We implemented a green campaign as a joint effort between the Bremer Facilities Group and Océ Business Services to reduce paper usage," notes Dolores Hoffman, supervisor of administrative services and facilities management for Bremer Facilities Department. "Through initiatives such as moving print production to copiers that can print on both sides of a page, we have significantly reduced paper consumption and realized thousands of dollars in cost savings."
Océ Business Services’ sustainability practices and recommendations cover the document lifecycle, including print/copy management, document imaging, fleet management, document needs assessment, records management, mail management, and electronic discovery. Océ offers the following guidelines designed to help organizations initiate print/copy management practices in the office that can benefit the environment and reduce costs:
The workgroup alternative
To the extent possible, replacing personal desktop printers with workgroup MFPs (multifunction peripherals that combine print/copy/scan/fax functionality in one machine) shared by departments can have a strong positive impact. One financial services company replaced 1,100 copiers and printers and 1,000 fax machines with 400 MFPs. The initiative eliminated 1,700 machines that no longer consume resources based on their manufacture, transportation, operation, maintenance, and eventual disposal.
Adopt scanning practices
Rather than copy and store physical documents, organizations can scan and store electronically. Employees retain digital copies that they can distribute electronically, and at the same time avoid accumulating files filled with paper. As a conservative estimate, scanning can reduce paper consumption by one to three percent.
Default to duplex
Most multi-page documents don’t require the text to be printed on one side of the page. Newspapers, magazines and books use both sides (duplex printing). With effective fleet management it is possible to change office practices and make duplex printing of multi-page documents the norm. This can potentially decrease paper use by up to 50 percent.
Turn off document headers
Document headers are pages that contain identifying information and precede every print job. If headers are turned on by default, every print job will consume an extra sheet of paper. If headers are turned off for all users, organizations can reduce general office paper consumption by an estimated 18 to 28 percent according to Océ Business Services client analyses.
Buying paper and toner in bulk can reduce transportation, packaging, and storage resources. Buying in bulk also often results in cost savings.
Leverage "smart" technologies
Enterprises can use MFP "smart" technologies such as Personal Mail Box, Fax-from-Desktop, Scan-to-Email/File Folder, and Document Routing in order to decrease paper and chemicals used in printing. This can reduce paper usage by up to three percent.
Océ Business Services’ corporate parent recently underscored its leadership in environmental sustainability with the release of its 2007 Sustainability Report. The report documents Océ achievements in delivering sustainable technology and environmentally sound policies. The report explains the company’s use and re-use of components, energy and water consumption, waste handling emissions, as well as human and environmental safety. The 2007 Sustainability Report is available at www.oceusa.com/sustainability2007.
About Océ Business Services
Océ Business Services, Inc. is one of the world's leading providers of document process management services and technology to law firms, corporations and the public sector. Its spectrum of managed solutions spans the document lifecycle. These include print/copy, fleet, mail services, Six Sigma®-based performance management, records management and eDiscovery. Océ Business Services is one of the most experienced providers of eDiscovery, paper discovery, forensics and web-based review services for complex litigation and regulatory compliance matters. Océ Business Services' integrated capabilities allow it to serve enterprise-wide requirements with advanced technology, people and processes. By enabling organizations to manage and control document assets, Océ helps reduce costs, increase efficiency, mitigate risk and introduce innovation. To learn more, visit www.obs-innovation.com.
Océ N.V. is a leading international provider of digital document management technology and services. The company’s solutions are based on Océ’s advanced software applications that deliver documents and data over internal networks and the Internet to printing devices and archives -- locally and around the world. Supporting the workflow solutions are Océ digital printers and scanners, considered the most reliable and productive in the world. Océ also offers a wide range of display graphics, consulting and outsourcing solutions.
Océ employs around 24,000 people, with 2007 revenues of approximately $4.6 billion, operates in more than 90 countries and maintains research and manufacturing centers in the Netherlands, the United States, Canada, Germany, France, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Romania and Singapore. Océ North America is headquartered in Trumbull, CT, with additional business units in Chicago, IL; New York City; Boca Raton, FL; Salt Lake City, UT; Coventry, RI; and Vancouver, BC. North American revenues represented approximately half of Océ’s worldwide business in 2007, and employment is currently 11,000. For more information about Océ, visit www.oceusa.com. Outside the U.S., consult www.oce.com. | <urn:uuid:0333496b-f25f-4618-a143-29287ecde761> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.oceusa.com/main/article_details.jsp?FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=2534374302161249&CONTENT%3C%3Ecnt_id=10134198673387341&bmUID=1335411192789 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.920735 | 1,213 | 1.585938 | 2 |
National Discussion and Debate Series
Troop Surge vs. Redeployment
The National Discussion and Debate Series' premier debate took place Tuesday, Sept. 18, 2007, in the historic Dome Room of the University of Virginia Rotunda in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Four debaters had one hour to debate the proposed resolution: "Keeping troops in Iraq is vital for America's national interests in the Middle East." Frederick W. Kagan, lead architect of the "Surge" plan and Resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), and Reuel Marc Gerecht, AEI Resident Fellow, argued in favor of the resolution; Jessica Tuchman Mathews, President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and Chas Freeman, former Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, argued against. Margaret Warner, senior correspondent of PBS's The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, moderated.
Resolved: Keeping troops in Iraq is vital for America's national interests in the Middle East.
Senior Correspondent, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer
Margaret Warner is one of three senior correspondents joining Jim Lehrer on PBS's nightly news program, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.
Ms. Warner also is one of four co-anchors of America Abroad, a new hour-long radio program devoted to foreign affairs that airs on 90 public radio stations through Public Radio International (PRI).
She joined The NewsHour in 1993 after an award-winning career in print journalism focusing on foreign affairs and domestic politics. She spent ten years at Newsweek - first as a political and campaign correspondent, then as a White House reporter, and finally as chief diplomatic correspondent during four tumultuous years that saw the end of the Cold War, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the first Gulf War. Previously, she was a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, the San Diego Union and The Concord (N.H.) Monitor.
Frederick W. Kagan
Resident Scholar, American Enterprise Institute
Frederick W. Kagan is a resident scholar in defense and security policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the author of Choosing Victory: A Plan for Success in Iraq, a report by the Iraq Planning Group at AEI. His most recent book is Finding the Target: The Transformation of American Military Policy (Encounter Books, 2006).
Previously an associate professor of military history at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Mr. Kagan is the author of The End of the Old Order: Napoleon and Europe, 1801-1805 (Da Capo, 2006) and co-author of While America Sleeps: Self-Delusion, Military Weakness, and the Threat to Peace Today (St. Martin's Press, 2000). A contributing editor at The Weekly Standard, he has also written numerous articles on defense and foreign policy issues for Foreign Affairs, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Policy Review, Commentary magazine, Parameters, and other periodicals.
Reuel Marc Gerecht
Resident Fellow, American Enterprise Institute
Since September 11, 2001, Middle East affairs expert Reuel Marc Gerecht has focused on Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan, as well as on terrorism and intelligence. He is the author of Know Thine Enemy: A Spy's Journey into Revolutionary Iran (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1997) and The Islamic Paradox: Shiite Clerics, Sunni Fundamentalists, and the Coming of Arab Democracy (AEI Press, 2004). He is a contributing editor for The Weekly Standard and a correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly, as well as a frequent contributor to publications including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, International Herald Tribune, The New Republic, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and the Middle East Quarterly. Mr. Gerecht formerly served as Director of the Middle East Initiative for the Project for the New American Century, and as a Middle East specialist in the Central Intelligence Agency.
Ambassador Chas W. Freeman, Jr.
President, Middle East Policy Council
Before becoming President of the Middle East Policy Council in 1997, Ambassador Freeman served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs (1993-94), earning the Pentagon's highest public service awards for participating in designing a NATO-centered post-Cold War European security system and reestablishing defense and military relations with China. He was U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia during operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs while the U.S. mediated Namibian independence from South Africa and Cuban troop withdrawal from Angola.
Ambassador Freeman served as Deputy Chief of Mission and Chargé d'Affaires in the American embassies in both Bangkok (1984-86) and Beijing (1981-84). He was Director for Chinese Affairs at the State Department (1979-81), and the principal American interpreter during President Nixon's 1972 China visit. He has also served in India.
Ambassador Freeman is the author of The Diplomat's Dictionary (Revised Edition) and Arts of Power, both published by the United States Institute of Peace in 1997.
Jessica Tuchman Mathews
President, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Jessica Mathews became President of the Carnegie Endowment in 1997. She has experience working in the Executive and Legislative branches, nonprofit management and research, and journalism.
Ms. Mathews was a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (1993-97), directing its Washington program. She was the founding Vice President and Director of Research at the World Resources Institute (1982-93), an internationally known center for policy research on environmental and natural-resource management issues.
As a member of the Washington Post's editorial board (1980-82), she covered issues including energy, environment, science, technology, arms control, and health. She later became a weekly Post columnist, whose column appeared in the International Herald Tribune.
Ms. Mathews was Director of the Office of Global Issues of the National Security Council (1977-79), focusing on nuclear proliferation, conventional arms sales policy, chemical and biological warfare, and human rights. In 1993, she returned to government as Deputy to the Undersecretary of State for Global Affairs.
Research and Scholarship
By the fall of 2007, the Iraq debate in the United States will be in full swing. It will focus less on the past, the reasons for the war, and what has gone wrong than on the future - and not the distant future, but the next year or two. In brief, most Americans have become disenchanted with the war in Iraq and they want to see results soon that could justify the continuing cost in blood and treasure, or they want out... Read More
Since the start of the Iraq War, the Miller Center's Forum program has hosted 29 events on U.S. policy in Iraq and the broader Middle East. Speakers included Brent Scowcroft, Anthony Zinni, Lawrence Eagleburger, Charles Duelfer and Admiral William Crowe... Read More
Keeping up with current events is critical to the education of middle and high school students. On behalf of the Miller Center, Lisa Iverson, M.S., a social studies educator at Cascade High School in Turner, Oregon, authored sixteen lesson plans on the Iraq War for use by educators and students... Read More | <urn:uuid:1d42c594-6322-4272-9e56-a58ba3eee0b4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://millercenter.org/debates/iraq/immigration | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93321 | 1,496 | 1.617188 | 2 |
David Levering Lewis
Julius Silver University Professor and Professor of History, New York University
"I think," David Levering Lewis has written, "that I came to an appreciation of the concept of social class in my earliest years." Born in Little Rock, Arkansas, during the age of Jim Crow, Lewis was the child of educators. His father, a high school principal, was, at one point, called to testify for the NAACP in a case against segregated education. He characteristically decided to stand on principle in a major civil rights case, Lewis recalled last year in the New York Times. He testified as an authority for the NAACP and against the discriminatory policies of the city public school system. The NAACP prevailed. In less than a year, as I remember it, our family went from the top of the social heap to pariah status in the dominant community and to an awkward presence as unemployables among its own racial group. From this profoundly instructive trauma, I learned to assume the permanent possibility that, however solid the middle-class reinforcements, race could trump class in my life experience.
For much of his life, David Levering Lewis expanded upon this insight into the dynamics of race and class in the United States. He began his academic career in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement as a young African American historian teaching at historically black colleges and universities and in Africa. Now, forty years later, Professor Lewis has the widest reach of any historian alive, and has spent many years chronicling African, American, and European history. His book King (1970) was the very first critical biography of Martin Luther King Jr., and was followed by books on the Dreyfus Affair in France, the scramble for Africa in the late nineteenth century, the explosion of arts and culture we know as the Harlem Renaissance, and the pioneering activist and intellectual, W.E.B. Du Bois.
In each of these works, Lewis brought together original, often stunning and iconoclastic interpretations and careful archival research. His 1979 classic, When Harlem Was in Vogue, revised decades of work on the New Negro Movement of the 1920s, and suggested a more subtle and nuanced understanding of that decade, wherein the original civil rights intent of the Harlem Renaissance degenerated into counterproductive and sensationalist excess and eroded the material chance for black uplift and middle-class growth. His two-volume biography of W.E.B. Du Bois, W.E.B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race, 1868-1918 (1993); W.E.B. Du Bois: The Fight for Equality and the American Century, 191-1963 (2000)humanized an impossibly complex subject and, in the process, offered a sweeping reinterpretation of American history from Reconstruction through the March on Washington. For all of this work, David Levering Lewis has won considerable public praise: his two volumes on Du Bois each won the Pulitzer Prize and the Anisfield Wolf Book Award.
Lewis was president of the Society of American Historians in 2002, and is a board member of The Crisis magazine, published by the NAACP. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society. David Levering Lewis will be Ellen Maria Gorrissen Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin, Germany, for Spring 2008. | <urn:uuid:bf153a2f-01b4-4e23-9361-a9e909be7c67> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.iub.edu/~patten/lecturers2/Lewis-Levering-David.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951516 | 685 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Start your Own Christmas Traditions
Christmas Traditions Around the World
If you want to add a touch of elegance to your Christmas traditions, you're on the right site. Welcome to GiftTree, your premier source for personal and corporate Christmas gift ideas for all your Christmas traditions. Christmas traditions are as varied as the people who celebrate them, and our exquisite selection of gifts are sure to please even the most discriminating person on your list. Whether you're placing a Christmas present under the Christmas tree or bearing gifts in your Christmas holiday travels, GiftTree has many gift ideas to make your Christmas traditions special.
Historically, Christmas gift giving became part of many Christmas traditions all over the world to honor the three wise men that brought gifts to the baby Jesus. Over time-beginning around the 1800s Christmas traditions evolved into the elaborate gift-giving holiday we commemorate today. In the United States, our Christmas traditions and Christmas customs focus on spiritual celebrations, the love of family and friends, and, of course, the enchantment of Santa Claus. The spirit and joy of Christmas lights provides celebratory warmth to the winter chill of blustery December days. For other countries, Christmas traditions begin with Advent around November 26 and last until January 6, the feast of the Epiphany. Regardless of how Christmas traditions are celebrated, most countries equate an affectionate sentimentality to these holiday festivities.
Worldwide, Christmas traditions are celebrated as both a religious and secular holiday. Family celebrations, wrapping gifts, and baking homemade goodies form long-lasting Christmas memories. Christmas traditions are also rich with symbols. Lighted candles are set on windowsills to symbolize Joseph and Mary's search for shelter; boughs are placed on doors to ward off evil and illness; and all over the world, Christmas traditions are not complete without Christmas flowers. Poinsettias, white roses, and hyacinths are fundamental to holiday traditions in the United States, England, and Sweden, respectively.
Many Christmas traditions, including the Christmas trees and glass Christmas ornaments, originated in Germany. In fact, German settlers are credited with introducing Christmas trees to the United States. Originally, Americans thought these trees were pagan symbols and refused to incorporate them into their religious Christmas traditions. However, in 1846, when the popular Queen Victoria and her German Prince Albert were featured in the London News with their family gathered around a Christmas tree, the holiday tree gained instant popularity in both British and American societies. Although German Christmas traditions featured smaller trees-around four feet high-Americans incorporated much taller trees into their Christmas traditions, preferring trees that reached ceiling heights. Today, Christmas decorations are central to American Christmas traditions.
From religious celebrations to parties with loved ones, Christmas traditions add a touch of magic to the holiday season. To the delight of children all over the world, Santa Claus, Father Christmas, and St. Nick, to name a few, add to the excitement of their Christmas traditions. While many children in the United States anticipate the arrival of Santa, Iceland commemorates their Christmas traditions with 13 Santas, each bearing a gift for good boys and girls.
In Italy, children receive their gifts January 6, not December 25. They believe that an ugly but kind witch on a broomstick delivers their gifts. Prior to January 6, children may go door-to-door reciting poems and singing to their neighbors. In return, neighbors give the children money to purchase gifts. Swedish Christmas traditions incorporate some mischievous fun into their holiday festivities. Christmas gifts in Sweden are called "Christmas knocks" because years ago, one would quietly approach a home, knock loudly on the door, and anonymously toss a gift inside the home. Christmas traditions last one month in Sweden, beginning December 13 with a celebratory feast and lasting until January 13.
Christmas traditions have cross-cultural appeal, and GiftTree celebrates the abundance of giving in the holiday season by offering gifts and gift baskets such as Christmas fruit baskets and Christmas wine gift baskets that illustrate good taste and exquisite elegance to your personal and corporate Christmas traditions. Because Christmas traditions are rich in history, spiritual abundance, and family traditions, you'll want to find just the right gifts to celebrate the occasion in style. Some send Christmas cards when there loved ones are far away, but why put up with busy traffic and long lines when you can find memorable gifts from the convenience of your home at GiftTree? You won't find our exclusive inventory of specialty gift baskets anywhere else, and we guarantee that the gift you give from GiftTree will leave lasting impressions with family, friends, loved ones, and business associates. | <urn:uuid:db9d2bdc-1e36-4a3e-acce-8faa27072706> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gifttree.com/Christmas/Christmas-traditions.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939143 | 926 | 2.375 | 2 |
Descriptive models can simulate the operation of the supply chain and generate statistics using a series of simulated inputs that are provided to the model. These statistics are then analyzed to facilitate decision-making. In summary, it takes a combination of sophisticated tools and techniques to effectively determine the appropriate response to supply chain risk factors.
Cases in Point
One example of real-world proactive risk management is at ON Semiconductor, a global supplier to multiple electronics markets, including the fast-paced wireless industry. The company proactively manages the risk associated with procuring capacity. The risk management discipline at ON begins with the recognition that decisions made in other functions often impact procurement risk, and therefore methodologies and tools that analyze the integrated supply chain are a sine qua non.
For example, volatility in demand, contractual commitments to outsourced manufacturing partners, lead time for procurement and currently installed capacity together determine the procurement strategy for future quarters. Similarly, the considerations and decision variables for managing risk are distinctly different for the short-term and the long-term. ON uses a sophisticated set of integrated supply chain scenario analysis tools coupled with a rigorous sales and operations planning (S&OP) process to proactively manage risk across different time horizons.
Another company that has developed and institutionalized a sophisticated procurement risk management process is HP. HP, like ON, reflects the philosophy that risk management is not a one-time or infrequent activity. Nor is procurement risk management about sophisticated tools only. Instead, it is a combination of world-class processes and technology that provide the ability to continuously adapt and improve across the dimensions of organizational structure, process, technology and strategy. More information on HP's practices of procurement risk management is available at cscmp.org/downloads/public/resources/HPProcurement.pdf.
The procurement risk management initiatives at ON and HP demonstrate that PRM requires an investment of time and resources to be effective. But as supply chains become longer, increasingly complex and subject to more severe disruption, the question supply management executives must ask themselves is not whether they can afford to adopt a PRM strategy but whether they can afford not to make procurement risk management a top priority.
Acknowledgement: The author would like to gratefully acknowledge Darren Ward's research on some of the case studies and statistics cited in this article.
|About the Author: Anand Iyer is an i2 Fellow. More information at www.i2.com.| | <urn:uuid:d662e879-0831-4b31-94d0-fd58d15d0475> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sdcexec.com/article/10289620/caveat-emptor-managing-procurement-risk?page=3 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00055-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927766 | 500 | 2.078125 | 2 |
Photos and Videos
Former President Bill Clinton helped honor "Lincoln" at the 2013 Golden Globes.
It's not too often a former president helps present at Hollywood awards show.
Former President Bill Clinton came to the Golden Globes Sunday to present a montage honoring "Lincoln," one of the nominees Best Motion Picture Drama.
Clinton, whose profile and popularity enjoyed a huge boost following his speech at the 2012 Democratic Convention, took the stage to set up the clip.
"A tough fight. To push a bill through a bitterly divided House of Representatives....Winning required the president to make a lot of unsavory deals that had nothing to do with the big issues. I wouldn't know anything about that," the former president said with his trademark sly grin.
"President Lincoln's struggle to abolish slavery reminds us that enduring progress is forged in a cauldron of both principle and compromise.
"This brilliant film shows us how he did it, and gives us hope that we can do it again. In 'Lincoln' we see a man more interesting than the legend, and a far better guide for future presidents. Every hard-fought effort to protect our union has demanded the same sane combination of steely resolve and necessary compromises that Lincoln mastered to preserve the union and end slavery. We're all here tonight because he did it."
After the footage from "Lincoln" ran, co-host Amy Poehler rushed back out on stage and exclaimed, "What an exciting special guest! That was Hillary Clinton's husband! That was exciting. That was exciting." | <urn:uuid:fd75d777-fae7-4942-98da-92c657c918ec> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nbclosangeles.com/feature/golden-globes/Bill-Clinton-Tees-Up-Lincoln-186718351.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00053-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970035 | 321 | 1.585938 | 2 |
|For news, analysis, and opinion on science and technology issues, SciTech Daily is a very useful source. Updated 6 days a week, it maintains about 60 items on its page before scrolling them off the bottom. The page is arranged in three columns: "Features and Background", "Books and Media", and "Analysis and Opinion". In addition, they have a link to an archive of each column. |
The format for their items is a short teaser -- typically one sentence -- and a single link, pointing directly to the source. This site will not waste your time.
In addition to the meat of their content, they have four handy link columns pointing to: "Breaking News", "Sci/Tech Publications", "Useful Media", and "Interesting Sites". They keep these lists small -- typically 20 or 30 links -- and the quality high.
See all of Ray's abstract art prints on canvas. | <urn:uuid:a06898f6-abe9-495b-9361-07f8f8e6bc70> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sitereview.org/?article=50 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.92795 | 187 | 1.921875 | 2 |
I, of course, believe Yoganandaji to be an avatar. However, it brings up several questions in my mind.
When Yogananda met Sri Yukteswar, he made him promise that he would reach God realization within this lifetime. But if he was an avatar, did he not already reach this state?
Also, after his guru died, he said that a blackness had polluted the river of bliss that had been flowing in him. How could this be so? I do not understand, though of course I still believe it to be so.
Those are good questions, ones that thoughtful devotees tend to stumble upon. We see similar instances in the lives of many great souls, avatars. So how can we reconcile their perfection in God with their humanity?
Well, I suspect in ways not unlike our own, just a difference of degree. As you can be noble and high minded in one instance, but perhaps irritable or frustrated by circumstances in another, and yet still be the same soul, so, too, an avatar who willingly assumes the garb and limitations of human form, must deal resopnsibily with the humanity in which he participates. Yogananda could be sweet or he could be strict, neither would necessarily affects his inward state of consciousness.
This does not mean, however, that the avatar acts from ego affirming desire, but that an avatar participates in normal and appropriate human feelings and interactions. Thus, for example, Lahiri Mahasaya, or Lord Krishna, were married and had children. This did not stem from personal desire but was appropriate to their divinely appointed role.
Often an avatar acts out their role (with sincerity, of course) in a way that sets an example or gives a spiritual teaching to others. Just so, Yogananda asks his guru if he will reveal God to him. It seems that in the lives of many avatars they go through a period of searching and have, sometimes, a moment (or period) of awakening to their higher state of consciousness. This is the sacrifice some make in returning to human form.
When Yogananda lost his mother, as a child, or later, his guru (in the example you give above), he felt the human sense of loss that is normal and appropriate. Yes, he could have accessed a non-dual state of transcendence, but such a one can play the role without being touched inwardly and does so, one imagines, for the benefit of others. In the case of grief and loss, inasmuch as the emotions are very real, we must own them before we can transcend them (rather than denying or suppressing them).
Nonetheless, I'll be the first to acknowledge that the ways of God are at times mysterious but the, upon reflection, is this not so for myself? For you? | <urn:uuid:0fb724c6-e884-4ddf-a1f6-bd2289d42971> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ananda.org/ask/1068/avatars-and-their-human-roles/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00044-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975419 | 581 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Many towns in Germany face the same problem – their station building. Not on a scale with Stuttgart, but given that many of them were built in the 19th Century, they often suffer similar fates such as underused ticket offices, high running costs due to the old building materials, and general desire from travellers and locals for the buildings to be put to better use and provide more services.
At the same time, they expect them to look good and still retain their 19th Century character, and not get covered in graffiti. With many of them being listed buildings as well, this is not an easy task. Another complication is that the buildings are often owned by Deutsche Bahn, reducing the lack of influence that local towns have over how they are used.
Oberursel’s station is one of those that had suffered this fate until recently, but for the past three years things have started to change. An organisation called SEWO, who were originally created by the town itself to re-develop the Camp King area, were able to buy the property from the railway.
Since then they have been restoring the station building to its former glory and at the same time modernising it so to make the whole thing more economical to run, whilst at the same time ensuring that the work is coherent with the listed building status. The exterior, for example, has been painted in the original colours.
Finally, last week, the scaffolding was taken down and the front of the station could be seen once again, although work continues inside.
One of the main changes inside is the ceiling. The original rooms had been 12m high in some places, meaning that a lot of empty space had to be heated and could not otherwise be used. With the new ceiling/floor the available floorspace has been increased.
The windows are – with one exception – in their original frames. To insulate these better, a pane of glass has been added on the inside, but not fixed into a second frame like normal double glazing. Apparently this insulates the windows better, without trapping condensation between the panes.
The whole building has also been re-wired. The non-public parts used to be used by the railway for a variety of technical elements, but for whatever reason there were no plans of which wires went where. So the electricians pulled everything out and started again from scratch.
Outside, a small extension has been added which has a kiosk in it selling tickets, and unlike the previous ticket office it is open for most of the day.
The new tenants inside the building will have to wait until the spring before they can start moving in. These will be: a Kindergarten, language school, dance school, Turkish delicatessen and bistro, and a restaurant. The variety of the tenants is such, that in combination with the ticket office the building will be in use for most of the day and night, reducing the chance of graffiti and vandalism. | <urn:uuid:b2a686cd-d814-4a32-b72b-4bc57c8b8e2d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.allthingsgerman.net/blog/travel/oberursels-shiny-new-restored-station-building/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00069-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982053 | 607 | 2.5625 | 3 |
Christian leaders in Malaysia are sounding off against the government’s latest detention of imported scriptures, reporting that some 30,000 were recently being held.
The Christian Federation of Malaysia – which comprises the nation’s largest ecumenical, Evangelical, and Roman Catholic Christian bodies – announced Thursday that it is “greatly disillusioned, fed-up and angered by the repeated detention of Bibles written in our national language, Bahasa Malaysia.”
“Since March 2009, all attempts to import the Bible in Bahasa Malaysia, i.e. the Alkitab, whether through Port Klang or the Port of Kuching, have been thwarted,” the umbrella organization stated, suggesting that the detentions are linked to the widely-publicized 2009 row over the translation of “God” in Bibles and other Christian publications.
In Malaysia, Christian publications were not allowed to use the word “Allah” to refer to God. The government contends the word “Allah” is exclusively for Islam and that the use of “Allah” in Christian publications could confuse Muslims and make Christian ideas more appealing to them.
Church officials, however, argue that Allah is not exclusive to Islam because it is an Arabic word that existed before the religion. They say "Allah" has been used for centuries to mean "God" in Malay.
On Dec. 31, 2009, two years after a lawsuit was filed against the government over its “Allah” ban, a Supreme Court judge agreed with members of the Malaysian Church, declaring that the word “Allah” is not exclusive to Islam and that the government’s Home Ministry is “not empowered” to ban non-Muslims from using the word.
Since then, the Malaysian government – though still committed to its “Allah” stance – has given the assurance that the Bible in the Bahasa Malaysia language would be freely available, at least in the country’s largest two states – Sabah and Sarawak.
But CFM claimed Thursday that 30,000 copies of the "Perjanjian Baru, Mazmur dan Amsal" – the "New Testament, Psalms and Proverbs" – are currently being withheld at the Port of Kuching in Sarawak.
Furthermore, 5,000 copies of the Bible in Bahasa Malaysia – the Alkitab – have been held by the Ministry of Home Affairs in Port Klang since March 2009.
“This is despite repeated appeals which resulted in the Prime Minister making a decision to release the Alkitab held in Port Klang in December 2009 which was reported to CFM leaders by several Cabinet Ministers and their aides,” noted the CFM Executive Committee in its statement Thursday.
Notably, the Malaysian Home Ministry has rejected CFM’s claims of the Bibles detention in Port Klang. On Wednesday, the ministry said the Bibles had actually been refused entry into Malaysia for not fulfilling the ministry's requirements. Furthermore, it claimed that a letter of refusal dated June 26, 2010, was sent to the importer of the Bibles.
The importer, however, had yet to claim the cargo, the ministry reported, according to Bernama, a news agency of the Malaysian government.
Hence, it added, allegations by the National Evangelical Christian Fellowship that the ministry had confiscated and detained the Bibles were inaccurate and misleading. NECF is one of the bodies that comprise CFM.
Despite the ministry’s claims, CFM maintained Thursday that “tedious steps” have been taken after each incident to secure the release of the Bibles and that “nothing has been done by the authorities to ensure their release.”
“It would appear as if the authorities are waging a continuous, surreptitious and systematic programme against Christians in Malaysia to deny them access to the Bible in Bahasa Malaysia,” CFM declared.
In closing, CFM insisted that access to Bibles in Bahasa is essential for Malaysian Christians – many of whom have grown up with Bahasa Malaysia as their principal medium of communication as a result of the government's education policies – in order to read, comprehend and practice their faith.
“It is an affront to them that they are being deprived of their sacred Scriptures,” the Christian umbrella group added.
“We call upon the Government to act now and prove their sincerity and integrity in dealing with the Malaysian Christian community on this and all other issues which we have been raising with them since the formation of the Christian Federation of Malaysia in 1985. As an immediate step, we insist upon the immediate release of all Bibles which have been detained,” CFM concluded.
According to the CIA World Factbook, 60.4 percent of Malaysia's 25.7 million people ascribe to Islam. Around 19.2 percent, meanwhile, is Buddhist, and 9.1 percent is Christian.
In general, Muslims enjoy special privileges in Malaysia as Islam is the dominant religion. | <urn:uuid:a8992ea9-c4cb-4c0f-ab84-c6bd3095d13f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.christianpost.com/news/30000-bibles-detained-by-malaysian-govt-claim-christian-leaders-49377/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962668 | 1,043 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Tasmania supplies 50% of opium poppy supply to the world. Recently, it has been found that due to the lack of supply, one of the region’s companies has been allowed to import poppy plant. The news has caused troubles among opium growers in the region.
If calculations adds some value to the statement, then let it be included here as well. It has been said that opium growers earn $100 million per year, for meeting the demands of opium. Keith Rice, who is the executive of poppy firm known as the Poppy Growers Association of Tasmania said that the Tasmanian government has not provided good deal.
One of the reasons for poor growth was change in weather. Jarrod Ritchie, who is the chief executive of TPI Enterprises, was of the view that for last two years, they have been witnessing poor weather conditions. This is the reason that they have to take permission from the government to import another plant.
It is vital to take permission from the government as it is quite a controlled trade, which works under stringent conditions. Talking about the contract, Jarrod said that 140 farmers are in their support and have even signed the contract. | <urn:uuid:9e412557-b292-49e0-bbea-a97ce62abe37> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://topnews.net.nz/content/223708-tasmania-suffers-opium-production-crisis | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985261 | 238 | 1.570313 | 2 |
September 12, 2008 By Corey McKenna
Photo: Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott announces hotline for shelter operators to check evacuees against. (Credit: Texas Attorney General's Office)
With Hurricane Ike moving rapidly toward Texas, multiple counties have issued evacuation orders and shelters across the state are expected to provide refuge to thousands of fleeing Gulf Coast residents. To aid emergency shelters, raise awareness and protect evacuees, the office of the Texas Attorney General has established a 24-hour, toll-free emergency hotline that will allow shelter personnel to inquire whether evacuees are registered sex offenders. Shelter operators can also fax and e-mail the information to the hotline.
"As our fellow Texans are coming here from the Gulf Coast, It's critically important that when they check in to a shelter, when they check in to a church, when they check in to someone's home that they are in a place that is a safe environment," Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott said Thursday at a news conference announcing the program. "These people need to ensure that the person checking in to their home, checking in to the church, checking in to their shelter, is not a registered sex offender. We don't want to see anyone harmed or victimized as a result of the evacuees who may come here," he said. "We saw in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina that inherently, amongst the approximately 1 million people who will be evacuated from the Gulf Coast there will be a large number of these people who will be registered sex offenders," he said.
"When evacuation shelters contact the Safe Shelter Hotline at (866) 385-0333, law enforcement officials with the Office of the Attorney General will access and share information from the state's registered sex offender database," Abbott explained. "To ensure thorough database searches, callers need to provide evacuees' names, addresses and dates of birth," he added.
With this information, shelter managers can coordinate specialized housing or make other arrangements as appropriate.
In December of 2007, Texas began using a new statewide citizen-evacuation management system. The tracking system, which was successfully deployed in 2006 and 2007 during state evacuation simulations, is intended to help safely evacuate citizens in the event of any large-scale man-made or natural disaster.
In the event of an emergency evacuation, evacuees are registered on-site and issued a bar-coded RFID wristband. An evacuee's wristband will be scanned with a wireless device as the evacuee boards a state-contracted vehicle. The information is then added to the bus boarding log. Evacuee intake information and location will then be sent wirelessly to The University of Texas Center for Space Research data center.
The buses are equipped with GPS systems to track their location along the evacuation route. Upon reaching the destination, the system will update evacuee profiles and provide real-time information. This will enable state employees to respond to inquiries from the public about the safety of evacuated family members and to reunite families that have been separated during a large-scale disaster.
Rugged hand-held computers are used for the enrollment and tracking of evacuees throughout the process. In addition, bar-code scanners and RFID readers are used in the registration and final destination check-in process for evacuees.
"We wanted to enhance our existing emergency evacuation planning strategy with a new system for tracking and locating evacuees," Jack Colley, chief, Texas Governor's Division of Emergency Management, said in a news release, at the time of the systems launch. "We are confident that the statewide emergency- evacuation tracking system will not only help save lives and effectively ascertain the location of the displaced citizens, but it will also provide the state with the ability to update the families of the evacuees and effectively allocate search-and-rescue resources. The RFID solution will improve the GDEM's command and control management of large-scale disasters within the state by enabling officials to efficiently allocate valuable emergency resources."
This Digital Communities white paper highlights discussions with IT officials in four counties that have adopted shared services models. Our aim was to learn about the obstacles these governments have faced when it comes to shared services and what it takes to overcome those roadblocks. We also spoke with several members of the IT industry who have thought long and hard about these issues. The paper offers some best practices for shared government-to-government services, but also points out challenges that government and industry still must overcome before this model gains widespread adoption. | <urn:uuid:cb215169-1305-454e-918a-e8b948bbc831> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.digitalcommunities.com/articles/Sheltering-a-Sex-Offender-in-Texas.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951622 | 918 | 1.5625 | 2 |
py.test, aka we-don't-need-no-stinking-API unit test suite, is an alternative, more Pythonic way of writing your tests. The best part is, the overhead for creating unit tests is close to zero!
For example, assume you have a prime generator in module prime.py, and you'd want to write a simple test for it (if you don't know it, a prime is a non-negative integer being divisible only by 1 and itself, and the first prime is 2). Now, you should know that it would be probably wise to start writing test suite before you actually write any code for prime generator itself, because it makes the whole process of software development less error prone as well as less ad-hoc, but I digress. Let's get on with the test:
That's it - you have a working, albeit far from complete, test suite you can run by giving the test file as argument for py.test. If you saved above snippet to file test_primegen.py, you could run the tests by simply saying
However, let us assume you'd like to extend the test suite a bit further - add a second test for testing primality using instance method isprime():
1 from prime import PrimeGenerator 2 3 def test_first_primes(): 4 pg = PrimeGenerator() 5 6 assert pg.first_primes(6) == [2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13] 7 8 def test_primality(): 9 pg = PrimeGenerator() 10 11 known_primes = (17, 19, 23, 29, 31) 12 known_nonprimes = (21, 27, 33, 49) 13 14 for p in known_primes: 15 assert pg.isprime(p) 16 for np in known_nonprimes: 17 assert not pg.isprime(np)
It is nice and everything, but now there are two issues. First, if you have many tests, it is bothersome to write pg = PrimeGenerator() in every method - ok, not that bothersome, but in programming, being lazy in particular way is not only elegant, but saves your from errors and other problems in the future, trust me.
The other issue is that if your method isprime() is not working correctly, you do see the error, but you don't see what number triggered the error. Let's fix these two problems at next attempt.
1 from prime import PrimeGenerator 2 3 class TestPrime: 4 5 def setup_class(self): 6 self.pg = PrimeGenerator() 7 8 def test_first_primes(self): 9 # come to think of it, wrap left side inside list() so that 10 # generator methods work as well 11 assert list(self.pg.first_primes(start=5, 4)) == [5, 7, 11, 13] 12 13 def _isprime(self, n, expected): 14 assert self.pg.isprime(n) == expected 15 16 def test_isprime(self): 17 known_primes = (17, 19, 23, 29, 31) 18 known_nonprimes = (21, 27, 33, 49) 19 20 for p in known_primes: 21 yield self._isprime, p, True 22 23 for np in known_nonprimes: 24 yield self._isprime, np, False
What happen, you say? Jokes aside, you should notice that first off, you no longer need to setup prime generator instance in every method - setup_class() takes care of instantiating needed object. Secondly, test_isprime() looks now a tad more exotic - it uses generator expression yield for generating tests on the fly. Now if your prime generator fails, you see the exact error - ie. what argument failed to give the correct, expected result.
Oh, one little confession: I did a bit more in addition to those two changes above. For testing statements which return lists, it might be advisable to add extra list() around the statement. Then your test suite works both for list returning methods as well as those using generator expressions. Or you can circumvent the problem by using method generators - as shown in the second test method. I also added a new (keyword?) parameter start to first_primes() - thus specifying where the prime sequence should start, duh. Hmm... perhaps stop could be specified as well, specifying the range to search primes from? Or should we introduce a whole different method for that kind of thing?
These are decisions you have to make, and perhaps you already realized one very nice aspect of TestDrivenDevelopment (TDD); if you write your tests before the code, you really have to think of your API quite thoroughly, which is a good thing. Just imagine fiddling with a method for days, debugging it, optimizing, documenting.. only to realise later you don't need the method at all! So, write tests first, if only to get your API right the first time.
You may now wonder - please do! - how py.test knows which methods to run. Well, there has to be some magic going on behind the scenes, because you don't see any testsuite.run(method) or testsuite.add(class_instance) etc. Well, you're right. There is some serious magic going on and here there be dragons, but the programmer API is very simple. It's all transparent.
That is, every class starting with Test and every method starting with test_ is treated specially and considered to be part of unit test suite. Also, assert is very magic, but you don't need to know that... just use it as you are, well, used to Things are that way just to give you cleaner, more informative tracebacks, and more fulfilling and rewarding unit-testing experience.
There are so many oh-so-nice features in py.test, making it quite cute tool to work with. Here I will only list some of them:
- tests are run in the order you specify them, making tests both deterministic and predictable
- you can ask py.test to abort on first error encountered using -x option
- running tests will start immediately upon collecting them
- you can start py.test in daemon mode, which will then constantly monitor your modules for changes and running tests automatically when needed
So, if you consider giving TestDrivenDevelopment a try, please try py.test at least. It makes writing unit tests much more fun
Still more information: | <urn:uuid:ed9db3bf-a011-47a5-b90f-8024fa9cfd42> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wiki.python.org/moin/PyTest?highlight=%28%28API%29%29 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.90426 | 1,372 | 2.3125 | 2 |
Couple of interesting articles today regarding two of the country’s most vilified industries.
Mark Clayton at the Christian Science Monitor breaks down the efforts of House Democrats to cut $14 billion in tax breaks and financial incentives for big oil over the next 10 years and shift them to renewable energy. Clayton does a good job of explaining what is and isn’t on the chopping block.
For instance, two important breaks worth about $2 billion a year aren’t on the chopping block. One allows “smaller, independent oil companies to deduct 15 percent of sales revenue to reflect the declining value of their investment.” The other “permits big oil companies to immediately deduct 70 percent of their “intangible drilling costs,” such as the cost of wages, supplies, and site preparation. Smaller companies are permitted to deduct all of those costs.”
There’s also a nice graphic, compiled by an organization called Earth Track, breaking down where the nation’s energy subsidies went in 2006. Not surprisingly, oil and gas got the lion’s share at $39 billion, easily outpacing second-place nuclear’s $9 billion and third-place coal’s $8 billion. Interestingly though, half the subsidy was attributed to defense costs to keep sea lanes open for oil transport in the Persian Gulf (it does not count direct Iraq war spending.)
Big tobacco was also in someone’s crosshairs Thursday from the looks of a story published in the Boston Globe. Staff writer Stephen Smith writes about a new Harvard study that concludes “data supplied by tobacco companies strongly suggest that in recent years manufacturers deliberately boosted nicotine levels in cigarettes to more effectively hook smokers.”
The study, conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health, found “that the amount of nicotine that could be inhaled from cigarettes increased an average of 10 percent from 1998 through 2004.”
It’s well worth a read. | <urn:uuid:13665618-b51b-4d9f-ad14-f2d2cb4f8299> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.mysanantonio.com/environment/2007/01/anton-caputo-dems-take-shot-at-big-oil-harvard-accuses-big-tobacco-of-juicing-smokes/?gta=commentlistpos | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950999 | 407 | 1.695313 | 2 |
February 2011 Inspire!
Creative Homeschool Teaching Strategies
February 2011 Inspire!
As a Learning Guide, you may have heard your child question the importance of diagramming or insist that a particular story is so boring, he can't read it. Whether the "problem" subject is grammar, math, history, or science, incorporating creative teaching techniques will not only motivate your child to want to learn more but he may even end up actually liking the subject.
(Or at least tolerate it!) Below, some of our Calvert families share their creative teaching techniques.
Grammar - Think BIG! (Anonymous)
Try this technique to make diagramming sentences fun and easy to correct.
1. Write the sentence to be diagrammed in marker on plain paper in good-size print.
2. Next, have your child cut apart the words of the sentence.
3. Draw a reusable skeleton frame for the diagram on an oversized sheet of paper. (Note: You can make separate add-on pieces for compound subjects or objects, and prepositional phrases.)
4. Have your child arrange the words on the frame. Correct errors by moving the pieces of paper.
World History – Go Globe-Trotting! (Elizabeth DeBarros, Reston, Virginia)
This exercise helps encourage independent learning and fosters an understanding of new cultures.
1. Once a week, spin a globe and let your child stop it with his finger. (If you do not have a globe, use a world map and ask your child to randomly point to a spot.)
2. Have your child research the destination such as the country's capital, population, primary language, and popular exports. He can record his findings in a notebook or on the computer.
3. Discuss what your child learned about the country as you go through your world history curriculum.
Reading – Family Book Club (Mary Alice Ross, Berkley Springs, West Virginia)
Reading aloud can help your child better understand stories that have challenging vocabulary or dialect. It also strengthens verbal and analytical skills.
1. Take the day's reading assignment and sit down as a family and read it aloud. If you want to include your spouse, schedule the readings before or after your traditional school day.
2. After each chapter, discuss themes and events by asking questions such as "Would you have acted the same way? Do you see this character changing? What do you see happening here?"
3. Have your child answer first and then add your own input.
Vocabulary – Go Fishing (Sharen R. Hodgdon, Barnstead, New Hampshire)
This fun game challenges your child to use new vocabulary words in proper context.
1. Cut index cards in half and write words on them from your child's known and studied vocabulary.
2. Make sure there are at least two of the pronouns (I, We, He, and She) and an equal number of verbs and nouns. NOTE: You can use colored index cards and designate a color for each category.
3. The game is played like "Go Fish" except that the first person to make a complete sentence "wins." The winner gets to write his sentence or email it to a friend or relative.
Writing – Break Through Writer's Block (Courtesy of Laurel Schmidt, author of Seven Times Smarter: 50 Activities, Games and Projects to Develop the Seven Intelligences in Your Child)
Here is a process that allows a visual and/or kinesthetic child to use mapping and color-coding to reduce writer's block and produce some pretty solid writing.1. Get a big sheet of paper and some colored marking pens. Hang the paper on a wall and stand or spread out on a floor and sprawl. Kinesthetic learners do better when they can move around.
2. Now pose a question---the first of many. "What is one idea that belongs in this essay?" It does not have to be the main idea, or the first, just an idea. Your child can pick a pen, write the idea in big letters, and circle it. If he is a visual learner, he may be more successful if he starts with a quick sketch or cartoon to capture the big ideas before adding words.
3. Ask again, "What is another idea?" Change pens and write. Repeat the process until the main ideas are all spread out on the paper, like colored targets.
4. Ask your child to choose one idea and focus. Ask, "What are some things you know about this idea?" He can then jot down words, phrases, or sentence fragments in the same color. These jottings furnish the details of a paragraph. Move from circle to circle, until a web of words surrounds each idea. This helps visual learners see each paragraph as a cluster of related words and ideas.
5. If you are working on developing rich language, go back and brainstorm adjectives for some of the phrases.
6. Now it is time to structure the writing. Which idea comes first? Which next? Where's the big finish? Kids love Post-its, so give your reluctant writer a stack and have him number them starting at one. Then ask him to stick the Post-its on the main ideas, identifying the sequence of the first draft. At this point, your child will have a color-coded, detailed map of the task and lots of words to jumpstart the writing.
7. Take a stretch break or get a snack and go back to writing. Again, since writing is a process, your child does not have to start with the first paragraph. He can choose the most appealing or fully developed idea and write that paragraph first. The success of getting started will get the juices flowing, so the rest will be easier to tackle.
8. Do not let them get hung up on the opening sentence. It is a tough one for all writers. Sometimes it is written last. Just work piece by piece until they have a first draft.
9. Take another break. Writing is strenuous mental work. Kids need to get away from the first draft and do something physical. Later they can re-read it with fresh eyes and have some fun editing and polishing.
10. Do a little assessment. Ask which sentence is their best. What is the most interesting part of the whole piece? Why? What part was easiest to write? And don't forget to heap on the praise. Writers crave it. Kids thrive on it. Who knows? Eventually you may have a Hemingway in the house.
Do you have helpful teaching tips that you would like to share with us? Please email us your tips and we may publish it in a future edition of Inspire!
Continue the fun of teaching and learning with these books recommended by our Education Counselors.
For Younger Children
The Scrambled States of America by Laurie Keller
Funny and Fabulous Fraction Stories by Dan Greenberg
The Everything Kids' Science Experiments Book: Boil Ice, Float Water, Measure Gravity-Challenge the World Around You! by Tom Robinson
For Older Children
The Declaration of Independence by Sam Fink
Janice VanCleave's Biology For Every Kid: 101 Easy Experiments That Really Work by Janice VanCleave
The Complete Backyard Nature Activity Book: Fun Projects for Kids to Learn About the Wonders of Wildlife and Nature by Robin Michal Koontz | <urn:uuid:6e42db6c-ece7-4b3e-b7e0-dd13578ddc89> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://homeschool.calvertschool.org/about-home-schooling/homeschool-tips/creative-teaching-strategies | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929542 | 1,526 | 3.921875 | 4 |
Scotland - Gods Green Land
When God created the world he made a place of perfection - Scotland. It had green rolling hills in the south, fertile plains in the middle and stark barren places of awesome beauty in the north. In this land he placed a people of wit, intelligence and a goodly nature - 'the Scots'. He gifted them with the finest spirit known to man (whisky), the finest food (lorne 'flat' sausage) and even the humble coo was made superior. However, to ensure that the other nations of the world did not feel a huge jealousy to these 'scots', he gave them the biggest bunch of barsteward neighbors you can imagine.
When barbs moved to England he constantly annoyed his English acquaintances by boasting about how great Scotland was. Finally, in exasperation, one said, "Well, if Scotland's so marvellous, how come you didn't stay there?" "Well," explained barbs "they're all so clever up there I had to come down here to have any chance of making it at all". | <urn:uuid:8c2fb96e-7406-439d-8dfd-ff1b36320ac3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.arrse.co.uk/wiki/Scotland | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971772 | 219 | 2.265625 | 2 |
Abu Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Muadh Al-Jayyani
989 - 1079
Al-Jayyani was an Islamic mathematician working in Spain. He wrote important commentaries on Euclid's Elements and he wrote the first treatise on spherical trigonometry.
|Full MacTutor biography||[Version for printing]|
|List of References (7 books/articles)|
JOC/EFR © November 1999
The URL of this page is: | <urn:uuid:0a0fa5d9-9c85-4af1-a265-7abd59dd80e3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Al-Jayyani.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.90948 | 97 | 2.3125 | 2 |
Mr. Green Car: Is there a slime pond in your future?
By Allen Penticoff
First of all, I hope everyone had a merry Christmas and is looking forward to a prosperous New Year.
Back to biofuels. The last two Mr. Green Car columns were about biodiesel and plants that produce oil. We’ll continue that vein, and look at the future of farmed fuel with an exploration of algae-sourced fuel.
What I’ve found so far is that there is a great deal of promise in algae, but so many technical and economic hurdles that we may not see common usage unless there are some breakthroughs.
Most of the research is focused on micro-algae, those that are very small, your typical backyard pond scum.
This is quite unlike macro-algae, of which seaweed is a type, though the latter holds some promise, too.
Algae can be grown in waste-water-treatment-released water, where there are many nutrients, and it can be grown in saltwater and water with high salinity, freeing freshwater sources from energy production needs. To “turbo-charge” the growth of algae, a source of clean carbon dioxide is necessary. Some experiments have shown that smokestacks may be a good source of carbon dioxide. Thus, algae production facilities may be co-located with power plants and other smokestack industries, with the obvious benefits of cleaning their air while turning it into fuel.
Algae can be grown in tubes, called bioreactors or photobioreactors (PBR). These closed systems require that nutrients and carbon dioxide be pumped through them, but they have the advantage of remaining nearly sterile, with little exposure to other strains of algae, viruses or other pollutants.
Most research is being conducted in PBRs. However, it is apparent this is the most costly way to grow oil-producing algae. Open pond systems can be created and operated at far lower costs, but they have not yet been very successful with them. To grow a mono-culture algae in an open pond system, the algae strain needs to be very resilient to the airborne problems mentioned earlier, and this has proven to be problematic.
Algae that have lower oil yields do better in open pond systems. Thus, the trade-off may be the expensive, closed, high-yielding crop, or the very large, lesser-yielding crop. Compared to more common field crops, algae can be harvested every one to 10 days. Thus, it is claimed algae may be able to produce vastly more oil per acre than conventional crops.
Algae would be a good crop in arid, sunny areas with poor or drought-stricken soil and high salinity in the water supply, thereby not being in competition with food crops for land use. Algae grown in tubes could be grown in nearly any place with access to the carbon dioxide and nutrient-rich water and sunlight they need.
I have also found that after the algae has its oil extracted, the biomass that remains can be processed into other transportation-friendly products, such as Biobutanol, which is very similar to gasoline and is claimed to run in gasoline engines without modification and when blended with gasoline. Biobutanol also provides better performance and corrosion resistance than ethanol or E85. Biogasoline can be made from algae and similar biomasses. And methane can be made from the decomposing algae, too—an energy source we are now harvesting from our landfills to heat homes, produce electricity and power vehicles.
Two companies—Solazyme and Sapphire Energy—are making “Green Crude” from algae. The oil is similar to light, sweet crude, and can be refined as mineral crude is, by hydrocracking into fuels such as gasoline, diesel and jet fuel.
Sapphire Energy provided 50 gallons of biogasoline (5 percent algae gas) to drive a plug-in Toyota Prius, Algaeus, across the U.S. in September 2009, promoting the documentary film Fields of Fuel (sometimes called just Fuel). Sapphire Energy’s goal is to produce 1 billion gallons of algae fuel by 2025. Solarzyme uses a different process, and has a diesel Mercedes run on its fuel to promote the film as well.
Also, bioplastics can be made from plants, their oils and biomass. Bioplastics are also biodegradable—some of which are in the marketplace right now. (It is my belief that, if you do have biodegrable plastics, dispose of them so that they go to the landfill to decompose. Eventually, the methane gas from them decomposing can be used as a fuel. They will not decompose in your garden.)
As I said in my last column about nature’s fuel, the most effective use of plant-generated oil, algae included, is to use it in a diesel engine that has been modified to operate on straight vegetable oil (SVO). In this manner, the lesser amount of additional energy, processing, chemicals and residual product there is to deal with. Grow, squeeze, drive is about all it takes.
Encouraging as “Green Crude” is, we probably will not be seeing much impact in the near term with mineral oil prices being held in check by the world economic recession. A few breakthroughs here and there may change that picture, though—and you never know when one will come along. A lot of companies and governments are trying to make green fuel happen.
From the Dec. 30, 2009 – Jan. 5, 2010 issue
Print This Article | <urn:uuid:07203c7d-8065-4716-8be2-29b78509a1f8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://rockrivertimes.com/2009/12/30/mr-green-car-is-there-a-slime-pond-in-your-future/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963067 | 1,168 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Midland eager to capitalize on culture
Mayor says proposed plan will help residents reap economic benefits, enjoyment
MIDLAND – While having the right infrastructure in place is important to a town’s success, Midland Mayor Gord McKay said it’s also vital to have a healthy cultural community.
“A lot of people think building a community is all about plowing streets and making sure you have sewers, but people live off of the culture,” he said when asked about the town’s plan to move forward with a municipal cultural plan.
“Restaurants? Public squares? Arts events? All of these speak to the culture of a town. Each community has its own style of culture.”
Council approved a staff recommendation Monday night to adopt terms of reference and form a steering committee to help direct the plan in its early stages.
The need for a cultural plan was first identified in the council strategy a year or so ago, noted Bryan Peter, the town’s director of parks and recreation.
“The municipal cultural plan will provide an inventory of cultural assets, along with a plan/recommendations on how the municipality can facilitate the development of the cultural sector in the community for such priorities as tourism, cultural development and economic benefits,” he told The Mirror, adding it will provide direction for council, the cultural community and staff.
McKay pointed out Peter has long been interested in mapping the culture of the area, adding communities are beginning to understand that culture is a major driver in a town’s economy.
“This has been picked up more recently by council as part of our strategic plan,” he said, adding the availability of $40,000 in provincial funding to help pay for the plan spurred them to move at this time. “(We) wanted to jump on an opportunity.”
The town will provide an addition $12,000, which was approved in the 2013 budget.
The challenge Midland has faced in the past, McKay acknowledged, is pulling all the disparate pieces together. Although the town boasts many creative people, the ability to integrate has been an issue, he said, although the addition of the Midland Cultural Centre has been a big step forward.
“We suddenly have a stage for all these good artists,” he said. “What this plan will do is bring together all the different parts and show them how we can work co-operatively … to drive the health of our community.
“Culture is really what attracts people and makes them enjoy their community.”
McKay said the plan should be complete within the year.
The process will involve setting up a steering committee, reviewing and confirming the terms of reference, sending out a request for proposal to qualified consulting firms, and recommending one to council.
As for what will occur after the plan is complete, McKay insisted it will not simply collect dust.
“There’s no point having a plan that just sits on the shelf,” he said, adding the town will be looking for partners to implement certain items. “I am trying to change the whole mentality that, every time there’s a new idea, we just point at the town and they put it on the tax base. That’s not what’s going to happen here.” | <urn:uuid:5ce181a6-db78-40be-8088-74157ec77ef3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.simcoe.com/news-story/2074659-midland-eager-to-capitalize-on-culture/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961478 | 696 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Kitchen Staples for the Holidays
The holidays are quickly approaching, and there are certain food items that you’re going to need to have on-hand in your kitchen. Some of these items are:
Butter: Buy good quality unsalted butter. Butter is used in cookies, pie crusts, and sauces. If you purchase unsalted butter you can control the flavor and seasoning of your particular dish.
Flour: I like to use unbleached flour. It has a better taste, and hasn’t been stripped of nutrients like bleached flour has. I also like to keep a small bag of whole wheat, rice, rye, cake, semolina, and pastry flour on-hand.
Heavy Cream: During the holidays I use heavy cream in sauces, and in my homemade caramel. Heavy cream is also good in coffee, and essential as a topping for those homemade pies. If you haven’t ever had homemade whipped cream, it’s easy to make and worth the extra effort. In addition to heavy cream, I like to have regular milk, buttermilk, skim, almond, rice, soy milk, and half and half.
Yogurt: Greek yogurt has become quite popular over the past few years. It’s thick, creamy texture makes it perfect for breakfast. Good quality yogurt can also be used in quick breads to add moisture and flavor. I also use yogurt as a base in many sauces and dips that call for mayonnaise to help reduce the fat and calorie content.
Eggs: I go through a lot of eggs when I make cookies and quick breads- they’re also nice to have around when relatives visit so I can make over-easy eggs, omelets, eggs benedict, buttermilk pancakes, and waffles. Eggs are also used in crème anglaise- a light, sweet custard sauce served with cakes, pies and other treats.
Salt: I like to experiment with different types of salt. I always have regular, sea-salt, and kosher salt. Try mixing it up with volcanic sea salt, Fleur de Sel (salt from the coastal salt ponds in France), rock salt, and pickling salt. Specialty spice shops have countless types of flavored salts.
Leavening agents: Baking powder, and baking soda
Yeast: I like the dry variety- you can also purchase cake yeast in the dairy section in most local supermarkets.
Spices: For baking: Cinnamon, nutmeg (fresh ground makes a big difference), allspice, ginger and cloves. Other dried spices include, sage, rosemary, cumin, dill, oregano, thyme, coriander, curry powder, peppercorns, saffron, chili powder, celery seed, onion and garlic powder, and arrowroot. Try making your own spice blends using an automatic coffee grinder.
Corn Starch: Corn starch is used as a thickening agent for soups, gravies, and sauces.
Bread: I always like to have a lot of fresh bread around. During the holidays I like to experiment with different types of stuffing, bread puddings and French toast. Don’t throw away that old bread- put it in your food processor and make bread crumbs.
Maple Syrup: Spend a few more bucks and get good quality, organic, Vermont maple syrup.
Sugars: I use quite a bit of sugar during the holidays in my baking. Make sure to have regular, powdered, granulated, dark, and light brown sugar.
Honey: I’m a huge fan of honey- I use it daily in sauces, dressings, and as a sweetener.
Non-Stick Sprays: These are all essentially the same. I use them when baking quick-breads, and cookies.
Assorted Nuts: I use tons of nuts when I bake. I also put nuts on salads, and in stuffing. Try roasting, and making candied nuts during the holidays. Some nut varieties include: cashew, macadamia, Spanish, hazelnut, almonds, chestnuts, regular peanuts, pecans, pine-nuts and walnuts.
Oats: I have several cookie recipes that call for oats. Steel-cut, regular, and instant oats are also used in some of my bread recipes.
Chicken and Beef Stock: I go through quite a bit of stock during the holidays. Homemade is best, but flavored stocks bought in supermarkets are quite good too. I use stocks as flavoring agents in sauces, stocks and soups.
Chocolate: I have a lot of chocolate in my cupboards during the holidays. I keep semi-sweet, milk, and white chocolate chips around. I also have bulk chocolate in the same varieties- Callebaut is my favorite brand, and is available in most specialty, and restaurant supply stores.
Oils: I’m a huge fan of good extra-virgin olive oil. I also buy regular olive oil, veggie, flaxseed, coconut, walnut, peanut, sunflower and canola oil.
Coconut: Coconut is perfect for cookies and other baked goods. In addition to flaked coconut, I also use coconut milk in a lot of my sauces and baked goods. Light coconut milk is available if you’re trying to cut calories.
Sweetened Condensed Milk: This product is used in a myriad of baked goods, and most importantly of all, pumpkin pie!
Canned Pumpkin: Canned pumpkin has its obvious use (pumpkin pie) but is also used in breads, cookies, soups, curries, and stews. Make sure to buy the unsweetened variety so you can control the sweetness and seasonings.
These are just a few of the food items I like to keep in my kitchen. What are some of your favorite must-haves? Let me know and I will post them!
Chef Chuck Kerber | <urn:uuid:2c030639-0daf-429c-b72e-2e58ce3c2ed3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://pittsburghhotplate.com/tag/soups | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948929 | 1,255 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Mechelen (locally pronounced , French Malines, English traditional name Mechlin)Cite error 3; Invalid call; invalid keys, e.g. too many or wrong key specified is a Dutch-speaking city and municipality in the province of Antwerp, Flanders, Belgium. The municipality comprises the city of Mechelen proper, some quarters at its outskirts, the hamlets of Nekkerspoel (adjacent) and Battel (a few kilometers away), as well as the villages of Walem, Heffen, Leest, Hombeek, and Muizen. The Dijle flows through the city, hence the term 'Dijlestad' ("City on the river Dijle").
Mechelen lies on the major urban and industrial axis Brussels-Antwerp, about 25 km from each city. Inhabitants find employment at Mechelen's southern industrial and northern office estates, as well as at offices or industry near the capital and Zaventem Airport, or at industrial plants near Antwerp's seaport.
Mechelen is one of Flanders' prominent cities of historical art, with Antwerp, Bruges, Brussels, Ghent, and Leuven. It was notably a centre for artistic production during the Northern Renaissance, when painters, printmakers, illuminators and composers of polyphony were attracted by patrons such as Margaret of York, Margaret of Austria and Jeroen Van Busleyden.
Archaeological proof of habitation during the La Tène era in the triangle Brussels-Leuven-Antwerp, mainly concentrated around Mechelen which originated in wetlands, includes an 8.4 metre long canoe cut from an oak tree trunk and a settlement of about five wooden houses, at Nekkerspoel.
The area of Mechelen was settled on the banks of the river during the Gallo-Roman period as evidenced by several Roman ruins and roads. Upon Rome's declining influence, during 3rd–4th centuries the area became inhabited by Germanic tribes, a few centuries later Christianized assumedly by the Irish or Scottish missionary St. Rumbold, (Rombout in Dutch), who would have also built a monastery.
Around 1200 started the building of the cathedral that is dedicated to the saint.
Antwerp lost profitable stapelrechten (rights as first seller) for wool, oats and salt to Mechelen in 1303 when John II, Duke of Brabant, granted City rights to the town. This started a rivalry between these cities that would last well into the 20th century.
In the 15th century, the city came under the rule of the Dukes of Burgundy, marking the beginning of a prosperous period. In 1473 Charles the Bold moved several political bodies to the city, and Mechelen served as the seat of the Superior Court until the French Revolution. In 1490, a regular postal service between Mechelen and Innsbruck was established.
The highly lucrative cloth trade gained Mechelen wealth and power during the Late Middle Ages and it even became the capital of the Low Countries (very roughly the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg) in the first half of the 16th century under Archduchess Margaret of Austria.
During the 16th century the city's political influence decreased dramatically, due to many governmental institutions being moved to Brussels. The city compensated for this by increased attention in the religious arena: in 1559 it was proclaimed the Archdiocese of Mechelen, for Belgium not sharing this title with Brussels until 1961. In 1572, during the Eighty Years' War, the city was burned and sacked by the Spanish. After this pillaging, the city was rebuilt. It was during this time that the tradition of furniture making, still seen today, began. In 1781, Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor, ordered the destruction of the city's fortified walls – their former location however continues to be referred to in the Latin terms intra muros (within the walls) and extra muros (outside), and meanwhile the site became that of the inner ring road.
The city entered the industrial age in the 19th century. In 1835, the first railway on the European continent linked Brussels with Mechelen, which became the hub of the Belgian railway network. This led to a development of metalworking industries, among others the central railway workshops which are still located in the town today. During World War II, the extensive MechlinianCite error 3; Invalid call; invalid keys, e.g. too many or wrong key specified railway structure had caused the Nazi occupation forces to choose Mechelen for their infamous transit camp.
Several famous meetings on the Christian religion are connected to the name of the city. One in 1909 is thought to have inaugurated the Liturgical Movement. Between 1921 and 1925 a series of unofficial conferences, known as the Malines Conversations,Cite error 3; Invalid call; invalid keys, e.g. too many or wrong key specified presided over by Cardinal Mercier and attended by Anglican divines and laymen, including Lord Halifax, was the most significant of early attempts at the reconciliation between the Anglican and Roman Catholic Churches. | <urn:uuid:c450f0ff-bc2b-4072-abe6-3665f95d9a52> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.werelate.org/wiki/Place:Mechelen,_Antwerpen,_Belgium | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965304 | 1,096 | 2.75 | 3 |
The Rolling Stones Book Monthly was a British fanzine from June 1964 to November 1966.
It was produced by Beat Publishing (the same company that published The Beatles Book Monthly).
Each issue featured 32-pages of information including news, facts, pictures and more.
The editorial in each issue says it was written by one of the Stones.
The hardest (and thus most valuable) issue to find is the last one – #30. But the first two issues are also scarce. | <urn:uuid:0c46842a-0607-461c-9e8a-82cb441a1dc1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.myvintagegeneration.com/2011/07/the-rolling-stones-book-monthly/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00064-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979537 | 99 | 1.664063 | 2 |
From Natural WellBeing
Ledebouriella divaricata Root (Fang Feng Herb)
Fang Feng, a Chinese herb also known as Ledebouriella divaricata root, has been prized throughout the centuries for its medicinal properties. Traditionally, Fang Feng was used to treat ailments ranging from common Colds to Arthritis. Today, thousands of people continue to use this herb to treat a number of internal and external symptoms.
The Origin and History of Fang Feng
The name Fang Feng originates from the phrase, "guard against wind." In the past, wind was considered dangerous because people believed it carried germs and spread diseases. It can also be applied to the body's internal system where infection can spread as quickly as the wind. Either way, this medicinal plant got its name from its ability to protect the human body from any health threats whether they are internal or external. The healing properties of the Ledebouriella divaricata root have been known for centuries. According to ancient Chinese wisdom, this herb can help ward off a variety of infections and diseases. Most Ledebouriella divaricata roots are grown in the province of Heilongjiang where it is prepared according to ancient traditions.
Ancient Uses of Fang Feng
Since it was first discovered, the Chinese used the Ledebouriella divaricata root to improve their health as well as to treat a variety of diseases. In particular, the herb was widely considered to be effective medicine for common colds. It was used to treat symptoms such as chills, fever, and throat pain. Since colds often spread from one person to another, the Ledebouriella divaricata root got its name as a protector from the wind. In ancient times, not much was known about infectious diseases or even the common cold. Modern medicine was not yet invented and ancient doctors did not understand what caused sickness or how to treat it. What they did know was that herbs could significantly improve health and help people get over being sick faster. The Ledebouriella divaricata was one of the herbs widely used throughout China.
Modern Uses of Fang Feng
People still rely on Fang Feng to help them get better today. There are many benefits and uses for the Ledebouriella divaricata root. It relieves symptoms associated with the common cold or flu such as chills, body aches, and Headaches. People who have Arthritis can benefit by ingesting Fang Feng as it can significantly reduce rheumatic pains. It can also be used for body spasms or to stop trembling of the feet and hands. Fang Feng can even be used to treat rashes and allergic reactions that affect the skin.
Side Effects and Cautionary Measures of using Fang Feng
Remember to only use the appropriate dosage for your body weight, height and your age. Do not take more than recommended. In most cases, the dose should be between 3 and 9 grams. People who feel weak or have anemia should not use Ledebouriella. As with all other medicine, you should be very careful and listen to your body when taking Fang Feng. If used correctly, it can provide many benefits, but you should be careful before beginning any new medical regimens. When in doubt you should always consult a medical doctor or a qualified herbalist. | <urn:uuid:ef57b1a3-07ed-4b0c-94bb-9051b134b824> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.naturalwellbeing.com/learning-center/index.php?title=Fang_Feng&oldid=2167 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965757 | 681 | 2.8125 | 3 |
Most Active Stories
News & Music Contributors
Learning 'mental' first aid, before the next crisis
In the wake of the recent murder spree at Café Racer, there have been questions about how to get help for someone whose mental health is deteriorating. Social service agencies are filling part of the gap, by training volunteers to provide what they call "mental health first aid."
The idea comes by comparison to CPR – a type of first aid any of us can learn. The mental health version is a 12-hour course for anyone who wants to be better equipped to help someone in a mental health crisis.
The training originated in Australia. It was adapted in the U.S. by the National Council for Community Behavioral Healthcare, which represents mental health agencies and non-profits.
It doesn’t teach you to be a counselor, but, rather, how to get someone who’s suicidal or hearing voices stabilized long enough to get a counselor involved. Part of the training allows participants to experience a little of what it feels like for a schizophrenic, for example, which was described in detail in this earlier NPR story.
Nationally, more than 60,000 people have been through the training in the last four years. In Washington, nearly 2,000 have been trained, including police officers, firefighters and other first-responders.
In Seattle, Mike Johnson brought the training to Seattle’s Union Gospel Rescue Mission, which serves homeless people. He’s personally trained 75 people (and is offering another training session on July 5-7 in West Seattle).
It gives staff and volunteers “… a real primer in depression and anxiety, and psychosis, substance abuse disorders and eating disorders. And it gives them that learning that removes the mystique, and it gives them a real, concrete five-step action plan that is the same in each situation, but will be tailored depending on the crisis,” says Johnson.
He sees it as a way to prevent situations where the police need to be called. The Rescue Mission makes wide use of volunteers, and Johnson envisions having a corps of well-trained volunteers who walk the streets of downtown, helping to defuse situations where homeless people are acting strangely.
Beyond the homeless
But, the skills are meant to apply far beyond the homeless. Research from Australia shows one of the biggest benefits is giving you the confidence to approach someone who appears disturbed, whether it's a neighbor or family-member. It also helps you recognize different types of mental illness.
Other organizations offer the training in Bremerton, Lakewood and Olympia, according to the website that lists upcoming trainings.
A different, more intensive training is available for people who work with trauma victims. It's called Pschological First Aid, promoted by the Department of Veterans Affairs.
This video is a role-playing enactment of how someone might use the training, as posted by Mental Health First Aid USA:
diversion from jails and hospitals
Mentally Ill Juveniles | <urn:uuid:8083ab04-87c3-441c-8919-bd5343dedd18> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kplu.org/post/learning-mental-first-aid-next-crisis?ft=1&f= | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00062-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951774 | 614 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Q My car's right brake light won't work when the headlights are on, although it's fine when they're off. I've tried changing the bulb. Any ideas?
A Electrical systems can show a perverse creativity in the difficulties they present. Taillight bulbs that double as brake lights have two filaments. If a filament burns out, one of the functions goes out with it. Installing a monofilament bulb in a dual-function socket can have the same effect. If you have the right bulb with two good filaments, the likely culprit is either a bad ground connection in the bulb socket or a poor connection that, when there's greater demand on the electrical system, prevents adequate voltage from reaching the bulb.
Q My 1986 Toyota truck, with 20,000 miles on a rebuilt engine, has two problems. First, the engine knocks on acceleration when it has regular (87 octane) gas. Switching to 89 octane cures the knock, but it's supposed to run on regular. Second, it needs a quart of oil (I use 10W40) every 500 to 600 miles. How can I correct them?
THUONG V. LUU
San Jose, California
A Given the esoteric electronic things that can go wrong with modern engines, it's almost like greeting old friends to encounter knocking and excess oil consumption. Knocking happens when gasoline burns in the cylinder before it should. These days, it's usually caused by a timing problem, so check the timing and inspect the distributor for wear, as it may have been reused. You might also try a different brand of gas. As for oil, 10W40 is another blast from the past; it's heavi-er than is proper for most engines of the last 20-odd years. Try 10W30. Still, 600 miles to the quart is pretty grim. It's possible that rings, valve seals, or valve guides have not seated properly, letting oil into the combustion chambers.
Please send car problems to Your Car, VIA, 150 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94102. Send email to firstname.lastname@example.org. Questions will be answered only in the magazine.
This article was first published in September 2004. Some facts may have aged gracelessly. Please call ahead to verify information. | <urn:uuid:b24291a7-703d-4ffa-bfe4-3f084ca9d3ca> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.viamagazine.com/aaa-news-benefits/your-car-let-there-be-light | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00059-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941212 | 475 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Tennessee is one of five states reporting higher than normal flu activity for this time of year.
"We're seeing flu activity across the state and we're seeing widespread activity," said John Dunn, deputy state epidemiologist for the state health department.
Widespread flu activity isn't something the Tennessee Department of Health is used to seeing in early December, and it's not sure what it could mean for the coming months.
"That is a concern that we might have a longer flu season since it's starting earlier," Dunn said.
But why did flu season start early this year? Brian Todd of Metro Nashville's Public Health department has a theory.
"It is coming a little bit early but actually Thanksgiving came a little earlier," Todd said,
You might ask yourself what a holiday has to do with it. The CDC says the airborne virus can infect a person even from a distance of six feet. Todd says the nature of the holiday creates for more contact with loved ones and with strangers.
"People are traveling at Thanksgiving," Todd said. "They're in airports, they're getting together maybe from different areas of the country."
This year thanksgiving landed on the 22nd, two days before 2011, and a full five days before 2008. Todd says that might explain why families are spreading the virus and bringing it home earlier than before.
No matter the reason, health experts say there are ways to protect yourself and your family
"The CDC recommends everyone gets a flu shot," said, Sabrina York, regional clinical director of Little Clinic.
Little Clinic has locations in 13 Kroger supermarkets in Middle Tennessee. York says this year she's seen a boost in people looking to act...before it's too late.
"We've had a lot of people come in for their flu shots over the last few weeks," York said. "Some people started earlier in the season but the last few days we've had a lot more people."
The CDC says families should be on the lookout for symptoms like fever, headaches, fatigue and muscle aches. And experts say, if you do get the disease, stay home from work and school to keep it from spreading.
- Flu Watch - Your online source for information on how to keep your family healthy during this flu season.
Flu Signs and Symptoms
FLU VS. COMMON COLD
Flu Symptoms (more intense than common cold):
- Body aches
- Extreme tiredness
- Dry cough are more common and intense
- Stuffy/runny nose
- Sore throat
- Fever is rare
- Slight body aches
- Mild fatigue
Source: Centers for Disease Control
Ask Questions/Share Your Story
Flu Watch Videos
Asia stocks fall
BANGKOK (AP) -- Asian stock markets fell today as investors waited for the U.S. Federal Reserve to telegraph what it plans to do next with its economic stimulus program.
BC-US--Dow Record-Three Personal Stories, 1st Ld-Writethru,1173
Dow Record: Three tales of ups, downs and changes
AP Photo FX102, FX103
Eds: With BC-US--Dow Record. Adds photos.
By SCOTT MAYEROWITZ
AP Business Writer
NEW YORK (AP) -- When the Dow first crossed 14,000, investors were overjoyed. ...
IN THE NEWS: iPHONE RECOVERED AFTER THEFT IN OREGON
MEDFORD, Ore. (AP) -- A smartphone, plus a not-so-smart criminal -- equals an arrest in Oregon.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- George Washington University students will soon be walking all over the White House and the Capitol, too. | <urn:uuid:01dea36b-4ac6-4e6f-9add-a20e0751b5ea> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fox17.com/newsroom/features/flu-watch/videos/vid_340.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95061 | 770 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Photo by Roberto (Bear) Guerra for KPCC
Undocumented immigrant students stage a sit- in at President Obama's Culver City, Calif. campaign office, June 15, 2012
Whew, what a week it has been. Suspense has been building as the U.S. Supreme Court issues rulings on several cases it has heard this year, but not yet on Arizona's SB 1070 anti-illegal immigration law, on which a decision is expected this month. It's also been just over a week since President Obama announced he'd grant temporary legal status to some young undocumented immigrants, and the logistical challenges are sinking in.
This, plus the fact that immigration from Asia has surpassed that from Latin America, and the continuing runup to the November election. Here are some highlights from the week.
Deferred action: What happens next? It's been more than a week since the Obama administration announced a plan to grant temporary legal status to some young undocumented immigrants who arrived in the United States before age 16 and are no older than 30. But there are many unanswered questions and concerns, not limited to who will qualify, the threat of scams and fraud, and how federal agencies will handle a crush of applications.
Asian America: Half a dozen facts as Asians become the biggest groups of new immigrants As immigration from Latin America has slowed, immigration from Asia has surpassed it. According to a new Pew Research Center report, more immigrants from Asia arrived in the United States in 2010 than from Latin America. The report has met with criticism from some Asian American groups, who say it doesn't sufficiently address major disparities among Asians in the U.S.
Rubio as running mate: Help for Romney, or 'Hispandering?' Republican presidential nominee-apparent Mitt Romney confirmed this week that Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida is being vetted as a potential vice-presidential running mate pick, along with others. And it's brought back the debate over whether Rubio can help steer much-needed Latino voters toward Romney, or whether such a move is perceived as pandering to the Latino electorate.
No ruling on SB 1070; more Supreme Court opinions expected Monday The U.S. Supreme Court is set to rule this month on whether Arizona's controversial 2010 anti-illegal immigration law is preempted by federal law. But so far, the justices this week have held off on issuing a ruling. A synopsis of what the justices are considering, what's at stake for the states, and what the outcome might be.
Poll: Obama’s popularity among Latinos spikes Was President Obama’s recent announcement that he would grant temporary legal status to some undocumented young people a smart political move? It would seem so. A second poll since last week by the Latino Decisions polling firm indicates that among Latinos in five battleground states, Obama maintains a strong lead over GOP rival Mitt Romney. | <urn:uuid:674ea28c-ff58-4785-876e-3f50bfbcf80d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.scpr.org/blogs/multiamerican/2012/06/23/8032/posts-of-the-week-no-ruling-on-sb-1070-whats-next-/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967061 | 579 | 1.75 | 2 |
exhibitions - international terminal
Galleries A1 and G1, International Terminal Main Hall
February 2013 – August 2013
Inspired Design: Shaker Furniture from the Benjamin Rose Collection
View objects from this exhibition
The most successful of all American communal sects, the Shakers first established societies in New York and New England in the last two decades of the 1700s. Members strove to create a divine society—a heaven on earth. Every task they undertook whether large or small was conducted with piety, as the community’s founder, Mother Ann Lee once instructed: “Put your hands to work and your hearts to God.” The Shakers valued honesty, simplicity, utility, and fine craftsmanship. These qualities were thoughtfully embodied in the furniture and handicrafts they produced. From storage chests to oval boxes and baskets, each individual item was constructed with care.
As with their architecture, Shaker furniture eliminated unnecessary ornament, instead, emphasizing clean lines and purity of form. This distinctive Shaker style stems from eighteenth-century American vernacular furniture. Shaker craftsmen imitated conventional forms such as the ladder-back chair and blanket chest, adapting pieces to suit their own aesthetic. From the 1820s to the 1860s, known as the classic period in Shaker design, self-sufficient Shaker communities produced all of their own furnishings. Tables, beds, desks, benches, clocks, and stools were some of the many functional yet refined items they fabricated. Artisans also meticulously crafted built-in wall storage units with drawers and cupboards.
The Shakers made furniture with locally available woods, including maple, cherry, and pine, which they often lightly stained or painted. Many of the pieces feature remarkable joinery. Shaker craftsmen gained a reputation for their outstanding workmanship and sold furniture, baskets, boxes, and other domestic items to the outside World as a means of supporting their communities. The village established at Mount Lebanon, New York, was particularly renowned for the chairs they manufactured for sale.
The Shakers also pioneered the industry of selling seeds in packets and retailed a variety of herbal medicines and
The Shakers viewed progress as a gift and embraced new technologies such as electricity and steam power, which enabled daily labors to be completed more quickly and efficiently. When they became available, craftsmen used circular saws, lathes, and mortising machines, without compromising the quality of their furniture. The Shakers were also innovators and invented a number of new technologies such as a prototype washing machine; the flat broom; waterproof, wrinkle-resistant clothing; and metal
Although Shaker membership and the sale of Shaker goods declined after the Civil War, several communities persevered in smaller numbers. In the 1920s, many museums and private collectors began to take an interest in American folk art and discovered the austere beauty of Shaker furnishings. Shaker forms also influenced modern American and Scandinavian design of the 1950s and 1960s. Inspired Design: Shaker Furniture from the Benjamin Rose Collection features a variety of Shaker furnishings from the communities of Mount Lebanon and Watervliet, New York; Canterbury and Enfield, New Hampshire; Hancock and Harvard, Massachusetts; Enfield, Connecticut; Sabbathday Lake, Maine; and Union Village, Ohio.
Shakers near Lebanon c. 1850s
Brother Delmer Wilson in his shop in front of a bandsaw
Canterbury sisters preparing to go apple picking
Workroom in the Church Family sisters’ shop 1931
Shaker girls working in the garden near the ministry shop and meeting house c.1915
Sister Bertha Mansfield at her loom c. 1870s–1880s
Who Were the Shakers?
Mother Ann Lee (1736–84) left Manchester, England, for New York in 1774 with eight followers, in order to establish a new Christian religious sect. The United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing established their first community in New York in 1776 after several years of traveling throughout the Northeast in search of converts. Early worship involved ecstatic dance, which is why they came to be called the Shakers. Mother Ann Lee’s group believed in pacifism, equality, and living a life of simplicity separated from mainstream society.
The Shakers were not alone in their desire to create an ideal way of life. Many other experimental communities who questioned religious and social norms began to form as early as the late 1700s.
Following Mother Ann Lee’s death, Father James Whittaker (1751–87), who was followed by Father Joseph Meacham (1742–96) and Lucy Wright (1760–1821), helped lead the Shakers in the following decades. A set of Millennial Laws was drafted in 1821 that guided communities in all aspects of life from orderly worship practices and regulated dance to uniform architectural design. The Shakers relinquished the right to hold personal property of any kind, marry, or bear children. Men and women lived together as brothers and sisters, committed to a life of celibacy, and held all material possessions in common.
By 1840, an estimated five thousand or more Shakers lived in nineteen principal communities in New England, New York, Ohio, and Kentucky. Brothers and sisters lived in dormitory accommodations in dwelling houses separated by sex. Males and females used separate stairways, and meeting houses had separate entrances and seating arrangements. Daily labors were also divided by gender. Shaker communities were agriculturally-based. Communities grew their own produce, raised livestock, wove cloth, made finely-crafted furniture, and sold a variety of goods to what they referred to as the [outside] “World.”
This type of communal living may have appealed to many for both spiritual and practical reasons. Membership freed individuals from the responsibility of individual land ownership, while providing converts with clothing, daily meals, and jobs. It also liberated many from the constraints of marriage and childbirth. Although the Shakers chose not to procreate, families with children often joined, and communities also adopted children. At the age of twenty-one, these young adults could either choose to become full covenant members or leave to live in the World.
As the Industrial Revolution and urbanization progressed at a rapid pace during the last few decades of the 1800s, Shaker membership began to dwindle. By 1947, only three Shaker villages remained. Although they faced great changes, these communities persevered, two of them well into the late 1900s. A small group continues to practice the Shaker religion in Sabbathday Lake, Maine. Today, the Shakers are most remembered as an enduring communal sect who produced some of the finest nineteenth-century American domestic furniture.
This exhibition was made possible through a generous loan from Benjamin Rose. Special thanks to Benjamin and Toby Rose for all of their assistance with the exhibition.
©2013 by San Francisco Airport Commission. All rights reserved | <urn:uuid:fbbd539a-14b7-41d1-9306-9574c54e58c5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.SFOLostandFound@flysfo.com/web/page/sfo_museum/exhibitions/international_terminal_exhibitions/shaker/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00047-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961023 | 1,428 | 2.828125 | 3 |
Wed February 20, 2013
How Should The U.S. Respond To Chinese Hacking?
Originally published on Wed March 20, 2013 10:07 am
If the Chinese military is regularly hacking into the computers of U.S. organizations, as an American security firm says, it raises all sorts of questions about how the U.S. should respond.
Is this a job for the military or the intelligence agencies? What role should diplomats and trade officials be playing?
The report issued this week by the IT security consultancy Mandiant says it has traced the hacking activity to the People's Liberation Army's Unit 61398, which has "systematically stolen hundreds of terabytes of data from at least 141 organizations."
As NPR's Frank Langfitt reported, Unit 61398 is headquartered in a nondescript neighborhood in Shanghai's sprawling Pudong district.
The Chinese government has strongly denied the report, but in the U.S., there's been a widespread belief for years that the Chinese have been deeply involved in computer hacking.
Speaking to The Associated Press, Shawn Henry, who now heads security firm CrowdStrike, used a military analogy to describe the current situation.
"If the Chinese government flew planes into our airspace, our planes would escort them away," he said. "If it happened two, three or four times, the president would be on the phone and there would be threats of retaliation."
Martin Libicki, a researcher at the RAND Corp., says while there's still no smoking gun, Beijing's denials have reached the level of "implausible deniability." Even so, he says the hacking can be viewed as essentially an illegal technology transfer.
"How damaging that is to the United States depends on how much the problem is costing us," he says. "It's a policy decision on where you draw the line and why you want to draw the line," Libicki says.
It's difficult to estimate the cost to the U.S. Broad figures have been tossed around, ranging from as much as a trillion dollars, which would be "huge," Libicki says, to maybe a billion dollars, which would put it "very low on the list of issues between the United States and China."
The allegation that the Chinese military may be playing a key role is a vestige of China's evolving economic system in which the government still has a central role promoting industry, he says.
"It may also be that a lot of the same techniques that it takes to steal secrets from Coca-Cola are the same techniques it takes to steal secrets from Lockheed," says Libicki. "And Lockheed, of course, builds military equipment, the nature of which is probably of keen interest to the Chinese."
A Well-Organized Operation
Richard Bejtlich, chief security officer at Mandiant, says the evidence in its report leaves little question about who is behind the spying.
"It's clear that this is not just a few people working in some basement, some patriotic hackers," he says. "This is a military operation with defined goals, with schedules, with tasking. This is a whole new level of activity."
Bejtlich says the U.S. government is "well aware" of the activity, but partly because of concerns about exposing intelligence resources and other secrecy concerns, has been reluctant to talk about it.
Christopher Johnson, who holds the Freeman chair in China studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, says that while the Mandiant report may spur the Obama administration to action, the White House has been heading in that direction for some time.
"It's becoming so pervasive that there's a sense that it's time to do something about it," he says. "One way or another, this [Mandiant report] puts tremendous salience on the issue and pressure on the U.S. government to do something about it."
President And Pentagon Address Concerns
Mandiant's Bejtlich says at least some of the information China has garnered through its cybersleuthing program has military utility, and the report comes less than a month after the Pentagon announced it would dramatically expand its Cyber Command to defend against attacks and, if necessary, wage offensive operations.
And last week, the president issued an executive order to improve cybersecurity for critical infrastructure. He also even mentioned cybersecurity concerns in his State of the Union address last week.
Media reports in this country have linked the U.S. government to at least one high-profile cyberattack, the 2010 Stuxnet computer virus that hit networks associated with Iran's nuclear facilities.
So far, there's no evidence that China has done more than snoop, Bejtlich says. But he says it appears to be in a position to do much more.
"By virtue of having access they could just as easily delete information," he says. "So this is an espionage problem now, but if they so decided to hold our assets at risk, they could choose to start destroying data, as we saw in Saudi Aramco last year."
Some analysts say there is a key difference between the Cold War cloak-and-dagger between Washington and Moscow, and the current situation with Chinese spying.
"In the Cold War, the United States had a distinct advantage in the Soviet Union doing worse, and they had a distinct advantage in the United States doing worse," Libicki says. "This is not true with the U.S. and China — we both have an interest in each other's economy doing better."
Although the U.S. has offensive cyberwarfare capabilities, Libicki doesn't see the Pentagon and the U.S. intelligence community engaging in economic espionage on behalf of U.S. companies.
"If, for instance, we were able to take in information on Chery automobiles, a Chinese car company, who do we give it to? It turns out that to give it to GM and not Ford would not only look bad, but would probably set us up for lawsuits," he says.
And, as Johnson of the Center for Strategic and International Studies points out, there is an implied red line between economic espionage against U.S. companies and a cyberattack aimed at larger economic interests.
"In areas like key infrastructure, such as pipelines and power grids, I think even probing is out of bounds," he says. "That's a message that we have been sending and presumably will continue to be sending to the Chinese and other governments." | <urn:uuid:c4466ec9-a9d9-4045-80e8-375d6dcffa4b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://utahpublicradio.org/post/how-should-us-respond-chinese-hacking | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970759 | 1,332 | 2 | 2 |
- ABOUT US
- CAMPUS LIFE
- GRADUATE STUDIES
The propulsion plant of a vessel and management of the engineering department is the responsibility of the engineer officers. Ship engineers operate, maintain, and repair propulsion engines, boilers, generators, pumps, and other machinery. Merchant marine vessels usually have four engineering officers: chief engineer, a 1st assistant engineer, 2nd assistant engineer, and 3rd assistant engineer.
Assistant engineers stand periodic watches, overseeing the safe operation of engines and machinery. All engineers "stand" watch for specified periods, usually a 4 hours on/ 8 hours off rotation. Engineers supervise crew members engaged in maintenance and the primary up-keep of the engineering plant.
Engineers work primarily on commercial ships (merchant marine) or Military Sealift ships, in water transportation services (such as working on tugs, charter boats and other watercraft) and on vessels which carry passengers (such as cruise ships, casino boats, sightseeing boats, and ferries) Rotation schedules vary from 2 weeks up to 120 days, depending on vessel type. Employment outlook is favorable with competitive starting salaries.
Because of a their thorough knowledge of the design, operation, and maintenance of ship systems, sometimes referred to as a "floating city, marine engineers' career opportunities outside the shipping realm are plentiful and lucrative.
The U.S. Coast Guard promulgates the requirements for documentation and issuance of merchant mariner licenses for Deck and Engineer officers. Engineer officer licenses are issued by:
License advancement is based on documented sea time, professional recertifications, and/or U.S.C.G. exams.
Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping (STCW) - STCW for seafarers set international standards for masters, officers and watch personnel on seagoing merchant ships. STCW training is intended to ensure that seafarers are aware of the hazards of working on a vessel and can respond appropriately in an emergency.
A STCW Certificate will be issued to mariners who meet the STCW requirements and is separate from U.S. Merchant Mariner license. STCW requires seafarers be provided with "familiarization training" and "basic safety training" which includes: basic fire fighting, elementary first aid, personal survival techniques, and personal safety and social responsibility. Mariners entering training programs after August 1, 1998, MMA license program students included, are required to meet the current international competency standards. | <urn:uuid:7e1b74b2-c289-4604-a42e-ea73abeb8ebe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mainemaritime.edu/careers/133-what-is-a-ships-engineer | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943825 | 500 | 2.53125 | 3 |
School of Medicine Technical StandardsBecause the M.D. degree signifies that the holder is a physician prepared for entry into the practice of medicine within postgraduate training programs, it follows that candidates for graduation must have the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and judgment to function in a broad variety of clinical situations and to render a wide spectrum of patient care. Candidates must demonstrate the capacity to develop academic and emotional maturity and leadership skills to function effectively in a medical team.
Therefore, all students admitted to the School of Medicine must be able to meet, with or without reasonable accommodation, the following abilities and expectations.
Students/Applicants who may have questions regarding the technical standards or who believe they may need to request reasonable accommodation in order to meet the standards are encouraged to contact the Education & Student Affairs Office.
The School of Medicine's Technical Standards include:
- Candidates must be able to observe demonstrations and experiments in the basic sciences.
- Candidates must have sufficient use of the sensory, vision, hearing, motor, and the somatic sensation necessary to perform a physical examination. Candidates must be able to perform activities such as palpation, auscultation, percussion, the administration of intravenous medication, the application of pressure to stop bleeding, the opening of obstructed airways, the movements, equilibrium and functional use of the sense of touch and vision.
- Candidates must be able to learn to respond with precise, quick and appropriate action in emergency situations.
- Candidates must be able to communicate with accuracy, clarity, efficiency, and sensitivity.
- Candidates must have the skills to be able to analyze and synthesize information, solve problems, and reach diagnostic and therapeutic judgments.
- Candidates must be able to acknowledge evaluation and respond appropriately.
- Candidates must possess the interpersonal skills to develop rapport and positive relationships with patients.
- Candidates are expected to possess the perseverance, diligence, and consistency to complete the medical school curriculum. Candidates, therefore, must be able to tolerate physically and emotionally taxing workloads, to function effectively under stress, to adapt to changing environments, to display flexibility, and to function in the face of uncertainties inherent in the clinical problems of many patients.
OHSU Technical Standards
Health Sciences programs have a societal responsibility to train competent healthcare providers and scientists that demonstrate critical judgment, extensive knowledge and well-honed technical skills. All candidates for an OHSU degree or certificate must possess essential skills and abilities necessary to complete the curriculum successfully. These include academic (e.g., examination scores, grade point average) as well as technical standards. These technical standards are nonacademic criteria, basic to all of OHSU’s educational programs. Each OHSU program may develop more specific technical standards.
OHSU’s Technical Standards include:
- Acquire information from experiences and demonstrations conveyed through online coursework, lecture, group seminar, small group activities, and other.
- Ability to recognize, understand and interpret required instruction materials including written documents, computer-information systems, and non-book resources.
- Ability to manipulate the equipment, instruments, apparatus, or tools required to collect and interpret data appropriate to the domain of study, practice or research.
- Ability to follow universal precautions against contamination and cross contamination with infectious pathogens, toxins and other hazardous chemicals.
- Solve problems and think critically to develop appropriate products and services (e.g., treatment plan, a scientific experiment.)
- Synthesize information to develop and defend conclusions regarding observations and outcomes.
- Use intellectual ability, exercise proper judgment, and complete all responsibilities within a timeframe that is appropriate to a given setting.
- Maintain effective, mature, and sensitive relationships under all circumstances (e.g., clients, patients, students, faculty, staff and other professionals.)
- Communicate effectively and efficiently with faculty, colleagues, and all other persons encountered in any OHSU setting.
- Work in a safe manner and respond appropriately to emergencies and urgencies.
- Demonstrate emotional stability to function effectively under stress and adapt to changing environments inherent in clinical practice, health care and biomedical sciences and engineering.
It is our experience that a number of individuals with disabilities, as defined by Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act, are qualified to study and work as health care professionals and scientists with the use of reasonable accommodations. To be qualified for health sciences programs at OHSU those individuals must be able to meet both our academic standards and the technical standards, with or without reasonable accommodations.
For further information regarding services and resources for students with disabilities and/or to request accommodations, please contact the Office for Student Access. | <urn:uuid:080b3fc5-ff97-41a1-b687-65d60b04a9e6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ohsu.edu/xd/education/schools/school-of-medicine/academic-programs/md-program/admissions/technical-standards.cfm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.923615 | 960 | 2.5625 | 3 |
Rules of the Game: Implied Easements
Professional Surveyor Magazine - December 2011
Knud Hermansen, LS, PhD, PE, Esq. and A. Richard Vannozzi
| Part 2
| Part 4
Part 3: Quasi Easement
Readers are cautioned that they should investigate state cases dealing with the particular application of the law to determine how the law applies in their state. Many states have modified the common law that is presented here.
If a surveyor fails to identify implied easements and that failure results in damages to the client, the surveyor may be subject to liability.
The previous articles have introduced surveyors to two forms of implied easements that arrive by information found in the documents rather than express conveyance: 1) easements created by the description of a lot that references a subdivision plat and 2) easements created when the grantor’s road is a boundary.
Another form of implied easement is known as a quasi easement. A quasi easement is almost always appurtenant to property. In other words, once the easement is created, it attaches to one property and burdens other property, and it exists regardless of whether it is mentioned in deeds to the property or not.
Quasi easements are true easements, but they derive their name from the fact that, prior to the division that gave rise to their creation, all the uses existed even though no easement technically existed (or needed to exist) because all of the underlying titles were in common ownership.
A quasi easement will exist when there is:
- an existing use at the time of a division and grant,
- the use was apparent at the division and grant, and
- the use continued for the benefit (reasonable comfort and enjoyment) of a property after the division and conveyance.
The respective lots arising after the division will be burdened or benefited as the situation existed prior to the division, so long as the use is either known to exist or the situation is such to reveal its existence to anyone exercising ordinary care. Thus, a buried or concealed use will not pass as a quasi easement. To be recognized as an easement, such a use requires an express grant.
In the figure below, the owner decided to convey an existing “mother-in-law house” and lot (let’s hope after the mother in law passed away). Here, the grantee who purchased the mother-in-law house and lot would have a quasi easement for the driveway and a quasi easement for the utility line. The grantor may have a quasi easement for the septic field and driveway.
Some states require that the use forming the basis for the quasi easement be a necessary use, with strict necessity required when benefiting the grantor’s remaining land. Under the criteria of strict necessity, the grantor’s septic field may not qualify as a quasi easement because the septic field can be located at a different location. Therefore, an easement for the existing septic field is not strictly necessary.
The courts require a higher standard for the grantor to have a quasi easement because the grantor, exercising due diligence in the preparation of the deed, could have expressly stated what was intended to be reserved. In other words, why should the innocent grantee be burdened by a use that the grantor failed to expressly reserve in his or her own favor? In these cases, the courts have reasoned that the grantee should be subject only to a use not expressly reserved when the use is apparent and of such necessity that a reasonable person would have to know the use was meant to be reserved in favor of the grantor.
As seen from the example, certain easements—for a use that existed at the time of division and were continued after the division—give rise to an implied easement. The surveyor must not presume that every use not reflected as an express citation within the deed is an encroachment.
This becomes a critical consideration when the wording for notes and labels is chosen for ALTA/ACSM Land Title Surveys or when preparing plans for recordation or use in litigation. The mischaracterization of a use by a surveyor may inadvertently prejudice the position of a dominant or servient estate holder and create liability for the surveyor.
About the Authors
Knud Hermansen, LS, PhD, PE, Esq.Knud is a professor in the surveying engineering technology program at the University of Maine. He provides consulting services in the areas of boundary retracement, boundary litigation, roads, easements, property title, land development, and alternative dispute resolution.
A. Richard VannozziA. Richard Vannozzi is an assistant professor at the Thompson School of Applied Science at the University of New Hampshire. Richard has spent over 20 years in private practice where he focused on boundary, title and zoning dispute resolution and litigation before beginning his teaching career.
» Back to our December 2011 Issue | <urn:uuid:cf4ea876-97d8-4a14-8d07-5dc7b9c4b2fd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.profsurv.com/magazine/article.aspx?i=71034&p=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950434 | 1,032 | 1.828125 | 2 |
[en] This work details for the first time the sedimentology of the Marenne quarry. It exposes a remarkable succession of strata from the Trois-Fontaines Formation and the base of the Terres d’Haurs Formation. Two sections (Marenne East and Marenne Centre) are investigated within the quarry. The first one (115 metres) covers both formations and is characterized by a mixed carbonate-siliciclastic succession replacing the classical base of the Trois-Fontaines Formation. We propose here to include these particular facies into a new member of the Trois-Fontaines Formation, the Marenne Member. The second one (48 metres) exposes a reefal lens also attributed to this new Marenne Member. Magnetic susceptibility was used to confirm geometric correlations previously obtained between these two sections. Petrographic study leads to the definition of 14 microfacies which are integrated into three palaeoenvironmental models. The first model (six microfacies) is proposed for the Marenne Member. In this ramp model, terrigenous inputs are particularly important. The mid-ramp is composed of four microfacies more or less influenced by storm events. The inner ramp (limited to the FWWB vicinity) is characterized by the development of the reefal lens and by peloidal microfacies. The upper part of Trois-Fontaines Formation is depicted by a back-reef model (three microfacies) which is mainly dominated by lagoons. However, intermittent agitation and non-restricted settings allow the local development and the reworking of branching organisms. The last model proposed (five microfacies) concerns the Terres d’Haurs Formation and corresponds to a ramp profile with the development of shoals. Those shoals locally protect semi-restricted lagoons. Algal mats are also observed. The last part of the work concerns the sedimentary dynamics and proposes sea level variations as the key parameter probably responsible for the succession of these three depositional settings. | <urn:uuid:16097c41-941c-40f6-9648-7ee10ae49f6f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://orbi.ulg.ac.be/handle/2268/19036 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927437 | 422 | 1.953125 | 2 |
The IT perimeter is gone
With tablets, smartphones, and cloud applications, your employees can access sensitive data anytime, from anywhere. Indeed, around 70 percent of security breaches and data thefts are inside jobs. Meanwhile, the hackers only get better: advanced persistent threats (APTs) appear as normal traffic, and malware can go unnoticed for weeks.
It’s a new world, one without borders. Yet most organizations are still trying to protect their data with the same old firewalls and antivirus software. It’s not working. We refer you to the headline-making breach of the week.
You have to start with the device
Wave has an alternative: security that’s built into each and every device.
We’re talking about hardware: self-encrypting drives (SEDs), which protect data when a device is stolen or lost, and trusted platform modules (TPMs), or embedded security chips. Both go in at the factory, and increasingly, both are standard. They make it possible for you to monitor and control each individual device and its data, no matter where it is. But you need software to turn on and manage your SEDs and TPMs. Wave makes that software.
We’ve been refining comprehensive, centralized management of hardware-based security longer than anyone else. More than that, we’ve shaped the field as a founding member of the Trusted Computing Group, the not-for-profit that develops and promotes industry standards for the hardware.
Security that’s confirmed, not assumed
With Wave, you’ll know that you’re secure. Because we start with the individual devices, you get a broad, deep view of your network. You can see exactly who’s on it, with what devices and what apps, at any given time. Just for example, if Bob goes home and tries to log onto Facebook with the company laptop, Wave can stop him.
A big piece of this heightened security is device authentication. Traditional two-factor authentication requires what amounts to two user IDs. But by using the TPMs inside your devices, Wave can confirm the identity of not only users, but also the devices they’re on. Combine that with fast, enforced encryption of sensitive data via your SEDs—all easily managed with Wave software—and your data is protected from the full range of modern risks: device theft, missent emails, flash drives, portable hot spots … even (and no one else can say this) hardware keyloggers. Not to mention Bob.
Do we need to say that with Wave, compliance is no problem?
Start closing your security gaps today, with what you’ve got
You might be surprised to hear that 90 percent or more of your computers probably already have TPMs. Mobile devices are catching up fast. SEDs are newer, but you probably have a bunch of those too. Machines that don’t have them can often be outfitted at little to no extra cost. So you’ve got some or all of the hardware. All you need to do is turn it on with Wave.
It’s almost as easy as it sounds. TPMs and SEDs are built to open, vendor-neutral industry standards, and so are Wave solutions. That means Wave works on your existing mix of hardware, across platforms, and will evolve with you. It’s part of what makes the Wave alternative not only more secure, but also simpler and cheaper. Total cost of ownership for Wave data protection can be almost half that of a traditional software-based system.
Questions? Read on, or contact our sales department. | <urn:uuid:3abbbca7-11f8-4ca9-b88d-41033ea6f37a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wave.com/wave-alternative | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944012 | 763 | 2.015625 | 2 |
It’s National Poetry Month.
I hung a poster in the library announcing the fact. I hung it quickly and sped off to the next task calling my name. But something niggled in my mind, a memory of poetry. Curled up quietly, or stretched out languidly, letting my mind dance around the words – this is how I remember poetry.
Reading poetry is like studying a painting. It cannot be rushed. And these days I rush. I rush everywhere, and I confess poetry has not crossed my mind for some time.
So I decided to slow down today and read some poetry. We have a lovely little book compiled by the actor John Lithgow, The Poets’ Corner. Lithgow introduces fifty English and American poets, telling a bit about their lives and style, and then sharing one well-known poem with a bit of analysis and explanation. Additional poems by each poet are recommended. This book is designed to read as a family, introducing children to poets and poetry. An mp3 CD is included so you can listen to the poems, too.
I sighed over Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Edna St. Vincent Millay, learned about the Librarian Poet Philip Larkin, and laughed out loud at Ogden Nash. Perhaps you, too, need to slow down. May I recommend poetry? | <urn:uuid:fe1d8e45-10f8-405c-8156-9c6075a54a32> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://summerville.patch.com/groups/rebecca-westfalls-blog/p/bp--book-of-the-week-poets-corner | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965819 | 275 | 2.09375 | 2 |
Augustin-Jean Fresnel (May 10, 1788 - July 14, 1827), was a French physicist who contributed significantly to the establishment of the wave theory of light and optics. Fresnel studied the behaviour of light both theoretically and experimentally.
Fresnel was the son of an architect, born at Brogue (Eure). His early progress in learning was slow, and still could not read when he was eight years old. At thirteen he entered the École Centrale in Caen, and at sixteen and a half the École Polytechnique, where he acquitted himself with distinction. From there he went to the École des Ponts et Chaussées. He served as an engineer successively in the departements of Vendée, Drôme and Ille-et-Villaine; but having supported the Bourbons in 1814 he lost his appointment on Napoleon's return to power. On the second restoration of the monarchy, he obtained a post as engineer in Paris, where much of his life from that time was spent. His researches in optics, continued until his death, appear to have been begun about the year 1814, when he prepared a paper on the aberration of light, which, however, was not published. In 1818 he read a memoir on diffraction for which in the ensuing year he received the prize of the Académie des Sciences at Paris. He was in 1823 unanimously elected a member of the academy, and in 1825 he became a member of the Royal Society of London, which in 1827, at the time of his last illness, awarded him the Rumford medal. In 1819 he was nominated a commissioner of lighthouses, for which he was the first to construct compound lenses as substitutes for mirrors. He died of tuberculosis at Ville-d'Avray, near Paris.
The undulatory theory of light, first founded upon experimental demonstration by Thomas Young, was extended to a large class of optical phenomena, and permanently established by his brilliant discoveries and mathematical deductions. By the use of two plane mirrors of metal, forming with each other an angle of nearly 180o, he avoided the diffraction caused in the experiment of F. M. Grimaldi (16181663) on interference by the employment of apertures for the transmission of the light, and was thus enabled in the most conclusive manner to account for the phenomena of interference in accordance with the undulatory theory. With Francois Arago he studied the laws of the interference of polarized rays. Circularly polarized light he obtained by means of a rhomb of glass, known as "Fresnel's rhomb," having obtuse angles of 126o, and acute angles of 54o. His labours in the cause of optical science received during his lifetime only scant public recognition, and some of his papers were not printed by the Académie des Sciences till many years after his decease. But, as he wrote to Young in 1824, in him "that sensibility, or that vanity, which people call love of glory" had been blunted. "All the compliments," he says, "that I have received from Arago, Laplace and Biot never gave me so much pleasure as the discovery of a theoretic truth, or the confirmation of a calculation by experiment."
Based on an article from 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica. | <urn:uuid:4081a4d4-0d30-496c-bef9-58f9053af079> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.encyclopedia4u.com/a/augustin-jean-fresnel.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00051-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985701 | 694 | 3.34375 | 3 |
Monthly Bread of Life meal returns to City Hall Park
At City Hall Park, soup’s on again.
On Feb. 16, workers from Bread of Life Mission will once again serve meals to homeless people and anyone who shows up. The meal is served every third Saturday at 11 a.m.
Bread of Life had served monthly meals there for three years without a permit, but in January, when workers for the mission applied for one, Parks and Recreation denied its request.
The city’s Human Services Department has said mission workers can serve meals at the park until they work out how outdoor meals are served in Seattle. Mission Executive Director Pastor Willie Parish met with city officials, Operation Sack Lunch Executive Director Beverly Graham and officials from the Pioneer Square Alliance to work out how to manage serving meals in the park.
But outdoor feeding has long been controversial in downtown Seattle, and a solution has yet to be found. In January 2012, Human Services Department head Dannette Smith attempted to shut down the Operation Sack Lunch meal site underneath Interstate 5 at Sixth Avenue and Columbia Street because of neighbors’ complaints about litter and camping.
That decision was later reversed, and a task force was created to explore the possibility of a centralized kitchen somewhere downtown where any number of organizations could cook and serve hot meals.
Graham, who serves on the task force, said city officials are trying to make sure meal programs are not concentrated only downtown and in Pioneer Square.
“Let’s figure out how to get the food into places where people aren’t getting any other services,” Graham said.
Commenting is not available in this channel entry. | <urn:uuid:4f032a6b-c62f-4183-868a-73b63d5ffd2e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://realchangenews.org/index.php/site/archives/7482 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96527 | 339 | 1.5 | 2 |
Violence appears to be more common among those with mental illness only when they also report substance abuse or dependence, according to a report in the February issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
Researchers have been studying the connection between mental illness and violent behavior for the past 20 years, but there is controversy regarding how to interpret the links, according to background information in the article. "The relationship between mental illness and violence has a significant effect on mental health practice and policy, guides allocation of the limited resources in the mental health and criminal justice systems and serves as the basis for imposing mandatory treatment to protect public safety at the expense of patients' self-determination and liberty," the authors write. "Reliable data are needed to properly inform public perception about the relationship between mental illness and dangerousness to avoid potentially unwarranted stigmatization of people with mental illness."
Eric B. Elbogen, Ph.D., and Sally C. Johnson, M.D., of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine assessed data collected as part of the National Epidemiological Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions, a survey conducted by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. A total of 34,653 individuals were interviewed about their mental health, demographics, history of violence and other risk factors between 2001 and 2003. The participants then answered questions about any violent behavior—including fighting, sexual assault and starting fires—perpetrated between then and a second interview (conducted between 2004 and 2005).
At the first interview, 10.87 percent of participants were diagnosed with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or major depression alone, 21.41 percent with substance abuse or dependence alone and 9.4 percent with a severe mental disorder plus substance abuse or dependence.
Having a mental illness alone at the first interview did not predict whether an individual would have violent behavior before the second interview. However, individuals with both mental illness and substance abuse or dependence were at higher risk for future violence. "The highest risk was shown for dual-disordered subjects with a history of violence, who showed nearly 10 times higher risk of violence compared with subjects with severe mental illness only," the authors write.
Other factors that predicted future violence included a history of juvenile detention, physical abuse or having witnessed parental fighting; a recent divorce, unemployment or victimization; or being younger, male or lower-income. Most of these risk factors were present more often in individuals with mental illness.
"Because severe mental illness did not independently predict future violent behavior, these findings challenge perceptions that mental illness is a leading cause of violence in the general population," the authors conclude. "Still, people with mental illness did report violence more often, largely because they showed other factors associated with violence. Consequently, understanding the link between violent acts and mental disorder requires consideration of its association with other variables such as substance abuse, environmental stressors and history of violence." | <urn:uuid:81103e63-3e04-493e-838e-02edd71cf5e3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sciencecodex.com/study_examines_association_between_mental_illness_and_violent_behavior | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954641 | 590 | 2.46875 | 2 |
Following Congressional inaction, the Obama administration has directed the U.S. Department of Education (ED) to provide regulatory flexibility to states through the granting of waivers to states that are willing to embrace education reform. The flexibility will provide relief from No Child Left Behind's mandates. Details of the regulatory flexibility package to states and districts will be released in September.
According to ED, the Administration's plan will provide flexibility to districts and schools to improve student achievement by raising standards while Congress continues to work on reauthorization. For more information, visit ED's website. | <urn:uuid:f0bcf37b-f487-4213-b247-cd5403f80163> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.asha.org/Publications/leader/News/2011/ED-Proceeds-with-NCLB-Waivers.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944522 | 112 | 1.875 | 2 |
The Patterson School encourages all our students to consider internships as a means to enhance their exposure to career opportunities, learn valuable skills, increase networking, and further develop their resumes.
In contrast to some of our sister programs at other universities, however, internships are not formally required. We recognize some students have already obtained extensive professional experience before entering our program - with prior internships or regular employment - and understand their time may be spent more valuably elsewhere, such as with further language study, elective coursework or study/travel abroad.
Furthermore, we do not offer course credit for internships. The reasoning behind this is two-fold: first, it can enable students to be more flexible in the experiences they seek; second, it saves our students money since they are not required to be registered (and pay tuition) for the summer term. Our view is that the experience is what is most valuable, not academic "credit."
The overwhelming majority of Patterson School students pursue internships and our program has an exceptional track record of landing highly competitive, prestigious positions. In fact, many of our graduates view their internship experience as one of the highlights of their graduate education; for some it opened the door to life-long employment.
Recent Patterson School students interned at US diplomatic missions in Addis Ababa, Dakar, Singapore, Vilnius, Brussels, The Hague, Paris, and Skopje; in Tokyo at the German Embassy and Beijing at the UK Embassy; in the Canadian Parliament and the Asamblea Legislativa de Costa Rica; with non-governmental organizations in Chile, Honduras, Nicaragua, Romania, Switzerland, Kenya, Rwanda, India, and Cambodia; with multilateral organizations such as the United Nations, International Organization for Migration, African Development Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank.
A large number of students also undertook internships in Washington at the Departments of State, Commerce, Defense, Energy, and Homeland Security; as well as with Congress, OPIC and CIA. Others spread across the United States with business organizations (such as Alltech, Big Ass Fans, Northrop Grumman, Southern US Trade Association, World Trade Centers), NGOs (Sister Cities, Kentucky Refugee Ministries, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Transparency International, Council of State Governments, Open Society Institute) and government. In 2010 and 2011, Patterson School students were also selected to be among the 26 graduate participants in the Director of National Intelligence's new National Security Analyst International Intelligence Seminar in Washington, DC.
Students seeking to improve their language abilities over the summer attended Middlebury's Summer Language Institute, and the language institutes at Indiana University and the University of Wisconsin; others studied overseas in venues as varied as China, Japan, Korea, and Egypt. | <urn:uuid:506703f1-7d8c-4460-98ce-cd9221ea0cbb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.uky.edu/PattersonSchool/approach.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94419 | 561 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Suburban med centers rise as hospitals slide into red
December 18, 2006
By DIANE WEAVER DUNNE, Hartford Business Journal Writer
With an eye toward their bottom lines, local hospitals are opening an increasing number of affiliated medical centers in the suburbs.
These centers aren’t glorified doctor’s offices. They offer one-stop medical shopping for the patient, where blood tests, X-rays, chemotherapy, physical therapy and even a tummy tuck might be provided.
The growth of these suburban affiliates is a result of market competition among the hospitals, each vying for a certain patient demographic — those who can pay their bills.
With half of the state’s nonprofit hospitals expected to end the year in the red, unable to cover their operating budgets, the necessity to increase patient counts, particularly those who can pay, has become a necessity.
Hospital officials understand that if they are going to stay in the game as underpayment from federal and state programs and uncompensated care plagues their bottom lines, they most appeal to paying patients who often reside in the suburbs.
“The [suburban] patients are demanding it,” said Kevin Kinsella, vice president and chief financial officer of Hartford Hospital. Patients “want services closer to home and we do listen to them.”
With that in mind, just six miles from Hartford Hospital, a new Hartford Hospital Wellness Center is under construction in Blue Back Square’s 199,000-square-foot office building in West Hartford to offer more convenience to patients, Kinsella said. The center will include doctors’ offices, physical therapy services, a day-surgery center, radiology services and a Healthtrax facility.
Hartford Hospital, like Saint Francis Care, is not a stranger to satellite and specialty medical centers. Hartford operates four suburban medical centers and is planning to open a cancer center in Avon.
It’s not just urban hospitals – which typically treat the largest number of uninsured and indigent patients – hoping to tap into a more affluent suburban demographic.
Johnson Memorial Hospital, a small acute care hospital in Stafford Springs, also offers a variety of ancillary medical services, including athletic training for high schools as well as a satellite surgery and radiology center in nearby Enfield.
In May, it began offering a unique service to the area, investing in a medical spa adjacent to its medical center in Enfield. Called the Northern Connecticut Plastic Surgery and Inspire Medical Spa, the hospital will not make money directly from the medical spa, but considers it as a way to funnel in more paying patients to Johnson Memorial’s system.
Eric Person, vice president of development and community relations at Johnson Memorial, said that when recruiting physicians to the hospital, it has financially backed their private practices. It did the same with the spa, and struck a deal to jump start plastic surgeon Dr. Colleen Jambor’s private practice.
“This is a specialty [plastic surgery] that we identified and wanted to bring to our patients. We set up this office – [the medical spa] – which we have done with Ob-Gyns and primary care doctors,” he explained.
Specifically, Johnson Memorial wanted to offer its mastectomy patients breast reconstruction plastic surgery, he said.
“Johnson Memorial hopes the spa will open doors for a whole new demographic, the walking well,” Jambor said.
“These centers enable the hospitals to retain market share and in some cases, to increase it,” Hartford Hospital’s Kinsella said. “We have to provide services where people live and work.”
Its facility on Day Hill Road in Windsor, smack in the middle of a booming industrial park, does exactly that.
Hospital officials located the facility on Day Hill Road during the 1990s with the promise that one day it would be in close proximity to a large number of workers. Those who do the hospital’s number crunching knew that attracting employees with health care insurance was essential to offset losses at its acute care hospital in Hartford.
Dr. Jambor’s spa, meanwhile, will familiarize patients with the variety of services offered by Johnson Memorial, she said.
The goal of such medical satellite centers is to offer patients one-stop shopping of both non-medical and medical services. For Jambor’s spa, that spans facials to Botox injections and plastic surgery. Patients, she said, want and demand convenience and results.
Steven Rosenberg, senior vice president and chief financial officer of Saint Francis Care, said that stemming a hospital’s financial bleeding isn’t that easy.
Although Saint Francis Care reported a nearly $15 million surplus this year, its hospital was not paid for $45 million in health care services provided to the uninsured and those receiving Medicaid benefits.
However, Saint Francis doesn’t plan to get into any new businesses. “We are trying to make sure — in our volume and market share in the suburban locations around Hartford — that we have enough of a commercial payer base to subsidize the Medicaid and uncompensated patients,” Rosenberg said.
“There are no cash cows in anything that we do,” he explained. “We maintain a low cost structure, make sure we enhance our volume, especially the commercial business, to offset losses on Medicaid.”
Rosenberg said the organization would continue to urge lawmakers to boost its hospital reimbursement for Medicaid and uncompensated patients, and focus on lowering its costs.
“But at some point, it will be impossible for us to get enough to cover the $45 million free care that we provided in the last fiscal year,” he said. | <urn:uuid:92d05bb6-7fb9-4a22-8676-5c8f10ef2f79> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hartfordinfo.org/issues/documents/Health/hbj_121806.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00069-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951931 | 1,191 | 1.570313 | 2 |
A few examples of how to generate java source files have already been provided. It should be relatively easy to read the properties file and invoke one of these APIs.
To trigger the code generation process, you need to add a custom build step. With Ant, just add a custom task. And then hook it up to an Eclipse Builder: project Properties -> Builders -> New.
Subsequently, Eclipse should find and refresh this file on its own. If it doesn't, then check your configs: Preferences -> General -> Workspace -> find "Refresh using native hooks or polling" and similar ones and check them. (Note that I'm not 100% sure that this last part will work.)
The path of least resistance is to run this build step separately. If your properties file is not changing that often, then it shouldn't be that big a deal. This is similar to what you'd do if you use Protocol Buffers, JAXB, wsdl2java, etc. If you want everything to work magically like R.java does, then you probably have to do something a little more complicated:
- Try to use Eclipse Builder options to control when the Ant task is executed
- If you can't figure that out, then I'd check out how Eclipse hooks up to the above projects (that is, to Protocol Buffers, JAXB, wsdl2java, etc.)
- Look at the ADT custom PreCompilerBuilder class
- Check out the build-helper-plugin | <urn:uuid:157ffb80-c950-4f8e-9693-007677db8cd2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12322856/how-can-i-create-an-auto-generated-enum-from-a-resource-file/12324372 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.912151 | 312 | 1.90625 | 2 |
Jewish World Review May 25, 2001 / 3 Sivan, 5761
Auditors from the Federal Election Commission say Schumer took excessive contributions, totaling $999,879, from individuals, partnerships and political committees. McCain-Feingold calls for "sentencing enhancement" for violations by "a candidate" when there are a "large number" of infractions, or when infractions involve a "large aggregate amount."
Schumer's ardor for McCain-Feingold's additional restrictions and penalties may seem to tempt fate. But similar clamors from the New York Times, The Washington Post and other media are understandable: Those entities would remain exempt from the regulations they advocate for all rival sources of political communications. But why should they be exempt?
The law restricting the expenditures that are necessary for political communication already says: "The term 'expenditure' does not include any news story, commentary, or editorial distributed through the facilities of any broadcasting station, newspaper, magazine, or other periodical publication, unless such facilities are owned or controlled by any political party, political committee, or candidate." And McCain-Feingold, pandering to its only real constituency, the media, says regulated communications do not include "communications appearing in a news story, commentary, or editorial distributed through the facilities of any broadcasting station, unless such facilities are owned or controlled by any political party, political committee, or candidate."
But, again, why? Why are journalistic operations that are owned by megacorporations exempt from restrictions that "reformers" promiscuously multiply for ordinary people who associate for the purpose of political advocacy?
FEC advisory opinions state that what is called "the media exemption" -- actually, it is the journalists' exemption -- does not exempt from government restrictions the spending on newsletters, magazines, other publications or broadcasts by non-journalistic organizations -- e.g., Exxon, the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League, the National Right to Life Committee. Why should political communications by those three corporations be rationed by government, but not identical political communications by Disney (owner of ABC)?
Why should Microsoft suddenly acquire special political privileges when, in a joint venture with NBC, which is owned by General Electric, it acquires a broadcasting property, MSNBC? What principle justifies AOL Time Warner (owner of CNN) having more freedom of commentary and advocacy than does a committee of citizens who gather for political expression?
Is it the principle that journalistic organizations have a pure purpose that serves the public good -- that they have different understandings of truth and justice, but they are all in the truth and justice business? Fine. Then surely the media-journalistic exemption from the campaign finance reformers' restrictions should not be bestowed indiscriminately.
It should be reserved for free-standing journalistic enterprises whose only income-producing business is journalistic. So, the following should be written into law:
Any expenditure by a corporation for a news story, commentary, editorial or broadcast shall not qualify for the media-journalists exemption -- for example, no journalism may (in McCain-Feingold language) "mention or depict" a candidate for federal office within 60 days of an election -- if any of these conditions apply:
The journalistic corporation is owned, operated or controlled by another entity.
The journalistic corporation derives income from sources not directly related to journalism.
The corporation receives funds directly or indirectly from government.
The corporation makes expenditures on lobbying government.
Such provisions would cause campaign finance "reform" to limit -- and at the peak of each political cycle, virtually to silence -- more than just independent citizens groups, from the Sierra Club to the American Conservative Union. Those provisions would do the same to almost all major media entities -- ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, the New York Times, The Post, Time, Newsweek, National Public Radio and many more, including many supporters of McCain-Feingold who assume that its "reforms" would restrict only the behavior of others.
The First Amendment protects five freedoms -- of religion, speech, press, assembly and petition. All are precious, but why is the political class so piously careful to exempt the press -- the journalists who cover the political class -- from restrictions the political class writes for others? The question answers itself.
Wayne LaPierre, head of the National Rifle Association, has proposed the above repeal of the media exemption. Someone in Congress should introduce it, thereby provoking a clarifying debate. Repeal the media exemption from the burdens of campaign finance "reforms," then see how many in the media remain | <urn:uuid:932b7747-7bef-46de-bb35-caa2f50d5505> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/will052501.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935525 | 932 | 1.726563 | 2 |
John E. Herreño is an Electronics Engineer from the National University of Colombia. He got interest in open source software and how much it can help in the development of countries. He works doing Drupal web development and Blender training, and develops custom software. You can visit his site at http://jeh3.net
He is the author of the book, "Blender 2.5 HOTSHOT", which consists in 10 chapters that contain 10 projects. These projects are very similar to the situations you meet in real life projects, and are the kind of things that someone who employs or commissions you may ask you.
In real life projects, people ask you to make a final image, model something specific, and things like that. This book covers different projects from beginning to end.
The first project consists in making a render of a sci-fi space scene. This is what a pure 3D artist does at his work, creating a model from scratch, a background, adding effects, and rendering the piece, obtaining a final image that accomplishes the idea in his mind.
The second project, "Fly a Fighter Aircraft Through a Storm", is for creating a war aircraft that flies through some clouds. In this lesson you learn modeling tips, the use of shaders to increase realism of 3D models, with textures and material settings combined, cloud effects with particles, and of course, you learn to animate the flying machine.
This project illustrates the workflow of a 3D animator, whose task is to produce animated films by making 3D models, creating a world around them, and taking them to life by adding movement through time.
The use of blueprints is common in technical 3D modeling of vehicles and industry pieces, for example. In project 3, you learn how to put these skills in practice. A blueprint is a image in a sheet that contains views of an object from the most common angles (top, side, back, bottom, front...). From this blueprint you can model adding increasing complexity and using techniques toold in this project. Finally, you will create a car paint shader.
Notice how in all these projects, the final product of your work is obtained. The author doesn't stops until the final result is obtained, so you can see how real proffessionals work.
In "Create a Professional Looking Demo Reel" you produce something that is often required for most 3D portfolio, and it's a demo reel that showcases your skills as 3D modeler, made using the video sequencer of Blender.
Now that you have become familiar with the video sequencer, it comes the time to learn some of the game engine. As you know, Blender includes a 3D game engine which is very powerful and has been used in multiple commercial and indy games.
In project 5 you learn the basics of this engine using the Python programming language, to build an interactive walkthrough around a building in a 3D environment that uses a skybox, a semisphere with a sky painted on it. This gives you the opportunity to learn how to bake textures in Blender, and also learn simple UV mapping.
Interactive walkthrough are a classic in animation, showcases of virtual reality, and even on intro sequences of games.
On the following chapter, "Detailed Render of the Earth from Space", you'll focus on pre-processing of textures and post-processing of a render. These are all techniques aimed to get the maximum quality for your renders using Blender 3D.
Project 7 is about animating an humanoid character. The book explains later, on chapter 10, how was this humanoid modeled, but the author prefers to explain how to animate it now, because as you have already read the chapters about animation, it's easy for you to understand all this now, without losing the perspective of an animator.
To animate this humanoid figure, you'll be told how to create a skeleton, an armature for the body, with its joints and limits, that can be later animated and deform the humanoid as it walks in an animation.
Humanoid animations have particularities and are the base of many projects in the films and animation industry.
"Create a Snail" is the eighth chapter. It's a journey through the process of creating an organic creature by using both parametric and box modeling techniques. The shape of the snail is also refined using the sculpt tools of Blender, wich are very powerful for artistic modeling and digital sculpture. It also introduces you to the creation of organic shaders and the use of subsurface scattering to simulate beings that have flesh (human or not).
One of the fields in which 3D modeling was widely used from the beginning is architectural modeling and visualization. Chapter 9 is about architectural rendering, in the example of a kitchen. It is also an introduction to lighting, as it's the 50% or more of a good render.
Last but not least, project 10 is about modeling humanoids, by combining the speed of box modeling techniques with the power of Blender's sculpt tools.
To summarize, as you can notice, this is a book that really gives examples of tasks that a pro 3D modeler has to do when he/she is hired by someone. A book from a get-things-done perspective. It is a very good learning material for someone who uses Blender and needs to have a perspective on how the different pieces fit.
When we learn to use a program, we usually learn how to model something, then we see another example on the internet on how to map your UVs, later another piece of the puzzle, another different example on how to make a shader, and so on and on. This book is different because it tells you how to build the whole puzzle. It tells you how to achieve projects from beginning to end, explaining it all with the same project, in a logical ad real-life way: you model something, then texture this same thing, then animate it, and so on, and get a real animation video. Or model something, apply shaders, light it, and render and get a real render.
And the author makes this with 10 example projects carefully chosen to showcase the typical situation for someone who wants to learn to achive the most common uses of 3D.
Get it at Packt Publishing, you won't repent:
Blender 2.5 HOTSHOT, by John E. Herreño
© 2008 by Jordi R. Cardona. Link to this post without copying the text.If you liked this post, get updates of Hiperia3D News for FREE | <urn:uuid:29b8bb2d-c78f-4b37-b6f1-fd510f2a0aca> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.hiperia3d.com/2011/07/book-blender-25-hotshot.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00053-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949064 | 1,355 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. An infectious disease of frogs, usually prevalent in the fall, characterized by hemorrhagic congestion of the legs and abdomen: caused by the bacillus Hydrophilus fuscus.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. The redshank.
- n. The turnstone.
- red + leg (Wiktionary)
“I am amazed at how many right wing nuts felt more secure nowing that torture gained false information which did not help in the war against terror. redleg”
“I bet somehow boner gets his tanning bed charges covered by the best medical plan in America -- the one caring for overpaid politicians. redleg”
“Although I believe sportsmen who compete in competition should have the right to own an assault weapon whereas a hunter shouldn't because you don't need an M-4 assault rifle to kill a moose from a helicopter like that Quitter Palin in Alaska. redleg”
“Seriously, I am okay with this as long as they impeach and punish Cheney for his war crimes and spreading misery around the world. redleg”
“Yeah it is your right, but it is getting old redleg”
“He would, however, have been quite good on the old Amos and Andy Show. redleg”
“So are you going to be a leader for you side? redleg, are you saying you are into the artillery? anyways before i just flag you i will give you a chance.”
“It is a refusal to accept that they lost the election, and the black guy won. redleg”
“And if you think dealing with DC Republicans is going to be so much rougher than dealing with Kansas 'redleg republican legislature, you need to get outside the beltway more often.”
“June 28th, 2006 at 1: 40 pm nikolai says: comment 93; redleg:”
‘redleg’ hasn't been added to any lists yet.
Looking for tweets for redleg. | <urn:uuid:1dd59760-bffd-4c9f-8858-7c3bd60a107b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wordnik.com/words/redleg | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934533 | 445 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Regensburg Cathedral Choir is one of the oldest boys' choirs in the world. The Regensburger Domspatzen are official UNICEF ambassadors and European cultural ambassadors – and, of course, a great advert for their home city at the northernmost tip of the Danube.
The Regensburg Cathedral School was founded in 975, but the choir's own history may date back a further 300 years. Even today, participation in the cathedral liturgy is one of the duties of the young singers and they are educated at the cathedral music school. Concert tours have been on the Domspatzen agenda since the early 20th century. Their first visit to South America, back in 1937, was followed by tours of Africa and Asia. Their specialism is the great choral works of Handel, Bach and Haydn. For 30 years the choir's director was Georg Ratzinger, brother of Pope Benedict XVI. Live CDs of two concerts in the Vatican (2005) were bestsellers in the classical charts. | <urn:uuid:c1d1d396-17a2-4407-aa35-32e24698448b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.germany.travel/ae/towns-cities-culture/music-shows/regensburger-domspatzen.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957558 | 211 | 1.84375 | 2 |
COLUMN: Romney right to take on the economy
The economy should be on the forefront of students’ minds as they head to the polls on election day.
Over half of college graduates are either unemployed or underemployed in today’s economy (USA Today, April 23, 2012). This country needs a president with experience creating jobs in the private sector.
Mitt Romney’s proposed across-the-board tax cuts will provide necessary tax relief for all Americans, as well as an increase in job creation. First of all, according to his campaign platform, Romney proposes cutting individuals’ tax rates by 20 percent. Additionally, he would reduce corporate tax rates.
Those who oppose corporate tax cuts overlook the extent to which corporations are responsible for job creation. No matter how big or how small, when businesses are required to pay less in taxes, they are able to hire more workers, raise wages and reinvest in the economy.
A Romney White House will also decrease our national deficit. At current spending rates, not only will today’s taxpayers be paying interest on the nation’s debt throughout their life time, but this burden will also be passed along for generations to come.
President Obama campaigned on lowering the deficit; however, the debt has increased more in his almost four years in office than it did over the course of eight years under President Bush (CBS News, March 29, 2012). A Romney budget will continually ask the question: is this expenditure worth borrowing money from foreign competitors such as China?
While it is important to rein in government spending, this should not be done at the cost of providing students with higher education opportunities. Many students would not be able to attend college without the availability of Pell Grants and student loan programs. However, due to the nation’s economic turmoil and inability to pass a budget, Congress and President Obama recently had to decrease Pell Grant Funding.
With Romney’s business sense, he proposes that we assess the structure of government programs, Pell Grant allocation included and streamline the process, allowing students to reap the most from the program’s limited funds. Costs saved during the allocation process can be spent directly on students.
Repealing the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare, is one step in reducing deficit spending. Obamacare, with its trillion-dollar increase in government spending, is piling costs onto both taxpayers and the deficit. Individual states are capable of more economically efficient plans that cater specifically to their citizens.
While some aspects of Obamacare are necessary, such as the provision that prevents people with preexisting conditions and no lapse in coverage from being denied healthcare, the same advantages can be achieved with a different plan. Romney proposes allowing insurance to be purchased across state lines, as well as allowing individuals to form purchasing groups to buy coverage at a group discount. Such added competition would automatically incentivize companies to decrease their rates, thus achieving more affordable coverage.
Voting is one of the most fundamental rights we hold as American citizens. Furthermore, it is our civic duty to vote responsibly by first educating ourselves on the issues. I encourage all voters to take time to read the variety of issues on each candidate’s platform before casting a ballot.
Editor’s note: Megan Gill is chairwoman of the College Republicans at Central Michigan University.
Leave a Comment
Like us on Facebook
- Kellie: We miss miss you Carolyn. You still are remember on the socc…
- anonymous: I know this girl was in the wrong, but, put yourself in her …
- : What is the standing cement block structure going to be for?…
- 5k: Solved the case!! …
- : SOLVED THE CASE …
• Is your baby graduating CMU? Place a personal greeting and photo in CM Life's Baby Graduates special pages. Download the form here
• Contact local movers in Mount Pleasant to help with all of your moving needs.
• Download Campus Cash Coupons!
• Search for local apartments
• Add your link here | <urn:uuid:e7c7d457-193f-4915-8bab-6c24916a1310> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cm-life.com/2012/10/31/column-romney-right-to-take-on-the-economy/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953166 | 829 | 2.046875 | 2 |
Sun Microsystems CTO Greg Papadopoulos suggests that enterprise applications are dividing into Web and data-enabled applications and more traditional enterprise applications. Those that are Web and/or data-enabled are exploding (confirming Tim O'Reilly's theory of where the value is, perhaps). The rest are not.
What does this mean?
It means that the future belongs to the database, not the processor, as I read Papadopoulos' comments. Importantly, this isn't a Web 2.0 (Twitter, Google, etc.) world against everyone else. It turns out that data/database-enabled applications exist in credit card processing companies and other "old school" stodgy companies.
It's a question of how old- and new-school companies are choosing to compete. As industries become more and more competitive, databases (and all the things that come with them like business intelligence, data mining, etc.) are proving to be a key way to differentiate and win.
The question, then, becomes how to manage the growth from these applications. Papadopoulos notes:
"Over the past four or five years, people have been talking about the commoditization of computing, as if all the innovation were over. Sure, general-purpose computing is a commodity. But designing really efficient systems to handle these kinds of workloads, and getting productive with the data center software and its management--those are anything but solved problems."
Red shift, in itself, is a diagnosis. The prescription, as Papadopoulos sees it, is a return to utility computing and shared infrastructure.
This may seem a little self-serving. (Sun is, after all, a tier-one utility computing player.) Or it may be self-fulfilling prophecy, for the same reason.
But there's something to it. It's worth a read, anyway. | <urn:uuid:ecb43cb9-d0a3-4fa0-b779-b8ef60ee8049> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9762205-7.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953404 | 382 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Although Chinese and Japanese primarily consume the dish, the consumption is increasing in western societies with affluent consumers, Asian and non-Asian.
80% of the dried fin market is brokered through Hong Kong and the east is the primary market for shark fin.
Shark Fin Soup is Associated with Asian Cultural Celebrations. Is This an Attack on Asian Culture?
No. This is an attack on an unsustainable fishing practice. The cultural associations are modern, associated with prestige. The problem is simple economics: increasing affluence creates increased demand. This demand is exceeding the supply, which is creating a positive feedback loop, making the shark fins more difficult to obtain, and increasing the price, making the dish more expensive, increasing the prestige. This in turn motivates fishermen to obtain shark fins from a steadily diminishing source of sharks. We cannot produce another population of sharks to satisfy this market.
Many countries have had practices associated with their cultures that were recognized as harmful or unethical and were stopped to protect wildlife. We need to change consumer’s minds that it is prestigious to eat shark fin soup. Some chefs like Kin Lui of Tataki just say no tho shark fin soup. | <urn:uuid:afea6856-8aff-4645-8526-24ba302fc0a8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://seastewards.org/shark-finning/who-eats-shark-fin-soup/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00047-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949468 | 237 | 2.3125 | 2 |
TAMAR ABRAMS: Utah’s battle against women was only a matter of time
No one should be surprised by a proposed Utah law that would consider possible criminal prosecution and life imprisonment for women who suffer miscarriages in that state. Appalled maybe, but not surprised. It was just a matter of time.
Since Roe v. Wade legalized abortion in the United States 37 years ago, advocates on both sides of the issue have been trying to chip away at it. And many opportunities have arisen to do that--from new advances in technology that have lowered the age of fetal viability, to new methods of providing abortion.
But it has also been clear from Roe’s early days that opponents of abortion often viewed that Supreme Court decision as a battle between a malicious woman and a powerless baby. The complexities that go into making a decision to abort a fetus were reduced to a woman’s selfishness or disregard for human life in many instances. A cacophony of anti-choice voices rose in support of bills that would criminalize women who smoked during pregnancy or used drugs. Others protested that Roe v. Wade’s provision allowing abortion to protect the health of a woman was too broad and too often misused--an easy out. The demonization of women has at times escalated, while those same voices simultaneously condemned contraception and sexuality education.
As a proud mother and foster parent, I consider my teenage daughter one of my life’s greatest achievements. As a woman who had an abortion during college, I can say that choosing abortion is never easy. But I’m so grateful it was an option and I’ve never regretted it. Being pregnant when I was determined to be a parent is the greatest joy I have ever experienced. Being pregnant when you’re too young, too poor, too ill, or just not ready can be the embodiment of despair.
Which brings us to Utah. The proposed law would enable the state’s prosecutors to pursue women who seek illegal, unsupervised forms of abortion. And it includes a provision that could trigger murder charges against women found guilty of an “intentional, knowing or reckless act” that leads to a miscarriage. How broadly those words are interpreted is anyone’s guess. If a woman miscarries after jogging or shoveling snow or drinking a glass of wine, did she engage in a reckless act that caused her to miscarry? If she works as a cashier, a job that requires her to remain on her feet for eight hours a day, and then miscarries, was it intentional or a way to earn a living? What if she doesn’t even know she’s pregnant yet and goes skiing?
Here’s the larger question: Who are these people who are so willing to pass laws about other people’s pregnancies? Why are they so afraid of the choices that individual women make? And why are they so ready to instill fear in the hearts of women whenever they choose to engage in sexual activity? It’s already a gamble: Will I become pregnant? In Utah, the stakes may be even greater: Will I become pregnant and possibly spend the rest of my life in jail?
If you’re a mother, a would-be mother, or a grandmother, please raise your voice in support of children who are wanted. We must insist that legislators focus on what is truly important and worthy of discussion--figuring out how to ensure that every child in the nation is loved and wanted. That’s a campaign that is rightly led by women, supported by men, and designed to elevate us all rather than pit us against one another through appalling and punitive legislation.
On Monday, March 8, Utah Governor Gary Herbert signed into law a bill that charges pregnant women and girls with murder for having miscarriages caused by “intentional or knowing” acts.
Tamar Abrams is the communications director at the Institute for Policy Studies, a community of public scholars and organizers linking peace, justice, and the environment in the U.S. and globally, and a writer based in Arlington, Virginia.
See inaccurate information in a story? Other feedback and/or ideas for us to consider? Tell us here.
Location, ST | website.com
- WEB FIRST: Graphic testimony and crime scene photos upset Cheshire triple murder jurors (18)
- 17-year-old Terryville girl reported missing (16)
- Harwinton EMS celebrates 50th anniversary, town recognized as 'HEARTSafe' community (13)
- Police blotter for May 24, 2013 (13)
- GOLF: Tiger Woods says that it's time to move on from recent war of words with Sergio Garcia (7)
- Marine: Military sex abuse has deep cultural roots (6)
- Three more Torrington teens face jail in another rape case (6)
Recent Activity on Facebook
Follow the Register Citizen Fact Check blog to find out what mistakes we have made and what we have done to correct them.
The Connecticut State Politics blog covers all the news from the seat of Connecticut's government and the state's elected leaders with original reporting from Journal Register Connecticut staff, links to stories from other media and blogs, press releases, statements and more.
Reports from Connecticut Group Editor Matt DeRienzo.
Guide to Religious Services
Note: All listings are paid advertisements.
Note: All listings are paid advertisements. | <urn:uuid:bea062f5-55d6-428c-a564-c6894cf8b5aa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.registercitizen.com/articles/2010/03/14/opinion/doc4b9c703d90dc7459718712.txt?viewmode=default | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957031 | 1,121 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Raising a lefty
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Although being a lefty is certainly not frowned upon or discouraged as it once was, left-handed kids living in a right-handed world face some challenges that aren't always obvious to parents (particularly right-handed parents).
Left-handed kids can struggle to adjust to everyday tasks such as dressing, handwriting and learning to play sports or musical instruments.
When Colleen Yurkovich of Bartlett realized her 3-year-old daughter Maggie was left-handed, she wasn't exactly thrilled.
Loving Lefties: How to Raise your Left-handed Child in a Right-handed World by Jane M. Healey, Ph.D.
Your Left-Handed Child: Making Things Easy for Left-Handers in a Right-Handed World by Lauren Milsom
"No one in our family is left-handed. I was worried that I wasn't going to be able to teach her how to do things like tie her shoes or swing a baseball bat," says Yurkovich.
Worse, young children who don't have the ability to articulate their confusion or frustration as they struggle to master new skills are particularly vulnerable.
This issue can impact a child's development and self-esteem. Left-handed kids may be uncomfortable with the fact that they do things differently than their right-handed peers. Yurkovich's daughter went through a stage where she wanted to be right-handed like her older sister and cousins.
"We've had to really work with her to convince her that it is OK to just be who she is. This year, she has another left-handed girl in her class and that has made her less self-conscious about being different," says Yurkovich.
Specific challenges for southpaws
Historically, lefties were scorned and feared. The word "sinister" derives from the Latin word for left. Even the devil was traditionally depicted as being left-handed. Throughout the 1800s and early 1900s, children who favored their left hand were encouraged to use their right hand instead.
Although these practices and beliefs are no longer prevalent, left-handers still live in a world that favors the right-handed majority. Scissors, musical instruments and many everyday kitchen tools are designed for the convenience of right-handers.
Adults sometimes aren't able to competently show kids how to do things the left-handed way. Even more confusing, many kids fall into a "gray area" and use their right hand for some activities and their left hand for others.
Although well-intentioned, parents, teachers and coaches often fail to appreciate the unique challenges that left-handed people face. Sometimes adult efforts to "correct" or "help" don't take into account left-handed kids' needs.
A little extra effort to see the world from your lefty's perspective can make a big difference.
Now an adult, left-handed Lisa Dell of Chicago remembers fondly her father's efforts to re-learn how to tie his shoes left-handed so he could teach her how to do it. "I know that was not an easy task for my dad, but I'm thankful for the patience he showed in teaching me a new skill. My parents never made me feel out of place or different for being left-handed. It wasn't until I entered school that I even realized most people preferred their right hand," says Dell.
Because the left-handed brain (right hemisphere dominant) is wired differently from its right-handed counterpart (left hemisphere dominant), little lefties have their own unique set of learning strengths.
Amy Turn Sharp has watched her 5-year-old left-handed son Finn struggle with his fine motor skills. "He has difficulty using scissors and his handwriting is sloppy. At home, we work on small, fine motor skill activities such as using tweezers, cutting and tearing up paper," says Sharp. She commends Finn's kindergarten teacher for working with him, too.
Of course, being left-handed isn't always a negative-lefties also enjoy some notable benefits. Left-handers consistently excel in sports such as baseball and tennis. Lefties are also thought to be highly creative. Parents of left-handers may be relieved to hear that graduate schools usually have a higher-than-normal percentage of lefties in their student body.
And several recent presidents, including Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, are all southpaws.
Advice for parents of lefties
Parents who seek out information about the challenges and benefits of left-handedness will be better prepared to assist and advocate for their left-handed children.
Dr. Lori Walsh, a pediatrician with Glenbrook Pediatrics in Glenview and at Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago, stresses that parents should not try to steer a child one way or another when it comes to handedness-just take note of their tendencies and let nature take its course.
Handedness is usually determined sometime between 18 months and 3 years old, she says. By kindergarten, most children have a clear preference.
Walsh encourages parents to raise any concerns or questions they may have about their child's hand preference at routine check-ups because this isn't an issue pediatricians will generally raise on their own. Parents should also tell their pediatrician if their child does not have any hand preference by the time they reach school age because this could be a warning sign of possible learning problems.
Based on her experience, Walsh says many of the difficulties that left-handers face are rooted in the fact that nearly everything is set up for right-handers. "I believe that most problems have to do with materials or instruction rather than developmental concerns," she says.
Walsh encourages parents to reach out to teachers for advice on teaching their kids how to do things the left-handed way. "Based on the statistics, approximately 10 percent of the students that teachers work with are left-handed so they usually have more practical experience showing left-handers how to tie shoes or write than a pediatrician would," says Walsh.
However, she also warns parents should not assume that all teachers, coaches and other adults interacting with their child have more experience dealing with left-handers than you do. "Observe your child closely in new situations. Parents should not be afraid to intervene and advocate for their left-handed child if they notice that the child is struggling or not getting the explanation that they need." | <urn:uuid:11901f63-a82f-4a72-aba4-c18aee3ed6db> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.chicagoparent.com/magazines/chicago-parent/2010-april/features/raising-a-lefty | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975055 | 1,342 | 2.5 | 2 |
• SELECT SITE CURRENCY
Select a currency for use throughout the site
Customers who bought this item also bought
Retrospective Rummage in the Local Districts:. Edition No. 1
VDM Publishing House, January 2012, Pages: 252
The themes expressed herein Beyene´s work can create inimitable impressions on the one who is interested to develop historical knowledge and broaden skills of research in upshot reconstructing the past at the district levels. In spite of the fact that examining Various aspects of human past focusing at the narrow scope is a new vogue of historical study, essays in this work hopefully illuminate the socio-economic and political issues what went before. In this regard,it could serve as a springboard for further study of the local history which can contribute to enriching ongoing Ethiopian historiography. Ayele Tariku Mentor & Lecturer of History University of Mizan Tepi
Irina I. Strout has a B.A. in Languages (Moscow State Linguistic University) and an M.A. and a Ph.D. in English (The University of Tulsa). She is a current Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of Tulsa. Teaching interests are Victorian and Russian 19th Century literature. Irina I. Strout teaches English courses at the University of Tulsa. | <urn:uuid:cf5462d3-ca88-441c-9f23-51caad370ee7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/1920025/retrospective_rummage_in_the_local_districts | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00061-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.907808 | 275 | 1.640625 | 2 |
On June 16 2011 the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) announced the recall of 30000 metal futon bunk beds sold by Big Lots as a result of a fatal accident that occurred in March 2010 which claimed the life of a 3-year-old boy from Iowa. The childs head and neck became trapped in the metal frame when the bed was lowered from a seated position to a flat position. The child subsequently died of compression asphyxiation. Other design defects were also found to exist in these specific bunk beds prompting the bunk bed recall. The affected beds all have a model number of BFB1008. This number can be found on a label located on a support rail of the upper bunk. The recalled bunk beds were only sold at Big Lots in a time frame from January 2009 to April 2010. They cost $200 and were made in China. The CPSC warns that consumers should immediately stop using the bunk beds and contact Big Lots at 1-866-244-5687 for a free repair kit. Further information about the recall including a picture can be found at the CPSC Big Lots Bunk Bed Recall website.
Its tragic that a fatal accident happened to a child before such a likely glaring product design defect was discovered. Like some cribs bunk beds have a history of causing injury or death by way of their faulty design. When such products are released to market before full safety testing has been conducted they can present hazards to children and adults alike. When such accidents occur (which arent exactly accidents as a defective design can often be a ticking time-bomb) a product manufacturer can be held accountable for their product causing injury or loss to a person.
Texas Product Liability Attorney Michael Grossman | <urn:uuid:4bb2b9d0-611c-44c1-9357-6858069eae06> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.injuryblawg.com/994/30000-Big-Lots-Bunk-Beds-Recalled-After-Fatal-Chi.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976582 | 347 | 1.851563 | 2 |
Beaumont-Hamel is inextricably linked with the fate of the Newfoundland Regiment following their huge losses on 1 July 1916.
Their memorial is the huge Beaumont Hamel Memorial Park where the lines of the trenches can still be discerned.
Hawthorn Ridge Redoubt was a German front-line fortification west of the village of Beaumont Hamel on the Somme. It was the scene of a number of costly attacks by British infantry during the Battle of the Somme in 1916.
In preparation for the attack on 1 July 1916 the British had driven long underground tunnels from their lines through the chalk towards the German lines to plant a mine it was thought would be both big enough and powerful enough to destroy completely the German fortress of the Hawthorn Redoubt. It had taken seven months to dig the tunnel.
The Allied and German positions at Beaumont-Hamel remained unchanged from the outset of the Battle of the Somme on 1 July 1916 until the village was eventually captured in November 1916 when it fell to the 51st (Highland) Division.
After the Armistice the Newfoundland Government bought an 84 acre piece of ground at Beaumont-Hamel for a Memorial Park. The park was opened on June 7 1925 by the then Earl Haig.
The trenches were preserved just as they were left in 1918, thought today they are grass covered and mostly little more than shallow ditches.
At the entrance to Beaumont-Hamel Memorial Park is a tablet with the words of a poem by John Oxenham.
The text reads:
Near the entrance to Beaumont-Hamel Memorial Park is situated a memorial to the 29th British Division, the division of which the Newfoundland Regiment was a part.
The 51st (Highland) Division Memorial at Beaumont-Hamel commemorates the soldiers of the 51st (Highland) Division killed during World War I.
The memorial is located near Y Ravine in Beaumont-Hamel Memorial Park. This position had been the scene of the Division's first major victory on 13 November 1916 during the closing stage of the Battle of the Somme.
Hawthorn Ridge Cemetery No.2 is located in what was no mans land on 1 July 1916 between the British and the German front lines.
The front lines were situated on a ridge of high ground called the Auchonvillers Spur running in a south-easterly direction. A hawthorn tree was growing on this high ground and so the ridge became known as Hawthorn Ridge by the British Army when it moved in to occupy the front line here in August 1915.
The 8th Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders Memorial is constructed almost on the site of their battalion headquarters at the time of the capture of Beaumont-Hamel. The position is close to the Sunken Road and the signal for the attack was the second blowing of a mine under Hawthorn Ridge. | <urn:uuid:aba15d79-8f5a-4868-a535-2032aea55c59> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mikemccormac.com/news/itemlist/category/103-beaumont-hamel.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982727 | 608 | 3.0625 | 3 |
Practice > 3 Hours a Day > 7 Days a Week > for 10 Years
How much should you practice? In This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession, Daniel Levitan writes about the ten-thousand-hours theory, which proposes that 10,000 hours of practice is required to become a world-class expert in any field: basketball, ice skating, chess, or the viola.
This idea was further popularized by Malcolm Gladwell in his 2008 book Outliers: The Story of Success. Gladwell points to examples including Bill Joy, Bill Gates, and the Beatles, while Levitan counts up the hours to Mozart’s Symphony No. 1, which he composed at age 8.
Is there such a thing as “talent”?
In a study cited by Gladwell, violinists at Berlin’s Academy of Music were divided into three groups: the “stars”, who had the potential to become world-class soloists; the students who were merely “good”; and a third group who did not intend to ever play professionally, the “teachers.”
The students had all started playing around age 5, and for the first few years they all practiced about two or three hours a week. After age eight, marked differences began to emerge in the amount of time devoted to practice, with the best students “purposefully and single-mindedly playing their instruments with the intent to get better — well over thirty hours a week.” By age twenty, the total hours of practice were:
- Star Violinists: 10,000 hours
- Good Violinists: 8,000 hours
- Teachers: 4,000 hours
The same group studied amateur and professional pianists, with similar results. The amateurs never practiced more than about three hours a week, while the professionals increased the hours devoted to practice every year. Totals at age 20 - Amateurs: 2,000 hours; Professionals: 10,000 hours.
Levitan presents another study, where students were secretly divided into two groups based on their teacher’s evaluation of their talent. After several years, the students were rated again. The students who performed the best were those who had devoted the most time to practice — it didn’t matter which group they had been assigned to initially.
Levitan suggests that talent is a label that is used in a circular fashion: “we think we mean that they have some innate predisposition to excel, but in the end, we only apply the term retrospectively, after they have made significant achievements.”
Think back to the merely “good” violinists, who had practiced 8,000 hours by age 20. What would happen if they worked full-time (2,080 hours American) for another year — would they catch-up to the “stars”?
Gladwell doesn’t address this, but as a practical matter, they are at a crossroads. If they graduate and become professional musicians, they will be devoting an increasing amount of time to their instruments. If they leave the academy to teach or follow some other profession, it’s likely that the time devoted to practice will level off or begin decreasing.
There are of course other factors, both genetic and environmental, that go into making an expert musician, and we will look more closely at those in Part Two. But these studies strongly suggest that none are as important as practice. Gladwell writes:
Once a musician has enough ability to get into a top music school, the thing that distinguishes one performer from another is how hard he or she works. That’s it. And what’s more, the people at the very top don’t work just harder or much harder than everybody else. They work much, much harder.
This doesn’t mean that you can’t become an expert after age 20, but in fields such as athletics and music, if you aren’t playing professionally by age 21, I would think the odds of reaching world-class status begin to diminish significantly. You can still do it, but it will be harder. Much harder.
Practice > Play > Perform: What’s the Difference?
Glad you asked. Part Two will answer this question by digging into the work of Anders Ericsson and Benjamin Bloom, whose studies formed the basis for much of the writings on this topic by both Levitan and Gladwell. We will also look at other factors that contribute to (or impede) success. And for all of the 22-year-olds who may now be thoroughly bummed out, we’ll ask another question: Why do you want to be an expert anyway?
David D’Agostino is Executive Editor of the handcrafted artisan music blog: mymusicthing.com. | <urn:uuid:dad6ebb4-49ff-43a3-92fb-10be4dbb6a6e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.musicthinktank.com/mtt-open/10000-hours-of-practice-makes-perfect.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973818 | 1,014 | 3.125 | 3 |
Doug Lung / 12.06.2012 01:46PM
OMVC Spotlights Mobile DTV’s Non-Real-Time Apps
Group cites advantages over conventional broadcast TV
The Open Mobile Video Coalition (OMVC) publicly released its OMVC Non-real Time Mobile DTV Use Cases document this week. The Use Cases were prepared by the OMVC Technology Advisory Group (OTAG) Ad Hoc Group on NRT Use Cases. They describe device requirements to support non-real time (NRT) applications of Mobile DTV. NRT content is distributed to compatible receivers and stored on the receiver for later use.
ATSC adopted a standard for non-real-time digital content over conventional ATSC TV in May. See ATSC Standard A/103.
One of the obvious uses for NRT is clipcasting--sending short video and audio clips to a device for later viewing or listening by a consumer. Clip content can be automatically refreshed and deleted if it isn't used, or when a newer version becomes available. One example would be a TV station clipcasting local news, weather, sports and traffic information to handheld receivers. Consumers would be able to immediately access the content without waiting for it to download over the Internet. Have you ever been frustrated while watching a crawl of weather related closings waiting for the event or school you are interested in to show up? This type of data could easily be transmitted as an HTML file viewers could access and scroll through as needed. Purchased content (music or video-on-demand) could also be delivered this way.
Some of the more interesting use cases involve machine-to-machine type applications. There are many cases where providing two-way Internet connectivity is overkill. Mobile DTV NRT provides a much lower cost, more efficient way to do things such as controlling utility loads, traffic lights, public facility lighting and electronic signs.
Perhaps the most compelling use case is for Mobile EAS (M-EAS). The non-real time component could provide additional data in the form of images, video clips or HTML pages. These could contain evacuation maps and routes, radar images, maps showing a tornado's path, or the picture of a missing person.
Mobile DTV can do more than live TV. See the illustrated OMVC Non-real Time Mobile DTV Use Cases document for more examples. | <urn:uuid:29136bf3-f4bc-41d3-b228-5d016b314032> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tvtechnology.com/rf-technology/0146/omvc-spotlights-mobile-dtvs-non-real-time-apps/216727 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.908482 | 484 | 1.78125 | 2 |
If you are tweeting a URL, your tweets just got a little shorter by two characters, according to Mashable.
Starting Wednesday, any tweets sent with a URL will be reduced to just 118 characters. If you use an https link, it's reduced to 117 characters. The condensed links will now take up a bit more space, leaving you with less space to work with.
The reduction is due to a change in Twitter's "t.co" link wrapper. It extends the maximum length of the wrapper links from 20 characters to 22 for non-https URLs, and from 21 characters to 23 for https URLs.
The change was first announced in December. | <urn:uuid:80c9ea1e-f1cf-479a-b72f-3be34f5aa796> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.news4jax.com/news/Twitter-cuts-characters-if-you-post-a-link/-/475880/19001886/-/njfqrvz/-/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00067-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939421 | 134 | 1.734375 | 2 |
The British Grand Prix was a tense strategic battle between Red Bull and Ferrari. They went different ways on race strategy and ultimately Red Bull prevailed, Webber passing Alonso five laps from the end. So could Alonso and Ferrari have held on for the win if they had played the strategy differently? That’s one of the questions we’ll be addressing.
The challenge of McLaren was blunted again, Lewis Hamilton losing ground on his championship rivals while Lotus again scored strongly with both cars as Grosjean did a unique strategy on Sunday.
Background to the race
Heavy rain during practice and qualifying days had left the teams with very little information about how the tyres would perform on race day. There was only the one hour practice on Saturday morning to go on and this showed that on a cold track surface the soft compound tyre was graining badly (the top surface of the rubber rolling up) so Ferrari in particular were wary about it on race day.
The weather was very erratic all weekend and it stayed dry for the race, against expectations. Many teams including Mercedes and McLaren had planned for a wet race. Although the track temperature was shown as above 24 degrees, the ground was still too cold to get the soft tyre working well and the hard compound turned out to be the better race tyre. The key to doing well in the race, then, was to manage the soft tyre.
Ferrari and Alonso were wise to start with the hard tyre, as it proved the best tyre to race on. They started out wanting to minimise the time spent on the soft tyre and as soon as the tyre covers came off on the grid it was clear what the pattern of the race would be. Alonso would run two stints on hard tyres and a short final stint on softs, Webber would do the opposite; an opening stint on soft and then two longer stints on hard.
Alonso’s race would be dictated by keeping the soft tyre stint to a minimum at the end, while Webber’s would be all about staying in touch with Alonso in the opening stint and then coming on strong at the end.
Ferrari had another weapon at their disposal; they sent Massa out on softs for the first stint, so they would have data on tyre performance. This turned out to be less helpful than imagined…
Massa’s first stint was 13 laps during which time the team came to believe that the soft tyres were not as bad as expected. This would prove crucial later in the race, as it meant that Alonso committed to a 15 lap final stint on softs. Had he pitted a couple of laps later on each of his first two stops, he probably would not have lost the lead at the end. Without that data they would have been more inclined to stay off the soft tyre and would have done a strategy, which might have brought Alonso the win.
Alonso built a lead of five seconds over Webber and when the Australian stopped on lap 14, Alonso went just one lap longer. His pace on the hard tyres was still good, he set a couple of quick laps before his stop on lap 15, certainly comparable with Webber’s first two or three laps on new hard tyres in the second stint. So there was margin there to play with.
The gap between them was maintained at five seconds throughout the middle stint. Webber pitted again on lap 33, which left him with 19 laps to go to the finish on another set of hard tyres.
Alonso stayed out four more laps, pitting on lap 37 with a lead of four seconds to protect in the final stint. Although Webber had a couple of faster laps than Alonso before the Ferrari stop, Alonso again was able to find speed from the used hard tyres prior to his stop and another lap would have been possible. With two or three more laps in the opening stint and another lap in the second, this would have put him back out on track after a stop on lap 41 with a small margin over Webber, but just 10 or 11 laps to do on soft tyres to the finish. On this basis he would probably have been able to hold onto the lead to the end. Alternatively, he could have done what Hamilton did and run a short middle stint on softs of no more than 10 laps, reacted to Webber’s stop on lap 33 and finished on the same hard tyres as the Red Bull driver.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, especially the day after the Grand Prix when one can look at all the what-ifs. Ferrari and Alonso have done brilliantly to lead the championship at this stage and Silverstone was their strongest points haul of the season, with a fine fourth place for Massa. They move into second place in the Constructors’ Championship.
They have made a few strategic mistakes this season which have cost Alonso points, but on the whole they’ve been consistent in taking their opportunities. However there’s no getting away from the fact that, although their hunch at the start was correct that the hard was the better race tyre, there was definitely a win to be had on Sunday with a slightly more imaginative approach to the soft tyre in race strategy.
There were two other interesting strategies on Sunday from McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton and Lotus F1’s Romain Grosjean, which also shed light on what might have been for Alonso.
Both teams decided early on, like Ferrari that the hard tyre would be the faster race tyre. Hamilton, like Alonso, started on it, while Grosjean was involved in a first lap incident with Vettel and had to pit on lap two. He went to the hard tyre and then did the whole race on it, with only one further stop, So essentially he did a one stop strategy. He did a 24 lap stint and a 26 lap stint on it and was competitive. He was 22nd and last on lap 3, but came through to finish 6th behind his team mate Raikkonen, who had raced with Vettel and Massa. On lap 50, his tyres 24 laps old, he set the second fastest lap of the race.
It was another stunning performance by Grosjean and an illustration of the pace and durability of the hard Pirelli tyre, as well as the Lotus’ ability to find great race pace. With better qualifying performance, they would have a car capable of winning races.
Hamilton went for a hard/soft/hard strategy and did a long first stint, which appeared to have got him into a position to race Grosjean for sixth. He got the soft tyre out of the way with a short middle stint, but he didn’t have the pace in the final stint and faded. McLaren have problems balancing front and rear tyre temperatures and it’s costing them badly.
SILVERSTONE TYRE CHOICES
Webber: SN, HN(14) HN(33)
Alonso : HN, HN(15), SN(37)
Vettel: SN, HN(10), HN(37)
Massa: SN, HN (13), HN (35)
Raikkonen: SN, HN(13), HN (34)
Grosjean: SN, HN(2), HN(26)
Schumacher: SN, HN(12), HN (34)
Hamilton HN, SN (21), HN (28)
Senna: SN, HN (14) HN (30)
Button: HN, SN (16), HN (31)
Kobayashi: HN, HN(16) SN(37)
Hulkenberg HN, HN (16), SN(35)
Ricciardo: HN, SN(16), HN (29)
Vergne: SN, HN (14), HN (32)
Rosberg: HN, HN (15), SN (37)
Maldonado: SN, HN (11), HN (12)
Kovalainen: SN, HN(12), HN(29)
Glock HN, HN(18), SN(38)
Pic: SN, HN (13), HN (32)
De la Rosa: SN, SN(27)
Kartikeyan HN, HN(16), SN(35)
Perez: SN, HN (11) – Retired
Di Resta: SN, HN(1) – Retired
Petrov: Did Not Start
S= Soft; H=Hard; N=New; U= Used;
The UBS Race Strategy Report is written by James Allen with input and data from several F1 team strategists and from Pirelli
RACE HISTORY GRAPH
Kindly provided by Williams F1 Team
Notice the pace Alonso has at the end of the first and second stints and the margin he has over Webber at the first and second stops.
Note also the way Webber catches Alonso in the final stint.
Note Hamilton’s lack of pace from the outset of the final stint on hard tyres. Compare that with Grosjean’s pace on hard tyres throughout the race | <urn:uuid:43f01759-e9ae-48ef-a559-61367c61c4be> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2012/07/could-alonso-and-ferrari-have-won-silverstone-with-better-race-strategy/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977024 | 1,932 | 1.875 | 2 |
We like to think that our choices have cosmic significance, that the route we take to the store could mean the difference between meeting our soulmate or not, and that the project we choose to focus on today will have a significant impact on our lives.
And sometimes our choices do matter. Sometimes we do meet that special person en route to the grocery story, or we stumble upon an amazing opportunity because we chose to explore one passion over another. Sometimes our decisions have a major impact. But most of the time, choosing one route or project over another will produce no real difference.
In reality, you could probably choose either path, and chances are you’d end up with exactly the same result. Or maybe there would be a minor difference, but nothing significant.
A lot of the time, your choices just don’t matter.
That might sound harsh, but it’s actually quite freeing. Hear me out.
Multipotentialites often get hung up on which project to focus on on any given day. When I asked about your biggest productivity struggles, “choosing what to focus on” came up again and again. It was by far the biggest concern.
You’ve probably heard of the paradox of choice: the more options you have in front of you, the harder it is to choose. Well, for multipotentialites, who have so many more interests than most people, the paradox of choice is amplified tenfold.
No wonder this is a big problem!
Limit Your choices through prioritization
First thing’s first. Multipods tend to have so many projects in their lives, that I always recommend choosing 1-5 priority projects and hanging reminders of those on your wall (everything else can be explored during scanning time or can be added to your backburner list of things to pursue in the future).
However, beyond deciding on your priority projects, your choice about what to focus on on any given day, really doesn’t matter very much. For the most part, you could choose any of your priority projects to work on, and regardless of your choice, you’d be making progress on something important.
What’s important isn’t that you make the right choice, but that you make a choice
Getting hung up on all the possibilities and trying to be make the “perfect choice” will paralyze you. It’s also a form of Resistance, a good rationalization to not take that action step that will truly advance one of your goals.
We so often complicate things for ourselves, taking the long, winding road because we’re too afraid of doing the one thing that we know would make a real difference: calling that potential client, writing that sales page, whatever it is. Pouring over all of your possible options is a good way to avoid taking action.
But in this scenario, making a choice is more important than making the right choice. In fact, sometimes there is no right choice, just a number of different options.
So flip a coin, go with what you’re most passionate about in the moment, or do the thing that feels most pressing. It doesn’t really matter how you make your choice, just that you make one.
Admitting that your choices sometimes don’t matter is freeing
Now, when I hear my thoughts begin to obsess about what to work on, or hell, which utensil to use, I think to myself, “This choice probably doesn’t matter.”
Just admitting that your choice likely won’t make any difference or have any real, irreparable impact, makes it a lot easier to move on with your life.
Don’t waste your mental energy on decisions that don’t matter. Just pick something and get going.
Do you ever feel paralyzed by choice? How do you handle it? | <urn:uuid:4faa7981-77b5-416a-8c4f-0615629ceafb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://puttylike.com/your-choices-dont-matter/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94866 | 809 | 1.757813 | 2 |
BOSTON, MA – Starting tomorrow, the malicious computer worm Conficker.c will turn computers into zombies. Will one of them be yours?
Conficker.c is an aggressive program transmitted through use of the internet, which is thought to have infected 5-10 million computers. While it is unclear what the program plans to do on April 1, it will essentially take control of every infected machine to do its bidding.
How can you tell if your computer is infected? Check for these signs:
- Rusty, foul smell
- Tower is cold to the touch, no matter how long your computer has been running
- Hard drive continually makes a low, moaning sound
- Screen begins to yellow and go out-of-focus
- A Google search page for “BBBBRRRAAAAIIINNNNSSSS!!!” keeps popping up
If your computer has two or more of these symptoms, it is probably infected! So what do you do?
Greg Marin, Director of Paranormal Technology Studies at MIT, said, “Go directly to Microsoft.com and download their Emergency Patch. The software will attempt to clean out the infection and restore the computer to its original state. However, most machines are too far-gone at this point and will need other intervention.”
Professor Marin suggested that first, you take the computer to whatever place of worship you attend, so that it can be placed on holy ground. Then, empty out a Windex bottle and fill it with blessed water. Open the back of your tower and spray the insides until it is thoroughly coated. Wait until it has fully dried before plugging the tower back in.
Finally, detach the monitor, take it outside and smash it apart with a baseball bat, tire wrench, or whatever blunt object you may have lying around. Wait seven days and then buy a new monitor. Your PC should be in the clear!
When asked what laptop owners should do, Professor Marin merely shook his head. “I’m afraid all is lost,” he whispered. | <urn:uuid:6439b00b-48ce-428a-88e0-1f73e92b2161> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://weeklyworldnews.com/headlines/7232/april-fools-worm-removal/?like=1&source=post_flair&_wpnonce=6c7ec013d9 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949729 | 422 | 2.109375 | 2 |
It's training day and you've planned a 10K after work; that means you need a decent lunch to keep you going. Scanning the various options at your local café you opt for a large plate of carbohydrate-packed pasta, no added cheese. The perfect meal, you might think, but not so, according to the many nutritionists who have turned the concept of healthy eating on its head.
In recent years carbohydrates have taken a battering because they have been linked to the increasing incidence of obesity. A jacket potato or bowl of pasta, once seen as a healthy choice, became foods likely to increase your weight.
A number of low-carbohydrate diets have emerged and become very popular, though the total avoidance of carbohydrate is still largely seen as potentially damaging to our health. This is especially so for those in training, as carbohydrates provide a vital source of energy, fibre, vitamins and minerals. Nonetheless, a few health experts maintain that some carbohydrates should be avoided - or at least eaten in moderation.
Digestible carbohydrates fall into two broad camps - simple and complex, both of which contain sugars. There are also indigestible carbohydrates - fibre - which are also integral to a healthy diet.
Simple carbs are made up of one or two molecules, which means they are rapidly absorbed into the bloodstream. Fresh or dried fruit, milk and honey are ideal when you need a quick burst of energy - after a hard training session, or during transition.
In contrast, complex - or starchy - carbs are made up of many molecules, which are usually harder for your system to break down, so the sugars are released more slowly into your bloodstream, helping to keep energy levels on an even keel.
Avoid the sugar rush
That brings us back to the bowl of pasta you were planning for lunch. You don't need a nutritionist to tell you that refined, processed foods such as cakes, biscuits and pastries have little nutritional value, but many complex carbohydrates are also refined, which complicates the picture.
White bread, white pasta and white rice have been stripped of their outer bran coating and inner germ, and therefore also much of their nutritional content. Eat a bowl of spaghetti and you'll enjoy energy and calories, which are vital when you're in training, but you'll miss out on essential proteins, vitamins and minerals.
What's more, without the presence of whole grains, the sugars in carbs are more quickly absorbed, which causes blood sugar levels to peak quickly and then crash, which can leave you feeling weak, hungry and craving more carbs. This is not an ideal situation when you're halfway through a 40K cycle.
"The primary source of energy for an athlete is carbohydrate, because it's the easiest fuel for the human body," explains nutritionist Patrick Holford (www.patrickholford.com). "But if you load too much too quickly the body dumps the excess into the liver, to convert it into fat for storage. So you are better off having a steady supply of unrefined carbs that release their energy more slowly."
According to nutritionist Dr John Briffa, a simple way to discern the facts about food is to go back to basics and look at what our ancestors ate. It makes sense to suppose that the foods that have been in the human diet for the longest period of our evolutionary process are the ones to which we are best adapted genetically, physiologically and biochemically.
Therefore, the reasoning goes, these are the ones most likely to maintain our health and well-being. "It is perhaps easy to visualise our hunter-gatherer ancestors filling up with fruit, veg, nuts and seeds, as well as, occasionally, meat, fish and eggs," says Briffa. "But there's something not quite right about an image of early men and women sitting around campfires tucking into plates of pasta, bowls of processed breakfast cereals and stacks of bread."
The good food guide
Another indicator that can help when deciding how to efficiently fuel your body is the Glycaemic Index, or GI. Developed in 1981 by Dr David Jenkins, a professor of nutrition, it ranks foods based on their effect on blood sugar levels.
The rise in sugar levels is graded from 0 to 100; the higher the number, the faster the absorption of carbs. Foods such as oatcakes, strawberries and cashew nuts have a low GI (under 55), while bananas and baked beans are listed as moderate, as they fall between 55 and 70 on the scale.
The problem with this system, however, is that the index is based on a standard amount of carbs - 50g. To get that amount of carbs from some foods would mean eating more than most of us would normally eat in one week - let alone one meal. For example, you would need to consume a whopping 700g of carrots to hit the 50g target.
"GI gives us the first part of the story," explains dietician Nigel Denby. "It tells us that not all carbohydrates are created equal; some are absorbed more quickly than others, but it doesn't take into account how much carbohydrate a food contains. This means some very healthy foods are excluded."
Loading up the smart way
Enter the Glycaemic Load (GL). This takes the GI scale one step further, using its rating system but also taking into account the amount of carbohydrate in an average food portion. So food with a high GI but small amounts of carbohydrate will generally have a low GL.
"If we eat low-GL foods we store less excess energy and blood glucose levels are kept stable, giving a slow-release, prolonged energy supply," says Denby.
It's not just refined carbs that have come under scrutiny - the humble, versatile potato also has a surprisingly high GL. "I don't classify potatoes as a vegetable as they're not nutritious enough, but this doesn't mean you have to take them out of your diet," says Denby. "If you eat them with protein such as meat, and vegetables, this will balance out the sugar effect."
Cutting down, not out
The same goes for all other carbohydrates, so rather than shunning cheese on your pasta because of its calorie content, you should sprinkle it on as protein and fat, slowing down the rate at which the carbs are digested and absorbed. How you cook your food also
affects the way your body breaks it down.
According to Denby, over-boiling and baking breaks down the starch in carbs, making it more digestible and enabling sugar to be released far more rapidly into the bloodstream. Similarly, mashing increases the GL because it breaks the food down into smaller, more easily digested particles.
While sports nutritionist Claire Loades agrees that some carbs are digested and absorbed more quickly than others she is loath to label any food type as 'good' or 'bad' because she feels to do so only perpetuates fad diets.
"There are different carbs that suit different occasions - especially if you're an athlete. For everyday eating, low GL is preferable because it keeps blood-sugar levels stable and hunger at bay, but when you need refuelling after training, slow-release carbs just aren't going to cut it. A milkshake is one of the best post-training snacks, or just a glass of milk, as it provides protein, fluid and lactose."
Deciding how much of your diet should come from carbs is another contentious issue. According to the British Nutrition Foundation we should get half our energy needs from carbohydrates, which is around 200g for women and 270g for men. However, Dr John Briffa disagrees.
"I believe that what represents an ideal diet varies from person to person, but one thing I'm clear about is that many health professionals and even our governments advise intakes of carbohydrate that are greater than is good for us."
Eat for your needs
Patrick Holford agrees that the amount of carbohydrate needed depends on the individual and a key factor is how much exercise you do.
"A practical guide for those in endurance sports is that a third of what's on your plate should be protein, a third fresh, raw or steamed vegetables and a third starchy carbs," he explains. "But try to go for brown rice and whole-wheat pasta because they are going to give you more nutrients, which means you use the food fuel more efficiently."
When you're training hard your body will use up the glucose that carbohydrates create, whether you're a white-sliced addict or a wholemeal fan. But if you take sport seriously, opting for wholegrain and unrefined carbohydrates will undoubtedly improve not only your performance but also your general health and well-being.
"By eating a low-GL diet you gain more energy," says Holford. "It gives you more stamina and, provided you choose foods with a high nutrient content, faster recovery." | <urn:uuid:2c2f3abf-e441-4d27-9a8c-6b24b914c305> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.runnersworld.co.uk/triathlete/triathlon-race-nutrition/carb-your-enthusiasm/4434.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00059-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964931 | 1,830 | 2.8125 | 3 |
The jolliest of vegetables, these heirloom pumpkins are great for pies and jack-o-lanterns. Grow like squash and give them plenty of room. Try growing giant pumpkins and claim bragging rights with your neighbors.
(C. pepo) Our top choice for use as both carving pumpkins and for fall decorations. Perfectly shaped 12-15 pound fruits ...
Pumpkin, Musquee de Provence$2.75
A traditional variety from southern France, the Musquee de Provence are gorgeous pumpkins shaped like a wheel of cheese. The ...
Pumpkin, Rouge Vif d’Etampes$2.50
Flattened and ribbed large fruits are a gorgeous deep red-orange color. A very old french heirloom, this was the most ...
Squash, Long Island Cheese$2.75
East Coast heirloom long remembered as a great pie squash by people in New York and New Jersey. Introduced in ...
Squash, Muscade de Provence$2.75
An heirloom cheese pumpkin from the South of France, introduced to American gardeners in 1899 by Vaughan's Seed Store in ... | <urn:uuid:614199d4-7717-425e-9fa8-52794ef96cd9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.planetnatural.com/product-category/organic-gardening/garden-seeds/heirloom-vegetables/pumpkin/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00059-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.913756 | 253 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Yaacov Hecht helped transform the school system in Israel. Now he has come to the United States to talk about the state of education in America.
As the director of the Tel Aviv-based Institute for Democratic Education, Hecht has long been pushing the idea of “democratic education” — schools and classes that are more participatory and progressive than in traditional educational models.
In Israel, his message has caught on. Since he oversaw the creation of the Hadera Democratic School — the first of its kind in Israel — in 1987, more than two-dozen “democratic” schools have opened their doors in Israel, and another 200 are undergoing what Hecht calls the “democratization” process.
Earlier this month, Hecht brought his message to the United States, leading a weekend conference at Manhattan’s renowned Calhoun School. Several dozen teachers, parents and students came to hear Hecht speak about democratic education around the world.
Democratic education can be broadly understood as an educational philosophy that has as its central value respect for the individual. In every country and school where democratic education has been employed, this underlying philosophy manifests itself in different ways. No two democratic schools are alike.
But in each manifestation, democratic principles form the core of democratic education. Members of the school community form different bodies, similar to the American judicial, executive and legislative branches of government, which oversee the activities inside the school. In this system, students are treated as equals, and are granted great oversight in the direction of their education. They formulate its content to a degree that may seem unimaginable and unmanageable to those accustomed to the standard model of Western schooling. But Hecht asserts that, much to the surprise of the cynics, this approach often works. “We do not have anarchy,” he said.
Hecht’s philosophy has proven popular in Israel. The Hadera Democratic School was meant to hold 350 students, but it quickly developed such a strong reputation for offering a unique, world-class education that it soon had a waiting list of more then 3,500 students. Before his death, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin championed democratic education, and his Ministry of Education granted it high levels of financial support. After Rabin’s assassination, government support waned. When Benjamin Netanyahu took the reins of power, he cut the education budget, and those who supported a democratic education system left the government. The Institute for Democratic Education picked up the torch in the private sector and continues to spread the word within Israel and internationally. In Israel, public support for democratic education remains strong, Hecht reports.
In a truly democratic school, a peaceful, harmonious learning environment usually blooms, Hecht said. As an example, he pointed to a school in one of the most impoverished, crime-ridden areas of Tel Aviv that now follows the democratic philosophy: Violence, once an enormous problem, has been virtually eradicated, he said. The performance of the students has risen dramatically, and the school is looked upon with measured awe by the Israeli educational community.
According to Hecht, democratic education’s emphasis on nonviolence even benefits those schools in which violence has not reached crisis-like proportions. A culture of aggression, he said, is now a major scourge facing educational systems around the world. Students cannot think creatively in an environment plagued by behavior unconducive to creative thought, Hecht said, behavior that urges a sort of simplistic “anything to get ahead, me-first” mentality.
From his travels around the world observing numerous public and private schools, Hecht has come to the conclusion that educational systems have not responded adequately to the technological advances and seismic social shifts of recent decades, from the decline of the traditional nuclear family to heightened levels of aggression.
“The school system has changed,” Hecht said, “just not in the same direction” as the world. Proponents of democratic education demand immediate, relevant change, he said. They want a system that interacts with the world in a positive way, he said, rather than one that forms an insular cocoon of mediocrity.
Dana Bennis, the teacher who organized the conference at Calhoun, emphasized the potential benefits of democratic education to America. “Education is so strict right now, so limiting, that it detracts from learning,” he said. “We’re living in an information age, where there are more than factory-line jobs. New areas are opening every day. You need to know how to learn and how to be creative, and these skills are enforced by a democratic education.” | <urn:uuid:c87a16cc-2d22-497d-b89d-b72c113287ac> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://forward.com/articles/6184/israeli-innovator-eyes-american-schools-hebrew-get/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968934 | 957 | 2.21875 | 2 |
Eight Interesting Facts About Team Sports Participation In America
CNBC Sports Business Reporter
1. There are 3.2 million people who participate in cheerleading and 18.7 percent of them are male. In a fascinating twist, 39.8 percent of those who are involved in cheerleading say they are not interested in the NFL at all.
2. Wrestling participation declined 44.2 percent in the last ten years. Wrestling also has the highest churn rate, with more than half of the people who said they wrestled in 2009 saying they no longer wrestled in 2010.
3. Lacrosse is the fastest growing sport in America. There were 1.6 million people who played lacrosse last year, a 37.7 jump. Lacrosse participation is up 218.1 percent over the last 10 years.
4. An amazing 60 percent of people that play soccer outdoors are under the age of 18. Outdoor soccer is the second most popular sport for kids under the age of 13 after gymnastics. However, in the much talked about disconnect between playing and watching, only 20.5 percent of those who play outdoor soccer are really into Major League Soccer.
5. In 2010, almost twice the amount of Americans played basketball (26.3 million) over baseball (14.5 million). Baseball participation was up 5.2 percent in 2010, but still down 8.1 percent over the last decade.
6. Rugby is surprisingly getting more popular. Participation was up 50.7 percent in 2010 and, for the first time since it has been tracked, there are more than 1 million Americans playing Rugby.
7. Volleyball has the most amount of female participants (9.1 million), followed by soccer (6.8 million), basketball (6.5 million) and softball (4.7 million)
8. The highest grossing sport in terms of sports equipment sales in 2010 was football at $520 million, baseball/softball was second at $488 million. Teams spent $358 million on football uniforms in 2010 and $324 million on baseball uniforms.
Questions? Comments? SportsBiz@cnbc.com | <urn:uuid:8ecb51cc-4999-42cd-a331-a6f483bb4dcb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cnbc.com/id/44628826 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966438 | 434 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Got a Drive to Drive?
We have a comprehensive list of state-approved online driver’s courses in both print and electronic form. You and your parents can compare courses offerings and select the course that best suits your needs. After you have signed up with the online driver training provider, you will have priority scheduling for these designated computers.
For more information about getting started with an online driver education course provider, see our Driver Education Handout. For a list of approved online providers, see the Georgia Department of Driver Services web site.
AAA for Teens
AAA is the leading Auto Club which provides auto information and safety tips. The teen site provides tips on how to buy a new or used car, how to take care of your car, and safety tips you will need on the road. AAA also offers driving schools, auto insurance, and road side assistance membership.
Driver Education Classes (The Safe America Foundation)
This organization teaches courses in driver education, defensive driving, and alcohol and drug awareness which are licensed by the Georgia Department of Driver Services. (Please note that these courses are not free.)
Georgia Department of Driver Services Teen Page
Download a learner's manual, research Georgia laws, get safety tips, and learn how and where to get your license.
Teen Consumer Scrapbook: Transportation
Good advice from high school students on topics like buying a used car, being pulled over, saving on auto insurance, car accidents, and tires.
Hundreds of safe driving and driving tips about parallel parking, buying a used car, driving in bad weather, driving in the country, and more.
Chilton's Auto Manuals
Selected Chilton auto manuals are available in the branch libraries, but the complete set is available online! (If you are not in the library, you will be prompted for your library card number when you access this database.)
Money Saving Mechanics & Automotive Resources Handout
This handout contains recommendations for books and websites related to caring for cars, as well as instructions for accessing the Chilton's Manuals. | <urn:uuid:20c3283c-eb07-45ae-8b2d-955d54446113> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.claytonpl.org/teens/life/driving.cfm?CFID=3189190&CFTOKEN=462734ab3a0cb902-97D9D224-5056-B577-01E5D8A731F16329 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93163 | 419 | 1.890625 | 2 |
Elizabeth Stark's ideas for a better Internet
Open source and collective intelligence are increasingly shaping our society. How can we apply these concepts to education and learning, seeking change and innovation from those acquiring new knowledge?
Elizabeth Stark is an influential open internet advocate who was deeply involved in stopping SOPA and fostering online engagement in support of internet freedom. Stark has also worked to harness the power of the internet to rethink educational models.
With open source and collective intelligence increasingly shaping our society, she wonders how can we apply these concepts to education and learning, seeking change and innovation from those acquiring new knowledge?
The ubiquity of digital technologies has shown us that the collective intelligence of individuals can be harnessed to come up with new ideas or insights into a problem. The future of innovation stands to be one that isn't confined to ivory towers or one-off prodigies, but instead one that taps into people who are rethinking the very concepts they're learning. | <urn:uuid:8e359401-5202-4152-8e01-535f49fed20a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.picnicnetwork.org/Elizabeth-Stark-on-Democratizing-Knowledge-and-Innovation | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949347 | 192 | 2.625 | 3 |
The method solves the linear program without the integer constraint using the regular simplex algorithm. When an optimal solution is obtained, and this solution has a non-integer value for a variable that is supposed to be integer, a cutting plane algorithm is used to find further linear constraints which are satisfied by all feasible integer points but violated by the current fractional solution. If such an inequality is found, it is added to the linear program, such that resolving it will yield a different solution which is hopefully "less fractional". This process is repeated until either an integer solution is found (which is then known to be optimal) or until no more cutting planes are found.
Graphical Ontology Browser
- Click on a node to jump to the content of that node
- Pan to see the rest of the graph
- Scroll the mousewheel up and down to zoom in and out
- Rearrange the nodes in the graph by dragging a node to a different position | <urn:uuid:6dfba518-7881-4f74-8e43-4f34c443a75a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.spatial.redlands.edu/geodesign/ontology/?n=SDSSMethodsAndTechniques:BranchAndCut | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947022 | 193 | 2.609375 | 3 |
August 4, 2000
THE HOUSE PASSES H.R. 4865,
THE "SOCIAL SECURITY BENEFITS TAX RELIEF ACT"
On July 27, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 4865, the "Social Security Benefits Tax Relief Act," by a vote of 265 yeas to 159 nays.
The bill repeals the 1993 tax provision that increased from 50% to 85% the portion of Social Security benefits includable in gross income and subject to income tax, for individuals with income above $34,000 and for couples with income above $44,000. The higher income levels were also repealed. Thus, under the bill, up to 50% of Social Security benefits for single individuals with incomes over $25,000 and for married couples filing jointly with incomes over $32,000 would be subject to taxation.
The 1993 Act directed the additional revenues from this tax to the Medicare Trust Fund. H.R. 4865 requires general revenues to be transferred to the Medicare Trust fund to replace the revenues lost as a result of this repeal. The general revenue transfer would be calculated each year to equal the amount of tax that would have been collected had H.R. 4865 not been enacted.
The Secretary of the Treasury or the Secretary's delegate shall annually report to the Committee on Ways and Means of the House of Representatives and the Committee on Finance of the Senate the amounts and timing of the transfers under this section.
There are no provisions of H.R. 4865 relating to the Social Security program or the OASDI Trust Funds. | <urn:uuid:f7157156-01b9-4edd-9b8a-77ee84ea1437> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.socialsecurity.gov/legislation/legis_bulletin_080400.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959308 | 326 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Materials Selection and the Collection Development Policy
As with all collection development processes, materials selection is governed by the library's collection development policy. If you have not already learned about collection development policies please complete Course 1 in this series: Writing a Collection Development Policy before going on with this course
Within your library's collection development policy, there should be specific criteria for selecting different kinds of materials. Some typical criteria that are used in small libraries include:
1. Community interest in the subject matter. There are some subject areas that are of particular interest to the library's community. For school and academic libraries, this interest is typically determined by the needs of the curriculum. For public libraries, interest may be developed by particular events in the community or by a general interest in a subject. For example, libraries in rural areas typically develop collections having to do with farm life. Books about the local area or by local authors would also be included in this category. Interest may also be developed by national publicity for an item. If a book has been plugged on a number of television programs or has been made into a major motion picture, community interest is usually aroused.
2. Patron requests. Many libraries will consider buying an item that has been requested by a patron. Usually this criterion is factored with an estimate of general community interest and with the cost criteria. If an item is likely to be of interest to other community members and is reasonably priced, the library will consider purchasing it. Otherwise, they may get the item on interlibrary loan for the patron, but not purchase a copy for the library.
3. Materials by popular authors. Most public libraries will almost automatically purchase books by authors known to be popular with their users. For example, it is typical for public libraries to order any Stephen King, Mary Higgins Clark, Tom Clancy or Danielle Steele novel whether or not they have received favorable reviews.
4. Collection needs. Some materials are purchased in response to collection needs as demonstrated by a collection assessment. For example, a collection assessment may find that a position on a controversial subject is underrepresented and materials may be purchased to rectify this deficiency.
5. Quality of information. For non-fiction titles, accuracy and reliability of the information is a major concern. Libraries generally want books containing factual information to be as accurate and up-to-date as possible. Organization of the information is also a concern, as are the tools, such as indexes and bibliographies, found within the material to help access the information.
6. Literary merit. Although libraries will collect materials because they are demanded by their communities, libraries also normally desire to collect materials that are well written and have literary merit even if these items may not be as popular.
7. Favorable reviews. Because librarians do not have the time to read or view every item they collect, they rely on reviews to judge the quality of information and literary merit of many of the items they acquire. Libraries typically make many of their purchases based on listings in review sources, which give the names of new materials and impartial reviews of them.
8. Price. Price is always a consideration for libraries. Although an item may meet the criteria above, if it is expensive, the library will have to consider how this purchase will affect the availability of other important resources.
To see how two libraries list these and other materials selection criteria, click on the links below:
County Library District, Moscow
Marshall Public Library, Pocatello
Materials selection is simply applying the criteria in the collection development policy to materials that could be added to the library's collection. If the materials meet the criteria outlined in the collection development policy, and if funds are available, then the materials should be added to the collection. If the materials do not meet the criteria of the collection development policy, they should not be added to the collection.
The process sounds easy, but it is more complicated than it sounds. In order to select the best possible materials for the library, a librarian must go through a number of steps. These include:
1. Finding materials that might be acquired by the library.
2. Finding objective information about the quality of materials.
3. Finding out whether the funding is available to purchase the material.
4. Finding out whether the library already owns or has ordered the material.
In this course we will discuss each of these steps.
Click thearrow below to continue to the next page | <urn:uuid:109d7584-eeae-4f84-a515-b1f7edc77947> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://lili.org/forlibs/ce/able/course3/03process.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946527 | 900 | 2.8125 | 3 |
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A large room for dancing.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A room expressly designed for balls or dancing parties, or a room in which such entertainments are given.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A room for balls or dancing.
- n. large room used mainly for dancing
“The NYT pic of the ballroom is absolutely fairy tale.”
“The main ballroom, which is huge, is split between tradeshow area, where the booths are setup, and the audience and stage area.”
“Anniversary Waltz," a silver-haired man next to me said, "Now that's what I call ballroom dancing.”
“They rented out the main ballroom at the Portland Golf Club, and the setting was pretty fancy. needless to say, my Good Ol 'Boy Self felt a little out of place, but that's OK.”
“When he says he'll wear his nutmeg-coloured shorts, open-toed sandals and a cotton-weave t-shirt inside the main ballroom, he does it.”
“Aside from the academics, the school offers courses in ballroom dance, creative writing and golf.”
“The ballroom is empty, save for tables set with tiny bowls of grandma candy and a DJ cranking the pleading song "Tell Me Something Good.”
“And so all the ladies arrived in ballroom gowns, dressed to the nines (except for Melissa, who was fetchingly dressed in a suit complete with rogueish hat), and most of the men arrived in dashing suits, and the prom experience was complete.”
“â⠂ ¬Å Half of the ballroom is ruined, â⠂ ¬Â?”
“We certainly haven't time here today to go in any depth into all of the shortcomings of the state of our economy -- I understand my invitation was restricted to luncheon and this ballroom is required for other purposes at dinner.”
These user-created lists contain the word ‘ballroom’.
An add-on to Trivet's list elbow room and Lampbane's list 2BDRM W/VU that tries not to duplicate Trivet's and Lampbane's existing rooms. Virtual, allegorical and proverbial rooms accepted.
The Moves. Do~do~ditty!
Something brief and entertaining, yes?
Looking for tweets for ballroom. | <urn:uuid:694ee290-2039-4698-9f0d-38a44ea33ec6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wordnik.com/words/ballroom | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927651 | 546 | 2.28125 | 2 |
Douglas Alan wrote:
> "Robert Brewer" <> writes:
> > I've been looking through my code and can't find a single case where
> > I declared a classmethod, then called it from an instance, as in the
> > above example. Are there any cases where this is useful?
> Yes, it is useful. I don't know if I've made use of this feature yet
> in Python, but I do know that I was bent out of shape when I realized
> that C++ doesn't support "virtual static functions" (because I would
> have liked to use them.
> These functions are used in a parser that parses text representations
> of objects in the class hierarchy. isLegalFieldTag() is used by the
> parser to hlep determine whether or not a token it has just read is a
> legal token.
For example, whether "hlep" is a legal token?
> The reason why I wanted it to be a static function is
> that whether or not a token is legal does not depend on a particular
> instance -- only on the class of the instance. On the other hand, in
> order to do the parsing, I do need to dispatch based on the class of a
> particular instance.
> I suppose, unlike in C++, in Python I could fetch the class of the
> instance, and then dispatch on that, but that might be a bit
> more cumbersome.
Ah, thanks. By "more cumbersome" are you talking simply about having to
add .__class__ as in:
....or is there more to it?
I would probably implement your example by making isLegalFieldTag a
plain ol' instance method. To take a trivial case:
legal = True
If self hasn't defined "legal" then it is resolved via the class. I'm
sure your logic was more complex, but that's the route I tend to take.
Note that I'm not thinking about barring *all* class access from
instances, just those methods explicitly made 'classmethods', which
expect cls as a first parameter.
"Robert Brewer" <> writes:
> Douglas Alan wrote:
> Ah, thanks. By "more cumbersome" are you talking simply about having to
> add .__class__ as in:
> ...or is there more to it?
I think that should be about it, but I don't really like doing that.
I find it a bit ugly, and if at some point I were to decide that there
is some reason that I do want to use some instance data, then I have
to change my code in more places.
On the other hand, I'm certainly not going to lose any sleep over the
> I would probably implement your example by making isLegalFieldTag a
> plain ol' instance method. To take a trivial case:
> class Tag(object):
> legal = True
> def isLegalFieldTag(self):
> return self.legal
> If self hasn't defined "legal" then it is resolved via the class. I'm
> sure your logic was more complex, but that's the route I tend to take.
I'm not sure I understand what you have in mind. isLegalFieldTag()
takes a string as an argument, and determines whether that string is a
legal "tag" token when parsing textual representations of instances of
that class. In C++, the code had to look something like this (when
translated into Python):
if str == "foo" or str == "bar" or str == "baz": return True
else: return False
isLegalTag = staticmethod(isLegalTag)
f = Foo()
But in Python, I can get rid of vIsLegalTag() altogether, and just do:
If Python were changed as you suggest (modulo "classmethod" vs
"staticmethod") I would have to change the above code. The obvious
way, to me, would be to replace "f." with "f.__class__.".
Now what is the alternative to this that you would do?
> Note that I'm not thinking about barring *all* class access from
> instances, just those methods explicitly made 'classmethods', which
> expect cls as a first parameter.
I'm not sure what your reason is for making a big distinction here
between class methods and static methods. To me, making a big
distinction here would make Python less regular, and consequently more
difficult to learn and understand. Also, it means that if I were to
decide to change isLegalTag from a static method to a class method, I
would have to change more code. | <urn:uuid:604b9fb9-ec01-46ea-ae88-ccb7c36e8e97> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.velocityreviews.com/forums/t325737-re-list-sorted.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938544 | 1,016 | 2.46875 | 2 |
When you read accident reports, do you ask yourself why the pilot made the decisions that led to the accident or mishap? You also may have noticed there are some common threads in aviation accidents.
So, how can you avoid becoming a statistic? Here are 10 tips:
Use your checklist. There are certain items (such as emergency procedures) that should be committed to memory, but for the rest, use a checklist. A checklist is there to make sure that all items are checked and in a logical order. That includes items on the preflight inspection. If you are interrupted when you are running a checklist, back up three items and resume.
Never trust your fuel gauges. The regulations require they be accurate ONLY when empty. Make sure that you make a visual inspection of the tanks before each flight and use the appropriate POH when making fuel burn calculations. It’s also a good idea to give yourself a little cushion on the calculations, such as rounding 7.8 gallons per hour up to 8. Be careful in airplanes that have a pilot-input fuel totalizer. Unless you visually confirm that a certain number of gallons have been put in the tanks, don’t put that figure into the computer.
In a retractable gear airplane, make at least three checks to determine the position of the gear before landing. Don’t rely exclusively on the lights or gear warning horn to let you know the position of the gear. Look out the window and double check the position of the gear handle. Many flight schools install faux landing gear switches on the instrument panel of fixed-gear airplanes to get students in the habit of checking gear position before landing. If you intend to someday fly retractable gear aircraft, you might consider adding a faux switch to your own airplane.
Don’t fly by committee. One of the most dangerous combinations is more than two pilots in an airplane because pilots tend to debate when a problem develops. Before the flight determine who will be the pilot flying and what the roles of the non-flying pilots will be.
Know the high traffic areas in your community. Know the locations of airport practice areas, VORs, VFR and IFR flyways. Check the Terminal and Sectional charts for details.
Don’t fall victim to “get home-itis.” If the weather is deteriorating be prepared both mentally and physically to turn around.
Do not rely on the autopilot or gee-whiz avionics to get you out of a bad situation. They are tools but, just like trying to use a hammer to swat a fly, can do more harm than good when used incorrectly.
Stay proficient. Factor retraining into your flying budget in excess of what is outlined in the FARs for currency.
Practice emergency procedures with a qualified instructor pilot on board at least every six months. Hopefully you will never have to use these skills.
Don’t be afraid not to fly. If there is a day when the weather is iffy, or you just don’t feel like it’s a good idea to go up, don’t. There will always be another day. | <urn:uuid:fe47634e-e698-4e6b-9743-109332928abc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.generalaviationnews.com/2010/01/avoid-becoming-a-statistic/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.912692 | 648 | 2.375 | 2 |
The proximity of layers of tape on the spools of a cassette or reel to reel tape causes a weak imprint of magnetic information to be transferred to adjacent layers, effectively shifting a copy of the signal backwards and forwards along the tape. This can sometimes be heard as pre- or post-echo. Thinner tapes (designed for longer running times, since more tape can be held on the same spool) are more prone to the effect than thicker tapes, and tapes held in storage for a long period or exposed to a weak magnetic field can show pronounced print-through. Digital tapes are not affected in the same manner as the imprint is generally too weak to change the state of bits recorded on adjacent layers of the tape.
Print-through on a silent section of analogue tape can sometimes be corrected digitally by replacing it with a 'clone' of a silent passage without print-through. It is usually necessary to take the cloned section from the same tape in order to preserve the original ambience.
Print-through is actually used deliberately to mass-record prerecorded audio cassettes. In the duplicator, an endless loop of the source tape is forced into close contact with blank tape and run across a "print-through head" in which a weak AC high frequency sinewave is used to transfer the information to the blank tape without erasing the source tape. This permits the tapes to be run at very high speed, speeding up production. However, audio quality using this method is not as good as when the signal is directly recorded onto the tape.
Since analog video is recorded by frequency-modulation of the video signal, the FM capture effect shields the signal against this distortion, however the linear audio and (depending on format) chrominance signals of a video cassette may still print-through.
Football: Chip off the Old Jock; England Born and Bred but Kid McGinlay Is a Scot through and through Just like Dad
Feb 26, 2004; Byline: By David McCarthy THE accent is more Coronation Street than High Road. He was born in England and has lived there his... | <urn:uuid:08a1c907-e146-4e58-b943-d8d07cf5d384> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.reference.com/browse/through-and-through | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944874 | 427 | 3.015625 | 3 |
Final nod from environment ministry in February 2010
bt brinjal is a step away from becoming Indias first genetically modified food crop. Whether it will enter our kitchens, now depends on the Union environment ministry.
On October 14, the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (geac, the clearing house for all genetically modified crops in India) gave it environmental clearance. The final decision from the environment ministry is expected in February 2010.
The reports that paved the way for the environmental clearance have been put up on the ministrys website, and would be open to public comment till December 31, 2009. Consultations with scientists, farmers, consumers and non-profits will follow the comments.
In fact, geac could have cleared Bt brinjal when it met in January this year. geac had in its agenda test results submitted by seed company Mahyco, which has developed the crop. But two independent scientists reports showed inconsistencies in Mahycos interpretation of the test results, which found their way to the January meeting. This held up approval of the Bt crop (see Test tube brinjal, Down To Earth, April 15, 2009).
The geac constituted an expert committee in May to look into the findings of the two scientists. Groups opposing GM food sought an independent review when they got the companys test results through a Right to Information petition and forwarded them to the scientists.
The government-appointed expert committee did not find any discrepancy with Mahycos tests, brushed aside concerns raised by the scientists and said further tests were not required to establish the safety of GM food (see table).
|Scientists not satisfied with committee's response; Andhra Pradesh for another review|
|Independent scientists pointed out||Expert committee refuted|
|Bt brinjal has a combination of Cry 1AC and Cry 1AB genes. Tests were carried out on the toxicity of only Cry 1AC, rendering the tests invalid||It is evident that the large chunk of gene comprises Cry 1AC gene. Hence the control is appropriate|
|Two unnecessary antibiotic resistance marker genes introduced in Bt brinjal. The method is dated and increases health risks||The genes introduced are accepted around the world and have a history of safe use|
|No proof that Bt toxin is not present in cooked brinjal and there is no information on the allergenicity and toxicity of the cooked product||No more tests of allergenicity and toxicity is required as Bt protein has a history of safe use|
|Studies on mammals have been restricted to a 90-day period or less which is inadequate to study long-term assessment of chronic effects||Long-term tests are not required. Cry 1 AC gene is safe and not toxic. 90-120 days in a rat is equivalent to 21-25 years in humans. Cry 1 AC is shown to rapidly degrade in digestive fluids and is not detectable even in short-termstudies.|
|Tests such as DNA fingerprinting, proteomics and acute toxicity studies not carried out||Tests like proteomics (protein profiling) and metabolic profiling are long drawn expensive procedure with little value and therefore not recommended for safety assessment of GM crops. Other tests suggested are not required|
|Impact when GM food interacts with drugs||Hypothetical situation; did not merit consideration|
Bt brinjal contains a gene from Bacillus thuringiensis, a bacterium which produces a toxin that kills the pest when it feeds on the crop. Studies across the world on rats and mice suggest Bt crops increase allergies, antibiotic resistance and internal organ damage. But GM researchers claim Bt would reduce use of pesticide and control infestation of the fruit and shoot borer disease, which affects brinjals.
The benefits of Bt brinjal developed by Mahyco far outweigh the perceived and projected risks, read the report, which the committee submitted to the geac. There is no reason Indian farmers should be deprived of biotechnology any longer, said Arjula R Reddy who chaired the expert committee.
But the decision is one of the biggest disasters in independent India, said P M Bhargava, Supreme Court appointee to the geac. Also the former director of the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology in Hyderabad, Bhargava was present at the October 14 meeting that gave the crop the clearance. His, and other scientists primary complaint was the Mahycos tests were not enough.
Bhargava said he had suggested the committee summon the two scientists and Mahyco to present their facts. The face-to-face never happened, and the committee analyzed the same data Mahyco had given, while rebutting the scientists concerns, he said.
Mahyco did not take into account significant differences in clinical signs and biochemistry parameters in the blood of animals who were fed Bt brinjal and those that were not, during the clinical trials for three months, said Gilles-Eric Seralini of the Committee for Independent Research and Information on Genetic Engineering in France.
|Long-term chronic toxicity tests should have been done. Three months is too short a period to assess the safety of the food product.
G V Ramanjaneyulu, executive director, CSA, Hyderabad
| Scientists concerns were invalid. Farmers here should not be deprived of bio-tech any longer.
Arjula R Reddy, chairperson of GEACs expert committee
He and Judy Carmen of the Institute of Health and Environmental Research in Australia were the independent scientists who reviewed Mahycos test results.
Mahycos tests were not adequate, added G V Ramanjaneyulu of the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture, a non-profit in Hyderabad. Similar tests on Bt cotton could not capture the problem which led to sheep deaths. Three months is too short a period to assess the safety of a food product. Long-term chronic toxicity tests should have been done, he said. But the expert committee was of the opinion that the 90-day tests by Mahyco showed there were no significant differences between Bt brinjal and non-Bt brinjal.
Bhargava said that of the 22 tests recommended, Mahyco carried out two. Even these were done by companies and not independent research bodies, he said. P Balasubramanian of Tamil Nadu Agriculture University refuted this The tests were conducted by independent bodies and met international standards. Mahyco partnered with the university to develop Bt brinjal.
According to Ramanjaneyulu, it is not just about international standards; it is about how independent and comprehensive a study is. Mahyco should have factored in local ways of growing and consuming crops. In the US, machines work in cotton fields. In India, farmers do, so, you cannot ignore allergenicity tests among workers.
But the expert committee does not seem to be in a mood to accept these suggestions. In its report, the committee said Bhargavas call to raise the regulatory bar detrimental for research and development in the area of agricultural biotechnology, especially for public sector institutions.
This debate would be taken up in Parliament, said Prasenjit Bose, convenor, cpi (m) research cell. We oppose the manner in which the trials have been done. They were neither transparent, nor democratic. However, the larger issue is of proper biosafety tests and an unknown outcome of genetic modification, he said.
The cpi (m), through its farmers wingAll India Kisan Sabhais planning a meeting to garner support of farmer organizations in the country to arrive at a joint statement. They would post the statement as comment on the environment ministrys website.
In case Bt brinjal gets approval from the Centre, it will depend on states to decide whether or not they will allow cultivation of GM crops within their boundary. It seems they are in no mood to wait for the final decision. Kerala is exploring options of a law to make the state a GM-free zone. Orissa and Andhra Pradesh have also opposed the clearance. The Andhra Pradesh government has formed a committee comprising members of state agriculture and horticulture universities for their opinion on the studies carried out. Non-profits in Rajasthan have issued a joint statement demanding a high-level review of the clearance. Their stand is GM food would lead to pollution and contamination of other varieties.
|Mahyco has not followed international rules for Bt tests. It is a scientific and historical error to neglect significant health effects.
Gilles-Eric Seralini, biochemist with Committee for Independent Research and Information on Genetic Engineering in France
| A technical committee has cleared the Bt crop. This is an answer to all objections raised
P Balasubramanian, professor of molecular biology at Tamil Nadu Agriculture University
States are also concerned because consumers would have no way to find out if the brinjal they eat is transgenic. Non-labelling makes Bt brinjal more unviable. Activists said the Centre should not clear the GM crop till strict provisions on labelling were in place. But, said Bose, labelling will work on processed, packaged food. How do you label fruits and vegetables in mandis?
February might reveal the answers.
Jairam Ramesh, minister of state for environment and forests, at a public meeting in June had said GM food is not okay. If he overrules geacs decision, nothing much changes. If he does not, it might raise hopes for 56 other GM crops, including okra, rice, mustard, cauliflower, tomato, which are in various stages of trial in the country. | <urn:uuid:3c4f14c2-0cc8-46f5-87f8-edee80de2197> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.downtoearth.org.in/content/green-signal-bt-brinjal | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00059-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954111 | 2,006 | 2.28125 | 2 |
How to help your plants give winter the cold shoulder
Garden writer Ciscoe Morris reminds that even semi-hardy plants need protections from low temps, and that Lysol is better than bleach for disinfecting pruners and other implements.
Special to The Seattle Times
In the Garden
The brutal winters of the last few years have done in so many borderline hardy plants that even a few serious plant collectors gave up trying to grow them. I’m glad I didn’t go that route, because the Hebes, Phormiums, Callistemons, Grevilleas and several other semi-hardy shrubs are real standouts in my winter garden.
You can successfully grow these rare gems, but only if you’re willing to protect them from extreme cold. Begin by adding thick mulch around the base of the plant to protect the roots from freezing. Then if temperatures in the 20s are forecast, cover your plant with a bedsheet, mattress pad or Frost Protek — a lightweight, breathable plant cover made for this purpose (available through home/garden companies).
Make sure whatever you use covers the entire plant. Most covers only make about a 4-degree difference, but usually that’s enough to keep the plant alive. Only cover the plant during freezing weather, and remove it as soon as possible once milder temperatures return.
Make sure to pound stakes in the ground around the plant to hold the cover over the plant. It’s a real bummer to save your plant from the cold, only to find it’s been flattened like a pancake by a snow-laden mattress pad.
Disinfecting pruning tools
Throughout my gardening career, the accepted practice has been to dip your pruners in a solution of about 1 part chlorine bleach to 3 parts water after each cut while pruning a plant that you suspect might be diseased.
In her book “The Informed Gardener,” Linda Chalker-Scott, a Washington State University professor at Puyallup Research and Extension Center, points out that bleach isn’t a good choice. Chlorine bleach poses health risks, ruins tools and can be harmful to the plant if residue remains on the pruners.
Straight Lysol is a much better choice. It’s inexpensive, moderately safe to use and is much less harmful to tools. Keep in mind that to be effective, tools must be kept in good shape. Disinfectants don’t work well on dirty, pitted tools.
Be aware that all disinfectants can harm plant tissue. Any time you disinfect, wipe off any excess before making another cut, and never apply disinfectant directly to a tree wound unless it’s made for that purpose.
Finally, in my opinion, unless you’re pruning a plant with a disease known to be highly infectious, there are few diseases that require disinfecting between every cut. As long as you avoid cutting into obvious diseased tissue or oozing sap, it’s usually adequate to disinfect only before you move on to prune the next plant.
I confess that since I don’t have any seriously diseased plants in my garden, I only disinfect my tools about once a week, when I give them a good cleaning.
Ciscoe Morris: firstname.lastname@example.org “Gardening With Ciscoe” airs at 10 a.m. Saturdays on KING-TV.
About Ciscoe Morris
Ciscoe Morris' column runs Thursdays. His show "Gardening with Ciscoe" airs at 10 a.m. on Saturdays on King 5. | <urn:uuid:4689b79f-54c7-4150-930e-08048374052b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://seattletimes.com/html/living/2020096708_ciscoecolumnxml.html?syndication=rss | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937328 | 763 | 2.296875 | 2 |
October Science Cafe
Slimy Creatures of the seas: politicians and the Marine Bill
Dr Lyndsey Dodds, WWF Marine Policy Officer
Date: Wednesday 22nd October 2008
Venue: Dylan Thomas Centre
Wales' coasts and seas are home to some of the most beautiful and productive habitats in the world. Despite this, much of our wildlife is in decline and is coming under increasing pressure from a range of human activities. WWF has been campaigning for many years for improved legislation to achieve clean, healthy and productive seas.
The UK draft Marine Bill was published in April, taking us a step closer to this goal, but will this truly deliver the Welsh marine environment?
The Swansea Science Café offers opportunities for anyone to find out more about new, exciting and topical areas of science. Designed to be informal and entertaining, the café typically runs on the last Wednesday of every month at the Dylan Thomas Centre.
Entry is free and talks start at 7:30pm. For future events please follow this link. | <urn:uuid:1c47afb3-caa8-4472-857d-b23dcf803734> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.swansea.ac.uk/media-centre/news-archive/2007-2008/octobersciencecafe.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941094 | 205 | 2.234375 | 2 |
|Advertising|Jobs 転職|Shukan ST|JT Weekly|Book Club|JT Women|Study in Japan|Times Coupon|Subscribe 新聞購読申込|
|Home > Opinion|
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Toward 2015 — calling for a Nuclear Weapons Convention
Special to The Japan Times
As a preparatory meeting for the 2015 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference opens in Vienna on April 30, regional tensions are building — in the Middle East with Iran's nuclear development and in Northeast Asia with North Korea's attempt to launch a long-range rocket.
More than 40 years after the NPT entered into force in 1970, the proliferation of nuclear weapons has yet to cease. In light of this reality, I believe that, ultimately, the only viable solution is to return to the original vision stated in the preamble of the NPT: "... the liquidation of all their existing stockpiles, and the elimination from national arsenals of nuclear weapons and the means of their delivery."
So long as nuclear weapons continue to exist, so will the temptation to threaten others with overwhelming military force. This generates a vicious cycle in which threat gives rise to insecurity, encouraging further proliferation of nuclear weapons. The destabilizing impact on our world has been incalculable. The cycle cannot be completely severed unless all countries move away from national security doctrines dependent on nuclear capability.
The Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission led by Hans Blix stated in 2006 that it "rejects the suggestion that nuclear weapons in the hands of some pose no threat, while in the hands of others they place the world in mortal jeopardy." I completely agree. Nuclear weapons in any hands represent a "Sword of Damocles," an absolute evil that threatens people's right to live. It is an urgent task to categorically prohibit them.
The final document of the 2010 NPT Review Conference provides an important foundation as the international community sets out to tackle this task, as it clearly states that there can be no exception with regard to compliance with international law:
"The Conference expresses its deep concern at the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and reaffirms the need for all States at all times to comply with applicable international law, including international humanitarian law."
Taking this agreement as a critical opening, we must with all haste begin the work of outlawing nuclear weapons by means of a legally binding treaty. When the representatives of governments and NGOs gather in Vienna, the full application of international law to nuclear weapons should be part of the agenda, as should ways forward toward a "Nuclear Weapons Convention" (NWC) to comprehensively ban these weapons.
Organizations such as the Inter-Parliamentary Union with 162 member states, Mayors for Peace with over 5,200 member cities and the InterAction Council of former heads of state and government are now officially calling for a Nuclear Weapons Convention. A resolution calling for such a Convention has been submitted to the U.N. General Assembly every year since 1996, an initiative led by Malaysia. The momentum is growing, and last year 130 countries endorsed it.
Efforts are needed to initiate a cascade of support toward the realization of an NWC. I am convinced that, in addition to the spirit of international humanitarian law, the perspectives and motivations of human rights and sustainability should be enlisted to focus and bring to bear the attention and will of the world's people — young people above all — toward the goal of a world without nuclear weapons. This is because a focus on human rights and sustainability makes clear the unacceptable burden placed on both present and future generations by the maintenance of security policies based on nuclear weapons.
One way to jump-start the difficult process of negotiating an NWC would be to present it as a basic treaty — one that establishes the legal framework for a world without nuclear weapons — alongside a set of associated protocols. The basic treaty would allow signatory states to clearly commit to the goal of a world without nuclear weapons in light of the imperatives of international humanitarian law, human rights and sustainability, and to pledge to refrain from any action that would run counter to the achievement of this goal.
The key point of this proposal is to establish a framework within which all countries can work toward this shared global enterprise of humanity in conditions of physical and psychological security.
This would provide a road map for a structural transition from mutual threat to mutual assurance. Even if the protocols moving the treaty to the next stage of implementation are not ratified immediately, we could move away from the situation that prevails today, marked by a severe lack of transparency and the threat of virtually unrestrained proliferation. In its place would be established a nuclear weapons moratorium based on a clear overall forward vision and legal norm.
It is vital to begin as soon as possible. NGOs and forward-looking governments should establish a group — an "Action Group for a Nuclear Weapons Convention" — to begin to tackle this task.
I have for some time urged that a nuclear abolition summit to mark the effective end of the nuclear era be convened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki on the 70th anniversary of the bombings of those cities, with the participation of national leaders and representatives of global civil society. And I have stressed that the 2015 NPT Review Conference provides a good opportunity for such a summit.
I am convinced that organizing such a meeting at the sites of the actual atomic bombings would spark renewal of the pledge of all participants to achieve a world free from the threat of nuclear weapons. It would help solidify and make irreversible momentum toward that goal.
We should work toward the release — or better yet, the signing — of an agreed-upon draft of the basic framework treaty for the prohibition and abolition of nuclear weapons at that meeting.
The SGI will continue to make every effort to generate a powerful momentum toward this end, collaborating with Mayors for Peace, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) and other like-minded groups.
Japan learned from the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that the tragedy wrought by nuclear weapons must never be repeated and that humanity and nuclear weapons cannot coexist. In order to give this knowledge and commitment enduring form as a treaty definitively outlawing nuclear weapons, I urge Japan to take the initiative in generating constructive deliberations at the Vienna preparatory conference for the 2015 NPT Review Conference, and to act as a driving force toward a world without nuclear weapons.
Daisaku Ikeda is president of Soka Gakkai International (SGI) and founder of Soka University and the Toda Institute for Global Peace and Policy Research. His 2012 Peace Proposal can be found at www.sgi.org. | <urn:uuid:41e54d28-f04c-4fc9-8114-ce47aa36a5de> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://info.japantimes.co.jp/text/eo20120425di.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934784 | 1,374 | 1.835938 | 2 |
1. Dogs don't need to be housebroken - they naturally know where to go. If they make a mess in the house, they should be punished.
You need to train your dog on where to go, using praise and positive encouragement for jobs well done, rather than punishment when you find a mess after the fact. Unless you catch your dog "in the act", punishment does not serve any useful purpose, and will only make your dog nervous.
2. Pet dogs do not need to be obedience trained.
This is not true. Every dog should be trained using positive reinforcement rather than punishment. Ideally, you should take your dog to obedience classes so that he or she learns to behave even when there are distractions such as other people or other dogs.
3. Female dogs should have a litter before they are spayed.
There are no good reasons to allow your dog to have a litter before spaying her; in fact, dogs that are spayed have a significantly lower risk of developing breast cancer or uterine disease.
4. Only male dogs will 'hump" or lift their leg to urinate.
This is not true. Female dogs who are dominant, even if they have been spayed, may lift their leg to urinate and may "hump" other dogs or objects.
5. Happy dogs wag their tails.
Dogs do wag their tails when they are happy, but they also wag their tails when they are upset or challenged. There are several physical body motions and cues that help dogs communicate their intent. A wagging tail can mean either agitation or excitement. A dog that wags his tail slowly and moves his entire rear end or crouches down in the classic "play bow" position is usually demonstrating a friendly wag. Tails that are wagged when held higher, tails that "twitch" or a wagging tail held over the back may be associated with aggression.
6. Dogs like tasty food like table scraps.
Dogs have very poor taste buds and eat primarily based on their sense of smell. Table scraps that are fatty can cause digestive problems such as pancreatitis, while chunks of bone can obstruct the intestines. Cooked bones are brittle and when they are chewed they can break up into sharp fragments that can pierce the intestines, which can cause a life-threatening emergency.
7. Dogs eat grass when they are sick.
Dogs descended from wild wolves and foxes that ate every part of their "kill", including the stomach contents - which included berries, grass, and other vegetation. Many scientists believe grass was once part of dog's normal diet and eating small amounts of grass is normal.
8. Dogs are sick when their noses are warm.
This is an old wives tale. The temperature of a dog's nose does not indicate health or illness. It also does not indicate if they have a fever. The only accurate method to access a dog's temperature is to take it with a thermometer.
9. Dogs lick their wounds to heal them. Their saliva has healing properties.
It is natural for a dog to lick its wounds. However, too much licking can actually inhibit healing. Since dogs routinely lick their anus and other objects that are laden with bacteria, licking can also deposit infectious bacteria on and into the wounds, thus potentially causing a serious infection.
10. Garlic prevents fleas.
Garlic has NOT been proven helpful for flea control. Large amounts of garlic can even be harmful.
Caution: These news items, written by Lifelearn Inc., are licensed to this practice for the personal use of our clients. Any copying, printing or further distribution is prohibited without the express written permission of Lifelearn Inc. Please note that the news information presented here is NOT a substitute for a proper consultation and/or clinical examination of your pet by our clinic veterinarian. | <urn:uuid:b8f6e3e4-ccdf-4420-a99f-e60859df367a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.portersneckvet.com/index.php?view=pageView&docid=100051554 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965012 | 792 | 2.65625 | 3 |
The NTT DATA Group’s environmental initiatives include not only the basics, such as saving paper, cutting back on waste and reducing greenhouse gas emissions (i.e., electricity consumption) but also an environmental orientation in our development of information systems. Our goal is to continually lessen the environmental impact of our hardware as we develop systems that yield environmental benefits by shortening running time and minimizing the movement of people and things.
Environmental considerations in conducting business, and adherence to laws relating to the environment, are all part of our environmental policies, outlined here.
Read about the frameworks we’ve put in place to support our ongoing and systematic efforts to protect the environment: our three priorities, our organizational framework, and our environmental targets.
We’ve undertaken a wide variety of educational programs and implemented group-wide environmental activities to enhance employees’ awareness and understanding of environmental issues.
Our efforts to protect the environment begin at the supply-procurement stage. We are committed to using goods and services with a relatively low environmental impact.
See how far NTT DATA and Group companies have progressed in acquiring ISO 14001 certification. | <urn:uuid:7ff36b97-dc3c-400e-b745-81e2b5eeab29> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nttdata.com/global/en/csr/environment/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930414 | 230 | 2.140625 | 2 |
Creating the 'Syria of the future' right now
Russia, U.S. agree war-torn nation needs a transitional government
On Syria, Russia and the United States agree on one thing: The only way the civil war can be solved is politically with a transitional government.
But there's the rub: the U.S. insists President Bashar al-Assad can't be part of that government; Russia says it's up to the Syrians to decide, but the opposition won't deal with any government that includes al-Assad.
No matter how many meetings Moscow and Washington have, they get hung up on this crucial point. But now U.S. diplomats say they're not waiting. They're trying to foster creation of a transitional government on the ground, even before al-Assad might go. As State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland puts it: "Creating de facto, particularly in liberated areas, the Syria of the future that the Syrian people want."
Nuland describes it as "both a top-down process and a bottom-up process happening at the same time in Syria."
Bottom-up, local coordinating councils are taking over and providing services to residents in towns and villages liberated from government control.
Nuland says the Syrian Opposition Coalition is "beginning to identify specialists within its ranks who can do things like ensure that the lights stay on, that citizen security can be restored, that food and water and power and jobs can be delivered, that fire services stay in place, that hospitals run -- these kinds of things."
As part of the top-down approach, U.S. diplomats say the Syrian Opposition Coalition has contacts with technocrats working in the ministries of the central government who, as Nuland explains, "don't have blood on their hands" but "quietly oppose what the regime is up to."
These government workers, they say, may oppose al-Assad but don't want the Syrian state to collapse.
"So the degree to which we can be helpful in supporting the Syrian Opposition Coalition's efforts to get folks ready to maintain the functions of the state (and) can connect them to people inside Syria, whether they are at the federal level or whether they're at the local level ... we stand a better chance of the state not fracturing," Nuland said.
Will it work? If it does, U.S. diplomats hope it could allay some of Russia's fears about a chaotic end if al-Assad is violently pushed from office.
Will it work in time?
"We'll just have to see how this goes forward... but we're not going to wait for this process to be completed to get started on support for a better Syria inside Syria," Nuland said.
Copyright 2013 by CNN NewSource. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. | <urn:uuid:8734929e-68a6-4d23-b4b3-57c72611996a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.krcrtv.com/news/national/Creating-the-Syria-of-the-future-right-now/-/14285942/18117922/-/view/print/-/erm24rz/-/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954194 | 585 | 2.0625 | 2 |
How much attention should we pay to pundit predictions?
Maybe not so much. Jonah Lehrer, contributing editor at Wired, and blogger at The Frontal Cortex writes,
In the early 1980s, Philip Tetlock at UC Berkeley picked two hundred and eighty-four people who made their living "commenting or offering advice on political and economic trends" and began asking them to make predictions about future events. He had a long list of pertinent questions. Would George Bush be re-elected? Would there be a peaceful end to apartheid in South Africa? Would Quebec secede from Canada? Would the dot-com bubble burst? In each case, the pundits were asked to rate the probability of several possible outcomes. Tetlock then interrogated the pundits about their thought process, so that he could better understand how they made up their minds. By the end of the study, Tetlock had quantified 82,361 different predictions.Lehrer worries that bad expert advice can "reliably tamp down activity in brain regions" that monitor errors and mistakes.
After Tetlock tallied up the data, the predictive failures of the pundits became obvious. Although they were paid for their keen insights into world affairs, they tended to perform worse than random chance. Most of Tetlock's questions had three possible answers; the pundits, on average, selected the right answer less than 33 percent of the time. In other words, a dart-throwing chimp would have beaten the vast majority of professionals. Tetlock also found that the most famous pundits in Tetlock's study tended to be the least accurate, consistently churning out overblown and overconfident forecasts. Eminence was a handicap.
For Tetlock, go here.
I am skeptical of the mechanistic, brain-based explanation Lehrer offers. People often believe things because the social rewards of belief are greater than the social rewards of disbelief.
For example, if I said that I didn't believe that polar bear numbers are drastically decreasing (see also here), some people out there would assume that I enjoy torturing kittens on my break, and would not accept my view as a considered judgement. And if they can find a pundit to back them up, that is all they need. The problem is that they then vote for public policy that might not work out the way they hope.
Here is an example:
The United States now bans the import of polar bear skins, to protect the bear. I am sure many New York socialites toasted the decision. Maybe prematurely. The former practice of Inuit (Canadian Eskimos) was to sell their bear tag (the ancestral right to kill a bear) to a wealthy American hunter, an important source of income for communities much poorer than the socialite's.
The American, much of the time, never shoots a bear and just goes home. Then the tag is forfeit. So the number of tags in circulation is not equal to the number of dead bears, and is a poor predictor of population size. However, with no American market, the local hunter keeps his tag and keeps on trying until he shoots a bear. For more on this and related issues around counting bears, see this Maclean's article. (Maclean's is our national news magazine.)
I suppose it is some consolation that at least the number of tags in circulation will now more closely correlate to known bear deaths. Of course, more bears will die, but that is a small price to pay for the opportunity to be guided by the pundit.
Hat tip: Stephanie West Allen at Brains on Purpose | <urn:uuid:6f06e19d-19f6-4b01-b3ab-d2b810f42087> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mindfulhack.blogspot.com/2009/12/how-much-attention-should-we-pay-to.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00069-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968328 | 729 | 1.914063 | 2 |
The Office of Employment & Training is committed to encouraging statewide economic development by cultivating a well-trained workforce.To accomplish this goal, the Office identifies youth, adults and dislocated workers who are eligible for assistance under the Workforce Investment Act (WIA), assesses their employability skills and provides training as appropriate for identified sectors of growing employment demand. Ideally, this will lead to the placement of these individuals in self-sufficient employment. The Office also provides follow-up services leading to employment retention in high-wage and high-skilled jobs. These services are provided statewide while maintaining focus on the economic needs of each region.
The best place for Illinois' job seekers and businesses to connect to resources and services for work in the 21st century economy. With Illinois workNet you can make it happen!
WIA Works is an initiative to inform our communities of the important and successful work that takes place every day across Illinois to help career dreams become a reality.
Success released this study in February 2011, so that Recovery Act implementation could inform WIA reauthorization at the federal level. They reviewed Pennsylvania, New York and Illinois and how each state built on innovations in their workforce systems already underway prior to ARRA.
Workers in Southern Illinois who lost their jobs due to recent flooding may apply at their local WorkNet Center. Find out more.
Responding to the Great Recession: How the Recovery Act Boosted Training and Innovation in Three States
Workforce Investment Act (WIA) Grant Opportunities
March 14, 2013 IWIB Meeting
2013 IWIB Meeting Dates
IWIB Entrepreneurship Task Force Final Report
Veterans Task Force Report: Findings and Recommendations Final Draft | <urn:uuid:9a56a418-a483-4b02-95f4-e04635d84354> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.illinoisbiz.biz/dceo/Bureaus/Workforce_Development/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937337 | 345 | 1.875 | 2 |
Using an RD(N)/CDE
For many people living with diabetes, the hardest part is eating healthy. It used to be something you hardly thought about and just enjoyed. Diabetes can turn into an endless job of planning, counting, and saying "no." Finding a dietitian who is trained in diabetes can make life much easier. And it can help you take better care of your diabetes.
The ABCs of RD's/RDN's and CDE's
Anyone can call himself or herself a nutritionist. So if you're thinking of making an appointment with someone whose card says only "nutritionist," check his or her training. On the other hand, a registered dietitian (RD) / registered dietitian nutritionist (RDN) has to have specific schooling. The RDN credential is the newest credential being adopted by some RDs to further distinguish them from nutritionists. According to the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics' Board of Directors and the Commission on Dietetic Registration, including the word "nutritionist" in the credential communicates a broader concept of wellness (including prevention of health conditions beyond medical nutrition therapy) as well as treatment of conditions. RDs/RDNs must have finished a program like an internship, where they learn on the job. Then, RDs/RDNs must pass a very comprehensive exam.
CDE. stands for certified diabetes educator. Only healthcare providers with the required diabetes experience can be certified. Also, a CDE must have completed at least 1,000 hours of training in diabetes education.
A New Teammate
Your doctor's office or hospital probably has handouts on eating and meal planning with diabetes. You may even go home with a folder full of papers. But handouts are never as good as an informed, helpful person who can work with you and your needs.
"You're not going to get just a print-out from a dietitian," says Janis Roszler, RD, CDE, and an advisor to dLife. "The dietitian will say, 'OK, let's sit down together and go over how you normally eat. And let's find things that are high sodium that we can substitute.' " Dietitians are trained to look at your habits, likes and dislikes, and lifestyle. Then, with your help, they come up with ways for you to change your diet.
And when that dietitian is also a certified diabetes educator, he or she will be able to help you with things like: when to take your insulin or other medicines, when and how to test, and what to watch for as you change your diet or try new foods.
Make an Appointment
The easiest way to find an RD(N)/CDE is through your doctor or hospital. But if you can't find one in your area, you may want to make a special trip.
Before your appointment, spend some time thinking about your diet. What are your favorite foods? What is a typical breakfast for you? Lunch? Dinner? What snacks do you usually eat and when? Be honest and realistic. If you're a take-out lover, diabetes is not likely to turn you into someone who loves to cook. Your dietitian will want to know how you really live, and will help you plain so that eating can still be one of life's great joys.
Reviewed by Susan Weiner, R.D., M.S., C.D.E., C.D.N. 3/08
Blue Cheese Pears Lemony Caesar Salad Rosemary Carrots Berries 'n Cream Vegetable Curry Midwest Swiss Steak with Tomato Gravy Thin Crepes Vanilla Cookies Asparagus Finger Salad Creamy Garlic Lima Bean Soup
Because today's going to be a bit busy to be doing actual art (and because I just saw STAR TREK: Into Darkness yesterday), I'm going to take the Diabetes Blog Week wildcard: "Tell us what your fantasy diabetes device would be? Think of your dream blood glucose checker, delivery system for insulin or other meds, magic carb counter, etc etc etc. The sky is the limit — what... | <urn:uuid:ebecd645-6871-449c-8cbe-38a6fc3ddaa5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dlife.com/diabetes-food-and-fitness/what_do_i_eat/meal_planning/rds_and_cdes | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95482 | 851 | 2.453125 | 2 |
Some compact subspaces
Let’s say we have a compact space . A subset may not be itself compact, but there’s one useful case in which it will be. If is closed, then is compact.
Let’s take an open cover of . The sets are open subsets of , but they may not be open as subsets of . But by the definition of the subspace topology, each one must be the intersection of with an open subset of . Let’s just say that each is an open subset of to begin with.
Now, we have one more open set floating around. The complement of is open, since is closed! So between the collection and the extra set we’ve got an open cover of . By compactness of , this open cover has a finite subcover. We can throw out from the subcover if it’s in there, and we’re left with a finite open cover of , and so is compact.
In fact, if we restrict to Hausdorff spaces, must be closed to be compact. Indeed, we proved that if is compact and is Hausdorff then any point can be separated from by a neighborhood . Since there is such an open neighborhood, must be an interior point of . And since was arbitrary, every point of is an interior point, and so must be open.
Putting these two sides together, we can see that if is compact Hausdorff, then a subset is compact exactly when it’s closed. | <urn:uuid:842685ad-3507-4301-9bf7-cdeb79b44d12> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://unapologetic.wordpress.com/2008/01/15/some-compact-subspaces/?like=1&source=post_flair&_wpnonce=5d5a17dad5 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956335 | 318 | 2.8125 | 3 |
FAO STATISTICAL DEVELOPMENT SERIES
CONDUCTING AGRICULTURAL CENSUSES AND SURVEYS
FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION OF THE UNITED NATIONS
WORK PLAN, BUDGET AND EXPENDITURE CONTROL
This chapter deals with the basic activities which should follow the decision to conduct an agricultural census. These are:
The reader's attention is drawn to the importance of the recommendations in this chapter and particularly to those referring to the need for realistic estimates when preparing the budget. Inadequate planning and/or underestimating the financial requirements are the basic reasons in many countries for serious problems in census operations. Also, very important, is an awareness of the time and resource requirements for this operation. It should be known, especially by producers and users of data, that an agricultural census cannot be accomplished in a short time. Time is an essential dimension that should never be forgotten and even for a small census, at least two years is required from the initial preparatory work to the dissemination of the census results.
The work plan
3.1 The work plan is usually presented as a chart (see example in Table 3.1) identifying all the key activities of the census in a time frame (preparation, field work,etc.) and showing the relationship between them. Time is usually shown in weeks, months or quarters on the horizontal axes. Each row refers to a key activity with a bar showing when it is active. The comparison between bars demonstrates obvious relations between activities in time. Some information may be added to indicate possible flexibility of the relation; a well-prepared work plan should show, for instance, that enumeration cannot start before questionnaires are available.
3.2 Given the great number of specific activities, it is often more practical to break down the general work plan into several broad subject matter areas or phases; thus, one can prepare a field enumeration work plan, a training work plan, a data processing work plan, etc. In this case, the census coordinator must ensure the necessary consistency of these work plans. There are now several software packages available to assist in project planning and monitoring.
3.3 The assessment of the length of each activity must rely on realistic information from previous similar operations. The pilot census (see Chapter 13), carried out under conditions closely resembling the actual census, may also provide good estimates of time and resource requirements.
Table 3.1 Example of General Work Plan
|Activity||Year 1||Year 2||Year 3||Year 4|
|Distribution of material||XX||XX|
|Data processing - coding||XX||XX||XX||XX||XX||XX||XX|
|- - data entry||XX||XX||XX||XX||XX||XX||XX|
|- - tabulation||XX||XX||XX||XX||XX||XX||XX|
|Analysis & dissemination||XX||XX||XX||XX|
3.4 The importance of a well-thought out work plan should not be underestimated. For this purpose, a network analysis can be useful. For large operations like censuses, PERT (Program Evaluation and Review Technique) provides a systematic approach for realistic planning in line with target dates, indicating crucial tasks and contemplating alternative courses of action to be taken and highlighting inter-related resources and activities. For example, a delay in the arrival of training materials at training centres would mean re-assembling hundreds of census field workers for training. Certain decisions, such as training of key office personnel and purchase of computers should be taken at a very early stage. The scheduling of the work plan, therefore, should be such that ample time is allowed for all materials to arrive at their respective destinations in time. In addition, the work plan should also take into account local conditions and transportation facilities. The time set fortraining and enumeration should be such that they are not interrupted. Questionnaires and other materials should not be exposed to the danger of getting wet and spoiled, such as during the rainy season. It should also be kept in mind that in many countries agricultural activities depend on the agricultural season, so the date of enumeration has to be planned accordingly.
3.5 Simultaneously, or as part of a work plan, it is desirable to prepare information which will show the amount of work in physical terms for each specific activity. For example, the amount of work for the field enumeration can be measured by the number of holdings to be enumerated and the time needed to access and enumerate an average holding. For data entry, the amount of work can be measured in terms of the number of key strokes to be performed or questionnaires to be entered. This information is indispensable for estimating the number of enumerators or number of data entry machines and operators required in order to accomplish the operation within the time scheduled in the work plan. Furthermore, this information is valuable for monitoring the rate of accomplishment of specific activities, so that timely action can be taken in case delays are detected.
The financial outline
3.6 From the work plan a financial outline can be drawn up by assigning costs to specific activities. Here, two kind of costs should be distinguished:
3.7 The assessments of time, assessments of cost (flat rate, fixed or variable) must be based on realistic price estimates obtained from previous experiences or by experts in the field. For printing costs, estimates from printers are clearly the best solution.
3.8 All costing should be specifically identified and cover each of the three main census phases:
3.9 The other costs are:
3.9.4Office expenses and miscellaneous costs may include hiring of office space and furniture, purchase of stationery, required equipment, raincoats and boots (if required) for enumerators, purchase of fuel, administrative and miscellaneous services, supplies and materials of office staff involved in the operation, accounting control forms and communication expenses,etc.
Preparation of the budget
3.10 For censuses, as for any statistical operation, the budget should be prepared in accordance with the rules and regulations of the government. It should conform with the standard set forth by the authorities empowered to approve and appropriate the necessary funds. It should be detailed enough to permit easy examination and/or review and subsequent approval by officials concerned. It can be set up directly from the financial outline by aggregating costs of specific activities according to the financial time schedule and regulations of the country. It is generally less detailed than the financial outline and may present, for instance, all salaries and wages regrouped by year even if the staff requirements of the census vary largely, beginning with a fairly small technical group of persons for preparatory work, subsequently an army of enumerators and supervisors for the enumeration, followed by the recruitment of personnel required for data processing and finally for activities of dissemination. Each financial plan should have built in somecontingency allowance for inflation and unexpected expenses. In estimating the expenditure on salaries of personnel for every financial year, this distribution of the number and type of persons who would be working on the census has to be accurately provided. Furthermore, the primary enumerators and field supervisors would be working temporarily for the census and some honoraria may have to be paid to them. This amount is generally substantial, and needs to be foreseen in the work plan and budget for the appropriate financial year.
3.11 In large countries with socio-economic conditions varying from province to province, it may be more realistic to prepare a budget for each province separately and then pool them together to arrive at a country budget. For example, in large countries, transport and communication facilities may not exist uniformly in all the provinces. Separate estimates of travel and transport costs will have to be made for individual provinces.
3.12 Presentation and adoption of the budget vary depending on the form or style adopted or practices followed by the country. Two sample budgets are shown in Tables 3.2 and 3.3.
Review of the work plan, the budget and frequency
3.13 Planning and scheduling of the census operation are prepared years in advance of the actual operation. Consequently, a periodic review of the work plan and its impact on the budget for any change of plan and schedule of operation, would be appropriate. This review, at least once each quarter, would suffice, as submission of the budget is usually made once a year.
|Expenses/posts||Total||Year 1||Year 2||Year 3||Year 4|
|Preparatory studies, training, assistance, seminars||104||40||30||17||17|
|Data processing staff||25||9||12||5|
|Data processing equipment||50||50|
|Miscellaneous (including maintenance, repairs, various provisions...)||210||60||50||50||50|
Source: FAO Project document
|Data processing staff||280||8 400 000|
|Enumerators||933||2 796 000|
|Support staff||100||750 000|
|Computers and software||8 600 000|
|Vehicles||17 200 000|
|Other equipment||500 000|
|Publicity campaign for the Census||1 000 000|
|Travel expenses||7 792 000|
|Printing of questionnaires and manuals||2 500 000|
|Printing of publications||400 000|
|Dissemination of the Census results, maps and cartographic material||100 000|
|Petrol and oil||6 000 000|
|Training materials (projectors & blackboards)||200 000|
|General expenses||1 000 000|
|TOTAL||58 792 000|
Source: FAO Project Document
3.14 General review and coordination of changes in the plan are of great importance for large operations like a census. To better control the operations during the crucial period of census enumeration, a continuous review of the progress of work should be provided to ensure that day-to-day operations are proceeding smoothly and as planned. Any over-expenditure must be detected early and checked promptly. This control is particularly important in relation to the purchase of materials and supplies, printing of forms, field enumeration period, and processing of completed questionnaires. For this purpose, a monthly review would be required. Any delay occurring along any line of activity will have a chain reaction in the subsequent activity of the programme, affecting both work plan and budget. Ideally, the work plan should remain unchanged but whenever necessary changes are made in the plan and timetable, all key personnel should be informed. Changing the work plan must always result from an objective and rational analysis and be made by the census coordinator, not by pressure of unforseen events.
Preparation of expenditure control
3.15 A large operation such as a census involves a large amount of expenditure which will necessitate the introduction of control procedures to ensure the efficient use of funds as required by the funding agency. An appropriate system should, therefore, be designed and put in place.
3.16 Once a system has been established, written guidelines on financial policies and procedures should be prepared. For a census office which usually operates through its field personnel at various administrative levels, an efficient cost and control system would ensure an easy flow and control of funds from the central office to the field offices.
3.17 A possible procedure would be for the central office to issue fund allotments for a census administrative area, such as a provincial office. The province would then sub-allot amounts to the different areas under its supervision for their operational expenses, broken down as required, for instance into salaries and wages, travelling expenses, per diem, communication services, transportation services, other services, supplies and materials, rentals, equipment, etc. Field staff should be able to draw an amount, depending on the needs of the office, for the quarter but not beyond the cash ceiling allowance for that particular item of operating expenses.
3.18 In the meantime, the budget staff of the central office would keep an account of fund disbursements and reflect all types of expenditure incurred in a ledger account which would show on a current basis the amount spent for a project together with the unspent balance. The adoption of a coding system whereby every type of expenditure wo1uld be identified with a code number would make computerization possible.
3.19 A prerequisite for establishing expenditure control is the availability of information on expenditure incurred and the corresponding output of work. It is therefore desirable to develop a system of progress reports at regular intervals, say once a month. Progress reports should be compatible with the form in which both the work plan and the financial outline have been prepared. It would also be desirable to include in the form information regarding the outputs expected to be achieved in the subsequent month and for the year as a whole. These data can then be matched with achievements of the relevant period.
3.20 Relations between the work plan, expenditure control and financial outline are presented in Figure 3.1.
UN (1992). Handbook of population and housing censuses: Part I, Planning, organization and administration of population and housing censuses. Studies in methods, Series F, No. 54. | <urn:uuid:9986317a-b87c-4f98-9e85-26fdc1e69e53> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nzdl.org/gsdlmod?e=d-00000-00---off-0fi1998--00-0----0-10-0---0---0direct-10---4-------0-1l--11-en-50---20-preferences---00-0-1-00-0--4----0-0-11-10-0utfZz-8-00&a=d&c=fi1998&cl=CL1.1&d=HASH01f8f9644ac77a80c7378965 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.906221 | 2,702 | 2.90625 | 3 |
Earthcam has recently released a time lapse video to honor the One World Trade Center or the Freedom Tower which is at present the tallest building in New York City after surpassing Empire State Building.
Soon it will also be the tallest skyscraper in the Western Hemisphere. In the two-minute video Earthcam shows an amazing time lapse that took place during the eight year construction of the entire structure from 2004-2012. Interestingly the video comes just one day before the first death anniversary of Osama Bin Laden.
In addition to this some of the comments on YouTube regarding the video are also quite interesting. The most prominent one being, “they should name the building Phoenix!!!Because it raised from its own ashes.”
Please login to add to favorites
Already added to favorites
Added as Favorite | <urn:uuid:be003aca-59f5-4cd5-becc-ed1dd300c907> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.carbonated.tv/lifestyle/one-world-trade-center-20042012-video | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936076 | 160 | 1.820313 | 2 |
by Zach Yonzon
Keybinding, quite simply, is using your keyboard keys (or mouse buttons) to activate your spells and abilities, as opposed to clicking on them with your cursor. If there is any bad habit at all that you need to break, it’s clicking. It’s an even graver gaming sin than keyboard turning. In fact, learning how to keybind can effectively prevent you from keyboard turning.
By default, the game has set the W, A, S, D keys as forward, turn left, backward and turn right, respectively. Keyboard turning means you use the A and D keys (or any keyboard keys set to rotate) to change direction. You can easily remedy this by unbinding the A and D keys and binding them to the strafe buttons instead. Head on to the game menu by pressing the Esc key (instead of clicking on the computer icon on your bar — isn’t that much faster?) and going to the Key Bindings section. You’ll see that World of Warcraft actually allows for two different sets of keys or instructions for movement and other game commands. In most cases, you’ll only really need one set.
Change the Strafe Left and Strafe Right defaults by clicking on the buttons and assigning new keystrokes — in this case, A and D, which will automatically unbind the Turn Left and Turn Right keybinds. For good measure, go to the right column and unbind the secondary instructions, too, by clicking on the Unbind Key button at the bottom of the menu. Alternately, you can assign the left and right arrows to strafe, instead. By doing this, you prevent yourself from keyboard turning by accident. Heck, you won’t be able to keyboard turn even if you wanted to, so congratulations. If you’re left-handed and use your right hand for keystrokes, just try to flip it over to the other side. Bear with me on this one, since I have no idea how it works in the leftyverse.
The next thing you should do is assign your most-used and clutch spells to easily accessible keys. This means that unless you’re Mr. Fantastic or a Dreman, you should stay clear of the keys past 5 or 6, or any of the keys that require you to actually move your hand in order to reach them. The idea behind keybindings is that they make everything faster. If there’s anything you should’ve picked up by now from all that I’ve written, it’s that faster is always better in PvP. All your important spells and abilities should be within easy reach, so keybind your clutch PvP spells like interrupts, stuns and most especially your PvP trinket. If you use a multi-button mouse, you can keybind abilities to those, as well.
The default UI You can go about keybinding in two ways — either by using the default UI or using an action bar addon such as Bartender4 or, if you use the Razer Naga, the RazerNaga addon (which is based on Dominos). Personally, I highly recommend getting an addon, because it’ll make your life easier. I’ve found keybinding through the default interface to be cumbersome and less than intuitive. The game allows the use of 12 action buttons by default, which is shown on the lower left bar of your screen. These buttons correspond to the keys 1 through = (or 12 on the num pad). There are also six default action “pages,” which means you practically have 72 buttons to assign by default; that should be enough for a lot of folks.
Since the bar only shows one page, or 12 buttons, you’ll need to move to another page to access other abilities. By default, the game allows you to page your action bars by pressing SHIFT N, where N is the number of the action page. This will change the bar displayed on your UI, allowing you to access the abilities shown when you press your number keys. Special Action Buttons or abilities accessed through another state or form, or auras and stances, are keyed by default to CTRL FN, where N is any number from 1 to 0. Secondary Action Buttons are pet abilities, which can be accessed with CTRL N, again where N is 1-0. These are the game controls at their most basic.
Learning to use buttons exclusively, even without extensive keybinding, will improve your game greatly for PvP. Resist the urge to display all your bars through the interface menu, as it will only tempt you to click on things. Removing them from display forces you to rely on muscle memory for your spells. Learning how to press SHIFT N and then the spell button is simple keybinding. You can make it easier on yourself by giving each action bar a theme — action bar 1 for commonly used combat abilities, action bar 2 for heals and defensive spells, action bar 3 for consumables, and so on and so forth. This should work fairly well. At least you’re no longer clicking anything onscreen.
However, there are a couple of drawbacks to the default UI and how it works. First, the bars default to the number keys on your keyboard, which for most human beings aren’t completely accessible on one hand without moving it. Second, having to shift to another page consumes a small bit of time. Even if it takes you a split second to move to the proper action bar, it’s still a split second slower than direct access to the spell. That said, the game allows you to assign action bar functions to different keys or even mouse buttons. The important thing is accessibility: Your keybinds must be within easy reach. There’s no point in assigning spells to keys if you won’t be able to reach them, anyway.
This means that you’ll be using just about half of your keyboard, as indicated above. The blue keys are where you should put your most important spells. The more frequently used or more critical the spell is, the closer it should be to the center of the controls; for example, your PvP trinket would be bound to the Q key. Because mouse movement generally frees up the middle finger, more important spells can be bound to the keys above and beside the W key. W, A, S, D keys are retained for movement, with the A and D bound to strafe. As much as it isn’t a good idea to backpedal, retain the S key setting, because there are minute adjustments you can make walking backward that you can’t quite achieve while moving with your mouse.
I recommend keeping the tab key and space bar set to default — tab selection and jump — because of sheer convenience. Tab-selecting targets isn’t as terrible in PvP as it is in a dungeon. In fact, it’s often a great way to select targets in a chaotic battlefield. Jump is a basic part of movement and helps cancel spellcasting in a pinch. Finally, there are the three modifiers, SHIFT, CTRL and ALT, that can be used in conjunction with other keys (blue) for more commands (remember that the shift key + a number is bound to changing the action bars by default).
If you’ve never played with keybindings, expect to fumble around a bit as you begin to memorize your hotkeys. Some players lay out their keybindings using an Excel file, but you can make do with a simple piece of scratch paper or nothing at all.
Looking to make more WoW gold?
World of Warcraft Cataclysm In-game Leveling Guides
Tags: battleground-guide, bg, bg-guide, bgs, Guide, how-to-play-battlegrounds, how-to-pvp, Key Bindings, key-bind, key-binds, keybind, keybinding, keybindings, PvP-Guide, wow-battleground-guide, wow-bg-guide, wow-guide, WoW-PvP | <urn:uuid:9e5b40dd-2e24-4314-b701-081baf35544c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://freewowguide.org/wow-pvp-guide-keybinding-your-way-to-winning-form/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.913344 | 1,681 | 1.804688 | 2 |
LIMA -- Accidents, with dozens of people dead and injured. Hundreds of passengers stranded by flights cancelled for mechanical problems. Such were the last few months of TANS Peru, a state-owned airline created in 1963 and shut down in 2005 by the government of then-President Alan García.
TANS Peru wasnt Perus only failed foray into state-sponsored commercial aviation. Six years earlier, Aeroperú founded by Juan Velasco Alvarado, a populist general who ruled Peru from 1968 to 1975 also closed. A deadly accident in the Pacific Ocean, a confusing privatization effort, and losses that reached $174 million annually combined to ground Aeroperú for good.
Its dismal track record, however, hasnt discouraged the Peruvian government now under the leadership of President Ollanta Humala from setting its sights yet again on the airline business. Plans are currently underway for a carrier called Aerolíneas del Perú. We want to see the colors of the [Peruvian] flag back in the sky, says Julián Palacín Fernández, an aeronautical law expert who put together a feasibility study for Humalas Gana Peru party.
Given current trends in the global airline industry, launching a state-run carrier promises to be a tricky venture. According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), approximately 200 airlines worldwide have gone belly up over the past decade. To survive in the face of volatile oil prices and the global financial crisis, several large airline companies have had to look for strategic mergers: Air France fused with KLM, Delta with Northwest, Continental with United, and British Airways with American Airlines. Latin American mergers include Avianca (Colombia) and TACA (Central America); Gol and Varig (both Brazilian); and LAN (Chile) and TAM (Brazil).
According to Carlos Adrianzén, dean of the economics department at the Peruvian University of Applied Sciences (UPC), the industry is seeing more and more regional or global companies and fewer national airlines. Exceptions are Cuba, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia and Venezuela, which all maintain state-run carriers at high cost.
Ollanta Humala cant reinvent the wheel, says Germán Efromovich, president of Synergy, the parent company that controls Avianca and TACA. He doesnt have to look far to realize that either. Argentina insists on keeping its airline. But it costs a ton of money. Venezuela created Conviasa, and that too costs an enormous amount of money to maintain.
Indeed, in early 2011 the president of Aerolíneas Argentinas, Mariano Recalde, presented the Argentine Congress with a report explaining that the company which the state reassumed control of three years ago needed nearly $400 million in public subsidies.
Looking to go low-cost
Julián Palacín Fernández, however, stands by the Peruvian governments new airline plan. It wont be an airline thats propped up by the state. Thats been tried before. And it failed, he says. Private partners will provide all the capital. The state, working through the various regional governments, will take care of all the airport infrastructure.
Palacín says the model to follow in this case is the low-cost approach used by companies such as Southwest, a U.S. carrier that is able to offer inexpensive tickets by reducing operating costs to a bare minimum. In order to reach six million Peruvians who normally cant afford [airline travel], we need to imitate companies like Southwest, Ryanair and EasyJet, he says.
Government sources suggest the initial investment needed for the new Peruvian airline would be about $70 million, much of which would be used to rent a fleet of six Airbus 316 jets (156 passengers) and six Bombardier planes (80 passengers). With 12 planes, Aerolíneas del Perú would actually have the second largest fleet in the country after LAN Perú, which operates 31 aircraft. TACA Perú has just six planes.
Palacín whose brother, Carlos, headed a failed private airline called Aerocóndor has the support of key members of President Humalas cabinet, including José Luis Castilla, the minister of the economy. Castilla, a conservative technocrat, believes a new state airline is indeed possible. The formula will probably have to be a public-private partnership because even though [the state] has a significant amount of money, its still finite and the countrys needs are enormous, he says.
What the state doesnt have, at the moment, is a true hub for the project. For cost reasons, Limas main airport, Jorge Chávez, isnt an option. Lima Airport Partners, the company that administers Jorge Chávez, charges too much to make the low-cost model work there. The nearby Las Palmas Air Force Base isnt an option either, since for contract reasons, the state isnt allowed to operate another commercial airport within 200 kilometers of Jorge Chávez.
Grumblings from the private sector
Palacín hasnt figured out a way around the problem just yet, but insists that once a solution is found, Aerolíneas del Perú will be in a position to take off quickly financially speaking. The aeronautical law expert says the airline could pull in about $50 million in its first year. Within a decade, Aerolíneas del Perú could generate annual revenue of $500 million and enjoy a 40% market share, he predicts.
The numbers dont sit well with private sector representatives like Carlos Gutiérrez, who heads an international airline association called AETAI. Gutiérrez would prefer to see the Humala government scrap the project and use its money instead to help private carriers offset costs involved in certain unprofitable routes. Carlos Canales, the president of Perus National Tourism Chamber, is also critical of the Aerolíneas del Perú project, saying it could end up bankrupting weaker private operators.
Leading airline LAN Perú, however, says it isnt worried. LAN Perú controls about 60% off the market and generated nearly $760 million in revenue in 2010. Executive Vice President Enrique Cueto has said publicly that LAN Perú plans to stick with its five-year, $700 million-investment plan regardless of how the governments Aerolíneas del Perú project pans out.
Aerolíneas del Perú doesnt yet have an official launch date. But insiders say the government is indeed moving forward with the plan. Pro Inversión, the governments investment promotion agency, plans to have the project mapped out by the end of the year. Only then will the state really know if there are private parties willing to buy into its dream of putting Perus red-and-white flag back in the sky.
Read more from AméricaEconomía in Spanish
Photo - Santi LLobet | <urn:uuid:9f5b9679-e09b-4951-a4ab-d0bb942cdf9b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://worldcrunch.com/business-finance/after-past-failures-peru-plans-new-state-run-airline-built-on-ryan-air-model/c2s4624/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933702 | 1,436 | 2.296875 | 2 |
Crime Stoppers in Greater Cincinnati, Northern Kentucky and Southeast Indiana was formally organized in 1980. The original founders of the organization include Northern Kentucky and Greater Cincinnati businesspersons, local law enforcement.
Since the first call in 1980, Crime Stoppers in Greater Cincinnati, Northern Kentucky and Southeast Indiana has grown successfully to serve the community by providing a means of communication for members of the public to provide law enforcement agencies with information on crimes or suspects without having to reveal their identity.
Greater Cincinnati, Northern Kentucky and Southeast Indiana Crime Stoppers is neither a police nor a media program. It is a partnership between the community, the media and law enforcement.
Today Crime Stoppers has TV relationships with: WLWT 5, WCPO 9, WKRC 12 ,WXIX 19 and Time Warner and radio relationships with: WDBZ 1230 the BUZZ radio, 55KRC and 700WLW and 97.7 LaMega. These media partners provide the public with information that leads to Crime Stoppers tips.
Crime Stoppers went online to better inform and serve the community.
Greater Cincinnati – Northern Kentucky Crime Stoppers was founded in 1980, to promote the welfare of the community and to lessen the burdens of the federal and local government by;
- Assisting law enforcement agencies in the apprehension and conviction of criminals, recovery of stolen property and illegal narcotics
- Advise & train law enforcement personnel & the community.
- Helping motivate the public to cooperate with law enforcement agencies
- Stimulate and encourage the flow of information to, among and between law enforcement agencies.
- Creating and circulating films, videos, sound tapes and printed material about crime prevention and Crime Stoppers.
About Crime Stoppers in the US
The Crime Stoppers concept started in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1976. A teen was shot and murdered during a robbery, in a well-traveled, well-lit area of town on a busy Friday night. Weeks of investigation turned up no clues, and no one who saw the incident offered information or assistance.
Detectives decided that there were two reasons why no one offered assistance on this case. Either the public was afraid for their own physical safety from the culprits or they just did not care or want to get involved. To solve the problem of fear for their well-being, tipsters were offered anonymity, and to combat apathy they were offered cash rewards.
Police could not offer rewards for anonymous information, so they needed a community board that could raise the money and pay the rewards. The community stepped up to the plate in masses.
In order to spread a detailed account of the crime to the community as well as the anonymity and rewards, they needed the help of the media. Assistance was offered by the media and the first ever Crime Stoppers reenactment was done. It resulted in a case-solving tip the very next day. Furthermore, it also solved 4-5 other violent crimes.
Word spread quickly regarding this incident and soon they were other U.S. programs. Crime Stoppers U.S.A. was formed. In 1982, Calgary, Canada (Followed closely by Vancouver, Edmonton and Toronto) started a program thus in 1984 Crime Stoppers International was born. | <urn:uuid:e140ea15-22a7-4ed8-a780-6662d8d61cf1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://crime-stoppers.us/about/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956297 | 663 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Health Care Governance (HCG)
Health care seems to be in a permanent flux, with changes upon changes affecting the work of all within the healthcare sector and beyond. The current marketisation of the Dutch hospital sector is probably the most visible change, affecting the position of patients, healthcare workers, professional organisations, insurers, managers and policy-makers. But also in other than the cure sectors, significant reforms are taking place. These developments have in common that they illustrate that we can no longer speak of a 'state centered' approach to health care decision-making (if ever we could): more and more actors are drawn into the healthcare arena and mutual dependencies increase considerably. The concept of 'governance' tries to capture these changing steering arrangements in the public sector.
A second, conceptual, change that the notion of 'governance' points at is the multi-layeredness of most of societal processes: not only governments (be they international, national or local), but professional associations, industry, insurers, patient organizations and even work floor levels are involved in the coming about of societal steering. What used to be called the 'micro' or the 'macro' has to a great extent become blurred into e.g. 'networks' by analyses of actual policy processes. The concept of Governance tries to build on this by looking at ways in which different places in which societal steering takes place are connected and what kinds of consequences this has for e.g. the quality and legitimacy of decision-making processes.
The group of Health Care Governance studies the development and consequences of those changing steering arrangements, particularly in the healthcare sectors. The group consists of some 25 researchers with different social science backgrounds such as public administration, science and technology studies, organizational sociology and anthropology. This combination of disciplines places us in a unique position to study both changing 'modes of governnance' and the relation they have with changing positionings of key actors in the field of healthcare (e.g. professionals, patients, managers) as well as the material infrastructures (e.g. information technologies) that are built to form the changing steering relationships. Central questions the group tries to answer in the projects that we are engaged in are:
- how are power relations affected by the introduction of new modes of governance, and how do these affect the legitimacy of decision-making in the healthcare sectors?
- how can we explain the working of different modes of governance in relation to each other (seeing the healthcare sector as a hybrid of different modes of governance operating at the same time)?
- how can learning between actors and between levels of organisation be improved within the context of the public accountability of actors in the public sector and the growing marketisation of healthcare?
A list of projects that members of the group are currently involved in will soon be found here.
Teaching of the group takes place in all programs of the institute of Health Policy and Management. In the bachelor's program, members of the group participate in courses on e.g. allocation issues in health care, innovation of healthcare organizations, qualitative research methods and philosophy of the health sciences. In the Master's program Health Economics, Policy and Law, we teach the courses Healthcare governance and Comparative politics. In the Master's program Care Management, we teach the courses on Knowledge management and information management.
The group also participates in several courses offered by the Centre for Management Development in Healthcare. At the PhD level, we are closely affiliated with the national research schools Science, Technology and Modern Culture and the Netherlands Institute of Government. | <urn:uuid:969a6fa4-c454-4caa-8929-64a5b2b9452d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bmg.eur.nl/english/research/research_groups/hcg/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942505 | 722 | 2.0625 | 2 |
|> back to statements||
Permanent Mission of the Republic of the Philippines to the United Nations
A Historic Initiative of Transcendental Significance
(Closing remarks delivered on 5 March 2007 by H.E. Hilario G. Davide, Jr. Permanent Representative of the Philippines to the United Nations at the end of the afternoon session of the conference on “Trafficking in women and girls: Meeting the Challenge Together”, sponsored by the Permanent Missions of the Republic of Belarus and the Philippines to the United Nations, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and Vital Voices Global Partnership)
I thank our distinguished speakers for this afternoon’s session, the moderator and the participants in the open discussions for sharing with us their views, expertise and experience which, I am sure, will prove invaluable to each and everyone of us and even to all the stakeholders concerning the trafficking in women and children and in dealing with our alarming problem of trafficking. Even as we speak now, many women and girls are falling prey to the perpetrators. While we see trafficking in women and girls as a transnational crime that can only be effectively eliminated by coordinating and synchronizing our efforts, we need to be reminded that at the core of the issue are human beings whose rights are violated. We, therefore, need to ensure that the measures adopted for the purpose of preventing and combating this trafficking do not have an adverse impact on the human rights and dignity of persons, especially women and girls who are most vulnerable. In short, we must strike a delicate balance to attain what the 12 th ASEAN Summit held in the Philippines last January calls a “caring and sharing community”.
It has been a long day for all of us. Yet, it is a day of transcendental significance which made us active instruments for a greater cause. We have made a historic initiative. We have to move forward. From here on, our fight against trafficking in women and girls must be ceaseless until victory is won. We should never tire nor weaken not only in our resolve, but, more importantly , in our collective, positive and affirmative action.
With that, I finally express my boundless gratitude to our co-organizers and partners, the Office of the General Assembly President, the ECOSOC President and the Deputy Secretary-General who contributed in a very large measure to the success of this initiative.
On behalf of my co-chair, H.E. Andrei Dapkiunas, Permanent Representative of the Republic of Belarus to the United Nations and of myself, I declare this Conference closed for the time being - only for the time being because we have only begun.
Thank you very much.
Philippine Center Building | 556 5th Avenue
New York, NY 10036 | (Between 45th and 46th)
Tel:(212)764-1300 | Fax:(212)840-8602 | E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.org | <urn:uuid:757452e6-cf66-43b9-a61f-5ee320a3cbff> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.un.int/philippines/statements/20070305a.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00071-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934828 | 609 | 1.671875 | 2 |
By JENNY GROSS
The International Energy Agency on Friday raised its forecast for oil demand for 2013, citing expectations of higher demand from China, the world's second largest oil consumer.
In its monthly market report, the Paris-based agency raised its 2013 demand forecast by 240,000 bpd to 90.8 million bpd.
However, the picture of strengthened global demand comes at a time when production from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries in December fell to its lowest level in a year, the IEA said.
It could mean oil prices are well-supported at current levels. Oil prices have stayed consistently high despite economic woes in Europe and in the US.
"All of a sudden, the market looks tighter than we thought," said the IEA, which represents major energy-consuming nations.
In China, which alone accounted for two-thirds of total oil demand growth in the four years to 2011, infrastructure spending, stronger electricity use and increased rail usage could underpin an increase in demand, the IEA said. The report also said robust new vehicle sales and strong demand for cheap plastics could provide further support.
However, it cautioned that heightened debt levels and economic uncertainties in China could lead to sharp swings in demand, in both directions, throughout the year.
In Europe, the picture still remains bleak. The IEA projects demand from the region will fall 1.7% in 2013 to 13.6 million bpd. This comes after European demand, in the third quarter of 2012, saw its sharpest quarterly contraction since the onset of the financial crisis in 2008.
Non-OPEC production is forecast to rise by 1 million bpd to 54.3 million bpd in 2013, with the IEA expecting a reduction in unplanned outages. OPEC crude supply in December fell to its lowest level in a year as Iraq and Saudi Arabia reduced production.
Iraqi crude production fell because of weather-related delays in exports and a standoff between Baghdad and the government of the Kurdish region. Production fell 235,000 bpd to 2.4 million bpd in December.
In Saudi Arabia, production fell because of a drop in demand due to a decline in the use of air conditioning in the country and lower demand from refineries undergoing seasonal maintenance, the report said.
"Nothing for the global market to worry about," the report said. "Speculation that recent lower Saudi production levels equates to a desire for higher prices appears misplaced."
OPEC revenues are estimated to have reached peak levels in 2012 at more than $1 trillion as countries increased output and Brent prices stayed at record levels, the IEA said.
In North Africa, energy sectors are facing hurdles. Libya's production fell 50,000 bpd to 1.4 million bpd in December as striking workers forced shut-in of production and amid continuing militia attacks on oil infrastructure.
Likewise, the kidnapping of foreign workers at a gas facility in Algeria this week and the military operation to rescue them is casting a dark cloud over the outlook for that country's energy sector.
Dow Jones Newswires | <urn:uuid:b94b5082-0288-436b-bb0c-f9daa6f99638> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hydrocarbonprocessing.com/Article/3143624/Refining/IEA-raises-forecast-for-global-oil-demand-in-2013-citing-strength-in-China.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00057-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961 | 630 | 1.609375 | 2 |