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ATLANTA -- Nine of twelve leukemia patients who received infusions of their own T cells after the cells had been genetically engineered to attack the patients' tumors responded to the therapy, which was pioneered by scientists in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Penn Medicine researchers will present the latest results of the trial today at the American Society of Hematology's Annual Meeting and Exposition.
The clinical trial participants, all of whom had advanced cancers, included 10 adult patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia treated at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP) and two children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia treated at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Two of the first three patients treated with the protocol at HUP – whose cases were detailed in the New England Journal of Medicine and Science Translational Medicine in August 2011 – remain healthy and in full remissions more than two years after their treatment, with the engineered cells still circulating in their bodies. The findings reveal the first successful and sustained demonstration of the use of gene transfer therapy to turn the body's own immune cells into weapons aimed at cancerous tumors.
"Our results show that chimeric antigen receptor modified T cells have great promise to improve the treatment of leukemia and lymphoma," says the trial's leader, Carl June, MD, the Richard W. Vague Professor in Immunotherapy in the department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and director of Translational Research in Penn's Abramson Cancer Center. "It is possible that in the future, this approach may reduce or replace the need for bone marrow transplantation."
The results pave the way for a potential paradigm shift in the treatment of these types of blood cancers, which in advanced stages have the possibility of a cure only with bone marrow transplants. That procedure requires a lengthy hospitalization and carries at least a 20 percent mortality risk -- and even then offers only a limited chance of cure for patients whose disease has not responded to other treatments.
Three abstracts about the new research will be presented during the ASH meeting. David Porter, MD, director of Blood and Marrow Transplantation in the Abramson Cancer Center, will give an oral presentation of Abstract #717 on Monday, Dec. 10, at 5 PM in the Thomas Murphy Ballroom 4, Level 5, Building B of the Georgia World Congress Center. Michael Kalos, PhD, director of the Translational and Correlative Studies Laboratory at Penn, will give an oral presentation on Abstract #756 on Monday, Dec. 10, at 5:45 PM in C208-C210, Level 2, Building C. Stephan Grupp, MD, PhD, director of Translational Research in the Center for Childhood Cancer Research at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, will present a poster of Abstract #2604 on Sunday, Dec. 9, at 6 PM in Hall B1-B2, Level 1, Building B.
The protocol for the new treatment involves removing patients' cells through an apheresis process similar to blood donation, and modifying them in Penn's cell and vaccine production facility. Scientists there reprogram the patients' T cells to target tumor cells through a gene modification technique using a HIV-derived lentivirus vector. The vector encodes an antibody-like protein, called a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR), which is expressed on the surface of the T cells and designed to bind to a protein called CD19.
The modified cells are then infused back into the patient's body following lymphodepleting chemotherapy. Once the T cells start expressing the CAR, they focus all of their killing activity on cells that express CD19, which includes CLL and ALL tumor cells, and normal B cells. All of the other cells in the patient that do not express CD19 are ignored by the modified T cells, which limits systemic side effects typically experienced during traditional therapies.
In addition to initiating the death of the cancer cells, a signaling molecule built into the CAR also spurs the cell to produce cytokines that trigger other T cells to multiply -- building a bigger and bigger army until all the target cells in the tumor are destroyed.
In the patients who experienced complete remissions after treatment, the CAR T cells exhibited vigorous proliferation after infusion, with the most robust expansion activity usually occurring between 10 and 31 days after infusion. Each of these patients developed a cytokine release syndrome -- marked by fever, nausea, hypoxia and low blood pressure -- which doctors treated when needed with the anti-cytokine agent tocilizumab.
Ultimately, the modified T cell treatment eradicated large amounts of tumor in these patients.
Tests of patients with complete responses also show that normal B cells have been eliminated along with their tumors. Since these cells are important for the body's immune system to fight infection, the patients now are receiving regular gamma globulin treatments as a preventive measure. No unusual infections have been observed. | <urn:uuid:ee3d06ab-9222-4cd4-b7bc-3f7d62ba80c5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sciencecodex.com/leukemia_patients_remain_in_remission_more_than_2_years_after_engineered_t_cell_therapy-103501 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942421 | 999 | 2.21875 | 2 |
Working with OTL
UF Intellectual Property Policy (pdf)
OTL 2011-2012 PowerPoint Presentation (ppt)
The Office of Technology Licensing (OTL) at the University of Florida was established in 1985 to work with inventors to facilitate the transfer of technologies created at UF to the commercial sector for public benefit. We are dedicated to assisting employees who feel they have something new and useful that is potentially able to be patented or copyrighted.
The first step is to report a new discovery on our new web-based disclosure form. Upon receipt, we will contact you to schedule an appointment to discuss your new discovery and determine the next steps. Be sure to avoid having conversations revealing details about your discovery with anyone outside your laboratory without first executing a Confidential Disclosure Agreement (CDA).
Confidential disclosure agreements protect your rights if you need to discuss enabling details of your invention with people outside the university. The Office of Technology Licensing staff executes an average of 300 CDAs per year, often completing many of them on the same day. Telling others what your discovery does is fine, but giving enabling information - about how your discovery works - without a CDA in place can drastically affect patent protection.
A CDA serves three purposes:
- It alerts the receiving party to the confidentiality of the information to be received.
- It specifies the responsibilities required of the receiving party.
- It can be used as evidence in subsequent patent processing, e.g., to defeat an allegation that the invention is not novel because the inventor treated it as public information. This kind of allegation arises frequently from those contesting a potentially lucrative patent, so a CDA is more than a "mere formality."
OTL is here to ensure your rights are protected, so contact your licensing officer or call (352) 392-8929.
Additionally, should you decide to transfer or receive materials such as antibodies or cell lines, the Office of Technology Licensing will be happy to work with you to execute a Material Transfer Agreement (MTA) to ensure all intellectual property rights are defined prior to the transfer. Material transfer agreements protect your intellectual property rights when you exchange biological, chemical or other materials, including cell lines, plasmids, vectors, transgenic mice or chemical compounds with other organizations. OTL assists researchers in executing more than 350 MTAs each year and can help you in expediting this process to ensure your rights are protected. If you are interested in transferring materials, the OTL staff is ready to assist you, since only authorized university administrators can sign these agreements. To obtain a MTA form, contact Melanie Campos at (352) 392-8929 or firstname.lastname@example.org.
Seminars & Faculty Presentations
Seminars and faculty presentations are an excellent way to ensure you and your colleagues are knowledgeable about issues that could affect your intellectual property. OTL staff members regularly conduct presentations tailored to the needs and interests of the requesting department. To schedule a faculty presentation, contact any of our licensing officers or call (352) 392-8929. | <urn:uuid:34839600-eae3-4f73-b6e0-94e3f7176267> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://research.ufl.edu/otl/workingwithotl.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00055-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.923911 | 627 | 1.890625 | 2 |
THE WORKING SQUIRREL RANCH|
Story and photos by Trudy Frisk
When a man has spent over one hundred dollars relocating squirrels, he begins to seriously consider his options.
The squirrel problem, like so many others, resulted from the best of intentions. In this case, it came from feeding the birds.
Squirrels, noticing the supply of sunflower seeds where they’d never been before, were amazed. “For us?” they exclaimed, clasping their little paws in delight. No amount of reasoning or explaining stopped them. “Feathers good, fur bad. Two feet good, four feet bad.”, didn’t persuade them either. On they came, bringing their extended families with them.
|Squirrel Storage Site|
The fellow who was feeding the birds (and squirrels) likes squirrels. He didn’t mind them sharing with the birds, not really. He did think, however, that the two resident squirrels ought to defend their interests with more vigor against the interlopers.
He also realized that squirrels have one feature birds lack; they chew. Sunflower seeds, pine cones, mushrooms, wool blankets, socks, chair seats, wiring, are all one to a squirrel, though some items, of course, have more nutrition.
It was impossible to keep the squirrels out of the bird feeders. Oh, sure, there are bird feeders advertised as “squirrel proof”. People who develop and sell them, for $40.00 each, have obviously never tested them. Or else they use very unimaginative squirrels. Un-athletic squirrels. They never counted on the wild squirrel’s ability to jump. These creatures go from tree to tree, after all. To calculate the distance, take aim and leap to a ‘bird feeder’ was no problem.
Keeping them out of the cabin or away from the furniture was hopeless. There were more squirrels every day.
It was time for action. Being a kind man, he decided to get a humane trap. After some experimentation, (‘peanut butter, shelled or unshelled peanuts?’), the right sort of bait was determined. The relocation project got under-way.
At first there was concern that succumbing to the bait and being trapped and moved might be traumatic to the squirrel. A local couple refuted that possibility. They’d noticed an annoying squirrel at their house. Since they went for a kilometer long walk every night they decided to trap the squirrel, carry it to the end of their walk, and let it go. Their trap and release program went on for a while before they noticed that, no matter how often they took a squirrel along on their evening walk, they always had one at the house. “You don’t suppose?’ he asked. “Couldn’t be” she replied. They had to make sure. They put a small dab of paint on the next captured squirrel before carrying it away. “That squirrel darn near beat us back to the house!” We can only speculate on the squirrel’s opinion of the daily ritual.
Back to the major squirrel relocation. Once the offender was in the trap, it was placed in the truck cab along with a week’s supply of sunflower seeds and driven to suitable habitat. This meant a goodly stand of mature trees with cones to harvest, mushrooms to dry, a stream or creek and no competitor squirrels. As his project fanned out through the valley, the driver had to go further and further to find good sites, eventually traveling as far away as ninety kilometers. To date he has relocated twenty to thirty squirrels, (they became a fuzzy blur after number nineteen.)
Of course there is always a vacancy, an open niche, in ecological terms. Squirrels from adjoining counties, probably having heard the news on Facebook or Twitter, file in to fill the gaps. Efforts to put spirit and spunk in the original inhabitants have failed. They’re probably sulking over the foreign invasion.
His neighbour on the adjoining property also has squirrel problems. In fact the Kindly Squirrel Relocator, who has to drive through the neighbour’s yard on his way to town, swears that, as he crests the top of the hill, he can see about forty squirrels forming a line in the gully, waiting for the starter’s pistol to race for her house. She, too, began the squirrel relocation game, complete with starter kits of sunflower seeds to tide them over till they gathered their own cones. If sunflower farmers wonder why demand is increasing, they need look no further.
Canadian squirrels are extremely tenacious. The Canadian temperament, no doubt; extremely stubborn and adaptable to almost any circumstance. Some years ago Canadian squirrels were imported into Britain and set free. The Colonials have been whipping the sissy Brit squirrels, paws down. Chagrined Brits are attempting to exterminate the furry foreigners. Annoyed Canadians have been heard muttering that before eradicating hard-working Commonwealth Sciuridae from the U.K., the British should take back all their pesky starlings from North America. Two of my acquaintances recently returned from Britain report that, as soon as they acknowledged they were Canadian, the Brits harangued them about the havoc wreaked by Canadian squirrels on the loyal red squirrels of the U.K. “Are they really having an effect?” I asked. “They’re smokin’ ‘em!”
Yes, squirrels are tough. To make matters worse, they’re evolving. Scientists have determined that, with climate change, two species of flying squirrels which, under ordinary circumstances, would never have met, have, since habitat is changing, not only gotten acquainted, but are interbreeding. What will come of this? Supersonic squirrels, zooming about the forest at warp speed?
|Trudy Frisk at Squirrel Storage Site|
The squirrel hot spot is home to flying squirrels as well as regular ones. In fact one day soon after the female neighbour moved back into the family log house, a flying squirrel made a precise landing on the counter, after launching from the kitchen rafters.
She still has about twenty regular squirrels. It’s too late in the season to relocate them and expect them to gather cones. The squirrels know winter’s coming and they need to store food. Competition’s fierce. Squirrels yell and scold each other in the middle of the walkways. Arguments don’t stop when a human strides by. It’s not uncommon to see two or three squirrels on top of a picnic table engaged in fisticuffs. Napoleon, the senior cat, sleeping on an attached bench only opens one eye and returns to dozing in the sun. He’s seen it all and done it all and just hopes a defeated squirrel doesn’t topple on him ruining his nap.
Surely such intrepid creatures deserve recognition. And, they’re getting it. In July 2009
Thompson Rivers University at Kamloops, B.C., held a five-day conference attended by sixty of the world’s top squirrel researchers. The squirrel family includes marmots, ground-hogs, prairie dogs and chipmunks. But these scientists were in Kamloops to report on arboreal squirrels, the tree-dwellers. Topics included using squirrels to study eco-systems, including how they react to climate change and habitat destruction caused by the pine beetle, the study of squirrel evolution, conservation of endangered squirrel species, and protecting them from invading species.
Far from being ‘rats with bushy tails’ as one disgruntled squirrel relocator states, these
animals are the focus of researchers from India, Spain, Japan and Germany. When asked, “Why do you study them? They’re so common!” Researchers replied ,“That’s exactly why. They’re visible and easy to study. They’re good subjects for trying to understand how ecological changes affect wildlife.”
So. Seen in the proper light, squirrels aren’t an annoying expense; they’re an audacious opportunity. ‘Squirrel ranching’ could become the next major attraction. No, not squirrels for stew, or squirrel chapeaux. Squirrel tourism.
Imagine The Working Squirrel Ranch, combining the mystique of the West with eco-tourism, and scientific research.
It would be situated, of course, in the epicenter of squirrel activity. No longer would the owners pursue their lonely vigils trapping and transferring squirrels. Nope. They’d have carefully selected groups of eco-tourists to help. Monitoring, feeding, trapping, relocating, if necessary, all in a good cause, understanding climate change. They could take notes for scientific studies. Photograph the animals. Add to data banks. Carefully track the transferred squirrels. Calculate how many return and how far away they have to be taken before they resign themselves to settling in a new location.
Perhaps there could be education credits for mapping squirrel habitat, noting how many squirrels to a square hectare, preferred trees, etc. Squirrels as part of a Master’s thesis? Don’t scoff. Inventing new, improved methods of keeping squirrels out of houses, barns, cabins, and sofas would earn double credits. There might even be opportunities to participate in repatriation of the Wild Colonial Squirrels from the U.K. to Canada. (Bring Our Squirrels Home!)
Scientists might be enticed to oversee projects, giving The Working Squirrel Ranch owners an occasional day off. Scientists, of course, would pay less than tourists to participate.
The Working Squirrel Ranch would offer its paying guests an opportunity to experience the call of the wild. Driving an endangered pick-up truck, transporting a species of world-wide interest to different dwelling places, learning to read forestry road maps (“what does ‘deactivated’ mean?”), interpreting a GPS; it doesn’t get more outdoorsy than that.
Dirt on their boots, drinking from a creek, (upstream from the beaver lodge), sleeping in tents, (the better to hear prowling, nocturnal bears), gazing up at the starry heavens while strumming a guitar and crooning “Get along little Sciuridae”; you don’t get that in Las Vegas.
What’s in it for the owners of The Working Squirrel Ranch, aside from a sing-along beside the generator? Money, of course. Gallons of sunflower seeds and gas for the pickup aren’t found on trees. This unique, wild, western, experience won’t be cheap. A true eco-tourist wouldn’t expect it.
Imagine the overseas marketing potential. The Working Squirrel is situated in a broad mountain valley. Other wild animals, some larger than squirrels, some smaller, live there.
But there’s more. Eco-guests could put on Stetsons and cowboy boots and ride horses. (Not while carrying squirrels, though). They could climb mountains. They could golf.
“The Working Squirrel Ranch: As Wild As You Want It!”
Are there grants, or government funding? What’s available? The scientific community is chronically short of funds. No help there. Luckily, even in these dreary times, ‘tourism’ rings a booming gong. Maybe a spin-off from the 2010? ‘Skiing squirrels’ should be worth consideration.
Agriculture? No point dwelling on it; we all know how limited funds are for farming and ranching. However, The Working Squirrel Ranch is located in a mixed economy area.
Logging and lumber production was a major activity. Time to go for some of that federal ‘hardship’ money for small mill towns while there’s any left.
I’m not saying squirrels will ever replace cows or logs, but you have to go with what you’ve got. And The Working Squirrel Ranch has got squirrels. Tune that guitar, Sally.
Other articles by Trudy Frisk | <urn:uuid:22f04d83-84ab-4429-8afe-2693ee1a4c19> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cowboylife.com/index.asp?p=231&cmd=viewarticle&nArticleID=375 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962999 | 2,616 | 2.390625 | 2 |
Summit Soap is a small grassroots company set 9,600 feet above sea level that is dedicated to reducing waste on the planet and preserving our natural resources. All of their soaps are made using purified, recycled cooking oil — a resource that has been overlooked and treated as waste throughout the history of commercial eateries. The company collects thousands of gallons of used oil in their grease-powered pick-up truck and then turns it into awesome bio-products.
The article above was submitted to us by an Inhabitat reader. Want to see your story on Inhabitat? Send us a tip by following this link. Remember to follow our instructions carefully to boost your chances of being chosen for publishing! | <urn:uuid:8f7077d6-a19c-428f-912a-652fc64aad21> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://inhabitat.com/summit-soap-is-a-high-altitude-project-turning-cooking-grease-into-awesome-goods/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969276 | 144 | 2.078125 | 2 |
Filed under: Democrat Corruption, Economy, Energy, Environment, Junk Science, Law | Tags: "Environmental Justice", Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Court Cases
What do you suppose President Obama’s initial instruction were to his agency heads: Lisa Jackson at the EPA, Dr. Steven Chu at Energy, Ken Salazar at Interior and Tom Vilsack at Agriculture? “Go forth and regulate. Wrap American business in enough red tape to hamstring their efforts to grow or prosper. Restrict energy wherever you can, favoring 21st Century green power, use lots of ethanol— fuel of the future, and try to get rid of dirty coal.”
One would hope that such orders were improbable, but the results would seem to indicate something along those lines. Thanks to the EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice, public grants of up to $30,000 are being made available to anyone able to claim to build “healthy, sustainable and green communities” or create “green collar jobs.”
I’m not sure what “environmental justice” is. We have a system of justice already, formulated by Legislature, supposedly expressing the will of the people, and administered by the judiciary. It is called the Judicial System. So what is this other thing? Environmental justice must be something outside the regular judicial system, perhaps emanating from the EPA which seems to have its own rules.
Oddly enough, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is already in deepwater with both a federal Court and Congress in a case alleging that it conducted illegal experiments on human beings over the past decade. Based on Freedom of Information Act released documents, the EPA is being accused of exposing hundreds of people over the last decade to extraordinarily high levels of air pollutants, including diesel exhaust and particulate matter known as PM2.5. The experiments were run at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine.
Steve Milloy’s excellent Junk Science website has followed the story. “Many study subjects were health-impaired; suffering from asthma, metabolic syndrome, and old age (up to 75 years). Financially needy, they enrolled in these experiments for $12 per hour.” As laboratory rats.
The EPA began imposing restrictions on the use of PM2.5, a major component of diesel exhaust fumes in 1997, after it found that long-term exposure could be fatal. The EPA further tightened regulations in 2004, and said it believed PM2.5 could actually kill after short-term exposure. EPA administrator Lisa Jackson even testified before Congress in September 2011 that “particulate matter causes premature death. It doesn’t make you sick. It’s directly causal to dying sooner than you should.” The EPA, as a result, imposed stringent regulations regarding PM2.5, all predicated on their own determination that it’s a killer.
When the Reagan administration took office and found similar types of experiments being conducted, it immediately banned them. No such action has so far been taken in the case of the EPA. It was just let’s just experiment on real people — for the greater good. If federal law finds the EPA culpable, criminal proceedings could follow.
The EPA has been no stranger in federal courts, or state courts. Their enthusiasm for shutting down the coal industry is challenged by a new study is further bad news for the agency. The report Economic implications of Recent and Anticipated EPA Regulations Affecting the Electricity Sector claims EPA regulations affecting the U.S. Coal industry would cost 1.5 million jobs over the next presidential term. CO2 emissions have fallen sharply in the U.S., without regulation, due to increased use of natural gas. The NERA study warns that EPA regulations affecting coal-fired electricity power generation would cost in industry $200 to $220 billion from 2013 to 2034.
The EPA is set to regulate the largest “polluters” to reduce the amount of CO2 emitted to the air. Yet CO2,which we exhale, is a natural fertilizer that makes plants grow. At the Congressional hearing in March dealing with this regulation, Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) asked the EPA’s Chief of Air Programs and Greenhouse Gas Regulations if she knew what the level of CO2 is right now in the atmosphere. She said she didn’t have that figure. In greenhouses, growers raise the levels of CO2 to 1,000 parts per million to increase growth. It is currently around 390 ppm. The levels of CO2 in the atmosphere have been both much higher and much lower in the past. It is not at all certain that so-called global warming is caused by CO2 in the atmosphere. We have not had any warming for the past 15 years, it has been both much warmer in the past and much cooler. We are presently in a cooling phase.
The EPA has spent much of the last four years in court, and their batting average is not good. And there is lots more to come. EPA administrators have been using a series of hidden or “alias” email accounts, which is against federal law. “Richard Windsor” is one of the alias names used by Ms. Jackson to keep her email from those who ask for it. So there will be more court appearances. Lisa Jackson is now said to be departing the agency and returning to her native New Jersey. Quite a flood of people departing the Obama administration.
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Assemblies open to parents
Programs take aim at human trafficking
A city councilman and members of Reynoldsburg High School's DECA program are teaming up to bring attention to the problem of human trafficking.
DECA students will host a series of assemblies on the subject at 8:26 and 10:08 a.m. Friday, Feb. 22, at the RHS Livingston campus, 6699 E. Livingston Ave., and again at 1 p.m. at the RHS Summit Road campus, 8579 Summit Road.
Human trafficking is not just an overseas or immigrant problem -- it is occurring close to Reynoldsburg and awareness of the problem will help end it, Reynoldsburg City Councilman Cornelius McGrady III said.
McGrady provides sexual trafficking and assault awareness for the U.S. Army.
"A lot of youth, parents and members of the community are not aware that this is not just an immigrant issue -- it is a domestic matter that needs more attention than it is getting," McGrady said. "When it affects our youth as early as 8 years old, that is a serious crime."
He said human traffickers are pulling children and young adults into modern-day slavery as close as 13 miles away from Reynoldsburg.
"We would like to make this awareness assembly an annual event in Reynoldsburg," he said.
Speakers at the assembly will include a survivor of human trafficking, Marlene Carson, who is the founder of Rahab's Hideaway in Columbus.
Carson was tricked and kidnapped from her Columbus home at the age of 15 and sold into prostitution in New York. She has been an international spokesperson on the human trafficking problem and founder of a program to help women escape sex slavery.
Citing statistics from the Polaris Project report on human trafficking (polarisproject.org), McGrady said approximately 800,000 people are trafficked across international borders every year and 14,000 to 17,000 people are trafficking into the United States from other countries. An estimated 1,800 individuals are believed to be trafficked into the sex labor trade in Ohio, he said.
"Documented cases of young people falling into the hands of sex traffickers have been identified as close as Columbus and Zanesville," he said. "Toledo has been named the No. 4 hub in the United States for human trafficking."
DECA adviser Kim Pennycuff said parents are welcome to attend Friday's assemblies.
She said DECA students became interested in the issue when students in her senior classes said they "wanted to make a difference."
"One particular student said she saw the effects of trafficking and felt it her duty to teach others about it so they would not become a victim to it," Pennycuff said. "She saw this as a cross-cultural, cross-gender and cross-belief issue."
She said her marketing students "are working tirelessly" to try to educate students on ways they can detect and fight human trafficking and all types of sex slavery. DECA members made blue ribbons to show awareness and have been selling them at the Livingston campus for 50 cents each.
"Each student is asked to wear their ribbons to the assembly," Pennycuff said. "All proceeds go to Gracehaven, a shelter for victims and survivors of human trafficking."
Juniors and DECA members Rachel Phillips and Nia Coleman are chairpersons for the event.
"It is a terrible thing to have happen to someone," Phillips said. "Not a lot of people are aware it is happening so close to home."
She said DECA students hope to help their fellow students realize they can help solve the problem.
"We are telling students that if they see something going on that looks like human trafficking, they should tell an adult or someone who cares about the person," she said. "They could also volunteer at safe houses for the victims or help with activities or donating food."
"We are letting students know there may be signs someone is caught up in human trafficking," Coleman said. "Some of the signs may be that the person is closed off and anxious, may have a lot of illnesses or infections and you might even see a lot of bruises. It is important that we raise awareness about this issue." | <urn:uuid:1da5513d-0137-46cb-a22a-bdfa45ee78b2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thisweeknews.com/content/stories/reynoldsburg/news/2013/02/20/assemblies-open-to-parents-programs-take-aim-at-human-trafficking.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97188 | 873 | 1.960938 | 2 |
During the first round of Egypt’s presidential election in May, Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, the candidate chosen by the Salafi parties’ leadership, was defeated. The loss was a disappointment for the Salafis who, with 123 of 454 seats of parliament, had higher expectations. Nevertheless, the three-party Salafi political coalition, led by “al Nur” remains a formidable force in Egyptian politics, the second largest bloc in parliament after the Muslim Brotherhood, which controls 47 percent of the seats. Whether post-Mubarak Egypt remains a presidential or changes to a parliamentary system of government, within the People’s Assembly, the Salafi coalition is poised to become a key power broker either as a spoiler or swing vote in the legislature. What are the Salafis’ priorities and what kinds of policies do they advocate?
Al-Nur is the political arm of its al-Da’wah al-Salafiyyah (DS), an Islamic propagation group that first began organizing in the 1970s, and after clashes with the Muslim Brotherhood in 1980, institutionalized by establishing itself as an association at Alexandria University. While an ongoing presence in Egypt, the Salafis are newcomers to politics, long believing democracy to be in contravention of Islam. Indeed, DS Vice President Sheikh Yasser Burhami issued his edict permitting participating in democracy in 2010, and Al-Nur was only founded in June 2011. Emad Abdel Ghaffour, who originally joined DS in 1977, currently leads the party. During the uprising that deposed former president Hosni Mubarak, DS was against the street protests putting them outside the revolutionary moment, but gaining from it at the same time. This was likely due to their previously apolitical nature, which as a result allowed them not to be harassed by security like the more radical al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya (GI), one of the other Salafi parties, which remains a US-designated foreign terrorist organization, and a member al-Nur’s political coalition.
Al-Nur lays out its main pillars of its project on its website, www.alnourparty.org. The top goal is ending the endemic corruption of the Mubarak regime, but the list of priorities is long. Like any political platform it should not all be taken completely at face value, but instead as an idealistic view.
Islam, the State, and Reform
Al-Nur not surprisingly believes that shari’ah should be “the source of legislation.” At the same time, however, Al-Nur calls for a separation of powers, fundamental rights of free speech, assembly, press, and association. It’s unclear how Al Nur would intend to implement these seemingly contradictory goals. The party also calls for equal rights for Coptic Christians. As al-Nur spokesman, Mohammed Nour stated last December, “touching one hair on a Copt’s head violates our program.” Yet their understanding of equal rights differs from that of a Western conception. In December 2011, stated that Copts did not have the right to hold office. Further, with regard to Baha’is, they would not be allowed to celebrate their festivals or be marked as Muslim on ones national ID card.
On women’s rights one also has to look deeper than what they state on its views of violence. On the one hand, al Nur says there is equality between man and women (while still understanding their differences). It also speaks out against violence upon women and discriminating against them in the workforce. Yet on the other hand, during the parliamentary campaign, Burhami lamented that because of quotas, fielding women candidates was a necessary evil. Al-Nur likewise came in for criticism from liberals when they held a women’s rally featuring only male speakers. It also called in the constituent assembly to lower the age of marriage for women from 18 to 16.
Economically, al Nur has a platform that conforms with religious prescriptions, including the imposition of Islamic banking which abjures from usury, and levying a mandatory zakat or charity payment, one of the five pillars of Islam, which is usually at least 2.5% of ones’ salary. The party’s educational ideas are also decidedly sectarian. For example, Al Nur says wants to further Islamicize public education by introducing “true” Islamic education into the curriculum. It also hopes to infuse the security sector with religion, by retraining police officers “professionally, intellectually, and religiously.”
Still, although al-Nur is focused on Islamicizing Egyptian society, it states it is against theocracy. Notwithstanding its support for the imposition of the hudud – the cutting of the hands of thieves – al-Nur is proposing, for example, that al-Azhar University be delinked from the political process, returning it to its original non-politicized role. Al-Azhar, according to al-Nur, should be allowed to independently determine the Shaykh al-Azhar and have its financial independence restored via waqf or religious endowment funding.
Al Nur is narrowly focused on domestic policy. Its foreign policy platform is both insubstantial and vague. In broad terms, the document discusses reestablishing Egypt as a regional player in Africa and in the Middle East.
Notably, al-Nur does not mention Israel in its program. This past January, however, Ghaffour dodged questions from al-Jazeera about whether he believed the peace treaty should be nullified. To wit, the closest he came to answering was referencing certain clauses he said did not respect Egypt and suggested the treaty should stand for popular referendum. The United States is likewise not a central or peripheral part of al-Nur’s agenda or public statements. Al Nur officials have not expressed overt hostility toward Washington, in contrast to GI, which explicitly condemns the United States. The GI, but not Al Nur, also has rallied for the release of Sheikh ‘Umar ‘Abd al-Rahman, the blind cleric convicted for his role in the 1993 World Trade Center attacks.
Although religion plays an important frame of reference for al-Nur, its program also covers more day-to-day issues related to helping better Egypt’s society. Al-Nur explains it wants to spread whatever wealth it attains to help build up less developed regions, which would then spur greater opportunities. As part of this, they see healthcare a human right for all Egyptians.
Al-Nur would like to retrofit older hospitals and build new ones as well as investing in new equipment and research institutes. It wants to also build new schools throughout Egypt so that students have better ratios with their teachers. Further, it would incentivize the educational system by rewarding top students with scholarships. Students would also receive jobs based on merit and al-Nur explains it would criminalize nepotism. It hopes to run public awareness campaigns at early ages to prevent drug use.
Al-Nur highlights the importance of the environment hoping to preserve the ecological integrity of Egypt while also improving its quality. It also would like to implement safety standards for commuting. In terms of prison, al-Nur will review the penal code along with reconsidering the conditions that prisoners live in. With regard to what al-Nur describes as “street children,” it hopes to channel them in a more positive path by attempting to form associations that can help train them to be a part of the work force. Lastly, al-Nur wants to foster NGOs by allowing openness to create new organizations.
Although al-Nur discusses more mundane issues in its platform, its bread and butter is religion. If Futouh had won, al-Nur would have attempted to control cabinet positions such as waqfs, culture, education, and religion. Indeed, while many have suggested that al-Nur’s leaders were pragmatic for backing Futouh, many of its grassroot shaykhs and supporters did not fall in line and either voted for the Muslim Brotherhood’s candidate Muhammad Morsi or boycotted. It is debatable that backing another Islamist that had a falling out with the Brotherhood and was an independent candidate is nothing more than an obvious choice.
Due to the clout that al-Nur has in the parliament by securing a quarter of the vote; the United States would be remiss to ignore the party. While that might be the case, Washington should be under no illusions that it will have an easy time trying to negotiate with them on social issues important to the United States. Although controversial, Washington ought to pursue dialogue on issues such as separation of powers, free speech, corruption, and anti-trust laws, among others that are of alleged common interest. Washington must not only latch onto the Islamists, though, as it had done in the past with the authoritarian Mubarak regime. Instead, Washington should also be vigorously working with and helping the liberal forces within Egypt. The long-term interests of the United States will not be met through Islamists. | <urn:uuid:21e9735c-341a-451f-b6aa-e1e111e559a1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thewasat.wordpress.com/author/azelin/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96802 | 1,890 | 2.109375 | 2 |
Medicaid cost disputed
By Benjamin Graham, Jackson Hole, Wyo.
Date: December 8, 2012
Expanding Medicaid coverage to poor, single adults could save Wyoming $47 million over the next six years, according to a Wyoming Department of Health report released Friday.
Increasing coverage to include that population would allow the state to spend less money on other health care programs aimed at helping the vulnerable.
The health department estimates Wyoming would have to pay $151 million from 2014 to 2020 to cover newly eligible people under an expanded program. But the savings for the state could reach $198.5 million.
Under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, states have the option of expanding Medicaid to adults within 138 percent of the poverty line.
The federal government has said it will cover all of the additional costs for the first three years, beginning in 2014. After that, states would have to contribute no more than 10 percent of the additional cost.
The study makes a financial case for why Wyoming should take the federal expansion money, said Lou Hochheiser, chief executive at St. John’s Medical Center.
But the primary reason for increasing coverage should not be the savings, he said.
“Most importantly, it would allow us to engage that population that is falling through the cracks,” Hochheiser said.
Wyoming’s current Medicaid program serves four primary groups of low-income or medically needy individuals: pregnant women, children, adults with children, and people who are elderly or disabled.
An estimated 17,600 poor, single adults would gain coverage if the state chooses to expand.
The report projects the state could save money on several state programs if more of Wyoming’s most vulnerable residents were to receive Medicaid coverage. Those programs include mental health and substance abuse outpatient services, the Prescription Drug Assistance Program, breast and cervical cancer coverage, the Pregnant by Choice waiver, and the Employed Individuals with Disabilities Program, among others.
“The study makes sense, because the people who are currently uninsured that could be insured are using the most expensive care or delaying care,” Hochheiser said.
News of the potential savings comes only a week after Gov. Matt Mead announced he wouldn’t endorse expanding Medicaid.
Mead has said the federal government has not given the state enough information on many particulars of the new health care reform law, including Medicaid expansion.
Mead spokesman Renny MacKay said the governor was aware of the health department’s report when he made his decision.
MacKay cited another report released by the Kaiser Family Foundation in November that estimates an expansion could cost Wyoming $204 million over eight years.
“There seems to be ambiguity among people who are well-versed on this topic,” MacKay said of Mead’s stance.
The fact that there are differences between the Kaiser Family Foundation report and the department of health report illustrates the need for more information, MacKay said.
The decision to expand now rests with state legislators. | <urn:uuid:abcec395-250d-47ce-be99-3bf6cf20de8d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.jhnewsandguide.com/print.php?art_id=9326&pid=news | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963758 | 633 | 1.835938 | 2 |
Posters and Printed Ephemera
The Wolfsonian has a very large collection of posters, brochures, postcards, and other printed items that served as important instruments of mass communication for governments, corporations, and associations. A strength of the collection is political propaganda from many countries and representing a range of artistic styles. Another strength is commercial advertising, especially for travel and tourism. The collection contains works by many of the key graphic designers of the time, including Herbert Bayer, Lester Beall, Jean Carlu, Ludwig Hohlwein, Julius Klinger, and Edward McKnight Kauffer. | <urn:uuid:7cbaae1e-a7be-4e6f-bb35-6a2343ee1017> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wolfsonian.org/explore/collections/collection-categories/posters-printed-ephemera?page=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935602 | 120 | 2.109375 | 2 |
When horror-meister Stephen King published his book The Plant, it didn't appear in hardcover, and it didn't go straight to paperback. Instead, it was available exclusively on the Web. Online publishing has become serious business, so it comes as no surprise that the music-publishing industry has also shown a keen interest in it.
Downloadable music offers appealing possibilities that traditional printed music lacks, such as the ability to transpose a piece, customize it through editing, and preview it with audio or MIDI clips. Web-based music notation is a different critter from old-school sheet music, and in some cases, it even offers the opportunity for composers to sell their works directly to the public.
A number of companies have recently set up shop online, from major publishers such as Hal Leonard and Warner Brothers to high-end notation software developers, including Coda, Sibelius, and newcomer NoteHeads.
JUST ADD PAPER
A major part of the cost of sheet music, scores, solo parts, and method books is attributable to printing and distributing hard-copy editions of the music. In addition, wholesalers and retailers must maintain adequate stock, which ties up money and shelf space. Unsold copies become a financial drain and a waste of natural resources.
Online distribution shifts the printing cost to the purchaser, cuts out the middleperson, and solves the problem of ending up with insufficient or excess stock. That lets cost savings pass on to consumers (at least in theory), and it also lowers the startup cost for independent publishers and self-publishers.
Although brick-and-mortar retailers may feel apprehensive, the local music store's demise isn't imminent. Online music publishing still has a few bugs to work out; I experienced minor technical glitches with most programs I tested. In addition, several of the viewer programs are available only for PCs; however, Mac versions are in the works for all of them.
Surprisingly, digital-rights management may not be a troublesome issue. The enterprises I surveyed have restricted the redistribution and reproduction of their wares. Some tag a file so that it won't open on a computer different from the one to which it was originally downloaded; others limit the number of times users can print a piece.
Although it's reasonable to assume that those safeguards are as hackable as other defeated schemes (if not more so), it's unlikely that sheet music will inspire the legions of pirates that digital video and audio have attracted. After all, what hacker wants to brag to his buddies: “I spent six months slicing their watermarking code, but now I can print as many copies of Für Elise as I want!”
A look at several online music publishers and options should provide a sense of where the industry is going.
ROCK ME, AMADEUS
The first stop on the tour is the Italian company Allegroassai (www.allegroassai.com), home of the full-feature notation application Opus 2.6 (see the review in the May 2001 issue) and its entry-level version, Amadeus Opus Lite. Allegroassai has leveraged its code and experience in an effort to become a major music publisher. With more than 1,700 titles already online and a goal of 50,000 works by 2004, the company is well on its way. Allegroassai also plans to make its online publishing technology available to other publishers and to musicians who want to publish their works on Allegroassai's Web site.
To view, play, and print downloaded digital scores requires one of the four members of the cross-platform Opus family. The more you spend, the more control you have over the final result, from adding fingerings, dynamics, and other markings with Opus Editor to having complete editing freedom with Opus. Although the display-only freeware Opus Viewer offers no editing functions, it does allow MIDI playback with complete control of program change assignment, part volume, mute, and solo. You can print as many copies of each document as you need, but each is tagged with the buyer's name, purchase date, and a transaction ID number.
Prices range from less than a dollar to about $15. The complete score to a Bach orchestral suite costs $13.08; a flute part for a single movement is $1.25. Public-domain music from the baroque to the early 20th century makes up the body of Allegroassai's library. You can also purchase scores to Bach's Brandenburg Concertos, Joplin's complete rags in four volumes, or Debussy's Syrinx for solo flute.
The Allegroassai system's biggest weakness is that many of the works provide only a one- or two-bar preview from which you can make a purchase decision (see Fig. 2). Most publishing systems that I've surveyed offer at least a one-page preview, something that Allegroassai recently began implementing for its growing catalog.
O SOLERO MIO
The Solero music viewer is your portal into the world of Sunhawk (www.sunhawk.com), purveyor of “downloadable, interactive sheet music” and old-style hard copies, available by mail order (see Fig. 1). Sunhawk has much to offer; its catalog is graced with venerable music publishers such as Warner Brothers, EMI Christian, Kalmus, Maranatha Music, and Mel Bay.
Solero is a straightforward, no-nonsense, free Windows application that lets users view and play scores downloaded from Sunhawk. It ran well, printed well, and easily played back through my default MIDI device. With Solero, you can change tempo and patches, adjust volume, and solo or mute parts. You can also transpose parts and even change clefs. It took about 30 seconds for short works to download, for authorization to be received, and for the pieces to appear in the viewer.
Solero's print quality is first-rate, but you can print only one copy of a work. (Printing multiple copies is permitted, however, if you purchase multiple-print rights.) Full-page previews are available for most pieces. Sunhawk offers music in a range of genres, from classical works such as a Vivaldi flute concerto to pop songs from the repertoires of artists such as Britney Spears. Dave Brubeck's Blue Rondo a la Turk is available, as is Steven Curtis Chapman's Busy Man.
Prices are typically $4.95 for single songs in piano and vocal arrangements; collections of five songs by an artist are $9.95. Although neither price represents great savings over traditional sheet music, you save on shipping, and you don't have to wait.
Currently, Sunhawk won't publish a visitor's work. In fact, it doesn't even indicate which notation program it uses to prepare its collection. The company's real attraction is the stable of writers and artists that it represents. With headliners such as Stephen Sondheim, Diane Warren, the Dixie Chicks, and Twila Paris, there's a lot to like at Sunhawk's Web site, and it's all just a click away.
The makers of Finale have created a showcase in which customers can display their works. Built around a Windows browser plug-in called Finale MusicViewer, Finale Showcase (www.codamusic.com/coda/fs_home.asp) lets you view, print, transpose, and listen to MIDI renditions of works posted by showcase members. The musical content and the caliber of score preparation are therefore a reflection of the members' varied talents, but then again, no payment is involved.
The viewer plug-in allows speedy score downloads and displays them in a window-within-a-window view with double sets of scrollbars (see Fig. 3). Performance data is retained during MIDI playback. For some reason, playback stopped every time I clicked on a scrollbar to browse the score, but when I left it alone, the score scrolled to follow playback. Finale MusicViewer's printing is flexible, and the output is top quality.
Net4Music (www.net4music.com) takes a different approach from the companies covered so far. With no apparent notation software to leverage, Net4Music simply wrote a cross-platform rights-management plug-in for Adobe Acrobat, and it distributes scores as PDFs. That means no MIDI playback, transposition, or editing is provided. To offset those limitations, some works offer a Sample button that plays a MIDI version of the piece. When you purchase a file from Net4Music, it is e-mailed to you as an attachment.
Net4Music offers works from the catalogs of EMI and Schott, among others, and enables musicians to publish their own works. You can submit a score in Cubase, Finale, Logic, Sibelius, or Score formats to be converted to Acrobat. Prices tend toward the $3 to $5 range, with pop tunes by the Commodores or Brandy going for $3.95. The score to Mark O'Connor's Appalachian Waltz is $5; the violin, viola, and cello parts are $3 each. Self-publishing musicians get 40 percent of the sale price.
Net4Music almost doesn't belong with the other companies mentioned, because it's selling what amounts to scans of sheet music, not enhanced digital alternatives to sheet music. That seems likely to change, however, now that the company has merged with Coda. Net4Music announced plans to incorporate Coda's SmartMusic intelligent-accompaniment technology, which will provide the missing playback and editing ingredients to its lineup.
SheetMusicNow.com, like Net4Music, built its system around Adobe Acrobat files, but SheetMusicNow.com uses a Windows plug-in called SafePublish to secure files. You can print three times within seven days, after which the file expires. Playback and editing functions are not supported, though MIDI excerpts are available for some titles. Graphic previews of about a third of a page are also available.
The site's repertoire covers a range of styles, including pieces by Chick Corea, the guitar and recorder duos of Michala Petri and Lars Hannibal, and trumpet virtuoso Timofei Dokshizer's personal editions of his recorded works. Although it's not yet a huge collection, its eclecticism is commendable. Prices are generally $3.50 to $15. The print quality is excellent, though the page layout is not always top-drawer. Acrobat is certainly an important tool and a simple solution for publishers, but it's a shame to see another publisher ignore the power of “real” virtual sheet music.
Swedish software developer NoteHeads (www.noteheads.com) features a nifty little viewer carved from the code of Igor Engraver, the company's high-end notation program. Igor Reader is a standalone Windows application (a Mac version is in beta) that lets visitors view, play back, and print downloaded works.
Available repertoire leans heavily toward the self-published variety, though a recent deal with the Swedish pop group A-Teens to make its catalog available online shows that NoteHeads intends to broaden its base. Works range from $1 for an arrangement of Hava Nagila to $25 for a modern wind composition by the company's founder, Peter Bengtson. Contributors get 50 percent or more of the purchase price and can specify whether viewing, playback, and printing should be allowed prior to purchase.
It's too early to judge NoteHeads' potential, because its catalog has barely more than a hundred works. Igor Reader seems solid, and the engraving quality is good. It all comes down to content: if you build it, they will come.
From the makers of Sibelius comes ScorchMusic (www.scorchmusic.com), a self-publishing venture with promise. The Scorch viewer for Mac or Windows (see Fig. 4) offers digital sheet music done right: a full-page view of the music, transport controls for MIDI playback, a slider for changing tempo, a button to print the first page for free, and controls that let you change the first instrument or change keys if the composer permits.
Better still, Scorch features Sibelius's Espressivo playback options for intelligent interpretation of dynamics and articulations as well as composer-definable degrees of swing, which is a huge advantage over the competition.
ScorchMusic sets all the prices, which range from free to $9.95, depending on the number of pages. Extracted parts are also available for an additional charge. Contributors receive 50 percent of the net sale price. ScorchMusic tracks MIDI-playback auditions and pays royalties to performing-rights agencies for that use.
Scorch's online viewing and playback technology is available to Sibelius users, and Sibelius Internet Edition extends its capabilities for commercial use. In addition, Scorch has been adopted by Sheet Music Direct publisher Hal Leonard (www.sheetmusicdirect.com), retailer J. W. Pepper, and other major forces in the traditional music-publishing arena.
Musicnotes Viewer from Musicnotes.com is your ticket to more than 10,000 works of digital sheet music from Warner Brothers, Mel Bay, Hal Leonard, Boosey and Hawkes, C. F. Peters, and several other publishers. At first glance, Musicnotes.com's Windows-based viewer plug-in, with its window-within-a-window design, is a dead ringer for Coda's Finale MusicViewer, but Musicnotes Viewer requires a separate player for MIDI playback. That's only a minor nuisance, however, because both programs are small downloads and work well together.
First-page previews are playable and printable. Purchasing a piece means shelling out from $4.95 for Bruce Hornsby's The Way It Is to $7.95 for a detailed guitar-tab transcription of Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven. The selection is impressive, and the technology is user-friendly.
Somebody clearly thinks that digital sheet music is the distribution model of the future. The major notation software developers are leading the way, and some real powerhouses of traditional publishing are getting in on the act. The first wave of technology is promising, with useful features such as MIDI playback and transposition. Moreover, the printed output from the viewer programs is very high quality.
Darwinian reality has finally hit the Web, though, and online music publishers will survive according to the quality and quantity of their content. That certainly favors purveyors of pop piano/vocal parts such as Sunhawk and Musicnotes.com, but the Web's egalitarian nature still leaves plenty of room for niche publishing and self-publishing. Based on what I've seen, the technology for digital music distribution will not be a limiting factor.
Brian Smithers eagerly awaits the technological breakthrough that will enable online distribution of Diet Mountain Dew. While he waits, he keeps busy as a teacher, woodwind artist, and clinician. | <urn:uuid:059e6e76-c47f-478f-84d0-f1e8913b03c2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.emusician.com/techniques/0768/notation-and-the-internet/145796 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939104 | 3,167 | 1.929688 | 2 |
FEARING FOR HIS SAFETY? Inmate Michael Chasse.
Will Michael Chasse, the inmate who allegedly held two people hostage on June 30 at the Maine State Prison, now be tortured by Governor John Baldacci’s administration, much as President George W. Bush’s administration has tortured prisoners at Guantánamo?
That was the question implicit in a recent e-mail “action alert” sent out by the Portland-based anti-torture group known as the Black Bird Collective. Believing that Chasse’s many years in solitary confinement may have driven him to what the prison says he did, prisoner-rights activists from around New England have in response called and e-mailed state officials, urging the state Department of Corrections not to isolate him again as punishment.
But at the moment solitary may be only one of Chasse’s problems.
A number of prison sources have told the Phoenix that prison personnel treated Chasse roughly after he surrendered. One source said he suffered a broken arm. Corrections refused to provide information on his condition or let him be interviewed.
Chasse, 33, of Lewiston, is in isolation at the 100-man Supermax or Special Management Unit inside the Warren prison. He had already spent the better part of a decade there. He is in prison for robbery, assault, escape, and other offenses, with his release scheduled for 2029, but now he will likely face new charges. He had been allowed into the general population a few months prior to allegedly seizing a prison employee and an inmate and holding them at knife-point for seven hours.
The hostages reportedly suffered minor injuries. Corrections would not identify them, but prison sources said they were inmate Ryan Currier and librarian Jacqueline Weddle of Thomaston. Weddle did not respond to attempts to reach her on the phone, and Corrections would not let Currier be interviewed.
In a 2005 Phoenix interview, Chasse told of the psychological effects of being isolated for 23 hours a day for years: “There is a noise that comes from the air vents. The sounds start to seem like voices. I have built imaginary relationships with those white noises.” (See “Torture in Maine’s Prison,” by Lance Tapley, November 11, 2005.)
Black Bird’s David Bidler noted that prisoners are not sentenced by a judge to solitary confinement. He sees Supermax isolation as an extra-judicial in-house punishment system “in the shadows” — separate from the criminal-justice system.
It’s a system similar to the United States military’s, he said: “The cells and the type of treatment used at Guantánamo are all exports from American prisons, especially the supermaxes.” There are several hundred prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, but there may be as many as 50,000 in domestic supermaxes.
Citing research showing that prolonged solitary confinement destroys minds — a topic frequently in the news because of the treatment of prisoners at the Guantánamo base and elsewhere — anti-supermax activists say it is illegal under the UN Convention Against Torture, which the US has ratified and which prohibits punishment by “severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental.”
Bidler said his group is drafting a bill to be submitted to the next Legislature to end solitary confinement and other forms of torture in Maine’s prisons. He said his group’s goal is to shut down the Supermax. He wants Maine to become “a standard bearer for human rights.” | <urn:uuid:bf056341-3e48-41cb-a377-d9188fb55b7a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thephoenix.com/boston/news/64635-torture-for-the-hostage-taker/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962497 | 754 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Under the Articles of Confederation each state was given the power to regulate their own currency. Each state issued it’s own money. As a result nobody knew exactly how much a New York dollar was worth compared to a one from New Jersey or Virginia. The more money there was in circulation, the less a dollar was worth. Finally, there was just a financial collapse and a paper money was considered worthless. For five long years the colonies experienced the worst business depression. This inefficiency to deal with the regulation of currency not only caused one of the worst depressions the colonists had ever seen but also set the groundwork for a major rebellion called Shay’s Rebellion. People were so angry that their paper money had become worthless because of the initial problem of each state creating it’s own currency, that a rebellion was... [continues]
Cite This Essay
(1999, 10). Article of Confederation. StudyMode.com. Retrieved 10, 1999, from http://www.studymode.com/essays/Article-Confederation-5366.html
"Article of Confederation" StudyMode.com. 10 1999. 10 1999 <http://www.studymode.com/essays/Article-Confederation-5366.html>.
"Article of Confederation." StudyMode.com. 10, 1999. Accessed 10, 1999. http://www.studymode.com/essays/Article-Confederation-5366.html. | <urn:uuid:be460c33-c194-4ba8-b33f-e66c9317a9f2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.studymode.com/essays/Article-Confederation-5366.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00047-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.925798 | 302 | 4.0625 | 4 |
Maps Getting From Here To There by Harvey Weiss explores maps in 10 small chapters. The introduction begins by showing how simple a map can be and expanding out into the more complex maps. The explanation of directions is awesome. It is in chapter 1 titled, “Which Way?”. ” One of the most important things a map can do is help you get where you want to go.”. As a student, I always want to know why I am learning something and this was a perfect explanation of the importance of map skills. In this chapter it also goes on to explain the location and significance of the compass rose.
The author breaks down the book into chapters explaining the different types of maps and the how each part of maps are important. In the chapter on topographical maps, the author introduces the vocabulary in a logical way that relates to how it is used in reading the map. This would be a great way to introduce the vocabulary in a simplified matter instead of straight definition writing. Chapter 5 , “All Those Lines”, talks about longitude and latitude and provide excellent explanations on how those work. ” The horizontal lines are called latitudes, and the vertical lines are called longitudes. The purpose of these lines is to help locate places on the surface of the earth.” The last few pages of the book provide the reader with a step by step way to making their own map. Overall, this book is great and could be used for both younger and older students.
This book could be used as great introduction to different concepts of maps. In first grade (SOL 1.4a,b and c , 1.5 and 1.6), students need a basic understand of map symbols and cardinal directions. The beginning of the book focuses on these skills and would provide a teacher with another way of presenting the information. In second and third grades, ( SOL 2.5a and b and 2.6 ; 3.5a, b and e and 3.6), students begin actually plotting and using the maps more in depth. This book could serve as review of basic map skills and then introduce the harder concepts of maps. The book even has some crossover into the US history (US I.8a and b) with the discussion of Lewis and Clark and their exploration and mapping of America. The language used in the book is simple enough for a first grader to understand and would still hold the attention of an older student.
- National Geographic provides several ideas for lesson plans from K-12 in the subject of geography.
- This page provides a lesson on Orienteering , which makes map reading into a game.
- Mr.Donn’s Page provide several ideas for lessons on map skills and even provides games for children to play online. | <urn:uuid:d0453442-5571-4a32-80b1-43afaf8b84b5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.richmond.edu/openwidelookinside/archives/2259 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00067-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938254 | 568 | 3.875 | 4 |
A teenager has no other option to survive but to be fed through her heart. The 18-year-old each night fights a battle for her life, as her mother feeds her via her heart.
Jodie Vasquez has been diagnosed with connective tissue disorder. Connective tissue diseases feature abnormal immune system activity with inflammation in tissues as a result of which the immune system is directed against one's own body tissues.
Jodie has to face major problems. She suffers a constant pain, her joints dislocate easily, as a result of which she has to use a wheelchair.
Maxine Farish, her mother, has to go through a mental challenge while feeding her daughter, as a single mistake would lead to the death of the teenager. She has to feed her daughter via the drip; the essential nutrients are passed through a pipe, which is directly linked with her heart.
Jodie of Carlisle, Cumbria, has Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome Hypermobility Type III (EDS). The disorder has had an adverse effect on the collagen in her body, which ultimately has an effect on the working of vital organs and muscular system, and nerves.
It was three years ago when Jodie was diagnosed with the condition, since then she has been struggling each day for her survival.
US Business News
New Zealand News
- After Suspected Botulism, CFIA Warns People
- Health Care Education Necessary for the Future of Province: Analysts
- B.C. Government Grants $700,000 for Managing Facial Deformities
- Michelle Shocked delivers hate speech about homosexuality at her gig
- Guess who Justin Bieber got burned by?!! His ex-girlfriend Selena Gomez | <urn:uuid:f15367f0-41b8-4ff5-b55c-355547d419e0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://topnews.us/content/250219-teenager-fed-through-heart-struggles-life | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976636 | 356 | 2.234375 | 2 |
Just finished editing all the pictures for today’s post, what a job! This post is most interesting for those who love Annie Sloan Chalk Paint (ASCP), and also for the few that think the colour chart does not offer enough to choose from.
Most of you know you can create a huge range of colours by mixing ASCP. While I was in Oxford at the course with Annie Sloan, I took pictures of all the extended colours she created by mixing them with Old White. When I returned home I downloaded the pictures and to my frustrations they were totally hopeless. I couldn’t read the colour name, nor could I recognize them due to the poor resolution of the pictures. The pictures couldn’t help at all.
So I ended up mixing the colours by myself and created my very own ‘extended colours book’. Now that I have it, I treasure it so much. To be able to look at all the new colours gets my creativity almost out of control.
This simple exercise of mixing the colours has also helped me to learn a bit more about every colours properties. Some of them change a lot with the 50-50 proportion, some of them almost don’t change. Now I understand why in some cases Annie adds 8 times Old White to achieve a paler version.
I am sorry this post might be heavy in content and just exhausting to look at. But I insist this is a great help, even if the colours don’t look exactly the same on the screen, you can still get a good sense of how different every colour reacts to the Old White, and therefore it will give you an idea of what you need to do to achieve the tone you are looking for.
I mixed 27 of the current 31. I didn’t mix: Pure White, White Linen, Old White and Graphite. Another note: some colour names are different in continental Europe. Coco is called Old Linen, French Linen is called Grey Linen and Original is called White Linen.
Here we go!!!
Until next post!! | <urn:uuid:38856a40-1284-4d5b-914e-ecb13db0f24e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ciruelointeriors.com/2011/11/09/extendedcoloursrange/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00067-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961472 | 428 | 1.992188 | 2 |
The River Crouch
The route and information about the inhabitants of its banks.
The River Crouch rises through a series of springs into ponds situated on Burstead Golf Club, it briefly travels south, before heading east towards Wickford.
In Wickford the river travels east passing under Sugden Avenue and Castledon Road, before turning south and passing under London Road. After passing under the London Road in Wickford the river then flows through the town in a concrete channel, usually a small channel, but this is part of a much larger channel in case of flooding. This passes under the Nevendon Road, London Road, Lower Southend Road and the A132.
The river continues eastward bound again then passes through Memorial Park. The River Crouch Conservation Trust have spent some time clearing debris from this stretch of the river. The Trust organisises work parties to clear up this debris.
After Memorial Park the river continues eastbound passing under the A130 and A1245 before reaching Battlesbridge.
The route of the River crouch through Wickford is marked on a Google Map.
From the Bridge at Battlesbridge is the start of the 17.5 mile River Crouch Navigation.
The link to the map below will show points of interest along the navigation. Please let me know if you have any information about them. I will continue to add to them as and when I can. River Crouch Navigation
© 2010 River Crouch Conservation Trust | <urn:uuid:8d76926c-cd75-4fc7-9e19-f9651772c229> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rivercrouchconservationtrust.org.uk/rivercrouch.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00061-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.921021 | 297 | 2.171875 | 2 |
Around 65% of American employees failed to use up their vacation time in 2010 and many of them chose to do so out of a false sense that skipping vacation made them appear harder working. Start taking vacation seriously.
If you have a hard time taking time off for vacation or feel outright guilty doing so, you're not alone. Forbe's magazine has compiled some statistics on vacation use over the last year that highlight how little vacation time Americans are using. For a country with so few vacation days to begin with it's painful to think that most of the meager two weeks so many workers are limited to taking weren't even used. Some career planning experts and psychologists weigh in:
"It's silly to think that giving up vacation is going to make your colleagues think how important you are," says Connie Thanasoulis, a career services expert at the job search Web site Vault.com. "Take your vacation and let them miss you." After all, you can never get back those days you didn't use—or the once-in-a-lifetime memories they might have produced.
"Vacations are underrated," agrees Joan Kane, a Manhattan psychologist who has worked as a therapist for 22 years. "People think they're fluff. I believe they're crucial." Beyond the obvious benefits of stress reduction, regeneration and rest, they satisfy a deep need to feel that you're in control of your own time. "On vacation you have no boss to satisfy," Kane observes. "You're not under constant surveillance."
Hit up the article for more reflections on the importance of vacation or jump right into planning with our Top 10 tips to help you streamline your vacation planning. | <urn:uuid:fc4aa660-e017-4437-8556-1e3f6f60114a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://lifehacker.com/5741146/stop-leaving-vacation-time-on-the-table-to-properly-recharge | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974149 | 341 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Scientists create liver cells from human skin
By AFP - YAHOO NEWS
Added: Thu, 26 Aug 2010 13:47:09 UTC
Thanks to Lucas for the link
WASHINGTON (AFP) – British scientists have grown liver cells out of stem cells from human skin, boosting hopes that healthy cells can be transplanted into organs to repair damage from diseases like cirrhosis and cancer, according to new findings.
Cambridge University researchers took skin biopsies from seven patients suffering from various hereditary liver diseases, and from three healthy patients, "reprogramming" the skin samples into stem cells which can effectively become any tissue in the body.
For the first time, such cells were used to mimic a range of liver diseases, according to the findings published in Wednesday's Journal of Clinical Investigation.
Growing liver cells in a laboratory is particularly difficult.
By replicating such cells in diseased livers, and replicating the healthy cells from a control group, researchers can not only determine precisely what is happening in the diseased cell, but also test the effectiveness of new therapies to treat diseases.
Principal investigator of the research Ludovic Vallier, of the MRC Centre for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine at Cambridge, described the work as "an important step towards delivering the clinical promises of stem cells."
Such genetic engineering could lead to targeted and personalized therapies and, once diseased cells are treated, could eventually enable the transplant of healthy liver cells into a patient's damaged liver.
The process could be used to create similar models for use in other organs, the study's authors said, although more research is needed.
The success comes as a debate swirls in the United States on research involving human embryonic stem cells, after a US judge Monday blocked federal funding for stem cell research.
... continue reading
- - PhysOrg.com Comments
Using a process called paleo-experimental evolution, Georgia Tech researchers have resurrected a 500-million-year-old gene from bacteria and inserted it into modern-day Escherichia coli (E. coli) bacteria. This bacterium has now been growing for more than 1,000 generations, giving the scientists a front row seat to observe evolution in action. Credit: Georgia Institute of Technology
- - Sense About Science 6 Comments
Welcome to this questions and answer session on cross fertilisation, which has also been called contamination, with Wendy harwood and Huw Jones.
Rothamsted Research - YouTube/Sense... 79 Comments
Add your support to the appeal from scientists at the publicly funded Rothamsted Research: Don't Destroy Our Research.
Edyta Zielinska - TheScientist 7 Comments
Genes shared across species that produce different phenotypes—deafness in humans and directional growth in plants—may reveal new models of disease.
MORE BY AFP
AFP - Yahoo News Comments
A Pakistani-born couple were jailed for life by a British court Friday for murdering their "westernised" teenage daughter in an apparent honour killing.
AFP - - Comments
Circumcising young boys on religious grounds amounts to grievous bodily harm, a German court ruled
AFP - Al Arabiya News 40 Comments
“They have effectively erased all evidence of our Buddhist past,” a senior museum official told AFP at the now shuttered building in the capital Male, asking not to be named out of fear for his own safety. | <urn:uuid:4ea12214-61b1-49cc-8d05-d2f5bbea9308> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://old.richarddawkins.net/articles/505860-scientists-create-liver-cells-from-human-skin | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930444 | 699 | 3.15625 | 3 |
Click on a label to read posts from that part of the world.
Archaeologists Analyze John the Baptist's Bones
Back in 2010, archaeologists uncovered six bone fragments from a marble sarcophagus in the ruins of a medieval church on the island of Sveti Ivan, "Saint John," near Sozopol.
The bones are on display at a church in Sozopol. One of them, a knucklebone, was radiocarbon dated at the University of Oxford's Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit. The team found it dated to the first century A.D.
The radiocarbon results will no doubt cheer the faithful, who generally dismiss radiocarbon dating when it proves the world is more than 6,000 years old or that the Shroud of Turin is a medieval fake.
Geneticists at the University of Copenhagen analyzed three bones and found they belonged to the same male individual, and that he hailed from the Middle East.
So could this be John the Baptist? It's possible, although of course it can't be said for sure. One point in favor is that a box made of volcanic tuff from Cappadocia, Turkey, was found next to the bones. On it is an inscription in ancient Greek of John's name and feast day. Researchers note that many relics came from the Holy Land via the religious communities in Cappadocia before ending up in the Byzantine capital of Constantinople, modern Istanbul. They were then distributed throughout the Empire.
Many relics from John the Baptist can be found in churches throughout the world, including several examples of his head. Gadling blogger and relics researcher David Farley came across one story of a Spanish monk who went in search of a relic for his monastery. As Farley relates:
"During his wanderings he happened upon a black market relics salesman who told him he had a fine relic he could sell him. It was the head of John, the Baptist. But this wasn't just the head of John, the Baptist. It was the head of John, the Baptist...as an infant."
[Photo of Serbian painting of John the Baptist, c. 1235, courtesy The Yorck Project] | <urn:uuid:5d32fd19-850e-4173-9171-4d57db8bdb2f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gadling.com/2012/06/18/archaeologists-analyze-john-the-baptists-bones/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968974 | 449 | 3.046875 | 3 |
Art & Design (Foundation Studies)
The Foundation Course in Art and Design is for committed students who have already completed an A Level programme, or who wish to build up a portfolio of work in preparation for a specialist Degree or Higher National Diploma in Art & Design.
The main aim of the course is to provide a stimulating environment within which each student can discover and develop their creative potential towards an appropriate area of study.
The course is delivered in three distinct stages:
Students will explore the potential and limitations of a wide variety of media and materials. There is a strong emphasis on developing skills in observing and recording what you see, hear, think and feel. In particular you will learn to recognise the importance and functions of drawing. Regular life-drawing sessions are an important part of your portfolio development at this stage.
Students will bring together skills in working with media and techniques, their ability to select research methods and processes, and they will apply their understanding of the creative process to a number of set assignments. You will be encouraged to develop your own critical understanding of contemporary, historical and related contexts.
This stage takes the form of a final major project and end of year show. You will be encouraged to move towards specialisation in one of the main areas of study. These include Fine Art, Ceramics, Graphic Design, Textiles, Printmaking, Sculpture and Lens Based Media.
Formal assessment is carried out at regular intervals. At the end of the course students are required to mount an exhibition of work.
Applicants will normally have completed an A Level in an Art and Design related subject at grade C or higher, and also have achieved a further five GCSE passes at Grade A* - C. You will need to provide evidence of quality sketchbooks or project files at your interview.
If you are a mature student, you will be considered on the basis of experience and the production of a portfolio of work that demonstrates you have reached a level of skill and commitment necessary to benefit from the course. See page 21 ‘How to apply’.
This course has been designed to help you make an informed decision about your future in Art and Design. Students are encouraged to continue their studies at degree level.
Level: Level 3
Award: Diploma in Foundation Studies
Awarding Body: Edexcel (Pearson)
Length: 1 Year
Fee: Fees may apply to students over 19 years, price on application. Students aged 24 and over can apply for an FE 24+ Advanced Loan.
Contact: Strode College Admissions Team | <urn:uuid:2b8514a8-36da-4bda-b2ef-ab20c00d1e47> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.strode-college.ac.uk/university_level/art_foundation_predegree/263 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933459 | 528 | 2.296875 | 2 |
Swelter no more in the summer heat only to shiver once you enter a store blasting its AC. The new ClimaWare line of clothing by India’s Dhama Innovations keeps you comfy no matter what the thermometer says. Designed to flip from 0 to 100 degrees Celsius at the push of a button, the clothing and accessories feature eight levels of heating and cooling to cope with unpredictable weather, extreme temperatures, and hostile environments. In addition to helping soldiers stay toasty in subzero conditions and keeping cows cool enough to produce more milk, the technology could also be applied to control bleeding in a medical emergency.
ClimaWare is the brainchild of Kranthi Kiran Vistakula, a former Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate and founder and CEO of Dhama Innovations. Since April, Vistakula’s company has released a number of products—including temperature-modulating jackets, helmets, neck wraps, and shoes—with even more on the horizon.
The technology uses the Peltier effect, a form of heat exchange that keeps laptops from overheating.
The technology taps into what’s known as the Peltier effect, a form of heat exchange that keeps laptops and other electronic devices from overheating. Electricity courses though a junction where two different metals meet so that one side heats up while the other cools down. Instead of a fan to blow away the heat, however, Vistakula uses nanomaterials that are engineered ton conduct temperatures without moving parts. Each thermoelectric device draws power from a rechargeable battery that provides up to eight hours of heat or cold per charge.
The Indian army, which tested the jackets and shoes on the Siachen Glacier in the Himalayas, is already a fan, although Dhama will have to scale up its production—and lower its price—before farmers can afford to outfit their cows. The company is also working on a line of knee and elbow packs that provide heat and cold therapy for joint and muscle injuries. Another product in the pipeline is “HaemoSave,” a medical pack that uses freezing temperatures to stem blood loss, pain, and inflammation.
Coming soon: a “HaemoSave” pack that uses freezing temperatures to stem bleeding and inflammation.
Medical and livestock applications aside, the garments offer the perfect solution for thermostat-fiddling colleagues who are either too hot or too cold. And as the climate becomes increasingly unpredictable (ahem, climate change), one jacket could suffice for the shifting temperatures we encounter through the day. | <urn:uuid:89a763a8-b5a3-48cf-9f2f-906935a13821> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ecouterre.com/climate-controlled-clothing-keeps-you-at-the-perfect-temperature/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00066-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935364 | 530 | 2.15625 | 2 |
The report says the military has seen members from 53 gangs and 100 regions in the U.S. enlist in every branch of the armed forces. Members of every major street gang, some prison gangs, and outlaw motorcycle gangs (OMGs) have been reported on both U.S. and international military installations.
From the report:
Through transfers and deployments, military-affiliated gang members expand their culture and operations to new regions nationwide and worldwide, undermining security and law enforcement efforts to combat crime. Gang members with military training pose a unique threat to law enforcement personnel because of their distinctive weapons and combat training skills and their ability to transfer these skills to fellow gang members.
The report notes that while gang members have been reported in every branch of service, they are concentrated in the U.S. Army, Army Reserves, and the Army National Guard.
Many street gang members join the military to escape the gang lifestyle or as an alternative to incarceration, but often revert back to their gang associations once they encounter other gang members in the military. Other gangs target the U.S. military and defense systems to expand their territory, facilitate criminal activity such as weapons and drug trafficking, or to receive weapons and combat training that they may transfer back to their gang. Incidents of weapons theft and trafficking may have a negative impact on public safety or pose a threat to law enforcement officials.
The FBI points out that many gangs, especially the bikers, actively recruit members with military training and advise young members with no criminal record to join the service for weapon access and combat experience.
The full assessment is definitely worth checking out, if only for the pictures. | <urn:uuid:2b67bf8b-8292-4733-bffc-82bb25024939> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.businessinsider.com/fbi-gang-assessment-us-military-2011-10 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00054-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967888 | 332 | 1.828125 | 2 |
When leaders -- whether political or military -- announce that the "the troops will be home for Christmas," they're usually wrong. It didn't happen in 1944, or 1950, or 1967. But in 2011 they've gotten it right.
This week President Barack Obama and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta announced the formal end of the nearly nine-year-old Iraq War. The final 4-5,000 American troops there are headed home.
When he was running for president, Obama promised an end to the war. He has been drawing troop numbers down during most of his administration. U.S. troops totaled 170,000 at their highest in 2007.
How Iraq will fare in the post-American era is anyone's guess. For now, we're glad to be ending the war and moving on. Happy Holidays!
Photo: American troops retire the U.S. colors during a ceremony in Baghdad marking the end of the Iraqi War, December 15, 2011.
Photo by Erin A. Kirk-Cuomo/Department of Defense | <urn:uuid:e1686966-adcd-4dd8-aa90-e22d9615bd4e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://usforeignpolicy.about.com/b/2011/12/18/troops-home-for-christmas-iraq-war-formally-over.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969189 | 212 | 2.109375 | 2 |
Drone technology is driving the aerospace industry as companies trip over each other trying to develop the next big thing. Here’s a good example of what we’re talking about. Lasers can no be used to keep a UAV in the air indefinitely. The trick is to add an array of photovoltaic cells specifically tuned to an IR laser’s wavelength. A ground system then directs a high-intensity laser beam onto the aircraft’s cell array to transfer energy while in flight.
After the break you can catch a video from a trade show where a Lockheed Martin employee describes the successful testing of such a system. But there’s a lot more information available in the white paper (PDF) which Laser Motive has released. They’re the folks behind the technology who have teamed up with LM to implement the system. The laser unit on the ground can track a UAV visually, but there is also a method of using GPS coordinates to do so in the case of overcast skies. | <urn:uuid:e0f472cd-77a7-43c9-b9b0-1c4d0e318865> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://hackaday.com/2012/09/27/laser-power-system-keeps-uavs-flying-indefinitely/?like=1&source=post_flair&_wpnonce=ca8cc7cdd9 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.915304 | 209 | 3.046875 | 3 |
Intrathoracic surgical procedures of the greatest complexity are performed today in most large hospitals throughout the world, and the number of such procedures is increasing steadily from year to year. One of the major reasons for this increase lies in the increasing availability of anesthesiologists.
There is probably no major field of anesthesiology which requires as much knowledge and skill as the one dealing with anesthesia for thoracic surgery. The physiological and pathological problems encountered in this specialized area are distinct and highly complex. The respiratory and circulatory complications, both during and following the surgical procedure, are frequently of grave prognostic significance, and the role of the anesthesiologist in the prevention and treatment of these complications can hardly be overemphasized.
In view of such increasing interest in anesthesia for thoracic surgery, it would seem pertinent to present the information obtained and the observations made in connection with the administration of | <urn:uuid:84715b7f-a8fa-440c-9a62-5d5b2f108551> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://archsurg.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=556977 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963794 | 183 | 2.09375 | 2 |
Frequently Asked Questions about the YLTE
If you are unable to find the answer to your question below, please check our general FAQ.
What does the test taker need to bring to the test?
Test takers must bring colored pencils or pens (red, blue, green, yellow, orange, pink, purple, black, brown, and gray), and an ordinary pen or pencil.
Should the test taker use British or American English?
On the listening tests, both accents are used. The spelling and vocabulary on the printed test booklets is American English. British or American spelling is accepted for the written answers. In the speaking tests, British or American pronunciation and vocabulary are accepted.
How are the tests scored?
The center where the child takes the test sends the completed test booklets to a team of trained raters, who score them very carefully. To make sure that each child gets the fairest possible result, all tests are checked twice. In most parts of the test, spelling has to be 100% correct.
The speaking examiner scores the speaking test, and then speaking scores—along with the completed listening and reading and writing test booklets—are returned to CaMLA.
What does the child receive after taking the test?
Each test taker will receive a certificate that shows how many medals he or she earned. The maximum score is five medals for each part of the test. A result of one medal means the child can improve significantly in that skill; five medals means that the child did very well in that skill and answered most questions correctly. With a total of 10 medals or more, a test taker should be ready to start preparing for the next CaMLA YLTE exam.
How long does it take to receive the certificate?
Certificates will be sent to test centers within 12 business days of receipt of the tests at the scoring center. Test centers will notify test takers when the certificates are ready. | <urn:uuid:5ac95f86-b661-4d6b-9254-cebb11835be1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cambridgemichigan.org/exams/ylte/faq | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00051-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946594 | 403 | 2.390625 | 2 |
Most disturbing thing I learned in chatroom so far this week - "killing of innocent people is wrong" - is not a universally held moral truth. Sadly only the americans participating in the chat room found the idea that killing innocent people is wrong to be an absolute moral truth.
In discussions with chat-room-americans try to keep in mind that high levels of intellect, experience, reasoning and expertise are not equal to nor greater than the opinions expressed by those in the chat room.
So . . . if you have the four above characteristics and attempt to explain your viewpoint you will receive no respect if you disagree with someone, because you are showing a difference of opinion not presenting a better argument.
Until you jump on board the patriot bandwagon you are only deserving of ridicule for proposing a thought different from anything heard before in the chat room.
Now an individual in america is one person or one corporation which believes, that is, has unshakable faith in the power of nondiscernment and group think.
Equality of the people means you have two choices: right or wrong because there is nothing in between and nothing at the edges.
When the bullying group teaches you a lesson by team insults, and you lose your cool when they start deriding "common sense"- don't be surprised - YOU will be the one tossed from the chat room for calling them "Bulls-t As-oles," however accurate that may be.
(Originally posted at http://sixsentences.ning.com/profiles/blogs/individualism-and-equality-of)
Drawing from the "Huntress: Year One" Author: Ivory Madison Artist: Cliff Richards | <urn:uuid:a758a99a-394c-40e9-b042-9e846a928993> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://redroom.com/member/vicki-nikolaidis/blog/individualism-and-equality-of-people-gone-mad | 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 | 0.938715 | 343 | 1.742188 | 2 |
To share natural plant remedy recipes, identify diseases and link to the appropriate cures.
Latest Activity: Feb 26
I have been having a battle with leaf curl since buying a new peach tree about four years ago. When I asked for advice from the nursery I bought it from they said dont worry just remove curled leaves…Continue
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Nobody likes mosquitoes and I've been thinking about some natural controls.The eggs are laid on water. They hatch and the wrigglers live in water for two or three weeks as they grow. Then the third…Continue
Started by Jacqui Knight. Last reply by Mark Spencer Dec 19, 2011.
To make: Mix 1 tablespoon baking soda, 2 1/2 tablespoons vegetable oil with one gallon of water. Shake this up very thoroughly. To this mix add 1/2 teaspoon of pure Castile soap and spray. Be sure to…Continue
Started by Hester Dec 13, 2009. | <urn:uuid:3b7a4eeb-b3bd-4191-ab50-5afedb7d73f8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ooooby.ning.com/group/naturalororganicapprovedplantremedysandtonics?xg_source=activity | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955601 | 209 | 1.609375 | 2 |
July 6, 2010
From Isner and Mahut setting a new record for the longest professional tennis match to previous champions Venus Williams and Roger Federer crashing out in the quarter-finals, Wimbledon 2010 was an exhilarating tournament to watch. But this year’s competition is not the only one to have delivered shocks, unexpected results and landmark events.
Fifty-three years ago today, on July 6, 1957, Althea Gibson became the first African-American to win the ladies’ singles title at Wimbledon. Gibson, who had won the women’s singles tournament at the French Open the previous year, beat fellow American, Darlene Hard, in straight sets to take the championship title.
The National Museum of American History possesses a sizable collection of Gibson’s trophies and other possessions. And at the National Portrait Gallery, a heartwarming photograph by Genevieve Naylor, shows Gibson teaching Harlem children how to hold a tennis racket. The image appeared in the recent show “Women of Our Time.”
Although born into a poor family in the 1920s, Althea Gibson was fortunate to come to the attention of Dr. Walter Johnson–a physician from Lynchburg, Virginia, who was active in the black tennis community. Johnson soon became her patron and under his guidance Gibson improved her game, while he sought out ways to propel her into the recognized tennis scene.
Throughout her amateur career, Gibson won a staggering 56 singles and doubles titles, including 11 major titles in the late 1950s at championship tournaments such as the French Open, the U.S. Open and Wimbledon. She was ranked the top U.S. tennis player in 1957 and 1958, and was the first black player to be voted Female Athlete of the Year by the Associated Press in those same two years.
But her achievements do not stop there. During her retirement from amateur tennis, Gibson wrote her autobiography entitled I Always Wanted to Be Somebody, and released an album, Althea Gibson Sings. And as if mastering the art of professional tennis was not enough, in 1963, Gibson became the first African American woman to play in the Ladies Professional Golf Association.
For many, Gibson is remembered as the Jackie Robinson of tennis, for overcoming barriers of race and color at a time when segregation was rife. Billie Jean King, winner of 12 Grand Slam titles, once said of Gibson, “If it hadn’t been for her, it wouldn’t have been so easy for Arthur Ashe or the ones who followed.”
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Why "Taking the Heat" ?
700 million Africans live in rural areas where small scale agricultural livelihoods contribute both to local economies and to community food security. Changes in rainfall patterns, temperatures and growing season add to the growing list of vulnerabilities faced by rural communities, causing potentially devastating impacts on agricultural livelihoods and on the communities they support. Scientists predict that sub-Saharan Africa will be one of the places to feel the heat of climate change most severely, with major impacts on farm families and rural economies that are already under stress and often plagued by extreme poverty and hunger. What is the human face of climate change in Africa? How are small scale farmers adapting to changes in the climate? How might Canadians learn from and assist these communities? Taking the Heat addresses these questions, providing a summary of a series of events that brought representatives from sub-Saharan Africa to Ottawa in December 2007 for 3 days of dialogue with the Canadian public, elected officials and policy makers.
Taking the Heat - Part One
About the Speakers
Joshua Mukusya, Kenya
Joshua Silu Mukusya was born in the Machakos district of Kenya in 1948. He studied agriculture in eastern Kenya and after leaving home for several years, to work in various agricultural roles, he returned to his native village of Utooni when his father died in 1978. As the eldest son, Joshua felt responsible for taking care of his mother and family. In 1978, Joshua set up the Utooni Development Project (UDP) with the help of six sympathetic families who shared his convictions about the value of self-help projects. Within three years, 75 families were committed to the work of UDP, whose motto, "Without Vision We Perish", has inspired thousands of people to improve their lives and their communities. Joshua Mukusya has been responsible for building 8,500 rainwater collection tanks, 140 sand dams and 13,000 km of soil conserving terraces in farmers' fields.
Mamby Fofana, Mali
With more than 20 years experience in sustainable agriculture in the context of the Sahel, Mamby FOFANA possesses an intimate knowledge of participatory research, biodiversity, agro-forestry, natural resource management and food security in semi-arid lands. Mr. Fofana currently works as a Natural Resources Management Officer with Swedish Development Cooperation in Bamako, Mali. He is on the Board of Directors of USC Canada, and former Director of USC’s internationally acclaimed Seeds of Survival program in West Africa. Mr. Fofana is a member of the UN Science and Technology commission of the Convention on Drought and Desertification on behalf of the Government of Canada since 1997. He currently chairs the Donors’ harmonization group in Mali on forest resources management. Mamby Fofana received the Solidarite Canada-Sahel prize as resource-person for public education on anti-desertification in May 2000, and the World Innovation Prize (awarded to USC-Canada Mali) for innovation in the use of traditional knowledge and genetic resource conservation, at EXPO 2000 (Germany).
Dr. Rachel Bezner Kerr, Canada
Dr. Bezner Kerr has been involved in food security, agriculture and nutrition research and development activities in Malawi for ten years. She works as the research coordinator with the Soils, Food and Healthy Communities project in northern Malawi, a participatory project in which farmers test different sustainable agricultural options for improving food security, soil fertility and children's nutrition. An active farmer organization is involved in coordinating farmer training, knowledge exchange and research. The project, which began in 2000, now works with over 5000 smallholder farmers in the region. Rachel is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Western Ontario.
Taking the Heat Video - Part Two
About the Events
The events and video were organized by two coalitions of Canadian civil society organizations – the Canadian Coalition for Climate Change and Development and the Canadian Food Security Policy Group:
C4D is an emerging coalition of development and environmental non-government organizations and research institutions that formed in 2007. The goals of the coalition are to: To bring the voice of the international development community to the climate change dialogue in Canada; and to develop knowledge and capacity in the international development community to address the global challenges associated with climate change and development. The chair of C4D is held jointly by Care Canada and the Pembina Institute
The Canadian Food Security Policy Group brings together Canadian international development agencies, emergency relief providers, farmers/producers’ organizations and human rights groups who have worked for decades in sectors related to enhancing food security in developing countries and in Canada. Members include Canadian Council for International Co-operation, Canadian Foodgrains Bank, CARE Canada, Christian Reformed Church, Developing Countries Farm Radio Network, ETC Group, Inter Pares, Mennonite Central Committee Canada, National Farmers Union (Canada), Oxfam Canada, Oxfam Québec, CHF - Partners in Rural Development, Rights & Democracy, UPA développement international, USC Canada, United Church of Canada and World Vision Canada. | <urn:uuid:7ad3b1bc-e40a-4627-bc85-6842a7abfe05> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://foodgrainsbank.ca/taking_the_heat.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00061-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947631 | 1,039 | 2.796875 | 3 |
WASHINGTON, DC (WUSA) -- Many new luxury cars include high-tech devices that warn drivers heading for a collision. Now that technology can be installed in any vehicle aftermarket.
In the Metro Washington area last year, 83 people died and another 2,700 were injured in pedestrian or bike accidents involving vehicles, according to AAA.
The CEO of Mobileye, Skip Kinford, said the device costs $930.
"We're the providers to GM, Ford, Volvo," he said.
The small device includes a camera and a small circular alert screen. It sits behind the rear view mirror and beeps to alert drivers. Kinford said it can differentiate between a car, pedestrian, or bike. It also knows whether the vehicle is stopped.
"It will only give notification if you or another vehicle or person is at risk," Kinford said.
John Townsend, spokesman with AAA, said drivers shouldn't rely on this technology alone.
"The most important tool you have is your God-given set of eyes, and keep your two hands on the steering wheel and make driving your number one focus when you're behind the wheel," Townsend said.
Kinford said the device can be purchased online, and the price includes professional installation. | <urn:uuid:5dc4632b-504d-40fd-97c7-5c56389db86c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wusa9.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=150582 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969671 | 255 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Edward A. Mize, of Atchison, secretary and treasurer of the Blish, Mize & Silliman Hardware Company, has been a resident of Atchison for over forty years and his name stands preëminently among its citizens, for he is of that class of men who through their superior ability, energy, industry and intelligence have materially added to the prosperity of Atchison and have increased its commercial importance. During that period he has seen the business with which he is connected develop from a small retail store into one of the largest wholesale hardware establishments of the West and has seen a like development in the city of Atchison and of the State of Kansas. Mr. Mize is one of the many Eastern men who have made up the personnel of the strongest business men, professional men and statesmen of Kansas during the last half century. He was born in Middletown, Conn., June 14, 1840, and is descended on the paternal side from an old New York family, the Mize family being a well known and prominent one in Madison county, New York, while his mother's family was an old established one of Middletown, Conn. The father of Mr. Mize removed to Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1842, and there for several years was engaged in the manufacture of linseed oil. Later he became auditor for the Cleveland, Mt. Vernon & Columbus Railway Company, with headquarters at Akron, Ohio, and was thus employed a quarter of a century. After his retirement from active business duties he removed to Chicago and resided in that city until his death.
Edward A. Mize was reared and educated in Cuyahoga Falls, Summit county, Ohio, until eighteen years of age. His first business venture was in the city of Chicago, where he engaged in the insurance business and conducted it until the spring of 1871, when he came west with two other young men from Chicago, David P. Blish and John B. Silliman, and located in Atchison, Kan. There they bought out a retail hardware store and established the retail and wholesale hardware business which in the succeeding years has grown to such proportions as to rank among the largest and most extensive of its kind in the West. The firm was incorporated in January, 1888, and has as its present officers: J. B. Silliman, president; Arthur E. Mize, vice-president; E. A. Mize, secretary and treasurer; C. L. Mize, assistant treasurer; and C. S. Osborn, cashier. Its department managers are: A. E. Mize, sales manager; J. A. Kinney, traffic manager; H. B. Mize, manager of the cutlery, harness, tinware and advertising department; and J. W. Barlow, manager of the guns and sporting goods department. The firm since its organization has enjoyed uninterrupted prosperity and to accommodate the continuously growing business a new five-story building is being erected for occupancy at the corner of Fifth street and Utah avenue at a cost of $160,000, and when completed will be the largest business building in Atchison.
In Chicago on Dec. 18, 1867, Mr. Mize was married to Miss Caroline Silliman, a sister of J. B. Silliman, the business partner of Mr. Mize. Mr. and Mrs. Mize have reared five children, each of whom is filling a useful and responsible position in life. In order of birth they are: Arthur E., who is vice-president of the Blish, Mize & Silliman Hardware Company; Rev. Robert H., rector of St.. Andrews Episcopal Church of Emporia, Kan.; H. D., who holds the responsible position of buyer for the Blish, Mize & Silliman Hardware Company; Caroline, who is the wife of Rev. Francis F. White, rector of Trinity Episcopal Church, Atchison, Kan.; and Chester L., assistant treasurer and manager of the credit department of the hardware company. Mr. Mize, though essentially a business man, has ever shown a commendable interest in all that touches the general welfare of the community. He thoroughly believes in the efficacy of a good education and is interested in furthering the efficiency of the public schools. He has served seven years as a member of the Atchison board of education and was president of the board five years of that period. He has also been a trustee of the Atchison County High School six years, which office he still holds. Mr. Mize and family are communicants of the Episcopal church at Atchison. He is one of its oldest and most faithful members and has served as treasurer of the church twenty-five years. For the past forty years the name of Mr. Mize has been linked with the public affairs of Atchison, as an early settler, as a promoter of large business prospects and as a public spirited citizen and he well deserves the universal respect and esteem which he enjoys in his home city.Pages 759-761 from volume III, part 2 of Kansas: a cyclopedia of state history, embracing events, institutions, industries, counties, cities, towns, prominent persons, etc. ... / with a supplementary volume devoted to selected personal history and reminiscence. Standard Pub. Co. Chicago : 1912. 3 v. in 4. : front., ill., ports.; 28 cm. Vols. I-II edited by Frank W. Blackmar. Transcribed December 2002 by Carolyn Ward. This volume is identified at the Kansas State Historical Society as microfilm LM195. It is a two-part volume 3.
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LPGA star Betty Jameson died three years ago today. We look back on the trail she blazed for women in golf. Originally published May 2009 on Obit-Mag.com.
was first star of women’s golf. In 1950, she was among 13 women to start the Ladies Professional Golf Association. Her straight arrow shooting and statuesque frame propelled her to the top of the field.
In this June 1947, file photo, Betty Jameson displays a practice swing prior to the third round play in the Women's U.S. Open Golf Tournament at Starmount Forest Country Club in Greensboro, N.C. Jameson won the 72-hole tourney with a 295 total. Jameson, one of the 13 founding members of the LPGA Tour in 1950, died Saturday. She was 89. (AP Photo, File)
While the LPGA professional tour currently has 30 tournaments with prize money well over $50 million, the early days of the tour were far more modest. Driving in caravan from course to course, the 13 original members led a vagabond and rigorous existence, suffering the pangs of the road not for fortune (or fame really) but for love of the game.
Jameson learned that love early in her life. She rented clubs and paid green fees at a public course outside of Dallas at age 11. Surging quickly, she won the Southern Women’s Amateur title at 15.
She won 10 tournaments and over $91,000 in prize money during her professional career and became one of the first faces of women’s pro golf. She was inducted into the Women’s Golf Hall of Fame in 1951 and the LPGA Tour Hall of Fame in 1967.
After her playing days were over and during her latter years, Jameson faced financial hardship. The Palm Beach Post reported in their obituary that
“For years, Jameson shared a home in Delray Beach with another golfer, Mary Lena Faulk, but it wasn't until after Faulk lost her fight with cancer in 1995 that Jameson learned Faulk never got around to leaving the house to Jameson in her will.
Then, Sports Illustrated and other publications reported on how this Hall of Famer was on the brink of homelessness, surviving on a Social Security check of $261 a month.”
On the 50th anniversary of the LPGA, Jameson was named one of the 50 best women’s golfers ever. The tour also allocated a $10,000 honorarium to the 13 founders of the league.
Jameson took on the hardships of her later life with the same determination that she showed on the course, displaying an indefatigable and independent spirit.
Today’s stars of the LPGA owe a great deal to Betty Jameson, a pioneering golfer.
Click Here for More from Obit-Mag.com | <urn:uuid:3ce28345-7155-4039-9092-6db3d3c3366e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://obituaries.bangordailynews.com/obituaries/bdnmaine/obit-report-article.aspx?t=betty-jameson-lpga-star&id=885 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971596 | 602 | 2.203125 | 2 |
The Work of Midwives
My filmmaking partner Mary Wigmore and I have spent the last two-and-a-half years making a documentary about world-famous midwife Ina May Gaskin and her colleagues at the Farm Clinic in Summertown, Tennessee. We started the project inspired by Ina May’s writing. Each of us had turned to her first book, “Spiritual Midwifery,” when we were pregnant. The joyful stories and earthy photographs had made childbirth seem not just doable, but maybe even (in some sort of way that we couldn’t quite fathom) pleasurable. We were grateful to that book—nearly forty years after it was first written it made us feel excited about being pregnant, and, even more importantly, it gave us courage.
Experienced midwives have that effect in person too, as we have found in the course of making our film. They draw upon their rigorous study, careful observation of labor, medical skills, emotional intelligence and sharp intuition to create environments where women feel safe—and when a laboring mother feels safe, she is very often able to birth her baby without a lot of intervention. The more we have gotten to know The Farm Midwives, and the midwives in our community and beyond, the more we have come to understand them as artisans of a sort. It may seem strange to compare their work to that of woodworkers, weavers, bakers, or farmers at small organic farms--the stakes are clearly higher--but still, as sociologist Barbara Katz Rothman points out, they all share things in common. Midwives, like the others, carry forward the insistence that time is more valuable than money, that patience and serious craft produce the richest results, and that knowledge is inseparable from the body. They work with their hands, hearts, and minds to resist a mechanized, one-size-fits-all approach to their practice. And midwives, like other artisans, are grounded in what’s local: this woman, in this moment, with this baby; it’s a mindful approach that we all deserve, no matter where, or with whom, we decide to give birth.
Not all midwives are the same of course, but we have met enough of them to say that many take up their work in this spirit. We are grateful to Ina May and the other Farm Midwives for introducing us to their world, and to midwives everywhere for the work that they do. May we honor them during Women’s Health Week! | <urn:uuid:24ef02f6-d652-4b03-8e0d-93af3c309041> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.makers.com/blog/work-midwives | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976375 | 531 | 1.609375 | 2 |
ENERGY STAR Plant Profile
300 Nissan Drive
Canton, MS 39046
Nissan was the first auto manufacturer to locate in the state of Mississippi. The Canton Plant was built in 2002, with production starting in 2003. The plant is nearly four million square feet and has a production capacity of over 300,000 vehicles per year. With two assembly lines, the plant currently manufactures Nissan's Altima passenger car, Armada SUV, and the Titan truck. In 2011 the Canton plant will begin producing the all new NV2500 commercial vehicle.
Nissan became an ENERGY STAR� Partner in 2006. Within the same year, the Canton plant focused on energy efficiency by establishing cross-functional energy management teams. These teams started looking into ways Nissan could help reduce energy consumption with a concentration on energy waste reduction and elimination. In 2007 the Canton plant put in sub metering to allow measurement and management of the electrical power usage. In January 2010 the plant received an energy reduction grant through the state of Mississippi, which allowed it to implement energy saving projects that will eliminate over 6,000 metric tons of CO2 per year and reduce energy consumption by over 70,000 MMBTU per year. That is equivalent to the energy used in 511 homes.
The Canton plant was first labeled in 2006. Since 2006 the plant has reduced its overall energy usage by over 30% and its energy intensity by over 7%.
2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 | <urn:uuid:03224ed6-c15a-4a17-be77-d672b2221eef> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?fuseaction=labeled_buildings.showPlantProfile&ALSO_SEARCH_ID=NONE&ZIP=&S_CODE=ALL&STARTNUM=1&CITY=&OWNER_ID=&STR=&MINI=&VIEW=&YEAR=2012&PROFILES=0&FILTER_B_ID=&PAGE=1&BUILDING_TYPE_ID=ALL%20PLANTS&plantprofile_id=p_55 | 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 | 0.938986 | 305 | 1.625 | 2 |
ON EXHIBIT: Delta Swamp and Cove Forest at River Journey
These birds are in the same family as Mockingbirds, and like their relatives, they often run on the ground to escape danger, rather than fly away. They raise their tails when running. They are an extremely aggressive defender of its nest, which is in thick brush anywhere from the ground up to 14 feet above the ground and has been known to strike people and pets hard enough to draw blood (while defending their nest) - just protecting those babies.
Thier population is fairly stable, although it may be declining slightly due to changing landscapes in the Eastern US (shrublands maturing) and in the Great Plains (losing fence rows in farmland) and plant brush between fields which give the birds cover so they don’t have to cross miles of open land where predators can see them.
About This Animal
SIZE 11.5 inches
RANGE Midwest and Eastern United States and parts of southern Canada; common in summer here in Chattanooga, uncommon in winter
HABITAT Likes brush, shrubbery, forest edges; often seen near human habitation
DIET Insects, invertebrates, nuts, fruits; they are mainly foragers, searching through leaf debris on the ground for food and using their long beaks to toss aside the debris | <urn:uuid:88cf5f14-694d-4301-ae2f-a201d2430f92> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tennis.org/OurAnimals/Birds/BrownThrasher.aspx | 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 | 0.963503 | 272 | 3.328125 | 3 |
- Posted by dan on March 8, 2011
So firstly we should say what a Non-Functional Requirement (NFR) is.
"A non-functional requirement is a requirement that specifies criteria that can be used to judge the operation of a system, rather than specific behaviors. This should be contrasted with functional requirements that define specific behavior or functions. The plan for implementing functional requirements is detailed in the system design. The plan for implementing non-functional requirements is detailed in the system architecture". - Wikipedia paraphrase
What NFR's encompass
It seems that you can have NFR's for practically anything and I feel that there's a considerable gap in the way we capture the requirements of our system. I'm a firm believer in "If it's a required, then it should be tested". But somethings on the NFR list are quite difficult to write an automated test for. for example:
It's no-wonder that NFR's are often refered to as the "*ilities" .
Non-funtional requirements are also referred to as the quality attributes. Before you get upset, it doesn't mean to say all those unit tests having nothing to do with quality, they help ensure that the product indeed does what it's supposed to. But they probably don't measure the performance or the usability of the product.
Somehow after doing Scrum for years now, I'm brought right back to this picture from the Scrum Master training.
The picture, shows, that the customer wanted a tyre hanging from the tree. But even this doesn't specify how heavy the customer is. Can the tyre (or the tree for that matter) continue to function under high load.
Recently my team has been slaving away on an internal tool ready for release day. No we're not quite at the level of Continuous Delivery to release that often, we have a fixed date we work to.
The project had gone really well, we were pair programming using TDD and BDD for the higher level acceptance tests. Our product owners was closely involved, it was as close to the perfect project as I've had in recent time. But there was one thing I overlooked.
Don't Forget the Non-Functional Requirements (NFR's)
For all the good the above mentioned techniques have brought us, None of it could of been deployed at any time, which is a goal of Scrum and many of the Agile development methodologies. The reason why because we hadn't seperated out of Data Access Code into a seperate process. Now please don't confuse this with not seperating it out into a seperate layer. It was a seperate layer, but ultimately it would of run under the same IIS worker process as the rest of our application and we have an NFR that for security says that Data Access must be performed in a seperate process.
This is completely understandable for a public facing website, but our tool was for internal use only.
What's Your Definition of Done
Your definition of done, might say:
- All software must be maintainable
- All software must be highly performant
- Must function under high load
But are these points really that helpful. Does an internal tool that's destined to by used by a team of 10 people really need to be able to function under high load? Probably not in this case and thus we highlight the problem with generic NFR's, they just might not be applicable. But if we follow the definition of done we end delaying our delivery of value.
A Possible Answer
Well maybe with all things Agile or scrum is another type of card such as the NFR Card.
I can't claim it as my idea, only one I'll try now I've read, this great post on understanding non-functional requirements
. The key is as with the User Stories
or BDD Scenarios
is that the card should offer something concrete and measureable. Of course somethings are very difficult to quantify, like usability or supportability. Try and make them quantifiable, lifes much easier if they are.
Some NFR's it might be better to elect to have them as qualities or attributes that are monitored and measured over time. Usability could be measured by increase in conversion. Supportability could be measured by a qualitive survey on how supportable it is. Obviously quantitive measures are better. But if these NFR's are really that important then we should be able to monitor the quality it's there to ensure.
How do other's deal with NFR's? Should they be negotiable by the team with the architecture team. Or should the team decide on the NFR's. | <urn:uuid:267d6068-e1d3-4306-ab6d-eea0f056ae14> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.d80.co.uk/post/2011/03/08/Non-Functional-Requirements-the-forgotten-overlooked-and-underestimated.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966445 | 966 | 1.984375 | 2 |
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June 18, 2012
HAMBURG, Germany, June 18 -- Acer and Taiwan’s National Center for High-performance Computing are demonstrating that real-time, interactive HPC applications are feasible within a single server node. Using the Acer AT350 F2 server equipped with NVIDIA® Tesla® and Quadro® GPUs and the latest Intel Xeon processors E5 family, NCHC has improved its own computational fluid dynamics (CFD) application capable of simulating air flow across any object in real time. Combining augmented reality with high-performance computing, this application has many practical applications for the design fields.
Speaking on behalf of NCHC, Dr. Matthew Smith explains, “The advantage of augmented reality in the HPC space is its ability to interact in real time with a running HPC job. In the past, the job runs from beginning to end, and has to be modified before or after – not during the job. This system allows engineers to see what is happening immediately to speed up the design processes.”
The Acer AT350 F2 server, used as the base of the model, was a perfect solution to demonstrate recent advances in computing technology. With room for two CPUs, 24 DDR3 DIMMs, and support for two high-end NVIDIA Tesla C2075 GPUs and/or NVIDIA Quadro series GPUs, this server delivers a ‘supercomputer in a box’.
Duncan Liu, HPC project director of Acer’s Enterprise Products Business Unit, expressed, “Acer is always looking to empower users with the best technology packaged in a usable manner. This application represents the very best of what we hope to achieve by enabling users to run high-performance computing within a single unit, saving cost and power.”
“Research and development groups no longer need to rely exclusively on a large supercomputing cluster to test various design parameters and scenarios,” said Sumit Gupta, senior director of the Tesla business at NVIDIA. “Acer and NCHC are demonstrating that GPUs make supercomputing-class performance more accessible than ever in affordable, small-form factor systems that deliver significant energy savings.”
For more information and a live demo, please visit the Acer booth #320 at the 2012 International Supercomputing Conference (ISC’12) in Germany.
Large-scale, worldwide scientific initiatives rely on some cloud-based system to both coordinate efforts and manage computational efforts at peak times that cannot be contained within the combined in-house HPC resources. Last week at Google I/O, Brookhaven National Lab’s Sergey Panitkin discussed the role of the Google Compute Engine in providing computational support to ATLAS, a detector of high-energy particles at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
The Xeon Phi coprocessor might be the new kid on the high performance block, but out of all first-rate kickers of the Intel tires, the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) got the first real jab with its new top ten Stampede system.We talk with the center's Karl Schultz about the challenges of programming for Phi--but more specifically, the optimization...
Although Horst Simon was named Deputy Director of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, he maintains his strong ties to the scientific computing community as an editor of the TOP500 list and as an invited speaker at conferences.
May 16, 2013 |
When it comes to cloud, long distances mean unacceptably high latencies. Researchers from the University of Bonn in Germany examined those latency issues of doing CFD modeling in the cloud by utilizing a common CFD and its utilization in HPC instance types including both CPU and GPU cores of Amazon EC2.
May 15, 2013 |
Supercomputers at the Department of Energy’s National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) have worked on important computational problems such as collapse of the atomic state, the optimization of chemical catalysts, and now modeling popping bubbles.
May 10, 2013 |
Program provides cash awards up to $10,000 for the best open-source end-user applications deployed on 100G network.
May 09, 2013 |
The Japanese government has revealed its plans to best its previous K Computer efforts with what they hope will be the first exascale system...
05/10/2013 | Cleversafe, Cray, DDN, NetApp, & Panasas | From Wall Street to Hollywood, drug discovery to homeland security, companies and organizations of all sizes and stripes are coming face to face with the challenges – and opportunities – afforded by Big Data. Before anyone can utilize these extraordinary data repositories, however, they must first harness and manage their data stores, and do so utilizing technologies that underscore affordability, security, and scalability.
04/15/2013 | Bull | “50% of HPC users say their largest jobs scale to 120 cores or less.” How about yours? Are your codes ready to take advantage of today’s and tomorrow’s ultra-parallel HPC systems? Download this White Paper by Analysts Intersect360 Research to see what Bull and Intel’s Center for Excellence in Parallel Programming can do for your codes.
In this demonstration of SGI DMF ZeroWatt disk solution, Dr. Eng Lim Goh, SGI CTO, discusses a function of SGI DMF software to reduce costs and power consumption in an exascale (Big Data) storage datacenter.
The Cray CS300-AC cluster supercomputer offers energy efficient, air-cooled design based on modular, industry-standard platforms featuring the latest processor and network technologies and a wide range of datacenter cooling requirements. | <urn:uuid:24b36713-db78-41da-bc0e-fb47fd91fd72> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hpcwire.com/hpcwire/2012-06-18/acer_taiwain_hpc_center_demonstrate_cfd_application_on_single_node.html?adclass=isc12 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.909018 | 1,181 | 1.710938 | 2 |
This is where we feature a student who has impressed us with their knowledge and understanding of behaviour modification, and their flexible, creative approach to solving problem behaviour.
Mwet David Gilman from Chorley in Lancashire
David Gilman, pictured here with Meg, tells us:
"I am over the moon that the team were impressed with my work (I have learned so much about dogs that pass or fail it would have been well worth all the work involved) and would like to thank them all for taking the time to assess it and for the useful comments they made. I found them very enlightening and they have given more of an an insight into the practicalities of dog psychology that will be very helpful in the future. I am also very thankful for the future support which I will no doubt be calling on.
I have learned so much about dogs and myself from the Course; it was enjoyable, informative, certainly challenging and has prevented my mind from slipping into dotage. It made me think more about both the physical and psychological problems dogs and humans have when they live together. I didn't think there was so much involved with "just keeping" a dog. I realise it is much harder and more interesting. But the most important thing I have learned from the Course is that you can have a much happier and more fulfilling life with your dog if you understand her as a dog and she can enjoy her life much more because you understand her.
The reason I enrolled was because of my latest dog Meg, a six year old Border Collie. I have had dogs all my life but about four years ago I had to have my dogs Einstein (Border Collie, 12 - I did not give him that name) and Tammy (Jack Russell, 19) put to sleep on the same day. This upset my wife and myself so much that we vowed never to have another dog. But two years later we talked about giving another dog a good home so we came across Meg, who was five years old at the time. She had been badly treated but "took to me straight away" so we brought her home, little knowing the problems we would have. She didn't like dogs, was afraid of people abd didn't like coming home from walks. But having seen programmes on dog behaviour which linked to dog psychology I becamse interested enough to try and put it into practice and decided I needed to do it properly so I enrolled on the Canine Behaviour Centre Course. From the knowledge gained Meg is now a very well behaved dog who can handle dogs and people in her stride and gives us both so much pleasure.
About myself, I have been married 40 years to Pauline. Next year I will have been a self employed barber for 45 years and think it's about time I let my daughters Joanne and Andrea run the business. So, to stop me interfering, I decided on a new career and hopefully it will be in dog behaviour. I am now in the process of setting up the new bsuiness but still want to improve my qualifications - I have already enrolled on the Advanced Aggression Course - and learn the skills required to hopefully makes the lives of of the dogs and their owners that I come into contact with happy and fulfilling. I am now looking forward to my new career and hopefully it will last as long as my last one."
Please note that the views and opinions of our Top Students are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Canine Behaviour Centre.
Many people ask us how we select our Top Students. Quite simply, they are those students whose work is outstanding. They display all the qualities we are looking for - the ability to think of all possible options, an empathy with human as well as dog problems, flexibility, open-mindedness, creativity - and much more! | <urn:uuid:4bd4cd21-068a-49c6-878c-2c7b01561b7d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.caninebehaviour.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=123%3Atop-student-david-gilman&Itemid=64 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00065-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985749 | 777 | 1.609375 | 2 |
More articles on Harvard Business
Imagine walking up to an ATM — you insert your card and begin to check your balance before you put in the amount of cash you want to withdraw from the machine. As you do this, a small crowd of people begins to form around you peering over your shoulder. Some are friends, some family, some are casual acquaintances and some you don't even know. Uncomfortable situation? Absolutely. While ATMs are in public settings, they are meant to be private interactions. If someone — even someone you know began to involve themselves with your financial activity you would get annoyed.
While this scenario is extreme, it seems to suggest that maybe not everything is better with friends, despite the fact this seems to be the approach, so far, of social networking services. Over the past few weeks the technology world made big steps forward in making your world even more "social." Google Buzz was introduced and caused a firestorm of mixed reactions as it automatically connected people to their e-mail contacts publicly, without asking permission. Buzz also socializes other services, such as Reader, so others can follow what what you read. In short, it takes your experience with Google products and turns it into another social ecosystem to manage. Shortly after, Microsoft (disclaimer: an Edelman client) introduced Outlook Social Connector which will connect Outlook with existing platforms such as Linked In.
While both efforts are different in their approach (Google Buzz could be viewed as a competitor to Facebook and Twitter while Outlook Social Connector looks to extend Outlook's capabilities), they signify a larger trend that points toward the "socialization" of our activities. And this is an important trend. Some things are indeed made better when social. For example, one of my favorite networks is Slideshare, which "socializes" presentations and documents. I believe that this service and others like it are chipping away at "information hoarding" and breaking down some of the taboos about intellectual property. It's disruption, but disruption that can be beneficial to both businesses and individuals.
But not everything should be social, as some Google users have found out. Liza Sperling who works for Scout Labs, a social media monitoring company recently tweeted: "Help, suddenly tons of strangers following my GReader! I used to love GReader, until Buzz killed it." She's not alone. Scores of people have expressed frustration with finding and disabling some of the social features, which resulted in an apology from Google over privacy issues.
Let's be clear. This isn't a technological issue. It's an anthropological one. Businesses that are looking to benefit from social technologies are going to need better and more intimate understandings of the people and cultures of those they hope will leverage their services.
The good news is that that while a counter-trend may be brewing that points toward "social overload" — companies that are agile like Google (and Facebook and others) can help us figure our threshold for how much we want to share and who benefits from it. The current hypothesis that everything is better with "friends" is being tested before our eyes. Each market in different parts of the globe may respond to this hypothesis differently. But the truth that's becoming easier to see is that some things aren't meant to be social (think e-mail and one to one messaging). Understanding this thinking will probably make the social web even better. As social technologies progress, valuable and meaningful engagements will become more important than just connecting with friends. | <urn:uuid:3c82f827-1eda-4ea6-88db-ef645804356e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://darmano.typepad.com/logic_emotion/2010/02/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00055-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967369 | 711 | 1.921875 | 2 |
Source: Millborn Seeds
For most alfalfa fields damaged earlier this week by frost, it will be difficult to assess the damage for at least a week, says Eric Mousel, forage and alfalfa specialist for Millborn Seeds, Brookings, S.D.
"In established stands, it will take at least that much time to determine if the top growth was damaged or whether the stems will recover," Mousel said. "The growing point is the initial development source of new leaves and stem on the main stem of alfalfa. The growing point is located inside the dense cluster of unfolded leaves at the top of the main stem."
Mousel explains that when the growing point is frosted off, the stem will die and new growth must come from new shoots at the crown.
"Although the plant itself is not dead, the new growth will be delayed. Cutting off damaged plants will hasten recovery," he said. "If the growing point was not frosted off, the current growth may wilt for a few days and then regain its upright stature once it gets warm again."
He adds that new alfalfa seedlings are generally very tolerant of cold temps, partially from heat from the soil and partially from natural plant tolerance. Seedlings no older than first trifoliolate growth stage will probably handle temps in the low 20's. As they advance in growth, cold tolerance lessens. Seedlings at the 3rd or 4th trifoliolate stage can be difficult to diagnose. If leaf tissue is just singed by frost, they probably will recover slowly.
"If your new seeding is frozen to the ground - it's dead. Reseed or plant to another crop as soon as possible," Mousel said. "Last years' late summer planting will probably respond similar to an established stand, although recovery will probably be a lot slower. It's only early April, so give these plants a little time before you decide to cut, shred, or reseed. Sounds like more cold temps are on the way, we'll see what happens." | <urn:uuid:53f352ac-a01a-4858-9d6b-1abc9cdff060> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.agweb.com/mymachinery/article/assess_alfalfa_frost_damage/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960644 | 432 | 2.625 | 3 |
It is a wonder how the small things carry the most weight in life. I remember from my childhood, the anticipation of going to Prospect Park in Brooklyn with my father to fly kites. Typically we would make our kites at home the night before. Using brown craft paper or newspaper and balsa wood, string and Elmer’s glue, my father and I would work together to make the kites, he giving me tips along the way. Since my Mother was always sewing clothes for someone, we would get a piece of cloth for the kite’s tail from her supply of fabric scraps. The night prior to flight was filled with excitement as I imagined how high my kite would fly the next day.
The following morning we’d go to the park and my dad would instruct me on the proper way help the kite gain flight. He guided me in gauging the wind for lift and recognizing the direction it was blowing. Once our kite was off the ground, he’d let me hold the string and all I could do was look up at the sky as the kite soared to higher and higher heights. I wondered what it must feel like to fly.
My father taught me many things. As I flew my kite, I thought of the stories of Benjamin Franklin using his kite to prove ideas about conductivity. But my father insisted that as I learn about Ben Franklin, that I also learn about African American inventors like Garret A Morgan. I would often discuss various other scientific principals, with my father as my brain was like a sponge at those times. Hungry for knowledge, I asked my father how the kite could fly and how did my father know how to make a kite (remember this was a time when parents still did things with their children, before they would spend money on something they could make and be a great bonding experience for parent and child). I look back in retrospect now and thank him for those lessons. Back then I often thought he and my mother were punishing me by giving me extra work to do, especially when it came to school. I remember learning the U.S. states and their capitals and my parents making me learn the Map of Africa at the same time. No one else in my class had to do the same thing. What I was learning however, was how to be an individual and an independent thinker and not even knowing it. My father advised me to never settle. To always quest to learn and know more. To test/challenge what I was told or read. Simple activities like kite flying was a part of that unbeknownst to me at that time.
Later in life as other kids were being pressured into certain things, I was unmoved. I already knew I was different and never felt the need to fit in with the latest fad or mischievous activity. Don’t get me wrong I did my share of bad things but I was not easily tempted. What did come of it, was that I was not a afraid to say “no” when others ask me to join in or participate in something that I did not want to do, something many other kids fell victim to – and still do till this day. My parents were raising a leader not a follower.
As the tables turned and I became a father, I found myself returning back to those very lessons to raise my son – even flying a kite. I don’t want to sound cliché’ but you get out what you put in. Parents remember challenge your kids so they won’t crack under pressure when someone else does.
-By M.Kwasi Pecou | <urn:uuid:76af1c03-7ff3-4451-99f2-b568a0be9762> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://passageofright.wordpress.com/2011/08/15/new-heights/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.987894 | 752 | 1.960938 | 2 |
US 6921400 B2
An intramedullary nail for repair of bone fractures. The intramedullary nail is of a modular configuration including a nail member having a chamber formed on the proximal end thereof. An insert having at least one opening therein for receiving a bone screw or fastener is disposed within the chamber and is secured therein by a locking ring. Accordingly, various inserts may be used to achieve selected bone screw or fastener configurations.
1. An intramedullary nail for use with a fastener to repair a bone fracture comprising:
a nail member, said nail member having a proximal end and a distal end, said proximal end having a chamber located therein, said chamber having an inner surface and at least one groove located in said inner surface;
an insert, said insert configured for insertion into said chamber, said insert including at least one outwardly extending tab; and
a locking member, said locking member engaging said nail member to secure said insert within said chamber.
2. An intramedullary nail as set forth in
3. An intramedullary nail as set forth in
4. An intramedullary nail as set forth in
5. An intramedullary nail as set forth in
6. An intramedullary nail member as set forth in
7. An intramedullary nail member as set forth in
8. An intramedullary nail member as set forth in
9. An intramedullary nail for use with a fastener to repair a bone fracture comprising:
a nail member having a distal end and a proximal end, said nail member having a longitudinal passageway extending from said distal end to said proximal end, said nail member further having;
a chamber located in said proximal end, said proximal end further having an opening providing access to said chamber, said chamber having a proximal end and a distal end, said opening adjacent said proximal end of said chamber, said chamber having an inner surface and a groove located in said inner surface;
an insert, said insert including an outwardly extending tab, said insert having a proximal end and a distal end, said insert also having an opening extending through said insert at an angle with respect to a longitudinal axis of said insert;
wherein said tab cooperates with said groove when said insert is placed in said chamber to support said insert within said chamber; and
a locking member engaging said nail member to secure said insert within said chamber.
10. An intramedullary nail as set forth in
said locking member having an annular shape with a plurality of threads located on an outer surface thereof, said threads cooperating with said threads of said chamber to secure said insert within said chamber.
11. An intramedullary nail as set forth in
12. An intramedullary nail for use with a fastener to repair a bone fracture comprising:
a nail member, said nail member having a proximal end and a distal end, said nail member further having a longitudinal passageway extending through said nail member from said proximal end to said distal end and having a chamber located at said proximal end, said chamber having a proximal end and a distal end and including a ledge found in at least a portion of the proximal end of said chamber;
an insert, said insert adapted to be inserted into said chamber, said insert having a proximal end and a distal end, and having at least one opening extending through said insert at an angle from said longitudinal passageway, said insert further including a lip, said lip engaging said ledge to support said insert in said chamber; and
a locking member, said locking member, said locking member engaging said nail member to secure said insert within said chamber.
13. An intramedullary nail member as set forth in
said chamber having a longitudinal groove located in an inner surface of said chamber, said groove extending inwardly from said proximal end of said chamber and ending prior to reaching said distal end of said chamber, said ledge formed adjacent the end of said groove such that said tab travels in said groove when said insert is inserted into said chamber.
14. An intramedullary nail member as set forth in
15. An intramedullary nail member as set forth in
This is a continuation-in-part of Ser. No. 09/694,666 filed Oct. 23, 2000, now abandoned, which claims benefit of 60/160,656 filed Oct. 21, 1999.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to an intramedullary nail for the repair of bone fractures, and more specifically, to a modular nail that allows a surgeon to use different inserts to achieve a selected nail configuration for use with a particular type of fracture.
2. Description of the Related Art
Intramedullary nails are proven devices that provide a temporary fixation means to stabilize a fracture until the fracture heals. The nail is inserted in the marrow canal of the bone and is positioned to span the fracture. The nail is received and anchored within the bone via bone screws placed through aligned apertures in the nail.
The screws are usually inserted in the proximal and distal ends of the nail and in the case of the proximal end, the orientation of the screws depends upon the particular configuration needed including antegrade, reconstruction and retrograde. Thus, different nails are required for different configurations, i.e., fractures. Many hospitals stock complete nail systems that are designed to handle only specific fractures. Not only does each nail system require different components, many also require unique instrumentation systems intended for use with only one type of nail. This results in increased and unnecessary inventory that correspondingly increases the cost to the hospital and patient.
Accordingly, it is advantageous to have an intramedullary nail with greater modularity that provides a surgeon more options enabling them to handle a wider range of fractures while streamlining the components necessary to do so.
The present invention is directed to a modular intramedullary nail for use in stabilizing a fracture until healing has occurred. The modular intramedullary nail of the present invention includes an elongated nail member having a distal end and a proximal end. The proximal end includes a chamber located thereon. The chamber is configured to receive an insert having an opening therein. The opening is configured to receive a screw used to secure the nail member to the bone to stabilize the fracture. A locking ring engages the chamber to secure the insert within the chamber.
In accordance with the present invention, depending upon a patient's requirements, by using the various inserts, selected screw configurations can be achieved and chosen preoperatively and then assembled before insertion. Use of multiple inserts with a single nail member allows a surgeon to place screws at various angles and in various locking configurations including antegrade, reconstruction and retrograde along with dynamic oblique locking and dynamic transverse locking.
The present invention will be readily appreciated as the same becomes better understood after reading the subsequent description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.
As illustrated in
As shown in
Turning to the opposite or proximal end 24, the proximal end 24 includes a barrel or chamber 34 located thereon. The chamber 34 includes a distal end 34 a and a proximal end 34 b. An opening 36 located in the proximal end 34 b of the chamber 34 provides access to the chamber 34. As shown, the opening 36 is located at the rear edge 25 of the nail member 20. In addition, the chamber 34 includes a socket 40 for a purpose to be set forth later. The chamber 34 also has an inner surface 44. The inner surface 44 of the proximal end 34 b of the chamber 34 contains a plurality of threads 45. Notches 48 are found in the trailing or rear edge 25 of the proximal end 24. The insertion and extraction instruments (not shown) are configured to pass through the longitudinal passageway 28 and engage the notches 48 to rotate and properly position the nail member 20 within the bone 16.
An insert 50, shown in
The insert 50 further includes an opening 54 extending therethrough. The opening 54 is oriented such that when the insert 50 is placed within the chamber 34, the opening 54 aligns with a longitudinal slot 56 extending through the wall 58 of the nail member 20 against the chamber 34. Additional fasteners 32 pass through both the opening 54 in the insert 50 and the slots 56 to anchor the proximal end 24 of the nail member 20 to the bone 16. The insert 50 may contain multiple openings 54 oriented in any number of angular configurations with respect to the longitudinal axis 21 of the nail member 20. The insert 50 further includes a longitudinal passageway 55 extending through the insert 50. The longitudinal passageway 55 is coincident with the passageway 28 in the nail member 20 thereby enabling passage of the guide wire or other insertion or extraction instruments through the insert 50. The insert 50 further includes a threaded bore 57 located in one end thereof. The threaded bore 57 may receive a correspondingly threaded tool (not shown) to attach insertion or extraction instrumentation of the assembled modular implant. Accordingly, various inserts 50 can be used to achieve a modular intramedullary nail 18 that may be used with various bones and fracture types. As set forth previously, the fasteners 32 used herein are disclosed as bone screws. However, other fasteners 32 such as blades, beams, pins, or wires could also be used.
A locking member 60 having a plurality of threads 62 on its outer diameter engages the threads 45 located in the proximal end 34 b of the chamber 34. When tightened, the locking member 60 secures the insert 50 within the chamber 34. While the locking member 60 is disclosed herein as a threaded ring, other locking members such as snap rings, pins, plugs or any other device that secures the insert 50 in place could also be used. As shown in the present embodiment, an aperture or longitudinal passageway 61 located in the center of the locking member 60 provides a path through which the guide wire or other instrumentation passes during insertion or extraction of the modular intramedullary nail 18. The aperture 61 may be formed in the shape of a socket 62, which in the instant embodiment, is hexagonally shaped. Accordingly, a suitable tool is inserted into the drive socket 62 to tighten the locking member 60 and secure the insert 50 in position within the chamber 34.
The present invention allows a surgeon to address a wide variety of fractures with a single modular intramedullary nail for the femur and a single modular intramedullary nail for the tibia. As shown in
As disclosed, the modular intramedullary nail 18 according to one embodiment of the present invention includes a primary nail member 20 wherein the proximal end 24 of the nail member 20 has a chamber 34 that enables use of an insert 50 with different opening 54 configurations. The inserts 50 are keyed with a locking projection 52 received in a corresponding or complementary shaped socket 40 in the chamber 34 to orient the insert 50. A locking member 60 engages the nail member 20 to secure the insert 50 in the chamber 34.
In accordance with a further aspect of the invention, the insert 50 may be made of a resorbable material for dynamization. That is, the loads carried by the fasteners 32 and nail member 20 are slowly decreased as the resorbable material is absorbed into the body. Accordingly, as the fracture heals the load is gradually transferred to the fracture.
Additionally, the insert 50 may be made of any implantable polymer so that the surgeon may drill through the insert 50 to position and locate the fasteners. This provides the surgeon with greater flexibility as each insert may be customized for the particular needs of the patient.
Accordingly, pursuant to one embodiment of the invention, the modular intramedullary nail 18 includes a nail member 20 and an insert 50 received within the chamber 34 in the proximal end 24 of the nail member 20. While one embodiment of the modular intramedullary nail 18 a shown with the insert 50 placed in the proximal end 24 of the nail member 20, this is for the purpose of illustration only. It is not necessary that the insert 50 always be placed in the proximal end 24, see for example
Accordingly, prior to installation in the bone 16, the modular intramedullary nail 18 is assembled by securing an insert 50 within the chamber 34 of the nail member 20 with a locking member 60. After assembly, the intramedullary nail 18 is inserted into the bone 16 and corresponding bone screws or fasteners 32 extend through the opening 54 in the insert 50 to fasten the intramedullary nail 18 to the bone 16. Once the fasteners 32 are in place, the end cap 64 is then threadably received in the insert 50 and tightened, using a suitable tool engaging a drive socket 70 formed in the upper surface 72 of the end cap 64, until the post portion 65 engages the bone screw or fastener 32.
It should be understood that the threads 66 of the post portion 65 may be of a size and diameter wherein they engage the threads 57 of the insert 50 rather than the threads 45 of the chamber 34. Thus, the non-threaded part of the post portion 65 may extend through the aperture 61 in the locking member 60 and into the longitudinal passageway 55 of the insert 50.
A further embodiment of the invention is shown in
The chamber 82 may also include a radial groove 83 extending circumferentially around the inner surface 86 of the chamber 82. As shown in
As shown in
As with the previous embodiment, a locking member 60 may be used to secure the insert 90 within the chamber 82. Once again, the locking member 60 may include an aperture 61 having a hexoganal shape that provides both an opening for the insertion and extraction instrumentation and a socket into which a suitable tool may be inserted to tighten the locking member 60 to secure the insert 90 within the chamber 82. As set forth previously, an end cap may be used to close the open end 36 of the proximal end 24 of nail member 80.
Once again the nail member 122 is similar in most aspects to those previously disclosed. In this embodiment, the chamber 124, as shown in
The socket 130 not only laterally supports the distal end 116 of the insert 110 it helps to properly orient the insert 110 in the chamber 124 as well. The insert 110 is longitudinally supported within the chamber 124 by the lip 120 which is seated on the ledge 126. The ledge 126 further engages the flat side surfaces 112 to orient the insert 110. As with the previous embodiments, a locking member 60 engages the nail member 122 to hold the insert 110 in position. The insert 110 also includes a longitudinal passageway 134 extending through the insert 110 from the distal end 116 to the proximal end 118. Again the locking member 60 also includes an aperture 61. Insertion and extraction instrumentation may pass through both the insert 110 and locking member 60 when the insert 110 is held in position within the chamber 124.
The invention has been described in an illustrative manner. It is to be understood that the terminology which has been used is intended to be in the nature of words of description rather than of limitation.
Many modifications and variations of the invention are possible in light of the above teachings. Therefore, within the scope of the appended claims, the invention may be practiced other than as specifically described.
Citations de brevets | <urn:uuid:2998e410-a67e-4be5-ab76-ad55355b0e3b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.google.fr/patents/US6921400?hl=fr | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940176 | 3,222 | 1.65625 | 2 |
President Obama, Congress, Fix the Tax Code Now
Nov 7th 2012 9:02AM
Updated Nov 7th 2012 9:10AM
For months, elected government officials have held the American public hostage with their seeming inability to address critical issues. With the election over and done with, it's finally time for government leaders to act like leaders and start working on building some long-awaited certainty on our hodgepodge of tax laws currently on the books.
What's already gone
Already, a number of tax laws that were in effect for last year's tax returns have expired. It's not too late to bring them back retroactively, but any delay in doing so could force the IRS to hold off on coming up with complying tax forms. That in turn could force early filers to wait before they can file and receive much-anticipated refund checks.
Arguably the most substantial already-expired provision is the annual patch to the Alternative Minimum Tax. Current law allows an exemption from the AMT, but the amount isn't indexed for inflation. As a result, Congress has to pass a law every year that temporarily increases the exemption, but it has never been able to muster enough support to put a more permanent fix into place. The fallout from a potential failure to pass an AMT patch is huge, with millions of taxpayers possibly paying as much as $8,000 more in income taxes.
But several other provisions have already officially gotten chopped and need government action to bring them back. Among them are deductions for college tuition and other higher education, the choice to use state sales taxes as an itemized deduction, favorable treatment for charitable donations from IRAs, and deductions for teachers' school expenses.
Meanwhile, plenty of other provisions are set to change at the beginning of 2013, making up what's been well publicized as the fiscal cliff. The biggest changes are the increases of tax rates from their current bracket structure ranging from 10% to 35% to higher rates stretching from 15% to 39.6%. Special rates on dividends and capital gains are also set to expire.
But a host of other provisions are set to see big changes:
- Favorable provisions for the Earned Income Tax Credit expire, reducing the maximum credit amount for taxpayers.
- The temporary payroll tax holiday that reduced the amount of tax withheld from paychecks for Social Security by 2 percentage points is set to expire, pushing Social Security withholding back up to 6.2%.
- The child tax credit is slated to drop from $1,000 to $500.
- The contribution limits for Coverdell Education Savings Accounts will drop from $2,000 to $500, making them even less useful for college savings.
- Credits for college education and child care expenses will get reduced.
More tax reform needed
Yet beyond the immediate needs to address urgent issues are far-reaching reform ideas that the government needs to address. The link between lobbying and corporate tax benefits, for instance, disturbs many taxpayers' sense of fairness, with General Electric (NYS: GE) , Boeing (NYS: BA) , and Verizon (NYS: VZ) among those spending big money to earn valuable tax subsidies. GE and Boeing also made a list of companies with very low effective corporate tax rates, even as GE, Oracle (NAS: ORCL) , and Cisco Systems (NAS: CSCO) seek a repatriation tax holiday to bring overseas cash back into the country.
To their credit, both candidates saw the need during their campaigns for extensive tax reform proposals. Although political expediency kept details to a minimum, major changes are likely to happen in the coming months and years. Despite fears of gridlock due to a divided Congress, pressing matters like the ballooning national debt and the future of the ailing Social Security system demand a faster pace of action.
Watch and act
As the end of the year approaches, it'll be crunch time for lawmakers to move on tax provisions, especially ones that they'll need to enact retroactively. If your elected representatives, whether new or incumbent, are slow to act, take a minute and give them a push by getting in contact with them. The financial health of the nation is at stake.
The prospect of repatriation taxes certainly isn't the only thing affecting Cisco Systems right now. Once a high-flying tech darling, Cisco is now on the radar of value-oriented dividend lovers. Find out whether Cisco Systems is a buy in our latest premium report. Our top analysts share their thoughts now and also have you covered with a full year of free updates to keep you informed as its story changes, so click here now to read more.
Tune in every Monday and Wednesday for Dan's columns on retirement, investing, and personal finance. You can follow him on Twitter @DanCaplinger.
The article President Obama, Congress, Fix the Tax Code Now originally appeared on Fool.com.Fool contributor Dan Caplinger has no positions in the stocks mentioned above. The Motley Fool owns shares of General Electric and Oracle. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Copyright © 1995 - 2012 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. | <urn:uuid:576842ba-af34-461f-abda-b01deaaf5720> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dailyfinance.com/2012/11/07/president-obama-congress-fix-the-tax-code-now/?source=edddlftxt0860001 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00059-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960264 | 1,105 | 1.632813 | 2 |
North Korea's plans for a new nuclear test, like most things that happen inside the reclusive state, are shrouded in mystery. But that's not stopping analysts and officials from making some informed guesses about what's going on.
Why is North Korea planning to conduct a nuclear test?
The North says the "higher level" test is part of its military deterrent in its confrontation with the United States, which it describes as "the sworn enemy of the Korean people."
Its declaration that it would carry out the test came just two days after the United Nations Security Council voted in favor of imposing broader sanctions on the regime in response to Pyongyang's long-range rocket launch in December that was widely viewed as a test of ballistic missile technology.
The pattern of events is similar to the lead-up to the previous nuclear tests North Korea carried out in 2006 and 2009.
Kim Jong Un appears likely to shrug off pressure from most of the international community, including North Korea's main ally, China, and go ahead with a third test.
"Neither the prospect of stronger sanctions, nor the growing discontent of Russia and China with his behavior, appears to deter North Korea's young leader," George Lopez, professor of peace studies at the Kroc Institute, University of Notre Dame, wrote in an opinion article this week for CNN.
Under the North's power-driven ideology of songun, or "military first," the punishment meted out last month by the U.N. Security Council requires a strong response, according to Daniel Pinkston, senior analyst for the International Crisis Group covering Northeast Asia.
North Korea "sees international law, international institutions, collective security, arms control and any other cooperative arrangement as undesirable and as schemes to undermine their national security," Pinkston said in a recent blog post.
A new test will also give North Korea a chance to underscore advances in its nuclear program, potentially moving it closer to a nuclear weapon that it can mount on a long-range missile. | <urn:uuid:2d5a5305-032e-4be5-bfe3-d7b81b6f9aca> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ketv.com/news/national/5-things-to-know-about-N-Korea-s-nuclear-test/-/9674576/18410492/-/item/0/-/n2vjj3/-/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959403 | 401 | 2.375 | 2 |
Urban contemporary is a music radio format. The term was coined by the late New York DJ Frankie Crocker in the mid 1970s. Urban contemporary radio stations feature a playlist made up entirely of hip hop/rap, contemporary R&B, and, on occasion, Caribbean music such as reggae and reggaeton. Urban contemporary was developed through the characteristics of genres such as R&B and Soul. The term "urban contemporary" has become heavily associated with African American Music and Latino music as well, particularly for the African Americans contemporary R&B. | <urn:uuid:46a45b44-1138-4e06-8882-d4ea2c32e6ac> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mp3.com/top-downloads/genre/urban/?page=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965596 | 111 | 2.15625 | 2 |
When Lorelle Otis Thomas, Professor of Graphic Design and Illustration at Grand Valley State University, began this new series of paintings, she realized she had a problem. Her reference photo had not adequately captured the shape of one of the subject buildings she intended to paint. Since it was not possible to travel back to the original site of the building, she used Google Maps Street View to capture the view she sought. This added a surprising new dimension to her work.
This series of artwork reveals the artist’s physical and virtual discovery of architecture and landscapes across the United States. The pieces reflect her love for architectural design and a newfound appreciation for early American architecture and the organic and available materials used in their creation. On display until December 5, 2012.
GVSU Art Gallery, 616-331-2563 | <urn:uuid:c3fd7057-2d40-48f9-8f20-c8e637949171> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://gvsu.edu/events/building-on-the-land-works-by-lorelle-otis:5/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956838 | 166 | 1.726563 | 2 |
CARLSBAD, CA--(Marketwire - December 07, 2012) - International Stem Cell Corporation (OTCQB: ISCO) (www.internationalstemcell.com), a biotechnology company focused on the development of therapeutic products using parthenogenetic stem cells, heralds the recent decision by the German Federal Court of Justice, in the Greenpeace vs Brüstle patent case, which may allow ISCO to take a leading position in the European market.
This important ruling strengthens ISCO's position that parthenogenetic technology may be an acceptable method of producing banks of human pluripotent stem cell (hpSC) lines and derivatives for the commercial therapeutic markets in Europe. Under the ruling, patent restrictions will remain on other stem cell technologies, including embryonic stem cells, that require the destruction of human embryos. The ruling is especially timely in light of ISCO's recent announcement of the creation of new clinical grade human parthenogenetic stem cell lines in the United States.
Leading stem cell biologist Professor Albrecht Müller, of the Center for Experimental Molecular Medicine, University of Würzburg, Germany, comments, "Being able to patent cells and cell products is key to building a successful stem cell based biotechnology industry in Europe. We have already shown that hpSCs have tremendous potential to treat neurological diseases, and this new ruling makes hpSC and their derivatives significantly more attractive for the European market."
Dr. Andrey Semechkin, CEO and Co-Chairman of ISCO, continues, "This ruling may provide ISCO with a distinct advantage in being able to receive patent protection in the European Union. However, because Europe's highest court, the European Court of Justice, may re-evaluate earlier guidelines based on this resolution, there may be further changes. Nevertheless, it is clear that this decision indicates that European courts are focusing on fertilization as a factor when considering the patentability of stem cell derived products."
About International Stem Cell Corporation
International Stem Cell Corporation (ISCO) is focused on the therapeutic applications of human parthenogenetic stem cells (hpSCs) and the development and commercialization of cell-based research and cosmetic products. ISCO's core technology, parthenogenesis, results in the creation of pluripotent human stem cells from unfertilized oocytes (eggs) hence avoiding ethical issues associated with the use or destruction of viable human embryos. ISCO scientists have created the first parthenogenetic, homozygous stem cell line that can be a source of therapeutic cells for hundreds of millions of individuals of differing genders, ages and racial background with minimal immune rejection after transplantation. hpSCs offer the potential to create the first true stem cell bank, UniStemCell™. ISCO also produces and markets specialized cells and growth media for therapeutic research worldwide through its subsidiary Lifeline Cell Technology (www.lifelinecelltech.com), and stem cell-based skin care products through its subsidiary Lifeline Skin Care (www.lifelineskincare.com). More information is available at www.internationalstemcell.com.
To receive ongoing corporate communications via email, visit: http://www.b2i.us/irpass.asp?BzID=1468&to=ea&s=0
To like our Facebook page or follow us on Twitter for company updates and industry related news, visit: www.facebook.com/InternationalStemCellCorporation and www.twitter.com/intlstemcell
Safe harbor statement
Statements pertaining to anticipated developments, scientific program and clinical development goals and plans, potential sales growth, new products and distribution channels and other opportunities for the company and its subsidiaries, along with other statements about the future expectations, beliefs, goals, plans, or prospects expressed by management constitute forward-looking statements. Any statements that are not historical fact (including, but not limited to statements that contain words such as "will," "believes," "plans," "anticipates," "expects" or "estimates") should also be considered to be forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, including, without limitation, risks inherent in the development and/or commercialization of potential products and the management of collaborations, regulatory approvals, need and ability to obtain future capital, application of capital resources among competing uses, and maintenance of intellectual property rights. Actual results may differ materially from the results anticipated in these forward-looking statements and as such should be evaluated together with the many uncertainties that affect the company's business, particularly those mentioned in the cautionary statements found in the company's Securities and Exchange Commission filings. The company disclaims any intent or obligation to update forward-looking statements. | <urn:uuid:0867a87f-5ba8-4b78-ac68-0ac66ef04f89> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.biospace.com/News/german-court-decision-may-strengthen-international/281662/source=MoreNews | 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 | 0.908704 | 969 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Species of Concern
Gray Wolf (Canis lupus)
Photo Credit: FWS
Wyoming Distribution by County
Big Horn County | Fremont County | Hot Springs | Lincoln County | Park County | Sublette County | Teton County
In Wyoming, gray wolves (Canis lupus) are no longer included on the Federal List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife (50 CFR 17.11) and are no longer listed as a non-essential experimental population under the Act (77 FR 55530; September 10, 2012). The gray wolf in Wyoming is currently managed by the State under the Wyoming Gray Wolf Management plan. This management plan strives to maintain a gray wolf population in Wyoming of at least 150 individual wolves and 15 breeding pairs (at least 100 individuals and 10 breeding pairs outside of Yellowstone National Park and the Wind River Indian Reservation).
Section 4(g)(1) of the Act requires the Service to monitor for at least 5 years, in cooperation with the States, the status of all recovered species that have subsequently been removed from the Federal List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife. The primary goal of post delisting monitoring is to ensure that the status of the recovered species does not deteriorate. If an unanticipated decline is detected, measures would be taken to halt the decline to avoid the need to relist the species as threatened or endangered.
Although gray wolves in Wyoming are no longer listed under the Act, the Service encourages project proponents to consider their project’s impacts to gray wolves and their habitat. Gray wolves follow the seasonal movements of big game populations and may occur in large ungulate migration, wintering, or parturition areas. While some project activities can impact gray wolves directly, changes to big game population numbers or herd movements can also impact the distribution, abundance, and survival of gray wolves. Consequently, project planning should consider impacts to big game populations, including wintering grounds and migration corridors. We recommend you contact the Wyoming Game and Fish Department for additional information. | <urn:uuid:2c5c9344-2b67-4743-9855-d16b9fda69cc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fws.gov/wyominges/Pages/Species/Species_SpeciesConcern/Wolf.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.903969 | 410 | 3.0625 | 3 |
I have been excited about students using EnglishCentral since the 1st day I discovered it online. I had been looking for ways for students to upload dialogues online so teachers could listen, critique and comment.
I began using EnglishCentral with about 60 students to test its performance and functionality and I also wanted to see how the students interacted with the new technology, after all, repeating lines to a computer did seem a bit odd.
I selected videos relevant to their course and added a few music and video game selections to add variety and as bait. All EnglishCentral work was assigned as homework to be done in their own time. I then designed a worksheet to compliment each video; simple match the synonyms, true or false and some cloze sentences to reinforce the vocabulary they were learning.
The participation was very good from the start and got better as the semester progressed. Encouragingly, most of the work was done on holidays and weekends, and there were large spikes just before assessments and exams. This showed me that the students were aware it could help them but like most other students around the globe have a few time management problems. It certainly built confidence for the classroom and I sometimes heard exact lines from EnglishCentral videos used in tests and in the correct context.
Another result that wasn’t anticipated was I noticed the shy students were consistently amongst the weekly high scorers. The early scoring system enabled even lower level students to be high achievers on EnglishCentral so long as they put in the work.
I noticed they were viewing and completing much more work than I had originally set them and saw they were watching a lot of movies, environmental and current events videos. This is great as EnglishCentral proved to be a real gateway to knowledge and not just a language tool.
I look forward to continuing to use and expand my use of English Central with my classes. Thank you guys for keeping the main functions free and also to Jon and the crew at the help desk who were always on hand to solve any teething problems.
I’d like to share my ideas for the near future utilizing an array of amazing online sites and current software I’m toying with. I plan to create an online class TV channel using Adobe After-effects and Dreamweaver software. I will create my own animations using xtranormal.com and goanimate.com. These animations will highlight that week’s language points and new vocabulary. I will need to convert the MP4 to FLV format to upload them. On the channel page there will be a link to a moodle quiz (www.moodle.com) for each film and the students can then test their knowledge with the results sent to the teacher. Also, I’m considering embedding downloadable MP3 podcasts as well as links to relevant English Central videos. Simply, a student opens the channel, clicks on the lesson and is able to watch a film, listen to vocabulary, do a quiz and speak along with a link to EnglishCentral all off one page. All this can be done with their 3g phone.
I like the way students today can proactively study for their tests by watching a video or animation, or even reading a comic and do not have to be buried in a textbook or sorting through reams of notes.
Of course online teaching should never replace classroom interaction, but it’s becoming much easier and efficient for students to study alone and enjoy it, even on the subway or café, and more convenient for teachers to ensure they are practicing and retaining the skills learnt in class. | <urn:uuid:bddd77eb-23fe-46cf-8e7f-082bed46f412> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.englishcentral.com/2013/01/08/my-englishcentral-experience-duncan-in-hong-kong/?like=1&source=post_flair&_wpnonce=ba53fcffb3 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970096 | 729 | 1.671875 | 2 |
How to Limit Big Losses
Want to avoid big fund losses the next time the stock market falls on its keister? Spend a few minutes learning about the concept of volatility.
Past performance alone is a poor indicator of how a fund will behave in the future. About the only accurate statistical measure of how a fund will perform relative to its peers is its expense ratio (the lower the fees, the better a fund’s relative performance).
But if you want to know how well -- or how poorly -- a fund will do in both strong and weak markets, you want to know about its volatility. And the best tool for determining a fund’s volatility is standard deviation, a statistic that measures how much a fund’s returns have bounced around from month to month. Standard deviation does a superb job of predicting how well your funds are likely to hold up relative to other funds in bad markets. And it does an equally good job of predicting how fast your funds will rise in bull markets.
For this article, I asked Morningstar to divide all diversified domestic stock funds into quartiles, from the most volatile to the least volatile. The result: Stock funds that were the most volatile -- that is, had the highest three-year standard deviation before the most recent down market began -- plunged an average of 46% during the bear market, which ran from October 9, 2007, through March 9, 2009. By contrast, stock funds in the least-volatile quartile fell an average of 41%.
Foreign stock funds followed the same pattern. Foreign funds in the most-volatile quartile tumbled an average of 49% in the bear market. Those in the least-volatile quartile slid an average of 45%.
Morningstar found similar results for stocks of large-, midsize- and small-company funds, as well as for both growth and value funds. (The relationship also held true for bond funds, although up-and-down cycles for bonds normally differ from those of stocks.)
Of course, losing 41% instead of 46% may be cold comfort. But I’ll take a relative advantage of five percentage points anytime. Holding less-volatile funds during a typical bear market -- one that clips prices by about 30% -- can be a real game changer.
Remember that standard deviation cuts both ways. From the March 9 low through September, the most-volatile diversified U.S. stock funds shot ahead an average of 70%, compared with 60% for the least-volatile funds.
Volatility is important not only because it gives you a sense of how a fund will perform during good and bad times; it also provides some guidance about how you will behave. Investors are much more likely to stick with low-volatility funds than high-volatility ones over the long term. People tend to buy high-volatility funds after they’ve experienced big run-ups and to sell them after they’ve had big losses. Timing of this sort is a formula for poor performance.
The Kiplinger 25 funds include some with relatively low volatility, as well as some with relatively high volatility compared with other stock and bond funds. We categorize the funds’ volatility by decile, or groupings of 10%. For instance, FPA Crescent (symbol FPACX), which ranks in the least-volatile decile, lost only 27.9% in the 2007–09 bear market. CGM Focus ( CGMFX), which is in the second-highest decile, plummeted 58.3% during the bear market.
Both are good funds. But you should know what you’re getting into when you buy a volatile fund such as CGM Focus. It’s suitable for the riskiest part of your portfolio -- not for the main course. Resist the temptation to dump the fund when its manager, Ken Heebner, stumbles, as he is wont to do occasionally and has done over the past 16 months.(see An Investor’s Guide to CGM Focus). By contrast, you should expect a much smoother ride with FPA Crescent, which at last report had less than one-third of its assets in stocks.
It’s important to measure the volatility of your entire portfolio as well as of individual funds. By combining funds that behave differently in varying market conditions, you can build a portfolio with relatively low overall volatility, even if some or even all of the funds are volatile standing alone. But because nearly all asset classes fell in unison last year, the predictive value of portfolio standard deviations failed miserably during the bear market.
Keep in mind some other big caveats. Standard deviation won’t predict the return of your funds -- it will only forecast how they will perform relative to the market as a whole. Usually, I compare a stock fund’s standard deviation with that of Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index to get a sense of a fund’s volatility relative to the stock market.
A market’s volatility can change over time. The standard deviation of the S&P 500 has nearly doubled since the start of the bear market. So, of course, did the volatility of most funds. That’s why I asked Morningstar to look at standard deviation before the selloff began.
As an investor, you shouldn’t get carried away with standard deviation -- or any other measurement. Standard deviation is a great tool in science. In investing, it provides a rough approximation. If you had assumed that standard deviation behaved in financial markets the way it does in the natural world, you would have figured that the probability of the last bear market becoming as severe as it did was essentially nil. Bottom line: Standard deviation is a valuable tool, but you should always use a dose of common sense when employing it.
Steven T. Goldberg is an investment adviser. | <urn:uuid:b6d4205c-cffd-48e5-ac35-a4c0e72e0956> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kiplinger.com/article/investing/T041-C007-S001-how-to-limit-big-losses.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955013 | 1,207 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Marc Prosser, Contributor
I talk about bonds when almost everyone else talks about stocks.
There are several advantages and disadvantages to investing in Bond Mutual Funds and ETFs vs. Individual Bonds.
1. Diversification: By combining the funds of many investors into one investment vehicle, bond funds provide diversification to investors who may not have the capital to buy enough bonds to achieve that diversification on their own. Most bond funds do not have more than 2% of their assets invested in any particular bond issuer, so if there is a default it is not likely to be a catastrophic event for the fund or its investors.
Different Types Of Bonds Have Different Levels of Default Risk. As The Default Risk Rises So Does The Need For Diversification
|Type of Bonds||Importance Of Diversification|
|US Treasury & Agency Bonds||Minimal|
|Investment-Grade Municipal Bonds||Low|
|Investment-Grade Corporate Bonds||High|
|High-Yield, Emerging Market||Very High|
2. Better Pricing: Bond market professionals tend to get much better pricing when buying and selling bonds. When buying a bond individual investors tend to pay anywhere from half a percent to five percent more than a professional. This is particularly true for bond purchases under $50,000.
3. Professional Management: Many investors do not want to spend the time to learn all the ins and outs of the bond market or do the research required to find value in individual bonds.
4. Convenience: In addition to letting the bond fund company take care of the research and logistics of buying individual bonds, bond funds also give investors the option to automatically reinvest dividends and capital gains distributions. If an investor in individual bonds wants to take full advantage of compound interest, then they must immediately buy more bonds when they receive interest payments or a bond matures.
4. Monthly Dividends: Most Individual bonds pay interest once every 6 months. Most bond funds pay interest monthly or quarterly. This is not only an advantage to investors that would like to receive a more regular income stream, but also allows compounding to happen more regularly which can increase returns.
Most bond funds are required to maintain a constant duration. For example, a long term government bond fund will always hold long term government bonds. They do this by selling the bonds they hold as they move towards maturity and replacing them with new bonds that are further away from maturity. Interest rates change over time, so when the fund sells the existing bonds in the portfolio the new bonds they replace them with are likely to have a different interest rate. This creates several disadvantages:
1. Interest Rate Risk: All bonds and bond mutual funds have interest rate risk, which is the risk that interest rates will rise, causing the value of the bonds in a portfolio to fall. If interest rates increase, an investor having to sell a bond or bond fund would receive less than their initial investment. With individual bonds however, you can eliminate interest risk by simply holding the bond to maturity. When a bond matures, assuming there is no default, an investor will receive the bond’s full face value. As bond mutual funds do not generally hold bonds until maturity, bond mutual fund investors do not have the option of eliminating interest rate risk. (There are some exceptions to this such as Fidelity’s Defined Maturity Fund)
2. Unpredictable income stream: There is no way to know with certainty what interest rates are going to be in the future. As a bond fund changes the bonds it holds, the interest payments of the fund will also change. A fund’s interest payments will fluctuate up and down on a monthly basis in ways which are not necessarily predictable at the time of purchase.
When you buy a bond with a fixed coupon payment (most bonds), you know exactly how much money you are going to receive, and when you are going to receive it.
3. Tax Bill Uncertainty: As a bond mutual fund sells bonds a taxable capital gain or loss is created. If you buy an individual bond and hold it to maturity you do not have to worry about capital gains and losses, as long as there is not a default. You can learn more about taxes on bond funds here. | <urn:uuid:4ae4e7d8-96d9-444e-80e4-0fb5f8945ef9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.forbes.com/sites/marcprosser/2012/06/13/should-you-invest-in-individual-bonds-or-bond-funds/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937534 | 873 | 2.296875 | 2 |
Con"so*nant (?), a. [L. consonans, -antis; p.pr. of consonare to sound at the same time, agree; con- + sonare to sound: cf. F. consonnant. See Sound to make a noise.]
Having agreement; congruous; consistent; according; -- usually followed by with or to.
Each one pretends that his opinion . . . is consonant to the words there used.
That where much is given shall be much required is a thing consonant with natural equity.
Dr. H. More.
Having like sounds.
Consonant words and syllables.
harmonizing together; accordant; as, consonant tones, consonant chords.
Of or pertaining to consonants; made up of, or containing many, consonants.
No Russian whose dissonant consonant name
Almost shatters to fragments the trumpet of fame.
© Webster 1913.
Con"so*nant, n. [L. consonans, -antis.]
An articulate sound which in utterance is usually combined and sounded with an open sound called a vowel; a member of the spoken alphabet other than a vowel; also, a letter or character representing such a sound.
Consonants are divided into various classes, as mutes, spirants, sibilants, nasals, semivowels, etc. All of them are sounds uttered through a closer position of the organs than that of a vowel proper, although the most open of them, as the semivowels and nasals, are capable of being used as if vowels, and forming syllables with other closer consonants, as in the English feeble (), taken (). All the consonants excepting the mutes may be indefinitely, prolonged in utterance without the help of a vowel, and even the mutes may be produced with an aspirate instead of a vocal explosion. Vowels and consonants may be regarded as the two poles in the scale of sounds produced by gradual approximation of the organ, of speech from the most open to the closest positions, the vowel being more open, the consonant closer; but there is a territory between them where the sounds produced partake of the qualities of both.
"A consonant is the result of audible friction, squeezing, or stopping of the breath in some part of the mouth (or occasionally of the throath.) The main distinction between vowels and consonants is, that while in the former the mouth configuration merely modifies the vocalized breath, which is therefore an essential element of the vowels, in consonants the narrowing or stopping of the oral passage is the foundation of the sound, and the state of the glottis is something secondary."
© Webster 1913. | <urn:uuid:572360e8-68bf-49fb-9b3c-b2b73161ae11> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://everything2.com/title/Consonant | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.917195 | 571 | 3.125 | 3 |
Tiffanies are friendly and outgoing. They are gentle, mellow cats who love to spend time just curled up in your lap. They also like to play and are very intelligent. They like to play fetch with a favorite toy, and generally get along well with other pets.
- 8.8 - 15.4 pounds
Ideal Human Companions
- Families with children
- Singles with other pets
- Retired seniors
- First-time cat owners
Tiffanies on Catster
30 cats | see profile pages
- Also known as Longhaired Burmilla
- Friendly and outgoing
- Mellow and easygoing
What They Are Like to Live With
Although the Tiffanie’s coat is medium length and silky, it doesn’t tangle. These cats only need brushing about once a week.
Things You Should Know
Tiffanies need a lot of attention and don’t do well if kept in isolation.
Although they have fur that is on the long side, they do not need frequent grooming.
Tiffanies are not common in the U.S. and can be hard to come by.
The Tiffanie originated in England after an accidental mating between Burmese and Persian Chinchilla cats. The resulting cats were both short and longhaired. The shorthaired variety became known as the Burmilla.
In 1980, experimental breedings of Burmillas resulted in longhaired kittens. A group of breeders worked to gain recognition of these cats as a separate breed. In 1991, the breed was recognized by the Governing Council of the Cat Fancy (GCCF), a British organization.
The breed is not currently recognized by The International Cat Association (TICA), the Cat Fanciers Association (CFA) or the American Cat Fanciers Association (AFCA).
The Look of a Tiffanie
Tiffanies have characteristics of their Burmese and Persian Chinchilla relatives. Their body type is similar to the Burmese (solid and muscular), and the facial markings look much like the Persian Chinchillas (shaded).
The Tiffanie’s coat is fine and silky. The ruff around the next is thicker than the fur on other parts of the body, and the tail looks like a plume. They are available in the same colors seen in the Burmese and other Asian breeds. | <urn:uuid:542754b1-6e4b-4f70-a95c-3000c80f2014> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.catster.com/cat-breeds/Tiffanie | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940958 | 504 | 1.617188 | 2 |
(NaturalNews) Continuing our 15-part article series called Heal Yourself in 15 Days
, today we focus on cleansing your digestive tract and energizing your cellular energy with the help of some living foods
. This is in preparation for part six in the series, which we'll get to tomorrow.
Here's the cool part about this: You don't need a juicer to do this step
. All you really need is a blender and a nut milk bag (a fine mesh bag used to squeeze out the juice). Of course, a proper juicer really helps, but it's not required. Below, I'm going to give you an absolutely delicious live foods juicing recipe that I think you'll really enjoy. I'm using special ingredients in this juice that help mask the more bland tastes of the green ingredients, so even if you've tried fresh living juices in the past and didn't like them, check out what you'll read below...
Raw living foods offer one of the greatest secrets to disease reversal and lasting health, and nothing beats fresh living foods right out of the garden. So if you can grow any of your own ingredients for this when Spring comes around, definitely make an effort to do so. Otherwise, buy them at a store or farmer's market.
Here's what you'll need (always choose organic):
• 1 container of Blackberries (use all the blackberries)
• 1 bunch of Parsley (use all the parsley)
• 1 bunch of Kale (only use 2-3 large leaves in this recipe)
• 1 bag of Carrots (only use 3 large carrots for this recipe)
• 1 bunch of Celery (use 2-3 stalks for this recipe)
• 2 Pears (use both pears)
If you can't find these ingredients, substitute something close. It's crucial to have some berries in the mix, however. They are part of the recipe for making it all taste good.
After proper preparation (washing, etc.), push all these ingredients through a juicer to generate the fresh juice
. If you only have a blender, then blend all these ingredients with water, then pour the juice into a nut milk bag and squeeze out the juice from that. With either method, you'll end up with a container of fresh juice
This juice will be extremely potent, so mix this with water
(add an equal amount of water to the juice). You may also wish to add some stevia if you'd like to sweeten up the taste a bit.
Health benefits of the fresh living juice
• The blackberries will mask
the bitter tastes of the other ingredients with their acidity. This acidity greatly improves the overall taste of the recipe. It also improves digestion of the minerals in the vegetables (you need an acidic digestive environment to absorb minerals).
• Blackberries also have a powerful anti-cancer effect through your entire digestive tract, from your mouth and gums down through your colon.
• Parsley is a super digestive cleanser. It will help eliminate toxins while providing your body with a burst of chlorophyll that will help cleanse your blood and liver.
• Kale contains potent anti-cancer phytonutrients. It also contains healthy plant-based proteins and lots of chlorophyll.
• The carrots are used primarily as a sweetener here (they really do sweeten up the juice), and they also contain a wide assortment of beneficial nutrients, most notably beta carotene
(from which carrots get their name).
• The pears are the sweeteners here. I find that pear juice tastes much better than apple juice in these raw living
juices, but of course it's your choice of what's best for you. If you're diabetic or want to reduce the sugars in this recipe, reduce the numbers of pears to just one or eliminate them altogether (when I juice here in Ecuador, I don't use pears at all. I just use carrots.) Some people prefer to use oranges instead of pears. The tart taste of the oranges in some ways provides a better overall taste. Try the recipe both ways and see what you like best.
In addition to all the benefits listed above, these foods are alive with nutrients and energies
. They are live foods, not dead processed foods, and they provide both the nutrients and the energies of life! It's a simple concept, really: If you want to stay alive, eat more living
foods. If you want to be dead, eat more dead foods.
Your body will thank you
The point of today's living foods juice is to both introduce you to the joy of juicing (if you don't already know about it), and to prepare your digestive tract for tomorrow's action item.
How much juice should you drink? Just drink whatever amount you feel comfortable with. I recommend an 8 oz. glass of this juice at minimum, but if you only feel like drinking half that much, that's fine, too. Some people will drink as much as 64 ounces of fresh juice in a day! (Juice Feasting)
For the purposes of this 15-day experience you can still eat all your other normal food
during the day. This isn't about eliminating everything else, it's about adding
some fresh, living juice to your day. Ideally, you'll make this a regular part of your diet because whatever your diet consists of -- whether it's pure vegan or based on McDonald's cheeseburgers -- it will be helped
by adding several ounces of fresh juice.
Pointers and shortcuts
Don't have time to make your own fresh juice? There are shortcuts, but none of them are as good as actual living fresh juice.
You can, if you wish, consume juice from a superfood powder such as EnerFood, VitaMineral Green, Boku Superfood, Delicious Greens or others. These are all reasonable alternatives to fresh juice, but by their very nature they are not as fresh as living foods would be.Do NOT
reach for a Naked Juice, or Odwalla juice and make the mistake of thinking they are fresh living juices. All of those juices are DEAD, pasteurized juices
made by the big soft drink companies (Coke and Pepsi). None of them are fresh, raw and alive. They still have nutritional benefits, so I'm not saying they're worthless, but they pale in comparison to fresh, raw juices that you make at home.
You can drink this juice between meals, or during a meal, or any time you want. Just drink it quickly after making it, because fresh juice oxidizes in mere minutes. The nutritional quality of the fresh juice you make literally starts to degrade with each passing second. Ideally, start to consume it within two minutes of juicing it, and finish it in no more than five.
feel some "detox" side effects from this juice, especially if you currently pursue a relatively unhealthful diet. But they should be mild. After all, this is just simple juice from simple foods. These aren't drugs or extracts. They are the foods your body was meant
By the way, I'm not here to push a vegan diet or a vegetarian diet on you. Decide to eat whatever you wish to eat, for your own reasons. Just add
this fresh juice to your day and see what happens for yourself. Even if you gobble down pepperoni pizza and diet soda, these fresh juices will improve your health results in a noticeable way.
In case you're curious, I drink about 16 ounces of this fresh juice each day, right from my own garden. Except I don't use the pears, and I add in fresh aloe vera gel from fresh leaves that I grow myself here in Ecuador. I grow all my own fresh berries, kale, carrots, parsley, broccoli, cucumbers and more, and these go right into my juice.
Just so you know how powerful this is, I just finished a 90-hour fast. Aside from a raw coconut food bar a friend gave me, I didn't eat any solid food for 90 hours. I did, however, drink one glass of fresh, living vegetable juice each day.
If I had been consuming a junk food diet, my energy would have collapsed within the first 24 hours. I would have been dead tired, detoxing in bed and probably suffering through it all. But because my daily diet is so clean, I was able to eat virtually nothing
for nearly four days and still have the energy to write these articles, to go hiking up the mountains behind my house and generally get along with a normal day. (Yes, it got difficult on the fourth day, which is why I ended the fast at 90 hours.)
Fresh living juice is such a powerhouse of nutrition and energy that even when you eat virtually nothing for several days in a row, the juice you had before the fast keeps you alive, healthy and energetic. That's been my experience, at least.
What about the pulp?
I've added this section to the article because people are asking why they shouldn't drink the pulp and fibers of the fruits and veggies instead of juicing them.
Here's my take on it:
First off, I don't want vegetable fibers, and I don't need 'em. The fruit fibers
, on the other hand, are very good for your digestive health. Fruit pectin even helps prevent cancer according to many naturopaths. So if you want more pulp in your juice, then do this:
#1) JUICE the vegetables to get pure juice while tossing out the fibers.
#2) BLEND the fruits to keep the fruit pulp. Then pour in the veggie juice and add water.
To me, this is the best "pulpy" juice. It's easy to remember, too: KEEP the fruit fiber, TOSS the vegetable fiber.
But for those who are using juice therapeutically to treat disease under the care of a naturopathic physician, for example, they will probably want no fiber at all. That's because the fiber makes it more difficult for your body to absorb the juice. So for people who are fasting, or treating cancer, or detoxing or whatever, it's often recommended that they discard all the fiber and go for the pure juice.
There's no absolute right or wrong about this. What's important is what works for you!
Try it both ways and do what makes you feel healthier and happier.
Tomorrow I'll talk more about fasting. For today, enjoy your juice!
About the author: Mike Adams is an award-winning journalist and holistic nutritionist with a passion for teaching people how to improve their health He is a prolific writer and has published thousands of articles, interviews, reports and consumer guides, and he has published numerous courses on preparedness and survival, including financial preparedness, emergency food supplies, urban survival and tactical self-defense. Adams is an honest, independent journalist and accepts no money or commissions on the third-party products he writes about or the companies he promotes. In 2010, Adams launched TV.NaturalNews.com, a natural health video site featuring videos on holistic health and green living. He also launched an online retailer of environmentally-friendly products (BetterLifeGoods.com) and uses a portion of its profits to help fund non-profit endeavors. He's also a successful software entrepreneur, having founded a well known email marketing software company whose technology currently powers the NaturalNews email newsletters. Adams is currently the executive director of the Consumer Wellness Center, a 501(c)3 non-profit, and regularly pursues cycling, nature photography, Capoeira and Pilates. He's also author of numerous health books published by Truth Publishing and is the creator of several consumer-oriented grassroots campaigns, including the Spam. Don't Buy It! campaign, and the free downloadable Honest Food Guide. He also created the free reference sites HerbReference.com and HealingFoodReference.com. Adams believes in free speech, free access to nutritional supplements and the ending of corporate control over medicines, genes and seeds.
Have comments on this article? Post them here:
people have commented on this article. | <urn:uuid:e133a276-90f7-471e-a9cb-5c1bc95fe131> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.naturalnews.com/028100_self_healing_fresh_juice.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956671 | 2,512 | 1.625 | 2 |
Women's Heart Disease
Heart disease has long been thought of as a man's disease. Women have not been viewed as being at risk, yet statistics show that nearly 500,000 women die from heart disease every year. It is the number one killer of women in America today. It is also the leading cause of disability among women.
Women have many unique characteristics of this disease process from their heart's makeup and signs and symptoms to diagnosis. When 40 percent of all coronary events in women are fatal and 63 percent of all sudden deaths in women occur in those without a prior history of coronary artery diesease, early detection, education and prevention are needed to address this "silent epidemic" in women.
UnityPoint Health - Des Moines has outstanding Heart, Lung and Vascular Care. From cardiac rehabilitation and pulmonary care to vascular disease and prevention - we are here to take care of you. Our team of cardiologists, cardiac nurses and other heart health professionals are dedicated to providing you with the highest quality of care. | <urn:uuid:285490b9-b7d6-4bdb-b6da-0cb7b66af56f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.iowahealth.org/women-and-heart-disease.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00045-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970105 | 206 | 2.484375 | 2 |
Genealogists and the curious have been touring cemeteries since time immemorial. Here is a newspaper article about a 1913 tour of Portland’s pioneers buried in the Lone Fir Cemetery in Oregon. That cemetery is still actively offering tours today: see Friends of Lone Fir Cemetery – 2012 Calendar of Events.
Be sure to check GenealogyBank to document the people buried in the local cemeteries in your area. You can often find the final resting places of your ancestors in newspaper obituary records.
Have you been on a cemetery tour recently? How did your cemetery research go?
Some newspapers published lists of cemetery inscriptions with biographies of the former local residents, like this article in the Macon Telegram.
Perhaps your goal is to document every person buried in a specific cemetery. GenealogyBank can help you do that.
Simply search using the name of the cemetery; for example the “Lone Fir Cemetery” mentioned above.
Up will come thousands of search results showing the names of persons that were buried in the Lone Fir Cemetery. GenealogyBank makes this easy to do.
GenealogyBank is your source for the information you need to document your family history and fill out your family tree.
Start searching now! | <urn:uuid:9ef25b98-5f3f-463f-956d-d5855abe38fb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.genealogybank.com/tag/lone-fir-cemetery | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00076-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950072 | 258 | 1.945313 | 2 |
Readers used our clues to figure out the adventurous route traveled by a well-known author in a popular book.
"'Ooh, I like a man who appreciates pancakes,' Rayette cooed.
"'Well, honey, I sure appreciate these pancakes,' [he] responded, face agleam with syrup and early-morning happiness."
Question #1: The pancake aficionado quoted above is a character known for his lusty appetites. His name is ... Answer #1: .
Question #2: His conversation with Rayette takes place at a lodging establishment (right) whose name derives from a Cherokee term for "tumbling waters." The name of the establishment is ... Answer #2: .
"Woods choke off views and ... make you feel small and confused and vulnerable, like a small child lost in a crowd of strange legs."
Question #3: The author makes this observation while in a 750,000-acre forest (right) once heavily logged for chestnut trees and named for a nearby river that sounds a bit like yet another nearby river, where a famous movie that still gives campers the willies was shot. The name of the forest is ... Answer #3: .
"We were entering what botanists like to call 'the finest mixed mesophytic forest in the world.'"
Question #4: The ecosystem the author mentions here is in mountains that are home to at least 10,000 and maybe as many as 90,000 plant and animal species. These mountains are called ... Answer #4: .
Question #5: The mountains are also known as the "capital of the world" for the amphibian in the photograph at right, a type of ... Answer #5: .
"I can't tell you how much I would like to step into that view. The scene is so manifestly untamed, so full of an impenetrable beyond, as to present a clearly foolhardy temptation."
Question #6: The author is talking about the classic American landscape painting in the photo at right, which was inspired by John Keats's sonnet "To Solitude" and celebrates the friendship of a famous poet and a painter. The name of the painting is ... Answer #6: .
"'I know a guy who did that once,' he said, 'and one of his eyes popped out.'
"She looked at him doubtfully.
"'It rolled right across the living room floor and his dog ate it.'"
The words above were spoken to an annoying person known for "violent and alarming snorts." The book in which she appears was written by ... Answer #7: .
First prize: $1,000 Sierra Club Outings certificate, JanSport 30-inch All Terra Gear Logic wheeled footlocker duffel, 24-inch All Terra duffel, and All Terra shower kit (approximate prize value: $1,520)
Second prize: Eureka Nergy 1210 tent with E Power Pak and accessories, Tilley Endurables $100 certificate, La Sportiva Trango Hike GTX-XCR hiking boots, Crazy Creek HexaLite LongBack lightweight chair (approximate prize value: $670)
Third prize: Eureka Nergy screen house with E Power Pak and accessories, La Sportiva Halite GTX hiking boots, Crazy Creek HexaLite Original chair (approximate prize value: $470)
Each winner will also receive two Save the Forest gift boxes from New England Natural Bakers (approximate prize value: $50)
Photos, from top: Robin J. Cox (kickoff clue), Clint Farlinger (child's view clue), Matthew Chatfield (creature clue), Annene von Durchgerockt (cryptic bonus clue); used with permission. | <urn:uuid:b6f817d8-e576-48fb-a448-d8ae1469e9be> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/200803/contest/answered.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955577 | 790 | 2 | 2 |
71 Chicago-Kent Law Review 977 (1996)
Women and people of color teach in unprecedented and increasing numbers in American law schools. Fred Shapiro's survey demonstrates that these law teachers are publishing influential (much-cited) articles in the leading law reviews. Throughout this Symposium, the question is posed: Are these former outsiders now academic insiders? If that is too tough a question, consider this one: What outsider group is so marginalized that it is not only left out of analyses of outsider jurisprudence, but is so far out that it has been inside all along?
Date of Authorship for this Version
Eskridge, William N. Jr., "Outsider-Insiders: The Academy of the Closet" (1996). Faculty Scholarship Series. Paper 3802. | <urn:uuid:361692e5-af85-41e9-9dc9-7ebf0f04fee2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/fss_papers/3802/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00062-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.90732 | 163 | 1.523438 | 2 |
My students in Stage Lighting at College of Charleston are required to write short journal entries at various points during the semester in order for them to look at light in a way that they perhaps have not before. I promised my class this semester that I would participate in this activity (perhaps with the intention of getting them to actually drop by the blog once in a while). One is due tomorrow, so I best get my homework done.
This photo was taken while I was on a walk across campus the other day. It was a nice, clear, sunny day, resulting in sharp shadow-play from the lamppost and tree. This is a good example of the shadows thrown off by a single light source (in this case, the king of all single-source lights: the sun). The contrast here that I’d like to point out is between the shadows cast by the lamppost and the branches of the unseen tree. The lamppost is reproduced sharply on the pavement- the shape of the lamp is very detailed, and very clear. Here is a detail:
However, despite the clarity that the shadow of the lamppost gives, the branches are much fuzzier. The light source is the same- so why do the shadows not share the same clarity? The difference between these items is not the light source, but the distance that the surrounding light travels between the point at which it is blocked by the opaque object and the point that it lands on the pavement next to the shadow. The branches are much farther away from the pavement than the lamppost is. What difference does this make? The answer to this conundrum lies in that which the light passes through.
Light bounces around everywhere. Anything that gets in the way of light causes it to bounce off in a different direction. That’s why objects appear brighter when a light is shined at it- the light is being reflected off of that object and towards our eye. Notice the highlights that help to shape the lamppost in our eyes:
All those bright white parts are where the most light is being reflected (bounced) directly back towards the camera’s lens. The same thing is happening more subtly in the air between the tree branches and the pavement. Light is bouncing off of particles in the air- dust, gas, all kinds of stuff- and part of where that light bounces is into where the cast shadow of the branches land on the pavement, slightly brightening up those areas of the brick. For what it’s worth, this phenomenon is happening between the lamppost and the pavement too, but because there is less distance between the lamppost and the pavement than there is between the branches and the pavement (and therefore less air), it is much less noticeable, and less of that light is reflecting back into where the cast shadow lands- leaving us a much clearer image of the outline of the lamppost than that of the tree branches. | <urn:uuid:3345c128-315a-48d8-8dd9-d73298b1f76e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.cofc.edu/collinspm/2012/01/18/light-and-shadow-day/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965544 | 599 | 2.859375 | 3 |
The upcoming election will end the fragile coalition between Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai.
Both entered a power-sharing agreement in 2009 after regional leaders nullified Mugabe's victory,citing violence by his loyalists targeted at rival supporters. The two leaders are expected to run for president.
About half of the nation of 12 million is expected to vote in the referendum.
The referendum also addresses gender equality, and sets aside 60 parliamentary seats for women out of a total of 310.
In days leading up to the referendum, Mugabe shut out Western observers, but allowed monitors from African nations to take part.
Sporadic reports of violence have marred campaigns in the days leading up to the election.
"We should not have violence ... the party will not tolerate that nonsense (political violence) whether it is intra-party or inter-party," Mugabe said in a statement this week. | <urn:uuid:2200c3c0-8dcb-4ca0-9361-2af91c55e1ac> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ketv.com/news/national/Zimbabwe-votes-on-new-constitution/-/9674576/19342870/-/item/1/-/yn9fqbz/-/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94207 | 188 | 1.921875 | 2 |
Supreme Judicial Court To Honor Lawyers for Pro Bono Service to the Needy and the Elderly Portland, Maine.
The Maine Supreme Judicial Court will hold two recognition ceremonies next week to honor Maine lawyers whose donation of 50 or more hours of free legal services puts them in the top tier of lawyers who provide pro bono legal services. The Maine Supreme Judicial Court will honor lawyers from southern Maine at 3 p.m. on Monday, November 5, 2012 at the Cumberland County Court House for their pro bono legal service to Maine's low-income and elderly residents in need of legal services. The ceremony will take place in Courtroom 12, the Supreme Judicial Court courtroom on the 2nd floor.
On Wednesday, November 7, 2012, at 1 p.m., at a at a Penobscot County Bar Association luncheon at the Sea Dog Brewing Company, the Supreme Judicial Court will honor lawyers from northern, eastern and central Maine for their donation of legal services to Maine's poor and elderly at the Penobscot Judicial Center in Bangor.
Last week, on October 23, 2012, the Supreme Judicial Court honored lawyers from York County whose individual pro bono donation exceeded 50 hours in the last year.
Chief Justice Leigh I. Saufley said, "Maine lawyers rank second in the nation in terms of donating free legal services. While the Supreme Judicial Court appreciates all Maine lawyers who give of their time and talents to their fellow citizens, the Katahdin Counsel lawyers are lawyers who donated at least 50 hours of legal services in the past year, and are deserving of special recognition. The ceremonies next week are an opportunity for the entire Supreme Judicial Court to personally thank and honor these lawyers for their extraordinary contributions to access to justice."
Last year, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court created the Katahdin Counsel Recognition Program to acknowledge and recognize Maine lawyers who provide pro bono representation to Maine's low-income and elderly residents. Active members of the Bar who have completed 50 hours or more of such work for the twelve-month period ending June 30, 2012, were eligible to register as a Katahdin Counsel. The Supreme Judicial Court at several events will recognize all qualifying attorneys across the state, and all Katahdin Counsel lawyers will receive certificates and lapel pins. They will also have the right to make use of the Katahdin Counsel designation and mark on their letterhead and printed materials.
A one-page FAQ document prepared by the Katahdin Counsel Commission is also available at the Court's website – http://www.courts.state.me.us/citizen_help/attorneys/katahdin/faq.html
A list of the statewide 2012 Katahdin Counsel honorees can be found at: http://www.courts.state.me.us/citizen_help/attorneys/katahdin/press.html
The press is welcome to attend both events. | <urn:uuid:fd7c20d3-f565-49cf-845c-2450edf5268b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.courts.state.me.us/news_reference/news/current/kcrp_11212.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94208 | 601 | 1.523438 | 2 |
In olden days Vastu pertained only to temples, royal palaces and magnificent buildings. The common man had nothing to do with it. But today, in the day of democracy, with economy of the average citizen soaring high, Vastu has become an inevitable part of the common man’s way of life.
In the modern day world, where man has to live amidst friction and tension with fellow humans and nature, Vastu assists a person to harmonize and befriend the five basic elements so that life is more comfortable and healthy with better prosperity. As Vastu is a science based on Nature, the equilibrium would work well apparently on us.
Just as a car is kept low in front than the rear to resist air, a home on the west to east moving earth, has lower end on east and higher on the west we would be filled with positive energy. Similarly as magnetic waves move from north to south, the southern part of the building should be higher than the north.
With employers trying to get the best out of their workforce and get maximum productivity, Vastu has become important in the business front as well. The goals of business are sought to be achieved with minimum effort and less stress.
The technology of building a house has become so detail that it spreads its self to the three wings known as architecture, engineering and interior decoration. Now Vastu has become an inevitable part of this science.
The Vastu has brought a new insight in the science of habitat and habitation. | <urn:uuid:c4a70237-90de-4525-9ce8-f66f9b2ea064> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://om2home.com/vastu/our-characteristics/295-vastu-tense-world.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00064-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972151 | 311 | 2.78125 | 3 |
New insight into the mechanism by which glial cells recognise and myelinate axons 27 June 2007
In a host of neurological diseases, including multiple sclerosis (MS) and several neuropathies, the protective covering surrounding the nerves - an insulating material called myelin - is damaged.
Scientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science have now discovered an important new line of communication between nervous system cells that is crucial to the development of myelinated nerves - a discovery that may aid in restoring the normal function of the affected nerve fibres.
Nerve cells (neurons) have long, thin extensions called axons that can reach up to a meter and or more in length. Often, these extensions are covered by myelin, which is formed by a group of specialised cells called glia. Glial cells revolve around the axon, laying down the myelin sheath in segments, leaving small nodes of exposed nerve in between.
More than just protection for the delicate axons, the myelin covering allows nerve signals to jump instantaneously between nodes, making the transfer of these signals quick and efficient. When myelin is missing or damaged, the nerve signals can't skip properly down the axons, leading to abnormal function of the affected nerve and often to its degeneration.
In research published recently in Nature Neuroscience, Weizmann Institute scientists Prof. Elior Peles, graduate student Ivo Spiegel, and their colleagues in the Molecular Cell Biology Department and in the United States, have now provided a vital insight into the mechanism by which glial cells recognise and myelinate axons.
How do the glial cells and the axon coordinate this process. The Weizmann Institute team found a pair of proteins that pass messages from axons to glial cells. These proteins, called Necl1 and Necl4, belong to a larger family of cell adhesion molecules, so called because they sit on the outer membranes of cells and help them to stick together. Peles and his team discovered that even when removed from their cells, Necl1, normally found on the axon surface, and Necl4, which is found on the glial cell membrane, adhere tightly together. When these molecules are in their natural places, they not only create physical contact between axon and glial cell, but also serve to transfer signals to the cell interior, initiating changes needed to undertake myelination.
The scientists found that production of Necl4 in the glial cells rises when they come into close contact with an unmyelinated axon, and as the process of myelination begins. They observed that if Necl4 is absent in the glial cells, or if they blocked the attachment of Necl4 to Necl1, the axons that were contacted by glial cells did not myelinate. In the same time period, myelin wrapping was already well underway around most of the axons in the control group.
"What we've discovered is a completely new means of communication between these nervous system cells," says Peles. "The drugs now used to treat MS and other degenerative diseases in which myelin is affected can only slow the disease, but not stop or cure it. Today, we can't reverse the nerve damage caused by these disorders. But if we can understand the mechanisms that control the process of wrapping the axons by their protective sheath, we might be able to recreate that process in patients."
Prof. Elior Peles's research is supported by the Dr. Miriam and Sheldon G. Adelson Medical Research Foundation; the Nella and Leon Benoziyo Center for Neurological Diseases; the Kekst Family Center for Medical Genetics; The David and Fela Shapell Family Center for Genetic Disorders; the Wolgin Prize for Scientific Excellence; the National Institutes of Health (NIH); the National Multiple Sclerosis Society; the US-Israel Binational Science Foundation; and the Israel Science Foundation.
The Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, is one of the world's top-ranking multidisciplinary research institutions. Noted for its wide-ranging exploration of the natural and exact sciences, the Institute is home to 2,500 scientists, students, technicians, and supporting staff. Institute research efforts include the search for new ways of fighting disease and hunger, examining leading questions in mathematics and computer science, probing the physics of matter and the universe, creating novel materials, and developing new strategies for protecting the environment.
Source: News-Medical.Net ©2007 News-Medical.Net (27/06/07) | <urn:uuid:84cbd2f4-565b-4f10-888c-8cd6468ba650> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thisisms.com/forum/general-discussion-f1/topic4170.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943384 | 941 | 3.453125 | 3 |
Who's Who - Max Immelmann
Max Immelmann (1883-1916) was Germany's first air ace of the First World War, scoring seventeen victories until his death in 1916.
Immelmann was actually born in South Africa but chose to renounce his British nationality while studying medicine in Germany. Having thereafter joined the German Army he resigned his commission in 1912 in order to work as an engineer.
With the outbreak of war in August 1914 Immelmann was (as he expected) recalled to active duty. He quickly requested a transfer to the Flying Corps, taking and passing his examination in March 1915. The following month he was promoted Lieutenant.
His initial experiences as an airman were not glamorous however, operating as a reconnaissance pilot near Lille in France. In short order however Immelmann established a reputation as an effective fighter pilot: in Germany (and France, but unlike Britain) successful fighter pilots gained wide public renown and acclaim.
Thus the 'Eagle of Lille' (as German newspapers dubbed him) achieved promotion to First Lieutenant in September 1915. He was responsible for developing a dogfight manoeuvre whose name - the Immelmann Turn - remains to this day, comprised of a simultaneous loop and roll design to allow him to dive back at a pursuing airman. It became standard practice during the remainder of the war.
With seventeen (some attribute just fifteen) 'kills' to his name - and the Pour le Merite awarded by the Kaiser on 12 January 1916 - Immelmann was shot down by British pilot George McCubbin on 18 June 1916 near Lens.
Such was the shock of his death (which was at first attributed to other causes) that Kaiser Wilhelm II grounded his fellow airman (and rival) Oswald Boelcke for a month to avoid the loss of two aces in short order.
A 'Base Rat' was a soldier perpetually at the base, typically in conditions of comfort and safety.
- Did you know? | <urn:uuid:c2ebd6b5-ef59-4e2a-bbf4-77eb6b4261e5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://firstworldwar.com/bio/immelmann.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00073-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.986464 | 407 | 2.828125 | 3 |
R U 4 real? That is how some might react to the Italian bishops’ request that Catholics abstain from sending text messages and even Web surfing during Fridays of Lent.
Some said the techno-free Fridays could give people the chance to get closer to God, but others were quick to point out that technology actually brings people closer together and is an important tool for evangelizing.
The Vatican is certainly on the same page with that notion — as it proved when it launched its news channel on YouTube earlier this year.
Father Jay Finelli, pastor of Holy Ghost Church in Tiverton, R.I., is all about new media. He has his own Web site, a Facebook account with more than 1,000 friends and he also does weekly podcasts which he says brings people back to the church and even draws in new people.
Father Michael Najim, director of vocations for the Diocese of Providence, is similarly tech-savvy using his iPhone, laptop and Facebook page.
But he praised the Italian bishops’ advice saying it would give Catholics an opportunity to “take a step back.”
Like the bishops, he is not about to suggest that people completely pull back from modern communication.
“I think there’s a lot of good things happening with technology,” he sad. ”But at the same time, we have to know when to shut those things off.” | <urn:uuid:13c21c37-1460-4050-83ab-98a9fd26cc40> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cnsblog.wordpress.com/2009/03/19/dont-respond-to-this-on-a-friday/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975966 | 293 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Ethics in a Global Society
For high school students, discussions about ethics would typically center on issues like cheating on a test or plagiarism, but, in this four-part series (15 minutes each), the discussion focuses on how ethics affect careers and the workplace. Filmed in a high school government class, students discuss ethical behavior in the arenas of business, government, and science as a way to foster deeper thinking about the ethical dimensions of their life and our society. Students voice their opinions, concerns, and questions about ethical issues, the roles that these issues play in our society, and the affect on potential careers.
No upcoming episodes. | <urn:uuid:a0c61688-fcd4-46b0-8626-c365ea8b0397> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cetconnect.org/education/itv/ethics-global-society | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944856 | 130 | 2.609375 | 3 |
The Constitution of the United States recognizes the right of law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms. As a foundational principle of our country, the Second Amendment enshrines this right in clear, unequivocal language: “The right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”
The United States Supreme Court reaffirmed this basic right guaranteed by the Constitution in its June 26, 2008 decision in the case styled District of Columbia v. Heller. There the Court held that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home. Whether one uses a firearm for hunting, sport shooting, personal protection, or another lawful reason, the Second Amendment clearly protects our individual right to keep and bear arms.
As a member of the National Rifle Association (NRA) and Gun Owners of America, I am working daily to ensure this right is safeguarded from activist judges and far-reaching legislation from liberals in Congress.
During my first year as a Congressman, I successfully worked my colleagues to enact legislation strengthening Second Amendment protections. In 2009, I introduced bipartisan legislation, H.R. HR 3789, the “Amtrak Secure Transportation of Firearms Act.” My legislation allows sportsmen to check firearms in the locked baggage compartment of Amtrak trains, just as they are allowed to on our nation’s airlines.
I have also been vigilant to join a number of my colleagues in opposing several anti-second amendment measures, such as legislation that would expand firearms restrictions into millions of additional acres of public land, and a judicial ruling that would extend the unconstitutional gun ban in our national parks. Working with my colleagues on the House Committee on Natural Resources, I was proud to become a co-sponsor of H.R. 1684, legislation that fully restores Americans’ Second Amendment rights on public lands and wildlife refuges. This important legislation passed both the House and Senate and was signed by the President on May 22, 2009.
Another piece of contentious legislation that I oppose is H.R. 45, “Blair Holt's Firearm Licensing and Record of Sale Act.” This bill would mandate a licensing process for anybody that owns a gun. The process would include submitting photographs and a thumbprint, passing a gun safety test, paying a fee, and completing any other requirements determined to be appropriate by the Attorney General. I firmly believe that H.R. 45 is unconstitutional, and will continue to speak out against this legislation and vote against any effort to enact it into law.
I believe gun control policies fail to recognize that criminals, not guns, are the root cause of gun crime in America. Criminals, by definition, violate laws. Gun control restrictions punish honest, law-abiding citizens who want to protect themselves and their families. I assure you that I will continue working to support the rights of gun owners who use firearms responsibly while working to punish those who break the law.
I’ve also authored and co-authored many other common-sense pro-gun measures including:
• H.R. 17, the “Citizens' Self-Defense Act”: This bill would reaffirm the right to use firearms for self-defense and for defense of one’s home and family.
• H.R. 197, the “National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act”: This bill would allow nationwide reciprocity for concealed carry permits, much like driver’s licenses are respected and honored in all states.
• H.R. 1074, the “Firearms Interstate Commerce Reform Act”: This bill would allow for the interstate sale of firearms and remove several antiquated and unnecessary restrictions imposed on interstate firearms transactions.
• Amicus Curiae Brief in McDonald vs. City of Chicago Supreme Court Case: Along with several Members of the House and Senate, filed a “friend of the court” brief to the U.S. Supreme Court arguing that the Second Amendment applies to all citizens, regardless of State or Local laws prohibiting firearm ownership. This case parallels the landmark District of Columbia vs. Heller decision, in which the Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms for self-defense.
These measures are an essential part of the effort to reclaim our Second Amendment rights which have been eroded over the years by activist judges and liberal lawmakers. Rest assured I will never compromise in the fight to protect your Constitutional rights to firearm ownership and self-defense. | <urn:uuid:961be539-1f21-4c97-8b85-f357c022dabf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://fleming.house.gov/issues/issue/?IssueID=9961 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95776 | 944 | 1.59375 | 2 |
SGI Latin American Youth Commemorate Anniversaries
During July 2007, SGI youth in Latin American countries celebrated the 56th anniversaries of the Soka Gakkai young men's division (YMD) and young women's division (YWD), which fall on July 11 and July 19, respectively.
In the Dominican Republic, 500 young women, half of whom were guests, commemorated the YWD anniversary at the SGI-Dominican Republic Culture Center on July 22. Following a skit and a fife-and-drum corps performance, YWD Leader Noriko Tamate encouraged everyone to support one another and strive based on the humanistic philosophy of Nichiren Buddhism, to lead fulfilling and value-creative lives.
SGI-Bolivia young men met at the SGI-Bolivia Culture Center in Santa Cruz on July 22. The meeting began with greetings from Vice YMD Leader Marcelo Oroza Montellano and a performance by the brass band. Following that, Luis Pinto shared his struggle of dealing with his mother's initial opposition to his Buddhist practice. Seeing a dramatic change in his attitude toward life, today, Luis's mother supports his activities in SGI-Bolivia and his practice of Nichiren Buddhism. Presently, Luis is a university student working toward a double major. In a keynote lecture, soccer commentator and former professional soccer player Victor Hugo Antelo talked about the struggles of youth and the importance of forging one's character while young, sharing his personal experiences and excerpts from Discussions on Youth, a book of SGI President Daisaku Ikeda's advice to young people.
SGI-Uruguay youth gathered at the SGI-Uruguay Culture Center in Montevideo on July 29. Mario De Alcántara was appointed national YMD leader and shared his personal goals and resolution toward 2010. In Mexico, 500 youth members met in various parts of the country from July 8 through 22 to study and discuss the theme, "In Pursuit of Our Highest Potential."
In Venezuela, the young men held their first national leaders training session at the SGI-Venezuela Culture Center in Caracas on July 7 and 8. Participants shared activity reports and studied Nichiren's writings together, highlighted by a lecture given by Study Department Leader Gustavo Cabrera. The young women met with SGI-Venezuela General Director Lydia Salas on July 20.
SGI-Chile young men and women held general meetings in eight cities throughout July. At a YMD gathering on July 15 at the SGI-Chile Culture Center, YMD Leader Omar Castillo stressed the urgent need for young people to stand up to make a difference and contribute to society. At a meeting of young women held on July 22 at the same center, attendees enjoyed poetry readings and musical performances. At the close of the meeting, YWD leader Sonia Esparza lauded the YWD members for striving to develop their own lives while dedicating themselves to the growth and happiness of their fellow young women.
[Adapted from an article in the August 21, 2007 issue of the Seikyo Shimbun, Soka Gakkai, Japan] | <urn:uuid:b8ea8426-0740-4380-b3b9-38835eebb51e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sgi.org/news/events/events2007/events070729.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959797 | 655 | 1.515625 | 2 |
A CAT Smiles in China
A corporate strategy article by Thunderbird students Shen-Chun Lin, Aimee DeGrauwe, Eli Darby, Monica Willbrand, Raymond Caruso and James Moore
CSR: The Reputation Necessity
For most companies, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a face-saving, repair mission in reaction to some recently identified social injustice or industrial accident. Examples of reputation saving CSR have been seen with Nike’s early reaction to substandard working conditions or Union Carbide’s Bhopal tragic explosion in 1984. At best, most companies treat CSR as a cost center line item akin to corporate publicity or charity, where a separate division within the organization implements a “community outreach” program. Although these programs do have merit, they are mainly counter balances to the damages a corporation’s normal operations have on the community and environment. This inefficiency lies in the fact that many firms’ CSR attempts pit society and business against each other, when in reality they should be dependent. In addition, CSR tends to push firms into thinking generally, rather than about shared value. In the developed world, national and regional laws help regulate and limit the damage a company’s presence can have at large. From environmental regulations, to worker safety standards, many US and EU companies meet or exceed the bare minimums laid out by governments.
The developing world has a far greater need to CSR, yet many firms locate operations in these parts of the world to take advantage of less stringent regulations, thus lower operating costs. Take notice that many reactionary CSR programs (Nike and Union Carbide among others) are implemented in the developing world. Lacking safety standards, low minimum wages, and poor enforcement then lull corporations into sub-standard maintenance until disaster strikes. As companies rush to meet the growing demand of the developing world, they set themselves up for disaster as they leave somewhat functional CSR programs at the edge of national shores. It is this chasm between need and supply that can only be meet by corporations implementing CSR programs as part of their overall corporate and product strategies. Companies must find the areas of overlap between society and their industry to begin to develop opportunities for shared value, positively affecting both the company and the community.
Caterpillar’s CSR - A Strategic Necessity
At least one company, Caterpillar, Inc. (NYSE CAT) of Peoria Ill, is successfully melding a proactive CSR strategy with a corporate expansion strategy in developing parts of the world. Caterpillar’s CSR efforts not only implement good corporate citizenship strategies, but also enable its equipment customers to implement CSR through higher operator safety standards, and lower emissions. For Caterpillar, the developing world is a key market. One of the company’s eight strategic imperatives simply states “Win in China”. For many corporations, China offers a huge growing market. Yet, when these companies enter the country, they ignore any CSR efforts that have enabled their success in other parts of the world, and by doing so, corporations are largely ignoring another source of differentiation and competitive advantage.
Caterpillar implements a two-pronged approach to CSR, creating a win-win-win condition for the company, society at large, and for its customers. The Caterpillar Foundation is the company’s philanthropic arm that works with various other non-profit organizations around the world. Partners of the foundation include Water.org, Mano a Mano, and the Nature Conservancy.
|Caterpillar Foundation Partners|
|Water.org||Promoting the reach of the non-profit through donations, accessibility of sanitation needs and clean water in communities that lack basic necessities.
Coupling resources and knowledge, the program has expanded beyond Africa, Central and South America to India and Bangalore (10).
|Nature Conservancy||Exercising a partnership based on science and diversity, CAT supports the sustainability of the world’s “Great Rivers”, including the Yangtze, Mississippi, and Paraguay-Parana.
Partnership promotes the longevity of global freshwater supply in the face of pollution, global warming, and environmental factors (11).
|Mano a Mano||Facilitating medical care and providing opportunity for economic growth through infrastructure by building roads in lesser developed areas.
Infrastructure supports ability to reach schools, obtain education, promoting further economic development.
Agricultural products can be transported to other local markets, further spurring economic development.
Partnering with Mano a Mano, CAT is creating “hope and health” in Bolivia (12).
These efforts provide a unique overlap of areas of social concern and CAT’s core business. While these three partners provide a wide reaching impact there are also unique efforts being pursued in China as well.
Historically, the manufacture and use of industrial earth-moving equipment has been difficult to accomplish efficiently. Typically this type of industry has had to sacrifice efficiency for the unique goals that only large equipment can achieve. However, CAT China’s energy efficient focus in their machines, factories and offices has led to governmental favor in the Jiangsu Province of China. In return for CAT’s new R&D facility being LEED certified the local governments have agreed for CAT to remain unaffected by the power brownouts or blackouts that affect other businesses (5). This type of partnering with local governments both helps CAT’s reputation while also providing a strategic advantage over rivals who do not enjoy the same relationship. In the realm of energy consumption, CAT has identified a strong overlap with society and business (8). The more businesses engage in energy conserving measures, the more the rest of society benefits.
Waste and Resource Utilization
According to Caterpillar’s 2009 Sustainability report, CAT is engaged in two methods of utilizing formerly released methane. As part of the CSR initiative by CAT in China, CAT has discovered ways of capturing the methane released from mining and brewing processes (4). Naturally released from mining and created during certain brewing processes, methane from these two sources is used as a fuel source to provide electricity for millions.
In addition to these key initiatives, CAT has also been involved in various other activities designed to support the safety, education and environment of the communities in which it operates in China.
|Headlights of CAT CSR efforts in recent years||Business Unit of CAT||Shared value for both society and company||Impacting area(s)|
|Improve onsite monitoring and training. 2011 safety performance was nearly 40% better than best-in-class standards (CAT China)||Construction Industries||It reduces the injury rate to better protect workers which increases the efficiency on working site and saves cost for CAT customers.||Workplace|
|Olympic Donation Project-Caterpillar donated heavy boring machines worth of millions Yuan for constructions of 2008 Beijing Olympic||Construction Industries||Providing the supporting technique for construction needed in the most important international event in China history. CAT not only gains reputation and business but also establishes good relationship with China government.||Community|
|Global Great River Project-Yangtze River in 2005. Caterpillar helps to reduce negative ecological impacts from water resource development and hydropower generation.||Caterpillar Foundation/Construction||The program isn’t just about wildlife or development, but rather how the two can come together. It not only improves local environmental standard but also plants the opportunity for future contract for CAT.||Environment|
|Strategic Partnership 2007 with four universities in China to provide funding to help support student scholarship programs, curriculum development, and faculty development.||Caterpillar Foundation||Helping education structure and context to be more fit to current market need. On the other hand, it allows CAT to establish pre-relationship with young professionals to strength CAT long-term expansion plan in China.||Community & Marketplace|
|Disaster Relief for snowstorm and Sichuan Earthquake in 2008, Caterpillar contributed $1.5 million to assist in relief efforts. Cat dealers also provided machinery free to help clear major roads and highways.||Caterpillar Foundation/Construction||Assistance in the most devastating moment is considered the greatest help and remains great impression to the society. CAT dealers reaps rebuild project afterwards.||Environment & Community|
|Clean Energy Project Solar Turbines gas turbines helps a Shandong power company turn waste gas for combined heat and power application with CO2 emission reduction of 188,000 tons per year since 09'||Energy & Power Industries||This innovation is the first case in China, setting a new market standard of clean energy and gaining reputation for CAT Energy and Power.||Environment & Marketplace|
|Vocational Skills and Safety Certification Education program in 2009 aims to provide heavy equipment maintenance & safety certification program for students in technical schools in China.||Business Wide||Investing in local technical schools helps CAT to enlarge technician pool for future recruiting as human capital is so vital for CAT China to continually grow.||Marketplace & Workplace|
|Caterpillar Forest project in 2011, a total of 45,800 trees of different varieties are planted in Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei and Inner Mongolia.||Caterpillar Foundation||By improving environment, it increases the living standard and local population which leads to economic growth. CAT will be benefited from it.||Environment|
The consolidated CSR efforts by CAT in the developing world must be the benchmark in and beyond China. The “curse” of natural resources which attracts extraction companies to China can also be a blessing if the appropriate CSR is in place. This CSR will serve as the silver-lining for communities dependent on availability of clean water and air, providing a shared value for Chinese citizens with CAT. An opportunity to build loyalty and trust in the market which they operate, with the potential to secure long-term business from the staggering 40% of Chinese consumers whom find green conscientiousness a critical factor in brand selection (9).
Initiatives like CAT’s with Water.org ensures not only that basic human survival needs will be maintained, they will be improved and promote the livelihood of communities and the prosperity of their citizens. Focus on energy efficiency and waste and resource utilization are CSRs that leverage strategy and intersect with organizational capability.
Moreover, with the rapid pace of globalization, it is vital to have CSR initiatives exercised in advance of potential damage to the environment and inhabitants. As CAT is the benchmark for integration of harmonization of long-term objectives with short-term costs, it is also the benchmark for firms to diligently practice non-reactionary CSR.
(1) “Caterpillar in China.” Caterpillar Inc, 2011.
(2) “2011 Year in Review.” Caterpillar Inc, 2012.
(3) “Caterpillar, Inc. Becomes an Ethical Role Model.” Daniels Fund Ethics Initiative, University of New Mexico.
(4) “2009 Sustainability Report.” Caterpillar Inc, 2010. p. 42.
(5) ”The China CSR Imperative: Integrating Social Responsibility into the China Supply Chain Industry.” The American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai, 2012. p. 10-11.
(6) “Our Values In Action: Caterpillar’s Worldwide Code of Conduct.” Caterpillar Inc, 2010. pp. 28-29.
(7) “Caterpillar China Recognized for Sustainability Efforts.” Caterpillar Inc. http://www.caterpillar.com/cda/layout?m=389975&x=7&id=3155728. Accessed: 18 Aug 2012
(8) Porter, M. & Kramer, M. “Strategy & Society: The Link Between Competitive Advantage and Corporate Social Responsibility.” Harvard Business Review.
(9) “Rare-earth mining in China comes at a heavy cost for local villages.” The Guardian. Accessed: 19 Aug 2012.
(10)”Caterpillar Inc.: Caterpillar Foundation partners with Water.org to Expand Watercredit in India, Indonesia.” http://www.4-traders.com/CATERPILLAR-INC-4817/news/Caterpillar-Inc-Cater...
(11)” Caterpillar and the Caterpillar Foundation.” http://www.nature.org/aboutus/workingwithcompanies/companies-we-work-with/working-with-caterpillar.xml
(12) “Caterpillar video highlighting Mano a Mano.” (http://manoamano.org/blog/vote-for-caterpillar-video-highlighting-mano-a-mano/ | <urn:uuid:688e21a2-77a7-4510-bc23-baae9b558d47> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thunderbird.edu/blog/faculty/washburn/2012/08/19/a-cat-smiles-in-china | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00061-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.918131 | 2,669 | 2.09375 | 2 |
Patterns of performance: implications for the Rey auditory verbal learning test
Hardman, Marie (2001) Patterns of performance: implications for the Rey auditory verbal learning test. Professional Doctorate thesis, Murdoch University.
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Three studies investigated patterns of performance as demonstrated by the serial position on the Rey Auditory Verbal Leaning Test (RAVLT). Patterns of performance were explored in a sample of genuine traumatic brain injured subjects who were litigating (TBI-LIT; N = 22) and compared to a sample of genuine traumatic brain injured subjects who were not in litigation (TBI-NONLIT; N = 22). Comparisons were also made to a sample of subjects who were depressed but not neurologically compromised (PSY-DEP; N = 24). Results demonstrated that when time for loss of consciousness was controlled for, no difference existed between the litigating and non-litigating groups on any serial position. With this in mind the TBILIT and TBI NON-LIT groups were collapsed to form one traumatic brain injured group (TBI; N = 44). Patterns of performance were then compared between the TBI group, the PSY-DEP group and a normal control (NC; N = 68) group. No differences were demonstrated between the TBI and PSY-DEP groups on any serial position however, the NC group demonstrated significantly different primacy effects than the TBI group and significantly different recency effects than both the TBI and PSY-DEP groups (Study 1). Patterns of performance relative to the serial position were also compared in a group of Alzheimers Disease (AD; N=20) and dementia(DEM; N=20) subjects. Results indicated that the DEM group demonstrated a greater primacy effect than the AD group with both groups demonstrating a greater recency effect when compared to the primacy effect but no significantly so. Patterns of performance was also explored in a group of Huntington's Disease subjects (HD; =14) with this group demonstrating a significantly reduced primacy effect as compared to a recency effect (Study 2). In the third study patterns of performance were compared in a group of subjects having sustained fiontal lobe (FL; N=21) and posterior lobe (PL; N=21) lesions to the brain. Subjects with PL lesions demonstrated a significantly greater primacy effect as compared to the FL group with both groups demonstrating a reduced recency effect. Comparisons were also made between the PL and FL groups with normal control groups (FL-NC; N = 21: PL-NC; N = 21) and results indicated that the FL group demonstrated a significantly reduced primacy and recency effect when compared to the normal control group. When comparisons were made between the PL and a normal control group, the PL group demonstrated a significantly reduced recency effect as compared to normal controls. Pattern of performance were also explored in a small sample of subjects with diffuse DIFF; N=6) damage to the brain and results demonstrated that this group displayed a reduced recency effect as compared to the primacy effect (Study 3). Overall, when examining the serial position effects across all experimental groups, subjects who had sustained a traumatic injury to the brain or who were depressed all demonstrated a greater primacy effect as compared to the recency effect by recalling more words on that position. This contrasted the pattern of performance which emerged with various dementing processes where more words were recalled in the recency position as compared to the primacy position. Results for all studies were analyzed using MANOVA followed by the Sheffe procedure.
|Publication Type:||Thesis (Professional Doctorate)|
|Murdoch Affiliation:||School of Psychology|
|Supervisor:||Hartley, Laurence and McInnes, Micheal|
|Item Control Page| | <urn:uuid:c34e1756-637f-49e5-b306-03fc769cc8c8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/94/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954954 | 803 | 1.703125 | 2 |
There is nothing worse than over exerting your body causing you to wake up in pain in the morning struggling to get out of bed. Muscle soreness is common and there are number of different techniques you can use to help prevent and get rid of muscle soreness fast.
Every time you workout or perform physical movements such as lifting furniture you create microscopic tears in your muscles. The more physical the activity your performing the more tears your muscles will experience. Your muscles become sore due to these microscopic tears and and the waste that is built up in your muscles during a work out, mainly lactic acids. As your muscles begin to repair themselves they actually become stronger. This is how body builders and athletes grow muscle becoming more ripped, faster, and stronger.
When experiencing sore muscles and looking for relief you must first determine what caused your muscles to be sore. Post-workout muscle soreness is normal. Some people even view it as a sign of getting in a good workout as their torn muscle fibers begin to repair and become stronger. Generally you will begin to experience this a few hours after a workout especially if you haven’t been very active lately. Most people experience a localized soreness or stiffness in the muscles that were worked but you shouldn’t lose any range of motion.
Soreness Caused by Muscle Strains
Soreness caused by muscle strains are usually the result of a long overdue visit to the gym where you push yourself too hard and wake up the next day not able to get out of bed. Soreness resulting from a strained muscle has similar symptoms to common post-workout soreness but you will also lose mobility or range of motion. The best cure for strained muscles is time. You should relax and use the following tips but also remember to never over exert yourself again. Strained muscles can also be the result of a more serious underlying injury that could require medical attention. If your range of motion doesn’t come back within 24-48 hours you should consult with a doctor.
Steps to Relieve Muscle Soreness
Pre and post exercise stretching will help warm your muscles up before a work out preventing serious tears or strains as well as help your body to cool down. Spasms can occur after workouts causing muscles to further contract resulting in even more soreness. Gentle stretching will not only help relieve this but will increase the blood flow to the muscle helping repair the damaged tissue faster.
Ice therapy is one of the best ways to relieve sore muscles. Simply apply an ice pack against the sore muscle for 15 minutes to 20 minutes. Longer exposure to cold can lead to a skin injury. Ice will help reduce swelling and fluid build up. You can repeat this four or five times a day until the soreness is gone.
Heat therapy can be very beneficial 24 hours after you experience any soreness. The first 24 hours should be dedicated to ice therapy and nothing else. Applying a heat pad to a sore muscle will help increase blood flow and help push out irritating chemicals that make you feel sore. Heat therapy will also help with regaining your range of motion.
Treat yourself to a massage. Massages help increase blood flow to your muscles and reduce inflammation, making it not only very enjoyable but useful technique. You should always receive a massage from a licensed professional who knows what they are doing or you may risk further damaging your muscle.
Light exercise can help remove some of the lactic acids in your muscles as well as increase the blood flow. Once again, increasing the blood flow and oxygen to your muscles helping to aid with recovery. You should keep it light by going for a walk or a light jog.
Anti-inflammatory drugs such as ibuprofen and aspirin help by blocking certain enzymes in the body that cause inflammation. Make sure to follow all warnings on label and never exceed the daily dosage.
Preventing Muscle Soreness
A healthy diet will boost your immune system and speed up recovery times. Potassium is important to help prevent cramping while working out and soreness. Foods that have high levels of potassium include:
- Oranges or orange juice
Drink plenty of water. Doctors suggest 64 oz. of water a day but you may need more depending on your work out routine. Our body is made up of 80% water and dehydration alone can lead to sore muscles. Hydrating will also help to flush toxins out of your body shortening recovery times.
Stretching not only helps get rid of sore muscles but can prevent them as well as serious injury. Stretch for fifteen minutes before and after your workout.
Don’t over do it! We have all tried to break out of a lazy slump in life by starting a new workout routine. Starting slow and building up a routine will not only help prevent soreness and injury, but will increase your odds of staying with a program. Slow and steady wins the race.
Following these tips will help relieve and prevent muscles soreness. Treat your body right and it will treat you right. If you ever experience stiffness or soreness for more than a few days make sure to slow down and if in sever pain visit a doctor. Now get out there and exercise. You and your body deserve it! | <urn:uuid:bc6f4a52-9d64-4159-b38c-b1f00feec11b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.schoolofhowto.com/rid-muscle-soreness/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00045-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95179 | 1,062 | 2.34375 | 2 |
New York: Stieglitz to Titarenko
New York: Stieglitz to Titarenko at Nailya Alexander Gallery in New York. "...New York City has fascinated generations of photographers. Alfred Stieglitz combined formal perspectives with his romantic imagination to search for 'the spirit of that something that endears New York to one who really loves it... the universal thing in it.' Walker Evans rebelled against Stieglitz’s 'unwonted earnestness' and created his own 'documentary style' pictures of the city. Newcomers like Alexey Titarenko (b. 1962, St. Petersburg, Russia) see New York through their experience in disparate places and with different photographic traditions. Each photographer in the exhibition has his own view of the city, each is enchanted by its secret magic, and somehow a plausible New York emerges from this visual cacophony." | <urn:uuid:64429ea5-09fc-41dd-b169-190780a737c3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://gmtplus9.blogspot.com/2012/10/new-york-stieglitz-to-titarenko.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00073-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951424 | 186 | 1.640625 | 2 |
From World War I Document Archive
Revision as of 23:16, 15 July 2009 by Bkimberl
Born on 18 September 1854 in Udine in the province of Venetia (until 1866, part of the Habsburg monarchy, now Italy). His father was captain in the Austrian army.
After having attended "Gymnasium" classes (high school) in Goerz (Gorizia) and Triest (Trieste; both cities are now Italian) Dankl moved to the cadet school in St. Poelten (Lower Austria). From 1870 - 1874 he studied at the military academy in Wiener Neustadt (Lower Austria). In 1874 Dankl became second lieutnant (3rd Dragoon Reg.). He passed the Kriegsschule (war academy) 1877-1879, became general staff officer and went up the ranks, serving with both cavalry and infantry units: 1896 chief of staff XIIIth army corps, 1899 - 1903 head of the central office of the Austro-Hungarian general staff, and on 01/05/1903 Dankl became major general. 1903-1905 he commanded the 66th infantry brigade, then (until 1907) the 16th infantry brigade (Trieste), 1907 commander of the 36th infantry division (Agram, now Zagreb / Croatia) and field marshal lieutnant. 07/02/1912 commander-in-chief XIVth Army Corps (Innsbruck, Tyrol), 01/11/1912 general.
At the outbreak of the war with Russia Dankl was appointed commander-in-chief 1st Army. According to Conrad's strategic plans the 1st Army had to attack northwards, from a position on the eastern bank of the Vistula river, crossing the San river and to advance against the Russian forces which were suspected to concentrate near Lublin. Dankl's army indeed clashed with Russian 4th Army which withdrew (battle of Krasnik, 23-25 August 1914) - this Austrian initial success made Dankl very popular and he was decorated with the Commander's cross of the Militaer-Maria-Theresien-Order and was appointed "Count of Krasnik". Austrian defeat on the eastern flank of the front made retreat towards Western Galicia inevitable, and Dankl's Army moved back to a position north of Cracow. In October 1914 his army, with German troops on its left flank, advanced again, but no permanent success could be obtained. During the 1914/15 winter Dankl commanded on a relatively quiet part of the Eastern front, and so his army was merely considered a reserve army for those armies fighting the bitter winter battles in the Carpathians. After the Gorlice-Tarnow breakthrough (May 1915) Dankl's 1st Army, profiting from the Austro-German success, advanced too, but soon was stopped by a Russian counter-attack (battle of Opatow). This failure was Dankl's last acting on the Eastern Front, because when Italy declared war on Austria-Hungary (23 May 1915), Dankl was made commander-in-chief of the Tyrol defence (headquarters at Bozen, Southern Tyrol / now Italy). The situation there seemed to be rather hopeless: the Italian troops were largely superior in numbers and equipment, but because of their lack of war experience they did not dare to advance quickly; the Italians lost time whereas the Austrian defence positions could be strenghtened. All Italian efforts to achieve any greater success on the Tyrol front were in vain.
In 1916 Conrad, the chief of the Austro-Hungarian general staff and leading general (although he was not general-in-command of all Austro-Hungarian troops), wanted to execute a plan he had been making up since his service as a divisional commander in Tyrol ten years ago: to attack the Italian front from north (Southern Tyrol, Trentino) to south (Adriatic Sea) to encircle the Italian troops attacking the Austrian Isonzo frontline eastwards in the rear. Two armies (Army Group Archduke Eugen: 11th and 3rd Army) should break through the Italian frontline.
Dankl was made commander 11th Army (13 March 1916; III corps on the left flank, XX corps commanded by Archduke Charles, heir to the Habsburg throne, in the centre, VIII corps on the right flank) and appointed colonel general (1 May 1915). His troops had to obtain the initial breakthrough, the 3rd Army (gen. Koevess) following them should use their success and force the Italian 1st Army to withdraw from the mountains to the Venetian plains. The Austrian attack which started on 15 May 1916 was very successful at first, but after a very quick breakthrough through the first and second Italian defence lines the storming troops had to be stopped to wait for the artillery (20 May 1916) - because of snow, bad roads etc. it was a very hard task for artillery troops to remain close enough to help the attacking infantry. This halt made it possible for the Italian High Command to reinforce the troops on the Asiago plateau; when the Austrians started to attack again (at the beginning of June) it soon became obvious that no decisive success could be achieved. Moreover, on 4 June 1916 Russian armies under general Brussilov obtained a great success and Austrian troops had to be sent to the Eastern front. So the Austrian offensive operation which had started with such big hopes had to be stopped, on some places Austrian troops even had to withdraw to get better defence positions.
On the Austrian side scapegoats had to be found: Dankl who always had favoured a very systematical (but thus slow) way of attacking and who had ignored a written order given by Archduke Eugen, the Army Group commander, to quicken the attacks without considering artillery problems, was dismissed on 17 June 1916 - officially because of health problems, but Dankl himself had sent a letter of resignation because his conduct of the army command had been criticised by the Austrian Supreme Command (Conrad and his chief advisor for the Italian theatre of war, Lt.Col. Schneller) and the Army Group Command (Archduke Eugen and his chief of staff, General Krauss). Dankl's chief of staff, Major General Pichler, was dismissed as well - without having any health problems. In fact, Dankl went to hospital where he had a very difficult operation on his goitre.
This was the end of Dankl's career as an army commander, but on 21 January 1917 Dankl was called to the Imperial Court: he became commander of the 1. Arcieren-Leibgarde, a very special Imperial Guards unit. On 10 February 1918 he was made commander-in-chief of all the Imperial Guards, but this duty ended when Field Marshal Conrad (after he had been dismissed as Army Group commander) took over command on 15 July 1918; Dankl returned as commander of the 1. Arcieren-Leibgarde. Emperor Charles I. made him "Baron", then "Count of Krasnik".
Dankl won a lot of military decorations, but he also was made honorary Ph.D. by Innsbruck university.There still is a street named after Dankl in Innsbruck.
On 1 December 1918, after the end of the Habsburg monarchy, Colonel General Dankl was pensioned off.
Dankl is described as a very quick-tempered man. Conrad (q.v.) called him one of the most competent Austrian army commanders (besides Boehm-Ermolli, Pflanzer and Boroevic); he pointed out that Dankl always had tried to execute all orders he had been given (but one should note Dankl's performance as an army commander in 1916! Privates, unlike generals, usually were hanged or shot for disobedience).
After the dissolution of the Habsburg monarchy Dankl moved to Innsbruck. After Conrad's death (1925) he became Chancellor (chief secretary) of the Militaer-Maria-Theresien-Orden, the highest-ranking Austro-Hungarian military decoration, and was in charge of the post-war decorations which took place until 1931. Dankl was one of the leading pro-Habsburg figures and wrote a number of articles both in military journals and in newspapers to defend the performance of the Austro-Hungarian troops during WWI against all criticism, especially from pro-German authors. He had a strict anti-Hitler position and always dreamed of some kind of restoration of the Habsburg monarchy. Dankl died on 8 January 1941, three days after his wife had died, in Innsbruck, and the couple was buried there without any military ceremony - but how could the Wehrmacht honour a man who always had favoured a greater Austria ? The grave in Innsbruck still exists (Wilten cemetery).
The Dankl papers / diaries are kept in the Austrian War Archives Vienna (sign. B/3 ff.).
There does not appear to be any biography of Dankl based upon large historical research at this time. Of course, there are many accounts about his military service in all both general and detailed Austrian histories of WWI. Manfried Rauchensteiner, the Director of the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum (Museum of the Army History, Vienna) in 1993 published a very extensive work Der Tod des Doppeladlers. Österreich-Ungarn und der Erste Weltkrieg (Death of the Double Eagle. Austria-Hungary and WWI). One surely can get very good information from the memoirs of (later) General Edmund Glaise von Horstenau, edited by Peter Broucek: Ein General im Zwielicht © Mag. Florian Kotanko, A-5280 Braunau | <urn:uuid:2696e4ab-7012-47d7-894c-2de3895285ba> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wwi.lib.byu.edu/index.php?title=Dankl&oldid=8558 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974817 | 2,092 | 2.8125 | 3 |
Jargon Jungle (D)
A higher education qualification of a certain level. They split into undergraduate degrees or first degrees which are usually Bachelorships degrees (masters, doctorates, and various postgraduate PGCEs and so on). A university isn't a university if it doesn't teach degrees although some do other higher education qualifications too like Higher National Diplomas (HNDs).
Most universities break down different subject areas into departments and students 'belong' to whatever department teaches their course. It gets more complicated if they study more than one subject, because they may end up in several departments. Some universities don't have departments, they have schools or faculties instead (or even as well), but they're basically the same thing.
Slang for a lower-second class honours degree, ie, a Desmond Tutu (two-two. Geddit?). For the record, a first is known as 'a Geoff' (Hurst), a 2.i is 'an Attila' (the Hun) and a third is 'a turd'. Don't blame Push if you get a third — we didn't invent the rules of Cocker-nee rhyming slang.
The Department for Education and Skills
Last updated on: 23 April 2008
Dons are Mafia bosses, but in the context of universities, particularly Oxbridge, they're more likely to be lecturers, tutors or other academics who do teaching. | <urn:uuid:78e23c39-9f37-438c-bce5-380248d0717a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.push.co.uk/Jargon-Jungle--D-/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950916 | 294 | 2.390625 | 2 |
The proportion of the American population that can be classified as Christian was 77% in 2001.
14.1% do not follow any organized religion.
George Washington Was A Deist, Not A Christian
The primary leaders of the so-called founding fathers of our nation were not Bible-believing Christians; they were deists.
Deism was a philosophical belief that was widely accepted by the colonial intelligentsia at the time of the American Revolution.
Its major tenets included belief in human reason as a reliable means of solving social and political problems and belief in a supreme deity who created the universe to operate solely by natural laws.
The supreme God of the Deists removed himself entirely from the universe after creating it. They believed that he assumed no control over it, exerted no influence on natural phenomena, and gave no supernatural revelation to man.
A necessary consequence of these beliefs was a rejection of many doctrines central to the Christian religion.
Deists did not believe in the virgin birth, divinity, or resurrection of Jesus, the efficacy of prayer, the miracles of the Bible, or even the divine inspiration of the Bible.
These beliefs were forcefully articulated by Thomas Paine in Age of Reason, a book that so outraged his contemporaries that he died rejected and despised by the nation that had once revered him as "the father of the American Revolution."
To this day, many mistakenly consider him an atheist, even though he was an out spoken defender of the Deistic view of God.
Other important founding fathers who espoused Deism were George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Ethan Allen, James Madison, and James Monroe.
Fundamentalist Christians are currently working overtime to convince the American public that the founding fathers intended to establish this country on "biblical principles," but history simply does not support their view. | <urn:uuid:f21a81a4-0e6c-4751-a64e-3f811525ca46> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://chimpplanet.blogspot.com/2010/02/republican-non-christians-should-leave_06.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00071-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974612 | 371 | 2.625 | 3 |
| Updated at: 0339 PST, Thursday, October 28, 2010|
PADANG: The death toll from a tsunami which struck a remote chain of Indonesian islands topped 280 on Thursday as fears grew for the fate of hundreds still listed as missing, officials said.
Disaster response officials said bodies were being found on beaches and coastal areas of the Mentawai islands off the western coast of Sumatra, which took the full force of the tsunami triggered by an earthquake on Monday night.
Entire villages had been washed away and hopes were fading that the missing had simply run into the hills.
"At least 282 people were killed and 412 people have gone missing," disaster management official Agam told media.
Survivors said they had almost no warning that the three-metre (10-foot) wall of water was bearing down on them, despite the laying of a sophisticated network of alarm buoys off the Sumatran coast.
As the magnitude of the disaster sank in, many were asking whether the expensive warning system -- established after the 2004 Asian tsunami which killed at least 168,000 people in Indonesia alone -- had failed.
An official tsunami warning was issued after the 7.7-magnitude quake but it either came too late or did not reach the communities in most danger.
One survivor, 32-year-old farmer Borinte, told media the wave slammed into his community on North Pagai island only 10 minutes after residents had felt the quake.
"About 10 minutes after the quake we heard a loud, thunderous sound. We went outside and saw the wave coming. We tried to run away to higher ground but the wave was much quicker than us," he told media on Wednesday.
Several continental plates meet in a deep ocean trench off the western coast of Sumatra, providing a constant source of seismic friction and potential disaster, according to scientists. | <urn:uuid:7a107adc-c8c9-47c3-b3ac-efa5930e79e8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.geo.tv/10-28-2010/73504.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982004 | 384 | 1.828125 | 2 |
The bible portrays
the road to destruction as wide, while the road to life is narrow and hard
to find. This illustration has many applications in the more temporal
sphere in which we make many of our decisions.
It is often the case that there are many ways to approach
a problem that are unproductive and comparatively few which lead to
success. So it should be no surprise that, as we have been looking for
patterns in the design of Unix and their development in both Unix and
Linux, we find
fewer patterns of success than we
Our final pattern in this series continues the theme of different ways to go wrong,
and turns out to have a lot in common with the previous pattern of trying to
"fix the unfixable". However it has a crucial difference which very
much changes the way the pattern might be recognized and, so, the ways
we must be on the look-out for it. This pattern we will refer to as a
"high maintenance" design. Alternatively: "It seemed like a good idea at
the time, but was it worth the cost?".
While "unfixable" designs were soon discovered to be insufficient and
attempts were made (arguably wrongly) to fix them, "high maintenance"
designs work perfectly well and do exactly what is required.
However they do not fit seamlessly into their surroundings and, while
they may not actually leave disaster in their wake, they do impose a
high cost on other parts of the system as a whole. The effort of fixing things
is expended not on the center-piece of the problem, but on all that
The first of two examples we will use to illuminate this pattern is the
"setuid" and "setgid" permission bits and the related
functionality. In itself, the setuid bit works quite well, allowing
non-privileged users to perform privileged operations in a very
In fact this is such a clever and original idea that the inventor,
Dennis Ritchie, was granted a patent for the invention. This patent
was since placed in the public domain. Though ultimately pointless,
it is amusing to speculate what might have happened had the patent rights
been asserted, leading to that aspect of Unix being invented around.
Could a whole host of setuid vulnerabilities have been avoided?
The problem with this design is that programs which are running setuid
exist in two realms at once and must attempt to be both a privileged
service provider, and a tool available to users - much like the confused
deputy recently pointed out by LWN
reader "cmccabe." This creates a
number of conflicts which requires special handling in various
The most obvious problem comes from the inherited environment. Like
any tool, the programs inherit an environment of name=value
assignments which are often used by library routines to allow fine
control of certain behaviors. This is great for tools but
potentially quite dangerous for privileged service providers as there
is a risk that the environment will change the behavior of the
library and so give away some sort of access that was not intended.
All libraries and all setuid programs need to be particularly
suspicious of anything in the environment, and often need to
explicitly ignore the environment when running setuid.
are a perfect example of the difficulty of guarding against this sort
An example of a more general conflict comes from the combination of
setuid with executable shell scripts. This did not apply at the time
that setuid was first invented, but once Unix gained the
#!/bin/interpreter (or "shebang") method of running scripts
it became possible for scripts to run setuid. This is almost always
insecure, though various different interpreters have made various
attempts to make it secure, such as the "-b" option to
csh and the "taint mode" in perl. Whether they
succeed or not, it is clear that the setuid mechanism has imposed a
real burden on these interpreters.
Permission checking for signal delivery is normally a fairly
matching of the UID of the sending process with the
UID of the receiving process, with special exceptions for
UID==0 (root) as the sender. However, the existence of setuid adds
a further complication. As a setuid program runs just like a regular
tool, it must respond to job-control signals and, in particular, must
stop when the controlling terminal sends it a SIGTSTP. This
requires that the owner of the controlling terminal must be able to
request that the process continues by sending SIGCONT. So
the signal delivery mechanism needs special handling for SIGCONT,
simply because of the existence of setuid.
When writing to a file, Linux (like various flavors of Unix) checks if
the file is setuid and, if so, clears the setuid flag. This is not
absolutely essential for security, but has been found to be a valuable
extra barrier to prevent exploits and is a good example of the wide
ranging intrusion of setuid.
Each of these issues can be addressed and largely have been. However
they are issues that must be fixed not in the setuid mechanism itself,
but in surrounding code. Because of that it is quite possible for new
problems to arise as new code is developed, and only eternal vigilance
can protect us from these new problems. Either that, or removing
setuid functionality and replacing it with something different and
It was recently announced
that Fedora 15 would be released with a substantially reduced set of
setuid programs. Superficially this seems like it might be "removing
setuid functionality" as suggested, but a closer look shows that this
isn't the case. The plan for Fedora is to use filesystem capabilities
instead of full setuid. This isn't really a different mechanism, just
a slightly reworked form of the original. Setuid stores just one
bit per file which (together with the UID) determines the capabilities
that the program will have. In the case of setuid to root, this is
an all or nothing approach. Filesystem capabilities store more bits
per file and allow different capabilities to be individually
selected, so a program that does not need all of the capabilities of
root will not be given them.
This certainly goes some way to increasing security by decreasing the
attack surface. However it doesn't address the main problem that
the setuid programs exist in an uncertain world between being tools
and being service providers. It is unclear if libraries which make
use of environment variables after checking that setuid is not in
force, will also correctly check if capabilities are not in force.
Only a comprehensive audit would be able to tell for sure.
Meanwhile, by placing extra capabilities in the filesystem we impose
extra requirements on filesystem implementations, on copy and backup tools, and on
tools for examining and manipulating filesystems. Thus we achieve an
uncertain increase in security at the price of imposing a further
maintenance burden on surrounding subsystems. It is not clear to this
author that forward progress is being achieved.
Our second example, completing the story of high maintenance designs, is
the idea of "hard links", known simply as links before symbolic links
were invented. In the design of the Unix filesystem, the name of a
file is an entity separate from the file itself. Each name is treated as
a link to the file, and a file can have multiple links, or even none -
though of course when the last link is removed the file will soon be
This separation does have a certain elegance and there are certainly
uses that it can be put to with real value. However the vast majority
of files still only have one link, and there are plenty of cases where
the use of links is a tempting but ultimately sub-optimal option, and
where symbolic links or other mechanisms turn out to be much more
effective. In some ways this is reminiscent of the Unix permission
model where most of the time the subtlety it provides isn't needed,
and much of the rest of the time it isn't sufficient.
Against this uncertain value, we find that:
Archiving programs such as tar need extra complexity to look out
for hard links, and to archive the file the first time it is seen,
but not any subsequent time.
Similar care is needed in du, which calculates disk usage,
and in other programs which walk the filesystem hierarchy.
Anyone who can read a file can create a link to that file which
the owner of the file may not be able to remove. This can lead to users
having charges against their storage quota that they cannot do
Editors need to take special care of linked files. It is generally
safer to create a new file and rename it over the original rather
than to update the file in place. When a file has multiple hard
links it is not possible to do this without breaking that linkage,
which may not always be desired.
The Linux kernel's internals have an awkward distinction between
the "dentry" which refers to the name of a file, and the "inode",
which refers to the file itself. In many
we find that a dentry is needed even when you would think that only
the file is being accessed. This distinction would be irrelevant
if hard links were not possible, and may well relate to the choice
made by the developers of Plan 9 to not support hard links at all.
Hard links would also make it awkward to reason about any
name-based access control approach (as discussed in part 3) as a
given file can have many names and so multiple access permissions.
While hard links are certainly a lesser evil than setuid, and there
is little motivation to rid ourselves of them, they do serve to
illustrate how a seemingly clever and useful design can have a range
of side effects which can weigh heavily against the value that the
design tries to bring.
Avoiding high maintenance designs
The concept described here as "high maintenance" is certainly not
unique to software engineering. It is simply a specific manifestation
of the so-called
law of unintended consequences
which can appear in many disciplines.
As with any consequences, determining the root cause can be a real
challenge, and finding an alternate approach which does not result in
worse consequences is even harder. There are no magical solutions on
offer by which we can avoid high maintenance designs and their
associated unintended consequences. Rather, here are three thoughts
that might go some small way to reining in the worst such designs.
- Studying history is the best way to avoid repeating it, and so
taking a broad and critical look at our past has some hope of
directing is well for the future. It is partly for this reason that
"patterns" were devised, to help encapsulate history.
- Building on known successes is likely to have fewer unintended
consequences than devising new ideas. So following the pattern that
started this series of "full exploitation" is, where possible, most
likely to yield valuable results.
- An effective way to understand the consequences of a design is
to document it thoroughly, particularly explaining how it should be
used to someone with little background knowledge. Often writing
such documentation will highlight irregularities which make it
easier to fix the design than to document all the corner cases of
it. This is certainly the
of Michael Kerrisk who maintains the man pages for Linux, and,
apparently, of our Grumpy Editor who found that fixing the cdev
interface made him less grumpy than trying to document it, unchanged,
When documenting the behavior of the Unix filesystem, it is
desirable to describe it as a hierarchical structure, as that was the overall
intent. However, honesty requires us to call it as directed acyclic
graph (DAG) because that is what the presence of hard links turns it
into. It is possible that having to write DAG instead of
hierarchy several times might have been enough to raise the question of
whether hard links are such a good idea after all.
Harken to the ghosts
In his classic novella "A Christmas Carol", Charles Dickens uses
three "ghosts" to challenge Ebenezer Scrooge about his ideology and
ethics. They reminded him of his past, presented him with a clear
picture of the present, warned him about future consequences, but
ultimately left the decision of how to respond to him.
We, as designers and engineers, can similarly be challenged as we
reflect on these "Ghosts of Unix Past" that we have been exploring.
And again, the response is up to us.
It can be tempting to throw our hands up in disgust and build
something new and better. Unfortunately, mere technical excellence is
no guarantee of success. As Paul McKenney
astutely observed, at the
2010 Kernel Summit,
economic opportunity is at least an equal reason for success, and is
much harder to come by. Plan 9 from Bell Labs attempted to learn from
the mistakes of Unix and build something better; many of the mistakes
explored in this series are addressed quite effectively in Plan 9.
However while Plan 9 is an important research operating system, it
does not come close to the user or developer base that Linux has,
despite all the faults of the latter. So, while starting from scratch can be
tempting, it is rare that it has a long-term successful outcome.
The alternative is to live with our mistakes and attempt to minimize
their ongoing impact, deprecating that which cannot be discarded.
The x86 CPU architecture seems to be a good example of this. Modern
64-bit processors still support the original 8086 16-bit instruction
set and addressing modes. They do this with minimal optimization and
using only a small fraction of the total transistor count. But they
continue to support it as there has been no economic opportunity to
break with the past. Similarly Linux must live with its past mistakes.
Our hope for the future is to avoid making the same sort of mistakes
again, and to create such compelling new designs that the mistakes,
while still being supported, can go largely unnoticed.
It is to this end that it is important to study our past mistakes,
collect them into patterns, and be always alert against the repetition
of these patterns, or at least to learn how best to respond when the
patterns inevitably recur.
So, to conclude, we have a succinct restatement of the patterns
discovered on this journey, certainly not a complete set of patterns
to be alert for, but a useful collection nonetheless.
Firstly there was "Full exploitation": a pattern hinted at in that
early paper on Unix and which continues to provide strength today. It
involves taking one idea and applying it again and again to diverse
aspects of a system to bring unity and cohesiveness. As we saw with
signal handlers, not all designs benefit from full exploitation, but
those that do can bring significant value. It is usually best to try
to further exploit an existing design before creating something new
"Conflated" designs happen when two related but distinct ideas are
combined in a way that they cannot easily be separated. It can often
be appropriate to combine related functionality, whether for
convenience or efficiency, but it is rarely appropriate to tie aspects
of functionality together in such a way that they cannot be separated.
This is an error which can be recognized as the design is being
created, though a bit of perspective often makes it a lot clearer.
"Unfixable" designs are particularly hard to recognize until the
investment of time in them makes replacing them unpalatable. They are
not clearly seen until repeated attempts to fix the original have
resulted in repeated failures to produce something good. Their inertia
can further be exacerbated by a stubbornness to "fix it if it kills
me", or an aversion to replacement because "it is better the devil you
know". It can take substantial maturity to know when it is time to
learn from past mistakes, give up on failure, and build something new
and better. The earlier we can make that determination, the easier it
will be in the long run.
Finally "high maintenance" designs can be the hardest for early
detection as the costs are usually someone else's problem. To
some extent these are the antithesis of "fully exploitable" designs as,
rather than serving as a unifying force to bring multiple aspects of a
system together, they serve as an irritant which keeps other parts
unsettled yet doesn't even produce a pearl. Possibly the best way to
avoid high maintenance designs is to place more emphasis on full
exploitation and to be very wary of including anything new and different.
If identifying, describing, and naming these patterns makes it easier
to detect defective designs early and serves to guide and encourage
effective design then they will certainly have filled their purpose.
Exercises for the interested reader
Identify a design element in the IP protocol suite which could be
described as "high maintenance" or as having "unintended consequences".
Choose a recent extension to Linux and write some comprehensive
documentation, complete with justification and examples. See if that
suggests any possible improvements in the design which would simplify
- Research and enumerate uses of "hard links" which are not
adequately served by using symbolic links instead. Suggest
technologies that might effectively replace these other uses.
- Describe your "favorite" failings in Unix or Linux and describe a
pattern which would help with early detection and correction of
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Aggregator • Hyscience • ID=78642
Two must-read pieces today together make clear the ridiculousness and absurdity of Barack Obama's attacks on Bain Capital and his claims that Romney's private sector experience has not prepared him for the presidency.
First, Peter Kirsanow has two key questions for the president:
Over the last few days you have derided the value of Mr. Romney's private-sector experience in preparing him for the presidency.
tor Marco Rubio said this about you: "We have not seen such a divisive figure in modern American history as we have over the last three and a half years." Governor Chris Christie added, "He is the most ill-prepared person to assume the presidency in my lifetime." (Governor Christie was born in 1962.)
Which of the above two quotes do you disagree with more? If it's Governor Christie's statement, who among the following was more ill-prepared than you to assume the presidency: John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, or George W. Bush?
Which of your previous positions best prepared you to be president? How did it do so?Secondly, Conn Carroll explains why Bain matters, but not in the way Barack Obama wants voters to think it does.
After referencing (with excerpts of Romney's responses) Time Magazine's transcript of Mark Halperin's interview with Mitt Romney about his tenure at Bain in which Halpern pressed Romney on his claim that his business experience gave him "a perspective on how jobs are created -- that someone who's never spent a day in the private sector, like President Obama, simply doesn't understand," Carroll put the issue into a clear perspective using energy as an example:
If you are an entrepreneur deciding where to locate your new manufacturing business, an eight-fold increase in energy costs is going to drive you away from creating jobs in the United States. That is what Mitt Romney, business man gets, and what President Obama, community organizer, still doesn't understand.Meanwhile, the most ill-prepared person to assume the presidency, and the most divisive in history, continues to claim that a man that is likely one of the best prepared men to assume the presidency in the last half century, a man that strongly supports capitalism and the free market -- and certainly no fan of class-warfare (ergo in no way divisive), is somehow ill-prepared to replace him as president.
Go figure!... more | <urn:uuid:37dfdd80-6178-40bc-83d6-ee6258c12a9a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.freedomszone.com/aggregator.php?id=78642 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00054-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961929 | 518 | 1.578125 | 2 |
View Full Version : Neutering a dog
10-08-2005, 12:17 PM
I have a dog that is needing to be neutered soon. I was wondering what the healing process will be like after having it done. How long after being fixed will he be able to be left unsupervised for long periods of time w/o risk of messing up stiches? How long would we have to wait to send him back to daycare?
10-08-2005, 12:22 PM
I'm not sure if it is the same with every dog, but with our dog Max (a mini daschchund) he was exactly the same afterwards! I expected him to be tired and hurt, but no one else would never have been able to tell. The vet said it was fine to leave him home as we normally did.
His stinches were inside so there was no risk of him hurting them. The vet told me just to avoid long walks for a few days.
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Hurricane Sandy is a massive, slow moving storm that has left millions of Americans along the East Coast without electricity. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and U.S. Fire Administration (USFA) are warning residents in hurricane-impacted areas about the deadly dangers that still remain as Hurricane Sandy tracks north.
Consumers need to use great caution during a loss of electrical power, as the risk of carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning from portable generators, fire from candles, and electrical shock from downed power lines increases.
In order to power lights, keep food cold or cook, consumers often use gas-powered generators. CPSC, FEMA, and USFA warn consumers never to use portable generators indoors, in basements, garages, or close to a home. The exhaust from generators contains high levels of carbon monoxide (CO), greater than that of multiple cars running in a garage, which can quickly incapacitate and kill.
"Our goal is to save lives and prevent further disasters in the aftermath of Sandy," said CPSC Chairman Inez Tenenbaum. "Never run a generator in or right next to a home. Carbon monoxide is an invisible killer. CO is odorless and colorless and it can kill you and your family in minutes."
"Our thoughts and prayers are with those in the Mid-Atlantic states who've been affected by this storm. We strongly encourage all of those in affected areas to stay indoors, in a safe location and to continue to monitor conditions," said FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate. "As the federal government continues to support the life-saving efforts of state, tribal and local officials, individuals need to do their part and remain out of harm's way. Do not try to return home until local officials give the all clear."
"We know from experience as victims try to recover from disasters, they will take unnecessary risks with candles, cooking and generators. These risks often result in additional and tragic life safety consequences," said U.S. Fire Administrator Ernie Mitchell. "When you consider the challenges faced by firefighters and their departments to also recover from the same disasters, it is important that all of us remember even the simplest of fire safety behaviors following disasters of any type."
Deaths involving portable generators have been on the rise since 1999 when generators became widely available to consumers. There have been at least 755 CO deaths involving generators from 1999 through 2011. While reporting of incidents for 2011 is ongoing, there were at least 73 CO related deaths involving generators last year. The majority of the deaths occurred as a result of using a generator inside a home's living space, in the basement or in the garage.
Do not put your family at risk. Follow these important safety tips from CPSC, FEMA, and USFA in the aftermath of the storm.
Never use a generator inside a home, basement, shed or garage even if doors and windows are open. Keep generators outside and far away from windows, doors and vents. Read both the label on your generator and the owner's manual and follow the instructions. Any electrical cables you use with the generator should be free of damage and suitable for outdoor use.
Charcoal Grills and Camp Stoves
Never use charcoal grills or camp stoves indoors. Deaths have occurred when consumers burned charcoal or used camp stoves in enclosed spaces, which produced lethal levels of carbon monoxide.
Install carbon monoxide alarms immediately outside each sleeping area and on every level of the home to protect against CO poisoning. Change the alarms' batteries every year.
Electrical and Gas Safety
Stay away from any downed wires, including cable TV feeds. They may be live with deadly voltage. If you are standing in water, do not handle or operate electrical appliances. Electrical components, including circuit breakers, wiring in the walls and outlets that have been under water should not be turned on. They should be replaced unless properly inspected and tested by a qualified electrician.
Natural gas or propane valves that have been under water should be replaced. Smell and listen for leaky gas connections. If you believe there is a gas leak, immediately leave the house, leave the door(s) open, and call 911. Never strike a match. Any size flame can spark an explosion. Before turning the gas back on, have the gas system checked by a professional.
Use caution with candles. If possible, use flashlights instead. If you must use candles, do not burn them on or near anything that can catch fire. Never leave burning candles unattended. Extinguish candles when you leave the room.
Consumers, fire departments and state and local health and safety agencies can download CPSC's generator safety posters, door hangers and CO safety publications at CPSC's CO Information Center or order free copies by contacting CPSC's Hotline at (800) 638-2772.
Download FEMA and USFA's lifesaving information on disasters at www.Ready.gov and www.usfa.dhs.gov
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission is charged with protecting the public from unreasonable risks of injury or death associated with the use of the thousands of consumer products under the agency's jurisdiction. Deaths, injuries and property damage from consumer product incidents cost the nation more than $900 billion annually. CPSC is committed to protecting consumers and families from products that pose a fire, electrical, chemical or mechanical hazard. CPSC's work to ensure the safety of consumer products - such as toys, cribs, power tools, cigarette lighters and household chemicals - contributed to a decline in the rate of deaths and injuries associated with consumer products over the past 30 years.
Federal law bars any person from selling products subject to a publicly-announced voluntary recall by a manufacturer or a mandatory recall ordered by the Commission.
To report a dangerous product or a product-related injury go online to www.SaferProducts.gov or call CPSC's Hotline at (800) 638-2772 or teletypewriter at (301) 595-7054 for the hearing impaired. Consumers can obtain news release and recall information at www.cpsc.gov, on Twitter @OnSafety or by subscribing to CPSC's free e-mail newsletters. | <urn:uuid:89dd4fc4-d59d-4606-8e86-f41dd88bb5c8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cpsc.gov/en/Newsroom/News-Releases/2013/Survival-Tips-After-The-Storm/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935427 | 1,282 | 3.0625 | 3 |
Americans reflect on historic nature of Obama candidacyby Linda Fantin, Minnesota Public Radio
St. Paul, Minn. — What does it mean that Barack Obama is the first, major party black presidential nominee?
To Dickell Fonda of Evanston, Ill., it means no longer revising history, "shading in the faces" of historical and political figures in children's books for her grandchildren as she did for biracial son 22 years ago.
"Now all children of color will finally see themselves reflected in their story and history books -- and it will be a given that they, too, can aspire to whatever they dream," Fonda said. "And no one will have to tell them, because they will finally see it, live it and know it."
More than 17,000 people witnessed Obama's history-making moment in person. Twice that many came to downtown St. Paul.
But, in a nod to Obama's Internet-savvy base, his speech reverberated far and wide online, via blogs, Twitter, a popular social networking site, and through American Public Media's Public Insight Network.
First-hand accounts came from Americans across the country of all persuasions -- political, parental and practical.
Ena Carroll of Whitefish Bay, Wisc., said her older daughters, were never interested in politics in high school. Her 15 year old "talks about this election as if she is going to have a say in its outcome."
"We sit in our little den, like three shut-ins, watching the screen like our lives depend on it, and shush each other so that we can hear every comment made by the people in-the-know, the political barracudas. I will never forget this time, this night, and the wonder of discovery and infectious enthusiasm that my 15-year-old daughter is showing."
Jason Murphy of Fort Sill, Okla., said he planned to don his Obama T-Shirt and park himself in front of the computer, "pressing refresh for updates on the delegate count."
"I need this. I'm a vet of [Operation Iraqi Freedom], and more than an end to the war, the slump in the economy, I need hope that we can make our country whole again...I believe a vote for Barack Obama is a vote against generations of petty tribalism."
Brent Jacobson of Rosemount, Minn., said he won't vote for Obama, but he respects his achievement.
"If racism in America is dead, good riddance to it. God made all men in his image, it is about time we start seeing each other as a work of God's art, not as black, white, Indian, Native American, etc. All U.S. Citizens are Americans first, not African-American, Norwegian-American, etc. It is time to stop dividing on race in this country."
The last time Barbara Harrison, of Shoreview, Minn., witnessed this much enthusiasm in a presidential election was 1968, when she was 11 -- the same age her daughter, Ana, is now.
"She tells me that he represents hope for our country, a way out of the war, and she recognizes the significance of his heritage. For me…his candidacy is a sign that American is multicultural, open to all, and that hope is alive, just as it was 40 years ago when I was 11."
Lalita Amos of Indianapolis said she has a family altar -- a collection of photos and other mementos of the people who are important to her. Obama's campaign literature is there, between pictures of her mother and grandmother.
"My grandmother lived under Jim Crow with its limits on the Black vote. She moved, as part of the Great Migration from the South into Indiana for more economic opportunity and freedom. She's well into her 80's now and is stricken with Alzheimer's. She doesn't know that a Black man is poised to be the Democratic nominee. Her daughter, my mother, died a few years ago and missed this momentous time. I cast my ballot for both of them."
Joe Hinz of Newport, Minn., said he would eschew Obama to watch the Twins-Orioles game.
"This is indeed an historic moment for the people of the United States of America. Let the vetting process begin and thank God for conservative talk radio. Had it been taking place for the last twelve months, this man would not have been the candidate of choice."
Cari Lucas of Pequot Lakes, Minn., said the moment means "absolutely nothing."
"A candidate's race has nothing to do with his effectiveness or good judgment. We are not looking for firsts in a President. We are looking for adequate leadership. This is a farce to say the least."
Elizabeth Wahl of Albuquerque said she watched the speech on television with her husband and daughter.
"This is extremely important to me, not only because another implicit barrier to power will be shattered, and the most visible barrier in our culture, race, but also because I think that the very nomination of Barack Obama will send a message to the world that the United States is no longer a government of white men, for white men, and by white men."
When Rebecca Lund of Maplewood, Minn., and her husband learned that Obama had surpassed the number of delegates to secure the nomination, they said: "Finally, it's over." But is it?
"Though excited and gratified to finally see Barack Obama secure the Democratic nomination, I can't help but feel frustration with the Clinton campaign for fostering a divide among our party. Barack's decision to hold his victory moment in St. Paul, in the same spot that John McCain will be standing during the Republican convention, sent a message to the GOP that he is ready and able to take them on in the fall."
Diane Peterson of White Bear Lake, Minn., called the Obama rally a public relations event, nothing more.
"Big deal. Sen. Obama's recent successes are no news to me, I'm a Green. We Greens will be endorsing our own candidate for president on Saturday in Mankato, and it looks very likely it will be Cynthia McKinney, an African American Congresswoman who served several terms representing Atlanta. McKinney isn't licking any corporate boots--now that's progress -- a candidate the average American can believe in and support with their vote against our masters of slavery-in-effect, the corporations."
Joe Schaedler of Minneapolis agreed, this was not the big moment.
"The momentous part will come in November, when he becomes, or fails to become, the president. His newly sealed up nomination here is really just a prelude to the bigger contest, whose successful completion by this extraordinary gentleman is the true mark of greatness in our nation…That is the true moment for which I hold my applause and adulation." | <urn:uuid:8265cc58-30ec-44ab-b56e-d41361b9f9cc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/06/04/pij | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966748 | 1,423 | 2.046875 | 2 |
Welcome back, friends, and thank you for all of the warm wishes yesterday on our relocation to CENtral Science.
Today, I thought I’d address one of the top two questions I get when introducing myself as Abel Pharmboy of the blog, Terra Sigillata. We dispensed yesterday with my beloved pseudonym as I’m now writing under my real name after what had been kept an increasingly poorly-guarded secret.
So, question two:
What is Terra Sigillata and why did I choose this as the blog name?
What follows is a periodically updated post that ran originally on 20 December 2005 at the blog’s first home at Blogger.
If you Google, “Terra Sigillata,” you’ll get a number of hits for various clay pottery recipes. It’s made by a differential sedimentation process of clay – very complicated stuff – requiring the use of a deflocculant to separate out large clay particles from the small ones. Terra sig, as it is known among pottery hipsters, is then used to coat finished pieces to produce a very smooth, high luster and waterproof finish.
Since originally writing this explanation nearly five years ago, clayworkers and other artists who’ve stumbled on the post have directed me to some of the many variations on terra sigillata. The best so far has been this copyrighted recipe and description by Vince Pitelka at the Appalachian Center for Craft at Tennessee Tech from research he had done since teaching ancient clay arts classes at the UMass-Amherst. Take a read later on because the process is really an ancient chemical method and is quite fascinating.
What does this have to do with pharmacology and natural products?
Terra Sigillata is a Latin term that literally means “sealed earth.” In the common potter’s vernacular, the term is used to describe its use as a high-lustre seal on clayworks due to the uniform orientation of kaolinite crtystals. But, in ancient pharmacy history, Terra Sigillata refers to the first trademarked drug product, a small clay tablet or planchet bearing an official mark of authenticity. In this case, the “seal” was a mark for trade and marketing purposes.
Those of you with pharmacy backgrounds may also know that the notation for dose, duration, and route of administration on a prescription is abbreviated, “Sig.,” short for Signatura, meaning to sign, seal, or mark.
Dirt as medicine
Yes, pre-Christian cultures ingested dirt (but only special dirt) as medicine. (Admonishment from my soil scientist colleagues: I meant to say, “soil” – sorry.). The medicine known as Terra Sigillata began as a unique clay first harvested around 500 B.C. from a particular hill on the Mediterranean island of Lemnos, now part of Greece. Dug on a special day annually in the presence of governmental and religious dignitaries, the clay was rolled to a defined thickness and pressed with an official seal by priestesses and dried in the sun. Kind of reminds me of my favorite beer, Samichlaus, brewed once a year on 6 Dec.
Known as geophagy today, the practice is not as odd as it sounds and is common to primates. Today, we now know that clays contain kaolin (an active antidiarrheal component formerly in Kaopectate), minerals like iron oxides and others like calcium carbonate and magnesium hydroxide that may have served as nutrients or antiacids. Moreover, various ethnomedical cultures have encouraged clay consumption by pregnant women, both to ease nausea and to adsorb dietary alkaloids and steroids present in the plant diet from harming the developing fetus.
Having lived in the southern US for a third of my life, I’m also aware the red clay of the southeastern region is highly regarded for settling the stomach. According to John and Dale Reed in “1001 Things Everyone Should Know About the South,” the practice of geophagy seems to have originated in Africa and was widespread in the 19th century South among the poor of both races. The Reeds claim that the taking of the clay is the source of “sandlappers,” a nickname for South Carolinians. Heck, I’ve even heard Michael Stipe of R.E.M. (and Athens, GA) remark that red clay is in his blood, although I suspect his claim may be more figurative.
I learned of all this great history when I began leafing through a classic 1965 pharmacy history book, “Great Moments in Pharmacy History.” (Washington State University’s College of Pharmacy received permission to post the images online; here is the painting and brief description of Terra Sigillata.) The drug company then known as Parke, Davis & Company, commissioned Robert A Thom, a Birmingham, Michigan artist, to prepare paintings of historical scenes to accompany historical text collected by Prof George A Bender from pharmacy sources worldwide.
It’s a great book that can be found through e-tailers focusing on out-of-print texts. If you went to pharmacy school anytime since the mid-1960s, you know what I’m talking about because Thom’s unmistakable portraits can be found in labs and offices in most US colleges of pharmacy.
This excerpt from Great Moments described the subsequent uses of Terra Sigillata that will be of interest to many, especially fans of Pulitzer prize-winning science writer, Deborah Blum, whose book, The Poisoner’s Handbook, has been one of my top reads of 2010.
In the early days, and even up to the early nineteenth century, Terra Sigillata was used as an antidote for poisons as well as in the treatment of dysenteries, int ernal ulcers, hemorrhages, gonorrhea, pestilential fevers, complaints of the kidneys, and eye infections. The most striking feature of this drug, however, was the way in which it was marketed, and the method of identifying it and warranting its origin from a definite source. The great demand for Terra Sigillata and the good business that the sale of these troches brought caused people in almost every country in Europe to look for similar earths. This trademarking to protect the rights of seller and buyer today has behind it the sanction and approval of some 2,500 years of man’s experience in world commerce.
As I wrote yesterday, I am a natural products pharmacologist possessed of great admiration for medicinal chemistry and pharmacognosy. But when thinking of a name for this blog, I didn’t want to restrict it to plants or fungi or soil microorganisms because creatures big and small, terrestrial and marine, have been used as sources for medicinal agents. I had certainly known that my predecessors had been culturing soil for novel medicinal-producing organisms since Selman Waksman first discovered streptomycin (although credit for this Nobel prize-winning discovery has increasingly been attributed to Waksman’s graduate student, Albert Schatz, who incidentally grew up across the street from the Passaic, NJ, hospital where I was born).
But I frankly hadn’t realized that the Earth itself had been used as a medicine.
Hence, Terra Sigillata is a metaphor for the fact that the Earth itself has provided medicines to various cultures for centuries.
The trademarking aspect of Terra Sigillata also holds significance for thinking about how important drug branding has become in our current culture, both for the buyer and the seller. Whether declared by a priestess, a charlatan, a shaman, a late-night infomercialist, or a pharmaceutical or biotechnology company, branding carries with it some implicit guarantee of quality or assurance of purity of authenticity.
But not always. That’s why we write Terra Sigillata.
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The Little Mermaid is probably one of Disney's greatest shows. In 1989 The Little Mermaid movie came out, and it was selling great on the 1st week. Then in 1992 disney decided to make a series out of The Little Mermaid. They wanted to show fans what life was like for Ariel before the movie. The show was a big sucess and had 3 seasons. Finally by the year 2000 disney gave The Little Mermaid a sequel called The Little Mermaid 2: Return To The Sea. The movie finale revolved around Ariel's daughter who can't go into the sea because of the threat that Ursula's sister Morgana posesses. In the end peace was finally restored to Ariel's family, and now she and her daughter can live out their lives on the land and sea.
Ariel is King Triton's 7th and youngest daughter. She dreams of being part of the human world and collects things from the land. She has adventures with her friends Urchin, Sebastian, Flounder, and Gabriella.
Urchin is one of Ariel's childhood friends. He used to be a poor thief and stole from the palace but Ariel and Flounder dealt with him and after the whole thing was resolved they soon became fast friends. Urchin soon developed a crush on Ariel and never wanted her to leave the sea, but they both decided to stay friends.
Gabriella is another one of Ariel's childhood friends. She is deaf and has an octopus friend named Alan who translated her sign language. She dreams to someone day be able to speak and express herself like Ariel does whenever she sings.
King Triton is the King of the ocean. He had 7 children with his wife but she unfortunately died. He promised her that he'd raise the 7 girls properly. Out of all 7 of his daughters he pays the most attention to his youngest daughter, Ariel. Triton hates humans and forbids everyone to stay away from them but Ariel is the most stubborn and she breaks this rule most often.
Pearl is Ariel's wildcat cousin. She's a party girl and always tries to get Ariel and her other cousins to party along with her. Pearl's parents are never responsible or protective of her. One day Triton straightens them out and Pearl calms down a bit but still remains a ton of fun.
Arista, Alana, Aquata, Andrina, Adella, and Attina are Ariel's elder sisters, content to live a normal life under the sea, though they sometimes get involved in Ariel's adventures.
The Crab Scouts are 3 little crabs that are crab scouts. Sebastian is their leader and they follow his every order to grow up to be good crabs like Sebastian.
Flounder is Ariel's best friend. He's a bit of a scaredy-cat but he still comes along on Ariel's adventures and they always have a good time, though if something goes wrong it usually happens to poor Flounder.
Sebastian is King Triton's royal assistant. He helps Triton with whatever he can. He tries to convince Ariel to never go to the land but she disobeys him anyway.
Scuttle is a goofy seagull. When he and Ariel first met she and Flounder were skeptical of him but they learned to trust him. He also knows a lot about human objects and tells Ariel the names of them. He may seem dumb but he always comes through when it matters most.
Manta Ray is an evil manta. Ariel and Flounder accidentally released him from his prison. After that he tried to turn the people of Atlantica against each other but he failed. He tried to make his son evil like him but he likes to be good. He hates this but after almost losing his son he becomes good too.
Little Manta Ray is the evil manta's son. He tried to be evil like his father but failed because he became friends with Ariel. He likes being good but his father hates it but in the end he makes his father realizes the advantages of being good.
The Lobster Mobster Mob are two bad lobster criminals- Lobster Mobster and Da Shrimp. They met Urchin first and tried to make him a criminal to until Ariel straightened Urchin out. They could care less about taking over Triton's kingdom, all they like to do is steal.
Moray Eel is a sleazy eel. He sells fake items to people to make a profit, that usually have bad consequences. His favorite customers are Ariel and her friends.
The Sharkanians are an evil race of sharks. They like to cause chaos to any sea creature who visits their part of the sea.
Ursula is an evil sea witch. She wants to rule Triton's kingdom. She'll do anything for it and often thinks up many ways and spells to do it but they all fail.
|S 3 : Ep 8||A Little Evil||Aired 11/26/94|
|S 3 : Ep 7||Ariel's Treasures||Aired 10/29/94|
|S 3 : Ep 6||The Beast Within||Aired 10/22/94|
|S 3 : Ep 5||Heroes||Aired 10/15/94|
|S 3 : Ep 4||Land of the Dinosaurs||Aired 10/8/94|
User Score: 411
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User Score: 5 | <urn:uuid:3bc38049-9cce-492f-b69a-73c72bee9e23> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tv.com/shows/the-little-mermaid/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977261 | 1,163 | 1.679688 | 2 |
William Marcy Tweed
William Marcy Tweed (or William Magear Tweed; byname "Boss Tweed"; 1823-1878), was a New York City Democratic Party leader who turned Tammany Hall into one of the most corrupt political machines in United States history, as well as running a network of close city officials under the so-called Tweed Ring, which was responsible for extorting kickbacks from contractors and others doing business with the city, manipulating the public vote in his favor, and plundering more than $100,000,000 from the treasury before he was driven from power and arrested.
Tweed was born in New York City on April 3, 1823, the son of a chairmaker, from whom he eventually learned the trade. As a young man he became the organizer and foreman of a city fire-engine company, which gave him a bit of popularity and a taste of the power of local politics, from which he spent much of his life. He was a city alderman in 1852-1853, served one term in the United States Congress in 1853-1855, then returned to New York to serve in several successive posts before being elected to the state senate for one term in 1867.
While serving as state senator he was also appointed to the department of public works in New York City as commissioner, and while in that position he gathered his three chief henchmen - Alexander Oakey Hall, Peter Sweeney and Richard Connolly - and with a few others formed the Tweed Ring. Their first order of business was to secure themselves in positions of power by bribery and influence among the lower classes in the city - already they had total control of Tammany Hall - which enabled them to manipulate and alter the outcome of the mayoral election of 1865. As a result, the mayor's office went to Hall; Sweeney was appointed the treasurer for both the city and county; Connolly was appointed the city comptroller; and Tweed the superintendent of streets. In 1870 these men would compell the city government to re-write the charter, enabling the Ring to install more of their cronies in selected positions; Tweed himself would be named commissioner of public works, which enabled Tweed to directly control the money flowing in.
And the graft began: three hundred park benches were bought by Tweed for five dollars each, yet he charged the city $600 each to have them installed. On July 30, 1870, over $200,000 was charged to the city to repair furniture at several armories. To furnish a single courthouse, the city was forced to pay $1,476,980.24 to a single firm. In an article of the New York Times (January 3, 1871) it was identified that the Ring used their stolen money to purchase property in several city wards in excess of a million dollars between 1868 and 1871; Tweed alone was responsible for a total of $547,000; yet officially his salary was $2,500 a year.
For several months in 1870-1871 various article speculated on the corruption alleged by Tweed, but an expose appeared in the New York Times on July 24, 1871, in which the writer laid bare to the public tens of millions of dollars that went missing. "We have brought very serious charges against Mayor Hall and Controller Connolly," began the article, "and in reply to them the Mayor says that the City owes us a bill for advertising which we cannot get." ("Proofs", July 24, 1871). Stating that the information came from a "dishonest person" was the Mayor's reply, but he did not deny the allegations. But worse was yet to come for the Ring, especially Tweed. Democratic reformist Samuel Tilden - who would lose a disputed presidential election to Rutherford B. Hayes - also threw himself into the fray and demanded investigations into the matter.
But it was cartoonist Thomas Nast who did the most damage. Cartoons appeared in Harper's Weekly showing Tweed as an uncaring buffoon about to alter the ballot box, or as a buzzard about to gorge on his victims. In one the blame for the stolen money was passed around the circle of his cronies without end. Tammany Hall was represented by a ravenous tiger, about to tear apart another taxpayer. Above all else, the cartoons were having an effect on the public, and on Tweed personally. "Let’s stop them damned pictures," Tweed supposedly said. "I don’t care so much what the papers write about — my constituents can’t read — but damn it, they can see pictures!" Tweed offered Nast a bribe of half a million dollars to stop his cartoons; Nast rejected the offer, and went on drawing.
Tweed was arrested and charged with forgery and larceny in 1873, and he served two years. He then faced civil charges: a suit from New York for $6,000,000. Although technically in jail, he was allowed daily visits out to be with his family, and on one of these visits he escaped to Europe. The pleasure of living abroad was short-lived: he was arrested in Spain after a ship's hand recognized him from a Nast cartoon. Extradited back to New York, he died in prison on April 12, 1878.
- "The Ring's Real Estate: Some of the Plunder of Tweed, Sweeney & Co," article in the New York Times, January 3, 1871
- "Our Proofs of Fraud Against the City Government," article in the New York Times, July 24, 1871 | <urn:uuid:2bc8ea34-d988-44a2-9583-221fe27629bc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://conservapedia.com/Boss_Tweed | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00066-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985492 | 1,159 | 2.59375 | 3 |
James MonroeArticle Free Pass
James Monroe, (born April 28, 1758, Westmoreland county, Virginia [U.S.]—died July 4, 1831, New York, New York, U.S.), fifth president of the United States (1817–25), who issued an important contribution to U.S. foreign policy in the Monroe Doctrine, a warning to European nations against intervening in the Western Hemisphere. The period of his administration has been called the Era of Good Feelings. (For a discussion of the history and nature of the presidency, see presidency of the United States of America.)
Early life and career
Monroe’s father, Spence Monroe, was of Scottish descent, and his mother, Elizabeth Jones Monroe, of Welsh descent. The family were owners of a modest 600 acres (240 hectares) in Virginia. At age 16 Monroe entered the College of William and Mary but in 1776 left to fight in the American Revolution. As a lieutenant he crossed the Delaware with General George Washington for what became the Battle of Trenton. Suffering a near fatal wound in the shoulder, Monroe was carried from the field. Upon recovering, he was promoted to captain for heroism, and he took part in the Battles of Brandywine and Germantown. Advanced to major, he became aide-de-camp to General William Alexander (Lord Stirling) and with him shared the suffering of the troops at Valley Forge in the cruel winter of 1777–78. Monroe was a scout for Washington at the Battle of Monmouth and served as Lord Stirling’s adjutant general.
In 1780, having resigned his commission in the army, he began the study of law under Thomas Jefferson, then governor of Virginia, and between the two men there developed an intimacy and a sympathy that had a powerful influence upon Monroe’s later career. Jefferson also fostered a friendship between Monroe and James Madison.
Monroe was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates in 1782 and was chosen a member of the governor’s council. From 1783 to 1786 he served in the Congress under the Articles of Confederation, the first constitution of the new nation. During his term he vigorously insisted on the right of the United States to navigate the Mississippi River, then controlled by the Spanish, and attempted, in 1785, to secure for the weak Congress the power to regulate commerce, thereby removing one of the great defects in the existing central government. In 1786 Monroe, 27 years old, and Elizabeth Kortright of New York, 17 years old, were married. They had two daughters, Eliza Kortright and Maria Hester, and a son who died in infancy. Eliza often was at her father’s side as official hostess when he was president, substituting for her ailing mother. Maria’s marriage to a cousin, Samuel L. Gouverneur, in 1820 was the first wedding performed in the President’s House, as the White House was then called.
Retiring from Congress in 1786, Monroe began practicing law at Fredericksburg, Virginia. He was chosen a member of the Virginia House of Delegates in 1787 and in 1788 a member of the state convention at which Virginia ratified the new federal Constitution. In 1790 he was elected to the U.S. Senate, where he vigorously opposed President George Washington’s administration; nevertheless, in 1794 Washington nominated him as minister to France.
Minister to France
It was the hope of the administration that Monroe’s well-known French sympathies would secure for him a favourable reception and that his appointment would also conciliate France’s friends in the United States. His warm welcome in France and his enthusiasm for the French Revolution, which he regarded as a natural successor to the American Revolution, displeased the Federalists (the party of Alexander Hamilton, which encouraged close ties not to France but to England) at home. Monroe did nothing, moreover, to reconcile the French to the Jay Treaty, which regulated commerce and navigation between the United States and Great Britain during the French Revolutionary wars.
Without real justification, the French regarded the treaty as a violation of the French-American treaty of commerce and amity of 1778 and as a possible cause for war. Monroe led the French government to believe that the Jay Treaty would never be ratified by the United States, that the administration of George Washington would be overthrown as a result of the obnoxious treaty, and that better things might be expected after the election in 1796 of a new president, perhaps Thomas Jefferson. Washington, though he did not know of this intrigue, sensed that Monroe was unable to represent his government properly and, late in 1796, recalled him.
Monroe returned to America in the spring of 1797 and in the following December published a defense of his course in a pamphlet of 500 pages entitled A View of the Conduct of the Executive, in the Foreign Affairs of the United States. Washington seems never to have forgiven Monroe for this stratagem, though Monroe’s opinion of Washington and Jay underwent a change in his later years. In 1799 Monroe was chosen governor of Virginia and was twice reelected, serving until 1802.
What made you want to look up "James Monroe"? Please share what surprised you most... | <urn:uuid:e98e96bc-95e0-433f-b162-7dff13df5de9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/390221/James-Monroe | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978523 | 1,092 | 3.390625 | 3 |
Food poisoning, which is usually caused by eating food or drinking water that's contaminated with one of several kinds of nasty bacteria, can be hard to distinguish from a stomach virus, which is usually picked up on the hands and transferred to the mouth. The symptoms are the same: abdominal cramping, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and often fever, chills, achiness, and headache.
If your toddler has food poisoning, the symptoms will likely appear two to 48 hours after eating the food and will usually last a day or two but can continue in severe cases for a week or more.
Testing of blood, stool, and leftover food may identify the bacteria when necessary, but often the doctor won't need to identify the exact culprit because the treatment is the same regardless. (In fact, the treatment is the same for a stomach virus, too.) There are exceptions, though. If there's blood in your toddler's stool, for example, the doctor will test to make sure that he doesn't have food poisoning that's caused by a potentially dangerous bacteria, like E. coli 0157:H7, Shigella, or Salmonella.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the most common food-borne infections are those caused by the bacteria Campylobacter, Salmonella, and E. coli 0157:H7, as well as by a group of viruses called noroviruses. Less common — but dangerous if left untreated — is botulism. Here's a quick look at these bacteria:
Campylobacter is the most frequently diagnosed food-borne bacterium. It's usually transmitted through raw or undercooked poultry or unpasteurized milk, but your toddler can also get it from contaminated water. It's not usually spread from person to person, but it can be. (If your child has it and has diarrhea, for example, you could possibly get it from cleaning him up.)
It's also possible to contract the bacteria from the stool of a dog or cat. Campylobacter often goes undiagnosed because there are sometimes no symptoms, but signs can include nausea and vomiting, diarrhea (sometimes bloody), cramping, abdominal pain, and fever. It usually lasts for two to five days, but can linger for up to ten days.
Salmonella can be present in raw or undercooked eggs, poultry and meat, raw milk and dairy products, and seafood, and can be spread by food handlers. Reptiles like pet iguanas, turtles, lizards, and snakes can also carry Salmonella. In most cases, if your child has a bout of Salmonella, he'll develop fever, diarrhea, and abdominal cramps. He may also have tiny pink spots on his skin.
Symptoms usually start eight to 48 hours after contact and last for a day or two, though they can persist for more than a week, and the bacteria can continue to exist in the body for months. Two-thirds of patients with Salmonella are under 20 years old. In a person with a compromised immune system, Salmonella can invade the bloodstream and become life threatening.
E. coli is transmitted through food or water that's contaminated with microscopic amounts of cow feces. (If a person has E. coli and does not wash her hands after using the toilet, she can also spread it to another person.) E. coli can cause severe, sometimes bloody diarrhea and painful abdominal cramps, without much of a fever.
There are a number of strains of Escherichia coli. E. coli 0157:H7 is a particular strain that causes a more severe, longer-lasting illness. In babies and young children, E. coli 0157:H7 can be life threatening and often requires hospitalization. Symptoms can begin eight to 48 hours after your child eats a food contaminated with the bacteria and last about two to five days.
Norovirus is also called Norwalk-like virus (NLVs) or calicivirus, because it belongs to the Caliciviridae virus family. This very common virus isn't often diagnosed because a lab test for it isn't widely available. Severe vomiting is the hallmark sign, and it usually begins suddenly, about 24 to 48 hours after contact with the virus, although symptoms can show up as early as 12 hours.
The norovirus is transmitted through contaminated food, utensils, and surfaces. Because it's highly contagious, it spreads easily in daycare facilities and homes. There are many strains of norovirus, so it's hard to develop immunity to them. A case of norovirus usually goes away on its own in one to two days, but in the meantime you'll want to make sure that your toddler doesn't get dehydrated because of the vomiting.
Botulism is fairly rare — there are only about 110 cases in the United States each year. It's caused by the bacteria Clostridium botulinum, which is found in soil. But it's most often transmitted through improperly canned or preserved food, especially home-canned vegetables, cured pork and ham, smoked or raw fish, honey, and corn syrup.
Infant botulism happens when a baby eats the bacteria or its spores, and they then grow in his intestinal tract. (This is why you should never feed honey to a baby before his first birthday.) Symptoms of botulism include constipation, weakness, droopy eyelids, and difficulty swallowing. (The child will be alert, though, despite his weakness.) Left untreated, botulism can progress to muscle and respiratory paralysis. The symptoms usually show up in eight to 36 hours. | <urn:uuid:5e54853f-6e99-47d0-8df2-d70d2b4bff4f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.babycenter.com/0_food-poisoning_1201243.bc | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00044-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965845 | 1,163 | 3.484375 | 3 |
Dr. Diarmaid MacCulloch to lecture on Christian history
- on 10 May 2012
- St. Luke's Chapel
Dr. Diarmaid MacCulloch, professor of the history of the Church at the University of Oxford, England, will give a lecture on Christian history in conjunction with his visit to Sewanee to receive an honorary degree during The School of Theology Commencement. More details are here.
Photo credit: Michael Jackson | <urn:uuid:706e26f7-8e4d-4c93-ab04-9114570bbd9e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.sewanee.edu/events/2012/05/10/dr.-diarmaid-macculloch-to-lecture-on-christian-history | 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 | 0.92806 | 95 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Five Tech Ideas for Explanatory Journalism
At the Center for Civic Media, I make art, software and social processes which empower people to become more creative, more effective, and more informed. My recent projects include the Festival of Learning, research on gender representation in the news, and tablet tech for social checkups.
I'm an intentional polymath and range widely across the arts, tech, charities, ideas, and education. Before MIT, I worked in UK startups SwiftKey, Dressipi, and Texperts, developing technologies used by millions of people worldwide. I also helped start the Ministry of Stories, a creative writing center in East London. I was a Davies-Jackson Scholar at the University of Cambridge from 2006-2008.
Five Tech Ideas for Explanatory Journalism
How can technology help journalists make sense of complex issues and explain them to the public in a clear, understandable manner?
Last year, Jay Rosen's journalism students spent an entire semester researching and making explanations in partnership with ProPublica, a non-profit newsroom which focuses on investigative journalism. The class did amazing work to highlight notable examples and develop their own explainers. One of my favourite examples is this project from 2011, where students redesigned the same ProPublica background article as a video, a podcast, and an FAQ.
NYU's Explainer class focused on two things: presentation and conversation. They talked to cognitive psychologists like George Lakoff to learn how audiences take in what we read. They highlighted numerous presentation examples-- videos, timelines, infographics, mini-sites, aggregators, podcasts, interactive guides, flowcharts, and even a picture book by Google! The class at NYU also pointed out that explaining is often a conversation. In their journalist's guide to developing FAQs, the class suggests techniques for discovering what people need to know. I loved their advice on listening to readers.
Where Can We Innovate?
This term, I'm taking the Participatory News class from the point of view of a technology designer who wants to build tools to support great journalism. Instead of going deep on a particular story, I kept my eyes open for parts of the process which technology could improve. Here are my top tech recommendations for supporting beter explainers:
Jay points out in several places that it's okay and even desirable to have a non-expert reporter create explainers. When learning how to explain something, our initial ignorance helps us appreciate where our audiences are coming from. This approach still puts professionals in the role of sorting and presenting explanations.
I think we should take inspiration from Wikipedia to develop strategies for peer production of explanatory journalism, especially for issues that journalists can't or won't cover. Online communities like Metafilter have proven their ability to cooperate on investigations on occasion. How can we extend that to explanations? My muses here would be Instructables and CommonCraft, online communities of people who share video instructions and explanations.
Building online communities is hard. Instead of developing an "explainer" community, I would build a toolkit which existing communities can use when they feel the need to investigate and explain an issue.
Many of the explainers took on a narrative form. The Giant Pool of Money succeeded because This American Life found the right cast of characters to illustrate a complex issue. But finding the right people is really hard, especially if you're not a mainstream media organisation. Source databases such as The Public Insight Network can help, but it's a closed system unavailable to bloggers and ordinary people. Social Media networks through groups like Global Voices get us part of the way, but only as far as people who might know the people we're looking for.
I'm not sure the crowd can help here. In many cases, the people you want to interview might not be outspoken online. Instead, I would build tools which support a research process carried out by individuals or small teams. The tool would offer encouragement and ideas for following the trail from an effect to an individual.
We could support one workflow in particular. Given a set of articles which are already about a topic, we could automatically extract the names of the organisations and individuals who are quoted and referred to, creating a quick map of the issue in the media. A canny storyteller might be able to spot gaps in the story or simply remix existing material into an explainer.
Writing a good explainer requires three kinds of information organising: the micro-model you use to conduct an interview; the evolving model you use as a journalist to understand the issue; and the model you present to your readers.
The most widely used writing tools are terrible at helping people organise and understand their information. I have written elsewhere about my use of tools like Tinderbox to organise research around a complex issue. I think we need more of that kind of software.
All storytelling on computers is in its early stages; we haven't agreed on very many common literary forms. Beyond the FAQ, the Timeline, and the illustrated lecture, most explainers require a custom rhetorical form. That's bad for news organisations, who prefer to put deadlines on a project.
That's why I love The Explainer Awards that Jay Rosen and his students held. Awards are a great way to create norms and highlight innovation-- they have been an effective model as far back as 5th century Athens. But we need to take this further. An effective awards programme would bring together finalists in each category to discuss common challenges and build technologies to solve those problems.
Why not re-imagine explaining as a social movement rather than content production? Some of the best explaining comes from a two-way conversation, not a piece of content. We could start a service called Meet the News, a geolocated service which invites anyone to have coffee with someone affected by a news story. Participants could pay for the coffee and might be expected to contribute back to the community with a few paragraphs about the conversation, just like couchsurfing reviews. | <urn:uuid:68919cef-de79-4db2-a022-24584ec46bda> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://civic.mit.edu/blog/natematias/five-tech-ideas-for-explanatory-journalism | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00066-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946204 | 1,210 | 1.796875 | 2 |
What is it about reading a simple children’s bedtime story that can bring a Harvard professor immediately “down-to-earth” and cause us to feel he’s more real, more like one of us than an aloof intellectual? I suspect we easily share some common feelings of humanity when reminded of our childhoods.
Storybooks can whisper memories from years ago complete with the comfort of big people’s attention and gentle voices, early awareness of ourselves, and a sensing that all is right with the world around us. Or perhaps we remember joy at sharing the same with our own children, grandchildren or pint-sized friends. If the book were another of our childhood favorites, and not Goodnight Moon, we’d still be interested.
Hurray for great children’s literature! Hurray for readers to children, whoever you are! | <urn:uuid:e1e87ea7-dc32-4f71-8d4d-3c1d35c7dea7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://athome.readinghorizons.com/community/blog/reading-activities-harvard-professors-and-a-bedtime-story/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93833 | 179 | 2.125 | 2 |
Children who join families through adoption can have unique medical, educational, developmental or behavioral issues, and it is important for both pediatricians and families to be aware of the psychological challenges that many adopted children experience. In an American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) clinical report, “The Pediatrician’s Role in Supporting Adoptive Families,” in the October 2012 Pediatrics (published online Sept. 24), the AAP recognizes that the characteristics of adoptive families are changing.
According to a 2007 National Survey of Adopted Children, approximately 2 percent of the U.S. child population is adopted, with 38 percent of adopted children coming from the foster care system, another 38 percent through private domestic adoption, and 25 percent adopted internationally. Black children were more likely to be adopted through foster care (35 percent), while 50 percent of white children were adopted through private adoption services. The majority of children adopted internationally were of Asian descent (59 percent). In addition, blended families, families with gay or lesbian parents, and single-parent adoptions are increasingly more common.
The AAP recommends that adopted children have a comprehensive medical exam soon after placement in an adoptive home, so pediatricians can provide appropriate medical care, make referrals if needed, and provide information and resources to help parents and children adjust as an adoptive family. | <urn:uuid:3882de28-ed91-419a-a887-94bd51df4eb7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://prod.healthychildren.org/English/news/pages/AAP-Guidance-for-Supporting-Adopted-Children.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955484 | 266 | 3.203125 | 3 |
09/21/2012 - What to make of this week's dueling economic headlines?
Somehow, Philadelphia is growing both more impoverished and more competitive.
The Pew Philadelphia Research Initiative is out with a new study revealing that the suburbs, not the city, have raised residential taxes most rapidly over the last decade. Philadelphia hasn't achieved tax parity - not by a long shot - but the Pew report suggests strongly the city is moving in the right direction.
And yet the Inquirer's Alfred Lubrano reports that Philadelphia's poverty rate jumped 6.4 percent in a year, solidifying Philadelphia's status as one of the nation's poorest big cities. Citywide, the poverty rate stands at 28.4 percent. Forty percent of the city's children live in poverty. And in some North Philadelphia zip codes, the poverty rate tops 50 percent.
Read the full article, Phila.'s economic schizophrenia, on the Philly.com website. | <urn:uuid:9212217f-b105-4043-990b-1b92e7bd78c9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pewtrusts.org/news_room_detail.aspx?id=85899419317&WT.rss_ev=f&WT.rss_f=Reports%20and%20Briefs&WT.rss_a=Phila.'s%20economic%20schizophrenia&WT.z_contenttype=NewsArticle | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.909324 | 192 | 2.09375 | 2 |
Why we must vote on the public health care plan
- Protesters at a health care rally in Portland, Maine. Republicans have said that a public option would undercut the private insurance industry. AP Photo
It seems that big legislation isn’t complete until it develops a collection of catchphrases. (“Shovel ready,” everyone? “Cash for clunkers,” perhaps?) The effort to tackle the long list of failings of our health care system and the way we pay for it has been no exception. This time, we are arguing over the so-called public option.
The phrase has become something of a Rorschach test for lobbyists, commentators and legislators. To the president and to bill writers in Congress, the public option has come to mean that a government-run plan is the only way to truly keep private insurance companies honest, by guaranteeing that at least one provider is focused on something more than the bottom line.
To insurance company lobbyists and — from the sound of it — nearly every Republican, the public option is more a confirmation of their fear that the Obama administration is out to nationalize another industry. They argue that the public option would soon become the only option because it would have too many advantages in the marketplace.
Without acknowledging it, both sides seem to agree with the argument for a single-payer system. But instead of having a debate about its value, both sides have turned the idea into an odd punching bag. The right uses the term “single-payer” to condemn the White House approach, while the White House — and my colleagues in the House and Senate — quickly decry the scurrilous charge and concoct legislative language to make their public option look less, well, public.
By conceding that the public option would have less overhead, be more efficient and have the freedom to focus on health care rather than profits, opponents of the public option are in fact arguing for it. Isn’t complaining about the marketplace “advantage” of the public plan just another way of saying that people are going to want it?
The public option would prompt Americans to ask a basic question of the insurance company that is chasing their business: “What is it that you guys do, exactly?”
Insurance companies don’t really do anything to make people healthier. They need to be efficient gatekeepers on behalf of their shareholders. Profits at 10 of the country’s largest health insurance companies rose 428 percent from 2000 to 2007. So if you think that the private “option” won’t be selected by citizens, it stands to reason that they want a public one. | <urn:uuid:fb92403f-696b-483d-8161-9acc0ba83559> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/25226.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961519 | 550 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Austria and Slovakia to help Skopje move closer to EU
10.07.12 @ 09:20
BRUSSELS - Today marks the first time two EU foreign ministers will conjointly visit Macedonia. It is a signal that we want to further strengthen our friendly relations and make joint progress in areas of common interest.
Both Austria and Slovakia are strong supporters of the European integration process. We are members of the Schengen and euro zones. Naturally, we also support EU enlargement as we are convinced that a strong, competitive and prosperous Union will better address future challenges.
Our support for European and Euro-Atlantic integration, even though Austria is not a Nato member, is evident in the political domain. But more importantly, it is demonstrated through a number of activities and projects with the view to help Macedonia transform its economy and society.
Technical and development assistance, projects financed by the Instrument for pre-Accession, entrepreneurial activities and cooperation among wide segments of civil society are just some examples.
Through those activities, we are also able to share with Macedonia our own experience and best practices from participation in the European integration project as well as transformation and adaptation processes.
We do not believe in so-called enlargement fatigue. As Serbia, Croatia and Montenegro demonstrate, enlargement is on track. If aspirants deliver, so does the EU.
We are aware that a name dispute is a central and highly sensitive - but bilateral issue - between two countries. Nevertheless, we remain convinced that this issue should no longer block Macedonia's EU integration process. We believe that the time has come to take necessary steps and to move forward.
Macedonia can be proud of what it has achieved. In its last report, the European Commission reiterated its recommendation to open accession negotiations with the country.
The recent Nato summit in Chicago not only appreciated Macedonian contributions to Nato's operations and its active role in regional cooperation activities, but also confirmed that Macedonia's place is among the allies.
However, the world and the Union are evolving.
What was sufficient yesterday and today, will not be enough tomorrow. The Union, for example, is searching for solutions to financial and economic problems that it faces.
In a few years' time the Union will look and function in a different way to today.
What can one do? Keep the reform process on track. Focus on work. Try to find the best solution and implement best practices. Widen the scope of opportunities. Do not divide but rather try to find common platforms. Act in this way for the sake of people, not for the sake of few individuals, or for the sake of meeting some formal conditions.
The voices of friendly nations such as Austria and Slovakia matter in your endeavour. We want to build upon the progress already achieved in order to soon translate it into progress on the EU integration path.
Therefore, we especially welcome the EU high-level accession dialogue and commend the government for demonstrating the ownership of this dialogue, notably by adopting and implementing a roadmap in consultation with parliament and civil society.
We view the dialogue both as a bridge to accession talks and an opportunity for accelerating such talks once they have started.
Among the five key areas addressed through the dialogue, we note Macedonia's progress towards enhancing the foundations and preconditions for a functioning market economy and in meeting remaining challenges with a view to create a favourable environment for foreign investors.
For Macedonia, the Ohrid Framework Agreement remains an essential element for democracy and the rule of law.
Recent events have confirmed the importance of strengthening relations between the communities.
We therefore welcome constructive and unanimous responses by the Macedonian parliament's committee on intercommunal relations to the developments resulting from these events and its endeavours in exploring ways to achieve long-term preventive measures that, we believe, could improve the level of interethnic co-existence in Macedonia.
We have been and will continue to remain closely involved in Macedonia and in the region. In this spirit, we look forward to our joint visit to Skopje.
Michael Spindelegger is vice-chancellor and foreign minister of Austria. Miroslav Lajcak is deputy prime minister and foreign minister of Slovakia | <urn:uuid:97dc5600-faf2-4376-a693-b51b4acd2258> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://euobserver.com/opinion/116915 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942379 | 856 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Partners for Sight Foundation Renews Support for SUNY Homebound Program
The Reader’s Digest Partners for Sight Foundation has awarded the Optometric Center of New York (OCNY) a renewed $30,000 grant for its Queens and Manhattan Homebound projects. This support is critical for the continuation of homebound eye and vision care to older adults in Queens, and to providing lamps, eyeglasses and low vision devices to Manhattan homebound patients.
The Homebound Program, begun by the SUNY College of Optometry more than 25 years ago, sends optometrists into local neighborhoods in order to provide high quality patient care for people confined to their homes.
The renewed grant will offer access to essential services for people with impaired sight who are at risk for increased falls and fractures, depression, and difficulty identifying medications, which can lead to serious drug-related errors among other dangers. Homebound populations particularly at risk include older adults, people with multiple disabilities and/or other health conditions (e.g., stroke, cancer, obesity, paralysis and dementia), which can make it challenging, if not impossible, to access available health services in the community. A portion of the funds will be allocated toward the purchase of lamps to address issues in the home like proper lighting, and will also be used for eyeglasses and low vision devices.
“Proper eye care is essential for older adults with vision loss to live independently. The Reader’s Digest Partners for Sight Foundation’s role in the enhancement and expansion of these critical homebound efforts have brought a high standard of care, as well as an improved quality of life to a seriously underserved population,” said Richard Feinbloom, President of the OCNY.
Partners for Sight is dedicated to increasing the self-reliance and dignity of blind and visually impaired persons. They believe these individuals should have the tools and resources necessary to lead independent, productive lives. Through its support of non-profit organizations that share this philosophy, they are making the world easier to navigate for thousands of people, every day.
The Optometric Center of New York is the allied and endowing foundation of the State University of New York, State College of Optometry, and is the primary source of private support for its patient care facility, the University Optometric Center, providing grants for projects such as a Homebound initiative, Indigent Care Project and Scholarship Fund, among others. | <urn:uuid:b3ab984c-f7ca-4466-ad4f-cec9cdb7e4eb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sunyopt.edu/news/post/partners_for_sight_foundation_renews_support_for_suny_homebound_program | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00065-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944463 | 493 | 1.570313 | 2 |
For example, Google Drive found an image of the Android statue from the Googleplex when searching for [Android].
It also found a screenshot of Google's homepage and a Chrome logo when searching for [Google], this time using OCR technology.
"Let's say you upload a scanned image of an old newspaper clipping. You can search for a word from the text of the actual article. We also use image recognition so that if you drag and drop photos from your Grand Canyon trip into Drive, you can later search for [grand canyon] and photos of its gorges should pop up. This technology is still in its early stages, and we expect it to get better over time," explains Google. | <urn:uuid:5eec1066-8c84-4754-ba19-93d12a4ccbf6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://googlesystem.blogspot.com.au/2012/04/google-drive-goggles.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93588 | 142 | 2.1875 | 2 |
Global environmental challenges
With all the comparisons to the Exxon Valdez spill of 1989, there’s at least one arena where BP appears to be head and shoulders above its oil-spill predecessor — suffering public mockery.
They can thank the age of social media.
There’s the fake Twitter account, BPGlobalPR, posing as the public relations mouthpiece for an arrogant powerhouse. Today it tweeted its 184,466 followers: “Attention lazy fishermen! If you won’t clean our mess, we’re taking your money. Fair is fair.” They also produced this fake press conference.
YouTube, not around in 1989, is brimming with satirical videos targeting BP. There’s BP spills coffee, now at more than 9 million views. Spoof ads are also hot contenders for “viral” status: Oil is natural and the slickly produced BP Bringing People Together are two of the more popular.
A handful of oily sand grabbed from a Louisiana wetland brought back some strong memories for Earl Kingik. As a traditional hunter and whaler in Alaska’s Arctic, it reminded him of the Exxon Valdez spill. As he and other tribal leaders toured the U.S. Gulf Coast for signs of the BP oil spill, they worried that what’s happening now in Louisiana could happen if offshore drilling proceeds off the Alaskan coast.
“There’s no way to clean up an oil spill in the Arctic,” said Kingik, an Inupiat tribal member from Point Hope, Alaska. Compared to Louisiana, where the waters are relatively calm and cleanup equipment and experts are nearby, the Arctic Ocean is a hostile place for oil and gas exploration. The Arctic leaders made their pilgrimage to the Gulf Coast as part of a campaign to block planned exploratory drilling by Shell Oil in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas.
–Dan Howells is deputy campaigns director for Greenpeace USA. Any views expressed here are his own.–
On repeated trips over the last couple of weeks, Greenpeace found the first traces of oil coming ashore at Port Eads, the southernmost tip of Louisiana.
– Dennis Takahashi-Kelso is executive vice president of Ocean Conservancy and was Alaska Commissioner of Environmental Conservation at the time of the Exxon Valdez spill. Jim Ayers is vice president and senior adviser at Oceana and was executive director of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council. Any views expressed here are their own. –
As we are seeing each day, the Deepwater Horizon oil platform blowout in America’s Gulf coast is a human and environmental tragedy.
With BP’s spilled oil shimmering off the U.S. Gulf Coast, and a re-tooled bill to curb climate change expected to be unveiled this week in the U.S. Senate, what could be more appropriate than a bouquet of new environmental polls? Conducted on behalf of groups that want less fossil fuel use, the polls show hefty majorities favoring legislation to limit emissions of climate-warming carbon dioxide.
In the kind of harmonic convergence that sometimes happens inside the Capital Beltway, a new poll released on Monday by the Clean Energy Works campaign showed “overwhelming public support for comprehensive clean energy legislation,” with 61 percent of 2010 voters saying they want to limit pollution, invest in clean energy and make energy companies pay for emitting the carbon that contributes to climate change. A healthy majority — 54 percent — of respondents said they’d be more likely to re-elect a senator who votes for the bill.
–Riki Ott, PhD, has written two books on the Exxon Valdez oil spill impacts on people, communities, and wildlife, including the recently released Not One Drop: Betrayal and Courage in the Wake of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill. Any views expressed here are her own.–
I remember the words, “We’ve had the Big One,” with chilling clarity, spoken just over 21 years ago when a fellow fisherman arrived at my door in the early morning and announced that the Exxon Valdez had run aground in Alaska’s Prince William Sound and was gushing oil.
Perhaps you’ve heard about the Russian submarines patrolling international waters off the U.S. East Coast (if you haven’t, take a look at a Reuters story about it) in what feels like an echo of the old Cold War. The Pentagon’s not worried about this particular venture, but there are concerns from the U.S. energy industry about another Russian foray — this one in concert with Cuba. In rhetoric that may ring a bell with anyone who saw the 1964 satirical nuclear-fear movie “Dr. Strangelove,”
the Washington-based Institute for Energy Research is sounding the alarm about a Russian-Cuban deal to drill for offshore oil near Florida.
“Russia, Communist Cuba Advance Offshore Energy Production Miles Off Florida’s Coast,” is the title on the institute’s news release. Below that is the prescription for action: “Efforts Should Send Strong Message to Interior Dept. to Open OCS in Five-Year Plan.” OCS stands for outer continental shelf, an area that was closed to oil drilling until the Bush administration opened it last year in a largely symbolic move aimed at driving down the sky-high gasoline prices of the Summer of 2008.
There is no doubt that Californians made themselves clear on Thursday when they gathered to tell U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar that they had had enough of offshore oil drilling and were ready to turn their attention to solar, wind and other renewables.
“I think the verdict today is very clear, that drilling is inappropriate,” said Leah Zimmerman, who attended the meeting dressed in a polar bear suit. | <urn:uuid:fa84d785-6f7c-4c85-8fe2-ce93de81b206> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.reuters.com/environment/tag/offshore-drilling/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943201 | 1,212 | 2.34375 | 2 |
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Police demand DNA from men with historic convictions for being gay
Police turned up on the doorsteps of men and ordered them to hand over their DNA – for being gay.
Officers went to the homes of three men and demanded they be allowed to collect samples from them in case they were guilty of unsolved crimes.
The men were picked out because they had been convicted of the outdated offence of gross indecency.
And those who refused faced being arrested and taken to a police station for questioning.
The tactic was used by officers as part of Operation Nutmeg, the force’s move to solve old crimes by collecting DNA samples from rapists, murderers and child sex abusers in case they were responsible but never caught.
But those convicted solely of gross indecency were also grouped in the directive and received a knock on the door – despite national guidelines saying they should not be.
Two of the men were so concerned by the incident they called the Brighton LGBT Switchboard to see how it affected their legal rights.
The historic anti-homosexuality offence of gross indecency, which was famously used to convict Oscar Wilde, was repealed in 2003.
Natalie Woods, the service manager at Brighton LGBT Switchboard, said: “The fact that these men have been criminalised in the first place for consensual sex has had a distressing and adverse affect on their lives.
“To then be approached years later by the police requesting a DNA sample due to their unfair and no longer valid previous conviction can and does have a re-traumatising effect.”
Sussex Police confirmed three people had been contacted by officers but said all of the men then gave DNA “voluntarily”.
A spokesman said those contacted could have their DNA record destroyed if they requested.
But the force offered no apology for lumping the men in with rapists and child sex abusers in the search for offenders, or for any distress it may have caused.
James Ledward, the editor of Brighton-based G-Scene magazine, said it reminded him of the “dark days” when homosexuality was illegal.
He added: “The police have failed to follow the guidance. How could they get themselves in this position without questioning it?
“They should apologise to these people.”
A Sussex Police spokesman said the force was following national guidelines – despite the Association of Chief Police Officers’ guidance saying forces “should not seek to obtain a DNA sample from subjects who only have this conviction on their record”.
The spokesman added: “The Operation Nutmeg sampling process has not targeted any specific communities - we have approached all men and women who have relevant previous convictions.
“We would encourage anyone with concerns they may have a criminal record due to this repealed offence to request its removal. We can provide guidance to help with this process.
“Similarly, if any of the three men only convicted of this offence who have provided DNA samples under Operation Nutmeg would like to review their voluntary decision, we will be happy to hear from them."
In 1895 Oscar Wilde was prosecuted for gross indecency and was sentenced to two years in prison.
Thousands of other gay men were blackmailed, prosecuted, sentenced to prison, pilloried and shamed.
Alan Turing, who helped break the Enigma code, committed suicide shortly after his prosecution.
The law had been introduced to help convict people when there was not enough evidence of sodomy.
In 1967, Leo Abse introduced the Sexual Offences Bill 1967 which decriminalised consensual homosexual behaviour between men over the age of 21.
The offence of gross indecency was eventually scrapped in 2003.
Were you contacted by the police for DNA?
Call the Argus in confidence on 01273 544525.
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- Still time to join the Ribbonwalk at Petworth House | <urn:uuid:264f3607-f413-478f-b8f6-fe8b99ebf90b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/10186101.Police_demand_DNA_from_men_with_historic_convictions_for_being_gay/?action=complain&cid=11205054 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976781 | 879 | 2.015625 | 2 |
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More than 1,800 new Foreign Fulbright Fellows enter U.S. academic programs each year. Foreign students apply for Fulbright Fellowships through the Fulbright Commission/Foundation or U.S. Embassy in their home countries. The Institute of International Education (IIE) arranges academic placement for most Fulbright nominees and supervises participants during their stay in the United States.
The Fulbright U.S. Student Program is now the largest U.S. exchange program offering opportunities for students and young professionals to undertake international graduate study, advanced research, university teaching, and teaching in elementary and secondary schools worldwide. The U.S. Student Program currently awards approximately 1,500 grants annually in all fields of study, and operates in more than 155 countries worldwide.
NOTE: The Denver World Affairs Council is now a separate organization. For information on the Denver World Affairs Council speakers series, the Rocky Mountain membership program, and the Denver activities of the International Visitor Leadership Program, please visit the Denver World Affairs Council (WorldDenver) website. | <urn:uuid:42bf417f-ac18-4ab6-adad-ddf68160785d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.iie.org/EN/Offices/Denver | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.92474 | 222 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Low-graphic news index |
Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - Page updated at 11:00 a.m.
Q&A: What would it mean to raise Medicare’s eligibility age?
By Noam N. Levey
Tribune Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON – As they debate ways to control the federal deficit, President Obama and congressional Republicans both have acknowledged the need to rein in federal spending on health-care programs such as Medicare, which provides health insurance to about 50 million elderly and disabled Americans.
Among the leading proposals to slow Medicare spending — a key ingredient of a budget deal — is to raise the eligibility age for the program, an option frequently championed by conservatives.
Here are answers to some basic questions about the concept and its potential impact:
Q: How would raising the Medicare eligibility age work?
A: Most proposals envision gradually raising the eligibility age from 65 to 67 over a decade or longer. Lawmakers agreed in the 1980s to a similar phase-in to raise the Social Security eligibility age, a process that is still under way.
This idea was discussed during the 2011 budget negotiations between the president and congressional Republicans, and was championed by former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, the 2012 GOP presidential nominee.
Q: How much money would that save?
A: That depends on how such a shift is structured. Last year, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that a proposal to phase in the rise in eligibility over 13 years, starting in 2014, would save the federal government about $113 billion over the next decade.
That makes the proposal one of the single biggest money savers at a time when Medicare spending is projected to rise from $600 billion a year to more than $1 trillion a year by 2021, driven in large part by retiring baby boomers who join Medicare in coming years.
Proponents of raising the eligibility age also note that it would encourage more Americans to continue working through their mid- to late 60s, adding to economic growth, though the CBO concluded the impact of this would be modest.
Q: What would happen to these seniors?
A: If the new health-care law is fully implemented in 2014, all Americans will be guaranteed health coverage, so seniors who do not qualify for Medicare when they are 65 would still be able to get health insurance.
They would just have to purchase it on their own or get it from an employer, much like younger workers today. The law limits how much more insurers can charge older consumers, and it prohibits insurance companies from charging more to cover people with pre-existing medical conditions.
Those new protections mark a major change from today, when it can be very difficult for consumers in their 60s to get a health-insurance plan on their own.
Nonetheless, some seniors would likely end up paying more for health insurance than they do with Medicare, because private health plans are often more expensive, according to the CBO. Budget analysts also have estimated that about 5 percent would become uninsured.
Q: What would raising the eligibility age mean for everyone else?
A: It could mean higher costs.
Younger Medicare beneficiaries are typically healthier and less expensive than older people on the program. That spreads risk and helps control Medicare premiums.
If healthier beneficiaries leave the program as the eligibility age is raised, that would leave a sicker population behind, necessitating higher premiums for beneficiaries to cover the higher medical costs.
Q: Are there other proposals to control Medicare spending?
A: Yes. Some policymakers favor cutting Medicare payments to hospitals and other providers. Lawmakers have also discussed imposing higher premiums on wealthy seniors. And many Republicans would like to overhaul Medicare by giving beneficiaries vouchers to shop for private health insurance.
Low-graphic news index
Graphic-enabled home page | <urn:uuid:854382b7-c916-4e82-9e26-4c5a1bcf9089> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://seattletimes.com/text/2019878344.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00076-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962194 | 773 | 2.046875 | 2 |