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Viva Palestina in Gaza
George Galloway Describes “Desperate†Situation
JUAN GONZALEZ: A humanitarian aid convoy carrying food and medical supplies has arrived in Gaza nearly a month after it embarked from Britain. Members of the Viva Palestina convoy began passing through Egypt’s Rafah border crossing into Gaza on Wednesday. They’re expected to spend the next forty-eight hours distributing the aid supplies.
The convoy was delayed by more than a week following a dispute with the Egyptian government. Hours before the convoy’s entry into Gaza yesterday, an Egyptian soldier was shot dead during a clash with Palestinian protesters who had gathered along the border to protest the delay. At least thirty-five Palestinians were wounded. On Tuesday, Egyptian forces clashed with members of the Viva Palestina convoy, wounding more than fifty.
AMY GOODMAN: Egypt and Israel have been maintaining a strict blockade on Gaza since 2007, allowing only the most basic supplies to get through. Viva Palestina’s arrival in Gaza comes a year after the three-week Israeli assault that killed over 1,300 Palestinians.
British parliamentarian George Galloway led the Viva Palestina convoy. He joins us now on the phone right now from Gaza.
Welcome to Democracy Now!
GEORGE GALLOWAY: Thank you. Good morning.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you tell us what happened? We hear a number of people in your convoy were beaten up, were hurt, some hospitalized.
GEORGE GALLOWAY: Yes, fifty-five, in fact, were injured, some of them quite severely. Ten of them had to go to hospital. All of them entered Gaza with us, but we have a collection of broken heads and plaster casts and bloodied faces and clothes.
It’s quite a testimony to the role that the government of Egypt is playing in this siege that you have just admirably described. It was entirely unprovoked. It was an attack on unarmed civilian people. And it was very frightening and brutal. And, of course, it was of a piece with the way that the Gaza Freedom Marchers were treated in the center of Cairo in the middle of the tourist season just days before.
JUAN GONZALEZ: What kind of coverage did that attack receive in the Egyptian media? And did it have any impact on the government’s decision to then let the convoy pass?
GEORGE GALLOWAY: Well, the good news is that nobody watches the Egyptian media in Egypt. All of them watch the pan-Arabic stations like Al Jazeera, satellite stations, which have broken the censorship walls of the dictatorships in the Arab world. And so, everybody in Egypt knows what happened in that little port of Al-Arish, and the vast majority of them, I’m sure, completely disapprove of it, indeed denounce it.
The Egyptian people are entirely behind the Palestinians under siege. Unfortunately, they are ill-served by a government that is playing a quite despicable role, actually, just few yards from where I am now. The Egyptians are building what we call the wall of shame, which is being done in conjunction with the United States military, to try and choke off the tunnels, which are the only other means of bringing life into Gaza, in which sheep and chickens and petrol and gas and the other means of staying alive, other than medicine—because if I may correct something you did say in the introduction, you said we were bringing food and medicine, but we were only bringing medicine, because food is actually not allowed to come through the Rafah gate from Egypt into Gaza. Food must pass through the Israeli lines, because, of course, they say they are concerned about the safety of the food. They don’t want to cause any food poisoning in Gaza, you understand.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you describe the condition of Gaza? It’s been a year since the Israeli assault. You were there last year also trying to bring in aid.
GEORGE GALLOWAY: It’s desperate. If I give you a tiny example only to give you an example, I’m here in quite a nice hotel, except there is no food in the hotel. There’s no food for breakfast, there’s no food for lunch. Now I make that point only to illustrate that if there’s no food in the best hotel in Gaza, imagine what the people are suffering. I’ve watched with my own eyes Palestinian women and girls in the early morning mists on top of garbage heaps, combing through the garbage heaps looking for food. In an Arab Muslim country in 2009 and ’10, it’s a absolutely scandalous situation.
And, Amy, remember why and how it came about. It’s been imposed by men. It’s not a natural disaster. It’s been imposed by men to punish the people of Palestine for voting for a party in a free election that the big powers, including yours and mine and Israel, don’t like. Now, I myself would not have voted for them; I’m not a Hamas supporter. But the only people entitled to choose the leadership of the Palestinians are the Palestinians themselves.
AMY GOODMAN: Have you been meeting—as a British member of Parliament, did you meet with any Egyptian leaders? And is there an explanation of why the Gaza Freedom March was kept out—they allowed in about a hundred people, but many refused under those conditions—and why the Egyptian government is stopping these peace activists from entering Gaza?
GEORGE GALLOWAY: Well, I’m glad to say that at every stage we insisted on all of our convoy entering Gaza, and we refused to leave Al-Arish without our prisoners, six people who were being held prisoner by the Egyptian government’s forces. And we refused to accept the exclusion from Egypt of some of our convoy members, all of whom were initially excluded, but all, in the end, were let in and are with me in Gaza. So, in terms of solidarity, I’m proud of what we have achieved.
No, there’s no explanation from the Egyptian regime at all. How could there be, in a way? How do you explain to anyone that Egypt, once the heart of the Arab world, is now playing a part in building an iron wall of shame around a suffering people who are being effectively starved, they hope, into surrender, but if not into surrender, then into death?
JUAN GONZALEZ: And George Galloway, your sense of how the Palestinian leadership is regarding the policies of the United States? Now we’re a year into the Obama administration. He’s, on the one hand, attempted to reach out to the Arab world in a way the Bush administration never did, but in terms of Palestine and the conflict with Israel, there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of change.
GEORGE GALLOWAY: Well, I must tell you, Juan, as someone who, myself, on my radio shows and TV shows and so on, campaigned for the election of Barack Obama, tried very hard to persuade people on the left that they were making a kind of utopian mistake in not supporting Obama, there is a tremendous bitter disappointment here in Palestine, and indeed wider than that, at the role that President Obama is currently playing, or rather not playing. His speech in Cairo was a wonderful piece of work. It was mesmerizing. It transfixed the Arab public opinion, that finally, after the Bush years, we had some hope. But in practice, his policy—and one assumes Hillary Clinton is carrying out his policy—is exactly the same as the policy of the Bushites towards the people here. And there’s bitter, bitter disappointment about that.
AMY GOODMAN: George Galloway, we want to thank you very much for being with us, a British MP leading the Viva Palestina aid convoy. Their whole convoy did get into Gaza through Egypt, though through a great deal of conflict, with a number of the delegation beaten up. | <urn:uuid:efa5de92-c7f0-4be9-b188-35faf1d6618c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.zcommunications.org/viva-palestina-in-gaza-by-george-galloway | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971531 | 1,697 | 1.773438 | 2 |
Solving the Sri Yantra
The Quest for the Optimal Configuration
If you have ever attempted to draw this figure you already know that it is a lot more difficult to draw than you might have thought at first. The reason for this is mainly because the triangles are interconnected. If you move one, you need to move all the others so that they will intersect properly. With enough time or with the aid of computers and mathematics it is possible to draw a figure where the intersections match perfectly.
But it turns out that this is not enough to fully define the figure. This criteria in itself is not enough to produce a unique figure. This is the reason why there are so many different versions of the Sri Yantra in circulation.
Surprisingly the methods that we have found in the Indian literature are far from satisfactory. They often lead to very imprecise and crude figures. They only provide a rough idea of what the figure should look like. Contemporary methods can lead to more precise figures but they are all slightly or greatly different.
This begs the question: what is the proper configuration of the Sri Yantra? The goal of this article is to investigate the geometry of the Sri Yantra and see if we can find out more about this fascinating sacred figure. Join us on the quest for the optimal Sri Yantra.
Questions that will be answered in this article:
The Sri Yantra is composed of a central figure that is surrounded by two circular rows of petals and then by a rectangular enclosure called the bhupura. In this study we will be focusing mainly on the central figure which is composed of nine overlapping triangles and a bindu point. Four of the triangles point up, the other five point down. In the most popular configuration the two biggest triangles (green triangles in figure 1) touch the outer circle on all three points. In some other versions there are either one or two more triangles that touch the outer circle (See figure 5).
When looking at the figure we notice that there is a high degree of interconnectedness between the nine triangles. This the main reason why it is so difficult to draw. This means that every triangle is connected to one or more of the other triangles via common points. Changing the location of one of the triangle usually requires changing the size and position of many other triangles.
Figure 2 shows where the triple intersection points are located. These are the points that lock together the triangles. You can't move one without also moving the others.
Notice also that the two biggest triangles are touching the outside circle on three points and that the apex of every triangle is connected to the base of another triangle.
As with everything else there is a tendency to simplify and/or distort things , so that over time knowledge gets eroded. In the case of the Sri Yantra this has led to what some call the "false Sri Yantra". It's a version that is so far from the original figure that it is missing some of the most basic characteristic of a Sri Yantra. An example of such a false Sri Yantra is shown in figure 3. Here we see that the apex of most triangle is not connected with the base of another triangle as indicated by the red arrows. This reduces greatly the difficulty of drawing the figure and leads to something that looks like a Sri Yantra but isn't.
The obvious challenge when drawing a Sri Yantra is to achieve near perfect concurrency. Meaning that all the triple intersection meet at the same point rather than crisscrossing.
Figure 4 shows a detail of a Sri Yantra with the error circled in red. The lines should intersect at the same point but instead they crisscross each other and form an extraneous triangle. Using the right sequence to draw the Sri Yantra will ensure that there will be errors only in two of the triple intersections.
Very few Sri Yantras achieve perfect concurrency. Mathematically speaking it is not possible. But practically speaking a satisfactory level of precision can be achieved. It is difficult to achieve this when doing the drawing by hand but not impossible. Often the lines are made thicker to hide the errors at the intersections. A good level of accuracy can be achieved with a pencil and ruler and a lot of patience. A better accuracy can be achieved with a drawing program such as AutoCAD or Visio. The greatest amount of accuracy will be achieved by using a mathematical program such as Mathematica to compute the figure.
It would seem at this point that all one needs to do is to make sure that the lines match precisely at the triple intersections (concurrency) and our job is done. Not so!
Why are there so many different versions of the Sri Yantra out there? Figure 5 shows a few examples of Sri Yantras. In these examples the differences are obvious. The differences are usually more subtle and require closer examination. Like snow flakes there seems to be an infinite number of different Sri Yantras. Why is that? How can that be? Isn't there a precise and complete method that would tell us how this famous sacred figure should be drawn? If there is one we haven't found it yet.
The reason is simple. The criteria of concurrency (precise intersections) is not enough to fully define the Sri Yantra. Over time people have assumed that being able to produce a figure where the lines meet precisely at the intersections will produce a unique figure. This has lead to the current multiplicity of figures available.
Let us take the simple example of drawing a triangle. If the only criteria required is that the figure must have three sides then you can draw a infinite number of different triangles with three sides. If on the other hand you are asked to draw a triangle where the sides are of equal length then there is only one way to draw such a triangle (not taking size into account).
The Sri Yantra is a geometry with five degrees of freedom, which means that up to five different criterion can be used to define it. This is why we have to decide on the location of five lines when drawing the figure. Five degrees of freedom is not a lot considering that there is a total of nine triangles. This is because of the high degree of interconnectedness between the triangles. This effectively limits the possibilities and variations that can be achieved.
Lets now take a look at the bindu point; the small point located in the central triangle. It should be located in the center of the innermost triangle. This can be achieved precisely by placing the bindu at the center of a circle that fits inside this triangle (see figure 9). This is known in mathematics as the incenter of a triangle.
To achieve a perfectly centered figure however, the bindu should also be located at the center of the outer circle. This is illustrated in figure 6. The red cross shows where the center of the outer circle is located. The small red circle shows where the center of the innermost triangle is. As we can see in this figure they coincide. This is not the case for most Sri Yantras.
Figure 7 shows an example of a Sri Yantra where the center of the innermost triangle doesn't match perfectly with the center of the outer circle. The green dot (center of the innermost triangle) is not aligned with the center of the red cross (center of the outer circle).
The equilateral triangle is a perfect and minimal structure. It is the simplest, strongest and most fundamental structure in geometry and computer graphics. It has the highest degree of tensegrity for a minimum amount of structural elements. That is why it is so prevalent in the structural designs created by Buckminster Fuller. This is also why the geodesic dome, a spherical structure composed of small triangles is the only man-made structure that becomes proportionally stronger as it increases in size.
The Sri Yantra symbolizes, among other things the unfoldment of creation. The bindu represents the unmanifest, the silent state. The next level in the expression of the Universe is represented by the innermost triangle. This level represents the trinity of rishi, devata, chanda, or the observer, the process of observation and the object being observed. At this point the symmetry of creation is still intact and will be broken when it reaches the next level which represent the grosser aspects of the relative.
This reflects the unfoldment from unity to trinity as expounded in the Vedic literature. According to the Veda the Universe becomes manifest when unbounded awareness becomes aware of itself. The spark of self awareness ignites creation. At this point Unity divides into the trinity of rishi (the observer), devata (process of knowing) and chanda (the object of perception). The same idea is also found in the bible as the principle of the holy trinity.
The central triangle is the central lens of the Sri Yantra. If as some suggest, this pattern is capable of emitting a significant amount of subtle energy, the importance of having a well balanced and centered figure becomes obvious.
For these reasons we believe that the central triangle should be equilateral in an optimal Sri Yantra configuration. For this to happen the highest down pointing primary triangle must have an angle of 60 degrees (see figure 9 and 11).
Now lets see if we can find ways to confirm the idea that we are getting closer to a perfectly balanced configuration. Another measure of overall balance of a structure is the center of mass. This is the point in the geometry where it would balance if it was a solid object.
Figure 10 shows a detail view of the central triangle of three different Sri Yantras. The left figure shows a configuration where only concurrency is achieved. In this case the bindu (red dot), the center of the outer circle (green dot) and the center of mass (blue dot) are not aligned.
The central figure shows a Sri Yantra that achieves concurrency and concentricity. As a result the bindu (red) and the center of the outer circle (green) overlap nicely. The center of mass still doesn't overlap however.
On the right we see that for a figure drawn with the three criterion that we have suggested (concurrency, concentricity and equilateral central triangle), the three centers overlap and we have a perfectly centered and balanced figure.
The Sringeri temple in India claims to have the oldest Sri Yantra. This temple is one of the four pillars founded by none other than Shankara during the first millennium. Assuming that older Sri Yantras are closer to the original configuration lets see how this Sri Yantra compares to our optimal version. Obviously it is not possible to be certain that it is the oldest Sri Yantra on Earth but it is certainly older than most of the versions available. The shape of the petals and the bhupura are good indicators that it is a old Sri Yantra configuration.
Figure 11 shows an alleged picture of this Sri Yantra and a diagram that was drawn from the picture. Taking into account the distortions caused by the camera and printing we can see that the figure has many of the same characteristics as our optimal figure. The bindu is well centered and more importantly the centermost triangle has an angle very close to 60 degrees.
Since the Sri Yantra is based on triangles it is very appropriate that there are currently three main ways to represent this figure. The first and probably the most common is the plane form, which is what we have been looking at so far. More pictures of the plane form can be seen here.
The second is the pyramidal form called Meru in India. Mount Meru is a mythical mountain. So named because of the mountain shape of the figure. More pictures of pyramidal Sri Yantras can be seen here.
The third and rarest form is the spherical form or Kurma. Kurma was the second incarnation of Vishnu, the turtle incarnation. This refers to the similarity between this form and the shell of a turtle. It is interesting to note that there seems to be some confusion with the use of these two terms. The pyramidal form is often wrongly referred to as Kurma. This form is the rarest because of the extremely high level of difficulty involved in generating it. We have not yet found a correct physical representation of a spherical Sri Yantra. There are many attempts but very few have succeeded. Pictures of spherical Sri Yantras can be seen here.
As we have mentioned earlier, drawing a Sri Yantra with minimal errors at the intersections is in itself a good challenge. If on top of that we add the two additional criterion that we have proposed (concentricity, and equilateral inner triangle) then it would probably take a lifetime of trials and errors to achieve such a figure. But thanks to computers and mathematics this can be achieved in the blink of an eye. To achieve this result however, the figure needs to be converted into a simultaneous equation and then solved for the required constraints. For more on this topic take a look at the excellent paper from C.S. Rao. Once this is done we can then shape the figure according to the different criterion described above to obtain an optimal figure where the errors at the intersections are minimal, the figure is perfectly centered and the innermost triangle is equilateral. | <urn:uuid:c549b090-81ab-4dec-984e-7cf3cf7f97d3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sriyantraresearch.com/Optimal/optimal_sri_yantra.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955697 | 2,733 | 2.59375 | 3 |
ECO Regular Monitoring of Trucks in Partnership with IRU NELTI-3 (ECO RMT/NELTI-3)
NELTI – 3: Truck monitoring on the ECO Region
Following the success of the joint ECO-IRU Silk Road Truck Caravan in 2010, aiming to promote and further facilitate trade by international road transport sector between member States of the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO), the IRU launched the third phase of NELTI (NELTI-3) in June 2011with ECO Regular Monitoring of Trucks (ECO-RMT), to identify the main impediments and non-physical barriers to international road transport within the ECO region and help governments implement the appropriate UN multilateral instruments to stimulate economic growth by facilitating trade and international road transport.
NELTI-3/ECO-RMT was launched on 29 June 2011 in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, on the occasion of the 8th Meeting of the Ministers of Transport and Communications of the ECO Member States, who assembled to discuss how to promote economic cooperation and hence trade throughout the ECO region by facilitating international road transport.
This joint ECO RMT/NELTI-3 project will allow the collection and analysis of data on the current conditions of international road transport faced by professional truck drivers during international commercial cargo deliveries in the ECO region through special questionnaires and logbooks to be filled by drivers of 27 participating companies from 8 ECO Member States, (Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Iran, Tajikistan, Turkey and Turkmenistan) applying the UNESCAP Time-Distance-Cost methodology.
The ECO RMT/NELTI-3 project is the continuation of the ECO-IRU Silk Road Truck Caravan 2010 and IRU’s NELTI 1 and 2, whose successful results - confirming road trade links between Europe and Asia as an economically-attractive and viable alternative to traditional, saturated maritime trading routes - were acknowledged by Heads of ECO Member States who called upon all the relevant parties to implement the regular runs of the truck caravans in the ECO region in 2011. The project shall continue until 31st January 2012, with a possible subsequent extension for 24 months.
ECO Deputy Secretary General, Altaf Asghar, stressed, “Reliable, factual information about the conditions of international road transport in the ECO region is crucial to identify real impediments and appropriate solutions to be implemented in order to effectively remove or reduce physical and non-physical barriers to international road transport. This is the aim of the ECO Regular Monitoring of Trucks, which will collect invaluable data on border waiting times, customs procedures, controls and roadside checks as well as existing transport infrastructure along major transport routes in our region.”
IRU Secretary General, Martin Marmy, concluded, “once we receive the final results of the ECO Regular Monitoring of Trucks, the IRU is confident that the ECO Member States, under the guidance of the ECO Secretariat, will be able to implement the required measures to effectively promote and further facilitate trade and international road transport in the ECO Member States.” | <urn:uuid:2a1ee64a-fd55-42d5-a183-fa3ce0b5c45e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.iru-nelti.org/index/en_nelti3_index | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00045-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.920351 | 642 | 1.5 | 2 |
MOUNT VERNON — Wednesday was not a usual day in Knox Community Hospital’s emergency department. A nurse was taken hostage inside a triage room. While patients at the ER were being evacuated, a hazardous materials team responded to a situation of people exposed to gasoline from a nearby automobile crash. The scenario was part of a mock disaster drill planned to give hospital personnel some on-the-job disaster training.
“We always want to be disaster-preparedness ready,” said Prema Samhat, director of marketing, community relations and development at KCH. “We want our people to know what their roles and responsibilities are. First and foremost, it’s patient safety ... then employee safety and facility safety.”
A Code Silver alert, which refers to a weapon involved, was issued at the hospital when the hostage situation occurred at the triage room. ER personnel quickly contacted the police department and 9-1-1 with an Emergency Services Unit team arriving quickly to handle the situation.
“We actually did not have a weapon in sight because we didn’t want to panic anyone,” said Dr. Judy Schwartz, vice president of medical affairs. The source of how the ER personnel discovered the hostage situation would not be revealed as to keep their resources confidential.
For the rest of the story
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Contact Alan ReedEmail
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. | <urn:uuid:e8e203db-9cce-468d-b78a-c46f250f7d24> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mountvernonnews.com/local/12/10/04/article.php?id=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957825 | 355 | 1.695313 | 2 |
This article was originally distributed via PRWeb. PRWeb, WorldNow and this Site make no warranties or representations in connection therewith.
SOURCE: American Traveler Staffing
Nurse staffing agency American Traveler emphasizes the need for culturally-sensitive nurses in areas of the country prone to diversity. Twenty-year nurse study positions traveling nurses as more ethnically and racially diverse and capable of treating disparate patient populations.
Boca Raton, FL (PRWEB) November 14, 2012
For hospitals and health systems in parts of the country where nurses aren’t as plentiful, travel nursing or contract staff nurses may be the answer, according to a recent study* released by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Authors examined registered nurse (RN) data from years 1984 to 2008 to find that RNs contracted through nurse staffing agencies have education levels similar to permanent nurse staff and are more ethnically and racially diverse.
Though on average traveling nurses and other short-term RNs possess slightly less experience than permanent nurses – 15 years vs. 18 years respectively, reports the study, contract nurses are just as capable of working across multiple healthcare settings and in some cases better equipped to deliver competent care to diverse patient populations. In particular to the 30 million plus Americans added to insurance roles as the nation’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act becomes reality.
Because travel nurses are more likely than permanent nurses to hold licenses in multiple U.S. States, they become valued assets for healthcare employers whose local labor pools cannot accommodate the needs of local patients. During the period surveyed, between 4.4 percent and 13.7 percent of supplemental nurses worked in states in which they didn’t reside. The study also suggests that healthcare facilities that utilize experienced travel nurses to supplement their permanent nursing staff could be better prepared to respond to the regional shifts that occur with nursing shortages.
“Whereas travel nurses and contract RNs are ideal for addressing nurse events such as seasonal fluctuations in patient volume, maternity leaves, and short-term disability; it is the overall acute nursing shortage that has created the greatest demand for our healthcare staffing services,” said Robert L. Bok, C.E.O. of nurse staffing agency, American Traveler Staffing Professionals.
Bok said as more under-served patient populations gain access to quality healthcare, hospitals will need to respond appropriately by on-boarding nurses who can communicate effectively with culturally diverse groups – something traveling nurses are accustomed to.
“Take for instance an RN that has worked multiple assignments in Florida, a state that is home to hundreds of cultures from around the world. This travel nurse is an asset to any hospital located in and around coastal cities, ethnic communities and tourist centers. The ability to quickly adapt and be culturally sensitive are traits inherent to experienced nurse travelers,” Bok said.
States experiencing the highest nurse shortages in 2012 include those known for disparate ethnic groups, such as California, Florida, Texas, New York and New Jersey. The fast growing number of baby boomers in these states combined with fewer nurses entering the workforce has created a demand for healthcare that continues to outpace the number of available RNs.
“Travel nurses for some hospitals are not the ultimate answer to solving nurse shortage problems- especially in the long-term. They are, however, extremely valuable as healthcare providers adapt to new healthcare laws and look for ways to close patient care gaps as more ethnically diverse patients enter the system,” Bok said.
About American Traveler
The Joint Commission-certified American Traveler specializes in short-term, travel nursing and permanent positions for RNs, Physical Therapists, OTs, SLPs and other allied health professionals. American Traveler places these professionals in rewarding positions across the nation, from world-renowned university teaching hospitals to rural medical facilities. In addition, American Traveler is proud to offer a full array of workforce management software to hospitals that includes Internal Staffing, Vendor Staffing, and Contingent Workforce Management. Our solutions encompass all aspects of supplemental staffing that optimize hospitals' valuable human resources, savings of significant capital, and ease the burdens of maintaining adequate staffing levels.
For the original version on PRWeb visit: http://www.prweb.com/releases/prwebtravel-nurses/regional-nursing-shortage/prweb10129679.htm
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The Finnish Federation of the Visually Impaired and the Guide Dog School acted contrary to the law when they temporarily took away a guide dog from visually impaired persons without the views of the dogs' users having been heard.
Ombudsman Petri Jääskeläinen investigated two complaints in which he was asked to examine the actions of the Guide Dog School run by the Finnish Federation of the Visually Impaired and of the Guide Dog Committee.
Both complainants had had their guide dogs taken away temporarily, because they were suspected of having illtreated the animals. The complainants' views were not heard before their dogs were taken away. Both had to do without a dog for around four months. The suspicions of illtreatment of the animals were subsequently found to be baseless.
The Ombudsman took the view that the Guide Dog School contravened the Administrative Procedure Act when it failed to give the guide dog users an opportunity to present their point of view in the matter.
The action of the Finnish Federation of the Visually Impaired likewise came in for criticism. The Federation did not inform hospital districts of the changes that had taken place in the use of guide dogs. Thus the Helsinki and Uusimaa Hospital District and the Pirkanmaa Hospital District were not informed that the complainants did not have guide dogs at their disposal, and consequently could not take steps to arrange other aids as a substitute.
In the Ombudsman's view, the principle of protection of trust that is enshrined in the Administrative Procedure Act and the provision requiring authorities to cooperate with each other would have presupposed notification being made.
Shortcomings in agreements
The agreements between the Finnish Federation of the Visually Impaired and the hospital districts covering purchased services do not mention a guide dog being temporarily taken away or the grounds on which this can be done. There is likewise nothing in the contracts about how guide dog users' right to alternative auxiliary aids can be safeguarded when they do not have a guide dog at their disposal.
The Ombudsman believes that the agreements should be complemented in this respect. That would ensure implementation of guide dog users' constitutional right to adequate health services also when they temporarily do not have a guide dog at their disposal.
The Guide Dog Committee had placed the use of the other complainant?s dog temporarily under special observation. The Ombudsman?s investigation of the matter failed to elicit clarity as to what was meant by this.
The Ombudsman noted on a general level with respect to the matter that under the Constitution everyone's private life is safeguarded. This fundamental right means that individuals are entitled to lead their own lives without authorities or other external instances arbitrarily or groundlessly intervening in it.
The Ombudsman informed the Finnish Federation of the Visually Impaired of his view. He sent copies of his decision, for information, to the hospital districts in question and to the National Supervisory Authority for Welfare and Health, which was requested to inform also the other hospital districts of his stance.
Hospital districts buy guide dog services, which are included in medical rehabilitation auxiliary aids services, from the Finnish Federation of the Visually Impaired. The Federation produces these services on the basis of an agreement and runs the Guide Dog School, the activities of which are overseen by the Guide Dog Committee. The Finnish Federation of the Visually Impaired is performing a public task when it takes care of guide dog services.
Additional info will be provided by Senior Legal Adviser Kaija Tanttinen-Laakkonen tel. +358 (0)9 432 3377. | <urn:uuid:0266f520-e7ea-4d26-a44e-89d58e84115d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.oikeusasiamies.fi/Resource.phx/pubman/templates/5.htx?id=785 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00051-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965442 | 726 | 1.984375 | 2 |
In advance of next week’s third and final presidential debate, the Pew Research Center is out with the results of a new foreign policy poll. Pew finds Americans split on whether President Obama or Governor Romney would fare better in foreign affairs, skeptical of where things are headed in the Middle East and Afghanistan, and open (at least in theory) to talking tough to China on trade.
When it comes to who the public thinks will fare better on foreign policy, Obama barely edges out Romney. As the chart below shows, the public gives Obama a slight edge on “making wise decisions about foreign policy,” handling Iran’s nuclear program, and dealing with political instability in the Middle East. Romney has a nine-point edge when it comes to handling trade with China.
The bad news for Obama in these numbers is that he had a fifteen-point lead over Romney on foreign policy just a month ago. Whether it’s because of events in Syria, the administration’s continually changing story about the Benghazi attack, Obama’s poor performance in the first debate, or some combination, the trend is not the president’s friend. But that can change with one debate.
Here are other poll highlights:
- Americans have become more skeptical about the Middle East. In April 2011, 42 percent of Americans thought that Arabs would benefit from the Arab Spring. Today only 25 percent do; 57 percent currently think that the Arab Spring will not produce lasting improvements in the region.
- Americans would take “more stability and less democracy” in the Middle East over “less stability and more democracy” by a margin of 54 to 30 percent. Americans also prefer to be “less involved” as opposed to “more involved” in political change in the Middle East by a margin of 63 to 23 percent.
- Support for taking “a firm stand” with Iran over its nuclear program has inched up, rising from 50 percent in Pew’s January poll to 56 percent today, while sentiment about avoiding a military conflict with Iran dropped from 41 percent to 35 percent.
- Americans are all over the map when it comes to support for Israel. A plurality of 41 percent says things are just about right, 25 percent say that the United States is not supportive enough, and 22 percent say it is too supportive.
- Support for “getting tougher” with China is up, with 49 percent embracing this position as compared to 40 percent back in March.
- The public still wants out of Afghanistan. Six-in-ten Americans say U.S. troops should be removed as soon as possible. Democrats are the most eager to hit the exits (73 percent), Republicans the least enthusiastic (48 percent), and independents in between (58 percent).
Of course, standard polling caveats apply in spades when it comes to foreign policy. Question wording is a particular problem. Support for a showdown with Iran would likely be significantly lower if Pew had asked whether the public favored war with Iran to keep it from going nuclear. Likewise, the public often lacks knowledge and context for evaluating foreign policy questions. So if Pew had asked respondents whether they supported getting tougher with China even if Beijing retaliated and some American workers lost their jobs as a result, support for the get tough option undoubtedly would have sagged.
That said, you can bet dollars to donuts that both campaigns are poring through the Pew poll and plenty of others like it as they prep their candidates for Monday night’s debate. The political incentive for both candidates looks to be to talk tough and tout American leadership but to steer clear of anything that suggests they are eager to plunge the United States into more conflicts overseas. | <urn:uuid:d36d9157-f31d-4b67-9131-1ed326665093> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.cfr.org/lindsay/2012/10/18/new-pew-poll-finds-the-public-split-on-the-candidates-and-skeptical-about-the-middle-east/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957888 | 759 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Gender Equality in Croatia
Flag of Croatia
|Population (in Mil.)||4.40|
|Gross Domestic Product (In USD Billions - WB)||62.49|
|Sex Ratio (m/f)||0.93|
|Life Expectancy Ratio (f/m)||1.099|
|Income Ratio (f/m)||0.67|
|Literacy Ratio (f/m)||0.98|
|Tertiary Enrolment Ratio (f/m)||1.19|
|Women in Parliament (in %)||21.7|
|Human Development Index||46/169|
|Social Institutions and Gender Index||- /86|
|Gender Inequality Index||30/138|
|Gender Equity Index||15/157|
|Women’s Economic Opportunity Index||43/113|
|Global Gender Gap Index||53/134|
|More information on variables|
Croatia held its first multiparty elections in 1990 as part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and then it gained its independence from Yugoslavia in 1991. However, fighting continued for the next four years, until all Serb armies finally left the country. Despite significant progress on the economic front, organised crime and mafia-linked violence continue to be a major concern in the country. With regards to respect towards minorities, there has been significant progress since 1999, especially via the media. At the end of 2009, there were about 80,000 Croatian Serbs that remained registered as refugees in the region, and the Roma population also continues to face discrimination. Croatia is classed by the World Bank as a high income country.
Men and women in Croatia are equal before the law in all respects. The constitution of Croatia was amended in 2001 to include gender equality among the highest values of the constitutional order. Furthermore, the Parliament has enacted several laws to protect women against discrimination and effectively set out a policy of equal opportunities for men and women. However, systematic implementation of these laws is weak. For example, women in Croatia are paid significantly less than men with similar qualifications. Furthermore, concerns remain regarding violence against women, but the government is working to reduce its prevalence throughout the country.
Croatia ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 1992, and the Optional Protocol on violence against women in 2001. The country is a member of the Council of Europe and ratified the European Convention on Human Rights in 1997.
The country’s Human Development Index (HDI) score is 0.796, placing it in 46th place out of a total of 187 countries. The Gender Inequality Index is 0.170, placing it at 27 out of 146 countries. Croatia’s 2011 Global Gender Gap Index ranking is 0.701, placing it in 50th place (out of 135 countries).
Discriminatory Family Code
The minimum legal age for marriage is 18 years for both men and women, and both spouses must give their free consent before being married. Under exceptional circumstances, the courts can authorise marriage from the age of 16 years. Statistics show that the average age of marriage has been increasing since 1980; as of 2000 it had risen to 25.1 years. In fact, early marriage appears to be infrequent: a 2004 United Nations report estimated that only 2% of girls between 15 and 19 years of age were married, divorced or widowed. Weddings can be civil or religious ceremonies, and both have the same legal recognition.
The Criminal Code of Croatia prohibits bigamy. Under Croatia’s marriage laws, mothers and fathers share parental authority and must mutually support each other. They have equal rights in making family decisions, including where to live and work, and equal responsibility for educating their children. In the event of divorce, parents remain equally responsible for raising their children. The law helps to protect divorced women by stipulating that each spouse automatically receives half the property acquired during the marriage.
Croatian women and men have the same inheritance rights.
Restricted Physical Integrity
Croatia recently developed a legal framework to penalise domestic violence notably with the adoption of the Act on Protection against Family Violence in 2003 and of a series of guidelines and rules of procedure to implement it. A 2000 amendment to the Criminal Code restored domestic violence as a category to the list of crimes that can be prosecuted automatically by the State Attorney without the victim first filing a complaint. According to a legal definition established in 1999, the crime is punishable by three months to three years in prison. Several related measures have also been implemented, including better protection for the victim and psycho-social rehabilitation for the perpetrator, who is forbidden to approach the victim. Before these laws were passed, police had no legal authority on which to arrest offenders and their intervention was limited to protecting victims. However there are still issues with police who fail to pursue cases aggressively unless evidence of serious bodily harm is present. NGO groups note that Croatia has a small number of shelters for victims of domestic violence compared to demand, and that no broad-based network of support exists. Further, domestic violence is also believed to be underreported; legal fees can be expensive for court representation for women who wish to pursue their cases.
Rape, including spousal rape, is a crime in Croatia, and is punishable by three to ten years in prison; the sentence increases to 15 years if the victim is a minor or if she dies. NGOs in Croatia say many women who are subjected to rape or other forms of sexual violence abandon the idea of pressing charges for fear of social stigma or because they feel the police, health and judicial authorities lack experience in dealing with such cases. These NGOs also criticise some courts for passing sentences that are too lenient. Sexual harassment, including in the workplace, is prohibited by law in Croatia.
Like in the other conflicts linked to the breakup of former Yugoslavia, Croatia faced serious human rights violations such as widespread use of sexual violence against both genders to terrorise and displace populations. Finally, trafficking in women for the purpose of prostitution continues to be a problem and Croatia is a transit country for women trafficked to Western Europe. There is no evidence to suggest that female genital mutilation is practised in Croatia.
In terms of reproductive rights, although contraceptives are widely available in Croatia, to date there are no reliable statistics on contraceptive usage. There are no legal restrictions with regards to abortion in Croatia.
The 2010 female-to-male ratio for primary school enrollment is 0.99 and for secondary school enrollment it is 1.02. Croatia has thus largely achieved parity, however there is persistent discrimination in access to education for sub-national populations, especially between ethnic groups: the Roma children are excluded from the school system and ethnic Serbs do not benefit from the same level of access or quality of education as Croatians.
The male/female sex ratio for the total population in 2012 is 0.93.
There is no evidence to suggest that Croatia is a country of concern in relation to missing women.
Restricted Resources and Entitlements
There are no restrictions on their access to land and their access to property other than land. Furthermore, men and women have the same rights to enter into contracts. Married women retain full ownership of property they acquired before marriage or received through inheritance or as a gift, and have the right to manage this property independently.
Women in Croatia have access to bank loans on the same terms as men.
Restricted Civil Liberties
Freedom of expression and the press is protected under the Croatian Constitution, but in practice, pressure from political interests makes it difficult for prominent journalists to thrive. The constitution and law also provide for freedom of religion, association and assembly, and the government generally respects this right in practice.
Following elections in November 2007, 36 women hold (23.5 %) seats in Croatia’s unicameral national parliament are held by women. Further, women must represent at least 40% of candidate lists for each political party at all levels, although in practice it remains unclear whether the prescribed fines are enough to deter violations. Women have attained higher political office in Croatia, including the current prime minister and the President of the Constitutional Court, and several members of the Cabinet and Supreme Court.
Pregnant women in Croatia are entitled to 45 days of paid maternity leave before the birth of a child, with benefits paid at 100% of wages to that point, and at a fixed sum thereafter up to one year after the birth of the child. Croatian women also have extensive protections against unjust termination, discrimination, and unhealthy or dangerous work.
- ↑ Freedom House (2010) Freedom in the World Country Reports: Croatia, online edition, http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=22&country=7806&year=2010 (accessed 19 October 2011)
- ↑ Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) (2011) World Factbook: Croatia, online edition, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/hr.html (accessed 19 October 2011)
- ↑ BBC News (2011), Croatia country profile, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/country_profiles/1097128.stm (accessed 19 October 2011)
- ↑ Freedom House (2010)
- ↑ World Bank (n.d.) Data: Croatia, http://data.worldbank.org/country/croatia (accessed 19 October 2011)
- ↑ Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) (2003), Consideration of Reports Submitted by States Parties Under Article 18 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women: Croatia, Combined Second and Third Periodic Reports of States Parties, CEDAW, New York, NY p. 56.
- ↑ Article 3 of the Constitution of The Republic of Croatia
- ↑ Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) (2005) ‘Consideration of reports submitted by States Parties under article 18 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women Combined initial, second and third periodic report of States Parties Croatia, CEDAW/C/TJK/1-3, CEDAW, New York
- ↑ Republic of Croatian Gender Equality Act of July 2003; The General Law on Elimination of Discrimination, came into force January 2009
- ↑ Freedom House (2010)
- ↑ CEDAW (2005), p 2.
- ↑ United Nations Treaty Collection (UNTC) (2010): Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination Against Women, countries ratified. CEDAW: http://treaties.un.org/Pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=TREATY&mtdsg_no=IV-8&chapter=4&lang=en (accessed 19 October 2011); Optional Protocol: http://treaties.un.org/Pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=TREATY&mtdsg_no=IV-8-b&chapter=4&lang=en (accessed 19 October 2011)
- ↑ information: Croatia, http://human-rights-convention.org/impact-of-the-european-convention-on-human-rights/ (accessed 19 October 2011)
- ↑ United Nations Development Programme (2011) Human Development Report 2011, available at http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/HDR_2011_EN_Complete.pdf (accessed 29 February 2012), p.127
- ↑ United Nations Development Programme (2011) p.139
- ↑ World Economic Forum (2011) The Global Gender Gap Report 2011, available at http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GenderGap_Report_2011.pdf (accessed 2 March 2012)
- ↑ Article 26 of the Family Law, adopted July 2003; CEDAW (Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women) (1995), Consideration of Reports Submitted by States Parties Under Article 18 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women: Croatia, Initial Periodic Report of States Parties, CEDAW, New York, NY, p. 84; CEDAW 2003, p. 57.
- ↑ CEDAW (2003), p. 57.
- ↑ UN (United Nations) (2004), World Fertility Report 2003, UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, New York, NY.
- ↑ CEDAW (2003), pp. 56-57.
- ↑ Article 206, Criminal Code of Croatia.
- ↑ Article 32 of the Family Law; CEDAW (2003), pp. 57-58.
- ↑ Articles 32-24 of the Family Law; CEDAW (2003), pp. 57-59.
- ↑ CEDAW (2003), p. 58.
- ↑ Article 248 of the Family Law; CEDAW (2003), p. 59,
- ↑ Article 252 of the Family Law’ CEDAW (2003), p. 59.
- ↑ United Nations Division for the Advancement of Women (2009) The United Nations Secretary-General’s database on violence against women, Croatia Country page, http://webapps01.un.org/vawdatabase/countryInd.action?countryId=388 (accessed June 2010)
- ↑ ECOSOC (United Nations Economic and Social Council) (2003), Integration of the Human Rights of Women and the Gender Perspective: Violence Against Women: Addendum 1: International, regional and national development in the area of violence against women, 1994-2003, E/CN.4//2003/75/Add.1, New York, NY pp. 351-352.
- ↑ Article 215.a of the Criminal Code as amended in 2000; CEDAW 2003, pp. 8-9.
- ↑ Article 71 of the Criminal Code; Article 90 of the Criminal Procedure Act as amended by the Law on Amendments to the Criminal Procedure Act, adopted May 2002; CEDAW 2003, pp. 9-10.
- ↑ CEDAW (2003), p. 12.
- ↑ Freedom House (2010)
- ↑ B.a.Be. (Be active. Be emancipated), (2004), NGO Report to Committee on Elimination of Discrimination against Women on the Occasion of Second and Third Report of Republic of Croatia, B.a.Be: Zagreb, Croatia, NGO Report to Committee on Elimination of Discrimination against Women on the Occasion of Second and Third Report of Republic of Croatia, pp. 6-9.
- ↑ U.S. State Department (2010), 2009 Country Report on Human Rights Practices: Croatia; CEDAW (2003), p. 8.
- ↑ Women’s Human Rights Group (2004), NGO Report To Committee of Discrimination against Women on the Occasion of Second and Third Report of Republic of Croatia, pp. 7-8; State Dept. 2010; ECOSOC (2003), pp. 353-354.
- ↑ Law on Gender Equality; CEDAW (2003), p. 11; ECOSOC (2003), p. 352.
- ↑ Bastick, M., Grimm, K. and Kunz, R. (2007), Sexual Violence in Armed Conflict: Global Overview and Implications for the Security Sector, Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces, Geneva, Switzerland, p.119: http://www.dcaf.ch/Publications/Publication-Detail/?id=43991&lng=en (accessed 19 October 2011)
- ↑ Freedom House (2010)
- ↑ State Dept. 2010.
- ↑ UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (2011), World Abortion Policies 2011, available online: http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/2011abortion/2011abortionwallchart.html (accessed 19 October 2011)
- ↑ World Economic Forum (2010) ‘The Global Gender Gap Report’, http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GenderGap_Report_2010.pdf (accessed 20 October 2011)
- ↑ UNICEF (n.d.), ‘Country profile: Education in Croatia’, available online, http://www.unicef.org/ceecis/Croatia.pdf (accessed 20 October 2011)
- ↑ Central Intelligence Agency (2012) The World Fact Book: Sex Ratio, available at https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2018.html, accessed 29 February 2012.
- ↑ Article 249 of the Family Law; CEDAW (2003), pp. 56, 59.
- ↑ CEDAW (2003), pp. 54-55.
- ↑ US Department of State (2010a) ‘2010 Country Reports on Human Rights: Croatia’, http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2010/eur/154418.htm (accessed 19 October 2011)
- ↑ CEDAW (2003), p. 56
- ↑ Freedom House (2010)
- ↑ US Department of State (2010)
- ↑ CBS (Central Bureau of Statistics, Republic of Croatia) (2008), Women and Men in Croatia 2008, CBS; Zagreb, Croatia, p. 54; ILO (International Labour Organization) (2009), Database of Conditions of Work and Employment Laws, ILO, Geneva, Switzerland (accessed 16 April 2010), Women in Parliament: All Countries on National Parliaments; State Dept. 2010.
- ↑ Freedom House (2010)
- ↑ ILO (International Labour Organization) (2009), Database of Conditions of Work and Employment Laws, ILO, Geneva, Switzerland (accessed 16 April 2010); Social Security Administration (SSA) (2008), Social Security Programs Throughout the World: Europe, 2008, pp. 63-64.
The Women, Business and the Law
Where are laws equal for men and women?
The Women, Business and the Law report presents indicators based on laws and regulations affecting women's prospects as entrepreneurs and employees. Several of these indicators draw on the Gender Law Library, a collection of over 2,000 legal provisions impacting women's economic status. This report does not seek to judge or rank countries, but to provide information to inform discussions about women’s economic rights. Women, Business and the Law provides data covering 6 areas: accessing institutions,using property, getting a job, providing incentives to work, building credit, and going to court. Read more about the methodology.
For detailed information on Croatia, please visit the Women, Business and
the Law Croatia page.
The FAO Gender and Land Rights Database
The FAO Gender and Land Rights Database contains country level information on social, economic, political and cultural issues related to the gender inequalities embedded in those rights. Disparity on land access is one of the major causes for social and gender inequalities in rural areas, and it jeopardizes, as a consequence, rural food security as well as the wellbeing of individuals and families.
The Database offers information on the 6 following Categories:
- National legal frame
- International treaties and conventions
- Customary law
- Land tenure and related Institutions
- Civil society organizations
- Selected Land Related Statistics
For detailed information on Croatia, please visit the report on Croatia in the FAO Gender and Land Rights Database. | <urn:uuid:d2eacd37-143a-4992-9edb-a9949583f0ea> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wikigender.org/index.php/Gender_Equality_in_Croatia | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.902734 | 4,075 | 3.265625 | 3 |
Florida law allows for the organization of a business as a limited liability company, or LLC. An LLC is a type of business that includes both the limited liability protections of a corporation, and the pass-through taxation and less stringent annual filing requirements of a partnership. The Florida Secretary of State regulates the formation of LLCs. To create a Florida LLC, you must file a document, called an Articles of Organization, with the Florida Secretary of State.
Fit your business needs with the right LLC package
Pick a name for your company. Florida law requires all companies organized as an LLC to indicate their status by including the phrase “limited liability company” or the abbreviation “L.L.C.” or “LLC” in their name. You may choose to shorten “limited” as “Ltd.” or "company" as “Co.” The name of your company must also be distinct from the name of any business association registered or reserved with the Florida Secretary of State. The Florida Secretary of State maintains an online searchable database of all business organizations registered in Florida, which you can use to pick a distinct name for your corporation (see Resources).
Pick a registered agent and office. Florida requires all LLCs to designate a registered agent and office. A registered agent is the business or individual that, if your business is sued or subpoenaed, will receive service of process. A registered office is the street address of a registered agent, which must remain open during normal business hours to sign for service of process. If you are a Florida resident with a Florida street address, you may serve as the registered agent and office. If you are not a Florida resident, or do not want to have your name and street address associated with your company in a public filing, you may hire a registered agent service, which is a business that will receive service of process on behalf of your business.
Choose a method of filing. The Florida Secretary of State accepts LLC filings over the Internet and by mail. If filing over the Internet, use the Florida Secretary of State’s online application (see Resources). If filing by mail, download and print out the Florida Secretary of State’s Articles of Organization form (see Resources).
Fill out the Articles of Organization. On the attached Cover Letter form, provide the name of your company, your name and contact information, and whether you want an optional Certificate of Status or a Certified Copy. On the Articles of Organization form, provide the name, principal office and mailing address of your company. Provide your registered agent's name and registered office's address, and have your registered agent sign the form. Provide the name and address of all managing members, or company owners who will be making day-to-day business decisions, and members, or persons making day-to-day business decisions without an ownership stake. Print your name and sign the Articles of Organization.
File your Articles of Organization. As of 2010, the filing fee is $125. If filing online, pay by credit card. If filing by mail, pay by check made payable to the Florida Department of State. The mailing address for filing is Registration Section, Division of Corporations, Clifton Building, 2661 Executive Center Circle, Tallahassee, FL 32301.
- Articles of Organization form
Tips & Warnings
While becoming a Florida LLC is easy, check with an attorney about the tax implications of operating a business as a Florida LLC.
References & Resources
- Jupiterimages/Comstock/Getty Images | <urn:uuid:96ef36c6-48f3-4bea-9947-fe0659a6e417> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://info.legalzoom.com/become-llc-florida-3459.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9334 | 726 | 1.929688 | 2 |
Immunity likely for phone companies in spy bill
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. phone companies would be shielded from potentially billions of dollars in lawsuits under an anti-terror spy measure that appears headed toward approval, congressional sources said on Wednesday.
House of Representatives Democratic Leader Steny Hoyer, a lead negotiator on the bill, said, "We're very close to having an agreement," and a House vote could come as early as Friday.
Democratic and Republican aides and a lobbyist familiar with negotiations said the House would likely approve the measure overwhelmingly. Despite opposition from its top two Democrats, the Senate would then likely give it final approval, clearing the way for President George W. Bush to sign it into law.
Bush has been pushing for retroactive immunity for any telephone company that participated in warrantless domestic surveillance program he began after the September 11 attacks.
One Democratic aide said the backers definitely seem to have the votes. Other Democratic and Republican aides, all speaking on condition of anonymity, agreed.
Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid and Assistant Senate Democratic Leader Dick Durbin oppose immunizing telephone companies from lawsuits and voiced opposition this week to the proposal. "I will not support that, but a lot of people will," Reid said on Tuesday.
Hoyer argued the bill would provide greater protection of civil liberties than one the Senate approved in February.
House Democratic leaders have refused to bring the Senate bill up for a vote in their chamber, forcing compromise talks.
The Senate bill would grant retroactive immunity to any phone company that participated in Bush's spying program.
The proposed compromise would allow a federal district court to dismiss a suit if the company was provided written assurances that Bush authorized their participation in the spy program and that it was legal, sources said.
About 40 civil lawsuits have been filed accusing AT&T Inc, Verizon Communications Inc and Sprint Nextel Corp of violating Americans' privacy rights in helping the domestic surveillance program.
Damages could total billions of dollars.
The White House and Democratic-led Congress have been trying for months to reach an agreement to modernize the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, which requires the government receive secret-court approval to conduct surveillance on foreign targets in the United States.
Critics charge Bush violated the law in authorizing warrantless surveillance. Bush maintains he had the wartime power to do it. He later put the program under FISA jurisdiction but its terms remain secret.
As part of any law to update FISA, Bush has demanded retroactive immunity for any telephone company that participated in his spying program.
Critics, including civil rights groups and many Democratic lawmakers, argue it should first be determined what the phone companies did before deciding whether to give them immunity.
(Editing by David storey and Doina Chiacu)
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- Digg this | <urn:uuid:d212dc2e-410f-48a4-8e05-b1665fdc091c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/06/18/us-usa-surveillance-idUSN1828777720080618 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966469 | 576 | 1.546875 | 2 |
From the year of the Nascar driver to the year of the quarterback.
Last year three drivers from the Nascar circuit made our list of America’s Most Influential Athletes, led by perennial Sprint Cup Series champ Jimmie Johnson. Nascar hasn’t exactly faded. Johnson, whose talent and guy-next-door demeanor endears him to fans, as well as to marketing chiefs of brands like Chevrolet, Quaker State and Lowe’s, repeats as America’s most influential athlete, based on public opinion polling. But fellow drivers Dale Earnhardt, Jr. (down from No. 3 to No. 7) and Jeff Gordon (off the list this year) didn’t keep up, making way for newcomers like Jeremy Lin and Manny Pacquiao, and for the rise of several pro quarterbacks.
This year, six of the 10 most influential athletes are NFL signal callers, with both Manning brothers now in the fold. In second place is Tim Tebow, who shot up from No. 10 last year after claiming the Denver Broncos’ starting job and igniting “Tebowmania” across the country. Chalk it up to the dominance of pro football on television. Not many shows can match the 30 million viewers that the NFL gets for a playoff game, let alone the 100 million or so who tune in for the Super Bowl.
“The NFL is just killing it, the league is now part of the American landscape,” says Stephen Master, vice president of sports for Nielsen, which runs the survey our list is based on, along with California-based market research firm E-Poll.
Nielsen and E-Poll surveyed over 1,100 adults about dozens of well-known athletes to measure their likeability and whether they’re considered “influential,” an important quality for marketers. The term, among 40 characteristics that respondents could choose from (others: leader, approachable, handsome), can mean slightly different things to different people. As Master notes, some may see an athlete as influential in his sport, while others see him as crossing over and being influential in society at large. Tebow is a perfect example: his clean living and public religious values make him a role model for many, even if they render him polarizing in some quarters.
Candidates were limited to pro athletes who are currently active and who score at least 20% “awareness” with the general public.
Dropping off the list from 2011: Gordon, Michael Phelps, Troy Polamalu, LeBron James and Shaquille O’Neal (who retired from the NBA – no longer eligible). Their replacements: Lin, Pacquiao, Eli Manning (who added a second Super Bowl title in January), Drew Brees and Aaron Rodgers. Those last two may seem a bit curious, since Brees is two years removed from his Super Bowl title and Rodgers a year from his. But both continue to grow in public stature – competing in the playoffs and pleasing fans who see strong work ethics, an appealing mix of humor (Rodgers’ State Farm ads that poke fun at his “championship belt” move) and community involvement (Brees continues to be closely identified with New Orleans, even more so with NBA superstar Chris Paul now playing in Los Angeles).
“Brees is part of New Orleans itself, he’s raised his profile,” says Master. With old standbys Tom Brady and Peyton Manning still going strong, the NFL’s dominance in the public’s imagination is alive and well. | <urn:uuid:a1a0eed6-df23-495b-92da-db1cac3d7787> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomvanriper/2012/04/23/americas-most-influential-athletes/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954743 | 739 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Dotted along the hillside are the famous caves and forts of Shivaji's Maratha kingdom. Deep valleys and a thick forest surround the imposing Rajmachi Fort. Other equally impressive forts are the Manoranjan Fort, Shrivardhan fort, Visapur Fort, Lohagad Fort and the Tunga Fort with arsenals and guardhouses.
A special attraction in Lonavala-Khandala is the three ancient Chaitya Caves dating back 2000 years that were Buddhist prayer halls. Built on a grand scale and splendid in architectural execution, the Karla Caves were a monsoon retreat for Buddhist monks. The smaller Bhaja Caves are built so that the rays of the setting sun gilds the dark interiors and brings to life the carved gods and goddesses. The Bedsa Caves are close to the Mumbai Pune Road near Kamshet.
Placid water bodies and silver cascades add their charm to Lonavala-Khandala. Walk around the Pavna Lake, Lonavala Lake, Tungarli Lake, Valvan Lake on the Valvan Dam and Bushi Lake. From the beautiful Kune Falls the water crashes down 100m to a pool below, a sight visible from the Khandala Ghat. Tiger's Leap is a curiously shaped cliff - a sheer 650 m drop into the valley.
The days will just slip by before you know it, walking, pony riding, browsing through Lonavala's bazaars and feasting on delicious sweet peanut and dry fruit chikki and jams.
|Getting to lonavala & khandala
Khandala is 104 km from Mumbai and 66 km from Pune. The Mumbai-Bangalore National Highway passes through Khandala-Lonavala, winding up the ghats. State roadways buses, private buses, taxis and tour operators have regular services to the resorts (a journey of 3 ½ to 4 hours). Trains from Mumbai Central Station and Pune Junction halt at Khandala and then at Lonavala. Khandala and Lonavala are 5 km away from each other (15 minutes by bus). The best ways to move around are to walk, cycle, or take a taxi or auto-rickshaw. Cars can be rented for the day from Lonavala.
|Best time to visit
You can come here any time of the year, especially in winter, from October to April. Summer temperatures reach a maximum of 36° C and touch minimum temperatures of 12° C in winter. Bring light woolens for winter and cotton clothes for summer.
Besides the middle budget MTDC resorts at Karla and Lonavala, there are numerous accommodation options to suit all budgets. You might prefer staying at Khandala, which is quieter and less crowded than Lonavala. | <urn:uuid:c144f50c-3cda-4405-a873-3dd7105b34c2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.punjabkesari.com/travel/lonavala%20&%20khandala.htm | 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 | 0.906916 | 585 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Reinhold Vieth, PhD
The cancer proliferation marker Ki-67 decreased significantly in men who took high-dose vitamin D in the weeks leading up to radical prostatectomy for localized prostate cancer, data from a small clinical study showed.1
The decline in Ki-67 correlated with increasing serum and prostate levels of calcitriol, which rose in a dose-dependent manner with vitamin D, reaching the highest levels with the highest dose of vitamin D (P
Moreover, high-dose vitamin D was associated with favorable changes in expression of micro- RNA (miRNA) involved in tumor suppression.
“This was early-phase clinical research, essential to justify larger studies that would aim to prove that vitamin D prolongs survival or prevents cancer,” Reinhold Vieth, PhD, a clinical biochemist at the University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, said during a press conference at the 2012 AACR Annual Meeting.
“We still need to sort out the role of calcium,” he added. “Currently, we predict that high calcium may be adverse to the prostate only if the vitamin D level is low.”
Interest in a possible role for vitamin D in prostate cancer originated with observations of higher prostate cancer mortality among men living in higher latitudes, which have less exposure to ultraviolet (UV) radiation (a principal co-factor in endogenous vitamin D synthesis). The observations gave rise to the hypothesis that UV radiation has a protective effect against prostate cancer via pathways involved in vitamin D synthesis and metabolism.
Vieth’s contributions to the knowledge base included a study of seasonal variation in prostate-specific antigen (PSA) production among men enrolled in a study of active surveillance for early prostate cancer.2
The study showed that PSA levels rose significantly less during the second quarter of the year—spring and summer—compared with the other quarters.
Taking the research a step further, Vieth and colleagues conducted a pilot study of vitamin D therapy in a small group of men who had PSA progression after definitive treatment for prostate cancer.3
Some of the men had declines and stabilization of PSA levels, and the rate of increase slowed in others.
Following the encouraging results from the pilot study, the investigators performed a study involving 66 men scheduled for radical prostatectomy. The men were randomized to one of three doses of cholecalciferol (vitamin D3): 400, 10,000, or 40,000 IU/day, beginning 3 to 8 weeks before surgery. The primary outcomes were changes in Ki-67 and in expression of cancer-related miRNA.
Tissue and serum concentrations of calcitriol increased with the vitamin D dose, reaching the highest levels in men who received 40,000 IU/day. Immunohistochemistry analysis of prostate specimens revealed a significant inverse association between calcitriol levels and the intensity of Ki-67 staining (P
= .02) and the proportion of cells with intense staining (P
We still need to sort out the role of calcium. Currently, we predict that high calcium may be adverse to the prostate only if the vitamin D level is low.”
–Reinhold Vieth, PhD
Higher calcitriol levels in prostate tissue correlated significantly with increased expression of miR-100, which is associated with tumor growth inhibition (P
= .02). Additionally, the investigators found a trend toward different miRNA expression patterns in malignant versus normal prostate tissue (P
The vitamin D therapy was safe at the doses evaluated, said Vieth. No patients developed hypercalcemia, hypocalcemia, or serious adverse events. Investigators also observed no adverse changes in plasma phosphate or in renal or liver function.
Despite the favorable findings, the Toronto group does not advocate use of vitamin D doses greater than 4000 IU/day. The high doses used in the study were safe because of the brief time frame prior to surgery.
Wagner D, Nonn L, Antonio A, et al. Double-blind randomized clinical trial of vitamin D3 showing effects on tissue calcitriol levels, gene expression and proliferation immunohistochemistry in prostate cancer. Presented at the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting; March 31-April 4, 2012; Chicago, IL. Abstract LB-435.
Vieth R, Choo R, Deboer L, et al. Rise in prostate-specific antigen in men with untreated low-grade prostate cancer is slower during spring-summer. Am J Ther. 2006;13:394-399.
Woo TC, Choo R, Jamieson M, Chander S, Vieth R. Pilot study: potential role of vitamin D (Cholecalciferol) in patients with PSA relapse after definitive therapy. Nutr Cancer. 2005;51(1):32-36. | <urn:uuid:23efb4b9-41e5-4da6-ba30-9b557e6513f8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.onclive.com/publications/obtn/2012/June-2012/Vitamin-D-Might-Benefit-Patients-With-Prostate-Cancer | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.918979 | 994 | 3.046875 | 3 |
News and Events
ELCTRONICS AND INSTRUMENTATION ENGINEERING
The Electronics and Instrumentation Engineering Department was established in 1999. All Staff members in the Electronics and Instrumentation Engineering Department are well qualified with postgraduate qualification and specialised in the area of process control instrumentation and applied electronics. Individual attention is given to each student. Every 20 students are provided with one proctor, as a care taker.
- B.E Electronics and Instrumentation Engineering.
Annual intake : 60
“To enrich the students with both theoretical and practical knowledge and also to train the students to enhance the latest technologies”.
Electronics and Instrumentation Engineering department has got the following well-established laboratories
- Electronic Devices and Circuits Lab
- Electrical and Electronics Measurement Lab
- Transducer Lab
- Integrated Circuits Lab
- Process Control Lab
- Micro Processor and Micro Controller Lab
- Design project Lab
- Computer control Lab
All the above laboratories are equipped with sophisticated equipments, electronic instruments as per Anna University and AICTE norms.
We have a Department Library which consists of more than 300 Volumes covering all disciplines of engineering technologies, science humanities and management. These collections include printed books, reports, standards, question banks and back volumes of journals.
Floor Space : 300sqm
No. of Books : 300
No. of Journals subscribed : 12
No. of Projects reports of students : 254
- Head of the department has put more than 30 years of service in the field of instrumentation in Indian Space Research Organization. He has worked in the Satellite Launch Vehicles (SLV) programme.
- Staff members has participated in Seminars, National conference and presented papers.
- Students of EIE department have shown excellence in studies and other curricular activities like National conference, Inter college sports, NSS activities.
- The students with the help of faculty members formed a department association named FIESTA where the students are encouraged to present technical paper presentations and eminent personalities from the technical fields are invited to give lectures on Electronic and instrumentation related topics.
Instrumentation is one of the fastest growing engineering branches. The curriculum and syllabus contains many important subjects like Transducer engineering, Electronic instrumentation, Industrial instrumentation, control systems, biomedical instrumentation, process control, signal processing etc. All process industries are modernized . Most of the modern process industries use programmable logic controller for conducting various sequence of operations. There is a good demand for Instrumentation Engineers world wide especially in the Middle East where all oil refinery industries need Instrumentation Engineers. | <urn:uuid:0cf13572-f93a-42b1-bf91-b8f0c9b21f0f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rajas.edu/indian_college/index.php?page=eie | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.906088 | 534 | 1.71875 | 2 |
To follow up on the table I posted last week, I want to add a couple quick points in explanation of what my intent was in putting it together.
The thought I had in mind was basically this one, drawn from an urban planning textbook:
“Depending on scale, the same density may look and feel quite different. Perceptions on inappropriate density can trigger strong reactions from the public, with concerns about increased traffic congestion and concentrated poverty. Good design employs scale as a way to make denser development feel humane and look appealing while capturing the benefits it brings to the human realm.”
Planning and Urban Design Standards, p. 470.
If a slightly lower density could be delivered in a form that is far more acceptable as a housing option to the majority of people, still at an urban level of compactness, and cheaper to construct to boot, wouldn’t building in that form be a sensible choice even if the resulting city occupied somewhat more total land area? The table shows that the low-rise forms are, in fact, not all that much less dense than taller ones, particularly in comparison to suburban forms, and even require less total street surface.
From this point of view, there could perhaps be a modest reconciliation among the anti-density NIMBYs and the pro-density urbanists, with resort to a time-tested form that was, in fact, the primary way cities were built from the time of Jericho and Ur all the way to the industrial revolution.
The runaway popularity of the few partly-traditional American towns and neighborhoods is evidence that this is an approach that could succeed. Unfortunately, it has never really been given a chance, not even by the New Urbanists, who, as I’ll get to in the next few days, have coded away any chance to build in a traditional form. | <urn:uuid:4048a68a-6cd8-4d22-a0eb-8d18ece8b8a0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://oldurbanist.blogspot.com/2011/04/more-on-density.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00045-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968213 | 375 | 2.078125 | 2 |
Waste Site Cleanup & Reuse in New England
Button Hole Golf Course
Success in EPA Brownfields Assessment Demonstration Grant Program
Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management
This 25-acre, formerly state-owned property located on the Providence and Johnston boarder was undeveloped until the 1960's, at which time sand and gravel excavation commenced for use in construction of interstate roads. The property was grated into a flat, low-lying area with steep sides and gravel banks. The property is located in a multi-cultural, urban environment. It is bordered by the Woonasquatucket River, a metals recycling business, Mancini Drive, and residential properties. The southern portion of the property, which is bordered by Mancini Drive, was used by the city for solid waste disposal.
Site assessments performed by the environmental consultant from 1998 to 1999 demonstrated lead and arsenic as the primary contaminants of concern. There was also some PAH contamination. The groundwater beneath the property is a GB aquifer, making it not potable of its own accord.
Developer Ed Mauro envisioned a manicured, 9-hole golf course as a teaching center that would bring golf to the area’s 25,000 youth. Button Hole would be a place for them to learn about the sport and life from adult mentors and volunteers. Local governments, Rhode Island Golf Association, Rhode Island Golf Foundation, and PGA Tour pros Billy Andrade and Brad Faxon backed the project and construction began in 1999. The grand opening was in June 2001. That season, 900 kids participated in the junior golf programs available at the teaching center.
The golf course is run by a non-profit organization which reduces golf’s barrier of cost, inaccessibility, and playing time to local youth. In addition to the short, Par-3 course, there is also a 25-bay lighted driving range, 2 practice putting greens, a practice pitching and sand bunker area, and a clubhouse that includes a golf shop, indoor instruction area, administrative offices, patio, and multi-purpose function room. The property border with the Woonasquatucket River contains wetlands that serve as a classroom where respect for the environment is fostered. There is also a bike path planned that will run along the river.
Please access the Button Hole Golf Course web page, www.buttonhole.org for additional information. | <urn:uuid:e1810072-4342-455d-bc84-ee434c51f731> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.epa.gov/region1/brownfields/success/providence_bgc.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950801 | 491 | 2.34375 | 2 |
Title: Estimates of growth rates of lichen from photographs of lichen thalli on the Mt Falconer summit and ridge and the Rhone Bench (above Lake Bonney), Taylor Valley
A small number of lichen thalli on Mt Falconer summit and ridge and the Rhone Bench (above Lake Bonney) were marked and photographed during the 80-81 field season. These plants were refound over subsequent years and photographed to determine growth rates of lichen in the Dry Valleys.
Sancho, L.G. Green, T.G.A. Pintado, A. 2007 Slowest to fastest: Extreme range in lichen growth rates supports their use as an indicator of climate change in Antarctica. Flora 202: 667-673 | <urn:uuid:f2df480b-7a71-414c-9705-e730db6634d8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://gcmd.nasa.gov/KeywordSearch/MetadataTransformation.do?Portal=amd_nz&KeywordPath=Projects%7CJ+-+L%7CLGP&EntryId=K024_1980_2008_NZ_1&MetadataType=0&lbnode=mdlb4 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.900109 | 155 | 2.109375 | 2 |
Dependent: your status regarding dependency for the purposes of filing for financial assistance is defined by federal regulations as specified in the FAFSA. Please note that IRS filing status of a student as a “dependent” has no bearing on the dependency status for purposes of filing the FAFSA. Questions regarding dependency status should be referred to the Financial Aid office.
EFC: Expected Family Contribution. The EFC is a result from the information you provided on your FAFSA. This is not the amount of money your family is expected to pay for you to attend Hawkeye. This number is the same no matter where you choose to go to school. We will use this number to determine your eligibility for financial aid and your financial aid award.
FAFSA: Free Application for Federal Student Aid. Learn more about the FAFSA.
Financial Aid Award: you will receive your financial aid award notification via your Hawkeye email address. Also see Work-Study Award.
Financial Aid Lock Date: 14th day of the semester excluding federal holidays.
Independent: please see dependent.
Overpayment: you have not earned the amount of financial aid that was disbursed to you and must return unearned financial aid.
PIN: Personal Identification Number. A PIN is used as an electronic signature on your FAFSA.
SAP: Satisfactory Academic Progress. To receive federal and state financial aid you must maintain satisfactory academic progress standards. If you do not, you may be placed on financial aid probation or suspension.
SAR: Student Aid Report. The result from your FAFSA.
Work-Study Award: you will receive your work-study award notification via your Hawkeye email address. The Work-Study Award email will summarize your work-study award and note the steps you need to take to secure a job on campus.
WTE: Web Time Entry is used to enter the hours you have worked as a Hawkeye employee, for example, your work-study hours. | <urn:uuid:efa948fb-71e6-4e61-acc5-85a256df1ad0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://hawkeyecollege.edu/students/paying-for-college/financial-aid/glossary.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.906693 | 409 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Solar PV Panel Feed-In Tariff Earnings
Average export tariff earnings = £40 upwards per year
Average energy bill savings = £100 per year
Related Guides: Solar Panel Cost
Update – June 2012: Get in quick and install solar PV panels before the 1st August to earn a higher Feed-in Tariff rate of 21p per kWh. This means you’ll earn on average £670 per year for 25 years rather than the lower rate of around £555 for 20 years if you install after the August deadline.
Once you have installed your new solar PV panels, you can benefit from the government Feed-in Tariff (FIT) scheme. This tariff provides cash back for the amount of renewable electricity generated by solar PV panels to encourage homeowners to switch to more eco-friendly fuel options. Under the government scheme any surplus electricity you produce can also be sold back to the National Grid; and because you are paid for electricity you use as well, earnings end up averaging about £670 per year! Solar PV panels also require little maintenance and are designed to last about twenty five years – so you really are saving money in the long run.
Installation costs will vary according to where you shop or what kind of deal you end up going for, but on average a PV Solar Panel FIT monitor will cost around:
- For 50-80w solar PV systems – £60
- For 90-120w solar PV systems – £80
- For 130w+ solar PV systems – £120
Remember, these are only estimates, and if you shop around properly you might be able to have the FIT monitor installed as part of your original solar panel deal – so don’t always go for the first thing you find. Either way you will, however, end up saving money in the following ways:
- Generation tariff – for each kilowatt hour (kWh) of electricity you generate, you are paid a standard, set sum under the scheme, which usually averages around £530 per household, per year.
- Export tariff – under the export tariff you could save an additional £40 a year, by selling any surplus electricity generated back to the National Grid. Before installation this is usually estimated at around 50% of what is produced, so if you wish to alter that figure you need to contact people in charge as soon as possible, so a more accurate SmartMeter can be fitted alongside your solar PV panels.
- Energy bill savings – finally, solar PV panels can save you between £90 and £180 per year on your electricity bills. This may not sound like much, but because of the longevity of solar panels you will end up recouping your costs and a little extra before you know it!
The following changes will be made to the FIT scheme from 1st August 2012:
- Generation tariff rates will decrease from 21p per kWh (which the below figures are based on) to 16p per kWh. This applies for solar installations up to 4kW in size installed in properties which have an EPC rating D or above
- Generation tariff rates will decrease to 7.1p per kWh for solar installations up to 4kW in size, installed in properties which have an EPC rating E or below
- The length of time tariffs will be paid for will reduce from 25 to 20 years
- The export tariff rate will increase from 3.2p per kWh to 4.5p per kWh
These changes mean that you will still make around a 6% return on investment if you join the FIT scheme after 1st August 2012, says the government. Kevin Power, from Kraft Renewable Energy estimates that you will earn around £11,085 over 20 years through the FIT scheme (index linked for inflation), if you install after 1st August.
Find out more about how the Feed-in Tariff works and how to apply.
*Source: Energy Saving Trust. All information is accurate as of June 2012 | <urn:uuid:b563da1d-a3fd-4e34-9b6c-96119a05ab94> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.servicemagic.co.uk/resources/cost-guides/solar-pv-panel-feed-in-tariff-earnings/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00067-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928395 | 812 | 2.0625 | 2 |
On May 16, 1871 Amelia May Parsons – daughter of wealthy Columbus State legislator George McClellan Parsons, married Prince Ernst Manderup Alexander zu Lynar of Prussia. This is one of Columbus’ best documented weddings royal or other-wise and there is a wealth of information to share from a variety of sources that has been mined repeatedly over the years.
Ruth Young wrote about it in her 1936 book on the history of women in Columbus entitled “We Too Built Columbus” and added lots of colorful commentary about the Prince’s attendance at a Peace celebration in Columbus’ South end – better known today as German Village. The South-enders were commemorating the end of the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 – 1871 and the Prince took part in the planting of the “Peace Oak” in Schiller Park as part of the pre-wedding festivities. She writes further “The marriage ceremony was attended by attaches of the Imperial German legation in Washington and was celebrated by Bishop McElvaine.”
Bill Arter wrote about it in1969 in his compilation Columbus Vignettes volume III. He wrote “The wedding was held in Trinity Church at 12:30 Pm. By 10:00 AM an immense crowd was being restrained by police. At noon the church was filled with “beauty and fashion enough to drive a man distracted with delight.”
His article, though, added something that had been absent in the early twentieth century re-tellings – a note of snark. He writes “The Cleveland Plain Dealer (1871) editorialized sourly: “Couldn’t Miss May have done just as well nearer home? The Prince will pardon us for saying that to us he seemed inferior looking.” Ouch!
Last year, Teresa Carstensen of the Ohio Historical Society also blogged about it. The dishy columnist she quoted was a special correspondent from the Cincinnati Enquirer named Mr. Jenkins. He dished on everything from the color of the prince’s mustache dye, his supposed Italian ancestry and chiefly the fact that Miss May’s mother was trying to buy her daughter a royal title like the characters out of Edith Wharton’s “The Buccaneers.”
Like many men of the day Prince zu Lynar asked for a $50,000.00 dowry which was balked at by Mr. Parsons even though the Prince himself had promised a dowry of $60,000.00 to Miss Parsons. Amelia’s mother went ahead and paid the $50,000.00 out of her own accounts, which would be the equivalent of about a million dollars today.
All of the reports say that the wedding ceremony was actually a rather tame affair held at Trinity Episcopal Church on East Broad Street without a great deal of royal pomp & circumstance that many in attendance had hoped for. The couple then went on a typically American honeymoon tour of Niagara Falls before returning to Europe where they enjoyed a very contented life with their 3 children and lived happily ever after. The End – right? Well, maybe not.
While many of the histories are concerned about the wedding, few delve into how they met and fell in love. One source from 1921 does and it shines an altogether more sympathetic light on the royal couple.
In researching the wedding for Columbus Underground, I discovered that after the death of Princess Amelia, the agent in charge of the estate she had left for her 3 children, Ernst, Jane and George, sued the United States government to ask for their mother’s fortune back. (The Prince died in 1886 at the age of 52 and the Princess lived until 1920 and died at the age of 67)
As it turns out, Princess Amelia zu Lynar did have a small fortune in cash and real estate in Columbus that was inherited from her folks. Her father was reportedly Columbus’ first millionaire and his home at 156 Parsons Avenue – named to memorialize his father Dr Samuel Parsons – was the spot of the original Columbus School for Girls. Her assets were seized by the United States at the onset of World War I since she was a German by marriage.
This all came to light in a New York Times article dated Dec 18, 1921 with the headline:
“Heirs of Princess Ask for Fortune Back – zu Lynars Sue Government to recover their Mother’s Share in $1,500.000.00 Parsons Estate. Seized During The War. Mother, born in Columbus Ohio, married Prince who was Emperor’s Aid in Franco-Prussian War”
The article went on further to elaborate on the beginnings of the Parsons wealth:
“The American fortune of the Princess arose chiefly from the fact that when the Big Four Railroad was looking for a right of way in Columbus there was a rivalry between her grandfather Dr Samuel Parsons and a neighboring farmer as to whose farm would be chosen. Dr Parsons offered a gift of sufficient land for the site of a station, and the acceptance of his offer made his heirs many years later owners of valuable land in the heart of the city.” Ultimately, though, the case to return the fortune was dismissed in 1923 and the German royals never received their Columbus inheritance.
It was also in this article that I discovered the beginnings of their romance.
Amelia was visiting Paris with her mother in the Spring of 1870, shortly before the beginning of the Franco-Prussian War when she met the Prince as he was attached to the German Embassy in Paris. He must have been quite smitten with her but the war between the two countries began before he could propose marriage. It was further reported that he carried her photograph with him throughout the duration of the short war and during that episode the German Emperor was looking through the Prince’s album one day when he saw her picture and asked about her.
The Prince said:
“That is the lady I love. If I live through this war, I intend to make her my wife.”
The Emperor granted the Prince leave to visit America and marry her after the war with one condition, that the Emperor would be allowed to keep her photograph.
Upon their return to Prussia, the Emperor bestowed upon her the address “Serene Highness.”
So Columbus had its proverbial 15 minutes of royal fame and as the radio personality Paul Harvey would have said – and now you know the rest of the story.
Feature photo of statue of Johann von Schiller in Schiller Park by Ed Eberfield. | <urn:uuid:ea5d62e8-1780-4bd6-8ef0-42fcdaa3c685> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.columbusunderground.com/history-lesson-a-royal-wedding-in-columbus | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982798 | 1,351 | 2.03125 | 2 |
Toward a Positive Understanding of Marriage
Both topics presume that listeners already have some positive teachings about Christian marriage, before they address the ways sin can corrupt it. Last week we touched on the concept of "one flesh" in Genesis 2, Ephesians 5, and 1 Cor. 6:9-20. In addition, Gilbert Meilaender gives this helpful precis in his First Things article, "Marriage in Counterpoint and Harmony:"
In any case, for Christian spouses who understand marriage as a sphere in which we begin to be trained in the meaning and discipline of fidelity, marriage will be understood as a task. Committing themselves to lifelong union, they must learn in the countless ways appropriate to different marriages the meaning of our fellow-humanity, the hard work of being faithful in the whole of life to one who is not just an-other person but who-within this marriage-remains "other." C. S. Lewis came to marriage late in life, long after writing the passage I have cited above. But he was able to say, after the death of his wife, what commitment to that bond made possible. He wrote in A Grief Observed (1966):
We did learn and achieve something. There is, hidden or flaunted, a sword between the sexes till an entire marriage reconciles them. It is arrogance in [men] to call frankness, fairness, and chivalry "masculine" when we see them in a woman; it is arrogance in [women] to describe a man's sensitiveness or tact or tenderness as "feminine." But also what poor, warped fragments of humanity most mere men and mere women must be to make the implications of that arrogance plausible. Marriage heals this. Jointly the two become fully human. "In the image of God created he them." Thus, by a paradox, this carnival of sexuality leads us out beyond our sexes.
To begin this work of correction and transformation is a task at the very heart of the marriage bond.
If Meilaender is correct, that [Christian] marriage is the task of correction and transformation so that, together, both husband and wife image Christ to the world, then the question must be asked of each spouse: how has marriage corrected and transformed you, so that you incarnate the faith, hope and love of Jesus Christ? But this is all pretty abstract. I need to find a way to make it more accessible to the teens I will be speaking with, so it seems natural to portray Christian marriage as a spiritual "school." Here is part of what I am thinking of saying.
Relating this to Teens
In taking vows of Christian marriage, we have applied and been accepted into the Jesus School of Marriage, to be trained to reflect Him through a one-flesh relationship with someone different from ourselves.
There are some strange things about His school:
1) There are countless ways to fail and ultimately to drop out:
- by not paying proper attention and respect to the Teacher or to one's classmates
- by failing to do one's "home" work
- by displacing the Teacher or His designated subs and attempting to take the Teacher's place oneself
- by getting into brawls
- by cutting class
- by cheating
2) If one partner drops out, the other must drop out as well.
3) There is only one way to "graduate:" together.
Marriage is not His only school, but once we've enrolled, there are just two ways out: to drop out or to graduate. The closer one gets to graduation, the more one experiences unity without uniformity--exactly what each person of the Trinity experiences. This requires a lot of changes for us as fallen men and women. But upon graduation, we are taken up into the very life of God, finally fit to fully give and receive the love that each of the Persons of the Trinity has enjoyed from eternity, for all eternity.
Transformation and Fear
Now transformation is a scary thing. It means losing some familiar part of ourselves in order to receive something new and different. It means "losing control" and trusting Christ to change us. It means focusing on Him, and not on self. Now in our fallen state, the more control we have over situations, the less we tend to be fearful. But the flip side to that is the less practice we get having to deal with fear. When we find ourselves in positions where we no longer have control, and inevitably, fear hits us, there are different ways we can cope.
Here are two popular but disastrous ways:
1) we can think we are responsible for everything and so try to control everything. Here, faithfulness is distorted to mean micro-managing. This just sets us up for failure and even more fear. (Aristotle would call this the vice of excess.)
2) we can opt out, drop out, refuse to be responsible. Here faithfulness is distorted to mean "to thine own self be true." We rationalize our failure by changing the rules or changing "school districts." We anesthetize ourselves from failure by focusing on distractions and ignoring what we are really responsible for. (Aristotle would call this the vice of deficiency).
Both of these ways tempt us toward behaviors that lead to failure and "dropping out" (divorce).
But here is one healthy way to cope with fear:
3) We cannot be faithful about things we are not responsible for, nor for that which is beyond our control. So first, we can pray for and receive wise discernment (from God, friends, counselors) to understand what we are actually responsible for, and what we really are able to control. Our attitudes and actions must grow from this. Then, we can practice trusting God with those things which are beyond us.
Students Who Refuse to be Trained
Sometimes a student is so disruptive that she must be put in time out, in hopes that she will calm down, reflect on her behavior, and be open for it to be changed. In troubled marriages, this practice is known as "separation." More threatening behaviors can result in expulsion.
You can admit a student to med school, but that alone won't make him a doctor. In the school of marriage, Jesus will not force a student to be trained to imitate Him if s/he refuses to be taught. He will not chain a student to his desk, nor does he expect a spouse live with a spouse who is unfaithful. In those circumstances, divorce is permitted. (Matt. 5:32; 19:9).
When Marriages Fail
Marriage is at bottom, a school--maybe it would be better to say a boot camp-- for learning faithfulness/ faith in Christ. We need to do our best in the school we have been enrolled in. But remember that is not the only school. It is tragic when we drop out, or when we are forced to drop out. I know a tiny bit of the pain and fear that accompanies failure on this level. I had to quit the doctoral program at Notre Dame when I failed my metaphysics comp two times in a row. But the good news is that Christ had other ways of teaching me how to be faithful to His truth; in the end, perhaps even better ways? Only He knows.
It is important that we stay enrolled in His District, and not seek training in outside schools. Of course his first choice is to keep us in our present school and make us repeat a grade. But if necessary, he is able to transfer us to a school where we can better learn to be faithful to Him.
"Perfect love casts out all fear." What matters most is that that He is faithful, even when we fail to be faithful. He loves us, perfectly, even when we can't love perfectly. He forgives us when we truly repent and open ourselves to His transformation. Again. And again. And again, until we finally find ourselves taken up into the life of God, who is Love.
2 Timothy 2:11-13
11 Here is a trustworthy saying:
If we died with him,
we will also live with him;
12 if we endure,
we will also reign with him.
If we disown him,
he will also disown us;
13 if we are faithless,
he remains faithful,
for he cannot disown himself.
(c) Beth Bilynskyj | <urn:uuid:95e9ee0c-d886-4d4e-9d53-aadd018aab28> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://medievalmind.blogspot.com/2007/10/marriage-as-jesus-school-of.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00044-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965402 | 1,744 | 1.914063 | 2 |
Guest Post: Soaring Debt Precedes Financial Crises...
Submitted by John Aziz of Azizonomics blog,
Things don’t look so good for China:
Will we see a Chinese financial meltdown in 2013? Or 2014? Or 2015? With global GDP growth on a definite trend downward, with such a tepid Western recovery, and with global geopolitical tensions still high, the last thing the global economy needs is a financial crisis at the heart of the BRIC growth engine. But the data implies that that may just be what we get.
To those who believe that China is immune to such a thing, recall that America suffered the Great Depression immediately previous to becoming a global superpower. China’s economy has undergone a rapid transformation in recent years:
Such a transformation is sure to necessitate some dislocation and fallout — just as America’s transformation from an agricultural to a manufacturing economy did. America ended that process as the global superpower. It remains to be seen if the same will happen for China, but controlling the world’s largest productive industrial base certainly suggests so. The other factor, of course, that presaged America’s rise was a global war…
- advertisements - | <urn:uuid:0d6e2ea1-1645-49f9-b670-bdb0e20df8cb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-01-28/guest-post-soaring-debt-precedes-financial-crises | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.912512 | 251 | 1.851563 | 2 |
All I knew about brain tumors before I was diagnosed with one was how romantic they seemed in movies. But when I got the news 21 years ago that I had an anaplastic astrocytoma, I remember thinking “there’s absolutely nothing good or romantic about this. This is a death threat.” My husband and I were told I had six months to live.
When you find out that your life is threatened, it’s like being accosted on a sidewalk late at night. It’s life or death. I think we reacted in a ferocious way. After the initial operation to remove the tumor, which was done within a week, we looked into every single avenue of further treatment. We decided early on that I had to have hope, and I could only have people on my team who had hope for me as well. We fired a few doctors who either had no hope or who were not totally honest with me.
Ultimately we chose to go to the University of California, San Francisco. Our UCSF neurosurgeon, Dr. Gutin, was very honest and well trained, and from the beginning we were able to put all our faith in him. At our first meeting I told him, “You know these people who are only lasting six months? Don’t give me what they’re getting. I want something experimental.” He came up with a protocol that included radiation and chemotherapy, both of which were easier than I’d expected. After that protocol was completed, I asked for a second one. I was a willing partner — we didn’t care what they did as long as we still had some hope.
We even agreed to undergo an interstitial implant, which was only being used then for cervical cancer. The surgeons placed radioactive seeds into my brain, which they left in place for a week. During that time I wore a World War II lead-lined helmet to protect everyone around me from the radiation. They took out the stitches and removed the seeds at the end of the week, and we all hoped they’d done damage of exactly the right kind.
Six months later, scarring and swelling in my brain required another operation. Because I knew that every time my surgeon operated it was another chance to save my life, I told him to be aggressive. I woke up after the surgery to find out I, an avid, life-long reader, could no longer read a page of text. I was furious. I stormed up and down the hospital hallway and wept. I was told that the damage to my brain was “complete,” meaning it would neither worsen nor improve.
The good news was that tumor seemed to be completely excised, and I realized that I needed to make another mental shift. I did not want to be a patient for the rest of my life: it was time to move on to getting well again. Damage to my optic nerve meant that I had significant gaps in my vision. I had to develop new techniques so I could once again read well. I’ve walked into trees more than once because they were on my blind side, and it’s still awkward when people extend their hand to shake mine and I don’t notice. Perhaps worst of all, I’ve lost the part of my brain that allows me to recognize people, and I still have to rely on visual cues to recognize even my wonderful husband and daughters.
I’ve adapted, though. It’s been 21 years, and I live a life most women would envy. I’m healthy, I’m loved, I have wonderful children and five grandsons. My job now is to stay healthy and happy and enjoy my family. I’m very lucky that we were able to stay together through all this, even through the times when my treatment changed my behavior and personality.
Part of the grieving process with something like this is that you bargain—probably everyone of us with cancer has bargained in some way. I remember bargaining very specifically that I wanted to see my daughters graduate from high school. And I kept bargaining for more things. And when each of those things happened, when I was there even for my daughters’ weddings, then I really wept. It would hit me so hard, this gift I’d been given. It’s something that most people take for granted, and I would have too if this had never happened to me. I think this experience makes a person wiser and more compassionate. The tough times have made me a better, more spiritual person. Our family is stronger and wiser, and our daughters reflect this.
If you have a brain tumor, you can’t get where you need to be without hope. It’s so easy to lose hope. That’s why I visit new brain tumor patients—it gives them hope just to see me, because I’ve survived so long. They always tell me, “thank you. I just wanted to see you.” And I know just what they mean. | <urn:uuid:68de40dc-1b28-4cb0-aef5-8b1ef8315157> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.braintumor.org/patients-family-friends/story-corner/Janssen.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.988295 | 1,052 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Weather Service Issues Heat Advisory for Eastern ND, Northwestern MNThe National Weather Service in Grand Forks has issued a heat advisory from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. tonight for most of eastern North Dakota and northwestern Minnesota.
By: Forum Communications,
The National Weather Service in Grand Forks has issued a heat advisory from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. tonight for most of eastern North Dakota and northwestern Minnesota.
The weather service has also issued a hazardous weather outlook from 1 to 7 p.m. today for portions of eastern North Dakota and west-central and northwest Minneesota.
Warm temperatures and humid conditions will create heat indexes of more than 100 degrees this afternoon and evening. The weather service says relief should come tonight as thunderstorms develop.
Individuals who work outside should drink plenty of water and take frequent shade breaks.
Heat illnesses will become possible during the heat advisory. The release advises to take extra precautions to protect yourself and others from heat exhaustion and heat stroke. If experiencing a heat stroke, call 911.
There is a slight risk for severe weather across the entire area today and tonight, the weather service says, and thunderstorms are expected this afternoon and evening. Some storms may be severe with damaging hail, wind and rainfall.
There will also be a slight risk of severe thunderstorms Wednesday for areas along and east of the Red River Valley as a cold front and humid airmass combine to initiate thunderstorms, the weather service says.
Thunderstorms are possible again on Thursday as the cold front stalls across the region. | <urn:uuid:be77e66f-ea55-4c60-bc66-c9edcde09e6d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wdaz.com/event/article/id/14432/publisher_ID/30/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00076-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942637 | 321 | 1.859375 | 2 |
While President Barack Obama spends the last year of his current term in office with many pressing issues, including trying to get re-elected, African analysts and advocates say policy toward sub-Saharan Africa ranks as a very low priority. This has come as a disappointment to some as Obama's father was from Kenya.
While walking onto the House floor to deliver his recent 2012 State of the Union speech, President Obama told U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta "great job tonight."
It was later explained the comment referred to a late night U.S. military raid into Somalia to free two hostages including an American aid worker.
But Obama's actual speech made no mention of sub-Saharan Africa whatsoever.
Kwaku Nuamah, a Ghanaian professor at American University in Washington, is not surprised.
"Africa is not big in Washington, there is no constituency that cares about Africa that much," said Nuamah. "I did not think the traditional contours of American foreign policy were going to change because there was somebody in the White House with ties to Africa, but of course a lot of people expected that."
Since making a speech in Ghana in 2009 about how the United States would hold African leaders accountable to good governance and respecting democratic institutions, President Obama has not returned to the continent.
Emira Woods from Washington-based Foreign Policy in Focus says actual change though is more important than visits and speeches.
"Wonderful words, but very much unfulfilled," said Woods. "Those words have to be lived in terms of U.S. foreign policy and we are still waiting for them to be realized."
Woods says she feels too much attention is placed on U.S. military aid in resource rich countries, without regard to a government's record or how elections are conducted.
This includes help for Nigeria's embattled government to eliminate Islamic extremists, and assistance in autocratic-run east and central African countries to squash the roving Lord's Resistance Army.
Patrick Mubobo, a Congolese American recently protesting in front of the White House, is one of those bitterly disappointed, after the U.S. government did little following flawed 2011 elections in his native mineral-rich and heavily U.S.-assisted Democratic Republic of Congo.
"We want to tell him it is over if he does not do the right thing for Congo, for children who are crying and dying if he does not do the right thing for democracy, he can count that he has not only lost my vote, but he has lost a lot of votes," said Mubobo.
Congolese Americans at this recent protest said they had campaigned vigorously for Obama in 2008 and even rallied for his health care legislation, but that now they felt disillusioned with the way the U.S. government was dealing with Africa and Africans.
U.S. officials point to recent successes in Africa, such as helping diplomatically as South Sudan became a new country last year, giving assistance to millions of victims to overcome drought in the Horn of Africa, and pursuing major health initiatives to fight AIDS and other diseases. | <urn:uuid:2253c917-ae36-4a21-8ae1-5a365d93ab53> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.voanews.com/content/africa-policy-watchers-lose-hope-in-president-obama-138259974/151281.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977277 | 631 | 1.914063 | 2 |
Texas Tech Celebrates Black History Month
February 11, 2013
R. J. Givens, Jr. & Octavia Middleton-Givens
R. J. Givens, Jr., attended Lubbock Public Schools, graduating from Dunbar High School and graduating from Hutson-Tillotson University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration. He is a member of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity and President of his class. He is a 33 Degree Mason of the Rio Grande Consistory Number 24.
R. J. has owned and operated Givens Agency for over 40 years. He became the first Black to join the Lubbock Board of Realtors and is a member of Multiple Listing Service. Over the years, many individuals have worked as agents for Givens Agency, with many others employed in clerical positions, including college students. Givens Agency was the stepping stone for his son Ron to become the first Black Republican in over 102 years to serve as State Representative in the Texas Legislature.
R.J. retired from the Lubbock Postal Office with 32 years of service. He was the first Black to sit on the Lubbock Avalanche Journal Editorial Board, was an Equal Opportunity Counselor for the Lubbock Region Postal Workers, and served as President of the Postal Workers Union. R. J. has served on various community and city committees and is a deacon at New Hope Baptist Church.
R. J. married his childhood sweetheart, Octavia Middleton. They have two children, Ron and Cheryl who have blessed them with several grand and great-grand children.
Octavia Middleton-Givens is a graduate of Lubbock Dunbar High School and of Peoples Business College in Austin, Texas. She became the first Black cashier for Starks Brothers Grocery in Austin, which opened the door for other to follow. Upon her return to Lubbock, she worked as the secretary at Wheatley Elementary School.
In 1965, she became the first Black to serve as a cashier for Southwestern Public Service (now Excel Energy). In 1970 she became the first Black female Realtor with the Lubbock Association of Realtors which provides access to the West Lubbock Real Estate Market. In 1974, she opened Givens Employment Agency, a State License Private Employment Agency that allowed her to place individuals with State Government, Southwestern Bell, IBM and several other businesses. She was associated with both the National and Local Private Employment Agency.
Octavia assisted in the formation of the Lubbock Black Chamber of Entrepreneurs. The Chamber was Organized to aid and assist minority businesses to be competitive in the modern market place. She is a member of New Hope Baptist Church, is involved with the Board of Deaconess, Usher and multiple church committees, and is a member of the State and National Lubbock Association of Realtors.
Octavia is the daughter of John and Lucille Middleton. She married her childhood sweetheart, R.J. Givens, Jr. and is the mother to Ron Givens and Cheryl Givens Wiley. She has several grand and great-grand children. | <urn:uuid:60bb1853-1842-4036-a4e0-4946f31a7297> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.texastech.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/021113aab.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976962 | 659 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Industry Analysis & Industry Trends
The Meat Processing industry has grown in spurts over the past five years. The industry's principle products – beef, lamb and pig meat – have all suffered from slight declines in consumption over the period, in line with higher prices. A principle trend over the past 20 years has been the preference for poultry over red meat, with poultry consumption doubling and red meat consumption remaining fairly static. Consumers have also been forced to scale back, purchasing lower quality meats in accordance with lower levels of disposable income caused by the recession. This added to the applicability of the shocking news that horse DNA had been discovered in a Tesco Value frozen beef burger product... purchase to read more
Industry Report - Industry Investment Chapter
The Meat Processing industry has high-speed production lines that have dramatically increased throughput, allowing meat processors to raise production without requiring corresponding increases in employment. However, the labour requirement is still classified as moderate, given that for every £1.00 spent on capital, industry operators typically spend £4.89 on wages.
Over the past five years, capital intensity has remained constant. However, IBISWorld estimates that the continual introduction of new technology will increase the capital requirement of meat processors and, in doing so, should lower the labour requirement. The capital intensity figure will level out again in the future, as production lines will achieve a fixed requirement of employees... purchase to read more | <urn:uuid:c0c76deb-5cd6-47e4-bdf3-c8f6023117b3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ibisworld.co.uk/market-research/meat-processing.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00069-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942995 | 284 | 2.234375 | 2 |
Paul H. Williams, Gleaner Writer
HECTOR'S RIVER, Portland:
ABOUT 22 years ago, a truck went over a cliff and landed in the sea at Hector's River, Portland. According to residents, nine people were killed. Only an arm belonging to one of them was found near an area called Sharks' Rock.
In October 1990, an American tourist, 34-year-old screenwriter Terry Runte, was robbed and beaten after dropping home two female friends. His body was allegedly thrown into the sea at Sharks' Rock, but it was never found. Two men were convicted for his disappearance, one for murder, and the other for manslaughter.
Now, Hector's River is poised for another tragedy.
The stretch of road, where the truck went over the cliff, not far from Happy Grove High School, unknown to many people, runs only a few feet from the cliff which rises several feet from the sea, which can be very turbulent, and is said to be shark-infested.
The edge of the cliff at certain sections is where vehicles drive, but it wouldn't appear so because of the grass, bushes, and thickets that line the road. Quite a deception it is. The vegetation at the spot where the truck went over is even lower than the others.
Thus, for whatever reason, on this pothole-riddled stretch, should a vehicle swerve or get out of control, it could end up on the rocks or in the sea below. The vegetation cannot buffer it, and what appears to be a stone wall at one section is not. It's just a very narrow strip of rock lining the cliff, left after the road was cut through the cliff decades ago.
But the situation is even more frightening when viewed from the sea. The base of the cliff is battered every day by aggressive waves, and there is constant marine erosion going on. Huge boulders and truncated stacks in one area are evidence of this. There are many little caves in the cliff sides just below the road; a huge one seems to go several feet inwards under the road. There are also signs of land slippage as there are areas where parts of the cliff seem to have collapsed into the sea because the base is constantly being undermined.
Residents who alerted Rural Express to the precarious situation said for years there have been talks that the road would be diverted to run behind the staff quarters of Happy Grove High School. One man said as far back as 50 years ago, he had heard the 'rumours'.
Yet, it is true that the coastline in the area is a very picturesque sight, typical of the Portland coast. But around and about the beauty and the idyllic scenery, another cliff-hanger might be about to unfold, sooner or later. Danger lurks, waiting to hold a life, or more, in its deathly embrace.
A jackass that was in earshot when the discussion was taking place between Rural Express and some residents brayed loudly as if to say, true word. Soon after, it was on its back and sides, wallowing in the wet grass. The joy before the sorrow? | <urn:uuid:d612dc76-2c54-478e-a05b-3cc32c75cdd1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20130202/news/news7.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00055-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981069 | 650 | 1.875 | 2 |
Because the Psalmist calls for them? Because language changes? Because new circumstances present themselves?
All of that and more! When we write poems and set them to music, when we sing, we set something free which pushes at the boundaries, that strains both doctrine and understanding, and in doing so gives birth to new hope. But this is dangerous. It can lead to heresy.
We need heresies. Heresies are the antidote to closed minds, to broken hopes. Christianity was predicated on a heresy, as far as the Jews were concerned; similarly Islam for Christians. Heresies sometimes help us frame what we really believe. Most of the historic creeds have come into being as defence against distortions of truth. But as someone once said, ‘what is truth?’ The moment we think we possess it we are, perhaps, captives of our own arrogance. Creeds can have a positive purpose, but equally they can be a strait-jacket.
I want to be able to explore faith in the same way that my scientific probing enabled me to make new discoveries. And yes, I know there is risk in that. But it was Sydney Carter who pointed out that you can’t cage the bird of heaven and still keep faith alive, anymore than you could cage a lark and expect to hear its voice. We know the truth of the metaphor, but people so often seek to cage certainty. Think of those Hebrews in exile who thought that God was dead because the temple and the city of Jerusalem and had been routed, until Ezekiel gave the dry, dead bones of their faith a wake-up call. Or Peter who was so constrained by the Jewish food laws that he couldn’t talk to Cornelius until God pointed out the foolishness of his theology in a weird dream. Or there are those friends of mine who wouldn’t go into a pub to ‘share the gospel’ because drink was evil, forgetting the wedding at Cana in Galilee – surely those jars didn’t contain grape juice? Oh, I could go on, but perhaps I’ve gone on long enough. The root of the problem is that we never fully know God.
And then we declaim and so often judge, we codify and the spirit of God is diminished and emasculated. Somehow the church needs to reclaim that prophetic spirit that can enable new adventures of faith, new discoveries of the unfathomable grace and freedom of God. At their best hymn poets have done just that. Today this is still part of our responsibility. On the one hand we are to communicate belief in that subversive way that perhaps only hymns enable, so that we sing our faith not only with our lips, but in our hearts that it might then be lived in our lives. On the other hand we should allow imagination to inform our writing so that we discover new and liberating truths fresh for our age and our need. Today this is as important as it ever was.
So we must express old truths in new ways. We must explore new circumstances and make sense of them in terms of our understanding of God. We must forge new instruments of audacious hope testing our theology and recognising it as dynamic, growing as our understanding of God and the world deepens. And in all of this, praise of God, sung is a tool to be used and to be treasured. We can often sing those things we only tentatively hold to be true with our intellect and we can give birth to hope through poetic imagination that we would never contrive through conscious thought alone. If we do not have hymns and religious songs then we must invent some tool to take their place. Until then, let us continue to write and to sing new hymns and songs to God!
©Andrew Pratt 2010
Ezekiel 37
Acts 10 | <urn:uuid:0ce7e540-b881-4b94-b7b7-4c15aa0635b9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://hymnsandbooks.blogspot.co.uk/p/why-write-new-hymns-and-songs.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970075 | 789 | 2.15625 | 2 |
I’ve finished processing the southern hemisphere GHCN data, and computed the temperature according to the simple procedure for the entire globe.
The results will probably be no surprise, since several others have replicated my results already, with the same outcome. Here’s the temperature history (annual averages) for pre-cutoff stations only, compared to that for post-cutoff stations only:
And here’s the difference between the two. Note that the post-cutoff stations (the ones NOT omitted) show LESS warming than the pre-cutoff stations (the ones that dropped out):
As stated before, contrary to the claims of D’Aleo and Watts, station dropout did NOT introduce a warming trend. If anything, it introduced a cooling trend. | <urn:uuid:9c4525f3-0f26-4394-8316-48d22b21aff8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tamino.wordpress.com/2010/03/05/global-update/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00070-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936988 | 162 | 2.140625 | 2 |
Volume 29, Issue 4 (October 1984)
Suicide by the Use of a Chain Saw
The paper describes a case of suicide by the use of a chain saw. Visceral and tissue damage caused by vibrations are documented in occupational medicine, but fatal damage is not often seen at autopsy. This paper gives an account of the damage to viscera and tissues that has been noted when strong vibrations of low frequency have been directed to the body for a very short time with fatal result after a few minutes survival time. | <urn:uuid:6133d3ee-78e9-4466-9722-7551260d1222> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.astm.org/DIGITAL_LIBRARY/JOURNALS/FORENSIC/PAGES/JFS11798J.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973453 | 105 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Posted Thursday, Feb. 28, 2013, at 7:45 AM
Image credit: Mars: NASA/JPL/MSSS; Comet Halley: Hale Observatory; composite: Phil Plait
In case you just can’t get enough impact news, it looks like Mars may actually get hit by a comet in 2014! As it stands right now, the chance of a direct impact are small, but it’s likely Mars will get pelted by the debris associated with the comet.
I know. This is pretty amazing. Still, let me preface this with a caveat: Trying to get precise predictions of comet orbits can be difficult, and for this one we’re talking about a prediction for 20 months from now! Things may very well change, but here’s what we know so far.
Comet What May
The comet is called C/2013 A1 (Siding Spring), discovered on Jan. 3, 2013 by the Australian veteran comet hunter Robert McNaught. As soon as it was announced, astronomers at the Catalina Sky Survey looked at their own data and found it in observations from Dec. 8, 2012, which helped nail down the orbit (I explain how that works in a previous article about asteroid near-misses). Extrapolating its orbit, they found it will make a very near pass of Mars around Oct. 19, 2014, missing the planet by the nominal distance of about 100,000 kilometers (60,000 miles).
Observations taken at the ISON-NM observatory in New Mexico just this week have tightened up the orbit a bit more, allowing for better predictions. Given this new data, the comet may actually pass closer to Mars; another veteran comet hunter, Leonid Elenin, predicts it may get as close as 37,000 km (23,000 miles) of the surface of Mars!
That’s pretty dang close. But this gets even more interesting.
Image credit: NASA/JPL
Ice to See You
Comets are similar to asteroids: Big chunks of interplanetary debris, mostly rock, that orbit the Sun. Comets, though, have a lot of ice in them—what we normally think of as gases and liquids on Earth like carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and water. But in deep space, these are frozen (making up much of the solid part of a comet, called the nucleus). As the comet nears the Sun it warms up, and these substances sublimate; that is, turn directly from a solid into a gas. They can exist on and below the comet’s surface, so when they sublimate they can erupt from vents like geysers. These vents act like rockets, gently pushing on the comet nucleus. Over time, this can change the comet’s orbit a bit, which is why I said above that making accurate predictions of a comet’s position over very long periods of time can be difficult.
Right now, the comet is over a billion kilometers from the Sun, and is (pardon the expression) stone cold. Still, a small amount of coma activity has been seen (see the picture below), and as it gets closer over the next year or so, it may very well vent more gas. If it does, its orbit may change enough to push it farther from Mars. Or it may push it right into the planet’s path. We won’t know for sure until at least late summer 2013, when more observations are possible (it’s about to get too close to the Sun from our viewpoint here on Earth to observe).
Let me be very clear: We are in no danger here on Earth. The nudges in orbit I’m talking about are pretty small, and it will be many millions of kilometers from Earth at closest. We’re safe.
Slipping into the Coma
And there’s still more. Comets aren’t generally very solid; you can think of them as loose piles of rubble held together by those ices. As the ice sublimates, the comet dissolves a little, and that rubble can escape. This material, usually objects the size of grains of sand up to small rocks, orbit along very nearly the same path as the comet nucleus itself (which is why we get meteor showers). The gas expands into a large fuzzy cloud around the nucleus, called the coma (which is Latin for hair). Although the nucleus may be a few kilometers in diameter, the coma can be several hundred thousand kilometers across!
What makes this so very interesting is that the coma can be bigger than the predicted distance by which the comet will pass Mars. This means it’s entirely possible, even likely, Mars will pass right through this cloud of material. And the closer the comet gets, the more likely it is Mars will get pelted by the debris set loose from the nucleus itself.
If that does happen, it’ll be the gods’ own meteor shower for the red planet.
I’m not entirely sure what we’ll be able to see from Earth should this happen. Mars will be well-placed in the night sky, so we’ll have a decent view. But most of the debris would be pretty small, so the odds of seeing much are low. Plus, there will be a big honking fuzzy comet in the way, obscuring the view!
Mars has two small moons, potato-shaped lumps a few kilometers across. I’ll be very curious to see comparisons of before-and-after pictures, to see if they get any new impacts on them.
If the nucleus does hit the planet, well.
That will be amazing, and by “amazing” I mean “apocalyptic”. The nucleus size is not well known, but may be as small as 15 kilometers (9 miles) or as big as 50 km (30 miles). Even using the small number means Mars would be slammed by an unimaginable impact. The comet is orbiting the Sun backward (more on that in a second), so it will be moving at a speed of about 55 kilometers per second (120,000 miles per hour!) upon impact. That means the comet has a huge amount of kinetic energy, the energy of motion. That energy will be released at impact as an explosion. A big one.
A really big one.
Doing a rough calculation, I get an explosive yield of roughly one billion megatons: That’s a million billion tons of TNT exploding. Or, if you prefer, an explosion about 25 million times larger than the largest nuclear weapon ever tested on Earth.
The crater left behind would be hundreds of kilometers across, and be the largest impact Mars has seen in a long, long time. Mind you, once again, there is no guarantee this comet will hit Mars. The most likely scenario is a close pass, which is still incredible.
In one sense, an impact would be pretty bad for us on Earth: we’d almost certainly lose all our robotic probes in orbit and on the surface. An impact that size would blast debris all over the planet, and the rovers could be damaged or destroyed. Even something in orbit wouldn’t be safe; the ejecta would come screaming off the planet and sent every which way in orbit around Mars. It would be like orbiting into a shotgun blast.
Even a near miss may prove dangerous for the probes, since as I pointed out there will be debris anyway. If we’re lucky, they’ll make it through this just fine, and we may very well get some spectacular images from them (as usual, Emily Lakdawalla at The Planetary Society Blog has that story). We’ll just have to wait and see what happens over the next few months.
Image credit: Carl Hergenrother
Grabbing a Comet by the Tail
Even if this comet weren’t getting anywhere near Mars, it’s worth studying. For one thing, as far as we can tell right now its orbit is hyperbolic. Assuming the observations are accurate, that means that it’s actually traveling faster than the Sun’s escape velocity. It probably came from very deep space, well outside the orbit the Neptune, probably from the vast cloud of comets surrounding the Sun called the Oort cloud. It may have gotten a kick from some outer planet (Jupiter is the usual culprit), giving it a bit of extra speed.
This is pretty rare, with only a few dozen comets known with hyperbolic trajectories. If it survives the encounter with Mars, it’ll head back out into deep space, almost certainly never to return. This will be our only chance to observe it.
And what will this look like late next year, when the comet is so close to Mars in space as well as in our sky? It’s hard to say, but the comet may actually be brighter; the gas particles are highly reflective, and may form a cloud far larger than Mars itself. So what we might see is a bright dot (or maybe even a disk if the coma is large enough), slowly encroaching on the ruddy bright star-like point of Mars. Over the course of a few weeks they’ll get closer, and closer…and for a day or so you might actually need a telescope to separate the two.
And then my best guess is that we’ll then see them pull apart, as the comet heads back out into the frozen vault of deep space, with Mars little worse for the wear.
But we’ll see. | <urn:uuid:6ebc6a17-5eee-4ec4-a821-587539feb7d4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/02/28/mars_impact_the_red_planet_may_get_hit_by_a_comet_in_october_2014.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944143 | 2,000 | 3.703125 | 4 |
SHAUN STANLEY/Durango Herald
KLINE – The morning sun blazed overhead as Pat Greer picked up a handful of reddish dirt from one of his alfalfa fields. The soil, parched from days without water, ran through his hands like sand.
Behind him, fields that would normally be knee-high with wheat, oats and corn lay barren, filled only with scruffy weeds and grass.
“Ain’t nothing there to cut,” he said, looking over the rows of recently harvested alfalfa. The piles were only inches high when normally they would reach to his knee, Greer said.
As weeks without precipitation stretch into months, the outlook for farmers in the southwestern part of the county becomes more and more dismal. While farmers in other parts of the county can depend on reliable irrigation flows thanks to local reservoirs, dozens of farmers on the Fort Lewis Mesa have had to watch helplessly as their only source of water, the La Plata River, slowed to a trickle.
The low water levels are the result of a perfect storm of low snowfall this winter and a warm, dry spring that caused most snow to melt early and quickly. With no reservoir to capture the river’s flow, these farmers are the most vulnerable witnesses to what many say is the driest year in at least a decade.
Most Fort Lewis Mesa farmers’ irrigation rights were shut off in May, more than a month earlier than usual for most. Their crops are withering and finding places to graze their cattle is getting increasingly difficult, forcing many to make tough choices to survive while they wait, and pray, for rain.
Barn half empty
Knowing water would be scarce, Trent Taylor said he cut back on all his spring planting this year. Usually Taylor, owner of Blue Horizon Farm, plants hundreds of acres of wheat to supply his business making whole wheat products. This year, he will be forced to rely on what he stored from last year.
“There is no way to compensate,” he said. “You just have to grin and bear it. In this business, you just have to expect the ups and downs.”
The “downs” are not hard to find among many farmers near Taylor.
Last year at this time, the Greers’ barn was full of hay, but this year it’s three-quarters empty. The few bales that are stacked inside were harvested last year or were purchased from a farmer in Dove Creek, Pat Greer said.
Matt Isgar has produced a fraction of the hay he usually gets and had to cut his crop a month early before it started to die from lack of water.
If their hay crop ends up dying this year because of lack of water, many farmers worried they will have to reseed hundreds of acres next year.
With pastures drying up and hay production down, some local ranchers said they are considering selling some of their animals because they are no longer able to feed them.
“Our fields have just burned up,” Isgar said.
But it’s really a lose-lose situation, said Doug Ramsey, a sheep farmer south of Hesperus. Selling his sheep now would earn him only half of what he would make selling in November, but buying enough hay to last the animals until then would counter any profits he would make.
With grazing pastures across the region quickly changing from green to brown, farmers in Colorado and elsewhere are looking to purchase more hay earlier in the season, causing prices to rise, said Robbie LaValley, who focuses on range and livestock as area extension agent with the Tri River Area extension office near Grand Junction. If this weather pattern continues, those prices will likely stay high, LaValley said.
Saving up the water
Many residents out here blame the lack of water storage for the dire water situation. The Animas-La Plata Project, which stores 124,000 acre-feet in Lake Nighthorse near Durango, originally included irrigation water for Fort Lewis Mesa farmers, but that provision was cut in the final plan.
Meanwhile, construction on a new reservoir near the New Mexico border will begin next month.
Years in the making, the reservoir will help satisfy Colorado’s nearly century-old obligation to provide half of the La Plata River’s water to New Mexico, therefore keeping more of the river’s summer flow for Colorado farmers. But the reservoir won’t do any good this year and frustrations among farmers remain high.
“You don’t see dry golf courses or parks, but you do see dry fields,” said Jim Greer, Pat Greer’s son. “You don’t see anyone eating golf balls to survive.”
Currently, half of the La Plata’s flow is being diverted to New Mexico through the less porous Cherry Creek Ditch, causing the river to go dry in several spots south of Hesperus. As the La Plata dries up, farmers aren’t the only ones to feel the effects. Wildlife, fish and the towering cottonwoods that depend on the river will suffer and begin to die without its water, Pat Greer said.
Farmers everywhere hoping for rain
North and east of Fort Lewis Mesa, other farmers and ranchers are also worried about their crops and livestock. Ranchers who graze their cattle on public lands may be required to leave early if the parched vegetation becomes over-grazed, said Matt Janowiak, Forest Service Columbine district ranger.
Even farmers and ranchers who are still getting irrigation water are struggling with lower yields because of the weather.
Florida Mesa farmer Gary Zellitti’s first hay cutting was one third of what he usually brings in. Zelletti said he is now using storage water from Lemon Dam since his water rights on the Florida River were shut off last month, two months earlier than normal.
Because Lemon didn’t fill up this year, he also expects his supply of reservoir water to run out in August, when usually it lasts until October.
Farmers across the state are confronting similar situations.
Farmers near Delta have faced reduced irrigation and some may be completely cut off in July, said extension agents in the office near Grand Junction. Losing irrigation is especially damaging to fruit tree growers in the Grand Junction area because a lack of water affects the trees roots and fruit production for years afterward, extension agent Curtis Swift said.
As it looks right now, draught conditions will “put a bind in all of Colorado’s agriculture,” he said.
Earlier this month, Colorado Sens. Michael Bennet and Mark Udall wrote a letter to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack asking for federal assistance to assist farmers and ranchers who are currently facing drought conditions throughout the state.
But for now, farmers’ only hope is that the summer monsoons will come on strong and early, said Darrin Parmenter, director and horticulture agent at the La Plata County Extension Office.
“You curse Mother Nature and pray to her in the same breath,” he said. | <urn:uuid:d4f1d2cd-2781-4577-b3f3-17c5ef6dfc07> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.durangoherald.com/article/20120630/NEWS01/706309955/href | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00053-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964733 | 1,496 | 1.882813 | 2 |
College-aged conservatives do exist, and they may be on a college campus near you.
New research from author Amy Binder shows that young conservatives portray their politics in very distinct ways. In a study that focused on two college campuses–one, an elite private university on the east coast, the other a western public university which is much larger–Binder found that these young conservatives had a very distinct way of expressing their political preferences.
Just as Molly Ringwald’s character rebelled by dating Judd Nelson’s character in The Breakfast Club, SE thinks that being conservative is really the only way to go rogue in college anymore. “Doing a march for fiscal responsibility on the quad? That feels rebellious. That feels different and new.”
Several students in Binder’s study said they “enjoyed being the center of attention” as a conservative on campus. And many felt they were learning critical thinking skills because their assumptions differ from the community around them.
“Students said that as conservatives on campus they were getting a better education than liberals were, because liberals are complacent and they’re kind of drinking the Kool Aid that all of the faculty are giving them. And they, the conservatives, were actually thinking about these issues and talking about them with their friends and bringing up all kinds of issues that get other people mad.”
Binder’s book–”Becoming Right: How Campuses Shape Young Conservatives”–reports that many conservatives enjoyed being provocative. “They were kind of playing ‘gotcha’ with liberals on their campus.” | <urn:uuid:a7680654-adc7-4954-b6f3-688fa7e50997> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/01/31/want-to-stand-out-on-campus-be-a-conservative/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982295 | 336 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Bethel Summer Camps 2013
Bethel’s Academic Camps provide campers, from ages 7 – 17, with the opportunity to explore some of the vast world of Academics. Jump into fun with our hands-on camps in the fields of Chemistry, Art, Drumming, Sports Hollywood, Nursing, Theater, Creative Writing, and Instrumental Ensemble. Academic Camps staff consists of college professors who are channeling their expertise and experience into an age-appropriate experiential learning format.
A tradition of excellence
The Bethel College Sports Camps program continues to offer excellent team and individual instruction to campers, just as it did when the program started 37 years ago.
Bethel College Sports Camps have excellent staff and the finest coaching available. Our camps are widely known as teaching camps. They feature one-on-one instruction, and campers are treated as individuals, not numbers. Daily fundamentals as well as individual and team play are important parts of Bethel’s camps. At Bethel, campers have fun, play hard and feel great about their camp experience. Of Bethel’s campers, 80 percent return.
We believe Bethel College is a special place, and our athletic programs play a role in the development of our young people. Our philosophy is devised to draw out the students’ greatest potential—body, mind and spirit. We desire to produce teams recognized for athletic excellence as well as student-athletes who will be leaders and examples for Jesus Christ. | <urn:uuid:d137a3ff-9527-49d1-a8fc-b85f53836bd3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bethelcollege.edu/camps | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941648 | 310 | 1.585938 | 2 |
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SUPERIOR – Enbridge Energy, Limited Partnership has agreed to pay $1,000,000 to settle state claims under Wisconsin's air pollution laws. The judgment resolves charges that Enbridge Energy failed to comply with certain requirements under those laws at its crude oil pipeline breakout storage terminal in Superior, Wisconsin.
Enbridge Energy's facility in Superior is a stationary source of air contaminants under Wisconsin law, which transports crude oil, diluents, condensates, and natural gas liquids, and stores crude oil and condensates.
Under Wisconsin law, Enbridge Energy was required to obtain and follow permits that governed its operation and maintenance of the facility. According to the complaint, at various times since 2001, Enbridge Energy violated state air requirements by operating the Facility without the proper air pollution control operation permit, commencing construction without a construction permit, failing timely to repair seals on storage tanks and to report the repairs, failing to conduct timely inspections of the internal floating roofs on the tanks, maintaining noncompliant stack dimensions, noncompliant tank seals, noncompliant operation of automatic bleeder vents and ungasketed fittings on the tanks, failing to maintain up-to-date design drawings and tank documentation, failing to timely complete painting one tank roof white, and underpaying air emission fees.
Enbridge has since the identification of the initial violations contained in the complaint worked with the Department of Natural Resources to resolve the violations, including undertaking a comprehensive air evaluation of the tanks and associated components and emissions at its facility, and instituting procedures to ensure future environmental compliance.
In announcing the settlement, Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen stressed the importance of proper permitting, monitoring and operation of such a large source of air emissions. "This action will help encourage the protective measures that Wisconsin requires in its air pollution control program," Van Hollen said. "The Wisconsin Department of Justice will continue to work with the DNR to ensure that Wisconsin's citizens and natural resources are protected through compliance with the law."
Assistant Attorney General JoAnne F. Kloppenburg prosecuted the case. Dane County Circuit Court Judge Peter C. Anderson approved the settlement.
The filings in this case are available at: | <urn:uuid:4fc639d2-599c-48bc-a669-6dce3f8ffe0c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.doj.wi.gov/media-center/2010-news-releases/october-07-2010 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929946 | 461 | 1.632813 | 2 |
The design of snow avalanche barriers at Siglufjordur, North Iceland was tendered in 1997 by the local municipality and the state. Hnit and partners were selected to carry out the design and tendering of two avalanche barriers. The smaller barrier is at Jorundarskal, 200 m long and 15 m high, requiring up to 29.000 m3 of material, while he larger one, below Ytra Strengsgil, is some 700 m long and 18 m high, requiring some 320.000 m3 of material. The building of the barriers was tendered in 1998 and their construction was completed in the following year. The barriers are, in spite of their size, not very prominent in their environment and it has been pointed out how well they become a part of the landscape.
Hnit´s partner in the project and the landscaping of the barriers was Reynir Vilhjalmsson and Landslag ehf. Their landscaping was nominated for the Rosa Barba European Landscape Prize where it achieved a special mention, where the theme was called Only with Nature. | <urn:uuid:6f56c21a-0d59-4057-82b1-a07507e85df9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.vulgare.net/2008/12/avalanche-protection-structures-siglufjordur-iceland/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00064-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969696 | 224 | 1.914063 | 2 |
ARCHIVED: Events Focus on African-American History
Events in January will include a focus on African-American history. An exhibit of photographs of women in continental Africa and Africans in the diaspora in the gallery of the Esther Raushenbush Library begins on January 15. On Wednesday, January 18, a staged documentary “Voices: Those Who Wore the Shoe,” based on slave narratives culled from 1934-1941 Federal Writer's Project interviews will be presented; a talk entitled Alterity: The African Griotte will be given by Dr. Fayemi, a practicing pathologist, in conjunction with the exhibit of his photographs on January 24 from 2–4 p.m. in the library's pillow room; and on Monday, January 30, a panel will explore Black-Jewish Relations in America.
“Windows to the Soul: Photographs Celebrating African Women” showcases the work of A. Olusegun Fayemi, who has spent the last 22 years concentrating his energies on social documentary photography. The exhibit runs from January 15 through March 31. For hours please call (914) 395-2470.
“Voices: Those Who Wore the Shoe” is a multimedia production by Harlin C. Kearsley based on actual slave narratives. Actors speak directly to the audience, stepping in and out of a number of diverse characters, creating an intimacy that helps put the audience in the moment, taking them on a journey with those who actually experienced the horrific reality of being physically owned by another human being. “Voices: Those Who Wore the Shoe” has been acclaimed by National Public Radio as “an essential teaching tool on the bitter lessons of slavery.” For more information, including the time for this presentation taking place on January 18, please call (914) 395-2412.
Religion faculty member Glenn Dynner has drawn together a panel to explore issues of Black-Jewish Relations in America. Looking back at years of cooperation during the Civil Rights era, as well as various artistic affinities and collaborations, the panel will also discuss tensions between the two groups, specifically examining the highly publicized incident that occurred in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, in recent years. One of the panelists, the Rev. Herbert Daughtry, was a central figure in that episode. The discussion will take place on Monday, January 30, at 7 p.m. in Reisinger Concert Hall. Please call (914) 395-2412 for additional information. | <urn:uuid:d63c4be3-2858-4ac2-95f8-6b53a6b1a3fb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.slc.edu/news-events/archived/2005-2006/2006-01-09.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958402 | 521 | 2.4375 | 2 |
Page Rank gets a bad rap sometimes. It’s easy to understand why. People got obsessed with Page Rank a few years back, and for a long time, people would not let go of the notion that Page Rank was the only thing you needed to worry about in SEO. For that reason, many really smart SEOs started to downplay it greatly, and to suggest that Page Rank is meaningless.
But that’s over doing it. Page Rank is still very, very important, and I still use it.
Page Rank still provides the best way of measuring the importance of a page, or a site. So let’s step back for a minute and talk about what I mean by importance. For example, why is Amazon more highly ranked than Joe’s Book Store? Because Amazon has a lot more links (page rank). Ultimately, a search engine has to decide two things about each page, in response to each search query:
- How relevant is the page to the search query – they do this by textual analysis of the page, the site, and an analysis of the relevance of the inbound links (by analyzing the text on the linking page, and the text on the linking site, and the relevance of the links to the linking site). As you can see, this rapidly becomes a highly recursive process, that provides the best results if you do this on a search query by search query basis. You can think of every page on the web as having its own “relevance score” with respect to every single search query.
- How important the page is compared to other pages that are relevant to the search query – This is a page rank calculation, as filtered by the relevance of the inbound links. I think of this as “query specific page rank”. So if the query is “bananas”, and your page is about bananas, and you have an inbound link from a site about selling used cars, that link will not add very much to the importance score of your page for the query bananas. But if the inbound link is from a page about bananas, on a site about bananas, and uses the word bananas in the anchor text of the link, the inbound link will add a tremendous amount to the importance score of your page. The final kicker is an evaluation of the importance of the linking page and the linking site. One simple way to do that is to look at their page rank. To get really artful though, look at how it ranks in the SERPs for the query bananas. If it’s on the first page, you have a killer link. So with this notion of query specific page rank, you have a way of thinking about your linking strategy, and you are acknowledging that page rank is still at the core of that strategy
In SEOmoz’s Search Engine Ranking Factors survey of top SEOs, the top 3 ranking factors selected were:
- Keyword Use in Title Tag
- Anchor Text of Inbound Link
- Global Link Popularity of Site
- Age of Site
- Link Popularity within the Site’s Internal Link Structure
- Topical Relevance of Inbound Links to Site
- Link Popularity of Site in Topical Community
- Keyword Use in Body Text
- Global Link Popularity of Linking Site
- Rate of New Inbound Links to Site
Looking at this list, and our notion of “Query Specific Page Rank”, items 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, and 10 all fall into that category. That’s 7 out of 10 – not too shabby.
So, ultimately, page rank still counts for a lot. And when you adapt that thinking to thinking about Query Specific Page Rank, and relating it to the most important keywords for your site, you are really on the right track with your SEO strategy. | <urn:uuid:64b3ea91-5855-4c0e-bca3-69155749a017> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.stonetemple.com/page-rank-and-query-specific-page-rank/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933186 | 805 | 1.742188 | 2 |
December 13, 2011
Geology professor, students present at national geophysical conference
Saugata Datta, assistant professor of geology, and students offered two presentations at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union from Dec. 5-9 in San Francisco.
Datta and his students were in the midst of more than 21,000 scientists to deliver research advances in two aspects of their research, one on geochemical signatures in CO2 sequestration and the other being on biogeochemistry of selenium in the environment.
The presentations were titled, "Geochemical and mineralogical characterization of the Arbuckle aquifer with laboratory flow cell experiments under supercritical conditions: Implications for CO 2 sequestration," and " Selenium Speciation and Mobilization in a Controlled Wetland System: Pariette Wetlands, Utah." | <urn:uuid:6be597b2-655e-4c47-a41e-39499c81bea7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.k-state.edu/today/announcement.php?id=1695&category=publications_and_presentations&referredBy=K-State%20Today%20Archive | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952026 | 170 | 2.109375 | 2 |
Local business community finances booster campaign urging businesses to send mail by air via a U.S. airmail fleet.
Funds made available by the Massachusetts Legislature and matched by the Boston Chamber of Commerce to develop an aircraft landing site on Jeffries Point in East Boston, Massachusetts.
June 13 – Boston's first aircraft touches down on a 1,500 foot cinder runway (piloted by Lt. Kitchell Snow) on the tiny airfield known as Boston Airport built by the U.S. Army on 189 acres of tidal flats.
September 8 – Boston Airport is officially dedicated. Original airfield is used primarily by the Massachusetts Air Guard and the Army Air Corp (20 years after the Wright Brothers historic first flight).
The Boston Aircraft Corporation completes the first commercial hangar.
Boston Airport’s first general manager, U.S. Army Air Service officer First Lieutenant Donald Duke of the Army Air Corps and is credited with coining the term “airport.”
April 14 – Colonial Air (a predecessor of American Airlines) initiates the first regularly scheduled commercial passenger flights between Boston and New York, less than one year after launching airmail service between the two cities.
Ownership of Boston Airport is transferred from the U.S. Army to the Massachusetts Legislature.
The City of Boston steps in and takes control of the airport with a 20-year lease from the state. Boston’s City Council places the airport under the jurisdiction of the Parks Department, which immediately began a series of improvements. An administration building was added, runways were lengthened, and access roads were paved and landscaped. Two hundred acres of land was reclaimed from Boston Harbor.
Despite the Great Depression, air travel continues to grow due to long distance intercontinental flights by pioneer aviators. Almost every flying celebrity from Charles Lindberg to Amelia Earhart came through Boston at one time.
American Airlines begins daily scheduled service between Boston and New York.
Massachusetts State Legislature creates the Massachusetts Aeronautics Commission (MAC) to foster air commerce, encourage the establishment of airports and recommend related legislation.
The state resumes direct control of Boston Airport (one week before the United States enters World War II) and assigns operation and development to the Massachusetts Department of Public Works. Airside land area is expanded by 1,800 acres from the further filling of Boston Harbor. Additional runways, apron areas and three new hangars are built to provide operational support.
Massachusetts State Legislature takes up proposal for $4.2 million bond issue for the funding of a new road to accommodate the airport’s growth as well as an amendment to rename the airport.
June 12 – The bond issue and new name are signed into law. Boston Airport becomes General Edward Lawrence Logan Airport.
Two airlines operate at the airport: Northeast flies to Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and Canada while American Airlines flies to New York.
Horseshoe-shaped Boutwell Terminal Building (Terminals B and C are now on the original footprint) is completed to help accommodate the 471,000 passengers using Boston Airport.
Loop access roadway system is completed to support the new terminal.
First non-stop transcontinental service begins between Boston and Los Angeles.
Eight-story control tower is built at the center of the Boutwell Terminal (now known as the “Old Tower”).
Airport now has four runways and an expanded terminal with 45 gates.
Jet operations begin with Pan American Airways daily 707 service to Europe. Two months later, American Airlines begins daily flights from Boston to Los Angeles.
Massachusetts State Legislature creates the Massachusetts Port Authority (Massport) which becomes operational on February 17, 1959.
Massport is charged with the operation of the airport, as well as the Mystic River Bridge (Tobin Bridge), Hanscom Field in Bedford and the public marine terminals in the Port of Boston.
Developed as a “quasi-state agency,” Massport is formed to be entirely self-sustaining, without cost to the Massachusetts taxpayer and without pledging state credit; supporting itself from three primary sources: the sale of revenue bonds, charges to users of its facilities and income from investments.
Massport begins a $23 million construction program at Logan including a $5.9 million International Terminal on the current Terminal C site which consisted of four 450 foot finger piers extending from the terminal building.
Significant development project is complete including an additional landfill added to extend runway 15R/33L in order to accommodate the movement toward larger aircraft.
International travel has increased by one hundred percent from 1951. Logan is the eighth busiest airport in the United States and its expansion continues with construction on the Central Garage, the Terminal Roadway and the New Taxiway. This expansion was necessary for the further
Three major infrastructure projects are completed between 1973 and 1976 at a cost of $105 million:
- Logan gets a new 22-story, 285 foot control tower (at the time it is the largest in the world) at a cost of $7.2 million. Logan’s tower is distinguishable by its twin cylindrical supporting pylons.
- The Volpe International Terminal (Terminal E) opens in 1974.
- South Terminal is constructed.
The filling of Bird Island Flats (BIF) is completed which provides an additional 234 acres of space for cargo and other facilities to be developed.
From 1975 through 1984 the implementation of the airport’s Master Plan is a central focus at Massport. Noise abatement is a significant part of the Master Plan – and provides the framework for the development of noise abatement efforts which are remain central to Massport operations today.
There are now 15.1 million passengers flying in and out of Logan each year. Further improvements are made to the airport including the construction of the Massachusetts Technology Center (currently known as Logan Office Center), Southside cargo facilities, a new Hyatt Hotel and the Amelia Earhart General Aviation Terminal on the Bird Island Flats area, dedicated in 1984 to the famous aviatrix and Boston resident.
Final phase of the Neptune Road Relocation Program is initiated to relocate the balance of families to several alternative sites in East Boston.
Roadway improvements are made as well as renovations to Terminal C (former North Terminal).
Soundproofing work is completed in East Boston schools and thousands of East Boston homes.
Logan Airport opens Kidport, the nation's first airport play area, which was designed by the Boston Children's Museum.
The number of annual passengers at Logan Airport increases to approximately 25 million annually.
In response to this growth, the Logan Modernization Project is initiated. This comprehensive and creative $4.4 billion program combines key landside improvements – focusing on terminals and roadways – with innovative airside enhancements.
The ultimate goal of the project is to increase Logan's efficiency without expanding the airport's borders or compromising on environmental benefits for its neighbors. Logan Modernization includes the Logan Landside program, which involves structural changes to the airport and the Logan Airside program, which involves various alternatives for reducing current and projected levels of aircraft delay and enhancing operational safety at Logan.
September 11 – Terrorists commandeer American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175 which departed from Boston Logan and fly them into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, part of the worst terrorist attack in United States history. A memorial is later constructed to honor the memory of those lost.
November 19 – United States Congress signs the Aviation and Transportation Security Act into law creating the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to oversee security at all U.S. airports.
Massport spends $146 million to integrate Logan’s new baggage screening system within the existing system to avoid impacts on passengers and terminal space. Logan Airport became the first major airport to have a 100% inline baggage screening plan approved by the TSA.
A new Logan emerges as the Logan Modernization Project is completed. Nearly every terminal and roadway at Logan has been modified and enhancements include:
• An award-winning International Gateway Arrivals Hall
• New Airport MBTA Station
• Connections to the Central Parking Garage from all terminals via enclosed walkways with moving sidewalks
• State-of-the-art and environmentally friendly Terminal A (LEED certified by the U.S. Green Building Council).
• New two-tiered roadway system that clearly separates arrivals (lower level) from departures (upper level) to simplify the airport driving experience.
Today, Boston Logan International Airport continues to develop and change as it strives to provide the latest in first class security, technology and customer service to all its passengers. Currently New England’s largest transportation center, Logan ranks 20th in the nation in passenger volume and 19th in flight movements, employs approximately 12,000 workers and stimulates the New England regional economy by approximately $7 billion per year. | <urn:uuid:8c45bf56-a073-4190-b8a8-ea80de80d14f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.massport.com/logan-airport/about-logan/Pages/LoganHistory.aspx | 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 | 0.936723 | 1,825 | 3.28125 | 3 |
About the data
There are more than 380,000 species of plants known to science and even more yet to be discovered. With so many plant species in need of conservation assessment, how do we know if a plant species is threatened?
Some well known species of plants have been intensively studied, but many others, especially in tropical biodiversity hotspots, are only known from the scientific paper where the plant was first described and have never been studied since. Most plant species have no distribution map or population survey and most countries do not have an up-to-date list of their plant species.
Who carried out the assessments?
The monocotyledons and legume groups were assessed by Kew and the pteridophytes were assessed by the Natural History Museum. For each of these groups 1,500 species were selected at random and each assessed against the IUCN categories and criteria.
As there are fewer than 1,500 gymnosperms all species were included, using the existing assessments of the IUCN Conifer and the IUCN Cycad Specialist Groups together with new assessments for the remaining species (Gnetales). We only have preliminary results so far for the sample of 1,500 bryophytes, with a large contribution from the Missouri Botanical Garden. This group is the next to be assessed.
From Darwin to Google: historical records and modern technology
The most comprehensive, easily accessible and reliable information on which to base a conservation assessment for most plant species is the location and range of that species.
The best source of this information is the collection of plant specimens held in the world’s herbaria. A herbarium is a scientific collection of dried, preserved plant specimens that provide verifiable records of the existence of a species at a given time and place. Automated tools for using specimen records to carry out conservation assessments have been developed. Watch our video to find out more about how plants are collected and the role of Kew's Herbarium.
The herbarium collections at Kew contain eight million plant and fungus specimens, and the Natural History Museum contains six million plant specimens, collected by thousands of botanists over hundreds of years, from all over the world.
Together with information about the species from botanical literature, from analysis using Geographical Information Systems (GIS), satellite images in Google Earth and the expert opinion of scientists who study that species or the area of the world where it is found, it is possible to assess a species’ conservation status and assign a Red List category to most species of plants. All assessments carried out for this project are underpinned by accurate and reliable information on where and when a species has been collected.
Assessing the conservation status of plant species
The IUCN Red List Index provides a rigorous set of criteria to assess the conservation status of a species to see if it is threatened with extinction. Based on these criteria, each species is assigned a category ranging from Critically Endangered (very close to extinction) to Least Concern (under no or very little risk of extinction), or Data Deficient if there is not enough information to reliably assess the status. Read about the IUCN Red List Index categories and criteria in more detail.
To assess the conservation status of a plant species and see if it is threatened with extinction, it must be assessed according to this rigorous set of criteria, after which it is assigned a category. By assessing a representative, random sample of species in a group of organisms, we get a picture of the overall conservation status of that group, and doing this regularly shows the trend in status over time.
Why is it called a 'Sampled Red List Index'?
Plant groups are relatively poorly known compared to animal groups such as birds and mammals. This is because there are many more species of plants than there are birds and mammals, but there are also more scientific experts for birds and mammals too.
Every species of bird, mammal, amphibian and coral has been assessed, but for much larger groups, such as plants and insects, this is not possible. Instead a representative sample of species has been selected, so for plants we produced a 'Sampled Red List Index'.
By assessing a randomly selected sample of plant species we get a picture of the overall threat status for each major plant group, without having to assess every species. Simulation modelling from the complete IUCN Red List assessments of birds and amphibians confirmed that 1,500 species for each group of plants would provide a representative view of plants overall.
In this research project, 7,000 plant species drawn from the five major groups of plants were included in the study: bryophytes (mosses and liverworts), pteridophytes (these are land plants, such as ferns, that produce neither flowers nor seeds and reproduce via spores), gymnosperms (such as conifers and cycads), monocotyledons (one of the major groups of flowering plants including orchids and the economically important grass and palm families) and legumes (the pea and bean family), as representative of the other flowering plants.
Both common and rare species were assessed in order to give an accurate picture of how plants are faring around the world.
Plants in comparison with other organisms
The IUCN Sampled Red List Index for Plants has a value scaled between 1 and 0, where a value of 1 would indicate that no species in the world was threatened, whereas a value of zero would indicate that every species in the world had gone extinct. The Sampled Red List Index value for Plants is [0.86], which shows that:
- Plants are more threatened than birds.
- Plants are as threatened as mammals.
- Plants are currently not as threatened as amphibians or corals.
In the future, the sample of plants will be assessed again to see how the threat status of each plant species has changed. The next point on the graph could show that the situation is improving (the line goes up) or getting worse (the line goes down). The future of plants depends on the conservation actions taken in the next few years.
Keep up to date with events and news from Kew | <urn:uuid:3f592a15-6af4-48ea-8783-d552d20cd135> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kew.org/science-conservation/search-rescue/mapping-plants/plants-at-risk/how/data/index.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947868 | 1,275 | 4.28125 | 4 |
The Sackville Family was a hobbit family of the Shire.
Camellia Sackville is the only known member of the family; apart from her almost nothing is known about them, except that they are described as being one of the Shire's wealthier families.
For more of them see Sackville-Baggins Family
The name Sackville is intended to be of more aristocratic association than Baggins. Tolkien noted that it was intentional that "bag" and "sack" have similar meaning.
Sackville is a real-life English surname.
- ↑ J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, Appendix C, "Baggins of Hobbiton"
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 J.R.R. Tolkien, "Nomenclature of The Lord of the Rings" in Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull (eds), The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion, p. 762 | <urn:uuid:7d732fc0-b0b5-40cb-8c6e-26672c069d27> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Sackville_Family | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938405 | 202 | 2.234375 | 2 |
Tendinopathy is an injury to the tendon. It can cause pain, swelling, and limited movement. The injury can include:
- Tendonitis—inflammation of the tendon
- Tendinosis—tiny tears in the tendon tissue with no significant inflammation
The peroneal tendons run along the outside of the ankle bone. Treatment depends on the severity of the injury.
Peroneal tendinopathy often occurs as a result of:
- Repetitive overuse injuries which may occur from regular activities
- Trauma to the ankle such as a sudden twisting of the ankle or foot
- A sprained ankle that turned inward
- Overstretching the foot
Factors that increase your risk of peroneal tendinopathy include:
- High arched foot
- Previous ankle sprain or injury
- Weak ankles
Symptoms include pain, tenderness or swelling along the bottom of the foot or side of the ankle. You may also experience weakening or instability in the foot or ankle.
Your doctor will ask about your symptoms and medical history. A physical exam will be done.
Your doctor may also need images of the foot and ankle. These may be taken with:
Your doctor may also inject a medicine in local structures. This can help your doctor confirm what structures are causing the problem.
Talk with your doctor about the best plan for you. Treatment options include the following:
A cast, splint, or brace may be needed. They will help keep your foot and ankle from moving to let the tendon rest. You may also be asked to wear special shoes or inserts.
To help manage pain, your doctor may recommend:
- Over-the-counter pain relievers, such as acetaminophen or non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medication (NSAIDs)
- Prescription pain relievers
- Corticosteroid injections
Physical therapy excercises will help to regain strength and range of motion within the foot and ankle. Other physical therapy methods include ice, heat, or ultrasound to reduce pain and swelling.
Surgery may be needed in some cases. It can help to repair the tendon or adjust support structures of your foot.
To help reduce your chance of getting peroneal tendinopathy, take the following steps:
- Avoiding activities and sports that repeatedly stress the ankle.
- Do not put yourself at risk for trauma to the ankle.
- Build strong muscles to support your joints.
- Gradually increasing the frequency and intensity of exercise.
- Learn proper technique for sports and exercise.
- Reviewer: Teresa Briedwell, DPT, OCS; Brian Randall, MD
- Review Date: 05/2013 -
- Update Date: 05/06/2013 - | <urn:uuid:fe2b817b-3575-45c6-87fd-e5f0ea965dc4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://menorahmedicalcenter.com/your-health/?/500523/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.906737 | 568 | 2.640625 | 3 |
Is the Coalition on course to reduce inequality?
Everyone knows that inequality has skyrocketed in the UK. Perhaps we know it too well, in that we seem to accept it as something that was foreseen and inevitable, rather than, as it was, something of a surprise for economic historians. Today the National Institute of Economic and Social Research publishes four papers that look, through different lenses, at the evolution of the UK income distribution – the components and dynamics of income over time. Taken together with other research, they paint a much richer picture of this issue, and provide some pointers about what we should be looking for in the future.
The broad story, over the last 40 years, seems to be the following. The very substantial increase in inequality that began in the 1970s and continued through the mid-1990s was followed by a more complex picture, with inequality increasing in some parts of the income distribution and decreasing elsewhere, as shown in this well known chart from the Institute of Fiscal Studies.
Inequality rose sharply in the period up to about 1995, driven by growth in earnings inequality over the entire earnings distribution, demographics and other structural change, as well as a less progressive tax and benefit system.
After 1995, and especially after 2000, the picture became more mixed. Structural changes, especially at the very top of the earnings distribution, continued to drive greater inequality; those in the financial sector and high earners in London did particularly well. However, a much more progressive tax and benefit system, and the National Minimum Wage, helped reduce inequality at the lower end and in the middle of the distribution.
Throughout this period female labour force participation increased, driven by societal trends and also recently by welfare policies. However, once in the labour force, a disproportionately large number of women are low-paid, part-time and often in families on the edge of poverty, with limited opportunities for advancement.
What does this tell us about the future? In the short to medium term, it is difficult to be optimistic. Much of the progress in reducing child poverty came from increases in the progressivity of the tax and benefit system; but changes made by the Coalition Government are likely to reverse this. The Government argues that welfare reform, and in particular helping workless families into work, is the key to escaping poverty; but even relatively successful welfare reforms under the previous government contributed only modestly to progress. In particular, while, because of improved work incentives and active labour market policies, the lone parent employment rate increased by about 10 percentage points – reversing the previous long-term downward trend – the impact on child poverty was limited.
It is difficult to see why this should change: even if the Government’s flagship welfare reform measure, the Work Programme, is reasonably successful, it is implausible that it will result in employment increases that are significant at the level of the population as a whole.
Meanwhile, structural factors – regional and sectoral disparities, as well as the increased importance of skills – are the key underlying drivers of growing earnings inequality. While one might hope that rising educational participation would over time help, there is little evidence of this yet. And we are building up a worrying problem of insufficient saving for retirement, particularly for “precarious” workers in the private sector.
Turning to the longer term, what light does all this shed on the ongoing debate about social mobility? The much cited paper by Jo Blanden et al, showing that social mobility fell for those leaving school in the late 1980s compared to those who left school in the mid-1970s, has had a huge impact in policy and political circles.
While the specifics of the paper have been criticised, the consensus among economists is that by any measure there was a significant fall in intergenerational social mobility (or more precisely a significant rise in the correlation between the incomes and educational attainment of parents and children) over roughly this period.
There is, however, no definitive consensus on what explains this fall, although the obvious explanation – the rise in earnings and income inequality for the families in which these cohorts were growing up – seems eminently plausible. As this chart shows, social mobility is inversely correlated with income inequality, although the relationship is clearly not deterministic.
One explanation widely cited by politicians and the press can, however, be dismissed – the (near) abolition of grammar schools – recent research has shown that for the 1958 cohort comprehensive schools performed over all at least as well as grammar schools in terms of social mobility, individual examples to the contrary notwithstanding. The OECD, looking across countries, concludes that selective education damages social mobility:
“Early selection into different institutional tracks is associated with larger socio-economic inequalities in learning performance without being associated with better overall performance.”
A more plausible alternative explanation is that the fall in social mobility is partly due to the increase in higher education participation being focused on those from higher income families.
It is far too early to come to a definitive conclusion on developments in intergenerational social mobility over the last decade or so. But early indicators suggest that there be may be some modest improvements, with some narrowing of gaps in educational performance, as shown by a recent analysis in the Financial Times. On the other hand, if anything, the youth labour market appears to have become more polarised (with an increasing proportion of young adults attending university, but also a rise in the number not in education, training or employment), which does not bode well.
What about the future? With the prospect of a further rise in income inequality, driven both by structural change and government policies, it is difficult to be optimistic. It is, however, worth setting out the government’s counterarguments. The government argues that the increase in progressivity of the tax and benefit system, while reducing measured inequality, was just papering over the cracks, and failing to deal with the structural causes of greater inequality and reduced social mobility. The priority should be early years education, to reduce educational underperformance among more disadvantaged groups, and to tackle entrenched worklessness among some groups, especially young adults with low qualifications.
In principle, there is much to commend in this approach. Indeed, it seems plausible that if successful policies could be implemented in these areas that, over the longer term, they would at least contribute to reducing inequality and eventually increasing social mobility. It is, however, worth noting that in a number of areas the specific policy changes announced so far do not seem to be based on strong evidence of what might contribute to greater social mobility.
- The reduction in funding available for SureStart does not seem consistent with the priority attached to the early years – a point made strongly by the Frank Field Review. By contrast, the extension of childcare to relatively disadvantaged two-year olds may have some positive impact. In both cases, however, it should be noted that while there is very strong evidence that early outcomes are important for later educational attainment, and hence very probably for social mobility, the evidence base for particular interventions is less strong.
- The impact of the introduction of free schools is obviously difficult to predict at this stage but existing evidence suggests it is likely to be negative for social mobility. The OECD argues, citing multiple references, that “research has shown that school choice, and by extension school competition, is related to greater levels of segregation in the school system, and consequently, lower levels of equity.” In Sweden, the closest direct analogy, most evidence suggests it has resulted in some rise in segregation, consistent with the OECD view. This may, however, be countered by the introduction of the pupil premium; although there is little evidence to suggest that simply increasing school expenditures substantially improves the performance of poorer pupils.
- The abolition of the Education Maintenance Allowance, despite strong evidence that it significantly increased staying-on rates and attainment among the target group (16-18 year olds from poorer families) is likely to have a negative impact on social mobility, given the impact both on further educational attainment (eg university participation) and on earnings.
- On a more positive note, the Wolf Report on Vocational and Technical Education makes some important and evidence-based recommendations designed to help, in particular, the most disadvantaged young people: “Among 16 to 19 year olds, the Review estimates that at least 350,000 get little to no benefit from the post-16 education system”.
To conclude, it is difficult enough to state with any degree of confidence what has happened to social mobility in the last decade, so predicting the future is at best courageous. The coalition government has a clear commitment to implementing policies designed to increase social mobility, and its broad policy focus is sound. Nevertheless, at present it is difficult at present to be optimistic about either broader structural trends or about the majority of the specific policies implemented so far.Tagged in: coalition, Frank Field, Gini, inequality, Jonathan Portes, social mobility, Sure Start, Work Programme
Latest from Independent journalists on Twitter | <urn:uuid:8c010f0e-611f-4b6a-90ba-b3317ac49813> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2011/11/01/is-the-coalition-on-course-to-reduce-inequality/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96635 | 1,820 | 2.21875 | 2 |
Every year Memorial Day weekend marks the true beginning of summer. Celebrated by the opening of pools and backyard cook-outs, memorial day seems to be the kick off to a season of outdoor fun and relaxation. It is also starts a dangerous season on our roadways. As traffic increases for summer travel, so do fatal crashes.
Nebraska State Patrol and other Nebraska Law Enforcement Agencies across the state are working throughout this busy summer traffic season to keep our roads safe. The 100 days of summer campaign is their effort to keep Nebraska’s roads safe from memorial day to labor day, through special enforcement efforts. They are working to drive down crash numbers over this summer and make sure we can all relax and enjoy these next few months. Their hard work will keep us all safer as we travel this year. We can all help them out by making good decisions throughout the summer months, making sure to always have a sober designated driver if your plans include alcohol and always wearing your seatbelt.
We here at MADD Nebraska hope you have a wonderful holiday weekend and a fun, safe summer. | <urn:uuid:6b391d55-9d1d-416b-89a4-01ebbd7baa6f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://betweenthelinesblog.wordpress.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967063 | 220 | 1.648438 | 2 |
A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen
Seattle Shakespeare Company, Center House Theatre, through January 27
By Alice Kaderlan
Seattle is fortunate to have a local theater company that does Shakespeare well, a rarity among American troupes. Over the years, Seattle Shakespeare Company’s productions of the Bard’s plays have generally brought much merriment in its comedies and deep insights in the tragedies. Now and then there is a major miss within the Shakespearean canon, as in the recent Antony and Cleopatra, but that’s a rarity.
The company’s record when it produces plays by other writers, however, is less successful and its current non-Shakespearean production, of Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, misses its mark by a mile. The most egregious miscalculation is that the power of the final moment – when Nora Helmer slams the door as she leaves her house to seek life as an independent woman – is completely lost. Rather than shut the door with a bang – Ibsen’s stage direction reads “From below, the sound of a door slamming shut…” – this Nora almost slinks away and the play ends with barely a whimper.ters, however, is less successful and its current non-Sakespearean production, of Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, misses its mark by a mile. The most egregious miscalculation is that the power of the final moment – when Nora Helmer slams the door as she leaves her house to seek life as an independent woman – is completely lost. Rather than shut the door with a bang – Ibsen’s stage direction reads “From below, the sound of a door slamming shut…” – this Nora almost slinks away and the play ends with barely a whimper.
Since it was first performed in 1879 “A Doll’s House” has been embraced by feminists, who see in Nora a woman’s dawning awareness of her right to self-fulfillment. When we first meet her, Nora has been completely infantilized by her husband Torvald, who refers to her as a “fritterbird.” Nora doesn’t just accept but embraces her subservient position although in more nuanced performances than Johnson’s we sense a flinty resolve beneath the flighty exterior.
As her personal circumstances become more complicated, owing to a financial debt she has kept secret from her husband, Nora gradually develops a stronger spine and when she finally gains insight into Torvald’s true character it’s not hard to understand her decision to leave him.
The greatest problem with this “Doll’s House” is the inability of Johnson as Nora and Michael Patten as Torvald to generate any heat, either with each other or the audience. Their lack of sexual chemistry makes the early scenes, when they are supposed to be passionately in love (or lust), unconvincing and with so little physical or emotional energy between them, one could interpret Nora’s leaving as a sign of her boredom as much as her fury.
A further problem is that they both so overact the cutesy-poo dialogue with which Ibsen (or translator Sean Patrick Taylor) laces their interactions, it’s hard to relate to them as real people. The situation hardly improves as the plot deepens; director Russ Banham has set Nora and Torvald up as such comedic characters the transition to the more serious and ominous scenes is rough and unbelievable.
I first read “A Doll’s House” many years ago and remember being deeply moved by Nora’s evolution to self-understanding and empowerment. Unfortunately this production provides only the vaguest intimations of the play’s power to convey not just one woman’s struggle but also the constraints of an entire society. For that, one still has the written version to peruse, and ponder. | <urn:uuid:3e8c2a69-45d6-4bb4-9c53-e85235e1deaf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.seattlepi.com/feetfirst/2013/01/10/a-fragile-dolls-house/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960752 | 849 | 2.046875 | 2 |
More on SCO's Linux-in-UnixWare gambit
The host with the most?
Following our report yesterday about SCO's Linux personality for UnixWare, we received some incandescent emails, some even suggesting that SCO was "raping" the GPL in principle if not in practice. But that doesn't seem to be the case at all.
Although our notes from yesterday's session include the words of "subset" and "Linux kernel" - and so do notes of our colleagues - we're assured that this was a ZDNetification of the truth. It's all very odd - as we were even given detailed figures - but the word is now to disregard these completely.
So instead of the dumb-down version, here's what's really going on, according to the fiendishly clever Dr Kienhoefer, engineering lead on the project.
Kienhoefer says that instead of taking a slice of the Linux kernel source, SCO has implemented a clean room set of interfaces. There's no Linux code there, so there's no obligation to publish anything GPL. That said, SCO will probably make source code available around October. The full LKP is scheduled for release by the end of the year.
SCO says it has implemented a clean room environment. The user installs the distro of your choice into a /linux tree. The full process tree is implemented, says Kienhoefer, as are ptrace() and strace() calls. So you could use Linux sessions as a faithful development environment.
In practice administrators will be able to add Linux users via the UnixWare admin console - and vice versa too, according to Kienhoefer. This lends itself to the kind of server consolidation logic espoused by IBM with its S/390 and AS/400 strategies, where you host hundreds of virtual sessions on the big iron. However technically the analogies doesn't get too far. Although IBM speaks of adding, Linux instances would be shared everything SMP model, all managed by the single instance of The plan is to get the Non Stop Clusters services available to the hosted Linux applications eventually. Scaldera (how much longer, Lord, before this merge is approved) has already said it plans to merge NSC into the main UnixWare kernel.
SCO chief Doug Michels said the test of a decent host environment was if it could install any off the shelf Linux distro, and run applications faster than Linux could on the same hardware. For non-Unixware sites, it might provoke response of why bother? But for existing UnixWare sites, if cost and performance live up to billing, it could be pretty attractive.
Keep an eye on the official Web site, although it's empty at the moment. "Sometimes engineering is ahead of marketing," explains the good Doctor.
We asked SCO if they thought that Microsoft could, or would want to ape this strategy by offering a Linux environment over Windows 2000? After all, it has an ancient POSIX layer in there, and has worked with Interix to provide Unix hosts. "It's only software," reckons Doug Michels. "And we could then run Tarantella on it..." ® | <urn:uuid:9921190f-d2a8-4f4d-b319-063d9db1a2ec> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theregister.co.uk/2000/08/23/more_on_scos_linuxinunixware_gambit/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951029 | 656 | 1.539063 | 2 |
China is no stranger to food controversy, leaving some consumers wondering if they can trust Chinese foods labeled as "organic."
You want to avoid pesticides but you're on a budget. The "Dirty Dozen" to the rescue!
A recent study shows that American consumers may be willing to pay more to dine at "environmentally friendly" restaurants.
Earth Eats contributor Nicole Henderson writes about steps her family is taking to bring more organic food into their kitchen and onto their plates.
Surprisingly, organic food sales are still thriving in the midst of the global recession. | <urn:uuid:6c9af511-9247-4c71-aba0-e6126af26433> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://indianapublicmedia.org/eartheats/tag/organic-foods/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946012 | 117 | 1.71875 | 2 |
When it comes to increasing uptime, there are two schools of thought. The first is to try to consider every single element along the request path, and try to make each and every step as reliable as possible.
On a high level, we can illustrate the path of an http request through a web app system approximately so:User Agent (browser) makes HTTP request -> DNS resolution -> TCP/IP connection is established with the Web server -> web server parses HTTP request -> Web server hands off request to CGI of some sort (eg. PHP) -> CGI reads file from filesystem -> CGI processing -> Web server receives content back from CGI -> Web server sends reply to UA -> UA renders page
This is a somewhat simplified overview, the idea is just to show broadly what happens each time you click a link in your browser. Along this path we encounter the following potential pit-falls:
- DNS resolution failure – no dns servers send a correct reply
- TCP/IP connection failure – link down
- Web server failure – server busy, misconfiguration, etc
- File storage failure
- CGI failure – no reply received or invalid response
- Request timeout – web server received content from CGI, but client has gone away (timed out?)
I’d like to look at how we might decrease the likelihood of encountering any of these pitfalls.
DNS: The domain name system is designed from the ground up to be resilient against a single or even multiple failure. All domain names must have multiple DNS resolvers listed, and all computers which know how to make a DNS request also know to keep trying other resolvers until they get a good reply. With a little care to ensure all your resolvers have a copy of the master data for your zone, this one is a simple one to solve.
TCP/IP failure: This one is more complex, as each TCP request traverses a number of different systems. It will start by coming in to your network via a WAN link. Right there you have potential failure point #1, a single WAN link, if down, will render your server unavailable. The solution is to house your server in a facility with multiple redundant WAN links, and the proper equipment and configuration to advertise these redundant routes via BGP. BGP is the Border Gateway Protocol used by Internet routers around the world to advertise which routes they are available by. If one link goes down, the BGP router will stop advertising that particular route, and continue receiving traffic via other available connections.
Once the TCP request is safely within your network, you then have the possibility of a cable or switchport failure disrupting the connection. Again there exists a network layer solution for this, it’s called 802.3ad link aggregation. This is configured at the switch level and instructs the switch that multiple cables/ports may be used to reach a destination MAC address. The very same standard can also be used to connect multiple network ports on a server to multiple 802.3ad-aware switches, thereby creating a fully fault tolerant physical connection path between the network core and the server.
Web server failure: The most common cause of a failure in this instance would be a crashed or stopped web server. This is most often caused by misconfiguration or lack of resources. To mitigate this risk, careful attention should be paid to the selection of server software, the configuration of the software, and the matching of server resources to expected load. In many cases it will make sense to run multiple web servers behind a load balancer. While this adds another potential failure point to the request process, it can also help to mitigate failure by only directing incoming requests to responsive web servers. Think of it like RAID for Web servers.
Storage failure: Your code has to be stored somewhere, and if that storage becomes unavailable, the web server and/or CGI processes will stop working. While network based storage can increase flexibility, it also adds another potential point of failure. Local disk based storage is one of the most common components to fail, so RAID storage should always be used to minimise this risk. Modern SSDs also offer potential relief from disk failures. With no moving parts, they are far more reliable than traditional spinning disks, and faster too.
CGI failure: This is where by far the most failures occur. Ever seen a 500 Internal Server Error or a 503 Service Unavailable error? This is almost definitely caused by a CGI failure. Careful choice of software and proper configuration can help ensure reliability, but by far the biggest component to consider here is your code. Similar to Web server failure, one of the best ways to mitigate this risk is by running multiple CGI servers.
Request timeout: There are 2 reasons a request might time out. Firstly, the server may be overloaded, and unable to send a reply before the connection is dropped. This problem can be solved by adding more capacity (a faster server, or more servers). The second reason this could happen is due to poor programming and/or design. Any process which you expect will take more than a couple seconds to complete should probably be run asynchronously, with a message returned to the end user informing them of this (eg. a nice progress bar). This will prevent the connection from timing out and keep your users informed of what’s happening.
It is important to look carefully at the request path for your own application, as each site or web app will be a little different. For example, most apps use a database backend, which I did not include in the above example.
So the first school of thought in optimising availability is to carefully consider each and every step in the request process and try to make sure there is as much redundancy and as few potential failures as possible in that chain. The second approach is to resign yourself to the fact that failures do happen, no matter how carefully you try to avoid them, and to acknowledge that you need to handle those failures gracefully whenever they do arise.
DNS has a handy feature built-in whereby an address (A) record is allowed to return multiple IP addresses. This technique can be used to indicate to the User Agent (browser) that multiple servers are available to handle the request. The UA will pick one IP at random from the list returned, and send the HTTP request to it. Should a connection failure occur, the browser will automatically try the next IP in the list, until it finds a server which works. By utilising this technique, we can create fault tolerance all the way up to the very start of the HTTP request process, the User Agent.
A quick DNS lookup shows www.google.com, www.yahoo.com and www.reddit.com are all using this technique, and this is the technique I will be deploying in my quest to reach 100% uptime for this blog. | <urn:uuid:35d509d8-343a-47ef-9383-c39337d7052b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cwik.ch/tag/fault-tolerance/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929818 | 1,396 | 2.5625 | 3 |
Bar and Bat Mitzvah 101
Coming of age for a Jew, which happens automatically at age 13 for a boy and 12 for a girl, is termed bar and bat mitzvah, that is, obligated to perform the Jewish mitzvot (commandments). A ceremony marking the first performance of mitzvot such as being called up to the Torah to say the blessings (known as "getting an aliyah") began to make sense only in the Middle Ages. Earlier, the age of majority had little practical meaning because minors were "permitted" (though not "obligated") to perform many rituals that were later reserved only for boys who had reached the age of bar mitzvah.
The history of the bar mitzvah dates back to a fifth-century rabbinic text references a blessing (still part of a traditional bar mitzvah) recited by the father thanking God for freeing him from responsibility for the deeds of his child, who is now accountable for his own actions. A 14th-century text mentions a father reciting this blessing in a synagogue when his son has his first aliyah. By the 17th century, boys celebrating this coming of age were also reading from the Torah, chanting the weekly prophetic portion, leading services, and delivering learned talks.
Religious reformers of 19th-century Europe, uncomfortable with the ritual focus of the bar mitzvah, developed the confirmation ceremony, which celebrated the acquisition of the principles of Jewish faith by older teens. The confirmation ceremony quickly included girls as well as boys and spread to Reform and later Conservative congregations in the United States.
The bat mitzvah celebration made a late appearance in the United States with the bat mitzvah of Judith Kaplan in 1922. In the last half century, the bat mitzvah has been widely observed in liberal congregations, but has developed more slowly among traditional Jews, because women are not legally obligated by Jewish law to perform public mitzvot. | <urn:uuid:f7d74f6c-dbbe-4db3-a142-60f0ba913954> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.myjewishlearning.com/life/Life_Events/BarBat_Mitzvah/BarBat_Mitzvah_101.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97404 | 412 | 3.578125 | 4 |
Kristin's intro: In this record-low interest rate environment, savers are looking for whatever additional interest earnings they can find. Well, listen up savers because Bankrate.com is out with their annual look at high-yield checking accounts and here with details is Greg McBride, senior financial analyst for Bankrate.com.
Greg, although these are called high-yield checking accounts, they're not your run-of-the-mill checking account. Explain how these accounts work.
Greg: You're right Kristin. Savvy savers are going to use these a lot more like a savings account than they will a checking account. The way these accounts work is by requiring the accountholder to make a certain number of debit card transactions, usually 10 each month, in addition to having direct deposit or bill payment, in order to earn the higher yield. You have to meet those requirements to earn the yield for that given month. Fall short of the mark, and the average rate you'll earn is a more pedestrian 0.08%.
10 debit card transactions per month
Direct deposit or bill payment/automatic withdrawal
Kristin: Of course, interest rates are down across the board over the last year, and I'd imagine that is the case here as well. Talk about the yields you can earn on these accounts, and how that compares to other cash investments.
Greg: The average yield for someone meeting the requirements is 2.05%, which is down from 2.56% last year and 3.3% back in 2010. But this is still head-and-shoulders above other cash investments such as savings accounts and money funds, and your cash is federally insured. However, the yield is limited, most often to the first $25,000 on deposit.
Full-screen Bar Chart:
High-yield checking accounts: 2.05%
Online savings accounts: 1.05%
Money market funds: 0.03%
Kristin: How can savvy savers make the best use of these accounts?
Greg: Ideally, you want your direct deposit to at least offset the money withdrawn via the debit card transactions. Since this is the highest-yielding cash investment you have, this isn't an account you want to be draining cash out of. If at all possible, you want to add cash to up to the point where the high yield is capped.
Kristin: Some welcome good news for the starved savers out there. Thank you, Greg. For more information on the survey and to find a high-yielding account for your spare cash, log onto our website, Bankrate.com. I'm Kristin Arnold. | <urn:uuid:9ccf629d-8016-435a-a4f6-f58e0017f08e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.school-unblock.com/index.php?q=aHR0cDovL3d3dy5iYW5rcmF0ZS5jb20vZmluYW5jZS92aWRlby9iYW5raW5nL2hpZ2gteWllbGQtY2hlY2tpbmctc2F2ZXJzLmFzcHg%3D | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00070-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942147 | 550 | 1.953125 | 2 |
Intel and Vice-affiliated media channel The Creators Project speak with video artist Takeshi Murata in this short clip. They provide a snapshot of his practice, touching on his unique approach to animation. There's a brief interview with Murata on their website as well, here.
How did the World Wide Web look before this Internet boom, before it became a riot for star backgrounds, bouncing envelopes and under construction signs?
Well, in 1991, Tim Berners-Lee went live with the first web page TheProject.html located inside the hypertext/WWW/ folder on a computer called "nxoc01" at CERN. Neither him, nor any of his colleagues made an effort to preserve this first version. The only thing we know is the URL http://nxoc01.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html and the way the first page ever looked in november 1992. That's early enough, still half a year before the Mosaic browser would be released and people outside of CERN would start to make their pages.
It is difficult to estimate how many pages created in 1993-1994 made it into the new millennium in their primordial way. If you manage to find something that was put online that time, it would in the best case display a 1995-1996 skin, like the Russian Space Science Internet -- redesigns clearly shaped by the then-new Netspace browser.
But there is a way to find pages that live for ever in 1993. To present them to the new students I look for "Prof. Dr." in Google.
[Clockwise: Virutmytob, Stormy, IRCbot, and MyDoom]
Malwarez is a series of visualization of worms, viruses, trojans and spyware code. For each piece of disassembled code, API calls, memory addresses and subroutines are tracked and analyzed. Their frequency, density and grouping are mapped to the inputs of an algorithm that grows a virtual 3D entity. Therefore the patterns and rhythms found in the data drive the configuration of the artificial organism.
[Stills from various episodes of PARTY FOOD.]
PARTY FOOD is a multi-dimensional art project that began as a few drawings and short stories in 2006. What followed has become a blend of performance, installation, and media that cannot be defined but through experience.
Transitioning between heirloom mentalities is hard. Calista knows and isn't afraid to speak her mind about it! Every girl needs something colorful in her life and that's why impressions always stick best while wet. So the next time you're ready to uproot your sandcastle watercolors, just remember: nobodys gotcha back like dollys on the beast team. In fact, no East Coast Sisterhood (ECS) ever felt so good! So relax! Sit back and track the date.... cause this calender is about to get B.E.A.T. U.P.!!!!!!!!!!!
Homebrew Electronics is a new series on the Rhizome blog. For these posts, I will be conducting studio visits with artists and inventors who create unique electronic instruments.
Last week, I met up with Jeff Donaldson, aka noteNdo, on a particularly sweltering summer day in his studio in Bushwick. For close to a decade, Jeff has been modifying video game consoles to produce glitchy audio and visual material. These machines form the backbone of his practice, which began primarily in a live performance context, and has expanded from there. In the past few years, Jeff has begun to apply the patterns created from his consoles into material form by making scarves and prints, and more recently, he’s moved into fully immersive, interactive installations. For this studio visit, he walked me through a number of his consoles.
Meet Leo. Named after Leon Theremin, this Nintendo NES from 1985 was one of Jeff’s first projects and has become a staple in his work. He got the idea to make animation after a vivid dream - and set out on his Nintendo NES, the only tool he had at the time.
This is the patch bay for Leo. Patching the jacks offsets a short circuit that creates a visual effect, which Jeff discovered through trial and error. The patches allow him to revisit these effects - which are essentially bad reads by the system. Leo allows you to swap in and out different games - exposing the cartridges to the visual effects produced by Jeff’s modifications. Jeff described Leo as essentially an “auto-collage system” allowing a reworking of the original material through the settings he has determined.
The exhibition "Resonance" was initiated in early 2010 as an experiment in the conceptual underpinnings and practical manifestations of sound art as a genre and form in contemporary greater China. Growing out of a series of readings and conversations in Hong Kong with artists as varied as Yan Jun, Feng Jiangzhou, and Zhou Risheng, the final exhibition program included two installations by artists Samson Young, an artist and composer based in Hong Kong, and Yao Chung-Han, a sound artist based in Taipei. This selection of artists allows the experiment to step beyond the mainland sound art and experimental music scene, which is largely incoherent in its current free-for-all exploration of new sonic forms--a site of artistic freedom indeed, but also a difficult territory in which to reflect on the modes of sound already in use in the contemporary art community. Samson Young contributed a piece entitled Beethoven Piano Sonata, nr. 1 - nr. 14 (Senza Misura) (2010), a series of open circuit boards hung in rows on the gallery wall. Each board houses two LEDs and a speaker, each marking the tempo of a single movement of fourteen of Beethoven’s early piano sonatas. In the second gallery room, Yao Chung-Han installed an audiovisual piece entitled I Will Be Broken (2010), a suspended column of circular fluorescent lamps tied together with power cords that illuminates in a semi-random fashion and emits a prerecorded sequence of sounds. The two pieces engage in a dialogue of light and sound that confronts the tension between sound as aesthetic spectacle and sound as conceptual material, opening a productive conversation between styles and historical developments in the trajectory of sound in art. "Resonance" is on view at I/O Gallery in Hong Kong until September 5, 2010.
Digital Arts and New Media (DANM) Technical Coordinator | <urn:uuid:92d47196-ec20-4ff2-b444-a0faf710200a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://rhizome.org/editorial/archive/2010/jul/?page=5 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95281 | 1,344 | 1.789063 | 2 |
“What do you feed the cows?”
“Ha..ha..Grass, of course, what else? That’s what cows eat…They roam free, the shepherd takes them to the pasture…”
This was the question I asked one of the several Romanian farmers I met, when I visited my home country last summer. And that was the answer he gave me, thinking probably I’m such a “city girl” I don’t even know what cows eat! :)
The sad reality is different. I know what the cows are supposed to eat. And I also know how technology, industrialization and the race for profits (and greed!) FORCED the cows to eat something different than their natural, given- from- Nature- feed. And that is far away from grass. That would be soy, corn (both mostly GMO), cottonseed meal or other commercial feeds, bakery waste, chicken manure or citrus peel cake, laced with pesticides. Cows get sick and so they are pumped up with antibiotics. Quality of meat and dairy is deplorable.
If I told this story to my ol’ farmer, he would have made the sign of the Cross three times over his chest and mentioned the Devil somewhere in his long prayer! Because feeding cows such aberrations for the sake of sustaining a growing population and make $$ millions out of it, becomes absolutely malefic.
There is a lot of information circulating now in US about grass fed animals and how beneficial their meat and milk is for humans. These have more vitamin E, beta-carotene, vitamin C, and a number of health-promoting fats, including omega-3 fatty acids and conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), that may be a potent cancer fighter.
Romania has a long tradition of making some of the most delicious, high quality dairy products. Most of the small traditional farms take their cows on high pastures in the mountains, where grass is best, and so they can give nutritious, high quality milk. Cows that graze at relatively high altitudes may produce the healthiest milk of all, having even more omega3s and CLA. Plants growing in higher altitudes have more omega-3 fatty acids, fats which solidify at lower temperatures than other fats and therefore act as a form of anti-freeze. The cows eat this enriched pasture and pass the nutrients on to their milk.
At traditional farmer’s markets you can find a wide variety of grass fed cheeses for a very affordable price. Raw sheep cheese can be bought at $3.50-4.50/ LB and raw cow’s cheese at $2.50-3/ LB. And we’re talking a LOT of variety, not only the grass fed cheddar type you can mostly find in US. Cow’s raw milk (from the vending machine) costs $3.60/gallon, and goat’s raw milk is $6.40/ gallon. Raw butter, rich and tasty is only $5/ LB.
I always loved the variety of cheeses there: soft, new cheeses, aged cheeses, different textures, different tastes but all made from raw, grass fed milk and presented in their most natural way! No, you won’t find the little fancy-schmancy cheeses you’ll see in France, mixed with nuts and berries, but big, unprocessed, rich, rustic pieces of cheeses, that taste heavenly!! Sour cream tastes more like a thick cream, butter is yellow and there is no “low fat” there! Many producers keep intact ancient techniques of making cheese in a sheep’s stomach and also using pure animal rennet.
Of course there is a different story once you hit the supermarkets where big industrial farms took over (yes, they have them too) that provide lower, processed quality of dairy. Still not as bad as in US since they don’t allow GMO or animal by-products, but mass production is rearing its ugly head there too, since although cows get hay, they also might be confined and fed more grains and commercial feeds. BUT raw dairy is LEGAL as is having animals in your backyard, eat them too, give some to the neighbor and sell some as well! You’ll never be arrested for that (unless you’re selling in unsanitary conditions or mess up with the quality and then your business will be closed down and you get a fine).
Interestingly, these modest, small sized traditional farmers are proudly selling their products in the name of keeping traditions alive, making cheese the very same way their grandparents made and providing the same extraordinary taste. They are not necessarily aware of the health benefits. This is just “normal and natural” to them. The common belief is that it just tastes better..and it’s “natural”, since it comes from the traditional farmers. Well, the word “natural” still has meaning in some countries…
I was happy to see the raw milk vending machines being more and more available throughout the country. They’re still in their beginnings as per serving urban areas with raw milk, but the concept gains popularity. You put your money in, you get the milk out! How cool is that? It’s recommended you boil the milk since I don’t think they test it like our hero Mark McAfee religiously does at his farm Organic Pastures in California. But at the country side, I bet they’re drinking it straight from the udder!
Last year Romania had the worst winter in 50 years..It snowed like crazy and houses were completely covered with snow. Temperatures dropped close to 0 degrees Fahrenheit! Well, the milk vending machine froze up too..Being imported from Italy, I guess they didn’t consider the local climate during winter… Solution? The company sent a person instead to sell the milk next to the vending machine! Now that’s determination! :)
Leiber, F., M. Kreuzer, et al. (2005). Lipids 40(2): 191-202.
Hauswirth, C. B., M. R. Scheeder, and J. H. Beer. “High Omega-3 Fatty Acid Content in Alpine Cheese: The Basis for an Alpine Paradox.” Circulation 109, no. 1 (2004): 103-7. | <urn:uuid:22505e5f-3d6d-45c3-8123-34601d27e8fd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.guide2health.net/2012/04/raw-grass-fed-milk-romania/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957207 | 1,339 | 2.15625 | 2 |
RPOA Texas Outreach
Responsible Pet Owners Alliance
“Responsible Pet Owners Lobby
Thursday, February 24,
Dialogue for Texas Legislators:
Several people have requested information regarding what to say to their
legislators. Following are some suggestions to start the conversation
when you meet with them.
meeting will be short. Be well prepared!
- Introduce yourself, tell a little about your
animal interest. Tell them that HSUS, Texas Humane Legislation
Network, PETA and ASPCA do not represent you.
- Ask the legislator or aide with whom you are
meeting: “Do you own a pet?” Focus on their pet a little if they
have one. Ask if they are aware of the difference between Animal
“Rights” and Animal “Welfare.” Explain the differences briefly and
leave them the RPOA flyer on Animal Welfare vs Animal Rights.
- Tell them the “animal rights” extremists are
attempting to stop all breeding and sales of pets in the U.S.
– not only in Texas. Austin and El Paso have banned pet store sales
of puppies and kittens in their cities and closed the Petland
stores. San Francisco, CA, was considering banning all pet sales in
pet stores. San Antonio “animal rights” activists say all dog and
cat sales in the city should be banned.
- Point out the economic impact of pet
ownership. No Breeding means No Pets, No Sales, No Vets, No Pet
Supplies and how that would be a major blow to our Texas economy
besides the loss of the human/animal bond. In these stressful times
our pets mean more to us than ever before.
- If you are new to politics, tell them so and
why you are here now. Be sure to note which bills are House
Bills or Senate Bills for the meeting with your representative or
senator. Don’t get them confused!
- Choose the most important bill or two and
state briefly why you oppose them. Leave them a copy of the RPOA
Bills Summary with our positions.
- Tell them we defeated mandatory sterilization
of all dogs and cats and the HSUS/Texas Humane Legislation Network
anti-breeding bills last session. It doesn’t take a rocket
scientist to see that there’ll be no dogs/cats in 10 years if all
are sterilized and no breeding allowed. Bloodlines and gene pools
will be lost in working dog breeds forever.
- Thank them for their time and ask that they
oppose any Anti-Pet Bills sponsored by Humane Society of the United
States, Texas Humane Legislation Network, and other “animal rights”
groups. Tell them to contact Responsible Pet Owners Alliance of
Texas if they ever need our advice. We’re the experts with animal
issues – not the fanatical “animal rights” activists. | <urn:uuid:4b8aadc1-0264-42a0-8f52-f01ec17efe37> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rpoatexasoutreach.org/LobbyDay2011/DialogforLegislators.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00047-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.900396 | 630 | 1.890625 | 2 |
Incident Commanders ponder use of perimeter fires to contain the rapidly expanding fire.
Zaca Fire Team Meets with Mission Canyon Residents
Incident Commander Confirms Plans to Burn
Saturday, August 11, 2007
Author’s note: In yesterday’s afternoon version of the evolving Zaca Fire story, the headline noted the Incident Management Team had decided to burn out a perimeter around the uncontrolled portions of the fire, an area more than 200,000 acres in size that included the entire Dick Smith Wilderness. Later in the day, because I wanted to make sure the facts were accurate, the aspects of the story were changed to note that the fire officials were considering these options. At last night’s meeting, both in the public presentation and conversations afterward with Bill Molumby, officials confirmed they will soon begin using fire to circle the perimeter.
At a meeting in Fleischmann Auditorium in the Museum of Natural History Friday evening, an overflow crowd was provided an overview of the fire, emergency response information and information about the Team’s strategic plans for controlling the Zaca Fire. Currently more than 80,000 acres have burned at a cost that will surpass $60 million today.
Overview of fire area using MODIS (geomac.usgs.gov) shows the fire perimeter and challenges facing fire command as they try to figure out what they can use as “anchors” to work from. Because the fire is starting to expand rapidly in Indian Canyon, the Alamar drainage and is heading towards Mono Creek, the strategy is now to circle the fire and use burn techniques to deprive the fire of fuel.
Both Incident Commander Bill Molumby and Los Padres Acting Forest Supervisor Ken Heffner addressed concerns about how fire fighters would be able to stop the fire from crossing the Santa Ynez River and moving closer to Santa Barbara.
Without disclosing specifics, it was clear that the Team would expand their use of “back burning” techniques to circle the fire and get it under control. Citing the immediate need to turn the fire away from Santa Barbara and to establish control before the September fire season is upon us, Molumby emphasized the need to be proactive rather than be on the defensive.
With drought conditions at their worst in years, the fire is moving into country that is almost impossible to fight on the ground, and with the Fall fire season approaching, efforts to circle the fire with a “black” perimeter” will begin as soon as conditions permit.
In the Richardson Zone, which includes the Sisquoc River and Sierra Madres west of Big Pine Mountain and along the forest district boundaries on the east, burn operations could begin as early as this weekend on the Sierra Madre ridge.
MODIS Map With Perimeter Added
Depiction of the perimeter as accurately as possible given any burns could change from day to day depending on weather, wind, fire conditions and such. Fire officials feel efforts need to be made in a proactive manner to get the fire out before weather conditions change in September. Note the rugged, broken character of the landscape into which the fire is burning.
The most difficult part of developing a line they can burn from may be in the upper Sisquoc drainage. Currently, north operations is looking for ridge lines south of Cottonwood Canyon they can use to stop the fire from continuing down the Sisquoc. If they can tie in a line from the Sierra Madres down into the Sisquoc and then south up to Mission Pine, this will allow them to establish control and focus efforts to the east.
From the Sierra Madre crest, the perimeter set as the potential burn area follows dozer lines down into Santa Barbara Canyon, continues east along a jeep and OHV route just west of Cuyama Peak to Highway 33, follows Highway 33 for several miles to the Pine Mountain turnoff and then continues on the Jeepway to Potrero Seco and south along the Santa Barbara/Ventura county line to Monte Arido.
In the Live Oak Zone, depending on the winds, the burn operation could begin by Monday. The area considered on the south end would begin roughly along the front face of Little Pine Mountain, drop down across Buckhorn Road and down Camuesa Creek, along the south edges of Indian, Mono, and Agua Caliente creeks, and then follow Pendola Jeepway up to the Monte Arido ridgetop.
Molumby stressed that the operation would take several weeks, would not be done all at once, and would be adjusted on a day-by-day basis to changing fire patterns, weather conditions, and opportunities that might arise to attack the fire directly.
In response to one question concerning impacts on the wildlife, watershed values, and other resources Molumby described what might be termed a “scientific approach” to the burn operations.
Note use of back firing techniques used here on Alexander Saddle. Firefighters have initiated a burn on the back side of the saddle to develop a primary column that will be used to draw fire set on the front edge of the ridge towards it. As the new fire is set and begins to build its own column (flames and smoke to the left), because the main plume is large enough in size it gradually sucks the column on the left towards it. | <urn:uuid:5ccdec77-b053-4b4e-9b80-d353c09ac327> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.independent.com/news/2007/aug/11/zaca-fire-team-meets-mission-canyon-residents/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940949 | 1,094 | 2 | 2 |
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
The tropical storm landed in Canton one year ago today.
It's been one year to the day that Tropical Storm Irene, which initially threatened the east coast as a hurricane, walloped the northeast, including Canton. Many Canton residents could bee seen cleaning up the day after the storm, which brought heavy winds and rain, causing downed trees across town, as well as power outages, home damage and street closures. Today, we're wondering what Canton residents remember about the storm. Were you affected by Irene? Or did you think it was just another typical tropical storm for Massachusetts?
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Large hail and downpours may accompany storms the next few days.
A stretch of warm and hazy weather conditions will lead to the possibility of showers and thunderstorms in Canton over the next few days, the National Weather Service is predicting. The chance for strong storms will return on Thursday, with hail possible from the morning through the early afternoon hours. On Friday and Saturday, any storms that develop could turn severe, with damaging wind, large hail and downpours. If you see severe weather, and it's safe to do so, upload your pictures and video here.
Monday, May 21, 2012
Annual Art Show begins at Canton High School.
1. Learning through play today at 1:30pm - 2:30pm at the Canton Public Library. This free program is open to all preschool children and their parents. Presented by Marsha Wright. Register at Jr. Room. Funded by Mass.Dept.of Early Education. 2. Join master story teller and educator Rivka Horowitz, MA Ed and Special Education and hear the story “The Very Best Gift” in honor of the holiday of Shavuot. Choose the gift that you want in your package, wrap and decorate your gift. At the 5:00 pm at the Canton Public Library. 3. The Canton High School Annual Art Show begins tonight and runs from 6:30pm - 8:30pm and runs through Thursday evening. 4. In collaboration with Rodman Ford, Temple Beth Abraham is holding a raffle for an open-end two-…
Friday, May 18, 2012
Charlie Brown meet Jake the Dog!
1. Canton High School Drama presents "You're a Good Man Charlie Brown" today at 9:30am and on Saturday at 2om. 2.Storytime at the Canton Public Library today at 10:30am, Children's Room for ages 2- to 5-years old. 3. Line Dance Class at St. Gerard's Church today at 1:30pm sponsored by Canton Council on Aging. 4. Sunny, with a high near 74. Friday evening, mostly clear with a low around 51, according to the National Weather Service. 5. Tomorrow meet "Jake the Dog" from 1pm to 2pm at the Canton Public Library Children's Room.
Monday, May 14, 2012
A history lesson, some songs and a club for moms!
1. On this day in 1804, one year after the United States doubled its territory with the Louisiana Purchase, the Lewis and Clark expedition left St. Louis, Missouri, on a mission to explore the Northwest from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean. 2. Chorus Group at the Canton Council on Aging today at 10:00 am. 3. "Mom's Club" today from 2:00pm to 3:00pm at the Canton Public Library. 4. Film and Discussion Series at Canton Public Library today at 7:00pm. Oscar nominated film about inheritance, family and infidelity, starring George Clooney. 5. Today's Weather: A chance of showers, mainly after 2pm. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 72. Chance of precipitation is 30percent. In the evening a chance of showers, mainly after 3am. Areas of…
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Be prepared for a rainy Thursday and Friday in Canton.
Looks like some cold, rainy weather is in store for Canton. The National Weather Service said to expect a messy two days with temps in the 40s and slippery roadways for the morning commutes. Today, expect about one inch of rain and patchy fog with a high temp near 47, according to the National Weather Service. Tonight, expect a low of 37. Friday brings more showers, with a high of 49 and a low of 25. Wind gusts could reach up to 43 mph, according to the NWS. The Massachusetts State Police Department is warning commuters to be cautious on the roads the next two days, especially during the early-morning commutes. The State Police is providing the following tips:
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
The National Weather Service says there have only been a few snowless Decembers–and the last one was in 1973.
This December will likely go down as one of the least snowy in history, according to the National Weather Service. A barely-visible tarce of snow has been reported since the start of the month in the Boston area. The National Weather Service told the Globe that's only happened five times before in recorded weather history and the last time was 1973. It seems like a natural coda to an unseasonably warm fall–ranked as one of warmest on record by the National Weather Service. Similarly, December is running about over 5 degrees above normal, the Globe reports. For the record, the Farmer's Almanac has predicted a mild, wet–not snowy–winter in New England. But the forecast for the rest of this week does have a chance of snow on Thursday night …
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Although the muggy, weather feels more like summer, fall is here.
It may feel like August, but fall is officially here. At least this wild turkey spotted on Washington Street has some time to make himself scarce before Thanksgiving. The turkey, perched on this stone wall on Friday, must have been enjoying the unseasonably warm September weather. Expect temperatures in the 70s and up to 80 this week, with wet weather Monday through Thursday, according to the National Weather Service.
Thursday, August 25, 2011
A precursor to Hurricane Irene will bring severe storms to Norfolk County Thursday afternoon and evening.
Although forecasters are still determining the exact time Hurricane Irene will hit on Sunday, Canton will be getting some wet weather today. The National Weather Service has issued a hazardous weather outlook for several counties in Massachusetts, including Norfolk County, along with parts of Rhode Island and Connecticut for today. "Isolated to scattered strong to severe thunderstorms are possible this afternoon and evening," the NWS stated. "The main threat" is strong and damaging winds and a second concern is hail, according to the NWS. A potential for a flood watch also exists for this afternoon and evening, according to the NWS. Be sure to bring your raincoat and umbrella this afternoon!
Monday, August 15, 2011
The National Weather Service issued a flood watch for Canton through this evening.
Rain, rain go away. The National Weather Service issued a flood watch for several counties in Massachusetts, include Norfolk County. The flood watch is in effect from this morning until tonight. "Widespread rainfall of one to three inches is expected across the watch area," the National Weather Service stated. Poor drainage areas, rivers and streams have the potential to flood today due to the heavy rain, according to the NWS. Looking for something fun to do indoors today? Click here for ideas. Hope you packed your rain gear today! | <urn:uuid:5e0c167d-6d53-418a-aa7f-a21f8d8377fe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://canton.patch.com/topics/National+Weather+Service?page=2&topic=National+Weather+Service | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00076-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95553 | 1,567 | 1.546875 | 2 |
The regulator’s role in promoting cybersecurity for the smart grid.
State commissions can select from a toolkit of regulatory approaches to promote desired utility cybersecurity behavior. One approach is to allow the industry to selfregulate, and another approach is to leave the job to the federal government. But sofar, neither the industry nor the federal government have developed and implemented adequate standards for securing the smart grid. States can play a constructive role—albeit perhaps not in the form of traditional regulation. | <urn:uuid:af13faf4-81b6-4e43-aa44-98d76d3ed53b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fortnightly.com/tags/alison-silverstein | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932771 | 98 | 1.921875 | 2 |
High-brow newspapers and broadcaster regularly rue the rise of celebrity culture in the UK. However, when celebrities endorse the favoured issues of the liberal media elite -- from Darfur to poverty reduction -- they are embraced without question.
Interviewed on the Today Programme (BBC Radio 4) yesterday [RealAudio], on the basis that she had 'signed up to reduce her personal carbon emissions by one tonne each year', actress Sienna Miller was spared any serious questioning, despite employing science-babble, making contradictory statements, and demonstrating gushing naivety. (Her performance was celebrated on the site of the Global Cool foundation, for which she is an ambassador.)
Miller began by noting that it is impossible in a modern society to "live a completely carbon-free life". Leaving aside the fact that anyone who has grown up watching Star Trek should know that human life is carbon-based, the use of the term 'carbon' in modern political discussion has become a content-free genuflection. Of course we will be told that it means 'free of activities that release substantial amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere'. But the use of the shorthand 'carbon-whatever' at every opportunity reflects the lack of thinking and reflection that underlies this crusade. More from Ms Miller:
[I]t is scientifically proven that we need to all collectively start doing things to reduce our emissions... there really isn't time, this is our planet, I don't know whether you have children, but for people who have children there isn't really going to be much of a world left for those children when they are our age.... it has actually got to a crisis point... people have to start realising that it is not someone else's responsibility, we all have to start doing this, otherwise our planet is pretty much done, very soon.
Where to start?! Science attempts to describe the natural world, helps us manipulate it, and helps us understand trends and predict events that will influence future developments. It doesn't tell us how to act: that is the domain of politics. Why are the unborn so often invoked to justify a course of action? Is it because they are pure and unsullied and thus better than us 'fallen' men and women, or because they can't point out to us that almost every generation has created a better world for succeeding generations? And what are we to understand by the statement "there isn't really going to be much of a world left for those children", or the idea that if we don't act as Ms Miller requires "our planet is pretty much done"? Back to said actress:
[If taking action against climate change is trendy] bring it on... I am not doing it for my own gain, I am doing it basically because I want to have children one day and I would like there to be a world for them to grow up in.
The obvious, if crass, response to this would be to point out that she is acting for her own gain as she wants to have children who can thrive. But the best the interviewer could manage was the obvious and banal question about whether, as a jetset actress, she might 'give up' flying. Of course, in the age of planetary genuflection you don't need to take any significant action, just show that you are part of the hive mind and 'respect Mother Earth'. Miller got away with a lame comment about the difficult of rowing herself around, and resolving instead to "take less (sic) baths". | <urn:uuid:99f5e192-25c8-42b6-a295-3286ac047762> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://spy.typepad.com/design_and_society/2007/08/celebrityguff.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00071-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971889 | 713 | 1.953125 | 2 |
BLACKSBURG, Va., Aug. 26, 2011 – The latest issue of the College of Science Magazine features the college’s newest initiatives to help bolster interest in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM).
“We are moving the college forward by addressing the challenges in front of us in what many would call a crisis in our education system,” said Lay Nam Chang, dean of the college.
Some of these initiatives include an integrated science curriculum, a new design in classroom layout and pedagogy, and the college’s annual Center for Talented Youth outreach event.
Other topics covered in this issue include newly named endowed professors, the vision and work of Seong K. Mun at the Virginia Tech Research Center in Arlington, and the college’s celebration of student and faculty excellence.
Visit the magazine online here.
The College of Science at Virginia Tech gives students a comprehensive foundation in the scientific method. Outstanding faculty members teach courses and conduct research in biological sciences, chemistry, economics, geosciences, mathematics, physics, psychology, and statistics. The college offers programs in cutting-edge areas including, among others, those in energy and the environment, developmental science across the lifespan, infectious diseases, computational science, nanoscience, and neuroscience. The College of Science is dedicated to fostering a research-intensive environment that promotes scientific inquiry and outreach. | <urn:uuid:87de96f7-9666-475e-ba36-01d06dc3f6f0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.vtnews.vt.edu/articles/2011/08/082611-science-springmag2011.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.914918 | 289 | 1.976563 | 2 |
Edgar White as Superintendent and Gertrude W. Gillies as clerk of the board. Mr. White resigned in 1918 to study medicine, and Karl Gilbert Maeser was appointed to the position. Others who have served as county superintendents are Miss Sara Keener,...
Branch Normal School (Cedar City, Utah) -- History; Cedar City (Utah) -- History; Iron County (Utah) -- History; College Catalogs; Southern Utah University (Cedar City, Utah) -- Curricula;
Contains the calendar, board of regents, and officers and instructors. It also includes general information such as history, site and building, laboratories and apparatus, museum, library and reading room, physical education, manual training shops,...
September 17, Saturday-Registration of Students.
September 19, Monday-Instruction begins.
November 24, 25, Thursday, Friday-Thanksgiving recess.
December 23, Friday -Christmas vacation... | <urn:uuid:5ae4c97e-35f6-4c8c-80a7-f2972489e322> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://contentdm.li.suu.edu/cdm/search/searchterm/1904-1905/mode/all/order/descri/ad/desc | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.913111 | 197 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Safety is the foremost concern when driving. And one way of maintaining safety is by ensuring that your brake system functions properly. One component that helps this system perform well is its brake pads. Once you hit the brakes, these pads grip the wheel and stop it from moving. However, since the brakes are used regularly, these brakes pads can wear out in time. So to help you determine whether they need to be changed, make sure you have a Bowa Brake Pad Sensor installed. The Bowa Brake Pad Sensor watches over the condition of your brake pads and automatically notifies you once they've worn out. By doing this, you're able to have them changed at once before they end up malfunctioning. Aside from this benefit, the brake pad sensor spares you from checking your brake pads' condition manually. Due to its importance, Bowa made sure that its brake pad sensor had the capabilities of functioning for a long time. To pull this off, it had the product made from premium materials to enhance its durability. It also equipped it with instructions on how to properly install the component along with the necessary mounting tools. Finally, to make installation fast and easy, each Bowa Brake Pad Sensor is given a direct-fit design. So if you're after your safety, make sure you that you're aware of your brake pad's condition by installing a Bowa Brake Pad Sensor. Order one for your vehicle only here at PartsTrain.
Use our Part Fit Checker to view parts compatible with your vehicle. | <urn:uuid:0e5749c0-6964-4b87-8773-7b1a922ad0ce> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.partstrain.com/ShopbyBrand/Bowa/Brake_Pad_Sensor | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960877 | 307 | 1.875 | 2 |
The minimum drinking age of 21, compliance checks of retailers, and teens spending less behind the wheel contributed to the decline, the report said. Driving among teens dropped substantially from 2000-10, as the proportion of high school seniors who did not get behind the wheel during an average week increased to 22 percent from 15 percent, according to the CDC.
"I chalk it up to serious concerted efforts to save these lives," said Jan Withers, the national president of Irving, Texas-based Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Parental involvement is also very important for preventing drunken driving, she said.
Teen alcohol consumption has also dropped, following the trend in the general population, according to the report.
The data came from the Youth Risk Behavior Surveys, which monitors behaviors that contribute to injuries and violence, sexual behaviors, alcohol and drug use, tobacco use, unhealthy diets, and physical activity. The samples varied from about 10,900 to 16,400 each year.
"Teens are especially sensitive to increases in gasoline prices and declines in economic conditions, which might have decreased their miles driven since 2007," the report said.
Male students were more likely to drink and drive than females. Males ages 18 and older were the most likely to drink after consuming alcohol, and 16-year-old high school girls were least likely. About 11 percent of white students and 12 percent of Hispanic students reported driving after drinking, compared with 7 percent of black students.
"As a parent of a teen I know that there's nothing worse than having your child die tragically and preventably," said Thomas Frieden, the director of the CDC, in a conference call. "Reducing drinking and driving is something we can do" to reduce unnecessary deaths.
Parents and legislators who want to reduce the amount of drinking and driving should use community-based programs that address local issues, the report said. | <urn:uuid:1fe5eaed-3b5b-4f59-9891-4f55fd0cef45> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://articles.philly.com/2012-10-03/news/34240196_1_teen-alcohol-consumption-youth-risk-behavior-surveys-white-students | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00071-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97367 | 380 | 2.953125 | 3 |
Yet do not believe
Wednesday, 13 July 2011 12:34
If you have ever shared the gospel with people you know it can be discouraging when they do not respond in faith. Some kids that come to camp have no spiritual interest. They enjoy all the fun activities but don’t want to pay attention in chapel or talk to their counselor about Christ. Paul described pleading with people to be reconciled with God and even in today’s passage we see among those who saw Jesus some that refused to believe.
“But I said to you that you have seen Me and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day. And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day.” (John 6:36-40 NKJV)
It’s hard to imagine someone who saw Jesus and miraculous signs refusing to believe. Still Jesus recognizes that He isn’t doing His own will but the will of the Father. Even Jesus left the results to the Father as he proclaimed the gospel. He called the Jews to believe and promised everlasting life but many still refused. Instead he focuses on the security of those who do respond. When you share the gospel you will likely have similar results. Some will believe but others will not. We may not have miracles to point to but modern science has discovered how intricate and complex life and the order of the universe is. It points to a creator but many still refuse to believe.
When have you shared the gospel with others? What were the results? Have you been discouraged when some did not believe or respond in faith? Who are you praying for to respond to the gospel? Look for opportunities to keep proclaiming Christ.Learn More
Honor from men
Wednesday, 29 June 2011 12:34
Can you imagine for a moment if we were not allowed to talk about God at camp? There are camps that avoid any reference to God. They sing campfire songs, play games, do crafts and learn archery but they don’t have chapel. They may have a quiet time or learn about nature but they completely skip the Creator. Campers are encouraged to have self esteem but they learn nothing about how God loves them or how to be forgiven of the guilt and slavery of sin. Jesus notes that they are seeking someone who is honored by men and not someone that comes from God.
“I do not receive honor from men. But I know you, that you do not have the love of God in you. I have come in My Father’s name, and you do not receive Me; if another comes in his own name, him you will receive. How can you believe, who receive honor from one another, and do not seek the honor that comes from the only God?” (John 5:41-44 NKJV)
Scientific study used to be the for the honor of God in studying his handiwork. Now it is simply men honoring each other with any honor of God strictly forbidden and condemned. Jesus noted that these Jews would gladly accept a man coming in his own name but because Jesus claimed to come from God they rejected Him. He reveals that their true goal is to receive honor from each other without seeking honor that come from God. He concludes that they do not have the love of God in them. Many Christians today live for the praise and honor of men rather than the praise and honor of God.
When have have you been somewhere you were not allowed to speak about God? Why are people rejected when they give honor to God? Why do people seek the honor of men rather than God? When have you sought honor from those around you rather than God? How is our faith weakened when we seek honor from others and not God? What does it mean to have the love of God in you?Learn More
A greater witness
Sunday, 26 June 2011 12:40
For our staff and counselors we require a written recommendation from their pastor. Because we are a summer ministry we don’t always see how the applicant is living the rest of the year so we want to make sure the people around them can recommend them to serve as Christian examples for youth. Unfortunately, a pastor may not no someone’s personal life or a person may be good at living a different life at church than the rest of the week. We must evaluate each person the best we can based on their own words, actions, time at the counselor training and if chosen as a counselor. Christ had the witness of John the Baptist but ultimately it was the witness of the Father and his own works that mattered.
“Yet I do not receive testimony from man, but I say these things that you may be saved. He was the burning and shining lamp, and you were willing for a time to rejoice in his light. But I have a greater witness than John’s; for the works which the Father has given Me to finish——the very works that I do——bear witness of Me, that the Father has sent Me. And the Father Himself, who sent Me, has testified of Me. You have neither heard His voice at any time, nor seen His form.” (John 5:34-37 NKJV)
To the people who argued that Jesus was not who he claimed, Jesus appealed to the testimony of the Father and the works that He did. There will always be some people that refuse to believe no matter what the evidence that Jesus is God and the Messiah. They don’t want to believe, and change their life so they come up with excuses. They may be “religious” or “spiritual” people that are attracted to Jesus. Jesus had people “willing for a time” to rejoice in the light of John but then they turned away. They may believe in God but unwilling to trust in Jesus and His exclusive message that all come to the father through Him.
When have you had to trust the testimony regarding a person? How did their own actions compare to the testimony? Why did people follow Jesus for a time and then turn away? How does the Father testify to Jesus? How do His own actions testify to Himself? What do your actions testify about you? What do they testify about Christ?Learn More | <urn:uuid:9b2e9081-a2b3-44f1-8428-07f52c91a0f3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.northerngraceyouthcamp.org/thestick/?tag=witness | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974417 | 1,375 | 1.539063 | 2 |
By keno | February 3, 2010
Faux Stone Aquarium Background
I’ve had a number of folks asking about my faux stone aquarium backgrounds. I was planning on posting this article once I had a full set of images to go with it, but since there is a lot of interest, I am going to post this now. Please note that most of the steps do not have images, due to a mishap with my digital camera.
Disclaimer: Exercising reasonable safety precautions when performing the steps described in this article. This project involves the use of electricity, heating tools, cutting tools and chemicals. This article was created simply to share what I’ve done. These are not verified instructions. I take no responsibility for any harm caused to you, others, or to your property as a result of the info contained in these articles. I have not tested any of these supplies with saltwater aquariums.
- Quikrete Blended Mason Mix
- Concrete color mixes (black/red/buff)
- Large Tubes of Silicone – Doors and Windows Silicone without any Bio-guard or additives
- Rigid Styrofoam Boards – 1/2″ thick and 2″ thick
- Disposable paint brushes (10-20)
- West Marine Epoxy Mix – 105 Resin & 207 Hardener (I’ll explain more later)
- West Marine pump kit (this makes measuring the resin and hardener really easy)
- Box of Disposable gloves or a heavy pair of rubber gloves.
- Plastic containers for mixing concrete and for mixing epoxy – I used some old plastic juice containers.
- Large Knife
- Heated cutting tool (optional – helps)
- Caulking Gun
- Straight edge
- Thick point marker (Sharpie)
I am going to describe how to make a faux stone background, but remember this technique can be used to make standalone faux stones or groupings of stones, etc. It’s up to your imagination on what you can do. For my 200 gallon aquarium I am planning on making not only a faux stone background, but also standalone faux stone features. That’s for a future article.
Please Note: (Some styrofoam boards come with a plastic sheet that covers them. REMOVE the plastic sheet before starting)
The 1/2″ thick styrofoam board is used to cover the glass or acrylic back of your aquarium. You would measure and cut this to size. I like to leave a 1/4″ gap on the left and right sides. You need to make sure that you can fit the styrofoam board into the aquarium now. If it is tight now, trim it smaller. It will only get wider and taller once you add the concrete mix to the board. For example on my 55 gallon aquarium, I have a bar in the middle of the top opening, so I needed to cut my 1/2″ styrofoam board into two pieces to fit into the aquarium.
Creating the Faux Stones
Now comes the fun part and creative part of this project. You need to know what you want the finished background to look like. Do you want it to have flat stones like you would see if you had flagstones laid flat on a wall. Do you want to have rounded river stones? Me I like the look of stones laid on edge with some gaps between them. I can then use those gaps to place plants like mosses or Anubias. The roots from the mosses and Anubias will then grow and attach themselves to the background and creep down the surface.
Now take your 1/2″ styrofoam board and mark top and bottom on it with your marker. You will also need to know the depth your substrate is going to be. Once you know the depth then measure from the bottom of your styrofoam board up that distance, say 3 inches and make a mark on the styrofoam. Using your straight edge draw a line across the bottom. The reason I do this is to indicate where the bottom row of faux stones are going to be placed. It’s not a hard rule that all of your stones must be on this line. Some can be a little above some can be below. I like to have the space under the faux stones for the substrate materials.
To cut the faux stones I use the 2″ styrofoam. I will take my straight edge and make a straight line on the foam. Usually I measure about 3 inches from the edge of the foam to where the straight line is drawn. If you want less stone face use a 2″ spacing. Deeper stones, a 4″ spacing. The purpose of the straight line is to give you a flat surface when you silicone the styrofoam stones to the styrofoam background. To make your stone shapes I just freehand the stone shape. I will use “real” stones to act as an inspiration. I will then just start drawing curved lines. Once you have your lines drawn, I will then either using a sharp large knife or a heated cutting tool, cut at the straight line and separate this piece of foam from the larger board. I will then cut out the individual stones. Having a heated cutting tool helps at this point. I picked up one at a local craft store ACMoore for around $20.00. It’s not super fast to cut with, but you don’t end up with all those little foam pieces that get everywhere. Make sure you are cutting (melting) the styrofoam outside, you don’t want to be breathing the fumes. There are larger heated cutting tools that look like knifes, but they are also more expensive.
Ok, so now you have these faux stone cutouts and they are flat on top, flat on bottom and flat on the back with some type of curved front. Doesn’t look like a real stone. This is where my wife (who has her own stamping and scrapbooking business) stepped in and said, “you aren’t going to leave them like that are you”? So she took the knife and began hacking away at the foam removing the sharp edges and put in gouges, etc. So now I had some hacked up faux stone cutouts. Just make sure you leave the backside of the stone (the part that was made with the straight edge) flat. This will make it easier to silicone to the 1/2″ styrofoam board. I could kinda see a real stone hiding in the hacked up styrofoam. Doing this will also give you stones that are all not the same width, etc. So now you can proceed and make a bunch of these hacked up styrofoam stones.
Laying Out the Design
Once you have a bunch of stones cutout and hacked, start laying them on the 1/2″ rigid foam board in different patterns to find one you like. Remember to account for items that will be in the aquarium later. For example, I have a wet/dry sump on my 55 gallon aquarium which requires an overflow box that sits in the aquarium so I needed to make sure the stones would not interfere with the placement of the box. Also on my 20 gallon aquarium, I needed to make sure that that I drilled a hole through the styrofoam for the intake pipe for the filter. Once you find a design you like then it’s time to start siliconing the individual faux stones to your 1/2″ styrofoam board. This is why I purchase the large tubes of silicone and used my caulking gun. Just remember we want just pure silicone with no additives. Granted the silicone will be sealed later by the epoxy, but why take chances. When you start siliconing the faux stones to the 1/2″ board keep the silicone between the flat back of the faux stone and the 1/2″ rigid foam board. You don’t want silicone getting on the face of the 1/2″ foam board. Once you have all the faux stones in place let it dry for 24 hours.
First Coat of Concrete
In my materials list, I listed Quickcrete Blended Mason Mix. On my first DIY Faux Stone Background I used regular concrete mix. The problem I had with it was the small stones. It was hard to work with the stones and I ended up sifting them out of the dry mix. The Quickcrete Blended Mason Mix has no small stones. I ended up purchasing an 80lb bag at my local hardware store for about $5.00. This is where I also picked up the concrete colorants. The ones I purchased were liquid colorants. For the first coat of concrete you want to make a mix that is thin. The purpose of this coat is to give the future coats something to stick to. You want to make sure you wear some type of disposable or rubber gloves when you apply the concrete mix. Just brush it on. It is not going to look like much at this point and you may still see the foam through the concrete coating. I don’t add any colorant on the first coat, since you will not see it later. Make sure you coat everything front, back, sides, top, bottom and between all the stones. Just keep working it in. Once you have it covered. Let dry for 24 hours.
Second Coat of Concrete
Here is where you would add the colorant to the concrete. You would mix the concrete to get a thin paste and add your colorant. I like to add the red color on the first coat. With this coat you are going to completely cover the entire face side of the foam project. Don’t worry about the backside of the 1/2″ styrofoam you will coat that in the last concrete layer. Make sure you use your gloves and a disposable brush. You want to make sure that you get the concrete between the stones and cover all exposed surfaces. You want to keep the concrete coat thin. If you put it on too thick you may get cracking. Once covered let dry for 24 hours.
Next Coat of Concrete
I now mix another batch of concrete and colorant typically the black. Once again using your gloves and a disposable brush I apply the concrete to the surface. This time I try to not completely cover the red coat. I will apply the black color in a stippling fashion, which is more of a quick tapping of the brush to the surfaces. When done once again allow the concrete to dry for 24 hours.
Additional Coats of Concrete
I will typically add one more coats of the buff color in the same fashion as the black color. With this coat I will also go and coat the sides and flat back of the 1/2″ styrofoam board. When done I let this dry for at least 48-72 hours. If you find you would like more black or red showing here is where you can make small batches of concrete in the color you want and stipple the surface. Once again after any touchups let dry for 48-72 hours. Once it has dried I will dry fit the background into the aquarium. If you need to trim or make changes now is the time before you apply the epoxy. Be careful when doing this as to not scratch your glass or acrylic.
In this step you will seal the concrete of your faux stone background. I found reading on the internet that most concrete backgrounds will affect your water’s pH levels and you need to go through multiple aquarium fillings and drainings to stabilize the pH levels. I did not like the prospect of having to do this especially on my 200 gallon aquarium. I wanted something that was neutral and would not affect the water chemistry. In doing some searches on the internet I found a person who makes wooden aquariums. He was using the West Marine epoxy to seal the plywood. I figured if it worked for that it should work for the faux stone background. For the epoxy you need to purchase the resin and the hardener. I also purchased the pump kits. The pump kits pre-measure the amount of resin and hardener, so it just a matter of putting in the correct number of pumps for the resin and hardener as per the labels. For my first DIY faux stone background I purchased the 105 resin and the 206 slow hardener, based on the advice of the guy at the store. The 206 hardener was not the one I wanted. It worked, but it had some properties to it that I did not like. One was that it took way too long to harden and second it would blush, especially if you put on a second coat. The 207 hardener will dry clear, and doesn’t have the tendency to blush. What I have also done is I only apply one coat to avoid any blushing.
So once you have the resin and epoxy mixed, I put on my gloves and get one of my disposable brushes. I will then work the epoxy all over the front side of the background with the background laying flat on the ground. At first it will seem as if you are not getting much coverage. This will change as you get more of the background covered in epoxy. You want to make sure you get into all the nooks and crannies so that all of the concrete is covered. I will mix small batches of the epoxy and typically have to make several batches to cover the background. You may find that you will get areas that will seem to pool the epoxy and the epoxy will get milky in color. I will use a second and sometimes a third dry brush to work those areas and remove as much of the excess epoxy. The other thing you will notice is that the background will turn darker in color, this is normal. Also when the background dries it will look shinny and darker in color, this is also normal. Once you put the background in your aquarium and fill it with water, the background will lighten back up. Why this happens, I don’t know but it does. If you are not sure about the colors, you could make a couple of test pieces and coat them with the epoxy and then put them underwater to see how they look. Once I completely cover the front of the background, I will let it dry for 24-48 hours. I will then turn it over and coat the back and the sides of the 1/2″ styrofoam board. Watch for drips. I find if you have the background at an angle when you coat the back and sides most drips will run to the bottom which will be buried in your substrate anyway. Once you have coated the back of the background I will wait 48-72 hours to allow the epoxy to fully cure. As I stated earlier, I only put one coat on the front and back of the background.
Mounting in Your Aquarium
To mount the faux stone background in your aquarium I found it was easier to lay the aquarium on it’s back. I only clean the glass or acrylic with clean water and buff the surface dry. It needs to be completely dry or the silicone will not stick. I will dry fit the background one more time. I will then lift the background and apply a generous amount of silicone to the background and the aquarium surface. I will then press the background to the aquarium surface making sure to push down and squeeze the background to the aquarium surface to get as close as you can. You don’t want to have any gaps that fish or other inhabitants can get into. I will now leave this for another 24 hours.
Once the silicone is dry, I will add water to the aquarium and see what the background looks like. I also will run the aquarium for 24 hours with just water and the background. After 24 hours I will drain and then add my substrate and plants and refill. I have done this on 2 aquariums at this point and the water parameters have not been affected by the epoxy coating.
You will see in these images just how light the concrete looks before and after coating with epoxy and what it looks like once it is underwater. Also note that there are two backgrounds a left and a right for my 55 gallon aquarium. I also included a couple of images from my 20 gallon aquarium which also has a faux stone background. | <urn:uuid:1a263a63-0b40-4d29-96d6-7fefd13ec6c7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://aquariums.seaspraydesigns.biz/diy-projects/faux-stone-aquarium-background/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939772 | 3,383 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Back in the early 1950s, journalists talked about the existence of organized crime rackets in major cities across the country. Republicans thought it would embarrass Democrats who knew that their political machines might be linked to some of the gangsters. Still Tennessee Sen. Estes Kefauver took up the challenge of investigating organized crime. That created special problems for Nevada where gambling was legal but often operated by people with gang connections. Thursday is Kefauver Day at the Mob Museum and we look at a documentary made by Kefauver's daughter and son-in-law.
Diane Kefauver, Estes Kefauver's daughter Jon Rubin, maker of “Crimebuster: Senator Estes Kefauver, Politics, Television and Organized Crime” | <urn:uuid:9491fe32-9623-4b22-8116-9fafae3920ea> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.knpr.org/son/archive/detail2.cfm?SegmentID=9449&ProgramID=2640 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00069-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967126 | 159 | 1.96875 | 2 |
Liberals talk as if the world will end if President Bush gets to name some new Supreme Court justices. How much of the danger is hype, and how much of it is real?
It's mostly hype. In general liberals fear conservative judges far too much. In almost all areas, in fact, they dramatically overstate the stakes. Except, that is, in one—where the stakes are truly immense and they dramatically understate them.
Let me guess: abortion?
Nah. Liberals have been overselling the threat to reproductive rights for decades.
No way. The foundations of modern civil-rights law are exceptionally secure. Conservative judges nibble around the edges sometimes, and people still debate the constitutionality of affirmative-action programs. But almost no one seriously argues about the basic meaning or legitimacy of core civil-rights protections.
Hardly. True, the Supreme Court has curtailed the Warren era's famed revolution in criminal procedure, and it has significantly rolled back review of state-court convictions. But this war is over; the conservatives have already won. And ironically, some of the conservatives themselves are now leading the Court's aggressive rights-creation effort in criminal sentencing.
Okay, I give up. What is it?
The environment—and it's no wonder you couldn't guess. Although environmental groups sometimes raise issues in the confirmation process, environmental protection is not central to the fear-mongering of the liberal interest groups that oppose conservative judges. But the threat to basic environmental protections from conservative jurisprudence is broad-based and severe.
Give me an example.
Consider the Constitution's commerce clause, which empowers the national legislature to regulate "commerce … among the several states." Since the New Deal the commerce clause has been construed very broadly, becoming the constitutional backbone of much important civil-rights legislation and of all the major environmental laws. Yet since 1995 the Court has issued a series of decisions that emphasize the limits of the commerce power, requiring that laws enacted under it deal in some sense with—well, interstate commerce. I have considerable sympathy for this line of argument, but its potential dangers to the environment are hard to overstate. For while the environment itself is intrinsically interstate, not all environmental-protection measures obviously constitute regulations of commerce "among the several states"—or even regulations of commerce at all. Can the government, under the Endangered Species Act, protect—as one conservative judge poetically put it—"a hapless toad that, for reasons of its own, lives its entire life in California"? Can it, under the Clean Water Act, protect isolated seasonal pools (which are not interstate) used by migratory birds (which are)?
These questions are not law-school hypotheticals. The constitutionality of protecting single-state endangered species from activity that may or may not be commercial in nature has been roiling the lower courts, splitting the most energetic conservatives from more-cautious ones. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld protection of the hapless toad, as the Fifth Circuit did of "six species of subterranean invertebrates found only within two counties in Texas." (When a majority of the Fifth Circuit refused to rehear the latter case, a dissenting judge wrote, "For the sake of a species of 1/8-inch-long cave bugs, which lack any known value in commerce, much less interstate commerce, the panel [has] crafted a constitutionally limitless theory of federal protection. Their opinion lends new meaning to the term reductio ad absurdum.") The Fourth Circuit, over a ferocious dissent, upheld protections for red wolves in North Carolina. But in 2001 the Supreme Court dodged the constitutional question posed by migratory birds by finding nonconstitutional grounds to invalidate an important federal regulation that protected seasonal pools in Illinois. So where, exactly, it is headed on this issue remains murky.
You say the commerce clause is also essential to civil-rights law. Why isn't the threat to equal rights under the law just as great as the threat to hapless toads?
Theoretically, it could be. Federal protections against private-sector discrimination are all rooted in the commerce power. But they are much more firmly rooted than the environmental statutes. All employers who discriminate and all whites-only lunch counters are, after all, engaged in commerce. And the decisions upholding the civil-rights statutes have become about as sacred as cows get. Only one justice—ironically, Clarence Thomas—has articulated a vision of the commerce clause narrow enough to disrupt these precedents. It is simply unimaginable that the courts will ever again interpret the commerce power as not protecting black people. Red wolves may not prove so lucky.
Is the changing interpretation of the commerce clause the only threat to the environment?
Far from it. In recent years the Rehnquist Court has breathed life back into the notion of states' immunity from suits for money—an immunity rooted in the Eleventh Amendment. This line of cases is exceedingly controversial, and rightly so; but its practical effects have been limited in application. In a disturbing and widely overlooked 2001 opinion, however, the Fourth Circuit used an Eleventh Amendment argument to block an environmental suit that sought to force West Virginia officials to stop letting mining companies blow the tops off mountains to get at the coal inside. A reinvigorated Eleventh Amendment could prove a disaster for federal environmental laws, which because of their unique structure could be unusually vulnerable to this doctrine.
Okay, but even if the courts limit federal environmental protection, the states could step in and fill the gap, right?
Not so easily. First of all, many environmental problems are inherently interstate, and cannot reasonably be managed by any state government. Winds carry polluted air across state borders, for example; and migrating species don't check local species-protection laws before entering a state.
More significant, judicial conservatives have greatly energized the takings clause of the Fifth Amendment, which prohibits government seizure of private property without "just compensation." Traditionally, a taking has been defined as an actual expropriation of property. But the courts in recent years have made aggressive use of the concept of "regulatory taking"—that is, government action that so diminishes property values as to constitute a taking even without a formal expropriation. How far the Court will go in this direction remains unclear; there's some indication that its enthusiasm is waning. But the expanded concept of takings is already having dire consequences for environmental protection in the lower courts. Courts have found takings when the Army Corps of Engineers denied a company a permit to mine limestone in wetlands in Florida; when federal agencies imposed water-use restrictions to protect endangered smelt and salmon in California; even when the Forest Service imposed restrictions on the use of certain motorboats on a lake in Michigan. Such a broad reading of the takings doctrine effectively demands that government pay landowners to comply with the law.
Is that all?
No. The Rehnquist Court has also considerably narrowed previous doctrine concerning who has "standing" to bring a suit in the first place, insisting that a proper plaintiff have suffered an individual injury as a result of the supposedly unlawful conduct. I am sympathetic to this move as a conceptual matter. But once again, environmental laws stand to be particularly hobbled, because—rather unusually among federal statutes—they tend to provide not merely for governmental enforcement but for enforcement suits brought by citizens themselves. By tightening doctrinal requirements that limit citizen access to the courts, judges greatly reduce the legal accountability of polluters.
Is there any unifying theme here?
Yes: a libertarian suspicion of regulatory power. Environmental laws represent some of the most aggressive uses of federal power, and by their nature they limit the use of private property, sometimes quite intrusively. Thus they test the libertarian patience in more ways than many other types of regulations—and genuinely push up against the limitations on governmental power outlined in the Constitution. Tighten those limitations (even a little), as conservatives tend to do, and the dominoes of environmental law quickly begin tumbling.
Some conservatives have become sensitive to this problem in recent years. In fact, several of the most important recent pro-environment opinions—including the Fourth Circuit's decision affirming protection for the red wolf—were issued by conservative judicial luminaries. The battle over environmental law is as much a fight within conservatism as it is between conservative and liberal judicial minds.
But at least a portion of the judicial right also harbors a strain of simple hostility to environmental values. Dissenting in a 1997 Endangered Species Act case, Judge David Sentelle, of the D.C. Circuit, wrote,
This case concerns the efforts of San Bernardino County, California … to construct a hospital and supporting infrastructure for its citizens and other humans. Unfortunately, those efforts discomfit an insect—the Delhi Sands Flower-Loving Fly. According to the parties in this case, there are fewer than 300 breeding individuals of this species, all located within forty square miles in southern California.
The law, he sneered, would "prevent counties and their citizens from building hospitals or from driving to those hospitals by routes in which the bugs smashed upon their windshields might turn out to include the Delhi Sands Flower-Loving Fly or some other species of rare insect." Remember Judge Sentelle's contempt as the judicial-nomination wars heat up again this year. Because more than the fate of abortion rights or civil rights or criminal justice, what hangs in the balance in the future composition of the Supreme Court is the fate not only of the Flower-Loving Fly but of the red wolf, the hapless toad, the West Virginia mountains—and the air we breathe and the water we drink. | <urn:uuid:1dc13d6b-87b6-4dd1-a3ac-80fba528a1e0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2005/05/the-hapless-toad/303904/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945068 | 1,974 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Studying at UMB
UMB offers a broad range of study programmes that closely correspond with major research issues related to food, environmental sciences, biology, land use and natural resource management. UMB is Norway’s leading institution of higher education in its field.
High professional quality, a high degree of teacher-student interaction and a pleasant social and physical environment characterise education at UMB. A broad range of study programmes
are offered at Bachelor's, Master's and PhD level.
About 180 of the 600 courses at Bachelor's and Master's level are taught in English, as well as many PhD level courses. 11 Master's level and 1 Bachelor's level programme are conducted fully in English. Besides theoretical and scientific education, emphasis is placed on practical training. Around 30% of UMB students conduct part of their studies abroad. In addition, the Continuing Education Programme offers research-based courses that are geared towards the public and private sector.
UMB's study programmes and courses are research-based, maintain a high degree of scientific and pedagogical quality and are described, conducted and evaluated in accordance with the intentions of the Quality Reform. Focus is placed on strengthening staff-student interaction, increasing the scope of study and assessment methods, promoting internationalisation, and on improving the students’ general learning environment.
Details on admission as a student at UMB
In total, there are some 2,600 students at UMB of which more than 10% are international students. UMB has exchange agreements with approx.50 universities worldwide, including 6 Nordic, 44 European and 8 North American institutions. Moreover, UMB has various institutional partnerships with universities in Southeastern Europe and in developing countries in the South. These partnerships are mainly carried out through the Department of International Environment and Development Studies/Noragric.
UMB's activities in the field of continuing education are coordinated by the Centre for Continuing Education (SEVU) which uses up-to-date information technology as a distance-learning tool for participants of their continuing education courses.
Updated: 16.10.07Printerfriendly version
Del med en venn: | <urn:uuid:2c532477-1dd8-4dab-b6e2-3d61e4c7b363> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.umb.no/frontpage/article/studying-at-umb | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00066-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944407 | 433 | 1.835938 | 2 |
There has been long-standing concern about the possible health and environmental effects of depleted uranium (DU). In particular, its use in munitions has given rise to claims that it is implicated in various problems among both combatants and civilian populations in affected areas.
A number of expert reviews have examined the data and found no conclusive evidence of harm. However, these findings continue to be disputed by others. The International Coalition to ban Uranium Weapons contests the radiation exposure and dose estimation models used, and argues that DU weapons are a new source of contamination which requires additional scientific assessment. The European parliament in 2008 called for the Commission and others to support more scientific studies on depleted uranium and its effects, and for an environmental inventory of DU.
The Scientific Committee on Health and Environmental Risks (SCHER), which advises the Commission, was asked to review existing reports and the scientific literature and offer an opinion on the environmental and health risks posed by DU. | <urn:uuid:8503c4f5-8adb-48f7-9dc1-058482f077aa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ec.europa.eu/health/scientific_committees/opinions_layman/depleted-uranium/en/l-2/1.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956683 | 189 | 2.921875 | 3 |
Insurance Discrimination On The Basis Of Health Status: An Overview of Discrimination Practices, Federal Law, and Federal Reform Options: Legal Solutions in Health Reform
Publication Date: February 2009
Author(s): S. Rosenbaum
Type: White Paper
Actuarial underwriting or discrimination based on an individual's health status is a business feature of the voluntary private insurance market. The term "discrimination" in this paper is not intended to convey the concept of unfair treatment, but rather how the insurance industry differentiates among individuals in designing and administering health insurance and employee health benefit products.
Discrimination can occur at the point of enrollment, coverage design, or decisions regarding scope of coverage. Several major federal laws aimed at regulating insurance discrimination based on health status focus at the point of enrollment. However, because of multiple exceptions and loopholes, these laws offer relatively limited protections.
This paper provides a brief overview of discrimination practices, the federal law, and both interim and long-term federal reform options to manage discriminatory practices in the insurance and employee health benefit markets.
The paper concludes that Congress has limited the use of actuarial techniques that exclude persons from group insurance altogether. However, Congress has only modestly tackled risk management techniques linked to the actual content and administration of coverage. The use of discriminatory practices based on health status to limit coverage is especially apparent in the individual insurance market. If the federal government wishes to move in the direction of sharing health risks more broadly, next steps will include creating larger risk-pooling groups and curbing the ability of insurers to limit adequate coverage based on health status. | <urn:uuid:c9fd1d31-3497-4bf2-8467-c418241ce510> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.policyarchive.org/handle/10207/21897 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.926916 | 321 | 1.992188 | 2 |
This week, The Simple Dollar is conducting a detailed review of Kevin McKinley’s Make Your Kid A Millionaire. This title focuses on the role parents play in building a net worth for their child, both financially and psychologically. Does this book provide some interesting insights, or is it merely a repeat of the power of compound interest? This week, we aim to find out.
The first few chapters of Make Your Kid A Millionaire focus heavily on the earliest years of a child’s life, starting from that very moment when you see the plus sign on that home pregnancy test. Simply put, McKinley repeatedly hammers home the point that you should start as early as possible saving for your child’s future. I agree strongly with this; you can’t go wrong founding your child’s 529 the day that you see the home pregnancy test.
Why? Let’s say you’ve decided to save $50 per month for your child’s college education. If you start this with $50 on the day of their birth and continue this until their 18th birthday. At a 10% earning rate, on their 18th birthday, you’ll have $30,631.13 saved for their college birthday. On the other hand, let’s say you get a seven month head start on that $50 a month by starting the account on the event of that positive home pregnancy test. The total in that event is $32,822.12, a difference of $2,190.99 just by starting with $50 a month seven months earlier!
The results get even more dramatic if you don’t invest for the child’s first year or two. If you wait until the child’s second birthday to get started, your total is only $24,015.90, a loss of $6,615.23 just because you waited two years to start depositing $50 a month.
In the examples above, I’m assuming that you’re using a 529 to save for your child’s education. Why? As the book says, 529s are spectacular deals. They’re essentially Roth IRAs for your child’s education, since you don’t have to pay taxes on the earned interest provided that it’s used for educational purposes.
The book also recommends looking beyond education into the major events in your child’s life, such as a home purchase or retirement. Because you’re dealing with such long timeframes here, you can do an incredible amount to make their life easier by starting this saving now. Even trivial amounts invested in childhood can become very large amounts later in life. For example, if you simply invest $5 each month into a fund that returns 10% from the child’s conception to their 18th birthday, then stop contributing, the child will have $353,909.87 in the account on their 65th birthday and can withdraw about $3,000 a month without touching the balance. One less latte a month can help create a wonderful and more secure life fro your child.
McKinley also addresses life situations that we don’t want to think about and strongly encourages you to have a well prepared will and a healthy amount of life insurance. An entire chapter is spent on this topic and a powerful case for investing for such what-ifs is made.
In the next section of the book, McKinley goes on to talk about the choices you can make as your child grows older.
You can jump quickly to the other parts of this review of Make Your Kid A Millionaire using these links:
Prebirth Through 6 Years
Ages Seven to Twelve
Age Thirteen to Adulthood
Buy or Don’t Buy?
Make Your Kid A Millionaire is the fourth of fifty-two books in The Simple Dollar’s series 52 Personal Finance Books in 52 Weeks. | <urn:uuid:ca019f72-878a-48f2-b962-3af93940f331> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thesimpledollar.com/2006/11/28/make-your-kid-a-millionaire-prebirth-through-6-years/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938184 | 818 | 2.390625 | 2 |
Six Ways to Stop Smoking
While there is no easy way to stop smoking, the following methods will help you beat your nicotine addiction. Many people like you think they should quit smoking cigarettes but find it too difficult. The reason for this is because there is a physiological basis of nicotine addictions (physical) as well as a psychological basis of nicotine addiction.
Following is a list of the easiest ways to stop smoking. Use one or more of these methods to cure your nicotine addiction.
Nicotine Replacement Therapy
Nicotine replacement therapy consists of products such as nicotine patches, gum, inhalers and nasal sprays. These stop smoking aids deliver a dose of nicotine with the aim of helping you gradually kick the habit of smoking while you progressively use less nicotine. While using nicotine replacement therapy is an easy way to stop smoking cigarettes, it is common to form an addiction to the nicotine substitute so you have to be careful while using them.
Prescription Stop Smoking Drugs
Often referred to "stop smoking drugs", these prescription medications are designed to reduce cravings and withdrawal symptoms. Stop smoking drugs such as Chantix and Zyban work to "undo" the part of your brain that has become rewired by nicotine. While this sounds great, quitting is not guaranteed. In a recent study only 44% participants quit while using Chantix as opposed to 30% who quit by using Zyban. Learn more about the benefits, costs, and side effects of stop smoking drugs.
Herbal Stop Smoking Products
Herbal stop smoking products offer an all natural alternative to nicotine replacement therapy and prescription stop smoking drugs. Some herbs create an effect on the brain that is similar to nicotine but are non-addictive, while other stop smoking herbs help the body to deal with the other symptoms of quitting, such as irritability and the "quitters flu".
Cutting Down Gradually
Another way to stop smoking is by gradually lowering the amount of cigarettes smoked each day - for example cut down from 10 to 7 cigarettes a day or less. You can also delay having a cigarette after a meal or when ever else you feel like smoking. One very important thing to do is make certain that your final quit date is no more than two weeks after your start.
Stop Smoking Plan
While a few lucky smokers can quit smoking cigarettes by going cold turkey, most people require a more complicated way to stop smoking. A solid stop smoking plan will include a quit date, the help of your family and friends, the understanding of the challenges that you will face on that date and beyond, getting rid of all tobacco related items from your home, car, and work place, and speaking to a doctor about treatment for nicotine addiction.
Other Ways to Stop Smoking
There are several other ways to stop smoking that don't involve nicotine replacement therapy or prescribed medication. These include hypnosis, acupuncture, behavioral therapy, and nicotine vaccination.
Finding the easiest ways to stop smoking can be a personal choice. You may react differently to these methods than someone else. Do your research and you may find the answer that solves your nicotine addiction.Top-recommended nicotine-free aids to help you kick the habit for good. | <urn:uuid:01f4ee40-a424-481f-be45-c07bf20131bd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.stopsmoking.net/ways.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00067-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940504 | 641 | 1.726563 | 2 |
5 For Friday- Pest Control Links Round-Up
Pest Of The Week: The Arizona Bark Scorpion
The Arizona Bark scorpion, is a small light brown scorpion; commonly found in the southwest United States. This scorpion pest is predominately found in the Sonoran Desert, however less toxic species have been discovered; throughout the Southern US. A nocturnal pest, the Bark scorpion prefers to ambush its prey; which often consists of crickets and/or roaches.
Considered the most venomous scorpion in North America, the number of Bark scorpion sting victims in Arizona; is estimated to be in the thousands each year. With that being said, fatalities in the United States are rare (only 2 recorded fatalities have occurred in the state of Arizona since 1968), and limited to small animals/pets, young children; and adults with compromised immune systems.
The venom from a Bark scorpion bite can inflict severe pain, coupled with numbness and tingling; typically lasting between 24 and 72 hours. Temporary dysfunction in the sting area is common and may cause victims to become immobilized, experience convulsions and/or shortness of breath. Due to the extreme pain caused by the sting, many victims describe the sensation of electrical shocks; after receiving a sting.
Bark scorpions, like most other scorpions, are incredibly resilient; and require a focused pest control strategy. In fact, lab experiments have frozen scorpions for weeks; and after being thawed, the scorpions emerged unharmed. Furthermore, during U.S. nuclear testing, scorpions (along with cockroaches and lizards) were found near ground zero; with no recorded adverse effects.
$1 Million Hospital Bill After A Brown Recluse Spider Bite
Here is an unfortunate story about a law student who was bitten by a poisonous Brown Recluse and almost lost her legs. Despite saving her legs, the Michigan woman was burdened with $1 Million in medical bills. More…
Steering Clear of Hornets
Hornets are just fine if they’re outside, pollinating flowers eating other insects. But there are times when hornets just come too close to home. In fact, some hornets are comfortable making a nest around or even in your home, and this is something that cannot be tolerated. More…
Bed Bug Detection: 3 Bugs That Could Be Mistaken For Bed Bugs
The Eastern bat bug, dust mites, and spiders are all commonly mistaken for bed bugs. To better understand these three pests that are commonly mistaken for bed bugs, click here.
Is Your Birdfeeder Causing a Rodent Problem?
It’s no secret that rodents are attracted to birdfeeders, but it’s not for the reasons you think. To learn more about this issue, and tips from eliminating rodents from your property, click here.
A Stinky Beast — The Odorous House Ant
For everything you want to know about this stinky pest, including treatment methods, click here. | <urn:uuid:aef1e652-7a63-4b36-bceb-d7b98035008a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogpestcontrol.com/2012/11/5-for-friday-links-round-up/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950164 | 622 | 2.109375 | 2 |
At the Seaford Station on the Long Island Rail Road, artist Carson Fox created Blue Sky Pursuit, consisting of 14 laminated and tempered glass windows. These windows extend the sky creating a bright blue fantasy, filled with butterflies and birds, their flights traced with dots of clear glass that meander, overlap and reveal paths of movement, speaking to migration and the act of travel. The dots also transform the sunlight creating a prismatic effect that enlivens the landscape. Fox used bird and butterfly images inspired from Victorian era engravings, an aesthetic where natural life is a lush and swarming profusion.
The work was created from a process that includes painting on the glass. The 14 windows, eight on the north side of the waiting room and six on the south, combine to create a place for commuters as they mark the start of their day in a space made radiant by the artist’s vision.
Above: Carson Fox, Blue Sky Pursuit. 2009. | <urn:uuid:c95e6da7-dfd6-4539-aee4-5fefe7b08830> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ros31.tumblr.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943914 | 196 | 2 | 2 |
Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
2001 June 20
Explanation: A total eclipse of the Sun is that special geocentric celestial event where the Moon passes exactly in front of the solar disk. During a fleeting few minutes of totality, fortunate earthdwellers located within the path of the Moon's dark shadow can witness the wondrous shimmering solar corona sharing the sky with stars and bright planets. The next total solar eclipse will occur tomorrow, June 21. Since the Sun is still near the maximum of its 11 year activity cycle, careful eclipse-watchers will also likely see the spectacle of bright solar prominences lofted above active regions around the Sun's edge. In fact, a telescopic view could be similar to this stunningly detailed image -- a picture of the solar eclipse of August 1999 taken at the beginning of totality from Kecel, Hungary. The upcoming 2001 June 21 event will be visible as a partial eclipse from some of South America and much of Africa, but will only be total along a 125 mile wide path that tracks across land through Southern Africa and Madagascar. Of course, if you can't travel to Africa tomorrow (and you're not already there), web sites plan to offer live views from the Moon's shadow!
Authors & editors:
Jerry Bonnell (USRA)
NASA Technical Rep.: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA/ GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U. | <urn:uuid:e5b65d4b-64f4-4f87-b78c-77fe9a229c04> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.brera.mi.astro.it/apod/ap010620.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.92631 | 321 | 3.3125 | 3 |
Museum Releases Source Code for the Original Photoshop
The Computer History Museum has a new exhibit that only a programmer could love. With Adobe's blessing, it's offering the source code for the original version of Photoshop, which debuted in 1990.
Experts say the 185,000 lines of Pascal and Motorola 68000 assembly language are remarkable for their clarity and elegance. IBM's Grady Booch said, "There are only a few comments in the version 1.0 source code, most of which are associated with assembly language snippets. That said, the lack of comments is simply not an issue. This code is so literate, so easy to read, that comments might even have gotten in the way....This is the kind of code I aspire to write."
The source code is available for download, but it isn't really functional because some Mac libraries are missing and because modern hardware and operating systems can no longer run applications from this era. Instead, the files are there to be read by those who can understand them and appreciate their beauty. | <urn:uuid:25267a34-11fe-4642-92a9-d5717e5d8aa8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.developer.com/daily_news/museum-releases-source-code-for-the-original-photoshop.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964687 | 209 | 2.828125 | 3 |
Are you keeping your New Year's resolutions?|
Story Archives: Is Louisiana serious about ethics reform?
|Is Louisiana serious about ethics reform?|
It came as no surprise that Gov. Bobby Jindal unveiled an ambitious plan for state lawmakers to consider beginning Sunday when they convene in a special session to deal with ethics reform.
Throughout the 2007 gubernatorial campaign Jindal promised that one of his first acts as governor would entail calling a special session aimed at reforming the way we operate state government in Louisiana. Throughout the transition period, or from the moment he was declared the winner of the governor's race on election night in October until the time he took the oath of office in January, Jindal repeated his intentions to call an ethics session.
Obviously, Jindal wasn't bluffing.
Composed of some 60 items, Jindal's call, or agenda, for the special session touches on every one of the major points he campaigned on over the past two years.
It's broad in scope and detailed, too.
If that makes any sense.
Whether it's beefed up financial disclosure laws for elected officials, prohibiting legislators from doing business with the state or campaign finance reform, Jindal's ethics reform package should please every do-gooder interest group in Louisiana. Collectively, the do-gooders have hollered for years for someone to do something to improve the state's image in the eyes of the people from sea to shining sea.
They got their wish.
Or they have a governor who's willing to attempt ethics reform instead of paying lip service to it.
What was surprising prior to Jindal calling the special session—in the days thereafter, too—was the behavior of some organizations, or interest groups, that have a long history of not getting too excited about reforming state government here.
Those folks, or those organizations, include the Louisiana Assessors' Association, the Louisiana District Attorneys' Association, the Louisiana Municipal Association and the Louisiana Sheriffs' Association.
Not only are those organizations supporting Jindal's ethics package, they've embraced it.
Publicly, at least.
It's not being suggested the aforementioned associations, or their members in general, haven't supported ethics reform in the past. They simply haven't had their feet held to the fire to do it.
It's unclear how forceful Jindal was in convincing the various associations in question to support his stab at reform. Suffice it to say the associations and their leaders were told to get on board the ethics reform bandwagon or rue the day they opposed it.
In some corners, or in some states, that tactic could be described as extortion.
We're talking about Louisiana, though, where a clean state government—on the surface at least—is a novel idea.
Or an idea that comes along every 30 years or so.
Yet, the real test facing Jindal in the coming weeks concerning ethics reform has nothing to do with doing what's right or what will pass constitutional muster.
The real test concerns that thing called the democratic process, or convincing the House of Representatives and the state Senate to approve an ethics reform package Jindal favors.
Yes, there exists some legislators who would like to see ethics reform die a slow death. They are the same folks who have benefited from the so-called good old boy network. They appear to be happy as well with Louisiana being labeled as one of the worst states in America to live and work.
Had those folks spent one-half as much time trying to better Louisiana in lieu of thwarting its progress over the years, there wouldn't be any need for ethics reform.
Instead, ethics reform is needed now.
Jindal knows it. Let's hope he can convince the Legislature to embrace it.
At the very least, we would like to think the day is long past when the people of Louisiana tolerate the use of public office for ill-gotten gains. If there are any of those folks left in the Legislature, who ran for office hoping to profit from some kind of slush fund or some silent contractual relationship with the state, they could do us all a service by tendering their resignations now. | <urn:uuid:f37051f6-d1cc-4f48-bee7-d068d8819153> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.franklinsun.com/archives.php?id=763 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964448 | 841 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Hello. Long time reader, first time poster.
I'm working on a science fiction short story that involves a man "traveling" from timeline to timeline without his control. For example, one day he's a doctor, the next he's a wino bum.
Understanding this is fiction, I'd like to find at least a semblance of an actual explanation for this even if it takes an existing theory and expands it out of the realm of actual plausibility.
Being a layman, I've not much luck just googling what my non-physics mind might consider important keywords.
I was wondering if any of you fine experts here at bautforum might be kind enough to point my research in the right direction.
Also, being new, I'm guessing ATM is the correct place to post this? | <urn:uuid:71abecef-8ccb-46eb-ab83-1d07772dd194> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cosmoquest.org/forum/showthread.php?99174-Can-consciousness-travel-to-other-timelines-and-maintain-memory | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936857 | 168 | 1.515625 | 2 |
HOW THEY RUN
The Web Era Isn't as New as You Think
When computers and the Internet first asserted themselves in Americans' imaginations in the early 1990s, some foresaw a golden era of politics. As citizens gained more access to information and as their voices more easily projected into the political discourse via bulletin boards, Web sites and Internet mailing lists, candidates would have more reason to deliberate directly with voters. Campaigns would become cheaper and more honest, while the power of lobbyists, consultants and other middlemen would fade.
Recently, as we've gained more experience with our technological toys, a fearful new thread has emerged: Forget the golden era. Through partisan blogs, political Web sites and customized news, the Internet only hardens our views, polarizes our politics.
So, is the Internet the lever for direct democracy? Or is it a wedge for political polarization? Either conclusion may prove too simple. To understand how technology may reshape politics in the years ahead, consider what we've learned from the initial decade of online campaigning, and how our various fears and hopes have fared:
The Internet has transformed political fundraising, advertising and mobilization.
Not so much. However you measure it, online fundraising has indeed increased substantially over the past eight years. The high-water mark, sure to be topped in 2008, is the reported $80 million in Internet donations that Sen. John Kerry raised for his 2004 presidential bid. This year, the liberal group MoveOn.org has raised more than $20 million, most of it online, and total online fundraising could reach $100 million. That's less than one-20th of total campaign fundraising this election cycle, which the Center for Responsive Politics puts at $2.6 billion.
Furthermore, the bulk of the political cash raised online is still being spent on tried-and-true outreach efforts such as television advertising, direct mail and telephone calls. In other words, 21st-century fundraising is paying for the same old-fashioned communications mechanisms that have dominated U.S. politics since the 1960s.
Estimates by the research firm PQ Media indicate that online campaign advertising increased to $40 million this year, compared with $29 million during the 2004 election cycle. By contrast, spending on television spots alone may have hit $2 billion this year, said Evan Tracey of the Campaign Media Analysis Group.
Meanwhile, e-mail is not close to challenging direct mail and phone calls as ways to reach voters: A Pew Research Center survey last month found that 38 percent of registered voters had received phone calls about the midterm campaigns, while only 15 percent had received e-mail.
In 2004, political scientists J. Quin Monson and D. Sunshine Hillygus tracked 1,606 voters during the last three weeks of the campaign for Brigham Young University's Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy. Less than 4 percent of the sample reported receiving a political e-mail message. All told, they received 2,466 unique pieces of direct mail, 9,627 phone calls and 399 personal visits -- but only 254 unique campaign e-mail messages.
The Internet "Balkanizes" politics.
Yes, on issues such as national security and the economy, voters' views have grown more partisan over the past generation -- but that began long before PCs and Internet access became staples of middle-class life.
Internet use may reinforce that trend. Surveys show that the Internet helps people seek out others who share their beliefs. And 30 percent of Internet users customize their daily news and analysis, sometimes relying on partisan blogs or preferred sites that can deliver tailor-made and self-reinforcing news and opinions to their screens. | <urn:uuid:c29b8b6b-03bd-4ee1-91ef-7a14642feeb5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/03/AR2006110301393.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957448 | 747 | 2.265625 | 2 |
Message From Dr. Zaf Khan
Positive Behavior Support Initiative Project Director
Success in school involves being able to complete assigned work, stay organized, get along with children and adults, be positive about your own abilities and school, follow rules, and do your best work. Positive Behavior Support Initiatives are a way to impact the learning environments in the classroom in order to support high student performance and to reduce behavioral problems, especially in serving the needs of students with disabilities.
"Watch Dr. George Sugai Explain PBIS"
The Positive Behavior Support Initiative is a 3 year grant that is funded through
the Tennessee State Department of Education, Division of Special Education.
This is a FREE support service for schools in all 26 counties in Middle Tennessee. | <urn:uuid:450d19bd-b95e-48a1-b025-567fda725928> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mtsu.edu/pbsi/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940396 | 151 | 2.28125 | 2 |
Officials and energy workers in Japan struggled today to control the reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, badly damaged in Friday's earthquake. Officially, the Japanese government seemed focused on keeping people calm even as they evacuated residents from near the nuclear reactors.
For the latest news on the reactors, click HERE.
ABC News asked three of the most essential questions of ABC's nuclear experts:
Joseph Cirincione, who was the Director for Non-Proliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and author of Deadly Arsenals: Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Threats.
Dr. Michiko Kaku, a theoretical physicist at the City University of New York.
What is worst-case scenario in Japan?
CIRINCIONE: The worst case is multiple reactor meltdowns. That means that the reactor core, the fuel, gets so hot that it fuses together into molten lava and that bursts right through the reactor container vessel, and right through the concrete containment box that is built around the reactor. Then radioactivity goes in the air, in the ground, in the water. It is a mess.
The danger is that it happens, not just at one reactor but two or three reactors at once. That means you have an arch of radioactivity over hundreds of squared kilometers contaminating, perhaps, possible thousands of square kilometers.
KAKU: The worst-case scenario is a steam/hydrogen gas explosion which blows the reactor vessels apart, sending uranium dioxide fuel rods and radioactive debris into the air. This might happen if the core is fully exposed for a few hours, which is a distinct possibility. This is what happened at Chernobyl, when such an explosion blew about 25 percet of the core's radioactive byproducts into the air.
How far can the radiation travel in the worst case?
KAKU: [In the event of fuel rods and reactive debris being sent into the air,] a plume containing iodine, cesium, and strontium would rise above the reactor. The winds would blow it 20-50 miles downwind from the site. The plume, like a lighthouse beam, would be pencil-thin, about 15 degrees, and would sweep back and forth depending on the wind.
CIRINCIONE: A lot depends on weather and wind conditions. If the wind is blowing out to the ocean, as it usually does, then most of the contamination goes out there. If the wind shifts south, well then, some of the most heavily populated areas of Japan are at risk including Tokyo itself…
It is possible the fires could be so hot that it could send radioactive particles into the upper atmosphere, carrying it across the Pacific. It would hit the southern parts of Alaska and the west coast of Canada and the United States in about ten days.
How dangerous would the levels be?
KAKU: The radiation would not kill immediately, but it would eventually cause cancer because it is breathed in and ingested. So the 12-mile evacuation zone would be completely useless.
CIRINCIONE None of this radioactivity would kill people in the continental United States, but it would expose people to the increased risk of cancer. Think of it like asbestos. You don't want to breath it, it doesn't kill you right away, it just makes your chance of getting cancer that much higher.
When is the point when the danger is passed? | <urn:uuid:9575e7cf-8c42-4a1c-ac1b-71134ce936f8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/nuclear-meltdown-essential-questions-japanese-reactors/story?id=13134767 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951966 | 697 | 3.4375 | 3 |
Bodyscape: Mapping the Mind and Body
Past Event: 29 November 2001 to 6 June 2005
Humans have been curious about the structure and function of their bodies for millennia.
Bodyscape: Mapping the Mind and Body explores the wonderful diversity of body maps and images produced over the centuries - and the methods and devices used to acquire them.
We trace our evolving understanding of the inner workings of the human body and gain insights into the most mysterious realm of all - the human mind. | <urn:uuid:4af5ee89-d8ff-49f1-be20-b5862a35fc68> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://museumvictoria.com.au/melbournemuseum/whatson/exhibition-archive/bodyscape/?reply=15895&sort=mostpopular&googleminiexclude=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.910769 | 104 | 1.789063 | 2 |
The number of teenagers who are drinking and driving has dropped by 54% in the past two decades, according to a new report released Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In 2011, when asked if they drink and drive, 90% of the high school students 16 and older surveyed by the CDC said they did not.
However, "motor vehicle crashes remain the leading cause of death among teens in this country. There are more than 2,000 teens aged 16-19 killed each year and many of those deaths are alcohol-related," said CDC Director Dr. Thomas R. Frieden. "Almost a million high school teens aged 16 and over drove after drinking alcohol in 2011 and we calculate that high school teens were responsible for about 2.4 million episodes of drinking and driving a month."
The report also tells us that 85% of students who admitted to driving after drinking also participated in binge drinking in the past 30 days.
Frieden explained that drinking and driving is especially risky for younger drivers, who are 17 times more likely to die in an accident when alcohol is involved.
The study examined data from CDC's 1991-2011 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System, which monitors six types of behaviors that raise the risk of death and disability among youth and young adults.
The surveillance system includes national surveys given to public and private students in grades nine through 12. Teens in all 50 states and the District of Columbia completed voluntary and anonymous questionnaires that asked questions about current drinking and driving habits, alcohol use and binge drinking.
Teens were asked whether they had operated a motor vehicle after drinking alcohol one or more times during the 30 days before answering the survey.
Significant findings in the study include:
-- 10.3% of teens reported drinking and driving in 2011, compared to 22.3% in 1991.
-- 11.7% of male students were more likely to be drinking and driving, compared to 8.8% of female students.
-- Hispanic (11.5%) and White students (10.6%) were more likely to drink and drive than African-American students (6.6%)
-- 7.2% of 16-year-olds reported drinking and driving, which increased to 11.5% among 17-year-olds. Among students who reported drinking and driving, 84.6% reported binge drinking, defined as consuming five or more drinks in a row.
While the report shows progress has been made during the last 20 years in reducing teen drinking and driving, driving among teens also declined during the past decade.
Some of the factors that have contributed to the reduction in drunk driving include raising the minimum drinking age to 21 in all U.S. states, zero tolerance laws making it illegal for teens to have any alcohol in their system while driving, and the increase in graduated driver's licensing programs, which ease new drivers into having full driving privileges.
"We've seen teen driving fatalities fall by nearly 40% in nearly five years because of graduated drivers' license laws as well as other interventions," Frieden said.
He stressed the importance of states, pediatricians, and parents playing a role in educating teens about the dangers of drinking and driving. And he urged parents to set an example by not drinking and driving, and signing agreements with their teens to not drink and drive, as well as teaching teens to never get into a vehicle with anybody who has been drinking. | <urn:uuid:106dccbb-8faf-4dee-8bdb-d6772d4682f2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kjct8.com/news/health/CDC-Teen-drinking-and-driving-rates-cut-in-half/-/194296/16829558/-/fi662tz/-/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981252 | 696 | 3.125 | 3 |
The Burtis House was built in 1857 on east 5th Street in downtown Davenport. Billed as the biggest hotel in Iowa, the Burtis was perfectly positioned to take advantage of the passenger trains coming over the first railroad bridge across the Mississippi River to the Chicago, Rock Island, and Pacific railroad depot. In fact, the owner, Dr. Burtis, had an agreement with the depot that all the passenger trains would stop right at the hotel.
1886 Sanborn map image of the Burtis House and the C,RI &P depot and railroad lines*
But times change. The railroad bridge was taken down in 1872, the Rock Island Line built a new depot and rerouted, and the Burtis House lost business. Finally, the hotel moved across town, and the grandest hotel in Iowa became known as the Old Burtis House.
In 1894, the Loose Brothers of Chicago opened the Crescent Macaroni Company on the site of the Old Burtis House, and the landmark building was incorporated into the factory.
1910 Sanborn map image of the Crescent Macaroni Company*
At the time, pasta wasn’t exactly a Midwestern dietary staple, especially in the primarily German-American households of Davenport, Iowa. Crescent Macaroni helped to change that, successfully marketing spaghetti, egg noodles, and, of course, macaroni of various sizes throughout Scott County and beyond.
In 1904, the company began making cookies and soda crackers as well. The newly dubbed Crescent Macaroni & Cracker Company was more popular than ever and its five-story building was kept busy producing star-and-moon embossed blue boxfuls full of goodies “Just like mother used to make.” Soon, the factory was one of the largest of its kind in the country.
But times change–sometimes in an instant.
On January 23, 1915, Oven No. 1 malfunctioned. The night watchman discovered the basement fire at 8:16 pm, but the fire companies of the city were already busy with a fire at the Amazon Pickling and Vinegar Works and so took over twenty minutes for the first company to reach the Crescent factory. By that time, the stock of dry crackers and pasta, all stored in heavy cardboard boxes, were burning like fury.
The fire companies soon turned their efforts from saving the factory to preventing the fire from spreading. Though many of the surrounding building were actually smoking from the intense heat, no other businesses were lost. Only the Crescent Macaroni buildings—including the Old Burtis House—were destroyed. It was a loss of $350,000, only $150,000 of which was covered by insurance.
Undaunted, the officers of Crescent Macaroni vowed to rebuild. The only part of the factory that survived was the brick boiler stack, which was used in the reconstruction. The new building was designed by architectural firm Clausen and Kruse of Davenport, who planned it with fire safety in mind. These safety measures included concrete columns and floors, metal clad work doors, steel window sashes, metal and concrete staircases, and one visually distinctive feature—a water tower on the roof, just in case lightning, or oven fires, struck the same place twice.
After a good run of nearly a century, the Crescent Macaroni & Cracker Company closed in 1991. The building stood vacant for years, useless, unwanted.
But times change. In 2003, the empty building was purchased as part of a project to convert older downtown commercial buildings in the Crescent Warehouse District into luxury apartments. The building at 427 Iowa Street is now called Davenport Lofts.
From hotel, to factory, to housing, this site has come full circle, with pieces of the past used to construct the future.
That’s what urban recycling is all about.
*Please note that in the 1886 map image, north is on the left. In the 1910 map image, north is at the top.
“America’s Biggest Macaroni Factory Burns.” The Davenport Daily Times. January 26, 1915, p.1 and 8.
Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps, Davenport, Iowa, 1886 and 1910
Svendsen, Marlys. Crescent Warehouse Historic District, Davenport, Iowa. ([S. L.}: Alexander Company), 2003
(Posted by Sarah) | <urn:uuid:7a6257ed-73da-4fa6-91b3-72063f20939a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.davenportlibrary.com/sc/2009/01/26/urban-recycling-davenport-style/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961399 | 922 | 2.5 | 2 |
Romney’s claim that the Navy is as small as in 1916
By Glenn Kessler,
“The size of our Navy is at levels not seen since 1916. I will restore our Navy to the size needed to fulfill our missions by building 15 ships per year, including three submarines.”
— Mitt Romney, speech at Virginia Military Institute, Oct. 8, 2012
We will leave analysis of the GOP presidential nominee’s major foreign-policy address to the pundits, though we were pleased to see that he did not repeat his frequent claim that Obama “apologized” for America — a phrase we and other fact-checkers have long debunked.
Still, we were interested in his assertion about the size of the Navy. Is the Navy really in the worst shape it has been in 96 years?
The historical records of the Navy show that in 1916, the Navy had 245 ships. This was also the year that President Woodrow Wilson signed into law the Naval Act of 1916, which put the United States on a crash course to build a world-class Navy.
But take a look at the types of ships on the list. Yes, there are cruisers and destroyers but also:
Monitors (that’s kind of a small warship)
These types of boats aren’t on the list anymore. Instead, the current list of Navy ships includes behemoths such as aircraft carriers, “SSBN” (nuclear-powered, ballistic-missile carrying submarines) and “SSGN” (cruise-missile submarines).
In other words, this is an apples-and-oranges comparison. Romney’s line reminds us of a similar strained comparison he made last year regarding the workforce needs to make ships during World War II and today. But in this case he goes even deeper back into history. After all, 1916 is not only before computers, it is before television — even before regular radio broadcasts.
John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, notes that it is difficult to make comparisons between ships that are even much more recent. “Today’s aircraft carrier has about 10 times the lethality of an aircraft carrier of 20 years ago, due to the advent of precision munitions — in the old days, it was sorties per target, now it is targets per sortie,” he said.
The current level of ships, 285 in fiscal 2011, is actually not even the lowest since 1916. The historical list shows that the lowest ship force was reached during the Bush administration, when the number of ships fell to 278 in 2007. Given the change over time in the composition of the naval force, that probably is the most relevant comparison — and the trend line is up.
Romney’s pledge to build 15 more ships per year, including three submarines, also is less than meets the eye. The current Navy plan is to build 34 ships over the next four years — 10 in 2013 — including seven submarines as part of its goal to reach at least 300 ships by 2019. (The Congressional Budget Office, however, has raised questions about whether this plan is feasible.)
Given ship retirements, Romney’s plan probably would net an additional 20 ships, Pike said, but he said it generally takes three years to build a ship and another year to put it in commission. In other words, the Navy in place at the end of a first Romney term would be Obama’s Navy. In any case, even under the best-case scenario under Romney’s proposal, the Navy would end up with about as many ships as in 2000 — which is barely better than 1916.
The Romney campaign noted that now-retired Adm. Gary Roughead, when chief of naval operations, also made this 1916 comparison in a 2010 speech. “No one is disputing that today’s ships are more capable than their 1916 predecessors, but the reality that you can only have one ship in one place at any one time hasn’t changed,” a Romney spokesman said. “And today’s Navy is tasked with being in more places given America’s expanded international interests compared to 1916.”
The Pinocchio Test
This is a nonsense fact. In his counting of ships, Romney equates gunboats with aircraft carriers and torpedo boats with nuclear-powered submarines. For such an important speech, one would think the candidate would resolve to use the most relevant facts possible.
Check out our candidate Pinocchio Tracker
Track each presidential candidate's campaign ads | <urn:uuid:463e0009-e221-4d3d-aa1d-6715f99c552e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/romneys-claim-that-the-navy-is-as-small-as-in-1916/2012/10/08/6f47e6d6-1191-11e2-be82-c3411b7680a9_print.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969741 | 941 | 2.421875 | 2 |
I love snickerdoodles. It is sometimes confused as a sugar cookie that has been rolled in cinnamon, however, the distinction would be the addition of cream of tartar, which you don't find in a sugar cookie dough. I loved when my mother made snickerdoodles; the aroma from the oven of these wonderful cookies would make me stop what I was doing in anticipation of eating one. I've discovered that the snickerdoodle dates back to 19th century New England, although some think they came from Germany. I just know this recipe was originally from my grandmother, who cut it out from a 1958 Good Housekeeping magazine. I don't remember her making them a lot, but my mother would. I copied her recipe when I got married, but through the years, I've altered it a bit. However, one thing I always use is shortening, not butter. I've tried snickerdoodle recipes with butter and they don't have the same crispness to them, which is just as important as the characteristically cracked surface.
1 cup shortening (I use Crisco's butter-flavored, in a stick)
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp. pure vanilla + the seeds from 1 vanilla bean
3 cups All-purpose flour
2 tsp. Cream of Tartar
1 tsp. Baking Soda
1/2 tsp. Kosher salt
Cream shortening and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, then, add the vanilla and seeds. Sift the dry ingredients and add to the mixture. Blend together and chill dough 30 minutes to 1 hour.
Preheat oven to 375F-degrees. I used a one-third cup scoop (for a large cookie) to measure out the dough, then roll it in the sugar/spice mixture. Place on a parchment lined baking sheet. Press each cookie down, slightly or use a fork to criss-cross across them (just like a peanut butter cookie). Bake this larger version 12 minutes (or until light, golden brown) rotating the pan half-way through the baking time. Remove to rack to cool. This larger cookie makes approximately 20 cookies, but if you go for the "walnut-sized" as is typical, you will get about 3 dozen.
Note: The smaller size will bake in 8 to 10 minutes.
Now, get yourself a glass of milk and enjoy these with your kids! | <urn:uuid:bf90a2bc-9fdb-40ac-b7d9-746ef7a392b2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mymothersapronstrings.blogspot.com/2010_02_01_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961752 | 508 | 1.546875 | 2 |
TOWNSHIP 9, Maine — A woods fire by Narraguagus Lake in eastern Hancock County was still burning Thursday but firefighters had contained it and hoped to have it extinguished soon, a Maine forest ranger said.
The fire, which was reported late Wednesday afternoon, is believed to have been caused by a “human element,” Forest Ranger Courtney Hammond said Thursday. He said it was under investigation.
The fire burned about 4 acres of woodland that not too long ago had been harvested of timber, according to Hammond.
He said approximately 20 firefighters from Franklin, Hancock and Sullivan helped fight the flames.
“It’s still burning,” Hammond said. “We have a bulldozed fire line all the way around the fire.”
Hammond said there have been no lightning strikes in the area. Not enough rain fell in the area Wednesday night to put the fire out, and Thursday’s sun and wind helped to rekindle it, he said. | <urn:uuid:a4db3642-729f-49d4-806b-6011925b8fa0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bangordailynews.com/2010/07/22/news/woods-fire-contained-still-burning/?ref=relatedBox | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00073-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976651 | 205 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Honey Tree Preschool and Childcare of Wilton nurtures its students' curiosity. This school's curriculum introduces children to the fundamentals of language arts, mathematics, the arts and the social and life sciences. Teachers here encourage independent thinking, engaging students in "active and quiet exploration." Parents and caregivers can call the school for more information. Parents are responsible for providing their children lunch and snacks. | <urn:uuid:99e4dda9-c588-4fba-b510-e6b784e7bf35> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wilton.patch.com/listings/honey-tree-preschool-and-childcare-of-wilton | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.920497 | 79 | 1.539063 | 2 |
An Easy Solution To Subwoofer Calibration
"To shine or glow, to appear or expand suddenly." This is how Webster defines bloom. I think this definition will work just fine for audiophile use of the word as well. Bloom is a good subjective description of the way that musical performance fills a space, interacts with the volume of the room and provides the rich, emotive communication we, as audio and video enthusiasts, spend so much time and money pursuing.
The bloom and, dare I say it, the "palpable presence" of reproduced music is, very largely, affected by the capability of the components and speakers of the system. The room in which the music or soundtrack is played has a much larger effect. In fact, the room's effect is larger by an order of magnitude. And nowhere is that effect more obvious than in the very foundation of performance, the bass octaves.
The dimensions of the listening room or home theater play a fundamental role in the sound of the installed system. All rooms have an inherent decay time, as well as a series of resonances associated with their dimensions. In fact, audio engineers and designers must take into account dozens of levels of sonic reflection off each surface in order to adequately characterize the suitability of a space for musical performance. And things get really complicated if the space is anything other than a rectangle! What's a poor music fan to do?
One would think most home theater spaces or music rooms are sufficiently small that the rt60 (the time it takes for sound to decay 60dB) has a negligible effect on sound. That's not necessarily so. Rooms can "ring" for a substantial period; the room in the example below has an rt60 of nearly 0.8 second! Furthermore, a compact size can be the primary obstacle to good bass definition and flat response. Simply put, a small room can have a hard time holding and releasing a big sound wave!
Bass is seldom as deep as most listeners think. The open E string of a properly tuned bass guitar is about 42Hz. Only movie soundtracks, pipe organs and some synthesized music have any appreciable or usable content below that frequency. Since almost any quality powered subwoofer has an advertised frequency response of 20Hz to 200Hz +/- 3dB, why is reproducing low bass so difficult? At first it appears that this is a problem easily solved by brute force; just get plenty of digital watts, combine with digital equalization and a long-throw stiff driver, and you'll get fine bottom end performance. If it were only so easy!
In reality, the effect of the room can easily cause peaks or dips in frequency response of more than 25dB in the bass spectrum. This is caused by constructive and destructive resonances, which are a function of the dimensions of the space. For example, a hypothetical room with dimensions of 10ft X 10ft X 10ft (a horrible room for music, by the way) will exhibit axial modes centered at 57Hz, 113Hz, 170Hz and 226Hz. This will cause a boost in maximum pressure zones (antinodes) of +20dB at 57Hz and -16dB at 113Hz in the same location as referenced to the expected anechoic output of the woofer! This is a 36dB swing in frequency response! If you are the unfortunate owner of a cubic room with these dimensions, you are probably doomed to loose, booming bass with no mid-bass power or definition.
Clearly room effects are extremely important to good performance. The good folks at RPG Inc. are not kidding when they say, "Even if the room dimensions are ideal according to some criteria, only proper positioning of the listener and loudspeakers can minimize low frequency acoustic distortion." Tuning your room can bring a more noticeable difference than doubling your speaker budget!
Henri Matisse once said; "What I dream of is an art of balance." While it may be impossible to change the dimensions of your theater or listening room it is not impossible, nor even all that difficult, to change the balance of its attributes. Realistic, high-impact audio performance can often be achieved by moving things around to make the best of what you have. And best of all, you already have the most complicated and expensive test gear ever created for such a project; your ears.
Choosing a starting point for an A/V "bass makeover" is dictated by the type of gear you have. If you are tuning your room for a two channel stereo rig, the process is significantly different than tuning a room for a full-on surround sound system with a powered subwoofer. Let's look at the steps for proper positioning and easy room treatment for a subwoofer-enabled multi-channel home theater system first. In my next installment we will explore easy setup tips for maximizing two-channel playback.
Chances are that the placement of your screen is somewhat inflexible. It's important to not come to this conclusion without real thought; a complete re-orientation of the room may be (and often is) the best route! Let's assume, however, that your rear projection or plasma set is in the only permissible location in the room. It is a safe bet that the best place for the subwoofer is probably not right next to the screen! So often many folks plop this box down somewhere in the front of the room near the LCR speakers, set the crossover to the prescribed 80Hz and then proceed to increase the gain until they "feel" the bass. There is a better way.
An Easy Way To Solve A Complex Problem
Place your subwoofer where your primary seating area is. Connect it to your system and set the crossover and volume to a good starting point; we'll fine-tune that later. Use program material that offers a combination of sustained low tones and fast, powerful midbass. A good choice for this is the work of Les Claypool of Primus, especially that band's seminal "Pork Soda" and the cut "My Name is Mud." If you prefer jazz, look to the work of Jaco Pastorius. If concert music is your thing, you may want to play one of the bigger works of Wagner. They key is to have a musical selection (or movie soundtrack selection if you'd prefer) that has lots of dynamic energy in the mid and lower bass from 150Hz to about 40Hz.
Turn the system on and bring the volume to your most typical listening level. Now get down on your hands and knees and crawl around the room slowly, listening for a change in bass quality, quantity and definition. Take your time. You want to find the spot in the room that provides the best integration of bass and upper ranges and the smoothest response. It is important to know that the best spot sometimes isn't along a wall or in the front of the room. Make sure you listen to regions throughout the room - and really listen for the integration and quality of the bass detail. In my own music room installation, for example, the subwoofer sounds best when placed as a coffee table between and in front of the primary listening seats some eight feet off the front wall!
Once you've determined the best potential location or two for subwoofer placement, change the layout. Put the subwoofer in that spot and go back to your listening position. Using the same tracks at the same volume, listen again. What changed? What needs to change? If the bass is a bit thin, perhaps move the subwoofer closer to the walls to reinforce the bottom end. If there is still a "hooty" or ringing quality, check to see if the distance from the subwoofer to the various wall surfaces is identical or multiples of a single measurement. Ideally, you want the woofer positioned from the nearest three room boundaries at distances that are as different as possible.
By now you should have found the location where the bass is the smoothest and most detailed in the room. It's time to integrate that bass into the sound field. There are various control schemes, test tones and equalizers available on most modern surround sound receivers. Using these built-in tones and an inexpensive sound level meter can give you a real advantage in setup. If available, follow the advice in your A/V receiver's owner's manual or subwoofer owner's manual for precise tuning tips.
Here is what I do to "dial in" my own rig. Select an NPR FM Station or quality digital video news feed featuring a deep male voice. Try to select a program source where there is as little dynamic contrast as possible - in other words the voice changes pitch (no monotones here) but doesn't span a very broad range from soft to loud. A great source program for this exercise is the speaking voice of Garrison Keillor from "A Prairie Home Companion". With the system playing at your average playback level, decrease the volume of the subwoofer all the way to the minimum. Now slowly increase the gain until the voice has power and loses any nasality. If you begin to think it sounds "chesty," as though the speaker were in a barrel, bring the gain back down. With a male speaking voice, you should not hear the subwoofer as a discrete sound source at all. Set up like this, the system will have maximum transparency and the most natural frequency response in your room.
One additional control is available, the phase control. Now some of you have probably twiddled this control back and forth, heard very little if any difference and so left it at the center detent. That's one technique. Here's a better way. Select a mono musical source, preferably a musical piece originally recorded monophonically and properly mastered on CD or DVD. One of my favorite pieces for this is the reissue of John Coltrane's "Soultrane" on DCC Classics, especially the track "Russian Lullaby."
Now, playing the soundtrack through the Dolby Pro-Logic settings, you should get output only from the center speaker and the subwoofer. Listen carefully to the interplay between the bass guitar and bass drum or piano left hand. The impact of the drum is much higher in frequency than the deep, resounding skin sound. What you want to accomplish is to have the initial impact of Arthur Taylor's drum kit precede the deeper drum skin sound and the note from the bass guitar (by the way, it doesn't hurt if that note is lovingly teased from the instrument by Paul Chambers!). This establishes the correct phase relationship between your center speaker (and by extension your left and right main speakers) and the powered subwoofer.
By now your system should be sounding pretty good. Measure everything and get quality interconnects of the right length to settle this into a permanent installation and start thinking about how to treat the wall for the best performance from your surround monitors. That too will be part of the next installment. Till then, happy listening!
Many thanks to Impact Acoustics for this informative article. | <urn:uuid:a7beb1f7-527b-44eb-a985-f9b4d4d6cb9f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.audioholics.com/tweaks/get-good-bass/an-easy-solution-to-subwoofer-calibration | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00051-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946409 | 2,264 | 2.140625 | 2 |
Welcome to the Life Science Education Program at Grace College. Capable science teachers are greatly needed and sought after today. If you enjoy science and interacting with students, consider joining us.The life science major serves students interested in teaching life sciences at the secondary level.
The science curriculum supporting the B.S. in Biology is divided into two areas, biology and chemistry-mathematics. The first includes traditional courses such as General Biology, Cell and Molecular Biology, Plant Biology, Animal Biology, and Microbiology. Also included are General Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, Biochemistry, Physics, and Math. The Life Science major requires one semester each of physics and organic chemistry. Specialized courses include Environmental Biology, Anatomy and Physiology, and Genetics.
Examples of courses in this major:
Integrated study of plants as organisms. Deals with plant structure, physiology, development, genetics, ecology, and classification of major plant groups.
Integrated study of animals as organisms. Deals with animal structure, physiology, development, genetics, ecology, and classification of major animal groups.
A study of the basic principles that guide cellular composition, organization and function. Particular attention will be paid to understanding the molecular mechanism that underlies cell function. Topics studied in the course include, but are not limited to, processes like energy extraction, membrane transport, flow of genetic information, cell surface communication, cell cycle and regulation, cell division, along with the study of specialized cells like gametes, lymphocytes, neurons, muscle cells, and cancer cells.
An introduction to the profession of teaching. Learning experiences are structured both in and out of the classroom with the purpose of assisting the college student in making career decisions relative to this profession, e.g., to teach or not, at which level, and in which subject area. Students observe in local schools.
Required of all education majors before professional education courses can be taken. Common elements are taught to both elementary or secondary majors with techniques specific to each covered. Students develop a repertoire of methods and strategies appropriate to their major and teaching level. Readings and research reports in current literature supplement the classroom instruction.
The individuals who will challenge you to learn:
B.A. in Biology and Chemistry, Trinity Christian College; Ph.D. in Resource Ecology and Management-Aquatics, University of Michigan
Dr. Nathan Bosch joined the Grace College faculty in 2008. He is passionate about teaching and mentoring all ages of students to value and care for our valuable water resources. To better understand how to take care of aquatic ecosystems, he has studied lakes and rivers in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio. At Grace College, he fulfills the role of Associate Professor in Environmental Science as well as the Director of Kosciusko Lakes and Streams, a research center at Grace College. Before moving to Winona Lake and joining Grace College, Dr. Bosch earned his Ph.D. at the University of Michigan while also working as a researcher at the Cooperative Institute for Limnology and Ecosystems Research in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He is married and has four children. When he is not on a lake or in a stream, he can be found playing at home with his kids.
A.S. in Engineering, Grand Rapids Junior College; B.S. in Applied Science, Michigan Technological University; M.S. in Solid State Physics, Michigan Technological University; M.Div., Grace Theological University; Ph.D. in Nuclear Physics, Iowa State University
Dr. Don DeYoung joined the Grace College faculty in 1972. He is known internationally for his work in creation science studies. The author of 17 books on Bible-science topics, Dr. DeYoung speaks frequently on Bible-science topics. He is currently president of the Creation Research Society, which has 1,700 members worldwide. This group funds research, publishes a technical quarterly journal, and operates a laboratory in Arizona. He and his wife Sally have three married daughters.
B.A. in pre-med, West Virginia University; M.S. in bio-chemistry, West Virginia University; Ph.D. in bio-chemistry, West Virginia University Dr. Jeffrey's also has post-doctoral experience in cancer research at Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation.
Dr. Jeffreys joined the Grace College faculty in 1975. The former chair of the Grace College Biological Science Department, he designed the pre-professional program, which flourishes today, and taught full-time for 35 years before assuming adjunct status. He and his wife, Kathy, have two grown children, both graduates of Grace College. Dr. Jeffreys and his wife are active in the Winona Lake Grace Brethren Church, where she teaches first grade Sunday School and he participates in choir.
B.S. in Agriculture, University of Missouri; D.V.M., University of Missouri
Dr. Marcia Lee moved to the Winona Lake area in 1977 when she began teaching part-time for the college. She practiced veterinary medicine for approximately 35 years, seven in Missouri, and the balance in Indiana. For a time, she owned and operated a veterinary clinic in Warsaw while also teaching at Grace.
B.S. in Microbiology, Colorado State University; M.S. in Microbiology, University of California, San Diego; Ph.D. in Molecular Biology, University of California, San Diego Post-Doctorate, Molecular Biology, Stanford University
Following his Ph.D., Dr. Richard Roberts spent four years as a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University studying bacterial development. From 1996 to 2010, Dr. Roberts changed career directions to serve as a Children's Pastor at churches in Sunnyvale, CA, and Kenosha, WI. He was excited to join the Grace faculty in 2010 and change his ministry focus from children to college students. He and his wife, Lori, have three children.
Some of the positions you can obtain: | <urn:uuid:ee694597-fad6-4707-ab6a-9d009e317492> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.grace.edu/academics/undergraduate-majors/school-arts-sciences/math-science-department/life-science-education | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952913 | 1,207 | 2.546875 | 3 |
With the UK Statistics Authority’s criticism of the DWP's use of figures on welfare benefits, misrepresentation of statistics appears to be back on the agenda.
An analysis of peer-reviewed articles has revealed an overwhelming consensus among scientists that recent warming is human-caused.
New report claims 'liquid air' energy storage medium for renewables could spawn a £1bn industry and create 22,000 UK jobs.
The Mayor of London and the London Enterprise Panel prioritise support for one of the capital's economic powerhouses.
SMEs have the power to kick-start the UK economy, if only they can get hold of the funds they need to do it.
How can the UK meet its future energy needs? Tom Delay, CEO of the Carbon Trust, looks at how we can solve the problem with our energy future.
SMEs might now be benefitting from significant changes to work place health and safety (H&S) regulations had they not been blocked by the House of Lords.
More UTCs are setting out to solve the UK's shortage of engineers, but will the total of 45 working establishments by 2015 be sufficient?
A new study points to wastewater injection as the culprit for a sizeable Oklahoma earthquake back in 2011. | <urn:uuid:29eede26-a291-4698-9422-11f90937485f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dpaonthenet.net/blogs/181/Editors-comment/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939456 | 255 | 1.5625 | 2 |
The pipe organ, the mighty 'king of musical instruments,' is again blowing audiences away in US concert halls.
Deep inside the heart and soul of this city's new symphony hall, you don't hear so much as feel the low C pipe of a newly built organ - so new it still exudes the fragrance of fresh-cut lumber and so massive that the sound rattles the sternum while it overwhelms the ear.Skip to next paragraph
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Organs have always been big, but throughout much of this century, they've dropped out of the spotlight. This newly constructed, multimillion-dollar instrument, anchoring Seattle's brightest new civic ornament, Benaroya Hall, is part of what organ aficionados are calling a triumphant return of the venerable instrument to center stage.
The mother of all musical machines is in the midst of nothing less than a renaissance as a major concert-hall instrument.
"This is definitely a trend," says James Thomashower, executive director of the American Guild of Organists (AGO). "The organ is coming back as a symphonic instrument."
The first note of what the AGO calls music to its ears was struck back in the early '80s when the Dallas Symphony opted to construct a major organ as the centerpiece of its new hall. The Texans began with a search for the perfect sound.
"They looked at orchestral halls in Europe," says Steven Dieck, president of Fisk organs, the company that built both the Dallas and Seattle organs. "They found the halls they liked the sound of most - all had organs in them. Whether the organ was being used didn't matter, but they decided the organ must have some effect on the sound...."
The Dallas hall was such a hit with both audiences and critics that it set the stage for organs in new halls in other cities.
The Cleveland Symphony Orchestra brought their organ out of storage and renovated it. The Frank Gehry-designed Disney Hall in Los Angeles will feature a prominent organ, as will the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra hall now under renovation.
This represents an about-face. "Acousticians who have become important in the construction of concert halls began to believe [during the 1940s and '50s] that if you had an organ, this was somehow bad for acoustics," says Roger Sherman, executive director of the Westfield Center for historic keyboard studies in Easthampton, Mass.
This attitude is responsible for what many now view as a historic blunder - the absence of a major concert-hall organ in the largest US city, New York. "You have this famous situation at Carnegie Hall where the organ that was being built was later installed elsewhere," Mr. Sherman says, "because they were afraid it would wreck the acoustics."
All of which may seem like no more than a musical footnote. But history points up the organ's importance as the mother of musical instruments, from both scientific and artistic standpoints.
The establishment of the deep bass line by the organ is considered the foundation of Western music, the basis of subsequent harmony and melody development. Beyond that, "At one point, the organ was the most sophisticated machine being made," Mr. Dieck says. | <urn:uuid:844a8051-2b8f-4abe-86ee-819ef813ad39> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.csmonitor.com/2000/0915/p13s1.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971123 | 663 | 1.945313 | 2 |
The historic city of Verona was founded in the 1st century B.C. It particularly flourished under the rule of the Scaliger family in the 13th and 14th centuries and as part of the Republic of Venice from the 15th to 18th centuries. Verona has preserved a remarkable number of monuments from antiquity, the medieval and Renaissance periods, and represents an outstanding example of a military stronghold.
© Luciano Marchesini
Justification for Inscription
Criterion ii In its urban structure and its architecture, Verona is an outstanding example of a town that has developed progressively and uninterruptedly over two thousand years, incorporating artistic elements of the highest quality from each succeeding period. Criterion iv Verona represents in an exceptional way the concept of the fortified town at several seminal stages of European history.
In its urban structure and its architecture, Verona is an outstanding example of a town that has developed progressively and uninterruptedly over 2,000 years, incorporating artistic elements of the highest quality from each succeeding period. It also represents in an exceptional way the concept of the fortified town at several seminal stages of European history.
The city is situated in northern Italy at the foot of Monte Lessini on the River Adige. It was founded by ancient tribes and became a Roman colony in the 1st century BC, rising rapidly in importance. It was occupied by the Ostrogoth Theodoric I (5th century), by the Lombards, and by Charlemagne (774). In the early 12th century, it became an independent commune, suffering during the wars of Guelphs and Ghibellines. It prospered under the rule of the Scaliger family and particularly under Cangrande I. It fell to Venice in 1405, was part of the Austrian Empire from 1797, and joined the Kingdom of Italy in 1866.
The core of the city consists of the Roman town in the loop of the river. The Scaligers rebuilt the walls, embracing a much larger territory in the west and another vast area on the east bank of the river. This remained the size of the city until the 20th century. The heart of Verona is the ensemble consisting of the Piazza delle Erbe (with its picturesque vegetable market) and the Piazza dei Signori, with their historic buildings, including the Palazzo del Comune, Palazzo del Governo, Loggia del Consiglio, Arche Scaligere and Domus Nova. The Piazza Bra has a number of classicist buildings.
In the north of Italy, Verona is one of the richest cities in Roman remains. These include the Porta Borsari, a city gate at the beginning of the decumanus maximus; the Porta Leoni, only half of which remains, attached to a later building; the Arco dei Gavi, dismantled in the Napoleonic period and rebuilt next to Castelvecchio in the 1930s; the Ponte Pietra; the Roman theatre, excavated in the mid-19th century and restored for use in spectacles; and the Amphitheatre Arena, the second-largest after the Colosseum in Rome (originally a wall of three orders surrounded it, but this collapsed in an earthquake in the 12th century).
In the Romanesque period (8th-12th centuries), the church of San Giovanni in Valle was built on the ruins of previous buildings. The interior has three aisles and there is pre-Romanesque crypt. The elevations of the church of San Lorenzo consist of a mixture of materials, tuff in the lower parts, and tuff and brick alternating in the upper part. The entrance has a Renaissance porch. The church of San Fermo was built from tuff and brick on the remains of an earlier basilica of the 8th century. The tombs are on the exterior; the church has small arches, tall windows, ample staircases, and a beautiful Romanesque porch. The cathedral (Duomo) was first built in the 6th century but rebuilt in the 12th century after an earthquake. The facade, completed in the 14th century, is in Verona marble and has bas-reliefs representing sacred and profane episodes of different types. There is a fine 12th-century cloister with arcades on double colonnades.
During the Scaliger period (13th-14th centuries), the church of Sant'Anastasia was built by the Dominicans; its facade remained incomplete. The Arche Scaligere is the cemetery of the Scaliger family, close to the Piazza dei Signori. Castelvecchio is the fortified residence of the Scaliger family, built at the time of Cangrande II over a previous fortification. The House of Juliet is a small genuine medieval palace; a balcony was added in the 1930s, inspired by Shakespeare's drama. The House of Romeo is a medieval complex, greatly transformed in later periods, and relatively little remains from the original building.
There are also numerous buildings that date from the Renaissance in the centre of Verona: the churches of Santi Nazaro e Celso, Santa Maria in Organo, San Giorgio, San Tomaso, San Bernardino, and Sant'Eufemia. There are the palaces of Canossa, Pompei and Bevilacqua, the gates of Porta Palio, Porta Nuova, Porta Vescovo and Porta San Zeno, as well as the Bishop's Palace and the Giusti Garden and Palace. From the Austrian period of the 19th century, notable buildings include the Castel San Pietro and the Caserma Santa Marta. Source: UNESCO/CLT/WHC
The city of Verona, today the capital of the province of Verona, is situated in northern Italy at the foot of Monte Lessini on the River Adige. It was founded by ancient tribes and became a Roman colony in the 1st century BCE, rising rapidly in importance. It was occupied by the Ostrogoth Theodoric I (5th century), by the Lombards, and by Charlemagne (774). In the early 12th century, it became an independent commune, suffering during the wars of Guelphs and Ghibellines. It prospered under the rule of the Scaliger family (the period of Romeo and Juliet) and particularly under Cangrande I, who protected the exiled poet Dante. It fell to Venice in 1405, was part of the Austrian Empire from 1797, and joined the Kingdom of Italy in 1866.
In the early period, the hillsides of the region of Verona were inhabited in fortified villages (castellieri). The name of Verona has been related to the root wehr (a defensive wall); the name could have meant a fortified site on the river. Ancient roads of communication may have crossed here as early as the 6th or 5th century BCE. One road led to the Adriatic, with an important Etruscan settlement, another followed the river in the direction of the vineyards of Valpolicella and the lower Trentino, and a third connected with the flourishing Cisalpine territories of Garda and Brescia (Via Claudia Augusta). The construction of the Via Postumia around 148-147 BCE opened the way to Genoa and Lombardy (Pavia, Piacenza, Cremona) in the west and to Oderzo and Aquileia in the east.
The construction of the Roman settlement began in the later Republican era, the second half of the 1st century BCE. To this period has been dated the construction of the decumanus maximus, which followed the trace of the Via Postumia, and the cardo maximus, which entered the town from the east. The town was built on a grid plan and surrounded by defensive walls with two gates, Porta Leoni and Porta Iova (later Portone Borsari). Of the walls and gates there are only archaeological remains. The discovery of an inscription has confirmed the date of the foundation of Verona as 49 BCE. The city soon grew in importance and wealth and various public buildings were constructed, including the amphitheatre, the Roman theatre, and the Ponte Pietra. Recent excavations have revealed considerable further remains, including decorated marble paving and prestigious structures and objects. In 265 CE, with the intensification of conflicts with the barbarians in the north, the Emperor Gallienus decided to rebuild the Republican defence walls further out, including also the amphitheatre. The town resisted the various invasions, while other cities were destroyed.
At the end of the Roman period (476 CE), Verona became the second capital of the Italic Kingdom of the Ostrogoths; Theodoric I had Verona as his principal residence. During the following centuries (domination by the Goths until 567, the Lombards until 774, and the Holy Roman Empire until the end of the millennium), Verona continued to play an important role, resulting in the construction of prominent buildings. Amongst the authorities, Bishop Raterio (from Belgium) merits a special mention because he prepared an illustration of the city, the only document surviving from this period. In its urban layout, the city preserved its Roman grid plan.
In the following period of independent communes in northern Italy, the continuous wars and armed conflicts forced Verona to rebuild its fortifications. The arrival of the Signoria of the Scaligers (1259-1387) favoured the development of the town, which had already extended its possessions to a large part of the Venetian territories in the north-west. Cangrande I de la Scala (1311-29) decided to further extend the city ramparts, and to reorganize the defence of the city so as to resist even long sieges. The strength of the defences was such that Verona remained a stronghold in the subsequent Venetian and Austrian periods. This decision also had an impact on town planning and the city initiated an active period of construction, especially large basilicas and administrative ensembles. In 1387, Giangaleazzo Visconti of Milan conquered Verona for a short period, building new ramparts, as well as a citadel in the southern part of the city.
From 1405 until 1797 Verona was a wealthy and active part of the Venetian Republic. Apart from a conflict in the early 16th century, this was a period of peace. The Venetians commissioned the Veronese military architect Michele Sanmicheli (1484-1559) to reinforce the medieval fortifications. He designed the series of polygonal bastions placed at regular intervals, as well as building three new city gates (Porta Nuova, Porta Palio, Porta San Zeno) of great architectural significance. The position of these gates favoured the development of the city in the area comprised between the communal and the Scaligerian walls further south. The Venetians prohibited extending the city beyond this limit for military reasons and the ban remained in force during the Austrian Empire. This forced all development to remain inside the walled area, thus contributing to unity in the development. For the city, the Venetian period was characterized by considerable economic autonomy, reflected also in administration and in culture. A great number of prestigious palaces of wealthy families and numerous religious and public buildings marked the period.
With the Austrian domination (1814-66), Verona strengthened its military role. Marshal Radetzki and his general-architect Franz von Scholl repaired the damages caused by the Napoleonic wars, and large military complexes were built inside the city, including the impressive Arsenal, close to the medieval bridge of Castelvecchio. In 1866, when the Austrians handed the city over to the Kingdom of Italy, there were 65,000 inhabitants but practically no industry. The city thus entered a period of some difficulty, which was aggravated by the terrible flood of 1882. The river rose some 8m and numerous buildings, watermills, and sawmills were wiped out. While the two main bridges were destroyed, the old bridges resisted the force of the river.
From this time on, the city's development changed. Its military role having come to an end, development now expanded outside the walls and new districts were established. It was also the beginning of industrial development. By 1927 the population had grown to 150,000, and the first competitions for urban plans were organized in 1931-32. World War II was devastating to the city: 40% of the building stock was destroyed, including all the bridges. There followed a long period of intense reconstruction and restoration, with the active participation of the Superintending Architect of Verona, Piero Gazzola (1908- 79), founding President of ICOMOS and one of the initiators and principal authors of the Venice Charter. The reconstruction period also led to the approval of the first urban master plan of Verona in 1958, amended in 1975. Source: Advisory Body Evaluation | <urn:uuid:7fc9c1a4-5548-4645-91b4-ba2c687ff4e0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/797/?www.unesco.org/fr/prospective= | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00062-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961137 | 2,709 | 3.59375 | 4 |
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DEPT. OF MARINE RESOURCES
Maine Groundfish Task Force
In February 1999 the New England Council embarked on the development of Amendment 13 to the groundfish management plan. As the plan progressed under the added pressure of litigation by environmental groups it became evident that the impact of new regulations could be devastating to what remains of Maine’s groundfish fleet and shore-based infrastructure.
Recognizing this impending crisis, the groundfish industry appealed to the Governor for assistance. In response Governor Baldacci issued an Executive Order creating the Task Force on the Maine Groundfish industry.
Below is a link to their report, dated June 2004. This is a PDF file, and may require Adobe Reader software (download here free) to view or print.
|Copyright © 2011 All rights reserved.| | <urn:uuid:1517c6fb-b9b4-4496-9e1e-a4e0593260a1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.state.me.us/dmr/rm/groundfish/taskforce/index.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.915157 | 204 | 1.828125 | 2 |
24 Hour Line (630) 858-5060
Report absences before 10:30 a.m. on or before the day of the absence.
State the student's name, ID number, relation to the student, and reason for absence.
Failure to call by 10:30 a.m. will result in an unauthorized absence.
Glenbard Township High School District 87
Attendance Philosophy: Our attendance policy is based upon the following assumptions:
1.  In accordance with the requirements of the School Code of Illinois and in recognition of the responsibilities imposed upon parents, it is the policy of District 87 that students shall attend school on a
regular basis. Student attendance in class is not optional; it is a requirement of every class. We believe that regular class attendance increases the student's probability for successful performance and fosters the development of self discipline and responsibility.The Board of Education further believes that the school administration and staff have a duty to rigorously and consistently enforce school regulations dealing with class attendance.
2.  While the major responsibility for attendance rests with the student, the school and the parents share responsibility. Students are expected to attend every meeting of every class and study hall; the
school has an obligation to inform both students and parents of the student's progress and attendance in all classes;and parents are obligated to inform the school when their student is absent and to give the reason for the absence.
Excessive absences from school limit the ability of a student to achieve.  For this reason, attending school on a regular basis is a requirement for all students.  The entire Glenbard staf fhas a responsibility to hold students accountable in this area. For this reason, we maintain the following intervention strategies related to attendance:
Our student data management system, Powerschool will provide daily attendance information for teachers, parents and administrators to view electronically.
Attendance staff will screen truancies daily and call home for any student who is three or more periods truant within any given day. 
Whenever a student is truant from a class, the Dean’s Office will contact the student the following day to confirm the truancy.  Truancies will be documented in Powerschool and a letter to the student’s parent will be generated on the next school day.  
- For every truancy (unexcused absence) there will be a contact with the student, an attempt to call the student’s parent, a letter sent to the parent and a consequence or intervention with the student. 
- After five truancies and five interventions for an individual course, a student may be denied credit for the course.  Those who are denied credit will be referred to their guidance counselor to explore credit options. 
- Excessive excused absences interfere with student achievement.  A student who has excessive absences may be required to provide medical documentation in order to excuse absences.  During any given semester, when a student reaches over nine absences from a class there will be an attendance conference with his/her Dean and parent contact will be made.  Should the student reach over twelve absences an additional conference will be held with the Dean along with parent contact.  After fifteen absences, a student may lose credit for the individual class.  Those who are denied credit will be referred to their guidance counselor to explore credit options.
Any student who has chronic attendance issues will be referred to the truancy agency, Project Visa. 
Parents are responsible for the daily attendance of their children. However, Illinois School Code does not grant parents the authority to excuse their children from attending classes.
1.  Parents must call the Attendance Office before 10:30 a.m. on each day of absence to give the reason for their student's absence. Failure to do this will result in an unauthorized
2.  In order to more conveniently report your student's absence, calls can be made at any time to an answering machine at: 
- Glenbard East (630) 627-2595
- Glenbard North (630) 653-9092
- Glenbard South (630) 942-6684
- Glenbard West  (630) 858-5060
3. Glenbard District 87 recognizes two categories of absences:  excused absences, and unauthorized absences/truancies.
The Dean's Office will recognize as an excused absence (1) student's personal illness, (2)serious illness and/or death in the immediate family, and (3) family emergency situation. Only these excused absences merit the opportunity for make-up work.  Students with excessive excused absences within a semester may be requested to supply a medical certificate to the Dean's Office.
Absences for reasons other than those indicated above must be pre-arranged through the Attendance Office.  Requests from parents must be presented in writing at least three school days prior to the absence. Your student's Dean will inform teachers of the absence and of the student's privilege to "make-up" work. The student is responsible for making the necessary arrangements for the completion of the"make-up" work with teachers prior to the absence. No credit will be given unless the specific requirements, as set by the teacher, are met. It is recognized that when a student misses class meetings, individual instruction, tests, etc., learning will be adversely affected even though requested, advance assignments are completed. The teacher's signature on the prearranged absence form indicates only that the teacher has been notified of
the absence. Teachers will note the dates of the pre-arranged absences in their grade book but will not lower their academic expectations for a student taking a pre-arranged absence.
Reasons for pre-arranged absences include the following:
1.  Class field trips and athletic contests absences from classes for participation in school sponsored and approved activities such as field trips and athletic contests are pre-arranged absences and must
be treated as such. In addition, students may pre-arrange an absence to see a Glenbard team participate in State Tournament competition.
2. An absence for reasons such as medical and dental appointments will be excused if it has been cleared prior to the absence. A doctor's note will be required when the student returns to campus.
3. An absence for a court date will be excused if it has been cleared prior to the absence. Documentation from the court will be required when the student returns to campus.
4. A college visitation day if it has been cleared one day prior to the absence.
5. Family vacation - Family vacations should not be taken when school is in session.  However, if it becomes absolutely necessary to arrange a vacation during school time, a student must present a note from a parent a minimum of three days prior to the absence.
6. An absence for religious reasons will be excused if it has been cleared with the Dean prior to the absence.
All absences not included in section A will be considered unauthorized absences/truancies.  Unauthorized absences/truancies include, but are not limited to babysitting for a younger sibling, missing the
bus, oversleeping, and staying home to complete assignments.  Unauthorized absences also include truancies. Unauthorized absences/truancies do not merit "make-up" privileges.  If a test or assignment is missed due to an
unauthorized absence/truancy, a grade of "0" will be recorded.
Students may leave campus during their lunch period if they are authorized to do so.  At no other time may students leave campus without permission. Students who become ill while at school must see the
Nurse to be excused. Students leaving campus for partial day prearranged absences must first report to the Attendance Office. Upon returning to school, students must submit doctor's/court notes to the Attendance Office. If a student leaves
school without pre-arranged status and the parent notifies the school after the fact, the absence will be considered unauthorized.  Students who are excused from school (or suspended) may not come on campus to work in the library media department or computer labs.
C. Drop from Class Due to Unauthorized Absences/Truancies
Absences from class reduce the ability of a student to achieve. Excessive absences can have a negative impact on the entire classroom climate. Students who have excessive unauthorized absences/truancies will
be dropped from their class and placed in a study hall as described below. Generally, each step would correspond to one unauthorized absence.
STEP 1 Teacher notifies parent of the truancy ‚Äď a truancy letter is sent home.
STEP 2 Staff member notifies parent of the truancy. Dean consequence with a truancy letter sent home.
STEP 3 Dean notifies parent and issues the student an after school consequence (Detention/ExtendedDay Detention).
STEP 4 Dean notifies parent and issues the student an after school consequence (In School Suspension/I.S.S.).
STEP 5 Dean notifies parent and student is denied credit for class and placed in studyhall.  Additional opportunities provided to recover credit
D.Additional Attendance Information
Students who are consecutively absent from a class will advance through STEP process and the Dean will notify parent(s). If additional consecutive absences occur, the studentwill move to Step 5 of the policy. Students who are absent without authorization from class from multiple periods or the entire day will be assigned after school consequences (Detention/Extended Day Detention).
1.  When a student's total absences interfere with the educational success in a class, a behavior report may be initiated by the teacher requesting a drop of the student from that class. The Dean will then
consider the request.
2.  Students at Glenbard are expected to come to class on time. Glenbard District 87 has a tardy policy in place to help students avoid missing class time. The procedure is as follows:  1st - 3rd tardy - Teacher policy is implemented. 4th - 6th tardy - Detentions issued by teacher.  7th tardy and more- Further discipline which may include dismissal from the class.
3.  Students more than 25 minutes late for a class will be marked unauthorized for the period. Students who have unauthorized absences/truancies from study hall will be issued after school consequences
ranging from detention to an Extended Day Detention.   Students who have excessive unauthorized absences/truancies will be suspended from school.
4.  Students participating in school sanctioned field trips must complete parent permission slips at least one week prior to the scheduled trip.
5.  Students chronically truant will be referred to the DuPage County Truancy Office. | <urn:uuid:ec4df042-455b-40d2-ac66-16d540c65215> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.glenbardwesths.org/sitepages/FOV1-0007ACF7/S01F46861?Close=-1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931468 | 2,339 | 1.625 | 2 |
When we met AblePlanet at CES, their Clear Harmony noise canceling headphones really caught our attention. Their built-in noise canceling circuitry is intended to reduce the infiltration of ambient noise, but can they stack up sonically against some serious competition within their price bracket?
At CES this year, Nate Marion visited AblePlanet’s booth, and had plenty of complementary things to say about the company’s Clear Harmony headphones, which blend the company’s “Linx Audio” sonic enhancement DSP processing with active noise-canceling technology.
The company offers a complete line of headphones and headsets for music listening, gaming, and telephony. Upon the CES team’s return, Nate suggested that I should take a set of their headphones for a spin, and Able Planet happily obliged us, sending along a set of their top-end Clear Harmony NC1000CH headphones for evaluation.
So, what is active noise cancellation, and how does it work? Quite simply, noise-canceling headphones have an external microphone, which picks up any exterior noise. This signal is flipped or reversed, and then fed into the headphone drivers. The result is that the headphone drivers essentially oppose any incident noise, and the net result is that the incident external noise never makes it to your eardrum.
That technique works best when a separate microphone is used for each ear, and the microphones are located as close to the headphone transducer itself as possible, so most noise-canceling headphones use microphones placed in the ear cups themselves.
Of course, a lot of noise infiltration can be prevented through careful ear cup and padding design, and many higher-end headphones already isolate well without noise-canceling systems. There’s a notable difference at lower frequencies, however, where it’s more difficult to prevent noise infiltration simply through passive isolation. At these lower frequencies, noise-canceling headphones have a clear advantage when it comes to blocking external noise.
There’s one distinct drawback to active noise cancellation, however – its cost. Exterior microphones and digital signal processing circuitry aren’t cheap, and that’s money that could be better spent on higher-quality materials, better drivers, et cetera. In this review, I’ll compare the AblePlanet Clear Harmony NC1000CH headphones to my slightly less-expensive $250 reference Beyerdynamic DT 770 circumaural headphones (without active noise cancellation), and we’ll see if the results are worth the trade offs. | <urn:uuid:3b3a3000-3a1b-4f9d-b80f-f81dbec0f5a1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://techgage.com/article/ableplanet_clear_harmony_headphones/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929163 | 523 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Due to low water levels, all public boat ramps on this lake are closed.
Water ConditionsConservation Pool Elevation: 1,052 ft. msl
Fluctuation: 3 feet
Normal Clarity: 2 to 4 ft. visibility
Reservoir Controlling Authority
City of Wichita Falls
1300 7th Street
Wichita Falls, Texas 76307
About one-third of the shore is lined with emergent vegetation. Submerged plants occupy about 420 acres, mainly on the northside coves west of the boat ramp.
Predominant Fish Species
All species are currently managed under statewide regulations.
Diversion's fish populations have been adversely affected by recent golden alga fish kills. Largemouth bass restocking occurred during 2005. The current lake record (10.23 lbs.) was caught in November 2000. White bass fishing is fair, with legal-size fish present. Crappie abundance is low. Catfish are present.
Submerged vegetation can be found along the shoreline in the lower half of the reservoir.
For largemouth bass, fish the docks and vegetated coves on the north side of the lake. The dam face also can be productive. White bass can be caught year round, but the best catches are in the upper lake early in the year during the spawning migration. The crappie population is currently low lake-wide. Catfish can be found throughout the reservoir using punch bait or shad. | <urn:uuid:407ce2c9-581f-4f3d-9e81-fe048b0d5e4c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/fishboat/fish/recreational/lakes/diversion/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.909621 | 303 | 1.90625 | 2 |
2012 Annual Report
1a.Objectives (from AD-416):
Objective 1: Employ semiochemicals to enhance the monitoring and management of Otiorhynchus sulcatus and Drosophila suzukii as well as to manipulate their natural enemies.
Objective 2: Develop integrated pest management tools for key pests of ornamental nursery and small fruit crops.
Objective 3: Address invasive and reemerging arthropod pests of nursery and small fruit crops.
1b.Approach (from AD-416):
The bionomics and the chemical ecology of economically-important insect pests of
nursery and small fruits crops will be studied in the field and under controlled
conditions of temperature, humidity, and light in growth chambers and greenhouses.
Emphasis will also be placed on understanding the ecology of the microbial control
agents of these pests in the laboratory greenhouse and field. Together, the
information compiled on the ecology of the pests and their respective microbial
control agents will be integrated to begin development of biologically-based pest
To determine the efficacy of methyl salicylate (MeSA), an herbivore-induced plant volatile, for enhancing biological control, we exposed lady beetle and ground beetle predators to MeSA in field cages and monitored predation. The presence/absence of MeSA did not appear to affect the predators' consumption rate or search efficiency. This response enables us to predict the impact of this alternative control strategy beyond counting the number of predators in a treated area.
To clarify the role of raspberry aphids in vectoring viruses to raspberries, we monitored aphid feeding patterns on susceptible and resistant raspberry plants, their developmental times under a range of controlled temperatures and outdoors, and population trends in raspberry fields. These observations will enable growers to improve timing of treatments for aphids to reduce virus spread.
To better understand the new invasive spotted wing drosophila, we conducted studies on the susceptibility of different ripeness stages and cultivars of blueberries, ornamental hosts, their spring time activity, and the efficacy of the predatory rove beetle. These results have been used to develop revised management guidelines in 2012. To determine the rhizosphere competence of the commercial isolate of Metarhizium anisopliae, inoculated cuttings in fungal treated and control soils were planted. Plants were then evaluated for rhizosphere colonization and the efficacy of treated roots in protecting the plants against feeding by Otiorhynchus sulcatus larvae. The rhizosphere of a wide variety of ornamentals are colonized with the insect killing fungus and the presence of the fungus significantly reduces O. sulcatus damage.
To enhance the trapping efficiency of a novel trap developed in 2011, we combined the trap with attractive semiochemicals for capturing O. sulcatus adults. Replicated field studies were performed in Prunus rootstock infested with O. sulcatus in 2012. We were able to enhance trap captures with the addition of the attractive semiochemical.
Field studies were performed to test novel insecticide application strategies for protecting blueberries and raspberries from spotted wing drosophila. Application strategies evaluated in blueberries and raspberries are border and alternative row sprays respectively. Preliminary data look promising, but further studies over time and at additional locations are required before recommendations for grower adoption can be made.
Aphid resistance in red raspberry. Pest and virus control in raspberries can be achieved with aphid resistant plants, but the mechanism of resistance is unknown. ARS scientists in Corvallis, Oregon, found that raspberry aphids ingested less phloem sap on resistant plants than on susceptible plants, suggesting that the mechanism for resistance is located in the phloem. These findings may explain why aphid-transmitted viruses in resistant cultivars are uncommon due to inefficient virus acquisiton and will facilitate breeding of future cultivars.
Quantifying Otiorhyncus sulcatus larval damage to cranberries. O. sulcatus is a serious pest of cranberry throughout the United States. We correlated damage caused by feeding larvae to known O. sulcatus egg densities. Damage increased with increasing egg density, and more damage was found in the variety ‘Stevens’ than ‘McFarlin’. Our results indicate that increased BVW egg density has a negative effect on cranberry plant health. The severity of this effect depends on variety and seasonal conditions.
Improved trapping for spotted wing drosophila. The spotted wing drosophila is a recent invasive pest of small and stone fruits in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Europe. In a coordinated study comparing six popular trap designs across seven states/provinces in North America and nine crop types, ARS scientists in Corvallis, Oregon, determined that traps with greater entry areas caught more flies than traps with smaller entry areas. These results provided immediate comparisons for growers/scouts who wanted to improve their 2012 trapping protocol as well as insight on other physical features to examine for future trap improvement. Monitoring programs in Washington and Canada have been adjusted in 2012 based on these results.
Lee, J.C., Edwards, D.L. 2011. Impact of predatory carabids on below- and aboveground pests and yield in strawberry. Biocontrol. 54:515-522.
Woods, J., James, D., Lee, J.C., Gent, D.H. 2011. Evaluation of airborne methyl salicylate for improved conservation biological control of two-spotted spider mites and hop aphid in Oregon hop yards. Experimental and Applied Acarology. 55:401-416.
Gadino, A., Walton, V., Lee, J.C. 2011. Olfactoryresponse of the predatory mite Typhlodromus pyri (Acari: Phytoseiidae) to methyl salicylate in laboratory bioassays. Journal of Applied Entomology. DOI:10.1111/j.1439-0418.2011.01670.x.
Miller, B., Bruck, D.J., Walton, V.M. 2012. Relationship of black vine weevil egg density and damage to two cranberry cultivars. HortScience. 47:755-761.
Van Tol, R., Bruck, D.J., Griepink, F.C., Jan De Kogel, W. 2012. Field attraction of the vine weevil Otiorhynchus sulcatus to kairomones. Journal of Economic Entomology. 105:169-175. | <urn:uuid:6d8021da-7d7f-45a9-b86d-e15102b6f785> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ars.usda.gov/research/projects/projects.htm?ACCN_NO=421020&showpars=true&fy=2012 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.900934 | 1,372 | 2.1875 | 2 |
Our cardiologists and cardiovascular surgeons perform procedures as routine as they are extraordinary, by utilizing a variety of advanced imaging and interventional techniques to diagnose and treat patients of all ages who are affected by congenital heart disease.
Programs and services include:
Adult Congenital Heart Program
The Adult Congenital Heart Program provides seamless, comprehensive care for adults with congenital heart disease. It is the only program of its kind in Connecticut, and one of a few in the region.
Our pediatric cardiologists consult with specialists in adult cardiology, adult pulmonology, interventional cardiology, high-risk obstetrics, cardiogenetics, advanced cardiac imaging, cardiac transplantation, congenital cardiothoracic surgery and device experts. Our congenital electrophysiologists offer potential curative therapies for life-threatening arrhythmias. Social work services, along with expert, advanced nursing personnel, help create the multidisciplinary approach to the finest patient care.
Congenital and acquired cardiovascular diseases that require surgical intervention are managed by our team of pediatric cardiovascular surgeons, with years of experience dedicated to this specialty.
The Pediatric Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory is a nationally recognized leader for technological advances in diagnosis and intervention, treating young cardiac patients who would have otherwise required open-heart surgery. Our dedicated pediatric cardiac catheterization laboratory is the only pediatric hybrid catheterization laboratory in Connecticut. The laboratory routinely performs diagnostic and interventional catheterization procedures in children and adults with congenital heart disease, including transcatheter closure of intracardiac defects, as well as ballooning and stenting procedures for narrowed valves and vessels.
The completely digital Pediatric Echocardiography Laboratory performs nearly 4,000 studies per year. It encompasses the transthoracic, 3D, transesophageal and intracardiac approaches. The Echocardiography Lab provides surgical and cath lab management of cardiac patients and receives referrals and consultations from patients and their families from throughout the state.
The Electrophysiology Service offers a full range of services to pediatric and adult congenital heart patients with arrhythmias. A dedicated expert team of physicians and nurse practitioners cares for patients with congenital arrhythmia syndromes, including:
- Long QT Syndrome
- Brugada Syndrome
- Arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia, and other rare channelopathies
- Supraventricular tachycardias
- Ventricular arrhythmias
State-of-the-art procedures include:
- Outpatient transcatheter ablation techniques
- 3D arrhythmia mapping
- Ablation using advanced intracardiac mapping systems
- Pacemaker, biventricular and defibrillator (ICD) device implantation
- Lead extractions
The Fetal Cardiovascular Center, the first of its kind in the United States, performs more than 1,000 fetal echocardiograms a year in women whose pregnancy may be affected by congenital heart disease and arrhythmia. Patients are evaluated by specialists of Maternal-Fetal Medicine and then receive a one-on-one consultation by a pediatric cardiologist who specializes in fetal cardiology. The Center affords families the opportunity to prospectively meet the entire team of physicians and nurses who will be involved in the labor and delivery as well as the newborn management of their child.
Yale-New Haven Children's Cardiac Services maintains regular clincs in Yale-New Haven Children's Hospital. Cardiologists maintain regular clinics in New Haven, as well as in Brookfield, Guilford, New London, Norwich and Waterbury. | <urn:uuid:d47301d1-254c-403e-9634-31fb9671b392> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ynhh.org/yale-new-haven-childrens-hospital/medical-services/cardiology.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.908051 | 762 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Yellowstone Valley Electric Co-op employees set up "Muscle Wall" barrier to prevent floodwaters from damaging co-op facilities.
Photo courtesy of YVEC
Many rural electric cooperatives are located in territories prone to flooding. This year, in preparing for the melting of a snow pack 400 percent of normal, Yellowstone Valley Electric Cooperative in Montana replaced the traditional sandbag barriers with a new product called “Muscle Wall.” The cooperative found that Muscle Wall was easier to set up and proved just as effective.
YVEC had reason to be concerned about the flooding: the co-op has a service center and a substation 200 yards from the Yellowstone River. The co-op had recently invested $3 million in both facilities.
Days prior to the expected cresting of the river, the co-op learned about Muscle Wall, a modular barrier created by linking together low-density polyethylene wall sections that are filled with water.
The advantages are significant: one 4’ x 6’ section of muscle wall replaces 468 sandbags. Barriers can therefore be set up in much less time by fewer people. Cooperative employees set up the barriers. In addition, the flexibility and convenience of the modular design, allowed the co-op to set up a barrier inside the substation.
The co-op succeeded in protecting both the service station and substation using the new product, which had been ordered and shipped in a matter of days.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency reimbursed thirty percent of the co-op’s investment in the reusable flood mitigation product. Yellowstone is the first business to buy this product in Montana. | <urn:uuid:cf8b27b3-6ec9-46df-bc1d-67dae2ac0420> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nreca.org/press/CoopStories/Pages/SandbaggingtheOldSandbags.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958672 | 338 | 3.21875 | 3 |