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. "4 Dealing With and Improving DOD's M&S." Technology for the United States Navy and Marine Corps, 2000-2035 Becoming a 21st-Century Force: Volume 9: Modeling and Simulation. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 1997.
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Technology for the United States Navy and Marine Corps, 2000-2035: Becoming a 21st-Century Force
is not adequate for that purpose. Further, report results as ranges over the specified uncertainty band, because ‘point results' would be misleading. ”
As of the time this report was being prepared, the Department of the Navy did not appear to have a managerial concept for validation-related research. Further, its VV&A plan was deliberately permissive, in keeping with the Navy's tradition of decentralized activity on M&S. That approach may be desirable in many respects, but the failure to plan supportive research activities is a problem —albeit, one DOD-wide in its scope.
An Alternative to Emphasis on VV&A Processes
While VV&A is unquestionably important, it is doubtful that a focus on bureaucratic process will greatly improve the quality of models and simulations. Too many of the problems start at the outset as noted above. In Chapter 7 the panel recommends a “market-oriented approach” that emphasizes increasing the testability of M&S and then exposing the M&S to extensive “beta testing” by organizations such as the Naval War College. The panel also recommends demanding and then exposing to outside scientific review the “conceptual models” on which M&S should be based. Today, such conceptual models often do not even exist and hence cannot be reviewed, but that situation should change. The current emphasis on building and publishing object models is an important step in the right direction, as is work on common models of the mission space (CMMS). | <urn:uuid:e668e4a9-4a3e-4a00-886f-f04940c0b625> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=5869&page=61 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93853 | 433 | 1.789063 | 2 |
April 11, 2012
By Lloyd Burrell
NaturalNews) In today’s society of hustle and bustle, being pregnant rarely gives opportunity for letting up or taking a break. Many women, whether they are working or are stay-at-home moms, engage in the use of cell phones and laptop computers more and more. Does this pose more of risk for the mother-to-be and her unborn baby than anyone else? Considering how thetwo individuals are affected and the recent information coming forth from research studies, the answer is emphatically: yes!
Cell phone usage
A connection has been made between the use of cell phones during pregnancy and hyperactivity in children.
Mice were used to show that exposure to radiofrequency from cell phones manifests in:
• Impaired memory
Approximately 5 percent of school-aged children suffer from the symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). What are the concerns here?
Children with ADHD exhibit:
• Lower grades
• The inability to abide by the rules
A study published in March of this year from the combined efforts of Yale University and Yale University School of Medicine discovered a link between exposing the fetus to cell phone usage and behavioral issues in the resulting child. And this doesn’t affect just children. Long-term neurological, as well as physiological problems, carry over into the adult years.
Senior author Hugh S. Taylor, reports, “This is the first experimental evidence that fetal exposure to radiofrequency radiation from cellular telephones does in fact affect adult behavior.”
Due to the increased usage of cell phones for things other than just taking calls, i.e., listening to music and waking up in the morning, there is more exposure to radiofrequency radiation exposure than ever before. The mice used in the studies were observed at different levels of exposure, 800-1900 Mhz-rated radiofrequency radiation, in addition to different lengths of exposure. Side effects increased as radiation levels and usage increased.
How can mother and baby be protected?
• Text, don’t talk. When you press send, hold the cell phone as far away from your body as possible.
• Use an air tube type headset or speaker phone.
• If you do have to make calls with your cell phone, keep them short.
• Only make calls when a strong signal is available. When the phone has to work harder to connect, it emits more radiation.
• Use a corded phone whenever possible.
What about the use of laptop computers when pregnant?
A recent Italian study from Siena shows the danger of using laptops when pregnant. The researchers measured the electromagnetic fields (EMFs) produced by five well-known brands of laptops and approximated the amount of currents in the body.
These currents measured much higher than the recent values and recommendations set forth for computer monitors magnetic field emissions by the Swedish Board for Technical Accreditation and the Swedish Confederation of Professional Employees.
As with cell phone usage, the effects of EMFs from laptops increase with higher exposure. This exposure is considered a risk factor for developing tumors in the blood. The laptop itself is not the only concern. The power supply is responsible for generating currents much higher than is recommended to avoid health complications.
Keeping mother and baby safe means:
• Not charging the laptop while in use.
• Keeping as much space between the laptop and body as possible.
In a world full of technology that makes our lives easier and more efficient, it’s sometimes easy to forget the problems that come along with the advantages of talking on a mobile phone and using a portable computer. Regardless of the convenience and time saved, nothing is more important or of a higher priority than our children and their safety.
Learn more at Natural News
March 20, 2012
By Dauna Coulter, Dr. Tony Phillips
“This is pretty cool. Just imagine what’s out in the universe that we can’t see.” –KTRN
The human eye is crucial to astronomy. Without the ability to see, the luminous universe of stars, planets and galaxies would be closed to us, unknown forever. Nevertheless, astronomers cannot shake their fascination with the invisible.
Outside the realm of human vision is an entire electromagnetic spectrum of wonders. Each type of light–from radio waves to gamma-rays–reveals something unique about the universe. Some wavelengths are best for studying black holes; others reveal newborn stars and planets; while others illuminate the earliest years of cosmic history.
NASA has many telescopes “working the wavelengths” up and down the electromagnetic spectrum. One of them, the Fermi Gamma-Ray Telescope orbiting Earth, has just crossed a new electromagnetic frontier.
November 9, 2011
by Sean Carroll
At the turn of the 20th century, finding a new form of radiation could put a physicist’s career on the fast track. Wilhelm Röntgen changed the world by discovering X-rays in 1895. Soon thereafter, Ernest Rutherford and Paul Villard identified three different kinds of radiation, dubbed alpha, beta, and gamma rays, emitted by radioactive compounds. In 1903 French scientist René Blondlot added to the frenzy with his announcement of N-rays, a strangely democratic form of radiation emitted by wood, iron, living organisms—just about anything at all.
Some 300 scientific papers were written about N-rays. There was just one problem: They weren’t real. A skeptical physicist named Robert Wood visited Blondlot’s lab and secretly removed a key part of his apparatus; this had no effect on Blondlot’s perception of N-rays, showing that they were purely a product of the imagination.
Blondlot’s reversal of fortune served as a reminder that the world isn’t really full of countless kinds of radiation waiting patiently to be discovered. Nature is more parsimonious than that. Even as forms of radiation seemed to proliferate, theory was driving physics the other way, toward consolidation. X-rays and gamma rays were soon recognized as different forms of electromagnetic radiation, like radio waves and visible light but more energetic. Beta rays are simply fast-moving electrons, and alpha rays are fast-moving helium nuclei. Beneath the dazzling array of new phenomena lurked just a few simple ingredients.
The trend toward unification and simplification is a major theme of modern physics. At the same time, nature has ways of surprising us, and it pays to be watchful. We know a lot about the physics of the macroscopic world, but can we be sure that we aren’t missing one of those crucial ingredients? The answer is yes: In certain well-defined cases, we can be very sure. Physicists long ago mapped the entire electromagnetic spectrum. The modern version of the search for new kinds of radiation is the search for new forces of nature. And while there may be unknown forces waiting to be discovered, we can say with great confidence that such forces must be so feeble that only a professional physicist like me would really care.
Here’s how I can justify such a grandiose pronouncement. According to modern physics, the world is fundamentally composed of particles interacting via forces. Over the course of the 20th century, researchers discovered many new particles interacting in many different ways. But it gradually became clear that the vast majority of such particles are merely different combinations of smaller ones, and the great variety of interactions boils down to just a few forces. When the dust settled in the 1970s, we were left with two kinds of elementary particles: quarks, which group into heavier composites like protons and neutrons; and lighter particles called leptons, like the electron and the neutrino, which can move freely without bunching into heavier combinations.
March 14th, 2011
By: Bob Nichols
While the application of scientific knowledge creates technology, sometimes the technology is later redefined by science. Such is the case with terahertz (THz) radiation, the energy waves that drive the technology of the TSA: back scatter airport scanners.
Emerging THz technological applications
THz waves are found between microwaves and infrared on the electromagnetic spectrum. This type of radiation was chosen for security devices because it can penetrate matter such as clothing, wood, paper and other porous material that’s non-conducting.
This type of radiation seems less threatening because it doesn’t penetrate deeply into the body and is believed to be harmless to both people and animals.
THz waves may have applications beyond security devices. Research has been done to determine the feasibility of using the radiation to detect tumors underneath the skin and for analyzing the chemical properties of various materials and compounds. The potential marketplace for THz driven technological applications may generate many billions of dollars in revenue.
Because of the potential profits, intense research on THz waves and applications has mushroomed over the last decade.
The past several years the possible health risks from cumulative exposure to THz waves was mostly dismissed. Experts pointed to THz photons and explained that they are not strong enough to ionize atoms or molecules; nor are they able to break the chains of chemical bonds. They assert—and it is true—that while higher energy photons like ultraviolet rays and X-rays are harmful, the lower energy ones like terahertz waves are basically harmless. [Softpedia.com]
While that is true, there are other biophysics at work. Some studies have shown that THZ can cause great genetic harm, while other similar studies have shown no such evidence of deleterious affects.
Boian Alexandrov at the Center for Nonlinear Studies at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico recently published an abstract with colleagues, “DNA Breathing Dynamics in the Presence of a Terahertz Field ” that reveals very disturbing—even shocking—evidence that the THz waves generated by TSA scanners is significantly damaging the DNA of the people being directed through the machines, and the TSA workers that are in close proximity to the scanners throughout their workday.
From the abstracts own synopsis:
“We consider the influence of a terahertz field on the breathing dynamics of double-stranded DNA. We model the spontaneous formation of spatially localized openings of a damped and driven DNA chain, and find that linear instabilities lead to dynamic dimerization, while true local strand separations require a threshold amplitude mechanism. Based on our results we argue that a specific terahertz radiation exposure may significantly affect the natural dynamics of DNA, and thereby influence intricate molecular processes involved in gene expression and DNA replication.”
In layman’s terms what Alexandrov and his team discovered is that the resonant effects of the THz waves bombarding humans unzips the double-stranded DNA molecule. This ripping apart of the twisted chain of DNA creates bubbles between the genes that can interfere with the processes of life itself: normal DNA replication and critical gene expression.
Other studies have not discovered this deadly effect on the DNA because the research only investigated ordinary resonant effects.
Nonlinear resonance, however, is capable of such damage and this sheds light on the genotoxic effects inherent in the utilization of THz waves upon living tissue. The team emphasizes in their abstract that the effects are probabilistic rather than deterministic.
Unfortunately, DNA damage is not limited only to THz wave exposure. Other research has been done that reveals lower frequency microwaves used by cell phones and Wi-Fi cause some harm to DNA over time as well. ["Single- and double-strand DNA breaks in rat brain cells after acute exposure to radiofrequency electromagnetic radiation."] //Terrance Aym
June 10, 2010
By Mike Adams
(NaturalNews) Most people are familiar with type-1 diabetes and type-2 diabetes, but did you know researchers have discovered a third type of diabetes? Type-3 diabetes, as they are calling it, affects people who are extra sensitive to electrical devices that emit “dirty” electricity.
Type-3 diabetics actually experience spikes in blood sugar and an increased heart rate when exposed to electrical pollution (“electropollution”) from things like computers, televisions, cordless and mobile phones, and even compact fluorescent light bulbs.
Dr. Magda Havas, a PhD from Trent University in Canada, recently published the results of a study she conducted on the relationship between electromagnetic fields and diabetes in Electromagnetic Biology and Medicine. In it, she explains how she and her team came to discover this about why electropollution is so dangerous for many people.
Blood sugar goes haywire
One of the most interesting finding in her study was that electro-sensitive people whose blood sugar decreases when they go for a walk outdoors actually experience an increase in blood sugar when walking on a treadmill.
Treadmills, you see, are electrical devices that emit electrical pollution. But interestingly, even the physical exertion of walking on the treadmill did not make up for the blood sugar spiking effect of the EMFs emitted by the treadmills. Despite the exercise, in other words, type-3 diabetics experienced significant spikes in blood sugar when walking on the treadmill.
Dirty electricity is bad for everyone, but it is especially bad for people who are type-3 diabetics. And Dr. Havas explains in her study that even having an electrical device plugged into the wall near someone who is type-3 diabetic can cause them problems. | <urn:uuid:dcd091f4-b830-4f8b-99a5-0af158f93b1c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ktradionetwork.com/tag/electromagnetic/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936522 | 2,775 | 2.96875 | 3 |
A bark with bite: Couple cited for removing trees from bluff
Erosion plan calls for planting 40 trees
Fox Point — A Milwaukee couple are due in municipal court Feb. 2 after police issued them 20 citations for cutting trees on the bluff without a permit.
Trent and Jackie Graham own the property at 6702 N. Lake Drive. During the summer, the couple razed an existing house and removed many trees on the lot, planning to build a new house. The Building Board approved their house plans in August.
Village code prohibits cutting trees in the rights of way or on the bluff without permits, a law the Grahams were not aware of, according to their attorney Christopher Jaekels.
In October, Director of Public Works Scott Brandmeier became aware of the removal of the trees.
According to Brandmeier, five trees in the right of way and 44 trees on the bluff were cut down. Removal of vegetation on the bluffs overlooking Lake Michigan can lead to erosion, the reason cutting is regulated.
The police issued citations to Trent Graham earlier this month.
Last week, the Grahams and the Building Board reached an agreement under which the couple will submit an erosion control plan and plant a minimum of 40 trees.
Each citation carries a minimum fee of $366 and a maximum of $1,000. The ordinance also allows the village to fine offenders for each day there is no plan of restitution starting at the date the village became aware of the violation.
Jaekels said because the tree removal is currently in court his clients would have no comment but they are working with the village on a solution.
Last year a Mequon couple ran afoul of that city's regulations when they, too, removed trees on the bluff and ravine on their property.
The Mequon cutting was resolved with a $5,000 fine for cutting specimen trees and with a $20,000 letter of credit to guarantee restoration of trees at the site. The city's tree ordinance prevents the removal of larger species of certain trees without a permit in addition to regulating cutting on the bluffs and ravines.
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- Fox Point steps closer to footbridge's removal
- Fox Point-Bayside's school budget may get some state relief
- K4 class sizes named priority
- Shorewood Schools Business Manager moves on
- Police Report: May 13
- Elmbrook recommends Stormonth's Westfahl as new Brookfield Elementary principal
- Fox Point-Bayside School Board finalizes three of 10 potential layoffs
- News & Notes: May 8
- Fox Point-Bayside School Board recall set in motion
- NSFD board trying to take funding formula discussion behind closed doors | <urn:uuid:be4c1ace-ce36-4fd7-9a20-c45eb466b3b0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.myfoxpointnow.com/news/82412447.html?_escaped_fragment_=page=1%26viewAll=0%26sort=oldestfirst%26pageSize=10 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00055-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949704 | 599 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Is Windows CE a real-time operating system? - There are many definitions of real time. In the context of the Windows Embedded family of operating systems, we use the definition that was adopted by the Open, Modular, Architecture Control (OMAC) user group: A hard real-time system is a system that would fail if its timing requirements were not met; a soft real-time system can tolerate significant variations in the delivery of operating system services like interrupts, timers, and scheduling.
The above is an extract from the following MSDN/Embedded web page - Further proof of Windows CE real-time support can be found in the following Windows CE 5.0 operating system evaluations from Dedicated Systems, Windows CE 5.0 x86, Windows CE 5.0 ARM
So, the question... Is Windows CE 5.0 a Hard Real Time operating system, and how does your definition of real-time differ from the one given above ? | <urn:uuid:71c68a58-781e-4ac0-bfa7-59498354becc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.msdn.com/b/mikehall/archive/2005/07/27/443924.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929866 | 194 | 1.976563 | 2 |
Privacy and anonymity
Just how far does Big Brother's eye see?
Privacy and anonymity on the internet are as important as they are difficult to achieve. Here are some of the the current issues we face, along with a few suggestions on how to be more anonymous.
Online privacy issues are in the news every week now. This is good for us, because when it's newsworthy and notable it means people still care about the privacy of their personal information in some fundamental and important way. Privacy on the internet (or rather, a lack thereof) has been with us for ages, but as technology converges we are all forced to make some important new choices about what we are willing to disclose. Let's start with a few examples.
Recent events have found the Electronic Freedom Foundation warning users not to use Google Desktop's new "search across computers" option, which stores a user's indexed data on Google servers for up to 30 days. It's making headlines, but it's just the tip of the iceberg. In recent weeks we've also heard about government attempts to subpoena information from Yahoo, Microsoft and Google. Perhaps a subpoena for all the files indexed on your Google Desktop is not that far away. Then there are the wiretaps in the US by those three-letter agencies, which we're just hearing about now. First reported by the New York Times, these were wiretaps on US citizens that were sometimes done without requiring court approval at all. I don't know about you, but even when I'm not doing something wrong (which is most of the time), I get very nervous when I hear about privacy issues popping up in this way.
This is on top of all the old news that barely makes headlines anymore: botnet Trojans controlling access to your computer's data and stealing your identity; rampant spyware infections that have been with us for years and are sometimes quite nasty; the fact that only about a third of the public even know what spyware is; and finally, there's even the occasional military breach that exposes the personal information of people who probably value their privacy very much.
Where are we headed with online privacy? Well, perhaps you should publish your darkets secrets in a public blog right now and get it over with. The fact is, we haven't had much, or any, privacy online in quite a while. In the search for privacy, what do we have to do to become anonymous on the internet?
Privacy starts with you
Many people, and security people in particular, value their privacy. We don't like to be tracked and followed. Most of the time this desire does not stem from any malicious intent, but rather from the knowledge of what others who are more malicious than us can do with this information. Our day starts at the office: nothing is private on your office computer, and most people know this already. It is a corporate asset, a tool to conduct business that can (and perhaps, should) be searched at any time. Fine, let's move on to the home computer then. At home one can do "other" things with his computer besides just work.
Most people start with their local system - clearing out their web browser cache, recent URL lists and more with tools of yesteryear like TweakUI. But as broadband connections have become inexpensive and pervasive, we are increasingly being tracked by our IP addresses at home. If you have high speed internet at home, odds are your IP address is relatively static now - cable and DSL modems are often assigned the same IP address for up to a year. Website owners can track your repeat visits much more easily - what time you arrived, how long you stayed, and how often you come back. Nothing new here. Many of us disable cookies in our browsers too, but that semi-static IP address at home can have just as big an impact on your privacy as cookies do.
Often the most anonymous place to surf the web is still with a laptop at a coffee shop with free WiFi, or at an internet cafe. But one day even these places will require a fingerprint for authentication before you're granted access, and you'll have to worry about your fingerprints too. For now however, we have other concerns.
Next page: Big name privacy | <urn:uuid:f28c4c93-ba2a-48e8-bc47-ed07ca366699> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/02/15/privacy_anonymity/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971565 | 863 | 2.453125 | 2 |
NAPLES, Fla., July 5, 2012
NAPLES, Fla., July 5, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Naples, Florida has been a playground for retirees for decades. Now like so many of their generation, another mature couple is following that lead. He was born in South Africa - she in the Netherlands. These world travelers later met in the United States. Now they're coming to Naples to enjoy a tropical retirement. But don't think you'll find this couple in the slow lane: they're the fastest land animals on Earth. On July 7, 2012, Naples Zoo at Caribbean Gardens is welcoming two older cheetahs to live out their golden years in the historic botanical garden and nationally accredited zoo.
Long known for their husbandry expertise with felids, Naples Zoo was chosen over other well-known institutions to care for these mature cats. In the Serengeti, a male cheetah lives an average of just over 5 years. Outside the wild, a cheetah can double or triple that lifespan. The Zoo's two new cheetahs are already 12 and 13 years old!
With a limited number of cheetahs in the nation, there were many choices for where these two could live. "Southwest Florida can be proud the Species Survival Plan® selected our nationally accredited facility for their care," stated Naples Zoo's Executive Director David Tetzlaff. "Our staff looks forward to welcoming these elegant cats."
Their new home is in the northern gardens in a modified habitat with glass viewing walls. Along with lounging in grassy open spaces or resting under shady trees including a historic Red Cedar, the cheetahs will also enjoy sitting atop a small hill like ones seen on the African veldt.
Cheetahs are well known for their speed and can run faster than 100 feet a second. That's an end zone to end zone touchdown in 3 seconds! But this speed comes at a cost. Their respiratory rate climbs to 150 breaths per minute, while heat production skyrockets more than fiftyfold. Unable to disperse the heat, cheetahs must catch their prey in about 300 yards - if not, they go hungry.
Cheetahs are also fast eaters. And they need to be. Their lithe build is no match for scavenging lions, leopards, and hyenas. Besides stealing a meal, these predators will kill adult cheetahs and their cubs. In some areas nearly three-quarters of cubs die in the first 8 weeks of life - before they even leave the den. On average in East Africa, a mother is able to rear less than 2 cubs to independence in her entire lifetime. To help cheetahs in the wild, the Naples Zoo supports the Cheetah Conservation Fund in Namibia.
Naples Zoo at Caribbean Gardens is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization cooperating in conservation programs both in and outside the wild for endangered species including offering guests a full day of fun presentations and wild cruise through islands of monkeys, lemurs, and apes. More at www.napleszoo.org or www.facebook.com/napleszoo.
HD Video and Print Quality Cheetah Images at www.napleszoo.org/press
Tim L. Tetzlaff
(239) 262-5409 ext 122
This press release was issued through eReleases® Press Release Distribution. For more information, visit http://www.ereleases.com.
SOURCE Naples Zoo
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Battle of Matapan
Contributor: C. Peter Chen
Italian battleship Vittorio Veneto, eight cruisers, and 13 destroyers under the command of Admiral Angelo Iachino set to sea to hunt for a detected British convoy. As soon as the Italian ships left port, British intelligence decoded the messages indicating their sortie. As a result, Admiral Andrew Cunningham was sent with fleet of three battleships, one carrier, and nine destroyers from Alexandria to face the Italian fleet. On the morning of 28 Mar 1941, forward cruisers supported by Albacore torpedo-bombers of carrier Formidable met the Italian warships off the Peloponnesian coast of Greece. Italian Battleship Vittorio Veneto was only lightly damaged in the initial engagement, but it made Iachino realize that without air cover his fleet was at a disadvantage, therefore he ordered his fleet to return to port. Two follow-up air strikes failed to damage Vittorio Veneto, though successful in disabling the cruiser Pola.
Iachino's biggest failure entering this battle was caused by failings of Axis Intelligence. When he launched the sortie, he had the wrongful impression that the British fleet only had one battleship and no carriers at its disposal, so when the battleships opened fire at the distance of less than 4,000 yards, he was caught in a surprise. His quick response to withdraw his forces at the face of superior surface and air power would have saved his fleet, but he did not realize Cunningham's persistence. After sundown, aided by radar, Cunningham's ships detected Italian destroyers guarding the disabled Pola. Within five minutes of bombardment from battleships Barham, Valiant, and Warspite from a short range, the cruisers Fiume and Zara were destroyed. Italian destroyers Vittorio Alfieri and Giosué Carducci fought back, but were intercepted and sank by British destroyers. Pola was sunk by torpedoes after her crew had been taken off. When day broke, German bombers mounted a retaliatory strike on the British fleet, though to little effect.
By the time the remaining Italian ships escaped to port, they had already lost 2,400 men, including Vice Admiral Carlo Cattaneo of the cruiser Zara. The Italian loss of three heavy cruisers and two destroyers was a stark contrast from the damage suffered by the British. The British had only lost one torpedo bomber during the entire battle.
The Battle of Matapan is still highly regarded in British naval history, often compared with the famous victory at Trafalgar. This battle marked British naval dominance in the Mediterranean Sea for the rest of the war. Without the Mediterranean Sea under Italian Control, Germany could no longer supply its war efforts in North Africa with ease.
Sources: the Second World War, Wikipedia.
Battle of Matapan Timeline
|26 Mar 1941||Italian battleship Vittorio Veneto, 5 cruisers, and 10 destroyers sortied out of Naples, Taranto, and Brindisi in Italy to patrol the area of the Mediterranean Sea between Egypt and Greece; the goal was to attack Allied convoys bringing troops and supplies to Greece.|
|27 Mar 1941||Battleship HMS Warspite, battleship HMS Barham, battleship HMS Valiant, carrier HMS Formidable, and nine destroyers of the British Mediterranean Fleet departed Alexandria, Egypt to hunt for an Italian fleet known to have departed bases in Italy. Four cruisers and four destroyers also departed from Piraeus, Greece, launching spotter planes to search for the Italian fleet, locating it at noon.|
|28 Mar 1941||150 miles off Cape Matapan, Greece at 0635 hours, Italian seaplane spotted a group of four Allied cruisers, and three Italian cruisers moved in to attack, engaging in combat at 0812 hours, to be joined by the big guns of Italian battleships at 1055 hours; after the morning's exchange of shellfire, all four Allied cruisers were damaged by near misses. At 1200 and 1509 hours, Allied torpedo bombers from HMS Formidable attacked, putting battleship Vittorio Veneto out of action for about 90 minutes at the cost of one aircraft. At 1936 hours, HMS Formidable's aircraft returned, joined by land-based aircraft from Crete, Greece, putting cruiser Pola out of action, but failed to catch Vittorio Veneto as she had received temporary repairs and was already en route back to Taranto, Italy. After dark, British battleships HMS Barham, HMS Valiant, and HMS Warspite moved in within 3.5 kilometers of the Italian cruisers undetected, opening fire at 2330 hours on the unsuspecting Italians.|
|29 Mar 1941||British battleships HMS Barham, HMS Valiant, and HMS Warspite continued to shell the Italian fleet off Cape Matapan, Greece. Italian cruiser Fiume, cruiser Zara, destroyer Alfieri, and destroyer Carducci were sunk, while destroyer Oriani was heavily damaged. At 0400 hours, British destroyers HMS Jervis and HMS Nubian approached damaged Italian cruiser Pola, captured her crew, and sank her with torpedoes. British ships rescued 905 Italian sailors but hurriedly departed at daybreak, fearing Luftwaffe attack; the Royal Navy would provide coordinates of remaining survivors to Italian ship Gradisca to continue to rescue. The Battle of Cape Matapan would close with 5 Italian warships lost, killing 2,303 men; the British suffered only 3 killed, the air crew of a single torpedo bomber lost on 28 Mar 1941.|
» Cunningham, Andrew
» Iachino, Angelo
» Tojo, Hideki
» Alfredo Oriani
» Giosuè Carducci
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Lt. Gen. Lewis B. "Chesty" Puller, at Guadalcanal | <urn:uuid:1560c6ec-2a57-43e9-8219-a2ca4a4931da> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ww2db.com/battle_spec.php?battle_id=104 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947289 | 1,294 | 3.421875 | 3 |
|This article does not cite any references or sources. (October 2007)|
The Baltic Institute (Instytut Bałtycki) in Gdańsk is a scientific society researching the topics of the Baltic Sea countries, maritime economic issues, and Polish-German and Polish-Scandinavian relations.
The Baltic Institute was established in 1925 in Toruń, beginning real activities in 1927, with the main goal of documenting the Polish heritage in Pomerania after 100 years of German occupation and Germanization practices. In 1931 a branch was established in Gdynia. During the German occupation of Poland in World War II the institute was abolished by the Nazis.
The Baltic Institute was re-established in 1945 with its headquarters first in Bydgoszcz, Sopot and then in Gdańsk. New branches were opened in Gdynia, Sopot, Toruń, Bydgoszcz and Szczecin. During the big reorganization of the scientific societies in Pomerania, in 1950 the institute became a part of the Western Institute in Poznań, but was made independent again in 1958 with its headquarters in Gdańsk.
Research Areas
The Baltic Institute conducts research in the following areas:
- knowledge of Scandinavia, and Polish-Scandinavian relations.
- Polish-German relation, especially related to Gdańsk Pomerania and the Baltic Sea area.
- the newest history and economic cooperation in the Baltic Sea area after World War II. | <urn:uuid:0a263bed-4812-4bf4-aa8b-088615d891ea> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_Institute | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931367 | 323 | 2.609375 | 3 |
"My dad sent me a video of the MegaRamp one day when I was at school and asked if anyone had ever looked into the physics of it," explains Emily. "I knew that the ramp had just been designed by Danny Way, a pro skateboarder. But I didn't realize that there were truly no calculations that had ever been done."
The MegaRamp is the world's largest skateboarding structure, used by skateboarders and BMX bikers in competitions such as the X Games. It consists of a 50- or 70-foot long "roll-in" leading to a 50- or 70-foot gap, followed by a 30-foot-tall quarter-pipe. Athletes ride down the steep roll-in platform to gain speed in order to perform tricks over the gap and on the quarter-pipe to complete a "run."
In its current design, performing on the MegaRamp is risky due to the speeds the athletes must reach and forces they must endure in order to perform well. In the last few years, questions have arisen about the ramp's safety based on the number of injuries and near-death accidents.
Emily decided to study the physics of the ramp and to develop calculations that would result in a better engineered - and safer - design. She contacted the builder of the ramp, John Tyson, who immediately saw the potential benefit in her research. Tyson then helped Emily get in touch with MegaRamp so she could make her proposal. After working out the legalities of the situation, the MegaRamp team gave Emily the raw data she needed, including the dimensions of the ramp, which called for the signing of a nondisclosure agreement.
Emily needed a way to see and record real skateboarders' movements on the MegaRamp to accurately make her measurements in the laboratory. She was invited by MegaRamp to videotape pro skateboarders while they practiced for the X Games in California. Over a two-week period, Emily was able to get all the footage she needed.
Now back on campus, Emily is putting it all together. "I'm trying to put an equation to the ramp to figure out how it could be built differently to make it easier for the athletes to ride," says Emily. First, she will build a scale model of the MegaRamp and experiment with weights in different locations to learn the effects of center of gravity on the ability of a skateboarder to land tricks on the ramp. This will help to isolate the effects of friction and air resistance in the equations.
Next, Emily will use the video footage to find the effects of body movements of the skateboarders that cannot be mimicked with a the computer model, leading to an equation that accurately models the path of a skateboarder on a ramp. Using the equation will help Emily learn the effects of changing certain dimensions of the ramp and allow her to find the best ones.
Finding these dimensions will also allow Emily to scale the ramp, giving pro skateboarders like MegaRamp inventor Danny Way what they really want: bigger ramps and a bigger challenge.
But for now, it's one step at a time for Emily, who is eager to resume her research in the lab. "I'm excited to see what I can accomplish now that I have all the pieces to the puzzle," says Emily. "I'd love to continue with similar work in the future so my job can be just as much fun!" | <urn:uuid:2c5471f3-dcdd-439f-a7a2-4909833c238d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.clarkson.edu/alumni_magazine/pres_report2009/skateboard_stefano.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97409 | 703 | 3.109375 | 3 |
The blame game. We all play it, and we all play into it. But when it comes to the toxic contamination in Victor, it only goes so far.
I’m pleased to see that the DEC is moving on this issue to determine the danger to residents, what can be done to mitigate it, and how to find the source and clean it up. That’s where the focus should be: education and remediation.
That’s not to say that affected citizens don’t have every right to be angry. They do. This is a serious issue that can affect their health and property values. But it also affects this community, and tearing into one another for past mistakes does little to pull us together when we need the support of eachother.
Go ahead, get angry, vent, and then be done with it. And if you feel that town officials aren’t handling things properly, step up to the plate at the next election or board meeting.
But right now, there’s a mess out there that needs our positive energy and creativity to solve. Roll up your sleeves and join the community task force that will be tracking monitoring efforts.
BTW, I’d be happy to post information about task force activities and meetings on this blog. | <urn:uuid:afae5a4e-5adf-4bb0-a68a-4fec31ca8586> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.democratandchronicle.com/victor/?p=60 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941456 | 266 | 1.617188 | 2 |
This linked set of .pdf files contains detailed information on many aspects of the Upper Silurian Ludlow Series in its type area, around the town of Ludlow, in the Welsh Borderland of Great Britain. It includes chronostratigraphy, geochronology, lithostratigraphy, methods of correlation (biostratigraphical and non-biostratigraphical) and important sections are all covered. The different methods of correlation are integrated in a holostratigraphical scheme that is applicable to the type area and may have wider utility throughout the Welsh Borderland. The whole work is supported by a bibliography.
Holostrat files are published in PDF format. In order to read these files, the freely available Adobe Acrobat Reader must be installed on your machine. Click on the icon to obtain a copy.
The Ludlow Holostrat is released for download in .zip format and should be read using appropriate software, such as WinZip. Click here if you wish to download a shareware copy of WinZip. Holostrat is also made available as a self-extracting executable file.
To navigate the Ludlow Holostrat, follow the live onward links provided in each section, together with return links to the introductory page of the topic. Similarly, onward and return links are provided for each figure. Selecting an onward link will take you to an associated topic. Selecting a return link will take you to a less detailed level of information, from which you can investigate other topics.
Please note that .pdf documents should be printed on a postscript printer | <urn:uuid:a907a821-2893-4034-bdfa-0373084f80d8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bgs.ac.uk/reference/holostrat/ludlow.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.910685 | 327 | 2.234375 | 2 |
SRPT is a SCSI RDMA Protocol (SRP) target implementation on top of SCST, a mid-level SCSI target subsystem for the Linux kernel. This software makes it possible for remote systems to access local storage over an InfiniBand network. This storage protocol target implementation offers a higher bandwidth and a lower latency than any other storage protocol target implementation available for Linux.
SCST is a mid-level SCSI target subsystem for Linux. This subsystem allows a remote host to access local storage devices through the SCSI protocol. SCST supports multiple network storage protocols, including iSCSI, SRP, and FCoE, and also supports Qlogic 22xx/23xx SCSI HBAs. Strong points of SCST are its stability, maturity, high performance, and low latency. See also the iSCSI-SCST, SRPT and scstqla2x00t projects, as well as open-fcoe.org.
Hot Copy creates an instant point-in-time snapshot of any block device while the system is running without interrupting applications or requiring the use of LVM. As block level changes are made to the real device, hot copy makes a backup copy of the changed block. The changed blocks are efficiently stored in unused space on your hard disk. These stored changed blocks maintain a point-in-time snapshot and space is only needed when you make changes to the real device. You can even write to your snapshots.
Toorox is a Linux live DVD based on Gentoo which starts as bootable media using KNOPPIX technology. It is designed for ease of use, with a simple control center and a hard disk installer. It contains many applications and uses KDE, GNOME, or XFCE as a working environment. A live USB pen drive image maker is also present on the desktop. It is multi-lingual and contains the unstable branch of Gentoo (x86 and amd64).
OKL4 Microkernels are a family of second-generation microkernels based on the original designs and implementations by Jochen Liedtke. Originally implemented in highly tuned i386-specific assembly language code, the API has seen extensive development in a number of directions, both in achieving a higher grade of platform independence and also in improving security, isolation, and robustness. There have been various re-implementations of the original binary kernel interface and its higher level successors, including L4Ka::Pistachio, L4/MIPS, and Fiasco. For this reason, the name L4 now applies to the whole microkernel family including the L4 kernel interface and its different versions.
sqlzma is a patch against lzma and squashfs that makes squashfs support both LZMA compression and ZLIB compression. A squashfs image file that uses LZMA compression has no backward compatibility, but the patched squashfs and its tools can handle the old squashfs image generated by the unpatched squashfs-tools. | <urn:uuid:4560ef99-ce9f-48aa-b961-bd6cd744f18f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://freecode.com/tags/linux?page=1&sort=created_at&with=2888&without=2831 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00059-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.921491 | 617 | 2 | 2 |
News tagged with plants
(Medical Xpress)—Investigation by researchers from the University of Exeter and ETH Zurich has shed new light on a protein which is linked to a common neurological disorder called Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease.
Neuroscience May 16, 2013 | not rated yet | 0 |
How cells regulate their own function by "accelerating and braking" is important basic knowledge when new intelligent medicines are being developed, or when plant cells are tweaked to produce more bioenergy. In a study published ...
Medical research May 15, 2013 | 4 / 5 (1) | 0
Animals, insects, and plants use a variety of sensing mechanisms to detect invading pathogens such as viruses. One complex and effective antiviral defense system they share is based on recognition of double-stranded ...
Medical research May 14, 2013 | 4 / 5 (1) | 0
A review of the current issues in low-dose radiation research authored by two radiation biologists from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is the cover story of the May 2013 issue of Radiation Research. The re ...
Cancer May 14, 2013 | not rated yet | 0
New research from Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center finds that suicide, while strongly associated with psychiatric conditions, also correlates with environmental pollution.
Psychology & Psychiatry May 13, 2013 | 3 / 5 (2) | 1
The function of the mitochondria – also defined as "power plants" within the cells – is essential as to whether, and how, some chemotherapeutic agents take effect in tissue. Scientists at the Helmholtz ...
Cancer May 10, 2013 | not rated yet | 0
To improve patient safety, hospitals should randomly test physicians for drug and alcohol use in much the same way other major industries in the United States do to protect their customers. The recommendation comes from two ...
Health May 07, 2013 | not rated yet | 0
At first blush, the health-care and nuclear-power industries don't appear to have much in common. But in a unique, two-day workshop in July 2012, leaders from these two industries met to discuss their similarities and differences, ...
Other May 06, 2013 | not rated yet | 0
(AP)—Authorities are investigating a valley fever outbreak that sickened 28 workers at solar power plants under construction in Central California.
Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes May 01, 2013 | not rated yet | 0
Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have described a missing link in understanding how damage to the body's cellular power plants leads to Parkinson's disease and, perhaps ...
Medical research Apr 25, 2013 | 5 / 5 (6) | 0 |
At TEDxSydney 2013 the Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School shares a new concept about why we age and how it should be possible to develop medicines to reverse it.
Health Apr 23, 2013 | 5 / 5 (3) | 0
The disrupted metabolism of sugar, fat and calcium is part of the process that causes the death of neurons in Alzheimer's disease. Researchers from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have now shown, for the first time, how important ...
Alzheimer's disease & dementia Apr 22, 2013 | 5 / 5 (5) | 1 |
(Medical Xpress)—Virginia Tech scientists have provided new evidence that biofilms—bacteria that adhere to surfaces and build protective coatings—are at work in the survival of the human pathogen Salmonella.
Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Apr 10, 2013 | not rated yet | 1 |
(HealthDay)—There were about 4,300 fewer than expected cases of cancer among people in Sacramento County, Calif., in the two decades after the closure of the Rancho Seco nuclear reactor, according to a ...
Cancer Apr 03, 2013 | 4 / 5 (3) | 0
DNA, siRNA and miRNA can reprogram cancer cells – that is, if these nucleic acids could cross through the cell membrane. A University of Colorado Cancer Center study published today in the journal Therapeutic Delivery shows ...
Cancer Apr 02, 2013 | 4.5 / 5 (2) | 0 |
Plants are living organisms belonging to the kingdom Plantae. They include familiar organisms such as trees, herbs, bushes, grasses, vines, ferns, mosses, and green algae. About 350,000 species of plants, defined as seed plants, bryophytes, ferns and fern allies, are estimated to exist currently. As of 2004, some 287,655 species had been identified, of which 258,650 are flowering and 18,000 bryophytes. Green plants, sometimes called metaphytes or viridiplantae, obtain most of their energy from sunlight via a process called photosynthesis.
For more information about Plant, read the full article at
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License. | <urn:uuid:dd55ffeb-4762-44da-a34c-5e271bc175e6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://medicalxpress.com/tags/plants/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934458 | 1,026 | 2.140625 | 2 |
The employment situation is worsening around the world, according to a report by the United Nations International Labor Organization (ILO). The report highlighted the disastrous effects of the global downturn on workers. Unemployment remains high around the world.
Over 200 million potential workers remain unemployed, for a global jobless rate of 6.0 percent. And the ILO estimates that 30 percent of all workers, 910 million people, can be considered working poor, surviving on an average of less than $2 a day.
Though the situation is slightly better than in 2009, when the financial crisis hit, slowing growth rates and 40 million new entrants to the labor force every year mean that 400 million additional jobs will be needed over the next decade. That number, on top of the current 200 million unemployed, may seem an insurmountable hurdle, but putting job creation first is one of the surest routes to economic improvement and social stability.
Particularly worrisome is that young people between the ages of 15 and 24 are nearly three times as likely to be unemployed as those older. The global youth unemployment rate stands at 12.7 percent, which is higher than before the crisis began. That means 74.8 million young people are currently not working. Those figures give new meaning to the phrase "lost generation." When jobs and income are lost, so is hope and direction.
1. it's definitely not a 'worker's market' when it comes to employment itself, wages, benefits, etc
So many of the 'new' jobs in the US are service sector, near poverty-rate waged placements. Even a lot of the so-called 'newly-returned' maunfacturing jobs pay a fraction of what the older manufacturing positions did. When you apply actually purchasing power metrics (adjusted for inflation over the years), the differences become even more stark.
It's a global race to bottom, all in the name of deeply flawed 'absolute advantage' model of capitalism that the Anglo-American banksters have been pushing for well over half a century.
Wealth extraction from the 99.99%'s collective arses, on a global footprint. | <urn:uuid:a4329330-dec9-4ae6-a982-1a7aabfc4c76> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=thread&address=101615361&togglemark=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00067-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941583 | 434 | 2.828125 | 3 |
No matter how often one reads about the sordid corruption and abuse of power in Malaysia, one can never get used to the staggering scale of betrayal by those we trusted to govern in our name.The latest scandal HERE, that certain political leaders illegally and secretly manipulated citizenship grants in order to shift the balance of votes in their favour, is beyond outrageous. The full scope of their treachery might never be known.
What is particularly galling is that despite all the publicity, despite the fact that we are about to head to the polls, it's still business as usual. It speaks of an overbearing sense of impunity and an utter disdain for the people of Malaysia.
A government which allows these things to continue unchecked year after year surely loses all its credibility as well as its moral legitimacy.
The carnage that decades of misrule has wrought is now evident in nearly every area of national life - the justice system, the police force, the civil service, the Election Commission and the anti-corruption commission.
Part of the problem is that we, as a nation, have for too long put our trust in personalities and political parties rather than in the kind of institutions that alone can guarantee our democracy and help ensure good governance. So enamoured were we with personalities that we did little as the caudillos undermined our national institutions and weakened the fabric of our nation.
We unwittingly traded our fundamental freedoms for short-term prosperity and stability.
And now, we, like many other nations before us, have discovered the truth of Benjamin Franklin's axiom - that those who trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both.
READ ON HERE | <urn:uuid:a66102d3-22c0-42d5-8d63-bc687e9a01a7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://zorro-zorro-unmasked.blogspot.com/2013/02/so-transparent-how-ec-cheats.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960067 | 336 | 1.75 | 2 |
La Bella Minuta: Florid Songs for Cornetto around 1600, Passacaille 979, March 2011.
Bruce Dickey, cornetto
Liuwe Tamminga, organ
Claudia Pasetto, viola da gamba
Leonardo Bortolotto, viola da gamba
Alberto Rasi, viola da gamba
Maria Christine Cleary, harp
Recorded in the Church of Santa Barbara, Mantova with the Antegnati organ (1565)
A=466 (temperatures caused the effective pitch to be A=462)
Quarter-comma mean-tone temperament
The title of this recording “La Bella Minuta,” refers to advice given by the famous cornettist, Girolamo Dalla Casa in 1584. Concerning the playing of the cornetto, he wrote “…let everyone strive to make a nice sound, lovely articulations, and beautiful divisions [la bella minuta], and to imitate the human voice as much as possible.” This is fine advice to be sure. Given the choice to select “La Bella Minuta” from it, one might expect this recording to be a showcase of the technical virtuosity of Bruce Dickey, indeed, perhaps to a series of rapid-fire passage. Nothing could be further from the truth; in fact, Bruce Dickey pays heed to the entirety of dalla Casa’s admonishment. His sound is nice and his articulations lovely. In fact the articulations are certainly clear yet always subtle. The divisions (minute) are first, beautiful and second, amazing. This is crucial. Clearly Dickey has virtuosity to display and does so. Yet, it is the music which prevails. His fabulous technique serves to enhance and not dominate the music. The final result is the imitation of the human voice in all ways. He clearly sings beautifully, phrases with grace, and the passages are always performed in the vocal style.
There are numerous composers represented: Ippolito (Tartaglino), Ascanio Mayone, Gioseffo Guami, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Josquin des Prez, Giovanni Maria Trabaci, Antonio Brunelli, Luzzasco Luzzaschi, Cipriano de Rore, and Bartolomeo Barbarino. They offer a great variety of styles. Dickey is joined on some by pieces by organ and others by a consort of viols and harp. The combination of these pieces with the variety of accompanimental sounds results in a recording which one can enjoy and appreciate with multiple listenings. It is both pleasurable and instructive. One hears and learns something new with each repeated hearing.
Examples in the variety of pieces could be shown in the differences between the Quanti mercenarij of Palestrina and Guami’s La Brillantina. The former is a serene, calm (almost timeless) work of austere beauty. To be sure, there are passage, but one remembers the seemingly endless long phrases which Dickey plays with great care. His endurance certainly should be applauded along with his artistry on this work! Compare that with Guami’s La Brillantina. It is certainly brilliant in all ways, most assuredly in several extended rapid-fire passages which Dickey plays effortlessly yet thrillingly.
He uses two cornetti for this recording: a three-piece straight cornetto made by Henri Gohin of Paris, which he used on works by Ippolito, Josquin, Brunelli, Luzzaschi, and Barbarino, and a curved cornetto made by Matthew Jennejohn of Montreal, Quebec for the remainder of the works.
In conclusion, this is a superb recording. It satisfies on so many levels. It instructs, inspires, and finally is simply a beautiful offering.
-- James Miller | <urn:uuid:88f770de-2bb6-43f4-90ba-7f20d37a0fc9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.historicbrass.org/TheStacks/RecordingReviewsContents/RecordingReviews2012/LaBellaMinutabyBruceDickey/tabid/429/Default.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.926738 | 823 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Talk about a bit of history. The Philoxenian version was written by Aksenāyâ Mabûḡāyâ which is probably translated as most people say Philoxenus of Mabbug.
This version started in the 5th Century by the above to be a more accurate translation of the Septuagint ( the Greek Old Testament written in long before ).
This is a Syriac Translation of the Bible but then you also get the Syriac Peshitta which is supposedly something else. It can get very confusing. The Philoxenus or Philoxenian version is based on the Peshitta as far as I know. | <urn:uuid:9a2f1bff-884d-43cd-90dd-b486548da258> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://fromtheold.com/philoxenian-version-of-the-bible | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977462 | 136 | 2.40625 | 2 |
Franchising World May 2012
By: Thomas Coba
Military veterans make great business owners, especially franchise businesses. As a franchisor, veterans are prized for all of the reasons one would expect: they are typically organized, self-motivated, ethical, focused and good with people. They also tend to be attracted to franchise business opportunities because franchises are structured and system-oriented, which military veterans are accustomed to.
Veterans and franchisors would seem to be a marriage made in heaven, but finding and recruiting qualified veterans for franchise businesses is not that easy. For veterans and franchisors, there is an obstacle course of issues that must be overcome to bring the two groups together. It’s a challenge for both, but certainly not insurmountable. By identifying the issues, franchisors and veterans can bridge the gap and help ex-military personnel grab their share of the American Dream.
Most military veterans leave the service with a wealth of useful experience. It may be technical experience in a specific area such as communications or logistics or it could be academic skills, leadership training or some other skill set. However, it is unlikely that the veteran has any experience in running a business.
Any business owner knows that he needs to know how to write a business plan, have some knowledge of accounting and have at least some experience with staffing and personnel to run a small business. People also need the specific technical skills required for that specific business, such as operating and maintaining equipment or preparing food. The good news for veterans is that most franchisors offer an intensive training course that provides many of the skills necessary for success.
In the case of ServiceMaster franchises (ServiceMaster Clean, Merry Maids, Furniture Medic and AmeriSpec), new franchisees come to the company’s headquarters in Memphis for a minimum of two weeks of training that includes both an overview of business best practices and the technical training required to perform specific job functions. The new franchisees also have access to additional training at regional and national meetings where they can attend seminars on a variety of business management and technical topics.
Also, many franchise operations are like fraternal groups. Individual franchisees enjoy friendly relationships with more experienced franchise owners who are not in competition and are willing to share their knowledge. These friendships are a great source of knowledge for the rookies who have never run a business.
Eligible veterans also can obtain education benefits through the GI Bill that will help pay for business classes in marketing, accounting, computer skills and other disciplines useful to the business owner.
Rarely does an enlisted person or officer retire from the military with a big savings account. Money often is a major hurdle preventing veterans from owning franchise businesses, especially franchises that charge significant sums of cash. Fortunately, there are methods for obtaining franchise fees and the operational money needed to get a new business up and running.
Some franchisors offer financing to qualified applicants. Franchisors that offer financing should promote this fact to veterans, as veterans may not consider themselves a candidate for a franchise business because they assume they don’t have access to enough money. Veterans also may take advantage of “Patriot Express” loans from the Small Business Administration. Patriot Express loans, which have the SBA’s lowest interest rates, can be used for start-up costs, equipment purchases and working capital.
The International Franchise Association is a great place for veterans to look for help and advice about franchise financing. In 1991, IFA began VetFran as a way to help veterans seeking to become small-business owners. VetFran has 460-plus participating franchisors that voluntarily offer incentives, discounts, fee waivers and creative finance products to help ex-military personnel get into business. More than 2,100 veterans have used the VetFran program to start businesses. IFA also promotes the hiring of veterans by the industry’s 825,000 franchised businesses, which support some 18 million jobs.
As part of the VetFran program, IFA recently announced an initiative called Operation Enduring Opportunity, a campaign in which participating franchisors have pledged to help recruit and hire 75,000 veterans and 5,000 wounded warriors by 2014. Congress has provided ample incentive for franchisors and franchise owners to participate with generous tax credits up to $9,600 for hiring a veteran.
VetFran also recently helped launch a new program in cooperation with Sprigster called Boost A Hero. Boost A Hero is an Internet-based program (www.sprigster.com) that facilitates “crowdfunding” for veterans who want to purchase a participating franchise business. Family, friends and supporters from across the country can make contributions to the veteran’s online effort. All of the donated money, except for a small processing fee, goes into an account for the veteran. The program is free to ex-military personnel, but the veteran is required to have a significant financial stake in the effort, as well.
Thousands of men and women are honorably discharged from the armed services each year. Franchise businesses are out there, available to these highly capable people, yet only a small percentage of veterans pursue or seriously consider owning a franchise business, often due to lack of information, or perhaps misinformation.
Like many civilians, there are many veterans who are simply unaware of the franchise business opportunities that are available. IFA lists more than 1,100 franchises, with more than 400 of them participating in the VetFran program. That’s a lot of opportunity that is largely untapped by veterans who are looking for a small business to run.
For franchisors, the challenge is getting franchise information to those who are transitioning to civilian life. Franchisors are not allowed to participate directly in the Transition Assistance Program, which is a joint effort by the Department of Defense, the Department of Labor and the Department of Veterans Affairs. However, in 2010, an organization called Veterans Franchise Centers was established to bridge the gap between franchisors and veterans looking for business opportunities. Veterans Franchise Centers facilitate the connection between franchisors and veterans and earn a commission when a veteran opens a franchised-based business.
Many veterans assume that the cost of owning a franchise is beyond their reach and, therefore, never seriously consider a franchise business opportunity. Certainly, there are franchise businesses that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, but there also are franchises that are very affordable. A Furniture Medic franchise investment, for instance, starts at about $46,000. With the financial resources available to veterans, the cost is easily within reach.
Franchisors should also invest in advertising business opportunities to recent veterans. Magazine ads aimed at ex-military personnel are a good start, as is the Internet, especially the social media sites where companies can pinpoint veteran groups for messaging.
For franchisors, the investment in veterans is a good one. Veterans make great employees and excellent owners. ServiceMaster has hundreds of veterans as franchise owners and employees and always is eager for new recruits.
Military veterans are a perfect fit for franchise businesses. Most of the veterans come pre-equipped for success, with the maturity and determination every small-business owner needs. Success as a franchisor depends on the quality of the people who own and run your franchises. Franchise companies can never go wrong seeking military veterans to be part of its army of owners.
Thomas Coba is president of ServiceMaster Franchise Brands. Coba is responsible for 6,375 franchises and international licenses in 33 countries, 82 branches and 31,000 team members operating under the ServiceMaster Clean, Merry Maids, AmeriSpec and Furniture Medic brands. These brands hold market-leading positions in residential and commercial cleaning, disaster restoration, home inspections and furniture repair, respectively. He can be reached at 901-597-1400 or firstname.lastname@example.org. | <urn:uuid:b4bbe7dd-a76d-498a-9fc5-9d01a595cd85> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://franchise.org/IFA_NEWS/An_Army_of_Qualified_Business_Owners/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957524 | 1,600 | 1.515625 | 2 |
FOR AUDIO VERSION CLICK HERE.17 As Jesus was about to go up to Jerusalem, He took the twelve disciples aside by themselves, and on the way He said to them, 18 ``Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem; and the Son of Man will be delivered to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn Him to death, 19 and will hand Him over to the Gentiles to mock and scourge and crucify Him, and on the third day He will be raised up.''
This is, at least, the 3rd, maybe the 4th time Jesus has revealed to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, be killed and be raised up again. (Matthew 16:21-23; Mark 8:31-33, Luke 9:22) Although the statement may have puzzled the disciples who were standing close to Jesus' revelation, it was, after all, not inconceivable that the Messiah would ultimately die at some point in time. Therefore, Peter's shock when hearing Jesus' new declaration in Matthew 16 is not based so much on the third day resurrection but upon the opposition to and persecution of the One who he'd just proclaimed to be God's chosen and anointed King-"You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God." (Matt 16:16).
Each time Jesus mentions what's coming the disciples seem to be a little cloudy in their thinking as to what is meant. Maybe they are too frightened to ask Jesus what it all might mean.
Now, here before their final journey into Jerusalem, Jesus repeats what is about to happen. I can't emphasize enough the importance of their expectations of the Messiah. There were 2 roles for the Messiah to play. One was that He would come and reign forever (as the son of David). The other was that He would come to die as a sacrifice for the sins of the world (as the son of Joseph). When you are under the foot of the Romans, you are definitely not looking for the Messiah to come and die. You want the Messiah that is going to deliver His people from this oppression. We can look back on this scene historically without emotion, knowing the facts, that this had to happen this way. But to the disciples, this was emotionally charged with their hopes and dreams of the Messiah's power of deliverance.
It's a little like that when we are awaiting the Lord's deliverance in our own lives today. We are so emotionally involved with our pain that we can't see what is really going on. God is up to something. God is always up to something that will work out better for you-to deliver you from where you are now into where He wants you to be next.
"For we know that all things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose" (Romans 8:28). Easily said, but very difficult to trust in the middle of the conditions we may find ourselves. This is precisely the work that we are to do-to learn to trust that Jesus' loyal love toward us is eternally true. Nothing can separate you from the love of Jesus. | <urn:uuid:b3f39896-bb33-465b-b0ef-c5babc06aaca> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://embersfellowship.blogspot.com/2011_08_08_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979765 | 639 | 1.929688 | 2 |
Convert a standard wax candle into a realistic flickering LED candle. Candles are great for enhancing the ambiance of a room but they deteriorate when used and having a naked flame in your house can be dangerous. My goal was to preserve the look and smell of a traditional wax candle while overcoming their disadvantages.
I've created a video detailing this process, take a look and consider subscribing to my youtube channel.
- Arduino Uno or Arduino Duemilanove with ATMega328 and breadboard to program the ATTiny85 microcontroller.
- Soldering equipment
- Hot glue gun
- Utility Knife
- Drill with spade bit
- ATTiny85 microcontroller. Other ATTiny variants will probably also work but this is the one I used.
- 8 pin microcontroller socket (optional)
- Orange LED.
- 1 ohm resistor. This value is calculated based on the use of a 3v power supply and LED with 3v - 3.2v forward voltage.
- Screw terminal (optional)
- Small piece of proto board
- 3v battery pack and AAA batteries.
I'm a programming novice with basic knowledge of C and Java. With my limited experience, I find coding using the Arduino environment simple and productive so I wanted to use one for this project. An Arduino is too large and expensive to install in the candle to control the LED flickering therefore an ATTiny85 microcontroller will take its place as they're only a few dollars and capable of the task. Thankfully, I can use an Arduino to program the ATTiny85 which allows me to write the program in the Arduino code that I'm comfortable with and I don't have to purchase an AVR programmer.
I've written the LED flickering sketch in the Arduino 1.0 software and used an Arudino Uno to program the microcontroller. High-Low tech have written some excellent articles on using the Arduino to program an ATTiny (Arduino Board as ATTiny Programmer, Programming an ATTiny w/ Arduino 1.0). Download my flickering LED sketch at this link.
The LED pulses in sets. The program randomly selects the amount of pulses in each set, alternates the brightness level of each pulse and delay between sets. Values can be adjusted to change how it will behave so customise to your liking. It does the job but I'm sure there's improvements to be made. If anyone can make any advancements, just send me the code and I'll add it to the article.
Once programmed, test that all is well by removing the Arduino. Adding an LED and 1 ohm resistor to Pin 5 (referred to as Pin 0 in the Arduino sketch). Connect a 3v power supplies positive to pin 8 and negative to pin 4. The LED should periodically flicker. I also tested mine using the Arduinos 5v supply and a 150 ohm resistor on the LED.
Take care when working with the candle as they're easy to damage. Lay a rag on your work surface to protect the candle and allow removed wax to be easily disposed. If you watched the video, it's pretty obvious I should have used a bigger rag when boring the hole with the spade drill bit. Wax went everywhere! Drill out the base using a spade drill bit to accommodate the height of the circuit board and battery pack. This was about 25mm for my project.
You'll then need to carve out a snug fitting battery compartment with a utility knife to insert the pack. Wax is fairly soft so just take it slow and don't lose a finger. The battery pack will be a friction fit and responsible for holding the circuit board in the cavity we created with the spade bit.
Remove the candle wick and drill a 4mm hole to allow the LEDs wires to pass through.
Assemble the circuit as per the diagrams included in this step. I've added schematic and pictorial style circuit diagrams.
Using a socket for the microcontroller is optional however it will prevent you from accidentally destroying the IC with the heat from your soldering iron and allows you to update or modify its code down the track by simply pulling it from the board.
Solder some wires to the legs of the LED and insulate them with some heat shrink tubing or tape.
Thread the LEDs wires through the top of the candle and connect them to your circuit board. Insert some batteries and ensure it all still works and is connected correctly.
Place the circuit board in the cavity and slot the battery pack into its socket to seal it all up. As mentioned earlier, the battery pack should fit firmly.
If not, you made need to add a little padding to fill the gaps and get a tight fit.
I secured the switch to the side of the battery pack with some hot glue to finish it off.
To make the LED look more at home on the top of a candle, add small dobs of hot glue and shape with a toothpick until you've built an imitation hot glue flame.
You're done! Build your own customised versions like this three candle coffee and chocolate verison. | <urn:uuid:23754c08-7538-4fc6-a6f4-9c9fce0f66fe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://x2jiggy.com/blog/2012/4/27/flickering-led-candle.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.924148 | 1,041 | 2.359375 | 2 |
May 22, 2013
The Withdrawal Follies
Posted on Jul 26, 2007
Think of this as the future in slo-mo—or, as the Wall Street Journal’s Dreazen and Jaffe put it, “a complete withdrawal from Iraq could take as long as two years if conducted in an orderly fashion.” Not only that, but the military—and so the American media—suddenly discovered the vast amount of stuff that had been flown, or convoyed, into Iraq (mostly in better times) and now somehow had to be returned to sender. As TIME’s Duffy put it, included would be “a good portion of the entire U.S. inventory of tanks, helicopters, armored personnel carriers, trucks and humvees…. They are spread across 15 bases, 38 supply depots, 18 fuel-supply centers and 10 ammo dumps,” not to speak of “dining halls, office buildings, vending machines, furniture, mobile latrines, computers, paper clips and acres of living quarters.”
Associated Press reporter Charles Hanley caught the enormity of withdrawal this way: “In addition to 160,000 troops…, the U.S. presence in Iraq has ballooned over four years to include more than 180,000 civilians employed under U.S. government contracts—at least 21,000 Americans, 43,000 other foreigners and 118,000 Iraqis—and has spread to small ‘cities’ on fortified bases across Iraq.” In fact, such lists turn out never to end—as a series of anxious news reports have indicated—right down to the enormous numbers of port-a-potties that must be disposed of. In such accounts of the overwhelming nature of any withdrawal from a country the Bush administration thought it could make its own, cautionary historical examples are cited by the Humvee-load. (After the First Gulf War, withdrawal from Kuwait took a year under the friendliest of conditions; Afghanistan was hell for the Russians; Vietnam, despite the final scramble, took forever and a day to plan and carry out.) And don’t forget about the need to get rid of the “toxic waste” the Americans have accumulated—that alone is now estimated to take 20 months—or, according to reports, the shortage of aircraft for transport, the cratered, bomb-laden roads on which to convoy everything out, and the possibility that our allies, knowing we’re leaving, may turn on us in a Mad-Max-style future Iraq. Finally, don’t forget something that, until just about yesterday, no one outside of a few arcane military types even knew about—the agricultural inspectors who must certify that everything entering the U.S. is free of “microscopic disease.” And so it goes. Withdrawal, it turns out, is forever.
Of course, much of this is undoubtedly foolishness, though with a serious purpose. It’s meant to turn an unpredictable future into what former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld once termed a “known known” that can be wielded against those who want to change course in the disastrous present. You want withdrawal? You have an ironclad guarantee that, no matter how bad things might be, it will be so much worse.
Withdrawal, in other words, is fear itself. Sanity is a future that’s essentially the same as the present (with somewhat fewer U.S. troops) and, though no one mentions it, a significantly ramped up ability to bring air power to bear. (On this, the AP’s Hanley has just done two superb, if chilling, reports from the field, the only ones of significance on air power in Iraq since the invasion of 2003. He has revealed that the “surge” of U.S. air strength there may prove far more devastating and long-lasting than the one on the ground.)
In the Vietnam years, the ongoing bloodbath of Vietnam was regularly supplanted in the United States by a predicted “bloodbath” the Vietnamese enemy was certain to commit in South Vietnam the moment the United States withdrew (just as a near-genocidal civil war is now meant to supplant the blood-drenched Iraqi present for which we are so responsible). This future bloodbath of the imagination appeared in innumerable official speeches and accounts as an explanation for why the United States could not leave Vietnam, just as the sectarian bloodbath-to-come in Iraq explains why we must not take steps to withdraw our troops (advisors, mercenaries, crony corporations, and port-a-potties) from that country.
In public discourse in the Vietnam era, this not-yet-atrocity sometimes became the only real bloodbath around and an obsessive focus for some of the war’s opponents within mainstream politics. Antiwar activist Todd Gitlin recalled “the contempt with which [activist Tom] Hayden had told me of a meeting he and Staughton Lynd had with Bobby Kennedy, early in 1967. Kennedy, he said then, had been fixated on the dangers of a ‘bloodbath’ in South Vietnam if the Communists succeeded in taking over.”
But it wasn’t only in the mainstream. Antiwar activists, too, often had to grapple with the expected, predicted horror that always threatened to dwarf the present one—the horror for which, it was implied, they would someday be responsible.
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New and Improved Comments | <urn:uuid:c8922eaf-9910-4752-8302-b8a7b61cea37> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.truthdig.com/report/page4/20070726_the_withdrawal_follies/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960658 | 1,185 | 1.617188 | 2 |
As the number of foreclosures rises across the country, many borrowers are willing to do almost anything to keep their homes, opening themselves up to the growing abuse of mortgage and real estate fraud. In the real estate market as in any other, moral failure has negative economic consequences.
Every time you see or hear an ad saying, “We guarantee we can save your home,” beware of a scam. There is no company, agency, or federal affiliate that can save every house from foreclosure. What lenders refer to as loss mitigation -- the process of finding ways to keep borrowers in their homes -- works on a case by case basis and requires an evaluation of all parts of a borrower’s loan and expenses. Yes, some properties can be saved, but there are no guarantees.
As more is learned about how the industry operated during its boom, we find mortgage fraud is nothing new. But it appears that some of the same people guilty of fraudulent mortgage practices in years past, along with some newcomers, have concocted new schemes to defraud homeowners. Today’s mortgage fraudster preys on the vulnerable, those who have run out of options and are desperate for help. They seek out people known to have fallen on hard times, pressuring them into making snap decisions about things they know little about. Unlike those schemes we saw during the peak of the housing market, which capitalized on the dream of owning a home, the fraud of today takes advantage of the fear of foreclosure. These practices bolster the stereotype of the predatory lender, except now the predators are the ones ostensibly offering assistance, tempting ignorant homeowners into what appears to be an easy solution to their tough problems. All this further erodes trust in the housing market which, in the long term, undermines the stability of lenders and homeowners alike.
Although fraud was common during the housing boom, the FBI’s 2008 Mortgage Fraud Report suggested a rise in activity after the bust: “There is a direct correlation,” it concluded, “between fraud and distressed real estate markets.” According to the study, there was a 36 percent increase from 2007 to 2008 of reported suspicious activity in the mortgage industry. This led to $1.4 billion of losses in 2008, and losses reported so far in 2009 exceeded the same period in 2008 by $208 million.
Nearly 12 percent of homeowners were at least one month behind or in foreclosure at the end of 2008, and that number has been growing steadily during 2009. These are the people targeted by those the FBI calls “mortgage fraud perpetrators.” Senior citizens are viewed as easy marks. The FBI report explains, “(perpetrators) recruit seniors through local churches, investment seminars, television, radio, billboard, and mailer advertisements, to commit fraud.”
The FBI outlines many different kinds of mortgage fraud, from taking advantage of distressed builders to fraudulent offers of credit repair. But the greatest problem in today’s markets is the “Foreclosure Rescue” scheme.
Once the culprits at work in these schemes have a borrower on the hook, they convince him to stop talking to his mortgage company or bank. The perpetrators then ask for an up front fee, usually between $1,000 and $3,000, and once it is paid, promise to handle the rest of the process. A legitimate mortgage lender may charge a fee when stopping the foreclosure process with a loan modification or a repayment plan, but it will not ask for this fee up front and will work to stay in contact with a borrower throughout the process.
Once the mortgage fraud perpetrators have received their fee, they tell the borrower to stop making mortgage payments, or worse, to make mortgage payments to the bogus organization directly. They may use part of the up front fee to file paperwork putting the borrower into bankruptcy, as this places a temporary hold on any foreclosure proceedings. Since the defrauders told the borrower to stop talking to lenders and anyone affiliated with the court system, the borrower has no idea this hold only lasts until the case is heard in court. When the borrower does not show up for the court date, foreclosure proceedings resume. Or, in most other cases, perpetrators falsely tell a borrower that the troubled mortgage can be renegotiated and monthly payments can be reduced with delinquent payments applied to the principle or negotiated away. They tell the borrower that the loan is being worked on, but nothing is ever done. In most cases, once the borrower realizes she or he has been a victim of mortgage fraud, the loan is so delinquent that there is little any legitimate lender can do.
More needs to be done by the mortgage industry to make homeowners aware of these schemes. The Administration of National Banks and the U.S. Treasury Department produced a list of “Consumer Tips for Avoiding Mortgage Modification and Foreclosure Rescue Scams” in April, but it is important for all legitimate lenders to make sure borrowers know what risks are out there.
Mortgage fraud is taking money out of a market working to rebuild itself, and these schemes, along with the intervention it will take to end them, will only slow recovery. They also further deteriorate trust in the housing market, where this quality is critical. We need to trust our builders to build safe homes, trust our realtors to price homes fairly, and trust our lenders to have in mind the best interests of the people who comprise their market. When this trust is damaged, it is more difficult to stem falling home values and housing recessions. Unethical mortgage operations, like all selfish and shortsighted economic activities, do not only harm the immediate victims; they hurt all of us.
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Fax: (616) 454-9454 | <urn:uuid:60364712-5e15-4137-95a6-306c2af0a93e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.acton.org/pub/commentary/2009/08/19/new-mortgage-fraud-kick-%E2%80%99em-when-they%E2%80%99re-down | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96279 | 1,222 | 1.804688 | 2 |
''IT ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble,'' Mark Twain once said. ''It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.''
Millions of investors, ignorant of financial history, were taught expensive lessons when they eagerly absorbed the new conventional wisdom of the 1990's. Most prominent of those new certainties was the notion that stocks were the only sensible securities. Bonds, after all, provided neither double-digit annual returns nor cocktail-party cachet.
The responsible baby boomer, frightened by Wall Street promoters and unduly cynical about receiving Social Security, came to regard a heavy commitment to stocks as crucial to any chance of prospering and then maintaining a decent standard of living in retirement.
The main corollaries of stock pre-eminence were that you should buy more shares whenever prices dropped, and that you should hold on to them practically forever.
Weren't these the methods of Warren E. Buffett, the iconic sage of Omaha, whose net worth from investing runs to 11 digits?
The stock implosion that shattered these illusions in early 2000 resulted from a combination of forces. Not least of these was the belief in an Internet-based new era, a premise that anybody familiar with financial history should have found highly suspect.
In her highly readable and insightful ''Bull! A History of the Boom, 1982-1999'' (HarperBusiness, $27.95), Maggie Mahar exposes the ignorance, myths and avarice that surrounded the fin de siècle market bubble and subsequent bust. The book is an account not only of a swarm of naïve stock buyers but also of Wall Street hyperpromoters, greedy corporate executives, careerist mutual fund managers, complaisant accountants and company directors, beholden politicians and too many uncritical journalists swept up in the stock-buying frenzy. It also tells of misjudgment by the Securities and Exchange Commission and an error or two by the Federal Reserve.
In the process, Ms. Mahar, a financial journalist who was a senior writer for Barron's, makes a devastating case against the contention that the market is almost perfectly efficient -- that prices are the product of immediate, judicious weighing of all available information by rational investors. She quotes Robert J. Shiller, the prescient Yale economist, who declared this hypothesis ''the most remarkable error in the history of economic theory.''
Many of the novice stock buyers were stampeded by Wall Street warnings that this constant devotion to stocks was the only way they could build a satisfactory nest egg. This coincided with corporate America's desire to rid itself of the burden of traditional pensions and thus force employees to largely finance their own retirements; 401(k)'s were suddenly on everybody's lips.
It didn't help that independent research had become almost unavailable to individual investors because deregulation had shriveled the commissions that once supported it. As a result, information-age investors were lost in a torrent of incoherent data. Moreover, Wall Street was seeking to make up for lost commissions with investment banking business, leading to the rise of cheerleader analysts.
Company executives, meanwhile, were busy convincing investors that they should prefer stock buybacks to cash dividends -- a policy that happened to mask the earnings dilution that was produced by lavish executive stock options.
Pointing to what she calls ''fully deluded earnings,'' Ms. Mahar is particularly cogent in her discussion of efforts to require options to be considered expenses and deducted from profits. Under pressure, many companies have since adopted that reform. | <urn:uuid:8d022172-5194-4430-a210-3620476a4e81> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/11/business/mutual-funds-report-how-the-boomers-lost-their-way-in-the-bubble.html?src=pm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96392 | 714 | 2.171875 | 2 |
The conviction of former Haryana chief minister Om Prakash Chautala and his elder son Ajay Singh Chautala by a CBI court in a case pertaining to alleged irregularities in the recruitment of junior basic trained (JBT) schoolteachers in Haryana has serious political implications for the Chautalas and their outfit, the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD).
January 22, the day the CBI court is expected to pronounce the sentence, may well define the course of politics in Haryana. If sentenced to more than two years, Chautala Sr and Ajay face the prospect of being disqualified from contesting the Lok Sabha and assembly polls in 2014.
Election Commission guidelines say that even if a person is on bail after conviction and his appeal is pending before a court, he cannot contest elections.
According to section 8(3) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, a person convicted for any offence and sentenced to imprisonment for not less than 2 years shall be disqualified from the date of conviction and shall continue to be disqualified for a further period of six years after his release.
Section 13(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act— the law under which the Chautalas and 55 officials have been charged in the JBT scam case — says that any public servant who commits criminal misconduct shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term not less than one year and a maximum of seven years.
To add to the worries of the INLD bosses and cadres, the former CM and sons Ajay and Abhay Singh Chautala are facing trial by a CBI court in a disproportionate assets case. | <urn:uuid:f75e9c5e-6dfa-4e9a-8b4f-543514db0cdc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hindustantimes.com/India-news/northindia/Chautala-son-face-grim-future-possible-oblivion/Article1-990812.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957483 | 336 | 1.625 | 2 |
Women who give birth after age 40 face a higher risk of having an autistic child, regardless of the father’s age, according to a comprehensive study of all births in the state of California in the 1990s. Researchers from the University of California, Davis, found that a woman who gave birth after age 40 was 50% more likely to have an autistic child compared with women who gave birth between ages 25 and 29. These findings add to previous research indicating a correlation between advanced maternal age and a child’s autism risk, but clarify how both a mother and father’s age contributes to this risk.
Researchers found that a woman’s age when she gives birth is directly related to the child’s autism risk—for every five additional years of maternal age, the likelihood of giving birth to an autistic child increased by 18%. While previous studies have shown that a father’s advanced age can also increase autism risk, this study found that, for women over age 30, the father’s age makes no difference. It is only when men over age 40 parent children with women age 30 or younger than the father’s age increases autism risk, researchers found. When women under age 25 had children with men over 40, for example, those children faced double the risk of being diagnosed as autistic compared with children born to a mother under age 25 and a father between ages 25 and 29.
During the study period, from January 1, 1990 to December 31, 1999, the number of women in California who gave birth after age 40 increased by 300%. Yet, during that same decade, autism cases in the state surged—by some 600%. While this latest study adds to evidence for a link between maternal age and autism risk, the authors point out that the higher rate of older women giving birth can only account for a small fraction—5%—of the massive increase in autism cases.
The study, published in the February issue of the journal Autism Research included 4.9 million children born in California during the 1990s. | <urn:uuid:63a6d790-7eec-42a4-a7ed-8d1feab74a60> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://healthland.time.com/2010/02/08/children-born-to-older-mothers-at-higher-risk-for-autism/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00057-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964515 | 415 | 2.78125 | 3 |
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Receive monthly offers, specials & news | <urn:uuid:4d2689b2-c42c-417e-bd0a-cdfef49eb4b3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.teaching.com.au/catalogue?catalogue=MTA&category=MTA-INDIGENOUS-RESOURCES | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.918417 | 134 | 2.203125 | 2 |
We Must Keep Truth About KR Atrocities Alive
Letter to the Editor
The Cambodia Daily
Friday, May 11, 2007
I am shocked by reports that some young people do not believe that starvation, torture and mass killings really happened under the Khmer Rouge.
There are several reasons why this is missing from our young people’s minds. First, parents tend to take for granted their responsibility to refresh the memory of this holocaust. Perhaps they feel people’s lives are much better now and that the past should be left behind.
Second, our government has failed to adequately educate students about the regime. Third, many of us as victims are still struggling to understand the reasons behind the Khmer Rouge’s actions. Without this understanding, we have less to share. Finally, young people seem not recognize the importance of our history.
It is our shared responsibility to keep alive the truth about the Khmer Rouge to ensure a better, safer future. The new textbook on the regime published by Khamboly Dy is a great achievement. I implore people to pay serious attention to it. | <urn:uuid:a400132b-092a-4ab1-bd90-71e864d1218a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://socheata.com/2007/05/we-must-keep-truth-about-kr-atrocities-alive/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961426 | 226 | 1.96875 | 2 |
According to a recent CNN poll, three out of four Americans believe the recession is not over. Unemployment has not been this high for this long in most Americans’ lifetime. By every measure, the US economy is failing to recover from the Great Recession.
Every measure except one.
In the last 18-20 months, corporate profits climbed at the fastest pace on record. Non-financial companies are reporting the highest free cash-flow (profits after dividends and capital expenditures) in a half-century. Profit margins at S&P 500 companies are now above nine percent, approaching uncharted territory. Joseph Lavorgna, chief US economist of Deutsche Bank stresses, “Not only are we seeing a tremendous V-shaped recovery in corporate profits, but we are in fact seeing the biggest corporate profit recovery ever.”
The Greatest Recovery is turning the traditional formula on its head; corporate profits have not been a leading indicator of economic recovery, but a lagging indicator of Main St. impoverishment. Corporate America’s Greatest Recovery and the Great Recession are two sides of the same coin.
Worker-advocacy group Change to Win released the results of a recent survey which found that wage stagnation ranks as the most common impact of the Great Recession. Workers will believe in the recovery narrative when they see a raise in their paychecks. For now, productivity gains are going straight to their employers’ bottom line. Andrew Sum, professor of Economics at Northeastern University, concludes that the current expansion “has seen the most lopsided gains in corporate profits relative to real wages in our history.”
The Greatest Recovery marks corporate executives’ latest triumph in their decades-long campaign against labor. Since the Reagan expansion, US corporate profits exhibited a permanent tendency to soar at the expense of wages. The top one percent of income earners accrued nearly two-thirds of all economic growth. Profit margins expanded in an unprecedented super-cycle while workers struggled through increasingly lopsided, “jobless” recoveries. The last three expansions presaged the Greatest Recovery and defined its precise shape.
The unequal distribution of income between profits and wages is ultimately reflective of an unequal distribution of power between business and labor—at the workplace and in Washington.
President Obama signaled his commitment to continuity early on. Despite underestimating the rise of unemployment in late 2008 and early 2009, Obama’s advisors rejected the public employment option swifter than its counterpart in healthcare reform. President Obama initially defended the stimulus on the specific grounds that the private sector would create 95% of the jobs.
Some critics of the plan correctly argued that, given the decline in demand, the stimulus should have been larger. Size was not the only problem. Larry Summers, Obama’s former Chair of Economic Advisors, designed the stimulus to maximize GDP rather than employment—job creation, private sector included, was at best an incidental goal.
Twenty-six million Americans are presently unemployed or underemployed. According to Economic Policy Institute’s Heidi Schierholz: “If the rate of job growth were to continue at October’s rate, the economy would achieve prerecession unemployment rates (5% in 2007) in roughly 20 years.”
The Obama administration’s laissez-faire attitude towards the reeling labor market contrasts sharply with the direct assistance it provided to the financial industry. The two-dozen Treasury and Federal Reserve policies implemented during the financial crisis shared one overriding goal: prevent prices from falling (deflation) in the real estate, bond, and equity markets. Yet, the Obama administration ignored the Employee Free Choice Act even as the price of labor (wages and salaries) suffered the sharpest decline in fifty years. The administration’s economic policy regime compels workers to the free-market while protecting banks from its ruinous fallout.
President Obama’s refusal to resolve the unemployment crisis provides the corporate sector with a crucial, often overlooked, subsidy. High unemployment permits management to extort wage concessions and productivity gains from their anxious employees. An article in the December issue of The Economist explains, “Since the end of 2008 business-sector productivity has grown at an impressive annualized rate of 4.2% while hourly compensation has crept ahead by just 2.1%. Unit labor costs have fallen at an annualized 2% rate, the steepest cumulative decline since the 1950s. Profits owe their V-shape in great part to employment’s L-shape.”
The unemployment crisis qualifies as a national emergency; it’s also the foundation of the Greatest Recovery. | <urn:uuid:70633c52-1909-4ce4-a1cd-41ef5773d980> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/12/the-greatest-recovery/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941825 | 944 | 1.929688 | 2 |
Q. Is it possible to be over involved in college activities? My friends are critical of me since they focus on homework and fun. I’m getting stressed out by the things on my plate ranging from sorority rush chair and PRSSA vice president to working 10 hours a week. -RT
A. Don’t listen to your friends. There’s nothing wrong with being overly involved during your college years. There is no better time to gain a wide range of experiences that build towards your future career. My college career was one giant experiment in over commitment, but each activity provided insights that would have taken me years to discover in the outside world. As student newspaper editor, I learned how to be a better writer. As head of a college political group, I learned organizing skills and made important contacts that helped land my first job out of college. And the list goes on and on since my college resume might have had a mediocre GPA, but it was jammed with extra-curricular activities that supported my ultimate career goals. So, rather than getting stressed out, reassess your current commitments and focus on those that will have the most relevance to your future career. | <urn:uuid:dfe36a6a-3fa7-4a1c-88f0-de6faa94f334> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.culpwrit.com/2013/01/25/go-ahead-and-overcommit-to-extra-curriculars/ | 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 | 0.98079 | 239 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Transparency International Georgia Office in Parliament
The project purpose aimed at enabling Georgian parliamentarians to make informed decisions about draft laws by providing them with the advice of lower level specialists and by actively involving civil society in the legislative process and also at improving the transparency of information given by the parliament, thus better informing citizens about the work carried out by the parliament.
The TI Georgia Office conducted the following activities to achieve these goals by:
- Disseminating draft laws in advance and organizing public discussions about them. The Office was in constant communication with lawmakers, civil society organizations, interest groups and ordinary citizens both inside and outside Tbilisi. This ensured that interested parties could provide input on draft legislation through focus groups and roundtable discussions within the narrow timeframe for deliberation set by the legislative system in Georgia. TIG then consolidated this feedback and provided the recommendations in a single, accessible dossier while parliament was still considering the draft. This rapid response enabled the media, parliamentarians and the public to lobby for changes that strengthen transparency and reduce opportunities for corruption. Within a two-year period seven bi-annual reports were distributed and, correspondingly, a total of 19 focus groups were conducted in different districts in which a total of 261 people participated.
- Increasing parliament’s communication skills and distributing publications describing parliament’s work. TI Georgia built an active and intensive relationship with media and public relations services in parliament to ensure a maximum coverage of the comments and recommendations it had elicited. In order to improve parliament’s PR skills, TI Georgia conducted trainings for the speaker’s office, committees, factions, and majoritarian MPs’ offices. In a two-year period 14 trainings on five different topics were conducted for 95 parliamentary staff members. Participants spent a total of 12 days at the trainings. TI Georgia also assisted five parliamentary committees to prepare and publish bi-annual committee reports. The reports include information about committee members (e.g., party affiliation, attendance records, membership in different structures), the committee’s functions and goals, and its activities and accomplishments (legal drafting, reforms in respective spheres, research, oversight activities, public relations, etc.).
- Conducting a survey describing public opinion and expectations towards the parliament to further assist the Georgian parliament.
- Informing the public about newly adopted laws through the dissemination of comprehensive brochures explaining new regulations. TI Georgia prepared and published twelve brochures highlighting these adopted laws and ongoing reforms. | <urn:uuid:38461187-6ba3-4f15-a8b1-e0583b9a9cef> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.transparency.ge/en/grant/transparency-international-georgia-office-parliament | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936746 | 500 | 1.953125 | 2 |
Pierson is about a year old. For a dog his size, that means he is still a puppy. And a puppy means chewing. In my experience, dogs tend to love to chew for the first two years of their lives. Pierson has been no exception. Here are some tips to keep your dog from chewing that I am also using for Pierson.
The thing that best helped to keep my other dog Maya from chewing was crate training. Maya did very well in a crate so it was easy to teach her which things were hers to chew on. And crate training was an easy way to prevent her from chewing on things when we were not home. But crate training is not always easy, as we have found with Pierson. So if your dog hasn’t gotten used to his crate yet, there are still other things you can do to keep your dog from chewing.
Don’t Leave Stuff Lying Around
Putting things away out of your dog’s reach is a great way to keep your dog from chewing them. Put your shoes in the closet and close the closet door. Make sure small chewable things like toys or remote controls are put up. Put away his dog bowls when he is done eating. If your dog can’t get to these things, he can’t chew them.
Use Positive Reinforcement
If your dog still manages to find something he is not supposed to chew on, take it away and say ‘no’ in a firm voice. Then give him a toy he can chew on. Whenever he chews on his own dog toys, tell him he is a good dog. Give him praise or even a treat.
Make Sure Your Dog Has Plenty of Toys to Choose From
When your dog is in his crate, only give him indestructible dog toys to chew. But when he is out of his crate and you are able to keep an eye on him, give him lots of dog toys to choose from. Pierson has fleecy dog toys, Kong dog toys, other hard dog toys, a Tuffy’s dog toy, and a hard unbleached beef shin bone purchased from the pet store. We don’t recommend rawhides because if your dog tears off and swallows a big chunk, it can get lodged in his stomach causing great pain and even death. Be careful with any dog toy you give your dog. Make sure pieces cannot be torn off and swallowed. Watch him as best you can.
Squirt Bottle or Loud Noise
I have to admit that using a squirt bottle or loud noise to keep your dog from chewing is not a method I have used. I haven’t needed to. But this is what I have heard about how it works. When your dog chews on something he is not supposed to, squirt him with water or shake a can full of coins to make a loud noise.
Bitter Apple, Peppermint, or Cayenne Spray Chew Deterrent
To keep your dog from chewing things like furniture legs, pillows, plants, or other things which are not easy for you to keep out of his reach, try spraying these things with Bitter Apple spray deterrent or another spray chew deterrent. Bitter Apple and other chew deterrent brands can be purchased online or at a pet store. But if you have peppermint extract or cayenne pepper, you can make your own spray chew deterrent. Peppermint might be best for things you and your family touch regularly.
Having a young dog can be a lot of work. By being diligent, consistent, and patient, your young dog will grow up and out of these bad habits. My older dog Maya knows exactly which toys are hers (although she does get stuffed animals confused with her plush dog toys). If Maya can learn, your dog can too. You can keep your dog from chewing his way through your personal things. | <urn:uuid:3f478e29-45d5-4b02-bf4d-f81f1f57739d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://americandogblog.wordpress.com/tag/dog-toy/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974939 | 799 | 1.742188 | 2 |
In August of 2003, in a federal courtroom in San Francisco, a lawyer for the United States made an alarming statement. The court, the lawyer argued, was completely powerless to rule on the legitimacy of the Administration's detention policies at Guantanamo Bay: detainees could be held without charge or trial, without access to lawyers, and without any recognized rights under U.S. or international law. Would this be the case, the judges inquired, "even if the claims were that [the government] was engaging in acts of torture or that it was summarily executing the detainees?" Yes, replied the government lawyer. The judges were incredulous. "To our knowledge," they wrote, "prior to the current detention of prisoners at Guantanamo, the U.S. government has never before asserted such a grave and startling proposition." Gherebi v. Bush, 374 F.3d 727, 738 (9th Cir. 2004). (PDF file.)
The Supreme Court repudiated the government's position in the landmark Rasul decision, but the Administration has sought new ways to deny justice to the 500 men and boys still detained at Guantanamo. Today the Court will hear the case of Salim Ahmed Hamdan, Osama Bin Laden's driver, which began as a challenge to the Administration's unprecedented military tribunal system, but has grown in significance since the enactment of the disastrous "Detainee Treatment Act" (popularly known as "Graham-Levin," after Senate sponsors Lindsay Graham and Carl Levin), which purports to divest federal courts of jurisdiction over habeas corpus petitions submitted on behalf of Guantanamo detainees.
The military tribunal system at the heart of the case is terribly flawed, as the ACLU argued in a friend-of-the-court brief submitted in January. I had a chance to view some of the tribunal proceedings firsthand, and it's hard to imagine that, with the whole world watching, we can't do better than these kangaroo courts. The system, in the words of a former tribunal prosecutor, is "rigged," with "handpicked" members who "will not acquit the detainees." The President and Secretary of Defense — who, under military commission rules, are the final arbiters of guilt or innocence — have already publicly declared that the detainees are "bad people" and "among the most dangerous, best-trained, vicious killers on the face of the Earth."
Contrary to any established system of law — whether derived from the Constitution, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, or our international treaty obligations — the military commission rules do not guarantee an independent tribunal, an impartial appeal or the exclusion of tesimony obtained through coercive interrogation techniques, although the ACLU has obtained abundant evidence that the detainees at Guantanamo have been subjected to brutal and degrading treatment. (PDF file, obtained through ACLU FOIA requests) Finally, there is no guarantee that, in the unlikely event that a detainee were actually acquitted by a military commission, he would be released from custody, because the Administration has already designated the detainees "unlawful combatants." (For more related documents released to the ACLU under the Freedom of Information Act, see /torturefoia.)
But much more may be at stake today than the legitimacy of the military tribunals. The Administration has moved to dismiss the Hamdan appeal — as well as all other Guantanamo cases pending in the lower courts — on the ground that Congress has stripped the courts of habeas jurisdiction, and the detainees have no rights under the Constitution to challenge their indefinite detention and conditions of confinement. In a more refined way, the Administration is once again advancing the argument that so astonished the federal judges in San Francisco. Today we'll see whether the justices of the Supreme Court react similarly. | <urn:uuid:dc221938-4b10-4539-b4fd-8faf04e967b0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aclu.org/print/blog/national-security/whats-stake-hamdan-v-rumsfeld | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00053-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957308 | 754 | 2.109375 | 2 |
Contemporary Italian Farmhouse – Kurt Brunner Residence
Vienna-based design studio Bergmeister Wolf Architekten has completed the Kurt Brunner Residence project. Completed in 2011, this contemporary holiday home can be found in the village above Sterzing, South Tyrol, Italy.
According to the architects: “Out of a farmhouse with an old oven (made of stone) which were both fit for demolition a new holiday residence of the Brunner family should arise.
“Together with the historical chapel an ensemble on the mountain should come into existence. It was important for us to integrate a place to live, a sauna, a garage and a hen house into the landscape. All new buildings were inserted into the landscape without changing the topography. They should be separated according to their function, form and material and still create a unity because of their positioning.
We worked with the found, the discovered – the landscape as well as the remains of the old farmhouse like the stone wall and the traditional materials as for example the shingles from the chapel. The starting point was the old stone wall of the farmhouse for us. After a long search we finally found workers (stone artists) who were able to rebuild it according to old architecture without mortar.
The structure was covered with shingles following the roof also on the soffit, they were exposed to wind and weather already one and a half year before in order to achieve a relatively uniform weathering , a silvery tone. Simple materials, like the concrete ceiling which was roughly structured with laths, glass elements, as well as steel and wood characterise the interior. As a basic principle old materials were reused and combined with new ones.
“At the same time, a sauna box belongs to the ensemble which is stuck in the territory. The simple element was supplied with earth-coloured plaster. The roof of the contemporary Italian property is intensively covered with greenery. The jutting out and pending terrace is roofed but at the same time also open and offers a wonderful view over the valley.
On the other side there is the garage, an almost black cube in the landscape, covered with greenery, simple with small cut-outs and larch-wood laths. A game between architecture, landscape and art should come to life.”
Images courtesy of Günter Richard Wett.
Love Interior Design & Exotic Travel? Follow us.. | <urn:uuid:fd26fe9a-2790-4e2e-9292-4b0dbd44b966> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.adelto.co.uk/contemporary-italian-farmhouse-kurt-brunner-residence/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969434 | 506 | 1.648438 | 2 |
After five years of bickering, the FCC passed an Open Internet Report & Order on a partisan 3-2 vote this week. The order is meant to guarantee that the Internet of the future will be just as free and open as the Internet of the past. Its success depends on how fast the Commission can transform itself from an old school telecom regulator wired to resist change into an innovation stimulator embracing opportunity. One thing we can be sure about is that the order hasn’t tamped down the hyperbole that’s fueled the fight to control the Internet’s constituent parts for all these years.
Advocates of net neutrality professed deep disappointment that the FCC’s rules weren’t more proscriptive and severe. Free Press called the order “fake net neutrality,” Public Knowledge said it “fell far short,” Media Access Project called it “inadequate and riddled with loopholes,” and New America Foundation accused the FCC of “caving to telecom lobbyists.” These were their official statements to the press; their Tweets were even harsher.
Free marketers were almost as angry: Cato denounced the order as “speech control,” Washington Policy Center said it “fundamentally changes many aspects of the infrastructure of the Internet,” and the Reason Foundation said it will lead to “quagmire after quagmire of technicalities, which as they add up will have a toll on investment, service and development.”
Republican Congressional leaders made no secret of their displeasure with the FCC’s disregard for their will: Rep. Fred Upton (R, Michigan,) the incoming Commerce Committee Chairman called it a “hostile action against innovation that can’t be allowed to stand,” Rep. Greg Walden (R, Oregon,) incoming Chairman of the Subcommittee on Communications and Technology called it a “power grab,” and vowed to hold hearings to overturn it, while Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R, Texas,) Ranking Member of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee said the order “threatens the future economic growth of the Internet.” Setting Internet policy is indeed a Congressional prerogative rather than an agency matter, so the longer-term solution must come from the Hill, and sooner would be better than later.
Contrary to this criticism and to snarky blogger claims, not everyone was upset with the FCC’s action, coming as it did after a year-long proceeding on Internet regulation meant to fulfill an Obama campaign pledge to advance net neutrality. The President himself declared the FCC action an important part of his strategy to “advance American innovation, economic growth, and job creation,” and Senator John Kerry (D, Massachusetts) applauded the FCC for reaching consensus.
Technology industry reaction ranged from positive to resigned: Information Technology Industry Council President and CEO Dean Garfield declared the measure “ensures continued innovation and investment in the Internet,” TechNet supported it, and National Cable and Telecommunications Association head Kyle McSlarrow said it could have been much worse. At the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, we were pleased by the promises of a relatively humble set of the rules, less so with the final details; we remain encouraged by the robust process the FCC intends to create for judging complaints, one that puts technical people on the front lines. In the end, the order got the support of the only majority that counts, three FCC commissioners.
Most of us who reacted favorably acknowledged the FCC’s order wasn’t exactly as we would have written it, but accepted it as a pragmatic political compromise that produces more positives than negatives. The hoped-for closing of the raucous debate will have immense benefits on its own, as simply bringing this distracting chapter in the Internet’s story to an end will allow more time for sober discussion about the directions we’d like the Internet to take in its future development. There is no shortage of policy issues that have been cramped by the tendency to view net neutrality as the one great magic wand with the power to solve all the Internet’s problems: The FCC has work to do on freeing up spectrum for mobile networking, the Universal Service Fund needs to be reformed, and the National Broadband Plan needs to be implemented.
If the FCC’s approach proves sound, it might well be exported to other countries, forming the basis of a consistent international approach to the oversight of an international network developed on consistent standards of its own. Such an outcome would have positive consequences for the Internet standards community, which has its own backlog of unfinished business such as scalable routing, congestion management, security, and the domestication of peer-to-peer file sharing and content delivery networks to resolve. This outcome is far from inevitable; last minute rule changes make it less likely than it might have been.
The most important thing the FCC can do in implementing its system of Internet oversight is to elevate process over proscriptive rules. The traditional approach to telecom regulation is to develop a thick sheath of regulations that govern everything from the insignias on the telephone repair person’s uniform to the colors of the insulators on RJ11 cables and apply them in top-down, command-and-control fashion. Many of those on the pro-net neutrality side are steeped in telecom tradition, and they expected such an approach from the FCC for the Internet; theirs are the angry reactions.
But the Internet isn’t a telecom network, and a foot-high stack of regulations certainly would produce the negative consequences for innovation and progress the FCC’s critics have forecast. The appropriate way to address Internet regulation as to follow the model that the Internet has developed for itself, based on a small number of abstract but meaningful principles (each of which is subject to change for good reason) applied by a broad-based community of experts in a collaborative, consultative setting. Internet standards are not devised in an adversarial setting populated by angels and devils locked into mortal combat; they come from a process that values “rough consensus and running code.”
The specifics of the FCC’s order nevertheless give pause to those well-schooled in networking. A few hours before the Commission’s vote, Commissioner Copps persuaded Chairman Genachowski to reverse the Waxman Bill’s presumption regarding the premium transport services that enable Internet TV and video conferencing to enjoy the same level of quality as cable TV. Where the early drafts permitted these services as long as they were offered for sale on a non-discriminatory basis, the final rule arbitrarily presumes them harmful.
The order makes hash of the relationship of the content accelerators provided by Akamai and others to the presumptively impermissible communication accelerators that ISPs might provide one day in order to enable HD group video conferencing and similar emerging applications. The Commission majority fears that allowing network operators to offer premium transport to leading edge apps will put the squeeze on generic transport, but fails to consider that such potential downsides of well-accepted technical practices for Quality of Service can be prevented by applying a simple quota limit on the percentage of a pipe that can be sold as “premium.” This fact, which is obvious to skilled protocol engineers, goes unmentioned in the order.
The poor reasoning for this rule casts doubt on the FCC’s ability to enforce it effectively without outside expertise. By rejecting Internet standards such as RFC 2475 and IEEE standards such as 802.1Q that don’t conform to the telecom activists’ nostalgic, “all packets are equal” vision of the Internet, the FCC chose to blind itself to one of the central points in Tim Wu’s “Network Neutrality, Broadband Discrimination” paper that started the fight: A neutral Internet favors content applications, as a class, over communication applications and is therefore not truly an open network. The only way to make a network neutral among all applications is to differentiate loss and delay among applications; preferably, this is done by user-controlled means. That’s not always possible, so other means are sometimes necessary as well.
All in all, the Commission has built a stone too heavy for it to lift all by itself. The rules have just enough flexibility that the outside technical advisory groups that will examine complaints may be able to correct the order’s errors, but to be effective, the advisors need much deeper technical knowledge than the FCC staffers who wrote the order can provide.
It’s difficult to ask the FCC – an institution with its own 75 year tradition in which it has served as the battleground for bitter disputes between monopolists and public interest warriors – to turn on a dime and embrace a new spirit of collaboration, but without such a far-reaching institutional transformation its Internet regulation project will not be successful. Those of us who work with the FCC are required to take a leap of faith to the effect that the Commission is committed to transforming itself from a hidebound analog regulator into a digital age shepherd of innovation. Now that the Open Internet Report & Order has passed, we have no choice but to put our shoulders to the rock to help push it along. There’s no turning back now.
[cross-posted from the Innovation Policy Blog] | <urn:uuid:606037a5-ec28-41f3-99aa-d9672f36ad45> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://broadbandpolitics.com/2010/12/has-the-fcc-created-a-stone-too-heavy-for-it-to-lift/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949434 | 1,910 | 1.882813 | 2 |
Teterahedral elements generation
I am trying to reconstruct the 3D Mesh from the 3D grain reconstruction. So far, the mesh surfacegeneration seems to be ok, as no closeness, nor intersections, nor bad orientations appear in teh model. The problem is that it does not do anything. From tetragen, I click Run now, it takes its time to do it and nothing else. Not even error messages. I also save the grid data but it does not save it.
If I export the .wrl the file is extrangely small and another software able to read .wrl does not do it (so I am guessing is empty).
So is there anything wrong with the operation？ | <urn:uuid:ba04b4fa-34a1-4067-99cb-c440c62a7c3a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mc3dviz.com/avizo-forum/showthread.php?t=167 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00065-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937001 | 150 | 1.664063 | 2 |
GEORGETOWN (February 23, 2013)--Residents of Georgetown are looking for ways to stop feral hogs from ruining their lawns.
More than 40 residents attended a forum last week in Georgetown to discuss the animals' impact on the city.
The hogs live in groups called sounders along the San Gabriel River and nearby neighborhoods have become feeding grounds for the animals.
It’s against the law to shoot a pig within the city limits, but officials will work with home owners to try and control the animals, Assistant Georgetown Police Chief Cory Tchida said.
One option for residents is to hire professional trappers to trap the hogs and take them away, Tchida said. | <urn:uuid:be0b61b5-7c14-43d6-a314-13e77dcff005> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kwtx.com/news/local/headlines/Neighborhoods-In-One-Area-City-Are-Feeding-Grounds-For-Feral-Hogs-192718791.html?site=mobile | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958961 | 143 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Camps heighten kids’ knowledge of science, math
Think your kids are the next Albert Einstein or Madame Curie? Want to test their scientific prowess and expand their knowledge of all things math and science?
Look no further than the John McConnell Math and Science Center of Western Colorado’s summer camps.
If you have a little scientist, check out the Science Book Nook, which runs every Tuesday and Thursday. Kids will read a book and then do experiments related to their readings. This camp is available in two age groups: kindergarten and first grade, and second and third grades. Cost is $10 for members of the science center, or $12 for non-members.
Imagineers, which is designed for first and second graders, introduces kids to the power of engineering and challenges them to solve everyday problems. This half-day camp is $8 for members and $10 for non-members, and runs during the month of June.
Calling all sports fans with a scientific mind: Check out the Science in Sports camp to learn the physiology behind athletes’ moves. This camp for seventh through ninth graders is not to be confused with a sports skills-learning camp. The camp begins Aug. 1st and costs $80 for members and $100 for non-members.
Is your little scientist also the outdoorsy type? Check out the various camps related to our wonderful world. Exploring Earth’s Treasures is a four-part series focusing on rocks, gems and minerals in the Grand Valley, and concludes with a hike to the Mica Mine.
If bugs and playing in the dirt are more your style, try Creepy Crawly. Who knows? You may be the next entomologist. If you prefer animals that fly but don’t belong to the insect family, check out Science Sleuth, where you’ll partner with members of the Western Colorado Botanical Gardens and the Audubon Society as you learn about birds and natural resources. Or, use your engineering ingenuity to escape once you get lost in the Amazon Rainforest, in the Lost in the Amazon camp. Check out the event calendar at mathandsciencecenter.org for information about the camps, prices, dates and age limits.
The world’s population is aiming to get “greener” and more eco-friendly, and you can help. Check out River Rescue or Pollution Pirates to learn about pollution in the Colorado River, and what you can do to help save the environment.
The world needs more engineers, and what better way to test the waters than a straight-forward engineering camp? Your child can learn about hover cars and water turbines, and everything in between. Wild for Engineering and Engineering 101 is aimed for first-time engineers, while Engineering World and Engineering Connections cater to the more advanced engineers.
Explosions, liquid nitrogen and homemade bubble gum, oh my! Crazy for Chemistry is just right for those who want to explore the world of elements and compounds. This camp runs all day on Aug. 11th and 12th and is for third and fourth graders. Cost is $24 for members and $30 for non-members. No mad scientist hairstyle required.
Forget CSI Miami. Try CSI Grand Junction. Think you have what it takes to evaluate a crime scene, dust for fingerprints or examine shoe prints? This camp, which begins July 25, is for you. Campers will hear from members of the Colorado Bureau of Investigation to help solve “crimes.” The camp is open for sixth through eighth graders and costs $60 for members or $75 for non-members.
Entire families can get in on the scientific action this summer as part of Family Science Night the first Thursday of the month. Cost is $5 for families and no registration is required.
Each of the camps has been designed by math, science and engineering college students working at the center, and these “fellows” will lead the camps. Scholarships are available for those who can’t afford the full cost. Check out the events calendar at mathandsciencecenter.org for more information and to register. | <urn:uuid:4dcfb851-d439-4a8e-8d9e-eca635db2ae9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gjsentinel.com/opinion/articles/camps_heighten_kids_knowledge | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934707 | 854 | 3.25 | 3 |
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US 7108709 B2
A generally U-shaped surgical staple comprises a base 10 and a pair of generally “L”-shaped legs 12 extending substantially perpendicularly from opposite ends of the base respectively. The legs 12 in use of the staple are bent through approximately 90° relative to the base. To effect a greater compression of the stapled tissue the legs include a penetrative portion 16 adjacent the tip and a compressive structure 30 which, due to its increased height relative to that of the penetrative portion, spreads the compressive forces of the staple further along the length of the incision being closed. The compressive portion also provides a depth stop to avoid the tip penetrating too deeply into the tissue in which it is deployed.
1. A surgical staple comprising a base and a pair of legs each extending from an opposite end of the base, each leg having a penetrative portion terminating at a tip, the staple being deformable at a bend point on each leg to bend each leg relative to the base causing each tip to approach the other leg along a substantially arcuate path, wherein each leg further comprises a compressive portion located between a proximal portion of the leg extending from the base and the penetrative portion, and each compressive portion extending transverse to a plane containing said proximal portion such that each compressive portion has a height greater than a height of said proximal portion of said legs.
2. A surgical staple as claimed in
3. A surgical staple as claimed in
4. A surgical staple as claimed in
5. A surgical staple as claimed in
6. A surgical staple as claimed in
7. A surgical staple as claimed in
8. A surgical staple as claimed in
9. A surgical staple as claimed in
10. A surgical staple as claimed in
11. A surgical staple as claimed in
12. A surgical staple as claimed in
13. A surgical staple as claimed in
14. A surgical staple as claimed in
15. A surgical staple as claimed in
16. A surgical staple as claimed in
17. A surgical staple as claimed in
18. A surgical staple as claimed in
19. A surgical staple, comprising a base having first and second legs extending therefrom and bendable relative to the base at opposed ends of the base, each leg including a distal tissue penetrating tip formed thereon and a compressive member formed proximal to the distal tissue penetrating tip and having a size adapted to prevent passage of tissue there over when the distal tissue penetrating tips are inserted through tissue and bended relative to the base, wherein each leg including a proximal portion that is proximal to the compressive member and each compressive member extends in a direction substantially transverse to a plane containing said proximal portion of each leg such that each compressive member has a height that is greater than a height of said proximal portion of each leg.
20. The surgical staple of
21. The surgical staple of
22. A surgical staple, comprising a base portion having first and second leg portions extending from opposed terminal ends thereof, each leg being bendable at a bend point, and each leg including a compressive member formed thereon at a location between the bend point and a tissue piercing tip formed on the leg, wherein each leg including a proximal portion that is proximal to the compressive member and each compressive member extends substantially transverse to a plane containing said proximal portion of each leg such that each compressive member has a height that is greater than a height of said proximal portion of each leg.
23. A surgical staple, comprising a base having at least one curve formed therein, and a pair of legs extending from opposite ends of the base, each leg including a proximal portion bendable relative to the base, and a distal portion having a pair of tissue penetrating tips that are connected by a compressive bar, each compressive bar having a height that is greater than a height of the proximal portion of the leg, the heights being measured in a direction perpendicular to a plane containing the proximal portion of the leg.
24. The surgical staple of
This invention relates to a surgical staple.
Staples have been used in general surgery for many years, mainly for anastomosing tissue. Examples include skin staplers used to close a skin incision in place of the standard manual suturing process, and end-to-end and end-to-side bowel stapling instruments which are generally one shot devices used during bowel reconstruction procedures.
The staples used with these devices are generally manufactured from a metal or metal alloy material such as stainless steel or titanium. The majority are constructed from round profile wire and generally produced in a generally ‘U’-shaped configuration. The ends of the ‘U’-shape are normally pointed or sharpened so as to ensure easy tissue penetration. Examples of prior art in this area include U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,505,273, 5,026,390 and 4,719,917.
In clinical use the staples are delivered using a stapler device which generally consists of an anvil component positioned inside the ‘U’ between staple legs and in contact with the staple. A former component is positioned on the other side of the staple base, the gap between the forming arms of the former being approximately the width of the anvil plus two times the diameter of the staple wire. The head of the stapler device is normally positioned centrally across the slit or opening which is to be closed.
On activation of the device the staple legs are advanced forward so that they penetrate the tissue on both sides of the slit or opening. As the former is advanced further the legs of the staple bend around the anvil causing the tips of the legs to advance along an arcuate path toward each other so that the staple ultimately assumes a generally rectangular shape thereby compressing the tissue which has been trapped between the staple legs. This compression of tissue is the mechanism by which a closure is effected. Depending on the length of the incision or opening a series of staples will be delivered along its length in order to ensure a blood tight closure.
While this method of closing an incision is effective when a series of staples are used along the length of, the incision it is less effective when it is desirable to close the opening with the minimum number of staples. For example for an incision of 5-6 mm in length one round wire staple positioned centrally along the incision is insufficient to effect a closure as the compression due to the staple legs only acts in a limited area towards the centre of the incision, leaving the extremities open.
Also in situations where the tissue is soft and friable the narrow staple leg will have a tendency to tear through the tissue as they are bent around the anvil thereby decreasing the level of compression between the staple legs and causing unnecessary damage to the vessel wall.
In order to avoid complications such as clot formation, it is important to retain the staple legs within the vessel wall, i.e. avoid the penetration of the internal wall on the introduction of a foreign body into the lumen of the vessel. If the staple legs penetrate into the lumen of the vessel there is the added danger that excessive pressure from the staple gun may cause the vessel to collapse, which can lead to the legs penetrating the opposing vessel wall, i.e. stapling the vessel walls together and blocking the lumen of the vessel.
Therefore there is a need for an improved surgical staple which will more effectively close an incision, thereby requiring fewer staples to close an incision. In addition it would be advantageous to profile the staple legs so that they are less inclined to tear through softer tissue. Furthermore, it would be desirable to limit the depth of penetration of the staple legs to prevent the legs entering the lumen of the vessel.
Accordingly, the present invention provides a surgical staple comprising a base and a pair of legs each extending from an opposite end of the base, each leg having a penetrative portion terminating at a tip, the staple being deformable to bend each leg relative to the base causing each tip to approach the other leg along a substantially arcuate path lying in a plane, wherein each leg further comprises a compressive portion located intermediate the base and the penetrative portion, the compressive portion having a height greater than that of the penetrative portion, said heights being measured in the direction perpendicular to the plane defined by the arcuate path.
The advantage of the invention is that the improved surgical staple delivers a significantly increased area of compression between the staple legs once the staple has been deformed in use. The increased area of compression is achieved by providing the compression portion which tends to increase the contact area between the staple and the tissue against which it is bearing.
The invention is particularly useful in applications where the staple is permanently implanted inside the body. In such cases it is desirable to minimise the amount of metal which is needed to effect a positive closure. With existing stapler devices a series of staples need to be positioned along the length of the slit or tissue edges being anastomosed. Staples are normally positioned close together as any one staple will only compress a small amount of tissue on either side. Using staples with an improved compression capacity, as provided by this invention, will mean that a significantly lower number of staples is required to close any one incision.
The invention also has particular relevance in the area of vascular puncture closure. During this percutaneous procedure it is desirable to close the arterial puncture preferably with one staple. Again it is desirable that the staple contains the minimum amount of metal. However, it is important that once delivered the staple has generated enough compression along the length of the slit or hole to prevent any blood leakage. The direction of height of the compression portion normal to the plane of closure of the legs corresponds in use to the direction of length along the incision.
Embodiments of the invention will now be described, by way of example, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:
In the figures the same reference numerals have been used to indicate the same or equivalent components.
Referring first to
The free ends 18 of the staple legs are generally sharpened so as to ensure easy tissue penetration. In addition to penetrating the tissue the staple is also formed in use, to bring the free ends of the legs together and thereby hold closed a wound. By forming the staple, the staple is transformed from a generally “U”-shaped configuration to a generally rectangular shaped configuration during the delivery process. This occurs by bending the legs 12 through 90° relative to the base 10 of the staple at the point where the proximal portions of the legs meet the base (known as the bend points and denoted as points X and Y in the drawings) at points relative to the central portion 10 b.
FIGS. 2(a) to 2(c) are a sequence of views showing the process by which the conventional staple is deployed and deformed from a generally “U”-shape to a generally rectangular shape to effect a closure of a puncture hole or slit 20 in a vessel or other tissue 22. In
The invention solves this problem by increasing the height of a portion of the legs 12 (i.e. the height being the dimension perpendicular to the plane in which the staple legs bend during forming), in order to increase the effective contact area between the staple legs and the tissue as the staple is being deformed. Increasing the contact area in this way will help prevent the staple leg from tearing its way through the tissue but more importantly will create a much greater area of compression within the rectangle of the formed staple and radiating from it, so that this compression will be transferred over a much greater length of the slit or opening 20 in the tissue.
The process by which these improved staples achieve greater areas of compression over the length of an opening in body tissue is illustrated in FIG. 10.
The stapler of WO 02/19922 takes the form of a hollow shaft and a blood locator tube slidable axially within the shaft. The tube projects beyond the end of the shaft to enter a puncture site in a blood vessel, and blood flowing back through the tube and exiting the device indicates to the surgeon that the tip of the shaft (where the stapling head is located) is at the incision in the vessel. A surgical staple straddles the tube and is slidable thereon forwardly towards an anvil against which the staple may be deformed to staple together the opposite edges of the puncture site. A cam mechanism drives the staple forwardly along the tube into deforming engagement with the anvil and at the same time retracts the tube into the shaft in time to allow the legs of the staple to close onto the puncture site.
The staple of
The staple has a pair of legs 12 extending from the ends of the base 10. Each leg is generally “L”-shaped in plan view and comprises a proximal portion 14 and a distal portion 16 terminating at a pointed tip 18. In use (see also FIG. 12), the base 10 is held by an anvil (not shown) while forming arms of the stapler (not shown) push the proximal portions forwardly deforming the staple at bend points X and Y. The blood locator tube is withdrawn during this formation to ensure that as the tips 18 approach one another (ultimately coming to rest in the configuration of FIG. 12), they do not catch the locator tube.
Located on the distal portion 16 is a compressive portion 30 in the form of a bar extending at right angles to the distal portion. In this staple, therefore, the compressive portion and the penetrative portion are both located on the distal portion of the “L”-shaped leg. The penetrative portion is the part of the leg extending from the bar 30 to the tip 18. The forward surface 30 a of the bar provides a shoulder acting as a depth stop to prevent the leg penetrating the vessel wall too deeply. This feature can be used to ensure that the tip will not penetrate into the lumen of a blood vessel by designing the staple such that the distance between the front surface 30 a and the extremity of the tip 18 is less than the vessel wall thickness. The bar also serves as a compressive feature spreading the compressive forces provided by the staple along a length of the incision corresponding to the height H of the bar 30 (
By making the staple from a sheet material rather than from wire, another significant advantage is obtainable. The thickness of the material of the base (measured between the internal surface of the opening 32 and the corresponding external surface 34) is not constant but instead increases to a maximum at the apex of the horseshoe. This strengthens the structure against a tendency for the curve to distort as the staple is being formed. It has been found that the action of the former and anvil bending the legs relative to the base tends to cause the horseshoe curve to open out or flatten somewhat. It will be appreciated that this can lead to the staple deploying incorrectly, as the legs tend to deviate from the “straight-ahead” orientation during closure. Adding extra material to the curve toward the top selectively reinforces the curve at this point of maximum strain during forming and counteracts the tendency to distort.
Another important feature of the staple of
In addition, the respective tips 18 are bevelled oppositely to one another so that the leading edge 36 of the tip on the left-hand penetrative portion (as viewed in
Each leg 12 branches to a pair of tips 18 each having a penetrative portion 38. The two penetrative portions on each leg extend from the ends of a respective compressive portion 30 in the form of a curved bar which is generally perpendicular to both the proximal portion 14 and the penetrative portions 38. The bar 30 provides a shoulder acting as a depth stop and acts to spread the compressive forces of the staple along its length.
It can be seen from
The reason for the curvature of the bars 30 in the embodiment of
The embodiments described herein have “L”-shaped legs with a roughly 90° angle between proximal and distal sections. It will be noted that the compressive section can be on either the proximal section or the distal section. Furthermore, the legs need not take this “L”-shape and can instead be curved (e.g. in a quarter-circle), with the portion of leg adjacent the tip defining a penetrative portion and a compressive structure being located further along the curve towards the base.
To aid in staple formation the point at which the legs join the base can be weakened or provided by a notch, but in most cases this is unnecessary as the deformation between the anvil and former will cause the legs to bend correctly at the junction with the base.
The invention is not limited to the embodiments described herein which may be modified or varied without departing from the scope of the invention.
Citas de patentes | <urn:uuid:cfeecc39-a619-4243-bf39-5a7a01aa8b11> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.google.es/patents/US7108709?dq=flatulence | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953941 | 3,523 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Europe defended its record Wednesday in curbing Earth-warming greenhouse gas emissions as the countries of the world entered their third day of talks in Qatar on ways to tackle climate change.
Under pressure at UN negotiations in Doha to raise its emissions reduction target from 20 to 30 percent, the European Union said through its climate commissioner that other countries should also do more.
"Europe is doing its fair share," Connie Hedegaard insisted at a webcast press conference in Brussels.
The bloc is on track to meet its goal of emissions reductions of 20 percent by 2020 compared to 1990 levels and is poised to exceed it, thanks to support for greener fuels and cleaner technology, she said.
"We are not just resting on the laurels. We are actually trying despite all our economic difficulties to move on and still be in the lead, which we are," Hedegaard said.
The latest round of UN climate talks opened in Doha on Monday with developing countries and the EU staking out rival positions on the fate of the Kyoto Protocol, which binds rich nations to greenhouse gas emission caps.
Small island states most exposed to rising sea levels want the EU as a historical polluter to boost its emissions-slashing targets and bring forward the deadline for meeting them.
Hedegaard agreed that the world faced a "huge challenge" in the growing gap between targets and the actual emission levels required to hold climate change at a manageable two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) from pre-industrial levels.
UN climate chief Christiana Figueres reminded delegates at the Doha talks of the urgent need to cut emissions even further.
"International commitments to cut greenhouse gases and deal with the impacts of climate change are higher than they have ever been, yet are still not sufficient to prevent the global average temperature rising beyond the two degrees Celsius target," she said in a statement.
Hedegaard said the EU had convinced the conference presidency to call a five-hour ministerial meeting next week to discuss options to help boost short-term emission reduction targets, such as phasing out fossil-fuel subsidies.
Climate observers meanwhile urged the rich world to provide details on how it intended to boost funding for poor nation's greenhouse gas reduction efforts from $30 billion in the period 2010-2012 to $100 billion a year from 2020, as promised.
Failure to put a plan on the table by next week "could see this (conference) start to unravel," Tim Gore of Oxfam International said in a statement.
But Hedegaard said the details would probably not be finalised in Doha.
"We know that we have to come up with more money," said the commissioner.
"People are trying despite difficulties in their countries to come up with the money."
Explore further: EU on track for Kyoto and 2020 emissions targets | <urn:uuid:bc9380c6-7e8e-484a-b4b7-de183174e19f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://phys.org/news/2012-11-europe-defends-emissions-climate.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948804 | 575 | 2.625 | 3 |
Editor's note - we are starting a new series where expert guest bloggers post about topics covering topics such as buying guides and product tips. The first is by expert photographer Yathin - check out some of his mind bending photos here.
If you there's no way compose a photograph the way you want it to be, then why try? Photography, like many modern art forms, is the sum of technology and creativity. Creativity, like we all know, has no bounds. While it is a relatively easy to conjure up that out-of-world composition in our minds, by being a little creative, the ways to achieve it may not always be that easy. And even impossible sometimes. Surely then, learning about technology is the stepping stone for creative success in the photography world? And it's probably fair to say that technology sets limits for creativity in photography?
I've always believed that having the right equipment plays a major role in photography. We first need to define what we want to photograph and how well you want to photograph the chosen subject. It's an easier task than we think it is for someone who's just starting out. All need to do is to pick out a bunch of photographs that impressed us and say "I want to make pictures like that." Now if you have absolutely no knowledge of photography then that will probably get you nowhere. Even the best photographers in the world cannot tell all the equipment used in making a photograph just by looking at a print. However, it should be possible to create a theme from the chosen set of pictures. Themes like people, places, architecture, birds, landscape and such. It could well be that all your favorite photographs fall into a handful of themes. After that, choosing the right camera is like solving an enjoyable alegbraic equation! We just need to get a right balance of variants to meet our requirement (and budget!). Websites like WisdomTap.com help you do just that!
In the D/SLR world, which is pretty much the standard for the serious consumers and several professionals, photography equipment is all about picking the right body and right set of lenses. Unfortunately, lenses from one manufacturer will not work too well or not work at all on another manufacturer's camera bodies. It usually ends up a debate between Nikon and Canon when picking a manufacturer. While the smaller manufacturers make excellent cameras and bodies too, Nikon and Canon are a popular because they seem to have a wider range of equipment and are easier to sell or buy in the used market. The only reason I chose Nikon is because people I knew used Nikon and it was easier to share expensive equipment like lenses.
A serious travel and photography enthusiast like me tries to keep keep a good lens for each of the three main categories: wide-angle, normal and telephoto. The popularity of 35mm film cameras ensures that focal lengths of lenses are almost always specified in what they mean in the 35mm film world. A lens of focal length 50mm is considered normal and is most popular for portraits and photographing things which demand "what the eye sees" - because it corresponds to the focal length of our eyes.
28mm is considered wide and anything wider than that is ultra-wide. Wide angles are most popular for architecture and landscape photography. Lenses with focal lengths greater than 50mm are considered telephoto. Telephotos are further classified as medium-telephoto and super-telephoto. super-telephoto lenses are among the largest and most expensive lenses in the SLR world.
Having lenses covering focal lengths ranging from 28mm to 300mm should cover for most cases in photography. Generally, zoom lenses are popular at the lower end of the range with primes stronger in the telephoto range. Zoom lenses are versatile and very useful when you have no predetermined composition in mind - like when traveling for instance. Medium zooms like the 28-105mm lens are among the most popular lenses, just for their ability to cover a significant chunk of wide, normal and telephoto range.
While having the right equipment is very important, being comfortable using them is next most useful thing you can wish for in the field. While theoretical knowledge is a good start, experimenting and regular usage is the best way to master the equipment. Learning can be further accelerated by going out on photography shoots with more experienced photographers. Knowing your equipment is sometimes the difference between getting that once-in-a-lifetime shot or missing it! | <urn:uuid:f776ebde-4088-4293-aa0f-08c3cd22409d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.wisdomtap.com/2009/04/digital-slr-buying-tips.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961882 | 899 | 1.953125 | 2 |
In 1925, St Mirren player Willie Summers decided to take legal action against the Sunday Post newspaper for defamation of character.
It was a ground-breaking decision, and one that would have ramifications for the way football would be reported in the future.
Summers, a Scotland international, joined St Mirren in 1921, and soon became a first-team regular.
The offending words the high-profile Saints centre half took exception to were: “Willie Summers has been left out of the team in the last two matches, and Paisley is full of rumours regarding his absence. Willie, it is said, has been suspended by the club, and that other players were not long ago before the directors. An official statement is awaited with interest.”
Summers, a 33-year-old married dad-of-three, insisted the statement was false and calumnious, and that if the paper had inquired, they would’ve found that he had not been suspended by the club.
On the dates mentioned, the footballer – who was seeking damages of £250 – was unable to play owing to illness, and he said that the article had seriously damaged his reputation.
As soon as Summers had been told of the newspaper story, he had visited Saints’ directors, who instructed him to see a solicitor.
In court, Summers said that the only off-field misdemeanours a player would be suspended for were immorality, drunkenness or dishonest conduct. That was why he was so angry.
There was no problem with his club, insisted Summers, but he was regularly stopped and had his morals questioned. Even his wife had been harassed.
It was his desire to obtain from the jury an award in his favour that would enable him to say: “There is the answer to this paragraph.”
Representatives of the Sunday Post denied slander, and insisted their statement implied no reflection on the player’s character or ability.
In fact, the lawyer acting on behalf of the paper suggested that the career of Willie Summers might have been enhanced by the story.
He said: “The pursuer has played in all games for St Mirren since the story was reported, and has been called up by Scotland. He has also been re-engaged on more favourable terms for next season.”
There then followed a lengthy lull in proceedings at the Court of Session while both sides decided on the true meaning of slander.
When cross examined by the defenders, Summers revealed that he was paid £7 a week by St Mirren, with an extra £1 for every point gained. His new contract would amount to £8 a week with a guaranteed benefit of £500.
He stated that after the paragraph had been printed, he had lost out on a big-money move to Preston North End, and the retraction printed by the Sunday Post hadn’t helped him in any way.
Character witnesses John Wilson, a coal merchant; Robert Russell, wine and spirit merchant; and John Murray, clothier, all of Paisley, spoke on behalf of Mr Summers before the case ended, and the jury retired to deliberate.
On resumption, Summers had his claim upheld and was awarded £100 by the Court of Session, to which Mr Duncan, the managing editor of the Sunday Post displayed his dissatisfaction. | <urn:uuid:6af166fb-7ef6-4a9e-957f-9cf35d926626> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://icrenfrewshire.icnetwork.co.uk/tm_headline=winning-summer-for-saints-defender&method=full&objectid=32727960&siteid=87085-name_page.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.992807 | 687 | 1.625 | 2 |
Shiva Tripura Samhara Thandava Moorthi
- The Ego Capturer, Mind Purifier and Destroyer of Evil - The Worshippable Lord of 2008
In 2007, the Lord graced us as Shiva Gaja Samhara Moorthi, the ego annihilator.
January 2008 IssueThis Tripura Samhara Thandava Moorthi avatar is the worshippable Lord for this year 2008 as revealed in the January 2008 issue of the Ashram monthly magazine published in December 2007.
The Full and Complete Daily Darshan for 2008The Siddhas of the Agasthiar Lineage hail the Tripura Samhara Tandava Moorthy avatar form (shown in the Agasthiar Ashram painting above) as the full and complete darshan of the Lord.
With 16 hands, 21 devas and deities, 51 maharishis, countless Siddhas as ornaments, decorations and weapons, and with Sri Tripura Samhara Prachanda Skanda Muruga and Mother Tripura Sundari at His side, this full and complete darshan must be viewed by everyone of us every day throughout 2008.
To get this daily darshan easily throughout 2008, make this image the desktop background on your computer. You can also get 2008 calendars with this picture at the Ashram store. Either way, make sure you get this daily darshan throughout 2008.
Daily Worship of the Ego "Capturer" throughout 2008
"mamathaiyai maayaiyaal kavarndhu theervu alikkum divyamaana vazhipaadu." The Sathguru has thus conveyed the deep significance of Shiva Tripura Samhara Moorthi worship in just one sentence. A simple explanation follows.
When the Lord manifested this ego "capturer" avatar, He not only destroyed the evil Tripura asura demons, He also taught the Devas and us a very important lesson.
Being tormented by the Tripura asuras, the Devas sought refuge at the Lord's feet, but when the Lord set out to destroy the evil forces, the Devas thought they were going to be of help to Him! This is the mamata or the "I am the doer" thought. This thought, especially while being at the Lord's side, is a major stumbling block on the spiritual path.
But till the end, the Lord did not do or say anything to change the thoughts of the Devas. On the contrary, He played along till the very end. This was His maya at work.
At the end, when He destroyed the evil forces with but a look, the Devas realized that they were most certainly not the doers and the Lord alone is the doer.
Thus the Lord "captured" their mamata ego without saying anything to that effect! He made them realize on their own that they have to discard the "I am the doer" thought if they are to advance on the spiritual path.
The Devas realized that the Lord does not need anyone's help. This should be obvious, yet how many of us think that we can be of help in the Lord's cause!
So the great lesson that the Lord taught the Devas is valid to this day. It is of utmost significance to everyone who is interested in spirituality.
The Daily Darshan Hymn for 2008Sathguru Venkataraman has given to us a six line hymn composed by the Siddha, Kunchithapaadha Kaviraya in honor of the Lord of 2008, Sri Shiva Tripura Samhara Thandava Moorthi. Here are the six lines of the hymn transliterated into English text along with meanings:
Reciting this hymn a minimum of 1008 times daily throughout 2008 is highly beneficial, say the Siddhas of the Agasthiar Lineage.
You can see below a short clip that contains a recitation of this hymn by an Agasthiar Ashramite.
Lord Ganesh of Achirupakkam[Some excerpts from the January 2008 issue of our Ashram monthly magazine]
Lord Tripura Samhara Thandava Murthi first showed this avatar form to Lord Ganesh.
The Lord Himself worshipped Lord Ganesh of Achirupakkam, thus setting the example that Ganesh should first be worshipped before starting anything at all.
Lord Muruga as Sri Tripura Samhara Prachanda Skanda[Some of the original Siddha revelations of Sathguru Venkataraman on Sri Tripura Samhara Prachanda Skanda Muruga from pages 2, 50 and 51 of the January 2008 issue of our Ashram monthly magazine released in December 2007. This Siddha wisdom was not available anywhere else till these pages were published in our magazine.]
A "never give up" attitude, within the bounds of dharma, is essential on the spiritual path. This attitude should be nurtured with every breath to ensure that one's spiritual life is on a firm footing.
Only as faith grows stronger and stronger will one get this "never give up" attitude to do good deeds even amidst obstacles and problems. But how can one get this deep faith? By the worship of Tripura Samhara Prachanda Skandha.
You can see the divine form of Tripura Samhara Prachanda Skandha Muruga with His hands held together in worship of Lord Shiva in the Ashram Painting above.
You can also see a larger view of Tripura Samhara Prachanda Skandha Muruga clipped right from our Ashram painting below.
It was Tripura Samhara Prachanda Skanda Muruga who announced the Lord's Tripura Samhara Thandava Moorthi avatar to the universe at large.
The potency of Tripura Samhara Prachanda Skanda is present in many Muruga shrines, but the Siddhas of the Agasthiar Lineage point to the Muruga in the Ozhalur Sri Agastheeswara temple as the One who symbolizes Tripura Samhara Prachanda Skanda. As pointed out on page 51 of the Jan 2008 issue of our monthly magazine, this temple is near Chengalpet which is near the city of Chennai in the south of India.
Maha Guru Agasthiar worshipped the Muruga of Ozhalur as did many Siddhas and Maharishis who witnessed the Shiva Tripura Samhara Thandava Moorthi avatar.
Doubting God, questioning God, thinking that one has done a lot of worship and yet God has not answered one's prayers - all these are telltale indications of lack of faith in God. Rather, one must learn that worship is the chief duty of a human! To learn this, deep faith in God is important. The big blessing that Tripura Samhara Prachanda Skanda gives us is that He blesses us with that deep faith in God that can help us make rapid spiritual progress. Can there be a bigger favor on the spiritual path than this? But this is exactly what Tripura Samhara Prachanda Skanda Muruga is willing to give us.
Bad habits and bad associations can shake one's faith. To not fall prey to these, worship Tripura Samhara Prachanda Skanda Muruga.
When you pray to Tripura Samhara Prachanda Skanda Muruga, request the blessing of deep faith in God Almighty Himself - the kind of faith that will help you progress spiritually. Asking Lord Muruga for faith in anything else would be trivializing His Divine Intent to carry us forward on the spiritual path. Page scans below.
Please use the full name of the Avatar
Worship ProcedureHere are Siddha rules for worshipping the Lord of 2008:
[These are some of the original Siddha revelations of Sathguru Venkataraman on Sri Tripura Samhara Prachanda Skanda Muruga from pages 2, 50 and 51 of the January 2008 issue of our Ashram monthly magazine released in December 2007. This Siddha wisdom was not available anywhere else till these pages were published in our magazine.]
Page Scans from our January 2008 IssueFor those who are conversant with the Tamil language, here are links to pages from our January 2008 issue that revealed the Tripura Samhara Prachanda Skanda Avatar of Lord Muruga to the world for the first time. When you click on these, they will open in a new window. Since each scan is large, your browser may display them in reduced form. Just click on the scan to make the browser display it in its original size. | <urn:uuid:9850f55c-d49b-4c97-9ae6-e667807725db> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://agasthiar.org/AUMzine/0021-shiva-tripura-samhara-thandava-moorthi-2008.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932816 | 1,813 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Common Challenges in Managing Diabetes
Certain key, well-known risks for patients with diabetes can be critical to controlling diabetes adequately enough to maintain health.These related problems can acerbate other secondary conditions connected to diabetes. Maintaining healthy weight and good cardiovascular condition stand at the top of this list of factors that can safeguard overall wellness or lead to a worsening of a variety of diabetic conditions.
Heart health and weight control can help patients with diabetes to lower risk of:
- orthopedic problems;
- high cholesterol and triglycerides;
- effects of sedentary lifestyle;
- peripheral circulatory problems;
- chronic ulceration;
- high blood pressure;
Patients must look to their healthcare providers for essential guidance on how to take control of these common challenges. Here, patients often find the role of the practice or clinic nurse to be especially important. These healthcare professionals can serve a vital role in:
- tracking and coaching diabetes patients;
- making sure patients undergo all needed tests and get to their many appointments;
- checking with patients to make sure they are testing their blood sugar, and getting advice on exercise and diet.
It's also important to know that drugs for diabetes are under improvement. The right combination of them can help patients significantly, including in managing blood sugar, lower blood pressure, control cholesterol and help guard against arterial plaque.
Sources of support for patients also include other diabetic patients, as well health clinics and senior centers that may offer special programs, exercise facilities and classes, as well as screenings and check-ups for blood pressure, blood sugar and other factors. The Lourdes Wellness Center offers monthly screenings for diabetes. | <urn:uuid:c5ea7306-7f02-47c8-8d5b-eba2b5d9fe54> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lourdesnet.org/services/diabetes-challenges.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933779 | 340 | 2.828125 | 3 |
NEW HAVEN — Presidential inaugurations are where statecraft and stagecraft merge in the service of history.
Yale University professor and poet Elizabeth Alexander understands this better than most. She composed and recited a poem for Barack Obama’s first inauguration in 2009, and she’ll be on hand as a spectator for Obama’s second inaugural on Monday.
“What good art does is, it stills us for a moment,” Alexander said. “It allows us to behold and to receive. An inauguration is meant to still time a moment, after the heat of the election, and remind us we are all Americans.”
Alexander, who is chairwoman of Yale’s African American studies department and a professor of English, took part in an online Yale video event this week, “The Art of Inauguration.” Yale theater historian Joseph Roach joined her for the 45-minute discussion.
“There are great precedents that the president must feel right now, such as Lincoln’s second inaugural address,” Roach said. He added that “the opportunity to speak to everyone, as everyone’s president, is a great challenge and opportunity. It’s an occasion to step back and think about the larger enterprise” in which the country is engaged.
“I feel like we don’t expect inaugural speeches to be issue-y,” Alexander said. “We don’t expect to talk about gun control.”
Instead, we bring the nation’s great poets, musicians and singers to Washington, D.C., for an outdoor celebration of democracy in the middle of January.
Four years ago, Alexander recited “Praise Song for the Day,” which she wrote expressly for the inauguration. Well before the event, she consulted with an actress friend about her delivery. She also memorized the poem, kept spare copies handy and practiced speaking it aloud.
It’s fortunate she did so, she said, because the first time she read the poem aloud, “I burst into extended sobs and thought, ‘Good thing I got that out of the way.’”
Roach said participants at an inauguration are literally and figuratively “talking to the horizon,” because the event carries such immense historical and cultural significance. He cited John F. Kennedy’s inaugural in 1961, where Robert Frost delivered a poem.
“I remember it as a seventh grader,” Roach said. “We stopped class. It’s a vivid memory. It’s part of how I view myself as a citizen.”
Roach’s only quibble with Obama’s first inauguration was the revelation that as cellist Yo-Yo Ma performed, the audience was listening to a taped version of the music. An inauguration should strive for complete authenticity and transparency, he explained.
“It’s the humanity of it. Much like in a democracy, you don’t always get it right the first time,” Roach said.
On Monday, Richard Blanco will become the fifth poet to take part in an inauguration, joining Frost, Maya Angelou, Miller Williams and Alexander. Alexander said she hopes future presidents will continue the tradition, because writers and performers bring a unique sort of commentary to the proceedings.
“There are some things art can say that political speeches can’t say, or won’t,” she explained. “There are tones, there are nuances, that we aren’t likely to hear in political speech.”
Whatever happens Monday, Alexander will be there in person to hear it. Only this time, she probably won’t be sitting up front next to Aretha Franklin. | <urn:uuid:e222b6cf-7244-476a-a005-2a56a314f749> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.berkshireeagle.com/politics-national/?third_party=inauguration-will-be-a-high-profile-moment-for-poetry | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951029 | 800 | 1.90625 | 2 |
Advanced Attack Helicopter (AAH) (1970-1981)
In August 1972 the Army canceled the Cheyenne helicopter program and started to develop an Advanced Attack Helicopter (AAH), a twin engine, single rotor helicopter designed specifically for use against tanks. Cost and performance characteristics were defined, and, with the approval of the Deputy Secretary of Defense, the Army on 15 November 1972 invited industry to submit proposals for production prototypes. Bell and Hughes helicopter companies were selected to produce the prototypes. The Advanced Attack Helicopter program was won by the Hughes (model 77) YAH-64 in competition with the Bell YAH-63 (1976).The Army stated that the AAH will be superior to the current attack helicopters in its ability to hover out of ground effect, and operate day or night in adverse weather. The AAH will also have a higher degree of agility, heavier fire support capability, and better survivability than current attack helicopters. The AAH was also intended to have better maintainability than current helicopters. Army force structure plans envisioned a mixed attack helicopter fleet of AH-1 Cobras and AAH's. Fixed-wing fighters will complement the attack helicopters in accomplishing the overall close air support mission. The Advanced Attack Helicopter was to be a twin engine, rotary wing aircraft designed as a manned aerial weapons system. The Army envisioned it would be capable of defeating a wide range of targets and of performing its mission at night and under adverse weather conditions. The AAH would also be an integral element of ground units and contribute mobile and effective firepower to the anti-armor capability of the Army in the field. Alrcraft armament would include the TOW anti-tank missile system, a 30 millimeter automatic cannon, and 2.75 inch rockets. In January 1972, a special Army Task Force was established to make an in-depth study of the operational requirements for an attack helicopter in the 1975 to 1985 timeframe. The study was based on analytical Investigatlon, supplemented by engineering flight tests of Sikorsky's Blackhawk, Lockheed's Cheyenne, and Bell's King Cobra Attack hehconter prototypes; field experiments; and Southeast Asia combat experience. As a result of the Task Force report issued in August 1972, the Army approved the initlatlon of a new development program for an AAH. In November 1972, the Army approved a new Materiel Need document for an attack hellcopter system which would provide greater agility, hover performance and heavier aerial fire support capablllty than currently possessed by existing Army weapons systems. The Army considered the AAH as its primary attack helicopter and a key factor in future military operations. The AAH was structured as a competitive prototype phase of engineering development. Two airframe contractors are competing during this phase and each fabricated two flying prototypes and one ground test vehicle. Three additional flying prototypes would be constructed by the winning contractor during full-scale development. The Cost Estimate for AAH Program Acquisition Cost in the Selected Acquisition Report (SAP) of September 30, 1973, (which was the first SAR for the AAH Program) was $1,811.4 mlllion. This includes an increase of $11.2 million over the Planning Estimate of $1,800.2 milllon reflected in the MH Development Concept Paper, approved May 17, 1973, by the Deputy Secretary of Defense. The Army planned to purchase 9 development, which includes two ground test vehicles, and 472 procurement hellcopters at a program unit cost of $3.8 million. This Current Estimate included all identified acquisition costs of the program. However, the Army had not yet estimated the logistic support/additional procurement costs for the AAH, which were applicable for the SAR. The Deputy Secretary of Defense specified a $1.6 mllllon (in 1972 constant dollars) design-to-cost goal for the AAH unit recurring flyaway cost based upon a procurement of 472 aircraft produced at an average rate of 8 per month. This meant that the Army and its contractors were to design a hellcopter which will cost, on the average, no more than $1.6 million each to fabricate . When research and development, spares, support equipment, and other acquisition costs were added to this cost goal, it translated to a program unit cost of $3.8 million m FY 1973 escalated dollars. On November 10, 1972, the Deputy Secretary of Defense authorized release of the AAH Request for Proposal. The request, as issued to industry on November 15, 1972, specified a development program, including Government competltlve testing and a $1.4 to $1.6 mllllon (constant Fiscal Year 1972 dollars) design-to-cost constraint on production unit recurring flyaway cost. The Government stated it intended to award two engineering development contracts in order to achieve the maximum technical and cost benefits from competition. Each offeror was required to design, develop, fabricate and test two AAH prototypes and one ground test vehicle. The Government did, however, reserve the right to award a single contract for five prototypes and one ground test vehicle. On February 15, 1973, five contractors responded with proposals. An Army Source Selection Evaluation Board reviewed the proposals and negotiated contracts with each offeror. Board findings were submitted In June 1973 through the Source Selection Advisory Council to the Secretary of the Army for the selection decision. Airframe development contracts were awarded to Bell Helicopter Company (Bell) and Hughes Helicopters (Hughes) in association with Hughes Aircraft Company on June 22, 1973, for the competitive phase of engineering development. The General Electric Company provided the engines for the competitive flight test program under a July 23, 1973, modification to the company's Utility Tactxal Transport Aircraft System engine contract with the Army. Two flying prototypes and one ground test vehicle per contractor were fabricated during the competitive development phase. 'Three additional flying prototypes were to be constructed by the winning contractor durxng fullscale development. On March 6, 1972, the Army signed a contract with the General Electric Company for the design, development, qualiflcatlon and support of the T-700-GE-700 gas turbine engine for the Utility Tactical Transport Aircraft System. The contract was modified on July 23, 1973, to provide engine support for the AAH competitive flight test program. General Electric was to deliver four ground test and 32 flight test engines for the AAH program. The $20.3 milkon target price for the AAH engines did not include any design, development, or qualiflcatlon costs. However, any additional qualification testing or hardware fabrication efforts unique to the AAH was incorporated into the General Electric contract by supplemental agreement. On November 29, 1973, the General Electric contract was modified to include a production design-to-cost obJective of $78,700 (average recurring price in FY 1972 constant dollars) based on 4,700 production engines, including both AAH and Utlllty TactIcal Transport Aircraft System engines. The design-to-cost objective was based primarily upon total buy, schedule, and performance parameters. Variance of one or all of the parameters could impact on the design-to-cost objective. An incentive fee toward the accomplishment of that objective was establlshed within the contract's existing maximum and minimum fee limitations. No change was made to total contract target fee or cost. For the first 30 days of the contracts, the contractors were limited to clarifying their efforts toward achieving the program's design-to-cost goal of $1.6 million unit recurring flyaway cost. For this 30-day effort, the Deputy Secretary of Defense directed that Government obligations to the airframe contractors would not exceed $1 million each. No increase in target cost or fee was authorized for the effort. Practical design trade-offs were to be identified which would reduce unit production cost, wlthout degrading the minimum performance characteristics in the contract. Initial trade-offs were accomplished and incorporated into the alrframe contracts by modification. Both contractors were given authority on July 20, 1973, to continue with their engineering development programs. The Army requested OSD to approve a new schedule which will change the initial production contract award date from April 1978 to January 1979. This revised schedule also contained a new Initial Operational Capability date which is five months later than the date shown in the September 30, 1973 SAIL The first production dellvery date was not expected to be changed from April 1980. The need to reschedule the contract award date was primarily caused by an extentlon of the second phase of engineering development by approximately six months as agreed during contract negotletions. The operational capability date was changed to comply with a new standard Army definition of achievement of Initial Operational Capability. This change was caused only by the new definition and not by a change to the program. As of March 11, 1974, the revision had not been approved by OSD. The tests on the first General Electric T700 engine for the Utility Tactical Transport Aircraft system began February 27, 1973, five days ahead of the schedule milestone date for First-Engine-to-Test. The design specification for the General Electric T700 production engine was 1,536 horsepower. As of December 31, 1973, General Electric's engine testing had attained 1,600 shaft horsepower. The initial flight test engine for the AAH was scheduled for delivery in November 1974. The airframe contractors' prototype hellcopters were tested and evaluated by the Army during the competitive flyoff, scheduled to be conducted from December 1975 through March 1976. Each of the flying competitive prototypes were instrumented and had basic weapon fixing systems installed and functional. Target acquisition, tracking equipment, and fire control systems were not installed. The flight tests during competitive development wwere to determine basic airframe and engine performance, and establish safe operating conditions for future testing. Flight testing during full-scale development were to expand the vehicles' performance limits and test all integrated subsystems, Each of the three flying prototypes to be fabricated during this phase of development had all systems installed and operable. Both airframe contractors and the engine contractor were required to establish, maintain and use Cost/Schedule Control Systems, in accordance with DOD Instruction 7000.2, Performance Measurement for Selected Acquisitions. General Electric's system was reviewed and formally accepted on August 15, 1973. Neither Bell's nor Hughes' system had been approved for the AAH program as of December 31, 1973. An Army official said that the Army withheld validation of Bell's system until a minor problem regarding charging of overhead 1s resolved. Hughes' validation was dependent upon the contractor's correction of current discrepancies. The Army assisted Hughes so that their system can be validated as quickly as possible. Both Bell's and Hughes' systems were forecast for validation before the end of June 1974. General Electric submitted monthly Cost Performance Reports on its projected program in accordance with contract requirements. The contractor's September 1973 report showed that the AAH engine program was 4.6 percent schedule and 57.2 percent under cost. According to General Electric, the variances were primarily caused by lower than anticipated airframe manufacturer support requirements and delays in shifting emphasis to the AAH program. Both airframe contractors submitted monthly Cost Performance Reports on their internal cost and schedule projectlons. However, Hughes' September 1973 report showed only actual cost of work performed. No budgeted cost figures were reported. Since Hughes' and Bell's Cost Schedule Control Systems were not validated, precise measurement of performance could not be initially be accomplished. By early-1974, both contractors were slightly behind schedule and over cost. In large part, this can be attributed to the unprogrammed 30-day cost validation effort prior to full go-ahead for the contracts. This additional effort beyond the original statements of work delayed the scheduled start of design work and resulted in additional costs. Army testing of the Advanced Attack Helicopter (AAH) provided an example of the type of activities that occur during development testing/ technical testing. The early DT&E of the AAH was conducted by the Army Engineering Flight Activity (EFA). The test was conducted in conjunction with an Early Operational Assessment (EOA), and candidate designs were flown more than 90 hours to evaluate flight handling qualities and aircraft performance. This test also included the firing of the 30 millimeter cannon and the 2.75-inch rockets. Reliability, Availability, and Maintainability (RAM) data were obtained throughout the test program; and these data, along with RAM data provided from early contractor testing, became a part of the system's RAM database. After evaluating the results, the Army selected a contractor to proceed with the next development phase of the AAH. During the contractor competitive testing of the Army AAH, prime contractor and subcontractor testing included design support tests, testing of individual components, establishing fatigue limits, and bench testing of dynamic components to demonstrate sufficient structural integrity to conduct the Army competitive flight test program. Complete dynamic system testing was conducted utilizing ground test vehicles. Besides supporting the contractor's development effort, these tests provided information for the Army technical review process as the systems, Preliminary Design Reviews (PDRs), and Critical Design Reviews (CDRs) were conducted. Following successful completion of the ground test vehicle qualification testing, first flights were conducted on the two types of competing helicopters. Each aircraft was being flown 300 hours before delivery of two of each competing aircraft to the Army. The contractor flight testing was oriented toward flight-envelope development, demonstration of structural integrity, and evaluation and verification of aircraft flight handling qualities. Some weapons system testing was conducted during this phase. Government testers used much of the contractor's testing data to develop the test data matrices as part of the government's DT and OT planning efforts. The use of contractor test data reduced the testing required by the government and added validity to the systems already tested and data received from other sources. The advanced attack helicopter (AAH) remained one of the Army's high-priority items in 1976. Contractors completed developmental flight tests on the AAH airframe, and four prototype aircraft were delivered to the Army in May 1976. Competitive testing was completed in September and selection of a winner was expected in December 1976. In February 1976, the Defense System Acquisition Review Council approved the full-scale development of the Hellfire modular missile system as the primary antitank weapon on the advanced attack helicopter. This decision followed cost and operational effectiveness analyses that indicated an advanced attack helicopter armed with the Hellfire missile would be more effective than one armed with the TOW. On 30 March 1976 the Deputy Secretary of Defense authorized the full-scale engineering development of the laser HELLFIRE. It was also decided to arm the Advanced Attack Helicopter (AAH) with the HELLFIRE. Following the review council decision for the Hellfire missile development, a request for proposals was released. Proposals from Hughes Aircraft Company and Rockwell International were under evaluation.
|Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list| | <urn:uuid:9553c27e-e8a4-496d-b254-7890abc0408e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/aah.htm | 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 | 0.967587 | 3,044 | 2.484375 | 2 |
Dead Zones, Weed Nests, and Manure Mishaps: How Gardeners Cultivate Collective Place in Eagle Heights Community Gardens
- Thesis (8.727Mb Microsoft Word)
- Jan 2011
- Manure; Weed Nests; Dead Zones; Gardeners; Community Gardens; Eagle Heights
- The garden plots of Eagle Heights Community Gardens stretch for eight acres up a hillside on the west side of the University of Wisconsin at Madison's campus. Individual gardeners shape much of the space in this allotment-style community garden: their plots join together into a cohesive landscape. Bent water spigots, flowering Canada thistle, and trailing butternut squash vines fill the Gardens. At the beginning of the growing season you can see all the way up the brown hillside, where debris from last year provides hiding places for multitudes of mice. By the middle of August, masses of vegetation hide gardeners who assiduously tend their plots, weeding and harvesting. Everything is brown again in October, plants slowly dying amidst thriving cool-weather spinach and kale. Residents of Eagle Heights began gardening near their apartments in 1960. They arranged for plowing of a common space that they then filled with personal gardens. The Gardens you can walk through today, however, are not the same as those cultivated years ago. Gardeners continuously modify areas of shared concern by redefining what they hold collectively and therefore what they must manage together. This history of Eagle Heights Community Gardens probes how human beings define collective resources and manage them: a process that depends not only on social beliefs but also on our tangible interactions within a landscape. This is a narrative of how collective responsibilities in the Gardens change through time and how they are affected by cultural beliefs and the tangible work of cultivation. This also is a story of how a group of people navigates the boundaries between individuals and communities, between one physical space and another. Places and communities are always personal: they physically exist, yet we bring our own experiences and interpretations to them. I am, therefore, present in the following history. My argument is that what gardeners hold as common changes with shifts in people?s perceptions of the Gardens: it will be helpful, then, for you to see what place of the Gardens is for me. As I worked on this project, I was slowly drawn into the Gardens of today: participating in the Garden Committee and the decisions it makes; getting to know the people whose invisible labor maintains common spaces; forming friendships with those around me. The Gardens swallowed me, so I will always be present in the following stories: in my descriptions of how I physically experience the Gardens, in the questions I asked of previous gardeners, in what I decide to include and omit. I cannot remove myself and I don't believe that will hinder this history at all.
- Includes Bibliography, Timeline, Figures, Appendices, Aerial Photos, Photographs, Maps.
- Permanent link
- Export to RefWorks | <urn:uuid:98f55760-e7cd-48a3-9754-d17e4a6b7cc9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://minds.wisconsin.edu/handle/1793/47824 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932404 | 604 | 2.015625 | 2 |
The POZ 100: 26 to 50
26. Jeffrey Crowley, MPH
As director of the Office of National AIDS Policy at the White House, and as Obama’s lead AIDS strategist, Crowley works to ensure the president makes good on his campaign promise of implementing a National HIV/AIDS Strategy. He has spent countless hours meeting with HIV-positive people across America and translating their concerns to the folks in DC. Crowley seems enigmatically stoic to some. But be sure: Beneath his polished exterior is a lion-hearted defender of people with HIV.
27. Julie Davids
In her role as national advocacy and mobilization director for the AIDS Foundation of Chicago, Davids brings her experience, integrity and vision to a variety of U.S.-based prevention and social justice organizations such as Project UNSHACKLE and the HIV Prevention Justice Alliance. She’s a veteran of ACT UP Philadelphia and Health Gap, and where she leads, we will follow.
28. Joe De Capua
An American-based international journalist with a good handle on the universal drivers of HIV, De Capua uses his platform of Voice of America to explore HIV-related topics few other members of the media are willing to discuss. From Uganda’s “Kill the Gays” bill to the lingering and deadly nature of AIDS-stigma, De Capua digs deep and gets it right.
29. The Denver Principles
Created at a 1983 conference in Denver when people living with HIV came together to discuss the rights of people with HIV, the Denver Principles have long been the moral compass for our community. They were drafted by a group of PWAs led by Bobbi Campbell and were designed to protect, dignify and empower people living with HIV/AIDS. They begin, famously with, “We condemn attempts to label us as ‘victims.’” Years later, they are still fundamental to our fight. If you have not read them lately, do so now. They are our guiding light.
30. Desert AIDS Project
Based in the Palm Springs Desert, DAP offers an impressive lineup of AIDS care services including holistic care, dental and gynecological services, prevention and social support. CEO David Brinkman leads the organization, which also takes on advocacy and fund-raising. Notables like Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Tom Hanks and Queen Latifah have joined DAP each year for its annual Steve Chase Humanitarian Awards Gala. 2011 marked DAP’s 27th year of providing outstanding help to people with HIV/AIDS.
31. Ambassador Mark Dybul
Dybul was an Independent who worked for the Republicans as the global AIDS coordinator in the Bush White House. Part of the team that created the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), Dybul garnered huge bipartisan support for AIDS relief. Today, Dybul is the codirector of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University and is the inaugural fellow in the newly formed Bush Institute. Few people are as smart as he is about AIDS.
32. Wafaa El-Sadr
The director of the International Center for AIDS Care and Treatment Programs at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health in New York, El-Sadr is an expert voice on HIV/AIDS. Incredibly insightful and thoughtful, the former MacArthur Fellow develops treatment strategies that take into account real world issues such as education, social status , economic stressors and barriers to care.
33. Kenyon Farrow
Using his silver tongue and the digital domain, Farrow eloquently expounds on the needs of young, black men who have sex with men (MSM), a group at high risk for HIV—they’re six times more likely to contract the virus than their white MSM counterparts. Farrow’s fresh thinking and frank commentary give much-needed insight and voice to a community facing multiple challenges.
34. Anthony Fauci, MD
From the earliest days of the pandemic, he has kept one foot on the ground with people living with HIV and the other on the fortress-like campus of the National Institutes of Health where he is director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Fauci personally believes we’re on the brink of ending AIDS, and he allocated $70 million over five years for cure research at the NIH as part of the Martin Delaney Collaboratory—named after the late, great AIDS treatment activist. Fauci famously said, “We can pay a lot to end AIDS now, or we can pay an awful lot later.”
35. Kevin Fenton
As the director of the National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD and TB Prevention at the CDC, Fenton oversees HIV prevention in America. We give him credit for addressing the real reasons certain groups are disproportionately at risk for HIV. He attempts to dispel dangerous myths and highlights the true factors—such as high rates of incarceration, sexual violence, drug use, lack of access to health care, poverty and higher prevalence of STIs-—that make some people especially vulnerable. By doing so, he allows us to focus on the drivers of HIV infections and administer high impact prevention to overcome them.
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Center for Free Enterprise
Controversy erupted in Utah County last fall as citizens in Highland, Utah, attempted (and succeeded) to overturn an action by their city’s council to allow all businesses to operate on Sundays. Previously, certain (but not all) businesses were required to shut down on the Sabbath, and the council changed the ordinance. Many citizens did not like this, and they narrowly defeated their dissenting neighbors to re-impose the ban. For more background, see articles here and here, this essay, or this cartoon.
Proponents of this Sunday business ban were quite vocal in affirming that a municipality somehow has the right to determine how best to shape the community through law, and to preserve the “day of rest” and “community feel,” the ordinance was important and necessary. Local control allowed for this option, they argued. What, then, would such persons say regarding a similar law at the state level?
In 2000, Larry H. Miller heavily lobbied for a change in Utah law to protect his car dealerships from national competition. The national chains usually operate on each day of the week, and Miller did not operate his dealerships on Sunday. (The same does not hold true for his Megaplex movie theaters.)
A free enterprise system is predicated upon informed consent and the right of contract. To the extent that public policy or social custom may interfere with these foundational elements of the market, they should be corrected. A few examples will illustrate their importance.
Imagine that your child breaks his arm while playing with friends. He is in need of medical services, and so you take him to the nearby hospital. Doctors perform the work they think is necessary, you’re sent home with your child in a cast, and you later find out what the cost is. In what other industry do consumers tolerate having zero information about the price of services prior to agreeing to the work?
When you buy over the counter medicine, for example, you contrast and compare between available options. Perhaps you wish to pay a premium for a name brand, or you’re willing to choose a less ideal option to save money. You analyze the products based upon their price, their reputation, their ingredients, their claims of what they can help you with, and other factors. But the important thing is that you are provided all of the relevant data to make an informed choice.
When doctors and medical administrators uphold a system that hides prices from consumers, because of precedent or preference, individuals are unable to sufficiently compare and contrast and make an informed choice.
Utah has a long tradition of enjoying the theatrical arts. From the early days of the Salt Lake Theatre—the crown jewel of Western theaters—to the world famous Utah Shakespearean Festival, Utahns have valued wholesome entertainment for generations.
Within a few years after their arrival in the Salt Lake Valley, a devout pioneer populace eager to begin building their church’s temple were hungry for a little of the sweet life too. So, 31 years before completing a temple carved out of a mountainside, many hundreds of volunteers set to work on the red pine beams of the Salt Lake Theatre. At the time it was the grandest building in the territory and was considered by one outside observer to be “one of the Seven Wonders of the theatrical world.”
It attracted the likes of P.T. Barnum, Wild Bill, Al Jolson and scores of acting royalty. At a cost of $100,000 (a little over $2 million in today’s dollars) it required thousands of volunteer man hours to construct and primarily used reclaimed building supplies from the disbanded Camp Floyd and wagon wreckage from the trails around the territory. The Pioneer Theater was built in 1962 (at a smaller scale) to resemble the Salt Lake Theater (which was demolished in 1928) and cost about $1.5 million to construct (over $11 million in today’s dollars). It’s sobering to think what a comparable 1,500 seat venue would cost today.
“In levying taxes and in shearing sheep it is well to stop when you get down to the skin.” —Austin O’Malley, Keystones of Thought
Over the decades, Americans have been programmed to believe that they all must “pay their fair share” for the multitude of infrastructural provisions, assumed by lawmakers over the last century to be the responsibility of the state. “Fair share” means different things to different people; for some it’s a flat rate, for others it’s a dollar amount. Most tacitly agree that taxes are legal, necessary, and just. For this reason, it is difficult for principled arguments against taxation to gain solid footing, because we repeatedly and without much protest have allowed so many “reasonable” taxes. Precedent for taxation is further strengthened every day with the expansion of leviathan government into new market frontiers.
For the last 20 years one frontier to largely escape the pervasive reach of the tax man has been e-commerce. However, politicians have been foaming at the mouth in recent months at the idea of an internet sales tax. The last legislative session here in Utah saw SB 226, a sales tax on out-of-state internet transactions (sponsored by Republican Wayne Harper), advanced in the Senate despite concerns from legal counsel that the bill would likely not pass constitutional muster. It was later defeated in the House despite heavy lobbying from brick-and-mortar retailers like Schubach and RC Willey.
Why are legislators elected? For what purpose do they wield their power? Perhaps more fundamentally, what is the proper role of government?
These questions were all implied in a simple question I asked a few Senators last month during public comment on a controversial bill. The question I asked to each Senator on the committee was, simply, “Who are you?”
I further asked if they were lawmakers or economic developers. The reason for my clarifying question was to draw a sharp contrast between the two; too many legislators abandon the rule of law and focus on economic development, giving tax revenue, job creation, and related economic benefits far greater consideration in their analysis than more important things like whether they have the authority to do what they intend to at all.
And that’s the point I further emphasized, in relation to the bill in question—one which would have provided taxpayer dollars and tax-based incentives to help fund the creation of a mega hotel and convention center in Salt Lake City. “I understand there are compelling incentives and reasons to do so,” I said to the committee. “But I propose that you do not have the authority to do so.”
This may be a difficult article for many to read. We like our news spoon-fed and interpreted for us, broken down to the “nitty gritty” of what we think really matters. Rather than take the time to understand the causes of our present state, most simply want to know where we are heading and how to fix this mess we’re in. Those skilled in the art of statistical, economic, and political distillery are well aware of this general malaise and use it frequently to promote a particular agenda. In the spirit of full disclosure, I am trying to do the same. My motive, however, is to increase understanding and to encourage individuals to more stridently defend those rights that are naturally theirs.
When I was first introduced to what some call the “dismal science” in a university economics course, I was a bit confused by the jargon, equations, and the mental gymnastics necessary to arrive at (what can only ever be) an approximation of outcomes, based completely on the quality of the inputs. I say approximation because modern economics is concerned with mathematical models that attempt to quantify the aggregate effect of billions of interactions; any one of these interactions not performing as predicted could conceivably throw a wrench in the whole model. In other words, economic modeling has not arrived at a point where the random preferences of billions of people interacting can be mathematically predicted, so we’re stuck with a choice to:
- force the imperfect conclusions of a model on people who do not always act according to the desires of central planners; or
- allow individuals to make decisions freely in a marketplace of competing ideas, products, and services.
Undercover agents from the state liquor-control agency are busy conducting sting operations throughout the Wasatch Front. It reminds me of the days of prohibition when the FBI battled it out with gangsters like the infamous Al Capone. What is the current crime they are focusing on? Selling alcohol to minors? Nope. Selling illegal “moonshine”? Nope. Selling alcoholic beverages without a license? Nope. Selling alcoholic beverages with an alcohol content above the legal limit? Nope.
What could it be? Shockingly enough, there are restaurants with the audacity to commit the insidious crime of allowing patrons to sip an alcoholic beverage before they have ordered their food. Oh, the humanity! How unthinkable that this could be going on in our state right under our noses.
In all seriousness though, the state is taxing its citizens to pay to have undercover officers patrolling restaurants before and during the Sundance Film Festival, which begins on January 17. All this to prevent restaurant patrons from ordering drinks while they wait for their table or while they peruse the menu and decide what they will eat.
When will Utahns say enough is enough?
A recent dust up in Utah courts pitted African hair braiding specialist, Jestina Clayton, against the State of Utah, over a current statute that requires 2000 hours of cosmetology coursework to become a licensed hair braider. Clayton, 30, who learned how to braid at age five and has been practicing longer than most cosmetology students have been alive, won the case on the basis of her constitutional right to earn a living. The judge cited the lack of evidence for any threats to public safety as grounds for his decision.
Libertas Institute applauds U.S District Judge David Sam for this common sense and correct opinion. In doing so we recognize that while many can see the restrictive absurdity in making a hair braider take 2000 hours of coursework, there are many who still believe that some licensure is necessary for hair braiders and other common service providers. Enter Republican Rep. Jim Dunnigan, who wants to “reduce” the licensure requirement to 300 hours despite a judge’s opinion stating no credible threat to public safety exists. This all sounds well and good if all you’re trying to do is move the needle on bureaucratic overreach. However, we interpret the judge’s decision as a mandate for the legislature to remove this particular licensure provision completely or supply evidence that there is a threat to public safety—something no lobbyist or special interest has been able to do. We therefore support legislation, which we expect to be introduced in the 2013 general session, that will require state officials to demonstrate a clear public safety threat prior to imposing such burdensome regulations.
Just two months ago, a federal judge ruled in favor of a small businesswoman wishing to braid the hair of consenting customers without having to apply for a license and receive state-approved training with hundreds of hours of class instruction.
Today, the cosmetology industry began its push back against the ruling.
A Salt Lake Tribune article on the metamorphosis offers the reason given by those in charge. Director Patty Conner stated: ”For many people the word ‘exchange’ connotes government, and we want to remind Utah’s small business owners and their employees that we are built on free-market ideals.”
“Built on free-market ideals?” Who wielded the hammer, paid for the construction supplies, and poured the foundation? The government. Even the paragraph directly after Conner’s quote in the article obliterates her claim: | <urn:uuid:6adcd6ce-2901-4694-89e0-0a0ebb859ce8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://libertasutah.org/category/center-for-free-enterprise/ | 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 | 0.960173 | 2,466 | 2.1875 | 2 |
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Management of Chemical Substances in Products
In the most common chemical substance management measures, new substances are evaluated according to law requirements, and those confirmed as safe are allowed to be used. On the other hand, substances that were already in use before the law was enacted are regarded as "existing" substances, over which administrative agencies are in charge of safety evaluation. However, the evaluation process has not been proceeded quickly enough.
To break through this situation, European Union (EU) introduced the REACH Regulation, which has a registration system that requires enterprises to evaluate the risks of existing substances as well, if they are to be used continuously. At the same time, the REACH Regulation aims at the safe use of chemical substances through information-sharing on chemical substance content and hazardousness throughout a supply chain. Panasonic supports the objective of REACH and the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM) based on WSSD's Johannesburg Plan to further improve the chemical management not only in EU but throughout the world.
Article 33 of REACH requires all suppliers of articles in EU to provide information about Substances of Very High Concern (SVHC) defined by the REACH Regulation to their customers and consumers when those substances are present in a concentration of more than 0.1% of article's weight.
DEHP, one of the phthalates which is listed in SVHC candidate list is commonly known to be contained in cables of electric and electronic equipment. Some of our products may contain it in their cables. Detailed safety information of DEHP is available on the URL shown below following to REACH requirement.
As an example of our products containing a substance from the SVHC candidate list other than DEHP, refractory ceramic fiber (RCF) is used as an internal insulator in some microwave ovens for professional use in some countries. Also, detailed safety information of RCF is available on the URL shown below following to REACH requirement. From 2011, RCF has been eliminated for microwave ovens for professional use in Europe. It will also be eliminated in other countries soon.
Banner area begins from here.
Sub Menu begins from here. | <urn:uuid:a48f5814-6a2a-4e04-ba36-944b7b807a7d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://panasonic.net/eco/products/chemical_substance/reach.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00062-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949133 | 448 | 2.203125 | 2 |
Catherine Lutz, co-director of the Costs of War research project, will speak at the Academy in Context dinner-seminar on February 28 on "Research, Media, and Politics in the Study of War."
Lutz is the Thomas J. Watson Jr. Family Professor of Anthropology and International Studies and holds a joint appointment with the Department of Anthropology, which she chairs.
At the Graduate School dinner-seminar, Lutz will present and lead a discussion on the Costs of War study. She will cover how she organized the large, collaborative project, the impulses behind it, and the best practices and pitfalls of conducting and disseminating research whose primary intention is to inform public debate about a contentious issue.
In the Costs of War project, Lutz, along with more than 20 economists, anthropologist, attorneys, political scientists and humanitarian personnel have examined the direct and indirect cost of the military response to the 9/11 attacks. It is the first comprehensive analysis of its kind that surveys all of the U.S., coalition, and civilian casualties. It also takes into account hidden costs such as interest on war-related debt and veterans' benefits.
John P. Donoghue, a pioneer researcher in brain-computer interface, spoke at the October 26 Academy in Context dinner-seminar on "Neuroethics: ‘Terminator’ or Luke Skywalker?"
A Brown University neuroscientist and Department of Veterans Affairs researcher, John Donoghue’s work has led to the development of an interface that links the human brain directly to digital devices such as computers. Earlier this year, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is Henry Merritt Wriston Professor and director of the Brown Institute for Brain Science.
At the Graduate School dinner-seminar, he will lead discussion on the idea of plugging into the brain. Once the domain of “The Matrix”, it is now a reality. But unlike the movie character Neo, brain implants are being used to help people with brain disorders and injured nervous systems. Donoghue will describe the status of work with brain interfaces and foster an open discussion of the ethical implications and challenges for patients, for scientists, and for society as we begin to merge mind and machines.
He will draw on his experience working with a large group of faculty and students to develop the BrainGate brain-computer interface. The investigational system is a combination of hardware and software that uses tiny implanted electrodes to detect electrical signals produced by neurons in the brain that control movement. The system decodes those signals and translates them into digital instructions to give people with paralysis control of external devices such as computers, robotic assistive devices, or wheelchairs. | <urn:uuid:2a6ff1d0-365d-41c5-9270-17275e9bfb44> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.brown.edu/academics/gradschool/academy-context-2011-2012-dinner | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948572 | 558 | 1.96875 | 2 |
In April, the CCE hosted an interactive workshop luncheon with Natalia Deeb-Sossa, an Assistant Professor in Chicana/o Studies at UC Davis focusing on Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR). Natalia is known for her work with migrant farm working communities in Northern California and talked about these underserved and marginalized communities and their engagement in community-based participatory research efforts. She spoke about her personal experiences with these farm working communities, as well as shared her academic and philosophical reasons for choosing this community engaged scholarship approach. She also discussed how faculty, students, and community members can get involved to deepen their own community engaged scholarship by sharing how to integrate all voices involved, how to build a sustainable partnership, and how to cross barriers. She went on to talk about the best ways to engage with community to develop trust, which is a crucial component to CBPR.
Photograph taken by farmworker community member that participated in a CBPR project lead by Natalia Deeb-Sossa.
“It was important for me to build a reputation as an advocate for the migrant community” she said. The main point Natalia emphasized was that all partners have to be involved; everyone has different strengths to bring to the table and not all strengths consist of academic knowledge. Ultimately, she was able to successfully demonstrate the great value in doing CBPR. Be sure to be on the lookout for more information about Community-Based Participatory Research. | <urn:uuid:d4cb402c-107c-4965-abcb-33dfb0767c8e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ssucce.wordpress.com/2011/05/09/community-based-participatory-research-workshop/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975545 | 297 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Author: Tanya MacMartin
This is a quick little activity that I do for my kinesthetic learners to help them memorize the steps of mitosis.
Tanya MacMartin says:
16-Oct-12 02:15 PM
Here's a video of me doing the Mitosis Sign Language activity. It's a quick little hand movement series that helps kids memorize the steps of mitosis! | <urn:uuid:8dfb197e-902b-4ac7-afd1-de3340bd6abf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://stem.discoveryeducation.com/index.cfm?event=showResource&resourceId=6afc9d87-1321-0c71-3cd1-9c11c3c182bd | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.911791 | 83 | 2.3125 | 2 |
A refrain from Vulgar Latin refringere, "to repeat", and later from Old French refraindre) is the line or lines that are repeated in music or in verse; the "chorus" of a song. Poetic fixed forms that feature refrains include the villanelle, the virelay, and the sestina.
The use of refrains is particularly associated with where the verse-chorus-verse song structure typically places a refrain in almost every song. The refrain or chorus often sharply contrasts the verse melodically, rhythmically, and harmonically, and assumes a higher level of dynamics and activity, often with added instrumentation. Chorus form, or strophic form, is a sectional and/or additive way of structuring a piece of music based on the repetition of one formal section or block played repeatedly. See also verse-chorus form.
Usage in history
In music, a refrain has two parts: the lyrics of the song, and the melody. Sometimes refrains vary their words slightly when repeated; recognisability is given to the refrain by the fact that it is always sung to the same tune, and the rhymes, if present, are preserved despite the variations of the words. Such a refrain is featured in "The Star-Spangled Banner," which contains a refrain which is introduced by a different phrase in each verse, but which always ends:
- O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave.
A similar refrain is found in the "Battle Hymn of the Republic," which affirms in successive verses that "Our God," or "His Truth." is "marching on."
Refrains usually, but not always, come at the end of the verse. Some songs, especially ballads, incorporate refrains into each verse. For example, one version of the traditional ballad The Cruel Sister includes a refrain mid-verse:
- There lived a lady by the North Sea shore,
- Lay the bent to the bonny broom
- Two daughters were the babes she bore.
- Fa la la la la la la la la.
- As one grew bright as is the sun,
- Lay the bent to the bonny broom
- So coal black grew the other one.
- Fa la la la la la la la.
- . . .
(Note : the refrain of 'Lay the Bent to the Bonny Broom' is not traditionally associated with the ballad of The Cruel Sister (Child #10). This was the work of 'pop-folk' group Pentangle on their 1970 LP 'Cruel Sister' which has subsequently been picked up by many folk singers as being traditional. Both the melody and the refrain come from the ballad known as Riddles Wisely Expounded (Child #1).)
Here, the refrain is syntactically independent of the narrative poem in the song, and has no obvious relationship to its subject, and indeed little inherent meaning at all. The device can also convey material which relates to the subject of the poem. Such a refrain is found in Dante Gabriel Rossetti's Troy Town:
- Heavenborn Helen, Sparta's queen,
- O Troy Town!
- Had two breasts of heavenly sheen,
- The sun and moon of the heart's desire:
- All Love's lordship lay between,
- A sheen on the breasts I Love.
- O Troy's down,
- Tall Troy's on fire!
- . . .
Phrases of apparent nonsense in refrains (Lay the bent to the bonny broom?), and solfege syllables such as fa la la, familiar from the Christmas carol Deck the Halls with Boughs of Holly, have given rise to much speculation. Some believe that the traditional refrain Hob a derry down O encountered in some English folksongs is in fact an ancient Celtic phrase meaning "dance around the oak tree." These suggestions remain controversial.
In popular music
In popular music the chorus may include the entire AABA section in thirty-two bar form (the bridge consisting of B), or it may consist of every B section (with the bridge being C), as in ABABCAB. The chorus contrasts with the verse, which leads into it, while the bridge contrasts with and leads into both. "Many popular songs, particularly from early in this century, are in a verse and a chorus (refrain) form. Most popular songs from the middle of the century consist only of a chorus."
A pop chorus is not the same as a refrain. A writer on pop-song theory, Davis opines that a refrain musically and lyrically resolves a verse and therefore ends it, whereas a chorus begins a distinctively new music section of at least eight bars. A refrain is often a two line repeated lyrical statement commenting on or summarizing the preceding verse, for example:
"Like a bridge over troubled water I will lay me down.
Like a bridge over troubled water I will lay me down."
"Do you believe in life after love
I can feel something inside me say
I really don't think you're strong enough, no."
Arranger's chorus
In jazz, an arranger's chorus is where the arranger uses particularly elaborate techniques to exhibit his skill and to impress the listener. This may include use of counterpoint, reharmonization, tone color, or any other arranging device. The arranger's chorus is generally not the first or the last chorus of a jazz performance.
Shout chorus
In jazz, a shout chorus is usually the last chorus of a Big Band arrangement, and is characterized by being the most energetic, lively, and exciting and by containing the musical climax of the piece. A shout chorus characteristically employs extreme ranges, loud dynamics, and a re-arrangement of melodic motives into short, accented riffs. Shout choruses often feature tutti or concerted writing, but may also use contrapuntal writing or call and response between the brass and saxophones, or between the ensemble and the drummer. Additionally, brass players frequently use extended techniques such as falls, doits, turns, and shakes to add excitement.
See also
|Look up refrain in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.| | <urn:uuid:e92b76ed-f880-4ce9-872f-199ed8034fe8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refrain | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944546 | 1,317 | 3.40625 | 3 |
Sakurai Gives Tips on Optimum Conditions When Playing 3DS
Posted by Trevor Chan
Sound advice of the visual-kind
We all know that there's a certain "sweet spot" we have to be positioned in if we are going to get the best out of the 3D effect on the 3DS, but what else can we do to make the visuals really jump out at you? According to Masahiro Sakurai, not fidgeting would help.
The Project Sora director behind the upcoming Kid Icarus: Uprising has been tweeting responses to his followers lately, one of which was in relation to the effect shaky hands can have on the machine's 3D output. By no means mandatory requirements, Sakurai suggests keeping the 3DS still and adjusting the slider to prevent eyes from tiring.
From Nintendo Life's hands-on time with the 3DS, we can tell you that the aforementioned "sweet spot" is a decent size so unless you're moving erratically for whatever reason, you shouldn't miss out on the 3-dimensions too easily. Perhaps you should think of it as trying to read a newspaper on a bumpy train; it can cause minor blurring, but it's still feasible and the end of the world is still a way away. | <urn:uuid:fbd8bdb1-3912-473f-9b55-930f20d75395> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2011/01/sakurai_gives_tips_on_optimum_conditions_when_playing_3ds | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00054-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95488 | 261 | 1.546875 | 2 |
The Science Behind Gardening
Research scientist Linda Chalker-Scott is dedicated to bringing the latest scientific information to the gardening public. Whether it's exposing folklore or traditional practices, the author fearlessly presents facts that will inform you of the latest accepted scientific information.
The topics in her new book The Informed Gardener Blooms Again (University of Washington Press; 2010) include the diagnosis of common plant problems, understanding how plants grow, soil and its amendments, and the effectiveness of miscellaneous "miracle" additives that promise marvelous benefits. The format for each topic consists of her review of the "myth" of information on the subject, the reality of the situation, and "the bottom line," which is the actual truth to the topic, based on the accompanying research references. It's thought-provoking and a thoroughly enjoyable book.
Clever Gardening Technique
Easy Pine Sap Removal
I no longer use vegetable shortening when I cook, but I still keep a small can of it in my kitchen. Nothing works better to remove pine sap from my hands. I learned this trick when my boys were young and spent summer afternoons climbing trees. They'd come home with sticky hands and arms that no amount of soap and water would remove. A sage neighbor told me about the miracle of Crisco and I've used it to remove pine sap ever since. It even works on pruning tool handles and blades. I just scoop a dab -- probably less than a half-teaspoon of the stuff -- and squish it on my palms and between my fingers. I rub my hands together for about 30 seconds, wipe off the goop with a paper towel, then remove the greasy residue by washing my hands with a drop of dishwashing detergent and plenty of hot water. If you don't have a tin of vegetable shortening in your pantry, try rubbing your hands with a pat of butter. It's more expensive, but it works just as well. | <urn:uuid:09b86029-1879-4ebc-88e6-da7a755432ff> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.garden.org/regional/report/arch/gv/4241 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937019 | 402 | 2.390625 | 2 |
Being true to oneself10th July 2012
Well, did you cry on Sunday? Did your eyes well up in sympathy for Andy Murray who, having lost to one of the greatest tennis players of all time, had to tell the world how he felt about not winning Wimbledon. No wonder he struggled to control his emotions in front of the thousands on Centre Court and on ‘Murray Mound’, not to mention the millions watching on TV. What an ordeal! It must have been worse than playing in the match.
But what struck me was the authenticity of his response; it showed how much winning the Championship mattered to him and how much losing hurt. And we got all this emotion from a man who has variously been described as dour, moody and difficult. Many of today’s newspaper stories have said that showing his emotions has won him many fans. How funny – why should seeing him cry make him a better tennis player and more worthy of our support? Obviously we were not judging him as a sportsman but as a man, and we preferred seeing the vulnerable Murray rather than the unsmiling face we were familiar with on TV.
It is funny, because all the tennis writers that interview him regularly say that he is clever, funny, straight, engaging, interesting, and not afraid to say what he thinks. Unfortunately Andy Murray struggles to show the real ‘him’ in post-match TV interviews – that is until Sunday afternoon, when we saw what he really felt. And the moral of the story? If you want to win supporters and fans then be authentic, show them how much it means, how much you want it. Funnily enough, if we were going to prepare someone for a media interview in front of that number of people we would have rehearsed the questions and answers. But I guess a post-loss interview is not something you would ever rehearse. How can you think about how you’ll feel when you lose when as a player all you should be doing is visualising winning! | <urn:uuid:3f8c1d04-558f-4999-86e0-68d0f0d9edf3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.flagshipconsulting.co.uk/pressure-chamber/from-the-directors/being-true-to-oneself/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00071-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.987973 | 416 | 1.976563 | 2 |
From my previous post, you know that I have been experimenting with fused glass pattern bars. The specific technique I used is creating a pattern bar flow slab that is then cut up and used in making a plate. I just finished the plate in this picture.
Someone asked me, “How many hours did it take to make?” The process took over four days to complete, but I really don’t know how much actual hands-on time I spent. This was the first time I used this technique and I didn’t keep any records on how long it took. Whenever I try something for the first time, it always takes way longer than the second time. This technique of using pattern bars to make plates requires slower firing schedules because of the thickness of the glass. I spent a lot of time reading up on this and trying to understand the how and whys before I ever cut the first piece of glass.
But if I really think about it, maybe the answer should have been, “It took me three years!” I started fusing glass in 2009. I’ve been reading, taking classes, experimenting and learning about fused glass since that time. All of it leading up to this piece. Well maybe not directly, but you know what I mean. Every piece I make teaches me something and inspires me to try something new.
Here are a few more pictures. I bordered the pattern bars in clear glass and put a very slight bevel on it. I love the way the color of the pattern bars is draw up and out through the clear glass. | <urn:uuid:15053e89-0c18-49f6-a121-a0a55f84761b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.glassartbymargot.com/Blog/fused-glass/how-long-did-take/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972414 | 326 | 1.632813 | 2 |
ServiceNation seeks to rekindle an ethic of civic responsibility in America through universal national service.
Universal national service will transform our nation. If every year, one million Americans served our schools, communities, and fellow citizens for a year, we would be living in a different country. At ServiceNation, that is the vision we are working towards.
We believe national service programs like AmeriCorps must become a national priority as a way to put citizens to work, tackle pressing social challenges, and unite Americans in common purpose.
While our nation’s challenges are immense, so is the number of people who want to help. But the opportunities to serve must be there. ServiceNation is building the movement to make national service an enduring national priority.
Learn more about our priorities, ambitious plans, and our team:
Reaching an estimated 100 million Americans through over 300 coalition members, ServiceNation played a leading role in the drafting and April 2009 enactment of the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, which authorized the greatest expansion of national service in America since the creation of the Civilian Conservation Corps during the Great Depression.
Originally convened by Be The Change, Inc., Civic Enterprises, City Year, and the Points of Light Institute, ServiceNation was launched September 11 and 12, 2008 with the ServiceNation Presidential Candidates Forum and Summit in New York City, where Presidential Candidates Obama and McCain publicly endorsed the policy framework developed by ServiceNation and its coalition.
The Act itself was unveiled at the Summit by Senator Orrin Hatch and Caroline Kennedy, speaking on behalf of her uncle, Senator Ted Kennedy.
The Summit was attended by over 750 leaders from every sector, both political parties, and led to the bipartisan passage of the Serve America Act in the first 100 days of President Obama’s first term.
Unfortunately the promise of the legislation is far from realized. Read more about our priorities and the grassroots movement ServiceNation is building to not only change this, but make national service an enduring national priority.
Read more about the Forum and Summit:
Be The Change, Inc
ServiceNation is the first campaign of Be The Change, Inc., a non-partisan, non-profit dedicated to strengthening American democracy by uniting citizens, social entrepreneurs, the service world and leaders from every sector of American society. BTC taps the wisdom, experience, and networks of these practitioners, thought leaders, and passionate Americans to craft non-partisan policy solutions to our greatest challenges and build powerful coalitions to advocate for them. | <urn:uuid:eae7d365-84c0-4a66-b8e9-03994db5a996> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.servicenation.org/pages/about-us | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927189 | 509 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Breaking a ChickenLet's start with terminology so you don't sound like you fell off the turnip truck. What you're about to (try to) do is called "breaking," or "breaking down," or "piecing," or "piecing out" a chicken. "Cutting it up" could mean anything. More generally, it's a part of kitchen prep called "portioning."
Fortunately, there's one right way to start. With a very sharp chef's knife. A Very Sharp Chef's Knife. A VERY SHARP CHEF'S KNIFE. Getting through? If your teacher recommends using a different knife, listen to her. What do I know?
Alternative 1: Breasts boned out.
If you're right handed, turn the chicken so the legs face away and up, the wings are toward you, and the breast is up. Grab the leg to your right in the middle, and gently pull on it so the thigh opens from the body. Run the point and front part of the edge of your chef's knife in the area between thigh and body and gently bend the thigh back so the joint between thigh and body is exposed.
Now use only the edge, not the point, to open the joint as you continue bending the thigh open. If your aim is good your knife sharp, you will wedge the joint open and cut through the meat cleanly. If your aim is off, act like it isn't and cut through the joint cartilage. Set the leg and thigh (leg quarter) aside on your board.
Turn the chicken around so the other leg is on your right, and separate the leg quarter in the same way. Opening and slicing -- not digging around with the point.
Move the chicken to one side, and lay the leg quarter on the board, skin side down. Use one hand on each end to bend the leg and pay attention to the location of the joint. With your off hand on the end of the leg, use the edge of your knife to slice through the meat at the junction of thigh and leg. If the joint isn't exposed, put your knife down and bend the leg again. Slice through the joint as cleanly as possible. Repeat with the reserved leg. Trim the thighs and legs as necessary to make them tidy.
Get the leg and thigh pieces off your board and onto a pan, to reserve. If your board is very sloppy, wipe it.
Move the body back to the center of the board and remove the wings in the same way you removed the leg quarters. Cut through the joint where the upper wing joins the breast using your edge as much as and your point as little as possible. Repeat with the other wing. Reserve the wings onto the pan.
Feel for the keel bone in the center of the breast. Run your knife all the way along the bird on the right side of the breast. Make several gentle cuts until you start to free the breast from the keel bone. Use your off hand to help peel the breast away from the bone. Without cutting down the ribs or removing breast. Repeat and loosen the breast meat from the left side in the same way.
Return to the right breast. Using your off hand, peel the breast meat out and away from the ribs as your run your knife along and parallel to them. Remove the boned breast and set it on the board. Then remove the other breast in the same way. Reserve both breasts on your tray. Reserve the carcass for roast chicken stock.
Alternative 2: Bone-in breasts.
This starts with splitting the chicken. Turn the chicken so the keel bone is down and cut down one side of the back bone, right through the ribs from front to tail. A sharp knife won't require much pressure. If your knife is at all dull, you'll have to put some pressure on top of the tip with your off hand, and use the curve of the blade to rock through the ribs. Repeat on the other side, and discard the back bone.
Open the chicken as best you can, and lay it breast side up on the board. Get your knife edge on one side of the breast bone, but as close as possible to the center. With an extremely sharp knife you can cut through breast bone. With most knives, you'll have to rock through. In any case, split the chicken. You do not have to remove the breast bone, but can leave it with the breast.
Separate the leg quarters by holding the chicken at the thigh and bending, then cut skin-side up, behind the last rib to remove the legs and thighs. If there's any back bone left, you may have to cut through it. Piece the quarters into leg and thigh, as before. If there is any back bone with the thigh, trim it. Reserve the legs and thighs.
You may either remove the wing as before, in order to save the whole breast; or split the breast into two pieces, one with the wing and one without. If the first, check the back of the breast for back bone or any sharp ribs which may be hanging out. Trim as necessary. If the second, try and portion the breast into even weights.
The two I went through are the most common. Others include, leaving the thigh with the leg, but boning it out; taking the breast off the bone, but leaving the wing with it (very French); etc.
Hope this helps, | <urn:uuid:1bab14b7-c1d8-4ccc-8326-edfa35815243> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cheftalk.com/t/44029/chicken-cooking-method | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00045-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957421 | 1,119 | 2.828125 | 3 |
List of Courses
HEA 106 Studies in Health and Wellness (1 credit)
Wellness is a dynamic process of balancing multiple lifestyle factors to achieve personal heartiness and happiness. The connections between personal choices and health outcomes are emphasized, along with ways to recognize the signs and symptoms of common causes of illness and death in the United States. Students will be introduced to strategies and resources which enable them to make informed decisions about their wellness. Topics discussed include: stress management, diet, substance use, relationships, sex and sexuality, exercise, and chronic and communicable diseases.
HEA 207 Personal Health (3 credits)
An in-depth course for those students seeking greater knowledge in health. Covered are a broad range of topics similar to those discussed in PEH 206 and PEH 210, but in greater detail.
HEA 208 Human Sexuality (3 credits)
This course examines the developmental and social aspects of human sexuality as developed within the individual and within relationships. Topics include sexual anatomy and physiology, reproduction, sexual development, childbirth, sexual diversity, sexually transmitted diseases, various sexual problems and dysfunction and an exploration of community resources.
HEA 209 Drugs and Wellness (3 credits)
This course is designed to introduce students to the physiological, psychological, and sociological effects of drug use, abuse, and dependency on wellness. Topics covered enable students to make informed decisions about drug use including: over-the-counter drugs, prescription drugs, herbal remedies, dietary supplements, caffeine, tobacco, alcohol and illicit drugs. In addition, community resources that assist individuals with drug dependence will be identified to assist individuals with wellness. There are no prerequisites for this course.
HEA 212 Health and Safety Awareness for Teacher Education (1 credit)
This course is designed for those students planning to transfer to a four-year institution to pursue NYS teacher certification or for those in related fields. A brief overview will be given of such topics as: identification and report of suspected child abuse and maltreatment; prevention of child abduction; abuse prevention of alcohol, tobacco and other drugs; instruction in fire and arson prevention and school violence prevention and intervention. Stress reduction and conflict resolution/mediation are also addressed. Additional fees are required for mandated training in Child Abuse Reporting and School Violence Prevention and Intervention (Project S.A.V.E.).
HEA 213 Managing Stress for Health and Well- Being (3 credits)
A study of the fundamental theories and applications of the mind-body phenomenon. The interconnectivity of the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects of the human condition will be discussed. Other topics include stress reaction and its relationship to specific illnesses and diseases and intervention strategies. Relaxation techniques are introduced and practiced. | <urn:uuid:cbdd8eac-3f1b-4bf5-91af-879f50db1cc1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sunyocc.edu/index.aspx?id=7393&coll_id2=146 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.92742 | 554 | 2.484375 | 2 |
January 12, 2011
EJ at the EPA: Impacts of the New Priorities
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has made Expanding the Conversation on Environmentalism and Working for Environmental Justice a top priority. On July 26, 2010, Agency officials issued EPA’s Interim Guidance on Considering Environmental Justice During the Development of an Action that is intended to help Agency staff incorporate environmental justice considerations into the development and implementation of regulations. One day later, on July 27, the Agency issued the Draft Plan EJ 2014 and sought the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council’s advice on Incorporating Environmental Justice Concerns into the EPA Permitting Process. The panel discussed the ways and extent to which these initiatives are likely to impact EPA regulatory and permitting activities, and the questions that these initiatives have raised from various stakeholders in the legal and policy community.
Barry Hill, Visiting Scholar, Environmental Law Institute (moderator)
Sue Briggum, Vice President for Governmental Affairs, Waste Management, member of National Environmental Justice Advisory Council
Lisa Garcia, Associate Assistant Administrator for Environmental Justice, U.S. EPA
Vernice Miller-Travis, Maryland State Commission on Environmental Justice and Sustainable Communities, member of National Environmental Justice Advisory Council
NEJAC reports containing advice and recommendations to the Agency
Environmental Injustice in the U.S. and Recommendations for Eliminating Disparities, a Collaborative Report by The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, June 2010
An ELI Policy Seminar. | <urn:uuid:1f1db0f8-ca70-489e-8707-feccbd4712a9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.eli.org/Seminars/past_event.cfm?eventid=593 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.91703 | 315 | 1.773438 | 2 |
In this blog, we will review a few simple things that the patient and the patient’s family with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), emphysema, and chronic asthma may use to prevent COPD exacerbations.
Many patients with COPD may have underlying chronic asthma and many are active or
former smoker. Many may have associated emphysema in conjunction with intermittent symptoms of asthmatic bronchitis. Preventing a flare-up of COPD and/or underlying asthma may further help improve quality of life and may decrease use of acute care/hospitalization.
(1) Understanding severity of disease. One needs to understand underlying severity of COPD if underlying bronchial asthma or emphysema is present or not. There are no specific COPD cures, but controlling the symptoms helps improvement of respiratory symptoms and sense of wellbeing. One may consider pulmonary function test if not done to assess underlying severity.
(2) Understanding of acute or chronic COPD symptoms. Keeping a log of regular COPD symptoms and any changes may help to seek early medical treatment for control of COPD exacerbation in the early phase rather than later. The patient may get low-grade fever, increase in cough, quantity, change in the color, and/or increase shortness of breath.
(3) Home oxygen use. A few patients with COPD may need use of oxygen either at night or on exertion or continuously. This needs to be evaluated by their physician.
(4) Emergency plan. It would be good to have an emergency plan if there is worsening of the symptoms. If someone with severe asthma and/or COPD, it may be good to have a course of antibiotic and a tapering course of prednisone handy and start it with exacerbation of symptoms in conjunction with their primary care and/or pulmonologist. If there is worsening of COPD then it would be good to call 9-1-1 and go to the Emergency Room.
(5) Anxiety symptoms. Anxiety, COPD, asthma, emphysema symptoms go hand-in-hand. With the change in respiratory symptoms and an increase in air hunger there may be fluctuation in anxiety and depression symptoms. Relaxation is the key. Slow deep breathing exercise may help.
(6) Exercise. Regular walking, breathing exercises and moderate strenuous exercise, depending on heart condition may be considered based on physician advice. This has been shown to decrease exacerbation of COPD, and clearing of respiratory secretions in the morning.
(7) Avoiding certain foods. Usually cold water, cold drinks, dairy products, ice cream, and chocolate may trigger underlying COPD/asthma. Bananas increase mucus formation. This may be good to void. Many patients notice a change once they cut down the use or discontinue it.
(8) Medications. Use of inhalers, nebulizers, oxygen, its duration frequency and maximum dose, needs to be understood. The common mistake many COPD patients make is overuse of long-acting bronchodilators in place of short-acting inhalers or nebulizer treatment. This needs to be avoided. Correct inhaler technique is the key.
I hope this may help in understanding underlying symptoms of COPD and exacerbation factors and cut down any major flare-up. | <urn:uuid:98f4f7dd-320d-49bd-8f5c-f64efa4944fa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://asthma-copd-care.com/blog/category/asthma-treatment-and-management/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.915883 | 688 | 2.640625 | 3 |
Many parents struggle with getting their toddlers to sleep. It not only impacts the toddler, but mom, dad, and other siblings. I do not consider my children’s sleep to be a problem. That doesn’t mean that they never wake up and it doesn’t mean that there are not tough nights here and there, but on the whole I get enough rest and my kids get enough rest.
Over the next five days I’d like to share tips for getting babies and toddler to sleep better without using the cry it out approach. There are additional tips and resources in the original article from which this was excerpted, but let’s get started here and please chime in with your questions, comments, and suggestions for gentle ways to get babies and toddlers to sleep.
Tip 1. Calming Bedtime Routine
Children need time to calm down and prepare for sleep. Having a consistent bedtime routine can be useful in giving the child cues that sleep time is coming. There are likely things that you do each night before bed, such as putting on pajamas, brushing teeth, reading bedtime story, nursing or rocking, and so on. Try to do those things in the same order to help your child understand what is coming next and learn to calm down through that process. You may also want to have a few routines that you alternate. For example, one routine for bath night and another one for other nights. One for weekdays and one for weekends. One that involves Daddy and one that involves Mommy. Having these alternate routines can help keep things smooth on nights when things need to change up a bit (e.g. one parent isn’t there, you are visiting friends, a favourite book is missing, etc.) Also, create a calming environment during the bedtime routine. For example, turn off any bright lights (dimmers are great), television, and loud noises at least an hour before bedtime (ideally no television in several hours leading up to bedtime if you allow television at all). Consider building a massage into your bedtime routine.
By phdinparenting – Excerpted from Gentle Baby and Toddler Sleep Tips | <urn:uuid:a814f96f-5a7a-4ef8-bc10-82750afd78a8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.drgreene.com/perspectives/baby-toddler-sleep-tips/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9507 | 447 | 1.875 | 2 |
by James Hansen, Reto Ruedy, Makiko Sato, and Ken Lo
The past year, 2009, tied as the second warmest year in the 130 years of global instrumental temperature records, in the surface temperature analysis of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS). The Southern Hemisphere set a record as the warmest year for that half of the world. Global mean temperature, as shown in Figure 1a, was 0.57°C (1.0°F) warmer than climatology (the 1951-1980 base period). Southern Hemisphere mean temperature, as shown in Figure 1b, was 0.49°C (0.88°F) warmer than in the period of climatology.
Figure 1. (a) GISS analysis of global surface temperature change. Green vertical bar is estimated 95 percent confidence range (two standard deviations) for annual temperature change. (b) Hemispheric temperature change in GISS analysis. (Base period is 1951-1980. This base period is fixed consistently in GISS temperature analysis papers – see References. Base period 1961-1990 is used for comparison with published HadCRUT analyses in Figures 3 and 4.)
The long‐term trends are more apparent when temperature is averaged over several years. The 60‐month (5‐year) and 132 month (11‐year) running mean temperatures are shown in Figure 2 for the globe and the hemispheres. The 5‐year mean is sufficient to reduce the effect of the El Niño – La Niña cycles of tropical climate. The 11‐year mean minimizes the effect of solar variability – the brightness of the sun varies by a measurable amount over the sunspot cycle, which is typically of 10‐12 year duration.
There is a contradiction between the observed continued warming trend and popular perceptions about climate trends. Frequent statements include: “There has been global cooling over the past decade.” “Global warming stopped in 1998.” “1998 is the warmest year in the record.” Such statements have been repeated so often that most of the public seems to accept them as being true. However, based on our data, such statements are not correct.
Now let’s consider whether we can specify a rank among the recent global annual temperatures, i.e., which year is warmest, second warmest, etc. Figure 1a shows 2009 as the second warmest year, but it is so close to 1998, 2002, 2003, 2006, and 2007 that we must declare these years as being in a virtual tie as the second warmest year. The maximum difference among these in the GISS analysis is ~0.03°C (2009 being the warmest among those years and 2006 the coolest). This range is approximately equal to our 1‐sigma uncertainty of ~0.025°C, which is the reason for stating that these five years are tied for second warmest.
The year 2005 is 0.061°C warmer than 1998 in our analysis… For the moment let us just say that the chance that 1998 is warmer than 2005, given our temperature analysis, is at most no more than about 10 percent. Therefore, we can say with a reasonable degree of confidence that 2005 is the warmest year in the period of instrumental data.
What about the claim that the Earth’s surface has been cooling over the past decade? That issue can be addressed with a far higher degree of confidence, because the error due to incomplete spatial coverage of measurements becomes much smaller when averaged over several years… [therefore] we can conclude that the world has become warmer over the past decade, not cooler.
Why are some people so readily convinced of a false conclusion, that the world is really experiencing a cooling trend? That gullibility probably has a lot to do with regional short‐term temperature fluctuations, which are an order of magnitude larger than global average annual anomalies.
Figure 6. Arctic Oscillation (AO) Index. Positive values of the AO index indicate high pressure in the polar region and thus a tendency for strong zonal winds that minimize cold air outbreaks to middle latitudes. Blue dots are monthly means and the red curve is the 60‐month (5‐year) running mean.
How do these large regional temperature anomalies stack up against an expectation of, and the reality of, global warming? How unusual are these regional negative fluctuations? Do they have any relationship to global warming? Do they contradict global warming?
It is obvious that in December 2009 there was an unusual exchange of polar and mid‐latitude air in the Northern Hemisphere. Arctic air rushed into both North America and Eurasia, and, of course, it was replaced in the polar region by air from middle latitudes.
Figure 6 shows that December 2009 was the most extreme negative Arctic Oscillation since the 1970s. Although there were ten cases between the early 1960s and mid 1980s with an AO index more extreme than ‐2.5, there were no such extreme cases since then until last month. It is no wonder that the public has become accustomed to the absence of extreme blasts of cold air.
So let’s look at recent regional temperature anomalies and temperature trends. Figure 8 shows seasonal temperature anomalies for the past year and Figure 9 shows seasonal temperature change since 1950 based on local linear trends. The temperature scales are identical in Figures 8 and 9. The outstanding characteristic in comparing these two figures is that the magnitude of the 60 year change is similar to the magnitude of seasonal anomalies. What this is telling us is that the climate dice are already strongly loaded. The perceptive person who has been around since the 1950s should be able to notice that seasonal mean temperatures are usually greater than they were in the 1950s, although there are still occasional cold seasons.
The magnitude of monthly temperature anomalies is typically 1.5 to 2 times greater than the magnitude of seasonal anomalies. So it is not yet quite so easy to see global warming if one’s figure of merit is monthly mean temperature. And, of course, daily weather fluctuations are much larger than the impact of the global warming trend. The bottom line is this: there is no global cooling trend. For the time being, until humanity brings its greenhouse gas emissions under control, we can expect each decade to be warmer than the preceding one. Weather fluctuations certainly exceed local temperature changes over the past half century. But the perceptive person should be able to see that climate is warming on decadal time scales.
This information needs to be combined with the conclusion that global warming of 1‐2°C has enormous implications for humanity. But that discussion is beyond the scope of this note. | <urn:uuid:3f6ac1f3-dca9-4317-b818-e5d60ad593ca> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mind.ofdan.ca/long-term-trends-vs-cold-snaps/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940942 | 1,365 | 3.703125 | 4 |
Up next in How to Fingerboard (21 videos)
Learn how to fingerboard and how to do tech deck tricks in these Howcast videos.
Hi. My name is Taylor Rosenbauer. I've been traveling all over the United States to fingerboard competitions, demos, and I've appeared on MTV and just having a great time with this really fun hobby. I'm taking a trip to Germany, competing at the world championships for fingerboarding. Today I will be demonstrating fingerboarding. Now this is one of the first tricks that people wanna learn on a fingerboard when they first start doing it because it essentially gets you jumping over objects and it also helps you learn how to do slides and grinds. To do an ollie, you wanna place your hand on the fingerboard with your front finger right behind the front 4 bolts and your back finger right behind the back 4 bolts. To get the board into the air, you wanna pop down on the tail while sliding your front finger up towards the front of the board. This motion together will get your board up into the air. Its popping your tail on the ground that lifts the board into the air and when you slide up, that levels it out, and then bring it back down to the ground. Problems most people have with the ollie is not getting it into the air and this is caused by not popping the tail hard enough on the ground. Instead, you want to do a much more fluid movement rather than a quick choppy one. When you first learn the ollie, its helpful if you have an object to jump over, so you can actually visualize something in your way and so you want to pop the board over that object. Like a fingerboard for example. Once you feel comfortable with the ollie, there's a few variations you can do with it. The first is learning how to 180 ollie. So instead of ollieing straight, you actually ollie and turn the board 180 degrees with your hand. Once you learn to ollie in the regular stance, then you can learn in 3 other stances. Nollie, switch, and fakey. They're all done the same way as an ollie is, you're just moving in a different direction and popping off a different tail. For nollie, your popping off the front of your board as you're moving forward. For fakey, your moving backwards and popping off the front of the board as well, and for switch, you're popping off the tail of the bored as you're going backwards. And that is the ollie. | <urn:uuid:c9921077-44a2-40e1-b27d-0eb209bbe60f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.howcast.com/videos/466106-Tech-Deck-Tricks-Ollie/guide/670-How-to-Fingerboard | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00073-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954552 | 534 | 2.296875 | 2 |
December 06, 2007
The Aging Brain: Failure to Communicate
The image in the background shows that distant regions of the brain show correlated activity in young adults. The foreground image shows that in advanced aging, coordinated activity among regions of the brain decreases (and is associated with cognitive decline). Brain activity was measured using functional magnetic resonance imaging, which can precisely map increased blood flow in the brain. Increased blood flow (orange and yellow colors) reflects greater activity in regions of the brain that are utilized during mental tasks.
A team of Howard Hughes Medical Institute researchers has shown that normal aging disrupts communication between different regions of the brain. The new research, which used advanced medical imaging techniques to look at the brain function of 93 healthy individuals from 18 to 93 years old, shows that this decline happens even in the absence of serious pathologies like Alzheimer's disease.
Researchers have known for quite some time that normal aging slowly degrades bundles of axons in the central nervous system that transmit critical signals. “Our study now shows that cognitive decline in aging may be linked to disruption of communication between different regions of the brain,” said Randy L. Buckner, who is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at Harvard University. He is also affiliated with the Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School.
“Our study now shows that cognitive decline in aging may be linked to disruption of communication between different regions of the brain.”
Randy L. Buckner
The new research, published December 6, 2007, in the journal Neuron, begins to reveal how simply growing old can affect the higher-level brain systems that govern cognition. “We may have caught the failure of communication in the act,” said Buckner.
The human brain can be divided into major functional regions, each responsible for different kinds of “applications,” such as memory, sensory input and processing, executive function or even one's own internal musing. The functional regions of the brain are linked by a network of white matter conduits. These communication channels help the brain coordinate and share information from the brain's different regions. White matter is the tissue through which messages pass from different regions of the brain.
Scientists have known that white matter degrades with age, but they did not understand how that decline contributes to the degradation of the large-scale systems that govern cognition.
“The crosstalk between the different parts of the brain is like a conference call,” said Jessica Andrews-Hanna, a graduate student in Buckner's lab and the lead author of the study. “We were eavesdropping on this crosstalk and we looked at how activity in one region of the brain correlates with another.”
Buckner, Andrews-Hanna, and their colleagues looked at crosstalk in the brains of 93 people aged 18 to 93, divided roughly into a young adult group (18-34 years old) and an old adult group (60-93 years old). The older participants were given a battery of tests to measure their cognitive abilities -- including memory, executive function and processing speed. Each person was studied using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) exams to measure activity in different parts of the brain. fMRI can precisely map enhanced blood flow in specific regions of the brain. Increased blood flow reflects greater activity in regions of the brain that are utilized during mental tasks.
For the task used in the Neuron study, subjects were presented words and were asked to decide whether each word represented a living (e.g., dog) or nonliving (e.g., house) object. “Such a task requires the participants to meaningfully process the words,” said Buckner.
Buckner's group explored whether aging in the older group caused a loss of correlation between the regions of the brain that -- at least in young adults -- engage in robust neural crosstalk.
They focused on the links within two critical networks, one responsible for processing information from the outside world and one, known as the default network, which is more internal and kicks in when we muse to ourselves. For example, the default network is presumed to depend on two regions of the brain linked by long-range white matter pathways. The new study revealed a dramatic difference in these regions between young and old subjects. “We found that in young adults, the front of the brain was pretty well in sync with the back of the brain,” said Andrews-Hanna. “In older adults this was not the case. The regions became out of sync and they were less correlated with each other.” Interestingly, the older adults with normal, high correlations performed better on cognitive tests.
According to Buckner, it is inferred that in a young, healthy brain, signals are readily transmitted by white-matter conduits. As we age, those conduits are compromised. “Measures of white matter integrity in the older adults point to decline,” he said. Depending on the networks at play, the result may be impaired memory, reasoning or other important cognitive functions.
Buckner and Andrews-Hanna emphasized that other changes in the aging brain may contribute to cognitive decline. For example, cells' ability to express chemical neurotransmitters may also be compromised.
In general, the new work promises a better physiological understanding of cognitive decline in the elderly and may help explain differences among individuals. “It may help explain why some people are just as sharp in their 90s as they were in their 40s,” noted Andrews-Hanna. “We all age differently and cognitive abilities vary considerably among individuals.”
Typically, said Buckner, as individuals get into their 70s and 80s, you see some degree of change. “We can use this new approach (correlating the activities of different regions of the brain) as a tool to understand variation between individuals. We can also explore risk factors for breakdowns (in these pathways) like cardiovascular health.”
Image: Courtesy of Randy L. Buckner, Howard Hughes Medical Institute at Harvard University | <urn:uuid:f4416202-d592-4223-8c75-ff0dc9cb7731> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hhmi.org/news/buckner20071206.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955183 | 1,265 | 2.90625 | 3 |
- With Mayo Clinic neurologist
Jerry W. Swanson, M.D.read biographyclose window
Jerry W. Swanson, M.D.Jerry W. Swanson, M.D.
Dr. Jerry Swanson is a board-certified neurologist at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. He is also board certified in headache medicine and is a professor of neurology at College of Medicine, Mayo Clinic. He has a special interest in medical education.
Dr. Swanson, a Lacon, Ill., native, was appointed to the Mayo Clinic staff in 1982 and works in the Department of Neurology with more than 90 other physicians. He formerly chaired the department's Division of Headache and continues to work with headache subspecialists around the world. He has published and lectured widely on headache disorders. He also serves as assistant dean for assessment at Mayo Medical School.
"In a manner similar to the printing press, Internet technology enables the unprecedented ability to communicate with the global community about health information," Dr. Swanson says. "There is no doubt that the knowledgeable individual contributes greatly to his or her own health care, and now we can share information much more widely.
"There is much information already available about health care on the Internet. Unfortunately, much of it is not founded on sound principles. It is exciting to be a part of the web team and contribute to the creation of a reliable and timely health resource."
Dr. Swanson is the neurology editor for "Mayo Clinic Family Health Book" and has reviewed articles for "Mayo Clinic Health Letter" and "Mayo Clinic Women's HealthSource." He is also editor-in-chief of the "Mayo Clinic on Headache" book, published in 2004. In 2008 the magazine Women's Health named him one of America's Top Doctors for Women. In 2011 he received the Mayo Medical School Dean's Recognition Award for his contributions to undergraduate medical education.
- Phantosmia: What causes olfactory hallucinations?
Treatments and drugs (1)
- Neurontin side effects: How do I manage them?
Phantosmia: What causes olfactory hallucinations?
What causes olfactory hallucinations (phantosmia)?
from Jerry W. Swanson, M.D.
Many people are sensitive to certain smells, but in an olfactory hallucination (phantosmia), you detect smells that aren't really present in your environment.
The odors detected in phantosmia vary from person to person and may be foul or pleasant. They can occur in one or both nostrils and usually can't be masked by food.
Phantosmia most often occurs as a result of a head injury or upper respiratory infection. It can also be caused by temporal lobe seizures, sinusitis, brain tumors, migraine, Parkinson's disease and stroke.
Because phantosmia can in rare cases be an indication of a serious underlying disorder, consult your doctor if you experience such symptoms.
Note that phantosmia is different from another disorder of sense of smell, known as parosmia, in which a smell is present in your environment but is distorted. Parosmia can occur with damage to the olfactory system, such as after a severe respiratory infection. In this situation, there's usually also a loss of sense of smell.Next question
Neurontin side effects: How do I manage them?
- Mann NM, et al. Anatomy and etiology of smell and taste disorders. http://www.uptodate.com/ index. Accessed May 1, 2012.
- Flint PW, et al. Cummings Otolaryngology: Head & Neck Surgery. 5th ed. Philadelphia, Pa.: Mosby Elsevier; 2010. http://www.mdconsult.com/books/about.do?about=true&eid=4-u1.0-B978-0-323-05283-2..X0001-8--TOP&isbn=978-0-323-05283-2&uniqId=230100505-57. Accessed May 1, 2012.
- Smell and taste disorders. The Merck Manuals: Home Edition for Patients and Caregivers. http://www.merckmanuals.com/home/ear_nose_and_throat_disorders/nose_sinus_and_taste_disorders/smell_and_taste_disorders.html. Accessed May 1, 2012.
- O'Brien EK (expert opinion). Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn. May 29, 2012. | <urn:uuid:126c2c7c-ae82-4805-9454-483370e06c0b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/phantosmia/AN01684 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.925894 | 960 | 1.90625 | 2 |
President Barack Obama has declared January 2013 as National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month, followed by National Freedom Day on Feb. 1.
The President issued a proclamation on Dec. 31 stating that in January the American people will “rededicate ourselves to stopping one of the greatest human rights abuses of our time,” known as human trafficking or modern-day slavery.
President Obama explains that we can help combat human trafficking this month and in months to follow by raising awareness and through involvement with anti-human trafficking groups. You can find such groups and other anti-human trafficking resources in your area through the Polaris Project. The Abolish Slavery Coalition also offers a variety of ways in which you can help end slavery.
“Around the world, millions of men, women, and children are bought, sold, beaten, and abused, locked in compelled service and hidden in darkness. They toil in factories and fields; in brothels and sweatshops; at sea, abroad, and at home,” President Obama states, referring to the estimated 27 million human trafficking victims worldwide whose souls have been traded and sold into slavery, making human trafficking the second-largest criminal industry in the world with an annual profit of $32 billion. “We have recognized (human trafficking) as a debasement of our common humanity and an affront to the principles we cherish. And for more than a century, we have made it a national mission to bring slavery and human trafficking to an end.”
As part of our national mission to end slavery, the President explains that his Administration has strengthened protections in order for workers to know their rights, extended and reinforced efforts to identify and rescue victims, and released new resources to bust trafficking networks. He vows to continue the fight to end modern-day slavery in the United States by sanctioning law enforcement and investigators with appropriate training, securing rehabilitation and self-sufficiency programs to help human trafficking survivors rebuild their lives, and by providing resources to help create and integrate the use of technology to prevent human trafficking by protecting potential victims.
In recognizing that “no country can meet the challenge (of abolishing slavery) alone,” the President states in his proclamation that the United States has aided nations worldwide in caring for survivors, in helping determine the root of slavery in order to combat the soul-enslaving crime, and by encouraging countries to establish and enforce anti-human trafficking laws.
“We know the road ahead is long, and change will not come easily,” President Obama states. “But as we renew our pledge to erase modern forms of slavery from the face of this earth, let us also draw strength from the movements of the past. These achievements once seemed impossible – but on this day, let us remember that they were not, and let us press on toward the future we know is possible.”
About the Author
Melissa Grace Hoon is the Managing Editor for the Abolish Slavery Coalition. She is a victim advocate and a human rights journalist with a Master’s degree in American studies where she focused on slavery, gendered violence and victimization. She is a freelance reporter for the Orange County Register and volunteers with the Orange County Human Trafficking Task Force. | <urn:uuid:c1489546-1acd-436f-9cb2-814f717c2c8b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.abolishslavery.org/tag/sex-slaves/ | 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 | 0.953913 | 666 | 2.96875 | 3 |
The Pearcey’s Twine Store in the Outer Battery is filled with a treasure trove of artifacts reflecting the Pearcey family’s involvement in the fishery, which spanned four generations.
That involvement is given a unique perspective through the wood carvings on display made by the late Robert Pearcey, the uncle of Charles and Carl Pearcey, two brothers living in St. John’s who look after the property.
There are several large boats on display, a mobile hanging from the ceiling with carvings of planes attached to it and boats on the top, horses drawing carriages, and a particularly impressive scene depicting Pearcey Twine Store and its longtime neighbour, Jack Well’s Twine Shop, each standing side-by-side with stages hovering above the harbour.
Carl Pearcey said his uncle used tools that are primitive compared to what wood-carving hobbyists use today. He would know a thing or two about this, as Carl himself picked up wood carving several years ago.
“When I retired I started to buy a few tools and then I got into it as a hobby,” said the 72-year-old Pearcey, standing inside the well-kept building.
He specializes in making cars and trucks, which he usually gives to children like his grandson.
Recently, he donated a wooden fire truck to the Outer Battery Neighbourhood Association for a fundraiser, and 110 raffle tickets were sold.
Carl Pearcey set up a workshop in his basement where he practises his hobby while listening to old-time music on the radio.
In comparison, he said Uncle Bob did his wood carving in the kitchen, to the general annoyance of his wife, Lilian Pearcey.
“My aunt used to get mad with him because of the (wood) shavings,” Carl said.
Robert Pearcey’s pieces show great attention to detail, with many small details included, and they are often colourful.
Carl said his uncle may have inherited his woodworking skills from grandfather Samuel Pearcey, who did carpentry work.
“Like in most outports and with the older generation, they made their own things if they wanted something,” he said.
Carl’s own father, James Pearcey, never developed an interest in wood carving, though he may never have had an adequate opportunity to do so.
In 1959, when Carl was 19, an avalanche in the Outer Battery struck the Pearceys’ residence and killed James, his wife Ethel, and Carl’s grandmother, Francis Vincent. Carl, along with his bother and sister, managed to survive.
Robert Pearcey left the fishery in the 1970s, after which he and Charles Pearcey continued to look after the twine store. Robert built 18-foot boats there that he later sold. He died in 1996 at the age of 82.
The Pearcey brothers spent time fishing in their youth and would have represented a fifth generation of fishing Pearceys, but Carl said his father wanted a different life for them. He eventually found work with Newfoundland Telephone.
Carl said it was his brother Charles who deserves much of the credit for keeping the property in good shape. It was built in 1956 to replace an older structure.
“He spends a lot of time out here,” Carl said of his older brother.
It also attracts visitors every year. This summer’s guest book, filled with positive comments, includes the signatures of visitors from as far away as France.
“People come in here and they’re amazed at it,” said Carl. | <urn:uuid:d6458813-1006-492d-b21a-5fb7520d4535> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thetelegram.com/News/Local/2011-07-30/article-2684019/Wood-crafts-in-the-Outer-Battery/1 | 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 | 0.981699 | 751 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Mrs. de Sade: What about Her? December 31, 2008Posted by rogerhollander in Mrs. de Sade: What About Her?.
Tags: biography, francine du plessis gray, french literature, louis xvi, marquis de sade, marquise renee-pelagie de montreuil, roger hollander
(I cannot remember why I wrote this review. It may have been for a journalist at one of Guayaquil’s dailies, who suggested I submit some reviews for publication. Since I have no copy of this work in Spanish, I assume that just reading the article and putting my thoughts to paper was enough for me.)
We know much – some would say too much – about the scandalous life and work of the Marquis de Sade, but little attention has been paid to his wife, the Marquise Rénee-Pélagie de Montreuil. Francine du Plessis Gray gives us the beginning of a picture of her in an article entitled “At Home with the Marquis de Sade,” published in the October 12, 1998 edition of “The New Yorker” magazine.
He was twenty two, she twenty one, when they tied the knot in Paris on May 17, 1763. It was an arranged marriage of convenience. Her nouveau riche bourgeois family sought royal respectability; his “noble” family was short of cash. Contrary to expectations, the couple fell deeply in love.
During the first five years of their marriage, the Marquise’s mother-in-law, Mme. de Montreuil, conspired with de Sade to keep his escapades, “his peccadilloes and his rambunctious liaisons … his innumerable exploits with actresses, courtesans, and whores of all varieties,” hidden from his wife, whom du Plessis Gray describes as “a prim decorous woman … neither beautiful nor cultivated … (but) what she lacked in polish she redeemed in strength of character and robust independence.” When he was jailed in the autumn of 1763, for example, for “acts of blasphemy and sacrilege,” she was led to believe that it had to do with unpaid debts.
However, in the spring of 1768, the Marquis’ shenanigans had gotten out of hand, and he was busted for alleged physical abuse of a beggar woman whom he had picked up, and was again imprisoned, this time for six months. Judging that the scandal would be too big to hide, he confessed all to the Marquise, who from that time forward replaced her mother as his protector. “Pelagie, far from being alienated by the heinousness of her husband’s crimes, found her passion for him intensified. To restore his freedom and protect him from increasingly vigilant captors became her goal in life, and she brought to that mission the sort of dedication that the most inspired priests or nuns bring to their vocation.”
What the two had in common was “solitary, affection starved childhoods, and both had remained loners,” who “for much of their married life … clung to each other like two neglected orphans …” The Marquise shared with her husband his disdain for “the adult world of sycophancy, social clambering, and material gain.” She once described French high society as “a bunch of riffraff, the most successful of whom are the most fraudulent.” Although she was in many ways his opposite, she was by no means a prude. She certainly witnessed and may have taken part in his famous orgies.
Their affection for one another is well documented in their letters. He referred to her as “star of Venus … my baby … violet of the garden of Eden … celestial kitten.” She most often called him “my good little boy.”
Their marriage was able to withstand, perhaps was even strengthen by the constant scandal and the pressure of police harassment, and was not even threatened by the Marquis seducing and having an extended affair, while living in exile, with Pelagie’s beautiful sister, ten years her younger, who had left her convent to visit them. However, this event turned the Marquis’ mother-in-law into his bitter enemy, and eventually she was able to trick him into returning to Paris, where she had been able to obtain from King Louis XVI an “arbitrary order of arrest” that lead to his imprisonment for thirteen years beginning in 1777.
This proved to be the beginning of the end of the marriage. Although Pelagie continued to be one hundred percent loyal and lived in poverty and gave up the custody of their three children in order to be able to supply him with what he needed to be comfortable and well fed in prison, de Sade came to distrust and harass his wife. In 1781 she was allowed her first visit, and he absurdly accused her of infidelity, of having an affair with one of his former secretaries and with her own female cousin.
He ordered her to live in a convent, and she complied by entering a religious community at Saint-Aure, where she was not required to take any vows but to otherwise participate fully in the religious life of the order. Ironically, it may have been de Sade’s own tyrannical jealousy that contributed to her gradual transition to religious devotion and piety. “I consign you to your room,” he commanded, “and, through all the authority that a husband has over a wife, forbid you to leave it, for whatever pretext.” de Sade criticized her newly formed piety and was further enraged when she gradually made peace with her mother.
During his thirteen year internment, de Sade came into his own as a writer, and produced his major works. His wife disagreed with the cynicism and materialism of his writing and warned him that they would anger the government authorities and postpone his release. By the time he was finally released in the spring of 1790, the Marquise had decided she wanted a separation and divorce.
From that time their only communication was to quarrel over financial matters. She lived out the rest of her life in seclusion at her parents’ estate near Paris, and died at the age of sixty eight in 1810.
du Plessis Gray speculates on the possible cause of her disillusion with her notorious husband whom she had nevertheless always been supremely devoted: “Was Pelagie, quite simply exhausted, after struggling for a quarter of a century against her husband’s rages and gargantuan demands, society’s scorn, the blackmail of prostitutes, the rigor of government and prison bureaucracies, her mother’s fury, and creditors everywhere?”
As was their marriage, their eventual estrangement was an enigma. It would seem that the truth of her initial undying love and the reasons for her eventual alienation she took with her to the grave. | <urn:uuid:3d8c0a5c-c95b-47a8-986d-cbf1ae373853> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://rogerhollander.wordpress.com/2008/12/31/mrs-de-sade-what-about-her/ | 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 | 0.987354 | 1,487 | 2.421875 | 2 |
Instead of providing a liver or kidney to a needy recipient, pope Benedict's body will belong to the church when he dies, said one Vatican official, who suggested that veneration of the pontiff's remains would be complicated if they were not all in the same place.
His championing of organ donation dates back to his days as a cardinal. In 1999 he said helping someone live after you die was "an act of love".
That prompted a doctor to cite Benedict in a recent drive to recruit organ donors in Germany. But the campaign drew a letter of complaint from the pope's secretary, Georg Gaenswein.
He said: "It's true that the pope owns an organ donor card ... but contrary to public opinion, the card issued back in the 1970s became de facto invalid with Cardinal Ratzinger's election to the papacy."
Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said: "The pope evidently made the choice many years ago. As a private citizen he could make that decision, but now he has a different role."
The head of the Vatican's health office, Polish archbishop Zygmunt Zimowski, said a pope's body should remain intact because it belongs to the church.
"It is also understandable in view of possible future veneration," he told La Repubblica newspaper.
Vincenzo Passarelli, the president of the Italian association of organ donors, said he was very surprised by the Vatican's decision.
"If he decides to give up an organ, does that mean the rest of his body no longer belongs to the church?" he said. "Organ donation is a noble act and if the pope donated to a Muslim or a Jew, it would become a truly universal act."
Passarelli admitted that if a papal organ was transplanted, the recipient might risk becoming the object of veneration. "But once an organ is transplanted, it immediately becomes part of another person.
"You cannot say that Antonio, for instance, has the pope's kidney – at that point it is just Antonio's kidney."
Until 1903 the organs of popes were removed when they died to make embalming longer lasting, with the organs preserved as relics in the church of Saints Anastasio and Vincent near the Trevi Fountain in Rome. | <urn:uuid:af4a8617-5834-42a5-ada3-88fdcbc44334> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/04/pope-benedict-organ-donor-card-invalid | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97611 | 472 | 2.296875 | 2 |
Sunday morning, at the 8:00 Mass on the Solemnity of Easter, as we call the Pascal Mystery in the western church, an African woman – and I mean from Africa somewhere with a beautiful accent – sat on the aisle in what was, for her, very obviously, prized formal attire. I’ve yet to figure out exactly what it is called, but her garments were indigenous to her home country and made from a finely woven cream-colored cloth with handmade embroidery, covering her from shoulder to ankle in layers, to her wrists with a headscarf. After Mass, this woman was the only person in the church to make her way to a side altar for additional prayer and to light a candle, a traditional way of observing a special intention.
I thought her entire being to be incredibly beautiful – and something that a good number of the American women that morning just missed: feminine. Truly feminine.
I will confess to being fascinated with women’s indigenous attire and comportment from cultures much older than ours. The Sari of India, Nepal and other countries in that region is one of my favorites. There is no way to forget being a woman in such an outfit. Traditional Japanese kimonos, Native American bell dresses, brightly colored peasant skirts from South America – the women who wear these know what they are and celebrate it.
In the last week or so, the “War on Women” in the USA has flared again. According to the current resident in the White House and his female sycophants who don’t pay attention to the inserts in their birth control pill packs, it’s all about men not wanting women to have access to “family planning.” After fifty years of this option – and the supposedly unintentional objectification of the female as sex object resulting from unproductive baseness – American women just don’t understand that in the rush for “equality” with men, they’ve given up the difference that made us truly free. They’ve given up the one bargaining chip that women have always had: acceptance of who we are vs. what we can be for men, and that does not mean just in the bedroom.
Yes, it is true that in times past women were thought of as less than livestock and used for contract bargaining, but the core purpose of womanhood was not betrayed. Nor was there such severe dissatisfaction with physical appearance and naturalness. Every culture celebrates their own version of beauty and women strive to be attractive, but none to the extent current American culture does. We do not, truly, get to choose who and what we are from birth. In fighting our lot in life, our place in social order, even our size and shape, we betray what was meant for us.
Currently, in the United States, there is a very specific silhouette that is promoted as the ideal – pretty much the same one that inspired famed prima ballerina Gelsey Kirkland to take to cocaine to have energy and not eat so as to be attractive to George Balanchine. The same one that was the excuse for the producers at MGM Studios to starve Judy Garland until she was downright anorexic and unhealthy all the time and, frankly, unable to perform. Nowhere to be seen are the works of art that celebrate the female form in its voluptuousness and ripeness as other cultures have produced for centuries. Instead, we have artificial perfection, an entire industry that creates works of “art” as if it were natural both in various forms of print media and on the women’s bodies…and inner cats surfacing when appearances lend themselves to beliefs that some woman “has had work done.” (See Ashley Judd’s essay on this topic. Really great read.)
It’s true that not everyone does this, and many of us are quite content with who we are, but the larger culture, dictated from somewhere other than my house, sees women as needing to conform to someone else’s vision of what we should be. Not all of us have that option, nor do we want to be what someone else wants just because they want it. In that way, we are rather stuck, culturally speaking. We have no indigenous garb to fall back on when the current fashions do not flatter our less than acceptably perfect figures. We seem to be at one of two extremes: either plain wall-flowerishness or slutty. Neither one is really all that feminine. (There are ways to counter this, but pop culture and the buyers at Macy’s don’t have much of an interest.)
There is a decades long assault on “women’s work” as if the labors of keeping a clean environment in which to live is any less civilizing than training soldiers for war. It is acceptable, in some circles, to criticize women for not working outside the home when children are young. A democratic operative this week said that Ann Romney was not qualified to discuss economic issues as she had never worked a day in her life. (I have a cousin who works for a bank – and has for a long time – and she’s not really qualified to discuss economics either.) Anyone who thinks that raising, feeding, clothing and otherwise caring for a large family is not a lesson in economics is out of their mind. The Romneys, granted, have more money than a lot of us, but they still need to pay for the basics. Walking floors with a fussy baby, teaching the basics of manners and social behavior is most definitely work. No, it isn’t glamorous, but most of the trench sorts of jobs aren’t.
The line fed to us as children, particularly to girls, was, “Be what you want to be. You can be whatever you want to be.” It is the worst sort of lie. At just under five feet and having a heavier bone structure, gymnastics and ballet were out for me, and I loved both. My hands are so small, I can’t play the piano, an instrument that would be very helpful. I can’t draw. My voice is solo quality and does not blend in small groups, so every choir director of major church choirs wants me to sing alto (finally quit doing that. It was ruining my voice). At one time, I wanted to be an engineer. The theory made sense, couldn’t get problems to work to save my soul. Be what I want to be, huh? Where I’ve had luck, work-wise, is in organizing and communications, two very specifically female roles. It’s making me a living even if I’d rather write all day long. Yes, at this point, I am subservient to the larger monied crowd, being in non-profit, and to an extent a modern day servant if you will, but I know who I am and given the chance would jump at being a stay at home mom. I am not a slave to looking good in skinny jeans and flat out refuse to cut my hair short, wear shapeless and baggy clothes simply because they are easy. I am who I am and would hope other conservative women would be the same.
The war on women is about convincing us to abandon and betray femininity and to not be happy and content with who we are. It’s about conforming to ideals put forth by those who do not care about us or who we are other than what we can be for them. What liberal women seem to not want to admit is that the keepers of the larger message – those who control mass marketing, entertainment, school textbooks and more – have purposefully co-opted cooperation in the scheme from women from the time we were little girls. They’ve tried, with no little success, to convince us that there is no difference between us and men, when nothing could be further from the truth.
Perhaps that is why in the search for authentic womanhood, I always seem to gravitate to women from much older cultures. They don’t fall for such nonsense. | <urn:uuid:8da81873-3c4b-4c73-8c2b-11cfe5a6c6e0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://constitutionclub.org/2012/04/13/ladies-time-to-take-control-of-the-war-of-women/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974762 | 1,683 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Kristala Jones Prather, 34
Scientists are increasingly looking for ways to make compounds using biological processes rather than chemical reactions. Such techniques could provide environmentally cleaner ways to manufacture everything from biofuels to drugs, avoiding the harsh solvents and toxic by-products associated with more conventional synthesis. Kristala Jones Prather, an assistant professor of chemical engineering, is developing a promising strategy for synthesizing commercial molecules biologically, from start to finish.
Organic chemists often begin with the structure of a molecule they want to make, then look for the simplest pathway of precursors to produce it. The strategy is called retrosynthesis. Prather believes that biologists can use similar reverse-engineering principles--she calls it "retrobiosynthesis"--to build compounds, stringing natural and engineered enzymes together in novel combinations inside microbial hosts such as E. coli.
"What I'm interested in is designing organisms to be chemical factories," says Prather, who spent four years in the Bioprocess Research and Development department at Merck. "We used biological systems to do one reaction, and we passed that back to a group of chemists who would do the rest of the fun stuff, and I started thinking, 'Why can't biology do more?'"
In 2004, Prather left industry and joined academia so she could help biology do more. Enzymes catalyze a wide range of chemical reactions. Prather is developing a database of these reactions; it includes algorithms that will identify the enzymes most useful for constructing novel metabolic pathways--in many cases leading to chemicals that are not produced through any natural biosynthetic pathway. When multiple enzymes might fit the bill, her software will help select the best one; when no appropriate enzyme is known, the program will help determine which existing enzyme should be modified in order to fill the hole. Prather's software should be a boon to other synthetic biologists who now construct metabolic pathways by painstakingly combing the literature for possible enzymes, says Jay Keasling, a leading synthetic biologist at the University of California, Berkeley, who supervised her PhD thesis.
Adds John Woodley, professor of chemical engineering at the Technical University of Denmark, "It's a very clever idea." | <urn:uuid:a47bb208-fda4-4abc-8f52-8b9268f9b39c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www2.technologyreview.com/tr35/profile.aspx?trid=621 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935431 | 451 | 3.453125 | 3 |
MAYWOOD, Ill. – The recent Illinois cigarette tax hike is making smoking dangerous to people’s physical and financial health. The additional economic pressures are compelling people to quit smoking. In fact, 70 percent of people who smoke want to quit and 50 percent have tried in the last year, but the pull of nicotine keeps them tethered to the habit.
“Nicotine really is that addictive. It’s a hard battle, but every one that we win, including increasing the cost of cigarettes through taxes, brings individual smokers to the tipping point where the pain of smoking overcomes the joys of nicotine and they quit,” said Philip McAndrew, MD, a Loyola University Health system internal medicine physician and an occupational health expert. “The tipping point could be a life-altering health experience, but often it’s the impact on the pocketbook that makes people really consider quitting."
In Chicago it can easily cost a person $300 a month to smoke. This is more than twice as expensive as a monthly prescription of medications to help people stop smoking.
“Even if a person’s insurance won’t cover medications, it costs $65 a month for Zyban. The cost of nicotine patches is only $100 a month,” McAndrew said.
That financial impact can be enough to encourage some to quit. But even when a person has reached that tipping point, it’s only the beginning.
“To quit you need the time and a teamwork approach. Don’t expect to do it overnight and you need a team of support around you to cheer you on. That team captain should be your physician,” McAndrew said. “Nicotine is too strong an opponent for someone to go it alone. You need that team to help keep you on track when everything inside of you wants to go back."
McAndrew gave some tips to help quit:
1. Build a team
“You can’t do this alone. Nicotine releases serotonin and we love that feeling, so you will need people around you to support you. You will need people who are with you in all areas of your life, especially in places that make you think of smoking,” McAndrew said. The team should include:
2. Set a specific date
It is important to be specific on a date you want to quit but also give yourself time to prepare. It is recommended to set a date two to four weeks away so you have time to prepare your environment and your mind to quit.
3. Prepare for Quit Day
The moment you decide to quit start thinking about what changes you need to make and take an inventory of what you need to do to limit the temptation of nicotine.
4. Celebrate Quit Day
“Once the decision is made to quit smoking, start thinking about the Quit Day and get excited. Don’t see it as an end to a favorite habit, but a celebration of the beginning of a new, healthier life,” McAndrew said. He suggested going out with friends or having a party to mark this special occasion. Just make sure there is no smoking allowed.
5. New mechanisms for coping with stress
Stress is often a trigger for someone to return to old habits. This is where your doctor, a support group and your team can really lend a hand. Find healthier ways to deal with stress such as exercising or deep breathing. Make sure you have those plans in place before your Quit Day.
6. Watch out for boredom, especially in the car
Another pothole on the path to quitting is boredom. One of the hardest places to avoid smoking is in the car. McAndrew suggested having gum and carrot sticks or pretzels in the car at all times to help with the desire to have something in your mouth. He also suggested listening to audio books while driving to keep your mind active.
7. Continue to do the things you enjoy
Stopping smoking is not only a physical battle, it’s psychological as well. “People connect smoking with nice things, like taking break or going out with friends. It’s important to break that psychological connection,” said McAndrew. He recommends:
8. Think about those you love
“Quitting smoking is about so much more than ourselves. Studies have shown that secondhand smoke can be more devastating than firsthand smoke, especially for children. Children who live in homes where there is a smoker are more prone to allergies and have more colds, upper respiratory infections and ear infections,” McAndrew said. “Also, research has shown that parents’ smoking habits greatly increase the risk of their children smoking. Of all the things you pass on to your kids, your smoking habit shouldn’t be one of them.”
For media inquiries, please contact Evie Polsley at firstname.lastname@example.org or call (708) 216-5313 or (708) 417-5100. | <urn:uuid:17505f86-fe23-411f-808d-2e743786e3b5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://loyolamedicine.org/newswire/news/are-cigarettes-burning-hole-your-pocket-tips-quit | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952444 | 1,036 | 2.265625 | 2 |
Facial recognition technology is a prominent part of our life, given Facebook and Google’s enthusiastic adoption of the technology. However the long arm of the law may now incorporate the technology into their policing tools:
Brazilian police in Rio De Janeiro and Sao Paolo have begun demoing “RoboCop” glasses: shades which scan faces in a crowd and check them against a criminal database. At distances up to 50 yards, the glasses can reportedly scan 400 faces per second, comparing 46,000 biometric points on a person’s face against a database of terrorists and other criminals. If a match is made it is indicated by a red light that appears within the glasses frame, allowing police to zero in on those people with problematic pasts (or currently questionable legal statuses) without having to put police and citizens through the tedium of random ID checks.
Those who are already wary about the potential for police databases to unduly encroach upon citizens rights will be unlikely to celebrate this new technology too enthusiastically. However if the technology works as successively as advertised then it surely won’t be long before others put these all seeing sunglasses to more creative uses, as we’ve already seen with several explorations of offbeat uses of facial recognition (such as offering culinary advise to would be chefs). | <urn:uuid:fd895443-2cb5-4beb-92af-ea9908e6f572> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.psfk.com/2011/04/surveillance-shades-augment-law-enforcement.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00053-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94666 | 268 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Almost all hope for the Borneo rhino had evaporated before SOS-Rhino began working in Sabah in 1998. SOS-Rhino helped protect the remaining Sumatran rhinos in Sabah, and returned the species’ plight to the fore among national and international conservation concerns. Local and international NGOs and corporations are now actively involved, and Sabah’s government formed a task force to address rhino conservation in Sabah. We are very pleased with this development, and the increased attention that Borneo’s last rhinos are presently receiving.
SOS Rhino BORNEO was formed in 2003 as a local NGO and will remain with a Sabah-based board of highly skilled, qualified and dedicated conservation leaders. This is a positive development that has been further supported by the Sabah government’s renewed enthusiasm for continuing its rhino conservation work.
SOS Rhino Borneo has become stronger and even more effective and is proceeding with the next steps. Their major activities will be maintenance of the existing rhino protection units in Tabin Wildlife Reserve, along with research, community outreach, and other support for the Borneo rhinoceros, including appointment in the government’s rhino task force.
During the past 50 years on the Island of Borneo there has been no evidence of breeding rhinos other than in the Malaysian State of Sabah. In 1981, the only potentially viable population of rhinos remaining in Sabah was identified as being in Commercial Forest Reserves. In 1984, that area was re-classified as Tabin Wildlife Reserve. Danum Valley (43,000 hectares) was also recommended for protection in 1981, and was subsequently shown to have a small rhino population, and is no longer a forest concession, but established as Danum Valley Conservation Area. There is a need to continue monitoring and protection of the existing wild rhino population, both in Tabin Wildlife Reserve and around Danum Valley. Responsibility for conservation and management of land, forests and wildlife lies with the Sabah State government and the endangered status of the rhino in Sabah and the need for specific conservation action is recognized in the Sabah Development Corridor, a project launched by the federal government of Malaysia in January 2008 (see section 7.4.9 under http://www.sdc.gov.my...).
There is no threat of habitat loss for Tabin or Danum Valley. The biggest risk to the aim of preventing extinction of the Borneo rhino in Sabah is that numbers are so low, and mating so infrequent, with the risk of mating between close relatives, that the species may drift to extinction even in the absence of poaching. This is why the government of Sabah, with NGO support, has deemed it necessary to combine (a) sustained anti-poaching work with (b) sanctuary-type setting. SOS Rhino Borneo and WWF-Malaysia will work together with the key relevant government agencies (Sabah Forestry Department and Sabah Wildlife Department) to proactively address needs in terms of expertise, manpower and supplementary funding.
A two-day Sumatran rhinoceros conservation workshop was held in Sabah in July 2007, organized by Sabah Wildlife Department and SOS Rhino Borneo. Rhino experts reviewed the situation between 2001 and 2008 and concluded that: “At least some of the remaining rhinos have to be brought close together to increase the chances of successful mating. Selected rhinos will be captured and brought to a designated area from throughout Sabah. The purpose of this designated area will be to get as many of the rhinos as possible held there to contribute to breeding of the species.”
Shortly after the workshop a task force was formed, headed by Sabah Wildlife Department and consisting of governmental (Sabah Wildlife Department, Sabah Forestry Department, & Federal Department of Wildlife and National Parks), NGOs (WWF-Malaysia and SOS Rhino Borneo), academic (Universiti Malaysia Sabah) and other experts. The task force agreed that an area be designated for a fenced sanctuary in Tabin Wildlife Reserve. The sanctuary-type setting will be designed and managed in light of lessons learned from past experience and mistakes in the capture and husbandry of Sumatran rhinos in Sabah, Peninsular Malaysia, Indonesia and Cincinnati Zoo. The sanctuary will be developed and implemented over an initial period of five years, after which progress will be reviewed, and if necessary, changes may then be made to Sabah’s rhino policy. | <urn:uuid:5b4713ca-c442-43dd-8ca7-ff8603063572> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sosrhino.org/programs/index.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95563 | 929 | 2.8125 | 3 |
61 18th names that mean 18th for girls, listing 18th baby names 1-20. Ada, Amelia, Angela, Becky, Betty, Cassandra, Cecilia, Christian, Clarinda, Connie, Dahlia, Daphne and Dorinda are popular names. Araminta, Azalea, Begonia, Candia, Chloris, Cinnamon and Elita are uncommon names. View 18th baby names for name meanings, search 18th names for boys, or search other baby names.
Ada ... Not in common use before the late 18th century.
Amelia ... An 18th-century Princess Amelia brought the name to Britain ...
Angela ... which became popular in Britain and America from the 18th century ...
Araminta ... Invented by an 18th-century English playwright.
Azalea ... First coined in the 18th century.
Becky ... and popular in the 18th and 19th centuries ...
Begonia ... an 18th-century governor of Santo Domingo.
Betty ... First became popular in the 18th century ...
Candia ... and established by the late 18th century ...
Cassandra ... The name was occasionally used from the Middle Ages until the 18th century.
Cecilia ... The Latinate form Cecilia came into use in the 18th century ...
Chloris ... and was used by Augustan poets of the 17th and 18th centuries ...
Christian ... but by the 18th century ...
Cinnamon ... though it has been recorded as a masculine slave name in the 18th century ...
Clarinda ... Poet Robert Burns (18th century) also used the name Clarinda in his poems.
Connie ... used as an independent name among English speakers since the 18th century.
Dahlia ... Also the flower named for 18th-century Swedish botanist Anders Dahl.
Daphne ... but disappeared until the 18th century ...
Dorinda ... A name with the -inda suffix coined by English poets in the 18th century.
Elita ... which came in the 18th century from French "Úlire" meaning "to choose" ...
View page 2 of 18th baby names from Emeline to Meriel.[18th names 1 2 3 4] | <urn:uuid:68de468f-d549-4571-921c-0f581abfdcb3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thinkbabynames.com/search/0/18th | 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 | 0.944997 | 495 | 2.75 | 3 |
Since the late 1920s, Japanese coffee shops catering to jazz music fans have been a fixture in cities across the country. For decades, they disseminated cutting-edge Western culture and later, the counter-culture to students, intellectuals and music aficionados. Although the number of venues are dwindling, they have survived the digital age.
It was never about the coffee. Long before customers had a choice of a double espresso or soy latte, Japanese flocked to coffee shops serving just a couple of kinds of beans, but an endless variety of bee-bop, swing and avant-garde. They are known as jazz kissa - short for kissaten - tea or coffee shops.
"Tea for Two" sung by Anita O'Day accompanied by two Japanese jazz orchestras during a live 1963 telecast in Tokyo can be heard in one cafe. The original performance was a rare opportunity for Japanese to see and hear a famous American jazz star in their own country. It was also an era when an imported jazz album cost about one-tenth of the average professional’s monthly salary.
Times and moods have changed.
One of the few surviving jazz kissa in Tokyo is Eagle, in the city’s Yotsuya district, near Sophia University. These days it mainly attracts businessmen and office workers on their lunch hour, who pay the equivalent of nine dollars to sip a cup of ordinary coffee.
Eagle was started in 1967 by jazz fan Yohei Goto, the son of a bar owner, when he was a college sophomore.
Goto says he understands that to foreigners a jazz kissa can seem like a strange place. He explains it is a library of music. You are not allowed to talk. Unlike in United States, he says, where people listen to jazz for pleasure, in Japan it is a kind of art appreciation. Goto says Japanese people seriously study jazz as a component of African-American culture.
Jazz historian, pianist and Hitotsubashi University professor Michael Molasky says, by the time Eagle opened, the genre in Japan had come to play a more significant role in Japanese society than it did in its country of origin.
“It acquired something of a cultural cachet among bohemian types, intellectuals and writers. So that, if you wanted to be considered cool, you basically had to have some familiarity with jazz, at the time. It was kind of a rite of passage. To gain familiarity you needed to listen and the only place you could listen to this stuff were these jazz kissa,” Molasky said.
Protesters against the U.S.-Japan security treaty would take refuge from pursuing riot police in the coffee shops, listening - ironically - to jazz music from America.
At some jazz listening spots these days, cocktails, in addition to coffee and tea, are on the menu.
One of them is New Dug, in Tokyo’s Shinjuku shopping district. It opened as a jazz kissa named Dig in 1961.
New Dug’s owner, Hozumi Nakadaira, recalls the days when the clientele, mostly university students, would spend hours absorbed in the music.
Nakadaira says they could stay as long as three hours if they ordered one cup of coffee. He recalls it was okay to remain as long as five hours if a customer bought a second cup.
Professor Molasky, whose latest book in Japanese is a study of the history of the country’s jazz cafés, explains another compelling aspect is their elaborate and expensive sound systems. For generations of Japanese relegated to cramped apartments with paper thin walls, the jazz kissa were an audiophile’s heaven.
“Some of the jazz magazines, around the 70s, would advertise not only the number of records - and sometimes they had like 5,000, 10,000 LP’s [albums] in their collection - but they would advertise exactly the woofers and tweeters and the speaker system. And, some places went so far as to advertise what needle they used in the cartridge for the phonograph,” Molasky said.
Despite that acoustic niche, at Eagle, which has been spinning jazz discs for 45 years, owner Goto has no illusions that the specialty music cafés will survive for even another five years. He says, proudly, they are victims of their own success.
Goto explains the kissa had a big role to play in the 1960s and 70s, but now, they have completed their job of introducing American jazz to the Japanese public and witnessing it permeate the mainstream.
The love for the voices of Carmen McRae, Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday has also created a cottage industry of jazz vocalists in Japan.
You can hear Grace Mahya singing “Skylark,” on her new album. The tune is a 1942 jazz standard by Johnny Mercer and Hogy Carmichael. Mayha trained as a classical pianist but switched to jazz about six years ago.
Nakadaira estimates there are 500 singers, mostly Japanese women, trying to make a living belting out jazz in English.
Nakadaira says most of the audiences probably cannot understand the lyrics, yet they prefer standards sung in English. He contends that Japanese lyrics just are not considered cool or interesting to Japanese fans.
Some aficionados will study translations of the lyrics. But for Japanese jazz fans, as Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald put it:
“It don't mean a thing if ain't got that swing. ...” | <urn:uuid:b4ceeb54-f8c7-4bc4-a490-7fedc2f09434> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.voanews.com/content/digital-age-survivors-japans-jazz-cafes-still-popular--139959753/152373.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970991 | 1,163 | 2.25 | 2 |
We live on the land of the Wurundjeri People
We acknowledge the traditional owners of this land and the fact that Indigenous sovereignty has never been ceded.
NRG is a volunteer-based, non-profit incorporated group committed to furthering the process of reconciliation with Australia's Indigenous peoples – the first Australians. Based in the Shire of Nillumbik, which includes the Melbourne suburb of Eltham and surrounding areas, the Group aims to cultivate and promote the issues of reconciliation in our local region. Click on the links down the left hand side of the page to find out more.
Original website design: Mark Lowrie. NRG logo design: Elizabeth Savage Kooroonya
Last updated: 6th June, 2013
© Copyright 2000 - 2013 Nillumbik
Reconciliation Group Inc. Nillumbik Reconciliation Group does not object to its articles being reprinted provided they are not edited and the source is properly acknowledged. However, please note that this website may also contain articles and/or images copyright to other organisations or individuals.
A Short-lived Reserve
The Chief Aboriginal Protector, George Augustus Robinson fought to secure land for the Wurundjeri people, noting in his diary on May 3rd 1839:
‘Had a long conversation with surveyor Mr. Hoddle. Showed me a map of the county, marked off into allotments comprising I think fully 30 square miles and not a single reserve for the blacks except the mission which I have no wish to retain. I said if that or a similar map was exhibited to the people of England they would at once see the way the natives are treated. Their lands sold from them and no provision made for their maintenance, and this by the government who are bound to protect them.’
It took until 1852 for a 1908 acre Aboriginal Reserve to be formally set aside at Pound Bend. However, gold had been discovered at Warrandyte in 1851 and the Reserve’s future was doomed. The Wurundjeri knew this and decided to hold one last corroboree. The Aboriginal Protector William Thomas described the event held in March 1852 as follows:
‘They had not met for many years and wanted to have once more some corroboree together….and night after night for fourteen days they did indulge themselves.’
However after the corroboree some of the Wurundjeri decided to go on one last walkabout to Melbourne. Not having permission to leave the reserve they were arrested at Bulleen and sent to the Police Paddocks at Dandenong. Others continued to live on creek-side encampments or work on local stations, while others moved to the safety of the Upper Goulburn until land was reserved for them at Coranderrk in 1863. Pound Bend served as a ration station until closed in 1862.
Nillumbik Reconciliation Group, in partnership with Reconciliation Manningham, has erected plaques on two boundaries of the former reserve: at the confluences of Stony Creek and of Anderson Creek with the Yarra River. The plaques were unveiled on 23rd March during the Warrandyte Festival.
You can download a flyer with more information and directions to the sites here.
More extensive information on the plaques, historical notes on the Wurundjeri of the Yarra Valley, and sites of significance around Melbourne are included on a pamphlet that can be downloaded here.
Auntie Di Kerr speaking at the plaque unveiling. Photo: Diana Warrell
2012 Victorian Community History Awards
Mick Woiwod's Coranderrk Database has received a Victorian Community History Award under the Local History Project category. The awards are given by the Royal Victorian Historical Society and Public Record Office Victoria. This award “recognises activities that enhance access to records of significance to local communities. The project should increase access, awareness and participation in history on a local or community level, including digitising, indexing, cataloguing, resources and original research.”
The citation reads as follows: “Woiwod’s research makes this much more than a compilation. It is a resource kit providing detailed material presented chronologically about Indigenous people at the Coranderrk Aboriginal station near Healesville, designed to serve communities in the Yarra Valley and Victoria generally through libraries. It represents a huge effort in collection, arrangement and interpretation and deserves to be widely used. It also presents new material about the well-known story of Coranderrk’s demise.”
Congratulations to Mick, and thanks for all his work – his knowledge of Wurundjeri history is invaluable.
A booklet listing the awards can be downloaded here (620KB).
All copies of the original print run have now been distributed.
A limited, and probably final, re-print (100 sets) is now available
— $65 per set (plus $15 postage).
(Note: Coranderrk Database is not available as a separate item.)
Double-CD sets, containing the complete text in Word & pdf formats,
are available @ $35 per set (plus $5 postage).
For further information please contact the Secretary.
THE WURUNDJERI CULTURE RESOURCE KIT
IS NOW AVAILABLE ON DISC
The Wurundjeri Culture Resource Kit has been completely updated and is now available on CD-ROM. (It's no longer available as a photocopied & bound hard copy because the CD format is far more useful, such as for printing multiple copies of the class exercises.)
The kit is primarily targeted at children in the primary years, and as the title implies it is particularly relevant to the Yarra Valley and surrounding areas – Wurundjeri country.
However, other regions would find much that is relevant, and would also see ways in which they would be able to particularise it to their areas.
You can download a preview of the first ten pages here (1MB pdf file). The CD-ROM includes files to print a board game up to A2 size.
The price of the kit is $20 (plus $5 postage).
Please contact the Secretary for further information. | <urn:uuid:82b25723-0542-4ffb-b0a9-0c881f548e18> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://home.vicnet.net.au/~nrgp/ | 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 | 0.937324 | 1,292 | 2.140625 | 2 |
Now that the area ticks call home is expanding, the risk of getting Lyme disease isn't limited to those who live up north -- and the FOX 9 Investigators found out that means the dangerous illness is under-diagnosed because the symptoms can mimic other illnesses and tests can be inconclusive.
For years, the Minnesota Department of Health has tracked hot zones, where the risk of running across an infected tick is the highest. For the most part, the metro has been spared, but officials have found black-legged ticks, also known as the deer tick, in all seven metro counties in recent years.
Ross Savage lives in the heart of Minneapolis. He doesn't frequent any of the known tick hot zones outside the metro, but he still found himself fighting Lyme disease.
"It's hard to see those ticks all the time -- especially when you're not looking for them because you're here in town and you don't feel like it's something you're going to be threatened by," said Savage.
The symptoms for Lyme disease, which is the most common tick-borne illness, include headaches, muscle aches, joint aches and fatigue. That means it can easily be mistaken for something else.
"I began to have paralysis in my left side," recalled Karri Piecora, who lives in the metro area. "We went to many different doctors. They thought I had M.S., lupus."
Piecora's illness started with an excruciating headache. In fact, she said the pain was so intense that she thought she was going to die.
"I would get where I couldn't walk and then I couldn't speak," she said.
To this day, she still has some paralysis in her lip, but weekly injections of antibiotics are helping.
Doctors were stumped by her case at first. Two blood tests for Lyme disease came back negative before a third confirmed the infection many months later.
"We do have a tendency, I believe, to under-diagnose Lyme disease," said Dr. Betty Maloney, who teaches other doctors about the tick-borne illness.
When asked why, Maloney said she thinks Lyme disease gets missed because not all cases look the same. In fact, the characteristic rash that usually follows a tick bite is absent in about 30 percent of Lyme disease patients.
As Piecora discovered, blood tests aren't a sure thing either. In fact, Maloney says you could take 100 people with Lyme disease, and a sizable number of the tests might come back negative.
"Ultimately, at the end of the day, you would have told 56 percent of the 100 they had Lyme disease, but you would have told 44 that they didn't (have it)," said Maloney.
A record number of Minnesotans got sick from tick bites last year. Nearly 1,300 cases of Lyme disease were reported, and about a third of the patients were children.
The black-legged tick dines on deer to help it thrive, but that doesn't mean deer need to live in an area where ticks can be found.
"When the female tick lays her eggs on the forest floor, she'll lay like, 1-3,000 eggs all in the same spot," said Dave Neitzel, with the Minnesota Department of Health.
The ticks are born without disease, but the young ones get infected by feeding on mice and other small animals which can carry the harmful germs that make people sick. If you see chipmunks and other rodents scurrying around your property, there could be ticks on them also.
However, ticks can't jump over to get on us. Humans need to make physical contact with them in order to get bitten. Once a tick grabs hold of you, it needs to stay attached for a least a day to inject the bad bacteria.
University of Minnesota researchers are studying how these germs act once they invade the body -- but until a vaccine comes along, the best line of defense against any tick-borne disease is to be careful where you walk.
Experts recommend walking on trails in wooded areas. In fact, Neitzel said walking in the center of a paved trail will give you no risk of picking up ticks. Instead, those off-trail moments into the brush are when ticks can come in contact with -- and attach to -- passerby. | <urn:uuid:070c4d24-14b0-436d-a3a6-2342387749dc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.myfoxtwincities.com/story/17961149/investigators-under-diagnosing-lyme-disease | 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 | 0.978233 | 890 | 2.796875 | 3 |
NEW YORK, NY.-
Visible through the Madison Avenue windows of the Whitney Museum of American Art
is a vast new wall painting created by artist Pat Steir, commissioned by Adam D. Weinberg, the Whitneys Alice Pratt Brown Director. The painting, which went on view to the public in late December, is on a large west-facing wall in the Museums Lower Gallery level. The wall encloses the space where the Whitneys restaurant is being renovated in preparation for the opening, in spring 2011, of a new café by Danny Meyers Union Square Hospitality Group.
Another Nearly Endless Line (2010) is composed on a wall washed with fourteen layers of transparent blue and purple acrylic paint, with a chalk grid of Pompeian red drawn upon the ground, and a swirling, undulating, painted line in red, orange, and yellow. The painted line, perhaps evoking a text, a road, a message, or a musical score, pulls the eye from the upper left across the wall and back again, until the line seems to disappear into the floor. Speaking of the work, the artist noted, Its almost like a map you cant follow, a road map to a place you cant go
This is Steirs second wall painting for the Whitney; the previous one was done by the artist in the same location in 1997.
Steirs earlier site-specific wall installation, The Nearly Endless Line, is currently on view, through January 9, at Sue Scott Gallery on Rivington Street in downtown Manhattan.
Steir, a major figure in American art since the 1970s, has created some of the most ambitious and challenging drawings of the last four decades. A survey of forty years of her work was recently exhibited at the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence and at the Neuberger Museum of Art in Purchase, New York. She has created wall paintings in many other cities and at other museums going back to the 1980s when she painted a wall at the former home of the New Museum. Her work is included in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, The National Gallery of Art in Washington, the Tate in London, and the Whitney, among many others. She lives and works in New York. | <urn:uuid:0e3f985d-eb3f-42d1-9fdc-5d6cd5e1e382> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.artdaily.org/section/news/index.asp?int_sec=11&int_new=43924&int_modo=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960116 | 467 | 1.726563 | 2 |
This may not be the first chandelier ever made but it certainly belongs to the past centuries home light fixtures. It was fascinating to see this old chandelier at Torpa Stenhus during our teachers’ trip last year. It seemed to me that it had real candles as lights before but they were replaced by electrical ones later, though it must be a bit of work lighting and extinguishing them.
The glowing lights revealed the paintings on the ceiling that I didn’t quite understand what they were all about. The chandelier or whatever it was called before, however, served its purpose, which was to give light and warmth inside.
Photo Friday theme: Glowing
About the Author (Author Profile)
Marlene is a teacher by profession holding a degree of Bachelor of Science in Secondary Education. She works as a Mother Language Teacher in Sweden. She is a Filipina married to a Swede. She has been blogging since 2007 and she and her hubby own quite a number of websites. Connect with Marlene on Google+ | <urn:uuid:6e743839-1632-47af-b3f9-2fe12630144b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lemback.com/chandelier-of-the-past/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.987725 | 215 | 2.09375 | 2 |
Wage and Hour Division (WHD)
August 26, 2005
This is in response to your request for an opinion concerning whether your client’s proposed method of paying professional accountants satisfies the “fee basis” form of compensation under 29 CFR §541.605.
You request that your client’s (“Company”) proposed method of compensation be evaluated in light of the final rule implementing the minimum wage and overtime pay exemptions under section 13(a)(1) of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). This section provides a complete minimum wage and overtime pay exemption for any employee employed in a bona fide executive, administrative, or professional capacity as those terms are defined in the final rules at 29 CFR Part 541 that took effect on August 23, 2004. An employee may qualify for exemption as a bona fide professional employee if all the pertinent tests relating to duty, salary level and salary or fee basis are met.
In your case, we do not believe that the Company’s method of payment qualifies as payment on a fee basis.
You state that the Company outsources accountants to provide accounting and financial information management services, primarily to small and medium sized businesses. A significant portion of the services provided by the accountants is performed in their homes, where they process client financial transactions and maintain accounting records via computer. For discussion purposes, you ask us to assume that the Company’s accountants satisfy the “duties test” for the learned professional exemption.
The Company charges its clients primarily on a “per transaction” or “flat fee” basis. That is, a flat fee is charged for each entry into the client’s books (transaction), such as, for example, electronically entering a vendor bill; generating a check for bill payment to a vendor; posting payroll entries; entering an invoice or a customer payment, etc. Clients are charged a base flat fee for services, which includes visits to the customer to pick up required documentation, reconciling balance sheet accounts, and maintaining accounting systems. Additional flat fees are charged for extra services, such as generating printed reports and making additional visits to the client.
The Company also charges clients in hourly increments for certain services that cannot be defined on a transaction basis. In a conversation on March 11, 2005 with a member of the Wage and Hour Division staff, you stated that with respect to “hourly” services to the client, such as setting up the computer system or meeting with the client to review certain invoices, the accountant would be paid a percentage of what is charged to the client. The clients in this situation are charged in six-minute increments. You further state that accountants would be paid additional amounts on an hourly basis for certain “non-billable” activities, normally de minimis, such as attendance at training sessions and staff meetings.
The Company desires to pay its accountants a percentage of what is billed to clients for actual work performed by the accountants for the clients. It would pay an accountant from 30% to 40% of what is billed to the client for flat fee services, depending on the skill level and experience of the accountant. For example, assume the Company charges $2.00 per transaction for entries into the client’s accounting system. The accountant would then be paid between $.60 to $.80 for each such transaction. Similarly, assume the client is charged a flat fee of $75.00 for weekly base services, including office visits to pick up necessary documentation (invoices, receipts, etc.). The accountant would be paid a designated percentage of the fee charged to the client, in the example given, between 30% to 40% of the $75.00 fee charged to the client, regardless of the time it took to perform the base services.
The weekly compensation paid to accountants under this system would vary depending upon the amount of billable transactions and services each accountant performs each week. However, you state that, for purposes of this discussion, the requirements of 29 CFR §541.605(b) would be met as the resulting pay in every case would result in a rate being paid to accountants equal to no less than $455 per week, if the accountant worked a 40 hour week.
With regard to the “uniqueness” factor under section 541.605(a), you ask us to assume the following facts:
- The Company employs business accounting software, available for licensing on the open market to perform services to clients;
- Entries are made and posted by the accountants in accordance with general ledger accounting principles, with which they must be familiar;
- Many transactions involve entries of a repetitive but not necessarily identical nature. For example, there will be certain bills and invoices that may be entered each week, month, etc. The amounts vary from week to week or month to month, but the general ledger account in which the entry is made does not change. However, the accountant must exercise professional judgment in the management of a client’s accounting system, in assuring that each entry is made correctly in the appropriate category, in assuring that the client’s internal and external reporting requirements are met, in advising clients regarding the accounting treatment of expenses, revenues, receipts, payments, etc.
Below is a discussion of the “fee basis” form of payment under the regulations, which is followed by an analysis of whether the Company’s proposed method of compensation discussed above can be considered as payment on a “fee basis” within the meaning of the regulations.
As stated in section 541.605(a), “[a]dministrative and professional employees may be paid on a fee basis, rather than on a salary basis. An employee will be considered to be paid on a ‘fee basis’ within the meaning of these regulations if the employee is paid an agreed sum for a single job regardless of the time required for its completion. These payments resemble piecework payments with the important distinction that generally a ‘fee’ is paid for the kind of job that is unique rather than for a series of jobs repeated an indefinite number of times and for which payment on an identical basis is made over and over again. Payments based on the number of hours or days worked and not on the accomplishment of a given single task are not considered payments on a fee basis.”
After reviewing the proposed pay plan described above, we believe that the “per transaction” or “flat fee” basis of compensation, from which an accountant would primarily derive his or her pay based on a percentage, more resembles piecework payments rather than payments on a “fee basis” under the regulations. It appears that an accountant, for example, paid $.60 to $.80 for each entry he or she makes to the client’s accounting system would be performing a series of jobs repeated an indefinite number of times for which identical payments would be made over and over again. Moreover, the history of the fee basis regulation, as there were no substantive changes made to the previous rule, demonstrates that the fee basis of payment does not involve a predetermined amount paid regularly over a long period of time. See 69 FR 22122, 22184 (April 23, 2004); Opinion Letter dated October 19, 1999(copy enclosed). The fact that the accountants in question would be paid the same predetermined sum for each transaction is a strong indication that such transactions are not unique.Id.Opinion Letter dated April 15, 1982 (copy enclosed). Accordingly, it is our opinion that payment based on a “per transaction” or “flat fee” basis as discussed above is not a “fee basis” arrangement that satisfies the regulations.
We also believe that the “hourly” services basis of compensation, from which an accountant would in part also derive his or her pay based on a percentage, cannot be considered payment on a “fee basis” under the regulations. Such compensation would be based on the amount of time worked and not on the accomplishment of a given single task regardless of the time required for its completion as the rule requires. Therefore, it is our opinion that such accountant would not be compensated on a “fee basis” within the meaning of 29 CFR §541.605(a). Thus, an accountant who meets the duties test under the learned professional exemption would nevertheless fail to qualify for the exemption if compensated in the manner discussed above. Even if the first aspect of the pay plan were modified so that it could be determined to be a proper “fee basis” under the regulations, the plan nevertheless would not qualify under these same regulations because it is combined with an hourly pay component. As explained in the preamble to the final rule, “[w]e continue to believe that payment of a fee is best understood to preclude payment of additional sums based on the number of days or hours worked.” See 69 Fed. Reg. at 22184; Elwell v. University Hospitals Home Care Services, 276 F.3d 832 (6th Cir. 2002).
This opinion is based exclusively on the facts and circumstances described in your request and is given on the basis of your representation, express or implied, that you have provided a full and fair description of all the facts and circumstances that would be pertinent to our consideration of the question presented. Existence of any other factual or historical background not contained in your request might require a different conclusion than the one expressed herein. You have represented that this opinion is not sought by a party to a pending private litigation concerning the issue addressed herein. You have also represented that this opinion is not sought in connection with an investigation or litigation between a client or firm and the Wage and Hour Division or the Department of Labor. This opinion letter is issued as an official ruling of the Wage and Hour Division for purposes of the Portal-to Portal Act, 29 U.S.C. 259. See 29 C.F.R. 790.17(d), 790.19; Hultgren v. County of Lancaster, Nebraska, 913 F.2d 498, 507 (8th Cir. 1990).
We trust that the above is responsive to your inquiry.
Alfred B. Robinson, Jr.
Enclosures: Opinion Letters dated October 19, 1999 and April 15, 1982
*Note: The actual name(s) was removed to preserve privacy in accordance with 5 U.S.C. 552 (b)(7). | <urn:uuid:a1bbf44c-1438-43db-9347-423d5eaeddb0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dol.gov/WHD/opinion/FLSA/2005/2005_08_26_24_FLSA.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955265 | 2,175 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Frequently Asked Questions
What's the difference between Kinergetics and Kinesiology?
Kinergetics is a modality of Kinesiology that encompasses the other modalities together, and brings them together in a very logical way.
After doing the course at the Kinesiology College, a lot of the Graduates were quite confused about how they could put everything we learnt in two years together, that was until they did Kinergetics.
They said that Kinergetics brought everything together for them in a much more logical way and gave them a platform to work from which they didn't have prior to doing Kinergetics.
I found learning other modalities of Kinesiology was much easier after doing Kinergetics, as it make everything else look much more simple.
You learn the absolute essentials of Kinesiology in Kinergetics, eg age recession, correcting with emotions, allergy testing, affirmations, etc and this gives you the basic tools of Kinesiology to learn any other forms of Kinesiology.
I have injured myself in an accident. How can Kinergetics help me?
The human body is like a house that is constantly being rebuilt to an energetic plan. If this plan becomes damaged in any way, the body cannot rebuild itself in a healthy manner. Our body is made of energy. Stress and Emotional issues can cause energy blocks in our body or energy fields.
This blocked energy causes damage to the plan allowing areas of weakness to form in the body. When extra pressure is placed on this weak area, an injury is more likely to occur.
Blocked energy may also manifest in the body as areas of "disease". Our aim is to strengthen the weak areas of the body by balancing the energy field, which may allow the body to repair itself.
I have an allergy. What can Kinergetics do for me?
The body stores all memory of everything we have ever done, seen or experienced. When dealing with allergies it has been found that there may have been a substance present at the time of you having a trauma or unpleasant experience. The body may then associate this substance with the memory of that trauma. When you come in contact with this substance the body will have an energetic reaction to the trauma that you first experienced. With Kinergetics we access this trauma and clear the energy associated with it so that the next time you are in contact with this substance your body may not react in any way to it. As an example, have you ever heard a song or smelt something that has bought back memories to you. The body is accessing memory associated with these sounds or smells.
It is in the same way that the body accesses memory associated with a substance. The body will react in an unpleasant manner if the original experience was unpleasant.
Will the correction hold? (Is it permanent?)
There are many instances of corrections lasting for 5 years or more. Stress, accidents and poor nutrition may cause corrections to be repeated.
How long does it take for allergies\sensitivities to go away when they have been corrected?
Some corrections may be assisted if clients keeping away from that substance for a period of time eg. one month.
Sometimes the results are immediate, especially if the emotions are found and corrected.
Kinergetics balancing has dramatically instantly improved many people suffering from heavy metal/anaesthetic or chemical sensitivity, because our Hydration balance helps open up the Kidneys for elimination.
What is that funny stuff you do with your mouth???
If we liken Kinergetics to accessing information from the client's computer (the brain), jaw stacking is used as a way of adding and storing new information. It looks weird, even the explanation is weird, but it works. It was developed by American chiropractor Alan Beardall.
Will my pain come back?
Every person is an individual. I believe Kinergetics accesses the CAUSE of most pain, therefore there is less chance of it returning. If it does return, it usually requires more balancing.
What do I do if I get sick or don't feel well after a balance?
The main reason would be dehydration. As stresses are released from muscles, organs and glands, toxins may also be released. Drinking extra water usually is all that is required.
Do the little things that you've told me to do, like holding my kidneys really make a difference?
Yes, one example was a lady medically diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue. Kinergetics testing showed a major reaction to a vial of homoeopathic mercury. I energised her Kidneys and kept checking for how long the body required energy. It took over 20 minutes. She has not had any symptoms of Chronic Fatigue since and as a bonus her chronic eczema cleared up.
Another client had major problems with mercury toxicity, which responded really well to kinergetics balancing. After about a year or so the mercury would slowly build up and she would start reacting again. I showed her and her husband how to energise her kidneys and the feedback was that it made a huge difference.
What do I need to know before I can learn this?
There are no prerequisites for Kinergetics.
Can anyone do this? Do I need to be a chiropractor or have extensive knowledge of anatomy?
Yes, anyone of average learning ability can learn Kinergetics. We have techniques that help with learning and also with overwhelm.
If 'Suppression' comes up in a balance and you don't know what it is yet still stack it in the circuit, won't this cause the suppression to be driven in deeper?
We believe that the Kinergetics corrections, even the basic Fast Fix, access and clear emotions that have been suppressed. One of the most common statements from clients is "I thought I had cleared that stress."
Will my Healing Energy stay switched on?
What we actually do is clear blocks and healingy then naturally flows. Dehydration, drugs or illness may temporarily affect the healing energy, but it should return to normal afterwards.
What do you do if the person doesn't like or want you to tap across their Corpus Callossum?
Don't do it. Respect the client's wishes.
We have found that in some instances nothing will show and then tapping along the Corpus Callossum will allow stress to show. Many times in a workshop I have been called over to help a student because nothing shows on a scan list, and the student had forgotten to tap along the Corpus Callossum. When they tapped, they then found something on the scan list.
I've done several Kinesiology workshops and all we have to do is tug the hair to check Hydration. Why do you need to tap across the Corpus Callossum and say "Hydration"?
Tugging the hair is a very basic test for dehydration. Kinergetics research has shown that tugging the hair is only accurate if the client is between 200ml (1/3 pint) and 600 ml (1 pint) dehydrated. If the client is more dehydrated then the electrical messages scramble and accurate testing is not possible - in other words the body is so dehydrated it can't tell you its dehydrated! Several kinesiology systems, including Kinergetics have now developed better ways of testing for dehydration.
We also know it works because of the results. See HYDRATION Testimonials
Why does this work when everything else has failed? What makes Kinergetics different? What's the difference between Kinergetics and Kinesiology?
It doesn't always work! The main difference is the Kinergetics hydration balancing. Most practitioners find that virtually every new client requires the Kinergetics hydration balance.
This consistently corrects most of the 42 musles taught in Touch For Health. As the muscles relate to the organs and Acupuncture Meridians, the energy of the whole body is affected.
Kinergetics also has unique corrections for the muscles around the TMJ (Temporomandibular Joint). Tension in these muscles affect the whole body structurally, nutritionally, energetically and emotionally.
Kinergetics also has corrections that locate and correct sabotages by finding the original stress that CAUSED the sabotage.
Kinergetics also works on the spiritual/metaphysical. Many students have improved their eyesight by correcting the spiritual reason for the imbalance.
What is the difference between Applied Physiology and Kinergetics? Written by an instructor of both sytems.
In my opinion Applied Physiology and Kinergetics are both unique Kinesiology courses.
Each course is a complete and effective healing modality covering most needs of today's clients. Both will achieve amazing results applied individually or integrated together.
Applied Physiology, while based on the all-encompassing love principle, allows the practitioner to delve to the deepest core in the body of our clients by addressing the organ connection through the Chinese meridian system. In Traditional Chinese Medicine it is well known that the deepest issues are held in the tissues in our organs within our bodies.
There are many correction techniques to enable the body to access balancing at a physical level as well a metaphysical level, body/mind connection eg; foot and hand reflexology, Acu-touch, tuning forks, essences, acupressure just to name a few. Applied Physiology appeals to many people who are drawn to the anatomy and physiology of the human and are inquisitive to how our body operates. Most physical ailments can be addressed with Applied Physiology.
Kinergetics while able to address the above topics in a fast and simple manner also addresses many areas in which people are enquiring into in today's modern society. Some of these topics include experiencing awareness of spiritual education and subconscious programming through formatting Light Bodies and Chakras.
Kinergetics uses healing energy to correct with higher vibrational access to facilitate balancing the body/mind connection. Kinergetics is an exciting new Kinesiology modality perfectly servicing the modern Practitioners and Healers of today. In my opinion Kinergetics is the most up to date and modern Kinesiology course available worldwide. It addresses the rapid evolvement of human awareness and health needs of our clients today.
How do I integrate Applied Physiology and Kinergetics?
While my procedure is flexible and tailored for each individual client, my basic format is to firstly check all Kinergetics hydration procedures upon all my new clients to ascertain a healthy balanced state is achieved, before addressing any major problems or issues. Next I will check via muscle monitoring, which procedure to begin with; eg Kinergetics, Applied Physiology etc. During the course of all balances I constantly look for ways to access more accurate information and will integrate many methods together. One way may be to commence with an Applied Physiology Hologram, set up the hardware to go as deep into the body as required, then use Kinergetics to age recess and connect to specific events and emotions to help clear the issue or imbalance we are working with. If Kinergetics is used within an Applied Physiology balance I would Kinergetics corrections within the balance then correct with Applied Physiology techniques to finalise the hologram. This also applies if I were to commence with Kinergetics and then incorporate an Applied Physiology procedure within the Kinergetics balance. At the end of each balance with all my clients I would use Kinergetics checks and Applied Physiology's 7 Chi Keys to balance the client to the balance to ensure the work holds and the client is stable.
As a teacher of both these modalities I find it easy to integrate these excellent modalities and educate my students accordingly. | <urn:uuid:97978f28-6a79-4787-bf36-ebee78e548c6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://kinergetics.com.au/Page.asp?Name=Faq | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00065-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955383 | 2,443 | 1.796875 | 2 |
Seventeen magazine and ABC Family have joined forces to combat one of the biggest enemies out there in today’s world; digital drama. Their new Delete Digital Drama campaign includes some of our favorite stars (like Shay Mitchell from Pretty Little Liars) and it even includes the newest ABC Family movie Cyberbully.
Long before Facebook was even invented, we had MySpace, Xanga, and a billion other such sites. Cyberbullying has been an increasing problem across the world via the internet since it’s conception. I can attest that pre-teens, teens, college students, and even young adults spend hours and hours on the internet a day. Even my 8 year-old cousin has a Facebook.
Much like Taylor in the movie (in case you haven’t seen it yet you should), many kids often get angry with their parents when mom and dad try to regulate their activity on the computer. It’s hard to realize when you’re young that they really are trying to protect us.
Cyberbullying is no joke. Kids can be exponentially harsh and it seems to be getting worse as time goes by. A lot of the time people don’t realize the affect their words have on people and their lives. They think that if they’re not physically harming anyone, it’s OK. Wrong.
Ask any therapist. In so many cases, verbal abuse can be worse than physical. The same goes for bullying people over the web. It’s human nature. People are more likely to believe the negative than the positive. We thrive off drama. It only takes one person to start a rumor about you and that’s it. Your reputation is tarnished, the damage varying depending on the severity of the rumor.
I was raised to always smile at people walking by and if I didn’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all. Why? Because, you never know how close someone is to the edge. Suicide is a serious problem. It’s all about paying it forward; you never know when one nice comment could save someone’s life. Conversely, you never know when one rumor could end it.
We live in an age where everything and anything can be found on line. Employers can see things you “think” you deleted from your Facebook, friends of friends can see pictures of your vacation to Cancun, there are even programs that allow people to look up your address and phone number. Everything once held sacred is lost once we put it on the internet.
I’ve been called a bitch via twitter and threatened over some stupid boy. People can be petty. It takes a lot of strength to rise above it all, but leading by example can be better than giving into the temptation of the rumors and drama. Contrary to popular belief, life goes on.
I’m glad that such huge entities like Seventeen and ABC Family are taking action in trying to help stop this deadly trend. The movie Cyberbully moved me to tears. The world has enough natural disasters, wars, famines, death, murders, and crimes as it is. Why must we contribute to the toxic of not just our country, but the world by giving in to cyberbullying?
I urge you all to please watch what you do put on the internet, and even if you don’t start it, never be an accessory. | <urn:uuid:424d9ab5-0b58-4447-b7fe-8275113737de> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lovelyish.com/2011/07/20/the-harsh-reality-of-cyberbulling/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959821 | 713 | 1.953125 | 2 |
|Emotional Mastery Emotional intelligence, addiction and recovery, grieving, loss, fear, anger, guilt, resentment, frustration, anxiety, depression, happiness, joy, love, kindness, forgiveness, self-acceptance, confidence, escaping the pit of despair, EFT|
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|03-22-2008, 01:22 AM||#1 (permalink)|
Join Date: Mar 2008
Why are we committing SUICIDE?
I couldn’t help but wonder why suicide had been so prevalent in our times, a time when we have such comforts and riches people in the past never even dreamt of. What is there to lose all interest in the life we’re living in? What kind of depression is there to make us overcome even the fear of death itself rather than face our present lives?
In my previous article MAN’S PURPOSE, I’ve noted how only human beings were asking what meaning there is in their lives. The answer I found was that we are the only ones gifted with free will. Unlike animals, we are not bound to merely do what our bodies were designed to perform, like birds who were meant to fly for instance, or a fish who’s meant to swim. On the contrary, we are gifted with the opportunity to choose how it is we should make use of our lives, how we can live it to the very full.
Yet why the frustration? Why the emptiness and loneliness that went along with it instead? Somehow, I couldn’t help but think that one reason is the death of our belief in a God to whom we are accountable to, and to whom we can offer our lives.
I believe that each of us needs purpose, each needs to be loved, each has the desire to please somebody else other than the self. And in these times when we are bombarded with millions of ideas on self improvement, self gratification and self worship, is it not obvious why we become so frustrated? We get disappointed because we are not perfect ourselves, atleast, not yet. We fail ourselves. And when we do, we have no one else to run into because eveybody else is busy with their own selves, in their own worlds.
In truth, we may be killing ourselves because God has left us, because we thought we couldn’t run to Him anymore in our darkest hour, when all else and everybody else has deserted us. We ARE DYING FOR GOD.
(subscribers can download free e-book on HEALING and LIFE ANSWERS)
|Thread||Thread Starter||Forum||Replies||Last Post|
|i want some articles on suicide||mazhar||Emotional Mastery||2||03-20-2008 06:14 AM|
|Mental Suicide||ZenFender||Emotional Mastery||21||02-12-2008 09:05 PM|
|Suicide||m18pak||Spirituality, Consciousness, & Awareness||47||12-08-2007 04:59 AM|
|Committing to the MDE - how can I make a difference?||Anne4Joy||Steve Pavlina||0||03-07-2007 10:43 AM|
|Why is Suicide and Self-Sacrifice so Frowned Upon?||Hsiang-Lin||Spirituality, Consciousness, & Awareness||14||12-10-2006 01:23 PM|
All times are GMT. The time now is 02:00 AM. | <urn:uuid:37afecfe-2595-4558-b55d-71fab17fb534> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.stevepavlina.com/forums/emotional-mastery/16589-why-we-committing-suicide.html?mode=threaded | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.926738 | 734 | 1.617188 | 2 |
FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) - A lawmaker is trying again to get legislation passed that would allow advertising on the sides of school buses.
Democratic state Rep. Terry Mills of Lebanon is expected to present the proposal to the House Education Committee on Tuesday.
The measure would give school districts the option of selling advertising space on the exterior sides of school buses. Money generated from the ads would stay in the district, and the local school board would decide how to use it.
Mills had unsuccessfully pressed for the legislation last year. It would prohibit political advertising on the buses. Ads for tobacco and alcohol products would also be barred.
(Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)
Enter your number for a chance to win great prizes!
Message and data rates may apply | <urn:uuid:2ea8869f-5d14-4281-be49-b3bd6fc2eb5c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wkyt.com/wymt/home/headlines/Push_renewed_to_get_advertising_on_school_buses_137004728.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966477 | 174 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Coffee shops are popular in situations where work or other commitments give people limited time in which to eat, and their requirements may range from a simple coffee or snack to a full meal.
As a Barista your role is to use specialist machines to make a range of coffees, including cappuccinos and lattes, and would normally involve:
• grinding coffee or measuring out pre-ground coffee
• filling the machine with the correct amount
• ensuring the water temperature is correct
• taking coffee orders from the customer or from a colleague
• making up the order with the right coffee, type of milk and any flavourings
• decorating the steamed milk
• checking the coffee machines regularly throughout the day
• keeping the machine and work area clean
• reporting any problems to a manager
You will also help to set up the cafe before it opens; refilling salt, pepper and sugar containers along with sauces, napkins, and cutlery points; making coffee, and arranging the display counters with cold drinks and pre-packaged food. Salads, sandwiches, and cold sweets will be collected from the kitchen and arranged in the counters. Customers are influenced by the look of the food, so a well presented and attractive arrangement with is important, and hygiene standards must be excellent. Hot dishes are left until just before service begins, although the hot cupboards and soup kettles will need to be warmed up in advance.
During service, you will restock the counters as necessary, collecting food from the kitchen and returning empty dishes. Throughout your shift you will help with general cleaning and tidying around the kitchen and counters, tray and waste collection points, tables, floors, toilets and entrance. It is likely that you may also work on the cash point, where customers pay for their food and drink. Customers appreciate friendly, helpful staff, who enjoy giving good service, taking pride in their appearance and that of the restaurant. | <urn:uuid:e4ecc497-18e0-4c55-af0d-75c53bf6fd7a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.uksp.co.uk/Career-Choices/Team-MemberBarista-Coffee-Shops | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95333 | 396 | 2.1875 | 2 |
Study: Online Dating Matchmaking Algorithms Are Unscientific
Online dating sites use unscientific matchmaking algorithms that often give false or shallow results.
In a study paper soon to be published in a forthcoming issue of Psychological Science in the Public Interest, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, a team of psychological scientists have called out online dating sites and their algorithms. The study, which delves into the use of matchmaking algorithms by online dating sites to find singles prospective partners has found that the methods and process used are at best cosmetic.
Many dating sites offer matchmaking services and promise to provide you with a fitting match after assessing your profile and “matching” it with those of others similar or most compatible with yours. This study however analysed a number of these matchmaking algorithms and found that they use non-scientific methods to determine matches. Using only shallow statistical methods, the algorithms only match singles based on rudimentary analysis rather than deep relational science analysis.
“To date, there is no compelling evidence that any online dating matching algorithm actually works,” lead author Eli Finkel, Associate Professor of Social Psychology at Northwestern University observes. “If dating sites want to claim that their matching algorithm is scientifically valid, they need to adhere to the standards of science, which is something they have uniformly failed to do. In fact, our report concludes that it is unlikely that their algorithms can work, even in principle, given the limitations of the sorts of matching procedures that these sites use.”
The author goes further to suggest that dating has more to do with face-to-face romantic evaluation, something that online dating simply cannot deliver. He also goes further to say that relational science is better placed to determine dating outcomes than mathematical algorithms because it can study deeper aspects and nuances of personality and preference, things that cannot be adduced by studying simply online profiles.
What this essentially means is that for millions of singles using such online dating sites, the best service the sites can offer is to simply provide that fist point of contact and open the way for an offline face-to-face meetup, nothing more. | <urn:uuid:4168ee85-8500-486a-954b-92e554231b90> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://theurbantwist.com/2012/02/08/study-online-dating-matchmaking-algorithms-are-unscientific/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947909 | 433 | 2.203125 | 2 |
|"Earth Birth" by Deborah Milton|
We are in God's womb.
As much a child in the womb of a mother is physically an extension of mother, a part of her whole being, when she is lightly or heavily pregnant - and the child's beingness is from the mother's being; like that our divinity is from the Sole Divine, so are we in the rahm (womb) of ar-Rahim, enveloped by Her Protecting Grace.
Ya Rahman, Ya Rahim
O Universally Merciful, O Exclusive Lover
Ya Hafizu, Ya Hafiz
Please protect us O the Supreme Protector
So are we in the rahm of ar-Rahim, swimming in ab-e-hayat, the water of life.
Ya Rabb, ya Hayy
Please nourish us O Supreme Nourisher, O Ever Living
Like a child who must pass from the limited womb world to the larger world. From layer upon layer of the absence of light, zulumatun ba'duha fawqa ba'din (darkness upon darkness. 24:40) to the bright daylight of the sun, so shall we pass from this constricting and ephemeral world to the expansive garden of the eternal world.
Like a mother who delivers the child from one stage to the next, from God's womb is our journey from this world to the next.
Allahu Waliyyu allazeena amanoo. Yukhriju-hum mina-z zhulumati ilaa-n noor (2:257)
Allah is the Protecting Guardian (Waliy) of those who have faith. He delivers them out of darkness into light. ~ The Qur'an 2:257
Like the less wise one, there are many who take this present world as everything and they shall be the biggest looser when the inevitable reality will be brought forth.
And they say, "When we are bones and crumbled particles, will we [truly] be resurrected as a new creation?"
Say, "Be you stones or iron. Or some created thing that is yet greater in your thoughts, (even then you shall be resurrected)!"
Then they will say: "Who shall bring us back (to life)?"
Say: "He Who created you at the first."
Then will they shake their heads at thee, and say: When will it be?
Say: "It will perhaps be soon;"
On the day when He will call you forth, then shall you obey Him, giving Him praise, and you will think that you had not remained [in the world] except for a little.
- The Qur'an 17:49-52
And no sign comes to them from the signs of their Lord except that they are from it turning away. And they say, "When is this promise, if you should be truthful?"
They do not await except one blast which will seize them while they are disputing.And the trumpet shall be blown, when lo! from their graves they shall hasten on to their Lord
They will say, "O woe to us! Who has raised us up from our sleeping place?" [The reply will be], "This is what the Most Merciful had promised, and the messengers told the truth."
It will not be but one blast, and at once they are all brought present before Us.
So today no soul will be wronged at all, and you will not be recompensed except for what you used to do. Verily the Companions of the Garden shall that Day have joy in all that they do;
They and their spouses - in shade, reclining on adorned couches.
For them therein is fruit, and for them is whatever they request [or wish]
The word from a Merciful Lord (for them) is: Peace!
Does not man see that it is We Who created him from sperm? yet behold! he (stands forth) as an open adversary!
And he presents for Us an example and forgets his [own] creation. He says, "Who will give life to bones while they are disintegrated?"
Say: He will give life to them Who brought them into existence at first, and He is cognizant of all creation.
He Who has made for you the fire (to burn) from the green tree, so that with it you kindle (fire).
Is not He Who created the heavens and the earth able to create the like of them? Yea! and He is the Creator (of all), the Knower.
His command, when He intends anything, is only to say to it: Be, so it is.
Therefor Glory be to Him in Whose hand is the dominion over all things! Unto Him you will be brought back.
- The Qur'an 36 | <urn:uuid:4d5962bb-da5c-4fda-a31c-b2eb2cd6cd87> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mysticsaint.info/2012/11/in-gods-womb.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951029 | 1,019 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Written by Ehud Rosen
The Global March to Jerusalem: Part of the International Campaign to Delegitimize Israel
Over the past few years there has been a Palestinian campaign focusing on the so-called "Judaization" of Jerusalem. A number of related topics have been raised recently in what appears to be an orchestrated campaign initiated by leading figures in the PA,·Hamas, and Muslim Brotherhood.
In January 2012, the European Preparatory Committee for the Global March to Jerusalem published an invitation for participation and support. The organizers are aiming to hold marches to Jerusalem "or the nearest point to it" on March 30, to coincide with the annual Palestinian "Land Day." Originally, marches were planned in Israel, the·Palestinian Authority, and the four neighboring countries: Egypt,·Lebanon, Jordan, and·Syria.
The European Preparatory Committee is comprised of members of UK Muslim Brotherhood circles and a member of the Free·Gaza movement (founded by the International Solidarity Movement, ISM), this time joined by the anti-imperialist camp. The original idea is said to have come from participants in the December 2010 "Asia to Gaza Solidarity Caravan."
In February 2012, various national committees began their preparations, including in Jordan,·Turkey, Pakistan, Lebanon, and·Iran. More than twenty Palestinian organizations have endorsed the march.
It is hard to predict the results of these preparations. However, the participation of Sunni-Islamist circles is increasing, encouraged by their rise due to the Arab Spring. Fatah, the PLO, and the PA are becoming more involved as well, as are more Islamist jihadi forces and far-right European elements.
The political element has always been part of the struggle against Israel, yet less attended to than other, mainly violent sides. However, for more than a decade, the centrality of this element has expanded among those fighting against the existence of Israel as the Jewish state. Two parallel perceptions are gradually becoming the focus of the international campaign to delegitimize Israel - "international mobilization" ("direct action") and the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement. As previously demonstrated in our research which focused on Britain - one of the main "hubs" of this campaign - these efforts are being undertaken by groups that were never in the center of politics or mainstream public opinion, and therefore turn to places that might serve as bases of mainstreaming and recruitment - the academic world, a natural place for radical views and student activism;1 the widely developing NGO community and "civil society" organizations; trade unions, which by their nature appeal to the more leftist side; various political echelons, sectorial and mass media, as well as religious institutions when relevant.
Several factors have contributed to the advancement of the political struggle:
The result of all this is widening the circles of these coalitions, increasing the role of the Islamist element, while facilitating its fundraising and administrative abilities around the world, alongside the growing involvement of Fatah and Palestinian officials in the same causes. A forthcoming Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs research paper reveals the growing adoption of the BDS movement by European Muslim Brotherhood affiliates, as well as by Fatah and senior PA officials. Both groups started to expend more effort on the political/civilian sides of the struggle immediately following Israel's Gaza Operation in 2008-2009.
Over the past few years there has been a Palestinian campaign which focuses on the so-called "Judaization" of Jerusalem. A number of related topics have been raised recently in what appears to be an orchestrated campaign initiated by leading figures in the PA, Hamas, and Muslim Brotherhood.
On February 24, 2012, Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh delivered a sermon in Cairo at the prominent Al-Azhar Mosque, in which he reportedly stated: "We paid a lot in blood in order to keep Jerusalem an Arabic and Islamic city. The Arab Spring brought the Islamic nation to the threshold of the city of Jerusalem."3
On the same weekend, a large conference on the defense of Jerusalem was held in Qatar under the patronage of the Arab League,4 featuring what has been called "an unprecedented coalition against Israel."5 This is the second Arab League conference on the topic; the first took place in Sirte, Libya, in March 2010, hosted by the country's late president Gaddafi.6 The current conference reportedly7 featured the Qatari emir, politicians, and diplomats from other Middle East countries, secretaries-general of both the Arab League and Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), Sheikh Qaradawi and various other figures from the Middle East, Europe, and the U.S. affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood,8 Arab-Israeli MKs, senior Fatah and PA figures including President Abbas, and several rabbis from the anti-Zionist Neturei Karta group. In addition, eight UN officials from various departments attended, as well as Western politicians and academics, representatives of far-left political groups, and at least one Western individual, Prof. Hans Köchler, president of the Vienna-based International Progress Organization (IPO), tied to both the European far-right and far-left.9
Iran is also involved more than usual, through three delegates representing the Tehran-based Neda Institute for Scientific Political Research. Since at least 2001, Neda has served as the major point of contact bringing together Western Holocaust deniers with their Middle East counterparts. Known Neda activity has included the publication of journals and media articles, sponsorship of conferences, and probably the funding of Holocaust-denial activity in the West.10
Lately, the emir of Qatar has been enjoying the rise of Sunni Islamism across the region, and the growing acceptance of the Muslim Brotherhood by Western officials. The Qatar Foundation (known for its sponsorship of the Barcelona soccer team), chaired by the emir's second wife, Sheikha Mozah, also launched a second Islamist center in the Qatar Faculty of Islamic Studies, headed by prominent Brotherhood figure Tariq Ramadan (the first center is headed by Sheikh Qaradawi). The launch ceremony of the new center was attended by representatives of U.S. universities as well as many Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated figures, including those close to circles of Union of Good (UoG), Hamas, and al-Qaeda funding.11
Qatar, probably the most important country standing behind Sheikh Qaradawi and the global spread of the Muslim Brotherhood in the last few decades, also currently serves as president of the Arab League. Qatar has been acting as chief mediator between Fatah and Hamas, and it is not far-fetched to assume that it chose to reunite both sides on the basis of attacking Israel. This was hinted at in the first conference held in Libya, in which many Arab leaders were reported to have called to "set aside feuding and unite against Israel." During the Qatar conference, changes of approach between Fatah and the Islamists were demonstrated when Abbas called on Arabs and Muslims to come visit Jerusalem, while Hamas and Qaradawi stated that non-Palestinian Muslims are not allowed to visit Jerusalem while it remains under occupation. This already raised controversy between the two sides, and PA ministers are now asking Qaradawi to annul this fatwa.12
Parallel to the Qatar conference, a meeting took place in Jordan of the International Committees of the Global March to Jerusalem.13 This, and also the attendance of central British figures previously tied to land convoys to Gaza and flotillas in Qatar, strengthen the impression that the conference in Qatar was timely and had been scheduled to coincide with preparations for the march. It is also noteworthy that several British politicians, like Baroness Jenny Tonge (who quit her position as the Liberal-Democrat Party whip after refusing to apologize over her remarks about Israel),14 were listed as representatives of the Council for European-Palestinian Relations (CEPR), a Belgian-based political front established in 2010 by European Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated figures connected to the Federation of Islamic Organizations in Europe (FIOE), including Dr. Arafat Shukri, head of the European Campaign to End the Siege on Gaza (ECESG) and director of the London-based Palestinian Return Centre (PRC), which Israel sees as affiliated with Hamas.15
In mid-January 2012, the European Preparatory Committee for the Global March to Jerusalem published an invitation for European participation and support, stating: "We say no to Zionism; and to an exclusive Jewish colonial state, which reacts to the legitimate struggle of the indigenous Palestinian people with the expansion of its Apartheid rule."16
The organizers of the march, which they describe as a "pluralistic initiative transcending cultural and religious borders on a simple political platform," and was also described elsewhere as a "groundbreaking nonviolent civil resistance initiative,"17 are aiming to hold marches to Jerusalem "or the nearest point to it" on March 30, to coincide with the annual Palestinian "Land Day." Originally, marches were planned in Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and the four neighboring countries: Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria. From Europe they state: "We join this; carrying further ahead past initiatives. Our intention is to build a bridge for peace between the Arab region, Europe and other parts of the world."
Unsurprisingly, the European Preparatory Committee is comprised of members of UK Muslim Brotherhood circles and a member of the Free Gaza movement (FGM, founded by the International Solidarity Movement, ISM), this time joined by the anti-imperialist camp. The original idea is said to have come from participants in the December 2010 "Asia to Gaza Solidarity Caravan,"18 which included various anti-Israel, far-left, and Islamist activists from Asia, as well as the FGM's liaison in India.19
Later in January, the Central Committee for the march, comprised of 40-42 members, held a conference in Beirut. The committee is headed by anti-imperialist former Lebanese Prime Minister Salim el-Hoss, who also served as honorary president of the International Campaign to End the Siege on Gaza (ICESG).20 The closing statement of the committee's first meeting highlighted the political and cultural importance of Jerusalem for the Palestinians and all humanity; called on all "free people of the world" to protect Jerusalem, its sanctuaries, and historical sites; stated that the attempt to change Jerusalem's Arab, historical, and cultural identity is a "crime against humanity"; condemned the "Judaization" of Jerusalem and "ethnic cleansing" performed by Israel in the city and the ongoing building of the "racist separation wall"; and restated the Palestinians' right of return and self-determination. Further, the declaration emphasized the "non-political" and "diverse" nature of the march's participants, and its commitment to non-violence.21
In the committee's second meeting, the Jordan-based Dr. Rebhi Halloum was elected to head the global march. Halloum is a former Fatah and PLO senior official, who left due to his rejection of the Madrid peace talks and the Oslo Accords.22 The committee's coordinator is Mohammed Sawalha, who previously filled such positions in the flotillas and was also connected to the land convoys as deputy head of the ICESG. The meeting was also attended by others who took part in organizing the land convoys and flotillas23 including former UK MP George Galloway, Dr. Paul Larudee, one of the original founders of the ISM, and delegates from Europe, India, and the U.S. It was agreed to change the concept of the previous "mobilizations" in the Viva Palestina and Miles of Smiles land convoys and the flotillas from "breaking the siege on Gaza" to "breaking the occupation." Halloum asserted that masses of people coming from all sides will render the Israeli army unable to decide on a course of action. He also stressed that peaceful mobilization is not a substitute for resistance [muqawama].24
Another important figure who attended is Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, a PA oppositionist who heads the Palestinian National Initiative. Barghouti is deeply involved in promoting the BDS movement and has had ties with European Muslim Brotherhood circles for many years. Barghouti was quoted by Al-Quds Al-Arabi in April 2008 sending his blessings to the residents of the West Bank village of Bilin and the foreign activists who take part in demonstrations against Israel's security fence, stating that the struggle has to continue until the entire "separation wall" is taken down. In the same article, published at the peak of peace talks between PA President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, the intentions of PA figures and NGOs to open a third "peaceful intifada" in case the talks fail - "under the patronage" of Israeli and international peace activists - were presented. Those behind the initiative were said to have taken an example from Bilin, whose struggle led to changing the route of the fence next to the village, unlike the armed intifada that led to no achievements.25
In February 2012, various national committees began their preparations for the march, whether in Jordan, where the Syndicates (professional associations that are Muslim Brotherhood strongholds) seem to be taking the lead again;26 in Turkey, as reported by a Union of Good website, where a two-day conference on the "Arab-Turkish Spring" also "explored avenues and mechanisms to support Al-Quds [Jerusalem] and its people and to break the blockade on Gaza people";27 Pakistan, in which the Mawdudist Jamaat-e-Islami held a conference on the subject;28 or Lebanon, in which more meetings were held with representatives of far-left elements in the country like the Nasserist militia Al-Murabitun.29 At least some of these meetings were held in local Fatah headquarters, also featuring representatives from the PLO, jihadist movements like Ansar Allah, and more.30 An advisory board for the march was also formed in Iran.31 Interestingly, the march's official web domain also connected with the UK-based Shiite missionary organization AhlulBayt Islamic Mission,32 part of the UK "red-green alliance."
Among more than twenty Palestinian organizations endorsing the march33 are the "popular resistance committees" that come under the umbrella of the Ramallah-based Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign.34 The committees stand behind the demonstrations and clashes with the IDF in various Palestinian villages, with the participation of Israeli anarchists, movements such as Taayush, and others. Jamal Jum'a, head of that campaign, is also the registrant of the domain of the BDS National Committee, BNC.35 Other groups include the Palestinian ISM branch, the Badil Resource Center, involved in organizing Israel Apartheid Week in Europe, and the Israeli Alternative Information Center (AIC).
The Global March now has a twelve-member International Executive Committee (IEC), featuring Halloum, Sawalha, and others connected to Islamist and Muslim Brotherhood Middle Eastern, European, Asian, and South African circles, as well as leading far-left Western figures connected to the "red-green alliance" like Sarah Colborne, director of the UK Palestine Solidarity Campaign, and Paul Larudee, a founder of the ISM.36Above it stands an International Central Committee (ICC) consisting of 35 members, including the IEC members "representing the five continents."37
It is hard to predict the results of the preparations for the march. A few points, however, are noticeable, reflecting the structure of the international campaign to delegitimize Israel:
Lara Friedman of Americans for Peace Now, who attended the aforementioned conference in Qatar, said after its first day that she came to the conference thinking that the Arab League wanted to look into the full complexity of the issue, and include "openly pro-Israel, pro-peace voices." "However, it seems that virtually every conversation I am having here involves me, to a greater or lesser degree, having to defend the two-state solution and having to assert and defend the Jewish stake in Jerusalem."38
Furthermore, Norman Finkelstein, one of the most vocal critics of Israel, recently stated that the BDS movement was a "cult" and that those who run it are dishonest. He concluded by saying: "At least be honest what you want - 'we want to abolish Israel and this is our strategy for doing it.'"39
Ehud Rosen specializes in modern political Islam, focusing on the ideology and history of the Muslim Brotherhood. He is currently a senior researcher at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and teaches at Bar-Ilan University. | <urn:uuid:239e9730-bda1-4ad2-a193-f3f028409905> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rightsidenews.com/2012031527910/world/geopolitical/global-march-to-jerusalem-international-campaign-to-delegitimize-israel/print.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965135 | 3,436 | 1.773438 | 2 |
Through cooperative initiatives with other funders, the National Endowment for the Arts brings the benefit of international exchange to arts organizations, artists, and audiences nationwide. NEA's international activities increase recognition of the excellence of U.S. arts around the world and broaden the scope of experience of American artists, thereby enriching the art they create. Through partnerships with other government agencies and the private sector, the NEA fosters international creative collaboration by strengthening residency programs of foreign artists in communities across the country. Local citizens as well as the arts community benefit from the lasting international ties that result.
In partnership with Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation
Provides support for U.S. dance, music and theater ensembles that have been invited to participate in international festivals outside the U.S.
U.S./ Japan Creative Artists' Program
In partnership with Japan-United States Friendship Commission
Provides support for three-month residencies in Japan for five U.S. individual creative artists in any arts discipline.
In partnership with Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation and the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation
Provides support for the presentation of performing artists and ensembles from Latin America in U.S. communities that have little access to this work.
In partnership with CECArtsLink
Provides support to U.S. arts organizations to host an artist or arts manager from Central Europe, Russia or Eurasia for a five-week residency.
Presentation of Foreign Artists in the U.S.
Projects that include presentation of, or collaboration with, foreign artists in the U.S. are eligible for funding under the NEA Grants for Arts Project Guidelines. | <urn:uuid:deb74200-8d56-4fb7-ac64-83b02296f4d2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://arts.endow.gov/partner/international/content.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.92397 | 336 | 1.671875 | 2 |
A Massive, Spectacular Meteor Exploded Above Russia This Morning
While the world waits for an asteroid large enough to destroy a city to graze the orbits of our television satellites, citizens of Central Russia were greeted early this morning by a more mortality-shaking kind of astronomical event: a giant meteorite exploding across the atmosphere in a spectacular fireball, brighter than the still-rising sun, blowing out windows and injuring as many as 400 people [update – the latest estimates from Sky put the number of injured at 524, 82 of whom are children and two are in intensive care].
‘‘A serious meteor fell,’’ Sergey Galitskiy, the billionaire CEO of OAO Magnit, Russia’s biggest food retailer, wrote on Twitter. ‘‘At our hypermarket in Emanzhelinsk, windows were blown out, the roof shook, there was a strong shock wave.’’
The object, which was thought by some at first to be a military fighter jet crash or a missile explosion or UFOs, wasn't related to the giant asteroid that is set to pass Earth later on Friday, also known as 2012 DA14: it was simply a stunning coincidence. Technically, the object was a meteorite, a piece of rock as large as a boulder that causes a visible trace as it enters the Earth's atmosphere. That trace is called a meteor, and the pieces that make it to Earth are known as meteorites.
According to some reports, writes state-sponsored radio station The Voice of Russia, the meteor was intercepted by a missile fired from an air defence facility at Urzhumka village near Chelyabinsk, "at an altitude of 20 kilometres". "Witnesses reported a sudden change in atmospheric pressure upon the impact that made their ears pop. The space object hit the ground with a tremendous crash that resembled thunder and earthquake, damaging houses in Chelyabinsk and cutting off communications, witnesses say. Residents of Emanzhilinsk, a town 50 kilometres away from Chelyabinsk, said they saw an object high in the sky that suddenly burst into flames, broke apart and fell to Earth."
To continue reading and find out more about what the hell's going on visit Motherboard now.
Follow Motherboard on Twitter: @motherboard | <urn:uuid:bd6117b4-7906-4341-8cb9-588d2ad0dae1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.vice.com/en_se/read/russia-meteor-videos-what-the-hell-is-going-on-are-we-going-to-die | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967551 | 474 | 2.1875 | 2 |
Did you perhaps mean tunes?
- n. Plural form of rune.
““It may have been a member of the guard,” Cunliffe notes, “who scratched his name, Halfdan, in runes … in the church of Hagia Sophia, leaving a poignant reminder of the confrontation of two very different cultures.””
“How did the ancient civilizations figure out this negative pocket’s location and build a wheel inside it, along with stones covered in runes?”
“The runes were a little darker in color, but they did not glow, were not warning him of the advance of an enemy.”
“Their runes might be the personal jotting of some adept who had devised a code for the better keeping of secrets.”
“So the great Christian poet, Cynewulf, wrote his name in runes, which is how we know him to be the author of some of the poems we have been considering.”
“On it were strange marks, called runes, that said:”
“The letters of the ancient Scandinavian alphabet were called runes”
“The runes were the characters of the early alphabet of the”
“It had a bizarre double head, big curved blades, some kind of runes worked into the metal, a spike on the end of the handle.”
“I now understood why Great El’s slate had given me her name in runes.”
These user-created lists contain the word ‘runes’.
Words that inspire a feeling of old and/or mythical influences.
Words as I learn them.
words, spells, charms, curses, artefacts and objects from the Harry Potter books
City of Bones By. Cassandra Claire
A consonant goes into a bar and sits down next to a vowel. "Hi!" he says. "Have you ever been here before?"
"Of cursive," she replies. "I come here, like, all the time."
Looking for tweets for runes. | <urn:uuid:1b5aa822-540b-4610-a5a5-192136ecdff1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wordnik.com/words/runes | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972113 | 436 | 2.6875 | 3 |
Myanmar apologizes for violence against monks
Myanmar's government apologized for a violent crackdown on Buddhist monks and other foes of a copper mine in northwest Myanmar, which was the biggest use of force against demonstrators since reformist President Thein Sein took office last year.
Religious Affairs Minister Thura Myint Maung formally apologized for the violence to 29 senior monks at a ceremony in Yangon on Friday. His remarks were carried by all state media Saturday.
He said the government felt "extreme sorrow that monks and other people were wounded in the copper mine incident," which he said was mishandled by local authorities in Monywa in the northwest region of Sagaing.
Local authorities would "ensure that such undesirable incidents do not occur again," he said.
In the Nov. 29 crackdown, police used water cannons, tear gas and smoke bombs to break up an 11-day occupation of the mine project. The mine is a joint venture between a military-controlled holding company and a Chinese mining company. Protesters say it is causing environmental, social and health problems, and want the project halted.
Nearly 100 people, mostly Buddhist monks, were injured during the crackdown, mostly by burns that protesters said were caused by incendiary devices hurled by police.
The crackdown was reminiscent of those the country faced under military rule. It stirred anger because of the violence against monks, who are held in high regard by the Buddhist country.
The heavy-handed action indicated the government is still unsure where to draw the line on public protests. Thein Sein's government has been hailed for releasing hundreds of political prisoners and for implementing laws allowing public demonstrations and labor strikes.
Many prominent figures, including opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, had urged authorities to apologize.
Monks have staged protests since the crackdown, including one in Mandalay on Saturday that drew several hundred dressed in their saffron-colored robes.
A prominent monk at the Mandalay protest, Shin Wirathu, said the apology was not sufficient.
"The government should apologize directly to the monks who were injured and are being treated in hospitals," he said, adding that those responsible for unleashing the violence have not been punished.
After the crackdown, the government appointed Suu Kyi to lead a commission investigating the violent dispersal of peaceful protesters and to advise whether the mine project should continue. The appointment of the Nobel Peace Prize laureate to head the probe gives it credibility that the army-backed government lacks.
Separately, Suu Kyi on Saturday visited the hometown of her father, the country's independence hero, Gen. Aung San, who was assassinated in 1947 when she was just 2.
Thousands welcomed Suu Kyi at a football field in the town of Natmauk, a few hours drive north of Yangon.
"I feel like I am returning to my hometown," the former political prisoner told the adoring crowd. "I feel as though you all are my relatives."
Associated Press writer Yadana Htun contributed to this report from Mandalay, Myanmar. | <urn:uuid:fce3aa85-45b1-43f3-8d0d-47232ba75d3a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cortezjournal.com/article/20121208/API/1212080597/Myanmar-apologizes-for-violence-against-monks | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00069-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977577 | 627 | 2.15625 | 2 |
Guest Author - Phyllis Doyle Burns
Aesop, writer of fables was supposedly born in 619 BC and died in 559 BC. He is best known as "The Fabulist", credited with "The Tortoise and the Hare". It is uncertain as to where his birthplace was and some scholars debate if he really existed. Was Aesop himself a myth?
Aristotle and other early Greek sources indicate that Aesop was born around 620 BC in Thrace at a site on the Black Sea coast. Later sources from the Roman imperial period claim Aesop was born in Phrygia, a kingdom in the west central part of Anatolia, in what is now modern-day Turkey. Callimachus, a third century BC poet, called the famed writer "Aesop of Sardis". Maximus of Tyre, a Greek rhetorician and philosopher, referred to Aesop as "the sage of Lydia".
Either Aesop traveled a lot, or there was much confusion and speculation about his true life. Aristotle and Herodotus claimed Aesop was a slave in Samos, a Greek island in the eastern Aegean Sea. In the time when Aesop lived, Samos was a particularly rich and powerful city-state.
Aesop reportedly was very intelligent and highly respected by the people who knew him, for both Aristotle and Herodotus told of how Aesop must eventually have been freed from his bondage when he argued as an advocate for a wealthy Samian. Plutarchus (46 - 150 CE), a Greek historian, biographer, and essayist, claimed that Aesop was sent to Delphi on a diplomatic mission by King Croesus of Lydia. Also, according to Plutarchus, Aesop dined with the Seven Sages of Greece, as he sat beside his friend, Solon, who was an Athenian statesman, lawmaker, and poet. Aesop, indeed, traveled with well known, intelligent, and wealthy people.
There are no writings by Aesop that survived. Numerous fables were, however, attributed to him and collected. In the centuries since Aesop's death, these attributions have been gathered and set in writing as a collection of Aesop's Fables.
In the folk book titled The Aesop Romance, it is written that Aesop wrote down his fables and deposited them in the library of King Croesus. Scholars speculate whether or not Aesop actually wrote the fables. Yet by the time of Classical Greece, the fables were widely known and still attributed to Aesop. The works of Aesop's Fables was transcribed by several writers in both Greek and Latin. Over time many authors made collections of the fables, but they have all been lost.
Sadly, Aesop came to a tragic end. Around 564 BC, when on his diplomatic mission from King Croesus, Aesop met with a violent death. Plutarchus tells that Aesop insulted the Delphians in some manner. A trumped-up charge falsely accused him of stealing from a temple. Aesop was sentenced to death and thrown from a cliff. In retribution from an unknown source, the Delphians then suffered a pestilence and famine.
Aesop's fables are famous world wide. His short tales portrayed human nature and life's truths. A fable is a short story with a moral -- often using animals or inanimate objects as characters. The moral is to make the distinction between the right way and the wrong way of doing things.
If Aesop did in fact exist, it is easy to imagine why he wrote fables about the truths in life and learning right from wrong. Aesop was not only a slave, but, of abnormal stature. He was depicted in sculpture, paintings and woodcuts as a dwarfish hunchback with deformed facial features and disproportionate limbs and body. How he was treated in life may have influenced his writings. If he really had been a dwarfish hunchback with deformed features and still treated with respect and honour, then this could very well have been an inspiration for writing tales of right and wrong and how one should be treated.
Aesop's fable of "The Ant and the Chrysalis"
An Ant nimbly running about in the sunshine in search of food came
across a Chrysalis that was very near its time of change. The
Chrysalis moved its tail, and thus attracted the attention of the Ant,
who then saw for the first time that it was alive. "Poor, pitiable
animal!" cried the Ant disdainfully. "What a sad fate is yours!
While I can run hither and thither, at my pleasure, and, if I wish,
ascend the tallest tree, you lie imprisoned here in your shell, with
power only to move a joint or two of your scaly tail." The Chrysalis
heard all this, but did not try to make any reply. A few days after,
when the Ant passed that way again, nothing but the shell remained.
Wondering what had become of its contents, he felt himself suddenly
shaded and fanned by the gorgeous wings of a beautiful Butterfly.
"Behold in me," said the Butterfly, "your much-pitied friend! Boast
now of your powers to run and climb as long as you can get me to
listen." So saying, the Butterfly rose in the air, and, borne along
and aloft on the summer breeze, was soon lost to the sight of the
Moral: Appearances are deceptive.
Aesop portrait in the Museo del Prado, by Diego Velasquez, 1640
Source: Public Domain, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Diego_Velasquez,_Aesop.jpg
Aesop by Wenceslas Hollar (1607 1677)
Source: Public Domain, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wenceslas_Hollar_-_Aesop_2.jpg
For more about Aesop: | <urn:uuid:03a7436d-4d87-405c-8c8d-938bd7e07995> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art30682.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977142 | 1,294 | 3.078125 | 3 |
Oracle Fixes Database Security Flaw Revealed at Black Hat
Oracle has issued a fix for a security weakness in its database product that was disclosed at the Black Hat security conference in July in Las Vegas.
At the conference, Oracle database security guru David Litchfield of Accuvant Labs outlined CVE-2012-3132, a vulnerability in the Oracle database server. The issue was one of multiple attacks that Litchfield demonstrated against the Oracle indexing architecture. The flaw allows authenticated remote users to execute arbitrary SQL commands via vectors involving CREATE INDEX with a CTXSYS.CONTEXT INDEXTYPE and DBMS_STATS.GATHER_TABLE_STATS.
While it is not exploitable by remote unauthenticated users, an attacker could exploit the issue as part of a privilege escalation attack and gain 'SYS' privileges.
"Patches and relevant information for protecting against this vulnerability can be found in My Oracle Support Note 1480492.1," Oracle explained in a security advisory. "Mitigations for this issue for Oracle Database Server versions 9i through 11gR2 can be found in My Oracle Support Note 1482694.1. Due to the threat posed by a successful attack and the public disclosure of the technical details of this vulnerability, Oracle strongly recommends that customers apply this Security Alert solution as soon as possible."
The issue impacts versions 10.2.0.3, 10.2.0.4, 10.2.0.5, 220.127.116.11, 18.104.22.168 and 22.214.171.124 of the Oracle database server. According to the company, versions 126.96.36.199 and 188.8.131.52 do not require patching if the July 2012 Critical Patch Update has been applied.
"Since Oracle Fusion Middleware, Oracle Enterprise Manager, Oracle E-Business Suite include the Oracle Database Server component that is affected by this vulnerability, Oracle recommends that customers apply this fix as soon as possible to the Oracle Database Server component," according to Oracle.
For older systems such as Oracle 8i, the company released a workaround with instructions on how to create a database trigger that prevents the creation of a database object required to exploit this vulnerability, explained Alex Rothacker, director of security research for Application Security's TeamSHATTER.
"Since this vulnerability allows a full takeover of the database, SHATTER would give this vulnerability a CVSSv2 score of 9. This is a very high-risk vulnerability, with publicly available exploit code," he said. "Organizations should apply the patches released by Oracle ASAP, and if they are running a version of Oracle for which a patch is not available, they should immediately implement the workaround released by Oracle. A good database activity monitoring solution with the proper attack signatures can also help in identifying and preventing an attack using this vulnerability."
The Role of Standards in Cloud Security
Security is often cited as a primary cause for concern...Watch Now
Ensuring Resources for Mission Critical Workloads
Application workloads can thrive in cloud environments,...Watch Now
Improving Security in the Public Cloud
One of the main concerns about moving data to a public...Watch Now | <urn:uuid:de714ddf-ba40-4090-8c7b-bea3186b535d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cioinsight.com/it-management/inside-the-c-suite/oracle-fixes-database-security-flaw-revealed-at-black-hat/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.915822 | 655 | 1.53125 | 2 |
American culture venerates choice, but choice may not be the key to happiness and health, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research.
"Americans live in a political, social, and historical context that advances personal freedom, choice, and self-determination above all else," write authors Hazel Rose Markus (Stanford University) and Barry Schwartz (Swarthmore College). "Contemporary psychology has proliferated this emphasis on choice and self-determination as the key to healthy psychological functioning."
The authors point out that this emphasis on choice and freedom is not universal. "The picture presented by a half-century of research may present an accurate picture of the psychological importance of choice, freedom, and autonomy among middle-class, college-educated Americans, but this is a picture that leaves about 95 percent of the world's population outside its frame," the authors write.
The authors reviewed a body of research surrounding the cultural ideas surrounding choice. They found that among non-Western cultures and among working-class Westerners, freedom and choice are less important or mean something different than they do for the university-educated people who have participated in psychological research on choice.
"And even what counts as a 'choice' may be different for non-Westerners than it is for Westerners," the authors write. "Moreover, the enormous opportunity for growth and self-advancement that flows from unlimited freedom of choice may diminish rather than enhance subjective well-being."
People can become paralyzed by unlimited choice, and find less satisfaction with their decisions. Choice can also foster a lack of empathy, the authors found, because it can focus people on their own preferences and on themselves at the expense of the preferences of others and of society as a whole.
"We cannot assume that choice, as understood by educated, affluent Westerners, is a universal aspiration, and that the provision of choice will necessarily foster freedom and well-being," the authors write. "Even in contexts where choice can foster freedom, empowerment, and independence, it is not an unalloyed good. Choice can also produce a numbing uncertainty, depression, and selfishness."
Explore further: New study offers insight into how to best manage workaholics
More information: Hazel Rose Markus and Barry Schwartz. "Does Choice Mean Freedom and Well Being?" Journal of Consumer Research: August 2010. | <urn:uuid:d255d2b8-3d88-470c-bde9-bebc9720f295> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://phys.org/news183125915.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937793 | 479 | 2.53125 | 3 |