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Cabbage Flowers for Food
Broccoli and cauliflower are two more kinds of Brassica oleracea, so similar that both are designated as botanical variety botrytis, from a Greek word meaning a cluster like a bunch of grapes.
"Broccoli" is an Italian word taken from the Latin brachium, meaning an arm or branch. "Cauliflower" comes from the Latin terms caulis (cabbage) and floris (flower). These "cabbages" are grown for their thickened, profuse, undeveloped flowers and flower stalks instead of for their leaves.
Broccoli has two distinct forms. One makes a dense, white "curd" like that of cauliflower and is called "heading broccoli" or "cauliflower broccoli." The other makes a somewhat branching cluster of green flower buds atop a thick, green flower stalk two to two and a half feet tall, and smaller clusters that arise like "sprouts" from the stems at the attachments of the leaves. This form is called "sprouting broccoli."
Some years ago an observant gentleman came into my office to discuss the origin of sprouting broccoli. He insisted firmly that it must be the result of a cross between cabbage and asparagus, because it had the flavor of cabbage and the fleshy stem of asparagus!
Apparently this gentleman had never seen cabbage plants push up their flower stalks, else he would have realized that the developing flower stalk of cabbage and of sprouting broccoli are botanically the same thing. Neither did he realize that cabbage and asparagus are much too distantly related to hybridize.
In 1860, at the Cirencester Agricultural College in southern England, the wild cabbage from the seacoast was subjected to simple breeding and selection procedures. From these wild plants, which resembled crude kales, forms of broccoli and other related cabbagelike varieties were developed, demonstrating their common ancestry.
Broccoli Increasingly Popular in America
Like the other forms of B. oleracea, the parent type of these cabbages is native to the Mediterranean and Asia Minor. The Romans grew sprouting broccoli and prized it highly, according to Pliny, in the 2nd century after Christ. This is the same, form that has remained popular in Italy.
Despite its antiquity, sprouting broccoli apparently was unknown in England until about 1720, when it was introduced as "sprout cauliflower" or "Italian asparagus''. "Green" broccoli, which was doubtless the sprouting form, was mentioned in an American book on gardening in 1806, but it must have been known here for many years before that.
It is surprising that such an excellent vegetable as sprouting broccoli, known for more than 2,000 years in Europe and perhaps 200 years in America, should have become popular here only in the past 25 years. Americans of Italian origin had grown it for generations in the vicinity of New York and Boston before Americans generally appreciated its attractive qualities. Since 1925 it has suddenly become an important market and home-garden plant in the United States. It is also being grown for quick-freezing.
We occasionally see another "sprouting" type in this country, called raab or broccoli raab, which is entirely different from the true Italian sprouting broccoli. A low-growing little plant with turniplike foliage, it should not be confused with broccoli of B. oleracea.
Aristocrats of the Cabbage Clan
Cauliflower and cauliflower broccoli have much the same early history as sprouting broccoli. The oldest record of cauliflower dates back to the 6th century B.C. Pliny wrote about it in the 2nd century after Christ. In the 12th century three varieties were described in Spain as introductions from Syria, where it had doubtless been grown for more than a thousand years.
Cauliflower in Turkey and Egypt was mentioned in the 16th century by European writers, but it had been certainly known in those places for 1,500 to 2,000 years or more. In England in 1586 cauliflower was referred to as "Cyprus coleworts," suggesting recent introduction from the island of Cyprus. For some time thereafter, Cyprus was mentioned as the source of seed for planting in England. Cauliflower was an item on the London vegetable market as early as 1619. It was grown in France around 1600.
A hundred years ago, as many as a dozen varieties were listed in American catalogues, as many as are commonly listed today.
Cauliflower and cauliflower broccoli appear alike. In fact, "winter cauliflower" on our markets is cauliflower broccoli, hardier and slower-growing than cauliflower.
Most varieties of cauliflower and cauliflower broccoli are sensitive to climate, requiring cool temperature with moist air. In India, however, where the plant was introduced long ago, heat-tolerant types have been developed.
The sensitivity, difficulty of culture, and relatively high price of the cauliflowers have made them the true aristocrats of the cabbage family. Some wag has defined cauliflower as "a cabbage with a college education." | <urn:uuid:11a77a65-bd64-42b9-b6a9-7f1eb0320eb0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/archives/parsons/publications/vegetabletravelers/broccoli.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975496 | 1,060 | 3.15625 | 3 |
Rapid-growth markets are becoming the global centers for key corporate activities, necessitating considerable investment in talent.
Increasingly, rapid-growth markets are becoming the global centers for corporate activities as well as the focus for international competition.
Rather than establishing R&D facilities in China or India for the local market, some companies are using these centers as global hubs to develop products and services to sell around the world.
This demands a much higher level of investment in managerial and executive talent than may have been necessary earlier.
Make sure that the right depth of management capabilities is in local markets to assume bigger, more global roles
Make the necessary organizational changes to ensure local autonomy
As rapid-growth economies become more important, and as Asian companies become global players, developed-market companies that want to compete successfully must hand over decision-making power to where it matters most. This means investing in talent so that managers in local markets have the capability to assume bigger, roles that are more global.
This strategy is highly valued at Yeo Hiap Seng, a Singapore-based food and beverage company with a presence in 25 markets, including developed markets such as the US, Australia and Europe. “It’s crucial to build a management team with a more expansive global mindset,” says Koh Boon Hwee, non-executive Chairman of the Board.
“We want our managers to have the independence to operate autonomously.”
In practice however, it goes against decades of organizational behavior at developed-market companies. For managers at headquarters who are accustomed to wielding global decision-making authority, it can be difficult to accept that responsibility for the world’s most dynamic and fast-growing markets is no longer in their hands.
“The biggest challenge is not at the top of the company, but in the middle layer where you are shifting responsibilities and duties that have been accumulated over time, often with a great deal of sweat and tears,” explains Nani Beccalli-Falco, President and CEO of GE International.
Even if companies can make the necessary organizational changes, they still need to build the depth of talent among country managers being assigned such great responsibility. “Taking on a global role requires real bench strength of managerial capabilities in the overseas subsidiaries,” says the Judge Business School’s Williamson.
“Instead of just being asked to sell, distribute or produce for the home market, these managers are suddenly being asked to become a global business manager for a product or segment, and that is a huge step to take.”
Ernst & Young refers to the global organization of member firms of Ernst & Young Global Limited, each of which is a separate legal entity. Ernst & Young Global Limited, a UK company limited by guarantee, does not provide services to clients. | <urn:uuid:fe8ccf6c-5465-448a-a461-5c962e504d34> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ey.com/GL/en/Issues/Driving-growth/Growing-Beyond/Beyond-Asia-developed-markets-perspectives---Reevaluating-leadership-models | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959349 | 580 | 1.53125 | 2 |
News>Feature - 908th EARS refuels aircraft in fight
An A-10 Thunderbolt II pulls up behind a KC-10 Extender to be refueled Sept. 18, 2012. The KC-10 is an advanced tanker and cargo aircraft designed to provide increased global mobility for U.S. armed forces. (U.S. Air Force photo/Master Sgt. Scott MacKay)
Capt. Vincent Wright, aircraft commander, left, and 1st Lt. Kurt Rommel, co-pilot, right, fly a KC-10 Extender during refueling operations Sept. 18, 2012. Wright and Rommel are deployed to the 380th Air Expeditionary Wing as part of the 908th Expeditionary Aerial Refueling Squadron. (U.S. Air Force photo/Master Sgt. Scott MacKay)
Capt. Vincent Wright, 908th Expeditionary Aerial Refueling Squadron aircraft commander, completes pre-flight paperwork before his mission Sept. 18, 2012. Wright pilots KC-10 Extenders for the 380th Air Expeditionary Wing. (U.S. Air Force photo/Master Sgt. Scott MacKay)
by Tech. Sgt. Amanda Savannah
380th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs
9/30/2012 - SOUTHWEST ASIA (AFNS) -- It's 4:30 a.m., and four Airmen have already had breakfast and a pre-flight briefing as they leave their squadron. They grab water and more food before heading to their aircraft.
Music and friendly banter wafts within the cockpit as the crew performs pre-flight checks with their ground crew.
But before takeoff, the music and conversation stops as the four strap in and the pilot commands the KC-10 Extender off the flightline and barreling down the runway to begin their mission of refueling flying aircraft over Southwest Asia.
At the 380th Air Expeditionary Wing, this job is the responsibility of the 908th Expeditionary Air Refueling Squadron.
"The 908th's mission here is to provide maximum fuel to the fight so aircraft flying around supporting operations in (the U.S.) Central Command (area of operations) can stay aloft longer and meet all the taskings they need to support troops on the ground or other airborne assets in the area," said Lt. Col. David LeRoy, 908th EARS commander.
The squadron accomplishes its responsibilities with the KC-10 Extender, an advanced tanker and cargo aircraft designed to provide increased global mobility for U.S. armed forces.
To perform its primary mission of aerial refueling, the KC-10 uses two types of delivery methods -- a boom and a drogue. The boom is like a retractable metal pipe, which a boom operator maneuvers into a receiving aircraft's fuel receptacle. The drogue is a hose with a basket on the end, which receiving aircraft direct a probe into to receive fuel.
"The boom provides capability for Air Force aircraft; the drogue provides capability for both Navy and all the coalition fighters supporting the operation," said LeRoy, a San Bernardino, Calif., native deployed from Travis Air Force Base, Calif. "We offload the gas through those two different mechanisms ... just like pulling up to the gas pump."
In addition to the boom operator, each mission includes a pilot, also called the aircraft commander, co-pilot and flight engineer.
The crew members of this mission are deployed together from Joint Base McGuire Dix Lakehurst, N.J. While deployed here, the four fly every mission together as one crew.
"There's hardly a waking moment I'm not with one of the three," said Staff Sgt. Sean Killian, the flight engineer. "It's a blessing and a curse," he said, smiling.
Good-natured ribbing aside, working together is what Killian said he enjoys best about his job.
"We work together as a team for one goal," said Killian, a Lakewood, Colo., native. "It's the camaraderie that I like the best. We've got four guys who come out here in the span of eight weeks together, or 10 weeks ... you foster some really cool relationships."
Fostering their relationships also helps the crew communicate better, which is vital to performing the mission.
Crew resource management, which means using available resources and each crew member's knowledge, is basically good communication in the flying world, said Senior Airman Christopher Foley, boom operator.
"CRM is a big thing, making sure you coordinate with each other, making sure everybody knows what everybody is doing, backing each other up," said Foley, a Princeton, N.J., native. "During (aerial refueling) I'm all the way in the back and (the other crew members) have no idea what I'm doing, so it's very important that I stay vocal, let them know what the receiver is doing, what I'm doing, who's going where."
Their flight out to the refueling point feels like a short road trip, which even includes traveling along a strip they call the "highway."
Once they arrived, the crew soon learned that most, if not all, of its receivers on the schedule were supporting troops in contact.
"I just dropped a few bombs and I've got to get back," one receiving pilot said, and the KC-10 team cheered.
LeRoy said he tells his Airmen he guarantees situations like this will happen.
"I guarantee that on at least one of their missions ... they give off gas to an aircraft that supports people on the ground by either dropping bombs or a show of force and it saves somebody's life on the ground," the commander said. "Then it makes everything worth it."
These experiences are what 1st Lt. Andrew Veerathanongdech, co-pilot, enjoys most.
"I believe experiences mold a person a lot," said Veerathanongdech, a Fairfax, Calif., native. "The experiences that I get in this job, from being deployed, to traveling, to meeting all these people, is something that you will not get anywhere else."
Capt. Gabriel Miller, pilot, recalled one of his most memorable experiences.
"We were over (a country) and there was an Italian fighter pilot," said Miller, a Sparta, N.J., native. "Something happened with one of his internal gas tanks and he couldn't get to the gas.
"He was real low on gas, and due to the weather he couldn't find his tanker. He basically said, 'If I can't get gas and find a tanker in the next five minutes, I'm going to eject over the Mediterranean Sea.'"
Miller said he could hear the nervousness and fear in the pilot's voice get worse as he found the tanker, which then suffered a problem.
"But the guys on the crew figured out a way to fix the problem, they gave (the pilot) the gas that he needed, and his mood changed drastically from five minutes prior to five minutes after he got the fuel," Miller said. "I've never heard someone so emotionally upset on the radio."
LeRoy said he's amazed at what his Airmen do every day.
"My Airmen are doing awesome," he said. "The flexibility, the ingenuity, the can-do attitude they have -- they make it happen every day. They do the mission, they know what they're supposed to be doing and it just amazes me on a day to day basis."
LeRoy said he's also amazed by the aircraft maintainers, intelligence Airmen, squadron aviation resource managers and others, whose do their job flawlessly and most without any days off.
"I've been here for almost four months and the people in this squadron, they just don't complain," he said. "They just do the job and move on."
The commander also added none of them could do their mission without base support.
"The support we get on the base is phenomenal, from everybody from the mission support group, the maintenance group, the medical group -- they're all here to help and we appreciate that as well," he said. "We wouldn't be able to do the mission without them and we are cognizant of that."
On this mission, the crew offloaded more than 67,000 pounds of fuel to eight receivers.
Killian put the fuel weight into perspective.
"That's about 10,000 gallons of fuel," he said. "If you had a vehicle with a 20-gallon tank and filled it once a week, it would take about nine years to go through that much gas."
The crew accomplished this offload in less than five hours.
The receivers refueled and the team's mission complete, they once again turned up the music and conversation, and began their "road trip" back to the wing.
10/15/2012 10:08:13 PM ET Hey, Home for a change: As I look at the ranks of these boys, they're fairly young. And as I read through their accomplishments, I believe they can do whatever the hell they'd like during their preflight. Furthermore, sounds like you might've deployed a time or two; however, you may (not) to know that the KC-10 has the highest TDY rate of any aircraft in the DoD inventory. Therefore, I guarantee that two of the young bucks--lets take the Lt and the SrA--have more time in the desert away from their family than you do in your 10 plus years in the AF. Turn it up fellas. Thanks. (Editor's note: This comment has been edited to comply with our comment policy. Please read the rules at the top of the comment box.)
10/10/2012 3:44:50 PM ET I could think of a lot worse things that an aircrew could do during preflight other than playing a little music and talking. This article does not give us reason to question their professionalism. It celebrates their professionalism. I want to give a shout out to the ground crew, especially MSgt. Hernan, United Airlines inspector. Thanks for serving.
Scott H SMSGT Ret, Florida
10/3/2012 11:34:53 PM ET "Music and friendly banter wafts within the cockpit as the crew performs pre-flight checks with their ground crew. But before takeoff, the music and conversation stops as the four strap in and the pilot commands the KC-10 Extender." If you all learn how to read, it states that the music and talking quit during pre-flight checks. They didnt operate or fly with the music playing.
AETC NCO, Hill AFB
10/3/2012 9:53:08 AM ET WHAT This crew is getting the mission done safely fostering good crew coordination and teamwork staying positive and doing it all with a smile on their faceWe can't have this Have them decertified immediately
Fun Police, Between Mobilizations
10/2/2012 10:18:24 AM ET Agree wih Maj. That part could be left out of the article. It makes them sound less professional than I am sure they really are.
10/1/2012 10:57:53 PM ET Music in the cockpit Looks like the KC-10 community has developed a serious professionalism problem since I left. Instant Q3 in my current airframe I guarantee. | <urn:uuid:f3e1d5cf-0665-4455-8532-3d6d73a818d8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123320175 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971581 | 2,369 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Performance Tip of the Week – June 8, 2011
Do you remember the childhood story, The Little Engine That Could, originally touted as a metaphor for the American Dream? To refresh your, perhaps, rusty memory, there is a heavy train that needs to be pulled over a mountain. Many seemingly suitable engines are asked to take on the task, but refuse for a variety of reasons. Finally the request is put to a small engine, which from outward appearances is not equipped for the difficult task. But it agrees to try, and by continuing to state, “I think I can, I think I can…” it successfully pulls the load up and over the mountain.
Are you like the strong engines that were full of excuses because they did not want to put in the effort to reach the goal? Or are you working hard to maintain a daily can-do attitude even in the face of serious challenges? If you hope to ever have a chance at reaching your big and even small goals in business, you’d better make sure you’ve got the right attitude on board every day. The choice is up to you.
It’s as simple as deciding exactly how you are going to think each morning when you arise. To get your mind moving in the direction of excellence, make sure that you have visible representations of your goals, either written on Post-It’s or posted photos of what you wish to achieve. These reminders can act as the proverbial carrot on the stick for you, especially on the days when you are feeling a little less than enthusiastic.
My question to you today is this…
What are you doing to maintain the right mental attitude to get to the finish line, whatever that may be for you? I look forward to connecting with you when you leave a comment below.
“Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.” – Thomas Jefferson | <urn:uuid:4f25fba5-78c4-475d-9465-964af27c54e4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.drshannonreece.com/2011/06/08/your-attitude-makes-all-the-difference/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971743 | 405 | 1.625 | 2 |
What does not work in Pharr? He seems to be very popular (and not just in Textkit) - which does not mean that it will work for everyone and I usually fare very badly with textbooks that everyone likes. Thus the question actually. And I am going to look up Benner's book - haven't even heard of it before.
Some people find that Pharr simply doesn't offer full enough explanations. The lessons themselves will say learn this declension, or conjugation of a particular tense and mood, or aspects of syntax merely by referencing the material, which is collected in the back part of the book, by section number. The rest of each lesson consists of Greek to English exercises, a passage from the Iliad to be translated (starting at lesson XIII) with notes, English to Greek exercises (through Lesson L II) and a vocabulary list.
If one diligently reads the indicated sections of the Grammar and skips around to find all the bits of related material lurking, sometimes, in other sections, it is possible to achieve a decent foothold on Homeric Greek.
Benner's book was written in 1903 (Google Books has an edition printed in 1910) and consists of Iliad selections, taken across the whole work, together with copious notes to the student and a brief Homeric Grammar. Unlike Pharr, however, it does not take a student from no knowledge of Greek whatsoever, it assumes at least a full year of Attic Greek.
Thanks for bringing up Cunliffe's Lexicon - it does seem like something I'll need for Homeric. Looking it up on Amazon finds the classical version and an expanded one published recently. Any ideas how the two compare (and should I get the newer one or just to stick with the standard one).
Personally, I find Cunliffe to be indispensable, mainly because one needn't worry about all of the senses and citations from post-Homeric material found in the Liddell Scott Jones dictionaries. Everything in it is strictly Homeric. The new edition seems to have added in a dictionary of proper nouns: names of people, patronymics, places. Cunliffe compiled this while working on the lexicon but decided to publish it separately to keep the page count (and cost) down. It also has a short errata list and apparently gives a fuller explanation of the system used in citations to indicate books within the Iliad and Odyssey. Otherwise, it is the same as the old edition. It only costs a few dollars more than the original edition so if you choose to purchase it, I would say get the extended version.
I have Mastronarde but don't want to start there if Homeric as a start makes more sense. And I am not sure if this is a good start for Attic - I just got it because it was there and looked interesting.
I like Mastronarde because it does give extensive explanations of grammar points (and often gives examples in English to remind students of the principles before going on to the Greek.) An answer key is also available for purchase.
In the past, most Greek textbooks assumed that students had had a couple years of Latin study and generally prepared them to read Xenophon's The Anabasis
. Mastronarde's choice of vocabulary still tends in that direction but also looks toward Plato and Herodotus.
Spiphany's points about Homer are all spot on. With Homer, there is more variability in endings and spelling in general, there are lots of words used only once, and some of the patterns of syntax are not yet as rigid as they become in Attic. However, compared to, say, Plato, Aristotle, Thucydides, Homeric syntax is much more straightforward. Also, there are lots of phrases and epithets which are used repeatedly and even whole verses that are appear more than once.
So, I would say it really is an even tradeoff between learning Attic or Homeric. It really does come down to which authors interest you the most. | <urn:uuid:f050c9cf-8f40-4ec1-807e-cb6493bdf033> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.textkit.com/greek-latin-forum/viewtopic.php?p=128434 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966274 | 831 | 2.6875 | 3 |
U.S. Army Civil Affairs & Psychological Operations Command (Airborne) Stands Up 402nd Civil Affa
July 7, 2009
- 402nd Civil Affairs Battalion will be the first USACAPOC(A) unit based outside the continental U.S.
- The 402nd's primary area of responsibility will be U.S. Southern Command area including Central and South America
- "The unit is trained and prepared to carry out civil affairs missions world-wide as needed."
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - Speaking at a reestablishment ceremony to a formation of Soldiers, VIPs and a small crowd of visitors at Fort San Felipe del Morro, Lt. Col. Jeffrey Jurasek, commander, 402nd Civil Affairs Battalion, said, "my officers will lead from the front; my NCOs [non-commissioned officer] will lead by example; and my Soldiers will complete their mission with technical and tactical proficiency and set the example to which all other Soldiers should strive to achieve."
This ceremony signifies the establishment of the first U.S. Army Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command (Airborne) unit, based outside of the Continental United States and the first to be established on the island of Puerto Rico.
Civil Affairs units act as a liaison between the civilian population of a warzone or disaster area and the military presence, both informing the local commander of the status of the civilian populace as well as effecting assistance to locals by either coordinating military operations with non-governmental organizations or distributing direct aid and supplies.
Civil Affairs is not a new concept to the U.S. Army. In fact, Civil Affairs can be traced as far back as Gen. George Washington. Maj. Gen. David A. Morris, commanding general, USACAPOC(A), said in 1778 General Washington realized the city of Philadelphia needed a lot of reconstruction and help. According to Morris, "he [Washington] turned to many of his officers in the Colonial Army who had specific civilian skills and asked them to help bring governance and law and order back to the city of Philadelphia so they could begin the rebuilding process. The history of that mission is continued today."
Civil Affairs units are comprised primarily of civilian experts such as doctors, lawyers, engineers, police, firemen, bankers, computer programmers, farmers, and many others. These Soldiers assess needs for critical infrastructure projects such as roads, clinics, schools, power plants, and water treatment facilities drawing greatly from their not only their military training but also their civilian acquired skills and occupations.
Civil Affairs Soldiers also provide commanders cultural expertise, assess the needs of the civilian community, deals with civilians on the battlefield, manages refugee operations, as well as keeping commanders informed of protected areas such as schools, churches, and hospitals. They also interface with local and international non-governmental organizations and private volunteer organizations.
Brig. Gen. Mark Hendrix, Commander, 350th Civil Affairs Command, said the primary region of responsibility of the 402nd will be the U.S. Southern Command area encompassing Central and South America. "[The move] is such a perfect fit for the 402nd since our concentration is on Latin America. We are able to tap into the cultural and language expertise of Soldiers from Puerto Rico. While the 402nd has a primary responsibility to the SOUTHCOM Area of Operation, Lt. Col. Jurasek said, "the unit is trained and prepared to carry out civil affairs missions world wide as needed."
Civil Affairs units are very versatile and bring to the table numerous skills and vast education and can operate in any environment. According to Maj. Gen. Morris, his units can provide some functional expertise to a nation as they rebuild after a war. "More importantly," he said, "we can work in an area such as a third-world country - perhaps the Horn of Africa - in a preventative way to help establish some good health mechanisms."
One such preventative measure is through the use of veterinarians who may go to an area to provide care for animals. Vets teach people the importance of caring for their animal herds as these may be the primary source of income or a people's main food source.
"We do these types of missions for several reasons," Morris said. It helps establish a U.S. presence in an area and "it sends a message to the people that the United States is their friend because we are there to help them. More importantly, we 're not there just to give them things, but rather teaching them how to do it for themselves."
Ultimately, the goal of civil affairs is to help people. It is the helping aspect that attracts some Soldiers to the field. Being a Civil Affairs Soldier, according Sgt. 1st Class Dixie Clark, acting 1st Sergeant, Headquarters, Headquarters Company, 402nd Civil Affairs Battalion, is about helping people. "I've been in civil affairs for about 12 years. The missions I've been involved in are about helping people and humanitarian efforts. To me, the most important thing is knowing you helped somebody-you've done something good."" | <urn:uuid:1e6e1201-b542-4abb-8518-f3de4f185b1a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.army.mil/article/24002/U_S__Army_Civil_Affairs__amp__Psychological_Operations_Command__Airborne__Stands_Up_402nd_Civil_Affa/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00067-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964564 | 1,039 | 2.015625 | 2 |
IBM issued a press release today that mixes technology, money, and social agendas in an interesting way
IBM and King Abdul Aziz City for Science and Technology (KACST), the Saudi Arabian national research and development organization, today announced a multi-year agreement to collaborate on advancing machine translation technologies, advancing intellectual property development and establishing a National Women Software Development Centre. Under terms of the agreement, KACST will purchase an IBM Blue Gene supercomputer to enable KACST scientists to perform complex simulations and computational modeling.
More in the release about some of the specific research that KACST and IBM will be working on. I’ll leave that as an exercise for the reader and skip to the societal part of the release
IBM and KACST will collaborate on establishing a national Software Development Center aimed at becoming a world-class organization with highly-skilled female specialists acting as a catalyst for the growth of the software development industry in the Kingdom, and delivering solutions to domestic and global clients.
The Center will create a unique opportunity for female Saudi software professionals to grow their technical skills while providing high-quality services and products to local and global clients. The staff will benefit from a hands-on training environment as well as the opportunity to draw on best practices from IBM under the initial mentorship of accomplished IBM scientists. | <urn:uuid:6a4af886-d6e5-481d-80d4-8523623992e1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://insidehpc.com/2009/11/17/blue-gene-headed-to-kacst-partnership-with-ibm-to-develop-female-software-specialists/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.922715 | 269 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Can you imagine being in the shoes of the one who feels his power slipping away? Who can find nothing stable to believe in? Who feels himself becoming unnecessary? That powerlessness and fear ties a dark knot in his stomach. As this knot thickens, a centripetal hatred moves inward toward the self as a centrifugal hatred is cast outward at others: his parents, his girlfriend, his boss, his classmates, society, life....More post-Newtown cogitation at The Stone, the NYT "forum for contemporary philosophers on issues both timely and timeless." This one is from Princeton French prof Christy Wampole.
December 17, 2012
"From the civil rights and feminist movements of the 1960s and onward, young men – and young white men in particular – have increasingly been asked to yield what they’d believed was securely theirs."
"This underlying fact, compounded by the backdrop of violent entertainment and easy access to weapons, creates the conditions for thousands of young men to consider their future prospects and decide they would rather destroy than create." | <urn:uuid:cc7a28e2-36a5-418e-9cf1-57cf85bc5cd3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://althouse.blogspot.com/2012/12/from-civil-rights-and-feminist.html?showComment=1355791183690 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974798 | 214 | 2.078125 | 2 |
Try to walk briskly for at least half an hour every day, or for one hour four times a week. If you weigh 150 pounds, walking at 3.5 miles an hour on flat terrain burns about 300 calories per hour. So this schedule would burn about 1,100 calories a week. If you can’t work that into your schedule, try more frequent, shorter walks.
Get yourself a pedometer (available at drugstores and sporting goods stores) and then see how many steps you take a day. Aim for 3,000, and then try to work up to at least 5,000 steps. To achieve the higher goals, you’ll have to include some brisk exercise walking in addition to walking at home and at work.
Skip elevators and escalators and take the stairs instead. Leave the car at home if you can walk the mile or two to a friend’s house. Walk to work, or at least part of the way. If you want to go faster, instead of taking longer steps, take faster steps. Lengthening your stride can increase strain on your feet and legs.
Bend them at 90 degrees and pump from the shoulder. Move your arms in opposition to your legs—swing your right arm forward as you step forward with your left leg. Keep your wrists straight, your hands unclenched and your elbows close to your sides. The vigorous arm pumping allows for a quicker pace, and provides a good workout for your upper body.
Try something different. For example, speed up for a minute or two out of every five minutes. Or, alternate one fast mile with two slower miles. And vary your terrain as well. Walking on grass or gravel burns more calories than walking on a track. Walking on soft sand increases caloric expenditure by almost 50 percent.
Combine hill walking with your regular flat-terrain walking as a form of interval training. When walking uphill, lean forward slightly—it’s easier on your legs. Walking downhill can be harder on your body, especially the knees, and may cause muscle soreness. So, slow your pace, keep your knees slightly bent and take shorter steps.
To enhance your upper-body workout, use lightweight, rubber-tipped trekking poles, which are sold in many sporting-goods stores. This is like cross-country skiing without the skis. It works the muscles of your chest, arms and abs, while reducing knee stress. Find the right poles by testing them in the store before purchasing. You should be able to grip each pole and keep your forearm about level as you walk.
Hand weights can boost your caloric expenditure, but they may alter your arm swing and lead to muscle soreness or even injury. To start, use one-pound weights and increase the weight gradually. The weights shouldn’t ever add up to more than 10 percent of your body weight. Ankle weights are not recommended, as they increase your chance of injury.
This is demanding, since it’s a novel activity for most people. If you’re doing it outdoors, choose a smooth surface and keep far away from traffic, trees, potholes and other exercisers. A deserted track is ideal. Try to go with a partner who can keep you from bumping into something and help pace you. Skip this activity if you’re elderly or have balance problems.
You want to be comfortable while you walk. Shoes that are specially designed for walking have flexible soles and stiff heel counters to prevent side-to-side motion. But for normal terrain, almost any comfortable, cushioned, lightweight, low-heeled shoes will do just fine. It’s best to avoid stiff-soled shoes that don’t bend. | <urn:uuid:c84a0202-be1f-4a08-b233-2a36d75fba34> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.berkeleywellness.com/fitness/exercise/slideshow/better-walking-workouts | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930919 | 772 | 2.40625 | 2 |
I recently skimmed the source-code of an app on the itunes.apple.com website and noticed when accessing the app image that the underlying image is plain squared! This means Apple somehow visually "wraps" the image with some technique to make it appear as if it has rounded corners! As I'm no expert on such details, yet would like to know how Apple achieves this.
The reason is that in my opinion this visual display of all apps (also in the iTunes App Store software) is a crucial, consistant aspect of Apple's app display. As I want to work on something related to Apples applications (and maybe also sign up for their affiliate program, which might answer this question, but I didn't do so yet), so I need to be informed about this issue.
Thank you for your help in advance. | <urn:uuid:65710541-193f-4c6a-a316-63d32f56f5e5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/35974/how-does-apple-achieve-the-visual-wrap-to-form-its-app-store-icons-on-itunes-a/35976 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965947 | 171 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Dads: NOW!! is the time to start spending quality, one-on-one time with your young son or daughter. Grades K-4th
The Purpose of Y-Adventure Guides is to foster understanding and companionship between fathers and their sons and daughters grades Kindergarten through 4th grade. In the process, Y-Adventure Guides is fun!
Y-Adventure Guides (Dads and Sons) and Princesses (Dads and Daughters) are organized into Groups called "Circles" meet regularly at members' homes or at the YMCA for crafts, games, songs, stories and other group activities. All Circles are invited to monthly "Expedition" outings such as Camp Outs, Picnics, Pinewood Derby, and Christmas Party.
New Y-Adventure Guide Circles, join an existing Circle, form each fall, but new members are welcomed at any time. you can gather school or neighborhood friends and form your own Circle, join an existing Circle, or join a new one that is forming in the fall.
Aims of the Y-Adventure Guides
- To be clean in body and pure in heart
- To be friends forever with my dad/son/daughter
- To love the sacred circle of my family
- To listen while others speak
- To love my neighbor as myself
- To respect the traditions and beliefs of all people
- To seek and preserve the beauty of God's work: forest, field and stream
For detailed program and registration information visit or call the East Whittier YMCA, at (562) 943-7241. | <urn:uuid:e5c7e618-d61b-4e8b-b15d-4bfb5768fc5e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ymcawhittier.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=58&Itemid=94 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929265 | 334 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Active and passive voice exercises with answers
Active voice | passive
Present simple: The car is repaired.
Present continuous: The car is being repaired.
Past simple: The car was repaired.
Past continuous: The car was being repaired.
Present perfect: The car has just been repaired.
Past perfect: The car had been repaired.
Future simple: The car will be repaired.
Present conditional : The car would be repaired.
Perfect conditional: The car would have been repaired.
The passive voice in English is formed with the verb to be and the past participle, which is different for regular verbs (translated, mended) and irregular verbs (taken, thrown).
Statement: The letter is written. This shop has been opened.
Question: Is the letter written? Has the shop been opened?
Negative: The letter is not written. The shop has not been opened.
The continuous is as follows. (Other continuous tenses are normally used in the active voice, but not in the passive.)
Present: A new house is being built in our street.
Past: A new house was being built in our street.
In all the examples above the agent is not mentioned. We do not know it.
Similarly: Flowers were planted in the garden. (We do not know who did it).
If we want to say who planted the flowers we mention the agent at the end of the sentence and use the preposition by.
The flowers were planted by my mother.
But: The window was smashed with a stone. (The stone is not the agent. We do not know who smashed the window. We only know how he or she did it).
Direct and indirect objects
If there are both direct and indirect objects in the active voice, the indirect object becomes the subject in the passive voice.
Active: My friend sent me a letter.
Passive: I was sent a letter by my friend. (Not: A letter was sent to me by my friend. This sentence does not sound natural in English.)
Similarly: They offer Trevor a place. - Trevor is offered a place.
The infinitive without to
In the active voice some verbs are followed by the infinitive without to. In the passive form we use most such verbs with the infinitive with to.
Active: We saw them come. She made him do it.
Passive: They were seen to come. He was made to do it.
But: They let us go. - We were let go.
The passive is used:
1. If the action is more important then the agent.
A demonstration has been held. This theatre was built in 1868.
The important thing is what happened, not who did it.
2. If the agent is not known.
He was offered a job. (someone offered him the job)
They are supposed to be good students. (some teachers suppose that)
The difference in meaning between the simple and continuous
A new house is built in our street. (The house is finished.)
A new house is being built in our street. (They are building it these days, it is not finished.)
I was being introduced to Mrs. Jones when her husband arrived. (Her husband arrived in the middle of the introduction.)
When her husband arrived I was introduced to Mrs. Jones. (Her husband arrived first and then she introduced me.)
This form is typical of an impersonal and formal style, that is why you can often find it in public notices, announcements, instructions or scientific articles.
English is spoken in this shop. Visitors are not allowed to smoke. The seal must be removed.
In a less formal style the active voice is more usual.
English is spoken in this shop. - We speak English in this shop.
He was seen in Dover. - They saw him in Dover.
The seal must be removed. - You must remove the seal.
In the English language this form is more frequent than in many other languages. Moreover, you can find some stuctures in English which are not possible in some languages.
I am told that you are going to have a baby. It is thought that the crises will end soon.
- Try some passive voice exercises to practise the difference between the active and passive voice in English tenses.
- If you want to download pdf grammar rules with more examples have a look at E-grammar printables.
- A marked printable test with answers is available at Mixed exercises. | <urn:uuid:dad32594-a960-46ce-80ab-331a99593f04> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.e-grammar.org/passive-voice/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980403 | 942 | 3.75 | 4 |
"There's nothing in the desert for hundreds of miles," said Mike Massee, a spokesman for the company. XCOR plans to set up facilities in an existing Midland hangar next year and could eventually invest $12 million a year in payroll there, Massee said. "That's something that's very desirable."
As home to the NASA Johnson Space Center, Texas has been central to the field of space exploration for decades. But XCOR's announcement is only the latest indication of many that the state could be on its way to becoming a hub for a new space economy -- one based in the private sector. Texas' location and business-friendly policies make it appealing, industry experts say, and if the private space industry takes root, it could inject millions of dollars into the state economy.
SpaceX, another California-based company, which recently sent an unmanned capsule to and from the International Space Station, is evaluating a location near Brownsville for a launchpad and expanding a rocket-testing facility in McGregor. Blue Origin, a Washington-based company headed by Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com, has a launchpad in West Texas.
Though private space companies considered investing in Texas 20 years ago, the technology for them to succeed was not yet in place, said Alex Ignatiev, a University of Houston professor whose research has received NASA financing and who has advised space companies. Now, he said, Texas is eager to attract private space companies, and the technological and financial resources are there.
In addition to a new "confluence of entrepreneurs and technology," he added, "the nation's need for access to space" is acute, now that the space shuttle program has ended.
Private space companies are particularly appealing to Texas in the wake of that program and as NASA faces budget cuts. Although the shuttles were launched from Florida, the program's mission control was at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Gov. Rick Perry has expressed interest in promoting the private space industry in Texas and has met with Elon Musk, the chief executive of SpaceX, many times. In July, Perry discussed the industry's future with representatives from several companies.
Though the state encourages space firms to come to Texas, it has not, so far, lured them with financial incentives, said Lucy Nashed, a spokeswoman for Perry. The governor's office is talking with XCOR about whether the Midland project would be eligible for state money, but the company must prove it would create jobs, she said.
Initiatives like the state's Enterprise Zone Program, which supports companies that bolster struggling economies, could be useful to space firms because they often settle in economically challenged rural areas, Nashed said.
Special incentives aside, Texas is attractive to space companies because of its low business taxes, Massee said. The state's location also helps. Rockets can be launched faster when they are closer to the equator, said Bob Lancaster, president of the Texas Space Alliance, an advocacy group. SpaceX is considering a site in Cameron County, the state's southernmost county.
But environmentalists are concerned about the impact of potential space facilities.
The advocacy group Environment Texas is petitioning for SpaceX to abandon its Brownsville plans. The proposed Gulf Coast site, which comprises about 50 acres, is surrounded on three sides by Boca Chica State Park, home to rare species like the ocelot and the leatherback sea turtle, according to a letter that the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department sent to the Federal Aviation Administration in May in response to questions about the potential environmental impact of the plan.
Gilberto Salinas, the executive vice president of the Brownsville Economic Development Council, countered that SpaceX had a history of complying with environmental regulations and said he believed the company would protect species in the park.
The launchpad, Salinas said, would use five to eight acres, leaving a "buffer zone" around it.
The facilities would cost SpaceX about $80 million to build, Salinas said, though SpaceX did not confirm that figure. He estimates that developing the site would inject $50 million in annual salaries into Brownsville's economy and add $20 million to $30 million per year in related costs.
"It would just totally change the way things are done down here," he said.
NASA, meanwhile, is itself contributing to the growth of the private space industry. As congressional budget cutters have taken aim at the agency, granting it $17.77 billion in federal money for fiscal year 2012, a decrease of about 4 percent, the agency is having to "learn to be efficient with less," said Josh Byerly, a spokesman for the Johnson Center. (He added that NASA was not "limping along" under the cuts.) With the end of the space shuttle program, experts say commercial companies could provide most low-orbit space travel, potentially at lower cost to NASA.
According to the agency, Blue Origin, as of June 30, had received about $17.8 million from NASA to transport space crews into lower orbit. SpaceX had received about $70 million for crew transport and about $751.2 million to develop and restock low-orbit cargo stations. And on Aug. 3, the agency awarded SpaceX $440 million to refine its existing spacecraft to transport NASA astronauts.
Because private companies are focused on profit, they are likely to develop cheaper models for low-orbit travel, Lancaster said, like reusable rockets.
Texas is not alone in attracting space companies. Experts say competitors include Alabama, California, New Mexico and Virginia.
Florida, home to the NASA Kennedy Space Center and one of Texas' top competitors, created a state agency, Space Florida, in 2006 to promote space-related business.
Although Texas does not have a space department, staff members from the Office of Economic Development and Tourism work with companies and write letters on their behalf, Nashed said.
"This is an industry that has a lot of potential to grow in Texas," she said. "The sky's the limit."
Texas Tribune donors or members may be quoted or mentioned in our stories, or may be the subject of them. For a complete list of contributors, click here.
This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at http://www.texastribune.org/texas-newspaper/texas-news/private-space-industry-eyes-states-open-spaces/. | <urn:uuid:a58a18b9-42e9-4b46-aecc-04d29d1ceb32> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bigcountryhomepage.com/fulltext?nxd_id=522012&nxd_237113_start=30 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96174 | 1,303 | 1.953125 | 2 |
Kim waves her phone at the barcode-like QR square on the track marker. There are eight of us standing around watching, and she must be feeling the pressure.
She waves it again then stands up and says, "South Crater to Red Crater. Grade: moderate/difficult. Allow 1 hour".
Kim Manunui is Project Tongariro's media co-ordinator, and she's reading from a free smartphone application they've developed called the Pocket Ranger that can scan QR codes. We're standing, as the app says, in the South Crater on an Easter evening taking part in a moonlit crossing organised by Project Tongariro, and I'm there to learn more about the Pocket Ranger.
Project Tongariro is a community organisation established as a living memorial to five park rangers who died in a helicopter crash on Ruapehu in 1984. It is dedicated to educating people about the national park's natural history and runs conservation projects at Lake Rotopounamu, Waimarino wetlands and a kiwi recovery project called Operation Nest Egg.
I stumble along at the start of the crossing trying to walk and take notes from Kim. The Pocket Ranger was developed in partnership with the Department of Conservation in 2009 to provide tourist information on local accommodation, activities and transport.
Kim explains the 12 tiny QR codes mounted on the sides of prominent track markers provide unobtrusive interpretive information for each section of the track. Normal signage gets blown away in hurricane force winds and the Ngati Tuwharetoa, who gifted the park to New Zealand, object to ugly signs along the track.
Eventually DoC wants to roll out similar schemes across the country.
The 19.4km Tongariro Alpine Crossing is the best one-day trek in New Zealand. It's absolutely, stunningly beautiful. Its red, yellow and orange sulphur landscapes are a Martian world. No wonder it's so popular.
Our guide - Hakan Svensson, known as Hogi - reckons more than 2000 people are attempting the crossing over Easter weekend, and more than 100,000 visitors this year, many from overseas.
Hogi is a search and rescue volunteer, and has saved many people - including bejandalled boy scouts - from the crossing's notoriously harsh weather. But he doesn't criticise the overseas visitors as we huff up the new boardwalk detour that replaces the steep, scoria rubble of the Devil's Staircase.
"Ninety per cent of the rescues across New Zealand are Kiwis," he says. He says the new boardwalk we are on is part of a strategy to make the crossing easier to retreat from in bad weather, and therefore safer for everyone.
It cost DoC $1 million per kilometre to construct as all the materials had to be flown in by helicopter, but it will save on rescue costs in the long term. The Pocket Ranger plays a role in making the crossing a safer experience.
We walk across the flat, red expanse of the South Crater, then up to the high point of the crossing: Red Crater. The gash of the volcanic fumarole steams and glows red as we stand with the last of the sun streaming through the light mist. The colours are amazing and there's no one around.
No wonder people are increasingly doing the trip over winter to escape the crowds (including a Project Tongariro working winter trip this year). The moon rises and it's dark quickly. We put head torches on for our descent.
As we walk down through the moonlight I think about something Hogi said as we started, "You can see the movement here, I think that's my favourite thing about the valley."
He explained that it's one of the few places in the world where volcanoes and glaciers have come together to create the landscape we see today. And it's a living landscape. Lava flowed from Ngauruhoe as recently as 1954 and Ruapehu continues to burp and rumble.
The Pocket Ranger might not replace Hogi but it makes the crossing a richer experience.
Contact them for details of the upcoming winter trip (planned for weekend of September 1, depending on weather). Email email@example.com to register. Ph (07) 386 6499, tongariro.org.nz. The Crossing starts at Mangatepopo Rd, ends 7km off of SH47. The Project doesn't have cabins but can help visitors find accommodation.
Walking Places: 1 Mangatepopo Rd, Tongariro. Ph 027 308 9689.
Winter Tongariro Crossings: (May-September): 2+ people: $180-$210.
Mountain Heights Lodge: 4576 State Highway 4, National Park Village Ph (07) 892 2833.
The Schnapps Bar: Findlay St (just off SH4), National Park Village. Ph (07) 892 2788. Hearty pub grub.
The Station Cafe: Cnr Findlay and Station Rd, National Park. Ph (07) 892 2881. Dining in the old station.
Fraser Crichton was a guest of Walking Places and Mountain Heights. | <urn:uuid:88a6f5c5-be3b-4014-879f-83e4269a7a7f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nzherald.co.nz/news/print.cfm?objectid=10820975 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934216 | 1,080 | 2.171875 | 2 |
Three boys were inhumanely and traumatically taken from their mother's loving care on June 4th, 2009 in Manitoba, Canada. The children have been separated, segregated, isolated from their mother Tannis Loescher Lintz, ever since, without a say or choice for almost 4 entire years of their childhood. The oldest child is already a 16 year old youth and his brothers are now 13 and 10 years.
Manitoba Queen's Bench Court and Appeal Court Justices have thus far refused to set the children free from this prolonged cruel punishment of depriving them their own mother. The boys have been denied all shared, family life with their maternal family they love, for no no reason the children can understand.
It is a national disgrace this could happen in a country like Canada in 2013, after Canada has apologized to the First Nations Residential School children for segregating them from their family by force of the law and threat of prison, exactly what the government/crown representatives did to Tannis Loescher Lintz and her three sons on June 2, 2009 and ever since.
Women and children are to have rights and freedoms in this country, not deprived of their most natural, fundamental and inherent rights to life, liberty, security of persons and freedom of association by the government/crown/state representatives who are to uphold the Charter of Rights not violate them.
The appeal hearing for the children to be given their mother back is set for March 4, 2013 at the Law Courts in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Please sign this petition if you can even imagine what it would feel like to be denied all day to day family life and all normal contact or communication with your own children or any family member you love. Please imagine if someone told you or your children you were not allowed to see one another for 14 months as has been the case with us.
This is a crime against humanity, discriminatory and simply wrong for a man or woman, in a positon of public trust, as justices are, to continue to control the lives of childen to deny them their mother they never wanted to be separated from let alone be kept apart from like they have by court order. When their mother is a fit, devoted, capable, loving, sensitive, responsible parent who always cared well for her sons.
It makes no sense to those who know Tannis as a mother and educated, competent, mature woman, that her sons could be 'institutionally kidnapped' like they were. (* this phrase was coined by the psychologist who recommended against the court wrenching the children from their mother). After another psychologist, who conducted a custody assessment recommended the mother have sole custody and that the children's avowed feelings (to live with their mother) be respected.
In spite of the fact the child welfare agency had recommended to the court on June 2, 2009 the children remain in their mother's full care and that the father see the children under supervision. Instead Queen's Bench Madame Justice Everett discriminated against the mother in what has been nothing less than a hate crime against her as a women in an indefinate sentence of mental/emotional torture of cutting her off from every facet of her children's lives and threatening her with prison if she did not obey this cruel inhumanity.
This severe punishment is completely unreasonable and unjustified as the mother has never harmed, abused or endangered her children. How can Canada say it's a free country where the rights of women and children are protected when the government/crown representatives can write laws that segregate children from their mother and make it against the law for family who love one another to freely contact, see, be with or share a life together?
Your voice can make a difference toward the goal of at least 1,000 signitures and comments which will be submited to the Attorney Generals, Prime Minister, Premier, Canadian Judicial Council, and the International Human Rights Tribunal before the hearing on March 4, 2013. Please sign by March 1, 2013 to help these children have their mother they need, miss and love back before they suffer more hurt, sadness, harm from this unnecessary loss of maternal deprivation. | <urn:uuid:e549e485-bb90-4588-960f-f9eaea4cb859> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.causes.com/causes/814126-help-three-boys-get-their-mother-back/about | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975587 | 839 | 2.140625 | 2 |
Magnetic heat engines
Feb 13, 1998
Venkata Guruprasad from Brewster, New York, has developed a magnetic heat engine which could be more reliable than other engines.
Magnetic heat engines have been known about since 1889, but the success of gas engines has largely prevented research into this technology. Magnetic engines work by converting heat directly into electricity by taking advantage of temperature differentials to change the strength of magnetic fields. Changes in the magnetic field generate electricity.
The growth of semiconductor devices has increased interest in magnetic heat engines because circuits in such devices have to be cooled to stop the chips overheating. Only magnetic heat engines are responsive enough to cope with sudden changes in temperature. Mechanical fluid systems would be too slow or bulky to protect the chip.
Guruprasad's invention in Patent 5714829 has the advantage of being small, and having none of the moving parts that are usually found inside normal engines, which increases its reliability.
Guruprasad believes his devices are best suited for new types of fluid-free refrigerators, heating elements in cookers, and for the cooling of digital circuits. | <urn:uuid:0e5792e2-71e0-420c-82e8-7826a8826cce> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/1998/feb/13/magnetic-heat-engines | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959133 | 232 | 3.84375 | 4 |
You are herekudzu bug
Megacopta cribraria, also known as the kudzu bug, is once again moving from its preferred host in search of protected sites where it will spend the winter. Once on the move, the adult bugs are attracted to light-colored surfaces - landing on people, vehicles, and buildings. They are a nuisance pest for those living in our urban and suburban areas. This mass migration results in complaints and inquiries to pest control operators, Cooperative Extension offices, and the media. | <urn:uuid:040c1379-0aac-4363-80b7-5db8488078e1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ugaurbanag.com/category/keywords/kudzu-bug | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00065-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933512 | 106 | 1.992188 | 2 |
QUEEN’S PARK – The New Democrats are firing back at the Liberals, and Thunder Bay Atitkokan MPP Bill Mauro. New Democrat Consumer Affairs Critic Jagmeet Singh said “It’s sad to see Liberals defending an auto insurance industry that charges the highest rates in Canada”.
“Life is expensive enough without sky-high insurance bills making life even more expensive,” said Singh. “The same-old tired ideas put forward by the McGuinty Liberals just aren’t working for drivers. If Dalton McGuinty and the insurance industry want to have a debate then I urge them to support our efforts to do exactly that.”
Singh has proposed a private member’s bill that would ban insurer’s practice of discriminating by neighbourhood. It would mean premiums would be set by a person’s driving record, not the neighbourhood they live in.
Experts disagree with statements made by MADD Canada on Bill 45. Asked about the remarks in a Legislative committee last week, Brian Patterson, President of the Ontario Safety League, said: “I’m not sure on what basis he drew those conclusions. Those would not be consistent with the conclusions we’ve drawn… I don’t see the risks.” (Hansard, Auto Insurance Industry Review, May 30, 2012).
In fact, under Singh’s bill, bad drivers that put families in danger would pay more, not less.
“Bad drivers that put families at risk should pay more, not less,” said Singh. “Bill 45 brings more fairness for good drivers. Bad and dangerous drivers, like those with driving convictions, won’t get any breaks.”
Experts also disagree with Liberal claims that the bill will drive up rates in the North. Independent insurance expert and University of Waterloo CIBC Professor of Financial Risk Management Dr. Mary Hardy issued a letter stating “there is no reason why the premiums outside the major [urban areas] should change. The major impact would be on premiums charged in and around Toronto.”
Ontario has the highest auto insurance rates in the country. According to a recent report from the Auditor General, Ontario premiums – which average just over $1,400 per vehicle – are as much as 75% higher than other provinces. This is why New Democrats have arranged open hearings on auto insurance: to push for solutions. | <urn:uuid:d69e7a2a-d939-465f-b87a-4505cd6b6d72> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.netnewsledger.com/2012/06/07/new-democrats-fire-back-at-liberals-over-auto-insurance-bill/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957004 | 504 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Even though experts predict an "overactive" hurricane season, residents of the St. Augustine seem to follow a national trend of complacency toward the possibility of being hit by a major hurricane.
Take Doug Macky, owner of Doug's Golf Shop at 570 A1A Beach Blvd. After working out of his St. Augustine Beach location for the last 11 years, he has never taken any extra precautions to prepare for the hurricane season.
"It's never something I've ever really worried about," he said.
According to a poll released by the National Hurricane Survival Initiative, he's not alone. One in three Florida residents said they have not created a family disaster plan or hurricane survival kit. The poll also found that 45 percent of Gulf Coast state residents who live within 30 miles of the coast said they don't feel vulnerable to a hurricane, tornado or flooding.
In 2004, when several hurricanes like Charley and Jeanne plagued the state, Macky said he watched as parts of his golf shop's roof was torn apart from the high winds.
"But that was the only time I've ever had to deal with any sort of damage," he said.
Even so, Macky said he will continue his daily routine through this summer and hurricane season without spending any time or money on hurricane preparations.
This year, government officials predict the Atlantic hurricane season could bring more than 20 tropical storms, where eight to 14 of those will strengthen into hurricanes. As many as seven of these could become storms of a category three or higher, according to The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
First American Corp., a company that releases risk information to insurance companies released a study that ranked Jacksonville as one of the top 13 communities that have the most to lose in a major storm surge.
If a category five hurricane struck the Northeast coast of Florida, the surrounding area could face up to $16.5 billion in damages and affect more than 100,000 properties in the area, the report said. If a category one storm hit, Jacksonville and the surrounding area could expect up to $2.3 billion in damages and 9,000 properties affected.
Ray Ashton, director of Emergency Management in St. Johns County said residents, especially those who have lived here a long time, are aware of the power of hurricanes.
"We have a lot of residents who have lived here for a long period of time," he said. "They know what these storms can bring. The awareness is there."
According to Ashton, it only takes one storm, like Hurricane Andrew or Hugo, to understand the magnitude of damage that can happen anywhere across the state.
The last major storm to hit St. Johns County was Hurricane Dora on Sept. 10, 1964. The hurricane, at its peak, was a category four storm, although it was less powerful when it hit land at Anastasia Island.
"If a community hasn't been impacted in a long time, it's easy for people to fall into the mindset that it's probably not going to happen to them," said Brenda Wiens, a psychologist and research assistant professor at the University of Florida.
Wiens said the best way to change apathy is to remind people of the worst cases, like Hurricane Katrina that did so much damage to New Orleans.
"The scene with Katrina was complicated by the fact that people didn't have the means to evacuate combined with a large number of people who didn't believe it was going to be as bad as it was," she said.
Although the predictions call for a busy season, David Shuler, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Jacksonville said it's too early to indicate which coasts will take the hardest hits.
"But just because someone may not have experienced a hurricane in their community before doesn't mean they shouldn't prepare for them," Shuler said. "Everyone who lives in a coastal community in Florida needs to understand there is a great likelihood that a storm will made landfall in their area, it's just a matter of time."
Hurricane Survival Kit
* Hard copies of important documents
* At least one gallon of water per person per day for seven to 10 days
* Enough non-perishable packaged or canned food items to last for three to seven days
* Snack foods: like peanut butter, crackers, breakfast bars.
* A non-electric can opener, cooking tools, paper plates and fuel
* Blankets and pillows
* Clothing: including rain gear and sturdy shoes
* First Aid Kit: including prescription drugs
For a complete list, go to hurricane.com/hurricane-supply-kit.php. | <urn:uuid:b12bbaec-1d5b-449d-a2a3-39467493d05b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://staugustine.com/news/local-news/2010-06-01/hurricane-warning-get-ready | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975211 | 945 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Tsunami Safety Rules
A strong earthquake felt in a low-lying coastal area is a natural warning
of possible, immediate danger. Keep calm and quickly move to higher
ground away from the coast.
All large earthquakes do not cause tsunamis, but many do. If the quake is
located near or directly under the ocean, the probability of a tsunami
increases. When you hear that an earthquake has occurred in the ocean
or coastline regions, prepare for a tsunami emergency.
Tsunamis can occur at any time, day or night. They can travel up rivers
and streams that lead to the ocean.
A tsunami is not a single wave, but a series of waves. Stay out of
danger until an "ALL CLEAR" is issued by a competent authority.
Approaching tsunamis are sometimes heralded by noticeable rise or fall
of coastal waters. This is nature's tsunami warning and should be
Approaching large tsunamis are usually accompanied by a loud roar that
sounds like a train or aircraft. If a tsunami arrives at night when you can not see
the ocean, this is also nature's tsunami warning and should be heeded.
A small tsunami at one beach can be a giant a few miles away. Do not
let modest size of one make you lose respect for all.
Sooner or later, tsunamis visit every coastline in the Pacific.
All tsunamis - like hurricanes - are potentially dangerous even
though they may not damage every coastline they strike.
Never go down to the beach to watch for a tsunami!
WHEN YOU CAN SEE THE WAVE YOU ARE TOO CLOSE TO ESCAPE.
Tsunamis can move faster than a person can run!
During a tsunami emergency, your local emergency management office,
police, fire and other emergency organizations will try to save your life.
Give them your fullest cooperation.
Homes and other buildings located in low lying coastal areas
are not safe. Do NOT stay in such buildings if there is a tsunami
The upper floors of high, multi-story, reinforced concrete hotels can
provide refuge if there is no time to quickly move inland or to higher
If you are on a boat or ship and there is time, move your vessel to deeper
water (at least 100 fathoms). If it is the case that there is concurrent
severe weather, it may may safer to leave the boat at the pier and physically
move to higher ground.
Damaging wave activity and unpredictable currents can effect harbor
conditions for a period of time after the tsunami's initial impact. Be
sure conditions are safe before you return your boat or ship to the harbor.
Stay tuned to your local radio, marine radio, NOAA Weather Radio, or
television stations during a tsunami emergency - bulletins issued
through your local emergency management office and National
Weather Service offices can save your life. | <urn:uuid:246ce815-b48c-48b0-8621-e99d71819010> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://oldwcatwc.arh.noaa.gov/about/safety.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.924851 | 608 | 3.8125 | 4 |
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Sunday, May 19, 2013
Reshaping the Surfboard Business
by Linda Dela Cruz
What happens when you go on vacation to surf in Australia and some folks ask if you can help create something thats better than whats already out there? If you are Jimmy Freese, you end up combining your computer programming skills with your passion for surfing to create a full-fledged business of your own.
That fateful day during a surf vacation was in 2001, and three years later Aku Shaper machines were born. The Aku Shaper is a machine that shapes surf-boards in an efficient manner so theres more time spent out on the ocean in the waves than in shaping the board.
Or you could use the time to shape more boards and make more money, explains Freese.
His Aku Shaper machines have been selling since 2004, and they are in places such as Japan, England, Peru, Tahiti, Australia, New Zealand, California, North Carolina and Hawaii.
Everyone likes the cutter concept, and they get really excited, says Freese, noting that almost all of his surfboards were made with the cutter. It uses a circle cutter the size of a dinner plate and about 12 millimeters thick. And the machine spins in both directions.
Once the machine is done with the board, putting on the finishing touches is all that is left. The companys YouTube video shows that a board can be cut in about 18 minutes.
Jimmy Freese is changing surfing one gigabyte at a time.
Freese says one of the challenges is getting the word out about what the machine can do. Some ways have included word of mouth, attending trade shows and getting publicity, such as the Aku Shapers recent feature in the February 2009 edition of Surfer Magazine.
Surfing is a small industry, so you kind of know everyone, says Freese, a Kailua resident and Punahou graduate who has been surfing since he was a child.
Once shapers understand that you can make more boards in a shorter amount of time, theyre interested.
The Aku Shaper business is a three-way partnership that uses the computer programming
skills of Freeses father, Ralph, a math professor at the University of
Hawaii at Manoa, and engineer Mike Richard, who specializes in manufacturing
machines for the automotive and pharmaceutical industries. The companys
future includes other related products they are developing with the software.
Chemical engineer, computer programmer and surfer, Jimmy brings a variety of
expertise to the development of the machine and computer technology. With an
undergraduate degree in chemical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University,
and a Masters degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Texas
at Austin in the area of Process Control. Jimmy has extensive knowledge about
surfboard materials, manufacture and construction, hydrodynamic forces and computer
modeling. He spends many hours debugging the software, from both code bugs and
usability bugs along with finding the perfect fit between the software, the
cutting machine capability and design from a shapers perspective.
Ralph Freese has been a professor in Mathematics at the University of Hawaii
at Manoa for over 30 years. He is extremely respected in his field, Lattice
Theory. He also harbors world class computer programming skills. He has solved
several long-outstanding problems, including one of importance to computer theory.
He is routinely invited to give addresses at international conferences. He was
recently awarded The Regents Medal for Excellence in Research, a very
prestigious award. He holds an undergraduate degree from the University of California
at Santa Barbara and a doctorate from The California Institute of Technology.
Mike Richard has had a lifelong passion for automation in the manufacturing
industry. He has tertiary qualifications in industrial electronics, engineering
and mechanical design, microprocessor based software programming, CAD CAM systems
and fifteen years experience as owner/managing director of a successful engineering
company which designs and manufactures complex automated machines for both the
pharmaceutical and automotive industries. This company has clients throughout
Australia and overseas, including Robert Bosch, Siemens, Toyota, Ford, GMH,
Astra Zeneca, Pfizer and ITW.
In 2001, Mike restructured the management of this Melbourne-based business and established a new company to design and manufacture shaping machines for the shaping industry. This Gold Coast based company has successfully designed and manufactured over 30 APS3000 and Aku Shaper shaping machines for local and overseas shapers.
Mikes company is now working with the APS3000 software developers, Jimmy
and Ralph Freese to build a superior steel-framed shaping machine with a world
class controller system to provide shapers with a even more reliable and accurate
system. The Aku Shaper is a new design with patent applications for Australia,
the US and Europe. With over six years experience in designing and manufacturing
a variety of shaping systems, Mike has a unique and detailed knowledge of these
systems. He has also completed many machine installations and provided technical
support on site or by phone to customers around the world. As a surfer, Mike
has a keen interest in continuing to improve and develop the Aku Shaper and
he is now happily relocated on the Gold Coast with his wife and three children. | <urn:uuid:1d382dec-5f69-4a7d-9269-d0f8f6a9b1c5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.careerkokua.org/career/article/?id=247 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947925 | 1,111 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Course Description :
An intensive introduction to African American political thought that focuses on major ideological trends and political philosophies as they have been applied and interpreted by African Americans. Elements of the class include debates and conflicts in black political thought, historical contest of African American social movements, and discussions of the relationship between black political thought and major trends in Western thought.
Mark Sawyer is an Associate Professor of African American Studies and Political Science at UCLA and the Director of the Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity and Politics. He also has interest in the area of race, immigration and citizenship around the globe. He is a member of the American Political Science Association, and the National Conference of Black Political Scientists.
Other Resources :
These Course Lecture Videos are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License by UCLA.
Other Social Sciences Courses
- ENVR 102 - Selected Topics in Environmental Studies by UC San Diego
- Game Theory and Economics by IIT Guwahati
- The Institute of Politics by Harvard
- History of Economic Theory by IIT Madras
- Capitalism: Success, Crisis and Reform by Yale
- Economic Geography of the Industrial World,Fall 2011 by UC Berkeley
- The Early Middle Ages, 284--1000 by Yale
- Introduction to Political Philosophy by Yale
- Introduction to Film Studies by IIT Madras
- PHSC 13400: Global Warming by Other
» check out the complete list of Social Sciences lectures
Social Sciences Lecture Notes | <urn:uuid:3b0aed71-e9b7-4b67-a165-15a729dbb4d4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://freevideolectures.com/Course/106/African-American-Studies | 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 | 0.911947 | 310 | 2.546875 | 3 |
It’s considered the toughest trophy to win in professional sports. It’s made of silver and nickel alloy, weighs 34.5 pounds and measures 35 ¼ inches. It’s the Stanley Cup. Unlike other trophies in North American pro sports, the Cup isn’t remade every year, which makes it more special and creates a kind of folklore surrounding it. Each year, after the playoffs, stories about the Cup come to fruition after team members spend their designated day with the Cup. Here are some of the more popular stories surrounding teams and their experiences with the trophy.
It was designed to be a neat and original Cup photo op. Blackhawks forward, and Buffalo native, Patrick Kane decided to take the Cup to Niagara Falls. But this proved a side-story to what happened after Kane left the falls. That afternoon, Kane took the Cup in a fire engine and was lifted in a ladder over Buffalo. Then the ladder wouldn’t go down and Kane was stranded with the Cup about 70 feet above ground for 20 minutes. “It was a little scary, but anything with this (the Cup) is unexpected,” a visibly shaken Kane told NHL.com. “I’m just happy to be out.”
Out of all the pictures taken of the Cup, few match the high wire act Devils defenseman Scott Niedermayer performed in 2000. Nidermayer had a helicopter take him to the top of Fisher Peak in British Columbia, close to Niedermayer’s childhood home of Cranbrook, BC. When he won the Stanley Cup again in 2007 with the Anaheim Ducks, Niedermayer, and his brother Rob went to the top of the 9,336-foot mountain for a re-do of the photo. “The heli had to hover about three feet up and we jumped out,” Scott Niedermayer told Skiing Magazine in 2009. “The photos tied the Stanley Cup to the mountains and my home.”
Curses have been born in the Cup most notably the New York Rangers’ Cup hex of 1940. That year, after New York won the Stanley Cup, its owners burned Madison Square Garden’s mortgage in the chalice. The $3 million pricetag had just been paid, and the pyrotechnics were considered more of a celebration. The hockey gods took note. The Rangers wouldn’t win another Cup until 1994.
Ray Bourque waited 22 years to win the Stanley Cup. When Colorado won it in 2001, captain Joe Sakic didn’t even hold it over his head before passing it to the grizzled veteran. "I couldn't breathe, and it wasn't because I was tired," Bourque said after the game. "It was just too much. I was trying to hold off the tears." How did Bourque celebrate that night? He didn’t go to Disneyland. Instead, he hosted a street hockey game in his suburban Denver neighborhood with the Cup close by.
Detroit Coach Mike Babcock is considered an avid water skier. So it made perfect sense for Babcock to strap the Cup to his boat at Emma Lake in Saskatchewan for his day with it in 2008 and then ride behind it.
With all its travels and history, it’s fascinating to think that the Cup never made it to Russia, until 1997. That year the Detroit Red Wings won their first Stanley Cup and three of their five Russian players took it to their homeland. The Cup went to Red Square, an exhibition soccer game, and met Russian President Boris Yeltsin. “If every one of them (the fans) smiles, then I know why we came here,” defenseman Viacheslav Fetisov was quoted in a 1997 article in The New York Times.
The 1994 New York Rangers Stanley Cup win brought all sorts of interesting stories and photo ops. Brian Leetch and Mark Messier took the Cup on David Letterman’s show. They also brought it to McSorley’s Old Ale House in Greenwich Village. But no photo was more interesting – or bizarre – then Ed Olczyk taking it to Belmont Park and allowing Kentucky Derby winner Go For Gin to feed out of it.
Messier liked to bring the Cup to his favorite, um, establishments. These included two of the more noted gentlemen’s clubs in two countries. In 1987 after Edmonton’s 7-game victory over Philadelphia, Messier brought the Cup to the Forum Inn, a strip club near Northlands Coliseum. He duplicated this act in 1994 with the Rangers. Messier brought the Cup to Scores in Manhattan.
The most famous Stanley Cup story involves Mario Lemieux’s swimming pool – twice. When the Pittsburgh Penguins won their second Stanley Cup, Lemieux had a party at his house. In order to get the party jumping, defenseman Phil Bourque decided to throw the Cup into the pool to see if it floated. Bourque quickly came to a realization, however. “It doesn’t float,” Bourque said in an NHL.com interview in 2008. “We put it in Mario’s pool and it sinks in a matter of 10 seconds. We didn’t want to hurt it because you got to respect the Cup, but you want to have some fun with it too.” Photos of the Cup in Lemieux’s pool following the Penguins’ 2009 championship surfaced that summer. In those photos, the Cup appeared to be floating. | <urn:uuid:96db275d-5aae-4ba5-ad1d-4c0ff40549c5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.athlonsports.com/category/miscellaneous/stanley-cup | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975918 | 1,145 | 1.5 | 2 |
Grounded: A Down to Earth Journey Around the World
Feeling stagnant and in search of adventure, Slate contributor Seth Stevenson and his girlfriend (and trusty navigatrix), Rebecca, put their jobs on hold, ditched their possessions, and set out to circumnavigate the globe without stepping into an aircraft. They soon found themselves riding on cargo freighters, trains, ferries, buses, bicycles, one high-speed catamaran, and several rickshaws. This week, Slate is publishing five exclusive excerpts from Stevenson's book about the voyage, Grounded: A Down to Earth Journey Around the World.
Fifty years ago, an American tourist on vacation might well have taken a ship to get to Europe. Fifty years before that, it was not unusual to ride in a stagecoach. For someone growing up in the first half of the twentieth century—watching the automobile and the airplane evolve into everyday conveniences—it must have seemed that humankind's advances in the field of transport were only just getting started.
But then, sometime around the mid-1960s, the progress stopped. Air travel had its golden age in that era, and since then flying really hasn't improved. With notable exceptions like the now-defunct Concorde, the jets never got much faster. Meanwhile, they did get a whole lot less comfortable, as airlines crammed in more seats and cut out the amenities.
Whatever romance may have existed up there in the clouds, once upon a time, it's long gone now. These days, the experience is relentlessly drab. Still, there's no puzzle as to why people continue to fly. Airplanes equal convenience. They get us places faster—orders of magnitude faster.
I wouldn't want to deny people the option of flight. At the same time, I think it's fair to acknowledge that progress comes with tradeoffs. Yes, we've gained convenience. But along the way we've deprived ourselves of some extremely wonderful things. The starry skies of an Atlantic Ocean crossing. The bleak beauty of an old Russian train chugging its way through Siberia. The jaunty freedom of a road trip with a carful of friends.
And there's no going back. Along with the ability to cross an ocean or a continent in six hours comes a societal expectation that you'll do so. Your two weeks of summer vacation time are predicated on the assumption that you'll fly to Italy for your honeymoon—not take a full week to float there, look around for an hour, and then take another week to float back.
As a result, when people think about travel these days they think purely of destinations. They barely give a nod to the actual ... traveling. The problem with this isn't just that we lose out on the pleasures of trains, ships, bicycles, and all those other terrific modes of rationally paced, ground-level transport. I think we also dim our experience of the destinations themselves. We've forgotten the benefit of surface travel: It forces you to feel, deep in your bones, the distance you've covered; and it gradually eases you into a new context that exists not just outside your body, but also inside your head. (It eliminates travel sicknesses, too: Rebecca and I never once got ill as we moved slowly and steadily between clusters of regional bacteria.)
Teleporting from airport to airport doesn't allow for the same kind of spiritual transformation you undergo whenever you make an overland trip. When you take a seven-day vacation bookended by flights, I would in fact argue that your soul never completely leaves home. You've experienced it, I'm sure: Your airplane has landed in Quito, but your heart and mind are still stuck back in Boston. The sudden, radical change in your surroundings sparks a glitch in your processor. You know you're physically standing in Ecuador, yet the sensation is more like watching a really immersive television documentary about Ecuador. And then, at last, when you begin to feel whole again, your feet firmly planted in the foreign soil (no longer some hollow seedcase that's been dropped, weightless, into an alien world), it's time to teleport straight back to the comfortable familiarity of home.
I acknowledge that for most of us, it's no longer feasible to take an ocean liner to South America on our summer holiday. But that doesn't mean we wouldn't have a better, richer experience if we did. So my advice to you is this: The next time you want to travel—I mean really travel, not just take a vacation—please consider getting wherever you want to go without taking a plane.
I promise you will look at that globe on the shelf in your study in a whole new light. You will run your finger along the curve of the sphere and think: I know what this distance feels like. What this ocean looks like. What it means to trace the surface of this earth.
Back in D.C., our first night in our empty new place, we sleep on an air mattress we bought for fifty bucks at a local discount store. In the morning, it hits me full force: There's nowhere to go next. I haven't the energy or resources to continue this adventure. I'll sleep in this same room again tonight, and the night after that, and the night after that.
The readjustment is brutal. The little victories and losses of day-to-day existence seem ridiculous. When we get our furniture and clothes back from the storage company, I'm almost physically repulsed by the sight of them. It feels like someone else's possessions. Why on earth did we ever buy all these things, and, worse, take the trouble to preserve them while we were away? Everything I need, I now know for sure, I can fit into a backpack.
But of course the fierceness fades. Week by week, I grow softer. Comfort and routine begin to creep back in. We trade out our air mattress for a real bed and get a flat-screen TV and an Internet connection. We go out to the same bars and restaurants that we did before. We're right back in the thick of it, carving new ruts.
One day, though, a few years down the line, I know we'll blow it all up again. Perhaps we'll be walking along a beach and we'll see a sailboat, out past the breakers. I'll catch a little gleam in Rebecca's eye. And we'll both be thinking: I wonder how far away we can get in one of those.
Seth Stevenson is a frequent contributor to Slate. He is the author of Grounded: A Down to Earth Journey Around the World. | <urn:uuid:365b604a-c2ee-4d70-ac3f-d0a57a28bd6f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.slate.com/articles/life/welltraveled/features/2010/grounded_a_down_to_earth_journey_around_the_world/heading_home.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00054-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960687 | 1,372 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Central New York's only Level I Trauma Center serving the 14 counties stretching from Canada to the Pennsylvania border.
Each year, more then 140,000 Americans die from injuries, and one in three Americans suffer from a nonfatal injury. Trauma is a major contributor to
Trauma is a physical injury caused by an external force to the body. This force may be from a motor vehicle accident, gunshot, stabbing or fall from height. Major trauma includes patients with multiple systems involvement who require immediate intervention to save their life.
Recent studies have shown that proper trauma care can save 20% of 100,000 Americans who die annually from traumatic injury. Such care is offered only by organized Trauma Centers.
University Hospital has developed a comprehensive trauma program that meets the American College of Surgeons and New York State Standards for Trauma Centers and provides care for all types of severe trauma and life-threatening injury.
University Hospital is staffed 24 hours a day by in-house specialists and on-call physicians. These specialists include:
In addition, the Regional Trauma Center contains sophisticated and current equipment to resuscitate, stabilize and support the most critically injured patient. | <urn:uuid:d2ff459d-4cdd-4878-8abc-a868f73ec76a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.upstate.edu/surgery/healthcare/trauma/index.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933164 | 235 | 2.421875 | 2 |
The coalition government is considering new legislation to cut the cost of rolling out high-speed broadband across the UK, in order to get fibre access to more areas and to encourage new companies to become broadband providers.
The government believes reducing the investment needed to lay fibre could spur more extensive fibre rollout than has been planned so far, a spokesperson for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) said on Thursday.
"The next generation of broadband is essential to our future prosperity," the spokesperson told ZDNet UK. "The UK has made a start on deployment, but we want to go further. Steps now to reduce the cost could make a significant contribution to availability and open the market to new players.
"We need to do more work to understand what changes may be required and whether further legislation is required, for instance, to give regulators the right powers to look across different utilities and provide access where it is needed."
The news came as the government laid out its broadband plans in its comprehensive policy announcement on Thursday. These plans include adopting the Conservative policy of using part of the BBC TV licence fee to "fund broadband in areas that the market alone will not reach", and trying to "introduce super-fast broadband in remote areas at the same time as in more populated areas".
Before the election, the Liberal Democrats supported the then Labour government's plans to introduce a 50p-per-month levy on all fixed lines to fund rural fibre. That policy, which never had the Conservatives' support, was dropped by Labour just ahead of the election. The Tories campaigned on a promise to extend 100Mbps broadband to the majority of the UK within seven years.
In Thursday's policy announcement, the coalition said it would "ensure that BT and other infrastructure providers allow the use of their assets to deliver such broadband". This is a frequently repeated Tory policy, but BT has already said it intends to share its ducts with rival providers as long as there is some reciprocity.
Jeremy Hunt, the secretary of state for culture, Olympics, media and sport, was on Wednesday put in charge of overseeing the UK's fibre rollout. BT has already begun its fibre deployment in earnest, and recently said it would extend its plans to cover two-thirds of all households.
"All parties have acknowledged that there will be some parts of the country where some form of public sector stimulus will be necessary, as the government have acknowledged again today," a BT spokesperson told ZDNet UK on Thursday.
"BT has already committed to opening up its infrastructure to other providers, and we welcome any plans for others to follow suit," the spokesperson added. | <urn:uuid:6e024b85-d77c-4698-b988-54957bec69f9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.zdnet.com/new-legislation-could-reduce-cost-of-fibre-rollout-3040088994/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00076-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9708 | 534 | 1.882813 | 2 |
Endangered deer being moved from Cathlamet to Ridgefield
Fears that badly eroded dike may soon break lend urgency to effort
Thursday, February 14, 2013
CATHLAMET — For a buck who spends his whole life grazing on shrubs and grass, a generous spread of ripe apples and pears is too good to resist. And also too good to be true, as it turns out.
Oblivious to the 24-foot-wide nylon net suspended above his head, the buck wanders into the pile of fruit. In an instant, the remote-controlled net drops, and eight men and women in camouflage rain gear come running across the field.
This unsuspecting, 159-pound buck was the 11th Columbian white-tailed deer to be captured at the Julia Butler Hansen National Wildlife Refuge since late January, when U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service employees began an unprecedented effort to relocate about half the endangered deer on the refuge near Cathlamet. They're being moved permanently to another federal preserve near Ridgefield.
Wildlife officials are in a race to move about 50 deer because they fear a badly eroded dike may soon break. Biologists fear they'd lose large numbers of the deer to drowning, starvation or hypothermia, which would set back the 40-year, $28 million effort to restore the species in Wahkiakum County.
"We just can't take the chance that the dike is going to last another year," said FWS spokesman Doug Zimmer, who watched Tuesday's trapping effort.
During the $200,000 relocation plan, Fish and Wildlife Service employees have been using a combination of sedative darts, drive-netting, and drop-netting to round up the deer four days a week.
While darting is the least stressful way to capture animals, it poses overdosing risks, Zimmer said. That's why biologists are focusing on drop-netting for the moment. If they haven't rounded up enough animals by early spring, they may use riskier, more expensive methods, such as drive-netting and helicopter hazing.
So far, biologists have captured an ideal mix of age and gender, and no animals or people have been hurt or
killed -- something that Zimmer acknowledges is a very real possibility during the high-stress captures.
Within two minutes Tuesday, biologists and volunteers pinned and blindfolded the netted buck, who lay on his side, expressing deep dismay in a series of powerful, guttural grunts.
"We've never really moved this many deer all at once in this short of a time frame," said Jackie Ferrier, who manages the deer refuge. Biologists are taking every precaution to ensure the deer are handled in the least stressful way possible, Ferrier said.
Capture crews worked in almost total silence as they disentangled and then hobbled the buck to prevent him from injuring himself or a worker. The work was intensely physical, and the crew members wore expressions of deep concentration as they moved swiftly through a checklist of tasks, communicating in gestures and occasional whispers.
Biologists punched yellow plastic tags through each ear and attached a brightly colored radio collar around the buck's neck. They gave him a brief medical exam, injected him with a supplement to boost his health, and tried to determine his age by examining his teeth. A veterinarian with a pocketful of syringes carefully monitored his vital signs. If the buck showed signs of severe distress, the vet was prepared to sedate him, but this deer handled the experience without a need for drugs.
Finally, in a carefully coordinated move, the crew members lifted the buck into a tall, narrow wooden crate with a dark interior, lowered the heavy lid and hauled him across the field to a truck. Within an hour, the buck was speeding down the freeway toward his new home at the Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge in north Clark County.
Not everyone is thrilled to see the deer moved there. Ferrier said some nearby landowners worry the deer will damage surrounding crops and make it difficult to manage their property without running afoul of Endangered Species Act regulations.
If successful, the move to Ridgefield will increase genetic diversity among the deer and restore Columbian white-tails to a historic part of their range, Zimmer said. It will also improve the species' chances of survival by establishing another stable population, lessening the likelihood that a flood or epidemic could wipe them out.
"If you have all of your eggs in one basket, and the handle breaks, you've got a problem," Zimmer said.
The deer once ranged throughout the lower Columbia River bottomlands before development crowded them out. Now they're limited to the refuge near Cathlamet ,as well as Tenashillahe, Wallace and Puget islands and marshlands near Westport, Ore. The government also is starting to establish a population on Cottonwood Island at the mouth of the Cowlitz River.
After arriving in Ridgefield, biologists weighed the buck and set up a radio tracker. When the crate's lid slid open, the buck took a tentative look at his new home, then bounded down a slope into a thicket. In 30 years, Zimmer said, white-tailed deer may be common in a place where they've long been absent.
"People will never think about it," Zimmer said. "People will never know what it took to bring them back."
Information from: The Daily News. | <urn:uuid:c1a3102a-d10e-4b98-b29b-ae9a4428ee1a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.columbian.com/news/2013/feb/14/endangered-deer-being-moved-from-cathlamet-to-ridg/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967613 | 1,110 | 2.21875 | 2 |
Published in AIDS Weekly, March 31st, 1997
"For the first time in northwest Indiana, a city government has stepped up to the podium and said that we have a problem," said Curt Ellis, Project Aliveness of Northwest Indiana.
The private group is working with city schools to develop the AIDS education program.
"This disease is hitting into every segment of our population, but it is heading for our most valuable asset - our children," Ellis said.
The number of reported cases among Gary teenagers...
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NewsRx also is available at LexisNexis, Gale, ProQuest, Factiva, Dialog, Thomson Reuters, NewsEdge, and Dow Jones. | <urn:uuid:a8469f46-41dc-4d28-90ba-38e0a4adf2d9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.newsrx.com/newsletters/AIDS-Weekly/1997-03-31/1997033133310AW.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947164 | 170 | 1.945313 | 2 |
Dáil Éireann - Volume 596 - 26 January, 2005
Written Answers. - Heavy Goods Vehicles.
Mr. Cregan Mr. Cregan
595. Mr. Cregan asked the Minister for Transport the position on the use of mud flaps on the wheels of HGVs; if the regulations are in force here; if so, if there are EU directives on the issue not yet being operated here; if there are statistics on accidents caused by spray from roads; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [1988/05]
Mr. Callely Mr. Callely
Mr. Callely: Irish regulations require that, subject to certain exemptions, every vehicle and every trailer attached to a vehicle should be equipped with wings or other similar devices to catch, so far as practicable, mud or water thrown up by the rotation of the wheels, unless adequate protection is afforded by the body of the vehicle.
Directive 91/226/EEC sets out the technical requirements that a spray suppression system must meet to obtain EC type approval certification for heavy goods vehicles. The purpose of the directive is to ensure that national standards for spray suppression equipment do not constitute barriers to trade. The directive ensures this by setting type approval standards and requiring that the sale of new vehicles fitted with the specified equipment may not be prohibited in any member state.
While the directive does not require member states to make spray suppression systems obligatory, my Department is considering whether it should do so. Statistics relating to road accidents caused by spray from vehicles are not available.
Dáil Éireann 596 Written Answers. Heavy Goods Vehicles. | <urn:uuid:19c90275-0684-4434-8bd2-255cf3141a87> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://historical-debates.oireachtas.ie/D/0596/D.0596.200501260389.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00069-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.911976 | 334 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Published January 31, 2013
The Nairobi slum of Mathare is home to more than half a million people, but it has only three government schools. Low-cost community schools attempt to fill the gap. But most of these educators are inadequately trained -- so one organization is now teaching the teachers. Jill Craig has more for VOA from Nairobi. | <urn:uuid:65571317-88ee-47d5-99b3-1b8574dbd752> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.voanews.com/media/video/1594656.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97759 | 75 | 1.765625 | 2 |
An ABC News report is causing quite a stir among those who buy pharmaceutical drugs over the Internet.
A year ago, the Drug Enforcement Administration warned the public about criminals posing as DEA special agents or other law enforcement personnel as part of an international extortion scheme.
The report, aired on Nightline and Good Morning America, details how criminals call the victims (who in most cases previously purchased drugs over the lnternet or by telephone) and identify themselves as DEA agents or law enforcement officials from other agencies. The impersonators inform their victims that purchasing drugs over the lnternet or by telephone is illegal, and that enforcement action will be taken against them unless they pay a fine. In most cases, the impersonators instruct their victims to pay the "fine" via wire transfer to a designated location, usually overseas. If victims refuse to send money, the impersonators often threaten to arrest them or search their property. Some victims who bought their drugs using a credit card also reported fraudulent use of their credit cards.
Impersonating a federal agent is a violation of federal law, a DEA document states. The DEA agent will never contact the public by telephone or email to demand money or any other form of payment.
If you buy pharmacy drugs over the Internet, BBB reminds users to :
• use caution when purchasing any pharmaceuticals by telephone or through the Internet.
• use pharmacies that are registered with the DEA to sell controlled substance pharmaceuticals by Internet.
• remember there are risks of receiving unsafe, counterfeit, and/or ineffective drugs from outside the U.S.
• and, personal and financial information could be compromised.
If you get a telephone call from someone claiming to be a DEA special agent or other law enforcement official seeking money hangup and report the threat. 877-792-2873 | <urn:uuid:bfa81e49-f041-484a-8c34-03f0e238ca77> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://snake-river.bbb.org/article/dont-fall-for-fake-dea-agents-calls-hang-up-33800 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00057-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928798 | 369 | 1.84375 | 2 |
Rastus was a little black doll who sat on the piano at the old Overland Hotel situated just north of the northwest corner of 1st South and State Street in Mt. Pleasant. Rastus was a conversation for all the guests of the hotel for many years, and the children in Mt. Pleasant enjoyed walking past the hotel window and looking at Rastus sitting on the piano. We don't know for sure just how many years Rastus occupied his place in the hotel.
Several years later, in 1913, Manti High School's basketball team came to Mt. Pleasant in a horse-drawn wagon for a game at North Sanpete High School. They stayed at the hotel that night. When they left the next morning, they stole the black doll and took it to Manti.
At the next game, when North Sanpete went to Manti to play, the Manti boyse held Rastus out over the court dangling from a fishing pole. The Sanpete boys tried to recover the doll, but to no avail. But at the end of the game, some of the Sanpete boys grabbed Rastus and ran from the gymn with him. Miss Ryan, an English teacher at NSH had a large fur muff. The boys quickly handed the doll to Miss Ryan and ran on. Miss Ryan hid Rastus in her muff and walked calmly toward her buggy as the Manti boys ran in pursuit of the doll.
As the rivalry went on, each school tried to steal Rastus from the one who had successfully got away with him. Finally to foster good sportsmanship between the schools, it was decided that at each basketball game from then on, the doll would go to the winner until the next game.
In 1938, Rastus seemed to be in jeopardy of losing his home in Mt. Pleasant. The student body officers and cheerleaders decided North Sanpete really needed some pep, so they purchased another black doll which they named "Pep". At a pep assembly they held a wedding ceremony and Rastus married Pep.
Things went on pretty well for a long time, but in 1953, North Sanpete fell into a slump. The school experienced a losing streak, so again the cheerleaders of North Sanpete and the Pep Club came to the rescue. They purchased a small, black baby doll. In the assembly they announced that Pep was dead at North Sanpete, so the student body followed the casket out to the football field where they were going to bury Pep ~~~ but they heard a loud clatter from the casket, and they decided Pep wasn't dead at all. When they opened the lid, Pep jumped out ~~ and she had a baby in her arms ~~ She and Rastus named the child "Victory". North Sanpete really needed Victory!
Together, the three dolls were a trophy for each game between the two schools.
Finally, tragedy hit the family! There were new superintend-ants in both North and South Sanpete School Districts. Before anyone knew what was happening, the dolls were gone and a new tradition was to replace the dolls that both schools had loved for so many years.
When they were discontinued, Rastus had been a trophy for 65 years (he was the original doll, and so was several years older than that), Pep for 40 years, and Victory for 25 years. It was with a great sorrow that the students and townspeople alike were told that the dolls were to be used no more. The original dolls disappeared. No one seems to know where they went. They were in Manti's trophy case at the time the decision was made, and no one saw them again.
A Victory symbol trophy was designed to replace the tradition, and supposedly ordered to be made in Salt Lake. However, it was never done. Eventually, two "cabbage patch" dolls were purchased, christened Sandy and Pete, and used in their first trophy game on January 24, 1997.
(Not surprisingly) there are other versions of this story !!! | <urn:uuid:3233a04a-95ec-4527-8a40-cd1d971e3fec> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mtpleasantpioneer.blogspot.com/2012/03/how-many-remember-story-of-rastus-and.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.988949 | 841 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Tipping the scales towards a better diet in Peru
This is where Piwi comes in.
"Piwi is furry, friendly and eats a lot of fish," explains Melva Pazos, the head of technical cooperation at Peru's national fish institute, the Instituto Tecnológico Pesquero. So the cartoon character has been drafted as a mascot for a project to encourage people to eat anchovies. The two-year project was launched in August 2000 with FAO support under its Technical Cooperation Programme.
The project is targeting five distinct audiences -- poor women who run soup kitchens in Limaís impoverished neighbourhoods; primary school children; doctors and health workers; the middle class and, of course, the suppliers -- the fishers themselves.
Size matters in the fish markets of Peru
Peruvians eat fish but, says Ms. Pazos, they like big, white ones. Moreover they have been told by their doctors that small, dark fish, like anchovies, are unsafe to eat. "Doctors tell people that anchovies make you sick," says Ms Pazos. "And this is true - but only because the fish handling is so bad that by the time the fish reach the market they are no longer fresh."
"We could have just bought new vessels for the fishermen," says Ms. Pazos. "But we didn't because we wanted them to learn how to handle fish properly and to adapt their boats to carry ice." FAO experts work with the 150 fishermen and with the 120 women at the processing plant, teaching them the basics of hygiene and quality control.
Once the fish are packed in ice in insulated vans, they are taken to Ventanilla, a poor neighbourhood on the outskirts of Lima, where they are distributed to the project's second target audience, primary school children - via the soup kitchens of the slums. Although Peru's economy has stabilized since the 1980s, half of its 26 million people live in extreme poverty, and malnutrition is endemic.
Anchovy - cheap, nutritious and not just for the poor
The government subsidizes the soup kitchens, and the fish institute decided to use them to offer anchovy-based meals and to provide training in fish preparation. "We didn't just supply ground anchovies and ask the women to disguise that as fish cakes," insists Ms. Pazos. "It's easy to make flour from poor-quality fish, but we believe that poor people should have high-quality food."
It was also important, she says, not to stigmatize anchovies as the food of the poor. So young professionals were drafted to help prepare the meals, and the institute began a simultaneous campaign to convert the middle class to the fish by emphasizing the benefits of Omega 3 oil, which is highly concentrated in anchovies - it is good for stress and heart problems.
The project is also working with health workers in Ventanilla to teach them the benefits of eating properly treated anchovies. So far 189 health workers in the Lima region have been trained and other regional health departments are expressing an interest in the scheme.
Correcting the past and teaching the future
"Training the doctors will help take care of past misinformation," says Ms. Pazos. "But we also want our children to know about their country's natural resources." The institute is working with six primary schools in Ventanilla, providing fish lunches and, more importantly, "branding" anchovies as a tasty, fun meal - using Piwi.
Teachers tell the children stories about Piwi bringing a basket of anchovies to his grandmother. The children also take part in educational competitions and are taken on visits to the port to see how fish are caught. So far 1 100 children have been involved in the campaign, and Ms. Pazos is confident the message will spread further.
"We have enough anchovies to feed the population," she says. "Now fishers know how to produce the fish for humans. So if people want anchovies, they can have them. And they are starting to want them."
7 December 2001 | <urn:uuid:26bbe49b-c37a-41d6-9777-9d1293acb8da> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fao.org/english/newsroom/highlights/2001/011203-e.htm | 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 | 0.971234 | 837 | 2.9375 | 3 |
Is There a Symbiosis Between SOA and DDD?
With the increased popularity of SOA, taking a central stage in the enterprise architecture, it becomes more and more obvious that it has to start leveraging advances achieved by other related disciplines. This point of view is confirmed by an interesting discussion about relationships between SOA and Domain Driven Design.
While SOA is:
an architectural style promoting the concept of business-aligned enterprise service as the fundamental unit of designing, building and composing enterprise business solutions
a way of thinking and a set of priorities, aimed at accelerating software projects that have to deal with complicated domains
The seeming commonalities between the two started this discussion (Trond-Eirik), by asking the following questions:
...what you are thinking about the concept of SOA vs.the concept of DDD? Are they a perfect match fulfilling each other? Are they exclusion concepts, meaning that if you use DDD you cannot use SOA? Are they solving/attaching different part of the problem domain? Are they solving the same part of the problem domain?
The reply from "moffdub" (user name) is that SOA and DDD are highly complementary:
DDD is a way to develop a deployment unit (single app). SOA is a way to glue together multiple deployment units.
A different approach to merging the two is proposed by Ashley Fernandes, who considers DDD as the technique for defining business services:
I correlate the service layer in 3D quite close to the WSDL services exposed by any UDDI. Due to this 3D and SOA co - exist quite well
Tomas Karlsson shares his practical experience in developing a DDD-SOA combination. He suggests starting from a pure DDD approach, then creating objects (POJOs or stateless beans) implementing domain objects and exposing them as services. As a result, he has created:
A service (or a set of services if you want) with a very clear responsibility: doing the back-end part of CRUD on a customer. Having such a service early will add stability early in the project.
According to Colin Jack, although a symbiosis between SOA and DDD is definitely possible, it has to be implemented very carefully. In particular he points out that the notion of entity service delivering, for example, customer information can be at odds with DDD.
My problem is that I don't see entity services fitting cleanly with DDD, even if you only expose those services for aggregates you've still got issues because your domain design is going to have to change and you've lost basic features like cross-aggregate transactions. I know you can loosen these things up, but if you do then are you really getting the benefits of SOA?
Casey Charlton sides with Ashley, considering that Tomas/Colin approach will lead to proliferation of very low granularity services:
...instead of taking SOA down to the lower levels I'm thinking that you are better to expose large services that each encapsulate entire domain models and then use messaging between these services. This is what SOA is when done properly ... any more granular level breaks the "coarse grained services" rule ... CRUD operations certainly have no place in an SOA architecture...
Casey’s opinion is supported by Andreas Ohlund, who quotes Bill Poole "DDD is for building the domain logic within coarse grained SOA services".
SOA and DDD are definitely supporting the same goal. Well designed services are the ones "whose name is familiar to the CEO or line of business owner, and the latter cares about what it does". Well designed domain objects, on the other hand, define a set of foundational objects that can be used for semantic data models, building services and passing information between them.
The symbiosis is key.
One thing seem for certain is that CRUD on entities is SOA done wrong.
Check out Nick Malik's blog on SOA and this post on DDD:
My own experience tells me that "tackling the complexity at the heart" can cause indigestion in SOA and vice versa - SOA's information model is anathema to DDD's model integrity.
I'd love for someone to comeup with a decent bridge though...
It's all in the layers
The right place for CRUD is at the Data Access level.
DDD helps define a clear API/language which is meaningful to the business, and this in itself is precious if you wish to organise and expose your application in a sensible way, SOA or not.
I believe that once you have only exposed the API of your Application Layer (or Service Layer as Martin Fowler calls it) to other systems, as a Web Service for example, you are on a good way to SOA and communicating in a clear way with external applications.
If you're still exposing objects via CRUD methods that way, then you have missed an essential bit in the middle which is called a Domain Layer.
CRUD has NOTHING to do with the domain.
Unless of course the domain experts explicitly work in a robotic "CRUD" fashion which I think is quite rare...or possibly the result of years of deformation by working with a poorly designed, user-unfriendly software solution =)
Re: It's all in the layers
- So, when you're saying "exposed the API of your Application Layer" what are the verbs if they are not CRUD?
- Perhaps they should be CRUD on some non-repository kind of service?
- What nouns does the Service/Application layer operate on if it's not you internal domain model?
- What nouns does the Webservice operate on?
- What makes your Webservice a SOA service?
Re: It's all in the layers
not everything that works is good. For example, you do not use plains to drive you to the airports while they can do it, right? This thread talks about SO and DDD concepts, your example is about specific technology. Plus, If you think that it is OK using REST from Web layer to reach databases, I can tell you that it is architecturally terribly wrong. None of applications I supervise may do so in spite of any business urgencies.
Web Service operates on nothing. It is just a more standardised interface. According to OASIS SOA standard(s), Web Services are not a mandatory part of SOA.
Answering your last question, let me refer to the article I wrote a couple years ago: soa.sys-con.com/node/219016
Just to clarify...
Just to be clear I was saying that SOA style put forward by Erl etc *is* at odds with DDD and so I'm against entity services. In fact I said:
"So instead of taking SOA down to the lower levels I'm thinking that you are better to expose large services that each encapsulate entire domain models and then use messaging between these services"
So I'm not saying I want granular services, I'm saying avoid them and instead consider your top-level autonomous services surrouding bounded contexts, which is exactly what Casey and Andreas were saying. So I think we were all in agreement. | <urn:uuid:fcb7c2ca-aa68-43ca-a2d1-0875e2bed53a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.infoq.com/news/2008/09/SOADDD | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00051-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950415 | 1,516 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Brussels, 13 July 2010
Biodiversity: new report highlights win-win business practices that do more for the planet
A new report funded by the European Commission makes a strong case for integrating biodiversity into private sector business plans and core activities around the globe. The report reveals considerable recent growth in eco-certified products and services, growing consumer concerns for sustainable production, and shows how biodiversity can provide a substantial business opportunity in a market that could be worth US$ 2-6 trillion by 2050. It makes seven key recommendations for businesses, and calls on accounting professions and financial reporting bodies to develop common standards to assess biodiversity impacts, and develop new tools for this purpose. “TEEB for Business” will form part of the TEEB synthesis report to be launched at a meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity in Nagoya, Japan in October 2010
European Commissioner for the Environment Janez Potočnik said: "Despite some local successes, and in spite of a growing awareness of the problem, the global rate of biodiversity loss does not appear to be slowing. But this report shows that businesses can help, and I am heartened to see these tangible examples of companies that are flourishing without damaging the only planet we have."
TEEB Study Leader Pavan Sukhdev said: “Through the work of TEEB and others, the economic importance of biodiversity and ecosystems is emerging from the invisible into the visible spectrum. It is clear that some companies in some sectors and on some continents are hearing and acting on that message in order to build more sustainable, 21st century businesses."
Key proposals for businesses
TEEB for business recommends a series of actions to help companies minimise their biodiversity risks and seize the business opportunities ecosystems services create:
Identify the impacts and dependencies of your business on biodiversity and ecosystem services (BES)
Assess the business risks and opportunities associated with these impacts and dependencies
Develop BES information systems, set SMART targets, measure and value performance, and report your results
Take action to avoid, minimize and mitigate BES risks, including in-kind compensation (‘offsets’) where appropriate
Grasp emerging BES business opportunities, such as cost-efficiencies, new products and new markets
Integrate business strategy and actions on BES with wider corporate social responsibility initiatives
Engage with business peers and stakeholders in government, NGOs and civil society to improve BES guidance and policy.
Biodiversity is good for business
The report finds that while a majority of companies still treat biodiversity superficially in their reports, growing numbers are aware of the potential benefits. Biodiversity and ecosystem services offer opportunities for all business sectors, and their integration can bring significant added value by ensuring the sustainability of supply chains, generating new products, creating and penetrating new markets and attracting new customers.
Policies to manage biodiversity and ecosystem risks can also help to identify new business opportunities, such as reducing input costs through improved resource efficiency, developing and marketing low impact technologies, managing and designing projects to reduce ecological footprints, and providing professional services in risk assessment and management/adaptation.
Estimates developed by PricewaterhouseCoopers for “sustainability-related global business opportunities in natural resources (including energy, forestry, food and agriculture, water and metals)” suggest a potential market in the range of US$ 2-6 trillion by 2050 (at constant 2008 prices). About half of this is “additional investments in the energy sector related to reducing carbon emissions”. Markets for biodiversity and ecosystem services are growing, as shown by data compiled by Forest Trends and the Ecosystem Marketplace:
The certified agricultural products market was valued at over US$ 40 billion in 2008 and is expected to reach up to US$ 210 billion by 2020, and may reach US$ 900 billion by 2050.
Payments for Ecosystem Services for water-related ecosystem services and watershed management account for only US$5 billion in 2008, but are expected to total more than 30 billion by 2050.
The planet’s natural and nature-based assets – from individual species to ecosystems such as forests, coral reefs, freshwaters and soils – are declining at an alarming rate. Biodiversity loss costs billions to the global economy every year, undermining economies; business prospects and opportunities to combat poverty.
TEEB – The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity – is a project funded by the European Commission and governments including Germany, Norway and the UK, dedicated to building the economic case to assist economies make transformational policy choices and changes in order to address this crisis and bring greater intelligence to the way nature-based assets are managed. TEEB will publish a final synthesis report in advance of the Convention on Biological Diversity’s meeting in Nagoya, Japan later in the year.
The TEEB for Business report is available at
The EU Business and Biodiversity Platform: | <urn:uuid:f34a51aa-76d0-463a-88b2-9d25b4611af5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-10-933_en.htm?locale=en | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930271 | 1,006 | 2.0625 | 2 |
When was the last time you were traveling? It’s fun to get away and travel to different places and to see different sights. When you travel overseas, you see a culture very different from ours. The language may be different, the food will be different, the currency may seem strange and some of their dress will be different. And, we see some beautiful sights!
In our own country there are differences in customs, in the way people speak and, the food, though basically the same, may have a different twist. Traveling can be fun and, it can be difficult if things don’t go as planned.
In the Bible, we see people journeying—traveling to different places. For instance, Abraham was told to leave his country and to go to a land God would show him. He was promised all the nations of the world would be blessed through him. Abraham obeyed God, all the things promised to him came true (Gen. 12:1-4).
Joseph was the favorite son of Jacob. He was despised by his brothers and taken to a foreign land. He did not want to go. Can you hear him plead with his brothers not to do this? They were glad to be rid of him, even though it broke their father’s heart. He was sold as a slave when he arrived in Egypt (Gen. 37).
Daniel and his three friends were taken from their home in Judah to Babylon. It was not a trip they wanted to take but when Nebuchadnezzar besieged the city, they were taken captive. The customs and language were all different, as was their food. Can you imagine being a teenager and taken from your parents to become servants in another nation? This happened to them (Daniel 1).
In every situation we just described, a journey was taken. They left the comfort and surroundings they were used to. They all endured hardships along the way and while there. Abraham did not receive the full promise but, it was experienced by following generations (Joshua 23:14).
We are asked to take a journey. This is a journey toward our God. As we go, we are asked to put God ahead of family and all things we desire. There are hardships along the way that we must overcome. We are called to be servants. We do have a choice if we make this journey or not. All of the men we saw earlier trusted in God and received blessings from Him. Have you made this journey? Consider the final stop if we obey Him—Heaven! That’s the journey I want to take—and am. How about you? | <urn:uuid:6beaf0a2-ea12-4839-bb61-ad07b867875a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sansabanews.com/news/29299/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.990039 | 539 | 2 | 2 |
The DVD Greek Songs for Children is for children of all ages. This fun DVD uses puppets, songs, karaoke and animation to teach Greek. Children will sing along with the warm and engaging Niko, Anna, and Professor Monster. Song topics include the alphabet, greetings, numbers, days, colors, food, fruit, animals and more. There are optional Greek and English subtitles and karaoke for each track. Sure to be a hit with students of all ages! | <urn:uuid:e9a9a32e-c844-4eb2-9165-acf12b968b2b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.worldwidegreeks.biz/greek123-greek-songs-for-children-dvd/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.910999 | 98 | 1.78125 | 2 |
University of Illinois
"For his pioneering contributions to the study of chaotic motion in fluids, scientific computation, and vortex dynamics, and most notably for the development of the concept of chaotic advection."Background:
Hassan Aref holds a cand. scient. degree from University of Copenhagen, and a PhD from Cornell University, both in physics. He was a faculty member at Brown University 1980-85 and at University of California, San Diego 1985-92. From 1989-92 he was Chief Scientist at the San Diego Supercomputer Center. He assumed his current position of professor and head, Department of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, in 1992.
Aref's main field of research is fluid mechanics. He is particularly well known for introducing and naming the mechanism of "chaotic advection". He is also well known for work on point vortex dynamics, and for numerical simulation studies of vortex flows, flows with sharp interfaces, and foam structure and evolution. Aref was Associate Editor of Journal of Fluid Mechanics 1984-94, founding editor with D. G. Crighton of Cambridge Texts in Applied Mathematics, and a National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator 1985-90. He is a Foreign Member of the Danish Centre for Applied Mathematics and Mechanics, and a Fellow of the American Physical Society. | <urn:uuid:e8829674-2196-44cc-b2c9-371677c18510> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aps.org/programs/honors/prizes/prizerecipient.cfm?first_nm=Hassan&last_nm=Aref&year=2000&renderforprint=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934589 | 275 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Part 01: Chorale Prelude 'Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr'
Part 02: Fugue I
Part 03: Fugue II
Part 04: Fugue III
Part 05: Intermezzo
Part 06: Variation I
Part 07: Variation II
Part 08: Variation III
Part 09: Cadenza
Part 10: Fugue IV
Part 11: Chorale
Part 12: Stretta
Bach’s The Art of Fugue, an uncompleted sequence of studies in fugal writing called Contrapuncti (‘his last and greatest work’, according to Busoni), is a compendium of contrapuntal skills at that summit of perfection to which the great master had taken them at the end of his life. Its final fugue, Contrapunctus XIV, was in Busoni’s words ‘planned on four fugue subjects, of which two are complete and the third commenced’. In the manuscript, a note thought to be in the hand of his son, Carl Philipp Emanuel, states that ‘At this point where the theme B–A–C–H becomes the countersubject, the composer died’, although some scholars believe that the work was abandoned at an earlier date. In any event, a quadruple fugue is a fearsome event. In the first place the four themes must at some point combine, and the additional possibilities of interlocking countersubjects and their inversions become, as Busoni suggested, ‘as numerous as chess moves’. Conjecture as to the identity of the missing fourth subject was pursued by musicologists with the same fervour as mathematicians unravelling an unproven theorem. From his encounters with two German-born scholars then living in Chicago, Busoni was satisfied that the theme must be the opening subject of Contrapunctus I, which met all the requirements of compatibility and thus would ‘close the circle of the whole work’. He then set about completing Fugue III and composing Fugue IV, initially with a fairly vague idea of creating ‘something between a composition by C[ésar] Franck and the Hammerklavier Sonata’.
No sooner had his first version been published under the title Grosse Fuge, Busoni withdrew it and started work on the version heard here, which he named Fantasia contrappuntistica, edizione definitiva. Later two further versions appeared: a simplified and abbreviated Versio minore and a version for two pianos.
Where Bach had been constrained by the laws of harmony as they then existed (though stretching them to the limit), Busoni decided that he should honour Bach’s genius while pursuing each line according to its own integrity and logic thus creating new and viable harmonies for his own time. ‘But new harmony could only arise naturally from the foundation of an extremely cultivated polyphony and establish a right for its appearance; this requires strict tuition and a considerable mastery of melody.’ And it is sometimes startling to discover that the most jarring moments have their origin not far away in Bach. A case in point is the tumultuous pile-up in the final Stretta which emanates from Contrapunctus VIII.
Busoni devoted as much thought to the overall form as to the contrapuntal detail. He went so far as to add drawings to represent the architecture of his conception—a ship with five taut sails (‘moving over difficult waters’) superimposed on a cross (‘the form of a cathedral’) and a building whose doors represent the different ‘chapters’ of his narrative.
His most radical change from the Grosse Fuge (and an inspired one) was to begin the work with an evocative Prelude based on the ancient chorale ‘Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr’, not such a huge task since much of it existed already as one of his Elegies. In Fugues I, II and III, Busoni follows the plan of Contrapunctus XIV more or less exactly but adds his own voice in several ways, notably in the vastly extended compass and the chromatic modification of some voices to accord with his logical ‘modern’ vision of harmony, together with the insertion of references to a fifth theme of his own device which is first heard at the beginning of the piece. Another feature is the anchoring of Fugue I on a deep pedal D, causing it to emerge as if from a great depth, something we can observe in the distortions of old music ‘through a glass darkly’ of composers like Berio and Schnittke at the other end of the twentieth century. There follow an eerie Intermezzo (misticamente, visionario), three Variations of increasing complexity and a Cadenza before Fugue IV, which (of necessity) is entirely Busoni’s own composition. An ethereal reminiscence of the opening chorale presages the hectic Stretta before three imposing statements of the subject of Fugue I (two partial, one decisive) bring the huge edifice to a fittingly grand conclusion.
Easy listening it is certainly not, and it has been argued that the density of Busoni’s contrapuntal mesh makes it at times ‘unhearable’, even if it were played by a computer. This fear, in turn, has led some commentators and performers to adopt a disengaged rationality towards his music. All the evidence—and there is plenty of it including one pricelessly illuminating recording of Busoni playing a single Prelude and Fugue by Bach—leads to the conclusion that his goals were heightened expression through indefatigable work allied to unerring artistic instinct. The expression marks in the Fantasia contrappuntistica, although sparing, encompass both the practical (quasi trombe dolci, vivace misurato, continuando) and the emotional, even spiritual (gemendo, ansioso, misticamente).
Busoni believed that Bach and Mozart showed us that music can somehow reach beyond the realm of man and should not be overly concerned with the day to day struggles and sensations of existence. The Fantasia’s manifold inspirations multiply with repeated hearings when felicities can suddenly emerge that at first were buried in the welter of activity; so perhaps it is ideally suited to the modern recording medium. This said, Busoni can be credited with a real ‘music of the future’. Whether he achieved his other aim of creating ‘one of the most significant works of modern piano literature’ may remain eternally under debate but, since its fascination continues to intrigue after more a century, it was far more than an idle boast.
from notes by Hamish Milne © 2008 | <urn:uuid:088bf314-ee1a-4c04-ba19-6060dca8b8a5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/tw.asp?w=W11990&t=GBAJY0867706&al=CDA67677&vw=dc | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956297 | 1,430 | 2.734375 | 3 |
Checked baggage is passenger baggage transported at the responsibility of LAM. After accepted at check-in, all baggage, previously at the passenger's disposal, is tagged and loaded into the aircraft holds.
Two baggage allowance categories may be applicable:
- Weight concept
- Piece concept - used mainly on flights in/out of Brazil, Canada and USA.
LAM, as an International Airline, adopts the weight concept system, as follows:
- First class = 40 kg
- Executive class = 30 kg
- Economy class = 20 kg
Free baggage allowance for children (CHD) is the same as for adults.
Free baggage allowance for infants (INF) is10 kg plus one checked or carry-on fully collapsible stroller/pushchair, or an infant carrying basket or car seat.
- Flamingo Club Classic (Blue Card) – Same as Sliver Card
- Flamingo Club Plus (Silver Card) passengers have 10 and 15 kg extra allowance, regardless which class they are traveling in
- Shipping Crew / Seaman Regulation
Note: LAM has the right to refuse transportation of baggage exceeding the normal allowance.
Baggage in "pool"-when 2 or more passengers are both flying to the same final destination, and arrive at the check-in together, they can combine their free baggage allowances and divide it amongst each other as needed. The free applicable baggage allowance depends on the class fare paid and never on the actual class of travel.
LAM does not use the "piece concept” system when passengers are transferring to flights where the destination is within a country where the piece concept applies. In these cases, the free baggage allowance is:
- F/C classes: 2 pieces not exceeding a total of 158 cm (sum of 3 dimensions: length + width + height) as well as 32 kg per unit.
- Y class: 2 pieces not exceeding a total of 158 cm (sum of three dimensions: length + width + height) as well as 32 kg per unit, considering the sum of the 2 pieces also not exceeding 273 cm.
In case baggage volume (e.g. courier baggage, musical instruments, athletic equipment, etc) is exceeded, please note that:
- Each piece of baggage must be weighed individually
- Each piece of baggage must display its own weigh slip
- Baggage must be dispatched to the aircraft on separate carts
- Previous notice from reservation department is required
Shipping Crew / Seaman Regulation
This regulation specifies general conditions which apply to interline carriage and IATA fares.
Note: Special agreements that may be entered by DC (Direcção Comercial) will be sent separately and shall override general rules and conditions stated herein.
Same as the applicable First Class allowance.
Seamen employed on board a ship belonging to the Merchant Marine of a country are eligible as well as a spouse and children between 12 and 21 years old, when duly certified by a competent authority.
Special allowances for groups
Please check with LAM for more details.
When the total weight of the baggage is above the free allowance, excess baggage must be charged between the passenger's point of departure and final station. Whenever the "piece concept" applies, excess baggage shall be charged according to the number and/or dimensions of the packages.
All items of baggage, other than normal baggage, consisting of personal items and belongings, for the passenger to wear or use for their own comfort or convenience during the trip, are considered as special baggage and specific rules apply. | <urn:uuid:e2c44154-24ac-40a3-bb17-4976807bc099> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lam.co.mz/en/Travel-Information/Baggage-Information/Checked-Baggage | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.91028 | 725 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Physical Sciences Division
Scientists Develop World's Fastest Nickel-Based Complex
Improves rates of hydrogen production
Scientists at the Center for Molecular Electrocatalysis and Villanova University designed a nickel-based complex that more than doubled previously reported hydrogen gas production rates and increased the energy efficiency of the reaction. Enlarge Image
Results: Scientists at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory's Center for Molecular Electrocatalysis and Villanova University designed a nickel-based complex that more than doubled previously reported hydrogen gas production rates and increased the energy efficiency of the reaction. Additionally, the team found that adding water to the reaction significantly increased the reaction speed. As a result of the discoveries, researchers are closer to finding energy storage solutions for surplus energy generated from green technologies.
"These catalysts are, to the best of our knowledge, the fastest reported molecular electrocatalysts for hydrogen production," said PNNL postdoctoral associate Dr. Uriah Kilgore, first author of the study's findings. "Small changes in their structure and small amounts of water led to significant increases in catalyst turnover frequencies."
Why It Matters: Retooling America's energy industry requires storing surplus energy generated from renewable technologies. Storage of energy is needed due to the intermittent nature of renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power. One answer, storing energy in the creation of hydrogen gas, requires efficiencies that seem to be contradictory. To avoid losing energy generated by wind turbines, for example, hydrogen gas must be generated quickly. Generation of hydrogen gas must also be energy efficient to convert all of the electricity to chemical energy in hydrogen.
Methods: Storing energy in hydrogen gas requires an energy source to power a catalytic chemical reaction that results in the creation of hydrogen gas. This catalytic reaction is limited by the cost of the key catalyst. Platinum catalysts excel at two key energy-storage factors: turnover frequency and overpotential, but platinum is an expensive precious metal of low abundance. Turnover frequency describes the number of hydrogen gas molecules created by a catalyst over a period of time. Overpotential, the difference between the theoretical energy and the actual energy required to produce the hydrogen gas, often works against turnover frequency—typically, the faster hydrogen gas is created, the more energy it requires. Likewise, lower overpotentials usually translate to inefficiencies from slower turnover frequencies. The key for energy storage via the creation of hydrogen gas lies in finding a low-cost catalyst whose turnover frequency and overpotential matches or exceeds that of platinum.
The study completed by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Villanova University researchers led to important discoveries in the advancement of catalysis for production of hydrogen gas. First, small changes in the catalyst have a significant effect on hydrogen gas production rates. Additionally, the team found that adding small volumes of water to the conversion led, in some cases, to an increase in turnover frequency of more than a factor of ten. The combined effect of the discoveries led to catalysts with higher rates of hydrogen gas production, lowered the overpotential, and provided insight for further research for hydrogen gas as an energy storage solution.
The research team synthesized nickel-based complexes and mixed the complexes with acids with a range of pH values. Electrochemical reduction of the acid produced hydrogen. The catalysts (in solution) were studied by cyclic voltammetry, in which an electrical current repeatedly sweeps between two set voltages, leading to the determination of the turnover frequencies.
What's Next: The research team will continue to develop the nickel-based complexes to increase the turnover frequency and decrease the overpotential. Additionally, the effects of water on catalytic rates will continue to be evaluated.
Acknowledgments: This research was supported by the Center for Molecular Electrocatalysis, an Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences.
Research Team: The research was conducted by Uriah J. Kilgore, John A. S. Roberts, Douglas H. Pool, Aaron M. Appel, Michael P. Stewart, M. Rakowski DuBois, R. Morris Bullock, and Daniel L. DuBois, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory; and William G. Dougherty and W. Scott Kassel, Villanova University.
Reference: Kilgore UJ, JAS Roberts, DH Pool, AM Appel, MP Stewart, M Rakowski DuBois, WG Dougherty, WS Kassel, RM Bullock, and DL DuBois. 2011. "[Ni(PPh2NC6H4X2)2]2+ Complexes as Electrocatalysts for H2 Production: Effect of Substituents, Acids, and Water on Catalytic Rates." Journal of the American Chemical Society 133(15):5861-5872. | <urn:uuid:c7ad13cb-46dd-4158-96bc-bddbc0602965> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pnl.gov/science/highlights/highlight.asp?id=1003 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.914178 | 980 | 3.078125 | 3 |
Jacob Karabell '09 assists Samuel Issacharoff in preparing a Supreme Court brief and oral argument in asbestos litigation case
While many students were in class on March 30, Jacob Karabell ’09 was watching his professor, Samuel Issacharoff, Bonnie and Richard Reiss Professor of Constitutional Law, deliver an oral argument at the U.S. Supreme Court for which Karabell helped him prepare.
“I had never seen a Supreme Court argument in person before,” Karabell said. “It was particularly exciting to be there given that I knew the case so well. I had run through the argument a million times in my head. As a result, it was fascinating to watch everything unfold several rows in front of me.”
The case, Travelers Indemnity v. Bailey and the consolidated case Common Law Settlement Counsel v. Bailey, involves the long-running asbestos litigation, starting with the 1986 settlement with the bankrupt Johns-Mansville Corporation to handle claims by those injured by exposure to asbestos. The settlement compensated 660,000 claimants with more than $2.8 billion. Insurers contributed to the fund and received immunity from the bankruptcy court from future claims related to their policies with asbestos makers.
Plaintiffs’ lawyers later found other grounds to sue insurers including Travelers. Travelers objected, asserting that the new claims were barred by the bankruptcy court’s immunity order. After mediation, Travelers agreed to fund a $500 million trust for the new plaintiffs, in return for clarification that it would be immune from further claims. But other plaintiffs not part of the new settlement objected, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit agreed, finding that the bankruptcy court did not have the power to immunize Travelers from the other claims. The Supreme Court granted review.
Karabell began working on the case in January with Issacharoff, who represents the plaintiffs against Travelers. He wrote an expansive memorandum analyzing one of the crucial issues in the case and reviewed Supreme Court and circuit case law, legislative history, and scholarship. Students from NYU Law’s Supreme Court Litigation Clinic also assisted with the brief and the clinic and its director, Samuel Estreicher, Dwight D. Opperman Professor of Law, appeared as co-counsel on the brief.
“Once we received the petitioners’ brief, our work began in earnest since we had 30 days to submit our brief,” Karabell said. “Among other things, I was primarily responsible for the appendix of our brief, which set forth a list of the Supreme Court’s bankruptcy cases since the Court amended the Bankruptcy Act in 1984. The appendix demonstrated that the Court has never decided a bankruptcy case that has not involved the administration of the debtor's estate, which was the situation in our case.”
Karabell said that once the brief was submitted, he helped Issacharoff prepare for oral argument by performing additional research on specific questions that might come up. “In fact, one such question did come up in the argument, and Professor Issacharoff relied on my research in answering it. Justice Souter asked whether subject-matter jurisdiction ever can be challenged collaterally (i.e. in a second proceeding) if it is not contested in the first proceeding. Professor Issacharoff asked me to research this question a couple of nights before this argument, thinking that one of the justices might ask it, and I discovered that the Court never had squarely addressed the issue.”
Issacharoff and Karabell now await the Court’s decision, which should be issued in the next several months.
Karabell said the experience endeared him to appellate litigation specifically and litigation more generally. “I really enjoyed the strategic aspects of the case and seeing how our perspective changed as we delved deeper into the legal issues. I learned a tremendous deal from Professor Issacharoff that I hopefully will have the opportunity to utilize in the future.”
Karabell graduates in May and will work as an associate at Covington and Burling in Washington, D.C. for one year before clerking for Visiting Professor of Law Judge Harry T. Edwards of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
As for whether he sees another Supreme Court argument in his future with him behind the lectern, Karabell said “that would be an amazing and incredibly daunting opportunity. If nothing else, I realize how difficult it is fully to feel prepared for an oral argument, particularly at the Supreme Court level.” | <urn:uuid:e9560cb9-9cde-4be9-b561-a1fbee1b059c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.law.nyu.edu/news/KARABELL_SUPREME_COURT | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968406 | 961 | 1.6875 | 2 |
That fancy Thunderbolt I/O port that’s gracing your new 2011 MacBook Pro (and probably upcoming iMacs) is about to get much more useful. Intel has just announced it will be releasing development kits for its Thunderbolt I/O Technology, enabling a wide range of manufacturers to make devices that will work with it.
Thunderbolt I/O is a brand new bi-directional 10Gbps data transfer interface that allows for super high speeds at high accuracy, as well as the ability to daisy chain a number of devices through just one output.
With Intel’s recent announcement, I expect that Thunderbolt technology will not only succeed – it will thrive. We have reported on Matrox announcing devices with this technology, as well as Canon expressing interest, and Lacie (and other data hardware manufacturers) is known to be working on a ThunderBolt device as well. With such a great technology, and all these big players backing it up, something awesome is bound to result.
Check out the below video of Thunderbolt in action:
Let us know your thoughts, expectations, and predictions regarding Thunderbolt and the new devices that will start shipping in the coming months – sound off in the comments! | <urn:uuid:eeeaa892-362a-459c-9b47-5ffcbef54fac> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mactrast.com/2011/04/intel-to-release-thunderbolt-development-kits-this-quarter-thunderbolt-io-expected-to-thrive/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00071-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94863 | 246 | 1.59375 | 2 |
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Introduction & Overview
Crohns Disease, also called regional enteritis, is a chronic, episodic inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) affecting any part of the digestive tract from the mouth to the anus, with varying symptoms between affected individuals. In most cases, it affects the duodenum and ilieum of the small intestine, and colon (which is a part of the large intestine).
However, according to the American Academy of Family Physicians, the pattern of inheritance is not known.(11)
Dietary and infection causing factors are no longer thought to be a contributing cause and are looked upon now as variables which aggravate the disease which is already present in the GI tract. Many researchers and doctors point to Crohn's Disease as being an autoimmune disease with the immune system contributing to the damage of digestive tract due to inflammation. Most of the cytokines in the Th1 classification such as TNF-a, interleukin-2 and interferon ? are active in causing inflammation. (1)
Crohns disease is not curable with any known medical or surgical methods. Medical treatments such as steroid medications, immunomodulators like azathioprine and methotrexate and newer biological medications such as infliximab are administered with the goal of keeping the disease in remission.
In the United States, approximately 500,000 people have Crohn's Disease which affects mostly women, whites, and people of Jewish descent. In Northern Europe, the statistics for Crohn's Disease are approximately 27 to 48 people per 100,000.
Although the disease can strike at any age, people 15 to 35 and seniors in their 60s to 70s are more susceptible. Crohn's disease is named after Burrill Bernard Crohn, an American gastroenterologist. (1)
Article by Kona Vishnu, MS
OmniMedicalSearch does not provide medical advice and the Medical Conditions & Diseases section is for informational purposes only. Please see our Medical Disclaimer and always consult with your physician.
Page Last Modified: | <urn:uuid:b97dbeeb-a8a0-4255-8cad-653d6dbca257> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.omnimedicalsearch.com/conditions-diseases/crohns-disease-overview.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945954 | 429 | 3.25 | 3 |
Up one level
EDAD 8180: Dissertation Proseminar (1 cr.)
Part of this course will be online and part will be face-to-face. The primary purpose of this support course is to help doctoral candidates develop a solid dissertation research agenda and complete the introduction chapter of the dissertation. However, in the educational leadership doctoral program at Manhattanville College, a student's dissertation research should be an example of the type of research and scholarship and education leader might engage in while working in a professional setting. Therefore, virtually all the content and work in this course will be applicable to work well beyond the dissertation. This course is also a continuation of the Scholarly and Professional Communication course doctoral candidates take in the first year of doctoral work. Doctoral candidates are expected to continue to refine and develop research skills as a practitioner-scholar, and become a disseminator of scholarship and applied research. This course may be repeated as needed. Credits may vary.
Click arrowheads to expand or collapse contents | <urn:uuid:647ba86b-24d6-45bc-bd79-94111bcc879c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www1.mville.edu/catalog/2012-2013/soe_graduate/edad-8180-dissertation-proseminar-1-cr.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.92164 | 204 | 1.507813 | 2 |
The Front End of New Product Development is where:
- Users and stakeholders are identified
- Personas (i.e. users) and Scenarios (i.e. what they do) are created
- Gaps between current products and user needs/desires are identified
- Potential market size and competitors are assessed
- The right questions for surveys and the right tasks for usability tests are identified
- The all-important prototyping, usability testing, depth interviews, appeal assessment and ideation occur
- The Product Concept is defined and refined
- The Market Definition is refined
- Pricing Analysis is done
- Technical feasibility is assessed
The result of the Front End of NPD is a well-refined Product Concept that is certified as having Appeal and Value to users—in other words: is useful, usable and desirable, as well as technically feasible.
In many ways, the most difficult part of NPD is the beginning, invariably called the ‘Front End’ in contemporary NPD literature, with variations such as the ‘Front End of Innovation’ or the ‘Fuzzy Front End.’ One reason for the difficulty is that Front End is inherently qualitative in nature. Except for those disposed to and trained in qualitative inquiry, doing work without hard-and-fast rules is extremely difficult.
The insights gained during a well-run NPD Front End process are absolutely essential input (either directly or indirectly) to so many other downstream NPD activities, that ignoring the Front End has the potential to doom a project to failure. | <urn:uuid:f3dcbc55-7c46-4676-8303-816a2857dadf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.donrickertdesign.com/frontend_of_new_product_development_services/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948448 | 321 | 2.046875 | 2 |
Collins, John, On-line recognition of handprinted characters, Department of Computing Science, University of Wollongong, Working Paper 84-11, 1984, 22p.
The project implemented an on-line handprinted character recogniser. A Bayesian decision rule was used in conjunction with selected feature transformations. Fourier transformations and transformations derived from discriminant analysis were compared. Discriminant features generally proved superior to those derived from Fourier analysis. A recognition rate of 98% was achieved with the use of the first 4 discriminant functions. The character set included numerals and arithmetic operators. The results from the current system provide a basis for constructing a practical device for data entry. | <urn:uuid:4666e7c4-f054-4179-bc20-7962b1b30901> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ro.uow.edu.au/compsciwp/83/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.902133 | 139 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Tuvalu Vows to Go Carbon Neutral by 2020
22 July 2009 | News story
IUCN welcomes the decision by Tuvalu to have all its energy generated from renewable sources by 2020.
Tuvalu’s Public Utilities Minister, Kausea Natano echoed this statement saying that his nation of 12, 000 people wanted to set an example to others.
"We look forward to the day when our nation offers an example to all - powered entirely by natural resources such as the sun and the wind," Kausea Natano said.
Tuvalu, like many small island developing countries in the Pacific, relies on imported diesel fuel for power generation. The government hopes to use wind and solar power to generate electricity, instead of diesel.
Tuvalu estimates it will cost about $20m to generate all its electricity by using renewables. It has already begun the process by installing a $410,000 (a 40kW grid connected PV) solar system on the roof of the main soccer stadium in the capital, Funafuti. The government is also working with The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to install another grid connected PV solar system (including solar street lights) on its largest island, Vaitupu. It has also embarked on a wind assessment programme to determine its potential for wind energy. | <urn:uuid:a4f5ca67-d04f-4e56-8f17-a1864ebab6a4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.iucn.org/fr/nouvelles_homepage/nouvelles_par_date/2009_news_fr/juillet_news_2009/?3640/tuvalu | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9394 | 275 | 2.765625 | 3 |
Joined: Oct. 2009
|Quote (Jerry Don Bauer @ Nov. 20 2012,10:02)|
|Interesting. Because if you had the correct algorithm you would find these number to be very, very specific.|
In other words, you can't use CSI to tell the difference between a random series of numbers and a series of non-random numbers.
So, what's the point in CSI? It doesn't mean anything. It doesn't tell us anything unique or useful about the real world.
You do realize that any amino acid chain longer than 250 AAs is, by your definition "CSI" and therefore requiring intelligence. Do you realize that AA chains of nearly that length have been developed in the lab using the random attachments that you deplore as not being capable of forming CSI.
While we're at it, can you explain the 500 bit limit?
Let's start over with some VERY basic premises........
Here is a number: 53739901284746603....is it CSI?
It's just a number that doesn't represent anything at all...I just made it up so how is it even information? Information communicates something to the observer.
You are confusing the "meaning" of the information with the "information" itself. This is a fundamental mistake.
If you are only interested in the meaning of the information, then none of the mathematical treatments used for information can apply. Why?
Let's look at a common phrase.
"The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog."
This is a highly complex sequence and, informationally speaking, it is difficult to compress because there are few repeated letters. But in French...
"Le rapide goupil brun sauta par dessus le chien paresseux."
You see that the phrase is much longer and also contains many more repeated letters. This is easier to compress than the English version.
Do these two versions have the same AMOUNT of CSI? Yes/No... why?
Numbers in themselves aren't information.....one would have to know what the numbers are calculating....what do they represent? Then one can begin to make sense of it all.
Wrong. This is the basic premise of cryptology. You can perform informational functions on random numbers, pseudo-random numbers, and non-random numbers.
However, you can't extract meaning from random numbers. You cannot extract meaning from pseudo-random numbers without additional information.
This continues to show that you don't even know what information you're talking about.
the number 10 doesn't really mean anything...10 what? 10 pebbles, 10 planets, 10 good looking ladies, 10 drinks I had of my favorite whiskey last night? I have to know for 10 to mean anything to me as these "number 10s" have quite different meanings as I process information about them.
So let's start with numbers representing things. I have a pile of 2 pebbles, another pile of 10 pebbles and another pile of 100 pebbles....so how big a pile of pebbles would I have to have before I can calculate CSI?
Let's say you have 1 pebble of feldspar. Can you calculate the CSI of that highly ordered, very complex, and very, very specific mineral?
I bet you can't.
Well, it might be argued that the bigger piles are more complex because, if we are viewing a pebble as information, 100 bits of information is certainly larger than one one bit and the whole of the parts seem more complex than the sum of one unit that comprise them.
But the truth is, it doesn't matter if I accumulate a billion pebbles in a pile, even if that pile might, by sheer volume be more complex, there is no specificity involved with the pile, therefore a pile of pebbles can never be CSI.
So is a simple pebble information?
Yes. I can be walking down a path, see some pebble laying in it and record in my mind that there are pebbles present. In fact, all matter is information, energy is information because it is also matter.....Einstein taught us that E=MC^2, therefore E=M=I.
But it is specificity and the intelligence it involves that CSI hinges on.......So, let's look at specificity, how it calculates out and how intelligence comes into play with that concept.
Man, this is just babbling.
CSI is evidence of intelligence because CSI requires intelligence.
Do the words "circular reasoning" have any meaning for you or is just information?
I have an archer. I blindfold him and place him in the middle of a huge stadium and tell him to shoot an arrow into the wall. He draws an arrow and plugs it into the wall quite handily.
Am I surprised? Of course not. The wall is so large, it surrounds him, I would be surprised if he DIDN'T hit the wall.
Now I paint the wall into a checkerboard with black and white squares and tell him to hit a black square. Now his odds go down in accomplishing this.
In fact, there is a 50% chance he will and a 50% chance he won't. But he does. I'm still not surprised any more than I would be if I flipped a coin and it comes up heads.
Then I paint the checkboard into 4 colors, then 8, then 16....but wait a minute, the archer is STILL hitting the color I tell him to? The odds of him doing so are becoming so high against him doing it that I'm beginning to suspect something here.
So, on the enormous wall of that giant stadium, I draw a little one inch circle, spin the archer around a few times and tell him to try to hit the tiny circle. He nails it dead center.
OK, only an idiot whould not begin to suspect that intelligence is involved here.
Nice analogy, utterly meaningless. I bet I could come up with a similar analogy that doesn't use any intelligence to pick out a single 1 cm^2 area inside the area of a football field... even an area within a football field filled with noise (in the information sense of the word, not the sound sense of the word). And no intelligence required.
Want to bet that I can?
Maybe he can see through the blindfold, maybe someone has a walkie talkie and he has a tiny receiver in his ear......Maybe he has ESP..SOMETHING..I don't know....but the odds are so low of him hitting that circle that, if he does, intelligence HAS to be involved somewhere in there.
Saying it again and again doesn't make it true.
There is no evidence here. None. Just claims of the incredulous.
In fact, once those odds get to be more than 1:10^150 against him (the UPB is reached) it becomes mathematically impossible that he will accomplish the task without intelligence somewhere in there.
Again, you are mistaken. Because, again, within the entire universe the odds of a oxygen atom reacted with two specific hydrogens is way higher than your UPB. However, the odds of an oxygen atom reacting with any two hydrogens approaches unity.
You are making a logical fallacy here.
So, can you also see how specificity is calculated? With one color he had a 1:1 chance, with 2 a 1:2 chance, with 16 colors a 1:16 chance etc. all the way up to 1:10^150 where he would have no chance at all.
Another post will follow to clarify more.....thanks for your interest
Here's the problem.
The protein for human hemoglobin, alpha 1 is about 30 kilobytes long. Way beyond the UPB.
However, no biologist, no scientist thinks that human hemoglobin, alpha 1 just appeared, by chance.
If there were only two options (chance and intelligent design), then I think we could concede that something else was involved.
But there's not two options is there? There's a third option, which you dismiss out of hand with no evidence. That is evolution: common descent, selection, mutation.
Actually, there are only two options, but not the ones you think. The only two options are chance and evolution. Because there is no evidence that an intelligent designer even exists, much less is actually capable of performing actions claimed for him.
So, again, you have several logical fallacies in your statement here. You have several fundamental errors in both fact and reasoning. And you can't actually do the things you claim to do (and claim to have done).
edit to fix quotes
Edited by OgreMkV on Nov. 20 2012,10:36
Ignored by those who can't provide evidence for their claims. | <urn:uuid:373170a8-e025-4ba4-9035-2da557fb7bb4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.antievolution.org/cgi-bin/ikonboard/ikonboard.cgi?s=50c401868e313e4e;act=ST;f=14;t=7414;st=60 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957034 | 1,840 | 2.21875 | 2 |
BALTIMORE (WUSA) -- The water levels at 14 dams and lakes throughout Western Maryland, Central Pennsylvania and Southern New York continue to be monitored by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Baltimore District, it informed.
The U.S. Army Corps is making sure there is "sufficient storage capacity to prevent downstream flooding." The district's emergency operations center is also continually sending district personnel and resources to provide technical assistance requested by local, state and federal officials, the U.S. Army Corps said.
Col. Trey Jordan, the Baltimore District commander, conducted a visual inspection of the Atlantic Coast Shoreline Projection Project with the Town of Ocean City officials. The collaboration helped prevent any damages from the effect of Superstorm Sandy, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said.
The Baltimore District will use the information gathered in this week's assessment of Ocean City to plan needed repairs in the future.
"The Baltimore District also will resume its debris removal mission and remove floating debris that posses a hazard to navigation within the federal navigation channel [at the Baltimore Harbor]," the U.S. Army Corps said. | <urn:uuid:00733a1b-1e24-4fc6-b9ac-186581a56100> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wusa9.com/news/military/article/227627/272/US-Army-Corps-Assist-After-Superstorm-Sandy- | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927721 | 231 | 2.265625 | 2 |
Harry and sister Ethel Gibbs
Harrison Benjamin (Harry) Gibbs was born on 4 Nov 1888. His parents were Albert Gibbs (Apr. 1, 1855-Mar 4, 1897) and Eve Ann Ball (May 7, 1852- Sept. 24, 1908). Eve was a daughter of Robert Ball. Harry had four siblings; Floyd Eugene, Cortland Palmer, Anna B.,and Ethel May. They all lived in the Albert Gibbs house on one acre of the Robert Ball farm where Harry grew up. The house later became the home of Clyde L. Ball. Harry grew up on a farm and became a farmer. Harry married Vertie Clow on Mar 22, 1913. After marriage, he purchased the Hill and Dale Farm in Pleasant Valley, Town of Knox. Harrison Benjamin (Harry) Gibbs died on August 9, 1975 at Hill and Dale Farm, Knox, Albany, NY. He was buried at the Knox Cemetery, Knox, Albany, NY.
Adam H. Dietz, Jr., b. 1746 Switzkill Valley, Beaverdam, s/o Johann Hendrich Dietz and Catharina Elizabeth Ecker, d/o Nicholas Ecker
Children of Arthur Haswell Warner (25 Dec. 1862 - March 28, 1938) and Minnie Bell Osterhout (16 AUG 1863 - August 7, 1931):
- - Ella Bell Warner Willsey (July 15, 1898 - March 28, 1938)
- - Luther Christopher Warner (April 30, 1894 - March 16, 1974)
- - Chester A. Warner (January 30, 1885 - May 26, 1968)
- - Raymond Harvey Warner (September, 1866 - November 29, 1964)
Thanks to Katie Jean Bensen the history of West Mountain has been substantially updated.
West Mountain was first settled starting about 1790.
By the 1930s many farms had already been abandoned due to repeated cropping with buckwheat, barley and rye. Soil erosion was commonplace. Most of the farms on West Mountain were bought by the Resettlement Administration in the 1930s.
Lewis Sherman House, Lot 400; taken say 1937. No longer standing.
From collection of Nicole Pelepzuck Cross
Much of the land, up to 80% had been deforested for farming. Federal money was used to purchase the unproductive farmland for just 2 to 4 dollars per acre. The government helped to move many of the farm families to other areas. However, several farms remained in the possession of the farmers. A few of these included the William D. Wood farm, the Crosby farm, Peasley farm, and the Sherbin farm. Katie Wood, wife of William D. was approached by the Resettlement Administration during the 1930's and asked to sell her farm, to which as history tells, she answered with a solid 'No".
In the early 1940's, the Federal government granted the NYS Conservation Department a 99 year lease for what is now much of the Partridge Run Wildlife Management Area. The sum of $1.00 was the price for the lease, with three purposes stated for the land, forestry, wildlife and recreation. Over the next 20 years the total land accumulation through the Dept. of the Interior and the Division of Lands and Forests brought the total acreage to 5,478.
BERNE SCHOOL NO. 3
Berne School No. 3 was a half mile north of the Rensselaerville town line on Lot 401 on West Mountain.
Interior of the Berne schoolhouse 3 along with the teacher, John Pelepzuck, Jr. and Josie.
Picture from the collection of Nichole Pelepzuck Cross
Due to the location of this school so close to the Renssesselaerville - Berne town line, this school was jointly operated by the Towns of Rensselaerville and Berne.
It would be a careful but educated guess to say that the school started sometime between 1795 and the very early 1800's. Being situated on lot 401a it is safe to say the land was donated by John Crosby and John Crosby Jr. who occupied lot 401 in the year 1795 to the mid 1850's. Even though the Town of Berne was set off from Rensselaerville in 1795 it seems this school continued to be referred to as a Berne and Rensselaerville District even into the last years of its operation. Students from both townships attended this school well into the 1930's.
This school had many district numbers and names over many decades it was in operation. In addition to being the Berne school No. 3, it was also the Rensselaerville District School No. 23. (In 1816 this school was known as # 12 Berne.)
The school also bore other names such as Peasley School for the Peasley family living nearby. Blanche H. Peasley was the Enumerator in the early 30's and Wallace A. Peasley the Trustee in 1936. It was also called the Baptist Church School due to it's proximity to the early Baptist Church, and West Mountain School on it's insurance policy.. The label "West Mountain School" as referred to in the History of the Town of Rensselaerville, People made it Happen Here, by way of an insurance policy is believed to be inaccurate and referencing not this school but another that existed close to the town line, District #19.
Mis-numbered on the 1866 Beers map of Berne.
In 1933 this school was District #3 Town of Berne and Rensselaerville, Supervisory District #2. with Blanche Peasley as the Enumerator. This information was taken from the original school census of 1933.
The school was disolved on July 15, 1944. Falling down in 1976, the building is now gone.
From School Census August 30, 1933:
- District no. Three Town of Berne and Rensselaerville. Supervisory district no. Two Albany County, J. Edward Smith District Superintendent. Trustee Herman Malin of Rensselaerville. Enumerator Blanche H. Peasley. Rensselaerville. According to this school Census / register all students in the district, from birth to 18 were enumerated. They are as follows: Theodore Apanasowich, Henry Malin, Richard Malin, John Pelepzuck Jr. Josephine Stephanawitz, Elizabeth Salzer, Joseph Salzer, Richard Weidman, George Pelikan Jr.
West Mountain School
Unknown West Mountain School
Can anyone identify this West Mountain School near Rensselaerville? According to the note on the back, at the time it was taken it was abandoned and soon to be torn down for as part of the land project that eventually became Partridge Run State Wildlife Management Area.
Notice to Choose Fence Viewer
Letter concerning a fence dispute. Contributed by Nichole Pelepzuk Cross.
Letter concerning a fence dispute.
Contributed by Nichole Pelepzuk Cross.
Notice to Choose Fence Viewer.
Town Law section 363 ante P 639
To John Pelepzuck Persuant to section 363 of the Town Law you are hereby required to choose within eight days after service of this notice a fence viewer to act with Avery Zimmer a fence viewer I have chosen in determining the dispute which has arisen between us concerning the division fence between our lands; and if you fail to do I shall choose both of said fence viewers as authorized by law.
Dated this 18th day of May 1937
- Wallace A Peasley
- ↑ People Made It Happen Here, History of the Town of Rensselaerville ca. 1788-1950, Published 1977 | <urn:uuid:161e5348-b395-4700-9898-ac23a1f0f001> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.albanyhilltowns.com/mediawiki/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966217 | 1,606 | 2.34375 | 2 |
All areas adjacent to the open sea experience some degree of tidal movement, that is , the regular daily or half daily alternation of high and low water levels. This change in level can vary from as much as 15 meters (in the Bay of Fundy, Nova Scotia) to a few centimetres in the Mediterranean.
The main causes of the tide are the interaction of the gravitational attraction of the moon and the sun acting on the earths waters, together with the effects of the rotation of the earth round the sun, the moon round the earth and the daily rotation of the earth. The greatest effect is that of the moon where the combined gravitational and centrifugal effects cause a high tide directed towards the moon and another high tide on the opposite side of the earth directed away from the moon. (Remember - the moon does not revolve round the earth but rather the earth and the moon revolve round a common point.) In the same way, the sun produces opposed high and low tides.
When the sun, the earth and the moon are in an approximately straight line as they are at full moon and at new moon, these tides reinforce each other and the extremely high and low tides known as spring tides. Half way between these times, at the first and third quarters, the sun and moon form a right angle and the tides tend to cancel each other. The smaller tides which result are called the neap tides. The cancelling effect is not complete because the tidal effect of the moon is double that of the sun. The exceptionally high 'king tides' are brought about by the elliptical nature of the orbit of the moon, which means that the distance between the moon and the earth varies and thus the gravitational force causing the tide changes.
In most parts of the earth there are two high tides and two low tides every lunar day of about 25 hours. The size of these tides can be the same or they can vary greatly, even to the extent that there is effectively one high and one low tide a day (eg Fremantle WA). In most areas -including Sydney - there is a marked variation between successive highs and between successive lows.
Local effects including the natural frequency of water movements in enclosed bays and seas cause the exceptionally large tides observer in some parts of the world. Although the causes of the tides are fairly well understood, it is not possible to predict tides on an a priori basis. Tide tables are produced by extrapolation from local observations.
Other effects which can cause large though short lived variations in sea level are changes in barometric pressure such as cyclones (up to 50 cm), wind surges caused by friction between strong winds and the sea surface (up to 4 metres) and tsunamis or 'tidal waves' caused by earthquakes which can be very large.
Although mangroves are effected by all of these phenomena, is the regular tidal effects and especially the mean sea level and the mean high water spring tide level which determine the extent of the shore which mangroves can colonise.
The mangrove and salt marsh areas are covered by salt water for some time every (lunar) month. The number, duration and depth of coverings bty the tide depend on the elevation (above mean sea level) of the particular area. | <urn:uuid:54d7e233-4d9b-485a-8431-f628668aedb9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sydney.edu.au/science/biology/learning/plant_form_function/mangroves/tide.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942307 | 664 | 4.125 | 4 |
Apparently some people missed the memo that sharing your financial information online is a recipe for identity theft and fraud.
Much in the way the website PleaseRobMe.com attempts to make people aware of the dangers of sharing too much information about their whereabouts online, @NeedADebitCard exploits our ignorance about money with all the ease of a re-Tweet.
"Please quit posting pictures of your debit card people," reads the description.
Too bad no one's listening. At press time, the feed showed 65 Twitter users' cards and already had 422 followers.
Here's a sample offender below:
@NeedADebitCard isn't the only Twitter feed showing the dangerous side of social media. @FanSince09, another user followed by BI reporter Ben Duronio, is known for re-Tweeting users' IDs, including their passport, driver's license and debit card. | <urn:uuid:41070288-96fd-4081-8270-511fda69c088> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.businessinsider.com/you-are-asking-to-be-robbed-if-you-post-a-picture-of-your-debit-card-online-2012-7 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939712 | 181 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Those of us who live or have lived with active alcoholics or addicts find that we have been deeply affected by the experience. Many times, the frustration and stress that we feel can be caused by our own actions and choices. By adjusting our approach and our attitude toward the problem, we find that we can place it in a difference perspective, so that it no longer dominates our thoughts and our lives. Here are 10 things that you can stop doing that may help relieve the pressure.
1. Blaming Yourself
It's typical for alcoholics to try to blame their drinking on circumstances or others around them, including those who are closest to them. It's not unusual to hear an alcoholic say, "The only reason I drink is because you..." Don't buy into it. If your loved one is truly an alcoholic, they are going to drink no matter what you do or say. It's not your fault. They have become dependent on alcohol
, and nothing is going to get between them and their drug of choice.
2. Taking It Personally
When alcoholics promise they will never drink again, but a short time later are back to drinking as much as always, it is easy for family members to take the broken promises and lies personally. You may tend to think, "If they really love me, they wouldn't lie to me." But if they have become truly addicted to alcohol, their brain chemistry may have changed
to the point that they are completely surprised by some of the choices they make. They may not be in control of their own decision making.
3. Trying to Control It
Many family members of alcoholics naturally try everything they can think of
to get their loved one to stop drinking. Unfortunately, this usually results in leaving the alcoholic's family members feeling lonely and frustrated. You may tell yourself that surely there is something that you can do, but the reality is not even alcoholics can control their drinking, try as they may.
4. Trying to Cure It
Make no mistake about it, alcoholism, or alcohol dependence, is a primary, chronic and progressive disease
that sometimes can be fatal. You are not a healthcare professional. You are not a trained substance-abuse counselor. You just happen to love someone who is probably going to need professional treatment to get healthy again. That's the alcoholic's responsibility, not yours. You can't cure a disease.
5. Covering It Up
There is a joke in recovery circles about an alcoholic in denial
who screams, "I don't have a problem, so don't tell anyone!" Alcoholics typically do not want anyone to know the level of their alcohol consumption because if someone found out the full extent of the problem, they might try to help! If family members try to "help" the alcoholic by covering up for their drinking and making excuses for them, they are playing right into the alcoholic's denial game. Dealing with the problem openly and honestly is the best approach.
6. Accepting Unacceptable Behavior
It usually begins with some small incident that family members brush off with, "They just had too much to drink." But the next time, the behavior may get a little bit worse and then even worse. You slowly begin to accept more and more unacceptable behavior. Before you realize it, you can find yourself in a full-blown abusive relationship
. Abuse is never acceptable. You do not have to accept unacceptable behavior in your life. You do have choices.
7. Having Unreasonable Expectations
One problem in dealing with an alcoholic is that what might seem like a reasonable expectation in some circumstances, might be totally unreasonable
with an addict. When alcoholics swear to you and to themselves that they will never touch another drop, you might naturally expect that they are sincere and they won't drink again. But with alcoholics, that expectation turns out to be unreasonable. Is it reasonable to expect someone to be honest with you when they are incapable of even being honest with himself or herself?
8. Living in the Past
The key to dealing with alcoholism in the family is staying focused on the situation as it exists right now, today. Alcoholism is a progressive disease
. It doesn't reach a certain level and remain there for very long; it continues to get worse until the alcoholic seeks help. You can't allow the disappointments and mistakes of the past affect your choices today, because circumstances have probably changed.
Often, well-meaning loved ones, in trying to "help," will actually do something that enables alcoholics to continue along their destructive paths. Find out what enabling is
and make sure that you are not doing anything that bolsters the alcoholic's denial or prevents them from facing the natural consequences of their actions. Many an alcoholic has finally reached out for help when they realized their enabling system was no longer in place.
10. Putting Off Getting Help
After years of covering up for the alcoholic and not talking about "the problem" outside the family, it may seem daunting to reach out for help from a support group such as Al-Anon Family Groups
. But millions have found solutions that lead to serenity inside those meetings. Going to an Al-Anon meeting is one of those things that once you do it, you say, "I should have done this years ago!" | <urn:uuid:954d2b95-ab8b-4332-aa8a-89a8742ce511> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://alcoholism.about.com/od/fam/tp/10-Things-To-Stop-Doing-If-You-Love-An-Alcoholic.htm?nl=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976575 | 1,079 | 2.0625 | 2 |
Abbott Introduces Biothreat Assay for PLEX-ID™ System
- Offers Rapid, Accurate and Broad Detection of Dangerous Microorganisms
Date: February 07, 2011
Washington, D.C. — Abbott (NYSE: ABT) announced today that it has introduced the PLEX-ID™ Biothreat Assay, which is designed to detect and distinguish 17 different biothreat pathogens. This assay enables rapid and accurate detection of potentially dangerous microorganisms that could pose serious threats to human health, food, water and other resources.
The PLEX-ID Biothreat Assay permits analysis of direct specimens, such as blood, water, food and air filter samples, and provides results in less than eight hours. Seventeen different bioagents are targeted in the new test, including Bacillus anthracis, E. coli, salmonella, ebola virus, and avian influenza viruses. PLEX-ID offers the unique capability to detect and identify these, and other, bacterial and viral biothreat agents while also differentiating similar organisms.
Research on the biothreat assay was presented at the American Society for Microbiology Conference on Biodefense and Emerging Diseases. In a poster presented at the conference, Abbott and the Midwest Research Institute reported that an independent evaluation of the PLEX-ID Biothreat Assay showed it provides highly sensitive and specific results for biothreat detection in environmental air sample analysis.
The PLEX-ID system can perform identification and typing of expected and unknown microorganisms from direct specimens, which saves time while providing critical information without the need to grow the agent in culture first.
Currently intended for non-diagnostic use, PLEX-ID is the only high-throughput technology that offers rapid and broad identification, detailed genotyping and characterization, and recognition of emerging organisms. The system employs a combination of molecular technologies, including polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for gene amplification and mass spectrometry analysis to rapidly characterize known and unknown organisms.
It is designed to address a significant unmet need by providing test results in less than eight hours instead of three or more days required with current blood and tissue culture-based methods.
PLEX-ID is designed to identify a broad range of bacteria, viruses, fungi, certain parasites, and also provide information about drug resistance, virulence, and strain type. Anticipated public health and biodefense applications include epidemiologic research and identification of emerging or previously unknown agents. In addition, the system is being used for forensic characterization of human samples.
In 2009, PLEX-ID was recognized by both The Scientist and the Wall Street Journal as a top scientific innovation of the year. The Scientist honored the system because it can detect and characterize a broad range of microorganisms in any given sample. PLEX-ID was chosen as the Gold winner of the 2009 Wall Street Journal Technology Innovation Awards because it promises to alert health officials to new disease strains, may also guard against bio-terrorism, and enable hospitals to identify antibiotic-resistant bacteria in its environment.
Since its development in 2005, PLEX-ID technology has been deployed in 20 sites around the United States, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Abbott (NYSE:ABT) is a global, broad-based health care company devoted to the discovery, development, manufacture and marketing of pharmaceuticals and medical products, including nutritionals, devices and diagnostics. The company employs nearly 90,000 people and markets its products in more than 130 countries. | <urn:uuid:c293aaa6-9619-4347-ad82-92b6744b5988> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.abbott.com/news-media/press-releases/2011Feb07.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.923513 | 741 | 1.820313 | 2 |
AT&T becomes the first U.S. carrier to approve an Nvidia Tegra 3-powered smartphone with 4G LTE support for its network.
The goal of mobile processor makers is to bring as much of the functionality of the smartphone or tablet onto a single piece of silicon. It makes sense because it means that fewer separate components are needed, reducing costs and power consumption, and allowing manufacturers to keep shrinking the device.
Qualcomm's Snapdragon S4 processors enjoy integrated LTE support, while Nvidia had to rely on third-party LTE modems, usually Qualcomm parts. However, Nvidia's acquisition of soft modem chipset maker Icera showed that the company was serious about getting into the 4G LTE.
HTC's One X+ Android smartphone becomes the first Tegra 3 quad-core smartphone with 4G LTE capability in the U.S., and according to Nvidia's figures, this smartphone is 67 percent faster than its predecessor, the HTC One X LTE, a smartphone powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon dual-core processor.
While this Icera LTE modem is a separate component, Nvidia has new processors -- codenamed "Wayne" -- in the pipeline for next year that will have integrated Icera 410 LTE modems. Integration of the modem with the processor will simplify manufacturer's production lines, keeping costs down.
And Nvidia isn't planning to stand still either, with plans to integrate the more advanced Icera 500 LTE modem into future mobile processors.
Nvidia now represents a real threat to Qualcomm, because the LTE support, combined with the Tegra 3's superior graphic capabilities puts Snapdragon -- even the high-end Qualcomm S4 Pro -- on the back foot. This, combined with the fact that Nvidia expects Tegra shipments to double during 2012, puts the company in very a strong position to grab a lot of the smartphone and tablet market action.
Image source: Nvidia. | <urn:uuid:de7f3dd1-3843-485c-a76d-29e03fe4ad3b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.zdnet.com/nvidia-pushes-4g-lte-compatible-tegra-processors-puts-pressure-on-qualcomm-7000005608/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939605 | 387 | 1.75 | 2 |
Just to help out I can describe how a movement I was involved in worked, it might help you out. It started with a letter to the Irish Times, a facebook page and a website. The idea was spread as much as possible mostly using social media, its the most efficient and is free!
Once there is an expression of interest from enough people a meeting was organised, a room in a hotel. Attendees chipped in for the cost of the room. Get a facilitator (there are lots of them they work with organisations) maybe one of your interested people is one and would volunteer to do it. Spend the day working on a document something to start off with, it should be broad to include as many people as possible. Use the skills of those there maybe there is a journalist, a writer, academics etc who can help. Write up a document with sections such as an introduction, aims, values etc whatever is appropriate but not too long.
Try and have chapters in different parts of the country who can meet and discuss tactics. A movement needs money for fliers etc so you'd need to figure out how to raise some, maybe a benefactor, I bet there are a lot of libertarians in the US who might sponsor you, otherwise ask for donations or have a membership fee.
By then you should have an idea of how many people are interested, try and get into the media and involved in the issues of the day giving an opinion.
Where it goes from there depends on how successful you are but its a starting point.
It is alot of work but from my experience it gets the ball rolling. People will be really enthusiastic for a while then drop off. So long as someone is keeping it moving forward though thats a positive thing. | <urn:uuid:8af36978-ee19-456e-a2af-fc84a94ef34a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=79052575 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980906 | 356 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Some people think racist ideas can be overcome just by educating people out of their prejudices. This is fine as far as it goes. REVOLUTION supports the maximum of anti-racist education and argument to counter the lies of racists who try to present ‘other’ cultures as ‘strange’, ‘backward’ or inferior.
But there is more to racism than this. It is not just a prejudice, it is deeply entrenched in our society, it runs through some of the most powerful institutions of the State. Over the last few years the police, the prison service, the Home Office and the Crown Prosecution Service have all been successfully shown to be guilty of institutional racism.
Black people still get on average lower pay than whites, worse jobs than whites, fewer prospects for promotion than whites, more police harassment than whites, worse housing than whites, and the list goes on.
As discontent is rising with Blair’s pro-capitalist agenda, the government is trying to divert people away from the real problems in society. They blame bogus asylum seekers for problems, when in fact these people are society’s biggest victims.
Then white youth take out their anger on asylum seekers and Asian shops, misinformed hatred fuelled by papers like the Daily Express and the Daily Mail, who whip up hysteria and a lynch mob mentality by telling refugees to run for their lives. The result has been that racism is back on the rise, with the growth of the British National Party and violent clashes in towns like Bradford, Oldham and Leeds. Racism does not just die out because it is educated out of people.
So where did this come from?
Racism is a centuries-old theory that is used to justify a global system of discrimination against black and Asian people. It stems from Britain’s role as a global colonial power seizing control of Africa and India and looting them in its own interests.
When capitalism started to take off in Britain in the 1600 and 1700s, British ships and British companies set off to foreign lands with missionaries and musketeers in tow. They wanted one simple thing, to convert these countries into their own possessions. They plundered the land for resources and they converted the population into their workforce.
In Africa, they forced 115 million black people into slavery, transporting them to cotton, tobacco and sugar plantations. They stripped them of their possessions and broke up families. Herded like cattle, 75 million died in transit or soon after arriving.
In India, a brutal colonial administration ran the whole country. The British suppressed with brutal violence huge rebellions of the Indian people in 1857, 1919 and all through the 1920s and 30s. By 1942 India was aflame with rebellion.
The British (and other colonial powers like France, Spain, Portugal and Holland) claimed black and Asian people were inferior to whites. They developed fake scientific theories that were supposed to prove that black people, Asians and Jews were inferior. The economic, social and political domination of the white race was explained not as a result of colonial exploitation, but on the unproven claim that whites are somehow biologically superior. They even tried to use the evolutionary theories of Charles Darwin to create what they called Social-Darwinism?. This distortion of Darwin was used to claim with appalling pseudo science, that whites are more highly evolved than blacks.
Since the end of the Second World War over 50 years ago, Britain has not ruled Africa or India directly. The “official” line coming out of London, Paris and Washington has shifted slightly. The capitalists have left the ravings of social-Darwinism in the hands of fanatics like the neo-Nazis and the BNP. But “official” racism is still alive and kicking.
Today the big advanced capitalist countries of the G8 do not rule colonies like India and Africa in the same way as their ancestors did in the 18th and 19th centuries. Instead, they own the Third World, though the Debt, the World Bank, the World Trade Organisation and the ‘starve-to-pay-us-back-for-our-loans’ programmes of the International Monetary Fund.
The western powers suggest that ‘backward’ countries are basically lazy, that African people can’t be trusted not to just kill each other, that the Third World needs NATO bombers to sort it out. They treat refugees as dirty, money-grabbing freeloaders, rather than as the victims of the West’s blast-and-ruin policies.
And they insist that people from other countries should integrate into official British culture, even though that culture is just another version of the same old globalising Pepsi-Nike-Big Mac nightmare that capitalism is spreading all over the world.
It will take more than educating people against racist lies to beat racism.
- Root racism out of the workplace, the community and the institutions: win the power of the trade union movement to the antiracist struggle
- Organise self-defence against racist attacks ? wherever they come from, racists or even the police themselves
- Tear down the borders and let refugees and asylum seekers in
- Smash the BNP and NF
- Cancel Third World Debt
- Unite all the peoples of the planet in the fight against global capitalism
- Build a global communist commonwealth in which all people can be equal
Can we rely on the government and police to stop the fascists?
After Asian youth fought back against racism and fascism this summer in cities across the north of England, the government and police have announced bans on demonstrations by the far right in several major towns and cities. Whilst many anti-racists, such as the Anti Nazi League, have welcomed these bans we should firstly ask ourselves why the state has stepped in now and what the implications are.
Throughout last year the far right National Front (NF) and British National Party (BNP) held several demonstrations to try to capitalise on the media and state scapegoating of refugees. These went largely unnoticed by the mainstream press although they did contribute to an increased climate of fear and tension for refugee communities. After a demonstration in South London earlier this summer one person was stabbed after being caught walking home alone by a group of fascist thugs.
The real reason that the government has decided to step in now is because local Asian communities have gone on the offensive to protect and defend the areas in which they live from being terrorised by racists. It is this spontaneous fightback which the state fears. The last thing they want is for this resistance to become a catalyst for a wider struggle against racism and deprivation because it has been built on self organisation and correctly identified the racist police and state institutions as part of the problem and not the solution.
Reliance on the state to deal with the fascists also has serious repercussions for the left. The bans that have been implemented also outlaw demonstrations and rallies by anti-racists. The planned ANL Carnival in Burnley on September 1st has been cancelled by Home Secretary David Blunkett at the request of Burnley Borough Council and Lancashire Police.
Fear of “the potential to attract others opposed to it” was the reason stated by top cop John Knowles. It appears that the police are determined to placate the fascists in the ridiculous hope that they will then crawl back under their stone and stop spreading their race hate filth.
Former Home Secretary David Blunkett has called for those who seek to combat fascism “to hold their hand carefully, to allow us to deal with public order and not to take it in any way into their own hands” What Blunkett won’t admit is that it is the racist policies of his own government against asylum seekers which allowed the racists to flourish.
The people who have stood up to racism in towns such as Oldham, Leeds and Bradford deserve our full support. We must call for the immediate dropping of charges against all those arrested for rioting. We must implement the principal of no platform for fascists through the direct action of black and white workers and youth. We must call upon the labour movement to support organised community self defence against fascist, racist and police attack.
To really defeat the racists we will have to combine our fight with the struggle against desperate poverty, crumbling public services and unemployment. We can’t win this battle without taking on the rich bosses and their representatives in government, and in this battle the state will be our enemy. | <urn:uuid:8892cea2-66e0-44c5-9fca-11928e84c0f4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.socialistrevolution.org/ideas/oppression-and-resistance/racism-not-just-a-bad-idea/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963365 | 1,734 | 2.359375 | 2 |
QE3: Hard to stop. Wrong to start.
You might have noticed US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke clearing his throat recently ready for the release of another monetary tsunami—a flood of counterfeit capital created out of thin air that will create no real resources, create no real savings, but which will stimulate
a falling economy the falling stock market.
It’s just a matter of time. They will call it Quantitative Easing 3. We might call it the ‘Bernanke Put’—an expression of his on-going commitment to protect bankers and share traders from making losses.
Isn’t that nice of Mr Bernanke?
But have you noticed how more rapidly these injections of several trillion-weight of counterfeit capital have been coming?
No surprise, really, because once you’ve let the genie of monetary inflationary out of the bottle, every new injection of the genie’s monetary narcotic needs to keep coming faster and faster. Just like a real narcotic, really.
Every period of monetary inflation has been the same. (For a good account of one such period, the inflationary period that helped to bring on the French Revolution, check out the short book Fiat Money Inflation in France. And for the explanation of why accelerating monetary inflation is necessary once started, despite the dismal prognosis from its repeated application, read Hayek’s short book Tiger by the Tail.)
The present monetary system—a system of fiat money based on the organisation of debt into currency—is collapsing in both Europe and the US. No wonder even mainstream magazines like Forbes are starting to talk about the gold standard—the system maimed by Franklin Roosevelt, brutalised by John Maynard Keynes, and finally taken out the back and shot by ichard Nixon. The writers at Forbes don’t understand the system perfectly, but the system of monetary stability that underpinned the prosperity nineteenth is starting to be talked about again respectfully.
Perhaps in the long term that’s something we will thank Ben’s blundering for.
- What Is the Purpose Of A Gold Standard? - F O R B E S
- Dead 40 Years Ago, the Gold Standard Is Back - F O R B E S
- The Price of Abandoning The Gold Standard - F O R B E S | <urn:uuid:207511a5-4d8d-412b-8be9-6eb27c36a5c4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pc.blogspot.jp/2011/09/qe3-hard-to-stop.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.918653 | 483 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Parent Trigger Laws Give Parents the Power They Deserve
Parent trigger empowers parents to get involved in their children's education
October 26, 2012
Today, 600,000 American students are on waiting lists to attend a public charter school. Their parents aren't idle bystanders in their education, but unfortunately they often don't have high-quality options. Charter schools were designed to give parents an alternative to one-size-fits-all district-run schools and a venue to engage them in their child's education. Even though charter schools have grown in number and enrollment, they haven't been able to keep pace with the demand. Too many children are trapped in failing schools—and their parents want to get them out.
When a school clearly isn't meeting students' needs, parents need to be empowered to do something to change it. Parent trigger laws are designed to be this answer. As of June 2012, seven states have enacted parent trigger laws and 20 states have considered parent trigger legislation. Without parent trigger laws, parents have to wait for high-quality public charter schools to come to their neighborhood or, more commonly, rely on the district to fix their schools (often without parental input and without the sense of urgency that is needed to overhaul the system). Parent trigger laws give parents the power to intervene in underperforming schools when a majority of parents agree to impose school turnaround measures—such as converting it to a public charter school, replacing some of the school's administration and faculty, or closing the school.
However you look at the data, the need for parents to be empowered with options for their child's education is immediate and real. Scores on the National Assessment of Education Progress, also known as "the nation's report card," haven't moved in 30 years. Our performance on international tests is no better. The United States is average in reading and below average in both mathematics and science. Researchers say that even our nation's best students aren't keeping up with their peers across the world.
In thousands of schools across the country, achievement is inadequate. At Desert Trails Elementary School in Adelanto, Calif., more than two thirds of students fail to meet the state's proficiency standards, and the school hasn't met its achievement goals for five consecutive years. The parents are no longer passive observers and are demanding change. They have invoked the state's parent trigger law to bring in a public charter school that will be accountable for results. | <urn:uuid:5a310f2a-e2ab-4833-ac8e-7035990648e3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.usnews.com/debate-club/is-there-a-need-for-parent-trigger-laws/parent-trigger-laws-give-parents-the-power-they-deserve | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978728 | 489 | 2.5 | 2 |
|Next week at this time, there may be an amazing new robotic explorer on Mars. Or there may be a new pile of junk. It all likely depends on many things going correctly in the minutes after the Mars Science Laboratory mission arrives at Mars and attempts to deploy the Curiosity rover from orbit. Arguably the most sophisticated landing yet attempted on the red planet, consecutive precision events will involve a heat shield, a parachute, several rocket maneuvers, and the automatic operation of an unusual device called a Sky Crane. These "Seven Minutes of Terror" -- depicted in the above dramatic video -- will begin on Sunday, August 6 at about 5:24 am Universal time, which occurs on Saturday night, August 5 for western North Americans. If successful, the car-sized Curiosity rover will rest on the surface of Mars, soon to begin exploring Gale Crater to better determine the habitability of this seemingly barren world to life -- past, present, and future. Although multiple media outlets may cover this event, one way to watch these landing events unfold is on the NASA channel live on the web.
Credit: JPL, NASA | <urn:uuid:21b47d26-3fb1-45e9-ada2-73e10647b2f2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.astrobio.net/index.php?option=com_galleryimg&task=imageofday&imageId=1206&msg=&id=&pageNo=26 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.904789 | 225 | 2.890625 | 3 |
Knowledge Profiling – Promoting easy access to knowledge generated in projects and programmes
This is a new and simple method has been developed to capture and exchange knowledge generated in projects. It is described in a Manual, which was jointly prepared by GTZ and IFAD. The Manual is meant as a supporting tool to knowledge management in Development Cooperation and its purpose is threefold: First, it provides a quick reference to the knowledge generated in projects and programmes. Second, it puts the focus on those areas of knowledge judged to be worth mentioning by the stakeholders themselves. And third, it presents a method that facilitates comparison of knowledge acquisition between projects and even cross-sectorally. In the following, a short outline of the Knowledge Profiling method is given and the actual status of its application is discussed.
Knowledge profiling offers a simple and easily applicable method to secure and exchange knowledge generated by development initiatives.
It builds on ideas developed by GTZ in Namibia, where it was applied by several projects/programmes and met with enthusiastic acceptance. It will now become a component of the GTZ package of debriefing instruments. Knowledge profiling also aroused the interest of the IFAD Water Desk (IFAD/WD) in Rome. IFAD joined forces with GTZ to fine-tune the method and promote its application.‘Knowledge profiling’ takes a look at project outcomes with a new ‘pair of glasses’.
Traditionally the focus has been on reaching goals, achieving results and compiling lessons learned. Knowledge profiling does this, too, but it adds a new perspective: the spotlight is on the knowledge and experience gained by the major stakeholders. Moreover, documentation of this knowledge is arranged to allow quick reference to details. Finally, knowledge profiling facilitates comparison of knowledge acquisition between projects and even cross-sectorally.
The main principles are easy accessibility, comparability and stakeholder perception, which are in fact seldom observed during documentation of project-generated knowledge. To change this in future, the method emphasises the “4 Ss” of knowledge profiling: Stakeholder feedback, Shortness, Structuring, and Standardisation.
Stakeholder feedback: The major stakeholders identify the knowledge generated by the project/programme that they value most and think should be remembered and shared. This step ensures that the profiling exercise focuses not on ‘expert knowledge’ but on knowledge gained by the local people. Shortness: The topics or areas of knowledge identified by the major stakeholders are termed “modules”. For each module a brief and concise knowledge profile is elaborated, specifying the details of the knowledge gained and the lessons learned in connection with the module.
Knowledge profiles are presented in brief, “bullet point” listings. Structuring: The knowledge profiles have a special structure. While outputs, outcomes and impacts achieved by the project (or project phase) are briefly mentioned, the emphasis is on knowledge, innovations and experience gained in certain areas defined beforehand. Standardisation: Knowledge profile structure should be standardised, so that specific information can be easily traced and compared among different projects.
A central feature of Knowledge Profiling is the identification of so-called ‘knowledge modules’. These are major clusters of themes in which, in the opinion of the stakeholders, essential knowledge and experience were accumulated in the course of the project. More often than not, these knowledge modules relate to central issues
of capacity development (e.g. organizational development, institutional issues, process related aspects etc) and hence allow comparison of knowledge generation and experiences between projects and programmes with a different sectoral focus.
The sequence of steps
A knowledge profiling exercise follows a sequence of steps which centers around semi-structured interviews with selected stakeholders who are supposed to have gained knowledge during project implementation. First, a number of key ‘knowledge modules’ are pre-selected and then these major clusters of themes in which, in
the opinion of the stakeholders, essential knowledge and experience were accumulated in the course of the project, are verified and closely scrutinized during the interviews. A useful structure of the interviews should differentiate with respect to:
- methods, tools and instruments applied
- processes employed
- furthering / hindering factors occasioned by frame conditions
- people and organisations knowledgeable about the module
- available documents with valuable information related to the module
As mentioned above, knowledge profiling exercises have originally been initiated in GTZ projects in Namibia. Up to now, a total of four knowledge profiling studies have been implemented in that country, concentrating on projects in the area of livestock management, biodiversity, water management and, most recently, land reform.
IFAD has conducted a full knowledge profiling exercise in a project on agricultural water management in Ghana and has financed the elaboration of the Knowledge Profiling Manual.
Download from: http://www.ifad.org/english/water/manual/kp.pdf | <urn:uuid:5b845b51-cdd6-4854-bf04-8ba9a52887fc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.agriculturesnetwork.org/resources/documentation/tools-old/list_books-guides-and-manuals/knowledge-profiling | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00047-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939034 | 1,003 | 2.4375 | 2 |
Sunday began Maryland Severe Storms Awareness Week, as dubbed by the National Weather Service and Maryland Emergency Management Agency. Each weekday focuses on a different threat – flooding, damaging winds, tornadoes, hail and lightning.
Tornadoes struck Maryland 27 times last year, for example. With the severe weather seen across the nation recently, it can’t hurt to prepare.
Here are some tips the agencies offer for each type of weather threat:
Flooding: Never pass through an area of road where floodwaters are so deep you can't see the pavement.
Damaging winds: They can come from any severe thunderstorm in the form of microbursts, so stay away from windows and remain in a sturdy shelter during strong storms.
Tornadoes: Remain on the lowest floor of a house or other building, and in an interior room away from windows. Mobile homes aren't a safe tornado shelter.
Hail: The larger the hail, the more dangerous the storm, so seek shelter if you see any, however small or large.
Lightning: More than 98 percent of lighting fatalities result from people being outdoors. If you can here thunder, you are at risk of a lightning strike if you remain outside. | <urn:uuid:4e209893-eb0d-48a3-beef-8e90eb14ac6a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2012-04-09/news/bal-wx-maryland-severe-storms-awareness-week-under-way-20120406_1_tornadoes-severe-thunderstorm-severe-weather | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930338 | 251 | 3.0625 | 3 |
The immediate association most of us have with Vodou, it seems, was invented in the West. It was most indelibly planted in American imaginations by Bela Lugosi's portrayal of an evil, doll-wielding Haitian "voodoo" priest in a 1932 Hollywood film, White Zombie — at a time when the U.S. was in the final throes of a 19-year occupation of Haiti.
Disassociating my idea of Vodou from the notion of sticking pins into dolls was simply the first of the many perceptions my original conversation with Patrick Bellegarde-Smith dismantled. It helped me see beyond the tag line that always comes with the mention of Haiti in the news and is there again now: "the poorest nation in the Western hemisphere." I gained a sense of the heroic and tumultuous in the history, culture, and inner life of the Haitian people. This is all encompassed in the complex fact, as Patrick Bellegarde-Smith reminds us, that they are "60% Catholic, 40% Protestant, but 100% Vodou."
As Patrick Bellegarde-Smith tells it, ancient spiritual riches lie beneath the surface of terrible poverty in Haiti, not defeating it but meeting and transcending it in daily, private lives. Haitian elites like him are navigating a 21st-century paradox — of finding tools for modernity and imagining a better post-colonial future by reclaiming the ancient roots and resources they have in Vodou.
He is navigating that with a new intensity now as he considers Haiti's future. And he is finding an immediate solace in Vodou as he grieves in the present. He writes:
"I … come from a well-connected family whose story parallels Haitian history over the last two centuries. Every corpse is mine; every body is mine. Their spirit fuses with mine and that of all Haitians. Spirits live beyond death — and before birth. The dead are not dead, but alive in new dimensions. I gain solace from that ancestral thought." | <urn:uuid:263e218d-ab3c-443e-9e16-1b897199711b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.onbeing.org/program/living-vodou/journal/988 | 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 | 0.957192 | 418 | 2.078125 | 2 |
Actress Daryl Hannah protests the Keystone pipeline this summer. But jobs, money and oil will likely win out over environmental concerns as a decision on the controversial pipeline looms.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Jobs and energy prices will ultimately push the Obama administration to approve the controversial Keystone pipeline, analysts say, despite the protests and environmental concerns over expanding production from Canada's oil sands.
Stretching 1,600 miles from Alberta, Canada, to U.S. refineries on the Gulf Coast, the Keystone pipeline project would boost U.S. consumption from the Canadian oil sands, now more than 1 million barrels a day, by about 50%.
Because the pipeline crosses an international boarder, it needs approval from the State Department to get built. Over the last several weeks the State Department has held a series of public hearings on the matter, including one Friday in Washington, D.C., where both supporters and critics held dueling press conferences.
Protesters have been getting themselves arrested for weeks in front of the White House, and environmentalists have been urging the administration to reject the pipeline. They fear it will leak, and they oppose expanding production from the oil sands, which takes a heavier toll on the environment than traditional oil wells.
But analysts say their efforts will probably be for naught.
"We still anticipate State will approve the project by year end," Christine Tezak, an energy and environmental policy analyst at asset management firm Robert W. Baird & Co., wrote in a research note earlier this week. "The White House will cite national energy security, trade with a close neighbor, new jobs, and historically strict permitting requirements as justification for approval."
The environment: Wringing oil out of oil sands is a more intense process than tapping it through a conventional oil well.
All told, oil from oil sands produces between 5% to 30% more greenhouse gas emissions than traditional crude, largely because of the additional energy needed to heat up the tar-like substance to get it flowing like regular oil. The process also uses vast amounts of water.
In addition, much of the oil sands are mined like coal -- in massive open pits. These pits can leech toxins into waterways and are wildly unsightly when seen from any vantage point. It's hard to understate how large these operations are -- if clustered together, oil sands developments in Alberta would occupy an area the size of Rhode Island.
Companies producing oil sands, including ExxonMobil (Fortune 500), Royal Dutch Shell ( ), BP ( ) and Canada's Suncor ( ), have gotten better about mitigating some of the impacts, but problems remain.,
The payoff: It's the economics that are likely to win the day.
TransCanada (), the company trying to build the pipeline, estimates the project would create 13,000 construction jobs and 7,000 additional jobs making the steel, pumps and other necessary equipment.
The company estimates that over the project's life, which it generously pegs at 100 years, $20 billion will be pumped into the U.S. economy and $5 billion added to government coffers.
Supporters point out that the while the oil might be dirtier environmentally, it's from a more politically stable country: Canada is generally thought to have stronger human rights laws and a more transparent government than many other places the U.S. gets its oil.
Then there's the oil itself. The pipeline would bring in an additional 700,000 barrels a day. While the impact on oil prices might be minimal -- the U.S. consumes nearly 20 million barrels a day -- it would be something to at least point to in an election year.
"For the Obama administration, having an answer to high prices will be much more important in 2012 than it is today," said Kevin Book. managing director at the research firm ClearView Energy Partners. "We think it will get approved."
The Solyndra factor: The recent bankruptcy of solar panel maker Solyndra may also play a part in Obama's decision.
The administration has taken considerable heat lately for giving the company, a maker of advanced and unproven solar panels, a half-billion dollar loan guarantee -- which taxpayers will now likely have to pay.
It's hard to see how the Democrats would want to go into a campaign with a record of supporting one technology that ultimately failed, while halting another that's proven and could immediately create revenue and jobs.
They gambled and lost on "this type of newfangled solar energy," said Michael Franc, vice president of government affairs at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. "To then put the kibosh on 700,000 barrels of oil a day, in this climate -- that's a hard argument to carry."
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|Retail sales||Sept 14| | <urn:uuid:2d59c28f-815d-4db8-9316-23dddfd0eea8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://money.cnn.com/2011/10/07/news/economy/keystone_pipeline/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940712 | 1,169 | 2.234375 | 2 |
Merz is hoping to further its Alzheimer’s research by licensing DiaGenic’s biomarkers for a transitional stage of disease, which is “very important” for stratification of clinical trials.
Erik Christensen, CEO of DiaGenic, explained to Outsourcing-Pharma that he regards the company’s detection tool, ADtect, as “a very important test” in furthering clinical trials into Alzheimer’s.
ADtect identifies patients with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI), increasingly considered a transitional stage in Alzheimer’s development, allowing users to select people for clinical trials.
Christensen believes there is a growing consensus that use of biomarkers is critical to accelerating development of Alzheimer’s treatments.
He added: “Patient stratification for clinical trials using biomarkers is a rapidly growing sector and we feel we are poised to make a significant contribution.”
Merz is gaining a non-exclusive license to DiaGenic’s ADtect and will also receive an option for further biomarkers. It believes that this can have a significant impact on its research, which Martin Zügel, CEO of Merz, explained.
Zügel said: “There is an urgent need for biomarkers that can accurately identify MCI converters”, adding that ADtect “should lead to improved clinical trial recruitment” and help get Alzheimer’s drugs to market.
Christensen added that ADtect is the first biomarker test for MCI on the market, which, given the focus on Alzheimer’s from companies including Pfizer, should put the firm in a strong position.
DiaGenic is also developing a breast cancer test, which would be the first of its kind to be on the market. Breast cancer and Alzheimer’s are the two therapeutic areas DiaGenic has chosen to focus on.
These were identified by DiaGenic because they lacked a good diagnostic tools and treatment would be helped by having a system that could detect the illness before there is suspicion of disease. | <urn:uuid:448dbc39-4dec-4b7d-80b4-5ca91e68e577> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.outsourcing-pharma.com/Clinical-Development/DiaGenic-inks-Alzheimer-s-biomarker-deal | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956091 | 436 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Are your aging parents safe online? Or are they setting themselves up as fresh bait for online scammers looking to steal their identity, destroy their credit, and drain their bank accounts?
Older adults have been a target for con artists and scammers as long as their have been older people and thieves. In fact, most scams that target the elderly are just new versions of time-proven scams that have been updated with a new twist — or new technology. And as more seniors go online, they are finding that it’s far too easy to skip or trip into an online minefield of trouble.
In a recent Huffington Post entry, Jason Alderman, Visa’s Senior Director of Financial Education, lists several key online safety tips for seniors worth sharing with the aging loved one in your life…
Update security software. Make sure their computers have anti-virus and anti-spyware software and show them how to update it regularly.
Think like the bad guys. Even the best software isn’t 100 percent foolproof, so teach them how to anticipate and ward off annoying — or criminal — behavior. For example:
- Only open or download information from trusted sites to which you navigated yourself. Don’t assume a link contained in an email, even from a friend, will necessarily take you to a company’s legitimate website.
- Don’t click on popup windows or banners that appear when you’re browsing a site.
- Some common email scams that target seniors include offers for discounted drugs and low-cost insurance, and supposed warnings from the IRS — which, incidentally, never contacts taxpayers by email.
- Financial institutions never email customers asking for verification of account or password information.
- When shopping online, look for safety symbols, such as a padlock icon in the browser’s status bar, an “s” after “http” in the URL address, or the words “Secure Sockets Layer” (SSL) or “Transport Layer Security” (TLS). These are signs that the merchant is using a secure page for transmitting personal information.
These are all common tricks used to infect your computer with viruses or to install spyware that records your keystrokes to obtain account or other confidential information.
Alderman also points out that poor passwords continue to be a real threat to personal online security — especially if your aging parent or loved one uses passwords that a determined scammer can find on an “open to everyone” facebook profile.
Use strong passwords. Believe it or not, the most frequently used password is “password.” Other common, easy-to-crack passwords include simple numeric sequences and names of pets, spouses and children. For more secure passwords:
- Use at least seven characters with a mixture of upper- and lower-case letters, numbers and symbols.
- Use unique passwords for each account in case one gets compromised.
- Change passwords frequently.
- If you’re prone to forgetting, safely store a master list of passwords.
Protect personal information. Never post sensitive information on any website (or share via email, mail or phone) unless you initiated the contact. This might include numbers for credit cards, bank accounts, Social Security, Medicare and driver’s license, address/phone and full birthdate.
Criminals can easily piece together such information to steal your identity and open accounts in your name. Example: Your Facebook profile shows pictures of your dog, Rex. One of your bank’s security questions is, “What is your pet’s name?” Need I say more?
Set privacy controls. On social networking sites, carefully review privacy settings that let you limit who has access to your personal information.
If your aging parents or grandparents have recently joined the ranks of seniors online, they aren’t alone. More and more older adults are going online everyday. Many are initially motivated by a desire to keep up with their Facebook-savvy grandchildren. Some find their way online for the first time through Apple’s iPad, a touch-screen tablet computer that’s incredibly easy to use for newbies of all ages. And others just got fed up with feeling left out of the digital world.
The opportunity that the internet offers seniors is unlimited. But so are the risks. And in the hands of an inexperienced or unsuspecting senior, a computer keyboard or touchscreen can be as dangerous as letting a child chase a ball into the street.
Want to keep your aging parents or loved ones safe online? For more online safety tips for seniors, check out “Cyber Safe Seniors,” a free 60-page PDF download from Norton. | <urn:uuid:b425484a-9722-44bf-8142-5cdd0a8f503e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://safeafter70.com/2011/07/07/online-safety-tips-for-seniors/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.914193 | 976 | 2.234375 | 2 |
WASHINGTON -- The nation's electronic intelligence agency warned President Bush in 2001 that monitoring U.S. adversaries would require a "permanent presence" on networks that also carry Americans' messages that are protected from government eavesdropping.
The warning was contained in a National Security Agency report entitled "Transition 2001," sent to Bush shortly after he took office and reflects the agency's major concerns at the time.
The report was obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the National Security Archive, a private security watchdog group at George Washington University that made the document public.
The papers offer a rare glimpse into the usually publicity-shy NSA, which monitors communications involving foreign targets and does code-making and breaking.
The document showed an agency making a case to the White House that information security should be a top priority. It raised questions about how new global communications technologies were challenging the Constitution's protections against unreasonable searches and seizures.
"Make no mistake, NSA can and will perform its missions consistent with the Fourth Amendment and all applicable laws," the document says. But, it adds, senior leadership must understand that the NSA's mission will demand a "powerful, permanent presence" on global telecommunications networks that host both "'protected' communications of Americans" and the communications of adversaries the agency wants to target.
The document also said the global nature of technology leaves government and private networks more vulnerable to penetration by enemies. The report said the agency was concerned that federal and private digital networks were now "more vulnerable to foreign intelligence operations and to compromise."
The documents indicate the NSA was going on an offensive using the new modes of communication -- mostly digital and able to carry billions of bits of data. It says the agency is "prepared organizationally, intellectually and -- with sufficient investment -- technologically to exploit in an unprecedented way the explosion of global communications."
NSA was also concerned about the security of its parent agency, the Defense Department. In 1999, the document says, the department experienced over 22,000 cyber attacks, most of which had little effect on operations.
"During the presidential transition period, a major cyber attack is possible," the agency warned. But no significant cyber attack occurred then.
In the 42-page report, the agency said it had tried to transform itself from an entity nicknamed "No Such Agency" by dispatching its director to public events and reaching out to the media. The agency said media representatives were invited inside the agency for family day in September 2000.
Staffing was clearly a concern of the agency. The documents show a sharp drop in civilian personnel after the end of the cold war. In 2001, there were just over 16,000 civilians, down from 22,000 in early 2001. At the time, 19 percent of the work force was eligible for early retirement.
Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, intelligence agencies have gone on a hiring spree. The NSA announced last April it intended to hire 1,500 new employees a year for the next five years, focusing on people fluent in foreign languages including Arabic and Chinese, intelligence analysts and technical experts.
View Source Wired News | <urn:uuid:e197997f-2aef-4d8e-80ae-154471c95503> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.undergroundnews.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/posts/35261.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959352 | 627 | 2.1875 | 2 |
Title: Warriors of Art
Author: Yamaguchi Yumi (山口裕美)
Translator: Arthur Tanaka
Publication Year: 2007 (America)
Warriors of Art is, simply put, a beautiful, interesting, and exceptionally well-edited introduction to contemporary Japanese artists. The forty artists presented by the book represent a wide range of styles, media, and themes. A large percentage of the artists are internationally renowned and probably somewhat familiar to many Americans, who should be able to identify their styles if not necessarily their names. The book is illustrated with works instantly accessible to the casual reader, and the image quality could not be better. Every image has been reproduced in full color (where applicable) against a white background. At $35 (and deeply discounted on Amazon), Warriors of Art is also available at an affordable price.
The five page general introduction to the collection is promptly followed by a parade of artists appearing in alphabetical order. Each artist has been allotted four pages, the first of which contains a half-page, two column introduction. I have to say that, even though I generally don’t find much use for the text in art books, I genuinely enjoyed reading each of the artist introductions. These introductions put the work of the artist into perspective with biographical details and offer a few extremely apt interpretive comments, referring only to the pieces reproduced within the book. An average of five works follow each artist’s textual introduction, although the number tends of vary from artist to artist.
As for the actual content of the book, I found it extremely disturbing. Sometimes I was mesmerized by a piece, my reaction being something like “!!!!!!!!!.” Sometimes I found myself quickly turning the page because I found myself deeply upset by a particular work. As Yamaguchi says in her introduction to the book, “A glance at the work of the forty artists introduced in the book reveals recurring images of the cute, the grotesque, the erotic, the violent.” I think her description of “recurring images of” might more accurately read “a constant and overwhelming deluge of” images of cuteness and terror, eroticism and subtle (and not so subtle) aggression. In fact, one of the first plates in the book, an anime-style picture by Aida Makoto called The Giant Member Fuji versus King Gidora, depicts a female character from the anime Ultraman crying as she is both disemboweled and sexually violated by a golden hydra of Godzilla fame. Things carry on in much the same vein from there.
Even though Warriors of Art is not for the squeamish or the faint of heart (or the underage), the images are colorful, eye-popping, and deeply engaging. Questions of national identity, sexual identity, and personal identity are tackled again and again by these artists, whose experiments with style, composition, and color yield shocking results. Even a brief look at the works in this book calls the duality of high art and popular culture into question. Certainly, even though the entirety of Warriors of Art can be read less than two hours, I found myself captivated with it for days, returning to it for fresh surprises and new insights. | <urn:uuid:8a2c7adb-b934-4eab-a4ec-a9c3bcf9a211> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://japaneseliterature.wordpress.com/tag/ultraman/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00070-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955089 | 668 | 1.726563 | 2 |
The Jewel House - Harkness, Deborah E - Yale University Press
- Related Categories
The Jewel House
Elizabethan London and the Scientific Revolution
Out of Print.
Co-winner of the 2008 Pacific Coast Conference on British Studies Book Prize.
Winner of the 2008 John Ben Snow Foundation Prize for the best book published in any discipline of British Studies covering the period from 1400-1800.
Winner of the Pfizer Prize for Best Book in the History of Science from 2005-2007, presented by the History of Science Society.
Highly commended for the 2008 Longman/History Today Book of the Year Award.
Bestselling author Deborah Harkness (A Discovery of Witches, Shadow of Night) explores the streets, shops, back alleys, and gardens of Elizabethan London, where a boisterous and diverse group of men and women shared a keen interest in the study of nature. These assorted merchants, gardeners, barber-surgeons, midwives, instrument makers, mathematics teachers, engineers, alchemists, and other experimenters, she contends, formed a patchwork scientific community whose practices set the stage for the Scientific Revolution. While Francis Bacon has been widely regarded as the father of modern science, scores of his London contemporaries also deserve a share in this distinction. It was their collaborative, yet often contentious, ethos that helped to develop the ideals of modern scientific research.
The book examines six particularly fascinating episodes of scientific inquiry and dispute in sixteenth-century London, bringing to life the individuals involved and the challenges they faced. These men and women experimented and invented, argued and competed, waged wars in the press, and struggled to understand the complexities of the natural world. Together their stories illuminate the blind alleys and surprising twists and turns taken as medieval philosophy gave way to the empirical, experimental culture that became a hallmark of the Scientific Revolution.
Deborah E. Harkness is professor of history, University of Southern California. She is the author of John Dee’s Conversations with Angels: Cabala, Alchemy, and the End of Nature and of the New York Times bestseller A Discovery of Witches.
TITLES IN RELATED CATEGORIES | <urn:uuid:e86628e2-fa21-408c-8eba-a68ac75a0172> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=9780300111965 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.909648 | 446 | 2.078125 | 2 |
Release of ASP.NET MVC Under Open Source License Draws Mixed Reviews
Microsoft is drawing mixed reactions to the release last week of the source code for its ASP.NET Model View Controller (MVC). The tooling was released under the Open Source Initiative (OSI)-recognized Microsoft Public License (Ms-PL)
The move came just two weeks after the release of ASP.NET MVC, Microsoft's design pattern for test-driven development of enterprise-scale Web applications. It also comes as Microsoft last week continued to emphasize its open source initiatives.
"The Ms-PL contains no platform restrictions and provides broad rights to modify and redistribute the source code," said Scott Guthrie in a blog post last week.
"It is one of a number of small technology projects that Microsoft has released using OSI-approved licenses, and as such it is representative of Microsoft's growing using of, and contribution to, open source," said 451 Group analyst Matthew Aslett in an e-mail.
ASP.NET MVC joins other Microsoft-spawned open source projects, including the Managed Extensibility Framework, Dynamic Language Runtime, IronRuby, the AJAX Control Toolkit and the Silverlight Toolkit. "These are all baby steps, but more and more folks at the company are starting to 'get it,'" wrote Microsoft Senior Program Manager Scott Hanselman in his blog. "We won't rest until we've changed the way we do business."
Telerik Chief Strategy Officer Stephen Forte is concerned about giving MVC to developers to freely modify and redistribute. "Does this mean that there will be several different implementations of MVC out there, one supported by Microsoft and others not?" asked Forte, who is also a Microsoft regional director in New York. "How will my software run on each implementation? I am afraid of fragmentation."
Steve Michelotti, a principal software engineer at Applied Information Sciences, said in an e-mail that he welcomed the move. "The development lifecycle of the MVC framework really demonstrated a mindset shift," said Michelotti, who authored a January cover story in Visual Studio Magazine on ASP.NET.
"The involvement of the developer community in a much more transparent development process resulted in great innovation and a higher-quality product overall," he noted. "I'm hopeful Microsoft will continue similar approaches on other development projects."
David Christiansen, a senior developer with Collaborative Software Initiative, which helps companies and public organizations build solutions based on open source software and methodologies, said he looks forward to seeing if different flavors of MVC emerge as people tweak it for their own purposes. "People often underestimate the power of the open source license in driving adoption, but I think it's a critical part of marketing a platform," he said.
Jeffrey Schwartz is editor of Redmond magazine and also covers cloud computing for Virtualization Review's Cloud Report. In addition, he writes the Channeling the Cloud column for Redmond Channel Partner. Follow him on Twitter @JeffreySchwartz. | <urn:uuid:245f3b69-5aff-4d89-9c96-5f57605ee227> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://visualstudiomagazine.com/articles/2009/04/06/release-of-aspnet-mvc-under-open-source-license-draws-mixed-reviews.aspx | 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 | 0.940348 | 619 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Archbishop Francis Chullikatt
July 18, 2011
CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE
KANSAS CITY, MO. — Nuclear weapons have "threatened humanity" for far too long and it is urgent to now move to a "world without nuclear weapons," said the Vatican's ambassador to the United Nations.
"Now is the time for a profound rethinking and change in our perception of nuclear weapons. Nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation are essential from a humanitarian point of view," Archbishop Francis Chullikatt said July 1.
The time is right to "begin addressing in a systematic way the legal, political and technical requisites for a nuclear weapons-free world," he said.
However, the world's leaders lack the political will to remove "this scourge," he told an audience in Kansas City.
Chullikatt outlined the Church's "growing abhorrence" of nuclear weapons and stressed that its condemnation of them has always been grounded in respect for life and the dignity of the human person.
Catholic teaching has always emphasized the need to make the world safe from nuclear weapons, "not to make the world safer through the threat of nuclear weapons," he said.
As development needs across the globe are outpacing the resources being devoted to them, the expense of building nuclear arsenals is also "nothing short of sinful" and the "grossest misplacement of priorities," the archbishop said.
Chullikatt was invited by Bishop Robert Finn to speak July 1 about the Catholic Church's teaching on nuclear deterrence, the use of nuclear weapons and the goal of a nuclear weapon free world.
The conference was organized by the diocesan Human Rights Office to explain Church teaching in light of growing concerns over local construction of a $1 billion plant for the manufacture and assembly of non-nuclear parts for nuclear weapons.
Chullikatt said there are currently 20,000 nuclear weapons in 111 sites in 14 countries. Each year, countries spend $100 billion on maintaining and modernizing their nuclear arsenals.
The Church's moral acceptance of nuclear deterrence, he said, was always conditioned on progress toward elimination of nuclear weapons.
He acknowledged that some steps toward disarmament have been made, but said these efforts were not enough.
The START treaty between the United States and Russia "only makes small reductions and leaves intact a vast nuclear arsenal on both sides, with many nuclear weapons held on constant alert status," he said.
The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty was signed last December in Prague by U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
It calls for both countries to reduce their strategic arsenals — weapons deployed on long-range missiles, bombers and submarines — to 1,550 each. Under the previous START pact, both countries reduced their strategic arsenals to 2,200 weapons each.
A critical first step to eliminating nuclear weapons would be an immediate ban on the testing of new weapons, Chullikatt said. To achieve that, all countries should ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
Nuclear weapons have been "aptly described as the 'ultimate evil'" and yet the most powerful countries "refuse to let them go."
"If biological weapons, chemical weapons, and now landmines can be done away with, so too can nuclear weapons," he stressed. In a nuclear war "there would be no victors, only victims."
Currently rated by 5 people | <urn:uuid:79b29316-cdf7-44c2-af66-9be6de87acde> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wcr.ab.ca/WCRThisWeek/Stories/tabid/61/entryid/1217/Default.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964732 | 701 | 2.265625 | 2 |
It is quite natural that after discovering about the infidelity of her partner, it is very difficult to have faith in the spouse again. Even the smallest sign of perfidy is sure to make the affected wife to be extra-cautious.
Even if her spouse smiles casually at a waitress in a restaurant or answers a telephone call from a female friend or a colleague at work place, it is bound to cause suspicion in her mind and she can be seen teething with anger making her blood boil. In other words, she is overcome by powerful emotions causing her further distress.
All these examples clearly indicate that the process of restoring the marital relationship after the betrayal of her spouse is very tough. When the person deceived visualizes the images of immoral behavior of her husband and the other person, the feelings of the affected person are unimaginable.
If the sufferer has these feelings and views with suspicion whatever the spouse does and is extra-cautious indicate that the person has to deal with another powerful emotion, jealously. One should consider the questions whether the jealously is good or bad and what is the negative part of jealousy that may come in the way of surviving the marital relationship after an affair.
Envy is a common emotion in humans. Viewed in a positive light, if a person is jealous, it is indicative of some attachment or soft corner for the spouse and manifests because of the lurking fear that she may lose the spouse forever. One feels envious of the spouse’s movements because they may pose serious threat to the relationship.
This sort of reactions will cause irreparable damage to the relationship with the spouse, if they are not regulated properly and the aggrieved person does not understand the reason why it occurs. Sometimes, being envious is good as it indicates that there is a threat to the relationship so that one can take steps to consider various methods to protect the relationship. In this respect, jealously is a catalyst to help continue the relationship despite the episode of an affair.
The best method to reveal the feeling of jealousy is to plainly talk to the spouse about it in a lighter vein emphasizing that she sincerely loves the spouse and value their relationship. There is another type of jealously, which shows up for no apparent reason.
Such envious feelings will have negative effects on the marital relationships, if they are persisted with. In that situation, the aggrieved wife will not be in a position to think objectively and responses to these feelings will provoke her spouse leading to skirmishes, diminishing any chances of saving the relationship after an affair of her husband’s betrayal.
Frequent quarrels of this nature will deteriorate the relationship further and the distance between the couple will widen further, ultimately leading to breakup of the marriage. Although the wife’s anger and feeling jealous are natural and even justified, such negative reactions will nullify any chances of restoring the marital relationship.
Marriage is a sacred bond between couples. Sometimes this relationship is marred by an indiscreet act of the male partner. He should realize his mistakes and both the couples should sit down, discuss and sort out all issues affecting their marriage. A marriage is built upon mutual trust and love. If it is dented, it is important that both the couples should ensure that their marriage survives even after an affair by one of the couples. | <urn:uuid:f4277d0f-d30e-4c0f-adf8-22d53347548f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.howtosurviveanaffair.net/woman-affected-by-an-affair-act/ | 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 | 0.96696 | 679 | 1.710938 | 2 |
As online education soars, ECU opens
its doors to anyone with a computer
By Steve Tuttle
lthough he’s associate dean of the East Carolina College of Business, Stan Eakins (above
) seems as comfortable around computers as spreadsheets. He should after spending the past six years leading the business school’s move to the Internet and its enviable status as the only nationally accredited online MBA program in the UNC system.
He’s learned two important things about the online medium and its message. “We can’t tolerate downtime. You have to have an IT infrastructure that will get us back online in 15 minutes. You also have to rethink how a teacher interacts with a class of students when you don’t see each other face to face.”
For example, when a student in a traditional classroom has a question, she raises her hand. The professor answers the question, and everyone in the class shares the same information. How do you transfer that information-sharing process to a virtual classroom?
It’s simple. Almost all of ECU’s online MBA classes involve audio and video, often delivered live through the Blackboard portal, where the student—who might be in Beaufort, Benson or Baghdad—hears a lecture and sees interactive graphics. On the corner of their computer screens is an icon in the shape of a hand. “The teacher will talk and illustrate something by writing on the screen or showing a PowerPoint,” Eakins explains. “Then he will stop and ask, ‘Are there any questions?’ If someone does, they click [the hand]. The teacher will see that and can even call the student by name—‘I see that John has a question.’ And everyone hears the discussion, just the same as if everyone were sitting in a class on campus.”
While this marriage of technology and teaching may seem futuristic, it’s working today for the 343 adults who are getting an MBA from East Carolina without ever necessarily leaving home. While that sounds impressive, it’s just a fraction of the overall distance education delivered by East Carolina, which has built the largest such program by far in the UNC system and the 12th largest nationwide, according to U.S. News and World Report. This spring semester, roughly 5,800 distance education (DE) students were working on one of 35 undergraduate and graduate degrees that can be completed entirely online.
They earned 78,000 credit hours last year. N.C. State, which has the second-largest program in the UNC system, delivered only 27,000 credit hours to its DE students. ECU alone is responsible for more than a quarter of all distance education delivered through the 16-campus UNC system.
Who—and where—are all these virtual ECU students? Typically, she is a 35-year-old woman with two or more children at home who is pursuing a degree primarily to get a better job. Almost 60 percent live east of I-95 and many receive financial aid. Most are getting degrees in high-priority areas: Nearly half—48 percent—are majoring in teacher education as part of ECU’s commitment to address the state’s teacher shortage crisis. Another 14 percent are getting degrees in health care—many of them as nurses—and 19 percent are in business-related fields. About half are completing an undergraduate degree and half are working at the master’s level or higher.
Blazing the trail
'ECU has a tradition of service
to our region and our region
is large geographically, people are spread out. So the idea
that somebody can’t come
to campus is not a new idea
to us. We take education
In this 1959 photo, East Carolina students take a history course using televised lectures.
Why is distance education so much bigger at East Carolina than most other schools? It’s because the concept isn’t new here, according to Elmer Poe, associate vice chancellor for academic outreach. “You could say we started this back in the 1940s when we had what was called extension education,” Poe explains. Back then, professors traveled around the region to hold classes. That gave way in the 1970s to classes delivered by correspondence. “ECU has a tradition of service to our region and our region is large geographically, people are spread out. So the idea that somebody can’t come to campus is not a new idea to us. We take education to them.”
The growth of the Internet in the early 1990s allowed ECU to plan the switch from the mailman to e-mail to deliver course work; it offered its first online classes in 1994 and by 1996 had enough practical experience with the medium to begin offering an online master’s degree in industrial technology, Poe says. The UNC system watched ECU’s groundbreaking efforts and similar initiatives at other state schools and officially made distance education a priority in 1997. After East Carolina and three other schools led a pilot program to deliver classes by video conferencing, the General Assembly made the financial commitment to open the doors to higher education to everyone with a computer.
By 2002, ECU’s virtual student body had grown to nearly 2,000. Much of the necessary computer infrastructure had been installed and a large number of faculty had been trained in the technology of online teaching. “Our faculty members have this mindset of service,” Poe says. “They’re willing to explore new ways of communicating and interacting with students. We just didn’t have the resistance to online education that was seen at some other campuses.”
As DE enrollment swelled to 3,200 in 2003 and to 4,500 two years later, ECU became the world’s largest user of the Centra software system, which essentially turns an online student’s computer screen into the blackboard the teacher writes on. The university became the world’s fifth-largest user of the Blackboard system, a web portal that is the online student’s virtual campus.
State funding paid most, but certainly not all, the tab for all the expensive computer equipment. The General Assembly also started compensating UNC system campuses for DE students roughly the same way it does regular students. If you live in North Carolina, you pay in-state tuition whether you’re on campus or online.
That fact is a major reason why ECU’s online MBA program is rated tops in the nation for quality and affordability by GetEducated.com, a national clearinghouse for distance education programs. An in-state student can complete ECU’s MBA degree in one year at a cost of $7,164, the cheapest in the nation of all online MBA programs accredited by AASCB, the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business. “We talk a lot about ROI—return on investment—in our MBA classes,” Eakins says, “and for $7,000 our DE students are getting a pretty good ROI, while still carrying on their regular lives.”
East Carolina also has noticed a new trend—a growing number of students on campus also are taking online courses. Many are students working part-time jobs to help pay for school who find online classes easier on their complicated schedules. Currently, almost 23 percent of DE students are also attending classes on campus.
To support their in-class and online students, many departments at ECU have dedicated staffs of IT people who maintain banks of servers and miles of Internet cables. The College of Business, for example, has a full-time IT staff of seven, buttressed by several grad students.
Because of ECU’s rapid growth in distance education enrollments, recruiting and hiring nearly 200 faculty members was a challenge last year. Keys to success E
arly on, Poe says ECU set a high standard for its online classes. The university made the decision that instructors teaching online classes must have the same academic credentials as everyone else. Online classes would have the same academic content as those given in class. In the broadest sense, DE students would be considered equal to traditional students. The university adopted an attitude that “they are not second-class students,” Poe says.
That means DE students are a real part of the student body. Thus, when ECU says it had close to 25,000 students this semester, it means it had 19,200 sitting in class and 5,800 sitting in front of a computer.
East Carolina provides DE students with an extensive support structure. Early on, they are assigned an academic advisor to guide their path toward a degree. A live help desk with an 800 number is open seven days a week. There’s even an online writing center to help DE students with day-to-day class assignments.
ECU also provides a full-time DE librarian, and students can get textbooks for their online classes delivered from the bookstore in two or three days. They have a student ID card that allows them access to other UNC libraries. When they’re ready to graduate, the Career Services office helps DE students with preparing resumes. The center also stages career workshops that helps them prepare for job interviews.
ECU also regularly surveys DE students to learn how to improve their educational experience. In one recent survey, 89 percent gave top marks to their online courses.
Interestingly, some professors have come to prefer teaching DE students. One is Sherry Southard, who teaches graduate courses in technical and professional writing in the English department. “Many of them would never be able to get a degree were it not available online. Because of that, so many of them are just very eager to learn,” Southard adds. “They want that education.”
Helping those students is uniquely rewarding, Southard says. “They share a lot about their lives with me (through e-mail), and I learn so much about them. When they come to graduation, even if it’s the first time I have met them in person, they say ‘I think I really got to know you.’” Becoming the university of anywhere I
f North Carolina had to expand the UNC system to provide classes for every student now pursuing a degree through distance education, it would need another Appalachian State and UNC Greensboro combined. Even then there wouldn’t be enough seats for the nearly 33,000 students enrolled in online degree programs, according to a report to the state legislature by the UNC Board of Governors. The report concludes that the university system’s move to the Internet as a way to open public access to higher education is succeeding and should be expanded, particularly at a time when the UNC system is full to bursting.
“We have a lot of people to accommodate, and we don’t have the physical space to do that,” President Erskine Bowles said at a Board of Governors meeting held at East Carolina in March. Projections are for a nearly 50 percent jump in enrollment at the 16 state campuses over the next decade, he added.
The number of distance education (DE) students enrolled at the UNC system’s 16 campuses more than tripled in five years to 33,045 in 2005, the latest year for which statewide data was available. They completed 235,816 credit hours enrolled in more than 2,000 classes while working toward one of 90 different degrees available entirely online, one of the most extensive offerings in the nation. By comparison, the University of Massachusetts offers 61 degrees online, Penn State offers 14 and Texas offers 11.
Most DE students were enrolled in classes that meet occasionally at a regional location, such as a community college, the report says. Often, that’s so someone at the community college can administer tests. In fact, 71 percent of DE courses were delivered this way.
Statewide, nearly a third of all DE students are enrolled in the “2+2” partnerships between universities and community colleges focused on producing more classroom teachers. After completing a two-year degree, those students continue to take courses at their community college taught online or in person by university instructors. The Wachovia Partnership East program at ECU, which has become a model for other campuses to follow, graduates hundreds of additional classroom teachers each year who rarely set foot on campus.
About 42 percent of online students were completing a baccalaureate degree and 56 percent were enrolled in master’s degree programs. Many also were completing continuing education classes required to maintain licensure requirements, including nurses, community college instructors and other similar fields.
Every campus in the UNC system now offers online classes but East Carolina’s program dwarfs the others. In 2005 its virtual students represented 12 percent of the statewide DE population. The 78,000 credit hours taken by ECU’s DE students compare to 27,000 at N.C. State, which has the state’s second-largest program, and 21,000 at UNC Pembroke. UNC Chapel Hill had the fourth-largest program and ASU was fifth. ECU also offers the widest range of degrees that can be completed online, with 35—14 undergraduate and 21 graduate programs.
It costs the state $1,301 per student to deliver a course online, compared to $892 for a traditional student. The 30 percent difference comes from higher start-up costs in technology, staff training and support services. The instructor’s salary accounts for 60 percent of that. Those and other per-pupil costs should decline when spread out over additional years, the report says.
The Board of Governors prepared the report at the request of the General Assembly as part of its ongoing effort to expand online education through the 16 public universities and 58 community colleges. A 1999 law established a framework linking the two systems and provided funding to get the ball rolling. —Steve Tuttle | <urn:uuid:4e939d01-7920-4923-93da-d128cb901de6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ecu.edu/cs-admin/mktg/east/From-the-Classroom-Summer-2007.cfm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964955 | 2,892 | 1.546875 | 2 |
There are numerous training opportunities offered during the calendar year. Courses range from basic leader orientations to how to camp with numerous Scouts and their families in a Pack setting to advanced leadership training for adults, Wood Badge. Training is available to assit you as you provide a quality program for the youth.
In 2007 the Executive Board of the Connecticut Yankee Council adopted a policy on Required Training for all direct contact leaders. We believe that in order to best serve the youth in our communities the leadership must be trained. We owe it to the youth to ensure that the volunteers providing the program are trained in appropriate program delivery. Additional information on the Required Training Policy can be found through the links provided on the menu portion of this page. | <urn:uuid:24854392-a25b-4cfd-a62e-4f7d86ddebd6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ctyankee.org/program/training | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95379 | 145 | 1.507813 | 2 |
For hundreds of years the use of fire has been used as a key management tool in forests. Using fire for habitat management is known as prescribed or controlled burning. Prescribed burning is beneficial and cost-effective. In fact, many species of wildlife depend on fire. Controlled burns remove the build up of combustible material on forest floors. They also help stimulate the growth of new grasses and vegetation that provide cover and food sources for a variety of wildlife. Many legumes require the seeds be scarified before they will germinate; prescribed burns help accomplish this, increasing the chance legumes will germinate. Burning also acts as a fertilizer. When built up organic matter such as leaves and pine straw are burnt, it releases nutrients back into the soil, helping fertilize new growth.
Forest animals benefit greatly from the food sources and habitat made available after prescribed burns. Hardwoods and shrubs quickly resprout, offering a buffet deer can easily reach. Burning also increases the number of insects on the regenerating forest floor, which have proved valuable to turkeys and upland birds such as quail. Burning also creates desirable nesting areas for turkey and upland birds.
There are many different ways to execute a prescribed burn. Breaking areas into small blocks and burning them on a rotational basis will give you many different stages of growth on your property. Ideally, you want to burn a section about every three years. This will leave you some sections for cover and bedding areas while the others provide new food sources.
It is important to contact your local forest service office for laws in your area, and what permits are needed to perform a controlled burn. They can also tell you when and what type burn will be the most effective for your desired management goals. Many times the forest service can perform a prescribed burn if you do not feel comfortable performing one yourself. You can also contract with private companies to perform the burn for you. | <urn:uuid:5f8900b9-0553-4c50-aa0a-93acd5223e43> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://growthehunt.typepad.com/grow_the_hunt/2008/04/prescribed-burn.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00053-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957563 | 389 | 3.6875 | 4 |
By Dana Dean
St. Louis (KSDK) -- The Missouri Poison Cecnter is getting fewer phone calls and it is not a good thing.
The Missouri Poison Center is concerned because they think people are searching the Internet for answers to poison-related questions instead of calling them right away.
This past August, for example, they received about 300 fewer calls than August 2011.
This past September, they received 32 fewer calls than September 2011.
This past October, they received 14 fewer calls than October 2011.
But it's not just Missouri Poison Center, this is a nationwide trend.
The American Association of Poison Control Centers recently launched a social media campaign to try and reach young adults.
They hope e-posters going around Facebook and Twitter will get their message across that people should call a poison center instead of going online for medical information.
While many may feel the anonymity of the Internet helps them avoid embarrassment, they may not realize poison centers are free and confidential to call, plus you get immediate answers from nurses, pharmacists, and physicians.
Julie Weber, Director for Missouri Poison Center, said, "We'll get a call saying they've been searching on the internet for 15-20 minutes. Where that time is very valuable to start that type of treatment at home so you need to not take that time to Google it but to come and call the professionals."
1-800-222-1222 is the number for both the Missouri and Illinois poison centers. | <urn:uuid:0538249e-606e-4009-9df5-8a363adc2c99> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ksdk.com/news/article/347891/3/Calls-down-at-poison-centers-people-search-Internet- | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953364 | 305 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Overview - CONVERSATION START UPS
Conversation Start-Ups, by Rosie Simms, uses an interactive game-board format to introduce students to social language by focusing on the development of conversation skills. The game board features 30 icons that represent familiar topics, such as school, family, and hobbies, to help students begin and continue conversations. Players share personal experiences, feelings, opinions, and information. The other participants respond by asking pertinent questions and making comments.
QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS
The basics of conversation are stressed in this game as players respond appropriately to a topic by asking a question or making a comment. There are no right or wrong answers since the focus is on building oral-language skills. Cues, prompts, and sample dialogues are included in the Teacher's Guide to help elicit responses and ensure a positive experience for each student. Every student has an opportunity to participate during each turn, which helps maintain player focus and interest.
THREE LEVELS OF PLAY
Students have the opportunity to practice conversation skills using three levels of questions. The Level One questions begin with 'Who,' 'What,' 'Where,' and 'When.' The Level Two questions are slightly more difficult and begin with 'Why' and 'How.' Level Three promotes higher-level thinking with language-expansion questions such as 'How is it like...?' and 'How is it different from...?' The three levels of questions make it easy for teachers to adjust the game for students of varying ability levels.
Game features 30 everyday, universal topics, making the game appropriate for students of all ages and ability levels. The topics will encourage students to share opinions and relate personal experiences. Topic examples include 'Your favorite book' and 'Your favorite food to eat.'
Colorful icons represent the 30 topics displayed on the board. These illustrations allow students with limited or no reading skills to participate.
A Game Board with 30 illustrations; a Spinner; a Teacher's Guide with suggested questions, extension activities, reproducible study sheets, and an assessment; a Game Die; and 6 Playing Pieces.
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1 Customer Reviews
"CONVERSATION START UPS"
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
This game provides endless possibilities for conversations, building vocabulary, speaking skills, and confidence. I use this game in my small groups with my level 2 ESL students. Since a majority of my students are ESL, we use this game once a week to develop speaking and listening skills. The three levels of game play make it easy to adjust to meet the individual needs of those students with stronger or weaker conversation skills. It also challenges those students who are reluctant to participate to be actively involved with the game. Because there are no right or wrong answers, the students never tire of the game and continue to play with enthusiasm and eagerness to answer questions about themselves and their interests and to attempt to stump their peers with questions. I enjoy playing this game and have learned a lot about my students as well as being able to observe their speaking and listening skills improve.
Top Customer Review Comments | <urn:uuid:e3d9a113-7473-4a50-b057-bc72fea5d2f4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pcieducation.com/conversation-start-ups.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939731 | 642 | 3.546875 | 4 |
Saturday, 11 February 2012
This is a guest post from Heather!
When I first heard of Chia Seeds my mind went immediately to "Cha Cha Cha Chia..." the theme for Chia Pets. Do you remember Chia Pets? Those little clay animals that had Chia Seed "hair" that would grow. Well, the Chia Seeds that are the latest "superfood" are the same thing, with one exception, they are an edible grade grown for human consumption.
Chia Seeds (Salvia Hispanica) has been around since 1500 B.C. At one time they were considered more valuable than gold. The seeds were used in ancient Aztec cultures as food, medicine, ritual offerings and currency.
Why Would I Want to Eat Chia Seeds?
There are many benefits to eating these nutrient-rich, protein packed, fiber packed little seeds including the fact that they:
- Aid in Weight-loss
- Prolong Stamina
- Increase Energy
- Reduce Blood Pressure
- Reduce Cravings
- Increase Fullness
- Hydrate the Body
- Source of Omega-3
- Aid in Controlling Blood Sugar
- High Fiber Content
- Provide Energy
- Boost Strength
- Increase Regeneration of Muscle Tissue
- Increase Endurance
- Aid Intestinal Regularity
- Extend Food
- Replace Calories
- Balance Electrolytes
- Aid Digestion
- Enhance Nutritional Absorption
- Reduce Inflammation
"Chia" is the Mayan word for strength and these tiny unique seeds really do pack a big punch. They are a complete protein source, filled with calcium, potassium, fiber and vitamins. They are the highest known natural source of Omega-3. They can absorb up to 10 times their weight which makes them a excellent source of hydration. Many consider Chia Seeds to be a perfect food.
There are some similarities between Chia Seeds and Flax Seeds including their high soluble fiber content. There are also many advantages to eating Chia Seeds instead of Flax Seeds. Unlike Flax Seeds, Chia Seeds can be stored for years without turning rancid or losing nutritional value. This is due to their high level of naturally occurring antioxidants. Chia Seeds can also be used whole and are easily digested and absorbed by the body. They can be substituted for flax in any recipe.
Chia seeds are very versatile. Whole and ground seeds can be sprinkled on foods, they can be ground and mixed with flour, added whole to beverages or soaked in liquids to create a gel. They can be added to virtually anything savory or sweet without changing the flavor. The seeds will enhance the flavor of what they are added to rather than dilute it. They can be used as a fat replacer in many recipes. They are also gluten-free, making them ideal for those who have gluten sensitivity.
Raw foodists seem to have embraced the Chia Seed more quickly than everyone else, but they have properties that make them ideal for many diets. Because they slow down the conversion of carbohydrates into energy they can have greatly benefit diabetics and those who are trying to eat a low-glycemic or anti-inflammatory diet. Their ability to increase fullness, reduce cravings, displace calories and replace fat make Chia Seeds a great weight-loss aid.
Recipes Using Chia Seeds:Chia Gel
Whisk ingredients together. Stir well. Store in refrigerator and use as needed. Lasts for up to 3 weeks.
- 1/3 c Chia Seeds
- 2 c Water
Pumpkin Chia Pudding
- 2 tsp Chia Seeds
- 8oz Pure Water (cold)
- 1 Lemon or Lime (juiced)
- Agave to taste
- Chia Fresca is a drink still made in Mexico and Central America. Whisk ingredients together, stir and serve.
Add pumpkin, almond milk, agave, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, clove and sea salt to food processor, blend until smooth. Pour into a bowl and whisk in the chia seeds. Refrigerate for 30 minutes or overnight. Top with with raisins. Serve.
- 1 (15 oz.) can of Pumpkin
- 1-1/4 cups Unsweetened Almond Milk
- 1 tbsp Agave
- 2 tsp Pure Vanilla Extract
- 1 tsp Cinnamon (ground)
- 1/2 tsp Nutmeg (fresh grated)
- 1/2 tsp Ginger (ground)
- pinch Clove (ground)
- pinch Sea Salt
- 2 tbsp Chia Seeds
Banana Chia Pudding
- 2 Ripe Bananas
- 1 cup Unsweetened Almond Milk
- 2 tsp Agave
- 2 tsp Pure Vanilla Extract
- pinch Sea Salt
- 3 tbsp Chia Seeds
Add 1-1/2 bananas, almond milk, agave, vanilla and sea salt to food processor, blend until smooth. Pour into a bowl and whisk in the chia seeds. Refrigerate for 30 minutes or overnight. Top with 1/2 banana, sliced. Serve.
Until recently, Chia Seeds were only grown by a few small growers in Latin America. After centuries of obscurity, people are starting to realize their benefits and commercially produced products are starting to add Chia Seeds. The increased demand for this amazing little seed has caused commercial growing to resume. Organically grown varieties are plentiful because insects don't like the chia plant.
If you have never tried Chia Seeds, they are definitely worth a try. You can find them in your local health food store. You could sprinkle them on some yogurt or make one of the recipes above. They are versatile and inexpensive, giving you a lot of bang for your buck.
Have you ever had Chia Seeds before? What was your experience like? | <urn:uuid:59fad908-ba71-4d6b-928d-ccd4d1f4ee48> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.healthkicker.com/759002353/why-would-i-want-to-eat-chia-seeds/?page=1&jump=1524443107 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949794 | 1,206 | 2.328125 | 2 |
Babafemi Akinrinade, Assistant Professor of Human Rights at Fairhaven College, talks about his life through a sequence of short narratives. Each one reflects a lesson learned, a turning point, an important realization.
The simple question of "Where are you from?" for instance, doesn’t usually result in a lot of complexity. But when you ask Babafemi, you get a glimpse of a country with a recent history of rapid change, when terms like "North" and "South" are politically loaded.
Map of Nigeria. The Rivers show the
boundaries of the "North," "West," and "East."
"When I was growing up, I would have said I was from the 'Western' region of Nigeria…" Babafemi said, "But now, I'm from the 'South Western' region. If I said I'm from the 'West' today it would sound archaic."
In the colonial period the country was divided into thirds—the North, East, and West—according to the majority groups and along geographical boundaries. By the mid-1990s, there were about 6 "geographic zones" of Nigeria’s 36 states to include more of the country's 250-600 minority groups (depending on which criteria is used to define them).
Babafemi tells of the reality of living in Nigeria while it was a military dictatorship. In 1996, Babafemi's cousin (in Nigeria, he would call him a brother), a retired Chief of Defence Staff of the Nigerian Armed Forces, was one of the leaders of the pro-democracy movement. His activities, alongside others in the movement, irritated the dictatorship which sought ways of silencing them. Soldiers came to his house looking for him, when they realized he'd fled the country they began detaining his close relations. Soon much of Babafemi's extended family was being held by the military, and his uncle wasn’t sure whether his son and relatives were dead or alive.
One night, while his cousin's son was sleeping, military soldiers poured gasoline throughout their house and lit it on fire. The boy awoke and quickly realized what was happening. He knew if he opened the door from his bedroom he would face an explosion, so he went for the small window in the bathroom. Most houses in Lagos had iron bars covering the windows to prevent burglary. Luckily, his cousin's house didn't. The boy made it out safely, and eventually the other family members were released. Things seemed to fall back to normal, but the memory stuck with Babafemi.
Regardless of personal struggles, he takes note of the unique privilege of education in his family. Babafemi was the younger of 14 brothers and sisters, all of whom were expected to be well educated. His father, Josiah, was a general merchant (what we'd call a "businessman" in the States) and wholesale distributor for manufacturing, and was known in their community for paying for the children from families unable to afford the school fees—even if they weren't related to him—so that they could go to school. He watched as his older brothers and sisters brought home their report cards. "It was unthinkable to bring home even an average grade," he said, "if you did, the pressure became very intense."
In Nigeria, he said, "You can't afford to be average," something his father knew. As they grew older, his brothers and sisters largely left Nigeria to go to Universities in the UK and United States.
As career paths often go, the decisions that led to Babafemi's focus on human rights law were not necessarily as conscious as one might think. While taking the placement test for study in International Relations, for example, his Mathematics score instead landed him in the Law program at the University of Ile-Ife (now called Obafemi Awolowo University). He usually attended the Ife Book Fair, one of the few Book Fairs at that time in Africa. This was where he was introduced to Amnesty International, which usually had a booth at the Book Fair. With books in hand purchased from AI’s booth, Babafemi left the fair with a new awareness of Human Rights issues.
But still, Babafemi had no interest in Human Rights Law. When he began teaching, the law program adopted a new curriculum in Human Rights Law. The head of the department, Dr. George Vukor-Quarshie, asked him to assist with that course. "I was very reluctant," Babafemi explained. “My interests were in other areas of law, including Commercial and Administrative Law.” Eventually he wound up teaching the subject, and in doing so became interested in modernizing the curriculum for human rights and international humanitarian law.
Babafemi teaching a class of Fairhaven students
in the Law, Diversity & Justice concentration.
In the coming years two contests by the British Council and the International Commission on Human Rights (ICRC) came to his attention; the first for designing a Human Rights Curriculum, the second for redesigning and integrating it. Along with his colleagues they won both, gaining additional resources and a full library of books for their new courses. This was a huge achievement, as Babafemi notes most of the libraries in Nigerian Universities were stocked with irrelevant and outdated books purchased through a loan program from the World Bank. "They used our libraries as a dumping ground for those unwanted texts," he said.
Although Babafemi was learning a great deal about teaching human rights law, he was still searching for more ways to educate himself. At a 1998 ICRC Conference in Geneva, Switzerland, Babafemi met Garth Meintjes, the Associate Director for the Center for Civil and Human Rights at Notre Dame Law School (the only institution at an American law school with observer status at the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights). The meeting eventually led to graduate school at Notre Dame Law School in 1999.
He also decided to pursue his PhD at the University of Notre Dame Law School, where he wrote his dissertation on the impact of State Collapse on Human Rights, with case studies on Somalia and Sierra Leone.
He went on to work as the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Post-Doctoral Fellow for the Center for International Human Rights at Northwestern University Law School, and later became a post-doctoral instructor at the University of Chicago's Human Rights Program and Center for International Studies, a program that was not embedded in a law school. In his classes was a mix of undergraduate, graduate, and professional students. "It was challenging to find a balance," he said, "but it gave me a lot of confidence in working with non-law students to be able to navigate teaching students from different backgrounds."
It was at this point in his career when his interests in International Relations, Law, Human Rights, and teaching clicked together, Babafemi said. When a new faculty position teaching in Human Rights opened at Fairhaven College of Interdisciplinary Studies, he knew it would be a good fit. "I had a very positive experience visiting here," he said. "I remember meeting Raquel and Julie and asking what it was like to be a lawyer working with non-law students. I remember Raquel picking me up for dinner with the other faculty, and she had a good perspective about integrating law with the interdisciplinary style."
Babafemi came to Fairhaven with experience working with some powerful mentors, including people on the International Commission on Human Rights (ICRC), Dr. Juan Mendez, one of the founders of Human Rights Watch, and others. Nearly two years after Babafemi's arrival in 2008, he already has a reputation for being demanding of his students. "A student challenged me the other day, claiming I gave students in one of my classes 60 pages of reading on the first day of class. I did not affirm or deny this, but did mention to her that it was one way I get the most serious students into my classes."
He says he's not sure if he wants to own that reputation, but he knows one thing: The Head of the Department of Public Law at the Obafemi Awolowo University in Nigeria also had a reputation for being demanding. He was a stickler, a hard ass, and, according to his students, one of the best teachers they'd ever had.
Dr. Vukor-Quarshie was trained at the University of Virginia Law School (obtained the LLM and SJD degrees), and brought back the technique of interactive seminar classes to the British lecture style schooling of Nigeria. When he and Babafemi taught a Law & Medicine course together, it was clearly for serious students only. "You couldn't just come into class without anything to say," Babafemi said. "You had to participate."
Babafemi playing basketball with a Fairhaven
student at the new student retreat, 2008.
He realized during this course that being demanding as a teacher wasn't necessarily a bad thing (even if the students said it was). "Once, we brought in a very highly respected Medical Forensics Professor to speak to the class. You could see the other students walking by, looking inside the classroom and feeling like they were missing out."
It was also through this class that Babafemi said he realized when he had the chance to talk with his students casually on a walk from one classroom to another, that his students had the same impression of him as they did of Dr. Vukor-Quarshie. He said to them, "You know, I don't like being hard on you, watching you struggle and toil." His students seemed surprised.
"After that, I realized it's so important for students to see us as human, as real people," he said.
"I had a student once who I knew didn't like me, he thought I was too hard on him," Babafemi remembers about a student in Nigeria. "But then, after he graduated, his younger brother came to my office and told me, 'my brother told me I had to find you.'" Surprised, Babafemi asked the younger brother why.
The student said, "He told me you would make sure I got a good education." | <urn:uuid:9853ebd6-2ca2-400f-aa4e-babe8d18892d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wwu.edu/fairhaven/news/alumni/newsletter/2010/january/articles/babafemi-akinrinade.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.988394 | 2,108 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Possible Forging of Modern Art Is Investigated
The New York Times
By PATRICIA COHEN
December 2, 2011
Federal authorities are investigating whether a parade of paintings and drawings, sold for years by some of New York’s most elite art dealers as the work of Modernist masters like Robert Motherwell and Jackson Pollock, actually consists of expert forgeries, according to people who have been interviewed or briefed by the investigators.
A painting no longer attributed to Robert Motherwell.
A painting exhibited as a Jackson Pollock. In 2003, an independent art research group declined to authenticate it for a potential buyer, citing unanswered questions about its provenance.
Most of the works, which have sold individually for as much as $17 million, came to market though a little-known art dealer from Long Island, Glafira Rosales, who said she had what every gallery dreams of: exclusive access to a mystery collector’s cache of undiscovered work by some of the postwar world’s great talents, including Mark Rothko and Richard Diebenkorn.
In several cases, Ms. Rosales sold the works through an art-world luminary, Ann Freedman, until 2009 the president of the prestigious gallery Knoedler & Company on the Upper East Side. Other works were sold by Julian Weissman, an independent dealer who had worked for Knoedler in the 1980s and had represented Motherwell when he was alive.
Ms. Freedman and Mr. Weissman said through their lawyers that they continued to believe that the works they sold were authentic and that authorities had told them they were not under investigation. But a lawyer for Ms. Rosales, Anastasios Sarikas, acknowledged that she was a target of the inquiry by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Mr. Sarikas said that his client had “never intentionally or knowingly sold artwork she knew to be forged.”
The Knoedler gallery, which abruptly closed Wednesday after 165 years in business, has not been implicated in the investigation. But on Friday a London collector, Pierre Lagrange, who bought one of the works, “Untitled 1950” by Pollock, for $17 million in 2007, sued the gallery and Ms. Freedman, contending that it is a forgery. His forensic analysis found that two paints in the work had not been invented until after Pollock’s death, the suit said.
“It’s a sad day when a venerable gallery goes out of business when confronted with the fact that it sold its clients a $17 million fake painting rather than stand by their client,” said Matthew Dontzin, Mr. Lagrange’s lawyer.
A Knoedler spokeswoman described the suit’s allegations of misrepresentation as baseless and said there was no connection between the suit and the timing of the gallery’s closing.
The authenticity of at least 15 other works brought to market by Ms. Rosales over a period of nearly two decades has been questioned by experts. People involved in the case said some collectors and dealers who purchased the works may have no idea there is any question about their authenticity.
The investigation has riven the art world and underscored how often even the experts cannot agree on a painting’s authenticity. In the case of seven Motherwells supplied by Ms. Rosales, for example, a nonprofit created by the artist, the Dedalus Foundation, has called them all frauds, citing conflicting stories about their provenance as well as forensic tests finding that some of the pigments were developed after the works’ supposed creation. Other experts, however, including a former Dedalus board member, have argued that some are genuine and that several have been widely seen at established art fairs.
Ms. Freedman said there was no better demonstration of her faith in the work than the purchase for her personal collection of three paintings from Ms. Rosales, a Motherwell, a Pollock and a Rothko, which she still owns.
“It’s not about defending myself,” she said in an interview. “It’s about defending the art I believe in.”
Yet even now, neither Ms. Freedman nor Mr. Weissman can identify with precision the collector whom Ms. Rosales has said she represents. They acknowledged that they did not know of any paperwork that documented the provenance of those works. They have said they only know what Ms. Rosales has told them: that the works were bought by a unnamed collector in the 1950s directly from the artists.
In a letter written to Ms. Freedman in 2007, Ms. Rosales said the secret collector acquired the works on the advice of David Herbert, an art dealer who died in 1995. When the collector died, they were inherited by the owner’s son, whom she described as “a close family friend” who lives in Mexico and Switzerland and insists on remaining anonymous.
Whatever judgments are ultimately made, the case has already potentially devalued a fortune’s worth of art and entangled respected art-world figures in an embarrassing case.
At the center is Ms. Rosales, 55, who was born in Mexico and shares a home with José Carlos Bergantinos, an art consultant and collector from Spain with whom she once operated a gallery in Manhattan, exhibiting the work of artists like Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol.
Ms. Rosales began bringing American masters to market as early as 1993. Over the next few years, she was the source of seven works on paper by Diebenkorn. She said they came from a defunct Spanish gallery, according to Richard Grant, Diebenkorn’s son-in-law and the executive director of the Diebenkorn Foundation.
A sortable calendar of noteworthy cultural events in the New York region, selected by Times critics.
But Mr. Grant said they were rejected by the committee that is assembling the definitive compendium of the artist’s work. “If we don’t have documented provenance of a work, we are immediately very skeptical,” he said.
“Over the years,” Mr. Grant said, “we have hoped that there would be some sort of investigation of this.”
A few years later, Ms. Rosales supplied an impressive string of works by Motherwell, Pollock, Rothko, Franz Kline, Clyfford Still and Willem de Kooning among others. Ms. Freedman at Knoedler handled at least 15 of the paintings, while Mr. Weissman sold three Motherwells to other established galleries, according to court records.
On occasion, the sketchy details about the provenance prompted potential buyers to seek authentication. In 2003, for example, a client of Knoedler was interested in a Pollock provided by Ms. Rosales but demanded it be evaluated by an independent organization, the nonprofit International Foundation for Art Research. The organization declined to authenticate it, citing insufficient information.
Jack Flam, president of Dedalus, and John Elderfield, a former curator at the Museum of Modern Art, said they initially saw no reason to question the Motherwells from Ms. Rosales that they viewed at Knoedler or Mr. Weissman’s.
But in late 2007, as more Motherwells from Ms. Rosales — all presented as part of his famed “Elegies to the Spanish Republic” series about the Spanish Civil War — came to Mr. Flam’s attention, he began to have his doubts.
In 2009, a forensic analysis of two paintings — one dated 1953 that Ms. Freedman bought, and another dated 1955 displayed at Knoedler — concluded that both contained pigments that were not “invented until at least 10 years after the date on the paintings,” according to court records.
After the analysis, Dedalus, which had deemed Mr. Weissman’s Motherwell as genuine two years earlier, changed its opinion. “If one of the paintings is wrong, then they’re all wrong,” said Mr. Flam. By that point, Mr. Weissman had already sold that “Spanish Elegy,” and when the foundation reversed itself, the buyer, Killala Fine Art from Ireland, wanted to back out.
By 2009, the F.B.I. had begun looking into the paintings, according to people briefed on the investigation who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about it. That October Ms. Freedman resigned from Knoedler after 31 years. Her lawyer, Ronald Spencer, said that the investigation was not the cause. She now has her own gallery on the Upper East Side.
To settle the dispute with Killala, Mr. Weissman’s lawyer wrote a letter last year saying that his client learned that the collector was a John Gerzso, who lived in Mexico and Switzerland, and had inherited the work from his father. But Mr. Weissman did not know how to contact him, the lawyer said.
Federal investigators declined comment on whether they have been able to locate Mr. Gerzso and on other aspects of the case.
This year, when Killala’s own forensic testing cast doubt on the Motherwell it had bought, the gallery sued Mr. Weissman and Dedalus, demanding the return of the $650,000 paid for the “Spanish Elegy.” As part of a settlement this fall, Mr. Weissman and Ms. Rosales reimbursed Killala. At the insistence of Dedalus, the painting was branded a forgery in indelible ink on the back.
Mr. Weissman’s lawyer, Glenn Colton, said his client had been persuaded by ill health and financial difficulties to settle, rather than by evidence that the painting was a forgery. He complained that his client had not been permitted to review the forensic report and question its findings.
Mr. Sarikas said the allegations had unfairly hurt Ms. Rosales: “Since the Motherwell matter was made public, her ability to engage in this business — even with pieces beyond reproach and with absolutely sterling pedigree — has been severely circumscribed and damaged.” | <urn:uuid:80be6fb9-5081-470d-96bf-813fe29575ad> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://geinvestigations.com/blog/tag/forged/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979888 | 2,146 | 1.710938 | 2 |
MBA 552: Regulation of Human Resource Management
This course is an examination of the legal environment of the workplace and its impact on the human resource function. Compliance with state and federal laws and regulations will be emphasized. It offers an overview of the statutory scheme regulating employment and labor relations, presented primarily through pertinent statutes and their judicial interpretation (case law). Topics include, but are not limited to, issues of discrimination in the workplace, labor relations, health and safety issues, and employment standards.... more »
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There are no documents available for this class | <urn:uuid:01be3347-912c-4207-8174-20aad3f7216c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.chegg.com/courses/misericordia/MBA/552 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.916879 | 142 | 1.734375 | 2 |
The author with a sign
8 soldiers and 4 security agency members were interviewed
The people said they participated in the government crackdown
Those interviewed were in Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan
Recent reports from five Syrian defectors told Human Rights Watch that they received explicit orders to shoot at protesters.
One member of Syria’s security agencies, referred to locally as mukhabarat, was deployed in Homs, Syria’s third largest city, on April 19, when Syria’s security forces violently dispersed one of the biggest gatherings of protesters attempting to stage a sit-in in the central Clock Tower Square. He told Human Rights Watch that Colonel Abdel Hameed Ibrahim ordered the soldiers to fire on unarmed protesters and that the soldiers complied, killing dozens of people:
The protesters had sat down in the square. We were told to disperse them with violence if needed. We were there with air force security, army, and shabbiha [armed supporters of the government who do not belong to security forces]. At around 3:30 a.m., we got an order from Colonel Abdel Hameed Ibrahim from air force security to shoot at the protesters. We were shooting for more than half an hour. There were dozens and dozens of people killed and wounded. Thirty minutes later, earth diggers and fire trucks arrived. The diggers lifted the bodies and put them in a truck. I don’t know where they took them. The wounded ended up at the military hospital in Homs. And then the fire trucks started cleaning the square.
A conscript who was a member of the Presidential Guard recounted how he was deployed on April 18 to Harasta, a suburb of Damascus, to quell a protest:
They gave each one of us a Kalashnikov [rifle] with two magazines, and there was more ammunition in the vehicles. They also gave us electric tasers. They told us we were being sent to fight the gangs because security services needed reinforcement. We were surprised [when we got to Harasta] because we couldn’t see any gangs, just civilians, including some women and children, in the street, and members of the mukhabarat firing at them. I was in a group with five other soldiers from my unit. We received clear orders to shoot at civilians from the Presidential Guard officers and from the 4th military battalion, although normally we don’t get orders from other units. One of the officers who gave orders was Major Mujahed Ali Hassan from 4th battalion; his military vehicle license plate is 410. The exact orders were “load and shoot.” There were no conditions, no prerequisites. We got closer to the demonstrators, and when we were some five meters away, the officers shouted “fire!” At that moment, the five of us defected and ran over to the demonstrators’ side throwing our weapons to them while running away.
The interviewed defectors reported that they were generally deployed in mixed teams of army personnel and often plainclothes mukhabarat and shabeeha. Two soldiers reported incidents where their units had opened fire on armed mukhabarat and shabeeha wearing civilian clothes after mistaking them for anti-government gangs. A first sergeant (Raqeeb Awwal) said the army opened fire in the coastal town of Bayda on members of security services wearing civilian clothes because they mistook their identity. Other defectors reported that security services later dressed in army clothes to avoid such shootings.
A conscript trained as a sniper was deployed in Izraa, a town of 40,000 near Daraa, on April 25, three days after security forces had shot 28 protesters over a 48-hour period; he told Human Rights Watch:
I was in Squad 14 (Firqa 14) of the 4th Regiment. We were around 300 soldiers deployed to Izraa. I had heard so much about foreign armed groups that I was eager to fight them. But then General Nasr Tawfiq gave us the following orders: “Don’t shoot at the armed civilians. They are with us. Shoot at the people whom they shoot at.” We were all shocked after hearing his words, as we had imagined that the people were killed by foreign armed groups, not by the security forces. We realized that our orders were to shoot at our own people.
A soldier who was deployed for a month in Daraa before defecting on June 1 said:
“We received orders to kill protesters. Some military refused the orders and were shot with a handgun. Two were killed in front of me, by someone in the rank of lieutenant (muqaddam). I don’t know his name. He said they were traitors.”
A sergeant posted in the southern town of al-Hara, near Daraa, described the orders his squad received when the army circled the town:
“Snipers were on rooftops. Their orders were, ‘If anyone goes out on the street, detain or shoot.’ I recall watching a guy go out to smoke outside and then being shot and killed by a sniper.”
All defectors told Human Rights Watch they were led to believe that they were fighting armed gangs paid by outside actors.
“We were told that there are terrorist groups coming into the country with funding from Bandar Bin Sultan [a prominent Saudi prince who served until 2009 as Saudi's national security chief], Saad al-Hariri [a former Lebanese prime minister], and Jeffrey Feltman [US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern affairs].”
Military commanders often communicated this information during daily briefings to soldiers, referred to as “nasharat tawjeeh.”
“Each morning we had guidance briefings. They would tell us there are gangs and infiltrators. They would show us pictures of dead soldiers and security forces.”
A member of the mukhabarat posted in Homs reported that he and his colleagues “received leaflets that there are infiltrators and salafists in the country and that they needed to stop them. In the flyers, they said Bandar Bin Sultan and Saad Hariri had paid those infiltrators.”
Regular soldiers were not allowed to watch television in private to avoid any of them watching TV channels that aired anti-government information.
Officers could watch television but only Syrian state television and Dunya TV, a pro-government channel owned by Rami Makhlouf, a cousin and close ally of President Bashar al-Asad.
Every night they used to summon us in a stadium-like place in the military barrack and make us watch Dunya TV from a big TV screen. It was all scenes from Daraa showing people killed by what they reported as foreign armed groups. Officers would repeatedly tell us that there is a “foreign plot” going on in Daraa.
Watching Dunya TV every night between 20:00 and 22:00, we had the firm belief that there is a foreign conspiracy against which we need to fight and protect our people. | <urn:uuid:03746081-c8ed-430c-b287-8190afcc1977> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://opasylum.wordpress.com/category/human-rights/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.989394 | 1,466 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Friday, January 11, 2013
Dome of Home Vision
Fr Z has a story lifted from the Catholic Herald about the revival of the "Dome of Home" by the Institute of Christ the King on the Wirral.
The story seems to be same with most of the Institute's churches, which are on the edge of a large conurbation, huge, beautiful, in need of a great deal of work but often until they get involved, closed. Their secret fom this story seems to be getting people involved. The landmark nature of their churches presumably means they receive a degree of local publicity, and especially as they have the "unique selling point" of the traditional liturgy.
There seems to be more going on than this, it seems as if it is part the Shrewsbury initiatives -like getting the Cure D'Ars heart to visit the diocese or starting the new bishop's episcopate by a Year of Prayer and Marian devotion. There seems to be a connection with this and ladies with "brasso" and mops, with raffles and secret donations, with repairing emboidered vestments and huge jewelled monstrances. I think it is something about capturing imagination and in a sense giving people ownership.
I have been reflecting on the dancing at Liverpool; that seems have been about limiting imagination and dumbing down as opposed to "raising the mind and heart" to a new vision.
Posted by Fr Ray Blake | <urn:uuid:7ad7ed66-83c6-403d-b0b2-af812d3ffd0f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://marymagdalen.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/dome-of-home-vision.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978288 | 299 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Hemsut (Hemuset) were the Goddesses of Fate, destiny and protection in Ancient Egypt. They were closely associated with the concept of the ka (life force or spirit) and could be seen as the female personification of the masculine ka. They could also be seen as the personification of the creative potential in the primeaval water from which everything was created.
They were generally depicted as women bearing a shield with two crossed arrows above it (the symbol of Neith). Occasionally, they were also depicted as kneeling women holding a child in their arms. Acording to the Memphite theology they were created by Ptah but in Sais they were closely connected with Neith who was said to have drawn them from the waters of Nun.copyright J Hill 2010
|Predynastic period||Early Dynastic||Old Kingdom||First Intermediate||Middle Kingdom||Second Intermediate||New Kingdom||Third Intermediate||Graeco-Roman period||Late period| | <urn:uuid:490bb70c-96e7-4871-8ec3-772fbf1bab6e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ancientegyptonline.co.uk/hemsut.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.987701 | 197 | 3.171875 | 3 |
Smoking products will be prohibited on all zoo grounds under a new policy governing facilities operated by Metro, the regional government. The Metro Council approved the tobacco policy a year ago, but implemented it in four stages. The zoo has long prohibited smoking in buildings, but permitted it in designated outdoor special areas. The zoo is one of Oregon’s most popular visitor places. In 2011, it admitted more than 1.5 million visitors and resulted in $43.1 million of direct spending in the local income.
The zoo offers 760 area jobs and $30.1 million in salaries in the Portland places, according to a recent study by Crossroads Consulting Services.
The zoo gained a regulation of worldwide reputation earlier this month when video of its “inactive lioness” Kya apparently attacking a kid named Jack through a glass fence which was posted to YouTube. “Lion tries to eat child Part 1″. It has been viewed more than 4.3 million times.
Wednesday, the zoo dismissed a still photo of its lionesses in connection with the anti-smoking advertisements. In that picture, the big cats are not interested in their visitors. | <urn:uuid:b9b41048-0b7b-407c-bc42-61e1e0c92e86> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tobaccoreviews.net/2012/05/17/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957537 | 235 | 1.648438 | 2 |
In digital, we can measure so much. But so much of what we measure is completely meaningless. What does a click mean, other than that a click has happened? If you have an answer, is it the same answer as the next agency or client would give? Is it even the same for each campaign of yours? As an industry, we’ve tied ourselves to metrics that are very often unrelated to what an advertiser really cares about. And that’s not how the ad “performed,” but how the audience was moved.
The problem is that the ad server that reports our metrics back to us is only good at measuring actions when what we need to measure is attitude.
Some examples of popular but misleading metrics are:
- Impressions and eCPM
The ad server tells us that an ad was delivered, but not whether it was seen. Many sites deliver fistfuls of ad impressions on each page. We pay more for the larger ones and those above the scroll because we know that large and prominent has a better chance of being seen. But we don’t know that they are seen. This is further complicated by the ease with which sites can burn impressions no one sees – by placing them on the bottom of the page, by instigating many page refreshes during the content consumption experience, and even by placing ad tags on redirect pages that never render on screens (we’ve really seen that).
The television model of interrupting content with advertising has jumped full force to the web. Ads are being delivered online in pre- and mid-roll formats that can’t be fast-forwarded… but that doesn’t mean people are watching. In a piece of research we did in the US, we found that people take the “your content will start in 30 seconds” countdown as an invitation to do something else for 30 seconds. “I open a new tab and look at something else, then when I hear my clip start I bounce back,” said one of our respondents.
When low cost is the measure of success you’ve failed before you start. Striving for low cost only means you’ve bought something cheaply. Here’s the news: it’s easy to buy cheap. But it’s hard to buy valuable, and it is in the nature of valuable not to be cheap. Often an agency will buy valuable, pay its cost, and then buy a lot of cheap mass impression inventory to drive down the overall costs. Is it a great use of budget to waste money in order to look thrifty?
What matters is not the delivery of an impression but the making of one. And there are only a few ways to understand whether you’ve captured attention and moved an audience’s perception of a brand. One is to buy on cost-per-click or cost-per-engagement so that the risk of not getting attention rests with the publishers. This way, the only people you pay to reach are the ones who want to be reached.
In a broad study of the effect of engagement, we learned that people who choose to engage with a display ad are four times more likely to recall the ad than people who were delivered a forced view of a pre-roll-like video product. And engagers were two to three times more likely to be able to repeat back brand attributes and significantly more likely to be moved to intention or likelihood to recommend than people who were merely exposed.
Regardless of chosen approach, it is important that the advertiser thinks critically about the metrics that apply to their core goals. In an on-demand world, capturing attention is the single biggest challenge, so we must focus on understanding whether we have successfully done so and what the affect of gaining attention was on the viewer rather than on the ad server. | <urn:uuid:e432e22e-74f5-4333-a96f-063f6d25f876> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.marketingmag.com.au/blogs/areyourmeasurementsmeaningful-5519/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971734 | 790 | 1.515625 | 2 |
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You Don't Have to Be Wrong for Me to Be Right: Finding Faith Without Fanaticismby Brad Hirschfield
Synopses & Reviews
“We live in a world,” says Brad Hirschfield, “where religion is killing more people than at any time since the Crusades.” And when it comes to fanaticism, Hirschfield is not speaking abstractly; he once embraced it. As a young man in the early 1980s, he left his familys upscale North Shore Chicago neighborhood for the West Bank city of Hebron, where he joined a group of settlers who were committed to reconstituting the Jewish state within its biblical borders. He carried a gun and, on one occasion, used it. He still doesnt know if his bullets found their mark.
Now, Hirschfield has renounced all such rigid delineations of people into categories of totally right and totally wrong, entirely good and entirely evil. He seeks to build bridges among people of different faiths—and those with no faith at all. He is devoted to teaching inclusiveness, celebrating diversity, and delivering a message of acceptance—not as feel-good pabulum but as forceful and indispensable antidotes to the blind passions and willful ignorance that threaten us all.
Grounded in biblical scholarship and interwoven with personal stories, You Dont Have to Be Wrong for Me to Be Right provides a pragmatic path to peace, understanding, and hope that appeals to the common wisdom of all religions. Pointing the way through the continuum of conflict, Hirschfield addresses:
• the ways faith has many faces
• how justice can coexist with forgiveness and mercy
• how unity does not necessitate uniformity
• the ways we can learn to disagree without disconnecting
Though conflict is an inevitable part of life—a function of being connected to one another—Hirschfield is a voice of peace and reconciliation, showing us that conflict is also an opportunity to learn and grow and often to grow closer.
About the Author
RABBI BRAD HIRSCHFIELD is president of the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership and a popular commentator on religion and society. He is the cohost of the weekly radio show Hirschfield and Kula, and creator
and host of the television series Building Bridges: Abrahamic Perspectives on the World Today. Named one of the Top 50 Rabbis in America in Newsweek magazine and one of the nations leading preachers and teachers by Beliefnet.com, he lives in Riverdale, New York. You can visit the author at www.bradhirschfield.com.
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The first time I heard about fertility awareness birth control, it was from a friend whose religious gynecologist wouldn’t give her an intrauterine device and instead suggested she give natural family planning a whirl. She passed on the offer and looked into other options (and doctors), as I would have too. Chancing it on the calendar, I joked, was probably the reason all of my Catholic aunts and uncles have many more children than my parents. Although it's fine for couples who could risk the 25 percent failure rate, it wasn’t for my friend and me.
COLUMN: Although popular, the rhythm method isn't safe for teens
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OPEN LETTER TO TBI/PTSD INJURED MILITARY PERSONNEL
As a Physician I would like to share my experience in evaluating and treating concussions (mild Traumatic Brain Injury- mTBI) in military and civilian patients over the last 3 years. This letter was first published in SurvivalBlog.com. In this article concussion and mTBI refer to identical injuries. This is a very pertinent discussion at this time due to the recent unfortunate shooting incident in Afghanistan by a US Military soldier diagnosed with TBI (traumatic brain injury). The Rand Corporation estimates there are over 350,000 US military men and women suffering from concussion symptoms (mTBI) and PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) from blast incidents in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many of these wounded warriors are still trying to cope with their injured brain disabilities. Many are being redeployed after the diagnosis of TBI is made. They have not been able to return to a normal and productive lifestyle. In the civilian population concussions occur in more than 6 per 1,000 people each year. Common causes of civilian concussion are falls or blows to the head, motor vehicular accidents, bike accidents, sport injuries, or exposure to loud noises (explosion, etc). Most concussions (80-90%) resolve in a short period (7-10 days).
I was an active duty US Army physician from 1969 to 1971 and very familiar with military medicine. All of our recently treated concussed patients were months, some years, post concussion and still experiencing severe post concussion symptoms. One of my patients was a US Army Brig General concussed in Afghanistan by an IED explosion. His resulting concussion symptoms and cognitive impairment issues lasted for months before successful treatment with hyperbaric oxygen therapy.
In the past 3 years I have treated over 25 concussed (TBI) military patients for lingering concussion symptoms. I have been using hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) to treat these patients. None of these patients had life threatening head injuries. All had normal CT Scans/MRI’s. Symptoms in these patients included cognitive impairment, loss of memory, headaches, depression, fatigue, anger and irritability, sleep disturbances, loss of multitasking and executive functions, and hypervigilance. All patients had successful results from HBOT therapy and either returned to full military duty, continued in school, or returned to full civilian employment.
The Department of Defense has developed criteria for the diagnosis of mTBI (Concussions) which must include one of the following:
- Any period of loss of or decreased level of consciousness lasting less then 30 minutes
- Any loss of memory for events immediately before or after the injury lasting less than 24 hours after the event
- any alteration in mental state at the time of the injury such as confusion, disorientation, or slowed thinking lasting less than 24 hours
- transient neurological deficits (e.g. Weakness, loss of balance, change in vision, praxis, paresis or plegia, sensory loss, aphasia and
- Normal intracranial imaging.
All of our patients were previously treated by different agencies with medication only which gave them little or no relief in their disabling concussion symptoms. Our patients received a total of over 1400 HBOT treatments without any complications or adverse reactions. Patients were all treated in a rigid hyperbaric oxygen chamber at 1.5 ATA (17ft) on 100% oxygen for 60 minutes. The hyperbaric mTBI protocol calls for a minimum of 40 treatments with up to 80 treatments if necessary. Treatment plans and the need for additional HBOT treatments are based upon the clearing of concussion symptoms and improvement in Neuropsychological (neurocognitive) (NP) testing.
Neurocognitive testing is used to evaluate the concussed patient’s post injury neurocognitive condition and track improvements made with HBOT therapy. Neurocognitive testing is an assessment tool that can be used to identify changes in a patient’s cognitive function and mood state as a result of some debilitating event. Neurocognitive testing has become the most important modality in management and determination of a full recovery in concussed patients. The military NP test used was the ANAM (Automated Neuropsychological Assessment Metrics) test.
The ANAM was developed by the military to evaluate and follow the progress of TBI patients. A baseline NP test is performed before deployment with repeat testing following concussion injuries. During HBOT therapy the ANAM test is administered after each 20 HBOT treatments to document the progress and improvement in the injured brain. A different NP test is given to our civilian patients. All NP testing in done on an office computer and takes about 25 minutes. Report printouts are available immediately. These reports along with examination and discussions with the patient and family are used to determine if HBOT is indicated or needs to be continued.
There is controversy concerning the use of HBOT in the treatment of concussed patients. The majority of military mTBI patients are currently being treated primarily with prescription medications for their symptoms. Many of our military patients commented they were in a constant “brain fog” as a result of all the meds they were prescribed. They received sleeping pills if sleep was an issue, pain medication for headaches, antidepressants for depression, tranquilizers for anxiety and so forth. None of these medications treat the cause of TBI/PTSD which is the injured brain. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy through research and clinical use has demonstrated to be effective in repairing the injured brain. The current research is based upon both animal and human studies. There is a multitude of currently published medical literature demonstrating the benefit of HBOT in the treatment and repairing of injured brains.
Some of the criticisms in the use of HBOT treating concussions from different agencies are based upon the fact HBOT is not currently approved by the FDA in the specific treatment of mTBI. Many clinical studies are underway at this time studying the effectiveness of HBOT in the treatment of TBI/PTSD. The FDA will not approve procedures that are still in the clinical study mode. We as hyperbaric physicians have treated successfully hundreds of TBI/PTSD military personnel all with no adverse effects. HBOT is approved by the FDA to treat four types of brain injuries. These brain injuries include carbon monoxide poisoning, decompression sickness (Bends), arterial gas embolism to the brain, and acute blindness from central retinal artery occlusion. We as physicians are allowed to use treatment modalities not FDA approved as long as, first, we do no harm to the patient and there is benefit in the treatment. We as a group of Physicians believe it is a mistake to currently deny these thousands of brain injured military personnel treatments which have shown to be completely effective in treating successfully and permanently mTBI and PTSD. Most of us treating hyperbaric physicians have not been paid at all by the military or the VA for our services to these injured men and women. I believe I speak for the group that we perform this service because we know it works, we respect the military and what it stands for, and that our injured men and women deserve the most effective currently available treatment for their injuries after putting their life on the line for our country.
Dr. Paul Harch MD gave testimony to the US House of Representatives last year pointing out that nearly all the medication being prescribed by Military Medicine and the Veterans Administration is being used “OFF-LABEL” as the standard of care for blast induced TBI and PTSD despite little or no research to support this prescribing. An estimated 120 combat Veterans per week or more than 10,000 overall have committed suicide according to the CDC numbers investigated by CBS News. The House Veteran Affairs Committee was told earlier that many of the suicides were related to the use of the FDA Black-Box drugs being used off-label These drugs carry specific warnings about increased suicide rate.
Our first mTBI military patients were treated with HBOT in 2009. The two Airmen were in an armored semi-truck when they were involved in an IED explosion in Iraq. Neither man lost consciousness but they were dazed and somewhat confused initially. They both experienced the immediate onset of headaches. They were seen at an aid station later in the day, given acetaminophen, and returned to duty. Over a period of weeks these men began to experience debilitating concussive symptoms of severe headaches, memory loss, cognitive issues, anger/irritability issues and severe sleep disturbances. Upon returning to the US they were referred to our facility for HBOT by Col.(Dr) James Wright USAF Special Operations Command Surgeon and Board Certified Hyperbaric Physician.
Fortunately both men were given screening neuropsychological tests (ANAM) before they deployed to Iraq. We were able to compare their post injury tests with the baseline NP tests. Post injury testing revealed both men to be severely cognitively impaired from their concussions. Both men received a series of HBOT treatments with NP testing after each 20 treatments. At the end of their hbot treatments both men were completely free of all previous mTBI symptoms. Both airmen returned to their pre injury NP baseline scores after HBOT treatments. One man required 40 treatments and the other 80 HBOT treatments to return to their baseline NP scores. The Airmen are still on active duty. I recently spoke with both men and they are doing well without any concussion signs or symptoms. Col. Wright and I published a case report of these men in a major peer reviewed medical journal.
There is a lot of attention currently in the press and on the Internet regarding our TBI wounded men and women. There is an ongoing study NBIRR (national brain injury rescue rehabilitation) sanctioned by the Western Institutional Review Board (WIRB) using HBOT in concussed patients. There are 12 hyperbaric centers in the USA involved with this study. This study is an unfunded study and all treating facilities are providing the HBOT treatments to our injury veterans on their “nickel”. This study can be accessed by searching www.nbirr.org on the Internet and clicking on the “clinicaltrials.gov” box.
Dr. Paul Harch, Dr. James Wright, Dr. Bill Duncan, Dr. Rob Beckman and former Secretary of the Army Martin Hoffmann are currently playing key roles pro bono in an attempt to obtain funding for HBOT treatments for our wounded warriors. These men are meeting regularly with top Military officials and members of Congress in this attempt. The Navy League (www.navyleague.org) recently released a video on the use of HBOT treating TBI in military men and women. At the end of the video both the Chief of Naval Operations and the Commandant of the Marine Corps acknowledge at a congressional hearing their support for the use of HBOT in treating their TBI injured personnel.
Links to all publications, videos, references and military patient’s HBOT testimonials referred to in this article can be viewed at our website, www.flhbot.com. I believe there may be a lot of response to this article. Some will be good, some may be critical. The VA and military do offer a variety of other treatment modalities to our wounded TBI troops. We believe the data and experience generated by the thousands of HBOT treatments used to successfully treat mTBI/PTSD warrants the acceptance by governmental agencies this method of treatment in our TBI/PTSD wounded men and women.
Dr. Albert E. Zant MD (Eddie Zant MD) | <urn:uuid:e88f2726-135f-4f5f-8cac-2b8f90c3a931> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://supportaff.wordpress.com/2012/04/05/a-note-on-tbiptsd-injured-military-personnel-from-dr-zant-md/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961577 | 2,389 | 2.015625 | 2 |
I am asking all those who have some sense of respect, not only for religion and the beliefs of a large group of people, but also a sense of respect for a historical figure's life and death. [If you argue that Jesus was not real just because of the Bible, read up on Flavis Josephus' Antiquities of
On Friday, December 14th and 9:30am ET, twenty school children, their four teachers, and two school administrators were murdered by a lone gunman. The moment we learned about the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut will be etched in our memories forever. The horror of this incident was the last straw in
IF PEOPLE HAVE A HEART THEY WILL SUPPORT WHAT WE ARE TRYING TO DO OR AT LEAST PUT DENT IN IT. SHARE IT ALL OVER PLEASE WE HAVE TO CLOSE THIS PAGE. THANK YOU. | <urn:uuid:379e4192-e359-400e-bb7c-1604dd750ac9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.causes.com/profiles/106816646 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953112 | 174 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Warning: this is MASSIVE. It’s not proofread. It may well not make any sense. The pacing is weird because I kept coming up with gags halfway through. I didn’t get around to the model sheets so Babbage looks different in every panel. Also, may contain nuts.
More after the jump INTO HYPERSPACE..
Historical Notes of Interest
–The Difference Engine: Is a very cool thing indeed, but of course it was not meant to be anywhere near that big. The biggest model in the Science Museum is roughly the size of a van. In theory, you could keep connecting together engines to have more and more functions– Babbage’s later obsession, the Analytical Engine, was based on this idea. The machine in the comic is, properly speaking, an Analytical Engine as it runs on punchcards; but ‘Difference Engine’ sounds way cooler. This should have been explained to Babbage and then maybe he could have gotten his funding!
Someone utterly devastated me by informing me that the Giant Difference Engine has already been done, in “The Difference Engine” (which I haven’t read) no less. I hate it when people from the past travel forward through time and steal my ideas!! In my defense I should say the idea is pretty irresistibly suggested to anyone pressing a camera up against the glass to take reference photos. In any case now I’m stuck doing at least one other episode because I want to draw Ada climbing around in the engine to fix a bug, like Scotty in the Jeffries Tubes:
–The Gaussian Cupola is apparently the formula that devastated our present economy; I read about in Wired like everyone else. It is not, of course, Babbage’s!
–The economic model was inspired by the crazy MONIAC machine, a water-based economic model located almost directly across from the Difference Engine in the Science Museum. Terry Pratchett fans might recognize it from “Making Money”– it is, in fact, an actual thing. This comic does not take any stance on actual economic policy; I don’t know anything about economics. Of course, it seems neither do economists, HAH!
What else… I’m worried I’m poking a little too much fun at Charles Babbage, a brilliant man who did in fact know a great deal about economics. He did though have an outsized personality and if nothing else, I’m glad doing this comic gave me a chance to meet him. | <urn:uuid:b80405b9-8e5f-428d-88d7-bad0281b6199> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sydneypadua.com/2dgoggles/lovelace-and-babbage-vs-the-economy-pt-2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00045-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957662 | 533 | 1.820313 | 2 |
Premature baby care
When a premature baby is ready to go home parents may feel that the worst is over, but premature baby care can be quite daunting adjusting to the transition from hospital to home.
Parents may experience separation anxiety from leaving the well supported environment of the hospital, including professionals who may have known and cared for their baby for an extended period of time.
Some parents may already feel emotionally and physically fatigued from visiting their baby daily in hospital. Once their baby is home, the interrupted sleep and physical demands required in caring for a new baby can contribute to a feeling of total exhaustion and risk of burn out.
Concerns about baby’s weight gain and feeding are often raised whether baby is breast or formula fed. The breastfeeding mother may be trying to maintain her supply, encourage feeding stamina and juggle expressing and feeding on demand. There may be some babies still requiring feeding by a tube through their nose (nasogastric feeding).
Some premature babies will continue to require oxygen when they go home and possible monitoring for apnoeas (stop breathing). This requires managing oxygen cylinders, associated tubing and other specialised equipment.
Most premature babies will have some medical follow up after they are discharged to monitor growth and development. Premature baby care appointments to see a paediatrician, surgeon, optometrist, audiologist and other relevant allied health professionals may be needed for a follow up. Often families have a financial outlay to attend these appointments combined with travel and parking costs.
For more information see Childbirth.
Information on this page has been kindly provided by Wendy Taverna – Lifes Little Treasures, a representative of the National Premmie Foundation.
All material here is for informational purposes only and should in no way replace or be used as a substitute for, professional medical advice.
NPF Help and Information Line 1300 PREMBABY 1300 773 622 local call cost AU wide 24 hours | <urn:uuid:5635a721-fb86-4a2a-8cd1-d6d0206d89d7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.huggies.com.au/childbirth/premature-babies/care | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927435 | 393 | 1.648438 | 2 |
|(MARCH 19, 2012) LARGEST BIODIESEL PLANT IN UTAH OPEN FOR PUBLIC EVENT|
|Plant prepares to co-host tour, announce funding opportunities with USDA Rural Development|
|Salt Lake City, UT, Mar 19, 2012
@@For immediate release
LARGEST BIODIESEL PLANT IN UTAH OPEN FOR PUBLIC EVENT
Plant prepares to co-host tour, announce funding opportunities with USDA Rural Development
SALT LAKE CITY, March 19, 2012 – USDA Rural Development Utah State Director Dave Conine announced a public event to highlight the success of USDA’s Rural Energy for America Program. Washakie Renewable Energy Fuels (WRE) will host a public tour of their $10 million biofuel facility Tuesday, March 20.
In 2011, WRE received a $496,750 Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) grant from USDA Rural Development to improve their facility’s operations and finance construction of their pretreatment of biofuels and advanced biofuel production plant with two blender pumps. Located in Plymouth, Utah, the plant offers 65 jobs and makes $3 million in annual sales. In a town of just more than 300, its impact is significant.
The plant is the largest of its kind in Utah and creates biodiesel from renewable resources such as natural oils like canola, safflower and soybean. Other waste products like used cooking oil from restaurants, animal fats and wastewater pond scum also go into the production of biodiesel.
The event will include a tour of WRE for the public to experience how a biodiesel facility looks, sounds, feels, and operates; an overview of the plant’s production; and a public call for applications to the Renewable Energy for America Program. Grant and loan money is available for renewable energy projects statewide.
What: Renewable Energy for America Day Event
When: Tuesday, March 20 12:00pm – 2:00pm
Where: Washakie Renewable Energy plant
7950 West 24000 North Plymouth UT, 84330
Open to the public/press.
USDA, through its Rural Development mission area, administers and manages housing, business and community infrastructure and facility programs through a national network of state and local offices. Rural Development has an active portfolio of more than $165 billion in affordable loans and loan guarantees. These programs are designed to improve the economic stability of rural communities, businesses, residents, farmers and ranchers and improve the quality of life in rural America.
Contact: Jamie Welch Jaro, Public Affairs Officer, Jamie.WelchJaro@ut.usda.gov (801) 524-4324 | <urn:uuid:f7a63c49-c53f-4052-b4db-49d5de0f8303> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rurdev.usda.gov/STELPRD4015290_print.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.919084 | 558 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Fri, Aug. 17th, 2012
In 1787, Robert Burns the Ploughman Poet walked along the riverside by the Falls of Bruar.
Bruar Falls, in Athole, are exceedingly picturesque and beautiful; said he, misspelling ‘Atholl’ as he did so,
but their effect is much impaired by the want of trees and shrubs. Thus inspired to action, he did what any of us would do. He wrote a poem and addressed it to the landowner.
Let lofty firs, and ashes cool,
My lowly banks o'erspread,
And view, deep-bending in the pool,
Their shadow's wat'ry bed:
Let fragrant birks, in woodbines drest,
My craggy cliffs adorn;
and so on and so on
There was already a birk adorning those cliffs, but he'd gone home to write a poem.
As a result the Duke of Atholl instituted a massive tree-planting programme. Because some inkstained twit wrote a poem. Is that how you get a public works project approved? Is some latter-day Bard even now penning
A Humble Petition to just get the damn trams finished already? Or is that, as I suspect, a niche that these days is filled by the letters page of the Scotsman?
Nonetheless, a couple of weeks ago I popped up north to view the result. The Falls of Bruar is an area of outstanding natural beauty, and these days you can't see any of it because there are trees everywhere.
I already can't stand Robert Burns. Now he's actively ruining things I like to do (viz., looking at waterfalls). I'm inclined to start taking this personal.
I can't write like Burns (thank Christ), so perhaps a humble petition after the style of Scotland's other favourite son will suffice.
Ohh, 'twas in the month of July two thousand and twelve,
Into the woods around the Falls of Bruar did we delve,
And tho' the scenery was beautiful like a painting or a frieze,
None of it could we see because of all the bloody trees,
and ooowhhh ...
I may have slipped into a Milligoon voice towards the end there, but in my defence, it's hard not to.
Remainder of the photoset is here. I had to climb down slippery rocks on cliff edges to get some of these shots. Rabbie is actually trying to kill me. | <urn:uuid:dea6cf71-8744-46a7-8dbf-73094bfcb819> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://gominokouhai.dreamwidth.org/2012/08/17/ | 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 | 0.963038 | 534 | 1.773438 | 2 |
The Banking & Finance sector has again dominated the 2012 Power 500, published by Arabian Business on Sunday.
The magazine revealed that 19% of individuals work in the sector. The next highest category was Culture & Society, accounting for 18% of the names, with Construction and Industry contributing 15%. Another 14% came from Arts and Entertainment, 9% from Media, 6% from Retail, 6% from Science, 4% from Sports, and 4% from Telecoms. The list shows 3% from Transport, with just 2% working in Education.
Saudi Arabia’s Prince Alwaleed topped the Arabian Business Power List for the eighth successive year.
Emirates Airline chairman Sheikh Ahmed was ranked second. The highest new entry was third placed Reem Asaad, the Saudi woman who launched a campaign to allow women to work in lingerie shops. Last July, her campaign paid off when the Saudi Labour Ministry banned men from working in lingerie shops after a directive from King Abdullah – in an instant, creating 44,000 jobs for women.
Emaar chairman Mohamed Alabbar was fourth on the list, with the Libyan activist Mohammed Nabbous in fifth place. Nabbous was the founder of Libya Al Hurra TV in Benghazi, the first independent broadcast news organization since Gaddafi took power in Libya. The 28 year old was killed last year by Pro-Gaddafi forces.
“Since his death, many experts in Libya and the west have credited Nabbous for his pivotal role in bringing the world’s attention to the killings in his native country. Without him, it is debatable whether the western powers would have intervened in the conflict,” the magazine reported.
The 2012 Power 500 contains a record 127 new entries, and also features 105 women, the highest ever number. The UAE has the highest number of entries with 96 on the list, followed by Saudi Arabia with 62 and 45 from the USA. In total, Arabs living in 37 different countries are featured on the list.
When it comes to countries of origin, Lebanon contributes the most with 85 entries, followed by 67 from Saudi Arabia and 58 from Egypt.
Ed Attwood, Editor of Arabian Business, said: “What we have published today is the most comprehensive guide every to Arab influence all across the world. Our researchers have looked at the work of Arabs in every continent and every country across the globe, and covered every sector from business and finance to media, sports and science. It is clear from this list that Arab success and influence across the world has never been more significant than it is today.” | <urn:uuid:b2f3d194-b402-4148-8f8f-78cdf40541a8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://power500.arabianbusiness.com/power-500-2012/news/industries/banking-finance/2012/jun/4/252877/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00045-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961283 | 533 | 1.507813 | 2 |
News 12 at 11 O'clock, February 11, 2010
WAYNESBORO, Ga.---Work is going on right now to expand two nuclear power plants: one in Georgia and the other in South Carolina. Both projects are creating a lot of jobs.
It's the first nuclear expansion in the nation in more than thirty years. SCANNA is adding two nuclear reactors at the V.C. Summer Plant, about 30 minutes north of Columbia in Jenkinsville. And the Southern Company is also adding two new reactors at Plant Vogtle, just down the Savannah River from Augusta in Waynesboro. Both jobs will take a massive workforce to do the construction. And then they'll need hundreds of full time employees to run the plants.
It's not easy to describe the size and the scale of the work going on right now at Plant Vogtle. If you point a camera at it, it just looks like a lot of dirt. But if you look carefully, there's an army of seven hundred workers out there. And that army is about to grow.
Vogtle Expansion Job Opportunities
There are opportunities with Southern Company, Shaw Group, Morgan Corporation, Westinghouse Corporation, and Williams Power. Click here for details.
About the Expansion
Southern Company says Vogtle was built with the option to expand, and that "Vogtle Units 3 and 4 will be among the first new nuclear units built in the U.S. in the last three decades."
How Nuclear Plants Work
According to Southern Company, "a nuclear power plant is not all that different from coal, oil, or gas fueled plants. The main difference is that at a nuclear power plant, the heat used to make steam is produced by fission." Click here to learn more.
E.N.E.R.G.E. Family Nights at Augusta Tech
Middle and high school students are invited to learn about energy-related careers at the following E.N.E.R.G.E. Family Night events:
Tues., Feb. 16, 6:30-8pm
Waynesboro/Burke Campus Auditorium
216 Hwy 24 South, Waynesboro
Tues, Feb. 23, 6:30-8pm
Augusta Campus/Jack B. Patrick Information Technology Center Auditorium
3200 Augusta Tech Drive, Augusta
David Jones is overseeing the project for the Southern Company. "Right now, the majority of our construction jobs are excavation," Jones said. "Heavy equipment operators moving soil, moving rock, gravel as you'll see."
The Southern Company wants you to know they're hiring locally.
"And over 50 percent of our craft labor has come from the state of Georgia and within a 50-mile radius of the plant site," Jones said.
They'll be moving dirt here for the rest of this year. Right now, Georgia's "Big Dig" is all about digging massive holes where the two new nuclear reactors will sit. They'll go down 90 feet until they hit rock bottom.
Once they finish digging- they'll need concrete workers.
"And then," Jones continued, "we will have everything from pipe fitters to welders to iron workers to carpenters. All types of labor trades will be important to us as we go through this phased approach."
They're already working with Augusta Tech to make sure people are trained and ready for those jobs. They call this event ENERGE Night. ENERGE stands for Engaged Networking Energy Regional Georgia Education.
We stopped by a recent ENERGE event at the Augusta Tech campus in Thomson, Ga. Walking along the various booths, we heard plenty of conversations.
"These are all the energy related programs," one volunteer pointed out to a student.
"What are your favorite subjects?" asked another one.
If your answer is math and science, you're in the right place. This may be the chance to energize your career. Or for students, a chance to plan ahead.
Julie Langham is with Augusta Tech. "Energy is a great field, and [students] need to be thinking, 'What can I be doing now to get into that field?'" she said.
Mike McCracken with the Southern Company was there to remind attendees that the companies involved in the expansion are looking to hire locally. There's a good reason why.
"It's an idea situation to hire someone locally," McCracken said. "They have roots in their area and they're likely to stay and have their families here."
And they're targeting local students in middle and high school. Thomson High student Mitch Langham told News 12, "I think more people should show up. It beats working at McDonald's."
Back at Plant Vogtle, David Jones is pleased with the progress, but he knows there's a lot of work to be done. Projecting forward, how many people will they really need?
"Construction labor, at peak of construction we estimate over 3,500 construction jobs," Jones said.
And once the dust clears here and four cooling towers rise above the Savannah River, they'll need eight hundred more people to operate the nation's newest nuclear reactors.
If you want to learn more about those jobs in the nuclear industry, there are two more ENERGE Nights planned. Representatives will be there to discuss current and future employment needs. You can also learn about the courses or career pathways to help you get ready.
The next ENERGE Night is at the Augusta Tech campus in Waynesboro on February 16. The last one is at the Augusta campus on February 23. On both nights, the event starts at 6:30pm.
Aiken Tech is also offering a program in the related field of Health Physics. Those graduates go on to work at the Savannah River Site. | <urn:uuid:1c452ef2-cfa5-40f2-ada6-85f7fc6cf5a0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wrdw.com/specialcoverage/headlines/84159292.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954112 | 1,199 | 1.773438 | 2 |
June 5, 2011 Advanced biofuels -- liquid transportation fuels derived from the cellulosic biomass of perennial grasses and other non-food plants, as well as from agricultural waste -- are highly touted as potential replacements for gasoline, diesel and jet fuels. Equally touted is the synthesis of these fuels through the use of microbes. However, many of the best candidate compounds for advanced biofuels are toxic to microbes, which presents a "production versus survival" conundrum.
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) have provided a solution to this problem by developing a library of microbial efflux pumps that were shown to significantly reduce the toxicity of seven representative biofuels in engineered strains of Escherichia coli.
"Working with all available microbial genome sequence data, we generated a library of largely uncharacterized genes and were able to devise a simple but highly effective strategy to identify efflux pumps that could alleviate biofuel toxicity in E. coli and, as a consequence, help improve biofuel production," says Aindrila Mukhopadhyay, a chemist with JBEI's Fuels Synthesis Division, who led this research.
Mukhopadhyay, who also holds an appointment with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab)'s Physical Biosciences Division, is the corresponding author on a paper published in the journal Molecular Systems Biology. Co-authoring the paper with Mukhopadhyay were Mary Dunlop, Zain Dossani, Heather Szmidt, Hou-Cheng Chu, Taek Soon Lee, Jay Keasling and Masood Hadi.
Research efforts are underway at JBEI and elsewhere to engineer microorganisms, such as E. coli, to produce advanced biofuels in a cost effective manner. These fuels, which encompass short-to-medium carbon-chain alcohols, such as butanol, isopentanol and geraniol, can replace gasoline on a gallon-for-gallon basis and be used in today's infrastructures and engines, unlike ethanol. Biofuels made from branched carbon-chain compounds, such as geranyl acetate and farnesyl hexanoate, would also be superior to today's biodiesel, which is made from esters of linear fatty acids. Cyclic alkenes, such as limonene and pinene, could serve as precursors to jet fuel. Although biosynthetic pathways to the production of these carbon compounds in microbes have been identified, product toxicity to microbes is a common problem in strain engineering for biofuels and other biotechnology applications.
"In order for microbial biofuel production to be cost effective, yields must exceed native microbial tolerance levels, necessitating the development of stress-tolerant microbe strains," Mukhopadhyay says. "It is crucial that we improve tolerance in parallel with the development of metabolic pathways for the production of next-generation biofuels."
Microbes employ various strategies for addressing cell toxicity but perhaps the most effective are efflux pumps, proteins in the cytoplasmic membrane of cells whose function is to transport toxic substances out of the cell. This is done actively, using proton motive force. However, to date very few of these have been characterized for efficacy against biofuel like compounds.
"Sequenced bacterial genomes include many efflux pumps but remain a largely unexplored resource for use in engineering fuel tolerance," Mukhopadhyay says. "We took a systematic approach to screen a library of primarily uncharacterized heterologous pumps for engineering biofuel tolerant host strains. We were then able to demonstrate that expression of a heterologous pump can increase the yield of a biofuel in the production strain."
Since all known solvent-resistant efflux pumps in Gram-negative bacteria fall into the hydrophobe/amphiphile efflux (HAE1) family, Mukhopadhyay and her colleagues constructed a datab
ase of all HAE1 pumps from sequenced bacterial genomes. They then performed a bioinformatics screen to compare regions predicted to be responsible for substrate specificity to those of TtgB, a well-characterized solvent-resistant efflux pump.
"This metric allowed us to rank the complete set of pumps and select a subset that represented a uniform distribution of candidate genes," says Mukhopadhyay. "To construct the library, we amplified efflux pump operons from the genomic DNA of the selected bacteria, cloned them into a vector, and transformed the vector into an E. coli host strain."
In a series of survival competitions, the two microbial efflux pumps that performed best were the native E. coli pump AcrAB and a previously uncharacterized pump from a marine microbe Alcanivorax borkumensis.
"We focused on the A. borkumensis pump and tested it in a strain of host microbe engineered to produce the limonene jet fuel precursor," Mukhopadhyay says. "Microbes expressing the pump produced significantly more limonene than those with no pump, providing an important proof of principle demonstration that efflux pumps that increase tolerance to exogenous biofuel can also improve the yield of a production host."
Mukhopadhyay and her JBEI colleagues have begun evaluating microbial efflux pumps for other important compounds as well as inhibitors present in the carbon source from lignocellulose. They are also looking to improve the A. borkumensis pump and other high performers in their current library, and to optimize the systems by which pump genes are expressed in engineered biofuel-producing microbial strains.
"We believe our bioprospecting strategy for biofuel tolerance mechanisms is going to be a valuable and widely applicable tool in the biotechnology field for engineering new microbial production strains," Mukhopadhyay says.
This research was supported by JBEI through the DOE Office of Science.
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- Mary J Dunlop, Zain Y Dossani, Heather L Szmidt, Hou Cheng Chu, Taek Soon Lee, Jay D Keasling, Masood Z Hadi, Aindrila Mukhopadhyay. Engineering microbial biofuel tolerance and export using efflux pumps. Molecular Systems Biology, 2011; 7 DOI: 10.1038/msb.2011.21
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New York consultant company did their part to fight against breast cancer
Oct 24, 2011
Lakeview Consultants, a sales and marketing firm, participated in the fight against breast cancer in Dutchess, New York, this past Sunday.
The idea came after team leader of the company, Juliet Adjei-Baffour, found out that her aunt was diagnosed with breast cancer. Her aunt is currently a survivor of the disease, and she wanted to do her part to ensure that more women and men survive the disease.
The Lakeview Consultants team raised more than $250, which was their goal. They walked around the Dutchess Stadium with others all with the same goal - to defeat breast cancer and find a cure.
According to the American Cancer Society, one in eight women in the U.S. will be diagnosed with breast cancer at some point during her lifetime. It is recommended that once a woman turns 40 she schedules annual mammograms to ensure that she does not have the disease. Family history may increase this chance, so women who have an extensive family history may want to go when they are younger. | <urn:uuid:b7dd40e9-bd8f-4d0e-a06c-58d72a48ac4c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://theveteranssite.com/clickToGive/bcs/article/New-York-consultant-company-did-their-part-to-fight-against-breast-cancer751 | 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 | 0.982932 | 231 | 1.835938 | 2 |
MET in Educational Technology
Advances in technology have revolutionized teaching. Computers, electronic communication, Web-based learning tools, streaming video, hundreds of software choices, and a limitless combination of hardware systems make it necessary to keep up-to-date and understand your options, whether you're providing corporate training or classroom instruction.
The Master of Educational Technology (MET) degree enables you to develop multiple literacies and to foster creative thinking using technology and multimedia. You'll learn how to develop learner-centered and content-centered projects and assessments. You'll acquire the 21st century learning skills to creatively apply, assess, and reflect on technologies and media in formal and informal learning environments. And you will learn to view technology and media as vehicles for learning, communication, and collaboration.
This convenient 33-hour program can be completed in 18-24 months. Flexible 8-week courses fit into tight business schedules. And design distance-based programs enable you to earn your degree from anywhere in the world.
Points of Distinction
- Webster University's worldwide context provides insight on technological advancements and techniques from around.
- Webster University's WorldClassRoom offers courses and programs that you can participate in any time of day or night; from anywhere you have a computer with Internet access, such as work, home, or the library.
- Faculty work on the leading edge of curriculum design and technology integration; each of the courses has been developed using an innovative, constructivist pedagogy.
Students pursuing the master of educational technology (MET) are required to complete 33 credit hours in the curriculum. See the program requirements for core and elective course options. | <urn:uuid:57b449ec-e642-4ca7-869a-a829d93713eb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mailto:carpenda@webster.edu/masters/educational-technology.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.909219 | 336 | 2.65625 | 3 |