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When this labor center was still at the Evergreen State
College in 2001, Director Peter Kardas and center staff became involved in the Journey for Justice project, working as
interviewers, transcribers, project coordinators, and brokers. The exciting
culmination of the project was a splendid physical exhibit unveiled at the Annual
Banquet of the Asian
Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA) in Seattle in May of 2003. Complete with large displays and
free-standing wooden frames, the display offered an overview of the history of Asian
workers in the Puget Sound since the mid-1800s with period images and
information. This on-line resource is now permanently
housed on the Labor Center’s website.
The project began with the Seattle chapter of APALA applying
for and receiving a grant from King County’s Cultural Development Authority in
1999. APALA’s goal was to counter the stereotype of Asian-Americans as
passive immigrants who have never played any role in the U.S. labor movement.
Through photographing and interviewing Asian American labor activists and putting
their stories in the context of a broader history of struggle, the intention
was to tell the rich story of Asian resistance to economic exploitation and
racism. The hope was that the exhibit would both demonstrate to unions and the
broader public that Asian immigrants have always acted to better their
conditions as workers, and remind the Asian community that the Asian immigrant
experience is a workers’ experience.
On all accounts we think the project is a wonderful success.
Martin Kane’s photography is beautiful and provocative, and former Seattle
APALA president Cathy Lowenberg did excellent work editing interviews and
writing the historical introduction and timeline. We hope you enjoy this
on-line version of the exhibit. Comments are welcomed and may be sent to: | <urn:uuid:a00c1c93-cd4c-4d2d-bf6a-dbb54c5bc0e0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://georgetown.southseattle.edu/LERC/apala.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00070-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946621 | 389 | 2.328125 | 2 |
Remote access is the ability to log onto a network from anywhere around the world. Knowing how to use this will help you to be connected with colleagues and friends. The remote access software is directly called to the network server. Remote, mobile or web access will help the user to access the account from another computer. OpenDrive, one of the best online backup services, uses remote access to open files from any computer. Using a web browser, you can easily sync, edit and share documents and files online. This is a plus for those who don’t want to use additional computers.
In terms of mobile compatibility, OpenDrive supports Apple iOS devices like iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. If you wish to download a full access to your documents, download an iPhone app for iPhone for free. You can use the app to view your files similar when viewing your OpenDrive account through a computer application. Also, you can stream videos and share photos with your friends. However, you are not allowed to edit documents through this mobile application yet.
If you have smaller drive in your iPhone, you can save files like music on your OpenDrive account. This will help you to maximize space. But if you’re in a place with Wi-Fi access, you can simply stream music or videos right directly with the Internet browser. With the free 5 GB space, you can store, share and even sell files through the remove drive, OpenDrive for your computer. If you want to upload more files, you can upgrade your account up to 100TB, which works quickly on the desktop.
With the use of iPhone application for OpenDrive as your online backup, there are many things you can enjoy with. You can share folders by sending files through email accounts. Also, you can upgrade your monthly plan anytime, play next song in the audio player and share it with others.
Through the secured SSL connection, you can access your files from anywhere. Creating and managing folders may not be very difficult for you. Permanent synchronization in the OpenDrive will help you check updated files and folders every three seconds. This synchronization creates an online backup of your selected file.
In addition, OpenDrive standout among other online data services in terms of security. The user can only access files through the required authentication. This will give any user an administrative control over their files. All activities can be monitored through your Opendrive account, which is an advantage to other online backup services. | <urn:uuid:3f5bb4e7-5b0e-4600-bb91-c5cc366a5bf6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.opendrive.com/online-backup-for-ios-devices/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00062-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929271 | 496 | 1.609375 | 2 |
August 3, 2008
Despite Additive Ban, Some Parents Voice Worry
The Washington Post reports that as a result of its link to kidney and liver cancer and to reproductive disorders in fetuses, Congress recently approved a ban on a family of chemicals known as phthalates that are used in soft plastic toys and other baby products. The United States is one of the last industrialized nations to outlaw phthalates in children's products. Lyndsey Layton writes,
Samantha Rosenberg eyed the toy plastic cellphone that her 9-month-old daughter has chewed so much, the color is fading. She wondered if the shiny plaything, and others that fill her home, are endangering Addison's health.
Congress this week approved a ban on a family of chemicals widely used in soft plastic toys and other baby products. Health advocates say the compounds, known as phthalates, have been linked to kidney and liver cancer and to reproductive disorders in fetuses and infants, especially boys.
Toymakers and the chemical industry ran an expensive lobbying campaign trying to block the legislation, arguing that phthalates have been used commercially since the 1950s, that they are safe and that the ban is an overreaction.
Rosenberg and other consumers are not sure what to think.
"Am I being neurotic, or is it really not safe?" Rosenberg, a 30-year-old District resident, said about the toy cellphone. "It just gets compounded, because everything is plastic and made in China. You end up worrying about lead paint, plastics, all these things our parents never worried about."
Her questions are echoed by millions of parents who feel overwhelmed by conflicting information and are struggling to strike the right balance. For those discussing toy safety at neighborhood playgrounds, in Internet chat rooms and in the toy aisles of big-box stores, every plastic geegaw has grown suspect.
"In the past six months, I started freaking out about the BPA stuff and plastic toys," said Sherri Bohinc, a 32-year-old mother of two young children who lives in Bethesda, referring to health concerns raised about bisphenol A, another additive used in plastic. "In Target, I'll ask other moms shopping in the same aisles what they think about a toy. I've run into some really paranoid moms, and then I run into people who are like, 'Eh, don't pay attention.' "
Kara Dillon, 29, a mother of two in Surprise, Ariz., threw out baby bottles that contained BPA and replaced them with BPA-free bottles. Now the phthalates ban leaves her wondering whether to toss her children's soft plastic toys, too.
"It's really hard as a mom to know what to do," Dillon said. "As consumers, we're buying what's out there, and you just trust the companies -- especially when it comes to things designed especially for babies -- that they're safe."
The United States is one of the last industrialized nations to outlaw phthalates in children's products. The European Union has banned them since 1999. California was the first state to approve a ban; it takes effect in January. Lawmakers in Washington state and Vermont have followed suit.
The federal ban will take effect six months after President Bush signs it, which he is expected to do in the next several weeks. That means it would not be in place until after the holiday season. Wal-Mart, the nation's largest retailer, and Toys R Us, the largest toy seller, have said that by January their shelves will be free of children's products containing BPA and phthalates.
Chemical companies, including ExxonMobil, which manufactures the phthalate most often found in toys, have argued that banning the compounds could force toymakers to use substitutes that pose greater risks. But several alternative chemicals used to make toys for the European market have been found to be safer than phthalates, said Janet Nudelman of the Breast Cancer Fund, which pushed for the U.S. ban. Chemical makers say the alternatives are not as cheap or versatile as phthalates.
August 3, 2008 | Permalink
TrackBack URL for this entry:
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Despite Additive Ban, Some Parents Voice Worry: | <urn:uuid:d59e04db-c1b2-4da7-b1d9-f8b79f6198a1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/healthlawprof_blog/2008/08/despite-additiv.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96632 | 887 | 2.40625 | 2 |
With temperatures rising, those who have not done so already should consider whether they have an opportunity to save on energy costs. Those who own rental properties may find that a good air conditioning system has the double advantage of appealing to renters and lowering costs. For renters, the combination of cost and comfort may be very enticing.
One straightforward improvement that might be possible is to purchase a programmable thermostat, Multi-Housing News suggests. Renters without them may leave the air conditioning on when not present intentionally to have a comfortable home when they get back from work or an outing, or simply forget to turn off the air conditioning when they leave.
The age and size of an air conditioning unit can have a significant impact. A unit that is too small might cause residents to run it at a higher setting or more often in order to maintain a comfortable environment, so it could well be cheaper in the long run to purchase a larger model.
Newer models are typically smaller and more efficient than their older equivalents, on the other hand. Owners may find their expenses lower if they buy a high-efficiency model rather than trying to replace or repair the old one, as the lower costs over time make up for the initial investment. | <urn:uuid:95ef3bd1-d75c-4958-8fc3-fc744adaaf67> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.allpropertymanagement.com/blog/2012/07/18/check-ac-quality-to-limit-summer-expenses/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9505 | 247 | 1.90625 | 2 |
The esoteric path has been described to various degrees in many of the ancient sacred texts as well as in myths, parables, and legends across many cultures. Gaining self-knowledge and combining this with personal experiences from spiritual practices, it becomes easier to uncover and extract deeper and relevant meanings from the more veiled texts and teachings.
It’s also useful to look at some particular modern spiritual teachings which help explain practically what to do to gain your own esoteric knowledge and can help pinpoint what to look for in the ancient writings.
Here below is by no means an exhaustive list of all the valuable sacred texts out there, and some are more esoteric/difficult to get practical use out of than others, but as invaluable sources of knowledge and inspiration, we recommend having a look through them to supplement your practice.
List of Spiritual Texts
The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
The famous account of Dante’s mystical experiences through the underworld and beyond.
The Tao Te Ching
An ever-intriguing and seemingly contradictory account of spirituality and the truth, but which can be understood when put into the context of esoteric wisdom.
The Flight of the Feathered Serpent by Armando Cosani
This book, originally published in the 1950s, contains an account, writings, and secret teachings of Judas Iscariot. Recently the Gospel of Judas was discovered and translated, and it showed how Judas was in reality just playing a role in the “Christic drama” as requested by Jesus. This book, written well before the Gospel of Judas was found, corroborates with that account.
The Flight of the Feathered Serpent
A treasured tale for all to enjoy, but underneath, it is symbolic of the esoteric works a person goes through on the spiritual path.
The Bhagavad Gita
A particular highlight of the Mahabharata. Here are three modern translations, followed by one older one.
The Rig Veda
The oldest of all Vedas.
Translated by Ralph T. H. Griffith (pdf)
These contain profound knowledge and cover the hidden or mystical side of Christianity, which the early Christians practised and taught until they were completely persecuted out of doing so, their texts literally buried, and they were forced to move underground and to the East.
The Four Gospels
Matthew ~ American Standard version, King James version (html), King James version (pdf)
Mark ~ American Standard version, King James version (html), King James version (pdf)
Luke ~ American Standard version, King James version (html), King James version (pdf)
John ~ American Standard version, King James version (html), King James version (pdf)
The Book of Revelation
The Nag Hammadi Library
The following texts contain events and insights from the lives and experiences of some of the disciples:
The scriptures below contain the sayings of Jesus, as well as further information about his life:
The Apocryphon of James ~ Williams translations (html), Cameron translation (html)
The Book of Thomas the Contender ~ pdf, html
The Dialogue of the Savior
The Gospel of Philip
The Gospel of Thomas ~ Patterson & Meyer translation (html), Lambdin translation (html), Patterson & Robinson translation (html)
The Pistis Sophia
Means “Power-Wisdom.” This esoteric text is alleged to reveal information about the final stages of the path to enlightenment.
The Pistis Sophia
These are sayings of the Buddha, written down 400 years after his death. They are parts of the larger collection of Buddha’s teachings called the Tipitaka.
Translated by Gil Fronsdal (html)
Selected verses from the Dhammapada and the stories behind them.
Dhammapada Stories by Gambhiro Bikkhu (pdf with illustrations)
Sixty Songs of Milarepa
Translated by Garma C. C. Chang (pdf with illustrations) | <urn:uuid:ac969025-e7c3-42d9-bec7-0537740f5478> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mysticseekerstoronto.com/sacred-texts/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.915472 | 820 | 2.390625 | 2 |
Welcome to the Storm Water Resource Locator!
This resource is designed to help companies in the construction industry know about and comply with the storm water rules in their area.
If your company carries out construction activities, you know the problems:
Many states now offer valuable assistance on the Internet. Finding it is not always easy. This resource includes a page for every state with links to the resources available from the state, arranged to make it as easy as possible for you to pick out what you will need. The information is presented in five steps, to answer the following questions:
If a state provides other items of possible interest for storm water compliance, they are listed in the "Additional Resources" section.
Sometimes when you follow these links, you will be taken to a long page or document. Check the "SWRL hints" for help in finding exactly where in the document the specific information you need is located.
Please note that occasionally some states may leave obsolete information in place. You may want to check with the contacts listed for your state to be sure you are getting up-to-date information.
To use the Storm Water Resource Locator, start by selecting a state from the map or or the pulldown menu. If you are using the map, click on the state's initials: | <urn:uuid:f3f16dfe-d80a-431e-a35c-42a34ee883ef> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.envcap.org/swrl/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00057-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932184 | 263 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Poet: Emily Dickinson
The Moon is distant from the Sea
Volume: Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson
Year: Published/Written in 1955
Poem of the Day:
Jan 31 2002
Comment 1 of 1, added on May 2nd, 2009 at 12:44 AM.
I really love this poem, I like it sooo much, when she writes about simple things, that after you have looked closer don't seem that simple at all.
She was a genius, wasn't she?
Gabija from Germany
Are you looking for more information on this poem? Perhaps you are trying to analyze it? The poem, The Moon is distant from the Sea, has received one comment so far. Click here to read it, and perhaps post a comment of your own. | <urn:uuid:29fce50e-efa4-4c6d-9ff2-65c672148685> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/emilydickinson/10381 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970143 | 162 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Rev. Patrick O'Connor & Dr. Calvin Rice, Founding Members
Empowered Queens United in Action and Leadership (EQUAL) is dedicated to building citizen power for new immigrants and poor and working families to enable them to shape public policies that impact low-to-middle-income neighborhoods in Queens-a borough of 2.2 million people, of which 46% are foreign-born. EQUAL is made up of 11 congregations with a constituency of over 3,500 residents and is affiliated with the national Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) through which it receives professional leadership and organization skills to build a political base by identifying, recruiting, training, and developing leaders in local communities.
EQUAL engages with neighborhood residents through “listening campaigns,” a systematic process that requires organizers to listen and engage participants. Together community members determine the issues most concerning to them and set a plan of action. In 2010 EQUAL focused on campaigns related to a 10% interest cap on credit, affordable housing, and quality educational programs for young people. | <urn:uuid:f0053f7c-1737-4dbe-bc16-4f631b687658> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.unionsquareawards.org/social-justice-orgs/54-2010/184-empowered-queens-united-in-action-and-leadership-equal | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959619 | 214 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Dancing at the crossroads: Liberating Latina adolescents' voice
This theoretical study listens to the experience of Latina girls as they navigate the critical crossroads of adolescence in search of self and voice. It suggests that joining a dialogical educational pedagogy, as espoused by Paulo Freire, with a spirituality nurtured in the Gospel account of the Visitation of Mary to her cousin Elizabeth creates an educational climate where Latina adolescent's voice is liberated and empowered. An environment of mutual dialogue between the Latina adolescent and her teacher is required for the liberation of the Latina adolescent's voice in the conversation of education and life. Using dance as a metaphor, a methodology based on the process of choreography unites the research elements of adolescent female development, Latina culture and educational experience, liberating educational pedagogy, and Visitation spirituality into a new educational paradigm. ^ Adolescence has been characterized as a crossroads experience where girls struggle to find their voice and identity as emerging women. At this critical juncture of life, it is essential for the adolescent to develop strong supportive relationships that sustain her in the search for her true self. For the Latina adolescent, cultural and family expectations may place additional demands on her as she attempts to balance the requirements of the dominant Anglo culture operative in school and society. Latina adolescent girls are seeking caring compassionate women to assist them with the dance of identity. School, for many Latina adolescents, is a place of oppression, alienation, and imposed silence. In this environment Latina adolescents do not recognize teachers as potential dance partners. ^ Moving from a liberating educational pedagogy and a spirit nurtured in the Visitation of Mary, the teacher/dancer establishes an environment of dialogue that welcomes the Latina adolescent dancer to join her at the crossroads experience. Mutuality, curiosity, humility, attentive listening, reflection, cultural affirmation, courage, and care characterize the climate of dialogue necessary for this dance to develop. In the Visitation dance between a teacher and a Latina adolescent each dancer imparts wisdom and learns to see and move with new energy and direction. Their dance is never ending and ever unfolding. ^
Education, Bilingual and Multicultural|Education, Religious|Education, Secondary
Ona Bernadette Bessette,
"Dancing at the crossroads: Liberating Latina adolescents' voice"
(January 1, 2003).
ETD Collection for Fordham University. | <urn:uuid:ce6e6567-0464-4c5c-8c06-b115945d6d0d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://fordham.bepress.com/dissertations/AAI3084904/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.92616 | 496 | 2.375 | 2 |
Revolutionary Pensioners: A Transcript of the Pension List of the United States for 1813
Revolutionary Pensioners. U.S. War Department. (1813). Reprinted from a very rare work issued by the Secretary of War in 1813, this pamphlet records the names of nearly 1,800 Revolutionary War pensioners.
Arranged alphabetically under the States, the entries give the name of the pensioner as well as his district, rank, and annual pension.Genealogical.com publishes genealogy books and CDs. Whether you are just beginning to explore your family tree or are an experienced researcher looking for in-depth genealogy data, Genealogical.com can provide you with the resources you need. We publish over 2,000 genealogy books and compact discs featuring colonial genealogy, Irish genealogy, immigration, royal ancestry, family history, and genealogy methods and sources. Genealogical.com is the online home of Genealogical Publishing Company, Clearfield Company, and Gateway Press. Search our genealogy books by title, author or keyword phrase or browse our genealogy book sale. | <urn:uuid:c8503cf2-9e6b-487c-94c0-18fb764b3be7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.myheritage.es/research/collection-56023/revolutionary-pensioners-a-transcript-the-pension-list-the-united-states | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.903817 | 228 | 1.96875 | 2 |
Students Start Journal
A Harvard freshman is organizing an undergraduate scientific journal to start publication in April 1978.
Daniel M. Becker '80 said yesterday the journal will print articles written by undergraduates and also report scientific news. The magazine will also publish articles on the role of science in the community, he said. These would include stories on the recombinant DNA controversy and the banning of carcinogens such as saccharin.
"The journal will not serve just to publish papers. It will be for the reader and not the writer," Becker said.
The major problems in founding the magazine are finding the money to publish the first issue and recruiting a staff committed enough to put in the needed time, Becker said.
Becker said he decided to form the journal to give Harvard a magazine similar to the Yale Scientific, the only undergraduate science journal in the country. | <urn:uuid:79698234-adff-4c0f-a8bd-66382ee1e465> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1977/5/11/students-start-journal-pa-harvard-freshman/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951787 | 173 | 2.140625 | 2 |
The thermal insulation provided by a fabric bears little relationship to the thermal insulation of the fibres within the fabric. This is due to the fact that the thermal insulation of textile fibres is actually much poorer than air. Indeed, the thermal conductivity of air is ten times lower than most textile fibres. (Fig 1)
Consequently, the thermal insulation of a fabric is provided not by the fibres themselves but by the air between the fibres that compose the fabric. Since the merino fibre is so much finer than normal wool and most other textiles, for a given weight, merino contains more air spaces, and hence provides greater insulation. (Fig 4)
In addition, unlike smooth synthetic fibres, the scales on the surface of the merino fibres help keep the fibres apart. This increases the surface area available to resist the passage of air through the fabric, and so helps explain its insulation capacity. (Fig 6)
Furthermore, studies have shown that the insulation provided by a fabric bears a direct relationship to the thickness of the fabric. (Fig 7)
If the surface of the fabric can be brushed up to increase its effective thickness, the thermal insulation is proportionately increased. The crimp of its fibres means the surface of a merino fabric can be readily brushed up to produce a significant increase in effective thickness with no increase in weight. (Fig 8)
The perception of merino as an effective insulator is therefore explained not by the thermal insulation of the fibre itself but by the way in which the fineness and scales of merino fibres combine to trap more of the air upon which all textiles rely for their insulation.
There are other ways in which merino provides warmth.
In 1858 Coulier was the first to observe that when dry wool was moved to a moist room, it produced a rise in temperature. This became known as the “heat of sorption”. This is explained by the fact when moisture vapour is absorbed into merino’s internal structure, it transforms from gas to liquid and the phase change produces the rise in temperature. (Fig 6)
And, the rise is significant. In fact, the heat of sorption from a kg of merino can be equivalent to the output from an electric blanket over eight hours. Merino produces significant heat of sorption because it has an amazing capacity to absorb moisture – up to 35% of its dry weight.
Synthetic fibres, on the other hand, produce negligible heat of sorption because they don’t have the same ability to absorb water vapour as merino. (Fig 7)
Merino has a further advantage over most synthetics in that it feels warm to the touch. Sensors in the tips of our fingers are able to detect small changes in temperature. Consequently, when we touch a smooth object with a high thermal conductivity like metal, heat flows readily from our body to the cooler object. When this happens, our fingers sense a drop in temperature and the object feels “cold”.
Conversely, if we touch a fabric with a bulkier surface that is largely composed of air - a poor thermal conductor - the heat transfer is much less, our fingers sense little change in temperature, and the object feels “warm”. This explains why merino, which at the microscopic level is bulky at the surface, “feels” warmer to the touch than a smooth synthetic, and why merino is much preferred when it comes to garments to be worn next to the skin in winter. (Fig 8)
A further perception that enhances merino’s reputation for warmth is that it feels warm even when wet. This can be explained in a number of ways.
Firstly, just as a merino fibre can absorb up to 35% of its weight in water, a merino garment can absorb up to 60% of its own weight before it feels wet to the touch. This is partly due to merino’s ability to bond moisture within the internal structure of its fibres, and partly due to the bulky surface nature of merino, which isolates the wetness from our touch.
It has also been shown that water evaporated from the inner side of a wet fabric is recondensed near the outer side. If the fabric is strongly wicking, like most synthetics, the water is drawn back more quickly to a position nearer the body where it must be re-evaporated. This requires more heat to be drawn from the body which results in a drop in temperature.
Untreated merino on the other hand is poorly wicking, and this cycle of evaporation, recondensation and re-evaporation doesn’t occur to the same extent, saving the body’s energy, and making us feel warmer.
The fineness and scales of merino fibres and its amazing capacity to absorb moisture combine to produce fabrics which offer superior insulation and higher levels of heat of sorption than synthetics, as well as feeling warm to the touch, even when wet.
Figures and tables are courtesy of CSIRO unless otherwise stated. | <urn:uuid:45b1012a-655c-4a99-b1d9-1208c95909c6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.i-merino.com/easycare/Warmth | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00065-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934575 | 1,057 | 3.75 | 4 |
"I've always thought of myself as both a literary historian and a literary critic," says Henry Louis Gates, Jr., "someone who loves archives and someone who is dedicated to resurrecting texts that have dropped out of sight."
Gates, this year's Jefferson Lecturer in the Humanities, has been untiring in his quest. He has unearthed old periodicals, edited dictionaries and anthologies, and written a dozen books. For twenty years he and his colleagues have gathered fragments of a culture, amassing more than forty thousand texts for the Black Periodical Literature Project and enough material for fifty-two volumes on African American Women Writers of the Nineteenth Century for the Schomburg Center in New York. Gates's latest effort is a multimedia digital encyclopedia of African culture, Encarta Africana.
His projects travel with him in many instances. They are the corollary of a teaching career that has taken him from Yale to Cornell to Duke to Harvard. Through all the work runs the dichotomy of race.
"I rebel at the notion that I can't be part of other groups, that I can't construct identities through elective affinity, that race must be the most important thing about me," he once wrote in an open letter to his daughters. "Is that what I want on my gravestone: Here lies an African American? So I'm divided. I want to be black, to know black, to luxuriate in whatever I might be calling blackness at any particular time--but to do so in order to come out the other side, to experience a humanity that is neither colorless nor reducible to color."
It has been a remarkable journey from the mill town of Piedmont, West Virginia, where Gates grew up. After attending junior college in Piedmont, he studied at Yale and spent a year overseas working at a hospital in Africa. He was graduated summa cum laude in history in 1973 and went to Clare College at Cambridge University on a Mellon Fellowship. Gates earned a Ph.D. in English from Cambridge and became an assistant professor at Yale with a joint appointment in the English department and Afro-American studies. He is now the W.E.B. Du Bois Professor of Humanities at Harvard and director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for Afro-American Research.
In 1981, when the MacArthur Foundation gave its first fellowships, Gates was among the recipients. He capped that achievement a year later with the rediscovery of the first novel in the United States written by a black person, Harriet E. Wilson's 1859 book Our Nig. He has recently acquired another long-lost manuscript from that period, The Bondwoman's Narrative, which will be published this spring.
In Gates's view, until stories like these are part of the American fabric, the country's literary heritage is not whole. "It is clear that every black American text must confess to a complex ancestry, one high and one low (literary and vernacular), but also one white and one black," he writes in Loose Canons. "There can be no doubt that white texts inform and influence black texts (and vice versa), so that a thoroughly integrated canon of American literature is not only politically sound, it is intellectually sound as well."
He sees the challenge in broad terms: "Our generation must record, codify, and disseminate the assembled data about African and African American culture, thereby institutionalizing the received knowledge about African Americans that has been gathered for the past century, and that we continue to gather, as we chart heretofore unexplored continents of ignorance. For our generation of scholars in African-American studies, to map the splendid diversity of human life in culture is the charge of the scholar of African American Studies." | <urn:uuid:f43be48a-cb3b-4a60-a46d-beb2aab954de> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.neh.gov/print/858 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00067-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96714 | 775 | 2.09375 | 2 |
UCLA researchers found that older adults who regularly used a brain fitness program played on a computer demonstrated significantly improved memory and language skills. The study’s findings add to the field exploring whether such brain fitness tools may help improve language and memory and may ultimately help protect individuals from the cognitive decline associated with aging and Alzheimer’s disease.
The phenomenon of highly superior autobiographical memory – first documented in 2006 by UCI neurobiologist James McGaugh and colleagues in a woman identified as “AJ” – has been profiled on CBS’s “60 Minutes” and in hundreds of other media outlets. UC Irvine scientists have discovered intriguing differences in the brains and mental processes of an extraordinary group of people with effortless autobiographical memory – in this people, they can easily recall every moment of their lives since about age 10.
You are headed out the door and you realize you do not have your car keys. After a few minutes of rifling through pockets, checking the seat cushions and scanning the coffee table, you find the familiar key ring and off you go. Easy enough, right?
Millions of people suffering from Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson’s, muscular dystrophy, spinal cord injuries or amputees could soon interact with their computers and surroundings using just their eyes, thanks to a new device that costs less than £40 (approximately $62.00). Included in this report is a video demonstration of this new device as well as a link to download the original, full-text study.
So far it has seemed an irreparable limitation of human perception that we strain to perceive things in the very rapid succession of, say, less than half a second. Psychologists call this deficit an “attentional blink.” We’ll notice that first car spinning out in our path, but maybe not register the one immediately beyond it. It turns out, we can learn to do better after all.
Preventing diabetes or delaying its onset has been thought to stave off cognitive decline. This connection is strongly supported by the results of a 9-year study led by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and the San Francisco VA Medical Center.
Researchers at the RIKEN Brain Science Institute (BSI) in Japan have uncovered two brain signals in the human prefrontal cortex involved in how humans predict the decisions of other people. Their results suggest that the two signals, each located in distinct prefrontal circuits, strike a balance between expected and observed rewards and choices, which enables humans to predict the actions of people with different values than their own.
Every day the human brain is presented with tasks ranging from the trivial to the complex. How much mental effort and attention are devoted to each task is usually determined in a split second and without conscious awareness. Now a study from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers finds that a structure deep within the brain, believed to play an important role in regulating conscious control of goal-directed behavior, helps to optimize behavioral responses by predicting how difficult upcoming tasks will be. | <urn:uuid:3e2d5426-46e2-4260-92d7-a448f6eff85f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bmedreport.com/archives/category/psychology/cognition | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951862 | 627 | 2.90625 | 3 |
Time to prune
Published: Friday, January 4, 2013 at 3:00 a.m.
Last Modified: Thursday, January 3, 2013 at 4:29 p.m.
The rose revolution began in 1995.
Russian River Rose Company: Jan Tolmasoff will lead hands-on pruning workshops working with all types of roses including climbers, bushes, shrubs and miniatures. 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Jan. 19 and 26. Ends with a hands-on propagation demonstration from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. $30. $10 for propagation workshop only. 1685 Magnolia Dr., Healdsburg. 433-7455, russian-river-rose.com.
Redwood Empire Rose Society: Members offer free rose pruning demonstrations from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Jan. 5 and 12. 2050 Yulupa Ave., Santa Rosa. 480-4925.
Sonoma County Master Gardeners: Jim Lang leads two free pruning classes 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Jan. 12 at the Petaluma Library, 100 Fairgrounds Drive and during the same hours on Jan. 26 at the Sebastopol Library, 7140 Bodega Ave. 565-2608.
To Reach Curtis Short: 528-8302 or email@example.com.
German rose breeder Noack Rosen introduced the first flower carpet roses to the market, groundcover “wonder roses” bred to produce up to 2,000 flowers per season and marketed as drought-tolerant and carefree.
The pretty roses began popping out of formal gardens and private yards and into public landscapes. But these forgiving roses, planted to dress up drab places like gas stations, banks, supermarkets and even freeways, often go untended. They might look okay from a distance driving by, giving home gardeners the false impression that roses don't need to be pruned after all, says Curtis Short, a Santa Rosa licensed landscape contractor and aesthetic pruner. But they do, and January is the time.
“While the roses along Highway 101 may look great from a distance at freeway speeds,” said Short, “they probably would appear quite uruly by our back door.”
Pruning your roses, whatever they they may be, will not only produce tidier plants, but will stimulate new, stronger, better-flowering growth and eliminate the nasty old stuff that harbors pests and diseases, he said.
Before Valentine's Day
So put on a long-sleeved shirt and gloves and grab some sharp pruning shears and make a date with your roses. The Sonoma County Master Gardeners recommended doing it by Valentine's Day. If you prune later than that, you risk knocking off new shoots.
“I love people to get out there and tackle their roses rather than letting them go because they feel like it's too complicated to do,” says Short. “All roses are very forgiving about pruning.”
When pruning large rose bushes, your objective is to take out old, weak and sick canes. Cut them cleanly at the base, then shorten the remaining stems by removing at least the top third of the plant, says Short.
“You might want to leave more if you have a floribunda or old rose variety,” he said. “But with vigorously growing hybrid teas (the most common bush roses), you can cut the height down by half or more.”
Make a clean cut above a node, a spot on the stem from which leaves and secondary stems grow. Don't worry about finding a bud there. If you see a dot or dimple with a thin, eyebrow-like line trailing out on either side, you have a node. Cut about ¼-inch above that, says Short, and whenever possible, choose nodes that will send shoots away from the center of the plan to achieve the best shape and growth.
Pull off and dispose of all the remaining leaves after pruning to keep fungus from infecting new growth, adds short, who has a degree in plant science from U.C. Davis with an emphasis in plant pathology.
You'll also want to tackle your low-spreading, ground-cover roses. If you don't, they'll mound into a nasty thicket, so try thinning them into spider-like stems every year.
Climbing roses should be similarly thinned out every year, leaving only the best and healthiest rose-bearing stems.
“A climbing rose that isn't thinned out annually can turn into a mountain of thorny stems,” says Short, adding that in some cases, the weight will even break the arbor or trellis.
Prune old canes
His trick is to completely remove a climbing rose from its support structure, removing the ties and untwining the stems. Lay it out on the ground so you can see what you have and pick up and work on it, one cane at a time. Prune out old canes so that as few as three to five remain.
“Before tying these canes back in place, I slightly cut back the tips of each one and I completely de-leaf each one in turn before tying each stem back onto the fence, trellis or arbor,” says Short. “Depending on the situation, I might pull a climbing rose down completely ever winter, or I might do it once every two or three years.”
To ease future removal, be sure the stems do not become woven behind or around it when putting your climber back onto its structure.
“You always want to tie your climbing roses to the face of your structure. Or if training them on an overhead structure, you want them to go up and over. Otherwise it can be a nightmare for some people. For me, it's one of those macho thrills in gardening, to wrestle with the thorny beast,” he said with a laugh.
If you have tree roses, Short recommends cutting back the stems substantially each year. Otherwise they will develop a massive or unbalanced top that is too large for the trunk to bear. Try to develop evenly spaced canes, he says, that spread out like the spokes of a wheel.
You can reach Staff Writer Meg McConahey at firstname.lastname@example.org or 521-5204.
All rights reserved. This copyrighted material may not be re-published without permission. Links are encouraged. | <urn:uuid:0cd075b5-b4c8-4e1d-b790-c4d670b86c42> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20130104/LIFESTYLE/130109862/1316/lifestyle?Title=Time-to-prune | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939938 | 1,382 | 1.679688 | 2 |
NEW YORK (AP) - Election Day turnout was heavy in several storm-ravaged areas in New York and New Jersey, with many voters expressing relief and even elation at being able to vote at all, considering the devastation.
Lines were long in Point Pleasant, N.J., where residents from the Jersey Shore communities of Point Pleasant Beach and Mantoloking had to cast their ballots due to damage in their hometowns.
Many there still have no power eight days after Sandy pummeled the shore.
Annette DeBona of Point Pleasant Beach says it was the happiest vote she ever cast in her life. She chose Mitt Romney, saying he can lift America out of a spiritual and mental depression.
Michael Sirchio, an insurance adjuster from Point Pleasant Beach whose own home was damaged in the storm, voted for Obama, saying he inherited a financial crisis and two wars, and did a good job ending both.
On New York City's battered Staten Island, voters bundled up and lined up in the early morning darkness outside tents functioning as makeshift polling places.
Copyright 2013 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. | <urn:uuid:129d14a5-fb31-4e26-8e18-3605a0e20253> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kolotv.com/home/headlines/Superstorm-Doesnt-Stop-Voters-from-Lining-Up-177487481.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962229 | 242 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Re-valuing salvaged materials can unlock a sustainable future for our built heritage
Fitzroy Terrace is a row of 7 Georgian terraces built circa 1845, and is a state listed heritage item. The subject house, perhaps the most original of the seven, was in a state of serious disrepair. The brief was to provide a contemporary reconfiguration of the rear of the house to extend its life for the foreseeable future. The response established a series of codes to generate the new building forms. These forms are set out using springing points, levels and profiles of existing building elements.
A butterfly roof form transforms the main upper level. A breezeway is re-established, with a demolished laundry captured in profile. The shell of the original outhouse accommodates a new bathroom and establishes a profile for the studio structure extruded across the property. Another code was established for materials. Salvaged timber is left unfinished; new timber is painted. Internally, brickwork is sealed and left exposed. Ashlar render is left so the extent of the original buildings is still discernible. Where walls have been removed to provide openings, the cut brickwork is left exposed; where walls already had openings, jambs are simply lined with timber. Missing sections of original details such as balustrades, windows and thresholds have been replaced with respectful, clearly different adaptations of the originals.
The intention in establishing these codes was to enable anyone entering the house to be able to understand how the house evolved within a few minutes of being there- what was old, what was new- why something was the shape it was and how it was built. The house is an exercise in responsive, small scale details which collectively result in a new home respectfully wrapped around the existing heritage fabric. It shows that recycled (not reprocessed) materials can be part of a contemporary design response, and using simple planning strategies can result in a flexible, environmentally responsible architecture. | <urn:uuid:b450ba82-c170-40d8-99fb-f9a18c77b06a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.worldarchitecturenews.com/index.php?fuseaction=wanappln.projectview&upload_id=21089®ion=6 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962786 | 394 | 3 | 3 |
As graphic designers for the apparel industry, we’ve heard the phrase “Make it Look Like Affliction” so many times. It’s a strange coincidence. You have a dozen apparel companies and bands who have absolutely nothing in common with each other except for one thing. And that is to make their shirt look like the ever so popular clothing line started by Eric Foss and Todd Beard in 2005. You know, with the dark gothic imagery, skulls, a generous helping of intricate ornaments and woodcut linework, the huge placement across the shoulders, the faded prints, the garment dying, the splatters, the grunge, I could go on! It’s an alternative clothing company’s dream! The ironic thing is, while these bands and clothing companies attempt to differentiate themselves from the rest of the pack, they wind up all looking the same – just not quite there.
So why is Affliction the brand that most of these people want to be like?
Here are 5 reasons:
1.) The illustration is very good. Certainly much better than most of the shirts it hangs next to in the mall. It’s hand drawn, which is admirable in the world of cut and paste graphic “designers” today. Not everyone can just pick up a pencil and draw 16 skeletons riding horses wielding various weaponry. It’s very ambitious illustration driving artwork. I have always had respect for that.
2.) It’s trendy. Between a mix of the appropriate spooky subject matter and design fodder such ornaments and splatters it appeals to the rebellious (and somehow the jocks). You will see that on children’s t-shirts at Value City Department Stores for $10 (haven’t checked, but I’m sure you’ll find some). I have been wondering when this trend will die out, but it’s really peaking now. I walked into Buckle recently and checked out the shirts. Just about every brand had some sort of ornate flourishing on it. Yeah, it’s like the make it cool button. But the people behind Affliction like to hand draw this stuff, which is admirable.
3.) Their shirt quality. They have access to specialty apparel manufacturers (possibly overseas) to custom distress, dye, sew, and print their shirts. Word on the street is Affliction gets their shirts cut and sewn by JS Apparel. Printed by Massive Prints and dyed by LA Dye and Wash House.
4.) Their marketing owns you. They have countless Hollywood celebrities wearing their gear. And that probably means more to the general public (those that drop $30 for a t-shirt) than the actual design itself. I am going to make a judgment call and say that a lot of teens at the mall are more concerned with impressing their friends than the art on the shirt. They are more apt to buy into the marketing and celebrity influence than most. Having such a large group of celebrities really does influence what the ignorant public thinks about your brand. A lot of clothing company startups try to sponsor the most popular bands they can because they know they have a good chance of turning that band’s fanbase into customers. And it DOES have an influence on sales. This kind of thing matters to the general public (surprise?). “Fall Out Boy wears this brand so I must wear it too!”
5.) They are setting the standard for this new generation of t-shirt printing. 5 years ago, you couldn’t go to your local screenprinter and have stuff printed and customized to the extent that Affliction does. You still can’t today (realistically speaking), which is changing. Affliction is making this kind of customization popular. With everyone being a designer these days, everyone wants to start a clothing company. The DIY revolution is beginning to take off and individuals are now finding resources that only large corporations had. It’s still not that easy to get this stuff done, but it’s out there if you look hard enough (and can afford it).
Changing the Industry
I remember a year and a half ago trying to get Jakprints to do some “specialty” printing and I referenced Affliction. They told me they couldn’t do it. They tried a few techniques that they use, like discharge inks and bigger prints, but it wasn’t as easy as it seemed. Even today, your typical screenprinting shop won’t be able to do it. But the more popular these brands like Affliction get, they will force printers to step up their game and offer these services. But even today, there are only a small percentage of apparel brands with access to this kind of service.
So apparently, Affliction is sort of becoming a role model for clothing companies that want to appeal to the metal and hard rock scene. Even if you’re not a fan of this brand, you have to respect what it is doing for the industry. Inspiring tons of designers to get off their ass and start creating. It’s also inspiring tons of entrepreneurs and business men to try and capitalize on this fad while it’s pretty much still young. So it’s natural that we have about 1 or 2 requests a week from different companies that want to be like Affliction.
I just find it funny that there is one brand that is consistently mentioned. I am sure other designers reading this get this request too.
Advice to Bands and Clothing Companies
I can offer some advice to bands and clothing companies that are asking us to “Make it look like Affliction”: Be prepared to pay for it (hand drawn illustration takes us lots of time) and make sure you have the resources to be able to print and produce what we design for you. Nothing is worse than spending 15 hours designing a t-shirt that will never be printed because of either A) budget or B) lack of resources and know how. Do not just flat out copy Affliction, I hate that. Affliction is doing some good things, but we hate to copy other people’s work. We encourage bands and clothing companies to understand Affliction’s success formula and adapt it to their own unique vision.
Advice to Designers
Us designers can change the way a t-shirt is perceived. It doesn’t have to be an advertisement. I encourage all designers to “think outside the box” and really challenge what you know about t-shirt design. Educate your clients on the possibilities and don’t just give in and copy and paste what someone else already did. One of the best things about Affliction is that they’re hand drawn. I understand not everyone can draw, but to those than can, do it. You’ll be surprised. As I tell myself when I’m struggling to come up with a design: “Just fucking draw it!” | <urn:uuid:5c92c6f8-cf7e-4783-a86b-7e49a4ad593d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gomediazine.com/insights/make-it-look-like-affliction/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00069-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959517 | 1,447 | 1.523438 | 2 |
If one manages to graduate from high school without the rudiments of algebra, geometry and trigonometry, there are certain relatively high-paying careers probably off-limits for life — such as careers in architecture, chemistry, computer programming, engineering, medicine and certain technical fields. For example, one might meet all of the physical requirements to be a fighter pilot, but he's grounded if he doesn't have enough math to understand physics, aerodynamics and navigation. Mathematical ability helps provide the disciplined structure that helps people to think, speak and write more clearly. In general, mathematics is an excellent foundation and prerequisite for study in all areas of science and engineering. So where do U.S. youngsters stand in math?
Drs. Eric Hanushek and Paul Peterson, senior fellows at the Hoover Institution, looked at the performance of our youngsters compared with their counterparts in other nations, in their Newsweek article, "Why Can't American Students Compete?" (Aug. 28, 2011), reprinted under the title "Math Matters" in the Hoover Digest (2012). In the latest international tests administered by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, only 32 percent of U.S. students ranked proficient in math — coming in between Portugal and Italy but far behind South Korea, Finland, Canada and the Netherlands. U.S. students couldn't hold a finger to the 75 percent of Shanghai students who tested proficient.
What about our brightest? It turns out that only 7 percent of U.S. students perform at the advanced level in math. Forty-five percent of the students in Shanghai are advanced in math, compared with 20 percent in South Korea and Switzerland and 15 percent of students in Japan, Belgium, Finland, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Canada.
Hanushek and Peterson find one bright spot among our young people. That's Asian-American students, 52 percent of whom perform at the proficient level or higher. Among white students, only 42 percent perform math at a proficient level. The math performance of black and Hispanic students is a disaster, with only 11 and 15 percent, respectively, performing math at the proficient level or higher.
The National Center for Education Statistics revealed some of the results of American innumeracy. Among advanced degrees in engineering awarded at U.S. universities during the 2007-08 academic year, 28 percent went to whites; 2 percent went to blacks; 2 percent went to Hispanics; and 61 percent went to foreigners. Of the advanced degrees in mathematics, 40 percent went to whites; 2 percent went to blacks; 5 percent went to Hispanics; and 50 percent went to foreigners. For advanced degrees in education, 65 percent went to whites; 17 percent went to blacks; 5 percent went to Hispanics; and 8 percent went to foreigners. The pattern is apparent. The more rigorous a subject area the higher the percentage of foreigners — and the lower the percentage of Americans — earning advanced degrees. In subject areas such as education, which have little or no rigor, Americans are likelier — and foreigners are less likely — to earn advanced degrees.
In a New York Times article — "Do We Need Foreign Technology Workers?" (April 8, 2009) — Dr. Vivek Wadhwa of the Pratt School of Engineering at Duke University said "that 47 percent of all U.S. science and engineering workers with doctorates are immigrants as were 67 percent of the additions to the U.S. science and engineering work force between 1995 to 2006. And roughly 60 percent of engineering Ph.D. students and 40 percent of master's students are foreign nationals."
American mathematic proficiency levels leave a lot to be desired if we're to maintain competitiveness. For blacks and Hispanics, it's a tragedy with little prospect for change, but the solution is not rocket science. During my tenure as a member of Temple University's faculty in the 1970s, I tutored black students in math. When they complained that math was too difficult, I told them that if they spent as much time practicing math as they did practicing jump shots, they'd be just as good at math as they were at basketball. The same message of hard work and discipline applies to all students, but someone must demand it.
Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com. | <urn:uuid:58ff6b6c-7108-4f0b-bb40-1ae921318722> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://newsbusters.org/blogs/walter-e-williams/2012/02/22/math-matters | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962017 | 905 | 3.234375 | 3 |
Posted by Bob on April 17, 2007
In Reply to: Re: Onward and upward posted by RRC on April 17, 2007
: : "Onward and Upward with the Arts". What is the origin of this phrase? I've seen a threat here identifying "onward and upward" as coming from a Lowell poem, and I know The New Yorker uses "Onward and Upward with the Arts" as a section heading, but did the magazine originate it? Seeing it in Moss Hart's autobiography "Act One" made me think not. The phrase seems lightly satirical to me, but I'm not certain of what it is generally intended or taken to convey. Any thoughts would be welcome.
: "Onward and upward" is the most often used translation of the Latin motto "Excelsior" (incidentally the state motto of New York).
"Act One," a delightful biography, does not predate The New Yorker. | <urn:uuid:e0efa338-0381-4ccd-a4e8-7386e2fcb7e2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/53/messages/932.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975465 | 195 | 2.03125 | 2 |
- Marbot by Wolfgang Hildesheimer
Suhrkamp, 326 pp, May 1981, ISBN 3 518 03205 4
Wolfgang Hildesheimer has certainly been around a lot. Born in Hamburg in 1916, he belongs to that generation of Germans whom fortune first inexorably divided into victims and perpetrators and then united as bewildered survivors. In 1934 he emigrated with his parents to England and thence to Palestine, where he was apprenticed to a master carpenter. He spent a couple of years at the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London, taught English for the British Council in Tel Aviv, and ended the war as an officer of the British Information Service in Jerusalem. Between 1946 and 1949 he worked with the Allied War Crimes Commission at Nuremberg. He has lived in Southern Germany, Bavaria, Cornwall, and in Urbino (where presumably he first came upon traces of Andrew Marbot’s life); now he seems to have settled in Poschiavo in the Swiss Grisons. Rumour has it that he is a generous host with a fair Knowledge of the local vineyards.
Travel, especially of the involuntary sort, does not always broaden the mind, and it seems to have taken Hildesheimer some time before he shed those traces of solipsism which are endemic to a good deal of post-war German prose. Although he has written about places as different as the North African desert, Norwegian villages, Mozart’s Vienna and (repeatedly) the Cornish coast, some of his early work has the dreamlike quality of introspective monologue – a genre which is hardly ever free from self-absorption and self-indulgence. But he has always been on the move, and in the literary sense too. At the beginning of his career as a writer he was associated with the famous ‘Gruppe 47’ to which German literature owes its rebirth from the physical and ideological ruins of the war. Even at that time, however, he seems to have been very much his own master, ‘ein freier Schriftsteller’ – the epithet connoting, in his case, not only independence from institutionalised literature, but also a singular freedom from the restraints of conventional genre. And so he remains: a man still and for ever in search of a style, uncomfortable in the forms he chooses (a suspicion of critics and a distrust of readers is woven into his stories), yet apt to derive great literary benefits from his discomforts. He paints; he has given much thought to linguistic and musical issues, and to problems of translation from one language into another, from one mode of experience into another. Almost inevitably, he, too, has felt obliged to express his views about the ‘end of the novel’ crisis, yet his vigorous experiments in literary form have left him better-equipped to deal with that ‘crisis’ than are most of his contemporaries. The search for a style is not, in his case, a hidden or half-disclosed self-indulgence. On the contrary, it is a search for the truth about other people and their past – if not for the whole truth, then for the least subvertible truth about them. That this search is compatible with a penchant for complex and ambitious literary jokes is one of the graces of a literature which has come to be burdened in the last decade with a spirit of joy-lessness and gloom (the recent emergence of women novelists who range all the way from the deeply melancholy to the positively suicidal has not done much to lighten the German literary scene).
Hildesheimer has lived a good deal of his life among English-speaking people. He is one of those German authors who are a little in love with the English, more particularly a certain kind of young Englishman of the upper classes, with his good temper and considerateness, his easy good manners and what Thomas Mann called his ‘boyhaft’ good looks. This affection, rarely reciprocated by English authors, goes back at least to the time of Herder and Goethe. Here is the Göttingen physicist and aphorist, Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, writing in 1776, a quarter of a century before Andrew Marbot was born:
To amuse myself I sometimes imagine one of our learned fifteen-year-olds in company with a fifteen-year-old boy from Eton. The first in his bag-wig, powdered, demure, and ready to shoot off a load of learning at the slightest provocation, in all his opinions nothing but a bad copy in miniature of his Papa or Tutor, a mere echo, to be marvelled at till his sixteenth year, regarded with silent expectation in his seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth, while in the meantime the building begins to subside on its hollow foundations. In his twenty-second, twenty-third, etc, he is just a mediocre fellow, and continues so till his end. The English boy with his unpowdered curly hair clustering round his ears and forehead, the picture of health, his hands all scratches and with a cut or bruise on every knuckle, Horace, Homer and Virgil ever present to his mind, forthright and independent in his opinions, makes a thousand mistakes but corrects them himself ...
It so happens that this thumbnail portrait fits Andrew’s younger brother, John Matthew, who was educated at Stonyhurst, better than it does Andrew himself, who was brought up by a private tutor at Marbot Hall. But what it describes is one half of the English experience Hildesheimer presents, the foil against which the other half – Andrew’s life – must be seen.
More recent German Anglophiles have found that there is a price to pay for these attractive virtues Lichtenberg mentions. The trouble with the English, from the point of view of someone like Hildesheimer, is that they have no Geist. And what, pray, is Geist? It is, of course, many things. In the present context, it may be defined as speculative intellect in excess of material facts. In its awareness of this chronic excess (for it is self-conscious through and through), Geist turns either aggressive and destructive, or habitually melancholy, in its attitude to the world of facts – that is, the world. And this is where the other, more important half of the English experience depicted in this remarkable biography becomes relevant. It must have been a moment of delighted surprise when Hildesheimer first came upon Andrew Marbot’s literary remains and realised that here was an observer and author who, while undeniably committed to a life of Geist, was yet equally undeniably English, and therefore (this is where the considerateness and good manners come in) melancholy rather than aggressive in his attitude to the world – in brief, an Englishman of the cast of Hamlet. Conversely, it is entirely appropriate, when we think how Marbot has been neglected by English art-historians, that a German author should be writing his first full biography. | <urn:uuid:4b55cbe8-e2f1-46f3-8c71-1d4501643d16> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lrb.co.uk/v04/n14/jp-stern/sweet-sin | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976932 | 1,471 | 1.578125 | 2 |
The Achieving Success in College Math program exists to inform middle and high school students about the importance of math and the impact of taking math during the senior year of high school on their future success in college – regardless of which college a student chooses to attend.
High schools within St. Charles County and SCC’s extended service area invite the college math faculty into the classroom. The presentation provides real-life information to students and an early heads up on what’s expected in college-level math. Students are given a sample placement/assessment test and a booklet with college and career readiness tips. (Download the presentation booklet.)
To date, more than 14,000 high school students have benefited from SCC’s Achieving Success in College Math program.
The program is an innovative partnership between SCC math faculty, the public and private high schools in and around the college’s service area and local individuals and businesses that believe in partnering to help students succeed.
Testing into developmental classes can add up to two years before students are eligible to enroll in their first college-level math course for credit.
The extra time and money spent on developmental classes puts a college education out of reach for many.
By decreasing the number of students entering college at remedial levels, SCC hopes to increase the number of students who will complete the math sequence required for a degree. | <urn:uuid:ea41a9e0-e220-41fd-9906-6781651c1d08> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.stchas.edu/supporting_scc/making-a-difference/success-in-math/about-the-program.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939639 | 284 | 2.390625 | 2 |
The management of patients with suspected or known cancer is becoming increasingly complex. Their care often requires input from many disciplines of medicine, including surgery, medical oncology, radiation oncology, pathology, and radiology. As a result multidisciplinary input into care is vital in establishing a seamless coordinated approach to state-of-the-art diagnosis, treatment and care of the patients with cancer. Harbin Clinic physicians have long recognized the importance of a multidisciplinary approach so patients with suspected cancer are expeditiously evaluated and referred for management.
Harbin Clinic began its first multidisciplinary cancer conference, Chest Tumor Conference, in March 2003. The group is represented by all medical specialists involved in the care of this group of patients. Nursing and registry personnel also attend the weekly conferences. Physicians present and discuss cases of pulmonary tumor and newly diagnosed lung cancers. Treatment decisions are based on clinical data, research data, national guidelines and patient preference. This team approach allows all the specialties to discuss each individual patient's case in detail. Each specialty's perspective is needed to ensure that all treatment options have been evaluated. By involving all these disciplines, we end up with the best therapeutic approach for the patient because we have this forum for discussing all options including their eligibility for enrollment into clinical trials.
As a result of the success of our weekly multidisciplinary chest conference, we began two additional multidisciplinary conferences, including Breast and Genitourinary conferences. These two additional conferences have been critical in the development of optimal clinical pathways used in the diagnosis, management and follow-up of our cancer patients
Our goal for patients is the provision of seamless, integrated care as they transition between various specialists once they have received a cancer diagnosis. Our Nurse Navigator is the common thread which enhances the communication and coordination of care between the patients, their families, and our health care team. Our future plans include expanding our successful multidisciplinary services and Nurse Navigator program. | <urn:uuid:cd98d268-10b3-49cc-97d7-23fbcff0bb1f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.harbinclinic.com/cancercare/multidisciplinary-care.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948695 | 396 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Unused / unissued material - no paperwork - dates unclear or unknown.
Dr Joseph Goebbels collects money from people, presumably for charity. Rudolf Hess collects donations. CU Money being put in collecting tin. Hermann Goering is given money by a small child. He pats the child...
Comedy football match played in Germany to raise money for Hitler's Winter Distress Fund.
Germany's celebrities and Nazi leaders collect the money for the poor in Berlin.
Important Nazi figures collect money and sign autographs.
Nazi leaders collect money for a soldiers charity.
Nazi leaders collecting money and meeting the German public | <urn:uuid:77c5f45c-ed4c-4fc6-aea8-968b92e13c2d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.britishpathe.com/video/nazis-collect-money | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.900359 | 129 | 2.1875 | 2 |
Janette Mackinlay, 1948 - 2010 was an artist, 9/11 survivor and activist for 9/11 Truth and justice. This video (in 2 parts) shows Janette's presentation at the University of California Davis on May 1, 2009.
The occasion was Prof. Steven E. Jones' first public presentation of his research on dust from the World Trade Center. Janette was the first person to give Prof. Jones a sample of dust from the World Trade Center. Prof. Jones, Prof. Niels Harrit and other scientists found red gray chips in the dust, some visible to the naked eye. Scientific examination revealed that these were unexploded pieces of nanothermite, a military grade explosive researched and developed at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories in Livermore, California.
Writer Alex Zalben recently interviewed Rick Veitch about the up and coming comic book The Big Lie. The interview was posted on Mtv Geek and opens like so:
With the tenth anniversary of 9/11 fast approaching, there will be a lot of looks back, some fond, some heartbreaking… And then there will be “The Big Lie,” a comic book by Rick Veitch and Gary Erskine that finds a scientist traveling back in time to the day itself in order to stop the disaster. And while there, she finds out that maybe the truth isn’t as clear cut as she thought.
The article quickly moves to the interview with artist and writer of The Big Lie, Rick Veitch: | <urn:uuid:d44656d6-ca24-41d6-8870-b31b459dae18> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://911blogger.com/topics/artist | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94509 | 309 | 2.328125 | 2 |
Meanwhile, the IDF has claimed that there were 1166 killed in Gaza, of whom 709 were known Hamas or Islamic Jihad militants.
The IDF did not release their list of casualties, so its claims cannot be independently verified at this time. On the other hand, I and other bloggers have been researching the PCHR's claims and have found serious inconsistencies with that organization's methodologies and classifications.
Our team cross-checked the names listed by PCHR with lists of "resisters" compiled by the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, lists of "martyrs" published by Hamas, the Popular Resistance Committees and other militant groups in Gaza, as well as from the Ma'an News Agency, Palestinian Arabic discussion groups and other sources.
Our preliminary results show that at least 342 of the people killed, that PCHR classifies as "civilians," were, in fact, militants.
PCHR's criteria to determine exactly who is a "militant" is unclear. They seem to claim that they are only counting those whom they had direct evidence were engaging in hostilities at the moment of their deaths, but this is far from clear. At any rate, the term "militant" is not a legal term, and in common usage it refers to anyone who belongs to a military or paramilitary group. The PCHR's statistics are deceptive and slanted towards creating a false impression of IDF brutality.
So far, we have identified members of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Resistance Committees, the PFLP and the DFLP who are all considered "civilians" by the PCHR. The full list can be seen at http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2009/04/more-of-those-civilians-killed-in-gaza.html. These include the links to the original sources where the victims are associated with these various militant groups.
This is far from a comprehensive list. This is only based on the names that we have found. We are not trying to create a full count of civilians and militants; rather we are showing that the statistics given by the PCHR and publicized in the media are knowingly false.
The IDF has categorized most or all of the Hamas police force as "Hamas or Islamic Jihad operatives" and therefore as legal targets. The PCHR takes strong exception to this categorization, and reveals its own definition of "combatants":
PCHR consider the IOF’s classification of police officers as combatants illegal: this classification constitutes a wilful violation of the principle of distinction, a key component of customary international law. Hamas is a multi-faceted organisation, exercising de facto governmental control of the Gaza Strip. As an organisation, it cannot be considered an armed group. Rather, a distinction must be made between Hamas’ armed and political/civil components. The Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades are the military wing of the Hamas organisation, they are an armed group, and are considered as combatants according to IHL. However, Hamas’ political and civil wings are comprised of civilians, who are legally entitled to the protections associated with this status, provided they do not take an active part in hostilities. Civil police, and governmental officials cannot be considered combatants. Attacks intentionally directed against these individuals constitute wilful killing, a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions, and a violation of customary international law.If we fully accept the PCHR's definitions and interpretations of international humanitarian law (IHL) here, then they are saying that members of armed militias like the Al Qassam Brigades are legal combatants and therefore legitimate targets. By extension, it is clear that the Hamas policemen who were also members of the Al Qassam Brigades were, in fact, legitimate targets from the IDF.
Our research has detailed proof that at least 205 of the policemen listed to have been killed in Operation Cast Lead and classified as "civilian" by the PCHR were, in fact, militants. In addition, the PCHR itself classified 10 policemen as "militants."
(The PCHR has been inconsistent in its own press releases. While they claim that 255 non-combatant policemen were killed in Cast Lead, or that 255 police officers were killed in total, their English list includes some 282 people identified as "policemen," of whom 272 were considered "civilian." Their Arabic list counts some 280 policemen in total.)
By any count, over two thirds of the policemen killed in Operation Cast Lead were members of militant groups, predominantly the al-Qassam Brigades.
Certainly, the PCHR is aware of the affiliations of many of not all of the victims in Gaza. To give one example, the Popular Resistance Committees al-Nasser Salah Addin Brigades published a list of its 18 "martyrs" on January 22, 2009. Yet nine of them - including a "commander" and a "field commander" - were classified as "civilian" by the PCHR nearly two months later. It strains credulity to think that with all the effort the PCHR made in compiling the names and classifying the victims that they were unaware of their affiliations with armed groups.
Why, then, did they classify so many known militants as civilians? One can only conclude that the PCHR is not being consistent with even its own description of who is considered a "militant" - and that the reason is to deceive the readers of its reports and the media who would uncritically report the PCHR's conclusions.
Such a high number of Al Qassam members among the police that were killed indicates that Hamas itself does not distinguish between its so-called civilian and military wings. Effectively, Hamas considers its police force to be the same as its military force. If Hamas does not respect the principle of distinction in its own civilian organization, it forfeits the demand for its opponents to adhere to the principle of distinction, and the entire police force would be considered a legitimate target.
The IDF indeed defined the entire Hamas police force as a legitimate target. If we accept that definition, the total number of militants that we can identify by name using the IDF's criteria would be:
282 total police officers
226 "PCHR militants" (not counting the ten police militants according to PCHR)
148 militants identified as "civilian" by PCHR
656 total police and militant victims
This is not far from the 709 militants the IDF has said it is aware of.
The evidence that Hamas doesn't distinguish between its civilian and military wings is overwhelming; for more on that topic see this excerpt from Hamas: Politics, Charity, and Terrorism in the Service of Jihad by Matthew Levitt:
Because of the notion that Hamas has independent "wings," its political and charitable fronts are allowed to operate openly in many Western and Middle Eastern capitals. In these cities, Islamic social welfare groups tied to Hamas are often tolerated when their logistical and financial support for Hamas is conducted under the rubric ofcharitable or humanitarian assistance.Yet even without this knowledge, the PCHR is inconsistent in its definitions. Its only consistency, as evidenced by its use of the term "IOF" ("Israel Occupation Forces") instead of IDF, is a desire to make Israel look as bad as possible. This is not the function of a "human rights" organization - it betrays a political agenda rather than a humanitarian one.
While convenient for Hamas and its supporters, this distinction is contradicted by the consistent if scattered findings of investigators, journalists, and analysts. A review ofthe evidence regarding the integration of Hamas' political activism, social services, and terrorism demonstrates the centrality of the group's overt activities to the organization's ability to recruit, indoctrinate, train, fund, and dispatch suicide bombers to attack civilian targets.
The social welfare organizations of Hamas answer to the same political leaders who play hands-on roles in Hamas terrorist attacks. In some cases, the mere existence of these institutions is invoked to classify Hamas as a social welfare rather than a terrorist organization. To debunk these specious assumptions, it is necessary to fully expose what Hamas calls the dawa (its social welfare and proselytization network). This is sometimes difficult because, as one U.S. official explained, "Hamas is loosely structured, with some elements working clandestinely and others working openly through mosques and social service institutions to recruit members, raise money, organize activities, and distribute propaganda."
The al-Fakhoura UNRWA School
An interesting finding from the PCHR report regards the al-Fakhoura UNRWA school in Jabalya. On January 6th, 2009, the IDF returned fire from nearby the school, and the initial reports from various Gaza organizations charged that between 30 and 50 people were killed there. The PCHR wrote then that the IDF killed "27 civilians instantly" (not counting the Deeb family which was not near the school and indeed appears to have been killed by an errant shell.) The IDF, on the other hand, has claimed that 12 were killed outside the school.
The PCHR report lists exactly 12 victims from near the al-Fakhoura school, although they do not line up with the names and descriptions given by the IDF. Even so, the PCHR does not seem to be interested in publicizing the discrepancy between its initial reports of a massacre and what it later admits.
The PCHR press releases emphasize child victims of the conflict, but they do not mention another fact of which they are aware: that children are being drafted for use by militant groups.
The PCHR list includes 7 militants who were under 18:
#580 ‘Ateya Rushdi Khalil Aal-Khuli (16)
#830 Ahmed Fawzi Hassan Lubbad (17)
#942 Ibrahim Mustafa Sa’id (17)
#1070 Mahmoud Ahmed Fares Juha (16)
#1094 Mohammed Nader Khalil Abu Sha’aban (17)
#1256 Tamer Reyad Ibrahim Faza'a (17)
#1397 Tamer ‘Umar Isma’il al-Louh (17)
We have identified another 8 children who were members of militant groups that PCHR named as civilian:
#280 Ahmed Rasmi Mohammed Abu Jazar "Mujahid" 16 years old
#405 Tareq Yaser Mohammed ‘Afana 16 years old Al Qassam Brigades member
#409 Mahmoud Majed Mahmoud Abu Nahla 16 years old "Shahid Fighter" in ICT list
#415 Ghassan Nizar Abdul Kader Rayan 16 years old (Nizar Rayyan's son) "Al Qassam shahid" (his siblings are not mentioned)
#992 Mohammed Jaber Mohammed ‘Eleyan 16 years old member of PRC/Nasser Brigades
#1156 Hammam Mohammed Hassan al-Khudary 16 years old Islamic Jihad member
#1162 Belal Jamal Isma’il Abu ‘Awwad 17 years old Al Qassam member
#1229 ‘Imad Maher Saleh Ferwana (Ammar Maher Farwana) 17 years old listed as "resister" on Al Mezan list
#1275 Samer Mohammed al-Abed Abu Aser, 17 years old, Islamic Jihad member http://www.saraya.ps/view.php?id=11327 (Saraya site down now, data from ICT)
We have yet to see the PCHR condemn Hamas or Islamic Jihad for their recruitment and use of children as fighters.
Discrepancies in total number killed
The IDF has stated that 1166 people were killed during Cast Lead, and has suggested that the difference in total killed between their count and the counts from PCHR, Palestinian Ministry of Health and Al-Mezan could possibly be because the Gazan organizations counted people who died naturally as being "martyred" by the IDF.
While we have no way to verify that claim, the Palestinian Ministry of Health has a list of all "martyrs" who died, they say, as a result of the "siege" of Gaza (typically cancer and heart disease patients, presumably because of a lack of medical care and the ability to travel to Israel for treatment.). Their monthly totals of such deaths before and after Cast Lead look like this:
November - 10
December - 14
January - 3
February - 13
March - 23
None of the December deaths occured during Cast Lead.
It is curious that the number of deaths from cancer and similar diseases would have plummeted so much during the fighting. While this is hardly proof, it does indicate that the statistics that come out of official institutions in Gaza and the PA are suspect and that there is a possibility that the total number of Cast Lead victims has been exaggerated.
While the results are not complete, there is overwhelming evidence that the PCHR knowingly and maliciously lied in its statistics regarding the numbers of civilians and militants killed during Operation Cast Lead. Knowing its clear biases, the most reasonable conclusion is that the PCHR was not nearly as interested in the truth as it was in demonizing the IDF. The report itself cannot be considered reliable.
Given this information, it is difficult to know whether to believe that organization in other areas. | <urn:uuid:f4e29731-d1c1-4b23-90b0-378cb4fc51fe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://elderofziyon.blogspot.de/2009/04/preliminary-results-of-pchr-gaza.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966517 | 2,750 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Erg Chech, Algeria
In this Landsat 7 image from 2003, the amber and caramel lattices seen are large, linear sand dunes in the Erg Chech dune sea located in the Sahara region of western Algeria. An erg, meaning dune field in Arabic, is a wide, flat area of desert covered with windblown sand and little vegetation cover. The dunes are formed when large amounts of transported sand are halted by topographic barriers. The largest dunes can take up to a million years to build. Ergs are also found on other celestial bodies such as Venus, Mars, and Saturn’s moon Titan. | <urn:uuid:98974d46-3f52-4d8c-ad63-2bad855cd55a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wcnc.com/news/slideshows/185639802.html?gallery=y&c=y&ref=%2F&img=26&c=y | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00054-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937436 | 131 | 2.65625 | 3 |
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - On your first pregnancy and looking for a reason to work out? Here's one: Women pregnant with their first children who exercise regularly trim their risk of having a too-heavy baby, new research from Norway shows. That's true regardless of how much exercise the women got - or didn't get - before becoming pregnant.
Women who deliver excessively large babies, defined as newborns weighing in at more than 4,000 grams or 8 pounds, 13 ounces no matter what their length, are at risk of a number of complications, such as heavy bleeding after delivery, note study co-author Dr. Katrine Mari Owe of the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences and her colleagues. These babies may also themselves be at greater risk of obesity later on.
More and more of these extra-large babies are being born, they add, while women are exercising less and less.
Given the bad effects associated with heavy babies, even though the study only showed a difference among women who are pregnant for the first time, health care workers "should promote regular exercise during pregnancy for the purpose of prevention," the authors conclude.
Owe and her colleagues analyzed data from the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study and the Medical Birth Registry of Norway on 36,869 single pregnancies.
More than one in ten of the babies were too heavy, meaning their weights topped the 90th percentile, the researchers found, and more than half of these big infants were born to mothers who had already had children.
Among women pregnant with a first child, the researchers found, those who reported exercising at least three times a week during their 17th week of pregnancy were about a quarter less likely to have an excessively heavy baby. Women who exercised at least three times weekly at 30 weeks' pregnancy were 22 percent less likely to have a too-big baby.
Of note: The amount of exercise women did before pregnancy had nothing to do with their likelihood of having an overly large newborn.
Exercise could help prevent fetuses from growing too large by helping maintain the body's ability to keep blood sugar levels under control, the researchers note. High blood sugar and diabetes that develops temporarily during pregnancy are risk factors for having a very large baby.
To date, Owe and her team note, there have been no gold standard trials to investigate the effects of regular exercise in pregnancy on the risk of having an excessively heavy infant. "There seems to be an urgent need" for them, they conclude.
SOURCE: Obstetrics & Gynecology, October 2009.
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We could all use some encouragement now and then - we're human!
Explore your destiny as you discover what's written in your stars.
The latest news, tips and recipes for people with diabetes.
Healthy food that tastes delicious too? No kidding.
Yoga for Back Pain
Pets HelpYour Heart
Are YouMoney Smart? | <urn:uuid:19b70003-db41-4f06-919c-d5959352206a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lifescript.com/health/centers/digestive/news/2009/09/21/for_a_healthy-sized_baby_stay_active_in_pregnancy.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974003 | 613 | 2.53125 | 3 |
The ATRC is involved in research and development to find innovative solutions to accessibility challenges. We also provide training, consultation, and information to help both educators and users to effectively use adaptive technology. Adaptive technology describes the use of hardware and software to assist individuals who have difficulty accessing information systems using conventional methods. For example, mini keyboards can be used by people with a small range of hand movement, and screen readers can be used by people who are blind.
You may search for other related entries in the database under the following topics. | <urn:uuid:e60e3099-2675-46eb-a08e-374eea07573b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://health.gov/nhic/NHICScripts/Entry.cfm?HRCode=HR2818 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.919973 | 107 | 3.109375 | 3 |
House budget (almost) minds the gap for K-12 education funding – temporarily
The House budget passed late last night patches over part of the funding cliff facing North Carolina’s public schools next year, but only temporarily. The majority of the House budget’s $248 million increase in public school funding is one-time money, meaning that while the state’s public schools would dodge yet another round of damaging cuts in the upcoming school year, they would have to brace for yet another state budget fight in the following year, FY2013-14, when they will face yet another yawning budget gap – this time in the vicinity of $688 million. BTC looked closely at the House’s K-12 public education budget in the context of historic and pre-Great Recession state investment in public education and found that it would still fall far short of average annual state investment in public education over the last 40 years.
On average over the last 40 years, state spending on K-12 public education has averaged 2.6 percent of state personal income. More precisely, that means lawmakers have typically committed $25.90 in state revenues to funding public schools for every $1,000 earned by North Carolinians. Under the just-passed House budget, lawmakers would commit only $20.80 per $1,000 in North Carolina personal income to the state’s public schools – an amount almost 20 percent lower than the state’s historic commitment to public education. | <urn:uuid:9f42ed88-3ea8-4b4e-aba9-973bce00a7ac> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org/2012/05/31/house-budget-almost-minds-the-gap-for-k-12-education-funding-temporarily/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950299 | 303 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Jan. 23, 2009 A team of physicists and engineers has demonstrated an optical device that filters two particles of light (or photons) based on the correlations between their polarisation that are only allowed in the seemingly bizarre quantum world. This so called "entanglement filter" passes the pair of photons only if they inhabit the same quantum state, without the user (or anything else) ever knowing what that state is.
This device will have many important applications to quantum technologies, including computers, communication and advanced measurement.
Jeremy O'Brien, Professor of Physics and Electrical Engineering at Bristol University, together with his collaborators in Japan, has realised an entanglement filter made by combining two state-of-the-art developments in optical technologies with single photons: a special type of mirror that is sensitive to the polarisation of light; and an optical device that enables stability at the billionth's of a meter level.
The team reports its results in the latest issue of Science [23 January 2009].
Professor O'Brien speaking about the research, said: "This is a very exciting development in quantum information science. Because our entanglement filter acts on photonic qubits, it is promising for quantum technologies because photons are the logical choice for communication, metrology and lithography and are a leading approach to information processing.
"The filter can be used for the creation as well as the purification of entanglement, which will be important in realising quantum relays and repeaters for long-distance quantum communication."
An Entanglement Filter
Filters are one of the most powerful tools available in science and technology, while entanglement is the defining characteristic of quantum information science. An entanglement filter is of fundamental interest and will likely find wide application in quantum information science and technology.
Filters that act on the quantum correlations associated with entanglement must operate nonlocally on multiple quantum systems, typically two-level "qubits". Such a device has been proposed for photonic qubits, but the technical requirements to build such a device, an optical circuit with two extra photons and multiple quantum gates, requiring both quantum interference and classical interference in several nested interferomters, have been lacking.
The entanglement filter will be a key element in the control of multiphoton quantum states, with a wide range of applications in entanglement-based quantum communication and quantum information processing.
Quantum technologies with photons
Quantum technologies aim to exploit the unique properties of quantum mechanics, the physics theory that explains how the world works at very small scales.
For example a quantum computer relies on the fact that quantum particles, such as photons, can exist in a "superposition" of two states at the same time - in stark contrast to the transistors in a PC which can only be in the state "0" or "1".
Photons are an excellent choice for quantum technologies because they are relatively noise-free; information can be moved around quickly - at the speed of light; and manipulating single photons is easy.
Making two photons "talk" to each other to realise the all-important controlled-NOT gate is much harder, but Professor O'Brien and his colleagues at the University of Queensland demonstrated this back in 2003 [Nature 426, 264].
Last year, Professor O'Brien's Centre for Quantum Photonics at Bristol showed how such interactions between photons could be realised on a silicon chip, pointing the way to advanced quantum technologies based on photons [Science 320, 646].
Photons are also required to "talk" to each other to realise the ultra-precise measurements that harness the laws of quantum mechanics - quantum metrology. In 2007 Professor O'Brien and the same Japanese collaborators reported such a quantum metrology measurement with four photons [Science 316, 726].
The work was supported by the EPSRC, and Japanese funding agencies.
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Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead. | <urn:uuid:4a93d049-8e9e-46fb-9bb4-2b047ecfd657> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090122141148.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.922523 | 815 | 3.390625 | 3 |
Jan 31 2012
January 20 – February 11 is the time for Pennsylvania’s Winter Raptor Survey (WRS) when volunteers drive prescribed routes and tally the number of raptors they see.
Many volunteers post their counts on PABIRDS where we learn that our most numerous winter raptors are red-tailed hawks. (No surprise there!)
The reports include weather and snow cover conditions because this affects the number of raptors seen. This year few routes have snow.
In a snowy year rough-legged hawks move south in Pennsylvania. They breed in Alaska and Canada and winter in the Lower 48. They’re found hunting in open meadows and brushy areas for mice, voles and rabbits. But only where there’s snow cover. If there’s snow, the rough-legs are here. If not, they stay up north.
Two years ago we had a lot of snow — so much that it was hard to drive the routes. (Remember the two feet of snow February 5-9, 2010?) This year it’s easy to drive but the birding isn’t as good.
I’m not asking for a return to the snow of 2010 but snow in moderation would be nice, if only for rough-legged hawks.
Steve Gosser was lucky to see this one at Pymatuning on January 14.
(photo by Steve Gosser) | <urn:uuid:c2a17902-7ca4-4b25-bec6-610130e2c353> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wqed.org/birdblog/2012/01/31/in-a-snow-year/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947596 | 299 | 2.59375 | 3 |
8 Ways to Engage Students
The August/September 2004 issue of The Teaching Professor has an article about 8 simple rules for motivating students. These are great reminders of things to do in order to engage students.
1) Emphasize the most critical concepts continuously.
[These concepts are really a foreign language for the student--best learned through constant repetition and practice at recall in a variety of settings.] Repeat these concepts in lectures and assignments; include questions relating to these concepts on every exam.
2) Provide a visual aid when possible to explain abstract concepts.
A diagram, a flowchart or a mental image can help student retention of abstract concepts.
3) Rely on logic when applicable.
Show students how to use logical thinking to learn and retain new information.
4) Use in-class activities to reinforce newly presented material.
After a new idea have been presented through lecture, reading or discussion, allow students to put the concept into use. This is the acid test for whether they have really understood. Students manage well in small groups, carefully selected to include a strong student, a weak student and an average student.
5) Help students create a "link" between new material and something already learned.
You can link to prior material in your course, prior courses, and real-life experience.
6) Help students master the vocabulary.
New and/or confusing terms should be identified, defined, used and you should even periodically check for retention. (Just ask, "Do you remember what anadiplosis is?")
7) Treat students with respect.
Students treated with dignity will give you their best efforts.
8) Hold students to a high standard.
But always make sure you help them to meet those standards. This may mean trying to figure out what stands between your mediocre students and success.
I would add two little suggestions of my own.
9) Don't assume the worst about your students.
If they aren't studying, don't assume they are lazy. They may not know how to study your material. They may no longer believe that studying will help because they have never really known how to study effectively. They may think they are beyond hope. Criticize them and you are only increasing their hopelessness and thus their passivity. Be relentlessly hopeful and encouraging. If they aren't doing work, don't assume they don't care or that they are disrespecting you. They may not know how to budget their time; they may actually have no time. So help them learn how to think more realistically. Be sympathetic and hold your ground.
10) Be enthusiastic!
And of course, above all, let your passion for your subject and for students be visible to all! Remember, you got into this field because you love it. So why not let the students see how much fun you are having. | <urn:uuid:06fd85f6-6bc6-488b-b777-dd10059eb0ae> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pointloma.edu/experience/academics/centers-institutes/center-teaching-learning/teaching-tips/8-ways-engage-students | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956512 | 585 | 3.515625 | 4 |
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Heather Mills - Partly Correct
Tue Jan 05 13:27:01 GMT 2010 by Tim
Not that I am an advocate of Heather Mills in any way (macca basha lol) However, to come to her defence here, she is actually partially correct in her statement.
Your intestine is a huge organ in length on average it is around 26 feet long. The purpose of the intestine is to further process waste material through the transfer of fluid. It is filled with ridges and grooves and should someone not chew their food well enough it is feasible that red meat which is harder for the body to digest (also true of Seeds) could get lodged into a crevice in your gut. This has been proven to be one of the causes of bowel Cancer.
Although Colonic irrigation does resolve this issue, it is not recommended as a solution as not only does Colonic Irrigation clear the bowel it also washes away all the positive bacteria that you have built up over the years, thus giving rise to hyper sensitivity to food type.
Best advice, eat plenty of Fibre as this helps to dislodge any waste trapped by the bowel. | <urn:uuid:cf60b4bd-c214-46f6-a048-3f1705d0baa7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.newscientist.com/commenting/report?id=dn18336-4 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971183 | 240 | 2.171875 | 2 |
“I threaded a sufficient number of loops, trying the length over the edge. Then I said to Elsie, who sat cowering, propped against the crag, ‘You must come and look over, and do as I wave to you. Mind, dear, you must! Two lives depend upon it.’
‘Brownie, I daren’t? I shall turn giddy and fall over!’
I smoothed her golden hair. ‘Elsie, dear,’ I said gently, gazing into her blue eyes, ‘you can always be brave, where those you love are concerned; and I believe you love me.’ I led her, coaxingly, to the edge. ‘Sit there,’ I said, in my quietest voice, so as not to alarm her. ‘You can lie at full length, if you like, and only just peep over. But when I wave my hand, remember, you must pull the rope up.’
She obeyed me like a child. I knew she loved me.”
—Lois Cayley, Miss Cayley’s Adventures, Grant Allen
The luminary is an object of constant attention, and often fame. Through force of personality and the ability to read the strengths and weaknesses of those around her, the luminary can bring out the best in her allies and befuddle and vex her foes. A luminary may seem to be little more than a cheerleader or mascot, but her power to control and alter the morale and inspiration of those around her allows the allies of a luminary to do far more with her than on their own, even if they never realize how crucial her presence is to their success.
Since a luminary’s force of personality is hard to miss, many take roles that suit the constant attention they inevitably attract. The most well-known luminaries are performers and celebrities, but people with the ability to influence and inspire others can be found in many walks of life. A luminary may be a natural born leader, possibly even a military commander, rebel organizer, or rabble-rouser. Some luminaries work behind the scenes, acting as deal-makers, radio news announcers, extremist writers, or salacious pleasure-providing criminals. More rarely a luminary may even use her power of gaining attention work to “hide in plain sight,” allowing a spymaster to pose as something innocuous, ranging from a rich playgirl to a vapid celebrity famous only for being famous
Included in this 20 page book are three new archetypes: the celebrity, headliner, and fixer as well as rules expanding the use of the Diplomacy skill to allow characters to influence the attitude of entire groups, be that as small as a gathering on a corner or as large as an entire nation. Finally we touch on the idea of Progress Levels (PL), a simple way to determine the general technological advancement of a campaign (and outlined in more detail in Anachronistic Adventurers: The Enforcer). | <urn:uuid:8f0ac428-5c61-448c-b4fd-742d3b1f470b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rpgnow.com/product/106465/Anachronistic-Adventurers%3A-The-Luminary?filters=0_0_0_0_40020&manufacturers_id=97 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00071-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959068 | 639 | 1.96875 | 2 |
- Special Sections
- Public Notices
I have news for the Minnesota Planetarium Society:
I am a Pisces. I have always been a Pisces. And I shall die a Pisces.
The society — an astronomy group, I hasten to add — has shaken the astrology world with its declaration that the Earth's "wobbling" over the centuries has knocked the signs of the Zodiac off kilter. In other words, those of us who have grown up over the years thinking we live under one sun sign are now thrust under another.
For me, I was taken out of my Pisces comfort zone and dumped smack-dab into Aquarius territory. Thing is, I refuse to go there.
Don't get me wrong: I have known some fine Aquarians, including my sister and my best friend. I'm just not one.
Here is what the Minnesota Planetarium Society claims is the sun signs now are:
Capricorn: Jan. 20-Feb. 16.
Aquarius: Feb. 16-March 11.
Pisces: March 11-April 18.
Aries: April 18-May 13.
Taurus: May 13-June 21.
Gemini: June 21-July 20.
Cancer: July 20-Aug. 10.
Leo: Aug. 10-Sept. 16.
Virgo: Sept. 16-Oct. 30.
Libra: Oct. 30-Nov. 23.
Scorpio: Nov. 23-29.
Ophiuchus: Nov. 29-Dec. 17.
Sagittarius: Dec. 17-Jan. 20.
Miffed? Most people are. (And yes, that next to the last one is "Ophiuchus." Never heard of it? Me, neither. But these astronomers who are monkeying with my horoscope say the ancient Babylonians knocked it out of the lineup because they wanted an even dozen.)
I've always embraced my fishy sun sign. Overly sensitive, you say? It's because I'm a Pisces. Live in a dream world? Well, I'm a Pisces. A good listener? I'm a Pisces, and we're caring and compassionate. Love painting pictures with my words? We Pisceans are creative.
But Aquarius? I don't know a darned thing about being an Aquarius. Where does my sensitivity fit into that?
Just for giggles, I thought I'd look up personality characteristics of the Aquarius. The water bearer, according to a number of Google hits, is stubborn, inventive, detached, sarcastic and witty. Not bad. Just not me.
"An Aquarius friend always makes life fun," reads an entry from Zodiac Signs Astrology (zodiac-signs-astrology.com). "They might offer you a spontaneous last minute camping trip with no supplies prepared ...."
Anybody who knows the first thing about me knows the above reference doesn't apply. First of all, I don't camp. Not ever. And my spontaneity is planned — lots of supplies included.
This Pisces gal knows she belongs in the water, not bearing it. So wobble on, Earth. You won't rock my world. | <urn:uuid:b16643e3-fac5-4ff7-bd6c-68b5dba09ee7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.roanecounty.com/content/somethings-fishy-here?mini=calendar-date%2F2013-03 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.925757 | 684 | 1.53125 | 2 |
September is Suicide Prevention Month for Veterans. Not only are these our hometown heroes but they are more at risk for suicide. Department of Veterans Affairs is calling on individuals and communities across the country to show their support for Veterans in crisis and help raise awareness of the VA mental health services Veterans have earned.
The theme for the outreach campaign, "Stand by Them," is part of a joint VA and Department of Defense (DoD) effort focused on Veteran and Servicemember support networks, especially their friends and family members, who may be the first to realize a Veteran or Servicemember is in crisis.
Throughout September the VA is partnering with other agencies to reach out to those who are in need.
The Veterans Service Officers are working the DoD and are urging communities to learn about suicide risk and to recognize the signs.
People are encouraged to call the Veterans Crisis Line (1-800-273-8255 and Press 1), chat online at VeteransCrisisLine.net or text to 838255.
Veterans and our Service members are selfless and gave themselves knowing that there are many risks involved with fighting for our freedom.
Let's help our heroes and make a difference in their lives and let them reach out to the community for support.
Please contact your local Veterans Office for more ways that you can help out our hometown heroes. | <urn:uuid:1108b408-cdcd-448c-bf23-cad0facbc98d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://timesleaderonline.com/page/content.detail/id/541601/Suicide-Prevention.html?nav=5007 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952242 | 276 | 1.898438 | 2 |
Potassium regulates plasma testosterone and renal ornithine decarboxylase in mice.
Sanchez-Capelo A, Cremades A, Tejada F, Fuentes T, Penafiel R.
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Murcia, Spain.
Potassium deficiency produced different effects in the kidney of male or female mice. While in female, potassium deficiency caused a marked renal hypertrophy with no significant changes in testosterone-regulated enzymes, such as ornithine decarboxylase and beta-glucuronidase, in the male the same treatment provoked a marked fall of these enzymes owing to a dramatic decrease in plasma testosterone. Potassium replenishment restored plasma testosterone and renal enzymatic activities. These results show for the first time, that potassium modulates circulating testosterone and suggest that this cation could exert an important regulatory role in controlling androgen actions.
"Estrogens are conjugated with glucaric acid in the liver for excretion via bile. An enzyme called beta-glucuronidase from intestinal bacteria can convert conjugated excreted estrogen back into an active form that can be reabsorbed. A diet high in vegetable fiber provides a substrate for optimal bacterial growth with reduced levels of beta-glucuronidase, and encourages a rapid transit time and enhanced elimination of excretory substances."
Note that magnesium counteracts beta glucuronidase, and also ornithine decarboxylase - an enzyme that causes cell death in the absence of magnesium. Silymarin also counteracts beta-glucuronidase.
Pretty cool, eh?
For female forum readers who have PMS problems:
"It may also be that the ovaries are functioning fine, but hepatic metabolism and excretion of estrogens is impaired. Dr Morton Biskind in the 1940s showed that B vitamin deficiencies caused liver impairment and accumulation of estrogens that contribute to PMS, fibro-cystic breast disease and menorrhagia. B vitamins, in particular B6, are required for the hepatic metabolism of estrogens prior to excretion and it is reasonable to extrapolate that B vitamin deficiency contributes to estrogen loading and PMS in a significant way.
This is one of the reasons I recommend glucuronolactone, from BN. Beyond this estrogen removal action in the liver, its one of three typies of bile acid conjugation mechanisms (along with NAC and taurine).
Estrogen therapy and the birth control pill are known to contribute to cholestasis (the so-called sluggish liver) and so there may be a vicious cycle where B vitamin deficiency causes diminished estrogen clearance and elevated estrogen impairs liver function. Bitter hepatic stimulants and cholagogues are called for here (Taraxacum off., Berberis vulgaris, Fumaria off., Arctium lappa, Curcuma longa), along with nutritional co-factors such as B vitamins, methionine, phosphatidyl choline, inositol, N-acetyl-cysteine and glutathione. "
Note: these are the agents of the transsulfuration cycle.
Speaking of menstruation. My girlfriend has insanely painfull menstruation cramps. It's so bad that she's considering to be on the contraceptives again.
I'm gathering all the possible data on it but everytime I read something I have a stupid feeling that it's again very badly understood (well look who's talking again ). No solutions for the cause (not even the cause).. just blah blah blah...
So it's only up to the proper regime to fix the problems for good. Diathermy is said to help releive the pain.
GF may have developing endometriosis. She needs to be seen by a physician; they can evaluate her for this possibility. She should not go on bc pills. She has a PGE2 amd PGF2A abnormality, with elevated estrogen and unusually high aromatase expression (if she has endometriosis). Grapefruit, eaten daily, will help reduce this enzyme activity. She needs to control the ratio between estrogen and progesterone, and between estrogen and estrone.
We both know that pills are a fucked up idea which doesn't solve anything and will cause more problems in the future. The problem is she's very desperate when the pain strikes. She's having these very painfull cramps since she started having periods. From now on I'll be driving her to the diathermy procedure everytime she'll be having her period to eliminate the pain.
She has undergone diagnostics for endometriosis but none was found. But from what I've heard from her, her doctor has been sleeping on the job. As a start she should go for some ultrasound tests for things like fibroids (there are cases of young women having them) and all other possibilities.
She'll go for a serious welness program like I have. 2 last months I've been reading&practicing the stuff on Qi-qong and some Taoist practices. Sounds like mumbo-jumbo but it really covers the way how the brain/thought/feel works. I was looking into it from fun but when i had my first success i realized there is really something to it. Not scientificaly explained but explained in a natural "feel" way that every human can understand by simply feeling it. Anyone who wold explain it from the deep scientific way would probably score a nobel in no time
Many many many benefits on having control over your nerve system. Redirecting stress from gut and scattering it into the nerve impulse exits, transforming stress into positive feelings or even sexual energy. Once you try it and have the first success with it you never come back. Start with the Bruce Kumar Frantzis's book : Opening the energy gates of the body, and after knowing how to develop the downward currents you can continue with more specific things by authors like Mantak Chia. Have fun with it
She needs to have her diet modified to help with glutathione issues. I helped a member on M2 whose gf had very similar issues (she was also under a lot of self imposed family stress). This member was already very knowledgable, we just discussed some additional supplements and relaxation therapy. His gf has IBS as well. Both conditions have responded well.
I advocate qigong elsewhere. I read Bruces book (Energy Gates) couple years ago and then began reading on parallels, which he candidly discusses, in yoga practices as well. They are coincident in their ability to re-estabilish soft tissue, muscle, connective and bone structure alignment that allow normalized flow of nerve brain/body feedback signal pathways.
This is fundamental to health. Understood in the East for nearly 1000+ yrs, and widely practiced. At Iron Addicts, I have begun to discuss these principles (you can find my references to Bruces books there) - I am moving slowly - these are very foreign ideas to the Western experience. I advocate Tai Chi for regularized maintenance of alignments, and yoga and qigong for major realignment - must be done under the direction of a specialist, not for the novice. Understood?
In the East, we can presuppose that the standard ethinic diet is healthy. Not so here in the West. Other, more recent changes in lifestyle are encroaching on health status as well (brain excitatory activities in excess). This is now, ironically, becoming an issue within younger generations in both the East and West, due to the effects of the internet and cultural globalization.
So, a total package of heathy practices must be adopted for people of any culture, to ensure health and wellness and avoid undue risks, where they are preventable by the average person. Due to deteriorating environmental conditions, additional protective measures are necessary - these are foreign to Eastern medicine, but have some parallels in their enthobotantical pharmacia (holistic medical use of herbs and minerals).
This is quite an advanced topic (body nerve meridian and node alignment) for Iron Magazine forums.
Wish I had read about all the health things ages ago. Would have much more time to bring me to balance. And balance is the key. The balance will bring in the most intensive and long lasting hapiness. Nature rewards balance.
But knowing too much can be a real burden. Knowing too much brings in imbalance. I see it how I insanely overdone it in the sexuality&psychology field. I could write up a big paper exposing all the myths in which this foolish society lives. But existence of these myths is actually essential for the society to survive. Again there has to be a balance between knowing and not knowing. What it ussualy means is that there's almost no way that an individual would look for the truth unless he had to save his own skin. Just another of nature's mechanisms. We're just toys in the hands of the nature.
When certain practices become ingrained into daily practice, and when use of certain corrective techniques are considered as valuable tools alongside standard medicine and herbal pharmacopea, then you have a holistics lifestyle.
This is the thousand-plus tradition of the East.
The West is slowly becoming aware of these practices and adopting them as their functional importance becomes evident, aside from Eastern dogma used for millenia to protect and encourage strict adherence in teaching to tradition (the intent of this dogmatic teaching is to keep these techniques pure..of course, they have varied, and these specialized variations have become "Schools" of Eastern philosophical beliefs and innovative technical practices, including martial arts, meditative methods, chircopractic and alignment science, and herbal/native plant based medicine).
We are not toys of nature, Hybah.
We are nature.
As are all living things, we are plastic in our functional (pheonotypic) expression, and therefore, we have a heretofore unrecognized (in the West) power and control over this gene expression. Proscribed by daily habit. Expression that can be guided within the span of our lives - not over many many generations, as previously thought. That is the beauty behind the emerging information on nuclear receptor molecular chemistry.
Control of plastic expression capacity, sir, is what these holistic practices of the East do - they maintain plastic response of genes to environmental conditions within specific norms - that is, to keep within a range of normalized functional expression OR restraint of gene expression, as is the case with oncogenes and other expression control elements that are part of the mechanisms of gene expression plasticity.
The reason for this plasticity capacity?
Simple. Its the primary mechanism of adaptive survival which has guided the evolutionary development of life on Earth for approximately 3.5-4 billion years.
Let that plastic capcity slip out of line, slip the bounds of normal control, and you have hyper-expression of proteins and structural elements and fast cell division and turnover.
Thats degenerative/proliferative disease and cancer, respectively. The rest of the molecular fuckups can be straightforwardedly attributed to a lack of control of oxidative stress damage.
A very simple equation, when the confounding details are set aside.
With the toy&nature thing I meant that we are what we are just because of genetics and external influences. Our freedom from not being total toys, lies in the abbility to logicaly evaluate the possible outcome of a future situation. The more free we are the more effective is the outcome of our future steps. We can take reasonable steps in future without having previous experience with it. But still there had to be something in our life (external influence) that taugh us to think like this. So we are complete fakes. I can take to look at myself like a "fake". My to a certain degree independent will was also simply shaped by genetics and external influences. If it weren't for those factors I would never be the one who I am. The problem with the feeling of "fake" is that i'm not sure if it's just my "positive mirage" or it comes from nature itself. A mechanism that helps us give us ego.
Somehow people are trying to be gods, to be foolishly independent. They even break the rules of instincts. They act the thing instinct made them to do but disobey the rules of the instinct itself. When they hit problems they do seem helpless. Like I was with my health problems. But still the mind is level 2 of nature and that means subordinate of the nature. Nature designed us.. we haven't yet completly designed ourselves.. it's going to be possible in the far future ... to design our instincts.. but when we finaly do it.. we still have to go along certain rules. Physical laws. They seem to have a logical sense too just as nature does. Even if we will be able to create a smaller universe with physical laws that are different. We still have to use the power of this universe to create it. And that again is somehow fake.
So again we're still the ones who have to follow something. Subordinates, toys, children.. name it as you will. This feeling is a burden and a gift at the same time. But more of a gift than a burden. It's a burden to the foolish ones and the ticket to freedom for the smart ones.
banana potassium - Google that and you'll see all about bananas.
When i was a kid and my parents took me sleigh riding, everytime we broke for lunch they fed me a banana. I always got a terrible stomach ache when we went sleigh riding. Years later i put 2&2 together and learned bananas give me a bad stomach ache.
Now being im trying hard to get strong again, looks like its time to start eating a lil every day and hope i can get used to them. My aunt has same problem.
My pops is 72, can outwork a 18 yr old, left puddles of sweat every day while working outside down here (florida) and the guy cant live without a fruit bowl on the counter stocked. Time for me to pick up those habbits.
Two potential culprits, one is a latex type compound. If you've ever had a banana tree as a houseplant, you know that it exudes a white latex material the plant tissue is damaged (say, a leaf is removed).
The other potential allergen is a lectin that is particular to bananas. People who have gluten allergies are allergic to lectins, a structural protein class found in most grains, some vegetables and many condiments and oils.
Folk who have problems with carbs in their diets (say, more than 200g) causing bloating and indigestion often have lectin or gluten allergies, sometimes allergies to casein as well. | <urn:uuid:5cb15450-da7e-4973-9c58-a31adcef40ed> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ironmagazineforums.com/general-health-awareness/69845-mother-told-you-eat-fruits-veggies.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953489 | 3,092 | 1.757813 | 2 |
It seems that the state of NJ is about to take more drastic measures for controlling black bears which will include enforcement of “the bird feeding laws.”
Since it is illegal to feed black bears in NJ, and black bears will eat birdseed – it could become illegal to feed birds when black bears are up and around. Technically, black bears in NJ may not hibernate all winter. They are known to come out of their winter dens and forage if the weather isn’t too harsh. Considering it was in the upper 50s all through December (a month when bird-feeding is in full swing), this scenario is fraught with potential problems and conflicting reasoning.
The DEP (Dept. Environmental Protection) is going to send out officers to canvass homes and businesses in five counties, to determine whether people are intentionally or unintentionally feeding bears. This means that if you have a bird feeder within reach of a black bear, you could face a summons and fine for feeding bears. If your bird feeders are at least 10 feet off the ground, you are not violating the law.
Let’s pause here for a minute and consider bird feeding in general. All of the best sources of feeding birds tell us that birds naturally feed at different levels. A feeder suspended 10 feet in the air is going to attract chickadees, titmice, finches, and possibly nuthatches.
The majority of winter birds that use feeders are either ground feeders, or close-to-the-ground feeders. The best feeders are those that have a bush or some type of shelter nearby, to provide a safe perch between actual visits to the feeder.
For years, we were told if we are going to feed birds, start late in the fall and continue until at least the plants are budding (for veggie birds) and the insects are flying. Research and observation has shown us that birds do survive if a feeder is discontinued, though actual survival rates are probably unknown. Weather conditions are a major factor, of course. But so is habitat destruction. The birds that used to feed naturally in areas that have become shopping malls or housing developments need to find food somewhere else. This is especially true when the ground is snow-covered.
Back to the bears. Since I operate a bird observatory, it’s no secret that we feed birds here during the winter. We do maintain ground feeders, and shelf feeders, and hanging feeders. We do not feed through the summer – and we do gradually cut back on our feeding program in the Spring.
We also take part in Cornell’s Backyard Feeder-Watch program. Depending on area, observations begin on Nov. 11 and run through April 6. Bears come out of hibernation near the end of March – or before if the month is mild. The hard part here is knowing exactly when a bear is going to decide to wake up and wander around. The one in this photo was out for a stroll on January 22 – surely the height of bird-feeding season. And so, because bears could show up here anytime during the winter, we still run the risk of inadvertently “feeding” a bear.
When bears come through here, they head for the dumpster, not the feeders. We do have a bear-proof dumpster, chained shut (believe me, it’s a major chore to throw a bag of garbage into the dumpster!) So in reality, we are complying with the State’s laws on bird feeding. But you can see the potential for conflict and fuzzy guidelines.
What worries me with this new approach is the – what’s the right word? “Military” attitude? I can see enforcing laws about improper garbage disposal. That should be done, bears or not. But to go door-to-door to inspect bird feeders seems to be a bit over-reactive to me. Surely there are bigger environmental problems in this state that need attention than a few bird feeders that might attract a roaming bear?
Part of the problem, I think, is that people tend to panic about black bears because they are afraid of them. And people have to DO SOMETHING about something they are afraid of – so they call the police and it usually turns ugly for the bear. When it doesn’t, the bear runs back into the woods where it came from and all is well once again.
I had my own moments when I first moved back here and had to get used to having bears around, but I’ve learned more about them now and I’m a wee bit more comfortable. Not complacent, just more knowledgeable. I respect them for what they are and their place in the environment. Actually, I’m kind of glad they’re here.
We have copperheads in NJ, and rattlesnakes, and cottonmouth snakes -all of which can kill you. I’ve lived in places that had fire ants, and killer bees, and alligators, and sharks, and brown recluse spiders.
Bears are really no more dangerous than any of these animals, except they will seek out garbage and food, which results in their losing their fear of people. That’s what people don’t like – the tables are turned! EVERYTHING is supposed to fear people!
Seriously though, a not-afraid bear can pose a problem, so I can understand the State’s dilemma. Without the garbage and feeding factors, bears would probably remain timid and in the woods and not contribute largely to any imagined or real animal/human encounter problems.
Perhaps more public-education is necessary; or perhaps less contruction and more protection for wild habitats for bears is needed. If you build a development on acerage inhabited by bears, guess what? There’s going to be a bear wandering through your yard.
But people don’t like to take responsibility for their actions or the consequences. It’s like the folks who build their homes on the banks of the Delaware River, then squawk about floods and flood-control. But that’s another story.
There’s no easy answer without sacrificing the bears, which is unacceptable. But I’m just not sure of this door-to-door canvassing approach, either. It will be interesting, to say the least, to see what happens here. | <urn:uuid:756212ec-2b3a-4412-941a-871f3904c2e0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://naturalnotes3.wordpress.com/2007/03/22/birds-or-bears/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959591 | 1,334 | 2.453125 | 2 |
By J.D. Thorpe
Conservatives are cautiously optimistic that the Republican controlled House will reverse the Big Government trend. Before the new crop of politicians is sworn in, it is important to examine historical precedents and establish basic standards that should be met to offer the best chance of restoring smaller government.
On Fox News Sunday, Congressman Paul Ryan, the soon-to-be Budget Committee Chairman in the House, discussed his plans of cutting $100 billion in non-defense discretionary spending next year. This is a solid start to addressing the Nation’s fiscal problems, but it is not enough by itself. The Obama administration has left a notable mark on the size of government in its first two years.
Government spending as a percentage of GDP was 42.3% in 2009 and 43.9% in 2010; both significant increases from the 36.9% level in 2008. If this ratio had remained at the 2008 level, government spending would have decreased by almost $2 trillion over the past two years.
How do these figures compare with the broader historical trend? Economic historian Robert Higgs developed the “Ratchet Effect” theory to explain the growth of government over the past century. Without detailing all its nuances, it shows that the rise of Big Government is the legacy of various crises in American history. In times of crisis, government intervenes and increases spending significantly. Spending stabilizes at this level for a brief period of time and then decreases to a level that is above the pre-crisis spending trajectory.
Demagogic politicians have used this strategy to push through statist legislation by frequently using terms like crisis and emergency when selling their agenda. Between the years 1920-1929, the government spending to GDP ratio held consistent at approximately 11 percent. Government expansion initiated by Herbert Hoover and continued under FDR’s New Deal increased the ratio to 20% for most of the decade. After further expansion during WWII, the figure settled at its new norm of 23% in 1947.
In 1975, as a result of further crises, namely the Korean War and Vietnam, government expenditures comprised 33.6% of our annual output. This level would remain consistent over the next 33 years. Despite its sterling record on tax cuts, and solving the inflation problem that plagued the 1970s, even the Reagan administration was not able to impact spending levels. Similarly, the Republican Revolution in 1994 had only a minor impact on the broader trend.
The negligible shift during the Reagan years and the Gingrich Congress present problems for liberty advocates. If these two movements, largely viewed as successful by conservatives, were unable to decrease the overall size of government, how can we win this fight?
An alternative approach to nickel and dime cuts, is to change the dynamic of the Ratchet Effect. Conservatives must go on the offensive by linking the necessity of truly significant spending cuts to the debt crisis our nation faces. Why should statism hold a monopoly on this theory? With a national debt eclipsing $13 trillion, this is not a spurious strategy either. This country is facing a catastrophe resulting from out of control spending and $1 trillion plus annual deficits.
Whatever avenue conservatives pursue, it must be dramatic and it must be revolutionary or they risk ceding further territory in this battle. Temporarily halting the march of Big Government is not enough. If the new conservative legislators are sincere about fighting for individual liberty, major structural changes need to take place.
Something analogous to reverting back to 2008 spending levels and cutting an additional 5 percent from the budget per year would help remedy the situation. Without a structural change, we are just treading water until the next tidal wave of statism drowns us.
J.D. Thorpe is the Assistant Director of Programs at the Patrick Henry Center for Individual Liberty | <urn:uuid:7768c4af-e387-493a-accf-40d133eca300> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/watercooler/2010/nov/25/libertys-challenge/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00064-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94917 | 764 | 2.828125 | 3 |
These are complicated times, especially when it comes to inflation.
An excess of debt, both private and public, has retarded the spending stream, resulting in sluggish economic growth. Given the Fed’s legislated commitment to prevent financial implosion and unemployment, rounds of central bank monetary responses have followed. The intuition of more money in our pockets chasing a limited supply of goods, as well as our long intellectual history of monetarism, sets off the reflex that printing results in inflation. That hasn’t appreciably happened yet, but multiple rounds of QE keep markets on edge given the teaching of Milton Friedman,
To add to the inflation paradox, last January, for the first time, the Fed committed to producing moderate inflation (2 percent) “over the long run“. However, as recently reported by David Rosenberg, inflation at the producer level was flat over the last quarter, and given the Euro recession and continued U.S. sluggishness, it appears likely that the inflation goal might not be reached. Indeed, many credible sources are forecasting long-run deflation, a la the trend in Japan.
On top of that there is the conjecture, mentioned in a recent post that in the (likely) event of an uncontrolled government deficit, the role of the central bank would be to generate actual inflation that exceeds the expected inflation premium that had been priced into interest rates. The purpose would be to reduce the real cost of government debt. This seems to suggest that the long-term Fed inflation target is to keep expectations anchored at a number the Fed hopes to exceed.
But in the longer run, while accumulating four decades of baby boomer entitlement debt, it would take one surprise after another to exceed expected and priced inflation. And each would have to be larger than the last to continuously have actual inflation exceed that which is priced by the market. This is the implied path to what is journalistically called “runaway inflation.”
The Fed inflation targeting in the long run is one thing, but the real question is whether the Fed can deliver when it so far has not.
The paradox of strong growth in the monetary base without the inflation implied by monetarism first surfaced when the first Federal Reserve balance sheet leap occurred in 2008. At the time, many people believed that a doubling of central bank money chasing a short term fixed supply of goods would bring about a doubling of the price level.
Obviously, that didn’t happen. The question is why not.
First off, at that time, the commercial banking system did not have the requisite regulatory solvency (an excess of asset values relative to deposits) to expand balance sheets if they had the risk tolerance. That is, today’s excess cash reserves of $1.5 trillion held by banks and a commercial bank money supply multiplier of say 10 would normally result in $15 trillion of lending and spending. A surge in bank-financed spending could roughly double the present $15 trillion annual flow rate of GDP and, with it, inflation.
The predicted proportionality of prices to money didn’t occur, as spending not only failed to increase appreciably with more central bank base money, but fell short of the economy’s supply potential so that deflationary forces from excess capacity still exist today. (This same phenomena to monetarists would be the explanation for the decline in the velocity of money.)
So the issue of inflation depends to a large extent on the ability and willingness of commercial banks to run with the base money given to them. The most recent reading of that is not encouraging to either the growth of spending or inflation, as the graph above shows.
Despite having been given a stealth capital buildup via an essential zero cost of funding program (in addition to the TARP subsidy), the commercial bank books claim solvency, but lending contracted in the first quarter. The Keynesian notion of the liquidity trap is still alive and festering with banks pointing to a lack of borrowers and borrowers pointing to a lack of willing lenders. The problem, more than loan risk analytics, is likely behavioral. As aptly discussed by Kevin Flynn:
“For the last 50 years banks have been behaving the same way — turning a profitable sector into a credit fad and then drowning it in the name of market share, management bonuses, takeover avoidance, or whatever. Once they blow a sector up, nobody wants to hear about lending to it again for another generation of CEO management, which runs for about five to 10 years (the last thing that managers brought in to replace disgraced managers want to do is more of what got their predecessors sacked). Banks finally got around to blowing up housing, so now we have a generation of bank executives in place whose unifying feature is the determination to avoid a housing bust that won’t happen again for another 70 years or so. The Fed can’t do anything about it.”
Given these impediments to produce monetary expansion and lending through banks, there are other routes by which the Fed might reach its inflation objective. Without bank follow-through, the impact of monetary expansion is limited to the Fed’s first round of financial purchasing power. This limitation of its firepower is what turned the Fed to large scale QEs, since there would be no commercial bank follow–through: They had to do the job themselves. But since the Fed is not a commercial lender, it mainly relies on what is known as a Pigou effect — a generalized market value of wealth spreading from bonds to equities and other assets that in turn induces limited spending but not at a rate sufficient to create inflation.
Another approach to inflation (which the Fed scoffs at) is un-lovingly called helicopter money. This was the first thing done when the financial meltdown occurred, in the form of the Fed putting money more directly into the hands of spenders (as opposed to financial asset markets). That is, rather than just continuing more of the same Fed expansion, helicopter money delivers fresh spending power directly to the end user (the consumer) over the heads of the moribund banks.
Believe it or not, this was implemented in the dark days of 2008, when the Fed purchased Treasury bonds that enabled the Treasury department to mail out an equal amount of government green checks directly to spenders. It flew under the radar screen as the checks were called tax rebates, and few knew the source of the funding. However, a wider distribution of government green checks coming from the Fed or the Treasury would require a more obvious money gift that would create contentious comparisons of need. To further rule out more green checks to consumers (especially voters), the Republican Party platform is now at odds with at grossly expansionary Fed tendencies, and the Fed is not likely to expose itself to legislative constrains to its independence.
If the government wishes to depreciate its debt and consumer debt with inflation, a more likely inflation alternative would be for the Treasury Department to turn to treasury currency, the United States Note. As previously explained, the government used this tactic to pay its bills during the Civil War.
In this case, the financing of government spending is facilitated by Treasury currency printing rather than Federal Reserve printing. Treasury currency would have a greater inflationary impact as it directly finances spending in goods markets. In this case, inflation would be a fiscal byproduct rather than a central bank contrivance.
Treasury currency would be more effective as it goes over the heads of the blocked banking system and reluctant spending units, and on behalf of the taxpayers, goes directly into the spending stream when the government pays for entitlements such as Medicare. As such it is a kind of super-helicopter money delivered to the goods markets rather than the financial markets or even to the consumer to be used for debt reduction as the new currency is injected into the spending and income stream.
When political leaders are pressed to “do something,” it seems that this would be the “something” that could simultaneously finance entitlement spending, reduce the size of the fiscal cliff, and reach a desired inflation target. This is a something for nothing policy solution that politicians who take the path of least resistance would find difficult to ignore–and it’s in the law.
What an irony. Despite the accusations being made, the Fed in these circumstances is only able to produce inflation expectations whereas Fed generated inflation is dependent upon a generational replacement of commercial bankers.
It seems the notion of an inflationary future one way or another is still alive and ticking. Recently, inflation adjusting assets including energy pipelines, gold, income producing real estate and infrastructure are now moving up in the markets and fixed income assets are moving downward. Though the Fed has struck out on the inflation front, the bet has switched at least at the margin to the government doing “something” in the long run to ultimately reach an inflation target. Keep tuned to see how these improbable policies and events work out.
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Now with free delivery! | <urn:uuid:4b02469e-6940-46d7-9b2f-e54ff202c785> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thespellmanreport.com/2012/08/30/can-the-fed-create-inflation/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957136 | 1,881 | 2.234375 | 2 |
Personalized Medicine – The BrainPaint Difference
BrainPaint follows the same model as personalized medicine. Personalized medicine proposes the customization of healthcare, which includes practices that are tailored for each individual. This is the #1 BrainPaint difference. Depending on your issues and goals, the BrainPaint system customizes each and every protocol just for you! And, the best part is, it is without medicine.
BrainPaint uses a systematic approach, which was demonstrated in research to have a large effect on attention (ADD & ADHD), anxiety, depression, thought disorders, social introversion, hysteria, hypochondria and openness (reduced defensiveness). A systematic approach takes out all the guesswork ensuring more consistent results among providers.
BrainPaint is the ONLY neurofeedback system that automates the exact implementation of alpha-theta protocol demonstrated in studies to address trauma (PTSD) and addictions. Alpha-theta is also the best protocol for peak performance, fears, phobias, fibromyalgia and some forms of anxiety, depression and chronic pain. The BrainPaint software is a computerized version of the same manual that was endorsed by the Human Subjects Review Committee at UCLA for one of the largest randomized control studies in the field.
BrainPaint does not require an expensive brain scan to get started. A study compared the technique BrainPaint uses for protocol selection to that of a brain map and concluded: “…it is not possible to draw conclusions regarding any advantage regarding QEEG-versus Scott/Peniston-specific training using current analysis.” ~ Roger J. deBeus, PhD, BCIA-EEG
BrainPaint providers aim for measurable results in life improvements rather than just changes in brainwaves. The majority of studies do not find conclusive evidence of changes in brainwaves that correlate to improvements in symptoms.
Children find the games very antiquated compared to the games they play with at home, therefore, they quickly get bored and don’t seem to take the feedback as seriously. Painting with your brain is a novelty.
If you leave a treatment center or move residences, your new BrainPaint provider can electronically (and securely) receive your exact protocols, therefore, you won’t miss a beat in your training. You will pick up exactly where you left off. | <urn:uuid:fa67a23e-8227-4d05-973b-4234e086fa91> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://neurofeedbackdefined.com/personalized-medicine | 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 | 0.923041 | 481 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Falling rivers bring problems, too
Those of us who live along and near the confluence of the Illinois, Mississippi and Missouri rivers are more accustomed to problems with too much water rather than too little.
This area was the heart of the Great Flood of 1993, which turned much of the Midwest into one giant lake. While 1993 wasn't the first great flood on the Mississippi (1927, 1937 and 1973 also were big ones), it remains the standard for many communities along the river. And the floods have kept coming, as in 2002 and 2008, and another huge one as recently as 2011.
That makes the situation in 2012 all the more perplexing. How can the river be near record high levels one year and now setting record lows the next?
If you have any technical difficulties, either with your username and password or with the payment options, please contact us by e-mail at firstname.lastname@example.org | <urn:uuid:836f5690-c426-4eaf-9048-a95339b863ad> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.saukvalley.com/2012/12/18/falling-rivers-bring-problems-too/annn2n1/?list-comments=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971278 | 189 | 2.359375 | 2 |
Let’s be honest, most wall murals and decals are pretty cheesy. I don’t think people really think it through when they have a family photo blown up to monstrous proportions and use it as wallpaper. Pretty soon, the sight of your own smile will start to creep you out. Or, those terrible city sky-line murals. What is it with people (especially New Yorkers) who need to constantly remind themselves that they live in a city? Just look out your window! Personally, I like my city apartment to be super tranquil and remind me of being out in the country. Which is why I find these wall murals so appealing.
If you aren’t the handiest with a paintbrush, here’s some methods you can use to make your own wall mural.
1. Use PosteRazor to slice an image into squares that can be printed out to make a large poster size image.
2. Construct a make-shift projector from a box, a lamp and some tape. | <urn:uuid:9ec9335b-0f8b-4b50-a5ce-dc3b18c50b5e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.philadelphiaweekly.com/style/tag/wall-murals/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00061-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946337 | 212 | 1.617188 | 2 |
- dotTech - http://dottech.org -
Apple is the first major tech company to drop a supplier for use of child labor
Posted By Enrique On January 27, 2013 @ 10:49 PM In General Tech | 5 Comments
Apple’s annual supplier audit, which is in its seventh year, has been released. According to the audit, underage workers were discovered in 11 factories, with 106 cases in total being investigated. However, one manufacturer in particular had excessive use of child labor and is getting the boot due. Guangdong Real Faith Pingzhou Electronics, which is a subcontractor to a company Apple outsources to, was found to have violated the underage policy… 74 times.
The report indicates that the manufacturer, which makes motherboards, wasn’t accomplishing this on its own, as a local staffing firm was the one in charge of supplying them with children. The firm did this by helping families forge documents which verified their age, so all three parties (manufacturer, staffing firm, and parents) are to blame for use of child labor.
You might be wondering why Guangdong Real Faith Pingzhou Electronics is the only company that got the boot. After all, 106 cases were found meaning 32 cases were at other companies. It probably has to do with the fact that a) use of child labor is a common practice in many parts of Asia (due to poverty) and Apple cannot kick out all of its suppliers or else Apple would go out of business and b) Guangdong Real Faith Pingzhou Electronics had excessive use of child labor whereas some other companies may have had only one or two. Plus there is another reason.
You see when Apple discovers use of child labor by its suppliers, it requires the suppliers to
So if they boot all suppliers that use child labor, not only would they be out of suppliers but Apple would also be unable to enforce their policy. In other words, once you drop a supplier you have no power over them to force them to do all three of the things mentioned above.
The discover of child labor use is due in large part to Apple really cracking down on issues with its suppliers — the Apple report indicates that they’ve conducted 393 audits for 2013, which is a 72 percent increase from 2011. Aside from child labor, there are other issues Apple is trying to improve like better working conditions, overtime abuse, and bonded labor, which is a process that recruits foreign workers but makes them pay excessive amounts for recruitment fees. It’s probably going to take a lot more than 393 audits to clamp down on everything and then some, but hopefully it’ll only get better from here.
Kudos, Apple. As far as I know, you are the first major company to kick a supplier out for using child labor.
[via Gizmodo ]
Article printed from dotTech: http://dottech.org
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Gizmodo: http://gizmodo.com/5978905/apple-audit-reveals-74-cases-of-underage-labor-in-china?post=56623150
© 2008-2012 dotTech.org | All content is the property of its rightful owner. | <urn:uuid:071fd3b8-0d1d-4142-98c7-b72a225a6db2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dottech.org/94849/apple-is-the-first-major-tech-company-to-drop-a-supplier-for-use-of-child-labor/print/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962392 | 747 | 1.539063 | 2 |
eAgriculture techniques and methodologies for application to agriculture data
The importance of increasing agricultural production and sustainability is reliant on an understanding of the variability in crop varieties grown under different agricultural conditions. This project is evaluating current eAgriculture methodologies for their application in Australian agricultural industry. The application of artificial intelligence techniques, such as data mining, to agricultural data can improve the interrogation of agricultural research data and lead to developing better agricultural systems which can respond to climate change and other environmental factors such as soil salinity and drought.
The project is investigating a number of factors including the development of specific agriculture data mining frameworks and feature selection for these large agricultural data sets. Novel data mining algorithms are being developed that can be applied to sample and agriculture data sets to validate these methods. The research will focus on identifying the major sources of variability and validate the results through simulations. This research will provide the insight investigation of the various agriculture data sets including soils, climate, crop data at farm, catchment and regional levels. The project will provide the techniques to improve the decision making of farmers and agricultural industry in respect to crop variety selection and responses to environmental and agricultural concerns. This research is being carried out with the support of iVec.
Dr Leisa Armstrong
Post Doctoral Research Fellow, Dr Jinsong Leng
University of New England, Dr Neil Dunstan
Department of Agriculture and Food, Western Australia, Mr Dean Diepeveen
Mr Yunous Vagh
Mr Aiden Sehovic | <urn:uuid:e5606b0a-a47c-494b-93db-c1ad8239e9d4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ecu.edu.au/faculties/computing-health-and-science/research-activity/research-projects/scss/eagriculture/eagriculture-techniques-and-methodologies-for-application-to-agriculture-data | 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 | 0.913644 | 304 | 2.90625 | 3 |
|Where: Central Point, Oregon
Mission: To provide opportunities for children and parents to achieve success with dignity.
Target population: Children aged 0-5 who are low-income or have a disability, and their families
Program Model: National child development program with center- and home-based components
Introduced Reflective Supervision: 1995
Catalyst for Change: Start-up program seeking to implement best
In 1994, the federal Early Head Start program was created by the U.S. Congress as part of the reauthorization of the Head Start Act. Oregon’s two Early Head Start sites were among the first programs established. Early Head Start is a comprehensive child development program with both center-based and home-based components. Its primary objectives are the promotion of healthy parent-child relationships, and the provision of other individualized services including education and early childhood development and medical, dental, mental health, and nutrition services.
Oregon Early Head Start’s philosophy is that healthy development is best promoted within the context of nurturing relationships with a primary caregiver who is responsive to the child’s needs. Parents, as the primary educators of their children, are included as full partners in all OEHS service areas.
Talley Dunn, program coordinator, notes, “Being [in the first wave of Early Head Start programs], we were really seeking the best possible things to do in setting up our program. I started to get a sense that strong parent-child relationships and sincere relationships between supervisors and staff, and staff and families formed a continuous circle. EHS put a name to it: reflective supervision.”
Dunn sought more information about reflective supervision and ultimately decided to integrate elements of reflection and relationship-based work into the Oregon Early Head Start (OEHS) culture. She remembers: “As a manager setting up two centers, the reason we decided to use reflective supervision was to provide high quality services to infants, toddlers and their parents. Over time, we’ve been able to see a parallel—that reflective supervision supports staff, staff support parents, and that parents support their children. It might sound idealistic, but that’s what we’re hoping for, and that’s what we’re seeing in our program.”
Dunn’s mentor, Mary Foltz, an infant/toddler specialist at Portland State University, assisted her with the introduction of reflective
supervision. In the planning phases, this mentorship included twice-monthly conference calls to discuss key articles and questions related to reflective supervisory practices. Foltz was then available later in the process to debrief with Dunn after she began providing her staff with supervision.
Recruitment, Selection, and Staff Orientation
Having established the program from the ground-up, Dunn sought to hire staff members who were open to the reflective culture she was working to establish at OEHS. As most job candidates then and now are not familiar with the concept of reflective supervision, Dunn and her team use specific interview questions to assess job candidates’ ability to be reflective about themselves and the work. Examples include:
Do you work best independently or in teams?
If you had a conflict with your supervisor, what would you do?
How do you like your supervisor to approach you?
Once on site, new employees meet with their supervisors to learn more about the twice-monthly supervisory meetings for direct service staff, as well as to answer any specific questions they may have about the process of reflective supervision. Supervisory relationships develop at the staff member’s pace and comfort level. “There’s no rushing this process,” says site supervisor Lauren Bell, who reports to Dunn.
New staff members typically become involved in a supervisory relationship easily because “they see that there’s not one way of communicating inside my office and another way outside,” says Bell. Through open, supportive interactions with both peers and supervisors, new employees soon realize that reflective supervision is not a specific event, but a way of being and communicating throughout the organization. The goal for supervisors is to establish a collaborative relationship with each staff member in which reflective supervision “is as an ongoing dialogue from the day they start until the day they leave,” says Bell.
In the early years of the program, Dunn supplemented her targeted recruitment efforts with on-the-job training provided by Victor Bernstein, Ph.D. from the Chicago, Illinois-based Ounce of Prevention Fund. Its purpose was to promote better understanding of reflective approaches among the new staff at Oregon Early Head Start. Bernstein conducted two full-day training sessions on strengthening the family through strengthening the parent-child relationship. This training, which took place in 1996 and 1997, also addressed observation techniques and the use of videotape to observe family interactions.
Meetings Contribute to the Creation of a Reflective Culture
Weekly staff meetings, a group venue to encourage information-sharing and collegial support, have become integral to the OEHS program. The value of these regular meetings is two-fold: They encourage collaboration, and they build a sense of commitment to one another and to the work. Each person realizes that, while the work is challenging, they are not in it alone.
Bell remembers that her expectations about staff meetings, initially focused on administrative tasks and program-centered issues, changed over time: “[I began to] recognize that the need is for us to connect as people, not only as workers.” Each meeting now includes a discussion of emerging work-related issues as well as “check-ins” in which each staff members updates the others on the previous week. Topics raised may be either professional or personal.
Oregon Early Head Start also uses the following meetings as a way to maximize opportunities for staff collaboration, support, and supervision.
Debriefs—Staff meet following parent/child interaction groups and discuss their immediate observations of interactions, children’s growth and development, and the effectiveness of the curriculum plans. Peers listen, support, and encourage one another. Adaptation and revision of curriculum plans takes place at this time.
Specialist Support Groups—Staff working with children and families discuss overall job-related issues and their feelings about the work at these bimonthly meetings. The specialists, all managing similar caseloads and responsibilities, provide empathy, support, and encouragement to one another.
Challenges to Implementing Reflective Supervision
Finding the Time
Dunn notes that, hands down, the toughest part of using reflective supervision is “always having to make it a priority, [realizing it’s slipping and] then bringing it back to the fore.” Says Dunn:
“There are always planning sessions, staff hirings, etc., that supervisory
schedules have to accommodate. To [find a balance], supervisors must be
convinced of the value of the reflective, collaborative approach, not only
for staff but for the well-being of families as well. We need to make it a
supervisory priority, creating the time and space for this effort.”
Bell agrees, “Reflective supervision is a unique opportunity in the human services field, where outcomes are not always in direct relationship to staff’s contribution. [Sometimes it can be hard for staff to tell] if they’re doing their job well or effectively. The family situation is often an unstable measure. By giving staff an opportunity to discuss their work, they can begin to understand their impact.”
Responding to Turnover
Turnover, though low at OEHS, is a tremendous challenge for this relationship-based model of supervision. When staff members leave, “you start the relationship anew. You can’t rush it. You just need to wait patiently until trust is established,” says Dunn.
Learning and Applying the Concepts
While Bell agrees that finding the time for reflective supervision is difficult, she does wonder:
“Whether time was ever really the issue for me since I’m as
busy now as I was during start-up. In the beginning, I thought,
‘There’s no way I can do that.’ During Year 1, there was little
time and I was very uncomfortable with [reflective supervision]…
I thought I should be all-knowing, like my staff were supposed
to come in and for one hour would tell me all their problems
and I would give them all the answers. Not surprisingly, I felt
some anxiety about ‘what if I don’t have all the answers?’ [But] I
had misunderstood what reflective supervision was supposed to be.”
By meeting regularly with Dunn (her supervisor), Bell grew more comfortable with the concepts of reflective supervision as time went on. “I was looking for a technique, but really reflective supervision was about the relationship between Talley and me. It was Year 3 before I looked forward to supervising staff because I let go of having all the answers. Talley let me experience this in supervision. She would say, ‘Tell me about what’s happening,’ not ‘What are all your problems?’ I understood how reflective supervision impacted others’ work by understanding how it affected me.”
In addition, Bell began to realize that all her daily interactions with staff were an opportunity to encourage reflective practice. She observes, “[Realizing that] takes the pressure off of something big happening in the one-on-one meetings.” Now, supervisors use groups, lunches, and casual discussions to learn from, share with, and support supervisees. Reflective supervision, says Bell, “is the way in which we have relationships with staff, talk to staff, listen to staff.”
Outcomes of Reflective Supervision
One powerful outcome measure tracked by OEHS is its very low turnover—the highest level since 1994 has been only about 12 percent. This compares to an average rate of 30 percent for the field (Whitebook & Bellm, 5). In addition, the program has achieved a number of important staff development outcomes (listed below).
Staff display increased effectiveness in working with families—e.g., watching for subtleties, wondering what families might (or might not) do, finding deeper meaning in their work. Bell notes that, as staff members begin to internalize the concepts of reflection and inquiry, their interactions with families change: “New home visitors are focused on doing, doing, doing. Experienced home visitors, on the other hand, are listening, listening, listening.”
Staff better understand how to integrate techniques used in training in their work—e.g., using inquiry and critical thinking skills on the job. By using these techniques to solicit more information about the parents and children with whom they work, staff can better individualize their responses and interventions to reflect families’ needs.
Staff better understand boundary issues—e.g., are more open and cognizant of how they are affected by families, and vice versa.
Oregon Head Start has also observed positive outcomes for families as a result of using reflective supervision. Dunn states that parents’ problem-solving skills have increased across time, as supportive relationships with staff help them to experiment with new parenting techniques and approaches.
Lastly, Dunn observes that staff themselves no longer feel alone in difficult situations. “They know that their supervisors will go with them to a home visit or court proceedings. It’s letting them know they have a supervisor and colleagues who support them.” This level of collaboration ensures that the most difficult questions receive the most comprehensive answers; the most emotionally intense interactions receive the greatest support.
Oregon Early Head Start has found that the greatest benefit of reflective supervision lies in the fact that, says Dunn, it “gives everyone an opportunity to step back, observe, and learn from relationships: with supervisors, staff, parents and children.”
Oregon Early Head Start Staff:
Talley Dunn, Program Coordinator
Lauren Bell, Site Supervisor
Laura Bellah, Family Specialist
Excerpted from Parlakian, R. (Ed.). (2002). Reflective supervision in practice: Stories from the field. Washington, DC: ZERO TO THREE | <urn:uuid:432d6fe6-9a1e-4c5e-8803-35c949c19cef> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.zerotothree.org/about-us/areas-of-expertise/reflective-practice-program-development/one-program-shares-its-experience.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959351 | 2,555 | 2.171875 | 2 |
Risk Assessment Battery (RAB)
The RAB is a self-administered questionnaire designed for repeat administration with substance using populations. It was developed to provide a rapid (less than fifteen minutes) and confidential, non-interview method of assessing both drug use practices and sexual behaviors associated with HIV transmission. The RAB provides a measure of HIV risk behaviors, which is broken down into sub-scales for drug risk and sex risk and combined to yield a measure of total risk.
The 45 questions of the RAB are simply worded and use discrete response categories. Respondents are asked to "check-off" the answer that best describes their behavior. There are no open-ended questions, minimizing the need for writing skills. A brief set of instructions is included on the first page of the RAB. However, as with all self-administered questionnaires, it is particularly important to provide the respondent with a proper introduction and explanation of the form, its purpose, and how it is to be completed. Given the very sensitive nature of the information collected, it is also important that individuals administering the RAB address the issue of confidentiality. While the more private approach of the self-administered questionnaire should reinforce the confidential nature of the assessment, it is very important that respondents understand that the confidentiality of their responses will be protected.
A staff member should be available during administration of the RAB to screen for reading difficulties, answer questions as they arise and ensure that the items are being attended to properly.
There are two global sections within the RAB: 1) drug and alcohol use during the past 30 days, and 2) syringe use and sexual behavior during the previous six months. Questions have been constructed to provide maximum coverage and sensitivity to potential risk behaviors within these categories. Since self-report may be expected to provide underestimates of behaviors that are socially unacceptable, we have assembled items that assess a wider range of behaviors associated with HIV infection. Thus, questions ask not only about the behaviors directly responsible for viral transmission such as syringe sharing and unprotected sexual activity, but also associated with these activities (e.g. syringe acquisition, shooting gallery attendance, exchange of money or drugs for sex). The inclusion of these items is intended to identify individuals at increased risk of HIV exposure, even if transmission behaviors are not directly reported. However, affirmation of these "peripheral behaviors" does not prove that transmission behaviors have actually occurred. For example, an individual who has visited a shooting gallery on numerous occasions during the assessment interval may not have shared a needle or had unprotected sex, even though these behaviors are common in shooting galleries. However, these peripheral behaviors may be more readily reported by some respondents despite their reluctance to report primary transmission events such as sharing a syringe or unprotected sexual activity.
As a self-administered questionnaire, the RAB offers an efficient tool for screening individuals who may be at risk for HIV infection. Further, it provides a means to target and evaluate interventions in a more precise manner.
To make an appointment, or inquire further about our services, please call: 1-866-448-7366. | <urn:uuid:1cee7874-5360-469a-a89e-95c2b0001cec> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.med.upenn.edu/hiv/rab_overview.html?9 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951791 | 635 | 2.234375 | 2 |
How To Make Tumblr Theme : 5 Tutorials
Tubmlr has gained a lot of fans over the last 5 years, and with good reason. Whereas many blogging platforms are striving to add more and more features to their platform, Tumblr has stayed true to its microblogging roots by keeping things simple. This has resulted in one of the most user friendly interfaces available online. And though it may be simple, it still has some great features. There are a wide range of post formats to choose from and you can automatically update your Tumblr page with your latest entries from Facebook and Twitter. So here are 5 tutorials to make your own tumblr theme.
Tumblr allows its uses to create custom themes giving the owner of a tumbleblog the ability to truly customise their tumbleblog to be their own. While tumblr coding is fairly easy to pick up compared to other more complex blogging systems, I want to give you an insight into the code and structure we are going to be deploying next time around when we set about converting a psd to tumblr.
Tumblr’s popularity over the last year has increased exponentially. The reason why is quite simple: Tumblr is flexible, powerful, and, most importantly, a pleasure to work with. Unfortunately, there aren’t many training resources available for the platform yet. In this video series, we’ll go through the process of taking a Tumblr theme, designed in Photoshop, and converting it into a fully working theme – in just a few hours.
Websites powered by Tumblr (or Tumblelogs , or tlogs) are becoming increasingly popular. Tumblr fills the gap between Twitter and the full blog, allowing users to post short updates in text, video, photo, link, chat, quote and audio formats quickly and easily. Let’s take a look at the basics of what Tumblr is, and how to get a tumblelog of your own up and running.
Tumblr has done a lot of growing over the past few years. Recently I’ve had to develop a few themes inside of Tumblr for part of a larger overall campaign. Coming from WordPress, I appreciated the platform’s simplicity, but wasn’t sure about how customizable it would actually be. I was under the impression that custom theme design was a lot more complicated than it actually is.
Tumblr lets you fully customize the appearance of your blog by editing your theme’s HTML code. This is only recommended for users comfortable hand-coding HTML. | <urn:uuid:a4b1e91b-896d-4b00-83d6-481c08112d99> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bashooka.com/coding/how-to-make-tumblr-theme-5-tutorials/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952246 | 509 | 1.53125 | 2 |
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Help young people to talk about cancer, fundraise to help millions, and teach and inspire people to make healthy choices for their future.
We are all affected by cancer. We’re here to help you give young people the information they need to understand it and the opportunity to discuss it.
At Macmillan we don’t want cancer to be the elephant in the (class)room. Yes, it’s a big subject but we think it should be an easy and natural one to talk about. That’s why we’ve produced our Talking About Cancer toolkit - to help you discuss it honestly and openly with your pupils aged 9-16 years old as part of your PSHE/PSE/PSD, citizenship or science lessons.
The pack contains everything you need to give young people the facts about cancer they need. We want to help them to make informed lifestyle choices and create a more sensitive and cancer-aware society.|
In the pack you’ll find:
You can also download the lesson plans and activity sheets in Welsh from the right hand side of this page.
During Cancertalk Week schools across the UK will be getting the conversation started and becoming part of Macmillan’s annual awareness-raising week. Why not use your teaching pack to get your school or class involved? Find out more|.
Organise a spectacular day of fun and do something amazing for people affected by cancer.
Get everything you need to organise a great fundraising event in your school or youth group.
Download the PDFs of lesson plans and activity sheets in Welsh.
If you have any questions about Macmillan we would love to hear from you| .
You can also follow us| on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr or YouTube.
© Macmillan Cancer Support 2013
what are these?| | <urn:uuid:150369f7-19f5-4375-84e8-091ec34382bb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.macmillan.org.uk/GetInvolved/Schools/Teachingaboutcancer/Teachingpack.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937001 | 394 | 2.703125 | 3 |
The Geforce chip is made of copper instead of aluminium, which means it can run faster - Spencer Kelly, BBC Click Online
SHOULD YOU BE AFRAID when you pick up your make-up bag or turn on the PC? Well perhaps you should as the National Research Council (NRC) has found a serious flaw in the government's handling of nanomaterials policy.
At present there are many products on the market that include nanomaterials and, although not a lot is known about them, this has not yet caused enough concern for anything to be done about it.
Yet the worry that the NRC has is that during the next decade or so, nanotechnology is going to creep its way into our food and our medicines. If these materials are dangerous, this poses a huge risk.
The report released by the NRC on Wednesday highlights this concern alongside the fact that there is simply not enough funding, leadership or research going into the production and distribution of these materials.
Although some thinking has gone into this subject, it is not yet certain whether these materials pose health or environmental risks.
David Eaton, chairman of the NRC committee said, "Current plan catalogs nano-risk research across several federal agencies, but it does not present an overarching research strategy needed to gain public acceptance and realise the promise of nanotechnology."
The other obvious risk is that, with the increasing amount of nanotechnology being used, more and more workers are going to be exposed to such materials. Recent figures from the EPA suggest that at present there are 20,000 researchers working in nanotechnology.
The NRC's main point in the report is that more research needs to be done on how these materials affect the human body as well as the environment, with more information and input needed from industries and companies developing and using nanotechnology.
No one group is responsible for overseeing the production and distribution of nanomaterials, which of course poses a risk. The NRC wants to change this as the first step against the proliferation and distribution of possibly unsafe substances that are not yet reasonably well enough understoond. µ
Sign up for INQbot – a weekly roundup of the best from the INQ | <urn:uuid:6de5e83a-c114-41f9-ad69-dd6f15a28fca> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1050015/nanotechnology-could-pose-a-risk | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962907 | 450 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Syria: Ban seeks urgent political solution to end conflict
New York, Mar 19 : United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon Monday stressed the urgent need for a political solution to end the crisis in Syria which over the past two years has claimed over 70,000 lives and led to a dire humanitarian crisis.
"We all need to inject urgency towards reaching a political solution while there is still time to prevent Syria's complete destruction," said a statement issued by Ban's spokesperson.
"The end goal is clear to all - there must be an end to violence, a clean break with the past and a transition to a new Syria in which the rights of all communities are protected and the legitimate aspirations of all Syrians for freedom, dignity and justice, are met," it added.
"The sooner a military solution is abandoned the better. There is no need for more people to die, flee or grieve in Syria."
Well over 70,000 people have been killed since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began in March 2011. The country is facing a humanitarian crisis, with over three million people displaced from their homes, including one million seeking safety in neighbouring countries.
"Two years ago, Syrians stood up in peaceful popular protests to appeal for their universal rights and freedoms," noted the statement. "This appeal was answered with brutal force by the Syrian authorities. Monday, the world is watching the consequences with horror."
Ban called on the region and the international community, in particular the Security Council, to find unity and lend its full support to the efforts of the Joint Special Representative of the United Nations and the League of Arab States, Lakhdar Brahimi, to help the Syrian people reach a political solution to the conflict. | <urn:uuid:b98404e6-6160-40d0-b4ed-13336e91c508> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.newkerala.com/news/newsplus/worldnews-145209.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962384 | 349 | 2.046875 | 2 |
Our Mission: Through organic leadership we improve the health and well-being of people and the planet.
Rodale Institute was founded in 1947 by organic pioneer J.I. Rodale to study the link between healthy soil, healthy food and healthy people. He moved from New York City to rural Pennsylvania in the late 1930′s where he was able to realize his keen personal interest in farming.
He learned about organic food-growing concepts being promoted by Lady Eve Balfour and Sir Albert Howard and theorized that to preserve and improve our health we must restore and protect the natural health of the soil. Developing and demonstrating practical methods of rebuilding natural soil fertility became J.I. Rodale’s primary goal when World War II’s sudden shortage of nitrogen fertilizer—as it was diverted to making munitions—exposed the natural nutrient poverty of the nation’s soil. In 1947, J.I. founded the Soil and Health Foundation, forerunner to the Rodale Institute.
J.I. was the author of numerous books and the creator of many magazines still available today, including Organic Farming and Gardening (now known as Organic Gardening) and Prevention. The publishing company he founded, known today as Rodale Inc., is the authoritative source for trusted content in health, fitness and wellness around the world.
The concept of “organic” was simple but revolutionary in the post-World War II era. Manure, cover crops and crop mixtures were standard practices through World War I, but chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, artificial ingredients, preservatives and additives for taste and appearance in the years since the war rapidly changed agriculture. As J.I. Rodale communicated the idea of creating soil rich in nutrients and free of contaminants, people began to listen and acceptance grew. “Organics is not a fad’” J.I. wrote in 1954. “It has been a long-established practice – much more firmly grounded than the current chemical flair. Present agricultural practices are leading us downhill.”
J.I. Rodale died in 1971. His son Robert expanded the farm and research with the purchase of a 333-acre farm near Kutztown, Pennsylvania. With his wife Ardath, Robert established what is now the Rodale Institute and an era of research began.
Powerful testimony by Robert, the Institute’s president at the time John Haberen, and the farmers and scientists who swore by their sustainable organic methods convinced the U.S. Congress to include funds for organic agriculture in the 1985 Farm Bill. Today, federal, state and local governments, land-grant universities and other organizations nationwide are pursuing organic agriculture research and education programs.
When Robert Rodale was killed in a traffic accident in Moscow in 1990, Ardath Rodale became the Institute chairman and their son Anthony became vice-chairman. Anthony and his wife Florence developed outreach efforts to children during their period of active program involvement before Anthony became an international ambassador for Rodale Institute’s mission. The family continues their active involvement today. Maria Rodale, Robert’s daughter and current CEO of the family’s publishing business, Rodale Inc., serves as the Institute’s co-chair with Paul McGinley.
Rodale Institute is committed to groundbreaking research in organic agriculture, advocating for policies that support farmers, and educating people about how organic is the safest, healthiest option for people and the planet.
Read a letter from our Executive Director Coach Mark Smallwood. | <urn:uuid:67f52353-aef8-4712-9ac2-02122dc00336> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://rodaleinstitute.org/about-us/mission-and-history/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00051-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963342 | 724 | 1.960938 | 2 |
Trail of Tears State Park, Jackson, MO
Located at 429 Moccasin Springs in Jackson, MO, the park contains a segment of the removal route, the Bushyhead Memorial and a visitor center.
Mark Twain National Forest, Potosi, MO
This site is a roadside stop and contains a trail segment of the Northern Route in front of the cemetery and cabin. It is located on the west edge of Crawford County between Steelville and St. James on Highway 8.
Maramec Spring/Massie Iron Works
This site contains a trail segment through Maramec Spring Park. It is also located on Highway 8, in Phelps County, about three miles west of the Snelson-Brinker Cabin. The park office opens at 5:30 a.m., and closes at 9 p.m. Hours change in November.
This site is located in Laughlin City Park and is open from dawn to dusk. A Route 66 bridge is located in the middle of the park. A walk through the park gives information about the Trail of Tears.
Star City Ranch
On this property, a two-mile trail segment of the Trail of Tears exists alongside Flat Creek in Barry County.
Campsite on the Creek beside Fort Davidson State Historic Site, Pilot Knob, Missouri
New Madrid Missouri campsite on the Mississippi River. | <urn:uuid:9ec61e80-8e88-42db-ba8b-cbbd7e959ede> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nationaltota.org/chapters/sites.asp?id=6 | 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 | 0.905431 | 274 | 1.6875 | 2 |
The first in a series of TeV4LHC workshops will take place next Thursday through Saturday at Fermilab. Physicists from Fermilab and institutions around the U.S. and Europe will meet to discuss how data and experiences from the Tevatron can be used in preparing for the LHC experimental program.
"With Run II going full tilt and the LHC only three years away, we want to use the unique knowledge gained from the Tevatron to ensure that we can get the best physics possible out of the LHC," said Fermilab theorist Marcela Carena, one of the conference organizers. "Early discoveries at the LHC will depend on the quick resolution of difficult physics and detector issues, many of which CDF and DZero are already dealing with."
The workshop will include overviews of the physics challenges at the Tevatron and those expected at the LHC, and several working groups will hold parallel sessions to discuss the overlap of physics at the LHC and the Tevatron and to make plans for more detailed studies.
"We want to begin communication and strengthen collaboration between physicists working on the Tevatron and the LHC," said fellow organizer Stephen Mrenna. "So far there has been great enthusiasm from physicists in both communities, and we are already planning future workshops at Fermilab, Brookhaven, and CERN."
All Fermilab employees and users are invited to the workshop. There is no registration fee, but participants are encouraged to register.
Conference Web page | <urn:uuid:c46a1c02-6c74-4c82-8409-25456ae33ca1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fnal.gov/pub/today/archive/archive_2004/today04-09-07.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946151 | 319 | 2.140625 | 2 |
Talking about rainfall
When my children were both in school, but still young, I worked for several years at a little country store in our neighborhood. It was a very short commute (less than 5 minutes), and the kids could get on or off the bus at the store as necessary, so it worked well.
One day, a customer asked me how much rain had fallen at my house. I said that we'd received about 30 hundredths (meaning .30 inch). He looked at me oddly for a long moment. Then he said, "Where are you from?"
He asked that question because, in Kentucky, people talk about tenths of rain. When I spoke of hundredths of rain, I was using the language of Nebraska. In the Nebraska Sandhills where I grew up, rain is precious enough most years that every hundredth of an inch is measured and appreciated. In Kentucky, where we get twice as much annual rainfall, we carelessly round off the measurement to the nearest tenth of an inch.
A slow, quiet rain is falling now. Its scent is drifting through the open window. I won't have to water my garden for another few days, and the crops in the neighborhood will welcome the moisture.
We live near a divide. On one side, the creeks run into the Pond River, and on the other side, they run into the Little River. This little area is often dryer than the rest of the county, because the rains either go north or south of us. We've been fortunate this year, though. We received several little showers in June that other parts of the county didn't get.
At work tonight, a lady who lives in the western part of the county told me that they had received three tenths of rain last night. She was thankful because their corn needed the moisture. I hope her corn got some more rain tonight. | <urn:uuid:8a619a3e-115e-4b37-ab61-1beb56d5d350> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://prairiebluestem.blogspot.com/2008/07/measuring-rain.html?showComment=1215691680000 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.988565 | 385 | 1.875 | 2 |
The Low Impact Vehicle project aims to retrofit our transportation system around the human body, instead of 40-ton trucks. This would reduce the amount of land needed for streets and parking, allowing us to reclaim land for vegetation to improve our watersheds. Other benefits include carbon reductions for manufacturing and operations; improved public health; and social justice. Most of all: improved mobility for both freight and people.
The first phase of the LIV project will kick-off on August 22 in Seward Park. A Low Impact Vehicle exhibition (aLIVe) invites artists, artists, architects, landscape architects, engineers, inventors and designers of all types to create visions for the future. Areas of exploration include vehicles designed around the human body; streets designed for people; and communities built around the need for trees and unpaved spaces, clean air and clean water. The purpose of aLIVe is to present new ideas in various formats such as prototypes, designs, works in progress and to also present metaphorical art to stimulate a conversation that will help us change our culture, one mind at a time. We’re looking for everything from prototypes to poetry.
Hosted by Great City. 4Culture, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs, Seattle Parks, greenmuseum.org and SvR Design are all early sponsors. The art critic Jen Graves has written about aLIVe and posted a podcast http://podcasts.thestranger.com/invisible/
Also, there’s an aLIVe Group on the Seattle Network: http://seattlegreatcitynetwork.ning.com/group/alive. It includes an “illustrated guide.” | <urn:uuid:947cff42-7d3d-432c-8d6b-80b557001e68> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.greatcity.org/2009/07/24/alive-a-low-impact-vehicle-exhibit/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.925607 | 352 | 2.328125 | 2 |
THE Chinese like the European music well enough, provided that there is but one voice to accompany the sound of several instruments. But as for the contrast of different voices, of grave and acute sounds, they are not at all agreeable to their taste, for they look upon them as no better than disagreeable confusion. They have no musical notes, nor any sign to denote the diversity of tones, the rising or falling of the voice, and the rest of the variations that constitute harmony. The airs which they sing or play upon their instruments are got only by rote and are learned by the ear. Nevertheless, they make new ones from time to time.
The ease wherewith we retain an air after the first hearing, by the assistance of notes, extremely surprised the late emperor. In the year 1679, he sent for Père Grimaldi and Père Pereira to play upon an organ and a harpsichord that they had formerly presented him. He liked our European airs and seemed to take great pleasure in them. Then he ordered his musicians to play a Chinese air upon their instruments, and played likewise himself in a very graceful manner.
Père Pereira took his pocketbook and pricked down all the tune while the musicians were playing, and when they had finished, repeated it without missing a note, vhich the emperor could scarcely believe, his surprise was so great that the father had learned in so short a time an air which had been so troublesome to him and his musicians, and that by the assistance of the characters he could recollect it at any time with pleasure. To be more certain of this, he put him to trial several times, and sang several different airs, which the father took down in his book, and then repeated exactly with
the greatest accuracy. "It must be owned," cried the emperor, "European music is incomparable, and this father has not his equal in all the empire." This prince afterwards established an academy of music, and made the most skillful persons in that science membersof it, and committed it to the care of his third son, a man of letters and who had read much.
They began by examining all the authors that had written upon the subject, they caused all sorts of instruments to be made after the ancient manner and according to the size proposed. The faults of these instruments were discovered and corrected, after which they composed a book in four tomes with the title, The True Doctrine of Li Lu, written by the Order of the Emperor. To these four tomes they added a fifth concerning the Elements of European Music, made by P. Pereira.
From: Eva March Tappan, ed., The World's Story: A History of the World in Story, Song, and Art, Volume I: China, Japan, and the Islands of the Pacific, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1914), pp. 163-165.
Scanned by Jerome S. Arkenberg, Cal. State Fullerton. The text has been modernized by Prof. Arkenberg.
This text is part of the Internet Modern History Sourcebook. The Sourcebook is a collection of public domain and copy-permitted texts for introductory level classes in modern European and World history.
Unless otherwise indicated the specific electronic form of the document is copyright. Permission is granted for electronic copying, distribution in print form for educational purposes and personal use. If you do reduplicate the document, indicate the source. No permission is granted for commercial use of the Sourcebook.
© Paul Halsall, October 1998 | <urn:uuid:07d91cca-c9b3-4727-84d5-83352d03db55> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1680halde2.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977371 | 728 | 3.453125 | 3 |
The Merck Foundation became the latest corporate leader to speak out against the Boy Scouts of America’s ban on gay scouts and scout leaders. The Merck Foundation announced that it will suspend all funding to the BSA and will consider funding the organization again when the BSA ends the discriminatory ban.
Scouts for Equality founder, Zach Wahls, has launched a Change.org petition calling on Verizon to stop donating to the Boy Scouts until the BSA ends its policy banning gay scouts and leaders. Companies included Intel and UPS have already dropped their financial support of the BSA because of the discriminatory policy.
A conservative Jewish day school in West Orange, New Jersey has announced that it will not renew its Boy Scout charter for 2013 because of the national Scouting organization’s policy banning gay and lesbian scouts and scout leaders, New Jersey Jewish News reports.
Ten staffers at a California Boy Scouts camp have resigned in a show of support for fellow staffer and Eagle Scout Tim Griffin, who was fired last week because he’s gay. Griffin had served at the camp for eight years.
Ohio mom Jennifer Tyrrell delivered more than 300,000 petition signatures to the Boy Scouts’ headquarters on Wednesday, calling for the Boy Scouts of America to end its ban on gay scouts and LGBT leaders.
As Ohio mom Jennifer Tyrrell prepares to deliver more than 300,000 signatures calling for change from the Boy Scouts of America on Wednesday, let's take a look back at the Scouts' long history of discrimination.
More than 1,500 New Yorkers gathered today in Manhattan to mourn the death of a 32 year-old gay man, who was shot down on Friday just blocks away from the historic Stonewall Inn in an apparent act of anti-gay bias. | <urn:uuid:e723b1b8-de5f-4b8b-8251-8a3d17b9a462> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.glaad.org/tags/scouts-equality?page=1 | 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 | 0.941907 | 355 | 1.765625 | 2 |
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Profile of Roark Thurston
If all barriers of diversity were destroyed, [...]
If all barriers of diversity were destroyed, wouldn't that take away the principle of understanding?
If we solve world hunger, and everybody is [...]
If we solve world hunger, and everybody is fed, this would ultimately stimulate a growth in population resulting in more destruction of nature to house the growing population. So do you decide to feed everyone, or let nature do its thing? | <urn:uuid:a8ea0fa3-044e-4669-ab6d-b59609964789> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.droppingknowledge.org/bin/user/listitems/question/11353.page | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947573 | 193 | 1.953125 | 2 |
Structural View of Biology
Enzymes are Nature's chemists, performing all of the chemical transformations needed for life. Enzymes catalyze chemical reactions by bringing together all of the necessary chemical tools in the proper place. They typically have an "active site" that captures the chemicals that will be modified, holding them in the perfect orientation to perform the chemical change. Researchers have separated the many types of enzymes into a few functional classes, based on the reactions that they perform.
Ligases - Making Connections
Ligases connect two molecules, creating a new chemical bond. The ligation reaction may be assisted by breakage of ATP or another nucleotide, to provide the chemical energy to drive the reaction.
Scroll to a Molecule of the Month Feature in this subcategory:
When a ribosome pairs a "CGC" tRNA with "GCG" codon, it expects to find an alanine carried by the tRNA. It has no way of checking; each tRNA is matched with its amino acid long before it reaches the ribosome. The match is made by a collection of remarkable enzymes, the aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases. These enzymes charge each tRNA with the proper amino acid, thus allowing each tRNA to make the proper translation from the genetic code of DNA into the amino acid code of proteins.
Discussed Structuresaspartyl-tRNA synthetaseisoleucyl-tRNA synthetasevalyl-tRNA synthetaseglutamyl-tRNA synthetasephenylalanyl-tRNA synthetasethreonyl-tRNA synthetase
Human cells (with a few unusual exceptions) each contain their own set of 46 long strands of DNA. All of our genetic information is encoded in these strands, with thousands of genes strung along their length. The ordering of genes, and the proximity of one next to the other, can be important for the proper usage of the information, so it is important that our cells protect their DNA from breakage. If one strand in the DNA breaks, it is not a disaster, but it can lead to problems when the DNA double helix is unwound during the processes of transcription and replication. Breakage of both strands, on the other hand, is far more serious. To protect us from these dangers, our cells use DNA ligases to glue together DNA strands that have been broken.
Discussed StructuresDNA ligaseDNA ligase
Our cells are continually faced with a changing environment. Think about what you eat. Some days you might eat a lot of protein, other days you might eat a lot of carbohydrate. Sometimes you may eat nothing but chocolate. Your body must be able to respond to these different foods, producing the proper enzymes for capturing the nutrients in each. The same is doubly true for small organisms like bacteria, which do not have as many options in choosing their diet. They must eat whatever food happens to be close by, and then mobilize the enzymes needed to use it.
Discussed Structuresglutamine synthetase
Please see our usage polices for citation and reprint information. Copies of the illustrations used in these features are available for download as high resolution TIFF images. Please note that the structures used to illustrate each installment are chosen at the discretion of the authors; the features are not intended to represent a historical record. The process behind the creation of this feature is described by the author. | <urn:uuid:dbfde29d-f154-475f-a048-c77819fd7bd0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rcsb.org/pdb/101/structural_view_of_biology.do?c=Enzymes&sc=Ligases_-_Making_Connections | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933115 | 714 | 4 | 4 |
This archived Web page remains online for reference, research or recordkeeping purposes. This page will not be altered or updated. Web pages that are archived on the Internet are not subject to the Government of Canada Web Standards. As per the Communications Policy of the Government of Canada, you can request alternate formats of this page on the Contact Us page.
Library and Archives Canada's web site is a rich source of information for researchers interested in human rights.
Researchers interested in the Chinese experience in Canada can find original certificates, registers of Chinese immigration and links to libraries and institutions with information related to the imposed head tax: www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/genealogy/022-905.002-e.html.
Black history can be studied through the photographs of Africville, the documents of former slaves, contemporary events held during Black History Month and LAC's Forum on Canadian Democracy. LAC's web exhibition, ARCHIVED - Under a Northern Star, offers historical papers that contextualize the life and work of persons such as Stanley Grizzle who fought against slavery and racism and flourished as early Canadians: www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/northern-star/index-e.html.
Ukrainian history can be found via the records that tell the stories of internment of Ukranian-Canadians from 1914 to 1920. Moving Here, Staying Here. The Canadian Immigrant Experience web project gives access to frequently-used immigration documents such as passenger lists and land grants and provides researchers with information about Canadian immigration from 1800-1939: www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/framingcanada/045003-3500-e.html.
LAC's collections exist in all forms of media - books, photographs, films, government records, personal letters - and are available and accessible to all Canadians and visitors to the LAC website through an easy-to-use searchable database. Visit www.collectionscanada.gc.ca to begin your research today.
The Genealogy and Family History (CGC) is an online resource that offers genealogical content, services, advice, research tools and opportunities to work on joint projects, all in both official languages: www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/genealogy/index-e.html.
About Library and Archives Canada
Library and Archives Canada preserves the documentary heritage of Canada for the benefit of present and future generations. LAC is a source of enduring knowledge accessible to all, thereby contributing to the cultural, social and economic advancement of Canada. LAC facilitates co-operation among communities involved in the acquisition, preservation and diffusion of knowledge, and serves as the continuing memory of the Government of Canada and its institutions. | <urn:uuid:9f796712-5c2d-4024-a402-efef7f6eb77c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://collectionscanada.ca/whats-new/013-367-e.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00054-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.906126 | 564 | 2.1875 | 2 |
Freelancing brings unmatched flexibility and in fact this is
one of the most popular reasons for becoming a freelancer. Flexible working hours allows the freelancer to tailor his/her work around their life style and growing responsibilities. Another plus is that you only get paid for how long you work – overtime is actually paid! Furthermore, if you like to set your own holiday and travel time, freelance allows you the option to go on holiday two weeks, or two months – depending on your financial/business needs.
Freelance work is also an excellent way to earn quick money and a good amount of it. Generally, freelance workers earn more money at an hourly rate than their
permanent counterparts. Because the recruitment process for freelance is much shorter then for permanent roles, speedy turnaround allows individuals to get in and out of a project quickly and still receive a good income from it.
For those individuals who like variety in the workplace, a career as a freelancer enables professionals to work on a wide range of projects for some of the leading firms in the country. Freelance work can often improve career
prospects – allowing an individual to gain valuable experience on many different sector schemes while working for a variety of major companies. Another motivating factor is the desire to “test drive a company” before committing to a permanent position.
Freelance gives the candidate the opportunity to see if a particular company works for them without any long-term commitments on their part. Recognizing that this has become a preferred option for many workers, firms are now opting to initially employee candidates on a freelance basis
rather then putting them through the traditional probationary period of a permanent role. Freelance can be a good option for those who want to have more control over their working environment. A highly competitive market means that there is no shortage of contracts for an individual to choose from – allowing for greater choices in where you want to work, the type of firm you want to work for, and the rate at which you’ll work – certainly a tempting proposition for many candidates in any industry.
Choosing A Freelancing Career
Freelance can be a great career move -whether done independently or in conjunction with an existing fulltime job. There are three main points to consider when making a decision to head down this particular career path. Firstly- salary: freelance workers on average do receive a reasonable rate of
pay. Firms realise that they have to pay more for better solutions. With the increase in the temporary market has come a rise in options for salary payments. However, it is important to remember that freelance salaries are subject to extreme fluctuation – often a case of feast or famine. Therefore, it is crucial that jobseekers be able to plan ahead – making preparations well in advance to compensate for an uncertain income, lack of benefits, moving location or travelling expenses.
Secondly a freelancer must be able to accommodate an uncertain work environment. Freelance work often involves an extensive amount of travelling/relocating. The roles that are often offered may not always be the ideal choice for the candidate, but sometimes have to be taken due to income
necessities. They must also be able to accommodate the company culture in their new job, and be flexible enough to adapt to new work practices and environments.
Finally, situation – it is important for new freelancers to consider their future in realistic and planned way. Training and promotions are not often available to freelancers as many companies don’t perceive a temporary employee as a long-term investment. Consider your career goals – will freelance help you to achieve these goals – will it work against or work for your current lifestyle
and future aspirations?
The Smart Choice
Freelancing and consulting are great ways to explore various career paths and revenue streams. Performing this kind of work on the side can be fulfilling, exciting and fun. Taking a chance to explore a new career, or explore the world of being your own boss is a great opportunity stretch yourself a bit. The best part is that you work for the best company ever: You, Inc. Take a chance. Do a little consulting and freelancing. You might find a whole new career is waiting!
Enterprise past Boundaries
Since companies ethnic background ahead of time seeking improved earnings and
bigger markets, they significantly must use professionals together with nominal coaching & supervision costs. In addition they wish to keep the independence regarding job overall flexibility my spouse and i.elizabeth. ability to modify experts about retain the services of, when the strategic business plans change abruptly. Hence freelance specialists are a smart decision for the increasing
majority of business directly into the current era associated with globalization where individuals skill and not geography could be the decreasing aspect. These types of free lance experts are usually chosen across levels, sections as well as countries exactly where technology is fully made use of to share with you insights/knowledge/expertise inside a mutually valuable connection.
Because arena of virtual/freelance workers results energy corporations all over the place tend to be knowing the main advantages of this democratic means of operating. What exactly is traveling
this trend? Businesses are discovering that there’s commonly a better value for their dollar when they hire the self employed. And they’re capable of select from a practically unlimited discipline associated with skill-sets per distinct task they want assist with. Together with the independent business worth vast amounts globally, being a
freelance writer, you will find the capacity to start a rewarding company using a minimal expense along with contain the versatility to operate virtually anywhere, when.
Recently, however, a more fundamental alteration of the business of training has been given, summarized in the thought of continuous difference in the actual flexible organization. Within this place of work these days which experience ongoing development of
high quality along with efficiency as a result of strengthened freelance And experts Or professionals who don’t want to overwhelmed simply by designations as well as other hierarchical blockades. With this water whole world of high expansion there is a need for the two greater along with broader expertise which is easily stuffed by a expanding gang of specialized no cost brokers / the self employed as a result of following:
my spouse and i. recruiting: folks, especially, the youthful, less complicated greater educated than previously plus more
prepared to acquire stretch attempts and also duties.
the second. areas: individuals are currently much more challenging with out lengthier happy to accept simple, consistent services/products, however are seeking development, variety, unique and high high quality -the specifications that are generally continually evolving.
three. new technologies: specifically IT/Telecom have started an on-line revolution creating world-wide cooperation over a real-time foundation an operating actuality. It has generated a fundamental shift in the speed regarding skills revival And multi tasking, changing the earlier of the way operate management.
Win-Win Freelance writing
Alternatives, there were a definite stigma attached to freelance recruitment. Independent was often associated with phrases including novice, unfocused, dangerous, and many others. Nevertheless, because of the rate of growth inside the requirements associated with competent candidates in just about all areas along with new screening functions brought on by
employers, along with other concentrate expertise marketplaces/portals -’freelance’ has taken by using an completely different significance. Will no longer are freelancers evaluated since the people that cannot get a long lasting task.
The newest understanding is always that self employed tend to be highly skilled and efficient staff who is able to easily provide
miracles — there is a definite newfound a sense trust inside the companies that outsourced helpers present. Expanding quantity of independent alternatives as well as expertise is accessible in alternative party market segments which provide ideal linkages for you to both ends from the worth chain my partner and i.at the. services searcher at the same time companies.
Within any kind of sector, self-employed has changed into a quite sensible as well as appealing option for several individuals * even candidates who’re leaving behind long lasting jobs are now pleased to examine self-employed function : displaying reasonable change in aged work versions. For some, independent provides truly turn into a life-style * reflecting the job living equilibrium concern that has been really prevalent in numerous some other specialist careers.
Companies can also be needs to realize that free lance recruitment will offer these people a monetary benefit and infrequently give them a great “edge” — an essential aspect to have within this extremely aggressive industry.
Employing free lance staff implies that there is significantly less expenditure on a project-by-project basis, and fewer expense is needed : which has a unlimited ocean regarding skills with unparalleled levels of scalability which is a wonderful financial motivation for any business worried about their bottom line.
For the inexperienced, freelance is really a term used regarding man or woman working for zero fixed
company (consequently, simply no repaired income). Freelancers are the ones self-sufficient
internet marketers who released their own talents/skills services.
If you want to operate independent, it would involve-
You, the dependable with some certain skills or capabilities.
Work supplier, which chooses to have his job finished by a freelance worker.
Facilitators — on-line freelance homes, self-employed sites, collaborators, repayment escrow solutions, arbitrators and many others.
Many of these need to be regarded carefully to become productive inside
the self-employed organization.
A search about ‘freelance’ online will provide you
a number of free lance project sites several of which in addition provide transaction escrow and
intercession companies. You can straightway
find the majority of the important types
explained on our site alone.
What exactly is, nonetheless, not readily available is information
about ‘employers who present independent jobs’ as well as the ‘preparations which
an individual need’ to make to visit by yourself.
Thus, have a look at focus primarily in…Self-employed By YOU.
Your reason to be able to independent?
Your own mindset?
Your perform fashion?
Your own skills/talents?
Your organizational requirements?
Your advertising wants?
Your own Purpose In order to Independent?
Can it be to make some additional money in your own free time, or looking
to benefit from the identified advantages of working free lance like :
Sense involving achievement via properly completing a task.
Time flexibility in * when you start, just how long when anyone stop working.
Freedom to work from house more often than not.
Joy of being your own manager.
Cut down on going back and forth from work.
Freedom to operate in your Pajamas.
Any some other objective..
Whichever your own objective to be able to free lance, floor truth may well not stop what you
expect that it is. Look at outstanding article to learn more.
Both for founded or a new business; employing free lance skill is efficacious, cost-effective source often times for example..
When consumer is faced with situation that will reap the benefits of a good outsider’s standpoint.
When client’s vision can be fuzzy as to what should be carried out along with what get regarding concern.
When client’s wants tend to be periodic or even they want benefit the one-time venture.
When customer’s talents might be better used in other parts with the business.
When customer wants experience necessary to grow swiftly with no rerouting tight assets through day-to-day responsibilities.
Comprehend the outlook during the customer to provide these types of positive aspects, and you’re likely to identify your own independent job efficiently. Keep to the beneath a number of steps about how to self-employed effectively via start to finish and you ought to use a content consumer plus a book your hands.
Step-1. Find the correct Independent Task
Being a free lance professional along with unique abilities along with knowledge, you will discover the proper free lance career from the quantity of resources. The best option is to get work opportunities through referrals — from a previous customers, an additional freelancer, or market speak to. If this isn’t possible, distribute the term via local interactions or perhaps self-employed sites pertaining to referrals.
The world wide web is a good source pertaining to on the web independent work opportunities. Nonetheless, many of these freelance internet sites work in any opposite public auction way; that is certainly, a person bid on the jobs. The bad portion about businesses is that it devices the prices means along, to be able to not necessarily generate nicely, but it is one method to get started.
Step-2. Place Your Independent Bid
Before you place your freelance wager, you should know:
What price tag to bet
How to create an absolute offer
While you try and create a nice-looking, profitable, and also competitive put money price, there are specific certain concerns that you ought to think about. For instance ,:
Have you completed related be employed in yesteryear? If so, just base your bid on the amount you have gotten in the past.
What could be the planning fee regarding this kind of project using big companies, skilled agencies, or acquaintances in the exact same business?
How long will certainly the project require? Use your normal on an hourly basis rate, as well as compute the length of time you will be in order to complete the work. Multiply time through the rate to come up with an overall estimated project sum.
Regardless how generate your current cost, if your boss leaves approximately finances, ensure that you use this as a guide to find out your cost for your project.
Step-3. Manage Your own Freelance Projects
Track Here we are at numerous reasons, you will need to use the period record correctly. To start with, the consumer may require that you break up your own several hours with regard to your ex so they understand wherever their funds goes. Secondly, in order to raise your productiveness, evaluating exactly where your time and energy has been put in is essential. After freelance writing for a time you will be able to figure out just how much to invest in tasks very easily from knowledge.
Open Upward Any Docket A docket has become a bag or perhaps sleeve to maintain almost all paperwork jointly. Practically nothing seems to be worse when compared with traversing to a selecting complaintant and forgetting vital paperwork. As a way to escape this kind of probability, I would recommend employing a docket for each person task.
Fresh Buyer? If this type of buyer will be dealing with a person initially you should begin a data page in them. You might not feel that this will be significant, but if this specific buyer eventually ends up as being a dead conquer, you will be glad to get their address and phone number. Once you have completed this kind, put it within your docket.
Schedule Phases Of your Job Commence each and every work having a sheet of paper. Checklist actions that need to be associated with order finish generation. Otherwise, you will get tied to going backwards about three stages in order to get ahead once again. Occasionally phases of a task will have to be reworked because you did not take the time to write down the idea. Do not allowed this to happen to you.
Contract Safeguard oneself towards difficulty clientele simply by writing a binding agreement
Step-4. Supply Your current Freelance Professional Support
Get total history Inquire the consumer to deliver the means and details critical that allows you (the particular freelance worker) to hit the bottom operating.
Be clear on particulars Do you know the start off and take care of times? How and when when you make contact with your client? At exactly what outline the customer desire to be concerned?
Establish meantime checkpoints This specific assures the work remains on the right track and also permits the buyer to evaluate the advancement.
Discuss schedules Ensure that the customer is obtainable if needed. Always be regular throughout publishing work with acceptance.
Money-Matters Maintain your put money value around the corner all the time. | <urn:uuid:e39d29c2-c594-48ec-a498-09f27d7ddc7f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://freelancethai.org/?topic=14137.0;wap2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948499 | 3,327 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Honesty takes various forms like truthfulness, sincerity, moral uprightness and it is our duty to impart the knowledge on honesty in the young minds of children. “It is the beginning of education” says John Ruskin. Always tell the truth, if you can’t tell the truth, do not lie. The great truth is honesty which is the best policy. An honest person will always have a clear mind and a mind that is afraid of no one. He can hold his head high and walk with dignity in all situations.
Dignity, power, courage, glory, respect and leadership will all follow the person who follows honesty. It may be a little harder to practice honesty at all times but it will eventually pay at the end. There should be no compromise on honesty and as an American proverb puts it “honesty is like an icicle; if once it melts, that is the end of it “. | <urn:uuid:fd418c93-7cdb-4d20-8da3-50c8b895f47a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.searchquotes.com/Protest/quotes/about/Honesty/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945185 | 192 | 2.875 | 3 |
KEYE-TV - Search Results
Feds Offer Financial Incentive For Texas To Ban Texting While Driving
You may have seen the public service TV spots with the strong images and equally strong message: Stop the texts, Stop the wrecks. And now the feds are backing up these ads with funds to help states curb driver distractions including texting while driving. The money is included in the Federal Transportation Authorization Law, and according to AAA's math it could come out to as much as $500 million a year.
While it is true that money talks, lawmakers at the Texas State Capitol are hoping they don't need that kind of incentive to get the votes they need. State Senator Eddie Lucio of Brownsville is proposing a statewide ban on all texting while driving. He says, I think we need to take up that issue this session and pass it and make sure we don't have our phones in our hands at any time texting during the time that we're driving."
The new emphasis on highway safety comes after a bad year on the roads. The feds estimate that traffic deaths increased by 7.1 percent in the first nine months of 2012 over the same period the previous year. Austin contributed 78 traffic fatalities to that total. Governor Perry vetoed last session's attempt to ban texting while driving calling it "a government effort to micromanage the behavior of adults."
Traffic safety advocates hope the rising death toll weighs heavily on lawmakers to act again on road safety this year.
By Fred Cantu | <urn:uuid:4a49a2a2-98f5-4088-83a7-1966b50e6ce6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://keyetv.com/template/cgi-bin/archived.pl?type=basic&file=/news/features/top-stories/stories/archive/2013/01/j0QTgvTy.xml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959878 | 303 | 1.796875 | 2 |
Ethiopian government offices are austere affairs. They even lack the typical African decoration of the president's portrait on the wall. None of the furniture would fetch 10p in a British junk shop.
One detail disturbs this pattern - a large flat-screen plasma monitor, plugged into a rack of digital routers, appears to have been teleported from another universe.
The kit is here to support the world's most unexpected e-government programme: Ethiopia, one of Africa's poorest countries, is spending one tenth of its GDP every year on IT. Over the next five years, the government plans to invest more than $100m (£56m) in public sector computers. It aims to equip hundreds of government offices and schools with broadband internet connections. And by 2007, according to the plan, none of Ethiopia's 74 million people will live more than a few kilometres from a broadband access point. The nucleus of this network, 4,000km of optical fibre, has already been laid and will be fully commissioned later this year.
Ethiopia's IT programme is an extreme example of the aspiration of several African countries to leap out of their quagmire of decaying public services with the help of IT. The dream is to skip an entire generation of infrastructure by going directly to internet technology.
Meles Zenawi, the Ethiopian prime minister, talks of IT providing a short cut to development. "I want to see ICT pervade all our activities as a government, not just in the urban areas. We want to connect all our villages in two to three years. All education services, likewise. We would also like to provide a bit of telemedicine."
Telecommunication of any kind is a novelty in Ethiopia. In the 1980s, when I first visited the country to report the famine, making a phone call outside the capital meant picking up the receiver and waiting for an operator to set up a crackly radio link. Two decades on, only 1.2% of the population have a telephone. Internet usage is low even by African standards.
Meles deals briskly with talk that a country where female life expectancy is 50 and famine still threatens millions should have different priorities. IT is no luxury, he says, but rather a "crucial weapon to fight poverty".
He says the national digital network underpins two specific "pro-poor" projects, to connect schools and local government offices.
Schoolnet is an attempt to overcome Ethiopia's desperate shortage of teachers, especially in remote areas. Schools already receive video lessons broadcast for eight hours a day by satellite TV. The syllabus, based on South African material, is being digitised for transmission over the internet so that teachers at the receiving end can prepare beforehand and control the pace of lessons (so long as their electricity supply is working). Demissew Bekele, head of the government's educational media agency, says this control is essential for children moving from primary to secondary school, where the medium of instruction is English.
The education minister, Genet Zewdie, says there is no alternative to e-learning. "IT is expensive, but ignorance is more expensive."
Woredanet is the country's first step in e-government. For the first time the network connects all 600 of Ethiopia's local councils (woredas) to 11 regional capitals through internet telephone and video-conferencing. Half the links are by cable, and half by satellite. The broadband infrastructure also offers the chance for small towns to install their first payphone.
Previously, official reports would take months to reach the capital. Often early warning signs of famine, such as falling livestock prices, would not get through until a crisis had developed. Woredanet has not yet been tested in such circumstances, however it was mobilised in earnest earlier this year to train officials running the May general election - by far the most open in Ethiopia's long history.
Efficient communications between tiers of government are part of a programme of administrative reform that speaks a language strikingly similar to Tony Blair's vision of citizen-centric e-government.
"The whole purpose is to change the mindset of the civil service," says the man in charge, Tefera Waluwa, minister for capacity building. He talks of "transparency and accountability, fairness, efficiency and effectiveness" enabled by the technology.
Tefera says his reforms have already reduced the time taken to issue a foreign investment licence from 225 days to two hours. His target is one hour. It was done by looking at all the procedures and asking why they were necessary. Unlike his British counterparts, however, Tefera is not seeking to re-engineer public employees out of their jobs. "The government has a shortage of educated people. When someone is redundant in one office, they will be required in another place."
Another innovation in the programme is an information desk in every government agency. Tefera shows off an official name badge on his lapel, which he says is compulsory issue to all his civil servants.
Ministers say that, eventually, the government's networks will become community internet facilities. Today, widespread internet use is a distant dream. Even by the standards of the world's least wired continent, Ethiopian internet usage is low: less than 0.1% of the population goes online. According to Internet World Stats, this places it in the same league as Niger and the Democratic Republic of Congo and way behind Kenya (1.2%), let alone South Africa (7.3%). Britain's score is 59%.
Ethiopia's digital infrastructure is being built by the national telecom operator, the publicly-owned Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation. Its main contractors are Cisco Systems (whose guest I was) and Business Connexion, a South African-based IT services firm. The government subsidises the project with a tax break and by underwriting bonds. "We do not spend a cent of the budget per se," says Meles.
In fact, Meles says that money is by no means his main problem. "There are two things we need. One is training and manpower. So whatever technical assistance the west can give with high quality internet technology is the most important thing."
The second is hardware. "I know that people throw away computers that are two or three years old," says Meles. "We could do with five, six, seven-year-old computers that work."
Ethiopia is already receiving used hardware from a Brussels-based organisation Close the Gap. It supplies renovated corporate PCs, sorted in standard packages and with new Windows licences for between €45 and €90 per machine.
One consequence of Ethiopia's knowledge gap is reliance on Windows and other proprietary software. Meles, a former guerilla leader who overthrew the dictator Mengistu in 1991, is at ease discussing the question of open source software.
"Our position is determined by the fact that proprietary suppliers have the money to provide initial support," he says. "To implement open source needs a minimum of training and at the moment we don't have that. In five or 10 years time, we will be in a position to choose."
Whether the dream of IT helping African countries fast-track to development will become reality is impossible to predict. The worry must be that national broadband infrastructures will repeat the story of the 1960s and 1970s, in which ambitious industrial and agricultural projects proved unsustainable after lining the pockets of the African elite.
There are some signs that the new wave will be different. One is the existence of grass-roots demand for IT throughout Africa. In many big cities, cellphone networks and cybercafes have bypassed incompetent and corrupt official analogue channels of communication. In Ethiopia, mobile phones outnumber fixed lines. The phenomenon turns on its head the whole concept of "appropriate technology".
African leaders enjoy demonstrating that the latest digital router can be as appropriate to a developing country as a bullock cart or an efficient wood-burning stove. Ethiopians in particular detest the West's automatic association of their ancient country with famine and charity.
"We're not waiting for handouts," assures Genet, "but we do need partnerships."
In Ethiopia's case, it is especially hard to be objective. The country's distinctive culture and the scale of its problems make any visit an intense experience, especially for anyone who saw something of the bad years. Merely sitting in a government office brings back vivid memories of hearing officials reciting district-by-district statistics of families "affected" and "seriously affected" by famine.
The capital, Addis Ababa, looks so changed that it is easy to fall into the trap of over-optimism about an IT-enabled future. But Ethiopia is not Addis Ababa. So long as the vast majority of its people are subsistence farmers scraping a living from a hostile environment, IT can only be part of a bigger package of slow and painful reform.
That doesn't mean it is not a good investment. In any case, Ethiopians don't regard themselves as second-class human beings: no outsider is going to persuade them to have second-class ambitions.
Ethiopian news agency
Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation
Close the Gap
· If you'd like to comment on any aspect of Online, send your emails to firstname.lastname@example.org | <urn:uuid:55a4c24f-5f6c-43b5-8691-4b3a292306a6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2005/aug/04/onlinesupplement | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958186 | 1,912 | 2.1875 | 2 |
|Courtesy, Lisa Marie Bytheway.|
In the West at least, new spiritual movements have come to incorporate drumming methods and understandings from a variety of ‘mix-and-match’ influences. These customized ritual cocktails may vary in their accuracy and allegiance to historically accurate understandings; sometimes intentionally so. In many of these cases, members of the original cultures from which these practices sprang may find offense. So, as we proceed, we should do so with respect for original cultures and be careful that we don’t misrepresent them. Even with this approach, however, it should be noted that no amount of respect will prevent offense to some cultures that resent any appropriation of their customs. This is a more general concern with any perennial path such as ours, but we proceed as respectfully as possible while learning from others what we can. The format of drumming rituals varies, but we will primarily look at drumming circles, which have been popularly forming at events and in groups for many years.
Another concern for we, as naturalists, is that one will find a variety of interpretations as to the nature of spiritual drumming in literal terms. That is, there are many beliefs about what is happening with ‘energy’, healing, bodily centers, and so on. We should not get too hung up on these particulars, as there will always be those with a variety of beliefs. Agreement on these matters is not essential and we should approach them with tolerance while staying true to our own path, which includes a humble approach to knowledge and claims; without the need to force that discipline on others. Mainly, just as we do when reading ancient philosophy, we must be capable of seeing past differences to connect with underlying themes and wisdom, rather than being reactionary to anything we may not agree with and miss an entire area of human activity and its potential benefits. So, some charity is advisable. This would be true even for non-naturalists, each of whom will have their own differences of belief. The famous physicist Richard Feynman is one example of a naturalist who saw great benefits in drumming. So, let us consider these benefits.
|Native American drumming.|
(cc) terren in Virginia, Flickr.com.
The National Aboriginal Health Organization (NAHO) conducted a series of interviews and collected practitioner journal reports to get a sense of what Aboriginal women practitioners experienced in hand drumming rituals. The general consensus was positive, as one might expect. Some reported their heart rates affected by the rhythm, helping them deal with stress, relaxing and releasing tension. Some even reported finding the activity helpful in dealing with addictions. They generally reported that it helped them maintain a positive outlook on life.
Of course, more research can only help illuminate these effects, but Spiritual Naturalists are encouraged to do their own first-person research, seeing for themselves the effects of participation. Practice, as we have stated, is about more than academic third-person study.
(cc) ehpien, Flickr.com.
Obviously, this kind of alignment of neural activity can benefit more than a group of soldiers for purposes of war. It can also be used positively to engender a sense of close community for other constructive purposes. In a drum circle, all players are considered equal, regardless of ability and this too has a psychological effect on our relationship with the whole.
DeeperAll of the preceding has been rather utilitarian or even dry so far; speaking of entertainment, physical effects, and community building. These are worthy things in their own right, but for many, drumming is much deeper and more profound than these dry descriptions can do justice. As even a basic practitioner, I can attest to this, as well as the fact that such is the case even within a purely naturalistic path.
|Japanese Taiko drumming.|
(cc) Indaia Cultural, Flickr.com.
This is significant because the ‘uptight person’ must go through a kind of learning process to ‘let go’ in order to really enjoy the spiritual benefits of drumming. Here, the hand must already be moving to the drum and must strike it confidently at the right moment, without the conscious pre-confirmed knowledge that everyone else will, in fact, follow through with a strike. The dilemma might remind us of the funny example of the person who yells something embarrassing to a friend in the middle of a loud party, just as everyone happens to go silent, making their statement far more noticeable than intended. For all we know, everyone might place the beat in some other place or stop drumming, leaving the self-conscious person whacking a loud drum all by themselves – the horror!
This is somewhat like those exercises in trust, where someone falls backward letting another catch them. We must have a kind of faith that others (or the music) will go along with us in this beat we feel – we can’t wait for confirmation before proceeding or we will fail. It is not difficult to imagine what this might have to teach naturalists who are used to relying on their intellects and on evidence. It says something about the nature of dealing with reality as it is; often messy, incomplete, and often requiring action without all the answers.
|Courtesy, Lisa Marie Bytheway.|
And as we become more accustomed to entering this state of mind, we learn to free ourselves from self consciousness, which could be an aspect of being constrained by the delusions of the ego. We enter that trancelike state of pure experience; without labels; without judgments, and the fictions they often impose upon us. This is, of course, a meditative state, with similar (though not identical) benefits and uses in our spiritual practice. It is also an example of flow which is being more appreciated lately as a source of contentment and happiness in life.
And, it is in this altered state of consciousness, that we can become perceptive to things we often overlook. As we give up part of that control, and we trust others to fill in the beats alongside us simultaneously, a network activity builds between these coordinated nervous systems. We begin to operate as a single neurological system, in every way that matters from an information-processing standpoint. This creates a profound sense of shared interconnectedness with others in the group. Importantly, this is not just a ‘feeling’, but it is a deep perception of an external truth: that we are, in fact, interconnected with one another in deeper ways than we are typically conditioned to appreciate or capable of directly perceiving.
As the famous jazz musician John Coltrane said, “All a musician can do is get closer to the sources of nature, and so feel that he is in communion with the natural laws”. Drumming, like any practice, may not be for everyone, but it is this very real and very natural enhanced perception that makes drumming a potential source of spiritual transformation.
It is not, then, too far a stretch for our minds to begin extending this perception of interconnectedness toward other people beyond the drum circle, toward all beings, and toward the universe as a whole. This has implications for cultivation of empathy and compassion and for our value systems, and for the actions that result from them.
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Special thanks to Donna Alldredge, Lisa Fischer, Tom Brucia, and Ellis Arseneau for directing me toward resources and for their input, to Lisa Marie Bytheway for the photos, and to NAHO for their paper on hand drumming, and to the Drumming in the Spirit of Harmony Facebook group for their support. | <urn:uuid:e6d9da59-3bf7-41c9-aae3-a40aa29e1666> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://humanistcontemplativeblog.blogspot.com/2013_02_01_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00070-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960028 | 1,617 | 2.265625 | 2 |
Jul 24, 2009 (10:07 AM EDT)
AMD Spin-Off GlobalFoundries Breaks Ground On Fab
Read the Original Article at InformationWeek
GlobalFoundries, the chip-manufacturing spin-off of Advanced Micro Devices, started construction Friday on a semiconductor plant in upstate New York.
Fab 2, located at the Luther Forest Technology Campus in Saratoga County, is scheduled to begin production in 2012. The fabrication facility is the "largest public-private sector industrial investment" in New York, according to AMD.
"Fab 2 represents the culmination of AMD's multi-year vision to bring a leading-edge semiconductor manufacturing facility to the United States," Dirk Meyer, AMD president and chief executive, said in a statement.
The facility will be a 300-millimeter semiconductor manufacturing plant designed for 32-nanometer technologies. The fab is expected to create more than 1,400 high-tech jobs with an annual payroll of more than $88 million.
GlobalFoundries, headquartered in Silicon Valley, Calif., is a joint venture of AMD and Advanced Technology Investment Co., formed by the Abu Dhabi government. Along with the construction of Fab 1, GlobalFoundries is expanding its Dresden, Germany, manufacturing capacity by bringing a second facility online late this year.
Called Fab 1, the Dresden complex will dedicate one of its two facilities to making 45-nm chips, which AMD is in the process of transitioning its products to, and the other to 32-nm processors. The numbers refer to the size of the microprocessor circuitry. The smaller the size, the more transistors can be placed on a piece of silicon, which translates into much higher performance without increasing power consumption. The move to 32-nm is seen as the next big jump in processor performance. A nanometer is a billionth of a meter.
GlobalFoundries, which employs 3,000 people worldwide, is AMD's main manufacturer and the result of AMD spinning off its manufacturing facilities to reduce expenses and focus resources on chip design in competing against larger rival Intel. AMD this week reported its 11th consecutive quarterly loss as the company continues its struggle to reach profitability that has so far been blocked by intense competition from Intel, the economic recession, and the billions of dollars in charges related to the 2006 acquisition of graphics chip maker ATI Technologies.
Along with building AMD chips, GlobalFoundries plans to also produce semiconductors for other companies. How well it serves AMD in competing against Intel remains to be seen. Intel in February said it would invest $7 billion in the United States over the next two years to upgrade existing fabs for production of 32-nm technology.
Intel plans to start making 32-nm products in the fourth quarter of this year, while AMD expects GlobalFoundries to do the same by the middle of next year. The manufacturer, however, hasn't disclosed a production timetable.
InformationWeek Analytics has published an analysis of the current state of mainframes. Download the report here (registration required). | <urn:uuid:cfe8cbd1-b1e9-4334-bcff-13d8be5da327> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.techweb.com/news/218600604/amd-spin-off-globalfoundries-breaks-ground-on-fab.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944262 | 613 | 1.953125 | 2 |
The Commonwealth Bank and the Note Issue: 1920–1960
First Post-War Notes: A Fresh Approach
By the early 1950s designs for a new series of currency notes were being developed. The £1 note was to carry King George VI's profile. Other notes were to portray prominent figures in Australia around the time of Federation.
The designs were not used. King George VI died in 1952 and Queen Elizabeth II ascended the throne.
Amongst the early designs were those portraying Sir Henry Parkes (the 'Father of Federation') on a 10 shilling note and Sir John Monash (World War I soldier, engineer and administrator) on a £10 note.
The 1953/54 Series
A new series of currency notes was issued in 1953/54.
The focus of design shifted from the Monarchy and pictorial representations of an emerging Australian economy to portraits of individuals judged to have helped shape Australia through its short history.
Intricate design and engraving was the principal anti-counterfeiting device.
These notes circulated until the introduction of decimal currency in 1966.
Matthew Flinders (1774–1814), shown on the 10 shilling note, sailed through Bass Strait. He then circumnavigated Tasmania, made the first complete survey of the southern coast of Australia and eventually circumnavigated the continent. Flinders was the first to use the name, 'Australia', systematically in his writings.
The backs of some of the new notes symbolised aspects of Australia's progress beyond its economic development. The first Parliament House, Canberra, was on the 10 shilling note.
In contrast to the three series of notes in the 1920s and 1930s, only the £1 note bore the monarch's portrait. Explorers Sturt and Hume were represented, in a coin-shaped format, on the back of the note.
Sturt, who arrived in Sydney in 1827, explored the western areas of New South Wales. The Darling River was discovered and the Macquarie, Murray and Murrumbidgee river systems explored. Later explorations took him as far inland as the Simpson Desert, South Australia.
Hume explored the southern districts of New South Wales and, with William Hovell, travelled overland to Corio Bay (Port Phillip). He accompanied Sturt on the expedition that discovered the Darling River. The Murray River was once called the Hume River in his honour.
Sir John Franklin (1786–1847), shown on the £5 note, was Lieutenant-Governor of Tasmania from 1837 to 1843. He was influential in establishing an education system and founding the Tasmanian Natural History Society, the first scientific Royal Society established outside Britain. He died while exploring the Arctic.
The prominence of rural activities in Australia's exports ensured their continued representation in the new series with the £5 note showing a mix of agricultural and pastoral industries.
Aboriginal culture was symbolised for the first time on our notes with a central motif on the back of the £5 note showing artefacts such as the boomerang.
Arthur Phillip (1755-1814), shown on the £10 note, was Captain-General of the First Fleet to arrive at Botany Bay and then Port Jackson in 1788. The first Governor of the Colony of New South Wales, he returned to England in 1793, confident that the new colony would succeed.
Industry and science were represented on the £10 note with symbols of electrical power, chemistry, a pair of scales and gears.
The female figure on the £10 note is from a photograph of a model, in the RBA archives known only as Mrs Nartiss; she holds a pair of dividers and a sheet of paper, symbolising research. | <urn:uuid:c7b83121-3fd8-4c15-9881-25aef00d368c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rba.gov.au/Museum/Displays/1920_1960_comm_bank_and_note_issue/first_post_war_notes.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00067-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964164 | 768 | 3.1875 | 3 |
ACLU:A national civil liberties group is renewing a push to end mealtime prayer at the U.S. Naval Academy, where a group of midshipmen recently complained to officials that they felt pressured to participate in the longtime practice.
The tradition, believed to date back to the college's founding in 1845, now involves a chaplain's leading grace before a noon meal that all 4,200 midshipmen must attend at King Hall. Midshipmen are not required to pray, though they must stand during the recital, and most bow their heads.
Nine students recently approached the American Civil Liberties Union for help in getting the academy to end the practice. In a letter recently sent to the academy's superintendent, Vice Adm. Jeffrey L. Fowler, the ACLU threatened legal action.
"The government should not be in the business of compelling religious observance, particularly in military academies, where students can feel coerced by senior students and officials and risk the loss of leadership opportunities for following their conscience," Deborah A. Jeon, legal director for the ACLU of Maryland, | <urn:uuid:57b3bfa7-ab1d-45a2-ab66-87709c63c9ae> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.conservativeunderground.com/forum505/showthread.php?1172-ACLU-tries-to-halt-mealtime-prayer-at-Naval-Academy&p=13060 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00069-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954709 | 222 | 1.765625 | 2 |
This page compares quaternion multiplication and orthogonal matrix multiplication as a means to represent rotation.
If you are not familiar with this subject you may like to look at the following pages first:
We want to be able to represent 3D solid body movements (rotations and translations) in one operation.
Initially it would seem that multivectors based on 3D vectors would be ideal for this because such a multivector contains a 3D bivector (which could represent rotations) and a 3D vector (which could represent translations). However there are problems with this approach, one problem is that multivectors are not always invertible, whereas 3D isometry translations do always have an inverse.
There are subsets of multivectors that do always have an inverse (such as a * a†=1) but this restriction means that the vector part is no longer independent of the bivector. this means we have to go to higher dimensional multivectors to represent independent rotation and translation.
In order to explore this subject I have calculated the condition a * a†=1 for multivectors based on various dimensional vectors on these pages:
- Isometry properties of multivectors based on 2D vectors.
- Isometry properties of multivectors based on 3D vectors.
- Isometry properties of multivectors based on 4D vectors.
- Isometry properties of multivectors based on 5D vectors. | <urn:uuid:1f94f55f-5072-4d5c-8334-50e30e24f3ff> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://euclideanspace.com/maths/algebra/clifford/geometry/transforms/isometries/index.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940241 | 300 | 2.890625 | 3 |
Religious charities putting doctrine above children's interests
The worst harm is done by refusing to allow same-sex couples to foster.
It was with a heavy heart that I read of a landmark ruling earlier this month that gives religious charities the freedom to ban gay foster parents.
The New South Wales Administrative Decisions Tribunal found that Wesley Dalmar Services, the foster-care arm of Wesley Mission, was within its rights to knock back a gay couple who applied in the early 2000s to become foster carers, because their "lifestyle was not in keeping with the beliefs and values of Wesleyanism".
The charity, a part of the Uniting Church assembly, had successfully argued that its decision was necessary to circumvent damage to its "religious susceptibilities".
As far as rulings go, it was a classic case of exploiting a loophole. The tribunal intimated that its hands were tied due to "the very broad exemptions in the Anti-Discrimination Act relating to religious groups".
Following the passing of the Equal Opportunity Bill in Victoria this year, which allows religious groups to continue to discriminate on the basis of "sexuality or marital status if it is in accordance with their beliefs", the NSW directive is clearly portentous for Victorian gay couples hoping to foster.
Of course, it is a grave disservice to tar all Christian foster-care agencies with the same bias. Uniting Care Burnside, part of the Uniting Church, has long held progressive attitudes towards homosexuality, as has Barnardos. Both have a non-discriminatory policy when looking for safe environments in which to place foster children.
Wesley Mission belongs to a Methodist order of the Uniting Church. It has a long and worthy history of social justice, but the central tenet of its orthodoxy, that marriage between a man and a woman is the cornerstone of family, sits uneasily in a contemporary world.
As many civil liberties groups have been quick to point out, charities such as Wesley that rely on government funding should not be allowed to show such prejudice. It is likely to become more of an issue in NSW over the next four years, as private agencies take over all the foster-care programs run by the Department of Community Services.
But there is something else amiss here, and it's a trap ready-made for religious charity groups. By putting its charter ahead of its charges, Wesley Mission undermines its mission. While it may indeed have the legislative right to discriminate, the only time it should exercise that right is when a child - and not its doctrine - is at risk.
Furthermore, I can't understand how a charity can so easily turn a blind eye to the fact that we have long been crying out for foster carers.
In 2005, lobby group the Australian Foster Care Association warned that foster care in Australia was at a crossroads. It urged states and territories to work together to improve "their recruitment strategies to increase the number of foster carers" and put strategies in place to retain them.
And with good reason. Foster care isn't for the faint-hearted. In addition to the logistical hoops prospective carers are required to jump through (such as police checks and working-with-children checks), different agencies have their own criteria.
While there is some financial recompense for carers, it isn't a patch on the physical, emotional and spiritual investment of welcoming an often damaged little stranger into your home.
Just think, on the one hand you are encouraged to support and bond with the child. On the other, you must be prepared to let them go, sometimes at a moment's notice, and knowing the cycle of abuse and neglect will most likely begin anew. Surely, this is the biggest ask of all.
Over the past year, it was estimated that about 34,000 children moved in and out of state care, and the number is growing. For the lucky few - and they are few - there is a happy ending.
Eight years ago, a young sister and brother arrived at the door of Silke Bader and her partner, Tanya Sale. Now aged 11 and 12, the two siblings have had the kind of safe and secure upbringing their 10 brothers and sisters could only dream about.
As Bader told The Sydney Morning Herald: "The argument over same-sex adoption is whether the couples are suitable . . . in this case we certainly stand out as being more suitable."
Earlier this year, after surveying several children placed with same-sex couples, a NSW parliamentary inquiry found that, above all else, "stability and security" were crucial in fostering a child's development. The findings led to the same-sex adoption bill being passed in September.
This is why the latest ruling seems not only curious but retrogressive. While definition of family is constantly evolving, one thing remains forever the same: every child has a right to be loved.
Surely it's time we put children's rights where they belong - above and beyond all others.
Jen Vuk is a freelance writer.
Follow the National Times on Twitter: @NationalTimesAU | <urn:uuid:cda9d1a8-590c-49d3-bb7b-ba6c41ac6972> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/religious-charities-putting-doctrine-above-childrens-interests-20101229-19a44.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965513 | 1,036 | 1.9375 | 2 |
Published in TB and Outbreaks Week, October 7th, 2003
"Clostridium perfringens enterotoxin (CPE), a 35-kDa polypeptide, induces cytotoxic effects in the enterocyte-like CaCo-2 cell culture model. To identify the mammalian cell death pathway(s) mediating CPE-induced cell death, CaCo-2 cultures were treated with either 1 or 10 microg of CPE/ml. Both CPE doses were found to induce morphological damage and DNA cleavage in CaCo-2 cells," scientists in the United States report.
"The oncosis inhibitor glycine, but not a...
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Learn more about a six-week, no-risk free trial of TB and Outbreaks Week | <urn:uuid:a71bfc0e-4287-449c-9a47-8b4ae9834c01> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.newsrx.com/newsletters/TB-and-Outbreaks-Week/2003-10-07/100720033339TW.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00070-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931132 | 175 | 1.882813 | 2 |
ere beginneth the Litanies, the More and the Less
The Litanies be done twice in the year. The first be done on Saint Mark’s day, and that is called the more Litany. And the second be done on the three days before the Ascension Day, and is called the lesser Litany. And Litany is as much to say supplication or prayer. The first Litany is named in three manners. First, it is called the more Litany. secondly, the procession of seven orders. Thirdly, the black cross. Then this Litany is said the more, for three reasons. The first is for him that instituted it, that was Saint Gregory the Pope, and that was at Rome, which is lady and head of the world, because that the body of the prince of the apostles is there, and the Holy See. And also for the reason of the cause wherefore it was instituted, and that was for a right great and grievous malady. For as the Romans had in the Lent lived soberly and in continence, and after at Easter had received their Saviour. After, they disordered them in eating, in drinking, in plays and in lechery. And therefore our Lord was moved against them, and sent to them a great pestilence, which was called the botche of impedimy. And that was cruel and sudden, and caused people to die in going by the way, in playing, in being at table, and in speaking one with another suddenly they died. In this manner sometime sneezing they died, so that when any person was heard sneezing anon they that were by said to him: God help you, or Christ help: and yet endureth the custom. And also when he sneezeth or gapeth, he maketh tofore his face the sign of the cross, and blesseth him; and yet endureth this custom. And how that pestilence began, it is found in the life of Saint Gregory. Secondly, this Litany is said procession of seven orders, because that when they were made, Saint Gregory ordained them by seven ordinances. For in the first order was all the clergy, in the second were the monks and religious men, in the third were all the nuns, in the fourth all the children, in the fifth all the lay people, in the sixth all the women, and in the seventh all they that were married. But because that now we may not fulfil in number of persons, we ought to fulfil it in number of Litanies. For it with black clothes. And peradventure for that same cause they covered the cross and the altars with blessed hairs, and thus we should take on us clothing of penance.
There is another Litany, which is called the lesser Litany, the which is made the three days tofore the Ascension. And this instituted Saint Mamertin, Bishop of Vienne in the time of the Emperor Leo, which reigned the year of our Lord three hundred and fifty-eight tofore the institution of the first. And is said the Litany the less, the rogations and processions. For it is the lesser Litany to the difference of the first, because that this lesser Litany was instituted of a lesser, which was a simple Bishop, in a lesser place, and for lesser malady. And the cause of the institution was this. For then, at Vienne, were great earthquakes of which fell down many churches and many houses, and there was heard great sounds and great clamours by night. And then happed a terrible thing on Easter-day, for fire descended from heaven that burnt the king’s palace. Yet happed more marvellous thing; for like as the fiends had entered into the hogs, right so by the sufferance of God for the sins of the people, the fiends entered into wolves and other wild beasts, which every one doubted, and they went not only by the ways ne by the fields, but also by the cities ran openly, and devoured the children and old men and women. And when the Bishop saw that every day happed such sorrowful adventures, he commanded and ordained that the people should fast three days; and he instituted the Litanies, and then the tribulation ceased. And from then, forth on, the Church hath ordained and confirmed that this Litany should be kept and observed over all. It is said also Rogations, for then we pray and demand the suffrages of all the saints, and we thus have good cause for to keep this ordinance and fast in these days. And for many reasons it is instituted. First, because it appeaseth the battles, that commonly begin in primetime. Secondly, because that the fruits which be then tender, that God will multiply. Thirdly, because that every man should mortify in himself the movings of his flesh, which in that time boil. Fourthly, because that every one dispose himself to receive the Holy Ghost; for by fastings, by orisons, and by devotion is one more able and more worthy. But, two other reasons assigneth Master William of Auxerre, because then, when Jesu Christ would ascend into heaven he said: Ask ye duly and ye shall have. And we may the more faithfully demand when we have the promise of God. Secondly, because that holy Church fasteth and prayeth that she have but little flesh, that is to make the body lean by abstinence, and to get wings by prayer.
For prayer is the wing of the soul by which she fleeth to heaven, to the end that she may follow Jesu Christ ascending up before us to show us the way. And know ye that the soul that aboundeth in plenty of flesh, and hath but few pens and feathers, he may not well fly. Thus this Litany is called procession, for then the Church maketh general procession. And in this procession the cross is borne, the clocks and the bells be sounded and rung, the banners be borne, and in some churches a dragon with a great tail is borne. And aid and help is demanded of all saints. And the cause why the cross is borne and the bells rung is for to make the evil spirits afraid and to flee; for like as the kings have in battles tokens and signs-royal, as their trumpets and banners, right so the king of heaven perdurable hath his signs militant in the Church. He hath bells for business and for trumps, he hath the cross for banners. And like as a tyrant and a malefactor should much doubt when he shall hear the business and trumps of a mighty king in his land, and shall see his banners, in like wise the enemies, the evil spirits that be in the region of the air, doubt much when they hear the trumpets of God which be the bells rung, and when they see the banners borne on high. And this is the cause why the bells be rung when it thundereth, and when great tempests and outrages of weather happen, to the end that the fiends and the evil spirits should be abashed and flee, and cease of the moving of tempests. Howbeit also that there is another cause therewith; that is for to warn the Christian people, that they put them in devotion and in prayer, for to pray God that the tempest may cease. There is also the banner of the King, that is the cross, which the enemies dread much and doubt. For they dread the staff with which they have been hurt. And this is the reason wherefore in some churches in the time of tempest and of thunder, they set out the cross against the tempest to the end that the wicked spirits see the banner of the sovereign king, and for dread thereof they flee. And therefore in procession the cross is borne, and the bells rung for to chase and hunt away the fiends being in the air, and to the end that they leave to tempest us. The cross is borne for to represent the victory of the resurrection, and of the ascension of Jesu Christ. For he ascended into Heaven with all a great prey. And thus this banner that flyeth in the air signifieth Jesu Christ ascending into heaven. And as the people follow the cross, the banners, and the procession, right so when Jesu Christ styed up into heaven a great multitude of saints followed him. And the song that is sung in the procession signifieth the song of angels and the praisings that came against Jesu Christ and conducted and conveyed him to heaven where is great joy and melody. In some churches, and in especial in them of France, is accustomed to bear a dragon with a long tail filled full of chaff or other thing. The two first days it is borne before the cross, and on the third day they bear it after the cross, with the tail all void, by which is understood that the first day tofore the law, or the second under the law, the devil reigned in the world, and on the third day, of grace, by the passion of Jesu Christ, he was put out of his realm.
After in this procession singularly we call the suffrages of all the saints. And why we call to the saints divers reasons be assigned heretofore, but yet there be of the general, wherefore we pray the saints. First for our poverty and for the glory of saints, and for the reverence of God. For the saints may well know the vows and the prayers of the suppliants. For in the mirror perpetual, that is Jesu Christ, they understand how much it appertaineth to their joy and to our profit. Then the first reason is for our poverty, and for our misery, or for our default we have some merit, to the end that where our merits be not sufficient the suffrages of saints may avail us, or for default that we have in contemplation of God, and that we may see perfectly the light sovereign that we see and behold in his saints, or for the default that we have in loving God, for we see that some show more greater affection to a saint than they do to God, and such people be imperfect. The second reason is for the glory of saints. For God will that we call the saints, because that by their suffrages that we require, we glorify them, and the more greatly we praise them. The third reason is for the reverence of God, to the end that the sinners that have offended God, the which dare not approach to God in their persons, they approach him by the friends of God in demanding their suffrages. And in these Litanies we ought to repeat this song of angels: Sancte Deus, sancte fortis, sancte et immortalis miserere nobis. Item, John Damascene recordeth in his fourth book that, in Constantinople, for a tribulation that happed there, there were litanies made. It happed that a child amid the people was ravished to heaven and this canticle he learned there; and after then he returned to the people, and in the midst of the people he sang it, and anon that tribulation ceased. And after at the Council of Chalcedon this canticle was approved and the cause concluded. We know that it is so that the fiends be put out by this canticle: Sancte Deus. Of this canticle and praising the authority is approved by four reasons. First, because that an angel taught it first. Secondly, because at the prolation and repetition of this canticle, that tribulation ceased. Thirdly, because that the Council of Chalcedon approved it. And fourthly, because that the fiends and enemies so much dread and doubt it. | <urn:uuid:48729488-328f-4f53-932f-ede30c85c049> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://saints.sqpn.com/the-golden-legend-the-litanies-the-more-and-the-less/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974914 | 2,444 | 2.5625 | 3 |
Few would have ever expected that the easier of the two daunting tasks facing new Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi last week would be the brokering of the cease-fire that ended the fighting in the Gaza Strip by Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas, thus ending, at least for now, the threat of a major Middle East crisis.
When Morsi succeeded in persuading the Israelis and the Palestinians to put down their weapons, a grateful world cheered. And, immediately, he attained international relevance. But he still is so new to his job back in Egypt that he needed — or at least believed he needed — to take a bold and deeply controversial step to secure not just his presidency but what he viewed as the preferred outcome of his country’s recent revolution.
So, wisely or not, he issued a decree that appeared to grant him virtually all the powers of a dictator, which is exactly the opposite of what the “Arab Spring” uprisings were all about. And in doing so, he invited the unbridled wrath of Egypt’s secularists and political liberals — they’re often the same people, of course — who had thought the whole idea of the revolution was precisely to end dictatorship.
In Washington, President Obama and the State Department must be viewing all this unexpected turmoil with a certain amount of apprehension, if not outright confusion. They have to decide — and the decision can only follow careful analysis — what would be the proper United States response to Morsi’s apparent power-grab. He is, after all, the person who, in negotiating the cease-fire, accomplished exactly what Obama wanted so it would appear he has earned considerable patience on the part of America’s political leaders.
But, with his decree, what if Morsi has miscalculated and in fact has unwisely destabilized Egypt after a far too-brief period of political calm? Indeed, there already have been widespread riots, particularly in Cairo’s Tahrir Square where demonstrators so famously succeeded in ending the dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak.
The United States, no matter who occupied the White House, had always tolerated Mubarak’s leadership simply because he was — despite his antipathy toward Egyptian democracy — reliably useful in maintaining a stable relationship with Israel, something no other Arab leaders were willing to do.
And yet, quite naturally, the United States cheered as the Egyptian people demanded political freedom, unseating the American ally Mubarak, and in an open and free election elected Morsi to be their new leader. True, his party is the Muslim Brotherhood, and because of its very name there are many in America who distrust it, believing its first goal is to advance the anti-American agenda of militant Islamists in Egypt. However, in the early stages of his presidency, it appeared Morsi was less doctrinaire than many had feared.
Now those fears have been revived, and, not surprisingly, Morsi has his supporters who accuse many in the elected assembly’s non-Islamist minority of obstructing the path to a constitutional democracy simply because they refuse to accept their defeat at the polls.
“They are afraid of democracy, really,” an official of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, said in a recent interview. “They only debate to block the way, to stop the constitutional process.”
Washington needs to be sure it knows exactly where the truth lies before settling on any particular approach to the Egyptian situation. Until Morsi shows he can deal with his own nation’s unrest as ably as he dealt with the fighting between Israel and her Palestinian enemies, there will be only worrisome uncertainty.MORE IN Editorials
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State of Illinois
Department of Human Services
Important information for people who apply for or receive TANF
What is a family violence exclusion?
Domestic or sexual violence happens to people of all ages, races, income groups, religions, and educational backgrounds. If you or your child are a victim of past or current domestic or sexual violence you may be able to get a family violence exclusion. With this exclusion, you do not have to follow some of the rules for the TANF program and your TANF counter stops.
You will be required to show how the violence in your life prevents you from working.
What kinds of violence are included?
Domestic violence is what someone says or does to make you feel afraid or to control you. These are some examples of domestic violence:
- Swearing or screaming at you
- Threatening to hurt you or others you care about
- Calling you names
- Not letting you leave your house
- Blaming you for everything that goes wrong
- Forcing you to have sex
- Choking, grabbing, punching, or kicking you
- Smashing or breaking things
How do I get a domestic violence exclusion?
Sexual violence is a sexual assault to you or a member of your family. The assult may have been by someone you know or by a stranger, and does not have to be recent.
Stalking is a form of violence when it makes you or a member of your family fear for their safety. The stalker may or may not be known to you. The harassment may be in person, or through cyberstalking, such as by phone, computer, e-mail, video recorder, fax machine, telex, pager, radio, or any other means of electronic communications.
How do I get a family violence exclusion?
If, because of domestic or sexual violence, you need to be excused from participation in work and training activities that prepare you for work you must:
- tell your worker you want a family violence exclusion.
- show that the violence happened by giving your worker any of these items:
- Medical records
- A statement from a domestic or sexual violence worker
- A statement from another professional - like a doctor, nurse, clergy,
counselor, social worker - who you told about the abuse
- A statement from someone - like a neighbor, family member or coworker - who knows about the abuse
- Photos of injuries or damage to your property
- A police report
- A copy of an order of protection
If you need help getting any of these items, talk to a domestic or sexual violence worker or your caseworker.
What is an RSP?
An RSP is a Responsibility and Service Plan that you make with your caseworker.
The plan includes activities to help you deal with your abusive situation and become employed.
- The first goal of the plan is to be sure that you and your children are safe.
- The plan can only include work and training activities if it is safe for you and your children. You should work with a person trained in domestic or sexual violence and your caseworker to develop a plan that takes into account your situation.
- Make sure you really can meet the goals in your RSP.
Only you know what you can do. Only you know how dangerous your situation is. If you need to change the plan or cannot follow it, contact your worker as soon as possible.
If you are denied an exclusion, or if it is canceled, you can appeal.
You may be able to get legal advice or help with an appeal from your local legal aid office.
You do not have to tell your caseworker to receive help. For information about a Domestic Violence Program in your area call 1-800-799-7233 (voice) or 1-800-799-3224 (TTY).
For information about sexual assault, call the rape crisis hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).
You do not have to get an order for protection or attend counseling to get a family violence exclusion.
For more information:
Call or visit your Illinois Department of Human Services' Family Community Resource Center (FCRC).
If you have questions about any Illinois
Department of Human Services (IDHS) program, call or visit your FCRC. We will answer your questions. If you do not know where your FCRC is or if you are unable to go there, you may call the automated helpline 24 hours a day at:
You may speak to a representative between: 8:00 a.m. - 5:30 p.m. Monday - Friday (except state holidays)
For answers to your questions, you may also write:
Illinois Department of Human Services
Bureau of Customer Support and Services
100 South Grand Avenue East
Springfield, Illinois 62762
Visit our web site at: www.dhs.state.il.us
Programs, activities and employment opportunities in the Illinois Department of Human Services are open and accessible to any individual or group without regard to age, sex, race, sexual orientation, disability, ethnic origin or religion. The department is an equal opportunity employer and practices affirmative action and reasonable accommodation programs.
DHS 4710 (R-07-10) Family Violence Exclusion Printed by the Authority of the State of Illinois. | <urn:uuid:7c762fda-e5d8-4340-997e-5e5eb25a8cf5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dhs.state.il.us/page.aspx/page.aspx?item=32313 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934416 | 1,112 | 2.578125 | 3 |
Re: diseases and immunity
Tue, 02 Jul 1996 15:29:39 -0700
Domingo Martinez-Castilla wrote:
> " A city is defined as a population center where ..."
> which sounds very, very matter-of-fact, and then, in the next post or
> so, s/he recognizes that
> "As far as definitions, they were my own..."
> That confuses the reader at best, and is openly misleading at worst.
I got that with the responses to that post. I tried to correct any
misunderstanding. I do appologize for any confusion.
> Also, the very peculiar definition of manufacturing vis-a-vis production
> of "raw materials"is dubious at best. The most important category to
> show complexity is, I believe, division of labor and not the nature of
> the products themselves. What about the fact, chronicled in multiple
> instances by Europeans, that the market of Tlatelolco was the biggest
> organized market in the world? Is that an invention too, or
> revisionism? What may be the meaning of such a large and well organized
> market, regarding the complexity and organization of that civilization?
The distinction between manufacturing and the production of raw materials had
nothing to do with showing complexity. And, if you reread my post, I pointed out
that there were at least five cities (which I defined as centers of manufacture
> It is not that I agree or disagree with every point sisial does, but
> her style seems full of sophisms. Sometimes, all of Europe is compared
> to the Aztecs; sometimes crops are important; etc., sometimes trade is
> important (but conveniently forgetting the size of the mesoamerican
> markets); sometimes writing is important; sometimes the wheel, or the
> horse, or iron, or whatever applies nicely to some preconceived notion.
> That is a sophist method.
European cities were compared to Mesoamerican cities. The purpose of this was to
establish differences and similarities. I certainly made no comments regarding
importance. Every aspect of a culture is important to understanding that culture.
I made no mention of crops, trade, writing, the wheel, the horse, or iron. And, I
certainly never stated that any of these things were important. I send a post
earlier today which suggested that if we are to label a culture according to it's
technological achievements, agriculture would be a good place to look (this was
compared to a suggestion of the use of chipped glass as the 'pinicle' of Aztec
> What I perceive in this thread (and at least four other discussions like
> this since 1992) is some very understandable anthropocentrism. We
> humans tend to give credit of everything to ourselves (even the whole
> universe, according to Judeo-Christian tradition, was created for us
> people). All merit is ours. Circumstances? C'mon. Nature? God put
> it for us, etc., etc. If you oppose to this any evidence of
> natural-history facts affecting human history, we just tend to dismiss
> it. Very good historians (in most other respects) mention and recognize
> the terrible impact (loss of technology, languages, people, memories)
> of disease four and five centuries ago. However, if a summary is made
> of the reasons why American civilizations fell so easily, they prefer to
> ignore them. Check any history book. Chances are that disease is
> mentioned either marginally or not at all. Instead, a litany of
> "writing, wheel, iron, freedom, horse" is repeated at nauseaum. Very
> self-serving, to say the least.
Considering the fact that I have made no statements regarding 'why American
civilizations fells so easily,' I do not see how this applies. I only entered into
this discussion on two points. (1) that there were significant differences between
the cities of Mesoamerica and Europe which must be considered when making a
comparison (this was a carry over from another conversation dealing with
Mesoamerican cities where the responent to my post stated something which
suggested that such a comaprison was goin on. When I began reading the various
posts, it seemed that the general attitude was that one city is like any other
city. I responded by pointing out that there were differences in population
densities and in economy which I assumed most here would know drastically effect
culture). (2) on the suggestion that the production of chipped glass tools was the
'pinicle' of Aztec technological achievement (I went on to point out several
factors of which I am aware which were far more technologically advanced than
My comments are necessarily limited to the little I do have on Mesoamerican
cultures. I could not, even if I desired, address the issues you attribute to me
as I am far from qualified.
> And I repeat again: there is not a one-way road towards the future or
> the past for that matter. If it were, we could dispense of
> anthropologists altogether.
I am the first to agree with you here. In fact, this is one of the few comments on
this thread which I believe can be proven. Unfortuntely, I lack the background in
Chaotic math to do so. | <urn:uuid:4f3e953a-f51a-4660-8d8f-368fa09981e9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://unauthorised.org/anthropology/sci.anthropology/july-1996/0078.html | 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 | 0.96528 | 1,162 | 2.25 | 2 |
Building 15, Room 3201 Map
Have you ever wondered what the different computing degrees prepare you to do? Need some help finding where you fit in the computing profession? There are some great resources online to help you answer these questions. One we recommend is the ACM Computing Careers Website. This site is rich with information about computing career paths, computing majors, cool computing news, and how to prepare for studying in this field.
We have a Career Services Liaison who helps our students through a variety of stages in their career planning including searches for an internship or cooperative education, a part-time position, or a full-time position. We encourage you to meet your liaison and begin working on your career planning early in your program.
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|Allergic reaction to semen
Feb 24, 1997
If semen produces an allergic reaction of the skin (red blotches, itching), is this an avenue for HIV transmission?
| Response from Mr. Sowadsky
Hi. Thank you for your question.
All anybody can really say is that if there is a breakdown in the integrity of the skin, then HIV may have an access to the bloodstream. An allergic reaction (to semen, or just about anything else), could potentially lead to a breakdown in the integrity of the skin. This could especially happen if you were scratching the area, which could increase the chances of cuts or abrasions to the skin. So all we can say is that when there is a breakdown in the integrity of the skin, if semen, blood, etc. were to get onto that area of the skin, then there would be some risk of infection. An allergic reaction may lead to a breakdown in the skin, so this is something you need to be aware of.
If you continue to have problems with allergic reactions to semen (or other allergies), see your physician to determine if there's anything medically that can be done to reduce your allergic reactions.
If you have any further questions, please feel free to call the Centers for Disease Control at 1.800.232.4636 (Nationwide).
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Korea talks delayed by disagreement
The first talks between North and South Korea have been delayed, after both sides failed to agree on which building to meet in.
It was hoped the meeting could ease tensions between the two states.
Officials from North and South Korea were supposed to meet in a joint industrial estate on the northern side of the heavily-fortified border.
But more than five hours after the South's delegation crossed the border there was still no agreement about which building in the complex they would meet in.
Also in dispute is the range of topics the two sides would discuss.
The talks would be the first between North and South Korea in more than a year, and would come less than a month after Pyongyang launched a rocket which many said was a ballistic missile test. | <urn:uuid:dd114911-ea70-4db8-b7ea-ba378895f300> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.abc.net.au/news/2009-04-21/korea-talks-delayed-by-disagreement/1658348 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.991428 | 158 | 2.0625 | 2 |
Everyone thinks everyone else is having sex - actually only one third of people under 16 have had sex and the average age young people have sex is 16.
You should not feel pressured into having sex by anyone - you should have sex when you feel ready to.
The law states it is illegal to have sex if you are under 16 which is the same for all people whether they are straight, gay or a lesbian. It is an absolute criminal offence to have sex with anyone that is under 13 - even if they've said you can have sex with them (have given their consent).
If you are under 16 you can still get confidential advice from Health Professionals. This means if you talk to a Nurse or Doctor about sex they will not tell your parents or anyone else. The only time they would have to share the information is if you are being pressured into having sex, or having sex with someone much older or younger then you, and are likely to be harmed. Health Professionals encourage you to talk to your parents or carer about having sex as they can offer you support.
Most schools do not have the same confidentiality rules as health professionals; they have to share information with your parents. This means that if you need Sexual Health advice you should ask your teacher to refer you to the School Nurse as they do not have to share this with your parents or carer.
For information on Sexually Transmitted Infections (STI’s) and Contraception see the next section or contact your School Nurse for advice on Sexual Health. | <urn:uuid:aacb368b-f255-4575-a769-e60bc302e57b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.esh.nhs.uk/school-nursing/11-to-19-year-olds/sexual-health/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982506 | 313 | 2.65625 | 3 |
A temporary ban on a law requiring drug testing of Florida welfare recipients has been upheld by a federal appeals court. Gov. Rick Scott has vowed an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Romney thought he was talking amongst his teammates in the locker room last May 17 only to find out that there was somebody on the other team hiding behind the lockers. Had he known a member of the other team was lurking back there, he would have chosen his words more carefully and had presented more carefully-chosen data than the data of which he swiftly generalized.
Florida welfare recipients who were denied benefits during a four-month period last year because they failed or refused to take a drug test are eligible for their share of $600,000 in missed benefits.
According to Romney, Obama has taken away a number of work requirements from the federal welfare regulations. Republicans believe that Obama’s executive measure on welfare funding to states makes it easier for non-working people get a free government check.
There’s an old saying that politics makes strange bedfellows; and that’s very apparent with Republican Mitt Romney trying to attack President Barack Obama by using former President Bill Clinton.
Stricter governmental guidelines are needed for a person to receive a government paycheck. These guidelines need to involve stricter limits on what people can do with their free government paycheck. If something isn’t needed for survival, it should not be purchased with the American taxpayer’s dollars.
A bill that limits what items can be purchased with state welfare funds has passed in the Florida House.
A bill that would limit what items could be purchased with state welfare funds is making headway in the Florida Senate.
A Florida federal judge has stopped one of Governor Rick Scott’s signature pieces of legislation requiring welfare applicants to pass a drug test.
The first figures are in for the recently mandated welfare drug tests and officials say it’s very difficult to draw accurate conclusions on it effectiveness. | <urn:uuid:a3ace0cb-add4-46b9-a728-fb20f33a2aff> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://miami.cbslocal.com/tag/welfare/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00059-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975151 | 403 | 1.835938 | 2 |
Hey guys, I've been taking a statistics class recently and just got into variability and standard deviation. I'm not going to get deep into it, but basically variability is how much a data set can vary. Say, a player is averaging 15 points per game. However, his scores vary wildly from well over twenty to single digits. This would show high variability, or "spurtability". A player who ranged closer from 13-17 on average, would show low variability. Are there any NBA statistics out there to show streakiness or even, egads, "Spurtability"?
Obviously this wouldn't be an end all stat like PER, but it would be a good indicator for how consistent a player is. This would probably be done best with Standard deviation, which isn't the easiest statistic but can't be much worse than PER. You might even be able to combine this with the variability of minutes so that players with inconsistent minutes won't be penalized.
What do you guys think?
Which of these do you think would be most useful?
Variability of scoring (1 vote)
Variability of scoring considering minutes played (4 votes)
Variability of FG% (2 votes)
Variability of FG% considering minutes played (2 votes)
Variability of scoring and FG% but not minutes played (0 votes)
Combine all three for total "Spurtability" (12 votes)
You must be high, do you even know what standard deviation is? (10 votes)
I'm so confused... (6 votes)
Other as indicated in comments (1 vote)
38 total votes | <urn:uuid:38708d9d-7605-4b19-a331-fa101fe49cfe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.blazersedge.com/2012/1/30/2759029/spurtability-the-statistic | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96881 | 333 | 2.015625 | 2 |
KINGSTON — The Kingston Community Library is pleased to announce it has received a grant from the NH Humanities Council to present “The Harriet Wilson Project: Harriet Wilson’s Our Nig” on Tues., March 19 at 6:30 p.m.
Harriet Wilson, the first African American to publish a novel in the U.S., grew up in Milford before the Civil War. Accompanied by a collaborator from the Harriet Wilson Project, scholar Barbara White introduces the book and facilitates discussion. Come discover this self told story of life in New Hampshire as a free African American bound as an indentured servant during the American Civil War. This program is free and open to the public.
For more information please call the Kingston Community Library at 642-3521 or visit their website, www.kingston-library.org. | <urn:uuid:b5eb7da7-7663-4aad-9306-8ef8fa663a76> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.carriagetownenews.com/libraries/x2109939144/Harriet-Wilson-Project | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00047-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940222 | 173 | 1.804688 | 2 |
The bailout is big. But, where exactly is it going?*
Thanks to the efforts of ProPublica, we can track bailout funds by state. The map below, based on their data, shows the geographic distribution of bailout spending.
The bailout is massively concentrated in just a few states. Total bailout funding, according to the ProPublica data, is $476.5 billion to date. One state, New York, has captured $175 billion of that, more than a third. Michigan is next with $80.7 billion or 17 percent of the total, followed by North Carolina with $56.3 billion, Virginia with $54.9 billion, and California with $34.4 billion. The top three states accounted for 66 percent of bailout spending; the top five 84 percent; and the top two more than 10 percent.
How does the geography of the bailout look when we control for the size of state economies - say, by population and economic output? With the number-crunching help of Ronnie Sanders and map-making assistance of Scott Pennington, both of the Martin Prosperity Institute, we decided to take a look.
The second map shows the geography of bailout funding per person. The average per state, excluding the District of Columbia and based on the ProPublica data, is $1,570.34 bailout dollars per person. Again, two states dominate the tally - New York, where the bailout adds up to $8,978.83 per person, and Michigan where it's $8,067.28. There are just five additional states where bailout funds top $1,000 per person: Virginia ($7,044.47), North Carolina ($6.104.69), Minnesota ($1,379.21), Connecticut ($1,085.33), and Iowa ($1,065.76).
The third map shows the geography of the bailout as a percent of state economic output or gross state product. The bailout, again based on the ProPublica data, was three percent of total state output, with each state on average receiving 1.8 percent of its GDP. Michigan takes the top spot here, with bailout funds equivalent to a whopping 21.1 percent of its total economic output. New York is next at 15.3 percent; followed by North Carolina, 14.1 percent; and Virginia, 13.8 percent. No other state received bailout funding that was more than three percent of its output.
By any measure, the bailout has been massively concentrated geographically.
* An earlier version of this post was incorrectly titled "The Stimulus Maps." Thanks to ProPublica's Chris Flavelle for pointing this out. It has been revised accordingly. | <urn:uuid:3b891c05-16e9-4796-8ed7-cedf3b04008d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2009/08/the-bailout-maps/23552/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00059-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939963 | 554 | 2.515625 | 3 |
the water supply of their enemies by poisoning their wells with Rye
Ergot. The master tactician Solon used the purgative herb hellebore
(skunk cabbage) to poison the water supply during his siege of Krissa.
Plague broke out
in the ranks of the Tartar army during its siege of Kaffa. The Tartars
then hurled the corpses of the dead over the city walls using catapults
and the plague epidemic which soon followed forced the defenders to
surrender. Historians believe that those infected Kaffans who managed
to escape detection and escape could have started the Black Death pandemic
which spread across Europe.
Napoleon tried to
infect the people of Mantua with swamp fever during his Italian campaign.
Chlorine and Mustard
Gas were used extensively by the Germans
Dr Anton Dilger,
a noted German-American Physician, established a small biological agent
production facility at his northwest Washington, DC home. Using cultures
of Bacillus Anthracis (Anthrax) and Pseudomonas Mallei (Glanders) supplied
by the Imperial German government, Dilger produced an estimated liter
or more of liquid agent. He reportedly passed the agent and a standard
inoculation device to dock workers in Baltimore who used them to infect
a reported 3500 horses, mules and cattle destined for the Allied troops
who were waging World War 1. Several Hundred military personnel were
infected as well.
The use of chemical
weapons in World War 1 clearly unnerved the scientific community. The
Geneva Protocol was established to prohibit the use of such agents in
war ever again. The protocol, however, did not ban the production of
officials tried to poison delegates of the League of Nations' Lytton
Commission that had been assigned to investigate Japan's seizure of
Manchuria in 1931. The officials allegedly laced the fruit provided
by the delegates with cholera germs but the Japanese government maintained
that "the investigators did not develop the disease"
Despite the efforts
of the international community to control the use of biological and
chemical weapons, Japan dabbled with such weapons throughout the 30s
and employed them against the Chinese forces when invading China and
The British conducted
Anthrax tests off the coast of Scotland on Gruinard Island. Today, the
abandoned island is still believed to be infected with anthrax spores.
The US proceeds
with its offensive biological weapons initiative that started during
World War 2. The U.S Army conducts tests in certain US States using
[nonpathogenic] bacteria. The program ends with
a large number of tests being carried out in the Pacific Ocean. Sources
indicate that offensive biological weapons were used and the operation,
carried out in the utmost secrecy, involved many ships loaded with caged
animals. At the end of 1969, President Nixon orders the termination
of the offensive biological weapons program and orders all stockpiled
Weapons Convention prohibits the research, development and proliferation
of offensive biological weapons. The treaty does, however, allow defensive
work in this discipline to continue.
In Sverdlovsk, Russia,
around a hundred people are infected with Anthrax. In this outbreak,
64 die and the Russian government blames the outbreak on contaminated
meat. International scientific and intelligence communities are doubtful
about that claim and wonder if an accidental release of Anthrax spores
from a nearby bio weapons facility was responsible instead. Finally,
in 1989, Dr. Vladimir Pasechnick, the former director of the Leningrad
Institute of Ultrapure Biological Preparations, defects to the UK and
reveals that the Russian government had an offensive biological weapons
program despite it signing the BWC in 1972.
The 80s saw the
eradication of smallpox and, to a certain extent, polio after a long
and successful vaccination campaign by the Center for Disease control,
based in Atlanta. Today, only two labs officially have smallpox stocks.
The Center for Disease Control in Atlanta and the Ivanovsky Institute
Iraq uses chemical
weapons in its war against neighboring Iran. After it's defeat at the
hands of the US Forces in 1991, Iraq is ordered by the UN security council
to halt all biological, chemical and nuclear weapons programs it might
Evidence of an offensive
program in Russia is found when US and UK inspectors visit suspected
biological facilities in Russia. The team believed that biological agents
such as smallpox, anthrax and plague were used. The Russians deny any
wrongdoing and within a year, send over a team to inspect closed-up
US biological facilities Dr. Kanatjan Alibekov , former deputy director
of the civilian arm of Russia's biological weapons program, defects
to the US and confirms suspicions that Russia had used smallpox to make
weapons. President Yeltsin, in an unprecedented move, admitted that
the Anthrax outbreak in Sverdlovsk was caused, in part by activity at
the military installation.
The Chemical Weapons
Convention (CWC) is established. Similar to the BWC, it prohibits the
research and production of chemical agents such as Sarin and VX Nerve
Gas . In the same year, Six people die and hundreds are injured when
a bomb explodes at the World Trade Towers in New York City. Six people
die and hundreds are injured. Analysts suspect the bomb was laced with
Cyanide that failed to ignite.
Members of the Shinrikyo
religious sect release Sarin into the Tokyo underground rail system,
killing 12 and injuring thousands. Due to the inferior quality of the
Sarin agent and inefficient dispersal techniques, the death toll were
lower than predicted.
The US Defense Department
starts an Anthrax vaccination program to immunize all personnel against
Anthrax. President Clinton, backed by Congress, approves two new presidential
decision directives to improve the country's ability to respond to the
threat of a biological and chemical weapons terrorist attack. An additional
one billion is channeled into the defense budget and Richard Clarke
is appointed as the national coordinator for all antiterrorism initiatives. | <urn:uuid:2ce5e6d2-78cc-440e-be98-3523c73843f5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://library.thinkquest.org/27393/dreamwvr/warfare/timeline1.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.92789 | 1,286 | 2.9375 | 3 |
Think Again: Engineering greater onshore efficiencies
Consider all costs when considering offshoring. Automation and other advanced technologies make a local smartforce more profitable.
Mark T. Hoske
When people decided to offshore manufacturing capacity they may have excluded some things from their return on investment equations.
1. It seems that 60% of manufacturers use “rudimentary total cost models” and ignore 20% of the cost of offshoring, according to Harry Moser, Reshoring Initiative Leader, citing an Archstone Consulting survey at IMTS 2010. Moser said going local can reduce a company’s total cost of ownership (TCO) of purchased parts and tooling and offer other benefits, while retaining and regaining U.S. manufacturing jobs. He provides TCO Estimator software free to help OEMs compare the true TCO of local vs. offshore sources and to help job shops sell the benefits of local sourcing to their customers. At a NTMA/PMA Contract Manufacturing Purchasing Fair in May, 57 representatives from large manufacturers and 113 custom U.S. manufacturers attended. OEMs found competitive domestic job shops to manufacture parts and tooling; 64% of the OEMs brought onshore at least some work that was off shored. The next fair is Oct. 29, 2010, in Mashantucket, CT.
2. Smart upgrades can increase profits: In considering cost of production in their current facilities, manufacturers may not have appropriately quantified process and technology upgrades, with appropriate amounts of automation to lower production costs, saving jobs in the process.
3. Plant employees need to encourage leadership, management and unions (if present), to collaborate with others in the enterprise to revise workflows, work rules, and apply automation where it makes the most sense, to preserve manufacturing jobs onshore. All involved need to keep key goals in mind – greater competitiveness, safety, sustainability, innovation, and speed to market. Automation and other advanced technologies need to continue to help manufacturing as they have agriculture, making it less labor intensive, safer, and more profitable.
4. Spread the word: We need a manufacturing mandate and national manufacturing strategy. The Association for Manufacturing Technology, National Association of Manufacturers (p. 27), NEMA, and others have been explaining these needs to policymakers. AMT’s Manufacturing Mandate calls for a federal policy of collaboration among government, industry and academia. Policy would incentivize innovation and R&D in new products and manufacturing technologies; assure the availability of capital; increase global competitiveness; minimize structural cost burdens; and enhance collaboration between government, academia, and industry to build a better educated and trained “smartforce.”
They need your voices added to the mix, so their voices aren’t dismissed as special interests. Prosperity is special, and we all need to be more interested in explaining how smart U.S. manufacturing boosts U.S. prosperity.
|Search the online Automation Integrator Guide|
Case Study Database
Get more exposure for your case study by uploading it to the Control Engineering case study database, where end-users can identify relevant solutions and explore what the experts are doing to effectively implement a variety of technology and productivity related projects.
These case studies provide examples of how knowledgeable solution providers have used technology, processes and people to create effective and successful implementations in real-world situations. Case studies can be completed by filling out a simple online form where you can outline the project title, abstract, and full story in 1500 words or less; upload photos, videos and a logo.
Click here to visit the Case Study Database and upload your case study. | <urn:uuid:595b893c-eed8-4a8a-8d4e-2118e715b2c4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.controleng.com/single-article/think-again-engineering-greater-onshore-efficiencies/6f59f860cae7b7e5f25783ab4720d02f.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.926671 | 746 | 1.90625 | 2 |
Canadian Automakers Agree to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions
April 13, 2005
The Canadian government announced on April 5th that it has reached an agreement with the Canadian automobile industry to voluntarily reduce greenhouse gas emissions from new light vehicles, which include cars, pickups, vans, and most sport utility vehicles. By 2010, the new agreement will avoid the equivalent of 5.3 megatons of carbon dioxide emissions from Canadian vehicles, compared to a business-as-usual scenario. To achieve the objective, the Canadian automobile industry will offer and promote a wide variety of fuel-saving vehicle technologies, including hybrid powertrains, cylinder deactivation technology, advanced diesel technologies, and emerging technologies. The industry will continue to pursue design and engineering improvements without compromising vehicle-occupant safety, while also encouraging the use of alternative fuels and bringing forward technologies that promote more fuel-efficient driving behavior. See the press releases from Natural Resources Canada and the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers' Association, as well as the Memorandum of Understanding and backgrounders on the Canadian auto industry (PDF 114 KB) and emission reduction technologies (PDF 124 KB) from the Association of International Automobile Manufacturers of Canada. Download Acrobat Reader. | <urn:uuid:5cdef9d8-7fe7-4edb-9a47-bba84f0717ae> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www1.eere.energy.gov/wip/news_detail.html?news_id=8995 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.90648 | 242 | 2.828125 | 3 |
“The future belongs to those who give the next generation reason for hope.”
—Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955)
Our work is never finite—we strive to create lasting effects. Fixing on the long-term progress and well-being of our beneficiaries motivates us to achieve true development. And our beneficiaries are our partners, identifying challenges and priorities and working with us to address them.
Strengthening Value Chains for Long-term Impact
Our pioneering work in developing a comprehensive value chain approach to economic development (with attendant poverty reduction) exemplifies our commitment to technical practices that elevate and extend our impact beyond the duration of a project. A strengthened value chain carries long-term benefit for many actors.
Involving Communities to Drive Change
We have been leaders in community-driven development that brings together participants from across religious, ethnic and gender barriers to discover mutuality and to partner in progressive action, a basic building-block of sustainability.
Improving Agricultural Systems from Farm to Market
And a persistent food crisis in many parts of the world reaffirms our historical emphasis on catalyzing systemic agricultural development to achieve far-reaching food production gains and overcome the need for commodity handouts.
Promoting Climate-Smart Agriculture
Environmental shocks—including natural disasters, decreased harvests, rising food prices, food shortages and changing weather patterns—are keenly felt in the developing world, where often they are least able to deal with new challenges.
We take a holistic approach to addressing climate change in our programs with a focus on minimizing vulnerability and exposure, and maximizing communities’ ability to adapt, so that interventions are sustainable in the long run.
Nurturing Change Agents
We provide knowledge, opportunities and choices to our beneficiaries so that they themselves become agents of development. By taking responsibility for what happens after our projects end, unleashing the self-interest and potential of many who take on that same responsibility and tailoring solutions to each environment in which we work, we give our work salience, make it signify and ensure that it lasts.
Our values statement reads: “Our respect for host societies and our commitment to the involvement of beneficiaries as true partners in development projects result in improved local capacities, enhanced opportunities, and vibrant, sustainable communities, cooperatives and enterprises….To maximize the effective use of public resources and sustainable impact, we favor expandable, replicable methods, local ownership, an emphasis on broad-based participation and alliances with the private sector and other partners.”
Investing in Youth for Building Tomorrow's Future
A particular key to sustainability is investing directly in future generations through youth capacity building, including leadership and entrepreneurship. Youth development has been a key component under many projects.
Creating and Supporting Legacy Organizations to be Self-Sustaining
Another measure of sustainability is our success in leaving behind a legacy of effective, self-sustaining organizations that offer real-world social, business and finance solutions.
Visit some of our successor groups. | <urn:uuid:7b5720e3-8626-4ce1-9132-ead98cdc7a85> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://acdivoca.org/site/ID/ourwork_sustainability | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.921209 | 615 | 2.078125 | 2 |
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Why Disinfectants and Antibacterials Are Overkill + 5 Health-Safe Alternatives
What’s the most germ-ridden part of the bathroom? The toilet? Guess again. It’s the sink drain. And ironically, that’s partly due to our use of disinfectants and antimicrobial products. Fear of germs has many overdoing it with germ killers — often without adequate information.
Why many disinfectants and antibacterial ingredients are overkill
In the United States, a product can be labeled and advertised as a disinfectant, antibacterial or antimicrobial agent only after it’s registered as a pesticide with the Environmental Protection Agency. Those who run hospitals, daycare centers and nursing or assisted living homes feel they must use a registered disinfectant that ensures a 100-percent pathogen kill rate. And consumers approach their homes with a similar mindset — we believe we need to kill all the germs, viruses and bacteria on our household surfaces, so we use products made to do just that.
Many of these products are overkill, made with chemicals that can cause the same problem as overuse of antibiotics — superbug overgrowth — according to Tufts University School of Medicine. Using these products is especially dangerous in places filled with children, sick people and the elderly; but superbugs are bad news anywhere.
Disinfectants have been linked to other health problems as well: A recent study highlighted concerns that nurses regularly exposed to cleaning products and disinfectants shared a significantly increased occurrence of asthma. And some antimicrobial agents — such as triclosan, commonly used in products like antibacterial hand soaps — are suspected endocrine disrupters and immunotoxins.
Check the labels of the cleaning and toiletry products in your home. You’d be amazed at how many places you’ll find registered antimicrobial ingredients — way beyond antibacterial soaps and disinfectant sprays. Even some toothpastes contain antimicrobial agents such as triclosan.
5 ways to reduce germs, viruses and bacteria without pesticides
With the array of safer and more natural products on the market that kill viruses, bacteria and mold, you can get your home clean and assuage your concerns about germs without going overkill. While the products and methods listed below aren’t all EPA-registered as disinfectants, they’re shown to go a long way toward reducing pathogens without using harmful chemicals.
1. Vinegar disinfecting spray
Numerous studies show that plain white vinegar — the kind you can buy in any supermarket — kills 99 percent of bacteria, 82 percent of mold and 80 percent of viruses.
To make a disinfectant spray to kill germs on doorknobs and toilet seat rims, simply pour some white distilled vinegar into a clean spray bottle. Spray it on undiluted, and don’t rinse. If you don’t like the smell of vinegar, add a few drops of an antibacterial essential oil such as tea tree, lavender or thyme. Antibacterial essential oils are not known to cause superbug overgrowth.
2. Soap and water
It’s unrealistic to try to sterilize an entire home or building. But you can reduce germs on surfaces, and to do this the EPA recommends washing with soapy water. Be sure you're using real soap, as some products that call themselves a soap are actually detergents, which are unlikely to work as well as a real, alkaline soap. (Many detergents are closer to a neutral pH.)
Dr. Bronner’s liquid castile soap is a real soap. I’ve tested it myself to prove its alkalinity, which is what makes it kills germs. Many combine soap with antibacterial essential oils such as lavender, boosting their germ-killing power. For hand washing, an all-important way to reduce the spread of germs, use real bar soap like these with essential oils. Avoid hand-washing products labeled antimicrobial.
3. Cleaners made with essential oils
Cleaning products made with essential oils kill a lot of germs. Begley’s Best Household Cleaner and Spot Remover is a great example; it contains germ-killing pine extract. Also try Seventh Generation's Tub & Tile Cleaner with Emerald Cypress & Fir.
4. UV sterilizing tools
5. Botanical disinfectants
If you work at or maintain a facility that you feel requires a 100-percent germ-kill rate or you'd feel reassured using an EPA-registered disinfectant, try one of the new-and-few botanical disinfectants. Benefect has received an EcoLogo for its environmental stewardship.
A respected and seasoned authority on home and garden toxins and chemical sensitivities, Annie B. Bond is the author of Clean & Green, Home Enlightenment and other books on keeping a health-friendly and earth-friendly abode. | <urn:uuid:e11a3e28-7990-4a69-89ed-35cae2a5f84c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://life.gaiam.com/article/why-disinfectants-and-antibacterials-are-overkill-5-health-safe-alternatives | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.918261 | 1,028 | 2.765625 | 3 |
Continuing to shower and bathe every day when you have dry skin can make the problem worse, and can even cause dry itchy skin. You should also wait to completely wash your face at night before bed, so that the skin will have time to renew itself. In the mornings, simply sponge the face . . . → Read More: Continual bathing can be a problem if you have dry skin. Click to learn more
Fluctuating hormones. Acne is typically associated with the hormonal swings of puberty, but any time hormones fluctuate, acne can flare. Many women are familiar with the once-a-month breakout. Hormonal swings also occur during pregnancy and menopause, causing acne in some women.
To read the entire article, please visit our Facebook Page and click the . . . → Read More: Fluctuating hormones related to Acne, in adult women? Click link to learn more
The truth is that acne can persist well into one’s 30s, 40s, and even 50s. Dermatologists call acne that does not clear by one’s mid-20s persistent acne. Often causing deep-seated, tender, inflamed pimples and nodules, this type of acne is more common in women. Persistent acne tends to form on the lower face, predominately . . . → Read More: Acne past mid 20′s? Yes Persistent Acne. Click link to find out what causes it
Adults also develop late-onset acne. Again, women are more susceptible. People who have not had acne for years can suddenly see deep-seated, inflamed pimples and nodules. Even those who have never had acne get late-onset acne. For some women, acne becomes a problem during menopause. Adult-onset acne generally forms on the chin, jawline, and . . . → Read More: Adult Acne: Women are more suseptible. Click link to read WHY | <urn:uuid:297cea77-3920-4315-8d15-c05c8ba2f809> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blissfulmedspa.com/category/skin-care/acne/adult | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937863 | 410 | 1.96875 | 2 |
Every student is unique; each has a particular blend of educational strengths as well as challenges. As with the rest of the GCC student population, students with disabilities can be found along the entire spectrum of cognitive abilities and academic potential.
Of course they don't all fit neatly into the categories listed here; comorbidity of more than one disability is not uncommon. Please use this information as a starting point in building or advancing your understanding of the nature of the various disabilities.
We have included methodologies for your consideration in working with students with disabilities in your classrooms. Many of the ideas are just plain good pedagogy, and would be beneficial to all your students in increasing access to course content.
Our lists are not exhaustive. We welcome contributions from our faculty of techniques that have worked favorably in your classrooms. | <urn:uuid:3659dcc3-edea-41b4-a728-79ddc6ebe52e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.glendale.cc.ca.us/index.aspx?page=1987 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00045-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967981 | 164 | 2.75 | 3 |
At the FDR Memorial: 'Diluted?' Or Deluded?
The comparisons between Barack Obama and Franklin D. Roosevelt began even before our 44th president had taken the oath. In late 2008, TIME magazine portrayed president-elect Obama as FDR on its cover. The wish was father to the thought. Mr. Obama encouraged such dreams from his political father. He did not look to Bill Clinton as a model. And certainly no one would take Jimmy Carter as a mentor. No one, that is, who wanted to have a successful presidency.
Barack Obama might have wanted to offer Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson as a role model. At least, Johnson’s signing of historic Civil Rights and Voting Rights legislation could be commended. But LBJ led us into the morass of Vietnam. After four bloody years in the jungles of Southeast Asia, Johnson could give no convincing reasons why the U.S. should prevail there.
“Hey! Hey, LBJ! How many kids have you killed today,” chanted anti-war protesters then. The parents of today’s Occupy Wall Streeters drove Johnson from office in defeat and disgrace. Scratch Johnson.
That leaves John F. Kennedy as the Democratic hero to whom Barack Obama might look for inspiration. Well, maybe not. JFK said “we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”
Oops! That’s not the kind of martial music Obama’s Peace Caucus-goers could march to. And JFK took us to the Moon. President Obama’s NASA chief thinks his Mission One is to make Muslims feel good about themselves. Also, Jack Kennedy cut taxes on the wealthiest Americans, arguing that “a rising tide lifts all boats.” That wouldn’t do for a socialist program of “spreading the wealth around.”
Pursuing far-left policies in office has left Obama’s partisans with no role model except FDR. Roosevelt, to be sure, was the longest-serving, most influential political figure the left has ever produced. But even here, and especially here, Mr. Obama comes up short. The Weekly Standard lampooned TIME’s worshipful treatment with a stunning caricature of the 44th president rather shrunken in the shadow of our 32nd.
We don’t need to approve of FDR’s New Deal. Many if not most aspects of that Big Government solution worsened the Great Depression. Harold Ickes, the left-wing Republican who served the Squire of Hyde Park as Interior Secretary shot back at Republican criticisms of his day: “Tax and Spend, Tax and Spend, Elect and Elect.”
Ickes was right about that much. In those heady days of liberalism, it seemed you could “prime the pump” with confiscatory taxes without the pump ever going dry.
Ronald Reagan never criticized FDR. In Reagan’s day, there were simply too many millions of voters who had voted for “that Man” four times. Reagan was one of them.
So, it’s not surprising that we get an unrecognizable FDR for today’s generation. Barack Obama’s representatives testified recently on Capitol Hill. The administration opposes the suggestion by World War II veterans to include Roosevelt’s D-Day Prayer in his memorial. “Don’t dilute the FDR Memorial,” they say. Dilute? They don’t want to water down the rest of his stirring rhetoric.
Watering down? Is this administration really so anti-prayer as that? President Roosevelt’s nationally broadcast prayer spoke of “faith in our united crusade” against the evils of Nazidom. FDR addressed the American people on June 6, 1944. My friend Bill Bennett plays the D-Day prayer on his radio program every June 6th. Good for him.
Those who think a Roosevelt prayer diluting don’t know FDR. When Roosevelt first met Prime Minister Winston Churchill, seventy years ago last summer for the first summit, the president’s son Elliott made a point of telling the British leader “my father is a very religious man.”
Churchill had already learned that. He had studied the American leader and had chosen those great hymns most likely to tug at Roosevelt’s heartstrings. More than 5,000 young British and American sailors joined heartily to sing the words of “O God Our Help in Ages Past,” “Onward Christian Soldiers,” and “Eternal Father Strong to Save.”
Here’s a compromise we can offer to avoid “diluting” the FDR Memorial:
Let’s take that statue of Roosevelt on his wheel chair and ship it off to the Bill Clinton Library. As president, Clinton made it his business to tell us all that Americans were lied to about FDR’s crippling condition of polio. Expert as he was in lying, Bill Clinton got that totally wrong.
Readers of TIME and every other journal of the 1940s read every year that the president was going to Warm Springs, Georgia, for treatment for his polio-stricken legs. The president publicly raised funds for the March of Dimes, a group then dedicated to polio research. And, Mr. Clinton, guess whose picture is on the dime?
It was President Roosevelt who requested that no pictures of him in his wheel chair be shown. That’s the real reason only two of more than 14,000 photographs of President Roosevelt show him in his chair. To claim otherwise, as Clinton does, is to delude Americans.
If we transfer the wheelchair statue that FDR would have hated, we can avoid diluting the FDR Memorial. We can stop deluding Americans. We will have plenty of room to display Roosevelt’s eloquent D-Day Prayer. Then, we can remind ourselves that we truly are One Nation Under God.
Bob Morrison is Senior Fellow for Policy Studies for the Family Research Center. | <urn:uuid:1ce5d1b6-2f33-4bfb-98b3-ab222cf7367d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cnsnews.com/blog/bob-morrison/fdr-memorial-diluted-or-deluded | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9628 | 1,274 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Clarke County, Georgia
Denominational Groups, 2000
|Evangelical Protestant||Mainline Protestant||Orthodox||Catholic||Other||Unclaimed|
Congregational "adherents" include all full members, their children, and others who regularly attend services. The historically African American denominations are not included in the 2000 congregation and membership totals. Many are also missing in 1990 and most historically African American denominations are missing in the 1980 reports.
The population of this county (or equivalent) in 1990 was 87,594; in 2000 it was 101,489. The total population changed 15.9%. The adherent totals for 1990 (37,756) represent 43.1% of the 1990 population. The adherent totals for 2000 (36,401) include 35.9% of the 2000 population. The totals represent the change in groups that reported in both 1990 and 2000 only. There is sufficient data for 20 groups to calculate 1990-2000 change. These 20 groups had 31,215 adherents in 1990 and 35,088 adherents in 2000, for a change of 12.4%
The 2000 data were collected by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies (ASARB) and includes statistics for 149 religious groups, including number of churches and adherents. Dale E. Jones, Sherri Doty, Clifford Grammich, James E. Horsch, Richard Houseal, Mac Lynn, John P. Marcum, Kenneth M. Sanchagrin and Richard H. Taylor supervised the collection. These data originally appeared in Religious Congregations & Membership in the United States, 2000, published by the Glenmary Research Center.
The 1990 data were collected by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies (ASARB) and include statistics for 132 religious groups, including number of churches and adherents. Martin B. Bradley, Norman M. Green, Jr., Dale E. Jones, Mac Lynn, and Lou McNeil supervised the collection. These data originally appeared in Churches and Church Membership in the United States, 1990, published by the Glenmary Research Center. | <urn:uuid:c19e7d2d-b8f5-444c-a2b2-2b3bf417cf47> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thearda.com/mapsReports/reports/counties/13059_compare_Theology.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936081 | 424 | 2.046875 | 2 |
2032: Year of the Sub-2:00 Marathon?
What would it take?
There's been a flurry of recent discussion about what it would take for a human to run 26.2 miles in less than two hours. Amby Burfoot summed up some of the talk in a recent blog entry — I particularly like his quick summary of some of the 38(!) different comments published on a recent Journal of Applied Physiology article on the prospects for a sub-2:00 marathon.
But just for kicks, let's take a look at a very straightforward predictive tool: regression analysis. Here's a graph produced by Holly Ortlund, Will Hudson, and noted exercise physiologist and statistician David Martin, for a recent article in Marathon and Beyond. It's reproduced, with further details, on Ortlund's blog, Energy Gel Central.
The premise is simple: take the fastest time run in each year (instead of world records, which tend to produce a much more discontinuous progression), and use a mathematical technique called nonlinear regression to fit a curve to the data. Now, past performance is never a perfect predictor of future performance — but it's interesting to see the number they come up with: 2032.
Will it happen? On the surface, it seems unlikely that we'll see a jump of 3:38 in 20 years (the current record is 2:03:38). On the other hand, 20 years ago it must have seemed unlikely that the record in 2012 would be 3:12 faster than the record at the time, 2:06:50!
P.S. A very good question posed by a reader on Ortlund's blog: what does a comparable prediction for women say? Since the women's event is so much younger than the men's (first Olympic appearance in 1984), the data set is much smaller, so they weren't able to get a reliable curve fit. However, they're looking at other options and hope to produce a similar analysis for women soon. | <urn:uuid:d5647ccb-8485-4798-866b-3065ea314800> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.runnersworld.com/running-tips/2032-year-sub-200-marathon | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958948 | 412 | 2.296875 | 2 |
News: News Archives
Lisa Randall: The Large Hadron Collider is Opening a “New Era in Physics”
She is among the world’s top theoretical physicists, influential among colleagues and well-known for popularizing the esoteric science of string theory, branes, and unseen dimensions. Now, though, Lisa Randall is focused on experiments underway beneath the floor of a European valley that may provide solid evidence to explain the fundamental nature of matter.
The Large Hadron Collider—LHC for short—is smashing protons at almost inconceivable speeds in its underground ring below the French-Swiss border. If the experiments work as expected, Randall says, they could advance human knowledge on a range of perplexing questions: Why do sub-atomic particles have mass? Why does gravity have such different strength than the other fundamental forces? And could there really be one or more dimensions that are unseen and undetected from our plane?
String theory still generates a lot of buzz, and the program for the AAAS Annual Meeting listed that as the subject of her talk. In fact, though, Randall was there to talk about nuts-and-bolts research. “What I really think is the most exciting thing on the horizon,” she said, “is the prospect of real experiments that might actually tell us what’s going on.”
As important as the immediate research questions, she suggested, is the broader scientific and social value of the LHC experiments. At a time of economic crisis, historic government budget deficits, and intense political conflict, the considerable cost remains justified, she said. Not only might the LHC work drive advances in computing, but research on these questions inspires some of the best young scientific minds of our time. And eventually, she said, it “could lead us to understand the universe better.”
During a 45-minute talk at the AAAS Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C., on Friday 18 February, Randall gave several hundred people in the packed hall a virtual tour of the collider, some of its main experiments, and the questions scientists are exploring there.
Much of Randall’s work has focused on theory and model-building, but also how they can be tested in experiments. While she’s not doing any of the LHC experiments, she’s consulted with colleagues who are. “I’m a theorist,” she explained. “[At the LHC,] I go around and say ‘gee whiz’ just like you would. What I do do is try to predict what they can find, how they should go about looking for it, and when they do find it, what it means.”
In the realm of theoretical physics, Randall is a rock star. She is the Frank B. Baird Jr. Professor of Science at Harvard University. She has published extensively in scholarly journals, and her work is frequently cited by other scholars. Her 2005 book, “Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe's Hidden Dimensions” was named one of the New York Times’ 100 notable books of that year. She has co-curated an art exhibit exploring the theme of scale and has written the libretto for “Hypermusic: A Projective Opera in Seven Planes.” She has appeared on Charlie Rose’s PBS show and on “The Colbert Report.”
The LHC is a particle accelerator that rests in a tunnel not far from Geneva, Switzerland. The tunnel is 27 kilometers (about 16 miles) in circumference and at some points more than 150 meters (about 500 feet) underground. The accelerator fires beams of protons which circle the ring 11,000 times per second, and when the protons collide, instruments are able to capture data that allow scientists to see what kind of particles and energies were shed by the collision—and to recreate what was there just before.
The collider fired for the first time in September 2008, but within days there was an explosion and it had to be shut down. Now it’s operating again, at half the intended total energy, but according to Randall the operations are so smooth that a routine, planned shutdown has been delayed so that researchers can continue their work.
She spoke in superlatives of the instrument: It is the biggest experimental machine ever built. It achieves the highest energy and intensity. It is the coldest place in an extended location on Earth—1.9 degrees above absolute zero, even colder than space. It has the biggest vacuum over a large region, and the biggest magnets.
All of which allows researchers to explore unresolved questions in the Standard Model—the prevailing theory for how fundamental particles interact. (Classic mechanics would predict that electrons would collapse into the nucleus of an atom, but they don’t. Quantum mechanics, by focusing on particles and energy at the atomic and sub-atomic realm, can consider why laws at that small scale are different.)
As Randall explained it, the power of the LHC and its instruments to examine the aftermath of a high-speed proton collision allows research at smaller scales and shorter distances than ever before.
“Why do we want to do that?” Randall asked. “Well, the history of science, very abbreviated, you can think of as studying things in more and more detail, with more and more resolution at smaller and smaller distances, basically getting precision on smaller scales.”
Historically, she added, “no one understood anything for real until they actually went inside. That includes the human body, it includes blood circulation, that includes DNA, that includes all of biology.”
To illustrate what the LHC might find, Randall offered a short course in particle physics, and in the character and known behavior of some particles and some questions still unanswered.
A simulated event in one of detectors at the Large Hadron Collider features the appearance of the Higgs boson.
View a larger version of this image.
[Image © CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research]
One particle of particular interest is the Higgs boson, a fundamental particle which remains hypothetical and unproven. Researchers have suggested that a Higgs field may be spread across space; perhaps it slows other particles as they move through it, and in that process gives them mass.
By extending the current run of the LHC through 2012, “we have a real hope of being able to say something very significant about the existence or non-existence of the Higgs boson,” Randall said. The Higgs boson, she added, “is the tip of the iceberg. It’s not everything we want to know, but it will be very interesting and important.”
Experiments at the LHC also may shed light on whether there are dimensions other than the three familiar to humans: up-down, left-right, forward-backward. Given human perceptions, that’s hard to imagine. But there is “no physical reason that we know that there have to be three dimensions of space,” Randall said. “There could be more. Of course, we as people experience three dimensions, but I think we all know that we are not all there is.”
She compared the human realm to a drop of water on a shower curtain: The drop only travels in the dimension established by the sheet of plastic. But that sheet can exist in a realm of higher dimensions. The particles we know of—and we ourselves—are lodged in a “brane” like the shower curtain. There may be other dimensions, but we don’t yet have awareness of them or means to detect them. Perhaps gravity is profoundly suppressed where we are, but stronger in another dimension.
To test for other dimensions, researchers at the LHC will be looking for another hypothetical particle: the Kaluza-Klein particle. If it exists, they will see what it decays into, just as physicists have discovered other heavy unstable particles here in three-dimensional space. But if the hypothesis is correct, the Kaluza-Klein particle it would have a “momentum associated with travel in an extra dimension.”
While there’s a strong following for such science in the public, to many people these issues reach the highest state of abstraction. And that creates political gravities for the researchers.
In an informal meeting with reporters after the lecture, Randall was asked: What would be more interesting, finding the Higgs boson or not finding it? That depends, she replied, on whether you’re talking physics or politics.
“The best argument to build a higher-energy machine is that we don’t find anything with this machine,” Randall said. “We know that something should be there, and we might just not have enough energy (in the LHC or other instruments). But it would be hard to make that argument to Congress—‘we didn’t find anything, so let’s build something else.’”
From a scientific point of view, though, Randall seems to be banking on dramatic new insights.
“Every time we’ve explored qualitatively different scales, we’ve found something qualitatively different,” Randall said in her lecture. “We have good reason to think that the scale the Large Hadron Collider is probing is very interesting... I think it’s safe to say that we are now entering a new era in physics.”
22 March 2011 | <urn:uuid:1348ac39-3534-47f4-b515-13fd9894a1fd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2011/0322randall_lhc.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95172 | 1,982 | 2.5 | 2 |
Released: May 3, 2011
Public "Relieved" By bin Laden's Death, Obama's Job Approval Rises
The public is reacting to the killing of Osama bin Laden with relief, happiness and pride. And Americans overwhelmingly credit the U.S. military and the CIA for the success of the operation.
An overnight survey of 654 adults, conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press and The Washington Post finds that 72% say they feel “relieved” by Osama bin Laden’s death, while 60% feel “proud” and 58% say they are “happy.” Far fewer, just 16%, say the news of bin Laden’s death make them feel “afraid.”
Barack Obama’s job approval rating has jumped in the wake of bin Laden’s killing. In the one-day survey, 56% say they approve of the way Obama is handling his job as president while 38% disapprove. Last month, Obama’s job rating was about evenly divided – 47% approved, 45% disapproved. Obama has gotten about the same boost in job approval as did former President Bush in the days after the U.S. military’s capture of Saddam Hussein in December 2003. Following Saddam’s capture, Bush’s rating rose from 50% to 57%. (A more comprehensive survey will be conducted May 5-8 to follow up on these preliminary reactions to the death of bin Laden and Obama’s job performance.)
However, while Obama’s ratings for dealing with the situation in Afghanistan and the threat of terrorism have improved dramatically – by 16 points and 14 points, respectively, since January – opinions about his handling of the economy have not. Just 40% approve and 55% disapprove of his job performance on the economy, which is little changed from April.
Obama gets far more credit from the public than does George W. Bush for bin Laden’s killing. But the military and the CIA and other intelligence agencies receive much more credit – fully 86% say the U.S. military deserves a “great deal” of credit and 66% say the same about the CIA and other intelligence agencies.
Roughly a third (35%) say that Obama deserves a great deal of credit for bin Laden’s demise, and a large majority (76%) say he deserves a great deal or “some” credit. By comparison, 51% say that Bush deserves either a great deal (15%) or some credit (36%) for the death of bin Laden.
Obama Approval Up Among Independents, Younger Americans
Since early April, Obama’s job approval rating has risen by 10 points among independents (42% then, 52% now) but is unchanged among Republicans at 16%. Approval among Democrats is relatively steady (85% now, 80% last month).
Obama’s job rating has improved more among groups that have been a part of his political base, in particular young people and non-whites. His rating among adults 18 to 39 has climbed 16 points, from 52% to 68%. The change among adults 40 and older has been more modest. Obama also has gained ground among non-whites (up 13 points from 67% to 80%).
While the killing of Osama bin Laden influenced judgments about Obama’s handling of Afghanistan and terrorism, views of his handling of the economy have not changed. Since last month, Obama’s rating on Afghanistan has risen 17 points among Republicans, 16 points among Democrats and 14 points among independents.
The president also made gains in approval of his handling of terrorism among Republicans (from 37% approval in January to 50% now) and independents (from 51% to 68%). On the economy, a majority of Americans (55%) continues to disapprove, with only 40% approving.
Military and Intelligence Agencies Get Most of the Credit
The public has high praise for the U.S. military’s role in the killing of bin Laden, with 86% saying they deserve a great deal of the credit. Two-thirds (66%) also give a great deal of credit to the CIA and other intelligence agencies who tracked the al Qaeda leader and located his hideout. Both the military and the intelligence agencies receive high marks across the political spectrum. Nearly all Republicans (96%), as well as 82% of Democrats and 88% of independents give the military a great deal of credit. Similarly, 75% of Republicans, 64% of Democrats and 68% of independents give the intelligence agencies a great deal of credit.
Roughly a third (35%) say Obama deserves a great deal of credit and another 41% saying he deserves “some” credit. Just 21% say he deserves “not much” credit or none at all. About half of Democrats (52%) give Obama a great deal of credit, but only 17% of Republicans do so; 36% of independents give the president a great deal of credit.
George W. Bush is given a great deal of credit for the killing of bin Laden by 15% of the public, and an additional 36% given him some credit. Nearly a third of Republicans (31%), 16% of independents and just 4% of Democrats give Bush a great deal of credit.
Where Did You First Hear…
News of bin Laden’s killing by U.S. forces first broke on Sunday evening. Most Americans – 58% overall –say they first heard the news from television, but a substantial proportion of young people first learned of this extraordinary news through social networking.
Nearly half (47%) of those under age 35 say they first learned of bin Laden’s death from television; about one-in-five (21%) say they heard the news from the internet – with 14% saying they heard through social networking. Among young people, social networking rivaled network news (19%) and cable news (17%) as the initial source for news about bin Laden’s death.
Among older age groups, far more people heard about bin Laden’s death from television; 59% of those 35 to 64 heard the news this way compared with 9% who heard from the internet. Among those 65 and older, 74% first heard from television and just 3% from any online news source. | <urn:uuid:65bc8395-4e0a-4e52-8ccb-d08c65d79f70> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.people-press.org/2011/05/03/public-relieved-by-bin-ladens-death-obamas-job-approval-rises/1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960529 | 1,308 | 1.789063 | 2 |
SOURCE: Chinese Cubes
New Technology Changes the Field of Chinese Learning
New York, NY (PRWEB) December 06, 2012
The independent and internationally recognized iF design awards, conferred annually by the iF International Forum Design, are announced at the end of each year. Since its introduction in 1953, each year the iF design awards reviews over thousands of entries from around the world and has become a sort of an Oscar award for excellent design. At the end of November, iF announced the winners of 2013 for its three award categories: product design, communication design, and packaging design. Amongst these, the iF Communication Design Award for online and offline applications was conferred to ChineseCUBES.
On the afternoon of December 6th, 2012, the Founder and Chairman of ChineseCUBES, Rex How, held a press conference at New York’s Sofitel Hotel to explain the background, journey, and future plans of ChineseCUBES. ChineseCUBES has offices in Taipei, Beijing, and New York.
WINNING THE iF AWARD
Since April of this year, Rex How has spent most of his time in New York in order to oversee the long awaited US launch of ChineseCUBES.
“In mid-November, we were in Philadelphia launching our product at the ACTFL Annual Convention and World Languages Expo, and received great feedback and response from teachers,” says Mr. How. “After the expo, we had just gotten back to New York when we received the iF award news, giving us even more encouragement.”
ChineseCUBES winning the iF design award comes to no surprise for those who have already seen the product. Former Coordinator of Chinese Language Program at Columbia University, Chih-ping Sobelman says, “Not only is it a tool that has never been seen before, but it truly applies the teaching philosophy of ‘student-centered’ education.” Former Deputy Director of the National Foreign Language Center at University of Maryland, Shuhan Wang adds, “ChineseCUBES acts as a bridge for beginners to cross the chasm of intimidation when learning Chinese, especially in reading and writing Chinese characters.”
ChineseCUBES utilizes physical Character Cubes and interactive Augmented Reality software technology to create a novel and playful language learning tool that can eliminate many people’s fear and intimidation of learning Mandarin. “I believe that learning should be fun, a process that encourages using one’s own creativity and imagination, especially when learning Mandarin Chinese. Thus, ChineseCUBES was designed to be a learning tool that allows aspiring speakers to play to learn, practice, and produce Chinese,” says Mr. How.
NEW CONCEPT. NEW APPROACH. NEW TECHNOLOGY.
Mr. How designed ChineseCUBES with a new concept, new approach and new technology. He strongly believes in the logic of Chinese block characters and in the power of technology. “Often when learning Chinese, westerners are fearful of Chinese characters thinking that the characters are just too many and too difficult to learn. And so, many westerners will skip learning the characters all together and just learn how to speak Chinese. They can speak Chinese fluently, but very poor in reading, not to mention writing,” explains Mr. How. “Ironically, westerners or non-native speakers skip learning Chinese characters to save some time but end up with the opposite result.”
ChineseCUBES has two unique qualities:
1. ChineseCUBES uses individual tactile cubes to teach 200 of the most commonly used Chinese characters character-by-character. Each tactile cube represents one Chinese character and has on it a unique AR marker that makes the cube come to life on screen when placed in front of the webcam with audio and visual content instruction to teach learners how to say, write and use these Chinese characters.
2. From playing and arranging the characters, learners discover how easy it is to combine and build the characters into meaningful phrases and sentences. “Every time westerners hear that you can make more than 30,000 meaningful phrases and sentences with only 200 Chinese characters, they are always amazed,” exclaims Mr. How.
“To learn Chinese using such a character-based method proves to be difficult and limiting when using traditional textbook or audio CD-ROM instruction. And so I wanted to use the newest technologies to create a never-before-seen, fun and easy new way of learning Chinese that could break free from the limitations of past learning materials,” says Mr. How, who is himself an avid user of digital media and technology.
A GLOBAL EFFORT
Half past three o’clock in the morning on May 14th, 2009, was an important moment. At the time, Mr. How was staying in the Chaoyang District of Beijing. That night, he could not sleep as he was struggling in his mind to find the perfect solution to this challenge. Sitting next to the living room window, he looked outside into the dark city. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, an idea popped into his mind and gradually became more and more clear.
Naturally, Mr. How grabbed the nearest pen and paper and quickly sketched out this idea. He had sketched down the shape, name and basic functions of what was to become ChineseCUBES. The next day, Rex How hurried back to Taipei to find two of his good friends Akibo and Hsin-Chien Huang to design a prototype that integrated interactive and digital technologies. Later, technology partners from the US and Germany helped develop the full design and function of ChineseCUBES.
“Even the content and curriculum of ChineseCUBES was developed by experts from both sides of the Taiwan Strait,” says Mr. How. “From the choice of characters to the spiral pedagogy, all of the ChineseCUBES curriculum content was developed with the expertise and consultation of Professor Liu from the Beijing Language and Culture University and Professor Ya-hsun Tsai of Taiwan’s National Taiwan Normal University. In addition, the Inspector General in the field of Chinese teaching of France’s Ministry of Education, Professor Joël Bellassen, also serves as an editorial advisor for ChineseCUBES.”
VISION FOR THE FUTURE
ChineseCUBES has had an eventful three years full of many ups and downs, from its establishment in 2009 to finally launching on the market in the US in 2012. But now that ChineseCUBES has received the recognition of the internationally acclaimed iF Award, Mr. How has many thoughts.
“Many people have asked me, why don’t you stay in Asia and just manage your publishing company, rather than starting a new, grueling business venture at your age,” Mr. How says, then answering, “Actually, I have two reasons. First, of course, is that I know that in order for my company to find a place in this new digital age, I would have to explore a new path. Second, I approached this as a personal experiment, to see whether or not a Taiwanese venture could leverage China’s growing influence to create a viable business venture on a global scale. Both China and Taiwan have talked for a long time about venturing out together, but have needed a real-world precedent to follow. I wanted to create that precedent.”
For ChineseCUBES to be honored with the iF Award so soon after transitioning from its research and development stage to its launch on the market is a great encouragement. “I’m sure that the road ahead will be full of challenges and obstacles, but to be able commemorate our launch with such an honor makes me very happy indeed,” says Mr. How.
Mr. How sees two main avenues for ChineseCUBES’s future growth and development. First is to thoroughly leverage ChineseCUBES’s interactive design to become a new learning tool to complement traditional textbook curricula.
“Because our 200 characters’ curriculum provides a fundamental understanding and basic foundation of the Chinese language, ChineseCUBES can be paired together with textbook programs and teaching methods to become a versatile learning tool.” Many teachers have agreed that using ChineseCUBES as a learning tool can help students stay motivated about learning Chinese, and also produce better results.
Second, ChineseCUBES is also an effective tool for the self-learner at home. Learners can easily switch between using the Freestyle and Learning modes. For young self-learners and their parents, ChineseCUBES can become a fun learning activity for the whole family to enjoy at home.
“My hope is that through using ChineseCUBES, non-native and aspiring speakers will want to learn Chinese not only because Chinese is an increasingly important language to know, but also more importantly, because they recognize that there is actually a simple logic to Chinese characters, and that learning Chinese effectively should not rely on rote memorization but rather on using one’s own imagination and creativity. Ideally, learning should always be this way.”
Going forward, ChineseCUBES will be cooperating with many partners and educators. Also, ChineseCUBES will be working with China International Publishing Group, in Beijing, as a strategic partner.
The December 6th ChineseCUBES press conference had a warm reception. Attendees included representatives from Taiwan, China and New York.
For the original version on PRWeb visit: http://www.prweb.com/releases/prweb2012/12/prweb10189611.htm | <urn:uuid:2d41fe9e-185f-48c6-a7e2-240812468b3b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ksla.com/story/20281788/chinesecubes-wins-if-communication-design-award-2013 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957309 | 2,002 | 1.851563 | 2 |
On the Democrats For Education Reform website last week they announced a letter by “a coalition of over 30 education reform organizations” (including Teach For America) in which they asked Duncan to hold teacher preparation programs ‘accountable’ — meaning that their funding and even existence should be based on the value-added scores of the teachers who graduated from these programs.
These 30+ organizations read like a who’s who of places who think that value-added is so accurate that basing teacher evaluations, school evaluations, and now teacher prep program evaluations on it will surely close that achievement gap up in no time. (I think my favorite name is ‘Step Up For Students’) From my research, I’ve concluded that principal evaluations by a knowledgeable principal correlate more with ‘student learning’ than value-added does. Perhaps in 100 years value-added will reach a better level of accuracy. (For those of you who are new to this, value-added is when a computer predicts what a class of students should get on the year-end state test if they had an ‘average’ teacher. It is based, mostly, on the scores those students got on last year’s tests. It is highly volatile with teachers getting rated great one year and horrible the next despite no change in their teaching. The reason for the error rate is that it relies on 1) last year’s test results being meaningful, 2) the computer’s calculation of what the student’s ‘should’ get needs to be accurate, and 3) this year’s test results need to be meaningful. If any of those three things is off, the entire calculation if off. A lot more could be said, but that’s a brief primer for you.)
Here is the complete text of the letter they sent to Duncan (emphasis mine) :
Dear Secretary Duncan:
We, the undersigned, are writing to convey our strong support for the Obama Administration’s teacher education reform strategy as described in “Our Future, Our Teachers” and urge you to advance your policy through Executive action as quickly as possible.
Each year, some 200,000 schools of education graduates and alternative route participants are newly placed in American classrooms. Too often, they themselves and their employers discover that they are ill‐prepared to teach and as a consequence the children in their classes do not have the opportunity to learn to their utmost potential. Students from historically disadvantaged groups, who year after year are taught by the least effective teachers, are by far the most frequent victims -‐ often with life-‐ changing consequences -‐ of the deficiencies in our teacher preparation and placement system.
We understand that the U.S. Department of Education, with broad input from the field through a formal negotiated rulemaking process, is developing or has developed regulations that would require states to: 1) meaningfully assess teacher preparation program performance; and, 2) hold programs accountable for results. Even though this group of non-‐federal stakeholders failed to reach consensus, we are pleased to see they came together behind the idea of tying teacher preparation program quality directly to the student outcomes of their graduates (including outcomes for students with disabilities and English Language Learners). We urge you to exercise your rightful authority in this matter and publicly release your draft regulations so that all interested parties may offer formal and detailed comments and the process can proceed with all due haste to final rulemaking.
Administrative action is both sorely needed and long overdue. Title II of the Higher Education Act requires states to conduct an assessment of teacher preparation programs and identify and improve the lowest-‐performers. At present, such policies are the exception rather than the rule. In the most recent year, states identified low-‐ performing programs in only 37 of more than 1,400 institutions of higher education that prepare and train teachers. Furthermore, since these requirements were put in place more than a decade ago, 27 states have never identified a single low-‐performing program. Each year, teacher preparation programs receive approximately $6 billion in support from the federal government. They have both a moral and legal responsibility to carry out the Title II requirements in a way that has a positive and dramatic impact on student learning.
Right now, we don’t have good information for most teacher preparation programs on their graduates’ impact on student learning and their performance in the classroom. A few states, such Louisiana and Tennessee, have started to look at this data and see clear differences both between and within programs. In Tennessee, the most effective programs produced graduates who were 2-‐3 times more likely to be in the top quintile of teachers in the state, while the least effective programs produced graduates who were 2-‐3 times more likely to be in the bottom quintile.
In terms of student learning, research also shows that students with the most effective teachers on average advance a grade and a half on academic assessments in a single academic year while students of similar backgrounds with the least effective teachers acquire about only half a grade level of learning in the same academic year. A recent study by TNTP showed that teachers who affected higher outcomes for students also exhibited other positive qualities, according to surveys of the students in their classrooms. Students taught by such teachers were more likely to report that those same teachers cared more about them, made learning more enjoyable, and encouraged them to make greater effort in their studies.
The ultimate goal of formal and final regulations should be to ensure that the HEA Title II requirements around reporting and accountability have the effect that they were intended to – providing meaningful data on program quality and ensuring that low-‐ performing programs are identified and improved. This may require the investment of some additional, targeted resources, particularly to minority serving institutions to ensure that the quality and diversity of the teaching force go hand in hand.
We hope the Administration also pursues work with Congress to reauthorize the Higher Education Act. But for now, deliberate and swift administrative action on Title II regulations is the best next step to advance these aims.
Thank you for your consideration.
I’ll go through some of the issues I have with this letter:
“Too often, they themselves and their employers discover that they are ill‐prepared to teach and as a consequence the children in their classes do not have the opportunity to learn to their utmost potential. Students from historically disadvantaged groups, who year after year are taught by the least effective teachers, are by far the most frequent victims -‐ often with life-‐ changing consequences -‐ of the deficiencies in our teacher preparation and placement system.”
Isn’t this the problem with Teach For America? Many of the new CMs struggle and feel very unprepared after five weeks of training. Now of course they are going on to show that by some metric TFA is failing in a smaller way than some of the other teacher preparation programs so they are worthy of being spared from the sanctions, but I’ll show the problems with those metrics later.
“We understand that the U.S. Department of Education, with broad input from the field through a formal negotiated rulemaking process, is developing or has developed regulations that would require states to: 1) meaningfully assess teacher preparation program performance; and, 2) hold programs accountable for results.”
Since ‘meaningfully’ is defined as ‘by value-added’ in all their studies, I don’t think that ‘meaningful’ is the appropriate adjective.
“In Tennessee, the most effective programs produced graduates who were 2-‐3 times more likely to be in the top quintile of teachers in the state, while the least effective programs produced graduates who were 2-‐3 times more likely to be in the bottom quintile.”
Again, the Tennessee study which, of course, put TFA at the top of the performers, is just based on value-added. In that same study, TFA is a very poor performer by another metric — retention rate. I think that any evaluation of a teacher preparation program should have retention as part of it so TFA should be very careful about what it is asking for. Of course the people making the evaluations will rig them so that retention is not a part of it, just to protect TFA, but maybe in the far future someone else with more of a research background will be making those decisions.
But even with value-added being the main criteria, I’ve discovered a giant paradox in this letter. The theory of value-added is that it somehow equalizes for student starting points. So teachers that have ‘better’ students are not rewarded just because their students do well on the state test. They have to do better than the computer prediction. So if the coalition is so enamored with value-added then they need to work out the value-added for each program. But isn’t that just the value-added of the students of the teachers trained through the program? No. (This might get a bit confusing and ‘meta’ but try to hang with me on this one.) What they would need to develop is a program that predicts what the value-added should be for the students of a group of teachers, depending on the ‘starting point’ of those teachers. So since TFA teachers are the ‘best and brightest,’ the program would predict that they would get good value-added from their students. So just because their students get those good scores, that does not mean that the training program has done a good job, just that they got ‘better’ raw material. So by this type of calculation the ‘value-added of the value-added’ might not be so good for TFA.
“In terms of student learning, research also shows that students with the most effective teachers on average advance a grade and a half on academic assessments in a single academic year while students of similar backgrounds with the least effective teachers acquire about only half a grade level of learning in the same academic year.”
I’ve analyzed the ‘study’ on which this claim was ‘proved’ and wrote about it extensively here. That they would throw this bogus stat into this letter is really low. This study was based on 1,920 students in Indiana and was a study about how children that have a lot of siblings have lower achievement than children who don’t have a lot of siblings. The comparison of effective teachers claim was a small afterthought and it was admitted that the sample wasn’t big enough or varied enough to decisively conclude anything. And while it is possible that some teachers only get 1/2 year and others get 1 and 1/2 years of learning, there is no mention about what percent of these superstars there are and what percent of these dullards there are, so it is not something that any policy can be based on.
So for TFA to be demanding teacher training programs to be improved really takes a lot of ‘Chutzpah.’ They only offer their trainees ten to fifteen days of student teaching an hour a day with classes of ten students or less. Their training is really an embarrassment.
I should mention here that I have not been impressed with some of the training I’ve seen at other training programs, even ones that are a full year or more. There are others, though, that I think are very good. Certainly the most important thing is the opportunity to student teach. If I could have just started over after six weeks of my first year of teaching, I could have jumped right to the kind of success I experienced in my second year. So if I could have gotten a good student teaching experience with many different groups of students I’m sure that I could have had one of those mythical ‘good’ first years. Until TFA fixes this deficiency in their training, they would be wise to just fly “under the radar” but they seem to think they have, and will always have, some sort of diplomatic immunity. When the pendulum swings back the other way, TFA might find themselves on the short end of this kind of policy. | <urn:uuid:6d3f2831-6455-4736-8198-257332628197> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://garyrubinstein.teachforus.org/2012/09/04/tfa-implores-obama-administration-to-hold-teacher-preparation-programs-accountable/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975098 | 2,511 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Modern technology is supposed to make life easier, and sometimes, things go as planned. However, access to modern tech tends to come with a premium price. Whether you’re a Luddite or simply someone who is into saving money, using antiquated tools that require some manual labor and thought is a cheaper – and in some cases, more reliable – solution. Here are a few for you to try at home.
A push lawnmower
Reusing old tools doesn’t mean doing a lackluster job. Sometimes, the good old ones are more than good enough. Take the push lawnmower as an example. Sure, you may be in danger of losing your toes or fingers, but if you don’t stick your exposed digits down there, you’ll save money on gas and motor oil. That means you’re saving money, the environment and getting a good workout. And to sharpen the blades, the main ingredient – along with a sharpening stone – is elbow grease.
Go to an antique store and buy a washboard if you have time on your hands and the desire to save money. By using a washboard to wash your clothes, you’re saving money on water and electricity. Wash clothing, remove stains and build up strength in your hands, arms and shoulders. When you’re done, work that rhythm and join a jug band. Your neighbor can bring the empty moonshine bottles.
Electric mixers can be expensive to purchase, they eat up electricity and they break down frequently, unless you buy the good stuff. With a manual eggbeater, you’ll save cash and build up your wrists and arms. It’s better than using a spoon for mixing, and you can find one in a second-hand store.
A paper map book
For centuries before the Internet, explorers used paper maps for navigation. Be a Magellan in your own life and go back to using paper maps. True, it may not be good for trees, but it’ll make you a more well-rounded person who is connected to the spirit of history. Plus, you won’t need a computer for the task, which can save you a grand.
A meat grinder
Take a cheap cut of beef and grind it up manually with one of these. Make burgers or anything else that ground beef can achieve and save on the labor cost of making ground beef, as well as any electronic improvement upon the manual design. Having one makes it look like you’re a gourmet cook, too.
How did people write neat correspondence before computers? With typewriters! You don’t even need to go electric with this. With fresh ribbons, a few squirts of oil and occasional tender loving care, a manual typewriter can do the job and remind you of the days when they used carbons in the steno pool. Don’t forget the Wite-Out.
Ultra-fancy home cleaning gadgets like a robot Roomba vacuum cleaner are fun, but a broom and dustpan can do the job. Plus, you’ll save on the cord mess, which can trip you, your family and the car key gnomes.
An abacus and slide rule
Some people have heard of these antiquated math and science tools, but fewer know how to use them. Expand your mind with research and get cracking. When Gort comes to Earth and disables all electricity (substitute a EMP bomb for similar effect), you’ll still be able to calculate high figures and do logarithms. This is particularly useful if your version of Gort is vulnerable to logarithms.
A manual can opener
Once the electricity is gone, the refrigerator goes out the window. All you have left is canned food, but you’re teeth aren’t as powerful as Richard Kiel’s from the James Bond movie “Moonraker.” You need a manual can opener to stay alive, because a pickaxe is only going to spill stuff for the ants that will no doubt consume you once you drop due to lack of food. | <urn:uuid:aab85526-ebe5-4c9e-a0d3-7f2f9072559b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://personalmoneynetwork.com/moneyblog/2012/06/18/saving-money-antiquated-tools/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00062-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932986 | 858 | 2.5625 | 3 |