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Benefits of Guarana
Guarana is a climbing plant in the maple family, sapindaceae, native to the Amazon basin and especially common in Brazil. Guarana features large leaves and clusters of flowers, and is best known for its fruit, which is about the size of a coffee bean.
As a dietary supplement, Guarana is an effective energy booster. Guarana seeds are rich in caffeine and contain up to 4-8% caffeine, more than coffee beans, which contain approximately 1-2.5% caffeine. The seeds are also rich in tannins and xanthine alkaloids theophylline and theobromine.
The Guarana fruits color ranges from brown to red and contains black seeds which are partly covered by white arils. Guarana can be found in powder or pill form. It is an ingredient in energy drinks, sodas, and other beverages.
As a stimulant, Guarana acts on the central nervous system to prevent fatigue and break down lactic acid from muscle stress. Guarana also discourages blood clots, stimulates the urinary system, and promotes production of digestive juices.
Guarana was used to treat diarrhea, decrease fatigue, reduce hunger, and to help arthritis. Guarana has been thought as a high energy source that increases mental alertness, slows the pulse, decreases the appetite, fights fatigue, an excellent mood elevator. Guarana has also been used as a nerving tonic for hangovers, neuralgia and menstrual headaches, leucorrhea, diarrhea, and fevers.
Guarana is excellent in helping with some many things it is called as “the magical fruit”. Guarana has been said to have magical properties as to cure the problems and diseases. Here are the top benefits of Guarana.
- Increases energy
- Speeds up metabolism
- Offers mental alertness
- Burns fat cells
- Helps with headaches
- Contains antioxidants
- Acts as a cleanser
- Decreases appetite
Guarana is really a powerful fruit that can do wonders for you and now it is actually available in a pill form as a weight loss supplement called Guarana Blast.
100 gm of Guarana contains:
Protein: 50 g
Carbohydrate: 1 g
Potassium: 146 mg
Calcium: 18 mg
Vitamin A: 133 mg
Vitamin C: 90 mg
Guarana comes in many forms like Guarana smoothie, Guarana tea, Guarana tablets, Guarana seeds all have different nutritive value but high in caffeine and helps in making people alert.
Health tips for Guarana
As with any caffeinated product, Guarana extracts can lead to insomnia, nervousness, anxiety, headaches, and high blood pressure and heart palpitations. Guarana is not recommended for women who are pregnant or lactating, because caffeine may cause miscarriage or may slow the growth of a developing fetus when given in doses greater than 300 mg a day. Guarana contains substances called tannins, which can block the absorption of iron supplements and dietary iron.
Guarana is one of the most promising and popular supplements for appetite suppression and weight loss, which is why it is, contained in some of the best weight loss supplements and energy tonics that are being sold today. It has been used for thousands of years by South Americans, and now it is available everywhere- in caplet, powder, and liquid forms, so there’s a Guarana supplement for everyone. At your next doctor’s visit, ask them if supplementing with Guarana is right for you! | <urn:uuid:61f43513-16b8-4f41-891a-a4b6d2eab0fc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fitho.in/guide/fruits/guarana/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927352 | 769 | 2.28125 | 2 |
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Knowing What Students Know: The Science and Design of Eduacational Assessment
For classroom or large-scale assessment to be effective, students must understand and share the goals for learning. Students learn more when they understand (and even participate in developing) the criteria by which their work will be evaluated, and when they engage in peer and self-assessment during which they apply those criteria. These practices develop students’ metacognitive abilities, which, as emphasized above, are necessary for effective learning.
The current educational assessment environment in the United States assigns much greater value and credibility to external, large-scale assessments of individuals and programs than to classroom assessment designed to assist learning. The investment of money, instructional time, research, and development for large-scale testing far outweighs that for effective classroom assessment. More of the research, development, and training investment must be shifted toward the classroom, where teaching and learning occur.
A vision for the future is that assessments at all levels—from classroom to state—will work together in a system that is comprehensive, coherent, and continuous. In such a system, assessments would provide a variety of evidence to support educational decision making. Assessment at all levels would be linked back to the same underlying model of student learning and would provide indications of student growth over time. | <urn:uuid:67e078bb-cd0a-4e08-a37a-d84aa0fba02d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10019&page=259 | 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 | 0.956447 | 302 | 3.828125 | 4 |
More than 1 million children throughout the world have been impacted by Wyland’s nonprofit foundation.
If it is true that a picture is worth a thousand words, then the massive marine-themed murals created by renowned artist and committed conservationist Wyland speak volumes. For more than 25 years, Wyland has traveled and explored the world’s oceans, capturing the beauty of its creatures, especially the majestic whale. As his passion for preserving the natural habitat of these animals grew, so did his desire to educate others about the importance of caring for the planet.
As a way to spread his message, Wyland set a goal of painting 100 monumental Whaling Wall murals in more than a dozen countries. Many of the murals are in urban settings, sometimes far from the ocean. This was purposely done to expose those people who may never have a chance to experience the wonder and beauty of whales and other marine life, in the hopes they will become aware of the importance of conservation. His endeavor, which began in the 1980s, was accomplished on July 21, 2008, when his 100th mural, Hands Across the Ocean, was completed at Chaoyang Park, Beijing, near the Great Wall of China. Student artists representing 110 countries worked on the project, which was dedicated by famed Chinese artist Professor Xikun Yuan. The 2,430-foot-long and 10-foot-high mural was later dismantled and transported to the U.S., where it was reassembled and displayed at the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The project was honored by the U.S. National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution, White House Council on Environmental Quality, and U.S. Department of the Interior.
Wyland has earned international recognition through his whale murals, which can be found in the U.S., Canada, Japan, Australia, France, Mexico, Palau, Guam, American Samoa, New Zealand, Brazil, U.K. and China. He was recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records for the world’s largest mural, Planet Ocean, which is 105 feet high by 1,220 feet long and is painted on the Long Beach Convention & Entertainment Center in California.Though many may know of Wyland from his whale murals, there is much more to this prolific artist, conservationist, sculptor, photographer and avid scuba diver. His passion to educate others has led to the formation of the Wyland Foundation. The foundation’s mission is to actively engage in teaching students around the world to become caring, informed stewards of the Earth’s oceans, rivers, lakes, estuaries and wetlands. More than 1 million children throughout the world have been impacted by the nonprofit’s efforts since 1993.Children are not the only ones Wyland wants to reach with his environmental crusade.He created Wyland Worldwide as a means to touch people through high-quality, green-themed, sustainable art and retail products that emphasize the beauty and awe of nature. Wyland Worldwide has galleries throughout the world that feature artists with the same passion for guarding the world’s natural resources.
Wyland Galleries of Florida opened its flagship location at Disney’s BoardWalk Inn in 1996. The beautiful gallery exudes the vibrant colors of the sea, showcasing magnificent marine life in a variety of mediums, including paintings, sculptures, jewelry and a number of eclectic pieces. Wyland originals, as well as reproductions of his most celebrated works, are available for viewing and purchase.Wall artwork is displayed with illumination designed to enhance the painting’s nuances and overall effect. Sculptures of various sizes and materials are strategically placed to allow patrons to appreciate their full beauty. Glass display cases are filled with jewelry, both inspired by Wyland, as well as other fine-jewelry lines.
Though Wyland’s art is the centerpiece, other renowned artists are represented in the galleries. A number of paintings are whimsical, incorporating Disney characters into the marine-themed art. Wyland also collaborates with some of the featured artists to produce original pieces.Following the success and acclaim that the Disney Boardwalk location garnered, another Wyland gallery opened in Disney’s Polynesian Resort. As with its sister location, the gallery offers an eclectic assortment that appeals to both collectors and those who appreciate fine art.
Owning a Wyland piece is within anyone’s reach with the gallery’s convenient financing options. A Wyland Galleries Florida representative will place the piece in the home of local buyers in an effort to maximize its impact.Octavio Gomez, president of Wyland Galleries Florida, has been a longtime friend of Wyland and frequently welcomes him to his Florida locations. While there, Wyland amazes gallery guests with his extraordinary talent as he paints and completes an entire original work of art within a four-hour period. At the end of the demonstration, the painting is auctioned. Wyland graciously answers questions and interacts with collectors, admirers and curious onlookers throughout the event.“Not only do we have many visitors from around the world visit our galleries while they are here on vacation, there are also a lot of local residents who either know of Wyland and want to view his latest works, or meet visiting relatives at Disney. We offer a cultural twist where people can enjoy a scenic, pleasing and relaxing environment,” Gomez said, referring to the nature-themed gallery.
Once again, Wyland will travel to Orlando on May 5 and May 6 for one of his rare appearances. He will be at the Wyland Gallery location at Disney’s BoardWalk Inn on May 5 from 6-10 p.m. and the Wyland Gallery location at Disney’s Polynesian Resort on May 6 from 1-5 p.m. Reservations are not required for this free event; however, priority to interact with Wyland will be on a first-come, first-serve basis.“What is different about this gallery than others is that it is a very proactive gallery in terms of having visitations from artists from all over the world,” Gomez said. According to Gomez, what is so special about the Wyland visit is that when he creates the piece from start to finish he explains what he is doing as he sketches, puts the subject matter in and paints. He will also complete between eight to 10 brush-stroke paintings that will be for sale during the evening. It is not often that people have an up-close and personal interaction with an artist of Wyland’s renown and talent. The experience is further enhanced by witnessing him create an original work of art before their very eyes. The Wyland demonstrations taking place May 5 and May 6 at Wyland Galleries Florida are certainly ones art lovers should not miss.For more information about Wyland Galleries, visit www.wylandflorida.com on the Web.
Kearney Publishing Corp.7901 Kingspointe Parkway, Suite 28Orlando, FL 32819407.351.1573 | Fax number: 407.363.3954
Kearney Publishing Corp. | <urn:uuid:51a25d6c-5886-4039-9b18-4a76c6ab5778> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.southwestorlandobulletin.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=667&Itemid=966 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00051-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963425 | 1,464 | 2.5 | 2 |
The Grass Dance is a very popular style of dance today. The name “Grass Dance” comes from the custom of some tribes wearing braided grass in their belts. Originally done as a warrior society dance, it has evolved over the years. It has further evolved into the most highly competitive form of Northern dancing to be found today. Today, Grass Dancers resemble a multicolored swaying mass of yarn or fringe on the dance floor. The Grass Dance is a very fluid and bendable style, with the dancers trying to move their fringe in as many places as possible at once. The Grass Dance style was born in the North, but its popularity has spread South, and now this beautiful style is availible for everyone. Grass Dancing always stands out by virtue of two things: his dancing style and his outfit. His dancing has been described often by these words:" gutsy, swinging, slick, old-time," etc.
Visit our recording studio blog anytime to learn all the latest news about Sunshine Records, plus links, industry news, session notes, pictures, and all kinds of great music related stuff. Visit the Sunshine Blog! | <urn:uuid:d477b027-83d0-4aca-a35b-6059fb314646> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.worldwidesunshine.com/eMerchantPro/pc/Grass-Dance-c434.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975974 | 231 | 2.171875 | 2 |
[01/April/2004] Sana`a (Saba)- variations, Yemeni architecture can be defined by the geographic features from which the indigenous materials are taken. In the coastal plain, reed, mud, and coral stone are used. In the mountainous regions, stone is the most predominant building material.In the high plateau areas, both local mud and nearby imported stone form a hybrid of construction materials. All Yemeni buildings exhibit superb craftsmanship in a tradition of mud and stone masonry that has been maintained for centuries.On the central plateau lies the capital of the Yemen Arab Republic and one of the oldest cities in the world: Sana\'a. This dense, walled city projects the urban character typical of traditional Arab cities and contains many building types unique to Southern Arabia. The most striking of these is the tower house, which looms above as one walks through the narrow, winding streets of the old city.Most tower houses are at least five stories high, and some reach as many as eight or nine. Their origin lies in the remote villages where farmland was scarce and verticality was the only means of accommodating the settlement of people with efficient use of the land.Height also provided the necessary overview to protect a settlement and its crops from marauding tribes.That tower houses existed during pre-Islamic times is proven by the historical accounts of the Ghumdan palace, built in the third century A.D. and later destroyed in the seventh century. It was described as a grand palace, as tall as 20 stories, with each wall built of different colored stone and including a top room with an alabaster ceiling and windows built of marble, teak, and ebony.The vertical arrangement of these multi-storied houses represents an upward transition from public to private space. The ground floor and its mezzanine are reserved for animals and the storage of timber, fruit, and grain, as well as a small compartment for the collection of dry excrement from the bathrooms above.
Thumbnail link to picture of window tracery, ~22K file. The second floor is the first habitable level and also where visitors are received in the public sitting room, or diwan. This room is usually rectangular in plan and furnished in a manner typical of almost all Yemeni rooms, whether they are used for eating, sitting, sleeping, or all three. The walls are fringed with a continuous seat of cushions, leaving a narrow carpeted area in the center and a space next to the door for the removal of shoes. The windows have low sills, to accommodate a seated position, and consist of two sets of openings. The lower window is for ventilation and is controlled with shutters, and the upper opening is an arched or circular transom window that allows light to enter even when the shutters are closed.The transom window is made of either a thin piece of alabaster, called qamariya (meaning \"of the moon\") or colored glass set in a delicate tracery of gypsum, called takhrim. The translucency of the qamariya emits a soft amber light, while the colors and pattern of the takhrim transmit a joyful play of light on the interior walls. The walls of the room are articulated with niches and high shelves made of unreinforced gypsum plaster on which personal articles are placed.On the third floor is the main family diwan reserved for special ceremonial occasions such as weddings, births, and funerals. Above this level are additional semiprivate rooms and the kitchen, usually located one level below the top to accommodate service to both upper and lower levels. Here the women have their primary domain. Though they are not restricted within any part of the house, it is this level that contains the kitchen and an adjacent outside terrace with high screened walls, from which the women may see without being seen from the street or other houses. The kitchen is usually smoke-blackened from the bread ovens were fueled by wood, whose smoke escapes through the vents that pierce the outside wall.The highest level, dominated by one private sitting room called the mufraj, is reserved for special guests or family members. Here, the afternoon social gatherings are held, usually between men, where they smoke the water pipe and chew qat while exchanging conversation, reading poetry, or listening to the music of the Yemeni \'ud. ( Lute).The mufraj is the most decorated of the rooms. It provides magnificent views as well as the play of colored shadows of the walls cast by the stained-glass takhrim windows above, increasing the delight during the afternoon qat session.A central staircase, rising throughout the height of the house, provides the central stability around which the structural distribution of the house is supported.The thermal capacity of the stone and masonry walls produces a thermal lag, which tempers the extreme day and night temperatures. Ventilation is provided throughout the house by means of projecting masonry cooling boxes (shubaq) positioned within the walls of the staircase and lobbies of each floor.The facade of the house, showing similarity to textile or jewelry designs, seems to pay little attention to the adjoining facade, either in alignment or proportion. Yet the innate aesthetic sense of the Yemenis leads to an unerring contentment of spatial relationships. Interior proportion appears to be of importance to Yemeni builders. Significant modules, such as the cross section of the diwan, are based on a square, with its length being two or three squares in plan. Orientation is also considered important, in that any house facing other than south is said to be less than a full house.The tower houses of Sana\'a are a hybrid construction of stone and baked brick. The foundation walls are approximately 45 cm thick, composed of facing stones inside and out and a center core of clay plaster and rubble. Crosswalls are constructed of rough rubble and connect to the outside face of the external wall. The areas created within the crosswalls are based on the module of a 3-m timber member for easy floor spans throughout the height of the house.Brickwork begins between 3 and 10 m above ground level, the weight and flexibility of bricks making them more suitable for the construction of the large openings that appear in the upper walls. Wooden bands run around many of the houses, providing a tensile girdle for the stone and brick walls. Window tracery (takhrim) is made by special craftsmen. Tracery patterns are hand drawn on slabs of wet gypsum plaster, and the inner pieces are cut out, leaving spaces for the colored glass. A second slab, whose pattern is traced from the first, is laid on top. Finally, a second, glassless tracery of a different design is placed on the external wall, creating a fanciful play of patterns on the inside and leaving the exterior surface devoid of color. Gypsum plaster is also used as a decorative form on internal surfaces. Intricate plaster wall reliefs are often found in the mufrajs of many tower houses, some professing verses from the Qoran in extravagant calligraphy.
Thumbnail link to picture of Yemeni houses, ~23K file Exterior ornamentation of the tower houses is quite elaborate and often resembles patterns of latticework, jewelry, or textiles. Stars, snakes, and naturalistic elements appear often, though now much of such decoration represents modern themes such as cars, planes, and weapons.Doors are also a source of decoration, containing wood fretwork and pounded metal door knockers. Traditionally, door frames carry intricately carved inscriptions as an expression of the symbolic importance of the threshold. An interesting modern phenomenon has been the introduction of metal doors to Yemen, which have all but replaced the traditional carved and painted wooden doors. Metal doors with intricate wrought iron patterns and bright colors are externalizing the delight formerly reserved for private interior spaces.Note: The above topic can be useful if there are pictures so we have to find the necessary of them to make the topic more interesting.Modernity(Back to top)Since the 1962 civil war, the face of Yemen has changed drastically. The previous lack of modern development made Yemenis aware of the ever-increasing need for modernization, and they embraced it wholeheartedly when it arrived. Along with modern amenities such as public services, cars, and foreign consumer goods, change brought massive urban migration, traffic, litter, cheap foreign construction materials, and an obsession to become a modern state even at the expense of traditional culture.People abandoned buildings in Sana\'a\'s old city and moved into comfortable modern villas in the suburbs where new development was sprawling to meet the demands of a population explosion. Much of the commercial activity vital to the old city has left the market area. The importation of cheaper goods has caused many of the traditional crafts, along with their shops, to disappear. Buildings of the old city have fallen into disrepair because the need for annual maintenance is often disregarded. As a result, a new generation of builders lack the necessary skills to repair traditional buildings and consequently substitute modern and often inappropriate techniques.Preservation(Back to top)In 1984, UNESCO and the Yemen government established the \"Campaign for the Preservation of the Old City of Sana\'a,\" with the goal of preserving the architectural heritage of the old city. Those who initiated the campaign recognized the need not only to preserve and repair but also to revitalize the traditional way of life, which means creating centers of training for young workers while there are a few remaining masters of old building techniques still alive. In addition to architectural concerns, the campaign also includes social, commercial, educational, and economic projects. Financing is provided by the Yemeni government with the continued help of foreign aid.Through the efforts of this campaign, the international community has become aware of the need for a cooperative effort to preserve Sana\'a\' s unique architectural heritage from the accelerated modernity overtaking all aspects of Yemeni life. While the international community is keen to implement its preservation ethic in Yemen, Yemen itself has yet to complete its infatuation with technology as an expression of modernity.Reappreciation of traditional values, as defined by preservation ethics, is a cyclical phenomenon whose time has come in many parts of the world. As much of the world was once infatuated with technology as a modern savior, many developing nations were introduced to these ethics in the name of foreign development. Though the introduction of foreign development to Yemen has greatly contributed to the destruction of its traditional architectural environment, Yemen has creatively adopted this modem vocabulary to express the symbolic language inherent in all Yemeni art forms.Yemen is a country whose development is accelerating at an incredible rate. For it to establish a valid preservation ethic, Yemen must be allowed to follow through with its technological expression of modernity. The international community must make itself aware of the overall implications of establishing such preservation programs within the context of current Yemeni culture, so as not to suppress the Yemenis\' inevitable quest to catch up with the rest of the world. The danger that exists for Yemen lies not in the importation of technologies to satisfy Yemeni goals of accelerated modernity, but in the importation of ethics that may not be consistent with the country\'s goals.
(Back to top)
Richard Brooks Jeffery is assistant curator, College of Architecture, University of Arizona. He spent three years in the Yemen Arab Republic and worked as an architect with the \"Campaign for the Preservation of the Old City of Sana\'a.\"
Credits and copyright information | <urn:uuid:7be72f8f-c4c0-4a75-ad24-c5e7dc2a1b2b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sabanews.net/en/print65351.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957327 | 2,352 | 3.296875 | 3 |
When Flight Lieutenant Alfie Hall visited the National Memorial Arboretum in Alrewas, Staffordshire, United Kingdom, in May 2010, he asked where he could find the monument to the Royal Canadian Air Force.
He was told there was no such monument at the Arboretum, which is the U.K.’s centre of remembrance. It contains more than 160 military and civilian memorials, including the Armed Forces Memorial, dedicated to those who died in the service of the U.K.
In fact, what he further discovered was worse; there was no such monument in all of the U.K.
And for someone like F/L Hall, who is from 609 West Riding Squadron, Royal Auxiliary Air Force, a British squadron rich in war time history that welcomed a number of Canadian servicemen during the Second World War, the lack of such a monument was wrong.
“A total of 21 Canadians served with 609,” said F/L Hall. “When I was down at Staffordshire, I asked where the Canadian memorial was and they said there wasn’t one, which I thought was wrong. We developed a project team which came up with the design of a memorial and [began] fundraising. It’s drawn me into it because of my own squadron having such a great history.
“We’ve never lost sight of the fact the Canadians were volunteers.”
The project that F/L Hall spearheaded with such dedication became a highly successful Canadian and British fundraising and awareness campaign.
RAF Leeming and RAF Linton-On-Ouse, both located in North Yorkshire, were central to the success of the initiative. These two Royal Air Force bases were made part of No. 6 (Royal Canadian Air Force) Bomber Group during the Second World War; both RCAF and RAF personnel served in the group. (The Group – also known as ‘the Canadian Bomber Group’ – was formed in 1942 and controlled by the RAF as part of Bomber Command.)
Furthermore, LaFarge Canada, located near Trenton, Ont., donated the granite pieces, which were quarried near Sturgeon Falls, Ont. 426 Transport Training Squadron from 8 Wing Trenton, Ont., flew the granite to the U.K. onboard a CC-130 Hercules during a training flight.
Their efforts to honour Canada’s contributions to the war paid off.
On July 8, 2011, a little more than one year after F/L Hall visited the Arboretum, the monument honouring the RCAF was unveiled.
“It was a wonderful occasion for our two great nations to come together to celebrate our past, commend the cooperative work of today, and look forward to a bright future together,” said Major Jason Furlong, an RCAF officer posted to the U.K., who, along with F/L Hall was a driving force in the development of the monument.
A monolith, created out of red and white granite to represent the Canadian flag, is the centrepiece of the monument. Surrounding it are thirteen stone markers representing the provinces and territories. The monolith is topped by a maple leaf and stands upon a granite maple leaf with a matching granite ring surrounding it; from above this shows Canada’s modern Air Force roundel. The words of the iconic Air Force poem “High Flight”, written by RCAF pilot F/L John Gillespie Magee, Jr., are also inscribed on the monument.
“It represents many young men and women who volunteered to come from Canada to support their mother country in their hour of need,” said Prince Richard, Duke of Gloucester during the ceremony. “They stayed to build up the most complete air force that was able to eventually bring air superiority that brought victory in the Second World War.
“Canada trained many pilots in the 40s and helped to make our air force the power that it became…And I hope that all those who pass it will read the message on it and acknowledge the contribution that Canadians have made to the Allies` effort at that time.”
Geoffrey Hood, a Second World War RAF veteran, also attended the ceremony.
Mr. Hood was a Flight Sergeant who served from 1944-1945. He was a flight engineer with 427 (Bomber) Squadron, part of No. 6 (RCAF) Bomber Group, and served alongside Canadians. He was a young man of 20 when he went to Chebnitz, Germany, for what would be his first raid over the German territory. Some of the pilots, including Canadians, who he flew with were just 19 years old.
“When you think of it, 19 years of age, piloting a four-engine aircraft, an eight-hour flight to Germany, it was really, really something actually,” said Mr. Hood. “I went with four different pilots and I survived the war so I must have done something right. I have to say, when I was with the Canadians, apart from being at war, it was a marvellous experience. They were really kind to me. It was fantastic.
“The ceremony was absolutely brilliant,” he continued. “It was a credit to Canada, actually, an absolute credit to Canada.”
Some who attended the unveiling described the ceremony’s flypasts as the most amazing they’d ever seen: four Tucano T MK 1s from RAF Linton-on-Ouse flew in formation over the memorial.
A lone Spitfire, from the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, flew over the memorial, rolling from side to side, to mark the ceremony’s closing moments.
“And that’s the sound of freedom,” said Colonel Paul Keddy, senior RCAF officer posted to CDLS (London). | <urn:uuid:e2438fea-605e-480f-bad1-271d059b076e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rcaf-arc.forces.gc.ca/v2/nr-sp/index-eng.asp?id=12081 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980041 | 1,222 | 2.46875 | 2 |
As part of his amendments to the 2013-2014 state budget Gov. Bob McDonnell announced Wednesday that he is adding $4.9 million to help local school districts cover the costs of serving blind and visually impaired students.
The money which helps localities coverthe cost of teachers, teachers' aides and staff will be partially offset by $500,000 already included in the budget for the state's Department of the Blind and Vision Impaired.
“Funding the blind or visually impaired staffing standards is an important step to continue ensuring that every child, regardless of their particular situation, has access to a quality education," McDonnell said in a press release. "Virginia is home to so many exceptional teachers and administrators. By taking this step, we are continuing to help ensure that blind and visually impaired students get the world class educations they deserve. Providing these state resources to schools will continue to ensure educational opportunities for blind or visually impaired children, lighten local budgets constraints, and strengthen communities.”
The money will address an unfunded mandate for local school districts because although blind and visually impaired students are classified as Special Education students they are not included in the commonwealth's Standards of Quality funding formula.
The budget amendment comes at the recommendation of the Virginia Board of Education.
McDonnell will present his entire set of amendments to the state's biennial budget to the General Assembly Monday. | <urn:uuid:ea908705-fe75-4428-91b0-56ca40ccb30e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://hrblogs.typepad.com/the_shad_plank/2012/12/mcdonnell-adds-49-million-to-budget-fixes-for-blind-visually-impaired-students.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946962 | 282 | 1.851563 | 2 |
Measuring the Storm: The Saffir-Simpson Scale
The Saffir-Simpson Scale ranks hurricanes by wind speed and damage potential. Herbert Saffir, an engineer in Coral Gables, Florida, and Robert Simpson, then-director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami, created the scale about thirty-five years ago.
They told National Geographic that they devised the scale to help relief and public-safety agencies prepare for hurricanes and noted that it had been known mostly only by officials but is now widely known by the general public because of the increase in major storms.
Saffir told the magazine that he’s “very pleased that the public is aware of the scale and can see the difference between a Category One and a Category Five storm. That’s extremely important.”
|Hurricane||Wind Speeds||Barometric Pressure||Storm Surge||Likely Damage|
|Category 1||74 to 95 miles an hour (119 to 153 kilometers an hour)||No lower than 28.94 inches, or 980 millibars||4 to 5 feet (1.2 to 1.5 meters)||Minimal. No significant damage to buildings. Damage will be mainly to unanchored mobile homes, trees and shrubbery. There also will be some coastal flooding and minor damage to piers.|
|Category 2||96 to 110 miles an hour (154 to 177 kilometers an hour)||28.50 to 28.92 inches, or 965 to 979 millibars||6 to 8 feet (1.8 to 2.4 meters)||Moderate. Damage to some roofs, doors and windows. Considerable damage to trees, shrubbery and mobile homes. Some flooding damage to piers and small craft. Some small craft may break their moorings.|
|Category 3||111 to 130 miles an hour (179 to 209 kilometers an hour)||27.91 to 28.47 inches, or 945 to 964 millibars||9 to 12 feet (2.7 to 3.7 meters)||Extensive. Some damage to small residences and utility buildings. Mobile homes destroyed. Coastal flooding destroys smaller structures, and larger structures damaged by floating debris. Flooding may occur far inland.|
|Category 4||131 to 155 miles an hour (211 to 249 kilometers an hour)||27.17 to 27.88 inches, or 920 to 944 millibars||13 to 18 feet (4 to 5.5 meters)||Extreme. Heavy damage to many residences, with roofs completely destroyed on small residences. Major erosion of beaches. Flooding may occur far inland.|
|Category 5||Exceeding 155 miles an hour (249 kilometers an hour)||Lower than 27.17 inches, or 920 millibars||More than 18 feet (5.5 meters)||Catastrophic. Roofs completely destroyed on many residences and larger buildings. Some buildings completely destroyed. Major flood damage to lower floors of buildings near the shore. Massive evacuation may be required. Flooding may occur far inland.|
© 2006 South Carolina Wildlife Magazine - www.scwildlife.com | <urn:uuid:c6c46db5-5b43-4c5a-b173-f3247da51c9c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dnr.sc.gov/magazine/hurricane/saffirsimssonscale.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.905068 | 653 | 3.578125 | 4 |
The Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society (UHMS) is an international, non-profit organization serving over 2,400 members from more than 50 countries. The UHMS is the primary source of scientific information for diving and hyperbaric medicine physiology worldwide.
UHM Journal Papers now on PUBMED: You can now find papers previously published in the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medicine Journal on PubMed. As with publishing on the Rubicon Research Repository, there is a lag period in between the time the papers are published in UHM and its appearance on PubMed. We are currently working with the NLM Records section on timing and placing of the papers. The Journal is currently indexed for MEDLINE. Contact Managing Editor, Renee Duncan for further information (email@example.com)
"Hospira is planning to retire the Plum Hyperbaric pump. The timing is TBD. Until then we are supporting current devices in the field with consumables, sets and ext. sets. We are servicing current devices as well. We are not shipping incremental devices or devices to new customers. We are not promoting the device for sale. This decision was made due to the fact the hyperbaric devices requires future remediation and Hospira has decided to focus on our general infusion device platform.” | <urn:uuid:366cb840-c712-4cb5-b69c-5d7eff59a15f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://membership.uhms.org/?page=Chapters_Group | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943851 | 268 | 1.5 | 2 |
Contract with Black America
It was a Republican president, Dwight Eisenhower, who sent military forces to enforce the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education. The law didn’t integrate the Little Rock schools, the army did. And this power of big government to enforce civil rights was a defining experience in Black America. In 1957 President Eisenhower submitted and had passed the first civil rights act since Reconstruction. But he was unable to get the Senate, under Democratic majority leader Lyndon Johnson, to provide a strong enough enforcement regime. The cost of Democratic acquiescence was to have any dispute brought to trial. In the South, that meant trial by jury with the jury pool drawn from the voter rolls. Since the Democratic politicians fought to disenfranchise black voters through poll taxes etc. it meant blacks were certain to face all white juries and have their pleas for justice denied. That link to justice was denied until passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1964.
The election of John Kennedy combined with the increasing protest of black civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King meant that in combination with the Republican minority in Congress there was ultimately a bi-partisan majority desiring passage of the 1963 Civil Rights Act and the 1964 Voting Rights Act. Lyndon Johnson read the tea leaves and got in front of the parade. So a man who had been an obstructionist in 1957 now became a hero to the black population.. Never mind that the acts were largely due to the efforts of the commission formed under Eisenhower’s guidance, or that the more eloquent supporters were Republicans like Everett Dirksen, or that the Republicans had proportionally higher support in Congress for the acts. The leader of the parade got the credit.
Since that time, blacks have had great faith in the federal government. But the basic Republican tenet of smaller government leaves them nervous. Of course, Republicanism does not mean elimination of the federal government. It means limiting its power to strictly defined tasks as defined in the Constitution. At this point its worthwhile to quote its preamble, “…in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure the domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and to our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution of the United States of America.” These wholesale political rights are at the core of the Republican party. And they are entirely consistent with the desire to full civil rights.
The challenge is to get blacks to reconsider their views. Are they better off trying to curry favor with the local ward healer or will they benefit in the longer run by supporting big picture issues? Will improving the public schools with voucher programs do more good than throwing money at teacher’s unions? Did Newt Gingrich’s Contract With America also apply to Black America? The very day that a Republican majority was elected to Congress was the day interest rates started their decline. Does the availability of a low interest mortgage making first home ownership possible benefit blacks? The answer is obvious. Full rights for all citizens benefit all citizens. Blacks don’t need affirmative action if they can succeed on their own merits.
Back when Machias was formed by sixteen partners in a sawmill in 1763 there was a wilderness. Those men plus two tradesmen (one a blacksmith, my fourth great grandfather) spent the first year building their homes and the mill. At first, they needed credit to do the job and survive. Here's the report on their second year. "During the year 1764 the inhabitants made nearly one million six hundred thousand feet of lumber" (Source: Narrative of the Town of Machias, George w. Drisko, page 14). That’s nearly 20 miles per man. They worked very hard (the Protestant work ethic in action). What allowed them to succeed were hard work, property rights and literacy (they needed to read the Bible). It would be nice if the Republican party made a contract with black Americans to see those blessings are secured for them and their posterity. School vouchers and home ownership are an excellent start. | <urn:uuid:4ac44db5-4fd7-4e9a-8ac2-1f6626b2b8b7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://machiasprivateer.blogspot.com/2004/11/contract-with-black-america.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969846 | 833 | 3.203125 | 3 |
18 Health Benefits of Cucumbers
Cucumbers, formally called Cucumis sativus, are one of the most popular vegetables farmed in the world. They belong to the same family as melons and squash. On average, they grow up to 12 inches. However, there are some types of cucumbers that can grow up to 20 inches.
Cucumbers come in two types: slicing and pickling. Slicing cucumbers are farmed for fresh consumption, while pickling cucumbers are farmed to eventually be processed into pickles. The two types are noticeably different in size, shape, and skins. However, they both have a wide assortment of health benefits.
Health benefits of cucumbers
Source - santos
- Hydration – Since cucumbers are of the same family as watermelons, they are comprised of at least 95% water which helps to keep the body hydrated, core temperature regulated, and flush out toxins that accumulate through natural processes.
- Regulate Blood Pressure – Cucumbers are high in potassium, which can regulate blood pressure levels. The high levels of potassium helps to prevent both high blood pressure and low blood pressure.
- Cancer Prevention – Cucumbers contain the following lignens: ariciresinol, pinoresinol, and secoisolariciresinol. These lignens have been scientifically linked to preventing certain cancers like breast, ovarian, prostate and uterine cancer.
- Skin Care – Cucumbers contain solid levels of Vitamins A, B and C. They also contain high levels of magnesium. These high levels of water, vitamins and minerals help to nourish one’s skin. Cucumbers can be processed into a cream or cut up and directly applied to one’s skin to treat various conditions like skin tightening.
- Sun Burns – The high amounts of water, vitamins and minerals help to treat sun burn or wind burn. Typically, the cucumber skins are place directly on the sun or wind burns.
- Improve Teeth and Gum Health: Cucumbers are high in fiber, which helps to improve the overall health of one’s teeth and gums. Cucumbers can be used to treat a condition known as pyorrhea where there’s an inflammation of the tissue surround one’s teeth.
- Weight Loss – Cucumbers are a great food when trying to lose weight. On average, a medium sized slicing cucumber is roughly 13 calories. They are low in carbohydrates and fat as well. However, the high amount of water and fiber help to make individuals feel full.
- Diuretic – The high levels of water in cucumbers can help to act like a diuretic by improving the body’s process of flushing out toxins. Cucumbers have also been linked to treating gallstones.
- Improve Digestion – Cucumbers can help treat the following gastrointestinal issues: heart burn, acid reflux and gas. Cucumbers have also been linked to having a positive impact on ulcers. The high amounts of water and fiber also help prevent constipation.
- Reduces Cholesterol – Cucumbers have high levels of sterol which help to reduce cholesterol levels, specifically the bad cholesterol also known as LDL.
- Treat Tapeworms – Cucumber seeds have long been uses as a natural remedy for treating tape worms.
- Treat Arthritis Pain – Cucumbers contain a high amount of antioxidants which can help reduce inflammations that may cause a flare up of arthritis.
- Treat Gout – The high levels of vitamins and minerals help to reduce the amount of uric acid in the body. High levels of uric acid can lead to health issues like gout.
- Nail Health – Not only does the high amount of silica help to improve connective tissues, it also helps to improve the overall health of fingernails and toenails.
- Diabetes – Cucumber juice is loaded with vitamins and minerals, like manganese, which helps the pancreas produce more insulin. Type 1 diabetes is where the pancreas doesn’t make any more insulin, which means that individuals need insulin shots. However, Type 2 diabetics still produce insulin but the body doesn’t process it well enough. Cucumbers can help with the synthesis of insulin.
- Hair Growth – The high levels of silica in cucumbers, helps to improve hair growth. It makes the hair healthy and shiny.
- Joint Health – Cucumbers are high in silica, which has been scientifically linked to improving overall joint health by strengthening the connective tissues like ligaments and tendons.
- Protein Digestion – There are several enzymes in cucumbers that help to breakdown the consumption of proteins. This leads to the proteins being absorbed in the body quicker and transferred to the muscles for repair and growth.
With all of the health benefits that cucumbers are associated with, there’s no wonder why many people consider it a miracle food. Cucumbers have been used for centuries to treat various health conditions. Make sure you select cucumbers that are dark green in color and have a firm touch. This will ensure better quality, more fresh, and filled with maximum vitamins and minerals. Also make sure the cucumbers are organically grown and void of being sprayed with any pesticides. Some pesticides have been linked to various health conditions.
About the Guest Author - Anu is a health and fitness buff and loves sharing his knowledge and health tips to the world through writing. He has been writing contents for various blogs sharing tips not only for men but also for women especially those who are trying to get pregnant fast. | <urn:uuid:ac4b1fe9-6603-46d7-8130-38cf50875ed6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://healthvotes.com/nutrition/18-health-benefits-of-cucumbers/3340/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945558 | 1,173 | 2.96875 | 3 |
Coming to television screens early next month: Hollywood stars pitching a new, iPad-centric education venture aimed at Baby Boomers looking for work. Or, put another way, those who realize "it's time to start the next chapter you've been waiting for."
The venture is the brainchild of former California Insurance Commissioner and gubernatorial candidate Steve Poizner, who has been working for the past year to launch what he calls "an entire online college built into an iPad app." The program offers courses in such high-demand areas as health care management, financial planning, digital marketing and corporate eco-sustainability.
"There's a whole new market that's not being paid attention to," said Poizner, whose partners include UCLA, former Paramount Pictures CEO and current UC Regent Sherry Lansing, and Creative Artists Agency, the Hollywood talent agency (hence the movie stars).
Called Empowered Careers, the for-profit enterprise headquartered in Campbell is backed by $15 million in venture capital from San Francisco's Granite Ventures and Menlo Park's InterWest Partners, plus $3 million in venture debt from Wells Fargo.
The heavy academic lifting will be performed by instructors affiliated with UCLA Extension, which certifies the program, called Empowered UCLA Extension.
The 10-week courses are supplemented by group discussions, one-on-one sessions and career counseling, all via the iPad, and can be spread over a year, so as to work around a student's schedule.
"This is adult education focused on adult employment," said Poizner, a veteran Silicon Valley entrepreneur who sold one of his former companies to Qualcomm for $1 billion in stock and founded the California Charter Schools Association.
Preferred applicants: Fees for the 2012 program: $9,800, which includes a new iPad with both Wi-Fi and 4G wireless. Add $300-$900, depending on the course, for textbooks and related materials. Partial or full scholarships are being offered to 20 percent of student enrollment, which Poizner expects to be around 200 in the first year, scaling up to "many thousands" thereafter.
Unlike some other for-profit educational enterprises, Empowered is not for everybody. "Later stage adults," aged 45-55, most likely with a college degree and some professional background, are the venture's prime market, although those on either side of the range are welcome.
"We can't be everything to everybody," said Poizner, pointing to a pre-enrollment questionnaire designed to filter out those who "may not be a good fit."
"We want a very high success rate. We want to have a national impact," he said.
Keeping score: Here's a handy-dandy way to track how much U.S. corporations really pay in taxes.
NerdWallet, a financial information website in San Francisco, has developed a "tax rate transparency tool" that tells you, for example, that Chevron of San Ramon paid $1.9 billion to the federal government in 2011, or just 4 percent on $47.6 billion of pretax earnings.
Apple of Cupertino paid 11 percent on pretax earnings of $34.2 billion, while Wells Fargo's bill of $3.4 billion was 14 percent of its $23.7 billion in pretax earnings.
So much for that 35 percent corporate tax rate that, we're told, is sending U.S. companies fleeing overseas.
To be fair, these companies are shelling out other money in addition. Chevron paid $16.5 billion to foreign governments in countries where the energy giant does business, and $596 million to state and local governments at home. It also deferred $877 million owing to the IRS.
Apple paid $769 million to foreign governments and $762 million to state and local governments, while deferring a whopping $3 billion owed to the feds. Wells Fargo deferred even more - $3.1 billion - while paying $468 million in state and local taxes, and $52 million overseas. | <urn:uuid:ead43a43-cfc7-472a-9ca9-7a6e4def4b2b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sfgate.com/business/bottomline/article/Adult-education-via-iPad-targets-Boomers-3748017.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962677 | 826 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Frequently Asked Questions
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GOOOH stands for 'Get Out of Our House' and is pronounced like the word 'go'. It is a NON-PARTISAN plan to place citizen representatives on the ballot in 2012, ideally in the primary against the incumbent, competing for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. The members of each district will have an honest opportunity to replace the career politicians who have taken over OUR House and are destroying our nation.
If you are tired of career politicians, GOOOH is for you. If you believe money has corrupted Washington, GOOOH is for you. If you believe politicians have too much power, GOOOH is for you. If you are weary of the death grip the two parties have on our government, and are ready to return control of our government to the people, then GOOOH is for you.
GOOOH is NOT a political party. It is a system that will allow you and your neighbors to choose, among yourselves, a candidate who will truly represent your district. Members will select a citizen representative to serve their district. How our candidates get on the ballot will be dependent on when we reach our membership goal. Our preference is to compete in the primaries against the incumbent. It is possible candidates may choose to run in some other way; the candidates will make that decision based on the situation in their district. It is important to clearly state that we are not a third party. We have no platform and are a bottom-up organization. We are a process for selecting and funding candidates.
This is an evolving system and your input is requested. The questions are changing based on the feedback of members like you. Participate in the forums. Send us your thoughts. This is YOUR system. We will perfect it with your input.
This is a new system created by an innovative engineer who has developed complex computer systems his entire career that change the way we do things. The founder developed software for a spy satellite system, helped invent the first credit-card-reading gas pump system, and worked at Dell as the company grew to a $55 billion technology giant. This system leverages the internet and social networking to allow "we the people" to select true representatives, not choose between the politicians the two parties offer. If we continue to elect career politicians who represent their party, the special interests that fund them, and themselves, nothing will change. This is a non-partisan process that will enable the change we all seek.
GOOOH will allow you to:
Our process allows Americans of every political leaning to participate in the selection of their District's Representative while being considered themselves. Through our Candidate Selection Sessions you and your peers will select the candidate in your district who best represents your district's views. Even if you do not wish to become your district's representative you will want to participate in the process and have a direct say in who is chosen to represent your district. We will fund a single national campaign to promote our candidates (one from each district) who are selected to run against the party politicians. Because we are a process for selecting representatives (not a "party") we expect a socially moderate candidate to be selected in San Francisco and a socially conservative one in Colorado Springs. We expect fiscally conservative candidates to be chosen in just about every district -- but it will be up to the members in each district to decide.
Originally, our founder proposed excluding lawyers, members of political families, and individuals with more than $11.5 million in assets (250 times the median income). They were not to be excluded because they are bad people, but because they are overly represented in government today and, generally speaking, no longer seem to represent the common man. However, based on input from our members, the Question Committee has voted to remove the exclusion of lawyers and the wealthy. It will be up to the participants in each pool to decide whether or not that is of concern. We believe this change is indicative of the continuing evolution of our system.
We hope you will join GOOOH today and help us take our House back from the politicians!
For GOOOH to succeed we need donating members. We encourage each member to donate $100 now and help us get the advertising efforts started. We will choose candidates for 2012 in any district with 250 or more members and a leader. We will continue to build our base of supporters until a month before the filing deadline in each state, at which time we will begin the selection process. Our first candidates will be chosen in Texas, beginning on Nov ember 5th - Texas has the earliest filing deadline in the nation. In most states, candidates will run as a Republican or Democrat, competing in the primary. In some states our candidates could run as an Independent, though they will be advised that the odds will be stacked heavily against them if they do. They could run on some other Party’s ticket, such as the Libertarian Party or the Constitution Party, but again, we will not advise taking that route; Republicans and Democrats win 99.9% of the time. The rules in each state and the willingness of established parties to cooperate will help determine how to access the ballot. | <urn:uuid:95b98a97-1bb2-432a-a27e-8b8ca5956808> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://goooh.com/learn.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96161 | 1,112 | 1.679688 | 2 |
History & Political Science
PS 399: Citizens United v FEC
Taylor 26: Tu/Th 3:30-5:20
Office: TA 120A (Hours: M 2-4, W 12-2 & F 11:30-12:30)
OBJECTIVES: In this course we will examine the Supreme Court’s (notorious?) Citizens United v FEC decision. Initially we will simply try to read and understand the actual dispute and decision. Then we will break it down into is pieces for more detailed analysis. More importantly we will try to use the Citizens United decision to develop a better understanding of political participation and democracy in the United States. This will include a coda about electoral campaign regulations and finance that transcends Citizens United.
TEXT: There is no text for the class. All reading assignments will be linked to the class web site. Most are edited primary sources. Assignments must read carefully and perhaps several times in order to capture their full significance.
PEDAGOGY: Class will be conducted in a combination of lectures, classroom discussions, and "Socratic" dialogues. For those unfamiliar with Socratic method, students are called upon to answer a series of questions raised by or about the reading for the day. This process enhances student capacity to recognize and analyze questions and issues in forms other than those presented by the readings.
STUDENT EVALUATION: Students will be evaluated on the basis of three take home exercises (30-35 points each), and as well as participation in Socratic Dialogues. The exercises are to be typed and will be accompanied by detailed instructions. All will be problem solving type problems encouraging students to think critically through a problem. You will be asked to analyze the issues triggered by the problem, identifying various ways to frame and solve the problem.
For the Socratic Dialogue component, students will be required to respond orally to a series of questions drawn from the reading for the day. Each day two or three students will be expected to take the lead in discussing that reading assignment. These students in effect think out loud and teach their peers the material for the day. Each student is expected to become one of the principal participants in four or five class discussions during the term. Students, who fail to participate, or participate in a grossly deficient manner, will lose points earned elsewhere in the class.
Here are some cautionary notes regarding grading for this class:
(A) Students should keep a copy of all written exercises. The burden of loss of any missing written work will rest entirely on the student.
(B) Class grades will be assigned based upon a rough curve comparing point totals accumulated by students over the entire term. No individual exam will be assigned a letter grade. Rather you will be given a point total. After each exam, students will be shown two "curves" enabling them (1) to compare their point totals with others for the discrete exam and (2) compare their cumulative point totals for all exams given by that point in the term.
(C) Other than as discussed in connection with class participation, class attendance is not considered when evaluating students. You will be treated as mature individuals, capable of choosing responsibly whether to attend class on a given day. Students should recognize that class meetings also serve as a medium for communicating to them about the class. Information concerning the class, not contained in the syllabus, is generally communicated at one class meeting and noted on the class website, but not repeated elsewhere. This may include additional reading assignments, handouts, exercise information, modifications in the syllabus and "Socratic Dialogue" participation. Students bear the entire responsibility to ensure that they understand the requirements for the class by either attending regularly or making other arrangements to ascertain how the course is moving.
(D) The principles espoused in the SOU policy on academic dishonesty are applicable to this class.
If you are in need of academic support because of a documented disability (whether it is psychiatric, learning, mobility, health-related, or sensory), you may be eligible for academic accommodations through disability services for students. Contact Disability Services for Students; Director, DSS; 552-6213; or schedule an appointment in person at the ACCESS Center, Stevenson Union, Lower Level.
(Subject to change with very little notice)
An online legal dictionary is available here
January 8 Course overview
January 10-15 Introduction to Citizens United. Read edited versions of the majority and dissenting opinions of Justices Kennedy and Stevens. At this point we are just trying to ascertain what the issues are in the case.
January 17-22 Background Law for Citizens United. The opinions in Citizens United are built upon a short passage in the First Amendment of the U. S. Constitution and several decisions of the United States Supreme Court attempting to give meaning and clarity to it in the context of campaign finance regulation. We will read brief summaries of many of those cases to better understand the jurisprudence of Citizens United.
READ: Background cases
January 18 First Exercise Distributed, Due January 24 (30 points)
January 24-29 Corporations and the Constitution. Do corporations have rights under the Constitution? What are the arguments in favor or against? Should it depend upon the kind of corporation? Should it depend upon the kind of Constitutional right?
January 31 Facial v As Applied challenges and the role of the Court. This day follows up the previous two where we investigate the rights (under the Constitution) of corporations and now ask, whether the Supremes in Citizens United maybe over reached. That is was the decision correct, but for the wrong reason? Did the Supremes throw the baby out with the bathwater? Was the federal statute unconstitutional as applied to Citizens United in these circumstances but within the power of Congress as to other entities?
February 7-12 Political speech or electoral corruption. May Congress (and the FEC) limit the electioneering behavior of some groups because they will they wield too much influence on the policy making process subsequent to the election?
February 12-14 Preventing distortion of candidate dialog and the First Amendment. May Congress (and the FEC) circumscribe or inhibit the political speech of some to ensure that other voices are heard or not marginalized?
February 14-19 The interests of shareholders: Corporate law, election law and the First Amendment. May Congress (and the FEC) circumscribe the political speech of corporations in order to protect the interest of corporate shareholders who may not agree with the message of corporate management?
READ: Shareholder protection analyses from Citizen United (plus a primer on corporate duty to shareholders)
February 14 Second Exercise Distributed, Due NOON FRIDAY, February 22 (35 points) Note change!
PART III: Issues arising in the aftermath of Citizens United.
February 26-28 Fashioning a set of rules for managing federal elections: The FEC as manager of federal elections. Can a federal agency be trusted to implement and enforce campaign finance regulations?
March 5-7 Campaign support disclosure rules before and after Citizens United: Is the right of association more important than full disclosure?
March 12-14 The future of publicly financed elections after Citizens United. The logic of Citizens United majority was used to invalidate an Arizona public finance plan. Is the idea of publicly financed political campaigns dead after Citizens United? | <urn:uuid:c40d7b4b-ab54-4860-a89d-354b992c9861> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sou.edu/history/399w13syl.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936985 | 1,492 | 2.96875 | 3 |
|Nancy Mitford was the eldest and most famous of the Mitfords. A relentless tease, she wrote subtle but wildly satirical novels such as Love in a Cold Climate and the Pursuit of Love, which made some call her the British equivalent of Dorothy Parker. A controversial journalist, she loved pouring drops of acid on the pretensions of her time. All the while she maintained from her home in Paris a sparkling and gossipy correspondence with her sisters and friends such as Evelyn Waugh and James Lees-Milne.
During the last years of her life Nancy Mitford planned to write her own memoirs, yet the pain of her illness prevented her from doing so. In this biography used the material she had been gathering, completing the story she had meant to write herself.
Unfulfilled in love and surrounded by a complex set of family and friends, Nancy Mitford was nonetheless as formidable as the characters of her novels. She never failed to find a source of wicked amusement. With a keen eye, she turned all those around her - 'The Colonel', 'The Wid', 'sewers [her gay friends]' and others into more characters from Mitford land. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. | <urn:uuid:dcf41434-4339-442d-ba62-c3b5786eec2b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lesbianfunworld.com/books/biography/details/121379.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968749 | 256 | 2.109375 | 2 |
Last updated December 05, 2012
|State Spending on Tobacco Prevention||$4 million||$4 million|
|% of CDC Recommended Spending
Tobacco Generated Revenue (FY2013)
CDC Recommended Spending on Tobacco Prevention
Actual Spending on Tobacco Prevention (FY2013)
Summary: The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that South Dakota spend $11.3 million a year to have an effective, comprehensive tobacco prevention program. South Dakota currently allocates $4.0 million a year for tobacco prevention and cessation. This is 35.4% of the CDC’s recommendation and ranks South Dakota 11th among the states in the funding of tobacco prevention programs. South Dakota’s spending on tobacco prevention amounts to 4.4% of the estimated $90 million in tobacco-generated revenue the state collects each year from settlement payments and tobacco taxes.
Background and Recent Developments: South Dakota’s lawmakers allocated $4 million of state funding for tobacco prevention and cessation programs in FY2013, the same amount as in FY2012. This is a slight increase from the FY2011 appropriation, but it is still less than half of the CDC’s recommended spending for South Dakota.
A November 2006 ballot initiative increased the state cigarette tax by $1.00 per pack and increased the tax on other tobacco products to 35 percent of the wholesale price. This measure was expected to provide approximately $5 million per year for tobacco prevention and cessation. But during the 2010 legislative session, the legislature decided to reduce spending on tobacco prevention and cessation to $3.5 million for FY2011, and funding has remained below $5 million since then.
The combination of South Dakota’s state and federal funds meets the state’s statutory requirement that the tobacco prevention program spend $5 million annually.
In addition, South Dakota is receiving $1.0 million from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in a 12-month grant for the period beginning April 2012 (from annual appropriations). | <urn:uuid:b453c5c3-5539-4f76-881e-34d3d990ab26> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tobaccofreekids.org/what_we_do/state_local/tobacco_settlement/south_dakota | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.902153 | 416 | 2.015625 | 2 |
It’s time to introduce your baby to lions and lizards. And won’t you feel like an official parent when you brag that you take your child to the Zoo?
My friend Sarah gets credit for this one. “It’s fun for parents, too,” she says. Honestly, I think it’s mostly fun for parents. Even at 12 months, Julian cannot pick the animals out of their environments with his untrained eyes. He did see a lot of running water that excited him, though.
Just like the children’s museums, when you join, you get to go whenever you want all year. The Oakland Zoo membership includes free parking and a few other benefits. Also, the Zoo is a non-profit, so membership is a feel-good thing (not to mention a tax deduction). The money helps take care of the animals. Since as a mother, you now have a Responsibility to all things living, including those nasty reptiles your child will soon be fond of, this is a Good Thing.
There are all sorts of membership configurations, but in Oakland for $68 per year, two adults and up to four children can enter the zoo whenever they like. | <urn:uuid:3ab5fd23-5c2d-4209-b799-a89397b694f9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rookiemoms.com/meet-a-monkey-at-the-zoo/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965277 | 251 | 1.523438 | 2 |
“A Baroque ensemble of the new generation, Les Ombres was founded by Sylvain Sartre and Margaux Blanchard in 2006 with the aim of closely linking musicological research and 'historically informed' interpretation. In their quest to rediscover forgotten masterpieces of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, its members seek to unite the emblematic arts of the Baroque theatre, so that musicians, singers, dancers and actors become interpreters of one and the same score. These specificities make the ensemble a space for creativity and expression, a human and musical adventure. Inspired by music as an art in constant evolution, Les Ombres also give priority to the exploration of new horizons, ranging from the traditional patrimony to contemporary creations.
The nucleus of Les Ombres is formed by three musicians trained at the Schola Cantorum of Basel: Margaux Blanchard (viola da gamba), nadja Lesaulnier (harpsichord), and Sylvain Sartre (transverse flute). According to the needs of specific programmes, this trio is supplemented by violins, flutes, bas- soon, theorbo, and so on. Alongside the instrumental repertoire, the ensemble devotes an important place to vocal music and dramaturgy. It has therefore invited for this CD Mélodie Ruvio, a mezzo-soprano who came to the members' attention in the title role of Le Carnaval et la Folie conducted by Hervé niquet at the European Baroque Academy of Ambronay in 2007, and the actor and director Manuel Weber, a specialist in Baroque theatre, whom they met at the creation of a production devoted to the fables of La Fontaine. …“
Visit website for more information. (ed.)
Added on: Jul 21, 2011 | Hits: 236 | <urn:uuid:71be4dc3-7841-4bf7-a035-856ea1d50bb1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.earlymusicnews.org/index.php?module=weblinks&type=user&func=category&cid=28&orderby=dateA&startnum=451 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.906928 | 391 | 1.59375 | 2 |
- Dell ships lightweight XPS 13 laptop with Ubuntu
- Dell releases powerful, well-supported Linux Ultrabook
- HP Pavilion dm1-4310e: Swapping Windows 8 for Linux
- OLPC cancels XO-3 tablet, downplays need for new hardware
- Linux in Lilliput
readwrite.com: One Laptop Per Child puts computers in the hands of the world's most vulnerable children to help educate them out of poverty. It's a noble cause championed by our brightest minds - but it doesn't seem to work.
h-online.com: Educational initiative OLPC (One Laptop per Child), which attracted headlines in 2005 for its $100 laptop has announced the first details of its next generation of devices. The XO-4 Touch will use touchscreen technology from the Swedish company Neonode.
pcmag.com: Nicholas Negroponte plans to airdrop OLPC tablets to remote villages to teach the children within them to read, he told the audience at the Open Mobile Summit on Wednesday.
Also: Ugliest Laptops Ever Made
olpcnews.com: We successfully carried out our first solar photovoltaic school deployment in Haiti, last week! The EFACAP school in Lascahobas, Haiti now has 2.4KW of solar pv capability to charge 500 laptops with a DC only designed and wired system.
- Internet in a box
- OLPC Programs are a $25 Billion Dollar Global Economy
blog.laptop.org: The story in today’s Boston Business Journal about One Laptop per Child requires certain clarification:
bizjournals.com: Raleigh-based Red Hat is sponsoring open source workshops at the Rochester Institute of Technology this summer that have the potential of improving technology for deaf and hard of hearing children.
itproportal.com: A spokesperson for Marvell Technologies has confirmed that the OLPC tablet, which is known as the XO-3, will be available in the first half of 2012.
olpcnews.com: What to make to this? Marvell, has stepped up their commitment to an XO-3 with $5.6 million dollar grant to One Laptop per Child for XO-3 laptop development through 2011.
olpcnews.com: We all know OLPC as an amazing educational tool for primary school children in the developing world. But is it appropriate for high school students? Will teenagers flock to the XO's kid-friendly design and child-centric Sugar OS?
- $100 computing in 2010
- OLPC & Marvell to Redefine Tablet Computing (PR)
- OLPC's Negroponte Says XO-3 Prototype Tablet Coming in 2010
- The OLPC's real importance is as a conversation starter
montanalinux.org: When I got home from work last night, my 17 year old son (Bryan) demanded I watch something on TV he had found. In the commercial I kid got a package in the mail that contained two OLPCs one of which the kid picks up and walks out of his house with, journeying until he is in a village in Africa where he gives a village kid the OLPC. | <urn:uuid:416dcb4c-e3ad-4232-8571-602f42901576> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tuxmachines.org/taxonomy/term/128/all | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.911134 | 668 | 1.914063 | 2 |
VOICES Notes and news on Jazz Vocals releases
05 JAN 09 ANNE FARNSWORTH
The original and most organic musical instrument -- and still the most expressive by far -- is the human voice. A simple lyric delivered with emotion, subtlety and grace can say more than an entire symphony of finely crafted instruments. That's why jazz, for all of its evolutionary permutations over the decades, continues to revere the singer as much as the player. Whether the artist is a past master, like Ella Fitzgerald or Bobby Short, or a relative newcomer, like Tierney Sutton, the common denominator shared by every great jazz vocalist is the ability to explore the depth and nuance of the lyric and adapt the melody to make the song their own. Below is list of some of my favorite recordings -- timeless examples of the genre.
Lullaby Of Birdland
Torme & Shearing, from An Evening With ...
Sarah Vaughan, from Crazy And Mixed Up
The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year
Andy Williams, from Live - Christmas ...
In The Wee Small Hours Of The Morning
Carol Sloane, from Ballad Essentials
in this playlist. | <urn:uuid:83cc9c4f-03e4-4a75-b789-759ab50f7c93> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www2.concordmusicgroup.com/genres/jazz-vocals/368/american-songbook-is-now-jazz-vocals/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.901725 | 243 | 1.929688 | 2 |
Active crossovers - is it this simple?
I have a seemingly simple question to ask about going active.
If I can open my speakers and look at the crossover (and therefore find values for it's components) and I know the crossover points, can I not just make a miniature (low power) version of the same crossover and place it between my pre-amp and quad mono amps?
I'm guessing this would keep the same frequency dispersion and inherent phase shifts implemented by the original crossover the same?
Is this always a good thing?
Is this a "safe" way of doing things - i.e. not driving the speakers with signals they weren't originaly intended for, as would possibly be the case if I were to make my own crossover points.
Also to (slightly) complicate matters my speakers are 2.5 way B&W603-S3's which use a bass driver (I'm guessing in parallel) with the mid/bass for low frequencies.
Has anyone gone active with these speakers?
Any responce would be good, cheers. ;)
The component values are based on the speaker impedance.
Using the same components values will not match
the input impedance of the amplifier.
Save yourself the headache and make something
like a linkwitz riley active crossover, 24db/octave.
Make it so you can replace the frequency modules
so you can experiment with or use ganged potentiometers
for variable adjustment. Use some sockets so
you can try various op-amps that meet your
taste in music.
I am afraid it is not that simple.
The passive crossover construction is a more or less complex circuit that is matched with the impedance curve of the drivers.
Your power amp input won't have that characteristic impedance - neither concerning ampltude, nor phase. It will most probably look like a simple resistor of a rather high value (compared to the drivers).
The electrical environment is completely different, so you can't directly do a tranfer from the passive filters.
p.s.: ok, mey reply was a little too slow...:xeye:
There's me not thinking about the obvious!
I totaly forgot about impedance matching of the crossover - I was just thinking about it's act as a frequency filter!
I was indeed thinking about a Linkwitz type filter (an ESP variant) as the phase is unchanged through the filter inherantly due to it's design.
If I open my speakers tonight (
:xeye: ) and check out the crossover and maybe get a schematic on here could you guys advise me more on implementation?
I'm thinking it could be awkward due to the 2.5 way design - especially as this is seen more often in manufactured speakers rather than DIY.
Maybe the best option for me is to use the original crossover mid/high pass filter for the tweeter / kevlar midrange and isolate the bass to the aluminium "mushroom" bass driverthrough the active filter.
Cheers again for the responses guys :)
One last thing now I think of it - will the amp(s) (ESP P3A X2) be (for want of a better word) "upset" by the removal of the impedance-correction network (if there is one present)?
One more consideration:
A passive, high-level crossover located in the speaker usually provides some protection to the relatively delicate tweeter and midrange drivers. When you go to an active crossover, your amplifier is usually connected directly to the drivers. A small malfunction, DC offset, or even just a turn-on thump from one of your amps can blow a tweeter to pieces. You will have to be careful to protect the drivers against such things.
I'm paranoid when using active systems, I like to insert
a fuse on the tweeter for sure, perhaps the midrange
too. I have to experiment to get the right value,
typically I start with 3/4 amp and do some tests,
either increase or decrease the value to get the fuse
to blow just beyond the sweet spot. The sweet spot is when you "feel" like the tweeter is just starting to "stress".
cheap fuse = piece of mind
Thanks again for the advice all, but unfortunately I can't get to my passive crossover anyway after having a look today :(
One of the reasons I was thinking of keeping the high-pass circuit was because of the series cap to protect the tweeter although I guess the whole plan has gone out the window now (due to the inability to "adapt" the crossover) so my dreams of perfectly (well relatively at least) phase coherent speakers goes up in smoke.
Thanks for all the posts guys - maybe when I get round to it (and I mean in quite a few years when I finish my degree and get some serious :$: ) I'll build my own hybrid speakers and complete custom home brew setup, but until then...
..cheers again for the posts ;)
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Bordeaux produces some of the most highly sought after and revered wines in the world. Located close to the coast, in
the south-west of France the town and is divided by the Gironde River. Wines to the west of the river are referred to as
left bank, and are Cabernet dominant. To the East of the river, on the right bank Merlot is the dominant grape variety. Throughout
the 57 appellations, over 10,000 wine-making châteaux grow the red grapes; Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Petit
Verdot and Malbec. These are commonly blended and collectively referred to as clarets. Smaller amounts of Semillon and Sauvignon Blanc is also grown in Bordeaux.
In 1855, due to the high export demands of Bordeaux wines, Emporer Napoleon III requested an official Bordeaux classification system, based on market costs of the wines at the time. The Chateaux were classified in to five ‘growths’ from first growth to fifth growth and cru Bourgois. Also in 1855 The Sauternes and Barsac classification covered the sweeter wines, with Chateau d’Yquem the only Superior First Growth, followed by Premiers Crus and Deux Deuxièmes Crus.
Read more about the benefits of buying Bordeaux En Primeur, En Primeur FAQs, our 2010 vintage report and 2011 vintage report, and the hype about the 2010 vintage heralded by many as the greatest vintage in over 30 years.
Preview or purchase the wines that will be presented at our 2013 Grand Bordeaux Tastings and Masterclasses | <urn:uuid:3c6b1089-55ef-4739-ab8d-b6e1f84b222b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.unitedcellars.com.au/t/country/france/bordeaux?facets[vintage]=%22NV%22%2C | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.916152 | 358 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Interviewing the great Margaret Forster last week felt something
like a discussion with a wise, distant aunt who perhaps only turned
up for big family reunions once in a blue moon. The sort of
individual whom you feel you really would like to see more
Of course one is not related to the writer, but her writing
about family matters has spanned more than 20 novels and examined
just about every possible minutia of domestic life in such a way to
make you feel as though you might just be.
Her latest Isa and May is published at the end of this
week (4th February) and looks at the often un-reported
relationship between grandmother and granddaughter.
So what did we discuss? Well
apart from the grandmother thing, we drifted off into talking about
doing research into past lives. Isamay the main character in the
novel is doing a PhD into grandmotherhood and needs to find famous
individuals. The book is therefore peppered with fascinating detail
about such lives as Elizabeth Fry, the great prison reformer, Sarah
Bernhardt the actress, George Sand the writer, even Queen Victoria
- people not first known for being grandparents.
However we then moved onto to talking about what right do we
have as descendants to research our deceased relatives and
invariably pass judgement on how they led their lives. And
what will our own descendants make of and judge our lives?
Well to hear her answers to this fascinating conversation (and I
accept no credit as interviewer here), do listen out for the
Margaret Forster interview, coming to a computer near you very
04/02/10 The Interview is now live! Have a listen and then join in the
discussion. Do we have a right to dig up our grandmothers' | <urn:uuid:3bd65f88-5535-40e1-9d5e-f6817e1225c8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theinterviewonline.co.uk/about/blog.aspx?filterby=grandmother | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963514 | 373 | 1.679688 | 2 |
The IBM Blue Gene/Q-based Sequoia supercomputer at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) is the second most powerful in the world, capable of delivering 20 petaflops of peak power. Given the number of processes it can run, debugging a system such as Sequoia presents a major logistical challenge. However, using a piece of analysis software, researchers reported they were able to debug a program running more than one million MPI processes.
Developers attempting to scale up the Sequoia supercomputer repeatedly experienced hardware and software defects that led to application failures, particularly when scaled to 1,179,648 compute cores. Even a basic test program was difficult to debug when running on such a large scale, according to Livermore Computing scientist Dong Ahn.
“Finding and dealing with a ‘bug’ in one of these systems makes the same process on a PC look like child’s play; like looking for the red circle amongst a pile of blue squares,” wrote redOrbit.com’s Michael Harper.
However, researchers developed a lightweight program called the Stack Trace Analysis Tool (STAT) that could quickly sift through large volumes of code to spot bugs, and, using STAT, Ahn was able to pinpoint a specific rank process that was stuck in a system call. An engineer was then able to identify and correct a hardware defect.
“Replacing the component suddenly got the entire Sequoia system back to life,” Ahn said. “Putting this exercise into perspective, this error was due to a defect in a tiny hardware unit, the decrementor, of a single hardware thread out of a total of 4.7 million hardware threads. I felt it was like finding a needle in a haystack over a coffee break.”
Lessons from STAT
Sequoia is designed to handle physics and engineering questions for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), as well as support programs designed for nonproliferation, counterterrorism, climate change, energy, health and security. As a result, ensuring that it runs successfully is a top security concern.
“Having a highly effective debugging tool that scales to the full system is vital to the installation and acceptance process for Sequoia,” said Kim Cupps, leader of the Livermore Computing Division at LLNL.
However, bug-free performance is often just as critical in other applications, and STAT also provides an example of the value of source code analysis in creating a secure, stable piece of software for any context. By using static analysis tools, developers can identify bugs in large volumes of code much more quickly than through conventional testing.
Software news brought to you by Klocwork Inc., dedicated to helping software developers create better code with every keystroke. | <urn:uuid:4f8c30b2-f1b5-4a86-a7a9-63c8a77c7a04> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.klocwork.com/blog/static-analysis/analysis-tool-helps-supercomputer-fight-bugs/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950591 | 575 | 2.84375 | 3 |
Posted On Thursday, March 22, 2012 at 01:58:04 AM
I am an 18-year-old boy. My problem is that I simply cannot talk to people. There have been times where the person on other side of the conversation is talking while I remain quiet. I have never enjoyed chatting on Facebook or texting my friends. My friends say that I am too innocent and even when I am hanging out with them they address me as ‘Bechara’. Whenever I talk to others, I feel that I am boring them. I feel ashamed of not being able to socialise and entertain others. .
I Why this kolaverbal di ? You seem to be in a singularly unique position. I know several people whose vocal chords get completely paralyzed in company, but whose fingers fly when they are communicating in writing, whether on Facebook, Twitter, or just SMS-ing. That’s why it’s called social network: it turns the most antisocial nerds into vivacious party animals. But you are stuck every which way when it comes to chatter.
Do you at least talk to yourself? And then do you make sparkling conversation?
If you are labelled a ‘bechara’, you have only yourself to blame. Why have you rendered yourself speechless — literally — by feeling that you are an insufferable bore? And what’s ‘innocence’ got to do with any of this? Besides, if you have friends who have so cleverly diagnosed your problem thus, presumably you do speak to the people you hang out with, else they would have dropped you like a stale samosa. So how can you say that you ‘cannot talk to people’?
You don’t have a speech impediment; the only block is in your brain. You don’t lack communication skills, you only lack self confidence. Take your courage in both your hands, and go out and open that mouth of yours. Build up a stock of interesting things to say. They don’t have to be anything more profound than a simple comment on the latest film, or even the canteen vada-pav. Practise it, and then say it as unselfconsciously as you can. Don’t let it come out like a frog trying to escape from its self-inflicted swamp.
If you can’t manage this yourself, seek professional help — public speaking classes or even a psychologist. Most of all, don’t worry about it. The clue — and answer — to your predicament may well be in your last sentence. ‘Socialising’ is not some great obligation imposed on you, and ‘entertaining others’ far less so. Forget about bogeys, and just learn to
relax in the company of friends. The dammed words will automatically flow. | <urn:uuid:4f69ebb3-140a-4dea-9c7e-122b3f344e56> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ahmedabadmirror.com/article/99/201203222012032201585231710b506f4/Giving-Gyan.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954274 | 599 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Scoping is the initial planning phase of the Remedial Investigation/Feasibility Study (RI/FS) process. Many of the planning steps begun here are continued and refined in later phases of the RI/FS. Scoping activities typically begin with the collection of existing site data, including data from previous investigations such as the preliminary assessment (PA) and site inspection (SI). On the basis of this information, site management planning is undertaken to:
- preliminarily identify boundaries of the study area;
- identify likely remedial action objectives and whether interim
actions may be necessary or appropriate; and
- establish whether the site may best be remedied as one or several
separate operable units.
Once an overall management strategy is agreed upon, the RI/FS for a specific project or the site as a whole is planned. Typical scoping activities include:
- Initiating the identification and discussion of potential Applicable or Relevant and
Appropriate Requirements (ARARs) with the support agency. (see Terms of Environment)
- Determining the types of decisions to be made and identifying the
data and other information needed to support these decisions.
- Assembling a technical advisory committee to assist in activities,
serve as a review board for important deliverables, and monitor progress
during the study.
- Preparing the work plan, sampling and analysis plan, health and
safety plan, and community relations plan. | <urn:uuid:aae16ce9-74c0-4b67-b634-b9b1ca2e5753> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://epa.gov/superfund/cleanup/scope.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00047-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.905344 | 298 | 2.40625 | 2 |
LOS ANGELES – With a recent flurry of winter storms doing little to dampen California's latest drought, the nation's biggest public utility voted on Tuesday to impose water rationing in Los Angeles for the first time in nearly two decades.
Under the plan adopted in principle by the governing board of the L.A. Department of Water and Power, homes and businesses would pay a penalty rate -- nearly double normal prices -- for any water they use in excess of a reduced monthly allowance.
The five-member board plans to formally vote on details of the measure next month.
The rationing scheme is expected to take effect in May unless the City Council acts before then to reject it -- a move seen as unlikely since Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa called for the measure under a water-shortage plan last week.
The only other time such penalty pricing was imposed to force conservation in the nation's second biggest city was a rationing system put into effect for a year starting in March 1991, at the height of California's last statewide drought.
That measure cut citywide water use by about 25 percent, DWP spokesman Joseph Ramallo said.
The DWP board also voted unanimously to restrict lawn sprinkler use to two days a week, as urged by the mayor. Outdoor irrigation accounts for 40 percent of residential water use in the city, DWP officials say.
The agency is the largest municipal utility in the United States, supplying water and electricity to some 3.8 million households and businesses in Los Angeles.
San Diego and other cities throughout California are weighing similar measures to cope with a water shortage that is adding to the woes of a state beset with rising unemployment, high mortgage foreclosure rates and a budget crisis.
DROP IN THE BUCKET
The snowpack in the Sierra Nevada mountain range, one of the state's chief sources of fresh surface water, is far below normal, and reservoirs fed by Sierra runoff are badly depleted as well, due to a statewide drought now in its third year.
State water managers have said the current dry spell could prove to be the worst ever in California, owing to rising demands from steady population growth.
Recent heavy rains, and mountain snowfall, have provided a welcome respite from California's driest January on record, but "this latest set of storms did not get us out of the woods by any means," water manager James McDaniel told the DWP board.
Complicating matters are federal court restrictions on water that can be pumped from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta in northern California, which furnishes much of the state's irrigation and drinking supplies, in order to protect endangered fish species.
As a result, state water managers have cut the amount of delta water they provide to irrigation districts and cities around the state to 15 percent of their usual contracted allotment for the year and may curb those deliveries further.
Another major source of imported water to Southern California, the Colorado River basin, is emerging from an eight-year drought, but its reservoirs remain low.
© 2013 Newsmax. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:e4ab2b91-cb05-4fad-9966-55936063b9be> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.newsmax.com/US/los-angeles-water-ration/2009/02/17/id/328327 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956687 | 623 | 2.171875 | 2 |
How much is too much screen time for kids? The CDC says the average 6-8 year old spends about 6 hours a day in front of a screen. And the worst offenders? 11-14 year olds.
Over 2 hours a day seems like too much to me. But I’m kind of the screen police at our house. Check out these infographics:
6-8 Year Olds
11-14 Year Olds
15-18 Year Olds
(for more information visit MakingHealthEasier.org/GetMoving)
What are the rules at your house for screen time? | <urn:uuid:72ea905a-e7f8-4dde-b2b5-68ac75a8d551> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://todaysmama.com/2012/04/average-screen-time-for-kids/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928218 | 126 | 2.09375 | 2 |
The holidays are synonymous with many things, including get-togethers with family and friends, shopping and, at the tail end of the season, resolutions. One of the more common New Year's resolutions is a commitment to getting healthier. This year, holiday shoppers can combine the tradition of gift-giving with the tradition of making New Year's resolutions by giving a loved one who wants to improve personal health a gift that can make keeping that resolution that much easier.
When holiday shopping this season, consider the following gift ideas for that health-conscious friend or family member who's looking to turn over a new leaf in the new year by adopting a healthier lifestyle.
* Gym membership: Fitness centers tend to see a spike in enrollment at the dawn of a new year, as men and women who want to get healthier take the first step by signing up for a gym membership. The holiday season can be a great time to sign up for a membership, as many fitness centers waive their initiation fees in an effort to attract more customers. When trying to help a friend or family member get back on a healthy track, offer to pay a portion of their membership fees or, if their preferred club is charging an initiation fee, offer to pay that instead. Recipients might feel more obligated to go to the gym if they know a loved one helped pay for it.
* Cardiovascular machine: Many people cite a lack of time as the primary reason they don't exercise enough. Getting to and from the gym takes time, but having a cardiovascular machine, whether it's an elliptical machine, an exercise bike or a treadmill, at home removes this hurdle, increasing the chances that people will exercise more often. And the potential benefits of routine cardiovascular exercise are considerable. According to the American Heart Association, as little as 30 minutes of daily cardiovascular exercise each day can significantly reduce an individual's risk for heart disease.
* Bicycle: Few activities are more enjoyable and simultaneously beneficial as riding a bicycle. Many people still enjoy riding a bike just like they did when they were children, when they might not have known just how healthy riding a bicycle was. Cycling improves cardiovascular fitness, lowering a person's risk for heart disease while helping to build and tone muscles. In addition, men and women with preexisting joint conditions often find riding a bicycle is a great low-impact exercise that encourages them to get off the couch in a way that doesn't aggravate their conditions. Many adults received a bicycle as a holiday gift when they were children, and those looking to adopt a healthier lifestyle might be just as excited to receive a bicycle once again.
* Cookbook: Adopting a healthier lifestyle does not have to be all about exercise. In fact, eating healthier is just as important as exercising more. A common misconception about eating healthy is that healthy foods don't boast the flavor of those irresistible, yet ultimately unhealthy, foods we can't get enough of. However, a healthy diet can be flavorful, so help health-conscious men and women get started with a cookbook filled with healthy and delicious recipes. Before buying a cookbook, find out if the book's eventual recipient has any specific dietary restrictions, including if he or she needs to eat gluten-free or has been told to avoid red meat. Then find a cookbook that suits them but does so in a way that allows them to embrace healthy eating. | <urn:uuid:956f3ea2-c727-4366-9842-8eed614f5aba> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dailyamerican.com/ourtown/da-ot-great-gifts-for-men-and-women-hoping-to-get-healthier-20121126,0,4698391.story | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977243 | 682 | 1.96875 | 2 |
Frequently overlooked in the fundamental analysis of a new investment is the size of the potential market. Large markets offer opportunities not only for a company's sales prospects, but also for a sustained valuation premium of its common stock. Meanwhile, a business addressing a more constrained or defined market will likely have nervous investors always worried about levels of penetration that can trap valuation in what appears to be a cheap level. Having been pinned down by the latter, my experience suggests making sure that your investments have an ample runway for growth.
Considering the timing of this week's JP Morgan Healthcare Conference, I'll focus on two investments in the enormous, but very specific, market for diabetes care.
The statistics sizing the diabetes market are staggering and alarming. In 2011, the International Diabetes Federation projected that there would be 552 million diabetics worldwide by 2030, up from the current 366 million. In the U.S. alone, over the next decade, $3.4 trillion will be spent to care for the one in 10 Americans that currently have the disease.
Diabetes is broken down into two forms: Type 1 and Type 2. Type 2 is the most common and represents approximately 90% of the disease population. In this form, the body has lost its ability to make enough insulin or to use it properly. Type 1 diabetics, the remaining 10%, are completely unable to make the important Insulin that breaks down digested sugars in the blood stream.
The levels of care and treatment for Type 1 and Type 2 diabetics are quite different and highly personalized, but there is commonality in the primary objective of better controlling blood sugar levels that allows a business opportunity for some companies. To be successful, though, these companies must meet not only a therapeutic goal, but also a patient's need to make an already intrusive daily disease into something less intrusive.
Many companies (Pfizer's (PFE) inhalable insulin, for example) failed to recognize that diabetes is a uniquely self-managed disease, and unless a drug or product has an outcome AND ease of use that compares well against time-tested treatments, including self-injection of insulin, the likelihood of success is low. Much like Amazon's (AMZN) customer reviews can influence product sales, individual practical evaluations can determine the adoption of a drug or product as much as the results in an official and respected medical journal.
Two companies that understand this market are Novo Nordisk (NVO) and Insulet (PODD). The two could not be more fundamentally different. For example, Novo has $7.1 billion in insulin sales alone in 2010 compared with Insulet's $97 million in total 2010 revenue. The tie that binds them, however, is a dominant focus on the diabetes market and a deep understanding of the requirement to meet the unique needs of this self-managed disease.
Novo is a Danish company with a 90 -year history in the insulin market. Twenty-six percent of its common stock and 73% of its voting stake is held by its own Novo Foundation, with an objective to support endocrinological research. This unique controlling feature has kept Novo at the forefront of insulin advancements and held the common stock in the hands of long-term owners. Currently, Novo is amongst an oligopoly of companies, which includes Sanofi (SNY) and Eli Lilly (LLY), that are introducing a new drug category for use by Type 2 diabetics of an injectable natural hormone called a GLP-1 that stimulates the body's ability to produce insulin. In addition to the desirable effects of helping to better control blood sugar levels with less frequency of injections, these drugs also appear to help with weight loss. While the medical merits of each company's GLP-1 offering are in the midst of numerous comparative evaluations, Novo has an embedded culture of cautiousness, a market-leading diabetes sales force, and an almost exclusive focus on diabetes that serves as a competitive advantage in this large market opportunity.
While very different in scale from Novo Nordisk, Insulet has developed a medical device that, like GLP-1, has the objective of making diabetes easier to manage. Insulet's device is a modern insulin pump that has unshackled Type 1 diabetics from the tubes and bulkiness of tradition insulin pumps. Three-day disposable pods are controlled wirelessly and have a patented self-catheter that simplifies attachment to the body with few activity limitations. The market penetration for pump therapy is fewer than 25% of Type 1 diabetics in the U.S., despite endocrinologists' overwhelming support. Insulet has a rapidly growing fraction of this expanding market given its innovative design. This year is important for Insulet, with pending approval of its next generation of smaller and more efficient designs, as well as a selling infrastructure throughout Europe and Canada.
If you need additional reason to look at this large and growing health care market, consider its growing importance within the European coalition. Also, consider a report by Datamonitor that estimates the market for insulin in China tripling by 2019 to $2.1 billion in annual sales as the diabetes rate there soars.
Large markets, focused companies and products that address the needs of patients and influence medical outcomes worldwide are what bind these two companies. Investors should take notice. | <urn:uuid:1c3afa69-7a3e-4ff0-9fe7-86c509e61f8b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://realmoney.thestreet.com/articles/01/11/2012/prescription-growth | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963176 | 1,092 | 1.59375 | 2 |
A Treasured Love Story
Archbishop Fulton Sheen’s book, St. Thérèse: A Treasured Love Story, is a compendium on the nature of practical sanctity.
by Catholic.net Staff Writer | Source:
Book Title: St. Thérèse: A Treasured Love Story
Publisher: Basilica Press (Irving, TX, 2007)
Author: Archbishop Fulton Sheen
Reviewer: Rev. Bernard J. O’Connor,
Official – Vatican Congregation for Eastern Churches
Submitted: January 5, 2008
In his Encyclical, On Christian Hope, Pope Benedict XVI makes a striking appeal: that modern society stands in crucial need of martyrs (Art. 39). A martyr, according to the Pope, is a person whose love for Christ knows no boundaries. Theirs is a willingness to offer any sacrifice for Christ, including the giving up of their very life. What the Holy Father is in fact telling us is quite familiar to Catholic spirituality; namely, that heroic holiness can both renew the Church and witness persuasively for the Gospel before secular culture. And heroic holiness is an ideal meant for each of us!
Archbishop Fulton Sheen’s, St. Thérèse: A Treasured Love Story, is a compendium on the nature of practical sanctity. And the essence of that sanctity, the call to all Christians to become Saints, is the heart of a martyr. For just as the word ‘martyr’ literally refers to an acceptance of being “put to the test” in the continual struggle to be faithful, Bishop Sheen sees in St. Thérèse of Lisieux an exemplar of what it means to love God with a martyr’s love, which is to say with an unreserved passion, intensity, and fidelity.
The book is a sheer gem for the depth of its insight and clarity. I recommend it with profound gratitude, a synthesis of St. Thérése’s teaching, as with her belief that authentic joy and freedom are most realized when one acts upon a yearning to console God-in-Christ. By identifying with the Suffering Servant in His experience of excruciating external pain and internal anguish, St. Thérèse models what is entailed in that consolation. She would refuse her Divine Spouse nothing; her only desire being to be united with Him as He endures the many Calvaries which the contemporary world persists in afflicting upon Him.
A word of caution. Some prospective readers may wrongly assume that this book is best appreciated by the specialist in spirituality, especially since it is written about a Saint by an author who is himself a candidate for canonization. No. Nor should laity conclude that the book is less relevant for them because the text is based upon a series of sermons which Bishop Sheen preached in 1973 and for an audience which largely consisted of clergy and Religious. The occasion was “the centenary of St. Thérèse’s birth” (pp.8-9). Again, no. Because the combined genius of Bishop Sheen as a communicator and of St. Thérèse as an inspiration for simplicity and humility, effectively address the vocation of Everyman. Together, their wisdom reinforces Vatican II’s exhortation to the laity to resist passivity and to become truly active: “each according to his/her talents and knowledge and in keeping with the mind of the Church, in the explanation and defense of Christian principles and in the correct application of them to the problems of our times” (Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity, Art. 6d).
The book’s eleven chapters embody content which can be interpreted to suggest guidelines for growth in a holiness which is concretized through the experience of ordinary and regular events. How is such holiness described? Among its features:
(1) “the centrality of love” – This is basic to St. Thérèse’s ‘Little Way’, and is therefore also basic to the Gospel. We are to love God with “all our heart, soul and mind” (Mt. 22:37). By so loving Him we will be capable of loving all those, friends and enemies alike, whom He has created. (cf. Rev. J. Linus Ryan, O. Carm., p. 21)
(2) that chronological maturity is not a prerequisite to maturity in the spiritual life – Bishop Sheen was influence by the example of an 11 year-old Chinese girl who died while attempting to safeguard the consecrated Host from sacrilege (Rev. A. Apostoli, CFR, pp. 33-36)
(3) that we strive to relate our every action (e.g. study, work, rest, leisure) to our Blessed Lord (p.39)
(4) that we reject wanting to “settle down to mediocrity” (p.50) - Instead, we should aspire to “take (the) everything” that is involved in “want(ing) to be God’s” (p. 54).
(5) our refusal to become discouraged when God answers our hopes and petitions with “love’s delays” – For these are not His denial (p. 61).
(6) the realization that “the Holy Spirit (is) in your soul” – There He is our intercessor to enable our being the same for others (p.78). There He bids us to recognize that Christ is most pained by our neglect and forgetfulness (p.82)
(7) that love is the courageous and welcoming embrace of the Triune Person (p. 96) – But this surrender arouses forces which are intrinsically evil and destructive (p. 131). The diabolic is no mere myth or collective psychological projection.
(8) our being naturally capable of empathy, “a deep feeling of the pains of others” (p. 139) - We serve by “recognizing the gifts that we have” (p. 156) and by resisting any inclination to “rationalize our sins” (p. 162)
Holiness. St. Thérèse’s. Bishop Sheen’s. And our own – It flows from our response to the Sacred’s “plea” that even our Heaven will be spent in “doing good on earth” (p. 179). | <urn:uuid:7e634466-59ee-495b-af86-f53ad9890339> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.catholic.net/index.php?option=dedestaca&id=2095&grupo=&canal= | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943653 | 1,364 | 1.945313 | 2 |
Cleveland Clinic Unveils Top 10 Medical Innovations for 2011
Hospital Experts Predict Ten Emerging Technologies That Will Shape Health Care Next Year
CLEVELAND, Nov. 3, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- From pill-sized cameras to radioactive compounds that let doctors "see" inside a patient's brain, Cleveland Clinic's Top 10 Medical Innovations for 2011 showcases new techniques, therapies and approaches to treating a host of diseases.
The list of breakthrough devices and therapies was selected by a panel of Cleveland Clinic physicians and scientists and unveiled during Cleveland Clinic's 2010 Medical Innovation Summit.
The Top 10 Medical Innovations for 2011 are:
10. Capsule endoscopy for diagnosis of pediatric GI disorders: A pill-sized camera captures 50,000 high-resolution images during its painless six- to eight-hour journey through the digestive tract, proving better than x-ray at detecting small bowel ulcerations, polyps and areas of bleeding.
9. Oral disease-modifying treatment for multiple sclerosis: Before fingolimid was approved by the FDA this year, MS drugs had to be injected or infused on a regular basis. This oral medication effectively stops T-cells from attacking the myelin sheaths that cover nerve fibers.
8. Exhaled nitric oxide (NO) breath analysis for diagnosing asthma: A new hand-held diagnostic testing device measures a patient's level of exhaled NO, which is a biomarker for asthma. Monitoring NO levels allows doctors to more accurately tailor treatment strategies.
7. Transoral gastroplasty, or TOGA: A new experimental weight-loss option for obese patients who want to lose weight and improve their health without undergoing major surgery. This "scar-less" procedure represents a significant improvement in minimally-invasive bariatric surgery and losses approaching 40 percent of excess body weight can be expected within a year.
6. Telehealth monitoring for heart failure patients: Miniature implantable monitors to measure pulmonary artery pressure daily and at-home devices to monitor weight, heart rate and blood pressure of heart failure patients allow doctors to adjust medication quickly, improving patient outcomes and quality of life, while reducing re-hospitalizations.
5. Hepatitis C protease-inhibiting drugs: Two drugs awaiting FDA approval treat hepatitis C using protease inhibitors, which work by blocking a key enzyme that viruses need to copy themselves and proliferate. In clinical trials, cure rates for the protease inhibitors are higher than current hepatitis C treatments, with fewer side effects.
4. JUPITER study and statins for healthy individuals: The JUPITER (Justification for the Use of Statins in Primary Prevention: an Intervention Trial Evaluating Rosuvastatin) trial pointed out for the first time that many seemingly healthy people are at higher risk for heart disease than previously thought, suggesting that statins should be prescribed even to people with low LDL (bad cholesterol), if they have high C-reactive protein levels.
3. First therapeutic cancer vaccine approved by the FDA: While not a cure for prostate cancer, sipuleucel-T is the first cancer vaccine to receive FDA approval. Prescribed to men with advanced prostate cancer, the drug coaxes their own immune systems into attacking and removing the cancer, reducing the risk of death by 24 percent compared to placebo.
2. Anti-CTLA-4 drug (ipilimumab), a targeted T-cell antibody for metastatic melanoma: The effectiveness of ipilimumab in treating melanoma confirms the role of immunotherapy as an effective treatment. In patients with advanced stage III or IV melanoma, 23 percent were still alive after two years compared to 14 percent of patients who received standard treatment.
1. New molecular imaging biomarker for early detection of Alzheimer's disease:
Currently, positive diagnosis of Alzheimer's is only possible upon autopsy. But a radioactive molecular imaging compound called AV-45 and a PET scan can allow doctors to "see" inside patients' brains to detect beta-amyloid plaques, the tell-tale signature of Alzheimer's.
"The Top 10 list reflects the place of Clinic physicians as arbiters of innovation. It goes all over the world, usually with a forward of an email commending the recipient that if the technology is important to Cleveland Clinic it should be important to you," said Christopher Coburn , Executive Director, Innovations, the Cleveland Clinic's corporate venturing arm.
Four major criteria served as the basis for qualifying and selecting the Top 10 Medical Innovations. Nominated innovations were required to:
- Have significant potential for short-term clinical impact (either a major improvement in patient benefit or an improved function that enhances healthcare delivery).
- Have a high probability of success.
- Be on the market or close to being introduced.
- Have sufficient data available to support its nomination.
For more information about this year's Medical Innovation Summit and the conference agenda, visit http://www.clevelandclinic.org/INNOVATIONS/SUMMIT/
About Cleveland Clinic
Cleveland Clinic, located in Cleveland, Ohio, is a not-for-profit multispecialty academic medical center that integrates clinical and hospital care with research and education. It was founded in 1921 by four renowned physicians with a vision of providing outstanding patient care based upon the principles of cooperation, compassion and innovation. U.S. News & World Report consistently names Cleveland Clinic as one of the nation's best hospitals in its annual "America's Best Hospitals" survey. About 2,100 full-time salaried physicians and researchers and 11,000 nurses represent 120 medical specialties and subspecialties. In addition to its main campus, Cleveland Clinic operates nine regional hospitals and 15 Family Health Centers in Northeast Ohio, Cleveland Clinic Florida, the Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health in Las Vegas, Cleveland Clinic Canada, and opening in 2012, Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi. In 2009, there were more than 4.6 million visits throughout the Cleveland Clinic health system and 170,000 hospital admissions. Patients came for treatment from every state and from more than 100 countries. Visit us at www.clevelandclinic.org.
SOURCE Cleveland Clinic
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> Hey Russ,
> Thanks, one more time, for explaining who the NC farmers are and the
> flood's impact on them. I tend to hear and remember personal stories
> and experiences. Your brother's experience is troubling for me.
> You also have me thinking more about contract farmers. I've tended to
> dismiss them in the past, but began thinking of their aspirations and
> goals. They may simply be resource limited and see contract farming as
> an entry level step into a future independent farm...Hum.
> Good luck on the work for the doctorate. In your future work, think:
> small farmer, family farmer, community of farmers.
> Buy from the Farmer
I tend to think of contract farmers like the medieval feudal system. The
contract farmers are peasants, and the corporations are nobles. The main
difference is that contract farmers often own the land (although not always
the buildings, and never the pigs. I'm not exactly sure where the technical
points lay i.e. the buildings, however.)
The main point I was trying to make is that the farmer is completely
responsible for waste management and disposal (even though the animals that
produce the waste are not his/hers!)
Also, regulations have excluded hog farms (all animal production systems,
really) as part of the new EPA regulations for Municipal waste management
systems (that's what I've been told, anyway).
Let me also state, for the record, that I'm not a legislator, lawyer,
judge, hog farmer, or corporation, or anything else that might put me in
direct contact with these regulations. I'm a student who is interested in
changing an environmental problem into an environmental asset.
How? Through the use of composted swine waste solids as fertilizer. Swine
waste worked very well in the two year project that I worked on as a
fertilizer, however, it was uncomposted, was smelly, and required two weeks
before planting could occur (because of a flush of ammonia into the soil
post-amendment). I've been thinking about this for a while. If the swine
waste solids from some of the counties "Down-East" were composted, much of
the environmental hazard associated with swine manure could be eliminated.
Since many waste systems (i.e. lagoons) were destroyed thanks to Floyd, now
would be the best time to institute changes that otherwise would not take
place because of the expense of replacing systems. (Many of the systems
must be replaced now, therefore, why not put something useful, and possibly
create a value-added product from something that is definitely not
palatable. If anyone has handled swine manure, you know what I mean.)
First, by making a system where swine manure solids can be removed, taken
to a central location (either in a community or county) and composted.
Next, the compost could be given back to the farmers as fertilizer for
their fields, or sold to the public. The greatest expense would be an
initial outlay for the waste management facilities (which currently has to
be done anyway thanks to Floyd), system management, and fuel for driving
the waste to the central location. On site composting (at each hog farm)
might be more efficient, but the potential for incorrect composting would
Further, this system could only work in areas with a concentration of
animals (such as several counties in Southeastern NC, where there are more
pigs than people). I think it could be a viable system.
Of course I am an idealist. . . Two and one half years ago at the Emerging
Issues Forum (an annual event with different themes each year. The year I
went environmental issues were the theme.) I met our governor (Jim Hunt)
and spoke with him about my research, and what I've outlined above. He
asked me what I thought this would add to the price of each pound of pork.
I said that we would pay for it one way or the other. Either through
environmental clean-up (i.e. increased taxes) or through higher pork
prices. That was before Fran (1996) and Floyd damaged hog lagoons
Alright, I've said enough (maybe too much). . . I'd like to see these
systems put in place, but reality will likely not make it happen. . . Russ
-- Russ Bulluck Ph.D. Candidate Department of Plant Pathology North Carolina State University PO Box 7616 Raleigh, NC 27695-7616
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The soil population is so complex that it manifestly cannot be dealt with as a whole with any detail by any one person, and at the same time it plays so important a part in the soil economy that it must be studied. --Sir E. John Russell The Micro-organisms of the Soil, 1923 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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"If it is determined that these services do not fall under the jurisdiction of the Canadian Human Rights Act," he said, "Canadians may no longer be able to file discrimination complaints in relation to services provided by the government."Decoding the "rights"-speak: what he's really worried about is the future viability of his "human rights" body: if Canadians can no longer file discrimination complaints against the government, there goes a sizable segment of the CHRC's bread and butter.
But that's down the road. In the here and now, the acting head should have other worries--like the fact that the "human rights" system is falling apart before his eyes:
According to the Public Service Alliance, five employees -roughly a quarter of the staff -have filed harassment-related complaints against tribunal chair Shirish Chotalia, the Calgary lawyer appointed in late 2009 by the Harper government.
More than half of the staff have left for other public service jobs or been sidelined by stress since she took over.I venture that the CHRC boss-for-now is also concerned that the Tribunal threatens to topple the whole rickety "human rights" apparatus--and sooner rather than later. (The conspiracy-minded might conclude that the Harper Tories put Chotalia the fox in the CHRC hen house for the express purpose of causing the implosion.)
Chotalia has refused to be interviewed about the problems and acting tribunal executive director Frederick Gloade did not return a call from the Citizen on Monday.
The Privy Council Office has said it will investigate the tribunal's workplace problems but has yet to do so. | <urn:uuid:05079ae9-d7c8-4b1a-81d4-16f61d271674> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://scaramouchee.blogspot.ca/2011/03/chrc-in-free-fall.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963099 | 332 | 1.53125 | 2 |
As China reaches an agreement with Russia to buy Sukhoi Su-35 fighters, the domestic J-20 fighter program might have developed problems that China cannot solve on its own anytime soon.
China has signed a fifth contract with Russia’s Rosoboronexport for the supply of Saturn AL-31FN military turbofan engines from the MMPP Salyut factory to power the Chengdu J-10 multi-role fighter, according to reports from Moscow.
Following months of speculation, fueled by tidbits gleaned during the Zhuhai airshow in November, the first images of China’s newest combat aircraft were revealed in the week before Christmas. Believed to be designated the J-20, the aircraft is under development by Chengdu (611 Design Institute) and Shenyang, with the former leading the effort having effectively won a design competition in 2008.
China’s march to overhaul its front-line fighter fleet is making good progress, thanks to two major indigenous production programs involving the Chengdu J-10 and Shenyang J-11 models. The Chengdu product is an all-Chinese design that is now entering service in numbers. The J-11 is a license-built Sukhoi Su-27 Flanker, which in its latest production version incorporates important Chinese components. | <urn:uuid:47a7f354-33f3-4045-bff5-235637482340> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ainonline.com/social-tags/shenyang-j-11 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953843 | 271 | 1.695313 | 2 |
This op-ed originally appeared in the New York Jewish Week on November 1, 2002.
Not two months into the fall semester, the divestiture campaign is in full swing on college campuses from Cambridge to San Francisco. Anti-Israel forces recently held a national divestment conference at the University of Michigan, garnering additional attention to their cause while encouraging the some 400 students in attendance to urge their respective colleges and universities to stop investing in businesses with financial ties to Israel.
What started as a whisper on campus has turned into a full-fledged assault on the Jewish state. It is a new movement that is sweeping many campuses across the country.
While the movement has largely failed to gain any momentum on campus, concerns about the wider issues raised by divestment campaigns are strongly felt in the Jewish community.
Not surprisingly, this assault against Israel has turned nasty. The singling-out of Israel goes beyond criticism of Israeli government policies to hateful comparisons of a kind appropriately described this fall by Harvard University President Lawrence Summers as being “anti-Semitic in their effect if not their intent.” It comes in a period of growing anti-Semitism worldwide, fueling a climate of hate and intimidation that has spilled over lately onto the college campus.
The campaigns, which call for universities to stop investing in companies doing business in Israel, have made hideous comparisons to apartheid and references to Israel as a “racist state” as arguments for encouraging divestment. The recent divestiture conference at Michigan described battling “the racism and discrimination inherent in Zionism” as its core mission while predictably failing to make any reference to Palestinian terrorism against Israeli civilians.
The calls to boycott Israel have been accompanied by frequent assaults against Israeli speakers and academics, who have faced cancellations and boycotts on campus, even if their reasons for visiting a particular institution are non-political in nature. Anti-Israel activities on campus have in some cases led to overt expressions of anti-Semitism, with a rise over the past two years in vandalism and assaults against Jewish students.
University officials increasingly are taking these incidents seriously and speaking out about the need to keep campuses free of hate. Aside from Summers, the chancellors of San Francisco State University, the University of Colorado, the University of Michigan and the State University of New York at Binghamton all have spoken out on the necessity of civil discourse and observance of the law on campus.
Those administrators who do speak up, however, are being criticized for attempting to stifle debate by labeling Israel’s critics as anti-Semitic.
The call for divestment is offensive and inappropriate on several levels. For one, the divestment movement has all but ignored the fact that Israel was prepared to make substantial concessions for peace two years ago at Camp David, and the fact that the people of Israel are still ready for concessions if only the terror stops and the Palestinians finally give up their old dreams about Israel disappearing.
Second, the absurd comparison of Israel to an apartheid regime ignores fundamental facts, especially the nature of Israel’s democratic society. Israel remains the lone democracy in the Middle East, with all institutions – a free press, a multitude of parties and an independent judiciary and religious freedom — that are at the heart of true liberal democracies. The region and the world have tens of states that do not come close to lining up to Israel’s standards.
It is no accident that not a single university has taken the calls for divestment seriously. The movement for divestment against South Africa in the 1980s represented a broad consensus among human rights groups and the international community. The new anti-Israel campus divestment movement, however, has been characterized by the extreme anti-Israel activism of certain groups — either Islamic groups or certain left-wing groups who have always been opposed to Israel, and sometimes even to Israel’s very existence.
The focus on Israel is ludicrous and clearly the result of a double standard being applied, which raises the possibility that anti-Semitism is the real motive of divestment campaigns.
The toxic rhetoric of the divestment campaigns raises concerns about renewed anti-Semitism on campus. The rhetoric reinforces the notion that it is OK to attack Jewish students, who become inextricably linked in the minds of Israel’s detractors with “Zionists” and supporters of Israel’s so-called “racist policies.” The danger is that the divestiture movement could fuel new anti-Semitism on campus.
Meanwhile, those leading the divestment campaigns seem to be encouraged whenever their activities raise the charge of anti-Semitism, especially in the press.
While insisting that their campaign is not anti-Semitic, they seem to be out to push the envelope to ensure that their critics will label them as such.
During the recent Second National Conference on the Palestine Solidarity Movement in Michigan, conference organizers pointed out that the divestiture movement was grabbing headlines on campuses. “It’s so easy to get a campus headline,” a political activist told a crowd of students at the conference. “A tiny group of people at Wayne State said, ‘Let’s Divest’ and got 50 to 70 signatures. They had major headlines day after day for three days. You can do that on your campus.”
University administrators and fair-minded students must continue to reject this campaign, whose goals are clearly to delegitimize Israel and its supporters.
Back to Top | <urn:uuid:8f2d2176-8bce-4559-a385-7fb6aa39ec5f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://archive.adl.org/Anti_semitism/divestment.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00057-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95866 | 1,108 | 1.734375 | 2 |
A Hidden Gem in Myrtle Beach ... the Franklin G. Burroughs Art Museum
A Hidden Gem, Right in the Grand Strand, the Franklin G. Burroughs Art Museum.
Admission is free but donations are appreciated. The main exhibit hall is on the first floor with a small exhibition space upstairs (elevator or nice wide stairwell). You can easily see everything in less than 30 minutes, or linger for an hour. Exhibits vary and change frequently so there is always something to please someone in your group. And unlike big city art museums, you won’t leave exhausted and overwhelmed. This museum is just the right size!
There is free parking, about 10 spaces hidden under live oak trees. Restrooms are spotless and modern; they have a small gift shop and a small area for snacks overlooking the dunes and ocean.
Just a bit of the MUSEUM HISTORY
The Museum first opened to the public in June, 1997, but was conceived some 13 years earlier by a small group of Myrtle Beach visionaries - artists, art patrons, business leaders, cultural enthusiasts and other private citizens.
The building itself dates to 1924, when it was built by textile industry mogul Eugene Cannon in the Cabana section of Myrtle Beach. It was subsequently sold to Col. Elliot White Springs for use by his family and executives of Springs Industries and re-christened Springmaid Villa.
In 1975, the Villa changed hands again and was slated for demolition. A campaign to save Springmaid Villa began, led initially by Waccamaw Arts and Crafts Guild President Gaye Sanders Fisher. The building's survival, however, was contingent on its relocation: a Herculean effort organized by Guild member and Myrtle Beach Councilman Harry Charles, along with his wife, Jane. Relocating the 150-ton structure required two flatbed trucks for three full days, with a team of city employees, utility workers and every member of the Guild working side by side.
The Villa was taken to its new home eight miles south, an undeveloped property whose donation by the Myrtle Beach Farms Company, precursor to the Burroughs & Chapin Company, had been negotiated by Harry Charles. Charles was also instrumental in creating the Springmaid Villa Art Museum Corporation, a new non-profit with a board of trustees charged with converting and later managing the property as a public Art Museum. Following a decade-long fundraising effort, the Museum opened its doors in June, 1997.
In recognition of the land donation, it was re-named for the founders of Myrtle Beach Farms and became the Franklin G. Burroughs-Simeon B. Chapin Art Museum.
Definitely worth a stop while you are in Myrtle Beach.
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Guests of Litchfield Beach Resort can enjoy the high-octane entertainment of Legends In Concert
Frank Theatres & Revolutions Entertainment is your one-stop hot spot for family fun | <urn:uuid:8e154530-149a-457a-a3e9-d36091266697> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.litchfieldbeach.com/news/a-hidden-gem-in-myrtle-beach-...-the-franklin-g.-burroughs-art-museum/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949176 | 633 | 2.09375 | 2 |
Philip Hosking (Cornwall, The Cornish Democrat): With the up and coming 'make or break' elections to the new Unitary Authority followed by town, parish and general elections Mebyon Kernow more than ever needs a policy direction for obtaining autonomy and bringing power closer to the people of Cornwall.
Previous to the undemocratically imposed Unitary Authority MKs proposition for devolution and answer to Cornwall's democratic deficit was three fold:
1) Powers devolved from central government and quangos to an elected Cornish Assembly with powers akin to the Scottish Parliament and certainly no less than those of the Welsh Assembly.
2) The vast bulk of local government powers and functions of the erstwhile county council devolved down to the district councils or amalgamation of districts.
3) Where possible and agreeable powers and functions devolved to parish and town councils.
So what to campaign for now that the district and county council have been sunk and the schema above made redundant?
MK has created a working group called 'Home Rule' whose purpose is to address this question and they are looking for all ideas and comments on a future direction in the campaigning for Cornish autonomy. All organizations and think tanks with an interest in devolution and decentralization are invited to submit their ideas to MK and help form a new policy for bringing power down to our Cornish communities. MK is asking for all comments and ideas to be sent to:
Home Rule Working Group
TR9 6PQ Kernow
Coincidentally 2008 is the 500th anniversary of the of the unrecinded Charter of Pardon issued by King Henry VII that restored the Cornish Stannary Parliament following the rebellion of 1497 and gave it the right of effective veto over parliament and King. To commemorate this event the contemporary pressure group, the Cornish Stannary Parliament are looking to start a debate in Cornish civic society on the following and so are looking for all opinions (to get in contact email info(AT)cornishstannaryparliament.co.uk)
Based on their analysis that the Cornish are effectively prevented from recognition and devolution because of the; unwritten nature of the UKs constitution; lack of a guarantee of equality before the law and the discriminatory nature of the Duchy of Cornwall:-
1) Is a written constitution with ensured legal equality a necessity for the UK?
2) Should the Cornish be recognized as a national minority.
What would I like to see? Well with regards the Duchy of Cornwall there do seem to be more questions than credible answers, so starting there, a full and public inquiry into the Cornish constitution followed by a debate on the future shape of said constitution would seem the least we might expect during this period of supposed constitutional renewal in the UK.
Acknowledging that the Duchy seems to be a fear-inspiring untouchable constitutional can of worms (see Duchy of Cornwall Human Rights Association) and realizing that the government is all mouth and no trousers when it comes to constitutional renewal where can we go with the Unitary Authority?
Peter Facey of Unlock Democracy has suggested that UAs and other local authorities, either individually or in clusters, should be able to request the devolution of powers down from central governments and their quangos. Cornwall is champing at the bit. "Show us the powers!" is all I can say. A conference which brought together the players in the Cornish devolution movement and interested UK democratic reformers might also be an idea if just a little expensive. One question must be asked however and that is why isn't the Cornish Constitutional Convention doing more at this time? Unfortunately the CCC has remained unusually silent throughout the undemocratic process that has resulted in Cornwall going forward to become a UA.
Both the CSP and MK are open to and asking for dialogue. They want to hear from all those interested in bringing power closer to the Cornish public. The petition of 50,000 calling for devolution gives legitimacy to our demands so what can we do to move forward? | <urn:uuid:9a3317c3-7021-4128-89a2-cc408f6d0045> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.opendemocracy.net/blog/ourkingdom-theme/philip-hosking/2008/05/24/cornish-home-rule-campaign-launches | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949704 | 834 | 2 | 2 |
Venezuela's Revolution Checked
With the surprising loss of the constitutional reform referendum in December (by a minimal vote difference of 1.3%) Venezuela's Bolivarian revolution reached a turning point. The April 2002 coup attempt, the December 2002 shutdown of the oil industry and the August 2004 recall referendum represented major defeats for the opposition and a radicalisation of the Bolivarian process. But the failed reform was quite different: it was the first defeat for the Bolivarian movement, after 12 national electoral contests, since Hugo Chávez was elected in 1998, and the first time that he and his movement had been forced to examine which way the process must go if it is to advance.
Shortly after his re-election in December 2006, Chávez had argued that Venezuela's new constitution needed to be reformed for transition towards "21st century socialism". But when he presented his proposal to reform 33 articles of the constitution in August, after delays and closed-door discussions among top advisers, it provoked confusion and scepticism in all but the most pro-Chávez sectors of society. The scepticism intensified when the National Assembly (which may modify, and must approve the president's constitutional reform proposal) added another 36 articles.
The 69 (out of 350) articles that were to be changed fell into four categories: strengthening participatory democracy, broadening social inclusion, supporting non-neoliberal economic development, and strengthening the central government (1). The first two were relatively uncontroversial; they included giving the newly formed communal councils more power and more secure funding, lowering the voting age from 18 to 16, prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation and health, requiring gender parity in the nomination of candidates for public office, introducing a social security fund for the self-employed and those in the informal labour market, guaranteeing free university education and recognising Venezuelans of African descent.
But the reforms that affected the economy and the president's powers proved far more controversial because of what they contained - and what the opposition claimed they contained. Among economic reforms were the removal of central bank autonomy, prohibition of the privatisation of the oil industry, strengthening of land reform, reduction of the working week from 44 to 36 hours, and the introduction of social and collective property rights. The reform proposed to eliminate the two-term limit that a president may serve, lengthen the presidential term from six to seven years, allow the president to create special zones for economic development, give the president the power to reorganise municipal boundaries, make citizen-initiated referenda more difficult by increasing signature requirements, allow the president to promote all military officers, and toughen state of emergency provisions by removing the right to information.
What went wrong
Since the 3 December defeat, Chávez and his supporters have tried to figure out what went wrong. For the opposition, the reason its side won was simple: Venezuelans rejected the president's attempt to create 21st century socialism, which it sees as Castro-communism. However, for Chávez supporters, who have always denied that their project is Cuban state socialism, the answer is not that simple - Cuban state socialism was not on the ballot.
Also, it wasn't so much that those who had voted for Chávez in 2006 had now voted against him one year later. Rather, the opposition was effective in turning out its supporters to vote against the reform, while Chávez supporters abstained to a far higher degree than opposition supporters did (2).
There appear to be four main reasons why the reform initiative failed: the way the campaign was conducted, the defection of long-time supporters, the mood in the country and the process through which the reform was developed. At first this process took place entirely within a closed circle of Chávez advisers. Then, when the National Assembly debated the proposal, legislators held public meetings to get outside input, but the process was rushed, covering 69 articles in two and a half months, so the discussion was superficial.
The pro-reform campaign, launched on 2 November, a month before the referendum, did not have much time to educate the public as to what the reform was about: there were too many articles to discuss and the opposition waged a merciless campaign. It claimed that the reform would weaken the right to private property and suggested that all private property could be indiscriminately expropriated by the state. In reality, ordinary private property was not affected. The reform would have only strengthened the state's mandate to expropriate food producers in the case of food emergencies or to redistribute latifundios for land reform.
The opposition also focused on the proposal that the president could appoint regional vice-presidents, claiming this would allow him to rule directly anywhere, bypassing elected officials. This too had nothing to do with the actual proposal, which did not assign these vice-presidents any new powers. Opposition literature and spokesmen made even more outrageous claims: the state would take children away from parents and socialism would become the only political creed. These were scare tactics, and effective. Even if people did not believe them all, they were sufficiently intimidated to stay away from the polls.
With the reform's early 60% lead in the polls shrinking dramatically, Chávez began to refocus the campaign and actively tried to turn the reform into a referendum on his presidency, saying `A yes vote is a vote for me.' The reform was too complex to explain in detail and it made sense for Chávez to use his personal popularity for the campaign.
But Chávez misread the popular mood, and former allies, such as the former defence minister, Raul Baduel, Chávez's ex-wife Marisabel Rodriguez, and the social democratic party Podemos all turned against the reform.
The mood further soured because the government's public administration had become inefficient and many of the president's supporters wanted to send him a message. As the human rights group Provea reports, the social programmes, the missions for community health care, literacy training, high school completion, public housing, subsidised food, land reform, and employment through the creation of cooperatives, have all been deteriorating in the past year (3). While pro-Chávez poor Venezuelans appreciate the increase in social programmes and spending over the past four years (4), they are disappointed and frustrated at the inefficiency with which these programmes are managed (5). It did not help that there was a severe milk shortage in October and November, which made it almost impossible to find fresh milk, and hard to find powdered milk.
The assumption is that, but for these reasons, all Chávez supporters would have voted for the reform. Among hard-core Chávez supporters there is a firm belief that the reform process would have helped address the main issue: creating a society with greater social justice. Whether the reform was necessary for this is not clear since a large part of the reform could all have been implemented through ordinary legislation.
Many Chávez supporters fell for the opposition's distortions of the reform; and many who did not, disagreed with Chávez's argument that his powers needed to be strengthened to better defend the revolutionary process and promote the transition towards socialism.
Consequences of the defeat
Chávez and his supporters are convinced that the failure is a major setback. But there are voices that argue that this is an opportunity in disguise. If the reform had won, especially by a narrow margin, the opposition would not have accepted the result and would have tried to destabilise the country with violent protests and claims of fraud. Even now, many in the opposition are trying to claim that their win was far larger than the official result. A serious destabilisation campaign would probably have hindered the Chávez government from implementing the policies in the reform.
Also the failure has provoked the most profound analysis and self-criticism of the Bolivarian movement. For a long time criticism within the Bolivarian movement was out of the president's view, since the movement is centred on him. Questioning his policies risked the unity of the movement, which needed to be unified to survive given the opposition's efforts to overthrow Chávez (with financial support from the United States). If Chávez's examination is serious, it will find flaws in the top-down and rushed process, in the president-centred aspects of the proposals and in the inefficiency of government programmes. Only then could he renew his efforts to bring about 21st century socialism in Venezuela. ________________________________________________________
Gregory Wilpert is a sociologist and editor of the website Venezuelanalysis.com. His most recent book is Changing Venezuela by Taking Power: The Policies of the Chávez Government, Verso Books, London, 2007
(1) For a detailed analysis of the reform proposal, see: "Making Sense of Venezuela's Constitutional Reform", Venezuelanalysis.com, 1 December 2007.
(2) In the mostly poor pro-Chávez neighbourhood of 23 de Enero (which voted 75.6% for Chávez in 2006) voter turnout declined by 23% between the presidential election and the referendum, while in the mostly middle class Caracas neighbourhood of El Recreo (which voted 70.3% for Rosales in 2006) voter turnout declined by only 14%.
(4) Social spending increased from 8.2% of GDP in 1998 to 13.2% in 2005 according to the Venezuelan ministry of planning and development.
(5) See "The wind goes out of the revolution", The Economist, London, December 6, 2007. | <urn:uuid:c649cd17-7c81-4d76-80f4-d0b18ecbce10> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.zcommunications.org/venezuelas-revolution-checked-by-gregory-wilpert | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973272 | 1,951 | 2.65625 | 3 |
Robert Zoellick, World Bank president, said food prices are at “a tipping point”, having risen 36pc in the last year to levels close to their 2008 peak. The rising cost of food has been much more dramatic in low-income countries, pushing 44m people into poverty since June last year.
Another 10pc rise in food prices would push 10m into extreme poverty, defined as an effective income of less than $1.25 a day. Already, the world’s poor number 1.2bn.
Mr Zoellick said he saw no short term reversal in the damaging effect of food inflation, which is felt much more in the developing world as packaging and distribution accounts for a far larger proportion of the cost in the advanced economies.
Asked if he thought prices would remain high for a year, Mr Zoellick said: “The general trend lines are ones where we are in a danger zone… because prices have already gone up and stocks are relatively low.”
Rising prices have been driven by the changing diet of the ballooning middle classes in the emerging markets. “There is a demand change going on, with the higher incomes in developing countries. People will eat more meat products, for example, that will use more grain.
“I am not suggesting that the improved diets in the developing world are the source of the problem but it means it takes longer to rebuild the stocks when you get a supply [shock].”
The problem has been exacerbated by “weather problems in Russia, Ukraine, North America, China”.
Making matters worse has been rising fuel prices, which go into fertilisers and energy.
However, he played down the impact of speculators on prices, saying only that “it can exacerbate some of the shifts”.
He also raised concerns about the food investment policies of some of the world’s wealthier nations in poorer countries. China has been buying up huge tracts of Africa to grow enough food to feed its growing middle class.
Using Saudi Arabia’s decision to scrap wheat production and invest overseas for food instead as an example, he said: “This raises sensitivities about the purchasing and investment and the land.
“We are now working with the Food and Agriculture Organisation on responsible principles for food investment – this has included sub-Saharan Africa, also some in central Asia – the idea that investment can be helpful and create additional food production, but one needs to do it in a way that helps the local people and meets local needs.”
The World Bank is investing $7bn in improving agricultural production, from seeds to irrigation to sewage. One key area of research is in developing better seeds. | <urn:uuid:22c00be6-bf32-483e-8a97-c32a60029826> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/8451684/World-Bank-Food-prices-have-entered-the-danger-zone.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963391 | 557 | 2.65625 | 3 |
Paper helped image of El Rio movement
I am deeply saddened by the departure of the Tucson Citizen. I feel a deep connection to the newspaper, not only as a former Citizen columnist, but also as a Chicano and lifetime Tucsonan.
The Citizen played a significant role in one of Tucson’s major political turning points, and a defining event in the political evolution of the Chicano community – the “El Rio for the People” movement.
The movement started in 1967, when city officials committed to build a park and neighborhood center on a portion of El Rio Municipal Golf Course, which sits in the heart of barrios El Rio and Hollywood, where I grew up.
The barrios had unpaved streets, no sidewalks and no park. With no place else to play, the kids played in the streets.
Barrio residents saw something inherently wrong in our children having to play in the dusty streets while outsiders had a lush golf course.
After trying for years to get the city to improve the area, the commitment to build a park and neighborhood center gave the people hope.
But city officials soon reneged on their commitment. We wrote letters and passed petitions. And when this failed, we held massive public demonstrations, resulting in the arrests of several activists, including me.
The City Council and its agents characterized our movement as being led by a small group of “outside agitators” bent on causing political mischief.
The Arizona Daily Star, perceived to be the “liberal” newspaper, picked up the council’s mantra and editorially blasted us repeatedly.
At the height of the controversy, the Tucson (Daily) Citizen, perceived to be the “conservative” newspaper, asked to interview our leadership.
That call from the Citizen led to a couple of unprecedented events.
The Citizen Editorial Board agreed to meet with us at the Centro Chicano in Barrio Hollywood in the evening. And we insisted that, while we would have designated spokespeople, the meeting would be open to the public. About 70 attended.
Normally, editorial board interviews are held at the newspaper office during business hours.
The Citizen published a detailed report of the interview, with pictures of the participants – “regular” people rooted in the affected barrios.
This gave the lie to the “outside agitators” nonsense. The story was accompanied by front-page editorials, one in English, another in Spanish. The editorials made the point that we were reasonable people asking for reasonable things.
Each local newspaper had previously published a front-page editorial addressing El Rio, but the Citizen’s two editorials, with one in Spanish, broke new ground.
We enjoyed strong and widespread support in the barrios, but people in other parts of town were confused about who we were and what we were about.
The Citizen story and editorials positively affected the public’s perception of our movement. Fortunately, City Hall folks also read newspapers.
El Rio for the People, the dean of the local neighborhood empowerment movement, was a historic phenomenon, a defining moment in Tucson history.
It proved a united community can indeed move City Hall. And it fundamentally changed the political landscape and dynamics of Tucson.
A veritable mosaic of people and circumstances contributed to the success of our movement, which resulted in the establishment of El Rio Neighborhood Center and Joaquín Murrietta Park, two of the most heavily utilized facilities in the city system.
The Tucson Citizen can rightfully claim a piece of that mosaic. c/s | <urn:uuid:d6e7539c-e463-4948-84ad-2643ff7697be> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tucsoncitizen.com/morgue/tag/saloman-r-baldenegro/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96287 | 735 | 1.71875 | 2 |
NETL's AVESTAR® Combined Cycle Simulator Training Delivered to Brazil's Petrobras
NETL’s AVESTAR Center partners, Fossil Consulting Services (FCS) and Invensys Operations Management (IOM), provided comprehensive combined cycle training to ten experienced operators from the Brazilian integrated multinational energy company, Petrobras. FCS and IOM used AVESTAR’s high-fidelity combined cycle dynamic simulator to deliver the eight-day inaugural course at IOM’s offices in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Experiential learning scenarios covered the fundamentals and operation of all major combined cycle systems, including gas and steam turbines; condensate, feed water, and circulating water systems; heat recovery steam generator; and sulfur recovery unit. Base-load plant operations were emphasized along with startup from cold metal to full load. After the startup, trainees were given time to practice areas of operation that had presented difficulty individually or as a group. The trainees also performed a normal plant shutdown to hot boiler condition in preparation for a subsequent startup.
After the shutdown operation training, the class participated in a full day of plant malfunction training consisting of plant upsets, control problems, equipment failures, and other problems typically experienced while operating a power plant both at full load and upon startup and load maneuvering. Each operator also worked individually with the instructors to address areas where they had additional questions on the control and operation of the combined cycle plant.
Additional information on NETL’s AVESTAR Center and its combined cycle dynamic simulator can be found at www.netl.doe.gov/avestar.
NETL News Release: DOE Simulator Training to Brazil's Petrobas Advances Goal of Deploying Clean Coal Technology at Home and Abroad Project (September 25, 2012) | <urn:uuid:564f6ede-9dd4-4da2-9490-e160f5f0b814> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.netl.doe.gov/avestar/news/Petrobras_CC_AVESTAR_120801.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935732 | 369 | 1.625 | 2 |
By Norm Morin
"That's not fair."
There have been countless battles in which an underdog has prevailed because he used "dirty" tricks.
Perhaps one of the earliest examples is from the Bible. What hope did David have to defeat Goliath? What could a young boy without armor and weapons do to the giant Goliath? All odds were on Goliath. Does that mean David "cheated" when he defeated him? Was the sling shot a secret weapon or a dirty trick?
In sports, there are rules of conduct. Boxers are not allowed to punch "below the belt." Referees police the event but mishaps and dirty tricks still occur. There are no referees in a life-and-death fight. Rules go out the window. A combatant will do whatever is necessary to eliminate a foe.
Similarly hackers and cyber criminals do not obey laws. A family member in law enforcement made clear to me that criminals "have no respect or fear of the law." It may be a good start to legislate computer crime, but you can't rely on laws to protect computers. If there is a way to exploit a computer, you can be sure that someone will determine how to do so.
Not all hackers are criminals. Some are referred to as "white hackers." These people identify flaws inside computers. Sometimes, they identify a flaw but they become victims of laws used to protect computers. It seems a little trite to prosecute someone who identifies a hole in computer armor but doesn't take any action to harm or steal resources. What do you think a
If you own a computer, it is not enough to depend on an antivirus program. You don't have to be afraid to turn on your computer but you do have to be vigilant. If you think your computer is compromised, don't wait. Turn it off. If it refuses to turn itself off, hold the power button for more than 10 seconds. If that fails, remove the power plug. If you must finish a project, at least disconnect it from the Internet to prevent the virus from "phoning home."
If your computer is not as fast as it was when new, it may be compromised by a virus. It could also be slowed down by advertisements. Advertisements are not technically viruses, but they will interfere with your computer running smoothly.
Don't be taken in by any Internet or media advertisement that claims to have the magic to fix your computer. You are the first line of defense for your computer. Note any changes in your machine's performance and take the appropriate action to resolve any problems.
Lowell resident Norm Morin is founder of NKC Systems (www.nkcsystems.com), which offers computer repair and consulting services. Readers are invited to call 978-453-1355; visit our offices at 155 Broadway Road, Dracut; or email firstname.lastname@example.org. | <urn:uuid:f8f5c2f6-2e62-4f82-9f58-6ee7c9fbf967> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lowellsun.com/webextras/ci_22664628/hackers-bad-intentions-heed-no-law | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960895 | 596 | 2.53125 | 3 |
OWNERS are refurbishing and rebuilding their commercial properties here for a summer season that is expected to draw more than three million people to the town and to nearby Acadia National Park.
Bar Harbor, with 4,100 people, is the largest town on Mount Desert Island, about 45 miles southeast of Bangor. For generations it has been known for the summer homes of wealthy industrialists. Its Main Street - where most of the winter construction has been going on - has been redeveloped in the last five years to capture the retail trade from visitors to the park.
''You have to work seven days a week in the summer catering to the tourists and you think you can rest up in the winter,'' said Richard Cough, who is renovating a building on Main Street beside the village green. ''But you end up working seven days a week to get ready for them.'' The mild winter has allowed people to work steadily, Mr. Cough said, adding: ''We were putting up shingles the day before Christmas.''
Mr. Cough and three partners paid $1 million for the building housing the Mary Jane Restaurant, founded in 1912, the town's oldest restaurant. They have reduced the size of the restaurant and built space for a piano bar and eight shops.
Their goal was to create a retail center that looks like the grand old summer houses built here by industrialists around the turn of the century. Many of these homes were destroyed in fires in the dry autumn of 1947 that burned dozens of Maine towns and left 2,500 people homeless.
Other mansions were torn down, giving Mr. Cough and partners material for renovation, which he estimated would cost $150,000 to $250,000. Windows were salvaged from John D. Rockefeller Jr.'s former home and the Christian Science Church, and bookcases from the estate of Sir Harry Oakes, a gold mine operator.
At the end of Main Street, Robert Collier has torn down a building beside the Municipal Pier and will replace it with a larger one to house boat services. The $500,000 project, to be called Harbor Place, will look much like an old carriage house, Mr. Collier said. It will include a marina and be the home port to the Frenchman's Bay Company, which in the summer operates 20 boat tours a week.
Construction is continuing on a store on Main Street across from Mr. Cough's building and several restaurants are being remodeled. Windy Curry, the town's code enforcement officer, said the owners of the old Fudge Factory building, which burned down, plan to rebuild it, putting an ice-cream parlor on the ground floor and rental apartments above it. | <urn:uuid:0f6286f2-4ba2-40c0-9307-98def071b497> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nytimes.com/1989/04/02/realestate/northeast-notebook-bar-harbor-me-getting-ready-for-vacationers.html?src=pm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974562 | 549 | 2.015625 | 2 |
In a previous post, I discussed the notion of Schrödinger CRCs, first described by Kevin Driscoll et al. in their paper Byzantine Fault Tolerance, from Theory to Reality. The basic idea is that error-detecting codes do not necessarily prevent two receivers from obtaining messages that are semantically different (i.e., different data) but syntactically valid (i.e., the CRC matches the respective data words received). The upshot is that even with CRCs, you can suffer Byzantine faults, with some probability.
… So what is that probability of a Schrödinger’s CRC? That’s the topic of this post—which cleans up a few of the ideas I presented earlier. I published a short paper on the topic, which I presented at Dependable Sensors and Networks, 2010, while Kevin Driscoll was in the audience! If you’d prefer to read the PDF or get the slides, they’re here. The simulation code (Haskell) is here.
Software contains faults. The question is how to cost-effectively reduce the number of faults. One approach that gained traction and then fell out of favor was N-version programming. The basic idea is simple: have developer teams implement a specification independent from one another. Then we can execute the programs concurrently and compare their results. If we have, say, three separate programs, we vote their results, and if one result disagrees with the others, we presume that program contained a software bug.
N-version programming rests on the assumption that software bugs in independently-implemented programs are random, statistically-uncorrelated events. Otherwise, multiple versions are not effective at detecting errors if the different versions are likely to suffer the same errors.
John Knight and Nancy Leveson famously debunked this assumption on which N-version programming rested in the “Knight-Leveson experiment” they published in 1986. In 1990, Knight and Leveson published a brief summary of the original experiment, as well as responses to subsequent criticisms made about it, in their paper, A Reply to the Criticisms of the Knight & Leveson Experiment.
The problem with N-version programming is subtle: it’s not that it provides zero improvement in reliability but that it provides significantly less improvement than is needed to make it cost-effective compared to other kinds of fault-tolerance (like architecture-level fault-tolerance). The problem is that even small probabilities of correlated faults lead to significant reductions in potential reliability improvements.
Lui Sha has a more recent (2001) IEEE Software article discussing N-version programming, taking into account that the software development cycle is finite: is it better to spend all your time and money on one reliable implementation or on three implementations that’ll be voted at runtime? His answer is almost always the former (even if we assume uncorrelated faults!).
But rather than N-versions of the same program, what about different programs compared at runtime? That’s the basic idea of runtime monitoring. In runtime monitoring, one program is the implementation and another is the specification; the implementation is checked against the specification at runtime. This is easier than checking before runtime (in which case you’d have to mathematically prove every possible execution satisfies the specification). As Sha points out in his article, the specification can be slow and simple. He gives the example of using the very simple Bubblesort as the runtime specification of the more complex Quicksort: if the Quicksort does its job correctly (in O(n log n), assuming a good pivot element), then checking its output (i.e., a hopefully properly sorted list) with Bubblesort will only take linear time (despite Bubble sort taking O(n2) in general).
The simple idea of simple monitors fascinates me. Of course, Bubblesort is not a full specification, though. Although Sha doesn’t suggest it, we’d probably like our monitor to compare the lengths of the input and output lists to ensure that the Quicksort implementation didn’t remove elements. And there’s still the possibility that the Quicksort implementation modifies elements, which is also unchecked by a Bubblesort monitor.
But instead of just checking the output, we could sort the same input with both Quickcheck and Bubblesort and compare the results. This is a “stronger” check insofar as different sorts would have to have exactly the same faults (e.g., not sorting, removing elements, changing elements) for an error not to be caught. The principal drawback is the latency of the slower Bubblesort check as compared to Quicksort. But sometimes, it may be ok to signal an error (shortly) after a result is provided.
Just like for N-version programming, we would like the faults in our monitor to be statistically uncorrelated with those in the monitored software. I am left wondering about the following questions:
- Is there research comparing the kinds of programming errors made in radically different paradigms, such as a Haskell and C? Are there any faults we can claim are statistically uncorrelated?
- Runtime monitoring itself is predicated on the belief that the implementations of different programs will fail in statistically independent ways, just like N-version programming is. While more plausible, does this assumption hold?
I’m working on a NASA-sponsored project to monitor safety-critical embedded systems at runtime, and that’s started me thinking about cyclic redundancy checks (CRCs) again. Error-checking codes are fundamental in fault-tolerant systems. The basic idea is simple: a transmitter wants to send a data word, so it computes a CRC over the word. It sends both the data word and the CRC to the receiver, which computes the same CRC over the received word. If its computed CRC and the received one differ, then there was a transmission error (there are simplifications to this approach, but that’s the basic idea).
CRCs have been around since the 60s, and despite the simple mathematical theory on which they’re built (polynomial division in the Galois Field 2, containing two elements, “0″ and “1″), I was surprised to see that even today, their fault-tolerance properties are in some cases unknown or misunderstood. Phil Koopman at CMU has written a few nice papers over the past couple of years explaining some common misconceptions and analyzing commonly-used CRCs.
Particularly, there seems to be an over-confidence in their ability to detect errors. One fascinating result is the so-called “Schrödinger’s CRC,” so-dubbed in a paper entitled Byzantine Fault Tolerance, from Theory to Reality, by Kevin Driscoll et al. A Schrödinger’s CRC occurs when a transmitter broadcasts a data word and associated CRC to two receivers. and at least one of the data words is corrupted in transit and so is the corresponding CRC so that the faulty word and faulty CRC match! How does this happen? Let’s look at a concrete example:
11-Bit Message USB-5 Receiver A 1 0 1 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 Transmitter 1 ½ 1 1 0 1 1 ½ 0 1 1 ½ 1 0 0 1 Receiver B 1 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 1
We illustrate a transmitter broadcasting an 11-bit message to two receivers, A and B. We use USB-5 CRC, generally used to check USB token packets (by the way, for 11-bit messages, USB-5 has a Hamming Distance of three, meaning the CRC will catch any corruption of fewer than three bits in the combined 11-bit message and CRC). Now, suppose the transmitter has suffered some fault such as a “stuck-at-1/2” fault so that periodically, the transmitter fails to drive the signal on the bus sufficiently high or low. A receiver may interpret an intermediate signal as either a 0 or 1. In the figure, we show the transmitter sending three stuck-at-1/2 signals, one in the 11-bit message, and two in CRC. The upshot is an example in which a CRC does not prevent a Byzantine fault—the two receivers obtain different messages, each of which passes its CRC.
One question is how likely this scenario is. Paulitsch et al. write that The probability of a Schrödinger’s CRC is hard to evaluate. A worst-case estimate of its occurrence due to a single device is the device failure rate.” It’d be interesting to know if there’s any data on this probability. | <urn:uuid:1cdb35b4-1c3a-4eef-9636-1b5ff289b023> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://leepike.wordpress.com/tag/fault-tolerance/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931291 | 1,829 | 2.203125 | 2 |
(CNN) - He doesn't formally spell out his plan to create jobs until Tuesday in Nevada, but it appears Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney will give a preview of his speech Friday morning, when he addresses the Republican National Hispanic Assembly in Tampa, Florida.
In prepared remarks released by his campaign, the former Massachusetts governor will say, "On Tuesday, I will present a detailed plan to get America back to work and to grow our economy."
In his Friday preview, Romney, who's making his second bid for the White House, gives some details on what he will propose on Tuesday, saying, "I will make business taxes competitive with other nations, eliminate burdensome regulations and bureaucracy, and support America's workers instead of its union bosses."
In other excerpts, Romney will say, "I will promote the exploration of our own natural resources, which will create countless jobs. I will make sure that America's workforce is prepared for the modern economy."
And discussing what he considers out-of-control government spending, Romney says, "We are only inches away from ceasing to be a free market economy. I will cut federal spending, cap it at 20 percent or less of the GDP and finally, finally balance our budget."
Romney will give his speech two days before President Barack Obama spells out his jobs plan in an address before a joint session of Congress Thursday evening.
It follows the well-received roll out of another GOP candidate's jobs plan. Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman laid out his proposal to stimulate job growth Wednesday–it was praised by the Wall Street Journal in an editorial published the next day.
CNN Deputy Political Director Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report. | <urn:uuid:495e4bdc-4b69-4942-95a2-755e6926c641> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/09/02/romney-gives-sneak-peek-of-his-jobs-plan/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00067-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964582 | 342 | 1.5 | 2 |
Where do they come from?
The most common places are:
- Adult web sites
- Prescription Drugs
- Gambling sites
- FREE anything – Music, (LimeWire especially), Ring Tones, Game Crack Codes, Videos
- My Space Ads have been the common cause reported by customers recently. Beware of accidently clicking any MySpace ads. (Don’t drink and cruise MySpace.)
- SPAM emails, banks, PayPal, Foreign Lottery etc. Banks and credit card companies do not send you emails asking you to click links and verify your personal information. Always open a fresh browser window to get to your sensitive web site.
Groups that are Prone to attack:
- Teens. Especially teen boys.
- Parents of Teens (see above)
- Music/Movie buffs
- Parents of Music/Movie buffs
- MySpace members
- Parents of MySpace members
- Alternate Lifestyle members
- People who lend their computers to people who visit at the beach.
- People who are totally innocent and just clicked the wrong darn thing.
OK so you know you have a virus if you see any of the following going on: (the more you have the worse it is)
- Desktop view is completely wacked
- You can’t get on the internet (yes I know the obvious, you are here, but it’s a symptom and you could be goofing off at work reading this.)
- Constant pop-ups
- Computer freezing
- Running really slow
- Some popup from Windows said you were infected
- Your internet provider sent you a letter or turned off your service.
We perform complete virus removal at the shop. We go through your entire computer and clean all viruses and repair the damage caused by them. It is very rare for us to reload your computer for a virus. It happens, but it is rare. Our virus removal is your exact computer back. All your favorites, pictures, programs; just the way it was before the virus.
Free anti-virus programs do not work. (AVG) We require you to have a “paid for” program. If you don’t have one, we can supply one for you. 90% of the machines in the shop with viruses have no or free programs installed. | <urn:uuid:10888e86-32a5-40b4-8435-860d31e48bdb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.yourcomputerfriends.com/solutions-for/virus-removal/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940873 | 483 | 1.757813 | 2 |
When seeking intellectual stimulation on the Internet, TED can be regarded as one of those special “signals within the noise”. The site releases one talk a day, helping to create a reputation of quality over quantity; at a time when web surfers are drowning in link-overload, this has been a great business plan. The organization devoted to “ideas worth spreading” has risen to great heights on not much more than good camera work and meticulous “curation.”
Spending this last week at the 2013 conference has further cemented TED’s ability to curate the wide world we live in, and to discern the most essential presenters for the here and now. The theme for this year’s bash in Long Beach was “The Young. The Wise. The Undiscovered”. To truly capture the undiscovered, the TED team embarked on a 14-city global talent search across six continents to bring together a diverse group of creatives, inventors, performers, and storytellers. What amounted was an experience that felt like a musical symphony of the brain. Over the course of four days, new neurons were formed, synapses connected, and regions formerly disconnected were brought together in whole new ways.
Below are some of the highlights from individual presenters, but truly, the most under-appreciated aspect of the whole TED phenomenon is the richness of ideas that bubble to the surface through the combinatorial creativity of being exposed to such diversity and complexity. It’s a fusion of inspiration and ideation, that leaves the audience feeling not only optimistic, but motivated, that they can, in fact, play a part in this seismic shift towards abundance for all.
So without further adue, the recap (infographics courtesy of Fever Picture):
- Taylor Wilson is a nuclear scientist (seriously) who may have solved the world’s energy crisis (not joking). He is graduating High School this year and will be starting a company right after; with plans for a prototype of the technology (already been proven to work) in 2 years, and mass-distribution in 5, this could revolutionize the energy market, massively impact the developing world, and help save the environment in the process.
- Jack Andraka’s uncle died of prostate cancer, and he decided someone had to do something about it... so he stepped up, solving the problem of early detection prostate cancer - and miraculously, his solution may have greater applications then he originally intended, serving as a mechanism for detecting potentially any cancer. P.S. his epiphany came to him while day-dreaming in High School Bio class, where Jack says is "the place innovation goes to die."
- Miranda Wang and Jeanny Yao have discovered a strain of bacteria that can break down plastics and thus help reduce the enormous waste piling up around the world.
- Elon Musk is a busy guy. Founder and CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, as well as Chairman of SolarCity, I kept thinking... what does this guy’s email inbox look like?
- Joshua Prager is a storyteller. His talk about his own life story may be his best one yet.
- Adam Spencer loves Math, he loves talking about Math, and he loves getting other people excited about Math. This talk hit on all three.
- Ron Finlay is growing food in the ghetto, and turning the community upside down in the process. This talk had several hilarious lines, most notably his invitation for anyone to meet him down in south central and "plant some shit!"
- Ajit Narayanan builds computer programs to help autistic children learn to communicate. In the process, he may have stumbled upon a core component of communication that transcends all language.
- Phil Hansen is an artist who developed a shake in his hand. Playing within the boundaries of this new constraint, he decided to “embrace the shake” and has been making some of the coolest art ever since.
For the full Program Guide, visit http://conferences.ted.com/TED2013/program/guide.php | <urn:uuid:481e5bbe-2181-4d93-bd7c-311177298e3b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bigthink.com/big-think-top-5/ted2013-the-young-the-wise-the-undiscovered | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959916 | 849 | 1.867188 | 2 |
Yet another Holy Grail in any manufacturing business is having a true enterprise-wide information system for better operational control. Human/machine interface (HMI), supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA), and manufacturing execution systems help, but problems still exist. First, making sense of the massive volumes of plant data is hardly “non trivial.” Second, linking conventional business systems, such as enterprise resource planning (ERP), to real-time plant floor data is a nightmare in terms of custom coding, multiple information and communications technologies, and inconsistent plant implementations.
Some approaches at solving these issues (and getting closer to the Grail) have emerged. One, VisualPlant from Executive Manufacturing Technologies, Inc. (EMT, London, Ontario, Canada), is an “off-the-shelf,” Internet-based application that builds a data warehouse of machine states, production data, downtime incidents, process variables, and worker productivity based on the raw data from the plant floor. It then applies logic and business rules to those data. Web browsers dynamically display the resulting information.
VisualPlant does not perform equipment control per se, so it’s more like HMI than like SCADA. But unlike HMI, points out John Dyck, EMT’s vice president of marketing and business development, VisualPlant generally connects to any number of plant devices, and it provides visualization, analysis, and reporting—all through a web browser. Also, VisualPlant provides the plant floor data to a standard, open database where data mining tools can uncover production and equipment trends. Moreover, VisualPlant does all this without the need to write code or edit a database. In fact, VisualPlant is “non-intrusive” in that it “maps directly to plant equipment—right to the source,” says Dyck, and after some further configuration, it operates transparently.
Dyck is also quick to point out that VisualPlant is not a portal, which typically just points to different data sources around the plant and displays data extracted from those sources in a pretty screen. Portals often bog down when they become awash with data—and no way to analyze those data.
VisualPlant meets the latest buzzword checklist requirements starting with it being built upon Microsoft .NET architecture. It can be integrated to third-party applications, including wireless paging systems, and it can be extended using snap-in capabilities to third-party ActiveX components.
The application consists primarily of four software modules. VPCollector collects data using OLE for Process Control (OPC) as the glue between VisualPlant and the sources of plant data, such as programmable logic controllers (PLC). Plant data collect as standard database objects in a central database, VPServer. VPWeb delivers both historical and real-time data from VPServer to web browsers. The fourth module, VPAdministrator, is used to configure and manage VisualPlant so that it matches your plant’s control and equipment hierarchy (using the names and descriptions used in your plant)—no programming knowledge or database experience are required.
Once VisualPlant is installed, you can monitor the plant from its production lines and work centers on down to individual equipment and controllers through an Explorer-like, two-pane window displayed in a web browser. A tree view in the left pane lets you quickly navigate to specific areas in the plant. A graphical display on the right shows details, including production data, key performance indicators, data summaries, device reference data, and machine faults and alarms (historical or real time). You can stretch measurement scales, pan through time frames, and apply statistical tools to the data, as well as mouse click your way through OLAP tools to further analyze the data. The software includes about a hundred canned reports that can be modified and saved for future use.
EMT claims many major automotive OEMs and automotive suppliers are using VisualPlant. It also claims that VisualPlant has an ROI of six months or less. VisualPlant costs $1,250 per equipment asset, or node. A node is a logical grouping of equipment and equipment controls. If, for example, you have five operations on an automotive transfer line, they can be considered one asset. (While each of these operations produces parts, if one fails, the entire transfer line might stop.) While assets can be just about anything a plant wants it to be—PLC, robot controller, strain gauge, even a standalone database—nine times out of ten, says Dyck, one piece of equipment equals one PLC, which equals one asset.
But get this. For that price, any number of people can look at the information from that asset; the price of VisualPlant is based on assets, not the number of people using the data.
If your Grail is plant information, this might fill your cup. | <urn:uuid:982f5eeb-1862-4c77-bd04-4ceaf9cc3b3d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.autofieldguide.com/articles/achieving-useful-plant-information-made-easier | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.902073 | 1,011 | 1.5 | 2 |
In My View - Chris Schlect
Minor Crop Farmer Alliance watches over specialty crops
The continued availability of agricultural chemicals used to protect crops from harmful pests and diseases is jeopardized from many angles. Costs rise as a result of intensive testing and regulatory requirements imposed by government on chemical manufacturers and formulators; environmental activists fly to court to seek bans on usage; consumers are smothered with emotional stories in the national media about exposure to dietary risk; and state funding is slashed for supportive university research and Extension.
Those in the specialty crop part of American agriculture are especially exposed to these problems. As federal regulatory and new chemistry discovery costs rise, it becomes more difficult for chemical companies to devote internal resources to those crops using much smaller quantities of their product than, say, corn or cotton. Many specialty crops are grown in areas of the country, such as Florida, California, and the Pacific Northwest, having special environmental issues—for example, those involving the strict application of the Endangered Species Act to salmon-carrying streams. Fresh fruits and vegetables are the target of most consumer health stories carried in the mass media related to chemical residues.
Federal legislative and regulatory policy issues involving specialty crops have needed, and remain in need of, concentrated attention. For this reason, the Minor Crop Farmer Alliance was formed in 1991 and continues its work to this day.
Significant credibility in the work of the alliance has been achieved over the past 15 years. In Washington, D.C., both the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Agriculture trust and encourage the pesticide policy efforts of this grower-driven coalition. Committees of Congress listen to its voice.
The Minor Crop Farmer Alliance comprises over 30 state, regional, and national agricultural trade associations and commissions. These range from the Wild Blueberry Commission of Maine to the Michigan Vegetable Council and from the Florida Tomato Exchange to the Idaho Potato Commission.
At the national level, U.S. Apple Association, Society of American Florists, Produce Marketing Association, and National Council of Farmer Cooperatives are among those groups that actively support and fund the alliance.
The Minor Crop Farmer Alliance does not have an office or a staff. It neither pays its volunteer leadership nor reimburses board members for any routine travel expenses. Its main annual expense is for legal advice, given over the alliance’s history by Ed Ruckert of the Washington, D.C., law office of McDermott Will & Emery. Its funds are shepherded by the United Fresh Produce Association.
With many decisions by the federal government of late appearing to be driven by a bias against the use of conventional pesticides, there has been much interaction this year by the Minor Crop Farmer Alliance with the agricultural chemical policy makers within President Obama’s administration. Dan Botts, vice president, industry resources, for the Florida Fruit and Vegetable Association, leads these efforts as chairman of the alliance’s Technical Committee. His committee benefits from the active involvement of numerous technical experts from throughout the nation’s specialty crop industry, including Dr. Mike Willett, vice president for scientific affairs for the Northwest Horticultural Council.
An ever more important role of the Technical Committee is its work on international harmonization of chemical residue standards. This activity is under the watchful eye of an international subcommittee chaired by Jim Cranney, who also serves as president of the California Citrus Quality Council.
Keeping export markets open to U.S. agricultural products is normally left to the specific commodity involved, working in close cooperation with such agencies as USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. In the case of technical standards such as MRLs (maximum chemical residue levels legally allowed on a given food), it makes sense to work with other commodities, registrants, and governmental advocates for a sensible rules-based system covering each country targeted for significant U.S. exports. This complicated process is fostered by the Minor Crop Farmer Alliance. Work in Canada, Taiwan, Japan, and the European Union is ongoing in terms of setting transparent, international-trade–friendly MRL standards. This work ultimately benefits both consumers (lower prices, greater variety of food at market, and safe produce) and our growers and shippers (an expansion of overseas markets and greater clarity as to which registered agricultural chemicals might be used without export market disruptions).
The Minor Crop Farmer Alliance is a good example of a cooperative effort where funds and staff time are used quietly but effectively to address a knotty set of policy issues directly affecting the ability of growers and packers to have access to affordable and safe crop protection tools—those necessary to combat the pests and diseases that lurk about, threatening devastation and ruin. | <urn:uuid:6a4658cd-5c73-43a7-814c-ff33acbe4253> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.goodfruit.com/Good-Fruit-Grower/July-2010/In-My-View-Chris-Schlect/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941154 | 968 | 2.25 | 2 |
A new change to Instagram policy is putting user information up for sale in a move that will no doubt cause some controversy.
"You agree that a business or other entity may pay us to display your username, likeness, photos (along with any associated metadata), and/or actions you take, in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions, without any compensation to you," the terms of service reads.
In other words, Instagram can sell your pictures, username and records of everything you've liked, shared or responded to another company without paying you a cent.
The part about "associated metadata" - or locations data - means that if, for example, you took a picture of the Auckland Skytower, Instagram could use that the photo in an advertisement for the Skytower that would be seen by your friends.
Facebook made a similar move not long ago but unlike Instagram, it gave people some control over how their names and photos were used for commercial content. This could be done through the adjustment of privacy settings not available on the photo-sharing service.
Another section points out that Instagram "may not always identify paid services, sponsored content, or commercial communications as such", a direction which seems to be causing a stir.
"We may share User Content and your information (including but not limited to, information from cookies, log files, device identifiers, location data, and usage data) with businesses that are legally part of the same group of companies that Instagram is part of," it reads.
The crux being that Instagram has the right to do whatever it wants with your information, with whomever it wants.
Instagram users have already been reacting to the changes on Twitter.
The New York Times' Nick Bilton wrote: "I'm surprised Section 4 doesn't say: And we reserve the rights to your first born child."
Paul Kedrosky responded: "Apparently Zuck's [Mark Zuckerberg] privacy tone-deafness is communicable."
- nzherald.co.nzBy Cassandra Mason Email Cassandra | <urn:uuid:f1a19f36-4b5c-4362-ac8a-568cb2041afa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nzherald.co.nz/web-2-0/news/article.cfm?c_id=363&objectid=10854813 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952617 | 415 | 1.53125 | 2 |
The Legacy of U.S. Nuclear Testing in the Marshall Islands
The people of the Marshall Islands had their homeland and health sacrificed for U.S. national security interests. The Obama administration and Congress should promptly correct this injustice.
The radiological legacy of U.S. nuclear weapons testing in the Marshall Islands remains to this day and will persist for many years to come. The most severe impacts were visited upon the people of the Rongelap Atoll in 1954 following a very large thermonuclear explosion which deposited life-threatening quantities of radioactive fallout on their homeland. They received more than three times the estimated external dose than to the most heavily exposed people living near the Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986. It took more than two days before the Rongelap people were evacuated after the explosion. Many suffered from tissue destructive effects, such as burns, and subsequently from latent radiation-induced diseases.
In 1957, they were returned to their homeland even though officials and scientists working for the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) determined that radiation doses would significantly exceed those allowed for citizens of the United States. The desire to study humans living in a radiation-contaminated environment appeared to be a major element of this decision. A scientist in a previously secret transcript of a meeting where they decided to return the Rongelap people to their atoll stated an island contaminated by the 1954 H-Bomb tests was " by far the most contaminated place in the world." He further concluded that, "it would very interesting to go back and get good environmental data... so as to get a measure of the human uptake, when people live in a contaminated environment...Now, data of this type has never been available. ...While it is true that these people do not live, I would say, the way Westerners so, civilized people, it is nevertheless also true that they are more like us than the mice "
By 1985, the people of Rongelap fled their atoll, after determining that the levels of contamination were comparable to the Bikini atoll where numerous nuclear devices were detonated. The Bikini people were re-settled in 1969 but had to evacuate their homes in1978 after radiation exposures were found to be excessive. The Rongelap people fled for good reason. In 1982, a policy was secretly established by the Energy department during the closing phase of negotiations between the United States and the nascent Republic of the Marshall Islands over the Compact of Free Association to eliminate radiation protection standards, so as to not interfere with the potential resumption of weapons testing. This resulted in a sudden and alarming increase in radiation doses to the Rongelap people eating local food. These circumstances were subsequently uncovered in 1991 by the U.S. Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs. As a result, the U.S. Congress terminated DOE's nuclear test readiness program in the Pacific and in 1992 the U.S. Departments of Energy and Interior entered into an agreement with the Republic of the Marshall Islands and the Local Rongelap Government that re-established radiation protection standards as a major element for the re-settlement of Rongelap.
Apparently, this was not done for the southern islands of the atoll where local food is obtained. Despite the long and unfortunate aftermath of nuclear testing in ther Marshalls, it appears that this critical element of safety was lost in the shuffle. As it now stands, if forced to return to their homeland the Rongelap people could receive radiation doses about 10 times greater than allowed for the public in the United States.
Until the U. S. government can assure that steps to mitigate doses to the same levels that are protective of American people are demonstrated, efforts to force the Rongelap people back to the home by Members of the U.S. Congress and the Obama Administration is unjustified and unfairly places the burden of protection on the Rongelap people. It appears that DOE and Interior have quietly crept away from the 1992 agreement, without verifying that its terms and conditions to allow for safe habitability will be met. Over the past 20 years, the U.S. Congress has enacted legislation to compensate to residents living near DOE's Nevada Test Site uranium miners, nuclear weapons workers, and military personnel for radiation-related illnesses. These laws provide for a greater benefit of the doubt than for the people of the Marshall Islands where 66 nuclear weapons were exploded in the open air.
In 2005, the National Cancer Institute reported that that the risk of contracting cancer for those exposed to fallout was greater than one in three. The people of the Marshall Islands had their homeland and health sacrificed for the national security interests of the United States. The Obama Administration and the U.S. Congress should promptly correct this injustice. | <urn:uuid:60b1b3b9-2f43-4ea6-8ebd-0450c8491fd9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ips-dc.org/articles/the_legacy_of_us_nuclear_testing_in_the_marshall_islands | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00073-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970532 | 965 | 2.84375 | 3 |
Potato growers in the Pacific Northwest will likely have to wait another season before using the new systemic fungicide Luna Tranquility by Bayer CropScience.
Processors prohibited the region's growers from using Luna last season, after its release in the U.S., due to potential concerns in Japan about the product's maximum residue limits. Bayer officials had hoped to have the MRL issues resolved by this spring, but now expect that won't happen until late fall.
Bayer has also begun apprising processors of a potential Japanese MRL challenge that could sideline its new potato seed treatment Emesto Silver in the Pacific Northwest.
Though Japan imports only roughly 1.5 percent of the U.S. crop, processors said they had no way to segregate potatoes treated with Luna. Fresh market growers in the region, who sometimes divert excess potatoes to processing, have also avoided Luna. Bayer product manager Charlie Bergmann said 2012 Luna sales were strong in the Midwest, where few potatoes are exported to Japan.
Luna Tranquility, a combination of two chemicals, controls diseases including white mold, early blight, brown spot and black dot.
SOURCE: John O’Connell, Capital Press | <urn:uuid:5753ed64-04de-484b-a032-f04b6efb4758> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.potatogrower.com/potato-industry-news/display.cfm?ID=2300 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95666 | 242 | 1.84375 | 2 |
- ABOUT US
Along with the Arab Spring, the indignados movement of Spain, and Occupy Wall Street, Latin America also played a role in the global tumult in 2011. Over the last year diverse grassroots movements in Bolivia, Chile, Mexico, and Peru have been raising questions and challenging the existent order.
The U.S. government has denounced the recent legitimate presidential election in Nicaragua, while supporing flawed elections in Haiti and Honduras over the last two years. While this U.S. policy may appear baffling, it begins to make sense when you consider the long-standing U.S. political agenda in the region.
NACLA’s latest Report on the Americas is now available. This issue, "Latino Student Movements: Defending Education," gives voice to Latino student movements across the Americas that are standing up to the crises, cutbacks, and repression.
Today is the 10th anniversary of the beginning of the popular rebellion in Argentina. An uprising that with popular power forced out four governments in two weeks. But that was only the beginning. This year, 2011, is also a beginning. Not at all dissimilar from Argentina, this has been a year of popular uprisings, popular power, and new ways of organizing and doing politics.
Fifty years ago, in 1961, the Cuban literacy campaign mobilized more than 1 million Cubans as teachers or students. In that same year, 707,000 Cubans learned how to read or write. The new documentary Maestra tells the story of that inspiring campaign through the memories of the women who served as literacy teachers—the maestras themselves.
During Felipe Calderón’s War on Drugs systematic human rights violations have been documented. Now testimonies confirm the suspicions that clandestine detention centers are operating in Mexico. We don't know how many, but we can determine who is operating them—organized crime and the Mexican Army and Marines.
In recent years, media coverage of Mexico has painted a picture of widespread fear. It is a picture that bears little resemblance to what I experience living in central Mexico. Could this picture have been deliberately invented or exaggerated? Might the government of Felipe Calderón want to justify its policies of militarization to attract further U.S. support?
In November, Chilean mayor Cristián Labbé announced a tribute to a former member of Augusto Pinochet’s secret police, who is serving time on 23 counts of human rights violations. The event, which was held on November 21, sparked outrage, protests, and a debate over public accountability and reconciliation.
Just legalize it, already—that was the message heard at the Cato Institute's “Ending the War on Drugs” conference on November 15. From the heavy death toll in Mexico to the high financial cost to U.S. taxpayers, the only winners in the drug war have been the drug cartels and security companies. Yet the war goes on with no end in sight
On November 17, the two-month anniversary of Occupy Wall Street, occupiers and supporters took to the streets of New York City for a day of action. 30,000 marched from Foley Square over the Brooklyn Bridge. Among those in the crowd were unions, teachers, students, immigrants, youth, and older activists—united in support for Occupy Wall Street. | <urn:uuid:4f45cce4-dba5-43ab-8836-cab750307fa8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://nacla.org/news/2011/7/12/sitemap?page=6 | 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 | 0.951806 | 678 | 2.234375 | 2 |
|Drug Regulatory Authorities meet with PAHO Director|
Representatives of national regulatory authorities (NRAs) for medicines and biologicals met on Feb. 7 with PAHO Director Carissa F. Etienne to discuss issues including strategic cooperation and regulatory harmonization; regional mechanisms for controlling substandard, counterfeit, and misleadingly labeled medical products; and integration among regulatory authorities
"If we want to achieve universal health coverage, we must continue to strengthen our regulatory systems to guarantee a reliable supply of safe and effective medicines and technologies," said Dr. Etienne.
During a Feb. 6-7 technical meeting at PAHO headquarters, representatives of NRAs highlighted their commitment to promoting best practices in regulation through such mechanisms as the Regional Platform on Access and Innovation for Health Technologies (PRAIS), a virtual platform that allows users to share experiences and cooperate in areas including essential medicines, biologicals, and diagnostics.
Participants in the technical meeting made progress on the development of a cooperation strategy and on the promotion and dissemination in other regions of regulatory models from the Americas. This week’s meeting is part of efforts called for in the 2010 PAHO Directing Council resolution "Strengthening National Regulatory Authorities for Medicines and Biologicals.”
Regulatory authorities represented at this week’s meeting included the National Administration for Drugs, Food and Medical Technology (ANMAT), the National Agency for Health Surveillance (ANVISA), the Center for State Control of Drugs and Medical Devices (CECMED), the National Institute for Drug and Food Surveillance (INVIMA) and the Federal Commission for Protection against Health Risks (COFEPRIS), as well as Health Canada and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Regional Office for the Americas of the World Health Organization | <urn:uuid:44a53568-8f77-4633-ad39-033ad3d6c0c3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://new.paho.org/hq/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=8258%3Adrug-regulatory-authorities-meet-with-paho-director-&catid=1443%3Anews-front-page-items&Itemid=2150&lang=en | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00045-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.912965 | 365 | 1.671875 | 2 |
The country is facing two wars, an unprecedented economic crisis, and global environmental hazards, but Bobby Jindal last night decided to call attention to one of the stranger problems one could think of: overprotecting Americans from volcanoes.
In his response to President Obama's address, Jindal said he opposed the stimulus package's inclusion of “$140 million for something called 'volcano monitoring.'”
“Instead of monitoring volcanoes, what Congress should be monitoring is the eruption of spending in Washington, D.C,” Jindal said.
While the claim was factually inaccurate (the $140 million will go to the US Geological Survey, of which volcanic research is only a part), scientists are also decrying Jindal's comments as a blast of hot volcanic air.
“I would give the honorable governor poor marks for his education,” one geologist who has studied volcanoes said.
“Apparently the governor of Louisiana doesn't remember any of the major volcanic eruptions in recent history,” said Mark Brandon, a professor of geology at Yale University who has studied volcanoes around the world. “Volcanic monitoring right now is absolutely essential for protecting lives and property. The amount of money invested compared to the amount of money returned is trivial. It's not just some hobby—if the governor were in a volcanic eruption, he'd realize that the people who do that work are very useful in protecting you from direct hazards.”
Brandon was a student at University of Washington when Mount St. Helens erupted in 1980, killing 57 people and destroying hundreds of homes. Many more would almost certainly have died without the volcanic monitoring that allowed authorities to evacuate the population ahead of time.
“I would give the honorable governor poor marks for his education,” Brandon said. “It's just naïve to live in a world where everything goes as you expect. The classic example of lack of awareness of this kind of hazard is the 2004 Sumatra earthquake, which led to that devastating tsunami. People had lost memory of what happened because the last one was several generations ago, and that's an example of how infrequent hazards can be particularly devastating, because we just don't have the generational experience.”
He said that increased monitoring was “our investment against these hazards,” and crucial to spotting signs of similar once-in-a-century or once-in-a-millennium events.
Several other scientists expressed similar disbelief at Jindal's attack on their work, which was especially surprising given Louisiana's experience fending off a rare natural disaster in Hurricane Katrina.
“I was kind of taken aback by the way volcanic monitoring was portrayed in the speech,” said Brad Singer, a professor of geology at the University of Wisconsin. “Every once in awhile there's some odd science research going on that sounds so out there that it's not useful and even I can laugh at some of those. But volcano monitoring is a serious business. I would say there are hundreds of thousands of people in the US who live in the sphere of hazard associated with many individual volcanoes.”
As Singer pointed out, there are volcanic tremors and other disturbances going on right now at Mt. Redoubt in Alaska, where a more severe incident could threaten the population of Anchorage. Thanks to monitoring, authorities might be able to order an evacuation should one be necessary, as was done with the area surrounding Mount St. Helens in 1980. Another hazard that volcano monitoring can mitigate is threats to aircrafts that pass through clouds of ash. There have been cases where 747s have had engines stall out at high altitudes while passing through unexpected patches of volcanic ash, causing them to drop thousands of feet before regaining control and sometimes obscuring visibility entirely. One such case in 1989 caused $80 million in damage to an Anchorage-bound flight that lost power for five minutes after running into ash from an erupting Mt. Redoubt. Another hazard: fast-moving mudflows caused by melting ice after an eruption, which can travel at 60 mph and devastate everything in their path. Seattle is partly built on one such mudflow, created only several thousand years ago.
“In my mind it's a field that’s been severely underfunded in the US and there are people with the expertise to do this immediately and do it effectively at fairly low cost,” Singer said. “I can guarantee you there's equipment and expertise and ways to deploy instrumentation right away. To me, it qualifies for all the things the president is saying about wanting projects to be ready tomorrow.”
William Scott, a USGS geologist who monitors volcanoes in the Cascade Mountains, which includes Mount St. Helens and Mt. Rainier, said that his office hopes to use funding from the stimulus to improve their operations by significantly reducing the speed at which monitoring results reach scientists.
“These kinds of volcanoes in the Cascades remain quiet for decades and centuries and then quite suddenly over a period of weeks or months resume activity,” Scott said. “The only way we know we can detect that onset of unrest is if we have instruments around the volcano.”
Scott said he was surprised to suddenly have to defend his office's activities thanks to Governor Jindal's speech, but was grateful for the chance to focus attention on its importance.
“Generally we get in the news media when a volcano is threatening to erupt,” Scott said. “So this is a different kind of attention… It's an opportunity to get the correct message out.”
Benjamin Sarlin is a reporter for The Daily Beast. He previously covered New York City politics for The New York Sun and has worked for talkingpointsmemo.com. | <urn:uuid:08758529-6b91-44b6-8b39-23f64c8eeb9f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2009/02/25/jindals-eruption-of-hot-gas.print.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97316 | 1,184 | 2.8125 | 3 |
Part II: Other Judicial Branch Programs
A number of other agencies have been created by statute or court order to advise or assist the Supreme Judicial Court in carrying out its supervisory and administrative responsibilities over the court system and the Bar. These include:
- Board of Bar Examiners, charged with supervising admission to the bar
- Board of Overseers of the Bar, charged with supervising attorney conduct and discipline
- Committee on Judicial Responsibility and Disability, charged with supervising the conduct and discipline of judges
- Court Appointed Special Advocate Program (CASA), which utilizes trained volunteers to act as guardians-ad-litem in child protective cases
- Court Alternative Dispute Resolution Service (CADRES)
- numerous operating and advisory committees dealing with matters ranging from judicial education to the rules of court. | <urn:uuid:6d2142a4-20c1-4e1d-afd2-c77d29f82136> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.courts.state.me.us/reports_pubs/pubs/hanbooks_guides/citizen_guide/court_org_other.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946817 | 166 | 2.375 | 2 |
Nov. 4, 2004 ANN ARBOR, Mich. --- Human activity causes 10 times more erosion of continental surfaces than all natural processes combined, an analysis by a University of Michigan geologist shows.
People have been the main cause of worldwide erosion since early in the first millennium, said Bruce Wilkinson, a U-M professor of geological sciences. Wilkinson will present his findings Nov. 8 at a meeting of the Geological Society of America in Denver, Colo.
Many researchers have tried to assess the impact of human activity on soil loss, but most have only guessed at how erosion due to natural forces such as glaciers and rivers compares with that caused by human activity---mainly agriculture and construction, Wilkinson said. He used existing data on sedimentary rock distributions and abundances to calculate rates of natural erosion.
"If you ask how fast erosion takes place over geologic time---say over the last 500 million years---on average, you get about 60 feet every million years," Wilkinson said. In those parts of the United States where soil is being eroded by human agricultural activity, however, the rate averages around 1,500 feet per million years, and rates are even higher in other parts of the world. Natural processes operate over areas larger than those affected by agriculture and construction, but even taking that into account, "the bottom line is, we move about 10 times as much sediment as all natural processes put together," he said.
Because soil formation proceeds at about the same rate as natural erosion, Wilkinson's results mean that humans are stripping soil from the surface of the Earth far faster than nature can replace it.
"This situation is particularly critical," Wilkinson said, "because the Earth's human population is growing rapidly and because almost all potentially arable land is now under the plow."
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Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead. | <urn:uuid:867a5bc3-89b3-4782-8787-2d4d99b03d03> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/11/041103234736.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00055-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943701 | 407 | 3.6875 | 4 |
The Michigan State House of Representatives passed a bill to eliminate handgun registration. The bill passed overwhelmingly, which means that it is likely to pass the Senate and be signed by the Governor. All pro-gun bills, including "stand your ground" and various improvements to concealed carry, have passed by significant margins since concealed carry passed in 2000.
Michigan House Bills 4490 and 4491 pass House
Michigan House Bills 4490 and 4491 passed out of the Tourism and Outdoor Recreation Committee by a vote of 8 - 1. The Bills were sent to the full House April 16th.
These bills would (1) eliminate the current requirement in the Michigan handgun licensure law that pistol owners obtain safety inspection certificates; (2) require that all existing records of inspection certificates maintained by local and state law enforcement officials be destroyed; and (3) eliminate the misdemeanor crime of failing to have one's pistol inspected.
House Bill 4490 would repeal Section 9 of the handgun licensure act (MCL 28.429), which requires people who purchase or otherwise come into possession of a pistol in Michigan to obtain a safety inspection certificate from their local police department (or local sheriff, if they reside in a part of the state without an organized police department). That section also requires local law enforcement officials and the State Police to maintain records of safety inspection certificates. The bill would require state and local law enforcement officials to destroy all of their existing records of pistol safety inspections within one year.
House Bill 4491 would repeal Section 228 of the Michigan Penal Code (MCL 750.228) under which a person who fails to have his or her pistol inspected as required is guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment for up to 90 days, or a fine of up to $100, or both. The bill would also eliminate other references to Section 9 and safety inspections contained in the Penal Code. House Bill 4491 is tie-barred to House Bill 4490, meaning it could not take effect unless both bills were enacted.
Roll call vote results:
HB 4490, Yeas 93 Nays 15.
HB 4491, Yeas 92 Nays 16
Bills now move to the Senate. | <urn:uuid:7d7e5035-3b51-498a-8c71-bf28779d30bd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wmugop.blogspot.com/2008/04/ending-registration.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941554 | 440 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Paul Ryan (R-WI), the champion of necessary but unpopular fiscal reform, spoke this month about America’s exceptional political ideas and how they should be reflected in our foreign policy. In so doing he rejected isolationism and reinforced the Founders’ commitment to making America an indispensable nation for the cause of freedom, by maintaining American independence abroad.
“America is an idea,” he said. “And it was the first nation founded as such. The idea is rather simple. Our rights come to us from God and nature. They occur naturally, before government.” For Ryan, this understanding has necessary implications for U.S. foreign policy, but must be guided by prudence:
Now, if you believe these rights are universal human rights, then that clearly forms the basis of your views on foreign policy. It leads you to reject moral relativism. It causes you to recoil at the idea of persistent moral indifference toward any nation that stifles and denies liberty, no matter how friendly and accommodating its rulers are to American interests.
This raises an important question: What do we do when our principles are in conflict with our interests? How do we resolve the tension between morality and reality?
According to some, we will never be able to resolve this tension, and we must occasionally suspend our principles in pursuit of our interests. I don’t see it that way. We have to be consistent and clear in the promotion of our principles, while recognizing that different situations will require different tools for achieving that end.”
He went on to reject the notion of isolationism:
Today, some in this country relish the idea of America’s retreat from our role in the world. They say that it’s about time for other nations to take over; that we should turn inward; that we should reduce ourselves to membership on a long list of mediocre has-beens.
This view applies moral relativism on a global scale. Western civilization and its founding moral principles might be good for the West, but who are we to suggest that other systems are any worse? – or so the thinking goes.
Instead of heeding these calls to surrender, we must renew our commitment to the idea that America is the greatest force for human freedom the world has ever seen; a country whose devotion to free enterprise has lifted more people out of poverty than any economic system ever designed; and a nation whose best days still lie ahead of us, if we make the necessary choices today.”
Congressman Ryan’s remarks reveal statesmanship and principled leadership, which are sorely lacking in today’s foreign policy debates. The full text of the speech is available here. | <urn:uuid:15ab8796-7d0f-457f-bc92-0c763d1ad5f4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.heritage.org/2011/06/07/rep-paul-ryan-america-exceptional-at-home-and-abroad/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942741 | 550 | 2.453125 | 2 |
This is a series of illustrations in this week's Newsweek magazine. I got the call last Wednesday from art director Leah Purcell to do five illustrations for an article about China's new world dominance. All the art was due on Friday. Once I figured out the opener image above, I decided to mirror the round shape of the globe on all the following images. Each subsequent image was supposed to illustrate China's rewriting of the rules in four separate areas—trade, technology, currency and world climate. I had fun figuring it out and like how the circular shape makes for a cohesive series. The article is titled "It's China's World We're Just Living in It" and is online here.
"Earlier this month China confirmed plans for its second unmanned lunar probe in October and the 2011 launch of a space module for the country's first docking exercise, all leading up to a 2013 moon landing. With NASA's budgetary rollback, China is now the only country making major investments in space exploration."
China rewriting the rules of the web and technology by censoring websites and being involved in cyber spying.
China has a horrible record on the environment but is actively involved in setting new international environmental standards.
"Beijing's efforts to push the yuan as a rival to the dollar are now making tentative progress. In the last few months, China has inked $100 billion in currency-swap agreements with six countries, including Argentina, Indonesia, and South Korea" | <urn:uuid:4ad0f106-3f92-4702-9e58-bf14172bcfa1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://drawger.com/edel/index.php?section=articles&article_id=10012&start_date=1267419600&end_date=1270094400 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00047-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953667 | 295 | 1.9375 | 2 |
Despite this openness, there are some who argue that more information about adverse events in gene therapy clinical trials should be submitted to the RAC and made public. The investigation of the death of the patient in the clinical trial at UPenn has led to a series of stories in the press that imply that gene therapy is dangerous and that the industry is operating in secret and hiding adverse events. This, according to some, puts the public at risk because the true dangers of gene therapy are not being disclosed.
This pressure for disclosure has culminated in a new proposal from the RAC. Through a proposed amendment to the NIH guidelines, the RAC "clarified" its expectations for access to adverse event reports from institutions and investigators that receive NIH funding. The proposal was published in the Federal Register on November 22, 1999. Under the proposal, NIH would request reporting to the RAC of serious adverse events – whether or not the event was associated with or expected from the intervention – using a specified format and within a specified time frame. It would also request that the reports not contain trade secret or confidential commercial or financial information.
Upon review of this proposal, BIO has the following concerns: the standards outlined for expedited reporting are inconsistent with currently recognized standards; the SAE reporting format is inconsistent with current FDA regulatory standards; the context of disclosure for safety reports by RAC is not defined; and the required disclosure conflicts with current federal confidentiality statutes.
We propose an alternative approach for reporting of adverse event data by sponsors. Our proposal would constitute an agreement between the key federal agencies and industry that will provide the RAC with safety data while ensuring that patient confidentiality and trade secret data is protected.
Our proposal has been agreed to by all the members of BIO engaged in gene therapy research. The proposal sets a standard that all these companies will meet. The substance of the proposal will substantially increase the data that will be transmitted to the NIH and therefore to the RAC. We believe that this will effectively reassure patients and the public regarding the safety and efficacy of gene therapy clinical trials, enhance the ability of researchers to enroll patients in these trials, and enhance the RAC’s role in the process. At the same time, it is consistent with the industry’s FDA obligations and confidentiality rules.
The proposed reporting guideline would inappropriately recommend immediate reporting of unrelated serious adverse events.
According to 21 CFR 312, sponsors are required to notify FDA and all participating investigators of any "serious" and "unexpected" adverse event associated with the use of the drug being tested in the clinical trial within 7 days of notification of the event if the event was fatal or life-threatening, or 15 days for other serious and unexpected associated events. ("associated" refers to reasonable possibility of causation) This process ensures that federal regulators have the information they need to make a timely determination about the progress of a trial and whether patients are in danger. It also ensures that participating investigators are aware of important safety information. If patients are in danger, the FDA has the authority to place a clinical trial on hold or prohibit new enrollments. SAEs that are unrelated to the intervention are reported to FDA as part of the annual IND report submitted by sponsors because there is no imminent safety risk. This reporting structure is applicable to the development process for all drugs and biologics.
The NIH proposal defines "immediate" reporting as no later than 15 calendar days after the adverse event occurred. However, FDA regulations specify that the sponsor must report within 15 calendar days of receiving notification from the investigator that the event has occurred. It is therefore important to acknowledge the distinct and separate responsibilities of an NIH funded investigator and an FDA regulated sponsor of clinical trials.
A reporting system that entails the reporting of all SAEs in an expedited manner is inappropriate and unnecessary. The public is already protected by the immediate reporting of related events that alert FDA and all participating investigators to any dangers to patients in clinical trials. Additionally, the FDA has the mandate at any time during the course of a clinical study to require the sponsor to provide full information and analyses on all observed adverse events. Adverse events may occur during a trial that have nothing to do with the intervention. Public reporting of them, however, in the absence of full contextual information on the investigational agent, can result in premature and potentially misleading perceptions of a product’s profile. This could be detrimental to the development of potentially life-saving new therapies.
The proposal creates another reporting format that is unnecessary and duplicative.
The format for reporting SAEs is well established in federal regulations. 21 CFR describes in detail the process and information to be used by sponsors submitting adverse event reports. To create a new format would simply create additional burdens that would not enhance the understanding of a potentially important safety event.
Since the report requested by NIH would by definition contain trade secret and commercial confidential information and private patient information, the RAC cannot lawfully disclose its contents. | <urn:uuid:b507479f-5c8d-4801-a47b-b35b44a82fce> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bio.org/articles/oversight-gene-therapy?page=3 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00062-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955985 | 1,000 | 2.15625 | 2 |
"Healthy Living from Head-to-Toe"
Vascular Rehabilitation is a non-invasive exercise program that improves
maximal walking distance in patients with claudication, pain in the legs with
activity that subsides with rest.
| "If exercise were a pill, it would be the most
prescribed medication of all time!"
- Covert Bailey
This supervised exercise program is designed to increase pain-free walking
distance in patients with lower extremity peripheral arterial disease (PAD). The
program uses a walk/rest interval training program to train the leg muscles to
use oxygen more efficiently, therefore allowing patients to walk further without
pain. Rehab combines exercise and comprehensive healthy lifestyle education for
patients with PAD to enhance their overall cardiovascular health, promote
functional independence, & improve quality of life.
Most patients with Claudication do not exercise or walk on their own as
prescribed by most physicians. Vascular Rehab consists of a personalized
exercise prescription that teaches and motivates a patient to walk at a level
that will improve their pain free walking distance.
Rehabilitation is dedicated to improving the lives of people with
intermittent claudication, one step at a time!
- 12 week Supervised Exercise Program
- Hourly exercise sessions 3 times/week
- Individual exercise orientation & consultation
- Individualized exercise prescription
- Comprehensive Education
- Outcome measurements
For additional information contact Amy Stoakes, BS, CES, ACSM at (517) | <urn:uuid:2b75fa98-18ea-4951-86da-9f3faffb2f8a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.irmc.org/lansing/VascularRehabGL.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.904074 | 315 | 1.84375 | 2 |
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Description found in Archives
Fonds consists of
Place of creation
No place, unknown, or undetermined
Language of material
Added language of material: French
Scope and content
Fonds consists of records created and/or maintained by the Adjutant-General's Office, Lower Canada and its predecessors. Researchers are cautioned that unprocessed textual records and records in other media are not reflected in this description.
Conditions of access
Copyright belongs to the Crown.
Finding aids are available. See lower level descriptions and accession records in ArchiviaNet (the NA website). (Other)
Creator / Provenance
Biography / Administrative history
The first Militia Act for the British colony of Quebec was passed in 1777 (17 Geo. III, ch. 8) and was largely a re-enactment of the old French laws. All males between the ages of 16 and 60 were required to serve in the militia of the parish in which they resided and were commanded by a captain, appointed from among the more prominent men of the parish. As well as assisting the regular army in the defence of the colony, the militia was required to provide it with transport and other services, known collectively as the corvée. [John Clarke, "Baby, François," Dictionary of Canadian Biography, v. V, p. 44.] Annual musters took place on four successive Sundays in late June and early July.
For the purposes of administration, the province was initially divided into two military districts, Québec and Montréal, but in 1789 the districts of St. Thomas, Trois-Rivières and Boucherville were created. The colonel commanding the Québec district acted as Adjutant General for the province, although the office of Adjutant General of Militia was not mentioned in provincial militia acts until 1796 (36 Geo. III, ch. 11).
Initially militia units developed around cities, towns and seigneuries and were named accordingly. With the passage of a new Militia Act in 1793 for the newly-created province of Lower Canada (34 Geo. III, ch. 4), the battalion became the basic unit of organization. Each county had its battalion, commanded by a lieutenant-colonel, and there were several battalions in both Montréal and Québec City. Later there was provision for more than one battalion in a county, depending on the size and distribution of the population. The 1793 Act contained the usual provision for the embodiment of the militia in the event of "war, invasion or imminent danger," however the act passed in 1803 (43 Geo. III, ch. 1) empowered the Governor to call up by ballot a maximum of 1200 bachelors annually for a period of training not to exceed twenty-eight days. He was also authorized to appropriate a maximum of 2500 rounds of ammunition annually as well as arms and equipment for the men in training.
In May 1812, when war with the United States appeared to be imminent, a new Militia Act was passed (52 Geo. III, ch. 1), which increased to 2000 the number of men called out for annual training and increased the maximum age for this active service element from 25 to 30. The Act also forbade the use of substitutes to perform militia duties. During the late 1820s the Lower Canada counties were given English names although the older French names continued to be used interchangeably until 1829, when many of the counties of Lower Canada were divided, the boundaries restructured, and new names applied.
Prior to and during the Rebellions of 1837-38 several Proclamations were issued regarding the desired conduct and loyalty of militia officers. As a result of lessons learned and problems made apparent during the Rebellions, a general reorganization of the militia and recommissioning of militia officers took place by General Order 7 June 1839, which displaced many of the old, unhealthy, incompetent, and disloyal officers.
From the end of the 18th century to the unification of Lower and Upper Canada, the role of Adjutant-General was considered the most important position in the Canadian militia. He reported to the Governor General and his principal function was to enforce the various militia acts. As intermediary between the Governor and the militia officers, the Adjutant General was responsible to ensure that the militia assembled and trained annually, that returns and nominal rolls were produced regularly, that general orders were issued and transmitted, that the militia played its part in times of war, and finally, that militiamen and veterans were rewarded for their participation in armed conflicts.
The Militia Act of 1846 (9 Vic. ch. 28), the first for the United Province of Canada superseded this organization for defence.
The Adjutants General of Militia for Lower Canada were Lieutenant-Colonel François Baby, 1776 - October 1811 (Colonel, 1794), Lieutenant-Colonel François Vassal de Monviel, October 1811 - March 1841 and Colonel Bartholomew Conrad Augustus Gugy, March 1841 - June 1846.
Other system control no.
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A State of Grace is your natural state of being. It is what you naturally are without all the instrumentals and the dialogues of being too human. The State of Grace is what you were before you came to Earth. It is the point of reference in-between each incarnation. It is a place of relaxing into your light. It is a natural rhythm for you. It is the rhythm of the Creator that beats within you with no resistance, but a surrendering and a flowing as a waterfall. A state of grace says 'WE SURRENDER', we do not try to fight our karma or our past, our family, or disease. But we allow our natural God essence to take us beyond human understanding into a point of reverence, into a point of sacredness, and into a point of humanness that is sanctified and holy.
A state of grace says 'we the people of the Earth now allow the divinity in us to take us above the darkness – not through the darkness'. It is allowing the light within you the freedom to be in its natural state of being, releasing it from the pressures and decisions of being human. It is going back to your natural roots. A place of trusting the universe and accepting that whatever is issuing itself as an emotional decree, a financial decree, an energetic decree, or a personal decree -- is issued by the divinity within you. In this state of grace, you will supersede the negativity and you will relax into your light. when you each let go of what burdens you, what saddens you, and allow the cracks within you to be healed, you can then focus on the return trip into love.
When you are feeling pressured by your world, immediately focus on what you love. Take that vibration of what you love (whether it is a flower, a song, a child, a puppy, a giggle, a laugh, a memory) and place it into what brings you sadness what hurts. love will change the molecular content of the experience that you are embedded in. Shift the molecules. What you see as a roadblock and negativity is but a molecular essence that has not shifted into a state of grace, by love.
You are the director and the conductor of the concert of your life. Understand that the molecules of love can dissolve obstacles and move mountains. Nothing is impossible when you saturate it with the living energy of love. Immediately call in the energy of to something that saddens you, and hurts you. Hand it over to the divinity within yourself and within the situation. Grace is a lighter energy and immediately you will feel a lifting. You are not getting out of doing your homework in that learning situation. But you are invoking a molecular change through the essence of love into it. grace
Shift everything that seems to be an obstacle. When something angers you, immediately train yourself to think of something that brings you joy, something that you love and then re-focus that energy into that situation and you will change it. You will break down the Walls of Jericho with the soundings of your heart and the soundings of love. it is your duty, it is your mission to keep a love list. Everything that brings a smile to your face, everything that brings a laugh and a giggle to your heart and everything that softens you. Keep a list of love. Refer to it when you are angry, when you are sad, when you are in distress. Change your life. Invoke the state of grace in everything that you walk through on a daily basis. “I now invoke a state of grace in this situation and I now ask for the molecules of love to saturate it”. You will feel yourself lifted, no longer sinking in despair.
Everything in your life is designed of divinity and by divinity. It is a divine expression of a divine aspect of your self that is asking to be healed, that is asking to be embraced, that is asking for love. Otherwise it would not be blocking your way. When you are watching the sadness on your earth and feel helpless to change it, think of something that you love. You need a reference point. You need to be reminded what brought you love the last time you thought of it, the last time you experienced it.
When you shift yourself, you shift the outcome of what stands in front of you. Your day should be a 24-hour state of grace. A state of grace says, “I trust what I have in front of me. I trust my choices. I trust God, I trust the world, I trust Mother Nature.” What do you fear the most? You fear people. What lives within people, but the essence of God. You do not trust the divinity within them, which is just a hair away from the divinity within you.
I am he who is known as Metatron. I watch the words of your world. I watch your thoughts. I am underwriter for all expressions verbally. My presence will be seen and felt more often in the up coming times. As you invoke the states of grace, also realize that within that molecular content of Grace sits every molecule of Light. Just by using the word grace, saying grace, speaking grace, knowing someone named Grace – you invoke the presence of the Light.
Each time a heart opens, it is as a million rainbows and a million roses opening simultaneously. In your imagination you can not fathom how much love you can hold, how much love you are capable of feeling. you are still very afraid of the feeling of love. The love that is on Earth is very little compared to the rest of the Universe. On a scale 1 to 100 the love that is on Earth is still below 0. Believe it or not you are just entering into a countable and measurable essence of love.
I, as all light and all beings of light, are with you continually. We are one. Your hearts are small and tender. Some of them are shriveled. But we hold them as a small bird that has fallen from the nest of life. We will nurse you back into the fullness of love. I go.
Gillian MacBeth-Louthan - PO box 217 - Dandridge, Tennessee 37725-0217 - www.thequantumawakening.com firstname.lastname@example.org | <urn:uuid:3636cd0b-1ecb-4921-b98b-afeab7447300> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://spiritlibrary.com/gillian-macbeth-louthan/moving-above-the-fear-into-the-51st-state-of-grace | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961398 | 1,301 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Supplemental Restraint System (SRS) "AIR BAG" and "SEAT BELT PRE-TENSIONER"
The Supplemental Restraint System such as "AIR BAG" and "SEAT BELT PRE-TENSIONER", used along with a front seat belt, helps to reduce the risk or severity of injury to the driver and front passenger for certain types of collision. This system includes seat belt switch inputs and dual stage front air bag modules. The SRS system uses the seat belt switches to determine the front air bag deployment, and may only deploy one front air bag, depending on the severity of a collision and whether the front occupants are belted or unbelted.
Information necessary to service the system safely is included in the Restraint Systems Information.
- To avoid rendering the SRS inoperative, which could increase the risk of personal injury or death in the event of a collision which would result in air bag inflation, all maintenance must be performed by an authorized NISSAN/INFINITI dealer.
- Improper maintenance, including incorrect removal and installation of the SRS, can lead to personal injury caused by unintentional activation of the system. For removal of Spiral Cable and Air Bag Module, see the SRS Airbag.
- Do not use electrical test equipment on any circuit related to the SRS unless instructed. SRS wiring harnesses can be identified by yellow and/or orange harnesses or harness connectors. | <urn:uuid:7e44b4b7-8ca9-450b-bb58-8145b7527219> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.alldatadiy.com/alldatadiy/DIY~G~C45827~R0~OD~N/0/138181779/138629620/138629625/138629629/34853741/34869214/34869490/165555483 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.908563 | 297 | 1.867188 | 2 |
Born in Cleveland, Ohio Jerry Willard’s first teacher was his father, Jeff Willard, an accomplished guitarist in his own right. The guitar pedagogue, Sophocles Papas recognized Jerry’s talent and invited him to study in Washington, D.C. Jerry Willard studied with guitarists, Richard Lurie and Alirio Diaz, who developed his musical and technical approach to the guitar. He also worked with violinist, Misha Mishakoff and cellist, Warren Downs who expanded his knowledge of musical interpretation.
Mr. Willard has performed at Alice Tully Hall, Carnegie Hall in New York City. He has concertized extensively throughout Europe and The United States. Raymond Ericson of the New York Times wrote, “The recital was exemplary. Mr. Willard took lute in hand for some pieces by Adrian LeRoy and John Dowland and turned that normally pale-sounding predecessor of the guitar into a brilliant and vivid instrument…..It was again the clarity of Mr. Willard’s playing that gave special pleasure.”
Willard is an accomplished player of all types of fretted instruments including the archlute, Renaissance lute, Baroque guitar, nineteenth century guitar, and modern guitar. Well known as an ensemble player, Mr. Willard has performed with the Cleveland Orchestra, The New York City Opera Company, The New York Consort of Viols, and The Queen’s Chamber Band.
Willard has published many publications for guitar including “The Complete Lute Music of J.S. Bach”, “The Complete Works of Gaspar Sanz” and “Seventeen Show Tunes Of George Gershwin” available through Music Sales Corporation. Mr. Willard records for Lyrichord Discs. He has recorded music for arch-lute, Baroque Guitar and Renaissance lute. He has just finished a recording of opera potpourris by Giuliani and Mertz on a Lacote guitar made in Paris in 1820. Mr. Willard resides in New York City and is on the faculty of the State University of New York at Stony Brook. | <urn:uuid:3dac79ec-b1b5-4cba-aa8f-73c2af6360e1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://madisontheatreny.org/2012-2013-season/jerry-willard/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00071-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970436 | 449 | 1.765625 | 2 |
Imkaan contributions to the 57th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women now available on our website
Over the past two weeks, Marai Larasi (Executive Director at Imkaan) has contributed to five sessions at the Commission on the Status of Women; for the UN, the Home Office, the Canadian Government, and two NGO forums. Marai also lobbied on behalf of UK VAWG services at other sessions during this time.
The Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) is the United Nation’s principal global policy-making body dedicated exclusively to gender equality and advancement of women. Every year, representatives of Member States gather at United Nations Headquarters in New York to evaluate progress on gender equality, identify challenges, set global standards and formulate concrete policies to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment worldwide.
You can view some of Marai’s contributions to this year’s CSW on our Resources page, under ‘External Contributions and Mentions’.
The CSW has now agreed conclusions on the elimination and prevention of all forms of VAWG. Amongst the agreed conclusions, Imkaan particularly welcomes those that promote equal access to education, encourage appropriate responses to VAWG by statutory services, recognise the specific needs of women in conflict and post-conflict situations, migrants, and women with HIV, and the important role of the media and ICT in eliminating VAWG.
While there is much work to be done, the CSW conclusions present a critical opportunity for states to implement, strengthen and monitor the work to eliminate and prevent all forms of violence against women and girls. We will continue to lobby UK government to encourage targeted efforts to ensure that the conclusions are adopted to strengthen existing work on VAWG in the UK.
I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.
Imkaan’s Response to the Home Office’s Action Plan on Violence Against Women and Girls
Imkaan warmly welcomes the government’s Action Plan to End Violence against Women and Girls. Violence against women and girls is a global issue and it is imperative to continue the work to tackle gender-based violence in all its forms, across the UK. We welcome a commitment to address specific forms of violence including forced marriage and female genital mutilation, however it is crucial that our attitudes and responses to such forms of violence do not alienate the women and girls we are working with and the communities we say we are trying to support. It is vital that we continue to work in solidarity with existing communities of resistance in the UK and around the world to end violence against women and girls. | <urn:uuid:a55155e7-82ab-4e8c-9a53-88f5928a8108> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://imkaan.org.uk/tagged/equality | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938066 | 553 | 1.726563 | 2 |
[Only Children] is dull because it is about dull people…. The dull people are kept under tight rein to serve Lurie's thematic ends, which, in tune with the holiday setting, are about American childishness and American materialism….
Bill is stingy, dull, unimaginative, and responsible. Dan is generous, lively, fanciful, and self-indulgent; another sensual Jew of large physical dimensions…. One wonders, alas, if the old stereotypes have given way to a new one, more flattering, I suppose, but quite as threatening as what it replaces.
(The entire page is 305 words.)
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Targeted web advertising to come under EU scrutiny
PARIS Nov 23 (Reuters) - Targeted online advertising is set to face increased scrutiny from European Union regulators concerned about invasion of privacy, threatening the growth of a potentially big online revenue-booster for media companies.
"This is a very hot topic that can be expected to be part of our work programme next year," Gabriele Loewnau, a senior legal adviser for the German Federal Commissioner for Data Protection, said on Friday.
The German commissioner currently heads the European Union's advisory body on data protection matters, the so-called Article 29 Working Party.
Recommendations from the working party have been used by the European Commission to get Google (GOOG.O) to curtail the amount of time it stored past Web searches to 18 months.
When an individual makes an online search or purchase, the computer can remember the entry through so-called cookies and pass on the information to advertisers.
"Targeted advertising will become a major tool for us, it will irrigate various parts of the group and help increase our average revenue per user," Jean-Bernard Levy, chief executive of telecoms and media group Vivendi (VIV.PA), told a telecoms conference in Montpellier last week.
Brussels' heightened awareness comes as more than 13,000 Facebook users have signed a petition protesting against the networking site's new advertising system which alerts members of friends' purchases online.
Members can opt for their transactions to be kept private but critics say the option is easily missed.
Some Facebook members have even threatened to leave, complaining the new system allowed their friends to find out what they were planning to give them for Christmas. The Facebook petition was led by the U.S. civic action group MoveOn.org.
"Sites like Facebook are revolutionising how we communicate with each other in a 21st century democracy," said Adam Green, a spokesman for MoveOn.org Civic Action.
"But we need to make sure they place the needs and privacy rights of their users ahead of the needs of corporate advertisers," he said in an e-mailed statement.
Facebook says it spares no effort in respecting members' privacy and stresses they can always prevent their purchases from being passed on to friends.
Online advertising is the fastest-growing segment of the ad industry, gaining more than 25 percent a year, or more than five times the recent average annual growth all media included.
Between 6-7 percent of advertising is spent on the Internet globally, analysts estimate.
Internet giants including Google, its YouTube division, Yahoo (YHOO.O), and MySpace NWSa.N have all said they were keen to develop targeted advertising to boost revenues. But a balance would have to be struck with privacy, analysts say.
"Online sites have to make sure they are not intruding people's privacy, otherwise targeted advertising will backfire," said Vincent Bonneau from French telecoms research group Idate.
YouTube introduced in August a new type of targeted advertising - banners that pop-up at the bottom of videos. The ads target consumers according to the content viewed.
"It will be a significant booster to the business. We will be able to charge more for that," Patrick Walker, director of video partnerships at YouTube for Europe told Reuters last week.
But if targeted advertising is regarded as the next big thing, media specialists say there are few statistics available on its effectiveness and it is still traffic that counts. (Additional reporting by Cyril Altmeyer in Paris; editing by Sue Thomas)
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Alveda King Is In Demand
It seems that as the election nears, right-wing groups are trying to work Martin Luther King Jr. into their efforts to convince African American voters to oppose marriage equality and vote for John McCain. But since MLK would never have supported their political agenda, the Right is reduced to using his niece, Alveda King, to imply that he would.
Hi, I'm Dr. Alveda King, niece of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. A "yes" vote on 2 does only one thing: it defines marriage as a union of one man and one woman. No one loses benefits. Everyone's civil rights are safe. Don't be mislead by dishonest ads about benefits. Protecting marriage between one man and one woman simply protects our children and grandchildren. Please, vote "yes" on 2.
And here she is showing up again, this time alongside Harry Jackson, in an ad from the right-wing group Let Freedom Ring, called "Vote MLK Values" which is aimed at convincing African Americans not to vote for Barack Obama:
Narrator: Voting is about more than just picking one image over another. For instance, the consequences of not voting your values ...
King: Marting Luther King Jr. had a dream, and I have the same dream; it's in my genes: that people will be judged by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin.
Jackson: If we choose a candidate based on race-based affiliation alone, we may choose people who's values are at odd with our deeply-held beliefs.
King: We can never begin to say it was a dream of Martin Luther King that a person would be elected because of his or her color. No. It was the dream of Martin Luther King Jr. that the character of our civic leaders would line up with the character that is outlined in a book that he held very dear; the Bible.
Jackson: This is the hour in which we need to trust the Bible and vote and vote consistently with what the Bible says. We need to vote to change our culture based on The Word, not based on a party.
Narrator: It's time to think beyond the rhetoric.
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Pat Robertson, Who Said 'The Lord Told Me' that 'Romney Will Win,' Urges Viewers to Beware False Prophets
5/9/13 @ 1:00pm
Bachmann: 9/11 and Benghazi Were God's Judgment
5/10/13 @ 12:16pm
Radio Host Frequented By Gun Activists Calls For Shooting of Bush Family & Obama, Sexual Violence Against Hillary Clinton
5/17/13 @ 2:37pm
Robertson Tells Woman Whose Husband Cheated to Remember 'He's a Man' and be Grateful She Lives in America
5/15/13 @ 12:30pm
Bryan Fischer Won't Answer a Simple 'Yes' or 'No' Question
5/9/13 @ 11:37am
- E.W. Jackson says emergency federal disaster relief is unconstitutional and goes against God t.co/xROmqDoKI82 hours ago
- E.W. Jackson says God, not the fed. government, should provide aid in cases of natural disasters t.co/xROmqDoKI82 hours ago
- E.W. Jackson opposes federal aid in cases of natural disasters because it turns gov't into God t.co/xROmqDoKI82 hours ago | <urn:uuid:519f53b7-0296-4e4e-8a66-9e91574cf08f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/alveda-king-demand | 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 | 0.953259 | 728 | 1.726563 | 2 |
More protection against unequal treatment in healthcare needed
A new report by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) identifies the specific barriers and experiences of unequal treatment in accessing healthcare that people may face because of a combination of their traits (e.g. ethnic origin, gender, age and disability).
The report finds that in such cases, people and their legal advisors often have difficulties in bringing a complaint of discrimination on ‘multiple’ grounds to court. This is either because of a poor understanding of ‘multiple’ discrimination, or because legally it is simply easier to deal with a complaint on only one particular ground.
Read more >>>
FRA Director meets civil society organisations in Belgium
FRA addresses conference on integration of equality bodies and human rights institutions
All events >> | <urn:uuid:533c484e-bee3-4194-a7c5-64bc06fe8820> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://fra.europa.eu/en/newsletter/2013/fra-newsletter-march-2013 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00064-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.924214 | 160 | 2.171875 | 2 |
You want to avoid the pitfalls of object oriented design? Then this is the right place to start. Use Flow-Oriented Analysis (FOA) and –Design (FOD or just FD for Flow-Design) to understand a problem domain and design a software solution. Flow-Orientation as described here is related to Flow-Based Programming, Event-Based Programming, Business Process Modelling, and even Event-Driven Architectures.
But even though “thinking in flows” is not new, I found it helpful to deviate from those precursors for several reasons. Some aim at too big systems for the average programmer, some are concerned with only asynchronous processing, some are even not very much concerned with programming at all.
What I was looking for was a design method to help in software projects of any size, be they large or tiny, involing synchronous or asynchronous processing, being local or distributed, running on the web or on the desktop or on a smartphone. That´s why I took ideas from all of the above sources and some additional and came up with Event-Based Components which later got repositioned and renamed to Flow-Design.
In the meantime this has generated some discussion (in the German developer community) and several teams have started to work with Flow-Design. Also I´ve conducted quite some trainings using Flow-Orientation for design. The results are very promising. Developers find it much easier to design software using Flow-Orientation than OOAD-based object orientation.
Since Flow-Orientation is moving fast and is not covered completely by a single source like a book, demand has increased for at least an overview of the current state of its notation. This page is trying to answer this demand by briefly introducing/describing every notational element as well as their translation into C# source code. Take this as a cheat sheet to put next to your whiteboard when designing software.
However, please do not expect any explanation as to the reasons behind Flow-Design elements. Details on why Flow-Design at all and why in this specific way you´ll find in the literature covering the topic. Here´s a resource page on Flow-Design/Event-Based Components, if you´re able to read German.
Connected Functional Units
The basic element of any FOD are functional units (FU):
Think of FUs as some kind of software code block processing data. For the moment forget about classes, methods, “components”, assemblies or whatever. See a FU as an abstract piece of code. Software then consists of just collaborating FUs.
I´m using circles/ellipses to draw FUs. But if you like, use rectangles. Whatever suites your whiteboard needs best.
The purpose of FUs is to process input and produce output. FUs are transformational.
However, FUs are not called and do not call other FUs. There is no dependency between FUs. Data just flows into a FU (input) and out of it (output). From where and where to is of no concern to a FU.
This way FUs can be concatenated in arbitrary ways:
Each FU can accept input from many sources and produce output for many sinks:
Connected FUs form a flow with a start and an end. Data is entering a flow at a source, and it´s leaving it through a sink.
Think of sources and sinks as special FUs which conntect wires to the environment of a network of FUs.
Data is flowing into/out of FUs through wires. This is to allude to electrical engineering which since long has been working with composable parts.
Wires are attached to FUs usings pins. They are the entry/exit points for the data flowing along the wires. Input-/output pins currently need not be drawn explicitly. This is to keep designing on a whiteboard simple and quick.
Data flowing is of some type, so wires have a type attached to them. And pins have names. If there is only one input pin and output pin on a FU, though, you don´t need to mention them. The default is Process for a single input pin, and Result for a single output pin. But you´re free to give even single pins different names.
There is a shortcut in use to address a certain pin on a destination FU:
The type of the wire is put in parantheses for two reasons. 1. This way a “no-type” wire can be easily denoted, 2. this is a natural way to describe tuples of data.
To describe how much data is flowing, a star can be put next to the wire type:
Nesting – Boards and Parts
If more than 5 to 10 FUs need to be put in a flow a FD starts to become hard to understand. To keep diagrams clutter free they can be nested. You can turn any FU into a flow:
This leads to Flow-Designs with different levels of abstraction. A in the above illustration is a high level functional unit, A.1 and A.2 are lower level functional units.
One of the purposes of Flow-Design is to be able to describe systems on different levels of abstraction and thus make it easier to understand them. Humans use abstraction/decomposition to get a grip on complexity. Flow-Design strives to support this and make levels of abstraction first class citizens for programming.
You can read the above illustration like this: Functional units A.1 and A.2 detail what A is supposed to do. The whole of A´s responsibility is decomposed into smaller responsibilities A.1 and A.2. FU A thus does not do anything itself anymore! All A is responsible for is actually accomplished by the collaboration between A.1 and A.2.
Since A now is not doing anything anymore except containing A.1 and A.2 functional units are devided into two categories: boards and parts.
Boards are just containing other functional units; their sole responsibility is to wire them up. A is a board. Boards thus depend on the functional units nested within them. This dependency is not of a functional nature, though. Boards are not dependent on services provided by nested functional units. They are just concerned with their interface to be able to plug them together.
Parts are the workhorses of flows. They contain the real domain logic. They actually transform input into output. However, they do not depend on other functional units.
Please note the usage of source and sink in boards. They correspond to input-pins and output-pins of the board.
Nesting functional units leads to a dependency tree. Boards depend on nested functional units, they are the inner nodes of the tree. Parts are independent, they are the leafs:
Even though dependencies are the bane of software development, Flow-Design does not usually draw these dependencies. They are implicitly created by visually nesting functional units. And they are harmless. Boards are so simple in their functionality, they are little affected by changes in functional units they are depending on.
But functional units are implicitly dependent on more than nested functional units. They are also dependent on the data types of the wires attached to them:
This is also natural and thus does not need to be made explicit. And it pertains mainly to parts being dependent. Since boards don´t do anything with regard to a problem domain, they don´t care much about data types. Their infrastructural purpose just needs types of input/output-pins to match.
You could say, Flow-Orientation is about tackling complexity at its root cause: that´s dependencies. “Natural” dependencies are depicted naturally, i.e. implicitly. And whereever possible dependencies are not even created. Functional units don´t know their collaborators within a flow. This is core to Flow-Orientation. That makes for high composability of functional units.
A part is as independent of other functional units as a motor is from the rest of the car. And a board is as dependend on nested functional units as a motor is on a spark plug or a crank shaft. With Flow-Design software development moves closer to how hardware is constructed.
Implicit dependencies are not enough, though. Sometimes explicit dependencies make designs easier – as counterintuitive this might sound. So FD notation needs a ways to denote explicit dependencies:
Data flows along wires. But data does not flow along dependency relations. Instead dependency relations represent service calls. Functional unit C is depending on/calling services on functional unit S. If you want to be more specific, name the services next to the dependency relation:
Although you should try to stay clear of explicit dependencies, they are fundamentally ok. See them as a way to add another dimension to a flow. Usually the functionality of the independent FU (“Customer repository” above) is orthogonal to the domain of the flow it is referenced by. If you like emphasize this by using different shapes for dependent and independent FUs like above.
Such dependencies can be used to link in resources like databases or shared in-memory state. FUs can not only produce output but also can have side effects.
A common pattern for using such explizit dependencies is to hook a GUI into a flow as the source and/or the sink of data:
Which can be shortened to:
Treat FUs others depend on as boards (with a special non-FD API the dependent part is connected to), but do not embed them in a flow in the diagram they are depended upon.
Attributes of Functional Units
Creation and usage of functional units can be modified with attributes. So far the following have shown to be helpful:
- Singleton: FUs are by default multitons. FUs in the same of different flows with the same name refer to the same functionality, but to different instances. Think of functional units as objects that get instanciated anew whereever they appear in a design. Sometimes though it´s helpful to reuse the same instance of a functional unit; this is always due to valuable state it holds. Signify this by annotating the FU with a “(S)”.
- Multiton: FUs on which others depend are singletons by default. This is, because they usually are introduced where shared state comes into play.
If you want to change them to be a singletons mark them with a “(M)”.
- Configurable: Some parts need to be configured before the can do they work in a flow. Annotate them with a “(C)” to have them initialized before any data items to be processed by them arrive. Do not assume any order in which FUs are configured. How such configuration is happening is an implementation detail.
- Entry point: In each design there needs to be a single part where “it all starts”. That´s the entry point for all processing. It´s like Program.Main() in C# programs. Mark the entry point part with an “(E)”. Quite often this will be the GUI part. How the entry point is started is an implementation detail. Just consider it the first FU to start do its job.
Patterns / Standard Parts
If more than a single wire is attached to an output-pin that´s called a split (or fork). The same data is flowing on all of the wires.
Remember: Flow-Designs are synchronous by default. So a split does not mean data is processed in parallel afterwards. Processing still happens synchronously and thus one branch after another. Do not assume any specific order of the processing on the different branches after the split.
It is common to do a split and let only parts of the original data flow on through the branches. This effectively means a map is needed after a split. This map can be implicit or explicit.
Although FUs can have multiple input-pins it is preferrable in most cases to combine input data from different branches using an explicit join:
The default output of a join is a tuple of its input values. The default behavior of a join is to output a value whenever a new input is received. However, to produce its first output a join needs an input for all its input-pins. Other join behaviors can be:
- reset all inputs after an output
- only produce output if data arrives on certain input-pins
[Continue with part 2 of the cheat sheet series] | <urn:uuid:be443403-169a-48f1-a7ae-d593fe35b65c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://geekswithblogs.net/theArchitectsNapkin/archive/2011/03/19.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940691 | 2,614 | 2.6875 | 3 |
The Requa & Jackson drawings of the Mrs. H. C. Magee house span 3 linear feet and date from 1928. The collection contains
five architectural drawings in the form of blueprints. Drawings include floor plans as well as interior and exterior elevations.
The firm Requa & Jackson, based in San Diego, California, was founded in 1920. Composed of Richard Smith Requa and Herbert
Jackson, the firm did a considerable amount of work in the San Diego region until Requa’s death in 1941. | <urn:uuid:6cef2917-79cd-4505-845e-ed82870f4999> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c8348m1r/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00070-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933805 | 109 | 1.71875 | 2 |
No More Excuses!
It is easy to have excuses about eating whole grains. Usually I hear it taste like twigs and sticks. Well, there are some things you can eat that taste like twigs and sticks but I do not choose those. Grape nuts remind me of that, I personally think they are yuck. Most recipes I have found have lots of great taste. Actually, that is the draw I have to them is that they taste so well I do not want to go back to refined – white flour and sugar. Another excuse I hear is that it takes too much time. I can’t tell you that it doesn’t take time but it takes time to run the kids to soccer and baseball games. It takes time to round up the family to go eat out. It takes time to watch a movie. All of life takes time. Time is the most valuable commodity you have. There is no way to add more than 24 hours in your day. The question you have to ask is what is most important and how can I be intentional about doing the important things in my day? There are many good things in life, but few best things. Do what you already know to do and move from so many good things to a few best things. Best is worth the sacrifices. How important is it to you/ really? Another excuse is I do not know how. Check into the web site there are so many ways to learn. One of the things you can do for yourself and your health is to be a student. A student is one who is always learning no matter the seasons in life. Open up for new things you will be surprised at how much better you feel if you try eating better. And the last is that it costs too much. Cost is a relative subject. What costs for me may not cost for you. Last year we spent $16000.00 on medications alone for my chronically ill child. If I can help her be healthier with a little cost in food products that eventually will save my medication bill in the end. Plus she feels better. What Mother doesn’t want to bestow health for their child? And, to be honest, we save on whole grains. They are cheaper than regular food for us. We do not eat out as much because it is so good my husband doesn’t like restaurant food anymore. We buy in bulk and it costs less. We buy locally and it saves us money. I can go on and on about these things so cost isn’t a factor.
So what is a factor for you to eat whole grains? Well, I can tell you that for me it is a factor of how much I want it. You can do most things if you are motivated. What is your motivation and will it with stand trials to keep you moving toward better health? You can over come many excuses if you want to do so. | <urn:uuid:18b94537-9169-4a34-986e-dd06bf7abc86> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.myplainview.com/lindadrake/2009/06/09/in-the-kitchen-what-is-your-excuse/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980963 | 592 | 1.515625 | 2 |
March 22, 2012 - It’s been a momentous couple of years in Minnesota politics. In 2010, Republicans took control of both chambers of the Minnesota Legislature for the first time in a generation. At the same time, the DFL ended a near 20-year gubernatorial losing streak, resulting in a historic power swap for both parties.
The 2011 legislative session was rough for everyone involved, to say the least. When the Republicans controlling the legislature and the DFL governor were unable to agree on a budget, Minnesota ended up with the second government shutdown in state history. After weeks of state parks and government offices shuttered, the two sides came together for a deal that House Speaker Kurt Zellers deemed something, “we can all be disappointed in.”
In 2012 Republicans have attempted a new strategy to achieve their legislative priorities. Republicans in the legislature are working on passing multiple constitutional amendments. These would go straight to a fall ballot to be voted on by all Minnesotans and completely bypass the governor. A constitutional amendment defining marriage as between one man and one woman is already set for the fall. Another requiring photo ID to vote looks likely. Others, including a so-called Right to Work amendment and an anti-tax amendment, are also making their way toward the ballot.
Will this strategy help GOP score some political wins this fall? Will it backfire and cost them seats and perhaps control of either chamber? What are the long term implications of governing by constitutional amendment?
And of course we couldn’t pass up this opportunity to ask Sarah for her 2012 predictions locally and on the national level. Will Minnesota maintain its Democratic streak in presidential elections? Which republican presidential candidate has the best shot at winning Minnesota this fall? | <urn:uuid:1e6e162b-df7b-4294-b9c9-faa17305cfb9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://t2p2.net/shows/season-2/politics-in-minnesota/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963427 | 353 | 1.742188 | 2 |
MINNEAPOLIS -- There are signs of our mild winter everywhere: morning walkers near Lake Calhoun had partially bare legs, overnight temperatures have been in the 20's and even the windchill has had less of a chill.
"It's pretty easy to say that the arctic outbreaks are going to be less significant than in a normal year, just because we don't have as much widespread, deep snowpack as in a normal year," said KARE 11 Meteorologist Sven Sundgaard.
Our snow depth is far less than last January, and our temperatures are warmer, averaging seven degrees above normal this month. Since the middle two weeks of January are statistically the coldest of the year, there's a good chance we might never see an extended hard freeze this season.
"The sun is getting so much stronger now that it makes a big difference," Sundgaard said.
But not just for people. Many of us like warm weather and so do many pests. That's why it's possible we'll see more mice and insects this spring, though not as many as you might think.
"Maybe not as many die," said Jeff Hahn, a University of Minnesota Extension entomologist. "Conversely, that doesn't necessarily mean we're going to be hip deep in them come spring."
That's because things like snow cover, ground freezing and precipitation all affect bugs and rodents, and in different ways. So even with a warm winter, spring and summer weather will also play a part.
"Even if we do see something in higher numbers, is it just the winter weather?"said Hahn. "Or could it be other things that impact it?"
"Anything can happen," said Sundgaard.
(Copyright 2012 KARE. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.) | <urn:uuid:8318ba11-8d72-439a-8780-ea2f03376972> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kare11.com/news/article/958217/14/Will-a-warm-winter-mean-more-bugs | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973134 | 376 | 2.328125 | 2 |
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Fast growing package-on-package (POP) technology provides cost effective format to ASIC and memory devices. Similar to die stacking configurations, package stacking also follows a trend of very thin package profiles, fine pitches, and tightened design rules. One challenge to package assembly engineers and materials vendors is warpage control. The warpage of the top and bottom packages has to be very similar throughout reflow to ensure high yield in assembly process. Package warpage is generated mainly from curing and cooling process of molding compounds that encapsulates die and components within a package. Optimized molding compound properties are the keys to achieve desired warpage behavior of a package. In this paper, a new flexible hardener technology is introduced for modifying the property of molding compound to achieve targeted warpage behavior. A series of molding molding compound is formulated by systemically varying flexible hardener content while fixing other ingredients in the formulation. The effectiveness of the flexible hardener on warpage is then studied by establishing the relationship between warpage and the physical property of different material produced by different flexible hardener content. Also in the end, the effect of temperature change on package warpage is also studied on one particular molding compound. Finite element analysis is also performed to study the response of warpage to temperature. Experimental results were also used to calibrate simulation results to further improve simulation accuracies.
Date of Conference: 26-28 June 2007 | <urn:uuid:8e220d95-62f9-46a7-81bd-760bda089ad5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?reload=true&Citations&tp=&arnumber=4283567&contentType=Conference+Publications&sortType%3Dasc_p_Sequence%26filter%3DAND(p_IS_Number%3A4283546) | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932967 | 292 | 1.96875 | 2 |
For this issue we cover the Linux.Ars visit to the OhioLinux fest, LVM snapshotting with XFS for hot backups, Tomboy, and more.
On October 2nd, Jorge Castro and I found ourselves on our way to the OhioLinux gathering. This was the second annual event, the first of which was hosted at Ohio State University. The event was located at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Columbus. We got to the event a little late, so unfortunately we missed the keynote speech. Also, as if nothing else could go wrong, we forgot both of our cameras.
We met up with some other members of the Linux.Ars team and we went to a talk titled "Theory and Practice: SELinux on Fedora" where Colin Walters from Red Hat gave an introduction into SELinux and how Fedora Core 3 will utilize this very interesting technology. We were very suprised as to what SELinux can do. It's something you hear about, but never really consider. We won't go into the details of SELinux, but the talk was very interesting, and we're looking forward to experimenting with it.
From SELinux FAQ:
Security-enhanced Linux is a research prototype of the Linux kernel and a number of utilities with enhanced security functionality designed simply to demonstrate the value of mandatory access controls to the Linux community and how such controls could be added to Linux. The Security-enhanced Linux kernel contains new architectural components originally developed to improve the security of the Flask operating system. These architectural components provide general support for the enforcement of many kinds of mandatory access control policies, including those based on the concepts of Type Enforcement, Role-based Access Control, and Multi-level Security.
Birds of a Feather
From there we went to the "Birds of a Feather" with Scott Collins (interviewed by Linux.Ars here). Mr. Collins, who now works for Trolltech, can captivate a crowd better than anyone I have ever seen. It was a question & answer session where people are asking about many different aspects of the Mozilla browser. One point Scott made that stood out was his insistence that Mozilla does not purport to be secure. He said that it is a mistake to sell Firefox (or any other product) on security because you will ultimately fail, a sentiment echoed by Walters.
Their message was simple: If we keep saying "Oh, Linux is more secure" and "Use Linux, and you won't have these problems," you are asking for trouble. There are products for Linux that are notoriously insecure, Sendmail, BIND, RPC Services are the first that come to mind. Mozilla has had it's share of security problems too. In fact, Firefox 0.10.1 was released to fix a problem that morning. While the general reputation of Linux is that it is "more secure," a more objective and level-headed approach to security is prudent.
Novell and future of the Linux desktop
After that we went to "The Future of the Linux Desktop" by Dan Rusek of Novell. You could tell that these guys knew their stuff, but you could also tell they were primarily selling their product, which was Novell Linux Desktop. At first glance NLD looks very, very nice. They use GNOME by default it seems and looks very polished. With Project Utopia working out of the box and GNOME 2.6 it looks like a very capable and appealing business desktop.
Next, we caught the last 75% of "Linux and Asterisk: VoIP for the Masses" The presenter, Greg Boehnlien, from N2Net did a very good job of explaining Asterisk and general phone technologies. Many people had questions for him and he did a really good job explaining the technology.
Asterisk is a very promising project. It aims to replace and/or supplement existing Private Branch eXchange (PBX) equipment. It is completely free and 100% GPL. Traditionally, PBX systems have been very expensive. With Asterisk being free, it should help to undermine that tradition. You can read more about Asterisk here. As you can imagine, Asterisk is quite a large project.
The other sessions we visited were conducted by Novell. They made quite a big showing at this event. Novell had an interesting marketing presentation on thier new Linux products ? it was good to see commercial support for Linux and Open Source.
OhioLinux fest was a very well-organized event with some excellent speakers. We look forward to next years OhioLinux fest.
Tools, Tips, and Tweaks
For this TTT, I will explain how I'm using LVM and XFS to create snapshots of data to backup and have virtually no planned downtime. For this, it's assumed you have an LVM and XFS volume running and "dm-snapshot" (the LVM kernel extension to permit snapshotting) loaded into the kernel. Although I use XFS in this example, it's possible to snapshot with other filesystems.
IMPORTANT: While experimenting with disks, please make sure that you have a backup on hand. You don't want to lose data.
What is LVM?
LVM stands for Logical Volume Manager.
My employer uses mail server software called CommunigatePro written by Stalker Software. CGatePro runs on many, many operating systems and is very configurable. The software stores its data at /var/CommuniGate by default and that's the only directory you ever have to backup.
The goal is to get a Mail server that will never be taken offline for nightly backups (as our old system used to). We found Linux, XFS, LVM, and snapshots to be perfect for this situation
What is snapshotting?
Snapshotting is a way to take a "point-in-time" image of a filesystem. What this allows you is to do is access files that would normally be locked so you can back them up. The process is as follows:
- Freeze the file system
- Take the snapshot
- Mount the snapshot
- Unfreeze the real filesystem
- Take a backup of the snapshot
- Unmount and destroy the snapshot
Freezing the file system
Freezing the file system is to prevent writing to the disk while the snapshot is taken. This freezes all activity to and from the filesystem to reduce the risk of problems. To do this we use xfs_freeze (included in the xfs userspace tools).
xfs_freeze -f /var/CommuniGate
Taking the snapshot
When you take the snapshot, you're essentially creating a new LVM device that appears to be a duplicate of the "real" filesystem at a point in time. To do this we create another LVM device (using lvcreate) with an argument of -s to indicate we want a snapshot and the -n argument to name it.
lvcreate -l 500 -s -n snap /dev/cgpro/prod
Mounting the snapshot
Next, we mount the snapshot somewhere else, we use /var/CGPro-Snap. Please note that since we're using XFS we have to mount the snapshot with the "nouuid" option, otherwise XFS will think it's trying to mount the same filesystem twice (which technically, it is). We also make it read-only just to be safe.
mount -o nouuid,ro /dev/mapper/cgpro-snap /var/CGPro-Snap
Unfreeze the filesystem
Now, you need to unfreeze the filesystem to resume I/O:
xfs_freeze -u /var/CommuniGate
Do the backup
Now, backup /var/CGPro-Snap like you would any other directory:
Unmount and destroy the snapshot
Now we have to unmount the snapshot and destroy it. The reason we destroy it because any I/O that takes place on the device uses space to track the differences betweeen the real and the snapshot filesystem. Plus, we've done our job so there's no reason to keep it around.
unmount /var/CGPro-Snap lvremove -f /dev/cgpro/snap
The snapshotting capability is new in version 2.6.8 (before you needed various patches to get this to work), and the stock debian kernel works great for us. This allows our mail server to stay up even during nightly backups.
Cool App of the Week: Tomboy
Tomboy is our cool app of the week. From the program's website:
Tomboy is a desktop note-taking application for Linux and Unix. Simple and easy to use, but with potential to help you organize the ideas and information you deal with every day.
Have you ever felt the frustration at not being able to locate a website you wanted to check out, or find an email you found interesting, or remember an idea about the direction of the political landscape in post-industrial Australia? Or are you one of those desperate souls with home-made, buggy, or not-quite-perfect notes systems?
Time for Tomboy. We bet you'll be surprised at how well a little application can make life less cluttered and run more smoothly.
Probably the best feature of Tomboy is its internal, automatic linking to other notes. For instance, here I create a note called "Install Ubuntu" to remind to install Ubuntu:
Then I create another note, let's call it "Things to do". While a rather pointless and basic excersise, it demonstrates the uniqueness of this application:
The most interesting thing is that the "Install Ubuntu" line in this picture has automatically linked as soon as I finished typing it. From there, I can create a "web" of interconnected notes. Very convenient. Again, from Tomboy's website:
It is a top priority for Tomboy to be able to handle all the sorts of information you want to keep track of. We are currently developing support for linking-to and managing all the Desktop Objects you interact with, all from within a simple note interface.
Support is currently in the works for:
- Creating Evolution to-do and task items
- Linking to and annotating scheduled appointments
- Linking to received e-mails
- Online status of instant messaging buddies
- Inline file & image previews
- Rhythmbox playlists
Very interesting indeed. I can see this being sort of like a central repository for pulling all your data together into something manageable. For instance, you say that you have to go to your friend Aaron's house to get your laptop back that he borrowed to do a presentation. Tomboy could link Aaron to your evolution contact list, it could link laptop to a note about things that you have to upgrade on your laptop, and borrowed to see all the people that borrowed something from you. This is definately a project to keep your eyes on!
- Novell will "defend" open source through use of its own intellectual property. (eWeek interpretation)
- The Seattle Times has an interview with the king himself, Linus Torvalds.
- A new Linux distribution, Ubuntu Linux, that aims to take over the desktop is out, and RMS weighs in with his opinion.
- Fedora Core 3 test 3 is out
- Linux gaming takes a step forward: Doom3 has been released
- Robert Love has a presentation discussing inotify and a few other kernel enhancements directed at the desktop
- If anyone is still supporting OS9 machines and AppleTalk, Netatalk 2.0 has been released. | <urn:uuid:10fac443-4eac-443d-aae1-142c314e3108> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2004/10/linux-20041013/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00066-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954295 | 2,423 | 1.617188 | 2 |
A Compass to Help First Responders Find a Way Out of Danger
(April 2008) The following article appears in R-Tech, a new newsletter from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate's (S&T) First Responder Technology Program, which aims to connect first responders to technologies that will make their jobs easier, more efficient, and safer. For more information, visit www.firstresponder.gov.
In a large building or wildlfire situation, heavy smoke can quickly become disorienting, putting firefighters in danger. Battalion Chief Steve Nash of the Solon (OH) Fire Department knows that firsthand. “Our biggest fear is losing someone in those buildings,” said Nash, “so we had to come up with a method to prevent us from getting disoriented.”
Firefighters have made use of inexpensive compasses in the past, but they cannot be easily seen in the dark and have no way to mark points of entry or the location of the Incident Command Post.
“I wanted everybody on fire ground to have the same relation on where the building sits, where command is located, and where team members are,” said Nash. He drew some ideas on paper and took them to his colleague, John Moore, at Halcyon Products. The company was already in the business of making better, safer products for first responders.
“About the same time I came up with the drawings, I found the TechSolutions web site through Fire Chief Magazine and made the necessary contacts,” said Nash.
TechSolutions is a new program of the DHS S&T Directorate. The TechSolutions Program was established to provide technology solutions that address mission capability gaps identified by active federal, tribal, state, and local first responders. TechSolutions assists with rapid prototyping of technologies that need additional development in order to get them ready for commercialization. Currently, the TechSolutions Program is developing solutions to many gaps identified by the first responder community, including the Fireground Compass.
Nash and Moore conducted focus groups with firefighters and solicited their thoughts and opinions on the product. “That helped us determine whether the idea was valid to some degree, directed us on product features, function and design, provided input on price points, and gave us a lot of feedback that led us to believe we were going in the right direction,” said Moore.
The Fireground Compass is simple to use, combining a compass with rotating bezels. It has a “building bezel” with four points labeled A-B-C-D, which corresponds to the way firefighters label the sides of a building. The bezel rotates, and the compass is oriented north. As a result, all users have the same perspective. A separate “command bezel” indicates, with an arrow, either where the Incident Command Post is, or where the user entered the building.
“It’s very easy to get lost in a smoky environment and knowing where you are is the difference between getting out and not getting out. This device will get me situated so I can find where I entered the building, find my hose line, or find an exit door or window,” said Nash. The compass also has an LED light, making it easy to read in dark and smoky conditions. The compass is very large, making it easy for firefighters to use with their gloves on. “We wanted people to be able to utilize this with gear on, and not go into a building and take their gloves off,” Nash said.
According to Greg Price, who directs the TechSolutions Program, the Fireground Compass is the first TechSolutions product designed by a first responder to go through the entire TechSolutions development path. Many more products are in the works through partnerships with the federal interagency Technical Support Working Group and others.
TechSolutions and Halcyon Products hope the product will be commercially available within the next few months. They also want it to be affordable for anyone who needs one. | <urn:uuid:ca38625d-d50f-4a86-97ab-bd0f929121b7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dhs.gov/common-ground | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961082 | 841 | 2.1875 | 2 |
How Ski Wax Works
You can learn how ski wax works. Knowing how it works can help you better wax your skis so that you can get the best results.
Ski wax can be used on alpine skis as well as on snowboards. There are a couple of types of wax, the most common is known as glide wax and is used to help decrease drag on snow equipment such as snowboards and skis. Reducing drag helps give your alpine skis, and snowboards more speed, agility, as well as it helps to give you better control of your ski equipment. glide wax is typically made of hydrocarbons. If you want a more expensive and even faster wax, you can use a wax that includes fluorocarbons.
It is not known exactly, but it is believed that the process of waxing the bottom of your skis or snowboard creates a water resilient coating that helps to make your snow equipment smoother by creating a water repellent base. By becoming water resistant, the equipment will glide on top of the snow, or surface of the snow much better. This water repellent surface makes a less friction base and you can glide much more freely.
The other type of wax is known as kick wax. Kick wax is primarily used on cross country skis. There are two types of kick wax, one is "hard" wax and the other is known as "klister." Kick wax is known as a hard wax and is tar-like in its consistency. It comes in a small canister and is used primarily for snow that is new, fresh, or is considered "cold". Klister, on the other hand, is a partially liquid wax. It comes in a container that is similar to that of a tube of toothpaste. Klister is a sticky wax. Although it is considered harder to use and maneuver, it is also considered an excellent wax to use on snow that is warmer, slushy, or partially melted.
Kick wax is applied to the area of the ski that extends out from the foot; the front portion of the ski. This is typically the area of the ski where the most pressure is put on it when skiing. Applying it to this area gives the skier greater grip in the snow as well as more control. It also allows you to propel yourself outward and forward with a lot more ease.
Something to consider is that if you use a warm weather wax in cold conditions, such as snow, this can cause you to stick to the snow and create drag. Your skis or board will not grip the snow properly and all you will get is slippery skis. | <urn:uuid:c1892ac5-d5e2-4394-b3f3-a7a4dd32d27f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mademan.com/mm/how-ski-wax-works.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967531 | 541 | 2 | 2 |
And the king and his men went to Jerusalem against the Jeb'usites, the inhabitants of the land, who said to David, "You will not come in here, but the blind and the lame will ward you off" --thinking, "David cannot come in here."
Nevertheless David took the stronghold of Zion, that is, the city of David.
And David said on that day, "Whoever would smite the Jeb'usites, let him get up the water shaft to attack the lame and the blind, who are hated by David's soul." Therefore it is said, "The blind and the lame shall not come into the house."
And David dwelt in the stronghold, and called it the city of David. And David built the city round about from the Millo inward.
And David became greater and greater, for the LORD, the God of hosts, was with him.
And Hiram king of Tyre sent messengers to David, and cedar trees, also carpenters and masons who built David a house.
And David perceived that the LORD had established him king over Israel, and that he had exalted his kingdom for the sake of his people Israel.
And David took more concubines and wives from Jerusalem, after he came from Hebron; and more sons and daughters were born to David.
And these are the names of those who were born to him in Jerusalem: Sham'mu-a, Shobab, Nathan, Solomon,
Ibhar, Eli'shu-a, Nepheg, Japhi'a,
Eli'shama, Eli'ada, and Eliph'elet.
When the Philistines heard that David had been anointed king over Israel, all the Philistines went up in search of David; but David heard of it and went down to the stronghold.
Now the Philistines had come and spread out in the valley of Reph'aim.
And David inquired of the LORD, "Shall I go up against the Philistines? Wilt thou give them into my hand?" And the LORD said to David, "Go up; for I will certainly give the Philistines into your hand."
And David came to Ba'al-pera'zim, and David defeated them there; and he said, "The LORD has broken through my enemies before me, like a bursting flood." Therefore the name of that place is called Ba'al-pera'zim.
And the Philistines left their idols there, and David and his men carried them away.
And the Philistines came up yet again, and spread out in the valley of Reph'aim.
And when David inquired of the LORD, he said, "You shall not go up; go around to their rear, and come upon them opposite the balsam trees.
And when you hear the sound of marching in the tops of the balsam trees, then bestir yourself; for then the LORD has gone out before you to smite the army of the Philistines."
And David did as the LORD commanded him, and smote the Philistines from Geba to Gezer.
Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1952 [2nd edition, 1971] by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. (Revised Standard Version - Holy Bible) | <urn:uuid:44eab6ef-902e-4243-a472-fc7b25718480> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.biblestudytools.com/bible/passage.aspx?q=2%20Samuel+5:6-25&t=rsv | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968872 | 722 | 2.25 | 2 |
Tile Sculpture Moving To New Home – July 5, 2012
Kevin L. Hoover
11TH & F STREETS – Sometime soon, maybe this week, the tile sculpture which has stood for 18 years at 11th and F streets will be gone. While the tiles still boast vibrant colors, the sculpture never fulfilled its original mission and is now complicating plans for the plot of land it occupies.
Created in 1994 by sculptor/artist Caren Wise and students enrolled in Humboldt State’s Upward Bound (UB) program, the sculpture was intended as a base for a fountain at what was the Arcata First Presbyterian Church’s community garden. The octagonal cylinder is encrusted with colorful tiles created by volunteers, with a hose bib peeking out from the base.
A front page photo headlined “Colorful display” on the Arcata Union newspaper’s Aug. 4, 1994 front page shows Wise and a UB volunteer with the new public artwork in front of well-tended, terraced gardens, now wild and overgrown.
Though plumbed with water service and a faucet, the fountain was never implemented, the garden is gone and now, the sculpture has to leave, too.
“We couldn’t manage all the 21 little plots,” said Pastor Tim Doty. Campers were a problem as well, and the disused, untended parcel posed liability problems for the church.
Doty said that several citizens had approached the church with ideas for making the lot at 11th and F into something useful. Open Door Clinic had suggested planting medicinal herbs, and the Humboldt permaculture Guild and Humboldt Agricultural Society had expressed interest.
But plans to regrade and restore the plot were encumbered by the old sculpture dominating the corner.
A promising recent proposal involved repopulating the plot with native plants as part of a community-neighborhood holistic garden project.
That motivated the church to finally take action, and the decision was made to move or demolish the fixture.
“We want it gone,” said Church Councilmember Joan Tempas. “It needs a new home.”
“We feel we owe it to the community,” he said. “The best thing would be if someone came forward and said, ‘I want it and I’ll take it.’”
But moving it could be more difficult than just breaking it up and taking away the pieces. The octagonal, obelisk-like piece’s mass, structure, how it is anchored, even the artist who oversaw its creation were unknown.
The scope of the project, the best approach and what resources would be required couldn’t be mapped out with crucial information lost to history – until Doty and Tempas learned of Wise’s role from the Union coverage.
Now a marriage and family therapist specializing in expressive arts, Wise is sorry to see the piece relocated. But she freely shared structural information.
“It was a ‘site-specific art project,’” Wise said. Formed up with plywood and poured concrete and with plumbing inside, the sculpture is hollow. “It was supposed to be a fountain,” she said.
As to the piece’s base, Wise dispelled any concerns about a difficult excavation. “I don’t think it goes down that deep,” she said.
Doty’s hope for a new life for the sculpture is close to reality, thanks to Humboldt State’s Upward Bound program, members of whom helped assemble it 18 years ago.
After Academic Coordinator Leo Cañez learned about the sculpture via a Craigslist ad placed by the church, he put a notice on the group’s Facebook page. UB members quickly stepped up, and numerous offers of assistance came in. An initial plan involved removing the and salvaging the tiles. The handcrafted tiles hold special meaning to some.
Then, an offer came in from one of its co-creators to host the fountain at a home on the Mad River.
“I was there at the fountain’s creation,” wrote Steve Irwin. “I will take this to my Arcata home if no one else is willing to preserve it. I remember the instructor had to get permission to locate the fountain. It was plumbed and working at the end of the summer session. Each UB student made a tile. I did one with a candle and the word ‘teacher’ on it.”
The group doesn’t have all the equipment necessary for digging the scuplture out and moving it, though, and is hoping that someone with a backhoe will come forward and help out.
Wise accepts the relocation with some regret, but is glad that a new garden will be installed at the site.
“It makes me sad for the kids, ’cause they were really proud of it,” Wise said of the sculpture. “It took the entire length of a summer program. But I hope that wherever it goes, it is happy.” | <urn:uuid:a9e0c92c-6af3-4fe2-a073-d3720db68858> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.arcataeye.com/2012/07/tile-sculpture-being-moved-to-new-home-july-5-2012/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967065 | 1,095 | 1.898438 | 2 |
When male police officers need to de-stress, they might trade war stories -- but likely not with their female colleagues.
But the guys don't necessarily have it easy. They are often discouraged from showing emotion when dealing with stress and are expected to uphold the overtly masculine idea of what it means to be a police officer.
Research by a Kansas State University professor has found that the different ways in which men and women in the police force deal with stress may actually cause them more stress. Don Kurtz, an assistant professor of social work at K-State, studied the gender differences in stress and burnout among police officers. The work was published in the journal Feminist Criminology in 2008, http://tinyurl.com/c2p2et
He said it is the first of his research that has examined gender. While completing his doctorate at K-State, Kurtz said he was taking classes on gender and society and was researching police stress. He noticed that there was no research studying the intersection of these two areas.
"I had come from working in social work, where they were very accepting of men in the women-dominated field," Kurtz said. "In policing, they tend to be suspicious of the abilities of women in the field."
For the research published in Feminist Criminology, Kurtz looked at data from a survey of officers in the Baltimore Police Department. As a follow up to this part of the research, Kurtz also interviewed officers from three police departments. He found that male and female police officers have different sources of stress and different ways of dealing with it.
"Telling war stories is almost exclusively a male endeavor," Kurtz said. "It's quite often in a group social setting, and officers talk about stressful events that happened. What's interesting is that they remove the fear and emotion that go along with it and replace it with these superhuman qualities."
"I found that women felt excluded from war stories. If they started exaggerating the stories in the way that men did, they could be questioned. So it becomes a male-only way of managing stress."
In the journal article, Kurtz suggests that in some ways women have a better chance to deal with violent cases because it's more acceptable for women to be upset or vulnerable.
"For male officers to show emotion, it was career suicide," he said.
Some of the cases that men find the most stressful, Kurtz said, were likely to be given to women.
"One thing I found interesting was that when officers discuss the most stressful things, it's usually death of a child or the physical or sexual abuse of a child," he said. "Women are more likely to handle these jobs because large police departments often assign women to these investigative units. However, it's often seen as lower police work. In large departments where there area lot of juvenile delinquents and child abuse cases, there's an idea that women are better at managing kids."
One of the biggest differences Kurtz found was the role that family played in police officers' stress. Whereas a family life can help male officers deal better with stress from the job, women may not have the same support in their own families.
"Women settle into the role of caretaker and come home to a second shift," Kurtz said.
The strange hours of police work can be seen as more acceptable for men than women, he said.
"Although family conflicts can be distressful for men, the fact that a male officer is seen as the breadwinner makes it more OK for him to miss a birthday party, for example, so he can go to work."
Kurtz also looked at how race changes the stress differences between men and women.
"We should expect a difference," he said. "In American society, race complicates everything."
For instance, white female officers are more likely to be sexualized, whereas black female officers are often seen as laborers. And, while black male officers report lower levels of stress than white men, they also report a higher rate of burnout.
Kurtz said he hopes his research will help police departments better understand how gender affects stress and that it will spur further academic study in this area.
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system. | <urn:uuid:f6b54fe3-8010-41a3-9bc0-45ed3c361767> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-02/ksu-dih022609.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984969 | 905 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Solar Biology, by Hiram E. Butler, , at sacred-texts.com
♅ (Uranus): its Function.
This is the farthest from the sun of any planet we use. Its influence is almost entirely of a metaphysical character; therefore, in dealing with this planet, we find that it affects the physical body only in the sublimated life forces, preparing them for the higher metaphysical uses. Its real nature and influence cannot be fully expressed by any organism on this planet; therefore it produces very strange effects upon the mind and life; and its influence is less potent than that of any other planet, except when it is in the life; that is, in conjunction with the earth at the time of birth. It is also potent in Libra and Scorpio; for as it revolves in an opposite direction from the other planets, it also acts in an opposite direction upon the life forces, turning the sex inclinations away from expression in that function, and directing them upward for the uses of the brain. The same is true, more or less, in all the signs and functions; for it serves as a depolarizer, turning the forces away from the animal, toward the spiritual.
♅ (Uranus) in ♈ (Aries).
This stirs the mind to activity, and gives a clear idea of the unseen, a love for the spiritual, and a desire for philosophical and metaphysical research and the study of causes. It leads the mental tendencies almost entirely in that direction.
♅ (Uranus) in ♉ (Taurus).
This gives very fine psychometrical abilities, enabling those who are highly unfolded to feel and perceive the physical and mental conditions of others, and even to read their thoughts; but to those who are controlled by their physical nature, it will create carelessness in regard to dress and personal appearance, a love for the antique, for weird music and amusements, an inclination toward fortune-telling, and faith in mysterious predictions.
♅ (Uranus) in ♊ (Gemini).
This imparts a desire to study and deal with the finer forces in nature, and a disposition towards the occult philosophies. It gives to speakers strong metaphysical characteristics in all their thoughts and sayings, and inclination to teach the laws of mind.
♅ (Uranus) in ♋ (Cancer).
This gives a person very peculiar, weird, and unexplainable fancies relating to domestic life, and frequently a desire to possess antique and strange pictures. This is liable to be controlled in almost any direction; therefore we must be guided by other conditions in deciding what tendency it would give the life. It is liable to create antagonistic conditions in domestic relations, which, though suppressed, will usually generate in the system tumorous diseases, which are apt to prove fatal. Such persons ought to be very careful never to enter into the more sacred conjugal relations, unless there is perfect harmony between both parties.
♅ (Uranus) in ♌ (Leo).
This turns all the mental and intuitive inclinations. largely toward the spiritual and metaphysical. It gives an active, imaginative mind, keen and discriminative in its tendencies; refines the feelings and emotions; and gives love of elegance and refinement in every department of life.
In case of inverted or abnormal sex proclivities, it gives tendency toward vague imaginings and prevarication.
♅ (Uranus) in ♍ (Virgo).
This affects the digestive organs unfavorably, making the person over-sensitive to the mental conditions of those who are near them at meal time. It gives a strong desire for refined and pure qualities of food, and a liability to many diseases and abnormalities arising from antagonistic and inharmonious conditions while eating. It gives a desire for the study of anatomy, physiology, and hygiene, and in the finer and more cultivated organisms it imparts fine metaphysical intuitions. It also creates strong aspirations toward the unseen and unknown.
♅ (Uranus) in ♎ (Libra).
This position is in harmony with its nature in all particulars. It brightens the perceptive faculties, giving spiritual visions, foresight, and peculiar dreams. It lessens the desire for sexual indulgence, and greatly strengthens the generative organs, causing the person
to conserve the potencies and elements within the body, thus vitalizing, energizing, and refining their whole being.
♅ (Uranus) in ♏ (Scorpio).
Here, again, it affects the sexual nature, turning the forces back into the body, giving a disinclination to waste them, and power of self-control in that direction. Scorpio receives only the baser principles of this planet; therefore its contributions are limited mainly to pride, self-esteem, conventionality, and approbativeness.
It also gives a hidden planning and conniving tendency, and even a dishonest disposition to persons on a low plane of life, the true nature of Uranus being distorted through undeveloped conditions.
♅ (Uranus) in ♐ (Sagittarius).
In this position it slightly improves the mechanical talents of Sagittarius; gives inclination to follow leaders, some veneration for the invisible and unknown, and, if the person is spiritually inclined, the gifts of foresight and spiritual perception. It unites strongly with other characteristics in making persons anxious to know what is going on around them, so that they are sometimes meddlesome.
♅ (Uranus) in ♑ (Capricorn).
This gives fine business intuitions, and strong desires to study and investigate the more refined forces of nature, from electricity all the way up to the subtile
principles of mind and spirit; sometimes inclining them to make this research the main business of life,especially where the mechanical dominates.
♅ (Uranus) in ♒ (Aquarius).
This gives a peculiar disposition to be among the people, and to study their natures, striving constantly to perceive their motives, thoughts, and inclinations, whether consciously or unconsciously to themselves. It gives a disposition to dress uniquely, and to make their own peculiarities stand out prominently in whatever direction they are led; it creates a desire to control others by the mind and will.
♅ (Uranus) in ♓ (Pisces).
This imparts a strong desire to study and investigate everything relating to the unseen forces in the universe, and increases the person's secretiveness, and gives a restless activity to the mind. It may give love of study in almost any direction; and if the tendency is downward,toward the base and sensual,it will give licentious and intemperate inclinations, and a subtle and deceptive disposition. | <urn:uuid:5d18e8d2-91b1-4575-8347-298b920f9a01> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sacred-texts.com/astro/sb/sb29.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.921099 | 1,412 | 2.3125 | 2 |
As a result of 8000 years of civilizations and its strategic position at the crossroads between two continents, Turkey is great in culture and rich in knowledge. Vast and multiple, it unites regions which are assembled without resembling each other, often too different and too distanced from each other to spontaneously find a common denominator
More about study in Turkey
From the first traces of agriculture which appeared in 7000 B.C. to the current political rapprochement with Europe, as well as the emancipation of women, Turkey has lived several lives. The current state, founded in 1923 on the ruins of the former Ottoman Empire, is a democratic, constitutional and secular parliamentary republic. Writers, artists and above all musicians contribute to the contemporary Turkish identity which intends to preserve traditional, religious and historical values whilst producing the innovations and openings coveted by the youth of the country.
Although 97% of its territory is situated in Asia, 17% of the population lives on European soil. At the crossroads of the Russia – Mediterranean and Balkans – Middle East routes, on the former Silk Road, the republic truly serves as a link between East and West. Surrounded by four seas, Turkey is home to mountain massifs of which the highest dominate the Black Sea. Mount Ararat where, according to the Bible, Noah’s Ark reached land following the Flood, is the highest point of the country, at 5165 m altitude. The plains of Mesopotamia end in Irak and in Syria. The political capital, Ankara, often stays in the background in favour of radiant Istanbul, formerly Constantinople with its eventful history, which has a high concentration of cultural activities and which welcomes visitors who have come to breathe the spirit of the times in this city of fascinating evocations. Whether biblical or modern, Turkey fascinates, intrigues and seduces. Go to discover it whilst learning its resonating language !
Return to introduction... | <urn:uuid:15b88e2c-cce6-46c3-abdb-0920d70887f1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.esl-languages.com/en/adults/learn/turkish/turkey/index.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955198 | 387 | 2.671875 | 3 |
- dotTech - http://dottech.org -
How to create strong passwords and have secure accounts [Tip]
Posted By Ashraf On October 28, 2012 @ 11:00 PM In World Wide Web | 37 Comments
It seems like with the increasing level of access to technology on a global scale, there are increasing numbers of scam artists, hackers, pricks, punks, assholes, scumbags, etc. that try to find ways to make everyone’s digital life a bigger pain than it needs to be. There are many ways to fight scumbagism, but most of these ways are so complex and unrealistic that most of us just simply ignore them. So, I have decided to write up this article listing five simple-ish rules one can follow to have strong passwords and secure accounts. Living your digital life by the following the following five rules will not guarantee you are hacker proof, but it does greatly mitigate the likelihood of your accounts being hacked.
Remember back in grade school math class when you studied permutations? Remember how adding an extra digit to a number (i.e. going from four digits to five digits) greatly increased the amount of possible permutations of that number? Yeah, well, they didn’t just teach that in school to torture us; permutations have a real-life application.
You see most websites store passwords in an encrypted format; anyone who gets hold of the password database of a website can’t simply read everyone’s passwords. When this happens (when a scumbag can’t break password encryption) they apply a technique called brute force attack to try to hack your passwords. (Brute force attack does not require a scumbag to have the password database; it can be used at any time with or without the database. However, typically most websites have anti-brute force security measures in place that temporarily block access to an account if someone fails to login too many times in a short time period.) Brute force attack is the process of systematically trying password combinations until the correct password is found. There are two viable defenses that help protect against a brute force attack; one of them is password length (the other is password complexity – see next tip). The longer password you have, the harder it is for a hacker to get your password using brute force simply because the hacker has to try a greater number of possible passwords.
That said, exactly how long should your passwords be? Current industry standards say at least eight characters. However, personally, I recommend twelve characters or higher. Why? One word: Graphics. In a study conducted by Georgia Tech earlier this year, researchers were able to crack eight character passwords using graphic cards in two hours. Cracking twelve character passwords, on the other hand, was estimated to take over 17,000 years. Two hours vs seventeen thousand years, hmmm….
Now, does that mean all hackers will have the capability to crack eight character passwords in two hours? No. It takes a certain level of sophistication and technology to be able to do what the Georgia Tech researchers did and the average wannabe hacker isn’t at that level of sophistication. However it just goes to show you how important password length is.
Building on the same idea of making passwords long, passwords should be complex. By “complex” I mean passwords should not just be lowercase letters and numbers. You should incorporate special characters (i.e. !, ?, @, #, $, %, ., *, etc.) and uppercase letters (when supported – not all websites support case-sensitive passwords) in your passwords. Think about it. If you use only lowercase letters and numbers, there are thirty-six possible characters your passwords can be comprised of (assuming you are using the English alphabet). In other words, there are 2,821,109,907,456 possible permutations if your password is eight characters long. Once you start mixing in uppercase letters, the number jumps up to 218,340,105,584,896. The possible passwords number skyrockets even higher once you add in special characters.
Using special characters and uppercase letters is not as complicated as it sounds. All you need to do is go through your password and replace letters with similar special characters and make some lowercase letters uppercase. For example, if your password is bullseyeathome you can make that password a lot stronger by using bu1L$eye@th*me. Not too hard to remember, is it?
Furthermore, having complex passwords is not only making sure you use a mix of lowercase letters, uppercase letters, numbers, and special characters. Complexity of a password also includes avoiding real words and popular phrases. Cracking a password comprised of real words or popular phrases is very easy using a dictionary attack. So instead of using real words or popular phrases, make up your own words or phrases. That does not mean your password can contain no real words or popular phrases. Rather, it means your password should not be all real words or popular phrases – throw in one or two figments of your imagination.
Experts tell us we should have a different password for each and every login. While that is sound advice, even with a password manager it is insanity; who in their right mind could possibility have a different password for every single login? If you can successfully manage different passwords for every login you have, kudos to you. However, for the rest of us normal people a doable alternative to having different passwords for each login is having tiered passwords.
Tiered passwords is a simple idea of having a different password for each “group” of logins you have. For example, let’s say you have a login for your bank account, your main e-mail, a spam e-mail, and three websites you visit often. Applying the concept of tiered passwords, you may one password for the bank account, one password for your main e-mail, and one password for the spam e-mail and website logins. Of course the split doesn’t have to be exactly that; it is up to you to decide the importance of each login and how you want to categorize it. The overall goal is not to make sure X type of login gets X password; rather the goal is to make sure your high importance passwords stay different from low importance passwords so if a low importance password ever gets compromised, you don’t have to worry about the high importance ones.
From a pure security standpoint, having tiered passwords is not as secure as having a different password for each login. However, it is is a doable derivative that serves as a good compromise between the two extremes of using the same password for all logins and using a different password for all logins.
When you login somewhere, are you ever allowed to login using just your password? Nope – you always need an accompanying username or login name (sometimes it is your e-mail address). So, then, why would you want to share that username/login name with someone else? Sure a username/login name may not be as big of a secret as your password, but to get into an account both a username/login and a password are required. Without one, the other is useless. Think about it this way. Your username is the door-handle lock on your front door while the password is the deadbolt. Anyone trying to get inside your home has to get past both the door-handle lock and the deadbolt; the deadbolt may be the one that is harder to break, but the door-handle lock nonetheless still plays a role in securing your home. So keep your usernames/login names secret! Of course this isn’t always possible; sometimes your username/login name is publicly displayed… such as on a website forum. However, when it is possible, you should be very frugal about giving out your username/login name because, as I already mentioned a couple of times, without knowing your username/login name, a hacker cannot get into your account… even if they know your password.
While this may seem like a no-brainer, it is surprising how many people use their username (or a variant of their username) as their passwords. You should never, ever use your username (or a variant of your username) as your password. The username and passwords should be kept as different as possible – preferably 100% different. This way if a hacker finds out your username or password, they can’t use it to help them determine the other missing piece.
Life would be grand if we didn’t have punks trying to access our accounts – either for fun or malicious purposes or whatever; but that just isn’t how it is. So, please, do yourself a favor and use strong passwords in order to keep your accounts secure.
Have any advice on how to have strong passwords and secure accounts? Share with us in the comments below!
Originally posted December 13, 2010.
Article printed from dotTech: http://dottech.org
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© 2008-2012 dotTech.org | All content is the property of its rightful owner. | <urn:uuid:794089f0-2ae4-44eb-92c7-69d84ab48adb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dottech.org/19574/five-easy-to-follow-tips-for-strong-passwords-and-secure-accounts/print/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00071-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934479 | 1,955 | 2.546875 | 3 |
August 27, 2010
HP has been in the news this week due to its acquisition struggle against rival Dell to gain storage vendor 3PAR for reasons that many assume are cloudy in nature. Although the news was lost in the din of the bidding war, the company quietly took hold of Statavia, a cloud service automation company that works to aid companies as they shift to the cloud and attempt to manage their hosts of cloud-based applications.
Although there were about ten other companies that might have seemed better positioned as an acquisition on the part of HP to bolster its cloud service automation product offerings, IDG analyst Mikael Ricknas suggested that Statavia was a solid purchase, claiming that “key advantages of Stratavia’s tools are that they automate tasks and can be used in so-called hybrid environments, which host applications in a mixture of on-premise, off-premise, physical and cloud-based environments.”
HP and Dell, both companies that have indicated strong interest in building their cloud offerings, are certainly seeing clear value in making sure their cloud management and services portfolios are robust, which indicates that are fewer and fewer questions about the movement of the cloud as concept to mainstream business practice. While there are, quite unquestionably, some trust and maturation issues, by making acquisitions of 3PAR, Stratavia, and whatever comes next, both tech giants are counting on clouds to be at the heart of their business strategies.
Full story at Reuters
The ever-growing complexity of scientific and engineering problems continues to pose new computational challenges. Thus, we present a novel federation model that enables end-users with the ability to aggregate heterogeneous resource scale problems. The feasibility of this federation model has been proven, in the context of the UberCloud HPC Experiment, by gathering the most comprehensive information to date on the effects of pillars on microfluid channel flow.
Large-scale, worldwide scientific initiatives rely on some cloud-based system to both coordinate efforts and manage computational efforts at peak times that cannot be contained within the combined in-house HPC resources. Last week at Google I/O, Brookhaven National Lab’s Sergey Panitkin discussed the role of the Google Compute Engine in providing computational support to ATLAS, a detector of high-energy particles at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
Frank Ding, engineering analysis & technical computing manager at Simpson Strong-Tie, discussed the advantages of utilizing the cloud for occasional scientific computing, identified the obstacles to doing so, and proposed workarounds to some of those obstacles.
05/10/2013 | Cleversafe, Cray, DDN, NetApp, & Panasas | From Wall Street to Hollywood, drug discovery to homeland security, companies and organizations of all sizes and stripes are coming face to face with the challenges – and opportunities – afforded by Big Data. Before anyone can utilize these extraordinary data repositories, however, they must first harness and manage their data stores, and do so utilizing technologies that underscore affordability, security, and scalability.
04/02/2012 | AMD | Developers today are just beginning to explore the potential of heterogeneous computing, but the potential for this new paradigm is huge. This brief article reviews how the technology might impact a range of application development areas, including client experiences and cloud-based data management. As platforms like OpenCL continue to evolve, the benefits of heterogeneous computing will become even more accessible. Use this quick article to jump-start your own thinking on heterogeneous computing. | <urn:uuid:8627cb1a-7d83-49cb-8538-56292a6d8944> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hpcinthecloud.com/hpccloud/2010-08-27/hp_seeks_to_boost_cloud_service_automation_capability.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949767 | 714 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Combating money laundering and the financing of terrorism
Criminal activities such as trafficking in human beings, drugs, small arms and light weapons, as well as smuggling, counterfeiting or credit card fraud, generate huge illegal profits.
Laundering illegal proceeds allows perpetrators, who are frequently part of organised criminal groups, to distance themselves from their crimes, impeding prosecution. By separating financial profits from criminal activity, funds can be re-invested into other illegal activities or even legitimate businesses. Illegal proceeds are also often used to finance terrorist activities.
The role of the OSCE
OSCE Participating States have repeatedly emphasized that money laundering is a threat to security and reaffirmed their commitment to combat the problem. Based on OSCE Ministerial and Permanent Council decisions, the OSCE has intensified its efforts to combat both money laundering and the financing of terrorism over the past few years.
The Office of the Co-ordinator of OSCE Economic and Environmental Activities (OCEEA) began to assist OSCE participating States in strengthening their ability to suppress terrorist financing and money laundering in 2002, following the Bucharest Ministerial Council Decision No. 1 on Combating Terrorism and the Programme of Action endorsed at the Bishkek International Conference in December 2001.
Working closely with the Global Programme against Money Laundering of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the World Bank, the IMF, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and other partners, the OCEEA has developed a range of activities to help combat money laundering and the financing of terrorism.
At the request of OSCE participating States, these activities aim to assess national legislation, advise on improving the legal framework and build national capacity. For example, the OCEEA is helping to create and strengthen national institutions, such as financial intelligence units (FIUs).
Activities aimed at creating national capacity have so far taken place in Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Montenegro, Romania, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
Promoting regional co-operation
The OSCE is actively fostering regional co-operation to combat money laundering and terrorist financing. Over the last few years, a number of regional activities were organised in co-operation with UNODC for financial sector supervisors, prosecutors and judges.
In December 2006, the OSCE was admitted as an observer to the Eurasian Group on Combating Money Laundering and the Financing of Terrorism (EAG) at the fifth EAG Plenary Meeting in Moscow. The EAG co-operates closely with the OSCE, the IMF, the World Bank, UNODC and other partners to combat these threats in OSCE participating States that are members of the EAG (Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan).
The OSCE as an observer to the Council of Europe's MONEYVAL Committee
In October 2008, the OSCE was admitted as an observer to the Council of Europe's Committee of Experts on the Evaluation of Anti-Money Laundering Measures (MONEYVAL). The OSCE co-operates closely with the Council of Europe in the area of combating money laundering and terrorist financing, as well as other areas.
Combating the abuse of non-profit organizations
In co-operation with other OSCE units and institutions, such as the OSCE Action against Terrorism Unit, the OCEEA promotes international best practices on combating the abuse of non-profit organisations in the OSCE area.
The OSCE supports the Stolen Asset Recovery Initiative (StAR)
The OSCE supports and closely co-operates with the Stolen Asset Recovery Initiative (StAR) of the World Bank and UNODC. The initiative focuses on the non-conviction based asset forfeiture of stolen or otherwise criminally acquired assets with the aim of returning them to their rightful owners, for example states, so they can be used for social programmes and infrastructure investment. | <urn:uuid:e8176d94-c1ab-47a7-9a38-e5335f3c048e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.osce.org/eea/43657 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934513 | 810 | 1.929688 | 2 |
Your life is the way your attention has been formed, and deformed. The formation of attention is the true definition of education, and of culture itself. You can always do better. What enlarges and refines your attention is the courtesy you extend to what is different. Be eager to receive new stimuli, and to be challenged. (From the preface of "Protect the Territory of Conscience" by Susan Sontag, 2004)
In this fast changing society, the art of women is more diversified than ever. "Wack! Art and the Feminism Revolution" held at The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles in 2007 and "Femmes @ Pompidou" at the Pompidou Center in Paris in 2009-2010 are some of the exhibitions that reexamine the relationship between women and art since the year 2000. Continuing in that frame of reference, our upcoming exhibition introduces the presently progressive form of new and recent installations and three-dimensional works of an up and coming generation of 14 artists from 9 different countries. Among them include artists from Korea, Brazil and India, where contemporary art has become more widely recognized in recent years. The works include various mediums such as photography and video installations, sound and three-dimensional installations, and drawings.
The participating artists will conceive the works based on the perception of sound and ambience, gesture, memory, passage of time, the laws of the world and the social mechanism that go by unnoticed in our daily life. The artworks that are created from quietly paying attention to the inconspicuous, function as an "open space" for dialogue and communication with others, instead of being a "self-contained domain." We invite people to rediscover polyphonic beauties that exist within everyday experiences if we just focus our eyes and ears. This exhibition will attempt to update the relationship between women and art.
During the exhibition, we will welcome a novelist, architect, activist and a food coordinator to hold various performances, events and workshops. | <urn:uuid:feda6394-16f4-468d-b0f3-4b19e45c2259> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.artslant.com/ew/events/show/147434-quiet-attentions-departure-from-women | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957028 | 408 | 2.03125 | 2 |
Not knowing before I left home just
what was needed for house-keeping in the army, and
being able to gather only vague ideas on the subject
from Jack, who declared that his quarters were furnished
admirably, I had taken out with me but few articles
in addition to the silver and linen-chests.
I began to have serious doubts on
the subject of my ménage, after inspecting the
bachelor furnishings which had seemed so ample to my
husband. But there was so much to be seen in the
way of guard mount, cavalry drill, and various military
functions, besides the drives to town and the concerts
of the string orchestra, that I had little time to
think of the practical side of life.
Added to this, we were enjoying the
delightful hospitality of the Wilhelms, and the Major
insisted upon making me acquainted with the “real
old-fashioned army toddy” several times a day, a
new beverage to me, brought up in a blue-ribbon community,
where wine-bibbing and whiskey drinking were rated
as belonging to only the lowest classes. To be
sure, my father always drank two fingers of fine cognac
before dinner, but I had always considered that a
sort of medicine for a man advanced in years.
Taken all in all, it is not to be
wondered at if I saw not much in those few days besides
bright buttons, blue uniforms, and shining swords.
Everything was military and gay and
brilliant, and I forgot the very existence of practical
things, in listening to the dreamy strains of Italian
and German music, rendered by our excellent and painstaking
orchestra. For the Eighth Infantry loved good
music, and had imported its musicians direct from
This came to an end, however, after
a few days, and I was obliged to descend from those
heights to the dead level of domestic economy.
My husband informed me that the quarters
were ready for our occupancy and that we could begin
house-keeping at once. He had engaged a soldier
named Adams for a striker; he did not know whether
Adams was much of a cook, he said, but he was the
only available man just then, as the companies were
up north at the Agency.
Our quarters consisted of three rooms
and a kitchen, which formed one-half of a double house.
I asked Jack why we could not have
a whole house. I did not think I could possibly
live in three rooms and a kitchen.
“Why, Martha,” said he,
“did you not know that women are not reckoned
in at all at the War Department? A lieutenant’s
allowance of quarters, according to the Army Regulations,
is one room and a kitchen, a captain’s allowance
is two rooms and a kitchen, and so on up, until a
colonel has a fairly good house.” I told
him I thought it an outrage; that lieutenants’
wives needed quite as much as colonels’ wives.
He laughed and said, “You see
we have already two rooms over our proper allowance;
there are so many married officers, that the Government
has had to stretch a point.”
After indulging in some rather harsh
comments upon a government which could treat lieutenants’
wives so shabbily, I began to investigate my surroundings.
Jack had placed his furnishings (some
lace curtains, camp chairs, and a carpet) in the living-room,
and there was a forlorn-looking bedstead in the bedroom.
A pine table in the dining-room and a range in the
kitchen completed the outfit. A soldier had scrubbed
the rough floors with a straw broom: it was absolutely
forlorn, and my heart sank within me.
But then I thought of Mrs. Wilhelm’s
quarters, and resolved to try my best to make ours
look as cheerful and pretty as hers. A chaplain
was about leaving the post and wished to dispose of
his things, so we bought a carpet of him, a few more
camp chairs of various designs, and a cheerful-looking
table-cover. We were obliged to be very economical,
as Jack was a second lieutenant, the pay was small
and a little in arrears, after the wedding trip and
long journey out. We bought white Holland shades
for the windows, and made the three rooms fairly comfortable
and then I turned my attention to the kitchen.
Jack said I should not have to buy
anything at all; the Quartermaster Department furnished
everything in the line of kitchen utensils; and, as
his word was law, I went over to the quartermaster
store-house to select the needed articles.
After what I had been told, I was
surprised to find nothing smaller than two-gallon
tea-kettles, meat-forks a yard long, and mess-kettles
deep enough to cook rations for fifty men! I
rebelled, and said I would not use such gigantic things.
My husband said: “Now,
Mattie, be reasonable; all the army women keep house
with these utensils; the regiment will move soon, and
then what should we do with a lot of tin pans and
such stuff? You know a second lieutenant is allowed
only a thousand pounds of baggage when he changes
station.” This was a hard lesson, which
I learned later.
Having been brought up in an old-time
community, where women deferred to their husbands
in everything, I yielded, and the huge things were
sent over. I had told Mrs. Wilhelm that we were
to have luncheon in our own quarters.
So Adams made a fire large enough
to roast beef for a company of soldiers, and he and
I attempted to boil a few eggs in the deep mess-kettle
and to make the water boil in the huge tea-kettle.
But Adams, as it turned out, was not
a cook, and I must confess that my own attention had
been more engrossed by the study of German auxiliary
verbs, during the few previous years, than with the
art of cooking.
Of course, like all New England girls
of that period, I knew how to make quince jelly and
floating islands, but of the actual, practical side
of cooking, and the management of a range, I knew
Here was a dilemma, indeed!
The eggs appeared to boil, but they
did not seem to be done when we took them off, by
the minute-hand of the clock.
I declared the kettle was too large;
Adams said he did not understand it at all.
I could have wept with chagrin! Our first meal
I appealed to Jack. He said,
“Why, of course, Martha, you ought to know that
things do not cook as quickly at this altitude as they
do down at the sea level. We are thousands of
feet above the sea here in Wyoming.” (I
am not sure it was thousands, but it was hundreds at
So that was the trouble, and I had not thought of
My head was giddy with the glamour,
the uniform, the guard-mount, the military music,
the rarefied air, the new conditions, the new interests
of my life. Heine’s songs, Goethe’s
plays, history and romance were floating through my
mind. Is it to be wondered at that I and Adams
together prepared the most atrocious meals that ever
a new husband had to eat? I related my difficulties
to Jack, and told him I thought we should never be
able to manage with such kitchen utensils as were
furnished by the Q. M. D.
“Oh, pshaw! You are pampered
and spoiled with your New England kitchens,”
said he; “you will have to learn to do as other
army women do cook in cans and such things,
be inventive, and learn to do with nothing.”
This was my first lesson in army house-keeping.
After my unpractical teacher had gone
out on some official business, I ran over to Mrs.
Wilhelm’s quarters and said, “Will you
let me see your kitchen closet?”
She assented, and I saw the most beautiful
array of tin-ware, shining and neat, placed in rows
upon the shelves and hanging from hooks on the wall.
“So!” I said; “my
military husband does not know anything about these
things;” and I availed myself of the first trip
of the ambulance over to Cheyenne, bought a stock
of tin-ware and had it charged, and made no mention
of it because I feared that tin-ware was
to be our bone of contention, and I put off the evil
The cooking went on better after that,
but I did not have much assistance from Adams.
I had great trouble at first with
the titles and the rank: but I soon learned that
many of the officers were addressed by the brevet title
bestowed upon them for gallant service in the Civil
War, and I began to understand about the ways and
customs of the army of Uncle Sam. In contrast
to the Germans, the American lieutenants were not addressed
by their title (except officially); I learned to “Mr.”
all the lieutenants who had no brevet.
One morning I suggested to Adams that
he should wash the front windows; after being gone
a half hour, to borrow a step-ladder, he entered the
room, mounted the ladder and began. I sat writing.
Suddenly, he faced around, and addressing me, said,
“Madam, do you believe in spiritualism?”
“Good gracious! Adams,
no; why do you ask me such a question?”
This was enough; he proceeded to give
a lecture on the subject worthy of a man higher up
on the ladder of this life. I bade him come to
an end as soon as I dared (for I was not accustomed
to soldiers), and suggested that he was forgetting
It was early in April, and the snow
drifted through the crevices of the old dried-out
house, in banks upon our bed; but that was soon mended,
and things began to go smoothly enough, when Jack was
ordered to join his company, which was up at the Spotted
Tail Agency. It was expected that the Sioux under
this chief would break out at any minute. They
had become disaffected about some treaty. I did
not like to be left alone with the Spiritualist, so
Jack asked one of the laundresses, whose husband was
out with the company, to come and stay and take care
of me. Mrs. Patten was an old campaigner; she
understood everything about officers and their ways,
and she made me absolutely comfortable for those two
lonely months. I always felt grateful to her;
she was a dear old Irish woman.
All the families and a few officers
were left at the post, and, with the daily drive to
Cheyenne, some small dances and theatricals, my time
was pleasantly occupied.
Cheyenne in those early days was an
amusing but unattractive frontier town; it presented
a great contrast to the old civilization I had so
recently left. We often saw women in cotton wrappers,
high-heeled slippers, and sun-bonnets, walking in
the main streets. Cows, pigs, and saloons seemed
to be a feature of the place.
In about six weeks, the affairs of
the Sioux were settled, and the troops returned to
the post. The weather began to be uncomfortably
hot in those low wooden houses. I missed the
comforts of home and the fresh sea air of the coast,
but I tried to make the best of it.
Our sleeping-room was very small,
and its one window looked out over the boundless prairie
at the back of the post. On account of the great
heat, we were obliged to have this window wide open
at night. I heard the cries and wails of various
animals, but Jack said that was nothing they
always heard them.
Once, at midnight, the wails seemed
to be nearer, and I was terrified; but he told me
’twas only the half-wild cats and coyotes which
prowled around the post. I asked him if they
ever came in. “Gracious, no!” he
said; “they are too wild.”
I calmed myself for sleep when
like lightning, one of the huge creatures gave a flying
leap in at our window, across the bed, and through
into the living-room.
“Jerusalem!” cried the
lieutenant, and flew after her, snatching his sword,
which stood in the corner, and poking vigorously under
I rolled myself under the bed-covers,
in the most abject terror lest she might come back
the same way; and, true enough, she did, with a most
piercing cry. I never had much rest after that
occurrence, as we had no protection against these
The regiment, however, in June was
ordered to Arizona, that dreaded and then unknown
land, and the uncertain future was before me.
I saw the other women packing china and their various
belongings. I seemed to be helpless. Jack
was busy with things outside. He had three large
army chests, which were brought in and placed before
me. “Now,” he said, “all our
things must go into those chests” and
I supposed they must.
I was pitifully ignorant of the details
of moving, and I stood despairingly gazing into the
depths of those boxes, when the jolly and stout wife
of Major von Hermann passed my window. She glanced
in, comprehended the situation, and entered, saying,
“You do not understand how to pack? Let
me help you: give me a cushion to kneel upon now
bring everything that is to be packed, and I can soon
show you how to do it.” With her kind assistance
the chests were packed, and I found that we had a
great deal of surplus stuff which had to be put into
rough cases, or rolled into packages and covered with
burlap. Jack fumed when he saw it, and declared
we could not take it all, as it exceeded our allowance
of weight. I declared we must take it, or we
could not exist.
With some concessions on both sides
we were finally packed up, and left Fort Russell about
the middle of June, with the first detachment, consisting
of head-quarters and band, for San Francisco, over
the Union Pacific Railroad.
For it must be remembered, that in
1874 there were no railroads in Arizona, and all troops
which were sent to that distant territory either marched
over-land through New Mexico, or were transported by
steamer from San Francisco down the coast, and up
the Gulf of California to Fort Yuma, from which point
they marched up the valley of the Gila to the southern
posts, or continued up the Colorado River by steamer,
to other points of disembarkation, whence they marched
to the posts in the interior, or the northern part
of the territory.
Much to my delight, we were allowed
to remain over in San Francisco, and go down with
the second detachment. We made the most of the
time, which was about a fortnight, and on the sixth
of August we embarked with six companies of soldiers,
Lieutenant Colonel Wilkins in command, on the old
steamship “Newbern,” Captain Metzger, for | <urn:uuid:ce8adc54-d5ff-402b-83f0-13c4a9915d5e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.readcentral.com/chapters/Martha-Summerhayes/Vanished-Arizona-Recollections-of-the-Army-Life-by-a-New-England-Woman/004 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978911 | 3,475 | 1.703125 | 2 |
This seems to be the season of unparalleled parallels. Seeing that comparisons are rolling off politically incorrect gullets faster than the runs from Cheteshwar Pujara or Yuvraj Singh's bats, spinning similes seems the smartest way to hog the headlines this season. With all kinds of political
parallels doing the rounds charitable or uncharitable, historical or hysterical, underworld or underhand our foot-in-the-mouth politicians sure have been taking their pick from parallels that can really prick.
Bollywood being the muse for many a metaphor, there are some popular practitioners of the Bollywood-based brand of the political simile. Among them is the supremo known for spelling out Rabri with as much regularity as rustic rhetoric: Lalu Prasad Yadav. Credited with coining the 'roads-as-smooth-as-Dream Girl Hema Malini's cheeks' simile for our political vocabulary, Lalu can certainly be called the brand ambassador for the Bollywood-inspired modern metaphor.
Bada Packet Chhota Dhamaka
It is thus Bollywood that Congress simile specialist Digvijaya Singh, too, has chosen as his muse. It's another matter that his tinsel town muse has failed to amuse. And he has invited a Rs. 50-crore defamation suit that looks hard to defuse.
In labelling India Against Corruption (IAC) leader Arvind Kejriwal as the Rakhi Sawant of the political stage, on the grounds that "both try and expose but with no substance," Digvijaya can certainly be credited with gifting our political vocabulary a metaphor it thus far lacked: Item Boy of Indian politics. The Rakhi simili suggests that Kejriwal is scripting for the political stage a twist of what Rakhi staged for the small screen: "Chhota Packet Bada Dhamaka".
In spouting this simile, Digvijaya has thus unwittingly imparted to our prudish political vocabulary what "Munni Badnaam Hui" imbued to the ubiquitous Zandu balm: oodles of oomph.
It's another matter that more than raising the simile's sexy quotient, the Rakhi comparison has raised a concern: Whose is the greater insult? Kejriwal's, for being likened to an Item Girl whose literacy levels are more about proportionately enhanced cosmetic assets than about disproportionately amassed real-estate assets, or Rakhi's, for being compared to a novice who knows not the art of neckline dropping and endeavours to entice eyeballs only by virtue of name dropping?
Once Upon a Time in Bhopal
Then, there are the historical parallels that recently found a vocal practitioner in BJP bigwig Nitin Gadkari. For, the historical figure that became the muse for Gadkari's simile during a recent visit to Bhopal was none other than the legendary social reformer from India's rich past: Swami Vivekananda. In likening fugitive don Dawood Ibrahim's IQ level to that of a legendary leader like Vivekananda, Gadkari resorted to a tried-and-tested formula for spinning similes and snatching the spotlight The more iconic the subject of the simile, the more headline hogging is the "figure" of speech.
And sure enough, in comparing the underworld don who even inspired Bollywood flick Once Upon a Time in Mumbai to a figure as venerated as Vivekananda, Gadkari scripted a new IQ (Insult Quotient) for the political metaphor through his show 'Once Upon a Time in Bhopal'.
Needless to say, Gadkari is not the pioneer for the history-inspired brand of political parallels, for others before him have committed much impropriety in the name of piety. Who can forget the instance of the Father of the Constitution BR Ambedkar being likened to nothing less than the Prophet himself!
Or there are instances when our leaders have made the political simile travel not just back into the annals of history but also across the seas. For, simile specialist Digvijaya had earlier equated the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) to the Nazis, quipping that "The RSS, in the garb of its nationalist ideology, is targeting Muslims the same way Nazis targeted Jews in the 1930s." Leave alone the RSS, even Israel had not taken too kindly to his political parallel.
That historical figures are a much-preferred muse for politicians drawing parallels is but obvious from the potshots our netas' western counterparts take at their political opponents.
For, Dick Harpootlian, the colorful chief of the South Carolina Democratic Party, had once invoked a figure no less famous than Adolf Hitler's mistress Eva Braun for directing digs at South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley.
"She (Nikki) was down in the bunker a la Eva Braun," Harpootlian had quipped about Nikki, referring to the Republican South Carolina Governor's participation in a news conference at Charlotte, where the Democrats were then holding their national convention. The simile had been inspired from the historical fact of Braun having committed suicide in a bunker along with Hitler when the Allied forces were zeroing in on them during World War 2.
Never mind if he raised the hackles of Republican rivals, Dick attained what a lesser comparison would have failed to achieve for him: immortality in the political Dick-tionary!
And so, in invoking the Dream Girl or Item Girl of Bollywood, Lalu, Digvijaya & Co have merely shown that they don't lag behind any Tom, Dick & Allegory.
The writer is a Chandigarh-based columnist
© Copyright © 2013 HT Media Limited. All Rights Reserved. | <urn:uuid:464e7cbe-7c53-4eed-addc-10fbc1d04480> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/Print/961264.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953493 | 1,192 | 1.523438 | 2 |
“It’s 10:00 p.m… Do you know where your children are?” Thomas Gregory was, among other things, a news anchor. In the mid-1960’s, he coined that famous phrase at the beginning of his newscast and, although he passed away in 2006, it still opens every newscast today. At the time when Mr. Gregory first proposed that question, [...]
Almost everyone has a cell phone nowadays. You can do almost anything with cell phone technology. You can play games on your cell phone. You can take photos, and even create a short video with your cell phone. Cell phone technology makes your life easier. If you missed your favorite program on TV, you can [...]
Communication is a series of action which result to transfer of information from one person to another. As learned from the history, our ancestors communicate through talking personally, writing, shouting from one mountain to another, making signs, or even drawing. But as time flies up towards the modern world, the way of communication has changed [...]
Sometimes radiologists get bored, sometimes the day a the office is a little slow - so what would happen if you put an iPhone under a CT scanner? That’s exactly what a New York radiologist did, and not only was it with an iPhone, but a Palm, iBook, and a few other electronics. We’re not sure [...]
eeekey3 Asus has let word out on its Eee keyboard which is basically a multimedia PC that is built into a keyboar with a small secondary touchscreen embeded in it. They have not said if it will be released to the public anytime soon, if ever, but from what it looks like, it seems like the perfect home theater tool. The HDMI completes the deal for an amazing home entertainment PC.
Google has been slowly building its influence in the PC technology industry over the years, and now with the use of the Android OS as a desktop OS means they may be well on their way to overtake Microsoft.
Supposedly around midnight P.S.T last night, 30GB Zunes started to lock up then reboot, freezing at the end of the boot process. It didn't matter what the Zune was doing, as one user reported his Zune freezing while charging it in his computer.
SnaptureLabs has introduced SnaptureFlash which they advertise. "The world's first xenon flash attachment for a mobile phone" The add on provides a flash for the iPhone which they advertise to be more than 100 times brighter than any conventional LED flash accessory.
03 January 2010
Now, the technological age has begun. In the past few years technology has taken a major leap. Nowerdays a lots of home improvement gadgets have made life simpler and easier. Such as the Automatic washing machine, dishwasher, vacuum cleaner, LCD TV, Plasma, High defination HD TV, laptops, netbooks, digital camera, microwave ovens and of course refrigerator. Laptops [...]
30 December 2009
The compact disk, commonly known as CD, is an optical disk used to store digital data. It was originally invented to only hold audio but later on it can store video, software, text, and graphics. The compact disk contains transparent coating, which allows information to be received from a laser beam. Not only can a [...]
29 December 2009
Microsoft and Apple have been in competition since Bill Gates and Steve Jobs shared a dorm room together. The advance in technology is directly due to their battle for market share. Out of their rivalry the computer was born and the lap top later on. The newest gadgets are cell phones, although those are being [...]
07 December 2009
(Enter the dream world of virtual reality—find yourself in a different world—very much like what you see in a video game. But this is different. You are inside the game yourself.) Imagine this. You put on goggles on your eyes. Then you wear a glove on your right hand. The goggles and the glove are connected [...]
04 December 2009
Most people like to keep things. Whether we are organized about it or not, many of us find it hard to part with souvenirs, mementos, photographs, magazines… items that may have a sentimental meaning but that also take up space that may be at a premium. We don’t all have storage room to spare. This same [...]
03 December 2009
Apple’s laptop family constitute the mac pro, mac mini, macbook, macbook pro, macbook air and the imac. In normal circumstances, the computer is manufactured by one company and all the software that run on it including the operating system is built by another. Mac laptop’s come with one of the world’s most advanced operating system [...]
18 September 2009
Window 7 is the newest Operating System to be released by Microsoft Windows, which is set to release mid-2010. But before it is released, it has given out the pre-release edition, Windows 7 RC1. You can now test Windows 7 for free legally by downloading it from the official Microsoft windows website and installing it [...]
09 September 2009
Blackberry, one of the leading brands in the line of wireless handheld phones and devices was developed by the Canadian Company-Research in Motion (RIM). In 2002, Blackberry smartphone was released along with other competitors and became more popular in the market. The features of the Blackberry smartphone include text messaging, electronic mail, QWERTY keypad (like [...]
14 August 2009
Technology is now becoming an increasingly important part of human life. Not only does it provide important uses for our infrastructure, but technologies such as the mobile phone, are also becoming important devices for socializing. With the advent of the iPhone in 2007, the purpose and capabilities of basic mobile phones have now increased dramatically. [...]
14 July 2009
“Don’t leave home without it” is a slogan long attributed to a particular credit card company. These days, however, the same axiom applies to all manner of technology. We are a truly a society laden with gadgets and gizmos. Quickly observe fellow passengers during any commute. You will see iPods and other digital media players, [...]
19 June 2009
When Christopher Columbus first set sail on his voyages, there was little to help him navigate his way around the seven seas. While the compass was first invented to help improve navigation on the sea, there was nothing really out there to help with directions and navigation on the road. All this has changed since the [...]
16 June 2009
Hydro power, hydraulic power or water power is the power that is driven from the force of moving water, which may be harnessed for useful purposes. Prior to the widespread availability of commercial electric power, hydropower was used for irrigation and operation of various machines like watermills, textile machines, sawmills, dock cranes, and domestic lifts. [...] | <urn:uuid:a11c70fe-4925-4142-a39f-82722ccf3599> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://anythingtech.net/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00059-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96557 | 1,429 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Sharks terrify me. Here’s why:
Growing up on the beach in Florida, I’ve had my little run-ins with these eating machines.
The most notable of these encounters happened when I was in high school. Summer in Florida demands multiple visits to the beach. In this instance I was body surfing. I saw a slight difference in the current, then felt something like sandpaper scrape against my leg. The both fins broke the surface (the tail fin is level with the dorsal fin—that’s the easiest way to tell that it’s a shark and not a dolphin).
I knew that the scrape along my leg was to mark me, the rough skin of the shark grating my flesh to create a blood scent.
Of course I panicked. I scrambled for the first wave and rode it to shore.
It didn’t help that Jaws
scared me to death as a kid…
So, I can safely say that I will never, never ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, never ever get in this gadget:
Even if it's fake, I'm not puttin' my hand ANYWHERE near that.
Fabien Cousteau, grandson of the famous Jacque, has created a submarine that allows a diver to interact with sharks on their own turf. In this way, scientists can explore what a shark does when it is not around people—in other words, observe the creatures nature behavior. This 14-foot long submarine mimics the movement of a real shark—and looks real enough to make me poop my pants.
Cousteau created this sub with then intention of showing that great white sharks aren’t inherently mindless killing machines. He has named it “Troy” in homage to a character from the Belgian comic book “Tintin.”
When submerged, the sub is flooded with water, making in necessary for the diver/pilot to wear a wet suit.
At least there aren't any digestive juices...
Cousteau hopes that this groundbreaking experiment will spur other scientists to delve further into the study of great whites.
And while I still can’t shake Jaws from my mind, nor my own personal experiences with these critters, I hope that ventures such as this one will show us that sharks are more than just mobile teeth.
Until then… well, I’m safely inshore now. Until sharks grow legs like in that Peter Benchley book (Creature), I’m safe.
Well… except for the gators.
SOURCE: National Geographic News | <urn:uuid:68c344bf-965c-41c2-8365-1f70c0e01485> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://inventorspot.com/articles/shark_submarine_allows_divers_closeup_view_oceans_greatest_preda_27253 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943289 | 542 | 2.015625 | 2 |
Teacher Appreciation Day is Saturday, January 16
1/6/2010 11:29:38 AM
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Thom Benson 423-785-3007
Tennessee Aquarium Announces Teacher Appreciation Day Jan. 16
Event Showcases Array of Education Program Opportunities
Chattanooga, Tenn. (January 6, 2010) – These days, supporting schools and teachers with free offers is more important than ever. “We have a wide range of standards-based programs to offer students from Pre-K to twelfth grade,” said Jennifer Latour, the Aquarium’s education coordinator. “Unfortunately many educators are unaware that these classroom programs are available without cost to any school group visiting the Aquarium with ten or more students.”
Regional educators will have an opportunity to see first-hand what’s offered to school groups during Teacher Appreciation Day on Saturday, January 16 from 10 am to 6 pm. Educators simply need to show a current teacher ID or paystub at the Aquarium’s ticketing center to visit the Aquarium and IMAX 3D Theater at no cost. The offer is good for one teacher and one guest. Additional guest tickets may be purchased that day at the education group rates listed below:
Child (through 12th grade): $6.50 Aquarium; $10.25 Aquarium + IMAX
Additional Chaperone: $19.95 Aquarium; $25.95 Aquarium + IMAX
Throughout the day, Tennessee Aquarium educators will provide brief information sessions, classroom tours, point out available online tools and offer free classroom materials. “Teachers will get to see everything that’s new at the Aquarium and gain insight into the many ways our programs supplement their lesson plans,” said Latour.
Classroom spaces are available in the River Journey building and in the IMAX Center. With multiple locations, Aquarium educators are also able to work with teachers to maximize their time here. “We can turn lunch time into a learning experience during our free ‘Lunch & Learn’ programs which include special presentations, hands-on activities or animal encounters,” said Latour.
Some educators may be surprised to learn that the Tennessee Aquarium is the only zoo or aquarium in the United States that is accredited as a supplementary education school by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS), also known as AdvancED. Every fun-filled program offered at the Aquarium correlates to the national and state science standards for Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee.
A few teachers might discover ways to explore multiple subjects at the Aquarium. “Some educators are beginning to incorporate our newest exhibit, Jellies: Living Art, in their lesson plans to show how nature fuels artistic expression,” said Latour.
Educators who sign up for the Aquarium’s education e-newsletter during Teacher Appreciation Day on January 16 will be registered to win a free field trip to the Tennessee Aquarium and IMAX 3D Theater complete with up to $100 reimbursement for transportation.
Tennessee Aquarium Education Department Fast Facts:
• Over 100,000 students visited the Tennessee Aquarium in 2009.
• Grant funding will help increase Aquarium classroom capacity to serve more students.
• The Aquarium offers HD distance learning and education outreach programs.
• Students learn about biodiversity, Civil War history and the cultural significance of the Tennessee River aboard the River Gorge Explorer.
• Aquarium educators produce fun-filled learning adventures for summer campers.
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Step Gently Out
By Helen Frost
Photographs by Rick Lieder
Poetry is oh-so-tricky. Go too concrete and rhyme-y, and you end up with stale platitudes. Go too abstract, and you can lose kids in a wash of linguistic flourishes. Special is the book that rides the fine line between the two, appealing to kids experiences while bringing the beauty. In both text and illustration, Step Gently Out is this sort of book.
There’s an entire world out there that’s easy to miss. Insects are all around us, but we often turn a blind eye. This poem begins with a call to take notice:
Step gently out,
a single blade
The poem proceeds to name a cast of backyard characters, and how they share our world. It’s a study in peacefulness that never strays from the message of being aware of your surroundings, because magical things are happening.
A while back, A Fuse #8 Production wrote an excellent post about the fact that there has never been a Caldecott Award or honor book comprised solely of photographs. I offer Step Gently Out for your consideration. The work of Michigan native Rick Lieder shines, beautifully interpreting the text and creating some thrilling moments along the way.
An excellent pairing of poetry and illustration, Step Gently Out is a 2012 standout, pure and simple.
Review copy from the publisher.
Watch the book trailer for Step Gently Out: | <urn:uuid:2c551e10-2a95-43b3-ba7d-38ee163cc1e5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://100scopenotes.com/2012/05/14/nonfiction-monday-step-gently-out-by-helen-frost/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+100scopenotes%2FEKeb+%28100+Scope+Notes%29 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00047-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929541 | 310 | 1.75 | 2 |
The LA Times reports.
children on Medicaid were 38 times more likely to be denied any appointment by dentists who were not enrolled in Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program -- and were still 18 times more likely to be rejected by even those dentists who did accept Medicaid insurance.
That's a real bummer.
Why the prejudice against the publicly insured? The study authors cite a lot of potential reasons: "low fees, less patient compliance, negative attitudes toward beneficiaries, and administrative requirements being too burdensome.
All of this may well be true, but consider this. Come 2014 when Obamacrap unwraps it is expected there will be some 20 million new enrollee's in Medicaid.
Free insurance and no place to go. | <urn:uuid:af8ea742-112f-4d9c-9b70-2f9e9251df3f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://insureblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/dentists-say-no-to-medicaid.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965637 | 152 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Council gives $20,000 to museum group
Published: Wednesday, August 22, 2007 at 11:09 a.m.
Last Modified: Wednesday, August 22, 2007 at 12:36 p.m.
THIBODAUX -- The Thibodaux City Council unanimously agreed to chip in $20,000 for the development of a proposed children’s museum featuring the many intricacies and traditions of Cajun culture.
The Bayou Country Children’s Museum, proposed in 1998, is planned for a 2.5-acre plot of land just east of the Nicholls State University campus. The land will be leased, at a cost of $1 a year, from Ronald Adams and Jake Giardina.
However, the volunteers who have tried for nine years to bring the museum to fruition have taken in just $278,500 from donations and government grants -- a far cry from the $4.2 million needed to build it.
"We have a tremendous amount of progress. We have all the exhibits designed. We are literally waiting for the money," said Kathleen Gros, volunteer on the capital campaign committee for the Bayou Country Children’s Museum. "We cannot stress enough how critical the support of the city has been to us."
Gros said the museum would mimic a trip south along a bayou from the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico. Miniature landmarks, which match those that a traveler might come across, include Mardi Gras floats, sugar-cane harvesters, Zydeco music men, oil derricks and other Cajun traditions.
"It will be a unique children’s museum," Gros said. "It will not be like anything you’ll see anywhere in the United States. It’s exciting."
An artist’s rendition of what the museum might look like can be seen at http://bayoucountrychildrensmuseum.org. Other details and contact information are also available at the Web site.
In other action, the council created a 90-day ban on liquid-crystal-display or LCD signs, in the city. The action was taken to allow the planning-and-zoning department time to design language regulating those types of signs.
It also adopted a resolution authorizing Germaine Jackson, city attorney, to file any lawsuit necessary to seek the recovery of damage sustained as a result of hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The council agreed to give Jackson control because no suits may be filed after Aug. 29. Jackson said that there are currently no such lawsuits pending.
Staff Writer Ben Lundin can be reached at 448-7635 or email@example.com.
All rights reserved. This copyrighted material may not be re-published without permission. Links are encouraged.
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A Sampling of Completed Volunteer Projects
Thank you to all twenty-nine Sunfield parents, students, and family members, who participated in the 2010 Plant-A-Thon at Tarboo Creek on February 6. It was a beautiful, sunny day, and we all enjoyed the delicious lunch served by Kristin Berg and the satisfaction of planting all the trees that were on hand. The planting of native trees and shrubs helps to restore salmon and wildlife habitat and protect Tarboo-Dabob Bay. We also extend our gratitude to Jude Rubin, stewardship director for the Northwest Watershed Institute of Port Townsend, who organizes the annual volunteer project.
The sixth annual Plant-A-Thon, held over two consecutive weekends, was a combination fundraiser and community service project for five schools, including Quilcene Primary, Chimacum Pi Program, Port Townsend's Jefferson Community School and Swan School, and Sunfield Waldorf School. With 250 participants, it was the largest volunteer planting ever in East Jefferson County, and the schools raised more than $18,500 toward their collective goal of $20,000 through the sale of corresponding Tree Cards.
Sunfield Tree Planting
On Saturday, January 9, volunteers installed ninety native trees on the border between Rhody Drive and Sunfield. The project helped us to officially complete the requirements for our County Occupancy Permit.
We had a great day, with fifteen Sunfield volunteers and six children hosting five teenagers from the Jefferson County Juvenile Services Department. The teens fulfill their community service hours once a month at Sunfield; together we worked ninety hours. We used our own biodynamic compost to inoculate the soil, and local wood chips were used to keep down weeds and prevent moisture loss. The next step will be the installation of a simple irrigation system. Donations to this project included trees and snacks from a Sunfield family, heavy equipment from Jess Norton, and tools and plant protectors from Northwest Watershed Institute.
Thank you to the following volunteers for helping us get this job done! | <urn:uuid:131e0651-17b8-416c-b8de-5004ce22b569> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sunfieldfarm.org/about-us/volunteer-projects?b3912d64cf75cd186299cc7ad4538662=2a03be8760f26ac38f6f2ca356441c18 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944696 | 418 | 1.773438 | 2 |
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The eurozone is battling a financial crisis that has seen several countries unable to repay or refinance their government debt. Five EU member states have so far had to resort to international bailouts to see them through.
Speculation is mounting that the debt crisis could result in one or more of the EU's weakest economies exiting the eurozone and the single currency - if the stronger economies do not keep bankrolling efforts to keep the Europe project together.
How is your everday life being affected by the financial crisis or your country's austerity measures?
For example: do you worry that you may lose your job or that your wages will be cut? Have you had to stop buying certain items? Have you had to help relatives? Have you had to change your lifestyle because of a lack of money? Have you put any important projects on hold? Do you have some health or dental issues that are not being taken care of? | <urn:uuid:7ede564c-3dfa-4474-ad25-a7b8511d6cb7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://euronews.com/tag/eurozone-in-crisis/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972258 | 188 | 2.078125 | 2 |