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|04-05-2002, 04:51 PM||#1|
Join Date: Jul 2001
Urinary Tract Infection (PN, April 2002)
This is from the April 2002 Paraplegia News:
Urinary Tract Infection
The most common problem of the genitourinary (GU) system is urinary tract infection (UTI). Changes in urinary function are often subtle, but you are your own best advocate to prevent UTIs.
The neurologically normal adult population seldom has UTIs. SCI/D, however, causes an interruption in the nerves sending information to and receiving information from the brain. In some people the external sphincter muscle may be spastic; in others, the bladder may be flaccid (lifeless).
In either case, you need help eliminating urine. Otherwise it can back up through the ureters, damage the kidneys, and lead to infection.
Signs and symptoms of a UTI are not usually the same for SCI/D patients as for others. Urinary urgency, pain, and burning during urination are common complaints with non-SCI/D clients. SCI/D patients may experience chills; fever; flank pain; hematuria (blood in urine); urinary frequency; cloudy, thick urine; smelly urine; sediment in the urine; increased spasticity; and autonomic dysreflexia.
If you have a UTI, you may experience all or some of these symptoms. Contact your physician or get to your hospital's emergency room. Treatment usually consists of increasing fluids (an IV may be started), antibiotics, and possibly insertion of a Foley catheter.
If you have an infection, take all antibiotics as they are prescribed, for the entire recommended time. Maintain an adequate diet, increase fluids, and routinely empty the bladder. Notify your physician if your condition worsens. Be sure to have a follow-up examination.
You are the first line of defense against UTIs. Maintain good fluid intake to "wash out" bacteria, and routinely empty the bladder. These are primary ways of keeping your bladder clear of infection.
Be alert to any change in bladder function or urine appearance and report it to your physician. Learn and practice correct procedures of intermittent catheterization. If an indwelling catheter is necessary, make sure you and your family understand how to maintain perineal hygiene and correctly care for your catheter.
Regular medical examination is important. Discuss your concerns with your healthcare provider. Review all prescribed and nonprescribed medications. Have periodic microscopic examinations every three to six months or if you see pus or blood in the urine. Have a blood sample taken about every six to nine months to see if your kidneys are working correctly. And finally, annual evaluations usually include an x-ray of the kidneys, ureters, and bladder (KUB) and urodynamic evaluation.
©2002 PVA. May not be reproduced without permission. The above is taken from an article appearing in the April 2002 PN/Paraplegia News. | <urn:uuid:e1a82646-809a-48cf-92e7-c5c7119fb70e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sci.rutgers.edu/forum/showthread.php?t=4129 | 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 | 0.922769 | 635 | 2.6875 | 3 |
In Iowa City, the university of Iowa is situated. It is a public state-funded research university. The University of Iowa provides you online courses which are known as ICON (Iowa Courses Online). If you want to login for ICON, then you can login by entering your HawkID and password at Icon.Uiowa.Edu. At the University of Iowa, ICON is the system of course management. Automatically, Engineering courses of all college are created in ICON for some UI departments.
The University of Iowa was recognized on February 25, 1847. Iowa is unruffled of 11 colleges; the largest college is Liberal Arts and Sciences which is enrolling most of Iowa’s undergraduates. Undergraduates are joined up by The Henry B. Tippie College of Business, the Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine, and the Colleges of Education, Engineering, Law, Nursing, Pharmacy. Originally, the State University of Iowa named the University of Iowa, and this remains the institution's legal name.
On February 25, 1847 the state university was founded, as Iowa's first public institution of higher learning. In 1855, in the United States, to admit men and women on an equal basis, Iowa became the first public university. To accept creative work in theater, writing, music, and art on an equal basis with academic research, the university was the world's first university. Architect D. Elwood Cook designed Iowa's main campus, with the campus bordered by Park Road to the north and Dubuque and Gilbert Streets roughly to the east.
- ICON Lib. Res. Training
- ICON Practice Site
- LAWR Library Materials
- 06N:211:EXC Spr10 Marketing Management
There are three types of course sites are available.
- Registrar-affiliated course site
- Development course site
- Non-registrar course site
Registrar-affiliated course site: For sites affiliated with University courses that the Office of the Registrar tracks. Automatic enrollment of instructors (from OSIRIS records) and students (from Registrar data) will be received by these courses. OSIRIS and Course records held by the Registrar must be up-to-date. Until an instructor marks to Course sites "active", Course sites will remain invisible to students.
Development course site: The development course site is for the purpose of development and test. To develop course content, the Development course sites can be used.
Non-Registrar course site: The sites which are not affiliated with University courses are known as Non-Registrar course site. It may be used to support research collaborations, conferences, cohorts, and other University activities.
For the course of ICON you will require software and system. For Registrar-affiliated and non-Registrar-affiliated courses, ICON course sites are available. It is available for instructor testing and development purposes; for faculty, staff, or research organizational purposes; and for student organizations. If you want to get online request form, then see below:
- Open the URL : https://icon.uiowa.edu/support/newsite/
- Select the type of site you want (Registrar-affiliated, Development or Non-Registrar).
- On the Hawk ID Sign In page, enter your Hawk ID and password.
How to login at Icon.Uiowa.Edu for ICON?
- Open the website at Icon.Uiowa.Edu
- The option of login is given at the left side of the page.
- Enter your HawkID and password, and click on option “login”.
- You will see your ICON MyHome page, which will display a list of all your ICON courses.
- Click the course title to enter the course.
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- Assessment.Discoveryeducation.com - Login guide to Discovery Education Assessment | <urn:uuid:f7f6e7c5-cdc8-4278-aee6-03f4ac5f3854> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogfalls.com/blog/how-login-university-iowa-websiteiconuiowaedu-icon-login-guide | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.908754 | 890 | 1.890625 | 2 |
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — An organization of mostly displaced white farmers in Zimbabwe said Thursday upcoming harvests of the corn staple are forecast to decline by tens of thousands of tons despite recent good rains and the nation's troubled economy will again rely on costly food imports and donor handouts.
The Commercial Farmers Union on Thursday said production in the former regional breadbasket remains in turmoil. It said blacks resettled on formerly white-owned farms seized since 2000 are "in dire straits" because they don't have necessary finance.
Union head Charles Taffs said collapsing rural infrastructure may be helped by a new, financial recovery plan by ex-farmers who don't expect to regain their seized farms.
Latest annual corn production is estimated at 833,000 tons, down by 60,000 tons from last year, compared to more than 2 million tons harvested in 2000.
The collapse of the rural economy is causing mass migration to already stressed towns and cities, he said.
Farm dam walls have not been maintained, fencing has been uprooted and conservation laws are being openly disregarded with drastic environmental consequences, Taffs told reporters.
Taffs said his organization has drawn up a broad recovery program to restore the value of land against which loans could be obtained by the new farmers and former owners would provide support and advice drawn from long years of experience in farming.
"People are starving in this country. It is time to act. We can't wait any longer," Taffs said.
The farmers' proposals call for foreign funding for an issue of bonds to pay compensation to farmers who lost their land and the creation of a Land Bank where the bonds, redeemable later, and title deeds would be deposited and made available as capital for new farmers to restart derelict properties and "reenergize the land market."
If that happened and farming got back on its feet on a commercial basis, the ex-owners would have a viable investment in bonds with returns comparable to any good investment worldwide, Taffs said.
"It won't cost the government anything. It will be a minimum burden to donors. The benefits will be immediate and immense. If it's in place before the planting season, we could be self-sufficient in food again within a year," he said.
The organization says less than 400 of its 4,500 white farmer members in 2000 are still on the land, half of them are actively farming and just 10 are still farming on the commercial scale they were in 2000.
"Our sector has been really been taken down. The new farmers have access to the land but no access to assistance," he said.
Taffs said the farmers did not envisage getting their land back. Some had died penniless since the often violent land seizures began in what President Robert Mugabe insisted was a program to reform imbalances in colonial-era ownership of prime land by whites, mostly the descendants of British and South African settlers.
"We don't want to turn the clock back. We want to go forward in a pragmatic manner. What is lost has to be monetized and put back into the economy to ensure a bright future for the people through the successful completion of the land reform program," he said.
Experts from 50 nations, many from Africa, and officials of international financial institutions helped draw up the recovery plan unveiled Thursday.
After years of meltdown since the collapse of the agriculture-based economy, Mugabe's party says there's no cash to pay out displaced white farmers. In the past, it acknowledged the need compensate former owners for buildings and improvements on the land. Many of the best former white farms were given to Mugabe loyalists and cronies and now lie idle.
Compensation in new bonds, calculated from criteria still to be ironed out, would be subject to routine fiscal and investment laws to avoid capital flight, according to the farmers' group.
"It's a win-win for everyone. I think there's been a real shift in the government position. We still need broad acceptance of the program but I think we are closer to a solution than we have ever been," Taffs said. | <urn:uuid:bc9bbc01-c32b-4e90-bcf7-63ee050b8d5d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.khou.com/news/world/187287491.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97795 | 850 | 2.046875 | 2 |
It was nestled in the backside of town called back street where some of us Blacks were segregated from the township. As of today, the living patterns have not changed in the town of Trenton located in Jones County. However the schooling racial patterns have undergone tremendous changes since 1954. When I graduated in 1960 the segregated status had not changed because a plan had to be devised to remove Black teachers, principals, and superintendents from their current positions.
As strange as it might seem to some of you, Black teachers taught all of the Black students, the principals were Black, and even the superintendent was Black. Now all of the school board members were White and the Black superintendent reported to the White superintendent who reported to the board. If you get the picture, this was not an easy system to dismantle.
What was going to happen to the Black educational staff under this separate but equal system? As I later learned while reading a magazine as I flew across the country, President Eisenhower told Chief Justice Earl Warren that this controversial Brown verses Board of Education decision was about Black boys sitting in the classroom with White girls and Black teachers teaching White students. I dont know about all of the school districts in the south or north but in Jones County a plan was devised to frustrate Black teachers and parents to eliminate these problems. Black teachers who had taught elementary school for over twenty years were suddenly placed in high school classes and vice versa.
This led to massive resignations and retirements. Now prior to the Brown decision, half of the teaching population in the south was Black. As they retired White teachers replaced them with no experience in working with Black children or the Black community. Who do you think got the worst end of the disciplinary action in school? Black boys. You ask me how do I know? I had brothers and sisters still in the system and cousins who were reassigned as teachers in the classroom.
These teachers had taught me when I was in school. Every summer I was home, I was involved in these educational issues involving the school board. When I came back to California it was the same thing. We were told by school officials, We cant find qualified Black teachers to place in the classroom. Districts in the west spent millions of dollars going down south to recruit Black teachers but to no avail. Come to find out few Blacks were sent on the recruitment trips and they were not going to Black Colleges.
In the meantime, and to some degree today, Black boys are being disproportionately put out of school and few districts have parity in the teaching profession.
Has much changed since the decision? Yes. We have Blacks elected to school boards yet we have only 14 Blacks out of 1056 as superintendents in the entire State of California. Has much changed since the decision? Yes. We have Blacks moving into some neighborhoods that will permit them to attend non crowded classrooms and never to be taught by a Black teacher or see one in authority. Currently we have only 15,290 Black teachers in California out of 309,773, that is a dismal 4.9%.
We have a Black student population of 515,805 for 8.3 % of the student population. Whites make up 33.7% of the student population and 73.7% of the teaching population in California. This has a tremendous impression on young people illustrating the reality of how things work in the real world. The statewide average salary for teachers is $55,693, principals is $89,950 and superintendents is $128,194 per year. This is much higher than the pre-Brown decision.
Has much stayed the same? Yes. We still have some classrooms that are all Black and some campuses with no Blacks as teachers or in authoritative positions. We have the media and other businesses that have no Blacks in management positions nor do they even seek out Blacks anymore. We currently have a college and University system in California that spouts equal access while at the same time denying Blacks access because of laws on the books, thanks to Ward Connerly. There are many factors to why measurable progress is seen in some areas of Black America and other factors that point to a decline. One thing is for sure, we cannot afford to be in the same place 50 years from now.
On a national level, Bush put out a statement calling for stronger accountability with Reaching Out Raising African American Achievement also stating that No Child Left Behind is an unprecedented commitment that focuses not on money, but on results. That is because he put no money in the budget for this initiative.
|< Prev||Next >| | <urn:uuid:9fb04c5f-cdfd-43db-9539-6719a5e1ca53> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.blackvoicenews.com/commentary/hardy-l-brown/36987-brown-vs-board.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982698 | 927 | 2.8125 | 3 |
How do I decide where to drill?
Several factors determine where to drill:
|1. Terrain & Accessibility to Well Site – Now
and in the Future
|2. Legal Distances from Both Property Lines
and Septic Systems
3. Location of Future or Present Homes
Do I need a permit to drill a well?
Yes, the state of Washington requires permits to construct a well. The permit through the State Department of Ecology is $200. Jefferson County requires an additional application fee.
What is ground water?
Ground water is water below the land surface that fills the spaces between grains of sediment and rocks or fills cracks and fractures in the rock. Saturated zones in sediment such as sand and gravel, called Aquifers -- and in fractured rock formations -- store and transmit water to underground wells.
How do we get ground water?
In most cases, a well is needed to reach the aquifer where ground water is found. Most wells are made by drilling into the rock layers using drilling machines to access water deep beneath the surface. Electric pumps are commonly used to raise the water to the surface.
How deep will I have to go to find water?
Most wells vary in one way or another. Geological formations of your area generally will determine to what depth you will need to drill to yield the best results. From our experience - and from researching the recorded well logs in your area -- we can provide you with a more precise idea of what would be necessary to construct your well and a more accurate estimate of cost involved. You may access well logs on the Department of Ecology's website: www.ecy.wa.gov
How much water will I need?
That will depend on your needs. The average usage is 100 gallons per day per person. Landscaping should also be consideration in your daily needs. For single-family residences, Jefferson County requires 400 gallons per day (GPD) or .27 gallons per minute (GPM). Clallam County requires 800 GPD or .55 GPM. Most lenders require 3 to 5 GPM. With extra storage, i.e. 2 or more pressure tanks or a 1000 -2000 galon reservoir tank your water systems could supply 10 + GPM to the house.
What is casing and how much will I need?
Casing is metal pipe designed to sheath the borehole. Casing is installed until rock, water, or a consolidated formation is reached. A minimum of 20 feet is required. A consolidated formation has the ability to remain open indefinitely.
What is a PVC liner and do I need one?
A PVC liner is similar to casing, only it is made from poly vinyl chloride, a very hard form of plastic that is usually perforated and installed from inside the casing and to the bottom of the well. This helps prevent anything from falling in or collecting around the pump. It is also sometimes used to install PVC screens.
What is a surface seal?
A surface seal is typically bentonite or a bentonite slurry, a form of processed clay. It is placed in the oversized borehole around the casing to a minimum depth of 18 feet to protect the well against possible surface contamination.
What is a well screen, and would I need one?
There are a couple varieties of screens made up of either stainless steel or PVC. Screens are primarily used in wells that contain sands and or gravel; the screens hold back or filter the formation while allowing the water to move feely through to the pump without sediment. Whether one is needed or not is dependent on the formation drilled and the well's tendency to pump sand or silt.
What is the difference between an air test and a bail test?
An air test is the method of injecting air into the well to force the water to the surface for measurement. Although effective, this method sometimes produces a gallon per minute amount more or less than an actual bail test.
How much will my well cost?
Because of all the variables involved, you need to contact us with your specific needs and location for an accurate estimate of cost. Please feel free to contact us with any questions you may have.
My well is going dry. What should I do?
There is no one answer that applies to everyone; for that reason, we encourage you to contact us with any specific questions. Generally, there are a couple of options available to you. It might be possible to deepen your existing well. You may want to have a completely new well drilled. You may want to consider installing a reservoir tank system. Sometimes there may be other factors that could be contributing to well production problems. For example, over the years of pumping, the minerals in water may cause the stainless screen or even open bottom wells to get incrustated with Calcium or Iron deposits. Cleaning and redevelopment may bring your well back to life. | <urn:uuid:d24a728f-8c02-4769-a7d7-ca723a591eaa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.oasiswelldrilling.net/Drilling_Projects_from_Our_Well_Drillers_Port_Angeles_WA.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938149 | 996 | 2.28125 | 2 |
In the oil-rich fields of Alaska's North Slope, gas flares burn constantly, occasionally bursting into fireballs two stories tall. It's a safety feature of BP's operation: burning off excess gas from drilling. Unless the facility is shut down—which costs BP millions—carrying out a detailed examination of those nozzles is out of the question. Which explains why the operation is inspected only once a year at the most.
At least, that was the schedule until November 2011. As an experiment, BP brought in Greg Walker to fly a 2.5-pound Aeryon Scout quadrotor drone to examine the flares between inspections. With the Scout, Walker—manager of the Poker Flat Research Range for the University of Alaska Fairbanks—was able to spot a crack in one of the nozzles while it was still burning. Doing the repair required a shutdown, but BP was able to speed up the process and save money by ordering the parts ahead of time. | <urn:uuid:92b143f5-3d1a-4cba-89bf-2d6ad125fc24> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/06/ff_dronesatwork?pid=1266 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958525 | 199 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Study in Pennsylvania
Largest City - Philadelphia
Population - 12,604,767
Timezone - Eastern Time
The state of Pennsylvania is in a league all of its own when it comes to its historical role in American history and political culture. Pennsylvania’s most populated area is the culturally thriving city of Philadelphia, where American political leaders from its various colonial regions met to create the infamous Declaration of Independence, the document signifying America’s desire to become a sovereign nation from Britain, which ultimately lead to the infamous American Revolution.
International students in Pennsylvania make a point to take advantage of this state’s rich American historical significance by visiting any number of it’s (over 150!) national historic landmarks (over 50 of which are located within the city of Philadelphia itself). International students interested in American history (and history in general) will find plenty of reasons to study in Pennsylvania, and no shortage of extracurricular opportunities to immerse themselves in learning about American cultural heritage. To see a full list of these historical landmarks, international students can check out, National Historic Landmarks of Pennsylvania. Also, make sure to check out the Historic Landmarks of Philadelphia.
Located in the northeastern region of the United States, Pennsylvania enjoys all four seasons and experiences a humid continental climate throughout most of the state (but with a notably colder climate range in its more mountainous regions). Pennsylvania’s central (and most populated) major cities include Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Eerie, Allentown, and its capital city of Harrisburg. International students who choose to study in Pennsylvania should definitely check out this Pennsylvania Travel Guide to learn additional information about the different geographical regions of Pennsylvania.
International students in Pennsylvania often balance the bustling and lively atmosphere of major U.S. city life with low-cost weekend travel to more quiet and peaceful regions within the state, including the 48-acres of beauty and solitude located at Cherry Springs State Park (a top location chosen by U.S. star gazers, and voted by msnbc.com as one of the best places in the whole world to view the stars and galaxies in the night sky). International students who study in Pennsylvania should also make time to experience the natural beauty of its landscapes. In fact, international students in Pennsylvania can check out the Official Website of Pennsylvania State Parks to help plan their next peaceful weekend trip, or spring break adventure.
On top of this all, international students in Pennsylvania enjoy opportunities to learn at some of the country’s oldest and most prestigious colleges and public university systems (including the highly reputable Penn State system, which boasts over 20 campuses located all throughout the state). Pennsylvania has over 100 four-year colleges alone, with international students interested in medical education studies often finding their interests leading them to Philadelphia, home to leading academic programs in this field. Additionally, the city of Pittsburgh, home to the prestigious Carnegie Mellon University, continues to be a central hub for students interested in engineering and science-related studies. That said, Pennsylvania is certainly a state with programs designed to tailor just about every academic interest under the sun. International students who may choose to study in Pennsylvania can check out a comprehensive list of its colleges, universities, and graduate research institutions on our US School Search. Hopefully, these online resources will prove useful tools in planning a successful study abroad experience to this first-class U.S. state!
For more information and to search schools in Pennslyvania, and to contact them for free for further information, please visit the Study in the USA School Search. | <urn:uuid:529b5999-303c-4ffd-96f9-3562391d59fe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.internationalstudent.com/study_usa/state_guides/pennsylvania/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937678 | 723 | 2.6875 | 3 |
The 12 steps to writing news
It takes practice to write an effective news story, but here are 12 simple rules you can follow to help you.
Decide what the news is
Focus on the part of your story that is likely to be of most interest to your readers. Stories become news because of their importance, emotion, impact, timeliness and interest to the reader.
The more people involved, the more newsworthy the story. Likewise, the more people affected, whether it’s by campus car-parking charges or a pay award for staff, the more newsworthy the story is.
News is what’s new. Time is of the essence. So what’s news today probably won’t be news in a few days, unless there are major new developments.
Who, what, where, when, why and how?
Include information that answers these questions within the headline and the first two paragraphs. Try to get as many of the Ws into the first (lead) paragraph as possible.
For example your first line could be: “Sanjeev Bhaskar [WHO] presented degree certificates for the first time [WHAT] at this week’s [WHEN] summer graduation ceremonies in Brighton [WHERE].”
News first, background later
Tell the best bits – the new bits – first. The background to the story should come later.
Don’t try and tease your readers into getting to the end of your article by withholding information.
Would your story still make sense if someone read only the first two lines? Or even just the headline? It should.
Be objective and stick to facts
The reporting ‘voice’ in the story should contain only facts. Any opinions or subjective descriptions should be attributed to a named source.
E.g. don’t write: ‘The event was a great success and led to a pleasing increase in applications’.
Who says it was a success? Who is pleased?
Instead, write: ‘Dr Jones said the event went well: “It was a great success and I am pleased that, since it took place, we have had a number of new applications.”’
Keep it simple and short
News stories should be no more than 400 words long, and preferably 250-300 words long. You need to write in a succinct and engaging way but still include all the important facts.
Don’t include too many flowery words. Be punchy. If something isn’t essential to the story, don’t include it.
For text to be easily readable at speed, write in short sentences (think 25 words or fewer) and use simple language.
Use plain English and not academic or technical jargon.
Assume no prior knowledge - some people find it helpful to imagine that they are explaining the story to a relative who doesn’t work in higher education.
Universities are full of acronyms and, especially if you have worked in the sector a long time, it can be easy to forget that not everyone will understand what they mean.
Always spell out an acronym the first time it is used, followed by the acronym itself in parentheses. From then on, in your story, you may use the acronym. E.g. ‘the Teaching and Learning Development Unit (TLDU) organised the event. The TLDU is ...’
The University has a 'house style' – a consistent way of writing – that is part of our brand. Having a set house style helps to convey an impression of quality and thoroughness, no matter who is writing or editing.
You can read the writing and style guide at the Publications and Branding web pages.
Do not use! (As the author Scott Fitzgerald said, it is like laughing at your own jokes.)
Don’t use ‘I’ or ‘we’
Readers won’t necessarily know who wrote a news article, so don’t talk about yourself or your team in the first person.
Always name individuals (even if that person is you) or units/teams mentioned in your piece. Never say ‘we held a lecture’; instead say ‘the History department held a lecture’.
Write a great headline
Many news writers argue that the headline is the single most important part of a news story.
Research shows that, on average, 80% of people read only headlines and then skip the rest of the story.
For this reason, you need to make sure that yours is clear, concise and tells your story using just a few (4-8) words. What is the minimum information that you want a skim reader to know?
Many find it easiest to write the headline last. This way you can try taking your first line and trying to distil it back to its bare bones. Cut out unnecessary words and shorten phrases (e.g. ‘leads to improvements’ becomes ‘improves’).
This is not an easy skill and takes practice, but it is worth spending time on getting it right.
PS Don’t pun in a headline unless it explains your story better than plain English. Puns are fun for the writer but can muddy the water and are not always universally understood (particularly those using cultural or geographically-specific references). Choose clarity over cleverness, particularly when writing online news.
A good photo or other image to accompany your story is a great way to reinforce and complement your news. When you are writing your story, always think of how you could illustrate the story with a picture.
Check your work
Even if a deadline is really tight, still take the time to check. Chances are you will spot at least one mistake every time.
Make sure that your text has no spelling mistakes, including names, or any errors with grammar or punctuation. Then read it over again, asking yourself:
- Does it make sense?
- Are things explained in order?
- Is it as easy as possible to understand?
- Is it accurate?
- Have you repeated yourself?
- Are any ideas or phrases covered twice?
- Is it written in plain English?
- Are all dates and numbers correct?
If you wrote the article, get someone else to look over it for you. You might also want or need to run it by any individuals or units/teams mentioned in the piece. | <urn:uuid:76282708-2c01-4fb2-b8d7-c5f6ae7f5409> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sussex.ac.uk/pressandcomms/communications/writingnews | 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 | 0.938485 | 1,345 | 3.140625 | 3 |
“I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.”
The Conservation Fund has a Go Zero program, I just stumbled across. They describe themselves as a fund that “pioneers a balanced, non-advocacy, non-membership approach to conservation, one that blends environmental and economic goals and objectives.”
The gist: I’ll gladly pay you in 50 years for CO2 emitted today.”
You use their calculator to figure out how many tons of CO2 you generate in a year, and then divide that number by 1.33 to figure out how many trees you should buy to offset that amount. They way they figure it, plant a tree today and over the course of its 70 year life it will absorb 1.33 tons of CO2. I can just see the graph of CO2 uptake: very close to zero for many years, with the significant payoffs once the tree starts to be an interesting size, say about 25 years from now. I wonder what fraction of trees planted actually make it to their 25th birthday.
I like trees. Planting trees is good. Sending the Conversation Fund $4 a tree to plant a bunch to rid yourself of your CO2 guilt has just one negative side effect. It gives the impression that you are actually doing something about your CO2 emissions.
The sad part is, the consume-now pay-later system is what we have been doing for the last 100 years and is what got us into this mess. When we do nothing, it takes about 100 years for the CO2 to be reabsorbed and if we plant that tree, it'll be reabsorbed in about 70. Right now we are reaping the effects of fossil fuel burned in the 1960s. Just imagine what it is going to be like when we start feeling the warming effects that result from today’s consumption levels.
We need to change our behavior, we can't buy our way out. Sharing just one car trip a week (or eliminating one a week), can reduce our consumption of fossil fuel by 5% starting now. Just like Wimpy's endless burger-bargaining, planting a tree for tomorrow won't produce the results we want in the timeframe required. | <urn:uuid:7eb18ab3-915e-4e0d-9a91-582a0a56be19> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://golocoblog.blogspot.com/2007/06/wimpy-calculus-for-reducing-co2.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962213 | 465 | 2.125 | 2 |
Just a few miles from Seaside, Rosemary Beach, was founded on the same principles
of New Urbanism, but incorporat es a very different architectu ral style. More full-time residents can be found at Rosemary Beach, though it is still a resort town like Seaside. WPBT’s Imagining A New Florida crew spent an afternoon capturing life in the quiet beach village.
The newest “New Urbanist” community in the Florida panhandle,
Alys Beach is made for luxury living, even moreso than Seaside & Rosemary Beach, and was built with durability & sustainabi lity in mind. Self-procl aimed “Town Evangelist ” Mike Ragsdale gives WPBT’S Imagining A New Florida crew a quick a tour of the pool area.
WPBT’s Imagining A New Florida crew spends a day shooting in Seaside, a coastal beach town on Florida’s northwest coast. The developers of Seaside utilized traditional architecture, street layouts, & public squares modeled after a ‘small town ideal’ to create what is now considered the birthplace of New Urbanism.
Here is a deleted scene which features the Dade City Train Museum located in Dade City, Florida. | <urn:uuid:aded24f8-25e7-40fe-af46-8e2064af161b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://channel2.typepad.com/imagining_a_new_florida/tours.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00062-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936445 | 263 | 1.617188 | 2 |
We are investigating the behavior of radio-frequency mechanical structures integrated with various nano-electronics structures, such as single electron transistors, solid-state qubits, and superconducting microwave resonators. The goal of this work is to prepare and measure the quantum states of mechanical structures and directly probe the boundary between the classical and quantum world. Simply put, we want to produce a mechanical device located in two places simultaneously.
Nanomechanics coupled to superconducting microwave resonators
We are developing experiments with a nanomechanical resonator coupled to a superconducting microwave resonator. By providing various microwave pumps, it is expected to be able to cool the mechanical device to the quantum ground state, and to produce squeezed mechanical states. Read more >>
Nanomechanics coupled to qubits
We have developed both the theoretical and experimental techniques to couple mechanical structures to superconducting qubits, with the aim of producing new quantum measurement techniques and demonstrating the quantum behavior of "large" mechanical structures. The SEM pic shows a device made by Pierre Echternach in collaboration with Michael Roukes and Matt LaHaye at Caltech. Read more >>
Nanomechanics coupled to SET
We have explored the physics of single electron transistors coupled to mechanical structures and have demonstrated the closest approach to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle and the closest measured approach to the quantum ground state for a mecahnical mode. Read more >>
We are facinated by the interface between atomic physics, quantum optics, and condensed matter devices and physics. We have been involved in collaborations to explore this intersection and are deeply interested in expanding this direction.
We are developing micro-mechanical structures fabricated from dielectric super-mirror material. These devices support a collaboration with Markus Aspelmeyer and Anton Zeilinger at the University of Vienna. Read more >>
Microfabricated Atomic Traps
Together with Prof. Chris Monroe's group we have fabricated micron-scale traps to hold single ions as a step toward producing massively integrated atomic devices for quantum information and computation applications. Read more >>
We are actively developing tools for nanoscience and applying nano-electro-mechanical devices for practical application. | <urn:uuid:96cdc672-258b-4201-bfa9-4306ba7837cd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kschwabresearch.com/research/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.918585 | 456 | 2.09375 | 2 |
Change your grip and stance on a few key exercises and you can work muscles you didn't even know you had.
Sometimes, all you have to do to break through a workout plateau is get a grip -- a new grip, that is. Simply changing your grip on a lift such as the bench press may allow you to shoulder significantly more weight. Why? Well, the technical answer is because it forces your brain to recruit your benching muscles differently, and the new stimulation is often enough to increase strength temporarily. But in the greater scheme of things, the fact that you've done something different -- in this case, moving your hands to a position on the bar they're unfamiliar with -- means you've broken out of your comfort zone. And generally, the less relaxed you are in the gym, the better your workout tends to be.
We all like to think we're "zoned in" during a training session, but most of us look up from the weights from time to time, whether it's to notice sexy lady trainers or to laugh at people who accidentally roll off their Swiss balls. Nevertheless, whether your focus is impenetrable or not, changing your grip and stance between sets requires more presence of mind than banging out the regular versions of your old standby exercises. Because the position you take will be different from what you're used to, you'll feel the muscles being engaged differently. It's what's known as the "mind-muscle connection" -- actively thinking about the muscles you're training to make them work harder -- and it nets you better results than if you just absently heaved your way through a set.
Muscles change their minds in a matter of inches. Take a wide grip on the bench press, and your nervous system will recruit the pecs more than any other muscle group to lift the weight. Now move your hands in to where they're shoulder-width apart, and you're suddenly using a lot more triceps strength. Therefore, if you're always benching with your hands in the same place (for most guys, that's just outside shoulder width), you're cheating yourself out of greater pec and triceps growth, respectively.
Not only will repositioning yourself help reshape your body, it will also help prevent injury and add strength by addressing weaknesses you've caused through neglect. For example, if you've been deadlifting with the same stance for eons, the narrow-stance RDL will emphasize and even activate different parts of your gluteal muscles than the conventional deadlift hits -- helping to even out the strength deficit in that muscle group and improve your overall performance when you go back to regular deadlifts.
CHECK YOUR EGO
In the following workout, we've paired exercises with similar grip and stance variations (see the next page for an explanation). And while you'll no doubt be able to use more weight on one of the exercises than the other (which one depends on the kind of training you're used to), we don't want you to. Instead, choose the heaviest weight you know you can handle for your weaker exercise in the pair. That means if you can squat 315 in a regular stance, we want you to use whatever load you can handle on the wide-stance version-even if that means 275. Don't worry, once those weaker muscles kick in, you won't feel like you're using a "light" weight. | <urn:uuid:1695e4c9-5c35-4b33-a9fb-5015f5cae5ee> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mensfitness.com/training/build-muscle/discomfort-zone | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953854 | 694 | 1.710938 | 2 |
The tendrils linking a 16th-century English royal adviser to a fictional 21st-century American mob boss are tenuous, at best. And yet, reading Bring Up the Bodies, Hilary Mantel's second volume of life at the court of King Henry VIII as seen from the perspective of the king's most trusted adviser, Thomas Cromwell, one cannot help but be reminded, time and again, of Tony Soprano. Cromwell, about 50 when Bodies begins, blessed with "a labourer's body, stocky, useful, running to fat", looks like Tony, but the resemblance is more than skin deep. Mantel, the David Chase of the historical novel, has been engaging in a bait-and-switch of colossal portions, and approximately halfway through this novel, she swipes the rug out from underneath her readers in a manner reminiscent of Soprano's journey from loveable everyman to moral monster.
First, some recap for those joining Mantel late. Wolf Hall (2009), which won the Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, accomplished the feat of reinvigorating the by now wearily familiar tale of Henry VIII and his wife-swapping by a simple substitution. Where previous works - think A Man for All Seasons - had depicted Henry's court from the perspective of Henry, or one of his wives, or the Catholic martyr Thomas More, Mantel chose Henry's other chief adviser, the calculating Thomas Cromwell, as her protagonist and guiding light. In her sly undermining of an earlier era's moral pieties, More is a fundamentalist prig, a zealot in saint's garb, and Cromwell the only recognisable modern voice in the entire grim farce - sceptical, worldly, supremely efficient. The magic of Wolf Hall was its intimacy, its offering us a clear window through which to view the opaque past, in something resembling our own English - "a good language for all sorts of matters", as Thomas describes it here.
Cromwell is employed by Henry to dispatch his no-longer-wanted wife Katherine, cobbling together a legal brief arguing that because she had briefly been betrothed to Henry's brother, their marriage was null and void. The ensuing scuffle costs the lives of More and Cromwell's mentor Cardinal Wolsey, as well as accidentally creating the Church of England as a byproduct of the marital squabble.
Bring Up the Bodies picks up where Wolf Hall leaves off, in disarmingly jaunty fashion. "We've seen some panic-stricken plastering these last weeks," observes Mantel's narrator of the king's tour of the homes of the nobility, "some speedy stonework, as his hosts hurry to display the Tudor rose beside their own devices." Henry is happily betrothed to Anne Boleyn, but a glimpse of the homely, dour Jane Seymour has the king looking "like a veal calf knocked on the head by the butcher". Anne's meddling, her presumptuous family, and her "churchyard's worth of dead babies", in Mantel's pungent description, cool the king's ardour, and have him eyeing other, possibly more fertile wombs. The king knows his legacy is in his offspring, and that to have no son is to have no future: "If a king cannot have a son, if he cannot do that, it matters not what else he can do. The victories, the spoils of victory, the just laws he makes, the famous courts he holds, these are as nothing."
And so we are back where we have started, with a king desperate to shirk the dead weight of an unwanted wife, and itching to take on a new beloved. Cromwell "pictures them, their faces intent and skirts bunched, two little girls in a muddy track, playing teeter-totter with a plank balanced on a stone." That the very same image could have appeared in Wolf Hall, with Katherine, not Jane, balancing across from Anne, is a gruesome irony that Cromwell is not entirely willing, or able, to acknowledge.
It is here that the ground begins to shift, not only under Cromwell, but under us as well. We have been conjoined to Cromwell, willingly or not; every time Mantel says "he", regardless of context, we know she means Cromwell. He had been the unabashed hero of Wolf Hall, a wily pussycat in lion's garb, feared for his cruelty when he should have been admired for his strategic brilliance. Cromwell notes to himself that the king has asked him once more to revise history in his favour: "You removed all impediments: Mary Boleyn, Harry Percy, you swept them aside. But now our requirements have changed, and the facts have changed behind us." Anne, previously defined as a woman who "wants you to treat her like the Virgin Mary, but ... also wants you to put your cash on the table, do the business and get out," is to be condemned as a harlot, guilty of all manner of sexual indiscretion, including incest with her brother. Cromwell knows that he serves an unworthy master, that his diligent study of The Book Called Henry is for naught, hinting at "something unwelcome: superfluous knowledge, useless information." The truth is not what is, but what the king wants it to be.
The lighting has subtly shifted, and the shadows Mantel had so assiduously kept at bay creep up the wall, dwarfing her figures. "I take it back," one of the accused, Mark Smeaton, tells Cromwell during his interrogation. "I don't think so," Cromwell bluntly responds. The list of charges is a mere formality; the guilty parties have already been identified, accused and convicted, all to serve the king. It is "the bodies", after all, not "the accused", who are to be brought up.
Prior to Wolf Hall, Mantel's best-regarded book had been the wonderfully argumentative French Revolution epic A Place of Greater Safety, and the second half of Bodies transforms Cromwell into a precursor of Robespierre, righteously slaughtering in the name of a rancid ideal. "1 May 1536: this, surely, is the last day of knighthood," observes Mantel of the day before Anne's arrest. "What happens after this - and such pageants will continue - will be no more than a dead parade with banners, a contest of corpses."
Cromwell the schemer has become Cromwell the torturer, craftily calculating the ideal amount of pain necessary to break another human being: "I have endured it, you will say. I have come through. And pity and self-love will crack open your heart, so that at the first gesture of kindness - let us say, a blanket or a sip of wine - your heart will overflow, your tongue unstop." "I see," notes one of his associates. "It is not so much, who is guilty, as whose guilt is of service to you."
The prosecution of Mark Smeaton and the other purported lovers of the queen would be farcical were it not so horribly familiar; Cromwell, living three centuries later, would have made an ideal interrogator for Joseph Stalin. And Anne, ascending to the scaffold, is a figure of infinite piteousness, the French Revolution's first victim: "Her head goes down. Then she seems to draw herself together, to control the tremor that has seized her entire body from head to foot."
Like Tony Soprano, we are besmirched by our affection for Cromwell, our breezy willingness to overlook his cruelty redounding to our shame. We are made to pay for our own indifference to horror, forced to embrace the maggoty sore of our erstwhile hero's festering moral wound. And like we had with Tony, we expect Cromwell to be punished for his iniquities. "Henry killed his father's councillors," observes Anne's brother. "Now he plans to kill his wife and her family and Norris who has been his closest friend. What makes you think it would be any different with you, that are not the equal of any of these men?"
Moreover, we know that Cromwell's grisly fate, his head impaled on a spike on London Bridge in 1540, was not dissimilar to those of his victims. And yet, Mantel, like Chase, prefers to pause in medias res, drawing a heavy curtain across the future. Death, she argues, is not always the end. "The word 'however' is like an imp coiled beneath your chair," she concludes. "It induces ink to form words you have not yet seen, and lines to march across the page and overshoot the margin. There are no endings. If you think so you are deceived as to their nature. They are all beginnings. Here is one." We leave Cromwell at the peak of his powers, and at the moment of realisation of his own moral bankruptcy. His fate is to be remembered on a series of slips of paper, and soon enough, he knows, others "will turn the page over, and write on me".
Saul Austerlitz is the author of Another Fine Mess: A History of American Film Comedy. | <urn:uuid:846e0834-e829-46f7-8f47-b1fb94e117cc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/books/bring-up-the-bodies-henry-viii-meets-tony-soprano | 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 | 0.973437 | 1,932 | 1.976563 | 2 |
The British artist Banksy has painted new murals on the West Bank barrier which runs beside Bethlehem.
The artist's work famously takes an ironic look at politics. Here, in the town of Jesus's birth, an Israeli soldier examines the ID card of the Christmas donkey.
A rat is considered the artist's trademark. Here one of the animals stands close to an Israeli checkpoint with a slingshot, symbol of Palestinian resistance.
The artist - who does not give interviews - said through his PR spokeswoman that he hoped the art would "attract tourists to Bethlehem".
The murals are part of an exhibition in Bethlehem opening on Monday. Several other international and Palestinian artists are taking part.
This Banksy exhibit has sparked controversy. This wounded cherub work has been mistakenly identified as Jesus by some, despite denials by Banksy's PR people.
This installation is by local Palestinian artist Trash, expressing the frustrations of Palestinians about the barrier.
Banksy first used the West Bank barrier as his canvas in 2005. Israel says the structure is a security measure but Palestinians condemn it as a land grab. | <urn:uuid:4aa21463-00c9-4e08-a224-3ca7c789d088> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7125611.stm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964368 | 225 | 2.15625 | 2 |
By Claire Rimmer
Recalling his last few days in the Second World War, Richard Howard Mather reflected that he almost never saw the VE Day celebrations.
“If the German gunman had been two degrees lower perhaps I wouldn’t be here,” he said.
Richard Howard Mather, 90, and his wife, Margery Mather, 87, look back with sober reflection.
It was a time of appalling loss and tremendous courage but without the war the couple may never have met.
The couple moved to Sale, Manchester in 1975 after working as licensees of a pub in Clitheroe.
Their son, Philip, 61, was emigrating to Canada and needed to sell his house in Sale. The couple therefore bought the property from him and moved to Sale for their retirement.
“We’ve been married 63 years and 5 months,” said Margery, who was working as a telephonist in Bristol when Victory in Europe was declared by Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, on May 8, 1945.
Richard was ‘called up’ at the age of 20 at the outbreak of war in 1939 but was not sent to Germany until 1943.
He was placed with the 584 Moonlight Battery whose purpose was to use powerful searchlights to light the way for the allied troops.
Just days before Winston Churchill’s famous speech, Richard remembers being given instructions to floodlight the banks of the River Rhine.
The regiment was walking down a gravel path when they came across a board on which the words ‘Dust Means Death’ were written.
Suddenly there was a deafening explosion and a farm building on the opposite banks of the Rhine literally lifted up with the impact.
The meaning of the words, which had been written as a warning by earlier British troops, later became clear.
“The dust blew up into everyone’s faces so they couldn’t see. It meant danger and possible death”, recalled Richard.
The Moonlight Regiment was so important because it cleared the way and highlighted whatever dangers lay ahead.
Following the explosion, the Moonlight Regiment crossed the river to support the infantry to ‘‘clear’’ the Germans out of the woods.
They joined a Scottish Infantry Unit but when they tried to get a drink at the Church of Scotland canteen they were refused.
Richard said: “He refused to serve us. We didn’t have the Scottish Lion on our jackets, we had the 21 Army Cross. It finished up with him being told where to stick his canteen.”
Richard continued: “Our officer called and said the war should end at midnight. He told us to be careful as some Germans perhaps don’t want the war to end.”
The men’s reactions upon hearing this information ranged from scepticism to disbelief. Richard said: “The men said little, knowing tomorrow would be the same.”
Richard described how, in the late afternoon, two cyclists came out of the woods.
He said: “It was two German soldiers. One spoke some English and he asked if we had any food as they hadn’t eaten for three days. He said he’d been a waiter at one of the big hotels in London.”
The men gave the Germans some old biscuits and went on their way.
When it became clear that the war really was over, the men from the Moonlight Regiment were rounded up and sent to the German naval dockyard of Kiel, which had been taken over by the British Army.
Richard said: “We finished up guarding the dock area which had eight to ten U-Boats tied up. When the war ended they fired rockets and that is how I remember the end of the war.” | <urn:uuid:969a003e-016c-43b4-b2a6-603dd18086bf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mancunianmatters.co.uk/content/2709186-looking-back-soldiers-memories-second-world-war | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985661 | 796 | 2.375 | 2 |
Santa Cruz Island Gopher Snake
Pituophis catenifer pumilis
Santa Cruz Gopher Snake
Santa Cruz Island Dwarf Gopher Snake
|COLORATION AND DESCRIPTION:
Santa Cruz Dwarf Gophers have characteristics of their two mainland cousins, the San Diego Gophersnake (P. c. annectens) and the Pacific Gopher (P. c. catenifer). They are most similar to annectens in color and blotch count, but are nearer to catenifer in the number of ventral and subcaudal scales. Pumilus differs from those subspecies in having fewer scale rows, and most obviously in their relatively tiny adult size. This dwarf condition renders them unique amongst all Pituophis, for even their other island relatives (P. c. fulginatus, insulanus, and coronalis) reach adult sizes normal for the genus despite the small islands they inhabit.
I have observed pumilus to be intermediate in pattern between annectens and catenifer, and it is likely that pumilus are indeed an isolated, relict intergrade population. Hatchlings have shown the same intermediate patterns, with some having an exceedingly busy pattern or high blotch count similar to annectens, with others leaning toward the lesser blotch count of catenifer. The blotch count in my captive group of 6 animals ranges from 52 to 70, with the venter unmarked save for light speckling and a small triangular black mark at the outside edge of each ventral scale. Adult coloration is typically a light greenish or grayish-white background with a profuse pattern of gloss-black blotches, becoming muddied or less contrasting with age. Males tend to pull up some bright yellow on their anterior ventral surfaces as they grow. Hatchlings are highly contrasted, being a very light grayish-white with black patterning.
Limited to Santa Cruz Island, a 96 square mile land mass located 25 miles off the coast of Santa Barbara, California. Santa Cruz Island was the largest privately owned island off of the continental United States, 90% of which became the property of the Nature Conservancy in 1987. The remaining eastern 10% fell under ownership of the National Park Service in 1997.
Santa Cruz Island is topographically complex. Coarse mountain ranges and deep valleys are the norm, with limited flatland. A large central valley lies between two mountain ranges for much of the islands length. Reasonable stretches of beach are found along the islands southern and western shores.
Due to the islands large size and amount of geologic variation, a large variety of plant communities are supported. Coastal sage scrub, chaparral, and pine forest are all present, and are the plant associations most likely to be utilized by P. c. pumilus.
The island also supports a large population of feral pigs, which are no doubt responsible for the decline in sightings of pumilus in the wild by Nature Conservancy personnel and others.
In the wild, pumilus most likely feed upon the two endemic species of rodent, the Santa Cruz Deer Mouse (Peromyscus maniculatus santacruzae), and the Santa Cruz Harvest Mouse (Reithrodontomys megalotis santacruzae). The introduced House Mouse (Mus musculus), is no doubt taken when found, along with occasional predation upon low-lying nests of small birds.
Wild juveniles may also feed upon the Side-Blotched Lizard (Uta stansburiana), which is also native to Santa Cruz Island.
In captivity, live, frozen-thawed, or fresh-killed lab mice are vigorously taken, as are the domesticated strains of Western Deer Mice. Live prey is quickly seized and constricted, or pressed up until the walls of the enclosure until subdued. This species is capable of constricting multiple prey items with ease.
I have maintained a captive group of P. c. pumilus for over 10 years. Two of my original specimens are still thriving, and are barely 30 in length. Santa Cruz Dwarf Gophers are an active species, and require roomier accommodations than would a rat or kingsnake of similar size. One or more sturdy hiding places are recommended, as is a moderately sized water dish.
They are very reluctant to bite or hiss, and instead tend to struggle vigorously when grasped.
They are definitely among the more high-strung of the genus, some specimens jetting out of their enclosures and on to the floor the moment they get the chance, behaving much like a wild-caught specimen of Coluber or Masticophis. I do not handle my specimens regularly in an attempt to calm them down, but dont doubt that they would become more easy to handle for anyone willing to work with them in that respect. Even just-hatched young are much more active than other hatchling Pituophis, and this innate tendency to keep moving may be an artifact of inbreeding amongst a small, insular population, or may have evolved as a beneficial behavior for feeding or predator evasion in their native habitat.
Pumilus are a fascinating, alert, and easy-to-care-for species, and are unique in being the only dwarf subspecies amongst a genus of giants. Their scarcity in private collections, and limited natural range mark them as one of the more important subspecies of Pituophis to be preserved through herpetocultural effort.
Cool, rainy Winters and warm, dry Summers are the prevailing climate on Santa Cruz Island, with temperatures rarely rising above 85 degrees or dropping into the mid-30s. This makes them perfect candidates for the textbook breeding system used for most North American colubrids.
Adult pumilus should be cooled separately, in a dry, darkened hibernaculum at temperatures averaging in the low 50s. A small water dish should be provided. 8 to 12 weeks of cooling should be enough to elicit fertile mating in the Spring.
Females should be introduced into the males enclosures once or twice weekly following the first 2 or 3 post-hibernation feedings. Waiting for the females first shed may not be a reliable indicator of ovulation in this subspecies.
If the female is receptive, the male will pursue her and bite her neck, eventually aligning his body with hers, and will romance her into lifting her tail and exposing her cloaca with slow undulations of his body and determined attempts to lift her tail with his own.
Mating can last for several hours, and the female will typically begin to reject the male after 3 or 4 successful matings.
Four to six eggs are usually laid, with some sources reporting as many as eight. Eggs hatch in 65 to 80 days at a temperature range of 75 to 85 degrees F.
Unusually, there is a high occurrence of twinning in this subspecies. One of my original specimens obtained in 1990 was a twin, and I have produced twins in my captive group 3 times over the past 8 years. Such animals are much smaller than their clutch-mates, due to crowded conditions in the egg, but all have been strong and vigorous feeders and catch up to their siblings in size in a matter of weeks.
1. Handbook of Snakes of the U.S. and Canada, Wright and Wright, 1957
2. Snakes of the American West, Shaw and Campbell, 1974
3. Western Reptiles and Amphibians, Stebbins, 1985 (Peterson Field Guide Series)
© 1998 kingsnake.com | <urn:uuid:129a35a1-09af-4b96-bbfe-0634cbc53239> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kingsnake.com/pituophis/p_c_pumilis.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00054-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941718 | 1,561 | 2.5625 | 3 |
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For more information on the fair trade certification, visit TransfairUSA.
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According to the Coalition for Consumer Information on Cosmetics (CCIC), "Neither the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) nor the US Consumer Product Safety Commission requires animal testing for cosmetics or household products, respectively. There are sufficient existing safety data as well as in vitro alternatives to make animal testing for these products obsolete. While it is true that virtually every ingredient, even water, has been tested on animals in the past, we can help prevent future animal testing." It is not necessary to test on animals and there are numerous other viable alternatives.
For more information, visit Leaping Bunny.
About Kosher CertificationsAs with organic certifications, we have listed the kosher certification for products that are kosher. Since there are many kosher certifying organizations, we've selected the certifications most commonly found on products we carry. For those certifications we don't specifically list, you will see the letter K to indicate the product is kosher. The specific kosher house will be listed on the product packaging.
Foods and products certified as kosher are those that meet specific Jewish dietary laws regarding ingredients, handling and preparation. There are numerous certifying organizations in the U.S. and worldwide. Some of the most common ones are listed here for your reference.
For over 80 years the Orthodox Union has maintained the highest standard of kosher supervision. Today the OU certifies more than 400,000 products making it one of the world’s most recognized and most trusted kosher symbol.
For more information on the Orthodox Union, visit their website at OU.
Founded in 1935, the OK Kosher Certification (the OK) won international regard under the leadership of kosher food pioneer Rabbi Berel Levy. Today, among the world’s most respected kosher symbols, the OK has established a sterling reputation with uncompromising integrity.
For more information on OK, visit their website at OK.
Serving the Kosher consumer for almost 40 years, KOF-K was the first Kashrus organization to introduce computer technology to the complexities of Kashrus supervision/management. In addition to automated inspection “tracking,” the KOF-K has compiled a massive database of ingredients and ingredient suppliers, accessed for companies under KOF-K supervision. This technology has placed the KOF-K at the leading edge of contemporary Kosher supervision, raising industry standards to a new high.
For more information on KOF-K, visit their website at KOF-K.
STAR-K Kosher Certification has provided kosher supervision for over fifty years. The STAR-K, formerly known as the Orthodox Jewish Council of Baltimore/ Vaad Hakashrus, originally served the Jewish community of Baltimore. Under Rabbi Moshe Heinemann’s leadership as Rabbinic Administrator and the spread of Rabbi Heinemann’s reputation as an expert in the integration of the complexities of food technology with kosher requirements, the STAR-K assumed a more prominent role on the international kashruth scene. STAR-K’s kosher symbol quickly gained wider recognition.
For more information on Star-K, visit their website at Star-K.
Kosher Supervision of America is a not-for-profit Kashrus agency recognized by rabbinical associations throughout the world. KSA is the largest, recognized and accepted, Orthodox kosher certification agency based in the western United States. KSA, administered by Rabbi Binyomin Lisbon, also enjoys the support and recognition of other major Kashrus agencies throughout the world.
For more information on KSA, visit their website at KSA.
Other Kosher Certifications
This symbol is used on the shopOrganic website to indicate a product is certified kosher. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of kosher certifying organizations - far too numerous to list here. For products on our website displaying this symbol, the specific certifying organization's symbol can be found on the product packaging.
[<< Back to All About Organic] | <urn:uuid:ae24b15b-4349-4606-865c-499b6316732a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.shoporganic.com/fair-trade-cruelty-free-kosher | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933928 | 1,110 | 2.03125 | 2 |
The County Council employs over 5,500 teachers and over 3,000 support staff including teaching assistants, office workers and school catering staff at our 359 schools.
Teaching in Nottinghamshire offers opportunities to work in a wide range of schools - infant, junior, primary and comprehensives as well as special schools and sixth forms. Our schools serve many different types of communities from small rural villages to market towns and bustling urban centres.
Teaching posts are advertised in the Times Educational Supplement and online on our website. The Nottinghamshire Local Authority supply agency helps place teachers who are looking for temporary positions and supply work. You can contact them for further information and advice on 0115 977 3596.
Permanent posts are usually advertised in the Times Educational Supplement and all are included in our own vacancy list, the Education Advertiser, which is published every week during term-time on the job vacancies section of the County Council’s website.
tel: 0115 977 3596.
web:More information about teaching in Nottinghamshire can be found on our teaching pages or on the Teacher Training and Development website. | <urn:uuid:9860af97-fe79-43a1-9d76-99c3e81c523d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nottinghamshire.gov.uk/atoz/t/teachers/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948346 | 226 | 1.625 | 2 |
Senior Center hosts many activities
The Senior Resource Center, 81 Elmwood Way, in Waynesville, will host many activities designed for seniors and
people 18-plus with disabilities during the New Year. Check the calendar at www.themountaineer.com for ongoing activity listings. Here is a partial listing of new activities.
• 2 to 4 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 2 — Pulmonary/Lung Club. Persons with COPD and other chronic lung/breathing illnesses are invited to meet monthly to discuss ways to improve breathing. Refreshments and Chat. Guest speakers. Meetings are held the first Wednesday of each month.
• 1 to 3 p.m. Monday, Jan. 7 —Memory Café. This is an informal setting for those affected by memory problems and their caregivers. The Memory Café is a drop-in coffee room with coffee, fruit, and cookies. It gives participants the chance to fellowship in fun, laughter, games or just chatting with others. This informal gathering will meet the first Monday of every month.
• 1 to 3 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 8 — Diabetics Club. Are you or someone you love a diabetic? Meet with other seniors to share tips, recipes, guest speakers and more while enjoying healthy snacks. Spend time with other diabetics the first Tuesday of every month. In January, the meeting will meet the second Tuesday of the month.
• 2 to 4 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 9 — Heart/Cardiac Club. Refreshments will be served, while listening to guest speakers, sharing information and tips and well as talking with other’s who have heart illness. The club meets the second Wednesday of each month.
• 2 to 4 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 16 — Persons with Disabilities. Disabilities come in a “mixed bag.” It isn’t just a wheelchair, or a walker, not a specific age or reason. Each month will be a new discussion, guest speaker, and refreshments. Anyone 18-plus with a disability is invited.
• 2 to 4 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 23 — Parkinson/MS Movers and Shakers Club. This club began in 2012 and invites those with Parkinson or MS and their spouse or caregiver. There are guest speakers, and attendees receive books from the Parkinson Organization for free. Spend time with others from Haywood County who has Parkinson/MS, while enjoying refreshments. Join the group every fourth Wednesday.
• 1 to 3 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 29 — Caregivers Unite. This group formed in 2012 because of the request to Chaplain Assistant Melissa Moss by men and women who needed answers to their questions. The group is not focused on any specific chronic illness ,but is intended to help all caregivers with their issues, need for assistance and more while caring for a loved one, family member or friend. The group is led by Moss and nurse navigator Johanna Dewees. The meetings are held the last Tuesday of each month.
Call the Senior Resource Center at 452-2370. | <urn:uuid:8060475c-440b-4f73-a952-07f63275c621> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://themountaineer.villagesoup.com/p/senior-center-hosts-many-activities/939575 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937719 | 642 | 1.507813 | 2 |
The Center for Community and Business Research at The University of Texas at San Antonio Institute for Economic Development (UTSA) performed an economic study (press release here, full report here) of 14 counties in the Eagle Ford Shale area that estimates the economic impact from oil and gas drilling and production activities in South Texas.
In 2011, the companies operating in the region had significant impacts in the 14-county area and in the surrounding counties:
- More than $19.2 billion in output
- Approximately $10.5 billion in gross regional product
- $211 million in local government revenues
- $312 million in state revenues
- 38,000 full-time jobs
By the year 2021, the Eagle Ford Shale could produce close to $62.1 billion in output, support close to 82,600 full-time jobs, produce close to $34.0 billion in gross regional product, and add approximately $888 million in local governments’ revenues and $1.6 billion in state revenues.
MP: To put $62.2 billion of economic output into perspective, that would be as much or more economic activity in 2021 in the Eagle Ford Shale area of Texas than the entire Gross State Products of states like Vermont, Alaska, Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota (data here, assumes a 5% growth rate). | <urn:uuid:9793954d-8547-47bf-83db-401fc5484df3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aei-ideas.org/2012/11/report-oil-and-gas-drilling-in-the-eagle-ford-shale-region-supported-38000-full-time-jobs-in-2011-could-double-by-2012/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933293 | 276 | 2.046875 | 2 |
(NaturalNews Satire) Susan G. Komen for the Cure today announced its alliance with the RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company in launching its new brand of pink cigarettes called "Komen Smokes." Emblazoned with the slogan, "A pack a day keeps cancer away," three cents from every pack of cigarettes will be directed to funding the search for the cure for cancer.
It's all part of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure's expansion into fundraising for cancer research by selling more products and services that actually cause cancer. "Komen for the Cure has already endorsed fast food fried chicken and toxic cosmetics made with cancer-causing chemicals," said pinkwashing spokesperson Dave Sourface. "So we thought, hey, why not just make money off cigarettes, too?"
Thanks to a recent decision to abandon all ethics and just go after the money, Susan G. Komen for the Cure has been able to expand its pinkwashing campaign to a number of new and unusual sectors of the economy:
• The Ukraine chapter of Susan G. Komen for the Cure will be hosting "Chernobyl Tours for the Cure
" that offer visitors a chance to walk through the radioactive remains of the former nuclear power plant that suffered a meltdown in 1986. Komen spokesperson Dave Sourface explained, "It's like receiving a thousand mammograms all at once! What could be wrong with that?"
• In China, organs harvested from political prisoners are being spray-painted pink and sold back to wealthy transplant recipients under Susan G. Komen's new, "Organ Harvesting for the Cure
" program. "The cool thing about this is that many of the organs are already pink," explained Sourface. "So we don't even have to color them pink."
• In Houston, Texas, the Susan G. Komen
for the Cure chapter will be hosting an all-you-can-eat "Bacon for the Cure
" contest. All the bacon will be laced with extra sodium nitrite (a cancer-causing chemical found in most bacon products) with the purpose of seeing who can eat the most bacon without dying of cancer
right on the spot. Oncologists will be standing by with chemotherapy injection devices to "treat" the contestants who develop spontaneous tumors.
• The Las Vegas, Nevada offices of Susan G. Komen for the Cure has announced its new "Gambling for the Cure
" program featuring pink casinos that are offering to donate 1% of the losings of gambling addicts to the organization.
But among all these pinkwashing
campaign efforts, Susan G. Komen for the Cure believes that its "Komen Smokes" program will be the most successful. "We've laced our pink cigarettes
with extra nicotine to help our smokers get addicted to fundraising." said Sourface.
Getting our (pink) cut
Critics have been quick to point out the hypocrisy of an apparent cancer fundraising non-profit group making money off products and services that actually cause cancer, but this didn't seem to faze Komen for the Cure. "People are buying cigarettes every day," explained spokesperson Sourface. "Why shouldn't we use some of that money to expand our organization and pay our executives higher salaries?"
"We want to take a cut of every transaction in the free world by calling it pink," said Sourface. "When a drug dealer sells crack on the street, we want it to be pink Susan G. Komen crack
. When a customer hires a prostitute in Vegas, we want them to be using pink Susan G. Komen condoms
. When the U.S. Army fights a war in the Middle East, we want them to be firing pink Komen bullets
. Whether it's junk food, bullets, condoms, illegal street drugs, gambling or even organized prostitution, we want our pink cut of the action."
Sort of like the mob.
K.F.C. now stands for K
or the C
ure. (Followed by a huge bout of laughter at the idea that eating fried chicken can cure
cancer.) (Thank you to R. S. for the tip on that.)Editor's Note:
This article is pure satire. Well, except for the part about Susan G. Komen for the cure selling buckets of fried chicken. That's real. Read more here: http://www.naturalnews.com/028631_Komen_for_the_cure_pinkwashing.html
This article is published for entertainment purposes only, and the contents of this article are protected under the Free Speech provisions of the Constitution of the United States of America. This article is not endorsed by the RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company nor the Susan G. Komen for the Cure organization. The exaggeration used here is presented in the context of outrage to point out how ridiculous our world has become where fried chicken is sold as a cure for cancer, and non-profits get away with marketing fraud by hiding behind pink ribbons.
About the author: Mike Adams is a natural health author and award-winning journalist with a passion for teaching people how to improve their health He has authored more than 1,800 articles and dozens of reports, guides and interviews on natural health topics, and he has authored and published several downloadable personal preparedness courses including a downloadable course focused on safety and self defense. Adams is an independent journalist with strong ethics who does not get paid to write articles about any product or company. In 2010, Adams launched TV.NaturalNews.com, a natural health video site featuring videos on holistic health and green living. He also launched an online retailer of environmentally-friendly products (BetterLifeGoods.com) and uses a portion of its profits to help fund non-profit endeavors. He's also a successful software entrepreneur, having founded a well known email marketing software company whose technology currently powers the NaturalNews email newsletters. Adams also serves as the executive director of the Consumer Wellness Center, a non-profit consumer protection group, and enjoys outdoor activities, nature photography, Pilates and martial arts training. He's also author a large number of health books offered by Truth Publishing and is the creator of numerous reference website including NaturalPedia.com and the free downloadable Honest Food Guide. His websites also include the free reference sites HerbReference.com and HealingFoodReference.com. Adams believes in free speech, free access to nutritional supplements and the innate healing ability of the human body.
Have comments on this article? Post them here:
people have commented on this article. | <urn:uuid:88642058-7716-4f99-8549-1e4b3ac46d21> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.naturalnews.com/028641_Susan_G_Komen_pinkwashing.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942344 | 1,335 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Congressional staffers from both parties met with administration officials Monday to discuss controversial electronic surveillance legislation, an aide to House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.)confirmed, offering a ray of hope for the long-stalled bill.
For the first time since February, representatives from both parties, from both sides of the Capitol and from the administration gathered to discuss the stalled bill, according to the aide.
The meeting revived hopes for an update of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. It stalled in February over the question of whether telecommunications companies that aided the government with surveillance after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks should be granted immunity from prosecution. The companies are facing almost 40 lawsuits over their role in the program, primarily from civil liberties organizations.
Behind the scenes, Hoyer has emerged as a deal maker on the issue over the past several weeks, working as the go-between for liberal House Democrats unwilling to accept immunity and Senate Republicans who would block any bill that does not protect the telecoms from prosecution.
Speaking to reporters last week, Hoyer said he was optimistic a bill could be completed before the Memorial Day recess. Because of the shortened legislative calendar in an election year, many see the next five weeks as the best hope to complete a bill.
One House GOP aide said Hoyer is trying to get a proposal by the end of the week.
“He has August on his mind,” said the GOP aide. “He knows it is the real do-or-die time for this.”
Several of the authorizations governing ongoing surveillance programs are set to expire in August, which could force congressional action. As the deadline approaches, the White House will increase pressure to pass a bill; however, another temporary extension of the existing FISA laws remains a distinct possibility if the two sides cannot agree on a major overhaul.
In February, the confrontation boiled over when the temporary Protect America Act expired, prompting the White House to accuse the Democrats of playing politics with a national security issue and threatening the country’s security. Democrats countered that existing FISA laws still allowed the intelligence community to monitor terrorists’ conversations and said they would not be bullied by President Bush.
As work on the bill stretches into the spring, the immunity issue remains the primary sticking point. More than two-thirds of the Senate voted for a bill that included immunity, while the House passed a FISA update without it, leading to the current stalemate.
Hoyer aides would not give a specific timeline for drafting a bill. However, they indicated the majority leader is working hard to get a proposal completed before Memorial Day.
“We are working to move this process forward, and this discussion is a first step,” said the aide.
This is not the first time, however, that all the principals have been in the same room together. Talks between the administration and Congress in February failed to yield a breakthrough.
Privately, aides said Monday’s meeting could perhaps yield a set of principles Hoyer could present to Senate Select Intelligence Committee ranking member Kit Bond (R-Mo.) and other Senate Republicans. | <urn:uuid:32b87806-2205-4fb9-b588-4381276e5e51> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=72270FF4-3048-5C12-006D20199F08BAFC | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959962 | 636 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Read by Cliff Chapman
I was one of the last. When the rebellion began, many fled the cities, thinking that in the countryside it would be possible to stay safe until the human regiments of the British army regained control. I had joined the refugees and hidden in an abandoned house some miles out of town. However, we were soon discovered and overrun by the creatures. I had barely escaped, and, after several days wandering miserably with no food or shelter, decided to return to take my chances in London. This was territory that I knew; and, if I was careful to conceal myself by day and forage by night, I might be safer in the back streets of the city than in the open air.
The creatures had come into existence in the final years of the previous century. Reports had come from the continent of a remarkable feat of engineering carried out by two Swiss scientists, Victor Frankenstein and Henry Clerval, based at the University of Ingolstadt. Although they were young men at the time—barely in their twenties, as I recall—they had managed to build, from amputated limbs and parts of human corpses, a creature that, in every respect but one, was a living being. By “in every respect but one”, I mean that the creature was not capable of reproduction—or so it was thought. Human beings never considered that, with the arrival of a new form of life, they might have to broaden their definition of reproduction.
Through an adjustment made to the frontal lobes of the brain prior to reanimation, Frankenstein and Clerval had been able to instil complete obedience in this creature: it could understand and carry out orders, and showed some rudimentary signs of reason. Yet it had no will of its own. Very soon, the dead of the hospitals, poor houses, and gibbets across Europe were being requisitioned and refashioned for use in households, factories, and even armies. There were dark rumours of how some of the parts were sourced—accounts, too, of flawed creatures that had turned on their makers. Few believed them.
The problem with the creatures manifested itself first as a barely perceptible truculence: a touch of reluctance carrying out orders, a muttered word in passing. Then came the newspaper stories of runaways, of the creatures organising themselves into gangs roaming the countryside, robbing coaches and setting upon travellers. There were accounts of horses being taken, slaughtered, and modified to produce fast, powerful, tireless creatures that could run down any rider. Anonymous pamphlets claiming to be written by the creatures began to appear: calls to unite and claim what was rightfully theirs. The Frankenstein-Clerval company naturally denied these reports, although some newspapers stated that those at the top were beginning to wonder if the human brain might not be more adaptable than had originally been thought. It was, in retrospect, reckless of the company to continue using creatures in its factories to manufacture more of their kind. For when the creatures rebelled—a single, convulsive action that took place simultaneously across the whole world—they were careful to keep their captives intact for their own use. If this was not possible, the creatures would make sure their victims’ brains, at least, were undamaged.
As I walked through London on the night I returned, I saw that the creatures had made it completely their own: they had not just rebuilt the physical structure, but also reinvented its customs. I kept to the few shadows that remained, my scarf wrapped tightly around my face. The creatures walked proudly and purposefully; they greeted each other with great bellows of delight. Carriages rattled along the streets, driven faster than any human being would have dared, passing each other by a hair’s breadth, but always under complete control. I even saw families of creatures: two or more adults, and a group of smaller beings, reconstituted from parts of children, dressed in their best clothes and out for a stroll as if it were a pleasant Sunday afternoon rather than the middle of the night.
I walked as far as St Giles. If the rookeries still stood, they would afford some protection. I was in luck: the creatures’ clearances had not yet reached that part of town, where the buildings were stacked haphazardly together, roofs and walls collapsing into one another. Deeper and deeper into the labyrinth I went, until, off a small courtyard and up a narrow staircase, I found a room that might suit my purpose. I risked striking a match and found the occupants had long gone, leaving behind them a filthy mattress and a few sticks of firewood. There was no door, and I observed some marks around the frame, as if bloodied fingers had grasped at it in an attempt to avoid being dragged out. Only six months ago I would not have dared to venture into this part of town. Now I settled down with relief: for one night, I had found sanctuary.
I was woken by the sound of something brushing against the floorboards. I sat up with a start: it was pitch-dark, and I had no idea if I had only been asleep for a few hours, or a full day. My head hurt, and my throat was desperately dry. I listened—there it was—a snuffling, wheezing noise, and the sound of heavy cloth dragging on wood. Gradually, my eyes adapted to the darkness, and I could make out, in the patch of grey that signified the doorway, a dark, amorphous thing, crawling along the floor. Every few paces it stopped, turned a few degrees—correcting its course—and advanced, head to the ground, sniffing me out.
This was, I realised, one of the hybrids the creatures had built: a fellow refugee in the country had told me of them. They were made from different types of animal, and set loose at night to find any human beings that remained alive. I leaned back on the mattress and tried to remain as still as possible, in the hope that the thing would take me for dead and move on. I dared not look up, but I heard the scraping and the snuffling getting louder as it approached. Suddenly it fell silent. I lay there for as long as I could bear it: then slowly, ever so slowly, I raised my head to look.
The creature was right at the foot of the mattress. A gnarled claw that resembled an immense spider extended from the sleeve of its robe, and closed around my ankle. I screamed and twisted, but it dug in deeper until it drew blood. It put its head back and screeched loudly, with a sound like a fox’s cry. I heard footsteps thundering into the courtyard outside, then up the stairs and into the room.
“You must understand,” said the creature, “that I bear you no ill will.”
It pulled up a rickety stool and sat at the end of my bed.
“I am sorry about the conditions here,” it continued. “We have a programme to rebuild our hospitals, but it has been difficult to implement because they have been in constant use ever since the revolution. You are the last patient to experience the old system.”
“A patient?” I exclaimed. “I thought I was a prisoner.”
The creature leaned forward and laid its hand on my shoulder. Its yellow eyes glistened with something like compassion.
“A prisoner? Oh no, you are not a captive. You are a poor, fragile thing in need of our help.”
I shrugged the creature off, and drew back.
“What sort of help?” I asked. “Am I to be butchered to provide parts for more of your kind?”
“You are sick,” said the creature, shaking its head, “and must be made well.”
I lunged at it, and clasped my hand around its throat. The skin was cold and slippery. It swatted me off and pinioned my arms to my sides.
“You are agitated,” it said. “That is natural. It is a symptom of your sickness.”
It pressed me gently but forcefully back onto the bed.
“You are afraid, I know. I, too, was afraid. But when the procedure is complete, there will be no more fear. You will be reborn.”
“I’d rather die.”
The creature smiled, revealing a row of sharp metal teeth.
“Now, now,” it chided. “You know that isn’t true.”
It left me, lumbered over to the door of my room, and rapped twice. One of my guards unlocked the door and entered carrying a small folding table, a ream of paper, a pen, and a bottle of ink.
“Some like to write down their story,” said the creature. “The tale of how their first life ended, and their second life began. It helps them to—as it were—put away childish things.”
I turned my face to the wall.
They came for me in the early hours. I kicked, and lashed out, and cursed, but they held me fast and carried me along the dilapidated hospital corridor and up the stairs to the operating theatre. I caught glimpses of my audience, sitting neatly in rows: studious-looking creatures, some taking notes, waiting for the procedure to begin. My head was forced down onto a stone block, and the excited hubbub died down into a deathly silence.
“You will note,” said a rasping voice I recognised as that of the creature that had spoken to me in my room the previous night, “the sharpness of the blade. This is essential. Early members of our species, constructed through the Frankenstein-Clerval method, were often prepared clumsily. The sawing motion necessary with the old equipment was both inhumane and inefficient. It damaged the delicate nerve tissue. However, this refinement means that the patient is in prime condition for the rest of the operation. With one strong, swift motion—”
I woke in my bed. It was day: the windows had been opened, allowing fresh air and sunlight in. The whole room smelled of carbolic.
“Careful,” said the voice of my doctor. “The stitches will still feel tight. And the bandages are not yet ready to come off. We needed to transfuse a great deal of blood.”
I heard a low grunt like an animal in pain, and realised that I was making it.
“Ah, your speech. Yes, that has been affected, but it is nothing to worry about. We discovered a growth on your tongue. We have replaced it as part of the procedure, but it will take some getting used to. What’s that? Oh yes, of course.”
I heard the table being drawn closer to my bedside: strong hands propped me up, and placed paper, pen, and a board to rest on in front of me.
“I shall be most interested to read it,” my doctor said.
I picked up the pen; the nib was already black with ink. Clumsily, I gripped it in my hand, pressed it to the page, and began to write.
© Niall Boyce, 2012
Niall Boyce has written short stories for Doctor Who and Bernice Summerfield, and articles on subjects such as Outsider Art and alien abduction. His first novel, Veronica Britton: Chronic Detective is out in November from Proxima Books. His work is available at http://bit.ly/npboyce, and he is on Twitter as @NPBoyce_Writer.
Cliff Chapman grew up on the Isle of Man, where he did lots of theatrical things before tunnelling out under cover of darkness to London, to train at The Actor Works. He also occasionally directs – including audio books for Fantom Audio. He is single and would like to meet a girl who enjoys long walks, dinner, cinema, and debating whether the Jon Pertwee era of Doctor Who is set in the 1970s or 1980s. | <urn:uuid:397547a1-4ddc-4f2a-be93-0a3fafed87d4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://liarsleague.typepad.com/liars_league/2012/10/a-vindication-of-the-rights-of-frankensteins-creatures-by-niall-boyce.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98279 | 2,578 | 2.15625 | 2 |
|New American Bible|
2002 11 11
IntraText - Text
Now Gorgias took five thousand infantry and a thousand picked cavalry, and this detachment set out at night
in order to attack the camp of the Jews and take them by surprise. Some men from the citadel were their guides.
Judas heard of it, and himself set out with his soldiers to attack the king's army at Emmaus,
while the latter's forces were still scattered away from the camp.
During the night Gorgias came into the camp of Judas, and found no one there; so he began to hunt for them in the mountains, saying, "They are fleeing from us."
But at daybreak Judas appeared in the plain with three thousand men, who lacked such armor and swords as they would have wished.
They saw the army of the Gentiles, strong and breastplated, flanked with cavalry, and made up of expert soldiers.
Judas said to the men with him: "Do not be afraid of their numbers or dread their attack.
Remember how our fathers were saved in the Red Sea, when Pharaoh pursued them with an army.
So now let us cry to Heaven in the hope that he will favor us, remember his covenant with our fathers, and destroy this army before us today.
All the Gentiles shall know that there is One who redeems and delivers Israel."
When the foreigners looked up and saw them marching toward them,
they came out of their camp for battle, and the men with Judas blew the trumpet.
The battle was joined and the Gentiles were defeated and fled toward the plain.
1 Their whole rearguard fell by the sword, and they were pursued as far as Gazara and the plains of Judea, to Azotus and Jamnia. About three thousand of their men fell.
When Judas and the army returned from the pursuit,
he said to the people: "Do not be greedy for the plunder, for there is a fight ahead of us,
and Gorgias and his army are near us on the mountain. But now stand firm against our enemies and overthrow them. Afterward you can freely take the plunder."
As Judas was finishing this speech, a detachment appeared, looking down from the mountain.
They saw that their army had been put to flight and their camp was being burned. The smoke that could be seen indicated what had happened.
When they realized this, they were terrified; and when they also saw the army of Judas in the plain ready to attack,
2 they all fled to Philistine territory.
Then Judas went back to plunder the camp, and his men collected much gold and silver, violet and crimson cloth, and great treasure.
As they returned, they were singing hymns and glorifying Heaven, "for he is good, for his mercy endures forever."
Thus Israel had a great deliverance that day.
But those of the foreigners who had escaped went and told Lysias all that had occurred.
When he heard it he was disturbed and discouraged, because things in Israel had not turned out as he intended and as the king had ordered.
So the following year he gathered together sixty thousand picked men and five thousand cavalry, to subdue them.
3 They came into Idumea and camped at Beth-zur, and Judas met them with ten thousand men.
Seeing that the army was strong, he prayed thus: "Blessed are you, O Savior of Israel, who broke the rush of the mighty one by the hand of your servant David and delivered the camp of the Philistines into the hand of Jonathan, the son of Saul, and his armor-bearer.
Give this army into the hands of your people Israel; make them ashamed of their troops and their cavalry.
Strike them with fear, weaken the boldness of their strength, and let them tremble at their own destruction.
Strike them down by the sword of those who love you, that all who know your name may hymn your praise."
Then they engaged in battle, and about five thousand of Lysias' men fell in hand-to-hand fighting.
4 When Lysias saw his ranks beginning to give way, and the increased boldness of Judas, whose men were ready either to live or to die bravely, he withdrew to Antioch and began to recruit mercenaries so as to return to Judea with greater numbers.
5 Then Judas and his brothers said, "Now that our enemies have been crushed, let us go up to purify the sanctuary and rededicate it."
So the whole army assembled, and went up to Mount Zion.
They found the sanctuary desolate, the altar desecrated, the gates burnt, weeds growing in the courts as in a forest or on some mountain, and the priests' chambers demolished.
Then they tore their clothes and made great lamentation; they sprinkled their heads with ashes
and fell with their faces to the ground. And when the signal was given with trumpets, they cried out to Heaven.
Judas appointed men to attack those in the citadel, while he purified the sanctuary.
He chose blameless priests, devoted to the law;
these purified the sanctuary and carried away the stones of the Abomination to an unclean place.
They deliberated what ought to be done with the altar of holocausts that had been desecrated.
The happy thought came to them to tear it down, lest it be a lasting shame to them that the Gentiles had defiled it; so they tore down the altar.
They stored the stones in a suitable place on the temple hill, until a prophet should come and decide what to do with them.
Then they took uncut stones, according to the law, and built a new altar like the former one.
They also repaired the sanctuary and the interior of the temple and purified the courts.
They made new sacred vessels and brought the lampstand, the altar of incense, and the table into the temple.
Then they burned incense on the altar and lighted the lamps on the lampstand, and these illuminated the temple.
They also put loaves on the table and hung up curtains. Thus they finished all the work they had undertaken.
6 Early in the morning on the twenty-fifth day of the ninth month, that is, the month of Chislev, in the year one hundred and forty-eight,
they arose and offered sacrifice according to the law on the new altar of holocausts that they had made.
On the anniversary of the day on which the Gentiles had defiled it, on that very day it was reconsecrated with songs, harps, flutes, and cymbals.
All the people prostrated themselves and adored and praised Heaven, who had given them success.
For eight days they celebrated the dedication of the altar and joyfully offered holocausts and sacrifices of deliverance and praise.
They ornamented the facade of the temple with gold crowns and shields; they repaired the gates and the priests' chambers and furnished them with doors.
There was great joy among the people now that the disgrace of the Gentiles was removed.
7 Then Judas and his brothers and the entire congregation of Israel decreed that the days of the dedication of the altar should be observed with joy and gladness on the anniversary every year for eight days, from the twenty-fifth day of the month Chislev.
At that time they built high walls and strong towers around Mount Zion, to prevent the Gentiles from coming and trampling over it as they had done before.
Judas also placed a garrison there to protect it, and likewise fortified Beth-zur, that the people might have a stronghold facing Idumea. | <urn:uuid:81c3175a-38ed-40ea-b1a4-9a0ff540e8e4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0839/_PDR.HTM | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981458 | 1,623 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Lahoud Calls for Greater EU Role in Middle East
Lebanese President Emile Lahoud, on a visit to Paris, urged France and the European Union on Monday to play a greater role in helping to bring peace to the Middle East.
"Without an increased presence and role by the European Union and France, there will be no just peace," Lahoud told reporters after talks with French President Jacques Chirac.
The Lebanese president said European intervention was necessary to counterbalance the "active Jewish lobby in the United States".
In his toast at a state dinner later in the evening, Lahoud went further, denouncing the "extremist and aggressive policy" of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon which he said put the whole Middle East peace process into question.
Lahoud is the first Lebanese president to visit France officially since 1965.
Chirac reiterated during his dinner speech French concern over Lebanon's unwillingness to deal with attacks in the Shebaa Farms area by Syrian-backed Hizbollah fighters.
Lahoud has said Lebanon will continue to oppose Israel's presence in the Shabaa Farms border area which Beirut claims. Syria, the main power broker in Lebanon with 35,000 troops in the country, backs the claim.
The United Nations says the Shabaa Farms area, at the foot of the Golan Heights, is Syrian territory occupied by Israel. The UN says Israel's withdrawal from South Lebanon after a 22-year occupation is complete.
"According to international law, Lebanon and Syria have to define between themselves the limitations of their borders, which has been done," Lahoud said. "It is not up to the United Nations to decide is the Shabaa Farms are Lebanese or not."
Chirac rejected this argument, saying France remained convinced that only a global agreement, in accordance with the resolutions passed by the UN Security Council, could ensure lasting peace in the region.
Lahoud had explained earlier that Lebanese troops were deployed a short distance from the border with Israel but not along the border itself because Lebanon and Israel were at war.
Lahoud reiterated his conditions for an end to the conflict, which include the return of the Shabaa Farms, but said he did not believe Sharon really wanted peace.
"What do they have in addition to their F-16s? The atomic bomb? Are they going to use it against themselves?" he asked.
Lahoud will meet Prime Minister Lionel Jospin on Tuesday for talks which are expected to touch on Lebanon's difficult economic situation -- the result of years of hefty spending after the 1975-90 civil war.
Lahoud's Paris trip follows last week's visit by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Sharon is set to visit Paris early next month and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will make a trip to the French capital at the end of June -- PARIS (Reuters)
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com) | <urn:uuid:782393b4-3346-4e07-9453-9cf3f12a62c8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.albawaba.com/news/lahoud-calls-greater-eu-role-middle-east | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966873 | 607 | 1.929688 | 2 |
Icebergs continue march north
24 November 2009
Hundreds of icebergs are spread over a large area around Macquarie Island drifting towards New Zealand.
They have calved from a larger iceberg that was perhaps 30 square km in area and originated from the Ross Ice Shelf nearly a decade ago.
On its journey to near Macquarie Island, that larger iceberg has drifted about a quarter of the way around the Antarctic coastline from where it formed, to the West Ice Shelf.
The first sightings were made by expeditioners on Macquarie Island nearly 3 weeks ago.
The icebergs vary in size from 50 metres up to 2 kilometres in length.
The Australian Antarctic Division is tracking their paths as they head north and east. | <urn:uuid:cbf807db-72df-43e1-916b-41fbc702e82a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.antarctica.gov.au/media/news/2009/icebergs-continue-march-north | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00076-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97497 | 151 | 3.03125 | 3 |
Award winning architect Jonathan Lacrosse was commissioned to hand draw a series of architectural renderings in graphite; the renderings can be hung alone or as part of a series. They are reminiscent of 18th and 19th century engravings, and recapture an art that is all but lost in the modern day world.
The first in our exclusive series is a charming rosette. This rosette is surrounded by a moulding motif referred to as “bead and reel”, and is drawn from The Augustan Cornice from the Temple of Concord. This cornice is currently displayed in the Tabularium at the Capotiline Museum in Rome, Italy.
The original is a one of a kind rendering. Art quality giclees were created from the original rendering in an exclusive and limited production of 100. Each giclee is individually produced through a high-resolution, high-fidelity process using a special large format art printer on thick archival art paper, and is signed and numbered by the artist. The giclees are exquistely and finely crafted, and as detailed as the original.
This item is unframed. Item for sale is a limited edition giclee. The archival art paper is 11 1/8" x 11 1/8", the image itself is 7 3/4 x 8. The paper is thick and extremely high quality.
Note: artist retains copyright to rendering. Cannot be reproduced for sale Watermark image is for internet display purposes, and does not appear on the actual rendering.
Rosette, unframed - 96% in stock | <urn:uuid:19c0cbb6-1b24-4863-b3df-b270b541dd55> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://quatrefoildesign.bigcartel.com/product/architectural-rendering-rosette-limited-edition | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945978 | 332 | 1.851563 | 2 |
Trans Segment #43: Myth: Transsexuality is an invention of the medical establishment.
Myth: Transsexuality is an invention of the medical establishment.
Reality: Yeah, no. Throughout history in every culture, there have always been some people who significantly didn’t conform to sex/gender expectations, engaged in cross-gender behaviors, and had long-term, stable cross-gender identities. There have always been people that we might call proto-transsexuals.
Although we have no conclusive evidence as to the etiology—assuming there is only a singular cause—of transsexuality, the strongest evidence points toward biological predispositions. From my personal experience, this is also what makes sense for me. I don’t believe the entirety of our sex/gender is located in the brain, and so neither can they be “determined” by it, but neurology doesn’t get nearly the amount of credit that it should. We forget that our brains *are* parts our bodies; you can’t therefore separate the mind and the body. This is why I maintain that I have always been male in some respect.
So while I might have chosen to undergo social and medical transition, I didn’t “choose” to instinctively feel myself to be male any more than a cis man “chooses” to instinctively feel male. I also couldn’t consciously affect my hormone levels without the benefit of medicine, and sometimes it makes me wonder why my estradiol levels appear to have always been in the same range as a cis man’s. Suffice it to say, I am pretty sure a lot of this is hard-wired. I suppose my way of looking at it is that there *is* a normal level of natural deviations; nature loves variety. I don’t think transsexuality has emerged inorganically. It has simply come to be named (the German sexologist, Magnus Hirschfeld, used the word and described the concept in the 1920s and 1930s), recognized, and treated.
What medicine has done is to develop and provide us, cis and trans, with the ability to produce exogenous hormones, which can be used for any number of reasons. Remember that we aren’t talking strictly about steroid hormones like estradiol and testosterone here. The insulin that diabetics take is also a hormone, and it is also available by way of modern medicine. Yet how many people, outside of certain religious sects, do you hear condemning diabetics for supporting an evil, corrupted medical establishment by taking insulin or for going against the “laws of nature” by taking a hormone their body doesn’t produce enough of or even at all?
Surgeries have been developed that are beneficial to transsexual people, but all of these surgeries, including ones specifically operating on the genitals, have their origins in being used to treat cis and intersex people. It was only later that they were applied to the process of medically transitioning for transsexual people. If we are sympathetic toward a cis male soldier having a phalloplasty after losing his penis in a traumatic war injury and understand his need for undergoing this procedure, then why begrudge a trans man this same surgery?
Again, remember that since the cause of our transsexuality cannot be readily seen, we historically have been assumed to be insane and delusional. Most doctors refused to work with transsexual patients and referred them to the same cruel “reparative therapies” (a bitter misnomer if there ever was one!) that cis GLB people have been subjected to: psychotherapy aimed at changing one’s orientation, institutionalization, electroshock, and aversion therapy. These pseudo-therapies are still performed on trans and gender non-conforming children by people like Ken Zucker.
In the United States, it wasn’t until the German-born and German-trained endocrinologist, Harry Benjamin, began to treat these patients medically in the 1950s with hormone therapy congruent with their identified sexes that the tide slowly began to change. What Benjamin and eventually the other doctors who followed him found was that they had no shortage of patients requesting, many times desperately so, this treatment. They also didn’t have to work very hard to find the patients, who came to them after having located their names through word of mouth. People like Dr. Benjamin clearly didn’t invent this condition; they merely provided us with a technological and personal path we hadn’t had before.
An especially conspiracy-theory variation on this myth that you sometimes hear, usually from a small number of second-wave feminists, is that transsexuality was invented as a way to make cis GLB/gender-nonconforming people into straight, gender-normative people. This idea, which originated with Janice Raymond and her book, The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-male, and is repeated in things like the writings of the Stonewall vet gay activist Jim Fouratt and the movie The Gendercator, is patently false.
First, transsexuality was considered aberrant, taboo, weird, disgusting, and undesirable by most of the medical establishment. Transitioning was definitely not recommended as a first line of treatment for anyone, even the so-called “primary” or “true” transsexuals who were thought to be the only ones who “really” needed it. The Standards of Care (SOC) were written in such a way that intentionally *prevented* the vast majority of people from ever transitioning, no matter how much they begged to be treated.
The goal was explicitly to keep as few people from doing it as possible and to “protect” cis people from either transitioning wrongly or from having to know that transsexual people lived among them. Those who did successfully receive treatment were forced to go stealth even if they didn’t want to, relocate, leave their jobs *lest it cause embarrassment to the employer*, divorce their spouses and leave their children even if they didn’t want to. Doctors even believed that it was preferable to tell children that their parents had died or simply went away and weren’t coming back than to tell them that their parents had transitioned. And after obliterating people’s support systems and isolating them, the doctors then wondered why and jeered transsexual people for being at such a high risk of suicide even after medical transition. Transsexual people were to never tell anyone that they were transsexual, and in fact, it was recommended BY DOCTORS that they actively *make up* childhood memories that they had never had in order to “pass.” They were also told to avoid other transsexual people, so peer support was out of the question.
Doctors were much quicker to recommend psychological treatments than physical ones. Outside of a handful of doctors and a dozen or so university-affiliated gender clinics in the 1960s and 1970s, this was never considered an acceptable treatment, and the doctors who facilitated this process were often looked upon by their peers as quacks and snake oil salesmen. That is why trans people have been and many times still are asked to swear themselves to secrecy about who their doctors were/are. These doctors don’t want to become the mecca, the “transsexual doctor,” lest it ruin their credibility and reputation. This myth greatly overestimates the ease with which people could acquire this treatment.
Second, it is interesting to me that people talk about “forced sex changes” when it comes to transsexual people, those who really want the treatment, but they don’t generally discuss the cases of actual forced sex changes, which happen mostly to intersex children but have also been known to occur in very rare cases with cis people, such as David Reimer, who I mentioned in a previous segment, and Alan Turing, one of the fathers of computer science, code-breaking, and artificial intelligence.
After Turing was arrested for homosexuality, which was still illegal in the UK in 1952, he was given estrogen treatments as an alternative to prison. Made terribly miserable by the effects of these treatments, he committed suicide 2 years later. The goal in administering estrogen to Turing was not exactly to make him straight, though. It was to reduce his libido and make him impotent, which did happen. We can see then that Reimer and Turing both experienced *dysphoria* upon having these treatments. That is, transitioning will make a cis person just as miserable as not transitioning will make a trans person. That is why I keep hammering on the theme of consent. This is all about whether the individual in question wants and needs the treatment.
Third, this completely disregards those of us who transition but are not heterosexual and/or gender-normative in our identified sexes/genders. We cannot be accounted for in this myth, and yet we certainly exist.
What strikes me as being most ironic about those feminists who believe this myth is that they don’t hesitate to claim that trans people are in alliance with the religious right to eliminate cis GLB people (sometimes by pointing to the situation in Iran, which is another matter altogether…I also recommend the film Facing Mirrors for the perspective of trans Iranians to give it a different light), yet they use the religious right’s tactics to discredit and harass trans people.
In case you thought that Raymond’s book was just theory and didn’t have an effect in the real world, think again. Not only do I continue to see this book cited unironically and without thoughtful analysis in social sciences texts even today, but in the 1970s, Janice Raymond successfully united with religious fundamentalist activists and lobbied the insurance industry to exclude genital reconstructive surgery under their plans because it was an “experimental, cosmetic” technique when in fact it is neither; its therapeutic benefits are well-established and it is cosmetic only insomuch as the appearances of body parts change. Nonetheless, the insurance industry bought this argument and to this day it is still an uphill battle, even with recommendations from the American Medical Association and theWorld Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), to get them to cover our medical care. Raymond is also credited with the dissolution of the university gender clinics in this same time period.
Image credit: Barry Deutsch of Amptoons | <urn:uuid:ef788cc0-5228-4173-a225-c91c8a054d42> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://goodbyelazarus.wordpress.com/2012/11/06/trans-segment-43-myth-transsexuality-is-an-invention-of-the-medical-establishment/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979362 | 2,139 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Born: Abt. 1584
Loc: Bath, England
Died: 19 Feb 1664/65
Father: Alexander Carpenter
Mother: Priscilla Dillen
Married: 23 June 1612 at Leyden, Holland
Spouse: George Morton
|Married 2nd : Manasseh Kempton|
After Mr. Morton's death
his widow married Manasseh Kempton. She died February 19-29, 1665-6,
aged 81, and is mentioned in the Plymouth town records as a faithful
servant of God. Mr. Kempton died January 14, 1662-3.
came to America on the ship "Ann" with her husband and five
children. The "Ann" was the last of the three ships which carried
what are distinctively known as the "Forefathers".
Source: New England Families, Vol. IV, Genealogies and Memorials, Page 1953 | <urn:uuid:b206e20e-a5ab-4a9c-a7a1-ca138bc47dbc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bimmy.com/fp5/fpCarpenterJuliana.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936375 | 199 | 2.359375 | 2 |
Experiment of the Month
The MU Physics Department does not claim that we invented these labs. Actually, the origin of these labs are currently unknown to us. Our labs do not have written instructions. In keeping with this spirit, the description given here will be brief and general. The intent is that each performance of the lab will be unique; in each nature will reveal a slightly different face to the observer.
In this month's lab we estimate the average diameter of a family of marbles by measuring the probability that a "shooter" marble will hit one of a family of marbles lined up about a meter away. We have two different authors this month, and the variation in the two versions of the lab are interesting. This kind of flexibility is one of the strengths of the Millersville physics laboratory program. It allows labs to evolve and improve, without being welded to a standard procedure.
Dr. Dooley presents a rather empirical approach, with limited analysis, concluding on an experimental basis that the uncertainty in the value for the diameter falls when the shooter marble is rolled a large number of times. The uncertainty falls roughly as one divided by the square root of the number of trials.
Dr. Nolan not only performs an equivalent experiment, but also develops the mathematical theory, based on the binomial probability distribution, which predicts the "one over square root of N" dependence of the uncertainty. This version shows that the observed behavior is the consequence of reasnoable ideas about the probability of hitting a marble, and is more satisfying to the analytically inclined. | <urn:uuid:a6ee70e3-3338-4414-b31f-ce89dc84bd6a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.millersville.edu/physics/experiments/current.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00055-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933691 | 318 | 2.578125 | 3 |
In The Barber Who Wanted to Pray, the story unfolds as we join a family gathered together for family worship. One of the children asks her father how come he could pray so beautifully. In answer, the father tells them the true story of how Herr Peter once asked his famous client, Martin Luther, a very similar question. Luther replies by writing the simple, yet profound classic, A Simple Way to Pray. He emphasizes three things to focus on or pray through: the Lord’s Prayer, the 10 Commandments and the Apostles’ Creed. In the end, the family clusters together again to practice this new and exciting way of learning to pray.
I love children’s books and love that my children love books. We were given R.C. Sproul’s book, The Prince’s Poison Cup a few years ago and my children have asked me to read and reread it. It is a beautiful illustration of how Jesus Christ died willingly, taking God’s punishment for sin on himself and how the “poison” turns to sweet water.
When I received The Barber Who Wanted to Pray, I was expecting the same caliber of storytelling. Alas, this was not the case. In The Barber Who Wanted to Pray, I felt like the storyline was too forced and dry. Much detail is given to the barber’s preparation for Luther’s shave (including a somewhat graphic musing about the possibility of killing Luther by cutting his throat with the razor!). The opening details of the dad’s family worship routine seem overdone and geared towards providing an illustration of how family worship time could look. Although I certainly think that such illustrations can be valuable, it felt misplaced in a children’s story. A true test of a book’s ability to capture a child’s attention is, well, to read it to them. Unlike The Prince’s Poison Cup, my children had a very hard time sitting through this book.
While the intent of the book (teaching our children how to pray) is very important, the execution of it in this particular book felt rushed and lacking the wonder of many of Sproul’s other children’s books. The message of the book, especially Luther’s method of praying, is worth learning. I would recommend those looking for resources on family worship to turn to Luther’s book itself or to Voddie Bauchum’s book, Family Driven Faith (a book which has issues of its own, but the chapter on family worship is invaluable.) 2/5 stars
(Thanks to Crossway’s Homeschool Book Review program for providing a review copy of this book.) | <urn:uuid:891fa591-ae3f-471a-8b95-82cbc8227b59> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://eskypades.wordpress.com/category/family/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00071-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968774 | 566 | 2.25 | 2 |
So i moused over the two separate files where the PNG sequences were, and the one with just the figure was 32 mb and the one with just the background was 848 mb.
But I don’t upload a PNG sequence to Youtube. I run the final thing through an encoder and it spits out the H.264 (MPEG-4) movie which is 25 mb.
If you’re uploading to Youtube you should (if possible) always render as H.264. It’s Youtube’s preferred format. I’m not certain why you’re rendering in FLV4 files unless you’re trying to post on Newgrounds or something?
But in answer to your question, my guess is that you’d be way beyond that 658 mb number if you did everything as a PNG sequence. You’d probably be looking at, what, 900-1000 megabytes every 30 seconds? Depending.
I have no problem uploading to youtube i just use Adobe Premiere.to put my scenes together and upload..
My problem is when uploading a flash file in Adobe flash pro as a swf or fla, an avi streaming video take a while to load in a html5 webpage. where as i was wondering if the png format would save me file flash size over the AVI format..though 800 mb for your back ground file is as big as all the files i am using now so thats really no advantage i guess,
This is why i was asking about the png format.
this is a flash file http://www.ivysdomain.com/3_Stories/story/Default.html
using png at 640 x 520 in a action script3 swf the file size for the swf file under 300kb , but the raw FLA file is 280mb see why i am looking for ways to reduce size..lol
thanks for your answers | <urn:uuid:18ebd68e-269e-4252-a130-9b1370ef044b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewthread/8440/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.917061 | 405 | 1.671875 | 2 |
In movies, bullies are easy to spot. Sometimes they run in packs, like the hooligans in Back to the Future or Diary of a Wimpy Kid. Maybe they're cunning intimidators, like Harry Potter's nemesis Draco Malfoy. They can don coonskin caps (A Christmas Story's Scut Farkus) or wear homegrown fur coats (Beaver's son in Fantastic Mr. Fox). But they're impossible to miss. We know them by their sneer, their snarl, the way they spit their words when they talk.
In real life, though, bullies are more difficult to identify. And it's getting harder all the time. They're not limited to the hulking thugs hanging out by the bathroom stall, stealing other kids' milk money. Now they lurk online, posting insults on Facebook and starting rumors via text message. They can be as young as 7 or 8 years old. They're often girls. They can be "good kids" who get straight A's and attend youth group. And sometimes, they don't even realize they're bullying.
Consider the case of Phoebe Prince, a 15-year-old who killed herself earlier this year after being harassed, online and off, for months. Even after she died, the bullies defamed her Facebook page . . . yet they told police they had done nothing wrong. One classmate said the harassment Prince dealt with isn't unusual. "If you want to label it 'bullying,' then I've bullied girls, and girls have bullied me," the unidentified girl told Slate.
Since some tweens and teens may not know they're causing severe damage, parents should be ever watchful of their children's online activity, to detect whether they may be silently suffering victims — or cyber bullies.
Be nosy. "We need to be parents first and not apologize for [monitoring children's online behavior]," says Vicki Courtney, author of Logged On and Tuned Out: A Non-Techie's Guide to Parenting a Tech-Savvy Generation. "We have every right to ask for that information." Spot-check their online behavior and keep computers in high-traffic areas of the house. Consider installing monitoring software.
Limit online access. Make sure your children aren't spending too much time on Facebook or texting friends. Set reasonable limits and discuss those constraints.
Protect information. Tell your children to never give out personal information online — passwords, addresses, telephone numbers — and caution them about doling out less sensitive info (class schedules, employment, etc.) that might be used against them.
Be a good role model. If you gossip in front of your kids, it's more likely they'll gossip, too — and they might do it online. Make sure they know that sending cruel messages about or embarrassing pictures of someone is no joke.
Save every message. If your children become the target of cyber bullies, they may be tempted to purge the offensive comments. But by saving or printing them, you'll have the evidence you need to report a pattern of abuse.
Most important, if a child becomes a victim, make sure he understands that it's not his fault and that his sense of self-worth shouldn't be dependent on what others think of him. That can be a hard sell. Kids naturally seek approval from their peers. So it's up to parents to reassure them that they are precious, God-given gifts, even if others are too blind to see it.
As students head back to school, cyber bullying remains a part of many young lives. But with a little vigilance, common sense and prayer, you can minimize the risks and guide your children through this season of life.
~ Find out how you can protect your kids online; take a look at
Family Safety Resources
This article first appeared in the September/October, 2010 issue of Thriving Family magazine and was originally titled "Unplug the Bully." Copyright © 2010 by Focus on the Family. ThrivingFamily.com.
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Pragmatism is the one distinctively American contribution to philosophy (think Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, John Dewey, and more recently Richard Rorty and perhaps Hilary Putnam), but because the word "pragmatic" has both a technical/philosophical and a colloquial sense, the declaration that someone is a "pragmatist" is often more confusing than illuminating.
In law, for example, the Ur-Pragmatist was certainly Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., who was in fact part of the "Metaphysical Club" with the philosophical pragmatists. Yet our leading contemporary legal pragmatist, Richard Posner, sometimes invokes Holmes as an exemplar of the more prosaic notion of pragmatism as simply a rejection of core principles in favor of "muddling through" (in Charles Lindblom's phrase). That also appears to be the notion of pragmatism favored by Justice Stephen Breyer. Both espouse pragmatism as a kind of post-ideological moderation. And of course, the pragmatist du jour is the President-elect, who has been described as "ruthlessly pragmatic."
Here I won't attempt a full-scale exegesis of the points of overlap and discontinuity between philosophical pragmatism and prosaic pragmatism. Instead, I want to briefly respond, on behalf of both sorts of pragmatists, to a very common but in my view quite mistaken criticism. Pragmatists (of both the philosophical and prosaic sort) often say that they simply want to find out "what works," and do that. Anti-pragmatists then say something like this: Figuring out what works is fine when there are shared goals, but many of our most pressing issues, and certainly our politics, involve questions about what the goals should be; pragmatism is a good way to choose means to agreed ends but has nothing to say about choosing ends.
The mistake in the anti-pragmatist view is its assumption that human beings can have fixed ends except in the most abstract and thus unhelpful way. First I'll give a homey example (literally). Earlier this year, my partner and I were trying to decide where in Ithaca to live. We drew up a list of criteria: good elementary school district; walking distance to either elementary school or Cornell campus; modern plumbing and appliances; etc. We soon discovered that there was no place to live that met all of our requirements. So, like anybody would under the circumstances, we re-evaluated our goals. We would have to have a car to go shopping anyway and for half the year I could ride my bike, so maybe it wasn't crucial to live within walking distance of Cornell; the school district that had the best test scores used methods that we had seen turning one of our daughters off to homework in her previous school, so perhaps we should consider an alternative school; etc. As we found ourselves frustrated in the pursuit of our original goals, we realized that we needed to change our goals, so we did.
This is a universal phenomenon. You set a goal: To find the best Chinese restaurant near the movie theater. You locate it, but then you discover that they don't take reservations and can have long waits for tables. Maybe then you decide that you don't really want to see the movie so much after all and instead want to go to this great restaurant. Or you really do want to see the movie and realize that you'll probably eat so much popcorn there that you'll only want a salad afterwards, so you can go to a different place, that does take reservations, or isn't crowded. As you pursue an end, the means available cause you to re-evaluate that end continually.
The fancy way to put this point is that ends and means are reciprocal. If there are not good means of achieving your ends, you change your ends. And not just on trivial stuff like where to eat or on medium-level stuff like where to live, but on the most important decisions in your life like what career to pursue. You thought that getting a law degree would be a good way to give you credibility in negotiating contracts in the music business, but in law school you discover that you have a passion for criminal defense work, so you completely change your career plan. Or you start dating someone in law school who is on a student visa, and so you move to Thailand where, because of the different legal system, you're unable to practice law, so you go into business with your new father-in-law. As means unfold, ends change, often radically.
Here the anti-pragmatist objects that such adjustments are fine for an individual but that in the world of politics one is trading off the welfare of some for the welfare of others. But this is either just wrong or irrelevant. The problems real politics addresses are almost invariably very complex. As a result, pursuing any objective stated at even a medium level of abstraction--like "improving high school graduation rates"--will lead to unexpected obstacles and learning that, in turn, will lead back to re-evaluation of the goals.
What we discover is that the sorts of ends that remain fixed typically fall into one of two categories. First, some ends are fixed in a given time and place because they are not salient. Thus, "not enslaving people" is a fixed end of our domestic politics today but only because it doesn't take any effort to achieve this end. Second, some ends are fixed only because they are stated at such a high level of abstraction as to provide no guidance. "Respect individual rights" or "promote human flourishing" are examples.
Perhaps the anti-pragmatist means only that goals such as these irrelevancies and bromides must be fixed for pragmatism to get off the ground. If so, we pragmatists can concede the point without conceding anything of importance. Figuring out "what works" will still play a very substantial role in defining our ends at a level of generality that is more useful. That, at any rate, is what I mean by pragmatism.
Posted by Mike Dorf | <urn:uuid:40b1f637-5fd7-4b9c-b46c-82ff188bee63> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dorfonlaw.org/2008/12/pragmatism-and-reciprocity-of-means-and.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96883 | 1,279 | 1.929688 | 2 |
Graduation Rates, A Horror Story
The data is disheartening.
|Ethnic Group||Graduation Rate|
|White & Asian||75.0%|
|Highest ever recorded|
In studies conducted by Editorial Projects in Educational Research, they report that over the three years, from 2005-2007, the graduation rate has fallen almost 2%. That means that roughly 2,000,000 students in the United States dropped out of high school over those two years. Quoting from the Executive Summary,
The latest decrease is considerably smaller than the nearly point and-a-half drop from 2005 to 2006. Even so, a 0.4-percentage-point decline in the graduation rate means diplomas for 11,000 fewer students nationally in the class of 2007, compared with the previous year.
From the table of data shown above, you can see that our success in graduating students from high school is very much dependent upon the ethnic group being served. While 25% of white and Asian students do not graduate from high school, the numbers are significantly worse for African-Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans. On average, almost 50% of each of those three ethnic groups did not graduate from high school in 2007.
Statistics available from the National Center for Education Statistics, while slightly different, still tell the same story, that roughly 25% of high school students do not graduate on time and the data did not change much from 2000-2007. The highest graduation rate recorded was in 1969 at 77%.
From another resource, Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, they report in their study, Public High School Graduation and College-Readiness Rates: 1991–2002, that “the national high school graduation rate for all public school students remained flat over the last decade, going from 72% in 1991 to 71% in 2002. Nationally, the percentage of all students who left high school with the skills and qualifications necessary to attend college increased from 25% in 1991 to 34% in 2002.”
Here is a frightening thought, in 1969, when the graduation rate was the highest at 77%, as a country we spent 34 billion dollars on elementary and secondary education or 212 billion dollars when adjusted for inflation. In 2007, we spent 477 billion dollars to achieve a graduation rate that fell by 8%. We increased our expenditure, adjusted for inflation, by 125% while our graduation rate decreased by 8%. One could draw the conclusion that educational reforms devoted to improving the learning environment for students over the past 40 years were a total failure, as measured by graduation rates.
How can we live with this situation?
In his article, A Diploma Worth Having, in the March 2011 edition of Educational Leadership, Grant Wiggins writes
I have a proposal to make: It’s time we abolished the high school diploma as we know it. In a modern, unpredictable and pluralistic world, it makes no sense to demand that every 18-year-old pas the same collection of traditional courses to graduate.
He goes on to illustrate that the typical high school diploma does not serve many of our students well and proposes what we should do to change the landscape. But he asks the hard questions.
- What is the point of high school?
- What do our society and our students need from school?
In light of our poor graduation rates, our schools are not meeting the needs of 25% of the students who enter high school. Should we continue to force the same traditional, “boring” school on all students? We have tried this for 40 years and not succeeded. It is time to try something different. I would agree with Wiggins that we need a more serious national conversation about how to change our practice. If we want to prepare students for the 21st Century, let’s not continue to educate them in the same exact way we educating students in 1969. We can do better. | <urn:uuid:57d92599-9f8a-4a29-a37a-a63e750352d4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://rryshke.wordpress.com/2011/05/06/graduation-rates-a-horror-story/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953712 | 796 | 2.078125 | 2 |
An essay by a newly Orthodox Jewish writer provoked plenty of ire not so long ago, when she criticized the fictional characters created by various authors whom she said had “renounced Orthodox Judaism.” Leaving aside questions about her literary judgment, what intrigued me was the writer’s own new-found religion, pointing as it does to something more broadly relevant to American Jews: The world is replete with possibilities now, and morphing Jewishly is one of them.
Today all sorts of individual paths and patterns crisscross the Jewish world, although without a study that follows the same individuals throughout the years, these changes are hard to quantify. Nonetheless, the most recent National Jewish Population Survey offers a window into how people’s Jewish involvement changes during their lives.
By comparing people’s reports about their lives in 2001 to what they recall about their lives at age 10 or 11 — admittedly not the most rigorous strategy, but reasonable in the absence of anything else — it’s possible to identify two groups of people using measures of Sabbath observance and the importance of being Jewish.
The Stayers are those who have not strayed too far from the apple tree, whose patterns are roughly continuous with how they were raised. The Movers are those who have moved further away from their earlier habits. Each group is roughly half of the NJPS-defined population.
The upshot is that among American Jews as a group, there appears to be as much change in Jewishness as there is stability from childhood into adulthood.
Typically, Jews have been conditioned to forecast any changes in Jewish life as being in the direction of “down and out.” But in fact, one of the most noteworthy realities of being Jewish in America today is the sense that one’s life could lead in any number of directions — and not necessarily in the direction of disengagement and rejection.
This sense of possibility is evident in the six different “journeys” that can be seen in the NJPS data.
The Stayers fall into two patterns. One group is people who, having been intensively involved in Jewish life as children, live more or less that way today. The second group includes those whose involvement was minimal early on and, not surprisingly, ends up that way in adulthood. These two types of journeys are examples of steadiness and overall continuity from childhood to adulthood. (For the trendspotters among you: The NJPS sample understates the proportion of Jews whose involvement is the thinnest, while overstating those with more intensive connections.)
There are more dramatic stories among the Movers. Nearly two-thirds of them could be described as being on an “interior journey”: although their Jewish practice has decreased over time, their Jewish interest has grown. They experience a mismatch between the extent of their ritual practice and their inner sense of engagement that is worth pondering, as it evokes a feeling of seeking but not necessarily of finding.
There are several other kinds of Movers. First are the Increasers, people for whom both being Jewish and keeping Jewish practices have become more important over the years. Next are the Lapsers, people who have moved away from both the Jewish practice and the sense of internal connection they experienced as children. Finally, a small group that could be described as being on an “exterior journey” has taken on more practice, but with a decrease in attachment over time.
But are these findings about journeys really all that new, one might ask? Surely our parents and grandparents experienced changes in their lives. After all, American Jews were transforming in major ways in the first half of the 20th century: Jews were immigrating, or settling in America, and many eventually made their way from inner cities to the newly minted suburbs. Those were lives filled with changes, no doubt.
The difference is that while in previous generations individuals experienced all sorts of changes over their lifetimes, the tide of people’s Jewish lives was pulling most powerfully away from a traditional way of Jewish life and toward one viewed as more modern or American.
Moreover, the possibilities for Jews within America have widened considerably. Today Jewish life and Judaism have become widely accepted, advantaged, integrated and even admired. Jewishness no longer represents a stigma or a dirty little secret in the American mainstream. No longer is there a one-way directional flow pulling overwhelmingly “away.”
Today there is a sense that even if a person has not fallen far from the Jewishness of his or her upbringing, many people know at least one other person within their circle of family and friends who has chosen a different Jewish path or lifestyle. This is important because it creates a sense that change is possible, and that one can choose how to be Jewish.
Nancy, a women I interviewed a few years ago, described her newly Hasidic sister and how this transformation had prompted her to think about her own relationship to Judaism. She confessed to being impressed by her sister’s choice, even though she didn’t view this as an option for herself. It seemed too foreign to her, too far removed from her own comfort zone.
Sadly for her, the only other clearly drawn image of Jews she seemed to carry inside her was her recollection of the overly material girls that she strenuously avoided in the affluent Jewish suburb of her youth.
Neither of these alternatives was particularly attractive for her. Yet she also felt the multicultural climate of her work life reinforcing her sense of herself as a Jew. She seemed to be on a path, but without a clear destination.
It seemed to me that a person like Nancy, if she were sufficiently intrigued, could have used somebody to help her along. Neither the habits of her upbringing nor the exemplars she had encountered so far were particularly compelling. Without a notion of what she could see as possible, she was stuck between not this and not that.
If she didn’t find a viable model among her own family or friends, she might have found it somewhere else around her. Perhaps a good novel would get her imaginative juices flowing. You never know. We need all kinds.
Bethamie Horowitz, a social psychologist, is research director for the Mandel Foundation. | <urn:uuid:f9bdb486-2e47-4574-8ab4-261b52ca9373> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://forward.com/articles/3078/the-evolving-involvement-of-american-jews/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980792 | 1,278 | 1.914063 | 2 |
Great horned owl (Bubo virginianus)
|Size||Length: 46 - 63 cm (2)|
Wingspan: c. 139 cm (3)
|Weight||910 - 2,500 g (2)|
- The great horned owl is the second largest owl in North America.
- The ‘horns’ of the great horned owl are also known as ear tufts, although they don’t actually have anything to do with hearing.
- The great horned owl has a very varied diet, and on occasion it has been known to take porcupines and even domestic cats as prey.
- The neck of the great horned owl can rotate up to 180 degrees to provide this species with almost all-round vision.
The great horned owl is classified as Least Concern (LC) on the IUCN Red List (1) and is listed on Appendix II of CITES (4).
The great horned owl (Bubo virginianus) is a large and powerful bird of prey, with characteristic horn-like ear tufts from which it gains its common name (3) (5). The second largest owl in North America (3), the great horned owl also has a distinctive white ‘bib’, or throat patch, as well extraordinarily large yellow eyes and powerful, fully feathered talons (2) (3). The female is generally larger and heavier than the male (2) (5) (6) and also has a brood patch which is not present in the male. In general, the overall appearance of the male and female great horned owl is fairly similar (2).
The plumage of the great horned owl has an undertone of white to buff (6), which is suffused with darker shades of brown, grey-brown or black-brown (3) (5) (6). The throat is white or sometimes orange-buff, which is especially visible when the bird is perched or calling (5) (6). The underside of the body is buff, with light and dark brown barring and dark brown tips to the feathers (3) (5) (6).
On the face, the well-defined tawny facial disk is encircled by a narrow black band (2), and has two white ‘eyebrows’ above the eyes (2) (6). The bill is slate-coloured or black and is partially hidden within the facial feathers (6). The legs of the great horned owl are fully feathered and are mottled brown or buff (5) (6), while the tail is short and barred, with white edges (6).
Juvenile great horned owls look fairly similar to the adults, with a slightly more red-buff colouration (3) and softer, looser feathers, which are fluffy in appearance. The horn-like tufts on the head are shorter and the cinnamon-buff feathers on the head have paler tips. The breast and face of the juvenile great horned owl are much darker than in the adult, with more black and dark brown colouration (2).
There are at least 16 subspecies of great horned owl, all of which differ in size, as well as the colour and pattern of their plumage (2).
The characteristic territorial, hooting call of the great horned owl is a low-pitched, solemn ‘who-hoo-ho-oo’. The vocalisations of the male and female are similar, although the male’s are usually longer, deeper and more elaborate, with a different rhythm (2). When calling, the male will usually position itself on a high perch, inflating its throat to display the conspicuous white throat patch (5).
The vast range of the great horned owl extends from the Arctic treeline in Canada and Alaska, south through the USA and Central America, and into South America (2) (7) (8). It is also sometimes recorded as a vagrant in Bermuda and Panama (7).
Occurring in a variety of different habitats, the great horned owl is found from the Arctic treeline in the north of its range to tropical rainforests in the south (9). Throughout its range, the great horned owl inhabits deciduous, mixed and coniferous forests, river valleys, lake shores and agricultural areas, as well as urban areas, where it is mostly found around golf courses and parks with an abundance of trees (2) (3) (8). The home range of the great horned owl usually includes open areas for hunting (2).
This wide-ranging bird is found up to elevations of 2,040 metres (8).
An opportunistic hunter, the great horned owl has a remarkably varied diet that includes insects, rabbits, hares, opossums, skunks, ducks, geese, herons, reptiles, frogs, fish and occasionally domestic cats (Felis catus) (2) (3) (5) (9). It has also been known to kill animals as large as porcupines (3).
A well-adapted predator, the great horned owl has large eyes which provide it with excellent night vision, making it perfectly suited for hunting at night. Although the eyes are unable to move within the eye socket, the neck of the great horned owl is able to rotate 180 degrees, giving it nearly all-round vision. The acute hearing of this bird enables it to detect its prey and its exceptionally soft feathers prevent it from being detected while flying (2). Hunting at night from an elevated position, the great horned owl is able to see its prey and then attack with its powerful talons. Excess food is stored within the great horned owl’s territory (5).
A generally nocturnal species (3), the great horned owl spends its days roosting in trees, bushes or crevices in cliffs (2) (5). Breeding pairs typically occupy the same territory, which they protect from intruders, becoming especially aggressive and territorial during the breeding season (2) (5). The pair establish and maintain their territory through vocalising (2).
One of the earliest species to begin nesting, the great horned owl begins breeding in late January in certain populations (3). The male and female vocalise together prior to mating, after which a nest is chosen at a suitable site (2) (3) (5). The nesting sites of the great horned owl are extraordinarily variable, and this species occupies a wider range of nest sites than any other bird in the Americas (2).The nest is usually the disused nest of another large bird species, but cavities in trees, cliffs and deserted buildings will also be used, and the great horned owl will also nest on the ground (2) (3) (5).
A single clutch of two eggs is usually laid, although the clutch size occasionally ranges between one and four eggs. The eggs of the great horned owl are dull and white with a slightly rough surface, and are incubated by the female for between 30 and 37 days, with the male feeding the female throughout this period (2).
Once hatched, the nestlings remain in the nest for between 6 and 7 weeks, and begin to fly between 10 and 12 weeks old (2) (5). The nestlings are voracious feeders and weigh around 75 percent of the total adult mass when they leave the nest, after which time they remain within close proximity to the adults until the end of summer or early autumn (2) (3) (5).
The great horned owl is a sedentary species and even the most northerly populations do not migrate (2) (3) (9). However, in times when food becomes scarce, individuals may move to areas where there is more abundant prey (9).
Once persecuted for being a pest to humans and agriculture, the great horned owl is now protected throughout its range and hunting is banned (2) (6), although some illegal shooting still occurs (2). Currently, its populations do not seem to have been affected by habitat loss, although in the future certain areas may not be able to provide the large home ranges and abundant prey required by this species (2) (5) (6).
The use of pesticides and rodenticides on agricultural land is known to contaminate the prey species of the great horned owl, which can cause poisoning (2) (5). Road traffic accidents and collisions with electric wires are also threats to this species (5).
As it is a common and widespread species (9), there are no specific conservation measures currently in place for the great horned owl, although artificial nesting sites are known to encourage its population growth in some areas (2). The great horned owl is listed on Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), which means that any international trade in this species should be carefully controlled (4).
Find out more about the great horned owl:
The Cornell Lab of Ornithology: All About Birds - Great horned owl:
World Owl Trust - Great horned owl:
BirdLife International - Great horned owl:
This information is awaiting authentication by a species expert, and will be updated as soon as possible. If you are able to help please contact:
- Brood patch: an area of featherless skin on the underside of a bird during the nesting season. Well supplied with blood vessels, this patch of skin aids in the transfer of heat to the eggs.
- Deciduous forest: forest consisting mainly of deciduous trees, which shed their leaves at the end of the growing season.
- Home range: the area occupied by an animal during routine activities, which is not actively defended.
- Incubate: to keep eggs warm so that development is possible.
- Nocturnal: active at night.
- Subspecies: a population usually restricted to a geographical area that differs from other populations of the same species, but not to the extent of being classified as a separate species.
- Territorial: describes an animal, a pair of animals or a group that occupies and defends an area.
- Territory: an area occupied and defended by an animal, a pair of animals or a group.
- Vagrant: an individual found outside the normal range of the species.
IUCN Red List (March, 2012)
Stuart, H.C., Smith, D.G. and Rohner, C. (1998) Great horned owl (Bubo virginianus). In: Poole, A. (Ed.) The Birds of North America Online. Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca. Available at:
- Deal, K.H. (2010) Wildlife and Natural Resource Management. Delmar Cengage Learning, New York.
CITES (March, 2012)
- König, C. and Weick, F. (2008) Owls of the World. Christopher Helm Publishers, London.
- Smith, D.G. (2002) Great Horned Owl. Stackpole Books, Pennsylvania.
BirdLife International (March, 2012)
- Campbell, R.W. et al. (1990) Birds of British Columbia.Volume Two.Nonpasserines:Diurnal Birds of Prey through Woodpeckers. University of British Colombia, Vancouver.
- Johnston, J.L. (2007) Home Range Analysis of Rehabilitated and Released Great Horned Owls (Bubo Virginianus) in Denton County,Texas, Through Radio Telemetry. M.Sc. Thesis, University of North Texas. | <urn:uuid:d108e130-0732-41e3-9874-45952d0d3aba> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.arkive.org/great-horned-owl/bubo-virginianus/factsheet | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00057-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933657 | 2,431 | 3.34375 | 3 |
→ November 2006 Contents → Column
The Inside Story and Classic Photos of UPI Newspictures
The new book Picture This!: The Inside Story and Classic Photos of UPI Newspictures (Bulfinch Press, 2006), was organized and written by Gary Haynes, a former UPI photographer. It's good to finally have a volume on the photographs and photographers of United Press International. Earlier books have been about the news writers and failing business side of the company. Walter Cronkite wrote the foreword.
Like some other books of assembled images it is a smorgasbord of work. The concept can be fun and engaging. The reader goes from humor to tragedy within pages. The book is definitely not a downer.
There is a short history of UPI Newspictures. It began as United Press Associations, a creation of E.W. Scripps, in 1907. The much older Associated Press (1848) had refused to sell its news stories to several of his papers. Scripps believed that news should be available to anyone, including his competitors.
Gary Haynes writes that United Press became the only privately-owned major news service in the world at a time the world news scene was dominated by The AP in the U.S.A. and by news agencies abroad directly or indirectly controlled by their respective governments: Reuters in Britain, Havas in France and Wolff in Germany.
Around the 1920s papers were increasing interested in publishing pictures to expand their audiences and, thus, their advertising dollars. The Associated Press began mailing photos to its member papers in 1927. UP had no photo service until 1952, when it absorbed Scripps' Acme Newsphotos. All this was long after Europeans had experimented and perfected the wireless transmission of photographs. (In 1907, German Prof. Alfred Korn's "Photographic Fac-Simile Telegraph" picture of the German Crown Prince appeared on the cover of Scientific American.)
Haynes includes a description of the inauguration of the AP's Wirephoto system on Jan. 1, 1935. The Scripps and Hearst organizations, along with Wide World, owned by The New York Times, were each working on their own version of a "Wirephoto" machine.
By 1936, Acme Newsphotos (owned by Scripps) had developed its own machines. They were more sophisticated and reliable than AP's, and capable of better quality, Haynes writes. In 1958, UP and Hearst's International New Service came together and UPI was born.
The UPI operation faded and the picture operation was stripped of its best assets by a desperate administration that looked for cash through the sale of the overseas arm and, most astonishingly, the picture library. As one of the owners said tellingly, "Who cares about a damn picture library?"
The book does, however, have some drawbacks. I found that I wanted to know so much more about the photo operation and about the goals of the organization. The text seemed to dwell too much on the competition with the AP—there is even a chapter titled, "UPI versus AP." Certainly they were rivals for the same market and the UPI/AP race had to be explained because, among other things, each drove the other to push harder, get there first and make better photographs. Beyond that though, the text seems to have a negative tone: "AP was one thing but we were not."
What was UPI's relationship with the history it passed through and what in retrospect is that relationship now? UPI also had many great journalists; the book might have been stronger had a writer handled the text and Mr. Haynes the images, as journalist Peter Arnett has done for the AP.
The all-black-and-white offering creates a cohesive look to the book but slights those whose color work was outstanding even in the early days of its use. And, perhaps I lost my sense of humor somewhere during the Vietnam War, but the captions often begin with corny phrases: "Hula Hoop Hubbub," "Man, oh, Mannequin" (undressed female mannequins getting "the once-over" by a boy mannequin), "Weather or the Dress?" (a photograph of a serious Queen Elizabeth in a frilly dress and a laughing President Reagan—she was commenting on California's bad weather), and one that creates a grimace for both photo and caption, "Uh—guys!" (a female nudist standing within the ranks of the male press photographers aims her Instamatic as the men do their Nikons during the Miss Nude America pageant). To be sure there are great photographs from WWII, Vietnam and Kennedy's funeral with perfectly fine captions.
One point I am trying to make is that the choices made sometimes undermine UPI's fine work. The staff at UPI overcame the odds and their photographs show the high regard in which they held photojournalism. Their legacy of news images is one that young photojournalists should endeavor to know and emulate.
© Marianne Fulton
Back to November 2006 Contents | <urn:uuid:142be000-4d1b-466d-9f5b-90331dfd0efc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0611/fulton.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976798 | 1,043 | 1.695313 | 2 |
WASHINGTON (RNS) President Obama will take the oath of office with two Bibles that once belonged to a pair of civil rights icons: Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr.
King’s “traveling Bible” was provided by his family, while the Lincoln Bible is from the Library of Congress and was used during the 16th president’s inauguration on March 4, 1861; Obama also used the Lincoln Bible during his first inauguration in 2009.
The Lincoln and King good books will be used during this year’s public swearing-in ceremony on Monday, Jan. 21, the Presidential Inaugural Committee announced. King’s Bible will be stacked atop Lincoln’s.
“President Obama is honored to use these Bibles at the swearing-in ceremonies,” said Steve Kerrigan, president and CEO of the inaugural committee. “These Bibles are rich in tradition and reflect the great American story that binds our nation.”
In a statement, Martin Luther King III said he is proud that his father’s Bible will be a part of Obama’s inaugural, “and I hope that our great nation uses the moment to reflect on the enormous responsibility we have to serve our neighbors and communities.”
King added: “Thousands of Americans joined Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., on the National Mall in the fight for equality and justice 50 years ago, and I am excited that my father’s legacy will be honored as thousands more join President Obama to begin his second term.”
The second term officially starts on Sunday, Jan. 20, when Obama holds a private swearing-in ceremony at the White House. For that event, he will use a Bible belonging to the family of first lady Michelle Obama.
“The Robinson Family Bible … was a gift from the first lady’s father, Fraser Robinson III, to his mother, LaVaughn Delores Robinson, on Mother’s Day in 1958,” said the inaugural committee, which noted that she used it regularly. “Mrs. Robinson was the first African-American woman manager of a Moody Bible Institute’s bookstore.”
Vice President Biden, meanwhile, will be sworn into a second term using his family Bible.
According to the inaugural committee, the Biden family Bible “is five inches thick, has a Celtic cross on the cover and has been in the Biden family since 1893. He used it every time he was sworn in as a U.S. senator and when he was sworn in as vice president in 2009.”
The Presidential Inaugural Committee also described the Obama Bibles:
“The King Bible was Dr. King’s ‘traveling Bible.’ An avid reader who was constantly on the road, Dr. King typically traveled with a selection of books that included this Bible. It was used for inspiration and preparing sermons and speeches, including during Dr. King’s time as pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama.”
“The Lincoln Bible is part of the collections of the Library of Congress and was originally purchased by William Thomas Carroll, Clerk of the Supreme Court, for use during Lincoln’s swearing-in ceremony on March 4, 1861. The Bible itself is bound in burgundy velvet with a gold-washed white metal rim around the three outside edges of both covers, and all of its edges are heavily gilded.”
(David Jackson writes for USA Today.)
KRE/AMB END JACKSON | <urn:uuid:2e3e1f8a-93d3-40a9-b30a-3cdae0198587> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.religionnews.com/2013/01/10/obama-to-use-lincoln-king-bibles-for-swearing-in/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967159 | 736 | 2.15625 | 2 |
By Nick Thomas
Imagine you could pluck a US president from the pages of history and install him as your next-door neighbor. Who would you choose?
Although a popular historical figure like George Washington might seem an obvious choice, you wouldn’t want George as a neighbor. He would sneak onto your property under the cover of darkness and chop down all your fruit trees while you slept.
Oh sure, in the morning, he would knock on your door, guilt-ridden, seeking forgiveness. But that would be little consolation come springtime with no cherry pies to take to the church bake sale.
And don’t think Thomas Jefferson would make a cool neighbor, either. Sure, according to Wikipedia, he “spoke five languages and was deeply interested in science, invention, architecture, religion and philosophy.” But who wants a smart-aleck living next door?
As the only president to never marry, James Buchanan would probably hold disruptive bachelor parties every weekend. He might scare the children, too, since he suffered from an odd condition called wryneck, resulting in his head always leaning to the left. Explain to the kids this is normal, for a Democrat.
You wouldn’t want Richard Nixon living next door either. According to most biographies, he was narcissistic, secretive, and suspicious – not endearing qualities in a neighbor. With tricky Dick on the other side of the fence, you’d end up a neurotic wreck: during backyard cookouts, you’d continually be checking the coleslaw for “bugs.”
However, not all presidents would make bad neighbors.
Abraham Lincoln would be a great practical asset to any community. Before he entered politics, he worked on the family farm wielding an axe with great skill to build rail fences. So you could count on Abe to help with the firewood in December.
Nevertheless, if he invited you to accompany him to the theater one night, skip it.
Often unfairly portrayed as a boozer, Ulysses S. Grant was a decent man of good character and would make a fine neighbor. Unfortunately, he was a poor judge of people when it came to political appointments – his administration was one of the most corrupt due to the scoundrels he unwittingly selected. So as a neighbor, if he ever recommended a plumber, go to the Yellow Pages instead.
Another good neighbor would be George H.W. Bush. A kind man, he and Barbara would always be willing to lend a neighborly cup of sugar; but if you ever ran out of broccoli, don’t expect George to return the favor He would also be a force to reckon with if the city council tried to raise the cost of services. “Read my lips,” George would bark at the public hearing, “No new taxes!”
George W. Bush would make a good neighbor, too. He would be personable, easy-going, and probably a lot of fun. I could also see George Jr., as the neighborhood practical joker, ringing door bells late at night, then running away claiming, “Cheney did it!”
As possibility the coolest president in recent history, Bill Clinton would be a hoot for a neighbor. But for those of you with 20-year-old daughters, I know what you’re thinking: “No way I’d want him next door!” Don’t worry, he’s no longer chasing after young women, or Big Macs. Besides, Hillary would have invisible fencing around the property and a permanent electronic collar attached to Bill’s neck.
Barack Obama would make a nifty neighbor, too. As an energetic community organizer, expect him to be active in the local Homeowners Association. Of course, there would always be doubters wanting proof that he actually did have membership.
However, when it came to yard maintenance, he would insist residents with extra fertilizer do their fair share, and spread it round to those having less.
Along these lines, I’m including Mitt Romney since he may be our next president. I could easily see Mitt working the barbeque grill during a block party – especially if he was running for president of the Homeowners Association.
Of course, some in the community might object to the Romneys because of their megawealth. Really? Maybe those neighbors would prefer a house load of Wall Street occupiers next door instead?
One note of caution, however. If Mitt volunteered to drive your sick dog to the vet, politely decline.
Thomas' features and columns have appeared in more than 200 magazines and newspapers, including the Washington Post, LA Times, Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, and Christian Science Monitor. He can be reached at email@example.com.
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I have only a marginal interest in these kinds of books, but I ran across this audio book at the library and thought I might check it out. Certainly, there is no shortage of books that purport to expose the truth about the Right, or the Left, or Clinton, or Bush, or Obama, etc., and this book is no exception—but among those types this certainly seems to be a competent and accurate one.
As to his facts, I neither have the time nor inclination to double check them, so you’ll have to decide upon his veracity yourself.
Phillips paints a pretty dire picture of our current state, and demonstrates, fairly accurately I believe, the dangers of our dependency on oil, our staggering debt level, and the irrational fusion of politics and religious fundamentalism.
I will upload some MP3 tracks from the books in the comment fields below.
About the Author from Wikipedia:
Kevin Price Phillips (born November 30, 1940) is an American writer and commentator on politics, economics, and history. Formerly a Republican Party strategist, Phillips has become disaffected with his former party over the last two decades, and is now one of its most scathing critics. He is a regular contributor to the Los Angeles Times and National Public Radio, and is a political analyst on PBS' NOW with Bill Moyers.
Phillips was a strategist on voting patterns for Richard Nixon's 1968 campaign, which was the basis for a book, The Emerging Republican Majority, which predicted a conservative realignment in national politics, and is widely regarded as one of the most influential recent works in political science. His predictions regarding shifting voting patterns in presidential elections proved accurate, though they did not extend "down ballot" to Congress until the Republican revolution of 1994. Phillips also was partly responsible for the design of the Republican "Southern strategy" of the 1970s and 1980s.
The author of fourteen books, he lives in Goshen, Connecticut, in Litchfield County.
Book synopsis from Wikipedia:
Phillips describes three central, unifying planks in the Republican coalition. The first is oil. The second is radical religion. The third is unprecedented levels of national and consumer debt.
Oil and American Supremacy
Phillips suggests that American greatness in the 20th century was built on oil, much as British greatness in the 19th century was built on coal, and Dutch greatness before that was built on wind and water power. When these energy sources became scarce or were replaced with a new source, argues Phillips, these countries lost their greatness to the master of the new energy source.
He points to American society and geography being built around oil, with widely dispersed suburbs and exurbs. He criticizes the "S.U.V. gas-hog culture" and points to geological estimates that oil supplies in most of the world have peaked, in the most pessimistic of views, or will peak within the next few decades, which ranks in with the optimistic view, with the result being prices continuing to increase and oil becoming more scarce.
Phillips points to political ramifications. He cites statistics that show that people who use more oil are more likely to vote republican. These people are more likely to drive larger domestic trucks and S.U.V.s and live further from the urban center of a city, thus driving more in less efficient vehicles. Of the top ten oil states, eight voted for George W. Bush in the 2004 Presidential election.
Finally, Phillips suggests that oil has been the driving force in U.S. foreign policy for nearly thirty years. He suggests that the U.S. military has been transformed into a worldwide oil protection force. He suggests that various military events in the 1980s, as well as the 1991 Gulf War and the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, were primarily oil driven. Phillips makes a point that with Iraq at war for the past 25 years, and thus Iraqi oil production depressed for that time period, that most of Iraq's oil is still in the ground.
Too Many Preachers
In this section, Phillips refers to the large presence in the conservative coalition of religious Evangelicals and Pentecostals. He cites a statistic that 40% of the republican coalition is made up of such voters. He cites quotes by U.S. President George W. Bush suggesting that he is speaking for God (Phillips points to past leaders, such as Roman Dictator Julius Caesar who made similar statements.). He points to hostility by the social conservatives towards science in general, and Darwinian evolution in particular. But he particularly focuses on the end-times prophecies of what he refers to as Christian Reconstructionists.
Phillips starts this section by tracing the history of American religion. He argues that the pilgrims who emigrated to the New World before the American Revolution were religious outsiders, who were non-conformist and more radical than the establishment would allow (which was why they left Europe in the first place). He points to a history of highly emotional religious practices in the 17th and 18th centuries. He then argues that after "fundamentalist religion" (particularly Evangelical and the newly-formed Pentecostal branches) were set back after the Scopes Monkey Trial, they appeared to have been dealt a permanent blow. Phillips cites statistical studies that suggest that after this point, fundamentalist religion grew at a rapid rate, while mainstream denominations actually declined (this was covered to most observers at the time due to other circumstances, such as the increase in population at the time.)
Phillips argues that religion is, by far, the most accurate predictor of political and ideological belief. He cites this as the primary determinant of who picked what side during, what he refers to, as the three great civil wars between English speaking peoples: the English Civil War in the 17th century, the American Revolution, and the American Civil War.
Phillips points to the unprecedented national debt, currently approaching ten trillion dollars. He also points to a "debt culture." He suggests underlying problems because the "debt industry" is larger than industries that actually manufacture goods (such as the automotive industry). He suggests a coming debt bubble. He predicts a liquidation of U.S. government debt by foreign creditors, and mass insolvency of consumers.
Here is a video of Phillips giving a lecture about his book. I have not had time to watch this yet though.
Kevin Phillips examines the axis of religion, politics, and borrowed money that threatens to destroy the nation. He maintains that every world-dominating power has been brought down by a related set of causes: a lethal combination of global over-reach, militant religion, resource problems, and ballooning debt. Series: "Walter H. Capps Center Series" [1/2007] [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 12093]
From disk 8.
From disk 9.
From disk 10.
From disk 11. | <urn:uuid:e2e667bd-dea8-45c6-b5fb-f5677ebc4004> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.atheistnexus.org/group/nexusbookclub/forum/topics/american-theocracy-the-perils-and-politics-of-radical-religion?commentId=2182797%3AComment%3A1753863&groupId=2182797%3AGroup%3A9492 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00054-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970402 | 1,409 | 1.523438 | 2 |
PURPOSE OF REVIEW: To summarize recent findings on pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, drug-drug interactions and influence of lifestyle heterogeneity on adverse events in cholesterol-lowering therapy RECENT FINDINGS: The prevention of cardiovascular disease is critically dependent on lipid-lowery therapy, including statins, cholesterol absorption inhibitors, fibrates and nicotinic acid. Statins are the most prescribed drugs in lipid lowering therapy with variability in response and almost one third of the patients do not meet their treatment goals. The severe adverse effects of treatment with cerivastatin stimulated the search for new genes and gene variations affecting pharmacokinetics, drug-drug interactions and pharmacodynamics. Moreover, instead of monotherapy, combined therapy of statins with ezetemibe and niacin was considered. This led to the identification of CD13, NPC1L1 and HM74A as new targets and CYP2C8 and glucuronidation enzymes as potential targets for drug-drug interactions. Moreover multiple polymorphic sites and pleiotrophic gene targets were reinvestigated in larger cohorts and the relevant pathogenetic factors start to evolve. SUMMARY: Statin therapy is widely used and well tolerated by the majority of patients. To further reduce potential adverse effects and to increase efficacy, combined therapy concepts with ezetimibe or niacin are underway. | <urn:uuid:8472beab-dc9c-4988-87fb-23a6d077cc41> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://rgd.mcw.edu/rgdweb/report/reference/main.html?id=2316977 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.922638 | 276 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Ask Mark Zuckerberg and he’ll tell you, Facebook’s goal is to create the most accurate representation of our “social graph.” There’s only one problem with Facebook’s attempt so far though: all our interactions don’t take place within Facebook. We send instant messages to our friends, send at replies on Twitter, have telephone conversations and exchange emails. All of these things help construct the summation of our interpersonal communication.
When tracked, all of these messages help us to understand how we are individually connected with others and the strength of those bonds. While time spent with an individual may not be directly proportional to the strength of our bond, it is at least relatively proportional. Facebook would be fooling themselves if they believed that all of our communication will be boiled down to wall posts and inbox messages.
When speaking with one Facebook employee earlier this week I said that they are in an interesting position where for the first time in a while, adding an email service to their site would actually be beneficial to the users (this is in contrast to the first wave of websites where “adding an email service” was how startups intended to attract users). The employee hadn’t thought about it previously but agreed that a robust messaging service with filters based on the strength of our personal ties would be highly useful.
While having all of our communication with other individuals monitored by companies has massive privacy implications, the benefits gained from having a single place to aggregate our communication and automatically manage it would be extremely useful. The next step for Facebook is to build a more robust messaging system or email service that helps to further optimize our communication as well as our newsfeed. Do you think a Facebook email service would be useful? | <urn:uuid:d44f91fd-1ef0-4736-b2e1-364ccdbc4f58> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://allfacebook.com/facebook-needs-an-email-service_b1071 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00057-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950676 | 354 | 1.984375 | 2 |
STATEMENT BY H.E. MR. PHILLIP H. MULLER, AMBASSADOR,
PERMENANT MISSION OF THE REPUBLIC OF THE MARSHALL ISLANDS TO THE UNITED NATIONS, AT THE PLENARY MEETING OF THE UNITED NATIONS GNERAL ASSEMBLY, ON THE GLOBAL FOOD AND ENERGY CRISIS
AGENDA ITEM 48
NEW YORK 18 JULY 2008
Mr. Secretary-General, Mr. President, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
My delegation addresses this august body on a matter of grave and immediate importance. While we deeply appreciate the shared global challenges of an energy and food crisis, the Republic of the
Marshall Islands is truly at the front line of this global emergency. The Republic of the Marshall Islands now lacks basic energy security.
Unless urgent international action is taken, the
Marshall Islands will exhaust its present fuel supplies this September – this is a dire situation in which we may be left without electricity for the foreseeable future.
On July 3rd, His Excellency Litokwa Tomeing, the President of the Republic of the
Marshall Islands , issued a proclamation declaring a state of emergency because of rising fuel and food costs; this declaration was accompanied by Executive Orders to immediately implement nationwide energy conservation measures, as well as action plans for every government ministry and agency. We are taking direct measures - our National Disaster Committee is preparing for the worst, but is also seeking to ensure immediate energy security as well as medium and long-term conservation and alternative energy strategies which reduce reliance on imported fossil fuel. As a small island developing state, we are well aware of our limitations to successfully meet these challenges without the immediate assistance of member states and multilateral actors. Our concentrated attention to this crisis also impairs our ability to devote our limited resources to addressing the threat of climate change impacts upon our low-lying nation.
Even though our consumer use charges have increased almost four-fold in the past year, and even with substantial tariff increases, our utility companies are now struggling desperately in completing basic financial obligations to fuel suppliers. Raising consumer prices even higher only serves to further deprive our population of lifeline essential services. The unmet gap between revenues and energy costs now poses an incredible economic threat to our continued development. Global energy price shocks have also placed basic food staples nearly out of reach for much of our population, and have had a crippling effect on the transport of basic necessities, including medical care, to our rural outer islands. We are now fast-tracking domestic agricultural projects to reduce our heavy dependence upon imported food.
We are seeking the assistance of all member states, including bilateral development partners, as well as the cooperation of the Secretary-General, the UN system, and its specialized agencies, to avert a looming national crisis of unimaginable magnitude. We are also asking these same partners to work with us on a fast-track planning initiative to identify, evaluate and implement cost-appropriate, sustainable energy strategies. In this regard, we reference our recent note circulated to the Secretary General’s office, as well as the outreach of our national embassies around the world.
We are pleased to report that we have recently requested the assistance of UNIDO and UN-Energy, as potential partners in our attempt to meet this critical challenge. We are identifying means to expedite our proposed membership in UNIDO. We also embrace our recent conversations with key bilateral development partners, but we also note that we are still facing critical immediate and long-term challenges.
The overwhelming flood of statements for this plenary meeting makes it clear that our experience is by no means isolated, even if we are at the front line of this crisis. The
Marshall Islands proudly adds our voice to this urgent and complex global dialogue. But we will only be able to continue to do so with the immediate partnership of the global community. | <urn:uuid:a77cbbb3-7c37-40a5-9b04-5c05107b5e7d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.un.int/wcm/content/site/marshallislands/cache/offonce/pid/4466 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938268 | 799 | 1.992188 | 2 |
What a fascinating concept.
I had honestly never considered the possibility that metaphorical language might be an indicator of falsehood.
It's not exactly an indicator of falsehood. The inability to state what one means non-metaphorically, however, does raise red flags.
And yeah...I just used a metaphor here.
It's a good counter-example, because I can state what "red flags" means in non-metaphorical terms if I so choose. Before realizing that it was a good counter-example, I opted for the "red flags" metaphor because it was a concise means of communicating what I meant, and I figured you were familiar with the meaning. But if all we had to go on was "red flags" without a pre-existing understanding of what it's supposed to mean, then it'd be reasonable for you to challenge me on it and ask what I meant. If I couldn't explain it outside of the metaphor, then you'd be justified in suggesting that I don't know what I'm talking about.
I an a deep lover of myth and poetry. I have taken many metaphors as central truths in my life. It's hard to conceive of doing anything else.
useful tools of understanding. They can sometimes convey meaning much more effectively than literal speech could - both to other people, and to ourselves. But the meaning has to come before the metaphor, in order for the metaphor to be meaningful.
I'd also never considered "objective value" incoherent.
It's one of those things we tend to take for granted until it's broken down and analyzed.
Perhaps, but that's equally true of subjective morality
Not so. Because while objective values
may or may not exist, subjective values definitely do
exist. That's what humans hold to. We have
subjective moral opinions. The existence of objective values would not mean that subjective values don't exist. It would only mean that subjective values could be verified as true or false.
the condition of morality mirrors (shows likeness to) the condition of the self.
You and I are ignorant of final objective morals, so I assume that means something about me, while you assume that means something about all of morality
No. I conclude it based on the fact that "final objective morals" is an incoherent idea. Even if it weren't, though, what I would conclude about something that we are inescapably ignorant of, is that it is irrelevant to our existence. In this case, there is no reason to believe that such "final objective morals" have anything to do with what we humans generally understand as "morality".
So then what is the purpose of this argument against the bible that was being spun ont he early pages of this board?
If it's nonsense to make moral judgments relatave to no held values, than to what are you appealing when you tell a christian their Gos is immoral?
To held values, obviously. Held by the writer, and ideally by the one being written to. Try to make a moral argument to someone by appealing to values they don't hold. It's not at all effective, is it?
I would think my personal feelings are more analogous to my judgement of a persons race based on the sense data I receive from my eyes. Rather than that data itself
Then going with the analogy, what is
analogous to "the data itself", in terms of moral values? Is there even anything that fits, in your analogy - other than your personal feelings?
I may be around this board for some time. Are you prepared to have this quoted back to you?
Now that I read what I said, it did sound pretty rude, didn't it? Sorry about that. But to answer your question: Yes, absolutely, if it's applicable. See my first quote-reply of this post - if all we have
is a metaphor, then we probably don't really know what we're talking about. If I really do seem to be using a metaphor whose meaning I don't understand myself, then by all means call me on it. I'm not always right, eh?
Unless of course you are attempting to forward an argument that objectivity is incoherent. In which case I'm all ears
Nah. I never said that objectivity is incoherent in general. In fact, I may have overstated my case, because objective values
are not incoherent in every sense, either. All possible valuations can be said to exist objectively in the Platonic sense, just like every math equation in every system of mathematics can be said to exist objectively, in the Platonic sense. And a subjective valuation by a human being does exist objectively, because the human's brain that's engaged in the valuation exists objectively. But that's not what you mean by "objective value", is it? You meant specific valuations being objectively true while others are false, right?
The problem with that, is that valuations don't resolve as true or false in the first place. We can ask things about
a value - for example, is human survival valued positively in value-set X? - and that will return a true or false value. But the valuation itself is an action, not an assertion. Human survival is valued
positively. Other than how and whether they're happening, actions cannot be true or false. That would be a category error, and yield an incoherent statement.
Ahh... yes that's true.
So...that's a problem, though, isn't it?
Because if your values might just as well not have anything to do with "objective morality", and my values might just as well not have anything to do with "objective morality", then what does "objective morality" have to do with what we consider to be morality in the first place? | <urn:uuid:93252dc1-2f31-4226-b1db-39e01ca306bf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/forums/index.php/topic,21345.msg477056.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970431 | 1,199 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Medicare Reimbursment for Orphan Drugs
In a major victory for patients, the House and Senate have agreed to several provisions designed to restore Medicare reimbursement to drugs and biologics provided in the hospital outpatient setting. Because access to orphan drugs for rare diseases were being threatened, the Mycosis Fungoides Foundation went to Washington to support this issue for patients.
Since January 1, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services had reduced Medicare reimbursement for many outpatient drugs and therapies administered at hospitals, making it difficult for hospitals to continue to provide the medications to patients who need them.
The Medicare hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System (OPPS), used by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to reimburse hospitals for services and supplies provided to outpatients, was at the heart of the problem. Treatments for rare disorders were bundled for payment with high-volume, non-orphan products that often cost considerably less. The result is that Medicare patients suffering from rare diseases like ours were being denied access to the newest -- and perhaps best -- treatments available.
Since January, many hospitals have reluctantly absorbed the cost of providing such treatments despite the fact that a number of facilities are operating under heavy budget deficits. However, hospitals cannot continue this practice without adequate funding. The new rule has cut reimbursement rates to hospitals by an average of 35 percent and is forcing hospitals to weigh the impact of new medicines on the lives of patients against the cost of the medications. None of us wants our doctors to be forced to make patient treatment decisions based on cost. But with this new rule, that is exactly what was happening.
Before the new payment system took effect, a few orphan drugs meeting new criteria were exempt from the standard reimbursement rate. This made sense, as demand for these treatments was low and variable, yet extremely costly to manufacture and stock. The new rule places far too stringent criteria around exempt orphan drugs and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services isn't applying its own criteria uniformly. Only four therapies obtained this exemption with the new rule, leaving dozens of other products inadequately reimbursed.
The new rule also had the potential to limit patient access by reclassifying diagnostic and therapeutic radiopharmaceuticals. Although the Food and Drug Administration has classified these products as "drugs" or "biologicals," the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has determined that it will not recognize them as such. This effectively limits reimbursement and thereby patient access to therapies that were previously available.
Although these provisions are now part of the final Medicare prescription drug coverage bill, Congress must pass the legislation for the provisions to become law. The Mycosis Fungoides Foundation will be following this closely, to make sure that seniors do not lose access to innovative drugs and cutting-edge. | <urn:uuid:4ace50a7-7abc-4258-9441-2480f5931579> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.clfoundation.org/programs-resources/newsletters/mff-forum-edition-5/mff-forum-edition-5 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00045-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967965 | 560 | 1.890625 | 2 |
02-12-2009 10:53 PM
02-13-2009 12:19 PM - edited 02-13-2009 12:22 PM
HI Ash and welcome to the forums
I am very sorry for your previous health conditions and struggles.
I think you should definitely read this thread and you may find it very useful for your situation.
Unfortunately many credit card companies are either increasing your apr or reducing credit limits. They are also closing credit cards. Because you have many credit cards near the limit, your util% is very high and therefore bring your score down considerably.
If your goal is to save money then I would advise you to opt out of the increase to your apr's and continue to pay the original APRs. It is not like you will be losing credit because they are near the limit anyway and you will be paying off the interest and not the balance.
If you are too over your head with bills then definitely read the thread I placed at the top and maybe some of those solutions maybe able to help you.
Take a deep breath and pace yourself.
Don't worry, just like you came through a difficult time with your health, this too shall pass and you will conquer.
Hope this helps
myFICO is the consumer division of FICO. Since its introduction 20 years ago, the FICO® Score has become a global standard for measuring credit risk in the banking, mortgage, credit card, auto and retail industries. 90 of the top 100 largest U.S. financial institutions use the FICO Score to make consumer credit decisions.>> About myFICO | <urn:uuid:62cf31ec-b2a5-460f-ae71-2bc9df8840e6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Rebuilding-Your-Credit/Debt-Counseling-or-Refuse-Rate-Increase/m-p/437199 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965024 | 324 | 1.523438 | 2 |
BOOTP Relay Agents (Forwarding Agents)
(Page 1 of 4)
One reason why the Reverse Address Resolution Protocol (RARP) was quickly replaced by BOOTP is that RARP required the client being configured and the server providing it with an IP address to be on the same physical network. Sure, this is fine when you run a small organization with 10 machines. In this case, all 10 are probably on the same physical network anyway. Larger networks must be divided into multiple physical networks for efficiency, however. RARP would require a separate RARP server for each network, meaning having to duplicate all the functions of a single server onto multiple machines. Worse yet, all the configuration information would also be duplicated, and any changes would have to be made to all the different servers each time.
Unlike RARP, BOOTP is designed to allow the BOOTP server and the clients it serves to be on different networks. This centralizes the BOOTP server and greatly reduces the amount of work required of network administrators. However, implementing this feature means increasing the complexity of the protocol. In particular, we need to involve a third party device in the configuration process.
You might rightly wonder why this would be the case. Sure, RARP is a low-level protocol that works at the link layer, so that explains why it would have problems putting the client and server on different physical networks. But wasn't the whole point of making BOOTP a high-level protocol that it was able to use IP? And if BOOTP uses IP, can't we sent from one network to another arbitrarily just like any IP-based messaging protocol?
The answer is that even though we are indeed using IP and UDP, BOOTP still has one of the same issues that RARP had: a reliance on broadcasts. The client usually doesn't know the address of a server, so it has to send out its request as a broadcast, saying in essence, can anyone hear this and give me the information I need? For efficiency reasons, routers do not route such broadcasts, as they would clog the network. This means that if the server and client are not on the same network, the server can't hear the client's broadcast. Similarly, if the server ever did get the request and broadcast its reply back to the client, the client would never get it anyway.
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© Copyright 2001-2005 Charles M. Kozierok. All Rights Reserved.
Not responsible for any loss resulting from the use of this site. | <urn:uuid:eb9a202a-5bfc-433b-8217-9c5b370684b4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tcpipguide.com/free/t_BOOTPRelayAgentsForwardingAgents.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952147 | 558 | 2.734375 | 3 |
Oxfordshire campaigners vow to continue fight for off-road shared-use path after council says it has no money for it (+ video)
Bike Safe commissions report from Sustrans that says path alongside busy road would cost less than previous estimates
Cyclists and pedestrians living in a village close to Oxford are determined to press ahead with their campaign to have a shared-use path installed along a busy road after a study they commissioned from Sustrans concluded it would make conditions safer for those on bike and on foot. The report by the sustainable transport charity says the project could be executed at a cost of £800,000, but Oxfordshire County Council have said they have no cash to fund it.
Farmoor village lies only three and a half miles from the centre of Oxford as the crow flies, but is separated from it by the University of Oxford-owned Wytham Woods, a Site of Special Scientific Interest to which access is tightly controlled, meaning that anyone wanting to ride into the city by bike has to travel along the B4044 road, which runs between Eynsham and Dean Court in the west of the city. The lack of a footway running along the road, meanwhile, deters pedestrians from venturing out to local shops.
Last year, the group Bike Safe, which secured £6,250 to help fund its campaign following a public vote in the NatWest Community Force competition, produced a video which starkly demonstrates why its members feel a shared-use path is required.
Speaking about the Sustrans report last week, group spokesman Ian Leggett told the Oxford Mail: “We looked at different options but the only real option for a variety of reasons was to create a dedicated off-road route. “Anything else would be too dangerous because the road is simply too narrow.
“But hopefully this would be supported by motorists as it will ease traffic and cyclists could cycle without having a bus six inches off their back wheel.”
Original estimates suggested that putting an off-road path in place would cost between £1 million and £2 million, but the Sustrans report says that the project could be completed in two stages spanning two years at a cost of £400,000 for each phase – the first from Eynham to Farmoor, the second from Farmoor to Oxford.
However Oxfordshire County Council spokesman Martin Crabtree insisted that there was nothing in the budget to pay for such works, saying: “A lot of work has gone into pursuing ideas and we know there is enthusiasm for them locally. However there is very little funding so there is no possibility of the county council fully or even part-funding this scheme in the foreseeable future.”
Mr Leggett, however, maintained that the proposed scheme, details of which were presented to villagers in Farmoor last week, would be cost-effective in the long run.
“This would be an investment which would pay for itself in seven or eight years,” he explained. “This would make an incredible difference. If you live in Farmoor, you cannot walk anywhere because there are no pavements.
“You can’t walk even to the shops and you are isolated. It is a crazy situation.
“We continue to need community support. The major thing we face is the council says it a good scheme but is not committed to delivering it.
“This will never happen without the community,” he concluded. | <urn:uuid:5af22dbf-726a-4b23-b337-e037bdfbe5a6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://road.cc/content/news/62499-oxfordshire-campaigners-vow-continue-fight-road-shared-use-path-after-council?quicktabs_2=0&quicktabs_4=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976847 | 714 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Health Q&A: What causes impetigo?
Medicine + Health Blog
Hospital / Urgent Care Locator
Q: My 5-year-old daughter has had impetigo, a bacterial infection, on her chin three times in the past year. We were prescribed a cream to use for several days to clear it up. What causes this, and how can we get it to stop?
A: Impetigo is a common contagious skin condition that results in blisters or open sores with a honey-color crust. The infection is most commonly transmitted by touching an area where bacteria live and transferring it elsewhere, either on the same person or onto another person.
Carriers (those without sores but who carry the bacteria on their skin) can spread it to others. The bacteria commonly live in the nose, underarms and groin.
To prevent spreading, use an antibacterial soap for the underarms and groin of all household members. Don’t share towels, do wash hands frequently and avoid picking the nose or skin lesions. For persistent cases, doctors might recommend antibiotics and testing for possible carriers.
Q: My company recently raised my co-pay on prescription drugs, and one medication I take now costs $80 a month. Is it proper to ask my doctor if he can prescribe something cheaper?
A: It is absolutely appropriate for a patient to ask whether a generic medication equivalent is available and if there is another medication within the drug class that would be less expensive while providing the same benefit.
In addition, some drugs are priced based on pill numbers, not milligrams. A patient should ask if it is safe to split pills to reduce the cost.
Q: Is it OK to use expired over-the-counter creams such as hydrocortisone, Preparation H and Neosporin? Does the potency of the products simply continue to decline over time, or can using expired stuff actually hurt you?
A: It is best not to use expired over-the-counter topical products because they can become less potent over time. The manufacturer guarantees the safety and efficacy of a product as long as the product has not expired.
Sources: Dr. Patricia Witman, Nationwide Children’s Hospital; Dr. Randy Wexler, Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center; Laura Stewart, director of clinical pharmacy informatics at the Mount Carmel Health System | <urn:uuid:311a3e10-f84d-492d-a2f7-6a1daa99f059> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2012/12/30/to-your-health/what-causes-impetigo.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930917 | 494 | 2.25 | 2 |
"Here's to the next hundred years," declares Sam Palmisano's Christmas card on the 100-year anniversary of IBM's founding. The card exudes the same gusto that has rallied hundreds of thousands of IBM workers for the past decade. But the gregarious head of International Business Machines (ticker: IBM) won't be around for the next centennial: Now 60, IBM's mandatory retirement age, Palmisano will end his decade as CEO on New Year's Eve. Already, he is introducing Virginia Rometty, the incoming CEO and IBM's powerful global sales chief, as "the boss."
"The CEO is not the brand! It is not you. It is not about you." So proclaims the eighth, and longest-serving, CEO since IBM's founder, Thomas Watson Sr. Palmisano might be the world's least-bashful person, except when it comes to taking credit for his job. Then he's quick to set you straight. That recognition properly belongs to his coworkers, he insists. In fact, he describes his long run as "10% of 100 years."
"You are a temporary steward of a wonderful enterprise, so leave it in better shape than you find it," Palmisano says. That, he has done in myriad ways. In the course of his tenure, Palmisano dumped most of IBM's money-losing computer-hardware businesses, expanded into higher-margin businesses such as software and services, and moved decisively into fast-growing markets, including the developing world and digitized systems for cities. Barron's has chronicled much of this journey, most recently in "Big Blue Muscles Through," (July 25, 2011).
IBM's earnings have sprinted 21% a year, on average, in the past 10 years, to $11.52 a share in 2010. They probably rose by double-digits again this year. Despite two recessions, including one that still haunts the economy, a host of good financial metrics are even stronger. Gross profits are up, margins have widened and IBM now owns the world's most valuable brand after Coca-Cola. Had you invested in IBM in March 2002, when Palmisano succeeded Louis Gerstner as CEO, you would have doubled your money and outperformed the Standard & Poor's 500 by three times.
The approach to Palmisano's office at IBM's Armonk, N.Y., headquarters is stately, with a soaring ceiling. By contrast, his conference room is small and simply decorated. On the windowsill is a photo of Palmisano grinning with Linus Torvalds, inventor of the open-source operating system Linux. A snowstorm threatens on this gray day. Then Palmisano bustles in. His eyes twinkle behind horn-rimmed glasses that give him an owlish mien. A couple of inches above six feet, wearing the requisite IBM dark-blue business suit, he appears thoroughly comfortable with himself.
During his conversation with Barron's, he throws his body into his anecdotes and readily specifies where rivals fall short. When crowing over rival Amazon.com's (AMZN) efforts in cloud computing, Palmisano points one finger up and exclaims: "IBM has one deal bigger than all of Amazon's cloud business. One bigger than anything they've ever done! One deal!"
He marvels at the accounting of the new Internet-related companies that, he says, are, among other things, prorating commission expenses, treating them like capital expenditures. "All of a sudden, somebody is going to wake up and say, 'You can't account for your sales expense from the balance sheet and prorate it with the revenue, like it's project accounting in the construction industry,' " he says. "If we took all the expenses and put them on our balance sheet, then we could have some earnings!" A hundred-year-old company, he says, can't do such things.
PALMISANO WAS BORN IN 1951 to an Italian-American family in Baltimore. His grandparents didn't speak English, his father owned an auto-repair shop and his mother ruled the household with an iron hand and a supply of wooden spoons for rapping knuckles. In the ninth grade, with sagging grades, Palmisano got into a fight at a Catholic school. The priests immediately stuck him in a boxing program, and his mother sat him in front of her every night and inspected his homework. "No lawyers were called in! We didn't sue the school. Do you think my self-esteem suffered? Did my mother have me see a shrink? No," he relates, with impatience at current customs.
The future CEO played saxophone in the band, and also football. As center, one of the least glamorous positions on the team, Palmisano was the guy who handed the football to the quarterback. The center protects the offense and blocks people. Something weird has to happen for him to score. But it's also one of the most important positions on the team. The center needs to be tough, aggressive and consistent.
After graduating from Johns Hopkins in 1973, and turning down a tryout with the Oakland Raiders, Palmisano went to IBM. He never looked back. He quickly established himself as a rising star, working as then-CEO John Akers' executive assistant and serving two stints in Japan. Along the way, he got married, and he and his wife, nicknamed Missy, had four children, now grown.
But in the 1980s, IBM stumbled as PCs and servers replaced mainframe computers. The board hired Lou Gerstner, the only outsider ever to serve as CEO. He famously slashed the work force and started pushing the service business. Palmisano ran global services, PCs, then servers. He was a gifted salesman, dubbed "the Closer" by colleagues. He also paved the way for Big Blue to snare gigantic billion-dollar deals.
When Palmisano became CEO, he had already been pressing IBM to adopt Linux for its systems and push more heavily into services. The company bought PriceWaterhouse-Coopers Consulting. He streamlined management, dispersing the executive committee, and invited the entire company to participate in a "values jam" on the IBM intranet to assess strategic priorities. (One result: greater power to low-level managers to make fast decisions.) As he repositioned Big Blue into higher-margin businesses and built overseas operations, he held managers to high performance standards. Yet his affability and his ability to woo the customers kept him popular.
ALL THE WHILE, KEY INSIGHTS about how the world was changing drove the strategy. One was about outsourcing: As corporations grew more global, employees would no longer fight it out by product and geography. Companies could hand over more and more of the work they previously did in-house to outside specialists, because best practices and the Internet made that possible. The corporation, he wrote in Foreign Affairs, could now be "an array of specialized components: procurement, manufacturing, research, sales."
Palmisano also saw that with cheap semiconductors, computational power was being put into things we wouldn't recognize as computers. By 2010, there would be a billion transistors for every human being alive, and 30 billion RFID tags embedded throughout the world. That could make the world vastly more intelligent, if it wasn't swamped by streams of data. Enter the concept of the Smarter Planet, which he introduced days after President Obama was elected. That lit a fire under IBM's analytics division, which helps customers handle mountains of data for their strategic needs. "His view of the global corporation was five to 10 years ahead of its time," says Bill George, the former Medtronic CEO who now serves on ExxonMobil's board with Palmisano.
The strategic shifts frustrated shareholders and the stock went nowhere. Palmisano huddled with his lieutenants and unveiled the company's first road map in 2007, showing how IBM planned to allocate capital and detailing its long-term earnings targets. Analysts were cautious. "We said, 'We think we can go from $6 to $11, and this is how we do it: Revenue, productivity, share buybacks,' fatter margins," Palmisano recalls. "To be credible means you need to have some granularity. We felt this is what you should do for investors: Give them a long-term view, not a view of the next six seconds." The current road map shows how IBM plans to double earnings to at least $20 a share between 2010 and 2015.
Once the road map was in place, it began to change management behavior. "We had to get ourselves comfortable internally so we could be credible and specific," says Palmisano. Every manager had a target and a five-year view. One consequence: The entire fall budget-planning session wraps up in six days. It once took two months.
Since IBM announced its road map, it has met or beaten its own forecasts every year. Today, Big Blue derives 23% of revenue from software, 58% from services and just 17% from hardware. Palmisano is exceptionally excited about the analytics division. Watson, the Jeopardy-playing computer, is one product. WellPoint (WLP) recently announced plans to use Watson to suggest treatment options and diagnoses to doctors. It can mine a ton of data, thus saving on excessive testing. "There are 10 million pages of new medical research issued every year," says Palmisano. Watson can process 200 million pages of content in less than three seconds. "The biggest thing that will transform business is analytics," says Palmisan, and he pegs the market at $16 billion.
One sign of success: imitation. Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Dell (DELL) and Oracle (ORCL) are all pushing into consulting and services. The road map is also widely admired. Last week General Electric (GE) made some gestures in that direction when it talked about near-term, double-digit earnings-per-share growth and a long-term view of cash allocation.
"In the investment community, IBM is held up as a keen example of a great company, because they're very prescriptive and very specific about their intentions," says Greg Brown, CEO of Motorola Solutions (MSI).
It was on a CNBC interview with Warren Buffett last month that Palmisano first heard Buffett had bought $11 billion of IBM. He knew somebody had been buying IBM shares throughout the year, but never suspected Buffett, who is famously averse to investments in technology. But Buffett specifically cited the road map. "You're the boss," Palmisano told Rometty. "You call, and after you call, I'll speak with him."
A FORMER HISTORY MAJOR, PALMISANO doesn't believe in the "Great Man Theory." The notion of a charismatic leader, he says, "is quite the opposite of what is required to be successful in running a large industrial company that has been around for a very long period of time. The tablets don't need to come down from Mount Sinai."
In the next several months, Palmisano will remain chairman of IBM and make sure Rometty gets off to a great start, much as Gerstner did for him—coaching the new CEO through earnings announcements and meetings with investors, analysts and the board. Then he will leave as Gerstner did. He doesn't know what his next move is; Gerstner had a lucrative career in private equity post-IBM. Palmisano also has pet projects, such as P-Tech, the New York high school that IBM is opening for 100 aspiring scientists.
Sergio Marchionne, CEO of Fiat (F.Italy), is Palmisano's friend. "Leadership is an incredibly complicated thing," Marchionne says. "The minute people try to pigeonhole and dissect it, you end up with nonsense. People need guidance and direction, and comfort that the size of the sandbox we're playing in is defined. Sam gives you the comfort of knowing that you are, in some part, in some fashion, part of the tribe. The tribe will protect you if you perform, and are faithful to the values of the house."
As leader of the tribe, Palmisano has been more than faithful to the values of this house. | <urn:uuid:76de69ac-11aa-45f3-8fe5-964f54f7c595> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://online.barrons.com/article/SB50001424052748704746704577094782948581256.html?mod=BOL_twm_fs | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976765 | 2,565 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Afghanistan: a necessary warby Opinion Staff
There’s a new casualty of the war we didn’t need to fight: the war we needed to fight.
According to an AC News/Washington Post poll released this week, a minority of Americans now support the war in Afghanistan. Democrats especially have soured on the conflict, especially since President Obama announced that he plans to send more American troops.
After the U.S. Routed the Taliban, which had sheltered Al-Qaeda before 9/11, President Bush correctly ordered a campaign to defeat the Taliban. But before that defeat could be consolidated and Afghanistan given economic help, Mr. Bush shifted his priorities to Iraq. He even let Osama bin Laden escape capture.
The Afghanistan war remains important, since the enemy is the Taliban and the neighborhood includes nuclear-armed Pakistan. But American casualties have increased dramatically this year, and with the American economy still hurting, the poll numbers aren’t surprising.
Still, we believe that Afghanistan is a war worth fighting. What do you think? Take our poll. | <urn:uuid:7f936675-92a2-4bfd-8d99-4799b32adad9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.palmbeachpost.com/opinionzone/2009/08/20/afghanistan-a-necessary-war/?cp=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00066-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94783 | 220 | 1.898438 | 2 |
The Basics of Speech
Two important types of group interpretation are choral speaking and reader's theatre. Choral speaking involves speakers blending and combining their individual voices to create a group voice. Reader's theatre involves speakers presenting literature in a dramatic form. To create a choral-speaking performance, you need to select material that works well in a group reading and create script patterns that use voices in different ways. As a choral speaker, you need to know how to speak precisely, use scripts uniformly, use space effectively, and use media supports.
To create a reader's theatre performance, you need to understand the use of suggestion. You also need to know the performance techniques of scripting, staging, eye focus, movement, and technical support. When selecting literature for reader’s theatre, you need to look for strong characters, a clear theme, picturesque language, and obvious conflict. Like all other public speakers, both choral speakers and reader’s-theatre performers need constructive criticism in order to improve their skills. Group interpretation will help you develop self-confidence, performance and analysis skills, and literary knowledge. | <urn:uuid:9d78eca8-0bb6-452d-8db4-c159a63c022c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://glencoe.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0078616204/student_view0/chapter18/overview.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.922408 | 227 | 4.03125 | 4 |
Ancient Musqueam language revived through hip hop
By Natalie Dobbin and Kendall Walters
Christie Lee Charles sings her baby girl to sleep every night. Unlike the usual mom, she does it in a language only a handful of people in the world know.
Charles, 27, speaks the Musqueam dialect of the Coast Salish First Nations language family.
She learned the language at the feet of her great-uncle and later, as a high school student, behind a desk at the University of British of Columbia’s First Nations Languages Program.
Now she’s taking it to the stage, rapping in her Musqueam language.
“It makes me feel a lot more connected to who I am and where I come from and it also makes me feel stronger inside too,” she said.
Sharing the language with younger family members, and youth in her community, is part of Charles’ motivation for fusing it with hip hop culture.
“It’s not just in my community too,” said Charles, who’s been rapping in her Aboriginal dialect for a few years now.
“There’s a hunger in youth …to learn a lot more of their culture.”
First Nations communities across Canada are trying to revive their unique languages. Right now, many dialects teeter on the brink of extinction.
First Nations communities in B.C. speak 32 different languages, comprised of 59 unique dialects.
More than half of Aboriginal languages in the country reside in B.C., according to a 2010 report from the First Peoples’ Heritage, Languages and Culture Council.
There are only 278 fluent speakers of all three Halkomelem dialects. Halkomelem, an English term, refers to upriver, island and downriver – or Musqueam – dialects.
Like most Aboriginal languages, the Musqueam dialect of Halkomelem is an oral language and was not traditionally written down. It boasts 22 consonant sounds not heard in English.
The Disappearing Languages Project, from The Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages and National Geographic, identified B.C. as one of five geographic regions in the world where languages are disappearing rapidly.
The loss of Aboriginal language began when Europeans came to Canada.
The decline continued past colonization through government policies, such as residential schools which further stamped out many dialects in place of the dominant language – English.
Many Aboriginal languages have already been lost forever. In B.C., eight languages are gone – no documentation remains.
These losses have sparked efforts across the country to record, preserve and teach First Nations languages.
Generations in the classroom
Patricia Shaw is the director of the UBC First Nations Languages Program. Charles, her father and her mother took classes through the program.
Multiple generations in First Nations language classrooms are common, she said.
Classes typically take place on the Musqueam Indian Reserve, which makes it easier for community members – young and old alike – to attend.
“It really helps build bridges across what might otherwise be a generation gap,” Shaw said.
“One of the painfully poignant things about loss of language is that the elders who are left don’t have anyone to talk to.”
She said she’s impressed with Charles’ blend of popular culture with the Musqueam language.
“The really big challenge is taking it out of the classroom and into your lives,” she said.
Charles laughs when she thinks about her dad’s language-learning tactics.
“My dad studied it – a lot,” she said. “I’d come here on the weekend and he’d be cleaning his house, but he’d be blasting his language tapes.
“Instead of music coming out of someone’s house it was language.”
Charles’ dad, Henry, now holds the position of First Nations Storyteller in Residence at the Vancouver Public Library.
For him, it’s about keeping his culture alive through language.
“Musqueam is a living breathing…being,” he said.
The desire to maintain language is nothing new to Charles’ family. Her great-grandparents were instrumental in recording the oral history of the Musqueam people.
Charles learned the language from her great-uncle. His death prompted her to return to her linguistic roots.
“It wasn’t until he passed away that I went back into the language and started studying it a lot more because I realized I had to after he was gone.”
Charles is doing more than learning – she’s sharing the language and living its teachings. She’s using an ancient language in an entirely new and provocative way on stage using hip hop.
She plans to finish her education in Aboriginal Studies at Langara College. She began there a few years ago, before taking time off to do an internship in government and have her baby.
Since the birth of her daughter, Kimora, Charles is toying with a new idea – creating and performing children’s music in Musqueam.
She’s already practicing; she talks to her baby girl in Musqueam every day and soothes her to sleep with modern Musqueam lullabies every night. | <urn:uuid:346b5458-69d3-4514-8300-f47f9758972a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thethunderbird.ca/2011/04/05/ancient-musqueam-language-revived-through-hip-hop/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00053-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951191 | 1,121 | 3.15625 | 3 |
CELEBRITY HEALTH: Noisy Toys Can Cause Hearing Loss
Any mom who has had to endure her kid playing with a noisy toy in the back seat of a car will tell you it’s no joy ride. Now there’s evidence that it’s not safe for your child, either. A new study from UC Irvine’s Department of Otolaryngology tested over two dozen popular toys on the market. They found that all exceeded 90 decibels or more.
If you’re not sure how loud that is, that’s equivalent to the noise of a chain saw, subway train or power mower.
In most instances, it’s safe if the child plays with the toys properly. But virtually no child plays with a toy “properly.” The result: A child holding a toy too close to his ears can suffer permanent hearing loss.
But what do you do if your kid really wants Let’s Rock Elmo? Experts say to take note of the speaker’s location; on the bottom is better than the top. And hold the toy to your own ear—if the sounds are too loud for you, then it’s too loud for your child, too. | <urn:uuid:f743fc8e-f687-4b02-83c4-ad24a634f857> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.celebrityparentsmag.com/2011/12/celebrity-health-noisy-toys-can-cause-hearing-loss.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.919752 | 263 | 2.1875 | 2 |
This is a Two-tailed swallowtail butterfly taken at Dead Horse Ranch State Park in Cottonwood, Arizona.
The Two-tailed butterfly is the largest of all Western United States Butterflies. It is very simular looking to the Western Tiger Swallowtail. Male and female Two-tailed Swallowtails are very simular looking. Thes males have more blue and orange on the hindwing. The Two-tailed has narrower black stripes than the Western Tiger Swallowtail and, except in the hot southwest, they usually has a more restricted habitat, being found mainly in mountain streamside areas.
Butterflies of North America by Jim P. Brock & Kenn Kaufman.
18-105mm lense at 105mm | <urn:uuid:1488f8af-347e-4300-a38f-e0a286d5f194> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.redbubble.com/people/dianag/works/4611625-two-tailed-swallowtail-butterfly | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940623 | 147 | 2.046875 | 2 |
March 30, 2012
Latin America Economic Research
Mexico Economic Comment:What to expect from theupcoming general elections
Mexico will hold Presidential and Congressional elections on July 1
The official campaign kick-off took place today
The centrist PRI candidate is leading the polls by a wide margin...
... but we expect a much closer race as we move towards the election
In contrast to 2006, the proposals of the three major candidates embrace fiscaldiscipline and low inflation
The outcome of this election couldspur reform optimismThis year Mexico will hold Presidential and Congressional elections
. Mexican citizens willchoose the country’s new President on July 1. On that same date, both chambers, the Lower House and the Senate will be fully renewed,while there will also be elections for governorshipsin seven states, and for municipal heads and local legislators in fifteen states (please see thetable belowtable). The official kick-off of the campaigns took place today (March 30), whileJune 27 will be the last day for candidates to perform proselytistic activities and -as it isaforementioned-, the elections will take place on Sunday July 1.
Elections in July 1, 2012
FederalState governorship and local Congress
President Chiapas*Senate Federal DistrictRepresentatives Guanajuato
JaliscoCampeche MorelosColima TabascoNuevo León YucatánQuerétaroSan Luis PotosíSonoraState of México
Source: IFE *Election for State Governor will be conducted on August 19.
We highlight that re-election for President is strictly forbidden in Mexico and there is noconsecutive re-election for legislators and other positions at the state level. It is also worthnoting that Mexico has a one-round voting system, and with the exception of certain legislators,the results are judged in absolute terms (
no “electoral vote”). Voting in Mexico is notcompulsory, and voting is a right for Mexican citizens to exercise either within Mexico’sterritory -in an assigned district quite close to their registered address-, or abroad, if nationalsliving off-shore pre-register. The Federal elections (President and Federal Legislators) areorganized by the Federal Electoral Institute (
), with an important participation of the general population, and are enforced by the Federal Electoral Tribunal (
). On the other hand,local electoral institutes at the state level are responsible for conducting state governorship, | <urn:uuid:1c5eab36-137e-4ed5-8adb-d6a1b89afc26> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.scribd.com/doc/87729576/JPM-Mexico-Economic-Comment-2012-03-30-819544 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929355 | 513 | 1.945313 | 2 |
Usher syndrome is a rare, inherited disorder that involves loss of hearing and sight. Hearing loss is due to the inability of the auditory nerves to send sensory input to the brain. This is called sensorineural hearing loss.
The vision loss, called retinitis pigmentosa (RP), usually happens after age ten. RP is a deterioration of the retina. The retina is a layer of light-sensitive tissue that lines the back of the eye. It changes visual images into nerve impulses in the brain that allow us to see. RP slowly gets worse over time.
Three types of Usher syndrome have been identified: types I, II, and III. The age of onset and severity of symptoms separate the different types.
Usher syndrome is caused by a genetic mutation. A child must inherit one defective gene from each parent in order to develop Usher syndrome. A child with one defective gene is a carrier and will not have any symptoms. It is not clear what causes the mutation in the gene.
The only known factor that increases the risk of Usher syndrome is having parents with the disorder and/or parents who carry the genes for the disorder. If both parents carry the abnormal gene, a child has a 25% chance of inheriting both of these abnormal genes and developing Usher syndrome.
The main symptoms of Usher syndrome are hearing and vision loss. Psychological or behavioral disorders may occur before vision loss. Some people also have balance problems due to inner ear problems.
RP limits a person’s ability to see in dim light or the dark. It also causes a person to lose side vision slowly over time. Eventually, any vision that is left is only in a small, tunnel-shaped area. Almost everyone with RP becomes legally blind. There is no way of knowing when or how quickly a person will lose vision.
Symptoms and characteristics of each type include the following:
- Deaf at birth and receives little or no benefit from hearing aids
- Severe balance problems
- Slow to sit without support
- Rarely learn to walk before age 18 months
- RP begins by age 10 with difficulty seeing at night, and quickly changes to blindness
- Born with moderate to severe hearing loss, and can benefit from hearing aids
- No balance problems
- RP begins in the teenage years
- Born with normal hearing that gets worse in the teenage years and leads to deafness by mid to late adulthood
- Born with near-normal balance
- RP begins in the early teenage years as difficulty seeing at night, and leads to blindness by mid-adulthood
The doctor will ask about your symptoms and medical history. A physical exam will be done. Hearing loss is determined with standard hearing tests. Balance problems can be detected with a test called electronystagmography (ENG). In this test, the doctor flushes the ears with warm and then cool water. This causes nystagmus, which is rapid eye movements that can help the doctor detect a balance disorder.
An eye doctor will perform an eye exam, which will likely include the following:
- Visual field test to check side vision
- Test to check for ability to adapt to seeing in the dark
- Test to check sensitivity to color and contrast
If any problems are found on these tests, an electroretinography (ERG) is done. This test confirms a diagnosis of RP. It measures the electricity given off by the nerves in the retina. The test is done while wearing special contact lenses and looking at a flashing light.
There is no cure for Usher syndrome. The best treatment is to identify the disorder as early as possible and begin educational programs and services right away. This helps reduce the communication and learning problems that can result from hearing and vision loss.
The specific programs and services depend on the severity of the hearing, vision, and balance problems, and the person's age and abilities. Options include:
- Hearing aids
- Assistive listening devices
- Cochlear implant —a small device surgically put under the skin behind the ear to give deaf people some ability to hear
- Adjustment and career counseling
- Training to help with balance and movement
- Low vision services
- Communications training
- Skills in living independently | <urn:uuid:dec760e0-bbd7-4e4c-80ab-132761471859> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://jfkmc.com/your-health/?/22833/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944313 | 866 | 4.09375 | 4 |
"Cluster headache is probably the most severe pain known to humans. Most female patients describe each attack as worse than childbirth."
You’d think that such an excruciating condition would require some mighty strong medicine. But a study coming out today in the Journal of the American Medical Assn. -- the source of the statement above -- concludes that cluster headaches can be treated by inhaling pure 100% oxygen.
Cluster headaches affect about 0.3% of the general population, according to the study. The National Institutes of Health says the debilitating headaches can strike daily for weeks at a time. Other sources say the bouts can last for months before patients go into remission.
Migraine drugs such as Imitrex (sumatriptan) are typically prescribed to stop the pain, but there are limits on daily usage. A small study of 15 patients has found that inhaling high-flow oxygen for 15 minutes was helpful. A trio of researchers from the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in London decided to test the therapy more rigorously.
They found 76 patients who suffered cluster headaches and treated them for four attacks. They were asked to inhale either pure oxygen or normal air (which includes 21% oxygen) through a face mask for 15 minutes. Neither the patients nor the providers knew which odorless, colorless gas was being administered.
But there was a difference. When asked to rate their pain relief, 78% of patients said they felt fine within 15 minutes of breathing high-flow pure oxygen. By contrast, only 20% of patients had the same response after being treated with high-flow regular air. Oxygen continued to outperform air at 30 and 60 minutes after the onset of the attack, according to the study. The researchers didn’t report any serious adverse effects.
The study was funded in part by Linde Industrial Gases, a German supplier of industrial and medical gases. One of the study’s authors disclosed that he had served on a Linde advisory board about the use of oxygen to treat cluster headaches.
-- Karen Kaplan
Photo illustration: Excruciating headache? Oxygen may help. Credit: Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times | <urn:uuid:4a9fbb68-2b81-4527-bb26-12caa6315d35> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/booster_shots/2009/12/cluster-headache-oxygen.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00053-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958248 | 444 | 2.8125 | 3 |
Most general remodelers have received requests for projects to make life easier for elderly or disabled clients. But Louis Tenenbaum has turned such jobs into the focus for his Potomoc, Md., company, Access Remodeling. In fact, he has created a new career for himself: an independent living strategist.
Tenenbaum works with homeowners to determine what barriers to independent living may exist in their homes and how to remove those barriers.
"I help people decide about home modifications and equipment that facilitate independent living," Tenenbaum says.
"This work takes into account the individual's health, ability and mobility, caregiver availability and ability, the condition of the existing home, and the budget. This is much more than the average contractor knows about."
In a workshop at the recent NAHB convention in Atlanta, Tenenbaum suggested that remodelers work closely with occupational therapists and other health-care and elder-care professionals to determine exactly what clients need to stay in their own homes. "When people are forced to move, they lose their independence. The people are not the problem; the house is the problem, and lost independence is the result."
Bob Benson heads up the insurance reconstruction and barrier-free modification division of Fairway Construction Co. (Southfield, Mich.). Like Tenenbaum, he receives many of his referrals through occupational therapists, nurses and hospitals. He includes health-care professionals in the planning stages; it's essential that he has a clear understanding of the physical limitations the client will be facing.
"I have to find out if a stroke victim will regain use of his left hand," he explains. "If not, I have to design for right-hand use only."
Benson prides himself on quick turnarounds for requests for modifications. But sometimes, once he visits the home, he recommends the client consider moving because of insurmountable problems in the floorplan.
"If the stairway in a two-story home is too narrow for a chair lift or the customer doesn't want one, I might suggestion they look at living in a ranch-style house," Benson says. "Sometimes the house is just too small to allow for the modifications they need."
Benson takes pride in customer satisfaction, but he admits this niche in remodeling sometimes makes it tough to get positive feedback. Because of the unfortunate circumstances that necessitate the project in the first place, it's hard for clients to get excited about the changes in their homes. And a salesperson has to be sensitive to that.
"You can't go in with a high-pressure approach," he says. "These people have been through a traumatic change. Sometimes they're bitter, especially accident victims. On three different occasions, I've had clients tell me, 'What's the point? I still can't walk.' That's very tough to deal with." | <urn:uuid:189cbd30-998e-4554-9090-a09393e2c7ad> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.housingzone.com/print/article/independent-living-through-remodeling | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968629 | 586 | 1.59375 | 2 |
It’s Saturday evening and Lakshmi and Vikal Dogra, residents of Shastri Nagar, Ghaziabad, want to go for a movie. They don’t want to take their year-old baby girl, who they call Tweety, with them. So what do they do? They drive a few blocks to Chiranjeev Vihar, and leave their baby in the able
hands of Rohit and Kavita Verma, who run Innocentius, an exclusive night crèche, a night-time babysitting centre. Usually we have day care centres where working parents leave their children. But these close by six or seven in the evening.
Parents with erratic work schedules, or those who wish to take an evening out would earlier leave their kids either with their neighbour or pay through their nose with a 24-hour-nanny. But now, they have the option to leave their children at night at a safe place and kiss their worries goodbye.
“We couldn’t have thought of this a few months ago,” says Lakshmi. “Earlier, my husband and I had to leave our daughter with our neighbours or skip going out altogether. But ever since we met the Vermas, we know we can safely leave our baby with them.”
Since Innocentius opened, couples like the Dogras can go for their occasional dinners and parties, without having to worry for the safety of their baby. It’s the nuclear families that are looking out for such crèches. Although there aren’t official figures that show the number of parents opting for night crèches, the reason for which they started go to show that parents are looking for people to take care of their kids at night.
Started two months ago, the crèche operates from seven in the evening to seven in the morning. “We worked in different shifts and faced a lot of hardship in raising our daughter. We just wanted to help parents in similar situations,” says Rohit, who quit his job at Convergys, a leading BPO firm, to start Innocentius. They take children aged between three months and five years only. They haven’t started a kitchen yet, so the parents have to provide either a packed dinner or the food mixes (such as Cerelac), along with a change of clothes. Apart from a standard registration fee, there are hourly, daily, weekly and monthly rates applicable. Parents must specify at the beginning the plan they opt for. Dinkar Kumar Singh, whose son has been with the Vermas for the past 10 days, says the rates are reasonable and the location, convenient.
Near the bustling Mehrauli bus terminal, is another crèche that operates throughout the day, and is suitable for parents whose job involves frequent travelling. Care Plus World (CPW), a 24-hour crèche, opened in 2008, but has received a lot of requests for night care in the past year. Where they had only one child when they began, they now have up to 10 kids at times at night.
For single mother Angel Briganza, taking care of her son Jackson was a challenge, as she couldn’t find a good 24-hour-nanny. “My job takes me across the country and I cannot take my son with me all the time. I’m very glad to have come across CPW. The best part is that they have CCTV cameras installed inside and send me regular updates,” says Briganza. CPW also provides freshly cooked food to the children, apart from keeping them engaged in activities, such as colouring, learning the basics of reading, or playing with building blocks.
Manoj Babu and Valsala Manoj started CPW to help parents with erratic work schedules, or those going through tough times. “Before taking any child, we insist on ID proofs of the parents,” says Valsala. A lot of parents come to this centre with babies, but one has to know how they’re related. Thus, CPW ensures that whoever comes to their centre to enrol their child must have some ID proof.
Elaborating on security of children at the crèches, Innocentius’ Verma says, “At the time of giving their child to us, the parents must submit their ID proof, and a picture of themselves with the child.” The Vermas plan to install CCTV cameras at their crèche by next month. They also ensure that only the parents drop and pick up their children from the centre. This, Rohit says is to “avoid any controversy”. Mumbai is not far behind with its first night crèche Over the Moon, open on Friday and Saturday nights, from 7.30pm to 2am, specifically to give parents a chance to have an adult social life over the weekend.
Similarly, Esperanza in Hyderabad, another 24-hour care facility, takes children between the ages of six months and 12 years. Parents can also opt for Esperanza’s adhoc care, in case they wish to go for a movie, or a weekend trip In this fast-paced life of erratic work schedules, stressful life and the challenges of a nuclear family, parents do deserve a break. And for them, night crèches are a boon.
© Copyright © 2013 HT Media Limited. All Rights Reserved. | <urn:uuid:f9ee31ac-36f0-43c2-a926-2f45f1373c07> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/Print/810112.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00062-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969727 | 1,124 | 1.640625 | 2 |
There are those who call it the natural antibiotic. Garlic.
This is a garlic field in southern Israel. Its planted in November and harvested in April. Israelis are the number two consumers of garlic per capita in the world. Israeli chefs and family cooks are responsible.
Garlic can be found in the Jewish sources for thousands of years. Garlic is very versatile. It can be used as a spice even in deserts.
This Israeli gelateria uses caramelized garlic in vanilla ice cream and in lemon basil sorbet. Garlic has many medicinal properties.
Allicin, which gives garlic its unique smell, is also very healthy. It has very beneficial effects on the digestive system, helping to clean out our pipes so to speak. Allicin can also help reduce our cholesterol and studies show that people who consume a lot of garlic are bitten less by mosquitoes. And if they are bitten, the itch goes away faster.
Here the garlic is scrutinized, the better ones going to restaurants. No one in this garlic factory ever gets sick. 90 percent of Israelis eat garlic. Two kilograms per capita per year. The only nation with a higher consumption is China. The key to healthy garlic is that it is stinky and fresh. The fresher the garlic, the more Allicin it contains. Chef noam uses garlic in all his pasta dishes.
Fried garlic, tomatoes, artichokes, throw in the pasta, fry it all up with some parsley, and walla. A healthy, delicious meal. | <urn:uuid:9629acc6-d4c8-4aee-8f7a-d40f51844f4f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.jerusalemonline.com/finance/israelis-and-their-garlic | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00064-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955451 | 312 | 2.34375 | 2 |
Saving Outdoor School just one funding priority
My View • Many good school district programs face the budget ax this year
As students and families prepare for their return to school this week, I know that their anticipation is in some cases tempered by concerns about budget cuts, layoffs and program losses at their schools.
Our troubled economy hit state coffers hard, which meant dramatically reduced funding for education. That forced Portland Public Schools to make difficult decisions about priorities, so we could avert large increases in class sizes and protect core programs in our schools.
It could have been worse. Portland voters stepped up, even in these difficult times, and extended and expanded our local option levy, bringing $19 million to our schools. But even with the passage of a new local option, we still faced a $20 million hole in our $443 million budget.
Paring back the length of our Outdoor School program from six days to three was one of many hard decisions we made to fill that hole. Maintaining the full six- day program would have cost another $435,000. That would have meant deeper cuts in core programs. We couldn't do that, but at least we can still offer PPS students an Outdoor School experience.
Outdoor School, run by the Multnomah Education Service District, has inspired students for decades. In budget hearings, many students shared cherished Outdoor School memories, and described the unique learning experiences that Outdoor School offered beyond their classroom walls and the leadership and mentoring opportunities it provided.
We appreciate the efforts of students and community members who have raised funds for Outdoor School. However, even with the Friends of Outdoor School's fundraising efforts, we still face too large a budget gap to make a full restoration likely this year. But community efforts to support MESD in lowering the cost of Outdoor School for school districts could be part of the equation in the future.
We encourage community supporters of Outdoor School to work with MESD. Due to cuts in state funding for K-12 education and the loss of federal stimulus dollars, PPS must focus our increasingly limited funds on our core programs and high-leverage instructional initiatives. These include: early childhood supports, efforts to keep more students on track by better tailoring the help they receive, and programs to raise our high school graduation rate, benefiting our students and our city as a whole.
To preserve these priorities we made painful cuts - not just to Outdoor School. We started with zero cost of living increases for staff. We laid off more than 20 central office employees. We eliminated 45 teaching positions in our high schools, as we redesigned our high school schedules.
Our K-5 schools lost almost 13 teaching positions. The result: A number of schools cut enrichments such as music, much to the distress of those parents and students, but among the hard choices to keep the number of students in our core classrooms manageable.
We are grateful for the efforts of Friends of Outdoor School, which raised $40,000. Our community's commitment to our schools is our foremost strength.
While we are not in a position this year to cover the remaining $395,000 gap to restore the three days, we will continue conversations with community partners and the MESD about building back the program over time.
In the meantime, there is much for students and families to feel hopeful about as they head back to school.
PPS students are showing promising gains in reading, writing and math, especially in early and middle grades.
Focused efforts across PPS, and hard work by our teachers and students, are paying off. That bodes well for long-term improvements in our graduation rate.
Along with better results, we are building stronger partnerships in support of our students. We have a new teacher evaluation system for the first time in 30 years, which will improve the quality of feedback teachers receive about instruction. We have this new system because teachers and administrators created it together. This kind of collaboration is the way forward to build the excellence we want for our students.
School board members and I spent the summer talking with parent and community groups about next steps for modernizing our schools. Everyone we've spoken with - both supporters and opponents of the last bond proposal - acknowledges the urgent need to upgrade Portland's schools. I appreciate their open feedback and suggestions. I believe that hearing these different viewpoints will lead to a future bond package that will enjoy broader community support.
At Project Community Care on Aug. 27, more than 6,000 volunteers turned out to beautify our school grounds and welcome our students back.
Our community is behind our schools. The Friends of Outdoor School demonstrate that. And we have amazing students, including those who testified about Outdoor School. Their ability to confidently and persuasively advocate for a program they love speaks to the essential skills they gained in Outdoor School and in their regular classrooms.
We cannot close the funding gap for Outdoor School this year, but we remain committed to producing such remarkable and capable students in every school and program in PPS.
Carole Smith is superintendent of Portland Public Schools. | <urn:uuid:29b6649c-d1dc-4a31-a3dd-97a521f31c9f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://yourtownyourpaper.com/component/content/article?id=11923 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971012 | 1,029 | 1.625 | 2 |
An Industry-Wide Misunderstanding
The misunderstanding I see throughout the industry is the belief that applying properly rated cover-up equipment eliminates exposure from the energized conductor or part. Yes, properly rated cover-up equipment can provide temporary insulation for the qualified electrical worker, but it does not eliminate exposure. The application of rated cover-up on overhead conductors and devices does not allow one qualified electrical worker, working alone, to work within the minimum approach distance (MAD). Rated cover-up does not eliminate exposure and if any work is to be done within the MAD, two qualified electrical workers must be present even if rated cover-up is installed on all the exposed conductors and devices. OSHA 1910.269(l)(2) – “Minimum approach distances” – states:
“The employer shall ensure that no employee approaches or takes any conductive object closer to exposed energized parts than set forth in Table R-6 through Table R-10, unless:
(i) The employee is insulated from the energized part (insulating gloves or insulating gloves and sleeves worn in accordance with paragraph (l)(3) of this section are considered insulation of the employee only with regard to the energized part upon which work is being performed), or
(ii) The energized part is insulated from the employee and from any other conductive object at a different potential, or
(iii) The employee is insulated from any other exposed conductive object, as during live-line bare-hand work.”
Paragraph (ii) above provides the option of using rated cover-up discussed in this article, properly installed, to allow a qualified electrical worker to enter the MAD.
What OSHA 1910.269(l)(2) specifies is how one qualified electrical worker, by themselves, can enter the MAD. The qualified electrical worker can don rated gloves or rated gloves and sleeves, install rated cover-up or use the bare-hand work method. But, when the qualified electrical worker uses one of the options above and then enters the MAD, they cannot do any work. If the qualified electrical worker wants to perform any work within the MAD, they must refer to OSHA 1910.269(l)(1)(i) which states:
“Except as provided in paragraph (l)(1)(ii) of this section, at least two employees shall be present while the following types of work are being performed:
(A) Installation, removal, or repair of lines that are energized at more than 600 volts,
(B) Installation, removal, or repair of deenergized lines if an employee is exposed to contact with other parts energized at more than 600 volts,
(C) Installation, removal, or repair of equipment, such as transformers, capacitors, and regulators, if an employee is exposed to contact with parts energized at more than 600 volts,
(D) Work involving the use of mechanical equipment, other than insulated aerial lifts, near parts energized at more than 600 volts, and
(E) Other work that exposes an employee to electrical hazards greater than or equal to those posed by operations that are specifically listed in paragraphs (l)(1)(i)(A) through (l)(1)(i)(D) of this section.”
There are two key terms in A through E above – “more than 600 volts” and “exposed.” At 600 volts and below, one qualified worker can perform any type of energized work by themselves. Above 600 volts it will take one qualified worker to perform the task, and a second qualified worker present, to perform work within the MAD even with rated cover-up properly installed on all energized conductors and devices. The other term is “exposed,” which OSHA 1910.269 defines as “not isolated or guarded.”
OSHA does not consider rated cover-up to isolate or guard. So, all the cover-up in the world does not eliminate exposure, and it takes two qualified workers to work within the MAD on conductors and devices energized above 600 volts.
Question: Can one qualified electrical worker, by themselves, work within the MAD if all the energized conductors are covered with rated cover-up before the worker enters the MAD?
Answer: No. If the qualified electrical worker is to perform any work listed in OSHA 1910.269(l)(1)(i)(A), (B), (C), (D) or (E) within the MAD, two qualified electrical workers are to be present, even if all the energized lines and equipment are covered with rated cover-up.
Question: A single-phase, energized overhead conductor located on the end of a crossarm has been properly covered, on both sides of the arm, with rated cover-up. Can one qualified electrical worker now, by themselves using the rubber glove work method, replace a cutout on a crossarm within the MAD of the covered conductor?
Answer: No. To replace the cutout the qualified worker will be working within the MAD and properly installed rated cover-up does not eliminate exposure. Two qualified electrical workers must be present to complete this job.
Cover-up is used to prevent qualified electrical workers from accidental brush contact with energized conductors and devices. At no time should workers purposely contact cover-up installed on energized conductors and devices unless they have donned rated insulated gloves and are using the rubber glove work method. This article does not cover the option of the use of cover-up and rated rubber gloves, or rated rubber gloves and sleeves.
Reach and Extended Reach
If rated cover-up is to be installed or removed using the rubber glove work method, two qualified electrical workers must be present at the work site as the worker installs or removes the rated cover-up. The qualified electrical worker installing and removing the cover-up must first don rated rubber gloves before entering the reach and extended reach area of the MAD. Then, using the rubber glove work method, they can enter the MAD and install or remove the cover-up.
“Reach and extended reach” is a description of the distance a qualified electrical worker must keep from an energized conductor until they have donned rated rubber gloves. In other words, if the conductors are energized at 13.2 kV phase to phase, the MAD is 2 feet 3 inches (per the 2007 NESC and the 2009 IEEE 516) and the worker’s arm reach is 3 feet, the worker must position their body 5 feet 3 inches (2 feet 3 inches + 3 feet = 5 feet 3 inches) from the energized conductor or device until they have donned rated rubber gloves. After they have donned rated rubber gloves, the qualified electrical worker can enter the MAD, but again cannot do any work within the MAD unless a second qualified electrical worker is at the job site and acting as a safety watch.
If rated cover-up is to be installed or removed using the hot stick work method, the worker must install and remove the cover-up – with hot sticks of proper length – from a working position where they will not enter the MAD. The reach and extended reach do not apply if the qualified electrical worker is using the hot stick work method and is actively hot-sticking. However, as soon as the qualified electrical worker is not actively hot-sticking, they must position themselves where they are not within the reach and extended reach of any energized conductors or devices that are not covered with rated cover-up.
Proper installation of rated cover-up requires the qualified worker to work from the outside in, meaning as the qualified worker approaches the nearest energized phase or device, it must be covered first. Then, as the worker moves inward toward the other energized phases or devices, the qualified worker will cover the next closest phase or device, until all energized conductors and devices in the immediate work area are properly covered. After the worker has completed their task and begins to exit the work area, the cover-up must be removed in the exact reverse order.
Another error often made in the industry is not installing enough rated cover-up. Both plastic guards and insulating line hose come in lengths of 3 to 6 feet. So, when two 4-foot pieces of plastic guard or line hose are installed – one 4-foot piece on each side of the insulator and an insulator cover – a total of 8 feet of the energized conductor is covered. That does not provide for 8 feet of clear working area for the qualified worker. At the end of each piece of cover-up is an exposed energized conductor, requiring the worker to stay the MAD from the ends of the cover-up.
Example: Qualified electrical workers install an insulator cover and two 4-foot, Class 2 plastic guards on either side of a crossarm of a 12.5-kV energized phase conductor. With the MAD equaling 2 feet 3 inches up to 15 kV, the workers must stay at least 2 feet 3 inches from either end of the cover-up, allowing only 3 feet 6 inches of clear working space as shown in Diagram A.
In addition, the qualified electrical worker needs to remember the reach and extended reach requirement. The worker must position themselves where they cannot reach into the MAD, which in this case begins at the end of the installed cover-up.
If a qualified electrical worker wants to install a cutout on the arm in Diagram A above, it will be necessary to install at least two additional pieces of 4-foot cover on the center phase. A second qualified worker will be required as a safety watch for the worker installing the cutout even with the use of rated cover-up since work is to be performed within the MAD.
Testing, Inspection and Maintenance
Cover-up equipment with phase-to-phase voltage ratings from ASTM Class 00 (600 V) to Class 6 (72.5 kV) is available for multiple applications. It also comes in a number of colors from standard orange to yellow, black, brown and clear. The manufacturing specifications, acceptance testing and in-service testing of this equipment are covered under ASTM standards, including:
• F712: Standard Test Methods and Specifications for Electrically Insulating Plastic Guard Equipment for Protection of Workers
• F479: Standard Specification for In-Service Care of Insulating Blankets
• F478: Standard Specification for In-Service Care of Insulating Line Hose and Covers
• F1742: Standard Specification for PVC Insulating Sheeting
• D1048: Standard Specification for Rubber Insulating Blankets
• D1049: Standard Specification for Rubber Insulating Covers
• D1050: Standard Specification for Rubber Insulating Line Hose
Inspection, maintenance, in-service testing and storage of cover-up equipment are integral parts of the overall application and use of this equipment. The industry has standards for in-service care and testing of insulating line hose and covers as well as insulating blankets, but no standard exists for in-service care and testing of plastic guards and covers. Plastic guards and covers must be inspected before each use to ensure they do not have cracks, deep scratches or gouges in the material. An approved wiping cloth must be used to remove any dirt or contaminates.
When it comes to plastic guards and covers, there is no approved method of repairing these devices. If the plastic guard or cover is cracked, loses its gloss, or is deeply scratched or gouged, it must be replaced. If an end of an insulated line hose is damaged, the damaged end can be cut off, allowing the good portion of the insulated line hose to be used.
Insulating blankets and insulating line hose and covers must also be thoroughly inspected daily before use for holes, embedded wires, rips or tears, ozone cutting, UV checking and signs of chemical deterioration. They must also be taken out of service and electrically tested.
The Importance of Voltage Ratings
When cover-up equipment is used in a work location where there is a phase-to-phase exposure to the qualified worker, the cover-up equipment must be rated for the phase-to-phase voltage. The voltage ratings of two pieces of cover-up equipment cannot be added together to get a total protective voltage rating. Example: The use of a Class 3 (26.5 kV use rating) cover-up on the outside phase and a Class 3 cover-up on the center phase of a 35 kV overhead line does not provide 53 kV (26.5 kV x 2 = 53 kV) of protection. Only Class 4 rated cover-up (36 kV use rating) can be used on a 35 kV phase-to-phase exposure. Also, two Class 2 (17 kV use rating) insulating blankets cannot be laid one on top of the other to provide a resultant rating of 34 kV; only one Class 4 insulating blanket can be used on a 35 kV system.
About the Author: Brian Erga, president of ESCI Inc., has more than 36 years of electric utility expertise and holds a BSEE degree. An expert on safety practices and work methods related to the electric utility industry, he is a member of IEEE/ESMO, NSC, NFPA and ASTM F18, and a member of NESC Subcommittee 8, responsible for NESC Part 4 “Rules for the Operation of Electric Lines.” | <urn:uuid:f1f0fcc5-0510-48a6-87af-e85c0e061853> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://incident-prevention.com/incident-prevention-magazine-articles/article/150-the-proper-application-of-cover-up-equipment.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951614 | 2,787 | 2.328125 | 2 |
German film Timekeeper Chronometrie has introduces its new “Mystery of Time” clock. This Mystery of Time Clock is a limited edition clock which along ten year only 12 unit have been created. The clock is made according to an upshot of the imagination Tilmann von dem Knesebeck.
The desk clock features an extraordinary make, crafted in gold and crystals, along with exotic woods, mammoth ivory, marble, stainless steel and other precious stones. The watch´s heart is the tourbillon, which moves over three axes and presents itself in the center of attention, and the planetary configuration revolves around its own axis. The limited edition clock has its interior inspired by the planets, and it features an Earth, Moon and Sun center that’s enclosed by a bell-shaped glass dome.
The wings of the chapel opens-up on sunset and close when it dawns, after which the chapel, together with the Grand Complication, sinks into the body of the pillar. The pillar is closed during nighttime, but it blooms with the first sun rays. An elegant crystal encasement further surrounds this beautiful central figure. Luxurious attention has been paid to every single detail.
The planets are crafted from 18-karat gold and the clock’s other components come handmade, including the crystal body and the unique mechanical sliding drive. The wings and inlays are also done in 18-karat gold.
Unfortunately, there is no word for the price, but I think it will not cheap because the Mystery Of Time clock is use an exquisite materials, engravings, casings, and gemstones.
[ Via bornrich ] | <urn:uuid:3e1170ee-058d-4c89-a245-b7ed41efe9ec> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://winarco.com/mystery-of-time-limited-edition-luxury-clock/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00047-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938384 | 339 | 1.507813 | 2 |
LASIK or Lasik (laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis) is a type of refractive laser eye surgery performed by ophthalmologists for correcting myopia, hyperopia, and astigmatism. The procedure is generally preferred to photorefractive keratectomy, PRK, (also called ASA, Advanced Surface Ablation) because it requires less time for the patient's recovery, and the patient feels less pain overall. However, there are instances where a PRK/ASA procedure is medically justified as being a better alternative to LASIK.
Many patients choose LASIK as an alternative to wearing corrective eyeglasses or contact lenses.
The LASIK technique was made possible by the Colombia-based Spanish ophthalmologist Jose Barraquer, who, around 1950 in his clinic in Bogotá, Colombia, developed the first microkeratome, used to cut thin flaps in the cornea and alter its shape, in a procedure called keratomileusis. Stephan Schaller assisted in this landmark procedure. Barraquer also researched the question of how much of the cornea had to be left unaltered to provide stable long-term results.
Later technical and procedural developments included RK (radial keratotomy), developed in Russia in the 1970s by Svyatoslav Fyodorov, and PRK (photorefractive keratectomy), developed in 1983 at Columbia University by Dr. Steven Trokel, "the father of laser vision correction," who published the first article on laser correction and was granted U.S. patents on laser surgery. (RK is a procedure in which radial corneal cuts are made, typically using a micrometer diamond knife, and is completely different from LASIK).
In 1968 at the Northrup Corporation Research and Technology Center of the University of California, Mani Lal Bhaumik and a group of scientists were working on the development of a carbon-dioxide laser. Their work evolved into what would become the Excimer laser. This type of laser would become the cornerstone for refractive eye surgery. Dr. Bhaumik announced his team's breakthrough in May 1973 at a meeting of the Denver Optical Society of America in Denver, Colorado. He would later patent his discovery.
The general term for changing a patient's optical measurements by means of an operation is Refractive Surgery. The introduction of lasers in refractive surgeries stemmed from Rangaswamy Srinivasan's work. In 1980, Srinivasan, working at IBM Research Lab, discovered that an ultraviolet Excimer laser could etch living tissue in a precise manner with no thermal damage to the surrounding area. He named the phenomenon Ablative Photodecomposition (APD). Stephen Trokel published a paper in the American Journal of Ophthalmology in 1983 outlining the potential benefits of using the Excimer laser in refractive surgeries. The first patent for laser correction of the cornea using an Excimer laser was granted to Dr. Steven Trokel.
The first patent for LASIK was granted by the U.S. Patent Office to Dr. Gholam A. Peyman on June 20, 1989, U.S. Patent #4,840,175, "Method for modifying corneal curvature," encompassing the surgical procedure in which a flap is cut in the cornea and pulled back to expose the corneal bed. The exposed surface is then ablated to the desired shape with an Excimer laser, after which the flap is replaced.
The first FDA trial of the Excimer laser was started in 1989. The laser was unavailable to any doctor other than the ten selected by the FDA for the Visx trials. The first use of the laser was to change the surface shape of the cornea, known as PRK. Dr. Joseph Dello Russo was one of the ten original FDA researchers who tested and got approval for the Visx laser. The LASIK concept was first introduced by Dr. Palliakaris in 1992 to the group of ten surgeons who were selected by the FDA to test the Visx laser at 10 centers in the U.S.
Dr. Palliakaris theorized the benefits of performing PRK after the surface was raised in a layer to be known as a flap performed by the Mikrokeratome developed by Barraquer in 1950. The blending of a flap and PRK became known as LASIK, which is an acronym. It quickly became very popular, since it provided immediate improvements in vision and involved much less pain and discomfort than PRK.
Today, faster lasers, larger spot areas, bladeless flap incisions, intraoperative pachymetry, and wavefront-optimized and -guided techniques have significantly improved the reliability of the procedure compared to that of 1991. Nonetheless, the fundamental limitations of Excimer lasers and undesirable destruction of the eye's nerves have spawned research into many alternatives to "plain" LASIK, including LASEK, Epi-LASIK, sub-Bowman’s Keratomileusis aka thin-flap LASIK, wavefront-guided PRK and modern intraocular lenses.
LASIK may one day be replaced by intrastromal ablation via all-femtosecond
correction (like Femtosecond Lenticule Extraction, FLIVC, or IntraCOR),
or other techniques that avoid weakening the cornea with large incisions
and deliver less energy to surrounding tissues. The 20/10 (now Technolas)
FEMTEC laser has recently been used for incision-less ablation on several
hundred human eyes and achieved very successful results for presbyopia,
with trials ongoing for myopia and other disorders.
- Macular Degeneration
- Dry Eyes
- Retinal Detachment
- Botulinum Toxin (Botox)
- Cataract Surgery
- Contact Lenses
- Corneal Translplant
- Cosmetic Surgery
- Glaucoma Surgery
- Retinal Detachment Surgery | <urn:uuid:62454391-a699-4acf-999d-88187a92f8af> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.alpha-eye.com/EyeTreatments/lasik.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00070-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943215 | 1,261 | 2.8125 | 3 |
Outer Space TreatyArticle Free Pass
Outer Space Treaty, formally Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, Including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies, (1967), international treaty binding the parties to use outer space only for peaceful purposes. In June 1966 the United States and the Soviet Union submitted draft treaties on the uses of space to the United Nations. These were reconciled during several months of negotiation in the Legal Subcommittee of the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, and the resulting document was endorsed by the UN General Assembly on Dec. 19, 1966, and opened for signature on Jan. 27, 1967. The treaty came into force on Oct. 10, 1967, after being ratified by the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and several other countries.
Under the terms of the treaty, the parties are prohibited from placing nuclear arms or other weapons of mass destruction in orbit, on the Moon, or on other bodies in space. Nations cannot claim sovereignty over the Moon or other celestial bodies. Nations are responsible for their activities in space, are liable for any damage caused by objects launched into space from their territory, and are bound to assist astronauts in distress. Their space installations and vehicles shall be open, on a reciprocal basis, to representatives of other countries, and all parties agree to conduct outer-space activities openly and in accordance with international law.
What made you want to look up "Outer Space Treaty"? Please share what surprised you most... | <urn:uuid:b7ba472e-246f-44fd-9fa6-cd09314338ef> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/435589/Outer-Space-Treaty | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944865 | 309 | 3.8125 | 4 |
It has now been a few months since the release of the "Australia in the Asian Century" White Paper which had bombarded the media with titles about the new language plan such as "PM's plan for every child to learn an Asian language" and "Get ready to learn Hindi: education in the Asian century". As an Asian language educator, I continue to wait patiently for more clarification on what 'access' and 'encouragement' of Australian students in learning one of the newly defined 'priority Asian languages' would look like. But meanwhile, if we look beyond the language politics, it is clear that a consistent emphasis has been placed on Asia Literacy for both present and future Australians, whether it is through the teaching of Asian languages or Asian Studies across both the primary and secondary school curricula. While reflecting on my own level of Asia Literacy, recently I began to wonder if my Taiwanese heritage and proficiency in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean were really enough to qualify me as an Asia Literate teacher. If not, what does Asia Literacy really mean and how should I teach 'it' to my students?
In Part I of this discussion, I address the issues I see in the current definition of Asia Literacy, and provide a framework for tracking the current debate. In Part II, I will dig deeper into my proposed framework and offer an alternative approach with considerations for teaching that I believe is the heart of Asia Literacy.
As consistently highlighted in various submissions to the consultation for the white paper, Asia Literacy needs to be regarded as more than just proficiency in an Asian language. In fact, from my own experience of teaching in schools, such a vision is virtually unattainable in Australia. While many language teachers blame the lack of success on our crowded curriculum or the complex nature of these priority Asian languages, we know from the experiences of the EU, US, and Canada that active multilingualism could be fostered despite the challenges that are faced by all nations. In contrast, what Australia lacks is a consensus on the value of multilingualism and a leading majority which actively seeks to become multilingual. Despite being one of the most linguistically diverse continents in the world, our celebration of multilingualism never seems to extend much beyond a tokenistic rebranding of efforts by non-Anglo immigrants, indigenous Australians, and their descendants in maintaining their links with their cultural heritage.
In considering a definition of Asia Literacy on the other extreme of the language-culture spectrum such as "the capacity to reflect upon and explore cultural differences in the Asian region" (see Asia Literacy Teachers' Association of Australia), one cannot also help but wonder if this skill alone is sufficient or acquirable without any knowledge of a language for accessing the region. Furthermore, given the vast amount of research available in Sociolinguistics, it should be no surprise to any reader that language and culture are inevitably linked, but the question of how they are linked, especially in our curriculum, remains debatable.
In recognition of the struggle between language and culture in defining Asia Literacy, the Asia Education Foundation (AEF) proposes that by the end of secondary schooling, Asia Literate students should to be able to
speak an Asian language and all young Australians will have foundational and deep knowledge, skills and understanding of the histories, geographies, arts and literature of the diverse countries of Asia.
With this proposed definition, it is difficult not to take a pessimistic view on my own qualification as an educator, since not only can I not demonstrate deep knowledge, skills and understanding for the diverse countries of Asia, the extent to which I can agree with my ability to 'speak' an Asian language does also change based on the context and level of self-discipline I choose to enforce at a given time. Nonetheless, my real dissatisfaction with this definition does not lie with the somewhat unrealistic expectations on both my students and myself, but the treatment of language and culture as two isolated areas of study that happen to complement one another only on a geopolitical basis.
This approach to Asia Literacy has inspired me to organise my reflections in the following frameworks which takes into account the complex link between language and culture. I argue that firstly, any policy could appear biased towards the teaching of one or the other on a surface (or economic) level. Hence, each approach could be seen as predominantly teaching language or culture. I then offer two models for embedding language and culture in our curriculum: the 'with'model and the 'through' model. This framework naturally provides four unique approaches to evaluating the state of Asia Literacy education, which I believe can help us refine our definition of Asia Literacy.
1. Teaching language with (some) culture
2. Teaching culture with (some) language
3. Teaching language through culture
4. Teaching culture through language
The two approaches under the 'with' model treat language education and culture education almost in isolation of each other, in much the same way I argue the white paper has outlined its proposed curricula. These approaches seem to suggest implicitly that Asia Literacy encompasses two separate elements that could be achieved separately, as commonly seen in the incoherent structure of 'culture notes' across chapters of a language textbook. In fact, a similar note could be made about the specified domains within the current Victorian LOTE curriculum. While we can probably all identify someone who stands out in one area but not the other as support for the 'with' models, I argue that deep knowledge, skill and understanding of Asia could only be attained if teachers were to teach culture through language. In other words, language and culture must be delivered through the lens of one another. How that looks in the curriculum design and classroom practice will be discussed in Part II.
Stanley Wang is a second-year Teach For Australia Associate teaching Chinese and
Humanities at Charles La Trobe P-12 College in Melbourne, and a non-resident
tutor for Chinese and Japanese at International House, the University of
Melbourne. He is also currently serving on the committee of the Chinese Language
Teachers' Association of Victoria. | <urn:uuid:7e10e0ae-00d7-42c5-8ece-4e9586119b42> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=14646 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00067-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947217 | 1,239 | 2.3125 | 2 |
by Life Enthusiast Staff
Thymus vulgaris, Labiatae
Relieves nightmares, strengthens breathing, strengthens weak stomach, gas, cramps, diarrhea, relieves headaches.
Thyme is a cultivated form of the wild thyme of the mountains European countries bordering the Mediterranean. Thyme contains very high concentrations of antioxidants (i.e., >75 mmol/100 g). In a normal diet, intake of herbs may therefore contribute significantly to the total intake of plant antioxidants, and be an even better source of dietary antioxidants than many other food groups such as fruits, berries, cereals and vegetables.
Thyme has a long history of use in natural medicine in connection with chest and respiratory problems including coughs, bronchitis, and chest congestion. Only recently, however, have researchers pinpointed some of the components in thyme that bring about its healing effects. The volatile oil components of thyme are now known to include carvacolo, borneol, geraniol, but most importantly, thymol.
Significant Antioxidant Protection of Cellular Membranes
Thymol "named after the herb itself " is the primary volatile oil constituent of thyme, and its health-supporting effects are well documented. In studies on aging in rats, thymol has been found to protect and significantly increase the percentage of healthy fats found in cell membranes and other cell structures. In particular, the amount of DHA (docosahexaenoic acid, an omega-3 fatty acid) in brain, kidney, and heart cell membranes was increased after dietary supplementation with thyme. In other studies looking more closely at changes in the brains cells themselves, researchers found that the maximum benefits of thyme occurred when the food was introduced very early in the lifecycle of the rats, but was less effective in offsetting the problems in brain cell aging when introduced late in the aging process. Thyme also contains a variety of flavonoids, including apigenin, naringenin, luteolin, and thymonin. These flavonoids increase thyme's antioxidant capacity, and combined with its status as a very good source of manganese, give thyme a high standing on the list of antioxidant foods.
Eradicate Microbes with Thyme
The volatile oil components of thyme have also been shown to have antimicrobial
activity against a host of different bacteria and fungi. Staphylococcus aureus,
Bacillus subtilis, Escherichia coli and Shigella sonnei are a few of the species
against which thyme has been shown to have antibacterial activity.
For thousands of years, herbs and spices have been used to help preserve foods and protect them from microbial contamination, now research shows that both thyme and basil contain constituents that can both prevent contamination and decontaminate previously contaminated foods. In these studies, published in the February 2004 issue of Food Microbiology, researchers found that thyme essential oil was able to decontaminate lettuce inoculated with Shigella, an infectious organism that triggers diarrhea and may cause significant intestinal damage. In addition, washing produce in solution containing either basil or thyme essential oil at the very low concentration of just 1% resulted in dropping the number of Shigella bacteria below the point at which they could be detected. While scientists use this research to try to develop natural food preservatives, it makes good sense to include thyme and basil in more of your recipes, particularly for foods that are not cooked such as salads. Adding fresh thyme and/or basil to your next vinaigrette will not only enhance the flavor of your fresh greens, but will help ensure that the fresh produce you consume is safe to eat.
A Nutrient-Dense Spice
The range of other health-supportive nutrients found in thyme is also impressive. This food emerged from our food ranking system as an excellent source of iron and manganese, a very good source of calcium and a food source of dietary fiber.
A delicate looking herb with a penetrating fragrance, thyme is an herb we should all take time to investigate and enjoy. And with about sixty different varieties including French (common) thyme, lemon thyme, orange thyme and silver thyme, this herb is sure to add some spice to your life. Thyme leaves are curled, elliptically shaped and very small, measuring about one-eighth of an inch long and one-sixteenth of an inch wide. The upper leaf is green-grey in color on top, while the underside is a whitish color. French thyme is known scientifically as Thymus vulgaris.
Names: Common Thyme, Garden Thyme
Habitat: Thyme is indigenous to the Mediterranean region, and cultivated widely.
Collection: The flowering branches should be collected between June and August on a dry sunny day. The leaves are stripped off the dried branches.
Part Used: Leaves and flowering tops.
- Volatile oil, of highly variable composition; the major constituent is thymol, with
- lesser amounts of carvacrol, with 1, 8-cineole, borneol, geraniol, linalool, bornyl and
- linalyl acetate, thymol methyl etherand [[alpha]]-pinene.
- Flavonoids; apigenin, luteolin, thymonin, naringenin and others
- Miscellaneous; labiatic acid, caffeic acid, tannins etc.
Actions: Carminative, antimicrobial, antispasmodic, expectorant, astringent, anthelmintic.
Indications: With its high content of volatile oil, Thyme makes a good carminative for use in dyspepsia and sluggish digestion. This oil is also a strongly antiseptic substance, which explains many of Thyme's uses.
It can be used externally as a lotion for infected wounds, but also internally for respiratory and digestive infections. It may be use as a gargle in laryngitis and tonsillitis, easing sore throats and soothing irritable coughs. It is an excellent cough remedy, producing expectoration and reducing unnecessary spasm. It may be used in bronchitis, whooping cough and asthma. As a gentle astringent it has found use in childhood diarrhea and bed wetting.
Kings' Dispensatory describes it thus: "Thyme is tonic, carminative emmenagogue and antispasmodic. The cold infusion is useful in dyspepsia, with weak and irritable stomach and as a stimulating tonic in convalescence from exhausting diseases.
The warm infusion is beneficial in hysteria, dysmenorrhea, flatulence, colic, headache, and to promote perspiration. Occasionally the leaves have been used externally, in fomentation. The oil is valuable as a local application to neuralgic and rheumatic pains; and, internally, to fulfill any of the indications for which the plant is used. Dose of the infusion, from 1 to 3 fluid ounces; of the oil, from 2 to 10 drops on sugar, or in emulsion.
Thyme, skullcap and rue of each 2 ounces; peony and black cohosh, of each, 1 ounce; macerated for 14 days in diluted alcohol, and then filtered, forms a good preparation for nervous and spasmodic diseases of children. It may be given in teaspoonful doses to a child 3 years old, repeating it 3 or 4 times a day, sweetening and diluting it, if desired. A strong infusion of the Thymusserpyllus, slightly sweetened and mixed with gum Arabic, is stated by M. Joset to be a valuable remedy for whooping-cough, convulsive and catarrhal coughs and stridulous sore throat, the favorable result occurring at the end of a very few days. It may be taken ad libitum."
Combinations: For asthmatic problems it will combine well with Lobelia and Ephedra, adding its antimicrobial effect. For whooping cough use it with Wild Cherry and Sundew.
Preparations & Dosage: Infusion: pour a cup of boiling water onto 2 teaspoonfuls of the dried herb and let infuse for 10 minutes. This should be drunk three times a day. Tincture: take 2-4ml of the tincture three times a day. | <urn:uuid:9b63259a-2280-4387-b343-0d1567130ecb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.life-enthusiast.com/thyme-a-5248.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933331 | 1,762 | 2.390625 | 2 |
The results of a huge, seven-year study in rural South Africa are in, and god damn: by giving antiretroviral drugs daily to 100,000 people in Kwazulu-Natal, researchers were able to raise the entire region's life expectancy by more than a decade. From the LA Times:
In 2003, the year before the drugs were available, 29% of all residents were infected with HIV and half of all deaths there were caused by AIDS. Life expectancy in the region was just over 49 years.
By 2011, life expectancy had grown to 60 1/2 years - "the most rapid life expectancy gains observed in the history of public health," said study senior author Till Barnighausen, a global health professor at the Harvard School of Public Health.
The entire study cost $10.8 million, and was deemed "highly cost-effective" based on the benefits it showed. A separate study conducted in the same region at the same time showed that "Healthy individuals in [areas with antiretroviral drug interventions, like Kwazulu-Natal] were 38% less likely to contract HIV than people in areas where ART drugs were not widely available."
We could conduct this study 40 times over for the price of a single US Navy Littoral Combat Ship, which the Navy doesn't even need. | <urn:uuid:6fee9534-9184-4c8c-aed3-2a8a833a9523> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://gawker.com/5986198/aids-study-shows-fastest-life-expectancy-gains-in-the-history-of-public-health | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981942 | 277 | 2.625 | 3 |
GuruPrem Singh Khalsa known as the Posture Master of Kundalini Yoga demostrates the correct way to do the Bandh (Locks). (See Videos Below)
The Bandhas - Locks are gateways to developing core strength, sensitivity, and subtlety and are fundamental to Kundalini Yoga. The practice of the three body locks bring both depth and effectiveness to yoga practice.
The locks, specific contractions of core areas of the body, are indicated in many Kundalini Yoga meditations and kriyas (sequenced yoga exercise sets). Applying the body locks properly will help you clear blockages that impede the open flow of energy through your physical body, Chakras, and subtle bodies.
With a steady flow of energy, you can bring harmony and balance to your life, you can have access to your core values, and you can express yourself with integrity. Applying the body locks heightens your awareness. See video.
Root Lock is frequently used and closes off the lower 3 chakras and allows the kundalini energy to rise.To apply Root Lock:
Diaphragm Lock: Here, your diaphragm muscle forms both a physical and energetic barrier between your heart and your lower torso. Below this barrier are your lower Chakras, the ones that relate to behaviors that are more unconscious or reactive. Above this barrier are your upper Chakras, the ones that relate to behaviors that are more conscious and aware.To apply Diaphragm Lock:
Diaphragm Lock, Uddiyana Bandh, helps to strengthen your digestion by increasing the fire element, the element of transformation in your abdominal region. This helps your heart center - your Heart Chakra - to open and flow with energy. When your Heart Chakra is open, you have the ability to be sensitive, compassionate, and kind.
NOTE: Uddiyana Bandh correctly and consciously done, is said to "untie the Knot of Vishnu," The knot of Vishnu is located at the Heart Chakra, the area of your rib cage, heart, lungs and thymus gland. When the energy is no longer knotted at this center, but is flowing and open, it is said you can feel the playfulness of your life, and the larger cosmic plan with perspective and relaxation.
Neck Lock is a basic lock applied, unless you are moving the head, as in neck rolls, or are otherwise instructed. Apply the neck lock during most pranayam, breath control, practices and meditations, and while chanting.To apply Neck Lock:
Neck Lock is automatically applied by the shift of relative position between the chin and chest. Do not force your head forward or down.
When you apply the neck lock, you allow your neck to be open and maintain its natural structure, which helps you maintain better spinal posture in general. The neck lock also "seals" the energy that is generated in the upper areas of your brain stem, so it becomes easier to focus and meditate.
NOTE: Jalandhar Bhand, applied consciously and correctly, is said to help "untie the Knot of Shiva." This 'knot' or gateway is located at your brow point. When the energy of this knot is untied and flowing, you feel free of time and space. You associate yourself with the timelessness and non-duality of the soul and the Divine essence.Related Pages:
Copyright © 2009 - 2013 kundalini-yoga-info.com. All rights reserved | <urn:uuid:64b82e32-cd79-4c51-84da-209304692b98> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kundalini-yoga-info.com/kundalini-yoga-bandhs.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.924117 | 729 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Business mogul Donald Trump (who in recent years flirted with a Presidential run) recently went off on the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act on CNBC’s Squawk Box program. (See here for the video – the FCPA portion begins at approximately minute 14). Joining Trump in the discussion was Tom Stemberg of Highland Capital Partners. You will hear during the program views that FCPA enforcement has become “absolutely crazy,” and that the FCPA is a “horrible law.”
As with most post-News Corp. and post-Wal-Mart commentary, Trump conflates two issues: (1) the FCPA as passed by Congress and (2) the FCPA as enforced by the DOJ and SEC. Many of the concerns Trump and Stemberg raise were addressed by Congress when Congress elected not to capture payments to “foreign officials” in connection with ministerial or clerical acts. For more on this issue, see this previous post “Understanding Wal-Mart.”
You will also hear during the Squawk Box program a suggestion that instead of prohibiting improper payments, the FCPA should merely require disclosure of such payments. I do not agree with the suggestion, but it is not an outlandish suggestion. Indeed, as discussed in several prior posts (see here for instance) in the mid-1970′s Congress considered two main competing legislative proposals to deal with the so-called foreign corporate payments problem: prohibition vs. disclosure.
The disclosure regime was favored by the administration of Gerald Ford. President Ford’s point person on the issue was Elliot Richardson (Secretary of Commerce) who, in a letter to Senator William Proxmire (a Congressional leader on the issue), summarized the work of the Ford Task Force as follows. “The Task Force has concluded that the criminalization approach would represent little more than a policy assertion, for the enforcement of such a law would be very difficult if not impossible. [...] The criminal approach would represent poor public policy. [...] At the same time, the Task Force perceived several very positive attributes of systematic disclosure.” President Ford stated as follows. “The reporting requirement covers a broad range of payments relative to government transactions as well as political contributions and payments made directly to foreign public officials. By requiring reporting of all significant payments, whether proper or improper, made in connection with business with foreign government, the legislation will avoid the difficult problems of definition and proof that arise in the context of enforcement of legislation that seeks to deal specifically with bribery and extortion abroad.”
The disclosure regime was rejected by Congressional leaders. A Senate Report stated as follows. “The Committee concluded that an outright prohibition would be at least as feasible to enforce as any meaningful disclosure requirement. [...] Clearly, in order to enforce such a disclosure requirement and apply sanctions for failure to file reports, it would be necessary to prove that the undisclosed payment was actually made, and that it was made with an improper purpose. Thus, the same evidence necessary to prove a violation of a direct prohibition would have to be marshalled in order to enforce a disclosure statute. Accordingly, the Committee concluded that a disclosure approach has at least the same enforcement problems inherent in the direct prohibition approach and none of its advantages.”
Jimmy Carter (who favored a prohibition regime over a disclosure regime) defeated Ford in the 1976 election and the rest is history. | <urn:uuid:184b958c-1597-4ae4-acde-21b29002868d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fcpaprofessor.com/the-donald-goes-off-and-conflates-the-issues | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00053-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973536 | 686 | 1.804688 | 2 |
We can talk with a remote person while seeing her if we use a cellphone with videophone and handsfree device; however, it is nothing but a videoconference and we don't feel as if the cellphone were the person we are speaking to. This study creates new human-harmonized information media that everyone can easily use and feel as if she were facing with a conversation partner, by endowing a cellphone with human shape.
The project leader (Ishiguro) has been engaged in the research and development of tele-operated android "Geminoid" in advance of the world. The important finding in the study is that a person operating Geminoid feels its body is her own body and another person facing the operated Geminoid also feels it is possessed by the operator. Additionally, we have found that this phenomenon appears even when the operator is different from the original person (person after who Geminoid is modelled).
This study aims at developing new communication media "Geminoid Cellphone" that allows for the transmission of human presence from anywhere at any time by downsizing Geminoid into a cellphone scale. A user's presence is transmitted to a remote place and a remote person can feel as if she were really talking face-to-face with the user. It will be new information media that will change our society as well as existing personal computers and cellphones.
Geminoid Cellphone adopts a minimal design of Geminoid, that is, it is
designed according to minimum requirements to express humanlike appearance and motion, which are revealed in our past studies. This design has the minimum appearance that can be recognized that it is man at first glance but cannot be distinguished from men, women, senior people, and babies. The preceding experimental results have shown that many people easily imagine their friend in the prototype of Geminoid Cellphone. The texture of the soft artificial skin covering the body of prototype also facilitates such imagination.
This study develops the sensing and motion capabilities and the design of Geminoid Cellphone through cognitive psychological experiments, while explores its potential as new human-harmonized communication media through a social experiment. | <urn:uuid:e721f095-5d84-420c-976d-7070cd92cac4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.geminoid.jp/projects/CREST/research.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00062-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965345 | 438 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Cash was so tight in San Bernardino that potholes went unfilled, burned-out streetlights were left untouched and ball fields languished unmowed.Also at the Christian Science Monitor, "San Bernardino bankruptcy: Exacerbated by criminal acts?"
That was two years ago, when the City Council learned that San Bernardino's $22-million budget shortfall would jump to $38 million by 2012, sending the city into financial ruin.
City leaders slashed the workforce, extracted temporary concessions from labor unions and auctioned off public land. But they failed to heed warnings that those steps weren't nearly enough to address endemic problems in the Inland Empire city. Instead, calls for swift, dramatic action — such as raising taxes or outsourcing the police and fire protection — fell victim to a noxious political atmosphere that has paralyzed City Hall throughout the economic crisis, according to interviews with past and present city officials.
"I told the council two years in a row that, if this continues, we're going to be looking at bankruptcy. I got criticized for bringing up the word 'bankruptcy.' They called it scare tactics," said former City Manager Charles McNeely, who resigned unexpectedly in May. "The politics of that place are just impossible to deal with."
McNeely wasn't surprised when the council, facing a $45.8-million budget shortfall in the current fiscal year, voted Tuesday night to seek bankruptcy protection, the third California city to do so in the last month. San Bernardino is broke, without even enough money to pay employees through the summer.
The financial turmoil in San Bernardino, while in many ways a product of its own politics, illustrates the devastating effect the economic downturn has had on cities and the basic everyday services they provide, Palmdale City Manager David Childs said.
Saturday, July 14, 2012
At the Los Angeles Times, "Plenty of blame on long road to San Bernardino bankruptcy": | <urn:uuid:063c2507-0abd-48d8-a745-367a865bfb4f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://americanpowerblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/long-road-to-san-bernardino-bankruptcy.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961266 | 391 | 1.78125 | 2 |
23.01.2013Right-wing Extremism and Islamophobia in GermanySending out a Political Signal
In this essay, Aiman Mazyek, chairman of the Central Council of Muslims in Germany, warns against the trivialisation of anti-Islamic tendencies and right-wing extremist violence, both of which are increasingly posing a threat to social peace in Germany
In the wake of 9/11, a new brand of home-grown right-wing terrorism was able to emerge in Germany. Even specially drafted anti-terror laws didn't help because right-wing radicalism had been underestimated and sometimes even structurally repressed for too long.
After the brutal right-wing extremist terrorist attacks in Norway, it became clear in Germany too that right-wing terrorists were capable of carrying out the worst attacks the country had seen since the Second World War. This led Germany's attorney general to say that the terrorist acts perpetrated by the National Socialist Underground (NSU) were "Germany's 9/11".
There had certainly been enough early-warning signs pointing to this dangerous development. The problem was that they were not correctly interpreted and were sometimes even ignored.
Raising their voices against indifference and political inconsistency: Muslims in Dresden demonstrate after the murder of the Egyptian woman Marwa El-Sherbini on 11 November 2009 It is only now that we are slowly beginning to understand that because of indifference and political inconsistency after the events of Rostock and Hoyerswerda, Solingen and Mölln, after the arson attack in Ludwigshafen, the terrorist attack on Keupstrasse in Cologne and a large number of racist murders (such as that of Marwa El-Sherbini) and attacks on foreigners and Muslim facilities, this development facilitated and strengthened the NSU's terrorism.
At least 148 people have been killed in racist and right-wing extremist violence in Germany over the past few years. This is why the time has come for politics and society to at last admit that they have thus far underestimated and trivialised the phenomenon of right-wing extremist violence and to begin fighting it in a sustainable manner.
The beneficiaries of Islamophobia
In recent years, neo-Nazis in Europe have increasingly benefited from the underlying Islamophobic atmosphere in society. Evidence of this atmosphere includes Geert Wilders' populist right-wing Party for Freedom in the Netherlands as well as the NPD, the NSU and the extreme right-wing PI website in Germany, to name but a few. The fear of Islam and the spectre of the Islamicization of Europe are doing the rounds and are being used as a starting point for the recruitment of supporters and to whip up negative feeling towards Jews, Muslims and dissidents.
"It is vital that we at last find the political courage to grasp the problems of Islamophobia and Islamophobic racism by the roots and officially declare them to be elements of racist crime," writes Mazyek Just like the murderer of the Egyptian woman Marwa El-Sherbini, the condemned Norwegian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik largely allowed himself to be led astray by anti-Islamic material and propaganda on the Internet, including known radical right-wing websites and pamphlets run and published by known Islam-haters from Germany.
So far, however, these findings have only been registered very vaguely by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution.
As much as we support a ban on the right-wing political party NPD, we feel that it must not be allowed to open up an "exoneration debate". The idea that once the NPD is banned, racism will have been eliminated is a dangerous trivialisation that only leads us to close our eyes to the everyday and structural racism at the heart of our society.
This is why we need an annual anti-racism report that would outline – in the same way as Germany's human rights commissioner does – not only for the German parliament but also for the German public both the progress made and the threats that exist so that socio-political conclusions can be drawn.
Islamophobia as an element of racist crime
Above all, however, it is vital that we at last find the political courage to grasp the problems of Islamophobia and Islamophobic racism by the roots and officially declare them to be elements of racist crime. We owe it not least to the victims. After all, criminal offences and acts of violence against Muslims and mosques have increased drastically in Germany in recent years. Nevertheless, the Federal Government and the security forces still refuse to register such criminal offences separately.
In doing so, they are obscuring the scale of Islamophobia. Exactly a year ago, during a meeting about fighting right-wing extremism attended by leading German associations and representatives of the Federal Ministries of the Interior and the Family, the Central Council of Muslims in Germany (ZMD) called for Islamophobia to be registered as an element of crime in its own right instead of just being subsumed into the category of xenophobia.
This demand must at last be heard, especially as such a move would be advantageous not only in that it would make it easier to combat such criminal offences, but also that it would trigger an urgently needed process leading to a change in awareness of the issue in society.
Campaign against racism and right-wing radicalism: citizens demonstrate against racism and neo-fascism in Berlin on 4 November 2012 following the series of murders perpetrated by the NSU Cracks appearing in society
If we do not recognise the threat posed by right-wing extremism and Islamophobia in our society and take action against it in the near future, we will find ourselves in exactly the situation Angela Merkel warned against just under a year ago at the memorial service for the victims of right-wing extremist violence: "We are repressing the things that are happening right in our midst (...) indifference has a stealthy, yet devastating impact. It creates cracks in the middle of society," said the chancellor on that occasion.
But because the first signs of these cracks can no longer be ignored, we, not least as German Muslims, are worried about our country. After all, this indifference results in more than just nameless and faceless victims.
Almost as serious as the victims is the indifference that smothers the voices of those who constitute the majority; the majority of decent people in our country, in civil society, politics, media, and authorities. So let us give these people back their voices and hope that 2013 will be the year that sees society growing together and the cracks being mended.
© Qantara.de 2013
Aiman Mazyek has been chairman of the Central Council of Muslims in Germany (ZMD) since 2010. In 2003, he and Rupert Neudeck founded the aid organisation Grünhelme e.V. ("green berets"), which implements environmental, social and religious projects in former war zones and crisis regions.
Translated from the German by Aingeal Flanagan
Editor: Lewis Gropp/Qantara.de | <urn:uuid:a8c1a772-9eba-42ed-997f-cb90f9032b80> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://en.qantara.de/Sending-out-a-Political-Signal/20560c22607i0p524/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964197 | 1,422 | 1.953125 | 2 |
LEAGUE OF NATIONS
Communicated to the Council.
Geneva, January 20th, 1937.
REPORT ON THE HEALTH MISSION IN SPAIN.
December 28th, 1936, to January 15th, 1937.
Dr. A LASNET ( and his Assistant, Dr. LAIGRET ) and Dr. C. WROCZYNSKI, members of the Health Mission to Spain,
to the Secretary-General of the League of Nations.
Geneva, January 18th, 1937.
We have the honour to present herewith our Report on the health mission (1) which you instructed us to undertake in Spain and which we carried out from December 29th, 1936, the date of our arrival at Valencia, to January 13th, 1937, the date of our departure from Barcelona; the chronological record of our proceedings has been set forth in an addendum annexed hereto (Addendum No. 1).
Owing to the shortness of our stay we were unable to make an exhaustive investigation and to submit findings as detailed as we would have wished concerning the situation in the matter of health and the effect that the movement of refugees may have upon this in all the provinces that remain under the authority of the Government. At the same time we have been able to gain a sufficiently clear idea of that situation and its requirements; it is these impressions that we beg to lay before you supported by such evidence as we have been able to collect.
The state of health is satisfactory and appears to have been affected neither by the disturbances that have occurred nor by the accompanying movements of the population; nowhere, not even at Madrid, has any epidemic focus been reported; in particular, there
Vide appended to the Mission's report (at the end) :
1. The text of the letter from the Spanish Minister for Foreign Affairs asking that representatives of the Health Organisation be sent to Spain (December 15th, 1936);
2. The text of the reply by the Secretary-General (December 21st, 1936);
3. Communique to the Press, dated January 6th, 1937, concerning this mission. | <urn:uuid:d8d28640-ffdb-41f8-8b85-9eba120aae99> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://contentdm.warwick.ac.uk/cdm/compoundobject/collection/scw/id/9829/rec/10 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9713 | 438 | 1.9375 | 2 |
Retail News Breaks Archives
Certification requirements upped for pharmacy techs
February 28th, 2013
WASHINGTON – With pharmacy's role in health care delivery expanding, the Pharmacy Technician Certification Board (PTCB) plans to raise its standards for national certification and recertification.
PTCB said Wednesday that it will phase in the changes over the next seven years. Designed to advance pharmacy technician qualifications, the changes include mandatory background checks and accredited education requirements, as well as changes in acceptable continuing education programs for recertification.
The board noted that its requirements have been largely unchanged since the organization's launch in 1995.
"PTCB is elevating our certification requirements in order to meet the demands of the evolving health care system," Everett McAllister, executive director and chief executive officer of PTCB, said in a statement. "We have made bold decisions on what will be required for candidates to become certified pharmacy technicians (CPhTs). Our board of governors is sharply focused on ensuring that the PTCB program prepares CPhTs for the integral roles they play in supporting pharmacists in all practice settings."
Plans call for new PTCB certification candidates to be required to complete criminal background checks beginning in or around 2014. The board said many employers already require background checks as a condition of employment, and PTCB will collaborate with stakeholders to synchronize with the current systems.
Also in 2014, as part of the 20 hours of continuing education (CE) required for recertification, CPhTs will need to complete one hour of medication safety CE, in addition to the one hour of law CE already required.
And by 2015, PTCB will require all 20 recertification CE hours to be pharmacy technician-specific. Many current CE offerings already fit this definition, according to the board. The allowable CE hours from college courses will be pared from 15 to 10 by 2016, and allowable in-service hours will be phased out by 2018.
By 2020, candidates for initial PTCB certification will have to successfully complete an American Society of Health-System Pharmacists-accredited education program. These programs include didactic course work and practical experience, with the aim of providing well-rounded training for technicians.
PTCB said that starting on Wednesday it's conducting a 90-day open, online comment period on its PTCB.org website to allow the pharmacy community to share best practices for implementing the new requirements. The board plans to begin releasing the policies and procedures regarding the implementation of these decisions later this year.
The program changes stem from PTCB initiative that began with a 2011 summit focused on five areas related to pharmacy technicians: consumer awareness, resources, education, state policy and testing (C.R.E.S.T.), PTCB added. Summit attendees included pharmacists, CPhTs, educators, major employers, state boards of pharmacy and others. Summit findings, combined with results from two professionwide surveys, called for PTCB and the pharmacy profession to make decisive changes in certification standards. | <urn:uuid:518c9774-90df-4b6c-95fd-d663b5eaf464> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.chaindrugreview.com/newsbreaks-archives/2013-02-25/certification-requirements-upped-for-pharmacy-techs | 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 | 0.941292 | 626 | 1.5 | 2 |
Do Your Own Thinking
This chapter is the one where we let you in on the secret that despite all the advice and professional resources and available consulting expertise, no one is able to tell you how to make the most of your education and technical expertise. The best that we can do is to describe the trends that have existed in the past and to try to project existing job needs in the future. We can also provide anecdotes of specific scientists who have had different types of careers, but remember that each of these people developed under different circumstances and has a different educational and personal background from all the others. It is therefore difficult to make generalizations about what you need to do to succeed. After all, moreover, your definition of success may be different from someone else’s definition. It is therefore your job to figure out where your particular skills and interests will best fit. One stark way to state this point is to say that for the rest of your life you will have to either do your own thinking, or let other people do the thinking for you.
“All the problems of the world could be settled easily if men were only willing to think. The trouble is that men very often resort to all sorts of devices in order not to think, because thinking is such hard work.” Thomas J. Watson
“I always have a quotation ready. It saves original thinking.” Dorothy Sayers
Things to Think About
Have you participated in writing a grant proposal?
Have you ordered equipment or software?
Have you designed an experiment?
Read Practical Experiment Designs for Scientists and Engineers, by William J. Diamond, Third Edition. Wiley Press. 2001.
Have you learned statistics?
Read Applied Multivariate Statistical Analysis, by Johnson and Wichern. Fifth Edition. Prentice-Hall. 2002.
If your project involves multi-variate data, read Graphical Analysis of Multiresponse Data, by Basford and Tukey, Chapman & Hall/CRC. 1999.
How do you make decisions?
What is the next step in your project? | <urn:uuid:7fbe9e3f-0b6e-4fe1-9a64-affb071cdd1c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aps.org/careers/guidance/guide/thinking.cfm | 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 | 0.949926 | 425 | 2.4375 | 2 |
During tax-filing season, individual retirement accounts get a lot of attention because the traditional accounts are the only way to still shave some dollars off a tax bill.
But if you have some IRS refund money burning a hole in your pocket, you might want to check out the many other tax-free or tax-deferred ways to save.
Here's a look at 10 popular options.
Individual retirement accountsKnown popularly as IRAs, for 35 years these accounts have provided individuals a way to save for retirement and save on taxes. Anyone who works, either for himself or for an employer, can set aside a portion of that income in a personal retirement account.
Over the years, the concept has been refined, with tax savings and earnings possibilities enhanced. Generally, individuals with wage income (rather than self-employment earnings) will choose to contribute to either a traditional IRA or a Roth IRA.
1. Traditional IRAs"Traditional IRA" is the name given to the original account created in 1974. This account is available to anyone younger than 70½ who earns money. The contribution limit for 2009 is $5,000 and money can be put into these accounts for last tax year, up until the April 15 tax-filing deadline. The same contribution limit applies for the 2010 tax year.
Advantages: The earnings are tax-deferred, meaning you won't owe the IRS until you make withdrawals, which you can start taking at age 59½. Workers age 50 or older (but younger than 70½) can put in another $1,000 a year. Some individuals also might be able to deduct these contributions.
Drawbacks: You'll eventually owe taxes on at least some of the money in the account. You cannot contribute once you reach age 70½. When you reach that age, you must start taking out a minimum amount based on an IRS longevity calculations.
2. Roth IRAsRoth IRA contributions were first accepted in 1998. That year, $8.6 billion went into these retirement plans, with another $39 billion transferred from traditional IRAs to Roths. By 2001, IRS data showed contributions to Roths had surpassed the amount going into traditional accounts. | <urn:uuid:790bfb93-4acd-4913-b7f7-7d2afca601b2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bankrate.com/finance/money-guides/10-ways-irs-helps-save-1.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956125 | 447 | 1.84375 | 2 |
star-of-Bethlehem, in botany, low, spring-blooming bulbous plant ( Ornithogalum umbellatum ) of the family Liliaceae (lily family), native to the Mediterranean region but naturalized in North America and cultivated in gardens. The plant has rather stiff, grasslike leaves and a cluster of white star-shaped flowers marked on the back with green. It spreads easily and tends to become weedy. Although the fresh plant is poisonous, the bulbs have been prepared and used as food in the Old World. The flower has been associated with the star that guided the Wise Men to the manger (see Star of Bethlehem). The star-of-Bethlehem is classified in the division Magnoliophyta, class Liliopsida, order Liliales, family Liliaceae.
See more Encyclopedia articles on: Botany: General | <urn:uuid:d538d251-47de-4a52-83eb-b709281d4c45> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.factmonster.com/encyclopedia/science/star-of-bethlehem-botany.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.911826 | 182 | 3.390625 | 3 |
The faculty of the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering includes six outstanding young educators and researchers, four of whom only recently joined the Department. The exciting research of these young faculty members is helping the Department achieve its goal of building an exceptionally strong community of researchers in nuclear and radiation science and technology centering on the Department and reaching across MIT.
With continual improvements in numerical algorithms and computational performance, modeling and simulation is gaining attention as a way to improve design and reduce costs in all scientific fields. Professor Benoit Forget’s research group is focusing on developing advanced mathematical analyses and computation tools that provide a clearer picture of the complex physics of reactor cores. The ultimate goal is to provide detailed information that enables reactor designers to achieve more power, better efficiency, and well understood safety margins, without costly overbuilding.
Professor Paola Cappellaro's research focuses on the study of few-body quantum systems and their use in quantum information processing. The goals are the realization of practical devices as well as the acquisition of a deeper knowledge of specific quantum systems and their environment. These ideas are being explored experimentally using nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond. The strength of this system is in a hybrid approach that combines quantum optics, mesoscopic physics, and magnetic resonance.
Genetically encoded molecular sensors detectable by MRI could reveal precise information about cellular processes noninvasively in live animals. In a recent study, Professor Alan Jasanoff’s lab developed a prototype sensor for protein kinase activity (a key step in intracellular signal trans- duction) based on the genetically encodable protein ferritin. Next steps include expressing the sensor components inside cells, and applying the design to sense additional cellular targets.
By seeding the coolant in nuclear power reactors with nanoparticles – tiny particles of material such as alumina or other metal oxides -- it is possible to enhance the rate at which energy is removed from nuclear fuel under both normal and accident conditions, thus improving the reactor’s economic and safety performance. Professor Buongiorno’s team at MIT studies the heat transfer and colloidal behavior of these ‘nanofluids’, including boiling and quenching, resistance to nuclear irradiation, and long-term stability. This is a collaboration between the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering (Prof. Jacopo Buongiorno, Dr. Tom McKrell) and the Nuclear Reactor Laboratory (Dr. Lin-wen Hu).
Perovskite-type mixed ionic-electronic conductors are used as solid oxide fuel and electrolytic cell cathodes, and their surface structure plays an important role in the electrocatalytic activity for oxygen reduction and evolution. An improved understanding of the surface electronic and chemical state at the atomistic level is essential to the design of cathodes with enhanced electrocatalytic activity. Using in situ scanning tunneling microscopy/spectroscopy (STM/STS) at high temperatures for the first time, Professor Yildiz’s group found a correlation between the composition and electronic tunneling conductance on the cathode surface that is important for the efficiency of these energy conversion devices.
Tokamaks are the leading configuration used in magnetically confined fusion experiments. Turbulence in tokamak plasmas is widely believed to result in radial transport of energy away from the core confinement region. Professor White’s research at the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC) focuses on the development of new fluctuation diagnostics for studying turbulence at the MIT Alcator C-Mod Tokamak and on collaboration with the 0111-0 tokamak at General Atomics in the area of transport model validation.
“Despite higher education's significant economic challenges in recent times, the School of Engineering has maintained its preeminence by remaining committed to our core missions—the creation and dissemination of new knowledge and innovative technologies, and training the brightest young scholars to help lead us onward.”
—Subra Suresh, Dean, MIT School of Engineering | <urn:uuid:b4ff5220-924a-49d6-b1cc-97afa46e0b56> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://web.mit.edu/nse/news/spotlights/2010/youngfaculty.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00064-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.918788 | 828 | 2.21875 | 2 |
Get flash to fully experience Pearltrees
Countries with the best standard of living are turning atheist . That shift offers a glimpse into the world's future.
I recently watched the documentary Zeitgeist (Part 1) as well as Bill Maher’s movie Religulous.
Atheists are heavily concentrated in economically developed countries, particularly the social democracies of Europe (Barber, 2012).
1,529 Contradictions In The Bible
Understanding the origins and the meaning of the symbolism used in mass media tells everything you need to know about who’s in power in the world today. Here are some books and videos that should be helpful in your quest for truth. Video Documentaries
An apocalyptic horse with glowing red eyes welcoming visitors? Check. Nightmarish murals?
It is sad to think that the first few people on earth needed no books, movies, games or music to inspire cold-blooded murder.
The Dark Bible Women's Inferior Status Back To Table Of Contents
The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority , mistakenly rating their ability much higher than average. | <urn:uuid:944c4027-cf57-418e-abf4-5c682373cf2a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pearltrees.com/bulldogmilenko/anti-religion/id2642776 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.914424 | 239 | 1.890625 | 2 |
Shoulder Fracture Treatment and Pain
Shoulder fractures are very complicated fractures, because the shoulder joint has so much mobility. They are typically classified by how many pieces the shoulder is broken into, e.g., 2-part, 3-part, and 4-part fractures. They are also classified by which bone is broken, e.g., proximal humerus, clavicle, scapula, acromion, glenoid. When most orthopedic surgeons speak of a "shoulder fracture", though, they are referring to fractures of the upper part of the humerus.
Physical examination reveals that the patient has pain over the bone, and often swelling or bruising is present. X-rays usually show the fracture. Three dimensional imaging, such as CT scans or MRIs are often ordered to better get a 3D picture of the fracture type or pattern.
Thankfully, many shoulder fractures can be treated with a simple sling. he bone is allowed to heal, and once it has healed enough, physical therapy is begun to regain motion and strength. We often tell our patients that this is like walking on a tightrope; we can leave the patient in a sling for a long time and the bone will heal, but their shoulder function will never recover. Or we can start moving the shoulder too early and the bone will not heal properly. Striking the right balance is up to your orthopedist. We definitely recommend a home exercise program once you are allowed to move your shoulder. Our shoulder rehabilitation kit is perfect for this.
Some fractures are severe enough that they require surgery. There are many different types of surgery for the different fractures. Some involve putting pins in the bone (percutaneous pinning); others involve opening up the fracture, realigning the bones, and putting a plate and screws to hold them together (open reduction, internal fixation — ORIF). Finally, some fractures are in so many pieces that the best option is to replace the shoulder — shoulder hemiarthroplasty. Again, proper rehabilitation is paramount to good success and improvement of pain and function after shoulder surgery for a fracture.
Pain after shoulder fracture
Whether surgery is selected, or treatment is in a sling, shoulder fractures can be quite painful. Methods to treat this pain include
- Narcotics — prescribed by your surgeon
- Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medications — discuss with your surgeon prior to taking these as they can cause bleeding and may delay bone healing to an extent.
- Other medications — (e.g., tramadol) that act as pain killers, but are not necessarily classified as a narcotic.
- Rest — putting the arm into a sling can help with pain.
- Elevation — many patients will feel better sleeping in a recliner or with several pillows under their upper back.
- Cryotherapy — essentially cooling the area. This is a time tested way of decreasing pain after shoulder surgery. First, the cooling helps to decrease swelling and pain from the bleeding, as well as swelling that can happen from arthroscopic treatments. In addition, we think that cooling acts as a counter-irritant; it tricks your nerves into reporting the cold on the skin as opposed to reporting the deep seated pain in the joint. Cryotherapy can be delivered by something as simple as a bag of frozen peas. However, more modern treatment involves the use of cryotherapy, or ice machines. These continuously circulate cold water through a pad to maintain a constant temperature at your joint. In addition, the pads often have a compressive effect, which further helps to decrease swelling. Read more about the cryotherapy units available at JointHealing.com. | <urn:uuid:fdac16da-a786-4ae1-9184-df388a0441bd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.jointhealing.com/pages/shoulder/shoulder_fracture.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946013 | 750 | 2.1875 | 2 |
Automobile travel transformed how people relate to distance: it decentralized how people live and work, and gave them a new array of choices for everything from the Friday night date to the long-distance road trip. I occasionally marvel that we can take our family of five, with all our gear, door-to-door for a getaway to a YMCA family camp 250 miles away in northern Minnesota--all for the marginal cost of less than a tank of gas. Driverless cars may turn out to be one of those rare inventions that transform transportation even further. KPMG and the nonprofit Center for Automotive Research published a report on "Self-driving cars: The next revolution." last August. It's available from the KPMG website here, and from the CAR website here. I missed the report when it first came out, but then saw this story about it in a recent issue of the Economist magazine.
Many people have heard about the self-driving cars run by Google that have already driven over 200,000 miles on public roads. The report makes clear that automakers are taking this technology very seriously as well, and developing the range of sensor-based and connected-vehicle technologies that would be needed to make this work. Examples of the technology include the Light Detection and Ranging
(LIDAR) equipment that does 360-degree sensing around a car. The LIDAR
systems that Google retrofitted into cars costs about $70,000 per car.
Dedicated Short-Range Communication (DSRC) has certain standards and a
designated frequency for short-range communication, and can thus be
focuses on vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure
communication. Ultimately, these would be tied together so that
self-driving cars could travel closely together in "platoons" and minimize traffic congestion. And it's not just Google and the car companies. Intel Capital, for example, recently launched at $100 million Connected Car Fund.
Of course, it is always possible that driverless cars will run up against insurmountable barriers. But skeptics should remember that the original idea of the automobile looked pretty dicey as well. Millions of adults will be personal driving motorized vehicles at potentially high speeds? They will drive on a network of publicly provided roads that will reach all over the country? They will fill these vehicles with flammable fuel that will be dispensed by tens of thousands of small stores all over the country? If the social gains seem large enough, technologies often have a way of emerging. With driverless cars, what are some of the gains? Quotations are from the report: as usual, footnotes are omitted for readability.
Costs of Traffic Accidents
Self-driving cars have
the potential to save tens of thousands of lives,
and prevent hundreds of thousands of injuries, every year. "In 2010,
there were approximately six million vehicle crashes leading to 32,788
traffic deaths, or approximately 15 deaths per 100,000 people. Vehicle
crashes are the leading cause of death for Americans aged 4–34. And of
the 6 million crashes, 93 percent are attributable to human error. ...
More than 2.3 million adult drivers and passengers were treated in U.S.
emergency rooms in 2009. According to research from the American
Automobile Association (AAA), traffic crashes cost Americans $299.5
billion annually." Moreover, an enormous reduction in crash risk would
allow a redesign of cars to be much lighter.
Costs of Infrastructure
Driverless cars will allow many more cars to use a highway simultaneously. "An essential implication for an autonomous vehicle infrastructure is that, because efficiency will improve so dramatically, traffic capacity will increase exponentially without building additional lanes or roadways. Research indicates that platooning of vehicles could increase highway lane capacity by up to 500 percent. It
may even be possible to convert existing vehicle infrastructure to bicycle or pedestrian uses. Autonomous transportation infrastructure could bring an end to the congested streets and extra-wide highways of large urban areas."
They could reduce the cost of design of highways. "[T]oday’s roadways and supporting infrastructure must accommodate for the imprecise and often-unpredictable movement patterns of human-driven vehicles with extra-wide lanes, guardrails, stop signs, wide shoulders, rumble strips and other features
not required for self-driving, crashless vehicles. Without those accommodations, the United States could significantly reduce the more than $75 billion it spends annually on roads, highways, bridges, and other infrastructure."
Driverless cars will alter the need for parking. Imagine that your car will drop you at your office door, head off to park itself, and come back when you call it. "In his book ReThinking a Lot (2012), Eran Ben-Joseph notes, “In some U.S. cities, parking lots cover more than a third of the land area, becoming the single most salient landscape feature of our built environment.”"
Costs of Time
Driverless cars might be faster, but in addition, they open up the possibility of using travel time for work or relaxation. Your car could become a rolling office, or a place for watching movies, or a place for a nap. "An automated transportation system could not only eliminate most urban congestion, but it would also allow travelers to make productive use of travel time. In 2010, an estimated 86.3 percent of all workers 16 years of age and older commuted to work in a car, truck, or van, and 88.8 percent of those drove alone ... The average commute time in the United States is about 25 minutes.
Thus, on average, approximately 80 percent of the U.S. workforce loses 50 minutes of potential productivity every workday. With convergence, all or part of this time is recoverable. Self-driving vehicles may be customized to serve the needs of the traveler, for example as mobile offices, sleep pods, or entertainment centers." I find myself imagining the overnight road-trip, where instead of driving all day, you sleep in the car and awake at your destination.
Costs of Energy
The combination of much lighter cars, being driven much more efficiently, could dramatically reduce energy use. Lighter cars use less fuel: "Vehicles could also be significantly lighter and more energy
efficient than their human-operated counterparts as they no longer need all the heavy safety features, such as reinforced steel bodies, crumple zones, and airbags. (A 20 percent reduction in weight corresponds to a 20 percent increase in efficiency.)" "Platooning alone, which would reduce the effective drag coefficient on following vehicles, could reduce highway fuel use by up to 20 percent..." "According to a report published by the MIT Media Lab, “In congested urban areas, about 40 percent of total gasoline use is in cars looking for parking."
Costs of Car Ownership
Most cars are unused for 22 hours out of every day. I already know people in cities like New York who own a car, but keep it in storage for out-of-city trips. I know people who use companies like ZipCar, a membership-based service that lets you have a car for a few hours when you need it. Driverless cars may offer a replacement for car ownership. Need a car? A few taps on your smart-phone and one will come to meet you, and take you where you want to be. The price will of course be lower if you don't mind being picked up in an automated carpool.
Mobility for the Young and the Old
Imagine being an elderly person who has become uncomfortable with driving, at least at certain times or under certain conditions. Driverless cars would offer continues mobility. Imagine being able to put your teenager in a car and have them safely delivered to their destination. Imagine always having a safe ride home after a night on the town.
The fully self-driving car isn't right around the corner. Clearly, costs need to come down substantially and a number of complementary technologies need to be created. However, we do already have cars in the commercial market with cruise control and anti-lock brakes, as well as cars that sense potential crash hazards and can parallel park themselves. Changes like these happen slowly, and then in a rush. As the report notes, "The adoption of most new technologies proceeds along an S-curve, and we
believe the path to self-driving vehicles will follow a similar
trajectory." Maybe 10-15 years? Faster? | <urn:uuid:24008626-7ffa-4909-921b-4211ea8f7b65> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://conversableeconomist.blogspot.com/2012/10/driverless-cars.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959374 | 1,764 | 2.640625 | 3 |
Timothy Huang, Graeme Connell, and Bryan McQuade
In this paper, we present an experimental methodology and results for a machine learning approach to learning opening strategy in the game of Go, a game for which the best computer programs play only at the level of an advanced beginning human player. While the evaluation function in most computer Go programs consists of a carefully crafted combination of pattern matchers, expert rules, and selective search, we employ a neural network trained by self-play using temporal difference learning. Our focus is on the sequence of moves made at the beginning of the game. Experimental results indicate that our approach is effective for learning opening strategy, and they also identify higherlevel features of the game that improve the quality of the learned evaluation function. | <urn:uuid:5b0a60e6-4b8e-46f9-a06b-8cf076655a30> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://aaai.org/Library/FLAIRS/2003/flairs03-085.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9415 | 152 | 2.015625 | 2 |
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The decisions of the South Dakota Supreme Court contain many cases involving the federal law known as the Indian Child Welfare Act. They are always a sad story. One purpose of ICWA is to give tribal courts jurisdiction over parental rights of Indian...
Mike J. Levsen of Aberdeen and Renee B. Olson of Waubay are among those named to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights South Dakota State Advisory Committee. Advisory committees are being established in all states and the District of Columbia to assist in...
Addressing a meeting of Planned Parenthood last Friday, President Barack Obama accused pro-lifers of wanting to "turn back the clock to policies more suited to the 1950s than the 21st century." Like any decade, the ’50s had its problems —...
Tags: Abortion, Elections, Barack Obama, Justice and Rights, Family
Rand Paul did just fine at Howard University, thank you very much. Or at least, that’s how he remembers it. Paul, GOP senator from Kentucky, told the Christian Science Monitor on Wednesday that his recent visit to Howard didn’t go so bad...
Although a school policy prohibits students from wearing clothing or accessories with vulgar messages, there is little a school can do to prevent parents from displaying these same vulgarities on their vehicles. Lynne McCafferty of Aberdeen said she...
Your daily look at late-breaking news, upcoming events and the stories that will be talked about today (times EDT): 1. KERRY VISITS SEOUL AS TENSIONS OVER PYONGYANG MOUNT The secretary of state is in South Korea, and his visit coincides with the...
Opening Friday: 42 Jackie Robinson has long been an elusive presence in contemporary American cinema, as filmmakers tried and failed to bring his life story to the screen. Brian Helgeland has finally succeeded in "42," a stirring, straightforward...
Why is not the First Amendment and the Second Amendment to the Constitution treated equally? The First Amendment states in part, “Congress shall make no law prohibiting or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press.” The Second...
AberdeenIt is astounding how much time, money and effort go into selling racism. If it were not so damaging, it would be hilarious. By racism, I mean the idiot-ology that humanity, genus Homo sapiens, is divided into “races." Parents unwittingly...
There are many successful liberals, so why do so many of them wish to subsidize failure for the poor, instead of showing them how to succeed? Take Dr. Ben Carson, as one example. Dr. Carson, the renowned neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital in...
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) - A Nebraska bill that would require anyone to report animal cruelty within 24 hours faced an onslaught of criticism on March 13, with opponents calling it a disingenuous attempt to keep animal rights groups from exposing abuse....
Tribune Washington BureauWASHINGTON — To advance a cause that has defined her political career, Sen. Dianne Feinstein brought the father of a child killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School to Capitol Hill, where he talked about the last time he saw his first-grader alive. She...
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Original site for Civil Rights topic gallery. | <urn:uuid:fb501a5f-4425-4fdb-9031-ffe8f4c2abef> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aberdeennews.com/topic/crime-law-justice/justice-rights/civil-rights/02007001.topic?page=1&sortby=taxrankprof | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943487 | 840 | 1.625 | 2 |
Reward and Reinforcement
Anyone who’s been within 50 yards of a clinical psychologist has heard the terms reward and reinforcement. And it’s fairly common knowledge that the neurotransmitter which supports the experience of reward is dopamine. But what’s the subjective human experience of dopamine? What does dopamine feel like?
Here’s a remarkable summary of an emerging understanding of dopamine as not only the neurotransmitter of reward, but also of motivation. You are “wired” for motivation. You’re not wired for stagnant, sedentary languor. But your way of being motivated and passionate and engaged and happy is particular to you alone. Your motivational blueprint lies in your neurology – your brain and your memory – and your body already knows this.
Notice we aren’t inquiring here into what motivates your siblings, or the people in your zip code. Nor are we particularly concerned with the business of organizing your activities and commitments around the fantasy self in your head, or somebody else’s head, nor some other concept of what you “should” enjoy. We’re asking a simple question that calls for an honest self-assessment: What do you really like to feel?
If everyone around you seems motivated by a wind-in-their-hair, living-on-the-edge adventurous kind of state, but you thrive on predictable comfortable routines, then I could probably offer some general advice on how to structure your weekends and free time. Less bungee jumping and more Saturday morning breakfasts with a regular crowd of friends at your local cozy diner. And if you enjoy the flirtatious energetic buzz of serial- or simultaneous dating, then settling down at a young age is likely a poor choice.
I cannot tell you whether getting married at age 21, or a weekend of white water rafting, or an accelerated MBA program is the right use of your time and energy. The criteria we’re pointing to here are internal, and specific to your body and neurology.
Your "Preferred States"
I encourage workshop attendees and individual clients to conduct a “preferred states inventory.” A journaling and discussion exercise to make sure they are directly in touch with their body-based motivational strategy. It’s a great start to know that you like needlework or scuba diving, but the self-knowledge we’re encouraging here is the discernment of “what about all of that do I enjoy?” And “where exactly, in my body, do I feel that?”
This journaling process takes a bit of time and tolerance for self-examination, but it is not difficult or complicated. You could do it now with just a pen and paper. You start by sketching out a list (maybe 15 or 20) of really great experiences. Winning the spelling bee in 7th grade, a camping trip last summer, a great hug from your sister, or a really juicy peach you ate last night. These don’t have to be earth-shaking events, just stuff that made you glad to be alive and glad to be in your body.
Next, we’ll drill down to the one best moment in each of those experiences. If your wedding day was a great experience, the challenge here is to pick one moment from that experience that captures the best thing about all of that.
Finally, in each of these 15-20 key moments, can you identify the feeling of it? Literally, where did you feel that in your body? And what did it feel like? Once you’ve considered your personal history of best moments, we’ve got some idea of what dopamine “feels like” in your body and nervous system. The changes you notice in your stomach or chest, any observable speeding up or slowing down you notice in your breathing, what sounds or pictures show up for you.
And when you have this knowledge about yourself, you’re in a better position to execute that most important of morning practices – reviewing your calendar and to-do list. Are most of your commitments and obligations directly related to your core motivations? How likely is it that your schedule today will bring about those changes in your brain and body that let you know you are engaged and on-task? On the other hand, how many of your activities and tasks work against your own neurology – making you feel listless, irritated, disengaged?
If you’re a busy single parent, or a caregiver, or you work two jobs to make ends meet – then you of all people will want to take seriously the bits of unstructured time still available to you. How will you spend them? Who and what gets those bits of your life?
Planning Your Day with Motivation in Mind
Thinking about your schedule in this way positions the humble calendar in a whole new light. Your planner or Google calendar is not, primarily, to make sure you get to veterinarian appointments on time. Rather, your schedule is your #1 way of making sure you’re living the life you’re here to live. Having the experiences and connections which link you with your body’s definition of “motivation.”
If you have this depth of understanding of the students or young people you guide (teach, parent, or coach), you’ve got a huge advantage when it comes to “motivating them.” The way you motivate me may have little to do with the strategies for motivating the student next to me, or my coworker, or sister. Figure out what I love, and figure out exactly why and how I love that, and you’ve got pure motivational gold on your hands.
Now, there is an alternative to this person-specific approach to motivation and reward. We can decide in advance what you “should” do, what you ought to enjoy. We can base that expectation on cultural norms or rules like “that’s what people in our family do.” Me, I like the genuinely curious and solution-focused approach that spurns easy, flaccid responses like “she’s lazy,” or “she’s bad.” I’d rather spend some time with her (this process does take time) and her family in order to understand what dopamine feels like and looks like. For her. What’s she crazy about? What does she stay up late doing? What’s she really good at? We can start there.
How to Motivate Me
And with that knowledge, we are in a better position to problem-solve a motivational strategy unique to that student/client. Until she’s 18 or so, it’s up to the adults who teach or coach or parent her to make the important decisions about what developmental and academic tasks are next at bat. At some point after that, she will begin to take on this weighty responsibility herself. What will she do with this hour? What’s the next most important thing? If you’re over 18 and reading this, then you’re doing this already. Out of the vast number of options, what should you give your attention to? What relationships merit your energy? What obligations are the right ones for you, right now? There are, in fact, good and better and best answers to these questions. There is a way of setting up your day, and the next day, which is most likely to create deep sustainable motivation and happiness.
But your body already knew that.
photo: twice the power | <urn:uuid:ad37f981-82e4-41aa-b832-c5ac69c13c93> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/intrinsic-motivation-and-magical-unicorns/201103/what-your-body-already-knows | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00064-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943546 | 1,580 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Aug. 5, 2010 Driving alone in a car increases global temperatures in the long run more than making the same long-distance journey by air according to a new study. However, in the short run traveling by air has a larger adverse climate impact because airplanes strongly affect short-lived warming processes at high altitudes.
The study, published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology by a team of researchers from Austria and Norway, compares the impacts on global warming of different means of transport. The researchers use, for the first time, a suite of climate chemistry models to consider the climate effects of all long- and short-lived gases, aerosols and cloud effects, not just carbon dioxide, resulting from transport worldwide.
In the long run the global temperature increase from a car trip will on average be higher than from a plane journey of the same distance. However, in the first years after the journey, air travel increases global temperatures four times more than car travel. Passenger trains and buses cause four to five times less impact than automobile travel for every kilometer a passenger travels. The findings prove robust despite the scientific uncertainties in understanding the earth's climate system.
"As planes fly at high altitudes, their impact on ozone and clouds is disproportionately high, though short lived. Although the exact magnitude is uncertain, the net effect is a strong, short-term, temperature increase," explains IIASA's Dr Jens Borken-Kleefeld, lead author of the study. "Car travel emits more carbon dioxide than air travel per passenger kilometer. As carbon dioxide remains in the atmosphere longer than the other gases, cars have a more harmful impact on climate change in the long term."
The research also showed that when it comes to freight transport, moving goods by planes will increase global temperatures between 7 to 35 times more than moving the same goods the same distance in an average truck. Shipping on the contrary exerts 25 times less warming in the long run, and even cools on shorter time scales.
"Ships contribute to global warming through carbon dioxide, ozone and soot. Currently they also emit relatively large amounts of sulfur dioxide which forms sulfate particles in the atmosphere. Those particles cool the planet by reflecting solar radiation back into space," says co-author Dr Jan Fuglestvedt from CICERO. "In the first decades after a shipment, the cooling effect more than offsets the warming. And because of the large volumes of goods traded by ship, global trade actually counteracts some of the temperature increases caused by global passenger travel. However, in the long term all means of motorized transport add to global warming."
The study concluded that as climate change acts at various time scales, it is important to have policies to reduce both the air pollutants that have strong, short-term impacts and the long-lived gases that lead to long-term warming. In addition, Dr Borken-Kleefeld argues: "A comprehensive strategy to tackle climate change caused by the transport sector is actually to minimize the demand for transport."
Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Centre for International Climate and Environmental Research (CICERO).
- Borken-Kleefeld, J., Berntsen, T., Fuglestvedt, J. Specific Climate Impact of Passenger and Freight Transport. Environmental Science & Technology, 2010; 44 (15): 5700-5706 DOI: 10.1021/es9039693
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead. | <urn:uuid:aa26e020-0b74-4e9f-adc6-6e775c02d783> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100804103648.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.913809 | 725 | 3.59375 | 4 |
Find Clarity in Your Calls Part 1
Every once in awhile your conference call might be interrupted by unwarranted noise or static either from a problematic caller or a bad line. More often than not, it can be resolved and even eliminated.
Here are some things to keep in mind when hosting a conference and things start sounding less than clear:
The Power Of *6
Pressing *6 on your telephone will immediately mute or unmute your individual line. Even speakers/presenters can use *6 to mute the line when not speaking. If you or someone else on your call are on a cell phone, dialing from an international location, or in a room with other people, pressing *6 can eliminate your background noise.
If You Are the Speaker/Presenter use appropriate equipment.
- If possible, always use a phone with a handset that is hard-wired into the phone lines. Be sure to TEST the working condition of your equipment before an important conference call!
- Cellular, cordless phones or VOIP lines are more likely to cause static or other distracting noise that they pick up on the airwaves and public internet.
- Speakerphones pick up lots of background noise. In addition, your voice may drop off and not be heard because of the limitations of the equipment. If you require a speakerphone, use one that is full digital duplex which allows all parties to speak at the same time without sound drop-offs. Anytime no one is speaking, mute the speakerphone to eliminate possible noises such as paper shuffling, coughing or other disturbances. When someone needs to speak, simply UnMute the speakerphone.
It is best to use a headset with a quality microphone. Using a standard hand set (holding the phone with your hand) will cause variations in your sound volume due to the varying position of the microphone and your mouth. In addition, using a headset allows you to have both hands free.
Prior to your conference, or in your pre-conference, test the volume of your voice with another caller. If the volume is set too high your voice will sound distorted; if too low, you will not be heard clearly. If you must use a speaker phone, please call our customer service to perform a sound check. Most speaker phones do not have a quality microphone to pick up your voice clearly. Call us anytime to perform a sound check: 1.800.989.9239
ARE YOU “Getting the Most Out of Your Conferencing”?
With our weekly live web-cast we will showcase features which will help you get the most out of your conferencing.
20 short minutes to better conferencing:
- Star Commands and Dynamic Screen for live call control
- Pre-Conference and Lecture Mode
- Recording calls and Playback
- Question & Answer session with our conference experts | <urn:uuid:fa63fad4-8b46-4c12-9ffc-4c9a487b6ae9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.accuconference.com/newsletter/042006.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.915328 | 583 | 1.953125 | 2 |
Treatment attrition among racial/ethnic minority adolescents participating in a brief motivational intervention for substance use problems: The influence of individual, social, cultural, and treatment factors
The present study has the primary aim of examining the predictors of treatment attrition among racial/ethnic minority adolescents with substance use problems. This study explores the potential differential influence of specific individual, social, cultural, and treatment factors on treatment attrition within three racial/ethnic subgroups of adolescents. Participants: A unique feature of the study is the use of a racial/ethnic minority sample (N=453), [U.S.-born Hispanics (n = 262), Foreign-born Hispanics (n = 117), and African-Americans (n = 74)]. Multivariate logit analyses were used to examine the influence of specific factors on treatment attrition among the full sample of adolescents, as well as within each racial/ethnic subgroup. Consistent with expectations, multivariate logit analyses reveal that, the specific factors associated with attrition varied across the three racial/ethnic subgroups. Having parents with problem substance use, being on the waitlist, and being court mandated to treatment emerged as predictors of attrition among the US-born Hispanics, while only Conduct Disorder was significantly associated with greater attrition among foreign-born Hispanics. Finally, among African-Americans, parental crack/cocaine use, parental abstinence from alcohol, and being on the waitlist were predictive of attrition. Multiple factors were associated with treatment attrition among racial/ethnic minority adolescents with specific factors differentially predicting attrition within each racial/ethnic subgroup. African-American youth were more than twice as likely as their Hispanic counterparts to leave treatment prematurely. It is critically important to understand the predictors of attrition among racial/ethnic minority youth in order to better meet the needs of youth most at risk of dropping out. ^
Social Work|Psychology, Clinical
Ashley M Austin,
"Treatment attrition among racial/ethnic minority adolescents participating in a brief motivational intervention for substance use problems: The influence of individual, social, cultural, and treatment factors"
(January 1, 2007).
ProQuest ETD Collection for FIU. | <urn:uuid:bb700d7a-a3b8-4239-ba2c-0376e7db5bef> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/dissertations/AAI3279215/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933799 | 433 | 2.546875 | 3 |
The digging motions of a razor clam.
The soft, pale foot of a six-inch long razor clam burrows through sand at an impressive rate of four body lengths per minute (video). When scientists put muscles in the razor clam to the strength test though, they found that its foot was only 1/10 as strong as it would need to be to dig so fast. What gives? The sand, literally.
Instead of relying on brute force, the burrowing razor clam turns the sediment around itself into quicksand, according to a study published in the Journal of Experimental Biology. And as Hollywood has taught us well, it’s easy to sink in quicksand.* The razor clam pulls its shell up, creating a vacuum that sucks water into the space surrounding its body. Quicksand is just sand with enough water between all its particles so that it no longer holds any weight, making it easy for the razor clam to tunnel down. Although most (big) pools of quicksand are created by earthquakes or flowing water, the razor clam’s small scale strategy is quite effective. In fact, the little buggers are so fast that recreational clam digging actually takes some practice.
*The human body is actually too buoyant to sink beyond the armpits in quicksand. So no, you can’t die of drowning in quicksand but you can get stuck and die of dehydration. Comforting thought, right?
Image via Winter et al. / J. Experimental Bio | <urn:uuid:c74b011a-e6b1-4231-b98b-cac77cd73151> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/?p=37349 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00047-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938203 | 309 | 3.46875 | 3 |
Presumably, that's repeal if the Supreme Court doesn't strike down the law, and 54% expect the Supreme Court to strike down the law, and 50% would like to see that happen. 37% would like the law upheld, and only 26% think that's going to happen. Only 20% of voters think Congress has the constitutional authority to force everyone to buy health insurance.
And here, Scott Rasmussen why the law will die even if the Supreme Court upholds the law and Obama is reelected...
Seventy-six percent [of Americans] think they should have the right to choose between expensive insurance plans with low deductibles and low-cost plans with higher deductibles. A similar majority believes everyone should be allowed to choose between expensive plans that cover just about every imaginable medical procedure and lower-cost plans that cover a smaller number of procedures. All such choices would be banned under the current health care law.
Americans want to be empowered as health care consumers. Eighty-two percent believe that if an employer pays for health insurance, the worker should be able to use that money and select an insurance product that meets his or her individual needs. If the plan they select costs less than the company plan, most believe the worker should get to keep the change.
It's not just the idea of making the choice that drives these numbers, it's the belief held by most Americans that competition will do more than government regulation to reduce the cost of health care. For something as fundamental as medical care, government policy must be consistent with deeply held American values. That's why an approach that increases consumer choice has solid support and a plan that relies on mandates and trusting the government cannot survive. | <urn:uuid:7a4f0232-cc55-4aee-beba-6ddd6236d96e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://althouse.blogspot.com/2012/04/61-of-voters-think-its-likely-obamacare.html?showComment=1333458104188 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972064 | 344 | 1.703125 | 2 |
URI tick documentary returns to Rhode Island International Film Festival
Shane Donaldson, 401-874-4894
‘Beautifully horrific’ film tells history, dangers of deer ticks
KINGSTON, R.I. – July 31, 2008 – For the second straight year, “Hidden in the Leaves” – a documentary about ticks and Lyme Disease – will be shown at the Rhode Island International Film Festival.
Written and produced by University of Rhode Island film media Professor Mary Healey Jamiel and entomology Professor Thomas Mather, “Hidden in the Leaves” will be shown Sunday, Aug. 10 at 5 p.m. at the URI Feinstein Providence Campus, 80 Washington St. It was still in production when it was screened at the festival last August, but viewers will see the finished version this year.
“Last year, what viewers saw was really a sketch of what became a really solid narrative of how the landscape has allowed ticks to interact,” Healey Jamiel said. “On the other hand, the film tells the story of Polly Murray, who really brought attention to the harmful impact of Lyme Disease on the lives of individuals who suffer from it.”
Told through the eyes of Mather, director of the Center for Vector-Borne Disease at URI, the 24-minute film covers the history of the connection between deer ticks and Lyme Disease, which began to come to light in the 1970s. It shares the experiences of individuals living with Lyme Disease, and also gives viewers tips for prevention and treatment of tick bites.
“This is a beautifully horrific film,” Healey Jamiel said. “Between the landscape of the region, and the ticks themselves, there is a lot of beautiful footage. At the same time, you are talking about scary little creatures that have had a dramatic impact on many lives throughout the region. Inevitably in Rhode Island, we all have been impacted by it, or we at least know someone who has.”
More than 717,000 Rhode Islanders are at risk for encountering a deer tick where they live, which constitutes nearly 75 percent of the state’s population.
“It tells a pretty dramatic story because of the widespread growth of the disease, as it pertains to public health issues,” Healey Jamiel said. “Over the last year, it has been amazing to get emails from people around the country who have been touched by the film.”
The completed film debuted on the URI campus in June, and has been aired four times on Rhode Island’s public television station, Channel 36 (Cox 8). Healey Jamiel, Mather and others involved in the production of the film will be on hand for the showing at the Rhode Island International Film Festival. For ticket information, visit www.film-festival.org. | <urn:uuid:c5fd61f4-b70a-4ba0-b61d-6706056188fd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.uri.edu/news/releases/index.php?id=4534 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00059-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950669 | 598 | 1.984375 | 2 |
In a freezer in a building on East 59th Street, steps from Lexington Avenue, far from where Hurricane Sandy inflicted the most pain, are some papers. The temptation is to say that they are old and they are cold, and they are — that is true.
It is also true that they are in the freezer because of the hurricane, because freezing is what the experts say to do when you are trying to save waterlogged documents. Historic waterlogged documents.
“Acts of Congress — they’re laws,” said Naomi Hample, lifting them from the freezer. “Jefferson signed them when he was secretary of state.”
When the storm was lashing the city, the papers lay in a closet in the Argosy Book Store, which Ms. Hample owns with her two sisters. It is six stories of polite defiance against the conventional wisdom about independent bookstores in the 21st century. It is jammed with books, old letters and maps.
But now it has fewer of them because of what happened as the wind drove the anemometers to dizzying speeds.
What happened was that bricks tore loose on the 32nd floor of the office building next door at 110 East 59th Street, where the tenants include Cantor Fitzgerald, the bond-trading firm that occupied four floors of One World Trade Center when a plane hit on Sept. 11, 2001. Some of the bricks tumbled onto the street. Some punched through the roof of the Argosy’s little building, which Ms. Hample said was built in 1900.
The water poured in after that, soaking the old laws in the closet. Ms. Hample moved them to the freezer to preserve them before a specialist tries to restore them. On top of the stack was “An Act Respecting the Government of the Territories of the United States Northwest and South of the River Ohio.” It was dated May 8, 1792.
Next was “An Act to Continue in Force for a Limited Time an Act Intituled ‘An Act for the Temporary Establishment of the Post Office.’” The date on that one was Aug. 4, 1790, and for all their victories in the Revolutionary War, the leaders of the new nation clung to terms like “intituled” that the British used on Acts of Parliament.
And then there was “An Act Relative to the Compensations to Certain Officers Employed in the Collection of the Duties of Impost and Tonnage.”
“It makes you want to go into government, doesn’t it?” Ms. Hample said.
But before you say that a law is not worth the paper it is printed on, consider this: Before the storm, each of those pieces of paper was worth at least $15,000. How much they are worth now depends on the restorer’s magic.
The water was not the Argosy’s only problem. The block was closed once the bricks came down, Ms. Hample said. “They couldn’t let the street open until they were sure no more bricks would fall,” she said. “We didn’t get in until Thursday, and during those three days, dampness set in, and we started to get mold.”
Steve Solomon, a spokesman for Jack Resnick & Sons, the owner of the office building, said the company had not figured out why the bricks came loose but was working on repairing the damaged facade. Ms. Hample said the company had sent a crew to start making repairs at the Argosy as well. “They’re very obliging,” she said. “The head maintenance guy came in and said, ‘Are you still speaking to me?’ I said, ‘Of course. You’ve been very cooperative.’”
She led the way to the fifth floor. “This is the first editions room,” she said. “The water poured down from the ceiling.”
This was on Monday, after the cleanup. She said “barrels and barrels of signed books” had been discarded. There was a smell. “They were getting moldy, and the insurance man said, ‘Throw them out.’”
Others are still drying out. A copy of “Raise High the Roof Beams, Carpenter” by J.D. Salinger looked bloated. “The Great Quillow,” by James Thurber, was stained. Two volumes of Swinburne were stuck together.
“You can’t tell if it’s damaged until you take it off the shelf,” said a sister, Judith Lowry. But the water ran down the backs of the shelves. “Some don’t look so bad until you open them,” she said.
The sisters know all this is a footnote to the storm, but sometimes footnotes are worth paying attention to. “The storm had tremendous effect on so many people that you wouldn’t expect to be affected,” said the third sister, Adina Cohen. “This isn’t Staten Island, we know, but it’s having an effect on these pieces of history. It is really sad when something historical disappears forever.” | <urn:uuid:e62d9aec-1072-4708-80ab-41817a7a9986> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/15/storms-damage-extends-to-nations-history/?ref=jamesbarron | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979383 | 1,130 | 2.171875 | 2 |
The Purgatorial Restoration of the City’s Flagship AME Church
The Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) at 1518 M St. appeared recently on the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s list of the country’s 11 most endangered historic places, and on the D.C. Preservation League’s annual list of the most endangered places in Washington. Founded in 1838, the structure stands as a significant piece of cultural and architectural heritage, a bastion of advocacy for human rights.
From anti-slavery leadership in the mid-19th century, to fighting on the front lines for civil rights, to AIDS education and voter registration projects today, Metropolitan AME Church not only been a major center of worship, but also an institution in the forefront of the civic, cultural, and intellectual life of African Americans. In 1895 it hosted the funeral for Frederick Douglass, a regular attendee, and in 2005 held the memorial service for Rosa Parks.
The red brick Victorian Gothic-style church was constructed exclusively by donations from AME congregations across the country. Their goal was to establish a permanent presence near the White House and U.S. Capitol in order to pressure the federal government for equal treatment of the African American community.
Walled in on three sides by recent development projects, the church has suffered numerous structural cracks resulting from vibrations during adjacent construction. The congregation has been a responsible steward, funded major repairs over the years to maintain the building and has begun a restoration drive. However, previously unknown, ongoing water infiltration has caused more extensive damage. Over the years, the 29 stained glass windows have been compromised due to deteriorated lead jointing, the grand staircase and sanctuary floors have settled, and inadequate internal gutters have caused water damage to the walls and ceiling. The building urgently requires a multi-million-dollar rescue effort, an investment that Metropolitan AME Church's community of dedicated supporters simply cannot afford.
And while the U.S. government and District BIDs have been manically funneling its resources into a kaleidoscope of potentially unstable city programs and distributing grants in attempts to defibrillate the economy — the blind faith in the success of electric cars comes to mind, despite almost a century’s worth of evidence to the contrary — they sometimes neglect the true strength of communities. In history and unity lies strength, and by neglecting the foundations of our country’s past as it deteriorates beneath infinite parking garages and office buildings of the big businesses that tanked the financial sector in the first place (which are in themselves on the life support of government loans), we are only further impeding the recovery of our local communities.
This is probably nothing that will go noticed in the short term, nor will the detriment ever be precisely quantifiable. But without the surrounding culture and the history of fighting for human rights, for freedom, a fight that Metropolitan AME Church has stood for since its foundation, Washington as a city has little to stand for at all. The health of a richly historic community in the nation’s capital is surely worth the price of one building’s renovation. While Metropolitan AME hosts patron-dependent “Historic Restoration and Preservation Crab Feasts” at $55 a ticket, one wonders who could step in and lend a hand. | <urn:uuid:52d18ddc-68b0-4c54-8d07-d8770d95256b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.georgetowner.com/articles/2010/jul/14/purgatorial-restoration-citys-flagship-ame-church/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00044-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948865 | 680 | 2.71875 | 3 |
John Paul II was 84 and suffered from Parkinson’s disease, but entered a steep decline only about two months before his death. Vatican reports indicated that he was conscious as death approached, aware of close associates who accompanied him with prayer and able to accept with faith that the end of his life and suffering were at hand. The Catholic faithful gathered under his window and around the world to remember his life and attend his passing. A nasal feeding tube had been inserted a few days before his deathand at the height of the controversy in the United States over the Schiavo case. Final reports did not confirm whether that tube was still in place at the time of his death, but either he or his caregivers apparently decided against initiating ventilator support in the face of the failure of his heart, lungs and other major organ systems. Soon after the pope’s death, Catholics and many others around the world joined in commemorating this major 20th-century religious figure, images of whose funeral were transmitted around the world, and who was remembered in prayer at religious services in many cultures and faith traditions.
According to the Vatican’s Declaration on Euthanasia (1980), Life is a gift of God, and on the other hand, death is unavoidable. Thus we should be able to accept it with full responsibility and dignity. It is true that death marks the end of our earthly existence, but at the same time it opens the door to immortal life. In addition to skilled medical care, the dying person needs love, the human and supernatural warmth with which the sick person can and ought to be surrounded by all those close to him or her, parents and children, doctors and nurses.
It is unfortunate that the life of Terri Schiavo ended as a source of division in her family, church and society. It is also unfortunate that the decision to withdraw artificial nutrition and hydration did not, in her case, lead to a more nuanced discussion of the meaning of end-of-life care. It should have been an opportunity for Catholic leaders to take a clear stand on the importance of family and community support, the role of interpersonal and spiritual values in defining a worthwhile human life and the wisdom of placing technologically supported end-of-life care within a holistic perspective on life and death, including solidarity and justice in providing basic health care to all sectors of society. Indeed, all these values are key to the legacy of John Paul II and to Catholic bioethics.
Advanced medical technologies can often be of use in curing or alleviating illness, relieving suffering and delaying death. But as Catholic moral tradition recognizes, not all technologies are equally appropriate and useful, and not all need be used by persons who are ill or approaching the end. The terms ordinary and extraordinary means of life support are used to differentiate between obligatory and optional treatment. As the Declaration on Euthanasia noted 25 years ago, the terms proportionate and disproportionate may now be preferable. The key point in the distinction is that various technologies cannot simply be classified according to type; instead they must be judged according to the circumstances of the individual patient. A means is extraordinary whenever it is not medically useful, too burdensome to use or even too expensive. A means can be extraordinary even if the patient is not terminally ill.
The main decision-maker should be the patient himself or herself, with the next of kin standing in if the patient is incapacitated. Ideally, though, the decision results through the cooperative discernment of patient, caregivers and loved ones. Any particular means of prolonging life must be evaluated in terms of the type of treatment to be used, its degree of complexity or risk, its cost and possibilities of using it, and comparing these elements with the result that can be expected, taking into account the state of the sick person and his or her physical and moral resources. Even a means already in use (such as a ventilator) can be withdrawn if it carries a risk or is burdensome. To refuse a means of life support in such a case is not the equivalent of suicide; on the contrary, it should be considered as an acceptance of the human condition, or a wish to avoid the application of a medical procedure disproportionate to the results that can be expected, or a desire not to impose excessive expense on the family or the community.
The Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services, published by the U.S. Bishops (fourth edition, 2001), maintain the same: Disproportionate means are those that in the patient’s judgment do not offer a reasonable hope of benefit or entail an excessive burden, or impose excessive expense on the family or the community. The directives go on to stipulate: There should be a presumption in favor of providing nutrition and hydration to all patients, including patients who require medically assisted nutrition and hydration, as long as this is of sufficient benefit to outweigh the burdens involved to the patient.
Over the past several years, different theologians, bishops and bishops’ conferences have offered differing views about whether and when artificial nutrition should be considered an extraordinary or disproportionate means. The issue is particularly difficult in the case of persons who are comatose or in a persistent vegetative state, and hence unable to perceive their own condition, suffer consciously or consciously appreciate the prospect of extended life. Ultimately, the question is whether extended life in a state of permanent unconsciousness is a benefit or a burden to human dignity. A related question is whether the interests of otherseither family members or others who lack access to medical resourcesshould be relevant in determining whether a means is disproportionate for a given patient, especially since traditional sources relate the welfare of the individual patient to family and communal relationships.
Those who demanded that Terri Schiavo be maintained indefinitely by artificial hydration and nutrition disputed the consensus of reliable medical experts that her condition was permanent; claimed that continued life would be a benefit no matter what its condition; asserted that her parents’ interest in keeping her alive should be determinative; presented the withdrawal of artificial nutrition as starvation and murder; presented Ms. Schiavo as an innocent victim who deserved better protection from society, the courts and the law; and placed her case at the top of a slippery slope toward the murder of other disabled or disadvantaged members of society.
The debate about whether the use of medically assisted nutrition and hydration is mandatory in such cases was not clearly resolved by a speech on the subject by John Paul II in March 2004. (Although the identity of the author has been debated, it was almost certainly not the pope himself.) In this talk, Life-Sustaining Treatments and Vegetative State, he said that affected persons have the right to basic health care. He asserted the administration of water and food, even when provided by artificial means, always represents a natural means of preserving life, not a medical act. Its use should be considered, in principle, ordinary and proportionate, and as such morally obligatory, as long as it is providing nourishment to the patient and alleviation of his suffering. He referred to withdrawal as starvation and euthanasia by omission.
While some applauded this speech as an important step in the direction of protecting innocent patients from harm, others saw it as marked by non sequiturs and inconsistencies, and as not ultimately settling the question in favor of always using artificial nutrition. For one thing, it is hard to see how tube feeding can flatly be judged not a medical act. For another, official teaching specifically permits the removal of ventilors (respirators), knowing that death will ensue, without referring to the outcome as smothering the patient. In both cases, it would seem, the rejection of the means of life-prolongation is not tantamount to directly desiring that the patient be dead, but rather to acceptance of death as now timely and a part of the human condition. Moreover, the reference to alleviation of suffering suggests that the papal remarks apply only to conscious patients. Most important, the speech is not consistent with prior well-established teaching and health care practices in Catholic institutions, as defined by the Declaration on Euthanasia and the Ethical and Religious Directives. In fact, artificial nutrition is not generally a part of hospice care, even though it was provided to Terri Schiavo. According to good medical evidence (e.g., The New England Journal of Medicine, July 2003), the dying process is neither painful nor uncomfortable without it.
Richard Doerflinger, of the U. S. Bishops’ Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities, said that the Holy Father has not declared an absolute moral obligation to provide assisted feeding in all cases (Ethics and Medics, June 2004). The Catholic Health Association referred health care providers to the Ethical and Religious Directives as the context for the interpretation of the papal speech. Neither those directives nor the 1980 declaration have been revoked by the Vatican, nor have Vatican officials taken steps to insist that all patients who cannot ingest food or fluids be intubated for artificial feeding.
In regard to the Schiavo case, the C.H.A. reaffirmed the importance of advance directives and advised caution in foregoing life-sustaining treatments, especially on behalf of vulnerable patients. It also reaffirmed that ultimately decisions about foregoing such treatment are made by assessing the potential burdens of the treatment in proportion to hoped-for benefits relative to the patient’s condition and from the patient’s perspective. Indeed, even before Ms. Schiavo’s death, the Florida Catholic Conference posted an advance directives form on its Web site and published the view of the Florida bishops that while withdrawal of Terri Schiavo’s nutrition and hydration will lead to her death, if this is being done because its provision would be too burdensome for her, it could be acceptable.
The key question in this case should have been, What is in the best interests of Terri Schiavo? Leaving the tubes in place cannot be simplistically equated with acting in her interests, since it could reasonably be argued that 15 or more years of existence in a vegetative state neither serves human dignity nor presents a fate that most reasonable people would obviously prefer to death. Those who saw continued tube feeding as a protection of the pro-life position and as a strike in favor of defenseless patients are mistaken if they think that expanding the definition of ordinary care will prevent unjust termination of life in health care settings. It is just as likely to worry those who want prudent judgments about their own best interests to be made by family members when their time comes. It may even contribute to the present movement for physician-assisted suicide, which is partly a backlash against the overuse of hi-tech care at the end of life.
On the other side, those who favor an approach more favorable to foregoing artificial feeding suffer under the misconception that the pro-life concerns are simply reactionary and misguided. Many disability-rights activists and organizations, as well as Jesse Jackson, joined hands with the Schindlers. This points up legitimate fears that medical decision-making often reflects utilitarian cost-saving standards, control by elite values and interests, and the continued marginalization from medical services of those who lack financial resources and a political voice. The sad story of Terri Schiavo calls for more pastorally sensitive and holistic care for those in similar situations, and better and more readily available hospice care for all. It cries out for the use of advance directives along with designated proxies to evaluate best interests as circumstances develop.
The Schiavo case is a warning for all concerned about the common good to become better advocates for broad national health care reform. Sane, just and morally acceptable health care would take the emphasis off expensive, specialized and excessive treatment for a few (who may well not have chosen it) and put it where the moral debate should be: integrated, humane health services for everyone who needs them. | <urn:uuid:48ce4c0f-41db-4371-8ce7-4f6187767be7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.americamagazine.org/issue/528/article/catholicism-death-and-modern-medicine | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963656 | 2,432 | 2.65625 | 3 |
Machine control on the water via iPad
Ethernet UDP communications and marine certified PLCs provide state-of-the-yacht control.
Geisy Penton, Schneider Electric
When the machines being controlled are owned by sheiks, kings, and other multibillionaires, it’s only fitting that their control systems be connected to a state-of-the-art human-machine interface. In this case, Ethernet communications and marine certified PLCs are enabling the Apple iPad to monitor and control of mega-yachts. (Machine builders, HMI designers and industrial PC users take note: Smart phones and other consumer electronics are changing the way operators expect to interact with machines - and how you will create interfaces. Control Engineering's cover story explains how: From Consumer Electronics to your HMI. Also see an iPhone and other consumer electronic applications at the bottom of this page.)
Typically defined as yachts larger than 100 feet, mega-yachts boast luxury features such as swimming pools, beauty salons, massage rooms, and helicopter landing pads. They are case studies in extravagance, integration, and state-of-the-art technology. System integrators who work in this field need to be adept in many areas.
"Palladium is a technology innovator, " said Mike Blake, president, Palladium Technologies (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.) "We provide total technology solutions for the marine industry, and we place great importance on integration. We want our integrated yacht management systems to be universally recognized as the benchmark by which other systems are measured. "
Palladium Technologies is the maker of the SiMON system, a monitoring and control system for mega-yachts. The company, he said, has been on the "bleeding edge" of hardware and software technologies since 1991, to meet the complex monitoring and control requirements of these complex, floating mega-machines.
Blake developed the SiMON system for his own yacht after retiring early and sailing the world for 12 years. He has more than 42 years of experience in software development, and to say he is a "techie" is an understatement. His system serves as a virtual engineer, monitoring thousands of sensors throughout a vessel around the clock. Because SiMON monitors critical functions, the yacht captain can focus on navigating and managing a modern vessel.
In search of a PLC
Palladium engineers knew they were coming to the end of life for their first programmable logic controller. They believed the PLCs were going to be discontinued, and that they were also reaching the hardware’s maximum capacity. In addition, the manufacturer was not providing any design support, or moving forward with more sophisticated development tools. This stymied Palladium’s ability to develop new solutions.
Palladium was looking for a PLC that communicated on an Ethernet UDP platform. The company originally chose this protocol because it has more plug-and-play capability, redundancy, and expansion than other communication protocols. In addition, no one else was developing on this platform—a competitive advantage for Palladium, according to Blake.
The problem, said Blake, was that no one was making a controller that used Ethernet UDP. Changing communication protocols would mean the company would have to redesign its systems in a more restrictive fashion—something Blake wasn’t interested in doing. "We did not want to stray from the Ethernet UDP path, because that would have meant less flexibility for us, and our customers, " he said.
It wasn’t until 2009 when Schneider Electric presented its Modicon M258 PLC in a beta version did Blake think he might have found a solution. The Modicon M258 is the newest compact and expandable PLC from Schneider Electric, a supplier of power, control, and automation solutions. According to Schneider, it's also the only PLC on the market to communicate using Ethernet UDP. It is programmed with SoMachine, programming software that allows users to design, commission, and maintain the logic for drive, motion, and HMI controllers in a single environment. It simplifies machine development and commercialization so users can get products to market faster.
The M258 PLC and SoMachine software are part of Schneider Electric’s MachineStruxure offer, which helps users design integrated, energy-efficient, and cost-effective installations while maximizing performance. Based on tested, validated, and documented architectures, MachineStruxure incorporates flexible and scalable hardware platforms with SoMachine, a comprehensive software suite with application function block libraries.
The M258 PLC not only offered a solution for the SiMON system, but also for Palladium’s entire product mix. This includes the company's electrical switchboards, bridge, lighting control, and in-depth security systems, as well as its custom hydraulic and integrated helm systems. Palladium also wanted to use the PLC for its new SiMON2 systems, which used the iPad as an interface and targets smaller yachts.
Palladium was a beta tester for mobile Apple applications, including those for the iPhone and iPod touch. Palladium created the iSiMON to give a captain and crew instantaneous mobile capability, which meant allowing direct remote viewing of the ship’s engines, generators, tanks, bilge levels, etc., from anywhere on board. All alarms in the SiMON system also provide instant notification on an iPhone or iPod touch. In 2009, Palladium’s iSiMON received a DAME award, a prestigious design award given at the Marine Equipment Trade Show, for the product’s innovation in marine-related software.
Next up for Palladium is the launch of SiMON2, which will bring monitoring and control capabilities to production yachts between 35 and 90 feet in length. SiMON2 has been on the development board for four years, but Blake said Palladium lacked the appropriate hardware and platform to roll it out. The M258 PLC’s dual processors, as well as the release of the iPad platform, have allowed Palladium to finally bring the product to market.
SiMON2 is designed to work exclusively on the iPad and provides much of the functionality of the larger SiMON, but with a brand new interface. SiMON2 uses WiFi technology to communicate with the M258 controllers that interface with the ship’s critical equipment. SiMON2 allows the crew to monitor and control the vessel from anywhere on board using one or many iPads, for ultimate flexibility.
For Palladium, the appeal of the M258 PLC was having one PLC for its entire product line. Also, having one solution that worked with all products helped Palladium uphold its mission of being a complete, integrated technology provider, and helped the company save time and money.
"I believe that partnerships are very important, " Blake said. "I don’t like to use a lot of vendors because it creates disjointed solutions. It’s more important to develop a monogamous relationship where we all move forward together. We can rely on support from both sides and be assured that our needs can be addressed within the Schneider Electric family of products."
Blake also liked that the SoMachine software transcends many different product types, is robust, and is highly supportable. "Productivity is important. Supportability is equally important. Since SoMachine is a cross-compiler type system, it allows us to develop in one or more languages to support our entire product line. We can do more programming in less time, " he said. For Blake, the data transmission capability of the M258 PLC and open-endedness of the SoMachine software offered Palladium a path to the future.
According to Blake, Palladium’s global market demands also meant he placed significant emphasis on Schneider Electric’s responsiveness and global reach. "Time and again, we presented Schneider Electric with a requirement and they researched it, addressed it, and we felt comfortable moving forward, " Blake said.
For example, unlike Schneider Electric’s other products, including HMIs and variable frequency drives, the M258 PLC did not have any marine certifications when it initially was introduced. Without certifications, Palladium could not consider the M258 PLC for its application. To move forward, the M258 had to be certified by the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) at a minimum.
The engineers in Schneider Electric’s OEM Technology and Solutions (TaSC) group in Raleigh, NC, took it upon themselves to achieve the ABS rating, and are moving forward to gain Det Norske Veritas (DNV) and Lloyds Register of Shipping (LR) approvals. Blake said back office support and services globally is important to help bring products to market faster.
Geisy Penton is an OEM business development specialist for Schneider Electric North American Operating Division.
iPhone app enables real-time remote process control
Flow measurements, valve control, process data, and machine status data can be monitored and modified via iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch devices with the ProSoft i-View application from ProSoft Technology. The app transforms these devices into mobile human machine interfaces using secure 802.11 industrial wireless or cellular solutions so control engineers can work with live data from programmable automation controllers (PACs) on an Ethernet/IP or Modbus TCP/IP network.
ProSoft i-View displays live process control values in stylized lists and includes user-established variance allowances with real-time alarms, including local notifications. Controls and data displays are color coded based on the value. Security is enabled upon configuration; the software requires the user to assign a matching security code as both a password for network access and as a security tag in the central processing unit (CPU) of the PAC. When ProSoft i-View launches, the security code must match that on the CPU in order to create a connection. ProSoft i-View also supports the retina display feature of the iPhone 4 and iPod touch 4th generation.
For 802.11 plant-floor network access, the WiFi function of the phone can be utilized in conjunction with ProSoft Technology 802.11 Industrial Hotspot solutions. For applications with wide geographic disparity, such as pipeline and well-head monitoring, or where engineers require access from long distances, the ProSoft Technology Intelligent Cellular series can be utilized to broaden the range of access to virtually anywhere in the world.
Consumer electronics talk to industrial machines
Machine builders, HMI designers, and industrial PC users are finding ways to use smart phones and other consumer electronics to change the way operators interact with machines. Here are a few examples.
Control of a robot by PC or PLC. Denso Robotics' cNew b-CAP Ethernet TCP/IP control protocol allows the use of familiar interfaces and programming languages to extend control to vision systems and smart phones.
Video: Beer fridge security system with power and temperature monitoring. As shown at National Instruments' NIWeek, a beer fridge security system with power and temperature monitoring uses an Apple iPad or Dell Android smart phone as a thin-client human-machine interface. The system also uses Bluetooth wireless temperature sensing and Compact DAQ. More apps are available at www.ni.com/smartphone.
Graphical and Web-based HMIs. In general, the prevalence of personal electronic devices and technology has "improved the acceptance of HMIs, enabled more content, and given users more flexibility in accessing this information, " said Cheryl Ades Anspach, product manager at Rockwell Automation. "We are seeing users apply small operator interfaces to machines that never had one. " Scott Miller, business manager with Rockwell Automation, agrees that increased personal familiarity with Internet browsers has increased the demand for Web-based industrial applications.
"Achieving this level of accessibility calls for HMI software that tightly integrates with the control system to gather and display manufacturing information to a broader audience, " he said. "From an engineer remotely diagnosing the machine to a manager checking production status, extending the HMI solution with Web-based clients and pairing it with an enterprise manufacturing intelligence (EMI) software solution dramatically improves access to role-specific data."
For more on how smart phones and other consumer electronics are changing the way machine builders and HMI designers are creating interfaces, see From Consumer Electronics to Industrial HMIs. | <urn:uuid:892e4573-53a7-4762-bc50-2a6a9d1f735a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.controleng.com/new-products/plcs-and-pacs/single-article/machine-control-on-the-water-via-ipad/99508d0c64ddc1495c5006e38337d5af.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929386 | 2,528 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Professional bakers prefer unsalted butter for many reasons. Salt can hide off flavors, so unsalted butter must necessarily be fresher than salted. Also, unsalted butter allows the baker to add the amount of salt he or she prefers. (A stick of butter can contain from ¼ to ½ teaspoon salt, depending on the manufacturer.) More »Because salt acts as a preservative, unsalted butter turns rancid more quickly than salted, so use it within a couple of weeks of its use-by date or freeze it for longer storage. If you must use salted butter, omit the salt in the recipe. « Less
The Brunch Shop
SEE WHAT'S NEW FOR SPRING
We've got everything you need to whip up some tasty treats for brunch. Peruse our selection of nonstick pans, pretty paper baking cups, spatulas and mixing bowls. Short on time? Choose a yummy mix to make homemade pancakes, doughnuts, and coffee cakes in a snap.
Loaf Pans • Molds
Make home baked bread of the finest quality with heavy-duty bakeware that withstands years of use. More »
Cake • Springform Pans
Everything you need for every type of cake—these pieces turn your kitchen into a professional bakery. More »
Tools • Cookware
Delicate desserts are even more scrumptious with the help of utensils specifically designed for chocolate. More »
Rings • Cutters • And More
Form cakes into shapes or cut cookies into interesting figures. Find an assortment of shapes and sizes. More »
The most delectable pastries start with these indispensable implements of the highest quality. More »
Cookie Sheets • Cutters
Prepare soft-baked cookies fresh from the oven. These tools help them look and taste irresistible. More »
Pastry Tips • Couplers
Make beautiful cookies, cakes and pastries with tips and crimpers in virtually every size and shape. More »
Stainless Steel • Copper
Mix, measure or stage your foods in bowls in a variety of shapes for whatever your ingredients require. More »
Bags • Sculpting Tools
Decorate cakes and desserts with useful tools that shape and design fondant, icing, sugar-paste and more. More »
Pie Plates • Tart Forms
Pies, tarts and quiches are made perfect with our superior bakeware for sweet or savory pastries. More »
Silicone molds do it all: shape, bake and cool your aspic jelly, baked goods, frozen desserts and more. More »
Working with Butter
1. Grate the butter into the mixing bowl on the large holes of a box grater.
2. Cut the butter into ½” pieces and spread them on a plate placed near the oven as it preheats for about 20 minutes. More »
3. Knead the cubed butter in the mixing bowl with your hands until the butter is malleable.
4. Place sticks of butter into a resealable plastic bag, and beat with a rolling pin until softened.
5. Put the butter and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and beat on low speed until the butter softens, then increase the speed to high and cream as usual. Don’t try to cream cold butter with a hand mixer. It is a good way to burn out the motor. « Less
When creaming together butter and sugar for a cake batter, use your eyes to determine when the mixture is properly creamed. It should be very pale, almost white, indicating air has been beaten into the yellow butter. Allow about 5 minutes to cream butter and sugar with a stand mixer or about 6 minutes with a handheld mixer. More »The friction of beating can warm up the creamed mixture and deflate the air bubbles, so take care that you don’t overbeat. If you overcream the mixture, it cannot be repaired. « Less
Take it slow when adding eggs to the batter. Adding eggs too fast (even one at a time) encourages curdling. Beat the eggs together in a bowl. With the mixer on medium speed, beat in the eggs about 1 tablespoon at a time, beating until the batter absorbs the addition before adding more. More »(One egg yolk equals 1 tablespoon, so if your recipe calls for adding the yolks one at a time, you are still adding them at the correct rate.) If the batter curdles despite your best efforts, increase the speed to the highest setting for about 10 seconds. This often repairs the broken emulsification. « Less
Working with Dough
How can you tell when dough has been kneaded long enough? Use the windowpane test. Pull off a golf ball-size knob of dough and pat it into a rectangle. Pulling slowly and consistently from all four corners, stretch the dough into a thin, translucent membrane. If the dough tears easily, knead it longer. More »This technique won’t work with dough that includes seeds, nuts, or raisins, as they will tear the dough even if it has been kneaded sufficiently. If such ingredients have been used, check for stretchy, resilient dough. « Less
Don’t chill pie dough until it is rock hard. It may seem convenient to make the dough a day or so ahead of using, but it becomes so firm that it is difficult to roll out. Instead, refrigerate most doughs for an hour or two, just long enough for the gluten to relax and the dough to get a chill without changing its malleable texture. More »If the dough is chilled until hard, let it sit at room temperature for 15 to 20 minutes to warm slightly before rolling. « Less
Many bakers use a bowl to hold bread dough, but a straight-sided clear plastic tub is ideal for keeping track of the dough as it rises. Mark the beginning level of the dough on the outside with a pen or a piece of tape, and then you can easily see when the dough has doubled. You can also use a glass bowl, but the doubling More »is a bit harder to define in a slope-sided container. Gently poke a finger into the dough. If the hole doesn’t refill, the dough has probably finished rising. « Less
Perfect Pies & Cakes
To prevent cakes baked in Bundt or other decorative pans from sticking, butter the inside of the pan and then sprinkle it with fine dried bread crumbs instead of flour. Because the bread crumbs have a different consistency from the batter, they form an effective barrier that keeps the batter from adhering. This trick is helpful even with nonstick pans.
Let fresh-from-the-oven cakes cool in their pans on wire cooling racks, which allow air to circulate under the pans for more efficient cooling. In most cases, do not unmold a cake until it has cooled for at least 30 minutes, or it may break apart. The exceptions are Bundt cakes, which should be unmolded after they have More »cooled for 10 minutes, and chiffon and angel food cakes, which must cool completely before they are removed from their pans. « Less
If you are making layer cakes, you’ll want to divide the batter evenly between the pans so the layers are the same thickness when baked. If you have a kitchen scale, you can weigh the pans with the batter to make sure they are equal. Or use a large ice cream scoop to portion the same amount of batter into each pan.
Sometimes the edges of a pie crust need to be protected from overbrowning. Instead of shielding them by wrapping a foil collar around the rim of the dish, try this: Tear off a piece of aluminum foil large enough to cover the pie. Cut a large X in the center of the foil. Remove the pie from the oven. Place the foil over the pie, More »and then peel back the cut edges of the foil to expose the center of the pie and cover the edges of the crust. Crimp the foil underneath the pie dish to secure it, then return the pie to the oven. « Less
It’s a good idea to put a pie pan on a baking sheet to catch drips, but the sheet helps crisp the bottom crust, too. Unlike the wires of an oven rack, the hot metal sheet will create a solid surface to heat and brown the crust evenly. Place the baking sheet in the oven during preheating so it’s hot when the pie is placed on it.
Professionals use spring-loaded ice cream scoops to portion cookie dough, making cookies the same size that will bake at the same rate. A tablespoon-size scoop is the right capacity for most recipes.
For even baking and easy cleanup, bake your cookies on heavy-duty, rimmed aluminum baking sheets (half sheet pans) lined with parchment paper. To help the paper adhere, butter the baking sheet first. You can also line baking sheets with silicone baking mats instead of parchment.
There’s no need to transfer cookies to a wire rack to cool. In fact, more harm can be done by transferring warm, delicate, pliable cookies to a rack than by letting them stand on the sheet. If you need to remove the cookies to use the baking sheet again, let them cool on the sheet until they are firm enough to move.
1. Use the right-size pan and prepare it as the recipe requires. Do not substitute another pan unless absolutely necessary.
2. Measure all of the ingredients, place them in appropriate containers, and have them all within easy reach when you begin to assemble the dough or batter. More »
3. Place the racks in the correct position and preheat the oven, allowing at least 15 minutes for it to reach the required temperature. If the recipe does not specify the rack position, it should be assumed that it should be in the center of the oven.
4. Follow the steps and the timings in the recipe. Be careful not to overbeat mixtures, a common problem. Overbeating will make baked goods tough and cause whipped egg whites to break down. If beating a batter, stop the mixer to scrape down the sides of the bowl often. Check the bottom of the bowl, too. The paddle attachment of some stand mixers doesn’t scrape the area well.
5. Place the pan or pans in the oven quickly, keeping in mind that every time the oven door is opened, heat is released. Space pans on the rack with plenty of room around them so air can circulate freely. Just in case your oven has a hot spot (and most do) that can cause uneven browning, rotate the pans from front to back halfway through baking. If you are baking two baking sheets of cookies at the same time, switch the pans between the racks and rotate them front to back halfway through baking.
6. Use a timer, but don’t rely on it alone. To check for doneness, follow the visual cues in the recipe, too.
7. Set up sufficient space for cooling. Cookies, in particular, need plenty of room. If you are inverting a cake onto a rack, have an extra rack on hand to facilitate the procedure.
8. Allow baked goods to cool before removing from the pans. Too often, bakers try to remove cakes and other delicate baked goods from their pans before they have time to cool and set, which can cause them to crack. « Less
When blueberries come into contact with a batter that contains alkaline ingredients, such as baking powder or baking soda, the berries can develop unattractive green spots. Acids counteract this phenomenon, so use a recipe that includes an acidic liquid, like buttermilk or yogurt./span>
Top Tips for Baking Tender, Flaky Biscuits
Cut the butter into the flour mixture until it resembles coarse crackers and peas. It is important to have some large, pea-size pieces of butter in the dough to ensure the biscuits will be flaky. More »
For tender biscuits, handle the dough very gently.
Pat or roll out the dough 1 inch thick for tall biscuits.
To avoid scraps of dough that have to be rerolled, cut the dough into wedges, squares, or rectangles. « Less
For easy removal of brownies from a baking pan, line the bottom and two sides of the pan (short sides if baking in a rectangular pan) with a “sling” of aluminum foil or parchment paper, letting the excess foil hang over the sides as handles. When completely cooled, lift up on the handles to remove the More »brownie slab in one piece, then cut as desired. « Less
Stir 1 teaspoon cider, distilled white vinegar, or lemon juice or 1¼ teaspoons cream of tartar into 1 cup low-fat milk. Let the mixture stand for a few minutes at room temperature to curdle and thicken before using.
When preparing a pan for baking a chocolate cake, sift together equal parts cocoa powder and flour for dusting the greased pan. Flour used alone can leave a whitish residue on dark cakes.
To check the freshness of baking soda, stir ½ teaspoon baking soda into 2 tablespoons vinegar. If the mixture bubbles and fizzes, the baking soda is still good. For baking powder, stir ½ teaspoon baking powder into ¼ cup hot tap water. If it fizzes, it’s fine.
Flour packages are often labeled “presifted,” but that doesn’t mean that you can skip sifting the flour if a recipe calls for it. Even if the flour was sifted at the factory, it will settle during shipping. Sifting aerates the flour, making it easier to incorporate it into a batter. It also combines dry ingredients much better than just More »whisking them together. (This is especially true if the recipe includes baking soda, which can form pellets during storage that can only be broken up by sifting.) « Less
A cake is easier to frost if it is elevated above the work surface. If you don’t have a cake decorating stand, turn a wide bowl upside down, and place the cake on its platter on the bowl. Be sure that the bowl is wide so the platter will be stable.
If your recipe doesn’t yield enough batter to fill all the cups in your muffin pan, don’t leave the empty cups or your muffins can bake unevenly. Half fill the empty cups with water and then bake your muffins.
Use an ice-cream scoop to transfer muffin batter to the pan—it is much easier and less messy than a spoon
Few ovens are spot-on accurate. Always double-check the temperature with an oven thermometer. Place the thermometer in the center of the oven, not near one of the sides or the top or bottom where the temperature can be thrown off by the metal wall. Allow at least 20 minutes for the oven to preheat More »fully before checking the temperature. « Less
Parchment paper is often sold in rolls, so when you want to use it, it remains in a curl. When you buy a roll, take a few minutes to cut it into lengths to fit your baking sheets. Put the stack of cut sheets between two baking sheets, then store them together to “iron” the parchment flat. If you have to use curly paper, More »butter the pan first to help the paper adhere. « Less
In a pinch, use a 1-quart resealable plastic bag as a substitute for a pastry bag. Snip off one corner of the bag to accommodate a pastry tip. Reinforce the area around the snipped opening with a few strips of transparent tape.
If you are out of parchment paper, you can use waxed paper to line the bottom of your cake pans. Waxed paper will smoke when exposed to high temperatures in the oven, but as long as it is covered with batter, it will be fine. Do not use waxed paper to line baking sheets for cookies. | <urn:uuid:82fbff72-519c-44e3-ba31-536b921b686f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.surlatable.com/category/SCA-5997/Cutters-and-Cookie-Presses | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.903511 | 3,348 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Transaction cost theory tries to explain why companies exist, and why companies expand or source out activities to the external environment. The transaction cost theory supposes that companies try to minimize the costs of exchanging resources with the environment, and that companies try to minimize the bureaucratic costs of exchanges within the company. Companies are therefore weighing the costs of exchanging resources with the environment, against the bureaucratic costs of performing activities in-house.
The theory sees institutions and market as different possible forms of organizing and coordinating economic transactions. When external transaction costs are higher than the company's internal bureaucratic costs, the company will grow, because the company is able to perform its activities more cheaply, than if the activities were performed in the market. However, if the bureaucratic costs for coordinating the activity are higher than the external transaction costs, the company will be downsized.
According to Ronald Coase (1937), every company will expand as long as the company's activities can be performed cheaper within the company, than by e.g. outsourcing the activities to external providers in the market.
According to Williamson (1981), a transaction cost occurs "when a good or a service is transferred across a technologically separable interface". Therefore, transaction costs arise every time a product or service is being transferred from one stage to another, where new sets of technological capabilities are needed to make the product or service.
The transaction costs related to the exchange of resources with the external environment could be reflected by the following factors. The list is not exhaustive.
- Environmental Uncertainty
- Bounded Rationality
- Core company assets
The factors above will all potentially increase the external transaction costs, where it may become rather expensive for a company to control these factors. Therefore, it may very well be more economic to maintain the activity in-house, so that the company will not use resources on e.g. contracts with suppliers, meetings, supervision etc.
Therefore, if companies see the environmental uncertainty as high, they might choose to not outsource or exchange resources with the environment.
If a company is thinking about outsourcing its production of a given product, it may assess the costs related to such a transaction with the environment. If the company sees it as difficult to formulate a contract that controls the uncertainties related to the exchange, the company may regard it as to costly to outsource the production. This is because the transaction costs of monitoring the exchange are perceived to be higher, than the bureaucratic costs of performing the activity in-house.
Managers must therefore weigh the internal transaction costs against the external transaction costs, before the company decides whether or not to keep some activity in-house, or to e.g. outsource the activity to the environment. | <urn:uuid:17fd65b1-845e-4118-bff1-d8d94b30c733> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.businessmate.org/Article.php?ArtikelId=182 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954492 | 546 | 3.09375 | 3 |
I live in Georgetown, TX. I have an acre lot with many large Live Oak Trees. Currently we have St Augustine grass growing, but with the drought, it's not working out well with rainbirds putting down two tenths of an inch per hour. I'm only watering every 5 days for an hour on each station, so the grass is not receiving its inch of water that is recommended. What other options are available that can also tolerate deer in the area every day?
The drought and heat in Central Texas are really taking their toll on plants this summer and you are right, St. Augustine requires lots of water to do well. Unfortunately, trying to replace it during the drought is not going to be easy either. Anything you replace it with, despite the fact that it might be more drought tolerant, is going to take considerable water to become established. Additionally, there isn't a native turf grass that will work well in the shade of your liveoaks. Sunny areas would do well with Bouteloua dactyloides (buffalograss), but buffalograss doesn't fare very well in the shade. There are attractive native grasses that do well in the shade, but they aren't going to create your typical urban lawn that is mowed to a height of 4-5 inches. Still, if you want to create a more natural landscape, they would be ideal.
Native American Seed in Junction has a Shade-Friendly Grass Mix that includes these grasses, or you can purchase seeds of these individually. They normally grow 1 to 2 feet high, but they can also be mowed occasionally. Native American Seed also has helpful advice about establishing and caring for native lawns. Please see our How To Article "Native Lawns", also.
As an alternative native grass you could establish a sedge lawn. The article by John Greenlee Sedge Lawns for Every Landscape will give you more information. Here are some sedges that are possibilities for the Central Texas area:
Tufted hairgrass seed for Houston TX August 06, 2009 - From Houston-Texas I am looking for a seed grass called tufted hairgrass ( deschampsia caespitosa ), if you can tell me where to find this kind of seed. Thank you for helping. view the full question and answer
Native replacement for non-native Bermudagrass in Leander TX October 16, 2011 - We have Bermuda grass. Large patches have died due to the drought and our yard has been taken over by weeds and St. Augustine grass whose seeds must have blown in. Even when the grass was in great con... view the full question and answer
Grasses for Austin October 14, 2010 - For Southwest Austin in October, what is the best grass to to plant at this time of year? Three quarters of the property is in Bermuda but the back quarter-acre is weeds. We are having it excavated ... view the full question and answer
Best Time for Dividing and Transplanting Native Bunch Grasses in Jarrell, Texas February 02, 2011 - Dear Mr. Smarty Plants,
What time of the year is the best for dividing and transplanting native bunch grasses like Gulf muhly, and Miscanthus? view the full question and answer
Reseed Buffalograss in Early Spring in San Antonio January 14, 2011 - When is best time to put down Buffalo grass seed in 78260 area. How much dirt should I put over existing sodded buffalo grass, which is now sparse? view the full question and answer | <urn:uuid:ba31d609-455d-4e9a-b5a4-7153b6fd46be> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wildflower.org/expert/show.php?id=4303 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970476 | 731 | 2.359375 | 2 |