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A system unravels?
Thursday, November 9, 2000 by Dave Winer.
A shifting point of view in the US. It's coming over all forms of media. People debate that the Web played a role in this election, it did play a big role, but don't focus on the campaign, look at how information flowed from the vote counters in Florida to the strategists in the Gore campaign. The Florida vote-counting was on the Web, and it was more current than the information the TV networks had. On that basis, Gore justifiably withdrew his concession and our political system went into meltdown mode.
So many threads to follow. Other slim-margin states might do a recount and find that the other guy actually won. Then where will we be? People are asking to be able to vote again. If one person can change his or her vote, shouldn't we all be allowed to?
What if Gore had made a concession speech? Where would we be then? How much re-evaluation can we do now? How many more steps before the whole thing unravels and people act on the realization that we've been electing actors ever since TV became the dominant medium?
Also take a look at our willingness to buy into technology. Before Tuesday few questioned whether the statisticians could really predict the outcome of elections. We mistakenly focused all our Y2K attention on the Millenium Bug, and failed to see the social processes that were at work, that led to what is sure to be the last national election of the TV era. Next time we'll follow the vote in XML and run P2P apps that give us the tools to form our own opinions about who's winning. We almost got there this time.
The exclusivity of information led to the cynicism that's causing the confusion. Our blind adherence to the validity of global decision-making by television has run its course. The parties have gotten so good at fighting for the center, all they need is a blank slate like Gore or Bush to project their null messages on. Fight for being nothing, and you end up with a broken electoral system. The journalists dumb it down for us. This is what you get. A perfectly balanced 50-50 split of the electorate. Our collective Ouija board is telling us that we're not asking ourselves any meaningful questions.
Is Gore pro-choice? I can't tell. Would Bush try to make abortion illegal? He didn't say and as far as I can tell no one asked. Both favored the death penalty. Can either of them do anything about global warming? How do I vote against the death penalty? No choices. Footsy all over the place. (Note.)
Emphatically, I do not want to change the US Constitution, leave the electoral system as-is. I feel strongly that if we go to a flat national election, not only do we avoid solving the problem, but we actually enhance the role of television. All that will matter will be Oprah and Letterman appearances. The money flows to the television networks, and our choices would be even more diminished.
We are already in the process of changing the way information flows. It's so clear that the Internet has changed things, but we're so cynical we don't necessarily want to see that. Now it should be clear that each of us has substantial power. We can use our minds. It's not over yet.
We must all get educated on technology, ask the numbers people hard questions, and insist on understanding. Every story has a technology angle. We have a right to know how the system works and not according to the bedtime stories we tell ourselves.
Let's stop voting for good times or fuzzy math or lockboxes. The world isn't that safe. We've all behaved as children, now it's time to take responsibility for our country.
Our coverage continues on: | <urn:uuid:0bf55fc0-9b95-49ea-bf0a-8bf7c86de32f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://scripting.com/davenet/2000/11/09/aSystemUnravels.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970857 | 791 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Every body wants numbers and “science based” information to chart shale gas policy; but don’t confuse empirical data with objectivity in the context of the politicized and divisive debate over the merits of hydraulic fracturing.
The reports look authoritative, presented in weighty volumes bearing the air of authenticity. Don’t be fooled. In quantifying the impact of Marcellus Shale gas exploration, the body of economic analysis is scattershot, conflicting and often suspect. The most flagrant example is the “Penn State Report,” first issued in 2009, which predicted the industry would generate over 175,000 jobs for Pennsylvania over the course of a decade. (The number was later updated to 250,000). The same report warned that the industry’s economic turbo boost was conditional, and could be “stunted by high taxes and costly regulations.” It had the whiff of rhetoric, and sure enough, an internal investigation by Penn State administration determined the “study” -- funded by the industry, authored by faculty members with industry connections, and baring the university’s seal -- was a product of industry boosterism that “may have well crossed the line between policy analysis and policy advocacy.” The Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry, meanwhile, projected that Marcellus-related jobs would grow statewide, rising from about 8,000 in 2006 to about 12,400 in 2016.
Policy makers in New York have issued their own predictions. These were not funded by the industry, but a product of a report commissioned by the Department of Environmental Conservation. Ecology and Environment, the firm that got the contract, determined the shale gas industry would create between 6,000 and 37,000 jobs in New York. This would significantly increase the number of workers in New York’s gas industry, which stood at 448 in 2010, but would represent only a crumb of the state’s economic pie. (Approximately 351,130 persons were employed in the travel and tourism sector in New York State in 2009; and 2.4 million in the education, health and social services.) The difference between 6,000 and 37,000 thousand is pretty big, and it should be noted that the report did not attempt to derive more specific projections “given the large uncertainties associated with the future natural gas market, the economic and demographic disparities between different parts of New York State, and other unknown factors that would influence the development of the natural gas reserves.” Most recently, John Campbell of the Press & Sun Bulletin reported that the DEC committee that commissioned the economic study has ordered a study of the costs associated with fracking to go along with it.
In this day when vast stores of information are more accessible than ever with a few keystrokes, isn’t ironic that consensus on the matter is so elusive? We are left with numbers that really point to an absence of information. This is not surprising, given the shale gas experiment is still in its early phase. There is little in American history with which to compare it, beyond the mineral extraction and natural resource booms of a bygone era that cannot be neatly removed from their 19th and 20th century context and applied to 21st century scenarios. The Marcellus Shale economic studies are far from worthless, however. To the extent they provoke public debate – the real stuff on which policy should be derived – they are helpful, and they seem to be doing just that. | <urn:uuid:d345ac8b-a3ef-4050-96fb-a3f3f11420d5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tomwilber.blogspot.com/2011/12/marcellus-economic-forecasts-provide.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967953 | 708 | 1.945313 | 2 |
Ivan Simnovic, Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations for Human Rights, says the Syrian government has reached the “threshold” of committing war crimes: “They are widespread and committed in a systematic manner,” said Simnovic.
Speaking Thursday to Christiane Amanpour, he stated that “there is unselective shelling; there is deliberate targeting with live munition of protesters.” Then he added, “There is systematic torture going on in prisons – and this is the torture of the worst possible form.”
Asked to be more specific, Simnovic said, “I will not go into details, but it includes physical torture as well as psychological threats – threats such as raping members of family, direct torture involving putting people in unnatural positions for a long time, torturing them by burning them and so on and so on…It’s appalling.”
We cannot establish their whereabouts
Establishing the nature of those crimes was made more difficult, he said, because UN observers “were denied access to Syria, so they interviewed victims and witnesses in neighboring countries.”
Even so, he left no doubt that in terms of international law, crimes against humanity have been committed by the Assad regime: “What is new is…that the situation, at least in parts of Syria, has reached the threshold to be considered as an internal armed conflict – to put it simply, from the moment you have internal armed conflict, you can also have war crimes.”
“We are calling on all sides involved to stop the violence,” said Simnovic, “and the (Syrian) government to release arbitrarily detained persons. But this is not happening yet…We have thousands of detained, and for some of them we cannot establish their whereabouts. | <urn:uuid:7569cc09-87a1-46c3-92b7-d7a8a02344b3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mar15.info/2012/06/syria-torture-of-the-worst-kind/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00059-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969019 | 377 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Artificial hand and forearm, 1601-1700
The jointed thumb and fingers of this large artificial hand and forearm are hollow and bend at the knuckle. This possibly was to allow a forward bending motion, much like a waving gesture. The arm once contained an internal mechanical structure allowing the fingers basic movement. It was probably designed for a man and dates from the 1600s. Most limbs were amputated in this era due to war injuries or accidents. French military surgeon Ambroise Paré (1510-90) produced many books on surgery in the 16th century. He described new operations and treatments. He gained experience as a private surgeon to generals in the French Army. In his writings he described artificial substitutes he devised to replace amputated limbs. Some were simple. Others were elaborate highly-mechanised devices that simulated the natural movement and function of the limb.
Related Themes and Topics
There are 535 related objects. View all related objects
The branch of medicine concerned with the preservation and restoration of the muscular and skeletal systems in the body.
Artificial body parts, or materials inserted into tissue for functional, cosmetic, or therapeutic effect. Prostheses can be functional (artificial arms and legs), or cosmetic (artificial eye).
Glossary: artificial hand | <urn:uuid:20543ec2-580e-4237-8a7b-e5a9891e2635> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/broughttolife/objects/display.aspx?id=91691 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946701 | 263 | 3.203125 | 3 |
It’s not surprising that Maryland- based Navy Friends Inc., owner of the former Ohio Leather Works site in Girard, continues to thumb its nose at the city, and now the state of Ohio. It has been doing that for almost two decades.
Thus, we should be forgiven for not being impressed with the Ohio Attorney General’s attempt to facilitate a negotiated settlement between Navy Friends and Girard.
The facts are clear, as they have been since 1995 when Navy Friends bought the 27-acre property — 24 years after Ohio Leather Works closed its doors because of being unable to compete with cheap foreign imports of leather products. An arson fire gutted the building several months after the purchase.
Because the company failed to clean up the fire-damaged structure, the city was forced to do so for safety reasons. It billed the owner for the $75,000 cost of demolition, but had trouble collecting — even with a court order.
The Ohio Attorney General’s Office must not ignore the history of this case as it offers Girard representatives an “opportunity to participate in settlement discussions.”
Time to get tough
State lawyers must make it clear to Navy Friends officials that this is not a negotiating session in which both parties have equal standing. They should also make it known that the company’s failure to address the violations and findings issued by the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency will result in a lawsuit.
After the fire, the city worked with the Ohio EPA in negotiating with the property owner on buying the land, but those talks stalled.
In January of this year, Mayor James Melfi said he wanted to begin foreclosure proceedings so the city could obtain the land. He speculated that the owners would not pay the $75,000 cost of cleaning up the debris from the fire because the site has major environmental problems.
Since 1998, the Ohio EPA has found numerous hazardous waste violations, including traces of hexavalent chromium, the chemical used on leather.
Ohio Leather Works operated on the site along Route 422 for more than 70 years. The plant took skin hides from stockyards in Chicago and turned them into leather apparel.
When the Maryland investors bought the plant and land, they talked about building an apartment complex.
The great unknowns
The cost of the environmental cleanup of the property has not been revealed. Indeed, at the beginning of the year, Andrew Kocher, an EPA site coordinator, said the agency did not know the extent of the contamination.
“We don’t know what’s underneath the building,” Kocher said.
Whatever it is, the owner must be held responsible for making the site environmentally sound.
The OEPA in May asked the Attorney General’s Office to file a lawsuit against Navy Friends Inc, and Berk Realty for failing to address the violations and findings that had been presented by the agency.
“They did not fully comply with our orders, so we sent it to the attorney general’s office,” an EPA spokesman told The Vindicator recently. Such an admission shows why it’s time to bring the hammer down on Navy Friends Inc.
The 27 acres along one of Girard’s main thoroughfares has been lying dormant for far too long. Mayor Melfi has said he wants the property to be cleaned up environmentally so it can be developed again.
The Maryland-based owner must not be allowed to get away with thumbing its nose at the city and the state. | <urn:uuid:38b6fbf8-ae20-4fc1-b473-36271aee3761> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.vindy.com/news/2012/dec/04/time-to-bring-down-hammer-on-ohio-leathe/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969398 | 723 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Union Power is Symptom of What Ails Us
by STAR PARKER
March 5, 2011
Unionized government workers who have taken to the streets to protest moves in Wisconsin and Ohio to limit their power are doing us all a favor.
Our great nation today is sick and badly in need of therapy. The screams and protests of these government union workers should help all Americans identify these public unions as a major symptom of the sickness that is dragging us down and what we need to do to fix it.
America is about freedom -- political freedom and economic freedom. Our nation has been a human laboratory that has shown, for the entire world to see, that the moral truths that underlie our freedom produce bounty and prosperity.
It has been those moments when we have departed from the blueprint for freedom laid out so clearly in our Declaration of Independence -- that our Creator endowed us with certain rights and that men form government to secure and protect those rights -- when we have had pain.
The willingness of the founders to tolerate slavery in a country designed to be free produced a legacy of pain that haunts us still today.
Today's departure is the extent to which we have allowed a culture of force to take hold, limiting our freedom and the natural bounty it produces. The two fronts of this culture of force is the growth of government, where the institution there to protect us is now telling us what to do, and with union power, which goes hand in hand with government power.
Freedom works so well because it automatically connects individuals with the common good. The way individuals improve their own life is through self-improvement and better serving others.
The result is that one plus one equals three.
The premise of the culture of force is that individuals improve their lot not through personal responsibility, self-improvement and service but by taking what others have through threats, force, and violence. One minus one equals zero.
At the height of World War II, President Roosevelt asked labor leader John L. Lewis to call off a coal miners' strike that posed a serious threat to our war effort. Lewis' reply was: "The president of the United States is paid to look after the interest of the nation; I am paid to look after the interests of the coal miners."
The perverse idea that we can survive as a nation with a culture of force in which what is good for one and what is good for all are at odds with each other has taken its toll on union reality. The percent of the private sector workforce that is unionized is less than a third today of what it was fifty years ago.
But the natural alliance of government monopoly power and union power has grown through government workers' unions. This perversity too is now tottering as government unions use the force model to enrich themselves at the direct expense of taxpayers to the point of bankrupting us all.
Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, argues the opposite in a Wall Street Journal opinion column. He extols the culture of force and claims that it is "un-American" to limit the ability of unionized government workers to collectively bargain.
But where does he turn to as his source for the "right" to collectively bargain? Certainly not the American Declaration of Independence. He cites the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Yes, the UN Declaration of Human Rights, which makes no reference to God. Yes, the United Nations, who's Human Rights Council includes China, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, and included, until just recently, Libya.
This is the vision of freedom -- power, force, and materialism -- that inspires today's union movement.
This is the disease that pretends to be the cure. Fortunately, its days are numbered. | <urn:uuid:7898ba87-325f-4d89-82e1-de4025f82c19> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/union-power-is-symptom-of-what-ails-us | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00045-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958508 | 764 | 1.6875 | 2 |
The following are only a few of the reasons why Sheol-Hadees in the Old Testament denotes a condition of temporal punishment:
1 Hell is in this world. The Lowest Hell is on earth. Deut. xxxii:22,24,25. "For a fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest Hell (Sheol--Hadees) and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains." See Jonah ii:2; Rev. vi:8.
2 Hence David, after having been in Hell, was delivered from it. Ps. xxx:3; II Sam. xx:5,6. "O Lord, thou hast brought up my soul from the grave; thou hast kept me alive, that I should not go down to the pit. When the waves of death compassed me, the floods of ungodly men made me afraid. The sorrows of Hell (Sheol--Hadees) compassed me about; the snares of death prevented me," so that there is escape from Hell. Ps. xviii:5,6; cxvi:3; lxxxvi:12,13; Rev. xx:13; Ps. xvii:5, xxx:3.
3 Jonah was in the fish only seventy hours, and declared he was in hell forever. He escaped from Hell. Jon. ii:2, 6: "Out of the belly of Hell (Sheol--Hadees) cried I, and thou heardest my voice, earth with her bars was about me forever." Even an eternal Hell lasted but three days.
4 It is a place where God is, and, therefore, must be an instrumentality of mercy. Ps. cxxxix:8: "If I make my bed in Hell (Sheol--Hadees) behold thou art there."
5 Men having gone into it are redeemed from it. I Sam. ii:6: "The Lord killeth and maketh alive; he bringeth down to the grave (Sheol--Hadees) and bringeth up."
6 Sheol is precisely the same word as Saul. If it meant Hell would any Hebrew parent have called his child Sheol? Think of calling a boy Hell!
7 Nowhere in the Old Testament does the word Sheol, or its Greek equivalent, Hadees, ever denote a place or condition of suffering after death; it either means literal death or temporal calamity. This is clear as we consult the usage.
8 Jacob wished to go there. Gen.xxxviii:35: "I will go down into the grave (Sheol--Hadees) unto my son mourning."
9 If the word means a place of endless punishment, then David was a monster. Ps. lv:15: "Let death seize upon them, and let them go down quick into Sheol--Hadees."
10 Job desired to go there; xiv:13: "Oh that thou wouldst hide me in Sheol--Hadees."
11 Hezekiah expected to go there. Isa. xxxviii:10: "I said in the cutting off of my days, I shall go to the gates of Sheol--Hadees."
12 Korah, Dathan and Abiram (Numbers xvi:30-33) not only went there, "but their houses, and goods, and all that they owned," "and the earth opened her mouth and swallowed them up, and their houses, and all the men that appertained unto Korah, and all their goods. They, and all that appertained to them, went down alive into Sheol--Hadees, and the earth closed upon them; and they perished from among the congregation."
13 It is in the dust. Job xvii:19: "They shall go down to the bars of Sheol--Hadees, when our rest together is in the dust."
14 It has a mouth, is in fact the grave. See Ps. cxli:7: "Our bones are scattered at Sheol's--Hadees' mouth, as when one cutteth and cleaveth wood upon the earth."
15 The overthrow of the King of Babylon is called Hell. Isa. xiv:9-15, 22-23: "Hell (Sheol--Hadees) from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming; it stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth; it hath raised up from the thrones all the kings of the nations. All they shall speak and say unto thee, art thou also become weak as we? art thou become like unto us? Thy pomp is brought down to the grave and the noise of thy viols; the worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee. For I will rise up against them saith the Lord of hosts, and cut off from Babylon the name, and remnant, and son, and nephew, saith the Lord. I will also make it a possession for the bittern, and pools of water; and I will sweep it with the besom of destruction, saith the Lord of hosts." All this imagery demonstrates temporal calamity, a national overthrow as the signification of the word Hell.
16 The captivity of the Jews is called Hell. Isa. v:13-14: "Therefore my people are gone into captivity, because they have no knowledge; and their honorable men are famished, and their multitude dried up with thirst. Therefore Sheol--Hadees hath enlarged herself and opened her mouth without measure; and their glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, and he that rejoiceth, shall descend into it."
17 Temporal overthrow is called Hell. Ps. xlix:14: "Like sheep they are laid in the grave; death shall feed on them; and the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning; and their beauty shall consume in Sheol--Hadees, from their dwelling." Ezek.xxxii:26-27: And they shall not lie with the mighty that are fallen of the uncircumcised, which are gone down to Sheol--Hadees, with their weapons of war, and they have laid their swords under their heads." Men are in hell with their swords under their heads. This cannot mean a state of conscious suffering.
18 All men are to go there. No one can escape the Bible Hell, (Sheol--Hadees) Ps. lxxxix:48.
19 There is no kind of work there. Eccl. ix:10.
20 Christ's soul was in Hell (Sheol--Hadees) Acts ii:27-28.
21 No one in the Bible ever speaks of Hell (Sheol--Hadees) as a place of punishment after death.
22 It is a way of escape from punishment. Amos vii:2.
23 The inhabitants of Hell (Sheol--Hadees) are eaten of worms, vanish and are consumed away. Job. vii:9-24. Ps. xlix:14.
24 Hell (Sheol--Hadees) is a place of rest. Job xvii:6.
25 It is a realm of unconsciousness. Ps. vi:5. Is xxxviii:18. Eccl. ix:10.
26 All men will be delivered from this Hell (Sheol Hadees). Hos. xiii:17.
27 This Hell (Sheol--Hadees) is to be destroyed. Hos xiii:14: "Oh grave I will be thy destruction." I Cor.xv:55: "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" Rev. xx:13-14: "And death and Hell delivered up the dead which were in them, and death and Hell were cast into the lake of fire."http://www.tentmaker.org/books/BibleThreateningsExplained.html#102
"THE OLD TESTAMENT REPUDIATES THE HEATHEN DOCTRINE
At the time these declarations were made, and universally accepted by the Hebrews, the surrounding nations all held entirely different doctrines. Egypt, Greece, Rome, taught that after death there is a fate in store for the wicked that exactly resembles that taught by so-called orthodox Christians. But the entire Old Testament is utterly silent on the subject, teaching nothing of the sort, as the sixty-four passages we have quoted, the only texts containing the word Hell, show, and as the critics of all churches admit. And yet "Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians": (Acts vii:22) who believed in a world of torment after death. If Moses knew all about this Egyptian doctrine, and did not teach it to his followers, what is the unavoidable inference?
Dr. Strong says, that not only Moses, but "every Israelite who came out of Egypt, must have been fully acquainted with the universally recognized doctrine of future rewards and punishments." And yet Moses is utterly silent on the subject.
Dr. Thayer remarks: "Is it possible to imagine a more conclusive proof against the divine origin of the doctrine? If he had believed it to be of God, if he had believed in endless torments as the doom of the wicked after death, and had received this as a revelation from heaven, could he have passed it over in silence? He knew whence the monstrous dogma came, and he had seen enough of Egypt already, and would have no more of her cruel superstitions; and so he casts this out, with her abominable idolatries, as false and unclean things."
In addition to the passages already quoted, the word Sheol--Hadees is rendered Hell in the following texts: Job. xi:7-8; Ps. cxxxix:8; xviii:5; lxxxvi:13; cxvi:3; Prov. xv:11; xxiii:14; xxvii:20; Isa. xxviii:15-18; lvii:9; Ezek. xxxi:16-17; Jon ii:2; Amos ix:2; Hab. ii:5.
We believe we have recorded every passage in which the word occurs. Suppose the original word stood, and we read Sheol or Hadees in all the passages, instead of Hell, wouldany unbiased reader regard it as conveying the idea of a place or state of endless torment after death, such as the English word Hell is also generally supposed to denote? Such a doctrine was never held by the ancient Jews, until after the Babylonish captivity, during which they acquired it of the heathen. All scholars agree that Moses never taught it, and that it is not contained in the Old Testament.
Thus not one of the sixty-four passages containing the only word rendered Hell in the entire Old Testament, teaches any such thought as is commonly supposed to be contained in that"
Babylonia... That explains a lot... Eternal torment is of the harlot of Babylonia...
Please, Jesus, wake the Fundies up... My poor beloved brother, Thomas... | <urn:uuid:4a20df08-7781-4de3-8537-5f5f47c43dbc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tentmaker.org/forum/testimonies-(testify-here!)/what-exactly-happened-last-night/msg118232/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941423 | 2,372 | 3.140625 | 3 |
IIYDROGRAPHY. Owing to the mountainous character of the country, and the narrowness of the islands. Japan cannot boast. of long rivers, no part being farther distant from the sea than about 100 miles. Vet the eountry is well watered. Every valley has its stream or its stream let, and one of the chief (Alarms of the scenery is the rush of the numerous waters. and the beauty of its waterfalls, while the swiftness and torrential eharacter of many of the streams pre sent grave problems to the engineer engaged in railway construction or bridge-building. The largest river in the Empire is the Ishikari, in Yew, which flows into the Sea of Japan. after a course of 407 miles. On the main island, the three great kawa, or rivers, are the Shinanogawa, the Tonegawa. and the Kisogawa. The Shinano rises in the province of that name. has a course of 320 miles. and flows northwest into the Sea of .lapan. The Kitagami, in the north, east, has a enlarge of 122 miles, and flows south east into the Bay of Sendai. The Tonegawa rises in Kodzuke, traverses the plain of 1i:want°, and enters the Pacific near Tokio, after a course of 170 miles. The third great river is the Kiso ga•a, which pursues a devious course from Shi nano, and falls into the Pacific. Another im portant river is the Ten-riu, which rises in Lake Suwa and flows south for 135 miles to the Pacific. Other rivers are the Sumida, flowing through Tokio into the Gulf of Yedo, and the Yodogawa, the outlet of Lake Biwa, which enters Osaka Bay. They are all swift, and spread out greatly when they leave the mountains.
Japan has few lakes of any great extent. Sev eral shallow sheets of water are found in Yezo, and along both the east and the west sides of Hondo or :Main island, but they are of little con sequence as lakes, and have little beauty. The
largest and most noted is Lake Omi, better known as Biwa-ko (No-lake) from a fancied resemblance in shape to the Chinese guitar (0-pa). It lies in the centre of the Province of Omi, at no great distance from Kioto (q.v.), and is much visited by tourists on account of its `Eight Beauties.' It is 37 miles long and 12 miles wide at the widest part, and has an area nearly equal to that of Lake Geneva in Switzerland. Northeast of this, in the Province of Shinano, is Suwa Lake, the source of the Ten-riu-gawa, 2600 feet above the level of the sea. In winter it is covered with ice more than a foot thick. Farther north, in the Nikko Mountains, is the beautiful Chiuzeu-ji, at the foot of Nantai-san, with an area of nearly 18 square miles, and situated 4375 feet above sea-level. It is of great depth, and contains no fish. Farther north still is Ina washiro,near Bandai-sainwith an area of perhaps 90 square miles. and situated about 1840 feet above sea-level. It abounds in fish and is said never to be frozen over. Its outlet is the Ika no-gawa, which falls into the Sea of Japan near Niigata. Another well-known lake is that of Hakone, about 50 miles west of Yokohama. It is said to fill the crater of an ancient volcano, at an elevation of 2:300 feet above sea-level. It is about 10 miles long, and is of unknown depth. Its outlet is the Haya-gawa, and by a tunnel at one end it supplies water for irrigating the rice fields of 17 villages on. the plain to the west. | <urn:uuid:371d79ff-bda5-492c-bc64-43a922fccaa7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://gluedideas.com/content-collection/international-encyclopedia-11/Iiydrography.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956537 | 831 | 3.046875 | 3 |
The purpose of this website is to inspire action. Education is necessary, in order to understand the scope of the problem, but action is essential. This section is devoted to exploring the human potential.
We have been trained to believe we are small and that we don't matter.
The truth is that human potential remains largely untapped.
No matter what you think you are, you are always more than that.
Please enjoy the videos we've selected that explore the power of the mind. | <urn:uuid:1bfc8328-5601-40fd-b188-cfb86fa4694b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.morphcity.com/inspiration | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00057-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967776 | 100 | 1.546875 | 2 |
here are many Java user interface toolkits. The most common, of course, are AWT and Swing, each of which has its advantages and drawbacks. Swing in particular, while it looks great, can be burdensome to develop and leads to large code footprints. As an example, Figure 1 shows a very simple Swing GUI developed with the excellent Oracle JDeveloper IDE.
Without any code to activate this GUI and respond to events such as the Button Click, Figure 1
already involves 114 lines of code, including the necessary imports. A snippet of this code is shown below, where you can see that four lines of code alone are needed to describe the button. This verbosity isn't the fault of the IDEit's just the way that AWT and Swing work, and this IDE uses components from these frameworks as appropriate.
button1.setBounds(new Rectangle(240, 55, 110, 25));
With Swing you also have the problem of the application logic and the UI description potentially being munged together. With careful work, these can be separated, but most of the time you will use an IDE, and IDEs generally munge the code together if you use their designers. Building a GUI without using a designer tends to be a lot of work, so you end up being stuck with an application where GUI layout and implementation tend to be merged together. Therefore, if you need to separate UI and implementation, you'll need a source management system and build process even for the simplest of projects, and you'll likely have to sort out a lot of the GUI details by hand.
|Figure 1. Swing GUI: This simple Java GUI (shown on the JDeveloper stage), developed with a Swing/AWT-based editor, requires a lot of code.|
XUI is an open-source project, available on the artistic license
that is intended to make GUI development clearer, cleaner, separated, and well modeled. Perhaps most importantly, it will dramatically reduce the amount of code necessary for Java GUIsand as any developer can tell you, the less code, the less chance of bugs. XUI may be downloaded from its home page
It isn't intended as a replacement
for the Swing and AWT frameworks, but instead it is a suite of supporting tools to make coding with these frameworks a lot easier. The best way to understand how it works is by example, so over the course of this article you'll use XUI to build some GUIs and gain an understanding of what it does for you.
|Author's Note: The artistic license is one of the lesser-known open source licenses. You can see the full license details at: http://www.opensource.org/licenses/artistic-license.php. It allows you to modify the source any way that you like as long as you don't redistribute the modified versions. Modifications should be folded into the main distribution instead (pending owner's approval of course). | <urn:uuid:f73625ce-ac51-4b76-bf99-b2fca5442107> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.devx.com/Java/Article/27383 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934734 | 607 | 2.859375 | 3 |
Warts are tan, brown, black, gray, or yellow benign (buh-NINE) skin tumors that appear primarily on the hands, toes, knees, and face. They're caused by a virus, and they rarely appear in children under age two. A child can get them by touching an infected person or from a warm, moist surface, such as the floor of a locker room. If they're not treated, the warts may spread to other parts of the body or to other people. Warts on the soles of the feet are known as 'plantar' (PLAN-ter) warts and can be very uncomfortable or painful. Warts usually go away on their own, but if they don't, there are both over-the-counter and prescription preparations to remove them. A dermatologist (der-muh-TALL-uh-jist) can remove them with a scalpel or an application of liquid nitrogen, which freezes the wart. The wart eventually falls off, and the skin heals. The earlier a wart is treated, the better the chance of a cure, although it's possible it may come back. | <urn:uuid:e7cbf2ae-463b-46f0-bae2-ea4a1f190914> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.foxkansas.com/guides/health/children/story/Warts-facts/ZTTdu7V0kEGMrOqTYNgQVg.cspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00047-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963908 | 236 | 3.09375 | 3 |
A response on his blog by Matt Jukes (of JISC, but currently on secondment to HEFCE) reminded me that, in my post on The Power Of Information report, I should have mentioned that, as well as encouraging reuse of government data, the report also recommends:
- Working with existing user-generated sites rather than creating anything new ones.
- Researching what user-generated sites exist in the space and where there is duplication terminating or modifying the government versions.
- Encourage civil servants to become active in these communities.
These recommendations, which have been endorsed by the government, would appear to reflect the conclusions of the OCLC report on Sharing, Privacy and Trust In Our Networked World, which I blogged about recently.
So one part of UK government doesn’t want to compete with existing social networking services and the OCLC report suggests that libraries should seek to engage with existing services, rather than developing their own. And a post by Matt Jukes blog entitled More eGov ramblings cites a report from Richard MacManus at the Read/WriteWeb blog which is “pretty damning of the ‘one-stop portal’ concept (i.e. Directgov!) and supportive of the idea of reusable information supporting ‘mash-ups’ and the like through the use of web services (very similar to the Power of Information report)“.
Is anyone listening, I wonder? | <urn:uuid:f46fdbe7-5167-4e6b-8433-62ae9b24cffd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/2007/11/13/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95152 | 299 | 1.734375 | 2 |
It was one of the oldest and most important cities of Babylonia, and the site of a famous temple, called E-Anna, dedicated to the worship of Nana, or Ishtar. Uruk played a very important part in the political history of the country from an early time, exercising hegemony in Babylonia at a period before the time of Sargon. Later it was prominent in the national struggles of the Babylonians against the Elamite Empire up to 2000 BC, in which it suffered severely; recollections of these conflicts are embodied in the Gilgamesh epic as it has come down to us.
According to the Sumerian king list, Uruk was founded by Enmerkar, who brought the official kingship with him from the city of E-ana. His father Mec-ki-aj-gacer had "entered the sea and disappeared".
External links and references | <urn:uuid:ce379f91-2d4f-4329-b5b3-d484660b297a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fact-index.com/u/ur/uruk.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980417 | 187 | 3.375 | 3 |
Cowslip Sunday has been celebrated in Lambley, Nottinghamshire, since ancient times. The cowslip, Primula veris, has long been associated with the village, and its rampant appearance in the verges and fields of Lambley was a trigger for celebrations of springtime. Crowds would flock from Nottingham and even further afield to gather the flowers for garlands and wine-making, and the resulting revelry in the local alehouses caused some consternation in staid Victorian times.
The celebration of the cowslip, and of Cowslip Sunday, never disappeared in Lambley but took on a new and gentler aspect, until the revival of the event by the Lambley Arts Festival in 2010. The success of this endeavour has made Cowslip Sunday once again a major annual celebration in the village. | <urn:uuid:fb8c4ec3-583e-4fdc-ae0b-093a09491ba5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cowslipsunday.co.uk/?page_id=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96144 | 167 | 2.484375 | 2 |
Germany — Food and Restaurants
Germans love meat and potatoes, and these ingredients are staples in almost every meal. While not world famous for its haute cuisine, German food is hearty and filling. Try a zwiebelrostbraten (rib roast with onions) or schweinshaxe (pork knuckle), typical local delicacies. A must-do is simply picking up a sausage at a stand or meat shop, with the most popular shops just having a small window where they serve cooked sausages.
Of course, each region in Germany has its own specialty sausage, so going around and trying the variations in each is a must for foodies. It is estimated that there are over 1,500 types of sausage in the country, which vary from pork, beef, and veal. Turkish cuisine has also melted into German everyday cuisine, with doner kebabs popular for lunch or as a midnight snack. In fact, some of the best Turkish food can be found in Germany.
Bars and Pubbing in Germany
When talking about beer in Germany, the scope for conversation is simply endless. But what many visitors do not know is that there are only a few national beer brands, one being Warsteiner, and the rest are basically local brews. Each city or area prides itself in its own flavor, which is what the locals drink. Head to a brewery in any German city or village for the best food and drinks. In Frankfurt, Binding-Brauerei (Darmstädter Landstrasse 185); in Berlin, Lindenbräu (Bellevuestrasse 3-5); and in Munich, the famous Hofbräuhaus (Platzl 9) are must-sees. These major breweries are complemented by lots of micro-breweries scattered about.
The major cities, such as Frankfurt and Berlin, also have a large choice of international bars and pubs, most of which open until 2:00 or 3:00 a.m.. Many cater to the ex-pat community, but are also popular with German locals and visitors. In Frankfurt, homesick Britons flock to the Fox and Hound (Niedenau 2, Frankfurt) or the Anglo Irish (Kleine Rittergasse 1, Frankfurt) for a British pub or pint. Americans in Frankfurt can grab a beer, burger, and fries at Sam’s Sportsbar (Kleine Rittergasse 28-30, Frankfurt).
In Frankfurt, most of the popular and hippest nightclubs are located in Sachsenhausen where visitors will find a range of nightlife options. Popular venues include the Clubkeller (Textorstrasse 26, Frankfurt), Voices Karaoke Bar & Dance Club (Kleine Rittergasse 14-20, Frankfurt), and Stereo Bar (Abtsgässchen 7, Frankfurt). Of course, not to be missed is Cocoon (Nordendsrasse 30b, Frankfurt), where international DJ Sven Väth got started.
In Berlin, visitors will find the widest range of nightlife venues in Germany. There is everything from traditional pubs and techno dances, to rock clubs and more. Many of the popular bar and clubs are located in the Mitte district, such as Kitkatclub (Köpenickerstrasse 76, Berlin) and Asphalt Club (Mohrenstrasse 30, Berlin). In Friedrichshain, visitors will find more hip venues, such as Spindler & Klatt (Köpenickerstrasse 16-17, Berlin) and Club Maria (Ostbahnhof, Berlin). Closer to the old East German border is the hip club Berghain (Am Wriezener Bahnhof, Berlin).
Dining and Cuisine in Germany
Sausages, sausages, and more sausages. There are many must-eat meats in Germany, ranging from the Frankfurter, the Thüringer, the Nüremberger and the Weisswurst, to the bockwurst and currywurst, to name but a few. In Frankfurt, head to the two most famous sausage shops for a taste, the Schlemmermeyer (Grosse Bockehnheimer Strasse 23, Frankfurt) – for the famed Thüringer and Gref-Völsings (Hanauer Landstrasse 132, Frankfurt) for the rindwurst. In Berlin, a must is the currywurst (curry powder-covered sausage) at Curry 36 (Mehringdamm 36, Berlin).
In Frankfurt, visitors should head to the Fressgass (Grosse Bockenheimer Strasse, Frankfurt) to find the best variety of restaurants. The street is a pedestrian walkway, so visitors can stroll and find an appealing dining option of their choice from international cuisines to regional plates. Local favorites include: Restaurant Opera (Opernplatz 1, Frankfurt), Zarges (Kalbächer Gasse 10, Frankfurt), Das Wirtshaus (Grosse Bockenheimer Strasse 29, Frankfurt), and Stella (Grosse Bockenheimer Strasse 52, Frankfurt).
Bavarian cuisine has its own flair and dishes which are different from those of other regions in Germany. It might be cliché, but Dirndl glad maidens serving fine beer and hearty Bavarian food is dining experience not to be missed. While there is nothing wrong with seeking out the Hofbräuhaus, Munich has much more to offer. At the top of the line is Schuhbecks in den Südtiroler Stuben (6-8 Platzl, Munich), a Michelin-star restaurant serving the best Bavarian anywhere, but booking ahead is a must. For more old-fashioned fare, go to the Haxbauer (6 Sparkassenstrasse, Munich), located in a beautiful 14th century building. For more homely charm, try the Geisel’s Vinothek (11 Schützenstrasse, Munich).
Berlin probably has the biggest choice of restaurants in Germany. At the luxury level, there is the famous Die Quadriga (14 Eislebener Strasse, Berlin). This sophisticated eatery requires advanced booking and boasts no less than 900 bottles of wine on its menu. The oldest inn in Berlin serves up great traditional food; Zur Letzten Instanz (14-16 Waisenstrasse, Berlin) is well worth a visit. There is nothing like eating Turkish food in Germany so head to Dada Falafel (132 Linienstrasse, Berlin) for a taste of the Middle East up until 2:00 or 3:00 a.m..
Visitors should note that most restaurants in Germany close around or before midnight, which means last call is taken around 10:00 or 11:00 p.m.. Tips are generally not included so visitors should look to pay an average of 10 percent on top of the check. | <urn:uuid:6b756782-08f5-49ea-865c-727a16c3d7d9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.iexplore.com/travel-guides/europe/germany/food-and-restaurants | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.903693 | 1,448 | 1.609375 | 2 |
DRAFT: Global Policy for IPv4 Allocation by the IANA Post Exhaustion
1. Reclamation Pool
Upon adoption of this IPv4 address policy by the ICANN Board of Directors, the IANA shall establish a Reclamation Pool to be utilized post RIR IPv4 exhaustion as defined in Section 4. The reclamation pool will initially contain any fragments that may be left over in IANA inventory. As soon as the first RIR exhausts its inventory of IP address space, this Reclamation Pool will be declared active. When the Reclamation Pool is declared active, the Global Policy for the Allocation of the Remaining IPv4 Address Space and Policy for Allocation of IPv4 Blocks to Regional Internet Registries will be formally deprecated.
2. Returning Address Space to the IANA
The IANA will accept into the Reclamation Pool all eligible IPv4 address space that are offered for return. Eligible address space includes addresses that are not designated as "special use" by an IETF RFC or addresses allocated to RIRs unless they are being returned by the RIR that they were originally allocated to. Legacy address holders may return address space directly to the IANA if they so choose.
3. Address Allocations from the Reclamation Pool by the IANA
Allocations from the Reclamation Pool may begin once the pool is declared active. Addresses in the Reclamation Pool must be allocated on a CIDR boundary. Allocations from the Reclamation Pool are subject to a minimum allocation unit equal to the minimum allocation unit of all RIRs and a maximum allocation unit of one /8. The Reclamation Pool will be divided on CIDR boundaries and distributed evenly to all eligible RIRs once each quarter. Any remainder not evenly divisible by the number of eligible RIRs will remain in the Reclamation Pool until such time sufficient address returns allow another round of allocations.
4. RIR Eligibility for Receiving Allocations from the Reclamation Pool
Upon the exhaustion of an RIR's free space pool and after receiving their final /8 from the IANA, an RIR will become eligible to request address space from the IANA Reclamation Pool when it publicly announces via its respective global announcements email list and by posting a notice on its website that it has exhausted its supply of IPv4 address space. An RIR is considered at exhaustion when the inventory is less than the equivalent of a single /8 and is unable to further allocate or assign address space to its customers in units equal to or shorter than the longest of that RIR's policy defined minimum allocation unit. Up to one /10 or equivalent of IPv4 address space specifically reserved for any special purpose by an RIR will not be counted against that RIR when determining eligibility unless that space was received from the IANA reclamation pool. Any RIR that is formed after the ICANN Board of Directors has ratified this policy is not eligible to utilize this policy to obtain IPv4 address space from the IANA.
5. Reporting Requirements
The IANA shall publish on at least a weekly basis a report that is publicly available which at a minimum details all address space that has been received and that has been allocated. The IANA shall publish a Returned Address Space Report which indicates what resources were returned, by whom and when. The IANA shall publish an Allocations Report on at least a weekly basis which at a minimum indicates what IPv4 address space has been allocated, which RIR received the allocation and when. The IANA shall publish a public notice confirming RIR eligibility subsequent to Section 4.
6. No Transfer Rights
Address space assigned from the Reclamation Pool may be transferred if there is either an ICANN Board ratified global policy or globally coordinated RIR policy specifically written to deal with transfers whether inter-RIR or from one entity to another. Transfers must meet the requirements of such a policy. In the absence of such a policy, no transfers of any kind related to address space allocated or assigned from the reclamation pool is allowed.
IANA - Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, or its successor
ICANN - Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or its successor
RIR - Regional Internet Registry as recognized by ICANN
MoU - Memorandum of Understanding between ICANN and the RIRs
IPv4 - Internet Protocol Version Four(4), the target protocol of this Global Policy
Free Space Pool - IPv4 Addresses that are in inventory at any RIR, and/or the IANA
Global Policy for the Allocation of the Remaining IPv4 Address Space http://www.icann.org/en/general/allocation-remaining-ipv4-space.htm
ICANN Address Supporting Organization (ASO) MoU http://aso.icann.org/documents/memorandum-of-understanding/
Policy for Allocation of IPv4 Blocks to Regional Internet Registries http://aso.icann.org/documents/global-policy-for-allocation-of-asn-blocks-to-regional-internet-registries/ | <urn:uuid:d11b6ec0-b2be-4f39-a4d6-b40ecc94ac74> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ripe.net/ripe/policies/proposals/2010-05/draft | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.919322 | 1,051 | 1.53125 | 2 |
From today's Wall Street Journal's 'Notable & Quotable' feature, a snippet from a 1956 speech by Congressman Howard Buffet of Nebraska.
The last 40 years have seen a gigantic expansion of political power over economic affairs by the federal government. This change is linked by many scholars to the passage of the income tax law in 1913. This law revolutionized the taxing system in two ways:
1. It gave the government new powers over the economic status of the individual. This change has curtailed the ability of the individual to achieve economic independence.
2. The part of his production taken from the producer cumulatively increases the power of the federal government proportionately with the increase in its income. This power is not created; it is simply taken away from the people. . . .
George Sokolsky, noted columnist, says it this way: "When human beings become dependent upon the political power of the state for their livelihood, the independence of person must disappear. It is the identification of economic power with police power that destroys the right of the individual to liberty."
Or, to quote another American, our third president, in a much earlier time, “A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will lose both, and deserve neither.” Thomas Jefferson also said this: “Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms (of government) those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.”
Anyway, there's more at the link, including a quote that could be applied directly to the government health care grab in ObamaCare:
If the government is to guarantee you what the consequences of your actions will be in this case, security, then the government must take control of your activities. For with responsibility—even self-arrogated responsibility—must go authority
This means that if politicians are to supply your security, they must control your work, your spending, and your saving... | <urn:uuid:8ea04870-29a2-412d-bd2a-458e816a4090> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://joustthefacts.typepad.com/joust_the_facts/2011/08/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958679 | 405 | 2 | 2 |
I'm sure lots of people with no clue come through here and ask how to make a flying robot. I am another one of these people.
Realistically speaking, I don't seriously expect to make a quadcopter or any of that. I just want to learn about motors, and I'm not interested in using them for wheeled robots.
If I bought something like this
, I'd need a controller, right? Could I use the SPEEDY-BL
? Where on earth (or preferably, the internet) can I buy a kit for that? And then I guess I need a power source for the controller/motor, and one for my microcontroller, and I interface the two with PWM or some such communication mechanic? | <urn:uuid:930aa277-7202-4a84-871d-ec1e92d9d083> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.societyofrobots.com/robotforum/index.php?topic=5586.msg42979 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969029 | 154 | 2.078125 | 2 |
Hurricanes, sure, but an earthquake in gulf?
Most earthquakes occur on faults near where giant sections of the Earth’s crust collide or slip past one another. Sunday’s 6.0 earthquake in the Gulf of Mexico was unusual because it was far from the nearest active tectonic plate boundary.
By MIKE DONILA
Published September 10, 2006
Oliver Kuglar had his toes in the sand and was reading the Sunday paper when he felt the ground at Indian Rocks Beach shake.
The 45-year-old Largo resident knew immediately it was an earthquake. He experienced one years ago in California.
“There was no breeze. It was a beautiful, typical Florida morning and then my chair started rocking left to right for about six seconds,” said Kuglar, who was 25 feet from the water. “I knew it couldn’t be the wind, and there was no one behind me playing a trick.”
Officials with the U.S. Geological Survey said an earthquake hit the Gulf of Mexico at 10:56 a.m., about 260 miles from St. Petersburg. It measured a magnitude 6.0 and lasted for 15 to 20 seconds. No damage was reported.
Jessica Sigala, a seismic analyst with the National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colo. called the earthquake “strong.”
She said a quake of that type and magnitude was unlikely to cause waves large enough to affect the coasts.
She said it would take a quake about 32 times stronger — a magnitude of at least 7.0 or greater — to cause a tsunami. There is no record of a quake that large ever hitting Florida.
Another temblor, which measured magnitude 5.2, hit the same spot in late February but went largely unnoticed except by experts.
Don Blakeman, a geophysicist with the earthquake center, said it is unusual for a quake to occur in the gulf.He said that he doesn’t think another will hit any time soon but did say this particular quake might not be over.“
There is a possibility that an earthquake this size and in shallow crust like this could have some aftershocks ... but they’d be smaller than the main earthquake,” said Blakeman, adding that the quake originated about 6.2 miles deep in the Earth’s crust.
Sunday’s quake occurred 329 miles southeast of New Orleans at 26.327 degrees north and 86.571 degrees west. It was felt throughout the Tampa Bay region, in parts of Alabama and as far away as Kentucky, the Carolinas and the north Georgia mountains. Almost 4,000 people had contacted the National Earthquake Information Center by Sunday evening.
Despite some rumors, said Mike Stone, spokesman for the Florida Division of Emergency Management, no tsunami warning was issued Sunday. The Coast Guard did issue a mariner’s warning, however, advising boaters to use caution while on the gulf, said Operations Specialist First Class Josh Sharman.
“We’re monitoring the situation,” said Sharman, who is based in St. Petersburg.
Residents said pictures rattled on the walls, kitchen countertops shook and books on coffee tables moved. Some said they were a little nervous; others didn’t know what to think.
“We looked out the windows,” said Chris Kelly of Pinellas Point. “We didn’t see any neighbors making noise, there were no trucks, there wasn’t a sonic boom. Whatever it was, though, it was very noticeable.”
Dorothy Conley, of Redington Beach, was standing in the street when she felt it. “It just moved. It was that moving feeling that we experienced,” she said.
Sandy Oestreich, the former vice mayor of Redington Beach, said she was talking on the phone with her daughter in New York when the “keys that were hanging started shaking and clinking.”
Most earthquakes occur on tectonic plate boundaries, Blakeman said.
The Earth’s surface is put together by 13 large bodies of rock called tectonic plates that each fit together like a jigsaw puzzle, said Rafael Abreu, a geophysicist with the National Earthquake Information Center. But they are not static. They often move against, apart or past each other. The movement causes quakes.
The gulf, though, is not near a tectonic boundary, so Blakeman said “that’s highly unlikely” that another large quake would occur.
He said he’s not sure what caused Sunday’s quake but “the general answer is the movement of the plate produces stress throughout the interior and sometimes that stress is released in the form of an earthquake.”
Blakeman also said he seriously doubted human activity, such as the recent drilling for oil in the gulf, had anything to do with the quake.
“I’ve never seen anything this size caused by man-made” actions, he said.
When asked what type of effect an earthquake might have on oil rigs in the gulf, he said it would depend on how close the rig was to the quake’s epicenter and what type of sediment was holding the structure.
Most deep-ocean oil drilling rigs do not rest on the floor. Instead, they are anchored to the bottom and float on the surface, making it far less likely they would be damaged.
Sunday’s quake occurred in an area of the gulf where the bottom is covered in a layer of sediment a mile deep that originally flowed out of the mouth of the Mississippi River, said Paul Wetmore, a seismic geology professor at the University of South Florida.
Within the pile of sediment are sections that settled out in different densities, and the boundaries between them are full of “a lot of little faults,” Wetmore said. They don’t slide past each other smoothly, either, he said. They stick.
When the different sections of bottom sediment come unstuck and push past each other, that’s when an earthquake like the one Sunday occurs, Wetmore explained.
“The stress that was building up to cause that earthquake was probably building for hundreds of thousands of years,” he said.
An earthquake in that area of the gulf is unlikely to produce a tsunami, Wetmore said. Generally a tsunami results from one plate in the Earth’s crust shoving over another, with the upward thrust creating a massive wave. But the gulf contains no areas where that would happen, he said. The closest is in the Lesser Antilles, near Puerto Rico.
Meanwhile, Kugler, who oversees marketing and sales for Resort & Club at Little Harbor, will be watching the water.
“I want to make sure there’s nothing out of the ordinary,” he said. “I think we’ve all learned from the last several years about what to look for and to be careful.”
Times staff writer Craig Pittman and eesearcher Tim Rozgonyi contributed to this report.
[Last modified September 10, 2006, 22:58:04]
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On February 24, 2007, the LEISA (pronounced "Leesa") infrared spectral imager in the New Horizons Ralph instrument observed giant Jupiter in 250 narrow spectral channels. At the time the spacecraft was 6 million kilometers (nearly 4 million miles) from Jupiter; at that range, the LEISA imager can resolve structures about 400 kilometers (250 miles) across.
That may seem large, mission scientists say, but Jupiter itself is more than 144,000 kilometers (89,000 miles) across. "The detail revealed in these images is simply stunning," says Dr. Dennis Reuter, Ralph/LEISA project scientist and a New Horizons co-investigator from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "Our instrument is performing spectacularly well."
LEISA observes in 250 infrared wavelengths, which range from 1.25 micrometers (mm) to 2.50 mm. The three images shown above from that dataset are at wavelengths of 1.27 mm (left), 1.53 mm (center) and 1.88 mm (right).
The bright areas in the image frames are caused by solar radiation reflected from clouds and hazes in Jupiter's atmosphere. Dark areas correspond to atmospheric regions where solar radiation is absorbed before it can be reflected. The dark circular feature in the upper left of all three images is the shadow of Jupiter's innermost large moon, Io.
Light at 1.53 mm (center frame) comes from relatively high in the atmosphere. The other two channels probe deeper atmospheric levels. Features that are bright in all three pictures come from high-altitude clouds. Features that are bright in the 1.27 and 1.88 mm channels, but darker in the 1.53-mm channel come from lower clouds. For example, there is an isolated circular feature (the "Little Red Spot") in the lower left of the 1.53-mm image. In the 1.27 and 1.88 mm data, this circular feature is surrounded by other structures. The implication is that the "Little Red Spot" is caused by a system that extends far up into the atmosphere, while other structures are lower.
"The three frames shown here are just a sampling of what LEISA returned in this dataset," says Dr. Don Jennings, LEISA principal investigator and a New Horizons co-investigator from NASA Goddard. "Combining data from all 250 channels will allow us to make detailed three-dimensional maps of the composition and circulation of the Jovian atmosphere."
At closest approach to Jupiter on February 28, at a distance of about 2.5 million kilometers (1.4 million miles), LEISA's resolution was about three times better than it was on February 24. LEISA images made at that far-better resolution are still stored in the spacecraft's data recorder, awaiting downlink from New Horizons.
Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute | <urn:uuid:6db83d32-fd20-4e50-b5b8-b7b1f5040544> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=23639 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.91882 | 598 | 3.40625 | 3 |
Memorial Day is popularly recognized as our national holiday for remembering those who were killed in wars.
As Barack Obama said the other day, it's a time to "pay tribute to our fallen heroes; and to remember the servicemen and women who cannot be with us this year because they are standing post far from home." He acknowledged that we have often "failed to give them the support they need" and promised that we are now "building a 21st century Department of Veterans Affairs with the largest single-year funding increase in three decades." Certainly veterans need better services and better access to them.
Some right-wing bloggers have been complaining about the President's confusion of Memorial day and Veterans day, but it seems reasonable to consider the larger context of what is being honored. We would not be remembering dead soldiers if they hadn't once been live soldiers.
We would also not be remembering so many dead soldiers if more of them had followed the model of Ehren Watada, the first commisioned officer to refuse deployment to Iraq. Last week he won a legal victory when the Justice Department dropped efforts to retry him after his court martial ended in a mistrial. But the Army still wants to punish him for declaring the Iraq war illegal and immoral, and for having the courage to call out "the deception . . . used to initiate and process this war." | <urn:uuid:ce2250c1-6a60-4483-94e8-ea51fa4ee7e3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kboo.org/Topic/Womensissues?page=113 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978646 | 276 | 2 | 2 |
By DON CLARK And BEN WORTHEN
The deal to buy 98% of the 141-square-mile island was disclosed by the state's governor, Neil Abercrombie, who cited a transfer application that owner Castle & Cooke Inc. filed with the Public Utilities Commission.
Lanai, which is nine miles off the coast of Maui, is the smallest inhabited island in Hawaii that is publicly accessible. It has long been controlled by billionaire David Murdock—who also controls Castle & Cooke and who is known for closing the island's original pineapple plantations to make way for development.
Lanai's Beaches and Peaks
See what the Hawaiian island looks like.
The island boasts resorts and golf courses. But it still is considered relatively unspoiled—taking pride in the absence of stoplights—and is believed to be an unprofitable investment for Mr. Murdock.
The Maui News reported that the asking price for the property was between $500 million and $600 million. Representatives for Castle & Cooke and Mr. Ellison couldn't be reached.
Mr. Ellison, 67 years old, is the third-richest person in the U.S., according to Forbes, with a fortune estimated at more than $30 billion. Most of that wealth comes from his stake in Oracle, the software company that he co-founded in 1977.
He isn't shy about spending his money. Mr. Ellison has bankrolled a sailing team—which won the most recent America's Cup with a giant trimaran—and has led an effort to bring that event to San Francisco in 2013.
Avid Trophy Buyer
Software billionaire Larry Ellison is taking serial property buying to new extremes. His strategy: snap up adjacent properties to build a sprawling compoud, and add noncontiguous areas to increase the overall value.
Mr. Ellison owns several opulent houses, including a traditional Japanese-style estate in Woodside, Calif., and is known for purchases including a yacht large enough for a basketball court, a fighter jet and a tennis tournament. More recently he has sought to buy a professional basketball team.
So far, he hasn't shown much interest in real-estate development, and some residents see Lanai as a place that is too quiet for many tourists. "It is my understanding that Mr. Ellison has had a long standing interest in Lanai," Mr. Abercrombie, the governor, said in a statement. "His passion for nature, particularly the ocean is well known specifically in the realm of America's Cup sailing."
Corrections & Amplifications
Lanai is the smallest inhabited island in Hawaii that is publicly accessible. An earlier version of this article incorrectly called it Hawaii's smallest inhabited island. Niihau, which requires permission to visit, is smaller. | <urn:uuid:72fbfb8a-239d-40de-a891-22a940defb28> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304898704577479293757609000.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00071-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969541 | 572 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Prometheus is best known for being the titan who, against the wishes of Zeus, gave mankind the gift of fire. Prometheus is also the name of a company that comes up with new diagnostic and therapeutic products. Today, the Supreme Court heard arguments in a patent dispute between Prometheus (the company) and Mayo Collaborative Services about whether one of its products can be patented.
The echoes of ancient Greek mythology in the case name may have inspired Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. In one of his hypothetical questions to the Obama administration’s lawyer about what processes can be patented, he referred back to one of man’s earliest “discoveries”:
So I have a great idea. You take wood, you put it on a grate, you light it, and you get heat. That .. recites a series of acts performed in the physical world that transforms the subject of the process, the wood, to achieve a useful result, which is heat. So I can get a patent for that?
The answer is no. “It’s not novel, and it’s obvious,” said Solicitor General Donald Verrilli.
Of course, Prometheus (the titan) didn’t get a patent for “discovering” fire because he didn’t discover it. He simply grabbed some fire from the flaming chariot of Helios, the sun god, and gave it to mankind when Zeus wasn’t looking.
Zeus wasn’t best pleased. Prometheus’ punishment was to be chained to a rock for eternity, where a vulture would peck out his liver every day in an endless cycle of pain.
Prometheus could not immediately be reached for comment. | <urn:uuid:252b2896-64d3-4d71-9608-af2cb49fe2f7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://washingtonbriefs.com/2011/12/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95811 | 360 | 2.625 | 3 |
Among the mysteries of Alzheimer's disease is the elusiveness of diagnosis. Psychological exams can be given, brain-imaging scans can be used, and laboratory tests can be ordered. A neurologist or other specialist can use these to make a "probable" diagnosis. But for Alzheimer's disease and similar dementias, definitive markers do not exist.
Alzheimer's disease was first identified by German physician Alois Alzheimer in 1906 after the death of a 51-year-old female patient who had suffered from extreme cognitive impairment. An autopsy revealed a brain riddled with amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles, which are still the physiological hallmarks of the disease. Medical knowledge has evolved greatly since then, but these abnormalities cannot be identified in living patients. Diagnosis depends largely on inexact expressions of behavior.
When it comes to aging and brain function, "there are many shades of gray," says Marsel Mesulam, professor of neurology and director of Northwestern's Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer's Disease Center. Variables are as innumerable as the brain is complex. "This is where clinical judgment comes in."
"To distinguish when so-called normal aging ends and when abnormal aging starts," Mesulam says, "there is a collection of tests." Sometimes having patients listen to words and repeat them reveals the dilution of short-term memory. Drawing relatively simple forms with pencil and paper suggests a patient's sense of spatial relationships. Procedures such as MRIs and CT scans provide added indications that figure into a diagnosis. Beyond this, chemical tests and an inventory of medications that the patient is taking can provide clues of non-Alzheimer's causes for Alzheimer's-like symptoms.
A patient's detailed medical history remains key to diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease and comes only from the patient or from people who know him or her. Clinicians will consider education and "previous level of achievement" when examining patients for Alzheimer's.
"If at the age of 75 or 80 you are still running your family company, and you suddenly have a problem understanding payroll, that's a problem," Mesulam says. "On the other hand, if you have a [lesser] set of responsibilities or achievements and at that age can't understand complex numbers, that may mean nothing."
While forgetfulness is the most common mental lapse of most dementias, symptoms vary widely. Other warning signs include poor concentration, trouble finding words and "almost always a detachment from family and usual interests," Mesulam says. Yet he insists that people looking for dramatic indications may be waiting a long time. "By and large, Alzheimer's is a bland disease that makes people less and less competent at what they once did well."
Because of its slow progression, accurate diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease requires the same communication skills that also greatly enhance treatment. While patients are often unhelpful because they are unaware of symptoms or because they react to them with anger, it falls to family members to describe behavioral abnormalities occurring in a patient.
"But sometimes it's the spouse who wants to deny the presence of change," Mesulam notes. So familial and social relationships can facilitate or impede diagnosis, just as those relationships figure into the treatment or management of the disease. Consequently, family dynamics remain just one of the deep complexities of the still-dark medical frontier of Alzheimer's disease and dementia.— J.P. | <urn:uuid:d3b13e9d-d7be-480f-bc54-6b3ae5f5fa1a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.northwestern.edu/magazine/fall2009/cover/alzheimer_sidebar/diagnosis.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948955 | 691 | 3.484375 | 3 |
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CAIRO - Angry demonstrations against an anti-Islam film spread to their widest extent yet around the Middle East and other Muslim countries Friday. Protesters smashed into the German Embassy in the Sudanese capital and set part of it on fire and climbed the walls of the U.S. Embassy in Tunis, waving an Islamist banner.
One protester was killed in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli in clashes with security forces, after a crowd of protesters set fire to a KFC and an Arby's restaurant. Protesters hurled stones and glass at police in a furious melee that left 25 people wounded, 18 of them police.
Protests were held in cities from Tunisia to Pakistan after weekly Friday Muslim prayers, where many clerics in their mosque sermons called on congregations to defend their faith, denouncing obscure movie produced in the United States that denigrated the Prophet Muhammad.
The numbers were not huge - in most places, only a few hundred took to the streets, mostly ultraconservative Islamists - but the mood was often furious. The spread of protests comes after attacks earlier this week on the U.S. Embassies in Cairo and the Yemeni capital Sanaa and on a U.S. consulate in Libya, where the ambassador and three other Americans were killed.
After standing aside earlier this week in the face of protesters, security forces in Yemen and Egypt fired tear gas and clashed with protesters Friday to keep them away from U.S. embassies.
Egypt's Islamist president, Mohammed Morsi, went on state TV and urged Muslims to protect foreign diplomatic missions - his first direct public move to contain protests.
"It is required by our religion to protect our guests and their homes and places of work," he said. He also condemned the killing of the American ambassador in Libya, saying it was unacceptable in Islam. "To God, attacking a person is bigger than an attack on the Kaaba," he said, referring to Islam's holiest site in Mecca.
His speech was an apparent attempt to repair strained relations with the United States, which was angered by his slow response to Tuesday night's assault on the embassy in Cairo. Police did nothing to stop protesters from climbing over the embassy walls, and Morsi was largely silent about the breaching for days afterward.
Ahead of the expected wave of protests on Friday - a tradition day for rallies in the Islamic world - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton delivered an explicit denunciation of the anti-Muhammad video, aiming to pre-empt further turmoil at its embassies and consulates. The movie, called "Innocence of Muslims," ridicules the Prophet Muhammad, portraying him as a fraud, a womanizer and a child molester.
"The United States government had absolutely nothing to do with this video," she said before a meeting with the foreign minister of Morocco at the State Department. "We absolutely reject its content and message."
"To us, to me personally, this video is disgusting and reprehensible," Clinton said. "It appears to have a deeply cynical purpose: to denigrate a great religion and to provoke rage."
Nonetheless, protests in several places attempted to move on American diplomatic missions - and other Western countries were pulled into the dispute.
Several thousand demonstrators protested outside the US embassy in Tunis and battled with security forces, throwing stones as police fired volleys of tear gas and shot in the air. Some protesters scaled the embassy wall and stood on top of it, planting a black flag with the Islamic profession of faith, "There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his prophet."
Police chased them off the wall and took the flag down.
In Sudan, a prominent sheik on state radio urged protesters to march on the German Embassy to protest alleged anti-Muslim graffiti on mosques in Berlin and then to the U.S. Embassy to protest the film.
"America has long been an enemy to Islam and to Sudan," Sheik Mohammed Jizouly said.
Soon after, several hundred Sudanese stormed into the German Embassy, burning a car parked behind its gates and setting fire to trash cans. Protesters danced and celebrated around the burning barrels as palls of black smoke billowed into the sky.
Part of the embassy building was also in flames, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle told reporters in Berlin. "Fortunately... the employees are safe," he said.
Police firing tear gas drove the protesters out of the compound. Some then began to demonstrate outside the neighboring British Embassy, shouting slogans, while others left, apparently heading to the American Embassy, which is outside of the capital.
In east Jerusalem, Israeli police stopped a crowd of around 400 Palestinians from marching on the U.S. consulate to protest the film. Demonstrators threw bottles and stones at police, who responded by firing stun grenades. Four protesters were arrested.
Security forces in Yemen shot live rounds in the air and fired tear gas at a crowd of around 2,000 protesters trying to march to the U.S. Embassy in the capital, Sanaa. Though outnumbered by protesters, security forces were able to keep the crowd about a block away from the mission.
A day earlier, hundreds of protesters chanting "death to America" stormed the embassy compound in Sanaa and burned the American flag. The embassy said nobody was harmed. Yemen's president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, quickly apologized to the United States and vowed to track down the culprits.
In Egypt, several hundred people, mainly ultraconversatives, protested in Cairo's Tahrir Square after weekly Muslim Friday prayers and tore up an American flag, waving a black, Islamist flag.
A firebrand ultraconservative Salafi cleric blasted the film and in his sermon in Cairo's Tahrir Square said it was upon Muslims to defend Islam and its prophet.
Many in the crowd then moved to join protesters who have been clashing for several days with police between Tahrir and the U.S. Embassy. "With our soul, our blood, we will avenge you, our Prophet," they chanted as police fired volleys of tear gas.
Ahead of the clashes, the president spoke for more than seven minutes on state TV, saying, "It is required by our religion to protect our guests and their homes and places of work."
"So I call on all to consider this, consider the law, and not attack embassies, consulates, diplomatic missions or Egyptian property that is private or public, " he said.
He denounced the killing of the American ambassador in Libya. "This is something we reject and Islam rejects.
His own Muslim Brotherhood group called for peaceful protests in Tahrir to denounce the film.
A small, peaceful demonstration was held Friday outside the U.S. Embassy in the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur.
Hundreds of hardline Muslims held peaceful protests against the film throughout Pakistan, shouting slogans and carrying banners criticizing the U.S. and those involved in the film.
Police in Islamabad set up barricades and razor wire to prevent protesters from getting to the diplomatic enclave, where the U.S. Embassy and many other foreign missions are located. Protests were also held in Karachi, Peshawar and Lahore, where protesters shouted "Down with America" and some burned the U.S. flag. About 200 policemen and barbed wire ringed the U.S. Consulate in Lahore.
About 1,500 protest in the eastern city of Jalalabad, shouting "Death to America" and urge President Hamid Karzai to cut relations with the U.S.
A prominent cleric in Indonesia urged Muslims there to remain calm despite their anger about the film. But Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia, a branch of the international network that advocates a worldwide Islamic state, on its website blamed the U.S. government for allowing the film to be produced and released, calling it "an act of barbarism that cannot go unpunished."
Meanwhile, the airport in Benghazi, the city where Tuesday's attack on the consulate took place, was closed for several hours on Friday. An airport official said the closure was due to security concerns, and the airport re-opened in the afternoon.
Additional reporting by Osama Alfitory in Benghazi, Libya; Ahmed Al-Haj in Sanaa, Yemen; Bouazza Ben Bouazza in Tunis; Mohamed Osman in Khartoum, Sudan; Elizabeth A. Kennedy in Beirut; Daniel Estrin in Jerusalem and Niniek Karmini in Jakarta, Indonesia. | <urn:uuid:bf1af17e-da6d-4784-a300-22ca6661c74f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.military.com/daily-news/2012/09/14/protests-against-film-spread-in-mideast.html?comp=700001075741&rank=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964332 | 1,744 | 1.570313 | 2 |
| A Country Study: North Korea
POLITICAL IDEOLOGY: THE ROLE OF CHUCH'E
A flag of Kim Jong Il is displayed on a truck being driven through P'yongyang. Courtesy Tracy Woodward
Chuch'e ideology is the basic cornerstone of party construction, party works, and government operations. Chuch'e is sanctified as the essence of what has been officially called Kim Il Sung Chuui (Kim Il Sung-ism) since April 1974. Chuch'e is also claimed as "the present-day MarxismLeninism ." North Korean leaders advocate chuch'e ideology as the only correct guiding ideology in their ongoing revolutionary movement.
Chuch'e also is referred to as "the unitary ideology" or as "the monolithic ideology of the Party." It is inseparable from and, for all intents and purposes, synonymous with Kim Il Sung's leadership and was said to have been "created" or "fathered" by the great leader as an original "encyclopedic thought which provides a complete answer to any question that arises in the struggle for national liberation and class emancipation, in the building of socialism and communism." Chuch'e is viewed as the embodiment of revealed truth attesting to the wisdom of Kim's leadership as exemplified in countless speeches and "on-the-spot guidance."
Chuch'e was proclaimed in December 1955, when Kim underlined the critical need for a Korea-centered revolution rather than one designed to benefit, in his words, "another country." Chuch'e is designed to inspire national pride and identity and mold national consciousness into a potentially powerful focus for internal solidarity centered on Kim and the KWP.
According to Kim, chuch'e means "the independent stance of rejecting dependence on others and of using one's own powers, believing in one's own strength and displaying the revolutionary spirit of self-reliance." Chuch'e is an ideology geared to address North Korea's contemporary goals--an independent foreign policy, a self-sufficient economy, and a self-reliant defense posture. Kim Il Sung's enunciation of chuch'e in 1955 was aimed at developing a monolithic and effective system of authority under his exclusive leadership. The invocation of chuch'e was a psychological tool with which to stigmatize the foreign-oriented dissenters and remove them from the center of power. Targeted for elimination were groups of pro-Soviet and pro-Chinese anti-Kim dissenters.
Chuch'e did not become a prominent ideology overnight. During the first ten years of North Korea's existence, MarxismLeninism was accepted unquestioningly as the only source of doctrinal authority. Nationalism was toned down in deference to the country's connections to the Soviet Union and China. In the mid-1950s, however, chuch'e was presented as a "creative" application of Marxism-Leninism. In his attempt to establish an interrelationship between Marxism-Leninism and chuch'e, Kim contended that although Marxism-Leninism was valid as the fundamental law of revolution, it needed an authoritative interpreter to define a new set of practical ideological guidelines appropriate to the revolutionary environment in North Korea.
Kim's practical ideology was given a test of relevancy throughout the mid-1960s. In the late 1950s, Kim was able to mobilize internal support when he purged pro-Soviet and proChinese dissenters from party ranks. During the first half of the 1960s, Kim faced an even more formidable challenge when he had to weather a series of tense situations that had potentially adverse implications for North Korea's economic development and national security. Among these were a sharp decrease in aid from the Soviet Union and China; discord between the Soviet Union and China and its disquieting implications for North Korea's confrontation with the United States and South Korea; P'yongyang's disagreements with Moscow and apprehensions about the reliability of the Soviet Union as an ally; and the rise of an authoritarian regime in Seoul under former General Park Chung Hee (1961-79).
These developments emphasized the need for self-reliance--the need to rely on domestic resources, heighten vigilance against possible external challenges, and strengthen domestic political solidarity. Sacrifice, austerity, unity, and patriotism became dominant themes in the party's efforts to instill in the people the importance of chuch'e and collective discipline. By the mid-1960s, however, North Korea could afford to relax somewhat; its strained relations with the Soviet Union had eased, as reflected in part by Moscow's decision to rush economic and military assistance to P'yongyang.
Beginning in mid-1965, chuch'e was presented as the essence of Kim Il Sung's leadership and of party lines and policies for every conceivable revolutionary situation. Kim's past leadership record was put forward as the "guide and compass" for the present and future and as a source of strength sufficient to propel the faithful through any adversity.
Nonetheless, the linkage of chuch'e to MarxismLeninism remains a creed of the party. The April 1972 issue of K lloja (The Worker) still referred to the KWP as "a Marxist-Leninist Party"; the journal pointed out that "the only valid policy for Korean Communists is Marxism-Leninism" and called for "its creative application to our realities."
Since 1974 it has become increasingly evident, however, that the emphasis is on the glorification of chuch'e as "the only scientific revolutionary thought representing our era of Juche and communist future and the most effective revolutionary theoretical structure that leads to the future of communist society along the surest shortcut." This new emphasis was based on the contention that a different historical era, with its unique sociopolitical circumstances, requires an appropriately unique revolutionary ideology. Accordingly, Marxism and Leninism were valid doctrines in their own times, but had outlived their usefulness in the era of chuch'e, which prophesies the downfall of imperialism and the worldwide victory of socialism and communism.
As the years have passed, references to Marxism-Leninism in party literature have steadily decreased. By 1980 the terms Marxism and Leninism had all but disappeared from the pages of K lloja. An unsigned article in the March 1980 K lloja proclaimed, "Within the Party none but the leader Kim Il Sung's revolutionary thought, the chuch'e ideology, prevails and there is no room for any hodgepodge thought contrary to it." The report Kim Il Sung presented to the Sixth Party Congress in October 1980 did not contain a single reference to Marxism-Leninism, in marked contrast to his report to the Fifth Party Congress in November 1970. In the 1980 report, Kim declared: "The whole party is rallied rock-firm around its Central Committee and knit together in ideology and purpose on the basis of the chuch'e idea. The Party has no room for any other idea than the chuch'e idea, and no force can ever break its unity and cohesion based on this idea."
Chuch'e is instrumental in providing a consistent and unifying framework for commitment and action in the North Korean political arena. It offers an underpinning for the party's incessant demand for spartan austerity, sacrifice, discipline, and dedication. Since the mid-1970s, however, it appears that chuch'e has become glorified as an end in itself.
In his annual New Year's message on January 1, 1992, Kim Il Sung emphasized the invincibility of chuch'e ideology: "I take great pride in and highly appreciate the fact that our people have overcome the ordeals of history and displayed to the full the heroic mettle of the revolutionary people and the indomitable spirit of chuch'e Korea, firmly united behind the party . . . . No difficulty is insurmountable nor is any fortress impregnable for us when our party leads the people with the ever-victorious chuch'e-oriented strategy and tactics and when all the people turn out as one under the party's leadership."
Data as of June 1993
-This is an archive of a previously published work in the public domain. As a record of an already published work, it should not be changed or updated, except to improve the visual layout, to wikify the page or to add pertinent categories. Place names and others written in old romanization should stay the same way as well, but after wikifying please add a redirect to the present system of romanization (i.e. creating a redirect from Pusan to Busan or Kwangju to Gwangju).
-While content in the Galbijim wiki is by default under the GFDL, this work is in the public domain worldwide because it meets one or more of the following criteria: </br>-It has been so released by the copyright holder; Its copyright has expired; Or, it is ineligible for copyright. | <urn:uuid:d8919e04-ae9d-41a4-9b66-c1635984c284> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wiki.galbijim.com/Loc2:Political_Ideology:_The_Role_of_Chuch'e | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00071-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963725 | 1,829 | 3.15625 | 3 |
At our nation's founding, Philadelphia witnessed both the triumph of the U.S. Constitution and the tragedy of the flawed compromise on slavery. Years later, the Civil War brought a stunning transformation, both to Philadelphia and the surrounding countryside.
Philadelphia entered the Civil War as a divided city with strong ties of family and commerce to the slaveholding South. It emerged as an industrial powerhouse committed to the Union cause, supplying men, materials and transport and nursing hundreds of thousands of sick and wounded soldiers. Women, immigrants and African Americans joined in the war effort and staked their own claims to a share in America's freedom.
Find the stories of the Second American Revolution woven into the fabric of Independence Park, the nation's most historic square mile. Follow the threads into the city's many neighborhoods and the surrounding counties to learn about the men and women who fought in the struggle for freedom and equality that goes on to this day.
The Civil War History Consortium
Get your Philly Civil War history here! Tour historic sites and museums, visit Philadelphia neighborhoods that still retain their Civil War architecture and plan a research trip to explore the collections in our libraries and archives.
Independence National Park
and National Constitution Center
The seeds of the Second Revolution were sown in the birthplace of the first. Here Abraham Lincoln swore that he would rather be assassinated than give up the Union. Learn how the Liberty Bell was used as a symbol for the abolition of slavery.
African American Museum of Philadelphia
See the stunning, new permanent exhibition about Philadelphia's African American community, the largest black urban population north of the Mason-Dixon Line.
The Philadelphia Museum of History at the Atwater Kent
In its extraordinary collection of cherished objects and images from Philadelphia’s history, The Philadelphia Museum of History at the Atwater Kent offers Civil War enthusiasts a collection of more than 1,500 Civil War artifacts.
Union League of Philadelphia
Founded to support the Union cause, this Philadelphia landmark was the birthplace of a patriotic movement that grew to 600 branches across the nation by the end of the Civil War.
Laurel Hill Cemetery
The final resting place for 42 Union generals and one Confederate general, this 78-acre landscaped park overlooks the Schuylkill River.
Fair Hill Burial Ground
Step off the beaten path and witness a story of cooperation between white Quakers and African Americans, spanning the centuries and continuing to this day.
and Johnson House
Visit two historic houses that served as stops on the Underground Railroad.
Or visit many of Philadelphia's landmark sites, constructed just after the war, which are destinations in their own rights: Philadelphia's City Hall; the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts; the Philadelphia Zoo; and the magnificent 1876 Memorial Hall, now home to the Please Touch Museum.
Outside the city, check in with the Chester County Historical Society to see its Lincoln exhibition or visit the Historical Society of Montgomery County and its historic cemetery where two important Union generals are buried. Plan to take one of the many tours sponsored by the Kennett Underground Railroad Center.
Everything you need to plan a trip to Philadelphia and its countryside. | <urn:uuid:7ea9436e-aa4e-4075-914f-801128eb2b29> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://pacivilwar150.com/PlanYourTrip/PhiladelphiaCountry | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.92311 | 634 | 3.515625 | 4 |
This month my husband, Seth Greenland,
whose new book, The Angry Buddhist,
just came out, pitched in and wrote this guest-post about how mindfulness ended up playing a large part in his life.
One evening, in my single days, I found myself having dinner with an attractive woman who had been the singer of a band I had seen playing at a friend’s wedding. We were exchanging the usual palaver one does on a first date when she informed me she was a Buddhist. This was early in the Reagan years and back then American Buddhists were like bald eagles – you knew they existed, but you rarely saw one. It was as if the wedding singer had identified herself as a Zoroastrian or one of the Theosophical followers of Madame Blavatsky. Sure, I knew about the dharma from reading the Beat writers, but those guys were all drug addicts or alcoholics or alumni of mental institutions. It was a deal-breaker for me and, needless to say, our last date. If you are a Zoroastrian or a partisan of Madame Blavatsky’s, I apologize. No angry emails, please. It was a different time and I was not as open-minded as I am today. A Catholic, a Protestant or a Jew would have been fine, but a Buddhist was a bridge too far for this provincial New York City boy. Why do I tell a story that makes me look like such a biased simpleton? Because I love irony! Years later, I co-founded Inner Kids
with my wife Susan
and the mindfulness principles IK teaches are based on age-old Buddhist precepts. | <urn:uuid:c0559744-deb6-4b7f-83e2-17110f2f8c7f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.susankaisergreenland.com/tag/mindful-education.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.987685 | 342 | 1.5 | 2 |
As our rundown Mercedes puttered past the olive groves and wheat fields of Morocco’s Atlas Mountains, our taxi driver, Mohammed, pulled off the dirt road to ask a shepherd for directions.
“Do you know how to find David Dra’a?”
I was skeptical that the Arab shepherd would be able to lead us to the tomb of an obscure kabbalist rabbi, but he knowingly pointed us forward, higher into the peaks.
Rabbi David Halevy, from the Dra’a area 60 miles northeast of Marrakech, is one of more than 600 tzadikim (righteous men) buried in Morocco who are recognized by local Jews as saints. My brother and I were looking for Halevy’s grave because this June weekend was his hiloula, when Moroccan Jews visit a tzadik’s grave to light candles and pray for health and prosperity, usually on the anniversary of his death.
Morocco lost more than 95% of its Jewish population to immigration in the past half-century. But many who have moved abroad return for hiloulas, like 32-year-old David Ruimy, a meat seller from Jerusalem who visits Morocco once a year to pray at Halevy’s tomb.
“The tzadik can perform miracles,” Ruimy told us when we arrived. Ruimy had an encyclopedic knowledge of the wonders Halevy had performed from beyond the grave. He said that the tzadik once visited a man’s dream to tell him to look in his cupboard. In the morning, the man found $200 there, exactly the amount needed to open his business. Another story was about a baby who was accidentally smothered under a pile of blankets. Her family rested her lifeless body on the tzadik’s grave, shut the door to the tomb and prayed. Minutes later, they heard her cries.
“That baby was my Aunt Bida,” Ruimy said.
Ruimy’s entire extended family was in attendance at this hiloula, continuing a 65-year-old tradition that began with his grandmother, who lived in Marrakech. His parents’ generation, the 14 brothers and sisters of the Sebbag clan who still live in Morocco, have been coming their whole lives.
“Many Jews have left Morocco, but my family stayed,” Ruimy said. “Now we probably make up around 90% of the people at this hiloula, but in the past we were just a small fraction. Twenty-five, 30 years ago, there would be almost five or six hundred people.”
The Sebbags’ success in Morocco is evident in the way they are investing in the hiloula site, turning the crumbling shacks into newly renovated vacation homes with fresh pink paint, flower planters and, most important, indoor plumbing. Unlike the Arab homes in the adjacent village, the rooftops here are crowned with Moroccan flags, an extra display of loyalty to the kingdom. The Moroccan Jewish community owns this land, which used to be occupied year-round by Jewish families and by a yeshiva just a few decades ago.
In the hours before the hiloula began, it felt like we were crashing a family reunion. Cousins ran in bathing suits down the path to the river, parents played cards and instructed Arab employees brought from Casablanca to help prepare the food. Hired local policeman watched over the group.
After the sunset, the air was electric with anticipation. People disappeared into the houses to change clothes. Ruimy returned, dressed in a brown djellaba, a traditional Moroccan loose robe with full sleeves and an oversized pointed hood. Many of his aunts and uncles were dressed similarly.
Jacky Kadoch, the usually severe-looking president of the Marrakech Jewish community, grabbed the microphone at the end of a 30-foot chord and transformed into the evening’s jaunty master of ceremonies. The hiloula head count grew to around 75 people, and latecomers who drove more than three hours from Casablanca filed into the plastic chairs in the front.
The hiloula began with an auction, first for the honor of opening the tomb and then for decorative candles to burn. The money goes toward the upkeep of the tomb, and a blessing was recited for the winner of each item. One at a time, Kadoch auctioned off 30 candles in French. “La première bougie! La deuxième bougie!” Each started with an opening bid of no less than 1,000 dirham ($125).
Wallets loosened with the nonstop flow of whiskey, and interludes of synthesized music in Hebrew and Arabic were broadcast over the mini public address system. Not surprisingly, most of the top bids came from members of the Sebbag family.
At one point, Daniel Sebbag, another of Ruimy’s uncles, created a ruckus on the sidelines when he whipped out his cell phone and all the children crowded around to look at the screen. He recently came on a private visit to the tomb and said the tzadik showed him an image, in the ashes of the fireplace, of an old man holding a baby. He took a photograph of the vision with his cell phone. His sister Bida, the woman revived by the tzadik as a baby, was particularly interested in seeing the picture.
“La dernière bougie,” the last candle, was finally sold after 1 a.m. The mood was a bit muted after everyone sat through the tiresome auction, but the gathering began to stir as people moved toward the reverberating sounds of singing, clapping and rhythmic drumming coming from those already inside the tomb.
The tzadik’s grave is at the top of the tomb stairs, covered by a dark-green marble slab. Behind that, a palm tree grows into a skylight. To the left is a small square fireplace carved into the wall. Young and old seemed practiced in the proper tomb-worshipping etiquette. The people all kneeled and pressed their foreheads to the marble, taking turns to solemnly toss their candles into the fireplace’s blaze. Many took pictures of the flames with cameras and cell phones.
Bida was one of the most enthusiastic participants. She whirled around in a shiny djellaba, banging on tables with henna-covered hands, and led the crowd in song.
“To your health,” she wished me in French. “May you be married, and have lots of babies, and have everything good come to you!”
Armed with simple white Sabbath candles, my brother and I took our turns at the fireplace to feed the flames. I came to the hiloula more out of curiosity than out of faith in the tzadik, but my gaze lingered for just a moment longer on the glowing fireplace, just in case he wanted to send me a message.
Alison Klayman is a freelance journalist and documentary filmmaker in Beijing. | <urn:uuid:5b0ab934-f2b3-4832-adac-43da2c807d41> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://forward.com/articles/107975/moroccan-tradition/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967978 | 1,519 | 2 | 2 |
Have a look at these snaps from our Creativity Day 2012.
If there is a will there is a tree. There had been excruciating incidents (saved for another post) behind this artificially natural tree. Thank you dear teachers, for your determination which made the dead branch take ‘life’, finally!
Ozone layer. A simple, yet demonstrative exhibit from the science stall.
Our students are experts at Mehendi. Their dexterity will amaze you.
Best out of waste. One of my favourite pieces from the competition.
Origami! This was made by a grade 7 student within an hour’s time.
The student used about 150 paper cups to make this party light. Loved it! | <urn:uuid:de2b0d13-274b-44e7-94ef-be43d5df0d87> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bindujohnroy.wordpress.com/tag/mehendi/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00069-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957735 | 151 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Independence Although Crown cooperates with various organizations, we maintain our being an independent body, free from control of any particular government, state or institution and unimpaired by their own respective interests.
Public Awareness Educating and enlisting the public to secure and maintain the quality of our natural resources is one of our priorities. We believe that by having well-informed and knowledgeable people, especially in the government sector will make it possible to maximize the benefit of existing legislation, and creating more, in order to preserve our e nvironment.
Sustainability A long-term responsibility of preserving resources for future generations that cover economic and environmental factors. Sustainability enables the environment to be productive and diverse enough to host humanity along with other living organism through effectively managing human impact on the ecosystem based on information provided experts.
Taking steps towards sustainability is a difficult challenge as it entails international and local law, individual lifestyles and urban planning. Measures should be implemented on re-evaluating work practices, altering general living conditions and making new technologies in order for a sustainability goal to be accomplished.
Accountability Crown Capital Eco Management also aims to raise awareness of our society getting trapped in progress with only the short-term concerns in mind for failure to protect and conserve our natural resources could lead to irreversible consequences not only in the future civilization but to the whole ecosystem itself.
Along with the recognition that the environment is needed for us to survive is the realization that we must answer for its sustainability and be responsible for managing the great resources we are entrusted with.
Independence Our group strives to make every sector of our society, especially the public, recognize the need for transparency in what is and will be happening to our natural resources in the future. Every individual leaves his mark in the environment and unfortunately, not all of us leave a beneficial one. Therefore, we must be consistent and united in our efforts as a civilization to preserve our nature. | <urn:uuid:40048da5-9e71-447a-903b-755abe5d4ccc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.design21sdn.com/people/90081/posts/21630 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928299 | 385 | 2.015625 | 2 |
BOSTON — Massachusetts lawmakers are weighing changes to the state's motorcycle laws, including bills designed to ease the requirement that riders wear helmets.
Current law requires all riders and passengers to wear protective head gear, except those participating in parades.
One proposed change would lift the helmet requirement for riders and passengers over the age of 21. Another would exempt riders whose motorcycles are registered in a state without a helmet law.
Other bills would ban children under 5 from riding on a motorcycle traveling more than 30 miles an hour, ban the sale of exhaust pipes designed to make motorcycles louder and prohibit cars from passing through groups of two or more motorcycles.
The bills are the subject of a Wednesday public hearing by the Transportation Committee at the Statehouse. | <urn:uuid:ca33ea03-3c41-4536-9dfd-42a83b9790e9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2011/11/massachusetts_lawmakers_may_el.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00054-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950276 | 148 | 1.828125 | 2 |
The speech we have been waiting for
By Chris Hipkins
The speech we have been waiting for - Click here.
Speech: Success for every
Speech to the
Auckland Primary Principals
Thank you for inviting me to speak
to you today.
This is the first opportunity I’ve had to address a larger audience of education
professionals since I formally took up the role as Labour’s Education
Up until now I’ve been out and about, listening to your views and concerns, and
discussing how we can do things better.
The feedback I’ve had can be divided into two
groups of thinking. One group asks questions like “why aren’t you sticking it to the government
more?”, while the other asks “why are the Labour Party always so negative?”
So today I hope to prove that it
is indeed possible to walk and chew gum at the same time by setting out some initial thinking on an
alternative positive approach to education by Labour,whilst simultaneously but very positively
spelling out the things the present government are doing wrong.
In the 1930s, Labour’s first Minister of Education, and subsequent Prime
Minister, the Rt Hon Peter Fraser set out a vision for education that is as relevant today as it was
“The [Labour] government’s objective, broadly expressed, is that all persons, whatever
their level of ability, whether they live in town or country, have a right as citizens to a free
education of the kind for which they are best fitted and to the fullest extent of their
I’ve often wondered what Peter Fraser would make of some of the current debates that
dominate the education agenda.
Would he accept, as the current National government seems to, that the success
of our education system can be boiled down to national standards and NCEA level
When he spoke of providing every citizen with an education of the kind for which they are
best fitted, did he envisage a system where every child had to meet an arbitrary and narrowly
focused set of standards?
I suspect he wouldn’t, given he subsequently stated:
“Schools that are to cater for the
whole population must offer courses that are as rich and varied as are the needs and abilities of
the children who enter them.”
And that highlights at the most fundamental level the difference in approach
towards education taken by Labour and National.
We recognise that everybody is different, that
children learn different things at different times, and that students are far more likely to
be engaged in education if they are taught abroad and varied curriculum.
Zealand has one of the best
education systems in the world, and our curriculum is widely recognised for its competency-based
approach and for the flexibility it provides.
Listening to just about any member of the
current government speaking about education, it’s sometimes easy to forget
Rather than starting from the presumption that there is something inherently wrong with our
education system and it needs to be ‘fixed’, I prefer to adopt the attitude that our challenge is
taking a very good education system and making it even better.
Our first focus has to be
rebuilding trust and redefining what success looks like.
Success in education is about
making sure every child achieves their full potential.
Success means every school is a
Success means we value great teachers.
And success means we recognise and
celebrate diversity and difference.
I mentioned every
school being a great school. I totally reject the notion that increasing competition between schools
will lead to better outcomes for everyone.
National’s charter schools agenda will take
resources away from public schools and channel them into private profit-making
Charter schools won’t have to
employ registered teachers, won’t have to teach to our world-leading curriculum,and won’t be subject
to the same accountability measures as public schools.
It’s ironic at a time when central
government is imposing ever greater compliance burdens on public schools, and striving for ever
greater degrees of ‘standardisation’, it is using those very constraints as reasons for
adopting a new model of schooling provision.
I’ve sat through hours of select committee
hearings on charter schools and nothing has convinced me that the greater flexibility and focus on
results the government seeks can’t be achieved if we resource and support our existing schools
let me be very clear about Labour’s position on charter schools. We see no need for them. We see no
place for them. And any charter schools established under the current National government will have
no future under Labour.
Our focus will be on ensuring that every school is a great
I mentioned that success means we value great
Research here and around the world clearly shows that quality teaching has the
greatest in-school influence on student achievement.
Quality teaching is more likely to happen in a
collaborative educational environment than a competitive one.
collaborate,teachers should be part of collaborative professional networks, and the sink-or-swim
mentality of Tomorrow’s Schools needs to change.
One of the most destructive things this
government could do to quality education in New
Zealand is introduce so-called ‘performance pay’ based on a narrow
range of student achievement measures.
If the alarm bells aren’t already ringing, they should
When the Treasury talks about setting “clear performance expectations” and in the same
breath talks about increasingly “flexibility for principals to incentivise and reward effective
practice by teachers” I automatically become suspicious.
Because what will
those‘performance expectations’ involve?
You can bet your bottom dollar that National
Standards will be part of the equation.
National Standards results are no measure of
National Standards narrow the focus of teaching, encouraging teachers and
students to focus time and attention on getting students over an arbitrary hurdle, rather than
supporting that child to achieve their full potential.
National Standards are being used
to stereotype schools through league tables that don’t measure student progress, only the number of
students jumping the hurdle at a particular time.
We need a much broader and more encompassing
view of educational success than National Standards results.
Under Labour, we will work
collaboratively with the education community to replace National Standards with something that is
meaningful, broad, and that will work.
We recognise that parents want to know how their kids are going, but they’re
just as interested in how their kids are doing in Art and PE as they are in reading and
Parents also want to know how their kid’s social interactions are
National standards tell them nothing about any of those
Parents are entitled to quality information,and by and large schools work really hard to
make sure they get that.
But we also need to make sure that parents understand that league tables that
aggregate a bunch of inconsistent data don’t provide any reliable basis for comparing the
performance of schools.
And without a doubt, we need to recognise many of the out-of-school factors that
influence student achievement.
When I asked Patrick Walsh at a select committee hearing recently what he
thought the biggest thing the government could to lift student achievement was he replied implement
a living wage. I nearly jumped for joy.
To quote another former Labour Prime Minister,
“Men and women are not free to
develop their own souls, to express their own individual personalities, to contribute according to
their individual capacities to the world’s cultural inheritance – they are not free to do any of
these things so long as the fact and fear of economic insecurity confronts
There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that economic inequality is a major contributing
factor to educational inequality.
Eliminating child poverty has to be a central plank of any plan to improve
These are challenging and exciting times to be working in
Thank you for the enormous contribution you’re making to the country’s future
I’m looking forward to working
with you in the coming months to develop, refine, and articulate a positive alternative approach to
education in New
now happy to answer any questions. | <urn:uuid:49b58834-1dcd-4f9d-97ed-1523492a64e8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.networkonnet.co.nz/index.php?section=education&id=229 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00059-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950666 | 1,757 | 1.726563 | 2 |
The goal of this project was to demonstrate shell-less chick embryo culturing as a potential experimental model in the field of developmental anatomy. Freshly laid, fertilized chicken eggs of “Egyptian Fayoumi” breed were obtained from Poultry Research Institute Punjab, Rawalpindi. The fertilized chicken eggs were preincubated for 33 hours under standard conditions of 37.5°C and 65-75% humidity, to bring them to stage 9 (29-33 hours embryo, 7 somites) of Hamburger and Hamilton staging system. After this period, the eggs were taken out of the incubator, placed horizontally, wiped with 70% ethanol and permitted to air-dry for 10 minutes to reduce contamination from the egg surface and also to ensure that the embryo was properly positioned. The eggs` contents were then transferred into the “culture containers” by cracking the undersides against an edge. The formation and growth of the embryonic membranes, the central nervous system – beginning from the vesicle stage, the circulatory system – including the heart, the eyes, beak, limbs, skin, feathers, wings and folding of the body were directly observed. Repeated successful culturing was attempted, tracing the developmental process of the embryo upto the 15th day of embryonic life at least after which the survivability period varied in different embryo cultures. The most advanced age reached in this project was day 19 of the embryonic life, which in researchers` understanding is the latest developmental stage in shellless environment described as yet. The normal hatching time of this breed is 21-22 days. The size of these embryos was smaller as compared to the embryos of the same age that carried out their development inside their shells.
PakMediNet -Pakistan's largest Database of Pakistani Medical Journals - http://www.pakmedinet.com | <urn:uuid:a5c4ed29-959b-45e5-b71d-ef02bfaeebdf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pakmedinet.com/printit.php?id=13178&choice=a | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00062-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956232 | 376 | 3.15625 | 3 |
U.S. exempts India, not China, from Iran sanctions
ReutersWASHINGTON -- The United States extended exemptions from its tough, new sanctions on Iran's oil trade to seven more economies on Monday, leaving China the last remaining major importer exposed to possible penalties at the end of the month.
June 12, 2012, 2:36 pm TWN
In the latest sign Washington is working with other countries to pressure Iran's nuclear program, India, South Korea, Turkey and four more economies will receive waivers from financial sanctions in return for significantly cutting purchases of Iranian oil, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said.
China, which alone buys as much as a fifth of Iran's crude exports, and Singapore, where much of the country's fuel oil is blended, did not receive such waivers, ramping up pressure on two important U.S. trade partners in Asia.
The sanctions, which the United States may impose starting on June 28, are Washington's most ambitious measures yet to strangle Iran's nuclear program by cutting funding from its oil export sales.
The United States and the European Union believe Iran is trying to build nuclear weapons. Tehran says the program is strictly for civilian purposes.
Beyond the 27-country EU, which has banned Iranian imports from July under separate sanctions, other buyers of Iran's crude have pledged to cut purchases by up to a fifth.
"By reducing Iran's oil sales, we are sending a decisive message to Iran's leaders: until they take concrete actions to satisfy the concerns of the international community, they will continue to face increasing isolation and pressure," Clinton said in a release.
She is hosting high-level, previously scheduled talks with ministers from India and South Korea, Iran's second- and fourth-largest oil buyers, this week in Washington.
Geng Shuang, a spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington, said his government "opposes unilateral sanctions imposed by one country on others". He added that China will push for a diplomatic solution to the Iran nuclear issue through negotiations.
South Africa, Taiwan, Malaysia and Sri Lanka will also be exempt from the sanctions, Clinton said. Japan and 10 EU countries had been granted exceptions in March. | <urn:uuid:99de8939-5e69-4509-ba4f-2cdc24337367> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.chinapost.com.tw/international/americas/2012/06/12/344130/US-exempts.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95905 | 443 | 1.703125 | 2 |
As I have of late, I’ve reserved this third day of the CSFF Blog Tour for my review of our feature–this month, Merlin’s Blade by Robert Treskillard.
The Story. Merlin is near-blind, with facial scars–hard circumstances for a teen. What’s worse, he becomes the subject of bullying by the Magister’s n’er-do-well sons. His one friend, an orphaned boy living with the monks in the abbey, opens the door to trouble when he “borrows” a wagon to help them complete their errands. On the way home, he stops to investigate who might be roasting chicken in the woods. Soon the whole village learns what the two boys encountered—a druid priest and a rock of mysterious power capable of seducing or harming those who look into the glow shining from within.
Strengths. Merlin is the first strength of this story. He is a winsome character, in part because of his selfless qualities. When protecting his little step-sister from a pack of wolves, he ended up with scars that cover his face and with the loss of most of his vision. He’s not a whiner though, and works hard to do his share to help his blacksmith father. He’s also loyal and sacrificial. When his friend is condemned to be whipped for stealing the wagon, Merlin steps in and takes the punishment for him.
The other characters in the story are well drawn and believable, as is Merlin, but I connected with him right away and therefore cared what happened to him from the start.
The second great strength of the book is that it weaves in a familiar myth without calling attention to it. For most of the book it was easy to think I was simply reading a story about a teen boy set in Medieval England, not a story about the wizard of the Arthurian legend. At the same time, the history and setting seemed so true. I wasn’t ever weighed down with facts or description, but I felt as if I was transported to a time in England when political unrest was married to spiritual confusion.
The third great strength in Merlin’s Blade is the exciting story. The central conflict is a power struggle between a druidic priest and the followers of Jesu. Each person in Merlin’s village must take a stand. And when the high king arrives, it becomes clear that the druids plan to take back all of England for the ancient gods they serve. Merlin, of course, takes a central role in the events.
The fourth great strength arises naturally from who Merlin is and from the conflict driving the story. I’m thinking of the many truths embedded within the story–never preached, but lived out by the characters. One such truth is shown in Merlin’s near-blindness which actually protects him from the lure of the stone. God’s Word teaches us that when we are weak, then we are strong.
And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore I will rather boast about my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may dwell in me. (2 Cor. 12:9)
Whether this was an intentional truth woven into the story, I don’t know because it wasn’t one preached by any of the characters. Merlin simply had a weakness that became the saving strength. Other themes are handled in the same way.
I’ll add one more strength. The story is well written. I marveled at how well I could “see” the world despite the fact that for the most part the story was told from half-blind Merlin’s point of view. There was the richness of other sensory details, but Robert also found ways of including visual description that felt innovative and yet completely true to the character and the circumstances.
Now that you’ve read the long version, here’s my opinion in short: Merlin’s Blade is a masterful story, well told. Robert completely disarmed me of my prejudices against reading another story derived from the Arthurian legend. Fantasy–not just Christian fantasy–is richer because of this book. Which, I’m happy to say, is the first in a trilogy. Book two, Merlin’s Shadow, is due out this fall.
Weaknesses. I’m pretty much bypassing “weaknesses.” Anything I put would be picky and forced. Some people thought the book started slow. I didn’t. Some people thought the prologue was confusing. I did too, until I remembered that prologues are either about a different character or a different time. This prologue was vital, as it turns out, and makes complete sense later–just not at first. A plot point or two might have had some small weakness, but they aren’t worth mentioning. I doubt most readers would consider anything amiss, or care, if they did. (I’m in the latter group).
Recommendation. Merlin’s Blade is a must read for fans of the Arthurian legend and for fantasy fans of all stripes. This trilogy could be considered an important contribution to the historical/myth fantasy genre. I also highly recommend this one to any readers who love a good story. The target audience is young adult, but the book easily spans the gap between twelve and adult.
I received an Advance Reading Copy of this book as part of the CSFF Blog Tour in exchange for my honest review. | <urn:uuid:81a6e14c-6341-4d1f-84bc-1be9965838da> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://rebeccaluellamiller.wordpress.com/category/reviews/ | 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 | 0.968334 | 1,168 | 1.78125 | 2 |
Have you ever watched a youth program where everything seemed to be working? As a youth worker, your gut reaction can be a good gauge of when things are "clicking" inside youth programs and when things need improvement. Sometimes with the current pressure to show the outcome and impact of our programs, we lose sight of the skills we develop through experience in youth work - our ability to observe and assess.
Observational methods in evaluation or research are gaining popularity in school and youth settings. In Minnesota 4-H, we have been investing in the Youth Program Quality Assessment. This standardized observational tool allows youth workers to assess safe environments, supportive environments, interaction, and engagement. There are many other tools for assessing youth program quality. Check out The Forum for Youth Investment for a review of tools.
An article in the spring 2011 Afterschool Matters publication takes a look at the Self Assessment of High-Quality Academic Enrichment Practices. Holstead and King detail the growing emphasis of self-assessments inside 21st Century Community Learning Centers. Their article gives a glimpse into aligning self-assessment with standards of program practice and highlights the pros and cons of self-assessment. They note the power of self-assessment for providing information that can build "programs that provide the best possible services to participants."
Pros of self-assessment include: it encourages staff to be reflective, it promotes continual reflection, and it can generate important feedback that staff can use. One of the biggest cons of self-assessment is the risk that in tailoring tools to fit your program, you can lose the reliability and validity of the instrument.
I am a huge proponent of assessing the quality of our learning environments and I strongly believe in observation. Sometimes that means using a standardized tool, like the YPQA, but sometimes it means creating a tool that hones in on what is important in your organization. It can also mean just stopping to watch what is happening inside your program.
So what can observation add to your program?
- Observation prompts program staff to slow down and be reflective
- Observation takes you to the heart of youth programs - the point of service - where adults and youth come together
- Making observation part of your practice helps to build skills in youth workers and encourages a climate of dialogue and improvement
Are you a proponent or practitioner of observation as part of program self-assessment? Why or why not? | <urn:uuid:1b3f224f-a473-4b2b-9730-2961d817bc65> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.lib.umn.edu/extyouth/insight/2011/09/the-power-of-observation.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.925557 | 494 | 2.734375 | 3 |
By Suvendrini Kakuchi
TOKYO, Jun 10, 2012 (IPS) – Leading Japanese ecologists are pushing for the concept of environmental “ethics” to influence the upcoming Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, an approach they contend will foster accountability towards sustainable development.
“(Environmental) ethics is based on the concept of making people accountable for the preservation of natural resources and biodiversity. By highlighting this aspect, we aim to combat the priority on economic growth that has hijacked previous Earth Summits,” said Ryoichi Yamamoto, development expert and professor emeritus at Tokyo University.
Celebrating the 20th anniversary of the first United Nations summit on sustainable development, this year’s conference, dubbed Rio+20, will negotiate on a transition to a green economy in an effort to preserve the planet’s air, land, water and biodiversity.
But activists worry this crucial debate on the planet’s future will once again – as has been the case since sustainable development was launched as a global issue in 1992 – focus too heavily on anti-pollution technologies and the exploitation of natural resources in service of economic growth.
Such an approach, green activists say, has not adequately provided for protection of the planet’s scarce natural resources and delicate ecosystems.
For example, over 100 countries agreed on an ambitious target to contain global warming to less than two degrees Celsius, setting an emissions limit of 100 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide until 2050.
But the target is becoming impossible to reach— numerous studies indicate the world has already emitted one-third of its allowed quota in the last nine years, especially since rising economies like India and China have become major polluters.
In addition, despite economic growth rates of more than eight percent in countries such as China and India, the poverty gap is also widening – the United Nations Human Development Index reports that life expectancy, illiteracy and child mortality are almost seven times greater in China’s smaller towns than in its big cities.
To combat this alarming trend, Yamamoto is leading a campaign to create an inter-governmental Ethics Panel for Ecological Civilisation (http://www.japanfs.org/en/mailmagazine/newsletter/pages/031788.html) as a special agency in the United Nations. The proposal aims to strengthen institutional frameworks for sustainable development through the collaboration of science, culture and religion.
He told IPS that excellent scientific research, evaluating ecosystems’ vulnerability to economic growth, has provided ample knowledge to influence policy decisions.
“But what is missing is sustainable development based on the perspective of an ecological civilisation, a civilisation that could exist in harmony with natural systems,” he said.
The call for an ethical approach to finding solutions in Rio has gained momentum in Japan after the massive natural disaster that hit the northeastern coasts of the country in March 2011.
Activists point out the earthquake and tsunami, which wiped out whole communities and caused a meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant that destroyed entire farming villages with toxic pollution, has led to deep soul searching in Japan.
“The disaster has caused a review of Japan’s economic success. Despite high postwar growth the disaster was a bitter lesson on the vulnerability of material riches and it convinced the public that protecting the environment cannot take second place,” Yamamoto said.
Indeed, public support for nuclear power has dipped drastically – almost 70 percent of the population does not support restarting the nuclear reactors, which, up until the 2011 disaster, had been viewed as the lynchpin of national development in resource-poor Japan.
Opinion polls indicate even the threat of power shortages in the summertime has done little to dent public aversion to nuclear power.
Five years ago, Teruyuki Matsushita started the Donguri (Acorn) Club, a small grassroots organisation that works to raise awareness about the role of forests in western Japan’s Mihama Prefecture, which is also home to three nuclear reactors.
“My anti-nuclear work had reached a major challenge – to gain public support I had to show (people) that our forests could also provide jobs that foster sustainable development. This is the reason why I started the Donguri Club – we educate people and also make a living from logging and selling forest products such as flowers,” Matsushita explained to IPS.
The Donguri Club operates with just five full time staff, with volunteers working closely to support the organisation. Matsushita says his work is pioneering new strategies for activists and ushering in support for sustainable development.
At a time when more than half the world’s population works in agriculture, Takumo Yamada, from Oxfam Tokyo, stressed that Rio+20 is a crucial platform to discuss alternatives to a system in which multinational corporations set agendas that affect millions of farmers in developing countries.
“The discourse in Rio must not (be dominated) by rich companies that will parade high technology products as the solution for governments that want to eradicate poverty and deal with energy issues,” he told IPS.
“There must a paradigm shift in thinking at Rio+20. We must work at a global level on achieving environmental justice, equality and sustainable goals,” he said.(END) | <urn:uuid:9279e8d5-8677-4162-bb08-360a315ed825> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.other-news.info/2012/06/ethics-for-an-%E2%80%98ecological-civilisation%E2%80%99/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93625 | 1,083 | 2.859375 | 3 |
Chamber of Commerce Holds Panel on Defense Cuts’ Effects in VA
Virginia, more than any other state, benefits from Pentagon dollars. In fiscal year 2009, this state received 10.8 percent of all federal defense spending.
And while northern Virginia and the Norfolk area account for most of that, defense jobs across central Virginia are a critical economic lever, and something that has helped cushion the state from the recession.
One estimate says Charlottesville and Albemarle County could lose $46.5 million in defense spending if we fall off the fiscal cliff. The deadline for that is just 20 days away.
Washington insiders such as Mike Ferrell, with Williams Mullen Federal Government Relations, warn central Virginia to brace for the fiscal cliff fallout here at home.
"There's a Grinch out there who could steal all the presents from this community and others if people aren't aware and act to preserve and protect what they've got," said Ferrell.
The Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce invited a panel of strategists, lobbyists, and a former assistant defense secretary to help prepare the business community for federal cuts to defense agencies and contractors.
"We want to make sure they have all the support we could possibly provide them," said Valerie Long, the chamber's incoming president.
The panel calls the 10 percent sequestration cuts across the board "unprecedented."
A report by a conservative-leaning group estimates Albemarle County would lose $43.2 million starting next year, and Charlottesville could lose $3.2 million.
"We're at a time when we're at a precipice and things will change one way or another," said Chris Kelley Cimko, president of Cimko Strategies.
Cimko advised the pentagon on a series of base realignment and closure (BRAC) plans. She says central Virginia could benefit from sequestration's effects elsewhere, crediting fairly new high-tech intelligence facilities like Rivanna Station.
"I would recommend Charlottesville could be a receiver. Don't start closing things down, but realign things into Charlottesville," said Cimko.
"If the decision is made to make realignments and move people around, we certainly think that Charlottesville-Albemarle would be the wonderful community to bring them to," said Long.
Ferrell is encouraging everyone to keep a close eye on Capitol Hill.
"It's tense…This is like a wave rolling in," said Ferrell.
The fiscal cliff deadline isn't the end of potential funding cuts from Washington. Panelists say communities should prepare for another round of BRAC cuts in 2015. They're urging chamber business members to lobby lawmakers to avoid sequestration.
Chamber of Commerce Holds Panel on Defense Cuts’ Effects in VAMore>>
Wednesday, May 22 2013 7:36 PM EDT2013-05-22 23:36:22 GMT
A fatal shooting in Crozet on Tuesday has sparked a conversation about a much broader issue - gun safety laws.Full Story
A fatal shooting in Crozet on Tuesday has sparked a conversation about a much broader issue - gun safety laws. NBC29 spoke with experts about what's on the books in Virginia and some measures gun owners can take within their own households.Full Story
Engineers and conductors who run the trains for Norfolk Southern took NBC29 along for a ride through Charlottesville, sharing heartbreaking stories in hopes of keeping people off the tracks. Full Story
Engineers and conductors who run the trains for Norfolk Southern took NBC29 along for a ride through Charlottesville, sharing heartbreaking stories in hopes of keeping people off the tracks.Full Story | <urn:uuid:1b620dbd-743a-4292-b49c-25e465f9ec23> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nbc29.com/story/20319140/chamber-of-commerce-holds-panel-on-defense-cuts-effects-in-va | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949726 | 743 | 1.5 | 2 |
DNA is constantly submitted to damage. If not properly repaired, DNA damage can lead to cell death, which may in turn lead to tissue exhaustion and ageing, or induce mutations resulting in uncontrolled cell proliferation and cancer. Brca1 is a key gene that mediates DNA repair. Mutations in BRCA1 lead to familial and sporadic breast and ovarian cancer in humans.
In BRCA1 deficiency in skin epidermis leads to selective loss of hair follicle stem cells and their progeny, published in Genes and Development, researchers led by Cédric Blanpain, MD/PhD, Professor at Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB) and WELBIO investigator, showed the critical role of BRCA1 for the maintenance of hair follicle stem cells.
Peggy Sotiropoulou and colleagues showed that upon deletion of the breast cancer associated gene BRCA1 in the epidermis, hair follicle cells show high levels of DNA damage and cell death, which induce hyperproliferation and finally exhaustion of hair follicle stem cells resulting in hair follicle degeneration. In contrast, the other types of stem cells located in the epidermis, which are forming the skin barrier and the sebaceous glands, are maintained and continue to function normally despite the absence of BRCA1, demonstrating the different requirement for BRCA1 in the distinct types of adult stem cells. “We were very surprised to see that distinct types of cells residing within the same tissue may exhibit such profoundly different responses to the deletion of the same, crucial gene for DNA repair gene” comments Peggy Sotiropoulou, the first author of this study.
This work is very important to understand the DNA repair mechanisms in different types of adult stem cells and at different stages of their activation. If other stem cells of the body also require BRCA1 for their survival, this result may potentially explain why Brca1 mutations in women lead preferentially to the development of only breast and ovarian cancers. | <urn:uuid:466c5874-0d4f-4593-9854-0e50797b061d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://floridabiotechnews.com/biotech/novel-role-of-brca1-in-regulating-the-survival-of-skin-stem-cells/11636/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94413 | 419 | 3.09375 | 3 |
Beginning this month, the city of Wixom will be conducting its annual sanitary sewer system study to identify and isolate excess wet weather inflow and infiltration within the system.
To improve the city’s sanitary sewer system and save money, the city hired Hubbell, Roth & Clark (HRC) to facilitate the work that will attempt to identify new sources that are contributing to increased water flow in the system. The work includes smoke testing, which involves charging the sanitary sewers with odorless and non-toxic smoke and then identifying locations where the smoke escapes.
“By using the smoke process we can identify problems connecting to the sanitary sewers or problems such as leakage or cracks in the manholes that can cause infiltration,” said Department of Public Works Director Mike Howell. “You don’t want storm water going into the sanitary system.”
“The study helps identify potential areas of infiltration and is the first step in an investigative process,” he said.
Excess flow could be stormwater (rain), snow melt or groundwater that enters the sanitary sewers through cracks in sewer pipes or manhole structures or through sanitary or storm sewer cross connections. This storm water is then unnecessarily sent through the sanitary sewers to the Wixom Wastewater Treatment Plant where it is treated as if it were sanitary flow. This unnecessary treatment is costly and results in higher user fees and creates a situation where the capacity of the wastewater plant could be exceeded, resulting in the discharge of untreated sewage into the Norton Creek.
The city budgeted $45,000 for the project.
“It costs money if it goes into the sanitary system and becomes an environmental issue,” Howell said. “By implementing this process it keeps costs down at the plant and benefits the creek and environment because excess water could result in the system to overload and we don’t want that.”
During smoke testing, residents should be aware that some smoke may enter their home or building if the vent stack is blocked or a sewer trap is dry.
The smoke emitted is harmless and will dissipate after several minutes. Howell suggests ventilating a room should smoke occur.
If a situation arises that seems unusual, dial 911 and notify the Fire Department. As a precaution, residents should check their basement sewer trap to make sure it is filled with water. This is always a good check to prevent sewer odors and gases from entering your home.
Road lane closures may be necessary during smoke testing if field engineers must access manholes.
Prior to smoke testing, notices will be posted on doors and at each subdivision entrance. | <urn:uuid:49952069-fb31-403f-b7fb-8254fc74108f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://spinalcolumnonline.com/2011/05/04/wixom-set-for-annual-sewer-system-smoke-test/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00057-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94114 | 547 | 2.15625 | 2 |
How Disabled Users Access The Internet
In 1995 a new era of accessibility for disabled people began. The Disability Discrimination Act was passed, stating that:
"It is unlawful for a service provider to discriminate against a disabled person by refusing to provide any service which it provides to members of the public."
A website is regarded as a service and the RNIB (Royal National Institute for the Blind) and DRC (Disability Rights Commission) have been quick to apply pressure on to organisations to push this law into practice. Indeed, the DRC has now published its formal investigation into 1000 websites (http://www.drc-gb.org/publicationsandreports/2.pdf).
So, how do disabled people access the Internet? There are a number of different ways depending on their particular disability:
Internet users who have no sight at all utilize a screen reader, which reads the content of the web page, or rather the HTML (HyperText Markup Language) code of the page, back to them. These machines sift through the HTML code and the technology deciphers what needs to be read aloud and what should be ignored. IBM's screen reader can be downloaded for a free 30-day trial at http://www-3.ibm.com/able/solution_offerings/hpr.html. Once you have downloaded it, go to your website, turn your monitor off, and try to navigate your website.
To take full advantage of the Internet, users with partial or poor sight need to be able to enlarge the text on web pages. To verify that your website allows them to achieve this on Internet Explorer, go to View > Font size > Largest. If your site is accessible to this group of users then the size of the text throughout the page will increase. Users with poor vision can also use a screen magnifier. You can download a free screen magnifier at http://www.magnifiers.org/links/Download_Software/Screen_Magnifiers/ and see for yourself.
It is estimated that one in 12 men and one in 200 women have some form of colour blindness (http://www.iee.org/Policy/Areas/Health/cvdintro.cfm). You can check how Internet users with different strains of colour blindness are viewing your website at http://www.tesspub.com/colours.html.
Deaf users are able to access the Internet in much the same way as able-bodied people with one key exception - audio content. If it is a key function of your website for people to be able to hear a message, then be sure to provide written transcripts.
Keyboard/voice only users
Some of your site users do not have access to a mouse when browsing the Internet. Try putting yourself in their position by navigating your website using only tab, shift-tab, and the return keys.
Other people who may access your website that have disadvantages include:
To really put yourself in the position of one of these web users try out the DRC's inaccessible website demonstration at www.drc-gb.org/open4all/newsroom/website6.asp.
About The Author
This article was written by Trenton Moss. He's crazy about web usability and accessibility - so crazy that he went and started his own web usability and accessibility consultancy (Webcredible - http://www.webcredible.co.uk) to help make the Internet a better place for everyone.
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Real Estate SEO Web Development Toolkit Shows Promise For Future of Web ... - PR Web (press release)
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A Website Is Not Enough
Your ObjectiveYour small business needs an appealing and professional website but that is just the beginning. If no one visits your website and -- more importantly -- if it does not bring in new customers and allows you to sell more to your current customers, then your site is not effective.
How to Make Your Own Free Website in 8.5 Minutes or Less
Designing and creating your own website does not have to be a laborious effort that takes weeks to complete. Instead, in less than 9 minutes you can have your web site designed and up and running as long as you have a host located and know what you want to upload to your web page.
Ever Wondered What Challenges Other People With Their Web Site?
Have you ever wondered what challenges are faced by other webmasters and owners in the design and promotion of their websites, well I certainly have and so I decided to try and find out.I created a short survey which asked the following questions:1.
Web Analytics - Getting it Right
Understanding and using web analytics.In recent years, website marketers were concerned with increasing 'hits' and the 'stickiness' of their sites.
User Interface Design: Key to Achieve Best Web Development
From early days of www, the Internet sites that are added day by day are increasing tremendously. When you will consider this pool of web, may be they are about computers, industry, entertainment, search engines, fashion, organizational or even individual, all of these sites are concerned about one major part of web development apart from the logic or programming efforts behind it is 'User Interface Design'.
Making Your Websites More Compelling
The Internet is a remarkable publishing medium. With just a little effort, you can make your web pages visually irresistible by playing with color, shapes and text.
Web Coach Tip: What You Should Know About DIY Web Sites
Recently, a friend asked "What's the deal with those DIY companies that advertise "How to get a website with everything your business needs for under $20 bucks a month?". "How can they do that?" she said.
2 Key Ways to Make Your Site a Success
If one more business owner tells me their website sucks because they're just "too darn busy to deal with it", I'm gonna hurl. That's like saying, "I'm doing business in my dirty underwear because I'm too busy to get dressed.
Website Sales: 10 Reasons Why People Dont Buy From You
You've put up a website to promote a product or service.You've spent piles of cash to generate traffic.
Flash Deadly Sins (That Can Kill Your Web Business)
Looks like every client wants a Flash site these days but the reality is..
Where's Your Web Site?
This simple question can take on several different forms, but if you have your own web site, all are equally important. Don't worry, this isn't a sales letter, and it's well worth a read.
The Power Of CPanel
cPanel is a control panel for your website and allows you to set up and manage your web account through a graphical interface instead of having to use command line. This means that you can make changes to your website without having to learn to use a command line environment.
Top 7 Tips for Building an Antique Car Website
Like wine cars get more attractive to collectors as years pass by. The fact is there are only a finite number of cars made in the world in any model and make.
Building Websites with Directory Generator
Directory Generator, a product from Armand Morin and Marc Quarles, builds directory-style websites for you in a matter of minutes. It is simple to use, it's reliable, it does what it claims to do.
Effectively Using Robots Meta Tags
The "robots" meta tag, when used properly, will tell the search engine spiders whether or not to index and follow a particular page. For the purposes of this article, we will be using the "( )" symbols to represent the "" in html coding.
How To Evaluate Your Web Sites Performance
Setting up a website is the very first step of an Internet marketing campaign, and the success or failure of your site depends greatly on how specifically you have defined your web site goals.If you don't know what you want your site to accomplish, it will most likely fail to accomplish anything.
Are You Being Scammed By Your Web Design Company?
This is a growing concern amongst many business owners. Does your web design company own you? This may be possible if you've allowed them to host your web site for you and also register your domain name for your company.
Six Basic Reasons Why Visitors Stay On Your Web Site
1. The first page appears quickly.
5 Essential Traits Of A Home Business Website
So you've decided to start an online work at home business and are just beginning to build your website. You probably have a million different ideas for what you want the site to look like.
Enhance Your Website With A Yahoo-Style Directory
Does your website have a links/resources page?Do you exchange reciprocal with other websites to help boost your targeted traffic and search engine rankings?Do you believe that a relevant, yet comprehensive resources page provides tangible benefits to your site's visitors?If you answered "yes" to one or more of these questions, then you should consider adding an inexpensive (or free!) Yahoo-style Directory to your website. A quality Directory script will add an air of professionalism to your website and provide valuable content for your users.
|Home | Site Map| | <urn:uuid:6280a659-63dc-4ac5-b360-ce80f73287f9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.harmonyhollow.net/webmaster-resources/web-development/19325.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00059-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.922646 | 1,940 | 3.15625 | 3 |
Sept. 20, 2011 -- Effective this fall semester, the Land Use Planning program at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls has changed its name to Community Planning. The change comes as a result of a broadening of the program's curriculum over the last few years.
The program, which in the past focused primarily on land capability analysis, has increasingly expanded to incorporate the skills needed to plan entire communities. The intent of these changes has been to help better prepare students for a wider set of opportunities in the planning profession when they graduate.
"The name change reflects the new breadth of the program and will improve program recognition among professional planners," according to Eric Sanden, a faculty member in the program.
"Land use is really an area of specialization in the planning profession," says Assistant Professor David Keuhl. "We wanted to emphasize that graduates of our program are concerned with all aspects of the design and functioning of communities including social and economic factors not just land use."
The program was broadened by the addition of four new courses within the major and the revision of an existing course. The four new courses include Community Decision-Making; Community Analysis; Planning for Sustainable Communities; and, Land Use and Sustainable Agricultural Law. The first two courses emphasize the increasing role planners have in helping citizens create a vision and develop a plan for the future of their community. The last two courses highlight sustainability planning, one of the strengths of the program at UW-River Falls. Sustainability is balancing protection of the environment with economic viability and social equity, and is a predictable concern to residents in areas experiencing significant growth and change.
"Given our location in the exurbs of the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area, we are able to help students understand firsthand the challenges faced at the rural-urban fringe of a growing metropolitan area," noted Keuhl.
Building upon that strength in sustainability, Sanden and Keuhl have also created a Master's Certificate Program in Sustainable Community Planning that will be launched in January 2012. The certificate program consists of a series of four courses. All courses will be offered on-line to address the time and place constraints of professional practicing planners, the target audience for the certificate program.
Sanden and Keuhl are excited about the direction the program is moving. The broad comprehensive undergraduate curriculum now better prepares students for employment in many areas of government, private consulting, nonprofit advocacy, natural resources management, and real estate development. The graduate level certificate program shares the expertise found on UWRF campus with a worldwide audience of planners.
For more information about the Community Planning major or the Master's Certificate in Sustainable Community Planning, contact Sanden at 715-425-3729 or firstname.lastname@example.org. | <urn:uuid:721834a9-8558-47d5-98d0-35d71fa7d188> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.uwrf.edu/UniversityCommunications/New-Focus-and-New-Name-for-Land-Use-Program-at-UWRF.cfm?respOpt=FALSE | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93751 | 562 | 1.726563 | 2 |
The thyroid gland is a double-lobed structure located in the neck. Embedded in its rear surface are the four parathyroid glands.
The thyroid gland synthesizes and secretes:
Both hormones are derivatives of the amino acid tyrosine with four atoms of iodine in T4 , three in T3. The thyroid secretes mainly (80%) T4 , but when T4 enters target cells, one atom of iodine is removed from it converting it into T3.
T3 is the more potent of the two hormones. It has many effects. Among the most prominent of these are:
- thyroxine (T4) and triiodothyronine (T3);
The thyroid cells responsible for the synthesis of T4 and T3 take up circulating iodine from the blood and attach them to tyrosine residues in the protein thyroglobulin. This action, as well as the synthesis of the hormones, is stimulated by the binding of thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH; also known as thyrotropin) to transmembrane receptors at the cell surface.
- an increase in metabolic rate (seen by a rise in body temperature and the uptake of oxygen);
- an increase in the rate and strength of the heart beat.
1. hypothyroid diseases; caused by inadequate production of T3
- cretinism: hypothyroidism in infancy and childhood leads to stunted growth and intelligence. Can be corrected by giving thyroxine if started early enough.
- myxedema: hypothyroidism in adults leads to lowered metabolic rate and vigor. Corrected by giving thyroxine.
- goiter: enlargement of the thyroid gland. Can be caused by:
Why should a hypothyroid disease produce an enlarged gland?
The activity of the thyroid is under negative feedback control:
- inadequate iodine in the diet with resulting low levels of T4 and T3;
- an autoimmune attack against the thyroglobulin in the thyroid gland (called Hashimoto's thyroiditis).
- the synthesis and release of thyrotropin releasing hormone (TRH) and TSH is normally inhibited as the levels of T4 and T3 rise in the blood.
- When the iodine supply is inadequate, T4 and T3 levels fall
- this stimulates the hypothalamus and pituitary to increased TRH and TSH activity respectively. This stimulates the thyroid gland to enlarge (fruitlessly).
- The symptoms of hypothyroidism can also result from inherited mutations in the genes encoding:
- the receptor for TSH (present on the surface of thyroid cells) or
- the receptor for T3 (present in the nucleus of almost all cells)
The T3 receptor is a nuclear protein bound to the thyroid response element in the promoters of the many genes whose expression is influenced by thyroid hormones. When its ligand, T3, binds to it, it becomes a transcription factor turning on the transcription of many genes.
2. hyperthyroid diseases; caused by excessive secretion of thyroid hormones
Graves´ disease. Autoantibodies against the TSH receptor bind to the receptor mimicking the effect of TSH binding. Result: excessive production of thyroid hormones. Graves´ disease is an example of an autoimmune disease.
Osteoporosis. High levels of thyroid hormones suppress the production of TSH through the negative-feedback mechanism mentioned above. The resulting low level of TSH causes an increase in the numbers of bone-reabsorbing osteoclasts resulting in osteoporosis.
Calcitonin is a polypeptide of 32 amino acids.
The thyroid cells in which it is synthesized have receptors that bind calcium ions (Ca2+) circulating in the blood. A rise in its level, such as would occur with the absorption of calcium from a meal, stimulates the cells to release calcitonin. Calcitonin prevents a sharp rise in blood calcium by
- inhibiting the uptake of Ca2+ from the small intestine and
- inhibiting the Ca2+-releasing activity of osteoclasts.
Because it slows the loss of Ca2+ from bones, calcitonin has been examined as a possible treatment for osteoporosis, a weakening of the bones that is a leading cause of hip and other bone fractures in the elderly. Being a polypeptide, calcitonin cannot be given by mouth (it would be digested), and giving by injection is not appealing. However, inhaling calcitonin appears to be an effective way to get therapeutic levels of the hormone into the blood. A synthetic version of calcitonin (trade name = Miacalcin) is now available as a nasal spray.
The parathyroid glands are 4 tiny structures embedded in the rear surface of the thyroid gland. They secrete parathyroid hormone (PTH) a polypeptide of 84 amino acids.
PTH increases the concentration of Ca2+ in the blood in three ways.
PTH also regulates the level of phosphate in the blood. Secretion of PTH reduces the efficiency with which phosphate is reclaimed in the proximal tubules of the kidney causing a drop in the phosphate concentration of the blood.
- release of Ca2+ from the huge reservoir in the bones. (99% of the calcium in the body is incorporated in our bones.)
- reabsorption of Ca2+ from the fluid in the tubules in the kidneys
- absorption of Ca2+ from the contents of the intestine (this action is mediated by calcitriol, the active form of vitamin D.)
Control of the Parathyroids: the calcium receptor
The cells of the parathyroid glands have surface G-protein-coupled receptors that bind Ca2+ (the same type of receptor is found on the calcitonin-secreting cells of the thyroid and on the calcium absorbing cells of the kidneys). Binding of Ca2+ to this receptor depresses the secretion of PTH and thus leads to a lowering of the concentration of Ca2+ in the blood. Two classes of inherited disorders involving mutant genes encoding the Ca2+ receptor occur:
Rare autoimmune disorders can mimic one or the other of these inherited disorders. In each case, autoantibodies bind to the receptors.
- loss-of-function mutations with the mutant receptor always "off". Patients with these mutations have high levels of Ca2+ in their blood and excrete small amounts of Ca2+ in their urine. These mutations cause hyperparathyroidism.
- gain-of-function mutations with the mutant receptor always "on" (as though it had bound Ca2+). People with these mutations have low levels of Ca2+ in their blood and excrete large amounts of Ca2+ in their urine. These mutations cause hypoparathyroidism.
- If these inhibit the receptors, they cause hyperparathyroidism.
- If they activate the receptors (like those in Graves' disease), they cause hypoparathyroidism.
Tumors in the parathyroids elevate the level of PTH causing a rise in the level of blood Ca2+ at the expense of calcium stores in the bones. So much calcium may be withdrawn from the bones that they become brittle and break.
Until recently, treatment has been the removal of most — but not all — of the parathyroid tissue (i.e. the goal is the removal of 3 1/2 glands). Now clinical trials have begun on a drug (designated R-568) that mimics the action of calcium on the parathyroids, resulting in a drop in PTH and blood Ca2+ and sparing the calcium stores in the bone.
- accidental removal of or damage to the parathyroids during neck surgery
- inherited mutations in the PTH gene
- inherited predisposition to an autoimmune attack against the parathyroids (and other glands)
- inherited defect in the embryonic development of the parathyroids (DiGeorge syndrome)
- give calcium supplements
- give calcitriol (1,25[OH]2 vitamin D3)
- give teriparatide (Forteo®), a synthetic (by recombinant DNA) version of PTH (containing only the 34 amino acids at the N-terminal).
|For reasons that are not yet clear, this drug — when given in daily injections (because it would be digested if taken by mouth) — promotes strong bones and thus has been approved as a treatment for osteoporosis. While continuous high levels of PTH weaken bones by removing calcium from them, periodic injections of this drug strengthen bone by increasing the number and activity of osteoblasts.|
12 May 2011 | <urn:uuid:ba26d116-1404-4870-a351-12b6f0315166> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://home.comcast.net/~john.kimball1/BiologyPages/T/Thyroid.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00054-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.911332 | 1,812 | 3.5625 | 4 |
Things are shaping up at the Millard Sheets Center for the Arts exhibit From the Industrial Age to the Computer Age . . . Three Centuries of Artistic Innovation.
The entrance features a kinetic metal sculpture of a tree roosted with robotic birds, I kid you not. The tree trembles ever-so-slightly like a breeze is going through it, and the birds ruffle their wings individually, then do so in unison, as their eyes light up. It’s just fascinating to watch. I want this for my backyard.
Progress is being made in each room. A steam engine dominates a corner of Room 1 now. Various old printing machines, provided by the International Printing Museum in Carson, have taken over a wall near the entrance of the next room.
Photography was a huge industrial and artistic development, and gets its own special place in the exhibit this year. An enormous neon sign advertising CAMERAS in an Art-Deco design points the way to an exhibit of photographs, vintage cameras and more. Get your own cameras out to take a picture of that neon sign, on loan from Museum of Neon Art in Los Angeles.
The Gallery Store, twice the size it was last year, is full of creations by artists who will be doing demonstrations in painting, ceramics, sculpture and more. Get your ATM cards out, you won’t be able to resist!
Kids will get plenty of inspiration to create their own airplanes in Room 5, where 1/2-scale model of the Wright Brothers historic bi-plane — with a 25-foot wingspan – hangs above (with Mickey Mouse at the controls). Not only kids can participate in the fun here – any Fairguest can create squares that will be added to murals to be displayed in the main exhibit, learn hands-on about ceramics, use drawing to solve problems, and create collages using “ordinary stuff.”
Take a look at more by visiting the MSCAF web site here. | <urn:uuid:8a54014f-47a0-4db2-833e-89bba4c0a91c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.fairplex.com/blog/fairblog/?tag=art | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945099 | 412 | 2.03125 | 2 |
Hardware.com is pleased to announce the launch of its vendor-agnostic Customer Education Center out of its Minneapolis, MN office. Amid a wave of disruptive technologies and shorter product lifecycles, businesses are finding it more and more difficult to test new equipment and determine the best information technology (IT) solutions for their networks. This demo lab was built in response to the lack of education and support available for business leaders regarding emerging technologies. Estimated to contain more than $500,000 worth of equipment, the lab features router, switch, and security technologies from some of the industry’s leading technology manufacturers, including Cisco, HP, Juniper, and Dell.
There are only a handful of these types of labs in the entire U.S. and virtually none in the midwest. Hardware.com recognizes the need for a facility in which customers can gain critical hands-on experience with new technologies, so they can make better evaluation and purchasind decisions of network architecture.
By featuring equipment from many vendors, the lab allows customers to test, compare, and select IT solutions that reduce costs, complement their business, and maximize their hardware investment. The purpose of the lab was to provide customers with more clarity and choice regarding solutions for their network infrastructures. Hardware.com’s new education center lets customers more easily align the right solutions with their business so that they can control costs, maintain network performance, and ultimately stay ahead of the curve.
Hardware.com’s Customer Education Center was built to help network architects and administrators through every step of the IT process, from evaluation, planning and design, to procurement, implementation, and training support. By enabling customers to conduct hands-on, proof-of-concept (POC) testing for solutions from Cicso, Juniper, HP, and Dell, they can easily compare solutions against one another and validate interoperability between platforms. Once a solution is chosen, certified experts from Hardware.com will run a configuration of the new solution at the lab so that customers know what to expect before it’s implemented within their own environment. Other vendors included in the demo lab include Silver Peak and newly added A10 Networks.
This new demo lab is just one example of how Hardware.com is striving to provide more technology options to its customers—rather than focusing on just one or two vendors. In conjunction with the new lab, Hardware.com combines industry-leading technologies with cross-engineering expertise to simplify the purchasing and training process for customers. | <urn:uuid:67f1cfae-2dff-4dfd-aceb-947992e72212> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://networkequipment.wordpress.com/2013/01/25/largest-independent-vendor-demo-lab-in-midwest-opens-in-minneapolis/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945411 | 509 | 1.648438 | 2 |
ammunitionArticle Free Pass
ammunition, the projectiles and propelling charges used in small arms, artillery, and other guns. Ammunition size is usually expressed in terms of calibre, which is the diameter of the projectile as measured in millimetres or inches. In general, projectiles less than 20 mm or .60 inch in diameter are classified as small-arm, and larger calibres are considered artillery. A complete round of ammunition consists of all the components necessary for one firing of the gun. These normally include a projectile, the propellant, and a primer that ignites the propellant. Other components such as cartridge case, fuze, and bursting charge are frequently included.
In artillery ammunition, a fixed round is a complete round in which all components are securely joined by a cartridge case. (Though brass was used almost invariably for cartridge cases before World War II, it has since been largely superseded by steel.) In semifixed ammunition, the projectile is detachable from the cartridge case, an arrangement that allows for the size of the propelling charge to be adjusted, after which the projectile can be inserted loosely into the case. In separate-loading ammunition, a complete round consists of three components: the fuzed projectile, the propellant (in several combustile cloth bags), and the primer. This type of round is used in the largest-calibre guns because its separated components are easier to handle.
Complete artillery rounds are further classified according to the type of projectile employed, such as high-explosive, armour-piercing, antipersonnel, nuclear, or chemical.
Small-arms ammunition is always of the fixed type; complete rounds are usually called cartridges, and projectiles are called bullets (or shot in shotguns). Cartridge cases are most commonly made of brass, although steel is also widely used, and cases for shotgun pellets are made of brass and cardboard. The cases of most military rifles and machine guns have a bottleneck shape, allowing a small-calibre bullet to be fitted to a large propelling charge.
The most common type of military small-arms ammunition is called general-purpose in Britain and ball in the United States. The bullet of this type usually consists of a steel or lead-alloy core encased in a jacket of copper alloy or of mild steel coated with a copper alloy. Special-purpose ammunition includes armour-piercing rounds, which fire bullets that have cores of hardened steel or some other metal such as tungsten carbide. Tracer bullets have a column of pyrotechnic composition in the base that is ignited by the flame of the propellant; this provides a visible pyrotechnic display during the bullet’s flight. Incendiary bullets, intended to ignite flammable materials such as gasoline, contain a charge of chemical incendiary agent. See also bullet; cartridge; gunpowder; shell.
What made you want to look up "ammunition"? Please share what surprised you most... | <urn:uuid:c3024da2-fad8-440b-98db-952308142c1e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/21113/ammunition | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939982 | 603 | 3.328125 | 3 |
What NOT to do when your friend is going through a separation or divorce
When someone in your circle is going through a separation or divorce, it's not always clear how to help or what to say. Here are some "dos" and "don'ts" to make that a little easier.
DON'T act like you know what your friend needs. You don't want to foist a night of dancing on someone who just wants to disappear for a while, and nor should you assume your friend wants to be left alone.
DO ask how best you can help. Everyone who goes through a major life event like the loss of a marriage is going to experience it differently. Your friend may want distraction or quiet walks in the woods or a pair of boxing gloves or a van to carry stuff to goodwill.
DON'T ask "Was it mutual?" or "What happened?!" If you don't already know, you're not close enough to ask. Besides there are no tidy talking points to cover this raw, nuanced territory.
DO make yourself available to chat about the separation if your friend seems to want to share.
DON'T presume you're helping by offering a playdate. Your friend may not want to
be without his or her children and may already be missing them when
they're in the care of the other parent. Or it could be that by taking
the child who is old enough for playdates, you're
removing a playmate for the younger, higher-needs child, and a source of conversation and happy interaction for your friend.
DO ask what kind of childcare is really needed, and be open to having siblings over, too. Or ask if you can time a playdate with a younger child's nap.
DON'T assume your friend will feel awkward in a room full of couples. Couples are the world your friend knows, and being suddenly locked out of the circle is very hurtful. He or she is likely grappling with a staggering loss of social status and you contribute to the isolation of single parents when you don't extend the invitation.
DO make your friend welcome, but not obligated, to bring another person of either sex to the party or outing.
DON'T assume a single-parent can't get or afford a babysitter. Your friend may have off-duty nights when the other parent is looking after the children. And in fact, it's possible he or she out-earns you. Not every divorced parent is financially strapped. Maybe your pal has wildly under-spent on entertainment and eating out since finding himself at loose ends!
DO make sure you give your friend the opportunity to decline rather than assume he or she won't want to participate or be able to make it happen. Even if she can't come the first time, be sure to keep asking. Maybe next time that teenaged neighbour or kind aunt will be available.
DON'T waffle on an invitation. When your friend invites you to do something, don't leave them hanging and waiting to see if you get a better offer. Likely she's learning to set things up in advance to avoid loneliness and keep things fun for the kids. And you don't want your friend to feel like the person you call only when your spouse is out of town.
DON'T gossip. There isn't anybody that's going to help, or anyone that's going to entertain for more than a minute.
DO be humble. Your friend never dreamed he or she would be in such a position, and you may find yourself there one day, too. | <urn:uuid:4247c7e2-8c71-4e49-ad76-ccc64d1a0ae8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thestar.blogs.com/parentcentral/2010/01/what-not-to-do-when-your-friend-is-going-through-a-separation-or-divorce.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967079 | 730 | 1.765625 | 2 |
Note: This item is more than seven years old. Please take the publication date into consideration for any date references.
Oct. 3, 2005
Redfish Bay Seagrass Protection Rules Proposed
ROCKPORT, Texas — The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department is proposing mandatory seagrass protection measures for the Redfish Bay State Scientific Area to protect ecologically important seagrass beds from motorboat propeller scarring.
This past January, the department acted to continue the Redfish Bay State Scientific Area through 2010 and sought input from anglers, fishing guides, conservation organizations and others on the best ways to protect shallow-water seagrasses.
On Aug. 25, the TPW Commission authorized department employees to publish for public comment a proposal to make it illegal to destroy seagrass in the scientific area. This would prohibit the uprooting of five seagrass species, Clover Grass (Halophila engelmanni), Manatee Grass (Syringodium filiformis), Shoalgrass (Halodule beaudettei), Turtle Grass (Thalassia testudinum), and Widgeon Grass (Ruppia maritima).
The commission also directed employees to include in the proposal mandatory "no prop zones" in three critical and well-defined locations within the state scientific area. These include the three voluntary "no prop zones" that have been in effect in the state scientific area since 2000. Violation of the proposed new rules would be a Class C Misdemeanor.
"The Commission is committed to conservation of seagrass habitat and is concerned that whatever they adopt is enforceable and as effective as possible," said Larry McKinney, Ph.D., and TPWD coastal fisheries director. "They wish to hear from our constituents regarding both mandatory no prop zones and broad area prohibition of seagrass destruction." The "no prop" areas would replace the voluntary "no prop" areas in place currently and the compliance with the latter approach would depend on an individual's boat operation skills, knowledge of the area and type of equipment. The commission wishes to hear from constituents and give the proposal more careful review.
The new mandatory no prop zone rules would be accompanied by a concerted education campaign and extensive efforts to identify and mark access points into the area in order to minimize seagrass loss "We feel we can design the proposed no prop zones in a fishing friendly way to make access into and out of the zones easy," stated McKinney. "We will confer with local guides and fishermen in doing so and I am sure we can accomplish our conservation goals without significantly impacting how the areas are already being fished," he said.
McKinney said the voluntary propeller up or "no prop" zones and public education approach that TPWD has attempted for years have not been effective. Propeller scarring has continued in the area and research shows it is persistent and accumulating over time and cannot readily be corrected or restored.
Shallow-water seagrasses in Texas bays provide vital nursery areas for diverse marine life, food and cover for game fish, bottom stabilization, and better water quality. Seagrass has declined in many areas on the Texas coast. In Galveston Bay, 95 percent of all seagrass has disappeared. In the Redfish Bay area, the total acreage of seagrass has declined by 13 percent since 1958. The area marks the northernmost extent of one important species commonly known as turtlegrass. This species is particularly susceptible to propeller damage because of the long recovery time when damaged.
The commission is expected to make a final decision on the proposal at its Nov. 3 meeting in Austin.
The department will hold three public meetings this fall to get input about the proposal:
- 7-9 pm, Oct. 19 — Texas A&M University Corpus Christi, Natural Resources Center, Room 1003, 6300 Ocean Drive, Corpus Christi
- 7-9 pm, Oct. 20 — Aransas County District Courtroom, 301 N. Live Oak, Rockport
- 7-9 pm, Oct.19 — Lion's Field Adult Center, 2809 Broadway, San Antonio
In addition to these hearings, anyone may comment about the proposed new mandatory rules for Redfish Bay by calling, writing or e-mailing Jerry Cooke, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, 4200 Smith School Road, Austin, TX 78744, (512) 389-4492, or email@example.com.
On the Net:
- On-line Public Comment: http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/business/feedback/public_comment/proposals/200511_seagrass.phtml
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If you have any suggestions for improving these pages, send an e-mail to firstname.lastname@example.org and mention Plain Text Pages. | <urn:uuid:cf24974c-128b-4007-91a4-46e84a097cd0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/newsmedia/releases/?req=20051003b&nrtype=all&nrspan=&nrsearch=public+comment | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.912589 | 1,211 | 2.328125 | 2 |
More than two decades ago, Mitt Romney's business venture came to town with a bounty of highly anticipated manufacturing jobs. The new plant, just past the gas station off Interstate 85, needed skilled workers to churn out thousands of photo albums.
Four years later, the Holson Burns Group Inc. — the company controlled by Romney's Bain Capital LLC — closed the factory and laid off about 150 workers. Some jobs were sent north, where months later many of those were also eliminated. Other operations went overseas.
But Bain walked away with millions in profits.
Jim Cole / AP
Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney speaks during a campaign stop with mill workers at the Madison Lumber Mill, Monday, Dec. 12, 2011 in Madison, N.H.
A review by The Associated Press of financial and regulatory documents in the case of Holson Burnes contrasts with statements Romney has made during his presidential campaign about his success creating jobs in the private sector. It shows how Bain, then headed by Romney, wrung profits out of the company by slashing costs and trimming its work force.
By coincidence, the economic fallout from Bain's decisions struck hardest in South Carolina and New Hampshire, early primary states that will shape the Republican race and Romney's White House prospects. Romney knows President Barack Obama — not to mention the other Republican hopefuls — will be picking apart his record at Bain.
"He's going to go after me and say, you know, in businesses that you've invested in, they didn't all succeed," Romney said at last week's Republican debate. "Some failed. Some laid people off. And he'll be absolutely right." Yet Romney said that, overall, his investments produced tens of thousands of jobs. "In the real world, some things don't make it," Romney added.
Under Romney, Bain Capital earned a reputation for turning around struggling companies and establishing well-known brands such as Domino's Pizza and the Staples office supply retailer.
But the little-known story of Holson Burnes shows the human toll in this town of about 12,000 people touched by Bain's pursuit of profit.
For Bain, the plan was a financial success: Holson Burnes raised $24 million from its initial public offering on the over-the-counter trading market, with Bain executives retaining the majority of the company's shares. Bain, in the end, reaped more than double the return on its initial investment. But workers were left jobless just as the local economy began to slump.
In 1987, Bain Capital pounced on a golden opportunity: It set its sights on Hallmark's Burnes of Boston, having bought the Holson Co. the year before. Executives organized the companies under the Holson Burnes Group, which by 1992 was one of the nation's largest makers of photo albums and picture frames.
Company executives quickly went to work growing their new venture. They foresaw "significant growth" for their products in the South, a local newspaper reported, so South Carolina officials lured the company to Gaffney with more than $5 million in industrial bonds. Officials in Cherokee County, about 60 miles from Charlotte, N.C., pushed for $200,000 in utility upgrades.
Within months, Holson Burnes opened its 114,000-square-foot factory, using land on the outskirts of Gaffney once owned by a farm-supply company. By April 1988, about 100 workers were fastening together photo albums for the growing business.
"It was a new, state-of-the-art plant with lots of people," recalled Robert Weaver, who worked there in the late 1980s and later became a county official.
But in time, the red ink grew. Although Holson Burnes' sales nearly doubled from 1987 to 1991 — to more than $110 million— it posted consecutive operating losses, reports stated. Executives blamed the recession and a shift in consumer habits.
To stem the losses, Holson Burnes closed the plant and sold the property in July 1992 for $2.8 million, county records show. The company paid off its mortgage and transferred a small number of remaining jobs to New Hampshire.
Undoubtedly, Bain executives had their eye on the bottom line as they were preparing to close the Gaffney plant. Just six months before, the company touted "improved efficiencies" and "stronger cost controls" in its regulatory filings, just as it reported losses in early 1992.
The cost-cutting worked, just as the company prepared its initial public offering. By 1993, Holson Burnes brought in more than $3 million in after-tax profit, a stark turnaround from its $12.4 million loss the year before.
Job cuts a pattern
Holson Burnes had brought new jobs to Gaffney amid a downtrodden economy. It was no surprise when county development officials worked quickly to find a surrogate after Bain closed up shop. The local plant manager formed a small spinoff company and rehired about 20 to 30 workers.
In the end, Holson Burnes saved millions of dollars. Yet its squeeze on Gaffney was hardly unique.
Just as executives closed down operations here and sold its South Carolina factory to the Bic Corp., residents 900 miles away in Claremont, N.H., were preparing for the new jobs. The company said in spring 1992 that the expansion in Claremont "will allow us to focus our attention on our rapidly growing base" of products.
But the prospect of new jobs — similar to expectations in Gaffney — was short lived.
Within seven months, Holson Burnes began issuing furloughs to half its Claremont employees. Even if things looked up, the company told its workers, it would not rehire most of its clerical or managerial staff.
Exact numbers of layoffs were never announced. Some workers estimated that 85 to 100 employees were affected, telling the local Claremont Eagle Times that entire departments had been "decimated."
The cost-cutting continued at Holson Burnes. By 1992, the company manufactured nearly 75 percent of its photo frames overseas, according to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. One of the company's clock-making divisions also shipped work overseas from a Rhode Island plant.
But the business decisions didn't come without risk or public scrutiny.
Two clockmakers sued Holson Burnes in U.S. District Court in August 1992, claiming executives convinced them to hold off on demanding $1.9 million in IOU payments so that Holson Burnes could pull its Cuckoo Clock Manufacturing Co. out of a financial tailspin. A judge dismissed the case three years later.
Tending a 'golden goose'
Since announcing his candidacy for the White House, Romney has touted his business experience to convince voters that he's a better alternative to Obama as the country grapples with a weak economy.
"This president doesn't know how the economy works," Romney said last week. "I believe to create jobs, it helps to have created jobs."
After working as a top official for Bain & Co., Romney founded Bain Capital, where he largely made his personal fortune of $190 million to $250 million. He headed Bain Capital for more than 15 years before leaving to run the Salt Lake Olympic organizing committee.
Under Romney, Bain Capital invested millions of dollars into dozens of private-equity ventures. Some produced staggering profitability — one company showed a return rate greater than 1,000 percent — and by the late 1990s Bain targeted tech firms that specialized in software and telecommunications.
Romney insists now that he was never about "buying things, taking them apart, closing them down," as he told "Fox News Sunday."
"My business was associated with trying to make enterprises more successful. Not always was I able to succeed. But in each case, we tried to grow an enterprise, and in doing so, hopefully provide a better future for those associated with that enterprise."
Holson Burnes was one of Romney's lesser-known investments. In 1986, just as it bought smaller companies to form the Holson Burnes Group, Bain sank roughly $10 million in its new project under Romney's leadership.
By 1992, Holson Burnes' photography products lined the shelves in major American department stores. Bain eventually earned roughly $22 million from its initial investment — an average rate of return that a Deutsche Bank financial prospectus said surpassed 20 percent.
Indeed, it was Bain's investment in Holson Burnes and other ventures that made Romney undoubtedly wary about leaving the company he founded — it now manages about $66 billion in assets — to organize the 2002 Winter Olympics.
"How could I walk away from the golden goose," Romney wrote in his 2004 book, "especially now that it was laying even more golden eggs?" | <urn:uuid:1df4cb2e-3a0b-421f-801d-bfc54829cc4f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com/_news/2011/12/19/9562088-as-romneys-firm-profited-in-sc-jobs-disappeared?lite | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974607 | 1,812 | 1.78125 | 2 |
The Seven Wastes of Software Development
Today I'd like to start a brand new series, the focus of which is the elimination of waste from our software development efforts. Waste elimination can be traced all the way back to the the mid-1900's, the birth of lean manufacturing, and the Toyota Production System (TPS).
Taiichi Ohno, father of the TPS, called it a management system for "the absolute elimination of waste" .
But what exactly is waste, and why is its elimination important?
Read the other parts in this series:
To understand Ohno's focus on waste elimination, you must first understand a bit of the problem faced by Toyota in the late 1940's. Manufacturing an automobile was an expensive process, and thus cars carried hefty price tags. And yet, the typical potential car buyer in Japan didn't have a great deal of money. For Toyota to succeed, they had to reduce the price of cars by reducing the cost of manufacturing.
At that time, the only recognized means of manufacturing cost reduction was mass production. This would mean producing thousands of units of the same type of car. However, Japan's economy simply wasn't large enough to create the necessary demand for thousands of cars. Toyota had to find another way.
Ohno's TPS was that other way. This is how Ohno described the essence of the TPS:
All we are doing is looking at the timeline from the moment a customer gives us an order to the point when we collect the cash. And we are reducing that timeline by removing the nonvalue-added wastes .
And there you have it. Look at the manufacturing process, strip out anything that does not add value to the customer, and you'll arrive at a cheaper, faster way of building a car. Then continually improve by iterating on the waste elimination process.
At the heart of lean software development is the same principle: eliminate waste. In order to eliminate waste, you must first be able to recognize it.
A wise man once said "My goal is to make you so familiar with the truth that when a counterfeit looms on the horizon you'll know it instantly." The best way to recognize waste is to become intimately familiar with its opposite: value. I took a long look at value in my earlier article, "Use Stories to Deliver Business Value". User stories are one effective means for understanding what your customers truly value.
Once you have a handle on value, it's time to start looking for waste. To begin, map out all of the activities that must occur in your organization from the time a required software feature is identified until the time the customer begins deriving value from that feature. Next, uncover your biggest sources of waste and eliminate them. Rinse and repeat!
To help us in our search for waste, it helps to visit the work of another of TPS's forefathers, Shigeo Shingo. Shingo identified seven major types of manufacturing waste :
- Extra Processing
Mary and Tom Poppendieck later translated these seven wastes into "The Seven Wastes of Software Development" :
- Partially Done Work
- Extra Features
- Task Switching
Over the next seven weeks we'll look at examine each of these sources of wastes in detail. We'll look at some of their common manifestations, both in our coding practices and in our development methodologies. We'll also examine strategies for eliminating each of these wastes from our development efforts. Until next time!
Ohno, Taiichi. Toyota Production System: Beyond Large Scale Production. Productivity Press, 1988.
Shingo, Shigeo. A Study of the Toyota Production System. Productivity Press, 1981.
Poppendieck, Mary and Tom. Implementing Lean Software Development: From Concept to Cash. Addison-Wesley, 2006.
(Note: Opinions expressed in this article and its replies are the opinions of their respective authors and not those of DZone, Inc.) | <urn:uuid:9d7e621a-c3c7-4ffb-83af-a761ea5eb9c4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://agile.dzone.com/articles/seven-wastes-software | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947198 | 816 | 2.203125 | 2 |
Do not wait too long! If you work on computers a lot, then slow system and program starts, endless rendering and memory processes, or even system crashes when playing can quickly ruin your enjoyment. Defragmenting your PC can hugely accelerate the speed you can work on your PC. When you defragment, those files fragmented across the hard disk are logically rearranged so that files can be quickly recognized and processed by the hardware. Performance gains of up to 100% are not uncommon!
In the new version of O&O Defrag, you can now see what the program does for your system thanks to graphics and statistics, which give you a before-and-after Defrag contrast!
New and enhanced functions
The revised and improved algorithms for defragmentation mean that O&O Defrag 16 packs stored file fragments even faster together, and support for defragmentation of locked files under O&O Defrag 16 is better than ever before. The SSD Optimization by TRIM has also been enhanced and now supports even more manufacturers.
Performance increases of up to 100%
A continuous sorting of files on hard disks means they can be read quicker by Windows, which in turn accelerates all the read and write accesses by up to 100%.
Shorter defragmentation times and faster system and program starts
With O&O Defrag 16, several drives can be defragmented simultaneously. In addition, the algorithms have been substantially accelerated, reducing the time required for a defragmentation by up to 40%. By using O&O Defrag, files can be read and written much more quickly. What at first seems to be lost performance can easily be rediscovered and realized again with O&O Defrag, giving you the peace of mind that your hardware is in good health and operating optimally.
Automatic defragmentation in the background
O&O Defrag works quietly in the background so that the defragmentation process does not disturb other tasks and has no negative performance impact on your systems. | <urn:uuid:b21da786-bfbe-442f-ba86-043cf13a926d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.oo-software.com/en/products/oodefrag/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931432 | 410 | 1.820313 | 2 |
Where the Land and Sea Meet
- Pub. no.: SG-ED-74
- Year: 2011
- Pages: 52
- Size: 11.25 x 8.5 inches
- Price: $7.00
|Softcover book||$7.00||Add to Cart|
Where the Land and Sea Meet is full of activities to help children develop observational skills that scientists use to explore the world’s seashores. All you need are crayons, markers, or colored pencils. This book also introduces children to 92 sea life species seen by NaGISA (Natural Geography In Shore Areas project) scientists at seashores around the world. Each plant and animal is labeled with scientific name, common name, and where it was seen. Spiral binding makes it easy for children to do the activities, and for teachers and parents to make copies.
About the author
Kirsten Carlson, award-winning science illustrator and owner of Fathom It Studios, has built a career that combines science, art, and design. She is dedicated to creating illustrations and stories that connect people to nature. Carlson considers a project successful if someone fathoms something completely new as a result of her work.
Alaska NaGISA research leaders
Dr. Katrin Iken is an associate professor of marine biology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences. She studies marine community diversity, dynamics, and ecology of both polar regions, using scientific diving as a research tool.
Dr. Brenda Konar is a professor of marine biology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences. She has worked for 20 years in the waters off Alaska and Antarctica as a scientific diver studying nearshore marine ecosystems. | <urn:uuid:8db4ee2b-99f0-4ecc-8976-723fdc7a3cd7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://seagrant.uaf.edu/bookstore/pubs/SG-ED-74.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00066-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929536 | 362 | 3.21875 | 3 |
Nanaimo-Ladysmith district may consider charging students to ride the school bus
Trustees look at several options to reduce rising costs
Robert Barron, Daily NewsPublished: Wednesday, September 19, 2012
The elimination of some bus routes and charging students to ride school buses may be considered as the Nanaimo-Ladysmith school district grapples with ways to save money.
Approximately 10% of the nearly 13,400 students in the district rely on school buses for their daily transportation, but with decreasing enrolment and ongoing financial pressures, the district is now looking at all options to keep the program financially viable and effective.
A review of the district's bus services is now under way, the first in 10 years. School officials are looking for input from parents by Oct. 1 in an online survey found on the district's website on their concerns with the bus service.
Jamie Brennan, chairman of the school board, said cutting some under utilized bus routes, including one that picks up students in the North Oyster Elementary School catchment area and transports them to elementary schools in Ladysmith, is a likely scenario.
For Tamela Gunnell, a parent of two children attending North Oyster, she'd just be happy if the bus that picks up her kids each morning arrived on time.
"It seems that since this school year began, my kids seem to regularly arrive at the school after the morning bell rings," Gunnell said.
"I realize the district is trying to do the best they can with what they have, but the one recommendation I have is for the board and the transportation department to be on the same page with the bus service."
The district allocates approximately $1.2 million per year in provincial funding for student transportation, but spends approximately 40 per cent more than that on the current bus system.
Brennan said it's time that the current routes be reviewed as some have become redundant and costly.
He said the possibility of charging bus users for the service for the first time will likely also be considered in the review.
But he pointed out that the school board had considered this in the past and trustees opposed it because the district is one of the poorest in B.C. and they felt that charging students for busing would be an additional financial hardship on already cash-strapped families. | <urn:uuid:63231985-45ce-45b3-9ad4-647d5e35af02> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www2.canada.com/nanaimodailynews/news/story.html?id=73d2ba68-8ec5-4e04-bf14-478ba13f464e | 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 | 0.971521 | 479 | 1.632813 | 2 |
In his recent blog post, “Energy Star CFLs superior to incandescent bulbs”, John Dodge highlighted energy savings achieved by replacing conventional bulbs with compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) in his home. I, too, am a CFL believer. A few months after moving into my apartment in Quincy, MA, I replaced every bulb with a CFL and realized a savings on my electricity bill of roughly 20%. Last year, I even gave CFLs to my family and friends for Christmas!
In a new twist on a 125-year-old technology, General Electric is working on new incandescent materials that will lead to high-efficiency incandescent (HEI) lamps. These new bulbs have potential to be as efficient as CFLs, provide the same light intensity and color quality as conventional bulbs, and feature “instant-on” capability (eliminating the time delay associated with turning on CLFs). In addition, a recent GE press release on HEI technology promises these news bulbs will cost less than CFLs.
There is no word yet on when HEIs might hit the market. So, CFLs remain today’s choice for energy efficient residential illumination. However, we may soon be thanking Mr. Edison once again for commercializing the incandescent light bulb.
At the Design News webinar on June 27, learn all about aluminum extrusion: designing the right shape so it costs the least, is simplest to manufacture, and best fits the application's structural requirements.
For industrial control applications, or even a simple assembly line, that machine can go almost 24/7 without a break. But what happens when the task is a little more complex? That’s where the “smart” machine would come in. The smart machine is one that has some simple (or complex in some cases) processing capability to be able to adapt to changing conditions. Such machines are suited for a host of applications, including automotive, aerospace, defense, medical, computers and electronics, telecommunications, consumer goods, and so on. This radio show will show what’s possible with smart machines, and what tradeoffs need to be made to implement such a solution. | <urn:uuid:a83fb5c4-b632-4827-94b0-ac7754ff42a9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1386&doc_id=209650&piddl_msgorder=thrd | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934631 | 449 | 2.4375 | 2 |
The brilliant physician and writer Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., and his brother John
represent two radically different views on the subject of flattery. Dr. Holmes loved to
collect compliments, and when he was older he indulged his pastime by saying to someone
who had just praised his work, "I am a trifle deaf, you know. Do you mind repeating
that a little louder?" John, however, was unassuming and content to be in his older
brother's shadow. He once said that the only compliment he ever received came when he was
six. The maid was brushing his hair when she observed to his mother that little John
wasn't all that cross-eyed!
Mark Twain once said he could go for two months on a good compliment.
one-time U.S. ambassador to Great Britain, when asked who he would like to be if he could
come back to earth again after he died, replied without an instant's hesitation:
"Mrs. Choate's second husband."
Maurice Sendak, author and illustrator of Where the Wild Things Are and other
children's books, gets many letters from his young fans. A favorite was a
"charming" drawing sent on by a little boy's mother. "I loved
it," Sendak says. "I drew a picture of a Wild Thing on a post card and sent it to
him. His mother wrote back: 'Jim loved your card so much he ate it.' The little boy didn't
care that it was an original drawing. He saw it, he loved it, he ate it. That to me was
one of the highest compliments I've ever received." | <urn:uuid:927a6767-0a68-492f-bf07-eecac6042567> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sermonillustrations.com/a-z/c/compliment.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.988309 | 348 | 1.742188 | 2 |
- Windows 7 Libraries
- More on Windows 7 Libraries
From this point on, Win 7 will track your selected folders and update them automatically in Libraries whenever you change their contents. In and of itself this feature is useful, but Win 7 expands on it by providing a detailed default view of the library. It expands the included folders to show the files and subdirectories within the monitored directories, letting you easily browse for the file or folder you want to open.
You can add locations to the library in several ways. First, you can reopen the library`s Properties dialog and click Include a Folder again. Second, you can use Explorer to browse to a file or folder and right-drag the item to the library's heading on the Navigation bar, pausing until it bears the caption Create Link in Folder. Third, you can right-click on any folder and choose Include in Library, selecting the library you want from the resulting submenu. You can also create a new library by dragging a folder (not a file) to the Libraries heading itself, where Win 7 will prompt you to create the new library.
Finally, the various locations can be modified by clicking the link beside the Includes label, which appears at the top right of the Explorer window when you have selected a library. The result is the Library Locations dialog, from which you can Add or Remove additional items.
In my case, by the time I added all my old Outlook folders to the Archived Email library, I had a list of nine directories containing several subdirectories, all containing one or more PST files. Suddenly, all my old e-mail was accessible to me, should I want to search it or revisit old discussions. Of course, using libraries to track music files, document files, or all your various Photoshop files might be more helpful for most users, but for me the Libraries feature worked superbly to give me control over a very specific data type.
|Full Windows 7 Coverage|
blog comments powered by Disqus | <urn:uuid:97570291-a87f-4f51-93ed-81d1517fa36c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2341734,00.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928736 | 407 | 1.960938 | 2 |
Volunteer divers needed to survey Great Barrier Reef coral and help assess climate change impacts
Research will review how the reef is recovering from recent cyclones and how such extreme physical stress on the reef systems influence coral disease outbreaks.
One of the Great Barrier Reef's most spectacular and diverse marine habitats, the fringing reef surrounding Orpheus Island, is at risk from rising sea temperatures.
Earthwatch Australia has developed a new research project ‘Recovery of the Reef’ together with the Australian Institute of Marine Science and is calling on volunteer divers to work with scientists to assess the growing prevalence of coral disease on this landmark site.
Richard Gilmore, Executive Director, Earthwatch Australia says “volunteers will get to experience this unique marine park filled with an unusually wide variety of reef habitats, clam gardens as well as submerged indigenous sites and recent shipwrecks, while helping scientists understand more about the factors influencing the health of coral reefs.”
“It’s a great way to experience something different, while making a difference to this important World Heritage Site.”
Dr David Bourne, Research Scientist from the Australian Institute of Marine Science, says “the research will review how the reef is recovering from recent cyclones and how such extreme physical stress on the reef systems influence coral disease outbreaks. The ongoing research will also assess the seasonal dynamics of coral diseases and the role of other ecosystems stresses such as light, temperature and water quality on disease progression.
“Working across a variety of dive sites volunteers will conduct underwater surveys tagging and photographing diseased areas, which will then be monitored over time to assess the condition of the coral.
Located 1189 km (739 miles) northwest of Brisbane, Orpheus Island is only 11 kilometres long and approximately one kilometre wide, most of which is national park dominated by eucalypts with patches of rainforest and grassland. Part of the Palm group of islands and within the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area Orpheus Island offers secluded, sheltered bays, spectacular fringing reefs and stunning scenery.
The first Recovery of the Reef team kicks off on 12 March and runs through until 19 March, with a second team to follow on 30 August, 2012.
To sign up call Earthwatch on 03 9682 6828 or visit earthwatch.org.au | <urn:uuid:a13fcf28-cea8-43c6-8308-6e797539c5d9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.australasianscience.com.au/article/issue-januaryfebruary-2012/volunteer-divers-needed-survey-great-barrier-reef-coral-and-help- | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.91487 | 476 | 3.140625 | 3 |
Struggle Against Ourselves
Struggle Against Ourselves
I want to take a moment to remind you of where we have come from.
For the first three million years of human history, we lived according to circumstance. Our lives were ruled by the happenstances of ecology. We existed, as all animals do, in fear of hunger, predation, weather and disease.
For the following few thousand years, after we had grasped the rudiments of agriculture and crop storage, we enjoyed greater food security, and soon destroyed most of our non-human predators. But our lives were ruled by the sword, the axe and the spear. The primary struggle was for land. We needed it not just to grow our crops but also to provide our sources of energy - grazing for our horses and bullocks, wood for our fires.
Then we discovered fossil fuels, and everything changed. No longer were we constrained by the need to live on ambient energy; we could support ourselves by means of the sunlight stored over the preceding 350 million years. The new sources of energy permitted the economy to grow - to grow sufficiently to absorb some of the people expelled by the previous era's land disputes. Fossil fuels allowed both industry and cities to expand, which permitted the workers to organise and to force the despots to loosen their grip on power.
Fossil fuels helped us fight wars of a horror never contemplated before, but they also reduced the need for war. For the first time in human history, indeed for the first time in biological history, there was a surplus of available energy. We could keep body and soul together without having to fight someone else for the energy we needed. Agricultural productivity rose 10 or 20 fold. Economic productivity rose 100 fold. Most of us could live as no one had ever lived before.
And everything you see around you results from that. We have been able to assemble here from all corners of the country because of fossil fuels. We have not been charged and cut down by the yeomanry - or not yet at any rate - because of fossil fuels. Our freedoms, our comforts, our prosperity are all the result of fossil fuels.
Ours are the most fortunate generations that have ever lived. Ours are the most fortunate generations that ever will. We inhabit the brief historical interlude between ecological constraint and ecological catastrophe.
I don't have to remind you of the two forces which are converging on our lives. We are faced with an impending shortage of the source of energy which is hardest to replace - liquid fossil fuels. And we are faced with the environmental consequences of the fossil fuel burning which has permitted us to be standing here now. The structure, the complexity, the diversity of our lives, everything we know, everything that we have taken for granted, that looked solid and non-negotiable, suddenly looks contingent. All this is a great tottering pile balanced on a ball, a ball that is about to start rolling downhill.
I hear people talking about the carbon cuts they would like to see. I am not interested in what people would like to see. I am interesed in what the science says. And the science is clear. We need not a 20% cut by 2020; not a 60% cut by 2050, but a 90% cut by 2030. Only then do we stand a good chance of keeping carbon concentrations in the atmosphere below 430 parts per million, which means that only then do we stand a good chance of preventing some of the threatened positive feedbacks. If we let it get beyond that point there is nothing we can do. The biosphere takes over as the primary source of carbon. It is out of our hands.
The notion that we can achieve this by replacing fossil fuels with ambient energy is a fantasy. It is true that we have untapped sources of energy in wind, waves, tides and sunlight, but it is neither so concentrated nor so consistent that we can plug it in and carry on as before.
A cut like this requires massive reductions in our energy use. There are some technofixes available, but they are unlikely to take us more than halfway there. If carbon emissions are to be capped at 10%, energy use will have to be capped at under 50%. The only fair means of doing this is national rationing accompanied by global contraction and convergence.
And we find ourselves in an extraordinary position. This is the first mass political movement to demand less, not more. The first to take to the streets in pursuit of austerity. The first to demand that our luxuries, even our comforts, are curtailed.
These are the greatest political challenges any movement has faced. But we are rising to it. We are rising. But let no one tell you it will be easy. If it were just a matter of slagging off George Bush, we would have won by now. But we must struggle not only against him, not only against our own government, not only against each other, but also against ourselves. The struggle against climate change is a struggle against much of what we have become. It is a struggle against some of our most fundamental urges.
We cannot call on others to stop flying if we still fly. We cannot ask the government to force us to change if we are not ready to change. The greatest fight of our lives will be fought not just out there, but also in here. | <urn:uuid:73b792a6-b110-4cb6-ac1e-c73aaaf53c9b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.zcommunications.org/struggle-against-ourselves-by-george-monbiot | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969019 | 1,097 | 1.835938 | 2 |
We all get glimpses of superconsciousness in our daily life, but deep perceptions of it can really only come to us in the deep stillness of meditation. Properly speaking, meditation truly begins once the thoughts and emotions have been stilled. It’s a state of intense inward awareness, a state in which one’s attention is no longer engaged in the outward activities of our lives, but is wholly engrossed in the superconscious experience. Meditation may be loosely defined as any practice of which the goal is superconsciousness. It’s the process of retraining our awareness to operate not from the conscious or subconscious level, but from the superconscious.
The essential attitude for correct meditation is one of listening. The mind must be kept receptive, because we can’t think our way into deep meditation. Nor, indeed, can you think your way to true guidance and inspiration. You can only receive wisdom: You cannot concoct it. A truth must be perceived in that calm awareness which is superconsciousness.
Meditation, then, is not creating answers: It is perceiving, or receiving them. And this is the secret of true guidance. | <urn:uuid:38a6f3d3-64cf-4b00-b25d-20444e2a3710> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ananda.org/meditation/free-meditation-support/articles/meditation-and-superconsciousness/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945709 | 240 | 2.328125 | 2 |
The Old Covenant
and the New Covenant
St. Irenaeus of Lyons
Early Church Father and Doctor of the Church
In the book of Deuteronomy Moses says to the people: The Lord your God made a covenant on Horeb; he made this covenant, not with your fathers but with you. Why did God not make this covenant with their fathers? Because the law is not aimed at the righteous. Their fathers were righteous: they had the power of the Decalogue implanted in their hearts and in their souls. That is, they loved the God who made them and did nothing unjust against their neighbour. For this reason they did not need to be admonished by written rebukes: they had the righteousness of the law in their hearts.
When this righteousness and love for God had passed into oblivion and had been extinguished in Egypt, God had necessarily to reveal himself through his own voice, out of his great love for men. He led the people out of Egypt in power, so that man might once again become Godís disciple and follower. He made them afraid as they listened, to warn them not to hold their Creator in contempt.
He fed them with manna, that they might receive spiritual food. In the book of Deuteronomy Moses says: He fed you with manna, which your fathers did not know, that you might understand that man will not live by bread alone but by every word of God coming from the mouth of God.
He commanded them to love himself and trained them to practise righteousness toward their neighbour, so that man might not be unrighteous or unworthy of God. Through the Decalogue he prepared man for friendship with himself and for harmony with his neighbour. This was to manís advantage, though God needed nothing from man.
This raised man to glory, for it gave him what he did not have, friendship with God. But it brought no advantage to God, for God did not need manís love. Man did not possess the glory of God, nor could he attain it by any other means than through obedience to God. This is why Moses said to the people: Choose life, that you may live and your descendants too; love the Lord your God, hear his voice and hold fast to him, for this is life for you and length of days.
This was the life that the Lord was preparing man to receive when he spoke in person and gave the words of the Decalogue for all alike to hear. These words remain with us as well; they were extended and amplified through his coming in the flesh, but not annulled.
God gave to the people separately through Moses the commandments that enslave: these were precepts suited to their instruction or their condemnation. As Moses said: The Lord commanded me at that time to teach you precepts of righteousness and of judgement. The precepts that were given them to enslave and to serve as a warning have been cancelled by the new covenant of freedom. The precepts that belong to manís nature and to freedom and to all alike have been enlarged and broadened. Through the adoption of sons God had enabled man so generously and bountifully to know him as Father, to love him with his whole heart, and to follow his Word unfailingly.
This excerpt from St. Irenaus' landmark work Against Heresies (Lib. 4. 16.2-5: SC 100, 564-572) is used in the Roman Office of Readings for Friday of the 2nd week of Lent. The accompanying biblical reading is Exodus 19: 1-19 and 20:18-21.
For more Catholic resources to feed your faith, visit the Crossroads Initiative Homepage.
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The Fathers of the Church - Who They Are and Why They Matter
In a single, upbeat talk, full of examples and fascinating stories about St. Augustine, St. Ambrose and other intriguing personalities, Marcellino D'Ambrosio explains who people are talking about when they refer to the "Fathers of the Church" or "Early Church Fathers. Though the ranks of the fathers represent a tremendous variety of cultures, locales, and temperaments, there is surprising consensus that emerges from them on a variety of the most pressing questions of our day. In this dynamic talk, available on CD or audiocassette, Marcellino makes clear just how much these figures have to teach us. | <urn:uuid:820c5e24-4421-4a08-bb5a-4a8e91372dbe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.crossroadsinitiative.com/library_article/461/Old_and_New_Covenant_Irenaeus.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978397 | 947 | 2.78125 | 3 |
Hungary Soviet Southern Group of Forces in Hungary
Sources: The Library of Congress Country Studies; CIA World Factbook
Soviet troops have been stationed in Hungary since April 1945, when they pushed the German army completely out of the country. After Hungary signed a peace treaty with the Allies in 1947, Soviet forces remained in order to secure lines of communication with Soviet troops occupying Austria. Soviet forces withdrew from Austria in May 1955 but remained in Hungary at the request of the High Command of the Warsaw Treaty Organization, which was formed one day before the Austrian treaty was signed.
In May 1957, the Soviet-installed government under Kadar signed an agreement with the Soviet Union to legally recognize the Soviet forces that had occupied the country in 1956 (see Revolution of 1956 , ch. 1). Called the Decree Having the Force of Law No. 54 of 1957, it justified the Soviet presence as a defense against NATO "aggression" and West German rearmament. The agreement mentioned no specifics, such as the number of Soviet troops, their deployment within Hungary, and the facilities made available to them, although such items may have been written down in a secret protocol. The version of the agreement made public mentioned only that the Soviet troops were to be stationed "indefinitely" and that the compact could be changed only by mutual consent.
Officially called the Southern Group of Forces (SGF), Soviet troops in Hungary numbered 65,000, according to NATO estimates made in November 1988. At that time, the troops were under the command of Lieutenant General Aleksei A. Demidov. The Soviet forces in Hungary corresponded strategically to the Group of Soviet Forces stationed in East Germany, the Northern Group of Forces in Poland, and the Central Group of Forces in Czechoslovakia.
The SGF, headquartered in Budapest, commanded the 13th Guards Tank Division in Veszprem, the 2d Tank Division in Esztergom, the 253d Motor Rifle Division in Szekesfehervar, and the 93d Guards Motor Rifle Division in Kecskemet. These forces were supported by an air assault brigade, five fighter regiments, two fighterground attack regiments, several combat helicopter units, and reconnaissance aircraft. In a war against NATO, the SGF and the Hungarian troops would be used as part of the Southwestern Theater of Military Operations (teatr voennykh deistvii-- TVD).
In December 1988, Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev announced that the Soviet Union would unilaterally remove some of its forces from Eastern Europe. This force reduction, which began in April 1989, was to be carried out over a two-year period. It would include the tank division deployed at Veszprem and the surrounding area, an armored training regiment, a paratroop battalion and interceptor squadron based at Tokol airport in Pest County, a chemical defense battalion, and the SGF training school for NCOs in Szolnok. This partial withdrawal would remove 450 tanks; 200 guns, trench mortars, and mine throwers; 3,000 vehicles; and 10,400 of the 65,000 Soviet troops in Hungary. In April 1989, Hungarian foreign minister Gyula Horn said that all Soviet soldiers might be removed from the country in the first half of the 1990s.
The Soviet troops were generally isolated from Hungarian life. They did not interfere in Hungarian affairs and appeared in public usually in small groups and only in certain restricted areas. The Hungarians generally did not like the Soviet soldiers and did not fraternize with them.
Data as of September 1989
NOTE: The information regarding Hungary on this page is re-published from The Library of Congress Country Studies and the CIA World Factbook. No claims are made regarding the accuracy of Hungary Soviet Southern Group of Forces in Hungary information contained here. All suggestions for corrections of any errors about Hungary Soviet Southern Group of Forces in Hungary should be addressed to the Library of Congress and the CIA. | <urn:uuid:4c7ca699-89a7-4f9f-af17-5ec0122917f8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.photius.com/countries/hungary/national_security/hungary_national_security_soviet_southern_grou~105.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00047-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964198 | 803 | 3.03125 | 3 |
Hello! I'm Japanese but I live in New Zealand.
However, I can't speak English so well. So, I have to learn English.
Today is Setsubun(節分) in Japan.
Setubun (節分) is the day before the beginning of Spring in Japan.
Typically we do Mamemaki (豆まき：throwing...
I knew it yesterday as well...
Do you know Milo (Hot cocoa)?
In Japanese, we pronounce it "ミロ", but in English, it's pr...
I feel difference between Japanese TV show and NZ's TV show.
Above all, I feel big differences among variety shows (entertainment te...
I have a temperature since the day before yesterday.
I still have 37.5 degree, but It's better than yesterday.
When I catch a cold,...
With native lang
I'm a Judo player, and sometimes I've taught Judo to children in New Zealand.
In the Judo class, sometimes children has afraid o... | <urn:uuid:0cefa61b-bc21-49de-867d-3483d0c64e67> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://lang-8.com/416078 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00070-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94991 | 227 | 1.664063 | 2 |
By Michael Musto
By Capt. James Van Thach told to Jonathan Wei
By Kera Bolonik
By Michael Musto
By Nick Pinto
By Steve Weinstein
By Michael Musto
By Michael Musto
On a typical Monday when school's in session, the narrow office of Watermelons Plus in Canarsie would be hummingwith food orders streaming in from hundreds of schools in Brooklyn and Staten Island, staff placing delivery requests with companies as far away as California, and packed trucks rumbling out with the frozen food, produce, and groceries for New York City's 1.1 million public school children.
But last Monday, it was quiet and nearly empty on the second floor of the company's stall at the Brooklyn Terminal Market. About 60 people who worked for the firm were out of a job. Only a handful of employees remained. Some $800,000 in new trucks were sitting idle. And with bills from food manufacturers piling up, company president Mike Pagano was struggling to keep his family business out of bankruptcy.
The sudden change in fortune was only the latest tremor to hit New York City's system for delivering food to the city's schools.
The second-largest feeding system in the country (the Defense Department ranks No. 1), New York's school food program has been plagued for years with problems ranging from bid-rigging charges to costly inefficiencies. Two years ago, on the million-dollar advice of the consulting firm Accenture and under new leadership, the school food office decided to try something different: Rather than have a dozen or more contracts for delivering food across the sprawling school system, the city decided to save money by hiring only three companies to do the job.
There were problems from the outset in fall 2004, with schools not getting enough food and the delivery companies getting thousands of dollars in fines ("Recipe for Trouble," April 5, 2005). The city had to advance money to Watermelons and the other two delivery firms, and emergency contractors were brought in to divvy up the workload. By spring 2005, the Department of Education said the situation had stabilized.
But in the past six months, two of the original three vendors have stopped serving the schools, and each maintains that the city owes it more than $1 milliona dispute that could end up in court. In the meantime, the Watermelons Plus trucks sit empty. The Department of Education says the company dropped out of its contract, but Pagano denies that. "I didn't quit," he insists. "They forced me out."
On paper, the new delivery system looked like a sure money saver for the taxpayer. Three delivery companies would distribute their own food products, the large amounts of federally donated food, and products by other manufacturerslike Perdue and Kellogg'swho cut direct deals with the city.
But in practical terms, it didn't work. The big food companies had never heard of little guys like Watermelons Plus and worried about getting paid. Pagano had to refinance his house to pay for a credit line in order to get deliveries. It was also costly for Watermelons Plus to handle the school department's payments to the big food companies. In the contract, the Department of Education granted itself a discount if it made "prompt payment" to the delivery firms. The big food companies, however, didn't agree to a discount. So when the city paid a company like Perdue on time, Pagano had to eat the discount. With Watermelons Plus just scraping by, that hurt.
Meanwhile, the extra warehouse space Pagano had acquired for the deal was overwhelmed by the amount of donated food coming in. So he rented a new warehouse; he says it cost him more than $60,000 a month. But the donated food had to be inspected before it went to the schools, and if the inspector didn't show up on time, the deliveries went out late and Watermelons Plus risked a fine. Eventually, Watermelons Plus was hit with more than $400,000 in finesfar more than its counterparts elsewhere in the city. Pagano hired two people solely to work on contesting those charges.
At the same time, the schools themselves were sometimes late in placing their orders. Most were on time, but there were a few days like February 11, 2005, when 21 orders were timely and 88 were logged after the deadline of two weeks before delivery. Some requests came in just a couple of days before delivery. That wasn't enough time when a food manufacturer was located out of state and needed to inspect and ship the product. Complicating matters were problems with the city's computer tracking system that led to overpayments and underpayments of the delivery companies.
The fines and payment problems squeezed Pagano. Then came news that Louis Foods, which delivered to all the schools in Queens, was pulling out of its contract. "We just got tired of losing money every month," says Louis Foods' director of purchasing Joel Warshaw.
Louis Foods' pullout worsened Pagano's credit problems. As the fall wore on, Watermelons Plus was running out of money to finance its purchases. Its service suffered.
In early December the city told Watermelons Plus that it would be thrown out of the contract in July. "We had more shortages than we want," says school food director David Berkowitz. "We have very high requirements."
Pagano demanded that the city pay what it owed him if he was going to continue at all. The city refused, so Pagano ran up the white flag. The drivers, helpers, and clerks who were hired to work the five-year school deal were sent home.
Pagano claims that the city owes him $1.6 million for underpayments, unjust fines, and improper charges. In addition, the Department of Education has withheld the final payment to Watermelons Plus for services rendered, worth about $1.1 million, until all accounts are settled. "We're just protecting the city's interest," Berkowitz says.
The companies that are replacing Louis Foods and Watermelons Plus had lost the initial bid because they charged more. Now, those higher charges apply, and they're eating into whatever savings the new program was expected to generate. One of the replacements, U.S. Foodservicewhich has former executives under federal indictment for securities fraudis charging six times more per pound than Watermelons Plus did.
So is the program saving any money at all? "It's hard to say," says Berkowitz, who points to the administrative advantages of the system. "One vendor per region is a big, big plus and it came in handy in something like the transit strike and other emergencies," he says, when, in Manhattan, "we had one company to deal with."
The Department of Education still says service is OK, and people who monitor it told the Voice they mostly agree. After months of delay, a new contract was opened up for bidding last week for the areas that have gone to emergency vendors. The revised plan divides the school system into smaller geographic zones and reworks the language on the prompt-payment discount. Work to improve the computer system continues. In other words, the department is fixing some of the problems that Pagano blames for his early departure.
Pagano's roots in the food business run deep. His grandfather peddled on the streets of Brooklyn, and then his dad and uncle took the family into the produce business. Pagano himself came on in 1968, and he works with two of his brothers, sometimes seven days a week. The school food contract held out the promise of gentler hours and a steady stream of money that in a few years would allow Pagano, 60, to hand the business to his son and nephew.
That hope is dashed, and now instead of stabilizing his business, Pagano might lose it. Immediate problems include paying off his produce suppliers, who are protected by a federal law that demands they get their checks on time. Louis Foods is a bigger company, but it's damaged too. The $3 million, aircraft-hangar-sized warehouse it built for the deal is mostly empty, and 60 people lost jobs.
Pagano acknowledges that the bid might have been a mistake for his little firm, but he thinks it could have worked. "I'm blaming all of us," he says. Now that the kinks are being worked out, Watermelons Plus would like to be in on the action. Its trucks, however, remain empty. "You're going to use us as a guinea pig? OK," Pagano says. "But we thought this was a partnership. They dumped the total responsibility on us."
Find everything you're looking for in your city
Find the best happy hour deals in your city
Get today's exclusive deals at savings of anywhere from 50-90%
Check out the hottest list of places and things to do around your city | <urn:uuid:8a84791d-6107-44aa-a13b-0e9e0deccb4a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.villagevoice.com/2006-01-10/news/unjust-desserts/full/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981811 | 1,835 | 1.625 | 2 |
June 10, 2008 Researchers in Sweden and Japan report development of a new type of paper that resists breaking when pulled almost as well as cast iron. The new material, called "cellulose nanopaper," is made of sub-microscopic particles of cellulose and may open the way for expanded use of paper as a construction material and in other applications, they suggest.
In the new study, Lars A. Berglund and colleagues note that cellulose -- a tough, widely available substance obtained from plants -- has potential as a strong, lightweight ingredient in composites and other materials in a wide range of products. Although cellulose-based composites have high strength, existing materials are brittle and snap easily when pulled.
The study described a solution to this problem. It involves exposing wood pulp to certain chemicals to produce cellulose nanopaper. Their study found that its tensile strength -- a material's ability to resist pull before snapping -- exceeded that of cast iron. They also were able to adjust the paper's strength by changing its internal structure.
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Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
- Henriksson et al. Cellulose Nanopaper Structures of High Toughness. Biomacromolecules, 2008; 9 (6): 1579 DOI: 10.1021/bm800038n
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead. | <urn:uuid:32637a04-ffa2-4d39-9250-69647a3a9442> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080609090706.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.92427 | 306 | 3.40625 | 3 |
In modern biology there is a strong tendency to collect huge quantities of data with high throughput techniques. This data is only useful if we have good techniques of analysing it to obtain a better understanding of the biological systems being studied. One approach to doing this is to build mathematical models. An idea which is widespread is that the best models are those which are the closest to reality in the sense that they take account of as many effects as possible and use as many measured quantities as possible. Suppose for definiteness that the model is given by a system of ordinary differential equations. Then this idea translates into using systems with many variables and many parameters. There are several problems which may come up. The first is that some parameters have not been measured at all. The second is that those which have been measured are only known with poor accuracy and different parameters have been measured in different biological systems. A third problem is that even if the equations and parameters were known perfectly we are still faced with the difficult problem of analysing at least some aspects of the qualitative behaviour of solutions of a dynamical system of high dimension. The typical way of getting around this is to put the equations on the computer and calculate the solutions numerically for some initial data. Then we have the problem that we can only do the calculations for a finite number of initial data sets and it is difficult to know how typical the solutions obtained really are. To have a short name for the kind of model just described I will refer to it as a ‘complex model’.
In view of all these difficulties with complex models it makes sense to complement the above strategy by one which goes in a very different direction. The idea for this alternative approach is to build models which are as simple as possible subject to the condition that they include a biological effect of interest. The hope is then that a detailed analysis of the simple model will generate new and useful ideas for explaining biological phenomena or will give a picture of what is going on which may be crude but is nevertheless helpful in practise, perhaps even more helpful than a complex model.
It often happens that in analysing a complex model many of the parameters have to be guessed (perhaps just in an order of magnitude way) or estimated by some numerical technique. It is then justified to ask whether adding more variables and corresponding parameters really means adding information. How can we hope to understand complex models at all? If these were generic dynamical systems with the given number of unknowns and parameters this would be hopeless. Fortunately the dynamical systems arising in biology are far from generic. They have arisen by the action of evolution optimizing certain properties under strong constraints. Given that this is the case it makes sense to try and understand in what ways these systems are special. If key mechanisms can be identified then we can try to isolate them and study them intensively in relatively simple situations. My intention is not to deny the value of high throughput techniques. What I want to promote is the idea that it is bad if the pursuit of those approaches leads to the neglect of others which may be equally valuable. On a theoretical level this means the use of ‘simple models’ in contrast to ‘complex models’. There is a corresponding idea on the experimental side which may be even more necessary. This is to focus on the study of certain simple biological systems as a complement to high throughput techniques. This alternative might be called ‘low throughput biology’. It occurred to me that if I had this idea under this name then it might also have been introduced by others. Searching for the phrase with Google I only found a few references and as far as I could see the phrase was generally associated with a negative connotation. Rather than making an opposition between low throughput and high throughput techniques like David and Goliath it would be better to promote cooperation between the two. I have come across one good example in this in the work of Uri Alon and his collaborators on network motifs. This work is well explained in the lectures of Alon on systems biology which are available on Youtube. The idea is to take a large quantity of data (such as the network of all transcription factors of E. coli) and to use statistical analysis to identify qualitative features of the network which make it different from a random network. These features can then be isolated, analysed and, most importantly, understood in an intuitive way. | <urn:uuid:6b2ee58b-1da8-4bc0-ac89-ac4be3767655> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://alanrendall.wordpress.com/2012/04/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971634 | 880 | 2.359375 | 2 |
(Photo: REUTERS / Jonathan Ernst)
US Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) doffs his hat for reporters as he arrives at the Capitol in Washington, February 26, 2009.
Sen. Robert Byrd, Denmocrat of West Virginia, the longest serving elected lawmaker in the federal Legislature in U.S. history died on Monday, his office confirmed. He was 92.
He had been "seriously ill" from heat exhaustion and dehydration after being admitted to the hospital late last week, according to his office.
Byrd had served in the U.S. Senate since 1959 and in the House of Representatives from 1953-1959.
He a top senator in his party from the 1977 to 1988, serving as majority leader during the President Jimmy Carter's administration and as minority leader through President Ronald Reagan's tenure.
- FOLLOW IBTIMES
Byrd shifted sharply away from his early support for policies permitting racial discrimination to become an ardent supporter of the civil rights movement.
Senator Jay Rockefeller, D-WV, expressed condolences to "all those who loved him" in a statement and said it had been a "privilege" to serve with him.
"I looked up to him, I fought next to him and I am deeply saddened that he is gone," Rockefeller said.
While Byrd came from "humble beginnings" in the state's southern coal fields, Rockefeller said "he never forgot where he came from nor who he represented, and he never abused that power for his own gain."
This article is copyrighted by International Business Times, the business news leader | <urn:uuid:65621926-b82b-47d5-8151-90b057e9eb2b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/31106/20100628/robert-byrd-longest-serving-u-s-senator-dies-at-92.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982985 | 328 | 2.09375 | 2 |
Sigean Nature Reserve
Visit Sigean Nature Reserve (Languedoc-Roussillon, France)
Sigean is a town in Languedoc-Roussillon to the south of Narbonne. It is most visited for the Nature Reserve, a few kilometres north of Sigean itself and an important ancient settlement unearthed nearby.
Sigean Nature Reserve (Reserve Africain de Sigean)
Spread over a vast terrain of 300 hectares there are literally thousands of wild animals living here on the African Nature Reserve, including all your favourites - from flamingo to zebras, from lions to rhinoceros, in an area that is extensice enough to allow the animals to live in semi-liberty.
The main route through the park covers several kilometres and takes around an hour to complete. You can do the route in your car (or in a bus if you prefer), and passes through various distinct areas representing different natural habitats.
There is more to the reserve than just fun - it is also an important place of research into the lives and habitats of the animals that are held here, and into the conservation of these magnificent creatures as their natural habitat becomes ever more threatened. But don't worry, there is plenty of fun to be had as well!
When the children get fed up with being sealed in the car (curiously you aren't allowed to get out and stroke the lions) there is also a section of the park where you can get out, explore, and come into contact with the less dangerous animals such as chimpanzees and tortoises and get closer to some of the larger mammals such as elephants.
Note: there are of course various safety rules to be followed (keeping car windows closed, not stopping next to a bear...). See more details including admission times and prices at Sigean Nature Reserve.
In the vicinity
Sigean itself, historically an important frontier town between France and Spain, has a small historic centre that is worth strolling around.
Nearby you can also visit the iron age settlement at the Oppidum de Pech Maho where extensive archaeological excavations have unearthed a town dating from around 550 BC onwards. Around 200 BC the town was destroyed, although the reason is unknown - destruction by Hannibal during the Punic Wars or defeat by the Romans are two possibilities.
Photos taken within 10 km
Address: Réserve africaine de Sigean, Aude, Languedoc-Roussillon || GPS: latitude 43.0292, longitude 2.97833
Map of Sigean Nature Reserve & places nearby
Highlights close by
Fontfroide Abbey 13km
See lots more places to visit nearby and a more detailed map at places near Sigean Nature Reserve.
See Languedoc-Roussillon and Aude (the region and department for Sigean Nature Reserve) for more travel ideas...
Suggested tourist attractions to visit near Sigean Nature Reserve, France
- African reserve of Sigean - zoo or wildlife park (5km)
- Abbaye de Fontfroide (Narbonne) - religious monument (12km)
- Narbonne - secteur sauvegarde (18km)
- Narbonnaise en Méditerranée - regional natural parc (19km)
- Lagrasse - most beautiful village (30km)
- Enserune - national monument (33km)
- Perpignan - town of art and history (37km)
- Eglise de Notre Dame des Anges (Cabestany) - religious monument (39km)
- Beziers - secteur sauvegarde (40km)
- Minerve - most beautiful village (41km)
The French version of this page is at Sigean Nature Reserve (Francais) | <urn:uuid:fe7d3de3-70cd-4f00-ba61-1042d5067417> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.francethisway.com/places/sigean-nature-reserve.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.903096 | 807 | 2.171875 | 2 |
"The issue of the impact of immigration on black Americans has long been debated. During the previous great wave of immigration at the turn of the last century, most black leaders such as W.E.B. Dubois, Booker T. Washington and A. Phillip Randolph felt that immigration harmed their community. Job competition has traditionally been the key issue, but other concerns exist as well."
- Steven Camarota, Director of Research at CIS
"Labor is a noble word, and expresses a noble idea. Cheap labor, too, seems harmless enough, sounds well to the ear, and looks well upon paper . . . But what does it mean? Who does it bless or benefit? It means that condition of things in which the laborers shall be so largely in excess of the work needed to be done, that the capitalist shall be able to command all the laborers he wants, at prices only enough to keep the laborer above the point of starvation . . . The former slave owners of the South want cheap labor; they want it from Germany and from Ireland; they want it from China and Japan; they want it from anywhere in the world, but from Africa. They want to be independent of their former slaves, and bring their noses to the grindstone."
- Fredrick Douglass | <urn:uuid:e728c4ba-6eb6-4f68-bbc9-8ed8893cd9b9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cis.org/BlackAmericans | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971466 | 260 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Surviving Thanksgiving: Can't We All Just Get Along?
So the food fight that was the 2012 election is over and now we head to Grandma’s – or some relational approximation thereto – for Thanksgiving turkey. We arrive there a nation more divided, contentious and wounded than any time in our lifetime. A series of difficult issues enlarged for political gain have further wedged us apart – religious vs. secular, liberal vs. conservative, young vs. old, ethnic vs. Anglos, business vs. government, urban vs. rural, married vs. single, pro-life vs. pro-choice, gay vs. straight, rich vs. poor. It is not new that there are differences among us as we share our Thanksgiving feast though the differences have grown some in recent decades. What is new is how we have joined tribes, exaggerated our differences and embraced warfare against those unlike us. Our heated language – war on women, class warfare, war on the rich, war on marriage, religious-war, war-on-the-poor, partisan battles – says it all.
It seems surviving Thanksgiving gets harder every year and it tempts a response that has become our new normal – fight or flight from relationships. For many at the table there will be an unspoken rule: don’t dare bring up any of these controversial issues. A spirit of thankfulness is difficult in the midst of tribal warfare.
Unfortunately the animas in our politics is but one part of a broader relationship unraveling. It starts at home and accumulates across work, politics and faith. At home, the facts of flight from relationships are both well-known and jarring. We might call it the tyranny of the 50s – in the past 50 years, divorce is up 50 percent, marriage is down 50 percent and in 2012 for the first time 50 percent of children born to those under 30 will be born to unwed mothers – with a poverty rate five times that of their married counterparts. Further, in the last 20 years the number of close, “go-to” friends has dropped by a third. The number of people reporting “no close friends” has tripled!
In the world of work, today’s high unemployment represents a painful form of relationship separation for anyone who has lost a job. However, even for the five years prior to the 2008 recession, turnover among skilled, sales and managerial positions doubled and a 2012 MetLife survey found that a third of workers planned to leave their employers by year-end. Likewise customer defections rose 30 percent for the five year leading up to 2008 and 86 percent of consumers now trust corporation less than five years ago. Something is happening to our relational glue.
Political wedge issues and partisan gridlock have contributed to our devolvement from citizens and voters to self-focused, consumers asking what’s in it for me – not to mention the downgrading of our U.S. credit rating. (Yes, the relational cliff precedes the fiscal cliff.) This divide is not just your imagination. The number who self-identify as ideologically extreme in their political views has risen from 29 percent in 1972 to 49 percent today even though our actual differences on the content of issues are up only about 10 percent. Many have been turned-off by the fight and are choosing flight. Defection from political parties doubled the past 50 years; now 44 percent call themselves independent, up 8 percent since 2008. Likewise, as faith has become more divisive, flight from religious affiliation has doubled in the past two decades and jumped from 15 percent five years ago to 20 percent now.
Collectively this relational decline is the most destructive trend we face. We are becoming a society of strangers and estrangement. Who would have guessed that sports – inherently competitive and partisan – would be one of the safest topics at the Thanksgiving table this year? How did we get here? A series of wonderful societal advancements have produced unintended consequences: devalued relationships. For example, technology certainly connects us in wonderful ways but it can also isolate us. We can now get informed without interacting with humans – by spying on Facebook, accessing new media and websites. The evidence of our relational isolation: The American Academy of Pediatrics has coined the term Facebook Depression and the Menninger Clinic now calls Technology Addiction an official impulse disorder.
Worse is how technology can be used to wound. People dial-up talk-radio, cable news and blogs offering just the one-sided opinions and shouting matches that affirm feelings of superiority. Strife monetized. Cyber bullying and a vitriolic blogosphere are brutal. The head of software development at my company used to say, “Give a fool a faster tool, and what you get is a faster fool.” The carnage of faster, more assured and better-armed fools disables relationships and undermines our society.
General Peter Pace, addressing sectarian violence at the height of the Iraq war said: “If the Iraqi people as a whole decided today that, in my words now, they love their children more than they hate their neighbor…this could come to a quick conclusion.” Good advice in Iraq, in facing a fiscal cliff and at Thanksgiving – because as Henri Nouwen reminds us, “community is the place where the person you least want to live with, always lives.” As we share the table this Thanksgiving with family and friends –including those hard to stomach – we must decide to love what unites us more than we hate what divides us.
Robert Hall is a noted author, consultant, and speaker on relationships. He is the author of This Land of Strangers: The Relationship Crisis That Imperils Home, Work, Politics and Faith. www.RobertEHall.com.
Location, ST | website.com
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Vito Ciccarelli talks about Trojans and the things they do in their communities.
Join Rafi Topalian as he discusses the past, present and future Armenian news, stories and related issues that effect not only the Armenian Community in the Capital District but non-Armenian readers alike. | <urn:uuid:fd88425c-740b-4b7b-9e7c-164913223d57> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://troyrecord.com/articles/2012/11/23/opinion/doc50ad336c86d6b013464056.txt?viewmode=4 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951599 | 1,550 | 1.757813 | 2 |
By Tim Leeds
Special events are planned next week to commemorate the 124th anniversary of the Nez Perce surrender at Bear Paw Battlefield.
Arthur Currence, site manager for the battlefield, is starting the commemoration with a memorial and tour on Sunday at 2 p.m. The battlefield is 16 miles south of Chinook.
The major event begins Oct. 6 in conjunction with the Chief Joseph Memorial Veterans' Pow-Wow at Fort Belknap. Nez Perce at the powwow will hold sacred and traditional ceremonies and a commemoration on Oct. 6 about 8 a.m.
Currence said his memorial Sunday will be fairly low-key. He will give a tour, telling stories about the tribe's flight from Idaho through Montana to the Bear Paws and the battle itself, emphasizing the record as told by Nez Perce and the soldiers at the battle.
Geri Rutherford, who organizes the powwow, expects 400 to 500 people from across the United States and Canada to attend the event.
"The main thing is focus on what happened to them so many years ago," she said. The powwow also honors all veterans, and this year will have prayers and a moment of silence for the victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Rutherford said the powwow participants are holding a blanket dance, with all of the money from the dance going to relief funds for the terrorist victims.
"At a time like this, everybody's united, pulling together," she said.
Rutherford said her father, Jim Earth Boy, started the powwow about 35 years ago. The commemoration is coordinated by the Nez Perce Tribal Veterans of Lapwaii, Idaho, and the Fort Belknap Chief Joseph Memorial Committee.
The Blaine County Library, which has a display about the battlefield and an audiovisual display titled "40 miles to Freedom" that Currence highly recommends, will be open 1 to 5 p.m. Monday through Oct. 5.
The grand entry for the powwow on Oct. 5 is at 7 p.m. at Fort Belknap's Red Whip Center. The grand entries on Oct. 6 are at 1 p.m. and 7 p.m. Rutherford said there will be many activities at the powwow, with $5,000 total to be awarded in different age categories in the different traditional dance events. A fun run is planned for Oct. 6, starting at the Red Whip Center.
The activities focus on the flight of the Nez Perce in 1877, when the members of the tribe who had not followed federal orders to move to a reservation fled across the Bitterroot Mountains, pursued by Gen. Oliver Howard. The group surprised Howard with both their fighting ability and ability to evade him, Currence said.
The tribe decided to escape to Canada after a fierce battle on Aug. 9, Currence said, and started to move north.
On Sept. 30, 1877, the tribe was surprised by Col. Nelson A. Miles, who had traveled from southwest Montana to intercept them.
"They surprised him with their fierce resistance," Currence said.
After a five-day siege, Chief Joseph surrendered to the Army. Currence said Joseph was not the top leader of the tribe at the beginning of its flight, but the other leaders died during the battles or fled, leaving him in charge by the time of the surrender.
About 150 Nez Perce escaped under the cover of darkness on the night of Sept. 30, and fled to Canada. They were joined by 30 to 50 more who escaped on Oct. 5, before Joseph surrendered.
The death toll at the battle included 23 soldiers killed and 45 wounded, and the Nez Perce losses are estimated at 30 killed and 50 wounded.
Currence said the battle is considered the last major conflict in the area, although other battles did occur. The next major campaign was against Geronimo in the Southwest in the 1880s. | <urn:uuid:91c8fbfd-ccac-492d-928a-c4a00f8bc9b3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.havredailynews.com/cms/news/story-93897.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968564 | 823 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Cancer is not a new dub for people, breathing exercises in the 21st century. This is repeated, and our daily activities. Each year approximately one million new cancer cases diagnosed worldwide. Most people lose their lives to cancer. Treatment is available but not yet 100% guarantee of recovery from cancer. Cancer affects nearly every organ of the human body to become ruins the later stages.
In fact it appears the cancer is not a disease but a heterogeneous group of disorders characterized by a normal cell to lose control of cell division. Cancer cells divide rapidly and continuously leads to the formation of tumors that eventually form a tissue. These cells from cell proliferation to travel all healthy cells to produce tumors. The most common form of cancer among breast, lung, prostate, blood, colon, rectum, pancreas, liver, etc.
Generation of tumor
Basically, normal cells grow, divide, mature and die for the treatment of complex internal and external signals. A normal cell can be both excitatory and inhibit signals responsible for this growth, proliferation and maturation. In the case of cancer cells, these signals disrupted, the cell is divided into unusually high speeds. After removal of normal controls, the cancer cell loses its normal shape and form of separate lots, which we call “cancer.” When the cancer cells remain localized described as “benign tumor”, but when cells penetrate the tissue, the tumor has been described as “cancer.” The journey of the cells in other parts of the body, forming secondary tumors and underwent ” mark “. Continue reading | <urn:uuid:e0a63cb6-48c9-4386-b4fd-0fb693feab09> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.healthyaos93.com/tag/cell-division | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954547 | 323 | 3.1875 | 3 |
Super Potency Formula!
Vitamin D is known as essential when it comes to building strong teeth and bones, but did you know that the primary source for Vitamin D is not always food?** It’s the sun! Unfortunately, the sun does not shine all of the time – and on some days, clouds get in the way or an indoor job might keep us from the sun altogether – so your body may not be getting all of the Vitamin D it needs.
Vitamin D3 is a more potent and bioavailable form compared to D2.
That’s why we released a Vitamin D potency – 5000 IU! This formula provides a super-dose of D3, an active and potent form of Vitamin D, so you can be sure that you are getting the most potent version of what your body needs.** And Vitamin D does more than help form healthy teeth and bones; it also assists the immune system and colon and breast health.** No wonder medical researchers around the globe are studying the effects of Vitamin D more than ever before!
One of the primary natural sources of Vitamin D is the sun, so supplementation can be essential during winter, in northern climates, and during summer if you use sunscreen
Vitamin D absorption may decline with age
Assists the body with calcium absorption – if calcium is not absorbed properly, bodily systems in need will take it from the bones**
Supports the immune system**Supports breast and colon health** No Artificial Color, Flavor or Sweetener, No Preservatives, No Sugar, No Starch, No Milk, No Lactose, No Gluten, No Wheat, No Yeast, No Fish, Sodium Free. | <urn:uuid:4f29e71a-b129-4b84-a12b-406d234d83cd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.puritan.com/vitamins-ad-081/vitamin-d3-5000-iu-019377 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.910516 | 343 | 2.1875 | 2 |
Threats to Macquarie's clients and customers continue to evolve and impact users of financial services through various methods, and in different ways. Being aware of the different threats that exist, and what you can do to prevent them, is the best way of avoiding them.
Online threats can refer to any type of fraud or scam generated through the internet or via email. Most online threats are designed to steal personal information such as credit card numbers, user names and passwords. These are typically executed through social engineering scams. The main intent is to gain a financial benefit via fraud.
Here are four simple precautions you can take to help to protect yourself online:
Macquarie Group (Macquarie) is committed to providing a secure banking environment for all our clients and customers. We use the latest technology to ensure a safe and secure environment to protect your personal information and privacy.
We protect your accounts with us against loss as a result of fraud. When conducting your online banking with us, we provide you with peace of mind knowing that we will protect you against losses for unauthorised fraudulent transactions where you have not contributed to the loss. Macquarie works closely with law enforcement agencies to ensure fraud matters are handled with proper care and due diligence.
If you have experienced an online threat or have fallen victim to phishing or any other type of online fraud, please contact your local Macquarie office immediately on 1800 806 310 (or +61 2 8232 3333 from overseas).
You can also notify us by email at firstname.lastname@example.org. If possible please send your contact phone number and the suspicious email as an attachment, rather than forwarding the email. This helps to identify the author and source and will be used to help reduce online fraud.
For more information pertaining to online threats and how to protect yourself you can visit:
It is important to secure your computer properly to prevent putting yourself and possibly your family and friends at risk. There are simple measures you can take to protect your computer and your personal information.
Protect your computer
Phishing is a technique used by fraudsters to obtain sensitive information such as passwords, internet banking logons and credit card details by sending an email or message pretending to be from a trustworthy source. This contact may also take place in the form of a phone call ('Vishing') or a text message ('SMSishing'). Communications claiming to be from banks, popular social websites and auction sites are commonly used to trick the unsuspecting web user.
Fraudsters send out millions of these fraudulent emails to random e-mail addresses in the hope of luring unsuspecting innocent persons into providing their personal banking details. More commonly now, fraudsters are narrowing their attacks (spear phishing) in an attempt to target specific groups and/or individuals.
Macquarie Group does NOT send such emails to their clients to confirm or verify any personal information.
If you receive an email, text message or phone call and you are unsure whether it is legitimate, you should never respond or provide your personal details. Instead, contact Macquarie directly using a number or method you know is genuine.
Emails and text messages
You may receive emails or text messages, directing you to websites that ask you to enter your personal information. The aim of many of these email scams is to take you to websites that may look like the genuine site but are in fact a clone website. When you click on a link or enter your personal details, the information may be sent to someone other than your bank or other service providers. This means that someone else may be able to access your accounts.
You should be cautious when receiving unsolicited phone calls from people claiming to represent your bank or another business, especially when you are asked to provide information about your login credentials or card details. 'Vishing' is the term used for this process, where the caller's objective for contacting you is attempting to obtain these details for their financial gain.
Protect yourself against phishing scams
Viruses and trojans are collectively known as malicious software or 'malware' which is designed to destroy data, or steal information. Some malware is designed to activate when you log on to your internet banking. Malware can record your username, password and other personal information which can then be used to gain access to your account.
Protect yourself against malware and viruses
Spam or electronic 'junk mail' is unsolicited commercial messages sent to a person's email account or mobile phone. Spam messages may contain offensive material, promotions for fraudulent services, solicitations of personal information and bank details. They may also contain malware or link to a website which contains malware which may make you vulnerable to attack or compromise.
Your internet service provider can often provide spam-filtering software. This flags emails as spam, so that you do not receive as many in the future. You can end up on a spammer's mailing list by:
Protect yourself against spam
If the email looks like it's from Macquarie requesting personal information or account details, report it to us on email@example.com
A large part of online crime is now centred on identity theft. This specifically refers to the theft and use of personal identifying information of an actual person, as opposed to the use of a fictitious identity. This practise can include the theft and use of personal information of persons either living or deceased.
Trust your instincts when people contact you online or over the phone. Make sure you verify who it is you are speaking to and don't be afraid to say 'no' or to simply hang up and end the conversation without giving a reason.
Protect yourself against identity theft
The ABA, ASIC and the AFP have worked together to produce a website called www.protectfinancialid.org.au which also provides tips on how you can avoid becoming a victim.
Scams have existed for centuries, however the internet allows scammers to reach a much larger audience.
A scam might come in the form of an email, contact from an unknown person through websites such as dating sites, online forums or social networking sites. Scams are usually designed to either steal your money or trick you into revealing personal information. They use techniques to manipulate you and appeal to your good nature, and are constantly evolving.
'Cold calling' scams are an unexpected or unsolicited telephone call offering investments or financial advice. The investments they offer usually guarantee high returns or encourage you to invest in overseas companies.
The scams sound professional and may have other resources to support their claims. Cold callers often claim to be stock brokers or portfolio managers.
Generally speaking, it is illegal for anyone to offer you financial advice or a financial product, such as shares, without an Australian Financial Services licence (AFSL) issued by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).
Protect yourself against scams
For more information on suspected scams go to www.scamwatch.gov.au.
You may also report any scam to this site as well to your local police.
Report any scam attempts to Macquarie at firstname.lastname@example.org
Cheque fraud may be committed by:
Protect yourself against cheque fraud
If you suspect that you may be a victim of cheque fraud please contact Macquarie immediately on number 1800 806 310 (or +61 2 8232 3333 from overseas).
Macquarie has a state of the art fraud detection system that monitors credit card transactions for suspicious activity 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You may be contacted from time to time to confirm recent transactions on your credit card.
To avoid any inconvenience whilst travelling overseas ensure that you notify Macquarie of your travel arrangements prior to leaving Australia on 1300 150 300 or the number on the reverse of your credit card.
Protect yourself against credit card fraud
If you believe that you may be a victim of credit card fraud, or your card has been lost or stolen, please contact us on 1300 150 300 or the number on the reverse of your credit card.
Protect yourself from ATM and EFTPOS scams
To find out more about ATM and Card skimming please refer to www.scamwatch.gov.au. | <urn:uuid:e23f0e3a-a282-4927-b393-b1067b977694> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.macquarie.com.au/mgl/au/sitewide/security | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928063 | 1,680 | 2.375 | 2 |
A rescuer laid to rest
"An EMS legend," is how Charlottesville Albemarle Rescue Squad president David Starmer describes medic Nikki Kielar, who had risen to assistant chief of operations at CARS since she began volunteering in 1996. A UVA grad who earned her master's degree in physiology from VCU Medical Center (formerly MCV), Kielar's singular purpose was to become a physician. Shortly after her death last week, says Starmer, her family learned that dream would have been realized. Kielar had been accepted to medical school.
PHOTO COURTESY CHARLOTTESVILLE ALBEMARLE RESCUE SQUAD
Charlottesville colleagues of medic Nikki Kielar, who died in a Washington D.C. helicopter crash on January 11, leave the Charlottesville Albemarle Rescue Squad headquarters around 7am on January 18 to attend Kielar's memorial service in Fredericksburg. More than 2,000 people from across the state and nation attended.
PHOTO BY LAUREN BROOKS | <urn:uuid:d74da088-1338-49b5-9683-3862f2908f53> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.readthehook.com/96316/news-rescuer-laid-rest?quicktabs_1=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968352 | 215 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Source: The Hills Have Eyes
Location: The desert, where they tested nuclear weapons
Threat Assessment: 6. Though they didn't hit their stride til "The Hills Have Eyes 2." There they took out at least ten soldiers without use of guns. Though strong and armed with sharp pointy things, their main weapon is knowledge of the terrain. They have been known to use mine shafts as ambush points.
Limitation: Guns and Mirrors | <urn:uuid:d4fd81c4-46d9-4ca3-9d1b-51501ebc782e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://strangespanner.blogspot.com/2011/07/monster-of-day-hills-have-eyes-mutants.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970972 | 92 | 2.078125 | 2 |
Jeannette Y. Wick, RPh, MBA, FASCP
An international consortium of researchers has discovered 3 genetic anomalies associated with primary angle closure glaucoma (PACG), which may help lead to the development of new treatments.
Primary angle closure glaucoma (PACG) has joined the long list of diseases for which genetic contributors have been identified. In a study
published in the October 2012 edition of Nature Genetics
, researchers identified 3 new genetic mutations associated with PACG, a leading cause of blindness affecting 15 million people worldwide, 80% of whom live in Asia or are of Asian descent. PACG blinds proportionately more people than primary open-angle glaucoma globally, and epidemiological studies have indicated one’s risk of developing it is strongly influenced by heredity.
In the study, an international consortium of researchers conducted a genome-wide association study in 2 stages. In the first stage, discovery, they looked at 1854 subjects with PACG cases and 9608 controls in Singapore, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia, and Vietnam. Stage 2, validation, added another 1917 PACG cases and 8943 controls collected from China, Singapore, India, Saudi Arabia, and the United Kingdom.
The team found that a significantly increased risk of developing PACG was associated with anomalies at 3 points in the human genome, known as single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). The discovery of these genetic markers may help lead to the development of new treatments for PACG by indicating genes that encode for possible targets for new drugs or biologics. At some point, researchers may be able to genotype patients and determine which treatments are more likely to lead to symptom response for them.
The prevalence of PACG is particularly high among older Asians, and the number of people worldwide with the condition will increase dramatically in the coming decades. All health care providers need to heighten their awareness of this condition and its close association with Asian heritage.
Ms. Wick is a visiting professor at the University of Connecticut School of Pharmacy and a freelance writer from Virginia. | <urn:uuid:eba86e15-15fd-4e35-912d-48634b766cb4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pharmacytimes.com/news/Pathogenesis-of-PACG-In-the-Genes | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935348 | 428 | 2.578125 | 3 |
|School Name distance||TestRating||Community Rating|
|C G Woodson School of Challenge 0.5 miles|
|Konnoak Elementary School 0.8 miles|
|Philo Middle School 0.8 miles|
|Easton Elementary School 0.9 miles|
|Winston-salem Street School 1.1 miles||n/a|
In 2011, Carter Vocational High School had 5 students for every full-time equivalent teacher. The North Carolina average is 15 students per full-time equivalent teacher.Compare to other schools in Forsyth County Schools School District
The End-of-Grades (EOG) Tests are annual tests used to measure a student's mastery of the state's grade-level academic standards.
Students in grades 3 through 8 are assessed in reading and math.
Students receive a score of level 1 through level 4. The goal is for students to score at or above level 3, the proficient level. Students who do not score at the proficient level are eligible for remedial help, may retake the exam and may not be promot | <urn:uuid:cadd6f42-b1fc-407e-bdc1-4e3ef5f0dd51> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.education.com/schoolfinder/us/north-carolina/winston-salem/carter-vocational-high/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.908171 | 224 | 2.078125 | 2 |
OWL, the Web Ontology Language has been standardized by W3C as a powerful language to represent knowledge (i.e. ontologies) on the Web. OWL has two functionalities. The first functionality is to express knowledge in an unambiguous way. This is accomplished by representing knowledge as set of concepts within a particular domain and the relationship between these concepts. If we only take into account this functionality, then the goal is very similar to that of UML or Entity-Relationship diagrams. The second functionality is to be able to draw conclusions from the knowledge that has been expressed. In other words, be able to infer implicit knowledge from the explicit knowledge. We call this reasoning and this is what distinguishes OWL from UML or other modeling languages.
OWL evolved from several proposals and became a standard in 2004. This was subsequently extended in 2008 by a second standard version, OWL 2. With OWL, you have the possibility of expressing all kinds of knowledge. The basic building blocks of an ontology are concepts (a.k.a classes) and the relationships between the classes (a.k.a properties). For example, if we were to create an ontology about a university, the classes would include Student, Professor, Courses while the properties would be isEnrolled, because a Student is enrolled in a Course, and isTaughtBy, because a Professor teaches a Course. | <urn:uuid:80424e2b-87c5-4874-b619-6a0288ea8b06> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://semanticweb.com/tag/web-ontology-language | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964389 | 287 | 4 | 4 |
1 million terabytes a day saved forever...
The ARGUS array is made up of several cameras and other types of imaging systems. The output of the imaging system is used to create extremely large, 1.8GP high-resolution mosaic images and video.
The U.S. Army, along with Boeing, has developed and is preparing to deploy a new unmanned aircraft called the "Hummingbird." It's is a VTOL-UAS (vertical take-off and landing unmanned aerial system). | <urn:uuid:18ae6a34-67fa-406e-af0e-d2ce92a9202d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.scoop.it/t/vulbus-incognita-magazine/p/3995636480/drone-1-8-gigapixel-argus-is-world-s-highest-resolution-video-surveillance-platform-by-darpa | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00066-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945522 | 104 | 2.28125 | 2 |
Many startups that were able to raise a seed round are running out of cash because of the Series A crunch.
Even though quitting is never an ideal situation, serial entrepreneur and investor Howard A. Tullman recently wrote on Inc that entrepreneurs need to know when enough is enough.
"Sometimes you need to be smart enough to figure out how to quit when you're ahead--even if you're actually way behind," he writes.
Tullman says that there's no simple answer for determining when it's time to throw in the towel, but he follows what he calls The Rule of 3 Ds and 3 Fs.
"There are some things you've got to Do, Determine and Discuss," Tullman writes. "The Fs are Facts, Feelings, and Family."
- The most important thing you have to do is face the facts.
- You then need to determine how you feel about the situation. For example, if you frequently don't feel appreciated, it's time to go.
- Discuss your situation with your family because running a business can be just as hard on them as it is on you.
More From Business Insider | <urn:uuid:6ff6c4f5-c090-4a65-90a5-3d033c96537f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://finance.yahoo.com/news/startups-running-cash-founders-know-150701886.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976328 | 238 | 2.046875 | 2 |
In this post I would like to share one of the most surprising, remarkable, and beautiful results in the study of discrete dynamical systems. It relates to an unusual ordering of the positive integers:
First, some definitions. The basic object of study in a discrete dynamical system is the orbit. Let be a function from to (think , , , etc.). A sequence of real numbers is an orbit (or the orbit of ) provided for all . Another way of saying this is that for all where (composition times). We think of the orbit of as motion— hops along the real number line with the new position determined by an application of .
For example, if , then the orbit of 2 is
A fixed point is a real number such that the orbit of is constant: Equivalently, it is a point such that .
For example, the function has two fixed points: and . To see that these are fixed points, observe that and . To see that they are the only fixed points, solve for
A value is a periodic point of period if the orbit of is periodic of period (called a periodic orbit or a cycle). Equivalently, , but for .
For example, consider the function
The value is a point of period 3 for . Why? We see that: and . So the orbit of 1 is
Now the motivating question: does the function have any other periodic points? If so, of what periods?
For very small values of it may be possible to use algebra to answer this question, but algebra fails quickly (notice that solving requires finding the roots of a polynomial of degree ).
In 1975 James Yorke and his graduate student Tien-Yien Li proved the following remarkable theorem in a paper called “Period Three Implies Chaos” (Amer. Math. Monthly 82, 985-992, 1975). Their theorem implies that has points of every period!
Theorem [Li-Yorke]. Let be an interval (possibly ). If a continuous function has a point of period 3, then it has a point of period for every .
That is, if there is a period-three orbit, then there are orbits of every period—chaos!
This theorem amazed the mathematical community. In fact, Li and Yorke’s paper was responsible for introducing the word “chaos” into the mathematical vocabulary. (Now there are several competing definitions of chaos.)
However, little did they know this result had been proved over a decade before, and as a special case of a truly remarkable theorem.
In 1964, the Ukrainian mathematician Aleksandr Nikolayevich Sharkovsky introduced the following ordering on the positive integers (Sharkovsky, A.N. “Coexistence of cycles of continuous mapping of the line into itself.” Ukrainian Math. J., 16, 61-71, 1964):
First come the odd numbers, then the doubles of the odd numbers, then times each odd number, etc. When all of these values are exhausted, the ordering ends with the powers of 2.
Sharkovsky’s theorem says the following:
Theorem [Sharkovsky]. Let be an interval. If a continuous function has a point of period , then it has a point of period for every with .
Notice that the first term in the Sharkovsky ordering is 3. Thus, if we apply Sharkovsky’s theorem with we get the Li-Yorke theorem. But clearly Sharkovsky’s theorem is much deeper. If there is a point of period 9, there is a point of period 6, if there is a point of period 8, there is a point of period 4, and so on.
Finally, I will add that the theorem cannot be strengthened in any obvious way. Without continuity the theorem fails, and it fails for dynamical systems on spaces other than . Moreover, there exist dynamical systems containing a periodic point of period and no periodic point of period for any with . | <urn:uuid:07da7026-ff0d-4391-b82e-8b2c5310191a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://divisbyzero.com/2008/12/18/sharkovskys-theorem/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928538 | 823 | 2.75 | 3 |
What is "Leno" - Definition & Explanation
It is a net like fabric constructed by causing a warp end to cross over another end. This is made possible by the use of doup healds.
Refers to an open weave fabric. In a leno weave the warp yarns are arranged in pairs, twisting or interlocking around the filling yarn to prevent slippage and make the open weave stronger and more firm.
An open, lacy weave in which the filling yarn is woven through figure eights made out of warp fibers; gauze.
A fabric made with leno weave, namely an open weave in which pairs of warp yarns cross one another and thereby lock the filling yarn in position.
Some more terms: Cathedral Train
(Also known as a monarch train); a cascading train extending six to eight feet behind the gown, for the most formal...
The waistband is the same piece of fabric as the rest of the garment. Advantages are that it has a smooth silhouette making the transition from hip to waist more...
A brand name for a stiff fabric used to interline skirts and give them...
A soft yet firm, sheer fabric of plain weave, Generallymade of combed hard-twisted single yarns, although plyyarns are alsoused.About the samenumber of yarns inwarp as in filling. Has clinging...
A finishing process that brings the fabric in contact with sandpaper or another abrasive material. This may be done to raise surface fiber, impart a peached or sueded hand or to create a surface....
Companies for Leno:
If you manufacture, distribute or otherwise deal in Leno | <urn:uuid:be047b3c-76ab-4195-9738-da45dedf5f0d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.textileglossary.com/terms/leno.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.900384 | 349 | 3.203125 | 3 |
Submitted to: Journal of Insect Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: December 15, 1997
Publication Date: N/A
Interpretive Summary: The silverleaf whitefly (Bemisia argentifolii) is a major agronomic pest on a variety of crop species including cotton. Whiteflies are particularly destructive in warmer climates and they thrive even in such hot arid regions as the desert southwest of the United States. Whiteflies feed on plant sap to obtain nutrients including sugars and amino acids. Previously, we showed that, when exposed to high temperatures, whiteflies synthesize and accumulate sorbitol a compound known to protect organisms against temperature extremes and desiccation. In this paper, we describe the purification and characterization of the enzyme that is responsible for sorbitol synthesis in whiteflies. The purification of this enzyme is an important first step in determining how whiteflies make sorbitol. Our results show that whiteflies have evolved an unconventional pathway and enzyme for making sorbitol. This knowledge can be used to develop novel control strategies that target the sorbitol making enzyme to control this insect.
Sorbitol accumulates in the silverleaf whitefly when this insect is exposed to elevated temperatures. Synthesis of sorbitol in the silverleaf whitefly is catalyzed by an unconventional enzyme that converts fructose to sorbitol using NADPH as the coenzyme. In the present study, the NADPH-dependent ketose reductase from adult whiteflies was purified to apparent homogeneity and characterized. The NADPH-dependent ketose reductase was tetrameric, composed of 38.7 kD subunits, and catalyzed both fructose reduction and sorbitol oxidation. The pH and temperature optima for fructose reduction and sorbitol oxidation were 7 and 45ºC and >9 and 50ºC, respectively. The affinity of the enzyme for fructose was very low, but physiological considering the high concentrations of carbohydrate available to this phloem-feeding insect. Edman degradation analysis of three peptides from the enzyme showed that their amino acid sequences matched internal sequences of NAD+-dependent sorbitol dehydrogenases. Thus, the NADPH-dependent ketose reductase responsible for sorbitol synthesis in the silverleaf whitefly is structurally similar to NAD+-dependent sorbitol dehydrogenase, but differs in its coenzyme requirement. Antibodies against the purified enzyme showed that this novel ketose reductase occurs in whitefly eggs and nymphs, as well as in the adults. | <urn:uuid:52c7ef7f-141e-4d5b-9bdb-c0701dc037cb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ars.usda.gov/research/publications/publications.htm?SEQ_NO_115=86253 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00057-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93404 | 537 | 2.5 | 2 |
So it turns out yesterday, July 26th, was Aunt and Uncles Day.
While the origins of the day are difficult to ascertain the sentiment behind it is not.
Research shows us that Aunts and Uncles play a key role in the development of younger relatives but, to be honest, most of us don’t need research to tell us that.
As our parents’ brothers and/or sisters, Aunts and Uncles are those special people who often share many of the good traits of our parents without being constrained by the discipline of parenthood.
End Result? A funner version of our mum or dad!
Now that’s not always the case and I’m certain that most of us would never have contemplated giving up our parents for our Aunts and Uncles while growing up, no matter how many lollies or toys or fun day trips they treated us with.
But this doesn’t take away from the fact that Aunts and Uncles have played an incredibly important role in many of our lives and for that it's great that we can celebrate them.
Do you have a favourite Aunt or Uncle story?
If so, I'd love to hear about it in the comments, below. | <urn:uuid:dbe0e126-a7d1-4cf1-9b0d-70986561b73a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.myheritage.com/2011/07/happy-belated-aunt-and-uncles-day/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96566 | 257 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Can I get pregnant while breastfeeding?
Yes. In general, you're less fertile, but not infertile, while breastfeeding. Although you may not menstruate for months after giving birth, your body usually releases its first postpartum egg before
you get your first period. So you won't know you've ovulated
until two weeks later — when you menstruate.
If you know you don't want to get pregnant while nursing, begin using birth control
as soon as you start having sex again. Many doctors recommend barrier methods such as condoms
or a diaphragm
, but some think the newer low-dose oral contraceptives
are safe to use while breastfeeding and pose no harm to your baby. Ask your doctor about the "mini-pill," which doesn't contain estrogen, a hormone that can interfere with lactation, only progestin.
That said, if you're breastfeeding your baby exclusively, day and night, you may not menstruate again for a year or even longer after giving birth. If your baby sleeps through the night at an early age, your period probably will return more quickly — typically in three to eight months. The same is true if you're supplementing with formula.
In other words, the more often your baby nurses, the longer it may be before you get your period again. Experts believe this is because breastfeeding curbs the hormones that trigger ovulation. But remember, you could start ovulating again at any time after three months of lactation, and you probably won't know when it happens. If you want to make sure you don't get pregnant, use some form of birth control every time you have sex.
YES YOU CAN!!!!!!!!!
I have one son that is 16 months and one that is 2 months.
a BabyCenter Member
Perhaps some mention of fetility awareness would be good here.... not just saying to use birth control. It's just as easy to take your temp and check your body signs as it is to take a pill or put a condom on. Why would a new mom want to shove herself full of a bunch of hormones when her hormones are already so wacky?!
I would like to mention that it is completely normal to not get your first postpartum period until AFTER the end of the first year. In fact, some women don't see it return until a few months after they stop nursing. I got my first when my son was 17 months old. If you nurse frequently between 1AM and 5AM you are more likely to delay ovulation. Having a lot of skin to skin contact with your baby will also postpone AF's return.
This is to all the women out there! I strongly believe in breast feeding and my 1st daughter was only six weeks old and I was breast feeding exclusively and got pregnant never even got a period yet. My 1st duaghter was 10 months old when I brought home baby # 2 crazy huh! So I went on the iud and it was fine at first because I nursed my 2nd daughter for a year and never had a period. However when I then quit nursing and got my period I got cramps, sever bloating, and really long and heavy periods. I never had any problems before the iud, so I waited it out and it got worse. I then went to the doctor and have it removed and he coulodn't get it out. So the next day I was in same day sugery and they had to piy me completely under to remove it. I now am pregnant again which is great, but my husband is gonna get snip snip!LOL
No more for me! I cannot remember the pill for the life of me!
My husband and i have used/are using Natural Family Planning - Sympto/Thermal method. And i have totally known each and every time i ovulate or are about to ovulate. It's simple once you know the signs to look for in your body. And it works weather you have a regular or irregular montly cycle!
a BabyCenter Member
Yep! I have been exclusively breast feeding my 7month old son and taking the low dose bc and now found out i'm pregnant!
For some women, breastfeeding offers no birth control; other women have to wean to conceive. A general rule is if baby is less than 6 months, exclusively breastfed, and mom hasn't started her period, then breastfeeding is as effective as the pill - which is *not* infallible! According to Jack Newman's Ultimate Breastfeeding Answer Book (or something like that!), even the mini-pill can affect some women's milk supply. A pill is better than a shot - if it does mess with milk supply mom can stop taking the pill; she has a much tougher battle with an injected medication.
a BabyCenter Member
The answer is a definitive "yes". If it has happened to only one woman, it's possible. However, I must say that exclusively breastfeeding and extended breastfeeding helps lengthen the time before ovulation. After my son was born, I got my first period two months before his 3rd birthday. Before the advent of formula/bottle feeding and birth control, breastfeeding was a very effective natural family planning method.
yes! i have a 13 month old son and a 2 months and 3 week old baby boy now!
a BabyCenter Member
You can most certainly get pregnant while breastfeeding especially if you are supplementing and even if you arent after 6 months you need to consider getting on the "mini pill" or an IUD that wont affect your breastmilk. Good luck! My daughters are 19 months apart...I was shocked when I found out because I thought breastfeeding was good birth control. It worked for a while. I love my IUD that I had put in 5 weeks after the birth of my second daughter. I had some slight bleeding for a few months afterwards but it works great and now I have no periods and dont have to worry about getting pregnant for a while.
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any information posted by community members. | <urn:uuid:8c93c27e-498b-4f1b-845d-8aac8cff36e6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.babycenter.com/404_can-i-get-pregnant-while-breastfeeding_7093.bc?startIndex=0&questionId=7093 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00047-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962741 | 1,383 | 1.875 | 2 |
Surplus, Federal (1836)
See also: Literary Fund.
Distribution of the U.S. government's surplus revenue in 1836 helped inaugurate an era of unprecedented development in North Carolina, particularly in the realm of public education. Although the $1.5 million distributed in the state may seem small by modern standards, it was an unexpectedly generous sum in 1836. Its proceeds transformed the moribund Literary Fund, established a decade earlier, into a nearly inexhaustible source of revenue for local schools, lasting until the end of the Civil War. On a political level, the surplus ushered in more than a decade of Whig political supremacy in North Carolina, coming after a lengthy battle on the national level between Democratic president Andrew Jackson and his congressional opponents, the Whigs, led by Henry Clay.
In 1833 Jackson had vetoed an earlier distribution bill that sought to return federal funds from the sale of western lands to the states after the national debt had been repaid. But the issue refused to die, and Jackson was forced to accept the compromise bill of 1836. By then even Democrats, while distrustful of federal encroachment on state rights, were clamoring for the revenue to reduce state taxes and pay off the state debt. In some states, however, the more progressive Whigs successfully advocated use of the money for internal improvements (primarily railroads and swamp drainage) and state aid to public education. In North Carolina, Whigs engineered a legislative compromise that kept $100,000 for state operating expenses but devoted the remainder to purchasing bank stock ($600,000) and railroad securities ($533,000) and financing internal projects, such as swamp drainage ($200,000). The stock and securities were assigned to the Literary Fund, where the accrued dividends allowed annual financing for the state's first "common," or public, schools.
The distribution proved an immediate bonanza for two unfinished railroads-the Wilmington & Raleigh (later renamed the Wilmington & Weldon) and the Raleigh & Gaston-that had run out of private construction funds before the state took up their cause. Despite strong opposition from Democrats, the Whigs soon committed $500,000 of the Literary Fund's new money to the 161-mile Wilmington-Weldon system, which in 1840 was the world's longest. Also in 1840 the Raleigh & Gaston Railroad was completed after the legislature agreed to endorse its bonds. The state would eventually commit more than $1 million to the Wilmington-Weldon line, which began paying dividends after 1850. The failing Raleigh-Gaston line, which the state was forced to buy in 1845, proved less lucrative. Meanwhile, the swamp-drainage project was ineffective and the investment considered almost a total loss; the Literary Fund paid out $200,000 to drain Mattamuskeet, Pungo, and Alligator Lakes and open savanna lands in Carteret County, but it saw no return on its investments.
It was the public schools that benefited most from the Literary Fund's expenditures after 1836. The public school law of 1839 permitted an annual expenditure by the fund of $40 for every school district in the state; this raised an additional $20 in taxes and supplied a school building for at least 50 white pupils. By 1840 Rockingham County voters had authorized the first free common school in the state; within six more years, every county had at least one public school. More than 100,000 children were enrolled in 1850, when 2,657 individual schools were in operation. The Literary Fund, which boasted more than $2 million in 1850, remained solvent until 1865, when poor investments and the postwar financial collapse virtually wiped out its capital.
For all its limitations, the experiment in federal revenue sharing was more successful in North Carolina than in other states, where speculators and unwise investments quickly used up the distributions. Although the surplus distributions were theoretically issued as loans to the states, they were never required to be repaid; many states expected the federal largess to continue indefinitely, but for political and economic reasons, this did not occur. The next attempt at federal revenue sharing did not occur until the 1970s, more than a century later.
Hugh T. Lefler and Albert R. Newsome, North Carolina: The History of a Southern State (3rd ed., 1973).
Marcus C. S. Noble, A History of the Public Schools of North Carolina (1930).
"Congress passes the Surplus Revenue Act." History Engine, The University of Richmond. http://historyengine.richmond.edu/episodes/view/536 (accessed September 18, 2012).
"An Act to aid the Internal Improvements of this State." Laws of the State of North Carolina, passed by the General Assembly. Raleigh [N.C.]: Thos. J, Lemay. 1837. http://digital.ncdcr.gov/u?/p249901coll22,165358 (accessed September 18, 2012).
Bourne, Edward Gaylord. The history of the surplus revenue of 1837; being an account of its origin, its distribution among the states, and the uses to which it was applied. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1885. http://archive.org/stream/historyofsurplus00bour#page/n3/mode/2up (accessed September 18, 2012).
Collins, Wm. F. "Report from the Comptroller's Department Of North Carolina, To The Governor of the State, Showing the Receipts And Disbursements at the Treasury Department." Raleigh [N.C.]: Thos. J, Lemay. 1840. http://digital.ncdcr.gov/u?/p249901coll22,85099 (accessed September 18, 2012).
1 January 2006 | Justesen, Benjamin R. | <urn:uuid:793e7580-3f95-4587-b0fc-fd1722a04ae8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ncpedia.org/surplus-federal-1836 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955706 | 1,206 | 3.4375 | 3 |
Unhealthy glow? -
Whether you are heading to the beach or simply walking from your office to your car this summer, you ought to take care of your skin. This article offers some great advice.
Don’t skimp on the sunscreen. Use at least 15 SPF (stands for Sun Protection Factor) Apply 30 minutes before exposure and reapply often. If you can’t wear sunscreen, stay in the shade. Wear clothing to cover unprotected skin. Wear sunglasses.
Just like you need to take care of your skin, you also should take care of your teeth. For some good tips on improving your oral hygiene, check out this blog post from January.
Your smile is just as important as your skin, and keeping both of them healthy is a great way to prevent a host of problems. Call us today at (979) 846-6515 if you would like to set up an appointment.
The summer doldrums -
Every summer on Wall Street, a phenomenon that has come to be called the “Summer Doldrums” occurs. Due to the sunny summer months, many of brokers, traders, money managers, and investment analysts choose to take a break from Wall Street. This causes the total volume of transactions to decrease (and the volatility of the market to consequently increase).
What about you and your business? Do you find things slowing down or speeding up in the summer?
If things are slowing down for you, one way you might be able to grow your business is by increasing your confidence. A more confident smile goes a long way in social interactions. We can help get you there, even if you dread coming to the dentist. Our friend Chad is the perfect example of how we can help you!
Call us today at (979) 846-6515 to set up an appointment.
Beat the heat this summer -
Here are some tips I rounded up for beating the intense heat this summer.
Stay indoors! This one is a no-brainer, especially since we have air-conditioning down to an art form in Texas. Drink lots of water. If you spend much time outdoors, make sure to prepare and bring plenty of fluids with you. Dehydration and overheating can sneak up on you quickly. Go outside in the morning and evening, and avoid mid-day to afternoon heat. If you plan your day right, you can enjoy the outdoors in Texas even in the middle of June. Know your limit. Even those of us with the strongest constitutions can easily fall victim to heat stroke. If you are doing anything in the heat, make sure to pay close attention to your body. If you need to stop and rest, do so!
Most of the time, you are responsible for your own health. Similarly, dentists can only do so much for our patients. We can correct problems, straighten teeth, fill in gaps, but we can’t form your habits for you.
Take a look at some of our old blog posts for some good tips on developing good oral hygiene. Remember that bad oral health can lead to all sorts of problems! Call us at (979) 846-6515 today to learn more.
Christmas in June?? -
It’s early June now; is there a better time to start planning for Christmas?
Looking back at your Christmas photos from last year, do you find yourself wishing you had taken care of some crooked teeth? Are you feeling regret that you didn’t smile enough due to embarrassment?
While we don’t have a time machine, the good news is that we can give you a new smile in time for Christmas this year!
With 6 Month Smiles, we can correct problems with your smile in around half a year’s time. Not only that, you can smile without worry since we use inconspicuous material – no unsightly metal wires!
To learn more, call us at (979) 846-6515 to set up an appointment.
Depression: an unexpected result of migraines? -
According to a recent study, persistent migraines can be linked to a higher incidence of depression.
Like a number of other medical conditions, migraines can start a domino-like chain of cause and effect. Similar to how I noted that bad oral hygiene can eventually lead to heart disease and erectile dysfunction, migraines can lead to depression and depressive tendencies.
If you have unexplained migraines, it might be due to a disorder called TMD, or TMJD. TemporoMandibular Joint Disorder is a condition where a joint at the top of your jaw is misaligned. This causes a number of symptoms ranging from clicking sounds to persistent and recurring headaches.
To learn more, watch the video by Dr. Curtis Westersund.
If you think your symptoms match these, call us today to set up an appointment at (979) 846-6515.
School’s (almost) out for summer -
Ah, summer vacation…
Lemonade stands, swimming pools, and no school! Now that we’re older, the summer doesn’t affect our lives so dramatically. Yet, some of that summer magic lingers on. Here are some great tips for taking advantage of the summer months, even when you are done with school.
Visit an amusement park. Astroworld isn’t open anymore, but Six Flags in Dallas and Fiesta Texas are both open every day in the summer months. Host a summer-themed party. You could hold a luau or just grill out with some friends. Go to a baseball game. The Rangers and the Astros are soon to be division rivals, but for now you can drive to watch either an American League or a National League almost any time. And don’t forget our local club team, the Brazos Valley Bombers. Their opening day is only weeks away! Beat the heat by taking a mini-vacation somewhere cooler. Or just head to the beach, if you prefer the sun.
No matter how bright the sun gets, a brilliant smile will still light up a room. Get your summer smile ready to go by calling us today and setting up an appointment. You can reach us at (979) 846-6515.
What are your greatest fears? -
One study shows that young people are most afraid of spiders. Needles, clowns, and close spaces also make the list.
A more serious set of fears becomes apparent when we really dig deep at the human condition. All of us, at some level, fear suffering, rejection, and death.
We can help you face TWO of these fears head-on with advances in Sedation dentistry. Your smile plays a crucial role in social interactions, and having a near-perfect smile gives you confidence and helps you overcome fear of rejection. Yet, fixing your smile brings up another common fear, that of suffering pain.
With Sedation Dentistry, this fear is put to rest as well. Listen to Chad’s story , and find out how you can overcome your fears! Contact us at (979) 846-6515 to learn more about this revolutionary approach.
What is the look of authority? -
Most people agree that prominent cheekbones and a strong jaw line indicate authority and are considered attractive. This is confirmed when you look at stereotypical characters in cartoons and movies.
Some people are gifted with this kind of look naturally. Others seek out artificial ways to effect a stronger jaw line or emphasize their cheekbones.
Now, if you have dentures or are thinking about getting them, one effective way to establish a memorable jaw line is to get Face Lift dentures. Using advances in neuromuscular dentistry, we can correct the caved-in look that can come from wearing dentures.
Call us at (979) 846-6515 to set up an appointment today!
A sleepy epidemic -
When you hear the word epidemic, sleep is not the first thing that comes to mind. Instead, you might think of swine flu, or some other contagious disease that spreads rapidly out of control. By definition, however, an epidemic is the widespread occurrence of a condition or disease.
According to the CDC, an “estimated 50-70 million US adults have sleep or wakefulness disorder.” While the National Sleep Foundation suggests that “adults need 7-9 hours” of sleep, the actual average is 1-2 hours below the required levels.
This is a problem because “persons experiencing sleep insufficiency are also more likely to suffer from chronic diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, depression, and obesity, as well as from cancer, increased mortality, and reduced quality of life and productivity.” Not only does a lack of sleep lower your quality of life, but it can actually put life at risk!
There are many sources for this problem. One cause that we are increasingly becoming aware of is Sleep Apnea – a condition in which you comes out of deep sleep several times a night. Because of this, you don’t get enough REM sleep, which your body needs.
Obstructive Sleep Apnea (or OSA) is the most common type of Apnea. OSA occurs often due to soft tissues collapsing to block free airflow. One treatment for OSA involves surgery to open up the airways. A less invasive solution is the CPAP machine (Continuous Positive Airway Passage). The patient wears a mask of some sort while sleeping which keeps his or her airways open with a continual flow of air.
I personally suffer from OSA, and I am constantly looking for the best treatments for myself and my patients. To learn more about CPAP machines, alternatives to CPAP machines (like Somnodent), and the symptoms of OSA, click here.
Give your smile high priority! -
Bad breath. Cavities. Gingivitis and Periodontitis. These are just a few of the consequences of poor oral hygiene. Perhaps the worst consequence is a lack of confidence; without a bright smile at the ready, you are always at a disadvantage.
The good news is that taking care of your smile is easy! It simply takes developing good habits.
I found this quote online “Each day, the average person spends 8.5 hours sleeping, 1 hour eating, 7.2 minutes volunteering and only 50 seconds brushing their teeth. Set your alarm 2 minutes earlier and squeeze in some extra brush time. Dentists recommend 2-3 minutes.”
The amount of time we spend taking care of our smiles is disproportionate to the value of our smiles. Call us today at (979) 846-6515 to set up a visit to our office. | <urn:uuid:d22e28a3-8602-46bd-bd3c-d2070e2a9bc9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://drreecedds.tumblr.com/mobile | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00062-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934561 | 2,234 | 1.929688 | 2 |
Pub. date: 2005 | Online Pub. Date: September 15, 2007 | DOI: 10.4135/9781412952514 | Print ISBN: 9780761927310 | Online ISBN: 9781412952514 | Publisher:SAGE Publications, Inc.About this encyclopedia
The term abolition emerged during the 1830s to define a means of ending slavery. According to abolitionists slavery could be wiped out only by abandoning it and all the structures dependent on it altogether. In contrast, other antislavery activists at the time known as gradualists sought to end slavery by buying slaves and setting them free. Gradualism did little to reduce or eliminate the slave system since it did not target the root of the practice. Similar divisions exist within the field of criminal justice. Unlike other reformers who want to change, improve, or better the existing justice system, abolitionists wish to do away with it altogether. Reformers who are not abolitionists usually lobby for more humanitarian treatment of offenders, while seeking to reduce prison terms, or alter criminal law in some manner. Such a course calls for modifications—often substantial—without challenging the institutional or philosophical base on which the Contemporary ... | <urn:uuid:932e6f31-b1f9-4f55-be78-b3752ea720a8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://knowledge.sagepub.com/abstract/prisons/n2.xml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00061-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.908231 | 241 | 4.25 | 4 |
Stereo photography and some retouching.
Friday, September 16th, 2011
I came across my first ever examples of some really good stereo photographs within the last week. Now as a youngster I remember the old view-master stuff that we used to see kids with, that used the discs of small slides but these were little better than toys compared to the sight of good kodak slide film through a proper viewer.
These were stereo photos taken in the mid to late sixties. They must have been taken with something like the stereo realist camera shown below, the left and right lenses formed the image on the slide film and the middle lens was used for focusing like a rangefinder camera.
It was amazing to see the 3d stereo effect created by using the special viewer which the owner of the photos had sourced, it came complete with inbuilt focus adjustment and background lighting in the viewer. The photos consisted of 2 slides, shot side by side with the stereo camera, the slides then fitted into the viewer with one for each eye. You had to pay particular attention to fitting the slides into the viewer turned in the correct manner (After one or two boggle-eyed experiences I spotted the little notation of the front of each slide) and the 3d effect was phenomenal. Even though some of the shots were in poor enough condition, badly marked and scratched, when fitted into the viewer they really came to life and you soon ignored the dust and scratches.
After getting my first look at these, I started researching stereo imaging and have stumbled across some nice digital camera add-ons which I may well have a look at to experiment with later.
I was asked to have a look at retouching some of the old slides, and having received some of the scans to have a look at, they proved to be failry badly marked and scratched, with some fungus even growing on them resulting in poor enough quality scans. We did some test runs to see if the client was going to be happy with our results, I’ve posted a couple of these before and after images below.
Run your mouse over the images below to see some of the results.
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Isaiah Chapter 1 (Original 1611 KJV Bible)
This is the text and a scan of the actual, original, first printing of the 1611 King James Version, the 'HE' Bible, for Isaiah Chapter 1. The KJV does not get more original or authentic than this. View Isaiah Chapter 1 as text-only. Click to switch to the standard King James Version of Isaiah Chapter 1
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1 Isaiah complaineth of Iudah for her rebellion. 5 He lamenteth her iudgements. 10 He vpbraideth their whole seruice. 16 He exhorteth to repentance, with promises and threatnings. 21 Bewailing their wickednesse, hee denounceth Gods iudgements. 25 Hee promiseth grace, 28 and threatneth destruction to the wicked.
4 Ah sinnefull nation, a people laden with iniquitie, a seede of euill doers, children that are corrupters: they haue forsaken the Lord, they haue prouoked the Holy one of Israel vnto anger, they are gone away backward.4
6 From the sole of the foote, euen vnto the head, there is no soundnesse in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores: they haue not beene closed, neither bound vp, neither mollified with oyntment.6
11 To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices vnto me, sayth the Lord? I am full of the burnt offerings of rammes, and the fat of fedde beasts, and I delight not in the blood of bullockes, or of lambes, or of hee goates.11
View Wesley's Notes for Isaiah Chapter 1
1:1 Vision - Or, the visions; the word being here collectively used: the sense is, this is the book of the visions or prophecies. As prophets were called Seers, #1Sam 9:9|, so prophecies are called visions, because they were as clearly and certainly represented to the prophets minds, as bodily objects are to mens eyes. Saw - Foresaw and foretold. But he speaks, after the manner of the prophets, of things to come, as if they were either past or present. Judah - Principally, but not exclusively. For he prophecies also concerning Egypt and Babylon, and divers other countries; yet with respect to Judah. The days - ln the time of their reign. Whence it may be gathered, that Isaiah exercised his prophetical office above fifty years altogether.
1:2 Hear - He directs his speech to those senseless creatures, that he might awaken the Israelites, whom he hereby proclaims to be so dull and stupid that they were past hearing, and therefore calls in the whole creation of God to bear witness against them. The Lord - This is his plea against them, of the equity whereof he is willing that all the creatures should be judges.
1:3 Know - Me their owner and master. Knowing is here taken practically, as it is usually in scripture, and includes reverence and obedience.
1:4 A seed - The children of wicked parents, whose guilt they inherit, and whose evil example they follow. Corrupters - Heb. that corrupt themselves, or others by their counsel and example. Backward - Instead of proceeding forward and growing in grace.
1:5 Head - The very head and heart of the body politick, from whence the plague is derived to all the other members.
1:7 In your presence - Which your eye shall see to torment you, when there is no power in your hands to deliver you. As - Heb. as the overthrow of strangers, that is, which strangers bring upon a land which is not likely to continue in their hands, and therefore they spare no persons, and spoil and destroy all things, which is not usually done in wars between persons of the same, or of a neighbouring nation.
1:8 Is left - Is left solitary, all the neighbouring villages and country round about it being laid waste.
1:10 Of Sodom - So called for their resemblance of them in wickedness. The law - The message which I am now to deliver to you from God, your great lawgiver.
1:11 To me - Who am a spirit, and therefore cannot be satisfied with such carnal oblations, but expect to have your hearts and lives, as well as your bodies and sacrifices, presented unto me. Blood - He mentions the fat and blood, because these were in a peculiar manner reserved for God, to intimate that even the best of their sacrifices were rejected by him.
1:12 To appear - Upon the three solemn feasts, or upon other occasions. Who required - The thing I commanded, was not only, nor chiefly, that you should offer external sacrifices, but that you should do it with true repentance, with faith in my promises, and sincere resolutions of devoting yourselves to my service.
1:13 The solemn meeting - The most solemn day of each of the three feasts, which was the last day.
1:15 Blood - You are guilty of murder, and oppression.
1:16 Wash - Cleanse your hearts and hands.
1:17 Learn - Begin to live soberly, righteously, and godly. Judgment - Shew your religion to God, by practising justice to men. Judge - Defend and deliver them.
1:19 If - If you are fully resolved to obey all my commands. Shall eat - Together with pardon, you shall receive temporal and worldly blessings.
1:21 The city - Jerusalem, which in the reign of former kings was faithful to God. An harlot - Is filled with idolatry. Murderers - Under that one gross kind, he comprehends all sorts of unrighteous men and practices.
1:23 Rebellious - Against me their sovereign Lord. Companions of thieves - Partly by giving them connivance and countenance, and partly by practising the same violence, and cruelty, and injustice that thieves used to do. Gifts - That is, bribes given to pervert justice.
1:25 And purge - I will purge out of thee, those wicked men that are incorrigible, and for those of you that are curable, I will by my word, and by the furnace of affliction, purge out all that corruption that yet remains in you.
1:26 Thy counsellors - Thy princes shall hearken to wise and faithful counsellors. Called faithful - Thou shalt be such.
1:27 Redeemed - Shall be delivered from all their enemies and calamities. With - Or, by judgment, that is, by God's righteous judgment, purging out those wicked and incorrigible Jews, and destroying their unmerciful enemies. Converts - Heb. her returners, those of them who shall come out of captivity into their own land. Righteousness - Or, by righteousness, either by my faithfulness, in keeping my promise, or by my goodness.
1:29 The oaks - Which, after the manner of the Heathen, you have consecrated to idolatrous uses. Gardens - In which, as well is in the groves, they committed idolatry.
1:31 The strong - Your idols, which you think to be strong and able to defend you. As tow - Shall be as suddenly and easily, consumed by my judgments, as tow is by fire. The maker - Of the idol, who can neither save himself nor his workmanship.
Isaiah Chapter 1 Sidenote References (from Original 1611 KJV Bible):
2 Deu. 32.1.
4 Heb. of heauinesse. , Heb. alienated, or separated.
5 Heb. increase reuolt.
6 Or, oyle.
7 Chap.5.5. deut. 28. 51, 52. , Heb. as the ouerthrow of strangers.
9 Lam.3.22 rom. 9.29. , Gen. 19. 24.
11 Prou. 15.8 and 21.7. chap. 66.3. iere. 6.20. amos 5.21. , Heb. great hee goats.
12 Heb. to be seene.
13 Or, griefe.
15 Prou. 1. 28. iere.14 12. mic. 3.4. , Heb. multiply prayer. , Cha. 59.3. , Heb. bloods
16 1.Pet.3. 11.
17 Or, righten.
23 Ier. 5.28. Zac.7.10.
25 Heb. according to purenesse.
27 Or, they that returne of her.
28 Iob. 31.3. psal. 1.6. & 5.6. & 73. 27. & 92. 10. & 104. 35. , Heb. breaking.
31 Or, and his worke.
* Courtesy of Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Pennsylvania
What Do You Think of Isaiah 1?
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Workers Counseled on Back Pain Return to Job Sooner
Latest Chronic Pain News
THURSDAY, Aug. 9 (HealthDay News) -- Workers on medical leave because of lower back pain are more likely to return to work if they receive reassurance and medical advice on how to stay active, according to a new study.
People with nonspecific lower back pain who avoid activity could delay their recovery, say researchers Dr. Marc Du Bois and Peter Donceel, at KU Leuven, a university in Belgium.
Their study involved more than 500 workers -- mostly blue-collar -- on sick leave because of low back pain. Workers who had symptoms of a serious back problem were not included.
The study was published in the Aug. 1 issue of Spine.
The researchers randomly selected half of the workers to receive information and advice on their condition. Specifically, these workers were told their pain would likely resolve over time. They were also advised to avoid bed rest, to remain active and continue with their normal daily routine.
The remaining participants did not receive this information and advice and were only given a standard disability evaluation.
Workers who were educated about back pain and reassured that they would get better were more likely to return to work. After one year, the study showed, only 4 percent of these workers had not done so. In comparison, 8 percent of those who did not receive the counseling on back pain remained on leave.
The researchers found that the 38 percent of those who were given the advice on back pain had repeated episodes of medical leave, compared with 60 percent of those who did not receive this advice.
"Combined counseling and disability evaluation by a medical advisor results in a higher return to work rate due to a lower sick leave recurrence as compared to disability evaluation alone," the study's authors wrote in a journal news release.
Advice on low back pain should be part of routine disability evaluations to prevent it from becoming a chronic and disabling condition, the authors concluded, and this advice should be provided within six weeks of a worker going out on medical leave.
-- Mary Elizabeth Dallas
Copyright © 2012 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
SOURCE: Spine, news release, Aug. 2, 2012
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29 miles, moderate rating, 100 foot elevation change, located in the South end, series of 10 connecting trails, follows closely the path of General Grant's troop movements from Fort Henry to Fort Donelson during Civil War.
Nestled in western Kentucky and Tennessee, Land Between the Lakes offers a variety of outdoor "basics" plus many unique experiences. When the Cumberland and Tennessee rivers were impounded to create Kentucky and Barkley lakes, an inland peninsula was formed. President John F. Kennedy designated the peninsula Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area to demonstrate how recreational areas could provide economic stimulus in the region. Almost half a century later, visitors from all over the world are enjoying all the adventure that LBL has to offer. With more than 170,000 acres, hundreds of campsites spread throughout the area, 300 miles of undeveloped shoreline, and hundreds of miles for all types of trail users, you're sure to create memories that will last a lifetime. Be sure to "Call before you haul" to get the latest trail information. | <urn:uuid:72676311-53c4-407f-a5c0-4262a1d97699> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kentuckytourism.com/outdoor-adventure/trail/fort-henry-national-recreational-trail/758/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936543 | 212 | 1.929688 | 2 |
There are some new ways to help test for Celiac Disease and
gluten-sensitivity that may make diagnoses easier. If you have Celiac
you may go get a traditional blood test though they are not always
accurate and could give a false reading. A biopsy is the truest way to
test for Celiac though some find the procedure too much of a hassle to
A saliva test can also help test for Celiac or gluten sensitivity though the tests can also be unreliable. Additionally, these tests look at the genes for Celiac and only determine if you may develop the disease rather than if you actually have it. Finally, a stool test could be used to diagnose Celiac Disease, though the effectiveness is still under review.
If you suspect you have Celiac Disease, consult with your doctor to determine the best way to get tested. Remember that you shouldn't begin a gluten-free diet until after the test since you must be consuming gluten for results to be more accurate.
Read more: http://www.celiac.com/articles/22565/1/New-Laboratory-Tests-for-those-with-Gluten-Intolerance/Page1.html | <urn:uuid:5380e69f-ed67-48e7-81c4-f2356f27e3a7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://glutenfreepizza.typepad.com/gluten-free-pizza/2012/12/how-do-you-test-for-celiac-disease.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927421 | 247 | 2.84375 | 3 |
Some readers agreed it was a dangerous spot because drivers traveling alone had to pull into the oncoming lane of traffic to use it.
Others argued there was a safe way to use the box when traveling alone. Still others pointed out that all drive-up mailboxes are on the right side of the road unless they are on one-way streets. And others said those using the drive-up box were simply lazy.
The drive-up mailbox -- located along the east entrance road at a strip mall near Salvatore's Pizzeria -- was removed and replaced with a walk-up mailbox on the sidewalk just outside the pizzeria.
Based on the earlier response, we're guessing that some people are pleased with this change while others are not. Tell us what you think by posting a comment below.
Somebody Do Something is a regular feature in which we focus on problem spots in the Lehigh Valley and northwest New Jersey.
Among the problems we've drawn attention to are rundown buildings, dangerous or confusing traffic intersections (one was fixed), broken stairs (that were fixed), a bumpy road (that was fixed) a dangerous storm drain (that was fixed) and an uneven driveway (that was fixed). The goal is to highlight the problem, generate public discussion and, hopefully, get the problem fixed by those with the power to do so.If you know of a trouble spot that you'd like to see featured, post a comment below or email email@example.com. | <urn:uuid:5b15aa92-746c-4611-bcfa-f9e1c1e05fdf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lehighvalleylive.com/easton/index.ssf/2013/03/somebody_did_something_mailbox.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978895 | 306 | 1.53125 | 2 |
The morning lecture series is Chautauqua’s signature program, welcoming distinguished scientists, authors, educators and other experts in fields such as arts and humanities, foreign affairs and religion, to engage with Chautauqua audiences on matters that shape our world.
The Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle (CLSC), the oldest continuous book club in America, introduced learning by correspondence and has enrolled over a half-million readers.
Today, CLSC books address critical and ethical issues of the day through a variety of genres, with an author presenting a different book each week of the summer season.
The Chautauqua Writers’ Center brings focus to writing as an art form with nationally recognized authors in residence offering workshops, readings and lectures, as well as an annual preseason Writers’ Festival, to writers at all levels of development.
And each summer, 10,000 lifelong learners enroll in continued education courses through the Special Studies program. More than 300 teachers, experienced in subjects they love, offer classes in subjects ranging from music to dance to computers, yoga and academic issues. | <urn:uuid:4b1d0b14-8a1c-4ed6-bebe-1725697b32e9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ciweb.org/education/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947615 | 222 | 1.882813 | 2 |
Jan Van Eyck's Arnolfini "Wedding" Portrait
|"...[M]eaning is neither found nor given, but that it takes shape arbitrarily, and that it is dependent upon associations and circumstances that scholars, artists, and viewers all bring to their engagement with paintings. It is not constructed by any one of them alone, although each of us is responsible for the orchestration of our own responses..." (Linda Seidel, Jan Van Eyck's Arnolfini Portrait: Stories of an Icon, Cambridge University Press, 1993, p. 14).|
Seidel reminds us in the quotation above that we should not understand our role as a passive one in which we simply reflect the "found" or "given" meaning of a work of art. Instead we need to take an active stance in relationship to the work and make or construct our own understanding of the meaning of a work of art. Seidel describes the role of the art historian as a narrator or story teller. This is the stance we took when we examined the Hopper painting Office at Night, and this will be the stance I want us take in considering one of the major examples of Northern Renaissance art, Jan van Eyck's so-called Arnolfini Wedding Portrait. When we discussed the Hopper we needed to pay attention to the differences in social / cultural codes between our own and that of the period in which Hopper painted.
In preparation for our class discussion, I want you to begin to create your own story about the painting. Consider the following gallery of details and try to explain how they fit into your story.
The following excerpt is from Gardner's Art Through the Ages (pp. 576-578). It gives you a standard textbook study of the painting:
The intersection of the secular and religious in Flemish painting also surfaces in Jan van Eyck's double portrait Giovanni Arnolfini and His Bride. Van Eyck depicts the Lucca financier (who had established himself in Bruges as an agent of the Medici family) and his betrothed in a Flemish bedchamber that is simultaneously mundane and charged with the spiritual. As in the Mérode Altarpiece , almost every object portrayed conveys the event's sanctity, specifically, the holiness of matrimony. Arnolfini and his bride, Giovanna Cenami, hand in hand, take the marriage vows. The cast-aside clogs indicate this event is taking place on holy ground. The little dog symbolizes fidelity (the common canine name Fido originated from the Latin fido, "to trust"). Behind the pair, the curtains of the marriage bed have been opened. The bedpost's finial (crowning ornament) is a tiny statue of Saint Margaret, patron saint of childbirth. From the finial hands a whisk broom, symbolic of domestic care. The oranges on the chest below the window may refer to fertility, and the all-seeing eye of God seems to be referred to twice. It is symbolized once by the single candle burning in the left rear holder of the ornate chandelier and again by the mirror, where viewers see the entire room reflected. The small medallions set into the mirror's frame show tiny scenes from the Passion of Christ and represent God's ever-present promise of salvation for the figures reflected on the mirror's convex surface.
Van Eyck enhanced the documentary nature of this painting by exquisitely painting each object. He carefully distinguished textures and depicted the light from the window on the left reflecting off various surfaces. The artist augmented the scene's credibility by including the convex mirror, because viewers can see not only the principals, Arnolfini and his wife, but also two persons who look into the room through the door. One of these must be the artist himself, as the florid inscription above the mirror, "Johannes de Eyck fuit hic," announces he was present. The picture's purpose, then, seems to have been to record and sanctify this marriage. Although this has been the traditional interpretation of this image, some scholars recently have taken issue with this reading, suggesting that Arnolfini is conferring legal privileges on his wife to conduct business in his absence. Despite the lingering questions about the precise purpose of Giovanni Arnolfini and his Bride, the painting provides viewers today with great insight into both van Eyck's remarkable skill and Flemish life in the fifteenth century.
An early sixteenth century inventory record apparently referring to the London painting identifies the man in the painting as: "Arnoult-fin." This appears to be a French version of the Italian name Arnolfini. There were several members of this family from Lucca in northern Europe during this period. In cities like Paris and Bruges there were colonies of Italian merchant families during this period. These families were actively engaged in the cloth industry and other luxury materials catering to the needs of the nobility of northern Europe. Many of these families also became involved with banking. The account records of northern European princes have frequent entries recording loans given by these Italian merchants to help support the need for liquid capital to support the princely households. The Arnolfini referred to in the inventory is most likely Giovanni di Arrigo Arnolfini who was born in Lucca about 1400. He appears to have settled in Bruges by 1421. An entry in the Bruges Archives for July 1 of that year records that Giovanni made a large sale of silks and hats. By at least 1423, Giovanni was engaged in transactions with the duke. There was a large payment that year from the duke for a series of six tapestries with scenes of Notre Dame. These were intended as a present to the Pope. There is a record from 1446 listing a loan by Giovanni to Philip the Good. Perhaps in exchange for the loan, Philip gave Giovanni the right to collect trariffs on goods imported from England that entered through Gravelines for a period of six years. This lucrative privilege was renewed for another six years. In 1461, Giovanni became a councillor and chamberlain to the duke, and he was knighted in 1462. Louis XI of France appointed Arnolfini a councillor and Governor of Finance of Normandy. Giovanni died in 1472 and was buried in the chapel of the Lucchese merchants at the Augustinian church in Bruges, where he and his wife had endowed daily and anniversary masses in their name.
Giovanni married Giovanna Cenami the daughter of one of the most prominent Lucchese families established in northern Europe. Giovanna's grandmother was the niece of Dino Rapondi who along with his three brothers were close financial advisors and bankers for the Dukes Philip the Bold, John the Fearless, and Philip the Good of Burgundy at the end of the fourteenth century and the beginning of the fifteenth century. In 1432 when the last of the four Rapondi brothers died, Philip the Good had a special mass sung for them. Marriage alliances like that between the Cenami and Rapondi families were not private but public matters with the futures of the families' businesses inextricably linked. For Giovanni Arnolfini marrying into such a prominent family as the Cenamis was undoubtedly a significant boost to his financial fortunes. Unfortunately, we do not know which year they were married. So while not certain, the identification of the couple as Giovanni Arnolfini and Giovanna Cenami seems likely.
We know that the couple died childless. We should be cautious not to assume that they never had any children since they perhaps had children that predeceased them. At the same time there is no evidence that they did have children. We do have records of Giovanni having an extra-marital affair. In 1470, thus late in Giovanni's life, a woman took him to court to have returned to her jewelry he had given her. She also sought a pension and several houses that she had been promised.
A Wedding Portrait?
While most scholars agree that the painting depicts Giovanni Arnolfini and Giovanna Cenami, Erwin Panofsky's assumption that the painting is a wedding portrait has been called into question. Compare the Arnolfini painting to the following works:
Whether this is a wedding portrait or not it is important to see the painting in the context of the social and institutional attitudes towards marriage. Consult the excerpts from Dale Kent's essay "Women in Renaissance Florence." While not dealing with the Netherlands, the article is still relevant. Remember that the Arnolfinis and Cenamis come from Lucca which is very close to Florence.
Is she or isn't she?
I have never taught the Arnolfini Portrait without a student asking the question whether she is pregnant. Compare the dress worn by Giovanna Cenami to that worn by St. Catherine on the right wing of the Dresden triptych:
A Lost Work by Van Eyck?
To add an additional dimension to our discussion, consider the image below. It is a detail from Willem van Haecht's Archduke Albert Visits the Kunstkammer of Cornelius van der Geest. The detail shows an Eyckian painting of a woman at her toilet.
Detail of William van Haecht, Archduke Albert Visits the Kunstkammer of Cornelius van der Geest.
Although the Eyckian work depicted in the Haecht painting has been subsequently lost, what is probably a copy of it is in the collection of the Fogg Art Museum:
The detail from the Haecht painting and the Fogg panel have been associated with the Italian humanist Fazio's description of a Van Eyck painting depicting a woman's bath. Fazio describes how van Eyck had represented the most intimate parts of a nude woman through the veil of fine linen and that the woman's back was reflected in a mirror.
The similarities of this lost work to the Arnolfini painting are unmistakeable. It seems likely that the lost work was a pendant to the London panel. How would you explain these two works as a pair?
It is interesting to compare the detail of the lost Van Eyck painting to the Annunciation in the Louvre by Rogier van der Weyden, a painting that clearly echoes the Arnolfini Double Portrait.
Echoes of the Arnolfini Portrait:
Fall of Man from the Très riches heures, c. 1416 | <urn:uuid:04bb2578-d164-4f02-9328-b1c6a41d4351> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://employees.oneonta.edu/farberas/arth/arth200/gender/Arnolfini.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967818 | 2,171 | 2.4375 | 2 |
This might sound harsh, but…
Not everyone should be an entrepreneur
There’s a certain mindset you need in order to succeed in any kind of business. People who are unable to develop this mindset are better off staying as far away from entrepreneurship as possible.
They’re liable to hurt themselves financially and emotionally.
If you’re more interested in security than freedom, then for the moment you need to keep your job. Or if you’re relying on the government or other people for your financial security, then entrepreneurship and the business world is definitely not for you.
We’ve realised that it’s easily possible to develop a success mindset, and would love to support you to do the same. We’d also like to share with you the internet marketing training platform we use.
It’s not for everyone.
But – it helps you with traffic, marketing strategies, social media, in fact anything you need to run a successful online business. But you must have the mindset to succeed (It helps you with that also!).
We also hope you find this useful – here are 5 things you must understand before you start your online business.
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Backpacking is one of the ultimate outdoor adventure activities. It can take you to some of the most remote places in the world, and it is often the only way to gain access to these locations. The feeling that comes from successfully making it to a breathtaking destination after several days/weeks/months on foot is incomparable. Everyone should go backpacking at least once.
When it comes to defining “backpacking”, there are many different interpretations of the activity. We thought we’d take some time to explain the differences in backpacking styles, and give you an idea of what we mean when we label a recipe as backpacking friendly.
First of all, backpacking basically means going on a trip that lasts at least one night, and requires you to carry anything you’ll need for the duration of your trip in a backpack. It doesn’t technically have to be a wilderness trip, since many people backpack through countries and enjoy cities and hostels/hotels the whole time. It doesn’t even technically require that you wear your own pack, if you consider taking pack animals with you acceptable. It should, however, have something to do with you being able to sustain yourself for a certain amount of time. Some backpackers go the ultralight route, cutting down the weight they take with them to a minimum so they can move through the trails ultrafast. Less weight-conscious backpackers choose to bring more comfort items, and are willing to take 12-packs of beer, chairs, books, and other surprising items. Dirty Gourmet backpacking usually fits somewhere in between.
The three of us have backpacked a good amount in our lives. The longest trips last around two weeks (unless you count the 4-month bike tour), and we’re not opposed to a quick overnight trip on a weekend. None of us focus too much on the ultralight mentality, since we are mainly recreational with the activity, rather than hugely goal-oriented. We also don’t need too many luxuries, since we understand the beauty of being able to walk back out of the woods instead of limp at the end of the trip. We aren’t opposed to difficulty. This is often the major factor that guarantees you get away from people and see magnificent places. We backpack up mountains and through snow storms with enthusiasm. It’s worth it. Remember, you’re getting away from your normal everyday activities to have an adventure!
So, we classify backpacking recipes broadly enough that all groups of backpackers will be happy to include them in their packs. Our main philosophy with food is that it is possible and often easy to incorporate delicious creative meals into any trip. Here are the specific rules we follow as closely as possible:
- Few perishables. You should be able to take our backpacking recipes with you on any length trip, and in any climate. Some ingredients are included that should be eaten on only short trips, or within the first few days. In Dirty Gourmet terms, perishables are anything that cannot last outside the fridge for more than a day. These include items like most dairy and fresh meats. We do include items including hard cheeses, summer sausages, and fresh vegetables sometimes, because these items will last up to a few days. If you are taking an extended trip (longer than 5 days), you should try to eat recipes including these items within the first few days, and move on to completely non-perishable meals by the end of the trip.
- Light. As we explained, the Dirty Gourmet philosophy allows for some luxuries, but we are still weight-conscious while still trying to create a fulfilling food experience.
- No mess. We try to write the recipe so you dirty the least amount of dishes possible. Sometimes we’ll include techniques like cleaning with snow or mixing ingredients in a disposable baggie. Leave No Trace ethics are really important to us, and the less waste you create, the easier it is to avoid littering the forest with human impact.
- No waste. We try to pay attention to normal amounts of things, and create a recipe that uses the whole thing. For instance, if we call for a can of something, we try to avoid using 1/2 can or something like that. We also try to focus on using the least amount of water possible, since we know water can be hard to part with in many places.
- Few ingredients. No one wants to carry a bunch of ingredients for each meal. Even if they are light, this will cause a significant increase in weight. We try to pare down recipes to the least amount of ingredients possible. Sometimes we’ll suggest pre-mixing things at home to help.
- Creative Meals. A big thing to keep in mind is how hungry you get when backpacking. We try to offer filling options that incorporate a good amount of protein and/or carbs that will keep you going. We also try to fulfill some of the cravings that many people feel while backpacking.
So, if you are looking to go on a backpacking trip, I hope this gives you a sense of what to consider when planning your meals. I also hope that you find us a useful resource for this activity. If we’re missing something, let us know and we’ll try to focus more on it on future trips. We are getting the itch again now that its finally cooling off.
We also hope to post a few more articles related to meal planning and your backcountry pantry soon. If you have any questions or comments that you’d like included, let us know about those too! | <urn:uuid:81bf3b8d-fd5e-483b-a7b0-9923f0f29fc3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dirtygourmet.com/on-backpacking | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962211 | 1,167 | 2.3125 | 2 |
This is the Ferrari 458 Italia, one of the stars of the Frankfurt motor show.
The Ferrari 458 Italia draws inspiration from the Enzo and takes a new look influenced by the Mille Chili concept car. By supercar standards the shape is extremely slippery, with a drag coefficient of just 0.32.
Ferrari has confirmed that the car, codenamed F142 and long rumoured to be named the F450, will be called the 458 Italia. The name derives from the powerplant: a 4.5-litre V8 which Ferrari claims has the highest specific output of any normally aspirated car engine.
It certainly has more in common with superbikes than cars; at 127bhp per litre, the specific output is greater than that of many turbocharged engines.
The high-revving 4498cc V8 has very light internal parts and tiny piston skirts, resulting in low rotation inertia and a 12.5:1 compression ratio. It puts out 562bhp at 9000rpm, 500rpm higher than the 430. That makes it the highest-revving Ferrari road car ever.
It means the 458 Italia will be ferociously fast, and Ferrari claims it will sprint to 62mph in under 3.4sec on its way to a top speed of “over 200mph”. The 458 has lapped the Fiorano test track in 1m 25s, a fraction off the time of the Enzo hypercar.
While advanced engine electronics and lightweight parts underpin the extra performance, this will be the first mid-engined application of Ferrari’s direct injection fuel system, which appeared first on the front-engined California. It also runs Ferrari’s now-traditional flat-plane crankshaft.
The 458’s engine will be one of the most flexible in Ferrari’s history, too, with 398lb ft of torque arriving at 6000rpm. While that sounds peaky, it’s only two-thirds of the way through the 458’s rev range, and over 80 per cent (318lb ft) is available from 3250rpm.
The direct fuel injection has also helped cut CO2 emissions, producing a claimed 320g/km of CO2, even though it is faster and produces significantly more power than the 483bhp F430 and the 508bhp 430 Scuderia.
Ferrari learned a lot developing the seven-speed dual-clutch gearbox for the California and it has had to do even more development to fit the unit into the 458 Italia’s engine bay, under the curvaceous glasshouse.
The dual-clutch unit from the California has been modified with different ratios and now shifts even faster than the 430 Scuderia’s 0.06sec. The gearbox’s shift style is likely to be slightly more aggressive than the California’s.
The E-Diff differential and the F1-Trac skid control system have long been the flagship carryover technologies from Formula 1, but the 458 Italia takes them even further and adds another piece of F1-derived technology to the brakes.
Instead of using individual ECUs for the E-Diff and F1-Trac, the 458 Italia has one ECU to control both (as well as the ABS system), resulting in streamlined processing and communication. Ferrari claims a 32 per cent increase in acceleration over the F430 (itself no slouch) out of corners.
The brakes feature a new system called ‘prefill’. When the driver’s foot lifts off the throttle, the pistons in the calipers move the pads towards the discs; that helps to reduce the stopping distance from 62mph to just 32.5 metres.
Ferrari has used its experience from designing the 430 Scuderia’s suspension to create the 458 Italia’s double wishbone front set-up and multi-link rear end, all bolted directly to the aluminium chassis. It’s been developed with the help of Michael Schumacher, who was spotted testing the car.
Ferrari has close ties to aluminium specialist Alcoa, which has built a factory near Modena to produce chassis for the firm. The 458 Italia’s frame uses ideas from both the 430 Scuderia and the Mille Chili concept car.
It uses more advanced bonding techniques than the 430 did, along with manufacturing processes more in line with the aero industry. The dry weight of the car is 1380kg.
F1 wind tunnel
While the 458 was designed by Pininfarina, the shape has been developed using Ferrari’s F1 wind tunnel. The bases of the black intakes in the front bumper deform at speed, closing up the intakes and reducing drag. These intakes also provide downforce and feed air though the radiators ahead of the front wheels.
The car’s shape makes air curve around the cabin and run over the integrated tail spoiler. The flat undertray enhances the effects of the rear diffuser to create 140kg of downforce at 125mph.
Inside, the 458 Italia will take the opportunity created by the more luxurious California to become the sportiest V8 in the family. Ferrari says the steering wheel and dashboard are “new innovations in production cars”; expect a development of the firm’s wheel-mounted manettino switch.
The 458 will be built alongside the California in a new production facility at Maranello.
The car is at the Frankfurt motor show and is expected to go on sale in the UK next spring. It will be more expensive than the F430, so expect prices to start at around £150,000. | <urn:uuid:53a17abb-3c6f-47cf-bbd6-d385abea04ff> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/motor-shows/frankfurt-motor-show-ferrari-458 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00069-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.920461 | 1,191 | 1.757813 | 2 |