text stringlengths 160 608k | id stringlengths 47 47 | dump stringclasses 2
values | url stringlengths 13 2.97k | file_path stringlengths 125 140 | language stringclasses 1
value | language_score float64 0.65 1 | token_count int64 48 145k | score float64 1.5 5 | int_score int64 2 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Note: This is an archived Handbook entry from 2014.
|Dates & Locations:|| |
This subject is not offered in 2014.
|Time Commitment:||Contact Hours: 3 |
Total Time Commitment:
It is strongly recommended that students enrolling in this subject have completed first and second year requirements in their Course.
|Recommended Background Knowledge:||None|
|Non Allowed Subjects:||None|
|Core Participation Requirements:||
For the purposes of considering request for Reasonable Adjustments under the Disability Standards for Education (Cwth 2005), and Students Experiencing Academic Disadvantage Policy, academic requirements for this subject are articulated in the Subject Description, Subject Objectives, Generic Skills and Assessment Requirements of this entry. The University is dedicated to provide support to those with special requirements. Further details on the disability support scheme can be found at the 3 Disability Liaison Unit website : 4 http://www.services.unimelb.edu.au/disability/
Nossal Institute for Global Health
Level 4, Alan Gilbert Building (Building 104)
161 Barry Street
CARLTON VIC 3010
Phone: +61 3 8344 0912
"Global health, Security & Sustainability" is a new and exciting subject that explores the root causes of disease, poverty, injustice and inequity that exist in the world today.
It will feature eminent speakers from a range of academic disciplines to provide students with diverse approaches to examining, understanding and addressing old and new threats to health, security and sustainability. Students will be encouraged to draw on disciplines in law, arts, engineering, economics, biosciences and medicine to explore and understand the depth, complexity and multi dimensionality of current global health challenges.
Case studies will be used to introduce the concept of chains of causation, and provide an overview of the inequity and imbalances in health status, health service provision, and health research between and within countries. The field of view will range from the individual to the global context, including major threats to health, security and sustainability, particularly global warming and the risks of nuclear war. Various academic disciplines will provide alternative perspectives to better understand how health inequities and threats arise, what tools and mechanisms are available to address them, and what we have learned about what works in improving health.
Students completing the subject should:
|Prescribed Texts:|| |
|Recommended Texts:|| |
|Breadth Options:|| |
This subject potentially can be taken as a breadth subject component for the following courses:
You should visit learn more about breadth subjects and read the breadth requirements for your degree, and should discuss your choice with your student adviser, before deciding on your subjects.
|Fees Information:||Subject EFTSL, Level, Discipline & Census Date|
Analytical thinking, report writing including referencing, research, public speaking, team work and communication skills, diplomacy, time management, prioritising and organisational skills.
U21 Diploma in Global Issues |
Download PDF version. | <urn:uuid:3a49e9b1-0461-434a-a7b1-88372719f5f7> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://archive.handbook.unimelb.edu.au/view/2014/unib30002/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572198.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20220815175725-20220815205725-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.877315 | 732 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Smaller yachts in the 50-70 foot range can cost anywhere from $300,000 to upwards of $4 million based on your criteria.
How much does a 50′-70′ yacht cost?
- New yachts in the 50′-70′ range will vary depending on the model, engines, additional options, and added features. In general, yacht models can range in price anywhere from $500,000 and upwards of $10,000,000, depending on size, year, and model. Let’s take a look at the classifications of yachts.
- 1 How much does a 60 ft yacht cost?
- 2 How much does a 65 foot yacht cost?
- 3 Is a 70 foot boat a yacht?
- 4 Do you need a crew for a 70 foot yacht?
- 5 Is a 40 foot boat a yacht?
- 6 How much does it cost to maintain a 100 foot yacht?
- 7 How much does Lexus LY 650 cost?
- 8 Does Jeff Bezos have a yacht?
- 9 Why are yachts so expensive?
- 10 What is a good size yacht?
- 11 How big must a boat be to be a yacht?
- 12 What is the largest private yacht in the world?
- 13 Why are yachts limited to 12 guests?
- 14 Can one person drive a yacht?
- 15 Do you need a license to drive a yacht?
How much does a 60 ft yacht cost?
A 60-foot yacht is about the largest size that an owner operates. A new Hatteras M60 can easily cost around $3 million. However, you can get a 2007 60-foot Sunreef 62 for $735,000.
How much does a 65 foot yacht cost?
Starting in late October, the Japanese luxury automaker’s first production boat, the 65-foot-long LY 650, will go on sale in the US with a starting price of $3.7 million.
Is a 70 foot boat a yacht?
The 70 foot yacht range often represents a demarcation in yachting. The 70 foot yacht is also just shy of what many consider to be the superyacht category. For instance, Boat International tracks superyacht sales and production data of yachts worldwide that are at least 24 meters in length (78-79 feet).
Do you need a crew for a 70 foot yacht?
While in the past 70-foot yachts needed a professionally employed captain and crew to handle the running and steering of the vessel, improvements in technology, including warping winches, joystick controls and bow and stern thrusters have allowed for up to 100-foot long boats to be easily controlled by individuals with
Is a 40 foot boat a yacht?
While the terms boat and yacht are often used interchangeably, most agree that the term yacht is indeed applicable to any boat over 40 feet in length. Moreover, a 40 foot yacht often comes into focus for couples looking to do a bit more than simple day boating.
How much does it cost to maintain a 100 foot yacht?
How much does a 100-foot yacht cost per year? You should expect to pay about 20% or more of the original price of your boat to run it annually. So, for a $10 million yacht, the cost to operate will be about $2 million per year, including fuel, insurance, dock fees, maintenance and repairs, crew, etc.
How much does Lexus LY 650 cost?
Lexus just revealed the pricing for its first-ever luxury yacht — and a fully-loaded model will cost $4.85 million. Here’s a closer look at LY 650. Lexus unveiled the LY 650, the automaker’s first-ever luxury yacht, in Boca Raton, Florida, on September 19.
Does Jeff Bezos have a yacht?
We may have gotten our first look at Jeff Bezos’ new superyacht. The 417-foot vessel was photographed rolling out of a shipyard in the Netherlands. Bezos’ yacht will become the world’s largest sailing yacht once completed.
Why are yachts so expensive?
The cost of actually building a boat is ultimately the main reason for their high price tags. Unlike cars, whose manufacturing process is now almost wholly automated, boats have to be built mostly by hand. Vast shipyards are required, where often just a handful of boats can be built over the course of several months.
What is a good size yacht?
Technically, a yacht begins at 23 feet. However, yachts that size will more often be referred to as boats. A 40-foot yacht is a great option for looking for relative simplicity and plenty of comfort and capability. This size is great for day trips dedicated to speed boating or simple cruising.
How big must a boat be to be a yacht?
To be termed a yacht, as opposed to a boat, such a pleasure vessel is likely to be at least 33 feet (10 m) in length and may have been judged to have good aesthetic qualities. The Commercial Yacht Code classifies yachts 79 ft (24 m) and over as large.
What is the largest private yacht in the world?
The 590-foot Azzam is considered the longest yacht in the world and is reportedly owned by the royal family of Abu Dhabi. Built in 2013, this Larsson yacht made yachting history for not only its size, but its ability to reach top speeds of more than 30 knots.
Why are yachts limited to 12 guests?
 The SOLAS convention involves adhering to a comprehensive list of stringent safety restrictions that are very expensive to implement and this is consequently reflected in the chartering cost increase between boats licensed for up to 12 passengers and boats licensed for more than 12 passengers.
Can one person drive a yacht?
Can you pilot your own yacht? If you’re an experienced captain who regularly pilots large yachts, a solo trip is entirely possible. However, vessels over 75 feet are more challenging to maintain alone, and some states require captains to employ a crew for a yacht that is over 50 feet long.
Do you need a license to drive a yacht?
It’s probably one of the first questions you’ll ask when you’re considering buying a boat, and the simple answer is that there isn’t a strictly speaking a ‘boat license’ which tests competency in the same way as a car license does. | <urn:uuid:c5c81e4c-f109-49c0-afca-22b038e92e75> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.sailabilitynsw.org/interesting-about-yachts/how-much-does-a-70-ft-yacht-cost.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572833.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817001643-20220817031643-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.952817 | 1,371 | 1.960938 | 2 |
How to Handle a Gas Leak
Carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide can be hazardous to your health if you are exposed to it for too long. While you cannot smell carbon monoxide directly, your utility company may include substances that will give off a putrid odor if there is a leak. Generally speaking, if you smell rotten eggs in your home, there is a good chance that there is a gas leak that needs to be fixed right away.
The Dangers of Carbon Monoxide and Dioxide
Both carbon monoxide and dioxide can reduce the amount of oxygen that is available to breathe. Without sufficient oxygen, it may become harder to breathe, and you may lose consciousness over a long enough period of time. If you don’t find a source of fresh air soon enough, it is possible to die from exposure to these gasses. Signs of carbon monoxide or dioxide poisoning include nausea, headaches and vomiting.
Don’t Try to Diagnose the Problem Yourself
While it may be tempting to try to find the source of a gas leak yourself, it is not worth the harm that it can do to your health. If you know where the gas valve is located, turn it off or have someone do it for you as soon as possible. From there, call for help either from your yard, a neighbor’s house or another location that is not your home. A NYC oil and gas inspection company may be called to diagnose the issue and make any needed repairs.
Seek Medical Treatment
If you have any problems breathing or sleeping, it could be related to gas exposure, and you should seek medical treatment as soon as possible. The same is true if you notice any other changes to your mental or physical health as they could be directly or indirectly caused by exposure to harmful materials. | <urn:uuid:b35b4d4a-e498-481f-ae83-12665ac589a5> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://insparisk.com/2018/12/04/what-to-do-when-you-smell-gas/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572833.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817001643-20220817031643-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.945774 | 366 | 2.390625 | 2 |
Epilepsy is a disorder of the nervous system that makes people have seizures for no reason. DOK SINDOnews’ photo
Quoted from the Hopkins Medicine website, the brain is composed of nerve cells that communicate with each other through electrical activity. In this case, a seizure occurs when a part of the brain experiences an abnormal burst of electrical signals and interferes with normal brain signals. When a child has multiple seizures for no reason, it can be diagnosed as epilepsy.
Launching from Medical News Today, epilepsy is common in children. Epilepsy is a neurological condition that afflicts nearly 3 million people in the United States, including among them the age of children. The Epilepsy Foundation estimates that two-thirds of these children will recover by the time they reach their teens.
Epilepsy affects children differently. Depending on their age, previous medical history, to the type of seizure experienced. According to the type of seizures are divided into two. Namely generalized seizures and focal seizures.
Focal seizures affect only one side of the brain. While generalized seizures affect both sides of the brain and can cause loss of consciousness.
If a child shows certain signs and symptoms, a doctor can diagnose them with childhood epilepsy syndrome. Here are some of them:
-Rolandik Benign Epilepsy
This syndrome usually occurs at the age of 3-10 years. In this condition, children may have focal seizures at night. Sometimes it occurs when the child is sleeping by displaying twitching characteristics of the face and tongue. | <urn:uuid:9aad6900-f144-493d-9cfc-0d08876e2279> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.archynewsy.com/epilepsy-recognize-the-characteristics-and-syndromes-that-often-occur-in-children/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572198.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20220815175725-20220815205725-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.943855 | 318 | 3.65625 | 4 |
Alumina - Expectoration symptomsOxide of Aluminum, Argilla, Aluminium Oxydatum, Aluminum, Alum.
Below are the main rubriks (i.e strongest indications or symptoms) of Alumina in traditional homeopathic usage, not approved by the FDA.
Have you ever used Alumina? Yes No
Strong and sharp (acrid)
Bloody, spitting of blood (see chest haemorrhage)
Bloody, spitting of blood (see chest haemorrhage); morning
streaked with blood
albuminous (white, thick)
Hawked up; mucus
Noticeable smell; offensive smell
Transparent, clear≡ more ... | <urn:uuid:4f499941-c9e8-490c-b9c7-2bb2ed93fbe4> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://abchomeopathy.com/r.php/Alum/expectoration/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573172.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818063910-20220818093910-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.678858 | 238 | 1.640625 | 2 |
As the Covid-19 crisis continues to disrupt global markets, is it time to hedge Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies and other digital.
The UNICEF Cryptocurrency Fund recently announced its largest-ever investment — to the tune of 125 Ether (ETH) – to help.
Ethereum Classic is represented by the ticker ETC while Ethereum is represented by ETH. (See more: Coins, Tokens & Altcoins: What’s the Difference?) The core developers, including the founder, went on and developed the new chain, and now when one talks about Ethereum they’re referring to the new chain with the ticker ETH.
27/05/2020 · Ethereum vs Ethereum Classic: what are the key differences? Initially, a choice between Ethereum vs Ethereum Classic was largely an ideological debate. On a functional level, the two projects are very similar. Both provide computational software to support smart contracts and buildout of decentralised applications on the network. However, there are several differences between Ethereum.
21/03/2017 · Ethereum Classic is a forked version of Ethereum that was activated around July 20th 2016, or more specifically block 1920000, when a controversial fork went through to prevent access to stolen funds from a project known as The DAO. To quote the Ethereum Classic website:
On the surface, the pairing of cryptocurrency – a gritty, technical pursuit – and the rather ostentatious world of fine art,
Ethereum vs Ethereum Classic – it’s a debate that crypto enthusiasts have a tendency to get passionate about (some even throw chairs when they get defensive). But even though they sound the same, these two cryptocurrencies have key distinctions that set them apart – both in terms of their market capitalisation and their philosophies.
Bitcoin Btc Bitcoin Cash Fork Price Prediction — Steemit View the real-time Bitcoin Gold price, conversion rates (USD, GBP, EUR), charts, predictions, latest price news and more. Must My Wallet Be Connected To The Internet To Receive Many years ago, I lost my rag with my parents when I walked into the kitchen. They were making and discussing what would be. That said, I’d | <urn:uuid:4771c835-8647-4fc4-9156-379c75bed26c> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | http://openit.cc/what-is-ethereum-classic-ethereum-vs-ethereum-classic/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573172.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818063910-20220818093910-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.93763 | 444 | 1.890625 | 2 |
We are pleased to announce our partnership with ThreeFold – the first true peer-to-peer Internet.
STOs vs ICOs – A Comprehensive Introduction For 2019
ICOs (Initial Coin Offerings) and STOs (Security Token Offerings) are
ICOs (Initial Coin Offerings) and STOs (Security Token Offerings) are becoming increasingly popular, with many companies looking for a way to raise capital or participate in investment opportunities. Ethereum launched the first successful ICO in 2014, raising $2.3 million within the first 12 hours. Since then, the amount of crowdfunding in the cryptocurrency space has skyrocketed, even surpassing VC funding in 2017.
Today, cumulative ICO investments are well above $22 billion, and a rich ecosystem has developed allowing blockchain-powered projects to launch their own ICOs. As a result, over 650 ICOs have received funds in 2018 according to Coindesk’s excellent ICO tracker – almost double the entire tally for 2017. The number of STOs is still tiny by comparison.
Nevertheless STOs have also proven to be hugely successful in many cases. Overstock for example, ran a month long STO which raised $134 million, and electric scooter startup SPIN raised an equally impressive $125 million.
These are just two examples of extraordinarily successful Security Token Offerings, but what exactly characterizes an STO? And what are the differences to an ICO?
Let’s find out!
STO vs ICO – Whats the difference?
The old adage says that it takes money to make money. In the case of investment opportunities this is particularly true, because accredited investors are able to take more risk than non-accredited investors.
What does this have to do with STOs? Well…. everything.
In 2017, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) began taking steps to regulate ICOs. One of the key takeaways was their definition of a “security” and how that applies to the world of cryptocurrency. More specifically, the SEC defines a security as:
This definition significantly pre-dates ICOs and is typically applied in a liberal manner by the SEC.
With this definition in mind, it’s easy to see why many token offerings may be classified as securities. Investors buy the token with the sole aim of selling it for a profit in the future. Tokens which satisfy this criteria are therefore called securities by the SEC, and fall under the purview of Securities Law.
This brings us back to accredited investors. Securities typically harbor a significant level of risk. In order to protect ordinary people from losing their money, the SEC essentially forbids non-professional investors to participate in security offerings. Instead only accredited – also known as professional – investors are allowed to participate.
As a result, US residents who are not accredited investors are not permitted to invest in an STO.
ICOs on the other hand are open to everyone, if it can be proven that the purpose of the token is not to gain a profit but to access a service. As mentioned previously however, the SEC applies its definition quite liberally, so it is hard to predict what constitutes proof in this context. In its discussion of ICOs, the SEC states:
“ICOs, or more specifically tokens, can be called a variety of names, but merely calling a token a “utility” token or structuring it to provide some utility does not prevent the token from being a security.”
With this in mind, token offerings that wish to service US retail investors need to ensure a strong use case for the token, and categorically avoid any hint of token price speculation. In other words, it needs to be a utility token rather than a security token.
Importantly, the SEC is spending a lot of time investigating past and current ICOs, occasionally resulting in a re-classification and a significant fine. Two recent examples of this are Airfox and Paragon, both of which launched a utility token in 2017, only for the SEC to deem them securities in November 2018.
As the table shows, ICOs and STOs differ in many crucial ways, and failing to understand even the subtle differences can result in significant legal problems.
Here is a break down of the key differences between STOs and ICOs:
|Feature||Security Token Offering||Initial Coin Offering|
|Type of token||Security token||Utility token|
|Purpose||To gain a financial profit||To gain access to a current or future service|
|Available for US|
|$$ Raised so far||+$300 million||+$22 billion|
|Easy to trade||No||Yes|
|Fall under US Securities Law||Yes||No|
The SelfKey Identity Wallet is a free identity solution for Windows, Linux and Mac. Get yours today!
The comparison highlights the importance of the SEC and the regulatory landscape under which a token offering operates. Most STOs in the US market are typically launched under the umbrella of Regulation D506(c), an exemption which allows accredited investors to participate in a token offering.
Let’s now look at how the SEC defines an accredited investor.
Who qualifies as an Accredited Investor?
As equivocal as the SEC’s ruling on securities can be, their stance on accredited investors is crystal clear. According to the Securities Act of 1933 an accredited investor is defined in three ways:
- An individual who made more than $200,000 in each of the two preceding years and can reasonably expect to generate the same level of income in the current year.
- A married couple that has had a joint income of more than $300,000 over the preceding two years and can reasonably expect to generate the same level of income in the current year.
- An individual or couple with a net worth of more than $1 million, excluding the value of the primary residence.
Importantly, there is no regulatory body or agency which checks or certifies investors as accredited. Platforms wishing to service accredited investors need to follow a series of steps. It is not enough to simply provide a check box, asking if an investor meets the requirements. Instead, detailed financial information needs to be collected through specialized providers like KYC-Chain.
Conclusion – Better Safe than Sorry
Token offerings operating inside the US or planning on servicing US investors need to be very careful. Regulation and litigation are still relatively new to the space, and platforms are not safe from retroactive measures from either the SEC or private citizens. In November 2018 for example, both Airfox and Paragon where deemed to have sold security rather than utility tokens in 2017, resulting in the forced return of all invested funds, the requirement to follow US securities law and a $250,000 penalty.
That being said it is important to keep Jake Chervinsky’s statement in mind: “The SEC does not make the law. Congress makes the law & courts interpret it. SEC lawyers only decide their own enforcement strategy. Nothing they say is binding: they can change their minds & they can lose in court.”
Nevertheless, the SEC has clearly started focusing on cryptocurrency crowdfunding operations, meaning that ICOs are being investigated one by one and punished if found in breach of securities law. Interestingly however, this recent statement by the SEC suggests that there is a way for token offerings to go down “the path to compliance“, meaning that even illegal token offerings may be offered a way to turn their ship around.
Launch a KYC-compliant STO or ICO with KYC-Chain
KYC-Chain is a GDPR compliant KYC management tool that allows exchanges, ICOs and STOs to easily onboard users. As a sister company of SelfKey, KYC-Chain not only offers a global accredited investor check, but it is also deeply customizable, meaning you can easily adapt your onboarding flow to the legal requirements of your jurisdiction.
To learn how KYC-Chain can help you easily onboard customers in a secure and compliant manner, please get in touch. We’d be delighted to talk to you. | <urn:uuid:deb1a596-e28d-4504-93f1-62a4fff26d95> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://selfkey.org/stos-vs-icos-a-comprehensive-introduction-for-2018/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573172.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818063910-20220818093910-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.943695 | 1,696 | 1.703125 | 2 |
In anticipating of the upcoming American Fisheries Society annual meeting later this month, take a look at some of the excellent advice shared over the years…
Celebrate Dana Sackett’s TEN YEARS with the Fisheries Blog with some of her most iconic and memorable posts!
In honor of Indigenous Peoples’ Day, check out this four minute film by a young indigenous videographer on the 2021 Nisga’a Salmon Science Camp!
Underwater photography can spark fascination – and passion- for the world below the surface. Take a lesson from guest blogger Derek Wheaton on how to frame the most effective shots.
From the Fisheries Blog, we wish you a Happy Juneteenth!
If you love fish and have ever enjoyed a Ken Burns documentary about the rich history of the interaction of humans with the natural world, then America’s Bountiful Waters is for you.
3 quick steps: Become an ally to women in science. These basic steps can quickly and positively transform the fabric of the scientific community to be more inclusive and diverse. #womenoffisheries #womenofscience #womeninscience
Here, we have a virtual sit down with Katie Osborn, creator of ‘Fisherwomen’ a new podcast about fish and the people who earn their living by them.
Learn as much as you can from the people you rely on the most. The information that they carry with them are things that cannot be found in books or data sets or lectures.
October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month, and I encourage each of you to challenge any preconceived notions you have, see, or hear about people with disabilities. Inclusivity and equity are more than buzzwords, and the field of fisheries conservation needs representation from all backgrounds in order to maximize its success. @sasha_piranha
As a scientist, it is imperative that you explore and practice communicating your science to a broad audience — if you want your science to matter.
This workshop is designed to help you with #SciComm, whether you are starting your first research project, finishing up your second post-doc, or just getting your feet wet in the natural resources workforce.
Guest blogger Ben Ikenson illuminates a piece of fisheries professional trivia and an important life’s work…
Audio broadcasts, be it radio or podcasts, are a great means for communicating insider tips about fishing and fisheries science to anglers.
What do drinking straws and electrofishing settings have to do with each other? | <urn:uuid:1f7d6b62-e73e-4869-9b05-2077de2855ce> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://thefisheriesblog.com/category/fishery-science-profession/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573172.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818063910-20220818093910-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.919421 | 513 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Filament Winding, 3D Winding & Multi-Axis WindingJerry Lampson2022-06-13T15:31:42+01:00
Filament Winding, 3D Winding & Multi-Axis Winding
Filament Winding is a method of winding fibres under tension around a rotating core or mandrel to build up a shape.
Cygnet Texkimp has combined decades of expertise in fibre handling and process control to develop a range of filament winding machines used in the manufacture of strong, lightweight composite parts for global markets including automotive, aerospace and wind energy.
We offer standard and bespoke filament winding technologies, including very high tension, high speed and high volume machines, and fully automated systems with robotic loading and unloading capability. We also offer secure R&D trials of these technologies at our state-of-the-art Innovation Centre at our headquarters in Cheshire, England.
Our Filament Winder combines a conventional filament winding approach with robotics to make the process more flexible… | <urn:uuid:fbf1fe92-b895-43a1-af5a-66bb18f46bbb> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://cygnet-texkimp.com/products/filament-winding-multi-axis-winding/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572833.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817001643-20220817031643-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.875318 | 218 | 1.601563 | 2 |
I’m gonna get this out of the way:
“It’s like Kafka meets Lovecraft in Ingmar Bergman’s Nosferatu!”
Criterion can feel free to quote me on the upcoming blu-ray edition of Vampyr.
Not an official 1930’s Month selection since I watched it by myself while Katy was enjoying reality TV in the other room. I don’t have a hella lot to say about this movie other than it is a masterpiece of mood and weirdness, a slow, trippy phantom dream of a vampire flick. Love how three of my favorite movies are by Dreyer and those three are almost nothing alike.
Allan Gray, dreamer and occultist, drifts into town, gets a room, starts seeing weird things right away. Old guy comes in, gives Allan book on vampires, says “she must not die” then goes home and dies himself. “She” is probably one of his two daughters, Leone, who gets bitten. With help of the frozen-faced other daughter, blank-faced Allan goes off into the world of shadows… but unlike most movie heroes, he never actually does anything. The thankless house servant discovers that the lead vampire is a woman named Marguerite Chopin so he opens her tomb and stakes her, releasing the spirit of the dead father whose ghostly head scares the doctor’s henchman into falling down the stairs, while Allan himself is busy having out-of-body experiences while his body is carted off in a coffin. The death of the vampires fixes everything, Leone wakes up happy and Allan and Gisele stroll together into the sunlight as the doctor drowns in flour, trapped in the mill by the house servant. If that doesn’t all make sense, well, I don’t think a straightforward storyline was the point of this film.
an evil doctor drowning in flour:
Assorted gems from the Tony Rayns commentary:
What Vampyr has in common with Penelope: distributor shelved it for a year before release (Tony didn’t phrase it that way).
Main dude who played Allan Gray was no actor, but a fashion journalist, a rich baron who financed the movie. “I think Dreyer makes astute use of his blankness in this role.”
Allan Gray as a blank-faced corpse:
Allan Gray as a blank-faced ghost:
On the film’s style: “it’s full of disjunctions; it’s full of unorthodox editing, unorthodox framing and unorthodox cutting. None of it fits together in the way that one has come to expect classical storytelling in film to do… constant dislocations.” Has a lot to do with subjectivity, opening titles introduce Allan Grey as an occultist, a dreamer. Film came hard on the heels (eww) of L’Age d’Or and Blood of a Poet – indie weirdo films were briefly in fashion in Paris at the time.
At the nineteen minute mark – “etc., rendering indistinct and uncertain the offscreen spaces of the film,” he’s still going on about how weird a film it is. Like I know.
Lead vampire Marguerite Chopin talking with the Doctor (who may also be a vampire) around 19:30 is the first scene not directly witnessed by Allan Gray, but by an animated skull on the dresser. Hmmm. Allan himself is out with “the grave undigger and the world of shadows,” awesome.
Like The Passion of Joan of Arc, made up of many short shots, also many close-ups, but Joan was extremely planned, each detail carefully chosen, Vampyr by contrast is a very cluttered film, but every detail counts. Reading that again, I’m not sure that I see the difference he’s talking about.
Sybilla Schmitz (below) who plays daughter Leone (one of the only pro actors here) had a small part in Pabst’s Diary of a Lost Girl – her real-life story of morphine addiction was the prototype for Fassbinder’s story Veronika Voss.
Three choice quotes:
– “It’s almost like a Mike Leigh film in a sense in that people are passing cups of tea.”
– “It’s a kind of anti-Griffithian cross-cutting – but let’s not get too film-theoretical about this.”
– “He’s informing himself how to slay vampires. This, needless to say, is more than seven tenths of a century before Joss Whedon and Buffy. The modus operandi for slaying a vampire hasn’t changed all that much.”
Commentary mentions why Vampyr was a long-coming follow-up to Joan of Arc (legal/financial battles), but why was it over a decade before Dreyer’s next proper film, the hugely excellent Day of Wrath? Oh, IMDB says everyone hated Vampyr so he went back to being a journalist after that. Also there’s whole documentaries on the DVD so I should not blame the commentary for lack of stuff.
His spirit released, the old man’s head seeks vengeance:
Cast/crew photo. I think that’s Dreyer on the left with his hand up. Dig how Allan Grey stays in character, haha
Didn’t know that Pál “Lonesome” Fejös did a remake of Fantômas – it came out the same year as this and featured the actor who played the murdered master of the house in Vampyr (Maurice Schutz, below, also of Passion of Joan of Arc).
From the Casper Tybjerg doc/essay:
He pronounces it sorta like “Vam-pure”. I’d been wondering.
Dreyer: “I just wanted to make a film different from all other films”
All films shot on actual locations. Movie was shooting as early as April 1930.
Art director Hermann Warm also worked on Caligari, some early 20’s Murnau films, and Lang’s Destiny.
Two overtly Christian scenes were removed before the film’s release. And German censors had him tone down the staking scene and remove some shots from the drowning-in-flour scene – they’re restored in this documentary. | <urn:uuid:d8e84bc7-e91a-455b-ab8b-e69f681ec668> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://deeperintomovies.net/journal/archives/616 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572833.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817001643-20220817031643-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.942505 | 1,393 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Following a wholesome consuming plan or sticking to a calorie deficit, alongside common train may also help you shed weight. Categorical.co.uk spoke to Nicholas Freer, Coaching Specialist at health and way of life teaching app Freeletics about one of the best workout routines to do to see most outcomes.
Nicholas defined one of the best types of workout routines to do to shed weight.
He mentioned: “Assuming fats loss is the specified weight to be misplaced, there are three issues to contemplate.
“Vitality steadiness: You will have to be in a caloric deficit, or burn extra energy than you devour.
“This may be completed by consuming fewer energy, rising your exercise stage, or a mixture of each.
“Embody each cardio and resistance coaching into your train plan.
READ MORE: Weight loss plan: Eat nicely on a funds by taking care of your pockets and well being
As for whether or not any particular workout routines are greatest to do to shed weight, the professional mentioned: “The workout routines that you just get pleasure from!
“Sadly, there isn’t a magic weight-loss train, the most important key to dropping pounds is consistency. This implies coaching often, even when that begins with two days every week of going for a stroll.
“Discovering an exercise that you’re motivated to get into your sports activities garments and carry out goes that can assist you shed these kilos.
“Nevertheless, when you’re pressed for time, intention for full-body workout routines like pushups, leaping jacks, burpees, or squats as they’ll enhance complete vitality expenditure in comparison with remoted workout routines.
READ MORE: Michael Mosley: Eat protein each morning to ‘scale back your starvation’
“However bear in mind, you received’t shed weight when you aren’t in a caloric deficit on the finish of the day/week.
“Full-body workout routines aren’t a straightforward resolution to weight reduction, nonetheless, they are going to assist to make your exercise extra time-efficient and thus aid you follow a routine extra simply.”
By way of what number of instances every week somebody ought to exercise to shed weight, Nicholas mentioned: “There’s a normal weekly advice of 150 minutes of moderate-intensity actions like strolling, leisure swimming, and yard work, or 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity actions like HIIT, working, and leaping rope (all of that are discovered within the Freeletics app).
“Additionally it is beneficial to unfold your exercises throughout a minimum of three days within the week to keep away from damage or extreme fatigue.
“Needless to say you’ll lose each fats and muscle whereas in a weight reduction section and among the finest methods to forestall undesirable muscle loss is to include resistance coaching in your weekly plan persistently.
“For that reason, it’s endorsed to include some type of resistance coaching a minimum of one to 2 instances every week (these periods rely towards your 150 moderate-intensity or 75 vigorous-intensity minutes of actions).”
A wholesome weight reduction purpose is one pound per week, and it is best to intention for a calorie deficit of 500 energy a day to realize this.
By way of burning fats, one pound of fats is equal to three,500 energy.
So if you wish to lose one to 2 kilos per week, 500 or 1,000 energy have to be burnt a day.
Nicholas mentioned: “You need to intention to realize your caloric deficit from each a discount of energy (consuming/consuming fewer energy) and by rising your bodily exercise per day (understanding).” | <urn:uuid:9d61351c-7a6a-4e0f-afd0-5ad2c126a8be> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://primenewspost.com/key-to-dropping-pounds-just-isnt-weight-reduction-plan-or-extreme-train-greatest-solution-to-shed-kilos.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572833.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817001643-20220817031643-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.927299 | 785 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Well being issues can impact each and every side of your existence. Whether or not they’re minor problems akin to aches and pains, indigestion, or lethargy, those issues will have an affect in your happiness and building up pressure ranges. Due to this fact, you will have to all the time believe adopting fitter behavior to just remember to reside a greater existence. This text will talk about a couple of wholesome behavior that you’ll be able to undertake.
Consume a more healthy nutrition on your total effectively being
Consuming a more healthy nutrition doesn’t need to be so that you can shed extra pounds, quite it will have to even be for enhancing your immune gadget and effort ranges. Thoughts you, the whole lot you consume can impact your temporary and long-term well being. But even so, it will probably additionally impact your pressure ranges, making it even tricky to regulate it when you’re hungry.
You spot, starvation has a tendency to advertise your stressors to be reactive to feelings, resulting in inflammation or anger because of minor problems. Due to this fact, you will have to evaluation what you consume to regulate pressure and well being. A nutritious diet will make sure that you don’t be afflicted by long-term well being issues.
Have sufficient sleep
Sleep will have dire penalties in your well being and well-being. Loss of ok sleep could make you much less mentally sharp and not more productive, resulting in an building up in pressure ranges. Due to this fact, you will have to all the time get sufficient sleep of about 8 hours each and every evening. But even so, keep away from consuming caffeine after 2 pm and consuming meals within the night time that would possibly impact your sleep. Underneath are some extra excellent behavior that you’ll be able to undertake:
- Slumbering time. You will have to fall asleep on the identical time each and every evening. Each and every morning, be sure you additionally get up on the identical time to ascertain consistency.
- Slumbering setting. Your drowsing setting will have to allow you to have a restful sleep. Due to this fact, your mattress will have to be at ease and the temperature will have to be superb for drowsing.
- Calming method. Many of us really feel pressure at one level, so that you will have to increase a soothing way like meditation. This may permit you to to really feel comfy each and every evening prior to you fall asleep.
A health dependancy and meals you consume
There’s a lot at SzczuplaKobieta so that you can examine consuming the proper meals and workout. Alternatively, it’s difficult to slot in your workout regimen round your busy agenda, particularly while you’re additionally drained from operating. Some of the best possible techniques to include an workout regimen as a part of your existence is to incorporate it into your different behavior.
Merely put, you’ll be able to take a jog or stroll within the morning, lunchtime, or night time on every occasion you could have a minimum of a loose 30 minutes. This works effectively when you lead a hectic existence and you choose to do an workout that you simply revel in maximum.
With a hectic existence, it’s additionally simple to consume bad meals while you don’t have ok time to cook dinner your foods. Rapid meals and over the top caffeine can hurt your well being. Alternatively, when you set nice objectives and get started enforcing them, you may see instant ends up in a few weeks or months. | <urn:uuid:85fde731-641a-4c7a-b7c6-29181b1ba8ed> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://elwebdesants.com/szczuplakobieta-serving-to-you-to-maintain-your-frame-and-well-being.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573172.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818063910-20220818093910-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.951037 | 749 | 2.3125 | 2 |
13 June, 11:01
William howard taft
13 June, 12:44
Served as the 27th President of the United States and as the tenth Chief Justice of the United States, the only person to have held both offices. Part of the Republican Party, died March 8, 1930, 5’11, about 340 pounds.
Know the Answer?
New Questions in History
Which are ways that humans can lower biodiversity as they use the environment? CHECK ALL THAT APPLY
The opera station broadcasts at 90.5 MHz and the rock nroll station at 07.1 MHz which station's signal has waves with longer wavelengths and which one has higher energy
Solve 3 q - 5 = 13 for q. q =
Beth files a suit against Cruise Line, Inc. Cruise responds that it appears from the pleadings that the parties do not dispute the facts and the only question is how the law applies to those facts.
Which of the following was best compares an armistice to a peace treaty
Aqueous hydrochloric acid will react with solid sodium hydroxide to produce aqueous sodium chloride and liquid water. Suppose 34. g of hydrochloric acid is mixed with 9.30 g of sodium hydroxide.
How did the colonist use it to get more support for their rebellion
Is 7/8 greater than 3/4
What is the molar mass of C2H6O
True Flight Golf manufacturers a popular shaft for golf clubs. Its trade secret is a unique process for weaving high-tension wire into the center of the shaft such that energy is accumulated during the swing and released at impact.
» William howard taft | <urn:uuid:cc845549-1783-48ec-8d5b-d63434fda63f> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://cpep.org/history/1215047-william-howard-taft.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573172.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818063910-20220818093910-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.937918 | 468 | 2.921875 | 3 |
Is a Yod rare?
“THE FINGER OF GOD” A Yod, also known as the “Finger of God”, or the “Finger of Fate”, is a rare astrological aspect that involves any 3 planets or points in the horoscope that form an isoscoles triangle.
How do you read Yod astrology?
The yod is a mystical symbol of a problem, issue, or conundrum in your life. The two sextile planets talk about something you need or want to do, but the apex planet reflects something that keeps getting in the way. 2. You can know your dilemma to solve it.
What does a Yod mean in a composite chart?
A yod is two planets sixty degrees from each other connecting with one planet 150 degrees (inconjunct) apart from them. I call the two planets sextile to one another the base and the single planet the apex.
What is the T square in astrology?
A T–square in astrology is a geometric formation in a horoscope made up of two or more planets/points in opposition (180 degrees apart) that are squared by one or more other planets/points (90 degrees).
Does everyone have a Yod?
Finally, and that is quite interesting, anyone can have a Yod by transit, creating the same conditions as a natal Yod. Equally, if you have a quincunx in your chart (within 3°) every time a transiting planet comes to a sextile to it while being 150° from the natal planet, you have a Yod.
Are Grand Trines rare?
A grand trine makes us highly idealistic as well as insightful and perspective, having a peace-loving disposition. It can also make us highly creative and articulate. A grand trine in the fire signs of Aries, Leo and Sagittarius is quite rare.
What does a kite mean in astrology?
The Kite formation is considered a major aspect configuration in an Astrology chart. It includes a Grand Trine and an opposition from one of the points of the grand trine. The opposition will create challenges and opposing factors which can motivate the individual into action.
What is a Grand Water Trine?
When a grand trine forms, it will be in one of the elements (fire, earth, air, or water). This makes a person especially watery, fiery, earthy, or airy. A fire grand trine represents active inspiration, bold creativity, enthusiasm, pride, and sometimes self-absorption.
What is a love Stellium?
A love stellium in the Composite chart is very powerful between two people and happens when the sun, mercury and Venus are all aspecting eachother, for an example with conjunctions or opposition’s or a combination. The conjunction is probably the strongest and is the real stellium of course!
What does T square mean?
A T–square is a technical drawing instrument used by draftsmen primarily as a guide for drawing horizontal lines on a drafting table. It may also guide a set square to draw vertical or diagonal lines. Its name comes from its resemblance to the letter T. T-squares are also used to measure and cut drywall.
What is a T square used for?
T-shaped instrument known as a T square is used for establishing a horizontal reference on the drafting board. Most widely known are the T square, triangle, protractor, and compass; the parallel straightedge is an alternative to the T square.
What does a Grand Cross mean?
In astrology, a Grand Cross is said to occur when four planets are all separated from each other by Square aspects (90 degrees apart). In a Grand Cross, there is one planet in each astrological element (fire, earth, air and water) but all the planets are in signs of the same modality or quality. | <urn:uuid:47cc120b-fc94-4f8b-a51b-a7f2b6b0bc00> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://astrologersushilsharma.com/advices/quick-answer-what-is-a-yod-in-astrology/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573172.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818063910-20220818093910-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.939319 | 827 | 1.6875 | 2 |
The ‘rule of 500’ or the ‘500 rule’ is a simple guideline which helps calculate an approximate duration of time for image exposure for a certain type of night time star photography.
The first thing that I want to point out here is that it is an approximate value. In NO way, shape or form is the value absolute or the most optimum.
The simple idea behind using this “rule” is to get the photographer quickly to a ballpark number after which a little adjustment should get him to the best possible shutter speed.
So, let’s get to it then…
Night time star photography basically has two broad variants:
- Star trails: The earth is constantly moving with respect to all the stars in the sky. That is the very reason why all the stars seem to move in the night sky in the same direction. Star trail photography is a genre of astrophotography where the paths of the stars are tracked continuously and reproduced in one image. The idea is simple. Photograph the stars as they keep on changing positions during the night and then create a composite image using all the images together.
Extended periods of image exposure is used to photograph the stars over a long time (at least a few hours) to get the desired effect. The stars in the final image look more like streaks of light traveling from one side of the photograph to another.
- Static Stars: This is exactly the opposite of what we want to achieve through a star trail image. In this case, although a long exposure is used, the idea is to not let the stars look long like streaks of light. We want the stars to look like tiny pinpoints. More like how we see them through our naked eyes.
The fundamental idea is to eliminate the motion of the stars and take an image which is as stationary as possible. This is very important when photographing distant constellations and galaxies such as the Milky Way for which you do NOT want the image to have an enormous criss-cross pattern which distracts from the primary subject of the image.
We are here to discuss the second form of star photography, static stars. Focusing primarily on exposure duration.
All we want is for image to be well exposed (not too dark) but at the same time without streaks. It is easier said than done.
500 Rule To The Rescue
Photographs are nothing but a simple recording of light.
Like all other images, star photographs also require a certain amount of light to build the image. Failing which the final photo looks dark, almost like a black screen.
Depending on the lens you use, there will be an aperture beyond which the lens is unable to open up further (largest aperture size).
You could try bumping up the ISO to allow the sensor to be more reactive to light. But since most of what you will shoot anyways is dark and black, it is not recommended. The last thing you need is an image with a ton of noise in it.
Ah, the shutter speed. Now, this has no such cap on it. You could use it as much as you want with absolute impunity. But since we want to capture the stars minus the movement they have, we need to do what we usually do for dynamic subjects. Use a faster shutter speed.
Yes, the stars are really slow to move but they are moving nevertheless. In order to avoid accidentally capturing the motion, we need to set a limit on the shutter speed too.
The 500 rule helps us with just this.
The basic formula is as follows:
Maximum shutter speed to be used (in seconds) = 500 / Effective focal length of the camera.
Say you have a full frame camera and a 50mm lens combo to shoot the stars. So according to the 500 rule, the maximum shutter speed that you can use to help prevent the stars from trailing is calculated as follows:
Maximum shutter speed to be used (in seconds) = 500 /50 = 10 seconds.
So as long as you limit your exposure to 10 seconds or less, your image should have no trails in them.
Now just to point out a simple thing that you shouldn’t miss here.
Notice carefully that I mention ‘effective focal length of the camera’ and not just the focal length. This means that you also need to factor in the type and size of image sensor you have in your camera.
Let me make this easy for you.
All you have to do is figure out the type of sensor your camera has and then just perform one extra step to calculate your camera’s effective focal length first.
Effective focal length = Magnification ratio (also called crop factor) x Focal length of the lens.
Here are the magnification ratios of some popular brands:
Nikon crop sensor cameras: 1.5
Canon crop sensor cameras: 1.6
Micro four thirds cameras: 2
So the same lens will have different effective focal length depending on the camera type you put it on. The same 50mm lens we used earlier with the full frame camera will have effective focal lengths as follows:
Nikon crop sensor cameras: 50mm x 1.5 = 75mm effective focal length
Canon crop sensor cameras: 50mm x 1.6 = 80mm effective focal length
Micro four thirds camera : 50mm x 2 = 100mm effective focal length
Now you can use these values in the rule of 500 to finally get to the max shutter speed.
Say if you have a micro four-thirds camera and if you use a 50mm lens, the max shutter speed would be,
Maximum shutter speed to be used (in seconds) = 500 /100 = 5 seconds.
So as you can see, the sensor size also plays a part in the equation.
Larger the size of the sensor you have in your camera, longer you can shoot.
Just have a look at the example above. By only changing the sensor size, we have effectively halved the max shutter speed we can use. From 10 seconds earlier (full frame camera) to just 5 seconds (micro four thirds camera).
For the rest of this post, I will assume we are using a full frame camera just to keep it consistent and to make it easy to understand.
The duration for which the camera sensor needs to be exposed to create a “well-exposed” image without letting the stars streak depends on a lot of small nuanced decision than the gross approximation of the 500 rule. One thing that you should understand here very clearly is that the occurrence of the streaking pattern of the stars depends very heavily on the movement of the earth relative to the stars. Faster the movement, longer the streaks would be.
In this respect, it is just like any other fast-moving subject. Faster the subject, faster the shutter speed needs to be, to be able to take a sharp picture.
Now each star travels 360 degrees within the span of 24hours. That is roughly 0.25 degrees per minute.
Due rotation of the earth around its fixed axis, the stars near the poles seem to move the least and the those near the equator travel the most. And not just that. There are many more factors which all together determine the time period you can set your shutter for before the star in the images elongate.
The focal length of the lens used, sensor size, the position of the star relative to the earth, your position on earth, image resolution, viewing distance of the final printed image, the angular speed of the star…the list is endless.
The reason why the rule of 500 is so popular is because it cuts through all these astronomy induced hurdles and gets you in close vicinity of the actual number, fast! The idea is not to be precise and accurate at all. It is just being as fast and efficient as possible.
Many photographers use very similar, sister versions of the rule of 500 to gauge the shutter speed they need. The rule of 400, the 600 rule, the NPF rule is just to name a few.
Since none of them is based on rigid scientific facts or any mathematical expression, you cannot negate any of them. Whatever works for you is the one you go with.
There are many mobile applications nowadays which can calculate the exposure duration for you. Just search the app stores and you can come up with loads of them.
Here is a handy calculator that you can use right now:
Have a great time shooting the sparkling beauties of the night skies, guys. And if you get something good, please do share it with me. I will be very happy to see it.
Keep shooting amazing. | <urn:uuid:2cfc3572-3196-444e-b887-7eaa9b809985> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.aperturebuzz.com/500-rule/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572833.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817001643-20220817031643-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.941101 | 1,796 | 3.21875 | 3 |
Sermon originally delivered at Calvary Community Church in New Berlin, WI. Text: Matthew 20:1-16
“It’s not fair!” I would protest.
I am the oldest of three boys, and as is typical for siblings, and perhaps especially older children, I was hyper-aware to perceived unfairness. It is almost this primal preservation instinct, that we have to compete in order to gain the things we need to survive. Of course, I was not arguing for something crucial for my survival, it was always something comparably trivial.
This often happened when the two of us would fight, and we would both be punished. “But I didn’t start it!” I would say. “It takes two to fight,” they would reply. “But it’s not fair!” I would protest. “Life isn’t fair” would come the reply.
These words would come to me regularly, “Life isn’t fair.”
As a child I never really understood what they were getting at, but as an adult I understand, and I am learning more and more with each passing year. We like to think that the way that we do things is fair. If you do the right things, you will be successful. If you are good at your job you won’t find yourself unemployed. Except this isn’t the way things work. Fantastic workers find themselves unemployed. People with college degrees find themselves in living a homeless shelter. People who live within their means can still find a foreclosure notice come through the mail. But we live in a society that has the illusion of fairness, and we hold up fairness as the peak virtue. But life isn’t fair, as my parents reminded me so often. Life isn’t fair.
And here we have a story which, if we are honest, rubs us the wrong way. It is a story which is unfair, incredibly so.
Jesus begins his parable with, “The kingdom of heaven is like…”
The kingdom of heaven is like a farmer who went out early in the morning to the town square, the marketplace, the place where day laborers gathered to wait for work.
This story reminds me of John. John was a day laborer. Every day he would get up at four in the morning so that he could catch the bus, if he was able, or walk the few miles to the agency so that he could be there at five to try to find work that day. He would never know if there would be work, some days he would work. Other days he would go home without work. It is a true hand-to-mouth life. In many ways, this is not that much different today as it was then. Day laborers would gather at a central location and hope that someone would come and hire them.
So this landowner needs helpers, so he goes and finds some to work. The day goes on and he sees that he will need more workers and so he goes back, and finds people who had still not been hired, and so he hired them as well. He does this again, and again. He goes back in late in the day, one hour before the work day was done and finds more people there. “Why are you here?” he asks. We cannot see the world “idle” and think lazy.
These people needed work so badly they stayed there in the off-chance that someone would come and hire them. “Why are you here?” he asks them. “Because no one has hired us,” they reply. So he hires them and they come to work in his vineyard.
As is typical, by the time that the day is over, it comes time to get paid. It would have been typical to begin with the people who were there first, and pay them first, as it is only fair. But the landowner does not do this, he starts with those hired last, and he gives them a Denarius, a full day’s wage. I can only imagine how excited the people down the line must have felt. Perhaps they were calculating in their head. Maybe I would get five, six, maybe even ten denarii.
He moves to those who had been there a few hours, and gives them also a denarius. I can imagine at this point people would begin to wonder exactly what is going on.
By the time that he came to the first to be paid, and he gave them also the day’s wage.
But it’s not fair! they protested. They only worked an hour and we worked all day in the heat and the sun, and you paid them the same as us! The landowner reminds them that he paid them what he promised, and that he chose to pay others the same. After all, they too have families to feed and mortgages to pay.
You see, from the perspective of those trying desperately to find work but no one hiring them, but for the last hour of the day, this landowner was being merciful. But from the perspective of those who had labored all day, he was being unjust. They had worked longer, they deserved to be paid more. It isn’t fair. And it is true, it isn’t fair.
And I think that this is what bends our noses about this passage. Even though the first ones hired were paid what they were promised, no less, this fundamentally isn’t fair. People should get what they deserve, and what they receive should be in proportion to what they do, right?
This parable, like so many others, functions as a mirror for us. When we think we are on top we plead for fairness, but when we think that we are an underdog, we plead for mercy. When I’ve put in the long day under the sweltering heat, I want fairness, but when no one wants to hire me, and the weight of providing for my family weighs on my shoulders and I stay out, desperately hoping that someone will hire me, I prefer mercy.
I wonder, where might you see yourself in this parable? Are you one of the first laborers hired who worked long hours under the hot sun. Perhaps you are the one who found themselves fortunate enough to be hired, even as it seemed as though there might not be a place.
Perhaps you compare what is given to you with what is given to the others and find that you are left wanting. Perhaps you are so overwhelmed with gratitude at the mercy of the landowner.
Perhaps you can see yourself in both groups of workers. In fact, this is often the case, that we can find ourselves in not only one character but several, and from those different perspectives we can see things a bit differently, and we can learn more about what it says about who we are and who God is and who we are in relationship to God.
The most shocking lesson that we learn from this is that God isn’t fair. We like the idea of a fair God. We like the idea that we can choose what to do, or not to do. We like the idea that God will give us what we deserve, and reward us in proportion. But God is not fair, and this is a good thing. Why is it good? Because if God gave to us what we deserve we would be in trouble, we would never enter the kingdom of heaven, we would be lost. God is not fair, and this is the best news that one can learn. God is not fair, but God is merciful and gracious.
This landowner did not have to pay everyone a full day’s wage, but he chose to. Those who worked the longest were not cheated or shorted, they were given what was due to them. But the wideness of the landowner’s mercy showed when he gave to everyone what they needed.
The kingdom of heaven is like…a vineyard where God calls so many people and provides for their needs. This is a marvelous view of the kingdom of heaven, isn’t it?
But this is not just for that some point in the distant future. Indeed, Jesus preaches that the kingdom of heaven is at hand, and we know that the kingdom of heaven began with the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus and is slowly unfolding, slowly continuing its progress of renewing and redeeming all of creation until the final consummation, when all things will be made right.
So, Jesus is not telling this parable to tell people about heaven, Jesus is telling this parable to help them understand about their lives here and now as well, and what God desires of their lives. And so I wonder as well if there is a third role in which we can find ourselves, that of the landowner.
Jesus was not about saving souls but redeeming lives. Jesus is not interested in getting people into heaven when they die, but about transforming creation to reflect the original created order, and perhaps the land owner is a role for some of us to consider, to not be so concerned about fairness, but about mercy and grace. As a culture we are obsessed with fairness, because this is what we think to be the highest virtue — and we cannot even do this. But for followers of Christ, fairness is not the goal, fairness is the beginning point, fairness is crawling. Mercy and grace — this is what it is to walk. Mercy is fairness-plus-plus.
So, sisters and brothers, let us remember that God is merciful beyond comprehension, thankfully not dealing with us the way that we deserve, but dealing with us out of God’s immense love for us and for creation, giving us far more than we deserve or can earn. And let us remember that we, as the church, are called to be a foretaste for the kingdom of heaven, and that we, too, are called to show forth mercy and grace, and through our actions, others can see God. | <urn:uuid:0132560e-5764-4d61-9e16-bf29106827fc> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://matthewvanm.com/2015/03/03/the-unfair-mercy-of-god/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572833.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817001643-20220817031643-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.985758 | 2,101 | 2.078125 | 2 |
Crocodiles kill Wildebeest in the Mara River. It’s bonanza time for the Crocodiles of the Mara River, Tanzania when the great migration reaches the river. Hundreds of thousands of Wildebeest will cross the rive in predictable spots. The Crocodiles are waiting. The Wildebeest are nervous about entering these Crocodile infested waters but once one takes the plunge they all follow. Many times the Crocodiles try to take an unfortunate Wildebeest and fail. Occasionally they are successful. Sometimes, even though they strike and grab an animal, the Wildebeest struggle and free themselves from the Crocodile’s powerful jaws. A true wildlife spectacle! | <urn:uuid:7b2cd5d5-ea21-4100-9458-10545a943026> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://wildlifeaction.co.uk/trips/crocodiles-kill-wildebeest-in-the-mara-river/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573172.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818063910-20220818093910-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.847915 | 143 | 1.976563 | 2 |
Born without the power of speech, babies have to communicate their needs and feelings by sound – mostly through crying or facial expressions. But there is one unique way in which you could add a new dimension to communication with your baby and that’s through baby signing.
What Is Baby Signing?
Baby signing is a method used by parents to communicate with their babies. It involves the use of very simple signs using hand movements and shapes, that parents teach to their infants. It allows babies to communicate their basic needs and feelings and enhances early communication. A child’s vocal cords don’t fully develop until the ages of 12 to 18 months, so baby signing is a great way of filling the communication gap before a child is able to talk.
The idea of baby signing has become very popular in the UK over the last 10 years, but its origins go further back. Two experts from California University – Dr Linda Acredolo and Dr Susan Goodwyn – are credited with first identifying the fact that babies seem to use signs as a means of communication before they learn how to speak.
Various different methods of baby signing now exist and there are classes on offer in many areas of the UK. One of the common methods followed is based on Dr Joseph Garcia’s method. This baby signing approach is based on the principles of British Sign Language (BSL), as used by the deaf community. But there are also other approaches on offer too, many of which make learning signing fun by incorporating music and signing too.
Getting Started With Baby Signing
If you’re interested in having a go with baby signing, then the best way of doing so is finding a local class to attend. If you can’t find a class in your area, then there are also do-it-yourself books and helpful DVDs available that take you through the basic steps.
The method can be used with babies from the age of six months upwards. This is because by the time they’re six months old, they’ll have developed co-ordination and memory skills, so they’ll be in a good position to be able to use their hands to make the signs and remember them for future use.
Going to a class makes learning baby signing more fun and classes that incorporate music and songs too can be particularly enjoyable for babies. You may feel a bit daft at first making the signs, and it may take a while for your baby to catch on and be able to make the signs themselves. When they do, however, it makes all the work worthwhile and it’s an amazing feeling to have opened up another communication method with your baby.
Will Baby Signing Hinder Language Development?
Although some people are concerned that using baby signs may prevent children from learning to speak, the opposite seems to be true. The good news is that you can help your child’s early language development too by using the method. Parents can help their child’s development of language skills by saying the word as they make the sign (e.g. ‘milk’ or ‘nap’) so that the word is verbalised as well.
Research produced by Dr Susan Goodwyn and Dr Linda Acredolo found that babies who’ve learnt to sign are more likely to learn to talk sooner than babies who’ve had no exposure to baby signing. They’re also more likely to have a bigger range of vocabulary.
When your child first begins to talk, the chances are that they’ll incorporate signs too, if they’ve learn them. But as they become more proficient with speech, the signs will gradually fade away and they’ll be talking like any other child. | <urn:uuid:b2d26d40-0e80-464f-814a-becedfe1dc06> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://earlychildhoodeducation.co.uk/baby-signing-with-your-baby/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572833.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817001643-20220817031643-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.964426 | 767 | 3.171875 | 3 |
Few people today would associate the famous wax museums of Madame Tussauds with horror especially with how many likenesses of celebrities have been made into wax in recent years. However, the origins of the haunted house began when her wax figures were introduced to 19th Century London.
In 1802, Tussaud displayed an exhibition of decapitated French figures including Kind Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette much to the horror of her audience. She had an excellent ability to make these deceased figures appear lifelike given her experience in creating death masks from the heads of guillotine victims. Her exhibition was soon labelled the ‘Chamber of Horrors’. It was the use of such wax figures which would then be used to litter ‘haunted houses’ full of creaking sounds and screams and other hair raising effects.
Click to view Creepy Historic Photos From Madame Tussauds ‘Chamber of Horrors’ | <urn:uuid:97b9ee9f-a5e3-4996-b070-a6688e222d60> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.telugumalli.com/the-horror-behind-madame-tussauds/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572833.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817001643-20220817031643-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.967527 | 216 | 3.125 | 3 |
Hyderabad: Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma today laid the foundation stone of the National Institute of Design (NID) here.
The NID, which is coming up on 30 acres of land on the campus of University of Hyderabad at a cost of Rs.155 crore, is expected to offer undergraduate and postgraduate courses from 2015-16 for 500 students.
This will be the fourth NID campus in the country. The institute was established in Ahmedabad in 1961 and has its campuses in Gandhinagar and Bangalore, offering graduate and postgraduate diploma courses in 18 disciplines.
NID Hyderabad is one among the four NIDs being set up under the national design policy of 2007.
The minister Wednesday laid the foundation stone for the second NID in Haryana’s Kurukshetra district.
Sharma said two more NIDs were planned in Jorhat (Assam) and Bhopal to cater to the students of the respective regions.
The institute will help student community towards shaping their career in most creative sectors and is also expected to benefit the industry to improve their quality of products.
The NID is useful to a broad spectrum from industrially mass produced good to handicrafts, handlooms and skill oriented artisan communities like potters, painters, weavers, carpenters, leather, brass, silver craftsmen.
The minister said the government aimed to make India a major design hub for exports by producing 15,000 top engineers in five years
“Finland has 145 designers per million population, Japan 90 per million whereas India has a dismal two designers per million population. This needs to change in the next five years and we should aim to create a pool of 15,000 top designers. India should eventually become an outsourcing hub for designers,” Sharma said.
He called for weaving in a philosophy of design into education and building linkages with education system.
Sharma pointed out that national design policy was announced with the aim of building on traditional knowledge skills and capabilities and to ensure that “our shop floor workers, craftsmen and artisans become equal partners in manufacture of innovative products and contemporisation of traditional crafts”.
The minister said World Pharma Trade Centre would soon be set up at Hyderabad keeping in view the large presence of pharmaceutical companies and research institutions in and around the city.
He said Indian Institute of Foreign Trade would also come up soon at Visakhapatnam with the aim of creating a pool of trained manpower to deal with foreign trade.
Foundation stone will also be laid for a new footwear design and development institute at Hyderabad in the next month.
Human Resource Development Minister M.M. Pallam Raju and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy were among those who attended the ceremony. | <urn:uuid:a25e95ff-06aa-4620-bce9-4182ab4ed685> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://hillpost.in/2013/05/anand-sharma-lays-foundation-for-nid-hyderabad/81347/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573172.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818063910-20220818093910-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.954966 | 582 | 1.617188 | 2 |
By George Friedman
Last week, Iran confirmed that it test-fired a ballistic missile. The United States has responded by imposing new sanctions on Iran and stating that Iran remains both a major source of terrorism and a threat to American national interests. A review is now underway concerning U.S. policy toward Iran. At the same time, President Donald Trump has declared his intention of crushing the Islamic State, which has been U.S. policy since the emergence of IS.
U.S. National Security Adviser Michael Flynn speaks during the daily press briefing as Press Secretary Sean Spicer (L) looks on at the White House in Washington, on Feb. 1, 2017. Flynn signaled a more hardline American stance on Iran, condemning a recent missile test and declaring he was “officially putting Iran on notice.” NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images
U.S. strategy in Iraq prior to the 2007 surge was to oppose both Shiite and Sunni claims to power in Iraq. The United States tried to craft a government in Baghdad that was independent of both major factions, ideally secular and closely aligned with the United States. That government was created, but it was never effective. The Shiites, supported by the Iranians, deeply penetrated the government, and more importantly, the government never had broad support beyond the coalition that backed it. The most dynamic forces in Iraq were deeply embedded in the Shiite and Sunni communities. Both drew strength from outside Iraq – the Sunnis from Saudi Arabia and the Shiites from Iran.
What the United States wanted to create was very different from the reality on the ground. In the surge, the U.S. recognized this, saw the Iranian-supported Shiites as the greater threat and tried to counterbalance them by reaching a financial and political understanding with the Sunni leadership. Apart from providing the U.S. with an opportunity for a graceful exit, the surge didn’t solve the strategic problem the U.S. was dealing with. IS arose as the champion of a substantial part of the Sunni Arab population, and the Iraqi government became, to an imperfect but real extent, captive to Iran. The U.S. remained powerless to craft the Iraq it wanted.
The United States now has three broad strategic options. The first is, after 15 years of ineffective fighting, to accept defeat in the region, withdraw and allow the region to evolve as it will. The advantage of this strategy is that it accepts the reality and consequences of the previous 15 years, and it halts an ineffective approach. The weakness of this strategy is that in accepting the evolution of the region, the U.S. could face an increasingly powerful Sunni world and a powerful Shiite Iran. After the sense of relief may come an unbearable headache.
The second option is to use American force to crush IS and isolate Iran, or failing that, engage Iran in some form of military action, possibly directed at its nuclear program. The United States does not have a military force large enough to simultaneous wage war from the Mediterranean to Iran, and also in Afghanistan. Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said at the beginning of the Iraq war that you fight with the army you have. He should have added that if the army you have is insufficient, you will lose, or at most, face an endless stalemate. The goal of this strategy would be to crush not merely the current organizations fighting for Sunni and Shiite causes but to destroy the will of the Arab and Persian worlds to create new organizations out of the ashes of the old. The United States has never fought a major foreign war without a coalition of forces. Its distance from the Eurasian battlefield means that support from other forces for the logistical effort is essential. This is why there is discussion of an alliance with Russia. But Russia does not have the same interests in Iran as the United States, nor is it looking for the same outcome.
The third strategic option is built on two realities. First, the U.S. has limited forces, reluctant or discordant allies, and cannot win a war on this scale. Second, the Islamic world is deeply divided along religious and ethnic lines. There is the religious split between Shiites and Sunnis. There is the split between the Arab and non-Arab world. In other words, Islam is not of a single fabric and these divisions are its point of vulnerability. The third strategy would require allying with one faction to give it the thing it desires the most – the defeat of the other.
From the beginning of American history, the U.S. has used the divisions in the world to achieve its ends. The American Revolution prevailed by using the ongoing tension between Britain and France to convince the French to intervene. In World War II, facing Nazi Germany and the Stalinist Soviet Union, the United States won the war by supplying the Soviets with the wherewithal to bleed the German army dry, opening the door to American invasion and, with Britain, the occupation of Europe.
Unless you have decisive and overwhelming power, your only options are to decline combat, vastly increase your military force at staggering cost and time, or use divergent interests to recruit a coalition that shares your strategic goal. Morally, the third option is always a painful strategy. The United States asking monarchists for help in isolating the British at Yorktown was in a way a deal with the devil. The United States allying with a murderous and oppressive Soviet Union to defeat another murderous and oppressive regime was also a deal with the devil. George Washington and Franklin D. Roosevelt both gladly made these deals, each knowing a truth about strategy: What comes after the war comes after the war. For now, the goal is to reach the end of the war victorious.
In the case of the Middle East, I would argue that the United States lacks the forces or even a conceivable strategy to crush either the Sunni rising or Iran. Iran is a country of about 80 million defended to the west by rugged mountains and to the east by harsh deserts. This is the point where someone inevitably will say that the U.S. should use air power. This is the point where I will say that whenever Americans want to win a war without paying the price, they fantasize about air power because it is low-cost and irresistible. Air power is an adjunct to war on the ground. It has never proven to be an effective alternative.
The idea that the United States will simultaneously wage wars in Syria, Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan and emerge victorious is fantasy. What is not fantasy is the fact that the Islamic world, both strategically and tactically, is profoundly divided. The United States must decide who is the enemy. “Everybody” is an emotionally satisfying answer to some, but it will lead to defeat. The United States cannot fight everyone from the Mediterranean to the Hindu Kush. It can indefinitely carry out raids and other operations, but it can’t win.
To craft an effective strategy, the United States must go back to the strategic foundations of the republic: a willingness to ally with one enemy to defeat another. The goal should be to ally with the weaker enemy, or the enemy with other interests, so that one war does not immediately lead to another. At this moment, the Sunnis are weaker than the Iranians. But there are far more Sunnis, they cover a vast swath of ground and they are far more energized than Iran. Currently, Iran is more powerful, but I would argue the Sunnis are more dangerous. Therefore, I am suggesting an alignment with the Iranians, not because they are any more likable (and neither were Stalin or Louis XVI), but because they are the convenient option.
The Iranians hate and fear the Sunnis. Any opportunity to crush the Sunnis will appeal. The Iranians are also as cynical as George Washington was. But in point of fact, an alliance with the Sunnis against the Shiites could also work. The Sunnis despise the Iranians, and given the hope of crushing them, the Sunnis could be induced to abandon terrorism. There are arguments to be made on either side, as there is in Afghanistan.
In my opinion, what cannot be supported is simultaneous conflicts with Sunnis and Shiites, Arabs and Persians. What we learned in Iraq is that we will not win such a conflict. Attempting what failed in Iraq on a far larger scale makes little sense. Dividing your enemies is a fundamental principle of strategy. Uniting them makes little sense. Therefore, simultaneously waging war on Sunnis and Shiites is irrational. Simply withdrawing from the region carries enormous long-term risks.
In the end, Washington wanted to defeat the British and Roosevelt wanted to defeat Hitler. Without the French or Soviets, these wars would have been lost. In the end, the Bourbons and communists were destroyed. Washington and Roosevelt were in no rush. There is always time for the winner to pursue the end he wants. There is never time for the loser. | <urn:uuid:fa10cfcb-f011-4800-84a7-b5e6d21d03ce> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://geopoliticalfutures.com/us-strategies-in-the-middle-east/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572198.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20220815175725-20220815205725-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.964217 | 1,820 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Cellophane gets an entire chapter in Hisano’s book. As she explains in the paper, cellophane packaging let food vendors manipulate the appearance of foods by controlling the amount of moisture and oxygen that touched a product, thus preventing discoloration. “Cellophane played a big part in how the color of food started to be controlled and standardized,” she says.
…Cellophane, the world’s first transparent packaging film, was invented in 1908 by the Swiss engineer Jacques Brandenberger. He dubbed it “cellophane” as a combination of the words “cellulose” (of which it was made) and “diaphane” (an archaic form of the word “diaphanous,” which is a fancy word for “transparent”). He assigned his patents to La Cellophane Societe Anonyme, a French company formed for the sole purpose of marketing the invention. In 1923, the company licensed to DuPont the exclusive rights to make and sell cellophane in the United States.
…Initial versions of cellophane were waterproof, but not moisture-proof. So, while it was effective for wrapping products like candy and cigarettes, it wasn’t effective for packaging fresh food. In 1927, DuPont developed moisture-proof cellophane, food manufacturers started using it to package items like cakes and cheeses, and cellophane sales tripled between 1928 and 1930.
Here is the full story, interesting throughout, via the estimable Chug. | <urn:uuid:f27d8e30-2dcc-40ba-862d-554682e1d53b> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2017/07/sentences-about-cellophane.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573172.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818063910-20220818093910-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.948672 | 326 | 3.71875 | 4 |
If you’re a freelancer, you’re likely operating as a 1099 independent contractor. Unfortunately, that also means you’re paying the most taxes possible, have no legal protection, and are perceived as an individual, not a business.
In 2015, I took my freelancing career full-time. Each year was better than the last, but the more money I was making, the more I was paying in taxes.
During that time, I had to deal with a few client situations that left me uncomfortably exposed from a legal perspective.
Then, when I started turning down paid work for lack of availability, I found it difficult to grow my business by hiring subcontractors because clients were hiring me personally for my skills and experience. The way clients perceived my business was hindering my future growth.
That’s why after nearly 10 years of being a 1099 contractor, I decided to form an S-Corp called Matthew’s Design Co. for four main reasons:
Most freelancers aren’t familiar with S-Corps, so I’ll do my best to outline how each of these four business elements work as a 1099 contractor in contrast to an S-Corp in an effort to shed some light on this unfamiliar and complicated topic.
1099 contractors pay the highest taxes possible. You’ll have to pay federal income tax to the IRS as well as state taxes. In most states, this typically works out to about 30% of your total gross income.
However, freelancers are also hit with a 15.3% self-employment tax, which includes 12.4% Social Security and 2.9% Medicare. When you’re a W-2 employee, your company subsidizes this cost for you, but when you’re self-employed, that tax burden falls on you.
That brings the total taxes you owe as a 1099 contract to roughly 45% of your gross income. So if you earn $100,000, you’re only taking home about $60,000 after taking the standard $12,000 deduction for single taxpayers.
If you’re running a freelance business correctly, you give each client (who’s paying you more than $600) a W-9 form with your social security number (SSN) at the start of a project.
Then, at the end of the year, that client sends you a 1099-MISC form, which is simply a receipt acknowledging that their business is reporting the money they spent on your work to the IRS.
An S-Corp can offer a massive tax savings on your freelance income if you’re an above-average income earner for your geographic location.
The purpose of an S-Corp is to pay yourself what is considered a “reasonable salary” by the IRS (proportional to your total income) and to take the rest as distributions which are NOT subject to the 15.3% self-employment tax.
How It Works
An S-Corporation is a completely separate business entity of which you are an employee and, in most cases, the president. Therefore, any income you earn gets passed to you through the business entity. This is known as “pass-through” income.
Instead of a client hiring you personally, they hire your business. It’s as simple as providing a W-9 form with your businesses information on it rather than your personal information and sending an invoice with the business name on it.
All your income will now be deposited into a business checking account and, using a Payroll company such as Gusto, you’ll pay yourself whatever is considered a “reasonable salary” for your profession.
That income is subject to all the normal taxes and withholdings as if you were working for any other company. In short, you’re a W-2 employee of your own company and you choose how much to pay yourself!
There’s also a huge 20% tax benefit for S-Corps under the new Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 offering even more savings.
Important: Having a payroll company and business checking account is mandatory for all S-Corps.
However, most payroll software is clunky, confusing, and hard to manage. But Gusto is truly amazing and makes payroll fun, easy to understand, and easy to manage. Some of my favorite features include:
Payroll on Autopilot
Give yourself bonuses and run one-off payrolls
Easily pay domestic and foreign contractors
Automatic end-of-year tax filing
Easily access pay stubs and other important records
Beautiful and intuitive interface
Clear email notifications and reminders
Helpful and responsive support team
It’s so easy that sometimes I forget that I even have a payroll company. I’d highly recommend using them over Paychex or QuickBooks!
S-Corp Tax Example
For example, if you’re making $150,000 as a freelancer living in New York state, a “reasonable salary” might be $60,000. So, you’d put yourself on payroll for $60,000 and take $90,000 as distributions which are NOT subject to 15.3% self-employment taxes. That’s an instant $13,770 you’re not paying in taxes before any deductions or other tax benefits are factored in.
However, if you only make $40,000 as a freelancer, you probably don’t make enough to pay yourself a “reasonable salary” and therefore can’t take distributions. In this case, an S-Corp may not be the right decision for you.
If you’re wondering, no – you cannot game the system and pay yourself a $10,000 salary, then take $140,000 in distributions to save more money. That would be considered illegal.
Operating as an S-Corp is significantly more expensive than operating as a 1099 contractor or an LLC, but you’re saving WAY more than you’re spending to operate the business.
It costs about $1,500 for a CPA to set up the business entity initially and about $1,200-$1,500 for a CPA to prepare your return at the end of each year.
You’re also looking at $45/mo for a payroll company like Gusto and about $35/mo for a proper payment solution such as QuickBooks.
You’ll also want to use a real business address so your home address isn’t exposed to clients. I use Regus virtual offices, which costs about $45/mo and has a mail forwarding service. Lastly, I purchased professional liability insurance for about $65/mo (more on this below)
That means it will cost about $3,600 each year to keep your S-Corp running.
1099 contractors have zero legal protection in the event of a lawsuit. If a client decides to take legal action against you (even if you’ve done nothing wrong), you’ll be responsible for paying any legal fees to defend yourself.
Anyone can sue you at any time for any reason and you’ll have to pay a lawyer to defend you. That’s also why freelancers don’t take clients to court over missed payments. You’ll probably spend more in legal fees trying to get the money than the actual amount you’re owed.
But the biggest legal issue with operating as a 1099 contractor is that all of your personal assets are up for grabs in the event of a lawsuit. Your car, house, computer equipment, jewelry, and any other valuables could be taken to cover costs if you were to lose a legal battle with a client.
Since your sending a W-9 form to your clients with your address (presumably your home address) and social security number, having a client become hostile toward you can be quite scary. You’re completely exposed to potential danger personally, professionally, and financially.
As a single guy living in an apartment, and freelancing on the side with a full-time job, I wasn’t terribly concerned about getting sued. But once I got married and bought a house, this was no longer an acceptable risk to take.
S-Corp Legal Protection
With an S-Corp or an LLC, only the business can be sued. That’s because the client is doing business with your business entity, not you personally (even though you are still the one executing the work).
So if a client won a lawsuit they filed against your business and the business couldn’t afford it, the business would go bankrupt, you would start a new S-Corp, and you’d be back in business without any risk of your personal assets being taken from you.
Additionally, I chose to purchase one million dollars of professional liability insurance (also known as Errors & Omissions insurance) from Hiscox for about $65/mo. This protects my business from claims of copyright infringement, negligence, defense costs, claims from prior work, and more.
Practically speaking, this means that:
if a website you built causes a clients business to lose money, your client will have a difficult time winning a claim of lost income against you since you’re covered up to the amount you’re insured for.
if a website you design launches and a competitor files a copyright claim, your client will have a difficult time winning a claim of negligence or copyright infringement against you.
Hiscox will cover defense fees as well, so you can rest assured that you are protected from most lawsuits and legal claims.
I highly recommend that you purchase some amount of professional liability insurance regardless of whether you operate as a 1099 contractor or have a formal business entity.
Remember, get insured for the amount your clients could sue you for, not the price of the services you offer!
1099 Client Perception
1099 contractors are often perceived as cheap commodity laborers, not valuable business partners. That’s why many freelance clients tend to be cheap, demanding, and controlling.
This usually results in freelancers feeling like they aren’t in control of the project and need to reduce their pricing, extend the timeline, commit to endless revision cycles, and bow to the clients wishes if they want to collect a paycheck.
Over the years, I’ve been able to break away from that stereotype and attract more respectful clients with larger budgets who understand the value I provide.
However, as a 1099 contractor, I couldn’t find a way to grow grow my business beyond myself without lying to my clients.
I know my clients specifically hire me for my skills and expertise. They wouldn’t be happy to find out I was subcontracting the work to someone else. The obvious solution is to brand myself as a business instead of a freelancer. But that leads to another problem…
I can’t brand myself as a business because most of my clients are specifically looking to work with a freelancer. They don’t want the hassle, complexity, or cost of working with even a small “agency”.
I suspect the mis-perception would result in a dramatic decrease in leads or at minimum change the types of clients contacting me for work.
To further compound the issue, I have little interest in managing people. I’m not even sure if I want to grow my business more, but I’d like to have the option rather than be forced to turn away good work.
S-Corp Client Perception
With an S-Corp, I get all the legal and tax benefits while having the option to re-brand as a business in the future.
While I can continue to operate the same way I did as a 1099 contractor, there are a few subtle differences that impact a clients perception of me.
First, I get to put my business name in the footer of my website. That’s a subtle, yet effective way to let prospective clients know I’m operating as a legitimate business. Most clients will appreciate what’s behind putting a business name there. It instantly signals professionalism.
When I write a proposal for a client, I use the business name, not my personal name. When I send my Master Services Agreement, I use the business name.
When I send clients a W-9 form, it has my business name, employer identification number (EIN), and the little “S-Corp” box is checked.
When clients get an invoice from me, it’s from “Matthew’s Design Co.”, not “Matt Olpinski”.
All of this contributes to the client understanding that they’re doing business with another business, not a freelancer. That type of perception typically results in the client respecting me much more throughout the process.
That matters a lot because unlike before, if I were to tell a client that I’m going to be working with one of my “team members” on their project, it doesn’t feel so strange. It doesn’t feel deceitful. In fact, they may be happy to know that more than one person is being dedicated to their project!
At every step prior to the work beginning, the client has been slowly building trust with my business, not just me personally.
An S-Corp requires you to have a payroll company so you can pay yourself as a W-2 employee (of your own business). But you can also use that payroll company to hire subcontractors with ease. Cutting checks, setting up direct deposits, recurring payments, and even hiring someone full-time (with benefits) are now incredibly easy.
By forming an S-Corp, I’ve laid the necessary foundation for future growth in any direction I choose.
Is an S-Corporation Right for You?
An S-Corp might be right for you if:
You’re freelancing full-time
You’re an above average earner in your city as a 1099 contractor (generally speaking this is probably $50k and up).
You want to save money in taxes
You want legal protection
You want to be set up for future growth
You want to offer stock options
You can afford about $3,200 a year in operating costs
An S-Corp might NOT be for you if:
You make less than what would be considered a “reasonable salary” in your city as a 1099 contractor
You’re only freelancing part-time
You can’t afford $3,200/year ($260/mo) in operating costs
You need legal protection and want to improve client perception, but can’t afford an S-Corp yet
10 Steps to Create an S-Corp
Buy a virtual office address you can use on all the paperwork for your new S-Corp. Make sure it can receive and forward snail mail. It’s important to do this first because you’ll need an address to use for steps 3-10!
Interview CPA firms to find one you like and trust
Pay them to handle all the necessary paperwork for the S-Corp setup
Select a bank, open a business checking account, and make an initial deposit that can cover your estimated payroll
Update your payment info on all business related accounts to use your new business debit / credit card.
Sign up for a payroll company like Gusto or Paychex and start running payroll
Sign up for QuickBooks. Harvest is great too, but Quickbooks is more powerful.
Sign up for professional liability insurance through Hiscox
Delete any old accounts you no longer need to pay for
Start using your business name and address on all W-9 forms, proposals, and contracts. It’s critical to ensure all new clients are using your business EIN and not your personal SSN so that income can be taxed properly under your new S-Corporation.
Frequently Asked Questions
When I started researching S-Corps and LLC’s, I had a million questions that no one seemed to be answering online. So I’m going to list all the questions I had in hopes the answers will help you!
How much does it cost to operate an S-Corp?
One-Time Business/Legal Setup Fee (from a CPA): $1,500
Gusto Payroll: $45/mo
Hiscox Insurance: $65/mo
Regus Virtual Office Address: $45/mo
Annual Tax Preparation: $600-$800 (excluding personal tax return fee)
Total: $3,200/year ($4,700 for the first year)
Will I still have instant access to all my money, not just the salary I pay myself?
Yes! I was worried that if I paid myself $50k, anything beyond that would be tied up in some weird account somewhere. However, that’s not true. You’ll always have access to all your money at any time.
You’ll simply open a business checking account and all your income will be deposited there. This is where your payroll will be debited from. When you need more money than what you’re getting through payroll, you have two options:
Run a special one-time payroll (subject to all taxes)
Simply transfer money from the business checking to your personal checking, which will be classified as a “shareholder distribution” transaction in QuickBooks, not subject to the 15.3% self-employment tax.
It helps if you have your business checking and personal checking through the same bank so the money transfers instantly.
How much money do I need to keep in my new business checking account?
Enough to cover your own payroll. You can decide to pay yourself weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, bi-monthly, etc. The idea is for you to always have enough money in that account to cover your payroll and all of your monthly expenses.
Will I still need to save money for taxes when I take a shareholder distribution?
Yes! This money is still taxed at your normal tax bracket rate, but isn’t subject to self-employment taxes. You should put about 15-20% of any shareholder distributions you take in a separate savings account so you don’t owe money during tax season.
What if I don’t have enough money to cover payroll?
No problem! You’re essentially you’re own employer, so you can simply pause your payroll until there are more funds in your account. However, you can avoid this by choosing a salary that you’ll most likely be able to afford each week or month.
Do I still have to pay estimated taxes each quarter?
Nope! Say goodbye to estimated taxes. Your payroll company will handle all that for you by withholding money from your paycheck, just like a normal employer would.
Do I still have to track my expenses for tax deductions?
No! If you’re using the business debit or credit card for every business transaction in conjunction with a system like QuickBooks, this should be completely automated.
Yes, this is mandatory. However, you’ll get a shiny new debit card with your business’s name on it!
Use this for all business-related purchases and be sure to make this the card you use for online services such as Gusto, QuickBooks, Hiscox, etc so the money is taken directly from your business account, not your personal account. This will be a business write-off at the end of the year!
What should I name my business?
You can name your business anything you want, but the legal name will have to end with Inc., Incorporated, Corp., Corporation or LTD.
Do yourself a favor and think LONG and HARD about what your business name will be prior to starting the formation process. I chose “Olpinski Design LTD” hastily in my accountant’s office, but wasn’t thrilled with it.
As it turns out, it was a huge (and expensive) pain to change it to “Matthew’s Design Co.” later on, so choose wisely! This will be on all your official paperwork!
You can also have an assumed name, which is essentially an alias that you can use on contracts and proposals as if it were the legal name.
Can I use my personal address as my business address?
You can, but I wouldn’t recommend it. You don’t want to expose your personal address to clients and you may want to use something more permanent, especially if you’re renting an apartment.
To accomplish this, I purchased a virtual office address through Regus Virtual Offices. All my mail is sent there, then forwarded to my home address. As a bonus, it’s a real physical space I can use to hold client meetings. It’s a professional and permanent solution.
Do I need a CPA or can I use TurboTax?
I’d highly recommend using a CPA. S-Corps are complex and should be handled by a tax expert. If you use QuickBooks, you can easily give your accountant access to all your transactions to make the tax preparation process simpler for them.
Was it worth it? How much do you really save in taxes?
I saved $7,000 on just 3 months of income at the end of 2018. I’m expecting to save about $20,000 in taxes each year moving forward. That FAR outweighs the operating expenses I incur by having an S-Corp.
Why not form an LLC instead?
Overall, LLC’s are simpler (and cheaper) to setup and much less expensive to operate throughout each year. You’ll still get the same legal protection as an S-Corp, but you won’t see any tax benefits.
If you’re already an LLC, you can elect to be taxed as an S-Corp, which could also have tax advantages.
I hope that helps! If you have a question you’d like answered, email firstname.lastname@example.org or join The Freelance Institute to chat with me and other freelancers from around the world, ask questions, and get the best advice for your freelancing business.
Last updated on June 20th, 2022
About Matt Olpinski
Matt runs his own web design and development company Matthew’s Design Co. and teaches thousands of freelancers how to succeed through his personal blog, newsletter, and community for freelancers — The Freelance Institute. | <urn:uuid:b28a3154-0b05-4343-8a09-796a79bfc86d> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://mattolpinski.com/articles/1099-to-scorp/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572833.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817001643-20220817031643-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.95539 | 4,785 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Félicien Rops (7 July 1833 – 23 August 1898) was a Belgian artist, known primarily as a printmaker in etching and aquatint. He is noted for his drawings depicting erotic and Satanic themes. Rops is furthermore important for being a pioneer in Belgian comics.
Rops was born in Namur, the only son of Sophie Maubile and Nicholas Rops, who was a textile manufacturer. After his first artistic training at a local academy, he relocated to Brussels at the age of twenty and briefly attended the University of Brussels. He subsequently attended the Académie de Saint-Luc and began creating satirical lithographs which were published in the student magazine Le Crocodile. These and the lithographs he contributed until 1862 to the magazine Uylenspiegel brought him early fame as a caricaturist.
In 1857, he married Charlotte Polet de Faveaux, with whom he had two children, Paul and Juliette (the latter died at a young age). He produced a number of etchings as illustrations for books by Charles de Coster. In 1862 he went to Paris where he met the etchers Félix Bracquemond and Jules Ferdinand Jacquemart. His activity as a lithographer ceased about 1865, and he became a restless experimenter with etching techniques.
Rops met Charles Baudelaire towards the end of the poet's life in 1864, and Baudelaire left an impression upon him that lasted until the end of his days. Rops created the frontispiece for Baudelaire's Les Épaves, a selection of poems from Les Fleurs du mal that had been censored in France, and were therefore published in Belgium.
His association with Baudelaire and with the art he represented won his work the admiration of many other writers, including Théophile Gautier, Alfred de Musset, Stéphane Mallarmé, Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly, and Joséphin Péladan. He was closely associated with the literary movement of Symbolism and Decadence.
After the failure of his marriage, Rops moved to Paris in 1874, where he lived with two sisters, Aurélie and Léontine Duluc. With Léontine, he had one daughter, Claire, who went on to marry the Belgian author Eugène Demolder.
Rops was one of the founding members of Société Libre des Beaux-Arts of Brussels (Free Society of Fine Arts, 1868–1876) and Les XX ("The Twenty", formed 1883). Rops's eyesight began to fail in 1892. He kept up his literary associations until his death.
Félicien Rops was a freemason and a member of the Grand Orient of Belgium.
In 1889, he was awarded the Légion d'honneur.
Like the works of the authors whose poetry he illustrated, his work tends to mingle sex, death, and irreligious images. According to Edith Hoffmann, the "erotic or frankly pornographic" nature of much of Rops's work "is at least partly due to the attraction these subjects had for a provincial artist who never forgot his first impressions of Paris".
Rops often combined soft-ground etching—a technique practiced by few artists of his day—with mezzotint or aquatint and sometimes added hand-coloring to his plates. His etchings were popular and influenced many younger artists, including Symbolists such as Edvard Munch and Max Klinger.
This is a part of the Wikipedia article used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike 3.0 Unported License (CC-BY-SA). The full text of the article is here → | <urn:uuid:ba4906ce-957b-4684-ba90-56a5ac26a737> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.wikiart.org/en/felicien-rops | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572833.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817001643-20220817031643-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.975447 | 794 | 2.15625 | 2 |
Peppermint essential oil is an amazingly adaptable oil that offers endless advantages. Its primary part, menthol, has been broadly examined and found to benefit health and assist in numerous ways. Read on to learn how you can start utilizing it to support your wellbeing and way of life!
Rather than grabbing another caffeinated drink when you need a pick-me-up, try a little peppermint oil. Studies have indicated it can improve both physical and mental energy levels in as little as five minutes.
How to utilize: Rub a few drops in your hands and inhale the aroma of peppermint for an increase in energy and clearness, or put a couple of drops in your diffuser to breathe in the fumes consistently. Or, add a drop or two to a glass of water and drink.
Peppermint oil has antifungal and antimicrobial properties that make it magnificent for battling dandruff.
How to utilize: Add 2-3 drops to your conditioner and focus on kneading your scalp as you shower.
Menthol, one of the principle compounds in peppermint, has critical calming, antispasmodic, and painkilling effects. In fact, studies have indicated that Peppermint Oil can help diminish muscle soreness and and even decrease inflammation. The calming and painkilling impacts of menthol in Peppermint Oil can likewise be utilized to alleviate joint agony when applied topically.
How to utilize: Combine Fractionated Coconut Oil with a few drops of Peppermint Oil and rub into irritated muscles and joints. Or for an extra benefit, try doTerra’s Deep Blue Rub!
Peppermint Oil can be used to control cravings by decreasing hunger pains and encouraging you to feel full quicker.
How to utilize: Place a couple of drops in a diffuser before eating times, place a few drops in a glass of water and drink, or mix several drops in Fractionated Coconut Oil and rub it on your chest.
Peppermint oil is incredible at helping the body expel mucus and phlem and, as such, is great at alleviating allergy symptoms.
How to utilize: Place Peppermint Oil in a diffuser mixed with eucalyptus and breath it in for the duration of symptoms day and night.
Studies have demonstrated that peppermint oil’s cooling and mitigating properties can help calm minor itches, from bug bites to poison ivy, and everything in-between.
How to utilize: Dilute a few drops of peppermint oil in Fractionated Coconut oil and rub on the affected area.
Natural essential oils have been used for millennia as common repellants for all sorts of bugs. Many properties of oils, including peppermint, are overpowering to bugs like mosquitoes, making them a no-brainer when it comes to a natural choice to keep bugs under control.
How to utilize: Dilute a few drops in fractionated Coconut oil and rub all over. To repel bugs in your home, add Peppermint oil to your all-purpose or floor cleaner.
Peppermint oil contains antibacterial and antimicrobial properties, which help decrease the microbes on your skin and the cooling menthol can decrease irritation from skin inflammation.
How to utilize: Mix a drop of peppermint oil with jojoba oil and spot treat acne twice daily.
Research shows that Peppermint Oil has a dramatic unwinding, relaxing, and pain relieving impact on migraines.
How to utilize: Rub 2 drops of Peppermint Oil into your temples and the base of your neck.
Studies show that rubbing Peppermint Oil into your scalp can help stimulate hair to grow and get thicker.
How to utilize: Add a couple of drops of peppermint oil to your shampoo and conditioner and/or massage peppermint oil directly into your scalp.
Peppermint oil is one of the most extraordinary natural remedies for stomach upset, bloating, and even irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). Studies additionally show peppermint oil significantly affects stomach upset, distension, and gas. Peppermint oil has also been shown to help control nausea and irregularity.
How to utilize: You can either take peppermint oil in pill form such as doTerra’s Peppermint Beadlets or rub a couple of drops, blended in Fractionated Coconut Oil, on your abdomen.
Studies have demonstrated peppermint oil to be viable against up to 22 strains of microscopic organisms and parasites, making it a formidable ally in battling bacteria and bacterial infection.
How to utilize: Apply Peppermint topically directly to the affected area.
Peppermint oil is well known for its relaxing and invigorating impacts on the body and mind. Studies show that it very well may be a viable treatment against nerve issues and mental fatigue, making it a fantastic choice to help relax and decrease stress.
How to utilize: Inhale the aroma of peppermint for an increase in energy and clearness, or put a couple of drops in your diffuser to breathe in the fumes for the duration of the day.
Specialists have discovered that athletes that utilized peppermint oil during before, during, and after training had improved performance, including breathing capacity and increased oxygen levels.
How to utilize: Add 1-2 drops of peppermint oil to a huge glass of water every day. During exercise, try placing a drop under your nose.
Peppermint Oil’s cooling properties can help calm an inflamed and sore throat, while also helping the body fight any infection that may have caused it.
How to utilize: Gargle a blend of 2 drops of peppermint oil in warm water.
Peppermint oil can help break up cold symptoms like a stuffy nose.
How to utilize: Diffuse peppermint oil all through your home and place 3-5 drops of Peppermint Oil in a pot of hot water – breath in the steam and allow the sinuses to drain.
Peppermint oil’s cooling and calming properties make it a phenomenal solution for burns from too much sun.
How to utilize: Combine 2 drops of peppermint oil with aloe and gently rub on burn area.
As you can see, Peppermint Essential Oil has a wide array of benefits and these are just the tip of the ice-burg. If you don’t already, this is one oil you ought to always have stocked up at home. | <urn:uuid:496a5bc2-135f-49b8-8fa7-b291775afc50> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://narayanwellness.com/23-ways-to-use-peppermint-oil-for-health-wellness/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572833.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817001643-20220817031643-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.933689 | 1,314 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Genetic diseases like sickle cell anemia or cystic fibrosis occur when a section of a chromosome or a single gene is defective or missing, and their effects are unmistakable. But in recent years researchers have found that other genetic conditions are more subtle, affecting things like temper and the ability to learn, which are often thought of as simply part of an individual’s personality. Even more surprising, researchers are starting to understand how these traits can appear in carriers of a genetic disease who don’t have the full-blown disease themselves.
That was the case for Carol, now in her 70s. (I have changed her name and those of her family members to protect their privacy.) For most of her life, she assumed that everything wrong with her family was just the way families were. Growing up in a Chicago suburb in the 1950s, she was scorned by her father, Lewis, who expressed his contempt for her and his wife in one blow: “You’re like your mother.” When Carol grew up and had children of her own, her daughter Amy was introverted and a poor student. Counselors at school told Carol that Amy’s problem was that she couldn’t measure up to her mother’s expectations.
“Fragile X syndrome is named after a defect in the X chromosome that causes it to pinch so that it looks like a little piece is about to break off.”
Then a surprising development shed new light on the role that genes might play in the family’s woes. When Amy was 12, her cousin Ben was diagnosed with fragile X syndrome, the most common known inherited form of autism and intellectual disability. Ben’s diagnosis set off a cascade of genetic tests, which showed that Amy had fragile X syndrome too, providing an explanation for her social anxiety and learning disabilities. But the unusual mechanism behind fragile X meant that not only Carol but even her father, who didn’t have the syndrome, could still have been affected by it.
Fragile X syndrome is named after a defect in the X chromosome that causes it to pinch so that it looks like a little piece is about to break off. As a result, the body is unable to produce an important protein, preventing the brain from developing normally. With classic genetic diseases, people are affected when they inherit two copies of a defective gene, one from each of their parents. The parents themselves each have only one copy of the gene, having inherited it from one of their own parents and not the other.
This makes them carriers of the disease: They are able to pass it down to their children, but they don’t suffer from it themselves. Fragile X belongs to a set of diseases in which the mutation is on the X chromosome. Typical X-linked diseases, like hemophilia, only affect men, and only women can be unaffected carriers. That is because women have two X chromosomes, and men one X and one Y.
But fragile X is not typical of X-linked diseases either. In one of the early scientific conferences on the disease, in 1986, population geneticist Stephanie Sherman showed that in a family affected by fragile X, each generation has more members with the syndrome than the one before. A man is more likely to have a grandson with fragile X than a brother who has it. This seemed paradoxical at first, since it was so unlike typical genetic diseases, and it came to be known as the Sherman paradox.
A few years later, researchers discovered the explanation. It turned out that there is a minor form of the fragile X mutation known as a premutation. In the carrier state, the X chromosome appears normal. But with each generation the premutation becomes more significant, a rare phenomenon known in genetics as anticipation. At a certain point a threshold is crossed, and the apparently unaffected carrier gives birth to a child with fragile X syndrome.
The discovery of the premutation also clarified several mysteries about fragile X disorders. In contrast with other X-linked diseases, both men and women can be carriers, and girls and boys can be born with full mutation fragile X syndrome. Fragile X is a rare disease; According to the CDC, it is diagnosed in approximately one in 7,000 men and one in 11,000 women. The fragile X carrier state is much more common, affecting up to one in 150 women and one in 450 men in the US
Until the late 1980s, premutation carriers were believed to have no symptoms. Since then, however, premutation symptoms have been found to be widespread and even life-defining. The premutation isn’t a mild form of fragile X syndrome, but it has its own means of wreaking havoc in the carrier’s body and brain. It causes mutated, toxic RNA to build up in the ovaries, where it can lead to infertility and early menopause, and the neurons, where it ties up useful proteins so they can’t do their jobs. Brain cells called astrocytes may die young. About 70% of elderly carrier men and a smaller percentage of women develop a constellation of tremor, ataxia or gait disturbance, and personality change.
“A hidden genetic mutation may account for an array of character traits that people might not think of as hereditary. ”
This last symptom raises the intriguing possibility that a hidden genetic mutation may account for an array of character traits that people might not think of as hereditary. Carol learned from genetic testing that she had passed on the fragile X mutation to her daughter Amy from her father Lewis, whose meanness and irritability had been considered just an unfortunate part of his personality. Upon his death, however, neuropathological examination of Lewis’s brain confirmed that he had the tremor/ataxia syndrome.
Looking back, Carol now believes that her father’s behavior was influenced by changes throughout his brain. His executive function was severely impaired, as was his capacity for empathy. His poor impulse control and inability to stay on task made him lash out at his wife and two daughters. Research in the past few years has shown that the fragile X premutation is associated with a broad array of psychiatric and medical problems, including anxiety, depression, phobias, sleep disorders, fibromyalgia, migraines and other forms of chronic pain. Most of these aren’t traditionally thought to be caused by a tiny alteration in a single gene.
Lewis, Carol and Amy represent three generations of a fragile X family. Amy, with full-mutation fragile X syndrome, can’t make change or drive on a highway. Carol, a carrier, suffers from anxiety, depression and chronic pain. Lewis, a carrier too, appeared healthy until he reached old age but was a punitive, even cruel father and husband. Today it’s not a mystery when a genetic mutation produces a defective protein that causes disease. But premutation carriers like Carol and Lewis, once thought to be unaffected, raise questions about previously unrecognized ways that genes can affect the way we think, act and feel.
—Dr. Skomorowsky is a clinical instructor in psychiatry at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. This essay is adapted from her new book, “The Carriers: What the Fragile X Gene Reveals About Family, Heredity, and Scientific Discovery,” published this week by Columbia University Press.
Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8 | <urn:uuid:aed1eb35-0288-40fa-a0e2-994e3069c6d4> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://rochesterhealthyliving.com/the-surprising-legacy-of-a-genetic-disorder/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572833.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817001643-20220817031643-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.97533 | 1,553 | 3.421875 | 3 |
Declassified cold war photographs taken by American U2 spy planes that flew over the Middle East in the 1950s and 1960 have revealed previously hidden archaeological sites.
The black and white photographs, released by the CIA, show a range of areas of ancient importance, ranging from sites along the Nile in Egypt to the city of Allepo in Syria and the Assyrian city of Nimrud in modern day Iraq.
The images have revealed details including prehistoric mass-kill hunting traps in eastern Jordan, irrigation systems of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in northern Iraq, and marsh communities in southern Iraq.
Declassified cold war photographs taken by American U2 spy planes that flew over the Middle East in the 1950s and 1960 have revealed previously hidden archaeological sites. This image shows the Syrian city of Allepo before war ravaged it
Experts Emily Hammer and Jason Ur built their own index of the U2 imagery and selected film rolls from the National Archives’ storage centre in the of Kansas. This image shows Ur, an important Sumerian city-state in ancient Mesopotamia, located at the site of modern Tell el-Muqayyar. The left image was taken by U2 in 1959 (left) and a spy satellite in 1968 (right)
Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University used the images, taken from 70,000 feet (13.2 miles / 21km) above the Earth.
The photographs were taken during a mission code-named CHESS and were declassified in 1997, but weren’t digitally scanned or indexed, according to Gizmodo.
Experts Dr Emily Hammer and Professor Jason Ur built their own index of the U2 imagery and selected film rolls from the National Archives’ storage centre in the of Kansas.
This included thousands of high and low-resolution negative frames, covering thousands of feet of film, which the pair poured over in detail using a light table.
They then took photographs of the negative using a a 100-millimetre macro lens and stitched them together and used computer software to find out where in the world they were taken.
‘As you turn the spool of a film roll following the path of the U2 plane, you may not know exactly what you’ll see in unfamiliar places, so there’s often a sense of exploration and discovery,’ said Hammer in a statement. ‘Other times, the pilots were flying over regions I knew by heart from travel and study, and I would almost hold my breath, hoping that the plane had veered just a little to the right or left.’
To which she added: ‘The photos provide a fascinating look at the Middle East several decades ago, showing, for example, historical Aleppo long before the massive destruction wrought in the ongoing civil war.’
The photographs were taken during a mission code-named CHESS and were declassified in 1997, but weren’t digitally scanned or indexed. Chains of desert kites as visible in U2 imagery from missions in 1554 and 1960
PREHISTORIC DESERT KITES IN EASTERN JORDAN
Chains of desert kites as visible from missions in 1954 and 1960.
The picture shows aerial views over the black basalt desert (harra) an the hundreds of huge stone-walled constructions called ‘desert kites’ which are believed to be mass-kill hunting traps for gazelle and other animals like giraffes and pigs.
These were constructed by communities that ranged from Neolithic and Chalcolithic as well as Early Bronze Age communities inhabiting the harra.
In addition, other stone-walled features such as villages, corrals, and circular structures that resemble wheels can also be spotted.
A Chinese researcher who viewed U2 images of his hometown taken during the Cold War was the inspiration for the project.
Hearing abut their success, Dr Hammer and Professor Ur decided to conduct their own study to see if the previously classified data could reveal anything of academic importance.
One result of their index was to reveal unprecedented details of desert Kites in Eastern Jordan.
The resulting index allowed the scientists to take an unprecedented look at desert kites in Eastern Jordan.
These stone structures were used to trap prey by ancient hunters between 8,000 and 5,000 years ago.
Their images reveal the damage sustained to the structures since the images were taken.
The black and white photographs, released by the CIA, show a range of areas of ancient importance. This image shows the remains of canals (top picture) dating to the Sasanian era in early first millennium AD (Canal A) and the Assyrian Empire (Canal B) in northern Iraq above the city of Nimrud taken in the 1960s
ANCIENT CANALS IN NORTHERN IRAQ
The photo showing ancient canals in northern Iraq above the Assyrian capital city of Nimrud taken in the 1960s.
Features such as Assyrian canals, tunnels, and sites at the Negub canals and site on the right bank of the Upper Zab River can be seen.
The earliest known canal in this region led from the Khazir River to Nimrud city, which was the imperial capital at the time.
The reconstruction pictures result from combined imagery sources suggests that the canal may have served to transport agricultural products downstream to Nimrud and that the canal could have been part of a larger river transport network capable of bringing agricultural products from even further away, over 60 km to the north of Nimrud.
The open canal was chiselled into the side of the river terrace but also cut through it via two tunnels.
‘We were able to map many features that have been destroyed since 1960 and are no longer visible in modern imagery,’ the authors wrote in the study.
‘This is particularly true for villages, corrals, and wheel structures, which are smaller than desert kites and more vulnerable to total erasure by modern agriculture and development.’
The pair also studied canal systems dating back to the ancient Assyrians in what is now northern Iraq.
Professor Hammer says this irrigation system fed the royal capitals, made agricultural surplus production possible, and provided water to villages.
The study also revealed more recent finds, including inhabited and abandoned Marsh Arab communities in southern Iraq.
The full findings of the study were published in the journal Advances in Archaeological Practice.
Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University used the images, taken from 70,000 feet (13.2 miles / 21km) above the Earth. An inhabited and adjacent abandoned Marsh Arab village in the Central Marshes of southern Iraq, U2 mission 1554, January 1960
MARSH ARAB COMMUNITIES OF SOUTHERN IRAQ
Roughly 280 km2 of the Central Marshes covered by U2 mission 1554 in January 1960, there are 43 marsh villages, including inhabited and abandoned villages.
Twenty of these villages (16 inhabited and 4 abandoned) have clearly visible structures. The smallest village has 4 and the largest 73, with a mean of 28. These village sizes are between 7.2 and 0.3 ha, with a mean of 2.3 ha.
Abandoned villages with visible structures are likely to have been more recently abandoned than other abandoned villages that are identified only by means of their elevation above the water and their position within a network of radiating paths through the marsh.
Two of the four recently abandoned villages and three of the more distantly abandoned ones are directly beside currently inhabited villages that are larger than the abandoned ones, indicating that marsh villagers tended to produce ‘horizontal stratigraphy’ rather than resettling on top of existing villages
. Villages tend to preferentially be located on ‘fingers’ of higher ground that extend into the marsh from its edges, providing easy routes in and out of the marsh. This is especially true of villages located on the eastern edge of the marsh, nearest to the river. | <urn:uuid:5ba4c884-e35b-4e2f-a473-cfcbeb3010e7> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://expressdigest.com/declassified-spy-plane-photos-taken-in-the-50s-and-60s-expose-hidden-archaeological-spots/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573172.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818063910-20220818093910-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.960698 | 1,656 | 3.078125 | 3 |
Hypertension is high blood pressure. When blood pressure is measured it is given two numbers and normal blood pressure is around 120/80.
Anything over 140/100 is considered to high. Many factors such as stress, smoking, weight problems, excess coffee and alcohol, and high cholesterol are all considered to affect blood pressure. Any programme to reduce blood pressure will always look at lifestyle and diet factors.
However a number of herbs can help with general cardiac health as well as specifically hypertension, and is one of the most common reasons people seek the help of the herbalist.
Hawthorn is the supreme cardiac herb, that can be taken safely long term. However the individual case will determine the exact combination of herbs prescribed, and could include Mistletoe, Dandelion, Motherwort, Lime Flower and Yarrow.
Any present medication will be taken into account and this can be maintained alongside the herbs, or reduced under careful supervision depending on the patient's wishes. | <urn:uuid:feb73fd2-b639-4fc6-90fb-5332e1459e14> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.cenacletreatmentcentre.co.uk/news/349-herbs-for-hypertension.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573172.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818063910-20220818093910-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.951164 | 198 | 2.859375 | 3 |
Interatrial septal development. The primitive atrium is a single cavity (Panel A) subsequently divided by the septum primum which grows down from the roof of the atrium, toward the developing endocardial cushions (Panel B). Thus, small perforations begin to develop superiorly resulting in the ostium secundum (Panel C). The atrial roof grows down along the right side of the septum primum, the septum secundum, which comes to lie over the ostium secundum, however an opening remains between septa, the PFO (Panel D). At birth, lung pressures drop and the blood pressure in the left atrium exceeds that of the right atrium, so that the septum primum is shoved against the septum secundum, obtaining septa fusion (Panel E). If this final step does not occur, PFO results (Panel F). | <urn:uuid:fb983f2f-36dc-4317-a6e7-df51069c59e5> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://cardiovascularultrasound.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1476-7120-10-16/figures/6 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573172.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818063910-20220818093910-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.894517 | 193 | 3.171875 | 3 |
Examining gender differences in drivers’ thoughts and feelings about different outcomes of speeding: implications for future anti-speeding messages.
Keywords: Driver Psychology / Human Factors
Speeding remains a pervasive road safety problem, increasing both crash frequency and severity. Advertising countermeasures which aim to change individuals’ attitudes and behaviours are a key component in the array of countermeasures aimed at reducing this risky behaviour. Enhancing individuals’ perceptions of the personal relevance of such messages is important for increasing persuasiveness.
This study examined what males and females reported as the most concerning aspects associated with (i) receiving a speeding fine, (ii) losing one’s license, and (iii) being involved in a crash. For each of these outcomes, a range of specific and appropriate aspects were assessed. For instance, in relation to receiving a fine, individuals reported the extent to which they would, for example, feel concerned about losing demerit points and paying more in insurance premiums.
An online survey of 751 drivers (579 males; 16-79 years) was administered. When controlling for age, overall significant gender differences were found in relation to two of the three outcomes; receiving a fine and being in a crash. Follow-up tests of univariate effects revealed that females consistently reported being significantly more concerned than males on all aspects. Thus, for being fined, females were significantly more concerned with, for example, being caught and receiving a ticket in the mail; while, for being in a crash, specific aspects included, for example, injuring/killing oneself and seeing oneself as not a good/safe driver. The findings are discussed in terms of their implications for developing well-targeted messages aimed at discouraging drivers from speeding. | <urn:uuid:b2280b1f-d8ef-4e0e-bc2c-f81bb8538388> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://acrs.org.au/article/examining-gender-differences-in-drivers-thoughts-and-feelings-about-different-outcomes-of-speeding-implications-for-future-anti-speeding-messages/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573172.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818063910-20220818093910-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.958574 | 357 | 2.046875 | 2 |
This Great Lakes Freighter That Regularly Docks at Muskegon Has its Own Fan Club
Meet the Arthur M. Anderson, a ship that fans seek out to photograph and post pictures and videos to a group on Facebook with more than 5 thousand members.
Those who follow her show the exploits on that group like taking on limestone at Rogers City, near Alpena on the Lake Huron shore. Another recent series of photos shows an unloading of material at Muskegon. Check out this photo of the freighter against a cotton candy sky in Grand Haven. Equally majestic is the Anderson passing under the Mackinac Bridge.
Why does this humble fright workhorse of a ship have such a following? It goes back to the ill-fated Edmond Fitzgerald. The SS Arthur M. Andreson was the last boat to make contact with the Fitzgerald before it sank. The Anderson heard the final words communicated from the doomed freighter, "we're holding our own."
69 years after it was put into service and 46 years after its chance encounter with history and Lake Superior lore, the ship is still actively hauling across the lakes regularly making stops in ports like Duluth and Muskegon.
Here she is in Duluth on the 45th anniversary of the Fitzgerald shipwreck giving what's known as a Master's Salute (3 long and two short whistle blasts) to the lost vessel. | <urn:uuid:091cfe3a-fa1a-428c-81ce-cbd4186f4c02> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://wfgr.com/arthur-m-anderson-fans/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572833.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817001643-20220817031643-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.942637 | 287 | 1.75 | 2 |
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
September 30—October 6, 2017
Human history is a history of migration. Over the ages, danger, need and curiosity have prompted people to leave their countries of origin in search of security, livelihood and fulfilment. Many also migrated for religious reasons; the journey without return is a deep religious symbol that can be found in both the Bible and the Qur’an. Today sizeable communities of Muslim migrants live in many European countries. How do they deal with living in societies where many of the norms are different from those they are familiar with, from their own religious and cultural backgrounds? How can they become active and accepted citizens of this new homeland without losing their heritage?
- analyzes why people migrate and how host communities react to them
- includes study and interpretation of stories of migration in the holy books
- fosters understanding of the difficulties of developing concepts of integration
- explores new ways of dealing with cultural and religious differences.
The module emphasizes the ‘encounter’ method of learning. Problems are analyzed by interacting with people at all levels of society (civic and religious authorities, people directly affected by the problem, etc.) and by learning to look at the issue from various perspectives. To achieve this, the module introduces a variety of creative didactic methods.
The module explores new initiatives and models of integration in the Netherlands. The group stays in the Dominican Priory in Huissen, and from there it visits migrant communities and projects in Amsterdam and other cities, which are home to people of many different cultures and religions. There will also be an encounter with women from the Jewish community.
Dr. Geertje de Vries, studied Theology at the Kampen Theological University. She worked as an ordained minister in the Protestant Church for nine years, and in 2008 she defended her PhD thesis on subject of ’Learning to see – learning to believe. A practical-theological theory of aesthetic-religious learning’. In 2008 – 2013, De Vries worked as a lecturer at the department of Theology and Life Philosophy at Inholland University in Amstelveen. Presently she works as a minister again, in the Protestant Church in the Netherlands.
Dr. Stella van de Wetering, currently works as a lecturer at VU University, Faculty of Theology, Cantre of Islamic Theology (CIT) and Inholland University Amsterdam, Department Education, Learning and Life Philosophy at the Teacher Training Program for Teachers Islam. Wetering graduated in Arabic language and Arabic Islamic culture. Her field of expertise is Arabic language, Gender and Islamic Theology, Islamic Pedagogy, Islamic Education and Interreligious Dialogue.
Dominican Research Centre for Theology and Society (DSTS), Dominikanenklooster Huissen, Oecumenische Vrouwensynode (Organization of Christian Women), Al Nisa (Organization of Muslim Women), VU University Amsterdam, Inholland University Amsterdam.
DSTS, Nieuwe Herengracht 18, NL-1018 DP Amsterdam
Tel: +3120-6235721, E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.org | <urn:uuid:4a421145-2e1c-4c13-8830-1e8cd2b228b5> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://epil.ch/study-plan/module-v-amsterdam/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571198.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810161541-20220810191541-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.919498 | 686 | 2.09375 | 2 |
The Government has said that figures are showing that plastic bag usage has fallen by 90% since the introduction of a surcharge for their use. The figures suggest that the average consumer now acquires 10 bags per year instead of 140 bags which they used before the surcharge.
Theresa Villiers, the Secretary of State for the Environment, said in a statement:
“Our comprehensive action to slash plastic waste and leave our environment in a better state continues to deliver results, with our 5p charge reducing plastic bag sales by 90% in the big supermarkets.
No one wants to see the devastating impact plastic waste is having on our precious wildlife. Today’s figures are a powerful demonstration that we are collectively calling time on being a throwaway society.” | <urn:uuid:b8046a7e-e839-497b-8606-924a6aaab5dd> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.ukpol.org.uk/2019/07/31/plastic-bag-surcharge-sees-90-fall-in-usage/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572833.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817001643-20220817031643-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.953454 | 155 | 2.125 | 2 |
Secure video conferencing is something from which many companies stand to greatly benefit. Across the world, telecommunication has become an important part of day to day business. The benefits of the technology are many. Its rise has resulted in a complete change in how companies have done business worldwide.
Secure video conferencing provides a huge variety of benefits in comparison to traditional meeting approaches. The technology erases the barriers of time and space, allowing parties to converse one-to-one with full audio and visual display anywhere and at any time. The best systems allow for all the benefits of in-person meetings while providing the numerous boons of mobility and digital integration.
It’s important for every company operating in today’s business climate to consider the many solutions that this technology provides. Since secure video conferencing technology has never been easier to approach, reasonably priced, or easier to use, it’s a great time to give it full consideration.
What is Secure Video Conferencing?
The phrase secure video conferencing refers to a wide variety of systems with two things in common. First, this technology is designed to replicate the experience of a meeting between two or more parties. The goal is not only to reproduce this experience as much as possible, but to provide unique benefits that are difficult to replicate outside of digital meeting systems, such as digital collaborative approaches.
Second, as the name implies, these systems are designed to be secure. Security is a major concern for businesses in the financial industry, medical sector, or for any company that regularly works with confidential information. Trade secrets, passwords, or other sensitive data may be compromised by outside technology designed to record digital communication.
Secure systems apply preventative measures to protect data. Systems employ a variety of measures to protect and defend a company’s transmissions, including end-to-end encryption. Precise specifications vary from system to system and setup to setup.
Turning to the Professionals
One aspect universal to every system is that companies are wise not to treat them as do-it-yourself projects. Experiencing the full benefits of these systems calls for a consultation with experienced audio-visual integrators. Only with the assistance of professional audio-visual integrators can a company be sure that it’s getting the most out of the technology and that their system is built for long-term use.
Drawing from three decades of experience with a wide variety of clients in both the private and public sectors, the audio-visual integration experts at Data Projections know that each company or non-profit is unique, which means their solutions must also be unique. Data Projections draws on their decades of experience in the business to determine the needs of their clients and provide solutions that take A/V integration to the next level.
Before making any decisions about whether or not a remote system is the best option for the company, contact the professionals at Data Projections for a consultation. | <urn:uuid:2fdd6cef-3c34-4d31-953e-76cb40066e59> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.dataprojections.com/dp-video-conferencing-solutions/how-is-secure-video-conferencing-different/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572198.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20220815175725-20220815205725-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.951032 | 602 | 2.046875 | 2 |
A central hypothesis concerning sensory processing is that the neuronal circuits are specifically adapted to represent natural stimuli efficiently. Here we show a novel effect in cortical coding of natural images. Using spike-triggered average or spike-triggered covariance analyses, we first identified the visual features selectively represented by each cortical neuron from its responses to natural images. We then measured the neuronal sensitivity to these features when they were present in either natural images or random stimuli. We found that in the responses of complex cells, but not of simple cells, the sensitivity was markedly higher for natural images than for random stimuli. Such elevated sensitivity leads to increased detectability of the visual features and thus an improved cortical representation of natural scenes. Interestingly, this effect is due not to the spatial power spectra of natural images, but to their phase regularities. These results point to a distinct visual-coding strategy that is mediated by contextual modulation of cortical responses tuned to the spatial-phase structure of natural scenes.
Citation: Felsen G, Touryan J, Han F, Dan Y (2005) Cortical Sensitivity to Visual Features in Natural Scenes. PLoS Biol 3(10): e342. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.0030342
Academic Editor: David C. Burr, Istituto di Neurofisiologia, Italy
Received: April 15, 2005; Accepted: August 3, 2005; Published: September 27, 2005
Copyright: © 2005 Felsen et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
Abbreviations: RF, receptive field; STA, spike-triggered average; STC, spike-triggered covariance; V1, primary visual cortex
An essential goal in studying the visual system is to understand how it processes natural scenes, which exhibit distinct statistical properties [1–7]. In particular, since neuronal circuits evolve and develop in the natural environment, they may be specifically adapted for efficient coding of natural stimuli [1–4,8–10]. This efficient coding hypothesis has provided an important framework for understanding early visual processing: In the retina and the lateral geniculate nucleus, spatiotemporal frequency tuning of the neurons appears to be adapted to the power spectra of natural scenes, allowing them to encode the input into a more efficient, decorrelated form [3,11–13]. In the primary visual cortex (V1), response properties of both simple [14–16] and complex [17,18] cells can be “derived” from the statistics of natural scenes and the principle of efficient coding. These studies underscore the importance of understanding neuronal response properties with respect to natural-scene statistics.
The function of neurons in the early visual pathway is thought to be the analysis of local features in the images. The response of each neuron is determined by two properties: the structure of its preferred visual features and the sensitivity of the neuron to the presence of these features in visual scenes. The preferred features are closely related to the receptive field (RF) of the cell. For a neuron with linear RF properties (e.g., a simple cell), the preferred feature directly corresponds to the classical RF (i.e., light and dark regions correspond to ON and OFF response regions). In a standard model of the complex-cell RF, there are multiple preferred features, and each feature corresponds to the RF of a functional subunit [19–21] or a linear combination of them. Feature sensitivity, on the other hand, can be characterized by the contrast-response function, which describes the relationship between the neuronal response and the contrast of the feature (see below). High feature sensitivity allows the neuron to reliably signal the presence of the preferred features in visual stimuli. Note that, in this study, we use the term “preferred feature” solely to facilitate the discussion of our findings on cortical feature sensitivity; we do not imply that these features are necessarily optimal for driving the cortical neuron, as the neuronal responses are known to be modulated by various contextual stimuli, including those in the nonclassical RF .
The structure of the preferred features of V1 neurons has been investigated extensively in experimental studies [19,20,23,24], and is thought to play an important role in efficient, sparse coding of natural scenes [14–18]. However, the role of feature sensitivity in efficient coding has not been studied experimentally. In the present study, we measured feature sensitivity of cortical neurons in processing several classes of visual stimuli. By comparing the cortical feature sensitivity for natural images, random stimuli, and synthetic stimuli with either natural power or natural phase spectra, we characterized the dependence of feature sensitivity on the statistical properties of visual stimuli. Our results point to a novel form of efficient coding that is mediated by contextual modulation of cortical responses.
Measurement of Preferred Features and Feature Sensitivity
Single-unit recordings were made from 50 neurons (36 complex cells, 14 simple cells) in area 17 of anesthetized adult cat (see Materials and Methods). We will first report the findings from complex cells and will then describe the results from simple cells in a separate section. In order to characterize the feature sensitivity of each complex cell, it is necessary to first estimate its preferred features. The preferred features were estimated from the responses of the neuron to a natural-image ensemble (Figure 1A), using a spike-triggered covariance (STC) analysis [25–27] (see Materials and Methods). These features, which are represented by the “significant eigenvectors” of the STC matrix, contained oriented light and dark regions (Figure 1B), resembling the RFs of simple cells . For the majority of the cells analyzed with this method (17/26), we identified two significant eigenvectors, which are well approximated by a pair of Gabor functions with similar orientations and spatial frequencies but ∼90° phase difference (Figure 1B, left panel). For other cells, only one significant eigenvector was identified, which was also well approximated by a Gabor function.
(A) Upper panel: example natural images. White boxes (12 × 12 pixels) indicate area presented in experiments. Lower panel: schematic spike train, binned at stimulus frame rate (24 Hz, dotted lines). Arrow indicates temporal delay (1 frame) at which preferred features were estimated, which was determined in preliminary studies to be the optimal temporal delay (see Figure S2).
(B) Estimation of preferred features (significant eigenvectors) using STC analysis (see Materials and Methods). Left panel: preferred features of a neuron, with light and dark regions represented by red and blue; dashed ovals delineate the first feature to facilitate comparison with the images. Right panel: 30 largest eigenvalues of STC matrix. Dashed lines: control confidence intervals (mean ± 12 standard deviation of control eigenvalues). Filled circles: significant eigenvalues corresponding to eigenvectors shown on left.
(C) Upper panel: natural images. Dashed ovals correspond to those in (B). Middle panel: contrast of the first preferred feature (F.C. denotes feature contrast; see Materials and Methods). Lower panel: responses of the neuron (in spikes/s) to natural images. Black dots: feature contrasts (middle) and neuronal responses (lower) for the example images.
(D) Contrast-response function. Error bar: ± standard error of the mean.
The contrast of each significant eigenvector in a particular image (referred to as “feature contrast”) was measured as the dot product of the image and the eigenvector (Figure 1C), which depends on both the overall contrast of the image and its similarity with the eigenvector (e.g., the image on the right in Figure 1C contains a high-contrast luminance edge matched to the first eigenvector, thus giving rise to a high feature contrast). The sensitivity of the neuron to each of its significant eigenvectors in a stimulus ensemble is measured by plotting the average neuronal response as a function of feature contrast (Figure 1D), yielding the contrast-response function [26,28,29] (see Materials and Methods). A steep contrast-response function indicates a high sensitivity of the neuron to the presence of the corresponding feature in the images, whereas a flat contrast-response function indicates that the neuronal response is insensitive to the presence of the feature.
The structure of the significant eigenvectors (Figure 1B) and the shape of their contrast-response functions (Figure 1D) are qualitatively consistent with the standard model of complex-cell RFs [19–21]. This “energy model” can be described as
where r is the response of the neuron, S is the stimulus, kϕ is the RF of a subunit with preferred spatial phase ϕ (kϕ, kϕ+90°, and their linear combinations also correspond to the preferred features of the cell), and F represents the contrast-response function for the subunit, which is commonly approximated by F(x) = βx2. Given the quadratic nonlinearity in this model , the STC analysis provides an ideal method for estimating the preferred features of each complex cell: The RF of each subunit (kϕ or kϕ+90°) corresponds to a significant eigenvector (Figure 1B) or a linear combination of the two eigenvectors , and the contrast-response function F(x) can be measured as shown in Figure 1C and 1D. It is important to note, however, that the STC analysis does not presume the validity of the energy model ; conversely, the results of the analysis (Figure 1B and 1D) do not imply that the energy model provides a complete description of complex-cell responses, as shown below.
Feature Sensitivity of Complex Cells in Response to Natural and Random Stimuli
According to the energy model, the response of a complex cell to each image is completely determined by the contrasts of the preferred features in the image, kϕ•S and kϕ+90°•S. However, numerous studies have shown that many visual stimuli that are ineffective in driving a cortical neuron on their own (e.g., stimuli at non-preferred orientations or in the nonclassical RF) may strongly modulate the responses to the effective stimuli [22,31,32] and affect the neuronal sensitivity to the preferred features [26,30]. To test whether cortical feature sensitivity depends on the statistics of the images that contain both the preferred and non-preferred features, we measured the responses of complex cells to natural images and to spatially unstructured random stimuli (Figure 2A). To control for the confounding effect of contrast adaptation on cortical feature sensitivity, we constructed the random-stimulus ensemble specifically for each cell such that it matched the natural-image ensemble, frame by frame, in both the global (root-mean-square) contrast and the contrasts of one or both of the preferred features of the cell (Figure 2). This was achieved by first creating an orthonormal basis set that included the significant eigenvector(s) of the cell. Then, for each natural image, a random stimulus was generated by selecting the coefficients of the basis functions such that the global and feature contrasts were matched between the natural and random stimuli (see Materials and Methods). Because of the randomness in generating most of the basis functions and in selecting their coefficients, these stimuli exhibit no clear spatial structure (Figure 2A).
(A) Example images in the natural (upper row) and the random (lower row) ensembles, which were matched frame by frame for both global and feature contrasts.
(B) Contrasts of a preferred feature of a complex cell (inset at center) in each frame of the natural (squares) and random (circles) ensembles in (A). F.C. denotes feature contrast.
(C) Distributions of feature contrasts in the natural (left) and random (middle) ensembles, and the distribution of the difference in feature contrast between the two ensembles (right).
When we examined the contrast-response functions that were computed, for each significant eigenvector, from the responses to the natural- and random-stimulus ensembles, we found that, for both ensembles, the neuronal response increased with the magnitude of the feature contrast independently of its sign (Figure 3A), consistent with the polarity invariance of complex cells [19,20]. Interestingly, however, the amplitude of the contrast-response function was markedly higher for natural images than for random stimuli. To compare these functions quantitatively, we fit each function with
(A) Contrast-response functions for both preferred features (insets above) of a complex cell. Curves: fits of data with quadratic functions.
(B) Gain of contrast-response function (in spikes/s per unit feature contrast) for natural ensemble versus that for contrast-matched random ensemble. For this population of cells, the gain was significantly higher for the natural than for the random ensemble (n = 24, from 14 cells; p < 10−4, Wilcoxon signed rank test).
where r is the neuronal response, x is feature contrast, γ = 2 (based on the standard energy model of complex-cell RFs ; see above), and r0 and β are free parameters (Figure 3A, curves). For all the cells tested in this experiment (14 cells, 24 significant eigenvectors), we found that the gain of the contrast-response function (β), which directly reflects the feature sensitivity of the neuron, was higher in the responses to natural images (p < 10−4, Wilcoxon signed rank test; Figure 3B). This result was independent of the value of γ between one and three, and it remained the same if the positive and negative sides of each function were fitted separately.
In the above experiment, ten of the 14 complex cells had two significant eigenvectors. For four of these ten cells, the natural and random stimuli were matched for the feature contrasts of both eigenvectors simultaneously. For the remaining six cells, however, a random-stimulus ensemble was generated to match the natural ensemble for each eigenvector separately. In this case, it is possible that the contrasts of the two significant eigenvectors were more correlated in natural images than in the random stimuli , and the response of the cell to the matched eigenvector may be enhanced by the correlated presence of the other eigenvector. To test this possibility, we re-computed the contrast-response function for each significant eigenvector of the ten cells using only the frames in which the contrast of the other “un-matched” eigenvector was very low (<0.005), so that excitation of the cell due to this un-matched feature was negligible (Figure 3A). We found that the feature sensitivity was still significantly higher for the natural than for the random stimuli (p < 0.002, Wilcoxon signed rank test). Furthermore, if we consider only the four cells for which the contrasts of both significant eigenvectors were matched simultaneously (thus any correlation between them in natural images would be equally present in the random stimuli), the feature sensitivity was still significantly higher for the natural than for the random stimuli (p < 0.01). Thus, the higher feature sensitivity of the complex cells in response to natural images is not due to any correlation between the two significant eigenvectors.
Another potential problem in the above experiment is that the preferred features were estimated from the responses to natural images, the non-Gaussian statistics of which may cause bias in the estimation of the preferred features with STC. In addition, although for most of the cells (12/14) the preferred features and their contrast-response functions were computed from the responses to different repeats of the natural-image ensemble, it is possible that using the same stimuli for both computations can introduce bias in the measured sensitivity. To control for these potential biases, for a separate set of complex cells we replaced the features estimated with natural images (see Figure 1B) with Gabor functions whose parameters were chosen based on the orientation and spatial-frequency tuning of the neuron measured with sinusoidal gratings. These Gabor functions resembled the significant eigenvectors measured with natural images (Figure 1B). When we compared the responses to a natural-image ensemble and a random-stimulus ensemble matched for both the global contrast and the contrast of the Gabor function (analogous to the analyses shown in Figures 2 and 3), the neuronal sensitivity to these Gabor functions was also found to be higher in the responses to natural images (n = 10, from ten cells; p < 0.05). This indicates that the effect is robust with respect to small variations in the spatial structure of the preferred visual features, and it is not due to the potential biases in feature estimation with natural images. Such an effect is not predicted by the existing models of complex-cell RFs [21,34,35], and it indicates that cortical feature sensitivity depends strongly on the image statistics.
Feature Sensitivity of Simple Cells
Surprisingly, for simple cells we found no difference in feature sensitivity between their responses to natural and random stimuli. The preferred feature of each simple cell (Figure 4A, inset), which directly corresponds to the classical RF of the cell, was estimated with a modified spike-triggered average (STA) analysis that corrects for the spatial correlations in natural images [23,36] (see Materials and Methods). We then constructed a random-stimulus ensemble that was matched to a natural-image ensemble, frame by frame, for both the global contrast and the contrast of the preferred feature (similar to the method for complex cells; see Figure 2). Responses to these contrast-matched natural and random ensembles were recorded, and the contrast-response functions were computed. Not surprisingly, the contrast-response functions measured with both ensembles were monotonic (see Figure 4A), consistent with the polarity sensitivity of simple cells . To obtain a quantitative measure of the simple-cell feature sensitivity, we fit the positive side of each contrast-response function with
(A) Contrast-response function for the preferred feature (inset above) of a simple cell. Curves: fits of data with quadratic functions (for positive feature contrasts only).
(B) Gain of contrast-response function, as in Figure 3B (n = 14, from 14 cells).
where r is the neuronal response, x is the feature contrast, γ = 2, and r0 and β are free parameters. Across the population of simple cells studied, the contrast-response gain (β) was not significantly different between the natural images and the random stimuli (n = 14, from 14 cells; p > 0.55) (Figure 4B). To compare the results between simple and complex cells directly, for each cell we computed Δβ = βnatural − βrandom (βnatural and βrandom are contrast-response gains for natural and random stimuli, respectively; for cells with two significant eigenvectors, Δβ was averaged between the two). We found that Δβ is significantly higher for complex cells than for simple cells (p < 0.001, Wilcoxon rank sum test).
Note that, in this study, a cell was classified as simple if F1/F0 > 0.6 (see Materials and Methods). This criterion is somewhat arbitrary, as V1 neurons may lie on a simple-complex continuum rather than belong to one of two distinct categories [37–39]. To test whether our classification criterion affects the observed difference in feature sensitivity between simple and complex cells, we plotted Δβ against F1/F0 for each cell (Figure 5). While the distributions of both Δβ and F1/F0 may be continuous, there is a significant negative correlation between Δβ and F1/F0 (p < 10−4), and the cells with the highest F1/F0 (most “simple-cell like”) tend to exhibit the lowest Δβ. If we use the standard criterion and classify the five cells with 0.6 < F1/F0 < 1 as complex cells (thus using the first eigenvector of their STC instead of STA as the preferred feature), Δβ is still significant for complex cells (p < 5 × 10−4, Wilcoxon signed rank test) but not for simple cells (p > 0.4), and Δβ is significantly different between simple and complex cells (p < 10−4, Wilcoxon rank sum test). Thus, the observed difference in feature sensitivity between simple and complex cells is not sensitive to the criterion used for simple/complex classification. Additional analyses have demonstrated that this difference is also not due to the different methods (STA versus STC) used to identify the preferred visual features (Protocol S1; Figure S1).
Detectability of Preferred Features from Complex-Cell Responses
Functionally, the observed difference in complex-cell feature sensitivity predicts that the preferred features are more detectable in natural images than in random stimuli, but this difference could be eliminated if the increased sensitivity is accompanied by a similar increase in response noise. We thus tested this prediction directly using signal detection theory . For simplicity, we defined two sets of stimuli in each ensemble: those with high feature contrast (>T1; Figure 6A, black shading, referred to as “feature present”) and those with near-zero feature contrast (<T0; gray shading, “feature absent”). Detectability of the feature was measured by how reliably the “feature-present” stimuli could be distinguished from the “feature-absent” stimuli based on the neuronal response (see Materials and Methods). Figure 6B shows the probability distribution of the neuronal response when a feature was either present (solid line) or absent (dashed line), for both the natural- and random-stimulus ensembles. For the natural ensemble, the neuron was more likely to fire at higher rates when the feature was present than when it was absent, as expected. Such a difference in the response probability allows correct classification of the two sets of stimuli at a level well above chance (50%; see Figure 6C).
(A) Probability distribution of feature contrast in a natural ensemble (or, equivalently, its matched random ensemble). For simplicity, only the positive side (feature contrast >0) is shown. Gray shading: feature contrasts near zero (<T0, here T0= 0.007, “feature absent”); black shading: high feature contrasts (>T1, here T1 = 0.04, “feature present”).
(B) Conditional probability distributions of responses evoked by natural images (upper) and random stimuli (lower). Solid lines: response distributions when the feature was present in stimulus (black shading in [A]); dashed lines: distributions when the feature was absent (gray shading in [A]).
(C) Feature detectability in natural images versus that in matched random stimuli, for the same population of cells shown in Figure 3B. Detectability was measured as the percentage of trials in which stimuli were correctly classified as “feature present” or “feature absent” (see Materials and Methods).
For the random ensemble, however, the two response distributions were much less distinguishable (Figure 6B), resulting in a lower percentage of correct classifications. This result is inconsistent with the energy model, which would predict that the upper and lower plots in Figure 6B would be identical. For the population of cells studied, detectability of the preferred features from the neuronal responses was significantly higher for the natural-stimulus ensemble (n = 24, p < 10−4, Wilcoxon signed rank test; Figure 6C), and this result was independent of the criteria used to select the two stimulus sets (Figure 6A, T0 and T1).
Dependence of Cortical Feature Sensitivity on Power and Phase Spectra
What stimulus property is responsible for the higher feature sensitivity of complex cells in response to natural rather than to random stimuli? Since the natural- and random-stimulus ensembles were matched for both global and feature contrasts (see Figure 2), the difference in contrast-response gain (see Figure 3) cannot be attributed to cortical contrast adaptation . Instead, it is likely due to the differences in the spatial characteristics of the stimuli. For natural images, power (P) decreases with spatial frequency [1,2], and nearby frequencies tend to have similar phases (ϕ) , due to the prevalence of surfaces and edges of objects. White noise, on the other hand, has a flat power spectrum and random phase structure. For convenience, we use P+/ϕ+ and P−/ϕ− to represent the statistical properties of natural and white-noise stimuli, respectively (where “+” represents natural). In order to distinguish the effects of power and phase spectra on cortical feature sensitivity (Figure 3), we manipulated each property separately, yielding two classes of synthetic stimulus ensembles: the “natural-power” ensemble, in which each image had a natural power but a random phase spectrum (P+/ϕ−), and the “natural-phase” ensemble, in which each image had a random power but a natural phase spectrum (P−/ϕ+) (Figure 7A; see Materials and Methods).
(A) Four classes of stimulus ensembles with distinct combinations of power (P) and phase (ϕ) characteristics; +: natural; −: random. Example stimuli from each class are shown. The P−/ϕ− and P−/ϕ+ stimuli are matched for both the global contrast and the feature contrasts for a particular complex cell.
(B) Summary of cortical feature sensitivity (contrast-response gain; see Figure 3B) for the stimulus classes in (A). In each experiment, a random (P−/ϕ−) stimulus ensemble was generated to match P+/ϕ+, P+/ϕ−, or P−/ϕ+ in global and feature contrasts (see Figure 2 and Materials and Methods), and the measured contrast-response gain was plotted against the gain for P−/ϕ− (as in Figure 3B). Bar represents slope of linear regression (through origin); >1 indicates higher contrast-response gain relative to P−/ϕ−. Error bar: ± standard deviation. P+/ϕ+ bars for simple (S) and complex (C) cells were computed from data in Figures 3B and 4B, respectively, and P+/ϕ− (n = 10, from six cells) and P−/ϕ+ (n = 11, from six cells) were from largely nonoverlapping populations of complex cells (one cell was used in two separate experiments).
Visually, natural-power stimuli tend to exhibit smooth luminance variations in space (typical of natural images but not of white noise), but they appear amorphous owing to the lack of well-defined edges and contours. Natural-phase stimuli, however, contain reduced low-frequency signals but retain and enhance the edges in natural images. Thus, these synthetic stimuli capture complementary spatial characteristics of natural images.
When we compared the feature sensitivity of each complex cell in response to each of these ensembles with that to a random ensemble (matched for global contrast and the feature contrasts for all significant eigenvectors; see Materials and Methods), we found that the contrast-response gain was significantly higher for P−/ϕ+ (n = 11, from seven cells; p < 0.02, Wilcoxon signed rank test) but not for P+/ϕ− (n = 10, from six cells; p > 0.15) (Figure 7B). This indicates that the increased feature sensitivity is due not to the power spectrum of natural images, but to their spatial-phase regularities.
The main finding of this study is a new response property of complex cells pertaining to the coding of natural stimuli. Although the hypothesis of efficient coding by cortical neurons in terms of redundancy reduction among a population of neurons has been examined in theoretical studies [2,4,9,10,14–18], there have been relatively few experimental studies on the relationship between cortical responses and the statistical properties of natural stimuli [24,42,43]. In the present study, we have shown that the response sensitivity of complex cells to their preferred features is higher for natural images than for random stimuli (see Figure 3), leading to increased feature detectability in the cortical representation of natural stimuli (see Figure 6).
Since these stimulus ensembles were matched frame by frame for the contrasts of the significant eigenvectors (kϕ•S and kϕ+90°•S; see Figure 2), they should activate the energy-model mechanism to the same extent. The observed difference in cortical responses can therefore be attributed to the numerous other features that were not matched between the two ensembles (see Materials and Methods). Previous studies have shown that the non-preferred stimuli can affect the gain of the neuronal contrast-response function for the preferred stimuli , and these effects (which we refer to as “contextual modulation”) have been modeled as divisive normalization [34,35]. This normalization model can be described as
where ∑ϕFϕ(kϕ•S) corresponds to the energy model, kj and Fj are the RF and contrast-response function of the jth divisive subunit, respectively, and σ is a constant. This model can account for a range of nonlinear cortical-response properties, including contrast-gain control and cross-orientation inhibition . Our finding suggests that the non-preferred features (kj) provide different degrees of suppressive modulation of the responses to the natural and random stimuli, resulting in higher feature sensitivity for natural images. Note that while gain control and contextual modulation may enhance the efficiency of visual coding by optimizing information transmission in individual neurons , reducing inter-neuronal correlations [34,42], or increasing response sparseness [42,46], a potential detrimental effect is a reduction in the sensitivity of cortical neurons to their preferred features when the features are embedded in complex stimuli. Our results suggest that this mechanism is tuned to the spatial statistics of natural images so as to reduce the suppression of the responses to the preferred features.
A well-known form of suppressive modulation is cross-orientation inhibition [32,47], and the higher feature sensitivity of complex cells in response to natural images could be caused by fewer cross-oriented components in these stimuli. To test for this possibility, we estimated the contrast energy at the orientation orthogonal to the preferred features as the mean-square contrast of the preferred features rotated by 90°. We found no significant difference in this contrast energy between the natural- and the random-stimulus ensembles (p > 0.4). In addition to the total energy over the entire ensemble, we also examined whether, in each stimulus frame, the contrast energy of the preferred features is correlated with the energy of the cross-oriented components. We found that such correlation is negligible (correlation coefficient within ±0.01) in both the natural and random ensembles. These results suggest that the observed difference in the feature sensitivity of complex cells in response to the natural and random stimuli is not likely to be due to the difference in cross-orientation inhibition. We also considered the possibility that the natural images contain less global contrast (and thus less non-preferred feature contrast) than the random stimuli within the RF of the cell, since matching the stimuli for global contrast over the entire image does not guarantee a precise match within the RF region. However, further analyses suggested that this could not account for the observed difference in feature sensitivity (Protocol S2).
Aside from suppressive modulation, there may be additional excitatory visual features (kϕ) not identified by our STC analysis, a possibility indicated by a recent study in macaque V1 . These additional excitatory features may be more correlated with the identified features in natural images than in random stimuli, resulting in higher response gains for the identified features. If this were the case, it would suggest that the improved feature sensitivity of complex cells is mediated by tuning of the additional excitatory features to the statistics of natural images. Note that, in the traditional view, the function of complex cells in detecting oriented edges or lines is primarily mediated by a pair of Gabor filters described by the energy model. Our current finding, together with that in macaque V1 , indicates that these cells have more specialized RF properties. They can carry out more refined feature detection by responding more vigorously to the oriented edges and contours that are meaningful features in natural images (e.g., those belonging to the borders of physical objects) than to random stimuli that contain the same contrasts of the pair of Gabor filters.
Interestingly, while this property is highly robust in complex cells (see Figure 3), it is virtually absent in simple cells (see Figures 4 and 5). This difference may be due to the differential laminar distributions of the two cell types and the different neuronal circuitry contributing to their contextual modulation. Related to our finding, an earlier study showed that the repulsive shift in cortical orientation tuning induced by surround visual stimulation, which may increase the efficiency of visual coding, is found only for complex cells and not for simple cells .
A study of feature detection in human vision led to the suggestion that complex cells act as detectors for phase congruence in visual images . Recent physiological experiments have shown that the responses of complex cells to compound gratings depend on the relative spatial phase of the gratings —an effect not accounted for by the energy model. In the present study, the higher feature sensitivity to natural images is also due to their nonrandom phase structure rather than to their power spectra (see Figure 7). This indicates that the phase regularity of natural images, due in large part to the prevalence of well-defined edges and contours [5,49], can strongly affect the cortical-response gain. This effect and that observed with compound gratings may share common mechanisms. At the perceptual level, although the non-flat power spectrum is a well-studied, robust feature of natural scenes [1,2], the phase spectrum in fact carries most of the information that allows the animal to distinguish one scene from another [51–53]. Thus, along the mammalian visual pathway, coding of natural scenes appears to be refined at multiple stages: While the RF structure of retinal and thalamic neurons is adapted to the power spectra of natural stimuli to reduce coding redundancy [3,11–13], and the RFs of cortical simple cells are adapted to the phase structure of natural stimuli to attain sparse coding [14–16], gain control of feature sensitivity of complex cells is tuned to the phase regularity of natural scenes to improve the saliency of relevant visual features.
Materials and Methods
Overview of experimental paradigm
In this study, each cortical neuron was subjected to a sequence of inter-dependent experiments and analyses. To facilitate understanding of this experimental design, we provide in this section a brief outline of the major steps involved in studying each cell (details of these steps are provided in subsequent sections).
In Step 1, we estimated the preferred feature(s) of the cell from the recorded responses to an ensemble of natural images (see Figure 1A), using STA for simple cells and STC for complex cells.
In Step 2, we created a random-stimulus ensemble that was matched to a “target ensemble” (which was a natural-image, a natural-phase, or a natural-power ensemble; see Visual stimulation) for both global and feature contrasts (see, for example, Figure 2). Note that this step depends on the outcome of Step 1, since matching the feature contrast requires knowing the precise structure of the preferred feature(s).
In Step 3, we recorded the responses of the neuron to both the target and the random ensembles (created in Step 2) and computed the contrast-response functions for each feature from both responses (see Figure 3A).
In one control experiment, we replaced the preferred features estimated in Step 1 with Gabor functions whose parameters were chosen based on the responses of the cell to drifting gratings. Steps 2–4 then followed as above.
Animal-use procedures were as previously described and approved by the Animal Care and Use Committee at the University of California, Berkeley. A total of 18 cats (weighing 2–6.5 kg each) were used. Single-unit recordings were made in area 17 using tungsten electrodes (A-M Systems, http://www.a-msystems.com). Cells were sampled at all laminar locations. Unit isolation was based on cluster analysis of waveforms. Cells were excluded if their mean firing rates were <1 spike/s or if their response correlations between repeats were at chance level. The firing rates of the cells included in this study ranged from 1 to 76 spikes/s (median: 6 spikes/s). Cells were classified as simple or complex based on the ratio of the first harmonic (F1) and the mean (F0) of the response to a drifting grating stimulus (simple cell if F1/F0 > 0.6; this criterion was used because for all the cells in our sample with 0.6 < F1/F0 < 1, RFs measured by STA exhibited clear spatial structure).
Visual stimuli were generated with a PC and presented with a Barco monitor (size 40 × 30 cm, refresh rate 120 Hz, maximum luminance 80 cd/m2). Luminance nonlinearities were corrected through software. Four classes of stimulus ensembles were used in this study: natural-image, natural-power, natural-phase, and random-stimulus ensembles.
Natural-image ensemble (P+/ϕ+)
Raw images were selected at random from a database consisting of a variety of digitized natural movies , and the center patch (12 × 12 pixels) of each image was retained. To maximize the diversity of images, we measured the similarity between each pair of stimuli Si and Sj in the ensemble by their dot product
For similar images (dot product > 0.95), either Si or Sj was excluded. Three distinct natural ensembles were used in this study (with no common image between ensembles). Unlike natural movies, these images were presented in a random sequence; the absence of temporal correlation greatly facilitated the STC analysis (see below). However, since natural images are highly variable in their global contrast (measured by root-mean-square contrast
where −1 ≤ S(x, y) ≤ 1, and 1 and −1 represent highest and lowest luminance of the monitor, respectively), such stimuli may invoke contrast adaptation that could confound the interpretation of the results. To control for this problem, we scaled each image such that all frames had the same global contrast (0.32). Any frame that could not be scaled without violating −1 ≤ S(x, y) ≤ 1 was excluded from the ensemble.
Natural-power ensemble (P+/ϕ−)
First, we computed the Fourier transform of every image in a natural ensemble (P+/ϕ+). We then generated each image in the P+/ϕ− ensemble as
where Vj is the jth Fourier component of the corresponding natural image, Aj is the amplitude spectrum of the natural image, and the phase spectrum (ϕj) was obtained from a randomly generated 12 × 12 image, in which the luminance value of each pixel was drawn randomly from a uniform distribution on [0, 1]. The resulting image had the same power spectrum as its corresponding natural image, but the spatial phase spectrum is random. The global contrast of each image was the same as that for the natural images (0.32).
Natural-phase ensemble (P−/ϕ+)
For each image in the natural ensemble (P+/ϕ+), we retained its phase spectrum, but drew the amplitude at each frequency randomly from a uniform distribution on [0, 1], yielding the corresponding image in the natural-phase ensemble. These natural-phase images largely preserve the edges in natural images, but the spatial power spectrum of each image is random; the average power spectrum over the entire ensemble is flat.
Random-stimulus ensemble (P−/ϕ−)
We generated the random ensemble specifically for each cell and each target ensemble (which could be a natural-image, natural-power, or natural-phase ensemble) to be matched for both the global and feature contrasts. First, we created an orthonormal basis set (Vi, where i = 1, 2, …, 144) that included the preferred feature(s) of the cell (i.e., for a complex cell with two significant eigenvectors that are matched simultaneously, V1 and V2 represent these eigenvectors, and V3, … V144 are arbitrary aside from the requirement of orthonormality; for a simple cell, V1 represents its preferred feature measured by STA, and V2, … V144 are arbitrary). This was achieved in the following steps.
First, we generated a 144 × 144 symmetric matrix from the two significant eigenvectors (kϕ and kϕ+90°) as
where a1 and a2 were large but unequal numbers (e.g., a1 = 109, a2 = 108).
Second, we generated another 144 × 144 symmetric matrix using random vectors (Ui, where i = 1, 2, …, n, and where n >> 144) as
with each component of Ui drawn randomly from a normal distribution (mean = 0, variance = 1).
Third, we calculated the eigenvectors of Xvector + Xrandom (Vi, where i = 1, 2, …, 144), and these eigenvectors were used as the basis set for generating the random stimuli. Note that the large coefficients a1 and a2 ensure that the two preferred features (kϕ and kϕ+90°) can be arbitrarily close to the first two eigenvectors (V1 and V2).
Then, for each image in the target ensemble, we generated a corresponding “random” stimulus as
The coefficients ci were selected such that (1) c1 and c2 were the contrasts of the first and second preferred features in the target image, which ensured that the random stimulus was matched to the target image for feature contrast (see Figure 2), and (2) ci,where i = 3, 4, …, 144 were drawn randomly from a normal distribution and then scaled so that
where S is the target image. This ensured that the global stimulus contrast (equal to
for an orthonormal basis set) was also matched to that of the target image. If any pixel of Sr(x, y) fell outside the range [−1, 1], this frame was discarded and new ci were selected, until −1 ≤ S r(x, y) ≤ 1. This process was repeated for all the frames in the target ensemble. Note that although the stimuli that satisfied constraints (1) and (2) are, strictly speaking, not random, they exhibit no clear spatial structure (Figure 2A) because of the randomness in choosing most of the basis functions (V3, …, V144) and their coefficients (c3, …, c144). The spatial power spectra of these stimuli are flat, as for white noise.
All the stimuli described above were updated every five frames, corresponding to an effective frame rate of 24 Hz. Each ensemble consisted of 24,000 effective frames (referred to in the main text simply as “frames”) and was 16.7 min long. For each cell, the size of the images was adjusted to be slightly larger than the classical RF, although across the population of cells the relationship between the RF and the stimulus patch varied somewhat with respect to location and size. In experiments comparing feature sensitivity, we interleaved the presentations of target and random ensembles in order to control for the effects of the slow drift in the physiological state of the animal.
This technique has been used in previous studies to analyze the nonlinear-response properties of sensory neurons and has been shown to be effective for computing the preferred features of V1 complex cells [26,27,30]. For all the cells in this study (except those used to test Gabor functions), we estimated the preferred features using natural images (12 × 12 pixels). Since natural images contain significant spatial correlations, it was necessary to modify the STC analysis in order to compute the preferred features. Details of this method can be found in Touryan et al. . Briefly, we first corrected for the correlations in the stimuli by “whitening” each image in the ensemble:
where S is a vector representation of the stimulus (luminance in each pixel at each frame), U is a matrix containing the eigenvectors of the covariance matrix of S, and λ1, …, n are the corresponding eigenvalues. As a result, Sw represents the stimulus in the whitened space. STC analysis for white-noise stimuli [25,26] was then applied to the ensemble Sw to identify significant eigenvectors (Vsig). The preferred features are then computed as
Since some eigenvalues (λ) for natural stimuli are very small, the “whitening” step will result in noise amplification. To solve this problem, a cutoff threshold was chosen such that whitening is performed only for eigenvectors above this cutoff (in this study, 50 out of 144 eigenvectors ).
This technique has been used previously to estimate the linear RFs of sensory neurons [23,36]. Briefly, to analyze the responses to white-noise stimuli, VSTA is calculated as the average of the spike-triggered stimulus ensemble. To analyze the responses to natural stimuli, the stimulus correlations are corrected for by normalizing VSTA by the covariance matrix of S (see STC analysis). To avoid noise amplification, this normalization was performed only above the cutoff (50/144), identical to that used for the modified STC analysis.
Although both STA and STC can be used to estimate preferred spatiotemporal features, in the present study we focused on the space domain in order to improve the signal-to-noise ratio of the estimate. In preliminary studies, we computed the spatiotemporal features of a subset of cells and found that the signals in the features are almost completely contained in the spatial feature at a delay of one frame (Figure S2). Thus in the present study the analysis was performed only at that delay. For each cell, we used the responses to 1–3 repeats of a natural-image ensemble to compute the preferred features.
The contrast of preferred feature kϕ (x, y) in stimulus S(x, y) is measured as the dot product of kϕ and S:
(see Figure 1C); kϕ satisfies
Since −1 ≤ S(x, y) ≤ 1, where 1 and −1 represent the highest and lowest luminance of the monitor, respectively, the above definition ensures that the feature contrast in each stimulus is bound between −1 and 1 (although, in practice, these limits were never reached with the stimulus ensembles used in this study). For each feature, the contrast-response function was measured from the neuronal responses to 1–3 repeats of an ensemble; for nearly all cells (38/40), these repeats were distinct from those used to estimate the preferred features, in order to avoid bias .
Analysis of feature detectability
For each visual feature and each stimulus ensemble, 50,000 trials were performed in silico for both the positive and negative values of the feature contrast. In each trial, a pair of neuronal responses (rp and ra), corresponding to “feature-present” and “feature-absent” stimuli respectively, were generated based on the probability distributions shown in Figure 6B (solid and dashed lines). The larger response of the pair was classified as the response to the “feature-present” stimulus (rp′); trials in which the responses were equal were excluded. The percentage of trials with correct classification (rp′ matches rp) was computed for both the positive and negative feature contrasts, and the results were averaged. The result shown in Figure 6C was qualitatively independent of the specific values of T0 and T1 over a wide range.
Figure S1. Comparison between STA and Significant Eigenvector of STC for Simple Cells
Results from two cells are shown. Upper, STA. Middle, STC eigenvector. Lower, STC eigenvalues, as in Figure 1B.
(299 KB PDF).
Figure S2. Estimated Spatiotemporal Features of a Complex Cell
Note that the signals in the features are almost completely contained in the spatial features at a delay of one frame.
(278 KB PDF).
Protocol S1. Analysis of Simple-Cell Feature Sensitivity Using STC
(41 KB PDF).
Protocol S2. Global Contrast within RF of the Cell
(19 KB PDF).
We thank Michael Gastpar, Natalia Caporale, Avideh Zakhor, and Bobak Nazer for helpful discussions. This work was supported by a grant from the National Eye Institute (R01 EY12561).
GF, JT, and YD conceived and designed the experiments. GF, JT, and FH performed the experiments. GF and JT analyzed the data. GF, JT, and YD wrote the paper.
- 1. Attneave F (1954) Some informational aspects of visual perception. Psychol Rev 51: 183–193.
- 2. Field DJ (1987) Relations between the statistics of natural images and the response properties of cortical cells. J Opt Soc Am A Opt Image Sci Vis 4: 2379–2394.
- 3. Atick JJ (1992) Could information processing provide an ecological theory of sensory processing? Network 3: 213–251.
- 4. Field DJ (1994) What is the goal of sensory coding? Neural Comput 6: 559–601.
- 5. Thomson MG (2001) Beats, kurtosis and visual coding. Network 12: 271–287.
- 6. Geisler WS, Perry JS, Super BJ, Gallogly DP (2001) Edge co-occurrence in natural images predicts contour grouping performance. Vision Res 41: 711–724.
- 7. Sigman M, Cecchi GA, Gilbert CD, Magnasco MO (2001) On a common circle: Natural scenes and Gestalt rules. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 98: 1935–1940.
- 8. Barlow HB (1961) Possible principles underlying the transformation of sensory messages. In: Rosenblith WA, editor. Sensory communication. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. pp. 217–234.
- 9. Simoncelli EP, Olshausen BA (2001) Natural image statistics and neural representation. Annu Rev Neurosci 24: 1193–1216.
- 10. Zetzsche C, Rohrbein F (2001) Nonlinear and extra-classical receptive field properties and the statistics of natural scenes. Network 12: 331–350.
- 11. Srinivasan MV, Laughlin SB, Dubs A (1982) Predictive coding: A fresh view of inhibition in the retina. Proc R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 216: 427–459.
- 12. Dong DW, Atick JJ (1995) Temporal decorrelation: A theory of lagged and nonlagged responses in the lateral geniculate nucleus. Network 6: 159–178.
- 13. Dan Y, Atick JJ, Reid RC (1996) Efficient coding of natural scenes in the lateral geniculate nucleus: Experimental test of a computational theory. J Neurosci 16: 3351–3362.
- 14. Olshausen BA, Field DJ (1996) Emergence of simple-cell receptive field properties by learning a sparse code for natural images. Nature 381: 607–609.
- 15. Bell AJ, Sejnowski TJ (1997) The “independent components” of natural scenes are edge filters. Vision Res 37: 3327–3338.
- 16. van Hateren JH, Ruderman DL (1998) Independent component analysis of natural image sequences yields spatio-temporal filters similar to simple cells in primary visual cortex. Proc R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 265: 2315–2320.
- 17. Hyvarinen A, Hoyer PO (2001) A two-layer sparse coding model learns simple and complex cell receptive fields and topography from natural images. Vision Res 41: 2413–2423.
- 18. Kayser C, Kording KP, Konig P (2003) Learning the nonlinearity of neurons from natural visual stimuli. Neural Comput 15: 1751–1759.
- 19. Hubel DH, Wiesel TN (1962) Receptive fields, binocular interaction and functional architecture in the cat's visual cortex. J Physiol 160: 106–154.
- 20. Movshon JA, Thompson ID, Tolhurst DJ (1978) Receptive field organization of complex cells in the cat's striate cortex. J Physiol 283: 79–99.
- 21. Adelson EH, Bergen JR (1985) Spatiotemporal energy models for the perception of motion. J Opt Soc Am A Opt Image Sci Vis 2: 284–299.
- 22. Fitzpatrick D (2000) Seeing beyond the receptive field in primary visual cortex. Curr Opin Neurobiol 10: 438–443.
- 23. Smyth D, Willmore B, Baker GE, Thompson ID, Tolhurst DJ (2003) The receptive-field organization of simple cells in primary visual cortex of ferrets under natural scene stimulation. J Neurosci 23: 4746–4759.
- 24. David SV, Vinje WE, Gallant JL (2004) Natural stimulus statistics alter the receptive field structure of v1 neurons. J Neurosci 24: 6991–7006.
- 25. Brenner N, Bialek W, de Ruyter van Steveninck R (2000) Adaptive rescaling maximizes information transmission. Neuron 26: 695–702.
- 26. Touryan J, Lau B, Dan Y (2002) Isolation of relevant visual features from random stimuli for cortical complex cells. J Neurosci 22: 10811–10818.
- 27. Touryan J, Felsen G, Dan Y (2005) Spatial structure of complex cell receptive fields measured with natural images. Neuron 45: 781–791.
- 28. Dean AF (1981) The relationship between response amplitude and contrast for cat striate cortical neurones. J Physiol 318: 413–427.
- 29. Chichilnisky EJ (2001) A simple white noise analysis of neuronal light responses. Network 12: 199–213.
- 30. Rust NC, Schwartz O, Movshon JA, Simoncelli EP (2005) Spatiotemporal elements of macaque v1 receptive fields. Neuron 46: 945–956.
- 31. Maffei L, Fiorentini A (1976) The unresponsive regions of visual cortical receptive fields. Vision Res 16: 1131–1139.
- 32. Bonds AB (1989) Role of inhibition in the specification of orientation selectivity of cells in the cat striate cortex. Vis Neurosci 2: 41–55.
- 33. Maffei L, Fiorentini A, Bisti S (1973) Neural correlate of perceptual adaptation to gratings. Science 182: 1036–1038.
- 34. Schwartz O, Simoncelli EP (2001) Natural signal statistics and sensory gain control. Nat Neurosci 4: 819–825.
- 35. Heeger DJ (1992) Normalization of cell responses in cat striate cortex. Vis Neurosci 9: 181–197.
- 36. Theunissen FE, David SV, Singh NC, Hsu A, Vinje WE, et al. (2001) Estimating spatio-temporal receptive fields of auditory and visual neurons from their responses to natural stimuli. Network 12: 289–316.
- 37. Chance FS, Nelson SB, Abbott LF (1999) Complex cells as cortically amplified simple cells. Nat Neurosci 2: 277–282.
- 38. Mechler F, Ringach DL (2002) On the classification of simple and complex cells. Vision Res 42: 1017–1033.
- 39. Priebe NJ, Mechler F, Carandini M, Ferster D (2004) The contribution of spike threshold to the dichotomy of cortical simple and complex cells. Nat Neurosci 7: 1113–1122.
- 40. Skottun BC, De Valois RL, Grosof DH, Movshon JA, Albrecht DG, et al. (1991) Classifying simple and complex cells on the basis of response modulation. Vision Res 31: 1079–1086.
- 41. Green DM, Swets JA (1966) Signal detection theory and psychophysics. New York: Wiley.
- 42. Vinje WE, Gallant JL (2000) Sparse coding and decorrelation in primary visual cortex during natural vision. Science 287: 1273–1276.
- 43. Kayser C, Salazar RF, Konig P (2003) Responses to natural scenes in cat V1. J Neurophysiol 90: 1910–1920.
- 44. Heeger DJ, Simoncelli EP, Movshon JA (1996) Computational models of cortical visual processing. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 93: 623–627.
- 45. Yu Y, Lee TS (2005) Adaptive contrast gain control and information maximization. Neurocomputing 65–66: 111–116.
- 46. Vinje WE, Gallant JL (2002) Natural stimulation of the nonclassical receptive field increases information transmission efficiency in V1. J Neurosci 22: 2904–2915.
- 47. Burr D, Morrone C, Maffei L (1981) Intra-cortical inhibition prevents simple cells from responding to textured visual patterns. Exp Brain Res 43: 455–458.
- 48. Muller JR, Metha AB, Krauskopf J, Lennie P (2003) Local signals from beyond the receptive fields of striate cortical neurons. J Neurophysiol 90: 822–831.
- 49. Morrone MC, Burr DC (1988) Feature detection in human vision: A phase-dependent energy model. Proc R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 235: 221–245.
- 50. Mechler F, Reich DS, Victor JD (2002) Detection and discrimination of relative spatial phase by V1 neurons. J Neurosci 22: 6129–6157.
- 51. Oppenheim AV, Lim JS (1981) The importance of phase in signals. Proc IEEE 69: 529–541.
- 52. Piotrowski LN, Campbell FW (1982) A demonstration of the visual importance and flexibility of spatial-frequency amplitude and phase. Perception 11: 337–346.
- 53. Wang Z, Simoncelli EP (2003) Local phase coherence and the perception of blur. In: Thrun S, Saul L, Scholkopf B, editors. Advances in neural information processing systems. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. | <urn:uuid:a6799b63-513b-4d5f-b718-96af1fbac39e> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.0030342 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573172.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818063910-20220818093910-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.905204 | 12,663 | 2.4375 | 2 |
An old science fictional argument: to what extent is it correct to characterise the human mind as a digital computer? According to this insightful article [via Charles Stross] many AI researchers have been making an error in their belief that the human mind can be thought of as a computer:
The fact that the mind is a machine just as much as anything else in the universe is a machine tells us nothing interesting about the mind.
If the strong AI project is to be redefined as the task of duplicating the mind at a very low level, it may indeed prove possible—but the result will be something far short of the original goal of AI.
In other news:
A detailed simulation of a small region of a brain built molecule by molecule has been constructed and has recreated experimental results from real brains.
The “Blue Brain” has been put in a virtual body, and observing it gives the first indications of the molecular and neural basis of thought and memory.
Is there a meaningful distinction between the traditional view of a strong AI and a molecular-level simulation of a human mind? | <urn:uuid:55b469e4-5496-4d14-b8da-1ee376a046b1> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | http://futurismic.com/2009/04/22/of-two-minds/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572833.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817001643-20220817031643-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.955481 | 224 | 2.625 | 3 |
Adequate performance evaluation
In recent years, various tools have been able to establish themselves on the market that visualize the presence of a domain in search results via a graph. A single “curve” can be used to track the development of rankings over time.
However, caution is required at this point, as it is not always clear on which basis the calculation is presented. On the other hand, in the course of simplification, so much data is aggregated and merged that a sophisticated analysis is sometimes impossible.
We have therefore developed a distortion-free way of presentation that takes into account all rankings over time and does not conceal any information. At the same time, it offers the necessary transparency to adequately assess and evaluate current developments.
Keyword becomes context
At the latest since the introduction of the RankBrain rating mechanism at Google, the focus on individual search phrases has been replaced by search phrase groups. We also want to describe the latter as contexts.
For adequate performance evaluation, we need to evaluate the development of many contexts over time. This is what we fancy as “swarm analysis”.
The swarm analysis can give information about:
- what expectations the market has in a specific context
- how Google & Co. rate a specific context for your website
- how strong the competition really is compared to your offer | <urn:uuid:640c5ffb-46b2-458a-91fd-24393f57546b> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://rankanalyst.com/status-quo/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571536.89/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811224716-20220812014716-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.94905 | 285 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Variable Density FDM parts with Advanced FDM in GrabCAD Print
A tutorial on how to create an FDM part with discrete zones with different infill patterns & densities. This is a great but simple tactic for reducing the print time and cost of your designs as well as making them both stiff and lightweight.
Step 1: Introduction
How do you print a part like this? Fully dense on the outside, sparse on the inside, and with some 'extra meat’' around the joint?
Or what about like this other example? A low density infill at one end and a higher density at the other?
Keep reading and you'll see how...
Step 2: Why?
So what are we doing here?
Well, we want to find a way to define discrete zones in our model and give each zone different toolpath properties in our CAM software for additive manufacturing- GrabCAD Print. For example, varying the amount or type of infill in each area.
Why might this be useful?
Stress in a part is rarely uniform. For example, let’s take parts that are quite similar to say a cantilevered beam, where the stress reduces drastically from one end to another. Arm rests, simple brackets, handle bars, or even hooks are all good examples.
(right) https://picryl.com/media/wall-bracket-2d2bc7 CC0
Remember the second moment of area from your studies? It enables us to calculate which areas of our design will contribute to the part’s stiffness and therefore carry our load.
CC BY-SA 4.0 - IngenieroLoco https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_moment_of_area
Or if you’re not so into the mathematics of mechanics you can certainly appreciate why we use tubes and beams in our everyday lives. Not just because they’re easy to manufacture and work with, but also because they are an efficient use of material, giving us structures with high strength & stiffness to weight ratios. To get a high second moment of area for low mass, we prioritise material at the outside of the section away from the neutral axis, not in the middle.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:CNX_UPhysics_12_03_I-beam.jpg, OpenStax University Physics
Simply: Put the material where you need it and you will save on printing time and money!
Step 3: CAD Work
Theoretically, the highest strength to weight ratio structure would be obtained through topology optimization, you either need material there or you don’t.
But often these organic root-like structures aren’t exactly practical for the end application, so we come back a step to using variable density infill. Much like those tubes above, a solid shell for load carrying with the benefit of a sparse lightweight infill core prevents buckling and enables the design to be self-supporting, so we don’t need any support material.
If we want to achieve something like the image below, how do we go about it?
It all starts in CAD. The workflow is actually very easy. We just need to define our regions of interest in CAD, then export the whole lot as an assembly or multibody part.
In this case our tutorial part is a pair of prototype downhill mountain bike handlebars. On a side note you might think it is a wild idea to try and 3D print a pair of mountain bike handlebars. Don’t worry- this just a draft design for a core that we’re planning to wrap with carbon fiber later on, but that’s a project for another time!
In this case, I’m experimenting with some cone-shaped faces to give me a nicely tapered joint between my different infill zones. But you could just draw each body separately in CAD. Essentially, you can use any CAD method you like that gets you two disjointed bodies in the same file.
Red: Cutting surfaces. Transparent: Part ready to be cut into separate bodies
Transparent: First solid body to be used as a solid shell. Blue: Second solid body that represents a core to have sparse infill
Step 4: CAM Work - Advanced FDM in GrabCAD Print
First, make sure that you’ve got the “Advanced FDM module” enabled.
Then, start a new Advanced FDM project and open your native CAD file containing the different bodies. You can use either an assembly or a multibody part.
We need to tell GrabCAD which bodies in our part we actually want to print, so we right click on the file and press ‘merge’ to put them into a group. This feature is here so if you’ve got fasteners or other parts in your assembly you can tell GrabCAD to ignore them.
Then you can set the print settings & part orientation. Obviously we need to do this at a global level as all bodies will need to have the same model material, tip size, layer height, etc.
Setting Custom Infill
Now the fun bit-click on a body, then use the right-hand menu to give it your desired properties.
Slice Preview Results
Step 5: Final Results
What does our printed part look like? I ran the .cmb file on one of our Fortus 380 Carbon Fiber edition systems and paused the print half way through the part so we could get a better look at the internal structure. | <urn:uuid:acb8f188-6a74-48f7-9c11-08835581d74a> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://grabcad.com/tutorials/variable-density-fdm-parts-with-advanced-fdm-in-grabcad-print | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571909.51/warc/CC-MAIN-20220813051311-20220813081311-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.895757 | 1,177 | 2.765625 | 3 |
What Is Performance?
Just what is performance anyway? By clearly understanding this, your life as a manager will be so much easier.
Performance is simply the production of valid results.
There may be many other answers to this question, but it all boils down to: can the employee produce the results expected of them?
You can recognise this via certain key performance indicators.
These are the people who get the job done with amazing ease. You never have to chase them up or hound them for results. They just get it done – no fuss!
You come to rely on your top performers . If you think about it, though, you probably spend less time managing/supporting these employees than others in your team. You will see later that this may not be a good strategy.
One of the things that stands out with your performers is that they can envisage the end results of their job. They know what they are shooting for.
Ask one of your employees what he or she thinks they are trying to achieve on the job. Note how fast and accurately they answer. This is just one of the performance characteristics you need to understand.
Seeing is Believing
One of the traps in assessing performance is that some people produce results on their job simply because the system is propping them up. How do they handle it when the system fails? Do they still get results?
A real performer can “see” their job . They understand the basic ideas that underpin the activities, so when things change, they can still see how to achieve their results. | <urn:uuid:dcaf43f0-7a93-4cfc-b7ce-e7c44bfa7cab> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://performancemanagementmadeeasy.com/?page_id=71 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573172.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818063910-20220818093910-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.971045 | 328 | 2.21875 | 2 |
The slew of executive actions that President Biden started off his presidency with are popular with the public, according to two recent polls.
Partisans don’t just disagree, they hate one another | FiveThirtyEight
In his first week in office, Biden announced at least 33 new policies that he will implement through the executive branch, according to a count from CNN. Polls conducted by Morning Consult and Ipsos since Biden’s first day in office have assessed public opinion on 14 of these policies. In all cases, more of those polled favor the policies than oppose them, and a majority support nearly every policy.
|Biden Executive Policy||All||GOP||All||GOP|
|Prohibiting workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity†||83%||64%||16%||34%|
|Committing to a government-wide focus on racial equity†||77||52||21||45|
|Requiring masks on federal property||75||54||19||35|
|Continuing suspension of federal student loan repayments‡||68||46||19||38|
|Continuing a ban on evictions‡||66||49||17||31|
|Restarting DACA program†||65||33||33||66|
|Rejoining the World Health Organization||62||29||30||61|
|Recommitting to the Paris climate agreement||61||27||31||63|
|Reexamining Trump policies on public health and the environment‡||57||24||28||56|
|Allowing noncitizens to be counted in the U.S. Census†||56||17||42||81|
|Ending new wall construction at the U.S.-Mexico border||53||14||40||80|
|Ending the ban on travel to the U.S. from some primarily Muslim/African nations||52||16||40||75|
|Enacting a moratorium on drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge‡||49||21||27||53|
|Revoking the permit for the Keystone pipeline‡||43||15||32||60|
And while polls haven’t been released to specifically ask about Biden’s executive order to reverse the ban on transgender people serving in the military, previous surveys suggest that move will also likely be popular with the public.
The popularity of these policies is notable for a few reasons. First, Biden’s emphasis on trying to unify the country in his inaugural address has created a debate in political circles about exactly what constitutes “unity.” These early executive orders meet one definition — adopting policies that a clear majority of Americans support, which necessitates that at least some Republicans back them. In fact, a few of these policies, such as requiring people to wear masks on federal property, have plurality support among Republicans. (On the other hand, many of Biden’s policies, such as trying to make sure noncitizens are counted in the U.S. Census, are extremely unpopular with Republicans.)
Secondly, the popularity of these orders with the public is another illustration of what public opinion has long suggested: Americans are divided into two roughly equal-sized camps in terms of electoral power — in part because structures such as the Senate and the Electoral College have skewed the vote toward Republicans, at least in recent years — but that divide does not always show up in terms of policy issues. For example, protecting undocumented people brought to the U.S. as children from deportation (the DACA program) has long had a fair amount of support from people who vote for and identify with the Republican Party, which tried to wind down DACA in the Trump era.
You might be skeptical of polling that seems favorable to Democrats after many polls in 2016 and 2020 underestimated GOP strength. But there are a number of recent examples of liberal policies being supported by voters who also back Republican candidates. This happened last fall in Florida, where a proposal to raise the state’s minimum wage to $15 per hour got 61 percent support, but the presidential candidate in favor of that idea, Biden, received only 48 percent. So I tend to think these numbers are reliable and that a bloc of Trump voters agrees with many of Biden’s new policies.
Thirdly, the popularity of these orders suggests that Biden will govern differently than his predecessor. In the case of many of these orders, Trump implemented a policy that polls clearly showed was unpopular and Biden is simply reversing it. Biden positioned himself during the Democratic primary as a candidate who would eschew controversial ideas to appeal to more centrist voters. And we are only a week into his presidency, but it looks like Biden is trying to follow through on his campaign approach.
All that said, these early poll numbers don’t guarantee that Biden or his agenda will remain popular, nor that he will reshape federal policy as he wants. These orders were the low-hanging fruit left to Biden by Trump — a bunch of policies Trump put in place that were unpopular and Biden could reverse quickly. There probably aren’t dozens more policies that are popular and Biden could put in place without going through Congress. Also, Biden’s approval numbers are strong right now, but those numbers could be the result of the traditional (if diminished) honeymoon period that presidents get at the start of their terms, as opposed to Americans saying they like Biden because of the policies.
Finally, because these are executive orders, these policies don’t come with the power or money of legislation adopted by Congress. So Biden signing an executive order declaring that his administration will evaluate all policies to make sure they improve the nation’s racial equity is one thing, but actually adopting policies to improve the nation’s racial equity is much more complicated. | <urn:uuid:234666f4-bdd2-4ad0-9878-f82cd782c004> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/bidens-initial-batch-of-executive-actions-is-popular/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573172.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818063910-20220818093910-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.960967 | 1,205 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Whether your child is still a toddler or in their final year of high school, you may be thinking about what college will cost and how to pay for it. Most students get the money for college from a variety of sources. Its never too late or too early to start making financial plans for college, and with the tips below, you can help your son or daughter get ready at any age.
529 Savings Plan
You can start a 529 account when your child is an infant or when they are older. If grandparents, aunts or uncles want to create one, they can do so as well. It is simply necessary to name the future student as a beneficiary. Taxes are deferred on contributions to a 529 savings plan, and as long as they are used for educational expenses, withdrawals are also tax-free. There is also an option for a prepaid tuition plan, which locks in the cost at current rates but may be tied to a particular institution. The specifics of 529 plans vary by state, so you should find out more about the rules in your area.
Your child’s first step in determining what kind of federal financial aid is available is to fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. If your child is not eligible for federal aid or the aid offered is not enough to cover all costs, they can also apply for private student loans. Students may need a cosigner for approval due to limited credit history. This way they are more likely to be approved with a cosigner than without, not to mention securing a low-interest rate that adds up to lower payments after graduation.
Grants and Scholarships
The FAFSA will also let you know whether your child is eligible for any government-based grants, but there are also a number of other grants that may be available. Colleges and universities, community organizations and foundations are among the many sources of grants and scholarships. Thorough research is the key here, and there are search tools online that can help you look for scholarships. Keep in mind that in some cases, depending on the financial aid and scholarships offered, a school with higher tuition can actually end up costing less than a cheaper school offering less support.
Work and Savings
Your child may be eligible for a work-study position on campus, but there are many other jobs on and off-campus that could help pay for school as well. In fact, some parents prefer their children to contribute to their education, and they can begin saving while they are still in high school if they have a part-time job. Holding down a job in college should not interfere with studies, but a job can also teach them valuable skills and put them well ahead of their peers when it comes time to interview after college. Some internships are paid, and these can also be excellent opportunities for them to learn more about the field they plan to work in. | <urn:uuid:81a6b93f-6f70-4181-98a6-1d802bcf7d7b> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.educationafter12th.com/preparing-your-child-financially-for-college/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572833.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817001643-20220817031643-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.972759 | 584 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Menopause is well-managed using naturopathic medicine.
Menopause, or the permanent end of menstruation and fertility, is a natural biological process, not a medical illness. It usually occurs in a woman’s late-40s.
The hormonal changes associated with menopause can disrupt sleep, reduce energy and possibly trigger feelings of sadness and loss. Menopause is associated with osteoporosis, heart disease and weight gain.
It is important to consult a healthcare professional during both peri-menopause (the period beginning when the first symptoms of menopause occur) and post-menopause (the period following one year without a menstrual period) for preventive healthcare, as well as care of medical conditions that may occur with aging (e.g., osteoporosis).
Always seek professional healthcare if you experience vaginal bleeding after menopause.
Symptoms of Menopause
Possible symptoms of menopause include:
- Hair loss
- Decreased breast fullness
- Irregular menstrual periods
- Vaginal dryness
- Increased abdominal fat
- Hot flashes
- Disturbed sleep
Treatment of Menopause at Toronto Centre for Naturopathic Medicine
At Toronto Centre for Naturopathic Medicine, the goals of menopause treatment are to reduce or eliminate menopause symptoms, increase levels of depleted hormones naturally and prevent health conditions associated with menopause (e.g., osteoporosis, heart disease, weight gain).
Conventional treatment for menopause may include a variety of medications, including hormone therapies, selective estrogen receptor modulators, antidepressants, gabapentin, clonidine and bisphonates. These treatments may have short- or long-term side effects.
For this reason, you may choose to try natural treatment to possibly avoid use of conventional medications, or together with conventional medications in order to decrease dosages of conventional medications required to manage your menopause symptoms.
Naturopathic treatment of any chronic health concern must be recognized as a process that involves:
- Identifying specific treatment goals
- Development by your naturopathic doctor, of a thorough understanding of all factors affecting your health, including physical, psychological, emotional and lifestyle factors
- Development of a comprehensive treatment plan
- Implementation and maintenance of that plan through periodic monitoring and adjustment
At Toronto Centre for Naturopathic Medicine, a typical approach to treating menopause may be to:
- Identify and address underlying factors in your lifestyle (e.g., stress, poor diet, sedentary lifestyle, disrupted sleep, smoking) that may be contributing to your menopause symptoms
- Minimize specific symptoms (e.g., hot flashes) using acupuncture
- Reduce symptoms in general by “balancing” hormones botanical (herbal) medicines
- Address or prevent aging-related health conditions (e.g., osteoporosis)
Where appropriate, a number of therapeutic options are available, to be used alone, or more often in a complementary fashion, including:
- Nutritional counseling
- Nutritional supplements
- Metabolic detoxification protocols
- Botanical (herbal) medicines
- Bowen Therapy
- Exercise prescription
- Relaxation (meditation) training
- Lifestyle medicine and counseling
- Registered massage therapy
Treatments provided by naturopathic doctors and registered massage therapists are covered by most extended healthcare plans.
Menopause [Internet]. Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research; [cited 2009 Feb 18]. Available from: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/menopause/DS00119. | <urn:uuid:f591da76-eecc-4da0-8d1b-dc7ce2365c29> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.torontonaturopathicmedicine.ca/menopause/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572198.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20220815175725-20220815205725-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.883264 | 782 | 2.28125 | 2 |
One of the Children Act’s most highly regarded reforms appears in section 41, writes Camilla Pemberton. This introduced the right of children in some family court proceedings to be allocated a guardian ad litem, a qualified social worker appointed by the court “to safeguard the interests of the child”,
But increasing pressures on Cafcass, the body set up in 2001 to manage the guardian service, has led to concerns that the interpretation of section 41, and even changes to its wording in law, could dilute the role of the guardian.</P
As Cafcass grapples with a rise in demand for its services following the baby Peter case, it has changed its procedures so incoming referrals are allocated to a duty team rather than a named practitioner.
But Alison Paddle, former chair of guardians’ professional association Nagalro, says this undermines the child’s right to a named guardian who can develop an understanding of their needs. She fears the guardian’s role is “under threat in a way never seen before”.
The guardian acts as the independent voice of a child and is responsible for assessing their needs and wishes. He or she provides the court with advice and reports and may conduct independent investigations into a child’s personal circumstances.
Therefore, says Paddle, guardians must have confidence in their ability to “rigorously assess” a child’s needs.
Family lawyer Barbara Hopkin says Cafcass’s duty system means “fewer children are being seen by guardians, and some see an overwhelming number of experts and duty teams”. She adds: “Section 41 clearly states that the court ‘shall appoint a guardian’. If you dissipate this responsibility you undermine the efficacy of the service.”
Chris Goulden, co-chair of the children committee at Resolution, which represents family lawyers, says the tandem model, whereby a guardian and solicitor work jointly on a case, is also under threat. “This is problematic because guardians investigate the child’s welfare needs in a manner which lawyers are not qualified to do,” he says.
Despite the concerns of family law professionals, Cafcass chief executive Anthony Douglas says the allocation of cases to duty teams is “unavoidable” due to the extra pressures on Cafcass. But although duty teams take on cases initially, “about 90%” of children are allocated named guardians within three to four weeks of referral.
Douglas says it is not Cafcass’ place to lobby the government for a change to the wording of the Children Act so that named guardians would not need to be appointed to cases. Goulden opposes any move in that direction, describing it as “unthinkable”.Ths article is published in the 29 October issue of Community Care magazine under the heading Care pressures threaten guardian role | <urn:uuid:dd618fde-a6d8-4ef4-81b9-16f02bb8d6c4> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.communitycare.co.uk/2009/10/23/children-act-20-years-on-care-pressures-threaten-guardian-role/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573172.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818063910-20220818093910-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.958237 | 598 | 1.90625 | 2 |
"Beijing’s incursions are part of a series of dry runs in preparation for an invasion of Taiwan, John Mills, the former director of cybersecurity policy, strategy, and international affairs at the Office of the Secretary of Defense, told The Epoch Times.
"Mills projects that these exercises could culminate in a large-scale dry run in the next two years. These dry runs are necessary, Mills said, given the complexity of amphibious landing operations—as well as how the Chinese military has never conducted a forced landing on a hostile power in a real-life situation before."
For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows. Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake. And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another. And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many. And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.
"Taiwan, located on the first island chain, would be among the first targets of any Chinese military aggression in Asia. The first island chain is an arbitrary demarcation from the southern Japanese island of Kyushu, Taiwan, the Philippines, to Indonesia. For decades, the CCP’s military strategists have seen the first island chain as a barrier to the regime’s air and naval power, leaving the second island chain and beyond out of its reach."
Pope John Paul II predicted that the 21st century would be a Springtime of Evangelization or it not be at all. During the 1976 Eucharistic Congress held in Philadelphia he warned the participants:
"We are now standing in the face of the greatest historical confrontation humanity has ever experienced. I do not think that the wide circle of the American Society, or the whole wide circle of the Christian Community realize this fully. We are now facing the final confrontation between the Church and the anti-church, between the gospel and the anti-gospel, between Christ and the Antichrist. The confrontation lies within the plans of Divine Providence. It is, therefore, in God's Plan, and it must be a trial which the Church must take up, and face courageously."
Has the Church taken up the trial courageously? Is that what we've seen in the face of the Great Global Reset spurred by the opportunistic Chinese virus? Certainly not from our shepherds, many of whom bent the knee before Caesar even before he mandated it. Some not only bent the knee but groveled before Caesar. Some continue to do so. It's time for the laity to take up the gauntlet as warriors in the Church Militant and follow the real shepherds. If your bishop is a clerical eunuch and false sheperd, don't give him a penny and look for the voices of truth in the Church among the real shepherds. | <urn:uuid:bc02f5b9-c405-4432-b488-a4f4b3b62b31> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://lesfemmes-thetruth.blogspot.com/2021/04/get-ready-for-it-its-coming.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572198.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20220815175725-20220815205725-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.947466 | 654 | 1.742188 | 2 |
“In 2020, life expectancy at birth was 77.0 years for the total U.S. population—a decrease of 1.8 years from 78.8 years in 2019 (Figure 1). For males, life expectancy decreased 2.1 years from 76.3 in 2019 to 74.2 in 2020. For females, life expectancy decreased 1.5 years from 81.4 in 2019 to 79.9 in 2020.
7: Diabetes (diabetes mellitus)
- Deaths: 73,831
- Males: 38,324
- Females: 35,507
- Rate: 23.7
- Age-adjusted rate: 21.6
- Percentage of total deaths: 2.93%.
Diabetes is a disease in which blood glucose levels are above normal. Most of the food we eat is turned into glucose, or sugar, for our bodies to use for energy. The pancreas, an organ that lies near the stomach, makes a hormone called insulin to help glucose get into the cells of our bodies. When a person has diabetes, the body either does not make enough insulin or cannot use insulin as well as it should. This causes sugar to build up in the blood.
Diabetes can cause serious health complications including heart disease, blindness, kidney failure, and lower-extremity amputations.
Type 1 diabetes, which was previously called insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM) or juvenile-onset diabetes, may account for about 5% of all diagnosed cases of diabetes.
Type 2 diabetes, which was previously called non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM) or adult-onset diabetes, may account for about 90-95% of all diagnosed cases of diabetes.
The estimated costs of diabetes in the US in 2012 was $245 billion. Direct medical costs accounted for $176 billion of that total and indirect costs such as disability, work loss and premature death accounted for $69 billion.
Warning signs and symptoms of diabetes
People who think they might have diabetes must visit a physician for diagnosis. They may have some or none of the following symptoms:
- Frequent urination
- Excessive thirst
- Unexplained weight loss
- Extreme hunger
- Sudden vision changes
- Tingling or numbness in hands or feet
- Feeling very tired much of the time
- Very dry skin
- Sores that are slow to heal
- More infections than usual.
Nausea, vomiting, or stomach pains may accompany some of these symptoms in the abrupt onset of insulin-dependent diabetes, now called type 1 diabetes.
Can diabetes be prevented?
Researchers are making progress in identifying the exact genetics and “triggers” that predispose some individuals to develop type 1 diabetes, but prevention remains elusive.
A number of studies have shown that regular physical activity can significantly reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Type 2 diabetes is associated with obesity.
There is no known way to prevent type 1 diabetes. Several clinical trials for preventing type 1 diabetes are currently in progress with additional studies being planned.
The Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP), a large prevention study of people at high risk for diabetes, showed that lifestyle intervention that resulted in weight loss and increased physical activity in this population can prevent or delay type 2 diabetes and in some cases return blood glucose levels to within the normal range. Other international studies have shown similar results.
Recent developments on diabetes from MNT news
Diabetes rates in the US ‘leveling off’
A new study from the CDC finds that between 2008 and 2012, diabetes prevalence and incidence rates plateaued, possibly because of slowing obesity rates.
Could a single injection stop diabetes?
Researchers who gave mice with type 2 diabetes the growth factor FGF1, found it reversed diabetes and kept blood glucose within a safe range for 2 days with just one injection.
8: Influenza and pneumonia
- Deaths: 53,826
- Males: 25,401
- Females: 28,425
- Rate: 17.3
- Age-adjusted rate: 15.7
- Percentage of total deaths: 2.13%.
Influenza accounts for 1,532 deaths annually and pneumonia 52,294.
Influenza (flu) is a highly contagious viral infection that is one of the most severe illnesses of the winter season. The reason influenza is more prevalent in the winter is not known; however, data suggest the virus survives and is transmitted better in cold temperatures. Influenza is spread easily from person to person, usually when an infected person coughs or sneezes.
Influenza and pneumonia are the eighth leading cause of death in the US with around 53,826 deaths each year.
A person can have the flu more than once because the virus that causes the disease may belong to different strains of one of three different influenza virus families: A, B or C. Type A viruses tend to have a greater effect on adults, while type B viruses are a greater problem in children.
Influenza can be complicated by pneumonia, which is a serious infection or inflammation of the lungs. The air sacs fill with pus and other liquid, blocking oxygen from reaching the bloodstream. If there is too little oxygen in the blood, the body’s cells cannot work properly, which can lead to death.
Pneumonia can have over 30 different causes, including various chemicals, bacteria, viruses, mycoplasmas and other infectious agents such as pneumocystis (fungi).
Together, pneumonia and influenza cost the US economy more than $40.2 billion in 2005. This figure includes more than $6 billion due to indirect costs (such as time lost from work) and $34.2 billion due to direct costs (such as medical expenses).
Warning signs and symptoms of influenza and pneumonia
Signs and symptoms of influenza include:
- Sore throat
- Nasal congestion
- Muscle aches
- Loss of appetite
Signs and symptoms of pneumonia include:
- Rapid breathing
- Chest pains
- Loss of appetite
- Feeling of weakness or ill health.
Can influenza and pneumonia be prevented?
We basically know what pneumonia is right? If not, on problem it is this: Pneumonia is an infection that inflames the air sacs in one or both lungs. The air sacs may fill with fluid or pus (purulent material), causing cough with phlegm or pus or mucus (color-yellow to green), fatigue, sweating, fever, chills, nausea or vomiting and difficulty breathing. A variety of organisms, including bacteria, viruses and fungi, can cause pneumonia. Treatment is antibiotics.
Most important, methods of prevention with influenza and pneumonia include:
- Flu shot every year to prevent seasonal influenza
- Vaccination against pneumococcal pneumonia if you are at high risk of getting this type of pneumonia
- Wash hands frequently, especially after blowing nose, going to the bathroom, diapering, and before eating or preparing foods
- Do not smoke. Tobacco damages the lungs’ ability to fight off infection, and smokers have been found to be at a higher risk of getting pneumonia.
- Since pneumonia often follows respiratory infections, be aware of any symptoms that linger for more than a few days
- Good health habits – a healthy diet, rest, regular exercise, etc. – help prevent viruses and respiratory illnesses
- Hib vaccine prevents pneumonia in children from Haemophilus influenzae type B
- A drug called Synagis (palivizumab) can be given to some children younger than 24 months to prevent pneumonia caused by respiratory syncytial virus
- With cancer or HIV patients, a doctor should be consulted about additional ways to prevent pneumonia and other infections.
Recent developments on influenza and pneumonia from MNT news
Goji berries protect against the flu in new study
A study in older mice suggests that, when coupled with the flu vaccine, goji berries offer extra protection against the flu by boosting the immune system and diminishing symptoms.
New vaccine protects against staph-induced pneumonia
A vaccine that targeted surface proteins increased disease severity, whereas one that targeted toxins secreted by the bacteria protected against staph-induced pneumonia.
“The majority of deaths are caused by chronic conditions such as heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes, and
Alzheimer’s disease. During the 20 th century these chronic diseases replaced acute infections as the major causes of
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
4: Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases)
- Deaths: 128,932
- Males: 52,335
- Females: 76,597
- Rate: 41.4
- Age-adjusted rate: 37.9
- Percentage of total deaths: 5.12%.
Cerebrovascular diseases are conditions that develop as a result of problems with the blood vessels that supply the brain. Four of the most common types of cerebrovascular disease are:
- Transient ischemic attack (TIA)
- Subarachnoid hemorrhage that highly leads into a stroke, depending on how quick the hemorrhage is detected with how bad of a hemorrhage it is When a pt comes in the ER and shows symptoms of a TIA or stroke the first thing the MD does within 10 minutes by law is order a CT of the head to see if its a clot or a hemorrhage in the brain that is causing the stroke or TIA to decide his or her pathway of treatment. It would tell the MD decide whether to decide as surgery for a hemorrhage or if a clot start rTPA a con- tinuous IV infusion to treat the clot if the stroke symptoms started in the past 6 (using a vein) or to 8 hours (using an artery) or another treatment would be decided if it was a clot with s/s that past.
- Vascular dementia.
Every year more than 795,000 people in the US have a stroke; risk of having a stroke varies with race, ethnicity, age and geography. Risk of stroke increases with age, yet in 2009 34% of people hospitalized for stroke were younger than 65 years.
The highest death rates from stroke in the US occur in the southeast.
Major warning signs and symptoms of stroke
During a stroke, every second counts. Fast treatment can reduce the brain damage that stroke can cause.
Signs and symptoms of stroke include sudden:13
- Numbness or weakness in the face, arm or leg, especially on one side of the body
- Confusion, trouble speaking or difficulty understanding speech
- Trouble seeing in one or both eyes
- Trouble walking, dizziness, loss of balance or lack of coordination
- Severe headache with no known cause.
Call 9-1-1 immediately if any of the above symptoms are experienced.
If you think someone may be having a stroke, act F.A.S.T. and do the following simple test:
- F – Face: ask the person to smile. Does one side of the face droop?
- A – Arms: ask the person to raise both arms. Does one arm drift downward?
- S – Speech: ask the person to repeat a simple phrase. Is their speech slurred or strange?
- T – Time: if you observe any of these signs, call 9-1-1 immediately.
Note the time when any symptoms first appear. Some treatments for stroke only work if given within the first 3 hours after symptoms appear.
Do not drive to the hospital or let someone else drive you. Call an ambulance so that medical personnel can begin life-saving treatment on the way to the emergency room.
How can stroke be prevented?
High blood pressure, high cholesterol, and smoking are major risk factors for stroke. About half of Americans (49%) have at least one of these three risk factors. Several other medical conditions and unhealthy lifestyle choices can increase your risk for stroke.
Although you cannot control all of your risk factors for stroke, you can take steps to prevent stroke and its complications.12
Stroke prevention measures may include:14,15
- Eating a healthy diet
- Maintaining a healthy weight
- Getting enough exercise
- Not smoking
- Limiting alcohol use
- Checking cholesterol
- Controlling blood pressure
- Managing diabetes
- Managing heart disease
- Taking medicine correctly
- Talking with a health care team.
Recent developments on stroke from MNT news:
Potassium-rich foods could lower stroke risk in older women
Researchers have found that older women whose diets involve potassium-rich foods may be at a reduced risk of stroke and have a greater life expectancy than women consuming less potassium-rich foods.
Stroke risk lowered with a high-protein diet
A diet higher in protein may reduce stroke risk by 20%, while every additional 20 grams of protein consumed each day could reduce stroke risk by 26%, according to new research.
5: Accidents (unintentional injuries)
- Deaths: 126,438
- Males: 79,257
- Females: 47,181
- Rate: 40.6
- Age-adjusted rate: 39.1
- Percentage of total deaths: 5.02%.
Accidents, also referred to as unintentional injuries, are at present the 5th leading cause of death in the US and the leading cause of death for those between the ages 1 to 44. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration say that highway crashes alone have an annual price tag of around $871 billion in economic loss and social harm, with speeding accounting for $210 billion of that figure.
Data for accidents include the following:
- Motor vehicle accidents
- Other land transport accidents
- Water, air and space accidents
- Accidental discharge of firearms
- Accidental drowning and submersion
- Accidental exposure to smoke, fire and flames
- Accidental poisoning and exposure to noxious substances.
Possible prevention measures
Accidents cause loss and suffering to the victims and their loved ones. Methods of safety and prevention can help toward avoiding some forms of unintentional death.
Seat belts have saved an estimated 255,000 lives between 1975 and 2008.
In 2010, 10,228 people were killed in alcohol-impaired driving crashes, accounting for nearly one-third (31%) of all traffic-related deaths in the US.1 In 2010, over 1.4 million drivers were arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol or narcotics.3 That is 1% of the 112 million self-reported episodes of alcohol-impaired driving among US adults each year.4
Information on saving lives and protecting people from violence and injuries can be found on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website.
Some facts or statistics show:
Violence or injury ‘responsible for almost 80% of deaths in Americans under 30’
More Americans between the ages 1-30 die due to preventable causes such as car crashes, falls and firearm-related injuries, according to a new report.
How a smartphone could prevent falls
Purdue University researchers have created a smartphone tool – called SmartGait – that can measure a person’s walking gait, which they say could prevent falls.
6: Alzheimer’s disease
- Deaths: 84,974
- Males: 25,677
- Females: 59,297
- Rate: 27.3
- Age-adjusted rate: 24.7
- Percentage of total deaths: 3.37%.
Dementia is an overall term for diseases and conditions characterized by a decline in memory or other thinking skills that affect a person’s ability to perform everyday activities. Dementia is caused by damage to nerve cells in the brain which are called neurons. As a result of the damage, neurons can no longer function normally and may die. This, in turn, can lead to changes in memory, behavior and the ability to think clearly.
Alzheimer’s is the sixth leading cause of death in the US with around 84,974 deaths each year.
For people with Alzheimer’s disease, the damage and death of neurons eventually impair the ability to carry out basic bodily functions such as walking and swallowing.
People in the final stages of the disease are bed-bound and require around-the-clock care. Alzheimer’s is ultimately fatal. Alzheimer’s disease accounts for 60-80% of dementia cases.
An estimated 5.2 million Americans may have Alzheimer’s disease in 2014, including approximately 200,000 individuals younger than age 65 who have younger-onset Alzheimer’s.
Almost two-thirds of American seniors living with Alzheimer’s are women. Of the 5 million people age 65 and older with Alzheimer’s in the US, 3.2 million are women, and 1.8 million are men.
In 2013, 15.5 million family and friends provided 17.7 billion hours of unpaid care to those with Alzheimer’s and other dementias – care valued at $220.2 billion, which is nearly eight times the total revenue of McDonald’s in 2012.
Alzheimer’s disease is one of the most expensive conditions in the nation. In 2014, the direct costs to American society of caring for those with Alzheimer’s will total an estimated $214 billion, including $150 billion in costs to Medicare and Medicaid. Despite these staggering figures, Alzheimer’s will cost an estimated $1.2 trillion (in today’s dollars) in 2050.
A woman’s estimated lifetime risk of developing Alzheimer’s at age 65 is 1 in 6, compared with nearly 1 in 11 for a man. As real a concern as breast cancer is to women’s health, women in their 60s are about twice as likely to develop Alzheimer’s during the rest of their lives as they are to develop breast cancer.
Warning signs and symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease
The following are common signs and symptoms of Alzheimer’s:
- Memory loss that disrupts daily life
- Challenges in planning or solving problems
- Difficulty completing familiar tasks at home, work or in leisure
- Confusion with time or place
- Trouble understanding visual images and spatial relationships
- New problems with words in speaking or writing
- Misplacing things and losing the ability to retrace steps
- Decreased or poor judgment
- Withdrawal from work or social activities
- Changes in mood and personality, including apathy and depression.
Can Alzheimer’s be prevented?
As the exact cause of Alzheimer’s disease is still unknown, there is no way to prevent the condition. However, there are some steps you can take that may help to delay the onset of dementia.26
Reducing your risk of cardiovascular disease
Cardiovascular disease (disease of the heart or blood vessels) has been connected with an increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease and vascular dementia.
Risk of developing cardiovascular disease, as well as stroke and heart attacks, may be reduced by improving cardiovascular health using steps such as:
- Stopping smoking
- Avoiding large quantities of alcohol
- Eating a healthy balanced diet
- Exercising for at least 150 minutes (2 hours and 30 minutes) every week by doing moderate-intensity aerobic activity (such as cycling or fast walking), which improve both your physical and mental health
- Check blood pressure through regular health tests
- If you have diabetes, make sure you keep to the diet and take your medicine.
Staying mentally active
Evidence suggests rates of dementia are lower in mentally, physically and socially active people. It may be possible to reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease and other types of dementia by:
- Writing for pleasure
- Learning foreign languages
- Playing musical instruments
- Taking part in adult education courses
- Playing tennis
- Playing golf
- Group sports, such as bowling
Other methods to treat or prevent Alzheimer’s may be revealed as research into the condition continues. At present, there is no evidence to support using the following to prevent dementia:
- Statins (cholesterol-lowering medicines)
- Hormone replacement therapy (when powerful chemicals are taken to replace those that your body no longer produces)
- Vitamin E (found in a variety of foods, such as olive oil, nuts and seeds)
- Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs).
Learn more about Alzheimer’s
Recent developments on Alzheimer’s from MNT news
Impaired brain signaling pathway ‘may be a cause of Alzheimer’s’
Mayo Clinic researchers say a brain signaling defect in the Wnt pathway may be a cause of Alzheimer’s, and boosting Wnt signaling could prevent the disease.
Alzheimer’s disease: are we close to finding a cure?
There seems to be more focus than ever on Alzheimer’s research. But how close are scientists to developing effective prevention and treatment strategies for the disease?
“Suicide fell off the list of the 10 leading causes of death in the U.S. in 2020, amid a rise in deaths from chronic liver disease and cirrhosis and the emergence of COVID-19, the latter of which did make the list. Meanwhile, diabetes deaths topped 100,000 for the first time, while deaths from accidents – a category that includes unintentional drug overdoses – topped 200,000 for another record mark.
CDC researchers noted that death rates increased for six of the 10 leading causes of death in the U.S. in 2020, and decreased for only two: cancer and chronic lower respiratory diseases. The death rate for kidney disease stayed the same.”
US News (https://www.usnews.com)
COPD includes Asthma,Bronchitis, especially Emphysema!
2: Cancer (malignant neoplasms)
- Deaths: 576,691
- Males: 302,231
- Females: 274,460
- Rate: 185.1
- Age-adjusted rate: 169.0
- Percentage of total deaths: 22.92%.
Cancer affects men and woman of all ages, races and ethnicities.5 The National Institutes of Health (NIH) estimate the total costs of cancer in 2009 were $216.6 billion: $86.6 billion for direct medical costs and $130.0 billion for indirect mortality costs.
Cancer is a group of diseases characterized by the uncontrolled growth and spread of abnormal cells. If the spread is not controlled, it can result in death.
In 2014, about 585,720 American are expected to die of cancer – almost 1,600 people per day.
Lung cancer accounts for more deaths than any other cancer in both men and women. Deaths from cancer of the trachea, bronchus and lung stand at 157,017 annually with this figure expected to rise to 159,260 in 2014.
Estimated cancer-related deaths for 2014
Leading causes of death from cancer for males:
- Lung and bronchus – 86,930 (28%)
- Prostate – 29,480 (10%)
- Colon and rectum – 26,270 (8%)
- Pancreas – 20,170 (7%)
- Liver and intrahepatic bile duct – 15,870 (5%)
- Leukemia – 14,040 (5%)
- Esophagus – 12,450 (4%)
- Urinary bladder – 11,170 (4%)
- Non-Hodgkin lymphoma – 10,470 (3%)
- Kidney and renal pelvis – 8,900 (3%).
Leading causes of death from cancer for females:
- Lung and bronchus – 72,330 (26%)
- Breast – 40,000 (15%)
- Colon and rectum – 24,040 (9%)
- Pancreas – 19,420 (7%)
- Ovary – 14,270 (5%)
- Leukemia – 10,050 (4%)
- Uterine corpus – 8,590 (3%)
- Non-Hodgkin lymphoma – 8,520 (3%)
- Liver and intrahepatic bile duct – 7,130 (3%)
- Brain and other nervous system – 6,230 (2%).
Can cancer be prevented?
A substantial proportion of cancers could be prevented. All cancers caused by cigarette smoking and heavy use of alcohol could be prevented completely. In 2014, almost 176,000 of the estimated 585,720 deaths will be caused by tobacco use.
The World Cancer Research Fund has estimated that up to one-third of cancer cases that occur in economically developed countries like the US are related to being overweight, obese, inactive or having poor nutrition. These are all potentially preventable.
Particular cancers are related to infectious agents such as human papillomavirus (HPV), hepatitis B virus (HBV), hepatitis C virus (HCV), human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) – these may be prevented through behavioral changes and use of protective vaccinations or antibiotic treatments.
Many of the more than 3 million skin cancer cases that are diagnosed annually could be prevented by protecting skin from excessive sun exposure and avoiding indoor tanning.
Screening offers the ability for secondary prevention by detecting cancer early, before symptoms appear. Early detection usually results in less extensive treatment and better outcomes.
Screening for colorectal and cervical cancers can prevent cancer by allowing for detection and removal of pre-cancerous lesions.
Awareness about changes in the body to breasts, skin or testicles may result in detection of tumors at an earlier stage.
Learn more about cancer at the American Cancer Society or Caner treatment.com with so many other places on the internet, to our library, to our MD and much more. All you have to do is research, take the time.
3: Chronic lower respiratory disease
- Deaths: 142,943
- Males: 67,521
- Females: 75,422
- Rate: 45.9
- Age-adjusted rate: 42.5
- Percentage of total deaths: 5.68%.
Chronic lower respiratory disease (CLRD) is a collection of lung diseases that cause airflow blockage and breathing-related issues, including primarily chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) but also bronchitis, emphysema (is due to alot of smokers) and asthma.
Bronchitis (chronic) has active and inactive stages where most get it through their lifetime. How often has depending factors. Bronchitis may be either acute or chronic. Often developing from a cold or other respiratory infection, acute bronchitis is very common.
*Chronic bronchitis, a more serious condition, is a constant irritation or inflammation of the lining of the bronchial tubes, often due to smoking.
*Acute bronchitis usually improves within a few days without lasting effects, although you may continue to cough for weeks. However, if you have repeated bouts of bronchitis, you may have chronic bronchitis, which requires medical attention.
A study released by The American College of Chest Physicians (CHEST) estimated that 16.4 million days of work were lost annually because of COPD, and total absenteeism costs were $3.9 billion. Of the medical costs, 18% was paid for by private insurance, 51% by Medicare, and 25% by Medicaid. National medical costs are projected to increase from $32.1 billion in 2010 to $49.0 billion in 2020.8,9
Major warning signs and symptoms of COPD
Signs and symptoms of COPD may include:
- Increased breathlessness when active
- A persistent cough with phlegm
- Frequent chest infections.
How can COPD be prevented?
In the US, tobacco smoke is a KEY FACTOR in the development and progression of COPD=EMPHYSEMA, although exposure to air pollutants in the home and workplace, genetic factors, and respiratory infections also play a role.7
Smoking is a primary risk factor of COPD since it causes primarily emphysema, and approximately 80% of COPD deaths can be attributed to smoking. Emphysema damages the tissue of the lung called alveoli causing them to expand and not have the elasticity they need to exchange 0xygen for carbon dioxide when we breath. Most importantly when the alveoli looses the elasticity it can’t be fixed unless you need a new lung and are a candidate for one. So regular daily smokers why don’t you just drink poison? Best is to not smoke at all but at least do it once in a awhile. Abusing anything usually turns into injury (For example take alcohol to simply verbally or physically abusing and doing it over and over again which makes it easier to do which isn’t right to do at all. Abuse is just used as an exampte not that it is right at all, I reenforce)
To prevent COPD:
- Quit smoking
- Avoid secondhand smoke
- Avoid air pollution
- Avoid chemical fumes
- Avoid dust
The FDA have approved the once-daily inhaled drug olodaterol (brand name Striverdi Respimat), a long-acting beta-agonist, for the treatment of airflow obstruction in COPD patients.
Doctors are missing chances to diagnose COPD early in up to 85% of cases
COPD is a progressive disease that causes irreversible damage to the lungs. Now, a new study reveals that doctors are missing chances to diagnose the condition early.
If this correct than that gives us as people not to depend just on the MD but to take care of ourselves in particular on preventative measures to give you higher odds that you will not even have to deal with the diagnosis at all.
“Heart disease is the leading cause of deathTrusted Source for both men and women. This is the case in the U.S. and worldwide. More than half of all people who die due to heart disease are men. Medical professionals use the term heart disease to describe several conditions. Many of these conditions relate to the buildup of plaque in the walls of the arteries. As the plaque develops, the arteries narrow. This makes it difficult for blood to flow around the body and increases the risk of heart attack or stroke. It can also give rise to angina, arrythmias, and heart failure. To reduce the risk of dying from heart disease, a person can protect their heart health by adopting a healthful diet and getting regular exercise.”
Over the years news has been filled with stories about Ebola, breast cancer and Methicillin Resistant Staph Aureus (MRSA) which all gets a lot of press today. Would it surprise you to know that neither makes the list of the 10 deadliest diseases in the USA? Even more surprising, perhaps, is that several of the deadliest diseases, including the number one killer in the world, are at least partially preventable. It is right under are nose people but it doesn’t seem to be a topic of discussion in SCHOOL, you when young, taught at that grade level for the child to comprehend. It is not even a standard topic in college to pass on health education which obviously our country needs based on the statistics of disease and Obesity alone which causes a lot of the diseases after being obese for a long period of time which could have been prevented but for millions of people it is not the priority over food. Why? It takes an individual to want to make change in their life either drastically or gradually depending on how much to you need to or desire to lose weight. The people that surround you frequently and that are important to you helps if they are supporting that cause since it helps first you and all the people around you; like your children and even significant other to other family members (mom, close cousin, etc…) and even friends. If we all made this a cause our health care system would end up being a lot more affordable for all but we the society make it difficult with too many staying unhealthy. Wake up Americans take care of yourself to help yourself and all around you. Where a person lives, having the access to preventive care, and the quality of healthcare provided in a community are all factors that can either benefit or put people in that community into the risk of obesity.
Surprising news is that we, due to not regarding our health as a priority in many areas of the USA show the following statistics:
Of all the causes of death in the US, the leading top 10 causes account for nearly 75% of all deaths and the top 3 causes account for over 50% of all deaths in the country, with the main culprits remaining relatively consistent for at least the last five years.
The top leading 10 causes of death are:
- Heart disease (which can be prevented)
- Cancer (malignant neoplasms). Some cancers without question can be prevented (lung CA due to smoking)
- Chronic lower respiratory disease (same as above if we are referring to emphysema and its due to smoking)
- Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases) (this also in many cases can be prevented) Check out Monday’s article.
- Accidents (unintentional injuries)
- Alzheimer’s disease
- Diabetes (diabetes mellitus) If its diabetes II; usually due to obesity and diet.
- Influenza and pneumonia
- Kidney disease (nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis)
- Suicide (intentional self-harm).
1.)Heart Disease shows:
The #1 leading disease in the US!
- Deaths: 596,577
- Males: 308,398
- Females: 288,179
- Rate: 191.5
- Age-adjusted rate: 173.7
- Percentage of total deaths: 23.71%.
Heart disease is the leading cause of death for both men and women in the US and also the leading cause of death worldwide. More than half of the deaths that occur as a result of heart disease are in men.
Coronary heart disease costs the US $108.9 billion each year and is the most common type of heart disease.3
Heart disease is a term used to describe several problems related to plaque buildup in the walls of the arteries. Ending line clogging up the vessels closing up the pipelines our blood is carried through (vessels) to give oxygen to our blood tissues with taking carbon dioxide to the lungs for more 02 when its used up by our cells who carry oxygen to our tissues (02 is the fuel for our body to stay alive).
As the plaque builds up, the arteries narrow, making it more difficult for blood to flow and creating a risk for heart attack or stroke due to ischemia (Lack of oxygen to the tissues. If its lack of 02 to the heart angina to an MI if its the brain a TIA-transient ischemic attack or worse a CVA-stroke). Remember, prevention=protection is the first step so you don’t get this problem at all. Ending line the better you take care of yourself the higher the odds you will not get this problem.
How can you take this step in PREVENTION;
Protecting the heart
Lowering blood pressure and cholesterol can significantly lower heart disease risk.
- Follow instructions on medication usage if your already on it
- Make sure diet is low in salt, fat, saturated fat and cholesterol and high in fresh fruits and vegetables
- It is recommended that exercise in the form of a brisk 10 minute walk takes place 3 times a day, 5 days a week
- Avoid excessive alcohol use
- Quit smoking
- All steps listed above if you follow has even caused patients to stop medications completely because the changes listed above caused the problem in high statistics with the individual having no heredity.
“Schizophrenia is a serious mental disorder in which people interpret reality abnormally. Schizophrenia may result in some combination of hallucinations, delusions, and extremely disordered thinking and behavior that impairs daily functioning, and can be disabling.
People with schizophrenia require lifelong treatment. Early treatment may help get symptoms under control before serious complications develop and may help improve the long-term outlook.”.
Schizophrenia is a serious disorder which effects how a person thinks, feels and acts. A individual with this diagnosis may have difficulty distinguishing between what is real and what is imaginary; may be unresponsive or withdrawn; and may have difficulty expressing normal emotions in social situations. The person with schizophrenia may have difficulty expressing normal emotions in social situations.
Contrary to public perception, schizophrenia is not split personality or multiple ones. The vast majority of people with schizophrenia are not violent and do not pose a danger to others; if anyone they could put a danger to is themselves without supervision around. Schizophrenia is not caused by childhood experiences, poor parenting, lack of will power. The signs and symptoms of the disease are not the same for each person.
The cause of schizophrenia is still not clear. Some theories about the cause of this disease include: genetics (heredity), biology (the imbalance in the brain’s chemistry); and/or possible viral infections and immune disorders.
Another cause can be genetics (heredity). Scientists recognize that the disorder tends to run in families and a person inherits to develop the disease. Schizophrenia may also be triggered by environmental events like viral infections or highly stressful situations or a combination of both. Similar to some other genetically-related illnesses, schizophrenia appears when the body undergoes hormonal and physical changes, like those that occur during puberty in the teen and young adult years.
Substance use can be another cause. Some studies have suggested that taking mind-altering drugs during teen years and young adulthood can increase the risk of schizophrenia. A growing body of evidence indicates that smoking marijuana increases the risk of psychotic incidents and the risk of ongoing psychotic experiences. The younger and more frequent the use, the greater the risk. Another study has found that smoking marijuana led to earlier onset of schizophrenia and often preceded the manifestation of the illness.
Another etiology deals with chemistry. Genetics help to determine huw the brain uses certain chemicals. People with schitzophrenia have a chemical imbalance of brain chemicals (serotonin and dopamine) which are neurotransmitters. These neurotransmitters allow nerve cells in the brain that send messages to each nerve cell. The brain is made up of nerve cells, called neurons, and chemicals, called neurotransmitters. An imbalance of one neurotransmitter, dopamine, is thought to cause the symptoms of schizophrenia. … The “dopamine hypothesis” has been the main theory regarding the cause of the symptoms of schizophrenia. Dopamine is produced in the dopaminergic neurons in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) of the midbrain, the substantia nigra pars compacta, and the arcuate nucleus of the hypothalamus. With the imbalance these chemicals affects the way a person’s brain reacts to stimuli—which explains why a person with schizophrenia may be overwhelmed by sensory information (Ex. loud music or bright lights) which other people can easily handle. This problem in processing different sounds, sights, smells and tastes can also lead to hallucinations or delusions.
Looking for a moment at Dopamine in different areas of the brain in both low and high amounts see how it effects brain thinking to better understand schizophrenia.
Dopamine in cognition:
Dopamine in the frontal lobes of the brain controls the flow of information from other areas of the brain. Disorders of dopamine in this region lead to decline in neurocognitive functions, especially memory, attention, and problem-solving.
D1 receptors and D4 receptors are responsible for the cognitive-enhancing effects of dopamine. Some of the antipsychotic medications used in conditions like schizophrenia act as dopamine antagonists. Older, so-called “typical” antipsychotics most commonly act on D2 receptors, while the atypical drugs also act on D1, D3 and D4 receptors.
Dopamine in movement
A part of the brain called the basal ganglia regulates movement. Basal ganglia in turn depend on a certain amount of dopamine to function at peak efficiency. The action of dopamine occurs via dopamine receptors, D1-5.
Dopamine reduces the influence of the indirect pathway, and increases the actions of the direct pathway within the basal ganglia. When there is a deficiency in dopamine in the brain, movements may become delayed and uncoordinated. On the flip side, if there is an excess of dopamine, the brain causes the body to make unnecessary movements, such as repetitive tics.
Dopamine in pleasure reward seeking behavior
Dopamine is the chemical that mediates pleasure in the brain. It is released during pleasurable situations and stimulates one to seek out the pleasurable activity or occupation. This means food, sex, and several drugs of abuse are also stimulants of dopamine release in the brain, particularly in areas such as the nucleus accumbens and prefrontal cortex.
Dopamine and addiction
Cocaine and amphetamines inhibit the re-uptake of dopamine. Cocaine is a dopamine transporter blocker that competitively inhibits dopamine uptake to increase the presence of dopamine.
Amphetamine increases the concentration of dopamine in the synaptic gap, but by a different mechanism. Amphetamines are similar in structure to dopamine, and so can enter the presynaptic neuron via its dopamine transporters. By entering, amphetamines force dopamine molecules out of their storage vesicles. By increasing presence of dopamine both these lead to increased pleasurable feelings and addiction.
Dopamine in memory
Levels of dopamine in the brain, especially the prefrontal cortex, help in improved working memory. However, this is a delicate balance and as levels increase or decrease to abnormal levels, memory suffers.
Dopamine in attention
Dopamine helps in focus and attention. Vision helps a dopamine response in the brain and this in turn helps one to focus and direct their attention. Dopamine may be responsible for determining what stays in the short term memory based on an imagined response to certain information. Reduced dopamine concentrations in the prefrontal cortex are thought to contribute to attention deficit disorder.
Dopamine is affected in schizophrenia, just look at the functions of the chemical and the signs and symptoms of schizophrenia.
Signs and symptoms of schizophrenia:
–Deficits in cognitive abilities are widely recognized as a core feature of this disease. The deficits impacting the cognitive function are found in a large number of areas: working memory, long-term memory,verbaldeclarative memory, semantic processing, episodic memory, attention, learning (particularly verbal learning). Deficits in verbal memory are the most pronounced in individuals with schizophrenia, and are not accounted for by deficit in attention. Verbal memory impairment has been linked to a decreased ability in individuals with schizophrenia to semantically encode (process information relating to meaning), which is cited as a cause for another known deficit in long-term memory. When given a list of words, healthy individuals remember positive words more frequently (known as the Pollyanna principle); however, individuals with schizophrenia tend to remember all words equally regardless of their connotations, suggesting that the experience of anhedonia impairs the semantic encoding of the words. These deficits have been found in individuals before the onset of the illness to some some extent and varying degrees.
-Disorganized or catatonic behavior
TREATMENT FOR SCHIZOPHRENIA:
There is no cure for schizophrenia, but it can be treated and managed in several ways.
-Psychotherapy, such as cognitive behavioral therapy and assertive community treatment and supportive therapy.
– Self-management strategies and education | <urn:uuid:1c2caa95-2a7a-4646-ad8f-48741d0c2b3b> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.striveforgoodhealth.com/archives/date/2022/03 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572833.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817001643-20220817031643-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.931781 | 9,243 | 3.109375 | 3 |
Spiti is arid and an isolated world offering a panoramic views of the barren mountains, clear blue sky, sparsely populated villages and some of the most striking monasteries that dates back to 1000 years from now. The dominant feature of Spiti valley is its Buddhist culture. Rudyard Kipling has described Spiti “a world within a world” in his book Kim.
Spiti Valley is gradually becoming popular among the tourists Located at an elevation of 4000 metres above sea level the journey to Kunzum Pass is challenging not only to man but to the machines as well. This cold mountain desert is an ideal place both for explorers and religiously inclined tourists. Prime attraction of the valley is listed as below:
Dhankar Monastery: Perched on the edge of a hill top this monastery was once the castle of the ruler of Spiti and today is a source of Buddhist scriptures in Bhoti script. Dhankar Monastery is recognized by the World Monuments Fund as one of the Hundred Most Endangered Sites in the world.
Tabo Monastery: Also called the Ajanta of Himalayas this monastery was founded in 996 AD by Budhist King Yeshe O’d. Housing some of the exquisite wall paintings and mud statues the monastery is the preserver of the Budhist legacy.
Key Monastery: Key monastery perched on a mountain top is the largest one in Spiti valley. The Gompa is the storehouse of rare thangka paintings and several ancient musical instruments – trumpets, cymbals and drums.
Kibber Village: Kibber village is claimed to be world’s highest motor-able village in the world which is permanently inhabited. This village is the base for several high altitude treks. The unique architecture of the houses adds to the travellers delight.
Komik Village: This village is regarded as the Asia’s highest village located at an elevation of 4500 mtrs from sea level. On the way to Komik from Kaza one encounters some of the beautiful villages and landscapes nestled in the graceful Himalayas.
Pin Valley: The valley lies below the Kungri Glacier. Pin valley is the base for Pin Valley National Park which is natural habitat to animals like Snow Leopard, ibex, Bharal and the Thar. The views in the entire Pin Valley are extremely majestic including Mud village.
Chandertal Lake: A remote high altitude lake which is 6 Kms from Kunzum Pass, this lake is also known as Lake of Moon. With deep blue and green water this is the most beautiful lake of the Himalayas and a great place for the campers and trekkers. | <urn:uuid:82c679b3-34ff-4f32-b1d9-6eb21660d68d> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://thetravellertrails.in/spiti-valley-a-world-within-a-world/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573172.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818063910-20220818093910-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.956479 | 554 | 2.703125 | 3 |
On Sept. 12, 2002, President George Bush went before the United Nations to ask for support for his intentions to send troops into Iraq. Since then Mr. Bush has continued to lobby for support both in the US and abroad, hoping to garner the help he needs.
Is this action eleven years in the making or eleven years too late?
Twelve years ago, Saddam Hussein openly declared his feelings against the rest of the world.
He was prepared to seize and dominate other countries, however, he was stopped by the United Nations.
During the proceeding negotiations, Hussein agreed to the terms set by the United Nations which included the termination of human rights violations and oppression of his people, the safe return of prisoners, the renouncement of terrorism, and the termination of weapon development, including biochemical warfare.
For eleven years, Saddam Hussein has violated each agreement and chosen to walk down his own path.
As the United States prepares to take on another adversary, the collective sentiment isn’t as united as he had hoped.
Bush’s plan to continue riding the anti-terrorism wave and receive support from his people might not be as easy as it was a year ago.
“If we do not get UN approval, we shouldn’t step on other people’s toes. That’s how we make ourselves look like a bully and that’s why the world hates us. It is a UN matter, and although the US is in the UN, we do not control the UN,” says biochemistry major, Candice Carlile.
However, it has been four years since the United Nations has successfully sent inspectors into Iraq.
During this period, not only has Iraq violated the range in the testing of Scud’s missiles, but has gathered together a team that with the right materials could build a nuclear weapon within a year.
“We should try and get UN approval, but if not, we should act unilaterally.
Saddam Hussein is a threat to the world and should be stopped.
Senior Bush should have finished the job,” says junior and political science major Nicole Garofano.
Following the invasion of Kuwait in 1990, the UN imposed economic sanctions on Iraq.
Hussein claims that the innocent people have suffered due to these impositions, however, he continues to grow his wealth and work around the sanctions to retrieve materials for weaponry.
“If we wanted to invade Iraq, we should have done it the day they lifted the ban on political assassination. We shouldn’t go into Iraq unilaterally because Iraq won’t treat it as a unilateral war. With this kind of warfare, [Iraq] don’t have to be strong. Terrorism is for people who don’t have an army,” broadcast major Joe Shaw claims.
In 1991, the UN Security Council demanded that Iraq surrender all ties to terrorism and permit no terrorists to reside in its nation.
However, since then, Hussein has acknowledged his support of the militant group, Mujahedeen-de-Khalq, which terrorizes the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Is it due to Bush’s war on terrorism that Iraq has suddenly become his prime target?
For the past year, Iraq has disappeared from media headlines, however, with the anniversary of September 11, Hussein’s name has resurfaced.
Graduate student Jemmell’z Washington has her own theories, “Is he [President Bush] bored? Can he just not find Bin Laden? Is that why we are going after Iraq?”
But, how much does the general public know?
Mathematics professor, Ray Coughlin, questions the amount of information available to Congress opposed to the amount released to the public.
That changes the outcome of the public’s view.
Professor Coughlin summarizes, “It is a simplistic question to a complicated issue.”
Poojah Shah can be reached at email@example.com | <urn:uuid:5a9d6025-269b-4bf8-8046-41fab26681a4> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://temple-news.com/what-did-you-think/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572833.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817001643-20220817031643-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.968 | 833 | 2.390625 | 2 |
Iron is an important dietary mineral and is required for the proper growth and development of a child. Iron is a crucial component of hemoglobin, a protein that is required for oxygen transfer in our body. Iron deficiency can hinder the synthesis of red blood cells causing anemia. Iron is also needed for proper brain development. Thus, iron deficiency in children adversely affects normal growth and cognitive development.
Children are highly prone to develop iron deficiencies because a high amount of iron is needed during rapid growth. However, it is important to note here that excess iron intake is toxic to the body, and one must not give over-the-counter iron tablets to children without proper medical advice.
Symptoms of iron deficiency
Iron deficiency causes lethargy, growth retardation, weakness, recurrent infections due to poor body immunity, behavioral issues, increases sweating, and appetite loss.
Common dietary requirements of iron for children between the ages of 7-12 months is 11 mg/day while for children from 1-3 years, it is 7 mg/day.
The main causes of iron deficiency in children are
- Poor diet management by the parents in the early years of life.
- Not incorporating solid food after the child is above 6 months of age and a complete reliance on breastfeeding.
- Vegetarian diets are usually low in iron content. Thus, vegetarians must include better sources of iron in their diet.
- Excessive dependency on cow’s milk for children below the age of 2 years.
- Lead poisoning.
- Pre-term birth and low birth-weight
- A mother`s diet during pregnancy is very important because the fetus gets iron from the mother. Thus, a healthy and balanced diet is essential to prevent iron deficiency in the newborn.
- Some babies can show an iron deficiency in the first year if excessive breastfeeding continues after 6 months of age without incorporating iron-rich solid food. Thus, delaying the introduction of solid food is one of the main causes of iron deficiency in this age group.
- Vitamin-C is required for proper absorption of iron in the body. Thus, a deficiency of vitamin C can also lead to iron deficiency in children.
Certain preventive measures taken by the parents can help in avoiding iron deficiency in children:
- Eat an iron-rich diet during pregnancy and if you are a non-vegetarian, incorporate meat in your diet.
- Timely start of solid food for the child.
- Give iron-rich baby supplements to your child after consulting a pediatrician.
- Include vitamin C rich food such as lemons, berries, mandarins, oranges, and tomatoes to the diet.
- Intestinal parasites can also cause iron deficiency. Consult your doctor for a diagnosis and treatment.
Iron is a critical micronutrient for the proper growth and development of a child. Iron deficiency is a very common phenomenon in children and prevalent in several parts of the world, especially the developing world. It is evident that proper dietary intervention and behavioral changes can provide sufficient iron to children and prevent iron-deficiency. | <urn:uuid:0bf3c889-bde4-45a1-86f4-78d896a63d27> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.trendytone.com/health/iron-deficiency-in-children-things-to-know/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572198.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20220815175725-20220815205725-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.934089 | 633 | 3.625 | 4 |
Past thirty day period, the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine hosted a 3-day workshop: “Optimizing care devices for people with mental and developmental disabilities.” Throughout this workshop, specialist panelists, including myself, expressed a shared worry with regards to the deficiency of accreditation expectations when educating healthcare experts to care for folks with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
Minimal accreditation benchmarks for skilled health care instruction applications are contributing to wellbeing inequalities that negatively affect the health of people today with mental and developmental disabilities, a populace that is continue to not formally thought of to be medically underserved. When overall health professionals never realize how to care for people today with disabilities, it encourages bias in health care. As a final result, sufferers with disabilities get rid of have confidence in in health care treatment, which can set their lives at hazard.
The Impact of Lower Accreditation Requirements
On Dec. 14, 2021, the Equivalent Work Chance Commission current its COVID-19 technical aid with a new segment, in accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), to safeguard employees who contract COVID-19. These tips were established since the influence of COVID-19 on the intellect and body can satisfy the ADA’s definition of a incapacity. When this disability qualification is essential for the honest defense of workers with COVID-induced disabilities, the website link concerning COVID-19 and mental disabilities remains underrecognized.
Contemplating that the next-maximum possibility issue for COVID-19 diagnoses and deaths is intellectual incapacity, equitable health care for men and women with mental disabilities is specially vital during the ongoing disaster. Unsurprisingly, folks dwelling at the intersection of disabilities with racial and ethnic minority identities are enduring even even worse health and fitness results relevant to COVID-19.
A significant social determinant worsening these health inequities for people with disabilities is the constrained information and competencies of nurses and medical professionals, the two premier groups of health care experts.
Increased Accreditation Criteria Are Fantastic for Well being
In the U.S., a person in four older people have disabilities, comprising the major minority group in the country. In addition, just one in 6 kids in the U.S. have developmental disabilities. With nearly 85% of grownups and 96% of little ones browsing a health care professional each and every calendar year, healthcare providers need to be superior outfitted with the essential information and capabilities to give superior-quality healthcare to all people with disabilities.
Accreditation specifications aid to enhance affected individual health and fitness results due to the fact accreditation generates a established of good quality requirements for the training of healthcare specialists and will allow health care college students to transfer credits between institutions of greater discovering. Accreditation standards are also critical for entry to federal and condition funding, as perfectly as non-public insurance plan.
Who Sets Accreditation Criteria?
To be sure, accreditation bodies do exist for the training of healthcare industry experts precise to their fields of research. For example, in medication, there is the Liaison Committee on Medical Training (LCME). In nursing, the most very well-acknowledged accreditors are the American Association of Schools of Nursing and the Countrywide League for Nursing (NLN). The NLN has also partnered with Villanova College or university of Nursing to create the “Advancing Treatment Excellence for People with Disabilities.” This free program can be utilized by nurse educators to train nursing students proficiency in disability treatment — whilst the software is not expected for accreditation.
Still, the absence of accreditation requirements for disability schooling in medicine and nursing proceeds, despite lawful and other advocacy efforts.
The Client Safety and Cost-effective Treatment Act (PPACA) handed in 2010. Area 5307 of the PPACA is precise to “cultural competency, prevention, and community well being and persons with disabilities education,” and involves that the Secretary of HHS collaborate with health expert societies, licensing and accreditation bodies, the incapacity neighborhood, and some others to develop, evaluate, and disseminate disability curricula for inclusion in health and fitness specialist training.
Though the Nationwide Council on Disabilities is nevertheless urgent for accreditation specifications, alliances and partnerships continue on to build momentum for better-good quality incapacity schooling. At this time, Medical Pupils with Disabilities and Chronic Sicknesses is spearheading an energy to have specific language included in LCME accreditation benchmarks. Additionally, Main Competencies on Disabilities for Health and fitness Care Education and learning, a task that is constructing consensus on the competencies health care companies need to have to supply quality care to persons with disabilities, has been produced to increase wellbeing education and learning curricula.
The Function of Collaboration
Collaborative and strong scheduling types can boost instruction expectations when instruction health care industry experts who treatment for people today with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Just take, for illustration, the ECHO (Extension for Neighborhood Healthcare Outcomes) Autism software in Missouri. The ECHO Design is a cross-sector exertion that democratizes skills and disseminates greatest tactics to clinicians, educators, and advocates. Tele-mentoring provided by the ECHO Autism digital learning network aids to increase the capabilities of principal care suppliers by furnishing interdisciplinary abilities from parents and health care and behavioral wellness specialists. ECHO Autism also delivers actual-time, localized connection to experts. As a final result, the ECHO Model boosts accessibility to health care for underserved populations with autism.
It truly is time for accrediting bodies to get just as critical about acquiring better accreditation requirements to educate nurses and doctors. On top of that, accreditors could use the Collective Affect Model to create a shared agenda and measurement system to figure out the impression of accreditation. By subsequent the style and design of the Collective Impact Design, leaders in healthcare expert instruction can develop have faith in and fortify communication among participants and stakeholders to fulfill the goal of teaching healthcare industry experts to far better provide the disability group.
Accreditation benchmarks that boost healthcare skilled instruction will encourage far better health and fitness results for folks with disabilities. Progressive designs like ECHO show the impact of meaningful collaboration concerning health care industry experts, apply partners experienced in the subject of disabilities, and disability advocates. But, most importantly, the incapacity group, significantly individuals with expertise in wellness advocacy, ought to be guide consultants when acquiring curricula language and programming certain to the healthcare wants of folks with disabilities.
Sarah Ailey, PhD, RN, is professor of nursing at Hurry College and a Community Voices Fellow of the OpEd Project. She is the principal investigator for the Path-PWIDD (Partnering to Completely transform Overall health Outcomes with Persons with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities) software funded by the Administration for Group Dwelling, and the President of the Alliance for Incapacity in Wellbeing Care Education. She is also the mother of an grownup son with mental disabilities. | <urn:uuid:81c9b69a-4a6f-4ab1-8f78-2c1bb83e1fd7> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://healthylifesylee.com/are-we-equipped-to-care-for-people-with-intellectual-developmental-disabilities.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573172.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818063910-20220818093910-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.943245 | 1,424 | 2.4375 | 2 |
WASHINGTON — Facebook has deleted a post by President Donald Trump for violating its policy against spreading misinformation about the coronavirus. And a few hours later, Twitter temporarily blocked the Trump campaign from tweeting from its account, until it removed a post with the same video.
The post in question featured a link to a Fox News video from Wednesday morning in which Trump says children are “virtually immune” to the virus.
Facebook said Wednesday that the “video includes false claims that a group of people is immune from COVID-19 which is a violation of our policies around harmful COVID misinformation.”
Trump's account retweeted the video. Twitter said in a statement late Wednesday that the tweet violated its rules against COVID misinformation. When a tweet breaks its rules, Twitter asks users to remove the tweet in questions and bans them from posting anything else until they do.
Twitter has generally been quicker than Facebook in recent months to label posts from the president that violate its policies against misinformation and abuse.
This is not the first time that Facebook has removed a post from Trump, Facebook said, but it's the first time it has done so because it was spreading misinformation about the coronavirus. The company has also labeled his posts.
In June, Facebook removed ads regarding Trump's reelection campaign featuring a symbol Nazis used to classify political prisoners.
Several studies suggest, but don’t prove, that children are less likely to become infected than adults and more likely to have only mild symptoms. But this is not the same as being “virtually immune” to the virus.
A study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention involving 2,500 children published in April found that about 1 in 5 infected children were hospitalized versus 1 in 3 adults; three children died. The study lacks complete data on all the cases, but it also suggests that many infected children have no symptoms, which could allow them to spread the virus to others.
Trump responded to his claims about children and the coronavirus hours after the Fox interview during Wednesday afternoon's White House press briefing.
"Children handle it very well. They may get it, but they get it and it doesn't have much of an impact on them," the president said, again referring to COVID-19 as "the China virus" despite criticism that labeling the illness Chinese is racist.
NBC News reports that the Trump campaign has accused Facebook of "flagrant bias."
Courtney Parella, the campaign's deputy national press secretary, said in a statement, "Another day, another display of Silicon Valley's flagrant bias against this President, where the rules are only enforced in one direction. Social media companies are not the arbiters of truth."
Associated Press Writers Amanda Seitz and Barbara Ortutay contributed to this story. | <urn:uuid:3624fec4-e61a-42f6-b4b2-62f2cb37df67> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.5newsonline.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/facebook-trump-video-post-removed-children-covid-19/507-cce6e329-811b-4d83-9d47-4bb702ceff0c | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572833.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817001643-20220817031643-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.966605 | 572 | 1.796875 | 2 |
How far is Cologne from Toronto?
There are several ways to calculate distances between Los Angeles and Chicago. Here are two common methods:Vincenty's formula (applied above)
- 3869.874 miles
- 6227.958 kilometers
- 3362.828 nautical miles
Vincenty's formula calculates the distance between latitude/longitude points on the earth’s surface, using an ellipsoidal model of the earth.Haversine formula
- 3858.842 miles
- 6210.203 kilometers
- 3353.242 nautical miles
The haversine formula calculates the distance between latitude/longitude points assuming a spherical earth (great-circle distance – the shortest distance between two points). | <urn:uuid:453a8db8-2073-4e26-b91c-3aea0a136444> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.airmilescalculator.com/distance/yyz-to-cgn/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573172.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818063910-20220818093910-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.799785 | 157 | 2.421875 | 2 |
The kurdish question will exacerbate relations between the us and Turkey against the backdrop of war in syria. Knowing about the approval of the american coalition plans to release raqqa, with the participation of kurdish groups, Ankara can retaliate. If the americans during the liberation of raqqa will count on the kurdish forces, it can damage relations of the United States and Turkey, says the journal "Foreign policy". The United States plans to release of militants "Ig" (banned in russia), the syrian city of raqqa include participation in the operations of people's protection units (ypg). Previously, Washington has supported these kurdish units from the air. In addition, the kurds have received weapons from the americans. Ankara looks negatively on participation in coalition operations of the kurds.
Turkey considers the ypg linked to the "Kurdistan workers 'party", and this organization on the territory of Turkey is declared a terrorist. His negative attitude to the participation of the kurds in Turkey to hide. Prime minister binali yildirim said, referring to the ypg, the cooperation of Washington with "Terrorist organizations" would seriously damage bilateral relations. However, we cannot say that the turks are ready to announce certain measures, thereby giving a response to Washington. On the other hand, resembles a "Foreign policy", Ankara has long had a leverage over american regional policy. Here are a number of measures which could be taken by the turks and that it is not like the us would be:— close to the american air force access to airfields in the South: from there are made sorties of U.S. Aircraft striking at terrorist positions;— to expand cooperation with Moscow. On the last point, an extended commentary, note, the edition does not.
It is clear that the situation in the middle east, two states (Turkey and russia) closer together, albeit forced. And this convergence, which is manifested in the economic format, could mean in the future geopolitical strengthening of both countries, which in turn will weaken the us position in the region. Americans have long not like that Turkey claims to be one of the most powerful regional leaders, and the kurdish issue in Syria focuses for a reason: the kurdish issue, both external and internal, is one of the most sensitive turkish issues. The Pentagon sees the kurdish force as the most capable in syria. Analysts in the us soberly assess the situation and believe that without the participation of the kurdish forces of the liberation from militants of raqqa is hardly possible. Most interesting is that the turks, who are against the participation of kurds protest, offered the americans a variant: to use instead of the ypg the turkish army, and to it add the "Syrian rebels".
The us defense department over such ideas laugh. Obviously, the issue of operation storm raqqa will be allowed from day to day. As suggested by "Foreign policy", the white house will not pull the cat's tail because of raqqa, the stronghold of the bearded militants, has long been a focus of violent terrorism that plagued the West. Delay Trump will not forgive. "In raqqa planned terrorist acts in paris, brussels and various areas of Turkey," — said the publication the diplomat fred hof (usa). Therefore, the farther the Washington postpones the operation to storm the city, the greater the chances of militants in the planning of countermeasures. As for the kurds, the head of the ypg recently stated that the operation to liberate raqqa will start in april.
According to him, the fighters of the ypg will participate in the assault on the city, despite the objections of Ankara. We will remind, earlier in mass media it was reported that the majority of ISIS militants left the town: the terrorists moved to the province of deir ez-zor. I wrote about this Iranian publication, refers to well-informed syrian sources. According to the Iranian media, which leads "Interfax", currently the terrorists are digging trenches and building bunkers around raqqa. But most of the fighters (75%) fled from raqqa to deir ez-zor. Explanation this number is not given. Also, "Interfax" quotes cihan sheikh ahmad, the representative of the opposition alliance "Syrian democratic forces". She said that raqqa is already isolated from other parts of syria.
"Our forces pulled the encirclement of raqqa, she said. — we moved forward due to a more massive air support and military participation of the international coalition. ""In short time, we took full control of the countryside around raqqa and freed hundreds of villages and the strategic heights. From the east we reached the river euphrates and from the North-West of the dam on the euphrates river," said she network edition "Al-monitor". According to her, the liberation of the city will take "Months, certainly not years. "It should be noted that the basis of the "Syrian democratic forces" (sdf) constitute the kurdish people's defence.
Those, against whose participation in the transaction objected to Turkey. Analysts also wrote that raqqa has become a real bone of contention. Alexander szarkowski in "Nezavisimaya gazeta", explained that military forces of Turkey, acting in the operation "Shield of the euphrates", "Physically unable to participate in the assault on the city of al-raqqah". Therefore, most likely to take the city "From the militia of syrian kurdistan blow from the North with a simultaneous onslaught of Assad's forces and the shiite militias from the South. ""Just look at the map to understand the absurdity of appeared statements about the intention of Ankara to participate in the conquest of al-raqqa. For such actions of the turkish contingent in Northern Syria, which now numbers men, the number of military equipment and armament can be equated to a mechanized infantry brigade of the incomplete composition, is too small.
Here Turkey will need at least an order of magnitude more troops. Even if to abstract from this fact, still shot from the el-baba through manbij means that turks must penetrate the territory controlled by the syrian kurdish militias to a depth of about 170 km, with the crossing of the euphrates and the necessity to have the barriers right and left in the direction of motion, in order to protect his troops from the flank attacks of the kurdish partisans. At the same time the turks in the rear are all the same unfriendly they, the kurds," writes the analyst. That's why we add the U.S. Military and the turkish laugh at the idea of "Replacement" of the kurds during the assault on raqqa on the turkish units and the syrian "Rebels. " Ankara says a lot, but it is unlikely such plans are implemented. Successful liberation of raqqa and the kurds and the coalition will lead to more gain in the region of the kurds and will give an extra point usa.
Erdogan will have a bitter pill to swallow. Surveyed and commented oleg chuvakin — especially for topwar. Ru.
The Kiev regime for three years, has said the terrorist status of the state, which was once the Ukraine and frankly is looking for the response of neighbouring States. In particular, the Russian Federation. So isn't it time to res...
Mikhail Pogrebinsky, a Kiev political analyst, suggested that President Poroshenko by condoning the transport blockade of Donbass by Nazis, which he then legalized, gets rid of the Donbass, using Semenchenko and parasuco. He can't...
Postmaydannoy Ukraine continues to fall, to fall into the abyss, and nobody knows where at the precipice of the bottom. The barbaric shelling of Donbass, the mass burning of people in Odessa, the destruction of monuments, the ban ... | <urn:uuid:7c3b66cf-e868-4405-af7e-af6a82c6c276> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://weaponews.com/analytics/4078-erdogan-will-not-take-raqqa.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573172.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818063910-20220818093910-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.948038 | 1,671 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Also found in: Dictionary, Thesaurus, Acronyms, Encyclopedia.
Like this video? Subscribe to our free daily email and get a new idiom video every day!
A sputtering noise made by pressing the tongue and lips together, used to express either real or faux contempt, mockery, or displeasure; a raspberry. Primarily heard in US. The fans collectively gave the opposing team a Bronx cheer when their relief pitcher walked onto the field.
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. © 2022 Farlex, Inc, all rights reserved.
a Bronx cheerAMERICAN, INFORMAL
A Bronx cheer is a rude noise that you make by putting your lips together and blowing through them. He greeted the news with a loud Bronx cheer.
Collins COBUILD Idioms Dictionary, 3rd ed. © HarperCollins Publishers 2012
Bronx cheer(ˈbrɑŋks ˈtʃir)
n. a rude noise made with the lips; a raspberry. The little air compressor in the corner of the parking lot made a noise like a Bronx cheer.
McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions Copyright © 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
A raucous expression of displeasure. The sarcastic reference is to how spectators at sporting events in New York City's borough of the Bronx—at Yankee Stadium, for a notable example—let players on visiting teams, and umpires too, know what was on their mind. The classic “Bronx cheer” sound was produced by compressing the lips and blowing, which replicated the sound of passing wind. That noise was earlier called a raspberry (or raspberry tart, the British rhyming slang for “fart”), from which the word “razz” came.
Endangered Phrases by Steven D. Price Copyright © 2011 by Steven D. Price | <urn:uuid:62d032b6-c6c7-440b-b882-04081f0e18e3> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/Bronx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573172.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818063910-20220818093910-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.911786 | 414 | 2.46875 | 2 |
THE WAR OF 1812
CAUSES FOR WAR
From the 1790s to the early 1800s, wars raged between France and the world. The fledgling United States, while trading supplies with both France and Great Britain, found itself in the middle of the conflict as the European countries vied for supremacy on the Atlantic. Numerous American citizens were pressed into services in the British Royal Navy and American merchant ships and cargo were seized by both sides. President Thomas Jefferson responded with the Embargo Act of 1807 and his successor James Madison continued with the Non-Intercourse Act of 1809 to stop exports to those warring powers.
In the Old Northwest Territory, consisting of the state of Ohio and the territories of Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin, settlers were encroaching on American Indian lands. Although treaties between the US Government and American Indian tribes banned settlement and military occupation of tribal lands, these treaties were disregarded. From 1806 and 1811, the Shawnee chief Tecumseh sought to unite the Northwestern tribes against the American expansion into their lands. In 1811, William Henry Harrison, governor of the Indiana Territory, directed military attacks on the villages and camps of Tecumseh’s followers throughout the territory. Upon reaching Tecumseh’s village of Prophetstown, he reported a discovery of arms and supplies from British agents in Canada which he believed provided proof of British involvement in attacks on American settlements.
Citing free trade, sailors’ rights, and peace on the northwestern frontier, President James Madison signed an Act of Congress formally declaring war on Great Britain on June 18, 1812.
General Hull’s army finally reached Detroit on July 5, 1812. The British only had a small garrison at Fort Amherstburg and Hull decided to launch his invasion on July 12. The Americans landed at the town of Sandwich and sent detachments out to seize supplies and to scope out the British defenses. General Hull decided that he would not be able to take the fort without heavy artillery. When he heard that Fort Mackinac in the north had surrendered to a surprise attack, Hull retreated back to Detroit.
General Sir Isaac Brock, the British commander of Upper Canada, was able to rush up Lake Erie with reinforcements for Malden. After a short bombardment, General Brock threatened Hull with a vicious attack if he did not surrender. Cut off from supplies and reinforcements, Hull’s army laid down its arms on August 16, 1812.
The fall of Detroit meant that control of the Michigan Territory, from the straits of Mackinac all the way south to the Maumee River, reverted to the British. The loss of Hull’s army also mean that forts and settlements throughout the Northwest frontier were threatened.
The Americans on the Northwest frontier, especially in the states of Ohio, Kentucky and Pennsylvania were not idle after the fall of Detroit. Several thousand volunteers had already been raised to reinforce Hull’s army. William Henry Harrison, former governor of the Indiana Territory, was given command. He marched to Fort Wayne and sent out detachments to burn American Indian villages in retaliation for siding with the British.
General Stephen Van Rensselaer decided to launch an attack across the Niagara River in October. On October 13, he ferried US regulars and New York militia to attack British outposts on Queenston Heights. The Americans succeeded in capturing the British positions, but several regiments of New York militia refused to cross over to reinforce them. General Isaac Brock rallied his troops and attempted to storm the heights, but was killed. His second in command, General Roger Sheaffe, surrounded the remaining Americans and forced them to surrender. This was the second major disaster of the war for the United States.
In 1812 Great Britain had the largest navy in the world, numbering over 600 commissioned vessels and nearly 100 ships of the line. However, it was chronically short on manpower, and the fleet was worn out from two decades of blockading French ports. The British frigates of the time were smaller than 50-gun American ships like the Constitution, so while collectively they had a bigger force, the Royal Navy was weaker ship-to-ship than the US Navy
The Americans kicked off the war by setting their big frigates, including the USS Constitution, loose in the Atlantic to attack British shipping. In the first months of the war the defeats at Detroit and Queenston Heights were balanced by victories in ship to ship duels between USS Constitution and HMS Guerriere, the USS United States versus HMS Macedonian, and the United States versus HMS Java.
Congress also authorized private vessels to sail for the United States as privateers, and hundreds of small schooners and brigs were soon cruising the world’s oceans. Combined with French privateers, this soon took a drastic toll on British shipping and forced Great Britain to adopt a convoy system.
January 1813 found a large army of American soldiers advancing on Detroit in three columns. General James Winchester with Kentucky volunteers and US regulars had been at Fort Wayne since September, and slowly marched down the Maumee River towards the rapids. Generals Harrison and Joel Leftwich were advancing from Central Ohio with Virginia militia and regular infantry and artillery. A Pennsylvania brigade under General Richard Crooks and Ohio militia were marching from the east. Harrison was in overall command and wanted his forces to meet at the Maumee River.
Winchester and his men were far ahead of the other columns. When they reached the Maumee rapids, they met French-American citizens from Frenchtown (modern-day Monroe, Michigan) and were convinced to liberate the town from the British. A successful attack on January 18 turned bad a few days later when General Henry Procter led a surprise assault on the American camp on the morning of January 22.
In the wake of the battle, American prisoners of war and wounded soldiers were attacked by Procter’s American Indian allies. The violence led to outcry in the US and especially fury in Kentucky, where most of the victims hailed. The battle cry of the American army became “Remember the Raisin!”
General Harrison had lost one third of his army, and wet weather prevented the rest of his men from marching to Detroit. He settled down at the Maumee rapids and ordered Fort Meigs built to protect his supplies and artillery. Over the next few months, Harrison’s army dwindled to 700 men as militia enlistments ran out.
In the spring and summer of 1813, General Procter led several attempts to destroy Fort Meigs and other American forts in Ohio. In September, after Oliver Hazard Perry led the American Lake Erie squadron to victory at the Battle of Lake Erie (September 10), General Harrison was able to launch an invasion of Canada. He recaptured Detroit and Malden and caught up with General Procter at the Battle of the Thames on October 5. Procter fled and Tecumseh was killed, leading to the end of large scale warfare in the west.
Americans took control of Lake Ontario and landed troops to capture York (modern Toronto) on April 27 and Fort George a month later. American troops looted and burned some public buildings in York. The British later retaliated by burning Buffalo, NY and Washington D.C.
Later in the year, two large American divisions converged on Montreal. In two separate battles, at the Battle of the Chateauguay on October 26 and the Battle of Crysler’s Farm on November 11, the American invasion was turned back.
A new theater of war was opened with hostilities between American settlers in the Southeast and the Creek tribesmen known as the Red Sticks. These tribes had been in contact with Tecumseh before the war. Strife between factions led to a civil war within the Creek people. As the Americans got involved, militia General Andrew Jackson led forces from Tennessee and other southern states. The conflict intensified after the killing of 400 white settlers at Fort Mims on August 30, 1813.
In June, Captain James Lawrence of the USS Chesapeake was challenged to a single ship duel by Captain Sir Philip Broke of the HMS Shannon. The Chesapeake was captured and Lawrence died from wounds, but his last words, “Don’t give up the ship!” were soon immortalized by his friend Master Commandant Oliver Hazard Perry.
The third year of the war found American and British forces at a stalemate. The United States government was going deep into debt and many politicians doubted whether it could afford to pay for the war through several more years. Recruitment for the Regular Army was flagging, and Congress raised the bounty for recruits dramatically. For the first time, black soldiers served alongside whites in the US Infantry Regiments. There was also talk of systematically raising regiments of black soldiers.
In Europe the Napoleonic Wars had ended with the abdication of Napoleon, and Great Britain was able to shift many veteran regiments to fight in North America. Governor General Sir Prevost began planning a counter offensive against the Americans.
Brigadier General Winfield Scott had spent much of the spring training his brigade in camp. In early July, his and two other brigades under the overall command of Major General Jacob Brown crossed over into Canada on the Niagara River and captured Fort Erie. The Americans met and defeated a British force at the Battle of Chippewa on July 5. They later met a reinforced British army at the Battle of Lundy’s Lane on July 25, leading to a bloody but inconclusive fight.
By August, General Brown had been cornered by the British at Fort Erie, where he successfully defended the fort against a British assault on August 13. After several successful American counter attacks the British retreated on September 21, 1814.
To the east, General Prevost assembled a force of 11,000 men, including veterans of the war in Spain, to descend Lake Champlain and threaten American posts in the Northeast. On September 11 his land forces fought an indecisive battle with American defenders at Plattsburgh New York. His naval force, however, was completely defeated by the American squadron led by Thomas Macdonough. Without naval support, Prevost refused to advance any further and retreated back into Canada.
A British fleet, reinforced with a force of about 4,500 soldiers and Royal Marines, landed in the Chesapeake Bay region in August 1814. On August 24, these troops defeated a larger American force at the Battle of Bladensburg, Maryland. Led by General Robert Ross, the British marched into Washington, D.C. and set fire to the public buildings and navy yard there before returning to their ships. The White House was reduced to a charred shell.
On September 12, the same British force landed at North Point near Baltimore. They advanced inland, pushing back an American army at the Battle of North Point. General Ross was killed by an American rifleman, but his successor pushed on to the outskirts of Baltimore. The British fleet sailed into range of the Baltimore defenses (including Fort McHenry) on September 13. They failed to make a dent in the fortifications, and the British decided to withdraw instead of fighting their way into the city. The bombardment of Fort McHenry gave rise to Francis Scott Key’s famous poem of the same title, which in turn provides the words for the National Anthem of the United States.
The American and British negotiators at Ghent in Belgium had settled on a peace settlement in December of 1814. Since no major territory had been gained or lost through the three years of war, the status of the United States and Canada was to return to what it had been before the war started. The Treaty of Ghent ending the War of 1812 was signed on December 24, 1814.
Word took time to reach the American coast, and it wasn’t until January that the news of peace reached most armies in the field. Congress ratified the treaty in February, 1815. In the meantime, the British had sent a fleet and an army of over 8,000 men to capture New Orleans.
On January 8, the British advanced in force on the American earthworks outside New Orleans. The frontal attack was quickly repulsed by artillery, musket and rifle fire. The British commander, General Edward Packenham, and nearly 300 British soldiers were killed, as well as over 1,200 wounded. Only a handful of Americans were killed or wounded.
THE RESULTS OF THE WAR
After hostilities ceased, the forts and territory gained by either side were returned. Little had been accomplished towards the American goal of invading Canada. However, tribes of American Indians in the Northwest signed two treaties, in 1814 and 1817, which surrendered most of their lands to the United States. The War of 1812 spelled an end to warfare between Great Britain and the United States. Despite several rebellions and attempts by private groups, the United States would never again attempt an invasion of Canada.
"The fighting men of the Union are reckoned at a million. Not a twentieth part of that are needed to reduce Canada - and shall we not have it?"
~ Franklinton, Ohio Freeman's Chronicle
October 19, 1812
Image Credit: Fort Meigs | <urn:uuid:549cc013-c08f-4a6e-884d-8dcf578cd384> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://fortmeigs.org/the-war-of-1812/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572833.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817001643-20220817031643-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.976004 | 2,761 | 4.1875 | 4 |
MIAMI — A second tropical system with a Greek alphabet name formed Friday afternoon, according to the National Hurricane Center.
Little change in strength is forecast during the next couple of days before Beta reaches the Texas coast. Weakening is anticipated once Beta moves inland.
As of Sunday at 5 p.m., the storm has maximum sustained winds of 60 mph with higher gusts and is moving west-northwest at 6 mph.
Forecasters said the storm will move slowly over the western Gulf of Mexico over the next few days.
It could bring heavy rain and flooding to the northwest Gulf Coast near Texas.
The NHC said it is too early to determine what areas could see direct wind and storm surge from Beta.
Earlier on Friday, Subtropical Storm Alpha formed near the coast of Portugal. | <urn:uuid:3d1d07aa-ac2b-46af-bec1-1267bcd1a896> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.wptv.com/weather/hurricane/tropical-storm-beta-forms-in-the-gulf-of-mexico | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572833.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817001643-20220817031643-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.957755 | 163 | 1.625 | 2 |
National Assembly members past and present have been the butt of public criticisms owing to their involvement in shameful behaviour. The latest malfeasance was stoked by allegations and counter-allegations made by members of the House of Representatives against their peers. While it is not yet clear who is guilty or innocent of the allegations, it is clear that accusations of criminal involvement in the stuffing of budget estimates have damaged the honour and public standing of members of the House. Whatever happens, an institution whose reputation has continued to totter, owing to licentious and dishonourable conduct of members should be censured, not pitied.
The National Assembly, as an institution of our society, must undergo radical moral, psychological, and physical reforms to regain the respect previously accorded to members of that institution. Public image of previous sessions of the National Assembly suffered terribly and members of the current session seem determined to keep the flame of that tattered image going for much longer.
For many years, National Assembly members have been associated with reckless behaviour in public and private spaces, including gross abuse of their rights and privileges, uninspiring performance in office, dishonest practices, staging and participating in open scuffles, inability to uphold ethical codes of conduct, and approving for themselves enormous salaries and allowances that are odds with the national economy, in particular salaries and allowances that are not reflective of the nation’s poverty index and the number of citizens living below the poverty line. These abuses are not fabrications. They are documented and remain in the public domain.
The current session of the House of Representatives has gained further notoriety because of the spat among House members over illegal budget “padding”. Ever since the controversy broke, the public has been outraged. The revelations in the House received further impetus in the public sphere when Olusegun Obasanjo said the hallowed chambers of the National Assembly were occupied by villains and lawbreakers.
Obasanjo’s unflattering remark was hailed by a society already exasperated by the excesses of National Assembly members, in particular the peccadilloes of members of the House of Representatives. Obasanjo was responding to journalists who asked for his opinion about the scandal in the House of Representatives where it was alleged that some members secretly “padded” the budget. Obasanjo said what was unravelling in the House has justified his position in 2012 when he described the National Assembly as a grotto full of crooked men and women.
Expectedly, Obasanjo’s remark did not go well with federal legislators. Some of them responded promptly by reminding him of the many transgressions of the government he led for eight years when he was president. The public backlash against legislators followed allegations, denials, and angry exchanges between a former chairperson of the House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations, Abdulmumin Jibrin (the accuser), and the Speaker of the House, Yakubu Dogara (the accused). It was Jibrin who accused Dogara pointedly of engineering the “padding” of the budget to the astonishing amount of N40 billion.
We are in a season of scandals. The National Assembly is facing a serious test of character of its leadership because the Senate president and his deputy, Bukola Saraki and Ike Ekweremadu, are also facing possible prosecution for allegedly tampering with the Senate rules that facilitated their emergence as president and deputy president. To complicate matters, Saraki is currently facing trial by the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) on the basis of allegations of false declaration of assets when he was Governor of Kwara State. The charges were brought against Saraki by the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB).
You could say the trap or net laid before Saraki has been spread wide, clear, and tightened to ensure the man would not escape effortlessly from his two predicaments. It is indeed a serious situation. If Saraki is convicted by the Code of Conducted Tribunal, he would have to relinquish his position as senate president. That would be a catastrophic and painful fall from grace, indeed a strategic blow to the image and political career of a man who had served as a former state governor.
Public discomfort and anger over the disreputable behaviour of federal legislators is growing. National Assembly members hold positions of authority and are therefore perceived as emblems of moral authority. By the positions they hold, they are required to conduct themselves in morally approved ways that should be copied by everyone. Unfortunately, this has not been the case. The public conduct of many members of the National Assembly has been appalling to say the least. Shortly, I will replay a memory tape of the mischievous conduct of previous leaders of the National Assembly. The essence is to underscore the point that members of the National Assembly and their leaders have not been setting good examples for anyone to emulate.
If President Muhammadu Buhari really wants to live and act his anti-corruption crusade, he must use this appalling budget padding scandal as a starting point of his campaign. The government must discipline politicians who are connected in any way with this noxious budget padding scam that has given the country a bad image internationally, nationally, and regionally. The question is: does Buhari have the courage to act against his party members? Many citizens hold the view that Buhari’s campaign against corruption is selective, lacks focus, and has been muffled by the leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Regardless of their political party, legislators who hold positions of power are required to show a high level of moral behaviour and prudence in the way they deal with financial and non-financial matters. Everyone expects the same high level of accountability from national leaders. Our experiences over the past 17 years, following the return to democracy in May 1999 show the nation has witnessed legislative and executive carelessness in the planning, presentation, debating, and implementation of national budgets. What has emerged in all of these is the display by National Assembly members of selfishness in debates that preceded the passage of budget bills.
Legislative misconduct at the federal level did not begin and will not end with budget indiscretions. The irony is that National Assembly members are in general perceived most misleadingly as men and women of good conscience. History has shown this public perception to be inaccurate, wrong, or inexact.
To be precise, on Tuesday, 22 June 2010, members of the House of Representatives fought openly on the floor of the House. The fight was triggered by questions over whether the House should scrutinise claims of financial misbehaviour made against the former Speaker, Dimeji Bankole. When the sweat dried on their jackets and agbada, some of the dishonourable members took the rest of the day off while some others returned to their desks. Certainly, that was not the first time members of the House used fistfights to settle issues.
Three years earlier in 2007, members of the House of Representatives exchanged abuses and insults after the publication of derogatory allegations that accused the Speaker — Patricia Olubunmi Etteh – of approving contracts valued at a stupendous N628 million for the repair of her official house and that of her deputy, Babangida Nguroye. The allegation was later confirmed by a panel of investigation set up by the House. Etteh was also alleged to have endorsed the acquisition of 12 cars. After months of angry debates by the public, including those who opposed and those who supported Etteh, a vicious fight broke out in the House. During the free-for-all, a House member buckled and died later. Later in October 2007, Etteh, whose controversial leadership had fractured the House, finally left her office as Speaker.
The two cases which exposed the leadership deficiencies of the two former leaders of the House (Patricia Etteh and Dimeji Bankole) showed the way they dealt with accusations of financial impropriety made against them at different times was inappropriate, high-handed, insensitive, and disrespectful of the House rules. They ignored the basic rule that a House Speaker is required to unify members of the House, not to disparage or divide them.
In the current controversy over budget “padding”, we see a similar scenario. A member of the House has made damaging allegations against the Speaker and members of the House have taken sides even before investigations have concluded. Regardless of how this political gamesmanship ends, what has been displayed in the public sphere yet again by members of the House of Representatives is lack of decorum, lack of accountability, lack of transparency, lack of proper management of the budget bill and improper handling of the ensuing debate, as well as lack of maturity by members of the House and their leader.
In hindsight, the House of Representatives has never had a cheering history since 1999. In the past 17 years, the House has rolled from one calamity to another, including the scandal that engulfed yet another former Speaker, Salisu Buhari, who was convicted for forgery and perjury by an Abuja Chief Magistrate’s Court on 22 July 1999. He was later pardoned by former President Olusegun Obasanjo.
These instances of financial and other forms of misbehaviour by federal legislators support the view in the public that since May 1999, the integrity of the National Assembly has been degraded or sullied by astounding allegations of financial misdemeanour and deceptive behaviour involving both the leadership and ordinary members.
Specifically, public opinion holds that members of the House of Representatives have abdicated their responsibility to the nation. It is no surprise that a former chairperson of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mrs Farida Waziri, once described the House of Representatives as a “House of scandals upon scandals”. Mrs Waziri’s remark was apt. Past events in the House and the current storm over budget “padding” justify that epithet. | <urn:uuid:8df40a87-faf7-484f-b2f3-cd61f1942ed7> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.sunnewsonline.com/national-assembly-of-self-seekers/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572833.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817001643-20220817031643-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.975486 | 2,032 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Please note: This blog post is a course related assessment for the Master of Arts in Learning and Technology program at Royal Roads University.
Taking the LRNT 525 – Leading Change in Digital Learning course could not have come at a more appropriate time in my professional career. In early March, I started in a new role at eCampusOntario where I will be a project manager to lead a significant digital change within the province of Ontario. The project is title Open at Scale – Business Open Educational Resources (OER) and will focus on nine highly enrolled post-secondary business courses within Ontario adopting OER to remove the cost of students having to pay for expensive textbooks.
The Leading Change in Digital Learning course has challenged my thoughts on what it takes to be a leader and expanded my knowledge of critical areas that will help me in my new position. Sheninger (2014) helped me reflect on the importance of two-way communication, branding and professional growth, which encouraged me to be active on social media at the onset of the project and has helped build my network for this project rapidly. Sheninger (2014) went on to discuss re-envisioning the learning environment, which aligns closely with OER as it moves away from the traditional paid textbook method and to a new approach of the faculty member having the ability to adapt the content to their learning environment. As this project will have several stakeholders, including Ontario post-secondary business faculty, students and administration, it will be important to explain the benefits of OER to the stakeholders, as not everyone will be familiar with this approach to resources within the classroom. Large projects have a greater chance of success when stakeholders value the change being implemented within the organization (Weiner, 2009). By explaining the benefits, stakeholders have the ability to understand the value the suggested changes being implemented and can support the initiative moving forward within their respective roles.
Developing nine OER within a year will be a daunting task, and a specific project management approach was needed to ensure success within the project. The Open at Scale – Business OER project will be using an agile project management approach. Agile project management is defined as
“an approach based on delivering requirements iteratively and incrementally throughout the project life cycle. At the core of agile is the requirement to exhibit central values and behaviours of trust, flexibility, empowerment and collaboration” (Association for Project Management, n.d.).
The agile project management approach aligned closely with the leadership approaches outlined in adaptive leadership. Yukl and Mashud (as cited in Khan, 2017, p. 179) state
“flexible and adaptive leadership involves changing behavior in appropriate ways as the situation changes”.
With recent changes in provincial government and the ever-changing landscape of higher education, an adaptive approach to leadership will be needed to ensure the project delivers results and adjusts accordingly when appropriate.
Without the Leading Change in Digital Learning course, I would not have the depth of knowledge needed to understand the complexity that the Open at Scale – Business OER brings to the post-secondary institutions. I now feel prepared for the project and change management requirements of the project and look forward to gathering data throughout the one-year project to demonstrate the overall project success.
Association for Project Management. (n.d.). Agile project management. Retrieved March 28, 2019, from https://www.apm.org.uk/resources/find-a-resource/agile-project-management/
Khan, N. (2017). Adaptive or Transactional Leadership in Current Higher Education: A Brief Comparison. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 18(3).
Sheninger, E. (2014). Pillars of digital leadership. International Centre for Leadership in Education.
Weiner, B. J. (2009). A theory of organizational readiness for change. Implementation Science, 4(67). | <urn:uuid:ae1c6e8d-a508-4f26-912e-c884a460c3fa> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | http://brandoncarson.com/2019/03/31/my-growth-as-a-leader/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573172.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818063910-20220818093910-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.926112 | 798 | 1.8125 | 2 |
This is the 81 issue of my reading recommendations contains 7 very interesting blog posts and many of them cover mobile testing and development. This time with “Learning QA with Gamification”, “React Native at Instagram”, “Handling nerves when public speaking”, “Page Objects – Mobile Automation Testing”, “Discomfort as a Tool for Change”, “Stress-testing Android apps” and “Set your APP into the testable state”.
Enjoy reading the posts and send me new ones that are worth reading and I will mention you and link to your social links or blog.
Page Objects – Mobile Automation TestingNowadays there are a lot of talks about page objects and the screenplay pattern. Let me also express some thoughts regarding this. In this article I will apply practical knowledge on the sample mobile project using Calabash framework. But first… If you don’t use page objects in your project, do it! Seriously, just drop other…
Set your APP into the testable state – Mobile Automation TestingSometimes, you may come up with the idea to shorten time of your tests execution by preparing your APP to be in the testable state for the moment when the test starts. This totally makes sense, especially in mobile UI automation which is incredibly slow. Some people call this approach “Power over purity”. We will…
Thanks for reading, re-tweeting and sharing my reading recommendations every week! If you have any kind of blog post, podcast or video that is worth sharing with the software testing community, send me the URL either via comments, twitter or mail and I will add it with a mention of your name to my reading recommendations.
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes. | <urn:uuid:d048f029-a770-4f70-8942-01c3ca0df4f4> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://adventuresinqa.com/2017/02/22/reading-recommendations-81/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573172.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818063910-20220818093910-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.893841 | 559 | 1.515625 | 2 |
A huge part of this planet exists without access to reliable electricity, which doesn’t just mean no access to computers and other tools, but a lack of even the most basic of necessities such as cheap lighting. Most of these places still rely on kerosene lamps, which are smelly, polluting and expensive to run. There are some superb initiatives happening around the world at the moment to solve the problem, and we think this new project could be a real winner if it takes off as hoped.
The GravityLight uses a clever belt and pulley system to generate light through the force of gravity. The idea is for the user to pull a bag up to generate enough energy for short periods of light. Because it uses ultra low power LED bulbs, this could mean up to 30 minutes of light for a quick 3 second hoist. It’s much cheaper than solar (which needs batteries to store the sun’s power) and easier to maintain than other more complex devices.
The product comes in it’s own pouch, which can be used to hold stones or dirt as the weight needed to make the light work, so it’s very self-contained. The GravityLight has also been designed with sockets to charge up batteries or other devices, but we’re assuming that the efficiency of the product will need to be improved considerably before this becomes a valid option.
The project is at early crowdfunding level at the moment, as the developers need funds to distribute test units to Africa and India for testing, but the team have a good track record in design and engineering, which should help the product get the necessary support. This project reminds us of the brilliant original Watercone product, for water purification and de-salination, which also delivered a simple but effective solution to an important problem. We need more of these innovative types of projects. | <urn:uuid:72b7d98c-c73b-48ef-b7fd-bbe2be58888d> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.redferret.net/gravitylight-a-revolutionary-led-lighting-system-for-developing-countries/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572198.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20220815175725-20220815205725-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.951921 | 380 | 2.75 | 3 |
This ‘Need-to-Know’ blog post series features noteworthy stories that speak of need-to-know developments within higher education and K-12 that have the potential to influence, challenge and/or transform traditional education as we know it.
1) Harvard and MIT Evaluate MOOCs’ Impact
Harvard and MIT recently released a report evaluating the impact of their MOOCs offered on edX’s platform (Ho et al., 2015). The report uses data over a two-year period across 69 MOOCs and includes analysis on participation levels, student demographics, profile of certificate seekers, completion rates and more. It’s a worthwhile read for educators involved in planning or the delivery of xMOOCs. Three key takeaways:
1. Participation* across eleven MOOCs offered for a second time declined by 43% from the first to second version. Of five courses offered for a third time, participation numbers remained essentially the same. The one exception was for the Introduction to Computer Science MOOC, which doubled in size from the first to second version.
*Participation determined by number of enrolled students that accessed MOOC content at least once.
2. Computer Science MOOCs attracted four times as many participants as courses in three other categories. The four categories: 1) Computer Science, 2) Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, 3) Humanities, History, Religion, Design, and Education, and 4) Government, and Health and Social Sciences.
3. Demographics of participants are consistent with earlier reports of MOOC participants: educated with at least a bachelor’s degree, male, and in their late twenties to mid-thirties. The paper reported revealed a slight shift however in demographics:
“Year-over-year demographic shifts have been slight but indicate a direction toward courses with older, more educated, more US-based, and more female representation”
Insight: As more data is compiled and shared about MOOCs, institutions will (hopefully) be able to make more prudent decisions about MOOC investments. Investments in Massive, open online courses are significant, yet often the purpose for, or even the expected outcomes are not determined beforehand. With reports such as this one MOOC, (again—hopefully) decision-makers can make more informed decisions about MOOCs.
2) Online Collaboration – New Methods including ‘Lean Forward’
The article “What Harvard Business School Has Learned About Online Collaboration” featured in Inside Higher Ed this week presents innovative methods for online group collaboration, one in particular called ‘lean forward’. Articles that focus on pedagogical methods in online course design are scant, which is why this article tucked away within Inside Higher Ed’s blog column section is noteworthy.
It describes unique and novel methods for delivering learning experiences for students in Harvard’s three-course certificate program, Credential of Readiness (CORe). CORe is not a MOOC, but an online certificate offered for $1800 that is geared to undergraduate or graduate students with a non-business background. It’s described as “a primer on the fundamentals of business. It is designed to introduce you (students) to the language of business” (HBX CORe).
The article outlines how courses were designed to change the passive learning approach, typical of MOOCs and some online courses where learners are consumers of content, to an active approach that organizers label ‘lean forward’. Lean forward means that students will not spend more than three to five minutes on the course site before being required to interact with content or peers. Some of the methods use to foster learning forward include:
- Student profiles and introductions were the focus of the first week—not course content. The course site which typically features content at the start, instead focuses on students by featuring their profile pictures and bios. At the beginning of the course students are required to upload a personal picture and create their profile before they can view any course content (quite brilliant!).
- Collaboration needs a trigger – course organizers used grade incentives to get students started, requiring a “basic level” of participation. After that, momentum of the process itself, students interacting and collaborating, took over.
- Desired behaviors for online collaboration and interaction where shaped at the beginning of the program. Course leaders actively encouraged desired behaviors, discouraged others, and clarified standards for online conversation. We encouraged participants to disagree with others — but to do it with respect.
Insight: HBX’s approach is worth considering. The innovative methods used for creating interaction and focusing on students and not content, is exactly what online learning needs. Though new approaches for online course design are in demand, there are few public discussions about online education that focus on pedagogy. We need more of this—sharing of different approaches that can improve online learning experiences for students. The article is a must-read for anyone involved in course design for MOOCs, open online courses, or for-credit, online education programs.
- Bharat Anand and Jan Hammond and V.G. Narayanan, What Harvard Business School Has Learned About Online Collaboration, April 16, 2015
- HBX CORe, The Language of Business
3) Linked-In Buys Lynda.com – What it Means for Higher Ed
LinkedIn offered in to buy Lynda.com for $1.5 billion. Lynda.com is a subscription, video-based training platform that offers online training courses for a variety of technical subjects e.g. computer programming, photography, business skills video filming, editing and more. I view Lynda.com as a polished, searchable and sophisticated You Tube-type platform without advertising (bundled into convenient courses) for a fee.
Insight: Though The Chronicle of Higher Education suggests that the transaction may affect higher ed in some way as per the headline How LinkedIn’s Latest Move May Matter to Colleges (the article is a behind a pay wall), it won’t, at least not in a competitive context. Lynda.com satisfies a need for just-in-time training, training to learn how to do something—now. Not only does the platform offer excellent training for programs such as Excel or Photoshop, but it also offers skills-training ideal for new graduates, for example Creating an Effective Resume, Insights from a College Career Coach, or Job Hunting Online. With LinkedIn’s recent moves to attract college students to its platform, this development will only enhance and support higher education institutions by providing their college graduates and students with tools that will make them more marketable and employable—a win-win for everyone.
- LinkedIn to buy online education company lynda.com for $1.5 billion, Reuters
- A Higher Profile, Paul Fain, Inside Higher Ed | <urn:uuid:270a126b-47dc-42b4-a6cd-21e219704dae> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://onlinelearninginsights.wordpress.com/2015/04/20/need-to-know-news-harvard-mit-evaluate-moocs-lean-forward-the-new-approach-to-online-collaboration-why-linkedin-buying-lynda-com-is-good-for-higher-ed/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573172.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818063910-20220818093910-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.939807 | 1,429 | 2.859375 | 3 |
Gypenosides (GPs) were tested for their ability to protect primary cultures of immature cortical cells against oxidative glutamate toxicity. In immature neural cells, glutamate cytotoxicity is known to be mediated by the inhibition of cystine uptake, leading to depletion of intracellular glutathione (GSH). The depletion of GSH impairs cellular antioxidant defenses resulting in oxidative stress and cell death. We found that pretreatment with GPs (100-400 μg/ml) significantly protected cells from glutamate-induced cell death. It was therefore of interest to investigate whether GPs protect cortical cells against glutamate-induced oxidative injury through preventing GSH depletion. Results show that GPs significantly up-regulated mRNAs encoding γ-glutamylcysteine synthetase (γ-GCS) and glutathione reductase (GR) and enhanced their activities for GSH synthesis as well as recycle. Furthermore, GPs lowered the consumption of GSH through decreased accumulation of intracellular peroxides, leading to an increase in the intracellular GSH content. GPs were also found to prevent lipid peroxidation and reduce the influx of Ca2+ which routinely follows glutamate oxidative challenge. GPs treatment significantly blocked glutamate-induced decrease in levels of Bcl-2 and increase in Bax, leading to a decrease in glutamate-induced apoptosis. Thus, we conclude that GPs protect cortical cells by multiple antioxidative actions via enhancing intracellular GSH, suppressing glutamate-induced cytosolic Ca2+ elevation and blocking glutamate-induced apoptosis. The novel role of GPs implies their remarkable preventative and therapeutic potential in treatment of neurological diseases involving glutamate and oxidative stress.
Bibliographical noteFunding Information:
This work was supported by the research grant from the Office of Herb Sciences, Shandong Institute of Health to Hua Xin.
- Glutathione depletion
- Oxidative toxicity | <urn:uuid:752ba196-ebe2-4ef2-9ee5-88790e9888dd> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://experts.umn.edu/en/publications/gypenosides-protect-primary-cultures-of-rat-cortical-cells-agains | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572833.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817001643-20220817031643-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.938519 | 415 | 2.0625 | 2 |
It’s been proven many times by scientists, doctors and research institutes all around the world that physical activity is healthy for us humans.
It’s not like we were created to sit in front of our laptops all day or spend our lives in coffee shops. This is a brand new way of living, as people before us had much more active lifestyles.
Of course, we’re generalising here and only point out the trends. There are loads of people who spend their lives actively these days. We’re just here to convince you to do it too.
There’s no shame in joining a Pilates club or visiting a gym now and again to get some more physical activity for its own sake. Lots of people who have a sitting job do this and benefit from it.
In fact, if you don’t do it, you risk of many problems in the future which could be easily avoided by slightly changing your lifestyle. With all the mobile apps that help you reach your fitness goals, it’s now extremely easy to get started.
So, here are five undeniable benefits of doing just that:
1. You Will Feel Happier
Exercise increases the production of endorphins in your body, the so-called happiness hormone. It also increases how your body manages to use serotonin and norepinephrine, which can dramatically reduce your anxiety levels.
So, by being physically active regularly, you can highly reduce the risk of depression and negate the effects of stress.
2. Stay Energetic During the Day…
Although this might be counterintuitive, by spending your energy on exercise, you’ll feel more energised as a result. By releasing energy your body will learn to use it more efficiently.
So, on top of psychic health improvements, your body will feel better too. The increase in energy was witnessed not only on fit or healthy people but also on those who already had various disorders. So, it could also be a good remedy against them.
3. …And Sleep Better at Night
Using up your excessive energy in sports or other fitness activities will regulate your body’s recuperation. As the natural cycles of rest and alertness are stimulated by the organism itself, you’ll find it much easier to fall asleep and not wake up at night.
This means a much better sleep quality and reduced chance of developing insomnia and similar sleeping disorders. It’s likely that you won’t be found playing at a casino online on your mobile phone late into the night anymore.
4. Prevent Various Diseases
On top of preventing disorders that we mentioned above and helping to lose weight, exercise is the best way to keep many other diseases at arm’s length.
So, you should be able to reduce the risk of diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, osteoporosis and more.
5. Improve Your Brain Function
Last but not least, your brain will thank you for leading an active lifestyle. Essentially, the brain requires blood to function properly. Physical strain boosts your blood flow. So, the brain receives more blood and can work in higher intensity.
In everyday life, this means better memory, creativity, problem-solving and thinking skills, in general. Old people can benefit from it particularly, as exercise prevents the changes in brain structure that cause Alzheimer’s disease and schizophrenia, among other things. | <urn:uuid:7facb8bf-4b20-4c95-8cfe-8b3142846d4d> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://theusbport.com/5-undeniable-benefits-fitness-exercises-physical-activity/31094 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572833.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817001643-20220817031643-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.951237 | 704 | 2.265625 | 2 |
Background: Self-monitoring of physical activity (PA) using an accelerometer is a promising intervention to stimulate PA after hospital discharge.
Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the feasibility of PA self-monitoring after discharge in patients who have undergone gastrointestinal or lung cancer surgery.
Methods: A mixed methods study was conducted in which 41 patients with cancer scheduled for lobectomy, esophageal resection, or hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy were included. Preoperatively, patients received an ankle-worn accelerometer and the corresponding mobile health app to familiarize themselves with its use. The use was continued for up to 6 weeks after surgery. Feasibility criteria related to the study procedures, the System Usability Scale, and user experiences were established. In addition, 6 patients were selected to participate in semistructured interviews.
Results: The percentage of patients willing to participate in the study (68/90, 76%) and the final participation rate (57/90, 63%) were considered good. The retention rate was acceptable (41/57, 72%), whereas the rate of missing accelerometer data was relatively high (31%). The mean System Usability Scale score was good (77.3). Interviewed patients mentioned that the accelerometer and app were easy to use, motivated them to be more physically active, and provided postdischarge support. The technical shortcomings and comfort of the ankle straps should be improved.
Conclusions: Self-monitoring of PA after discharge appears to be feasible based on good system usability and predominantly positive user experiences in patients with cancer after lobectomy, esophageal resection, or hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy. Solving technical problems and improving the comfort of the ankle strap may reduce the number of dropouts and missing data in clinical use and follow-up studies.
Surgery is an essential curative treatment option for patients diagnosed with gastrointestinal or lung cancer; however, it has a major impact on daily functioning and quality of life [- ]. Most patients experience incomplete or delayed recovery of physical functioning after major thoracic or abdominal surgery [ - ].
During hospitalization, stimulation of physical activity (PA) has been shown to enhance the recovery of physical functioning [, - ], reduce the postoperative risk of readmission, and shorten the length of hospital stay [ , ]. Therefore, PA promotion is integrated into Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) programs [ ]. The aim of ERAS programs is to reduce postoperative complications and improve postoperative recovery. However, ERAS programs are mainly limited to the period of hospitalization, whereas encouraging PA after hospital discharge is also important for improving functional recovery [ , ].
In their own environments, increasing PA levels and resuming daily activities can be challenging for patients. They may experience barriers such as physical symptoms, insecurity, lack of motivation, or social support in doing so . The use of body-worn accelerometers can support patients in resuming their daily activities after cancer surgery [ , ]. Such devices enable self-monitoring of and feedback on PAs by quantifying the frequency and intensity of human movement [ ].
Adequate use of accelerometers for PA self-monitoring is an important prerequisite for its potential positive effect on functional recovery. Several studies have shown the feasibility of PA self-monitoring in patients who have undergone major (oncological) surgery, each using a different device [, ]. Qualitative data on experiences with PA self-monitoring in these patients are largely unknown [ ], and these experiences may add to the knowledge about potential barriers to the use of this technology and may help resolve them [ ].
Therefore, this study aimed to collect both quantitative and qualitative data to investigate the feasibility of self-monitoring of PA using accelerometers after hospital discharge in patients with cancer who have undergone gastrointestinal or lung cancer surgery.
The study was approved by the medical research ethics committee of the Amsterdam University Medical Centers, location Vrije Universiteit Medical Center (registration number 2018/112). All patients provided written informed consent.
A feasibility study with a mixed methods design was performed between April 2019 and April 2020 in patients with gastrointestinal or lung cancer scheduled for surgery. The formal sample size was not calculated. Instead, a convenience sample with a 1-year inclusion period was chosen. Self-monitoring of PA after hospital discharge was evaluated using a questionnaire and interviews conducted in April 2020, and the study procedures were evaluated using administrative data during the course of the study.
The inclusion criteria were adult patients with gastrointestinal or lung cancer who were invited for preoperative physiotherapy screening between April 2019 and April 2020 at the outpatient clinic of our tertiary teaching hospital (Amsterdam University Medical Center, location Vrije Universiteit Medical Center), which included patients scheduled for a lobectomy, esophageal resection, or hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy (HIPEC). Exclusion criteria were <7 days between inclusion and surgery, emergency procedures, patients who are nonambulatory, and no access to or not able to use a smartphone or tablet.
Potentially eligible patients were informed about the study by the treating physiotherapist during the preoperative consultation. Patients who were willing and eligible to participate received the Physical Activity Monitor (PAM) AM400 3-axis accelerometer (Pam BV Doorwerth) and were given access to the corresponding smartphone app called Atris (Peercode BV, Geldermalsen;and ). The PAM was selected for this study as (1) the PAM AM400 was found to be a suitable movement sensor to validly measure activity minutes [ ]; (2) the battery of the PAM lasts for approximately 1 year, eliminating the need for patients to recharge the device; (3) the data of the PAM can be synced directly to a web-based application, enabling remote monitoring by clinicians; and (4) the PAM can be worn around the ankle and is waterproof to allow 24/7 wearing. The PAM measures PA continuously and provides the total PA every 15 minutes. With the Atris app, patients were able to self-monitor their daily PA levels and received feedback on the number of active minutes per day. Patients were able to set personal activity goals in the app by themselves.
All patients received the usual pre- and postoperative physiotherapy care. During the standard preoperative consultation, potential risk factors (eg, smoking or sedentary lifestyle) for delayed postoperative recovery were identified, leading to personalized advice for improving preoperative physical fitness. In addition, the patients were given instructions about the PAM and Atris app. The physiotherapist informed the patient that the app provided insights into the recovery of PA and advised them to use the app to resume their daily activities after surgery. Patients were asked to start wearing the PAM 24 hours a day in a strap around the ankle for at least 7 days before surgery to familiarize themselves with its use.
During hospitalization, patients received standard physiotherapy consultations and were stimulated to mobilize according to a daily mobilization goal following the ERAS protocol . In addition, the physiotherapist guided the patients in using the PAM and Atris app.
Personalized rehabilitation recommendations were provided at discharge. If indicated by the physiotherapist, the patients were advised to continue physiotherapy in primary care after discharge. For this study, the patients were asked to wear the PAM 24 hours a day for 6 weeks. A period of 6 weeks was chosen as it was expected that patients would be able to gain sufficient experience using the PAM and Atris app to assess feasibility. A hospital physiotherapist provided insights into the activity levels of the patient on the corresponding web application and monitored the activity data of the patients weekly. In case the activity levels decreased or no data were available, the physiotherapist contacted the patient. In the case of technical problems, the physiotherapist helped resolve them if possible. In cases where patients had problems resuming their PA level by themselves, the physiotherapist advised them to contact a physiotherapist in primary care. The patients also had the opportunity to contact the physiotherapist themselves.
Patients who were willing to participate (out of potentially eligible patients invited to the study), those who ultimately participated, and those who completed the study were recorded and described as percentages. Furthermore, the amount, type, and reasons for missing PAM data were identified. For exploration purposes, the PAM data were described as the number of active minutes per day (24 hours) from 1 week before surgery (baseline) to 6 weeks after surgery.
System usability was assessed using the Dutch translation of the System Usability Scale (SUS). The SUS contains 10 statements about efficiency, learnability, and satisfaction and has been validated to assess the usability of electronic systems . Patients can indicate the degree of agreement with each statement on a 5-point Likert scale. The total SUS score ranges from 0 to 100, with a score of ≥70 considered good. The patients received an email in April 2020 to complete the questionnaire on a secured web-based system (Castor Electronic Data Capture).
In addition to the SUS, the patients received 13 additional questions about the acceptability, satisfaction, and added value of the PAM and Atris app that was experienced (seefor the questionnaire). In addition, the user experiences of the patients were assessed using semistructured qualitative interviews (see for the topic list). The responses to the SUS and additional questions were used as supplemental topics to the topic list. All patients were asked if they were willing to participate in the interviews. There were 2 groups, patients who did and patients who did not experience additional value. Of both groups, 3 patients were randomly selected for the interview. Interviews were conducted by VvV and MEdL via telephone and recorded using a voice recorder. Interviews were transcribed verbatim.
Demographic and clinical data were collected retrospectively from electronic medical records.
To evaluate the feasibility of self-monitoring of PA using the PAM and Atris app, we set feasibility criteria a priori based on cutoff points described in previous studies () [ - ].
To better understand the feasibility, additional qualitative data on acceptability, satisfaction, and experienced additional value were collected to explore user experiences.
Feasibility criteria based on cutoff points described in previous studies.
Willingness to participate
- Percentage of invited, potentially eligible, patients who were willing to participate in the study; a percentage of >70% was considered feasible
- Percentage of willing and eligible patients who intended to participate in the study; a percentage of >60% was considered feasible
- Percentage of included patients who completed the study (ie, these patients did not explicitly indicate their decision to stop); a retention rate of 80% was considered feasible
- Percentage of missing Physical Activity Monitor data was determined to investigate whether physical activity data collection using the Physical Activity Monitor was feasible; complete data in at least 70% of all participants were considered feasible
- Measured with the System Usability Scale; a score of ≥70 was considered good
SPSS (version 26; IBM Corp) was used for quantitative data analysis. Study population characteristics were presented descriptively as mean (SD), median (IQR), and percentage. Quantitative data were analyzed descriptively. The study procedures were presented as percentages. PAM data were considered missing if they were not available for ≥3 days in a given week. The available PAM data are presented as the median (IQR) of the total active minutes per day of each week and as a percentage of the preoperative PA baseline level. The mean (SD) SUS was calculated using the method described in the study by Brooke . Additional questions about user experience are presented as percentages.
The research software ATLAS.ti (version 8) was used for qualitative analysis. Qualitative data analysis was performed following the steps of thematic analysis by 2 researchers (MvdL and MB) . The interviews were read several times to familiarize with the data. Data were open coded line by line to segment them into the initial codes. Axial coding was used to define the definitive codes. Definitive codes were classified and described under different themes [ ].
A total of 90 potentially eligible patients were invited to participate between April 2019 and April 2020, of whom 68 (76%) were willing to participate. After the final eligibility check, of the 90 patients, 57 (63%) were included in the study, resulting in a participation rate of 63%. The retention rate was 72% (41/57); 28% (16/57) of patients dropped out during the study, of whom 44% (7/16) were related to the intervention. The reasons for nonparticipation, exclusion, and dropout are presented in the flowchart (). Ultimately, 41 patients were included in the analysis. The median age of the patients in this study was 68 (IQR 60-73) years, and 58% (25/41) were male. The most common types of surgery were lobectomy (23/41, 56%) and HIPEC (10/41, 24%). The median length of hospital stay was 7 (IQR 6-11) days. Other relevant demographic and clinical data are presented in .
Approximately, 31% of the PAM data were missing. Missing value analysis suggested that the data were missing at random, as missing data increased during the time blocks of the postoperative phase. The amount of missing data increased during the 6 postoperative weeks: 27% of the PAM data were missing in the first postoperative week and 44% in the sixth postoperative week.shows an overview of the reasons for the missing data. The most common reasons for missing data were technical problems or withdrawal of wearing the PAM. shows the median preoperative and postoperative PA levels in minutes per day and the median percentage of recovery in PA compared with the preoperative levels.
|Sex (male), n (%)||25 (58)|
|Age (years), median (IQR)||68 (60-73)|
|BMI, mean (SD)||26.1 (4.2)|
|Smoke status, n (%)|
|Primary diagnosis, n (%)|
|Rectum cancer||1 (2)|
|Lung cancer||21 (51)|
|Esophagus cancer||8 (20)|
|Peritonitis carcinomatosa||8 (20)|
|Tumor stage, n (%)|
|Comorbidities (ASAa score), n (%)|
|Grade I||3 (7)|
|Grade II||27 (66)|
|Grade III||10 (24)|
|Grade IV||1 (2)|
|Type of treatment before surgery, n (%)|
|Neoadjuvant chemotherapy||3 (7)|
|Neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy||9 (22)|
|Neoadjuvant immunotherapy||1 (2)|
|Neoadjuvant hormone therapy||1 (2)|
|Sports ≥1 time per week, n (%)||15 (37)|
|Type of surgery, n (%)|
|Esophagus resection||7 (17)|
|HIPECb procedure||10 (24)|
|Schwannoma resection||1 (2)|
|Surgical approach, n (%)|
|Video-assisted thoracic surgery||6 (15)|
|Open surgery||35 (85)|
|Type of treatment after surgery, n (%)|
|Adjuvant chemoradiotherapy||2 (5)|
|Adjuvant chemotherapy||3 (7)|
|Adjuvant radiotherapy||1 (2)|
|Adjuvant hormonotherapy||1 (2)|
|Length of stay (days), median (IQR)||7 (6-11)|
|Complications (Clavien Dindo score), n (%)|
|Grade I||26 (63)|
|Grade II||5 (12)|
|Grade IIIa||2 (5)|
|Grade IIIb||5 (12)|
|Grade IVa||3 (7)|
|Hospital readmission, n (%)||5 (12)|
|Duration of operation (minutes), median (IQR)||200 (128-336)|
aASA: American Society of Anesthesiologists.
bHIPEC: hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy.
|PA level||Preoperative||1 weekc||2 weeks||3 weeks||4 weeks||5 weeks||6 weeks|
|Values, median (IQR)||172 (114-213)||51 (26-82)||87 (54-138.5)||96 (68.5-171.5)||108 (78.3-170.5)||118.5 (80-196.5)||139 (81-184)|
|Values, n (%)||38 (93)||30 (73)||29 (71)||29 (71)||28 (68)||28 (68)||27 (66)|
|PA compared with preoperative level of PA(%)|
|Values, median (IQR)||N/Ad||29.4 (17.9-47.4)||55.7 (34.1-77.0)||65.0 (44.9-84.3)||67.2 (52.1-93.5)||78.0 (49.6-101.9)||80.3 (57.6-99.7)|
|Values, n (%)||N/A||29 (71)||27 (66)||26 (63)||25 (61)||25 (61)||25 (61)|
aPA: physical activity.
bPA at baseline (preoperative; time point 0) and 1 to 6 weeks postoperative (time point 1 to time point 6).
dN/A: not applicable.
The results of the feasibility criteria are presented in.
|Willingness to participate||Percentage of willing patients >70%||76% of the invited patients were willing to participate||Feasible|
|Participation rate||Participation rate >60%||The participation rate was 63%||Feasible|
|Retention rate||A retention rate of >80%||The number of dropouts during the study was 16; this resulted in a retention rate of 72%||Marginally feasible|
|Data collection||Complete outcome data of PAa in at least 70% of all participants at follow-up||Approximately 31% of the PA data were missing; the number of complete cases was 9, and 8 cases had <10% missing data||Not feasible|
|Efficiency||SUSb score ≥70||Mean 79.6 (SD 24.2)||Feasible|
|Learnability||SUS score ≥70||Mean 74.0 (SD 27.5)||Feasible|
|Satisfaction||SUS score ≥70||Mean 75.0 (SD 25.2)||Feasible|
|Study patients||Qualitative data about acceptability, satisfaction, and experienced added value||Wearing the PAMc was acceptable, patients were largely positive about the PAM and Atris app, and most patients experienced an added value; technical problems and the comfort of the ankle strap need to be improved||Feasible|
aPA: physical activity.
bSUS: System Usability Score.
cPAM: Physical Activity Monitor.
SUS and Additional Questions
Of the 41 patients, the SUS and additional questionnaires were sent to 39 (95%) patients (n=2, 5% of patients died before April 2020). The mean number of weeks between the end of the self-monitoring period and receiving the questionnaire was 21.6 (SD 17.0). Approximately 85% (33/39) of patients responded to the questionnaire, of whom 5% (2/39) did not complete the entire questionnaire. System usability was feasible, with a mean SUS score of 77.3 (SD 20.7). Of all responding patients, 75% would recommend other patients to use the PAM and Atris app after surgery. Most patients (84%) indicated that they wore the PAM all day during the study period. The reasons for not wearing the PAM were poor comfort with the ankle strap or technical problems (eg, connection problems between the PAM and app). The other outcomes of the questionnaire are presented in.
Of the 39 patients, 8 (21%) patients did not respond to the interview invitation, and 4 (10%) were unwilling to participate in additional interviews. Of the remaining 27 patients who were willing to participate, 8 (30%) patients did not, and 19 (70%) patients found that the use of the PAM and Atris app added value. Approximately 15% (6/39) of patients were selected. The characteristics of the interviewed patients are shown in. The results are described by themes in the following paragraphs and supported by quotes ( ). The code tree is shown in .
|Interviewee number||Gender||Age (years)||Type of surgery||ASAa||Length of hospital stay (days)||Missing data (%)||SUSb score|
|1||Male||69||HIPECc (open)||1||11||69.4 (reason unknown)||70|
|2||Female||61||Lobectomy (VATSd)||2||3||63.3 (PAMe lost)||90|
|4||Male||77||Lobectomy (VATS)||2||4||34 (connection lost between PAM and smartphone)||97.5|
|5||Male||56||Lobectomy (open)||2||7||34.7 (no connection between PAM and smartphone)||67.5|
|6||Male||73||Lobectomy (open)||2||5||26.5 (low battery)||92.5|
aASA: American Society of Anesthesiologists.
bSUS: System Usability Scale.
cHIPEC: hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy.
dVATS: video-assisted thoracic surgery.
ePAM: Physical Activity Monitor.
|“By the way, that bracelet was awful. Especially the closure. You have to invest a bit more in that. I don’t know much else to improve. It weights nothing. You even forget it once in a while.” (quote 1)||Comfort of the ankle strap||2|
|“Every morning and during the day I had to put the bracelet back on again, because it would be loose for a while, but that wasn’t that bad...I don’t have any complaints about it, that bracelet is a simple but good solution for wearing the sensor.” (quote 2)||Comfort of the ankle strap||6|
|“In the beginning I had some trouble with updating. The connection wasn’t always good. I have a certain brand of phone and apparently it doesn’t work as well as other phones. Later I did a new update and then it worked better. I also had some contact with the VUmc about this.” (quote 3)||Technical problems||4|
|“It didn’t work well at all times. Then I called for a new battery. Then it worked again.” (quote 4)||Technical problems||5|
|“And again about the technical problems. That really frustrated me. I called with the VUmc for help. They could often improve it remotely and the new battery helped in the end.” (quote 5)||Technical problems||5|
|“I found the use of the app very friendly. Very easy, absolutely not unnecessarily complicated.” (quote 6)||Easy to use||2|
|“It was a new experience for me. But I had no problems at all with it. It all went well.” (quote 7)||Easy to use||6|
|“I have not thought for a moment of not using it because of my privacy. Only my active minutes were registered and I did not see any reason not to use it.” (quote 8)||No privacy concerns||6|
|Experienced added value|
|“I thought it was a phenominal item...You keep track of your active minutes in the app during the day. I do not use cell phones very often, because I am 63 years old, but this was a very nice challenge.” (quote 9)||Provided insights into recovery||2|
|“I found it a nice application, I watched it every day.” (quote 10)||Provided insights into recovery||6|
|“It had really became part of my lifestyle. When I went to sleep I took it off and put it on the bedside table. Before I took a shower I put it o, so every active minute would count. I had the feeling that the health professionals from the Vumc did everything they could, so I wanted to do that myself. This device helped me a lot with that.” (quote 11)||Provided support||5|
|“Well if we look at the operation, especially my recovery, then it’s very important to me that I have insight in and influence on my recovery. That you are able to see if you’re making progress. When I just started I was 30 minutes active per day and at the end I was 4 to 5 hours active. It is very nice and important to have that insight.” (quote 12)||Provided insights into recovery||3|
|“Well it worked really stimulating for me. Making movement goals gives direction in the rehabilitation proces. You can work towards that. It has really helped me and that’s why I would recommend it to others.” (quote 13)||Motivating effect||5|
|“You feel more co-responsible. Well then it’s nice that you can show you are dowing well and that you try your best.” (quote 14)||Motivating effect||3|
|“It’s an addition to you health and life. It makes rehabilitation a little easier and more challenging. It focuses more on recovery than on your problems.” (quote 15)||Provided support||2|
|“It’s all very frightening and scary. What is going to happen? Will I wake up after the operation? Can I still do the same as I did? There is a lot going through you head and it’s pretty scary, to be honest. At that moment, health profesionnals and such a motion sensor around you ankle helps enormously. You get feedback and it gives you something to hold on to.” (quote 16)||Provided support||5|
|“I think it is a very good remedy. Only for myself it had not been necessary. For someone who has more difficulty with being active this is a completely different story. Then it can be a very nice support. If I speak for myself, it was just that I was curious about how much I walked that day.” (quote 17)||Suitability||4|
|“I already moved a lot: I go to the gym twice a week and I also walk a lot and cycle a bit. Therefore, the PAM wasn’t the reason I started being more active. But it was nice to see how active I was during the day.” (quote 18)||Suitability||6|
|“I would like to get a signal if I don’t show good or abnormal activity behavior. Starting a conversation. That’s also possible by telephone. I don’t necessarily have to come to the VUmc more often. But such a conversation would be very nice.” (quote 19)||Need for more support||1|
|“A sort of alarm or stimulating message. I think that also helps in creating awareness. People need to become aware of their activity behavior. A message when things are not going that well can help with that. It triggers you to think about it.” (quote 20)||Need for more support||2|
|“I would like to get some more information as well. So besides the activity data. For example, about the heartrate and blood pressure. But anyway, it might also be difficult to integrate that into one application.” (quote 21)||Additional needs||4|
|“Activity data should be more clearly displayed. Now you have a graph, but the activity data is only presented per day. You actually want to be able to see data and differences during the day. For example my difference in activity between an evening shift and day shift at work. I would have found that interesting to be able to see.” (quote 22)||Additional needs||5|
|“I think it might work better if the goals are better tailored to the person.” (quote 22)||Additional needs||5|
Topics that may have had a negative impact on user adherence included problems experienced with the ankle straps and technical problems. All the interviewed patients experienced problems with the closure of the strap. They mentioned occasional loosening of the strap, as the closure did not function properly (quote 1;). Despite this problem, wearing the bracelet was an obstacle for none of the patients (quote 2; ). In total, 67% (4/6) of patients mentioned technical problems; sometimes the connection between the sensor and the app did not work, disabling the update of the activity data (quote 3; ). Of these 4 patients, 2 (50%) received a new sensor as the battery was depleted prematurely (quote 4; ). One of the participants mentioned that the technical problems were frustrating (quote 5; ).
Topics that may have had a positive effect on user adherence were ease of use of the Atris app (quotes 6 and 7;) and absence of privacy concerns (quote 8; ).
Experienced Added Value
Most of the interviewed patients were positive about the use of the PAM and Atris app (quotes 9 and 10;). One of the participants mentioned that the use of the PAM had become a part of his lifestyle (quote 11; ). All patients experienced having more insight into their recovery with the use of the PAM and Atris app as they were able to see if they were making progress (quote 12; ). In addition, they mentioned that the PAM and Atris app had a motivating effect. They stimulated them to be more physically active as they were able to set goals and they felt more coresponsible for their recovery (quotes 13 and 14; ). Moreover, patients experienced the PAM and Atris app as support during their recovery process. They mentioned that they provided more focus on recovery and provided something to hold on to (quotes 15 and 16; ).
Approximately 33% (2/6) of patients did not experience additional values but were positive about the concept. They mentioned that they were already motivated to be physically active regardless of the PAM. They thought it would be more suitable for patients who needed more motivation to be physically active (quotes 17 and 18;).
Overall, 67% (4/6) of patients highlighted the need for more support. They mentioned that it would be of additional value if they received messages or calls in situations of insufficient or abnormal activity behavior (quote 19;). Moreover, 33% (2/6) of patients also mentioned that motivational messages might serve as additional incentives (quote 20, ). Additional requirements mentioned by 4 patients were the possibility to add additional measurements of data, such as heart rate or blood pressure (quote 21; ). In addition, 33% (2/6) of patients wanted to gain more insight into the activity pattern during the day (quote 22; ); 33% (2/6) of patients highlighted the need for more personalization (quote 23; ).
Self-monitoring of PA after discharge appears to be feasible based on good system usability and predominantly positive user experiences in patients with cancer after lobectomy, esophageal resection, or HIPEC. These findings are consistent with those of other studies [- , ]. Wu et al [ ] found good feasibility of self-monitoring using a wrist-worn accelerometer and an app in patients after gastric cancer surgery. Low et al [ ] reported good usability of a real-time mobile technology–based sedentary behavior intervention for patients with abdominal cancer in the perioperative period using a smartwatch. However, feasibility was considered moderate in that study as adherence to wearing the smartwatch decreased significantly from before to after the surgery. In our study, adherence also seemed to decrease based on an increase in missing data during the intervention period. Solving technical problems and improving the comfort of the ankle strap may reduce the number of dropouts and missing data in clinical use and follow-up studies. In addition, improving self-efficacy and self-motivation and engaging in more social support could enhance user adherence, as suggested in a systematic review of predictors of adherence in home-based physical rehabilitation [ ].
The system usability of the PAM and Atris app is similar to that of devices used in other studies [, ]. Jonker et al [ ] reported good system usability (mean SUS 73.1) for a wrist-worn activity tracker and mobile app in older adult patients after oncological surgery. In a study by Low et al [ ], the system usability of a Fitbit smartwatch with an accompanying smartphone app during the perioperative period in patients scheduled for abdominal cancer surgery was also found to be good (mean SUS 83.8). The qualitative data, in addition to the quantitative data, provided insights into the facilitators of and barriers to the use of the Atris app and PAM. The user experiences were largely positive. The interviewed patients mentioned that the PAM and Atris app were easy to use, motivated them to be more physically active, and provided support after discharge. However, most of the patients recommended the design of a more comfortable ankle strap, and some were annoyed about technical problems. Only a few patients did not experience the added value of the PAM and Atris app as, in their opinion, they were already sufficiently active and, therefore, did not feel the need for additional support. In contrast, some other patients indicated the need for more support, such as through occasional telephone contact with a physiotherapist or motivational messages. Therefore, the tailoring of interventions to individual needs and preferences should be considered.
In this study, we explored the course of recovery in PA in the first 6 weeks after surgery. These results may be supportive in clinical practice to gain more objective insights into patient recovery and identify which patients may need more support in improving their PA levels. We found that most (19/25, 76%) of our study population did not return to baseline PA levels 6 weeks after surgery, although these results should be interpreted with caution, given the relatively large amount of missing PA data. In previous observational pilot studies using objective PA data after (cancer) surgery, most patients did not reach preoperative PA levels even at 3 months after surgery [, ]. Similarly, a study using questionnaires to investigate the course of recovery in physical functioning 6 and 12 weeks after lung cancer surgery showed that patients were still recovering between 6 and 12 weeks after surgery [ ]. The patients in our study underwent major surgeries, including HIPEC and major lung resections. These procedures are both associated with prolonged functional recovery compared with less invasive procedures such as minimally invasive segmental colectomies or video-assisted small lung resections. Therefore, it is suggested that for most of these patients, the period of supportive care to improve PA should be >6 weeks after surgery. However, to increase user adherence for longer-term use, the previously mentioned improvements to the ankle bracelet and resolution of technical problems are necessary. In addition, to better understand all dimensions of user adherence, an in-depth analysis of adherence to ambulant monitoring in this patient population should be performed, taking into account the 5 dimensions of adherence as described by the World Health Organization [ ].
By conducting this feasibility study, barriers and enablers were identified for the use of the PAM and Atris app after hospital discharge in patients after cancer surgery. However, proper technical functioning and comfort in wearing are important prerequisites for all activity trackers. Moreover, the enablers found in our study, for example, that it motivates patients to be more physically active and that it provides more insight into PA recovery, are also generalizable to other activity trackers. The cost-effectiveness and effectiveness of interventions using PA self-monitoring during cancer treatment is largely unknown, and the conduct of randomized clinical trials is warranted . In addition, not all patients seem to require the same amount of postoperative support. Further research should take into account the risk of functional decline after surgery, as well as the needs and preferences of individual patients.
This study had some limitations. First, this feasibility study was conducted in a single hospital setting. In addition, not all diagnoses within gastrointestinal and lung cancer surgery were represented in our study population as preoperative physiotherapy screening was not part of the care pathway for all patients in our hospital. Therefore, the results of this study cannot be generalized to other diagnoses. Second, all patients were contacted to ask whether they were willing to participate in an interview after PA data collection had already ended. However, some patients did not respond or were unwilling to participate in the interviews. This could have caused a selection bias. To reduce selection bias among the patients interviewed, they were selected based on whether they perceived the PAM and Atris app as adding value. However, the selected interviewees had a somewhat higher mean SUS score than that of the entire study population (83.8 vs 77.3). Thus, this approach probably did not sufficiently eliminate the selection bias. To gain a full understanding of feasibility, future studies should also interview nonparticipants. In addition, data saturation may not have been achieved as the interviews were conducted in a small and partly selective sample. Third, for some patients, there was a period of several months between the end of the self-monitoring period and the completion of the questionnaires (and interviews), which may have led to recall bias. Finally, as the study was conducted in the usual care setting, the perioperative instructions from the physiotherapist were not strictly followed as per protocol, which hindered reproducibility. Our research group is currently working on a protocol to guide physiotherapists in using this intervention.
The results of our study showed good system usability and predominantly positive user experiences in patients with cancer after lobectomy, esophageal resection, or HIPEC. Most patients mentioned that the PAM and Atris app motivated them to be more physically active after discharge. The retention rate and amount of missing data need to be improved in follow-up studies. Solving technical problems and improving the comfort of ankle straps may enhance user adherence, thereby reducing the number of dropouts and missing data. Randomized clinical trials should be conducted to investigate whether interventions using accelerometers indeed improve the recovery of PA and physical functioning after surgery in this population.
This research received a specific grant of Amsterdam Movement Sciences in November 2017 to purchase the Atris app license and the Physial Activity Monitors. This research did not receive a specific grant from funding agencies in the commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
EG, VvV, EEHvW, CD, JBT, MvdL, and MvdS conceived the study. EG included the patients for this study. EG, VvV, and MEdL collected the data. MEdL and MB analyzed the quantitative and qualitative data. MEdL and MB drafted the manuscript. MEdL, MB, MvdL, MvdS, and VdG drafted the final version of the manuscript. All authors reviewed, revised, and approved the final manuscript.
Conflicts of Interest
Additional feasibility questions.DOCX File , 16 KB
Topic list interviews.DOCX File , 12 KB
Outcomes feasibility questionnaire.DOCX File , 15 KB
- Cabilan CJ, Hines S. The short-term impact of colorectal cancer treatment on physical activity, functional status and quality of life: a systematic review. JBI Database System Rev Implement Rep 2017 Feb;15(2):517-566. [CrossRef] [Medline]
- van Zutphen M, Winkels RM, van Duijnhoven FJ, van Harten-Gerritsen SA, Kok DE, van Duijvendijk P, et al. An increase in physical activity after colorectal cancer surgery is associated with improved recovery of physical functioning: a prospective cohort study. BMC Cancer 2017 Jan 25;17(1):74 [FREE Full text] [CrossRef] [Medline]
- Malmström M, Klefsgard R, Ivarsson B, Roman M, Johansson J. Quality of life measurements as an indicator for timing of support after oesophagectomy for cancer: a prospective study. BMC Health Serv Res 2015 Mar 12;15:96 [FREE Full text] [CrossRef] [Medline]
- van der Leeden M, Balland C, Geleijn E, Huijsmans RJ, Dekker J, Paul MA, et al. In-hospital mobilization, physical fitness, and physical functioning after lung cancer surgery. Ann Thorac Surg 2019 Jun;107(6):1639-1646. [CrossRef] [Medline]
- Campbell KL, Winters-Stone KM, Wiskemann J, May AM, Schwartz AL, Courneya KS, et al. Exercise guidelines for cancer survivors: consensus statement from international multidisciplinary roundtable. Med Sci Sports Exerc 2019 Nov;51(11):2375-2390 [FREE Full text] [CrossRef] [Medline]
- Brown JC, Winters-Stone K, Lee A, Schmitz KH. Cancer, physical activity, and exercise. Compr Physiol 2012 Oct;2(4):2775-2809 [FREE Full text] [CrossRef] [Medline]
- Low CA, Bovbjerg DH, Ahrendt S, Choudry MH, Holtzman M, Jones HL, et al. Fitbit step counts during inpatient recovery from cancer surgery as a predictor of readmission. Ann Behav Med 2018 Jan 05;52(1):88-92 [FREE Full text] [CrossRef] [Medline]
- Hoyer EH, Friedman M, Lavezza A, Wagner-Kosmakos K, Lewis-Cherry R, Skolnik JL, et al. Promoting mobility and reducing length of stay in hospitalized general medicine patients: a quality-improvement project. J Hosp Med 2016 May;11(5):341-347. [CrossRef] [Medline]
- Kehlet H, Wilmore DW. Multimodal strategies to improve surgical outcome. Am J Surg 2002 Jun;183(6):630-641. [CrossRef] [Medline]
- Van der Walt N, Salmon LJ, Gooden B, Lyons MC, O'Sullivan M, Martina K, et al. Feedback from activity trackers improves daily step count after knee and hip arthroplasty: a randomized controlled trial. J Arthroplasty 2018 Nov;33(11):3422-3428. [CrossRef] [Medline]
- van der Meij E, Anema JR, Leclercq WK, Bongers MY, Consten EC, Schraffordt Koops SE, et al. Personalised perioperative care by e-health after intermediate-grade abdominal surgery: a multicentre, single-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled trial. Lancet 2018 Jul 07;392(10141):51-59. [CrossRef] [Medline]
- Granger CL, Connolly B, Denehy L, Hart N, Antippa P, Lin KY, et al. Understanding factors influencing physical activity and exercise in lung cancer: a systematic review. Support Care Cancer 2017 Mar;25(3):983-999. [CrossRef] [Medline]
- Purswani JM, Ohri N, Champ C. Tracking steps in oncology: the time is now. Cancer Manag Res 2018;10:2439-2447 [FREE Full text] [CrossRef] [Medline]
- Mathie MJ, Coster AC, Lovell NH, Celler BG. Accelerometry: providing an integrated, practical method for long-term, ambulatory monitoring of human movement. Physiol Meas 2004 Apr;25(2):R1-20. [CrossRef] [Medline]
- Wu JM, Ho TW, Chang YT, Hsu C, Tsai CJ, Lai F, et al. Wearable-based mobile health app in gastric cancer patients for postoperative physical activity monitoring: focus group study. JMIR Mhealth Uhealth 2019 Apr 23;7(4):e11989 [FREE Full text] [CrossRef] [Medline]
- Barkley R, Khalil M, Shen P, Levine EA, Votanopoulos K, Clark CJ. Feasibility of low-cost accelerometers in measuring functional recovery after major oncologic surgery. J Surg Oncol (forthcoming) 2019 Nov 28. [CrossRef] [Medline]
- Low CA, Danko M, Durica KC, Kunta AR, Mulukutla R, Ren Y, et al. A real-time mobile intervention to reduce sedentary behavior before and after cancer surgery: usability and feasibility study. JMIR Perioper Med 2020 Mar 23;3(1):e17292 [FREE Full text] [CrossRef] [Medline]
- Low CA. Harnessing consumer smartphone and wearable sensors for clinical cancer research. NPJ Digit Med 2020 Oct 27;3:140 [FREE Full text] [CrossRef] [Medline]
- Valkenet K, Bor P, Reijneveld E, Veenhof C, Dronkers J. Physical activity monitoring during hospital stay: a validation study. Disabil Rehabil 2022 Feb 17:1-6. [CrossRef] [Medline]
- van der Leeden M, Huijsmans R, Geleijn E, de Lange-de Klerk ES, Dekker J, Bonjer HJ, et al. Early enforced mobilisation following surgery for gastrointestinal cancer: feasibility and outcomes. Physiotherapy 2016 Mar;102(1):103-110. [CrossRef] [Medline]
- Brooke J. SUS: a 'quick and dirty' usability scale. In: Jordan PW, Thomas B, McClelland IL, Weerdmeester B, editors. Usability Evaluation in Industry. Boca Raton, FL, USA: CRC Press; 1996.
- Douma JA, Verheul HM, Buffart LM. Feasibility, validity and reliability of objective smartphone measurements of physical activity and fitness in patients with cancer. BMC Cancer 2018 Oct 29;18(1):1052 [FREE Full text] [CrossRef] [Medline]
- Wolk S, Linke S, Bogner A, Sturm D, Meißner T, Müssle B, et al. Use of activity tracking in major visceral surgery-the enhanced perioperative mobilization trial: a randomized controlled trial. J Gastrointest Surg 2019 Jun;23(6):1218-1226. [CrossRef] [Medline]
- Morgan GS, Haase AM, Campbell RM, Ben-Shlomo Y. A pilot randomised controlled trial of physical activity facilitation for older adults: feasibility study findings. Pilot Feasibility Stud 2019 Mar 8;5:40 [FREE Full text] [CrossRef] [Medline]
- Jonker LT, Plas M, de Bock GH, Buskens E, van Leeuwen BL, Lahr MM. Remote home monitoring of older surgical cancer patients: perspective on study implementation and feasibility. Ann Surg Oncol 2021 Jan;28(1):67-78 [FREE Full text] [CrossRef] [Medline]
- Creswell JC, Poth CN. Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design - Choosing Among Five Approaches. 4th edition. Thousand Oaks, CA, USA: Sage Publications; Jan 2017.
- Essery R, Geraghty AW, Kirby S, Yardley L. Predictors of adherence to home-based physical therapies: a systematic review. Disabil Rehabil 2017 Mar;39(6):519-534. [CrossRef] [Medline]
- Jonker LT, Hendriks S, Lahr MM, van Munster BC, de Bock GH, van Leeuwen BL. Postoperative recovery of accelerometer-based physical activity in older cancer patients. Eur J Surg Oncol 2020 Nov;46(11):2083-2090 [FREE Full text] [CrossRef] [Medline]
- Timmerman JG, Dekker-van Weering MG, Wouters MW, Stuiver MM, de Kanter WW, Vollenbroek-Hutten MM. Physical behavior and associations with health outcomes in operable NSCLC patients: a prospective study. Lung Cancer 2018 May;119:91-98 [FREE Full text] [CrossRef] [Medline]
- Adherence to long-term therapies: evidence for action. World Health Organization. Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization; 2003. URL: http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/42682/9241545992.pdf?sequence=1 [accessed 2022-05-25]
- Beauchamp UL, Pappot H, Holländer-Mieritz C. The use of wearables in clinical trials during cancer treatment: systematic review. JMIR Mhealth Uhealth 2020 Nov 11;8(11):e22006 [FREE Full text] [CrossRef] [Medline]
|ERAS: Enhanced Recovery After Surgery|
|HIPEC: hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy|
|PA: physical activity|
|PAM: Physical Activity Monitor|
|SUS: System Usability Scale|
Edited by A Mavragani; submitted 14.12.21; peer-reviewed by J Timmerman, F Lai, M Stuiver; comments to author 11.02.22; revised version received 31.03.22; accepted 10.04.22; published 24.06.22Copyright
©Marijke Elizabeth de Leeuwerk, Martine Botjes, Vincent van Vliet, Edwin Geleijn, Vincent de Groot, Erwin van Wegen, Marike van der Schaaf, Jurriaan Tuynman, Chris Dickhoff, Marike van der Leeden. Originally published in JMIR Cancer (https://cancer.jmir.org), 24.06.2022.
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in JMIR Cancer, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on https://cancer.jmir.org/, as well as this copyright and license information must be included. | <urn:uuid:5ba8a361-8e57-4b77-85bc-7a55a1a556cd> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://cancer.jmir.org/2022/2/e35694 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573172.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818063910-20220818093910-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.935145 | 11,197 | 1.5625 | 2 |
For the entire manufacturing ecosystem to thrive rather than survive, commitment to digital must be absolute. When thinking about the role digitisation can play in our value chain I often imagine a drag race. I ponder the alignment of people, culture and process required from the moment plans for the car are forged to that split second when it crosses the finish line. I think about how no amount of nitrous will secure that vehicle – and the whole team behind it if it is not aligned in the right direction. Before pressing the nitro button, the car must face the right direction.
Similarly, no amount of digital will help organizations if their people, culture and processes are not aligned in the right direction to begin with. More importantly, if implemented and scaled correctly, it can become a gel that holds people, culture and process together and the enabler of long term success.
The pressure to succeed
It’s not easy to get to the front of the pack. And it’s even harder to stay there. Competition across our ecosystem is intense and those leading are capturing valuable benefits throughout the value chain. These companies pull ahead through paying true attention to the benefits of digitisation rollouts. Think data, analytics, machine learning, AI to name just less than a handful.
Without having the courage to explore their potential, networks associated with companies will fall down together as it will result in an unsatisfactory return on investment. Time and money are the pressure points. But end goals get reached and a more competitive position gained when effective scale is achieved throughout a company’s value chain.
What does the following look and feel like? Production capacity increase, uplift in customer service, environmental impact, material loss reduction, employee satisfaction and wellbeing boosts that sustain and consistently improve delivery lead times.
Overwhelming choice (like the supermarket) and a ‘small steps’ approach
Hundreds if not thousands of potential technological solutions are available to factories and other related workplaces of 2022. So how, once people, culture and process alignment is in place, do you formulate a digital rollout that will bring forth better returns?
It can often be overwhelming; akin to the plethora of narrowing down choices an individual encounters during any trip to the local supermarket. Pressure is much greater however. Fail with the rollout and it costs, not just significant sums, but employee energy too.
So a ‘small steps’ approach is most certainly the way to go when absorbing possibilities of digital transformation. Particularly for manufacturers that are on the brink of making changes to their digitisation process or for those about to engage in the first leap.
Testing a pain point with one technological solution is a start. Though it might’s a small win, a win nonetheless. And from those doors to other possibilities open that can lead to wider transformation across the value chain.
There’s no doubt in my mind that steps taken to enable transformation across the chain requires a great deal of courage from leaders. That courage is a necessity if we are to improve on the whole as a manufacturing ecosystem.
Get the technological applications right and all of a sudden opportunities arising across the board; From more seamless collaboration to better and more empowered employee decision making, talent retention, reskilling, upskilling and attracting the best emerging talent.
Around a decade ago factory floors were close to unrecognisable when compared with those in 2022. Smart manufacturers of today work back when considering the product and its digital representation.
It centers on understanding. Understanding which systems, tools and ultimately software is needed for each company, based on its specific performance parameters. In short, a one size fits all approach will not work. Next comes an assessment of the factory floor itself and how the product line can be optimized to ensure the physical product becomes something the end user cannot ignore.
As we move through the rest of 2022 and into 2023 investment in digitisation should – and I believe will – continue. IIoT devices and data analytics systems, 5G networks, digital twins. All examples of transformational opportunities. Though none are silver bullets individually, collectively they can change the game across the value chain.
We must be realistic and remember that this remains a work in progress however. To some extent the digitisation of manufacturing will always be a work in progress. But in the years to come there will be less valuable add-ons required within the chain if investment and smart rollouts of digital solutions continue to be made.
At Equitus we embrace digital innovation. We see the smart rollouts of technology and the not so smart. And we address each with constructive communication due to our belief that the value chain can continue to climb the summit and perform to the best level possible.
As engineers and designers we are not alone in our desire to push the boundaries. And that stems from our value commitment to those we work with throughout the chain. Improved simulation models will come and many hours and resources will be saved as a result. It is an area we have excelled in for some time. Ultimately, when considering how to capture the value of digital across the entire manufacturing chain, manufacturers get two choices.
Center your attention on being profitable, resilient and sustainable. Or center your attention on the disruption of value chains, complexities in technical design and the catch 22 of talent attraction and retention. Work back and decide.
The Engineering team at Equitus definitely has the ability to help companies with roll outs of digital transformation, based on specific requirements and advantages. We’re always ready for a chat.
About the author
Raam Shankar, Founder and CEO, Equitus Design Engineering and Innovations | <urn:uuid:98b4cd0c-9f36-4b32-9da0-c8def20bf4ce> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://vneshintourist.net/2022/07/15/capturing-the-value-of-digital-across-the-entire-manufacturing-chain/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573172.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818063910-20220818093910-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.9307 | 1,147 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Feelings come and go
like clouds in a windy sky.
Conscious breathing is my anchor.
— Thich Nhat Hanh
Dear Still Water Friends,
The Buddhist concept of no self can feel like an intimidating idea to grapple with. Even as I venture to explore it now, my mind taunts me with thoughts like: “Oh, you’re not going pretend to really get this!” and “Like you know anything about the experience of no self.” But I will persist here in my exploration because there are moments when the idea of not identifying so strongly with this self, or believing it’s taunts, makes a lot of sense to me. There are even moments when I’ve experienced a glimmer of freedom from my attachment to the concept of a separate, permanent self.
In No Death, No Fear, Thich Nhat Hanh explains that no self can be understood as an extension of impermanence, which is much more accessible idea to me.
Impermanence is looking at reality from the point of view of time. No self is looking at reality from the point of view of space. They are two sides of reality. No self is a manifestation of impermanence and impermanence is a manifestation of no self.
So as I think about myself as ever-changing, like the world around me, I already feel my sense of self losing some of it’s solidity. Maybe the self can be compared to idea of the “now,” which is something we all experience, but is impossible to pin down or definitively describe because it’s always moving. This leads me think that self-examination may still be a useful task, but it should be done with the appreciation that we’re no longer the self we’re examining, and the examination itself will lead to yet a different self.
Perhaps more than anything, I can get very identified with my thoughts and feelings at any moment. But when I slow down, I notice that neither do I really invite difficult thoughts or feelings, nor can I make them go away. Thich Nhat Hahn often reminds us that we have the seeds of all feelings inside of us, and we don’t get to choose what might manifest in any given moment. The more I become aware that my unappealing feelings like anger, anxiety, and shame are not a unique feature of this self, the more skillfully I can tend to them.
I try to remind myself that “I am experiencing anger right now,” not “I am angry.” It helps me to get some space from the anger and to understand it better. There have even been moments when I can see my anger so clearly, I can see how it hurts both me and my loved ones. In those moments I feel like much more than this self. I experience a great sense of space to see beyond the cloud of anger and hold the hurts with tenderness.
You are invited to join us this Thursday evening.
After our meditation period we will begin our Dharma Sharing with these questions:
- What practices have you used that assist you moving beyond a sense of a separate, permanent self?
- What do you notice when you identify strongly as a separate self?
- What supports you in feeling more connected, or interconnected?
- Has mindfulness practice helped?
From No Death, No Fear: Comforting Wisdom for Life by Thich Nhat Hanh
Impermanence is looking at reality from the point of view of time. No self is looking at reality from the point of view of space. They are two sides of reality. No self is a manifestation of impermanence and impermanence is a manifestation of no self. If things are impermanent they are without a separate self. If things are without a separate self, it means that they are impermanent. Impermanence means being transformed at every moment. This is reality. And since there is nothing unchanging, how can there be a permanent self, a separate self? When we say “self” we mean something that is always itself, unchanging day after day. But nothing is like that. Our body is impermanent, our emotions are impermanent, and our perceptions are impermanent. Our anger, our sadness, our love, our hatred and our consciousness are also impermanent.
So what permanent thing is there which we can call a self? The piece of paper these words are written on does not have a separate self. It can only be present when the clouds, the forest, the sun, the earth, the people who make the paper, and the machines are present. If those things are not present the paper cannot be present. And if we burn the paper, where is the self of paper?
Nothing can exist by itself alone. It has to depend on every other thing. That is called inter-being. To be means to inter-be. The paper inter-is with the sunshine and with the forest. The flower cannot exist by itself alone; it has to inter-be with soil, rain, weeds and insects. There is no being; there is only inter-being.
|Sun, July 10||Mon, July 11||
Tue, July 12
Gaithersburg, MDEvening Practice at the Episcopal Church of the Ascension 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
Wed, July 13
Stevensville, MDEvening Practice in Stevensville, Maryland 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
Silver Spring, MDSpanish-Speaking Practice at Silver Spring Library 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
Thu, July 14
||Fri, July 15||Sat, July 16| | <urn:uuid:4fcf62ea-4518-422a-89c8-1167138b8a92> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.stillwatermpc.org/dharma-topics/my-ever-changing-self/?yr=2022&month=07&dy=10&cid=mc-469f2644bcec706b5e007ced56e6410e | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570921.9/warc/CC-MAIN-20220809094531-20220809124531-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.94485 | 1,229 | 1.757813 | 2 |
LOSING MY RELIGION A Call for Help By Jeffrey Lang Crucial to the vitality of any religious community is its ability to attract and engage descendants and converts. By this measure, notwithstanding the proliferation of mosques and Islamic organizations, the Muslim community in America is not doing at all well. This rather sober assessment motivates Dr. Lang to address, in this book, the alienation from the Mosque of the great majority of Americas homegrown Muslims. In Losing My Religion: A Call For Help, the author comes to terms with many of the queries put to him by Americans of Muslim parentage and converts to Islam since the publication of his book Even Angels Ask in 1977. Lang asserts that to effectively respond to the general malaise of American-born Muslims, the Islamic establishment in America needs to be willing to listen to the doubts and complaints of the disaffected. This entails engaging in open discussions on issues with which many in the Muslim community will be uncomfortable, but Lang avers that such open dialogue will be of more benefit to young American Muslims struggling with their faiths than the covert and uniformed discussions that often take place or no discussion at all. For this reason, Lang feels it is important and beneficial to be candid and objective and not evade controversy, for to inadequately state the case for or against a specific position, especially when it challenges convention, only serves to further alienate the sceptical. In addition to examining questions of theodicy, hadith authenticity, and moot practices within the American Muslim community, the author includes many testimonials and inquiries that make this book informative. Dr. Lang is Professor of Mathematics at The University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas. He is the author of two best selling works: Struggling to Surrender and Even Angels Ask: A Journey to Islam in America. Both books have been translated into other languages. | <urn:uuid:c89ae107-2d26-476f-9699-437a7bbc2c35> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://furqaanbookstore.com/losing-my-religion-a-call-for-help/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572033.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20220814113403-20220814143403-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.943717 | 373 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Geschichte, Themen und Perspektiven des Kinderfilms in Deutschland. Reflection-on-action encourages individuals to re-live past events, with an emphasis on developing a more effective action plan for any future, similar events that may occur.
However, this type of reflection does tend to focus more on the negative aspects of our actions rather than the positive behaviours that were demonstrated during the event that is being reflected upon Somerville and Keeling, Inheritance in the Harry Potter series. Nursing can often be an emotionally charged career, especially for nurses working in areas such as psychiatric health and palliative care.
Entwistle and Watt remind practitioners that participation requires communication skills that are not universally possessed so nurses must be flexible in their approach to champion the participation of others.
Emerald Publishing, Studies in Media and Communications 14 Journal of Clinical Nursing [on-line]. Everything that could be done for the patient and his family was done in a very professional, but also a very caring manner.
The Spirituality of Potterworld. Royal College of Nursing An exploration of the challenges of maintaining basic human rights in practice. It was shortly after this diagnosis that he was transferred to our ward for palliative care.
Warum Harry Potter auch auf Latein eine gute Figur macht. Although reflection by definition involves looking back through time to past events, it can be argued that for it to be of practical value, it must also contain an element of looking forward.
This way, young people can access the information if they perhaps feel too embarrassed to talk about it. This form of reflection can also be a useful stress management tool, as feelings that might otherwise have been suppressed can be reflected on consciously, deliberately and openly.
A Feminist Reflection on Girls in Conflict. Evaluating service use and the views of service users. She said that she had been very busy and hadn't thought about it. The main strength of my care plan was in identifying specific measurable outcomes exclusive to the client that were adaptable.
Evaluation The incident was extremely challenging for me. The bad thing about the situation was that medically there was nothing more that could be done for this patient.
In the US, regarding liability, children or minors are not legally persons because they do not satisfy the requirements for personhood under the law.
A Guide for Nurses. Halawa, Jens Loenhoff eds.
Phraseologie in Joanne K. The Politics of Harry Potter. Public Health Nursing, 22 4pp. Harry Potter a il suo magico mondo. Firstly it added to my experience of dealing with young people and in dealing with the problems that are unique to this population of patients.
Universala Esperanto-Asocio, Strategien der Sakralisierung im Kino der Jahrtausendwende. Biblisch-theologische Spiegelungen zu Joanne K. I will learn to identify the stages of healing by researching the biology of wound care.
Insights on what these books say about education. The Gibbs () model of reflection suggests that the process of reflection is systematic and follows a number of specific steps in order to be successful. This model of reflection is a type of formal reflection, which draws on research and puts forward a theory as to.
In order to help me with my reflection I have chosen Gibbs (), as the model to help guide my reflective process. This model comprises of a process that helps the individual look at a situation and think about their thoughts and feelings at the time of the incident.
Reflective Essay Using Gibbs Model Of Reflection my understanding of two different models of reflection by describing, Gibbs () reflective cycle and Johns () model of structured refection.
Using Gibbs Model of Reflection This essay is based on my clinical placement practice at the mental health rehabilitation ward.
I will be. Reflection on mental health nursing placement using Gibbs () model of reflection Words | 7 Pages This is a reflective essay based on my attendance at a multidisciplinary team (MDT) meeting whilst on my two-week placement at a local mental health day hospital.
Table 2 also suggests that the students using the Patchwork Text format did not seem to perform worse than the students writing a final essay according to any of the other intellectual qualities identified as desirable.
Critical Thinking Reflection - Critical thinking is a significant and essential topic in recent education. The strategy of critical thinking skills helps identify areas in one's courses as the suitable place to highlight, expand and use some problems in exams that test students' critical thinking skills.Reflective essay using gibbs model of reflection | <urn:uuid:b65c2aa7-2c49-4977-aeb1-a7f3fb79622b> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://sitezodepuv.thesanfranista.com/reflective-essay-using-gibbs-model-of-reflection-39646xz.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572833.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817001643-20220817031643-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.934728 | 955 | 2.046875 | 2 |
Meteors+Dinosaurs+Geology = Extinction!
02.03.2022 - By PlanetGeo: The Geology Podcast
Join Jesse and Chris as we explore the hypothesis that an asteroid ended the Cretaceous AND the age of the reptiles. It's a very compelling scientific story of discovery. This has been hotly debated back and forth for a long long time, with consensus being reached only recently (since I was in graduate school)Other options include a massive volcanic outpouring - Deccan Traps in India erupted >1 million cubic km of lava in a million year period, with 50% of that coming before the mass extinction event. The question is really about what killed so much stuff? How does the Earth respond to massive impacts? There have been other large meteorite impacts (and big volcanic eruptions) with no mass extinction - why this one? Was the Earth already in a sorry state (lots of CO2 and mercury in the atmosphere) before the extinction?Flood basalt volcanism is tied to other major mass extinction events (end-Permian and end-Triassic)As we look at the evidence, we bounce around the globe. We begin in Italy.
1- Gubbio, Italy. Layers of ancient limestone that are now folded and uplifted. Working from bottom to top- site became a magnet. Why? It has a thin layer of dark clay. Walter Alverez became v. Interested in this. He studied the foraminifera below and above. He found that at the top of the white limestone, the vast diversity of the forams abruptly went missing. 2- Spain - 1500km away. On the Atlantic coast outside of Zumaia. 2 beaches here which are of interest to geologists because they are situated among the longest set of continuous rock strata in the world. Jan Smit was studying the forams here. In these layers, Smit found a strange clay layer - just like Alvarez. In these rocks, they were steady, consistent, for over a million years, then all of the sudden, the clay layer. There is no evidence of anything happening and then all of the sudden, the clay layer and bang, they’re gone. How long did this take to change? 3- Walter brought in his dad, Louie Alverez. He brought in his knowledge of Astrophysics. He found the layer to be rich in IR (also iron, nickel and cobalt). It contained over 30 X the amount in surrounding rock (measured from the clay at Gubbio). Could it come from an Asteroid. He hypothesized that the IR would be spread all over the world as a blanket. So he could calc. The amount that was laid down all over Earth. Knowing the amount that is in Asteroids and Comets, they can calc. The size of the Asteroid. 5- Texas on the Brazos River. 65 my this was the bottom of a sea. We found, Allen Hildebrand, strange sed deposits across the basin. 7 million years of boring mud there. This was under water. Then suddenly, we see the mud got eroded. Suddenly, there were huge boulders in the mud. Only a giant Tsunami could do this. 6- Haiti: Report of volcanic rocks. They were actually ejecta full of shocked qtr and spherules. They were also full of melted rocks called tektites. 7- From Jan Smit: The boundary clay has two parts: lower layer - just 2-3 mm. It’s the most enriched in IR, nickel, FE, and cobalt. Also has spherules (crystalline and .5 mm). Remains of micro Tektites. Also has the shocked quartz. Highly diagnostic from shock pressures. 9- Shocked minerals are diagnostic of impacts 10- In 2019 in North Dakota, a new discovery - The Tanis (fossil) site. Evidence of a tsunami deposit. Has rocks with 3 distinct fish fossils - paddlefish, sturgeon, and ammonites. They pulled gills out of the fish and found a lot of tektites inside the gills - they were swallowing them while still alive. | <urn:uuid:3eb63df0-6fd0-4b29-a3f1-e3c3fc35bfeb> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://podcast.app/meteorsdinosaursgeology-extinction-e203017626/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573172.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818063910-20220818093910-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.959758 | 865 | 3.4375 | 3 |
The refrigerator is one of those household items that we all take for granted. It just stands there rather quietly, doing its thing day in and day out. But when it breaks down, it’s a huge problem. So take a little time once or twice a year to show it a little love. Speed Cleaning previously shared tips on cleaning out the inside of your fridge, so here are tips on maintenance that you can do yourself to help keep it running smoothly.
- Dirty condenser coils make your refrigerator work harder to stay cool, so they should be cleaned about twice a year, especially if you have a furry pet. Remove the grille along the bottom front of your fridge and vacuum it with a brush attachment or wash it and set aside. Then using a coil cleaning brush, gently clean the condenser coils if they’re located behind the grille on your model. Vacuum up the debris as you brush. If the coils are on the back of your refrigerator, roll it out to get to the coils. In fact, roll the fridge out regardless to clean the floor underneath. It’s amazing what accumulates there! Note: You should always unplug an appliance before working on it.
- Wipe down the door seals (gaskets) with a mild cleaner or dish soap, being sure to clean the pliable sides of the gasket as well. Then apply a super-thin film of petroleum jelly to keep the gaskets from drying out and becoming less effective.
Tip: To test if your refrigerator/freezer door gaskets are creating a nice tight seal, close the door
on a piece of paper. If you can easily pull the paper out, it might be time to replace the gasket.
- For in-door ice and water dispensers, take the drip tray out, set it in a sink, and pour vinegar in it to dissolve calcium deposits. Let it soak for several minutes before rinsing and drying. A green cleaner that packs more of a punch than vinegar but is also safe to use around the kitchen is Speed Cleaning’s Scum Bum. You can clean your coffee pot with Scum Bum too. It works great for removing calcium and hard water deposits all around the house, inside and out! Clean the rest of the ice/water assembly with a cleaner of your choice and replace the drip tray.
- Replace the water filter if your refrigerator has one. Not only does drinking water taste bad when the filter is spent, less water is delivered to the ice maker when the filter is clogged with particles. This results in more chips and hollow cubes that may not freeze all the way through.
- Getting rid of ice chips and blocks of ice will help the dispensing motor run better. And ice cubes tend to develop a bad taste after a while so it’s a good idea to occasionally start with fresh ice cubes. Temporarily turn the ice maker off (if you haven’t unplugged the fridge) so you can remove the ice bin to empty it and give it a good wash. Dry the bin thoroughly before replacing it and turn the ice maker back on.
Did you know that a well-stocked freezer maintains a steady temperature more efficiently than an empty one?
Lastly, give the entire refrigerator a wipe-down with a soft cloth and cleaner of your choice. Speed Cleaning recommends Red Juice, another green cleaner that’s safe to use around food. And there you have it – you’re good to go for at least another six months! | <urn:uuid:022122e3-8533-419a-92ea-be8f9e7ba357> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://speedcleaning.com/2016/how-to/5-easy-diy-maintenance-tips-refrigerator/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572833.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817001643-20220817031643-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.925303 | 733 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Snails are the sticky garden crawlers that chew up your plant leaves and veggies as well. These are not physically harmful to you like the much of other insects but still you may feel a need to get rid of them as these eat off your vegetation and leave your plants deteriorated. In order to get rid of this crawling slow creature, you may choose to follow some simple to do tips that we are mentioning here.
How to Get Rid of Snails in Garden
1. Physical removal:-
Snails are the crawling creatures that are quite slow while crawling and thus it is easy for anyone to pick them up and throw them away. Simply take a flat plastic sheet, broom the snail up on it and then throw it away so as to get rid of it.
2. Beer based approach:-
It has been found that beer can attract snails and thus here a trick can be used making use of beer so as to get rid of these snails. Keep some beer in a bucket and then place this bucket in the garden so as to get rid of snails. When you will place the bucket in your garden, these snails will get attracted to the smell of beer and will fall off in the bucket when they will try to reach it. This way you can collect all the snails that get attracted and throw them away.
3. Crushed covering of eggs:-
The white covering that you remove while beating the eggs can also be bough in use so as to get rid of snails from your garden. These coverings are rather sharp and pointed, unlike the skin of a snail which is soft and thus you may choose to go for placing them in your garden so as to get rid of snails.
4. Bring home some duck or chicken:-
You are also advised to bring home some duck or chicken so as to get rid of snails. Snails are the favorite food of these birds and these birds choose to relish these creatures. You may even choose to bring home these birds occasionally so as to get rid of snails.
5. Application of Metaldehyde or Iron Phosphate:-
Metaldehyde is a natural compound which is used as a pesticide for killing snails. Another such compound is Iron phosphate. Both these compounds are equally likely to make you get rid of snails as these compounds can easily be filled in some injection and sprinkled so as to kill snails from your garden.
6. Insecticide aerosol sprays:-
If none of the approaches that I mentioned works for you, you may choose to go for the insecticide aerosol sprays so as to get rid of snails. These sprays are specially meant for killing pests and insects and have a negative effect on creatures like snails as well. | <urn:uuid:f890bea6-dc1a-4e19-8e04-115ee791785a> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://howflux.com/get-rid-of-snails-in-garden/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573172.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818063910-20220818093910-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.979705 | 561 | 3.125 | 3 |
Cathodic Protection is a key element to ensuring the safe operation of steel pipelines. It is a regulatory and code compliance requirement that pipelines have an external corrosion mitigation program in place. It is also a compliance requirement that cathodic protection systems are maintained and monitored. Cathodic Protection is a proven and cost-effective method to prevent infrastructure failures arising from metal loss. The regulatory bodies of AER, CER, and PHMSA have delivered notices to pipeline operators of the distinction between effective Cathodic Protection and excessive Cathodic Protection, which may promote stress corrosion cracking. This is an important consideration for older pipelines. | <urn:uuid:b9945d10-3cc7-430c-a402-62efb8421160> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://visionintegrity.net/portfolio-items/cathodic-protection/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573172.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818063910-20220818093910-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.936738 | 121 | 2.3125 | 2 |
Milk intake and bone mineral acquisition in adolescent girls: randomised, controlled intervention trialBMJ 1997; 315 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.315.7118.1255 (Published 15 November 1997) Cite this as: BMJ 1997;315:1255
- Joanna Cadogan, research studenta,
- Richard Eastell, professorb,
- Nicola Jones, research officerc,
- Margo E Barker (), lecturera
- a Centre for Human Nutrition, University of Sheffield, Northern General Hospital, Sheffield S5 7AU
- b Department of Human Metabolism and Clinical Biochemistry, University of Sheffield, Northern General Hospital
- c Department of Public Health Medicine, University of Sheffield Medical School, Sheffield S10 2RX
- Correspondence to: Dr Barker
- Accepted 7 July 1997
Objectives: To investigate the effect of milk supplementation on total body bone mineral acquisition in adolescent girls.
Design: 18 month, open randomised intervention trial.
Subjects: 82 white girls aged 12.2 (SD 0.3) years, recruited from four secondary schools in Sheffield.
Intervention: 568 ml (one pint) of whole or reduced fat milk per day for 18 months.
Main outcome measures: Total body bone mineral content and bone mineral density measured by dual energy x ray absorptiometry. Outcome measures to evaluate mechanism included biochemical markers of bone turnover (osteocalcin, bone alkaline phosphatase, deoxypyridinoline, N-telopeptide of type I collagen), and hormones important to skeletal growth (parathyroid hormone, oestradiol, insulin-like growth factor I).
Results: 80 subjects completed the trial. Daily milk intake at baseline averaged 150 ml in both groups. The intervention group consumed, on average, an additional 300 ml a day throughout the trial. Compared with the control group, the intervention group had greater increases of bone mineral density (9.6% v 8.5 %, P=0.017; repeated measures analysis of variance) and bone mineral content (27.0% v 24.1 %, P=0.009). No significant differences in increments in height, weight, lean body mass, and fat mass were observed between the groups. Bone turnover was not affected by milk supplementation. Serum concentrations of insulin-like growth factor I increased in the milk group compared with the control group (35% v 25 %, P=0.02).
Conclusion: Increased milk consumption significantly enhances bone mineral acquisition in adolescent girls and could favourably modify attainment of peak bone mass.
Osteoporosis is a major public health problem; 40% of women will sustain an osteoporotic fracture
Maximising peak bone mass at skeletal maturity may be one of the most important protective measures against fracture in later life
Adolescence is a critical time for bone mineral acquisition An increase in milk consumption among adolescent girls resulted in significant gains in bone mineral over an 18 month period
This simple intervention indicates that increased milk consumption may be associated with higher peak bone mass
Osteoporosis is a major public health problem, with over 200 000 fractures occurring annually in the United Kingdom, of which 85% occur in women.1 It is increasingly recognised that maximising peak bone mass at skeletal maturity may provide important protection against risk of fracture in later life. By the end of the second decade, 90-95% of total body peak bone mass is attained,2 3 with bone growth in adolescence accounting for about half of this figure.4 Peak bone mass is determined by a combination of endogenous (genetic, hormonal) and exogenous (nutritional, physical activity) factors.5 These exogenous factors are amenable to intervention and could thus provide a basis for public health strategies for preventing osteoporosis.
Recent studies of nutrient intake in British schoolchildren revealed that calcium intakes in teenage girls are low in comparison with recommended levels6 7; this age group may be consuming insufficient calcium to meet the demands of rapid skeletal growth. In addition, milk consumption per household in the United Kingdom has been declining steadily since the 1970s.8 Government legislation introduced in the early 1970s restricted the provision of school milk,9 which may have had a further negative impact on calcium intakes in childhood. In the last milk trial in British schoolchildren,10 height and weight were the only outcome measures, as no reliable means of measuring bone density or bone turnover were available at that time. Our study aimed to evaluate the effect of milk supplementation on bone mineral acquisition in adolescent girls and to investigate the physiological mechanism for any effect.
Subjects and methods
Subjects were volunteers from four local schools in the city of Sheffield. The schools were selected to give an equal representation of manual and nonmanual social classes in the trial. Eighty two healthy white girls with a mean age of 12.2 (SD 0.3) years were enrolled into the study. No subjects had any history of bone disease or were taking any drugs known to influence calcium metabolism. They were all non-smokers and were not following any special dietary regimens. No subjects were taking calcium supplements.
Written informed consent was obtained from all volunteers and their parents. The study was carried out in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and with the approval of the ethics committee of the Northern General NHS Hospital Trust, Sheffield.
The study design was an 18 month intervention trial. The subjects were randomised by a statistician who took no part in the execution of the trial, using randomised permuted blocks stratified by pubertal stage, into a milk group and a control group. The intervention comprised 568 ml (one pint) of whole or reduced fat milk according to the subject's preference, which was delivered to all subjects' houses every morning. Subjects in the milk group were asked to consume as much of the pint as possible as a daily supplement to their usual food intake. The calcium contents of whole, semi-skimmed, and skimmed milks are virtually identical: 115 mg/100g, 118 mg/100g, and 120 mg/100g, respectively. Subjects in the control group were asked to continue with their habitual diet.
All measurements, other than dietary intake, were made every 6 months. The principal outcome measures were changes in bone mass and density; secondary outcome measures were anthropometric and body composition variables and biochemical indices of skeletal growth.
Dietary assessment and physical activity
Nutrient intake was assessed at baseline and at the end of the study with the 7 day weighed intake method, in which subjects were instructed to weigh (Soehnle digital scales, Murrhardt, Germany; accurate to 2 g and weighing up to 5 kg) and record all items of food and drink consumed over 7 days. On five interim occasions, subjects completed a 4 day non-weighed food diary, in which portion sizes were estimated using household measures and food models. These diaries helped to monitor compliance with the supplement and to assess longitudinal dietary intake throughout the study. Nutrient intakes were calculated from the diet records using foodbase dietary software (Institute of Brain Chemistry and Human Nutrition, London). Habitual levels of physical activity were measured by using a questionnaire designed for this age group.11
Anthropometry and pubertal staging
Height was measured to the nearest mm with a stadiometer (Holtain, Crymych, Dyfed), and weight to the nearest 100 g with a set of upright balance scales (Seca 220, Hallamshire Scales, Sheffield). All measurements were made in the morning, by the same observer at each time point. Pubertal staging was ascertained by self assessment, using line drawings and written descriptions of the five stages of puberty, according to Tanner's definitions.12 This method has been validated in adolescents.13
Bone mass and body composition
Total body bone mineral content, total body bone mineral density, lean body mass, and fat body mass were measured by dual energy x ray absorptiometry on a Hologic QDR/1000W densitometer (Hologic, Waltham, MA, USA). This method has a precision error (coefficient of variation) of 0.9-1.0% for total body bone mineral density in children.14 A daily quality assurance test was performed using a spine phantom supplied by the manufacturer. The reproducibility of the phantom measurement over the duration of the study was 0.4%.
Samples of non-fasting morning blood and 2 hour urine were obtained at each visit. To assess bone formation, serum concentrations of osteocalcin were measured with an immunoradiometric assay (ELSA-OSTEO, Cis Bio International, Gif-sur-Yvette, France), and serum immunoreactive bone specific alkaline phosphatase was measured with an immunoradiometric assay (Tandem-R OSTASE, Hybritech Europe, Liège, Belgium). Markers of bone resorption were crosslinked N-telopeptides of type I collagen, measured in urine with a competitive enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (Osteomark, Ostex International, Seattle, WA, USA), and urinary immunoreactive free deoxypyridinoline crosslinks, measured by competitive enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (Pyrilinks-D, Metra Biosystems, Mountain View, CA, USA). The results were expressed as a ratio to urinary creatinine concentration. Serum parathyroid hormone was measured by an immunoradiometric assay (Nichols Institute, San Juan Capistrano, CA, USA) and serum oestradiol by radioimmunoassay (Diagnostic Products, Los Angeles, CA, USA). Serum insulin-like growth factor I was measured by radioimmunoassay (Medgenix Diagnostics, Fleurus, Belgium) after acid-ethanol extraction, to prevent interference from the binding proteins. Urinary creatinine was measured by the Jaffé technique, using a dry slide chemistry autoanalyser (Ecktachem 950, Johnson and Johnson).
Results are reported as means (SD) unless otherwise indicated. Baseline values between the milk and control groups were compared using Student's t tests or χ2 tests as appropriate. For the anthropometric measurements, t tests were used to compare changes from baseline between the groups. Repeated measures analysis of variance was used to compare the groups with respect to changes in bone mineral measurements, biochemical analytes, and physical activity levels, since we had measurements for all subjects at all four time points (0, 6, 12, and 18 months). An active treatment analysis was performed on the 80 subjects who completed the study. Analysis of covariance was used to test further for group differences in all biochemical analyte concentrations, for pubertal status (months after menarche) controlled for. The Wilcoxon matched pairs signed ranks test was used to analyse dietary changes over time within each group. The statistical package for the social sciences (Windows Version 6, SPSS, Chicago, IL, USA) was used for data analysis.
Eighty of 82 girls completed the trial. One girl from the milk group was excluded after 2 months because of non-compliance with the intervention, and one girl from the control group withdrew after 10 months because of a change of school. Most (36/44) subjects in the milk group chose semiskimmed milk for their supplement; six chose whole milk and two chose skimmed milk. Table 1 shows there were no significant differences between the milk and the control groups at baseline for any of the variables measured. The anthropometric characteristics of the cohort were within expected norms for this age group.15
Bone mineral acquisition throughout the 18 months was significantly greater in the group given milk supplement than in the control group (fig 1). The intervention group had greater percentage increases of total body bone mineral density (9.6% (SD 1.9%; 95% confidence interval 9.0% to 10.2%) v 8.5% (2.7%; 7.6% to 9.4%); P=0.017) and total body bone mineral content (27.0% (5.8%; 25.2% to 28.8%) v 24.1% (6.3%; 22.0% to 26.1%); P=0.009). Expressed in absolute terms, the respective increases were 0.090 (0.020; 0.084 to 0.096) v 0.081 (0.025; 0.072 to 0.089) g/cm2 for total body bone mineral density (P=0.021) and 428 (88; 398 to 452) v 391 (107; 358 to 430) g for total body bone mineral content (P=0.035); thus the milk group gained an extra 37 g of bone mineral during the 18 months. Table 2 shows that the milk group had significantly greater increases of pelvic and leg bone mineral density than the control group.
The groups had similar changes over 18 months in anthropometric and body composition variables, and they did not differ significantly at the end of the study. Both groups showed similar increments in height, weight, lean body mass, and fat body mass, although the milk group showed non-significant trends towards greater gain in weight and lean body mass, and reduction in percentage body fat (fig 2). The groups made similar pubertal progression throughout the study: they did not differ significantly with respect to serum oestradiol concentrations, the number of subjects in each Tanner stage, the proportion reaching menarche, nor time (months) since menarche.
Table 3 shows that at baseline, milk intake was approximately 150 ml a day in each group. The milk group increased their mean milk intake by about half a pint a day, from 170 (SD 122) to 486 (186) ml/day. This level of compliance was corroborated by the interim food diaries completed at intervals of 3 months throughout the study. Milk consumption in the control group was unchanged. In the milk group, the milk supplement significantly increased intakes of protein, calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, and zinc (Table 3) and riboflavin and thiamin (data not shown). There was a trend towards increased energy intake (P=0.065). Nutrient intakes did not change significantly in the control group. The interim nutritional assessments from the estimated food records corroborated the results of the final 7 day weighed intake. The two groups had similar levels of physical activity throughout the study, ascertained by questionnaire at each time point.
Markers of bone formation and resorption were similar in the groups throughout the trial (Table 4), indicating no effect of supplementation on bone turnover. This was confirmed in analysis of covariance, adjusted for pubertal status (months after menarche). Changes in parathyroid hormone and oestradiol levels were also similar. The milk group showed a clear trend towards higher concentrations of insulin-like growth factor I over the course of the study (35% (39%) v 25% (43%); P=0.080). This effect was significant (P=0.02) after adjustment for pubertal status. Thus, throughout the trial, the milk group had consistently higher concentrations of serum insulin-like growth factor I, and this was not related to a difference in sexual maturity.
The results of this trial indicate that increased milk consumption in adolescent girls resulted in greater total skeletal mineral acquisition over 18 months. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that milk intake has a beneficial effect on bone mass which, if sustained throughout the pubertal growth period and into adulthood, could favourably modify peak bone mass. Our findings agree with those of calcium supplementation trials in children16 17 18 and adolescents19 20 and with a dairy supplementation trial in early pubertal girls.21
Our results are also consistent with the evidence from retrospective studies, which have found that a high calcium intake in the form of dairy products in early life is positively associated with greater peak bone mass in adult life.22 23 24 25 Also, supplementation with dairy products has been shown to prevent bone loss in premenopausal and postmenopausal women.26 27
The mean calcium intake of the group given milk supplement was 1125 mg/day. The baseline calcium intake of the study cohort, at 746 mg/day, was slightly below the United Kingdom reference nutrient intake of 800 mg/day for girls of this age group.28 It is therefore of interest that calcium intake in excess of an amount deemed sufficient in public health policy terms (140% of the reference nutrient intake) resulted in significant gains in bone mineral. Similar findings have been reported by others.16 19 These findings support the hypothesis that current levels of calcium intake (and therefore the current reference nutrient intake in the United Kingdom) are inadequate for maximum bone mineral accrual in rapidly growing adolescents.
Most of the studies investigating nutrition and bone mass have focused exclusively on calcium, whereas we evaluated the efficacy of a milk supplement on bone acquisition. Since milk contains other nutrients essential for bone growth, our results may be due, at least in part, to nutrients other than calcium. Milk supplementation resulted in significantly higher intakes of protein, calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, zinc, and a range of other micronutrients. In public health terms, such a “multi-nutrient” approach may not be without merit. Studies examining dietary patterns associated with low calcium intakes have shown that diets deficient in calcium are also low in a range of other nutrients, after energy intake is controlled for.29
The increased protein intake from the milk may partly explain our findings. Serum insulin-like growth factor I increased over the 18 months in both groups as expected but showed a greater increment in the milk group. Serum concentrations of insulin-like growth factor I are influenced by nutritional status and are particularly responsive to changes in protein intake and, to a lesser degree, energy intake.30
Insulin-like growth factor I has potent anabolic effects on growing skeletal tissue. At birth, concentrations of insulin-like growth factor I are about half adult levels; they increase gradually during childhood, reaching a peak at pubertal stages 3 and 4.31 The insulin-like growth factor I enhances chondrocyte proliferation in the growth plate; in bone tissue it stimulates osteoblast proliferation and differentiation and matrix formation, including the synthesis of type I collagen and other protein components.32 However, whether changes in circulating concentrations of the factor reflect local (bone tissue) concentrations is uncertain, and the amount in bone tissue may be more important for bone metabolism.33
The milk supplement may have predominantly enhanced acquisition of bone in the legs and pelvis; growth in the lower body segment seems to depend more on growth hormone than does growth in the upper segment (more dependent on sex hormones).34 Insulin-like growth factor I may also have had a role in the greater (although non-significant) increase in lean body mass observed in the milk group. In human muscle tissue, insulin-like growth factor I stimulates all anabolic processes.35
Milk had no detectable effect on concentrations of biochemical markers of bone formation and resorption. Supplemental calcium given alone to postmenopausal women suppresses bone turnover (via reduced parathyroid hormone secretion), resulting in a contraction of the remodelling space36 and a reduced rate of bone loss.37 A similar mechanism may underlie enhanced bone gain in children given calcium supplements.16 However, with milk, a fall in parathyroid hormone concentrations mediated by serum calcium enrichment could be offset to some extent by the increased phosphate intake, resulting in no net effect on either parathyroid hormone concentrations or bone remodelling.
Alternatively, insulin-like growth factor I may have stimulated periosteal bone apposition, resulting in a slightly larger skeletal envelope in the milk group. The 2% difference in the gain in total body bone area (17.6% in the milk group v 15.7% in the control group) is consistent with this effect. Against this hypothesis is the fact that the bone formation markers were not raised in the milk group, although this assumes that these biochemical measures are sensitive enough to detect subtle changes in envelope size.
This study has shown that a modest increase in milk consumption augments bone mineral acquisition in adolescent girls. The small difference in bone mass observed in this trial and others (1-3% per year), if maintained, could have a substantial impact on future incidence of fractures.38 However, short term increases in calcium or dairy food intake in children or adolescents may not be sufficient to sustain an increase in bone mass over several decades. Preliminary evidence from calcium supplementation trials indicates that the benefits may be lost once supplements are stopped,39 40 although other trials have shown that the effect persists one year after stopping supplementation with a milk calcium extract.18
Short term intervention trials may indicate causality, but their findings must be interpreted together with the evidence from retrospective studies, which have shown that high calcium intakes throughout all of early life are associated with higher peak bone mass.22 23 24 25 One study has shown a (non-significant) trend towards higher bone mass in young adults who had received milk in an intervention trial as very young children.41 Finally, although the importance of calcium nutrition to bone density has been established in children and adolescents, our results additionally suggest that protein may have mediated some of the skeletal anabolic effects of the milk. Within the context of a public health strategy designed to reduce osteoporotic fracture rates, an increase in milk consumption could represent an important contribution.
We thank Dale Farm, Wakefield, for assistance with the milk deliveries. We thank the staff, pupils, and parents of Bradfield, Hinde House, Sheffield Girls High, and Stocksbridge Schools for their cooperation, especially the pupils, whose enthusiastic participation in this study is much appreciated.
Funding: EEC Grant Reg No 116/92; Nutritional Consultative Panel of the UK Dairy Industry (scholarship for JC).
Conflict of interest: None. | <urn:uuid:fb7262b4-54e8-485f-856c-3ea2962ff44d> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.bmj.com/content/315/7118/1255?ijkey=57d8a81282252a36042fb51432d12fe98d5ccbc2&keytype2=tf_ipsecsha | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572198.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20220815175725-20220815205725-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.937557 | 4,583 | 2.203125 | 2 |
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
What makes a good story or a screenplay great?
The vast majority of writers begin the storytelling process with only a partial understanding where to begin. Some labor their entire lives without ever learning that successful stories are as dependent upon good engineering as they are artistry. But the truth is, unless you are master of the form, function and criteria of successful storytelling, sitting down and pounding out a first draft without planning is an ineffective way to begin.
Story Engineering starts with the criteria and the architecture of storytelling, the engineering and design of a story--and uses it as the basis for narrative. The greatest potential of any story is found in the way six specific aspects of storytelling combine and empower each other on the page. When rendered artfully, they become a sum in excess of their parts.
You'll learn to wrap your head around the big pictures of storytelling at a professional level through a new approach that shows how to combine these six core competencies which include:
- Four elemental competencies of concept, character, theme, and story structure (plot)
- Two executional competencies of scene construction and writing voice
The true magic of storytelling happens when these six core competencies work together in perfect harmony. And the best part? Anyone can do it!
(without which there is no story, so thanks for this little gem of obviousness) … imbuing them with idiosyncrasies and habits (this is a huge pitfall if that's all you do) … complicate them with inconsistencies (Humanity 101, which can quickly lead to stereotyping) … thinking up some cool names (please … it actually said that) and allowing them to have relationships with others (one word: duh). Wow. You deserve better. You deserve a foundational understanding of character and a set of tools,
Orphanages. The consequences of choice. And yet, unlike Dan Brown, Irving didn't land on one side of the issue in his story, even if he had such a stance personally. Through his characters he illuminated bothends of the spectrum of opinion, showing us challenges and consequences in either direction. The reader is left to experience the emotion of both, and thus decide for herself if her opinion had shifted because of it. Irving cast a light on the dark sides of the issue, telling us more than we
answer has been there all along. That those who sell their work know it and the rest of us don't. And then, almost without exception, they become ecstatic when it unfolds before their eyes, and in a such a way that enables them to suddenly see it in the books they read and the movies they see. Storytelling can be as precise a craft as you allow it to be. You can regard story as a cloud-like amorphous shapeshifting process that defies definition and rules — many writers do — or you can
very close to the targeted location for this critical story milestone. Location of milestones isn't an exact science. Having them present and functional is. PACING AND SCENE SELECTION Pretty much anything you concoct in the way of Part 2's desperate retreating strategies or doomed attempts to strike back will eat up more than one scene. You'll need a sequence of scenes, each linking to the next to logically build toward something, which in turns links to the following dramatic sequence.
about clearing the path and optimizing the moment with what you've got. As with athleticism, you can work to eliminate technical flaws from your writing style, beginning with putting a cap on overwriting and an addiction to adjectives and adverbs. And certainly, the more you read the kind of work you seek to do yourself, the more you engage in study about it, the more you'll clear the path toward reaching your maximum potential. That's all this book really is. It's a set of principles that help | <urn:uuid:4d37b98b-78c9-4810-834e-7205afed2613> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | http://onehome.com.br/ebooks/story-engineering | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572198.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20220815175725-20220815205725-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.950357 | 812 | 2.3125 | 2 |
To secure the proper treatment- получать достойное лечение
Fibrosis and calcification - образование волокнистой ткани и отложение извести
Resultant improvement in the clinical symptoms-получающиеся в результате улучшения в клинических симптомах
Pulmonary tuberculosis is a specific communicable disease, usually chronic but occasionally acute, caused by the bacillus tuberculosis. It is generally believed that the pathogenesis of the disease is as follows: first contact with the disease results in a lesion of the lung which is microscopic in size and usually produces no sings or symptoms by which it may be diagnosed clinically. Healing of this lesion takes place by the deposition of lime salts in and around it so that eventually complete calcification takes place which is evident in X-ray examination of the lung. Inside this lesion, however, are tubercle bacilli which may remain alive for many years.
The disease is widespread. All ages are affected but the normality is highest between 20 and 45 years. The disease may result from the inhaling of dust containing bacillus tuberculosis, from droplet infection or from the contact with contaminated objects. The early symptoms (of the adult type) are usually very insidious. Loss of weight, appetite, and strength, a chronic cough, and a low grade temperature, which is usually more elevated toward night, are common complaints. Persistent night sweats should always arouse suspicion of the disease. As the condition progresses, the patient may start to expectorate material after a paroxysm of coughing. Examination of the sputum will frequently reveal tubercle bacillus. If the disease remains unchecked then, in case of the caseous change of the affected lung tissue, erosion of blood vessels by the pathogenic process may occur and the expectoration of small or, at times, large amounts of blood results.
On the other hand, if the patient secures the proper treatment and if his resistance is good, the disease process may be checked and fibrosis and calcification will occur in the diseased area with resultant improvement in the clinical symptoms.
Tuberculosis is a disease which has occupied the attention of medical men in every age. From early days down to the present time, anatomists and physiologist, have devoted much time and study to investigate its causes and produce its cure. The numerous volumes we have on this subject are, in themselves, sufficient proof of the importance which should be attached to the disease.
But it is necessary to say that up to nowadays tuberculosis still remains a widespread infection in all capitalist countries, standing far beyond and above all others in respect to the victims it claims every year. It spares neither age nor sex. This «plague of mankind» carries off men and women in the prime of life or renders them disabled at the age of 30 to 40.
Приложение № 5
Тренировка в употреблении лексики.
Применение нового учебного материала
I Answer the questions.
1. What kind of disease is Pulmonary tuberculosis?
2. What is the pathogenesis of the disease?
3. The disease is widespread, isn’t it?
4. How can the disease pass from one person to another?
5. What are the early symptoms (of the adult type) of the disease?
6. As the condition progresses, the patient may start to expectorate material after a paroxysm of coughing, may not he? | <urn:uuid:af83e58f-95dc-4a22-a449-dcd617caa677> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://doclecture.net/1-31774.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573172.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818063910-20220818093910-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.910404 | 926 | 2.21875 | 2 |
Researchers have discovered tremendous genetic diversity between Mexico’s local populations. The genomes of Mexicans with mixed ancestry reflect these differences, which have implications for many aspects of Latino health.
In the largest-ever genomic dataset on indigenous populations, researchers reveal how Mexican genomes were shaped by population dynamics of ancient Native Americans -- people who lived there before Europeans colonized the area. Despite the mixing associated with colonization events over the last five centuries, the genetic traces of indigenous people are still strong in modern populations. Additionally, some groups are as genetically different from one another as Europeans are from East Asians, suggesting how some groups have been isolated for hundreds of thousands of years.
“We’re moving beyond blanket definitions like Mexican or Latino,” Stanford’s Andres Moreno-Estrada says in a news release. Mexico contains 65 different indigenous ethnic groups. “Now we’re putting finer details on that map. Those broad terms imply common ground among populations, but we’re finding that it’s much more like a mosaic.”
A huge international team led by University of California, San Francisco, and Stanford researchers evaluated genomic data from 511 native Mexican individuals from 20 indigenous groups representing most geographical regions in the country. They focused on 1 million DNA sequence variations called single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs).
Then they characterized the genetics of populations in Mexico prior to European colonization, finding variations in distinct genetic makeups that were as extensive as those between Europeans and the Chinese: The Seri along the northern mainland coast of the Gulf of California and a Mayan people known as the Lacandon, near the Guatemalan border. That suggests how early populations were highly isolated within Mexico, possibly because of geologic features like mountains and deserts.
After Europeans arrived, population dynamics within Mexico changed significantly: Most Mexicans today have mixed ancestry. To investigate this further, the team combined data from native Mexican groups with 500 mestizo (ethnically-mixed) individuals from 10 Mexican states, as well as Mexicans living in Guadalajara and Los Angeles.
Using an algorithm to estimate ancestry proportions in individuals, the researchers found that older, native patterns lingered in the modern populations. People from northern Mexican states like Sonora show the highest proportions of northern native genomic components; whereas someone from Yucatan was more likely to have a southern native component in their genome, namely Mayan. Meanwhile, Mexican-Americans didn’t show this pattern, and that’s consistent with the fact that they have arrived in the U.S. from all over Mexico.
Pictured above: The genetic diversity of Mexican populations is reflected in the chromosomal composition of mixed ancestry throughout Mexico. Three major Native American components are distributed across northern, central/southern, and southeastern regions of the country.
“Over thousands of years, there’s been a tremendous language and cultural diversity across Mexico, with large empires like the Aztec and Maya, as well as small, isolated populations,” UCSF’s Christopher Gignoux says in a news release. “Not only were we able to measure this diversity across the country, but we identified tremendous genetic diversity, with real disease implications based on where, precisely, your ancestors are from in Mexico.”
With lung diseases, such as asthma or emphysema, it matters what ancestry you have at specific locations on your genes. UCSF’s Esteban González Burchard adds: “In this study, we realized that for disease classification it also matters what type of Native American ancestry you have. In terms of genetics, it’s the difference between a neighborhood and a precise street address.” Their findings may help doctors better tailor and interpret medical genetics studies.
The work was published in Science this week.
Image: Rubén A. Ramos Mendoza; photos: Karla Sandoval and Andres Moreno; DNA image: Sergey Nivens/Shutterstock; chromosome painting: Christopher Gignoux and Luisa Lente | <urn:uuid:d49fb98a-4745-41cd-b1c9-44aa01de2c9f> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://iflscience.com/vast-diversity-found-genetics-mexico-24768 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573172.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818063910-20220818093910-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.947471 | 829 | 3.9375 | 4 |
03 / 07 / 2020 – 2 min read
Not So Simple: Understanding How Hand Sanitiser Works and When You Should Be Using It
Ah, the beloved anti-bac, tiny bottles of magic that linger in the bottom of our bags whenever we go on holiday, out for a picnic or, let’s face it, to the bowling alley. Since early 2020 though, hand sanitiser and anti-bacterial gel have been big business as everyone tries to find a way to keep their coronavirus exposure to a minimum.
And yet, the advice from health departments world over is that ordinary people should be using soap and water as the first line of defence and hand sanitiser when handwashing isn’t available. Can soap and water really be better than formulated sanitiser?
What’s the Deal with Soap and Water?
The reason why good old soap and water is highly recommended for keeping your hands free from unwanted bacteria and other dubious things is simple: it washes them away. Soap breaks down the outer layer of many types of bacteria and water washes it, and any other dirt, down the drain leaving your hands clean.
For soap and water handwashing to be most effective, it needs to be conducted thoroughly and for an appropriate amount of time, with the current recommendation being 20 seconds.
Is Anti-Bacterial Soap Better?
If soap and water handwashing is so effective, doesn’t that mean that anti-bacterial soap is even more effective? Nope.
As it transpires, regular soap already does a fantastic job at killing and washing away unfriendly bacteria. ‘Anti-bacterial’ soap doesn’t do a better job and instead may contain chemicals that are not only unnecessary, but harmful.
What’s the Deal with Hand Sanitiser?
Of course, having access to soap and water isn’t always going to be the case. In this case, it’s essential to use a hand sanitiser that’s up to the job.
Hand sanitiser is a formulation that’s designed to be used without water, instead evaporating to dry your hands. It’s designed to kill bacteria and deactivate some types of virus rather than wash them off your skin as soap and water handwashing does.
There are generally two types of hand sanitiser: Alcohol and alcohol-free.
There is little evidence that alcohol-free hand sanitiser is particularly effective and no evidence that it can be used against COVID-19. As a result, it’s not recommended. Instead, alcohol is the go-to ingredient as it’s safe to use on skin and, in the right dilutions, breaks down the outer lipid layer of certain pathogens.
In order to do this effectively, the alcohol percentage in the sanitiser should be 60% or above. Medical-grade hand sanitisers are more likely to be 70% or above. Most bottles advertise their alcohol percentage clearly, but you should be able to find it on the back regardless. Ethanol and isopropyl alcohol are the most commonly used.
Can You Use Hand Sanitiser All the Time?
Of course, coronavirus isn’t the only thing we need to protect ourselves against. In order to reduce our exposure and the spread of other pathogens from norovirus to the common cold, it’s important to wash our hands whenever we come into contact with contaminated surfaces such as in bathrooms, public spaces and kitchens.
Hand sanitiser can do a good job of killing and deactivating pathogens but it’s not effective against all. In fact, the highly contagious and unpleasant norovirus doesn’t have an outer lipid layer for alcohol to break down, meaning it can survive even the most thorough of hand sanitising sessions. Clostridium difficile, a bacterium commonly responsible for diarrhoea, is also not going to be dissuaded by alcohol hand sanitiser. As sanitiser can’t kill these pathogens and the lack of water means they’re not being washed away, you can feel as though you have clean hands but continue spreading them around.
In contrast, hand washing with soap and water works well to remove these pathogens from your skin.
A Two-Level System
In order to keep your hands clean and free from pathogens, using soap and water handwashing is the first line of defence. However, hand sanitiser containing at least 60% alcohol is the next best defence and is always useful to have around, in both clinic settings and while out and about.
Using an alcohol-based hand sanitiser allows you to sanitise your hands sufficiently until you can access soap and water.
If you’re looking for effective, high-quality hand sanitiser, our 70% alcohol sanitiser is ideal for home and clinic settings. | <urn:uuid:1e3c3494-74ff-4ef2-a621-1e0fcd7b6da8> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://trade.meridiusmedical.com/ppe-personal-prtoective-equipment/not-so-simple-understanding-how-hand-sanitiser-works-and-when-you-should-be-using-it/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572033.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20220814113403-20220814143403-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.936024 | 1,033 | 2.25 | 2 |
We are currently transitioning from an unsustainable, linear economy to a sustainable circular economy (Broekhoven, 2018). The current transaction model where the company takes the lead should change to a model where many actors create a coherent set of values together (Jonker, 2016). This model is called multi-value creation and leads to new, sustainable business models based on the circular economy. Voors (2017) in her Master thesis researched which values are created and by whom. Her sample existed out of MNCs with their headquarters in Europe that all engaged with the Bottom of the Pyramid. This raises the question if these results can be generalized. This research will replicate her research, but with a sample of MNCs from both developed and emerging markets. Besides, this research will develop a measurement tool to measure multi-value creation. Currently, no suitable measurement tools are available, and this research aims to solve that problem. Important parts of multi-value creation are identified, and a new measurement tool is developed. | <urn:uuid:e0ada159-1fbd-4715-90b8-dde37c8f2137> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.sustainable-local-economic-development.nl/transitionfromtraditionaltonewbusinessmodelsandsustainability/van-beusekom-multi-value-creation-it-is-not-all-about-the-money/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572198.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20220815175725-20220815205725-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.950299 | 202 | 1.765625 | 2 |
Radio Frequency Welding of Single-Use Devices
Advantages of RF Welding Medical Devices for Manufacturers & End Users
As OEMs help their healthcare and life sciences clients improve manufacturing of single-use products, you might find yourself scrambling to replace traditional materials with eco-friendly alternatives while ensuring your medical device remains profitable and effective. Just as challenging, many manufacturers are unable to achieve successful welds of certain materials for patient use. Let’s discuss the advantages of RF welding medical devices.
When you partner with Genesis Plastics Welding, our proprietary Radio Frequency (RF) Welding of plastic products means your device will be far superior in its quality, durability and sustainability. Just as important, you’ll find a more efficient manufacturing process for custom medical device products and expanded design options, thus producing a better product. If you can draw it, we can weld it.
In all, RF welding benefits are plenty:
- More efficient processing.
- Improved quality.
- Eco-friendly alternative to toxic solvents and materials.
- Potential reduction of raw materials.
- Tighter, permanent bond as strong as the original material, translating into greater resilience.
- Greater process control with more complete, leak-proof welds.
- Safer option for patients with skin sensitivities to conventional materials (PVC, latex).
Common Alternatives to RF Welding
How does RF welding compare to conventional options?
Sonic works better with rigid components
Sewing: When stressed, threads can break under pressure, putting patients at considerable risk.
Gluing: Adhesives use hazardous solvents, harmful to the environment. They also wear out, and seams can eventually fail. Gluing also takes much longer than RF welding.
Hot Air: This method applies heat to the outside of the material to melt it and create a bond. This will not work for materials that are too thick, as the outside layers overheat and burn while the middle struggles to melt. | <urn:uuid:8d39e4b5-40e7-4c41-8647-b931fba84f3a> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://genesisplasticswelding.com/capabilities/radio-frequency-welding-of-single-use-devices/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571909.51/warc/CC-MAIN-20220813051311-20220813081311-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.903941 | 416 | 2.25 | 2 |
The Supreme Court on Dec. 10 left in place Texas’ ban on most abortions, a little more than a week after the court heard arguments in another challenge that could overturn the Roe v. Wade decision, The Associated Press reported.
A five-justice majority ruled Texas state court judges, court clerks and state Attorney General Ken Paxton could not be sued. But the decisions seems to leave people free, under the structure of the Texas law, to sue abortion clinics and anyone else who “aids or abets” an abortion performed after cardiac activity is detected in an embryo, around six weeks.
The Texas law has been in place since Sept. 1. Friday’s high court ruling came a day after a state court judge in Texas ruled that the law’s enforcement, which rewards lawsuits against violators by awarding judgments of $10,000, is unconstitutional yet left the law in place, AP reported.
Complex set of issues
The Texas law has an unusual structure that makes it difficult to challenge. The law essentially hands responsibility for enforcing the law to private citizens, rather than state officials.
The law authorizes lawsuits against clinics, doctors and others who perform or facilitate a banned abortion. The challenge raised a complex set of issues about who, if anyone, can sue over the law in federal court, the typical route for challenges to abortion restrictions.
A 50% decrease in abortions
Since it took effect, the law has imposed the most restrictive abortion curbs in the nation since the Supreme Court first declared a woman’s right to an abortion in its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.
In the Texas law’s first month, a study published by researchers at the University of Texas found, the number of abortions statewide fell by 50% compared with September 2020. The study was based on data from 19 of the state’s 24 abortion clinics, according to the Texas Policy Evaluation Project, AP reported.
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority seems likely to roll back abortion rights in a Mississippi case that was argued Dec. 1, although that decision is not expected until spring.
The fight over the Texas law would be moot if the high court overturns Roe because Texas is one of 12 states with a trigger law that would ban abortion if federal protections are weakened or removed. | <urn:uuid:6792de7b-9457-4dc1-b372-aefacaf6bf74> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://thebaptistpaper.org/court-wont-stop-texas-abortion-ban-but-lets-clinics-sue/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573172.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818063910-20220818093910-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.960018 | 472 | 1.734375 | 2 |
From the start, the Golden is a dog with enough energy for you to spend together. We have already listed many of the benefits of this big man in the intro, but you should socialize them soon to avoid being territorial.
In the first months of their life, they like to play without rest. This dog requires a lot of physical and mental activity; you will have to stimulate them constantly. Playing ball with them is a good idea. It is a game that they love and makes them release all their energy.
If you want them to enjoy their time, take them for a good walk, and if you take them somewhere where they can get into the water, you will see them enjoy it to the fullest. The most important thing of all is that you don’t let them get bored.
Their relationship with humans and other animals will be excellent, it may require some correction on your part, but nothing noteworthy. They won’t have problems with the little ones in the house. Their good-natured character is ideal for living and playing with children.
The most common health problems that can affect Golden Retrievers are hip and elbow dysplasia.
When it comes to sight, cataracts or retinal atrophy can appear at an advanced age.
Of course, other diseases can appear, as in each one of the dogs regardless of the breed, but it is not usual.
If there is something that you have to take special care of in a Golden, it is its hair. If you want your pet to look pretty, you are going to have to work to keep it healthy. They shed a lot of hair, and you will have to brush it once every two days, and daily during the shedding season.
You should only bathe your Golden Retriever when it is dirty. You can bathe it every two or three months. It is important always to use a specific shampoo and conditioner so that afterward, it makes brushing easier.
Frequently cleaning their ears is essential, since, having their ears down, they can accumulate dirt and end with infection.
Don’t let tartar build-up on their teeth. Get them used to brushing their teeth, start them since puppy time. Use toothbrushes and special toothpaste for them. Another good option to delay the appearance of bacterial plaque is dental snacks.
And to wrap up, you will have to cover their exercise needs. Being an active dog, it needs a good dose of daily exercise, this dose will vary depending on the dog and its age. | <urn:uuid:00c41299-321d-4b63-9fe9-20210ece88c3> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://criadorcanino.com/en/golden-retriever/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573172.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818063910-20220818093910-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.974277 | 531 | 1.96875 | 2 |
AME is proud to serve professionals from nearly every sector including health care, the public sector, service industries, defense, and finance. It has become clear over time that the lean, continuous improvement mindset that started in manufacturing is applicable in any organization. Even with this welcome adoption of lean principles and people-centric leadership across industries, AME’s bread and butter has always been manufacturing companies looking to better serve their employees, customers and other stakeholders.
Whether you work in manufacturing or not, it’s important that we all take a moment to acknowledge and celebrate Manufacturing Day today. Each of our lives are touched by manufacturing. If you work in a hospital you rely on machines that were manufactured with the purpose of saving lives. If you work at a bank, manufacturers built your computers. If you work for the public sector you count on machines that pave roads or help keep the public safe. Manufactured goods allow military members to protect our families.
Today, we take a moment to reflect on the impact of manufacturing in each of our lives, and to support the future of manufacturing. The manufacturing world has shifted. Today factories are equipped with robots, cobots, 3D printers and other advanced technologies that are networked together through smart Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) systems.
There has been a corresponding shift in the workforce necessary to use these systems. New-collar jobs — those that require STEM and digital skills, but not necessarily a degree — have become increasingly important in the industry 4.0 era.
AME is proud to work with our members’ companies, government and non-governmental organizations, educational institutions and others to help bring about a manufacturing renaissance driven by people-centric leadership, enterprise excellence, and the workforce skills necessary to make 21st century manufacturing a reality. Published last year, AME’s A Manufacturing Marshall Plan lays out a pathway forward that:
- Advocates for reshoring, nearshoring and LeanShoring™
- Increases our focus on industry 4.0 innovations
- Enhances educational and training offerings to create a stronger workforce
On this Manufacturing Day, I encourage you to thank those in the manufacturing community for their contributions to your life. Think about how you can encourage the next generation of manufacturers to pursue the skills and careers necessary to create this most necessary renaissance. There’s no better time to join forces with AME or other organizations involved with Manufacturing Day to help promote these careers and skills.
As always, please stay safe and keep looking out for one another.
P.S. We’re less than three weeks away from the start of the AME Everywhere 2021 conference! On Monday, we’ll be announcing the last of our keynote speakers. I’m biting my tongue because I’d love to let the cat out of the bag right now! While you have to wait until Monday for this keynote announcement, don’t delay your registration any longer. Sign-up now to ensure you have the best access to live and on-demand content. Register now at ame.org/conference. | <urn:uuid:bbb2ae3d-07d7-4d27-affb-2ae566382832> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.ame.org/ame-article/10/01/2021/ceo-manufacturing-touches-each-our-lives | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572833.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817001643-20220817031643-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.939349 | 629 | 1.59375 | 2 |
What combines light bread, fluffy bread, sweet bread and soft bread altogether? It is non other than this snow-white loaves of Hokkaido milk bread that are easily pulled apart with bread dough so soft it almost melts in your mouth after a few chews.
Using the sponge dough method, this easy Japanese milk bread recipe produces Hokkaido milk bread that’s topped with generous cheese as a savory finish to this simple homemade bread.
A few weeks ago, I attended a bread baking class to learn how to bake bread using the famous Sponge Dough method. One of the breads taught in the class was Hokkaido Milk Bread. A few weeks later, I began to try out baking the breads I have learned in the class. I adapted the original Hokkaido Milk Bread recipe and added some grated cheese as the topping.
My whole house smelt divine when the breads were being baked in the oven, what’s better is they taste heavenly in the mouth, not to mention the lovely chewing process that makes you feel some kinda way. Since then, this milk cheese bread has been in a huge demand from my family. Friends and neighbors love the Hokkaido Bread With Cheese Topping as well when I send some over for them to try.
HOKKAIDO MILK BREAD
scroll ⬇️ to get the detailed and printable recipe
What is Hokkaido Milk Bread?
Hokkaido Milk Bread also known as Shokupan is a type of Japanese Milk Bread that is well known for it’s subtle milky flavor, softness and fluffiness. Sokupan translates to ‘eating bread’ because it can be eaten every day as a simple, white bread. Hokkaido milk bread originates from Hokkaido, Japan as this bread was first made with milk from Hokkaido, which is known for their high quality milk and dairy products.
The taste and texture of the Hokkaido Milk Bread is really appetizing as its not too dense and very light on the palatte, hence it won’t overpower your tastebuds or make you super full. A perfect appetizer or dessert after meal or even as a tea time bread to accompany your tea break. As someone who doesn’t like super dense breads, I really enjoy how light this milk white bread is, alongside the yeasty cheddar cheese crust this is a great recipe for you if you love japanese bread.
Sponge Dough Method
In this fluffy Japanese milk bread recipe, I used a baking technique called the sponge dough method or sponge and dough method. In French, it is known as levain-levure which is highly similar to the sourdough baking method however the sponge is made from all fresh ingredients prior to being used in the final dough.
What is it you may ask?
Well, the sponge dough method is an indirect pre-ferment bread baking process and it is a two-step process. The sponge dough is a sponge ferment that is constituted of specific measurements of bread flour, water at room temperature and compressed yeast that is shortly mixed just to incorporate them together.
STEP 1: MAKE THE SPONGE
The liquid, all or part of the yeast, and about half of the total quantity of flour are mixed together to form the sponge dough (also known as the starter dough). This makes a thick batter that will be left to ferment until it is double in bulk.
STEP 2: MAKE THE DOUGH
After the sponge has doubled in size, deflate the air out of it and it is then add the rest of the ingredients to create the total formula. Proceed with the recipe for making the bread.
This method produces breads with unique flavor and aroma, a soft crumb and an improved shelf-life. For this reason, this method is commonly used in pan bread, buns and other bread varieties. It is popular in Asian countries, North America and Central Europe.
Benefits of Sponge Dough Method
- More extensible dough
- Activation of the yeast
- Facilitation of dough formation
- Imparting superior aroma and flavor
- Generating silk-like, soft and regular crumb textures
- More forgiving of processing delays
- Lower dough mixing times
- Lower dough temperatures, so less use of ice or glycol
A pre-ferment and a longer fermentation in the bread-making process contains several benefits: there is more time for yeast action on the starch and proteins in the dough; this in turn improves the shelf life of the baked bread, and it creates greater complexities of flavor.
Sponge Dough Method vs Tangzhong (water roux) method
If you have been browsing for milk bread recipes then you may probably come across many recipes using the tangzhong method to make their Hokkaido milk breads. Though both methods use a special technique by having a starter dough to get a softer texture, the main difference is the method of making the starter dough is different in both methods.
For the sponge dough method, a prefermented starter dough is used but in tangzhong milk bread the starter dough uses cooked starch from flour. The level of difficulty is almost similar with similar benefits. However as there are already many new recipes on these Hokkaido milk loaves of bread using a tangzhong starter, I wanted to introduce this sponge dough method I learnt just so there are more options for you to choose. But fear not as this is an easy recipe as I have step photos and instructions to guide you along the way.
Ingredients in this Hokkaido Milk Bread Recipe
- Bread Flour: it has higher protein content for more gluten development which is necessary for the original recipe of milk bread
- Dry Yeast: Yeast will use up glucose in the sugar to undergo respiration that releases carbon dioxide to let the dough rise
- Bread Flour
- Fine Sugar
- Instant Yeast (dry)
- Milk Powder
- Fresh Milk (chilled)
- Fresh Cream (chilled) / Non Dairy Whipping Cream
- Large Egg
- Egg (for egg wash)
- Grated Cheddar Cheese
Here are some tips to take note of when you are making this bread loaf for the first time to achieve the perfect smooth dough that will yielt a soft texture in your Hokkaido milk bread.
- When making the starter dough or sponge, remember to prepare at least 10 hours in advance, better so if you prepare it the day before.
- A stand mixer with a dough hook attachment may be used if you do not have a bread machine. Mix all the dry ingredients in low speed then slowly add in wet ingredients (butter being the last one to add) until they are well combine. Knead it with medium speed until the dough cleans itself from the side of the bowl. The dough should be smooth, elastic and non-sticky. You may do a windowpane test to check if the gluten is well developed.
- The dough should pass the windowpane test for proper gluten development.
- Do not add salt directly in contact with the instant dry yeast.
- Lightly grease your hand and roller pin if you have sticky dough during shaping.
- Remember to be gentle when shaping your dough so you don’t tear it as this will cause irregularities in your bread texture also remember to divide your doughs in equal portions of dough ball so you get equal pieces of bread.
What is a windowpane test?
The windowpane test is done at the end of kneading. to check if the dough has developed enough gluten. This is important as it means the dough has been sufficiently kneaded and can be left to proof or rise.
How do you perform this test?
To perform the windowpane test, you need to pinch off a little bit of the dough. Using your thumb, forefinger, and middle finger from each hand, proceed to stretch the dough as much as you can and angle it toward a window. If the dough stretches smoothly out into a thin membrane where sunlight can filter through with no holes in the dough then the dough is ready for its first rise.
However, if your dough is not smooth and elastic and breaks easily hence unable to form the thin membrane then your dough has failed this windowpane test. This means your dough needs to be kneaded even more.
Properly made Hokkaido milk bread is easily pulled apart to reveal a soft, light and fluffy interior. The best results are achieved when the crumbs of this asian bread is smooth without much holes and irregularities, the bread is slightly elastic and stretchy. This means that there has been proper gluten development and that you have shaped your bread well.
Besides learning the Sponge dough technique and bake a few types of healthy bread, we laughed, we took pictures, we joked, we simply had so much fun in the baking class. Thank you, my baking buddies and my baking master. These are the photos I shared on my Instagram.
If you have tried this Hokkaido Milk Bread recipe and loved it, I have more recipes in my recipe section for you to master. But if you are looking for other of my famous recipes then you can always try my Japanese Cheesecake, Matcha Cheesecake, Blueberry Cheesecake, Pumpkin Pie Cheesecake, and for those who want to indulge without guilt — Low Carb Cheesecake and Burnt Cheesecake both are keto desserts perfect for those who are in a keto or low carb diet.
- 200 gram Bread Flour
- 130 ml Water
- 1/2 tsp Instant Dry Yeast
- 350 gram Bread Flour
- 100 gram Fine Sugar
- 1 tsp Salt
- 1 tsp Instant Dry Yeast
- 25 gram Milk Powder
- 110 ml Fresh Milk (chilled)
- 80 gram Fresh Cream (chilled) / Non Dairy Whipping Cream
- 1 Large Egg
- 40 gram Butter
- 1 Egg (for egg-wash)
- 250 gram Grated Cheddar Cheese
Recipe Adapted From Chef Alan Ooi
- Mix Sponge Dough ingredients and lightly knead to form a dough. Cover and leave to ferment for 10 hours (maximum 24 hours) or overnight inside the fridge. Bring it out from fridge and leave it at room temperature 1 hour before using it. (Picture 2)
- Put second dough ingredients (except butter) into a bread maker machine. Set the machine to Dough function to start the mixing and kneading process. When the ingredients are about to combine, add butter. (Picture 4, 5)
- Add Sponge dough into the machine when the second dough is formed. Continue to knead to combine both dough until the kneading process ends. Let the final dough sit inside the machine to continue it’s proofing process for 50 to 60 minutes or until doubled in size. (Picture 6, 7, 8)
- Divide the dough into 8 portions, cover and let rest at room temperature for about 10 to 15 minutes. Roll out and stretch the dough into long pieces with a rolling pin, then roll back into a cylinder. Roll and stretch the dough into a rope with both hands. Braid the ropes, pinching the ends and tuck them under to seal. Place the braids on a greased baking sheet. Space them at least 4″ apart. Cover them and leave them to rise for 50 minutes or until they are doubled in size. (Picture 9, 10, 11, 12, 13)
- Heat up the oven to 180 degrees C.
- Lightly beat 1 egg to make egg-wash and brush on the dough. Sprinkle grated cheddar cheese on top. (Picture 14, 15)
- Bake for 20 – 25 minutes or until nice and golden.
- Remove from the oven and transfer onto a wire rack. Let cool completely.
Part 1: Sponge Dough / Starter Dough
*prepare 10 hours in advance
- Picture 1
Dissolve dry yeast in the water. Put Bread Flour in a clean bowl, slowly add in yeast water to combine.
- Picture 2
Lightly knead to form a dough. Close the lid. Leave it in the fridge for at least 9 hours, the maximum is 24 hours.
Bring it out and leave it at room temperature 1 hour prior using it to prepare the Hokkaido bread dough.
Part 2: Hokkaido Bread Dough / Final Dough
- Picture 3
Gather all the ingredients as listed above.
- Picture 4
Put the dry ingredients into the bowl, then add wet ingredients (except butter) onto them.
- Picture 5
Set the bread maker machine to dough function to start the kneading process. When the ingredients are about to combine, add butter.
If you are using a stand mixer to knead, change to the dough hook and mix the ingredients in slow speed until they form a dough. Change to medium speed to knead.
- Picture 6
Add sponge dough as soon as the second dough is formed, continue with the kneading.
- Picture 7
The final dough should look smooth, elastic and non-sticky.
- Picture 8
Leave it to proof in the bread maker machine for 50 to 60 minutes, or until it doubled its size.
- Picture 9
Punch down the dough and equally divide the dough into 8 parts.
Cover and let rest at room temperature for about 10 to 15 minutes.
- Picture 10
Roll out the dough into a long piece with the rolling pin.
- Picture 11
Rollback into a cylinder. Roll and stretch the dough into a rope with both hands.
- Picture 12
Braid the ropes, pinching the ends and tuck them under to seal.
- Picture 13
Place the braids on a greased baking sheet. Space them apart.
Cover them and leave them to rise for 50 minutes or until they are doubled in size.
- Picture 14
Brush a coat of egg wash on the surface.
- Picture 15
Sprinkles grated cheddar cheese on top.
Bake for 20 – 25 minutes or until nice and golden.
Remove from the oven and transfer onto a wire rack. Let cool completely.
Best serve while the bread is still fresh.
- You may use a stand mixer with dough hook if you do not have a bread maker machine. Mix all the dry ingredients in low speed then slowly add in wet ingredients (butter being the last one to add) until they are well combine. Knead it with medium speed until the dough cleans itself from the side of the bowl. The dough should be smooth, elastic and non-sticky. You may do a windowpane test to check if the gluten is well developed.
- Do not add salt directly in contact with the instant dry yeast.
- Lightly grease your hand and roller pin if your dough is a bit sticky during shaping. | <urn:uuid:91be41f0-ad52-4967-bebe-ab5882d02b1e> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.craftpassion.com/hokkaido-milk-bread-with-cheese-topping/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573172.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818063910-20220818093910-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.9351 | 3,150 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Collection of scientific researches (UDK 622(082))
Certificate of registration: КВ 13121-2005 on 11.07.07
Resolution of the presidium of HEB 10.03.10 № 1-05/2 about the inclusion of the collection to a new list of academic editions of Ukraine.
Thematic scope of the collection:
- Physical processes of mining;
- Mining machinery and equipment;
- Electrification and automation of mining operations;
- Economics, organization and management, geoecology and labor protection.
Content of the collection - information on systemic patterns of disclosure processes and phenomena that occur during the development of mineral deposits to improve the technology and economics of mining with systematization and extensive discussion of the theoretical and practical knowledge in mining.
The policy of publication:
Politics of publishing includes the system of measures aimed at achieving the main goal. The main purpose of the collection is the publication of the results of research aimed at improving existing and developing new high-performance and energy-saving technologies , processes and equipment that meet the modern requirements of market production , involving scientists, teachers and students of mining professions and experts in mining companies. | <urn:uuid:57b9bbf8-a3ca-4930-8cfd-ed4bd3907bca> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://oaji.net/journal-detail.html?number=2773 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572833.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817001643-20220817031643-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.890849 | 251 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Makhunik is a unique village in a remote corner in Iran’s South Khorasan Province which dates back to hundreds of years ago. This mysterious village commonly known as the land of Lilliputians, is one of the seven amazing world's villages by its remarkable architecture. It is located in Doreh rural district of Sarbisheh County, South Khorasan Province, near the Iran-Afghanistan border.
The village was inhabited by people of very short stature until about a century ago. Currently, it is home to roughly 200 adobe dwellings many of them are of exceptionally low height.
Makhunik is known to LILIPUT land because of its dwarf residents and the tales around them; people who have an Afghan nationality and migrated to the area several hundred years ago. Most of its inhabitants were hardly taller than one meter in the past. However, experts say only a handful of dwarf residents still live there. Researchers believes that marriages between close relatives, poor diet and drinking water laced with mercury had left the inhabitants of Makhunik half a meter short than the average height of that time. Makhunik’s residents have inherited short stature disease from their fathers, generation by generation.
It is said that, an Afghan man, along with his family left Afghanistan and came to Iran about 400 years ago. They sought refuge in the Makhunik area in search of a place to live and they settled in this land.
Makhunik is known to LILIPUT land because of its dwarf residents and the tales around them; people who have an Afghan nationality and migrated to the area several hundred years ago.
But this is not the only attractive feature. Makhunik is also popular for its ancient-style architecture as well as its unique tradition and culture. The residents of Makhunik built their houses based on architectural styles in the Neolithic Era. The buildings’ color once served as camouflage; it was impossible to spot them from the mountains at a distance.
If you walk through the narrow alleys of the village, you will see small adobe houses with very tiny walls and doors. These tiny houses have been built next to each other into the earth hollows on the slopes of the hills. They have been built of stone and soil, and their roof is covered with foliage and a short entrance gate.
The village is formed on a hill top which short houses pressed together in the valley. The house floor is one meter lower than the ground level and they have to bend down and pass the wooden doors to enter the house. Then they have to go down one or two steps to reach house floor. Despite all this, the architectural structure of Makhunik is not just bound to the small adobe and muddy houses. It has been years that today’s brick wall houses have reached Makhunik and have given a more modern color to the village.
Many domestic and foreign tourists visit the village at the moment and it is considered one of the target villages of Southern Khorasan.
The name of the village:
Some sources say that the village dates back to thousands of years ago and that the village has an ancient history. The rock relief discovered near the Makhunik Qanat and the depiction on it is one of the evidence of such claims.
There are three narrations about the name of the village. Some say it’s called “Makhunik” because of the cool weather it has.
On the other hand some people believe the name comes from a gap in the mountain near the village. Others believe that Makhunik is composed of two words namely “Moon” and “Dekhunik” (Pahlavi language) which consequently means the land of the moon. | <urn:uuid:19b6f6e1-bb77-4a0d-833a-1753d568a2cd> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.itto.org/iran/attraction/makhunik-village-khorasan/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572833.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817001643-20220817031643-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.980043 | 786 | 2.984375 | 3 |
In January 2022, special constable training requirements will be expanded under the Comprehensive Ontario Police Services Act, 2019. A review of the proposed level of training required to be a police officer or university special constable appears to indicate that there will be higher expectations for those fulfilling the role of a special constable. These expectations include expanded training in certain areas of the Criminal Code, Human Rights Law, and various provincial offences acts. The natural evolution of this training would follow the expectations as set by the courts for special constables set by statute and case law.
When the Canadian Parliament passed Bill C-75 in 2018, it was apparent that this legislation meant that the police, which includes peace officers, and the Crown, would follow the Ladder Principle. This means ensuring that arrested parties are released at the earliest opportunity and with the least onerous conditions. With this in mind, peace officers, including those employed by universities, are obligated to release arrested parties as stipulated in section 493.1 of the Criminal Code of Canada. Without policies which reflect current law, universities would be in contravention of the Criminal Code and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Ultimately, internal policies do not override what is written in law. When peace officer agencies rely solely on their local supporting police service to release arrested parties, they will likely end up in jeopardy of breaching their duty to release accused persons as soon as practicable. Police services are often overwhelmed with calls and understaffed, resulting in delayed responses to lower priority calls (i.e. when a university peace officer or loss prevention officer has someone in custody).
As with all new laws, it takes time for defence counsel to figure out their angle for attack on the Crown’s case, such as Charter breaches. One only has to look at the volumes of case law where impaired driving charges were stayed because either the breath test was not administered forthwith, or the accused was not released forthwith after being tested. It is only a matter of time until it will be commonplace to file a Charter argument for a stay of charges because an accused party was not released forthwith once release condition were met. Possible civil action could follow if there was a breach of the Charter or Criminal Code.
The relevant Criminal Code sections pertaining to the release of an accused person by a peace officer are as follows:
- Section 495(2) C.C. states that a person shall not be arrested for dual procedure offences or summary conviction offences if R.I.C.E. (Repetition of offence, Identity of the accused, Court likelihood reappearance, Evidence protection) is satisfied.
- Section 497(1) C.C. states that a peace officer must release an accused person as soon as practicable when that peace officer has made the decision to release an accused on an appearance notice or summons (once R.I.C.E. has been satisfied).
- Section 493.1 C.C. states the principles of restraint and that an accused person must be released at the earliest opportunity with the least restrictive conditions.
- Section 2 C.C. further states that Indigenous persons and vulnerable persons should be considered in the principles of restraint.
Applicable section of the Charter are as follows:
- Section 9 (arbitrary detention): This section stipulates that once an accused’s detention is no longer necessary then the detention becomes arbitrary. The remedy is often a stay of proceedings and/or the exclusion of evidence. There are several analogous impaired driving cases that discuss what the term “as soon as practicable” means. Two guiding cases are R v. Vanderbruggen 2006 ONCA and R v. Lorenzo 2016 ONCJ. In these cases, “as soon as practicable” is further defined as “within a reasonably prompt time under the circumstances.” | <urn:uuid:5c046584-df6c-4887-b874-830b9ec7d050> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://tntconsulting.ca/blog-bill-c-75/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572033.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20220814113403-20220814143403-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.961893 | 782 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Carbon footprint calculates the total greenhouse gases emissions of the different materials and processes involved in the finishing of textiles using the characterization factors of global warming potential proposed by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) in the year 2007, over a period of 100 years.
Resource depletion calculates the amount of resource that it is lost during the finishing textile process.
Water consumption calculates the water consumption during the finishing production of the functional textile, that is, the amount of water consumed as a resource during the elaboration of the materials used and in the fulfilled processes. It includes fresh water obtained from different natural sources. The Water depletion indicator from the impact assessment method, Swiss Ecoscarcity 2006, has been the one used.
Energy consumption calculates the total accumulated demand of energy provided by different primary sources, both renewable and non-renewable included. It has been used the European Cumulative Energy Demand (CED) indicator from the method published by Ecoinvent. | <urn:uuid:61a9fc12-a7bc-4d10-b163-04c1f3d2313b> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | http://itene-ecotexnano.nunsys.net/EnvironmentalIndicators.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573172.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818063910-20220818093910-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.926836 | 196 | 2.96875 | 3 |
The small series SCHALLDOSE (soundbox) was created in the winter of 2021 during my residency at the "Global Forest" Kunstverein in St. Georgen in the Black Forest.
The "listening object" is based on the idea of an acoustic equivalent to the postcard and the medieval idea of the possibility of imprisoning sounds in vessels. The composition, which is hearable out of a tin can equipped with a piezo loudspeaker hidden under a double bottom, uses field recordings of St. Georgen and its surrounding area in winter, as well as recordings of clocks and running noises of historical music players from the german “Phonomuseum".
The recordings were used both in their original, as well as in a manipulated form. The manipulations were obtained through solely analogue processes: by playing through various prepared tin can telephones, the original sound was filtered and then re-recorded. Materials used for the design of these “telephones” were for example nylon threads and wires of different sorts (copper, brass, aluminum), which designs were the result of an extensive research on the properties of the individual materials and their influence on the accentuation or attenuation of certain frequency ranges.
Furthermore, the vibration of the wires and cords adds a quasi-analogue reverb to the original sound.
SCHALLDOSE deals with the relationship between superimposition and extreme compression, in which the individual sources are no longer perceptible on the one hand, and isolation, reduction and the accompanying focussing, on the other hand, and processes the pandemic experiences of isolation, separation and the confrontation with the relationship between closeness and distance. | <urn:uuid:7abbd3d6-10a9-431f-a69c-76c5556ab34f> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.felixmayer.net/schalldose | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573172.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818063910-20220818093910-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.969223 | 349 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Ogelle founder urges African govts to embrace cryptocurrency
Cryptocurrency adoption has been on a steady rise around the world, and Osita Oparaugo, founder of Ogelle, Africa’s first user generated content platform for African content only, has enjoined African governments to get on board the fast-changing world of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology.
Speaking to journalists in Lagos shortly after he co-hosted a LIVE event on Decentralized Finance as a pathway to growth for Africa, Oparaugo pointed at how digital money is reshaping the tech and financial world and maintained that Africa cannot continue to play catch-up.
He hinted that he is in the process of starting a gaming app that would be focused around African celebrities and that cryptocurrency would be the means of monetary exchange as stakes and buying of accessories on the app by players. He said with this, it would be possible for a Nigerian in Lagos to play against a Rwandan in Kigali or a South African player who lives in China.
“Cryptocurrency and digital money will eventually unite the world and the earlier African governments embrace it, the better for the continent’s growth,” said Oparaugo, who is also the founder of Footprint to Africa, a media and investment bridge company.
“Africa can’t afford to play catch-up on blockchain technology; it’s the future,” he said.
On exactly how digital money is reshaping the tech and financial world, Oparaugo drew attention to the recent announcement by Twitter that it would include Bitcoin among other payment options on the tipping feature on its platform.
Twitter had in a blog post on September 23 announced that people can now ‘tip’ with Bitcoin on its platform using Strike, an American payment application platform that incorporates the use of the Bitcoin Lightning network to enable instant payments globally at virtually no cost.
Oparaugo also cited billionaire investor Mark Cuban, who recently expressed optimism on the growth of DeFi applications which he thinks would pose a challenge to traditional banks.
DeFi, or decentralized finance, is a blockchain-based form of finance that does not rely on central financial intermediaries such as brokerages, exchanges, or banks to offer traditional financial instruments, and instead utilizes smart contracts on blockchains, the most common being Ethereum.
Cuban, in a tweet responding to a debate about DeFi, had said DeFi had the foundational benefit of simplifying borrowing for personal purposes.
“It’s a hassle to borrow money from a bank. And [DeFi] allows anyone with funds to be a lender as well,” Cuban had said.
He said through DeFi lending, users can lend out cryptocurrency, like a traditional bank does with fiat currency, and earn interest as a lender. The barrier to entry to borrow is low compared with that of a traditional system. In most cases, the only requirement to take out a DeFi loan is the ability to provide collateral with other crypto assets.
″[B]usinesses, decentralized or otherwise, tend to benefit when they offer customers the path of least resistance to get what they want and/or need,” Cuban said. “DeFi is not monolithic. It’s competitive. It will evolve to meet customer needs.”
Analysts have pointed out, however, that DeFi is much riskier than a traditional bank. | <urn:uuid:f5c53fb2-5a46-4e7c-9eaf-bfea8a8ea2e5> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://businessday.ng/news/article/ogelle-founder-urges-african-govts-to-embrace-cryptocurrency/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573172.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818063910-20220818093910-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.962035 | 712 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Olsen 1913 Liberty Head 5-cent realizes $3.29 million
- Published: Jan 13, 2014, 7 PM
A 1913 Liberty Head 5-cent coin that figured prominently in an episode of the 1970s television drama Hawaii 5-0 sold for $3.29 million during the Jan. 9 Platinum Night sale by Heritage Auctions.
Bidding opened at $2.4 million and continued in $100,000 increments. The winning $2.8 million closing bid was placed by a mail/fax bidder. A 17.5 percent buyer’s fee was added to the hammer price to arrive at the total figure.
The auction was held in conjunction with the Florida United Numismatists convention.
The 1913 5-cent coin is certified Proof 64 by Numismatic Guaranty Corp. and stickered by Certified Acceptance Corp. It is considered the second finest of five known examples and is one of three in private hands. It is often referred to as the Olsen specimen, for collector Fred E. Olsen. The coin has counted among its owners Col. E.H.R. Green, Eric P. Newman, King Farouk I of Egypt, sports magnate Jerry Buss and Reed Hawn, among others.
The coin sold for less than it brought in its last appearance at auction. The Olsen 1913 Liberty Head 5-cent coin was last offered Jan. 7, 2010, by Heritage in conjunction with the Florida United Numismatists convention. The coin sold in that sale for $3,737,500. The winning bidder in that auction was The Greensboro Collection, which consigned the coin to the Jan. 9, 2014, sale.
In 1972, the Olsen specimen became the first coin to break the $100,000 level.
The coin was the subject of the Dec. 11, 1973, Hawaii 5-0 episode, aptly titled “The $100,000 Nickel.” At the time, the coin was owned by World Wide Coin Investments.
Five 1913 Liberty Head 5-cent coins were struck clandestinely at the Philadelphia Mint. Treasury officials had decided that in 1913 no Liberty Head 5-cent coins would be struck for circulation before the introduction of the 1913 Indian Head 5-cent piece.
Collectors were unaware that any 1913 Liberty Head 5-cent coins existed until Samuel W. Brown, a former Mint Cabinet curator at the Philadelphia Mint, advertised in the December 1919 issue of The Numismatist that he wanted to purchase any existing examples for $500 each.
Brown subsequently exhibited the five 1913 5-cent coins at the American Numismatic Association’s 1920 convention in Chicago.
Some have speculated that Brown had the coins struck during his Mint tenure and, after waiting a few years, placed ads in which he claimed to be seeking to purchase examples as a means to legitimize their existence. ¦
US Coins Aug 17, 2022, 1 PM
World Coins Aug 17, 2022, 12 PM
World Coins Aug 16, 2022, 3 PM
US Coins Aug 15, 2022, 2 PM | <urn:uuid:aa61013d-2483-4091-b48e-db0bade024e5> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.coinworld.com/news/us-coins/olsen-1913-liberty-head-5-cent-coin-realizes.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573172.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818063910-20220818093910-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.969267 | 643 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Immersed in the sapphire water of the Indian ocean, are seaweeds. This ocean is the life blood of the Zanzibar community.
Seaweed, a key export in the semi-autonomous island is under threat. In recent years a lot of the seaweed has been dying. Experts suspect that this is the result of climate change.
Narriman Jiddawi, a marine biologist says, “The good temperature could be around 27 degrees-29 degrees, the seaweed can survive. But when it’s too hot it is making the seaweed not to grow very well. So a lot of women have stopped actually cultivating seaweed.”
We have to reduce the price. Last year we were buying from the farmers, the price was 600 shillings per kilo, and now the price has come down to 400 shillings.
Despite maintaining its position as the third largest seaweed exporter in the world, many farmers in Zanzibar have abandoned this line of work as they now feel the economic impact.
On Zanzibar local women are going against gender norms and unleashing the commercial potential of seaweed https://t.co/b0VDl0vvzH— UN-Water (@UN_Water) April 12, 2016
“I started working in this field twenty years ago because I wanted to increase my income to support my family. But right now I am discouraged because the buying price has fallen, hopefully that will change,” said Mtumwa Vuai Ameir, a seaweed farmer.
During its peak, seaweed farming contributed about 8 million US dollars a year to the economy. The farmers greatly benefited from these contributions.
“We have to reduce the price. Last year we were buying from the farmers, the price was 600 shillings per kilo, and now the price has come down to 400 shillings… In Tanzania we have to be competitive, other wise they will not buy our seaweed,” explained Arif Issa Mazrui, the Director General of Zanque Aqua Farms
The autonomous islands’ newly elected president has promised to address the problem, including improving equipment used by farmers.
Seaweed is used as a source of food, for industrial applications and as a fertilizer. | <urn:uuid:81635419-047e-46bb-a2e2-153f21581276> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.africanews.com/2016/04/27/the-bleak-future-of-zanzibar-s-seaweed-industry/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572198.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20220815175725-20220815205725-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.965743 | 477 | 2.5 | 2 |
Cairn at Sigersted
Take a walk in the past
The Bronze Crown on top symbolizing King Siger, the local King, who is said to have lived in the area approx. 1500 years ago.
There is also a legend attached to area - Hagbard and Signe - Hagbard a Norwegian prince who loved the Danish princess Signe.
You can read more about the legend here
Ringsted Turistinformation email@example.com | <urn:uuid:79968bd8-f2bc-4666-9e43-2bd8c5e6645e> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.smalldanishhotels.com/attractions/?attractionName=cairn-at-sigersted | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572833.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817001643-20220817031643-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.819457 | 103 | 1.59375 | 2 |
NM Dept. of Health: Cataract symptoms to look for
A cataract is a clouding of the eye’s lens, and it’s the leading cause of blindness in the world, but unlike many eye diseases, vision loss due to a cataract can be restored.
Cataract surgery is so common these days that if you haven’t had the surgery, you probably know someone who does.
According to the American Academy of Ophthalmology, a cataract is a clouding of the eye’s lens, and it’s the leading cause of blindness in the world, but unlike many eye diseases, vision loss due to a cataract can be restored.
Here in the United States, it’s far less a cause of blindness than it is just low vision. That’s because cataract surgery is the most commonly performed surgical procedure in the United States.
The patient advocate group Prevent Blindness estimates the current number of people in the United States with cataracts will increase from more than 25.7 million to an estimated 38.5 million by 2032, and then to 45.6 million by the year 2050 — all because of our rapidly aging population — and long life span.
Prevent Blindness says half of all Americans will develop cataracts by age 80. While cataracts may be a sign of advanced age, it’s not just something that happens to seniors. More than 22 million Americans age 40 and older have cataracts. No matter the age it’s important to know the risk factors, symptoms and treatment options.
Common risk factors for cataract, include
• Age (the risk increases as you get older)
• Intense heat or long-term exposure to UV rays from the sun
• Inflammation in the eye
• Long-term steroid use
• Eye injuries
The list of symptoms of having a cataract is short, but noticeable. It includes cloudy or blurry vision, glare from light (Headlights, lamps, even sunlight all may feel too bright. You may even see a halo around lights), poor night vision, and even double vision. Colors may also seem faded.
The best way to protect your eyesight is to get a complete, dilated eye exam from an eye care professional and work with him or her on the best treatment options for you. The great thing about cataract surgery is it’s not just common but successful. Prevent Blindness notes that in approximately 90 percent of cases, people who have cataract surgery have improved vision following the procedure.
Also, most cataract surgery is usually covered by Medicare and health insurance, which is good news for seniors.
For more facts about cataracts, visit https://nei.nih.gov/health/cataract/cataract_facts.
David Morgan writes for the New Mexico Department of Health. | <urn:uuid:6448964b-8e0d-457f-8f32-f31d0f59b762> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.lcsun-news.com/story/life/wellness/2016/06/15/nm-dept-health-cataract-symptoms-look/85668952/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572833.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817001643-20220817031643-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.941753 | 622 | 2.9375 | 3 |
Many of David’s Psalms reveal him as the man after God’s heart, as one who lived a life devoted to God, His people and His house. We often find David panting after, and thirsting for, God, enjoying His courts, shouting for joy, and singing to the Lord. We find his praise to be most vociferous when he is in the presence of God’s people (see Psalm 27:6, 42:4, 68:24-26). This kind of devotion required that David forsake those wicked people who would lead him into falsehood and hypocrisy. Instead, he spiritually aligned himself with those who were publicly singing around the altar in the temple courts. His choice to hate the company of evil doers and in turn love God’s people, reveals where David’s heart is. Rather than surrounding himself with those who might be a stumbling block, David chose to fellowship with the ‘great assembly,’ where he experiences the sure footing a level ground (v. 12). David understood that he was on safest ground when his conduct was on open display before God’s people. He knew that there was no better place on earth for him to join in the triumphant proclamation of the glorious works of God than in the assembly of the saints. Like David, we all face choices when it comes to the company we keep. Much can be said of our own heart by the company we desire to keep. No matter how spiritual we might think we are, we deceive ourselves if we think that we can live a life devoted to God and yet have no care for the fellowship of His people. | <urn:uuid:e204d6ae-e524-4755-a0b9-ce2dd1becf89> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://bolfellowship.org/sermons/devotion-four-characteristics-of-a-devoted-life/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571909.51/warc/CC-MAIN-20220813051311-20220813081311-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.977452 | 338 | 1.921875 | 2 |
Back in high school, one of my crazier teachers once posed the class a philosophical question: What is the difference between a chair and a stool? “What kind of philosophical question is that?” we responded as one. “A chair has a back, and a stool doesn’t.” Aha, said my teacher, but what if I took a stool and added a one-inch back? Would it be a chair then? What about two inches? Can you give me a concrete point at which a stool becomes a chair?
In that vein … when does an Multiplayer Online Game become a Massively Multiplayer one? That depends on the measure of an MMORPG: What sets it apart from its non-Massive brethren? Well, that could be a column in and of itself, but for convenience’s sake, let’s use the Wikipedia definition: “MMORPGs are distinguished from single-player or small multi-player RPGs by the number of players, and by the game’s persistent world, usually hosted by the game’s publisher, which continues to exist and evolve while the player is away from the game.”
The more I look at this definition, the more I think that Cryptic’s Champions Online is a major step towards blurring or abolishing these lines – in fact, the game is barely an MMOG. Oh sure, Champions definitely has the trappings of an MMOG: You create a character, do quests, get experience to level up, and collect phat lewt. However, when you look at it in the context of the above definition, it doesn’t quite fit the bill – and the reason for this lies entirely on how the game splits up the playerbase.
Let’s rewind a bit to see why. Back in the days of yore, when the first MMOGs started popping up, hardware and bandwidth limitations resulted in the concept of a “sharded” universe. A sharded world would be exactly what it says on the tin: A playerbase divided into server “shards,” with a smaller population to play with. Your servers might not be able to handle all 5,000 players at once, but if you made ten shards with 500 apiece, that was much more reasonable.
This is the model that almost all MMOGs have used since then, because it makes sense. Not only does sharding your world make it significantly easier to cram a population of several hundred thousand into virtual real estate the size of Central Park, and lighten the load on your servers, but it also helps foster a sense of community. “Oh hey, you play on the server Skull Throne? I have an alt character there – I’ll send you a /tell next time I’m leveling him up!” You make friends and enemies simply by existing in your little shard of Norrath or Britannia, or wherever you are.
Champions, on the other hand, doesn’t do that. In fact, the entire game is actually instanced – when you move from zone to zone, it gives you a pick of “Millennium City #49” or “Crisis in Canada #14.” You can see how many players are in each little instance, and you can choose whether or not you want to join a zone packed full of hustle and bustle, or want to go someplace more sparse where you’ll have less competition for quests.
It’s an interesting approach, and it’s easy to see why they did it: Not only does it theoretically give the player more choice in where they want to play without rerolling a new character, it also prevents the nasty server queues that seem to accompany any popular MMOG. Champions won’t ever have the problem where they need to transfer population from a shard filled to the brim to a shard that’s more like a ghost gown.
Interesting and functional, certainly. But it’s not MMOG-ish at all. The two key points, going back to that definition at the top, are the number of players and the persistent world, and Champions has neither. As far as players are concerned, the game might have hundreds of thousands of subscribers, but you’ll only ever be with a hundred at the same time – tops. Most of the instanced locations don’t have anywhere close to that. If you’re playing in a Burning Sands with 60 other people, that’s just barely twice the population of, say, a popular Team Fortress 2 server. That’s hardly Massive at all – what good is having thousands upon thousands of subscribers if you only ever get to see a handful of them?
Nor does Champions necessarily pass the persistence test, either. This one’s a bit trickier, though – as far as I can tell, individual zones are persistent. If I’m determined to always go back to Millennium City #27, I can, and it’ll be the same Millennium City I know, always going on without me. But that’s assuming that I manually pick every time. What if I just let the game shunt me into a zone it picks, one that might not be the same one I originally came from? It might be the same, but the people you play with won’t – unless you have a cadre of friends devoted to a particular instance shard, your persistent world will never have a persistent playerbase.
So no, by this definition, Champions isn’t an MMORPG … but saying that sounds a bit absurd, don’t you think? After all, the developers clearly intended for it to be an MMOG, just implemented in a way that circumvents some of the major problems of the genre. And in doing so, they may have inadvertently helped to blur the lines between what is and what is not a Massively Multiplayer game. By the strictest definition, Champions Online might not qualify as an MMOG, but maybe the problem isn’t with the game – it’s with the definition.
Where do we draw the line? Going back to Team Fortress 2 – it has empty servers and full 24/7 rounds on 2Fort, persistent worlds just like those in Champions, with a similar number of people. So yes, as Obi-Wan Kenobi might put it, even TF2 is an MMOG … from a certain point of view, anyway. Hell, does there even need to be a line? Does it actually matter what we call a game, or does trying to fit games into niche labels just narrow our mindset?
Think about it, and get back to me when you can tell me when a stool becomes a chair. | <urn:uuid:ce2ea580-5a99-4c49-8728-17973bf3c547> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.escapistmagazine.com/a-view-from-the-road-the-stool-and-the-chair/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573172.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818063910-20220818093910-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.953971 | 1,415 | 1.75 | 2 |
Public Participation at Board Meetings
How you feel about board meetings probably depends on where you’re from. There are many districts in the State for which every single meeting is a stressful event at which legions of supposedly concerned citizens seem to attack even the most benign decision. Believe it or not, there are also plenty of districts where the board and administration quietly go about the business of education and it’s rare for anyone from the public to even show up, unless it’s award night for the kids. Sometimes the administrators and members of these boards actually wish the public were more involved and taking an active part in the meetings. To this we say, be careful what you wish for. Even the quietest communities can suddenly get riled up over a hot button issue (anything that impacts a successful sports program is usually a good candidate). This article will provide guidance and discuss strategies to help keep the stress of dealing with public participation to a manageable level.
The law requires that a portion of each board meeting be set aside for public participation. Actually, the law says public comment and this is an important distinction. During the public participation portion of the meeting, a member of the public has the right to comment on any school district issue that he or she feels may be of concern to the residents of the district. However, there is no requirement that anyone from the board or administration has to respond. Meetings can get heated when someone from the board and a member of the public engage in a debate that degenerates into a shouting match. Sometimes you may want to advise the board that the best strategy is to simply not engage directly with the members of the public. Let them make their comments, thank them for their input, and move on. If the board feels compelled to provide immediate answers, it may helpful to wait until each member of the pubic has had their say and then respond to all of them after the comment period is over. If there is going to be a response, it’s advisable to designate one or two people to do so. For instance, it might make sense for the superintendent to respond on most operational issues and for the board president to make any comments on behalf of the board.
The law also specifically says that it is up to the board to determine the length of the public comment portion of the meeting. This is an important tool that some boards don’t take advantage of. Encourage your board to set a reasonable period of time for comment at each meeting. This can vary from district to district. In some places, twenty minutes may be sufficient, in others it may need to be forty minutes or even an hour. Whatever it is, stick to it. Of course, on some occasions there will be issues that are so big that the board should allow for extra comment. That’s OK, but do it formally. Suggest that the board president announce upfront that, because of the great interest and number of speakers, the comment period will be extended to an hour or an hour and a half, then try to keep to that schedule.
An important corollary to setting limits on the length of the public comment period is limiting the time permitted for each speaker. We’ve seen boards that allot anywhere from two to five minutes per speaker. This is useful to keep the meeting moving, to force the speakers to focus, and to prevent one or two individuals from monopolizing the discussion.
Whatever rules are put in place, it’s best to set them forth in policy and apply them regularly and consistently. A sure way to invite trouble is to allow some speakers to go over their allotted time while holding others strictly to the limit. More importantly, if the rules are applied consistently, the public will eventually adapt to them and even begin to police themselves. It is also helpful to have the board president remind the public what the rules are at the beginning of each public comment period.
One way in which the superintendent can really help the board deal with public comment is by anticipating hot button issues in advance and devising strategies to address them. Don’t just react at the meeting, try to steal the public’s thunder. Some issues can be defused by a well crafted statement at the beginning of the meeting which explains the board’s position or clears up a misunderstanding. If there are going to be issues with the size of the room or crowd control, or if special rules may be needed because of the number of speakers expected, try to address them with the board president as far in advance of the meeting as possible.
Finally, a few words about the content of public comment. This is an area in which your board really can get itself in trouble. As public bodies, boards of education are subject to the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. This means that citizens have wide latitude when it comes to speaking in public. Reasonable restrictions on the time and manner of speech are permitted, but any attempt by a board to censure someone’s speech based on the content of what they are saying is suspect. In this regard, boards have been found liable when they permitted positive comments about the district or staff but refused to allow negative ones. A board cannot restrict someone’s speech just because they don’t like what they’re saying. Of course, some restrictions are permitted. There is no protection for speech that is obscene, abusive, unreasonably loud, racially charged, or that threatens the safety of the listeners, and speech that is truly repetitive or totally unrelated to education or the school district may be restricted as well.
When it comes to public participation at board meetings, the best advice is summarized in the traditional motto of the Boy Scouts, be prepared, and make sure your board is prepared as well. | <urn:uuid:364792aa-b0e1-4592-ad16-2e3e0761d8ec> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.njasa.net/Page/1240 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572198.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20220815175725-20220815205725-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.962951 | 1,177 | 2.3125 | 2 |
Ever Since the trade imbroglio between US and China reached its peak during the Trump’s Presidency (and which was later sustained by President Biden with call for open support for Taiwan), Chinese aggression against Taiwan has doubled. Latest developments indicate 56 Chinese Jets consisting of H -6 bombers and J -16 Fighter planes encroaching inside Taiwanese air defense Zone (ADZ) in the first week of October 2021. Since the last week alone, Chinese PLA has sent 150 aircrafts inside Taiwanese air defense zone (ADZ) within a period of 4 days drawing increasing condemnation from the international community.
President of Taiwan, Tsai Ing-wen warned Beijing against further actions that could accidentally spark conflict across the Taiwan Strait. “Chinese aggression has severely undermined regional peace and stability,” Tsai said at the weekly meeting of the Democratic Progressive Party’s Central Standing Committee. “Beijing must refrain from going too far and accidentally sparking conflict across the Strait.”
China has been trying to showcase its strong military power ever since Taiwan’s meteoric rise as a high tech superpower and a challenger to the Chinese Electronics chips dominance but the attacks have become more pronounced ever since Xi Jing Ping assumed dictatorial power in China. Chiefly, its objective is to make people of Taiwan understand by force that’s its best in their interest to unify with Mainland China or face the wrath of the dragon. To that end, China has increased the frequency and scale of patrols of PLA bombers, fighter jets, and surveillance aircraft over and around Taiwan. It has also increasingly set sails its warships and aircraft carrier through the Taiwan Strait in shows of force. China has also been instrumental in deep cyber-attacks on Taiwan and government owned agencies. Beijing has also used nonmilitary measures to pressure Taiwan. In 2016, China suspended a cross-strait communication mechanism with the main Taiwan liaison office. It restricted tourism, trade with Taiwan putting additional pressures on global corporations, including airlines and hotel chains, to list Taiwan as a Chinese province. Nevertheless, Taiwan has held the ground to the surprise of China rather, made mincemeat of the provocations.
Given the provocations emanating from China, The United States is now at its closest with Taiwan since the de-recognition of the Republic of China in 1979. In the past few months, US delegations consisting of senior diplomats, senators, cabinet officials, and ambassadors have landed separately in Taipei to reaffirm American support for cross-strait stability and bilateral engagement. A delegation of French senators on Sunday (10th of October, 2021) departed Taiwan after concluding a five-day visit that included meetings with President Tsai Ing-wen and other high-level government officials, an indication to China of the close proximity Taiwan enjoys with France despite creeping differences with USA.
Even as Beijing protests these visits as violations of Chinese sovereignty, the Biden administration has doubled down, expressing its intentions to develop relations with Taiwan in “every sector.” Americans’ attitudes toward Taiwan have also shifted, with an increasing proportion of Americans supporting US intervention in the event that Taiwan were invaded by China (41%), a figure that has been trending upward since 2014 in spite of overwhelming war weariness from Iraq and Afghanistan. US reiterated that its relations with Taiwan is rock solid and any adventure will be countered with force. Recently it approved sales of series of arms defense agreement aimed at strengthening Taiwanese Defenses. To convey its intent US Navy has just dispatched four Aircraft carrier groups consisting of USS Ronald Reagan , USS Carl Vinson, HMS Elizabeth along with Japanese , New Zealand, Australian, Netherland and Canadian Naval vessels in the Indo Pacific to dissuade China from any nefarious designs against Taiwan reports by Reuters news Agency.
The United States’ doubled-down commitments to Taiwan have spilled onto the international stage. The international community has long kept Taiwan at a distance, excluding it from international bodies and often giving in to Chinese pressure, but this has begun to change. Beijing’s blocking of Taiwan’s participation in the World Health Assembly amid the COVID-19 pandemic has invited wariness toward China’s conduct and elevated Taiwan’s visibility. After being sidelined for decades, cross-strait stability and Taiwan’s inclusion in multilateral institutions are now on the agenda of the G-7, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and the European Union. Beijing’s attempts to revise the cross-strait status quo have already forced Australia and South Korea to take stances on the Taiwan Strait, testing Chinese sensitivities. Australian call for probe against China for the COVID pandemic as added salt to the Chinese wound forcing it to cancel the coal contracts to Australian companies which in turn has led to massive power outages inside China. Even Japan, which hosts US bases within 500 miles of Taiwan, now acknowledges that Taiwan’s security is deeply linked to its own security and even questioned its adherence to the “One China” position. In addition, the recent incursion in India’s Ladakh mountain region near Chusul and finger 4 of Pangong Lake by Chinese border patrols has forced India to deploy armed military and infantry divisions to counter Chinese threats after prolonged negotiations forced China to back off. Its recent ingress inside Uttarakhand region has also been noted by Indian military.
China’s actions have effectively invited new international support for Taiwan. There is no doubt that China anticipated international backlash to its pressure on Taiwan, but growing US commitments and international attention are bound to strengthen Taiwan’s resolve to defend its democracy and identity, not weaken it. The fact that unification with Taiwan is a cornerstone of the Chinese Communist Party’s goal of national rejuvenation has further heightened domestic pressure to deliver. Although Chinese President Xi Jinping’s attempts to intimidate Taiwan may win some short term brownie points at home given the exploding real estate and power outage crisis, his tactics have made the path to unification more difficult and costly. Taiwan’s greatest vulnerability is its international isolation, and rather than exploiting that, Beijing’s conspicuous coercive tactics have helped Taiwan gain more international support than it has seen in decades.
-The author is a graduate student of ‘International Relations and strategic alliances’ course administered by Prof Punit Saurabh as part of her MBA at Nirma University. She can reached at firstname.lastname@example.org . Co-author is an Assistant Professor, Institute of Management, Nirma University, Ahmedabad. The views expressed are personal and do not necessarily reflect the views of Raksha Anirveda. | <urn:uuid:8da10ae9-b35c-4654-855b-c79d24ec565f> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://raksha-anirveda.com/chinese-incursions-in-taiwan-adz-backfires/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573172.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818063910-20220818093910-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.956222 | 1,344 | 2.015625 | 2 |
Health Sciences Authority (HSA) of Singapore has alerted people about three health products in which potent undeclared ingredients were detected, one of which led to the hospitalisation of an elderly man. They have issued a warning not to purchase these products.
These health products include Pil Raja Urat Asli, XXS xtraxtrasmall and Best Nutrition Products Diabotica 500mg Capsules. An elderly male who consumed Pil Raja Urat Asli was hospitalised due to the development of Cushing’s syndrome.
The man, in his 70s, bought the supplement from street vendors in Geylang and Chinatown, and took it to relieve pain in his knees. He later developed Cushing's syndrome, a condition caused by the prolonged consumption of steroids. Symptoms include a "moon face" appearance and upper body obesity with thin limbs.
“This was caused by the long-term consumption of steroids such as dexamethasone that was fraudulently added into the product,” said HSA.
Sibutramine – a banned substance for weight loss – was found in XXS xtraxtrasmall, while mycophenolic acid, which is used to suppress immunity in auto-immune diseases, was found in the Diabotica capsules.
“The products were detected through HSA’s post-market product quality surveillance and adverse event monitoring programme. Pil Raja Urat Asli was sold by street peddlers in Geylang and Chinatown, XXS xtraxtrasmall was sold online, and Best Nutrition Products Diabotica 500mg Capsules was sold at local retail outlets. HSA has initiated the recall of the affected products from the retail outlets, and has directed the administrators of online platforms to remove web listings of the affected products,” said HSA in the press release.
People have been advised to stop taking XXS xtraxtrasmall and Best Nutrition Products Diabotica 500mg Capsules immediately and consult a doctor if they feel unwell.
As Pil Raja Urat Asli contains a potent steroid, consumers who have taken this product should see a doctor as soon as possible.
HSA has also advised consumers to be wary of health products that promise or deliver quick and miraculous effects, or carry exaggerated claims such as “unexpectedly good result from the first day” as claimed in XXS xtraxtrasmall.
"Avoid purchasing health products from street peddlers, and exercise caution when buying such products online. You cannot be certain where and how these products were made. They could potentially be counterfeits or adulterated with undeclared potent or banned ingredients which can seriously harm your health," advised HSA.
Anyone who supplies illegal health products is liable to prosecution and if convicted, may be imprisoned for up to 3 years and/or fined up to SGD100,000.
Members of the public who have any information on the sale and supply of these illegal products may contact HSA's Enforcement Branch at Tel: 6866-3485 during office hours (Monday to Friday) or email at email@example.com | <urn:uuid:016e4ad4-cf92-4e43-8729-ce8724a8856b> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.connectedtoindia.com/hsa-warns-people-not-to-purchase-three-health-products-in-singapore-4850.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573172.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818063910-20220818093910-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.972948 | 664 | 1.601563 | 2 |
|Ordered||20 Jan 1941|
|Laid down||19 Nov 1941||Blohm & Voss, Hamburg (werk 618)|
|Launched||6 Aug 1942|
|Commissioned||1 Oct 1942||Kptlt. Herbert Brünning|
|Successes||1 ship sunk, total tonnage 2,125 GRT|
Sunk on 5 July 1944 in Missiessy Dock No. 2 at Toulon, France, in position 43.07N, 05.55E, by bombs during a US air raid (15th AF). No casualties.
Wreck raised on 12 April 1945 and broken up in 1946.
U-642 operated with the following Wolfpacks during its career:
Neuland (4 Mar 1943 - 6 Mar 1943)
Ostmark (6 Mar 1943 - 11 Mar 1943)
Stürmer (11 Mar 1943 - 20 Mar 1943)
Seewolf (21 Mar 1943 - 30 Mar 1943)
Oder (17 May 1943 - 19 May 1943)
Mosel (19 May 1943 - 24 May 1943)
Trutz (1 Jun 1943 - 16 Jun 1943)
Trutz 1 (16 Jun 1943 - 29 Jun 1943)
Geier 3 (30 Jun 1943 - 15 Jul 1943)
Attacks on this boat and other events
9 Jul 1943
Aircraft attack, aircraft shot down: British Catalina flying boat FP155 (210 Sqn RAF/F, pilot F/L D.M. Ryan)
1340hrs, 250 miles west of Lisbon, inbound: the port side of the aircraft was hit by flak during the attack run, damaging the wing, engine and a fuel tank and wounding the bow gunner. Due to this damage, only the three depth charges on the starboard side were dropped, but did not damage U-642, which crash-dived, and thus failed to observe the burning Catalina ditch shortly afterwards. Two aircrew died in the crash and another died the next day from a heart attack. Seven survivors were rescued four days later by HMS Swale and taken to Casablanca.(Sources: Franks/Zimmerman)
1 recorded attack on this boat.
Men lost from U-boats
Unlike many other U-boats, which during their service lost men due to accidents and various other causes, U-642 did not suffer any casualties (we know of) until the time of her loss.
We have 1 emblem entry for this boat. See the emblem page for this boat or view emblems individually below.
As an Amazon Associate uboat.net earns a commission from qualifying purchases. | <urn:uuid:f974ad87-9554-4adb-a1d3-1a632222c3a7> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://uboat.net/boats/u642.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573172.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818063910-20220818093910-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.920421 | 610 | 1.601563 | 2 |
I decided to research Lafayette after hearing his performance as the ‘fastest rapper on Broadway’ in the musical Hamilton. I found this book for free on Amazon and I do recommend that everyone picks this up.
It focuses of course; on the young nobleman, Gilbert Du Motier – Marquis de Lafayette who was raised in France in the 18th Century. He came from a long line of war heroes and had everything. Wit, education, military training, charisma. He floated around the highest circles of the French aristocracy and found out about the struggles in America when he was invited to lunch with the King of France & The King of England’s brother.
He made it known of his plans to go to America on his own to join in the fight for freedom and was actually refused permission to leave by King Louis XVI. Our hero didn’t listen so off to America he went.
The majority of the book highlights his rising to, alongside George Washington; being the most respected General in the American Revolution. His strategies, loyalty to his friends and his troops are presented fittingly. Martha Crow has researched well – a lot of what she bases the story on she backs up with letters and interviews of the time. We are gifted with many letters from Lafayette himself to people such as George Washington, John Adams etc… It touches on his relationship with Hamilton & Laurence. His relationship with Washington is the most emotional, especially in the letters sent and this can be seen in the fact Lafayette named his first son Georges Washington de Lefayatte.
After many well described and fitting moments in battles; Martha relates these to modern day America. Such as were certain statutes and monuments are now erected highlighted events that took place in the historical period.
The author mainly discusses the timeline of his involvement in the American revolution, his imprisonment in Austria and then his heroic return to America. This was as a guest 40 years later where 200,000 people welcomed him back to America before he visited as many providences as he could – imagine the biggest rock star in the world, times that by 1000 and that EVERYONE likes them – he was that big a deal.
I will agree this is quite a simple introduction in to this age and Lafayette himself as another review presented but it has thirst my knowledge further to find out more. It also does not feature any real details of his involvement in the French revolution. He was the ‘Hero of Two Worlds After All’. This is fine. I get the vibe Martha is a proud American who sees Lafayette as an important part of the heritage and the American side of things which is where her vision was focused of course.
I recommended reading this book. I lapped it up within 24 hours as the enigma that was Lafayette had such an amazing and potentially unequalled life. He had everything and risked giving it all up to help out a nation he knew nothing about. In the end he was heralded the world over. It is free on Amazon. I recommend getting it right now. | <urn:uuid:7d2198b3-3a7b-4825-98e9-424b23c8ada7> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://youandibooks.wordpress.com/2016/10/25/review-of-martha-foote-crow-lafayette/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572833.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817001643-20220817031643-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.985546 | 621 | 2.140625 | 2 |
Since the dawn of time, people knew about food fermenting.
Fermentation has been embraced for its benefits of preserving food, decreasing spoilage, and quite simply making food taste better.
Eventually, health benefits were realised.
Because of these innovations, a seemingly never-ending supply of products claiming immune and digestive health benefits for humans has made their way to store shelves.
They come in the form of prebiotic and probiotic enriched foods and supplements.
Having all these products available to benefit people is great.
But what about the other four-legged members of the family?
Can they benefit as well?
The answer is YES! And the best way to support our pets health is through postbiotics.
What is Postbiotics?
Like millions of people, you are probably familiar with other members in the “biotic” family, namely prebiotics and probiotics.
The term postbiotic is most likely new to you.
According to the International Scientific Association of Probiotics and Prebiotics (ISAPP),
A postbiotic is a preparation of inanimate microorganisms and/or their components that confers a health benefit to the host.
Postbiotics may contain intact inanimate microbial cells and/or microbial cell fragments/structures with or without metabolites/end products.
So, what is the difference between prebiotics, probiotics, and postbiotics?
Prebiotics, which are not live organisms, are substrates often found in plant cell walls.
In a sense, they are the fuel for beneficial microorganisms in the gut and essentially feed probiotics.
Probiotics, such as live beneficial bacteria and yeast, are often supplemented to provide extra Factories in the gut to utilize prebiotics to create metabolites.
Postbiotics are produced through precise fermentation inputs and processes to create beneficial metabolites, or the Goods.
Produced by bacteria and yeast, the metabolites present in postbiotics include the Goods that support health such as amino acids, vitamins, short chain fatty acids, and more.
As probiotics feed on prebiotics, postbiotics are produced; however, postbiotics have even more value.
Because postbiotics do not contain live microorganisms, the risk associated with their intake is minimized.
This is what makes postbiotics a real game-changer.
A New Way to Support Pet’s Immune and Gut Health
Pets are a part of the family.
Therefore, it’s makes sense that pet parents will continue to seek natural, novel, and wholesome ingredients in pet products that deliver visible wellness and vitality benefits.
Postbiotics are proven to address and support these important human-animal bond touchpoints.
In this era of increased awareness of health, the powerful benefits of postbiotics is a timely, safe and reliable choice for pet food, treat and supplement products.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author. Healthy Supplies Shop is not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, suitability, or validity of any information on this article. All information is provided on an as-is basis. The information, facts or opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of healthy supplies shop and we do not assume any responsibility or liability for the same. | <urn:uuid:4d6839e9-f14f-4870-972a-60abc84f1939> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.healthysuppliesshop.com/2022/03/01/how-do-animals-benefit-from-fermentation/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572833.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817001643-20220817031643-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.936645 | 721 | 2.75 | 3 |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.