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We’ve updated the Overviews – Attainment report to show a nominal scaled score for Writing when the options “SAT Scaled Score” and “Writing” specifically are selected. This brings the report back in line with other reports (eg Tables and Headlines) which work the same way.
Note: This applies only when these options are selected for the Year 6 Summer/Summer2 term.
This means you can easily show bar charts of attainment for Reading, Writing and Maths on one page by selecting options as below:
Behind the scenes, Insight generates a nominal scaled score based on the Writing SAT TA result which can be used alongside the Reading and Maths results. The SAT teacher assessments are converted like this:
GDS = 113 EXS = 100 WTS = 91
Insight also generates useful Venn diagrams for the data: | <urn:uuid:abfe0595-4d64-44d2-8321-643eae0ff523> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.insighttracking.com/updates/rwm-sat-scaled-scores-on-overviews-attainment/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570765.6/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808031623-20220808061623-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.880007 | 178 | 2.59375 | 3 |
All Topics » Agriculture and Food
Agriculture and Food (81 - 90 of 1,553 items)
Farm Programs: Direct Payments Should Be Reconsidered
GAO-12-640: Published: Jul 3, 2012. Publicly Released: Jul 3, 2012.
Seafood Safety: Responsibility for Inspecting Catfish Should Not Be Assigned to USDA
GAO-12-411: Published: May 10, 2012. Publicly Released: Jun 8, 2012.
Farm Bill: Issues to Consider for Reauthorization
GAO-12-338SP: Published: Apr 24, 2012. Publicly Released: Apr 24, 2012.
Crop Insurance: Savings Would Result from Program Changes and Greater Use of Data Mining
GAO-12-256: Published: Mar 13, 2012. Publicly Released: Apr 12, 2012.
Food Safety: Preslaughter Interventions Could Reduce E. coli in Cattle
GAO-12-257: Published: Mar 9, 2012. Publicly Released: Mar 9, 2012.
Food and Drug Administration: Better Coordination Could Enhance Efforts to Address Economic Adulteration and Protect the Public Health
GAO-12-46: Published: Oct 24, 2011. Publicly Released: Nov 23, 2011.
Food Safety: FDA Needs to Reassess Its Approach to Reducing an Illness Caused by Eating Raw Oysters
GAO-11-607: Published: Sep 8, 2011. Publicly Released: Oct 11, 2011.
United Nations: Improved Reporting and Member States' Consensus Needed for Food and Agriculture Organization's Reform Plan
GAO-11-922: Published: Sep 28, 2011. Publicly Released: Sep 28, 2011.
Antibiotic Resistance: Agencies Have Made Limited Progress Addressing Antibiotic Use in Animals
GAO-11-801: Published: Sep 7, 2011. Publicly Released: Sep 14, 2011.
Homeland Security: Challenges for the Food and Agriculture Sector in Responding to Potential Terrorist Attacks and Natural Disasters
GAO-11-946T: Published: Sep 13, 2011. Publicly Released: Sep 13, 2011. | <urn:uuid:c38607bf-22ce-441e-af42-2d38acd26e78> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.gao.gov/browse/topic/Agriculture_and_Food/?rows=10&o=0&now_sort=issue_date_dt+desc&o=80 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988720153.61/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183840-00323-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.815772 | 456 | 2 | 2 |
We have all heard the phrase "location, location, location," in connection with real estate literature. While it may now seem trite, the phrase still deserves a certain amount of reverence. Location of course is critical to the success of most commercial retail enterprises. For many retail businesses, success or failure will turn on the owner's selectivity and judgment in picking the "right" location. In this regard, businesses may spend numerous hours scouting potential locations, reviewing whether access is safe and convenient, studying visibility and traffic patterns, and determining whether current zoning allows for their permitted use and/or optimal design in an effort to find what they believe will be a successful site.
However, a good location can quickly turn bad in the wake of a condemnation or modification of access. Despite the up-front investment made in finding a good location, relatively little time is spent drafting condemnation and access clauses that will adequately protect a tenant's interests should there be any significant changes to a site as a result of a condemnation or modification of access. Typical condemnation clauses may be good in some cases, but rarely seem to provide the protection a tenant wished it had when confronted with a condemnation or change of access. Consequently, before drafting that next lease, commercial tenants should ask themselves two questions: (1) does my condemnation clause provide me adequate protection and (2) are my interests protected in the event of a change in or modification of access?
II. CONDEMNATION CLAUSES
Leasehold interests are compensable interests in property.1 Generally, absent a provision in the lease to the contrary, it is well established that as between an owner and a tenant, a tenant is entitled to share proportionately in the condemnation award for the value of its leasehold interest.2 Normally, property interests, and whether such interests are compensable in condemnation, are created and defined by existing rules or understandings stemming from state law.3 Still, care must be taken to distinguish between the taking of a leasehold interest, which is compensable, and the purported taking of other interests in real estate which may not be compensable (e.g., lost good will).4
For example, in New Jersey, a tenant has a right to participate and present non-cumulative evidence of its claim in a condemnation.5 This is important because New Jersey follows the "unit rule," which means that there is only one award for all rights implicated by the condemnation (although relocation assistance/payments are treated separately).6 Thus, if there is a dispute as to who gets how much of the award, it is settled in an allocation hearing after the total award has been determined. Consequently, a condemnation clause that provides that a tenant "may only participate and/or receive an award of compensation such that it will not diminish or reduce the award, judgment or settlement receivable by the Landlord," would be inconsistent with the concepts expressed above. Likewise, a clause that provides that a tenant is entitled to only compensation for loss of good will or business opportunity might mean that such a tenant, in a state where such items are non-compensable, has contracted away any right to share in the compensation award.7
While provisions in a lease will not determine what items are compensable, the lease terms will control most disputes between landlord and tenant. Where a lease contains a condemnation clause spelling out the basis for dividing the condemnation award, such a clause will govern. Accordingly, precision in drafting of the lease and recognition of local laws will help to preserve a tenant's interests and may help to avoid disputes.
A. Drafting Remedies.
The key to a condemnation clause is providing for appropriate remedies. Condemnation lease clauses may provide for leasehold termination, leasehold extension options, restoration obligations, apportionment, bonus value, abatement of rent, and may address relocation rights. It is often best to simply provide that the tenant may pursue all available remedies under common law. Additionally, it is important for tenants who construct improvements or fixtures on a property, should they so desire, to provide in the condemnation clause that the tenant is the owner of the improvements and fixtures and is entitled to compensation therefor should they be taken or impacted by a condemnation.8
B. Distinguishing between Total Takings and Partial Takings - Drafting for Discretion.
When drafting leases, tenants should seek to ensure that the condemnation clause provides them sufficient discretion in the event of a condemnation. Further, it is important that the condemnation clause distinguishes between partial and total takings. Frequently, tenants are most vulnerable in a partial taking situation where only a portion of property may be taken, but which will have a large impact on the use of the property.
While the area taken may appear small, it may have big impacts. For example, a partial taking of only a few hundred square feet may reduce drive aisles thereby causing internal circulation problems such that the site is no longer workable (e.g., drive-throughs) or preventing large delivery vehicles from making deliveries. A partial taking can significantly impact the availability of parking, potentially rendering the property non-conforming under local zoning regulations. A reduction in size of a property can severely limit its developability given the existing bulk requirements. A small taking at the corner of a property may eliminate the prime location for identification signs. The construction of an elevated roadway or improvement by the condemning agency on the property acquired can result in a loss of visibility of the remaining property to passing motorists. These are but a few of the impacts a partial taking can have on a property. Accordingly, when drafting leases, effort should be taken to address situations where a partial taking will have significant impact on the "workability" of a site. In this regard, tenants should seek as much discretion as possible to determine whether the partial taking has rendered the remaining property "not capable of being used for its intended or permitted use," and to choose the desired remedy (e.g., termination, restoration, or abatement).
C. Access Clauses.
Equally important to the success of retail operations is the availability of safe and convenient access to a property. However, many commercial leases provide scant attention to access and the potential impacts a change in access can have on a property or use. While a change in access can have as much of an impact, if not more, than a partial condemnation of property, commercial leases are often void of any reference to the implications of a change in access. Perhaps it's because the parties to the lease believe that the condemnation clause will govern their interests should a governmental agency modify their access. If this is the case, commercial tenants may be in for a rude awakening should a modification of access occur.
1. Regulation of Access Under the Police Power is Not a Taking.
By and large, the owner of land abutting on a street or highway has a right of access to and from the adjacent street.9 The right is considered a natural easement and an incident of land ownership. It is a property right and its deprivation therefore requires just compensation.10
It is generally accepted, however, that pursuant to the police power, a government may regulate access to and from the road for the public safety and welfare.11 Consequently, the rights of an abutting owner may be subordinated to the right of the public to the proper use of the highway and the right of governmental agencies to enforce proper police regulation. In such an instance, the regulation does not constitute a taking or condemnation for which just compensation is required. The inconvenience, reduction in profits or depreciation in the value of property that occurs as a result of a legitimate exercise of the state's police power is considered damnum absque injuria (loss or damage without injury in the legal sense).12 In other words, there is no "legal damage." There is no "taking" and the loss is not compensable.
Thus, the right of access is more properly regarded as the right to reasonable, but not unlimited, access to existing and adjacent public roads. That is, "the property owner is not entitled to access to his land at every point between it and the highway but only to 'free and convenient access to his property and the improvements on it.'"13 To this end, it is often stated that a property owner has no vested right in the continued flow of traffic past his or her property.14 Therefore, where by virtue of state action, access is limited but remains reasonable, there is no such denial of access as entitles the landowner to compensation.15
2. The Impact of Access Regulation.
Access is a key component of property value, and the impairment of access that results from a partial taking of property often has significant real-world effects on value. For example, many retail establishments depend upon pass-by customers who, while driving by, choose to stop and purchase goods or services. These businesses require a certain traffic flow and easy access. If entry onto the business establishment becomes difficult, customers will likely patronize other competing businesses that have easier or more convenient access. Consequently, an impairment of access for such businesses can mean a devastating loss of business.
Under proper exercise of its police power in the regulation of traffic, a state entity or transportation authority may:
- reduce the number of existing access points;
- change the width of an access point;
- change the location of an access point;
- re-route or divert traffic; construct a traffic island;
- install a median strip prohibiting or limiting crossovers from one lane to another;
- use or install traffic control devices;
- prescribe one-way traffic;
- place restrictions on u-turns, left and right turns;
- install guardrails or curbing;
- restrict the weight, size, and speed of traffic on the street;
- construct a fly-over past a property;
- replace access on a highway with access on a local roadway;
- or install "no parking" signs.16
A change in access or similar exercise of police power as described above can have myriad impacts. A change in access may reverse traffic flows through drive aisles or around improvements; disrupt the ability of delivery vehicles to safely enter or exit the site; cause internal circulation problems such as mixing of commercial vehicles with customer traffic; cause traffic to flow by a competitor's business before reaching an entry point on the subject property; create a more circuitous access route; shift a primary access point from the front of a building to the back; shift a primary access point from a highly traveled highway to a local roadway or connector road; make access more difficult by creating the need to cross a newly constructed feeder lane; limit movements entering or exiting the subject property; and reduce visibility.
Simply stated, the regulation of access can turn a good location into a bad location. Given the potential impacts a change or modification of access can have on a property, it is imperative that retail or commercial operators who enter into leases include clauses that address the potential for administrative changes in access. Moreover, commercial operators must keep in mind that the regulation of access can be accomplished outside of the condemnation arena and frequently will not provide for any compensation to property owners or tenants. Accordingly, commercial leases should be drafted and negotiated to address potential issues involving loss/change of access, such as requiring notice to tenants, participation in access proceedings if legally permissible, and an escape clause should the operator determine that the change in access will have a material impact on the business' operation. Without such clauses, a commercial tenant might be stuck at its site with no way in and no way out.
George J. Kroculick is a partner in Duane Morris' Real Estate Practice Group. His practice focuses on eminent domain and highway access management and control, land use and land use litigation, relocation assistance, tax appeal matters and general commercial litigation.
Michael J. McCalley is an associate in Duane Morris' Real Estate Practice Group, with a practice focusing on eminent domain/condemnation, redevelopment, highway access management and control, and relocation assistance.
- Silberman v. United States, 131 F.2d.715, 717 (1st Cir. 1942).
- Amoco Oil Company v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 157 Pa. Commw. 222, 227 (1993).
- See Board of Regents of State Colleges v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 577 (1972).
- E.g., State, by the Com'r of Transp. v. Hess Realty Corp., 226 N.J. Super. 256 (App. Div. 1988), certif. denied, 113 N.J. 383, aff'd, 115 N.J. 229 (1989), cert. denied., 493 U.S. 964, 110 S. Ct. 406, 107 L.Ed.2d 371 (1989) (value of lost good will and business opportunity non-compensable).
- New Jersey Sports & Exposition Authority v. East Rutherford, 137 N.J. Super. 271, 279 (Law Div. 1975); City of Atlantic City v. Cynwyd Investments, 148 N.J. 55, 73 (1997).
- Jersey City Redevelopment Agency v. Costello, 252 N.J. Super. 247, 259 (App. Div. 1991).
- Hess Realty Corp., supra.
- Almota Farmers Elevator & Warehouse Co. v. United States, 409 U.S. 470, 474, 93 S.Ct. 791, 794, 35 L.Ed.2d 1 (1973) (finding that "just compensation" may include compensation for a lessee's expectancy in the continued use of an improvement beyond the remaining term of the lease).
- 4 Nichols on Eminent Domain § 13.23 (Sackman, 3rd Ed.).
- Id.; Mueller v. N.J. Highway Auth., 59 N.J. Super. 583, 158 A.2d 343, (App.Div.1960).
- 4 Nichols on Eminent Domain, § 13.23.
- See Commonwealth, Dep't of Transp. v. Nod's Inc., 14 Pa. Commw. 192, 321 A.2d 373 (1974); Yegen v. City of Bismarck, 291 N.W.2d 422 (N.D. 1980).
- Id. at 595, 158 A.2d 343; Wolf v. Department of Highways, 422 Pa. 34, 220 A.2d 868 (1966).
- City of Wichita, supra, 266 Kan. at 718.
- Hession Condemnation Case, 430 Pa. 273, 279-280, 242 A.2d 432 (1968) (a reasonable restriction to an abutting property owner's right to access does not give rise to a compensable claim); State Highway Comm'r v. Kendall, 107 N.J. Super. 248, 258 A.2d 33 (App.Div.1969) (limitation of access to designated openings resulting from the installation of curbing and railing along highway); State v. Stulman, 136 N.J. Super. 148, 345 A.2d 329 (App.Div.1975) (substitution of more circuitous access roads not compensable).
- See Yegen, supra, 291 N.W.2d 422; City of Phoenix v. Wade, 5 Ariz. App. 505, 428 P.2d 450 (1967); State v. Gannons Inc., 275 Minn. 14, 145 N.W.2d 321 (1966); Painter v. State, Department of Roads, 177 Neb. 905, 131 N.W.2d 587 (1964); Darnall v. State, 79 S.D. 59, 108 N.W.2d 201 (1961); Iowa State Highway Commission v. Smith, 248 Iowa 869, 82 N.W.2d 755, 73 A.L.R.2d 680 (1957); Lee v. North Dakota Park Service, 262 N.W.2d 467 (N.D.1978); Commwealth, Dept. of Transp. v. Kastner, 13 Pa. Commw. 525, 320 A.2d 146 (1974), cert. denied, 419 U.S. 1109, 95 S.Ct. 783, 42 L.Ed.2d 806 (1975); State v. Interpace Corp., 130 N.J. Super. 322, 327 A.2d 225 (App.Div.1974); State v. Monmouth Hills, Inc., 110 N.J. Super. 449, 266 A.2d 133 (App.Div.1970); City of Wichita v. McDonald's Corp., 266 Kan. 708, 971 P.2d 1189 (1999)].
Reprinted by permission of Retail Law Strategist. | <urn:uuid:7607d150-828f-4684-937c-4f0d761d06a6> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.duanemorris.com/articles/article2724.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571056.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20220809155137-20220809185137-00670.warc.gz | en | 0.917578 | 3,509 | 1.78125 | 2 |
February 23, 2016
Wisdom Teachings: The Atlantean Mysterieshttp://discerningthemystery2000plus.blogspot.co.il/2016/02/wisdom-teachings-atlantean-mysteries.html
This week, Wisdom Teachings continued with David Wilcock's talk on the history of our solar system, the Law of One, and the ways in which these teachings may apply to our present-day experience. This episode would discuss how the civilization of Atlantis came to be as developed and advanced as the stories suggest, and how its people received assistance from the Ra group in becoming so.
David starts off by referencing the a passage in the Law of One which discusses just how many inhabited, 3rd-density worlds exist in our galaxy alone.
10.18 Questioner: How many stars, approximately, would be in a galaxy?
Ra: It depends upon the galactic system. Your own, as you know, contains many, many, millions of planet entities and star bodies.
Since the passage is a bit vague on its own, it may be difficult to decipher the exact meaning of this passage alone. Though within later passages, the text refers to humanoids as “planet entities”. If the text refers to planets and humans with this same vague term, it is quite possible that both the number of planets and humanoids falls within the magnitude of millions, as David mentions in his talk.
He goes on to explain how the human form is an intelligently designed form, and that it can be seen throughout the cosmos. This repetitive form is said to be a divine expression(a sort of fractal template, or the expression of the universal “logos”, in Law of One terms).
Wilcock mentioned a few interesting facts about the origins of the Law of One, and how strong the possibility that these channelings are authentic. As he has said in previous episodes, it seems to have been channeled knowledge from a higher source. This source called itself "Ra", and had many similarities and correlations from the ancient myths of history. This source spoke on matters about which Carla Rucker (the woman channeling in trance) had no knowledge of. Carla was basically sleep-talking, but as she spoke, she mentioned numerous scientifically validated facts, many of which had not yet been discovered or disclosed at the time. David Wilcock actually lived with Carla and her husband for some time, and was able to speak with her first hand on the matter. Since then, he has spent much of his life from then on trying to decipher the knowledge given during those sessions.
David mentioned the subject of an influx of souls who entered into the 3rd density of Earth due to the invitation of the Ra beings. This was also a result of the dropping of the quarantine (referenced in previous articles). This subject is described in the following passage from the Law of One text.. As described, these souls were invited to the Earth in a sense so as to provide the greatest potential for 3rd-density experiences, and to create a greater potential for future graduation to higher densities. (Notice the term “planetary entities” is used once again.)
"6.25 Questioner: Do any of them come here at this time in spacecraft? In the past, say, thirty years?
Ra: I am Ra. We must state that this information is unimportant. If you will understand this, we feel that the information may be acceptably offered. The Law of One is what we are here to express. However, we will speak upon this subject.
Each planetary entity which wishes to appear within your third-dimensional space/time distortion requests permission to break quarantine, as you may call it, and appear to your peoples. The reason and purpose for this appearance is understood and either accepted or rejected. There have been as many as fifteen of the Confederation entities in your skies at any one time; the others available to you through thought.
At present there are seven which are operating with craft in your density. Their purposes are very simple: to allow those entities of your planet to become aware of infinity which is often best expressed to the uninformed as the mysterious or unknown.”
According to this passage, one major goal of this 3rd-density experience is to become aware of the infinite, or the "great mystery". David goes into the concept of Free Will, in the fact that the Ra group will not intervene in the affairs of a developing civilization unless specifically requested to do so. As he goes into the subject of Atlantis, he explains that this is what occurred their during the last 25,000-year cycle. These Atlanteans specifically requested higher spiritual guidance and wisdom, and as they did, the Ra group responded by immediately, dropping the quarantine. However, when this occurred they threw open the gates, so to speak, and allowed 3rd-density Earth to be accessed by multiple “mind/boy/spirit complexes” (per the Law of Free Will). Due to the respect for Free Will, they also allowed those on the negative path to have access as well.
22.16 Questioner: Well, then, as the cycle terminated 25,000 years ago, what was the reaction of the Confederation to the lack of harvest?
Ra: I am Ra. We became concerned.
22.17 Questioner: Was any action taken immediately, or did you wait for a call?
Ra: I am Ra. The Council of Saturn acted only in allowing the entry into third density of other mind/body/spirit complexes of third density, not Wanderers, but those who sought further third-density experience. This was done randomly so that free will would not be violated for there was not yet a call.
22.18 Questioner: Was the next action taken by the Confederation when a call occurred?
Ra: I am Ra. This is correct.
22.19 Questioner: Who or what group produced this call, and what action was taken by the Confederation?
Ra: The calling was that of Atlanteans. This calling was for what you would call understanding with the distortion towards helping other-selves. The action taken is that which you take part in at this time: the impression of information through channels, as you would call them.
22.20 Questioner: Was this first calling then at a time before Atlantis became technologically advanced?
Ra: I am Ra. This is basically correct.
22.21 Questioner: Then did the technological advancement of Atlantis come because of this call? I am assuming the call was answered to bring them the Law of One and the Law of Love as a distortion of the Law of One, but did they also then get technological information that caused them to grow into such a highly technological society?
Ra: I am Ra. Not at first. At about the same time as we first appeared in the skies over Egypt and continuing thereafter, other entities of the Confederation appeared unto Atlanteans who had reached a level of philosophical understanding, shall we misuse this word, which was consonant with communication, to encourage and inspire studies in the mystery of unity.
However, requests being made for healing and other understandings, information was passed having to do with crystals and the building of pyramids as well as temples, as you would call them, which were associated with training.
22.22 Questioner: Was this training the same type of initiatory training that was done with the Egyptians?
Ra: I am Ra. This training was different in that the social complex was more, shall we say, sophisticated and less contradictory and barbarous in its ways of thinking. Therefore the temples were temples of learning rather than the attempt being made to totally separate and put upon a pedestal the healers.
22.23 Questioner: Then were there what we would call priests trained in these temples?
Ra: I am Ra. You would not call them priests in the sense of celibacy, of obedience, and of poverty. They were priests in the sense of those devoted to learning.
The difficulties became apparent as those trained in this learning began to attempt to use crystal powers for those things other than healing, as they were involved not only with learning but became involved with what you would call the governmental structure.
22.24 Questioner: Was all of their information given to them in the way you’re giving our information now, through an instrument such as this instrument?
Ra: I am Ra. There were visitations from time to time but none of importance in the, shall we say, historical passage of events in your space/time continuum.
22.25 Questioner: Was it necessary for them to have a unified social complex for these visitations to occur? What conditions were nec— I’m saying, what conditions were necessary for these visitations to occur?
Ra: I am Ra. The conditions were two: the calling of a group of people whose square overcame the integrated resistance of those unwilling to search or learn; the second requirement, the relative naïveté of those members of the Confederation who felt that direct transfer of information would necessarily be as helpful for Atlanteans as it had been for the Confederation entity.
22.26 Questioner: I see then. What you’re saying is these naïve Confederation entities had had the same thing happen to them in the past so they were doing the same thing for the Atlantean entities. Is this correct?
Ra: I am Ra. This is correct. We remind you that we are one of the naïve members of that Confederation and are still attempting to recoup the damage for which we feel responsibility. It is our duty as well as honor to continue with your peoples, therefore, until all traces of the distortions of our teach/learnings have been embraced by their opposite distortions, and balance achieved.”
So we have the Ra Confederation answering the call for assistance by the Atlanteans. These Confederation members observed the same issues among the Atlanteans that they themselves once had. I gather that they also received a similar type of assistance during their development, which was why they sought to help in this situation.
One interesting point to note (and David mentioned this as well) was with regard to the matter of priesthood. These Ra beings didn't refer to priesthood as that which involved celibacy, poverty, or much of anything we may commonly relate to priesthood. Instead, they simply used the term to refer to those who were devoted to learning. This means that by this definition, each person reading this and devoting their energy to learning all they can are in essence, priests. So keep it up. You're doing great.
Another interesting point that Wilcock made was that Edgar Cayce is partially known for channeling "Thoth the Atlantean". This character is also said to be the god "Tetuti" of the Egyptian polytheistic faiths. David made mention of the fact that in both cases, this character manifested as an avian (a humanoid with a bird head). This is of course, another correlation between the Ra group and the Blue Avian group being mentioned in recent times.
Edgar Cayce's Contact with Thoth
History of the god known as Tehuti/Thoth
The discussion continued with the mention of how the Ra group contacted the Atlantean priesthood. The contact first began with channelings. This is typical of assistance from higher, benevolent sources, as it respects the Law of Confusion. This ensures that only those who truly desire to learn and to know take note of what is being said, and if they are able to discern the truth from that which may come from negative sources, they are allowed to learn even more. (Remember, both the positive and negative are available to those who are open, and it is the free-will choice of anyone, through their thoughts, choices, and actions to attract either.)
Upon discerning this higher knowledge, those studying such insight will then receive more clear contact and understanding from higher sources, after which point, they may be visited by higher beings in physical form. The lesson these beings bring is ultimately, that among all of the endless diversity, differences, and variations of life, people and experiences we have, that there is only One of Us here. When we learn this fully, we become the universe, the cosmos, and awareness itself (or realize that we already are these). This is a path that each of us is on, traveling at our own pace in our own way, and yet learning/remembering the same lesson.
(One more interesting point to note... The Law of Karma is designed to teach us in a round about way, that everything we do to others, we do to ourselves. This is why our actions tend to “come back” to us.)
David went on. The knowledge of crystals was passed to the Atlanteans by the Ra group, who also gave this knowledge to other ancient civilizations. The pyramids were a form of crystal, and were designed to captured the source field energy (or torsion energy) and create healing effects. This could be used for healing, for focusing of one's own energy, and ultimately for faster ascension. Here is what the text says on the subject of the pyramid technology.
“2.3 Questioner: We are very interested in the entire story that you have to tell and in getting into the Law of One in quite some detail. There will be several questions that I’ll ask as we go along that may or may not be related directly to understanding the Law of One. However, I believe that the proper way of presenting this as a teach/learning vehicle to the population of the planet that will read it at this time is to investigate different facets of what you tell us. You spoke of crystal healing. (One other thing I might mention is that when the instrument becomes fatigued we want to cut off communication and resume it at a later time after the instrument is recharged.) And if the instrument is suitable at this time I would like a little discussion of the crystal healing that you mentioned.
Ra: I am Ra. The principle of crystal healing is based upon an understanding of the hierarchical nature of the structure of the illusion which is the physical body, as you would call it. There are crystals which work upon the energies coming into the spiritual body; there are crystals which work upon the distortions from spirit to mind; there are crystals which balance the distortions between the mind and the body. All of these crystal healings are charged through purified channels. Without the relative crystallization of the healer working with the crystal, the crystal will not be properly charged. The other ingredient is a proper alignment with the energy fields of the planet upon which you dwell and the holistic or cosmic distortions or streamings which enter the planetary aura in such a manner that an appropriate ratio of shapes and placement within these shapes is of indicated aid in the untangling or balancing process.
To go through the various crystals to be used would be exhaustive to this instrument, although you may ask us if you wish in another session. The delicacy, shall we say, of the choosing of the crystal is very critical and, in truth, a crystalline structure such as a diamond or ruby can be used by a purified channel who is filled with the love/light of One in almost any application.
This, of course, takes initiation, and there have never been many to persevere to the extent of progressing through the various distortion leavings which initiation causes.
May we further inform you in any fairly brief way upon this or another subject?
2.4 Questioner: Yes. You mentioned that the pyramids were an outgrowth of this. Could you expand a little bit on— Were you responsible for the building of the pyramid, and what was the purpose of the pyramid?
Ra: I am Ra. The larger pyramids were built by our ability using the forces of One. The stones are alive. It has not been so understood by the mind/body/spirit distortions of your culture. The purposes of the pyramids were two:
Firstly, to have a properly oriented place of initiation for those who wished to become purified or initiated channels for the Law of One.
Two, we wished then to carefully guide the initiates in developing a healing of the people whom they sought to aid and the planet itself. Pyramid after pyramid charged by the crystal and initiate were designed to balance the incoming energy of the One Creation with the many and multiple distortions of the planetary mind/body/spirit. In this effort we were able to continue work that brothers within the Confederation had effected through building of other crystal-bearing structures and thus complete a ring, if you will, of these about the Earth’s, as this instrument would have us vibrate it, surface.
This instrument begins to lose energy. We ask for one more query or subject and then we shall take our leave for this time/space.”
We see this pyramid technology worked quite well for the Atlanteans. However, it would later pose a problem for this civilization, as some of the priesthood would later choose to follow the negative path. This happened as the priests started to form a hierarchy which would ultimately turn into government. They started restricting use of the pyramids, and instead of allowing free and open access, made the people go through an initiation process. This is what would eventually form the hierarchy, and the consequent negative offshoot.
This is most likely the true origin of the Illuminati (hence, the use of the pyramid in their insignia and propaganda). The pyramids of Egypt and those of South America would eventually be used for negative ends in this same way. This goes to show the principle that whenever higher knowledge or power is passed down, there is always a choice as to how to use it. Some choose the higher path of positive focus and service to others, while others choose the path of negative, unbalanced self service. This can be seen in multiple instances, and in this case, was brought about by the gifting of pyramid technology.
There are always those who take the opportunity to learn as an opportunity to take control and to seize power, and according to the Law of Free Will, this is perfectly allowed. This is why the Draco were allowed the opportunity to influence the situation. The dark needed a more powerful source to guide them along their own path of darkness. This passage illustrates how the priests of two other civilizations perverted the higher teachings and turned to the negative path.
1.5 Questioner: Could you give me a little more detail about your role with the Egyptians?
Ra: I am Ra. The identity of the vibration Ra is our identity. We as a group, or what you would call a social memory complex, made contact with a race of your planetary kind which you call Egyptians. Others from our density made contact at the same time in South America, and the so-called “lost cities” were their attempts to contribute to the Law of One.
We spoke to one who heard and understood and was in a position to decree the Law of One. However, the priests and peoples of that era quickly distorted our message, robbing it of the, shall we say, compassion with which unity is informed by its very nature. Since it contains all, it cannot abhor any.
When we were no longer able to have appropriate channels through which to enunciate the Law of One, we removed ourselves from the now hypocritical position which we had allowed ourselves to be placed in. And other myths, shall we say, other understandings having more to do with polarity and the things of your vibrational complex, again took over in that particular society complex.
Does this form a sufficient amount of information, or could we speak further?
So we can see that according to the Law of One, some of these priests chose this negative path, after which point, the Ra beings could no longer get through to them. This started in Atlantis and became the trend in other cultures as well. So ultimately, the Illuminati today is running on perverted Atlantean teachings and misused technology.
Consequently, the Ra group felt responsible for catalyzing the difficult situation in which we find ourselves today. The Law of One channelings are essentially an apology for this infraction.
18.24 Questioner: Then Yahweh’s communications did not help or did not create what Yahweh wished for them to create. Is this correct?
Ra: I am Ra. The results of this interaction were quite mixed. Where the entities were of a vibrational sum characteristic which embraced oneness, the manipulations of Yahweh were very useful. Wherein the entities of free will had chosen a less positively oriented configuration of sum total vibratory complex, those of the Orion group were able for the first time to make serious inroads upon the consciousness of the planetary complex.
This perversion of sacred teachings was the beginning of the societal problems we have today from such people, believing a version of the original truth, but to the point where those teachings are so perverted, they do very little good for anyone, if any at all.
This brings up an interesting point, that not everyone who appears to be speaking truth is always trustworthy. The cabal speak truth all of the time. The Illuminati and Lucifer worshipers speak truth all of the time. A major difference between they and actual, trustworthy sources is their inability to pass along information in a way that is free from negative distortion, from unbalanced, self-serving intent, and from trademark, manipulative tactics. Personally, I find it unfortunate that so few people in recent times seem to be able to discern, let alone care, about the difference between positive and negative sources. The negative always has manipulative intent which not only ignores the Law of Free Will, but attempts to convince the audience that such a law doesn't exist. This brings up an interesting point, that not everyone who appears to be speaking truth is always trustworthy. The cabal speak truth all of the time. The Illuminati and Lucifer worshipers speak truth all of the time. A major difference between they and actual, trustworthy sources is their inability to pass along information in a way that is free from negative distortion, from unbalanced, self-serving intent, and from trademark, manipulative tactics. Personally, I find it unfortunate that so few people in recent times seem to be able to discern, let alone care, about the difference between positive and negative sources. The negative always has manipulative intent which not only ignores the Law of Free Will, but attempts to convince the audience that such a law doesn't exist. The positive are those who constantly remind the audience of their responsibility to chose in freedom. (Notice David Wilcock is constantly referring to this responsibility of choice.) For those who are awake, it is important to learn this difference, and to realize the fact that before we ever decide 'what' to think, we should first learn 'how'. (...not to be insulting. We all have a chance to wake up, but before we try to change to world, it's important to first wash the sleep out of our eyes.)
The Anatomy of Propaganda – Examining Multiple Tactics of Psychological Manipulation in Media Today
David goes on to describe the writings of Plato. One particular writing revealed quite an interesting addition to the details of the Law of One text. In 360 B.C.E, Plato wrote a piece called “Timeaus” in which he tells the story of the experiences of a man named Solon as he spoke with the Egyptian priests. These priests told Solon about the ancient myths of the world that brought their people to the then-present times.
“Thereupon one of the priests, who was of a very great age, said: O Solon, Solon, you Hellenes are never anything but children, and there is not an old man among you. Solon in return asked him what he meant. I mean to say, he replied, that in mind you are all young; there is no old opinion handed down among you by ancient tradition, nor any science which is hoary with age.
And I will tell you why. There have been, and will be again, many destructions of mankind arising out of many causes; the greatest have been brought about by the agencies of fire and water, and other lesser ones by innumerable other causes.”
These destructions are termed in multiple ways through the ages. They are called inundations and deluges to describe destruction by water. There were also instances of destructive events called “conflagrations” which refers to destruction by fire (or something similar thereto). The Timeaus writings continue.
“There is a story, which even you have preserved, that once upon a time Paethon, the son of Helios, having yoked the steeds in his father's chariot, because he was not able to drive them in the path of his father, burnt up all that was upon the earth, and was himself destroyed by a thunderbolt. Now this has the form of a myth, but really signifies a declination of the bodies moving in the heavens around the earth, and a great conflagration of things upon the earth, which recurs after long intervals; at such times those who live upon the mountains and in dry and lofty places are more liable to destruction than those who dwell by rivers or on the seashore.
And from this calamity the Nile, who is our never-failing savior, delivers and preserves us. When, on the other hand, the gods purge the earth with a deluge of water, the survivors in your country are herdsmen and shepherds who dwell on the mountains, but those who, like you, live in cities are carried by the rivers into the sea. Whereas in this land, neither then nor at any other time, does the water come down from above on the fields, having always a tendency to come up from below; for which reason the traditions preserved here are the most ancient.”
At this point, Wilcock makes the point that the ancient religion of Zoroastrianism referred to this same destructive occurrence, describing fire from the heavens raining down like molten metal. The following passage comes from the site, “The History of Zoroastrianism”, and may have been the passage Wilcock was referring to.
“He will raise the bodies of the dead and unite them with their souls, there will be a mighty conflagration, and all men will have to wade through a stream of molten metal which will seem like warm milk to the just and be in very truth what it is to the wicked. The sins of the damned, however, purged away in this terrible ordeal and all creation returns to its Maker in joy.” (Ganthas)
The description of molten metal may fit very well will the coronal mass ejection concept, as this may have been the most familiar reference to solar dynamics the average person of that time period may have understood.
Reference on Zoroastrianism
Coronal Mass Ejection (CME)
So we have the Egyptian mythology as well as Zoroastrianism concurring on this same subject of a conflagrative event. (However, as long as a person is on the positive path, there is little to worry about.) David continues with the Timeaus passage with an important point.
“The fact is, that wherever the extremity of winter frost or of summer does not prevent, mankind exist, sometimes in greater, sometimes in lesser numbers. And whatever happened either in your country or in ours, or in any other region of which we are informed-if there were any actions noble or great or in any other way remarkable, they have all been written down by us of old, and are preserved in our temples. Whereas just when you and other nations are beginning to be provided with letters and the other requisites of civilized life, after the usual interval, the stream from heaven, like a pestilence, comes pouring down, and leaves only those of you who are destitute of letters and education; and so you have to begin all over again like children, and know nothing of what happened in ancient times, either among us or among yourselves.”
This passage reveals the likelihood of such repeated destructive events would leave the remaining people of the Earth ignorant of the higher knowledge which passed to those more astute then they (as the more positive and astute would likely be "harvested" prior to such destruction). One major point this passage makes is the fact of consistent, predictable intervals of such a conflagration. The Law of One text also mentions this consistent interval.
“6.15 Questioner: What is the length, in our years, of one of these cycles currently?
Ra: One major cycle is approximately twenty-five thousand [25,000] of your years. There are three cycles of this nature during which those who have progressed may be harvested at the end of three major cycles. That is, approximately between seventy-five and seventy-six thousand [75–76,000] of your years. All are harvested regardless of their progress, for during that time the planet itself has moved through the useful part of that dimension and begins to cease being useful for the lower levels of vibration within that density.”
In previous articles, we discussed how the Ra group plaid the role of overseeing the transport of civilizations to their most appropriate destinations on a soul level. David mentions how Corey has stated in previous episodes how the Inner Earthers also plaid a similar role, in that they sheltered those on the surface who were seen to be virtuous, from the predictable destruction which took place at these intervals.
I find this very interesting because one specific channel (who most people seem to have written off) has been saying this same thing for at least a decade. This is, of course, Sheldan Nidle.
Sheldan Nidle – Update for February 16
Sheldan Nidle – Update for February 9
Sheldan Nidle – Update for February 2
Next week's episode is slated to cover in greater detail, the subject of this end-of-the-age phenomenon referenced numerous time within the Law of One.
Personally speaking, it's understandable to see why Wilcock has remained true to this story line. Since I started reading and watching his material, he seems to do the most extensive research and multi-directional, historical correlation as anyone I've seen. I haven't yet seen anyone else out there who so diligently seeks such multifaceted understanding and insight then he. Not only this, but the combination of both the creative and logical aspects of the pursuit of greater knowledge within his research is extremely rare, as specially in recent years. Anyone is welcome to whatever opinion they choose, but with regard to objective, scientifically verifiable information, Wilcock's material seems to be among the most sound, in my opinion.
I look forward to more, but I look even more forward to actually experiencing this process of change, as well as sharing it with my readers. | <urn:uuid:eae0c233-899f-409e-b6bf-a5f12f60a8ef> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.divinecosmosunion.net/t243-topic | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280587.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00563-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969784 | 6,408 | 2.15625 | 2 |
Prospective immigrants interested in moving in the National Capital Region (NCR) often ask whether they should settle in Ottawa or in Gatineau. This is a rather big decision to make, because even though the two cities are very close geographically speaking, they are located in two different provinces, with the Ottawa River as a boundary.
I live in Ottawa and I don’t go to Gatineau often because I don’t need to—that said, a lot of my friends and acquaintances chose to live in Quebec for various reasons. There is no “good” or “bad” place to live: both Ottawa and Gatineau have their strengths and weaknesses, as the article will highlight.
What is the National Capital Region?
The term “National Capital Region” or “NCR” is used to describe the Ottawa-Gatineau area.
The National Capital Region is an official federal designation for Ottawa, Ontario; the neighbouring city of Gatineau, Quebec; and surrounding urban and rural communities such a Nepean, Kanata, Barrhaven, etc.
The National Capital Region in Numbers
- Area: 4,715 km2 (1,820 sq mi)
- Population: 1,451,415 (Ottawa 883,391 and Gatineau 265,349)
- Phone area codes: 613, 819, 343, 873
- English as a mother tongue: 501,870 (Ottawa) vs. 25,365 (Gatineau)
- Language spoken most often at home: English in Ottawa (by 606,535 people) and French in Gatineau (by 193,685 people)
- Language most often used at work: English in Ottawa (by 441,285 people) and French in Gatineau (by 89,540 people)
- Population of immigrants: 178,545 in Ottawa and 20,780 in Gatineau
Living in Ottawa or in Gatineau… what’s the big deal?
The region falls into two provinces—that’s the “big deal”—or rather the biggest deal. Indeed, Canada is a federation with two distinct jurisdictions of political authority: the country-wide federal government and the ten regionally-based provincial governments.
For residents, this means that a number of matters are the responsibility of the province they live in, the Government of Ontario for Ottawa and the Government of Quebec for Gatineau. The following areas fall into the provincial responsibility:
- Administration of justice
- Natural resources and the environment
- Vehicle drivers and vehicle use (driver licenses, winter tire use; seat belt and child seat use)
To give you a few examples of practical differences between Quebec and Ontario:
- In Quebec, the legal drinking age is 18 but in Ontario it’s 19 (yes, a lot of 18 years old Ontarians go to bars in Quebec!). Beside, in Ontario, you can only buy alcohol at the LCBO or Beer Store, but in Quebec it is sold in supermarket and convenience stores.
- Ontario/Canada income tax is significantly lower than Quebec’s. The sales tax is also higher in Quebec: in Ontario, the HST (Harmonized Sales Tax) is 13%, in Quebec it is 14.5%.
- In Gatineau, parents can benefit from $7/day daycare services, subject to availability (and the waiting list is long!). Childcare services are much less subsidized in Ottawa, and will cost more.
Of course, Ottawa and Gatineau are also two distinct municipalities so there are a number of differences here. Garbage collection and waste management are municipal responsibility, and so are municipal services such as fire, emergency medical services, police, parks, roads, sidewalks, drinking water, stormwater, etc.
For instance, in Ottawa, the local bus system is operated by OCTranspo, and there is also a small light-rail service, the OTrain. Gatineau residents rely on the Société de transport de l’Outaouais (STO), the local bus network. Some buses do operate between Gatineau and Ottawa.
What are the pros and cons of living in Ottawa? How about Gatineau?
What would you recommend?
It really depends on what you are looking for. This is the general trend I observed:
- Young adults tend to live in Ottawa, especially in the downtown core, for easy access to the two main universities (University of Ottawa and Carleton University) and the nightlife.
- Working couples without kids also often stay in Ottawa, generally in the suburb (in places like Kanata, Nepean, Orleans, Barrhaven, South Keys, etc.) because they are closer to work (assuming they are working in Ottawa) and pay less income taxes in Ontario than in Quebec.
- Working couples with kids tend to live in Gatineau because real estate is cheaper, houses are bigger and childcare services are subsidized (which explains higher income taxes). Some English-speaking couples also want their kids to learn French early and take advantage of living in a French-speaking community.
Both communities, Ottawa and Gatineau, are nice—the decision of where to live mostly depends on what you are looking for. | <urn:uuid:a2c770ed-137b-44ef-943c-db4f519a9170> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://correresmidestino.com/ottawa-or-gatineau/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281162.88/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00536-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945793 | 1,101 | 2.703125 | 3 |
John Dannreuther: Gobrecht dollars have been popular with collectors since they were first struck in 1836. Whenever restrikes exist of an issue, you know they were popular with collectors of the day. These enigmatic issues are the first coins with the Liberty Seated motif, a design that would dominate the silver issues until 1892 and the debut of the Barber design. Gobrecht dollars were called patterns or experimental issues for many years; it would be the latter part of the twentieth century before researchers found Mint records indicating that a substantial number of these coins were actually placed into commerce. Thus, some Gobrecht dollars are now considered regular issues, albeit with a caveat, as most numismatists have considered them Proofs, a striking variant that is usually reserved for coins struck for collectors.
How the Liberty Seated design was introduced to American coinage is found in correspondence of the day. When Mint Director Samuel Moore tendered his resignation (effective June 30, 1835), Dr. Robert M. Patterson had already been appointed as the new director. However, Patterson faced a slight delay because he was a Professor of mathematics at the University of Virginia and had to wait until the school session ended before taking his post.
Christian Gobrecht was originally hired as a Mint engraver to prepare dies for the soon-to-be-opened Branch mints. Director Moore received a letter from Secretary of the Treasury, Levi Woodbury, dated June 20, 1835, stating in part: “…the President…authorizes me to say, that he approves of the suggestion it contains relative to the future employment of an Assistant Engraver for the Mint, and the amount of his compensation. It is very desirable that the dies for the Branches of the Mint be finished by the time the Machinery is prepared to be put in operation, and the President expresses his hope that such will be the case.”
The stroke that incapacitated Chief Engraver William Kneass in August 1835, changed all the plans, and Gobrecht became the de facto chief engraver from August 1835 until he became Chief Engraver in 1840 (he died in office in 1844). The genesis of the Liberty Seated coinage lies with the new Director and is found in an August 1, 1835 letter from Dr. Patterson to the famous artist Thomas Sully. Patterson wrote: “In entering upon the execution of my office here, I have felt it to be one of the first objects requiring my attention, to Endeavour to introduce a change in our coin, that may make it a more credible specimen of taste and art.”
Later in the same letter, Patterson elaborated on his ideas for the coinage: “For the ‘inscription emblematic of Liberty,’ you know that our coins have heretofore a bust. It appears to me that it would be better to introduce an entire figure. When a likeness is to be given, as in the European coins, the head alone is very properly used, in order that the features may be distinctly represented. But, when an emblem only is called for, it would seem rather desirable to avoid this individuality in the features. Besides, there is certainly more room for a display of taste and beauty of form, when the full figure is used. The round form of the coins, its small size, and the practical necessity of covering as much of the face as possible, seem to require that the figure be in a sitting posture, - sitting for example, on a rock. To be distinctly ‘emblematic of Liberty,’ I would propose that the figure hold in her right hand, the liberty-pole surmounted by the pileus, - an emblem not unclassical, and which is universally understood. I would also suggest that the left hand be made to rest upon the United States Shield, on which the word ‘Liberty,” required by the law, may be inscribed.”
The pileus was the cap of a Roman freed slave, a symbol familiar to 19th century Americans. Today, almost no one would recognize the symbolism of a cap atop a liberty pole. Patterson continued in the Sully letter with his desires for the reverse design: “For the Reverse of the coins, I propose an Eagle, flying, and rising in flight, amidst a constellation, irregularly dispersed, of 24 stars, and carrying in its claws a scroll with the words ‘E Pluribus Unum,” – of many stars one constellation – of many states one union. As I am desirous that the real American Bald Eagle should be represented, and not, like the heraldic eagle, a mere creature of imagination. I have requested Mr. Titian R. Peale to make a design in conformity with the above suggestions, and therefore will not trouble you with the reverse of the coins, at least for the present."
Sketch of eagle by Titian Peale
(Courtesy Smithsonian Institution)
Thus, we have the genesis for the Liberty Seated coinage in the words of Director Patterson. By the time the dies were produced in late 1836, there were 26 States, represented by 7 large, 7 medium, and 12 small stars. Although Patterson had envisioned the stars “irregularly dispersed,” Gobrecht actually used a pattern for placement of the stars. There are numerous patterns used to place the stars: larger stars in open areas with medium and small ones near the eagle, as well as the stars above and below the beak in order, small-medium-large, and so on. The “onward and upward” phrase (probably a creation of a later mind) is really “flying, rising in flight” per the Patterson August 1, 1835 letter to Sully, the earliest known citation mentioning the new Liberty Seated design.
On October 15, 1835, Patterson sent Treasury Secretary Woodbury a Gobrecht impression of the obverse; he noted in this letter: “… a slight outline in copper, of the size of the dollar, in order to enable us to judge of the general effect of the figure upon the coin itself; and I have now the honor to submit the enclosed impressions, from this outline, to you, and through you to the President…..I do not now, Sir, ask for permission from the government to accept this device definitely as the impression ‘emblematic of Liberty’ to be intended in our coins…” The approval for the new design was not soon forthcoming and it would be December 1836 before the first Gobrecht Liberty Seated dollars were placed into circulation.
Historical descriptions of “Original” Gobrecht dollars as Proofs has muddled their true identity as circulation issues, which the author believes is the best way to determine Originals versus Restrikes. The Originals are not Proofs, while the Restrikes are almost always obvious Proofs, but how that conclusion was reached is beyond the scope of this article (but will be addressed in a future issue). Another bone of contention among respected researchers has been why particular alignments were placed into circulation – be they Original circulation strikes or spent Restrike Proofs. For the 1836 Name on Base issues, alignments I and IV are frequently encountered in both circulated and uncirculated condition, while alignment II (also found circulated) and III (mostly Restrike Proofs) are scarce. Recently, two well respected numismatists (Robert Julian and Craig Sholley) weighed in with their research in an article in Numismatic News (July 31, 2007).
Julian and Sholley believe that Walter Breen’s theory about the striking order (called the Originalist Theory) is correct and they believe the striking order proposed by James Gray and Mike Carboneau (called the Revisionist Theory) is incorrect, at least for some striking alignments. Gray and Carboneau have published their work on several occasions in the Gobrecht Journal, the publication of the Liberty Seated Coin Collectors Society. Both sides have presented compelling evidence for their conclusions. This article (and Part 2 next month) will offer other possibilities for the striking variations of these magnificent issues.
First, one must understand the language of the Gobrecht dollars, as there has been much confusion about the nomenclature over the years. Readers also are encouraged to examine the other two theories, as only summaries of their work appear within this article. The various striking alignments for Gobrecht dollars are difficult to pinpoint, as there are some variations (discussed later in this article and in Part 2, where they are aligned by die state in the Emission tables).
I – Coin turn (flipped up/down) with pellets left and right of ONE DOLLAR level and the eagle flying “onward and upward.”
II – Medal turn (flipped left/right) with pellets left and right of ONE DOLLAR level and the eagle flying “onward and upward.”
III – Coin turn (flipped up/down) with uneven pellets and eagle flying level.
IV – Medal turn (flipped left/right) with uneven pellets and eagle flying level.
These are the four basic alignments, but as noted, there are slight differences in positioning for some of the coins and they do not fit exactly into these “neat slots.” In fact, one of the biggest arguments between the two theories is how the “in between” alignments came into being. The author believes other reasons than those presented by either side account for the “in-between” alignments, which are discussed later.
However, a possible clue relating to the alignments is the recent discovery by the author of the removal of Gobrecht’s name from the base of the 1838 and 1839 working dies! Previously, it was thought the name was omitted for these dies (they have been called Name Omitted issues for years), but Gobrecht’s name was actually effaced from both working dies. The signage is incuse on the base of the coins and raised on the dies, so it was easily effaced, leaving virtually nothing but graver lines on the 1838, while the 1839 has obvious “ghost” letters. The angles of the bases were changed in both cases by the extensive tooling.
1836 Gobrecht Name on Base
1839 Gobrecht Name Removed
Although there are differences in the two alignment theories, there is also agreement in some areas. Both theories believe that the 1,000 coins struck in December 1836 with C. Gobrecht F. on the base (F. is Latin for Fecit, i.e. “Gobrecht made this die”) were alignment I coins. This is the normal coin orientation with the eagle flying “onward and upward.” The Starry Reverse die is found in its earliest state only with a few alignment I coins, while the majority of the alignment I strikings are found in State b (lapped or polished).
The polishing of the dies produced several markers, including a prominent die line from the upper wing pointing to AT of STATES, although the author believes this may be a clash mark from a shield stripe. There is also a chip in the dentils above the last A of AMERICA. Four hundred of the original 1,000 Gobrecht dollars were kept at the Mint for visitors and collectors. These 400 coins are thought to be exclusively die alignment I coins, although a few alignment II may have been struck in December 1836 and retained (this has not be speculated before, but we really do not know when certain alignments were struck).
Breen reported, and Julian and Sholley agree, that a few 1836 Name Below Base patterns (J-58) were struck in alignment I in November before the December strikings of the alignment I Name on Base coins. If true AND they were not melted, those few coins (unseen by modern numismatists) are expected to have State a, the perfect state of the reverse die.
Both theories also believe that the next striking alignment was II – when 600 more coins were delivered to various banks in March 1837. However, the Originalists believe that all the March 1837 coins featured this alignment, while the Revisionists believe one of the dies rotated and resulted in some of the March issues appearing with alignment IV (and positions in-between alignment II and IV). The author believes that most, if not all, of the March 1837 coins were in alignment IV and slight variations of this position (alignment IV coins exist with the eagle flying slightly upward and alignment IV+ coins with the eagle appearing to “dive”). The alignment IV coins are many times more common than alignment II coins. This leads to the conclusion that most of the March 1837 strikings were alignment IV. It should be noted that Gray and Carboneau have reported alignment II+ variants (eagle still flying upward, but at a slightly lower angle).
The only alternative, as Julian and Sholley postulate, is that the alignment II coins were placed into circulation and nearly all were subsequently melted. This would mean that huge numbers of circulated alignment IV examples are Restrikes that were obtained from the Mint, spent by their owners, “rescued” by savvy bullion dealers, and sold back to collectors. The author believes the “in-between” alignment IV coins are either intentional alignment tests or unintentional variants because of multiple striking periods.
The dies would have been placed into the presses in slightly different alignments for each striking period, as this was done by eyeballing the dies at this time. It appears that the striking order for alignment IV is: IV (level), IV+ (diving) and IV- (ascending). This emission sequence would eliminate rotation as a cause of the alignment variants, unless the alignment IV- strikings are later strikings. They do have the last die state seen for alignment IV strikes, but the author feels they are the last Originals struck in March 1837. Of course, if the original 400 Gobrechts kept at the Mint were dispersed, more coins may have been struck later in 1837 or 1838; these would have been alignment IV- strikings, with the eagle slightly ascending, the last known alignment IV issues.
As both theories propose, and the author concurs, alignment II coins were struck after alignment I, but before alignment IV coins. This would include the alignment II+ variant with a less inclined eagle (Gray and Carboneau report another coin with an even less inclined eagle, which might be the alignment IV- coin reported herein), which might have been struck in December 1836, as previously speculated. Julian and Sholley have also reported an alignment III coin struck between alignment II and IV, and a single low grade circulated example also appears to be an Original alignment III coin (pictured on uspatterns.com). Saul Teichman runs the pattern website, is the “keeper” of pattern information, and is responsible for much information in this article. He has provided answers to every question I have thrown at him. Thanks, Saul.
So, how can we infer that the level eagle was the preferred one? In 1838, a half dollar pattern reverse die was prepared by Gobrecht with just such an alignment. Judd 73 and 79 have the eagle flying slightly upwards (equal to IV- for Gobrecht dollars), but with the two pellets correctly arranged for this eagle positioning.
Pattern half dollar with eagle slightly rising
Pattern half dollar with eagle flying level – double struck
(Courtesy Smithsonian Institution)
It would be unlikely that a replacement reverse die would be made to “level” the pellets for the dollar coins, as the expense to create a new master die would not justify the very few Gobrecht dollars struck in 1838 and the 300 struck in 1839. However, an overlooked feature of the Gobrecht dollar Starry reverse is its flexibility. It actually looks more “natural” with the eagle flying level (III or IV) or in a slightly ascending position (IV-). The eye is drawn to the very large eagle and the uneven pellets are not obtrusive, as they blend in with the 26 stars and are scarcely noticed. The eagle is a bird of prey; most of his time in the air is spent looking down, while flying level.
Gobrecht Starry reverse with level eagle ( III and IV)
The artistic and geometric effects for the level flying eagle are not as elegant on the Starless reverse used in 1838 and 1839, as the large eagle is the only diversion. If Gobrecht dollars (i.e. Liberty Seated) had retained the flying eagle reverse design, undoubtedly a correct pellet die would have been created with the eagle flying level or slightly rising, like the 1838 pattern half dollar reverse. It is the natural position for a flying eagle and this was realized by the officials of the day.
There is correspondence noted by Walter Breen and Don Taxay that Patterson, Gobrecht, and the others involved were fanatical in making the eagle look natural (as Patterson’s earlier quoted letter indicates). Patterson had Titian Peale make at least 30 sketches before he was satisfied with the eagle reverse. It is no wonder that the alignment was changed for the half dollar patterns in 1838 and all the dollar coins struck thereafter.
Of course, we may never know exactly when or why each alignment was struck, but die data for individual dies can determine the emission sequence, as with any coins that have definite die markers (the emission tables will be included in Part 2). The 1836 Gobrecht Starry reverse has several die markers, including the two just identified by Julian and Sholley. These (or their absence) and other markers can be used to line up the coins in striking order. Die markers, such as those seen on the common Proof-only reverse of the 1867 Rays nickel (combined with three different obverse dies on at least six different occasions), can ascertain striking order. They will not reveal the exact years that coins were struck, but an emission sequence can be established, sometimes with precision.
All known markers for 1836 Gobrecht dollars are found on the common Starry reverse die. Previously mentioned, there is a die line or clash line protruding from the upper wing pointing to AT of STATES, as well as a chip in the dentils above the last A of AMERICA. The line from the wing is easily worn away on circulated examples.
The new Julian/Sholley die markers are found on the rim above the A and T of STATES (raised and indented). On the die, the rim area is a recessed area, called the lip and is protected from lapping or polishing. These rim markers progress and become more prominent in later states, similar to the progression of a die crack. It appears that most of these markers are damage to the die’s lip (there are raised and indented areas on most of the markers). Other markers also appear, one found on the rim above the last A of AMERICA (raised, probably rust or spawling). In a later state, another is found on the rim between the pellet and U of UNITED (indented); at the same time that this rim marker appears, a new die line is now found under the D of DOLLAR, indicating another polishing. On very late state alignment IV coins, another rim marker appears above the R of DOLLAR (raised and indented). These rim markers may have resulted when the dies were removed or when they were replaced, as most of them appear to be damage to the lip of the die, as noted.
The Original 1838 and 1839 issues, as well as all the various other Restrike issues will be examined in the second part of this article in next month’s issue. | <urn:uuid:71678b19-0f4f-45e4-910d-f583d530acc4> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.pcgscoinfacts.com/Hierarchy.aspx?c=740 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279489.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00008-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971128 | 4,142 | 2.90625 | 3 |
NinjaFlex is a flexible thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) material manufactured for use with Fused Deposition Modelling 3D printers. It is widely available, relatively inexpensive, and is useful in various applications including gaskets, wearable electronics, and customized prosthetics because of its great flexibility and strength. The objective of this research was to expand on the limited information available regarding the mechanical characteristics of NinjaFlex and learn how infill density and printing orientation influence those characteristics.
An experiment was designed using the ASTM D638-14 standard to evaluate tensile properties of NinjaFlex specimens printed in two different orientations with their longitudinal axis parallel to the printing surface and with their longitudinal axis normal to the printing surface. Four different infill densities were used. Specimens were subjected to tensile loading along their longitudinal axes. A calibrated load cell measured applied force while a camera filmed the experiment for determining the corresponding extension using computer vision methods.
The results show that NinjaFlex has sizably greater ultimate strength, elongation, and toughness when loaded parallel to its print layers then when loaded normal to its print layers. The effects of infill density on tensile properties vary depending on loading direction relative to the print layer direction. | <urn:uuid:439adbaa-17d9-43cf-a611-47daab07aaaf> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://asmedc.silverchair.com/IMECE/proceedings-abstract/IMECE2019/59469/V009T11A004/1073444 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571246.56/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811073058-20220811103058-00274.warc.gz | en | 0.923313 | 258 | 2.046875 | 2 |
Red Iron Oxide (R)
Note for wet applications: Working with fine pigments (small micron size) such as this can clump in your formula. Experienced formulators will mix the pigment with a small amount of batch material in something like a mortar and pestle. Once that small batch is colored and smooth with clumps mashed out, it is then added to the larger amount of base material.
To lighten: Customers can lighten this to varying degrees using our Premium Foundation Base, titanium dioxide, zinc oxide or white kaolin clay, depending on what result is desired and what the end use is.
Reordering this? Please consider leaving a review.
APPROVED FOR COSMETIC USE.
Red Iron Oxide with more of a red undertone. There are no "true" reds in nature nor do they make a synthetic true red.
Micron Size: 1-2
INCI: Red Iron Oxide: Pigment Red (CI 77491) (CAS#:1309‐37‐1)
|Product Name||Red Iron Oxide (R)|
|Product Type||Iron Oxide|
|Micron Size||1-2 microns| | <urn:uuid:afb55b07-9afb-4fee-96d6-d721c783811c> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://justpigments.com/collections/best-selling-products/products/red-iron-oxide-r | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571719.48/warc/CC-MAIN-20220812140019-20220812170019-00272.warc.gz | en | 0.793957 | 297 | 1.679688 | 2 |
China maintains near monopoly on mining and production of rare earth elements and is controlling their production
[ Page 4-5 ]
Today, a single country – China – holds a virtual monopoly on the mining and production of rare earth elements. China produces more than 90 percent of the world’s supply and also consumes roughly 60 percent of that supply. Brazil, India, Malaysia and Canada are the other sources of the remaining paltry supply of rare earths.
China recently imposed significant export restrictions on its rare earth production. In 2010, it announced it would cut exports of rare earth minerals by 40 percent by 2012. Just last week, Chinese officials released a white paper defending the country’s export control restrictions on rare earths. Earlier this year, the U.S. joined with Japan and the European Union to file complaints with the World Trade Organization (WTO) over China’s export policies on rare earths. Experts believe China may eventually consume 100 percent of the rare earth minerals that it produces, jeopardizing U.S. manufacturers’ access to these materials and, at the very least, significantly driving up costs for companies that use these minerals. These increased costs would impose significant and detrimental costs on the many millions of consumers who use these products and could have a profound negative impact on U.S. national security. | <urn:uuid:13bfffc2-1b57-4e93-b457-4818239d4ffd> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.unclosdebate.org/evidence/1377/china-maintains-near-monopoly-mining-and-production-rare-earth-elements-and | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571982.99/warc/CC-MAIN-20220813172349-20220813202349-00074.warc.gz | en | 0.946331 | 271 | 2.421875 | 2 |
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
- Describe different simple machines.
- Calculate the mechanical advantage.
Simple machines are devices that can be used to multiply or augment a force that we apply – often at the expense of a distance through which we apply the force. The word for “machine” comes from the Greek word meaning “to help make things easier.” Levers, gears, pulleys, wedges, and screws are some examples of machines. Energy is still conserved for these devices because a machine cannot do more work than the energy put into it. However, machines can reduce the input force that is needed to perform the job. The ratio of output to input force magnitudes for any simple machine is called its mechanical advantage (MA).
One of the simplest machines is the lever, which is a rigid bar pivoted at a fixed place called the fulcrum. Torques are involved in levers, since there is rotation about a pivot point. Distances from the physical pivot of the lever are crucial, and we can obtain a useful expression for the MA in terms of these distances.
Figure 9.21 shows a lever type that is used as a nail puller. Crowbars, seesaws, and other such levers are all analogous to this one. is the input force and is the output force. There are three vertical forces acting on the nail puller (the system of interest) – these are and . is the reaction force back on the system, equal and opposite to . (Note that is not a force on the system.) is the normal force upon the lever, and its torque is zero since it is exerted at the pivot. The torques due to and must be equal to each other if the nail is not moving, to satisfy the second condition for equilibrium . (In order for the nail to actually move, the torque due to must be ever-so-slightly greater than torque due to .) Hence,
Notice that is the distance from the pivot point to the point where the input force is applied, and (not labeled on the diagram) is the distance from the pivot point to the point where the output force is applied. The distances and are the perpendicular components of the distances from where the input and output forces are applied to the pivot, as shown in the figure. Rearranging the last equation gives
What interests us most here is that the magnitude of the force exerted by the nail puller, , is much greater than the magnitude of the input force applied to the puller at the other end, . For the nail puller,
This equation is true for levers in general. For the nail puller, the MA is certainly greater than one. The longer the handle on the nail puller, the greater the force you can exert with it.
Two other types of levers that differ slightly from the nail puller are a wheelbarrow and a shovel, shown in Figure 9.22. All these lever types are similar in that only three forces are involved – the input force, the output force, and the force on the pivot – and thus their MAs are given by and , with distances being measured relative to the physical pivot. The wheelbarrow and shovel differ from the nail puller because both the input and output forces are on the same side of the pivot.
In the case of the wheelbarrow, the output force or load is between the pivot (the wheel’s axle) and the input or applied force. In the case of the shovel, the input force is between the pivot (at the end of the handle) and the load, but the input lever arm is shorter than the output lever arm. In this case, the MA is less than one.
What is the Advantage for the Wheelbarrow?
In the wheelbarrow of Figure 9.22, the load has a perpendicular lever arm of 7.50 cm, while the hands have a perpendicular lever arm of 1.02 m. (a) What upward force must you exert to support the wheelbarrow and its load if their combined mass is 45.0 kg? (b) What force does the wheelbarrow exert on the ground?
Here, we use the concept of mechanical advantage.
(a) In this case, becomes
Adding values into this equation yields
The free-body diagram (see Figure 9.22) gives the following normal force: . Therefore, . is the normal force acting on the wheel; by Newton’s third law, the force the wheel exerts on the ground is .
An even longer handle would reduce the force needed to lift the load. The MA here is .
Another very simple machine is the inclined plane. Pushing a cart up a plane is easier than lifting the same cart straight up to the top using a ladder, because the applied force is less. However, the work done in both cases (assuming the work done by friction is negligible) is the same. Inclined lanes or ramps were probably used during the construction of the Egyptian pyramids to move large blocks of stone to the top.
A crank is a lever that can be rotated about its pivot, as shown in Figure 9.23. Such a machine may not look like a lever, but the physics of its actions remain the same. The MA for a crank is simply the ratio of the radii . Wheels and gears have this simple expression for their MAs too. The MA can be greater than 1, as it is for the crank, or less than 1, as it is for the simplified car axle driving the wheels, as shown. If the axle’s radius is and the wheel’s radius is , then and the axle would have to exert a force of on the wheel to enable it to exert a force of on the ground.
An ordinary pulley has an MA of 1; it only changes the direction of the force and not its magnitude. Combinations of pulleys, such as those illustrated in Figure 9.24, are used to multiply force. If the pulleys are friction-free, then the force output is approximately an integral multiple of the tension in the cable. The number of cables pulling directly upward on the system of interest, as illustrated in the figures given below, is approximately the MA of the pulley system. Since each attachment applies an external force in approximately the same direction as the others, they add, producing a total force that is nearly an integral multiple of the input force . | <urn:uuid:1455550f-8e06-4e8f-adb4-ceaa90ff7905> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://openstax.org/books/college-physics-ap-courses-2e/pages/9-5-simple-machines | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572408.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20220816151008-20220816181008-00671.warc.gz | en | 0.943666 | 1,342 | 4.625 | 5 |
Above Image: Left, The Canadian Training Assistance Team – Lebanon assists members of the Lebanese Armed Forces with an inventory count of materials received from Canadian supply, September 9, 2020. Right, members of the Canadian Training Assistance Team – Lebanon and members of the Lebanese Armed Forces pose for a photo in a warehouse in Lebanon, September 9, 2020. Photos by MCpl J.W.S Houck, JTF-I – Public Affairs. Image courtesy of the Canadian Armed Forces.
The Canadian Armed Forces (CAF), through Operation IMPACT, works with regional partners to help make the Middle East more stable and secure.
Operation IMPACT is Canada’s military contribution to its whole-of-government strategy to address the instability caused by Daesh in the Middle East. In April 2019, Canada renewed this strategy until 31 March 2021, investing an additional $1.39 billion in Iraq, Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon.
“As part of this military contribution, the CAF has two training assistance teams, one to Jordan and one to Lebanon, which work in close partnership with each country’s respective armed forces,” explained Captain (Capt) Gregory Cutten, Public Affairs Officer (Expeditionary Operations), Canadian Joint Operations Command (CJOC).
He added, “More specifically, the aim of the Canadian Training Assistance Team – Lebanon (CTAT-L) is to conduct capacity-building activities with the Lebanese Armed Forces.”
CAF capacity-building efforts in Lebanon include:
- The provision of individual mentorship and embedded training to Lebanese soldiers like Combat First Aid training will provide a Lebanese Armed Forces “train the trainer” approach;
- The provision of training to the members of the Lebanese Land Border Regiments on gender-sensitive tactical medical and response capabilities;
- Training in winter skills, survival, and mountain operations;
- Logistics enhancement training and projects;
- The provision of non-lethal equipment such as clothing and protective equipment, training materiel, utility vehicles, tooling;
- Help to promote greater awareness for gender equality and increased support for the implementation of a gender perspective in military operations. These efforts reinforce Canada’s role as a responsible international actor, with an emphasis on human rights and, in particular, gender equality;
- Civilian Military Cooperation (CIMIC) course delivery, and military-specific first aid training; and
- Other small projects which aim to enable operations and security in Lebanon’s NORTH and EAST border regions.
“By combining practical, skills-based military training with gender integration projects and logistics enhancement, members of the CAF deployed in Lebanon as part of Op IMPACT are helping to set the conditions for the long-term success of our military partners in the region,” Capt Cutten expressed.
A maximum number of 850 CAF members are approved to serve on Operation IMPACT. This number includes those assigned to the train, advise, and assist mission in support of the Iraqi security forces and those supporting NATO Mission Iraq.
Operation IMPACT started as the CAF support to the Global Coalition to degrade and ultimately defeat Daesh in Iraq and Syria. Under the Command of Brigadier-General Michael Wright, Operation IMPACT, on behalf of the CAF, is continuing to work with partners in the region to set the conditions for stability and security.
Canada plays an important role in Iraq, Jordan, and Lebanon, alongside its partners. The CAF efforts in support of the Global Coalition improve Iraqi security forces’ capabilities. These efforts help Iraq to achieve long-term success in keeping its territory and people secure. | <urn:uuid:bd4f0935-f8ae-4aab-9bc8-d4d8e52ed088> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.cmfmag.ca/operations/operation-impact-working-with-partners-to-help-stabilize-and-secure-middle-east/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572021.17/warc/CC-MAIN-20220814083156-20220814113156-00076.warc.gz | en | 0.937498 | 750 | 2.03125 | 2 |
His political career can be seen from the following important positions he held. In 1927 he was elected to the Punjab Legislative Assembly; in 1930 he gave evidence before the Simon Commission; in the same year he was appointed president of the annual session of the Muslim League at Allahabad. But perhaps the greatest contribution of Iqbal was that through his poetry and writings he brought to the masses the realization of the fact that dynamism of Islam could never be separated from the political struggle of the Muslims of the India. Iqbal who was the student of Islam, wanted to remain aloof on the political questions of the India. But, Islam, which is the whole philosophy of life, did not allow to him to remain a passive observer of the political movements of India. He became a part of it, and to that movement he brought his own beliefs that 'politics have their roots in the spiritual life of man' and that 'religion is the power of the utmost importance'. He had the courage enough to declare the whole world that 'separation of religion and politics was the greatest misfortune of man and that it was the divorce between the two which was threatening to destroy the whole super structure of civilization".
Ten years ago when the
Muslim masses lay slumbering in ignorance, his words came to us as a challenge:
"The Indian Muslim has long ceased to explore the depths of inner life.
The result is that he has ceased to live in the full glow and color of life
and is consequently in danger of an unmanly compromise with the forces which,
he is made to think, he can not vanquish in open conflict. | <urn:uuid:08afa2d6-ffce-4dba-bca1-ba1f7c433c91> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.allamaiqbal.com/webcont/354/apoli.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719646.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00127-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985599 | 332 | 2.90625 | 3 |
Due to technological progress, financial institutions have included ATMs as one of their main channels as a way to decentralize their services. However, there is a gap between user expectations and their perceptions regarding what ATM interfaces offer. As a result, several users feel dissatisfied after using ATMs and many times this dissatisfaction is related to the difficulty of use, design flaws and the fact of committing many errors when interfaces have a low degree of usability. In this sense, in this study we present a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) about usability on ATM interfaces. With this study, we want to understand the current situation of the problems mentioned before, so we seek to know the problems and challenges that have been presented lately for these electronic media, as well as the solutions that have addressed these problems, and the techniques and methods used to carry out these designs or redesigns. For this, the protocol proposed by Kitchenham was followed. Scopus, ACM Digital Library, Alicia and IEEE Digital Library were searched, and finally 51 papers were selected as relevant. With this information it was possible to identify and analyze challenges, usability issues, usability evaluations, and techniques and methods used to carry out designs or redesigns, as well as case studies of designs or redesigns in the ATM domain. We found that this topic is being developed in recent years, that there are common challenges encountered, and that designs, redesigns and usability evaluations have been carried out in this domain under different methods, techniques and frameworks. However, several of these usability issues persist today. | <urn:uuid:8edfebb0-cabd-4ba8-bd46-036810363b2f> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://cris.usil.edu.pe/es/publications/usability-in-automated-teller-machines-interfaces-a-systematic-li | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571869.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20220813021048-20220813051048-00068.warc.gz | en | 0.976885 | 309 | 1.828125 | 2 |
A few months ago it was reported that the next Tesla car after the SUV would not be the Model E, but things have changed since then and we now have news in regard to the potential Tesla Model E price. It would seem that its cost would be comparative to rival compacts, such as the Audi A4 and the BMW 3-Series.
It is hard to put a price on a car that has yet to start production, but with the price of batteries being the key in setting the final cost of the Model E to the public, we can only assume that it will be far less than we have seen from the company in the past.
The release of the Model E is not expected until late 2016, and so there are many aspects of the car to finalize, much like Toyota with its 4th generation Prius. Even though the E will share similar technology to the Model S, not much else will be carried over to the new model.
One of the reasons for this is because the it will not be an all-aluminum platform, and also the fact the vehicle will be around 20 percent smaller considering it is a compact rather than a luxury sedan. Using more steel will make the smaller Tesla more cost-effective, which is of great importance if it has any hope of competing with the A4 and 3-Series.
We currently have no idea as to the design of the Model E, but we do hope it looks better than the Model X, as this SUV is not going to win any beauty contests is it? | <urn:uuid:a8e9d247-6a36-4ad4-9af7-2bdaf286d0c2> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.product-reviews.net/2014/07/01/tesla-model-e-price-comparative-to-rival-compacts/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560282140.72/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095122-00131-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979981 | 313 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Hugh Hefner's 20th century
Hugh Hefner is troublesome. He's a bon vivant with a sense of political responsibility. He's a champion of both nudie magazines and top-notch writing, of brilliant jazz and bared breasts. Is he an intellectual sexual liberator or an objectifier of women? Can he be both?
The Times' review of Stephen Watt's new biography, "Mr. Playboy," indicates that these questions are not all that important. "Hefner's ideal for living -- marked by his allegiances to Tarzan, Freud, Pepsi-Cola and jazz -- proves to be a kind of gloss on the Protestant work ethic," David Cotner writes. "And yet 'Mr. Playboy' reveals that Hefner essentially inverted that ideal by creating his own ethos, in which hard work also happens in the mind, and its rewards spring from the pursuit of pleasure, not of virtue."
It should come as no surprise, I suppose, that it's hard work being Hugh Hefner. He is, after all, a wildly successful businessman (although things have gotten tight lately). Cotner's review says, "Ironically, Hefner's philosophy that sex occasionally has no point other than the pleasure of the act itself -- a joy borne of craftsmanship, so to speak -- is another example of his alignment with the Protestant ethic of good work being a virtue unto itself."
This confluence of hard work and pleasure was something Hefner talked about in relation to his TV shows "Playboy After Dark" and "Playboy's Penthouse" in an interview with Dave Navarro earlier this year. The premise was "a variety show that didn't seem like a variety show," Hefner said."There was a subjective camera that came up the elevator... you appeared to be a guest at a party at my apartment." A lot of work went into making those parties seem like real parties, including, Lenny Bruce says in one episode, real booze. More about the show -- including some mindblowing clips of Sammy Davis Jr., James Brown and the Grateful Dead -- after the jump.
The show "Playboy's Penthouse" was filmed in Chicago and aired from 1959-1960. In this clip, Ella Fitzgerald sings "Get Out of Town" with a live band. Everyone is in formal cocktail wear; Hugh Hefner's got on his tuxedo. That's how things started.
The show was revived, in color and in Los Angeles, as "Playboy After Dark." In this clip -- with the fabled arriving-at-the-party opening -- Hugh Hefner is still wearing his tuxedo, although he's in the minority. Sammy Davis Jr., a year older than Hefner, is much more hip in his sparkling vest. And wow, can he dance.
In this clip, a roomful of blond ladies sings with James Brown to his "Say it Loud: I'm Black and I'm Proud." Hefner nods along, with pipe and tux.
Tuxedo-clad Hefner chats with a young, serape-clad Jerry Garcia -- worlds don't collide so much as whiz past each other -- before the Grateful Dead performs "Mountains of the Moon."
Sammy Davis Jr. -- who appeared in both versions of the show -- repeatedly alluded to the fact that the music he was singing to wasn't coming from the musicians you could see. He joked about Hefner keeping an orchestra in the closet, ostensibly on tape. I think he's really singing. PS: Yes, that is Bill Cosby with the maracas and the cigar.
The divergent worlds that Hugh Hefner has straddled are hard to imagine, but they can be seen on the "Playboy After Dark" DVDs. Of course, they can be read about in the new biography, too.
-- Carolyn Kellogg | <urn:uuid:28713701-cd4a-4552-bd01-91066ccfe3e0> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2008/10/hugh-hefners-20.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280835.22/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00053-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972761 | 807 | 1.515625 | 2 |
The species is distributed throughout Europe, western Asia and North Africa, and has been introduced in western North America, Australia and parts of South America. Nettle pollen frequently induces asthma, allergic rhinitis and allergic conjunctivitis. Allergen-specific IgE to Urtica has also been detected due to occupational sensitisation. A plant species of the genus Urtica, family urticaceae, the roots of which have been used to treat prostatic hyperplasia. After brief heating to remove a stinging after taste the leaves can be eaten. Urtica dioica is also known as stinging nettle or common nettle. Urticaria (also known as nettle rash or hives) is a concentration of weals which are usually accompanied by redness of the skin. The weals are swellings of the upper skin layer measuring a few millimetres to a few centimetres. These skin reactions are accompanied by itching that is often intense and is made even worse by scratching.
No special preparation is needed for Allergy Nettle Enzyme Assay. Inform your doctor if you are on any medications or have any underlying medical conditions or allergies before undergoing Allergy Nettle Enzyme Assay. Your doctor depending on your condition will give specific instructions.
|UNISEX||All age groups||Increased IgE (>100kU/l) is seen if the person is allergic to the specific substance| | <urn:uuid:6b611fec-5e40-4b51-a7ad-2a84cfb970e6> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.practo.com/tests/allergy-nettle-enzyme-assay-blood/p | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572408.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20220816151008-20220816181008-00678.warc.gz | en | 0.948042 | 303 | 3.515625 | 4 |
On November 4th, you will see six names on the ballot for New Hanover County Board of Education. While David Martin is no longer running, there are incumbents Dorothy DeShields and Jeanette Nichols, as well as three challengers who want their seats. We have all seen the signs, but what do the candidates for New Hanover County’s Board of Education election have to say about the state of our schools? "Under No Child Left Behind with our end of grade testing, only 11 of our 38 schools last year actually met federal expectations. These are huge problems that have to be addressed," said Elizabeth Redenbaugh. School Board candidate Pat Chappell, said "How could anybody be satisfied with only 64 percent of students graduating from high school, which is even lower than the state average? Something is wrong." These candidates say lack of planning and leadership within our current school board is why they want a shot at changing how things are done. Child Advocate Jan Brewington wants to propose ideas like having a school dedicated to single-gender education, developing a magnet school that addresses the ways boys and girls learn differently. “Why not separate them during the day for the math, science, English and history. Then bring them together for things like art and music. This would be by choice. This would be a magnet school that families choose,” said Brewington. Pat Chappell proposes developing more vocational education programs to stop the dropout rate from rising. “I recommend a vocational center where kids who truly believe that they want to develop after high school, and go into another route, and go into a focus for their career that’s totally acceptable." Candidate Elizabeth Redenbaugh said it all comes down to getting more input from the community. “We have to be transparent in order to get the community by, in that we are going to need in order to move forward and tackle some of the tough problems that we have in front of us." This is just a sample of what these candidates had to say, but you can hear more from all five candidates tonight at a candidate’s forum. It is at 7:00 p.m. at the Warwick Center Ballroom at UNCW. Candidates for New Hanover County Commission and other offices will also be there. | <urn:uuid:f86b30e5-a9c0-40d0-a2ea-eaef2063ef1f> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.wwaytv3.com/2008/10/15/new-hanover-county-board-of-education-candidates-speak-about-the-state-of-our-schools/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280763.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00516-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976302 | 468 | 1.539063 | 2 |
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Which of the following activities would represent a physiological study?
determining normal blood sugar levels for a 20 year old student.
Microscopic examination of a frozen tissue specimen is an application of the following disciplines?
a group of cells with similar structure and functions.
An organisim's ability to use energy in order to swim is an example of
Homeostasis is defined as
the maintenance of a relatively constant environment within the body.
Which of the following is consistent with homeostasis?
As body temperature rises, sweating occurs to cool the body.
A researcher discovered a new hormone that raises blood calcium levels. According to the principles of negative feedback, this hormone would be secreted when
blood calcium levels decrease.
In the anatomical position, the
palms of the hand are on the anterior surface.
Which of the following sets of directional terms are most appropriately referred to as opposites?
distal and proximal.
The anatomical term that means "away from the midline of the body" is
Which of the following describes the position of the nose?
superior to the mouth.
A vertical plane that separates the body into right and left portions is called a _____ plane.
Which of the following is most inferior in location: pelvic cavity, mediastinum, diaphragm, plueral cavity or pericardial cavity?
The thoracic cavity is seperated from the abdominal cavity by the
A bullet enters the left lung and collapses it. Which cavity has been entered?
The cavity of the body immediately inferior to the diaphragm is the _____ cavity.
Which of the following organs is retroperitoneal in location?
The wall of the abdominopelvic cavity is lined by a serous membrane called the
The plasma membrane
regulates movement of materials into and out of the cell.
The plasma membrane is selectively permeable. This means
only certain substances can pass through it.
The aroma of cookies baking in the kitchen reaches you in the living room. The distribution of this order throughout the house is an example of
In the process of diffusion, net movement of substances is always from a region
of higher concentration to a region of lower concentration.
Which of the following will increase the rate of diffusion?
an increase in the temperature.
Osmosis is the diffusion of ______ across a selectively permeable membrane.
If 0.9% saline solution is isotonic to a cell, then a 0.5% saline solution.
is hypotonic to the cell.
Certain cells in the liver ingest bacteria and debris from damaged cells by a process called
White blood cells engulf foreign particles by means of
Cystoplasm is found
outside the nucleus but inside the plasma membrane.
Ribosomes are organelles responsible for
Cells that lack ribosomes cannot
engage in protein synthesis.
The functions of the Golgi apparatus is
packaging and distribution of proteins and lipids.
A cell that produces many proteins for secretion from the cell would have a large number of
rough ER and Golgi.
The intracellular digestive system of a cell is the
A cell's ability to replinish ATP is reduced by a metabloic posion. which organelle is being affected?
Experimental manipulation to increase the energy output of the cell might include
increasing the number of mitochondria.
A cell can meet increased energy demands by an
increase in the number of mitochondria
the "control center" of the cell is the
Which of the following structures is found in the nucleus?
The nucleus of a cell function to
control and coordinate cellular activities.
convert glucose to pyruvic acid.
The transfer of information from DNA to messenger RNA (mRNA) is known as
forms two daughter cells with the same amount of DNA as the mother cell.
Human somatic cells contain ____ chromosomes; human gametes contain _____ chromosomes.
Which of the following events occurs during anaphase
Chromosomes migrate to opposite poles of the cell.
Epithelia tissue is characterized by
tightly packaged cells.
The various types of epithelium are classified by
The shape of cells and number of cell layers.
Which type of epithelium has the following characteristics: multiple layers, squamous cell shape, dead outer layers of cells, and keratin present in some cells?
stratisfied keratinized squamous epithelium.
Epithelium that is primarily secretory in function would most likely be
Unlike an exocrine gland, and endocrine gland
has no ducts.
An infant born with a genetic defect that causes little or no brown fat to be formed will have
difficulty regulating his body temperature.
functions as an insulator and site of energy storage.
Blood cells are porduced in hemopoietic tissue found in
red bone marrow.
Cartilage heals slowly after an injury because
it has few, if any, blood vessels.
Muscle tissue is characterized by its
A muscle is not consciously controlled and has a banded appearance would be described as
Movement of food through the digestive tract results from the action of
The type of membrane that lines freely moveable joints is a ______ membrane.
The type of membrane that protects internal organs from friction is a ______ membrane.
Which of the following are symptoms of inflammation?
redness, heat, and pain.
Which of the following occurs when the permability of blood vessels increase during inflammation?
migration of white blood cells to the site of injury
In the process of tissue repair, which of the events listed below occurs last?
Granulation tissue develops
Suturing a large wound
reduces risk of infection and helps to heal faster. | <urn:uuid:dba1732b-6191-44b3-8ae3-f3abfd3dd270> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://quizlet.com/17244436/cytology-flash-cards/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281162.88/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00540-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.910585 | 1,279 | 3.109375 | 3 |
Ahmad Saeed Kazmi (Urdu: احمد سعید کاظمی) was a well known scholar and Sufi of international fame, living in Multan. He is well known for his contribution to the Pakistan Movement, Urdu Translation and Explanation (Tafseer) of Quran, Dars-e-Hadith and many other religious services for the sake of Islam.
Hazrat Allama Syed Ahmed Saeed Kazmi was born at Mohalla Katkoi, Amroha (India) on Thursday, 13 March 1913 (04 Rabi-us-Sani 1331 Hijri). His father Syed Muhammad Mukhtar Ahmad Shah Kazmi died when Ahmed Saeed was still an infant. Because of knowledge, piety and nobility his family was very famous. The family relates with Imam Musa Kazim through 35 steps, and this is why he is called Kazmi.
Allama Syed Ahmad Saeed Kazmi was only 6 years old when his father died at the age of 39. Therefore his eldest brother Sayyed Muhammad Khalil Kazmi brought him up. Because all of his family members were highly educated, he got his basic education from his mother. Later on his uncle gave him Sanad-e-Hadith and Spiritual education which polished his god gifted qualities.
Sayyed Nafir Alam’s was a Sufi Saint, he used to celebrate the Urs of Khawja Moin-ud-Din Chishti Ajmeri in Multan. He invited young Ahmad Saeed to debate in Multan. When he listened to his speech, he was greatly impressed. So he continuously requested Ahmad Saeed to permanently shift to Multan. Therefore he migrated to Multan in the early 1935.
In Multan, he started teaching in his own home near Tinan Wali Khoi. In November 1935 he started giving lectures in Masjid Hafiz Fateh Sher Outside Lohari Gate, which continued for 18 years. After that He started Dars-e-Hadith in Hazrat Chup Shah’s Mosque and completed Mishkat Sharif followed by Bukhari Sharif. Here he soon became famous due to his knowledge.
In that era, Muslims of India were struggling for their independence and their major party was Muslim League. Sayyed Ahmad Saeed was impressed by Muslim League’s program therefore he joined it. In the area of Southern Punjab, he worked hard to spread political awareness among Muslims and to bring them at the platform of Muslim League. He never met with Quaid-e-Azam yet he was connected with him through mail.
He got married in a noble family in 1934 at the age of 21, but his wife died after 9 years. In these nine years, she gave birth to 4 daughters, 3 of them died in infancy while the fourth one was married with his nephew Zia-ul-Matin Kazmi, she also gave birth to four daughters and died in 1962. His second wife also belonged to Sufism and was a Mureed of Sayyed Khalil Ahmad Kazmi
Sayyed Ahmad Saeed had six sons and six daughters. The Names of Sons are following. Sayyed Mazhar Saeed Kazmi ( Ex professor in English literature in Bahaudiin Zakeria University Multan, chairman of tenzim ul madaris and Member of Islamic Council of Ideology) Sayyed Sajjad Saeed Kazmi (Ex banker and now Running a network of English Medium Schools) Sayyed Hamid Saeed Kazmi (Federal minister, Ministry of religious affairs and hajj) Dr. Sayyed Rashid Saeed Kazmi (doctor, currently residing in England) Sayyed Arshad Saeed Kazmi (a great expert in Aloom-e-hadith) Sayyed Tahir Saeed Kazmi (running his own school by the name of Hope) All of his daughters and sons are highly educated and are working/retired from good posts in different departments. His elder son Mazhar Saeed had taken charge of his seat after his death. The youngest daughter expired in summers of 2004.
He founded Madrasa Arabia Anwar-ul-Uloom in 1943 (1362 hijri), situated near Chowk Kumharanwala Multan. This Islamic schools is providing higher education including Dars-e-Hadith, Dars-e-Nizami, Hifz, Tajveed, etc. Its degrees are equivalent to Bachelors and Masters degrees. A hostel is attached where poor and needy students live free of cost. Madarsa Arbia Anwar ul uloom was initially in muahallah qadeer abad. And it was stated there till early 1990. and because of the large number of students, a piece of land was purchased in new multan. and then madarsah was transferred to this new place. Now his elder son Sahibzada Syed Mazher Saeed Kazmi is serving as Mohtamim. His son Sahibzada Syed Arshed Saeed Kazmi is serving as Shaikh-ul-Hadis..he never wrote his name Al-Husyni.the spelling of his name is Syed Ahmed Saeed Kazmi
He wrote many books, some of them are following:
He was the either the founder of most Muslim organizations or was the part of them. Like Jama'at e Ahlesunnat (Islahi wing، school of thought), Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan (political wing، school of thought), Dawat e Islami (Tableeghi wing، school of thought, Anjuman talaba e islam (student wing، school of thought).
On the request of Nawab of Bahawalpur and nawab of kalabagh Hazoor Ghazali e zaman accepted the post of Shaikh ul Hadith in Islamia university of Bahawalpur. And he taught there for long time. Where he fulfill the spiritual needs of the people of Bahawalpur. And within no time he was the popular person in the area in Ilm e Hadith. | <urn:uuid:99af3cb0-53b2-4f44-aca9-506379278be9> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.thefullwiki.org/Ahmad_Saeed_Kazmi | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988725470.56/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183845-00075-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984101 | 1,292 | 2.03125 | 2 |
Welcome to HCM,
You are diabetic on combination of Oral drugs and Insulin,causes for weight loss
and weakness may be many, so please visit your Physician /Endocrinologist
To enumerate possibilities development of Nephropathy causes low blood sugar
level with same diet and insulin,Anemia,any cardiac ailment,or even low grade infection or malignancy.
We need to examine and depending on that appropriate investigations like Renal function test, Urine R&M test for albumin in urine and blood Urea and Creatinine
,Complete Haemogram,EKG,X ray Chest, Abdominal Ultrasonography
may help to point out cause.
Your age peri menopausal so hormone changes and resultant blood loss may cause Anemia.
Once we know the cause treatment can be planned and you can regain good heath again.
Please get medical check up and investigations as soon as possible.
Best of Luck | <urn:uuid:44baefd0-bc2f-48da-b289-6fc6c6adce34> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.healthcaremagic.com/questions/Taking-tripride-for-diabetes-Started-losing-weight-and-feeling-weak-What-is-the-cause/375083 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279169.4/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00215-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.825459 | 200 | 1.5625 | 2 |
From the moment we're born we're told how great we are. Rewarded with ice-cream for eating dinner, a lolly for walking a gold star for reading a car for graduating, bribery can be effective or call it an incentive if you prefer.
The Nepean Christian School doesn't believe in rewarding its students.
"What sort of things do you avoid?” Asked Adene
“I avoid what kids would want to have as a tangible reward so stamps, stickers and certificates, we don't give out certificates either.” Said Karen
“So no assembly certificates, did you have them as a child?” Asked Adene
“Yes I did have them as a child.” Said Karen
“Do you think it helped you?” Said Adene
“Ummmm, I don't think so." Said Karen
Karen Adams is a mother of four and a Kindy teacher at the school. "I want my kids to love reading because they can read fantastic books and they can learn from that I don't want them to be reading because they're going to get a star on their chart."
Rewards are out and the teachers aren't exactly generous with praise either.
The school believes a job well done is a reward in itself.
"The very moment we give a reward to one child it's a declaration loud and clear that we value that child more than the others." Said Karen
School principal Geoff Wheaton believes rewards encourage unhealthy competition, breed self-interest and harm development.
"The very moment you have artificial or intrinsic means of motivating kids you're going to undermine the kid’s intrinsic motivation, I think the research also shows that.”
“So dangling the carrot is not a good idea?” Asked Adene
“Not a good idea at all because the kid’s focus on the carrot rather than the task and we don't want the kid reciting to get the carrot if there's a scarcity of carrots." Said Geoff
If you run out of carrots there's always pizza believe it or not there is a food for reading program in the United States where kids can get free pizzas for reading a given number of books. The danger is when the vouchers run out the reading stops leaving one psychologist to conclude the program "would probably produce a lot of fat kids who don't like to read!!!!"
"It would be a sad world if kids never got a certificate for participating or stickers it's such a simple thing and I use them as little rewards for my kids and they get so excited over getting a sticker so I think to sort of abolish all that would be a shame."
Michaela Fox has three children under four, she says without rewards or praise her household would be chaotic.
"It’s easy, it's cheap and its effective and you know as parents it’s just great to see them trying new things. My 4 year old is quite shy and she takes a while to warm up and get involved in different things and we've sort of been trying to get her to take a step forward and get involved in more activities and she really has. So we've rewarded her with ballet classes." Said Michaela
"I think what we want to do with children is build their belief in themselves to do things and they'll only do that if we reward accomplishments or effort put into something, we won't do it just for rewarding for rewarding sake, they won't know what the hell they've done at the end of the day."
While praise is necessary psychologist Grant Brecht says parents and teachers must be careful how often it's delivered.
"Children who are overpraised can really be very unprepared for failure in the real world and it will come and then they can feel that there is something wrong with them, that they're not achieving and their effort is not making a difference and then they can start to give up on life and become demotivated and that’s very unfortunately indeed."
"It’s absolutely vital that we create situations where kids will experience disappointment and indeed shame not the sort of shame that leads to torment but the sort of shame that leads to assurance." Said Geoff | <urn:uuid:0a5cb9ee-d6ab-44cb-ab49-22a78d21c421> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.todaytonightadelaide.com.au/stories/no-praise-school | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988725475.41/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183845-00509-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974318 | 869 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Double click on this site
and select your operating system 9Windows 98, ME, XP, or
Vista) and then download your drivers.
the Camera from the USB port
and reinstall the CD or Downloaded software
. When the program asks you to connect the camera to the
, do so and it should work
Then to use it on the Web, do this.
have to be
setup on the program they are to be used with. Just installing the camera
on your computer does not set it up to broadcast on messengers or Skype.
Each program has Options that have to be setup in order for
the Audio and Video to function properly.
A. Skype Setup:
After downloading and installing Skype
) set it up as follows:
- Go to Tools,
then Options, and click on Audio Settings and set the Microphone
and Speakers to the computer Audio Card.
click on the Video Settings.
camera if Installed Properly will come up and show a video picture.
on the bottom of the page click on Save.
The camera and audio should function properly. Your
friends and Family will now be able to see and her to you.
Hope this helps. Bud | <urn:uuid:2b7e20e1-484b-4aaa-b2c0-5909073b0e52> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.fixya.com/support/t150440-intel_create_camera_pack | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573029.81/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817153027-20220817183027-00276.warc.gz | en | 0.795979 | 340 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Support-focused enterprise controls: Object detection for automotive automation
The ability to sense objects and trigger an application is the most overlooked fundamental of control design. Two common forms of object detection are presence detection and movement detection. This is part 2 in a series on standardizing development of programmable logic controller (PLC) programming for controlling discrete manufacturing processes. Link to part 1, below.
Object detection is the generic name applied to the use of sensors to identify objects at unique locations in the manufacturing process. The ability to sense objects and trigger an application is the most overlooked fundamental of control design. For control applications, detecting moving objects is integral to setting and resetting application signals. For upper-level system designs, the ability to detect objects is critical to triggering PLC-based system applications. Regardless, many designers do not consider the significant effects various forms of object detection have on control applications. Failure to recognize the importance of this seemingly insignificant fundamental prevents them from grasping the single thread needed to standardize control application circuits.
Object detection is the primary design focus for triggering and synchronizing all controller-based applications. It involves strategically providing, wiring, and programming event-based sensor circuits to ensure their activations set and reset application variables. The trigger-generated signals are responsible for moving data and activation event-based applications. The physical placement of sensors and mechanical characteristics of mechanical actuators effect trigger designs. To understand these attributes better, designers must study the two base forms of object detection and how mechanical actuators activate sensors to enable trigger circuits. The following definitions help to describe both common forms of object detection:
- Presence detection: a trigger circuit design that uses one or more sensors to detect the presence of an object at one location.
- Movement detection: a trigger circuit design that uses multiple discrete sensors or one encoder to detect the presence and absence of an object at two locations.
Regardless of the form of object detection designers select, all designs need physical objects to activate sensors in a deterministic fashion. All control system designs have already adapted to the type and arrangement of sensors provided as part of a machine's mechanical design. The prearrangement of sensors dictates how objects need to actuate them. The sensors selected always match the physical characteristics of mechanical actuators.
4 object detection functions
The following names describe common sensor functions used to detect objects:
- Part present sensor: a sensing device strategically placed to detect the presence of an object.
- Entering sensor: a sensing device strategically placed to detect an object entering a process station.
- In-position sensor: a sensing device strategically placed to detect the arrival of an object at a process station.
- Exiting sensor: a sensing device strategically placed to detect an object exiting a process station.
It is imperative that designers recognize the various circuits used to enable object detection triggers. A presence detection circuit generates an application trigger after all circuit sensors activate. The enabled trigger represents the static presence of an object, whereas the disabled trigger represents the absence of the object. A movement detection circuit enables two momentary triggers when sensors identify an object passing through a station. This circuit design enables a signal when the object stops at a station. When the signal is on, it represents the presence of the object while it is at or between both sensor positions. When the signal is off, it denotes the departed absence of the object.
5 differences: presence, movement
There are five distinguishing design attributes that differentiate presence detection from movement detection.
- Total number of triggers a circuit produces.
- Minimum number of circuit sensors needed to enable a single trigger.
- Length of the mechanical actuator with respect to the length of an object.
- Sensor's on to off signal activation sequences.
- Complexity of circuit designs that affect the retentive or nonretentive nature of circuit signals.
For detailed comparisons, it is useful to examine both forms of object detection circuits using two sensors.
Object detection circuit designs produce application triggers when mechanical actuators activate sensors. Reliable movement detection designs rely on smaller length actuators, thus ensuring shorter sensor activation times. Presence detection designs rely on long actuators, thereby ensuring extended sensor activation times. Both types of object detection circuits need sensors to deactivate between each object. This is an important design consideration when arriving objects travel close or butted together.
Simply put, presence detection senses an object at one physical position, whereas movement detection senses an object at two positions. The difference is important when understanding the system-related benefits of movement detection. This includes the design details associated with sensor placements, mechanical sensor actuators, sensor activation timings, trigger circuits, and trigger reliability. Providing designers with this information will enable applications to obtain the beneficial effects of movement detection triggers.
Presence detection circuits typically use more than one sensor to identify the presence of objects as they enter or stop at stations. Most designs need two sensors where the initial sensor activates as an object enters, and then the other activates as an object stops in position. The second sensor acts as a filter because it eliminates the intermittent oscillating effects of the first sensor. This oscillation effect is the primary reason control applications do not use presence detection to activate event-based control applications.
Figure 1.1 shows the sensor and actuator arrangements for both the part and carrier-actuated forms of presence detection. The part-actuated form uses the part to activate both sensors, whereas the carrier version uses a long mechanical actuator attached to the carrier to activate and maintain both sensors. Some designs rely on two carrier actuators.Many manufacturers do not allow sensors to come in physical contact with the product. Carrier actuation is one way of presence detection.
Figure 1.2 shows the physical relationship between a part present sensor and two object sensors that detect a carrier's actuator. Since the object arriving at the station is a carrier, a presence detection circuit includes the enabled state of the part present sensor. The disabled state of this signal blocks the circuit from enabling a normal part in-position trigger and alternately activates an empty carrier trigger. One of the two triggers will always fire the moment both object sensors activate.
When objects are traveling close together, presence detection circuits rely on two physical object related dimensions. First, the length of an object's actuator must be greater than the distance between both sensors. This dimensional aspect of the mechanical design ensures an actuator has both sensors activated at the same time. Second, the distance between two consecutive carrier actuators must be greater than the length of the object's actuator. This dimensional aspect ensures both sensors are off at the same time between objects. Deactivation guarantees both sensors will separately reactivate for the next object to enter the station. Figure 1.3 shows the critical actuator and sensor spacing dimensions.
- L > S + C: The minimum sensor actuator length (L) must be greater than the spacing distance (S) between the two sensors plus a coast distance constant (C). The coast constant is the distance the actuator will travel when sensor and control power fails and before mechanical movement stops. This will ensure an applied controller always will see both sensors on after power restoration.
- A > S + F: The distance between the sensor actuators (A) must be greater than the spacing distance (S) between the two sensors plus the field width of a sensor (F).
Figure 1.4 shows a timing diagram for two presence detection sensors activating for two consecutive objects entering and exiting a station. When the objects enter the station, they sequentially activate and deactivate both sensors. The subsequent numeric sequence describes the numbered steps shown in the timing diagram.
- Object entering sensor on: The first sensor activates, signifying an object is entering the station while the second object in-position sensor remains deactivated.
- Object in-position sensor on: The second sensor activates, signifying an object is in position at the station while the first object entering sensor remains activated.
- Object entering sensor off: The first object entering sensor deactivates, signifying an object is exiting the station while the second in-position sensor remains activated.
- Object in-position sensor off: The second sensor deactivates, signifying an object has exited the station while the first object entering sensor remains deactivated.
Figure 1.5 shows how control system designers use hard-coded circuit triggers in support of event-based machine controller applications. The design uses a standard method for individually wiring sensor contacts to the machine controller's input module. The input module then separately sends discrete signals to the machine controller's control application. Control system designers use a ladder logic circuit that examines input signals from each sensor. When the hard-coded circuit recognizes that both inputs are on, it enables a discrete trigger signal.
Figure 1.6 shows a timing diagram for both presence detection sensors and a circuit produced in-position trigger. Specifically, the signal timing shows how the trigger remains enabled while an object moves through a station. This extended time makes presence detection triggering ideally suited for controllers that cannot quickly identify and react to fast-changing sensor inputs. If sensor inputs do not stay on long enough to activate controller applications, designers integrate timers with their trigger circuits to ensure triggers stay on for a predetermined minimum amount of time.
The use of presence detection circuits is the reason control systems have many undesirable design traits. Designers usually refer to these traits as idiosyncrasies or anomalies. In most cases, undesirable system traits directly result from designs using presence detection circuits, and the associated design needs to add redundant sensors. Presence detection circuits are unreliable because they are more likely to produce unwanted extra triggers. Alternatively, they may not activate, causing missing triggers. These types of events have an induced effect on control system applications that manifest themselves in many problematic ways.
Presence detection circuits activate to produce unwanted triggers when power failures occur, or when an object prematurely stops near an in-position sensor. Power failures cause extra triggers when power restoration reactivates circuit triggers. Objects that prematurely stop near a sensor's activation point make the trigger circuit susceptible to physical vibrations or temperature conditions that cause sensors to erroneously oscillate input signals. False triggers occur when associated circuits react to oscillating sensor input signals.
False sensor activations and added redundant sensors are the biggest reason why presence detection triggers misfire. False activation causes designers to add time delay circuit filters to ensure sensors remain off and then go on for a predetermined amount of time before they allow input signals to re-enable a circuit's trigger. These time-delayed trigger circuits are susceptible to the physical spacing delays between moving objects. If objects arrive too closely spaced together, and if deactivation delay times are too long, circuits fail to enable triggers. The failure of added redundant sensors to deactivate or activate is the cause of most missed triggers. | <urn:uuid:e77f367f-3138-4225-b972-43f810f84acf> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.controleng.com/single-article/support-focused-enterprise-controls-object-detection-for-automotive-automation/2197b2c40cee4d3ae45b403785ee8028.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279169.4/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00215-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.876935 | 2,198 | 2.96875 | 3 |
A few years ago Apple had introduced a new image file format on the macOS called HEIC. These images offered much higher quality than the popular image formats like JPEG. Now there is a new image file format called AVIF (sometimes also AV1). According to the developers, AVIF provides better compression than the popular JPEG formats but offers much finer image quality. AVIF is now supported by many operating systems, image viewers, image editors, and programming languages such as PHP.
AVIF is definitely going to gain more popularity in the coming years. If you have any AVIF image files, then you can convert them to JPG or PNG formats for the time being so that you can open them in your image viewer.
Here is how we can convert AVIF images to JPEG or PNG images online:
- Visit https://avif2jpg.com/ in your web browser.
- Drag-n-drop one or more than one of the AVIF images on the webpage in the space provided.
- In the options, you have to select the output file format PNG or JPEG, you have to select size scaling factor, and the quality. The size scaling factor can make the output image larger or smaller.
- Finally, you can click on the Start button next to an AVIF image in the list to convert it. Or you can click on the Convert All AVIF button to convert all the added AVIF images.
- The converted JPEG or PNG files will be downloaded to your computer in just a few seconds.
If you are having difficulty opening AVIF image files, then you can use XNView, a free image viewer for Windows which has in-built support for the AVIF image file format. Similarly, if you want to edit AVIF image files on Windows, then free Paint.net has full support for opening and saving AVIF as well as HEIC image files. | <urn:uuid:00805809-24f5-4fdf-933f-cfadc7e9ab12> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.trishtech.com/2022/07/how-to-convert-avif-to-jpeg-or-png-online-in-seconds/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572908.71/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817122626-20220817152626-00073.warc.gz | en | 0.927572 | 387 | 1.953125 | 2 |
Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed a new layer-by-layer manufacturing technique for producing very thin solar films. The solar cells are developed at low temperatures on a tracing paper. These solar cells can be spread over laptops, developed as window blinds, or placed on rooftops. The solar film prototypes were utilized to power an LED display in a demonstration at a news conference.
MIT’s Chemical Engineering Professor, Karen Gleason stated that five layers of material that are deposited on a paper substrate manufacture a cell with every layer performing a separate function. One layer could contain the active material, which releases the electron when it is hit by light, whereas another layer could have the circuit carrying current.
Existing solar cells feature a minimum efficiency rate of 15%, but the ultra-thin solar cell has an efficiency of only 1%. The scientists are planning to increase the efficiency of the paper solar cells by a maximum of 4%.
Gleason added that the institute has a device that enables the scientists to combine atomic and molecular species. The process, when repeated for five times, produces an ultra-thin solar film. | <urn:uuid:ad1340d7-e244-4fe1-849e-45adb5db33f0> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.azooptics.com/News.aspx?newsID=11428 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571950.76/warc/CC-MAIN-20220813111851-20220813141851-00668.warc.gz | en | 0.926713 | 242 | 4.09375 | 4 |
Risk Types in Project Management
What do all projects of all sizes across all industries have in common? The answer is risk. It is just one reason Project Management Institute’s (PMI) standards and certifications for the Project Management Professional (PMP)® certification include risk management. The universal fact of risk is every project will have a unique blend of risk types and categories that need managing.
On this page:
Risk Types PMP® and Risk Categories®
What is certain is all projects have a degree of inherent uncertainty. There are even project or resource contracts that include risk clauses and associated fees. The PMP® certification exam will include questions based on PMI’s definition of risk:
|Risk||An uncertain event or condition that, if it occurs, has a positive or negative effect on one or more project objectives.|
One component of risk management is the organization of the risks identified, which can be informally referred to as PMP® Risk Types, Risk Categorization PMP®, or Risk Categories PMP®.
Within the project management plan, identified risks are assigned a type (a label) by themselves. Then, types will be collected into a category (or group). The organization of risks by types and categories provides a consistent means to track what can become large amounts of information and to determine where and when mitigation is required.
For example, using new laptops for the project would be labeled as a “Technical” risk. As a Technical risk, the use of new laptops would then be included in the overall category of “Source-Based” risk. The greater the number of technical risks, the more there will be source-based risks. Increases or decreases of risk quantities in a type or category can influence resource and budgetary considerations.
The process of identifying risk, assigning a risk type, and organizing by risk category provides many benefits to the project manager and the team. The benefits include:
- knowing where to apply resources and risk strategy work to areas of higher risk
- assessing the risk level for a type or category
- preventing duplication of risk efforts by labeling and organizing all identified risks
- leveraging opportunities to mitigate negative risk or foster positive risk by seeing all risks in a related area
The PMP® certification exam may include scenarios that describe risk types and risk categories or require analysis to determine a risk level. For both preparing to take the PMP® exam and the improvement of your project management skills, it is important to know how to organize risks.
Studying for the PMP Exam?
Risk Types PMP
Just as organizing project tasks can be approached systematically to break down what is needed and when, so can risk. Begin with the four types of project risk.
What are Risk Types?
A risk type, or informally the “PMP risk types,” are buckets for risks of a similar nature. Determining the Risk Types is part of the overall risk identification work within the risk management efforts.
4 Project Risk Types
For this article, four types of project risks are listed. However, industry and the specific project management methodology practiced by an organization can influence the types used and how they are defined.
As implied by the label, technical risks are those connected to technology including, but not limited to software, hardware, digital network, digital assets, system security, and new and changing technology and changing regulatory requirements.
Does PMA want to create an icon that means “PMP® Exam Tip”? When used, it can focus readers on areas that will be assessed on the exam. It may also be a differentiator as many users search for PMP exam tips online. Examples include:
- software update
- network security change
- data breach
- data corruption
- software license costs
- hardware breakdown
- audit requirement changes
- connectivity and access
- platform incompatibility
- data security
There is no project that is 100% isolated from and insulated against changes happening outside.
External risks are those that exist outside of the project’s organization and, most likely, are beyond the control of the project manager or teams, such as political, governmental, climate, or economic changes. The COVID-19 pandemic is an example of an external risk (global health crisis) that impacted projects (personnel, supply chain, costs, etc.). Examples include:
- external stakeholder groups
Project Management Risks
The fourth type of risk is “project management risk,” or, “project risk,” and includes the efforts to manage the project. It includes project management work and tasks within communication, estimating, planning, contract development, and scoping. Examples include:
Why are Risk Types important?
Remember, project risk is “an uncertain event or condition that, if it occurs, has an effect on at least one project objective.” All projects have risks, and risk is the highest at the onset of the project. It is important to understand, identify, organize, and manage risk to protect the project’s goals and objectives. When there is an organized list using risk types, the project manager is better positioned to act appropriately when there are disruptions to “…processes, resources, and technology in an ongoing project.”
How are Risk Types used in projects?
Accurately assigning risk types is part of risk management’s “…analyzing project risks to minimize the magnitude of external and internal risks.” In short, risk types are part of the overall work to classify risk and thus be proactive in determining risk response and risk mitigation strategies.
Risk Categories PMP®
When studying for the PMP, project managers should know risk types, categories, and the role they serve in risk management.
What are Risk Categories?
Risk categories are a means to group related risk types for more effective overall risk management. Project Management Academy, a PMI Authorized Training Partner, provides students preparing for the PMP certification exam with this graphic showing how risk types can be further classified for more effective risk management.
Risk types with an overall connection are further organized into categories. In this way, risk resources can be pooled, risk mitigation strategies can be more accurately applied, and the interconnectedness of specific risks can be managed.
Risk Category | Source-Based Risk
The types are grouped into the overall Source-Based risk category as the occurrence or lack of each risk is triggered at the source. In the Risk graphic, Source-Based Risks encompass the risk types of:
For example, a re-organization at a company (internal risk type) can impact project resources (source-based category). Or a governmental regulations (external risk type) change can impact the project documentation (source-based category) requirements.
Risk Category | Effect-Based Risk
Risk can also be categorized as effect-based for those that are about the impact on the project. As shown in the graphic, the risk types that call into the effect-based risk category include:
Consider how a change in the cost of materials (cost risk category) affects the overall cost of the project (effect-based risk category). Or, if a stakeholder demands deliverables sooner (project management risk type) then the effect on the project can be how much can be accomplished (scope risk category).
Why are Risk Categories important?
Once risks have been identified by type, project teams should group them into categories to show common sources of risk for the industry, application area, or business. If risk types are not categorized, there can be unintentional overlapping or contradictory mitigation work performed thus triggering additional negative risks, which are also called “issues”.
How are Risk Categories used in projects?
Categories can help create more effective risk response strategies by allowing the project team to focus on the categories known to hold the highest risk, or the creation of a generic risk response for any risks assigned to the given category. The benefits of this approach are an increase in the efficient use of project team time and more accurate risk management work overall.
There are risk categories that are common and helpful to know in the context of PMP exam prep. But know a company or industry may have a standard set of categories which include the more common ones and others specific to the type of work performed.
How to Manage Risk
Managing risk is a big component in project management and is certainly addressed within the PMP® exam. Access other articles to continue to grow your knowledge and skills within risk management. At a high level, keep in mind these techniques for managing risk categories:
Consult a wide audience to identify risks
During risk identification work, tap into a wide audience to ensure as many risks as possible are included. Hopefully, you will have more known risks than the unknown. The audiences should include project managers with related experience, project team members, stakeholders, customers, and subject matter experts. Within the identification work and the gathering of input from different audiences, information about the risk should be gathered to help with adding risk type labels and later organizing related risks within a risk category.
Assign a lead to each risk
As is done with project tasks, each risk should have a clearly communicated lead. The lead is someone who understands the risk type and category with the insight to analyze related project information, and who can be trusted to assume risk responsibility. The assignment of leads to a risk includes communicating that role and the associated responsibilities to that person (in other words, listing someone as the lead in a document is not fully communicating the decision).
Track and prioritize your risks
With categories, it can be easier to “bulk” risks for tracking and prioritization. An external change can be a risk for many types, and if the tracking is done at a category level, then the mitigation response can be managed to maximize resources.
What do Risk Types and Categories drive in Risk Management?
Although referenced by multiple names including “risk types PMP,” “PMP risk types,” “Risk Categorization PMP®,” or “Risk Categories PMP®,” the core concept is the same: consistent organization of project risks results in better overall risk management.
The risk types and categories connect to multiple processes, documents, and tools such as:
- Risk register
- Risk audit
- Risk management plan
- Risk budgeting
- Risk mitigation triggers
There are variations in risk types and categories depending on the project work and environment. What should not vary is the use of types and categories as an input into the risk register and risk mitigation triggers, and their inclusion in the risk audit, risk budgeting, and risk management plan.
Do not be overwhelmed by the fact there is uncertainty in your project. In fact, risk can bring great success if managed properly. Use risk types and categories to better organize and track risks, and to more effectively mitigate risk when it occurs. Remember, risk management strategies, tools, and resources are all designed to protect the project’s objectives despite the challenges. Understanding risk is more than good project management or a road to correctly answering a PMP exam question, it is a responsibility for the profession and each project. | <urn:uuid:8bfa269e-94d1-4b85-97a9-3e82b87499d5> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://projectmanagementacademy.net/resources/blog/risk-types-in-project-management/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571950.76/warc/CC-MAIN-20220813111851-20220813141851-00671.warc.gz | en | 0.930221 | 2,418 | 2.359375 | 2 |
Today's headlines include highlights from the campaign trail, from the top of the ticket to some of the attention-grabbing Senate races across the country, as well as a report that the Obama administration will not oppose efforts to reopen the religious challenge to the health law.
Kaiser Health News: Quality Of Community Health Centers Varies Widely
Kaiser Health News staff writer Phil Galewitz, working in collaboration with McClatchy reports: "Community health centers in New Hampshire were the most likely to keep diabetics' blood sugar under control. Vermont's health centers had the best child immunization rates. Maine's centers had the highest percent of pregnant women getting early prenatal care. A Kaiser Health News analysis of the latest federal data on the nation's nearly 1,200 community health centers showed wide variation in the quality of care delivered by the private, nonprofit clinics which are expected to play a pivotal role under the federal health care law" (Galewitz, 10/31). Read the story or check out the related charts.
Kaiser Health News: How The Health Law Might Be Changed By The Next President
On the presidential campaign trail, Republican Mitt Romney has repeatedly called for repeal of the 2010 health law and President Barack Obama has vowed to implement it. Yet both men could face obstacles: Romney may be stymied by the lack of a majority in Congress to do his will and Obama could be forced by fiscal concerns or public opinion to revamp parts of the law. Here is a look at how Obama and Romney might change the health law in the years ahead based on interviews with health policy experts (Carey, 10/31). Read the story.
Kaiser Health News: Capsules: Employers, Unions Jointly Demand Health Care Price Transparency; Physicians Swap Traditional Practices For New Models
Reporting on Kaiser Health News' blog, Russ Mitchell writes about a statement by a consortium of major companies and labor unions: "Employees who feel completely mystified by the prices they're charged for medical procedures might be surprised to know their employers feel the same way. On Thursday, a consortium of major companies and labor unions, including GE, Wal-Mart, Boeing and the AFL-CIO issued a manifesto demanding price transparency from both health care providers and insurance companies. Consumers 'have the right to know the price and quality of their health care choices,' the consortium said in a statement -; especially as health care costs continue to rise and high-deductible health care plans become more common" (Mitchell, 11/1).
Also on the blog, Ankita Rao reports on how physicians are embracing new business models: "A new report projects the number of physicians who practice independently -; rather than become employed by medical groups or systems, for example – will fall to 36 percent by 2013, from 57 percent in 2000. And, for those who remain in private practice, one in three may choose this type of 'subscription' approach over the more traditional formats, according to the study conducted by Accenture, a research and analysis firm" (Rao, 10/31). Check out what else is on the blog.
The Wall Street Journal: Fiscal Cliff Forces All Sides To Jockey
Lawmakers, CEOs, business groups and charities are scrambling to shape the debate over tax and spending policy after the November elections, staking out negotiating positions for what could be a fast-paced brawl. The jockeying is intensifying as Election Day approaches, despite a halt in talks between party leaders about how to avoid a total of $500 billion in annual tax increases and federal spending cuts set to begin in January, a double-whammy known as the fiscal cliff (Paletta, 10/31).
The Associated Press/Washington Post: Obama Administration Says It Won't Oppose Reopening Religious Challenge To Health Care
The Obama administration told the Supreme Court on Wednesday that it does not object to reopening a Christian college's challenge to President Barack Obama's healthcare overhaul. In court papers, the Justice Department said it does not oppose allowing a federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., to consider the claim by Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., that Obama's health care law violates the school's religious freedoms (10/31).
The New York Times' Political Memo: In Dwindling Days Of The Race, Romney Takes A Softer Tack
There are plenty of carry-overs, of course: he dings President Obama's health care law as cumbersome and bemoans the size of the federal debt as immoral, as he has since 2011, when he entered the race. But even if the extent of the evolution is up for argument, there is little debate that Mr. Romney is finishing the presidential campaign as a milder candidate than when he started (Barbaro, 10/31).
The Washington Post: Romney Forces See Pennsylvania, Michigan And Minnesota Ripe For Turning Red
After a season dominated by talk of Ohio, Virginia and Florida, Campaign 2012 suddenly shifted focus to a new trio of states Wednesday amid a new verbal battle about which candidate is better positioned to win on Tuesday (Balz, Merkon and Kane, 10/31).
The New York Times: Trying To Tip Virginia Senate Race With Pinpoint Door Knocking
The state Democratic Party runs a "coordinated campaign" to augment the Obama team's efforts and promote Mr. Kaine and other Democratic candidates, with hubs in Alexandria, a Washington suburb; Richmond, the capital; the Hampton Roads area, a military center; and Charlottesville, a student bastion. On the periphery are separate get-out-the-vote, rally-the-faithful efforts motivated by Mr. Obama but carrying along Mr. Kaine's message. Canvassing has been going on for months, financed by at least three unions, Planned Parenthood and Virginia New Majority. … Republicans boast of similar operations (Weisman, 10/31).
The Associated Press/Washington Post: Democrat Donnelly Walks Careful Line After Foe's Abortion Comment In Indiana Senate Campaign
Seeking to capture an Indiana Senate seat Democrats haven't held for four decades, Joe Donnelly's television ads depict him as an earnest moderate while slamming his tea party-backed Senate opponent for an abortion remark that ignited a firestorm of criticism from members of both parties. What the ads don't mention … is that last year he backed a measure that would have denied federal abortion funding even in cases of rape and incest. Donnelly explains that while he opposes abortion he didn't initially realize the bill would have gone that far, yet the issue has made it difficult for him to capitalize on Republican Richard Mourdock's comment in a televised debate that pregnancy resulting from rape is something "God intended." The abortion policy similarities between the two candidates and an electorate with deeply rooted social conservative beliefs have muted the impact of Mourdock's words in Indiana (10/31).
Politico: Dem Poll Shows Mourdock Tanking, Donnelly Up 9 In Indiana
Democratic Rep. Joe Donnelly has established a clear lead over Republican Richard Mourdock in the Indiana Senate race, according to a poll taken for Donnelly's campaign in the wake of Mourdock's damaging comments about abortion and rape (Burns, 10/31).
USA Today: Wisconsin's U.S. Senate Race Is Bitterly Contested
The contentious race for the U.S. Senate between former Republican governor Tommy Thompson and Democratic Rep. Tammy Baldwin is growing even more intense in its final days, reflecting the closeness of the contest and its importance. … Their records and disparate political philosophies on the economy, health care and the federal deficit were fodder for most of their disagreements, but in the final days of the campaign the 9/11 terrorist attacks and their responses to them have become flash points (Keen, 11/1).
The Associated Press/Washington Post: In Nation's Costliest Senate Race, GOP's Brown, Dems' Warren Make Final Appeals
Brown and Warren both describe themselves as "pro-choice," but Warren has repeatedly pointed to Brown's support for an amendment that would have let employers and insurers refuse health coverage for services they say violate their moral convictions, including contraception. Brown said he was defending the religious rights of Catholics, but Warren warned a vote for Brown could help put a conservative majority on the Supreme Court, endangering abortion rights. Brown has countered by arguing Warren supports higher taxes, including those in the 2010 Affordable Care Act signed by Obama. Brown supports repealing what he calls "Obamacare" and has taken a no new taxes pledge (10/31).
The Washington Post: Ad Watch: Pro-Obama Group Ties Romney To Medicare Fraud
What it says: "[Rick] Scott ran a company that paid a record fine for committing Medicare fraud. Then, as governor, Scott cut millions from health care. Romney was director of a company that stole millions from Medicare. Now, Romney's plan would end Medicare as we know it." What it means: A new Kaiser Family Foundation poll finds that Romney is closing the gap with President Obama on who would better handle Medicare. This ad seeks to widen it by linking Medicare cuts to Medicare fraud (Weiner, 10/31).
The Wall Street Journal: Medical Start-Ups Challenged By Health-Care Reform
Investment in medical start-ups has dwindled of late as companies have struggled to go public and deliver returns to venture capitalists. The Affordable Care Act, the health-care reform bill signed into law in 2010, would seem to be the salve these companies need. Starting in 2014, most Americans will have to carry health insurance or pay a penalty. This promises to create millions of new, paying customers for medical companies (Gormley and Maltby, 10/31).
USA Today: Harsh Punishments Rare For Drug Compounding Mistakes
The legal landscape is littered with charges of negligence and misconduct by compounding pharmacies such as the one implicated in the nation's ongoing meningitis outbreak, but they rarely result in tough punishments, an examination of legal records shows (Eisler, 10/31).
NPR: Cancer, Heart Research Threatened By Power Outage At NYU Hospital
ABC News and the New York Daily News are reporting that cells, tissues, mice and rats used for medical research may have been lost as New York University Hospital approaches its third day without power. The losses could set researchers back years (Barclay, 10/31).
NPR: Sandy Leaves Long List Of Health Threats
Public health officials are warning that people in areas devastated by Superstorm Sandy face many risks in the aftermath and are urging people to protect themselves from health threats in the water, air and even their refrigerators (Stein, 11/1).
The Associated Press/Washington Post: Texas Retains Old Women's Health Program With Planned Parenthood For Now
Planned Parenthood will continue to receive funds from a joint Texas and federal program providing health care to low-income women, despite the state's promise to exclude its clinics by Nov. 1 because they are affiliated with abortion providers (10/31).
The Wall Street Journal: Michigan Hospital Systems In Merger Talks
Two of Michigan's largest hospital systems announced plans to merge, the latest reordering of a competitive health-care market still reeling from the impact of auto-industry layoffs. The proposed combination of Beaumont Health System, based in Royal Oak, and Detroit-based Henry Ford Health System, would create an organization with $6.4 billion in annual revenue, 10 city and suburban hospitals, and 100 other patient-care sites (Dolan and Rogers, 10/31).
This article was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente. | <urn:uuid:6d3d7467-e5ac-4077-ba7a-a7125abee8de> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.news-medical.net/news/20121101/First-Edition-November-1-2012.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279650.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00436-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951552 | 2,426 | 1.554688 | 2 |
It may seem like yesterday you were waking up every few hours for feeding or soothing your new baby, but a year has gone by and it’s time to celebrate your child’s first birthday! There are all sorts of ways you can celebrate your child’s first birthday from themed parties to special traditions including the popular “smash cake.” One first birthday party that caught our attention was thrown by a co-worker (you may remember Hyon from our interview back in May.) We loved that she had so many traditions from her Korean heritage at her daughter’s first birthday party.
One tradition is to lay out certain objects for the child to grab. This is supposed to represent their future path in life. You can see from the photo that Oliv grabbed a stethoscope. Looks like Mommy and Daddy better start saving for medical school! 🙂
You will also notice Oliv is in the traditional Korean dress Han-Bok. Besides adding to Oliv’s insane cuteness factor, Hyon has found a wonderful way to teach her children about their heritage through the symbols they have incorporated into family celebrations.
There are many ways you can bring your family traditions and heritage into your celebrations. You can even start new traditions that your children can pass on to their children!
What ways do you share your family heritage with your children? Have you incorporated any of these traditions into first birthday celebrations? | <urn:uuid:c57ae584-8e20-4a4b-bccd-578c5a65f35e> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.kolcraft.com/blog/celebrating-your-childs-first-birthday/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281331.15/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00225-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968175 | 290 | 1.890625 | 2 |
Sentek Runic Teleporters Mod facilitate to take control of it but more challenging to add teleporters into Minecraft. Core and Node blocks can be made from easily available parts. Connect them to different kinds of stone to determine goals for your teleporters.
Read more: Vanilla-Inspired Teleporters Mod
Craft a core block.
Note: You can use any type of sapling for this crafting recipe.
You can also make Miner’s Cores with redstone dust instead of saplings. They work exactly the same, but you can make them without needing to return the the surface for more saplings.
Place it somewhere. Right click it to activate it. It traces out in each of the cardinal directions, adding up how far in each direction it should teleport you. Different blocks are worth different distances:
If it finds a block other than these, it will stop searching in that direction. If it finds a node, it searches out in each other direction from that node. It will not count nodes twice, so cyclical structures will not form infinite loops.
Nodes are crafted like this:
For example, in the picture at the top of this page, the core will teleport a player up 50 blocks (20 for each of the vertical stone brick blocks, and 5 for each of the vertical stone blocks). The horizontal components of this particular teleporter cancel each other out, by pushing equal
directions in opposite directions. | <urn:uuid:fce19775-383c-410f-b6e5-f810e76acb42> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://niceminecraft.net/sentek-runic-teleporters-mod/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280835.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00475-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.860452 | 298 | 1.945313 | 2 |
Автор: Nirav Mehta
Название: Choosing an Open Source CMS: Beginner's Guide
Издательство: Packt Publishing Ltd
Размер: 10.4 Mb
Эта книга поможет начинающему вебмастеру сделать правильный выбор среди множества бесплатных систем управления сайтом, для своего проекта.
There are many powerful open source CMSs available to take the pain away from managing a web site. These systems are feature rich, often easy to use, and free. Unfortunately, there are so many choices it's tough to be sure you're choosing the right one. How can you be sure that you are selecting and working with the right tool?
This book will guide you through choosing the right CMS for your needs. You can be confident in your choice of CMS for the needs of your project. It will also help you make a start using the CMS, and give you a feel for what it's like to use it – even before you install it yourself.
Are you bewildered by the many open source CMSs available online? Open source CMSs are the best way to create and manage sophisticated web sites. You can create a site that precisely meets your business goals, and keep the site up to date easily because these systems give you full control over every aspect of your site. Because open source CMSs are free to download, you have a huge amount of choice between the various systems.
Yet there are many open source CMSs to choose from, each with unique strengths – and occasionally limitations too. Choosing between the bewildering number of options can be tough.
Making the wrong choice early on may lead to a lot of wasted work, because you'll have a half-finished site that doesn't meet your initial requirements – and needs to be restarted from scratch.
This book will show you how to avoid choosing the wrong CMS. It will guide you through assessing your site requirements, and then using that assessment to identify the CMS that will best fit your needs. It contains discussions of the major CMSs, and the issues that you should consider when choosing: their complexity to use, their features and the power they offer. It discusses technical considerations such as programming languages and compliance with best practice standards in a clear, friendly way that non-technical readers can understand.
The book also contains quick-start guides and examples for the most popular CMSs such as WordPress, Joomla!, and Drupal, so that you can experiment with these CMSs, get a feel for how they work, and start using them to build your site.
After reading this book, you can be confident that your CMS choice will support your web site's needs because you have carefully assessed your requirements and explored the available options.
Select and use the best open source content management system for your needs – even if you have never seen one before.
What you will learn from this book :
* Analyze your web site's CMS requirements, and identify the CMS options that best suit your needs
* Explore the differences between the major CMSs, and understand which CMS option best fits your site
* Assess your technical skill level and choose a CMS that combines ease of use with flexibility and power
* Extensive discussion and quick start guides for several major CMSs: WordPress, Drupal, Joomla!, and more
* Discover "speciality CMSs" for specific requirements: intranets, document sharing, community, e-commerce, blogging, and more.
* Know how to choose the right developers and designers to customize the CMS to your requirements
* Know what to do when your CMS plays up: troubleshoot, get help from the community, and make full use of the documentation
* Make sure your web site gets the best hosting: find an ISP that can provide your CMS with the web hosting it needs, or learn about hosting the site on your own server
* Investigate the plug-ins available for each CMS – plug-ins extend the power of a CMS, meaning that you can build features into your site that the CMS on its own might not provide | <urn:uuid:660a2e77-37ac-4086-bdf7-8795f362024a> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://eknigi.org/web_razrabotki/64995-choosing-an-open-source-cms-beginners-guide.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279224.13/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00486-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.892116 | 986 | 1.820313 | 2 |
Many statistical offices recognize the need for enhancing access to census microdata. High costs, challenging risks, and low rewards are substantial obstacles to going-it-alone. An economical, essentially cost-free solution, endorsed by more than 90 National Statistical Offices, is offered by the IPUMS-International project. This paper discusses ten ways the project enhances access and adds value to census microdatagrouped into four categories: 1. statistical confidentiality (security, disclosure protections, managing access), 2. Integration (comprehensive source documentation, integrated metadata, integrated, pooled microdata, IPUMS-I constructed variables), 3. Dissemination (free, trans-border access, custom-tailored extracts), and 4. ethics (statistical transparency, academic freedom, reduction of risks of fraud/mis-representation, and sharing of research findings). Statistical agencies not yet participating in the IPUMS-International initiative are invited to do so. Those already participating are encouraged to entrust 2010 round census microdata to the project in a timely manner.
|Original language||English (US)|
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Not many people have seen one, and when they do, a smile from ear to ear is guaranteed! The Taronga Wildlife Hospital has recently become home to a 40 day old Echidna puggle, found on a path in a caravan park at Anna Bay on the NSW Central Coast.
Annabelle a Taronga Vet Nurse and surrogate Mum to ‘Beau’, has not seen a puggle at such a young age in over 15 years of caring for sick and injured wildlife at the Zoo. The rarity of seeing an Echidna at this age is due to the habit of the adult females which stash their young in a burrow from about 50 days old. The puggle remains in the burrow for some months, with the female going out to feed, returning every few days to feed it milk.
Both Echidna and Platypus feed their young in an unusual way. Instead of having teats like other mammals, they have milk patches which excrete milk for their young to lap up. This is why Annabelle has to feed Beau from the palm of her hand, so it can lap milk as it would do in the wild. Once feeding, Beau resembles a mini vacuum cleaner, going back and forth making sure every drop of milk is sucked up – contributing to its ever growing belly.
The sex of Beau will not be known for some months as there is no identifiable pouch or features like with marsupials and other mammals. In time, Beau will develop quills like an adult Echidna but for now it’s only rough covering of hair which the nurses have termed a ‘five o clock shadow’.
At 200 grams before feeding and 250gram afterwards Beau still has some months of growing to do before he is considered independent can be left alone without Annabelle around.[nodepicker==video==7713==no-lightbox==size_535_327] | <urn:uuid:6d0b44d6-dfdb-4f81-89fd-d1bec3f49be9> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://taronga.org.au/news/2014-06-04/taronga-cares-tiny-echidna-puggle | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279650.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00439-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965453 | 394 | 2.078125 | 2 |
On Sept. 26, President Donald Trump nominated Amy Coney Barrett, a conservative-leaning federal appellate judge and Notre Dame law professor, to the U.S. Supreme Court. If confirmed, Barrett, 48, will fill the role of the late Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and could reshape the bench for generations to come.
Barrett has consistently leaned conservative on issues of gun rights and immigration. In cases ranging from harassment on the job to debt collection, her decisions have invariably tilted toward bosses and businesses. She is also a devout Catholic and a member of a small lay community called People of Praise, which has led many — including senators — to worry she will be a key vote in overturning Roe v. Wade, the seminal 1973 case that cemented a woman’s right to an abortion in the U.S.
Abigail Matthews, a UB assistant professor of political science, said that Barrett’s confirmation could shift the balance of the Court for decades.
“A lot of things will change,” Matthews said. “[If Barrett is confirmed] the Court will become one of the most conservative courts in history. The Court’s impact will be largely felt on social issues such as [the] equal protection clause and voting issues, and also in Second Amendment gun cases, among others.”
Barrett received her B.A. in English Literature from Rhodes College and graduated with a Juris Doctor degree from Notre Dame Law School. She has a lengthy legal background: she clerked for U.S. Circuit Judge Laurence Silberman and, notably, for Associate U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Saclia, whom she considers a mentor. Scalia, an intellectual powerhouse, advocated an originalist interpretation of the Constitution and anchored the conservative wing of the Supreme Court until his sudden death in 2016. Barrett also practiced law from 1999-2002 before teaching constitutional law at Notre Dame from 2002 until 2017.
Barrett was confirmed to the U.S. Court of Appeals in 2017 and underwent extensive questioning about her religious beliefs and her record. Her confirmation hearing is expected to be contentious, with critics and Democrats insisting she is the ideological opposite of the iconic Ginsburg, who had one of the most consistently liberal voting records of the Court’s nine members.
Barrett has modeled her judicial philosophy on Scalia and, like him, is considered an originalist. Originalists believe the Constitution should be read as it was written, without interpretation. It leads judges to give more power to elected representatives and prevents judges from imposing their views on the law. Critics argue it is inflexible and does not allow the law to evolve to match more enlightened understandings of issues such as the equal treatment of minorities and women.
While Barrett has conservative credentials and was nominated to the high court by President Trump, Matthews said she could still surprise people on her rulings.
“There is some history of presidents being disappointed in their Supreme Court picks,” Matthews said. “For example, President Eisenhower was disappointed by his appointment of Chief Justice Earl Warren, who tended to vote more liberally than Eisenhower wanted. President Trump is trying to maximize his chances by picking someone who is deeply ideological, someone with a long track-record of voting conservatively. And that will have consequences for how the Supreme Court will vote.”
Here’s what you should know about Judge Barrett:
In a 2017 law review article, Barrett wrote, “Chief Justice Roberts pushed the Affordable Care Act beyond its plausible meaning to save the statute.”
In the landmark 2012 case National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, the Court upheld much of the law, with Justice Roberts arguing the individual mandate — which required all non-exempt individuals to purchase health insurance or pay a tax penalty — fell under Congress’ taxing powers.
The individual mandate was repealed in 2017, so some legal scholars have argued the basis for the law has disappeared. Judge Barrett has indicated she shares this viewpoint, but has not openly said how she would vote.
This differs substantially from Justice Ginsburg, who voted in favor of upholding the ACA, also called “Obamacare,” on multiple occasions and was expected to do so again in any future cases. Voting the ACA down would mean millions of people would lose their health coverage in the middle of the COVID pandemic.
With the Supreme Courts’ legalization of same-sex marriage in 2015, the Court has taken great strides towards ensuring rights for LGBTQ Americans. While Barrett has not expressly said how she might rule in cases regarding LGBTQ rights, she has spoken about her traditional views on marriage and sexuality. These conservative views have caused some LGBTQ people to worry about the future of their rights.
One example of language causing concern amongst LGBTQ people is when Barrett referred to transwomen as “physiological males,” which is considered misgendering, during an argument about if they should be allowed in women’s restrooms.
Though she has not explicitly stated she is against same-sex marriage, she has argued the Supreme Court’s role in deciding the case on marriage equality. Justice Ginsburg, on the other hand, had a history of voting for the decriminalization and rights of LGBTQ people in America. She was known to be the first Supreme Court justice to officiate a same-sex marriage. The lack of full support and acceptance of LGBTQ individuals by Barrett has caused a community concern.
The Supreme Court has notably not ruled on the Second Amendment in over 10 years, since the landmark District of Columbia v. Heller, which gave citizens the right to possess a handgun in the home for self-defense. In May, the Court reviewed New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. City of New York, but sent it back to the lower courts for a decision.
But with Barrett on the Court this could change. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, confirmed to the Supreme Court in 2018, has made it clear that he believes any decisions regarding the Second Amendment should be made on the Amendment’s “text, history and tradition.” This view implies the Second Amendment should be looked at using textualism by considering the history and traditional meaning of the Amendment rather than the current arguments.
Barrett’s originalist views contrast with Justice Ginsburg who, in her dissent in the Heller case, said, “the Second Amendment is outdated.” Barrett could supply the vote needed for the Court to start taking on significant Second Amendment cases.
Justice Ginsburg was considered a champion of women’s rights and equality, and that extended to abortion and reproductive rights. She believed abortion was an issue of inequality. For example, Justice Ginsburg fought for women’s right to purchase contraceptives under insurance regardless of an employer’s moral or religious beliefs.
This is where many believe Judge Barrett will differ. Roe v. Wade is perhaps the most divisive issue among Americans. Barrett’s conservative Catholicism has led many to believe she will be anti-abortion, as the Catholic Church opposes all forms of abortion.
Once again, Barrett has not been explicit about how she might vote in such cases. She has stated, “All nominees are united in their belief that what they think about a precedent should not bear on how they decide cases.” Barrett believes personal opinion should not be a factor in how a judge decides a case. Along with this, though, she has made it clear she believes issues like funding for abortion and restrictions on abortion should change.
The features desk can be reached at email@example.com | <urn:uuid:56f042f4-1560-4982-9d15-4e66001bbb97> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.ubspectrum.com/article/2020/10/why-you-should-care-about-amy-coney-barrett | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571234.82/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811042804-20220811072804-00077.warc.gz | en | 0.970247 | 1,572 | 1.828125 | 2 |
a tragic lot的用法和样例：
- The famous politician died in a tragic accident.
- Events reached a tragic climax the following day.
- Fate, especially a tragic or ruinous one.
- She related the event in a tragic voice.
- He distinguished himself as a tragic actor.
- His brother died in a tragic accident.
a tragic lot的相关资料： | <urn:uuid:ee11e13e-373c-45bc-94c2-7b003e5d6962> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://dict.cn/a%20tragic%20lot%0D | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280065.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00546-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.718207 | 101 | 2.296875 | 2 |
Intersections: Reflections on Teaching and Writing by Taylor Marie Graham
By Prof. Taylor Marie Graham (English)
When I started an MFA program in creative writing a few years ago, I thought there was a possibility this could lead me down what had always felt like the inevitable trail to teaching, but what I didn’t expect was for this seemingly inevitable profession to materialize so quickly. And I, perhaps naively, didn’t anticipate how much teaching would entirely reschedule and remodel my life! When I try to objectively observe my place in the world at the moment – a college English professor – my life is so different than a few years ago when I was a meandering theatre artist. It’s all kind of hard to come to terms with at times, especially for me: a slow to change, slow to accept, entirely reflective and in her own head kind of girl.
What makes it all feel like I am on right path though, is that I know Small Taylor – my inner 12 year-old self whom I gauge all my life choices against – would mostly approve of the teaching trail I am on today. And just for the record, Small Taylor is the same 12 year-old me, who kept notebooks with titles like When I Am A Teacher full of insights on what my obviously incompetent elementary school teachers could do to improve their pedagogical practices, and thoughts on how I could revolutionize the world of teaching as we know it today. Needless to say, Small Taylor can be demanding.
This past summer, the opportunity to work with budding writers around the age of Small Taylor became available as part of Artscape Youngplace’s Community Fund. My job was to bring a group of writers 12 to 17 years old together to work on the art of monologue writing. I had the group for 3 hours and none of them had met previously, so I started by getting everyone to write introduction poems where they had the opportunity to give the group a little information about themselves, start to work those creative writing muscles, and begin to use the metaphor we would focus on for most of the day: the elements (earth, air, fire, and water).
After this exercise, we went on to talk about the elements’ characteristics. More specifically we found as many adjectives as possible for each element as a group on the board. I would like to mention that the elements exercise is inspired by a writing exercise to help create specific characters by Judith Rudakoff from York University’s Theatre Department. I then explained to the group that I always start my creative process with character over plot, so that’s what I focus on in this workshop. But, of course, many people start with plot instead, so this is only one way to start writing!
I used the elements to show the students that characters, like the elements, can have realistic and supernatural characteristics such as some of their favourite super heroes and characters from books like Roald Dahl’s Matilda. For example, air is invisible yet everywhere, and you could describe a character in the same way. We then found adjectives for popular characters we know from TV, books, and movies to show that each individual character has specific character traits. Using this information, the participants individually started creating their own characters by creating lists of traits based off questions I asked them such as: Does your character eat breakfast? What colour is their room? Do they like small spaces? Is your character more like fire or water? and Does your character have any supernatural abilities? Etc.
I then spent some time talking about conflict using our elements metaphor, and showed them examples of successful monologues with strong characters and conflict. And then they wrote! For me, in all English classes, especially creative writing classes, it’s important to have the students write as much as possible. So, the group went through a quick writing process with 3 drafts to develop a monologue expressing what this character wants most in the world. The workshop ended with all participants reading their creations to the group. In a feedback questionnaire emailed out after the workshop, participants responded with the following feedback: “It was an amazing experience!” “I liked the way that we learnt,” “I learned a lot about creative writing and how characters connect to the four elements,” and “The workshop was such a great experience and extremely useful!”
What happened to me after the workshop probably sounds so cliché, in that the group ended up inspiring me to remember what’s so great about the incredible, instinctual act of artistic creation. The group created work that was so personal and therefore entirely theirs, that they had that feeling I almost forgot about. That feeling somewhere between shyness of being so truthful, and the rush of realizing you have all the universal truths of humanity inside you and you’re just one creative piece of writing away to accessing all of them.
Now I know that sounds kind of spiritualist or magical even, but that feeling was one I immediately recognized in those writers. I knew it was real because when I saw it in them, I realized I had lost this feeling for myself which had been so crucial to my own writing process, or maybe I had just forgot about it on that inevitable teaching trail I got so caught up in after my MFA. And so looking at these young writers I remembered that it’s vital to stop worrying so much about structure or form or destination when I’m sitting down to write for myself sometimes, so that I can access that lost feeling of knowing everything is within us. It’s that feeling that drove me to write in the first place I think. So I guess the lesson learned here is maybe: teaching is just another way for me to eventually get back to writing? I don’t know. But what I do know is that Small Taylor, that demanding 12 year old inside me who wrote books about pedagogy, also wrote notebooks with titles like When I am a Famous Writer and The Truth About the World, so I think she’ll probably be on board with me pursuing that feeling through my writing again, and trying to align that bold teaching trail with that other, less straight, more confusing trail we reflective writers end up getting lost on from time to time.
*This piece was originally published in the Women’s Caucus newsletter for the Playwright’s Guild and is reproduced here with permission. | <urn:uuid:20502f35-791b-490f-80b6-bd4459cd15f8> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://alchemy.sheridancollege.ca/2016/12/05/intersections-reflections-teaching-writing-taylor-marie-graham/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571869.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20220813021048-20220813051048-00072.warc.gz | en | 0.974128 | 1,324 | 1.640625 | 2 |
"You’ve been in a nice, protected,
somewhat isolated community for four years. You’ve formed many bonds.
It’s both exciting and a little scary to leave that protective shell."
--- Gail Sheehy
of passages, the special Commencement guest chosen by the senior
class was Gail Sheehy. Sheehy, whose pioneering 1976 book Passages:
Predictable Crises of Adult Life, has been listed as one of
the 10 most influential books of our time, told the graduates that
by the time they had entered college, she’d had to update the original
by writing New Passages.
a revolution in the adult life cycle," she said. "People
are taking longer to grow up and much, much longer to grow old.
We’re experiencing the end of a predictable kind of life."
mapped some of life’s passages --- "through the ‘tryout’ 20s
into the turbulent 30s and the flourishing 40s, and then the great
passage through the 50s and into a second adulthood" --- comparing
the stages to the way a lobster sheds its protective but confining
shell. Though the process leaves the creature vulnerable, it also
opens the way to fresh possibilities.
is where most of you are now," Sheehy said. "You’ve been
in a nice, protected, somewhat isolated community for four years.
You’ve formed many bonds. It’s both exciting and a little scary
to leave that protective shell, but . . . these periods of disruption
are not only inevitable, they’re desirable --- because they are
offered the new graduates four rules for be coming, as she put it,
"rich and famous":
your 20s to try everything you can. Reserve the absolute right
to change, because a lot of what people learn in their 20s is
what not to do.
your dues. Be prepared to learn new skills, stay open and
flexible, and keep educating yourself.
be afraid to fail, and preferably fail early.
be afraid to dream. "Oftentimes people will tell you
no. They’ll say you’re not good enough. They’ll say you’re too
short or too thin or too slow or too nice. They’ll tell you a
thousand times until the nos become meaningless. They will
tell you no, and you will tell them yes." | <urn:uuid:325a98de-b317-4e3e-8a9e-c97b7e36b94f> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.ithaca.edu/icq/2001v3/commenc/cmc2.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280761.39/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00097-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945325 | 535 | 1.75 | 2 |
Looking back at a more innocent time, viewed through the WikiLeaks cables.
MARCH 9, 2011
Ever since those first cables from Tunis leaked on Dec. 7, 2010, informing the world that Tunisian President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali‘s extended family was a “quasi-mafia” and that his son-in-law’s “over the top” mansion housed not only an infinity pool but also a tiger who fed on “four chickens a day,” WikiLeaks has been intimately bound up with the revolutions. Indeed, the Tunisian uprising began only 10 days later, and its shock waves have spread across the Arab world. If it’s too much of a leap to say that the cables gave rise to the protests, they certainly provided a lens through which the Arab public could, finally, get a candid glimpse as to how Washington saw their leaders: Omar Suleiman‘s brief tenure
as vice president of Egypt was illuminated by a few cables discussing his toadying relationships with Israel, the CIA, and President Hosni Mubarak. And embattled Libyan leader Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi‘s image in the Western world took on a lurid spin after the leak of an early cable about his “personal proclivities.” Not only did WikiLeaks reveal his voluptuous Ukrainian nurse to the world, it encapsulated his decades of rule: “While it is tempting to dismiss his many eccentricities as signs of instability,” read the cable, “Qadhafi is a complicated individual who has managed to stay in power for forty years through a skillful balancing of interests and realpolitik methods.”
Now that the revolutions are entering their fourth month, however, with two governments overthrown and others tottering on the brink, are the WikiLeaks cables merely reporting from a world that doesn’t exist anymore? Or can WikiLeaks still be read with an eye toward the new Arab future? Foreign Policy went back through the files to dig up the best of the Arab world WikiLeaks: the cables with impact on today’s revolutions, and tomorrow’s.
LEON NEAL/AFP/Getty Images
Qaddafi Family Values
Months before a rebellion broke out across Libya on Feb. 25, the world was familiar with the peculiarities of Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi’s inner circle. WikiLeaks cables from March 2009 detailed the Qaddafi family’s squabbling, which pitted one son — the erstwhile reformer Saif al-Islam — against his brother Mutassim, the slick-suited, hard-line national security advisor. Meanwhile, Qaddafi’s daughter was tasked with “monitoring the activities of ne’er-do-wells” of the family — a task she did none too well, given the diplomatic fracas that followed the arrest of one of Qaddafi’s sons in Switzerland for beating up two staff members at a luxury hotel in Geneva. The release of another cable, which reported that Qaddafi “relies heavily” on a “voluptuous blonde” Ukrainian nurse, was also at least partially responsible for the U.S. ambassador to Libya being recalled to Washington.
While Qaddafi’s public remarks often seem to suggest that he is living on a different planet, the colonel was quick to recognize that the upheaval in the Arab world threatened his four decade-long rule. In a Jan. 15 speech mourning the downfall of Tunisian dictator Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, he attacked WikiLeaks as “Kleenex” and even took on the Internet, calling it a tool “which any demented person, any drunk can get drunk and write in.”
MAHMUD TURKIA/AFP/Getty Images
Until Egyptian politics was turned on its head by the millions of protesters who demanded a change of the status quo, the chattering classes considered it a near certainty that President Hosni Mubarak would eventually be replaced by his son, Gamal, or his national security advisor Omar Suleiman. In the days when it seemed Mubarak was sure to cement a clean succession, WikiLeaks published a number of State Department cables detailing the palace intrigue in the succession struggle, including one that reported, “despite palpable public hostility to his succession, and potential stumbling blocks, the way forward for Gamal currently appears open.” Today, however, with Gamal holed up with his father in Sharm el-Sheikh and under a government order that freezes his assets, that path is decisively closed.
Suleiman, whom Mubarak appointed vice president in an unsuccessful attempt to assuage protesters’ anger in late January, also makes a number of notable WikiLeaks appearances. One cable referred to the former spy chief as Mubarak’s “consigliere” — a judgment that could go a long way to explaining why he was viewed with skepticism by the Egyptian people as an appropriate replacement for Mubarak.
KHALED DESOUKI/AFP/Getty Images
Al Jazeera’s Missteps
Al Jazeera earned glowing praise across the Arab world — even from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — for its 24/7 coverage of the Middle East uprisings. But the WikiLeaked cables suggest that U.S. diplomats don’t believe the network is always the courageous and objective source of news that it claims to be. The cables reported that the Qatari government, which owns Al Jazeera, has been using the station as “a bargaining tool” in its diplomacy with foreign countries.
The cable noted that al Jazeera’s increasingly favorable coverage of Saudi Arabia had greased the wheels of Qatari-Saudi reconciliation and suggested that the network’s coverage of the United States should be included as part of U.S. diplomats’ discussions with Qatari officials.
ABDELHAK SENNA/AFP/Getty Images
The regime of Tunisian President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, which was the first domino to fall in the Middle East, was the subject of some particularly damning revelations in the WikiLeaks cables. U.S. diplomats described the Ben Ali clique as “The Family” who ran Tunisia for its own personal enrichment. The cables also revealed that former first lady Leila Trabelsi, who became a hated symbol of the regime’s greed, made a hefty profit off the sale of a private school.
This material was so damning that it inspired TuniLeaks, a spinoff website solely dedicated to the cables from Tunisia. It was evident that Tunisians took the message to heart: After the Ben Ali family fled to Saudi Arabia, looters targeted the homes of Trabelsi’s families as symbols of the ancien régime’s corruption.
FETHI BELAID/AFP/Getty Images
Mixed Signals from Tehran
The WikiLeaks cables revealed the true extent of the Gulf Arab regimes’ antipathy for Iran, most famously with Saudi King Abdullah’s admonition that the United States should “cut off the head of the snake” in Tehran. But the cables also revealed no small amount of eye-rolling in U.S. officialdom about Arab bravado toward their Persian rival. The Saudis always want to “fight the Iranians to the last American,” U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates was reported to have said in February 2010.
A number of other cables describe U.S. officials’ attempts to grapple with the mixed signals coming out of the Islamic Republic. “GOOD LUCK FIGURING OUT WHO IS IN CHARGE IN TEHRAN,” read the paragraph heading of one cable, while another warned simply, “BRACE FOR UNCERTAINTY.”
JOSEPH EID/AFP/Getty Images
Yemen’s Double Game
President Ali Abdullah Saleh has had his hands full trying to tamp down multiple revolts across this impoverished country, and protests in Sanaa are now occurring on a regular basis. The WikiLeaks cables revealed that Saleh had been playing a double game with the U.S. military, using weapons that the United States had given him to fight al Qaeda to combat a purely domestic insurgency. Despite Saleh’s promises to Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. ambassador reported that Yemen’s counterterrorism unit “has been unable to go after genuine terrorist targets like al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) while it has been tied down in Sa’ada,” the northern province at the center of the other revolt.
The WikiLeaks cables provide further evidence of Saleh’s long-standing effort to reap the benefits of U.S. support, while avoiding the perception among his population that he is an American stooge. On March 2, he was forced to issue an apology to the Obama administration after delivering a speech claiming that “an operations room in Tel Aviv” run by the White House was trying to destabilize the Arab world. As this diplomatic snafu attests, Saleh’s balancing act is getting more difficult every day.
Claro Cortes IV – Pool/Getty Images | <urn:uuid:ea6d171d-3d08-4ee9-8522-04a9c07e6a69> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://theromangate.wordpress.com/2011/03/10/best-of-arableaks/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281746.82/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00285-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958912 | 1,919 | 1.960938 | 2 |
Over time, the finger may lock and become hard to bend and straighten.
What is it?
Trigger finger/thumb is the more common name for stenosing tenosynovitis. Hand tendons are like long rope pulleys that connect the forearm muscles to the small bones in the fingers and thumb. The pulleys in the finger pass through a tunnel of rings. This tunnel has a smooth lining that lets the tendons easily slide through the pulleys.
The condition occurs when the pulley located at the finger’s base thickens, narrowing the passage and making it difficult for the tendon to pass through the pulley. This added resistance might cause pain, popping or a feeling of catching. Catching of the tendon irritates and swells the pulley, resulting in a cycle that continues to thicken the pulley. Over time, the finger may lock and become hard to bend and straighten.
What causes it?
Although the cause is not always clear, sometimes the condition is associated with rheumatoid arthritis, gout and diabetes.
What are the symptoms?
The first sign might be some discomfort or tenderness in the base of the finger/thumb. Additionally, it’s possible that a nodule will form in this area.
How do we diagnose it?
Your physician does not need to use any elaborate test to diagnose trigger finger. The diagnosis is based on a simple physical exam and knowledge of medical history. The exam involves the patient opening and closing the hand while we check for pain and observe ease of movement.
How is it treated?
We seek to stop the locking to restore the normal range of movement of the thumb/finger. The swelling must be brought down in order to permit easy gliding of the tendon. Patients may use a splint, oral anti-inflammatory medicine, or simply change activities to decrease swelling. Sometimes it’s effective to use steroid injections in the area near the tendon and pulley.
If these treatments do not succeed in relieving symptoms, we advise a simple outpatient surgery to open the pulley to allow easy gliding. Usually this restores active motion immediately after the procedure. Tenderness and discomfort can occur after surgery in some patients for varying time periods. | <urn:uuid:82dba62e-1d3c-4595-b633-9b9a97ece925> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://chicagoinstituteforhandsurgery.com/our-services/trigger-finger/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570868.47/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808152744-20220808182744-00069.warc.gz | en | 0.913613 | 463 | 2.875 | 3 |
Telecommunication firms are looking to jump
ahead of leaders in the mobile industry like Apple and Google with technology that
allows users to pay for items such as their morning coffee by swiping their
mobile phones instead of using debit cards or cash.
for everyday items via mobile phones is a technology known as near-field
communications (NFC). It allows mobile users to purchase items by tapping
their phone on a specialized reader at a store's cash register.
companies such as Vodafone and France
Telecom are looking to get ahead of other mobile giants like Google
and Apple -- who are leaders of mobile software, devices and applications -- by
incorporating NFC technology into their mobile devices. In fact, the Mobile
World Congress, which opens in Barcelona today, will allow telecom operators to
discuss the use of this new technology.
is a game-changing opportunity here for operators to effectively displace
credit cards and banks," said Dan Hays, partner at global management
consulting firm PRTM. "Mobile payments are arguably the next major change
in the mobile industry."
certain telecom firms are eager to jump ahead of the mobile game with NFC
technology, they need to pick up the pace because mobile payments already exist
in Japan and Korea, though the technology is being "held back from mass market
adoption" because of confusion surrounding the business model and the lack
of handsets. Also, Google has already started developing such technology for
mobile operating system, and Apple has began working on an NFC chip for the
iPhone that would utilize an iTunes payment system.
addition, Starbucks has even developed a mobile payment system in 6,800 of its
stores in the U.S. that utilizes a mobile app downloaded on the Blackberry or iPhone.
sense that the competition for developing the NFC technology is already cutthroat
even before mass-market adoption because IE Market Research estimates that the
amount of money at stake in this new market is about $1.3 trillion globally.
Jupiter Research estimates that one in every six phones will have NFC
technology by 2014.
much money at stake, the telecom operators are looking to take on credit card
companies like MasterCard and Visa. Credit card companies are optimistic about
the technology because it could increase transactions and fees.
U.S. and Europe have already started experimenting with different business
models. For example, Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile joined together in the U.S.
last year with Discover Financial Services and Barclay's Bank and had customers
sign up for a Discover credit card in order to launch mobile payments. In
Europe, France Telecom's Orange joined forces with Bouygues, SFR, various
French banks and the local government to give 3,000 residents a NFC-enabled
phone to use at 1,000 local retailers and on local trams in a year-long
need a big base of customers to make this work," said Anne Bouverot,
Orange's executive vice president of mobile services. "It's also a way to
provide an additional service to customers that we think will increase their
loyalty and attention."
several mobile companies competing neck-and-neck, telecoms firms plan to pave
the way to NFC victory by heavily investing in mobile payment setups in
geographic areas that do not have access to bankcards or banks such as India
and Africa. This plan will allow telecom firms to attract those in emerging
economies, and help them compete with well-established credit card systems in
the U.S. and Europe. In addition, it will help Orange reach its goal of
equipping 500,000 clients with NFC
phones this year.
Telecom's Orange has also announced today that it has signed an agreement with | <urn:uuid:1e570d1c-997b-4957-b9d1-63af76ad0bba> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=20903&commentid=656027&threshhold=1&red=215 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280825.87/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00205-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941107 | 786 | 2.015625 | 2 |
What is online marketplace? What is hot about it that makes many people go for it? What are the reasons behind? If you intend to build an online marketplace, what do you need to prepare and what are the challenges? These are the common questions asked by you, I, and those who are interested in marketplace model and want to build one.
Thanks to the technology advance, there’s hardly any limit to what people can do. Marketplace models aren’t new, instead, they have existed for decades. But with the latest technology, marketplace is brought online and quickly becomes a popular trend.
Amazon, eBay, Uber, AirBnB, Etsy are typical examples of online marketplaces. However, to build such a successful marketplace is not easy. It’s not an overnight success, but requires a thorough preparation, an effective business strategy and a lot of hard work. In this series, we want to share our knowledge and experience after years helping thousands of customers build up their marketplace businesses.
This series will cover topics about: Opportunities and challenges of building an online marketplace; Different kinds of platform and business models; Choosing the right business model; What you need to know when building a marketplace website with WordPress.
The first article will be about the booming of online marketplace, opportunities as well as challenges in this industry.
- 1 What is online marketplace?
- 2 Marketplace vs Online Store
- 3 Online marketplaces are booming
- 4 Determine your motive and choose your niche
- 5 Choose the ultimate technology solution
- 6 Chicken and egg – The typical problem of online marketplaces
- 7 Summary
What is online marketplace?
Marketplaces aren’t new but have existed for decades. They are markets, bazaars, or shopping malls as we see today. These places have one thing common: all are 2-sided markets. What does it mean? 2 sides (or multiple sides) mean you need the participation of 2 or more different groups of customers for the marketplace to succeed. Let’s take shopping mall as an example. The shopping mall is divided into small kiosks to rent out to merchants. The shoppers then visit the mall and buy products and services from the merchants. It is clear to see that 2 sides here are merchants and shoppers. Merchants act as product/service producers while shoppers are consumers.
Things are the same in online marketplace. We need to get 2 sides of customers on board. The marketplace owner does not directly create inventory but acts as an intermediary connecting sellers and buyers.
Marketplace vs Online Store
To differentiate between marketplace and online store, there are some main points:
- Number of sellers: Online store has only 1 seller whereas there are multiple sellers on a marketplace.
- Revenue model: Online store owner, also the seller, earns money from the fixed price of each sale. Marketplace owner takes a percentage of sales whenever a transaction is made. There are also other revenue streams to be discussed in the following articles.
- Number of products/services: Usually, a marketplace has a wider range of products/services as there are more vendors in a marketplace than only 1 seller in an online store. As a result, buyers have a greater choice of products/services.
- Inventory: One of the greatest advantages of online marketplace is that it doesn’t hold any stock. Marketplace provides the platform connecting sellers and buyers, while the goods are stored by the buyers so the marketplace owner can avoid the burden of holding stocks. On the other hand, online store requires the seller to invest a quite big amount in creating and storing sufficient stocks. Fiverr is an online marketplace offering tasks and services. Freelancers will provide their services for those in need. Fiverr creates a great platform for service providers and consumers to meet each other, while the job of service delivery is performed and taken care of by sellers and buyers.
Online marketplaces are booming
The sharp rise of online marketplaces in recent years can somehow be explained by some advantages listed above. This business model is not limited to any industry but very scalable and can be applied in different sectors. Besides, technology solutions for online marketplace are getting more advanced. Together these things create the “just right” time for online marketplaces to explode.
Uber is a wonderful transportation app connecting people who have cars and those who are in need of a ride. AirBnB is a great short-term accommodation marketplace where people share their properties with those who are looking for a place to stay on holiday. Or Fiverr, another piece of the picture, is a service marketplace for lean entrepreneurs. It connects people in need of getting stuff done and freelancers who are willing to get it done at just $5. These 3 names come from different business areas, and all are doing a great job making people’s life easier and more convenient.
With so much potential to scale and the ability to solve society problems in different areas, the opportunities to enter this business model are huge. Many society problems remain unsolved so there are still a lot of space for the newcomers. However, the truth is building a successful online marketplace is not a trivial task. A lot of work and efforts are expected, and a sound strategy to solve challenges along the way.
Determine your motive and choose your niche
When embarking on anything, the most important thing is to be able to keep your passion throughout the journey. A strong will and passionate belief in what you do will help you overcome difficulties and achieve your goals. Determine your motive, ask yourself why you want to build an online marketplace, which problem you aim to solve. You’ve thought of an idea and are very passionate and determined about it, or you’ve figured out a problem that you can solve? Combining these two factors would create a feasible idea to start with. Solving a specific need of the society often means narrowing down to serve a group of people in a niche. The more specific your target customers, the better focus your solution has and the higher chance of success.
In fact, choosing a niche is the strategy you should take. It’s also called vertical marketplace as opposed to the horizontal. While horizontal marketplace tries to approach the whole audience, the vertical focuses on a segment and does its best to become the expert in that sector. So, figure out the untapped niche, build a great online marketplace for the audience in that niche.
Choose the ultimate technology solution
After determining the idea and the market niche, the next question is “How are you going to build your marketplace?” This part is mostly concerned with the technology software used to build up your online website and it is not less important than the idea itself. If you can write code yourself, it’s great. If not, you can hire developers to do it for you or buy software from well-known providers on the market. Building a good website is not simple. If you have some knowledge about web development, you will understand the essentials like User Experience, User Interface and Minimum Viable Product.
Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
Many may think “Oh I want to build a perfect marketplace from the beginning with full of features. But this might be a trap, causing you to fail at the very first stage. The first risk is that it would cost you a huge amount of capital and then the market response to your marketplace is not as what you expected. Second, the perfect definition here is just from your viewpoint, while customers, not you, are the ones that use your marketplace. So to know whether your marketplace meets users’ expectation, the best way is to launch it out and let your customers test it. Quora, for example, when its MVP was first launched, there was a feature that allowed users which the author role to reveal their profile (with detailed information like the one on LinkedIn), which had caused much controversy from the user community. As a result, Quora then had to remove this feature from their site. So it can be said that MVP is a necessary stage to test the real user experience.
Now the next question is “How many features are enough for the first launch?”, “Which features are needed first?”. To answer this, let’s talk about the Minimum Viable Product definition. MVP is a product which has just enough features to gather validated learning about the product and its continued development. A minimum viable product has the core features that allow the product to be deployed.
A minimum viable product is a usable product from version 1.0
In the very first phase building your marketplace, core features are needed to be built first to make a usable website. Just like the bottom half of the picture, the product is usable right from stage 1. Throughout the time, based on customer demands, you will build more features to upgrade your marketplace to be more convenient and effective.
User Experience (UX)
User Experience is responsible for creating the experience for your customers when interacting with your marketplace. And the job of making that experience great is utterly important. It’s not about how your website looks but how it works and how it makes your customers feel. The user flow should be smooth to make it easy for users to go back and forth. To do this, your UX designer needs to understand user behavior, the goals you want to reach to combine these two factors into an effective flow.
User Interface (UI)
While User Experience is the goal you want to achieve, User Interface is the means of getting there. UI is the visual look of your marketplace. It visualizes the steps users have to go through to attain the goal. Of course, UI is as necessary as UX since no one wants to stay on a site with an awful look.
Chicken and egg – The typical problem of online marketplaces
Which came first: the chicken or the egg? Who need to be brought to your site first: the buyers or the sellers? The chicken and the egg are dependent on each other as chickens hatch from eggs and chicken eggs are laid by chickens. Similarly, buyers and sellers cannot be separated, buyers just come to your marketplace when there are products/services available, and sellers only offer products/services on your site if there are buyers. So, the problem is not to argue which came first. It is about finding the way to solve chicken-and-egg problem. In other words, how to bring 2 sides of users on board at the same time.
One way to solve this problem lies in the pricing structure: the fee charged for each side. These fees need to be attractive enough to get both sides of users to your site. One possible strategy is to charge one side of user (sellers) while providing the other (buyers) with free services. For example, on a marketplace for second-hand computer software, the sellers list their items without having to pay any listing fee, and only takes a percentage as commission fee when an item is sold. On the buyer’s side, the marketplace is free. The buyers have free access to all items listed and can buy anything without paying any fee to the marketplace owner. Doing this way will encourage buyers’ participation, especially true at the entry phase of your marketplace. And when the marketplace obtains a critical mass of buyers, more sellers will get on board.
Some benefits of this pricing structure include:
- The marketplace can quickly get the participation from one key side of the market – the buyers by providing free services.
- The fee charged is also reasonable for the sellers. They pay no listing fee and just lose a portion of the sales price as commission when an actual transaction takes place.
- Both buyers and sellers have someone organize a “bazaar” for them. Sellers don’t need to create a place to list their items, whereas the buyers can instantly search for what they need in a place. By bringing 2 sides to a place, buyers and sellers have greater match prospects.
Another way to solve chicken-and-egg problem is to act as a provider. At the entry phase, when there are not many providers on site, the marketplace can solve the problem by supplying its own chicken. The marketplace owners will also be the product/service providers, at least initially.
The third tactic is to subsidize one side of the market. To attract product/service providers, vocational training, free equipments to create the products or services, and even marketing service are provided. Let’s take AirBnB as an example. At first, it seemed complicated and required a lot of effort for potential renters to create an attractive listing. AirBnB decided to write the listing description on their behalf and hire professional photographers to take awesome pictures of apartments for such potential renters. Other marketing activities are boosted on social media, email to actively promote these apartments to potential customers. By offering many benefits, the marketplace can manage to encourage the participation from benefited group. As a result of network effect, this will attract the other side to the marketplace.
Marketplace platform is a 2-sided market which needs the participation of 2 or multiple groups of customers to achieve success. This business model is a great idea for entrepreneurs who want to create an online place connecting providers and consumers. With many differences from online store, marketplace has its own opportunities as well as challenges. The most typical challenge is the chicken-and-egg problem: how to get 2 sides of users on board. To solve this problem, it’s important to determine a reasonable pricing structure for both 2 sides. Besides, the marketplace can provide its own chicken by acting as a provider to attract consumers and other providers. Another way is to invest on one side to help them get used to your marketplace and make it easier for them to join.
The next article will be about business model definition and the list of different models on the market. | <urn:uuid:b6743a1d-63b3-40d7-9046-acb36adffdbe> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.enginethemes.com/online-marketplace-overview/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572908.71/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817122626-20220817152626-00067.warc.gz | en | 0.957203 | 2,855 | 1.84375 | 2 |
Service - Selfless Service to the Perfect Master
In his early speeches in the West, the young guru stressed the bliss that came from meditation after being initiated and practising his Knowledge. This was understandable, all teachers of meditation claim it has positive effects otherwise why would anyone do it? Rawat's claims were just more outrageous and simplistic than most:
"And this Knowledge is so Holy, so Perfect that one spark that comes out of this Knowledge is so perfect, so, so perfect, wherever it goes it hits, it makes it perfect and wherever it goes, again hits, it makes it perfect. … This Knowledge, because it is a very sweet fruit, whoever takes a bite feels the sweet and wants to take it more and more. … this Knowledge. When people got it, they really got blissed out. If they just went into it, they really got blissed out … Knowledge just takes you, and takes you into an environment never thought of; never thought of, beautiful. When one can really get into the Music, get into the Word, get into the Light, it's so beautiful; so blissful. Just grand, you know! … What I have is a constant LSD. It's not LSD, it's a built-in LSD which God provided you with when you were born. You get into it and you're always blissed out.
However, if people are initiated, enjoy meditation and just go off and have no connection to Rawat or his organisations' activities then this is of little or no value to Rawat whose luxurious living depends upon people committing to him, his teachings and his organisation and supporting both. In fact, most people did not experience anything approximating the wildly exaggerated claims the young guru and his early core group of followers were making but he explained there was a reason, meditation by itself would not produce the bliss, a person also needed to hear and give satsang and do voluntary labour and make financial contributions to both Rawat personally and Divine Light Mission. He called these activities service (Hindi: seva).
Divine Light Mission Glossary. Service: Selfless actions performed out of love for the Perfect Master and compassion for the sufferings of humanity. The first service any disciple of Guru Maharaj Ji has is to inform people that the Perfect Master is here, offering them the gift of eternal life. In practice - although service often involves setting up for programs and video events, ushering, security, and the like - it can also entail working for one of several companies owned by Elan Vital, or donating money towards Maharaji's personal expenses.
Human Beings Need to Obey the Orders of Prem Rawat
Unfortunately, according to Prem Rawat, human beings cannot understand whether their actions serve God or their stomach and so they must obey the agya (order, commands) of the Perfect Master himself, who just so happens to be Prem Rawat:
And I'll tell you what the purpose is: to actually do service. See, before Knowledge, whatever we do is also service, but it's a service to our stomach; it's a service to our mind. But what service we do after Knowledge, to Guru Maharaj Ji, to spread this peace into this world, to bring that Love, to bring that joy that we all have been waiting for, to work in that direction, is called service and then the second thing comes, agya. Because the mind is so strong, a human being from the beginning is unable to determine that whatever next thing will I be doing, will it be a real service to the spiritual path or not.
Even on the night before he became the Perfect Master he preached that service was required so that people could understand how beautiful the Knowledge was. During the growth and excitement phase of DLM it was taught that young unattached premies should enter the ashram to do full-time service but after the disaster of Millenium '73 when millenial success no longer appeared imminent and the true position of DLM began to be apparent Guru Maharaj Ji began to stress the need for service more and more as he no longer tried to attact new followers but shore up those he already had.
it's much better, you know, for a man to be completely, like, in a whole circumstance where he can get satsang all the time and be able to do service all the time. (Phoenix, January 21 1974) … the point is to do service, to realize this Knowledge more (Los Angeles January 27) … Don't, don't really try to think. You've got your service, you got what to do, do your service, be blissed out … And to understand Knowledge, you have to do meditation, you have to do satsang, you have to do service. (Denver, May 2) And premies, it's like this Holy Word that we all want to see, that we all want to get into, it can be only achieved by doing meditation, by doing satsang, and listening to satsang, and doing service. (Denver, May 6)
Prem Rawat's Disciples Doing Service
The Maximum Service That Could Be Done Was By Living In An Ashram
The maximum service that could be done was by living in an ashram. This required that everything you have be donated to DLM and then all your wages would go to Maharaji personally and to Divine Light Mission while you would be supported - but only just. You would live according to a strict schedule and have no outside interests or involvement with your family. Naturally Rawat promoted this lifestyle as the best one for spiritual development. He also began to stress the formation of organised communities of premies so that non-ashram premies would have ways of doing service and the need for tithing by all premies not in the ashram in the Active Membership Program (AMP). Unfortunately for Rawat's hopes, this program gained acceptance by less than 30% of active premies, even though they were continually reminded they should be involved.
Maharaji has taught that a premie can seriously devote himself to "satsang, service, and meditation" for years or decades, and then "all of a sudden the mind can come in, penetrate, and that's it. It's all gone. It's all lost." The truth of these warnings is confirmed by the numbers of premies who continually drift away from the Mission. Having a person fully involved in activities dedicated to the Master is one way in which this disaffection can be minimised and attmepts to get people who have been revealed the techniques of Knowledge to do service continue to this day (currently 2015). These attempts have a far more professional appearance on the Volunteer System Role Searching pages on the Words of Peace Global website (accessed 1st April 2013) and apparently require an awful lot of managers but are basically still in the same old fields: Ushering, Ticketing, Seating, Lobby, Special Needs, Catering, Mic Ushers, Sales & Information. Recruitment in now known as Global Peace Initiatives though all material to aid recruitment needs to be purchased.
Maharaji has a vision of an ever growing number of followers dedicated to him and to World Peace:
And today I know that this prachar is just going to go on. This propagation is just going to go on. And so many more brothers and sisters in this world are going to receive Knowledge. Rome, Italy, 9th November, 1977
Yesterday in the darshan line, there were just so many new premies. And I know there are so many aspirants here. And those aspirants are going to receive Knowledge by Guru Maharaj Ji's Grace, and become premies. And there's so many aspirants all around the world. This propagation has really, really grown. And there is no limit, there is no end, to how incredible it is. Just look at it! Miami Beach, Florida, April 8, 1978
In fact numbers appear to be around half of what they were circa 1980 but I am sure the amount of voluntary labour and finances they have generated over the past 45 years would be astounding if it could be accurately estimated. | <urn:uuid:eb738084-84f6-4369-a016-48a381895329> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | http://prem-rawat-bio.org/knowledge/service.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571502.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811194507-20220811224507-00074.warc.gz | en | 0.972877 | 1,681 | 1.796875 | 2 |
Approximately 1,300 Cancer Registrars from hospital based, central, and national cancer registries throughout the United States will attend the 34th Annual Educational Conference of the National Cancer Registrars Association (NCRA) in Minneapolis, MN, from April 28 to May 1, 2008. The NCRA Conference is the largest educational program for Cancer Registrars in the world. The NCRA Conference will provide a forum for Cancer Registrars to learn of changes in standards that effect national cancer data collection. Cancer Registrars will receive guidance on the latest technological changes in cancer diagnosis and treatment and the correct, consistent manner to record this data. Topics to be discussed include Multiple Primary &Histology Coding, Collaborative Staging, New Coding Rules, Changes in Coding Rules, FORDS and Informatics. Cancer Registrars will also improve their management and administrative skills, knowledge of medical sciences, database management, and data retrieval and analysis. The conference will also provide opportunities for central Registrars and hospital Registrars to network on ways to improve the accuracy and timeliness of cancer data. Without the NCRA Conference, Cancer Registrars would not have access to state of the art data collection techniques and methods. As a result, the ultimate quality of cancer data would not be as high. This would impact the usefulness of information collected and published by the National Cancer Institute's Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program and the quality of research conducted on that data. NCRA is the only national professional society exclusively representing the individuals who identify, abstract, classify and code cases of cancer that occur throughout the United States. NCRA also administers the Certified Tumor Registrars (CTR) credential.
Cancer data forms much of the body of knowledge used by medical professionals, epidemiologists, policymakers, and public health officials for the purpose of cancer control. As the largest gathering of Cancer Registrars in the world, the Annual Educational Conference of the National Cancer Registrars Association helps ensure the ultimate accuracy of cancer data and usefulness in impacting cancer control and setting public health policies. The meeting also provides a key forum for announcements by standard-setting organizations, including NCI?s SEER Program, about changes in protocols or updates to national standards. | <urn:uuid:55699bff-e9af-4ccd-a442-f65d69664754> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://grantome.com/grant/NIH/R13-CA134202-05 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560285001.96/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095125-00308-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.906624 | 466 | 1.960938 | 2 |
Te Papa’s Pacific Cultures staff are blogging daily to mark the annual Tongan Language Week. The theme for this year is Fakakoloa ‘o Aotearoa ‘aki ‘etau Hiva Fakatonga – Enriching Aotearoa with Tongan Music. Today’s blog by Rachel Yates (Pacific Cultures curator), is inspired by Australian Tongan sisters’ Vika and Linda Bull’s “Grandpa’s song”.
Vika and Linda are a sister vocal duo who first came to prominence as backup vocalists for The Black Sorrows. Grandpa’s Song was recorded on their Princess Tabu Album that was released in 1997. This song tells of when Vika was five and her visiting grandfather from Tonga went to school to collect her. He was wearing a tupenu (also known as a wrap or lavalava, an article of clothing commonly worn by Tongans).
Vika, feeling embarrassed about his clothing and the reaction of her Australian classmates to his attire, ignored her grandfather and grumpily walked home ahead of him. This is a song of regret as Vika recalls the day she had shunned her grandfather for being distinctly Tongan.
I have chosen to highlight this song this week because it highlights themes of identity, pride and assimilation that many migrant communities can identify with. In New Zealand and in my experience, similar feelings of embarrassment of one’s culture have been voiced by Pacific populations. Many second and third generation Pacific Islanders (PI’s) will recall being told not to learn or speak their languages as it was seen as a disadvantage to ‘getting ahead’ in New Zealand society.
The items I would like to highlight from Te Papa’s Pacific Collection are in contrast to these feelings; they are associated with Tongan people but are also historical markers and identifiers of a growing Pacific Pride. New Zealand-Pacific Communities experienced a cultural renaissance throughout the 1990s and many PIs including Tongans, have and continue to contribute to New Zealand society in highly visible and significant ways.
This video game features Auckland born Tongan, Jonah Lomu who made his debut as a rugby player for the New Zealand All Blacks in June 1994 at age 19. By 1997, his try scoring feats and unstoppable play saw him well established as one of the most marketable faces in world sport. For many people in Pacific communities, Lomu was a relatable face of success, one of many Pacific Islanders coming to prominence in sport, music, academia and politics. For the All Blacks and international men’s rugby Lomu became the face of the game, symbolic of connection rather than difference.
To return to the tupenu, once associated by some (like Vika) as a symbol of difference and embarrassment, is featured in this last collection item in an opposite way. Here the tupenu and taovala (woven overskirt) have been incorporated into the dress uniform of WesleyCollege in Auckland, New Zealand (the college attended by Jonah Lomu). In this garment the tupenu is presented as a symbol of respect and pride in Tongan heritage and allows the wearer to express their cultural identity. Distinctly Tongan and yet New Zealand schoolboy at the same time. | <urn:uuid:32722247-62c5-4f2f-9815-ed37f7576569> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://blog.tepapa.govt.nz/2013/09/04/tongan-language-week-2013-tongan-pride/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280292.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00343-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972873 | 691 | 2.125 | 2 |
About the Artist
(1924 - 1971)Jochen Seidel was born in 1924 in the German industrial town of Bitterfeld. He was the son of an engineer, and counted several artists among his extended family.
In 1941 he was drafted into the army. After a brief period of imprisonment he returned in 1945 to the newly-formed German Democratic Republic. He enrolled in the art school Burg Giebichenstein in Halle, where he studied painting with Charles Crodel. He did not finish, instead leaving school to earn a living painting propaganda murals for the East German government.
He belonged to a circle of friends around the painter Hermann Bachmann, which included Otto Müller, Karl-Erich Müller and Willi Sitte. Like many artists in East Germany at the time he came under pressure to abandon modernism and adhere to propagandistic works. To preserve his artistic freedom and integrity, he followed Bachmann to West Berlin in 1953.
Download Full Biography | <urn:uuid:e39617ad-e0b0-4503-8ae1-f0fd5293cfea> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://peytonwright.com/historic/artwork/untitled-triptych/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571536.89/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811224716-20220812014716-00267.warc.gz | en | 0.971268 | 204 | 2.8125 | 3 |
Coronavirus. COVID-19. SARS-CoV-2. Whatever you choose to call it, this pandemic has dramatically transformed life as we know it. Businesses are closed. People are being ordered to remain in their homes. Entire industries have been destroyed, seemingly overnight. Radio is not immune. In fact, radio may prove to be one of COVID-19’s biggest casualties.
Terrestrial radio was in trouble before the coronavirus. Large broadcasting conglomerates had endured several rounds of layoffs and terminations. AM radio in particular was on life support in many cases. Then came COVID-19. Sponsors immediately began cancelling or severely cutting back on their advertising. After all, if your store or restaurant is closed, there’s not much sense in spending money to promote it. Radio stations reacted by furloughing staff. Due to “shelter in place” orders, remaining air talent began broadcasting from home. This is likely to be a permanent trend, regardless of when the pandemic ends.
I expect many stations to go dark as a result of this sustained lack of incoming revenue. Those which were just barely making it pre-COVID will be first to turn off the lights. Standalone AMs with poor signals and tricky directional patterns are the most likely victims. These operations will be deemed to be no longer viable, unable to generate a profit. Licenses will be turned into the FCC and the frequency allocations deleted. FMs are not immune, either. Especially those which rely on automation for all or much of their programming.
As always, the survivors will be those stations who continue to serve their communities with live and local programming. Yes, that’s expensive, but it’s also a necessity now more than ever. These broadcasters are likely to be get the most support from their advertisers. Let’s suppose you own a car dealership in a smaller market with two competing radio groups. One provides a genuine service with live talent and coverage of local events. The other runs their stations off a computer, only going live when they absolutely have to during times of severe weather (or possibly not even then.) Previously, you had the budget to run ad campaigns with both groups. Due to the coronavirus, you now only have enough money to buy spots from one. Which will you choose?
The days ahead will prove both interesting and extremely challenging for those employed in radio. Hang in there and as always, good luck!
PS: I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. Due to excessive amounts of spam, I’ve had to disable comments on the site and move them to our Facebook page. | <urn:uuid:3c5c91fa-9065-486b-b488-cfa2e18c0583> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://radio.drewdurigan.com/drews-ramblings/coronavirus-killed-the-radio-star/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573908.30/warc/CC-MAIN-20220820043108-20220820073108-00270.warc.gz | en | 0.97672 | 555 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Dahlia Mignon type
Low-growing plants with lots of small (2-4" / 6-10 cm) single flowers. Very suitable for pots and containers.
What You Need To Know Before You Plant:
When Will This Flower Bloom?
Mid Summer continuous into late Fall
When Should I Buy and Plant These Bulbs?
What Kind of Light Does This Bulb Prefer?
Full sun to dappled shade
What Color Will the Flower Be?
See 'popular varieties'
How Far Apart Should I Plant These Bulbs?
16 in / 40 cm
How Deep Should I Dig?
(see planting note) in
How Tall Will It Grow?
24-36 in / 60-90 cm
Is It Deer/Critter Resistant?
How Can I Best Use It in My Landscaping?
In borders, perennial- and flower-beds and for cutflowers.
Other Popular Varieties
'Firebird' (red), 'G.F. Hemerik' (orange), 'Mies' (lilac-pink), 'Red Riding Hood' (red), 'Roxy' (lilac, dark foliage), 'Sneezy' (white), 'Sunshine' (orange-yellow, dark foliage) and 'Yellow Sneezy' (yellow).
* PLANTING NOTE: do not plant too deep, the crown of the tuber should be just below or at soil level. Adjust your planting dept according to the size of the tuber.
About the Family
Central America, Mexico and Columbia. The Aztecs gathered and cultivated dahlias for food, ceremonial and decorative purposes and the long woody stems of one variety was used for small pipes. The dahlia is named after 18th century Swedish botanist Anders Dahl. It was named the national flower of Mexico in 1963.Read More About the Family | <urn:uuid:2f30f664-259f-454a-ad99-01c606d3d8a8> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.digdropdone.com/bulbs/dahlia-dahlia-mignon-type.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281353.56/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00062-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.822979 | 398 | 2.75 | 3 |
From wrapping paper and gift boxes to unwanted, non-recyclable gifts, the holidays can be a big uh-oh instead of a ho-ho when it comes to the season's impact on the environment. But there's no need to be a Scrooge in order to be earth-loving. Many of us seek out creative ways to save resources while we celebrate the holidays in greener ways. With just a subtle shift in consciousness, you can celebrate a green holiday and give Mother Earth a present too.
Eco Food Gifts
This holiday season, contemplate giving eco-friendly, food-inspired gifts such as locally produced food baskets, a plot at the community garden, or weekly shipments from a local community-supported agriculture (CSA) group. Consider giving green foods that were raised, farmed and made in earth-friendly ways. You can create homemade food baskets out of organic, seasonal products from your local farm stand or stores. (To find local farmers' markets and CSAs, check out the online resource, http://www.localharvest.org.)
For example, pack juicy, organic apples or pears with local artisan cheeses in a beautiful recycled container. Wrap a decorative container of pure maple syrup or local honey along with an organic pancake mix in a festive recycled box.
Tasty Holiday Treats
Your kitchen is the perfect place to stir up green gifts for the holiday season. I enjoy making deliciously healthful food gifts that can be savored throughout the season. You can make multiple batches of goodies and keep some for you too!
My tasty holiday treats are made healthier by using unrefined whole wheat pastry flour, natural sweeteners and nutrient-packed ingredients such as heart-healthy nuts, dried fruits and 60 to 70 percent dark chocolate. To satisfy holiday cravings, I replace butter and saturated fats with healthy fats such as organic expeller-pressed canola oil or olive oil.
Indulge your family and friends with a batch of delicious, all-natural holiday cookies. Greek paximadia cookies are one of my holiday favorites. Similar to Italian biscotti, these twice-baked cookies make a scrumptious treat at holiday parties and cookie swaps or to give as gifts. Made with health-promoting olive oil, crunchy pistachios and flavored with Greek ouzo liqueur, this Holiday Paximadia recipe is sure to become your new favorite. Ouzo, Greece's national liqueur, has a mellow, licorice-like taste that takes on a sweet flavor when added to desserts.
If giving Holiday Paximadia as a gift, festively wrap the cookies in recycled-content holiday paper and tie with a raffia ribbon. The receiver of your present will be thrilled that you took the time and made the effort to give a food gift that is delicious, healthy and earth-friendly.
Similar to Italian biscotti, these Greek twice-baked cookies are perfect for holiday parties or to give as holiday gifts.
2 1/2 cups whole-wheat pastry flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup organic evaporated cane juice sugar
2 whole eggs
1/4 cup light olive oil
1 tablespoon Greek ouzo liqueur
1/2 cup finely chopped pistachios
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. In a medium bowl combine flour, baking powder and salt.
2. In large bowl, beat together the sugar, eggs, oil, and ouzo until combined. Slowly add the flour mixture to the oil mixture and mix to combine. Stir in the pistachios.
3. Shape the dough into a log about 10-inches long and 3 inches wide. Place the log on a parchment lined baking sheet. Bake for 25 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool for 15 minutes.
4. With a serrated knife, slice the log into 1/2-inch diagonal slices. Place the slices on the baking sheet, cut-side down, and bake for an additional 10 minutes. Turn the cookies over and bake for another 5 to 8 minutes, or until golden.
5. Transfer the cookies to a wire rack and cool completely. The cookies can be stored in an airtight container for up to one month.
Follow Elaine Gavalas
HuffPost Lifestyle is a daily newsletter that will make you happier and healthier — one email at a time. Learn more | <urn:uuid:70f75d98-cdb1-47db-bfcc-fd53b2178995> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elaine-gavalas/green-holiday-treats_b_1123506.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560282140.72/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095122-00136-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.893711 | 920 | 2.328125 | 2 |
A second look at our soil unit...We wanted to take an even closer look at soil today, so we made paper slides for the microscope using index cards, a paper punch, clear tape, soil, and sand. When placing a piece of tape over the hole in the card, and pressing the sticky side of the card down on to soil, we were able to capture a sample to put under the microscope. First graders are really good at capturing soil! We had an amazing time really "seeing" dirt close up! We recorded our observations and added the recording sheet to our science journals, which are getting very full!!!
For your very own printable soil unit click here
or click here! :)
Here's to getting dirty again!! | <urn:uuid:db166d4a-2c4d-4527-9fbf-327834a47d7e> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://firstgradewow.blogspot.com/2012/05/we-dig-dirt-closer-look.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281226.52/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00382-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96112 | 151 | 3.046875 | 3 |
That old junk you have lying around is an activity waiting to happen…
One man’s junk is another man’s freaking awesome toddler activity. I am pretty 99% sure that’s how the phrase goes. In any event, I put together an amazing tinker box for my son the other day and we have now hit the hours of play mark with it. You have to build one of these!
A tinker box is a terrific way to invite your child to engineer, imagine, and create. With a tinker box, the possibilities for their ideas are endless.
Grab a tub: let’s make a tinker box!
(this list contains affiliate links)
- Tub or container
- junk from around your house
When I was building this tinker box, I was specifically looking for items I thought might inspire my son. Items that could hook together, come apart, and be made into something new all together. This definitely wasn’t a sensory box; this was a box designed to invent and create with.
I had high hopes that my son would enjoy this and right I was! We are going on 4 days with this silly old thing and every time he goes to it, he stays for up to 20 minutes. That’s a lot of minutes for a lot of junk!
Here’s some of what’s in my bin:
- Dishwasher hose (an old one)
- Plant containers
- Bungee cord
- Pipe cleaners
- Glue and Tape
- Toilet paper tubes
- Clothes pin
Obviously, I put much, much more into this kit, but you get the idea. What I’m loving is the fine motor skills work he’s doing with all the projects he’s creating. I’m also totally into the reasoning, logic, and problem solving as he works pieces together and designs his latest invention.
Not to be outdone, but Baby Sister (15 months) is also loving this box. She’s been seen quite a few times tinkering herself – I can’t wait until she’s old enough to really join her brother in the building and design process.
If you have a spare few minutes, a kiddo who needs a project, and some extra junk lying around – the tinker box is your kind of activity! In just under 5 minutes, I created a box of inviting equipment for my son to work with – and bought myself a whole lot of independent toddler play time too!
Have you made a tinker box for your kids? | <urn:uuid:59c4c988-56a0-4cb1-9fdf-8cf13e2b759a> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://busytoddler.com/2016/04/tinker-box-inventors-kit/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280483.83/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00299-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962658 | 541 | 1.78125 | 2 |
The border runs right down the middle of this room, too, though there is no green line on the floor.
But unlike their brethren in the West Bank, Palestinian Arabs within the green line also enjoy citizenship and the right to vote.
There is an at-grade light-rail line that for a couple of miles runs right along the green line that separates West from East.
The green line is an Auschwitz border so how dare Angela Merkel tell Israel not to settle on E1!
But Ariel stretches thirteen miles beyond the green line, virtually slicing the northern West Bank in two.
The advance thus continued without incident until the platoons were approaching the green line.
Multhaus blinked dizzily as the green line vanished from his sight.
The slitless spectroscope showed the green line (coronium) and D3 (helium) in the coronal spectrum.
She pointed to a small boat, white with a green line, that was moored close to them.
The green line platoons, though greatly reduced in numbers, finally reached their objective and dug in. | <urn:uuid:cdac1f6b-a2d8-46f3-b693-19ea1e46e5e2> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.dictionary.com/browse/green-line?qsrc=2446 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719286.6/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00498-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949919 | 227 | 1.882813 | 2 |
Consumer credit balances increased by $17.5 billion in March to a total of $3.141 trillion. The gain was a bigger increase than the $15.5 billion expected by economists.
This was the biggest month-over-month growth rate since February 2013, reports Bloomberg.
Nonrevolving debt like college and auto loans grew by $16.4 billion.
Revolving debt like credit cards increased by $1.1 billion.
It's certainly worth noting that February's gain was revised down to $12.9 billion from an earlier estimate of $16.4 billion.
Here's a breakdown via the Federal Reserve: | <urn:uuid:231d184a-3108-4e54-9e38-e1f43c9e0d00> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.businessinsider.com/consumer-credit-march-2014-2014-5 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280128.70/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00386-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980139 | 132 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Such information is critical to understand the mutations that cause disease."
New York, Aug 18 - researchers have devised a way to analyse genome sequences in what could help physicians map the risk of various afflictions, including cancer and autism.
The new method, called Scalpel, can pinpoint so-called insertion and deletion mutations (known as indels) in genomes of people with diseases such as autism, obsessive-compulsive disorder and Tourette syndrome, the findings showed.
These indels are like very fine cuts to the genome - places where DNA is inserted or deleted - and Scalpel provides us with a computational lens to zoom in and see precisely where the cuts occur, said Mike Schatz, a quantitative biologist from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in the US.
With three billion letters in the human genome, it seems hard to believe that adding a DNA base here or removing a DNA base there could have much of an effect on our health.
In fact, such insertions and deletions can dramatically alter biological functions, leading to diseases from autism to cancer. Still, it is has been difficult to detect these mutations.
The new method called Scalpel begins by grouping together all of the sequences from a given genomic region.
Scalpel - a computer formula, or algorithm - then creates a new sequence alignment for that area, much like piecing together parts of a puzzle.
Such information is critical to understand the mutations that cause disease.
The findings appeared in the journal Nature Methods. | <urn:uuid:5d0c0a7d-23a8-4ac7-90cd-06f5a084709d> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.nerve.in/news:2535002396923 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560285289.45/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095125-00146-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950311 | 302 | 3.40625 | 3 |
Our spies have once again caught Ford's new in-house-designed 6.7-liter V-8 diesel under the hood of a Super Duty prototype. An earlier picture showed mostly radiator, but this newest photo shows the highly complex air intake, exhaust gas recirculation and tight packaging needed to support this technically sophisticated and highly powerful clean diesel.
Industry sources say the Scorpion has the same unconventional reverse flow intake and exhaust setup that was a hallmark of the GM 4.5-liter V-8. Airflow through the cylinder heads is reversed (relative to conventional diesel-engine design), with the exhaust exiting directly into dual sequential turbos sitting in the engine's valley. The Scorpion will also use lighter aluminum cylinder heads, abandoning the cast-iron heads found in today's 6.4-liter V-8 Power Stroke.
The latest power targets are said to be more than 390 horsepower and 720 pounds-feet of torque. Today's Power Stroke diesel is rated at 350 hp and 650 pounds-feet.
Scorpion fuel economy is expected to improve by 3 mpg or more compared to the current Power Stroke. Helping the Scorpion's mileage will be a new six-speed automatic transmission, like that found on the 2009 Ford F-150.
The Scorpion will use urea (aka diesel exhaust fluid) selective catalytic reduction to meet the EPA's tough new 2010 nitrogen oxide exhaust standards. NOx is a major air pollutant that contributes to smog, asthma, and respiratory and heart diseases. It's a byproduct of diesel's high combustion temperatures. SCR requires periodic maintenance on the part of the driver.
Another notable change: unlike the 2008-09 Super Duty, the hood on the Scorpion-powered truck lifts separate from the grille instead of as a single piece.
Job 1 production is expected to start this fall at Ford's engine manufacturing plant in Mexico.
August 26th, 2009 | <urn:uuid:bec5a2d6-731b-4299-b4c1-239897da9ef5> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.leftlanenews.com/ford-scorpion.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719453.9/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00230-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.890774 | 393 | 2.09375 | 2 |
Apache Wink : 5.3 Resource Matching
This page last changed on Oct 13, 2009 by michael.
Apache Wink provides a Continued Search mode when searching for a resource method to invoke during request processing, which is an extended search mode to the algorithm defined by the JAX-RS specification.
Section 3.7.2 of the JAX-RS specification describes the process of matching requests to resource methods. The fact that only the first matching root resource (section 1(f) of the algorithm) and only the first matching sub-resource locator (section 2(g) of the algorithm) are selected during the process makes it difficult for application developers to implement certain scenarios.
In order to implement this according to the JAX-RS specification, ResourceB must extend ResourceA and be registered instead of ResourceA. However, this may not always be possible, such as in an application that uses JAX-RS as the web service frontend while providing an open architecture for registering extending services. For example, Firefox that provides an Extensions mechanism. The extending service must be aware of the core implementation workings and classes, that may not always be plausible. Moreover, it is impossible for a service to extend the functionality of another service without knowing the inner workings of that service, that creates an "evil" dependency between service implementations.
In order to solve this problem, Apache Wink provides a special resource Continued Search mode when searching for a resource and method to invoke. By default, this mode is off, meaning that the search algorithm is strictly JAX-RS compliant. When this mode is activated, and a root resource or sub-resource locator proves to be a dead-end, the Apache Wink runtime will continue to search from the next root-resource or sub-resource locator, as if they were the first match.
In the previous example, there is no way to know which of the resources is a first match for a request to "/my/service". If the Continued Search mode is off, either the getText() method is unreachable or the getHtml() method is unreachable. However, when the Continued Search mode is active, a request for text/plain reaches the getText() method in ResourceA, and a request for text/html reaches the getHtml() method in ResourceB.
The Continued Search mode is activated by setting the value of the wink.searchPolicyContinuedSearch key in the application configuration properties file to true.
|Document generated by Confluence on Nov 11, 2009 06:57| | <urn:uuid:bbf4e99d-d850-41c2-8f60-72d9d74e5328> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://wink.apache.org/1.1.1/html/5.3%20Resource%20Matching.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281574.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00025-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.893076 | 521 | 2.40625 | 2 |
Medications can do wonderful things, from fighting infection to preventing stroke and warding off depression. But medications don’t work if they aren’t taken. Some people don’t take their medications as prescribed because they forget, or are bothered by side effects. A new report from the National Center for Health Statistics shines the light on another reason: some people can’t pay for their medications.
The survey, by NCHS researchers Robin A. Cohen and Maria A. Villarroel, found that about 8% of adult Americans don’t take their medicines as prescribed because they can’t afford them. Insurance coverage often influenced this money-saving strategy. Among younger adults (those under age 65), 6% who had private insurance skipped medicines to save money, compared to 10% for those with Medicaid and 14% of those with no insurance. Among the poorest adults — those with incomes well below the federal poverty level — nearly 14% did not take medications as prescribed to save money.
Other strategies that those surveyed said they used to save money on drug costs included asking doctors for lower-cost medications, buying prescription drugs from other countries, and using alternative therapies.
The findings were published online as a National Center for Health Statistics Data Brief.
Soaring medication costs
Given the range of health conditions that many adults face, from high cholesterol and high blood pressure to arthritis, diabetes, and more, it’s not unusual for some people to take five or more different prescription drugs per day. Some people I admit to the hospital have 10 or more different medications listed on their medical records. Even if they could afford them, managing that many different medicines is a challenge — and is often impossible.
Not taking medications as prescribed can cause serious problems. It can lead to unnecessary complications related to a medical condition. It can lead to a bad outcome, like a heart attack or stroke. It can also increase medical costs if hospitalization or other medical interventions are needed.
With the high price of most prescription drugs, it’s not surprising that many Americans choose not to fill a prescription or take it as directed to save money. Even with health insurance that includes a prescription drug benefit, the copayments alone can be a prohibitive.
New medications continue to be approved yearly; few are taken off the market. The price of new drugs is always high, and prices don’t always fall when drugs become available as generics.
Cutting medication costs the safe way
If you are having difficulty affording your medications, here are some questions to ask your doctor:
Which medicines are the most essential for me? If your medications have been prescribed by different doctors, ask one of them — preferably your primary care physician — which ones are really necessary. Get an explanation of how each drug improves your quality of life, keeps you out of the hospital, and/or helps you live longer.
Which medicines might I be able to stop with minimal risk to my health? There aren’t always easy answers to this question. You may need to do your own research to make a shared decision with your doctor.
Are there lifestyle changes I can make now that might let me stop some of my medications? For conditions such as high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes, lifestyle changes such as exercising more and following a healthier diet can often decrease the number and dose of drugs you take.
Here are some other cost-saving tips:
- If you have a prescription drug plan, ask your doctor to prescribe drugs that are “preferred.” These will be the least expensive.
- Ask your doctor or pharmacist if a generic version of your medication is available.
- If no generic is available, ask your doctor or pharmacist if a less-expensive brand name drug in the same medication family would work as well.
- Ask your doctor or pharmacist about pill splitting. With some medications, there is little or no cost difference between low-dose and high-dose pills. With a $5 pill splitter, you can buy the higher-dose version and save 50%.
- Shop around. Even with prescription medications, prices can vary a lot. I recently compared the price of a commonly prescribed antibiotic. I found one major drug store that charged one-third the price compared to another. | <urn:uuid:e85ad45c-ae73-4311-a830-1ca49d2ae147> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/millions-skip-medications-due-to-their-high-cost-201501307673 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560282935.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095122-00237-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950936 | 883 | 2.859375 | 3 |
Freestyle beach grappling Belt wrestling Alysha Classic/Folk and pankration asthma. Greco-Roman wrestling can be considered an old-fashioned form of entertainment. However, it’s a modern style. The form was created in France after the Napoleonic Wars. It was heavily influenced partly by European traditions of the wwe belts for sale being wrestled.
Jean Excreta, a Napoleonic soldier, was the first to introduce this style. His hand wrestling flats at fairs are what made him famous. He was the first to declare that the waistline should not be cut off. It is believed that Greco-Roman was created to tie in with “ancient values.” The rules of the wig competition are easy to understand. When a wrestler wins points for performing in three matches that last 2 minutes, they will be declared a winner.
Many pitfalls could happen. Or the match may end with the wrestler taking their opponent’s shoulder to the ground. There is a significant difference between traditional and freestyle wrestling. Wrestlers can’t grip or throw their opponents to the ground. Throwing is the focus of this sport. Due to UFC UFC’s partnership, champions Brock Lennar and Randy Couture have seen Greco-Roman wrestling grow in popularity.
While WWE was only around for a short time, it was still the most prominent organization in professional aew championship belt. Promoters and the market were distrustful, which led to ineffective wrestling and poor scripts. Kim Kardashian has also been confirmed as a wrestler. John Legend, an R&B singer, will also be competing. The stars will energize the event. The arena will be the center of all it. WrestleMania will feature three main events.
WrestleMania is complete speculation and announcements about who will be taking part. There has been much debate about Edge of Edge. The belt now belongs to WWE Superstar Edge. Edge, part of WWE’s Smackdown, was given the belt after performing an unexpected series move during the three-way Pay Per View against Batista & The Undertaker. Batista won the match. Batista won the title. Edge used the chair to smash Undertake and then hold the pin. WrestleMania next week will be held on April 24.
Undertaker was named the champion in his Elimination Chamber match. This included senior WCW wrestling champions. WCW Edge will award the WCW belt to the winner. WCW Belt of Edge. Interestingly, Undertaker has a typical rating of 15-0. He has never lost an event. Undertaker has not yet beaten Edge.
The championship is at stake, so this fight has to be exceptional. This match in WWE Raw could offer an alternative to Fiend. Triple H defeated five men in a thrilling Elimination Chamber match to win the WWE title. John Cena won the 2008 Royal Rumble. He was awarded the title of Wig Champion. | <urn:uuid:a09bd198-23b4-48ae-a1bc-67822df66c48> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.apktoload.com/wbc-world-wresting-replica-championship-belt/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571284.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811103305-20220811133305-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.967261 | 607 | 1.757813 | 2 |
I met President Clinton twice during the time I worked for the City and County of San Francisco. He was more charming than I could have imagined. Upon our first meeting, I had to remind myself that I was about to shake hands with the leader of the free world.
If you have the chance to meet President Obama, will you know what to say? If you want to send him a letter, do you know how to address the envelope? Here are some tips on how to behave if you're ever lucky enough to meet the highest-ranking official in the United States.
• People who are seated should rise when the president enters the room.
• The president should be addressed as President Obama or Mr. President. (One day in the future, when we have a female president, she will be addressed as Madame President).
• All U.S. presidents retain their title for life, so all former presidents are referred to as Mr. President or President [last name].
• A letter to the president should be addressed as follows:
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
• The salutation of your letter should read: The Honorable Barack Obama, President of the United States, or President Barack Obama.
Lisa Mirza Grotts is a recognized etiquette expert, an on-air contributor, and the author of A Traveler's Passport to Etiquette. She is a former director of protocol for the city and county of San Francisco and the founder and CEO of The AML Group (www.AMLGroup.com), certified etiquette and protocol consultants. Her clients range from Stanford Hospital to Cornell University and Levi Strauss. She has been quoted by Condé Nast Traveler, InStyle magazine, and the Los Angeles Times. To learn more about Lisa, follow her on www.Twitter.com/LisaGrotts and www.Facebook.com/LisaGrotts. | <urn:uuid:585a46d6-6c92-4325-bf71-7db148812e69> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.huffpost.com/entry/forms-of-address-how-to-a_b_2390778?ec_carp=8527240558150165597 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571472.69/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811133823-20220811163823-00672.warc.gz | en | 0.962044 | 397 | 1.703125 | 2 |
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john viselon 14 November 2011
Transcript of Recorder
take a "picture" of it. Recorder Pitfalls - No half moons! (covering the hole halfway)
- Blow warm air (Throw a snowball at me, then warm
up your hands.)
- Bring the volume down.
- LEFT HAND up top, Right Hand on bottom!!!!!
- Make sure you start on the first hole
- Show me what I'm doing wrong.
- Make beautiful sounds.
- "Flat, fat fingers."
-Play position (mouth) Practice Position (chin)
and Rest Position (across lap)
- If a child plays when he is not supposed to, he puts his recorder away until the end of the day (or 10 minutes?
-One child echo at a time for note/technique check
- "Spit a watermelon seed." (tongue-ing.)
Activities for One or Two notes
-Echo me. (four beats)
-Sit in circle, each student models, other students echo.
-Teacher chunks chords on piano or plays drum, student makes up solo. | <urn:uuid:67a42fc8-c7ff-4221-9f49-addf3b053b8b> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://prezi.com/rdbr736q8x4l/recorder/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560282926.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095122-00399-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.886385 | 394 | 2.40625 | 2 |
According to the latest Ipsos North American Omnibus, parents with children heading to elementary through high school plan to spend an average of $864 on back-to-school items this year – an increase over last year. But, will this extend to spending on extracurricular activities?
Our latest Thought Starter provides details on how American parents expect to spend getting their families ready for a new school year. This valuable information allows you to optimize messaging on an infinite number of products and categories or identify growth with potential product extensions.
- Back-to-school shopping is off to a slower start this year, compared to last year
- School safety ranks slightly above COVID concerns, with women especially expressing their preference for home learning due to safety concerns compared to men
- 60% of parents say they will not let inflation prevent them from enrolling their kids in extracurricular activities this year
Now that COVID has been a part of our lives for over two years, many expect the return to school will be smooth. Students and adults have learned to adjust and make life work when faced with unexpected disruptions. Ipsos eNation Omnibus checked in with parents to find out how they are preparing for this upcoming school year.
Notably, fewer households with school-aged children have already started their back-to-school purchases—34% this year compared to 42% last year, new Ipsos polling shows. But families are prioritizing back-to-school spending even amidst rising inflation, according to the National Retail Federation: Parents with children heading to elementary through high school plan to spend an average of $864 on back-to-school items this year, $15 more than last year and a whopping $168 more than 2019. Parents of college students expect to spend the same this year, $1,200, as spent in 2021.
With the continued expectations of in-class learning during the 2022–23 school year and facing inflation challenges, Ipsos polling found that few families expect to spend less this year on back-to-school purchases.
While most parents (60%) say they will not let inflation prevent them from enrolling their kids in extracurricular activities this year, not everyone is able to make the same decision.
So, what are this year’s expectations as children head back to school? Most parents are hopeful for a year without major interruptions due to the coronavirus.
Back-to-school trends could be affected by the recent increase of COVID cases. However, now that vaccines and boosters are available for children, schools are likely to be open this upcoming semester. Ipsos looked at parents’ preferences for this school year amid the newest BA.5 variant, and found that in-person learning was the clear preference. Women were significantly more likely (65%) than men (50%) to prefer all in-class teaching.
Those answering all online or both online and in-class learning were asked why they would prefer at least some e-learning. We discovered school safety ranked slightly above COVID concerns. Women (63%) especially expressed their preference for home learning due to safety concerns compared to men (52%).
Why Ipsos eNation Omnibus?
Want to learn more about how Americans feel? Try Ipsos eNation Omnibus. One of the most important aspects of marketing is knowing your audience. The Ipsos eNation Omnibus is the ideal marketing tool because it can quickly measure public opinion and consumer attitudes about any topic, any time. Our rapid-response research is affordable, efficient, accurate, flexible and includes overnight and custom study options. These actionable Ipsos insights can be incorporated into your marketing strategy immediately.
Our Back-To-School Spending study provides details on how American parents expect to spend getting their families ready for a new school year. This valuable information allows you to optimize messaging on an infinite number of products and categories or identify growth with potential product extensions.
If you would like complimentary access to this Back-To-School Spending study, a copy of a past Thought Starter omnibus study, or to learn more about eNation Omnibus, please contact us today.
Ipsos eNation Omnibus Thought Starters still available:
- Summer Vacations
- 2021 Year-In-Review/Holiday Shopping
- Back-To-School 2021/22
Ipsos U.S. eNation Omnibus completes five national surveys each week. Ipsos Omnibus offers a variety of services, including overnight and custom studies. Data for this study was generated by an Ipsos eNation online omnibus study of 416 Americans with children attending school (from pre-K to college) this school year, conducted July 11–13, 2022. If you would like complimentary access to this Back-To-School Spending Study, or to learn more about eNation omnibus, please contact: | <urn:uuid:5acba588-61f1-4d93-9556-ecf1f15864aa> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/knowledge/society/Back-to-school-shopping-off-to-a-slow-start | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571982.99/warc/CC-MAIN-20220813172349-20220813202349-00070.warc.gz | en | 0.953935 | 1,005 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Regardless of the occupation or the industry, workplace accidents can occur anytime. In some cases, an employee can suffer a debilitating or even fatal injury. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, a total of 5,250 workers died from work-related injuries in the United States in 2018. In Illinois, most companies are required to carry workers’ compensation insurance for their employees in case they get hurt on the job. The Illinois Workers’ Compensation Act covers all injuries that are caused by the employee’s work, including pre-existing conditions that are aggravated by the worker’s job. If you or your loved one was seriously injured, you may not be able to return to your previous job or salary. Consulting with a knowledgeable workers’ comp attorney is essential so you understand your rights to benefits.
What Does a Reduction of Earning Capacity Mean?
Lost earning capacity refers to a decrease in an individual’s ability to earn his or her income. It is also referred to as future loss of earnings or impairment of earning power. Different from lost income or wages, which is generally a designated amount of time, lost earning capacity involves a worker’s future earning potential. Reduced earning capacity is the difference between what an employee was able to earn over the course of his or her life prior to the accident compared to the lower amount he or she is now capable of earning due to his or her injuries.
To establish a loss of earning capacity, an employee must demonstrate (with a degree of certainty) his or her earning capacity before the injury and how that capacity was diminished by the injury. This involves providing evidence of losses, which will vary based on the circumstances of the case.
For example, if a worker is paralyzed after slipping and falling at his or her job, he or she may be confined to a wheelchair now. If that employee’s job duties required standing or walking around, he or she will not be able to perform that job. In some cases, he or she may be transferred to a desk job within the same company but at a lower salary. In other instances, a person may have to obtain a job in a completely different company or field.
Typically under workers’ compensation laws, employees who have a reduction in earning capacity have the right to two-thirds of the difference between what they could make prior to the injury and what they can make after the injury.
Examples of Work Injuries That Affect Earning Capacity
Certain professions pose a higher risk of danger due to the nature of the job. For instance, a construction worker who falls from a high-rise building is more likely to suffer a devastating injury than an employee who trips and falls inside of an office building. Similarly, those workers who perform their jobs in a factory run the risk of getting caught in machinery or struck by defective parts. In many scenarios, a person’s range of motion and ability to function normally without assistance may be affected after suffering an injury. He or she may require a brace, a walker or even a wheelchair. In other cases, brain damage, disfigurement, burns, or amputations may make a worker incapable of doing job-specific tasks.
The following are a few of the common types of workplace injuries that can lead to lost earning capacity:
- Traumatic brain injury (TBI)
- Spinal cord/nerve damage
- Wrist injury (Carpal Tunnel Syndrome)
- Broken arm, leg, or back
- Shoulder damage (torn rotator cuff)
- Severed limb
- Third-degree burns
- Facial fractures
Contact a DuPage County Workers’ Compensation Lawyer
Suffering an injury at work can have serious consequences. A minor mishap may only cause you to miss a few days of work, but a severe injury can affect your entire career. At the accomplished Law Offices of David W. Clark, P.C., we have more than 20 years of experience in handling work-related injury cases so we understand how losing your earning capacity can affect your livelihood. Our competent Wheaton workplace injury attorneys will fight for your rights to seek compensation for medical bills and lost wages. To learn about all of your options, call our office today at 630-665-5678 to schedule a free consultation. | <urn:uuid:e7be110c-5d4c-40de-9801-c1eb90ce270c> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.illinoislawyernow.com/2020/03/what-types-of-workplace-injuries-result-in-loss-of-earning-capacity/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571758.42/warc/CC-MAIN-20220812200804-20220812230804-00667.warc.gz | en | 0.966354 | 918 | 2 | 2 |
In Tulsa, Oklahoma this morning, the famous buried time-capsule 1957 Plymouth Belvedere is being unearthed, and early reports are that it’s not going to be good.
According to eyewitnesses, when the concrete capsule surrounding the car was breached, several feet of standing water was found inside, with evidence that the whole thing had been repeatedly flooded over the years. The car itself is “sealed” in layers of plastic and canvas, and greased up, but the smart money says there won’t be much left. Progress has been slowed because of the presence of a Hazmat team, called in to dispose of the possibly toxic sludge.
All photos via KOTV | <urn:uuid:40b2bf6c-8f32-43c1-9762-2ff84c45f67f> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | https://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2007/06/13/buried-belevdere-is-emerging/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719547.73/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00394-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980437 | 145 | 2 | 2 |
GUIDE TO CATHOLIC RECORDS ABOUT NATIVE AMERICANS IN THE U.S.
Volume 3: Western United States
St. Mary’s Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception
1716 Northwest Davis Street
Portland, OR 97209
Email: See website (Home: Contact Us)
Hours: See website (Home: Contact Us)
History: St. Mary Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Portland, Multnomah County, Oregon, has been a predominantly non-Native American parish in the Archdiocese of Portland in Oregon (Archives: Portland, Oregon). Portland in Oregon archdiocesan priests at St. Mary’s attended to the Warm Springs Reservation station (Paiute, Walla Walla, Wasco), Jefferson County, ca. 1869 (transferred to St. Peter, The Dalles).
Holdings of Catholic records about Native Americans:
Inclusive dates: ca. 1869
Volume: Few entries within 1 volume
Description: Sacramental records for Native American parishioners of the Warm Springs Reservation station.
Unless noted otherwise, the repository named above holds (or held) the records described and not the Marquette University Archives. However, Marquette’s holdings, e.g. Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions Records, include related records about these Native and Catholic groups and places. | <urn:uuid:cc441252-1246-4c93-bb70-b26983f1f3c5> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.marquette.edu/library/archives/NativeGuide/or-22.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571982.99/warc/CC-MAIN-20220813172349-20220813202349-00076.warc.gz | en | 0.835006 | 310 | 2.734375 | 3 |
NLP is the area of computer science and artificial intelligence with the interaction between machine and human(natural) language. It is the use of programming and maths to do language-based tasks. NLP is used to apply machine learning models to text and language. The aim of NLP is to teach machines to understand what is said in spoken and written words.
For instance, if we are apple or android users we must be aware of the virtual assistant ‘Siri’ and ‘Google Assistant’. These are the applications that take whatever we say and turn it into something meaningful that can be done programmatically.
Applications of NLP
There are several applications of NLP that we also use in our day to day life. Some of them are listed below:
- Voice Recognition: NLP plays a significant role when it comes to the area of voice recognition. It is a software that understands human language, converts it into machine-understandable form and the humans are then provided with a resolution.
Virtual assistance is one such example of speech recognition. If we are an android or an ios user we must be familiar with google assistant or Siri.
- Sentiment Analysis: this is a type of measure that can tell us whether a text has a positive or negative polarity. With the use of sentiment analysis, we can classify a user’s review as positive or negative.
- Machine Translation: this is another very helpful application we have got because of NLP. Machine Translation is a model that translates information from one language to another without any human intervention. Google translate is one such application that uses this model.
- Spam or Ham: this is another application of NLP where the model tells whether the email is spam or not spam.
- Part-of-Speech tagging: this is one of the applications of NLP where parts of speech like noun, pronoun, verb, adverb, etc are classified respectively from a sentence.
Also in the near future, we hope to see more amazing applications.
Approaches of NLP
There are some of the approaches we go about in NLP that are used in data cleaning. These approaches include:
- Removal of punctuations: punctuation marks like ‘ .,#@!” ’ don’t add much meaning to the data and increase the word count. Therefore removing punctuation is the first step of data cleaning in NLP.
- Tokenization: this is the process of splitting a sentence into individual words. This is also one of the processes of data cleaning in NLP where after splitting a sentence we convert each word in lowercase to maintain consistency in data.
However, capitalization and de-capitalization depend on the applications we would be working on.
Eg: if we have a Text → This is a blog on Natural Language Processing
After tokenization it becomes → “this”, “is”, “a”, “blog”, “on”, “natural”, “language”, “processing”
- Removal of stopwords: stopwords are the words which include common language articles, pronouns, and prepositions such as “ a, and, the, is, for, on” etc. These words again don’t provide much value to the NLP objective as these aren’t much informative. Therefore these words are filtered and are excluded from the text that has to be processed. Thus freeing up database space and improving processing time.
- Stemming: it is the process of reducing a word into its base/root form. It removes the prefixes or suffixes of words based on common ones. This is another step of data cleaning. This can be helpful sometimes but may not always because oftentimes stemming might convert a word too much into its root that it loses its actual meaning.
Eg: Playing → Play, Caring → Car, News → New
As we can see in the above example ‘Playing’ got converted into ‘Play’ which is correct, but ‘Caring’ and ‘News’ got converted into ‘Car’ and ‘New’ which is wrong as the word lost its actual meaning.
- Lemmatization: it is a comparatively similar approach as stemming but it also involves some vocabulary and morphological analysis. Lemmatizing maps common words into the base form of the word also known as the lemma. Unlike stemming it always returns a proper word that can be found in the dictionary. Both of these processes have their respective significance on the data.
Eg: Running, Ran, Runs → Run
In the above example, we can see that running, ran, runs are all forms of the word Run, so Run is the lemma of all the previous words.
So as we might have pictured lemmatization is more of a useful process than stemming. However since it requires more knowledge about the language, it demands more computational power.
- Bag of Words: After cleaning the data we create a bag-of-words model. It is a simplifying model that is used in Natural Language Processing. In this model, a text is represented as the bag of its words. In this model, the occurrence of each word is used as a feature. We use the tokenized words for each observation and find out the frequency of each token.
Let’s take an example to understand this concept in depth.
Below is a snippet of the first few lines of text from the book “A Tale of Two Cities” by Charles Dickens,
We will treat each line as a separate document and will make a list of all unique words from all these documents excluding the punctuation. We get:
‘It’, ‘was’, ‘the’, ‘best’, ‘of’, ‘times’, ‘worst’, ‘age’, ‘wisdom’, ‘foolishness’
Now, the next step is to create vectors. Converting text into vectors can be used by the machine learning algorithm.
Considering the first document, we will check the frequency of words from the above unique words.
“it” = 1
“was” = 1
“the” = 1
“best” = 1
“of” = 1
“times” = 1
“worst” = 0
“age” = 0
“wisdom” = 0
“foolishness” = 0
Rest of the documents will look as follows:
“It was the best of times” = [1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0]
“It was the worst of times” = [1, 1, 1, 0, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0]
“It was the age of wisdom” = [1, 1, 1, 0, 1, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0]
“It was the age of foolishness” = [1, 1, 1, 0, 1, 0, 0, 1, 0, 1]
This process of vectorizing is known as Bag of Words.
This brings us to the end of this blog. In our next blog, we will discuss each of these data cleaning processes with the help of examples in detail.
So far we have just got the idea of some processes that take place during data cleaning in NLP and also the applications of NLP.
Do leave a comment for any query or suggestions. Keep visiting our website for more blogs on Data Science and Data Analytics. | <urn:uuid:b1023509-007e-41c4-b76b-03d178d78f99> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://acadgild.com/blog/introduction-to-natural-language-processing/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570765.6/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808031623-20220808061623-00266.warc.gz | en | 0.940318 | 1,635 | 3.671875 | 4 |
The right choice for all educational institutions
ERP for education institutions covers all your industry-specific needs.
Public University and Colleges
Manage your funds and allocate those to research projects to track the performance and spending on projects.
Why choose ERP for your education organization?
Our education ERP solution helps you reduce the involvement of administration without affecting education. With ERP/CRM you can hand over responsibilities without losing control and improve efficiency with the existing number of non-teaching staff. Moreover, you will reduce the time spent by teaching staff on administrative tasks and help them increase the time spend on core-competencies
- Readymade, out-of-the-box solution
- Quick implementation
- Manage multiple institutions
- Cost-center concept
- Manage student and parent-related information
Manage publicity campaigns
ERP allows you to manage campaigns through multiple channels! Ensure an effective campaign by managing interest areas and target lists.
Our education-specific CRM module, based on faculty type, current students, prospective students, donors, and alumni will help you better manage campaign budgets, task lists, deliverables, and measure performance.
Manage registrations, admissions and learning
Monitor and evaluate the student population via specific modules for integration of Registrar and student services. Define courses, eligibility criteria, registration of applicants, student admissions and fees management, and provide student/parent/faculty portals. Moreover, track and support the professional development of faculty members.
Provide integrated e-learning mobile-friendly portal for students with user role-based access and link it with the CRM module.
Education ERP solution provides an integrated approach that allows financial planning, student admissions, and supply chain decisions to be made at a high level. It comes with a flexible analytics platform that can be used to compare and align student information with financial planning.
ERP for education organizations offers various modules to manage entire operations including academics module, fees management, hostel management, attendance management, procurement, material management, financial accounting, faculty management, human resource management & payroll, library management, document management, and more.
Social Campus App
The Social App connects all stakeholders such as Parents, Teachers, Students, and Administration based on a single platform. Its role-specific content brings the right information and alerts to the respective stakeholder group.
Integrated Library Management System (ILMS)
Our Education ERP solution provides an inbuilt Library Management System with RFID technology
- Classifying and indexing materials
- Ordering, receiving, and invoicing materials
- Lending materials to users and receiving them back
- Tracking journals, magazines, and newspaper holdings
- Online Public Access Catalog (the public interface for users)
Education industry-specific ERP features | <urn:uuid:c7a2ce39-ccfb-41a8-bb0f-d250689fb108> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://honestit.in/industries/industry-education/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570651.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20220807150925-20220807180925-00473.warc.gz | en | 0.894576 | 588 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Chongqing subway: diagram, photo, description
Chongqing subway map
The subway in the Chinese city of Chongqing is a system of underground routes and monorail lines connected with them. Its construction was planned as part of a project to develop the western part of the People's Republic of China, and work on tunneling began in 1999. Today, one hundred stations have been opened on the four operating Chongqing subway lines for the needs of passengers. Two lines are underground, the rest are monorail. The total length of all branches is almost 170 kilometers. The first stage of the Chongqing metro was commissioned in 2005, and the next one - in the summer of 2006..
The very first line of the Chongqing subway is marked in red on the maps. It connects Shapingba Station in the west with Chaotianmen in the eastern region of Chongqing. Its length is almost 37 kilometers, and passengers are served by 23 stations. This line is laid underground.
Line 2, marked green, links Jiaochangkou in the city center to the southwest region, which is home to many industrial enterprises. Its length is 19 kilometers, and 18 stations are open for the entry and exit of passengers. This line is made using monorail technology.
Another monorail route is the "blue" line 3. It is especially popular with guests of the city, as it allows you to get to the airport and the northern railway station. Line 3 also connects the center of Chongqing with its southern dormitories. The "blue" route is one of the longest. Its rails are laid for almost 56 kilometers, and passengers are served by 39 stations..
The "pink" route is also one of the underground branches in the Chongqing subway. It was commissioned quite recently, in 2012. Connecting the city center with the suburbs of Yuzhong and Nan'an, Line 6 allows residents to easily reach the business districts. The plans for the development of the Chongqing metro include lines 4 and 5, the introduction of which will significantly reduce the load on other, ground-based urban transport and solve the problem of traffic jams and congestion on the roads..
All announcements in Chongqing subway are in Chinese. The ticket machines have an English menu.
Photos of Chongqing subway
Chongqing subway map | <urn:uuid:0a4a4cf2-c4e6-424d-94f6-1c55044f3050> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://aroundtravels.com:443/articles-on-china/subway-chongqing-schema-description-photos-map-metro.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572870.85/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817062258-20220817092258-00666.warc.gz | en | 0.960958 | 495 | 2.484375 | 2 |
Don't think of Kate mid-flight, Prince William told
LONDON (Reuters Life!) - Don't have your head in the clouds thinking of Kate when flying, Britain's most famous pilot Prince William has been told by his godfather.
William, second-in-line to the throne, is a search and rescue helicopter pilot. He will marry long-time girlfriend Kate Middleton on April 29th.
"I did actually mention to him in my letter to him when he got engaged -- because I went through that experience myself -- that it's quite dangerous to fly a helicopter when you're in love because you have to concentrate on keeping that machine in the air.
"So I said: 'Be careful, concentrate on that helicopter now and think of Catherine later on'," the former king of Greece Constantine told the BBC in an interview.
(Reporting by Olesya Dmitracova, editing by Paul Casciato)
© Thomson Reuters 2016 All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:308f7f35-70f9-46e2-a551-97244410c957> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://ca.reuters.com/article/lifestyleNews/idCATRE73J1N320110420 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988721141.89/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183841-00415-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977957 | 199 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Belgian financial regulator FSMA to regulate crypto exchange services
Following the increasing integration of digital assets into financial systems, governments are introducing regulatory tools. Belgium is no exception and has introduced mandatory registration with local authorities for crypto platforms. This innovation was adopted by the country’s authorities in February 2021, but the decision comes into force on May 1, 2022. In addition, such companies must register as companies and have a capital of $ 52,725 or € 50,000.
The Belgian government has introduced mandatory registration for crypto platforms
Although Belgium has not always been interested in cryptocurrencies, the authorities now want to set up a system to control them. Therefore, from 1 May, all crypto platforms operating in Belgium must register with the financial regulation agency Financial Services and Markets Authority (FSMA). Thus, companies, not only new companies must be registered, but also companies that have provided services before. Therefore, crypto platforms must declare their activities by July 1, 2022. In addition, companies must register with the financial regulator by September 1, 2022.
It should also be added that such innovations apply only to companies that have offices or ATMs in Belgium. Therefore, companies that provide cryptocurrency services to residents of the country, but are registered and have offices in other countries, may not be registered. This applies to all companies that provide “services consisting of purchase and sale transactions with equity, exchange of virtual currency for fiat currency or fiat currency for virtual currency”.
This is not the first time such a state-level registration has been introduced. Before that, the Financial Markets Authority (AMF) in France had already granted crypto platforms the status of digital asset service providers (PSANs). In particular, the first platform to receive this status is Coinhouse.
The transition of cryptocurrencies to the state level
The use of digital assets is becoming more common at the level of government. Thus, the member of the Brussels Parliament Christophe de Beukelaer announced the transfer of his salary to bitcoin (BTC). To do this, the manager chose the Belgian cryptocurrency exchange Bit4you, thus urging other MPs to support his initiative and invest in the development of digital assets.
Thus, this initiative can be a significant impetus for the even greater development of cryptocurrency in the country. In addition, such measures at the management level not only cover the need for specialized companies to provide digital asset services but also affect the attraction of investment in the country.
Start successful cryptocurrency trading together with the Belgian bit4you service. The site provides free of charge all the necessary tools for exchange, trade and staking, such as trade indicators, major market changes and current news in the field of digital assets. In addition, the service provides an opportunity to study with your own Academy, where you can find all the important materials to study. The site also has a demo mode where you can earn USD 100,000 to test your trading skills. So join the bit4you community and make a profit. | <urn:uuid:f6e61528-3427-40ad-84cc-b7aa51db82ef> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://bit4you.medium.com/belgian-financial-regulator-fsma-to-regulate-crypto-exchange-services-7e8a9331d125?source=user_profile---------1---------------------------- | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572043.2/warc/CC-MAIN-20220814143522-20220814173522-00466.warc.gz | en | 0.955772 | 602 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Most of the time when it comes to orthopedic issues health care professionals tend to focus on one area, the area of complaint. If the pain is at the knee the problem must be at the knee, so I should treat the knee. In a percentage of cases this works, but not in all cases. In cases where problems get better but not all the way or when an injury fails to respond as expected, looking at the body as a whole for dysfunction may be the answer.
Postural Restoration is a treatment approach to the body as a whole improving postural symmetry, orientation, stability and control. The Postural Restoration approach was developed by Ron Hruska Jr., MPA, PT. He developed a series of retraining exercises targeted to correct overpowering postural and movement patterns. In most cases treatment will start at the pelvis and hips and then move up into trunk, shoulder blade and arm. Programs are developed individually for each person to target their own personal asymmetries.
What type of asymmetries are therapists looking for? Visually we may see curvatures of the spine, uneven shoulder height, one lower extremity turning out more than the other, over or under developed muscles compared from side to side and many others. Also, testing flexibility, strength and ROM will reveal imbalances across the body and resting postural position. The final asymmetry a Postural Restoration trained therapist will look for is an imbalance in respiration.
Breathing is the most important musculoskeletal activity we do. The body will compensate anywhere it needs to in order to maintain respiration. When our posture becomes asymmetrical it can negatively affect the orientation of the diaphragm. Improper position of the diaphragm will limit ability to get full inhalation and exhalation. Typically, compensation for a diaphragm that is not working properly can occur through the cervical or shoulder musculature. With the neck now assisting in respiration it can create pain or dysfunctional movement. A proper breathing pattern is an important part of postural restoration exercises.
In summary, think of the human body like any other machine. Imagine your car’s alignment is off which causes your tire to wear unevenly and then to finally blow. You could try and patch the tire and when that fails replace the tire, but does that fix the real problem. How long until the new tire fails. Sometimes a tire blows because we drive over a nail, but other times there may be an underlying issue. If you’re experiencing a muscle or joint problem that has improved, but not completely or continues to reoccur consider Postural Restoration and looking at the impact the rest of the body is putting on your injury.
For more information, please contact Mary Lou Corcoran Physical and Aquatic therapy 315-637-4747. | <urn:uuid:73939838-bfb1-4a4d-a61b-8d3192709cd5> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.myhometownpt.com/blog/archives/06-2015 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570692.22/warc/CC-MAIN-20220807181008-20220807211008-00676.warc.gz | en | 0.930547 | 585 | 2.484375 | 2 |
Everything Happens For A Reason
A King had a male servant who in all circumstances always said to him; My King do not be discouraged because everything God does is perfect, no mistakes. One day, they went hunting and a wild animal attacked the king. The servant managed to kill the animal, but couldn’t prevent his majesty from losing a finger.
Furious and without showing gratitude, the King said, if God was good, l would not have been attacked and lost one finger. The servant replied, despite all these things, I can only tell you that God is good and everything he does is perfect. He is never wrong. Outraged by the response, the King ordered the arrest of his servant.
While being taken to prison, he told the King again, God is Good and Perfect.
Later, the King left alone for another hunt and was captured by savages who use human beings for sacrifice. On the altar, the savages found out that the king didn’t have one finger in place. He was released because he was considered not ‘complete’ to be offered to the Gods.
On his return to the palace, he authorized the release of his servant and said, “My friend, God was really good to me. I was almost killed but for lack of a single finger, I was let go. But I have a question. If God is so good, why did he allow me to put you in prison?” His servant replied, “My King, if I had gone with you, I would have been sacrificed because I have no missing finger. Everything God does is perfect. He is never wrong.”
Often, we complain about life and the negative thinking in us kills the positivity in us.
So think positive and trust God at every moment. | <urn:uuid:82245911-bc22-4d56-aa3f-7caba2765559> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.speakingtree.in/blog/everything-happens-for-a-reason-779682 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571246.56/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811073058-20220811103058-00278.warc.gz | en | 0.985969 | 374 | 1.953125 | 2 |
In a recent blog on University World News, Rahul Choudaha argues that MOOC’s (massive open online courses) could lead to the decline of international branch campuses. There is some logic to this argument. Access to online learning is available just about anywhere, and economies of scale as represented by the MOOC’s can make education incredibly inexpensive. Branch campuses, on the other hand, double down on geography and are often more expensive than other local options. But does that make MOOC’s and branch campuses mutually exclusive options and interchangeable entities for the provision of higher education? We don’t think so.
Choudaha relies heavily on the notion that international branch campuses are currently unstable. Yes, there have been grand collapses such as George Mason University in the U.A.E. and Australia’s RMIT University in Malaysia. But we have no evidence that failures are increasing, or that interest in branch campuses from host countries is waning. High-profile efforts from places like New York University and Duke, or the alternative partnering approach that Yale is using in Singapore, demonstrate significant interest from elite universities—the very ones that would probably be the first to pull the plug if stability of the model were questionable. Rather, the evidence suggests that the branch-campus population is maturing, the number of campuses continues to grow, and the enrollment numbers continue to rise. Even Michigan State University in Dubai, an oft-cited example of failure, has recently been revived and is adding new programs and students.
So, the branch-campus model is not fading. But is it vulnerable to MOOC invasion? Choudaha suggests that the “glocal” students—those that are interested in a global educational experience but unable or unwilling to leave home—will take MOOC’s over branches. Of course some will, but we don’t see how that changes the underlying factors that make branch campuses viable as foreign education outposts. Specifically, branches have regulatory status in the host country and often form a key part of the country’s national plan for economic development. Branch credentials are recognized as legitimate because they have been vetted by local quality assurance, sponsored by the government, or both. Simply because the Internet easily slips across borders doesn’t mean that valid education credentials can as well. Without local endorsement of MOOC initiatives, it is doubtful that students will see them as a superior option to the branch campus.
Additionally, MOOC’s still have a number of obstacles to overcome before being viewed as a legitimate form of competition for any type of higher education. First, students need to be able to complete an entire course of study via a MOOC. It is one thing for a student to pursue a course or two in an area of personal interest. But this is much different than taking the dozens of different courses required for a degree.
Plus, we lack a global infrastructure for awarding degrees outside of a national and institutional framework. In other words, how will a MOOC degree be awarded and from whom? Despite their engagement in the MOOC experience, institutions such as Stanford or MIT have been unwilling to dilute their core brand by awarding MOOC students the same degree as those who complete the more traditional course of study online. It seems more likely that local institutions and structures will emerge to validate the learning, thus diluting the value of the elite international MOOC brands that presumably attract “glocal” students in the first place.
To be clear, we are not dismissing the potential of MOOC’s to be a transformative influence on higher education. And don’t take our discussion of the roadblocks that MOOC’s will face as they try to move into the mainstream as an endorsement of outdated educational bureaucracies. We simply think that it is premature to sound the death knell of branch campuses and herald MOOC’s as the silver bullet for increasing global access to education. MOOC’s are an important innovation. But even if they live up to their potential, and break through the barriers to global provision of higher education that currently exist, there is still little reason to think they will cause international branch campuses to decline. They serve different purposes and different clientele. And they are grounded in different assumptions about the educational value of internationalization. There are good reasons to invest in foreign education outposts for international expansion, and we will explore these in our next blog.
For now, we wonder what readers believe will be the impact of MOOC’s on internationalization strategies? Will they be just another strategic tool, or will they transform the entire toolbox? | <urn:uuid:d61d69f1-54b1-4730-bce4-caff1ad36904> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://world.edu/will-moocs-take-down-branch-campuseshttpworld-eduwp-adminmedia-upload-phppost_id19957tb_iframe1width640height850-we-dont-think-so/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279933.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00122-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953754 | 947 | 2.140625 | 2 |
Oh no! Look what happened to the Transparent Man from 1934! Another priceless historical artifact destroyed. But it’s fun to put different things on the top edge so he seems to be holding them up or performing some weird incantation.
Dig this. We scanned a little piece of history for you: pages from the 1934 Chicago Daily News issues celebrating their World’s Fair that year. Sinclair Oil had a major exhibit at the World’s Fair, and you will find many dinosaurs here. They include a dimetrodon, which is not actually a dinosaur but a therapsid or something. And, you find a triceratops mis-labeled as “Mr. Brontosaurus.”
Some odd cultural artifacts populate this paper. You will find an ad for southern cooking that we might consider racist these days, ads for show girl revues, a town full of midgets, and proof that people were once very afraid their refrigerators might be unsafe. All that and more await you in our gallery here, so delve in! | <urn:uuid:d23c0dc0-04f0-4f0f-80bb-1a1f2a750da6> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://marswillsendnomore.wordpress.com/tag/transparent-man/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572021.17/warc/CC-MAIN-20220814083156-20220814113156-00065.warc.gz | en | 0.951095 | 222 | 1.804688 | 2 |
The Learning Registry is an open source initiative dedicated to bringing together high quality digital learning resources from federal agencies and public and private organizations around the web. The registry is available for anyone to use – educators, publishers and developers are encouraged to tap into the database and add resources that haven’t yet been shared. It currently contains more than 414,000 resources.
It’s not easy to discover educational resources using traditional search engines. However, the Learning Registry makes it possible for educators to find the specific materials that they need. You can test drive the registry search at the bottom of the homepage. Browse by subject or search by keyword:
You can also browse by standard, i.e. Common Core Mathematics or Common Core English Language Arts.
With the principles of open data making their way into education, we’re about to see an explosion of digital learning resources as content publishers begin to recognize the value of sharing to the registry. Developers can then use this data to build apps that connect educators to the learning materials.
Learning Registry WordPress Plugin
WordPress-powered websites can display data from the Learning Registry using the plugin created by the Advanced Distributed Learning development team. The LR-Wordpress-Plugin includes widgets for retrieving resources by subject, national standard, or arbitrary search terms.
As part of the set-up process you’ll also be required to install the JSON API plugin and Widgetize Pages Light. The LR-Wordpress-Plugin requires a few more extra steps of configuration to get everything up and running, but once you’re finished you’ll have access to a handy array of widgets for displaying data from the Learning Registry:
The most powerful of the packaged widgets provides the ability to search the registry directly from your website. During the set-up process you’ll create and designate the search results page where the information will be displayed. I hooked everything up in a test environment and found that it was able to search and retrieve data as advertsised. You can see a live example of the plugin in action at free.ed.gov:
If you operate a WordPress website related to learning or education, then integrating the Learning Registry plugin is an excellent way to provide access to a huge database of resources.
Richard Culatta, the director of the US Education Department’s office of educational technology, wants to make the registry more useful for educators by getting more experts involved in curating the content. Since anyone can add data, it’s imperative to find helpful ways to classify the information so that educators can find the best content for their students without a lot of searching.
Developers can support this endeavor by creating apps for displaying data and tools that make it easy for publishers to submit resources. Check out the documentation for more details on getting started.
The Learning Registry is an open source, government-funded initiative that everyone can get behind. By providing open access to thousands of teaching resources, educators in poorly-funded school districts and perhaps other parts of the world are able to quickly find high quality resources for their students. In this digital era, educational funding doesn’t have to limit the quality of available resources for teachers. With a commitment to open access and open contribution, the Learning Registry project has the potential to efficiently deliver academic resources on a much larger scale than we’ve ever seen before. | <urn:uuid:baf90ab5-1596-4f96-b352-2febab8ce7b4> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | https://wptavern.com/open-source-federal-learning-registry-offers-a-plugin-for-wordpress-integration?do=newreply | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988718423.28/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183838-00272-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.918141 | 684 | 2.953125 | 3 |
Whether you're shopping for toys or anything else this holiday season, we've got your back. The state PIRGs have new resources to help you make better, safer choices. We also have tips to protect your privacy and your wallet from online scams and rip-offs. Here are some highlights of our new resources:
Shopping for toys? This week, at news conferences around the country, we released our 28th annual Trouble In Toyland report. Over the years, the report has resulted in over 150 recalls and other corrective actions by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and manufacturers. It includes our annual list of examples of potentially hazardous toys. For example, this year one toy tested at 29 times the maximum allowable levels of the dangerous toxic metal lead. But remember this: the list only gives examples of some toys that may pose choking, toxic or noise hazards. Other hazards may be on the shelves at either big box stores or dollar stores. So, take our toy safety quiz at our new ToySafetyTips.org page and check out the detailed tips. Although toys are safer than ever before, hazards do exist.
Shopping Online? If you are out shopping online, you'll need to read CALPIRG's Tips for Safe Online Shopping. It will tell you how to save money by comparison shopping and how to avoid online tracking. It also describes your rights. For example, your best consumer protections against fraud or misuse come with your credit card. The banks promise some similar protections for debit cards, but the protections aren't embedded in law. Worse, if you're a victim of debit card fraud, while the bank will most likely get your money back, if you meet the reporting deadlines, it will take 10 days-2 weeks or more for a reinvestigation. Meanwhile, your money is missing.
Surfing Online? Whether you are shopping online or simply surfing online, Oregon PIRG's got a new Guide To Online Privacy. It explains how to set your privacy settings on popular sites, including Google, Facebook, Pinterest and LinkedIn. It also explains how to make strong passwords, avoid phishing scams, block cookies and prevent viruses. Worth a look.
Beware Holiday Charity or Gift Card Scams: As I told the McClatchy newspapers this week, “Holidays, like disasters, are a common time for scams to increase." Don't respond to email appeals for charity, even if forwarded by a friend. Check out the charity first and if you do decide to contribute online, don't click an email link; instead, type the charity's address yourself in a browser window. Watch for copycats with similar names. I also give some tips on how to avoid non-charity scams, such as gift card rip-offs. Always inspect gift card packaging and make sure that the secret password and account numbers haven't been exposed and copied by a scammer, who will attempt to use it online as soon as you've loaded it at the checkout.
Finally, we've also created a new index page containing links to all of our consumer tips pages. Whether you want to know how to choose a bank, avoid identity theft, shop for a car, exercise your landlord-tenant rights or pick a cell phone plan, we've got the tips, right here. We also explain how to use government consumer resources and how to complain to key government watchdogs, including the CPSC (toys and other consumer products), the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (cars, trucks, tires), the USDOT (airline hassles, from lost luggage to flight delays) and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Earlier this month we released Big Credit Bureaus, Big Mistakes, the third in our series of reports drilling down into the CFPB's public Consumer Complaint Database. It's getting results for consumers.
Happy Black Friday, Happy Cyber Monday and safe shopping this holiday season and all year round. | <urn:uuid:94355e8f-b66e-4624-acbd-eaced2c2218c> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://uspirgedfund.org/blogs/eds-blog/usp/shopping-weve-got-your-back-online-and-store | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570793.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808092125-20220808122125-00675.warc.gz | en | 0.927764 | 805 | 2.296875 | 2 |
The Reston Groundwater Dating Laboratory
Troubleshooting CFC sampling
Problem: Gas in water
- Is it real? Is the water outgassing?
- Loose connection somewhere; at well, pump, back of instrument
- Is N2 gas pressure too high (should be around 25 psi)?
- Are you or have you been pumping sand? Pump may be damaged (in case of Bennett pump); or sand may has scratched valve on apparatus.
Problem: No gas flow, can't clear the ampoule stem for sealing.
- 1/8 inch Cu tubing at molecular seive has cracked, losing gas.
- 1/16 inch stainless steel tube has cracked
- Forgot to open both valves on N2 regulator
- Pressure at 1st stage regulator on N2 needs to be about 25 psi
- Tighten nut around ampoule and stem on 1/8 inch tube that goes inside the ampoule.
- Replace ferrules in nut and stem.
- Pinch tygon tubing tighter.
- Are the ferrules assembled in the proper order?
Problem: Glass inflates on melting and bubbles out
- Tygon tube behind apparatus is in water or somehow blocked.
- Flame too high
- Too much water in stem. Empty stem so meniscus is at bulge in stem.
- Keep flame higher on stem, above water in neck.
- Check gas flow rate; regulator at 25 psi
Problem: No or limited flow of water
- May have particle blocking flow in inlet tube
Problem: Ampoule breaks while connecting
- Bad ampoule, thin glass
- Broken glass fragments in ferrule
- Was ferrules of broken glass
- Ampoule size may not be just right. If too small, wrap with Teflon tape. If too large, get another ampoule.
Problem: 1/8 inch stainless steel stem does not slide freely.
- Stem is bent. Try removing and straightening by rolling against a flat surface
- Use replacement stem taped inside lid of shipping box.
- Avoid over-pack shipping box
- Careful not to over-heat stem and melt ferrule
- Avoid "bird art" in stems. Make short, blunt seals
- Careful with flame in general
- DO NOT HEAT VALVE IN APPARATUS
- Be careful with the equipment. It arrived in good shape and should be returned as such.
- Don't hold on to the equipment, if not using it for 3-4 weeks. We will check it out, make sure it is "clean" of CFCs and ship it back when you need it.
- Packing ampoules for shipping - no samples in outer edge of box. Bubble wrap on top. Seal box. Double-box samples.
- Ship ampoules and equipment next day Federal Express. | <urn:uuid:2041b61c-882c-431d-bcdd-12106210e9bc> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://water.usgs.gov/lab/chlorofluorocarbons/sampling/troubleshooting/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280825.87/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00206-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.8594 | 606 | 2.234375 | 2 |
The Jahibakti kajidic was a Hutt kajidic located on Tatooine, which shared the arms dealing business with Gardulla and controlled nearly fifty percent of the planet's water supply. Like four other Hutt kajidics, the Jahibakti controlled nearly one fifth of Tatooine's criminal activities before Jabba's rise to power.
- Secrets of Tatooine
- The Official Star Wars Fact File 38 (JAB3, Jabba the Hutt)
- The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia
- The Essential Atlas | <urn:uuid:6c132117-7b31-4f93-b1ac-b6075f706b50> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Jahibakti | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281419.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00491-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.885139 | 117 | 1.859375 | 2 |
Answer in one sentence.
1) What is management?
Ans: Management is a set of principles which relate to the various functions such as planning, organizing, staffing, directing, coordinating, controlling etc. which are helpful in achieving organizational goals.
2) What is planning?
Ans: Planning is an intellectual process of logical thinking and rational decision making. In short, planning is a detailed programme of future courses of action.
3) What is Staffing?
Ans: Staffing is the process of attracting, recruiting, selecting, placing, appraising, remunerating, developing, and retaining the best workforce.
4) What is directing?
Ans: Directing is the process of instructing, guiding, communicating, inspiring, motivating, and supervising the employees to achieve the predetermined goals of an organization.
5) What is controlling?
Ans: Controlling is a function of comparing the actual performance with the predetermined standard performance. | <urn:uuid:d045be39-8ef3-416c-926f-07b936b18dc0> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://commclass.in/organisation-of-commerce-and-management-syjc-notes-function-of-management-answer-in-one-sentence/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571056.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20220809155137-20220809185137-00672.warc.gz | en | 0.932924 | 199 | 3.0625 | 3 |
A Center for Clean Air Policy report makes a strong case that smart growth is beneficial to the economy as well as the environment and public health.
The planning profession largely pays obligatory homage to the notion of infill in plans and reports, but in practice, the concept is largely discarded.
A 150-unit smart-growth project, planned by the company formerly known as Trammell Crow Residential, will replace a sleazy hotel on Long Island.
Source: Redfields to Greenfields
Georgia Tech is looking at how abandoned or underused property in a dozen cities could be acquired and turned into green space.
A Brooklyn building owner pursues his vision of having artists, architects, furniture designers, and others work side by side, sharing ownership of the property.
Opposition from the American Farm Bureau is one of many obstacles to a pollution cleanup effort that has stirred doubt among new urbanists.
Youngstown, Ohio, needed to think smaller, but the strategy has helped only to a limited extent.
To have a real recovery, we need a new pattern of development, one from which jobs and growth will ultimately flow.
Buildings renovated long ago by Banana Kelly Community Improvement Association are in trouble again.
PO Box 6515, Ithaca, NY 14851-6515 | tel 607-275-3087 | <urn:uuid:9805f12c-2a61-4286-9d8e-6c69153b749b> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://bettercities.net/taxonomy/term/111?page=24 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560283301.73/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095123-00507-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956948 | 270 | 1.882813 | 2 |
Digitization, the chief data officer, and the shifting labor story are major trends affecting the commercial market that will have a major impact on government contractors. Here are four things you need to know.
Non-public sector events such as the MIT Sloan CIO Symposium I recently attended often shed light on issues and trends that could affect the future of federal IT. The good news is the public sector is already addressing some of the issues highlighted by this year’s theme, “Thriving in the Digital Economy.”
Here are a few takeaways relevant to the federal government.
Clearly, the digitization of everything has launched a data economy. An excellent session moderated by Barbara Wixom of the MIT Sloan Center for Information Systems Research, for example, discussed the practice of “data wrapping,” which uses data and analytics to enrich product and service offerings. The panelists described the evolutionary paths their organizations were taking to uncover increased value for their customers. It was good to know that the same is starting to happen in the federal space.
With President Obama’s 2013 executive order that made open and machine-readable data the new default for government information, the digitization of government has already taken hold with the open government and open data movements. Data.gov is another great example. In addition, government agencies, particularly regulatory, are currently contemplating what it means to be data driven.
The Rise of the Chief Data Officer
Security, cloud, mobility and other new technologies are turning the CIO world upside down. CIO panelists welcomed the creation of a chief data/digital analytics officer with the role of being a new partner to the CIO.
A few years ago, the term chief data officer (CDO) didn't exist in government. Now the number of CDOs are in the teens. With the addition of chief data scientists, geospatial information officers and others, scores of senior government staff are focused on data. This increased attention can lead agencies to become more data-centric, which can lead to a faster, more effective government.
The Digital Economy is Shifting the Labor Story
Automation in the service and supply chain is driving the adoption of platform business models with rich ecosystems at either end, connecting business-to-business and labor-to-business in new ways. Airbnb, Uber and Amazon Marketplace are good examples.
With this shift, there are winners and losers. The winners are highly-skilled workers who command higher incomes by disintermediating the corporation as the middleman. The losers are lower-skilled workers whose tasks are commoditized. Yes, the workers get increased workday flexibility, but the trade-off is lower wages.
As anyone knows in the IT service sector, today’s labor laws are often at odds with the demands of labor. The morning of the conference, the Department of Labor finalized changes to the Fair Labor Standards rules. These changes increase the salary thresholds significantly for nonexempt workers and remove the exemption for IT workers, thereby making overtime pay required. Will this protect low-skilled workers or hurt them by accelerating the drive to labor commoditization for low paying jobs?
The federal IT sector is behind the curve. Through its contracting mechanisms, it treats almost all IT labor as commodity labor. Contracts are often evaluated by comparing Labor Category rate cards that already have been loaded with hours. Yet, at the same time, the government wants to adopt leading methodologies like agile, Lean, DevOps and the cloud. As the marketplace for IT labor partitions into specialized skills and commodity labor, the federal IT sector finds itself ignoring the specialized skills that are desperately needed to lead the aforementioned adoptions. This applies to the federal workforce, too.
Other sessions dealt with new technology, such as the Internet of Things and blockchain, with the latter being highly attended by financial services firms. Blockchain is a term for the set of data structures and algorithms underlying the Bitcoin application. In theory, blockchain can be applied anywhere a broker exists to provide trust between two or more parties, and it can do so at a lower cost of operation. Blockchain provides a way to automatically determine when digital transactions occurred and in a way that is totally open to inspection by anyone.
Today, Bitcoin is arguably the only viable application of blockchain, but that isn’t stopping organizations from experimenting to find other applications. Some governments, particularly Estonia, have announced they are embracing blockchain for many government records.
What does this mean for the federal government? It could soon see the value of blockchain, especially how it can support applications that include land records, licenses, patent filings, e-Health records and many other official government documents.
The government contracting community always seeks the latest innovation it can deliver. Whether it be a new technology or a new approach to an existing application, we must look to see what other markets are doing and then incorporate their innovations into what we deliver to our customers.
To do this, however, we need to address the innovation adoption curve first. I’ll be first in line for that event.
NEXT STORY: Do you know who your most dangerous employee is? | <urn:uuid:6338898b-3c98-471c-a1ce-8555627c6d48> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://washingtontechnology.com/opinion/2016/07/four-surging-tech-trends-you-must-watch/322334/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573533.87/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818215509-20220819005509-00264.warc.gz | en | 0.952924 | 1,054 | 1.617188 | 2 |
|Item#||Name||Size & Form||Brand||Price||Actions|
Biotin (Vitamin B7) is a water soluble, essential B vitamin which is naturally found in bread, liver, pork salmon, avocado, cheddar cheese, and egg yolks. It may also be found in certain bacterial colonies in the large and small intestines.*
Biotin is widely know for its importance in cellular development and its assistance in fatty acid carbohydrate, glucose and amino acid metabolism. Biotin is also a very important nutrient in hair, skin and nail health.*
Healthy Origins® Biotin is suitable for Vegetarians and Vegan.
*Statements on this site have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. Products on this site are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
Prices are subject to change at anytime and without notice. The majority of the product information has been reprinted from the manufacturer. | <urn:uuid:267e160f-ee84-48cd-a569-7e061fa593bb> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.nutritiongeeks.com/biotin-5000-150-vcap-healthy-origins/53703.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281419.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00494-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939239 | 199 | 1.882813 | 2 |
PFIA Goes To The Hill
The Pennsylvania Floral Industry Association (PFIA) recently conducted a legislative Day on the Hill at Pennsylvania’s capitol building to lobby in favor of Senate Bill (SB) 198. This bill prohibits the use of deceptive advertising while still promoting a competitive floral industry.
PFIA, representing retail florists, flower growers and related businesses in Pennsylvania, has long sought a restriction on out-of-state florists that disguise their origin when advertising in local telephone directories. SB 198 protects Pennsylvania consumers from deceptive business practices within the floral industry that mislead or deceive them into believing that they are purchasing flowers directly from local florists. According to the association, current law enables a non-PA business to place a listing in the telephone book using a local exchange and a fictitious name meant to sound like a local florist. This practice results in higher floral prices for the consumers, less business for local florists and loss of sales tax revenue for the Commonwealth. PFIA lobbyist Vince Phillips said, “This day on the hill marks a milestone in the history of floral advocacy in Harrisburg. We were able to communicate with both staff and key legislators on an unfair trade practice bill that is critical to the industry.”
Senate Bill 198 was introduced by Senator Stewart Greenleaf (R-Montgomery) and passed through the Senate unanimously. State Senator Greenleaf has represented the 12th Senatorial District in the Pennsylvania Senate since 1978. PFIA commends Senator Greenleaf’s dedication and persistence. Beyond his assistance to the Pennsylvania Floral Industry Association, he chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, is vice chair of the Senate Law & Justice Committee, and is a member of the Senate committees on Appropriations, Banking and Insurance, Consumer Protection and Professional Licensure, and Environmental Resources and Energy.
Several members of the association were in attendance to thank their representatives in the Senate for passing the bill, while speaking with members of the House of Representatives about the urgency of this political issue. “The Pennsylvania Floral Association should be very proud of the fact that legislation that florists have fought for since 1996 has passed the Senate. Now the challenge is House concurrence,” commented Phillips. PFIA hopes that the House of Representatives will see the need for this piece of legislation. The bill is scheduled to appear before the House at the end of June. | <urn:uuid:21ec373a-2ac0-4c82-809d-0b567b49c1e3> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.gpnmag.com/news/pfia-goes-hill/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560284405.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095124-00036-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951101 | 485 | 1.59375 | 2 |
The Story Of Nebulus
Released in 1988 by publisher Hewson, Nebulus is a technically brilliant and wonderfully playable game demonstrating that even by the late Eighties, there was still plenty of life in the 8-bit computers – particularly the Commodore 64. Available to play on the ZX Spectrum and Amiga as well as C64 on Antstream Arcade, we proudly present the story of how this beautiful and original videogame came about.
Having already created the bouncing ball game Impossaball for Hewson the previous year, coder John Phillips began thinking about his next project. But first, we ask him about how he got into computing in general. “It was my dad who got me into electronics, and I built my first computer when I was 12 years old.” From here, John naturally became interested in programming, eventually studying cybernetics at university. “My final year group project was concerned with mapping out the university campus. My section was a movie viewer running on a BBC Model B computer using data collected by my colleagues.” Designed to produce an impressive 3D overhead fly over, John still holds this program on an ancient floppy disk.
Having cut his games coding teeth with the nut collecting platform game Nutcraka, John designed the striking Impossaball, his first game for Hewson. Following a decent reception for Impossaball, John started planning for his next effort. “The concept for Nebulus – as with most of my ideas – came from a technical idea,” he explains. John’s brainwave was a rotating cylinder around which the player could move. “It had an early incarnation as a demo for the ZX Spectrum, consisting of a horizontal cylinder that could be played like a level of Uridium.” When the programmer struggled to find an original gameplay to adapt his demo to, he ditched the idea, switching to the Commodore 64 and what would become the familiar vertical cylinder covered with platform ledges. “The rotational effect was easier to do on the C64 using a trick for the programmable character sets. It was still possible on the ZX Spectrum, but only by reducing the resolution and frame rate.”
Over at Hewson, boss Andrew Hewson visited John at his home in order to evaluate the concept. “He had the spinning vertical cylinder implemented with sprites running over the top of it,” remembers Andrew. “I think he had in mind some sort of medieval battle game with the cylinder forming part of the battlements. I wanted something simpler, and together we sketched out some ideas.” As a freelancer, John worked on every aspect of Nebulus himself: design, programming, graphics, animation, sound effects and even music was handled by him, initially on the Commodore 64. An early design choice was the unusual lead character, as John explains. “I was experimenting with some animations and I really liked this frog. I wanted a character that could be rotated realistically, could fit through doorways and could hop onto ledges. It seemed perfect.”
With the central premise set, John worked on linking the different towers into a story. Playing Pogo the Frog, it’s up to the player to destroy the mysterious towers that have been rising up from the seas of Nebulus. Once the top of each tower is reached, the destruction sequence is set off and Pogo moves on to the next tower. “I did have an idea to try and link the towers together via bridges. But it was discarded as a technical issue,” says John, who busily worked on four more versions of the game, including the 16-bit updates. Unimpressed with the work of a third-party development team, John worked on both the Atari ST and Commodore Amiga ports of Nebulus while also developing his next game, Eliminator. “So, the version of Nebulus for the ST and Amiga came out at the same time as Eliminator for the ST – I got two front covers on various magazines for two games simultaneously!” says John proudly.
Hewson were also impressed. Says Andrew, “I thought [Nebulus] was brilliantly original and loved it. I wasn’t surprised by the reviews – we knew we had an exceptional product.” With a name change, the game became a Stateside release as well (as Tower Toppler), and more versions were added, as John recalls. “I think the Americans couldn’t comprehend the word Nebulus, and similarly in Japan for the NES and Gameboy. It was called Castelian, which sounds more like a card game to me.”
Despite his relative inexperience coding games, John produced a fantastically playable and gorgeous game in Nebulus. “My philosophy is that technical issues are caused by bad design,” he grins. “As I was the designer, I had some harsh words with myself so everything was resolved amicably!” Internal arguments aside, Nebulus became a critical and commercial hit for John and Hewson. “I think we demonstrated over and over our interest in originality,” notes Andrew Hewson. “And Nebulus is another example of how we always wanted to do something a bit different.”
It began life as a tech demo and a shoot-‘em-up. Today, Nebulus remains a fanciful and tremendous videogame over every format it was released on. Play it now on Antstream Arcade! | <urn:uuid:9c82bde0-f06e-42f4-84e9-3f304f4e3b94> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.antstream.com/post/the-story-of-nebulus | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571210.98/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810191850-20220810221850-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.98026 | 1,143 | 2.390625 | 2 |
Regeneration of a transgenic mouse model
Image credit: Billy Delfs
Nicole Ward came upon her psoriasis mouse serendipitously. Ward, an associate professor in the department of dermatology at Case Western Reserve University, was working in the department of anatomy there when she discovered the mouse. A neuroscientist by training, she was studying how nerves and blood vessels influence each other’s development. Ward was using a transgenic mouse line, the keratinocyte-Tie2 or KC-Tie2 mouse, to manipulate cells in the skin and study how they changed the surrounding blood vessels and nerves. She noticed that the skin of these mice was patchy red and scaly like that of her father, who suffers from psoriasis.
Ward’s office happened to be across the hall from faculty members in the dermatology department, and she interacted with them every day. After two years with the anatomy department, she joined the dermatology department, moved across the hall and started characterizing the mouse she was using to study nerve development as a model of psoriasis.
The KC-Tie2 mouse is a remarkably accurate model of psoriasis. Ward and her research team showed that the skin disease developed by the mouse is very similar to human psoriasis physically and biochemically. The mouse also responds to drugs that work in patients and, more impressively,
does not respond to drugs that do not work in patients.
“Most of the time when people are testing their models against human disease, they just make sure that the drugs that work in patients work in their mouse model. We’re really aware that it’s equally important to demonstrate that drugs that have failed in clinical trials, that don’t improve
the patient’s disease, also fail in the mouse model,” Ward says. “So this mouse has been able to do that.”
Results from the KC-Tie2 mouse have been translatable to psoriasis patients. Ward’s latest findings were recently published in the journal Molecular & Cellular Proteomics. See a related story in the Journal News section of this issue.
Because the KC-Tie2 mouse was developed originally to study nerve development, the fact that it developed psoriasis suggested a connection between the two. This link has been observed anecdotally in psoriasis patients who have undergone knee surgery. After the procedure, “the (psoriasis) plaque on the knee that was operated on goes away so there was speculation among the clinical dermatologists that perhaps the nervous system was contributing to the disease,” explains Ward. “There are other similar reports of injury to the nervous system and then remission of the psoriasis in the areas where the nerves had been damaged.”
To elucidate the basis for these observations, Ward and her team surgically removed the nerves from the skin of the KC-Tie2 mouse, and the psoriasis improved. After figuring out that certain neural peptides were elevated in the psoriatic skin, they removed the nerves in the skin and put back only the peptides. The psoriasis returned. To verify the causal role of the peptides, they kept the nerves in the skin but blocked the release of the peptides, and again
the disease went away.
Since Ward moved across the hall in 2005, she has been investigating psoriasis and skin inflammation full-time. Ward has not left behind her neuroscience roots, though.
“I’m lucky I get to play a little bit in the neuroscience sandbox because psoriasis is a very cool disease if you’re studying disease pathogenesis. You have so many cell types that are contributing to the inflammation. You have the keratinocytes, the nerves, the blood vessels and all those immune cells,” she says. “I always tell patients when I’m talking to them, ‘You know, the disease is absolutely fascinating at the scientific level.’ It’s like a big, ginormous nerd alert, right? But it’s like so, so cool.”
was an intern at ASBMB Today when she wrote this story. Today she is a writer at the American Physiological Society. She earned her Ph.D. in biomedical engineering at Johns Hopkins University. | <urn:uuid:85cb02fb-4800-45c3-8415-d7a44bed6d4e> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.asbmb.org/asbmbtoday/201502/generations/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281424.85/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00330-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971832 | 905 | 2.390625 | 2 |
Niccolò Machiavelli is viewed in the popular imagination as a sinister figure who dispensed cynical advice to ambitious politicians on how to achieve and exercise power. His reputation among scholars is far higher, particularly for those who value the public realm of life—that is to say, of governing a polity—at least as much as they do the private sector, where the exigencies of commerce prevail. In that context, he is viewed as the thinker who most effectively revived the civic republican ideals of ancient Greece and Rome.
Machiavelli held that two pairs of opposite or conflicting forces interact to determine the course of political life and the success or failure of particular political leaders—that of Virtù and Fortuna, and that of equality and inequality. Virtù refers to a political leader’s degree of skill, determination, strength of character, and flexibility in dealing not only with prevailing circumstances but also—and perhaps above all—with the unforeseen events with which Fortuna will inevitably confront him. This conception does not necessarily encompass the qualities we normally would consider virtuous, since a high degree of ruthlessness is frequently required for that. Meanwhile, Machiavelli describes Fortuna as like “one of our destructive rivers which, when it is angry, turns the plains into lakes, throws down the trees and buildings ... everyone flees before the flood; everyone yields to its fury and nowhere can repel it.” However, in Machiavelli’s account, a wise leader who exercises the skill and determination of Virtù would have made preparations for such an event; he would erect dikes and embankments to contain the river’s torrents when the rains almost inevitably came.
Machiavelli was known to praise the quality of impetuousness in a prince, while recognizing it could sometimes be a liability. In an article called “Fortuna and the Landscape of Action in Machiavelli’s Prince,” author Charles D. Tarlton presents Fortuna as a landscape that is constantly changing as various political actors create impacts on it, and it’s worth noting how our recent presidential politics reflects this scheme of abrupt upheaval. Bill Clinton was fortunate in having a third-party candidate, Ross Perot, in the 1992 presidential race taking votes away from his major opponent, George H.W. Bush. But when Clinton assumed the presidency, Fortuna turned against him as Newt Gingrich engineered a Republican takeover of Congress and scuttled his health care bill. Clinton then recovered his balance with a series of small-bore achievements such as targeted middle-class tax credits and the promotion of school uniforms for at-risk youth, while Gingrich’s impetuousness got the best of him when he arbitrarily closed down the government and later resigned his House speakership before he could be voted out. Clinton’s successor, George W. Bush, came into office with a national security team devoted to the inflexible notion that military conflict involved the staging of gigantic armies in the field, and he could not adapt to the fact that the 9/11 terrorist attacks were brought about by a small, highly decentralized Al Qaeda. Hence the fiasco of the Iraq invasion.
Barack Obama’s ascension to the presidency involved a string of lucky breaks, not least that both his Republican and Democratic opponents in his race for the Senate were discredited in embarrassing scandals involving marital misconduct. As president, he succeeded in passing a pioneering health care bill, but that in turn resulted in Republicans taking control of the House of Representatives (and later the Senate)—a power shift that essentially neutralized the rest of his presidency. Hillary Clinton was besieged by bad luck during her campaign for the presidency—Benghazi (a tragedy she had nothing to do with as secretary of state), Russian interference of an unknown degree, Bernie Sanders staying in the race well after he had lost any chance of winning, and, above all, the FBI investigation of her emails, culminating in the infamous Comey letter to Congress right before the election (not that she didn’t generate some bad luck for herself on her own). And what of Donald Trump? Was his good luck merely the other side of Hillary’s misfortune?
Not according to Faisal Baluch, who, in a remarkable essay titled “Machiavelli and Inequality,” argues that Trump’s success in the 2016 election was rooted in a pattern that Machiavelli identified in his histories of Rome and his native Florence. In a political culture pervaded by the republican ethic, glory and honor accrued to those who had achieved greatness in military and political endeavors that benefited the society as a whole. As Florence became more and more commercialized, however, Machiavelli noted, the respect and adulation of the populace gravitated toward those who, pursuing their own personal and material interests, had accumulated substantial wealth. Something similar had occurred in ancient Rome, when the patricians refused to restore the agrarian laws intended to restrict the amount of land they could own, to the detriment of the plebeian class. The plebs’s relative impoverishment in the wake of this would help give rise to an array of demagogues—and eventually the collapse of the Roman republic. And in Baluch’s view, it was precisely the same spread of economic distress among the American working class, in tandem with a misguided adulation of a wealthy, ostentatious braggart, that took the demagogue Trump from his eponymous Midtown Manhattan tower to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Machiavelli examined politics from a variety of angles, some of them mutually contradictory. Occasionally, he even struck a note of optimism. In a passage comparing “princely” (dictatorial) and popular government, he described average citizens as “prudent, stable and grateful” in contexts that allow for public debate about major political decisions. He even wrote that “an uncontrolled and tumultuous people can be spoken to by a good man and easily led back into a good way.” Let us hope that our new president—on whose political fortitude and skill Fortuna smiled so broadly last year—can accomplish that feat. | <urn:uuid:fe45e2a3-c20a-49cd-a9b1-bbfbc32a5ac6> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://newrepublic.com/article/161145/machiavelli-virtu-fortuna-contemporary-politics | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570977.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20220809124724-20220809154724-00478.warc.gz | en | 0.972082 | 1,285 | 2.796875 | 3 |
Plant of the Week: Magic Carpet, Yellow
‘Magic Carpet Yellow’
A new garden annual caught my attention this season, a plant from Sakata Seed Company
called Mecardonia ‘Magic Carpet Yellow.’ This little trailing plant only grows about
4 inches tall but has flowered non-stop from early spring when it was planted and
continues to bloom during the cool nights of mid October.
Checking my photo files I discovered an image of a different, but similar, cultivar marketed as ‘Gold Flake’ from the Proven Winners people released in 2006.
Mecardonia is a genus consisting of a dozen currently recognized species native to our most southerly states (including Arkansas) and ranges through Mexico, Central America and into parts of western South America. It is now classified as a member of the plantain family but before DNA analysis was considered a member of the Scrophulariaceae family.
The Mecardonia being offered up in the greenhouse trade are hybrids between M. caespitosa x M. dianthera. Plants reach about 4 inches in height with a free branching, prostrate form and spread to a foot or more across. Leaves are bright green, rounded to elliptic in outline, with serate margins and to .75 inch in length.
The bright yellow flowers are bell shaped to five-eighths of inch across with five petals, the upper two of which are fused together. Flowers are produced singly in the leaf axils, leading to the common name of axilflower for the genus. Blooms of this hybrid are sterile so flowers are produced non-stop during the growing season. A new Proven Winners introduction called ‘Gold Dust’ has somewhat smaller flowers than the original introductions, but produces them in greater abundance.
The original Mecardonia hybrid was made in May of 1999 in Japan by Ushio Sckazaki, a plant breeder credited with revitalizing interest in petunias and, by many, is considered the foremost petunia breeder in the world. Sckazaki received his plant patent for Mecardonia in 2003, with the first generation of plants being vegetatively propagated.
Sckazaki found himself in Brazil working to improve the quality of a cheap white wine his employer was producing when he stumbled upon a wild petunia covered with thousands of blooms. He collected seed and, upon returning to Japan, developed the Surfina petunias that proved to be an international success and providing him the resources to establish his own flower breeding and research company. Aside from his hard work and creativity, much of his success, according to Rick Schoellhorn with Proven Winners, has been his ability to seek out wild species and combine them with existing cultivars to introduce new and novel plants for the marketplace.
Mecardonia is equally well suited for use in beds, hanging baskets or mixed containers. It has moderate drought tolerance but if it gets too dry blooming will suffer. Plants have great heat tolerance and bloom regardless of how hot it gets at night, a trait lacking in many plants that quit blooming during the summer. For best results they should be planted in full sun or only light shade. As the plant is sterile, deadheading is not needed. Plants are reported to overwinter as far north as Dallas, making them hardy to about 20 degrees Fahrenheit.
By: Gerald Klingaman, retired
Retired Extension Horticulturist - Ornamentals
Extension News - October 25, 2013 | <urn:uuid:0414ed73-13aa-4c9d-9bb0-885a8b1d1d8a> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.uaex.edu/yard-garden/resource-library/plant-week/magic_carpet_yellow_10-25-13.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279410.32/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00162-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963183 | 735 | 1.726563 | 2 |
The Influence of Temperature and Time on the Adsorption of Paraquat, Diquat, 2,4-D and Prometone by Clays, Charcoal, and an Anion-Exchange Resin1
- J. B. Weber,
- P. W. Perry and
- R. P. Upchurch2
The effects of temperature and exposure time on the adsorption of four organic compounds by montmorillonite, kaolinite, charcoal, and an anion-exchange resin in a phosphate buffer of pH 6.0 were investigated. Organic cations (diquat and paraquat) were preferentially adsorbed by the clays up to the cationexchange capacity. Adsorption appeared to be one of ion exchange. X-ray analysis indicated the cations were held in the lattice of the montmorillonite with the plane of the ring parallel to the silicate sheets. An organic anion (2,4-D) was negatively adsorbed by the clays; and a s-triazine compound (prometone) in molecular form, was adsorbed by montmorillonite but not kaolinite. X-ray analysis indicated that prometone was located within the clay lattice but the orientation was uncertain. The adsorption mechanism was physical in nature being temperature dependent.
The 2,4-D was adsorbed by the anion-exchange resin through ion exchange forces and the equilibrium was influenced by temperature and exposure time. Prometone was adsorbed by the anion-exchange resin to a much lesser degree, was also temperature and time dependent, and appeared to be physically bound.
All of the organic compounds were adsorbed by charcoal and each was influenced differently by temperature and exposure time.Please view the pdf by using the Full Text (PDF) link under 'View' to the left.
Copyright © . | <urn:uuid:66fc3338-9cd9-43e7-b514-fad10ced164f> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://dl.sciencesocieties.org/publications/sssaj/abstracts/29/6/SS0290060678 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280266.9/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00501-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971905 | 400 | 2.453125 | 2 |
Can the new version of the law on peaceful assembly make a difference?
Roman Kuybida, Deputy Head of the Centre for Political and Legal Reform has recently been part of the working group formed to make important changes to a controversial bill on freedom of peaceful assembly. Over the last four years, he says, Draft Law No. 2450 On the Procedure for Organizing and Holding Peaceful Gatherings has aroused a lot of criticism, as well as two critical assessments from the Venice Commission.
In March this year, the Verkhovna Rada returned the bill for a repeat second reading, with a larger number of representatives of civic society included in the working group on amendments.
He considers that the version that they have achieved, while not ideal, can change the authorities’ attitude to the fundamental human right to freedom of peaceful assembly. It is important, he stresses, that the authorities stop seeing meetings as a threat and that they recognize their role as indicators of social problems that need to be resolved.
The draft bill was considered on 6 June by the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Human Rights, National Minorities and Inter-Ethnic Relations which recommended that parliament adopt it.
He points to the following ways in which the reworked bill differs from its predecessors:
“The working group agreed that the law is aimed at ensuring freedom of peaceful assembly and restricting interference with exercising this freedom, and not regulation of the procedure for holding peaceful gatherings, and not protecting the population or the authorities from peaceful demonstrators.” The new draft bill is thus to be called “On Freedom of Peaceful Assembly”.
Notification of a planned meeting should now serve as a signal for measures to be taken to ensure safety, not as time for the authorities to organize a court ban.
The period required for notification has been halved, with it now being no less than 2 working days before the beginning of the meeting.
However even this period was of concern to the members of the working group from the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union and the Movement For Peaceful Protest. They proposed 12 or 24 hours. Roman Kuybida says that in the present conditions of court bans, including over not notifying in enough time, he sees the issue as relevant. He believes, however, it will cease to be so critical since the draft law does allow for spontaneous peaceful gatherings, i.e. gatherings caused by an event which could not be foreseen and therefore notified of. On the other hand, the authorities can be notified even by phoning 102 of such a spontaneous meeting and from the moment they are told, the authorities bear responsibility for ensuring the safety of those taking part and of public order.
In addition, failure to notify at all or within the stipulated timeframe cannot be grounds for any restrictions since the gatherings are peaceful.
Nor can such failure to notify at all or within the stipulated timeframe be grounds for administrative liability.
Unfortunately the transitional provisions do not contain amendments to the Code of Administrative Offences, with Article 185-1 which is the most repressive norm still intact, This makes it possible to bring administrative proceedings, even impose administrative arrest (i.e. imprisonment) for so-called “unauthorized meetings”.
On the other hand, Roman Kuybida notes, an hour before the Parliamentary Committee’s meeting, Yury Miroshnychenko tabled in parliament a draft law which would make amendments to some laws on peaceful assembly. Most of the provisions were also drawn up by the same working group. If both are passed and come into effect, most of the problems will be removed.
A progressive feature of the draft law is that peaceful gatherings may take place in any public place. At present the authorities quite often breach the Constitution by passing local acts restricting where meetings can take place.
The draft law now suggests a list of places with no public access. Unfortunately however the list is not exhaustive and the possibility is envisaged of other laws establishing other such restrictions. Kuybida says that this does not promote legal clarity since it makes identification of such places harder.
He says that it is impossible that the provisions of the law are aimed at reducing the number of applications to the court regarding restriction of freedom of peaceful assembly.
The constitutional grounds for applying to the court for a ban on a peaceful gathering have been set out in more detail.
The recent appeal from the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union states that The law must not allow any grounds for restricting peaceful gatherings aside from those set down in Article 39 of the Constitution. There should be no provision allowing for restriction of the right to peaceful assembly on the grounds of “the imposition by decision of the Cabinet of Ministers on the relevant territory of quarantine in accordance with the Law on Protection of the Population from Infectious Illnesses, if this envisages the possibility of restriction by the court of freedom of peaceful assembly in order to protect the population from epidemic (outbreak) of a particularly dangerous infectious illness”, since this is in breach of Articles 22, 39, 64 of the Constitution, by reducing the scope and content of this right.
At least with regard to the provision about quarantine, this does not appear to have been heeded.
Roman Kuybida lists them, ending with “the gathering is aimed at obstructing the exercising by others of their rights and freedoms” and says that only this last involves a fair degree of value judgement. He points out that the courts should interpret this in line with European Court of Human Rights case law.
The fact of obstruction merely because a large number of people will be gathered is insufficient. Restrictions are only warranted of meetings aimed at obstructing others from enjoying their rights and freedoms, i.e. by physically preventing believers from entering a church. In fact, the draft law envisages ways around a total ban even in such situations, Roman Kuybida says. For example, it can restrict the amount of time the protesters can stand there in order to enable believers to enter after the protesters have expressed their views.
Importantly, the draft law does not allow peaceful assembly restrictions on the grounds that another is planned, i.e. counter-demonstrations, or concerts etc. These are the grounds at present most often used for banning peaceful gatherings.
All of this, Roman Kuybida writes, should make it possible for judges to refuse to take on themselves responsibility for public order when this in fact lies with the law enforcement agencies’
The draft law also stipulates that if an authority wishes to apply to the courts, it must initiate negotiations with the organizers of the meeting objected to and attempt to remove the grounds cited for restricted peaceful assembly.
Roman Kuybida believes that adoption of the draft law could prove an important step towards overcoming present repressive practice by the Ukrainian authorities. He stresses that work will also be needed to educate those involved in implementing the law.
From the article here: http://www.pravo.org.ua/index.php/politicreformandconstitutionslaw/humanrights/598 | <urn:uuid:4455f2e4-efd0-4e40-b9c9-22225e68b902> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://khpg.org/en/index.php?id=1339460557 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280835.22/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00050-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94981 | 1,448 | 1.726563 | 2 |
World Peace Newsletter - The greatest thing in life is internal peace, external peace and global peace!
Peace is the key ingredient to Happiness.
Peace within means peace without.
Learn Peace - Teach Peace!
Be the change you wish to see in the world.
Peace starts from within!
A change in perception leads to a change in attitude, which leads to a change in behavior, which leads to a change in the world.
Life's what you make it!
Printer Friendly Version - Entire WPN text with Minimal Graphics - click here
We suggest several ways to get the most out of this Peace Education Manual:
1) Which 7 verses in each chapter are your favorite? Why?
2) Which 5 verses in each chapter apply most to your current life situation? Why?
3) Which 3 verses in each chapter do not apply to your current life situation? Why?
4) Which verses in each chapter do you disagree with? Why?
5) How do you rate each chapter on a scale between 1 (dis-like), 5 (like) & 10 (really like)? Why?
6) If you were to add to this peace manual, what insights would you add? Why?
Would they be mostly Mental insights, Emotional insights, Physical (health) insights, Spiritual insights, or Enlightenment insights? Why?
7) Which type of insights are most important to you? How much could you benefit from learning more about the other types of intelligences currently available to the human race? (what types of intelligences do you see in our future?)
8) Between 1 & 100, how would you rate this peace education information: 1 being poor, 50 being average & 100 being excellent? Why?
. . Table of Contents - Printer Friendly Chapters
Chapter 0 - Peace Building Outline, ... Printer Friendly Chapter 0 - click here
Chapter 1 - Front Page, ... Printer Friendly Chapter 1 - click here
Chapter 2 - Ancient Insights, ... Printer Friendly Chapter 2 - click here
Chapter 3 - New Insights / Enlightenment Insights, ... Printer Friendly Chapter 3 - click here
Chapter 4 - Recent Insights, ... Printer Friendly Chapter 4 - click here
Chapter 5 - Not-so-Recent Insights, ... Printer Friendly Chapter 5 - click here
Chapter 6 - Stages of Life, ... Printer Friendly Chapter 6 - click here
Chapter 7 - Good Day / Bad Day Checklist, ... Printer Friendly Chapter 7 - click here
Chapter 8 - 10 Rules for Success, ... Printer Friendly Chapter 8 - click here
Chapter 9 - The Seven Stages of Grief, ... Printer Friendly Chapter 9 - click here
UNDER CONSTRUCTION - July 17, 2011
These first 9 chapters linked above are the only ones that have education numerals assigned to each verse for "International, Congressional, Local, Classroom, Family, Freinds and Individual" reflection, discussion, education and printing purposes.
Chapters 10 thru Chapter ?? to be included with numerical index online soon. We appreciate your patience.
The rest of this web page consists of the entire World Peace Newsletter website, with minimal graphics (printer friendly) without the assigned numerics to each verse. We hope both these versions prove helpful to you.
6.1- Although each of us is unique in thousands of ways, we all share the human experience of being born, living and dying. It is helpful to realize that we are not alone when it comes to dealing with life's challenges and setbacks. It is also helpful to understand that we all have needs that motivate us to act upon those needs and wants. Over our lifetimes our needs change and our motivation changes along with them.
6.2- Needs > Wants > Tension > Action > Success or Failure > Wants
6.3- The more tension we feel, the more likely we are to take action to reduce it. According to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, our first needs are "physiological": food, water, warmth, sleep and sex. These needs must be met for growth to occur. The next level of needs are "security" needs: protection from physical danger, financial security, nutrition and shelter. Once past these stages we move on to the "acceptance" needs: the need to be accepted by others, the desire to be popular. After learning to fit in, we try to fulfill our "esteem" needs: the need for self-confidence, status, prestige and power. If we make it past the esteem needs then we have the chance to self-actualize, something few of us have ever done. By self-actualizing, you fulfill your desire to become all that you are capable of becoming. You maximize your talents and share your success with the rest of the world. Some well known self-actualizers are Abraham Lincoln, Eleanor Roosevelt, Martin Luther King, Thomas Edison, Stephen Hawking, Gandhi and Mother Teresa.
6.4- Who do you look to as a role model and why? What values does your "hero" hold in high esteem?
6.5- The following is a general time-table for stages that we all seem to go through. The better we understand the natural process of life, the better our chances of dealing constructively with life's little bumps. Try to determine the needs and wants of each stage in order to speculate the motivation (tension) behind the actions.
6.6- 0-3: Basic survival. We eat, drink, sleep, absorb information, and are completely dependant on others. We are very impressionable in our first three years. Our brains are processing input, be it positive or negative. Research has suggested that children that did not receive love and affection at this age are much less likley to find happiness later in life. They are often unable to express love and affection as adults. They are less likely to develop a conscience and they tend to commit more violent crimes as adults.
6.7- 4-6: Discovery period. We learn that we have needs and wants. We learn that siblings can interfere with our wants. Our creativity and emotions dominate over logic and rationality.
6.8- 7-10: Schooling begins. We learn to read and write but now our creativity and emotions must be kept under tighter control. We discover friends and start to discover ourselves.
6.9- 11-13: Mental and physical changes begin. By now, we have learned that we should keep our emotions under control, and creativity is all but dropped from most education programs. We notice the opposite sex and changes in ourselves. We begin to want our independence.
6.10- 14-18: Our teen years. We are searching for our identity while battling acne, parents, siblings, friends, school, and puberty. These could be the easiest years of our lives but for many individuals, they are the toughest. Some start dating, most of us still fear the opposite sex. At times life seems unfair and against us. We are still young but struggling to be grown up and treated like an adult.
6.11- 19-25: The real world. We leave home and either go to college (for some, a 5 year educational playground before the real world), or get a job and possibly start a family. Real responsibility begins and we finally find out what it's like to run our own lives. By age 25, most of our values and thinking patterns are established. It takes great effort to change ourselves after this stage. For men, the sexual peak is passing but the instinctive drive still causes bad decision-making on occasion.
6.12- 26-30: Still young but aging. We begin to realize we are not immortal and we can not abuse our bodies like we used to. Many of us have married and started a family by now. We can get caught up in the struggle to make ends meet and forget the importance of living. We still want to accomplish great things but time seems to be slipping away. Remember to enjoy life while you are still young and do not think that things will get better after you have made more money. Live life now while you still have youth, energy, health and lots of enthusiasm. When you get old and "rich" you likely won't have as much of these youthful qualities. Hopefully you will have wisdom and peace of mind after youth has left you. (:
6.13- 31-35: Identity is established. By now we know who we are and what we want. How to get it may not yet be determined. Most of us have experienced the death of a loved one and perhaps drawn closer to family. Women that have not had children may fear that their time for having kids is running out.
6.14- 36-40: Maturity sets in. Many of us are loaded with responsibilities by this age. We might have many debts and not enough income to do all we want. We start thinking about saving for retirement. Most of us have experienced some kind of tramatic illness or pain by now. Setting goals and planning for the future take on new meaning.
6.15- 41-50: Mid-life dilemas. We may find ourselves looking back on our lives with disappointment that we didn't accomplish more. We are still young enough to accomplish our goals and dreams but we have to act now. Our kids are going through their teens and moving out. The house starts to gets bigger and emptier. We start worrying about our health and may start exercising more.
6.16- 51-60: Nearing retirement. The final years of working are getting closer. Financial concerns and health problems dominate much of our worries. We may have to deal with the death of one or both parents. The kids have gone and started their own families. Many of us move into new residences that fit a family without children. Grandchildren become idols to adore and spoil. We begin to give back to society.
6.17- 61-70: Retirement starts. We've finally made it! No more work, only rest and relaxation. Why then after a year or so of R&R do we often feel bored and non-productive? Because for many of us we've reached our goal of just getting here. Our health may also be stopping us from enjoying our time off. We must set new goals to accomplish, just the same as any time in life when we reach our highest goals. Strive for the next level, don't just relish in past glory. Life's a journey, not a destination. Make it a fun journey because the destination is merely the end.
6.18- 71-80: Continuing retirement. If we haven't started planning for our deaths by now, this is the time. We spend more and more time reflecting on the past, partly because these memories are the strongest. If our health is good, the seventies can be very rewarding due to the amount of wisdom we have aquired. This wisdom needs to find an outlet so that others may benefit.
6.19- 81-90: Nearing death. For almost all of us, death is a very scary thing. We fear the unknown and death is probably the least known thing about the human experience. But it is part of the human experience and without it, life as we know it, would not exist! It's like a big physics equation that states that the amount of energy going into a system must equal the amount of energy leaving the system. For new life to enter, some must go elsewhere.
6.20- Death is probably harder on the survivors than the person dying. By this age, death can actually be a welcome event, especially if our mental or physical health is poor. In a sense, life could become a curse if death did not occur when our bodies deteriorate.
6.21- 91-100: More people are living to the grand old age of 100 and many do so because they were good to their bodies and good to their souls. With medical advances and better nutrition information these days, more of us will be able to enjoy our nineties. So start taking better care of yourself and keep setting new goals so that life is worth living.
Love the World, Love your Neighbor, Love yourself, Love Life. Happiness will be your Reward!
Thanks for visiting World Peace Newsletter. 1996-2013 WPE | <urn:uuid:a1ed5a61-814d-49d1-9b9a-590618413a6d> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://worldpeacenewsletter.com/WPN_Chapter6_Stages_of_Life.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573163.7/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818033705-20220818063705-00074.warc.gz | en | 0.950984 | 2,549 | 1.953125 | 2 |
Ceawlin of Wessex
|House||House of Wessex|
Ceawlin (also spelled Ceaulin and Caelin) († 593) was the King of the Gewisse,[a] also called the King of Wessex. He ruled from 560 to 592. He was the second king to be overlord over all the English south of the River Humber.
War leader & King[change | change source]
Ceawlin was the son of Cynric. He is mentioned as fighting alongside his father against the Bretons at Branbury in 556. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle Ceawlin became king of the West Saxons in 560. Bede states Ceawlin was the second king to rule the southern English as overlord.[b] The informal term for a king that ruled over other kings was bretwalda. The term comes from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and means 'Britain ruler'. These overkings typically received tribute from other Anglo-Saxon kings in the south.
In 577 Ceawlin, with his son Cuthwine, led the Gewisse against the Britons at 'Deorham' (Dyrham in Gloucestershire). They reportedly killed three kings, Coinmail, Condidan, and Farinmail. Ceawlin and Cuthwine captured Gloucester, Cirencester and Bath. West Saxons then colonized the lower Severn valley. The importance of this victory was that it gave the West Saxons access to the western sea. This also divided the Britons so they could no longer communicate by land. But it was territory later Wessex kings would not be able to hold. In 584 Ceawlin defeated the Britons at Fethanlea (Oxfordshire) but his ally Cutha was killed there.
About 592 Ceawlin fought a battle at Woddesbeorg (or Wodnesbeorg)[c] also called Adam's Grave, east of Devizes in Wiltshire. There was a 'great slaughter' but nothing was said as to who he fought; Britons or Anglo-Saxons. But it was over this loss that Ceawlin was driven out of power. His nephew Ceol replaced him as king in 592. Ceawlin died in 593. At the end of his reign, the Gewisse or West Saxons held the lands of Berkshire, Wiltshire, Hampshire and much of Gloucestershire.
Notes[change | change source]
- Bede thought of the Gewisse and the West Saxons as being the same people. That identification has been generally accepted by historians. But the Gewisse were not the only dynastic lineage in Wessex. But when writing of the West Saxons during the reign of Cynegils he referred to them as "anciently known as the Gewissae."
- King Ælle of Sussex was the first to hold overlordship over the Anglo-Saxons in southern Britain. There was at least a half-century between Ælle's overlordship and that of the second overlord, Ceawlin.
- The historian Johann Martin Lappenberg (History of England, 1834-1837) thought there was a temple to the pagan god Woden at Wodensburg. In the long struggle between Mercia and Wessex the kings of Wessex frequently defended this place.
References[change | change source]
- D. P. Kirby, The Earliest English Kings (London; New York: Routledge, 2000), pp. 38-39
- Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People, trans. Leo Sherley Price, revsd. R. E. Latham (London; New York: Penguin, 1990), p. 153
- Benjamin Thorpe, The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle according to the Several Original Authorities: Translation (London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1861), p. 15
- Frank Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford University Press, 1971), p. 21
- Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People, trans. Leo Sherley Price, revsd. R. E. Latham (London; New York: Penguin, 1990), p. 111
- Frank Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford University Press, 1971), p. 19
- Frank Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford University Press, 1971), pp. 34–35
- Barbara Yorke, Wessex in the early Middle Ages (London; New York: Leicester University Press, 1995), p. 34
- Frank Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford University Press, 1971), p. 29
- Peter Hunter Blair, An Introduction to Anglo-Saxon England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 35
- Mike Ashley, The Mammoth Book of British Kings and Queens (New york: Carroll & Graf, 1999), p. 301
- Edwin Guest, Origines Celticae (a Fragment) and Other Contributions to the History of Britain (Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1971), pp. 243-44
- Benjamin Thorpe, The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle according to the Several Original Authorities: Translation (London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1861), p. 17
- Jim Bradbury, The Routledge Companion to Medieval Warfare (London; New York: Routledge, 2004), p. 25 | <urn:uuid:98efd75e-36e7-4880-9c25-2f9a1b117da8> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceawlin_of_Wessex | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719784.62/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00425-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.906653 | 1,150 | 3.328125 | 3 |
Insurance companies will cover just about anything, but no legitimate insurer has come up with a plan to pay off your traffic tickets, mostly because that might seem like the insurer is tacitly encouraging illegal behavior. But that hasn’t stopped a handful of businesses from popping up, offering to reimburse you for traffic and parking tickets in exchange for a monthly fee. [More]
Red-light cameras — those automated devices that snap photos of drivers caught zipping illegally through an intersection — are a hot-button topic across the country, as cash-strapped governments employ them as a cost-effective way to bring in revenue while opponents claim they are often inaccurate. One New Jersey lawmaker says he has definitive video proof that some traffic lights are rigged to snag a higher number of drivers on camera, but the maker of the cameras says the video actually proves just the opposite. [More]
As we’ve seen in previous stories, cameras intended to catch speeders and red-light violators are not perfect, and now a state lawmaker in Maryland believes that the makers of these devices need to be held financially accountable for each instance in which a driver is incorrectly ticketed. [More]
Municipalities around the country are turning to red-light cameras as a way to bring in traffic violation revenue while freeing up police officers to do other things. Of course, these devices are far from perfect, especially in the dark. But the process of convincing authorities that it couldn’t have been your car in the photo is sometimes more of a hassle than just paying the ticket.
We’re all familiar with traffic cam footage being used in local news highlights of rain-slicked roads or cars drifting through snowy intersections, but one of the country’s biggest suppliers of red light traffic cameras has been posting collections of crash clips on YouTube to show how dangerous running a red light can be. | <urn:uuid:d7057450-aede-443d-abc7-924f401faa07> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://consumerist.com/tag/red-light-cameras/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281151.11/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00113-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959835 | 383 | 1.554688 | 2 |
There are lots of keys to success in life and business. Most of them involve character traits such as perseverance, having a positive attitude, going the extra mile. Lots of great books have been written about the keys to success. In fact we publish several of them. At the end of this blog I’ll provide links to just a few. In the wake of last year’s presidential election I’m struck by a particular trait that I think warrants shining a spot light on, even if it’s just for the few moments it takes to read this post. It’s called RESILIENCE.
Webster’s dictionary defines resilience in a couple ways. The one that applies here is the second definition: an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change. If you’ve been alive for say more than 20 minutes you know that stuff happens. We face disappointment, unexpected loss, setbacks. We get derailed. Sometimes it’s just circumstance.
Several weeks ago a hurricane blew through our area here in Central Florida. Fortunately it wasn’t as intense a storm or as direct a hit as forecasted. But it was enough to take down a huge oak tree in my yard. It was just an unfortunate circumstance.
Sometimes things happen that are caused by other people. We get stabbed in the back, betrayed. Someone we trust lets us down. It stinks. And sometimes we get in our own way. You fail to make your mortgage payment and incur extra interest expense; well, you can blame “the man” all you want, but at the end of the day you were the one who didn’t mail your payment in on time.
Whether self-inflicted, avoidable or luck of the draw, things happen to all of us that knock us off our game. I think about that as I watch tearful progressives lament the fact that Donald Trump is our new president. Some cheer. Others go looking for a democratic shoulder to cry on. So where is the resilient spirit, the ability, like Rocky Balboa taking the blows and getting back up?
We need that. In business you need to be resilient. Campaigns flop. Key customers bail. Regulations change. We may allow ourselves a few moments to feel sorry for ourselves, but the ones who thrive in life are the ones who choose to bounce back, to get up off the matt, who determine to let their refining moments become their defining moments.
So cultivate a resilient mindset. Be the person who sees the glass-half-full, who sees every calamity as an opportunity for growth, every set-back as an opportunity to get better. Be resilient! Your business needs you to be resilient. Your family needs you to be resilient. To be the best version of you possible, work on becoming more resilient. Maybe you were a champ at dodgeball as a kid. But life is going to throw more things at you than you can possibly escape. You’re gonna take some hits. When you do, be resilient! Not just for you. People are watching.
Here are some great reads that deal with developing the character qualities of success. Enjoy. | <urn:uuid:08ed7b5c-023a-49f0-8b4f-2e5f6eb054a8> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.ahigherlife.com/the-r-word-secret-ingredient-to-success/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573699.52/warc/CC-MAIN-20220819131019-20220819161019-00266.warc.gz | en | 0.961621 | 656 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Information Technology Career
The Information Technology (IT) Career focuses on building linkages in IT occupations for entry level, technical, and professional careers related to the design, development, support, and management of hardware, software, multimedia, and systems integration services.
Principles of Information Technology
In Principles of Information Technology, students will develop computer literacy skills to adapt to emerging technologies used in the global marketplace. Students will implement personal and interpersonal skills to prepare for a rapidly evolving workplace environment. Students will enhance reading, writing, computing, communication, and reasoning skills and apply them to the information technology environment. | <urn:uuid:811e2d85-f956-4bdc-ae8d-488855c6af9d> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.psjaisd.us/Page/3221 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572192.79/warc/CC-MAIN-20220815145459-20220815175459-00066.warc.gz | en | 0.885331 | 124 | 2.984375 | 3 |
The photoelectric effect is observed when electrons are given off from solids, liquids or gases and absorb energy from light. Electrons emitted from these substances are referred to as photoelectrons.
The study of the photoelectric effect has led to discoveries in the quantum behavior of light and electrons. It has influenced the concepts in wave-particle duality. It also aidegd Max Planck’s discovery of the Planck Relation which linked energy and frequency as arising from quantization of energy.
Where h is Planck constant and f is the frequency of the incident photon. The term ϕ = hf0 is the work function which gives the minimum energy required to remove a delocalised electron from the surface of the metal.
K_max= 1/2 mv_max^2
If qe is the charge on the electron and V0 is the stopping potential, then the work done by the retarding potential in stopping the electron = eV0, therefore
1/2 mv_max^2=q_e V_0
This relation shows the maximum velocity of the emitted photoelectron is independent of the intensity of the incident light, therefore:
K_max= q_e V_0 | <urn:uuid:139f76c2-dc59-4741-b431-f7c1285ae4a6> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://brainmass.com/physics/photoelectric-effect | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280483.83/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00293-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.907074 | 255 | 3.84375 | 4 |
We recently discovered that the Mayor’s office released a report claiming to be about the health of the “GLBT community”, while failing to include trans people at all. Despite recognizing other differences such as race, age, ward and income, there is no data that breaks down the statistics by gender identity. Like the Mayor’s hate crimes report earlier this year, the report claims to include trans people but entirely ignores gay, lesbian and bisexual-identified trans folks, as well as trans people who are straight.
The continued invisiblization of our communities contributes to the widespread ignorance about trans people. Additionally, the lack of knowledge fuels existing health disparities revealed in other studies. If the city government is actually concerned about public health, it must prioritize the health needs of underserved trans communities in the District. In our letter to the Mayor (and copied to the Dept. of Health and the City Council), we state our belief that the government should firmly commit to including trans communities and allocate grant funding to help make a new trans needs assessment possible.
UPDATE: Check out this article over on MetroWeekly: “Missing Persons Report: Mayor’s Office of GLBT Affairs release first health report on gay residents, omits trans people.” We have been in touch with the Mayor’s office and the City Council. We will be submitting recommendations to improve data collection, but we have yet to hear a solid promise from the Mayor’s office that this will included in future surveys. See below for our full press release.
DCTC Alarmed by Exclusion of Trans Communities in LGB Health Report
Group Concerned with Mayor’s Approach in Addressing Trans Health Needs
Washington, DC – On Wednesday, July 9th, the DC Trans Coalition (DCTC) sent a letter to Mayor Adrian Fenty expressing disappointment and concern that transgender, transsexual and gender diverse (hereafter; trans) communities were excluded from the Office of GLBT Affairs June 30, 2010 Report of Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Health in the District of Columbia. While the goal of the report was to “present data and prompt discussion” about how to improve the overall “health outcomes in the GLBT community living in the District of Columbia,” the group expressed their alarm by the report’s very obvious omission of existing research on D.C. trans communities and they remain concerned that the report fails to acknowledge the current state of trans constituents’ health.
“Anecdotally, we are well aware of the significant health disparities many trans communities experience due to stigma, discrimination and ignorance,” said Elijah Edelman, a DCTC researcher. “Furthermore, existing data gleaned from various survey tools – including the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance (YRBS), the National HIV Behavioral Surveillance (NHBS), and even Jessica Xavier’s somewhat dated Needs Assessment of Transgender People of Color Living in Washington, D.C. – could have provided a baseline to gauge the current state of health for various trans communities. Acknowledging that the existing survey tools only provide a partial snapshot of the current health of local transgender communities in the report would have added much needed transparency rather than falsely stating that one of the report’s goals is to ‘prompt discussion about how to improve the overall health outcomes in the GLBT community.’”
In order to prompt an honest and inclusive discussion about the current health outcomes of the District’s trans communities, the group offered a set of recommendations that will enable the Mayor’s GLBT Affairrs Office to better research and ensure the inclusion of the District’s trans communities:
- Needs Assessment Funding. Direct the Office of GLBT Affairs to allocate grant funding for a comprehensive needs assessment for all trans communities living in the District of Columbia.
- Issue a Trans Health Report. Release a second health report that specifically addresses the state of trans health, using the available survey tools and research to create a baseline for the future needs assessment.
- Improved Data Collection. Ensure that all existing survey tools issued by your office include questions that capture a respondent’s gender identity and sexual orientation.
- Commitment to True Inclusion. Commit to releasing reports inclusive of all lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities living in the District of Columbia, especially when the Office of GLBT Affairs reports on LGBT matters.
“The failure to report data on the current health of trans communities underscores the urgency to introduce improved data collection methods, which will enable the Mayor to better meet the needs of trans communities living in the District of Columbia,” said Edelman. “While we are disappointed that we were not initially consulted in the construction of this report, we do welcome the opportunity to speak with the Mayor and his staff to discuss these recommendations in more depth, which we believe will ensure accurate data collection for the empowerment of all trans communities living in the District of Columbia,” said Edelman. | <urn:uuid:ec4022b1-162f-4493-b621-ab07acbb6181> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://dctranscoalition.wordpress.com/2010/07/07/dctc-alarmed-by-exclusion-of-trans-communities-in-lgb-health-report/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560283008.19/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095123-00090-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937559 | 1,020 | 1.8125 | 2 |
$4.7 million earmarked for red tide research
Data gaps may start to be filled on red tide thanks to a five-year-long, $4.73 million federal grant.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute in St. Petersburg is the recipient of the grant from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
"This grant will enable FWRI to assemble a diverse team of scientists focused on identifying nutrient sources, measuring the significance of those sources and identifying regulatory alternatives. With more than 125 combined years of Florida red tide experience, this unique team is the first of its kind to focus on red tide nutrient questions in Florida," said Gil McRae, FWRI director.
"Studies will focus on the causes of red tide and determine how different nutrients sources affect all stages of blooms. The NOAA grant will supplement funds committed by the state of Florida for red tide research and monitoring, and will enable the purchase of cutting-edge technologies such as remote water-quality detectors with 24-hour-a-day Web reporting capabilities," according to the institute.
"The Florida red tide organism, Karenia brevis, is a naturally occurring microscopic alga that produces a toxin that can kill marine life and affect people," the institute added. "Red tide has been documented along the coast of Florida since the 1840s. Fish kills around Tampa Bay, mentioned in the logs of Spanish explorers, were likely due to red tides." | <urn:uuid:0d348edc-7e15-4b52-9818-7fb95af76a5b> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://islander.org/10-18-06/redtide_grant.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281331.15/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00228-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938246 | 289 | 2.75 | 3 |
Behind the buzz and beyond the hype:
Our Nanowerk-exclusive feature articles
Posted: Feb 14, 2008
Protein engineering - from the humble spider to the nanotechnology future of material design
(Nanowerk Spotlight) Much has been written about the fascinating properties of spider silk, a biopolymer that is stronger than steel and more elastic than rubber. The silken threads possess a unique combination of mechanical properties: strength (its tensile strength is about five times as strong a steel of the same density), extensibility (up to 30%) and toughness (its ability to absorb a large amount of energy without breaking). Of course this begs the obvious question: How is it possible that spider silk - produced by little creatures that evolved about 400 million years ago - can be as strong as steel - a modern alloy that plays a critical role in our infrastructure and which still attracts considerable R&D investments in its production technology?
What is perplexing is that the atomic interactions (hydrogen- or H-bonds) in spider silk are actually 100 to 1,000 times weaker than those in steel, or than those in the super-fiber Kevlar, where covalent bonds are used. Hydrogen bonds are the basic chemical bonds that hold together proteins, similar to trusses and beams in buildings, and play a key role in controlling the behavior of these structures. In order to reach silk's mechanical properties, most synthetic materials must be much denser, thus much heavier and consume much more energy during their synthesis and transport.
New analysis performed at MITís Laboratory for Atomistic and Molecular Mechanics shows that the intriguing strength of spider silk may be made possible by precisely controlling the number and the geometry of H-bonds at a characteristic length scale. The physical concept is that by making many small elements work together cooperatively, the weaknesses of the individual components can be overcome. All this must happen at the nanoscale in order to be effective.
The extraordinary mechanical properties of spider silk may be made possible through precisely controlled number and geometry of H-bonds at a characteristic length scale. (Image: Dr. Buehler, MIT)
Despite scientists' significant advancements in their understanding of the nanomechanics of biological materials, several key fundamental questions remains unanswered: What is the strength limit of H-bond assemblies, and how is it possible that protein materials such as spider silk reach strengths that exceed those of steel, despite the weakness of H-bond interactions? The mechanical behavior of protein materials is exceedingly complex, partly due to the hierarchical architecture of these materials that extends from nano- to macroscale. Unraveling the mysteries of Nature's protein design blueprints will have a big impact on the future of nanotechnology applications in materials design and engineering.
"Our recent findings explain how the intrinsic strength limitation of H-bonds in spider silk is overcome by the formation of a nanocomposite structure of H-bond clusters, thereby enabling the formation of larger and much stronger beta-sheet structures" Prof. Markus Buehler explains to Nanowerk. "We have discovered this by bringing together two independent concepts that were established earlier in the field of proteins (both are universal properties of proteins, that is, they do not depend specifically on which protein is considered, and both have been clearly confirmed in experiment):
"1. Proteins are highly flexible structures that easily bend and turn, leading to a particular form of elasticity called ďentropic elasticityĒ. Many experiments with AFM have shown that this 'entropic elasticity' is indeed the governing mode of deformation.
"2. Proteins are bound together by the well-known H-bonds (one of the weakest chemical bonds known). It is established that these H-bonds contain very little energy. In fact, their energy is so small that they can easily break just by the random thermal vibrations at the molecular level if they donít work cooperatively in assemblies."
Earlier studies were unable to combine these two properties of protein structures in elucidating their strength. The 'entropic elasticity' alone, or the properties of H-bonds alone can not explain how spider silk can be as strong as steel.
Molecular structure and loading conditions used for molecular dynamics simulations. Beta-sandwich structures are a characteristic feature of mechanical proteins, which employ networks of parallel H-bonds. Interstrand H-bonds (thick yellow lines in insert) act as mechanical clamps that resist unfolding. (Image: Dr. Buehler, MIT)
Buehler's group has achieved this link between the two by returning to a more fundamental level, using thermodynamics as the basic principle.
"Interestingly, the same thermodynamical approach has been used more than 80 years ago during the development of the theories of fracture mechanics – at that time, applied to ships, and thus far used primarily at much larger scales" says Buehler. "In a different form but with essentially the same physics, it can also be applied to predict the fracture of proteins."
He explains that using only one or two H-bonds in building a protein provides no or very little mechanical resistance. Using three to four H-bonds, however, leads to a resistance that actually exceeds that of many metals. Using more than four bonds also leads to a much reduced resistance. This means that the strength is maximized at a characteristic number of H-bonds.
"We have not only performed a theoretical and simulation analysis of this phenomenon" says Buehler. "We have also cross-checked our results against a variety of experimental observations from different sources and different materials. Among others, we utilized a large experimental database with thousands of protein structures (from the Protein Data Bank) and analyzed the prevalence of the characteristic 'size' of the protein, focused on beta-sheet rich protein structures (these are structures that are often found in structural protein materials). What we found was quite exciting: The above described strength resistance as a function of size correlates very closely with the biological prevalence."
This suggests that a key evolutionary driving force for the structural features of these proteins may be related to strength: Protein structures at a characteristic dimension are most common in biology. Protein structures smaller or larger than this characteristic dimension are less common.
Buehler explains how these findings are important for several reasons:
1) It may help us to understand what type of protein mutations lead to malfunctions of the protein, for instance in genetic diseases that
disrupt the H-bonding structures or those that create overly strong structures.
2) Since H-bonds are an important structural 'glue' (in some sense, the cement of biology), and since mechanical forces play a critical role in many biological processes, the findings could help us to better understand how elementary biological processes work (e.g. mechanotransduction).
3) It may enable us to design new materials based on proteins. It is already possible to synthesize novel materials from scratch, using protein elements as building blocks. What is missing are engineering tools that direct this material design process.
4) The findings may be important to better understand the behavior of other protein materials, for instance those that define hair, protein
nanotubes and amyloids, muscle proteins, or those that make up the cellís cytoskeleton. | <urn:uuid:fb377182-ebf1-4e1d-a57d-e8106490cac6> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.nanowerk.com/spotlight/spotid=4523.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560284411.66/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095124-00462-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940695 | 1,514 | 3.484375 | 3 |
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A blowout preventer may have ignited the fire that caused a Gulf of Mexico rig to partially collapse Wednesday, after a natural gas well blew out, federal authorities reported.
A leak in the natural gas well, owned by Walter Oil & Gas, ignited a fire on a jack-up rig operated by Hercules Offshore late Tuesday night, hours after its 44 workers had been evacuated, according to the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement.
The ignition source may have been heat generated by the friction of formation sand shooting through the blowout preventer, according to an update to Congress from the Coast Guard. The sand may have traveled on the drill floor and up into the metal of the derrick.
While the source of the leak is still unknown, Danenberger explained that there are several possibilities. The flow path could be inside production casing or tubing.
Another flow path could be between the casing strings or the space between the two concentric casing strings. Alternatively, it could be outside the casing, back to the seafloor, either through cement channels or through fractures in the sediments.
“The fact that there is a fire would imply that that is flowing inside the casing or between the casing strings, because it is coming back up to the surface to the rig,” Danenberger said.
The next steps for the operation will hinge on how the well was constructed.
“I would hope that there is enough well bore and well integrity that they can apply a surface cap and then pump in mud and cement or make some connections to pump in heavy mud, but I have no idea what the well flow is,” Danenberger said. “They could either shut in one or more rams of the blow out preventer and pump in mud and cement or if there is some issue with it, perhaps install a surface cap with outlets that would allow them to pump in mud and cement. This is all contingent on the integrity of the well bore.”
Hercules Offshore said that natural gas flowing from the well ignited, which then spread to the rig. The company was awaiting daylight to assess any potential environmental incident, it said in a Wednesday statement.
The well is located in about 155 feet of water and the well head is above the water's surface.
A drilling rig that caught fire after a natural gas blowout in the Gulf of Mexico appears stable now that the fire is out, and there was no sign of any oil sheen on a fly-over Thursday morning, a rig company executive said.
The federal Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement announced Thursday morning that the well had clogged with sand and sediment, a process called "bridging over" that Noe said can commonly happen with shallow water wells.
Now, officials are focusing efforts on permanently plugging the well and finding out why it blew wild — including why the blowout preventer system on the rig failed to stop the accident. | <urn:uuid:61fad265-91b9-454a-8516-2671d47b0cfb> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread961176/pg1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560282202.61/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095122-00547-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963766 | 651 | 1.71875 | 2 |
There is only one difference between Hamas the terrorist group that control’s Gaza and Fatah, the terrorist group perceived as moderate by the United States Fatah controls Judea and Samaria. Hamas is open about it terrorist goals, Fatah (the party that is controlled by Palestinian President Abbas) tries to maintain a shroud of “moderation” Of course their moderation belies the truth.
Both President Bush and President Obama have worked to “prop up” Abbas and the Fatah Party, former Prime Minister Ehud (Mr. Comb-Over) Olmert also worked to “prop up” the terrorist leader. In doing so, they all ignored the continued incitement by Abbas and his party. The truth is Peace has never been on their agenda. But don’t believe me, believe their own words. (Note if you cannot see the videos below CLICK HERE):
Fatah official:”Our goal has never been peace.Peace is a means; the goal is Palestine.”
by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik
The PA will resume violence and terror against Israel when Fatah is “capable,” and “according to what seems right,” Fatah activist Kifah Radaydeh says in a PA TV interview. She states openly that peace is not a goal for Fatah:
“It has been said that we are negotiating for peace, but our goal has never been peace. Peace is a means; the goal is Palestine.” Radaydeh says that “armed struggle” has not been ruled out and will continue, depending on how “capable” the PA forces are.
“Fatah is facing a challenge, because [Fatah] says that we perceive peace as one of the strategies, but we say that all forms of the struggle exist, and we do not rule out the possibility of the armed struggle or any other struggle. The struggle exists in all its forms, on the basis of what we are capable of at a given time, and according to what seems right…
What exactly do we want? It has been said that we are negotiating for peace, but our goal has never been peace. Peace is a means; and the goal is Palestine. I do not negotiate in order to achieve peace. I negotiate for Palestine, in order to achieve a state.”
[PA TV July 7, 2009]
It should be noted that when Fatah refers to “Palestine”, it is routinely referring to all of Israel.
1. The Fatah flag still shows the map of Israel under rifles. The same symbol (see right) appears on the Fatah website (http://www.fateh.ps) and other official Fatah publications.
2. Fatah MP Najat Abu-Bakr said in a PA TV interview last year that Fatah’s goal remains the destruction of Israel, but that their political plan is to focus on the West Bank and Gaza Strip:
“It doesn’t mean that we don’t want the 1948 borders [all of Israel]…but our current political program is to say that we want the 1967 borders.” [PA TV, Aug. 25 2008].
3. A PA TV educational documentary broadcast monthly since 2007 includes the following words denying the existence of Israel:
“Another section in Palestine which is the Palestinian coast that spreads along the [Mediterranean] sea, from… Ashkelon in the south, until Haifa, in the Carmel Mountains. Haifa is a well-known Palestinian port. [Haifa] enjoyed a high status among Arabs and Palestinians especially before it fell to the ‘occupation’ [Israel] in 1948. To its north, we find Acre. East of Acre, we reach a city with history and importance, the city of Tiberias, near a famous lake, the lake of Tiberias [Kinneret- Sea of Galilee]. Jaffa, an ancient coastal city, is the bride of the sea, and Palestine’s gateway to the world.” [PA TV, August 2007-June 7, 2009, dozens of times]
4. Muhammad Dahlan, senior PA official, recently stressed that Fatah adamantly refuses to recognize Israel, and that even Palestinian Authority recognition is to have better standing internationally in order to receive foreign aid:
“I want to say for the thousandth time, in my own name and in the name of all of my fellow members of the Fatah movement: We do not demand that the Hamas movement recognize Israel. On the contrary, we demand of the Hamas movement not to recognize Israel, because the Fatah movement does not recognize Israel, even today… It’s required of the government but not of Hamas; it’s required of the government but not of the Fatah, so that this government will be able to offer the necessary assistance, to carry out the necessary reconstruction, to offer assistance to the sick, to bring relief to needy families… This can be dealt with [only] by a government that has relations with the international community, one that is acceptable to the international community, in order that we can work together and benefit from the international community.” [PA TV March 17, 2009]
When it comes to making peace, it takes two to tango. Despite the errant policy of the two previous US presidents, Israel does not have a peace partner. Until the Palestinians move away from the destruction of the Jewish State as a goal, all of this travel to work on a peace plan is simply a waste of fuel.
Source:Palestinian Media Watch | <urn:uuid:e8842add-cef7-4e1c-be58-8c19cc045018> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://lidblog.com/moderate-fatah-terrorists-our-goal-has/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281746.82/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00289-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958463 | 1,184 | 1.835938 | 2 |
When I first learned scales, I learned them one note at a time, and played them that way for years. But gradually, as I found out what I could do with a scale, I realized it’s more useful to look at a scale as a PATTERN.
In another article (http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art48010.asp) we saw that a major scale is a pattern of half-steps: 2-2-1-2-2-2-1. In this article we’ll learn to see other patterns that make scales easier to play.
So what are those patterns?
We can learn the C Major scale (and also G, D, A, E and B scales) by grouping the first 3 notes of the scale, and then the last 4 notes of the scale. Let’s take a C major scale. The first three notes are C-D-E (like Do-Re-Mi).
On the piano, play them with your first three “fingers” – your thumb on C, then your index finger on D, then your middle finger on E. If you play them all together (not a nice sound because it’s a clump of notes), it’s a pattern of three notes (C-D-E). Then tuck your thumb under and put it on F. Your “fingers” are now on four notes: F-G-A-B, another clump of notes if you play them all together.
Your PATTERN for the C major scale is therefore a pattern of 3 notes (the first clump), then 4 notes (the second clump). Three notes: C-D-E. Four notes: F-G-A-B.
That gives your brain only two positions or patterns to think of: clump one and clump two. Practice those two clumps till they’re comfortable and you’ve got the pattern of the scale – a group of three notes, then a group of four, all the way up the piano. Descending, you have the same thing – only two groups to think about.
If you play guitar, or a flute, trumpet, sax or any other single note at a time instrument, you can still think of those same patterns. Think of the first pattern, and in your mind play the fingering (C-D-E for a C scale). Then play those notes. Then think of the second pattern, and in your mind play the fingering (F-G-A-B for a C scale). Play those notes. Even though you’re playing only one note at a time, you’re still visualizing only two groups.
Visualizing groups of notes as you play – or better yet, before you start to play a scale, or any music phrase, helps you to play those notes in a much smoother fashion, because you’ve already grouped them together in your mind.
Instead of thinking of the first note, playing it; then the second note, playing it; the third note; playing it, etc., the groups or patterns you think of allow you to phrase music more easily. If you can hum the phrase to yourself, when you play it you can put much more expression into it – even when you’re practicing a scale.
Visualizing and then playing can make practicing more fun. Because you can do different things with each group of notes. For example, play group one (the first three notes) from soft to loud, and play the second group from loud to soft. Or accent the first note of each group. Or accent the second note of each group.
The variations will make practicing scales far more interesting and fluid than just thinking of one note at a time.
All the best,
BellaOnline’s Musician Editor
My Music on CDbaby: Music to heal emotions & boost your creativity | <urn:uuid:2aab4084-3f68-4bb0-8866-ab927ed54038> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.bellaonline.com/ArticlesP/art49427.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560284405.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095124-00040-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.925869 | 823 | 3.640625 | 4 |
Contention is always on the agenda in Fort Worth’s halls of government, whether the question is gas wells, bullying, budget woes, or eminent domain. But in the last few weeks, the heat has been turned up on an even more nuts-and-bolts topic, at least from elected officials’ point of view. That would be politics, neighborhoods, and race. In other words, redistricting.
In Fort Worth and Tarrant County this time, there is a common, constant theme to the redistricting debates: how to deal with the growing strength of the Hispanic vote. In the last decade, Hispanics have been at the forefront of Fort Worth’s huge growth. Their percentage in the Fort Worth population rose from 30 to 34 percent between 2000 and 2010, and Hispanics accounted for almost half of the 200,000 new citizens.
The same phenomenon — and the same fight — is taking place at other levels: Last week the U.S. Department of Justice ruled that Texas’ redistricting plans for its congressional delegation and Texas House and Senate seats, pushed through by the Republican-dominated legislature, discriminate against minorities. Hispanic groups have already sued to stop the plan, and the action involves the fate of State Sen. Wendy Davis’ district: The Republican plan would remove the heavily Hispanic and African-American areas of Fort Worth that voted heavily for her in the past and replace them with whiter, more conservative parts of the region.
There’s nothing ivory-tower or theoretical about these arguments: Redistricting can have huge, long-lasting impacts on the financial and social future of parties, cities, and racial groups. This time, in addition to the federal lawsuits, everything from charges of racism, arguments about the power of downtown versus neighborhoods, a potential city charter election, and even death threats have been thrown into the mix.
At the Fort Worth school district, trustees voted last year to move away from the current arrangement of eight single-member districts plus a board president elected at large. The new plan would include nine single-member districts, with the president chosen by the trustees themselves from among their number. That adds an extra single-member district seat and reduces somewhat the ability of downtown and other money-heavy groups to influence the district by way of electing the board president.
But reshaping eight districts into nine is anything but easy — parents want the person who represents them geographically to also represent the schools their children attend, for instance. Juggling those issues plus the need to fairly apportion minority voting strength makes for quite a jigsaw puzzle.
Last week trustees, on a 5-4 vote, approved a plan that gives Hispanics, blacks, or a combination of those two groups a majority in six of nine districts. Given the historic tendency of minority groups to vote in smaller numbers than whites, that might or might not produce Fort Worth’s first majority-minority school board. Hispanics and African-Americans now account for 85 percent of students in Fort Worth public schools.
At city hall, Hispanic activists and others are also pushing to increase the number of single-member seats, from eight to 10. Despite a city-financed survey that found a strong majority of residents in favor of added seats, the council will decide that issue without even looking at the maps of potential districts. The reasoning: Adding another council member would cost a lot of money for such things as reconfiguring city council chambers and would also necessitate a city charter election. On Nov. 15, the council is set to vote on whether to add the two extra seats, but not on how to re-divvy the city to add the new districts. At Tuesday’s pre-council meeting, sentiment seemed to be against the new districts.
Jason Smith, a local attorney who has worked extensively on voting rights issues, said Fort Worth “has to realize what it is and what it will become. It is a minority-majority [city], and many are afraid of being a minority-majority city. We have to change with the times, and those changes might mean the longtime power brokers might lose some of their influence.”
But they won’t lose a lot, he said, “because they know how to protect it.”
Fernando Florez, president of United Hispanic Council of Tarrant County, is involved in both the city and school board fights. He said his organization will back the new school district plan when the DOJ reviews it. But if Fort Worth stays with the eight-district plan, he said, the city council should expect a lawsuit.
“We don’t want to go that route, but as I have said, the time is now,” he said. “We cannot wait another 10 years with under-representation.”
The Justice Department, with its decision to oppose the state’s legislative and congressional redistricting plans, has already served notice that it intends to weigh in on Texas’ redistricting process.
In fact, Texas is one of nine states, mostly in the South, that, under the Voting Rights Act, automatically qualify for extra DOJ scrutiny because of past patterns of racism — mostly in the 1960s and ’70s — in their treatment of voting and election decision-making. All states and political subdivisions must comply with the act, but those nine states have to get pre-clearance from the justice agency before implementing any electoral change.
So for the city council and school board, the threat of a federal veto of whatever plans they come up with is real, a large yellow warning sign that presumably affects their deliberations.
Last month the Tarrant County Commissioners Court made minor tweaks to their four districts (the county judge is elected countywide). They also had to look at the makeup of the constable precincts. Some Arlington residents wanted to redraw two precincts there to raise the minority population percentage in one district, but commissioners rejected that plan. All those plans will have to be approved by the DOJ.
Compliance with the Voting Rights Act is complicated. With Hispanics making up 34 percent of the city population, for instance, a map that gave Hispanics 34 percent of the voters in each district would do exactly the opposite of what the act intends: Given the strong proclivity of voters to cast ballots for candidates of their own race, the likely outcome of such a system would be for Hispanics to win no seats on the council, instead of holding about 34 percent of the spots. On the other hand, sticking almost all Hispanics in one district, giving them a very large percentage of the vote there but almost none elsewhere, would also violate the act, since it would probably mean that only one Hispanic would likely be elected, instead of giving them a fair chance at more seats.
Nor is it sufficient to give a minority group a mere majority of the voters in, say, a third of the districts. Hispanic leaders have long maintained that districts with less than 50 percent representation provide little chance of a Hispanic being elected. The Hispanic population is younger, about 10 percent of them in Tarrant County aren’t citizens, and they don’t vote as much as affluent whites. Even in districts with 55 percent Hispanic population, leaders say, the higher turnout rates of affluent neighborhoods could cancel out that numeric advantage.
“The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in the past that voter turnout can be a factor when deciding if the redistricting maps comply with the Voting Rights Act,” Smith said — although how much weight can be given is still vague.
One key term is “retrogression,” meaning that newly drawn districts first and foremost cannot reduce the number of minority elected officials.
“What we will argue is that if Hispanic voters think they have at least a chance of winning an election, voter turnout will go up and be less of an issue over time,” said Rolando Rios, a San Antonio civil rights attorney representing the United Hispanic Council of Tarrant County.
On the night of the Oct. 25 school board meeting, redistricting had come down to a very personal concern for a bunch of Paschal High School parents.
Three largely Anglo, upper-middle-class neighborhoods — Berkeley Place, Mistletoe Heights, and Park Hill — had been removed from the new District 9, which would run from the North Side south to Hemphill Avenue, connecting Fort Worth’s two strongest centers of Hispanic voters. Hispanic leaders agreed that removing the Anglo-dominated neighborhoods would raise the new district’s Hispanic population share to more than 65 percent.
But those neighborhoods lie in the Paschal High School attendance zone, and the proposed change would move residents of those neighborhoods into the district of a board member who doesn’t represent Paschal.
The Hispanics argued that Paschal High School isn’t really a neighborhood school because it houses several special programs, including a well-recognized honors program, that draw students from throughout the district.
Neither side would budge. Rios told the board that keeping those neighborhoods in District 9 would dilute Hispanic voting strength to 63 percent and might be turned down by the DOJ. Trustee Judy Needham proposed at the meeting that the three neighborhoods be put back in the new district, and Rios vowed to fight that change in federal court if it went through. But Needham’s proposal never even came to a vote.
Paschal parents were angry that the board would even consider such a plan. “They say that democracy dies with a whimper,” said Ed Lasater, an attorney who helped organize a group calling for more civility from the school board. His kids will attend Paschal in a few years. “This is racial gerrymandering,” he said.
“When you disenfranchise voters like you are doing to many Paschal High School parents, you are taking away their rights, and they will send their kids to private schools,” Lasater told the board. “To divide this community based on race is abhorrent.”
Florez said that the seemingly insignificant reduction in the percentage of Hispanic voters would be enough to make it much harder for a Hispanic candidate to be elected.
“In other words, in substantial numbers, whites vote for whites, blacks vote for blacks, and Hispanics for Hispanics,” Florez said. “Is that right? Of course not. But that is the reality now, and we have to deal with it.”
During the debate, several trustees made sure the audience understood how ugly the fight had gotten.
Juan Rangel told the audience that Rios had been threatened by angry parents in the parking lot after a previous meeting, and a security guard had to break up the confrontation. Carlos Vazquez said he’d received anonymous death threats over redistricting, though he wouldn’t go into specifics.
Trustee Ann Sutherland angered some and confused others by saying the board needed to pass the plan supported by Hispanic leaders because “the schools belong to the people of Fort Worth, and these people no longer look like me.” After some in the audience suggested the comment was racist, she clarified the comment. She said she meant that the board must reflect the race and ethnicity of the voting age population and of students within the district.
The Rev. Kyev Tatum, president of the local chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, told trustees that the new school board “should be four Latinos, two African-Americans, and three Anglos.” Texas has a long record of ignoring the interests of minorities, and that has to change, both statewide and locally, he said. “Local issues are where the change needs to begin.”
The nine-district plan eventually passed on a 5-4 vote, with Sutherland voting for it. Rios promised that the Hispanic leadership in Tarrant County would not fight the plan in court and would file a brief with the DOJ supporting it.
The plan as approved could substantially change the makeup of the board. Six of the nine districts would have a 70 percent minority voting-age population, combining Hispanic and black voters (compared to four districts currently). Of those, three would have Hispanic populations topping 60 percent and a fourth more than 50 percent.
The current board includes two Hispanics and two African-Americans among its eight single-member district trustees. The board president is also white.
After the vote, Florez turned to a mother of a Paschal student and offered an olive branch. “We should meet and air out and discuss our differences so that we can all move forward without this distrust I am feeling,” he told her.
“I am not talking to you, because you don’t represent me,” said the mother, who wouldn’t give her name to this reporter.
“I don’t want to represent you,” Florez responded. “We are both Americans, and we care about our children’s education. We have to find some common ground.”
The mother seemed more irritated: “I don’t think you care about kids, just politics. So I don’t think we have anything in common, and I don’t want to talk to you.”
Father Stephen Jasso, pastor of the largely Hispanic All Saints Catholic Church on the Near North Side, said afterward that larger issues are at play.
“We need to get parents and their children more active in the schools, and when they are under-represented on this board, they are less likely to be involved,” he said. “This is a first step, but we can use this first step to help make our schools better.”
The city’s redistricting battles have taken a different turn from the school board’s, in large part because the city council thus far has resisted calls for more districts to be added to the council.
Council redistricting must address the city’s massive population growth. Since the current eight single-member districts were created here in 1975 (to stave off what probably would have been forced change under the Voting Rights Act), Fort Worth’s population has nearly doubled. In 1980, the average population in each council district was about 40,000; now it’s more than 92,000. Some argue that such population increases make it hard for elected officials to respond to citizen concerns effectively.
“Keeping the eight-district plan dilutes the influence of voters because they have less ability to interact with their elective officials,” said Florez. This is even more true for minority groups, he said, because the current districts were drawn to mix white affluent neighborhoods in with inner-city minority ones, thus reducing minority candidates’ chances of getting elected.
Florez, council member Sal Espino, and other Hispanic leaders, not surprisingly, want the new plan to be reflect Hispanics’ growing political numbers. Between 2000 and 2010, Hispanics’ share of the population rose from 30 percent to 34 percent while African-Americans’ dropped from 20 to 18 percent and Anglos’ share decreased from 45 to 42. The council makeup currently includes one Hispanic, two African-Americans, and five Anglos, plus the mayor, who is elected citywide. Espino is the only council member to come out in favor of adding two more seats.
Mayor Betsy Price had supported expansion of the council during her recent campaign, but she seems to have flip-flopped. Despite the recent city survey showing that 69 percent of residents favor adding the two seats, Price said in an e-mail to Fort Worth Weekly that she is not hearing that support from voters. She said she wants to listen to both sides before deciding.
The plan presented by Florez and his group would create a new South Side district with a voting-age population that’s about 60 percent Hispanic. A second new district would represent the city’s far North Side, around the booming Alliance Airport.
At their pre-council meeting this week, four council members said they’d vote to keep the current number of districts, and Price said she’s leaning that way.
Danny Scarth said he favors keeping the current setup “because larger districts provide more diversity.”
Libby Willis, president of the Fort Worth League of Neighborhoods, said that at a league meeting in September, attendees favored expansion by a 100-1 vote.
“The population has exploded, and it makes sense … that we are growing into a big city and [need] a system that deals with that,” she said.
City staff and council members focused the debate on the added cost of council expansion. Staffers estimated one-time costs of $400,000 to $600,000 for such things as redesigning council chambers and buying office furniture and high-tech equipment for two new offices. In addition, the extra council positions would cost the city about $184,000 a year for staff salaries, benefits, and expense accounts. That’s a drop in the bucket based on the city’s current annual budget of more than $1.2 billion — but the city has also faced recent severe budget cuts. Whatever changes are made to the city’s political map, they won’t be reflected at the polls until council elections in May 2013.
Those estimates, of course, don’t figure in what the city could pay in legal bills to defend the eight-district plan in court.
“Many neighborhoods have had a problem with the delivery of services, but the council seemed more focused on the cost of adding two more districts,” Willis said. “I don’t think that should have been a factor.”
Still the question of higher costs apparently is persuasive to some. “It is not the right time to expand the council,” said Eunice Givens, director of government affairs for the Highland Hills Neighborhood Association. “I think council is working quite well right now, and the city is cash-strapped.
“The cost to me was just too much, when they can’t fix my street,” she said. “Right now, they need to draw up fair boundaries under the eight-member council with the current population and do it in such a way to protect minority interests.”
Alyce Boyd, president of the Ryanwood Neighborhood Association on the city’s East Side expressed a similar view. “Ten districts might make the city more efficient, but we can’t afford it,” Boyd said. She said most people in her neighborhood don’t support the change, “but it also wasn’t a really big issue to most people.
“Our councilman [Danny Scarth] works very hard, and we are generally pleased with him,” Boyd said.
One of the crucial issues in redrawing the current districts is the city’s historical practice of creating districts that combine inner-city neighborhoods with areas outside Loop 820. The city staff proposals, posted on the city’s web site, would continue that practice. Those proposals probably would not result in much change in the racial makeup of the council.
Council member Dennis Shingleton said that districts that combine urban neighborhoods and suburban sprawl are in the best interest of the city. “Having districts completely outside the loop would disenfranchise those people and reduce their influence,” he said. “Having different groups within the districts aligns these groups with thinking about the greater good of the city.”
That argument is debatable. Take District 2, for example. Espino’s district runs from the Tarrant County College’s downtown campus up into Denton County, past the Texas Motor Speedway. So he represents poorer Hispanic neighborhoods inside Loop 820 and the more affluent homeowners near Alliance Airport. The interests and needs of those two groups can be very different.
His district grew from 68,000 people to 152,000 between 2000 and 2010. “We hear more about city problems, from road construction to basic service delivery, on the Far North Side than anywhere else in the city,” Willis said.
If no new districts are added, population should average about 92,000 per district. That means about 60,000 residents of the current District 2 would have to be moved to another district. Ten districts would bring the average population down to about 74,000.
“I don’t think council has thought of the ramifications of not going to the 10-district system,” Espino said. “They have to move about 60,000 out of my district, and those will have to go into District 7 [on the West Side]. Then that district will have way too many people, and we’ll have to move people south. And then, move more people to the east.” He calls the movement “a counterclockwise” plan that will change every district.
“If we go with 10 districts, most people in this city will remain in the district where they were before,” Espino said. “We have grown into a big city and have to start acting like one. Two more districts would result in better representation, better city services, and the cost would be a good investment in this city.”
Espino wants the 10 versus eight debate to go before voters in the spring. Sample district plans could be drawn to show voters the possible changes, he said.
Because adding districts would require a city charter election, Espino said that it makes sense to ask for voter approval of that change before going to the trouble of drawing up possible 10-district maps.
One of the arguments being made in the background is that if Hispanic leaders want another seat on city council, they should do a better job of getting their people out to vote. Three of the eight districts currently have a Hispanic population of more than 45 percent.
Local redistricting is “an ugly process” because local politicians are “protecting their own bailiwick and trying to make sure they can get re-elected with the new districts,” said University of Texas at Arlington political science professor Allan Saxe. Incumbents have built up voter databases of their current districts, and it’s a lot more work to relearn and get the word out to a new set of voters, Saxe said.
Saxe said the courts have waffled on the issue of how much weight to give arguments of differing voter turnout records among ethnic groups.
“The courts have usually ruled that you can make it likely [that a minority candidate is elected], but you don’t need to ensure that,” he said. “What that percentage of minority voters within a district might have to be to comply with the Voting Rights Act is unclear. It would have to be over 50 percent. But moving it up to the high 60s might be too far.”
Rios said that any proposed city council districts that combine areas inside and outside Loop 820 will not pass DOJ muster and will be fought by local Hispanics.
“Based on the Hispanic population in Fort Worth, the Hispanics should have at least two, possibly three seats on council,” he said.
Another issue being talked about quietly is the role African-American voters will play in determining the new districts. One Hispanic leader, who asked not to be named, said African-Americans “are afraid that they would have lost power under a 10-district plan, because they would have two seats out of 10 instead of two out of eight.”
But Givens, who is black, said Hispanics could have “half the seats on city council if they just turned out to vote. We have a growing Hispanic population in our neighborhood, but they just don’t seem to care about local issues.”
The city council “could redraw districts that have 60 percent Hispanics, but I think they would still lose,” she said. “Blacks have a better history of voting here in Fort Worth, and we are more active in community issues. I’m not against them getting more seats at the table, but you have to earn it.”
Florez said the city redistricting fight is “very much in flux.” If the council stays with eight districts, they should expect to be sued, he said. “This is a fight I’ve been pursuing for more than 25 years.
“My family came to this country before the Declaration of Independence,” he said. “I’ve served in the military and taught high school, including 10 years at Paschal. What I find insulting is that people are making this a race issue by portraying Hispanics as people who can’t speak English and who don’t care about their community.
“We do care about this city and our communities,” he said. “But in order for our people to get more engaged, they need to see one of their own with a seat at the table. And that’s all we’ve been asking for. One more seat. I don’t think that is too much to ask.”
Sergio De Leon, a longtime Democrat and constable in Precinct 9, said larger issues are at play in Tarrant County than the details of constable workloads or city budget impacts.
“We want responsive government, and any changes must reflect that goal,” he said. “But responsive government must also reflect different communities of interest. In Fort Worth, the downtown business interests and the white West Side have always gotten anything they wanted. The inner-city areas with large minority populations have largely been ignored. But all of that needs to be changed, because this city is changing.” | <urn:uuid:1f941b76-bb14-4573-92c2-b79b5e15916e> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.fwweekly.com/2011/11/02/knocking-on-the-door/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280730.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00248-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970564 | 5,399 | 1.890625 | 2 |
Basic Principles of Patent Drafting – Summary
Greetings inventors, investors, patent drafters and anyone interested in patents! This is Rabbi, Dr. Yosef Freedland, surgeon, and patent attorney; leader of the medical device team Appelfeld Zer Fisher writing to you from the beautiful border of Ramat Gan, at the border of Bene Brak.
Getting back to your invention of the ultrasound probe that finds foreign bodies in people:
Alternatively, you have other suspicions about this fetal ultrasound probe. You suspect that even if the fetal ultrasound probe beams can be focused, the beams are limited to focusing at a maximum distance that is greater than your foreign body ultrasound probe.
Other ways to handle an unknown invention such as the fetal ultrasound probe is to add description and claims about how your invention can be focused to reflect off one object at a very short range and then modified to focus of a second object at a longer-range.
So in summary you write claims starting with the slug and then developing claims to the snail shell. you hope for the best, meaning that the first claim in its broadest form remains unchallenged. However you prepare for the worst meaning that you make plenty of backup claims supported by detailed description. With this hard shell protection, you are provided with multiple back up positions to allow us to protect your wonderful invention using items that are part and parcel your patent application, just like the snail shell that is part and parcel of a snail slug. So that winds it up for snails.
Entry filed under: Medical Device Patents, Patent Claim Drafting, Patent Drafting Lessons, Patent Specification. Tags: claim drafting, intellectual property, medical devices, patent, Patent Prosecution, patents. | <urn:uuid:27e7236b-8271-4df0-9a32-0ad3c8b4c3d7> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | https://ipdoctor.wordpress.com/2009/02/05/basic-principles-of-patent-drafting-summary/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988722459.85/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183842-00344-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.914223 | 349 | 1.851563 | 2 |
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